Yay, new chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

Warnings: Slight suggestive language.

Chapter Twenty-one:

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but I met the caravan before I met any of my team. Sasuke and Naruto's fight had begun where the caravan was, but I'd already seen how much ninja fights could move. I saw the caravan long before we were actually within speaking distance, and, since they were much more obvious than I, probably before they saw me.

Funnily enough, though, they all looked at me with rather horrified expressions when I got close, and Tomo-san, his family, and the doctor-lady were the only ones who didn't back away from me.

"Uh, Uchiha-san," Tomo-san said, looking discomfited. I blinked at him, tilting my head in confusion; he didn't usually call me 'san'. It was almost absurd for an adult to use it when talking to a child.

Tomo-san's eyes flicked downwards for a moment, and I followed his line of sight to – Jinan. In the process I also caught sight of myself, and both of us were bloody, our clothes burned. Plus just the fact that I was a nine-year-old dragging a tied up grown man.

No wonder they're freaked out.

I didn't mention it, however. It was literally part of my job; it was probably better if clients saw me as a ninja – a trained killer – first, and as a kid – or a person at all – second. "Do you know where my team is?" I asked instead, hoping for at least a direction.

Technically, I was probably supposed to stay here and guard them, but if either of the other two enemies showed up now, it was unlikely I'd be able to stop them – since either both Sasuke and Naruto or Kakashi had failed to do just that. And most of the bandits in the area were probably under their control, and if they'd been planning on having their underlings attack the caravan while we were occupied, the caravan probably would have already been attacked. This logic was possibly lacking, but I didn't really care – I just wanted to go help Sasuke and Naruto.

"Yes, they're – ah, they're that way," Tomo-san said immediately, beginning the sentence before realizing that I might be displeased with the vague information, and pointed the other way on the path.

I quickly decided that I didn't know why anyone would want to be intimidating. It was kind of hurtful to have people act like I would hurt them. Especially since the people I would hurt were rarely the ones who acted like that.

Momo, however, still looked rather fascinated by me, seemingly unbothered by my currently improper appearance.

"Thank you." I nodded and continued trudging forward, still dragging Jinan behind me. I made it to the middle of the caravan, and then I sighed, dropped Jinan, and turned back. They were all still watching me, and jumped to attention. That was funny, since they were the clients in this situation. "Okay, I'm probably not supposed to ask this, since you're my clients, but can you, like, watch him? He probably won't be able to get himself untied, but just in case, if he wakes up, just, I don't know, hit him on the head with a rock or something." The longer I went, the more horrified they looked. "Basically just knock him out again. He'll be fine. Well, unconscious, but fine."

A moment of horrified staring before Tomo-san nodded slowly. I nodded back and turned around to continue. Technically, this was exactly why I hadn't left him alone before; the worry that he would wake up, get himself free, and attack somebody. Hopefully, though, the members of the caravan actually would knock him out if he woke up. If I'd kept him with me, I wouldn't have made it anywhere fast enough to help. This way, I could run there instead of walking.

I did run, and it wasn't too long after I left the caravan that Sasuke's and Naruto's chakra signatures came into range. Rather than being on the path as I'd expected, they were relatively far off it, further up the cliff. I ran to the top of the cliff, but didn't continue on top of it, instead peeking over it. The top of the cliff turned out to be conveniently – for the plot – completely flat and empty. My teammates and their enemy weren't in sight, however, so I ventured on top of the cliff, and then I stood and contemplated how I should approach this.

Since they were already in a fight, being able to set up a trap wasn't likely – I'd need to know how Sasuke and Naruto fight a lot better to predict where the enemy would go and they wouldn't. A surprise attack was probably best, but – I observed my empty surroundings dryly – there was nowhere to hide for a sneak attack.

But nobody would have expected me to win. Even if Naruto and Sasuke had expected me to, they would realize it wasn't impossible that I'd lost. And I did know the Transformation Jutsu.

I pictured Jinan in my head. He had a fairly masculine face, with a wide jaw and eyes that were small for an anime character; black hair; brown eyes; and his clothes had been perfectly civilian, as a beige shirt with a dark brown vest and even darker brown pants, and he hadn't had any pouches or holsters for weapons, though he had been wearing a headband with a slash through it, and he'd been wearing the sandals that most ninja wore, both of which were a typical blue color.

The picture of Jinan firmly held in my mind, I went through the hand seals of the Transformation Jutsu and released some of my chakra.

A puff of smoke later, I glanced down at myself and instead saw the lower half of Jinan. I wrinkled my nose; it was always weird to turn into people so much taller than me. It didn't even make sense.

But I ignored that and continued in the direction of the three chakra signatures. They came into sight as Sasuke blew a fireball, which was dodged by the enemy, causing him to run into a mass of Naruto clones. The area dissolved into smoke as the clones were dispelled, giving me time to get closer. Sasuke probably wasn't actually in the smoke, but he was on the other side of it, so neither of us could see each other. And then I kind of just stood there awkwardly, waiting for the smoke to clear. When it finally did, it revealed the enemy standing there perfectly fine – relatively; he was kind of bruised and charred – and Naruto and Sasuke on the other side of him as Naruto rolled off Sasuke and they both got back to their feet.

The enemy noticed me first, and gave a wicked smirk. "Otouto!" he greeted, surprising me, though I was careful not to show it. 'Little brother'? This was Chounan? I had expected this one to be the youngest, but if he was older than Jinan – who was the middle brother – then the one fighting Kakashi was the youngest. That was weird. "You made it. Took you long enough."

Though I knew which brother he was, I still had a problem: there were multiple ways to say 'big brother'. Aniki, which I used to use, or Onii-san, or Nii-san, or Onii-chan or Nii-chan.

"Yes, I did," I said back with a smile, approaching him in a friendly manner. "The brat caused me more trouble than I expected."

Sasuke snarled. "What did you do to her?" He demanded, glaring murderously. Naruto stood next to him, also glaring.

Chounan turned to face them with a smirk. "Oh, don't worry," he purred. "I'm sure she's well taken care of."

Jerk, I thought, letting the kunai I'd been holding up my sleeve drop, and slashed him across the back. He noticed at the last minute and jerked forward, so he wasn't as badly injured as he might have been, but he was still pretty badly hurt.

"What are you –" Chounan spluttered, and I released my transformation.

"As it turns out, I caused your brother a lot more trouble than he expected," I mocked.

Chounan grit his teeth for a moment, looking furious and worried, before forcing a wavering smirk onto his face. "Well, that's fine. It just means that I get all the fun," he said lasciviously, leering at me with an entirely unsubtle glance over my body.

I grimaced back. That was disgusting in any body, even worse in a nine-year-old one.

"You what!" Sasuke sounded murderously enraged.

"I'm going to greatly enjoy doing naughty, naughty things to your delectable little teammate." Chounan ignored Sasuke's obvious rage, licking his lips lecherously.

I shuddered in horror at the creep and started to return a mocking comment, but was interrupted by Naruto. He started shouting and rushed at Chounan, clearly upset on my behalf. That was sweet of him.

However, Sasuke, chillingly silent, made it to Chounan first. He was moving fast, his eyes spinning with the Sharingan, and he got in several good hits before Chounan even noticed. Even after noticing, though, there wasn't much Chounan could do, and he was viciously pummeled by Sasuke. After a couple of minutes of standing there helplessly with Naruto, watching Sasuke beat Chounan, I decided that it didn't seem likely that Sasuke would stop any time soon. So we continued standing there, watching, transfixed in horror. Perhaps understandably, Sasuke was brutal.

Finally, after it was clear that Sasuke was just battering an unmoving body that was, at best, unconscious – more likely dead – I moved forward. I grasped his sleeve in a hand. "Sasuke," I murmured. Sasuke ignored both actions. I tugged on his sleeve, and spoke slightly louder, "Sasuke. It's fine, Sasuke. He's –" I glanced at what was Chounan, now rather unrecognizable, "He's dead."

Sasuke turned to look at me with haunted Sharingan eyes that slowly faded to black. Releasing his sleeve, I used that hand to gently draw Sasuke away from the body. I pulled him over to Naruto, who was still staring, wide-eyed. Naruto didn't seem to know what to say either, which was a first.

We stood there in silence for a moment. I noted that Sasuke was rather bloodier now than before.

Naruto soon proved me wrong, however. It turned out that he did have something to say. "The jerk deserved it," he muttered, and Sasuke let out a strangled chuckle.

"He did," he agreed.

And we waited there in a somewhat less tense silence until Kakashi, bruised and bloody like the rest of us, showed up.

Kakashi stared silently between the body and the three of us for a moment. I moved away from Sasuke and Naruto to speak with him.

Once I was close enough to speak quietly and have him still hear, I said, "He fell off the cliff."

Kakashi raised his eyebrow.

I glanced at the corpse. "A lot," I amended.

Kakashi looked at me for a moment, and then at Chounan's body, and then to Sasuke. "Okay," he said easily. "I believe you. Falling off cliffs is a terrible danger. Very common."

"It really is." I nodded solemnly.

Since we were ninja, most likely nobody would care that Sasuke had killed him, but I still didn't really want them to know.

We went back to the caravan, and, after treating all of our wounds, Kakashi had us continue on to our destination with the caravan while he disappeared with Chounan, Jinan, and Sannan. About an hour later, Kakashi was back, and we continued without any problems.

I decided that I never wanted to know where he'd been.

After that, we had literally no problems. There were no more bandits attacking us, no more enemy ninja, no more anything. We made it to the merchants' village a couple of days later, and Kakashi renegotiated the price of the mission – ironically enough, he had decided that it qualified as an A-Rank – and then we left. Since we didn't have to hold ourselves back on the return trip, it only took a couple of days instead of the two and a half weeks the trip there had ended up taking.

And then, almost anticlimactically, we continued taking D-Ranks. Well, there wasn't really much else to do, but it still seemed odd. Everything continued as though we'd never even taken the C-Rank, and it quickly got boring again. However, this time, Kakashi wasn't willing to get us another C-Rank – it wasn't worth the risk, according to him.

Which was fair enough, really. We'd won, but overall, the mission hadn't gone very well. My own fight with Jinan had gone particularly badly. I had mostly defaulted to taijutsu and forgotten about my ninjutsu and genjutsu. Even worse, I'd forgotten about the Sharingan. I spent so much time not using it that I kind of forgot to use it ever.

…But I still didn't want people to know I had activated it.

"The Sharingan is kind of creepy looking," I commented one day while harvesting potatoes. After Sasuke had activated his Sharingan, Naruto had asked what it was and had it explained, so they all knew what I was talking about.

Sasuke blinked at me. "I guess it is," he agreed warily. "So?"

"And I need more practice with genjutsu," I continued seemingly arbitrarily.

"…Okay…" Sasuke prompted.

"So don't freak out if it looks like I have the Sharingan." It wasn't hard to put a weak genjutsu over my eyes to change their appearance – basically just the Transformation Jutsu, but a little different. I did so now, and turned to Sasuke.

Despite the warning, he twitched when he saw my eyes. "You're weird," was all he replied, however.

Naruto and Kakashi, though I know they were listening, said nothing.

And, now that I had an excuse, I activated my Sharingan under the genjutsu. Obviously, I couldn't have the Sharingan activated all the time – it was still too much of a drain on my chakra for that – but I could have it activated for short intervals, which would have the double effect of causing me to stop forgetting that I could activate it.

However, genjutsu or not, somebody who could see chakra pathways – such as Sasuke, Kakashi, or any Hyuuga – would be able to tell that I was sending chakra to my eyes, so they would know that I legitimately had the Sharingan activated. Well, we didn't really interact with other ninja much, so there wasn't much danger of running into a Hyuuga, and Sasuke and Kakashi generally had no reason to use their own Sharingan. Hopefully, that meant that nobody would notice.

Mayumi's mother was rather intimidating, I noted again as she led me into the house. No matter how many times I visited, she gave me the same piercing, soul-searching look. She left me alone to climb the stairs and go to Mayumi's room, however, so it didn't really matter.

"You're getting so lazy," I teased Mayumi as I entered through her room through the open door. At this point, she didn't bother to greet me downstairs, since we would just end up coming back to her room. Mayumi didn't rise to the bait, though, hunched over something at her desk. "What're you working on?"

Mayumi still didn't answer, focused intently on whatever she was doing.

Well, I suppose I can't really fault her for that, I decided. There had been many times when I would ignore her in favor of a book. Instead of asking again, I walked over to lean over her shoulder. The object was mostly obscured by her head, shoulders, and hair, but I determined that it was a piece of paper. Using one of the sets of brushes and ink that were apparently so popular in whatever era Naruto was supposed to be, Mayumi was writing on the paper.

Either she was very dedicatedly writing a letter, or she was making a seal. Deciding that I wouldn't interrupt her, I stood back and stared at the wall. Mayumi finished quickly enough, and smiled at me.

"Sorry, Reika," she said. "Didn't mean to ignore you, it's just…" she gestured at her piece of paper – which was, indeed, a seal.

"It's fine; I get it," I said back. "But what were you doing?"

Mayumi grinned, a mad-scientist glint in her eye. "Trying to make a storage seal! It's so cool!"

"Really?" I blinked. "Where did you learn about seals?"

"Well, I learned about explosive tags from Tamamura-san –" Mayumi cut herself off suddenly, giving me a cautious look.

I stared back in confusion. Belatedly, I remembered that Academy students weren't technically supposed to know Tamamura-san. "Oh, that. Don't worry, I was going to the ninja store long before I graduated, too."

Mayumi gave me a wry, amused look. "It's not that rare, I take it," she surmised.

"What were you saying about explosive tags?" I changed the subject unsubtly.

Mayumi sighed in fake exasperation, but failed to completely hide her excitement. "Right, so I learned how to make explosive tags from Tamamura-san, and it was just so cool, so I went to the library and got books on it, so now I'm trying to recreate the seals from the book," she said excitedly in a single, rushed breath, gasping for air as soon as she finished.

I had to blink a couple of times. "Okay."

"Why didn't you tell me how awesome seals were earlier?" Mayumi said accusingly.

"Um, well, that is…" I faltered, unable to think of a good explanation. Honestly, it was because seals went straight over my head, but that was a terrible reason.

Mayumi narrowed her eyes at me shrewdly. "You do already know about them, right?"

"Well, I did research them, but, well…" I coughed shamefully.

"You don't!" Mayumi gasped, appalled.

I sighed. "No."

Mayumi gave me a determined look. "Well, we'll just have to fix that," she said resolutely. "You are not allowed to not know how to make an explosive tag! It's just not right."

"Mayumi, I really don't think –" I tried to protest.

"No!" Mayumi interrupted. "I am teaching you how to make an explosive tag and that is final."

I let out another sigh. Well, maybe she'd actually be able to help me with them. It couldn't hurt anything but my pride, anyway.

"All right, fine."

Naruto is secretly the energizer bunny, I decided as he bounced around in front of us. We were walking back after completing our second mission of the day – or rather, after Naruto had completed our second mission of the day. Although his clones had done almost all of the work, he was still ridiculously energetic.

"Come on, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto wheedled. "You've gotta know lots of cool jutsu!"

Kakashi, reading his accursed book, simply hummed in acknowledgement.

Sasuke scoffed. "You could try actually learning something yourself, dobe," he said derisively.

Narrowly dodging my elbow as it moved towards his side, Sasuke gave me a betrayed look as Naruto took a breath in, doubtlessly to start yelling.

"That was uncalled for, Sasuke," I both explained and interrupted Naruto. It was unwarranted; Naruto had learned the Shadow Clone Jutsu in a couple of hours without a teacher.

As Naruto grinned triumphantly and shoved it in Sasuke's face, Kakashi looked up from his book suddenly. "You know what, kids, I'll turn in the mission myself," he said. "You're dismissed."

"What?" Naruto said huffily, drawing out the a. "You can't do that! You're supposed to be our teacher, you have to teach us something."

"Maybe later, Naruto," Kakashi murmured, patting Naruto dismissively on the head. Before Naruto could continue complaining, Kakashi disappeared in a poof of smoke.

The three of us stood there for a moment, Naruto staring in affronted silence.

"Let's go, Reika," Sasuke muttered, turning away.

I glanced between Sasuke and Naruto for a moment. They were not on particularly good terms. That both meant that they should spend team-bonding time together and that I didn't want to be there to enforce it.

Despite my own irritation, though, I sighed and ground out, "We could train together. It might be more beneficial that way."

Sasuke turned around to give me an incredulous look, one identical to Naruto's. They could be oddly similar sometimes.

"Like I'd want to train with him," Naruto scoffed first, turning away, and Sasuke snorted.

Before Sasuke could start insulting Naruto, I shoved at him, forcing him to turn around and walk away. "All right, I get it, stupid suggestion," I grumbled.

"Huh?" Naruto made a noise of confusion from behind us. I ignored him, continuing to shove Sasuke away.

There was a scraping sound, and then Naruto's voice. "You thought I turned away, but it was a feint!" he yelled at an excessively loud volume. "What kind of rock is square with eye holes! How could I not notice that!"

"What?" Sasuke wondered under his breath, twisting his head to look over me. His eyebrow rose.

With I sigh, I also turned around, finding three kids standing in front of Naruto, a box covered in texture meant to look like rock on the ground next to him. Well, I say 'kids', but really, they were about my age. All three were wearing goggles on their foreheads like Naruto used to.

"As I expected from my rival!" the leader proclaimed.

Naruto gave them an unimpressed look. "Oh, it's you, Konohamaru."

It's Konohamaru? I remembered him from the show, but apparently not very well. I remembered this scene, now. It was the beginning of the Chuunin Exams arc.

Oh, crap.

It had already been six months since we'd graduated, hadn't it? I had forgotten about the Chuunin Exams – ridiculous, considering that they were, like, half the show.

Naruto and Konohamaru continued talking, but I ignored them. "We should just go," I said to Sasuke.

Sasuke, who had been staring at them in mild interest, blinked at me. "Whatever," he said with a shrug, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking away. I followed after him quickly. If I was right, then after meeting Konohamaru, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had run into the Sand team, which resulted in Sasuke becoming obsessed with fighting Gaara. I didn't think that my Sasuke would do that, but I didn't want to find out.

"What? But you said you'd play ninja with us!" Konohamaru shouted behind us, and Sasuke snorted disdainfully.

"Dobe," he muttered under his breath.

Naruto laughed nervously. "Yeah, right, but, um… I already made plans with my team!" he burst out. "So I can't."

Sasuke just kept walking, so I did too. I wasn't going to help Naruto get out of a hole he dug himself.

"Eh? You mean them, Boss?" Konohamaru said.

"Yep!"

There was the sound of footsteps behind us. I sighed again. "Hey! Wait!" Konohamaru shouted at us.

Sasuke did stop walking, and he turned to give Konohamaru a coldly disdainful look.

Apparently I can't avoid talking to him, I resigned myself and also turned around.

Sasuke's cold look was apparently going to waste, as Konohamaru was focused on me. The other two kids – Udon and Moegi – came up behind Konohamaru, as did Naruto.

"Boss, you mean this girl is your teammate?" Konohamaru said disbelievingly, pointing at me.

"Pointing is rude," I said idly, though I didn't really care. When I'd been watching the show, I'd never liked Konohamaru.

My comment was drowned out as Naruto said, "Yeah! That's Reika."

"No fair!" Konohamaru shouted, a sudden increase in volume right in my face, and I nearly cringed backwards. "You're like – like, my age! You can't be a ninja already!"

I observed with slight depression that Konohamaru and I were about the same height as I shoved him away from me. "Considering that I am, I think I kind of can," I mocked.

Konohamaru gaped at me. Sasuke inched in front of me, glaring at the menace.

I turned away from Konohamaru dismissively. "I'm kind of hungry," I mused. "Hey, Sasuke, we should get dinner."

Sasuke followed, falling into step with me easily. "Sure."

Konohamaru shouted again, and footsteps scrambled to follow us.

Kankurou and Temari rounded the corner as we approached it. They were unsurprisingly easy to recognize.

Crap…

Hearing footsteps get a little too close to me, I dodged to the side automatically. Konohamaru flew past me – heading straight for Kankurou. I snagged the back of Konohamaru's shirt, using it to stop him. Kankurou and Temari came to a halt in front of us, probably to avoid being run into.

"Huh? Who're you?" Naruto asked, coming up behind us.

Well, impossible to avoid them now…"You're from the Village Hidden in the Sand, right?" I pretended to ask. "That's the insignia on your forehead protectors."

At the very least, I could try to keep things from getting violent as they nearly had in the show.

Kankurou gave us as a group a disgusted look. Temari seemed to roll her eyes at him, and stepped forward slightly. "Yes, we're Genin from Sand," she confirmed.

"From Sand?" Naruto repeated with a confused look. "So why're you here?"

"For the Chuunin Exams," I said before Temari could. That was probably why Kakashi had left so suddenly – the announcement to the Jounin about the Chuunin Exams so that they could sign their Genin up. They all stared at me. "It's the most likely reason Sand would have sent Genin to a different ninja village. Probably the only reason, really." I raised my eyebrows at my teammates, willing them to understand: as Genin, we'd only just gotten a mission to leave the village at all. Even then, it was only supposed to involve bandits and civilians. The ones who participated in the Chuunin Exams were supposed to be the best of each participating ninja village's Genin, hence why they were willing to send them to another ninja village.

Sasuke understood, at least the part where they were likely powerful, as he nodded slightly.

"What're the Chuunin Exams?" Naruto asked, clearly not understanding.

"The Chuunin Exams," Temari explained first, "are an exam that the best of the Genin from ninja villages such as Sand and Leaf gather together to take in order to determine who deserves a promotion to Chuunin."

Kankurou groaned. "Come on, Temari, why are we talking to these brats?"

"Well, that's just rude," I said, offended despite myself. Obviously, Kankurou wasn't interested in being friends. Kind of expected, really, considering that they were already planning the invasion.

"I hate kids," Kankurou grumbled, striding past us. Temari shrugged and followed him.

There was a swirl of sand on the path beside us.

Oh, that means…

"Kankurou. Temari."

Yep, it's Gaara.

Kankurou and Temari both jumped. "Gaara!" they said at the exact same time. They both looked terrified.

It was easy to tell why. Gaara was extremely unnerving. It wasn't so much his appearance, which was fairly young and cute – for a ninja – but his chakra, which didn't feel entirely human. Of course, it wasn't.

"What are you doing?" he questioned unemotionally, looking at his siblings.

"U – uh, nothing, Gaara," Kankurou explained. "We were just – going to, you know, the place."

Gaara gave him a dispassionate look and walked away.

What was the point of teleporting here just to walk to your destination? I wondered distractedly.

Sasuke stepped forward and a little in front of me. "Wait," he said coolly. "What's your name?"

The Sand siblings all turned, but Kankurou and Temari didn't speak. "Gaara of the Desert," Gaara answered. He gave Sasuke a shrewd look, tilting his head to the side. "And yours?"

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke."

They stared at each other for a moment before Naruto ruined the tension. "Hey, what about me?" he said loudly.

Sorry, Naruto, you need a cool factor of at least seven to participate in the cool, calm ritual of exchanging names. Yours is two.

Apparently, there really was something about Sasuke that Gaara noticed, while he didn't care about Naruto.

"Not interested. We're going." Gaara turned away again. The three of them jumped away.

So why were Kankurou and Temari walking? Clearly, I would never know the answer.

I turned to Naruto, who was crouched sulkily next to Konohamaru. "But Sasuke didn't even do anything!" Naruto protested, and Konohamaru shrugged.

"Maybe he's just that much cooler than you, Boss?"

Naruto jumped back up. "No! I won't lose to you, Sasuke-teme!" he promptly threw himself at Sasuke, and they began another fight.

Standing there awkwardly, I stared at them. "You know, I was serious about getting dinner," I tried.

They ignored me.

Well, fine. I shrugged and turned to walk away. I'll get dinner by myself then.

I wonder how long it will take them to catch up?

Apparently, five minutes, as that much time passed between me ditching them and them, still arguing, matching pace with me.

Konohamaru, Udon, and Moegi, I noticed, hadn't followed. Maybe they actually had been convinced that Naruto was busy with his team?

It was a little bit touching how Sasuke and Naruto trusted me to lead them around when Kakashi was elsewhere. They were both too occupied with their argument to pay attention to where we were going, so they just followed me.

Also, in the end I'd gotten what I supposedly wanted; Naruto and Sasuke were spending time together. They hadn't even realized yet, I didn't think.

If I'd done it on purpose, it would have been perfect.