Akira's POV

I rushed past the crowds of people in the street and into the Hokage building. I stopped in front of the door suddenly unsure of what to do and what I was about to set up. I shook my head, clearing all rational doubt and knocked as the first step to my plan. A resounding 'come in.' followed and I hesitantly opened the door.

"Ah Akira, and what trouble are you in today?" He smiled lightly.

"No trouble but I want to make a request." I said stepping inside and closing the door, looking around for anyone else. I never want to be a leader; it seems like too much paper work.

His eyebrow rose before he nodded at me to continue. "Alright, what is it?"

"Gramps, I want to speak to Yukari and Misaki's sensei."

His pipe fell out of his hand hitting the desk as his eyes widened, "Ar-Are you sure about this Akira? I mean she's not in the perfect state of mind to listen to you. She may take offense, thinking you're pitying her and if that happens she won't think twice about attacking you. Her students were her family after all."

"I know, that's why I think she needs to know the whole story. So, can I see her?"

He thought for a moment before picking his pipe up, "Well, I don't know. I will request an audience between herself and you but I will have a few of my guards nearby in case something goes wrong. Is that fine with you?"

"Perfectly. Thanks Gramps. See ya later." I walked out the door, breathing deeply; now that that's done I should probably go train or something. I walked towards a secluded training ground not far from training ground 66. It was in the shadow of the mountain so even on hot days it was pleasant to train in.

A few hours of training later and an anbu came to get me. He spoke very little but said I was to meet with the Hokage and a lady named Nerika Otoyami. I ran quickly to the arranged meeting place which was an empty room within the Hokage's tower. I slowed my steps before reaching the door and calmly thought of what needed to be said. She's probably heard a million rumors and I wouldn't doubt that one said I had killed Misaki. I knocked on the door before walking in, seeing a nice looking lady in her late twenties, some guards and Gramps. The lady seemed disgusted by my very existence, wrinkling her nose and looking away.

Gramps was the first to speak, "Alright, Now that everyone is present I suppose I'll begin with introductions and a brief reason why you're here." He nodded towards me, "This is Akira. He was the one assigned to your team temporarily for the chunin exams." The lady's eyes widened before snapping her head to look at me. Her eyes were puffy from recent tears and it didn't help that her brown eyes seemed to be blaming me for something I had no control over.

"Now it was Akira's wish that you hear him out on what really happened in the forest. Akira this is Nerika-sensei, you may start if you wish."

I nodded not really knowing what to say, she was their sensei, she lost 2 students in a month to death and one to insanity, two of which were my fault. "I suppose I should start with my opinions… Misaki was really nice, I thought that if I had a sister I'd want her to be like Misaki. I even looked up to her just a bit. She treated me fairly and like I was a part of the team. Yukari, well she hated me basically from the start. Her temper was annoying and sometimes terrifying but I think she was a good person…kinda."

"Akira I suggest you not use your humor in this. As much as a defense it may be you need to say exactly what you mean."

I nodded before starting again, "Yukari, meant well enough. I knew she was upset from her teammate dying. She wasn't ready to have a new teammate and I wasn't the easiest to handle. I'm reckless and still a kid. Misaki seemed well enough about it but she was also upset. And like I said, she treated me like a little brother and I like to think of her as a sister." I took a deep breath. "It was a normal enough day, we were going through the forest still without a scroll until we were attacked. Yukari and Misaki were fighting an opposing team, Yukari had told me to stay out of the way so I did. It was then that one enemy broke off and attacked me, Misaki took the hit for me ultimately killing her but she managed to kill the enemy in return. Yukari ran seeing Misaki fall."

I took in a shuddering breath trying to calm down, "Misaki was smiling, she smiled even as she died. She protected me knowing…knowing she would die. Misaki always smiled at me! I never felt like she judged me and she was always just there. It hurt to watch her die and feel her blood on my face, but it hurt more to see Yukari run. I wanted to just wake Misaki up but she was gone and it was my fault." I said bleary eyed and staring at my feet. "After she ran, I-I did what I felt I had to. I killed the last two enemies. I took Misaki's body away from the target zone and blew it up. It was the first time I had ever killed. Their bodies are still in the forest charred, the smell was bad, but hunting down the scrolls from their bodies was worse. I'm sorry for your loss, I'm sorry for what happened. I just wanted you to hear the full story instead of just hearing the little rumors." I looked down at my shoes, the remembrance of the burning flesh hit my nose making me cringe.

Nerika finally spoke after a long drawn out pause. "I see. So you say that Yukari was the one to run, that she abandoned you." With each statement her feet drew her one step closer. "from what I heard, Yukari killed the left over enemies in a rage but when she looked for you, you were gone, nowhere to be seen, the scrolls were gone as well. What do you say to that?"

What? No way. But why, why would she lie? I raised my head; her eyes were cold daring me to deny it. "I would say that she's upset, that she told you what she would have wanted to have happened." I regretted those words not just because of what I was about to receive but from her broken expression.

The words had barely left my mouth before I was punched across the room. I hit the back wall crumpling to the ground, head pounding. My vision cleared just in time to avoid a well aimed boot to the gut, I rolled out of the way standing shakily to my feet. Apparently apologies of guilt are not meant to end with you telling someone that a victim lied. She was about to attack again but Gramps snapped his fingers and two Anbu managed to subdue her.

She screamed and yelled as they dragged her off through the door. She yelled things like murderer, demon, and multiple swears. My head pounded from the noise and its possible concussion, I raised my hand to it and felt water, no not water, blood. I pulled my hand away and caught sight of the blood. I groaned miserably, trying to stabilize myself. My body eventually gave up and I just fell backwards. I didn't hit the floor though, to my own surprise, and I heard Gramps voice speaking hurriedly to a person nearby. Before I lost consciousness I thought, so blowing myself up apparently hurts less than being hit by an angry sensei.

I woke up in the hospital a few hours later, my head was no longer hurting and the nurses had done a good job to stop the bleeding. I waited ten minutes for a nurse to come and check me out of the hospital and it took another five to fill out the form without a guardian.

I wandered outside temporarily blinded by the sun, and ran into a very familiar orange blob. "Hey Naruto."

"Oh hey Akira. Why were you in the hospital?" He said looking in the direction I came from with concern on his face.

"Long story short did something stupid…again."

He nodded in understanding laughing, "Hey, I'm going training with pervy-sage you wanna come along?"

I'm almost positive I misheard him, "Uh…repeat that."

"I'm going training?" He said with a very confused look.

"No, the other part, who's training you?"

His face instantly cleared and he laughed, "Ohh, pervy-sage. His names Jaraiya, he's some sannin but he writes those perverted books Kakashi reads."

My eyes widened before narrowing slightly, "Take me to him now. I need to kill him."

Naruto's eyes widened as he slowly nodded, "Okay but I'm warning him first."

"Fair enough." I nodded before we began walking up a mountain to a very secluded clearing next to a waterfall. "Naruto what exactly is he teaching you way out here?"

"Summoning jutsu. I'm learning to summon a toad, isn't that cool!" He said. "Okay stay here while I ask if you can be here."

He didn't know if I could be here? What's gonna happen if I'm not allowed here? What would he do kill me or something?

"Akira! You can come over here now." He yelled running over and grabbing my hand before dragging me towards some white haired guy. Why do all pervs have white hair suddenly? "Pervy-sage this is Akira. Akira, Pervy-sage."

"Nice to finally meet ya Akira." His head finally rose from a small pile of papers to stare at me. "You're Akira? Naruto, I thought you said Akira was a boy."

Naruto stared at him like he was crazy before saying, "He is."

Pervy-sage grabbed my arm pointing towards my face, "This is not a boy, this is a girl. My well trained eye can tell."

"No he's not, I've known him longer! He's a guy! You should have your eyes checked Pervy-sage."

"Okay how about I solve this! Okay crazy perv I'm. . Get it?" I hinted jerking my arm out of his grip nodding in Naruto's direction. His eyebrows raised half a fraction before he sighed.

"Alright, Naruto go beat yourself up over there." Raising a hand as Naruto tried to speak. "No excuses you can't even stand on water yet you think you can summon something, pathetic."

"Stand on water?" I asked as Naruto went off in a huff to train.

"Oh no don't tell me you can't either. What is wrong with you kids?"

"Uhh, we were trained by people like you? Which brings up the topic of those books you write, I demand you stop writing them before I kill you."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"My dad keeps reading them, I need him to stop, I've already burned two of them." I grinned. His face was priceless in my opinion and it took every ounce of will to not laugh at him.

"How could you do that to my babies! I poured a lot of love into those books and you go and destroy them!"

"Well yeah. I'm not going to read them." I said leaning against a nearby tree watching Naruto pummel himself into the ground.

He sighed rubbing his hand over his face, "Alright kid," He said angrily. "I'm going to pretend that you didn't tell me that. So, why does the kid think you're a guy?"

"Don't I look like one?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No, you have a girly face, and your hair's too long. I can't believe anyone would think you weren't a girl."

"Oh, well you can blame Kakashi for that. He just assumed I was a guy before kidnapping me."

He watched my expression closely at least from what I can tell through the corner of my eye. I was still watching Naruto beat himself up and I had to say it was pretty funny. It was hard to tell which one was the real one and which one wasn't but eventually I managed to track the real one down. I followed his movements out of the bunch jumping slightly when he defeated another clone. I almost wanted to cheer him on but thought better of it. I mean he is beating himself up and I don't think I should encourage self-abuse.

"Right," He said smirking about some untold joke. "So, what do you think of him?"

"Who, Kakashi? He's a pervert, kidnapper, and an idiot rolled into one. Not to mention he's old. He annoys me and yet we get along fairly well."

"I didn't mean him. I meant the him." He pointed towards Naruto who was being being choked by one of his clones. "You've known him long?"

"No not really just around a month or so and I guess he's pretty cool. Not the brightest one out there but he certainly stands out."

"Yeah so I've noticed." He said turning to watch Naruto's training before an almost evil smile appeared on his face. "You know…I could train the both of you in the ways of summoning. It would give you an excuse to stick around."

I looked over at him casually, "And why would I want to stick around? And even if I did I wouldn't need an excuse, Naruto's my friend and I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sticking around. Oh and I already know how to summon."

His face fell, "I see. But you're probably right, he'd probably love to show off to you, now wouldn't he?"

I sent him a confused look, "And what do you mean by that? He shows off to everyone it's like a part of his blood."

Pervy-sage laughed, 'Well that's true enough. So what can you summon?"

"You're changing the subject. But I'll pretend I didn't notice as a repayment for a previous conversation. I summon salamanders."

"Seriously? That's it? Salamanders are one of the weakest summoning creatures out there. The largest one can only reach up to the top of a tree while it's standing on its hind legs." He looked at me with a look that read Are-you-out-of-your-mind?

"So, that's why he's so small…and they aren't weak. The smallest one can breathe fire."

"It can what?" He asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. Does he really think I'm making this up?

"Yeah, here watch." I said biting my thumb and making the hand signs. A mere second later and the little guy was sitting in the palm of my hand. Pervy-sage had an expression that practically spoke the words 'Is that it?' Geez it's a salamander what was he expecting a dragon? "Okay little guy, I need your help proving something to this guy. Can you burn that bush over there?"

It gave a small cry of agreement before jumping off my hand and scuttling over to the bush. It then fired a lovely little fireball at it, setting it on fire and making Pervy-sage jump back. "What the hell kid! That thing is not a salamander."

I picked up my salamander holding him close, "Well, what else could he be?"

"Well it's not a salamander…" He said leaning in for a closer look, picking the little guy off my hand. "And he can't speak like most summonings do…can you summon anything bigger than this?"

"Uh…no?" He looked towards me. "I've never really tried. It was a crash course on summoning. It took me all night just to summon this one." I said rubbing the back of my head suddenly aware of how dumb I must seem. Heck I didn't even know they could get bigger…

"Hmm…well you'll just have to come back tomorrow so I can teach you more." He smirked as evil thoughts passed through his head. I was beginning to get very worried.

"Hey! Akira! Watch!" Naruto yelled from the river bank before he slowly stepped onto the water. He was wobbly but he didn't sink surprisingly. Well, his foot did drop through every now and then but besides that he was actually pretty good. I walked closer and peered down at the water making sure it wasn't some trick. I even poked it to make sure. Nope it was normal water all right.

"Nice work Naruto. How'd you do it?"

He smiled and laughed slightly obviously proud of himself. "It's an ultra secret technique that only top ninjas like me can do."

"Uh huh." I smiled. "So Pervy-Sage you said you'd teach me this and how to summon something bigger than my little salamander right?" I didn't even have to look at Naruto to know that his concentration had broken, all I needed to hear was a very nice splash. I looked over to see a drenched and upset Naruto.

"What! Why does he get to learn too! He's not even in the chunin exams." Naruto protested as he slowly got out of the water.

Pervy-sage glanced over at me, "You didn't pass?"

"Nah, there were complications." I said trying to end the subject.

"Yeah, Akira's teammate was killed then another teammate tried to kill him." Naruto said while wringing out his sweater. I pushed him into the water for his unneeded explaination.

Pervy-sage had a sweatdrop form on his forehead as he watched us, "And this is what I'll be training for the next month? Why did I agree to this?"

Naruto quickly got out of the water appearing before Pervy-sage and yelling, "Because you agreed to be trainer and I even did the sexy-no-jutsu when you asked."

I looked around quickly praying no one had just happened to be close enough to hear that. I mean it's already bad enough he's a perv but now he'll seem like a pedophile…Kakashi and him have quite a bit in common.

"I did not ask you to! You just did it and when I turned around there you were." Pervy-sage argued weakly.

Naruto looked in the mood for a fight so I quickly interrupted. "Wow, it sure is late" I said with false awe. "Maybe we should call it a day and get some ramen."

Naruto's mood instantly vanished as his head snapped towards me, "Ramen? Alright! Let's go Akira. Bye Pervy-sage!"

I smiled slyly, the plan worked, but I had no doubt it would. Naruto + Ramen = his life. We ran back to the village and sat down at Ichiraku's, ordered and dug in. It was pretty late by the time we finished our 10 bowls, well his ten my 5, and the conversation took an interesting turn.

"Akira, Won't your parents be worried about you?" Naruto asked.

"Nah, he's out for the month and he locked me out too. I'm staying with the Hyuga's right now. But they're very stuffy, even Hanabi and Hinata act proper around their house."

"Really? So why'd he lock you out of your house?"

"Yeah, it's weird and I think he doesn't trust me near his books."

"Sounds kinda like Kakashi-sensei."

I froze before nervously laughing it off, "Yeah…just a bit. So what about you?"

"Me?" He asked confused.

"Yeah, won't your parents be upset with you staying out like this?"

He tilted his head to the side, "I guess you don't know. Well, I don't have any parents. I live alone in an apartment."

My eyes widened, "Oh, sorry. I guess I haven't been here long enough to know that."

He laughed, "Yeah, but I'm not the only one. Sasuke doesn't have any family either. Except his brother but they don't get along."

"Oh…How come I didn't know any of this?"

He shrugged, "It never came up?"

"I suppose." I said as we came up to the Hyuga compound. "Umm…Naruto isn't your place closer to Ichiraku's?"

"Yeah? Why?"

"You do realize we're on the other side of town right?"

He smiled rubbing the back of his head, "Yeah I know. I just wanted to talk to you more. So will you be coming to training tomorrow?"

"Definitely. See you then." I said walking into the compound.

"Okay! Bye." He smiled brightly before running back to his own home.

Jeez, why does he have to smile like that? I always find myself smiling back even when I don't mean to.