Author Note: I would like to thank everyone that reviewed the last chapter as well as everyone that added this story to their favorites and follows.

"U-Uzumaki-san, what are you doing here?"

Naruto rubbed the back of her neck and shifted her weight to her right foot as Midoriya looked at her with knitted eyebrows. It was rather quite understandable why her friend looked at her with confused eyes as he pinched himself. Her friend winced and Naruto almost snickered at the action but she held herself back.

It was not every day she took the opportunity to visit him but it would be rather cruel of her not to visit him after being cornered by that villain in the mall. The knowledge that the boy had been threatened, made her skin prickle. From what Uraraka wrote in their group chat last night, the villain had been the same one who nearly killed Aizawa-sensei.

She inhaled. "I heard what happened to you in the Mall and well I, uh, came to check up on you."

"You heard of Shigaraki cornering me and you decided to check up on me because you were worried for me?" Midoriya asked, eyebrows raising up to his hairline. He ran his hands through his hair and looked over his shoulder before looking back at her with curious, eager green eyes like he wanted the confirmation from her about his suspicion.

Naruto paused and swallowed down the lump in her throat. He was right to presume it was concern which brought her here and the blonde would not deny the fact she had been worried. It had been concerning to read those text message, but to vocalize her concern to him was rather weird for her.

It had been easy as a child to show her concern to her friend but it had been a long time since she fully admitted her concern.

The whiskered teen exhaled. "Yeah, I was worried about you especially when I can still remember how you used to flinch whenever Explosive Head used his Quirk."

Midoriya smiled slightly at her words and within seconds he swung the door fully opened. It smacked the wall with a bang, earning a wince from her and an apologetic smile from the green-haired boy. Shrugging her shoulders, the blonde entered the apartment and took the time to inspect the apartment that her friend shared with his mother.

The apartment sparkled with a cleanness that Naruto knew came from hours of endless cleaning. Not a single speck of dirt laid on the ground or the walls but Naruto could see crayon lines on the wall. Midoriya's name and age was on top of each line, telling the whiskered teen that his mother must have measured his height every year.

But what really interested Naruto was the lack of photos of his father.

"If I have known that you were going to come, I would have tidied my bedroom," Izuku admitted with a nervous laugh as he brought her to the living room. Just like in the hallway, there was no sign of a mess which highlighted her suspicion that his mother was the type of woman who wouldn't rest until every single piece of dirt was gone.

Naruto wished she had that kind of lust when it came to her own apartment.

Shaking her head, the girl sunk onto the couch and replied. "The living room is fine with me, Midoriya."

Izuku looked at her with relief in his green eyes and scurried towards the kitchen. Her friend opened the cupboards and pulled out a couple of blue plates and a tray before dashing to the fridge. Naruto watched with blank eyes as the older boy brought out a couple of opened cookie bags alongside two small cartons of orange juice. He placed them on the tray and hurried towards her.

The tray fell with a gentle thud on the coffee table and the green-haired boy took a seat on the armchair. Neither of them talked as they looked at each other to the walls surrounding them. The jinchuuriki did not know what was making her classmate quiet but she knew what made her quiet. She did not know what to tell him, so the blonde only looked at her hand as she tried to think of what to say to him.

"S-so how are things between Kacchan and you?" Midoriya asked. The younger boy fiddled with his hands as he looked at her with bright curious green eyes.

Naruto paused at the question as the doves sang their afternoon song. Picking up a cookie, the whiskered teen took a small nibble and closed her eyes as she regarded the question. It was a very good question but should she talk about it? It would be a good idea. They were friends and she should stop letting that dark, little voice inside of her head from taking control of her actions.

She exhaled and forced herself to smile at him. "Explosive Head wasn't there when I met his Mum and our grandmother for the first time. I don't know what to think about it."

Izuku blinked and looked like he was taken back by her admission and the girl took another nibble of her cookie. He doesn't want to get to know me. That was what a large part of her brain told her but Naruto knew it was the negative self-talk talking to her. Yuna gave her homework to do when it came to that voice.

"Instead of following that negative self-talk, try to make it positive even if you find it difficult. I want you to identify when that negative self-talk is going to start." That was what the woman requested her to do and Naruto thought it was easier said than done. How could she turn it into a positive thing? Maybe she should think that it would change in the future and that he needed time.

"Kacchan probably thought you didn't want to be overwhelm by having so many people there," Midoriya suggested. A nervous smile played on his lips and the whiskered teen nodded. "He probably also think that Mitsuki-obaachan and his grandmother were the ones who needed the meeting more then him. He knows you after all."

Naruto nodded and shrugged her shoulders. "Well either way Mitsuki and my grandmother agreed to take our time to get to know each other."

The younger boy frowned but made no comment about their decision to take things slow. If Naruto had been a young, naïve girl again then she would have been very eager to get to know them. But there would always be a shadow of doubt in her mind when it came to interacting with her relatives. Was it due to what happened with Sasuke? Or due to her childhood? It could be both for all she knew.

Rubbing the back of her neck, Naruto stared up at the ceiling. The fan spurn and spurn like one of those wheels that came up in a computer screen whenever she tried to load things up. The world around her spin and the girl forced herself to look away from it. Her blue eyes focused on Izuku, who now looked at her with considerate eyes.

"It must feel weird for you," Midoriya observed.

The blonde sighed and nodded. "It feels strange to go from being an orphan without any biological family members to being an orphan with more family members than my fingers could count."

He blinked and looked at her like he was surprised for her to be willing to divulge this much information to him. This whole trusting thing again was kind of new to her but she had to give it a try. The best way for you to find out if you can trust a person is to trust them. Her boyfriend's words echoed in her ear, giving her the courage to open up about her feeling towards the matter.

But if Midoriya wanted her to talk even more about her feelings then she was going to stop things right here and right now.

The blonde shook her head and stretched her arms, letting out a little sigh as her back let out a little audible crack. If Midoriya heard the crack then the boy made no comment. Instead he only picked up a cookie and nibbled it as his eyebrows knitted together like the boy was in deep thought. Knowing her friend, he probably was in another world by now.

"Are you still not living with Jiraiya-san?" Izuku finally asked, swallowing down the final crumb of his cookie. Crumbs decorated the corner of his lips and the whiskered teen stopped herself from trying to wipe the crumbs off of his lips. Just because he looked so ridiculous with those crumbs, did not mean she had to be the one to clean him up.

She exhaled. "I'm going back to my apartment later to pack for the Forest Lodge so Jiraiya is definitely going to corner me into talking about things. He is probably one of the most stubborn men that I know."

No smile graced Midoriya's lips at her words. Her friend pressed his lips into a thin line and kept flickering his eyes from her to the walls around them before focusing on the cookie. Naruto only watched as the boy shifted left and right in the armchair, who gasped at the action done by the green-haired boy.

After a couple of minutes, her friend finally managed to gather the courage to spit the question that Naruto knew was running through hisss mind.

"Are you ready to talk to him?" Izuku locked eyes with her. "There is a reason that you ran out on him."

It was a good point but Naruto knew that there was only so much that she could do. If anyone from Konoha knew that she ran out because of the fact she couldn't handle the news then most of them would laugh at her. I call myself the Head Bitch-In-Charge and I run away with my tail behind my legs. It was pathetic of her and she was anything but pathetic.

"I can't keep avoiding him forever," Naruto explained, plastering on a smile as her eyes locked onto him. "He is my mentor and Ero-Sennin is my guardian in Japan."

She folded her legs over each other and smoothed the wrinkles of her shirt as her eyes locked onto the photo of a young Bakugou and Midoriya. No matter how many years passed since she came here, Naruto still found it odd that these people considered her a child. At the age of six, she learnt how to pay her own rent and the importance of budgeting. The Hokage helped her but only because she had no clue of what to do.

It was not like the Matron believed she was worthy to learn budgeting.

"Learn how to read? Why would I teach you how to read?"

The Matron also did not believe that she should have that basic right and it had been rather a struggle for her to try to read. Mikoto-obaachan was happy to teach me and Sasuke used to correct me whenever I misread something. Her lips quirked slightly at the memory and then faded as cruel black eyes flashed before her eyes.

"Who was your Guardian back in your village?" Izuku asked. Naruto blinked and schooled her expression into a blank one. No one would be the answer but telling the boy would earn a look of pity. Sympathy and compassion were emotions she would accept but if someone looked at her with pity then she would hurl her fist at them.

She pressed her lips into a thin line and chirped. "I came here to talk about you and your feelings, Midoriya. We aren't going to talk about something unimportant like who took care of me as a little girl."

"R-Right," Midoriya stuttered. He did not look put off by the fact that she decided not to give him that tiny fact about her life to him, only looking down at his hands. A scar decorated his finger but the whiskered teen couldn't recall how he got the scar. Was it from the Sports Festival? Or was it another event? Everything seemed like a blur to her.

Naruto shook her head and cleared her throat. "Do you want to talk about it? It must have been nerve-wrecking to be threatened by that guy."

Midoriya's hand gingerly touched his neck and the older boy shuddered. "I just k-keep thinking that I'm lucky he didn't disintegrate my neck."

A frown played on her lips at those words and the blonde picked up another cookie. She took a huge bite of the sweet before picking up the small carton of orange juice. Tearing the straw out of the box, the girl jammed the straw inside the carton and Naruto took a huge gulp of her juice box.

The sour taste of her juice cleared her mind as Naruto looked down at the plates of cookies. Only three cookies were left but it probably would be finished by the time that she was done talking to Midoriya. She swallowed her drink and decided that there was just nothing for her to say. If she did not know what to say, it was better for her to say nothing at all.

Only the sound of little children screaming could be heard in the living room as Midoriya looked at her. He didn't look irritated over the fact she could not find the words of comfort but the wobble of his lower lip told Naruto that something else was on his mind. It must weighed heavily on his mind because he kept looking at her like he wanted to question her.

Her eyebrow twitched at this knowledge and Naruto allowed a tiny growl to escape from her lips. "Y'know I am not going to bite your head off if you want to ask me a question."

Midoriya squeaked and poked his fingers together, looking so much like a hurt little bunny that Naruto felt her stomach coiled with guilt. How could he look like a hurt little bunny and still have a punch that could make her feet skittle slightly? It was rather unfair because only a cruel person could not feel guilty for being irritated at his behavior.

Or you could be Explosive Head.

"W-Why did you smile that day during your fight against the Nomu in USJ?" Izuku finally asked. He could not look her in the eyes and Naruto knitted her eyebrows together. "W-Weren't you scared to fight him? Did you really think you can beat him?"

Naruto's eyebrows rose at the sudden question as green eyes flashed with confusion and curiosity. The blonde could see the sweat dribbling down the side of his face and she closed her eyes. What had she been thinking at the time? Protect everyone had definitely been on her mind but had she been fearful? Not really.

Fighting Gaara had been even more terrifying if you asked her but she was not going to spill that detail to him.

"I wasn't thinking when I fought them but I knew everyone needed to be protected," Naruto replied. "Was I scared? Well I don't remember but I do know that it is easy to show people that you are scared. But smiling? It gives me the confidence that I can do anything."

Midoriya nodded and Naruto took another sip of her juice box.

Those words weren't a lie but they weren't the complete truth if you asked her.

Her beautiful apartment was now a pigsty.

That was the conclusion Naruto made as she gawked at the sight of her messy apartment. So many ramen cup were littered around the living room alongside the sake bottles scattered around the room. The mixture of salty ramen and alcohol burned her nostrils and the blonde looked at the man lying on the couch. The small orange notebook lying on Jiraiya's stomach told the girl that her mentor had been editing his novel.

The whiskered teen cleared her throat and Jiraiya shot up from the couch, his orange notebook crashing onto the piece of ramen cup. No words were spoken between them as Naruto stared at her teacher. Dark circles covered his eyes and there was a gauntness to his cheeks that the girl had never seen on him before.

"You are back," Jiraiya finally said.

Naruto only kept quiet. She wished to keep herself in control before saying anything that could potentially damage their relationship. So she knelt down and began to pick up the empty ramen cups as she gathered her thoughts. There must be around eight or nine ramen cups on the floor as well as a few on the kitchen counter but that was not the biggest issues for the girl.

It was the stains on the carpet that really made her want to throttle the man because those were the hardest stains for her to get rid of.

"You look like shit," the whiskered teen kept her tone even and emotionless as she walked over to the trash bin. "And didn't I tell you if you are going to stay with me then you have to keep this apartment clean? I have a part-time job, school and training to deal with. I don't want to be saddle with cleaning duty too."

Naruto didn't turn around but she knew her mentor was probably gawking at her. If she turned around then this mask on her face would break and the emotions would come out like a volcano ready to erupt. She could not allow that to happen so she stuffed the ramen cups into the trash bin before opening the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink.

Tearing off the green trash bin, the whiskered teen strolled to the furthest corner away from Jiraiya and placed the first sake bottle into the bag. Tidying up was a rather odd action to do but Naruto found that it allowed her to process everything. The mess around the apartment meant that maybe things hadn't been easy for Jiraiya.

To fill the tense silence between them, Naruto began to hum a little tune. Silence was not something she enjoyed, not when it meant that it would give her an opportunity to have that negative thought coming through her head. Nothing ever good came from it if that session with Yuna taught her anything.

"I-I thought you were upset with me," Jiraiya commented as the girl continued to clean up the mess made during her absence. Naruto stopped in her steps but did not turn around to look at her teachers. "You ran out of here without telling me where you were going."

So many vicious words came to Naruto's mind like telling him that it was his fault but the girl held herself together as much poised as she could gathered. Taking in a deep breath, she stopped in her steps and began to tie up her trash bin. It was easy for her to lash out but it was harder for her to not say every rude thing that came to her mind if you asked her.

How did her younger self manage to keep herself under control was a complete mystery to Naruto.

"If I told you where I had gone then you would have bugged me and it would have led me into saying a lot of hurtful things to you," the blonde threw the trash bin over her shoulders and made her way towards the door. She dropped it on the ground with a clear thud but did not turn around to look at her teacher. It was rather difficult for her to keep her emotions in check if she looked at him.

The 12-year-old Naruto would have screamed, punched and threw a tantrum but she was 15 now. A lot of things happened to her and maybe it was time for her to show that she was more mature then she let him and everyone else be. I just could never be bothered to act like an adult when I was 12. She wanted to enjoy the little aspects of things.

"So what does that mean to you?" Jiraiya asked. Naruto guessed that the man must be frowning at her wording but it was also a good thing he was questioning her. She knew the Toad Sannin wanted to know whether he was forgiven or not but was probably smart enough to realize that he couldn't push her to answer him.

Naruto inhaled and exhaled as her eyes locked onto the trash bin. "It means that you broke my trust, Ero-Sennin and I'm really struggling when it comes to trust. Aizawa-sensei thinks that I have a phobia when it comes to trust and what you did? That proved him right."

No words came out of Jiraiya's lips as she admitted the secret that she kept from him. It was not right of her to tell him about the phobia that Aizawa-sensei believed she had but it needed to be spoken. Not for him to pity her or for him to think that she was weak but for him to understand her reactions. Naruto didn't know what the man would think about this little snippet of her truth.

Maybe he believed she was exaggerating but she just wanted to get it out of the way.

"Is that an actual thing?" Jiraiya asked quietly. The fact he sounded curious and concern made the girl paused and tempted her to turn around to look at him. But Naruto held her ground and stared at the brown door. It was reassuring he was curious but at the same time she wished he didn't sound so surprised too.

The blonde mentally shook her head and rubbed circles around her hand.

"Apparently," Naruto replied, gluing her feet to her spot. "It isn't like the Old Hag's hemophobia since my phobia is a lot more abstract in thinking…but it is a real thing. I actually looked it up in the search engine once."

Her voice faltered at the last part and the whiskered teen forced herself to turn around to look at Jiraiya. It was rather odd that she could fight her fellow jinchuuriki and give speeches to her enemies without flinching, but when it came to admitting that she might have a problem, all she wanted to do was curl into a ball.

Jiraiya stared at her for the longest time like he did not know what to make of her admission. His hands seemed ready to hug her but Naruto only scooted away from him, head shaking at the action. Comfort was the last thing she wanted. What they needed was to talk things out, not for him to feel guilty.

She wanted him to understand, not for him to look at her with those guilt-ridden eyes.

"You never told me about it," the white-haired man sunk back into the couch and closed his eyes like he was deep in thought. "You told me that you were getting therapy for your trust issues but you never told me that you have an actual phobia."

The blonde only kept quiet. She did not want to tell him because it never really seemed like a big deal for her. Not once did her supposed pistanthrophobia actually affect her in Konoha but if it was true then it needed to be treated. Trust was important between teammates and if she had to work in a team when she went back to the village then this fear needed to be conquered.

It was also important when it came to her friendships here and her own relationship with Shouto but she was never going to tell Jiraiya this.

"Look I didn't think it will be a big deal to you," Naruto rubbed the back of her neck and allowed a scowl to grace her lips. "Having a phobia of blood like the Old Hag? That is understandable. But having a phobia based on trust? Who the fuck is going to believe that? Everyone back in Konoha would have laughed at me. They would have thought I was trying to get attention."

It was a fact because Naruto knew damn well what everyone thought of her. The attention-seeking brat who always smiled like an idiot or the bitch that could not feel an ounce of sympathy for what Sasuke went through. Maybe there was some truth behind their words but admitting that she had problems too? Well no one cared.

Whatever problems she had inside of her was only her burden.

"I was very irresponsible when it came to you," Jiraiya picked up his novel and looked at her thoughtfully like he was deeply considering something. That made her stomach coil with worry and the male exhaled. "Your teacher and your grandmother kept saying it but these last few days made me realize that I…have been selfish towards you."

Her chest tightened and Naruto felt a burning sensation behind her eyes but she was not going to let those tears fall. That might sound like an apology but she was not going to accept it at the current moment. But there was something that she should tell him. What she had to tell him was not because of kindness but an observation.

"You only treated me like how any other orphan is treated in Konoha," Naruto swallowed down a lump and clicked her heels together before turning away from him. "I'm not saying you are forgiven but you know orphans aren't given a priority. I mean it doesn't excuse your actions but that was something I thought about when I laid in bed."

It would come up in a random thought and then she would think long and hard about it.

Jiraiya cleared his throat. "You know your Father had a lot of plans when it came to orphans and children in general. He spent a whole year campaigning with the council with making a hospital for people facing mental health problems but… the council wouldn't budge because of budget and a lack of knowledge on the area."

Naruto blinked and looked down at her feet. Her father had only been Hokage for a year and half before the Kyuubi attacked, which meant they had never seen the fruits of his labor. But the fact that he had plans for children like her meant that he probably had not been a bad person. It did not excuse his action towards her but it reminded her that he probably had been human too.

That maybe he did not really see what his own action would do to her.

"Y'know the council is kinda stupid," she cleared her throat and looked at the blank television screen. "I mean if you think about it, you would have better functioning shinobi if you invested on mental health."

Her teacher made no comment at her words, allowing her to muse over the money that Kenji-sensei had given her. It would be counterintuitive of her to use that money for Konoha but Naruto wondered how things would have been different if there had been someone to diagnose or help treat poor mental health. Perhaps Itachi wouldn't have gone insane and maybe she would understand why it had been difficult for her to get out of bed.

But if she used such money for that kind of endeavor then she would need someone to negotiate and someone to teach about the topic.

"I should have been there for you as a child."

Poking her tongue against her cheek, Naruto closed her eyes. When she allowed her emotions to get the better of her, she would say to him that he hadn't been there. That he was probably one of the many reasons for her horrible childhood but that was not healthy for her, she realized. The negativity affected her so maybe it was time for her to think of something positive.

"Don't you envy her for being alone and not having any parent to nag you all day?"

Sakura's words echoed in her ear and Naruto curled her lips into a bittersweet smile as a realization dawned on her.

"You might not have been there for me but I learnt that it is better to treasure the things that most people take for granted because of you," Naruto smiled wider. "I have you and the Hokage to thank for that."

Except maybe she might have ruined things with Hinata but she would fix things between them. Not now while she was still maybe a little bit messed up and had a whole list of undiscovered issues. When Naruto wanted to contact her best friend again, she wanted to make sure that she could honestly say that she was getting better.

"Are you perhaps very sensitive to rejection?"

If that was only one issue then Naruto could only wonder about the whole list of problems that might be inside of her.

"So am I forgiven?"

Naruto paused as Jiriaya looked at her with expecting eyes.

"We can work on it," she relaxed her shoulders and offered the man a little smile before darting her eyes at the mess that still clung to her apartment. "And I am coming back home because apparently you are hopeless without me! How the hell am I going to leave you for a week if you can't keep my apartment clean while I'm gone?"

Jiraiya smiled sheepishly and the blonde wrinkled her nose. She opened her mouth to scold him even more, only to close her mouth when she heard her phone ring. It was rather odd for her to hear the phone ring but it must mean that someone was sending her a message. It could not be Shouto because they already made an agreement on what time to meet later for their date.

She blinked when she saw that the message came from Yaoyorozu.

Naruto, can we meet tomorrow in your workplace? There is something that I want to talk to you about.

The whiskered teen frowned.

Something told her that she was not going to like whatever her classmate had to talk to her about.

Author Note: So this chapter is shorter than the previous chapter but I will make the next chapter longer. As for the answer the question in the previous chapter, it will be revealed in the next arch which will start after the next chapter. Do let me know of your thoughts on this chapter and the story in general.