A/N: Once upon a time, I was used to the limited format options here on FF. But I grew spoiled. Nowadays I use pictures, media links, spoiler text, font colors and (gasp) even strikethrough text in my stories. It's frustrating when all that disappears into thin air... :(

035 - Meeting the locals
(In the name of everything that's cute and fluffy, leave me alone!)

Fortunately for my blood pressure, Naruto seems too absorbed with inhaling the food in front of him to pay attention to his surroundings and our own dinner goes by without any upset. I don't know about 'best in the Elemental Nations', but Ichiraku sure knows his shit. This is the best ramen I've ever had.

I've already paid and given my compliments to the chef when…

… What? I can be polite, you know? There's a difference between socially awkward and utterly useless, okay?

Whatever, as I was saying, we are leaving. I have to admit feeling a teensy little bit guilty about not dragging Karin and Naruto together right here right now, but I'll get over it. It's not like it'll be the end of the world to wait a bit and set up things properly. Probably wait until they're done with the Forest of Death so they have a month to get used to each other without anything important getting in the way.

Also, plot reasons. Who knows what could change if I put my foot in my mouth before Orochimaru makes his move, after all?

So yeah, exfiltration successful, chance lost, it won't be missed. I can't help my lips curving upwards in relief as–

"Uzumaki Naruto!" Oh, fuck me sideways. "What do you think you're doing still here?"

Have I offended the gods? Sweet Hylia, goddess of whatever, what have I done to deserve the Pink Banshee interruption? I take a mental deep breath to calm down. Life is what happens while you are making other plans and all that. Nothing to it but try to make the best out of the situation. My smile turns into a frown as I turn around for that Oscar Award I never knew I would earn.

"Uzumaki!?" My eyes zero in on the girl as I leave Karin's side to practically pounce at her. "Did you say 'Uzuma—'?"

She interrupts me with a very rude squawk and tries to… flail at me?

"'—ki'?" I catch her arm, doing my best to convey my lack of amusement with an arched eyebrow. "Do you usually greet people like this?"

"Who do you think you are!" She tries to slap me with her other hand, but I catch it too. Seriously this is getting old. "Unhand me this instant!"

"... Right." I very pointedly wait a couple of seconds before slowly relaxing my grip. She jumps back as soon as her hands are free, pulling a kunai and taking a fighting stance. I find myself humming in approval, that's not a bad stance at all. "My name is Shimada Ran, and this cutie here is my adoptive sister, Uzumaki-Shimada Karin."

Admittedly, she's never been called Uzumaki-Shimada before, but it's still the truth. Karin blushes and headbutts my shoulder with an embarrassed groan.

"Now, I heard about one Uzumaki Naruto?" I force myself to put a smile on my face. I never liked Sakura as a character, but this is a real person in front of me, it wouldn't be fair to judge her by a cartoonish caricature of her worst traits. "Sorry if I came out too strong, but that's kind of important family business here. I lost my cool for a second."

Damn am I cool or what? Everyone is speechless.

"L-leave Sakura-chan alone!" Huh, is he stuttering before my coolness? That's kinda cute. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! You better believe it!"

My left eye twitches. Oh, cursed be the one-eyed fiendish blade and the blazing inferno gestating inside! Why did that horrible verbal tick have to be real!? I suddenly don't feel like dealing with this anymore.

"Yeah, whatever, nice to meet you Blondie." I nudge Karin towards him. "Why don't you take this yourself?"

"U-um! I'm Uzumaki-Shimada Karin from Kusa." She manages to get out before taking a deep bow. Damn, she's taken my joke about her name and ran away with it, hasn't she? It sounds kind of nice so I don't mind. "Please treat me kindly!"

Silly Karin, of course he's going to treat you kindly if he doesn't want his teeth and intestines to switch places.

"A-ah! Uzumaki Naruto! Likewise!"

But still… What's she acting all skittish around him for?

"Karin? Why are you… Oh." Chakra sensor, Kyuubi chakra, derp. "Look closer Karin, that doesn't come from him."

She throws me a confused look, before shrugging and focusing on Naruto. I get a bit worried when she takes more than a second to be done with it, eyes widening and pupils dilating, but she snaps out of it soon enough. From there, the awfully awkward conversation I want no part in begins in earnest.

They have a lot in common, after all. Even if very little to share about their common family. From the fact they are both attending their first Chunin Exam, to how neither of them has grown in the best environment and everything in-between. Before they know it, they're both laughing at funny tales of each other's lives, and I find myself feeling more and more like the third wheel.

So I hold an impromptu staredown contest with the pink banshee, who is standing to Naruto's side, looking as awkward as I feel. She looks away first, it doesn't even take long. Damn, now I'll need to entertain myself in some other fashion. I thought Sakura was competitive?

"Okay then!" Naruto slams the table, drawing everyone's attention. Ah, that means the four of us and Ichiraku's family, because there's nobody else in the stall at the moment. "I'll go talk with Jiji! I'm sure he won't mind giving you a pass to come visit whenever you want. You're family after all!"

… Well, that was faster than expected. It really shouldn't have been, because Naruto, but somehow I'd expected him to take longer to open up to Karin. Stupid of me, I know.

"Naruto!" His teammate protests. "You can't just go to the Hokage and ask him to accept a stranger into the village because they're family!"

"What do you mean he can't, Pinkie?" No, seriously, what's she talking about? "He's the clan head and this is clan business, of course he can!"

"Eh?" Now everyone is looking at me funny. What did I say? Is there something stuck in my teeth?

"The last member of the main branch of the Uzumaki clan after Uzushio's destruction was Uzumaki Kushina." I elaborate when it becomes obvious everyone else is determined to make this awkward. "Who had left the village to learn the sealing arts from Uzumaki Mito here in Konoha when she was a kid and decided to stay and become a full Konoha citizen after that event."

It's not like that's a secret or anything.

"She later died during the Kyuubi attack, and was the only Uzumaki in the village at the time. You were born the same day she died." I continue with a shrug. "Sure, there might be some sort of overly contrived set of circumstances involved, but usually a cigar is just a cigar."

And with that I shut up. I'm done, If they insist on the awkward silence, they can try to outstubborn me and see how that goes.

"Ran-chan?" Karin finally breaks the silence after a long pause. "How long have you known about that?"

"A couple of years? I investigated the Uzumaki clan after Uzumama died." I feel suddenly uncomfortable, it's been a while since I last lied to Karin, but can't exactly say I was born knowing it. "I wasn't sure you'd like me rubbing it in, since what I discovered wasn't very nice, so I've been sitting on it ever since."

"That's decided then!" Naruto announces proudly, breaking the heavy mood with a smile. "I'm taking you to see Jiji as soon as we're done with the exams!"

He leaves with Sakura soon after, raving enthusiastically about cousins and family and finally knowing who his mother is and oops maybe I should've kept that part to myself. At least he didn't immediately storm the Hokage's office asking for explanations, which shows a maturity I wasn't expecting from him. That or he's scared of what he might learn. Or he's being considerate towards Karin.

Anyone's guess, really.

Sakura says little, but I can tell she's a bit shaken because she doesn't even rap him on the head when he gets too loud. I guess Naruto being part of an ancestral clan with an illustrious history is causing a bit of cognitive dissonance. Actually, how come a bookworm like her hadn't heard about the Uzumaki Clan before? Was there ever a canonical explanation for that plot hole? Because everything I remember is 'hur hur evul civil council manipulates academy curriculum' from fanon.

I'll have to keep an eye on that, just in case that happens to be a thing after all. But some other time, right now we could really use a bed and... Huh. I was expecting to feel exhausted too just by dealing with the kid, but I'm actually feeling kind of energized.

"Nice cousin you have here." I comment as we start making way towards (my) our hotel. "You think he drugged us with that overflowing Yang chakra of his? Because I feel like I just had seven coffees."

She just shakes her head and grabs my arm, and you won't see me complaining. Just the smile on her face would've made this dumpster fire of a random encounter worth it, but snuggles are the cherry on top.

We wake up horribly late the following day. I don't know if it was an overdose of Naruto's chakra, Ichiraku's Ramen being spiked, nerves about the approaching exam or just the giddiness of a new place, but it took us far too long to fall asleep. One would think that we'd be out like candles on our first real bed after sleeping in tents in the wilderness for days, but that's how things happened.

So we only have time for a quick shower, a delicious breakfast, the bare minimum warming up routine, a short massage session in the small hotel spa (That's decent enough but doesn't hold a candle to our last one in Hot Springs) and half an hour in the onsen before it's time to escort Karin to her test.

It's probably for the best, I would've wasted my time being a pest fussing over Karin if we had more time to kill.

"Alright, we are here." I announce when we meet the rest of the Kusa teams at the gates of the Academy. "You remember everything I told you?"

"We are shinobi, rules don't matter if we're not caught. We are shinobi, the exams don't have to be fair, be prepared for anything. There are monsters in attendance, spam [Mind's Eye of the Kagura] and stay the heck away from anyone who gives me the chills."

"And…?" She rolls her eyes in exasperation.

"And your personal mix of Bear Mace is in my left breast pocket." She recites obediently. "And yes, I remember you made it highly flammable, in case the capsaicin doesn't work for some reason."

"And…?"

"Trust in myself." She mumbles, suddenly finding the signpost at her side utterly fascinating. "If I don't think I can pass, I won't."

"Good! Now go there and show them what you're made of! See you on the other side!"

It's only five days. Five days of dodging bears who want to eat her and people who want to kill her and spies from at least three different factions and a doped-to-the-gills broody Uchiha with impulse control issues and a bloodthirsty racoon-tanuki monster and ninja Voldemort.

She has this.

Uhup, she'll be fine.

No matter what.

I trust her.

… I'm camping on the Hokage Monument and setting up a telescope there.

… Turns out, the Hokage Monument is off-limits. It's not something jealously enforced and local shinobi ignore that rule all the time, but I'm kind of not local, and I don't want to end up in a detention cell for suspicious behaviour.

So instead I set my tent on top of the cliff, where there's a perfectly natural forest. And I keep my brand new telescope inside it's package because I've suddenly realized how it would look for a foreign shinobi to camp in a vantage point over the village with a telescope.

Yeah, not my brightest moment.

I can still look wistfully towards Training Ground 44. And why 44 and not 421? Missed pun opportunity, if you ask me.

"That's an interesting smell masker you're using, young lady." I don't jump at the kindly grandfatherly voice suddenly sounding at my side with a swear word and throw ten or thirty kunai in that general direction, but it's a very close thing. "I hope you can indulge an old man's curiosity?"

Sarutobi fuckin' Hiruzen, of course. Because his pale-ass scaly student wasn't terrifying enough. Why do I keep getting the attention of all the monsters who can break me in two with their pinky?

… Oh, yeah, because Naruto. He's probably trying to figure out how much I know and subtly threaten me into staying away from him. Why can't life be easy at least once? The only reason this old monster isn't in my top 3 bad news people is because he'll kick the bucket too soon for it to matter.

"Special pills, kind of a clan secret." I invented them, and nobody else knows. So yeah, kind of a clan secret. Even if I'll never have the chance to write the formula down in the Shimada Scroll. "They alter my hormonal balance so my body odour changes. Way more effective than scentless soap, but it leaves me cranky."

"I can imagine. Hormones are a delicate thing in the best of times, especially during puberty." The way he hums into his pipe and nods sagely pisses me off for some reason. I know I'm short, okay? "Now the question is why to use them at all, isn't it? Especially at a vantage point overseeing the Village like this."

The implied suspicion of espionage by the Hokage himself would have made a lesser woman stain her underwear, and not in the kinky way. But not me. I'm soooo way past losing bladder control and firmly into the resigned 'why me?' field.

"No offence to the village, old man, but I don't care that much about it. This is just the best place to try and catch a glimpse of how my sister is doing down there." I point towards the Forest of Death. "The smell masker is something I've been wearing since I left Kusa last week. I don't want anyone from my past to use the exam as an excuse to track me down, you know."

He puffs on his pipe, somehow managing to convey amusement with the gesture. "You don't trust Konoha's security?"

"Any security would be stretched thin in these circumstances, not feeling paranoid would be naíve instead." Come to think of it, how the heck did he manage to sneak up on me with an ignited pipe? Tobacco is not precisely scentless. "Plus, it doesn't take much to shiv the fuck out of someone's liver in the middle of a crowded street."

"Shimada through and through, I see." I think I'm going to blame it on 'Hokage bullshit' and save me a headache. "I have to admit, I'm surprised you aren't participating yourself."

"... Beg your pardon?"

"Good speed, good eyes, good reflexes, a good head on your shoulders and what appears to be a nice repertoire of jutsu. It's not just anyone that manages all five elements at your age, you know?" Yeah, yeah, he wouldn't be praising me so much if he knew what kind of pathetic crap half of my jutsu are. "I can understand Amano-kun wanting to keep you out of the spotlight, but you're obviously ready, and not being allowed to prove it must chafe."

Amano-kun? The fuck is Amano-kun and why would he assume he can order me arou– The Boss Dude? The Boss Dude's name is Amano-kun? I can't help it, I snort, choke on my own spit and break into a fit of both coughing and laughter. He's cool enough to patiently wait for me to be done with it. Way cooler than Amano-kun.

"Oh, I'm already promoted." I wheeze out after a while, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye. "I just came to cheer on Karin. And do a bit of sightseeing, it's not everyday one can take a look at one of the Big Five, after all."

"... Looks like my intel was outdated. I have to admit you got me there, young Shimada." He chuckles in good humour. The Fucking God of Shinobi has intel on me? What the actual fuck!? "In that case, I hope you have a good time in Konoha. I'm quite proud of her."

With that, he disappears in a puff of smoke. The heck was that supposed to be? He just arrived unannounced, gave me a heart attack, caught more of my tricks than I'm comfortable with, praised me for them, poked fun at the Boss Dude's expense, admitted I have a file in their system and extolled the virtues of Konoha before… leaving me alone again.

I'm so confused right now.

1: '42' in Japanese can be read 'shini' which also means 'death'.

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