Akira's brown eyes darted around the forest as she jumped from tree to tree with Chakra enhanced speed.

Her light pink bangs framed a square face, and a sharp jawline which hid below the remainders of her baby fat. The rest of her long hair was tied in a tight bun, which would still remain in place as she crushed her enemies under her feet. A black ribbon that blended in with her dark tunic was the only piece she chose specifically for its dark Lolita vibes.

She wore black biker shorts, which allowed her to kick as high as a grown man's Larynx without restriction, and engineered bandages to absorb the drawback of her destructive punches. Her little innocent smile was the only warning her enemies would get before a kunai found its way from her thigh pouch across their throat in a deep gash.

Her sandals scratched on the dirt path as she came to a halt in front of the gates of Konoha Village.

"Four years. I wonder what's changed."

The two Ninjas Guarding the gate took their time appraising the pinkette. Their stances appeared relaxed, but her could detect small twitches of their muscles under their konoha uniforms. Without doubt, if they willed it, her body would be dragged out of there in less than five minutes.

"I have to speak with the Hokage." She pulled out a scroll from her pocket and handed it to the guard.

The guards opened the scroll and their eyebrows rose in the slightest at the bottom of the scroll. Where Akira knew her mentor's butterfly seal to be.

The guards (Who appeared to be called Izumo and Kotetsu) gave Akira their best diplomatic smile. Izumo apologised briefly for a strict new protocol being in place, and motioned Kotetsu to call on a woman passing by to escort their guest to the front of the Hokage's office.

"Hokage-sama." The preteen bowed to the old leader and presented the scroll in stretched-out hands.

The man's sharp eyes softened into a grandfather's gaze as he read through the scroll. His hands lifted the stiff child into a standing position and motioned her to lift her chin, to meet his eyes.

"You've grown up too fast Akira-chan."

"I can't seem to share the sentiment Hokage-sama. Everyone still towers over me." The pinkette's playful smirk busts into a snort as if she'd rehearsed that in case the old man greeted her with the overused line.

The old man tousled her tight bun until it was an uncomfortable mess hanging from her scalp, and sat down in the time Akira fussed over remaking it to look as 'cool' as before.

"So Aurora wants you to graduate from Konoha?" Hiruzen picked up his pipe between his lips and held a lighter to it.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Aurora Sensei trained me to her best in these four years, but It's not possible for me to graduate from Kusagakure, as I am already a citizen of Konoha."

"I see." Hiruzen puffed out a cloud of smoke as he muttered.

"In that case, I will sort out the necessary paper work with your mentor to attend the graduation exam in seven days." Lord Hokage removes his pipe and puffs out some more smoke.

"Welcome back to Konoha, Haruno Akira."

She didn't waste her time in making her way back house.

'home sweet home.' She was hit by a sudden wave of nostalgia, as she jumped onto her balcony and all the voices came back, that made fun of her room being smaller than her balcony. Through the years, the size difference had forced her to place some of her new furniture outside, facing her room. Like her couch, just facing the bunny ears TV inside her room. She and her sister used to make a fort surrounding a tower of snacks for a late-night snacking royale for 10 PM. Right after their favourite show aired on channel 1.

She looked around her room through the full-length window, and smiled when she saw that everything was same the way it was. The tacky purple and pink she had chosen for the walls and her bed, and the books she had bought thinking she would read. Same embarrassing pictures of her with her sister, with her mother , with her father and all of them in one frame.

While she was busy in her own pool of memories, the door of her room opened, and Akira was gripped in a bear hug. Akira laughed and hugged her sister back.
"I thought I heard some annoying sister's footsteps."

"Don't give yourself too much credit Pinky" Akira grumbles threateningly "If I tried to hide them you wouldn't know your cause of death was even human."

"Very funny children." Mebuki Haruno stood at the door frame with a concerned frown and her arms crossed

'what monsters are we raising, I don't know anymore' Akira voices over in the privacy of her mind with a bad impression of Mebuki

When Sakura released her from the hug, she turned to her mother and saluted.

"Officer Haruno, Platoon 506 ma'am! Reporting from duty!"

"Hi. Hello, Mother. It's been a while, yeah I missed you too, I couldn't sleep at night from loneli-"

"I get it! I get it mom! Sorry, I really missed you tough!"

"You bet you did!" Mebuki bent her knees to get on the same eye-level as her daughter "Whoever that goes on without my sarcasm for too long does too. Now shoo! Go get your dad!" She shooed away Sakura and Akira dramatically as she pointed downstairs with the one eyebrow she had learned to move through the years of motherhood.

"I'm actually here dear family. No need to send out a tracker team to look for me." Haruno Kizashi opened his arms and in all of his 6"3 glory, announced "Who's Daddy's little girls?" In a news anchor voice.

Akira ran into Kizashi without a second of hesitation

"Dad. No."Sakura though, didn't hesitate to showcase her cringing at the two.

"Kizashi no." Mebuki seemed to share the sentiment with her daughter as she backed away with clear, animalistic fear in her eyes.

"Dad yes." Kizashi wrapped an arm around a narrow-eyed Akira glaring at the mother-daughter team.

The brown-eyed sister extended her hand in invitation towards her kin. "Come join the dark side my children."

At that, a terribly frightened Mebuki and Sakura, sprinted inside Akira's room, and shut the door on the fist-bumping father-daughter duo.

Akira was as bored as a decaying organism in a corrupt system filled with systematic abuse of power could be. She was sitting in the Ninja Academy right next to the class' teacher (Umino Iruka,if her name-to-face memory doesn't betray her), who persisted she sat down separated from the normal students as a guest.

Class seemed to be going on smoothly. Every one showed up except for a blond mess of a boy. Every one had done their final homework to perfection...except for the same blond blob. Everyone had immaculately ironed and practical shinobi attire, except for...the same annoying brat with a colour scheme too bright for even the simplest act of camouflage. Was he even a student? If only Iruka wasn't snapping at him or if everyone wasn't on the verge of groaning of familiarity, she would have assumed that Naruto(from the dozen times Iruka had yelled his name in the last half an hour) had randomly wandered into the class. In a room of clearly hardworking and talented candidates for the forces, Naruto stuck out like a sore orange thumb as incapable.
"You've failed the graduation test last time and the time before that. Tomorrow you get your last chance and you're messing it up again with your undisciplined behaviour and childish shenanigans." Iruka Sensei stopped for breath and waited for some of the blood to drain from his throbbing temples.

Naruto huffed annoyedly in dismissal.

Iruka Sensei turned to the class, as red as a beetroot (his hairstyle really sold the image) and announced that everyone would be reviewing the Transformation jutsu, because a certain infuriating, lazy blond had skipped on the last revision session.

Everyone groaned in protest, but lined up in front of the young instructor anyway, and stood in a ready stance, with Sakura first on the starting side.
Iruka raised her hand and promptly after he let it fall, a white smoke engulfed Sakura, and she came out of the smoke as a replica of the Sandaime.

"The Sandaime. Good."

Sakura jumped up and fisted the air "Yes! I did it! Sasuke-kun! did you see that?"

The boy on her side merely rolled his eyes in a manner completely lacking any of Sakura's excitement.

"Next, Sasuke Uchiha!"

'Uchiha. So he's the pride and joy of the village. He's definitely going to prove useful.' Akira made a mental note to approach some other time.

Akira Crossed her legs as she eyed the next person. The same blond who crashed the class multiple times, wore a stubborn frown and moved his ears with ligaments Akira was sure he had inherited during birth. It was an interesting mutation though, Akira would have to give him that.

Iruka nods at Sasuke and looks at The trouble making child "Next, Naruto Uzumaki!"

A boy with similar hair as Iruka, standing next to Naruto, muttered "This is a total waste of time, Naruto.", while a girl with impractically long hair and a gaudy purple outfit confirmed his statement with a huffed out "We always pay for your mistakes".

"Like I care." Naruto declared and walked forward dramatically in all his four feet glory with his hands at ready for Iruka's signal.

Smoke promptly engulfs Naruto, and seconds later, he comes out of the smoke a naked woman. squatting just in the right angle to cover her vital organs from the front and behind.

Akira's jaw dropped and she burst out into a silent fit of laughter at the faces the preteen boys in the class made and the gags going all over the place. Iruka Sensei's eyes widened and his nose started bleeding, and he fell back down.

Naruto canceled the jutsu and laughed "Got ya! That's my 'Sexy Jutsu'!"

Iruka Sensei looked as if he was going to detonate and take the village with him to the afterlife. The only person who was subject to this detonation though, was the same blond who made him lose enough blood to appear pale through the crazy blushing fit he was having. "Cut it all the tricks! This is your last warning!"

That moment, Akira knew that even if Uzumaki Naruto was an utter screw-up, he was someone who could have ten seasons of a sitcom made off of his daily life and still have enough for more seasons.

The next day it was the final exam.

While everyone was celebrating their passing the graduation exam, Naruto sat dejectedly on a swing under a tree just in front of the Academy. He watched everyone run to, and hug their parents, and every once in a while, let out a sigh that might have seemed inconspicuous to him.

She was about to walk towards him but then she heard two girls of about nineteen talking.

"There, you see him?" The first girl said.

The second one said "It's that boy. I heard he's the only one who failed."

"Well it serves him right."

"Just imagine what'd happen if he became a Ninja. I mean he's the boy-"

"Shh! We can't talk about that."

Akira remained in a corner with narrowed eyes stitched to the boy on the swing. What was it that prompted those glares and the hate? It couldn't be that awful! Sure, Akira knew some people even younger than Naruto who had gone on a murder spree because of a trauma trigger, but Naruto was too ordinary to be even considered a danger by a Genin.

"Naruto, right?" She found herself sitting on the ground below the swing in no time. Curiosity getting the better of her.

"Yeah, what's it to you? If you wanna make fun of me like everyone else go on. I'm not stopping you."

"Why are you sitting here alone?" Akira rests her chin on her palm.

"I failed the final exam."

"Damn, that's tough. You wanna talk about it?"

"Why should I trust you?" Naruto squinted at Akira with a deep frown.

Her neck pulsed and for a second, she could almost make out a slit-like contraction of Naruto's light eyes. She smiled at Naruto, despite the tension and said "Would you like to be my friend?"

Naruto didn't budge "Why do you wanna be my friend?"

"Let's say a certain pink-head put in a good word for you." At that, Naruto lift his head and a little glint appeared in his previously empty eyes.

"Sakura-chan told you about me?!"

"The details included! Especially your little stunts with Iruka-san." She hadn't. Never. Ever. But she figured talking about a girl he would glance at every few minutes with a little blush,(everyone knew about his little crush but no one cared enough to entertain the drama) would make him a tad less guarded.

"Oh yeah! I knew she liked the paint prank, I mean...that was supposed to be my last prank as an academy student, but now..." Naruto buried his face in his hands and Akira didn't hesitate to take one of his hands and clasp it in her own grip.

"Giving up doesn't suit you fox-boy."

"eh...? Fox-boy?" Naruto raised a brow at the nickname.

"Yeah, Doesn't anyone call you that? I mean...I would expect it to be a common nickname for you." She traced the fine whiskers on the boy's cheeks and his chest movement stopped sharply "Isn't it?"

"I didn't-I-I never really noticed that before." Naruto stammered and pulled away from Akira in a deep blush. They didn't get to talk much longer, as a silver-haired man approached them from a short distance away and ran towards them — more specifically, towards Naruto.

The teacher — who Akira could faintly recognise from the clone graduation test as Mizuki-san —stopped with a little huff and spared only a fraction of a second observing the pinkette casually touching Naruto's cheek. A fraction later, he had put on a well-trained fake smile Akira could see through with little effort, and crouched down to eye level close enough for a whisper to reach the blond child.
"Naruto, let's talk."

Later that afternoon, Akira paid a visit to the local shinobi library.

A little lady with a distinctive, massive red Afro was sat on the other side of the reception desk picking at her neatly manicured nails. She wore eccentric clothes — a flannel shirt with cuffed sleeves and a graphic hand-painted shirt reading: 'If found, please return to the nearest pub.'

"Um, hi?"

The lady lift her gaze from the nails, gave a full-body appraisal to the preteen and stopped at the headband in her grip. She finally muttered out a flat welcome and turned back to picking at her nail.

"Can I go and-?"

"Yeah."

"Cool...cool. See ya?"

"No later than 9"

"Gotcha!" Akira leaned towards the entrance and pointed to the shelves with her thumb "I'll be...on my way then?"

She shuffled away awkwardly as the receptionist kept picking at her nails.

She finally arrived at the main hall. The local library may not have been as huge as the KLC (Konohagakure library and centre for learning for the disabled), but she still had to walk for quite a distance to reach the end of the shelves. That made her feel extremely thankful that she would have to walk only a fraction of that distance to reach her research material.

'Now...C for Clans...U for Uzumaki.'

In terms of sheer amount of material, the library was competent. In terms of organisation though?

Rubbish.

Akira had the immediate primal instinct to find the librarians and smash their skulls open for the mess they had allowed the general public to make of the place. For all dratted deities residing in manors of nudist angels, if they were a part of the forces, they should have had developed the basic good sense to clean up properly after themselves, but she suspected the lack of this instinct had something to do with unhealthy coping mechanisms and complex PTSD in the said forces.

She had been at the library for almost 6 hours since the graduation exams ended, and she had yet to find a single piece of information on the Uzumaki clan. Surely, even if the shelves were horribly organised, there would still be sparse books in the same section?

It was strange. From what she had heard from Aurora-Sensei, the Uzumaki clan was one of the founding clans of Konoha. Shouldn't the village have more information on them? It was as if they were purposely either scattering them beyond being found by anyone, or making the records of the extinct clan a rarity for the one persistent asshole (in this case her) with too much free time on hand who would actually search for the scatters.

Akira glanced at the clock on the wall showing 8:55 PM. Almost everyone who was there initially, had left a while ago. All except the librarian couple and the unsociable receptionist. Come to think of it, the Afro-woman did say she had to leave by 9, didn't she?

Just as Akira began to head for the door, an alarm was sounded. From where the windows were, Akira could make out a blue translucent barrier blocking off clear shapes on the outside. She tried casting a simple clone jutsu, but as she externalised the mix of chakra, it was directly fed to the barrier and it became almost opaque for a short moment.

"We're completely locked in." The young kunoichi sprinted towards the entrance to find the receptionist slouched across the entrance door.

"Do you know why we're locked in?"

"Standard procedure. Probably some criminal on the loose again." The woman huffs

"How long do you think-?"

"I'm not a fortune teller kid." She paused when she saw the pinkette's distraught face "But I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. Last time it took about 4 hours to find and capture the guy." She patted the floor next to her, and Akira didn't waste any time in taking the place.

"How old are you kid?"

"I just turned 11. How about you?"

"21 I guess. It's still a bit weird to say I'm 21. Still feel like I'm 16."

"Fabulous. I mean, at least you don't have to worry about your parents being worried you're not home."

The woman raises an eyebrow "That's what's got you so worried?"

Akira picked at her loose baby hair on her neck "I mean...yeah? I didn't tell them I was coming here. They can be a bit overprotective, but I always take some medicine wherever I go."

"You sick or what?"

"Genetic illness. But I'm fine as long as I...take these" Akira searched her bag for the pack of medicine Aurora-Sensei would send her from Kusa, but they didn't seem to be in her bag.

"Shit." the pinkette searched furiously without any concern for the language she was using in her muttering "I forgot to put them in my bag." Akira buried her head in her hands and dragged back her tight bun hard enough some more hair came loose.

"Hey. Don't worry, nothing's gonna happen." The Afro-haired woman rubbed her back and looked around for a distraction. After a few seconds, she took out a photo of her and a girl drinking boba tea.

"This is my girlfriend, Inori. We're getting married in a few months, and we've already talked about adopting from the Konoha orphanage."

"You two look cute together. I can totally see you married." Akira relaxed a bit at the woman ruffling her enormous Afro.

"It's weird, I know your girlfriend's name and your future plans, but not your name."

"Oh, right. I'm Ruri, your local friendly bookworm. Nice to meet you...?"

"Akira. Your local friendly kunoichi." Akira smiles at Ruri

"You were here for a while you know. I know today was the graduation exam, but why are you so hell-bent on training to exhaustion?"

"I wasn't training if I'm being totally honest with you." Akira pauses, contemplating whether she should tell Ruri she was looking for info on the Uzumaki clan "I was looking for a certain clan, but I can't seem to find anything on it."

"I'm a History major. Maybe I can help you with whatever you're looking for while we're here."

Akira looks around to check if anyone is near them "Do you know anything about the village's founding clans? I heard the Ichidaime's wife was a clan woman."

"Oh yeah, Mito Uzumaki. Deeply feared kunoichi — you wouldn't want to get on her bad side."

"Uzumaki?"

"You don't know anything about them? Don't they teach you about them at the academy?" Akira shook her head "Oh I guess...they didn't dwell too long on the Uzumaki to be honest, they were all wiped out a while ago and not many people have bothered to go to Uzushiogakure. Even for the sake of History."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Probably. There are definitely some traps left over from the village's defense line, but not many people to defend the rubbles. There aren't many Uzumaki left in the land of fire, at least those who aren't nomads."

"I mostly wanted to know if they had a certain kekkei-genkai. They seem like a mysteriously clan."

Ruri bites her lip "I don't remember anything significant on their kekkei-genkai and stuff, but what we mostly learned was that they were sealing masters. That's basically the reason for their wiper-out; Too much power. Intimidated masses directed an invasion that wiped them out overnight. I wouldn't blame them though. They were exceptionally strong, especially their Bijū sealing."

Akira mentally flinches at the mention of sealing Bijū. Somewhere in her mind, someone screamed something about the kyuubi invasion, and somewhere in the back of it, the whiskers on Naruto's face still bothered her. She still needed one last piece of information to be able to put this two and that two together.

"I see...but, did we have any other Uzumaki as Konoha citizens after Mito Uzumaki?"

"It's not very well-known with the youngest generation, but the Fourth's wife was an Uzumaki. She was pregnant with his child when the Kyuubi attacked, I was about your age when she let me touch her baby bump." Ruri bites her lip and chuckles at the memory, but instantly her eyes lose their spark "Shame that they all died that night. Uzumaki Kushina, the Yondaime and their unborn child. A lot of people were orphaned, but from what I've seen of the death records, there was a group of nomad Uzumaki visiting at the time. Probably Giving their blessings to Kushina and Yondaime-sama for their new member. But they all ended up dying when they were sealing the Kyuubi."

"Who did they seal it into?"

"We can't talk about that. It'll be a violation of the decree made by the Third after the attack." The Afro woman mumbles in a sarcastic tone "Most clan members can probably violate it as they please. But us civilians? Nah forget it. They'll probably throw me in some abandoned cell and torture the hell out of me 'till I'm dead."

"It's fine. I'm not asking you for that. Thanks a lot for everything, i really like learning about Konoha's history." Akira forced a polite smile and looked for a change of subject.

"So...I heard some country accent leaking out there. Eh?"

"Oh fuck me."

"Sorry I'm not legal yet."

"You know what?" Ruri slides onto the floor "Let the earth swallow me whole."

"I could help you with that if the barrier didn't mooch off my chakra."

At that Ruri points a lasting middle finger towards the roof.