Our Own House

"We built our own house, own house, with our hands over our hearts."


My name is Natsuki Senju, and I am a genin of Konoha.

How's that sound? Pretty amazing, right?

Of course, I was jumping the gun just a little bit. I wasn't a ninja just yet, but I could count the days on one hand now. Jin-sensei was administering the bi-annual graduation exam this week, and I planned on passing.

Since the war had started, they'd given my class three opportunities to take the exam. Those previous times had been different though. There was a distinction between an opportunity to take the exam and an opportunity to pass the exam.

Before, I didn't need Jin-sensei to tell me I wasn't ready to be a ninja. It had just been a fact. As reliable as the sun rising in the east, I hadn't been ready for the Konoha headband.

But the past few months had changed everything. I could use chakra now, and I'd picked up bojutsu training with Hiruzen. Hell, the entire class was pretty impressive during our regular sparring practices. The Academy teachers had been pushing all of us through an accelerated curriculum like drill sergeants for four years, and the results were starting to show.

The graduation exam finally seemed like an attainable, tangible thing for us to conquer. It was a beast that we were ready to fight with eager fists.

This wasn't a dream for the future anymore.

I could feel it in my bones. I was literally that close.

My name is Natsuki Senju, and I am a genin of Konoha.

The words tumbled through my mind constantly, like an obsession. I don't think I'd ever wanted something so badly before. Not in this life, and certainly not in the last one. Indeed, this was basically eight years in the making. I'd never had reason to dedicate myself so wholly towards a singular task before.

After all the blood, sweat, and tears, quite frankly, I felt I deserved to finally see some fruit for my labor. It was disheartening to work so hard, so often, and to never see any real consequence for it.

Not that my work was done of course. It was just getting started. But a girl get's restless.

I was ready to move on.

I think the feeling was pretty universal. Ever since the exam had been announced, it was all anybody could talk about. Asuma, Guy, Kurenai, Rin, Obito, all of them were overflowing with anxious excited energy.

Unlike me, most of them had attempted the exam before, so I figured their enthusiasm was a great sign. I'd seen the spoilers; they were going to graduate at the same time. While yeah, it was hard to guestimate the exact timeline of a subplot in a story I'd seen a lifetime ago with any confidence. The timing just felt right to me.

Of course, knowing they were likely going to pass also made me nervous. I was reasonably confident in myself, but… what if they passed and I didn't? Just because they all got their headbands together didn't guarantee that I would too.

I'd never live down the shame if Asuma graduated without me, and ever since I started having chakra issues, that'd been a very real possibility. Sure, things had seemingly gotten better, but what if? Staying on pace with him, with everyone, was everything.

I needed to do this, so that I could face what was coming.

When Asuma and I arrived at the Academy on the big day, the nerves were tumbling through my gut like a swarm of hornets.

Naturally, the entire classroom, which Jin-sensei had spent years taming, was in mayhem. The noise level was at record heights as kids bubbled with feverish suspense.

For once, Asuma actually seemed to be the calm one of the pair of us. He strolled through into the room like he owned the place. His shoulders were half-slumped and he was chewing a long piece of straw– a habit he'd picked up from Genma. We'd been talking about this all morning, but somehow, his confidence seemed to grow at pace with my anxiety.

"I've taken the exam before Nat, trust me. We're gonna be ninja tonight," he told me over our morning bowl of rice earlier.

I hoped with all my being that he was right.

"Morning Kurenai," I greeted as we slid into our usual spots for the day.

"Hi," she chirped back, looking happy to see us. She had been twirling a pencil absently around her fingers, but placed it quietly back onto the table now that we'd arrived. "You guys ready?" she asked.

"Nat's real nervous, but I'm super ready," Asuma answered for the both of us.

I shot him a miserable look, even as Kurenai's face flushed with sympathy.

"I'm nervous too," she said, voice low like it was a secret. "My dad helps write the exams, and he's been smiling at me all week. I don't know what he'll say if I fail."

"Tsk, like that means anything. It'll be fine," Asuma scoffed.

I raised an unimpressed eyebrow, because really, couldn't he at least try to have a little tact?

"It means he'll probably be really proud of you when you do pass Kurenai-chan," I said wearily.

She shot me a shaky half-hearted smile. I don't think that I really made her feel better, but she probably appreciated the sentiment.

"I'm sure I'll feel much better when it's over," she said.

You and me both, I thought, biting my lip.

Asuma leaned back lazily in his chair, tucking his arms behind his head. "You two are just a bunch of -" he started to say, before a boisterous voice cut him off. That was probably for the best. He didn't need to finish that sentence.

"Friends! I want to wish you all good luck on today's exam!"

Everyone's conversations paused for a split second, as people looked to see who was causing the commotion.

Of course, it was Guy.

He was standing on top of Jin-sensei's desk too, just for the extra dramatic effect.

"Like we need it," Kumade, who was sitting in the row just in front of me, mumbled underneath his breath. Thankfully, we were too far back for Guy to hear that, although it looked like Kumade wasn't the only one with an attitude. Several of the civilian kids seemed annoyed. Many of them, I knew, still thought Guy was trash for his lack of ninjutsu skills.

For kids who didn't grow up around ninja, ninjutsu was the essence of being a ninja. Sure, there was tai and genjutsu, but anybody could throw a punch. Maybe not a Tsunade-powered punch, but a punch all the same. Then genjutsu was more of a specialization than an essential technique.

I wondered how many of them would change their tunes when Guy passed the exam today. Hiruzen wasn't going to keep Guy in the Academy forever because of skills he would never be able to do.

"Good luck to you too Guy-kun," Shisui Uchiha shouted above the annoyed murmuring. He had a toothy grin twisted across his baby-face, and a devilishly earnest glint in his eye.

Guy looked pleased.

"That's just like them," Kurenai sighed next to me. "It's like they aren't nervous at all."

Asuma snorted, while I bobbed my head in agreement.

It really was just like them.

Shisui had become an unexpected character in our classroom. He could be very noisy when he wanted to be, but he wasn't quite like Guy or Obito, our other resident loud-mouths. People liked him, even the civilian kids, who usually gave clan kids the cold shoulder.

Kurenai and Rin probably would've invited him around more, except that Obito seemed to hate Shisui for no apparent reason. We'd asked him about it before, but he essentially refused to explain himself. "It's just something about that guy," he'd told us with a huff.

I'd never bothered pushing the issue beyond that. The name Uchiha still triggered my anxiety. Having Obito around was nerve-wracking enough without adding another walking skeleton to the mix.

Anyways, soon Jin-sensei walked into the room, holding the clipboard she only ever had when administering tests. The class quieted at the sight of her, and the atmosphere thickened.

"Ready to roll folks?" she asked cheerfully. We didn't bother gratifying that question with an answer. Of course, we were ready.

Two other chunin followed her in, each holding a stack of papers, and several other kids tailed behind them. Some of them were older, probably students who'd failed this several times over by now, while some of them were younger, taking the exam for the very first time. They slipped into the empty chairs throughout the classroom, filling the hall to capacity.

My heart beat heavy in my chest as the chunin passed out the papers. Holding the packet in my hands made this feel real. This was happening.

Asuma swung his foot into my shin under the table, making me lurch. I turned to glare at him, only to find a challenge lurking in his eyes.

Bet I'll get a better score than you, he seemed to say.

I stuck my tongue out at him, but steeled myself. No way was I going to fail this because I was too nervous. That would be worse than failing because of chakra problems or a lack of skill.

Jin-sensei spent another minute explaining the testing rules. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual don't cheat, you'll have an hour, complete silence the entire time, etc.

Then:

"You may begin!"

Fidgeting with my pencil, I took a deep breath and delved into the test, eyes drifting hurriedly over the details of the first question.

If a shinobi stands in a tree three meters tall, and the enemy stands on the ground four meters away, what angle would they need to throw a kunai in order to hit their target?

That was… that wasn't so bad.

No...

That was easy! Never mind that I'd once taken a calculus class in high school, we'd been doing kunai trajectory problems just like this for two years. It was a basic skill for shinobi, since we spent so much time throwing things.

I quickly calculated the answer, and moved onto the next problem.

A kunoichi is lost in the forest and has run out of supplies. There is a fresh-water river a mile to her east. What are the risks of drinking from the river? What should the kunoichi do before drinking the water?

I blinked. That wasn't any harder than the first question. It was a basic survival topic. If you didn't know to boil strange water or add purification tablets before drinking it, then odds were you'd get yourself sick the first time you left the village.

Actually, that seemed to be the whole point of the written exam.

None of the questions were challenging. They were just quizzing us, making sure that we knew all the bare minimum skills. It was a litmus test, to make sure that we weren't going to get ourselves killed by accident.

The test left me half-speechless. Not that I'd logically been expecting much trouble – books were my strong suit - but still. I was expecting to have to think at least a little bit.

In the end, not only did I finish the test quickly, I finished it first.

A feeling of readiness washed over me. If the test had been that easy, how bad could the rest be?

I waited patiently for the rest of my class to catch up. They didn't take too much longer than me. Ebisu handed his paper in only minutes later. Then one of the civilians, Mogusa, followed suit. When time was up, only four kids were still left writing, three boys and a girl. They looked small. I think all of them must've come up from the younger class, and probably hadn't received all of their basic battle theory, survival skills, and projectile calculation classes yet. This was probably just practice for them, like Kakashi's graduation test had been for Asuma and Kurenai.

Regardless, I doubted those four had any chance for a headband left after struggling with that test. They did expect near perfect scores from graduating students. If you messed up much of anything, they had the right to fail you. After all, one mistake on a battle field could cost you your life. The academy graduation exam had to be just as unforgiving as the real world.

Jin-sensei cleared her throat, ready to move on.

"Next up is the ninjutsu section," she said. "I'm going to need each of you to come up and demonstrate both the clone jutsu and the transformation jutsu for me. We'll go in order by last name, okay? That means Sayuri, you're up first."

A civilian girl I was familiar with from kunoichi class hopped up and nervously walked to the front.

"Transformation jutsu!" she shouted as she went through the standard hand signs.

With a poof, she morphed into what must've been Hiruzen. The Hokage garb was the only reason I'd ever have guessed her intent though. His nose was four times bigger than it should've been, and his skin was a borderline purple color.

Asuma couldn't hold in his snort.

The girl changed back into herself, looking like she might be sick, before pulling off a flawless clone jutsu.

I felt bad for her as she walked back to her seat, knowing that her run here was over. Guy was the exception to the rule. Nobody passed without a good clone and transformation jutsu.

They went on to cycle through the rest of the class. All of my friends did well with the test, while a few civilian kids miffed one jutsu or the other just like Sayuri did.

Interestingly enough, speaking of my favorite taijutsu partner, I noticed that they skipped Guy's name completely on the list. He must've worked something out with Jin-sensei so that they wouldn't be grading him on this portion of the exam. That or he told them to just fail him on this section ahead of time, maybe to prove a point about the virtue of taijutsu.

"Natsuki, you're up."

A knot twisted in my stomach when she called me up to the front of the classroom, and Asuma gave me a nudge as I got up from my seat.

This was my moment of truth. If I was going to mess something up it'd be this. Even now, after all the time I'd spent practicing the clone and transformation techniques, I was questioning it.

But Asuma had already done his two jutsu without problems. I needed to keep pace.

Come on Senju, I thought to myself, touching the crest on my sleeve and thinking of Tsunade and Nawaki. You have to make them proud.

"Transformation jutsu," I muttered dumping four times the normal amount of chakra into my veins. There was an audible crackling pop, and for a horrible moment, I thought I might've accidentally used more energy than I could control. When I opened my eyes though, I was standing taller than normal. White robes hung from my shoulders, and a brown beard itched my chin.

I was Hiruzen.

With a satisfied grin, I popped back to normal and went for the next one. With the added confidence of my transformation jutsu success, I churned more chakra in my stomach, swirling it around my body before pushing it outside to the spot beside me.

"Clone jutsu," I cried out, with unnecessary volume. Again, there was a popping sound from the excessive amount of chakra I was using, but next to me I saw my mirror image staring back. The weight immediately lifted from my chest.

"Good job Natsuki-chan," Jin-sensei nodded, looking a little smug herself. Pride swelled through me as I walked back to my seat.

We finished the rest of the practical ninjustu exam in short order, and soon we went outside for the taijutsu portion.

I won't bother you with those details though. I was on track to specialize in taijutsu at the moment. Between lessons with Hiruzen and after school training with Guy, the rest of the graduation exam was a breeze. I was more than capable of running the Academy obstacle course well within their baseline time limit.

When the exam wrapped, the class was buzzing. Kids whispered in hushed tones to their neighbors, double checking themselves and getting out all the post-exam jitters.

"What'd you get for number six?"

"Did you think my Hokage transformation was too tall?"

"I bet my mom will take me out to dinner later."

Jin-sensei filed us back into our classroom seats, scribbling on her clipboard the whole way there. They left us to converse there for a while, before carrying a long table in. It was filled with fresh-issue Konoha headbands. I counted 26 of them. That meant that about 10 or so must've failed. If you factored the kids in from the younger classes then that looked pretty good for my peers.

"I want the one in the front corner," Asuma whispered quietly to me.

I suppressed an amused smile.

"They all look the same to me," I replied. Any one of those headbands would make very very happy.

"Alright, that was a good run everyone," Jin-sensei said finally, when the administrative stuff was in order. "I want each and every one of you to know how much of an honor it's been teaching you. I'm sure that you'll all be a splendid ninja."

"Does that mean we all passed?" Obito interrupted her. A few kids chuckled, but a few more leaned closer. Had we? All passed, I mean.

"Settle down, I'm getting there," Jin-sensei's sighed. "When I call your name, please come down to claim your headband. No, not all of you passed. If your name is not called than please make your way to room 217 where you'll be reassigned to a new class, as this one will be dissolved after the results of this exam."

She raised an eyebrow, as if looking for questions. When there were none, she continued.

"Okay, first off... Date Ebisu!" We clapped as Ebisu stood up proudly, pushing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.

"Maito Guy!"

For once, Guy seemed at a loss for words. In fact, he looked like he might start crying as he hopped out of his seat. Good. I was happy for him.

"Nohara Rin!"

The list went on like that. Kumade passed, as well as Mogusa and a few more civilian kids. Guess I had to stop calling them civilians, actually. Assuming the best, then we were all ninja now, regardless of our lineage.

Before long, Jin-sensei reached the 'S' names. I held my breath.

"Asuma Sarutobi."

Asuma practically crushed my forearm in his hand before racing forward to the front to get his favored headband. Thankfully, nobody else had taken it yet.

Then,

"Natsuki Senju!"

My heart skipped a beat, and there it was. She had called my name. I had passed.

An involuntary squeal escaped my lips, and I leaped up from my chair. I passed Asuma on the way down, and caught him in an aggressive hug, throwing my entire weight at him. For once, he sheepishly hugged me back.

"Told you," he said quietly as I pulled away from him.

Jin-sensei winked as she passed me a shiny new headband, and I clutched it tightly in my fingers.

Wasting only a moment to stare at it, I turned the plate over and tied it to my right arm - the one opposite the Senju crest on my short haiori. I'd been daydreaming about this headband for quite a while, and had decided that I didn't want to wear it the traditional way on my forehead. It would've made my white bangs stick and there was no way that would've been flattering. With it tied to my arm, I had a symbol on each side to represent each part of my family. Tsunade and Nawaki, would be on my left shown through the Senju crest, and the Sarutobi's would be on my right, shown through the leaf symbol.

I felt balanced.

Up front, Jin-sensei was finishing her role call. In the end, it was just as I predicted- Genma, Obito, and Kurenai each received a headband, rounding out the group that I knew were supposed to be in Asuma's graduating class.

But there was another person that I'd missed. Shisui Uchiha was also called, just before Kurenai. I frowned as I watched him trot down the stairs to get his headband. I had assumed he would fail the exam today. He was younger than us, and he wasn't present in most of my memories.

Huh, go figure. Clearly, I'd been wrong.

"Alright everyone settle down," Jin-sensei called. My attention snapped back to my teacher, drifting away from the Naruto canonical math that I was trying to do in my head. There were more important things to be thinking about right now.


As it turns out, becoming a genin was not an efficient process. There was a ton of paperwork that had to be done before we could get to any of the fun stuff. When we were dismissed from class that day, Jin-sensei handed each of us a thick stack of forms to fill out overnight. They gave us an identification number, and we had to tell them our height, weight, jutsu preferences and the like.

It was the start of our official ninja profile that the higher ups had to keep on hand somewhere. Jin-sensei explained to us that we'd have to update the file as we learned new techniques, but Isamu later gave us the insider scoop. Apparently, you always wanted to withhold a reasonable amount of information from the official file. If there was an intel leak, I wouldn't want our enemies to know my entire arsenal, but at the same time, I wanted my file to justify good mission assignments.

Given that we were all still fresh-academy graduates, our files would be thin for a while regardless.

Then we had to schedule times to take our ID pictures and sign some liability release documents.

There was a graduation ceremony scheduled the next day as well, which was apparently new. Somebody had decided that in our post-war society, it'd boost village morale to have a formal celebration for us and our families.

The other kids were more excited for it than I was. In my mind, graduation was a family event, and my family wasn't really going to be there. Biwako was swamped running the hospital and Isamu was out of the village on an extended mission. That took most of the fun out of it. Of course, Hiruzen would be in attendance, but he'd be representing the village, not us.

It wasn't too big a deal though. Asuma and I could celebrate plenty well on our own. After class let out, we stuffed our blank paperwork away into a storage scroll and made a beeline for main street. Lunch was an extravaganza. We were two children with a handful of allowance money and no real supervision. Naturally, we stuffed ourselves.

It was brilliant, and at the same time, it left me feeling a bit shattered.

I felt strung-out from all the excitement and anticipation that'd been bouncing around in my chest the past few days, and I knew it wasn't completely over just yet.

Graduation came with its own new set of problems. The past few years everything had been about becoming a ninja, and now I was one - now what?

Who would be on my team? Who would be my sensei? What sort of havoc would my presence going to have on the order of the universe tomorrow during team assignments? I'd been avoiding most of those thoughts for quite a while, but I suppose now they were unavoidable.

It was on Asuma's mind too. Well, maybe not the order-of-the-universe bit, but the teammate part for sure.

After lunch, we wandered lethargically over to one of the parks we used to play in as toddlers. It was like silent reflex for us – to seek out such a nostalgic place of comfort in the face of so much change. We fell easily into a grassy spot near a bench, and stared up at the clouds with droopy eyes.

"I ate too much," I groaned, one hand falling on top of my stomach. He let out a hum of agreement, and we fell into an easy silence. We watched the butterflies flutter around, while a group of younger kids, maybe just barely of Academy age, dug a hole in a fit of giggles a few feet away.

I let my mind drift, thinking of everything and nothing all at once. The food-coma engulfed me. So much so, that I barely noticed that Asuma's mind was overworking itself.

A moment later, I found out why.

"I think they're gonna keep us together, Nat" Asuma said suddenly, breaking the peaceful silence.

"Huh?" I blinked, looking at him in surprise.

"You know, for team assignments," he said to me.

"Oh, you think so?" I nodded with a frown.

Of course, I'd thought of this before. Asuma and I spent an absurd amount of time together right now, and if we were separated, things would be different. We'd take different missions, and spend our time with different people. Just thinking about it made me feel like I was about to loose a limb.

I'm sure he felt the same. Actually, the fact that we hadn't spoken about this yet probably was a testament to how much we both disliked the idea.

"I want to be with you and Kurenai-chan," he said firmly. "But, I dunno. It just seems plain stupid not to put us together. Nobody's ever going to have better teamwork than you and me."

I paused, thinking about it for a moment.

"It'll probably just depend on what they think about us living together, you know. If they're worried putting us on the same team will make us spend too much time together, then they'd split us up," I commented. "Do they usually put other siblings together?"

"Hm, there's three Uchiha's in Isamu's year," he offered. "But I guess they're cousins?"

"Yeah," I nodded. My mind was doing cannon math again. I was pretty sure Asuma and Kurenai were on the same team in the story, but I wasn't sure. Actually, I really didn't know what any of the teams were, other than Obito, Rin, and Kakashi. Twenty-six people graduated - a number that wasn't divisible by three - which meant two kids were still going to end up with Kakashi.

I prayed that I didn't mess things up so bad that one of those two spots would be given to me.

"Well we'll still hang out no matter what, okay Nat? I don't want it to be like it is with Isamu," Asuma went on. He was being oddly nostalgic today.

I couldn't help myself. "What's wrong with Isamu?" I asked with a smirk.

His nose scrunched. "I mean, he's okay I guess, but we only ever see him between missions now. It's not the same. "

"You're my best friend Asuma – your bedroom is like three feet from mine. I don't think I could get away from you even if I tried," I said with a small smile. This wasn't a pleasant topic, but this was also out of our hands. We'd deal with different team assignments if we needed to.

He rolled his eyes and sent his fist flying into my shoulder. "You know what I mean," he said.

"Well seriously, I think that you'll at least end up with one of us. Either me or Kurenai," I replied, giving him a good push back. "There's like what, five kunoichi who passed? They'll want to spread us out, and you know it's Hiruzen-san who is in charge of the assignments. Say what you want about him, he knows you. He'll want somebody on your team who can handle your thick head."

"Well then he's going to put you on a team with either me or Guy, 'cause he'll want to keep you with somebody who can handle your stupid training schedule," Asuma grumbled back.

"Guy would definitely make it worse," I snorted.

He let out a huff that seemed to say: you're impossible, probably because he knew I was right. Then we fell back into our easy silence. The day was too nice, after all, to let the future get the best of us.


The graduation ceremony the next day was over quickly. We showed up, a bunch of proud wide-eyed kids, and we walked across the stage to receive paper certificates from Hiruzen, who was donned in his Hokage garb.

It wasn't without its drama - Obito somehow missed the entirety of the ceremony, but he had a reputation for tardiness. Beyond a few giggled whispers, the rest of the ceremony flew by without too much fanfare. The parents clapped politely for us as we each walked across the stage. Some of the civilian parents even hooted and hollered for their own newly-minted ninja children.

As for me, I got a subtle wink from Hiruzen as he handed me my certificate. It was a small gesture, but it made a happy warmth flood through me. I knew, intellectually, that Hiruzen was proud of both Asuma and I. Sometimes though, it was nice he did little things, just to remind us.

Once back in my seat, certificate in hand, the rest of the ceremony seemed to pass quickly. Hiruzen gave a brief speech at the end, about responsibility and youth. It was very typical of him, and not unlike the parental lectures he would give us around the house if he were home and we were misbehaving.

Then, finally, they ushered us back into our classroom, where Jin-sensei was waiting with her official clipboard.

"Okay, I know your families are all waiting for you kids outside, so I'll be quick. For those of you who don't already know, you're about to be assigned to genin teams of three. You will be working with the group you're given for a long time, probably until you're all chunin, assuming nothing goes wrong. So I recommend you at least try and be happy with your assignment. You won't be getting another one," she looked at us, almost like she was daring somebody to protest. I wondered if she was expecting us to complain about our pending team assignments. Given the crowd, it wouldn't surprise me.

"Once you've been given your team, you're free to leave. You will need to return to this room at 10 o'clock tomorrow where you'll be picked up by your jonin instructors. Then you'll start your official genin duties. Any questions?"

There were none. My heart was starting to beat pretty quickly in my chest now as I waited impatiently for her to get on with it. The possibilities were all over the place, and Asuma's words were ringing fresh in my ears. If they don't put us on the same team... I forced the thought out of my mind and tapped my foot on the ground nervously.

"Alright, moving along then, we'll start with Team One - Mosuga, Kumade, and Kurenai."

I swallowed, eyes flickering over to Kurenai involuntarily. She had a tentative smile on her lips as she looked over to her two new genin teammates. Mogusa was one of the top civilian students in our class, albiet kind of shy and soft-hearted. Kurenai would get along swimmingly with him. But Kumade, he was kind of a hot head. I didn't like him much. He was always making rude comments under his breath – usually targeted towards one of my friends. Kurenai would definitely have her hands full with him.

Of course, the personal consequences of this grouping didn't miss me either - if Kurenai was with those two that meant she wasn't with Asuma and me.

I was almost too relieved to be bitter. Almost. Selfishly, if they were only putting one kunoichi per team, than my chances of sticking with Asuma just got better. At the same time though, I had been secretly hoping that the stars would align and Asuma, Kurenai, and I would be together like the class dream team.

"Team Two - Ebisu, Genma, and Guy."

I didn't have time to process what she said before Guy was leaping to his feet. "Thank you Jin-sensei, we will make a splendid team!" he shouted with a grin. In the first row Ebisu was groaning, while Genma was wearing an amused smirk. I had to chuckle, looking at the three of them - in my heart, I knew this was meant to me. Their team would be a little dysfunctional, I'm sure, but they would balance each other out between Genma's level headed-ness, Ebisu's stiff demeanor and Guy's crazy enthusiasm.

"Uh, Team Three is a bit of an anomaly, because of the odd number of students we have graduating. Rin, you and Obito will be joining an existing team that has spots to fill. Your third teammate will be Kakashi Hatake, if you remember him," Jin-sensei explained.

I let out an audible sigh of relief, as one of my larger worries was lifted. Rin seemed happy enough to be on a team with Obito, and unfazed by the presence of Kakashi. That was perfect. Their destinies were separate from mine now. As terrible as that was, I was happy with things remaining like that.

"I remember him Sensei," Rin chimed in.

"Good, can you please find Obito later and tell him?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good, next is Team Four," Jin-sensei continued. "That'll be Asuma..." my breath hitched..."Natsuki and..." I felt elation running through me as she flipped the paper on her clipboard. Once again, I seemed to have been worrying for naught. This was everything I could have hoped for. I was with Asuma, far away from Obito, Kakashi and Rin. Off to save my world on-

"And Shisui."

My excitement stuttered as I glanced over towards the littlest Uchiha, eyes wide.

An image of him flashed across my mind – all bloody tear drops and tragedy. This was most decidedly not part of the plan.

"We're together!" Asuma squeezed my arm, sounding happy. I shot him an almost robotic smile, knowing it probably wasn't as genuine as it should be.

Well shit. What do I do now?


Arc Title and Chapter Quote from song Our Own House by The MisterWives


A/N

Remember when I said updates would be more frequent since I was on break? Apparently not. I've been super busy with my new job. But I'm still going. I know a lot of people have been asking questions about Shisui and how he fits into this - well now you know. They're on the same genin team, so from this chapter forward, he's about to become very important.

A quick run down on ages - Asuma is 9 (birthday in October), Natsuki is 8 (birthday in March), Shisui is 7 (birthday in April). This chapter happens during the last week of October.

Also, starting from this chapter, we're going to see a shift in how I've been writing. For the most part, the beginning of this story has been snippits from different chunks of her life. There's been about a 9 month jump from chapter to chapter (give or take some time depending on which two you're looking at of course). From now on though, this will be a continuous story. If I decide to do another time skip, it won't be for a while.

As always, thank you to those who left reviews, feel free to leave another ;)

In the next chapter you'll be introduced to her sensei. Any guesses on who it will be?

Until next time!

Aule