A/N Good Mooorning

Have a Fox Attack, on me, my treat

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V had woken before the roar, shaken by the mass of chakra and malice rising in the village. Riddle burst into her room soon after, ordering her dressed and equipped.

Riddle bore a strange Mask, and handed her a smaller version. He then granted her a new wand. A Powerful Wand. She hadn't time to admire its craft before Riddle rushed out into the fight. Riddle would later erase her memory of the masks features, and the wands design.

Riddle threw impossible magicks at the creature though many bounced straight off. He finally landed a Mass of vine-like chains that pulled the beast to the ground, working in tandem with the Third hokage who used his summons to bat at the demon.

V rushed around the village, rescuing villagers and shinobi, providing quick medical attention when called for. She threw the odd spell towards the large fox as she ran. She refused to allow it to wipe out her village.

One such odd spell came back to bite her, as a powerful itching hex resulted in a powerful tail swipe accidentally throwing V far off. She landed in the nearby forests, unaware of how distant she was because she still heard battle. Healing her wounds simply and efficiently, she followed up with a potion Riddle had provided. After swallowing the mixture she felt re-energized and stormed towards the sounds of fighting.

She froze as she recognized her Hokage, Lord Minato Namikaze, battling an unknown ninja. Steeling her resolve, she threw a spell towards the shinobj, catching him off guard as his sandals burst under his feet into crawling vines.

He glared towards her but it was clear fighting the Fourth took all of his attention. V stood amazed as the Fourth used a wind technique on the man; but it and the Lord Hokage flew straight through the unknown enemy. V's vines however, kept growing up his form and startled him as they did. He blew fire over himself with a handsign and allowed the fire to flow towards Minato as well.

Sensing a tougher fight than anticipated, the ninja made a mocking statement of Konoha and claimed to be Madara Uchiha.. a name that chilled V to the core.

Minato responded with a a Kunai that the enemy shinobi avoided by disappearing completely.

Minato then smiled brightly at V, causing a blush under her mask. He ordered her back to the village, knowing she was of Konoha due to her mask, and disappeared in a flash.

By the time V made it back to the village, the beast was all but subdued. Hit from all sides by constant streams of Jutsu, held down by endless chains of various materials, the beast could do nothing. V got back to work helping the people of the village.

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"The spell will require one soul. It's not pretty but its the only thing I can think of. Your seal would leave both You and Her dead."

"I understand. Take mine, please. Kushina will do fine raising Naruto. My legacy and reputation will secure them many friends."

"No, Minato. You are too important to the Village. There is noone else who can carry the vision you do. Use my soul Shika."

"Hiruzen No! This i-" Minato was cut off by a flash of red light.

Shika agreed with Hiruzen's reasonings. Casting the spell, Hiruzen felt honored to give his life protecting his village. Even more honored giving his life in stead of the Fourth's life. Minato was the right man for Konoha.

Shika steeled his resolve before striking Hiruzen with the spell. Hiruzen yelled in agony as his soul was ripped from his body. His personal soul left for the heaven. His soul chakra fueled this spell. Pulling on the Nine-Tails' chakra, Shika forced each and every drop of the being into the rune on the babies stomach. The baby cried out as it felt the pressure inside.

Kushina awoke to the sound but knew if she stopped it now her son would die. She could only hope his body was strong enough to withstand the malice and power.

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November

All of Konoha stood in the streets sourounding the Hokage Tower, in mourning. A monument to those killed by the Kyubi's attack. In the center of this Monument, the name of the Lord Third, who gave his life to seal the demon fox.

In the weeks since the attack, Konoha went into overdrive. Many of Konoha's ninja were given missions above their pay grade, many benefits were temporarily cut, and many shinobi took pay cuts to help provide money for the repairs. They were on track to reinstate those benefits within a year when an Incredible anonymous donation sped this timeline up to three months.

Many civilians and shinobi told tales of a yound girl running around healing and helping, but V ignored all calls to be identified. Riddle had ordered her actions to remain anonymous. Not that she cared for the attention anyway.

Unfortunately for her schooling, the ninja academy had been destroyed. The new facility was being built but the council took time to update its blueprints for a more modern design. She would have to be homeschooled. Her advancement next year was changed to put her in Year 4, second to final year. She assumed Itachi had the same change but couldnt be sure as she hadn't spoken with him since the day before the attack.

She had heard the Uchiha lost several family members whose names were now etched onto the monument. Viviel wished she could be there to comfort her friend. Riddle had given her a day to rest and study before amping up her training.

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She threw kunai with her left hand, spells with her right, and launched senbon with chakra infused spitting. The practice wasn't elegant but she could admit the results spoke for themselves. Targets littered the floorspace making the floor dangerous to walk on, but she still stepped through the empty spots carrying momentum during her onslaught of attacks.

Riddle finally halted the targets after several minutes. He then began to clap.

"Truly well done V. Marvelous."

"..Thank you, Riddle-Sama."

For some reason after V said this his eyes grew cold again.

"Back to your room. Tomorrow we begin Runes and Seals. There are new books on your shelf, use them."

He disapearred from the room in a way oddly similar to the manner Minato had on the night of the attack. Ignoring the coincidence, V went back to her room and began reading her new tomes.

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Runes were very interesting. Each one had a special purpose that changed uses with each additional rune in the array. Some runes couldn't stack on ways others could; some had few array interactions and others had thousands of configurations.

Seals were much stricter, and didn't allow for much interaction that didnt explode in your face. The things a single seal could do would require hundreds of runes to accomplish.

Runes and Seals didn't really interact with eachother if at all. You could make great use of them both in conjuction, such as using runes to make a storage sealed scroll indestructible.

V decided she would have to show Itachi these runes; She knew he'd love them.

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By January of the following year, the new Sarutobi Shinobi Academy was built. It featured better pathing, larger classrooms, more staffroom, and a feature everyone on the council had asked for; Escape routes.

V was ecstatic to be going back and practically chatted poor Inkys ear off. V waa most looking forward to seeing her friend, Itachi. V had a perfect plan to show Itachi runes.

She couldn't take the books from her room, so she instead copied them word for word on conjured paper. The conjured paper was fueled by her magic but she had plenty magic for keeping the papers around long enough. To sneak them out she sealed the copied books into her arm, under the bandages. For good measure, she carved runes into her arm to make the seal less noticable.

Riddle-Sama hadn't shown her much in the means of runes, but it didnt really matter. The books held everything V needed to know. She hoped to one day research them with Minato, as she had been taught about his seal expertise.

This did not mean Riddle-Sama had eased up the training. The targets got harder and harder to hit, and just recently, became both human size and human shaped. The bright red center circles became the lethal spots to hit. New blue spots became paralyzing spots for senbon. Magic could hit anywhere, but Riddle-Sama coached her to aim for non-lethal areas for spells, as shinobi were less likely to effectively dodge attacks aimed there.

Her tri-attack technique had faltered at first against the more intricate targets. Now V had it mastered. In a room full of 15 people, she could clear it with lethal force in under a minute. Provided those targets didnt fight back of course.

That musing brough V and Riddle-Sama to the next hurdle of training. V needed Animate targets. When she first requested this months ago, she was shut down hard. Yesterday, that answer changed.

"I'm leaving tonight V. I have many things to do outside the village. I expect you to keep training. When the academy opens, go. Ask Inky for your food. When I return I shall bring Animate Targets."

So here she was. Practicing, and waiting.

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A dark haired chunin strolled through the streets on patrol, Dango stick hanging from her mouth. She stopped short of an odd house she hadn't taken notice of before. The walls were a bleak grey, and its roof steepled in an odd manner. She attempted to read the address but it just confused her. She then remembered she had some laundry to do. Patrol forgotten, she walked home, also forgetting the strange house.

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A/N Thank you for reading. Riddle is gone for an indeterminate amount of time, as im still deciding how long i want him out for. Its easy to use basic characters as crutches so i wanted to ay around with the other characters for a bit.

next chapter V will be back to school, 4th year of Ninja Academy