Hey guys! Yume here again. I'm out of school right now, so I thought I'd go ahead and spit out another chapter. Thanks to all of you who reviewed, and I'll respond to the signed reviewers at the end of this chapter. And before anyone asks, this is strictly NOT YAOI!! The pairings will eventually be NaruHina, SasuSaku, HakuOC (Still not sure on Haku yet ;).

I STILL don't own Naruto or it's characters, but I DO own Kazara Yume, Tsume, Hane, Kageryu, Same, and Urufu.

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A man with spiky blonde hair and clear blue eyes sprinted down the hospital hallway, clearly trying to get somewhere in a hurry. He burst open the door to a room, and was instantly at the bedside of a small, frail, woman with pale blonde hair.

"Natsumi-chan! Are you alright?" The Hokage asked her.

"Go… Gomen, Yume-kun… I… Can't stay and raise him… with you..." the woman struggled to say, her body covered in sweat, blood trickling from her mouth.

"What do you mean?" His voice held a note of fear. "Of course you're raising him with me. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you." One of the hospital orderlies approached him nervously.

"Hokage-sama… Your wife has lost too much blood during delivery… She's… Not going to make it sir…" Yume's eyes widened in shock.

"No… this can't be happening…" Ignoring all hospital rules, he took his dying wife in his arms. "You can't leave me, Natsumi-chan… I need you!" He made no attempt to hold back the tears which were coursing down his face.

"Yume-kun… promise me… that you will make him… a hero… Use him to-" The woman had to stop talking as a coughing fit overcame her. Once she had stopped coughing blood, she looked up at him with already foggy eyes. "Use him to… seal the demon fox… He'll be a hero…"

"I… I will, Natsumi-chan. I give you my word." And with that, Kazara Natsumi, wife of Kazara Yume, Yondime Hokage of Konoha, slipped from this world. At the same time, a blond-haired newborn baby boy started wailing in the maternity ward.

"AAAGH!!!" Uzumaki Naruto awoke with a start. Panting heavily, he quickly looked around his apartment. 'Nobody's here… I'm safe… It was just a dream.' As he stretched to get out of bed, footsteps rushed to his bedroom door.

"Naruto-san! What's wrong!?" Haku asked as he burst through the door. Naruto smiled as he saw the worried expression on his best friend's face.

"Nothing, Haku. I just had that stupid dream again." Naruto assured the boy as he prepared to get in the shower. "'Sides, it's nothin' a hot shower won't cure!" Giving his trademark foxy grin, Naruto ducked into the bathroom. "We'd better get to the academy as fast as we can after this. Iruka-sensei's gonna tell us who our Jounin senseis are today."

"Hai, Naruto-san." Haku smiled as he finished packing their lunches, his mind wandering back to the fateful day that they met each other.

FLASHBACK

Six-year-old Naruto was walking home from the academy. 'I can't believe I failed again… Why can't I even do the basics?' As he shuffled towards his home, he heard something new on the familiar road.

"Please, sir, could you spare some food? Even a little morsel?" asked a young boy, around Naruto's own age, who was chained to a fence with a collar around his neck.

"Don't touch me, you gutter trash!" the man replied, kicking the boy swiftly in the ribs. The man walked on, as if this happened every day. The boy dragged himself to a sitting position, and wiped the tears from his eyes. He kept trying everyone who passed him, but he could only go so far because of the collar.

"Hey!" Naruto greeted him as he walked up. "Why are you chained here?" The boy looked at him with a mixture of confusion and awe. "I don't know why you are, but here, you don't need to be." Naruto grabbed the collar around the boy's neck and started to try to break it. "Stupid… thing…" Naruto muttered as it wouldn't even budge.

"I've tried that…" The boy quietly said. Naruto let out something like a low growl, and the collar tore like wet tissue paper.

"There! That's better! Why don't you come stay with me for a little while? What's your name, anyway? You sure don't talk much. My name's Naruto, and I'm gonna be the next Hokage!"  The boy's eyes widened at his confidence.

"My name is Haku, Naruto-san. Thank you for saving me."

END FLASHBACK

Haku smiled. That was the first time anyone was nice to him. In return for his freedom, Haku had been following Naruto-san loyally since then. Naruto-san had told him that he didn't need to follow him like that, but Haku had insisted.

"OY! HAKU!? ANYONE HOME!!??" Naruto yelled, sending Haku's heart speeding in no time.

"Don't scare me like that, Naruto-san!" he said clutching his chest. "I made our Bento, and it's almost time to be there…"

"KYAAA!!! WE"RE GONNA BE LAATE!!!" Naruto yelled, grabbing a lunch and running out the door. "C'MON, HAKU!! WE GOTTA BE THERE!!!"

"Coming, Naruto-san!" Haku locked the door like always, and raced to catch up to his master. 'No, Haku. Friend. He doesn't want to be your master, he wants to be your friend.' The two quickly made it to the Ninja academy, and slid into their seats.

"G-Good morning, Na-Naruto-kun…" a shy voice from the seat next to Naruto said.

"Hinata-chan! G'morning!" Naruto said, wrapping his friend in a hug. Hinata's face went beet red, and she had to keep herself from fainting. 'He's hugging me… Naruto-kun's hugging me…' Once Naruto let go, he noticed her face.

"Hey Hinata, something wrong? You hot or something?"

"N-N-No, Naruto-k-k-kun…" she managed to get out.

"Okay then!" He said, and casually threw an arm around her shoulder. Hinata nearly swooned then and there, but she maintained her composure, and quickly noticed that voice in her head was back.

{You like that kid, huh? Little on the scrawny side, but…} the voice said. Hinata didn't know what the voice was, but she could tell it was a woman.

'Ano… I… Ano…'

{I'll take that as a yes.} the other voice said smugly.

'Just who are you, anyway?'

{Ya mean ya don't know!?} the other voice burst out laughing {She really doesn't know! This is priceless!}

"Oi, Hinata? You alright? You're holdin' your head. You got a headache?" Naruto asked her, concern in his blue eyes.

"Oh, n-n-no, Naruto-kun… It's not that…"

"Ask her, Naruto-san. Maybe she has them too!" Haku piped up from his seat opposite Naruto.

"H-Has what too?" Naruto looked around, and motioned her to come closer. Blushing, Hinata obliged.

"Hinata, promise you won't think we're crazy?" at Hinata's silent nod, Naruto continued. "Lately, Haku and I… well…" Naruto took a deep breath. "HakuandIhavebeenhearingvoicesinourheads!"

"You… have them too?" she asked, too surprised to be shy and blush, until she noticed her face was about six inches away from Naruto's.

{GO FOR IT, GIRL!!! HE'S YOURS!! TAKE 'IM!!} the voice in her head shouted.

'I COULDN'T DO THAT!!!' Hinata all but shrieked in her mind.

"I told you someone else was bound to have one too, Naruto-san." Haku said. "Mine's been getting out of control… It wants me to-"

"Wants you to what, Haku-kun?" Sakura asked as she took a seat beside him. "I bet the voice in your head isn't telling you to go buy thongs or other shameless things like that…"

"Nani!? You have one too, Sakura-chan!?" Naruto asked, almost falling out of his chair.

"Che. Who knew the dobe had one?" Sasuke asked from his seat behind Naruto.

"SASUKE!! I'M GONNA- did you say you had one too!?" Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Hai, dobe. I have one too. Mine's got a few good ideas though…" Sasuke said, getting a steely look in his eyes.

"Okay class, settle down…" Iruka said from his desk. "Due to the fact that half of the Jounin assigned to be your senseis are out on missions, you kids'll meet them tomorrow. As for now, get out of here before you break something." After the dust cloud made by students running through the door settled, Iruka looked up and was shocked to see five students still in class. "Hey, you kids alright?" he asked, walking up to them.

"Oh, is class over, Iruka-sensei?" Sakura asked. At his nod, the five children stood up and left as a group.

"Hey, Hinata-chan! Why don't we ask Hokage-sama!? He said I could always talk to him if I needed something! Let's go!" Without waiting for an answer, he ran straight for the building where the Hokage worked. The others exchanged a look of mutual confusion and followed him.

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There! That took awhile. Now, to answer those reviews…

RuByMoOn17: This soon enough?

Erik3: The way I think the fourth's seal works is it turns the demon into a large amount of raw energy. This is concentrated in the sealer's hand. He then seals the energy (and the demon along with it) into the inner coils system of a relatively newborn child. It's confusing… but please keep reading!

Metanaito: Domo arigato, tomodachi! I didn't think it was that good… ;

Anyway, a lot will be explained in the next chapter, so don't worry! Please R&R, as always!