A/N: Alright. Chapter... well, in a sense this is chapter one. More introduction and stuff.

Chapter 2.
Goldilocks

Her name was Kairi. It meant 'nautical mile' which was incredibly ironic considering that she lived in the middle of desert. Then again, her father was named Kaito(ocean-soar) and he wasn't originally from Suna so that could probably be forgiven…

Not.

It wasn't like Kairi was ashamed or embarrassed of her name it was just… It was ridiculous considering the circumstances. (Not to mention that one of the protagonists of Kingdom Hearts games had the same name.)

Kaito was a wonderful father. Had been. Now it was just Kairi and her mother who worked as a desk-shinobi for Kazekage-sama after her legs had been crippled on a mission. While using prosthetics and thus able to move around the village, she was now unable to take missions.

Oh, did you get confused?

It was the world of a manga called Naruto, that Kairi lived in now. In Sunagakure located in Kaze no Kuni. Previously she had been living on earth, in 'our world', where Naruto was just a story and Kairi was called Katie.

She liked doing card tricks and playing poker and divining from playing cards. Usually she started shuffling a deck whenever she needed to think or was otherwise bored. In the other words she always carried a deck or two with her and that fact didn't change in her new world either.

The girl didn't remember dying. She knew she had though. But it was alright. It didn't matter to her and honestly she was glad to live without having some sort of trauma at the background. At first she hadn't really remembered her previous life either. It was only when Kairi was five years old that things started to trickle back. Five was the age that she was enrolled to Suna's Shinobi School and the year her mother got crippled. It was the age she properly interacted with children around her physical age.

Her memories of her previous life were vague. Meaning that her personal memories were vague even if her personality and knowledge were intact. Kairi remembered things she'd read and learnt while she did not remember where she used to live or what her mother's name was. But it didn't matter. New life, new chance, et cetera…

It probably should've unnerved her. The clarity with which she remembered the characters and plot of Naruto. All the details from wikia-site and databooks. It was like she had an archive in her head in relation of this world.

"Just because I know a world, doesn't mean that I'm in the world." It wasn't the pure Kishimoto-Naruto world for Kairi. Nope. That was proven when she heard the story of her father's family. To think that she was related to Yondaime Hokage… But it didn't matter. Minato-jisan died in the Kyuubi attack. Kairi had been three at the time.

In the end a lot of things didn't matter.

Kairi went to the Shinobi School. She was on the same class with Kazekage's daughter Temari. She didn't interact with the proud girl. Instead, Kairi spent time on her own until graduating at eleven years old. She was talented in ninjutsu and under a jounin instructor, began learning Fuuton techniques.

On that year she met with her father's brother in Iwagakure, Arashi, and his daughter Reika and son Deidara who was the same age and Kairi. Later that year Kaito was killed during a mission. Even later that year Kairi participated in chuunin exams where none of her teammates got promoted.

In the following years Kairi went on missions and got stronger. She went to chuunin exams where both of her team mates were promoted on and then the genin that composed the makeshift teams later on. But never her.

It didn't matter. Kairi wanted to live. She didn't care if she remained genin forever as long as she got money to live and remained alive. Her village didn't value her and she knew it. Otherwise she probably could've gotten a field-promotion.

Then four years had passed on and the chuunin exams were in Konoha. Kairi decided that would be a good opportunity to see if there was any other differences between this world and the original one.

She found one. And that girl was making waves already.

She found Nara Shikako.

Kairi brushed her sun-bleached blonde hair and pulled it on a bun at the back of her head. It was sloppy and messy but also perfect in her humble opinion. She stuck two long hair sticks through it. They didn't serve a purpose to keep the bun intact but to be her emergency weapons. The two sticks, decorated with carvings of pine, plum and bush clover. The plants from Hanafuda cards for January, February and July. The birth months of Minato, Arashi and Kaito. Kairi herself was born in May. That was the month of iris.

Two locks reaching her collarbones tumbled down. Kairi huffed. For a reason or other they never agreed to stay in the bun even if they easily reached it.

The girl smoothed her sand-colored turtle-neck shirt and clipped a light armor-vest over it. It was very durable armor that was lighter than most and also quite form-fitting, making it easier to move with it. Nothing like those bulky chuunin-vests in any country. It had cost a lot but worth it. Kairi had been saving money for years for it so she could buy one when she was over her growth spurt. She wasn't as tall as she used to be but 163 cm was perfectly respectable height in this world for females.

Looking at herself in the mirror, the girl noted amusedly that what she was wearing was similar to what Minato-ji, Aburame Shibi and Akimichi Chouza wore in Naruto Shippuuden movie Lost Tower in in different color. It was a good movie though. And their outfits were good too.

Kairi attached her kunai holster on her right thigh over her fitting dark grey pants and secured her medium sized fan on her back. It was nowhere near as big as Temari's but assisted Kairi with her Fuuton just fine. Next to her fan, Kairi lifted her one-strap backpack on. It had just enough supplies for a couple of days of travel and a bit over a two week of stay in Konoha. If she even made it to the second phase.

Honestly, she didn't have much confidence in her current teammates. It was their second exams, having failed in the previous ones and then during the six months in-between lost their third teammate on a mission. So Kairi had been called in to substitute. The jounins and Yondaime Kazekage didn't believe she could get promoted anymore. But as she was free-floating between teams, they'd put her in the team roster again. And the other two… Frankly, Hara and Souseki were both idiots. Brutes, and idiots.

"Joy…"

Kairi ate the breakfast with her mother, Akane. It was a quiet affair, both of them enjoying the meal and each other's presence.

"Ready?" Akane asked, getting up and clearing the table.

"As always." The fifteen-year-old girl returned wryly. "Wish me luck."

"I will. Do your best. Maybe this time you get to the finals." The woman smiled, hopefully but sadly. "I know you could do it."

There wasn't much features that Kairi had inherited from her mother aside from her height. Her coloring, shape of eyes… It all came from her father, only emphasized by the similar conditions in life. Desert sun tanned them both to similar degree and bleached their naturally blonde hair even lighter. They had the same green eyes that shared the shape with other Namikaze brothers. Reika was the other one to have the same eyes but she got different shade of green from her mother. Arashi and Minato both had blue eyes, color that Naruto (and Deidara) had too even if the fox-boy got Uzumaki Kushina's face and eye shape.

Confusing? Maybe, but in the end it didn't matter. It was only within their family that any connections were made. Sandaime Tsuchikage might have known and remembered but as Yondaime Hokage was dead, he didn't care either. And Naruto's parentage was naturally a secret that only Kairi knew. Kaito knew there was a wife and a son but didn't know their names.

How did he know even that much?

Because the Namikaze family had a… 'magical' book. It recorded their family member according to chakra signature even if Kishi and Shizue had been civilians. Kairi didn't know how to book worked but she guessed it had some sort of link with seals to nature chakra through which it detected when a new person linked to the previous chakra signatures was born and when people's signatures died. And through the child was also a link to the spouse too. Or a lover. Then it was up to the family to fill the blanks in the book.

That book had been carried from Ishi by Kaito. He had wanted to have at least some sort of connection to his family even when he lost sight of them.

Through that book he saw when his mother died. When his father died. When his youngest brother died soon after his son was born. And of course when the son's mother died too. That's when he decided to get in contact with his remaining brother and his family.

And now Kairi had the book. She filled in the blanks and hid the book away. It was better if no one got their hands on it.

Kairi headed bid goodbye for her mother and headed for the village gates. She was nervous. Not about the exams but about the fact that she was about to travel four days with Suna's jinchuuriki Gaara in the same company.

She wasn't scared exactly. But she still knew the power he wielded and didn't wield. And she knew he saw her as nothing but an ant. Or even less. Expendable anyways just like the rest of the citizens of Suna.

And it wasn't only in the jinchuuriki's eyes. The grueling schooling in Suna had made sure that Kairi understood it. Suna was no Konoha that valued teamwork and the Will of Fire idealism passed down from the first Hokage and his successors.

In a way, Kairi wished that Suna was more like how Konoha was depicted. But in other way, she was glad that she didn't need to interact with canon characters. Besides, Suna's Shinobi School prepared for desert conditions, poisonous and venomous animals and plants, and survival in general in area where villages were few and far in between. Water they did have, running in underground rivers but other resources were sometimes hard to find. And with the Wind Daimyo and other nobles giving missions to Konoha, money was running low too. Thus aggression was directed towards Konoha and Kazekage was preparing for war. Kairi knew all that. She'd been debriefed when been given her current team. It probably should've flattered her that she was chosen to go and have a shot to get a slot in the tournament but really… She was just tired.

"It doesn't matter…" Kairi muttered when approaching the gates. "My sense of self-preservation is greater than my loyalty to the village. If needed, I'll run to Iwa. Arashi-ji and Reika-nee will surely welcome me."

"Ah, Kairi-chan, finally here!" A cheery voice said. It was her temporary jounin sensei Natsuhiko. Close-range specialist with wind affinity, deadly with any sharp weapon given to him. Well, being a shinobi and a jounin, deadly was given… But he was Kairi's favourite thus far. The team mates, not so much.

"What took so long?" Hara Jyari sneered at her. Kairi glared back coldly.

"It's seven in the morning on dot. I'm exactly on time, Hara." The girl replied.

"It's Hara-san for you, loser." The boy replied. He was shorter than Kairi and younger too. And more arrogant. And tried to make Kairi to feel inferior.

"Jyari-kun, please don't start now." Souseki spoke up. He wasn't as bad as Hara but annoying still. "I don't want to hear you babbling this early…"

Before Hara could snipe at either of them, the leader of their convoy – and the jounin-sensei of team 1 – Baki gathered their attention.

"Alright everybody! Like you all know, the sun is rising! We intend to cross the desert before it reaches the zenith!"

That mean approximately five hours before the sun became scorching. Thankfully the desert didn't start right at the border but several kilometers after(or before depending on where you were coming from). It meant pushing them all a bit but Kairi wasn't worried, she'd timed herself to get across the desert in three and half hours when augmenting herself with chakra and not having to worry about the desert sun. It was when she'd been coming back from a mission with Natsuhiko-sensei early in morning.

"Allowed to progress on your own speed but we will gather together at outpost five!" Baki continued. Everyone knew outpost five. It was the outpost everyone signed up at when coming from Hi no Kuni before starting to cross desert. In the case people in Suna didn't hear about you in a week after signing up, they sent a search party. Naturally foreign shinobi avoided it if they didn't have an escort mission. It was the same situation with outpost three at Kaze-Tsuchi border and outpost four near Ame. Outposts 1-2 and 6-onwards were for border guard. Those were the ones that were attacked during war times.

"Permission to proceed, sensei?" Kairi asked. Natsuhiko glanced at the two boys of their group before nodding.

"Permission granted. Hara-kun, Souseki-kun, you stick with me." The jounin said. He knew that the boys couldn't keep up with the girl. And it was good to give Kairi some space before the exams. She was aggravated enough with having to take it again.

"But sensei!" Hara protested immediately. "Why does she get to go on her own?"

"Because she knows her limits when crossing desert. I heard that you and Souseki-kun both almost passed out in the desert because you forgot to hydrate yourself. Makoto-kun had to carry you both to Suna. Feat which I'd like to remind you to have cost his life."

"I understand." Souseki nodded while Hara scoffed. It was clear that Souseki had cared for their previous third teammate much more than Hara had. Pity that Makoto had died. Kairi had heard that he had been a nice boy…

Not that it mattered anymore. Dead was dead and nothing was bringing them back. (Except Orochimaru but even that was only temporary.)

Kairi touched her bun and made sure her hair sticks were secured before breaking into a run. Cool and dry desert air was washing over her skin while the first rays of sun were slowly peeking over the horizon. It was a great day and she would not let anyone to ruin it for her.

A/N: Not sure when the third chapter comes. Maybe in a couple of days. I hope you liked this one though.

Replies to Reviews:

-The Real Chys Lattes:
Thank you. :)

-calcu22:
That's great to hear. :)
PS. It's 'intrigued'.