Author's notes: Forged in Fire explains what happened to Sakumo and why his mission was tied to Kushina. Just in case anyone's curious. While there is no cannibalism in that story, there is decapitation. So, uh, nothing unusual for me!

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

Tsunade returned first - a deadly whirlwind that glittered gold beneath the moonlight. She paused long enough at Tsume's rock to congratulate her. "Good girl. Hatake's infection had gone septic. Were it not for your early warning, Hatake would've died from the blood poisoning. I stabilized him for further transport, but now I need to get to the hospital for supplies and surgery."

An unconscious Hatake Sakumo was next, carried on the back of someone Tsume didn't recognize, but smelled like he was sexually intimate with Tsunade. The unknown man didn't say anything to Tsume, didn't even pause – but Tsume thought he smiled at her as he sped by.

Last to arrive was a small bunch of bedraggled refugees from Uzushio that Jiraiya led in place of the now-missing Sakumo. Most of them were quiet and subdued as ANBU collected demographics from them, except for a redheaded girl a little younger than Tsume, whose scent was quite familiar. She identified herself as Uzumaki Kushina, and Kushina had a lot more energy than anyone should who escaped a war-torn island and traveled nearly nonstop for the last week to Konoha. (Tsume remembered Kushina by appearance and scent from the Academy, if not by name - she envied the long, smooth, glorious red hair from a distance.)

"Settle down kid, this won't take long," one of the ANBU told her impatiently.

Kushina fidgeted in line. "But I've been here before – I'm even enrolled in the Academy. You should already have my information – Sakumo-senpai is going to be all right, isn't he?"

"Go sit with Inuzuka Tsume and Hatake Kakashi," Jiraiya finally told Kushina with exasperation, pointing her to Tsume's stone.

Tsume knew she wouldn't be able to kick Jiraiya's shin from here, but maybe if she aimed a pebble just right… Kushina obeyed begrudgingly. She walked with a limp, but that didn't stop her from throwing herself down beside Tsume with more force than was warranted. Kushina smelled primarily of herself (something that reminded Tsume of sun-warmed soil and fishcakes), Whirlpool, anger, grief, guilt, hunger, fire, and pickled herring. It was a weird combination.

"Here." Tsume offered Kushina some of the jerky she kept stashed in the diaper bag for a snack. She wished she had a butterscotch cookies to offer.

Kushina studied Tsume's offering as if she expected that it would bite her, and then pinched it between two fingers. "Why are you feeding me?" She had a husky voice that Tsume thought sounded really nice.

"You're hungry, aren't you? Don't worry – I feed Kakashi here when he gets hungry." Tsume basked momentarily in a glow of pride as she patted Kakashi.

Kushina reluctantly sniffed the jerky. "Except he's a baby – you kinda have to feed them, believe it." She seemed to shrink into herself with grief, and bit viciously into the jerky. "I had a younger brother. We buried him in the sea." After she had eaten all the jerky, she drank from the water jug that Tsume offered. By now, Jiraiya was calling Kushina over for her turn with the ANBU. "Is that – is that Sakumo-senpai's baby?" Kushina asked as she stood.

"Yeah."

"He – he was really excited to tell me about the son or daughter that he expected to meet at home. If it hadn't been for me – if I hadn't been so stupid, maybe he wouldn't be hurt…"

"Now, Kushina."

She left without saying another word, although the backward glance she sent Tsume held a potential of friendship.

Tsume spent the night, huddling with Korumaru and Kakashi for warmth, beside the rock; it was a change from her usual bed of hay.

oOoOoOo

The next morning, Tsume was determined to visit Sakumo-senpai (that sounded better in her mind than "Kakashi's dad"). The nurse at the front desk wouldn't tell her anything regarding which room he was at or even his current condition. "That is confidential given his rank, and you are too young for visiting, anyway."

But Tsume was a ninja, albeit in training, which meant she had an arsenal of interrogation tools and techniques at her disposal. Widening her eyes and making her lower lip tremble, Tsume said with just a teeny, tiny whimper, "Can I at least have his room number to send a congratulations, you're a new dad and get well soon card? See, this is his son! Kakashi was born when Sakumo-senpai was on his mission, so he hasn't met him yet. I thought really good news like that would help him recover faster."

Kakashi took to interrogation with aplomb. He wiggled a little and cooed, and looked as cute as newborns normally do when they weren't sloppy, squished, and wrinkled after the whole passing through a vagina thing. In fact, Kakashi looked very angelic, with his soft, fuzzy silver hair and sweetly curved lips.

Kakashi, combined with the sight of Tsume's perfected Puppy Eyes no Jutsu, melted the nurse's heart. "Oh, that's so sweet of you! Well, I don't see any harm to it if you're just going to send a card. Address it to room 311A."

Tsume smiled and thanked the nurse profusely before wandering off to find a bathroom "to change Kakashi's diaper." She observed the waiting area – saw a large potted yucca plant in the corner that must've been imported from the Wind Country, different toys for waiting families, and couple of magazines possibly from the time of the First Hokage. She pretended to get lost in one of the first-floor hallways to get a lay of how the rooms were numbered. Despite being caught, reprimanded severely, and then frog-marched out of the building by a stern-faced medic, Tsume felt she had done remarkably well with her reconnaissance.

Kuromaru met with her outside, and he forgot his sulk over being left behind the moment he saw her. She loved on him for a little while, and then they set out to inspect the parameters of the building. "Remember," she told Kuromaru in a loud whisper, "we're supposed to be sneaky, like ninjas." He barked softly in agreement.

Jiraiya effortlessly caught her trying to sneak through the open window in the second story men's bathroom.

"Hey there. Uh… just what are you doing?" He leaned out of the window, his expression amused. Tsume dangled by one hand from the windowsill – her tree-walking exercises had served her well enough in scaling the wall, until her feet lost their grip. Her other arm supported Kakashi, who was secured within her shirt, while the diaper bag hung from around her neck. The pressure of the depleted diaper bag made it hard to breathe, and she hoped that she wouldn't accidentally hang herself.

"Ummm… playing ninja?"

"You sure you weren't such trying to take a peek at the goings-on in a men's bathroom?" Jiraiya flashed her a congratulatory thumbs-up. "We'll make a prime peeper out of you yet."

"What? Ew, no! I'm not a perv like you!" She could feel her fingers going numb, and she scrambled with her feet. "Besides, the woman's bathroom didn't have an open window – I already checked. I'm just trying to get in to see Sakumo-senpai, is all." Her fingers slipped. Tsume swallowed her scream as she fell backwards, and braced herself for a painful landing.

Jiraiya caught her at the bottom, and he wasn't even breathing hard. He set her down and brushed her coat off. "You're better off sneaking in at night. Besides, Sakumo probably isn't even awake yet after his surgery."

"I know he's in 311A."

"Do you, now. I thought that his room number was supposed to be kept confidential given his rank and the enemies he made so far this war."

Tsume tried to sound mysterious and all-knowing. "I have my ways of gathering information."

"Ah. The nose knows, right?"

Well, that hadn't been it, but it was as good as any explanation, so she winked. "Right." The hospital stank of death, infection, antiseptic, pain, loss, terror, and so many other overwhelming odors, so it wasn't a place she liked to sharpen her senses in. She minimized her olfaction to the same level as Kuromaru's, which made it difficult to pick out exact details of Sakumo-senpai.

"Well, good luck with that, though I recommend that you hold off your infiltration until night – a lot less people around at that time, especially when it's hard to find good hiding places in hospitals. Now, I've got some things I have to do." Instead of leaving immediately, Jiraiya poked at her diaper bag. It was disturbingly light and mostly empty by now. He noticed the way her face fell when she thought once more of how little she had left for Kakashi. Then, in a loud whisper, he added, "The Labor and Delivery ward with all the newborn supplies is on the south end of the hospital's third floor."

Oh, that was good to know! She smiled at Jiraiya, and then threw her arms around him in a hug. "Thank you!" she said. He patted her back. Since she couldn't hide in a secret place if people came, then she was going to have to hide out in the open. Which meant she'd have to practice disguising herself as something that no one would look to closely at. "Come on, Kuromaru. We've got work to do."

oOoOoOo

Hey – diapers! Ooooh, more formula! A special sort of nipple designed for high palates? "Jackpot!"

Tsume was feeling very ninja (and that all her extra work over the last four days, sneaking around town and ambushing the Uchiha Police with Kuromaru and Kakashi, had prepared her well) as she and her two mini-cohorts-in-crime quietly raided the supply room in the Labor & Delivery department in the hospital. Well, she did the raiding; her cohorts stayed quiet. She kept her nose open for any approaching persons as she restocked the diaper bag, but not too open. Then she had to return a few things when she realized that the diaper bag was far too heavy to carry and probably wouldn't even fit through the doorway anyway.

Wait – was that a sling? You could carry babies in a sling? Tsume studied the directions for the contraption's package, found them to be too complicated to understand, but stuffed it into the bag anyway. She was more of a hands-on learner, and she really liked the idea of being able to carry Kakashi but keep her hands free without stuffing him down her shirt. Sakumo-senpai would appreciate it too, she felt, since she had seen how his arm had been bound tight when Tsunade-hime's lover brought him into the village.

She exited after that with the diaper bag hanging heavily off her shoulder, Kakashi quietly awake with wide eyes watching her from the crook of her elbow, and Kuromaru following at her heels.

When she rounded the corner at the far end of the hall, she said, "People are going to start asking questions when they notice an old creep like you stalking someone cute and innocent like me." She didn't even look at Danzo as he leaned against the wall, one knee raised with the foot pressed flat against the wall and his arms crossed.

"There's nothing cute and innocent about someone who's stealing hospital supplies," he replied, falling in step behind her. She felt really uncomfortable with him at her back, but he didn't smell like he was going to attack her. And since he wasn't raising the alarm or stopping her, then clearly he was giving her covert permission to carry on, right?

"I'm not stealing! I'm just collecting before payment exchanges hands. I made a list, and I'm going to give it to Sakumo-senpai's nurse so they can charge his account. And I wouldn't have done it if people didn't ignore me. Or kick me out of the supply room at the compound." Or just stalked her without being helpful, she added silently.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"They wouldn't let me come in during visiting hours. The stupid nurses said that Kakashi and I didn't have the proper clearance level." Besides, bed was a pile of straw and Nagumi, which wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep. Or a rock beside the northeast gate, where she had been nudged awake at dawn by the changing shift of ANBU.

"And yet here you are."

"I figured that if I was old enough to sneak into the hospital through a window in the men's bathroom, then I was old enough to visit Sakumo-senpai. Someone should check on those windows, you know, 'cause that means other people can come through them. I don't know if anyone's told Sakumo-senpai about Kakashi yet, and I just ran out of formula before I got here, and Tsunade-hime said that he needed to be fed more."

"What if Sakumo's not awake?"

Tsume didn't answer. She froze at the swift approach of a night staff, and then hurried pressed herself up against the wall. She raised a finger to her lips to Danzo before henging herself, Kakashi, and the diaper bag into a remarkably accurate-looking large potted yucca. Kuromaru crouched out of sight behind the pot. The staffsperson was a janitor with a mop slung over his shoulder. The janitor paused long enough to eye the yucca plant, before deciding that its odd displacement was less important than getting away from the dark, dangerous expression on Danzo's face.

Once the janitor was out of hearing range, Tsume released the henge. "That was close," she told Kakashi with a nudge of her nose against his. Kakashi gave her an open-mouthed smile.

"Interesting," Danzo said.

"Kakashi? Well, I had been thinking of making him into a diversion." Tsume originally thought of leaving Kakashi in the middle of the hallway as a diversion while she hid at the first sound of approach. When the approaching person bent to pick Kakashi up off the floor, she would've bopped them on the head with a broom, and stowed their unconscious body in a closet. Then she realized that there were probably a lot of people she'd have to bop on the head before finally getting to Sakumo-senpai's room, and she had no idea if there was enough closet space. That, and she really didn't like the idea of leaving Kakashi on the floor. She knew exactly what had been on the floor.

Tsume was very proud of herself for rejecting this plan. It meant she had the cognitive awareness to think through her stupidity!

"That you could henge him too."

"Oh, that's easy. His chakra's really developed, and he carries his own load when we henge."

The smell of surprise from Danzo was strong and not at all what she expected. "…what?"

"Well, Kakashi's not henging. I'm doing it for him with the right nudge, but he provides the chakra himself."

The smell of surprise grew. "He's a baby." She glanced at Danzo; if the expression in his eyes and the gape of his mouth was anything to go by, apparently babies being able to help with henge weren't normal.

(What was normal, anyway?)

"He's going to be a talented puppy," Tsume said proudly, as if this was something she came across every day, no problem. She had actually been surprised herself. They had practiced in the afternoon once she realized the whole bop-the-heads-and-stow-in-a-closet plan was a wash up. She practiced henge with the diaper bag and Kakashi because who looks twice at yucca plants anyway, and was surprised to find that when she triggered the henge, Kakashi seemed to push his chakra outward. Then he had smiled at her for the very first time she had ever known him, as if amused by her shocked expression.

It was just like with the regular clan ninken puppies, she had realized, who contributed their own chakra when the Inuzuka mistress henged or bunshined them. Tsume wasn't too sure about how the whole process worked out – it probably involved way too much complicated math and calculations.

Two more henges as yucca plants later due to approaching night staff, Sakumo found them.

"I thought…" He leaned rather heavily against the wall as feverish sweat dotted his forehead and plastered his white hair to his head; blood stained through his bound arm. He also looked ghastly white. "I thought an Inuzuka was around."

At last – the end of her long mission was at hand. Tsume held Kakashi out. "Hi, I'm Tsume, Hidarime-chan's younger sister, and this is your son, Kakashi. He's yours now."

Danzo caught Sakumo as he passed out.

"Gosh! You think maybe I should've broken the news to him a little more gently? Maybe been a little more tactful?" she asked Danzo with uncertainty as he slung Sakumo's limp body over his shoulder.

"You wouldn't know what tact was even if it mugged you in broad daylight with its name tattooed across its forehead."

Danzo didn't have to carry Sakumo far. The man had unhooked himself from his IVs, so Danzo left to find a night nurse after not-very-gently dumping Sakumo onto the mattress. Feeling guilty, Tsume pulled and arranged the covers back over Sakumo. At the sound of Danzo returning with staff, Tsume hurriedly stowed the diaper bag behind a near-by wooden stand that was covered with flowers and chocolates, and then she, Kuromaru, and Kakashi hid under the hospital bed. They quietly listened to the whispered conversation, of how Danzo had found Sakumo wandering the halls.

"That's odd for him, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. His fever hasn't spiked, but it's not broken yet. It may be another day before the fever finally breaks." The night nurse reconnected the IV lines, checked Sakumo's vital signs, and then asked Danzo if he wanted to leave yet.

"No. I require a report from Sakumo the moment he awakes. I shall wait here until the morning, and then a subordinate will take my place."

The night nurse murmured her understanding as she departed.

"You can come out now." Tsume scooted forward on her belly until Danzo reached down and hauled her upright by her collar. "Tell me what you're doing."

"I'm supposed to get Kakashi to Sakumo-senpai. That's what Grandmother ordered me to do. But you know that already."

"Like a mission."

"That's right." Tsume squirmed as Danzo studied her; it felt like his dark gaze was flailing her skin open. But he didn't smell angry or impatient – just curious.

"I am Hatake Sakumo's… senpai."

"You're his ANBU squad leader."

He glared at her.

"What? You were in the same building as the ANBU and just now told the nurse he's supposed to report to you. I got cousins in ANBU. I know the drill."

His glare didn't change. "He reports to me. Your mission concerns him, so you will also report to me." Danzo sat down in a chair in front of her, his arms crossed.

Tsume glared at him, even though it sounded like a reasonable conclusion. "You called me a lousy ninja. Why should I?"

One eyebrow went up at her. She wondered if she could ever do the whole raise-one-eyebrow-in-disdain look. "What did I say, exactly?"

"You said I was soft!" It made her head hurt to remember exactly what he said that first day, but the sting of his words had helped cement most of the details. "You said that I was dumb and reckless!" And then she thought that it wasn't fair at all that he could smell this amused with her.

"Even lousy ninjas have to follow their CO's orders. And…" His voice trailed off as he studied her. Then he smiled – it looked like it should contain fangs dripping with poison. "And lousy ninjas have the potential to be... extraordinary. So start from when you first received the mission: when you were given responsibility of Kakashi."

So Tsume told him. Danzo made her retell it with more detail, because, "Well, I washed Kakashi's stinky butt first, then tracked down his family scent to Sakumo-senpai's home, then waited three days until I could smell Sakumo-senpai coming from outside the village, and then snuck in tonight because they wouldn't let me see him earlier," wasn't enough to satisfy the man. "Why do I have to tell all of you this? I can't remember most of it!" Tsume whined, flopping backwards on the floor. She wanted to roll around in the blanket until she and Kakashi looked like an eggroll, and fall asleep. She didn't like the way Danzo wanted to run her brain through a ringer to squeeze out every last detail.

"Sit upright and behave like a kunoichi on duty."

Tsume groaned and sat upright. Then her report had to go on pause while she prepared another bottle of formula for a now-fussy Kakashi. By the time Kakashi was fed and burped, Danzo appeared satisfied with her report.

"How do I say this?" He tapped the X-shaped scar on his chin as he studied her. Tsume decided to busy herself with changing Kakashi's diaper, even though it was only wet. He waited until she had finished. "You bumbled blind through this mission and would've wound up looking like the abhorrent fool you are were it not for your exceptional nose, with probably nothing more to show for it than a sick or dead baby."

Tsume folded her knees to her chest and hugged Kakashi close.

"You operated with little information and less sense, blundered aimlessly around the village, and had absolutely no idea how you were going to complete the mission. Not that I'm surprised – overemotional, irrational people rarely have thought except in hindsight. It is your luck that Konoha is a friendly environment free of danger, instead of an active warzone."

She hunched low.

"Despite your lack of aim and direction, and mainly through accident and very good luck, you managed to obtain training on caring for your bundle, keep the baby safe and fed, alert your superiors to a fellow Konoha nin's life-threatening status, seduce information without raising alarm, infiltrate a forbidden building with a plausible disguise in the possible event of being discovered, replenish your depleted supplies with stolen goods without alerting those on watch, and eventually found the one to whom you were to deliver your assigned bundle. You operated as a free agent, with no oversight from an experienced team leader, nor did you make any attempt at recruiting assistance beyond figuring out how to feed the baby."

"Who was I supposed to ask?" Tsume could barely say anything through the choking in her throat. She knew where this was going – she felt like she getting dressed down, and she wasn't even sure what she did wrong. Well, she did sort of know, but it wasn't like the way he had described at all, especially in that tone of voice, even if it sounded like she had done everything right. That only meant the worst was yet to come. "I didn't know what I was doing! The clan just – Grandmother just threw Kakashi at me and expected me to do something, and there he was, all little and naked and just so brand new – just a simpleton like me, except his brains never went to mush. It's clan business, but they didn't want to have any part in it – even his own mother. Kakashi…" It pained her to admit this. She swallowed past the lump, but couldn't keep her voice from cracking. "Kakashi wasn't wanted."

Danzo sighed as she rubbed furiously at her nose and eyes. "You are an overemotional, irrational child, not an idiot. No one as successful as you could be dumb, even if you were assisted by an exceptionally good fortune."

"You said-"

"I said that you were ignorant, which is a lack of education – not an indication of intelligence. You failed to ask question and therefore kept the scope of your knowledge very limited, and you refused to understand the political ramifications of your situation. Forewarned is forearmed; lack of preparation will get someone killed faster than being weak. What I had told you at Hatake's home was also before I realized just how strong your nose was and that asking questions, for you, would be superfluous – in this, your inexperience is very clear, because you could divine so much information in a single breath that you simply didn't know how to par it down to just the relevant details. But that is something you can learn with time, good teaching, and practice.

"But a shinobi or a kunoichi without purpose is useless. Purpose is the reason for becoming a shinobi, for doing what needs to be done – you must be prepared to do whatever it takes: to kill, lie, steal, cheat, and fuck whoever or whatever is required to complete your mission for Konoha – she must come first, above all things, to ensure that she survives and flourishes despite all obstacles. Your lack of purpose left you aimless throughout this mission, and ill-prepared for delivering your charge. You say you want to be a kunoichi, but for what reason? Because everyone else in your clan does? Because this is a war and everyone must contribute to the effort? Because that's the expectation of your family? Because it's cool or awesome, or whatever the young people are calling it? Your previous answer had been without conviction or purpose. Kunoichi are like the weapons they are named for – and weapons have a purpose.

"So tell me, why do you want to be a kunoichi?"

He didn't push her for an answer after that. Tsume studied Kakashi's face; he was asleep now, eyes closed with his face turned towards her breath. She wiggled a finger into his curled hand, and fought back tears as his itty-bitty hand closed around it. She thought about the last four days, and then of the last four years, when she had struggled so hard to heal and overcome her handicaps.

Why did she want to be a kunoichi?

"Can I answer in the morning?" she asked quietly, not looking up from Kakashi. "I'm really tired right now."

His answer was slow in coming. "Fair enough. But know this, Inuzuka Tsume: despite the many things you did wrong, you did remarkably well. There are full-grown chuunin out there who would have failed miserably if given a similar mission with the same expectations and the same lack of information, and they do not have the excuse of your inexperience or youth."

"Thank you, sir." She felt strung out and raw, and all she wanted to do was sleep with her two puppies. Danzo didn't say anything else as she wrapped her companions up with her in the blanket, curled up beneath Sakumo's hospital bed, and fell asleep.

oOoOoOo

She awoke the next morning in bed, not sure of what disturbed her sleep. "Wzziitt?" She was pressed against Sakumo's side, and he appeared to be trying to feed Kakashi with one arm firmly secured in a sling. Kakashi was carefully propped in the crook of the sling.

"Ah, good morning. So glad you could join us." Sakumo's smile for her was large and bright, even though his eyes looked glazed over. He looked cleaned up from last night and didn't seem to have a fever. Tsume absently thought that her sister had rather nice taste in good-looking men. "The captain told me all about you."

"Wasn't I sleeping on the floor?"

"I thought you looked a bit uncomfortable, and then figured that my bed was large enough for all of us. Though the nurses are a bit crabby with you being here, and even crabbier with the fact that Shimura Danzo scared them, and I do believe that when Tsunade-hime finds out what happened, there will be fireworks between her and the captain. And not the pretty fireworks. More like the explode-in-your-face and leave you scarred for life kind of fireworks, which is to be expected between the Slug Princess and the War Hawk. I'm so glad I'm going to get to watch that. It's not often you get to see epic battles between such epic legends. Except that Danzo isn't really a legend. He's more of a boogeyman, isn't he?"

Kuromaru barked agreement from where he nestled between Sakumo's feet.

Tsume wrinkled her nose at him. "How many pain pills did they give you?"

"No pills. It's coming straight at me through the IV, so I'm higher than a kite right now." Sakumo giggled as he turned a loving gaze on Kakashi.

"I tried to talk them into keeping Kakashi," Tsume said hurriedly. "I told them that he's a male puppy just like Kuromaru right here, but Grandmother wouldn't allow it."

Sakumo's smile was gentle as he reached over and ruffled her wild hair. His IV lines brushed the tip of her nose. "I knew that it would come to this, Tsume-chan – I know what the Inuzuka clan does to its children. If it was a boy, he would never know his mother, and if it was a girl, she would never know her father. One way or another, my child is going to be half an orphan, kept away from one parent. I…I can't say I regret signing the contract, I suppose, but I'm glad the baby is a boy. I'd rather have a son and know him, than a daughter whom I couldn't know. But he does have the world's best aunt, don't you think? And your eyes, too. And I hope, in time, your heart."

That was really nice to hear, to know that Kakashi was wanted. Tsume wondered if her sire ever felt anything like that, especially when she got into school yard brawls that inexplicably dragged his son into the heart of the mess because he was too slow to get away in time. She twisted around, and then knelt upright to face him. "Can I – can I still be his aunt?" She desperately wanted to be wanted, too.

"I think Kakashi needs an aunt like you, and you need a nephew like him. Seems like the perfect solution to me."

Tsume's answering smile felt like it was going to split her face in half. And even when Tsunade found them, yelled at Tsume until her face turned purple, and then threw her and Kuromaru outside the window (Tsume landed on her feet with only a little bit of bruising, despite it being from the third floor), she still felt happy about what she did.

Then she raised her nose in the air, and went searching. After all, she had an answer to give.

oOoOoOo

"Gosh," she said as she and Kuromaru were surrounded by very pointy ANBU weaponry and different masks, "this is really awkward."

"Really?" a dry voice asked. Weapons dropped and the tight circle of ANBU parted to reveal Danzo, whose expression was wry. It was the first time she saw him armed and dressed in the reinforced black uniform and white breast plate of ANBU, and he loomed large and dangerous despite being surrounded by taller persons. A white mask, with the painted image of a black tree sprawling across its face, hung loose around his neck. "Didn't we just go through this a few days ago? I see I'm going to have to cram in some remedial training before I leave for Suna, if a ten year old girl is able to infiltrate our headquarters without being stopped."

"Oh! Oh!" Tsume's hand shot in the air as she ignored the sudden stench of fear and resentment that surrounded her. She did a wiggly dance in her excitement. "I have the answer to your question!"

He crouched down to match her eye-to-eye. "So, why do you want to be a kunoichi?"

"I want to be a kunoichi because I'm going to get really smart and powerful and then become head of my clan and change it, so that way we never split up our children between mothers and fathers because we're all family in Konoha, and because no puppy should ever not be wanted."

His not-so-nice smile made shivers run down her spine. "It has potential," he murmured.