Hi guys! Thanks for liking and following this story! I know I promised January, but we're at the beginning of February so hopefully I'm not that late.

Now on to the story!


'Birds of a feather flock together...until the cat comes'


The week prior the festival passed by me in a blur. I was excited, there was no way around admitting it and no point in denying. At least in my head. See, it wasn't that I wasn't social enough with my classmates per say, as Itachi maintained, they just didn't inspire in me the same interest hanging out with him, Shisui or Genma did. If their input wasn't stimulation enough, neither could be my output to them. It was a simple case of cause - effect. But that didn't mean I wouldn't try. He had said it was his wish, and somehow making an effort to please him was a task of upmost importance to me.

So naturally I started by striking up a dialogue with my elusive Uchiha classmate, whom I had won against a few more times in the last few weeks. He was just as broody, and that said something considering the clan he came from, but he was obviously trying to temper the looks of anger and resentment directed my way. And since he tried so hard to appear civil, I decided that would be where I'd poke first.

'What exactly is your problem with me?' I asked by way of greeting as I found him under a tree in the school yard during lunch break, regarding him calmly as he gave me an incredulous look. Then he composed himself quickly and sneered at me. 'I sure don't know what you mean, Senju' he responded hatefully. I gave him a deadpan look while taking a sit next to him and pointed at his face 'No, see, this is exactly what I mean. Why that tone ? Whatever you have against me is personal and I would prefer to know what it is' I finished quizzically.

'You can't possibly not know, can you? It's your damned family' he hissed from between his teeth, eyes flashing with anger.

Ah. Well, that explains some of it.

'I'm afraid you still have the advantage of me here' I replied coolly. A break and then 'Outside of my mother, whom I can't ask anymore, I have never met another Senju member in my life, nor do I have any means of contacting them if they are alive.'

He fixed me with bewilderment and a slightly slack jaw. I would have found it amusing were it not for the rather uncomfortable topic at hand.

'What do you mean you haven't ? This entire village was co-founded by them ?'

'Ah, that might be the case, but they died in battle or married into other clans or became civilians generations ago. I checked the public records upon coming here, and there is no one anymore.' I admitted, a weird sting in my chest. An adult relative in Konoha would have also solved the problem of my medical trainee program admission, after all.

He stared at me funnily, likely debating staying furious or showing his curiosity. After a few seconds the later won. 'What happened to your parents then ?'

I drew in a sharp breath of air and settled my nerves. I had known this was coming. It wasn't a secret and it wasn't a crime I had committed here, I told myself. You need to give something of yourself when you initiate a friendship, show vulnerability, one of my books on human interaction had advised.

I motioned for him to come closer until our heads were almost touching and I looked at him straight in the eyes when I said 'I killed them. I lost control of my abilities and ran them through with wood spikes. It happened five months ago.' Funny how much life has changed since then.

He looked stricken, almost fearful and darted a look around us to make sure nobody was paying us attention before he turned uneasily towards me. 'Why would you do something like that?'

And there it was, the condemnation I knew such a statement would always warrant. Just because I couldn't be tried for it here, didn't make it any less controversial. At the end of this he would either accept me or think I was a monster. He wouldn't be wrong, of course, but I believed in the grand scheme of things, I had ridden the world of a greater evil that day.

'Well, as I've just stated I lost control after trying to hold the chakra unmoving for too long. My parents were part of a particular sect of samurai, who considered chakra a manifestation of the wicked and vile. So evidently, they sought to vanquish any visible form of it. Since they had the reserves of civilians, they never had the need to feel it, control it and let it flow. But I have so much of it it was impossible to hold it suppressed all the time. One day we were fighting and it was too much. I am not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed either. They weren't good parents' If that excused the killing, would be a question I meditated on for a long time. In the meantime, I kept quiet to see how my confession was received.

'That sounds an awful lot like how my clan tolerates members without the Sharingan' he mumbled so lowly that I barely heard him. But he was pensive now and when he opened his mouth to speak again, he seemed almost understanding 'So you really didn't have anything to do with any other Senju in this village?'

I shook my head no.

He nodded, decisively 'Then I apologise for behaving poorly until now. Pleased to make your acquaintance' he bowed incrementally and shook my outstretched hand. His mouth spread in a tentative smile and wow, where was the brooding kid fro before? It completely changed his face. I couldn't stop my own from showing. I've dreaded for months telling somebody about what happened, but now that I did, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders.

We talked for the rest of the day and I made my first friend my own age.


The day of the festival I forwent my usual after-school training to go shop for a yukata. I wasn't planning on spending too much money on it, but I didn't want to show up in something as drab as my day to day clothes. After a bit of window-surfing I got myself a dark cyan one from the teenagers section and a hairpin made of colourful plastic.

Excitement was buzzing under my skin at the prospect of spending time with Itachi and Shisui outside of training and I couldn't help the little skip in my step as I made my way on the busy streets. The market street had been cleared of the normal stalls for the evening and instead replaced by new colorful vendors and music stages. I found them standing near a bunch of newly installed paper lanterns. Both Itachi and Shisui were wearing dark formal clothes but the third one, a much younger, shorter and apparently bored Sasuke Uchiha, was clad in a bright blue yukata with little fans stitched on it.

As I got closer Shisui raised his hand to wave at me ' Hey, Shrimpy, come and meet Sasuke-chan!' he grinned. I turned my eyes towards the boy, who couldn't have been older than five and tried for a smile. They still felt so weird on my face.

Before I could say anything this little guy puffed his chest and started shouting with all the strength such a small constitution could warrant.'You betta stop stealing my Nii-chan, you creepy hedgehog!' and then he glued himself to his brothers' pant leg, glaring menacingly with those huge black eyes and chubby cheeks. Chaos ensued. Shisui was in stitches holding his middle next to us, a newly arrived Genma and Namiashi-san in tow were shouting and laughing at me, and Itachi, bless his soul, was trying rather unsuccessfully to unstick his brother while giving me an apologetic look.

'Forgive me, Juno, that was completely uncalled for' and directing a sterner look at Sasuke, he said pointedly 'Apologise now, Sasuke'.

Still laughing, Shisui slung an arm over my shoulder 'No, Itachi, that was priceless! Sasuke-chan is really growing into something fierce these days, aren't you?' he asked the boy, babying him. Sasuke preened, showing two missing teeth and then proceeded to drag the curly haired teen to a vendor selling dumplings, followed at a more sedated pace by the adults, but only after each of them took turns patting my shoulder consolingly. It's not every day you're roasted like that by a toddler, I thought slumping my shoulders.

'I don't think t looks bad at all. Sasuke has just been clingy lately, and he took it out on you' he added quietly while pointing at my head. I had tried to nestle my unruly hair in a bun using the hair pin and I had mostly been successful, were it not for a few stray strands at the front. He was looking at me with the usual intensity and the remark lifted my mood. We started walking while looking around at the different attractions.

'Do you always bring it with you outside of training ?' he asked after a while pointing at my sword fixed on my back with the yukata sash.

'Whenever I'm not at school, they don't allow us with bigger weapons there yet' I replied, touching the hilt affectionately.

Itachi was giving me a bemused look 'Since when do you have that katana ? You seem very attached to it.'

He's been surprisingly chatty lately, and while I understood he wanted to find out more to improve my training, I couldn't help the pleasing fuzz of making conversation with him. There was never any judgement, none at all coming from this boy.

I mused a moment over my answer 'I couldn't tell you for sure. I might have gotten it sometime after my fourth birthday, I was young' at his knowing look 'well, younger than I am now. Before that I think I used a bokken' I added thoughtfully.

'You must be indeed very attached to it, then' he said that more like a statement then a question 'It is truly a remarkable piece of swordsmithing ' he added approvingly, pointing towards the simple but elegantly wrapped white hilt. The katana itself was made of curved, single-edged tamahagane jewel steel, with prominent hardening lines adorned by cloudy nioi structures. Perhaps more surprising than anything, was the unusual chakra conductivity attained through repeated folding and heating, a trait that led me to believe it didn't come from a blacksmith of my original samurai village.

'It is the single, most precious possession I have' I agreed quietly, almost reverently. My wood ninjutsu may fail me, people will leave, the village, both villages, could throw me out, but I would always have this katana by my side. This length of steel that felt more part of my body than my own mind at times.

'Do you happen to have a favorite type of blade, Itachi-san?' I asked with a hint of challenge, confident in my knowledge on this topic.

His lips quirked upwards and his answering smile was just as provocative 'Why yes, I find the versatility of a tanto far superior to that of a katana'.

Oh, he didn't. And my face was alight with excitement, tens of objections rolling down my tongue to support my weapon of choice. And the conversation flowed through the surrounding chatter of the festival, as tranquil as a river in winter, the argument a dance rather than a clash, the one area where we were equal.


At some point later, we separated with him making his way to the front of our group to spend some time with his brother, whose face lit up like a thousand suns when he saw him and whose volume increased tenfold proclaiming he was going to beat his nii-chan in a game of catching koi fish. I stayed back to talk to Genma and Namiashi-san and we we're in the middle of weighting the pros and cons traditional Fire Country food when I felt a ache in my chest.

I stopped in my tracks and gripped at my front. It wasn't really painful, uncomfortable at most, but then it transformed in a pulling sensation and my ears started ringing faintly. I turned my head in the direction of the pull and made my way to the left where, between two stalls and a batch of trees, an old, red torii gate was opening a way to a small shrine.

I stopped in front of it, fixing the weared wood, the paint washed out in some places. The noise in my ears rose to whispers, but there was no one here among the trees, a few meters away from the main street. At the foot of the gate, people had left a few presents and statues to honour spirits, and as I was watching them, I could have sworn they were the ones addressing to me. Not only the totems but the gate itself seemed to be animated by something, shadows of different colours swirling around it, the wood almost trembling with this strange force, beckoning and whispering words so lowly I couldn't hope to catch, let alone understand them.

I was rooted to the spot in front of this gate, my fingertips barely brushing one of the ornaments hung onto one of the columns, my eyes glued to unidentifiable shapes and noises, that were pulling me towards their wispy forms. It was surreal and the more it made me want to make out what they desired.

This trance of sorts was suddenly broken by Genma's hand on my shoulder 'What's gotten you so caught up looking at this old thing, kid ?' he asked throwing the suddenly inanimate gate a confused look. I blinked and scratched at my chest, my head suddenly clear of the previous sounds and wondered what that all had been about.

Next to Genma, Namiashi-san had lost his usually cheerful composure, for once serious and frowning at something behind us, the downturned slant of his mouth pulling at his scar.

I shook my head to clear it, completely weirded out by the incident and made to go back towards the colorful festival road with them, Genma's hand protectively at my back. And it was by chance that I noticed him in my stupor, obscured from view between the trees the scarred jonin had glared at. But the councilman was regarding me with a thoughtful look from under all those bandages, that pierced me to the bone and so I quickened my steps.


The night progressed pleasantly after that incident and I pushed it to the back of my mind to focus on having fun. And I did indeed. Conversing with the others, engaging Shisui in a game of ring tossing and winning a stuffed cat which I presented to Sasuke, thus getting back in his good graces. Which probably was the only reason Shisui had let me win.

The two adults with us had kept quiet about earlier, which I was thankful for, since I needed time to make out for myself what had really happened. But they always made sure that at least one of them was close to me at all times, and while a bit stifling in the beginning, their concern was touching.

And it was nice being around them in casual settings, both were so open with their feelings towards each other, flirting and bickering in equal measures. Highlight of the evening was of course Namiashi-san lewdly serenading to Genma at full volume on one of the stages, to the animated cheers of the crowd around us and the later's utter embarrassment. Seriously, I had never seen the jonin lose his cool like that, face beet-read but grinning madly at the same time. Shisui looked like it was the most entertaining thing he'd ever seen and Itachi disapproved silently, resolutely covering his brother's ears and pointing at me to do the same.

While me and Genma stayed behind to admire the kabuki masks displayed by a vendor, we heard a loud clash followed by shouting coming from next to us. Turning around I saw a younger kid, probably Sasuke's age, getting tossed to the ground by the shop keeper. Small, with surprising blond hair and striking blue eyes he sniffed as he looked up at the man.

'I don't care for your money, demon fox. I'm not selling you anything, now get lost!' he shouted and then turned to greet some other customers.

What a jerk, I thought, and looked at the boy who was slowly picking himself up and dusting off his clothes, a bruise already blossoming on his cheek. The people around were giving him a wide berth and pointing at him.

Something was wrong here, people aren't just repulsed like that out of the blue by a child. But to hurt somebody so obviously defenseless, that's just low. Surprising for a village who prided itself for mutual solidarity. Disappointing.

I made my way to him and he looked up at me warily. He was so short, even with all that spiky hair he barely came up to my chest.

'Which one of the masks do you want?'

He looked dumbstruck for a moment but then shouted 'Why do you care?! I wasn't gonna steal or anything, I have money!'

Sigh. 'I know, that man already said that. Now, which mask did you want?'

He seemed completely confused, to the point where I started wondering if he had a hearing dysfunction. 'Why aren't you shouting at me?' he asked quietly, fiddling with his sleeves.

'Because you hear me just fine when I'm talking like this.' I replied, now feeling bad for him. He was clearly used to hostile behaviour. Throwing me a suspicious glance he pointed at the monkey mask. I made my way to the stall, asked the seller for it and bought another mask with a tree spirit motif for myself. Turning back to the blond kid, I gave him his mask to his and the clerk's utter astonishment. His eyes were huge and glossy and he looked like he was about to cry. I started panicking internally, since that hadn't been my intention. I took one of his slack hands and holding my palm over his I made a small forget-me-not flower appear.

That shocked him enough to draw a surprised gasp 'Woah! Are you a wizard or something ?' he asked awed. Cute.

'No, this is my elemental affinity' I responded, made a pause and then I had an idea 'See, I am also a bit different. And sometimes people don't want to talk to me because of that.' And I recognised the looks the villagers were giving him, since I had been on the receiving end of them all the time in my samurai clan.

The kid was staring at me with wonder, his hands clutched around the mask and the flower, lower lip still wobbling but thankfully no longer on the verge of tears.

'Say, what is your name ?' I asked on impulse. I wanted to find out why everyone was treating him like this, displeased whispers and looks still thrown his way even now, when he wasn't in the middle of a scene.

At this he breathed in deeply and with a toothy grin he announced. Loudly. 'I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm going to be the next Hokage, dattebayo!'

Uzumaki, huh ?

'It was nice meeting you, Naruto-kun. My name is Senju Juno.' and I thrust my hand forward to shake his smaller one. His eyes widened again and he asked me excitedly 'Senju? Like the First Hokage?'

This time I couldn't hold back my smile. He was just so... hyperactive, such a stark comparison to the dejected kid from a few minutes ago. That had been the most positive reaction I had received to my wood jutsu so far.

'Yes. I've been told he was my great, great grandfather' I agreed and added, testing the waters 'His wife was an Uzumaki, so I believe you and I might be very distantly related' and I paused to let that sink in. It was in the history books after all, not much, barely any mentions of Uzumaki Mito at all, but her marriage to Hashirama Senju was a well known fact.

At this Naruto looked completely awestruck. 'So you and I are family?' he asked in a tiny voice.

Oh, uncomfortable topic. I tried to hide away the thoughts of my parents that word invoked in me and sketched a tentative smile 'Something like distant cousins. Look, here is my address. If you want to talk or somebody is causing you trouble, you can come to me' I said scribbling a few lines on a piece of paper from my pocket. There. Now the ball was in his court. I had reached out and made an effort to be sociable. But initiative had to come from him as well.

Naruto took the note with shaky fingers, but didn't say anything, back to staring at me with huge disbelieving eyes. I reached for the monkey mask and pressed it on the top of his head, fastening the thread under his chin.

Then I turned around and made my way towards Genma, who was chewing on a senbon a few feet away, observing us. The same strange pride he had displayed in the hospital at my way of handling my captors was present now as well. It was a hard thing, that sharpened his features and made his eyes glint strangely. We started walking to catch up with the others.

'I'm glad that you approve. So how did the Demon Fox that was supposedly slayed by the Fourth end up being associated with a kid like him. Or do you people have other demon foxes running around here ?' I gripped the mask in my hand tighter remembering the bruise on Naruto's cheek. It had been so easy to make conversation with him, when normally I could barely be bothered to say a few words to people if they weren't part of my limited circle of acquaintances. It didn't sit right with me.

'Sharp as always, I see. I'm afraid that I'm not allowed to give you an answer. You'll have to figure it out by yourself' a pause, then he added meaningfully 'quietly.'

So, there was something there. And a law against mentioning this connection. The secrets and double standards in this village just kept piling up.

'And I assume that the faith that dictates everyone in Konoha should be treated like a friend doesn't apply in a select few cases, does it, Genma?' I said annoyed, quoting what he told me in the hospital. He nodded, conceding my point and smiled bitterly 'That's why it's a faith, kid, an ideal.'

We continued down the road lit by glowing paper lamps in silence. I was thinking about the events of the last few hours and Genma hummed under his breath, hands in pockets and needle bobbing around his mouth.

'Do you regret coming here yet?'

'In a way. Words and actions are convoluted and often tangle in each other here.' I turned my head to look up at him, making sure my gratitude was obvious 'But you all support me. And this night made it obvious how it would be if you didn't. I'm thankful for that.'

'You're welcome, kid.' he replied dropping a hand on my head as the rest of our group came in view.


And there you have it! Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Sadly the Uchiha parents will make an appearance another time since this thing wrote itself to the daunting count of over 4k words. About the bit about the katana, the terminology is taken from the wikipedia article Japanese swordsmithing, for those of you interested ^^ Lots of Easter eggs in this chapter indeed.

Till next time~~