DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own. PLEASE REVIEW! I will take advice and suggestions from my readers while continuing the story, as I have in this chapter! Thanks, lilLovelyanime: I moved things up a bit for you!

Thinking

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

Emphasis

"Man, this sucks," a girl's voice well behind Naruto said to no one in particular.

Naruto flinched, she was so close to getting another fish! Feeling only the girl's warm chakra, along with two other children behind the intruder, she decided to stay put and to find out what exactly sucked.

"Oi! You're triplets!" Anko said loudly in some degree of amazement as she ran over to the three Naruto's fishing in the stream. Naruto noticed that she was carrying an extremely beat-up fishing rod - no it was more of a branch with some hardware and wire hastily attached.

"Ano… no: they're my clones," Naruto answered while rubbing the back of her neck. She hadn't had any real conversations with children in years - since she was a child back in the - ummm, future? Time travel sucked and was confusing to talk about. Seeing the girl's disbelief, she tried to explain. "I've got a lot of chakra… I guess it's a genetic thing," she said lamely.

"Okay! Oi! Can I fish with you, too? I'll share," Anko beamed.

"Oh," Naruto replied, feeling oddly pleased but still unsure. She realized that she hadn't answered the girl whose expression was beginning to falter. "Sure! Gomen…"

"Awwwwe! You're shy!"

"No, I'm… well…" Naruto really wasn't shy, she was just out of practice in speaking with people - kids especially.

Anko awwed at her again before gushing, "You're so kuwaii!"

Wanting to quickly get the purple-haired girl's mind off her supposed cuteness - which Naruto didn't believe she had for even a second - she quickly changed topics. "Umm, so what sucks? Oh, and I'm Uzumaki Naruto, datte-" She cut off that miserable tick, blushing in the process.

"I'm Anko! Just Anko - don't call me Anko-chan. If you want to, though, you can call me Anko-sama, or your beautiful highness, or…" Anko went on and on: she certainly didn't lack confidence or energy. Some of the titles she described made Naruto giggle a bit as she remembered the signage that had appeared when the woman proctored the Chunin Exam's second stage. The Sexy and Single Mitarashi Anko - it read something like that, Naruto remembered. Seems she's always been this way. It was pretty cool. "And what sucks is I missed dinner at the orphanage, so I gotta make due!" The brash girl sat down and plopped her fishing line in the water, looking very determined.

Naruto's eyes widened. She remembered that stupid orphanage's rules about meal times, but she always thought it was just aimed at her, to keep her from eating. In her defense, there certainly were rules that the shithole's staff only made or enforced on her, but believing all their rules were against her was just naive back then. It made sense that the staff wanted to motivate "the brats" to be "home" before a certain hour. Otherwise, they'd be harder to find and kids could really get into trouble in the village or forest surrounding it. Her musings were interrupted by two boys.

"Anko, I told you that you could come over for dinner any time - as much of a pain as you are."

"Oi, you're that girl… Girls? The one that got that brat, Hatake, good," said the second, taller boy.

Naruto nodded her head sheepishly. She wasn't sure who either of these guys was, but they seemed okay. Making sure that their friend, Anko, was fed made them more than alright in her book.

"Naru-chan," Anko ignored how Naruto's eyebrows rose at the shortening of her name, "this lazybones here is Shiranui Genma, and shorty here is Namiashi Raidō. They're both smarty pants and are getting promoted to the next class."

The boy now known as Genma - a senbon and hatless Genma, Naruto observed - rolled his eyes. "You're being promoted tomorrow, too, Anko-chan," he tsked at her.

"You better believe it! I'm the smartiest of the partiest!" Anko said with a wiggle of her arms and shoulders. Naruto noticed that the boys just sighed; they were obviously used to her mannerisms and cheerful demeanor. "We're gonna be in the class just one below you, Naru-chan! And then pretty soon we'll be classmates. Believe it!"

Naruto tried to ignore her old catchphrase, but was a little blown away by it - along with Anko's exuberance in general. "You - uhh - you know which class I'm in?" Her voice squeaked at the end, which made her flush once more.

"It's a kunoichi's job to observe her surroundings," Anko nodded to herself sagely before jiggling her fishing line angrily, annoyed that she hadn't caught anything yet.

"You just like to gossip," Raido said.

Not wanting to be in the middle of the argument, Naruto offered Anko one of the many worms she'd dug up to use as bait. Anko took a bite out of the worm before spitting it out and spewing a sea of obscenities. "I don't see why they like it!"

Naruto couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled up inside of her, even as the boys were completely grossing out and even gagging. Feeling mischievous, Naruto held up a worm. Am I really going to do this? YES! She took a tiny bite before spewing out not only the worm but whatever was left in her stomach into the water. The boys were having fits over how disgusting the two girls were, while Anko was laughing and smiling at Naruto so brightly, it made her feel light for the first time in ages.

"Gross Naru-chan: that was disgusting," Genma deadpanned. "What's the deal with those clones, though? I don't get it."

"Oh, ano - they're a different kind of clone. Takes up a lot of chakra so, ya know… Don't do it or anything, kay? They're useful though," Naruto ducked her head, while one of her clones gave her the finger, making Anko laugh brightly. Even the boys snorted or chuckled.

"Another prodigy," sighed Raido as he eventually closed his eyes and leaned against a tree.

"Ha! Not me! No way, man," Naruto said as if he'd just insulted her. She did in fact feel offended by that title being applied to her. I worked damn hard for everything I've learned! Prodigy, my ass!

The boys didn't seem to believe her and Raido even said as much, so Naruto thought of a way she could prove it. Normally she'd be too embarrassed to even talk about it, but her pride was on the line here! "Those are the only kind of clones I can make! You should see my normal bunshin," she groaned. Closing her eyes and in disbelief that she was going to put one of her horrible bunshin on display, she made the hand signs to do so.

"Kill me," the nightmarish apparition begged.

Minato watched the three older children howling with laughter from a faraway tree with his binoculars, feeling relief sweep through him. Even Naruto-chan was awkwardly giggling a little behind her hand at her terrible failure in producing a clone. He'd been extremely worried and stalking - er, observing Jiraiya-sensei's lonely child, but it seemed things were looking up. And if that bunshin was anything, it was a sign that she really is an Uzumaki. He remembered Kushina's looking very similar to the ugly thing that the little blonde made, although his girlfriend's didn't talk: they just oozed into the floor.

.

"Your cooking sucks, Naru-chan," Anko said, spitting out the blonde's lunch toward Asuma Sarutobi, who didn't even move. Fish again? Come on!

Naruto sulked, but only a little. For one, Anko was right: she only knew how to make things edible but not really palatable. Even when she tried to use spices or herbs from her old garden, she'd always get carried away and nearly destroy her appetite with her creations' spiciness or vegetable-ness. Two, her biological parents were both out on missions - missions that weren't supposedly dangerous - so she didn't have to avoid them. She didn't know what to say if they ever managed to catch her, or maybe it was more that she was afraid of how emotional she might become. Especially with the mother that she'd never even seen or touched outside her mindscape.

And finally, she had decided to let that awful feeling of hope erupt inside her - that scary emotion she'd avoided for nearly all of this short life until now.

Sitting in a circle eating lunch with an ever-increasing number of people she wished would call her a true friend one day, how could she not feel hopeful? And better in general - she had to agree with Kurama on that. He'd been right, as he so often was - at least ever since he desperately yearned to climb his way out of her, dragging her dead carcass along with his pointy nails and teeth. She smiled to herself even as she took a bite of her bland onigiri.

In the last three weeks since that day her fishing had been interrupted, her life had definitely changed for the better. Jiraiya still hadn't come home, though. He'd assured her in messages that he was fine, and even sometimes sent along an extra message from Kakashi's father, Sakumo, to be delivered and read by the silver-haired chibi menace himself only.

Kakashi… What was she going to do with that guy?! Since the messages for him started coming, she'd tried being nicer to him, but he's such a butt! He actually seemed angrier or at least more annoyed with her mere presence with each passing message she handed to him from his father. The boy's emotions weren't easy to read behind that mask, but his chakra sure was. Naruto felt the wave of relief that would flood over him as he'd read his private messages from his father, but why was he determined to be so alone?

Loneliness. It was something that Naruto had known too well throughout her lives. She felt it nearly as acutely in this version of Kakashi as she had in herself. Realizing she hadn't been paying any attention to her friends - er, comrades at least, she looked up and found that they were just eating quietly and trading snacks. All aside from Anko who was always talking, even with food in her mouth - just the way she used to do. Her thoughts returned to her sad former-sensei.

She'd only known a few people that had the kinds of messy feelings as deeply as she had - so much so that she could feel their near-desperation. Haku, Kakashi… She looked toward that swing she'd spent so many years all alone on and grimaced at the boy sitting there. Him, too.

Naruto's feet took her to the hunched-over boy on the swing. He looked up at her and glared, making her flinch back terribly. His eyes widened dramatically and teared up behind those goggles before he shrunk down again. Naruto could feel the regret pouring off him.

Kurama was having a major hissy fit, but Naruto couldn't seem to help herself. "Ne, you're Obito-kun, right? Ano, would you… would you like to join us for lunch?