A/N: And I'm back! Thank you all so much for reviewing and faving and following. I know that for me it made everything that much better. Now I have come earlier than I thought that I would with a new chapter just for all of you. I hope that you all like it, and please leave more reviews for me. they make want to update faster!

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Chapter 2: Growing Up

Hiroto seemed to thrive with his new guardians. Anko became the older sister figure just like she had wanted, and the others in the T&I department grew into a sort of family around him. And although he did spend a majority of his time with the snake summoner, when Anko was out he would be passed from person to person, none really minding the boy seeing as he was easy going and really fun to be around. Plus he could cook, that was something that ninety percent of shinobi could not do.

It was about a month after arriving at the village with Suzu that Anko decided to show Hiroto something new. And for some reason she felt as if waking the young boy up at four in the morning was the way to start off that day.

"Come on Roto-kun! We must be up and out there before the sun rises! I want to show you something!" She bounded into the room with her usual sadistic smirk. Oh yes, she knew that it was an ungodly hour to be awake at, but she wanted her little brother figure to get used to waking up at such times. It was good training. Or, at least, that was the excuse.

"Anko-nee-san, why can't I sleep in ever when I'm here? Inoichi-san lets me sleep in however late I want to when I sleep over at his house with Ino-chan!" The boy pouted. He knew well enough by new to know that he would never win this argument with her, but it was still within his prerogative to try.

Anko laughed before saying "That's too bad. I can't have you getting spoiled here!" It was an utter lie. Everyone knew that given the first chance Anko would spoil him silly. It just depended on what it was that she was spoiling him with.

"Fine, fine, I'm coming!" Hiroto grumbled.

It was a half an hour later when Anko brought him to a stop before training ground 44, or as most of the Leaf Village liked to call it; The Forest of Death. Hiroto was hit with a nostalgic feeling as he looked at the forest. It almost felt as if he had been in a place similar to it before. And he also had the urge to go in and explore it.

"I thought that it might be good for you to see the snakes in here. If you're lucky, we might get one of the smaller ones that you could then train with as if it was a nin animal." Anko announced as she sauntered over to the gates and opened it up so that they could go in. Her own summon hissed slightly so that the snakes would come to them out of curiosity at the very least.

Anko stepped back the moment that a snake came out, and then she would have never admitted it, but she smiled softly at the spectacle of Hiroto speaking to a bunch of oversized snakes in the forest of death without a care in the world. She had already claimed the boy as her brother, but now, even after just a month, she was getting attached. It was something she had tried so hard not to do ever since he had discarded her without hesitation. Anko had almost thought that she would never be able to open up to anyone, but Hiroto had already slipped past her defenses as if they were a curtain one could open at will.

By the end of an hour Anko saw that her little brother figure had almost all of the snakes in this deadly forest loving him as well. He just pulled them in. And then a few seemed to bow to him and left, until only one remained.

When Anko approached she was surprised to see that the snake that had stayed was a very young one that was just over a foot in length at the moment, though she knew it would be growing fairly quickly soon, with white scales and yellow stripes. The only real oddity of the snake was the fact that about three quarters away from the end of the tail, the shake seemed to branch off and lead to two separate heads. Her little brother was now in possession of a two headed snake from The Forest of Death.

"Anko-nee-chan, look; this is Shiro and Taro. They have decided to be my ninja partner!" The little boy with jewel green eyes said in excitement as said snake wound its way up his body so that they could drape over his neck. (A/N: they will be referred to as two when speaking about consciousness and things like that, but when talking about their physical presence they are referred to as one snake.)

"Heh, this is going to be very interesting."Anko mumbled as she smirked. Now Inoichi owed her dango. He had bet that the snakes would not give him a partner from the forest when she had told the group she was taking him to the forest to see what would happen.

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It was about a year after that when Hiroto knew that he needed to go out with Suzu to train a new aspect of his bloodline limit. He had already found one facet of it before, but Suzu had just talked to him about it and they were fine. Now he could turn himself invisible on command if he so wanted to. Or, it was invisible to a degree. He was still there and perfectly visible, but for some reason people would look right over him as if he wasn't there. Anko had taken to calling it his 'Notice Me Not Jutsu' seeing as he could walk beside someone for hours and they would not notice him at all.

But this one made his day a living hell! He had woken up like normal, only the house was empty because Anko was at work already, and had begun his morning routine. Everything was perfectly alright. Until he went to the academy and found out way more than he had ever wanted to.

It started off fine. He sat in his usual spot next to Neji, a boy in his class, and looked up at the board to take notes. He studiously ignored the fan girls that surrounded them because of the young Hyuuga as Shiro and Taro hissed softly to him about the lesson going on and what they wanted to do once class was done. And he was taking notes.

Then as he looked up to get the next set of words that he needed to come nose to nose with one of the girls that was looking right at him. His vibrant green eyes clashed with the dark and dull eyes of the girl and he was suddenly seeing into her mind. The experience was not very pleasant, and he found that he had seen some of the memories that were on the surface. Not to mention he had seen the thoughts that flittered across her mind at that moment in time and could help but shudder at them.

As quick as he could he looked away, not realizing that he had only looked at her for a second as all of that had happened. It all just gave him a headache.

But then he remembered what he saw her thinking and turned to Neji before discreetly saying "If I were you, I would use the window as an exit today. The girls in your fandom are planning on waiting for you at the door after class, and I personally would not like to know what their plans are after that."

The young Hyuuga paled at that and bobbed his head once in thanks.

He had caught the gazes of a few more people after that, on accident, and each time he felt as if his brain was dumped on with information. It gave him a headache each time, and by the time lunch rolled around Hiroto was sporting a nasty migraine. He also knew way too much about the personal lives of the people he had seen the minds of. It was almost traumatizing for the nine and a half year old to see just what some shinobi did when they came back from missions.

He didn't even bother to tell the instructors when he left to go to Anko as quickly as possible. He knew that she would want to know that he was going to train with Suzu for a while. He needed to tell her so that she wouldn't freak out on her boss and coworkers when he was MIA for the next week or so.

Coming up to the kunoichi at the front desk, he asked "Excuse me, can you tell me where Anko-san is?"

"Sorry kid, but she just stared an interrogation with Ibiki, so you are going to have to wait until they are done." The woman answered without looking up from her paper work. Hiroto didn't like her at all.

Feigning taking a seat in the waiting area, he slipped into his 'notice me not' trick and made his way past the woman. From there he easily went down into the interrogation section of the place and started to look for Anko. The sounds coming from the building didn't bother him seeing as he lived with Anko for a while and was desensitized to it and he understood why it had to be done.

Shiro and Taro both hissed, indicating the door to his right had both Anko and Ibiki inside, so he walked over and knocked.

It was opened by Anko who saw him and let him in after making sure that no one had followed him. When he looked into the room he saw a man tied to a chair sporting only superficial wounds. It was clear that they had not started the hard core interrogation yet. That was also probably a good thing. Then Hiroto momentarily forgot to not look at the eyes and found himself see in the thoughts as they flittered through the man's brain and were telegraphed through the eyes and to Hiroto.

"Roto-kun, is there something wrong?" Anko asked as she went in front of his and tried to catch his eyes.

"I need to go with Suzu for a while." He said softly, still not looking his big sister in the eye.

"Why?" Anko prompted. She wasn't going to say no, but she was curious.

Hiroto then looked back at the man before saying "Anko-nee-san, he doesn't want to say anything to you because the bandits that forced him to come here have his wife as a hostage. And they don't know it yet, but his wife is pregnant. He is more afraid of losing her then of being tortured." The moment he said it the man began to babble off excuses and reasons why he couldn't say anything. Hiroto put his head in his hands, clearly suffering from a head ache.

Both adults that had been with him when he had first come to the village were reminded of what Suzu had said about the little one's abilities. And seeing it, they could tell that the cost of the jutsu clearly was hurting the boy's head.

"Alright Hiroto-kun, you can go off with Suzu, I'll let the academy and everyone else know that you won't be there for a while."Anko said softly as she hugged him before pushing him out the door, knowing that he would make it out alright.

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It was actually two weeks that he had spent out of the town with the thestral that was training him in the powers that he was gaining. The problem that he was having was that Hiroto had to learn to shield his mind before he could learn to master looking into someone else's mind. And that was something that the boy with green eyes was almost helpless at.

But through heavy meditation and the promise that they weren't going anywhere until he learned it, he managed it. Now that the shields were up, Hiroto didn't have to worry about looking into people's eyes and seeing things that he didn't want to. And of course, after that, it only took him two days to become proficient with looking into people's minds. He was a natural at that part of it.

What was almost worse than the training was coming back and having Anko smother him. As she went on and on about how she had thought his brain had exploded during training, it took about three of her coworkers and Ibiki to drag her off of him so that the boy could breathe again.

The best part of the ordeal was that the very next day Hiroto was able to go back to the academy. Though, he did have to spend almost the entire night working on the things that he missed. Lee had been nice enough to get them for him and drop them off with Ino so that she could given them to Inoichi so that he, in turn, could given them to Anko. One would think that they would have found an easier way to do things, but whatever.

"So where did you run off to?" Neji asked as Hiroto took his usual seat next to the talented Hyuuga. He admitted that he thought of the raven haired boy with the green eyes as a friend. He didn't seem to care about his family's reputation, he didn't mind that Neji was rather cold and arrogant, and he didn't try and talk about frivolous things. So, when the Hyuuga did speak with his fellow student, he found that he liked the conversation with the boy that was adopted by the T&I department. Though, the Hyuuga did find it interesting that the boy didn't have a last name. It was not a common occurrence, but it was the same with a few others in the class as well.

"Part of my bloodline trait came in and I needed to go off to train it before it melted my brain." Hiroto answered. He knew not to tell what his bloodline was, but he also wanted to be as honest as he could. Besides, Neji seemed to only speak with him, and Hiroto didn't want that trust to be lost yet.

Neji simply nodded. He had noticed the teen was clutching his head a bit before leaving the other day, and knew not to ask about bloodline traits. Unlike the others who would pry, since he had the byakugan he understood that they were usually clan secrets that were not supposed to be shared with others. He also assumed that his family had left scrolls with him and that was how he had trained his new found abilities.

As the class went on and on about something or other both of the teens were bored out of their minds. It was a history lesson that they both had learned about before. Neji because of his family and Hiroto because the Hokage wanted to make sure that the boy knew about his new home. Somehow, they had ended up playing hangman on a stray piece of paper that was between them. The funny part was that they were doing names of famous ninjas that had protected the village. It was something that the arrogant Hyuuga branch member allowed himself seeing as they were still on the topic of the lecture that was going on.

Beside Hiroto, Shiro and Taro had curled up and made sure that their two heads were facing away from each other as they basked in the patch of sunlight that gathered through the window. Both heads could care less about what was going on in the class as long as they got to sleep or joke around with each other. Besides, only Hiroto could hear them anyway.

As the instructor kept prattling on and on, Neji wrote an S on the bottom of the paper only to have Hiroto put a cross in it and draw a head on the gallows that he had set up. Scrunching up his face slightly, Neji then wrote and N and Hiroto had to grudgingly give him that one. There was in fact one N in the name that he had chosen. The Hyuuga then smirked as he finished the name based solely on that.

Hiroto pouted slightly, but it was to be expected. Right as Neji was about to set up the next name, the teacher called an end to the lecture and they all headed outside so that he could teach the civilian students how to throw shuriken. This was once again dead boring sine both of them had also been taught that by their respective guardians.

Hiroto was also fairly proficient with senbon due to Anko's dango infatuation. They would often sit and eat them, and then the two would throw the leftover sticks at a tree or wall (sometimes even the ceiling) and try to see who could make the better picture. He had been terrible at it before, but after over a year of living with her Hiroto had gotten the hang of it. Even if Anko won every time, it was mostly due to the fact that she just ate more of the stuff and so had more sticks to make the picture with.

As the day ended, Hiroto waited for Ino before walking her to the flower shop. Since the T&I department was going to be fairly busy, he had been dumped on the one house with another adult present that wouldn't mind taking care of him. It also might have helped that he had become something of an older brother figure for Ino.

The only down side was that he was forced to listen when his little sister went on and on about some Sasuke Uchiha. She was a complete fan girl about him at times. But at least Hiroto was able to help her train a bit, and she didn't make it her whole life when she was alone. Hiroto would have handed her over to Anko if she was too obsessed.

Inoichi also was grateful that Hiroto could get her out of the fan girl mindset every once in a while. And to show his gratitude, the mind delver had given the boy a few basic healing jutsu scrolls that would introduce him to that type of chakra use. He wanted to encourage that thinking mindset because it was always good to know a little bit of healing jutsu when out on a mission.

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It was finally here. The day that all of the academy students were waiting for. It was the day where the graduating academy students tried their hands at becoming genin. It was the day to be feared and to be loved. And For Neji and Hiroto, it was the day that they both knew would symbolize them earning their hitai-ates and making the people who raised them proud. Though Neji could care less what his uncle thought.

All throughout the test Hiroto was a hyper mess of a kid. And it only got worse the closer it came to being done. But in the end he was given the shiny new band to go around his head and announce to everyone that he was now a shinobi. That also symbolized that he was an adult in the eyes of the law.

As he skipped to Anko's place afterwards, excited about getting his new team the next day, he couldn't help but think about what he was going to do when he started earning some real cash. The very first thing that he was going to do would be to get an apartment. Seeing as he was living between four or five different people's houses, it wasn't really the best way to go. And he wanted stability. Plus, a few of the places really didn't like it that Shiro and Taro went everywhere with him.

As he sat next to Neji as he waited for team assignments. The green eyed boy couldn't help but hope to be put on the same team as the Hyuuga. They both got along, and he knew that the boy wouldn't leave him behind.

"… and on team two we have Nara Shikako, Hiroto, and Aburame Hotaru." Hiroto deflated slightly as he heard that, and then a couple of minutes later Neji has a scowl on his face when he learned who his two team mates were. While Hiroto was with a lazy genius and a bug girl, Neji was stuck with the boy with no chakra and the girl who was obsessed with both weapons and boys.

"Good luck," Hiroto muttered to his friend as he left to go meet up with the two others on his team. They were told that they would be meeting their jounin sensei after lunch. He didn't catch the nod that the Hyuuga gave him.

"So, Nara-san, Aburame-san, would you two like to have lunch with me so that we can introduce ourselves?" Hiroto asked as he walked up to the two girls who were now on his team. He knew to tread carefully with members of the opposite sex, years of dealing with Anko and Ino had taught him that it was better to be safe than sorry with them. After all, they were a different type of breed of human in comparison to the guys.

"Whatever," the young Nara answered. She was fairly tall with dark, waist length hair that was pulled into a low ponytail. Hiroto suspected that it was 'troublesome' to take the time to cut it. She also had dark black eyes and wore the dark grays and greens that were associated with her clan.

"It would be beneficial." The bug user added as they all walked out of the class room and somehow managed to end up on the grass below a tree. She was also sporting long dark brown hair, but he had no clue what her eyes looked like under the sunglasses. She was also wearing a rather large and baggy coat that was traditional with the majority of her clan.

Surprisingly, after he got under the strict attitude of the Aburame and the laziness of the Nara, they all seemed to get along wonderfully. It also seemed to help that all three of them were really intelligent and could actually keep a half decent conversation going when prompted. And Hiroto was thanking his lucky stars that the two didn't start trying to talk about boys around him. That would have been worse than when Ino did it because he would actually know the boys that they were fantasizing about.

"Team two, your sensei is here." The instructor announced after they had come back in. Looking over Hiroto was looking at a man who was rather unimpressive compared to some of the other shinobi that were in this town. He was singularly unmemorable. And that was how Hiroto knew he was someone to watch out for.

After following the man to a park that was still inside of the village and seeing him making sure that he had them in the darkest part of the park, the jounin began the introductions. "Hello, my name is Ogawa Shouta, you all can call me Ogawa-sensei, and I am going to be your jounin sensei if you pass a test tomorrow. In the interest of getting to know you all, I would like you all to tell me your names and your two favorite jutsus that you can do."

"I am Nara Shikako, and my favorite jutsu is my Shadow Possession Jutsu. It allows me to control the person who I have trapped in my shadow. My second favorite would be the Transformation Jutsu because it allows me to blend in where I might not have before and can be great for when I need to get blackmail material for various reasons." The Nara said lazily, though inside she was calculating the possibilities of the test that the jounin was going to have them do.

She could already see this team as being something of an intelligence gathering team just from the brains that they all seemed to have and the fact that their sensei was not overly obvious like some of the others that were around.

The bug user went next as she said "I am Aburame Hotaru, and my favorite jutsus are my Dance of the Fireflies Jutsu and my Bug Clone Jutsu. The first is used at night for distracting the enemy while simultaneously eating their chakra at a rate that they wouldn't notice. And the second creates a solid clone made up of my bugs."

Hiroto smiled as the spotlight turned to him. Though, he was almost conflicted on which jutsu he should choose as his favorite. In the end he decided to go for the one that he used the most and knew first. "Hello, I am Hiroto, no last name, this here is my partner; the left head is called Shiro and the right is called Taro, and my favorite jutsu is my Notice Me Not Jutsu. It allows me to walk among people without anyone really noticing me. I can walk alongside two people who are having a very privet conversation, and if I don't speak they will never notice that I am there."

He saw with a bit of pleasure that all of their eyes narrowed at him. It was something that was not heard of, especially in a ninja village. Usually shinobi were always on edge and were observant of anything going on around them. The fact that he could go unnoticed by trained high ranking shinobi was almost unbelievable.

"Does it work on shinobi as well?" Hotaru asked, her intellectual curiosity getting the better of her.

"Anko-nee-chan had me try it out on Ibiki-san and Inoichi-san when I first discovered it, and they only noticed me when I sneezed on accident. It wasn't very fun when they saw me after that." Hiroto said sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. He had been forced to clean out some of the interrogation rooms after that stunt, and it was nasty work.

"And your second favorite jutsu?" Ogawa asked. He was rather interested if there was another interesting jutsu that he could perform.

"Well, I don't know if I understand the name, but Suzu calls it Legilimency Jutsu. It I similar to the Yamanaka Mind Delving Jutsu, but all I need is eye contact and I can see the thoughts that are on the forefront of the mind. But I don't do that unless I have to because it hurts my head and I learn way too much that I didn't want to know anyway." He answered with a slight shiver. "Other than that it can be pretty cool!"

He still couldn't look the instructor at the academy in the eye after an entire year had passed since the incident. Hiroto was glad that he had never looked Anko in the eyes without his Occlumency shields up. He was afraid of what he might uncover if he did. Anko had her secrets, and Hiroto knew not to pry into his older sister's life.

"Right, well, now that we all know that, I want you all to be here tomorrow at eight in the morning." Ogawa said before he left in a puff of smoke and swirl of leaves.

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OMAKE:

The ominous humming from inside his daughter's room made Inoichi more than a little bit nervous. He remembered days where it was normal to see his little girl light up over having him show her his family's techniques. But now it seemed as if she lighted up to seeing the Uchiha boy looking anywhere near her.

He had tried so hard, really he did, but it seemed as if nothing could have stopped his daughter from getting into the fan girl epidemic that had plagued the female population of the academy. He had been leaving Hiroto in charge more often in hopes of braking it by having a friend who was a boy, Alas, it had not happened yet. Although the boy could snap her out of it from time to time, she always seemed to tevert back when she was alone again.

"I think that it's a disease!" Hiroto said from behind him.

Inoichi would have jumped if he hadn't seem used to the boy popping up at random times. As it was the new jutsu that he used that made him undetectable was refined by using him and the others that he was always around.

"Yes, but I think that it will take a while for it to run its course." The blond man answered the boy with a sigh.

"Maybe I'll find something in the new medical scroll that you gave me. So far I have found that it is contagious to girls once they reach a certain age. Maybe if we quarantine them all it will get rid of the problem so that it won't spread." The boy suggested as he looked to the giggling with a weary expression. He had seen how scary the fan girl syndrome could make the girls in his class and he was worried that his little sister would get that bad soon.

The man sighed "I'm afraid that it would come again in a different strain. But if you do find the cure, you could make millions. Please let me know if these help."

He then handed the new medical jutsu scrolls to the boy as a thanks to watching his daughter before he went to put his work things away. He didn't want to leave weapons around for his wife and daughter to stumble on. Even if Ino was working on being a kunoichi, until she was a genin, he wasn't going to trust her around any of his personal weapons.

Right before Hiroto left he walked over to the older man and asked in hushed tones "Did Anko get it when she was younger, or should I be worried?"

Inoichi almost choked as he looked at the boy in front of him. A fan girl Anko was something that everyone should be scared of. And that didn't even include the fact that she would rather kill the person who tried to make her that way than actually be that way.

"Um, I don't think that you have to worry about it. There is an age limit to it. Like the Chicken Pox, only this is a disease of the brain. I don't think that you have anything to worry about. When they get old enough they are mature enough not to fall into it for the most part." He answered.

"Thank god. I don't think I could handle her with stars in her eyes and squealing at the littlest of things. And if she started to giggle for no reason, or even at all, I think that I would never be able to even look at her again!" With that the boy left with his scroll in hand.

Even if Ino was alright if he distracted her enough, the moment that they got back she had to go into that room and started with that giggling. It sent chills down his spine! For the first time he sympathized with Neji.

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A/N: and that's a wrap. I hope that you all liked it and that you will leave a review to tell me how it was. also, I got no omake suggestions...if anyone anywhere has some that i might be able to include, tell me please. thank you all for reading, and i wish everyone a happy holidays. if only there was more snow over here. Then life would be perfect.