Narrator: Alright, just want to say thanks to my first reviewers.

DragonTamerx

The True Uzumaki

Crusnik

Thanks for the support, its great to know my writing is actually good.

Thanks for all the hits from u other guys too, ur awesome!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, those Japanese guys do

Chapter 3: A New Friend

As her eyes opened up painfully slow, the first thing she noticed was a bright light hitting down onto her face, shutting her eyes to the blinding light again. After a few minutes of adjustment, she could open her eyes to see a white ceiling above her. She tried to get up, but found her body too exhausted to move much without much stress. Lying back down, she could see to her right a large window that gave her a view of a town, more like a big city actually. Even from her view of the area, she was sure that there was still more of the city to see. She could also see the sun beginning to rise up to greet the people once with its light with only a few clouds in the sky to get in its way.

"Where am I, last thing I can remember is getting to the edge of a forest, then I saw a person, who was that?"

Deciding she had enough of the view outside, she turned her direction to the rest of room she was in.

And that is when she spotted him.

The boy seemed to be about her age, even though he was a whole head taller than her sitting in a chair by her bed apparently sleeping still. He was dressed in a black shirt which had an orange spiral on his left sleeve and a dark orange stripe on each side under his arms. It was able to show off that although not ripped, he definitely had some well toned muscles. She saw he was also wearing regular black cargo pants that had another orange stripe down each pant leg and wearing black shinobi sandals. Looking up towards his head, she could see a lean face with what appeared to be whisker marks, but they seemed to look good on him. She could also spot a large mop of blonde, spiked-up hair held up by a headband with a leaf carved on it.

"Who is this guy? Is he the one who brought me here? Maybe somebody can help me here" she thought to herself.

What she didn't notice was that she was still staring at him as the sun finally decided to wake up the blonde-haired shinobi.

"Hmmmmmm, morning already, well I guess I can see if this girl is awake yet."

As Naruto looked down, he could see the girl already awake, staring at him with two orange-colored eyes with a small hint of red in it, yet still comforting and full of life like a warm fire at the dead of night.

What the girl saw as he was waking up were two deep blue eyes that looked like they were from the ocean, and seemed to be able to penetrate into her very mind and soul. The gaze itself didn't seem intimidating; instead it looked full of kindness and comfort, and she seemed to be lost in them.

The comfortable silence of their staring, however, was soon broken by a knock at the door, followed by a blonde haired woman only slightly taller than the boy in front of her.The woman seemed to be probably in her late twenties or thirties. The two teens quickly looked away blushing when the woman entered, the fire-red haired girl a bit more heavily.

"Was I really just checking that boy out? He is pretty handsome…"

"She must think I'm some kind of pervert staring at her like that. Damn Ero-sennin!"

"What happened to these two, oh well I'm too old to be dealing with this."

Walking next to the blonde haired shinobi, the woman asked "I see you are doing much better, especially after just one day of rest, what is your name?"

"My name is Shina" she replied in a voice unlike most kunoichi here, mainly because it wasn't loud (cough…Ino…cough) but just a tad softer, and comforting as well.

"Welcome to Konoha Shina, my name is Tsunade" the older woman replied.

"Wait you're really Tsunade, one of the Sennin?" Shina asked.

"Yes that's right, and the boy next to me is…"

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, the next Hokage!" the blonde haired boy shouted.

"Quiet Naruto! How many times must I tell you not to yell in here?!" Tsunade yelled while punching him in the head a bit forcefully.

"Ouch! Granny Tsunade why do you always have to hit me?!" Naruto questioned.

"And stop calling me Granny!" she yelled angrily with a vein popping out of her head and a fist shaking in front of her.

Seeing all of this the red-headed girl tried hard not to laugh back, but was unable to stifle a small giggle at the two people's conversation.

Turning their attention back to the teen girl on the bed, Tsunade took a look over her. With her examination, her hands began to glow green as she placed her healing chakra over the girl's body. After a few minutes, Tsunade was finished, saying "Well she didn't seem too badly hurt, I was able to heal all her injuries but she will feel a little tired for the day. Naruto, could you please step outside for a minute so I can have a talk with her."

"O no, she's gonna try to send me back, but I can't go back!"

"Okay then Granny Tsunade" Naruto replied happily, running out and closing the door before Tsunade could hit him with the clipboard she tossed.

"Now that he is not around here, could you tell me why you were running through the forest?"

"Well…" Shina began nervously, "I was running away from my home village" she finished hanging her head down.

"Well why did you do that?" Tsunade asked putting a reassuring arm around the girl's shoulders.

"I can't tell her that, she'll just reject me like everyone at my village did" she thought sadly.

"I really can't tell you that, you would hate me," she said muttering the last part sadly.

"I can promise you that I won't, but if you don't tell me I'd have no choice but to consider you a missing-nin."

"Well, better to take my chances here other than at my village." She thought.

"I'm, I'm…umm" she said trying to find the right words. "I carry the Six-Tailed Phoenix Rokudou no Houyoku, I'm just a demon. At my village, I was hated. The other people would glare at me, insult me, and try to beat and glare at me. Even the kids my age knew, and although they weren't as harsh, none of them wanted to be my friend. Finally I just decided to run around a week ago, but then they sent nin to try and kill me. That is when somebody found me leaving a forest, and I guess bringing me here. I'm guessing it was that boy, Naruto, who brought me here huh?" Shina said ready to shed some tears.

Tsunade could only nod her head trying to take in all this information. "Her life was just like Naruto's from what I learned about it." "He came in here making a loud ruckus, trying to get you some medical attention; luckily he got you here before your injuries became too serious from blood loss. Even when I said you would be okay, he spent all day and night here waiting to make sure you recovered."

With that, Shina picked her head up quickly looking at the woman with a hint of disbelief. "That boy did that for me? Why? I'll have to thank him later for that" she thought with a small, near unnoticeable blush on her cheeks.

"That's Naruto for yea" Tsunade said almost like she knew her thoughts. "Even for strangers, he has quite the caring heart, even though he's a bit of a loud mouth."

Looking back at Shina, Tsunade replied "I really don't mind that you're a jinchuuriki. In fact, we have one in our village too, so I know how to deal with them."

Shina stared at Tsunade with an even larger look of disbelief. "Really? Who is the person? Can I meet him or her?"

Tsunade shook her head. "I'm sorry, but that's an S-Class secret. Only the person themselves are allowed to tell other people."

Shina brought her head down again. "Looks like I'm still gonna be alone keeping this secret."

"Enough of that though, what would you like to do? I'm sure you don't want to go back there huh?"

To that, Shina quickly shook her head fiercely. "If it was at all possible, do you think I could be allowed to stay here and be a kunoichi?" she asked hopefully.

"I don't see a problem with that, but you will start out as a genin for our current Team 7, they are missing a member, okay?"

Shina nodded her head happily. "Why are they missing a member though? Is he sick?"

Tsunade, shaking her head, said "I think that is a matter you best take up with one of them; it is a bit of a touchy subject. In fact, let me call a member in here to escort you around, I'm sure you'd want to get used to our new home."

"That reminds me Tsunade-sama, where will I go for my new home?"

"Let me take care of those details. While you're being escorted around town, I'll get all the papers of your shinobi placement ready. Hey Naruto, get back in here!"

Shina had a look of surprise on her face. "Naruto is one of my teammates, maybe that won't be so bad, at least I'll know one of them already."

Shina could here from the doorway "What did you need Granny Tsunade?!"

After the regular punch to the head, Tsunade replied "Naruto, I want to take your newest teammate Shina to a tour of Konoha while I prepare her records and living arrangements."

"New teammate? Cool, a new friend, I sure could use some of those" Naruto thought with a look of surprise.

"Get going you two, I need to hurry up if I want to finish by today" Tsunade said.

"Sure thing, come on Shina-chan lets get going, I got a lot to show ya!" Naruto shouted happily as Shina began to walk with him out the door. As they were walking down the hallway, Shina had a thought cross her mind.

"Shina-chan? Nobody since my family ever cared that much about me, and I just met him."

Putting that thought aside for later, Shina instead asked "Hey Naruto-kun, why do you call Tsunade-sama Granny?"

"Naruto-kun? She's probably just being polite; nobody's ever been so friendly that fast."

"What do you mean, Shina-chan?"

"Well, she only looks like she's in her twenties; she would look more like a mom than Granny."

"O yea, that's because it's some strange genjutsu thingy she uses, it helps her look younger, cause without it, well, let's say the years have not been kind to her."

Unknown to them both, Tsunade was still within earshot when she heard what Naruto said about her.

The entire city of Konoha could hear a cry of "NA-RU-TO!!!!!"

Ichiraku Ramen (like their first stop would be anywhere else):

After desperately attempting to get away from the hurricane of rage called Tsunade, Naruto decided to take Shina to his favorite place to eat for lunch.

While walking into the shop, he was greeted by the owner Teuchi and Ayume.

"Hello, if it isn't my best customer, how are you doing?"

"Hey there old man, just stopping by for lunch."

"Hey Naruto-kun, whose your friend there?" Ayame asked.

"O right, manners. This is my newest friend Shina-chan. I suppose you could say we met yesterday, and is my newest teammate" Naruto replied happily.

"Hello there, it's nice to meet you both" Shina replied.

"Well, any friend of Naruto is a friend of mine. So what would you guys like?" said the shopkeeper's daughter.

"I'll have the usual Ayume-chan" The blonde haired boy said joyously.

"I think I will have some pork ramen please" Shina said.

As they were both eating, by the time Shina finished her first bowl, Naruto had finished five.

With a shocked face, Shina asked Ayame "Does he always eat that much?"

"He's not even close yet, his usual is normally around ten bowls."

"Wow, why does he eat so much?"

"I've tried to figure that out for years, but it's still a mystery."

As the girls were sharing a couple of giggles, Naruto was thinking of what to do next.

"Hey Shina-chan?"

"Yea Naruto-kun?"

"What would you like to do next, I mean we can go to the training grounds, or go through the nearby forests, or maybe we can go looking for some of my friends to introduce you."

"I think I would like to go meet your friends, if you don't mind."

"Sure no problem" Naruto replied as he grabbed Shina's hand unintentionally and began walking off.

"Have fun with your girlfriend Naruto" Ayame called out in a sly tone.

Seeing what he was doing, he quickly let go of her hand and they both began to blush heavily.

"S-s-she's just an f-f-friend Ayume-chan" Naruto was able to sputter out embarrassed.

"Sure she is Naruto" Ayame said sarcastically. "Whatever; have fun anyway."

And with that sense of embarrassment, Naruto and Shina go on their way to find some of his friends.

Narrator: Well next chapter, I introduce Shina to the Rookie 9

Shina: Anything else interesting happening to me?

Narrator: Maybe, you'll just have to find out next chapter.

Please Read and Review