And there wasn't ever a time when that was most true, than right now-

(*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

"Where have you been?" Homera snapped at her as soon as she stepped through the large red cheery wood doors. Naru gave him a sunny smile and said,

"I was contimplating tossing an active grenade in here to clear the room." And my schedule. I hate dealing with the lot of you, but if not for the fact that I was here listening to your constant bitching, I'd probably be dead now. Naru thought darkly as she walked across the room and sat down in her chair as several of the council members sputtered in outrage at her joke. She sat down and noticed that Danzou was smiling at her from his seat across the room.

He looked happy. Maybe a little too happy. He probably used those damn Sharigan eyes of his to peek at me... She'd have to make a point of seperating him from them since he didn't really need them to see. After all, he had one good eye. Why use the eyes of a dead clan? Especially since she didn't like the reminder of what she had done to kill that clan off.

"Good morning Danzou-san." She said politely, knowing that no matter what happened, this man was now her rival in politics and she had to stay ahead of him or she would suffer.

He smiled even more at her. "Good morning...Sarutobi-san." She blinked at the lack of respect in his tone and he grinned happily. Yup, the bastard knew she wasn't really the Hokage alright. Well hell. The two of them would have to have words about this and come to an understanding.

She said cheerfully. "Here are the new laws that you all wanted passed and after looking them over I have to say no-" She glanced up from the papers to look at Danzou, his smile never faltered. She gnashed her teeth and bit back the low animalistic growl threatening to escape her throat. God he was pissing her off. "Because these laws don't benefit anyone but the lot of you. It does nothing to improve the quality of life in the village. It does nothing to help the people that need the help. It only lines your pockets with the villagers tax money and gives you power of authority that you shouldn't have. So again, I'm against these and that's that. Now does anyone else have something to say?"

"Well...at least you looked the papers over this time."

"And your reasoning is sound-"

"But you take too much on yourself. You forget your place Lord Hokage. You do not run this village-"

Naru gave the group a bored look. Ah. This again. "No, council it is you who forget yourselves. I am the head authority. The leader of this village, you, yourselves chose me for this job. You gave me the power to shoot you down in flames and to command and order the people of this village. The only power that you all have-" She said as she started to stand up. "Is the power to get on my nerves. I'm not your dog. You're mine. And while we're speaking of dogs...stop sneaking behind my back and ordering the Jounin of the village to murder the Jinchirkii. The girl is a vital tool in the continued fight against enemy nins. Killing her now would be foolish-"

Someone opened their mouth to speak and Naru cut them off. "No! I will not hear anymore of your nonsense. You will obey my words or I will strip you of the power that you already wield and label each of you as traitors to the village and banish you. Really, enough is enough. Am I understood?" She all but yelled at them. Homera and several others stared at her in slack jawed disbelief while others nodded.

The only one that didn't move or stare at her as if she were mad was Danzou. And she already had his number. "Good day." She snapped at them as she collected the papers from the file and walked out of the room and stopped cold when she saw Cage and Panther waiting for her.

She sighed and hung her head as the door behind her closed. "Yes Anbu. What is it?"

The two looked uncomfortable for a second before Cage spoke. "It's about Uzumaki sir..." She blinked at him and bit back a silent snarl. Fuck! Not them too.

"What about her?"

"Well sir, we were approached to kill her-"

"Disregard what you were asked to do and stay far away from that child unless you want me to kill you." She growled as she pushed past them and started walking down the hall. The two bowed to her and then vanished, apparently in no big hurry to be confronted by their Hokage about the killing of an innocent child.

Later that day after tackling the mountain of paper work that was waiting for her in the office beside the one that Sarutobi-jiji used to use. She ate something for a late lunch and then decided to call it an early day since she had school in the morning and if she didn't show up, Iruka-sensei might break into her apartment again to find her. And she couldn't have that. He might find something that he didn't need to find. And then there would be trouble.

She finished her food and dumped the papers and everything else that was cluttering her desk into the garbage and grabbed some of the papers that she felt she needed to look over again and walked out the door and nearly ran into Genma whom looked as if he had been about to knock on her office door. "Genma!"She said in a suprised tone as she lifted one of her hands to her chest and looked at the man.

With the way some of the shinobi skulked about the tower she'd be lucky not to have ten years startled off of her life every time she opened a door. "Hokage-sama. Sorry, did I startle you?"

"Yes. But thats okay-"

"Your not about to start having chest pains are you?" Genma asked worriedly and she sighed. Once again feeling the need to tell the man that she was much too young for such things, but again, she didn't bother.

"No. No chest pains. Just don't sneak up on me like that."

Genma looked releived and gave her a small smile. "Senses not what they used to be?"

"What do you expect? I'm in my seventys." She growled at him. He gave her a doting smile but said nothing, apparently thinking that he must have touched on a sensitive subject.

"So what brings you by here?" She asked after a second or so, her curiousity finally getting the best of her.

"I was worried about you when you didn't come down to the lunch room for your usual down time. Is everything okay?" Genma asked as she started walking down the hall, and quickly fell into step beside her. He knew that the person that he was talking too wasn't really the Hokage, and while he had no real proof of it, he didn't feel half as worried as he should have been with someone impersonating the Hokage. Mainly because he got the feeling that the one acting as the elder, wasn't out to hurt anyone.

Still he was curious about the imposter. He got the feeling that the person next to him was much younger. Maybe in their teens. He couldn't get a good feel for their gender though, and that sort of bugged him. He kept leaning more towards female because of some of the maneriums he had noted over the past few months. The way that the imposter sometimes chewed on his/her finger nails and ran his/her hand through their hair. He often got the impression that the imposter was fragile, then he/she would do something and throw his first impression off.

He knew that whoever the impostor was, he/she was strong, that was simply a given considering who they were impersonating. And he knew that this person also knew politics and how to run the village smoothly, meaning that he/she was someone high up on the chain of command. Still, he wanted to know who it was and had started watching them, looking for some small sign to see if they reveiled them self.

So far it was like watching wall paper dry. Nothing was giving, nothing was showing through; his/her impersination of the Hokage was almost comepletely flawless. It might have been vexing if he wasn't such a laid back guy. But so far he was just curious and maybe a little amused by the bizarre turn of events.

"You worry too much Genma." The impostor said gently as he/she started walking, he fell into step behind the impostor and studied the person through narrowed dark eyes. He knew that the one he was walking with was using a transformation jutsu to make them self appear to be the village lord, and he had the nearly over whelming impulse to reach out and see how solid the jutsu was.

"Well, that's normal isn't it? After all you are the beloved leader of our village. If anything happened to you we'd-"

"Nothing would happen to you Genma. Weather I'm here or not doesn't matter. There are safety nets, in a manner of speaking, to protect the village if I fall." The impostor pointed out and Genma suddenly got a clearer picture of what had happened to the Hokage and felt the need to swear.

Fuck, of all the ways to learn of the old man's death, this had to be the saddest. And to make matters worse, he was walking with one of those mentioned 'safety nets' and he now had a pretty good idea of who the impostor was since the old man had kept the kid as close to him as possible, then it only stood to reason that the Uzumaki girl would have known of the old man's death before anyone else. Maybe even witnessed it and tried to save him.

God what a mess. He thought as he reached out and took the kid's wrist, trying hard to see through the transformation jutsu ot the child underneath the illusion and pulled her to a stop. She turned to look at him and for a moment he could swear that he saw violet eyes flash vermilion red then back again. The demon lurking just below the surface, checking him out through the child's eyes before slinking back into the farthest part of her consciousness out of the way.

"Lord Hokage. If you ever need my help... for whatever reason. All you have to do is ask." Genma said gently, needing the girl to understand that he would back her up regardless of what she asked him, he simply couldn't let the girl do this task alone. It was far too great and there were far too many lives at stake, and for once he didn't want to see the girl suffer while trying to do the right thing. He'd bear some of the weight and responsibility, if only to help her and to better protect her from a village that would gladly see her ruined or worse...dead.

For a moment she dropped the transformation jutsu and he could see her, the real her, the look of pain and sadness on her face before the jutsu went back up again and she grasped his wrist and gave it a strong squeeze and smiled at him. "Thank you Genma."

He placed his other hand on top of hers and smiled at her. "No problem princess."