A/N: I'm glad all of you love the first romance segment of this story. I wasn't sure if Tsunami's feelings felt too rushed. Now then, time to answer a statement I found in the reviews!

Q&A Section:

First Guy: I want Kurenai...one of the most beautiful and calm female in Naruto...He can help ending the Bloody Mist while at that...and meet younger Mei Terumi…awesome..!

I'm sorry if Kurenai will seem OC to you in this story but that is how I visualize Kurenai in her younger teenage years before she becomes the mature and calm individual you see in the canon. The interaction between Kurenai and Rin adds some much needed humor/happy moments in this somewhat depressing story. Addressing your third statement in the review, I haven't decided anything concrete on Kiri yet. Obito was the person who caused Kiri to have its civil war around the end of the Third Shinobi War so I'm still wondering how much I should stick to the canon.

~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 7: The Divergence of the World

"No Shisui." Naruto said. Seeing Shisui was about to protest the rather decision, he continued on. "You can't even do the basic Katon jutsu so you wouldn't be able to do this jutsu either. Furthermore, you don't have enough chakra to do the technique."

"But it's not fair! You can do that really cool Katon technique and Itachi can do the Gokakyu (Fireball). And Itachi is one year younger than me while I'm five years old. It's not fair that everyone can shoot out fire except me." And with his attitude known, the young Uchiha crossed his arms in anger and pouted.

"And what about the other thirty children that I also teach along with you guys? Not all of them know how to do the Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Fireball Technique)." Inwardly, Naruto was not that shocked anymore by all the new minor memories he absorbed from Obito every night that provided new insight into the boy's life. Not only did Obito help the elderly, he also taught Itachi and the Uchiha children many things in his free time. He was really surprised, however, by how much community service Obito did, which made him really wonder how far did Obito fall if he went so far as to help Itachi with the massacre. He doubted that Obito didn't kill at least one or two of the kids he taught in the past.

"But...but…" Shisui protested, "It's...not fair…" Seeing a raised eyebrow in the form of a question mark, Shisui quickly continued. "Itachi is just one year younger than me and he already is considered an adult since he can do the Gokakyu jutsu. He is already really smart and talented and already has the Sharingan. And since he will be the future heir of the clan, everything is set in stone for him in life." The boy sighed in defeat. "He just needs to walk through the streets and all the Uchiha will cater to his every whim since he will eventually lead the clan!"

Naruto was quite amazed by how intelligent the boy, Shisui, was compared to himself at the age of five. He seemed very insightful for such a young age, which indicated he must have be some sort of genius or had advanced intellect. But Naruto never heard of someone named Uchiha Shisui become a notable individual in the bingo books nor he never did appear in the Fourth Shinobi War with the other famous but deadly shinobis. The logical conclusion were two depressing ones, Naruto deducted, was that either this boy died early before he had the chance to live up to his potential or he wasn't trained properly in the future and died off as another forgotten nobody during the war or the Uchiha Massacre.

And he was just another innocent casualty of Hashirama's failed experiment. One side of him whispered cynically. When he processed that thought, he shook his head in anger. He should not be thinking of the mighty Lord First in that way or manner. That train of thought seemed to follow the same vein as Madara - which was never a good sign for his or - anyone's for that matter - health.

"Indeed, Itachi will be the future heir, and along with that will come the extra perks." Shisui smiled as his brother-like figure understood his viewpoint. "But...tell me Shisui, what makes a leader?"

"A leader is someone who is so powerful that people follow him cause he's cool!" The boy shouted with stars in his eyes. "He is respected and remembered by all! That's what I wanna be!"

"Indeed, those are all true." Naruto replied sagely, as if he had a similar conversation before in life. But that was when he was naive little shinobi. He needed to make sure this boy didn't fall in the same trap as he did in the past. "But most of all, a leader is someone who is forced to make hard decisions for the benefit of all."

"Huh?" The Uchiha replied.

"Shisui, if a man held your father and mother hostage and told you that only one was allowed to live and the other one had to die, who would you chose?"

"But Otou-san's dead! And Kaa-san can kick anyone's ass!" Naruto sighed as he shook his head. Smarty pants...

"Then, how about your grandmother who is disabled?" Naruto said, "Your mother cannot defeat the shinobi without risking the possibility of endangering your frail grandmother. Who would you choose between them?"

"Uh...erk...I-I...I...then I would use some awesome jutsu to burn the man into a crisp!" The boy proclaimed.

"And if this man was an S-rank shinobi who could easily kill you just with his pinky finger?" Naruto raised his eyebrow.

"Well, then I would...uh...um…" The boy scrunched his eyebrows as he thought deeply in this position. After a few minutes of thinking, Shisui frowned distressingly. "I...can't…" The Uchiha boy mumbled as he rubbed his head in distress, "I love them both. It's not fair!"

"And that is what one day Itachi will be forced to do." As Naruto recalled the murky details surrounding the massacre of the Uchiha Clan, "He maybe eventually be forced to make a tough decision between two things he greatly loves, and many - if not all the Uchihas - may not even agree to his decision at all. This is the mantle of responsibility that burdens leaders. Itachi cannot think for himself but for the greater whole."

Shisui stayed contemplative for a minute before he said, "Then...how can I be respected by the clan if I can't choose between two hard decisions?"

Naruto ruffled the boy's hair good naturedly. "You become strong. Work hard in your studies and learn from your mistakes. This is the most valuable quality any successful shinobi needs to succeed. And only then will people respect you for your power and skill. Come on Shisui. I can help you with the Gokakyu jutsu for a couple of hours before I have a meeting to attend." Naruto left the training ground without a second glance to go find a nearby pond.

Shisui quickly ran to follow the quickly retreating figure with great alacrity.

~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~

While Naruto was teaching the finer points of Katon jutsus to Shisui, on the other side of Konoha, a boy with silver hair glared at his burnt hand.

Training at one of the more obscure training grounds, Training Ground 142, Kakashi Hatake was training alone. Staying up all night, Kakashi tried to abate the drawbacks of his first jutsu, the Chidori (Lightning Release: One Thousand Birds), that was derived from Minato-sensei's Rasengan (Spiralling Sphere). Mainly, he was working on the issue of the tunnel vision. It rendered this jutsu pretty much useless in actual combat despite its high fatality rate.

An enemy could dodge the jutsu easily if they saw it from a couple feet away and perform a counterattack. A counterattack that Kakashi would be hopeless against considering his eyes could not adapt to seeing the surroundings when his body moved very, very fast in a straight line. If he had a dojutsu, then Chidori could have been a one hit kill S-rank jutsu. But right now, Kakashi was slowly realizing his first creation was a failure.

Punching the tree with his lightning-cooked hand, he ignored the pain of his sensitive skin hit against the rough tree bark. What hurt more was the feeling of how he failed.

Again.

When his father committed suicide after accidently initiating the Third Shinobi War, Kakashi wanted to not losing anyone he cared again. Quickly moving through the shinobi ranks, he wanted to make sure that he had the power to protect Minato-sensei and Kushina-san when the situation arose. Then, when Team 7 included Obito and Rin, he also wanted to protect them since they were growing on him.

For the first time since his father's death, Kakashi felt like he had a true family; one that was very different from his disgraced one. With Minato and Kushina as the parents, Obito as the annoying younger brother and Rin as the middle sister, Kakashi felt truly content with his life.

Except it wasn't meant to last. With the sudden death of Obito, Kakashi fell into grief of how he saw his surrogate brother get killed right in front of him by that Iwa jonin. And even though he avenged the fallen Uchiha, a little voice in the back of his head told him that if he had used that jutsu earlier, Obito wouldn't have died.

Coming home defeated, Kakashi trained day and night until he couldn't move. Drowning in despair, Kakashi perform jutsu after jutsu, and kata after kata - not caring of the agonizing pain he felt nor how close he was to dying - before someone found collapsed on the training ground and brought him to the hospital.

Staring at the morbid blank white walls, Kakashi griefed about everything: his failure, his loss, his weakness, his arrogance, his pride, his shinobi rules, everything. He resolved to live by Obito's words of wisdom - to protect Team 7 (ie. Rin) - so he could honor the Uchiha's meaningless sacrifice that could have been avoided if things were done differently.

Only to find that none of it didn't matter one bit when he saw one Obito Uchiha waltz back into the team like it was a daily occurrence. Even though Kakashi was happy that Obito was back, he was extremely infuriated by how nonplussed the others were. Both Minato and Rin acted as if Obito didn't die, which made Kakashi really wonder if all the reflecting about his life in the hospital was even worth anything. It was as if death was not such a big deal. It was as if his father didn't need to commit suicide to leave him. This train of thought led him back directly to the million ryo question he asked himself everyday: Then, why did Otou-san had to die…?

Confused and lost, Kakashi decided to do what he loved to do in his spare time after avoiding Minato-sensei. Train. Train as hard as possible so all the swirling emotions would be locked under a steel cage forever. But that proved to be abortive since he was finding himself to be more frustrated than ever.

He was currently finding himself in a deadlock. With the Chidori deemed as a failure, he would need to create a whole jutsu from scratch but that could take years. If Minato-sensei took three years for the Rasengan, then how long would it take for him to create his own? He needed something that would increase his fighting potential greatly, but it needed to be fast since he, or Rikudo Sennin forbid the others, might die in this war. But the problem was that his taijutsu was at jonin level so he couldn't find a way to improve, he wasn't creative nor patient enough for genjutsus, and he needed to wait till he got older so he could improve his kenjutsu.

So, he was currently stuck with no clear way to proceed.

And Minato-sensei wasn't doing a great job getting him out of it by forcing the team to do pointless "teamwork exercises" all the time. The boy sometimes felt as if Minato-sensei had a very small sadistic side with him that loved to come out during team training time.

Instead of going to the Team 7 daily meeting in the morning, Kakashi decided he would use his time more effectively by finding a new teacher - hopefully.

~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~

Walking through the various shortcuts, to quickly get back to the urban district, Kakashi spotted a well-known figure of Konoha reading calmly from a scroll under a tree. Approaching the person, Kakashi hid behind a bush to stare at the pale feminine figure dressed in a purple yukata.

Orochimaru.

One of the three legendary Sannin, this man was one of Konoha's S-rank shinobi who survived the legendary battle against Ame's Hanzo in the Second Shinobi War. He was the teammate of Jiraiya-sama, another sennin that taught Minato-sensei. In Kakashi's eyes, he was the perfect individual he was looking for. Now, how do I ask him to accept me as a-

"Get out of the bushes." The man in the clearing ordered simply as his eyes didn't move from the scroll. "Or there will be consequences."

Seeing himself caught, Kakashi quickly acquiesced and bowed deeply in front the powerful shinobi. "Orochimaru-sama."

The Sannin's eyes looked upward for a millisecond before his eyes continue to eat the contents of the scroll. "Oh? Minato's kid. Tell me, Hatake, what do you want?"

Suppressing the growl at being called by his disgraced family name, Kakashi said smoothly "I wish to be your apprentice."

The S-rank shinobi looked up from his reading to see the boy still bowing in front of him, quickly noticing the dirty clothes, bloodshot eyes, and burnt hand. "Tell me boy, the great Minato", not even hiding his animosity of the yellow-haired ninja, "is your teacher. Why should I teach you? I already have shinobi of my own to teach."

Kakashi didn't show any signs of reacting from Orochimaru's hated of his sensei but internally, he was furious at this shinobi's acrimonious attitude to his sensei. But in the end, he kept a cool head. It didn't matter if this Sannin didn't like his current teacher, he was still a wealth of opportunity since Jiraiya-sama wasn't constantly in the village and Hokage-sama said that Tsunade-sama was on her extended leave. He needed to ensure he wouldn't lose anyone ever again.

"Power." Kakashi broke the silence between them with a word that showed his unrelentless determination and drive to become stronger. Staring straight at the golden reptilian slit pupils that would send lesser shinobis with nightmares, he continued. "I need power. I need power so I can defeat someone like you." He declared unashamedly.

Orochimaru let out a small hissing laugh at the last comment. While many would be pissed at the upstart boy making such a statement, he instead found it amusing. Looking back at the very determined eyes, he unintentionally let out a small smirk at the same eyes that he saw in the mirror everyday with his current goal in mind. Hmm...he does have a lot prodigious talent and with the determination and I do see the potential of a very useful underling who could provide me some extra data for an experiment. I think I just need to mold him and then I will have a great assistant and he seems like a more worthy investment than Anko. Plus, I do need to make the fool shut up about Minato every time.

"You are quite amusing, but being a comedian won't make me teach you. I don't need another one to deal with."

"But-" Kakashi interjected.

"Silence." Orochimaru said with all of the S-rank's killing intent focused on turning Kakashi's face ashen-white. "Do not interrupt me again. As I was going to say, before you graciously interrupted me, I will teach you." Seeing the boy waiting before it was his turn to talk, Orochimaru nodded his head in approval. "But I require a test. A test that will allow me to see your determination."

"A bell test?" Kakashi replied as he understood the logic. Teachers tended to test their students before so they could understand their strengths and weaknesses or see if they had certain characteristics a teacher wanted.

"Nothing complex like that." Orochimaru shook his head, "No, what I ask is simple: gouge out your eye."

There was a silence that permeated the atmosphere before it was broken by a scream.

"WWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTT!"

Not batting an eyelash from the scream, the S-rank shinobi continued. "My philosophy is this: sacrifice is necessary for greatness. If I teach you, I will be able to make you into an S-rank shinobi just like your father. I don't doubt this, especially with your aptitude and lineage."

"Then why-"

"I asked you to get rid of your eye? It's because I want to see if you have the willpower necessary to survive and flourish from my whole training. My training will put you through so much pain and suffering everyday that stabbing your own eye out will seem pitiful in comparison . I will constantly make you break bones to mend them and then instantly break them again. I will increase your strength quadruple fold by making you climb the most dangerous cliffs chakra-less. I will make you strong by making you run around with boulders that make you feel as if you have your clan house strapped on your back. I will increase your immunity by injecting you even with the deadliest Suna poisons that killed thousands. I will do all this and more to ensure that you one day will be more powerful as me. But to make sure all my effort isn't wasted, I want to make sure you want to truly become powerful and not some foolish idea that you conjugated in your head at a whim."

Kakashi was speechless in the face of the Sennin's speech. It made sense from a certain morbid angle. Unlike the bell test that tested your ability to cooperate with others to the limits, Orochimaru's request tested your long term commitment to a cause. But was it a test did Kakashi wanted to pass?

The silver-haired boy first thought there was some kind of hidden meaning or statement that he had to figure out. But that idea was lost merit when he noticed the clear golden eyes that clearly told him that the man before him really did want him to stab his eye out.

But is it worth it? Taking a kunai out, he selected the eye on his non-dominant left side. Pointing the edge of the weapon at its intended target, his left eye looked straight at the shaking obsidian weapon and saw his face being reflected on the weapon.

It wasn't a look of the confident yet stoic shinobi Kakashi prided himself to be. Instead, it was the look on his face when he first found his father dead body in the house. It was the look of a terrified boy who was lost in the harsh world of reality.

It was a face that he vowed he wouldn't have anymore. And he already broke the promise to himself in less than a year.

Absently, a stray thought flooded his mind. Maybe I should just stick with Minato-sensei? But that thought was crushed under honest rationalism. Minato-sensei isn't as strong as Orochimaru-sama. Unlike Minato-sensei who recently received his S-rank two weeks ago, Orochimaru-sama is a feared shinobi who killed hundreds of shinobi and played a huge role in the Konoha's war effort in the past war and the current one. Minato's power paled in comparison to the legendary Sannin - no matter how much training he received from one of them. Furthermore, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Kakashi stumbled across.

It was an offer that required lots of time to weigh the benefits and the cost. But there wasn't a lot of time, based on the impatient frown marring the Sennin's face. He needed to make his decision immediately.

Angling the weapon down slightly, Kakashi was about to remove the kunai from his face. After all, there are other opportunities. He reasoned hopefully.

But before he was able to do so, his mind unintentionally flashed back to the clear events that led to Obito "dying" with a determined smile on his face.

The three of them were in a cave when the Iwa jonin used a jutsu that caused the cave to collapse around them. Since they all were relatively uninjured, they easily navigated through the falling rocks and headed to the opening of the cave, with Kakashi and Obito leading in front. But before they were able to do so, Rin tripped when a nearby boulder landed nearby - causing the nearby ground to shake. She tripped and that spilt second was all the jonin needed to send a boulder right on top of her to crush Rin.

But Obito wasn't going to let that happen to his crush. Running back to Rin, he grabbed and threw her out of the cave. The two turned back in time to see the boulder land right on top of the Uchiha. Blood flew everywhere and there was a sickening crunch. Before they could run back to lift the boulder off their teammates, more rocks fell and sealed off the cave.

The Hatake found it ironic that he called Obito a coward whenever the Uchiha cried, yet he was the most bravest of the two by staring at death straight in the face with a smile.

Closing his eyes, he could already visualize the familiar looking Obito wearing the orange goggles and giving him that stupid annoying grin as he said, "Come on Kakashi-teme. What are you so scared about?"

Indeed. Kakashi mused. What am I scared about? I could always get another eye in the future. I didn't mope in the hospital for nothing. And most of all, I am a real shinobi. I thrive upon receiving and giving pain! I resolved that my love ones would never suffer on that day! I won't break that promise now!

Opening his left eye, the black eyeball stared unflinchingly at the kunai. Ignorant of the growing, yet twisted smile on the Sannin's face that would have sent Jirayia running to a gay bar happily, the small silver-haired shinobi took a deep breath. He moved the weapon quickly towards his face.

Then, Kakashi's world exploded in pain before all went black.

~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~

In another part of Konoha, Rin Nohara was ignorant of her white-haired teammate's recent injury. Instead of meeting with Team 7 just like the rest of her teammates, she was at the Konoha library with another classmate from the Academy - Kurenai Yuhi.

After once again failing to find Obito last night, she decided she would initiate the second part of her plan first. But she didn't realize climbing the hill to become strong was more steeper than it looked.

Medical ninjutsu was definitely not helping her get any stronger. She didn't have the dexterity to wield the chakra scalpels effectively in close range engagements nor the time to start creating an immunity to poisons she could make. Without Tsunade-sama's personal journals, she had no idea where to start to reverse engineer the Sannin's fabled super strength fast enough for the next Team 7 deployment - which could happen in a couple of days.

Going through the various medical text was turning out to be a waste of time. Feeling somewhat frustrated by the lack of progress, she decided she needed a break by walking around Konoha.

It was there she ran into her affable friend Kurenai. Apparently, her fellow kunoichi was also in the same boat and feeling quite powerless in her team compared to the strengths of her other two teammates, Asuma Sarutobi and Raido Namiashi.

Furthermore, the red-eyed kunoichi was quite pissed off when Asuma proclaimed to the team that he would protect her, only for the Sarutobi to be hit with a genjutsu that would give him migraines for the rest of the day. Kurenai did not like Asuma babysitting her since she her dream was to become a strong independent kunoichi. Being babied by the Hokage's son wasn't going to help.

Finding themselves in a similar situation, the two girls decided they could help each other improve since they both used Yin Release for their jutsus and had very high chakra control. But, they didn't expect how easy it was for them to work together. After spending two hours trading their various techniques that greatly enhanced their jutsu repertoire, they spent the third hour in the library and created a new jutsu by combining Kurenai's innate knowledge of genjutsu with Rin's medical knowledge.

"So what do you want to call the genjutsu since you came up with the idea?" Kurenai asked her friend.

"What? No, no. You did the most work since you needed to figure out the hand signs for the genjutsu." Rin replied modestly.

"Yes, but you gave me an idea for the genjutsu. You were the one who pointed out that if someone was repeatedly exposed with the same stimulus over a period of time, your brain would eventually ignore the stimulus." Kurenai replied patiently.

"But that was just some random comment I made about our brain getting used to too much stimulus like our eyes ignore our noses since we see it everyday. I didn't know you would expand that idea into an actual genjutsu!."

"But still… I didn't think I would be able to invent a C-rank jutsu so early! This has so many different applications like escaping a prison or trying to trick guards. It practically uses little chakra since it's just speeds up a natural process of the brain." Kurenai happily replied as she leaned back on the chair. "That's why you should be the one to name my first created jutsu! I would never have thought of this by myself!"

"Fine." Rin sighed as she threw her hands up in exasperation "Let's call the jutsu Genjutsu: Fantomuzon (Genjutsu: Phantom Zone).

"Phantom, really?" The red-eyed shinobi quipped.

"Fine. Then you name the stupid jutsu."

Waving her hands in front of her, Kurenai let out a smile. "Nooooo, it's okay. I call it Fantomuzon but I'm naming the next jutsu we make together. I want the next one to have some reference to a flower. Alright?" You suck at making creative names Rin.

"Sure."

The pair was silent the conversation died down. Rin was very happy, since she felt she learned some basic genjutsu that she could use on her next mission. She felt a lot stronger, so that was one step forward in her book. Before she could say her thanks to her friend, Kurenai cut her off unknowingly. "So...did you see the new hottie in town?"

Rolling her eyes, Rin sighed at how gossipy Kurenai could be. It was a far cry from her strict shinobi demeanor at times. She sometimes wondered which personality was her real one: the serious shinobi or the gossiping girl. Nevertheless, she decided to indulge her companion. "Who?"

Kurenai quickly pulled out a magazine with various handsome boys posing on the cover. Flipping through a couple of pages, she turned the magazine so it was facing Rin. "Him."

"Huh? Oh, it's Obito-kun." Rin said absently as her eyes feasted on the two-page image detailing her teammate with a Konoha headband around his neck. His long dark hair with strands of white fell over his smoldering dark coal-black eyes and contrasted the simple light blue v-neck t-shirt and navy-blue pants he wore. She applauded whoever took the picture because the sun was in the perfect position to highlight the glistening beads of sweat rolling down his broad chest. Her appreciation of the image continued before it finally dawned on her on exactly who was in the recent edition of Konoha's women magazine - Secrets. "WHAT? WHY IS OBITO-KUN IN HERE?"

The nearby librarian quickly chucked a book at Rin's head - making Rin quickly turn around to see a glaring old women giving her the stink eye. Understanding the message, she bowed her head as an apology before turning back to see Kurenai with the magazine. She was licking her lips as he took in the image of the new Obito.

"The dead last?" Kurenai asked as her eyes didn't leave the paper. "He definitely doesn't look like a dead last anymore." Her tone took a more primal tone as she traced Obito's muscular arms shown in the magazine with a finger. "I wouldn't mind if he wants to teach me a thing or two."

"Kurenai!" Rin hissed at her friend quietly. "Please do not start lusting on my teammate. He just got back from a life-endangering mission a week ago."

"Yes, yes. You already told me all about it." Kurenai rolled her eyes before she stared at Rin right in the eyes. "I also happen to notice that was when you were all over Konoha looking for your teammate. Is there something you want to tell me? Hmm?"

"No Kurenai. For Sennin's sakes, there is nothing between us." Rin sighed in exasperation. "I just wanted to say sorry to him since I almost missed the chance when he almost died in that mission."

Kurenai stared at her as she raised eyebrow, hinting her disbelief. "And you did not want to snag the hottie, which luckily happens to be your teammate, before he gets back into the market? The likely chance of that happening is like me and Sarutobi getting married and having a child in the future. It won't happen. Definitely." Leaning forward and cupping a hand, she whispered. "So spill, how good was he in bed?"

"KURENAI!"

A dictionary was thrown at Rin's head by the librarian for her troubles.

~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~ o ~ X ~

A/N:

Since many of you requested for my chapters to be longer, here it is. I tried to go for 10 pages, but the chapter ended at 9 pages and I didn't want to start a new segment. Hope you like it!

So I'm starting my spring semester of college tomorrow. Like I said in the previous chapter, I'm not sure about the schedule of updates. I'm right now leaning towards monthly updates but nothing is set in stone. When in doubt, check my profile page for the info.

I wanted to ask you guys: what do you mean when you want an "older girl" harem? Is it based on Naruto's or Obito's canon age? An example would be Anko: she would be older compared to Naruto in the canon (so she could qualify to be in the harem) but she is around the same age as Obito (so she isn't an "older" girl). Do comment if you want the older girl harem to be based on Naruto's or Obito's canon age. I love any suggestions you guys give me!