Chapter 03: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, The Mini Habanero!
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Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, it is the property of Masashi Kishimoto
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Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed in relief as he stamped the last form on his desk concerning last night's attempted theft and desertion. Three of the boys; Sasuke, Shino and Shikamaru, would stay in the Hospital under quarantine to make sure the dose of the Kyuubi's chakra they received wouldn't kill them. Iruka had been fine other than minor injuries, but he would have to be removed from active duty until he once again proved fit for duty. But the therapy sessions and the little job he had lined up for the young man would keep him busy enough to keep him from dwelling on it.
Naruto's role in the theft was overlooked and he had been rewarded for stalling the traitor with his promotion to genin. Even Danzo, who had recently been pressuring him to allow Naruto to be put under the warhawk's wing, had been pleased with this arrangement as he believed that Naruto's potential had been wasted over the years in the Academy. Everyone thought that both Iruka and Naruto had been working together on the so called 'case of corruption' in the Academy, with Naruto being handpicked for the job because of his status in the village.
Chuckling, Hiruzen stood and looked out over his domain. These were his subjects, his people. Many of the other Kages and Shinobi Leaders thought him weak, but they misunderstood that playing the kind king was just as effective as being a tyrannical ruler. Though it took several years for the civilians to realize this, and when they did, they fell back into their place in the pecking order. Everything was just perfect, total peace in his kingdom.
"Lord Hokage! There's been an incident with Uzumaki at the Hospital!" a cat masked ANBU cried as she entered through an open window.
"WHAT!?" The kind Sarutobi was gone, in his place was the Shinobi no Kami, the man that many feared.
The elderly man showed amazing spryness for his advanced age as he himself leapt out the window, racing across the roofs to the hospital. The civilians and merchants looked up in surprise as he dashed over the rooftops of the marketplace, startling many. He was soon joined by his own son, Asuma, and the local Taijutsu expert, Might Guy, who had both seen him rushing along the rooftops.
"Lord Hokage what's the emergency?" Guy asked, mission face on. Guy's Genin squad spotted their sensei dashing past them, and made to follow.
"Something has happened to Naruto." The Third said as he ditched his cloak and hat, a nearby ANBU grabbing them before they could hit the ground. While he was not wearing his battle armor, he was still ready for a fight. The three landed on the Hospital roof and dashed down the stairwell and followed it to the sixth floor. Dashing out of the stairwell, Hiruzen ignored the screaming nurses as he skidded in front of the room containing the boys. The ANBU he had left was inside the open door, lying on the ground next to Kiba, both unconscious.
"Where's Naruto?" the Hokage thundered, nodding quickly as the scared children pointed to the partially broken bathroom door. Guy reached it before he did and ripped the poor door the rest of the way off of its hinges and entered, only for a loud bang to be heard as Guy flew back out into the room. As the jounin collided with the wall, his team appeared. They watched in amazement and horror as their sensei crumpled to the ground, dazed and confused. They had never seen anyone do that before!
"Get away from me!" a shriek coming from the bathroom caused their attention to turn towards a young girl in the bathroom. She was clothed in a hospital gown and a pair of boxers that were wrapped around her ankle. Her red hair flared out into many fox tail like clumps as she radiated with anger, clutching the heavy porcelain lid of the toilet's tank.
"Kushina?" Asuma gasped, being thrown for a loop as he remembered the young chuunin girl that had entered his classroom one day in his early Academy years, as a guest speaker, proclaiming that she would be the first female Hokage ever. But his question had drawn her wrath.
"I'M NARUTO! 'TTBAYO!" she yell chucking the lid single-handedly like a disc at the chain smoker, catching him in the gut and dropping him to his knees. The Hokage froze, the incredulity of her statement catching him off guard. But the verbal tick and the whisker marks on her face stood out to him, as she panted heavily, still angry at anyone in range for her sudden transformation. Suddenly she grabbed the door and slammed it haphazardly back into its frame with a sudden crunch and the sound of spraying water meant she had ripped something out of the floor or wall and barricaded herself in the room.
Sarutobi calmed himself, after working himself up thinking the worst, he let out a strained chuckle and turned to the children who were now huddling in the far corner to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
"Haruno, Yamanaka, go to the Nurse's station and bring back enough to help everyone into another room, and let them know that there are four more injured. Neji Hyuuga, go to my office and have the chuunin at the front desk help you find the paper work I signed this morning marked Form 52Y-27. Do not read its contents and have it sealed in an envelope before you leave. Take it to the nurse at the front desk. Tell her it's urgent and needs to be delivered to the Chief Medical Practitioner on duty immediately." He commanded, not wanting to scare anyone further, the situation was delicate at best with Naruto's new found form and temper. He continued "Lee, go to the Ichiraku Ramen stand and tell them it's Emergency Protocol Three. They'll understand and give you what you need. If you spill one drop I will have you doing D-rank missions for the next year!"
The four mentioned stood at attention and replied, "Yes Lord Hokage!"
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Naruto sat curled up in a ball next to the broken door. She was scared, her arms felt like they were being slowly crushed by the weight one of Choji's older cousins, and she wasn't sure what was going on. When she had first seen her reflection, Naruto had thought her mother had managed to find some sort of two way mirror from the afterlife to say something, only for her to realize that the person in the mirror was wearing a hospital robe. She had just used the toilet, instinctively sitting down to pee for some odd reason, and was going to wash her hands in the sink when she had caught her reflection. This all took a few seconds as she reached up slowly and prodded the lumps on her chest and screamed.
Naruto wasn't oblivious when it came to the human body, after all he had made the Sexy Jutsu through copious research of borderline pornographic model magazines and similar media, and it was a completely solid henge. She knew what boobs looked and felt like, and while groping them again they felt small in relation to her Sexy Jutsu. When the ANBU and Kiba had kicked in the door, and caught her groping herself with her naked ass was showing through the gown, she lost it. Somehow she had beat both of them and the weird guy with the huge eyebrows with the toilet lid before she heard her mother's name come out of another man's mouth. The man had mistaken her for her mother, and for some reason, it had pissed her off even more. She had nailed him with the lid before realizing that the Hokage was there as well, staring at her. She felt more embarrassed than ever and somehow managed to rip the sink out of the wall and use it to barricade the door.
"Why did I change like this?" Naruto wondered, under her breath, before feeling a sense of smug satisfaction radiating from the center of the seal, "Damn fox, should of known."
"Bravo, Bravo! Encore! Well done monkey spawn. I don't think even your parents ever managed to take down an ANBU Operative and two jounin single-handedly as mere genin fresh out of the Academy. Bravo!" The Kyuubi's voice was thick with amusement and sarcasm as Naruto appeared in her mind-scape, annoyed that she was a girl in here as well.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!" Naruto roared, stomping her foot in such a manner that it caused the Bijuu to howl with snide laughter at how well the child was adapting to her new form.
"Call it the first step to mastering my power. I am a Kitsune, and as such, I can take on any form I wish, so I passed this ability on to you. Once you gain full control of it you will be able to stop the preset transformations that I set up. This first one is to help get you use to the shape-shifting ability as a whole. I'll let you figure out the rest."
Naruto stood dumfounded, her first 'cool' power from the fox and it turned her into a girl?
"If you noticed, you were able to subconsciously focus on the muscles in your arms and force them to change during your little temper tantrum. It increased the density of the muscle and increased your strength tenfold. The pain you are now feeling because your muscles are slowly crushing your bones because you don't know what you need to about your species feeble bodies to do so safely. Be careful how you use this as it uses pure Yang chakra. The more drastic the changes you make, the more chakra it takes to make the change. It won't tire you out mentally, but still too many transformations will tire you out physically which could kill you, monkey-spawn"
Naruto was about to retort when a smell hit her nose in the waking world, such a delightful aroma to. She drifted on cloud nine out of her mindscape and back into reality, Kurama silently chuckling as he watched.
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If anyone had walked into the destroy room on the sixth floor they would have noticed three things out of place. First, it was horribly damaged and a complete mess. Second, there were four bowls of take-out ramen sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a heavy duty fishing net bought off one of the fishmongers in the market that was concealed under the debris in the room. And the third and final thing was the three fully grown men peeking out over the edges of several overturned hospital beds acting as strategically placed barricades. One was the Chuunin Teacher from the Academy, another was the ANBU Captain Scarecrow, and the final one was the elderly Hokage, who had procured his battle armor.
Most people would recognize Emergency Protocol Three by now, as it generally cropped up once every year or so, but this was the second time in four weeks that it had been initiated. After realizing this, a smart person would have run unless ordered to stay and assist, which is exactly what the two nurses who walked in did. Or it could have been the three fully grown shinobi in full battle attire haunting the corners of a destroyed room that looked like an Iwa berserker went off in the middle of it. Either way, they ran off leaving the three men to their mission.
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After the rest of the rookies as well as the genin with the weird teacher had helped the injured into a new room, three floors down and on the complete opposite side of the building, they all sat and wondered. The nurses and a doctor had checked the wounded and made sure there was no true damage that was sustained, except when Kiba had woken up as a particularly healthy and buxom nurse was leaning over him to wrap his head caused him to howl out a 'Heeellllooooo Nurse!'
Needless to say he was back under without anesthetic quickly. It soon became too much for the oldest girl, a genin named Tenten, and she turned to her sensei. Guy, who was currently holding an ice pack on his bruised forehead, blinked at the sudden attention from his sole female student. He had been lucky enough to move back just enough to keep her from caving his skull in, though he would have to stay awake for the rest of the day.
"Guy-sensei, how did that tiny little girl do that to you?" the boy in green asked.
"She has a hidden strength, just like the only other Uzumaki woman I knew." Guy said shivering. From the head wound or the mention of this other Uzumaki, they didn't know.
"Guy-sensei!" Lee shouted, thrusting his hand in the air, "What did the Third Hokage mean by Emergency Protocol Three? The people at the Ichiraku Ramen Stand dropped everything they were doing to make the food I delivered."
"Well Lee, and everyone else would do well to listen as well, there were only five Emergency Protocols until a little over seven years ago. Protocol One is a riot has started in the village, and the ANBU and jounin need to enact pacification measures. Protocol Two is a large force of nuke-nin, bandits, or foreign shinobi, have appeared near or in the village, but are making no aggressive actions, observation only." Guy said, adjusting the ice pack, "The old Protocol Three is now Protocol Four, there is a large group of nuke-nin, foreign shinobi, and/or other miscellaneous enemies are actively attacking Konoha or its surrounding outposts. Protocol Five, old Protocol Four, is an enemy Shinobi Village has declared war and is actively attacking our shinobi across the Land of Fire and Konoha. Finally, Protocol Six, old Protocol Five, is an imminent Bijuu attack, such as when the Kyuubi suddenly appeared all of those years ago."
Sasuke, Shino, and Shikamaru shared a look that went unnoticed by their fellow genin, only the two jounin noticed and made a note of it.
"But Guy-sensei, what does Protocol Three mean and why is that idiot Naruto involved?" Sakura asked, not sure what was really going on. Asuma spoke up instead.
"Protocol Three was created because of Naruto. In fact, it has everything to do with Naruto. Protocol Three is when Naruto goes on some sort of rampage through the town, a pranking spree for example," Asuma shuddered in remembrance of the last time he had been roped into the capture squad. It had not been pretty and Naruto had gotten away from all three attempts before Iruka showed up, "Distract him with ramen. Lots and lots of ramen."
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The three men watched as the bathroom door slowly shifted sideways from its frame, being leaned against the wall by the small slip of a girl still clad in only her hospital robe, her underwear pull up this time. They all winced when they saw the sink that had been ripped out of the wall as more water spilled into the room. She walked out, sniffing the air, eying the ramen as if it was her prey. Slowly she tested the area around it, remembering all the failed attempts to catch her this way before. The men smirked, they had done a better job this time, straight from the Fourth Hokage's handbook on handling rampaging Uzumaki females. Normally, while Naruto in this state always got a chuckle or two, with her new form she was downright adorable. All three men suppressed the 'Awww' reflex that happened around adorable scenes, usually with puppies and babies. But being ninja, they were able to do so quite easily.
The Hokage held the rope that would close the net around the tiny red-headed girl, waiting to lull her into a false sense of security by allowing her to finish the ramen. Considering who she was in reality, her new adorable exterior aside, she polished of the first three in under forty-five seconds and was midway through the final bowl. As Naruto lifted the bowl to her lips to drain the broth, she saw Iruka peeking over the top of one of the beds.
Hiruzen cursed when he saw Naruto hurl the bowl at Iruka and pulled on the rope. At the same time, Iruka and Scarecrow leapt over the beds in an effort to contain her on the net. Naruto dove between Scarecrow's legs and rolled to her feet. Leaping to the windowsill, she turned in time to see the two men get entangled in the suspended net.
"Beeda!" Naruto blew a raspberry while pulling her eyelid down, laughing as the two men fell to the ground as they cut the net open. Naruto jumped out the window only to be caught by the scruff of her neck. Twisting around, she saw the elderly Hokage standing on the side of the building, staring at her with a completely blank expression.
Naruto, hoping to get out of more trouble, whimpered as the pain returned to her arms, remembering that she still didn't know how to change her muscles back to normal, and looked at him with big doe eyes. It didn't work.
"Kakashi-san, take her to the secure examination room, the one specifically reserved for her, so we can figure out what's wrong. Iruka, let Guy and Asuma know we have Naruto and then report with them to the examination room." Hiruzen ordered, only to stop when he saw Iruka's look of disbelief, "What is it?"
Iruka pointed to the hand that Naruto was being held by and the old man looked down, only to see that Naruto had managed to switch out with a straw effigy of her male self with a rude face drawn on it.
Iruka winced as the elderly Hokage crushed the dummy's neck, making the head pop off, and turned to start looking for the mini redheaded menace.
"Didn't worry Lord Hokage, Iruka, I have her," the ANBU said. His hood had been knocked off in the scuffle to get out of the net, revealing dark, dull gray hair that fell past his shoulders. Naruto was slung under his arm like baggage, pinning her arms against her sides to prevent him from being clawed at as she was wriggling around trying to get free.
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The rest of the graduating class had been trying to get details out of the three injured boys about the previous night during the hour and a half that they had been waiting for some word on Naruto. But the three remained tight lipped and said nothing about it. The two jounin, Guy and Asuma, had been called away by Iruka and the Hyuuga boy, Neji, had left citing that he was no longer needed here. His green clad teammate, Rock Lee, had quietly shouted something about youth and flames before jumping out of a window, leaving several of the smarter rookies to wonder at the paradox of quite shouting and what he had meant by the phrase he had uttered. Tenten had sighed and followed Neji out of the door and through the hospital, curious about the redheaded girl who had laid out two jounin and an ANBU.
"You know," Choji said, pausing in his snacking, "I just realized Naruto is a lot shorter than he-she-him? Whatever. She's a lot shorter than before."
"Yeah, your right!" Sakura said, "Before, HE was slightly shorter than me but SHE looks like an eight or nine year old child!"
"That's funny seeing as she still has a larger rack than you." Ino sniped at her pink haired rival. Sakura snorted and fumed, trying to keep from yelling while she was in the hospital.
"Naruto's physical stature, both before and now, is from malnutrition from living on her own for most of her life. With no one to make meals with the proper nutritional sustenance, I am surprised that both of her forms looked as healthy as they did. I suspect the owner of the ramen stand has been slipping what supplements he could into the ramen he makes for Naruto. Though I am puzzled as to why Naruto has turned into a girl though, the Uzumaki clan traits that we know of never listed any ability like this." Shino said.
"Clan traits? You mean everyone here besides me has special traits?" Sakura asked. Being a civilian, she never truly understood the inner workings of the shinobi clans. They learned about the basics of each of the clan's techniques and what they were best known for, but she never thought that each clan had specific traits associated with them.
"Yeah. Clans like the Akimichi and Inuzuka tend to have more physical traits, while my clan leans towards a specialized chakra element and Ino's lean towards specialized mental traits. This happens through selective breeding by the clans." Shikamaru said as he lounged back, idly tracing shapes in the plaster on the ceiling, "For example, Naruto could probably learn some of the Inuzuka's tricks and jutsu if granted permission from the clan head. She acted like a wild animal half the time in during the Academy, and Kiba acts like an animal all the time. Their physical traits and personalities are so close to being the same, and it's entirely feasible that Naruto has some Inuzuka in her genetic make-up because we know only her mother was from a clan."
"You know who Naruto's parents are?" Ino asked, it was good gossip material since almost no one in the village seemed to know.
"Nah, my mom likes to go on and on about the two of them before berating my old man for being as unromantic as a human could possibly be. She never said any names though, so I think it's supposed to be some kind of secret," the lazy boy said as he waved her off. Secretly he was hoping to get her snooping around, because she would drag Choji into it. If they found out about the Kyuubi and Naruto's parents themselves, Naruto would have two more friends he could rely on because Choji was a gentle boy and Ino had a bleeding heart for sob stories with bouts of heroism thrown about in them.
"Wait, so you're saying that if we had the correct physical, mental, or chakra traits that we could learn techniques from clans?" Sakura asked, surprised at the thought.
"It is possible for some clans. But generally if you're not family and you learn one of our techniques, you have two choices. You marry into the clan to keep it, or the clan hunts you down and kills you on sight. Those jutsu and techniques are generally unique to our clans, the only exception is the Uchiha." Shikamaru gestured to Sasuke.
"Hn," Sasuke grunted as he moved into a more comfortable position, "For clan's like the Uchiha and the Hyuuga, our techniques generally require our Kekkei Genkai, our bloodlines, to utilize. Our Taijutsu styles can be learned by outsiders, if they ask and are given permission, but are difficult to utilize in combat without our Kekkei Genkai. The only true Uchiha techniques come from the highest level of the Sharingan and our Taijutsu, so at the founding of the village the clans made an agreement in case an Uchiha accidentally learns their jutsu."
They tried to get Sasuke to tell them about the agreement, but he had spoken his quota for the day. Unless it was a doctor or someone in charge, all they would get was an 'Hn' in reply. The eight children sat in silence as they pondered the change in Naruto. Ino suddenly looked up and turned to Shino.
"Hey, what do you know about the Uzumaki Clan? What did they look like?" She asked, feeling as though part of the answer to Naruto's parents had been staring them in the face.
"Generally they grow to be between five foot seven and six foot tall, and favor a lean, dense build. They also had the longest natural lifespans in the known world and commonly had deep red or ginger hair. Other than that, the only thing I know about them is that they are honored for their sacrifice by Konoha, as seen in the swirl of the Leaf on our headbands, and the red vortex on the back the chuunin and jounin flak jackets."
"You speak of them as if they're..." Sakura started, no able to finish. Was Naruto like Sasuke?
"They've been dead since the Second Shinobi World War. The few remaining scattered, and Naruto is the only one known to have survived to this day." Shino nodded solemnly.
"But wait, Naruto was blond, but now he, she, has red hair like other Uzumaki!" Ino exclaimed.
"Yeah, we've confirmed Naruto's mother was an Uzumaki but we don't have any concrete evidence to who her father was. I have a theory about why Naruto changed like that as well. When the traits of two clans, or of those of strong genetic dispositions, merge into one person..." Shikamaru started.
"Then there is a small chance that, that they'll react in a way that gives birth to a new Kekkei Genkai." Hinata stuttered, her eyes wide.
"It's a random chance, miniscule at best. The Nara's have been selectively choosing husbands and wives for nearly a century now trying to turn our affinity to the shadows into an elemental manipulation bloodline, the first in the village since the First Hokage's. We think we're close to finding the first Nara to use the Yoruton (Night Release), the believed pinnacle of our shadow techniques. Using every shadow we can reach, even those in the black of night. That is my clan's goal, and every shinobi based clan in the village is trying to do the same for themselves. For someone like Naruto to randomly activate anything close to a bloodline is very slim, and a true Kekkei Genkai, is much more so."
"And it would have to breed true through four generations to be recognized as such." Iruka said as he entered the room, surprising everyone, "Just wanted to pop in and say Naruto is fine, but she is going through several extensive medical tests to see what exactly caused the change. They think something from last night acted as a catalyst for the change. They'll be checking you three using the same tests to see if anything has changed. Hopefully it won't be too bad."
The three bed ridden boys had caught the slight inflection on of the wording, nodding silently. But the others weren't so sure that they were going to believe that it happened by chance.
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Author's Notes: Okay, that's two people wondering about the girl transformation, I will say this now. It is the same as the first version, two days as a boy and one day as a girl, rinse and repeat. Please leave questions or critics in the review box below, and another mini rant on how I write!
1) The original version of the scene with the trap was too frivolous and complicated for the type of fic I'm going for. So I shortened it. I will still have light humor, but any stupidly funny stuff that I feel the need to include will be after the Author's notes and Mini-rants at the bottom of the fic as an Omake. No more, no less.
2) When Naruto is a boy, I will use he and him, when Naruto is a girl, I will use she and her. It helps differentiate and I can keep the two separate from each other as Boy Naruto acts normally, but Girl Naruto acts unconsciously like a girl but denies it every time it's pointed out.
All right, this is the half-way point for the revised chapters, my goal is to have all of these done by Wednesday at the latest depending on work. Hopefully I can post one a day over the next three days so everything afterward is new stuff.
This is Dingo saying goodnight!