The boy in the woods.

Tree hopping had to be one of his favorite things he learned to do as a ninja in training. With the ground so far beneath, and the wind in his back it seemed like he was just two steps away from just flying away. He wondered if there were ninja techniques that could make you fly? Now that would be worth looking in.

Losing his concentration he made a mistake and jumped on a particular thin branch, hurrying he grabbed another branch so he was dangling about five meters from the ground. Grinning as he hauled himself back on the tree he started moving a little more slowly. It seemed like he still needed to work on it somewhat, but- just so cool! He jumped again and perched himself on the city gate.

From up here he could see most of the village. It wasn't too big. The night had fallen a while ago and it was mostly dark now. The houses were lit up from inside, and it was kind of pretty. He stopped for a while just to drink it in. "I guess this is going to be the last time for a while, huh?" He whispered. "I think I'm going to miss it just a little bit." He frowned.

When he had first come here he hadn't wanted anything to do with the place, Leaf had been his life, even if it had been a difficult life. He had promised himself to succeed, to make things better, to be acknowledged and to thrive against everyone's expectations. Believe it and all that jazz. Being ripped away made that seem impossible. He frowned.

Away from the village, far from the old man and no ninja academy, everything he had known seemingly impossibly far from him. It had hurt at the beginning, he had been ready to hate the place. But he'd been treated more kindly then he'd ever been in the Leaf, even as bratty he'd been acting they had been nice. Slowly one by one these people had sneaked their way into his heart.

When the old man had come to visit him and made a deal with him about ninja training, he'd finally decided he was content to be here for a while and had properly settled in for the next few years. Now six years later he could say it had been a good decision, the last few years had been …good, better than what he could remember of his first six at least.

He turned to the general direction of the Inn and jumped down. Nodding his head to the villagers who greeted him as he went by, they were pretty used by his escapades by now. So, now he'd gotten here anyway he should check out the team he'd been given. The old man had told him the team leader would be someone he had met already, so one of the ninja who'd been sent to the temple the last six years. Now to see exactly who it was. Most people where already sleeping, so he climbed to the first floor windows, and started checking. The first three seemed normal fishermen and traders. The fourth, bingo!

A girl about his age. Typical ninja sandals next to the bed and a headband of hidden Leaf on the table next to the bed. One of his teammates. He marked the rather remarkable shade of hair, a soft pink, and went on.

The next room was definitely his other teammate, same age, ninja headband, black hair, nothing too remarkable from what he could see from here. He narrowed his eyes. No, scratch that, the symbol that peeked from the folded shirt on the chair was an Uchiha fan. Not too many of those around anymore from what he heard. He frowned, two rarities on one team? The Hokage had certainly not chosen for the discrete approach, it was stacked, and Uchiha. That was quite a name in the histories of the temple. What was the man planning? Well, at least it should be interesting, he thought. He quietly slipped to the next window only to-

"BOOH!"

SMASH! He fell down and ended up crashing in a flowerpot.

"So what do we have here." Kakashi smirked, hanging out of the window of his room he looked down. "A little too curious for his own good ninja wannabe! That's what."

Oh, no, please not that man…"Don't call me that, you bastard!" Naruto groaned as he pushed himself from the ground. Peering up at the man demon who he slowly realized in dawning horror was going to be his teacher.

The scarecrow shook his head. "You should try to be quieter, Naruto. You could wake your teammates."The man teased. "I doubt they'd be pleased to learn their teammate was spying on them while they slept. So creepy, I approve completely!" He added brightly.

"I was afraid you were going to say that." Naruto muttered. Dusting himself off. What was the old man planning? He didn't care anymore, what was he even thinking! This man is not teacher material. This is the road to insanity! He hung his head.

"Now watch yourself, or I'll start thinking you're not happy to see me." Kakashi seemed far too amused for someone whose face was mostly hidden. "And guess what? It's bastard-sensei from now on."

Naruto felt like crying, or maybe screaming. Maybe both. So he made sure to let that be known, loudly. "Since when do they let you interact with children? Between the obsessive porn reading, chronical lying, constant lateness and general social weirdness I'd think you'd be one of the last they'd give a Genin team! Bad role model pervert! Since when do you even want a team? "

Kakashi smiled. "Oh, but you my precious little student, and your two colleagues are special cases. I promise you the Hokage was fully supportive of me being a candidate this year. He handed me this team himself. "

"The old man has finally gone senile. I knew this day would come." Naruto muttered under his breath.

"We'll have so much fun!" The man beamed at him.

Flashbacks of the year of hell entered Naruto's mind, and he faltered. "Excuse me-" He began to sound rather airily. "-but I think I'm going to crash with gfhfds. This has been more than enough trauma for one night." He turned around and simply walked away from the mess that would be his life come tomorrow. For now he was going to his happy place. Reality did not conceive. In his mind eye he could already see Kakashi cackling like the maniac he was. He started walking a little faster.

Kakashi had been his teacher for a while, about two years ago. The man had seemed to be of the opinion that there were no easy lessons to be taught. Throwing him into trouble left and right, running, and letting him deal with it. Elder Mizushima had finally put an end to it when Naruto started to show symptoms of paranoia. It had gotten a bit better afterwards, but Naruto still tended to twitch when that man's name was used. And scarecrows still went mysteriously missing every spring season.

The next morning Sakura was eating breakfast at the inn, alone, none of her teammates were there, and they had packed up already, she'd checked. She'd felt panicked for a bit, left alone in a place she didn't know, but had held strong remembering she was a ninja now. She could take care of herself, or so she told herself. Kakashi had said when and where they were meeting up again, so it was alright, but was it weird she still felt some disappointment about sitting here alone? She'd hoped maybe Sasuke- She shook her head and finished her meal.

There was yet some time before she had to meet up at the Temple gates, but she'd already packed up, but was also some distance between the village proper and the temple, and it was all uphill. So she should probably start walking just to be safe.

If anything she could learn a little about the temple if she arrived early. Ninja were supposed to know their surroundings after all, and she prided herself in knowing a lot. But she had to admit she didn't actually know anything about the temple, hadn't even known it existed. If anything she should change that. She fiddled with her backpack before hauling it up her shoulders.

It was too bad that her team was full of introverts and asocial perverts, but she wasn't going to let that keep her down. She held her head just a little bit higher now she had a plan. Besides if she was early and well informed Sasuke may even be impressed with her! She blushed.

Naruto was eating the breakfast of kings, ramen of course. He was sitting high up a tree somewhere close to the path in between the village and the temple. Take-away ramen, purchased freshly from the village ramen stand was getting devoured at an alarmingly rapid rate. And he declared it was good!

Lounging on a sturdy tree branch he held an eye open for anyone on the way to the temple. He'd already greeted Matsuoka and some random pilgrims, but hadn't seen anyone he was looking for yet. Just then he saw someone approaching, and sat up when he noticed pink hair. Finally, let's see what we got here!

"Hiya there!"He greeted.

Pinky jumped surprised. He frowned, she had to work on keeping an eye on her surroundings it seemed. The girl looked around before letting her gaze fall on him high in a tree. He started talking.

"You here for the temple?"

She seemed to be thinking before answering. "Yes, I'm meeting some people there."

"Huh, not just a visitor then?" He grinned at her. "I'm going up there too. You feel like having some company?"

She frowned thinking about it. "I don't know, are you from around here?"

"Yeah-" he answered "-been living here for a while, go to the temple plenty."

She brightened. "So you know a lot about it then?"

He turned his head wondering what she was getting at. "I guess, I know it's story. You interested?"

She nodded her head. "Yes, I was quite surprised that I didn't know anything about this place. I mean I studied the geography and history of fire in the academy, and we got a lot of it, but it's got no mention I can remember.

He narrowed his eyes, as if he was trying to figure out from where she was, he let his eyes wander to her headband, it was quite visible from his high viewpoint. "Oh, you're from Konoha aren't ya?" He pointed at her headband. "Not surprised then." He gave a wry smile. "We're kind of one big epic failure to them, I guess. It's kind of embarrassing. Plus our way of looking at some things pretty different, there's some tension about that in your village."

She looked puzzled. "Tension? But you're from Fire, no?"

He laughed. "Yeah, we are, and we've got no problem with Konoha, just to be clear. It's mostly uneasiness from their side. But it's not that simple. The temple's teachings, root's and a lot of the ancestors of the people who live here lie in the old Whirpool. We've got rich history all on our own. Stuff's just been more awkward than ever since the Kyuubi thing."

" You use 'We're', are you part of the temple? I thought miss Matsuoka said that she was the only one living in the village currently." She frowned. "And what do you have to do with Kyuubi?"

" Ah, you got me. I live in the temple actually." He put his hand trough his hair in a nervous gesture. "-And the Kyuubi thing. Well, it's complicated. To put it short: we are of the opinion tailed beast started messing with humans because humans started messing with them first. Messing of course meaning a lot of violence and general nastiness." He made big gestures at the last part and pulled a face. "After the attack the general public in leaf reacted rather… pissy to anything hinting that the beast wasn't a figure of pure evil." He grimaced. "We've never had problems with the Hokage, but our relations to the leaf civilians became estranged for several reasons afterwards. So we settled here, closest to our original home Whirlpool we could without leaving fire."

"Oh, I see" Sakura muttered to herself. But she didn't. Whirlpool was a village she'd heard of, of course, it had been destroyed a long time ago and Leaf had integrated it's symbol in its jackets as a sign of friendship. The details of its existence and unfortunate ending weren't disclosed.

It had been more of a footnote about the standard Konoha ninja jacket, then it had been a chapter in the history books. And the Kyuubi attack?

Adults were so tight-lipped about it. She just knew it had been horrible in an abstract way, they'd suffered the kind of damage that usually was only expected in a longtime war, and all of that in one night. Was this place possibly some kind of creepy cult?

She looked at the boy grinning, dressed simply like most villagers except for the bright orange happi coat, sitting high up a tree surrounded by cheap ramen, smiling at life generally. He looked rather weird, not dangerous, but weird.

The boy looked at her and laughed. "You're making a funny face." He gathered the empty plastic cups that had contained his food, and to her horror jumped right of the tree.

Only to land perfectly on his feet.

He looked up at her, extended his empty hand and smiled at her. "Hello, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. I'm your new teammate, pleased to meet ya!"

She gulped and managed to give him a just slight quirk of her lips, something that possibly, maybe, by someone could be mistaken as the shadow of a smile.

He just grinned some more.

At least her team would be interesting. She tried to think to positively.

In the back of her head she remembered an old curse, it went something like this:

May you live interesting times.

"What's your name?"

Forget it, she thought. At least he talks. She answered and shook his hand.

So Kakashi trolls Naruto, Naruto trolls Sakura, plus some hints about the place he grew up.

Next time : Uzumaki.