Haha, we were at borders and I decided to buy a new manga: You know the Ouran Host Club, whatever. I opened the book and the first thing that I saw was that the protagonist has the same last name is my protagonist: Fujioka. Small world, huh?

Chapter Four: Sleepy, Bendy, and Artsy

It was beginning to become a bit of a habit that Jiraiya would shake my screaming self back to life in the morning, and he was less alarmed by it now.

"Shikaku called," he said as I blinked a few times, rubbing my now-sore throat, "they want you to come over for breakfast. And you have clothes there, anyway."

"There's no way I still fit into those," I said with a laugh as I walked back into his closet, acting as if I owned the place as I grabbed another one of his green kimonos, pulling it over my shoulders before joining him in the kitchen, saying, "see. We match."

Jiraiya shook his head, "we're going shopping," was all that he said, "and please stop by the Nara house before you go off and finish that jutsu. Do it for the memory of your mother."

"I don't have anything to do with the memory of my mother."

"Yeah, well take my word that she was awesome and go," he said, pushing my shoulder lightly in the direction of the door.

It was a bit of a walk of shame, in my opinion. My hair had grown annoyingly long and I was going to have to cut it soon. Jiraiya's clothes were comfy, though. I would have to get the number for his tailor. I adjusted the straps of the backpack on my shoulders.

"Ayame-kun!" Yoshino exclaimed as she threw the door open.I shrugged uncomfortably as she hugged me, and then pulled back and looked at me once, "what are you wearing? You look like your father!" I laughed uncomfortably and followed her inside, "look who's home!" She called out to Shikamaru and Shikaku, both of whom looked very uncomfortable at the kitchen table.

"Welcome back, Ayame-kun," Shikaku said briefly as I sat down at the table, squeezing my knees together, "what have you been up to since you got back?"

I sighed and fidgeted a bit, "well, I've been creating a new jutsu," he raised his eyebrows in interest so I pulled out the scrolls and handed them to him, letting Shikamaru look on over his shoulder.

"Interesting," Shikaku said after a few moments, handing it back to me, "I hope you'll teach me this new jutsu when you've finished with it."

"Oh, and I'm going to be assigned a squad of genin next month after graduation," this earned slack jaws all around the kitchen, "dad told me to. He said it would get me out of working with the ANBU again, and that's really my only goal at this point."

Yoshino was smiling after this, "in that case, I've got a gift for you," she said, reaching up on the counter and grabbing a rather expensive looking mahogany box, "well it's not really a gift, but I've saved it for you over these years."

My forehead protector, I realized, as I opened the box and pulled out my bittersweet old companion. There was a portion of the top that had chipped off when I had been struck with a crossbow a few years ago, and countless forgotten little scratches on the surface.

I smiled ruefully, putting the scrolls back in my pack as I tied the band around my upper left arm, where it had always sat, except when I was on ANBU duty, a job where I was required to wear it around my forehead like everybody else.

Maki had always worn hers the traditional way: around her forehead. Maki was a very generic person until she got a defined tan line from the imprint of the protector and decided to cut her hair so that she had bangs and start wearing her protector like a belt.

"That's the way I like to see you," Shikaku said with a smile, reaching across to ruffle my hair, "and if you ever want to come back, your room is still yours."

I nodded, "well for now, I'm living with Jiraiya. And I'll probably just take care of his apartment when he's away. But thank you very much for everything you guys have ever done for me."

Then it was time to take my leave, and I was quite relieved to get away and back to the training ground that I had been spending my time on. Surprisingly, Shikamaru followed me, "don't tell me I'm going to have to ditch you like when we were little," I said as he came up to walk with me.

"As if," he said with that bored little smile of his, "I gotta train."

"Okay, well see ya!" I exclaimed, jumping up onto the roof and ditching him in the street so that I could make it to my training ground, finding another tree to take refuge in and immediately dove into finishing my jutsu.

Jiraiya had been right that it would only get harder. The last two scrolls took me the entire day and most of the night. The sun was rising again before I had realized that it set, and I was still on my second to last scroll, so I snoozed for exactly two and a half hours in my tree then got back to work.

"You know, this is a place where people train, right?" I jumped so violently at the sudden voice that I spilled ink all over the front of Jiraiya's kimono, but managed to not get any on my scrolls. "What if you had gotten hit by an ill-aimed jutsu?" Kakashi asked. He was sitting in the branches above me, having gotten up there unnoticed as I worked hard.

"How long have you been up there?" I asked, gasping and putting one hand over my heart as I brushed the scrolls back into my bag and looked down at what was surely going to be a large, unwashable stain. Jiraiya might murder me if I ruined any more of his clothes.

"A few days, actually," He said, sitting up and scratching his head, "I was walking around this training ground, and got a bit lost, and it was nighttime, so I found this tree and allowed myself some sleep. When I woke again, I was inexplicably sore and remembered that I didn't have anything to do, so I just relaxed. Then you showed up and I watched you like the creep that I am."

I nodded, taking in his story, "So you've been watching me all day?"

"Guilty as charged," I imagined a cheeky smile on his enigmatic face, "but that's a very good idea. I look forward to the finished product. I remember that jutsu you created when you were only six years old. Do you remember that?"

"No."

"Really? Well, every time I turned around, you would pants me. It was without a doubt the most useless jutsu I've ever seen in my life."

I laughed. That was very like me. Up until I was seven and a half, I lived at home, and whenever Jiraiya was out of town, I would stay with Kushina and her husband, Minato. I had met Minato's squad many times, and particularly enjoyed irritating them. The only one who never got irritated was a boy named Obito, who had more often than not joined me in my endeavors.

"You're wearing your forehead protector. Does that mean you're back to stay?" He asked, and I shrugged, putting my scrolls back in my bag, "now, in our short time together, I could not help but to come to two conclusions. Would you like to hear those two things?"

"Sure," I said, grinning up at him.

"The first conclusion is the more simple to solve. You have not eaten for eighteen hours at least, and I would like to offer my aid in order to cure your famine," I laughed, "and the second is that you are both wearing and have soiled your father's clothes. Am I correct?"

"You are correct. I'll take you up on your offer for breakfast, but I cannot allow you to purchase me a new much-needeed wardrobe."

Kakashi flipped around so that he was hanging upside down from his branch, his face closer to mine, "but how could I bring an ink-covered girl in her father's clothes to breakfast with me? People would talk," I wasn't sure when we started being so formal with each other, but it was definitely fun.

"One outfit," I said with a laugh as I lowered myself from the tree and onto the ground, regretful that I hadn't enough money to purchase my own clothes…or food.

"Are shoes included in this deal?" he said, looking down at my much-too-dirty feet, which looked as if they did not belong with my ghostly complexion.

I shrugged, "they will be if you insist on it," it sucked to be broke. Maybe I shouldn't have spent all my money on sake that first night back.

"Well then I insist on it," he said with a nod, and we went back into town.

So I bought a similar kimono to the one that I had stolen from my father, although the new one was a silvery color instead of being green. It was on sale for seventy percent off, too, which was a plus. Then, I bought an extremely cheap pair of sandals with straps that held them to my ankles so that they wouldn't fall off when I tried to move.

"Well," Kakashi said, looking me up and down as I stuffed Jiraiya's kimono in a trash bin, "you have successfully purchased the cheapest outfit that this world has ever seen…so congratulations."

We went to breakfast after that, and Kakashi told me about having a squad of new genin, complete with the ups and downs, and more downs, and even more downs. It was hard to believe that so many irritating things could come from three twelve-year-olds, but it was surprising.

Girls at that age were shallow and self-centered and mean to less-pretty people, there would be problems if I got two alpha males that decided to battle it out for lead position, or if I got an alpha female who kicked both of those boys' asses, or if they all hated each other, if one of them was a smart ass, if none of them knew what to do, when they fought amongst themselves…but, hey! It's the spirit of youth!

"Shut up," I said, tearing at a piece of toast violently with my teeth, "you're bringing me down," he shrugged and cut a bit of ham to put in his mouth.

"Better to prepare you," he said with a shrug, and based on what his eye did, I could tell that he was silently laughing at me, "your time is fast-approaching. Your days of freedom are numbered."

"Geez, you make it sound like I'm getting married or something," I said with a roll of my eyes.

He burst into laughter at that, choking on a piece of ham, "I now remember why all your friends are male," was all that he could say through sputtering laughter, "girls wouldn't get your humor."

"How's Maki doing?" I asked, my voice darkening a little. He immediately sobered up, looking me up and down with his one eye.

"She's doing…fine," he said tersely, testing the waters on the subject, "made Jounin last year, away on a long mission now. She's engaged to be married," and after that, he was done talking about Maki, which was good because I was too.

Maki was my ex-best friend from youth. She was always the leader, and I the follower. Ever since we were six years old and starting at the academy. People would say, "there's Maki and that friend of hers, you know the Sanin Jiraiya's daughter," but I was fine with that because Maki was my best friend.

I graduated from the academy early, and was preparing for my jounin exams by the time she graduated a year late at the age of thirteen. I had always been the more serious about our studies: she was a socialite.

Once I became jounin, Maki was feeling insecure about my being so much more advanced than her, so she began to poke fun of me. I was fine with it at first, when she was just making fun of me, because I was admittedly more flawed than a human being had rights to be, but when she started making fun of Jiraiya, that got to me.

It started out as a small comment every now and then, about how he left me with the Naras and didn't trust me. That was fine. But then she began to talk about how he was nearly never home, his perverted tendencies, the nature of his novels, his flawed job in bringing me up.

She was being particularly cruel one day as I returned from a mission, accompanied by one who had recently been added to my close friends inventory: Asuma Sarutobi. It was easier to ignore at first, but I got progressively angrier until I spun around, and accidentally released that Karasu.

That was when I first met Yamato, as he rushed over to try and stabilize my chakras. I had already known him, because he was in my graduating class from the academy, but other than that we had never spoken. Maki was in the hospital for two months, and after that I became an ANBU, assigned into Yamato's squad, and rarely left his side for fear that I might unleash Karasu again.

Those were the days when I began to fear myself.

"You okay?" Kakashi said, waving a hand in front of my face. I snapped out of it and nodded, standing up, "how about we go back out to the training grounds and spar a little, if that'll make you feel less…hazy," I complied, but said that I had to deliver my scrolls back to Jiraiya's apartment.

It looked as if it were going to rain any second soon, but it was fine because I liked the wet. It was already drizzling by the time we got to the training grounds, and we each took the time to put a thin protective sheen around our bodies to keep most deep injuries away.

And the match began. Kakashi, of course, made the first move because I was infamous for two things: never making the first move, and always on the defense. That was my ninja code. The rain was getting harder and heavier as we continued to spar, movements nearly too quick to be detected by others, only intensified by my thin channel of Karasu power.

The match was a draw in the end, because the rain grew too heavy to see one's hand in front of their face, much less the other person. Well, that, and lightning struck a rather large tree and we couldn't be sure if the lightning was generated by us or the storm…and if it was us, we were dead to the groundskeepers.

"You are both wet and wearing new clothes," Jiraiya said as I stepped onto the welcome mat, slipping out of my shoes, "where did you get that? I thought you were broke," I made to take a step, but he shouted, "STAY WHERE YOU ARE! YOU'LL GET MY APARTMENT WET!"

"Dad, your apartment is always wet," I said, waggling my eyebrows suggestively as he relayed a rather large towel from the bathroom to me, "and Kakashi bought it for me."

"Really now?" He asked, lounging across the couch with a grin, "Kakashi Hatake," he turned the name over between his lips, "he didn't make you try it on for him, did he?" I laughed and wrung my hair out on the mat before running over to the bathroom, running a bath.

I let Jiraiya in once my bath was ready, cocooning myself in the bubbles like I used to so that he couldn't see anything, "so it's been a few days. You done with that jutsu yet?"

"Closer," I promised, rubbing shampoo into my too-long hair, "will you please cut my hair for me when I'm done? It's too long to bear. Not too short, though, just short enough," He laughed and agreed,and we sat and talked four years worth, until the water turned cool and I made him leave so that I could dry myself and dress (in his clothes, of course).

Jiraiya had to leave again that Saturday, but managed to make it up to me by purchasing an entire wardrobe for me while I was out working on my jutsu, figuring that since we had similar taste it would be easy. He was mostly right.

But the graduation day was coming soon, and I was becoming increasingly more stressed about my little genin. I went back to the Nara house to find my vest, and ended up spending a few days there, and trading my vest in for a new, larger one at the Hokage's office.

"Alright," Iruka said as I turned up for the first day, which would consist of my greeting the children, and taking them around for a bit, "your team is in room 218 and you're the captain of team twelve."

"Large graduating class?" I asked, and he just shook his head at me, unleashing me into the world of new and strange.

Of course, room 218 was impossible to find. I checked the entire second floor, with no sign of 218, so I decided to scan the entire building, and apparently, they did floor numbers backwards at the academy, so the seventh floor was actually the second floor, and I was forty-five minutes late.

There were three of them…obviously. That was the only thing that I thought as I walked through the door, my mind completely blank. The first thing that attracted my attention was the girl, who appeared to be doing some sort of acrobatics routine in the rafters of the room. She had a rather lean body and deep tan skin, with lavender hair.

The next was a boy who sat in the front row, drawing in a small pad, his tongue curled around his white front teeth. He seemed both young and feminine for his age, with dark hair that fell in disarray around his small, innocent face. His eyes were a deep violet.

It took me a few minutes to find the last member of the squad, but he was there, lying asleep on the last desk in the very back of the room, his face looking serene beneath a cloud of chocolate-colored curls. None of them realized that I had walked through the door, so I just sat down at the desk, watching as they continued their work.

The girl was very bendy, twisting herself into small holes and flexing her feet about. Other than that, the first boy appeared to enjoy drawing, and the second had an affinity for sleeping. Nice squad, I guess.

Eventually, the girl spotted me, and fell with a gasp onto the table, attracting the attention of both the first boy and the second one, who jerked awake at the sudden noise, "I think that you guys need to sharpen your senses a bit," was all that I said, as they turned to look at me, eyes fearful, "let's go outside."

It was hard to remember what I was thinking the first time that I met my sensei, but I was pretty sure that I didn't act this terrified. We walked over to the riverside, because that was my favorite place to chill out.

"So," I said, sitting before them, "tell me about yourselves."

"What do you want to know?" Asked the first boy, his eyes finding mine timidly.

That was a good question, I thought, "I want to know your name, a hobby, what you like, what you dislike, and two fun facts...for fun. Can we do that?" I left out hopes and dreams on purpose. I hated that question because I didn't have any hopes…or dreams.

"You go first," the girl said daringly, her brown eyes meeting mine.

"Alright. My name is Ayame Fujioka, I don't really have any hobbies, I like free things, I dislike it when people don't listen to me," I flashed a dark look at the three of them for effect, "and two fun facts…let's see. Um, I intimidate people because I don't use proper name suffixes and have a monotone. Now you," I pointed to the first boy, with the violet eyes and dark hair.

"I'm Riku Kitamura," he said, running a bony hand through his hair, "my hobby is that I'm good at swimming," that got me by surprise. I thought he was going to say drawing, "I like dogs, I dislike being sick, and there are no fun facts about me."

The girl went next, "I'm Kyou Watari, my hobby is that I'm really good at eavesdropping and spying on people," I thought about Jiraiya immediately and that he would like this girl, "I like eating, I dislike being lazy, and for fun facts: I have a cat and sleep sitting."

The other boy was last. He had tan skin and small moles scattered across his face, along with slate grey eyes, "I'm Izumi Ochiai, my hobby is that I enjoy sunbathing, I like sleeping, I dislike fun facts, and for fun facts…I live in the hospital and I don't have any cousins."

"Alright, and now that we all know each other, I will dismiss you for the day. Tomorrow morning, I want you all bright and early. Four o'clock. I'll cover breakfast, so no worries," they looked up at me wide-eyed as I straightened back up, "see you tomorrow."

Ahhhhhh, the joy of writing. I think I'm going to start another project, so that I don't go crazy with Naruto overload.

You know, I've done that before.

Love y'all!

Piper