Muahahahaha! I have managed another chapter all in the same day! Now though I will crash. It was a little longer then planned. Maybe a bit before I post next, however I do not plan on giving this fic up!

Disclaimer: I own nothing…but Dulcinea/Hotaru…to my dismay

Dulcinea/Hotaru: What's with the 2 names?! I got multiple personalities or something?!

Spiderlilly: Yeah or something, now go get to your marker!

Dulcinea/Hotaru: grumble…slave driver!

Spiderlilly: You got it chicky baby.

Konoha, the camp of Team Gai

Sometime later when I woke, I found that I was in some kind of sleeping bag and I could feel a fire nearby. I moaned softly and slowly sat up. I immediately regretted it. My head was on fire! Not literally but it hurt that much. I quickly clutched my poor head in my paws and bent myself slightly so that I was staring at…my…little black paws…WHAT THE HELL!

Since when did I have paws?! I began to take stock of my situation. I was roughly the size of a kitten, if everything around me was normal sized. I was mostly red with white and black tips on my paws, tails and ears. I do mean tails. I just stared at my hind end. I had nine little tails. When they were close together, it looked like one, but as I had been sprawled, you could see all of them. I quickly came to the conclusion that I was some kind of fox kit. After all, not too many things are all red in the wild. Besides, the fur and the ears were a big clue too.

"No Lee you cannot keep it," the stern voice said.

I turned my head and looked at the other people around me. I froze, recognizing them all. I was surrounded by the characters of "Naruto!" I knew them because, like everyone else at my school, I had taken to reading manga at a very young age. Not much else to do when your life consists of bullies and homework. These guys were Neji, Tenten, Lee and their sensei Gai.

Lee and Neji were arguing over something and I tried to creep forward softly so that I could see what was going on. All I managed to do was trip on the bedding. Walking with four feet ain't exactly easy. I landed about a foot from where I had started. It was enough of a distance though to see what was going on however.

Neji was leaning against a tree, from his appearance I could see it was past the time jump. I didn't know how far past though. Lee was standing near him looking rather upset. Tenten was ignoring both of them in favor of sharpening her weapons, while Gai-sensei was watching the Neji and Lee in silence.

Lee immediately countered to Neji's statement, "It's a baby! We just can't leave it here!"

"Yes we can Lee. It a wild creature, it should stay that way." Neji said calmly. "Sorry Neji, I have to agree with Lee. I am a baby after all I can't just stay out here. Wherever here is…" I thought to myself and then turned puppy eyes on to Neji to try and help Lee with his pleadings.

"No we can't Neji! It will die out here if we don't take it with us." Lee said loudly back. "Yeah I could die out here Neji!" I thought at Neji, though it wasn't like he could hear me.

"Dying is apart of life, our lives and animal lives. Besides do you even have the means to take care of it?" Neji countered rationally.

"You have a valid point Neji," Lee had apparently conceded. "Hey wait! I don't like the sound of that! Yeah I will eventually die, but I don't want to die now!" I redoubled the look I was giving Neji staring at him intently. "However, I will take care of this little squirrel with all of my being. My passionate youth will not fail me and this squirrel kit will flourish to become stronger then ever before!" Lee said while giving Neji his nice guy pose. "Eh!?! Uh well I guess that works. I swear, if he does anything to me I will bite him!" I thought at Lee for a brief second before I returned my attention to Neji.

I guess my staring caught his attention as he looked at me unswervingly. It was nerve wracking to say the least. This kid had no emotion on his face. Seeing that this was the time to plead my case I gave him the most pitiful look I could come up with.

He started at me for the longest time and then twitched. Wait what? He twitched and a small smile was fleetingly there and gone in less then a second.

"Fine, but I don't want that kit anywhere near my things." Neji said the moment of intense staring.

"YEAH!! No wait don't!" I was practically jumping for joy except for the fact that I took a single step and then Lee grabbed me. I in turn bit the thing that had a strangle hold on me, Lee's hands, and immediately ran to Neji. He was sitting cross legged at the fire by now and looked a little annoyed as I burrowed underneath his legs. I figured that was the safest place to be at the moment. The "Hands of Doom" wouldn't get me here!

Lee was making protesting sounds but I was not gonna let those things near me…the dreaded hands…I shivered underneath Neji, but he didn't remove me. He pitied me…wait what? I could feel his emotions. COOL! I guess if I touch someone I could know what they were feeling. Either way he wasn't moving me and I didn't want to be moved.

Lee finally calmed down when Tenten stepped in. Gai-Sensei was smirking as he turned in for the night. It had worked out well; his team was able to solve the problem themselves without his intervention. Neji prepared to take the first watch.

I felt the knee that I was under lift and I stared up into Neji's face. "You can come out now," he said looking as non-emotional as ever.

"You can stay with me as long you do not ruin any of my things," he said as he looked at me with his serious lifeless eyes.

I thought for a second and then slowly walked onto his outstretched hand. He lifted me slowly into his lap and I curled up in a fold of his shirt. This was the weirdest day ever. But at least now I was safe, I was away from the creepy man and I was getting to sleep on Neji! Now how many girls got to say that and live?

Neji stared at the little fox in his hand. He couldn't help it; it looked so forlorn and helpless. Since he was on watch anyway and had decided he couldn't trust Lee to not squish it in his sleep, he let the fox kit curl up on his shirt to sleep.

The next morning I found myself sleeping curled up on Neji's sleeping bag. Neji himself was doing morning exercises while Tenten put together breakfast. Gai was nowhere to be seen and Lee was still sleeping. I was rather content to stay there and watch Neji until Lee started to wake up. Sensing that the hands were going to come after me again, I quickly dove into Neji's bag, curling up to hide. It happened to be right next to the sleeping bag so it didn't take much to get into, for which I was grateful. The whole walking thing was rather hard still.

Neji found me an hour later when they were getting ready to set out. He was about to put his sleeping bag into his pack when my head suddenly popped out. I had felt the bag move. He blinked, was about to pull me out of the bag when Lee came by and I immediately ducked back into said bag. Lee was calling for his squirrel and I had no intention of becoming his squirrel.

Neji looked at me for a second, chuckled to himself and quickly stuffed me down his shirt, put his sleeping gear into the bag then put me back into his bag. I had whiplash from how fast his hands moved.

Now though, I still had plenty of room, it was comfy and I could peak out of the bag every now and then to see where we were going. This seemed so wrong. I was having a hard time getting my head around the fact that I was a fox kit with nine tails, I could feel emotions when I touched someone, I was in Naruto's world, I just got stuffed down Neji's shirt and was now riding on his back in his bag.

I spent the next several hours coming to terms with those facts and that I was probably never going to be able to go home again. Also though, I was trying to decide if I ever wanted to go home if I got the chance. As I pondered this in Neji's bag, I heard a happy noise coming from Lee and decided to poke my head out of the bag.

There was Konoha spread below us. We were pretty high up in the trees. It was so beautiful. You could see the Hokage Monument with all five faces carved into it. "Yep," I thought to myself, "we are definitely passed the time jump. Now the only question remains is how close to the original story is this apparent alternate universe." I mused to myself. That was what I had decided to call this place, an alternate universe.

I quickly decided that I would rather try and make a new life here then try and get back to a place were I was not welcome. It was amazing how easy that decision ultimately was. I popped my head back into the bag.

Then my stomach dropped as my ride decided to jump out of the tree. If I was human I would have probably started yelling, as I could not do that I decided that covering my eyes with my paws and huddling in the bag was as good as it was going to get and dearly hoped we weren't going to go splat.

Of course this is Neji, like he would go splat. But that didn't mean that falling from a great height still wasn't going to freak me out.

When my human cannonball decided to stop we were at the front gates. I had by this time popped my head out again and was looking around as our team bounded through the city to the Hokage's tower.

In less then a few minutes we were in Tsunade's office but Tsunade was not behind the desk. Naruto?! Why was he there? Where was Tsunade?

The four of us, five including me, were standing there waiting for him to acknowledge us. After a minute he did.

"Sorry about that," he said grinning at us; he was scratching the back of his head looking slightly guilty. "I had to finish that paper work."

"Now then," he said, immediately getting down to business, "how did the mission go? The old hag asked me to take your report after you returned."

"Hai, Naruto-dono," Gai-sensei said, "The Sound village is in a state of disrepair, as well as Orochimaru's other known hiding places. Several scrolls were found though and we brought them here. The structures looked like they had been vacated rather quickly, there were…"

The conversation quickly went over my head. I tuned it out instead and positioned myself so that I could watch the faces of the humans around me. "I can't believe that I am already calling them humans." I thought to myself.

Naruto, amazingly, looked calm, collected and serious. It was so weird! He looked how I thought a Hokage would look. But it was obvious from the photos on the wall and his outfit that he wasn't the Hokage yet. "This is probably training," I said to myself as I pushed my head through Neji's hair. It was blocking my view as he had slightly shifted.

"I don't think he enjoyed that," I thought as I felt Neji tense up. My paws were on the base of his neck and my whiskers were just touching his ear. His pack was mostly covered in his long black hair. That meant I was covered with his hair. I had to push through it if I wanted to see anything. Then I felt like I wanted to giggle…wait, why would I want to giggle? My head twitched to the side as I tried to figure this new situation out and the feeling got stronger. AHHH! I realized the problem and snickered to myself….Neji was ticklish!

Deciding that having him giggle out loud during a debriefing was not the way to stay on his good side and it would damage his pride, so I moved my head a bit and let Neji relax. I could tell he was itching to shove me back into the bag but he wasn't quite sure how to do it without calling attention to us.

I grinned to myself and settled down again to watch the proceedings.

"I see," Naruto was saying, "You did a good job. I will see that the old lady will get your reports and then she will give you further orders if she deems it necessary. Until that time however, there are no other pressing missions. You have all earned a break. I have been authorized to give you all a week off paid vacation." Naruto said grinning at us. "You guys deserve it. However, the Chunnin exams will be here in three weeks. After your vacation you will all report back here for assignments. Dismissed." Naruto said still grinning at us.

"Hai!" was the unified reply and we all left Naruto to his paper work. He was muttering about old ladies, drinking, gambling and hangovers, and how she was doing it on purpose as we were walking out the door. Thanks to my now superior hearing, I could still hear him as we walked down the hall.

When we were outside the building, Gai-sensei turned to us and said, "Yosh! You all did good work; now go enjoy your week off. The chunnin exams will require all of us to put forth a great amount of effort. Now Lee-san, I will hop around the village 100 times on one foot! If I can't do that, then I will do it again on my hands! Are you with me?!" He roared at his students.

Tenten was slowly creeping away, and I could feel Neji struggling to not whack both of them upside their heads.

"Of course Gai-sensei! How could I not be? I will gladly join you and vow to do twice that amount if you fail! Our youth will drive us forward!" proclaimed Lee just as loudly as both him and his sensei ran off to do just that.

If I could die from twitching I would be floating among the angles right about now and don't even mention my poor ears.

Neji, of course had other ideas and when he had walked far enough away from the Hokage's tower, he quickly grabbed his bag off of his back, me off of his shoulder and stuffed me in it. "I guess he doesn't like to be tickled..." I thought to myself. Then with an audible thump, he had swung his bag back onto his back…and yes that did hurt…I could feel us flying through the air seconds later. "We must be going back to the Hyuga compound," I thought as curled back into a ball.

When we landed, I could here all sorts of people talking around us. It sounded like a court yard, but I couldn't make anything out. The –sama this and that though was enough to tell me that I was at the main house.

I was feeling rather tired and was almost lulled to sleep by the gentle sway of the bag when I heard the pounding of feet and then something grabbed Neji and consequently me, as I was on his back, and then proceeded to squeeze the life out of us. It abruptly let go though before I decided my life was over and then before I could recover I got pounded into Neji's back. What the heck was going on?!

I poked my head out of the bag and was going to give whoever had done that a piece of my mind when I saw that a little girl had run and apparently leaped into Neji's arms and was proceeding to tell him all about her day. I was in shock. It looked like Hanabi! What the heck was she doing? Was this universe so different then the one that I had read about? Why wasn't she acting like she had a stick wedged where the sun don't shine?

This was way too weird. Maybe the Hyuga weren't as stuck up as they were back where I was from I mused as I popped my head back into the bag.

"Hanabi-san! What do you think you are doing? We still have practice!" was what I heard seconds later. Guess I spoke too soon. Head back out of the bag I stared at a rather irate Hinata. That was just weird. Maybe they had swapped personalities?

While I was pondering this, Neji calmed down Hinata, promised Hanabi they would talk later and left the two to their own devices. I had popped back into the bag and was trying to wrap my head around these new developments. If anything else changed I was going to go insane trying to figure everything out.

A minute later I felt the bag get lowered to the ground. I couldn't hear anything around us and the top of the bag opened. As I looked up at Neji, he reached down gently with both hands and picked me up like you would pick up a small child. My hind legs and tails were dangling as he lifted me up to his eyes.

"Byakugan!" Was what he said and proceeded to stare at me intently.

"Great," I thought, "he is going to see that I have 9 tails, that I probably have the weirdest chakra system outside of Naruto and then decide to squish me."

"Good, you don't have any fleas or any other parasites and you aren't injured." Was what he concluded as he tucked me into his arm and carried me to the bed where he set me down.

If it were possible for me to fall anime style I would have done it. That just about scared the 9 tails off of me. I decided to opt for curling up and watched him unpack, go through some mail and messages and then did some calming exercises. Some time after he had started I fell asleep. Very content to be on the blanket, I did not want to contemplate how certain characters were acting or not acting, I did not want to contemplate why I was a fox, or the fact that Naruto was filling in as Hokage…this was a strange world indeed. With those last thoughts on my mind I fell asleep to the sound of Neji doing his exercises.

A while later I awoke to the smell of something good under my nose. I quickly opened my eyes and saw that Neji had a bowl of little bitty slices of raw fish in a small bowl. Realizing that I hadn't eaten in a couple of days, I practically jumped at it, devouring as much as I could. I didn't get the chance to get much though as Neji swiftly picked me up by the scruff of my neck and said, "Go slower."

When someone that is easily 10 times as big as you are tells you to go slower…you go slower. I swallowed my mouthful and yipped plaintively at him and he put me down. I restarted on the bowl and went a lot slower.

"Now then," he said as he sat beside me on the bed, watching me eat, "What am I to do with you? It's fairly obvious you won't survive in the wild and giving you to Lee-san is cruel and unusual punishment. I guess I will have to keep you until I find a better option."

When he had started to speak I had mostly ignored it until he said "…giving you to Lee-san is cruel and unusual punishment…" At that statement though, I was all ears and had stopped eating, looking up at him instead, trying to read his expression.

"Well I guess I will have to call you something until then," he then picked me up and put me in the most embarrassing and humiliating position I had ever been in. He was looking underneath my tail. I just about died from embarrassment. "How about I call you Hotaru? Firefly, yes I think that suits you." He then flipped me right side up and put me back on the bed.

"Yeah! I got a name! Neji named me! Hotaru, that's not a bad name. Wait! He just turned me upside down and and and violated me! Also, why can I understand Japanese? Why am I just thinking of this now? Maybe it's the whole animal thing, either way I'm not complaining. Beats the heck out of trying to learn Japanese by just listening to the people I'm around. And and and and he violated me!" The fact that he just named me and decided to keep me was enough to make me forget that he was also going to get rid of me at the soonest possible moment. Though it didn't make me forget that he just checked out my gender. I know knew what dogs and other animals felt like. It sucked.

"Yip!" was what I said. I decided to call it my happy noise, though on the inside I was plotting of ways to get him back for what he did. I then licked his hand and went straight back to the fish. When I was done, I felt this overwhelming urge to sleep and did just that.

Neji felt this strange feeling as the little fox kit that he had just named yipped at him and then licked his hand. When he had used his blood limit on it earlier, it just looked like a normal fox kit. But now he could almost feel that there was more to it then met the eye, even his eyes. Either way though, it had been in his exclusive care now for 2 days and it had not shown any strange behavior besides running underneath him, hiding in his pack and had taken an almost human interest in what people were saying…hmmm maybe it was a ninfox? It seemed far too intelligent to be a normal fox and if it was a ninfox what was it doing out in the middle of nowhere and why was it so young? Maybe that was why it was left? Maybe it couldn't keep up?

Neji was mulling over these thoughts when he noticed the bowl was empty and the little fox was curled up asleep on the bed. He smiled a little to himself at the sight and picked up the bowl and put it on his desk. He then got ready for sleep himself and moved the fox kit, no Hotaru, so that he could get into bed and then sat Hotaru back on the covers next to his face and went to sleep. He would puzzle this out tomorrow.