Do you have short term memory problems or something? I just told you in the last chapter that I do not own Naruto.

Eventually the pair ran out of papers, and Tsunade lowered her pen back to the desk. Slowly she leaned her elbows on the desk and clasped her hand together. Speaking through said hands, with her eyes peering directly into Naruto's, she asked;

"So…..are you ready to meet the rest?"

/

Chapter Three

Naruto met her with question with a blank expression. He sat staring at her, as if to ask if she was serious about that question. That was until he saw she was waiting for an answer in which case he simply made himself more comfortable in his chair.

"Nope." he responded succinctly.

She growled under her breath at him. Idiotic, disrespectful, little shit! She thought to herself. In reality she just smiled, a bit forcefully, and asked;

"…and why would that be?"

He turned his head the other way and just shrugged his shoulders. His face taking on a sullen expression.

"Oh, I see…" she started taunting him. "You're sulking."

He immediately turned to face her once again. "I am not sulking!" he snarled.

"Looks like it to me." she argued.

"Fine, let's fucking go then." he said to prove her wrong, not realising she had just manipulated him into doing so.

Shaking her head, she motioned to Naruto and Shizune to follow her. She then marched out of her office, straight to the common room that Naruto had been shown before by Ebisu. It was more lively now, with around ten people inhabiting it; playing games, watching television, and what not.

Silence fell upon the room as soon as Tsunade walked in. Even the sound from the TV seemed to dwindle in volume as everyone started at their group.

"Good afternoon everyone." The director greeted them all cheerfully. Though her reception was not all friendly, only about half of the kids smiled and waved or said hello back to her. The rest just scowled or grunted in response.

"As some of you may have heard, we have a new boy in today. His name is Naruto Uzumaki and I expect all of you to treat him as you would yourself." she instructed. "Except for you Kiba…no more biting."

Naruto shot her a glance at this, and was surprised to find her smiling in good humour. This Kiba character didn't actually bite himself did he?

"I'll see you all later." Tsunade decided that a brief talk was better; she wanted to get back to her sake.

"Be good brat." she muttered to the blonde, slapping him on the shoulder to signal her departure.

This left the poor boy standing alone, as Shizune followed her boss out of the room, and staring at a group of mentally unstable stranger.

"Um, hi." he said shyly raising a hand.

This seemed to trigger a reaction as approximately two thirds of the group turned back to what they were doing before, while the rest gathered around him. They ushered him quickly to an unoccupied couch.

Taking his time to observe the group; Naruto was surprised that despite how normal they had looked at first glance, they each had certain things holding them apart.

The first to welcome him was a skinny boy wearing a bright green spandex suit, and was sporting a bowl cut.

Upon opening his mouth Naruto noticed another significant factor defining this boy. "Hello my youthful new friend." the boy exclaimed. "I am Lee, and I swear never to jeopardise this relationship by going against the fair lady Tsunade, and not treating you as I do myself."

Done with his rant Lee quickly snatched him up into a tight embrace, and laughed raucously.

The other two just ignored the exuberant boy and reach out a hand each to shake.

"Ignore Lee, he's just excitable." the first girl advised him. "I'm Sakura and this is Ino." she said jerking a thumb toward the other girl.

Naruto smiled at the pair, before taking their hands in his at the same time and shaking furiously. He liked the look of this pair, Sakura had the best pink dye job he had ever seem and Ino's blonde hair was so shiny. Though Sakura was wearing too much pink, and Ino too much purple in their clothes. They sure could talk as well. Sitting in between them on the couch as he was, Naruto had to keep moving his head back and forth between them, soon creating a crick in his neck.

"What game are you playing friend?" Lee asked seeing the odd action.

"I'm just paying attention to both of them." Naruto explained a bit confused. Wasn't it obvious?

"I never though to do that!" the excitable boy exclaimed and quickly copied Naruto's earlier actions.

"What's he doing?" Sakura asked Naruto, not noticing that he had stopped listening to them.

"I do not know." he admitted slowly.

Lee looked like he was watching a very fast game of tennis, his head moving this way and that. The others just resolved to ignore him for now.

"Am I allowed to ask why you're in here?" Naruto asked nervously once they came to a lapse in the conversation.

The girls laughed at him. "You can ask whatever you want." Ino informed him. "Whether we answer or not is the question." Sakura added in her two cents.

"I'll go first." Lee immediately volunteered himself, apparently having been listening to the conversation. "I have dependant personality disorder, ADHD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder."

Naruto nodded "That makes sense." he said

Sakura raised her hand "My go…I have a split personality, but the doctors say that it may be my real personality kept in my head because of an extreme anxiety disorder."

Furrowing his eyebrows Naruto frowned. "So they don't actually know what's wrong with you?"

"Nope." the pink-haired girl said brightly

"Then why are you here?" he asked curiously.

"Because my other personality is rather violent." she said still smiling.

Ino snorted. "Yeah….rather….frigging bitch punched me in the head for eating the chip she wanted."

Naruto laughed. He supposed it wasn't that funny, but he couldn't help it.

"What about you then?" he asked.

"There's nothing wrong with me at all." Ino told him, sitting up proudly.

"Yeah right." Sakura sniffed.

"Fine…I've apparently got; anorexia nervosa, and exercise bulimia." Ino admitted.

"I heard Genma saying something about dyspareunia, but I'm waiting on a dictionary." Sakura whispered to Naruto smirking glancing slyly in Ino's direction.

"So how about you?" Ino asked moving closer in interest. "It must be something interesting if Tsunade introduced you."

"You mean she doesn't usually?" he asked

"Nope." the trio said in unison

"Stupid old hag." he muttered under his breath.

"Well?" Lee asked all three of them apparently on the edge of their seats.

Naruto ducked his head shyly not used to all the attention. Usually when people concentrated on him this much it was always a negative thing.

He cleared his throat softly before starting. "I have post traumatic stress disorder, and occasional paranoid personality disorder as a result of that; also, ADHD and they think maybe schizotypy. They haven't sent me to a psychologist here yet though. That's what Iruka diagnosed me as."

He glanced up at them in apprehension, looking at their wide eyes and open mouths. He knew he shouldn't have told them, he just knew that they would reject him like the others at his school had, even though they didn't actually know about his condition.

"That's harsh." Sakura whispered recomposing herself.

"Oh my youthful friend you have had it hard." Lee shouted standing up and adopting a fairly fantastic good guy pose. "Do not worry though, I will stand by you."

"Yep, don't worry Blondie. I'm sure they'll fix you" Ino agreed.

Sakura smirked. "Who are you calling Blondie, Blondie?" she taunted.

At that moment Naruto decided that maybe this place wouldn't be as bad as he though it was going to be.

/

This place was definitely as bad as he though it was going to be.

Five minutes after he and his new friends had finished their chat, the entire collection of patients in the common room had been called to dinner. Naruto, who didn't realise how late it had gotten, suddenly remembered he had not had any lunch. As a result his stomach was growling in anticipation. Entering the cafeteria they where told to line up and each received the same portion of food, and the exact same meal. Naruto stared down at the plate in disbelief once he sat down.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked sitting down next to him. Worried by the depressed look on his face.

"Tsunade Baa-chan tried to get me drunk so I wouldn't notice that they don't serve ramen…" he whined

Sakura just stared at him before she burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" One of the boys Naruto hadn't been introduced to yet asked sitting with them.

"Naruto reckons that the director tried to get him drunk so that he wouldn't notice that they don't have ramen on the menu."

This comment caused the brown-haired boy to crack up. He slammed his fist down on the table barking. Not laughing, actually barking. Naruto raised his eyebrow at Sakura who just shrugged. Figuring he'd get an explanation later Naruto turned back to his food, ignoring the bland taste and awful texture.

"Are those scars or tattoos on your face?" Naruto heard the boy ask him all of a sudden. This caused Naruto to frown, it was true he had three parallel scars running across each side of his face but he did not really like to draw attention to them. Glancing at the boy again he met a grinning face and caught sight of two triangular marks coming down from his eye. He smirked as well.

"I could ask the same about yours." he commented, understanding where his curiosity came from. Its not everyday you see other people with marks on their face.

"Name's Kiba." the boy introduced himself jutting a thumb back at himself and grinning. "…and mine are tattoos."

"Naruto….scars." he returned the favour.

"No shit." Kiba said poking at Naruto's cheeks. "How'd you get them?"

At this question Naruto froze up. He didn't know how to answer, didn't even know if he could. Seeing how tense the blonde was and observing his eyes darting round frantically in an attempt to escape Sakura intervened.

"Mind your own business dog boy." she glared meaningfully at him.

"Alright, just curious." he said almost sighing in relief when Naruto relaxed a little. The new kid was obviously more sensitive then he looked. "Want to know why I got mine?" Kiba propositioned.

Naruto nodded, wanting to change the topic, more than he wanted to know about the tattoos.

"Well my family comes from these kennels right? Inuzuka kennels, real famous. I figured since my canines aren't as big as the other dogs, I'd get extra fangs on my face, to try and scare the more vicious dogs away. Didn't work very well though."

Naruto had to restrain himself from chuckling.

"So you think you're a dog?"

Kiba shot him a look. "Why does everyone think that? I'm really a dog, can't you tell? Is everyone blind?" he complained angrily. "Why else would I live in the kennels?"

"Why are you in here if you are a dog" Naruto asked him.

That shut him up… for a second; "Fucked if I know." Was the answer he decided on.

For a while after that, there was silence as everyone continued to finish their meals in peace. Though Naruto did get in the odd grumble now and then about it.

Once people started to finish everyone began to slowly ebb out of the room. Naruto was one of the last people to finish and as soon as he rose he was pulled to the side by a handler. From previous visits with Iruka, Naruto new this man to be Genma. The blonde was bit nervous about being alone with this man. That was as Kakashi called him a total pervert, and that was saying something coming from his mouth.

"I though I should tell you that you can go straight to your room tonight. Normally you have an hour or so after eating and taking your medicine, but seeing as you are waiting on new prescriptions. You might want to go straight to bed." the man advised him.

Naruto viewed him suspiciously, however he couldn't find anything wrong with the mans suggestion so he just shrugged his shoulders and walked after him towards his room.

"Have you had a nice time so far?" Genma asked him as they got closer to his room.

"I suppose, its different from what I though it would be."

Genma just chuckled "That's what everyone says." he told him

"Goodnight." Naruto said as soon as he reach his new room.

He opened the door and turned to walk through it only to feel a hand grabbing one of his arse cheeks firmly. He knew he shouldn't have turned his back on this man. His eyebrow twitching, he turned back around making the hand fall from its place.

"Do that again." he threatened. "and I'll make sure that its Iruka who gets to you first."

Genma swallowed at this, he knew how protective the normally shy man was of the child. "I couldn't help it. You've got the cutest, most pert butt, I have ever seen."

Naruto just snorted and brushed off the perverted compliment by slamming his door in the mans face. He quickly leaned on the door trying to slow his racing heart, and force the panic down.

Today had been too weird, he was just going to ignore that last part. That would probably be for the best.

/

The next day Naruto woke up bright and early to the sound of someone knocking at his door. Without opening his eyes he rolled around like a cat on the bed, stretching, before he rolled over to get out of bed….and slammed straight into the wall.

"Ow!" he yelped bolting up straight in the bed, rubbing his nose.

Slowly his mouth dropped into a 'O' in comprehension. He wasn't in his normal bedroom anymore, he was at the nut house, and his bed was now on the opposite side as it would be normally.

The knock on the door came again followed by a loud call of "Breakfast." by a voice Naruto knew already.

Standing up, successfully this time, Naruto made his way to the door and opened it, peeking out.

Dark brown eyes met his blue ones as he looked out the door to see Kurenai, one of the therapists at the Institute.

"Good morning Naruto." she greeted him pulling him into a hug.

"Hi Kurenai." Naruto mumbled into her breasts.

"I came down to get you for breakfast, cause I have a group therapy with you afterwards. I also wanted to see how you were doing."

Naruto sighed. "Can I get dressed first?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose." she said jokingly letting him go. "But do it quickly." she warned as he shut the door behind himself.

As he began to get dressed for the day, Naruto noticed he had missed his roommate while he had been asleep. He supposed that he must be an early riser, if he woke up early enough to leave before breakfast.

Soon enough Kurenai and Naruto were walking down the corridors, talking about how they had been. Naruto was happy to hear that she would be having a baby, and made her promise that he would get to hold him or her as soon as they were born. Kurenai and Asuma had become very close to both Naruto and Iruka after he had started working there. They would often come over for dinner, or to go out.

"Sit wherever you want, I'm sure one of the other kids can take you to group when you're done." Kurenai told him when they reached the dining room.

Naruto just nodded. He grabbed a few pancakes and sat down at a free spot, next to Lee.

"How are you this youthful day, my friend?" Lee questioned loudly as soon as he took his seat.

Naruto smiled. "Good, and how about you."

Lee immediately launched into a tirade about youthfulness, kittens, and spirits. None of which Naruto paid any real attention too. But he still nodded and smiled all the same.

Soon enough Naruto finished his breakfast and was left with nothing to do but listen to Lee. He was slightly grateful when the girls sat down across from them mumbling a tired 'morning'.

Naruto noticed that Ino had ,much less food on her plate than Sakura (who's portion was smaller again than his own had been). He supposed that made sense though considering her condition.

"I was wondering." Naruto began, "Do you know who my roommate is? I missed him last night."

"I was told it was Sasuke." Ino said after finishing her mouthful of juice.

"What?" Sakura all but shouted. "That's so unfair…."

"How so?" Lee asked curiously.

"I wish I could room with him." she whined, "He's so hot!"

Ino just rolled her eyes at the pink-haired girl. "…And he's a boy. So no shit you're not going to room with him."

"What's he like." Naruto asked excitedly.

"Kind of quite," Ino said. "But mysterious, and aloof."

Sakura sighed. "And he's uber hot."

Naruto nodded his head. He figured that he should ask someone else, and resolve not to talk to Sakura about him again. She was obviously crushing on him so bad, it turned her mind to mush.

"We should head to group therapy now." Lee interrupted his thoughts. "If I do not get to the room first, I swear that I will do one thousand push-ups."

The energetic boy surprised Naruto by jumping up and running out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Which was pretty damn fast.

"Does he do that often?" Naruto asked the others.

They nodded and sighed sweat- dropping at their friends behaviour. At a more ordinary pace they got up and also made their way to their therapy room.

"Do we have assigned seats, or can we just sit our asses anywhere?" Naruto asked, not wanting to make any mistakes on what was officially his first day. Not just for the sake of it, but he figured if he made a mistake that one of the other patients might take offence and go nutso on him. He's seen it happen in real life, so he figured their reactions would just be more extreme here.

"No," Ino answered, "We are encouraged to sit in different places occasionally, especially since some of us have obsessive compulsive, and the therapists don't want us making to many new habits or routines."

Naruto nodded, that made sense. They were almost there where Naruto felt himself bump into something solid. He had been thinking about anything else he should ask to prevent making a fool of himself. Obviously, he had been thinking too hard.

"Sorry." he smiled apologetically looking up at the boy he had bumped into. He didn't believe they had met before. "I'm Naruto." he introduced himself.

"Gaara." red hair and green eyes said after a moment.

Ino and Sakura stared on in shock. Apparently this was not the reaction they were expecting from the other boy. Sensing this the boy sent them an evil glare and they walked off saying nothing. Naruto just observed everything, testing the waters. Before deciding he should jump straight in.

"That wasn't very nice." he admonished the person who was until a minute ago, a stranger.

Gaara listed what appeared to Naruto to be an inexistent eyebrow at him. Whoever this new kid was, he was a bit rash speaking to someone, especially Gaara like that. Deciding not to deign the idiot with an answer Gaara just shrugged.

"Well I'm sorry I bumped into you anyway." Naruto apologised again before following the girls into the room.

Gaara followed him after a moment, an odd look on his face. He sat down across the room from Naruto and continued to stare at him, even as the others filed in.

As they last person filed in the room was thrown into an awkward silence as they waited for Kurenai to arrive. Even the occasional whimper from Kiba was not enough to break the it. Finally though, the women entered the room with a cardboard box in hand. Many of the patients stared curiously at this box and Kurenai, sensing this, automatically slammed it down, right in the centre of her desk.

"Today's lesson for us all is going to be about…. 'communication'" She announced dramatically.

Almost everyone growled, or hissed, this had the potential to be very cliché. Naruto just rolled his eyes. He had lived with a psychologist for over half of his life, so all his relationships were about communication. He'd had it beaten into him, whether it was completely successful or not is another matter entirely.

"First I want us all to inform each other what our names are. This may be redundant for most of you but I'm sure others would appreciate it." she instructed.

Naruto was grateful of her silent effort to help him, though he knew it wouldn't fool anybody…except maybe Lee.

Kurenai then pointed to the first person to her left. This happened to be someone that Naruto had not yet been introduced to yet, so he watched on with interest.

"Shino, you can start first." she said, "and then we'll rotate around the room moving left."

"Shino Aburame." the boy grunted staring rather apathetically at everyone in the room through glasses covered eyes.

Naruto observed the boy for a moment. He wore a big hoody, this stopped you from seeing his figure and also half of his face. His glasses were also darkly tinted so you couldn't even make out the colour of his eyes.

By this time the rest of the group has their eyes collectively fixed on the next person. This person Naruto had not even seen before, she wasn't in the common room he had been introduced the week before. She had short dark hair which kept falling in front of her eyes, and she looked very timid.

"H-Hinata Hyuuga…" she stated nervously keeping her eyes firmly locked on the ground.

They went by one by one after this; Kiba, Naruto, Sakura, Ino. Then a boy named Shikamaru who only waved his arm lazily when he drawled his name. Next was Neji, also a Hyuuga, making Naruto wonder if he was related to Hinata. Names flashed by quickly and Naruto hoped that he would be able to remember them all; Sai, Lee, TenTen, Chouji.

The last two names that were spoken happened to be the two most angry of those in the whole room. The first was Sasuke, who basically choked out his name, obviously not wanting to partake of the activity, and the last was Gaara, who despite saying his name still stared at Naruto.

Kurenai seemed pleased with the results of that activity, though the reason why eluded Naruto. She circled around the room and sat with the mystery box on her lap.

"For the next activity…we will be passing this box around the group. What happens is that you pick out one of the pieces of paper inside, and then we all answer the question on that piece of paper." she said.

"Seems easy enough, right?" she asked, a few people nodded in response.

"Now I want you to know that I did not personally choose, any of these questions. They are composed by an impartial referee outside of the institute, and each question is asked to gain knowledge and build a profile about people. As an act of trust, I will be answering these questions too. Hopefully we'll learn to communicate effectively, even when it is not n easy task."

She waved her hand, dismissively before saying; "Enough with the talking, let's just get on with it."

Slowly she picked out a piece of paper herself and unfolded it.

"What is your favourite colour?"

Naruto could almost see the tension drain from everyone in the room when they heard the question. He himself was glad, he had been expecting them to be horrible, and designed to bring up traumatic events for the sake of the therapists understanding. That could still come true however, for now he was going to concentrate on answering the question.

For the most part of the answers were obvious. Sakura liked pink; Ino liked purple; and Lee loved green. There was however a disproportionate number of people who liked red in the room. This got Naruto down, especially as he was the only one who liked orange the most.

The next question was a bit more difficult to answer.

"What do you want to be when you are older?" Shino pulled out of the box.

"An Entomologist." he answered immediately in his dispassionate voice.

"…what the hell is that?" Kiba barked at him, scratching behind his head in a dog-like manner.

"Someone who studies bugs." Shino answered

Ino snorted and she leaned over to whisper to Naruto. "He's obsessed with bugs. I heard he came here because he was trying to interbreed bugs and humans."

"I heard that he almost killed someone for stepping on his favourite breed." Sakura added.

Hinata was next and her face was slowly turning read from the strain on everyone's eyes being on her.

"I…um…I don't k-know." She stuttered out.

Kurenai just smiled at her "That's okay, a lot of people have no clue what they are going to be. I didn't know I'd become a therapist. I wanted to be a special effects specialist in movies."

The more Naruto thought about it, the more he realised that he was one of those people who didn't know what they wanted to be as well. He was a bit ashamed at that, because one of the things Iruka always had to remind him of, was that it was the future that mattered; not the past. He obviously needed to pay more attention to the man.

"What about you Kiba?" Kurenai continued.

"I want to be alpha male." Kiba announced proudly, sticking his chest out.

"That's not exactly what it meant." Kurenai told him, sweat dropping.

"Well that's what I want to be." he said stubbornly, she just nodding in resignation.

As the 'game' went on Naruto got bored and his gaze started to roam randomly around the room. He just stared at the white walled room, and the dark timber chairs, much better then his high school aesthetics. As he was not really paying attention, he almost missed it, but when he heard Gaara started to speak he tuned in.

"I don't have a future. A Jinchuuriki doesn't deserve one." the red-head said in an unemotional voice.

Narto knew that he had heard that word before, it was obvious no-one else had though as they were looking on in confusion. They looked at Kurenai to provide insight, which she didn't have. She turned her head to face the clock on the wall shotting Gaara another passing glance of worry before dismissing them.

"I think we can continue this later, morning tea will be soon."

/

The rest of the day was spent either in the common room, or in separate therapy session with a private councillor. It was not exactly what Naruto had been prepared for; no psychotic episode every hour, and no real drama. The exception to that rule was, of course, Lee and his hyperactive disorder. Another thing about the institute that Naruto learnt that day was that every time they had a shower (and it was communal showering) they either had to have another patient, or a handler with them. Now Naruto wasn't a shy boy by nature, but that was still going to be an uncomfortable situation.

Lunch and then dinner soon past and Naruto was once again sent to bed early, as he had not had a private therapy session yet; and was therefore not prescribed any medications yet. He walked to his room in silence, contemplating the days events. The only thing he was left wondering was what his roommate was like. They hadn't had a chance to talk today either, so Naruto had not once spoken to his peer. From the looks of him though he didn't look to friendly at all. He hadn't smiled at any one for the whole day, and that to Naruto ( as someone who smiled tremendous amounts) was a strong indicator of a bad attitude.

Naruto was so busy thinking about this he didn't even notice he had arrived at is room until the door smashed into his face.

"Holy Fuck!" he shouted grabbing his nose which was stinging from the impact of the hard wooden door.

A black haired boy walked out and smirked at him. Naruto recalled this boy was Sasuke, and was in fact his roommate.

"What the hell?" he asked angrily.

"Hn…" the boy just grunted, the smirk never leaving his face before his added; "…Dobe."

Naruto opinion of his roommate was set at that moment, the guy was a complete BASTARD.

Then just because the other guy had seen fit to, his responded in kind.

"Teme…"

/

Rei; "…...meow…."