We were walking, Shino and I. I was on his shoulder, as usual. Everything was very normal, except the feeling of nerves in the air (coming mainly from me) and our destination. Shino had inquired at the weapon's shop in the curt, detached, way of his, and now held a slip of paper with a number on it.

Occasionally, I looked down at that slip of paper, the slip of paper that would change my life forever (yeah, I was being a bit overdramatic, but that's just who I am). I held the words "Rm# 134" on it, in scratchy hand-writing. And, quite suddenly, we were there.

After verifying it was the same room number as the one on the paper, Shino pushed open the door.

The first thought that crossed my mind? 'Boring' Boring, boring, boring. A couple of fold up chairs and a plastic table/desk set up in the middle of the beige-walled room, that was all. Oh, and an over-smiley woman with way too much bright red lipstick on behind the table-desk, and an intensly bored individual reading the news-paper in the corner.

Nutin' much.

"Hello! I assume you are here to register a Nin-animal? That is what people usually come here for!" The woman chirped, and then laughed that annoyingly high-pich overly-girly laugh that you hear in Pepsi and bubblegum commercials.

Unfortunatelyfor us, she wasn't daunted by Shino's deadpan half-face.

"Here is some paperwork I need you to fill out, okay? Just your name, family name, Shinobi Class, and if you are intending to attend the Chunin Exams." After she said all this, her mouth stretched into an impossibly wide, painful-looking smile.

Shino signed the forms, yada yada, and then the crazy-face lady said those horrible words. "Time for your Nin-animal's physical exam!"

What.

After a horribly mind-scarring experience of which I will not go into details, the witch-woman released me from her clutches.

"Now, what type of jutsu does you Nin-animal specialize in, if any?" She asked Shino, suddenly buisness-like.

"Genjutsu." I had disscussed matters with Akamaru, and had decided that genjutsu really was my forte.

"Interesting." was all th evil lipstick-lady had to offer on the subject. "Assistant," she called, "Time to actually work for your pay!"

The news-paper guy gumbled and got up, laying his newspaper on his vacated seat.

"Now, Mr. Aburame, please command your Nin-animal to place my assistant under a Genjutsu."

Shino glanced down at me and nodded. That was all the assent I needed.

Genjutsu targets the brain. Or, really, the chakra flow to the brian. I basicially override the opponent's chakra flow with my chakra, and hijack his brain. Like a pirate. Sort of. Okay, not really. But still, chakra, brain. That's the basic idea. And it's a lot more complicated than it sounds.

"Here goes nothing." I muttered to myself. "Tora, Mi, Hitsuji!" I said, and created the hand seals for Tiger, Snake, and Ram. "Shadow Genjutsu!"

Chakra rushed from the pale blue ghost-like hands that still creepily surrounded my paws whenever I created a jutsu. I half-closed my eyes and I could sense my chakra rushing into my opponent's body, quickly heading for the major chakra vein in the stem of the brain.

I could tell immidiately when the genjutsu was complete. Not only did I feel that his brain was under my control, but my victim's eyes suddenly unfocused. I knew what he was seeing. Everything had gone grayscale, and anything with a heartbeat was turned into a dark mass of undulating shadows, except for the eyes. The eyes I kept, only turned them a shade of flaming red. I thought it was a nice touch.

"Very good. Now please command your Nin-animal to release the genjutsu."

"Haruka." As soon as Shino spoke to me, I released the jutsu, even though it was great fun to mess with people's minds.

"Now, would you please ahve your Nin-animal fight my assistant. Without your assistance, please."

Another nod.

"MEROUGH!" I screech-roared as I launched myself off the plastic table-desk and right at news-paper guy.

He dodged, and I flew over his left shoulder, and stuck to the opposite wall. Two kunai stuck quivering into the wall where my head had been, but I was gone. Aiming for his stomach, I was relying on the fact that he would jusp to dodge instead of just moving out of the way.

He did both. Leaping off to the right and up, the only place I could stick the explosive tag with my tail was his left foot. So, when I reached the opposite corner of the ceiling, it only blew his shoe off and burned his foot rather than taking off his leg. He spun around, shuriken ready, to find and empty ceiling. Or so he thought.

One of my newly acquired tricks for my trick bag (as I called it) was camoflauge. I would coat each strand of fur with a thin coating of chakra, and I could control which color it was. The ceiling was easy, it wasn't like a multi-colored forest; just a solid beige color.

I could feel my chakra supply draining, though, so I pooled some chakra into the tip of my tail and carefully picked out a smoke bomb from my vest of goodies. I flicked my tail, sending the little paper wrapped ball towards my opponent. A cloud of smoke filled the room, and I used that opportunity to flick five senbon towards newspaper guy. Once the smoke cleared, it was made apparent that all five senbon were clustered in my victim's neck, right above a vulnerable spot. One inch downwards, and it would have, if not killed him, then given him severe blood loss.

Yeah, I was proud of myself.

In fact, I was even purring as I undid the camoflauge and jumpen onto Shino's shoulder. As the creeper desk lady was telling her assistant to go the the hospital and tell them he was beated up by a cat, I placed my paw on Shino's cheek and quickly placed him under a light genjutsu.

Once I had figured out how to, genjutsu was how I communicated with him, with pictures. Right now, I was showing Shino an amusing sequence of chibi drawings featuring newspaper guy getting his legs blown up, needles sticking out of his neck and blood pouring to the floor, etc,. I only lifted it when lipstick-chick spoke to him.

"That was very well done." Her tone implied the words 'for a cat' at the end. "Okay, just sign here, and place your Nin-animal's paw- or hoof- or fin-print right here."

Shino signed, and I enjoyed placing my right front paw in the ink and stamping the paper as well as many portions of her desk.

She glared at me before handing Shino a small, dark blue Konoha headband.

Aww yeaaahh! Let's bust this popsicle stand! Or whatever you young'uns say these days.

We were out of that weirdo's office and out of her life forever! Yesss! Freedom! Air! A shiny new headband!

"Haruka. Where do you want this? It seems too large for an actual headband."

I jumped up on his shoulder and gave him an image of me wearing the headband around my neck, with the metal bit resting on my chest.

Soon, I was strutting down the street, my new headband proudly displayed on my pushed out chest.

I flicked my ears forward interestedly as I heard raised voices coming from an alley. I slinked over there, but decided against using my camoflauge jutsu.

A tall boy with purple face-paint drawn all over his face was holding up a boy by his shirt/scarf.

"Stop that. You'll get yelled at later." said a dirty blonde with spikey pigtails and a permanant sneer on her face.

Pinky started whimpering out apologies, clearly sending out submissive signals. It was pathetic to watch, like a small puppy rolling on its back and crying to show it wasn't a threat.

Naruto, of course, acted out like anyone who had met him would expect: yelling out threats he couldn't keep.

"Let's play with them before the strict one comes around." said painted guy. I was getting a real creepy vibe off that one... He clenched his fist harder around the mini-idiot's scarf-shirt, who, like the mini-idiot he was, started kicking and whining. Dang, this was turning into a real drama. I should get some popcorn...

Painted guy muttered some threats, and apparantly that was too much for Naruto. He ran towards purple face.

I wicked grin appeared on th face of the painted guy. I quickly zeroed in on his odd finger movements right before Naruto flew backwards. Some kind of unspoken jutsu...? I tensed, waiting for some signal that would decide if it was too dangerous for me too stay. This fight had quickly gone beyond the scope of what I could handle without Shino.

"Leaf Village's Genin are weaker than I thought." the guy with the fierce purple face paint was saying.

The mini-idiot's gang of weirdos then took turns saying his name, as if that would somehow make it better.

"Hey! If you don't let go of him, I won't forgive you! You fool!" Naruto just reached new levels of stupidity. Erg, I actually face-palmed.

Pinky quickly got him in a headlock, nearly choking him to death.

"You're ticking me off." The painted guy said languidly. "I don't like little guys anyway. On top of that, you're a smart aleck for someone younger than me." He looked at Naruto threateningly. "Makes me want to break him."

The spikey pigtails girl sighed. "It's not on me."

"Well, after this little squirt, it's the little runt that won't shut up!"

Three things happened instantaneously. Painted guy drew back his fist to hit the kid (finally), Naruto ran towards them, and a pebble flew out of the sky.

All things stopped when the pebbel hit painted guy's wrist. Blood splattered out of the wound, he dropped the mini-idiot, and someone spoke.

"What do you think you're doing in someone else's village, you..." Sasuke. Of course.

And, as predicted, Pinky fan-girl freaked the hell out. Idiot.

Everyone looked at him, everyone muttered. The usual reaction to Sasuke showing off.

Painted guy even started to unwrap the freaky bundle at his back.

"Wait! You're not thinking of using Crow, are you?!"

And suddenly everything in my body was screaming. Get away, get away! RUN! Fear locked me in place as I heard soft, deadly words whispered by a voice that I would always know.

"Kankuro, stop that."

I looked up, my eyes wide. He was there. Right there, in front of me.

Natsume.

It was years ago.

"Hey, Haruka, how do I look?" He grinned at me, looking ridiculous.

"You look like an idiot." I said, leaning against his couch. "Why are you dressing up as him anyway?"

"Oh, come on, Haruka! Gaara of the Desert is way cool!"

"No one is going to know who you are. Why are you dragging me along to this stupid Anime-Con anyway?"

"You promised! Besides it's going to be so much fun, you'll see."

Oh, Natsume. I've finally found you.