Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of the author. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

AN: thanks to AnnabelleLee13194 for the amazing OC she provided for my story, I dedicate this chapter to you! I hope she lives up to your expectations in this story, as she makes her 'DYNAMIC ENTRANCE' in this chapter. PM me if you aren't happy with how I characterised her, she is your OC. Enjoy! ;P

Chapter 8

To say I was upset was an understatement. Naruto tried everything that night to make me smile a little, but I couldn't do it. My mind was going over every single second trying to work out what I might have done to offend Kakashi. That had to be the reason why he had left me like that. Right? Well, when Naruto's eyes started drooping from fatigue, I told him to go to bed, by which time he was too tired to argue, simply kissing me on the cheek and saying he loved me before he went to bed.

I hated seeing Naruto so upset, and I was causing it this time... I'd have to put Kakashi out of my mind for now. I had a little brother to take care of, and a training session with Jiraiya tomorrow. I would need all my strength for that, just so I could be patient enough with him to teach me. Honestly, the remarks he gave me on my nonexistent curves. In my mind I had the body of a fourteen year old. No curves, hardly any signs of a female chest, and my body was slowly gathering scars from my training or any missions I went on. It had been decided that it would be too embarrassing for someone my age to be with a genin team of twelve year olds, so the Hokage sent me on easy missions with a chunnin or older genin. Shit! Who was I going to send Naruto to stay with now that Kakashi wasn't talking to me now? It had seemed that before the Hokage had timed it so that Kakashi was free when I was on a mission. Now who could I ask? I wouldn't risk leaving him with Jiraiya, not when I knew what might happen to Naruto's poor innocent five year old mind.

I'd work on that later.

Now, I needed to sleep.

No more thoughts on Kakashi, or missions, or Kakashi, or Jiraiya, or Kakashi, or Naruto, or Kakashi-

Damnit!

I woke up exhausted.

Damn that Copy-nin.

Naruto had to drag me to his school that morning, but I had been subconsciously clever enough to already have packed him his lunch the night before. I kissed him goodbye, waved a hello to Iruka, and made my way to the training grounds I was to meet Jiraiya at. I found him peering through some bushes, giggling. I didn't have to have much of an imagination to understand what he was doing.

"Morning Jiraiya-sensei."

"Good morning Natsuki- are you alright? You look exhausted, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, just had a lot of paperwork to catch up on last night," I wasn't lying, but that wasn't why I was tired. I had just done paperwork from the bookshop to pass the time I couldn't sleep by.

"Oh, well, let's get started. To warm up give me fifty press ups, sit ups and ten laps around the whole village."

Why today of all days is he interested in my training rather than my body? I must look terrible.

"Well get too! Let's see that fine behind of yours working!"

Ah, there it was.

That next week was the most exhausting one ever. I hardly slept at night because of that damn Copy-nin, but I managed to put on a good front during the day. Even Naruto seemed fooled. But by day five I was past exhaustion, having hardly slept a wink and then woken up to train for hours on end. Kakashi had yet to leave my mind, especially after I saw him yesterday, and I know he saw me too. We were in the marketplace, and I had been walking home when he walked right past me. Blank. Nothing. I may as well have been a wall. No matter, I had thought, he's just too into his novel to have seen you, so I called out a hello to him. Still nothing. He was blanking me on purpose. So I had walked up to him, but when I tugged on his arm, POOF! And like that he was gone, and I was holding a scarecrow by the arm.

I thought that even if we weren't training together, he'd still be my friend outside the training grounds. He was one of the few friends I had here, and they were all male, I didn't have a girl friend to go to. At home I had my close cousins, or even my mum. But here; no one. All the girls in 'Naruto' that I had considered my friends were still Naruto's age, Tsunade wasn't in the village, and I knew nobody else in the village particularly.

All I had had were the Hokage, Jiraiya, Kakashi, Naruto and Gai.

But now Kakashi had left me. He was worse than scum in his own words.

Yet I was the only one that seemed to feel hurt over this...

"Natsuki, are you feeling okay?" Jiraiya asked, pausing in our spar.

"Yeah," I had lied; I was seeing black spots every time I opened my eyes, "Why do you ask?"

"You're swaying."

"I am?- "

Black.

I woke up in a white room. Heaven? Looking around me I saw monitors of all sorts around me, sunflowers in a vase by my bed, and neon white lights blinding me from above. Nope, Hospital. I felt a little better though, but my head was feeling a little fuzzy. The door opened, and a young woman – my nurse? – came in. She had brown hair neatly pulled back into a simple bun, and when she came closer so she was less blurred looking, I saw her large wide grey eyes on her soft round face. She was smiling at me, and had a gentle air about her. I had to smile back, it was almost impossible not to.

"It's good to see you finally awake now. I'm Azami, Azami Amaterasu. I'm your nurse, since we're a little short staffed right now, otherwise I'd be in the neonatal ICU. Not that you're a bad patient, I just like babies." she said, her voice very soft. I imagine she was very good with little children, no wonder why she worked with babies. Wait... 'finally awake'?

"How long was I out?"

"Oh, three days sweetie."

"THREE DAYS?" I screamed, sitting up on the bed now. I turned to move off the bed, when I felt a strong hand gripping my arm, forcing me back into bed.

"You are to stay in bed, you aren't completely 100 percent fit yet." Her voice was still soft, but she had a stern tone to it this time.

"But Naruto, my little brother! He's been alone for three days? Oh my god, his birthday! I missed it! I'm a terrible sister. Terrible, terrible, terrible-"

"Your little brother has been staying with Mikoto Uchiha since you passed out." Azami said calmly, "She had been passing through the hospital to pick up one of her own children when she heard about your accident. Naruto has been visiting every day, and seemed more concerned with you than his birthday. In fact, I think he's due any minute now. Everything's fine Uzumaki-san."

I looked at her, looking for any signs of a lie, but found none. Taking a deep breath in, I relaxed back against the bed. Everything's fine. "Thank you."

"It's fine," Azami said, "It's quite nice to be able to have a conversation with your patients actually." I laughed at her comment, imagining her trying to talk to a baby. "So what happened? Did you train too much? I heard shinobi do that sometimes."

"No, that's not me. One of my friends is like that, trains until he drops, but not me. I get bored too easily."

Azami laughed, "He sounds nice."

"He is." I said.

"So what did cause you to faint?" she asked, sitting down on the chair by my bed.

I felt a frown grow on my face again, "It's nothing, it's just something silly."

"Well it must be a really big silly thing to cause you to black out for three days, leaving your one little brother stranded from his sister, and the Hokage even came to check on you. Just another silly little thing, right?" she had this big, slightly creepy grin on her face – not 'Jiraiya-creepy', but still creepy - making her large grey eyes even bigger. Damn her for being so perceptive, I forgot it wasn't Naruto I was talking to. "Care to explain? It can't be that bad, the sun's still going to shine tomorrow right?"

"Right."

"Then it's not apocalyptic."

I felt I could trust her, and I needed a female friend. I've had it with testosterone. I'd explain everything to the Hokage later, and take any blame for her. God I'd never felt so needy in my life, "It's a bit of a long story."

"Sweetie, try bouncing a screaming poorly baby for four hours straight, just so you can give him his shot, only to start shushing him all over again. Take all the time in the world, I'm patient."

"Really?"

"Well, you have until 4 o'clock, because then I my shift ends and I really want to go home. I need to check on my mum as well, so you only have about an hour, unless you want to finish before you brother comes, in which case you have..." she checked her watch, "Twenty-seven minutes. Enough time for you?"

I couldn't help laughing at her. She was something else. I liked her, she was making me smile. "It's perfect."

Well in the space of twenty-five minutes, I had established a new friend. Azami was twenty-one, four years older than me, but and quite different from me. I got the impression that she was usually shy around people, but she seemed fine around me. She couldn't explain why either. I didn't linger on the thought much. We weren't quite opposites, but we complimented each other nicely. She would always seem able to calm me down when I stressed out, and I brought out her hyper side with that creepy grin of hers. I hadn't felt so free and relaxed in a long time. She had also sworn herself to secrecy, and said she would personally see the Hokage to explain that she knew about me. "It's the least I can do for a friend." She had said... but she had warned me that she was of the lazy race, and not to expect favours like this all the time.

When Naruto came, Azami practically smothered him with affection, claiming he was 'just too cute'. It freaked Naruto out a little at first, but then I think he started to like the attention. He calls her 'Auntie Azami', and loves her since she offered to take him out for some ramen later. I however would be staying one more night in the ward, just to make sure I was well. Jiraiya popped round just after Azami left with Naruto, bringing some daisies to brighten my room.

"Hello Natsuki-chan, how are you feeling? You gave me quite a scare back there, you wouldn't wake up! I almost gave you mouth-to-mouth."

My eyes almost popped out, mouth-to-mouth from Jiraiya? "Did you?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"No," phew, "I just wanted to scare you. What? Am I not good enough for you? Who would you have preferred? Gai? Kakashi?" Kakashi... great, he had to bring him up. Jiraiya must have noticed my smile suddenly drop. "What happened kid? You really did give me a fright."

"Kakashi... left." I didn't really know how to say this to him; Jiraiya was Kakashi's friend too. I wouldn't want to turn him against Kakashi. This was so awkward.

"Ahh... he did, did he?" Jiraiya said as he sat on the edge of my bed, looking out of the window.

"You don't look surprised." Did he know what was up?

"Well, this is between you and him kid, I'm not getting between a lovers' spat," Lovers' spat? "you need to sort this out yourselves."

"You know why he left, don't you."

"Get some sleep kid, I want to see your behind back training tomorrow morning, okay?" the Sannin said as he moved to leave the room.

"Jiraiya you get back here and tell me what is going on with Kakashi!"

"See you soon Natsuki."

"JIRAIYA!- " I was interrupted by the door closing and the white-haired man leaving. Damn that man, "ARGH! I hate men right now! Hate them, hate them, HATE THEM! They're all idiots!"

Flopping back into the soft bed, I glared at the ceiling. "Idiots..."

I made a big decision that night.

I realised how much I had relied on Kakashi for many things; my life, my safety, Naruto, my training, my friendship... and I had almost given my heart to him too. I had needed his support so desperately in my first year in Konoha, to feel I belong, that I was important to someone other than my little brother, someone older, like him. But Kakashi had forfeited all rights to this, and I had been the one to suffer.

Never again.

I would learn to be completely independent. I would become strong enough to fight for myself, help Naruto myself, train myself (other than that one technique Jiraiya would still have to teach me), and I would be so careful who I trusted from now on. I had been stung by one of the closest people to me, but I would not let that happen again. I'd have friends, sure, but I would allow no one to touch my heart except Naruto, and maybe Azami.

I would be the best kunoichi I could possibly be. I wouldn't need cloth to have a mask. My job would be my mask, and no one would see my real face without my highest consent. You could call me two-faced, but I would be me at home with my true friends and family, and someone completely different as a ninja. I would be 'un-me', void of preferences, feelings, attachments and softness, only logic, skill and ability would control me on my job.

So you just watch me Hatake.

I'm going to be the best kunoichi I could be, but more importantly I was going to be the best woman I could be.

And you just try and stop me.