Disclaimer- I do not and will never own Naruto. Only the character created within my story.

Thinking

"Talking"

"Monster/animal talking"

"Telepathic talking"

Chapter 2- Friends

Shinaka climbed higher into the sky, slowing the higher she went. She wanted to test her limits, see how far she could ascend before she had to return to the earthly plane. She climbed until the air was too thin for her to breath, then she fell backwards, folded her wings and dived.

The air whistled around her, louder than her own beating heart. She let the bird's instincts take over as she plummeted, trusting it to know the right time to pull up. But before she could reach that time a shape suddenly jumped through her dive zone. She opened suddenly and too fast that she crashed into the branches of a nearby tree and plummeted into the ground.

"Sorry Kit." A voice said above her. Blinking slowly, she saw a spiky silver head man above her wearing a navy-blue mask that covered the lower part of his mouth, just over his nose, and wearing a slanted leaf hitatai that covered his left eye. He wore navy blue shinobi pants taped off at the bottom with white bandages, navy blue Shinobi sandles, navy blue fingerless gloves with a plate of metal on the back of each one, and a long sleeve navy blue shirt with the red Uzumaki swirl on each shoulder. Over his shirt he wore the standard green shinobi flak jacket, and had a kunai and shuriken holster strapped to his right leg.

Kakashi stared down at the white and brown peregrine falcon, smiling in that weird way with his right eye. "Oh hello there Kit. Didn't see you."

"Bullshit!" She glared up at him waiting for the world to stop spinning. "Kakashi I told you not to jump above the tree line where I fly."

"Sorry I forgot." He said lamely.

"I wonder why I don't believe you." She said sarcastically. Many of the Shinobi in the village tended to avoid the place where she lives. She wasn't well liked by many of the villages, especially the civilians, because of her relationship with Naruto. They knew she lived in the forest on the outskirts of the village but not the exact location of her house.

The Hokage continued to let her live there as she was another safety measure. Shinaka was constantly roaming around the forest. She acted as a scout and a watchdog for any foreign Shinobi trying to sneak in through this secluded area.

Shinaka also knew her presence their also prevented most of the civilians and some of the more scared and weak Shinobi from entering the forest. Either to prevent them getting lost, that was a fun week, or to keep them safe from the animals living in the forest and the older Shinobi who liked to train in the area.

There were a few people who didn't hate her, like most of the clan heads and some other Shinobi. But others were weary of her.

There were very few that knew the actual location of her home.

Kakashi was one of them. They were teammates under the same sensei, and shared a mutual grief over the ones lost in the third great Shinobi war and the Kyuubi attack. He often barged into her home, either sleeping, raiding her food storages, or getting her to heal him so he didn't have to suffer in that white room jail they called the hospital.

She stood up on her legs and fluttered onto Kakashi's shoulder. "Why were you jumping that high anyway?"

"Gai challenged me to a fight to see who could catch you before you got too high." Shinaka nipped his ear with her hooked beak when he shrugged.

"You know better than to do that to a veteran Shinobi. If you actually caught me I may have ripped you to shreds."

"Maa, maa. I would have been fine."

"AND WHO SAID YOU WOULD BE THE ONE TO CATCH HER!" A voice shouted out suddenly. In fright Kitsumaru spread her wings and fluffed her feathers up.

Kakashi eye smiled at her, and she glared at him. "Scared." He whispered to her.

"No. It's the birds instincts. It's a defense mechanism…"

"That only happens when you're scared."

"Is not." She said, eyes closing in a pout.

Kakashi dismissed her poor denial by replying to Gai who had appeared on the branch of the tree above them. He turned to better look up at Gai. "Because…" He reached his hands up slowly. Realizing his deception, a moment too late she was caught up in his hands. "See I got her."

Shinaka struggled in his hands. She couldn't shift in this position with her wings tucked tightly to her side. If she did the bone would shift in an unnatural way, possible breaking it, or dislocating it at her shoulder.

She bit down hard on the skin between his thumb and index finger hard enough to draw blood, and with a slight yelp, which he denied happened a moment later, he let go and she fluttered up to land on Gai's shoulder.

She preened her feathers as Kakashi glared at her, rubbing the spot where she bit him. "I told you to stop doing that. I may be smaller than you in this form, but a peregrine falcon has sharp claws and a killer beak." She snapped her beak at him. "Literally."

"Maa, Maa."

"WHY DON'T YOU JOIN US FOR A YOUTHFUL SPAR." Gai yelled. Shinaka shrieked as the sound assaulted her ear and wacked him on the head with her wind.

"I told you to stop yelling in my ear. And I'll join in a few hours at one of the training grounds, I need to finish my patrol around here. A couple of kids have been sneaking in because of a stupid dare going around, and the hokage is worried."

"Which means you will be the one to scare them off?" Kakashi tilted his head.

"Precisely." She fluttered off Gai's shoulder, saying goodbye as she flew up into the air.

"Uh. Where did she tell us to meet her?" They both sweat dropped as Shinaka left.

A/N Thanks for the reviews my readers. This is a bit of a boring chapter but I wanted to set up her relationship with Kakashi and Gai a bit. In the next chapter we will see her spar with the villages two top Shinobi and her interactions with the almost genin in the village.