Thanks to their performance in the land of waves, team Kakashi jumped up to the top of the genin squad rankings, which gave them access to a lot more high ranked missions than would normally be available to them. Like clearing a nearby forest of a group of bandits.

Naruto and Saskue raced through the canopy of the forest, though it hadn't been said it was clear to both of them that they where racing to be the first to find the Bandit's camp. "So!" Saskue shouted as he jumped off a branch. "What's going on between you and that Hinata girl? Hu. Are you guys dating or something?"

"Erf. Yeah, rah." Naruto leaped ahead of Saskue. "She's really sweet, and pretty. Oh and she does this thing when she smiles, she kind of looks down all embarrassed, and you just want to eat her up."

"Ha!" Saskue used Naruto's face as a launching pad up into the tops of the trees. "What about Sakura?"

Naruto spun out blind and crashed through a few branches before a study one broke his fall. "Oh, are you with me or against me."

Saskue stopped and helped pick him up. "Seriously, what about sakura, a few weeks ago, you'd have licked the dirt of her boots if she asked you to."

Naruto dusted himself off. "Yeah well, it's a lot different when the person loves you back." He eyed Saskue. "Why are you asking anyway?"

"You know every once in a while, Zeus king of the gods, would go down to earth and mate with a human. It's a little like that, even though I'm above you, sometime I like to hear what the mortals are up to."

"Glad to see your battle with blindness hasn't affected your ego."

Saskue shoved Naruto into the trunk of the tree and pinned him against it. "How'd you hear about that?"

"I literally don't know how you think you can walk half way across the village with bandages around your eyes, and not thing everyone's going to hear about."

"Oh right." He let Naruto down. "I got some eye surgery."

"Got some Sharingans put in eh? Good for you!"

Sakue shoved him back into the tree. "How'd you know about that?"

"I'm dating Hinata! I know all about the visual eye surgery thing."

"Oh, right." Saskue let him down again.

"I'm suddenly back to being uncomfortable around you."

"Yeah." Saskue rubbed the back of his head anxiously.

"And you're not even making an attempt to apologies to me."

Sakura broke the silence over the radio. "Guys I have eyes on the enemy, third quadrant, bravo sector."

"That is a solid Copy bubble gum pop, we are Oscar Mike."

Saskue ran after Naruto. "Why are you guys talking like that?"

"It sounds cool."

Xxx Back in town xxX

Kakashi inspected the three of his students. They were strong; he'd seen Sakura punch a hole in a boulder more than once. They were smart, he'd never heard of a genin building a fireball pistol before he'd even left the academy. And they were brave; he'd never seen two people take more bullets for each other than Naruto and Saskue. They were ready. "You guys did an excellent job handling the bandits yesterday."

Naruto snapped his fingers. "That what I forgot to say." He cleared his throat. "Thanks for the help by the way; you know their leader, this big eight foot sumo wrestler, was throwing machetes around like knives?"

"And you over came it, like the ninja's you are. You know I don't think I've ever had a better batch of students than you."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "We're the only students you've had, you failed all the others."

"I'm trying to help you guys out here!" The two of them looked at each other and shrugged. "Like I was saying before I was interrupted." He paused; you could see the frown behind his mask. "I forget. Oh well, I signed the three of you ingrates up for the chunin exams."

Xxx Ichiraku xxX

Ever since the greatest day Hinata decided to take her medication at only one pill a day, since she was afraid of what would happen if she kept taking two a day. Even at half dosage the medication was defiantly doing its job. You still wouldn't call her a social butterfly but she was much more social, and she let her self to closer to people, especially Naruto. "That's really exciting Naruto." She took a huge gulp from her glass of water. She had to increase her H2O intake lately in order to counteract all the sodium she'd been consuming in the ramen. "Kureni singed us up for it too, Kiba has us booked for training everyday until the exams start, I'm going to be too tired to even take the exams."

"Yeah Sakura has us on something like that too."

"Is your hair shorter?"

"What?"

She giggled. "Sorry, I just noticed that your hair looks a little shorter."

Naruto tweaked one of his hair spikes. "Yeah Sakura said I was looking a little shaggy, so she gave me a haircut."

"Oh." She looked away. "You know I've been cutting my sisters hair for a long time."

"Oh." He smiled. "Then I'll keep you in mind next time."

"Please do. Hey I've got to get going, but I'll see you tomorrow after training okay? By the lake."

"Sure thing!" He leaned into kiss her, but she was already gone.

"Here's the check you just pay that when you're ready." The chef announced slapping down a piece of paper in front of Naruto.

"Aww." Naruto whined. He was dead broke. 'Looks like I'm cleaning pots tonight.'

Xxx Third floor of the Majestic Hotel (Directly across from Haruno Residence.) xxX

A pint of Blood. Check.

A head of hair. Check

A pound of flesh.

Hinata scanned the file for Project: Primordial ooze. The Huyga's inside man in the Haruno house had managed to get them a copy of the file, before they found him half drowned in the fountain in front of the Huyga's mansion.

She gazed into the house. The three of them, the lord, lady, and Sakura, had vanished into their basement, as they did every night at 7:00pm. Their servants ran about the house like worker ants. Hinata smiled, he could tell that about a quarter of them where spies from the other clans. She wondered if they wondered why they had such a bad bug infestation. That's the risk of hiring an Aburame after all. None of the other spies appeared to be as far along as the Huygas. When no one was looking they'd throw open a drawer, or dive into a wardrobe. Of course none of them had the powers that the Huygas had.

Like being able to tell when someone was sneaking up on you. Hinata spun around Rail gun already loaded and ready. With one pull of her trigger the pinked hair man was blown in half. Hinata likewise was blown backwards by the kick of the gun. She was blown out the window in fact. Luckily she landed in a melon cart that happened to be passing by. Well lucky for her, not her cloths.

"My Melons!"

"Hinata groaned and rubbed her head. "Um, c-can you wheel me to the Huyga mansion please."

"Uuuh."

"Please!" She begged. "I can't tell if all of this is blood or melon juice."

"Okay, okay. I'll take ya home."

"Thank I-I'll send you a check for the damages." With a small groan Hinata laid her head down on a half destroyed melon and passed out.

Xxx Sakura xxX

A closed casket funeral was held for Sakura's uncle Lan after all his bottom half was found twelve feet away from his top half. All the clans came out to pay their respects even the Huygas (Who were in fact responsible for his murder). Lan was a bit of a patriot to the Leaf Village he always stressed that cooperation between the clans was the most important thing to keeping the village safe, so he was always brought in during clan disputes for his even handedness.

Sakura felt the biggest loss at her uncles death. He was such a kind and gentle soul. While the Haruno's weren't cold they had lost a little bit of themselves in their quest for power. But Lan truly cared for her, he always seemed to relate to her, and not just because they both had pink hair.

Sakura marched down the stairs to the lab where her parents were skulking. "You know." Her voice announced her presence. "I was doing some research on uncle Lan, he didn't have a birth certificate."

"Hmm." Her father hummed. "Must have been a clerical error." He continued to mix a few vials of chemicals under his wife's supervision.

"That's what I though." She produced a sheet of paper from her manila envelope, her case file obviously. "So I did a DNA test. His DNA is the same as a child produced from the two of you. He contains both of your genetics. Which you have to admit is down right weird." Her father stopped what he was doing and looked over to his wife, who looked mildly panicked. So then I pulled out my old records and found the DNA tests I did on you two when I was a kid. It was all business as usual, until I came across a flawed sequence." She looked over at her mother. "You can't possibly have children; you couldn't possibly have had me."

Lady Haruno looked over at her husband, she was pale as a ghost. "We would have to have told her eventually."

Lord Haruno nodded. "Yes but I was hoping it would be on my death bed, or at least when we hit phase three, so we'd have something to protect us."

"Please start making sense, right now!" The two of them couldn't take their eyes off of her closed fist.

"Alright." Lord Haruno put himself between his daughter and his wife. "You're a, homunculus."

"I beg your pardon?"

He took in a big breath. "Your mother and I are trying to make a clan right, so to do that we need children to carry on our name, but despite us being beautiful examples of the human body and mind we can't have children, so what we do is get a few samples of DNA from the two of us, then use your mothers knowledge of Alchemy to make a human being, and that's you sweety!"

"What's alchemy?"

"It's a combination of Chemistry, science, with a little bit of voodoo thrown in for good measure."

Sakura stumbled back knocking over a shelf of empty beakers. "So I'm, I, I'm some sort of science experiment." She looked at her hands like she was seeing them for the fist time.

"No no!" Her mother shouted. "Lan was the experiment."

"The blood, the hair, all of his stats. You're going to clone Naruto!"

"Oh heavens no. To make a homunculus you need two sets of genetic makeup."

Sakura would have taken a step back were she not already on a wall. "Not me, right? Oh my god it's Saskue that's why you had me collect both their blood samples."

Lord Haruno shook his head. "Oh no that'd be taking a step back."

"A step back?"

"Well you, being…" Sakura shot him a glance. "What you are, you take the best traits from your parents. That's why you're so smart, and strong." He smiled. "And beautiful."

"And a natural pink?" You could see her mind working. "So each generation of homunculus would be stronger than the last, which means I'm the other half of this DNA cocktail. Does this mean Lan was…"

"No!" Lord Haruno shouted. "We are your parents. Lan was lucky he didn't explode into a pool of chemicals every time he sneezed."

"Is that what I am to you? A pool of Chemicals."

"Of course not." Her mother insisted. "First of all we didn't make any of the mistakes we made with Lan, also we planned on having you, Lan was just a mistake two lab partners made."

That was it Sakura had, had enough. "Tell ya what, I'm going to get out of here, um don't have me followed. And I'll return when I'm not disgusted with you guys."

"Sakura." She spun around, she looked ready to lay the smack on. "Sanity is not statistical." Sakura dropped like a sack of rocks. Her plug had been pulled. Lord Haruno wiped his brow. "Phase three?" He asked.

Lady Haruno rubbed her arms uncomfortably. "I don't know, I think we just lost our daughter."

"We didn't lose her she was just scared. Honey." He held his wife close to him. "If we weren't meant to do this, god would have given us that child. So what do you think? Do we push on?

Xxx Saskue xxX

As we all know Saskue is cooler than an Eskimo's eyebrow, so it's only natural that all the local kids rally around him when some out-of-towners start making trouble. "My girlfriend doesn't wear as much make up as you."

"Oh you are asking for it you little emo." This sand ninja was a clown. Perhaps literally he wore a silly black jumpsuit and painted his face with an intricate purple pattern. Though that didn't mean he wasn't just a little scary. (As all clowns are.) He did have what looked like a human body strapped to his back.

"I'm begging for it, who's going to deliver."

The Clowns friend had finally had enough and took the giant fan off of her back. "I will if you idiots don't shut up."

Kiba, the town's bad boy with a heart of gold jumped into the argument, along with his long time companion Akamaru. "Oh you just stay out of this sister."

She rolled her eyes. "Little boy, just get out of here before you and your pup get hurt."

Kiba and Akamaru growled. "I don't know where you guys get off walking into our town picking a fight with some little kids then act like we're the bad guys," The whole incident happened because Saskue caught the Clown Shoving some kid out of his way, and the whole thing had done nothing but escalate from there.

The clown shoved kiba out of his friends face. "We were just teaching those brats how you treat your guests. Looks like you guys need the same less on."

"This is such a drag." Shikamaru kicked a stone against a wall. Shikamaru was…well he was just a down right lazy slacker. You know that guys who sleeps through all of the classes, doesn't' do any home work, and still gets an A in his class? Yeah, that's Shikamaru. "Listen you guys can beat on your chest and play alpha male all day, I'm out of here."

"Did you just call me a monkey?" The Clown began to chase after Him, but froze, all of them did.

Out of thin and just a little sandy air, a boy appeared. If you blinked you would have missed it. He was short, maybe a little smaller than Naruto. He had blood red hair, and the Kanji word for 'love' tattooed on his forehead. And while that tattoo should have made him seem like a softy, he secreted murder from every pore of his body. "Kankuro." His voice could curdle milk. "Stop embarrassing me."

The clown, hence forth know on Kankuro shrunk in the presence of this, boy. "Okay sorry Garaa."

"Now let's go, before our hosts kicks us out." And he was gone, no trace he'd ever existed.

"You're lucky he stopped me. You guys just watch out for yourselves during the exams, people die out there."

"I hope your hotel has rats!" Kiba shouted after them. "Man what was their problem."

Saskue shrugged still a little unnerved by Garaa's appearance. "I think their problem was us."

"Hey we didn't start anything."

"No I mean, our village, it looked like that had a problem with this place from the moment they stepped foot in here."

Kiba rubbed his hands together like an evil villain. "Looks like this years Chunin Exams are going to be intense."

Xxx Naruto & HINATA! xxX

Naruto shook his head and moaned. He'd been having dinner with his, even he blushed a little at the thought, girlfriend, but he just couldn't get his mind off of the Chunin exams. "I don't like how fast things are going."

Hinata whipped her mouth clean. "I'm sorry I thought sharing a milkshake would be fun."

"Oh no I like this, I'm just saying that things are going awfully fast around town all of the sudden."

"Oh it's just because the Author is trying to go over a month of events in just one chapter."

"Hinata!" Naruto hissed.

"Hmm?"

"We have the fourth wall to think about." He said in a singing voice.

They both look over and stare at the camera for a moment. "So before our world starts to unravels."

"Too late the milkshake just disappeared. Oh there went the roof, I always thought this place could use a skylight."

"What have I done! So what is it that's bothering you?"

Though he was still concerned about the black hole that was quickly growing over their heads, he decided to power through it and continue the conversation they where meant to have, before the author lost his mind for a moment and wrote this section. "Oh you know, Sakura's uncle getting killed."

"Yeah! Crazy right? Someone just blows him up in a hotel room, how weird right, right!"

"Woah Hinata are you okay?" He put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Um, yeah I just, um you know I know what it's like to lose an uncle."

"You're so sweet."

She smiled Nervously. "Oh don't say that."

"No you really are. Getting so upset over the death of someone you don't even know." He wrapped his arms around her. "Promise me you won't be sweet during the exams."

"hmm?"

"I don't know." He ran his hand through her hair. "You see the way these new guys look at us, like we're pieces of meat. Don't let anyone take advantage of you out there."

She grabbed his hand and held it tight. "I'll be strong because you make me strong." She couldn't help but frown on the inside. If only he knew that she was the one that killed Sakura's uncle, if only he knew that she was a murder. She knew deep inside that she should feel a terrible gut wrenching guilt for killing someone, but she didn't. The Harunos were up to something, she didn't know what, but Naruto was involved in a big way, and he had no clue.

Xxx Authors notes. xxX

This chapter was more about setting the next few chapters up, so sorry if it was all a bit rapid fire, I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get out.

Um that Part where I broke the fourth wall, Very unprofessional, but I think it's funny that while I was doing everything so fast I had a character who was questioning it. So I couldn't resist.

In this story I'm really trying to push the Idea that the Clans are more than they seem. That there is this kind of secret cold war going on between them all. I was a little worried about making Hinata spy on the Haruno's but She's the future Head of her Clan, she was probably sneaking through air vents before she entered that academy.

To those of you, who miss the action, it's be back next time, because we start the Chunin Exams! Oh sorry to those expecting to see Orochimaru this week, Next chapter was actually suppose to be this chapter, but I wanted to set it up instead of jumping right into it.

And to those of you who think that A Homunculus is a Full Metal Alchemist thing…you're a retard.

Thank you all for reading; I could just eat you all up. And a big thanks to everyone who reviews I appreciate your feedback. Oh, and wish me a happy birthday! See you guys next time!.