The Hidden Countries;

Chapter Seven

Rose looked around the room, the tent, wondering what Hermione told Haku about the tent. Rose could be as sure as hell that she hadn't told him that it was magical. But looking at Haku now it was sure as hell that he didn't feel at all curious about the tent.

Rose wasn't sure how she was meant to feel about that. But she figured that she should be relieved, so she settled on that one.

"Alright, I know where we're going next guys!" Hermione called out happily.

Hermione had been studying the snake summoning scroll for the last few days, trying to figure out if there was anyone else they could go to summon Nangi for them.

Ron instantly shot up from his bunk. Haku looked over at Hermione with interest and Rose rolled over to face Hermione. She didn't feel that great to be honest.

She felt crap. Dean had been killed by Voldemort, she had seen that. In a lure, and Mr. Malfoy had been hurt for it not working.

"Where are we going then, Hermione?" Rose asked, trying to block out the memory.

"To Konoha!" She said sounding ridiculously pleased with herself.

"Why?" Ron moaned throwing himself back onto his bunk. "That's like a four day walk from here!"

Hermione glared at Ron. "Because, Ronald, the last person – therefore most likely to still be alive – to sign the summoning scroll; is a woman by the name of Masahri Anko."

Rose blinked. "Brilliant Hermione! You're a genius! Come on guys let's get packed up!" Rose said pushing herself into a sitting position clapping her hands together.

"Wait!" Ron said quickly. "We can't just walk over there and expect them to let us in."

Hermione frowned. "True..."

Rose brushed this off though, picking things away already. "It's alright, I can get us in."

"How?" Ron demanded.

Rose grinned, as she walked over to Ron and slung her arm over his shoulder. "It's called the art of negotiation."

"You can't negotiate in ten seconds, with a four day distance between you," Ron pointed out rationally.

Rose grinned again. "Yeah, but I can."

"No, you- I don't even want to argue this. You'll win somehow."

Rose laughed. "Your right about that one, Ron, but I made a deal with Kakashi."

Ron looked confused but it was Hermione who asked the question. "Was that the silver haired guy?"

Rose and Haku nodded their heads at the exact same time.

Hermione clapped her hands together excitedly. "Great, thanks Rosie! Now we have a way in. Then all we have to do is find her and convince her to help us!"

"Yeah, Hermione," Ron began slightly annoyed. "How're we going to do that, exactly?"

Hermione waved Ron off. "That's Rose's problem not ours."

Rose felt indigent. "How is it my problem to convince the woman?"

Hermione sighed. "That is because you have this strange talent of getting people on your side."

Rose blinked slowly and turned to look at Ron, seeking a second opinion. "I do?"

Ron nodded his head sagely.

Rose would have asked Haku but as it was, they'd only known each other for a few days. So she just took it as a truth. She hadn't even realised it – how strange. How could she not realise she had such a powerful tool?

Rose saw Hermione smile. "It's just like the Professor always says Rose. You're a born leader."

Rose smiled back before shaking her head, a frown appearing. The Professor had lied to them all. "Alright, then, let's get packing!"

With that the four teens packed up their magical tent, to get ready for four days of travailing to Konoha.

~7~

Thankfully the weather had been nice out for their tip so far. Rose didn't know what she would do if it started to rain. She knew that she would force everyone to keep walking – not caring about the weather. But she would be annoyed never-the-less.

It was an annoying scenario to think of. Rose frowned as she watched Ron and Hermione up ahead of her and Haku; she could hear the conversation perfectly.

They were talking about different chess plays. Ron was trying to teach Hermione some of the better ones again. Hermione had always been terrible at chess; something that Rose secretly found was good for the girl.

Rose glanced off to her side where Haku was walking. Judging from the look on his face her was listening in on Ron and Hermione's conversation and it was making him confused.

"It's a game," Rose finally said to Haku. The boy in question turned to face Rose his face begging to know more.

"It's what we call Ron's game. Because he's practically unbeatable at the thing. It's a strategy game, we all suck at it except him," Rose went on to say. "Don't expect me to know the rules. I hate it, but if you really want to know, Ron will be pleased to teach it to you."

Haku's face lit up slightly. His facial expression didn't change much, but Rose could tell that he was happier with the knowledge. Rose promised herself that she would talk to Ron about teaching him when they got to Konoha, and before they left.

That annoyed Rose. Not knowing when they were going to leave, they'd leave of course when the snake got killed. But they had no way in telling if Anko would be an easy person to convince or a difficult one.

Deep down, Rose knew she would be a difficult one because of her own personal brand of luck. This luck let her get into the worst situations only to let her get past them by the skin of her teeth.

"Why are we allowed in Konoha Rose-Sama?" Haku asked his voice was hesitant.

"What did I say about calling me that?" Rose said instead. She knew she would have to tell Haku anyway, but, she was a coward.

"I apologise, Rose-Sama," he said automatically.

Rose sighed. She wasn't a coward, she was a Gryffindor and Gryffindor's weren't cowards. She'd tell Haku.

"I made a deal, with Kakashi about you," Rose said finally managing to break out and just say it. It had only in reality been a few days but Rose already cared about Haku a lot.

"What was the deal?" Haku asked sounding a little upset. Rose felt terrible; she had figured that she wouldn't care about Haku after a small amount of time. She had been wrong.

"You were going to stay in Konoha and become one of their ninja," Rose said, a little sadly.

Haku's eyes widened slightly. "Why? Can't I stay with you, Rose-Sama, please?"

Rose had never heard Haku say 'please' in the entire time that she'd known him. Whilst she hadn't known him all that long, Rose still felt he rarely said it.

"Listen Haku – I really care about you, and so do Ron and Hermione. But because we care about you, we know you'll be safer in Konoha," Rose said seriously.

Haku looked like he was slightly annoyed, and just over a bit upset with the news, but there was still a hint of happiness. "Rose-Sama, I do not mean to be rude but... You are sending me to be a ninja of one of the strongest villages for me to be safe?"

Well, when he put it like that... Rose smiled slightly. "Yes, but as one of the strongest they'll have strong ninja. They'll take care of you. Anyway Haku..." Rose paused for a second an idea coming to her. "Do you know what it is that we're doing Haku?"

Haku paused for a moment. "No, I don't Rose-Sama."

Rose nodded her head. "Yes, well, what we're doing is very brave and stupid. We need to kill this snake to kill the guy that killed my parents."

Haku looked even more upset with the news. "I apologise, Rose-Sama."

Rose waved him off. "This guy is really powerful; he has the ability to crush everyone and everything around me. In fact, after he's said he was going to kill someone and tried to do it? I'm the only one that's survived."

Haku looked at Rose with a new found sense of amazement. Rose grimaced and nodded. "I really want you to be safe. You'd be protected in Konoha. Please Haku?"

Haku still looked a bit upset but he nodded his head anyway. "As you wish, Rose-Sama."

Rose felt a small smile appear on her face. "We won't leave until you're settled. Even after we get what we came for, not leaving until you're happy with it. Alright kid?"

Haku gave Rose a genuine smile. "Thank you, Rose-Sama."

Rose sighed in relief. "Don't call me that."

"Of course, Rose-Sama," Haku replied instantly.

~7~

Rose was relieved to finally get to the front gate indicating that they were now in Konoha. It had been a difficult journey there.

This was because half-way there Ron and Hermione got into one of their legendary fights. This was why Rose felt that despite what everyone else around Hogwarts said; there was no way that those two would get together. Of course there was a chance, for example in fourth year Ron had a crush on Hermione and sixth year Hermione had a crush on Ron.

But they'd never truly last.

They were just too different. Hermione needed someone who was smart and able to talk to someone on her level, she shouldn't have to settle for anything less.

Ron on the other hand needed someone who was firm, but knew how to 'let lose' a bit more than Hermione did. Hermione did let things go, just not enough to be with Ron on any other level than as friends. But really this was just Rose's opinion.

"Name, reason for coming to Konoha," The guard said dully, looking at the four of them with boredom.

"Right," Rose said. "I'm Potter Rose; I'm here to see the Hokage. Uh, someone called Hatake Kakashi told me to come?"

The guard looked decidedly more interested now as he riffled though some papers, prodding the person that was asleep next to him. "Izumo! I'm going! Wake up and do your job."

Ron snickered, and Rose's lips twitched into a smile.

The male turned to face them with an interested look and a friendly smile. "Hello, I'm Kotetsu! I'll take you to the Hokage, we've been expecting you."

It kind of sounded creepy. "I've always wanted to say that!" Kotetsu continued when he saw their floored faces. Rose smiled again.

"Hey, I'm Rose, this is Granger Hermione, Weasley Ron and Haku," Rose said pointing to everyone respectively.

Kotetsu waved at them all happily, and made his way down towards the Hokage office.

The four teens followed him without many words. Kotetsu kept talking.

"So anyway, what brings you four to Konoha, under the copy-ninja's name even!"

"Ah," Rose answered him, confused. "Who is this copy-ninja?"

He looked at Rose carefully, like he was trying to see if Rose was being serious or not. "Who is the copy-ninja? Hatake Kakashi, I thought you knew him..?"

Rose's face was one of surprise. "Oh? Yes, I forgot about that."

The man's disbelief was growing. "You forgot about an S-rank ninja?"

Rose blinked, but it was Hermione who asked the question. "S-rank?"

The guard looked between the four of them like he was surprised that they were even alive still. "Do you guys make a habit of making friends with high-classed ninja, not knowing their high-classed ninja?"

Rose blinked; they hadn't met enough ninja to actually say that but... "Yes."

What did S-Rank mean anyway?

The man shook his head at them. "This is the Hokage tower," He said as he gestured to the large circular building in was in the middle of the town.

"We can just go straight in, I'll tell the Hokage your here."

He then showed them into the building and left them in a small room that looked a bit like a waiting area, receptionist included. But Koutesu just ignored her and walked straight in to where Rose assumed was the Hokage.

Kotetsu after a few minutes walked right back out of the office a smile in place. "Well, you guys can go straight in. I gotta go back to the gate now, but it's been nice meeting you!"

Rose smiled and waved after him, and the four walked into the Hokage's office. Rose noticed that the room was spacious, and there was a massive window behind a large desk the housed, an old looking man – who Rose assumed to be the Hokage and a younger brown hired man, with a scar sunning down the bridge of his nose.

Rose smiled at them, receiving a smile from the brown haired man in return. The older-man than began to talk.

"Hello, I'm the Hokage, and this is Umino Iruka, my aid," he said slowly, pronouncing his words to full effect.

Rose knew that she had to talk, this must have been what Hermione meant, that she was a born leader. "Hello, Hokage-Sama, Umino-San. My name is Potter Rose, and these are my friends, Granger Hermione, Weasley Ron and this, this is Haku."

Rose's hand rested on Haku shoulder, the boy gave her a blank looked, his emotions cleanly hidden from them all.

"Ah, so you're Rose. Kakashi-Kun has told me all about you, and young Haku of course."

Rose smiled weakly at the Hokage, wondering just what Kakashi had told the Hokage about them.

"Oh? That's great, than we can waste little time with boring explanations, yes?" Rose said in a friendly voice.

"Of course," The Hokage stated, amused. "Haku we welcome you to Konoha. Kakashi has informed me that you could make a good medic, or perhaps after some time a teacher?"

Haku looked surprised by the options presented to him. "O-Of course, Hokage-Sama. I would like to be a medic, sir."

The Hokage chuckled. "Ah the youth of today. We will start you will lessons, young Haku. Is there anything else?"

Rose hesitated. "Yes, we were wondering if we," She gestured to Ron and Hermione. "Could be allowed to stay until Haku is settled in? I've grown pretty fond of him."

Rose smiled and mused of Haku's hair a little bit. Rose noticed Haku's hard expression soften a little bit. The Hokage saw this too. "Of course is that all?"

"Um, no, Hokage-Sama," Hermione's small voice interrupted. "Haku has this problem that we were told that someone in Konoha could help."

The Hokage leaned back, and Rose knew that he was being a smidge more serious now. "Ana this problem may be, young lady?"

Hermione faulted slightly before straightening herself out. "Haku can summon snakes but he can't quite control them yet?"

The Hokage sighed. "Yes, we can have Anko help young Haku. Now if that's all?" He was met with silence. "Then Iruka here will show you all to Haku's new apartment, the rent had been payed three months in advance. It's been a pleasure meeting you all."

Iruka smiled and nodded respectfully to the Hokage and gestured for the four of them to follow him out of the room.

And that's exactly what happened. The five people walked in relative silence until Hermione said, "Well, that was scary."

Rose smiled. "Not in the slightest Hermione."

Hermione huffed at Rose, before Rose winked at her. "Well, just because you have practice talking to leaders and stuff."

"How so?" Rose challenged. Ron and Haku seemed to be ignoring the conversation; Rose knew it was because they knew about the strange things that they conversed about. Irkua was listening in still, not knowing that it would most likely just give him a headache listening.

"You talk to the Professors on regular – non-school related matters! Minsters, other important figures regularly! You could go to Professor Dumbledore and ask him why the sky is blue, whereas most normal students never even talked to him."

Rose blinked, half of what Hermione was saying going over her head. "Why is the sky blue Hermione?"

Hermione looked at her incredulously. "Is that all you've got out of my rant?"

"...You don't know do you?"

That was when Iruka interrupted. "It's a refraction of light."

What the hell is refraction? Rose thought.

Hermione was already hocked into an hour long conversation. "What is refraction?"

"It's the way that light bends. In the atmosphere light bends a certain way and blue is the colour that turns up," Iruka explained to Hermione. Hermione was fascinated.

"The way light bends? Does this have any other impact?" She pressed eagerly.

Rose wanted to hit her head. What had she started?

~7~

Rose was woken up the next morning by a loud knocking at the door of Haku's two-bedroom-ed apartment. Haku shared a room with Ron for now while Rose and Hermione shared one. Hermione had woken up a few hours ago in a brilliant mood.

Rose wasn't in such a mood. She just wanted to sleep away her sleepiness. With a sigh Rose pushed away the covers that were keeping her warm. She had to get up eventually.

Rose put on her fitted jeans, and a light pink shirt that she was sure was a present from Ginny. Right now Rose could care less. Walking out of the room, Rose messed up her hair knowing by the time she was done it would be in her normal messy spikes, pixie look.

Rose turned into the lounge room area. What she saw surprised even her. Ron it looked like was trying to teach Haku chess, Naruto handing off Haku's shoulder. Hermione was in a conversation with Hatake Kakashi and Sakura. Whilst Haku and Sasuke were locked into a glaring match.

Rose blinked and rubbed her eyes and blinked again.

Ron glanced over at her and looked at her strangely. "You own a pink shirt?"

"Apparently," Rose said dryly. "I think your sister gave it to me."

All heads turned in Rose's direction. "Rosie you're awake, finally!"

"You talk as if I've been asleep for hours... which I kind of have now that I think about it...and, why are you guys here?" Rose asked bewildered.

"Rose-Nee-Chan!" Naruto exclaimed. Wait, Nee-Chan? "We get to show you around Konoha!"

So they'd been given guards huh? Rose couldn't fault the Hokage, if she were him, then she wouldn't trust her either.

"Really? Cool," Rose muttered distractedly.

"Yeah, and now your awake, Nee-Chan, we can show you! Let's go get ramen!" Naruto yelled fist pumping in the air.

Rose was clueless. "Ramen? What's Ramen?" she asked despite everyone shaking their heads at her.

Naruto looked like she had just ruined his entire life in one sentence. "What's ramen? What's ramen? Only the best food in existence! We must go have ramen now!" He yelled, in a heroic pose.

Rose gaped wordlessly at him. Kakashi intervened. "Okay, Lord Ramen calm down. We can go later."

Naruto slumped but was happy again at the promise of ramen. "Heh, Yay! Ramen! I like Lord Ramen; you shall all address me as Lord Ramen from now on!"

The faces of his teammates said it all. "No," Sakura and Sasuke said at the same time.

Rose laughed and Naruto pouted, causing Rose to laugh harder.

Ten minutes later had the eight people walking out of Haku's apartment on a tour of Konoha.

Konoha was an interesting place, there were many houses, wide roads, and a lot of people littering around.

Naruto, Haku and Sakura walked at the front, pointing out anything and everything noteworthy. Rose felt pleased that Haku was seemingly enjoying himself.

Sasuke, walked silently, (Rose was sure he was glaring at the back of Haku's head) next to Ron and Hermione after them, who were listening to Naruto and Sakura's monologue of interesting places.

That left Rose walking next to Kakashi behind the group. Rose found it hard to concentrate on what the two kids were saying, but she found that Konoha was an amazing place for them to all look at. She was practically awed by the tranquillity.

"You came sooner than expected. By the way you were talking I assumed a few months, not a few days," Kakashi said lazily, easily keeping pace with Rose.

"Yeah, well, I had meant a few months, we finished sooner than expected." Or at least they would have if the snake idea had worked out. "But, hey, Haku was alright in coming sooner."

Kakashi looked over at Haku in a lazy fashion. "Hm, he seems to be a good kid."

Rose nodded her head with a smile playing on the edge on her mouth. "He is a good kid. Just have some issues with being branded a tool and not a human."

Kakashi reclined his head to the side. "Ninja do have that problem."

Rose felt almost horrified. "Ninja think they're all tools!?" She demanded with her eyes wide.

Kakashi looked at her for a split-second longer than he had anytime previously. "That is what it means to be a ninja. To be a tool, to be used to protect your village, and Hokage."

Rose looked at him shocked. "Seriously? This isn't just a Haku thing?"

Kakashi shook his head – no. Rose found this to be completely wrong. Who would just do that to people? Because ninja were just that, people. People weren't tools to be used that just couldn't be right.

"That's not right..." Rose muttered under her breath.

"It's the way life is," Kakashi said slowly, lazily.

"Do you think that?" Rose asked suddenly, gaining volume.

"Think what? That we are tools? Yes."

Rose stared at him. He just kept looking forward seemingly bored with the entire preceding, not looking at all concern about anything they had talked about.

"That's wrong, I'm going to show you that there's more to life than being a ninja," Rose declared, decided.

Kakashi seemed amused for a second before he squashed it with dis-interest. "Oh? Well, good luck with that then Rose-San."

Rose just smiled. "Oh, you should know that I'm practically the luckiest person alive. OI, NARUTO, CAN WE HAVE RAMEN NOW?"

Rose heard Naruto scream back, "Yay!"

And with that Rose assumed that they were gone off to get Ramen. She would make as many ninja as possible see that live was worth living. She'd start with Haku and Kakashi, and perhaps Sasuke. Sakura and Naruto seemed fine.

She'd see what she could manage before she left. But for now... Rose was really hungry.