and so we stared to see the turth the masterpice that is the polt line. let face it it the only thing which dosn't let my story down. ...hopfully.

CH12

"Isn't it odd?" said Ino as she came to sit by Shikamaru, who had sat at the Slytherin table since none of them bothered him. "He looks quite feminine with his long hair doesn't he."

All ten of them had be thrilled with this mission since it gave them an opportunity to see their long loss friend Naruto. The mission was a simple one: sit around in a school for a month tops talking with Naruto. It was so simple Shikamaru would have jump at it if he wasn't so lazy. His team-mates Ino and Choji had jump at the chance to come to see the missing blond along with Tenten. Of course, it was fair to say that the blond's team-mate Sakura and his crush Hinata were the most excited by the mission. This excitement was closely follow by Rock Lee and Kiba who shouted something like how he was going to show Naruto how much stronger he was now. Looking at Naruto now with his white arm guards and that ANBU mask, Shikamaru had to wonder just how much Naruto had grown up so much that he out ranked them. And as for the last two ninja, well then may not have show any feeling, but even their cold hearts soften on the sight that was Naruto.(the two ninja being Nije and Shino)

"He always was quite feminine when he thought no one was looking." replied Shikamaru, sitting with his head in his arms. He had once gone to fetch Naruto for the Hokage to find him cooking. He was wearing a corset, some stockings and a G-string covered only by a pink apron. Naruto did that 'oh dear I've been caught thing'. He had his leg kick up behind him and his head snapped around to look at Shikamaru, but oddly once Naruto saw it was him, he didn't seem to care. The whole thing made the meeting with the Hokage uncomfortable for Shikamaru since he knew what Naruto was wearing under that orange jumpsuit of his.

"He seems thinner too." Ino sat looking over at Naruto with her back to the table.

"Shall I get to your point for you, Ino-pig?"asked Sakura who had come to sit on the opposite side of Shikamaru. "The fox. Was it the influence to these changes?"

"No idea. Just what the Hokage said: shame and failure. One assumes he has failed to keep the two souls inside him apart."

"Something happened. He's more serious than I've ever seen him." Sakura said, turning to look at Ino. "It not right."

"Absolutely." Ino nodded.

"He's nervous. He doesn't want us here, that much is easy to see." added the ever sleepy Shikamaru.

"Don't be ridiculous! Why would he not want us?" asked Ino.

"Think about it! Who, out of us, has he said hi to?" said Shikamaru getting up. "No-one but Hokage and the only reason he did so was to test to see were he stood. He's too calculating for his own good. Thinking back even farther from when he came home after two and a half years, he was home for only three months. I only saw him once during that time. How many times did you see him Sakura."

"A lot." said Sakura defensively.

"Not including times when he was forced to."

"Twice." Sakura admitted, crestfallen.

"You see? He's not the same Naruto. He's so nervous that he forgot his mask. Something is up and I don't think it'll be long until we find out. I doubt we'll like it, but we'll just have to remember to tell Naruto that it doesn't affect anything." sighed Shikamaru.

"But what if it really that bad?" asked Ino.

"We'll tell him it doesn't affect anything, then when we get home we'll talk it out and make sure that by the time he gets back its all forgotten. Then it will really mean nothing."

"Why would you let her do that to you?" moaned Harry as Naruto was sitting next to him.

"She's the Hokage. She has work all her life to get that kind of respect. Besides that, she's also the closed thing I have ever had to a mother. I, on the other hand, have brought dishonour to the village, lost all respect I had and I have both shamed and disappointed her." said Naruto, poking at a bowl of ramen which appeared as he sat down. "She can talk to me however she darn well pleases."

"But still! She treated you like dirt!" Harry grumble on.

"If it wasn't for her, I would be dirt. Now leave it." snapped Naruto.

"Why so harsh on the little brat?" said Anko. She was wearing a fishnet body suit and tanned coat.

"Maybe not harsh enough." said the ever grumpy Hokage.

"Now, now my good lady. We all know you forgave him before you even knew." said the ever smiling Dumbledore.

"He doesn't have to know that." replied the Hokage.

"Indeed."

"Though," said Kakashi, the masked man, as he lead forward to look around Dumbledore, "why was I not informed of his rise to ANBU?"

"Whether he is ANBU or not is dependent on this mission. He could go back to being a Genin if I think it would be best." The 5th said.

"It seems," said the unfamiliar voice of Gai, "that our Naruto has lost some of his youthfulness."

This simple statement seem to hit the spot too well in Kakashi eyes,

"It can be hard to watch your students grow, to make the same mistakes as everyone else, and rewarding when they step in to the light as you yourself did." said Dumbledore. Kakashi had to think that although Gai and this Dumbledore man may say thing in odd ways, there were undeniably wise.

It was late as the students started to leaving out of the Great Hall to their dorms. Naruto was standing at the door,watching the students. the romurs had had enough of an effect that many student from all of the house reacted unfavourably to Naruto. The Slytherin house openly sneer and showed their hate at what they saw as a traitor. Well, many in the other houses show in little ways that they feared or distrusted their guard and this was painfully easy to see to his old friends as they watched from afar.

"Please excuse me Lady Tsunade, but I will have to leave it up to Naruto to take you to your rooms. I have some work to do before I retire for the night."

"That is fine Dumbledore-sama." said the Hokage as she walked toward the Hall's doors. She arrived just as Harry, Ron and Hermione, who had taken to walking back with Naruto after dinner, were leaving. Naruto was telling them that he would met them later as she walked by, cutting in with, "No, bring them with us."

"As you wish. Come this way then, up to the top we go." Naruto was not lying. Their walk up the many ever moving stairs to the very top floor on which the rooms had been prepared. The rooms themselves had been set around a large common room and a fire place. It was undeniably grand with a beautiful ceiling and long flowing curtains.

"Well I'm going to bed." said the Hokage and then looked toward Naruto. "Naruto, everything, leave nothing out." she said as she walked to her room at the end of the hallway.

"Shouldn't you also stay and listen too?" ask the man with one eye.

"Nope. I already listened, I do not wish to hear it again." she said, slamming the door.

"Doesn't know the word gentle, does she?" said Naruto, looking after her.

"You've done something rather bad to make her act like this, though." said the man with one eye as he took a seat in a chair looking at Naruto. "Unless I'm wrong..." Naruto looked away from him refusing to look him in the eye. "I'll take that as a no. Sit Naruto, it's time you told us what you've been up to for the last 3 years." He said, giving a signal for the others to sit down .

Naruto took off his ANBU cloak, armour and his right glove along with his shirt and pulled down his pants for them to settle low on his hips, revealing what many had thought of the area where there must be pale skin,instead showing sun-kissed, golden brown skin. Again bring up the question just how did Naruto sun-bathe?

"Well where to begin then..." said Naruto sitting on the floor with his back to the fire, looking out to the others who were starting to sit in a semi-circle around him.

"Well Naruto how about the fox." said Kakashi, the masked man.

"Not much to tell really. The fox and I made a deal that I get his power and he gets as much freedom the seal allows him to have. My mind is his playground now. He can be in any scenario he wants to be in, simple and unimportant."

"I feel it may be of some importance. It will effect the way the village will see you. They have just come to the point in which they no longer think you are the demon. But then you go and make a deal with him. Any trust you have fought for could be loss within a minute." said Kakashi, his voice one of concerned anger.

"I'm sure the Hokage won't make me walk around like this. Plus, the fox has never done any harm to me." said Naruto, closing his eyes and sighing.

"Naruto," said Gai, "that fox destroy half the village! He killed hundreds!"

Naruto sighed again. "It wasn't that fox that called me names. It wasn't that fox that spat at me, that threw stuff at me, that wrecked my house over and over again, who chase me in mobs, who hit me, beat me, slit my throat and left me in a pool of my own blood." Naruto voice got harsher and harsher with each statement, and then became so quiet his last statement was also a whisper. "It was never the fox who raped me." Naruto opened his eyes slowly, eyes which were as cold as ice. "It was the fox who patched up my broken body, who sealed away the bad memory, who whispered comforting words in my ear as I cried myself to sleep while wrapping my body up in his soft warm tails."

"Indeed," said Anko. The others being in way too much shock to form any words. "I always did wonder how you keep loyalty to the village." Anko was an ANBU and the ANBU were very protective of Naruto. They spotted any harm befalling him and more then likely had kill anyone who did harm him. Kakashi did the same. However, every ANBU knew that more than half slipped through the net. The ANBU checked Naruto when and where they could. Mostly finding him beaten and bloody, and usually too late for him. Very few times were they able to help.

Naruto laughed. It sound wrong, mocking. "Loyal to the village? I was never loyal to the village. Oh dear Snake(Anko's ANBU name), I hated the village! I would of left earlier, but I stayed for the 3rd. I have been loyal to him and only him. It was for him that I didn't kill any of them, though I would love to. It was for him I stay in that village." Naruto sighed again, looking at the mortified faces in front of him. The people who were his friends. He gave a small, sad smile. "I suppose he was right to ask me to stay in the village. As you said Kakashi: the village as a whole is warming up to me and I have friends now." He looked at each one of them when speaking. "I now have new people to be loyal for: you guys, the 5th Hokage, Iruka, Jiraiya. The list is ever growing" Naruto looked down, more upset than before. "I haven't been doing a very good job at it so far..."

"What do you mean Naruto? You've always be here for us." said Sakura. She could see how hard this was on Naruto. She had to try and give him some comfort.

"Jiraiya didn't take me on a training trip." It was a simple sentence which meant nothing to the wizarding trio, but it had meant everything for the ninja.

"He told me before you left that that's what he planed to do the day after you left." said Kakashi, already guessing where this was going, seeing the direction of this conversation. Then Naruto confirmed it by saying, "Yep, he told you about it. He then made his way over to tell me ironically, I found out when I returned that as he was walking to the hospital, I was sneaking over the wall to leave the village. Maybe never to return again."

...to be c...well you can see for yourself that I'm going to put up another chapter next month at the latests, I have it write but I'm trying to pace myself so as to stop me form updating 3 or 4 time in two month and then not updating for a year. so review, it make me happy and i write more.