Naruto was waiting in the Hokage's office for Hinata to arrive. She was a little bit early because she was excited to see if she had a bloodline ability. The doctor had said that the slit on her forehead hid a third eye but Naruto had not been able to open it. The registration had gone well. She had been tempted to do something silly, like cover herself in face paint, but she was too nervous about meeting the Hyuuga that would teach her how to activate her eyes—assuming she had the Byakugan. The Hyuuga were known to be entirely too serious. If she had known it would be Hinata she might have tried anyway. She had caught the shy girl giggling at some of her pranks.
There was a knock at the door and Hinata entered. "Hello, Hokage-sama" she said with a slight stutter. The dark-haired girl looked at Naruto and said, "Naruto-chan?"
"Yeah, it's me. I got kidnapped the day of the Gennin Exam and the kipnappers did something to me that made me look a little different."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I was kidnapped when I was three years old, but my father saved me before I was taken from the village." Hinata poked her index fingers together nervously.
Naruto took a closer look at Hinata's eyes. They really did look similar, except that Hinata's had a pale lavender cast to them, while Naruto's had a pale blue cast.
"As you can see Naruto-kun's eyes now look remarkably like the Byakugan. We'd like to test to see if this is true. Would you please teach her how to activate the Byakugan?" asked the Hokage.
"Yes, Hokage-sama," Hinata said. She turned to Naruto. "These are the hand seals." She demonstrated the Horse, modified Tiger, modified Boar, Hare, Rat, Dog, Horse, Dog, Hare, Rat, modified Boar, and modified Snake hand seals. "After you do them you direct chakra to your eyes. "Once you get used to it you can do it with less hand seals or even none. Even though I can do it without hand seals, I usually use just the last one because it takes less concentration. I recommend that you practice the hand seal series before trying to add chakra."
Naruto concentrated because the number of hand seals was larger than the four techniques she knew of and some of them were nonstandard. She kept repeating the hand seals with Hinata offering gentle correction. After about 10 minutes she tried it with chakra. She felt something, but her vision did not change. She kept at it for another 10 minutes until her vision altered. Everything became pale and transparent. Glowing networks within Hinata and the Hokage stood out. She noticed that she could see other people in the building along with their chakra networks. She could focus on different areas at different distances.
"Yatta!" she exclaimed. "It worked! Wow, this is cool, Hinata-chan. Thank you."
"Congratulations, Naruto-chan. I would practice until you can do it with just the final hand seal and until you can focus on several areas at once. When you're used to looking only straight ahead, looking all around can be disorienting."
The Third Hokage smiled. "I offer my congratulations too. Now, Naruto, even though you have the Byakugan, you are not a Hyuuga. If any Hyuuga give you grief and try and get you to do something you don't want to, let me know. Conversely, you are not entitled to the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist Techniques. Please do not ask Hinata or anyone else to teach you. Hinata, please do not offer your clan techniques without explicit permission from your father as clan head."
Naruto felt like she would burst and her cheeks were starting to ache from the wide smile she had. Hinata smiled shyly at her, looking pleased that her friend was happy. Naruto thought it would be nice to have clan techniques, but just having a bloodline ability was awesome.
"I would like to have you meet with Hyuuga-san this afternoon so that he isn't blind-sided by you having the same bloodline. If you go out this afternoon, leave a Shadow Clone at your apartment so that I can tell you when to come. However, before you go, I have that picture to show you and, if you're good, I'll tell you a couple of stories."
"Yatta," exclaimed Naruto.
Naruto was back in the Hokage's office. She was not as prompt this time. She had not enjoyed her experiences with any Hyuuga other than Hinata and what she had heard of Hinata's father had not endeared him to her. Still, she did not want to disappoint the Hokage too much so she arrived only a minute or two later than she was expected.
She was not going to change the way she talked though. "Hi, Jiichan," she said.
"Naruto-kun," said the Hokage, "thank you for coming. Have you met Hyuuga Hiashi-san before?"
Hiashi nodded his head slightly in greeting, but did not say anything. He looked entirely too serious. "Nope," she said cheerfully, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I'm in your daughter's class."
"Naruto-kun was kidnapped by some missing nin recently through the actions of a traitor. The missing nin did something to her that changed her appearance and gave her the Byakugan bloodline. As you can see she managed to escape."
"Are we sure it's the Byakugan rather than just a cosmetic change?" the Hyuuga Clan Head asked.
"Yes, at my instruction, your daughter showed Naruto-kun the hand seals and they worked. Before you say anything Hiashi-san, I also instructed Naruto-kun that she was not to seek instruction in the Gentle Fist or other Hyuuga Clan techniques without your approval which I do not expect you to give because she is not Hyuuga."
Naruto demonstrated her ability to use the Byakugan.
"So they are not an implant?" the Hyuuga asked with confusion.
"No," Naruto explained, "they did something to my chakra because it was similar to a woman named Outsutsuki Kaguya."
"Odd. Our clan legends say that that the Hyuuga are descended from Outsutsuki Hamura, the brother of the Rikudou Sennin." He hesitated for a moment. "Clan history also says that those who did not inherit Hamura-sama's eyes in the early days of the clan left to form the Kaguya Clan, but it does not say why they chose that name. Please do not spread around that we are related to those barbarians, even if it is distantly."
"Could this Outsutsuki Kaguya have been one of those who left the Hyuuga?" asked the Third.
"It is doubtful," responded Hiashi. "Clan history tells the names of all that left the clan to form the Kaguya and I would remember if one of them was actually named Kaguya. Is it possible she has Hyuuga blood?"
"Not closely," the Hokage answered. "I know who her parents and grandparents were. However, due to my wife I know some of the Senju Clan History, and according to the Senju, they, the Uzumaki, and the Uchiha are descended from the Rikudou Sennin, Outsutsuki Hagoromo."
"So she is a true Uzumaki?"
"Yes," answered the Hokage, "but please don't spread that around. The identities of her parents are S-Class Secrets for Naruto-kun's safety."
"Interesting," Hiashi said.
"Hiashi-san, I brought you here to see if you had any insight and as a courtesy, since people have already mistaken Naruto-kun for a Hyuuga. I also want you to warn the more reactionary elements of your clan not to hurt or try and pressure her. Also tell your clan elders that if she receives the Caged Bird Seal, I will execute all of them."
"Very well. Thank you for the courtesy and I will pass on your warnings." He bowed and left.
Naruto also left, but nearly ran into Uchiha Sasuke, who was waiting with what looked like his shinobi registration. Not wanting to deal with her broody classmate, she merely said, "Hi". The Uchiha grunted at her.
Not having anything to do, she just wandered aimlessly. She got some weird looks from the villagers, probably due to the rabbit-ear-shaped horns on her head. From her espionage practice, she knew that people were so used to identifying her by her orange jumpsuit. She figured that her coloration changes probably did not register with them. She absently played around with her Byakugan. She could barely feel the chakra drain. She thought she could probably keep it up indefinitely, but she had to admit that the bulging veins near the eyes made it look freaky when she stopped to look at herself in the window of an abandoned store.
Eventually she ended back near the Academy and saw a boy three or four years younger than her sitting on a swing brooding. He had dark hair and eyes and was wearing a blue scarf. She had been doing the same thing after she failed the genin exam. Was it only four days ago?
"Hey, kid," she said. "Why so down?"
"Who are you calling 'kid?'" he protested loudly. "You aren't much older than me!"
Naruto flicked the Leaf Badge resting on her forehead. "This says I can call you kid, kid" she said proudly. "Besides, I'm much older than you. I'm just a little bit short."
He pouted. "Stupid Jiichan won't let me be a shinobi. How am I supposed to get everyone to respect me if he doesn't?"
"Really?" she said surprised. "No one respects me either, but I worked really hard and now I'm a shinobi. They'll totally respect me now! One more step closer to being Hokage!"
"No way!" he shouted. "I'm going to be the next Hokage! I'll defeat Jiichan and then he'll have to give me the Hat!"
"Silly kid," she said, "you can't be Hokage just be beating the Old Man once. You have to be the strongest, and that takes lots of work."
They lapsed into silence until Naruto asked, "So why don't they respect you?"
The boy sighed, "My grandpa, the Third Hokage, had me named Konohamaru, but nobody calls me that. It's always 'Honorable Grandson' this, 'Honorable Grandson' that. They respect me only for Jiichan. I want to be respected for myself." He looked at her. "Why don't they respect you?"
She touched the birthmarks on her right cheek. "I'm an orphan with nobody that cares for me other than the Hokage and maybe three others. My birthmarks remind people of a tragedy and they hate me or ignore me for it. But I won't let that stop me!"
Konohamaru pumped his first in the air and yelled in wordless agreement. After a moment he said, "Do you know the Uchiha boy? I ran into him at Jiichan's office. He completely ignored me. That was even worse than being 'Honorable Grandsoned.'"
She laughed. "I know him. He was in my class. Don't feel too bad. He does that to everyone." She leaned in closer. "Do you know what I do when they ignore me?"
He shook his head.
"I'm not known as the 'Prankster Queen of Konoha' for nothing!" she bragged.
"Can you give me some tips, Boss?" he asked.
"Can you do the Disguise Technique yet?"
He shook his head. "Teach me, Boss!"
"For a successful prank, you have to decide if you want them to know it was you, suspect it was you, or be clueless. Disguise is the key to this."
"Wouldn't I want to fool them completely every time?"
"It depends. If you want them to notice you, they need to at least guess it was you. My favorite pranks are when they suspect it's me, but for them to suspect, you need to build up a rep first by being seen a few times. I also like to let them chase me for a little bit then hid using Disguise, and then let them chase me some more."
Konohamaru was listening raptly.
"You also need to be careful not to do anything too bad," She said, "Most of the time anything beyond a minor aggravation is bad news."'
Naruto spent the next hour teaching him the Disguise Technique. The boy was just starting to get it down when she got hungry enough to go look for Iruka to see if she could get some free ramen out of him.
Iruka was glad to see that she was okay. He was a little disturbed by the cosmetic changes, but amazed that she had the Byakugan. She ate 4 bowls of ramen. Iruka joked that she ate her body weight in ramen. The Ichirakus had not known about the kidnapping, but were glad to see she came out of it mostly unscathed.