IMPORTANT NOTICE AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER! IT'S A GOOD ONE I PROMISE!

Author's Note: And here we are at chapter four. I hope all of you have enjoyed the story so far and continue to in the future. This chapter we'll be seeing just how Noriko trains and just what she's been getting up to in her last two years on the streets. I'll also be answering reviews that I've gotten at the end of the chapter since you guys have started asking questions about plot points.

Now on with the show!

After a week of classes which let me settle into the routine of things, I decided it was time to resume my more usual training which meant I needed to get away from my ANBU guards.

Sneaking away from said ANBU guardians turned out to be far easier than I expected it to be. I had experience at hiding from patrols from my time on the streets, but I hadn't expected that evading a group that was actively watching out for me to be so simple.

Between a Kage Bushin while I was in the bathroom and having Kurama suppress my chakra -and my burgeoning youki- to the absolute maximum, I was able to let my Bushin head out to class with whomever was my watcher for the day. It did require that I part with fully half of my enormous chakra reverses in order to make sure that the lone Bushin would be durable enough to survive a day in dubious environment that was ninja school, but after that I was scot free.

It was rather disappointing in my opinion that ANBU didn't have someone watching my house while I was away, but given that only a certain four of them seemed to be assigned to rotate through watches I suppose that it was understandable. Still, once I was alone, I climbed from my window and scampered down the wall and then into the sewer system through a grate behind my apartment building. While I had yet to locate any secret rooms or hidden passages within the maze like system, I knew that they existed, purely by the flow of the chakra around me as I passed through the pipes. There were a number of odd dead spots in the sewers where you literally couldn't sense a shred of chakra, and while you would never notice them from outside their effects, once you went into one you knew it was there for certain.

Those spots weren't my goal for the day though, my goal for today was to reach the abandoned warehouse that had served as my home base for the last two years.

The building was in surprisingly good repair for the amount of time it had stood untended, having been abandoned when the clan that owned it died during the Kyuubi attack where upon their assets had been frozen to see if any relatives of the owners could be found. Of course if none were located the government would seize the assets, but the bureaucracy that plagued the village had seen to it that such a process would take a decade if not longer as various greedy individuals and groups sought to have the riches turned over to themselves.

Of course, with that process going on and the lack of real attention on the assets in question, no one had visited the building in four and a half years until I had taken shelter within it six months into my time on the streets. Still, the biggest aid in ensuring my sanctuary hadn't been discovered was Kurama -then Kyuubi to me- to my surprise. Apparently the fox hadn't been sealed within two of the greatest Fuinjutsu masters Konoha had ever seen without learning more than a little bit about seals. While he didn't know much of the theory behind them and how to create new ones, Kurama had still known the designs for several dozen seals including the two main designs that protected my home away from home.

The first was a chakra suppressing seal which I suspected was quite similar to those in the sewers, only more advanced. When placed on a building the seal served to isolate the chakra inside from that outside, making the room or building in question perfect for covert operations. The second seal was one of my mother's own creations, a barrier seal that brought to mind the world of Harry Potter. Once it was erected, the barrier in question effectively prevented people from noticing what was inside, making them overlook the location and pass it by. It wasn't fool proof by any means as anyone who was aware of what was hidden there or the location itself wouldn't even be effected, but between the 'Notice-Me-Not' seal and the chakra isolation seal I had a place that served to let me train and practice as I needed provided I didn't damage the building itself to any real significance which would break the surface of the barrier tender them moot.

So after climbing from the sewer -and quickly skittering into the warehouse- I cleared my lungs of the noxious fumes that had filled my overly sensitive nose and looked over the supplies I had squirreled away, most of which had come from Training Ground Forty-Four aka 'The Forest of Death'.

While the Chunin Exams were only held in Konoha every few years, enough ninja still trained within the forest to leave a considerable amount of crap laying around for whoever wanted to take it. As such I had medium sized crates filled with kunai and shuriken along with a large box of scrolls. More than a few of them had blood or chakra locking seals on them which meant I'd need to learn how to take apart the seals on question before finding out what was inside, but most of them had been nothing but supplies or garbled, codes messages. And while the supplies were useful, the messages were worthless to me. I was a scientist, not a ruddy code-breaker.

The best items I found though were the jutsu scrolls. There weren't many, less than a dozen, but what they provided were instructions that the wiki of my past life had lacked for performing various jutsus. This first hand knowledge was extremely useful as it provided me with the experience needed to do higher level jutsus by extrapolating the methodology behind lower lever ones. It was a long and tedious process, but it was necessary until I could legally enter the ninja section of the library to get jutsu scrolls instead of having to impersonate ninja that had checked in to the hospital sick.

I'll admit to possibly having helped a few of them along to get there.

Between my transformation technique and having Kurama suppress my chakra to the absolute limit, it had been easy to sneak into ninja's homes and mess with their food and other such amenities.

But I digress. Pulling my attention to the here and now, I put my fingers into the cross seal Naruto had created for the Kage Bushin and began turning out clones. I made them one by one for the sake of practice, working to get the jutsu down silently, seallessly, and smokelessly. It was a slow process but I was already silent and there was almost no smoke after a year and a half of practice. Now I just needed to deal with the seal and that little wisp of smoke that came with them.

While I did that for practice, my clones did their own thing, each ones created with a specific task in mind. A trio transformed into various ninja that a scout Bushin had informed me were currently laid up in the hospital sick room with various amusing and/or embarrassing sicknesses.

Seriously, leaving two of them with pink-eye, while nasty, was satisfying when I saw the grossed out looks on their colleagues faces.

Other Bushins, -the vast majority really, at least 60-70% of them- were tasked with practicing chakra control exercises. After a year and a half of this, along with all the meditation I had done when I was locked away in the orphanage, had seem my chakra control rise to high chunin or low jounin level. It was something to sigh about because I would need to keep up with it constantly for the next two decades if not longer according to Kurama. The process of becoming a hanyou meant that my chakra cool system was bring slowly converted over into a youki coil system, the problem with this being that youki was much more sense and powerful, and when combined with my ever growing reserves, this meant that my control would always be going down until I had matured into a fully adult kitsune hanyou which would be signified when I gained my ninth tail. Interestingly, each tail would also make my control worse as all nine of them would come with significant power boosts, each one bigger than the last. This promised that powerful and difficult jutsu would be a long time coming.

Still it wasn't hopeless like somethings were.

It seemed that despite kitsunes being natural pranksters and tricksters, my ability with genjutsu was absolutely zero. This had caused no end to griping from Kurama who had claimed it an embarrassment that his heir had no talent for illusions. I was a little hopeful that it might become a little easier as I gained my tails and became more of a fox, but it was a small, fragile hope.

So with the majority of my clones practicing control, I assigned two dozen of them to continue practice on the Rasengan which was proving more difficult that I expected despite my level of chakra control. Another two dozen were running through the katas to a few taijutsus I had copied from the library, a few more practicing throwing weapons, and lastly there were fifty of them practicing the martial arts I had learned in my past life two help relearn the muscle memory I would need to do them efficiently.

As for myself, I settled in to my usual exercise routine. Run until I can't run anymore, at which point Kurama would help heal my muscles, and then move onto the next exercise.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Of course the issue with this method was that I could do some of the exercises, like running, for so long that would leave me without time for any other exercises. To this end I was currently devoting what efforts I could in the library towards learning to make both gravity and resistance seals so that I could up my training again and continue getting stronger again. The best part about this method was that my new tou-san would ensure my body grew properly rather than become malformed from bad nutrition and over exercising my still developing body.

Any more thoughts were waylaid as Kurama chose that moment to speak up into my mind.

'You're making good progress kit. The level of physical work you've been doing has accelerated the conversion progress of your coils nicely.'

I furrowed my brow as I passed sit-up number two hundred and responded with a question of my own.

'How's that work Kurama-tou-san?' I had an idea but it would be nice to get a definitive answer.

'The constant exercise and chakra reinforcement you do has sped up the movement within your coils. As such your youki and spread faster and farther than it would be otherwise, causing more of your system to adjust to the presence of and then begin to produce youki. It'll be a bit hard on your system so you can expect soreness from your coils and mild burning through your entire body.'

'Why burning?'

'Because youki is corrosive, even your own, and until your body adjusts to having it in place of chakra, it'll still attack you on a cellular level.'

I grimaced at that as I passed two hundred and fifty sit-ups before asking the obvious follow up question.

'And how long will thus take?' My mental voice a little annoyed but mostly resigned.

'A year at most, six months at best. You have so much chakra and such large coils already that it'll take time, but once it gets going the process will be fast. The conversion rate will grow exponentially the more of your coils that are converted.' He explained patiently, though there was still a note of condescension on his voice. It seemed that heir or not, Kurama was still supremely arrogant.

'I can deal with that, anything else?' I drawled with an eye roll at my observation.

'Yes.'

'Well?'

'I don't know if I should tell you, I'm not sure I'm getting the proper respect anymore.' He huffed.

'Oh for fuck's sake, Kurama I rolled my eyes, it's not like I spit on you.'

'That doesn't sound very believable.'

'Jesus Christ on a Cracker, it's sarcasm you over-sized rug!'

'Say it.'

'No.'

'Say it.'

'Absolutely not.'

'Say it.'

'I will not! Under no circumstances will I say it!' I replied, raising my mental voice at the Kyuubi.

'Say it! Or I won't tell you what I was going to say.'

'No.'

'Come on, I know you want to hear about your tail and ears.'

'No I don't.'

'Liar.'

'I don't give a damn about them Kurama.'

'You don't then what was that dream you had last night? You certainly seemed to care about them during that. Especially when that boy-'

'SHUT UP!' I roared in my head, a furious blush on my cheeks as the dream in question rose to the forefront of my mind.

That had been an unforeseen consequence of having Kurama preserve my memories. Every thought, every sight, every dream was perfectly recorded in my mind. And while that was great for studying, it made dealing with Kurama more than a little difficult sometimes.

'You know I don't think I will. Maybe I'll read that story you wrote with your room mate in your sophomore year of college. You've been so against me looking at that memory I can't help but wonder why.'

Instantly my blood chilled and I stopped my exercises mid push-up, earning to curious expressions from my clones, which I ignored.

'BAKA! STUPID ERO-FOX! Stay the hell out of there.'

'Then say it.'

'...Ugh.' I grimaced as I closed my eyes and asked myself for forgiveness.

'Say it.'

'Fine, I'll say it you ass, and then you'll tell me about my ears and tail.'

'Agreed, and put some effort into it too.' Kurama cackled, literally cackled, or at least as much as a mountain sized fox could.

I groaned loudly before sighing and beginning to say the dreaded phrase.

'I, Uzumaki-Namikaze Noriko, apologize for insulting my great Otou-sama, Kurama, the Kyuuni no Youko! Dattebane!'

Instantly the damn fox roared with laughter while I hung my head in shame, desperately trying to fight down the embarrassed blush on my cheeks. As soon as Kurama had established my embarrassment and outright hate for my verbal tic, he had seemed to make it his goal to get me to repeat it as often as he could, usually by over reacting and forcing me to apologize as I had just done.

It was outrageously annoying, but it provided a simple, easy way to keep the peace between us. If I pissed him off, rather than letting it become an argument. He would instead begin immediately teasing me and threatening to delve into my more embarrassing memories which he had only taken a cursory look at his first time through my mind so many years ago.

I had learned very quickly to cave to such threats as whatever I would have gotten from such arguments usually paled in comparison to the indignity I would ensure as the fox brought up the memory in question, examined it in detail, and then proceeded to harass me about it, all while laughing.

'Good enough, kit. Now, for your ears and your first tail you should get them within about a year once your coils finish converting. The process has already started as your body adapts to having youki in it, but once your coils are completely converted your body will go much faster as there won't be chakra in your body to help fight off the changes.'

'...that sounds alright. I'll need to start practicing the transformation endurance practice so that I can maintain it in missions and such.'

'Indeed, now get back to your exercises, you've been in the same position for ten minutes.'

Instantly I blushed a bit at my slip up before returning to my designated workout, determined to finish the day without anymore embarrassment.

The weeks leading up to the end of my first month at the Academy were some of the most frustrating in my life. While I was more often than not able to simply sneak off to practice on my own for the day and leave a Bushin to take my place, the memories I received at the end of every school day almost drove me up the walls.

For starters, I still had to maintain the happy-go-lucky idiot mask for the teachers and students there. The next issue was the teachers themselves, I had yet to run into a single one that did not look down on me with scorn. When you added that to the social stigma that many of the kids had learned from their parents and I suddenly found it very difficult to not throttle the little shits for their behavior.

The personalities that a few of them had were only icing on the metaphorical cake. Kiba, for example, grated against my nerves. While he wasn't particularly rude or mean, his rough and arrogant attitude was enough to leave me with a headache at the end of each day from second hand exposure.

Then there was Sasuke...oh Sasuke...

If anyone in that class actually got on my nerves it was him. Knowing what the brat would become, it was hard to hold back and not want to kill him, especially with his personality. While the boy was polite to a fault and even kind, the famed arrogance if the Uchiha was already showing and that just rubbed me the wrong way.

And then there were his eyes. For all the innocence that they held, coal black eyes like his haunted my dreams and showed up far too often in my nightmares for my liking.

Oh and then there was the fact that I had yet to pass a single written assignment despite knowing I had gotten them right. It was only the few practical sections to the work we had been doing that prevented the teachers from outright flunking me from the Academy.

It was these thoughts and many others that whirled around in my head as Weasel brought me to the entrance of the Hokage's office before nodding and moving off to wait by the door as I entered and padded my way up to Hiruzen's desk before taking the seat that had been prepared opposite him.

"Good afternoon Noriko-chan, I hope you don't mind that I called you here," the aged Hokage greeted.

I gave a rapid shake of my head before I grinned back at him and cheerfully replied, "Nah, it's fine Jiji, I was actually hoping we'd get to talk soon."

Hiruzen gave another warm smile before he asked the first question, "So what do you think about your classes so far Noriko-chan?"

"They're fun!" I chirped happily, "The history book is really great cause we get to read about awesome ninjas like the Shodaime and the Yondaime. Oh and you're in them too!" My voice was eager and excited as I explained how my classes were going with Sarutobi only asking a few questions to keep me going before he let out a satisfied chuckle and smiled at me proudly.

"That's good to hear, Noriko-chan is there anything else you would like you talk about? You mentioned that you wanted to talk to me at the start." He asked calmly.

I paused, looking to the ceiling with a thoughtful expression as I spoke to Kurama in my mind.

'You're sure you'll be alright with this, Tou-san? If this backfires we'll have to explain everything before were ready to.' I asked softly.

'I'm sure kit. You need those resources if you're going to get strong enough soon enough.' He replied solemnly.

I grimaced a bit before looking at the Hokage who seemed to tense as he noted my apprehension. Not seeing a way around this, I gave a little sigh of resignation before I asked, "Jiji...could we...could we please talk in private without anyone else? It's something really private."

Despite the mild confusion I could see in his eyes, Hiruzen nodded and made a hand signal to the ANBU who quickly left the room as requested. Though I was reasonably certain that the room was clear, I held a finger to my lips for silence as I increased my chakra level -and only my chakra level- and let it flow out through the room like a fog, saturating every book and cranny.

The Hokage had visibly raised an eyebrow in surprise and concern before I sighed and nodded with relief.

"Good, we're alone."

"Care to explain what that was, Noriko-chan? The Hokage asked, looking at me intently.

Wincing slightly, I brought up a hand to rub the back of my head nervously before I replied, "I was making sure we were alone. By saturating the air with my chakra, I can feel if there are any 'holes' in it where a person's presence is preventing my chakra from entering."

"That's...rather impressive Noriko-chan but now that you've shown me that, why don't you tell me what you're really here for," said Hiruzen, his eyes becoming a little accusing.

"Ah...yeah...well I wanted talk privately because I know who my parents are." I replied.

With those words, I got to witness the 'God of Shinobi', the 'Professor', the Sandaime himself get absolutely floored.

"H-How did you find out?" He gaped.

Grimacing, I looked to my belly and gestures meaningfully at my stomach.

AgIn I got to see Hiruzen be completely floored by an unexpected situation. He was a mass of indecision for a few seconds before he sighed heavily and rested his face in his hands.

"You've spoken to the Kyuubi then, Noriko-chan?" He asked softly.

I nodded a little shakily at his tone before I answered.

"H-Hai, Jiji," I said letting my voice waver a little, "It was...It was on my birthday. After I passed out, I was in a big sewer and there was a gate that the fox was behind and that's when it talked to me."

The Hokage's face was grave and could have been made of stone for all the emotion he showed as he asked, "And what did the Kyuubi say, Noriko."

I noted the lack of suffix but chose to ignore as I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. The most powerful in the village if not the nation was watching me carefully to make sure that he caught everything I said.

"I-It said that time was short, cause the seal was only going to be open for a little bit so I needed to pay attention. It said that I needed to get stronger because it wouldn't tolerate a weakling being its jailer and then it said I had to ask you for my inheritance, but that I couldn't get it officially. I didn't know I had an inheritance so the Kyuubi told me about the night I was born and said that the man with the spiral mask would come back but he wouldn't lose next time, so it was up to me to get stronger and defend myself."

There it was again, that absolutely shell shocked look on Hiruzen's face. It almost made me want to laugh, though the seriousness of the situation let me keep my mouth shut as ideas whirled through the Hokage's mind.

"Noriko-chan, what did the Kyuubi say about the man in the spiral mask?"

"Um...I'm not sure I should say it Jiji..." I trailed off unsure.

"And why is that?"

"It used a bunch of bad words...like it called him a 'lazy-one-eyed-dickless-dumpster-fucker'...What is a dumpster-fucker anyways Jiji?"

'I did not say that. My insults are far more composed.' Kurama inserted with a rather affronted tone.

'I call bullshit.'

The insult itself was one that Kurama had actually rattled off once upon a time when we had gone over the plot together and the innocent voice with which I had retold the insult seemed to have made the Hokage pause before he began to chuckle.

"Alright, have you spoken to the Kyuubi sense then, Noriko-chan?"

I shook my head enthusiastically before I replied, "I can't but it made me promise to come ask about my parents, Jiji."

"I see...well then I will get together the things your parents left for you, Noriko-chan. Since this won't be an official claim you won't be able to move into their home yet, but I know that they left scrolls behind for you. I'll bring them by later this week for you if that's alright." He said softly, the warmth returning to his eyes and making me smile as I hopped from my chair and made my way around the desk to throw me little arms around him in a hug.

"Thank you Jiji!" I cried happily, exaggerating the emotion just a bit to keep him from getting suspicious.

"You're welcome Noriko-chan. I do hope you understand though that you can't tell anyone about who your parents were. Otherwise you'd be in a lot of danger."

"I got it Jiji, I'll keep it secret!"

As I was escorted back to my apartment a little later, I couldn't help the little skip in my step as Weasel closed the door behind me while I waved back at him. Once the door was closed and I was certain that I wasn't under direct observation, including that kami-damned crystal ball, I sighed heavily and headed over to plop out on my couch.

'That went rather well, all things considered,' I mused.

'Reasonably so, however once Hiruzen gets over his incident he'll remember that trick you did at the start and get curious.'

I grimaced at that. 'Yeah but I've thought of an explanation for that, a little shaky though it may be. That shakiness may reinforce the fact that I'm just a little child though.'

'...Perhaps. That issue out of the way, what are the next steps you're going to take?'

'Summoning. If I can secure enough time out from under the eyes of ANBU, I'll perform the summoning jutsu and let them pick me out. I'm not sure if I'll sign though, we'll absolutely need Senjutsu training so that means that we either get lucky on the group I'm best matched with or that we wait for Jiraya to show up and sign the Toad contract.'

'Sound, but if were forced to wait on you're accursed Godfather than we'll lose an enormous amount of preparatory time.'

'That's the downside. The other worry I have is that I won't be able to properly enter nine-tails sage mode since I'll eventually no longer have chakra to balance out with it. As I understood it, it took Naruto's chakra, your chakra, and sage chakra to reach that state.'

'It is a concern, but not a big one I think. Opposite that, have your clones made any progress on finding the shrine yet?' Kurama asked with genuine interest.

'No luck yet, however they've only manage to inspect about ten percent of the area around Konoha, and even if we don't find anything by mass clone searches then well just have to send some to Uzu to see if their are any hints left. Hopefully what my Kaa-san left for me will help. We'll need your other half and we can't leave that mask laying around for Orochimaru to use.'

Kurama merely grunted, laying down heavily inside the cage within my mind, sending a sort-of shudder through my mindscape.

Looked like Tou-san was done for the day, and that meant so was I, at least until I fell asleep and could continue learning seals inside my mind.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: As you likely noted at the end of the chapter, Noriko is going to perform the reverse method to find a summon clan to contract with. As such I've put a poll up on my Author page so you can go vote for what animal you think she should be summoned by and potentially contract with. That said, the group she is reversed summoned to may not be the group she contracts with as Noriko's own preferences may see her not wishing to be bound to a certain group, especially as she wants to get sage training. So for example if you all vote for her to get summoned to the snakes, she's more than likely to turn down that group and just wait for the a Toad contract with Jiraya.

Author's Note: Well another chapter has come and gone and I hoped all of you my dear readers enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The next chapter will be along soon enough and will feature a number of important events in addition to likely being the last chapter before the massacre, so I hope you look forwards to it.

I'm fairly sure there will be complaints about how Noriko is handling the rape 'too well' but there are signs that she isn't right now. She's compartmentalized the pain and damage thanks to how all her memories are preserved and organized, but when she thinks about the incident or seems something that heavily reminds her of it, her associative memories kick in and bring everything to the forefront.

Q&A:

Guest: Yes she will be learning, and improving, the Hiraishin.

Zeronaru: Of course Hiruzen would have had ANBU looking for her, the issue is that as stated in this chapter, she found it relatively easy to avoid them thanks to Kurama's help.

TheMysteriousOtaku: Unfortunately, Kurama is going to be a father figure to Noriko, and maybe a bit of an annoying uncle too. In fact I'm not even sure if Noriko is going to have someone to go with. The reason for this is that the mental age gap between her and most everyone in the appropriate physical age group is twenty-five years. A really good example of this is the fic 'Déjà Vu no Jutsu' where the reincarnated soldier only ends up with Shikaku because he's pretty much the only one up to matching her mind. As such Shikamaru is one of the few that I might pair her with along with Gaara for whom she'd have a great deal of sympathy.

Ilat-2: The reason Noriko is keeping up the mask is because she needs to ensure that the world follows canon for as long as possible, that means playing the fool so that she's ends up paired with Sakura and Sasuke with Kakashi for a teacher. Once the teams are set, Noriko will drop the mask and start kicking ass and taking names. The Chunin exams are where it'll get real interesting, especially depending on how you people vote in some polls I'll be putting up.