I do not own Naruto. Yeah forgot to say, but sorry to those who don't like the cliché chakra sense that I added in last chapter. Did I ever mention how old the person holding her was? Can't remember, oops.

This chapter is a bit fast, but it will eventually slow down. I just didn't want to stick around too long for the first couple years as basically nothing happens yet. Question, how long do you want these chapters to be? I can try for ones as long as this or longer, but usually that's only when I have a lot of inspiration and feel up to it. I just want to know so I don't feel like I'm disappointing anyone if it comes as short as 1500 or 2000 words. This is about full 7 pages.

not edited

ps. I'm a simple writer. Meaning I suck and have absolutely no skill. sorry.

Chapter 2

Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves is a loud and bright and full. There are people everywhere, children laughing as they play tag, weaving through and under those around them, teenagers walking in groups complaining about their school life and how annoyed they are with everything, couples going on dates or just loitering around corners and in stalls, and adults walking to work, or maybe coming home from it, some carrying bundles of bags of fruits and vegetables while others guided their noisy children or babies around. Then there are the merchants, calling out loudly how they're so much better than the expensive pricks next to them, bantering with bargaining customers and or making an exuberant ruckus.

White steam and strong scents of spices and meats and sweetened things waft through and out of the village market on sunny days when the sunlight reflects off of everything that even the dullest of stones can blind. There's colour everywhere, merging of the oddly blue, red, white and occasionally yellow buildings with the completely weird blend of hair colours and skin tones. Hide feels like that should be impossible, just an uneven feeling in the bottom of her spine that tells her that it's not right, but for the life of her she doesn't know why. She can't think of any reason as to why having skin the colour of mocha (which if she thinks about, is actually pretty normal) and hair that can be as dark yet as bright as the sea (like what?) naturally shouldn't be normal so she leaves it alone. There's no point on pondering on something confusing when there's no logical sense that it should be.

There's always people talking, or laughing and sometimes whispering, Hide can't help but listen from time to time. She's got a fascination with people and their lives, hoarding information even when she doesn't need it or even understand it. There isn't even any use for it and Hide doubts that she'd ever meet any of the people her little pieces of knowledge belong to.

And then there is presence of the people of Konoha, like a thick mist cast around and through, laced in every direction, in every gap and crevice it finds, never leaving and never evaporating. Hide feels everyone and anyone within her reach, and it's fucking glorious. The air is practically alive, thrumming and surging with energy like a strong current. It flows everywhere in circles around her, flooding her senses and crashing against her very edges before it abruptly disperses into tiny little particles that are strong yet so weak at the same time. She loves it, and so when Hide isn't preoccupied with basking in the smells or sun, listening and hoarding little facts and tidbits from citizens within her range, then she's closing her eyes and feeling the energy of the village. It's stronger than that of the caravan she had been used to, as though the more people there are the more there is energy.

(It does her no well to remember that night, when the air surged with angry power, a malevolent force that didn't simply overwhelm her senses so much as blast the gate to pieces and fill her up entirely with pain and fear and a coursing, thriving stream of crackling rage. She was only three and later she would be four, and five, and six, and a decade later sixteen, but of all the days in her life she would remember that one. It made the flashes and jostles in her memory and mind worse.)

It's probably true, but it also has to include the environment. Back on the uneven road as they travelled to the beautiful village and Hide has grown to love in less than a day, the trees swung in the air with their own type of energy. They felt soft, a faint tingling scent in the calm breeze. The life of the earth is vague and serves only to remind her that they too live. Hide holds an attraction to the people more than her surroundings.

Funny, considering she has a hard time talking to anyone other than Rio, her apparent 'neechan' as she's been told frequently to call her.

Actually talking to or meeting the tenants that live in the apartments section which she resides in is more overwhelming and crushing than any part of what Hide suspects is their life force they exude. She loves the people and their thrumming presence but – actually, Hide takes that back. She loves the sometimes powerful and sometimes weak force that they leak all over the place. People just make her nervous.

Here in Konohagakure, Village Hidden in the Leaves, where it is bright, loud and full, do she and her Neechan make a life. Five years later that thought is still prominent in her mind.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It'll be fun, the only thing you'll have to do is introduce yourself, yeah? No need to worry." Neechan tries soothing her after Hide has mustered up what must be the most pathetically cute expression of reluctance. Neechan isn't very good at soothing, because she's chuckling in between her words and has little to no skill in hiding her amusement.

"Look, I'll be here to pick you up as soon as that bell rings." And then she ushers Hide gently forward, closer to the mass of little children. Hide grimaces. Neechan is nine years older than her and has already gone through the Academy. Despite joining late, apparently she had had previous training, in the time before Hide was born, and so was approved to skip the first few years of the normally seven year course. Only recently has she made genin, and is quite possibly the most social person Hide has ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Hide casts one last look, trying to convey her displeasure that certainly Neechan understands (and she does, if the softening on her half covered face that only Hide out of everyone else can make out) before pitifully skimming the pool of the next generation of ninja.

Nothing interesting happens on her first day. Nor for the next, or the one after that, and all the ones to come for the rest of the year. It's filled with basic stuff and almost nothing ninja. Unsurprisingly, Hide excels well past her classmates. She already knows all this stuff, how she does again she doesn't know, but, well, it works. That's all that matters.

Maths comes as easily as calligraphy, literature as easy as science, and only sometimes does she hit door knob with history. Hide gets all excited when she hears that one word that comprises the past but ends up disappointed when she actually learns it. It's kind of like she's expecting... more?

More fighting, more wars, more people and their stupid opinions and ideas, more things happening, who knows cause she certainly doesn't. In fact Hide doesn't fucking know anything, and yet she knows so much. What she knows just doesn't match up with what is said here, her gut tells her. It's less of a tangible and organized knowledge and more like a gut feeling that everything is not what it's supposed to be. Here it just... doesn't meet her expectations.

But this only stops her a few times and then everything is taken in stride. It's boring, and Hide hates it.

She becomes even more reluctant when she has to get off her ass and enter her second year.

"Hey, it can't be that bad, you did great last year right?" Neechan tells her this time and Hide doesn't acknowledge whatever point she's trying to make. The Academy was horrible and nerve-wracking. The other children don't like how good she is at simple things like maths and poetry, or how awesome she is at hide n seek and playing tag. She's told Neechan of all her woes but all the older blue haired girl do is laugh and snuggle her up telling her that they're just a little jealous and will let go of it as they grow up.

Hide, like most natural born pessimists, doubts this.

She has to go.

Neechan's teammates are there though, and they try to offer advice too.

"It's easy, just walk up in there and act like you own the place. All the other kids will like you cause you'd be cool if you do. Intelligence is a good thing." Joji. Tall, skin pale as though he'd lived in a cave for the first fourteen years of his life, blond hair bleached and curled crazily, and lazy slanted, grey eyes that sometimes made her fumble. Wears the Leaf headband bandana style.

"No, no, don't do that. Make sure you're nice and polite. It's the easiest way to make friends." and Masa, eyes of honey and smile of sweets, black hair and light olive skin that has no resemblance to actual olives. Even taller than Neechan and Joji and wears his Leaf headband around his neck.

Hide can never stop herself from flinching when they talk. Maybe cause they're people, or because their older and more intimidating, or it's because they're so clearly male and she's always had some sort of problem with the opposite gender, their tall frames and broadening shoulder flashes something like fear in her mind. Whichever it is, Hide is immensely thankful for the large ass shades covering half her face, because if there's one thing she knows for certain, it's that her eyes are her most expressive trait.

She's never seen them, but she can feel when they wince, when they twitch in shock or flicker when flinching. They're hers, of course she knows what goes on with them. Sometimes they close halfway, the skin around and on her cheekbones pulling up when she can't deny a grimace or sneer. If they were to be seen, all her thoughts would be on display for the world to see.

Hide purses her lips, her most serious face crossing her six year old features. "Maybe..." She mumbles and that's all she leaves before taking off to roll call.

This year is as uneventful as the first. The only change has absolutely nothing to do with the Academy.

From the small dingy apartment they shared with one other to a new and slightly bigger official genin apartment. Only recently has Neechan saved enough money for this move and Hide is excited when they do.

One main living room slash bedroom with an island to separate it from the kitchen, there's a small bathroom connected by a door and then a storage closet empty for use.

Hide loves this new change and basks in the cosy home it turns into once they move their futon, bags and every belonging that they own into this small living quarter. She intends to spend a lot of time in here, and does so with a good book or scroll that Neechan provides her with. It doesn't even matter that she has a hard time reading, she does it any ways.

Even Neechans teammates pitch in and give her little gifts and trinkets, and she always feels a little guilty when they do because Hide still can't help but flinch away when they come near her. They notice, of course they do and she can't help but be bothered that they might be hurt over it. It's an anxious little guilt that's festered in her mind and worries her, so she tries to make it up however she can.

It's hard, but they seem to appreciate her effort.

After all, before Hide's third year at the Academy, beside Neechan, they're one of the only people she could distantly call friends. Hide by nature does not like to be alone. She just can't help it.

Anyone else and it would have to take a lot of will and determination to reach out to her, because there is nothing Hide is better at then ignoring someone.

Until she meets Tora. Or Tora meets her.

Third year starts and Hide is sent off with the calm and encouraging words of Neechan and her teammates. Like usual Hide sits quietly, claiming the seat up high in the class, near the back and right next to the wall. She feels safe at this vantage point, not to close to the front to become first pickings and vulnerable to the sensei's beedy, unrelenting eyes but not too far back that she isn't immediately isolated from her classmates and left out of all the gossip and information being whispered around.

Hide spends most of her time eavesdropping, and can multitask both that, her work, whatever little doodle she draws up on spare sheets of paper that she always has partially hidden and the lessons that sensei teaches them.

It's during this when Hide is eagerly listening to others talking about some happenstance does someone poke her. Quite literally.

Hide stares ahead as someone's finger – she dearly hopes not however – touches her neck repeatedly, jabbing her every few seconds. The blue haired girl doesn't know what to do. Is this a normal thing? Do children usually do this when they want another attention? Hide is pretty sure she's seen this happen between friends. But – but she doesn't know this unknown person. She has literally not talked to anyone in class. Hell, she doesn't need to talk to them out of class, usually she'll just join the en masse of little kids playing and they wouldn't think a second on it.

Inwardly she grimaces. If she turns around, she doesn't know what to say. Most likely Hide will mess this up and then whoever is poking her would look at her funny and then never speak to her again. That thought leaves her frowning, only a little twitch of her brows but a twitch nonetheless. But then they might think she's stupid and slow if she doesn't at least acknowledge them. If anything in her mind, that's worse. She despairs at the thought of looking like an idiot.

Hide whines silently as her body turns without her permission. It does that, and usually when she moves or acts without thought but because of compulsion she's bound to make a mistake. It hasn't happened, not from what Hide can tell, but she knows it as a universally accepted truth. It just is.

As soon as Hide is staring behind her the poker that has been poking her for almost ten minutes grins. "Whatup?" she pops her P's.

Hide silently points to the ceiling.

The girl, normal looking a little cubby, with pale, rosy skin, dark curly hair messily tied back and her own pair of cool looking red, granny pointed shades snorts, still grinning. She's missing a few teeth. "No man. Name?"

Hide ponders silently over the choppy way of her speech before admitting her own.

The girl nods cooly, "Tora, pleased to meet ya. Here if you haven't noticed is Ichiro."

And woah no, that is one more kid too many Hide thinks. To Tora's right – wait, no, it's her left – is a boney, lightly tanned boy with dark brown hair in mohawk style. He looks as fidgety and flighty as she feels and is hunched over his desk, arms spread laid out in front of him.

He smiles nervously, reminding her of a mouse, and waves at her.

Hide is befuddled.

And then their sensei crows upon them with the face of a fierce looking God made of marble and she just whips around back to the front while her heart races loudly in her chest all the way up to her ears. The damn thing probably won the race against her stomach to her mouth. Which is good. Now is not the moment for nervous induced, projectile vomiting. Her cheeks feel like their burning, all the way until after school and the next day, when inevitably, Hide is subjected to Tora's consistent poking.

She's isn't pleased to know that sensei's light scolding had little to no effect on the other girl.

"Why do you – why do you keep doing – doing that?" Hide blanches – but to others she practically looks the same – at her stutter. One that she hadn't realised she had, or still had. She absent-mindedly casts that latter thought into the category of things that are known and just is. Stuff with no logical reason as to why she possesses them. Hide has never talked outside of her comfort zone to acquaint with a stutter as of yet.

"Cause I'm bored and this one-" Tora looks at Ichiro pointedly, who ducks his head sheepishly and rubs a hand through his hair. "doesn't want to talk."

"But, but, I'm doing work. Busy-busy." Hide says, motioning subtly to her desk in hopes the other girl sees her three different work sheets on trigonometry that's... already finished. Ah, oops.

"You call spending all of class drawing work?"

"Ehehehe..."

Tora snorts good naturedly, her high and dry voice distinct amongst the loudly swooning of the other girls. "I sit behind you. I can see literally everything you do."

And there it is, Hide's paranoia going up in spades. She can already imagine all the possibly embarrassing things she's done. Tora probably thought she was a weird-o and gross or something alike. Oh no, what if the pale girl thought she had lice or knits or even fleas? Hide had been scratching her head quite a bit lately. In fact she feels the need to scratch it right now.

She silently decides to ask Neechan to save more money for the water bill. It's been a while since she was able to wash her hair. The only reason she can get away without it looking oily is because it's already blue and naturally extra shiny. They couldn't spend too much running water, not when they needed to pay other bills like the electricity and rent. Buying sustenance and tools too.

She slaps her hand onto her lap like lighting and ignores her twitching scalp.

"That's... nice..." is all Hide actually says. She whispers 'stalker' quietly under her breath.

Tora catches it however, mouth dropping open before her pink lips start to twitch into a smile. "Hey, y'know what? You should sit with us. We're friends now, it would look bad if you sat elsewhere." She says, looking proud of herself and Hide doesn't know why. There was literally nothing of worth in that besides the fact that she was just asked to hang out with them. Ahahaha, nothing...

Hide's mind is a little hysterical and mystified. She loves that word. Mystified... it's just so... mystifying.

Her tongue acts accordingly by itself. "Um, okay." she says, and then is stuck between repeatedly turning back to them and then back to the front before it eventually decides – without her permission – to seat it's back to the wall and front to the side of the room. Now all she has to do is twist her head and tada! there is Tora and Ichiro. The only good from this act is that Tora can't poke her any more.

Tora smiles, attempting to smirk but totally failing and Ichiro sighs, head dropping to his desk.

Hide feels him.