dreadix hahaha. By the time i reached the last line, i even read in the same tone that they use for the next episode. Tell me how you find the new chapter. Thank you for the review. "Stay Tuned"

Zoro435 to be honest, me too you know? *insert innocent smile* thank you for the review.

A/N: I present my first ever attempt at writing. It is not canon compliant and will be AU since I will be manipulating the timeline as i wish. English is not my first language. Constructive criticism is welcomed but don't be rude. Also my minimum update frequency will by 1 chapter in 5 days. I am writing for fun and hope you enjoy as well.

I don't own Naruto and never will.

"Emphsis"

characters thinking/a simple narration

AN IMPORTANT PART

"characters speaking"

Please note that the chapter names sometimes present a deeper meaning...

If you have any confusion, feel free to ask.

This is a slightly longer chapter. It contains approximately 4K words.

Without further ado, let's continue. Enjoy.

CHAPTER 16: "Vision"

It has been a week since Naruto met Shisui and Sasuke's father. Only after Kurama pointed out… did she realize why Shisui has similar eyes to Sasuke's; it was because they were blood related, Shisui is Sasuke's first cousin. Kurama, her and Orochimaru had discussed her cover story that they will be going with when people suspect her identity.

Orochimaru didn't take her to the village like she had expected him to, but to one of his underground labs near the village. She had a hard time holding Kurama back from strangling Orochimaru. (Who the hell does he think he is- wait a second Kurama lets listen to him first ne?) Orochimaru had raised his hands as if he was surrendering and looked directly into her red slitted pupils (because Kurama's chakra had still leaked) and-

"oh don't look at me like that 'Hokage-sama', even with me vouching for you, it will still take some time to establish you as a citizen of Konoha and get the required papers for your identity with the war and all going on, if you have forgotten that by any chance.. And explained his reasoning in such a haughty and mocking manner with one eyebrow raised as if she was an idiot for not even knowing that fact, ("Are you sure you were Hokage?" His eyes seemed to be saying) and now she had to hold herself back from punching that disgusting snake face.

"Plus I will have no apprentice of mine sully my name because she can't even stick a leaf to her forehead, so come on get to it, start you training ASAP; you need to control your chakra better before we go back to the village"

She had calmed down when she heard his reasoning but vowed that she will make his life a living hell in the spare time for even implying that she was an idiot. She will never admit that this petty thought had distracted her from her friend's constantly screaming Narutonarutonaru- in her ears.

The smell of snakes, disinfectant, and mint wafted in her nose even before she sensed him. Why mint though? It is definitely his shampoo I am sure. Otherwise how can he maintain that long, straight hair? (She may be a bit jealous but she will forever deny that fact. She may also be going a bit insane but she will graciously accept this fact because who won't…. when faced with the same circumstances as her.) Even though Naruto had switched her emotion sensing ability to a passive form, she sensed smugness radiating off him in waves. It was taking a lot of concentration to keep only 5 leaves attached to her forehead (a very good progress from earlier 20? 40? She doesn't remember) but right now it was her personal mission to dampen his mood somehow.

"Oh Senseiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~" she sang because she knew that this tone of voice irritated Orochimaru (In the last week she had not only sensed his irritation but also saw his eye twitch sometimes) "I am getting hungry. Did you finally bring me ramen today?" She whirls to face Orochimaru with the leaves attached on her forehead.

Orochimaru doesn't look surprised but still smiled or more like smirked-

"Good work. We will start tree climbing when we go back to the village. Sensei wants to meet you." She doesn't know how she feels about Orochimaru genuinely complimenting her progress, her heart aches for a Popsicle but she banishes that thought with the ease of someone who has done it a million times.

"I already prepared the identification papers. Congratulations from today onwards Uzunami Hina is a legal citizen of Konoha and will be attending the ninja academy" When she says nothing he adds-

"That is you by the way" Her eye twitches as if she will forget that name and Orochimaru's smirk widens. Really for the last week it has become a game between them to see who can get on the other's nerves more. (She will not admit this but she thinks Orochimaru is winning because every single damn time he opens his mouth she gets irritated, she doesn't like his voice, doesn't like his accent, doesn't like anything about him if she is being honest with herself… so she is never left with an option except to retaliate)

"And why should I attend the academy?" because she knows with absolute certainty that he could have just let her skip it but no, oh no, Why will Orochimaru of the Sanin ever listen to a brat?

"Sensei insisted after I told him your age." He stated with a knowing smirk. He was enjoying this she knew by the look on his face.

"Jiji lets you get away with everything. You are his favorite student for sage's sake. Why couldn't you have just argued that I already knew everything that they teach in the academy?" the childish impulse to whine and stomp her feet was very strong but Naruto held it in because she will not give the bastard satisfaction of seeing such a look on her face.

"Because that is the only way to officially make you a genin" Orochimaru commented.

And Naruto understands his reasoning but, "But this will hinder my plans for the future" She said seriously looking into his eyes to convey the truth in her words. Because she only needs to get the damn chakra under control and then she will work from the shadows. She will first kill her targets and fulfill her duty as the child of prophecy. (Although she does not believe in herself anymore but she will keep on going for Kurama and others and save her precious people from a world of pain in the future.) Maybe, she hopes she will finally be able to rest in peace once the real Naruto Uzumaki is born. Maybe she will disappear so that the universe can maintain its balance. (Because she certainly does not have the right to live that life with that name, not anymore. Naruto Uzumaki embodied hope wherever she went but the present her… embodies destruction, a polar opposite, or what is left when Naruto Uzumaki lost her bonds that she so painstakingly created, her smile, her hope, her love, her friends, her whole world-)

"You always have the option of graduating early" He said nonchalantly not sensing her self-depreciating thoughts, or he just didn't care enough.

When she focused on what he said her eyes widened. "Oh yeah there is that option. No age limit for graduation in this time." She mumbles out of habit and does not realize she has said that out loud. She had picked up this habit from Killer Bee but fortunately for Kurama (and Orochimaru, though he does not know yet) she does not know how to wrap.

"He is right brat. It will be better if you go to the academy. Since you already know everything it will only take a small amount of time to graduate." I want you to make friends Naruto, to make new bonds. You were never supposed to be alone Kurama thinks but he will never tell her that. Knowing the present her she is more likely to become a missing nin than to approach people to form new bonds.

"Age limit?" Orochimaru cocks his head to the side, black hair sliding on his face. "Ah I understand. Why was it applied in your time though?" Pushing the hair back with his hands he theorizes that something must have happened for this law to come into force.

Because of prodigies like you, Kakashi and Itachi who are always on the verge of going insane, she thinks.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She smirked, taunting him for his lack of knowledge, because knowledge is something he prizes the most and she has fun dangling all the information in front of him but just out of his reach.

Naruto thinks he is starting to get used to her taunts because there is no change in his expression. Although his Chakra had spiked just a little bit in annoyance.

"Oh wait ITACHI! Is he born yet?" she moves closer to Orochimaru and peers at him with her big big dark blue eyes how can she be a commander-in-chief of all the shinobi in the world with her eyes being so expressive when emotions are nothing but a hindrance to shinobi life. Orochimaru thinks off-handedly.

"You mean the Uchiha clan heir? Yes he is." He answers truthfully.

"Has he been keeping an eye on that blasted clan?" Kurama mutters in her mindscape. She hums and sends a mental nod most probably she thinks.

"So now that you have papers, we are going to the village right? I want to meet Itachi first and foremost"

x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

The village's gates come into view and her steps falter. How she desperately wants to think she is returning home but that couldn't be farther from the truth. She has no home left. Home is where the heart is –

And she has lost her heart somewhere in a world filled with nothing but nightmare.

She has become a poet she thinks. A bitter chuckle leaves her mouth. Orochimaru looks her way with a raised eyebrow but she thinks he wants to frown instead. She doesn't ask him why he has been becoming more and more stoic as they are reaching the village gates. She has been getting used to his expressions too. Although he shoots her a look, but thankfully doesn't say anything.

They reach the gates and she is almost expecting (or hoping she doesn't know, she thinks she will never know) Kotetsu and Izumo, the chunin gate guards to be manning the entrance but there was someone else, a chunin, if going by the chunin jacket he was wearing but- she stops completely because that is yet another ghost that she doesn't want to encounter but senses anyway-

-"Ahh you are here," she hears/hallucinates a pained smile on his face, "save the kids first"

-"yeah they are safe, it's all right, you did good… now just keep your eyes open okay?...Just I beg you" She shifts his head on her lap, tears start falling from her eyes because she knows the truth but prays for a miracle anyway "pleasepleaseplease Sakura-chan is already on her way, don't you dare give up on me too….SHINO, please SHINOOOOOO" She screams

The Chunin was talking to an Aburame . An Aburame that she is sure is at least 80 percent Shino. She swallows with great difficulty. She wants to run up to him and rage and rave, shaking him by the collar to ask him why did he give up, she wants to beg him to keep his eyes open, she wants to kill him (Zetsu her delirious mind whispers) because that is not how Shino 's chakra is. That is not the same calm buzzing she associated with Shino's insects.

A hand lands on her shoulder and she flinches, hard. If Orochimaru managed to sneak on her that means she had let her guard down. Though she feels better with the extra weight but she will sooner eat her kunai than thank him for his unintentional support. Because it can only be unintentional on his part, he needed her to continue walking towards the village, since she had frozen.

Orochimaru hums seeing her reaction and all the emotions swimming in her eyes. They were a lot of different ones which he does not care to catalogue but looks for the only emotion that can pinpoint an enemy from an ally, 'hate' So that means he is an ally or at least an ally she was close to but-

"That is Shibi Aburame, the present heir to the Aburame clan, soon to be clan head. How were you close to him? His clan is very secretive" He questions because it will surely be an interesting story if she wrangled Shibi Aburame into opening up to her.

She shakes her head and Orochimaru feels something akin to disappointment surface when he thinks she won't answer him again.

"His s-son" her breath comes out in a stutter. He looks down and sees grey clothes, green medical chakra, light blond haired, a kunoichi strong enough to break mountains with her bare hands, trembling like a pathetic worm and he squeezes the shoulder of his teammate. Reality dawns upon him when honey colored eyed turn to dark blue and he yanks his hand away as if burnt.

"I will sign your name too on the gate. Come." He says curtly and walks ahead of her. Oh I knew the kid was dangerous but this? How can I hallucinate in broad daylight? Tsunade is nothing but a traitor, a sorry excuse for a shinobi, leaving her village alone in a war. I don't care what happens to her (he remembers squeezing her shoulders, but ignores it) and Sensei? He is the bigger fool for not calling her back.

"Orochimaru-sama" The chunin greets with a nod. Shibi Aburame nods as well but he keeps silent.

While signing, he hears loud footsteps and inwardly rolls his eyes she has started to pretend like an idiot again. He huffs she is too much like Jiraya for his liking when she is like this. Well she is his goddaughter after all. What was the Namikaze brat thinking, naming a pervert his child's godfather?

"Sensei the gates are so huge! They look so cool." Naruto exclaims with a twinkle in her eye.

"I really like them" She nods sagely as if he did not know that she was the Hokage of the same village she is admiring.

"And who is this?" The chunin gate guard asks and the hairs on the back of Naruto's neck stand up at the tone of his voice. She looks up at the Chunin and has to stop herself from swearing at him because he is looking at her with those coldcoldcold- eyes that she used to see in childhood on every other person in the village; before she had saved the village from pain.

"Don't waste our time, we have to go see sensei" Orochimaru replies in a voice that she had only heard in the forest of death and sneers at the Chunin. The man gulps and looks at Shibi Aburame, nodding to Orochimaru.

With a start she realizes he was not looking at her with those eyes but at Orochimaru. But why? He is a loyal ninja to Konoha and has not started his experiments on children yet and is helping them fight the war. He is one of the Sanin, he should be respected not treated as a hostile by his own comrades. He is the only one they have right now since Jiraya and Tsunade are gone. Even Naruto does not look at him like that because this Orochimaru and the Orochimaru from her past are different. (he is all alone Naruto resolutely does not think about the implication of only Orochimaru left in the village)

So she uses her childhood mask again and smiles her brightest smile and closes her eyes (in an imitation of Kakashi's smile subconsciously)-

"Oni- san do you know who Orochimaru sensei's sensei is? He just won't tell me! He says it's a surprise!" She says and taps the Chunin's hand sending Kurama's warm chakra directly in his system and reels back in horror when she senses a seal on the base of his neck. A seal similar to that of the root's seal, being a seal master herself she recognizes the component of "vision" in the Chunin's seal - so similar to the "paralyze" component of the root seal.

She feels dread in her stomach, puzzle pieces start falling in place- Sakumo Hatake, The fallen hero who started the third war driven to suicide, Friend-killer Kakashi on the verge of snapping , traitor Orochimaru who became a missing-nin, The demon-fox Jinchuriki- a child who was treated worse than dirt whenever she was in their "vision", The brutal and controlling Uchiha clan, a founder clan of the village driven to launch a coup-de-ta because of the villager's harsh treatment-

Kurama swears in her mindscape and she wants to throw up Lets go kill Danzo right now Kurama. She latches onto Orochimaru's hand and tells him in standard shinobi tap code to keep an eye on the chunin, he cocks his head but sends a subtle nod.

"Let's go child" Orochimaru says when he looks at her eyes getting colder by the second. What is it? The chunin couldn't have done anything that made her angry.

"Wait a second" Shibi interrupts and Orochimaru wants to snap at him because the kid with her cold fury can start leaking chakra any moment; he has been a personal witness many times, unfortunately.

"No Naruto, control yourself. You are not strong enough to take on Danzo right now. Remember Sasuke had told us about the Sharingan implanted in his hand and his cousin's eye- Kurama suddenly stops and goes silent for a moment.

"Naruto! Do you remember the name of Sasuke's cousin whose eye Danzo forcefully took and implanted in his own eye socket?" Kurama calls for Naruto and asks her.

At the non-sequitur Naruto forgets her fury for a second and enters her mindscape, hesitatingly nodding at Kurama because she never forgot anything that her friends told her during war. They keep whispering to her every time she closes her eyes.

"Yeah but why are you recalling that instead of going along with me to clean that fucking filth from the village?"

Kurama looks her in the eye and sighs. Although she has become patient as compared to her genin self, she still has a lot of impatience in certain regards.

"Tell me"

"Okayyyyy… you are being weird Kurama…"

He gives her a look-

"Okay okay Geez whats up with you?" She raises her hands as if to calm him down.

"His name was Shisu-" her eyes widened and she snaps her eyes to look at Kurama's-

She feels Orochimaru tapping her hand subtly to call for her attention.

"Have we met before?" the man most likely Shino's father asks when she focuses in the real world. She wants to say yes and I am so sorrysorrysorry for not keeping your son alive.

"Hm? Why are you asking that Aburame-sama?" She feels suspicion and confusion coming from the man. What she does not understand is why there is an emotion of gratitude coming from his insects, the Kikachu.

Shibi's eyes narrow behind his glasses at the child who answered his question with another question and at the different honorific used by her as compared to the chunin gate guard.

He pushes his glasses up with his forefinger. "My Kikachu seem to know you. Why? Because I can feel their emotions." He answers truthfully because it seems the child herself does not know.

"Can I see them Aburame-sama?" She walks towards Shino's dad with a skip in her step and a twinkle in her eye. Because she also wants to see those Kikachu but can't help but feel apprehensive about it.

Orochimaru looks at her back with sharp eyes as she approaches the Aburame heir and flexes his hand, the one that was held by Naruto, subconsciously. He doesn't realize he did that but Shibi notices but doesn't say anything and file that information for later investigation.

Shibi also feels dumbfounded for a second because outside of his clan, children never approach him. As she gets closer to him he finds it difficult to control his Kikachu because they all want to swarm her at once.

He slowly raises his right hand and only allows a single Kikachu to crawl out from his sleeve for the kid to see. As soon as the insect was let out it flew over the kid's shoulder to perch in it. The kid lifted her hand parallel to the ground palm facing up, inviting his insect to fly on her hand. To his astonishment his Kikachu obeyed her silent command.

"Hey little guy. Are you happy with Aburame-sama?"

And Shibi can't decide to feel offended or absolutely floored with her question. Her question caught him so off guard that the tight grip he was keeping on his Kikachu so as to not scare the little girl away, slightly loosened and four other insects managed to slip out of his grasp and landed on her palm.

The girl only laughed and he can't help but liken it with the tinkling of bells but with a hard metallic sound as if she has forgotten how to laugh properly. (he is right, there was little hysteria mixed in her laughter, a bitter edge that will not leave her voice for a long long time) But he became busy in marveling the surroundings that had become a bit brighter and a bit warmer as if nature itself was hoping that she continues to smile.

When the first Kikachu had landed, she had been surprised that she could almost understand his buzzing but she realized the insect was using chakra. So she raised her palm to look at him properly. As soon as the insect landed she asked if he was happy and the first thing she understood was something like –

We are very satisfied with our host and we want to thank you for taking care of our descendants. How the insect knows she doesn't understand but she replies with her chakra that it was your Shino who protected many people and that she was not able to save him and I am so so so sorry that he died She wants to cry but suddenly there were four more insects buzzing angrily No we can sense the love and trust our descendants as well as his host held for you. You did everything you could to save them, It was not your fault. And wasn't that the highlight of her day, getting scolded by Kikachu. So she laughed one part hysterical, one part bitter and two parts relieved. Because she gets to apologize to someone from the past that knows…that they supports her. Maybe, just maybe she can have a home again? She can live here with her Biju friends as well? Where someone remembers her for what she did. But hope is a cruel thing so she squashes it down before it can take a root in her devastated heart. She sends warm chakra to the Kikachu and thanks them for talking to her.

"I am happy that you have a good host guys. Take care of yourselves as well as Aburame-sama okay?"

Shibi thinks that the five Kikachu flying back to him are a bit dazed. When they get back inside his body, he can feel a warm chakra getting shared among his other Kikachu and with a start he realizes that the chakra belongs to that kid. A very special one if he goes by what just happened.

Shibi carefully looks at the child. Her hair reminds him of Minato but that can be coincidence (or maybe they are related, his mind conspiratorially whispers) He takes a double look at her dark blue eyes because he could have sworn that they were a bit more darker when he had first laid eyes on her but maybe that is just the sunlight reflecting. He clears his throat to catch her attention-

"Just Shibi please seeing my hive is already impressed with you so."

"Shibi-sama then" She nods and he has the most absurd vision of a person standing behind the little girl with the same shade of blond hair cascading down to her lower back with a white cloak hanging on her shoulders reading 'Sixth Hokage' but it vanishes as soon as it appeared with Orochimaru's voice.

"Let us go child, Sensei must not be kept waiting long"

"Before going tell me your name child." Shibi asks.

The child looks at his direction once more with a searching look. (she is looking for the hostility that the Chinin showed for Orochimaru, but she found none) A brilliant smile adorns her face, eyes closed from the smile-

"Uzunami Hina, it's nice to meetcha" He nods, he will forever remember this child, Uzunami, whom his hive feels love and loyalty for.

"Then, Aburame-san" Orochimaru nods

"Orochimaru-sama" Shibi nods

And they leave.

TBC

Well did you expect this encounter? Answer me in the comment section.

Signing out

Yuki Race