Tomoe Nara (formerly Midoriya) was still confused as to why her mother had moved them all the way from Mustafu to the Elemental Nations, which were heavily restricted even to heroes.

The moment they came to the village of Konoha (which looked more like a small city), her mother hugged a rather relaxed looking man with intimidating scars.

"Inko, it's good to see you again."

"Shikaku-sama, thank you for letting me come home with my daughter," said Inko.

Shikaku looked at Tomoe, and immediately she felt the sheer intelligence behind his eyes. She did her best to stand firm, but she very much wanted to hide behind her mother.

"Let me show you the house you'll be renting," he replied.

It was a fairly spacious apartment, well within the clan grounds and thus offering all the protections of the clan. It had two rooms, more than enough space for Inko and her daughter, and a fully furbished kitchen with used appliances that still worked.

From what Tomoe understood, her mother had agreed to do the accounting for the clan in exchange for letting her come home. She knew her mom was good at math and the like, but the rest of it mostly went over her head.

For the next week she got acclimated to the village, wearing her new clothes that had the Nara clan symbol discreetly embroidered in areas that would alert a casual observer which clan she belonged to.

Fortunately the Elemental nations all spoke a slightly older variant of Japanese, so she was still understood.

It was after the first month that Shikaku approached Inko regarding Tomoe's education.

By this point, Tomoe had watched some of her older chunin cousins practice and like many children before her, had become very interested in the career.

Inko was all for it, because there was still a chance Tomoe could attend UA and become a hero like she always wanted.

Shikaku took her aside with a few of the elders and prepared to unlock her chakra coils to see if she was capable of shinobi life in the first place.

None of them were expecting her eyes to start bulging in a very familiar manner.

Shikaku suddenly remembered who Inko's father had been. And how his aunt had only been allowed to keep custody because her daughter's chakra coils had been born faulty resulting in her not inheriting the father's kekkei genkai. In fact, as a result of his daughter not being born with the doujutsu, the father had been downgraded to the branch family to his shame.

As a result, Shikaku was in a rather precarious position. On the plus side, Tomoe's chakra coils were properly formed and now that they were active, seemed to be thriving.

The next morning, Shikaku went to have a very serious talk with Hiashi with the Hokage present so that they understood the situation.

"Let me get this straight...your cousin, who was the result of a one night stand between your aunt and a Hyuuga chunin, was born without the Byakugan or functioning chakra coils," said Sarutobi slowly. "As a result, the Hyuga disinherited the girl in question and made it clear that any resulting progeny would only be allowed to claim the Hyuga name in exchange for becoming a branch member. However the Nara have already laid claim to the girl and her daughter. Do I have it correct so far?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"I fail to see the issue, or why you insisted on a meeting," said Hiashi grumpily.

"Inko's daughter Tomoe recently had her chakra coils awakened in preperation for entering the shinobi academy," said Shikaku patiently. "However almost immediately after the procedure was completed, and her chakra awakened, she activated what was clearly the Byakugan."

Hiashi went ramrod straight in shock, hearing that.

"What?"

"Now I see the issue. You want to insure that the Hyuga understand the Nara are not poaching one of their own," said Sarutobi smiling.

"The Hyuga made it clear that Inko and any future children from her were not considered one of theirs unless they were willing to be branded and made a branch member. I just want to make sure they know Tomoe has the Byakugan but is firmly a Nara and that the Elders know they are not to touch her," said Shikaku flatly.

Hiashi bristled at the implied distrust.

"Are you saying the Hyuuga would harm a child?"

"You personally? No. Your elders on the other hand, are another story," said Shikaku.

Hiashi deflated at that, silently acknowledging the issue.

"As the girl is already claimed by an established ally, I will make the situation clear. To begin with, we had already disavowed any claim on her mother, which means we would have had no claim over the daughter, Byakugan or not."

Glad to have this settled without any input from him (he was mostly acting as a neutral third party), the Hokage made sure to get it in writing just to be safe.

A few days later, the Academy

Tomoe was wearing her nice new outfit one of her aunts had given her as congratulations for fitting the requirements to join Shikamaru's class, despite having only been introduced to the academy's required reading two weeks prior.

She walked inside, waited for the teacher to call her before she walked in.

Shikamaru had a bored expression on his face as Iruka introduced his cousin.

Tomoe was just happy that in the Elemental Nations that no one bragged about their quirks or looked down on her for not having one.

Tomoe had only been in the Academy for three months, and while the other girls were nice enough, they were all obsessed over one boy in particular and she was more interested in clothes and make up and not being proper kunoichi.

There was one thing that really bugged her. Nearly every person seemed to loath one of her classmates, and she couldn't figure out what it was. Yes, he was a bit of a prankster, but she recognized the defensive tactic for what it was and knew he was just simply lonely. It was similar to her loud declarations to becoming a Pro Hero, despite the fact she had been diagnosed quirkless and hearing the teachers and her former friends telling her it was impossible.

Which was why she took the initiative to actually talk to him.

"Hello," she said cheerfully.

The expression of hope in his eyes was almost painful to look at. She had to wonder how many time someone had approached him with the false offer of friendship, only to pull it back at the last second.

"You're Shika's cousin, right?" he said carefully.

"I'm Tomoe."

"Naruto."

Tomoe had to frown when she happened to notice the book Naruto had on his desk. It looked...off...to her, though she couldn't explain why.

She grew suspicious when one of the teachers, who she didn't particularly like to begin with approached her and warned her about befriending the blond. Aside from Naruto being rather painfully awkward, she honestly didn't understand why it was his business who she befriended.

It wasn't until she showed her uncle the book (she had discreetly switched her own for Naruto's when he wasn't looking) that she found out what was wrong with it.

"Where did you get this?" said Shikaku, frowning heavily.

"One of my classmates was using the wrong book. I swapped mine for his because I couldn't figure out what was bad about it."

"This was heavily edited and several facts are downright wrong. Which student had this?" said Shikaku.

"Uzumaki Naruto. The teacher even approached me after class and told me I shouldn't associate with 'bad elements' and how my shinobi career would be heavily affected if I continued to associate with him. He doesn't even teach any of our classes...he teaches the senior students," said Tomoe frowning.

Shikaku was frowning as well. However he was not about to tell Tomoe about the Kyuubi, or dissuade her from befriending the kid.

The next morning Tomoe went to school with an extra lunch, as she had noticed Naruto rarely had any with him. And when he did, it was barely expired foods. Besides, it was good practice for her cooking.

The expression on his face that day would forever stick with her, and oddly enough reaffirm her desire to be a Pro Hero later.

"That's...for me?" said Naruto baffled.

"Yeah, consider it an apology for switching our books yesterday. I showed it to my uncle and he said that it was an outdated one," said Tomoe.

Naruto stared at the slightly imperfect food, but it was clear from the smell that it wasn't altered like some of the other foods he had eaten. Tomoe could tell he was crying, but kept it to herself.

Since she was sitting next to her cousin for the day, she let Naruto borrow her book until he could get the correct one later.

Shikamaru merely sighed upon realizing that Tomoe was going to befriend the blond. He could only hope Tomoe didn't get into pranking. Within a week, they were practically best friends.

Some time later...

Tomoe had to admit, she was a tad exasperated with Naruto's study habits. While part of is wasn't his fault, as several of his books were either altered or just old and draw on by other students before him, the simple fact was that Naruto was more active than most of the kids and had trouble sitting still to learn what he needed to be a shinobi.

Which was when Tomoe came up with the plan. She needed to work on the clan jutsu, as the older cousins rarely had time to help and Shikamaru was too lazy or busy with his own friend Chouji.

Naruto would help her practice taijutsu and her henge, and she would help him with his written work. The situation worked out perfectly, especially since during the days Naruto came over to actually study, Inko made a point to feed him and let him take extras home to eat later.

As a result, Naruto was practically a common sight in the Nara compound.

Since Tomoe had the Byakugan, but firmly was not considered a Hyuga, she had little idea how to use the doujutsu. However she had figured out the basics for using chakra to mess with pressure points. Her uncle had introduced her to a former medic nin cousin who was on desk duty because of a bad injury. He could still use his chakra, and had a large store of medical knowledge, but a busted leg meant he couldn't be a field shinobi anymore.

Naruto didn't mind acting as her test dummy, because it meant Inko would feed him extra and send him home with special treats.

So when the first exam to possibly be promoted to Genin came up, Tomoe convince Naruto not to try his luck. Each child got only three chances to graduate, and that only lasted until they were thirteen when they aged out of the program. Since they weren't even nine, Naruto still had plenty of time to try and graduate.

The argument she used was pretty effective. Since she had only been at the academy for a few months, there was no way she would have been ready to graduate. And Naruto didn't want to be a genin without his best friend there with him.

Hinata didn't know what to think of her unofficial cousin. While Tomoe was technically only one third Hyuga, she wasn't considered part of the clan because the Nara had claimed her long before her Byakugan ever went active. Add in the fact they had formally disinherited her long before she was even born, and it meant Tomoe was considered a Nara first, and a Hyuga never.

This suited everyone just fine, because it meant that there was no arguing over her.

Now, her father and the elders had sternly warned her not to train the other girl because despite having Hyuga blood, she was not family and therefor not their problem.

However, they had not said anything similar to Neji. And as far as she knew, he had already managed to recreate several techniques of the main house purely out of spite.

After all the crap her 'family' had put her through because she didn't want her sister branded by the Elders for being younger than her, she slowly resolved herself to a fit of unofficial rebellion.

To that end, she carefully befriended Tomoe under the guise of wanting to spend time around the only girl in her class that wasn't boy obsessed and took her training seriously during the kunoichi-only classes.

Her father accepted the not quite lie, and allowed her to befriend Tomoe after observing the girls in question.

Which was why she felt no guilt whatsoever introducing Neji to Tomoe. Neji barely tolerated his 'weaker' cousin and the heiress of the clan, despite the fact Hinata had never once said a bad word to him or ever used the caged bird seal.

Once Neji understood why Hinata introduced him to the other girl, his estimation of the weak-willed heiress went up slightly.

To that end, Neji would train with Tomoe on the sly during the days Naruto was spending time with the few male friends he had. Thanks to Tomoe, Shikamaru had become a good friend of his as well.

On the plus side, Tomoe's skill with the Byakugan and disrupting the chakra network of others rose considerably.