Foxfire

By

Byakugan

Disclaimer: Whinnie the Poo was stuffed with fluff and was a cheerful fellow, I don't own the Naruto manga do I don't have that luxury. A good rule of thumb, if you recognize it either somebody else owns it, has done it first or thought along a similar path. Don't sue me, you'll spend more in court costs than I can actually provide if you won.

Authors Note: I've read literally thousands of Naruto fan fiction as Likely have many of you, but an over arching theme I have found in the reading is that only one in 30000 authors actually write Naruto, even from the beginning, as the character he is and becomes in the manga or anime. There's a lot of similarities, certainly, and a great many authors blindly dog the plot to a degree that doesn't make any sense when you think of what they've changed over the course of the story, but they don't honestly write Naruto. I have attempted to do so many times myself and failed I finally just decided to forgo the attempt entirely and write as I know how. Some things will be crack, others will be presumptuous and all the events and setup that led up to the point of Naruto's birth will be present. From there till the story start the only difference will be my best logic of the early life for a female Naruto. No not naruko or any variant there of, Naruto's name was decided several months before his birth and wouldn't need to change for being born Kushina's daughter instead of Minaito's son.

.o0OXO0o.

Alexander West woke up slumped against a wall, feeling light headed and sticky. Struggling through the motions he lifted his right arm to press against his screaming skull and groaned in protest, wincing as the noise reached his ears.

Something about his head felt off but he shoved the matter to the side for the moment in order to deal with the far more important problem of what, exactly, he had done last night that could have gotten him in such a miserable state.

Sitting there for a few minutes Alex drew in a few deep breaths and tried to focus through the haze. There had been a party, that was it… but what had the party been for? Pushing further into the murk a few more details began to make themselves clear. He and his coworkers had been drinking heavily celebrating the release of Diablo three.

He had been a part of the world building team, crafting character effects and abilities, balancing classes and helping to make the rules for the games magic. It was hard to remember through the blur of shots but they had gotten to nearly hundred thousand copies sold by the time he stopped remembering things.

After that the only thing he could remember was a sense of movement and then a bright light.

Had he been in a car accident? That could explain how shitty he was feeling, and the sticky sensation too… that would be the blood. He thought absently.

Daring to open his eyes Alex was granted with a fuzzy image that most certainly did not match his proposed situation.

Alex sat there blinking the image into focus and felt numb. He was in a small apartment he didn't recognize, sitting in a pool of blood and literally covered in the substance. If that wasn't frightening enough the position of the knife on the floor and the various wounds on his body suggested that the entire episode had been, not only self inflicted, but done by an expert masochist who had finally lost sight of the line between self flagellation and suicide.

The fact that he was still alive, his wounds dried and unbleeding was frankly unbelievable. Not strike that, he thought, tracing one of the red lines on his forearms, make that impossible. Clearing the blood away had not only not started the bleeding anew, but had revealed red lines of fresh scar tissue.

It was during this stunned examination that Alex noticed something truly wrong. The hands tracing his wounds were not his own.

Alex was very familiar with his hands, they were large and strong and callused from his martial arts hobby. They typed over a hundred words a minute in complicated programming languages without missing a beat or mistyping a character.

The hands that followed his will now were not those hands.

These hands were small and tanned, their soft skin speaking of a much unwanted youth. They were the hands of a child. Maybe six or seven lest he miss his guess. Hands like his nieces.

He shuddered and returned said hands to his head, seeking out the disturbance in his equilibrium he had found earlier. Reaching it Alex carefully, or rather weakly, pulled the material out before his eyes for further study.

It was hair.

Long, thick, matted and dark, both from an apparent period of neglect and liberal amounts of his own blood. The hair was a deep shade of crimson and felt almost springy like wire or wool, but judging form the grease and dirt in the material the feeling was probably just from the grime.

With a great effort he rolled onto his hands and knees and looked around the room. Spotting a mirror He crawled his way over to it, smearing a trail of congealing blood and handprints in his wake. Reaching the long reflective sheet of slivered glass nailed to the door to the apartments toiletries he shakily shoved himself into a quasi kneeling position, his weight resting against the door via his shaking arms.

Again he starred at a piece of his body that was not his own. The face before him was defiantly that of a seven year old, one with a long mass of thick red hair tumbling down their back in a massive series of snarls and tangles. It was best described as a rats nest. The eyes and cheeks caught him though. The eyes were a bright cerulean blue, currently large and wide in their starring and the cheeks were adorned with six thin, inward curving scars. There they sat, three on each cheek like whiskers of a cat or fox.

Fox.

The word struck a chord in his memory and Alex roughly shoved himself away from the mirror to stumble upright into the bathroom. Alex's mind was whirling. Under most circumstances he would have simply assumed that this was a death delusion his mind was generating for him to take his mind off his imminent demise in the wreck. The presence of himself covered in blood could easily have been explained by his mind being unable to process out the supremely cut up state of his still living body…

What didn't make sense was why he dreaming himself as a suicidal red headed Naruto. Then again he could be Kushina, he mused absently, falling against the wall of the shower, but there was too little written about Naruto's mother and one thing had been certain. None of the pictures of her has given the girl whisker marks.

Turning the hot water tap Alex yelped as he was blasted with cold water. Of course, he grumbled. No hot water for several seconds when you turn the tap on; if at all because this is Naruto. Stripping and throwing the now sopping garments out on the floor Alex discovered another problem. 'He' was a girl.

Shit.

Not that there was anything wrong with being a girl in general but if this was a delusion why would he want to be one? Especially one so young and without curves? And if, as he was beginning to consider, this wasn't a near death fantasy how had he gotten into this body and why wasn't his new incarnation a boy? Spiritually speaking a moving soul would naturally be more attracted to a similar host body. Past life memories awoken by traumatic stress seemed a more likely avenue as possessing spirits couldn't usually repair a body in any fiction he'd read and Naruto's own healing factor, if it could have saved him (her rather), would likely have prevented possession as well. Probably locking him into the seal in the attempt.

Now there was an appetizing thought.

Alex/Kushina/Naruto sat there in the shower for several hours until the hot water ran out, his/her thoughts swirling. The how's and whys were playing havoc on his/her mental focus but by the time the water had gone cold s/he had come up with a place to start.

A fair amount of his/her strength had come back during the shower; the water had tasted unusually good so this probably meant his/her healing factor had used the clear liquid as material to replace his/her lost blood. Stopping briefly at the mirror s/he noticed the faint pink line across his/her throat. It had been raw red when s/he'd gone in. Examining the lines his/her arms, stomach and joints s/he found them to be fading as well.

Impressive.

Absently musing on the level of healing s/he had just displayed Alex began searching for some sort of journal or diary. Most girls had them and the volumes tended to be quite enlightening about the state of the people within. Though for the most part diaries had become electronic where he'd come from he still remembered the common lengths' and places his sisters had taken to hiding them from prying eyes.

Three hours later he struck gold. Hidden behind a loose and apparently unused ventilation cover was a scroll. It was blank and unmarked like many in the apartment but opening it proved immediately interesting. Within was the detailed account of a girl who was terrified of her home and questing for answers. Maps of various sections of the village were common, typically detailing danger levels and attitudes of shopkeepers and home owners in the area along with detailed impressions of the character of the people who went in and out based almost wholly around their eyes.

Records of attacks were uncommon among the entries, which covered nearly four years, but they often ended in mention of a black suited figure with a white festival mask taking her attacker away. Then four and a half months ago things changed. One of the store keepers who had caught her trading in their store during the night while they should have been sleeping the previous week had cornered her in an alley. Inu-kun had not gotten there in time, likely distracted by the fox day festival, and she had learned the ugly truth.

Or at least part of it.

The old man had told her about the Kyuubi and how the truth of the confrontation had been covered up. He accepted that she wasn't the monster but still believed the only true way to protect the village from it's return was for her to die. He had hit her and was pulling down his pants when blood had exploded from his chest, drenching her. Inu-kun had finally arrived.

The following entries had become steadily darker. Alex frowned at this. If he was reading the entries right she had told old man Ichiraku about everything. Teuchi had tried to console her and likely prolonged her life these last four and a half months. But it hadn't been enough; now that she knew what to look for the weight of the villagers disapproval and fear had become stifling.

Alex snorted sadly. The poetry was good at least. Somewhere between Evanescence and Breaking Benjamin. Alex sighed and rerolled the journal. The last entry had been an epitaph… This would go some short length to explaining the question of why him and not someone who had been heroic in their previous life, Naruto had never been destined to be particularly heroic in this world either. The goddess had needed a relatively normal soul to fill a doomed space until it moved on to the next life.

Apparently she hadn't counted on the Kyuubi's own drive for survival.

Carefully restoring the scroll to it's place Axel drew in a deep breath and closed his/her eyes. When s/he opened them again there was a look of determination on the small girls face tinged with a slight hint of evil. Let me be reborn into a world with magic will you? Heading for the apartment door Alex made a decision, s/he was used to making the rules, but now, it was time to learn some.

"Time to make some waves."

.o0OXO0o.

Standing on a ledge created by one of the hair spikes of the Hokage monument Alex raised a hammer and got to work. As best Alex's interpretations' went, most of this Naruto's problems stemmed from the same basis as the original model from the comics. People knew who her; knew her and didn't like her.

This wasn't a universal constant though, nor was it an insurmountable problem as both the comic books and Naruto-chans own scroll had shown. Most of the animosity in the village was centered around civilian families who had lost someone to the Kyuubis short release during Kushina's pregnancy. Most of the Village nin appeared indifferent to the situation due to their professional understanding that shit happens and she was as much a sacrifice in the event as her parents had been . Others were sympathetic and a few, who had lost team members in the attack, were openly resentful of her existence.

Give it a decade on the original path and she'd be the village icon.

Unfortunately, Alex didn't want to wait a decade of thankless bullshit to become a hero. After all, why go to all the effort when reinventing your self was so much easier?

This however came with it's own complications. If s/he wasn't going to be Naruto, s/he couldn't very well live at Naruto's apartment, that would simply be too obvious to anyone seeking out either identity. So s/he need to get a new premises'; but doing that meant having an identity and money, two things s/he didn't have. Even with unconsensual night time trading Naruto's stipend from the Hokage didn't cover everything and s/he only had a few thousand yen left at the moment anyways.

So, the monument. It would likely take him/her a few days but the soft, chakra-sculpted sandstone had already given way to a rough one foot deep door way with half an hour of pounding it with a hammer covered in cloth to deafen the sound of metal against stone the only thing to give him/her away would be the dust that would soon begin piling on the ground below the fourths ear.

Alex began humming as s/he worked, thinking on what all would need to be done to set up his/her new life. First there was the legal documentation. S/he'd need a profile, something simple that people wouldn't look to closely at. An orphan street rat would likely work best. There were plenty of those from the third great Shinobi war and the Kyuubi attack that had followed it, pick a different birthday for her medical records and that should settle it. A civilian family too, traveling merchants killed in some attack seemed the best way to go about it. The hardest part about the whole thing wouldn't be entering the necessary documents into the hospital or orphanage but rather making them look like they had been there six and a half years. S/he intended to apply for the academy once everything was set up and s/he couldn't have the Hokage do that for him/her like the original had if s/he wanted to avoid the stigma of being Naruto.

Pulling out a strip of beef jerky s/he had 'bought' on the way here Alex began slowly chewing on it as s/he worked, absentmindedly noticing the distance into the stone. A good five feet. Glancing at the watch on his/her wrist s/he saw the timer hit four hours and 21 minutes since start. About a foot an hour, not bad. S/he'd have to start expanding inward soon, the head was only thirty feet wide, give or take a few.

Looking at his/her hand as it swung the tool like a jackhammer with short hard taps at the sandstone Alex considered things. Having a plan was all well and good, but what to call herself? And it would be her s/he decided sullenly, as faking being her natural gender would very quickly become very difficult once she reentered society. As easy as it would be to fool a civilian prior to puberty, Ninja and medics had a decidedly different take on the world that meant they'd pick out the ruse sooner rather than later.

Fast, Alex mused, watching the hammer. If he'd been himself he could only have kept up this pace for a few minutes but with Naruto's stamina and healing s/he'd been going at it for hours without stop. It was almost like watching something out of Ranma ½. Kaichu Tenshin Amigurican, if memory served. Ranma… Yes, that would work, Ranma Saotome would be her new alias. Tasteful clothing style, easy personality to remember, she even looked the part. Red hair, blue eyes, Kushina's promise of being buxom in the future and a career of an aspiring Ninja.

Over the next few hours Alex pounded and swept away the foundations of her new home. Finally reaching 15 feet she turned a sharp left and hammered the outline of the front door. This accomplished she ate the rest of the jerky, finished off her large sack of water, lay down her tools and pulled out a bed roll. It was time to sleep. It was noon now, so a good eight hours and it would be safe to begin operations again.

Laying down Alex closed her eyes, and dreamed.

.o0OXO0o.

While Alex slept the village was in a uproar. At eight in the morning one of the store keepers s/he had 'purchased' items from that night had come to Naruto's apartment and started banging on the door. Quickly getting fed up with the lack of answer he man had broken the lock and stormed in demanding reparations far in excess of the actual value of the goods before freezing at which point the old man had promptly run back out screaming at the top of his lungs.

Within an hour the entire village knew that the 'demon' was missing and all that had been found at it's apartment had been a enormous pool of drying blood. The general consensus around the village was that the demon had finally lost the fight against it's human shell and died, tearing the body apart like the original had and cursed the building like the Kyuubi's rapidly decaying body had cursed the forest of death.

The ANBU were considerably more suspicious and, under orders from the Hokage, made a thorough and in-depth examination of the area. It was concluded even before finding Naruto's diary that there was far too little evidence of fowl play to make an accusation of murder and the secondary stain and accompanying presence and position of a kunai did indeed suggest suicide. Due to the lack of body, money, cloths and bedroll however the Hokage was convinced of either flight or kidnapping and so both options were thoroughly investigated. When nothing turned up over the next several weeks and scanning the countryside with the Eye of Urna revealed only a grey fog, Sarutobi Hiruzen was forced to conclude the worst.

The village as a whole however was ecstatic. Much to the ire of the Hokage, a great festival commemorating the Kyuubi's death was put together. The third tried to arrest those involved but finding his jails full and the population of party goers barely dented he reluctantly let it go. Naruto's name was summarily added to the list on the memorial stone and her files sealed.

The only people who stayed calm through out all of this was, mysteriously, Ichiraku's Ramen stand. The restaurant had been steadily loosing business over the last three years due to Naruto's presence despite being well known in the village for the skill of it's cook. As such many of the more vindictive villagers make a private point to visit the stand in the time following the demon brats disappearance and eat a bowl or two in toast to Naruto's apparent death.

Luckily none of them ever went back past the bar of the establishment.

During all of this, Alex used the chaos of the situation to start insinuating herself into Kanohan society. Old paper was found, documents were forged and filed, items went missing, rooms behind the Hokage monument were dug and a new look was crafted.

And thus, Saotome Ranko was made ready to be born.

.o0OXO0o.

Darre alla Luce.

Standing guard duty at the gate was a singularly thankless task. Three eight hour shifts of pure and utter boredom. Honestly, what did it matter that a few chunin were at the massive double doors to the village? The occasional civilian going in and out was hardly worth notice and the sages maintaining the Yamanaka's chakra ward around the valley would long ago have alerted the village to anyone of importance nearing the 'hidden' village. In such an event a quartet of chunin would hardly be useful Nara Yuri reasoned. This was pointless, why had she put in the effort to become chunin if this was the reward?

Sighing, she cracked open an eye as the methodical crackle of a pair of shoes against dirt alerted her to the approach of another human. Opening her eyes she snorted at the sight that greeted her. Running toward them, and smiling a sickeningly cute smile was a little red hair girl. The child's long red hair was pulled back in an economic braid which whipped behind her back as her feet pattered quickly across the wide dirt path towards the gates. She wore a loose red button up shirt and black drawstring pants meant for a child several years her senior.

There were really only two thing that distinguished the girl any of the dozen or so other people who went through the gates every day. First, she was alone; and second, she was hugging a katana that was easily half again as tall as her. Yuri took a quick glance at the girls cheeks and seeing both a sprinkling of freckles and a distinct lack of whisker marks she brushed off the idea. It had been a month since Naruto's disappearance and had Yuri been a suspicious person the girls presence would have been setting off all sorts of red flags, but as it was she was tired and the kid was whiskerless.

Standing up she walked a few paces forward, her hands jammed in the pockets of her vest. She towered over the child as it came to a stop, staring up at her with a wide eyed smile. "Hey kid."

"Hiya! Are you a ninja?"

Raising an eyebrow at the question she replied. "Yes."

"Cool! The man said girls could be ninja!" she chirped. "I wanna be a ninja too! Can you teach me?"

"Where are your parents kid?" Yuri asked calmly, glancing at her fellow chunin.

"Bandits killed them…" the little girl replied quietly. "But a ninja man with blue hair saved me. So now I wanna be a ninja too!"

Yuri nodded. This wasn't too uncommon an occurrence, every academy class had at least one student with a similar story. Most of them didn't make it though, failing out of the academy and apprenticing themselves to local artisans. Running through a series of genjutsu dispelling techniques the young Nara made a decision. Another quick set of seals later and her shadow flowed out, expanding and pooling in front of her. The chibi stepped back, eyes wide as a photo negative of Yuri rose from the center of the darkness.

"My clone will take you to the admissions office. There's a program there to set you up with the essentials and get you into the academy but you'll need to find a job while you're here. As much as we support new additions to the village we aren't a charity and you aren't an employee until you graduate the academy. Don't worry though, admissions will help you with that too. Probably something simple like house cleaning or other chores too small for genin teams to break their teeth on."

As the girl and clone started walking off Yuri was struck by a sudden and unusual bout of curiosity. "Hey, kid." Both figures stopped and turned around. "What's your name?"

"Ranko." The little girl smiled. "Saotome Ranko."

.o0OXO0o.

Alex/Naruto/Ranko sat in the admissions office chewing absently on a matsuri. It was a lot better than s/he had expected, a lot like scallops but rubbery and significantly more salty. The taste aside it was the fact that s/he had gotten the deep-fried squid in the first place that was important. If Naruto's diary was correct she had never been able to buy a snack from the street vendors, even at the exorbitant increases those who normal serviced the girl had charged. Playing the cute orphan card was defiantly a skill Naruto had been denied and something s/he could easily get used to.

S/he snorted, take one not quite so faked death, add in a new visual style and sprinkle it with a different personality and it was amazing how much things changed. Then again, something similar a dozen or so times over the course of your standard high school graduating class. Still, s/he thought looking over the list of job openings, It was downright nerve wracking when people up and down the street had starred at him/her for several seconds on a sort of confused half recognition, as if they knew him/her but couldn't place where from.

Pausing mid-chew as her gaze settled on Ichiraku Ramen, Alex decided it didn't really matter. Until the ANBU arrested him/her s/he really had almost free reign on the village and honestly, with the way the old man did his best to dote on Naruto in the original comics it wasn't too likely the old goat would so suddenly break his/her cover like that when the reports danced by him. Proper and honorable treatment were after all what he had intended for the fourths child when he had explained the situation in the first place.

Reaching the end of the list Alex looked up and down the side quickly, focusing on the applications that had looked most interesting. The fund for orphan nin-candidates was fairly small, but it would set them up with housing in a small barracks or hole in the wall apartment, tutoring fees and basic food and amenities for a week after which they were expected to take on a small part time job to sustain themselves.

It seemed a little harsh to Alex but looking at the comics s/he could easily see why it might be like this. First, just like the chunin had told him/her at the gate, Konoha was not a charity despite, or perhaps in spite of, it's reputation for being considerably kinder than the other villages. Second, it would teach the children a useful trade in the event they didn't pass the academy. Something that was fairly common if most interpretations of Kakashi's ultimatum were to be believed. And finally, what did you do once you made it out of the academy? If the chunin exams arc was any indication few non clan nin made it past Genin and D rank missions couldn't possibly pay for everything; they were only chores after all.

Ichiraku ramen was apparently still offering him/her their support by putting out a call for a dishwasher. This had it's own advantages as it would provide easy access to their assorted ramen bowls and continue the rapport s/he was developing with Ayame.

The Kashiwagi shinobi foundries was another option. A small time weapons manufacturer, the Kashiwagi smith was a retired kenjutsu specialist who now made a living creating and repairing custom weapons for the villages more eclectic ninja. The add was asking for a forge hand to help with the bellows and other apprentice level smith duties. This would play well in to a few things s/he had planned for the future, such as a chakra-steel katana to replace the cheap one she had stolen while the village was still in a tizzy about his/her 'death'.

The Yamanaka flower shop was looking for and extra hand to keep their beds weeded and tend the counter on a regular basis. Perhaps not the most interesting job, but it would be useful in teaching him/her about useful herbs and give him/her a reason to interact with Ino outside of classmate status. Which would likely end up being very useful.

There was also a call for a bus girl at a small Yakatori s/he knew to be frequented by the Ino-Shika-Cho clans as well as a fair number of other nin. The gossip alone would be worth working there as it would keep him/her up to date on all goings on in the village as well as providing both ideas on techniques and tactics from listening to customers recount stories, and give a reason to associate with Shikamaru, Choji and, again, Ino.

Finally there was the Master Stroke ink shop. Your one stop shop for all things fuinjutsu, of so the manager claimed. They were currently looking for someone to mill herbs for ink, but it also afforded the promise of teaching said hire how to craft a variety of seals and the theory behind them. Every ninja chunin and over was beaten in with the basic of storage seals and basic explosive tags but things like security seals, medical fuin and summoning scrolls were something only learned by those who dedicated their time to the art. The literal possibility of being able to do anything with a couple of brush strokes had Alex salivating.

After nearly two and a half hours deliberation Alex decided on working for the ink shop. The current owner had moved in as an apprentice a year after the Kyuubi attack and held Naruto little animosity beyond distrust of the village pariah. According to Naruto's scroll she had only been there a few times but the man had made her uncomfortable by watching her like a hawk as she went about making her purchases. The prices the man had charged were the same as the ones on the labels but he had made a point to test her money for counterfeiting. A six year old, counterfeiting; honestly.

Walking up to the woman at the desk Alex hopped up on the stool she had been provided and informed the clerk of her selection. The woman smiled at her warmly and handed her a sheet of paper, walking her through filling out the form. Once done she told Alex to show up at the shop at noon the next day for an interview with the owner.

Accepting a key and marked map from the woman Alex left the office.

.o0OXO0o.

Seven months later.

'Ranko' sat in the back of the class room absently listening to the lecture on shinobi history and staring at Sasuke. Or perhaps more accurately, the ducks butt on the back of his head. It was strange how the boys hair managed to look like that even in real life, weren't such hair styles supposed to be impossible in reality? They'd never worked at the anime conventions without wires and copious amounts of gel…

Shaking herself the self named Saotome returned her thoughts to their original path. Sasuke. The boy was going to be a problem for her if things followed the pattern from the manga. They had turned 8 recently and in less than a year his elder brother was going to kill three of her classmates and nearly five hundred assorted ninja and civilians living under the Uchiha banner. She had actually been surprised by the sheer number of Uchiha in Kanoha once everything started to settle down enough for her to resume Naruto's earlier investigations. It really said a lot about how much of an impact Itachi and Madera's massacre was going to have on the village. Driving Sasuke to insanity aside, the Kanoha Military Police was staffed almost in it's totality by the clan, being followed distantly by the Hyuuga and Inuzuka.

The problem she decided wasn't how to stop it but rather how to fix the situation. She couldn't simply go to Itachi and try to argue thing with him, she had little doubt he had tried to do that himself against the councilors in the original timeline and it hadn't worked then either. She couldn't simply kill Sasuke either as much as that would simplify things; Itachi would, as in the manga, likely swear to return and kill the rest of the village if his brother met his fate early so that was out.

No, the best option would be to make sure the brat didn't break down unto a gibbering self-destructive mess. The question was how. Logically the best way to go about this would be to stop Sasuke from witnessing his parents deaths but there in lay the question, had he witnessed them in the first place? Sure Itachi had shown him their deaths in a recurring loop until it drove the boy insane but none of the fans had ever been able to agree on whether or not he had actually witnessed it. If that was the catalyst for the timeline it would be a simple matter to brain the boy on his way home that night and hide him till Itachi left, but if the older boy had killed everyone first and then shown Sasuke the memory there was really little chance of changing things there.

"the shame of a parents scolding can hardly compare to the pain of being alone" The words from the manga ran through Ranko's head and she considered them carefully. As he sat now Sasuke had been a fairly friendly boy, and appeared to make friends easily. He'd been pleasant when she approached him but offered little interest otherwise, already obsessed with the dream of being a ninja and rushing off to rescue princesses and hunt bandits with his older brother. Loud, obnoxious, friendly and only slightly superior in attitude. All in all a normal kid from a well off family, albeit one whose family business revolved around magic and killing people.

Being alone. Those were his words, the pain of being alone. The words tumbled through her mind like lessons on chakra as Ranko examined them from all angles. If she couldn't stop the massacre or kill the spore then the next best thing to get rid of him would be to give him something to balance out the soulless monster he would eventually become. If he sought power to quiet the loneliness and further his quest for vengeance the most logical path would be to make sure he couldn't be lonely. The question was how to go about it. While her story of being orphaned by bandits would likely help her get close to the boy Ranko shuddered at the thought of becoming any sort of a focus for the once and possibly future sociopath.

The best possibility would be to save several Uchiha from the district prior to the attack. But who? Stealing an Uchiha was simple enough, like the Inuzuka, Hyuuga and other large clans there lay a minimum of one in each of the academies six grade levels. The twins Han and Chiba in their class along with Sasuke, Megumi in the class ahead of them, Jiro, Nami and Kuzuki in the next class up and a few others she didn't know the name of along with several dozen each genin and chunin that she'd noticed wandering around the clans district.

Kidnapping a person was hardly difficult, even for someone of her light frame. All she really head to do was hide in a shadow and brain them with a frying pan when their guard was down. Ninja danger sense was based on intent and without a will to kill it wouldn't be triggered leaving her free to bash their unprotected heads in. After all, an unguarded ninja meant one that had no reason to use one of those ridiculous durability spells they were so fond of.

Her course now decided the problem became keeping the theft from being noticed and reacted to which was something else entirely. Closing her eyes and concentrating Ranko reviewed the episode details. Itachi had attacked on the night of a harvest moon several months after Sasuke's 8th birthday. Sasuke had had school that day and came home late from playing with his kunai at Itachi's personal range. She had no idea where that was though. Moving on, the morning of the attack Itachi had had a loud argument with his father, showing rare and explosive emotion about something or other. A focus of the episode had been when he'd nearly shattered the wall outside his house with a single kunai. That was good, it would give her a time for reference. The exact timing of the battle was vague but it was generally agreed that it had begun some time around dusk so she'd either need to have her selections gone by then or be ready to move fast.

Who to save then? …A parent? No, Itachi had made a point to kill both his parents specifically and honestly she had no interest in saving Fugaku, he was even worse than Hiashi's public face. Mikoto, possibly, but again as one of the weasels prime targets it seemed a little too risky. Who could she take without him coming back to kill them?

"SAOTOME!" Ranko twitched in surprise to see the teacher, Mr. Tenou glaring at her through the big demonic head genjutsu the academy instructors were want to use. "If this lesson is so truly boring to you that you'd prefer to stare at young Sasuke all day then perhaps you could come up here and demonstrate the proper use of the transformation spell." Growling deep in her throat at being interrupted, Ranko immediately applied her mask and bounced to the front of the class. Standing in front of the instructor bouncing on the balls of her feet she looked up at him expectantly. "Turn into an important historical figure of the shinobi world and explain their significance." The Chunin commanded.

Closing her eyes Ranko concentrated, remembering the lessons earlier that year where she had been immediately advanced through two years of classes to Narutos old seat and grinned and idea forming. Meditate, calm your mind and look within yourself the instructor had told her, flaring his own chakra. Search for this feeling, feel it circling, twisting in your gut and becoming something more. For most children it had taken the better part of a year after learning proper meditation and searching for the same feeling as the glowing teacher gave off within themselves. For most it was like dragging two dogs toward each other and tying their leashes together as they struggled first to find and then bind together the energies of chi and rei to create chakra; for her it had been like a release. The chakra was already there, waiting for her to open up and remove the pressure. Though the thought always made her blush it honestly felt like taking a piss after holding it all day.

Her power accessed she began to focus it as they had been taught last month. Forming a picture in her mind and seals with her hands she bent the chakra till it wrapped around her snapping into place and warped her flesh to mach her will. Opening her yellow slit-pupiled eyes Ranko gazed out at the class from a higher perspective and grinned. Before the class a rough facsimile of Orochimaru bounced and waved to the class happily. "Hi!" she chirped, her voice not having changed as she had been unsure what it should sound like. "My name is Orochimaru, and I like snakes! I'm the third member of the densetsu no sannin and a hero of the Third Great Shinobi War!" The teacher spluttered at this causing 'Orochimarus' grin to widen further. "Despite being the most powerful and skilled ninja in Konoha I'm a jealous, narcissistic pedophile and sociopath obsessed with the idea of immortality. After losing my seat as Hokage to Minaito Namikaze I began openly kidnapping and experimenting on leaf citizens until I was driven from the village by Hiruzen Sarutobi. I am currently at large and likely seeking revenge on Konoha with a price of nearly 830 million Yen on my head. If you see me you are ordered to flee on sight and contact the nearest fire nation authorities. OUCH!"

"How do you know all that brat! Half of that info is an A class secret!"

Ranko pouted, her polymorph having been dispelled with the strike. "No it's not!" she shot back, petulantly, knowing it probably was. "It was all in that picture book the blue hair ninja who saved me had! And why is it called a bingo book anyways? You can't play bingo on it, there's no board or numbers!"

Tenou Hiro pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed to Kami for patience. "Go back to your seat." he ground out finally. "As punishment for goofing off in class I expect a six page essay on the Third Great Shinobi War on my desk by the end of the week." Ranko walked back to her seat with a slight frown of annoyance, the essay would put a crimp in her schedule for the next few days which was really a pity since she had finally finished excavating the service tunnels to her grotto and she'd been looking forward to lounging in her new shower for a few hours tonight.

The distraction of class successfully averted Ranko resumed her musings. It would have to be children she decided finally. For starters they were easier to kidnap, she mused floating a leaf in an orbit around her upright hand. They were smaller, lighter, unobservant, naive and easily susceptible to unconsciousness with a minimal amount of material or effort. For another thing they were the most likely target to survive not if but rather when Itachi heard that there was more than his little brother. Despite his slaughter of the children in his clan most of Itachi's cameo appearances had shown him denouncing the killing of children and the elderly if only because it was beneath a ninja to do so. Sort of ironic really but whatever worked.

Ranko smiled as her targets were selected and added a several twigs to the leaf floating trick and extended it down and around the rest of her arm. This was going to be interesting.

.o0OXO0o.

Ranko walked into Ichiraku's ramen stand a breathed in deeply. Smiling she made her way up to the bar. Sitting down she curiously noted both the larger clientele and new girl behind the bar. Tilting her head to the side she was startled by when Ayame popped up beside her and asked for her order, an impish grin on her face. "The usual, Ayame-chan." She murmured smiling. "Who's the new kid?"

Ayame frowned and passed a slight glare to her friend. "Finally noticed her huh? Her name's Fumi, since you didn't take our offer and we've honestly been needing an extra pair of hands around here since you death we hired her." she said gesturing to the cute black haired girl. Ranko'd have sworn she was a Hyuuga if it weren't for her eyes, they were normal with dark black iris's instead of the solid Hyuuga white. Noting her friends questioning look Ayame continued. "She was a street rat like you, only considerably better off. Got by off being cute and scamming vendors out of their wares, I think that's how she got pops to hire her." Pausing significantly she looked Ranko square in the eyes and spoke again before hurrying off to fill out the girls order and get back to work. "We've set her up in the spare room."

Ayame's words held Ranko still and unresponsive until her ramen arrived. The spare room had been something of a prominent figure in Naruto's journals as a place she'd felt safe and had been used often by the family to help her escape various tormenters before the reboot. Since then it had literally been her home while she was building the hideout behind the fourths head. To have it occupied by another in a seemingly permanent manner shook Ranko far more that she'd consciously admit.

She was broken from her reverie by the first of four bowls being gently placed before her. "Shrimp broth with all the toppings. And papa says thanks for the chestnuts, they've been a hit this week." Ranma smiled her thanks and handed over the yen for the bowl and the three that would follow it before digging in. Unlike what many read in the fan-fictions and anime, traditional ramen stands were actually a fairly healthy place to eat. Heavy carb noodles and salty broth there was aplenty of course but even a simple miso ramen from the stands had dropped egg, broccoli and a few strips of pork at minimum, a standard bowl with all the toppings was something else entirely. Watercress, chestnuts, broccoli, bamboo shoots, fish, shrimp, naruto, pork and beef swam through seaweed soba and a literal pad of ramen noodles and was well on it's way to being a full course meal in of itself. Sure the salt intake could be a little taxing on your system after a while but damn if it didn't taste good.

Ranko continued eating her meal and occasionally making conversation with Ayame when she had a moment and Teuchi when the man personally delivered her final bowl. It felt nice to have the care so openly. Evening settled and her meal finished Ranko got up and bid the Ichiraku's good night. Despite this however she would not be going to bed for quite some time, she had a job to do.

Returning to her afternoon residence, otherwise known as 'The Master Stroke' inking, tattooing and engraving shop run by Mr Tofu Ono. It was Ranko's humble opinion hilarious and running across the name in Naruto's journal had been the original inspiration in naming herself Ranko. She had briefly considered Kasumi but that had felt too creepy to remain amusing for long as the man was nearly 20 years her senior and she had no intention of marrying any man, let alone one that far removed from her.

Walking up to her desk where she ground inks and occasionally helped draw some of the simpler seals Ranko drew out a very special pair she had traced from master Ono's book before filling it in. Both of them were storage seals but that was where the similarities ended. The first one already held within it a kanji for the word scroll and indeed contained within its basic matrix a large specially prepared scroll enchanted to burn in a specific pattern to copy a targeted section of text, almost like a laser printer. It had cost her nearly two weeks wages but oh would it be worth it. She'd already tested it out on Naruto's diary and the thing worked exactly as master Ono had promised.

The other was a seal meant to consume and store large amounts of chakra for commercial transport. Apparently while Ninja were the only ones to use jutsu in battle, chakra was hardly limited to them and, often enough, was used in civilian life. Since there were no electrical power plants in Kanoha or anywhere else in Naruto verse as far as she had read the presence of computer systems, and indeed the entire strange blend of futuristic and feudal technology, made a lot more sense as chakra based mechanics. Working under Ono-sensei had only served to enforce this lesson as she learned that Fuinjutsu was used for everything from specialized genetic manufacture to washing machines in this world. Once she had known where to look the markings were practically inescapable.

This set of seals in particular was meant for those in the business of supplying the world with power. When applied to the back the paper would sense the bodies chakra capacity and set about leaching their chakra within a set of parameters and storing it in a capacitor array. Hers was set to take away anything over 600 units of chakra which was, coincidentally, the standard for a mid level chunin.

The fact that the Hokage tower was literally filled with dozens of chunin rushing in and out at all hours on a minute to minute basis had absolutely nothing to do with this decision. Nope, not at all.

Peeling off the back cover of the seal and revealing the adhesive, Ranko applied the seal carefully to her back and stiffened, hissing with discomfort as her chakra was cut down to a seventh of what she was used to. Damn she felt tired. Straightening back up she unsealed the copy scroll and inspected it briefly before resealing it and tucking it away in her shirt. Transforming into a nondescript sixteen year old boy in a chunin vest she quickly joined the flow of people in and out of the Hokage tower. Once inside she quickly found a restroom and transformed again into this time becoming a rat. Applying a second chakra suppressing seal to her right breast over her heart she clawed her way up into the vents and began moving.

It was a seriously overcomplicated and spy-movie-esque plot, she knew, but personally Ranko blamed Iruka. It had been the recently promoted chunins first week and the new traps and chakra theory instructor had decided to take the class on a sanctioned tour of the Tower taking the time to explain the basics of security seals and why people would have to be honestly stupid to try and rob the place. It was impressive to say the least but there were two obvious holes in Irukas explanation. As he had explained it there were two type of security jutsu, most of which revolved around fuinjutsu. The first and most common was a chakra sensing matrix that was based around threshold capacities to determine if the target was to be allowed to pass or submit to an IFF scan first. The second was a chakra lock, or matrix specifically keyed to one or more signatures that would unload on anyone who didn't fit the programmed entries. Thing was you had to emit a certain amount of chakra to trigger them in the first place and emitting too much could cause them to overload. The former flaw was so the jutsu wouldn't waste a charge on vermin and the latter had been an outright security hazard and was the reason the blond idiot had been able to get the scroll in the first place.

Ranko had decided to take the form of vermin instead of taking the originals method of infiltration for several reasons. First, while overloading the seals would cause them to become confused or break down it would also serve to make the old man curious and that would be the end of her precious freedom. Second her standard chakra signature was enormous what with the lack of control leaking it all over the place and the Kyuubi keeping her just below the point of overload all the time, if she just walked in someone would be sure to recognize her layered disguises or not. Finally there was Mizuki himself and the role he had played in the blond analogues seizure of the scroll in the first place. All panels had shown the place being nearly empty and Ranko knew from frequent surveillance and Narutos own journals that the place was packed regardless the time of day or night, only emptying to a skeleton staff during festivals. The man had to have helped, a lot. Working this way she should be able to avoid all those pitfalls including the possibility the scroll was enchanted to sound an alarm if removed from the room.

Briefly poking herself out of an air duct, Ranko hung there by her tail for several seconds before pulled herself back unto the duct and unsealing the utility schematics she had pilfered last week from records and nodded in satisfaction. The scroll rooms had to be kept at a specific temperature and humidity to preserved the often decaying ledgers they hid so the ducting system was constantly in a state of maintenance making plans easy to find.

Falling into the room Ranko transformed in the air and laded in a silent crouch. Then with the barest whisper of noise she began seeking her target. After nearly half an hour and four duct trips later she found it. The thing was massive, unmarked and honestly unremarkable from the outside. It's security followed the same pattern being incredibly simple, but all the more elegant for it's simplicity. Two strings of chakra bound it, one to the wall and another closed. Instead of being secured to the wall by the chakra, the ribbon of energy connected to a simple claxon on the other side of the room. Any attempt to break it would sound the alarm and it would only move far enough to be rolled out on the floor. The string binding it was similar, only allowing three feet of viewing before it broke and would also serve to sound the alarm. Since most techniques took up six feet of text and drawings it was honestly brilliant.

But not brilliant enough.

Unsealing the copy scroll Ranko pulled out the printing markers and began carefully using the academy leaf exercises to un and reroll the scroll of forbidden techniques. Reaching shadow clones in the first few techniques she began placing the markers along the border of the target area. Once finished she removed her chakra suppressor and activated the scroll. Seconds later chakra flowed across both scrolls feeling the marked area and burning the image it found onto the prepared surface. Grinning Ranko again hid her chakra and continued on reading technique names and introductory descriptions, occasionally copying one here and there. She paused shortly on an acid technique that could be directed by the users chakra and burn through any known substance before shuddering and moving on when she read it's tendency to fatally disfigure the nin excreting it.

She scrolled on for several minutes shuddering on occasion at the particulars of why one technique or another had been forbidden. More often than not the technique was either half finished before the poor fool who made it tried to use it to disastrous results or the thing took too much control for any standard nin to use and thus an extremely useful technique would go to waste. Several of them, Shadow clones in particular, were simply too draining for anyone other than an elite joinin to use successfully. Then there were the suicide techniques. Ranko grinned at those and copied a few of them down. Combined with shadow clones they'd be a blast. Literally.

Ranko grinned viciously thinking of all the possibilities.

Reaching the end of the scroll twenty minutes she placed her hands on the two nearly even rolls of paper and rolled it back to the beginning with incredible speed. Carefully replacing the scroll in it's slot she rerolled her own scroll and sealed it into it's small carrier seal. Feeling a sudden rush of paranoia Ranko slowly retraced her steps, carefully wiping down everything she remembered touching and thanking Kami the dust in the place was regularly cleaned out. Once satisfied everything that could identify her visit had been removed Ranko henge'd into a crow and flew off, taking extra effort to look like the other birds of the village before heading for her hideout in the Hokage monument.

.o0OXO0o.

As Ranko winged her way back to the fourths head a masked face tracked her progress and smirked. This had certainly been an interesting development. A rush of wind disturbed the figures cloak and the scenery changed from the villages rooftops to a dimly lit wood paneled office. Scrolls and paper were piled everywhere interspersed with random pieces of weaponry, armor and other assorted items. In brief it was organized chaos.

"Tora-chan." A voice, deep with age emanated from the chair back in front of her.

"Hai, Hokage sama."

"You have something to report?" hearing a sound of affirmation the wizened old man in the chair continued. "So how is our little infiltrator? Still mapping the village I suppose?"

"No, Hokage sama. Something far more interesting. I have reason to believe she might be home grown."

"Oh?" the 'professor' said, turning around to face the tiger masked ANBU. "Do tell… Smoke then? Our sister village has been making noise recently about how we don't share enough information with them."

"Negative. I've been following her nonstop for the last 36 hours Hokage sama, she really is just a kid, though an unusually intelligent and innovative one. She managed to use a pair of commercial fuinjutsu and an academy level transformation technique to enter the high security rooms below us and steal several dozen B through S class forbidden techniques including shadow clones, hive mind and several explosive suicide techniques. I watched her work, sir, If you didn't already have me following her I don't think we'd have ever known."

Hiruzen stared out the window for several long moments before replying. "You've absolutely certain she is indeed a child, she shows herself capable of breaking through our high security archives and then proceeds to ignore everything but a collection of jutsu specifically forbidden because they were too dangerous for general use, even by our elites jounin. The more my ANBU tell me about her Tora-chan the more it sounds like Smoke trying to make a point. I assume you'll be beating Ikoku down in bulding security over the head with this report."

"Yes, Hokage sama, but that's not what I found interesting. My study of the target has given me reason to believe that Uzukami Naruto still lives."

.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.o0OXO0o.

For those who could stomach my story to this point, how was that for a cliffy?

No before you hang me and the rare species know as the reviewer flames me I'll explain my take on the ever going battle over Naruto's henge. My take on it is that it's a ninjutsu like any other and is a weaker, if more versatile, version of the Inuzuka's beast clone and beast mimicry spell. Like Polymorph from WarCraft and other RTS and MMO's centering around magic it literally changes the shape of your body and allows the user the physical atributes of the form taken but dispels when the form takes damage, such as a kunai or Sakura's bone shattering punches. I personally find there's too much evidence of the change being physical in the manga, even without reading it's pilot, to go the illusion route.