Edit 2/3/2015 - Fixed a typo

Hello everyone, it's acw28 here welcoming you to my new story.

So before I begin, I got to give a little back story. So, this is one of stories that has been in my head for a while. After I saw the Okami crossovers and then read a story where Kyubi was actually Naruto's mom, I got the inspiration for a story where Ammy was Naruto's mom, but I didn't really develop it. A little while later, I read a story that actually had this idea! Now don't worry, I'm not copying anyone's work, from what I remember about the story the author used a lot of original ideas while I'm here to blend and put my own spin on the elements of Okami, Okamiden, and Naruto. However, if anyone could tell me the title and the author of the fic I mentioned, please tell me so that I can give credit where credit is due.

Yeah, so now that that's out of the way, let's get on with the show.

Disclaimer: Okami was one of the best games on the PlayStation 2, Okamiden was a great game on the Nintendo DS, and Naruto was a great manga/anime. I own copies of the first two, but I don't own the rights to any, they belong to their respective owners.

On the Celestial Plain looking down upon the land of Nippon, a white wolf with red markings and a spinning disk on her back watched over the residents of Kamiki village, where Susano defeated and drove back some minor green imps. This confused the wolf, who in reality was the sun goddess Amaterasu. She had defeated Yami and had purged the lands of evil. So then why, she asked herself, did the imps and other creatures stay?

Shaking her head, the wolf goddess let her mind wonder over the events of her adventure. Of how she regained all of the brush powers, of defeated the likes of the Spider Queen, Crimson Helm, and Orchi. When she remembered her battle against the Ninetails, she also remembered some events that happened long before her great quest.

What many assumed was that she was the reincarnation of Shiranui, but this was false. Shiranui was actually her father. She remembered how when she was young she watched her dad leave their home. She found out he'd died saving a human's life a few days later from her caretaker. It was for that reason that she was both shocked and happy when she fought alongside him, and became heartbroken when he willingly returned to the past despite his wounds, saying that he was proud of her. Imagine her surprised when while she and Waka were clearing the demons on the Celestial Plain that she found her father resting in a cave. Sure, he had lost much of his power after reforming, but he was alive and that is what was important. After the two wolves were reunited, Amaterasu often visited her father. As happy as she was, her memories were focused on what happened in her life in the time between her father's "death" and when she was summoned by Sakuya.

After over half a century of inactivity, Amaterasu grew bored and decided to take a small break. Sending her soul to what she believed to be another world, she found a pregnant redhead women, but noticed a problem. As one of the Kami of life, Amaterasu could sense that the child the woman carried was soon to pass. The wolf goddess knew that the woman would be extremely saddened by this and made a snap decision. Acting quickly, the goddess saw to it that the child's soul would go to the afterlife, will she rushed in to take it's place. Sometime later she was born in this new body and given a name, Kushina.

For 24 years she had livid in that world. In that time she had enjoyed her childhood, then entrusted to protect the world by acting as a jailor for an ancient evil nine-tailed fox. She rose to the challenge, joining the world's ninja system to help others, advancing to the ANBU division. She even fell in love, with a boy who she first thought to be rather girly, Minato Namikaze. She was even going to have a kid with this man.

This all changed in the space of one night. Right after she had given birth to her son, a masked man had abducted her and released the Kyubi. Shortly afterwards Minato had battled and defeated this villain and returned her to her son's side. She didn't know how long she stayed there, just thankful to have some peace in her final moments. Then Minato came back, heavily injured, he teleported both her and her son to where he had the fox trapped. With a heavy heart he explained how he needed to seal the fox in Naruto to save the village. Kushina, as she thought of herself being use to the name, heavily objected to this, not wanting her son to have an unhappy future. Being the diplomat that he was, Minato was able to convince her of his plan, citing how their son would be a hero, he would have the previous Hokage, their friends, and their students to look after him, and how it would be like when she had the fox, no one would know of what he contained. The straw that broke Kushina's resolve was when Minato explained how he would seal a part of their souls as well, so that their son could at least meet them.

This was not to be. Minato had just completed the ritual to seal away the fox but had yet to seal both of seal their souls when the Kyubi landed one last blow, ripping Minato's heart out and disrupting the ritual. Seeing this, Kushina screamed out in sadness and in rage, then saw darkness as her body expired from having the demon forced out of her. When she opened her eyes again, she was greeted by two white paws. Knowing she was once more in her original body, Amaterasu gave a long howl for the loss of the love of her immortal life and for having to leave her child behind.

Returning back to the present, the Sun goddess suddenly felt tired. As she laid her head back down for another nap, she had one last thought of the past, 'I wonder how my little maelstrom is doing.'

Looking over the Land of Waves from the cliff top, Naruto strangely felt at peace. It had been a few days since the battle on the bridge. Even though he had arrived late, Naruto was finally given a chance to show how much he had grown since he entered the academy. In the course of the fight, him and Sasuke had gotten trapped within the jutsu of the fake hunter-nin. While the duo was surrounded in the dome of ice mirrors, they had been constantly assaulted by the imposter with senbon needles. During the fight, Sasuke had awoken his sharingan, but that did little to stop the enemies attacks. When Naruto saw that the next attack would be fatal, he quickly pushed the Uchiha to the ground. The impact may have knocked him out, but it saved Sasuke's life.

Seeing how the life of the person he believed to be his friend was almost cut short, Naruto became enraged and tapped into a power he had felt once before. With strength that even surprised him, he punched straight through one of the ice mirriors, ejecting the false hunter-nin as well. It was then that Naruto discovered a horrible truth, his opponent was the boy from yesterday that he had befriended, Haku. After a brief talk and explanation as to why he served Zabuza, Naruto moved to knock the ice-user out, only for the boy to stop the attack and summon another ice mirrior. When the mist cleared, Naruto saw why as his friend had intercepted an attack to save the life of his master.

Once Gato had come and showed his true colors, Naruto was able to tell, well more like yell, how much the Zabuza had meant to Haku, convincing the man to leave life having done one good deed. Using a borrowed kunai, the man charged Gato's private army, taking an uncountable number of strikes but giving as good as he got. In the end, the man finished his massacre with the corrupt businessman, his body giving out soon after he made his last request to be buried next to the boy who had so faithfully served him in life.

And so here Naruto stood, in front of the graves he, his sensei, and the townsfolk had dug last week. Reflecting over what Haku said, Naruto decided that he would also do his best to protect those precious to him so that he would not have to lose another friend. Looking over the Land of Waves, the boy also thought of what the future would hold for the tiny village. He could see the bridge from here, there was perhaps a half a week of work left before it connected to the mainland. Soon after that tiny villages economy would boom with new merchandise become available for cheaper prices and more capital coming in from visitors from other nations. The bridge would soon pay for itself, the newly constructed space could be rented out to travelling merchants to sell their wares. Smiling, the boy went back to practicing the tree walking excursive.

Sasuke Uchiha was pissed. He was currently walking in what could be considered the down town of this small village. The topic of every conversation he heard was about that blond idiot of a teammate of his. All he heard was, "That Naruto kid must be something else.", "He must be the strongest shinobi of his generation.", "He single handedly saved this village and inspired us." It wasn't fair, he was the last Uchiha, he should be the one getting this praise, not the dead last. If that idiot had not shoveled him causing him to get knocked out he would have beat that hunter-nin wannabe and then killed the missing-nin himself. It wasn't just the praise that should be his, the dead last also occupied his sensei's time, time that could be spent making sure he, the last loyal Uchiha, got stronger than everyone else.

Looking up, Sasuke noted that he had wondered in front of the villages new deliver office. He suddenly remembered what that old creep Danzo had said, "If your teammates cause you any trouble, just let me know." Sasuke smirked as he walked in the building and was asked how he could be helped. The genin only asked, "How fast could you get a message to Konoha?"

Naruto waved to the gathered villagers as he and Team Seven left the Land of Waves. Besides the occasional bandit that used to be part of Gato's payroll, the past week had been rather easy. Walking away, it seemed like everyone was in a good mood, the people of Waves would soon get back on their feet once they found Gato's hide out and reclaimed their money, Kakashi was once more left in peace to read his Icha Icha, Sakura was happy "her" Sasuke was fully healed, and Naruto was happy to have helped so many people. Even Sasuke had a smile, but Naruto didn't know why.

Despite the fact that he was walking away from so many people praising him and back to the half concealed glares, Naruto was excited to get back to Konoha. While he may not have always been treated that great, it was still his home. He couldn't wait to tell Old Man Hokage and the Ichirakus about how awesome he did during the mission. He was unaware that to his right Sasuke had a different reason for being excited to get home.

'Just you wait dead last, you'll be in for a surprise when we get home.'

The Hokage's Office

Hiruzen Sarutobi was doing his duty as the Third Hokage, namely protecting his shinobi and villagers from the menace known as paperwork. He was perplexed as to the amount he had to fill out everyday, he knew that his sensei didn't have to fill out mission payment forms in triplicate, and he didn't remember having to sign off on so many civilian exclusive issues, such as the standard degree a cup of coffee must be served at. In his mind, the aged man had come to two conclusions, either his successor had instituted these changes so he could have better oversight of the village (if that was the case how did he stay up to date with all of the paper work?) or someone was trying to keep him in his office and away from people as long as possible.

These thoughts were put to a stop when two of his old teammates and current advisors walked into his office. Homura Mitokado was a grey haired beard man who wore green glasses, a dark blue robe, a yellow jacket and a white scarf. Koharu Utatane was a woman whose hair had also turned grey with time, although she preferred to keep it pinned up. The woman also had some colored pearl earrings and wore a grey kimono and a green jacket. Both took a seat in front of the desk with Koharu saying, "We have a problem."

"If it is the amount of daily paperwork I must do I am already aware of it. Really why must I fill out the same form three separate times?"

Bothe advisors looked stunned by the Hokage's statement. "Hiruzen," Koharu began, "we don't mean to tell you how to do your job, it was obvious since the beginning that Tobirmara-sensei was grooming you to take over the position, but you only need to fill out one copy of any form to submit to the records. It has always been this way, Minato actually made the process more efficient, though we don't know how."

"So you mean to tell me," Hiruzen began, "that I have spent the past twelve years doing two-thirds more work then I needed to?"

"It would appear so," Homura said before he asked, "why would you even do it that way, don't you remember the system from when you where in office the first time?"

"It was how it was presented to my when I took office again and I didn't question it, I had more important things to worry about. One thing is for sure, at the next council meeting I'm announcing a paperwork reform. Was there anything else you two needed from me?"

In reply, Koharu pulled out a sheet of paper, "We were able to intercept this before it went to one of Danzo's puppets on the civilian side." The Hokage quickly looked over the paper before saying, "None of this could be true, all three of us know that Naruto would never do any of these things."

"We know that, but the civilians only see the fox." was Homura's reply, "They will believe every word of what is said, that Naruto willingly endangered Sasuke's life during a confrontation with the enemy and helped inflict damage upon him by using the Uchiha as a human shield."

"Where would Danzo even get the information to make these claims, Team Seven is currently on a C-ranked escort mission."

"We had a few of our agents within Root look through Danzo's messages. It would appear that the mission was more dangerous as the client withheld some crucial information, namely Gato of Gato shipping put a hit out on him." Homura began.

Koharu continued, "It is true that there was multiple confrontations with enemy shinobi, and that Sasuke had been injured. It was after the fact that Sasuke was able to send word to Danzo of the encounter, giving him enough information to craft a story to place the blame on young Uzumaki."

"Why must Danzo continue to be an issue I have to deal with almost daily?" Hiruzen questioned himself. However, Koharu decided to answer, "We all know why, he wants your title for himself. The man has continued to discreetly defy your orders since you took back the hat. We don't have the proof, but we know that he was the one who leaked Naruto's status to the rest of the villagers who saw an opportunity to take revenge against what the Kyubi had done. We know that he was the one who forced Itachi's hand, admittedly once negotiations between us and the Uchiha had broken down we were in favor of assassinating those leading the coup, but Danzo forced Itachi to kill the innocent ones as well."

"And it seemed that he has continued to play the situation to his advantage," Homura continued, "He helped elevate Sasuke's status in the village and, if this message is anything to go by, has offered to help take care of any problems the Uchiha brat encounters."

"This is indeed troubling," Hiruzen began, "it seems that we have ignored Danzo too much recently. We will have to watch him closer and wait for him to slip up. While we wait, we need to solve our current problem first. These accusations could end Naruto's shinobi career, even if they don't they will leave the boy without any financial resources just defending himself."

The three elders where silent for a few minutes while think of a way to save the career of a young man. During this time, Koharu once more looked over Danzo's prepared speech and found the solution.

"Here it is," she declared, "Danzo is going to state that Naruto could not be trusted to be around the Uchiha again. Including himself Danzo only has three guaranteed votes on the civilian side. We are lucky in the fact that most of the civilians that were elected generally follow what the shinobi side want. The only way for Danzo to ensure his vote passes would be to appeal to the Uchiha worshipers. If we switch Naruto or Sasuke to a different squad then the rest of the civilians will be satisfied."

"That could work," Homura said, "but on what basis could we justify switching Naruto with a genin from a different squad? We can't switch Sasuke, the message said he awoke the sharingan so we have to keep Kakashi as his sensei."

Hiruzen gained a thoughtful expression before calling to his secretary, "Could you please bring me all of the assignments and tests that genin Uzumaki completed during his time at the academy?"

Over the next hour and a half, the Hokage and his advisors looked over the school work.

"This is terrible," Koharu stated, "some of his sensei's overrode the scantron and marked correct answers as wrong."

"I have worse," Homura countered, "this is his written test from his first attempt at the genin test, it seems he actually knew enough to pass even without the clone jutsu, his examiner erased almost every single answer, giving him a score of 5."

All of a sudden, the advisors felt a great amount of killer intent radiate from the Hokage. "This is absolutely unacceptable!" the leader yelled, "This is a five page essay the boy wrote on application of the academy to real life scenarios. He states how flawed some of the classes are and how to improve them, we might actually want to take these suggestions. He also didn't just limit himself to the curriculum, he notes how sneaking out of class and pranking has helped him develop his stealth and trap making skills. The grader only gave him a 3 percent, saying his comments were unneeded, that he did not answer the question, and that the academy is perfect the way it is."

After both elders read the essay, Homura asked, "Who graded this? Obviously they are going to be fired."

Koharu laughed and said, "Don't worry about firing the idiot Homura, Mizuki was the one who wrote these comments."

Sighing, Hiruzen stated, "It seems that every instructor except Iruka willingly underscored Naruto. I wonder where he would be placed if they did not have any bias."

"Based on what I have seen," Homura stated, "the boy is actually quite intelligent, being in the upper 5 percent of his class."

An idea struck the Hokage as he asked, "If we were to account for Naruto's movement in class ranking, who would have been the dead last?"

Looking over the class roaster and genin teams, Homura said, "Some no name civilian who failed his true test. I see where you're going with this though, so how could we justify swapping out Naruto with someone in Squad Eight? We can't use Squad Nine as they are a year his senior and Squad Ten is this generation's Ino-Shika-Cho trio."

"Well," Koharu began, "Kurenai requested her genin so that she could make a tracking squad. While an intriguing idea, this overspecialization leads the team vulnerable to front line units. Giving the team a heavy hitter like Naruto would remedy this problem, he could also create a trap for a target the team had identified."

"This is all true, but we still have one problem." Hiruzen said. "It has been over a month since the genin graduation. Kurenai will not like the fact that we are messing with her team and may accuse us of showing favoritism to Naruto."

"Except," Koharu countered, "Naruto was suppose to be on Kurenai's squad since the beginning. After the jonin left you realized the problem and quickly corrected the teams with Kakashi the only jonin sensei who knew since he arrived late. You entrusted us to give the corrected list to Iruka, but we mistakenly gave him the wrong list."

Smiling, Hiruzen said, "This plan just might work."

Team Seven had made it back to the village faster than they had when they left it as they didn't have to travel at civilian speed. Each member was glad to be back for a different reason. Kakashi wanted to buy the new Icha Icha that came out while he was on the mission, Sakura wanted to see her parents again, Naruto wanted to enjoy Ichiraku ramen, and Sasuke wanted to learn more jutsus. The squad quickly made it the Hokage tower where Kakashi gave the mission report, including how the mission rank should be upgraded to A.

"Genin Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke, is this report accurate?"

All three replied with, "Yes Hokage-sama." Well Sakura and Sasuke did while Naruto said, "Sure is Old Man."

Sighing, the Hokage said, "I'll be sure to note the change in mission rank and pay. Kakashi, next time the situation becomes more dangerous, send for backup."

"I will Hokage-sama, it was a stupid mistake on my part, one that won't happen again."

"Alright. Sasuke and Sakura you two are dismissed. Kakashi and Naruto, please stay here for a moment."

After his teammates had left, Naruto asked, "So what do you want with us Old Man?"

"Naruto show some respect to the Hokage." Kakashi lazily chastised.

Laughing slightly, Hiruzen said, "No, no it's quite alright. But I'm afraid I have a serious matter to discuss with you two." When he was done speaking, Hiruzen showed the pair a copy of Danzo's planned speech. Naruto went deathly white as he said, "Old Man, you know I would never do that, why would anyone say this?"

Sighing, Hiruzen told the boy, "It would seem that Sasuke wrote to a member of the village council while your team was still in Wave, giving them enough information to craft a story so you would be arrested and kicked out of the shinobi forces."

"That Bastard!" Naruto yelled. "After I save his life this is how he thanks me, by accusing me of purposefully putting him in danger! If he thinks that I'm just going to take this he has another things coming."

"Naruto calm down and think rationally." The Hokage ordered. "It is true, you can fight this accusation, but you would do more harm than good. You would have to appear before a court and plead your case, meaning you would need to hire a legal representative. There is also the fact that we do not know how long the case could go on for, it could end the week it starts or in five years. In that amount of time you would have to continue to pay your lawyer, draining you of finical resources. You do have some money to your name, but Sasuke inherited the fortune of an entire clan. He can afford to throw away some of his money, you cannot."

The office was silent as Naruto digested what the Hokage had told him. The only witnesses to the fight against Haku was himself and Sasuke. If Naruto took the case to court, even if it was a shinobi court, there was sure to be some people that would believe Sasuke no matter in hopes of gaining the Uchiha's favor. Seeing that there was no other choice, Naruto asked, "So how does just nodding my head make me able to keep my shinobi license?"

Smiling slightly, Hiruzen said, "Well Naruto, it appears you were not supposed to be assigned to Squad Seven in the first place. When I first had the meeting with the jonin who were teaching this year, we came up with the squads that were used. Yet after the meeting ended I saw some errors and fixed them, by that time Kakashi finally showed up and approved his team. It seems there was a mistake somewhere and the first list was used instead of the final list."

Seeing what the plan was Kakashi quickly said, "Oh yeah, I remember that conversation. I figured you changed the teams back when Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto were the only genin left in the classroom."

Naruto gave the two adults a deadpan stair and said, "I'm not an idiot you know." To which the Hokage countered, "Do you want to lose your license?" The boy quickly shook his head no before asking, "So who am I getting swapped out with?"

"Right," taking a brief look at the "original" squad listing the Hokage said, "you will be replacing Shino Aburame from Team Eight. When I talked with my advisors we felt you would excel on that team, and when we corrected your grades from the academy we found your intelligence level to be similar."

Kakashi paled a little bit. Kurenai was a fresh jonin, but it was highly known she was very protective of her team. He did not want to be the one to tell her about the "correction" to her squad.

"Is that all Old Man?" Naruto asked.

"Yes that is it, be here on Monday at Eight so that you can meet your new sensei."

Nodding his head, Naruto left the office. When they were alone, Hiruzen asked, "Are you okay with this Kakashi?"

"Truthfully?" Kakashi began. "I'm not. My sensei's son should be treated as a hero for what he contains; instead he is shunned and beaten. He had his academy teaching sabotaged. And finally, when I have the chance to help him succeed, some whinny bitch who doesn't have it a fraction as bad as Naruto almost ruins his entire life."

"I know Kakashi, the kid has not had a fair lot in life. If you or anyone else saw the fight we wouldn't have any difficulty, but the Uchiha got word to his supporters first. The official record states that you were preoccupied fighting Zabuza and Sakura stayed with the bridge builder. This was the best we can do, I know Kurenai won't be biased against the boy and his new teammates should be friendly to him. You may leave now; I know you don't want to be in here when Kurenai shows up."

Nodding his head, Kakashi walked out of the office. 'There might be something more I can do.' Kakashi though, remembering a book that the Third Hokage had ordered all copies to be destroyed, but Kakashi decided to hold on to one in secret. 'Naruto has always been a smart child, even if he hid his intelligence well, I'm sure he will be able to figure it out.'

Laying on his bed and staring up at his celling, Naruto couldn't believe how much his life had changed so quickly. In the span of a few short hours, he had gone from being the celebrated hero of the Land of Waves to his teammate accusing him of essentially using the Uchiha as a human shield. Now his dream of being the Hokage had been threatened, he was too depressed for ramen. He was broken from these thoughts when he heard a knock at his door. Not bothering to get off his bed, the boy yelled out, "If you've come to trash my apartment again, could you skip it tonight? I'm not in the mood to clean up the mess."

Instead of going away, the knocking at the door became more forceful. Admitting defeat, Naruto finally got off his bed and opened his door. Surprisingly, there wasn't an angry villager waiting for him. Instead on his door mat was a book with a note covering the title. Picking up the book, Naruto noted it had hardback brown cover and was about the size of Kakashi's Icha Icha. Picking up the note, he read, "Let's see if you are smart enough to find out the entire truth."

Voicing his thoughts, Naruto said, "The entire truth about what?" He then looked at the title of the book. Naruto actually found some measure of happiness as he read aloud, "A History of the Hokages."

Hiruzen was finishing up the last of the paperwork for the day when his office door was thrown open. Despite his secretary yelling to the woman that she needed an appointment, Kurenai Yuhi marched into the office and stood impatiently in front of the Hokage.

"Kurenai, to what do I owe your visit, finally come to tell me you're dating my son?"

"Skip it Hokage-sama," the genjutsu mistress said, "and tell me why you are messing with my squad and showing extreme favoritism."

"Let me remind you Kurenai, I am the Hokage, meaning I am your boss."

"Be that as it may, I requested my team for the expressed purpose of forming a tracking squad, something that will not be possible with Uzumaki. I also remember you approved my request in front of all the assembled jonin."

"You do have a point there, before we continue this conversation, could you look at the proposed change in academy curriculum? I would like to get a second opinion before I present it to the council."

As she quickly looked over the changes, Kurenai was struck by the simple genus of the changes. "I'd say the teacher who came to you with these ideas should be given a pay raise. They brought up good points, why was it we only practiced on static targets when we would most likely meet moving opponents. I also think they were right to implement the trap making and stealth classes. Their idea of having academy students run low-risk D rank missions would help to teach teamwork and leadership skills as well as allow you to issue more missions and bring in more money from said missions."

Taking the paper back from the jonin, Hiruzen smiled as he said, "Thank you for input Kurenai. Now, as for why I have messed with your squad and, as you claim, shown favoritism to young Naruto is simple, I am saving the shinobi career of the promising genin who suggested these changes."

Kurenai was stunned at that. "With all respect Hokage-sama, I don't believe you."

Hiruzen just smiled again as he pulled out an academy work book and tossed it to Kurenai. "This workbook contains an essay that Naruto wrote for one of his tests. The changes you read are taken directly from the boy's work, showing how he believed the academy system could be improved. You will also notice that the grader gave him a failing grade for this brilliant work. This team change will fix another problem me and the village elders recently encountered."

Giving the workbook back Kurenai asked, "And what problem would that be?"

Sighing, the aged leader stated, "During his time at the academy, Naruto's education was sabotaged. Every instructor, save for Iruka, either erased his answers or marked his correct answers as wrong. If it were not for this bias the boy would have passed his first genin test. Don't think I'm just doing this for Naruto, this is also helping you squad."

"Really Hokage-sama? My squad has already had time to get to know each other better and work well as a cohesive unit. So tell me, how will taking one known element out of the equation and replacing it with an unknown help an already perfect team?"

Glaring slightly, the Hokage stated, "Because your team is too overspecialized. Yes, the team you have created will be able to track almost any target, but what then? Hinata might be able to disable them, if the target allows her to get into close quarters combat. Kiba might be able to use his family jutsus, if he is not separated from Akamaru. Shino could use his insects to drain the targets chakra, assuming they do not know any wide area jutsus that would kill most, if not all, of the insects. Now let's put Naruto into the equation. His pranks have made him adapt at trap making, meaning once your team identified the target he could incapacitate them quickly by leading them to a trap. He knows the shadow clone jutsu, so if you were to encounter a particularly troublesome opponent he could, with his large chakra reserves, literally become a one man army. Lastly let's consider his stealth. Let me ask you Kurenai, if he can avoid my ANBU wearing that much orange, how good is he really?"

The office was silent for ten minutes as Kurenai thought about what her leader had said. Thinking rationally, she could see where she had made a mistake during the team assignment. She had counted on Hinata being the primary tracker with her clan's kekkei genkai while Shino and Kiba would act as the heavy hitters and incapacitate the target. However, she did not realize that each genin had inherit weaknesses with their fighting style. Sighing in defeat, Kurenai said, "I accept this change under heavy protest."

Smiling once more, Hiruzen said, "I can allow that. Give the boy a chance Kurenai, you saw his work, he has potential. Be here at eight on Monday to collect your new genin, bring Shino for his reassignment. You are dismissed."

"Yes Hokage-sama." As Kurenai was walking out of the office, the only though in her head was, 'If I have to deal with this on Monday, I need a drink now.'

A joy Naruto found at an early age was reading. When he was chased by a mob on his fourth birthday, he somehow ended up in one of the villages libraries. Luckily for the boy the librarian was a retired kunoichi and allowed the boy to stay in the building. Once business had slowed down the librarian noticed the boy struggling with a book of simple fairy tales and took it upon herself to teach the boy to read. Since then Naruto had been an avid reader when presented with the chance; the books provided a temporary escape from the hate filled glares.

The one subject that would never fail to capture the boy's attention was that of the Hokages. Naruto had always been adamant that he would be the next leader, so he believed he would need to know as much as he could about his predecessors. During his time in the academy, Naruto had grabbed every book that he could find about his heroes, but this book provided more information then he could hope.

The book had the standard information he had learned in the academy, the First and Second Hokages were brothers, Old Man third was the Second's student with the First providing some tutoring, and the Fourth was the student of one of the Third's students. But this book also had a mountain of new information for the blond. He never knew that the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, had almost been assassinated by a ninja from the Village Hidden by a Waterfall, but gave them the Seven-Tailed Beetle as a sign of goodwill. He found it ironic that the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, had the second shortest rein, but sacrificing himself to allow his students to live seemed like a good way to go. When he got to the Old Man, Naruto was sad to learn that his wife was killed during the Kyubi attack. He stopped reading the book, wondering if when Hiruzen saw him if it was a reminder of his wife's death. Deciding to talk to the Old Man about it later, Naruto moved onto the Fourth Hokage.

Naruto read the first two pages of the chapter, which were just a short introduction about the amazing feats that the man did. He was reading the last paragraph aloud, "While the man has been credited with the first, and possible only, flee on sight order in the Bingo books, perhaps the greatest feat of Minato Namikaze is how a humble orphan rose to become the village's leader. The parentage of Namikaze-sama has long been a matter of debate. The most prominent theory is that.." the boy then turned the page. Before he finished turning the page, Naruto saw that the rest of the book was blank, perhaps that was why he never saw it before, it obviously was never finished. Once the page was completely turned the boy almost dropped the book when he saw the full page photo. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew that he would be researching for the rest of the weekend. Thank Kami the librarian taught him how to use the filing system.

Amaterasu was woken from her nap by something poking her side. Lazily lifting her head, the sun goddess saw a man with long flowing blonde hair wearing a pink kimono, purple pants, and large geta sandals. With a glare, Ammy asked why the man, Waka, woke her.

"Sure to bother you, mon amie," Waka began, "but I figured you would like to be informed about important events of the friends you made while in Nippon." The member of the Moon Tribe then motioned to the viewing portal to his side.

The wolf goddess saw two girls. The older of the two was around sixteen and had long black hair in twin ponytails and wore a pink hōumongi with a green sash along with a large straw sun hat and veil. The younger of the two was perhaps ten years old and also had black hair, only hers was shoulder length, her hōumongi was orange with green trim and lacked a sash, and she kept her hat on her back. Ammy immediately recognized the two as the sisters Camille and Camellia. Ammy knew the pair were not native to the land of Nippon. The sisters' ancestors, who Ammy meet during her time traveling, and come from a distant land and were planting Sakura trees. Camille and Camellia were on a quest to trace the trees back to their ancestor's homeland. What shocked the sun goddess was that the pair were currently being chased by a man wielding a chipped katana. As she had no power in the land the events were taking place in, Ammy could only watch and hope for the girls' safety.

Camille was dragging her sister as they desperately ran away from the bandit. They were so close to seeing their ancestors' homeland, but after they had reached this continent they had to travel a vast distance. They were lucky so far, they had heard tales in the hotels they stayed in about dangerous criminals, but they had managed to avoid trouble. That changed 20 minutes ago.

The sisters had been walking along the road, looking for a place to stay for the night, when they heard something off to the side. Being curious, Camellia dragged her sister to the bushes on the side of the road. There the sisters saw a man in a dirty blue kimono shirt and pants with chipped katana muttering about how a blond kid had led to the death of his meal ticket. Knowing trouble awaited them, Camille grabbed her sister and backed away from the man, however she stepped on a branch, altering the man to the two girls.

This led to the present, with both girls desperate to get away from the man. They might have made it, if Camellia hadn't tripped on a rock. With a cry of "sister" Camille knelt by her sister with her back to the man chasing them, hoping to shield the younger girl from the sword strike.

The blow never came, instead the sisters heard a whoosh of air. Looking behind them, the two girls saw that the man who was chasing them had stopped, dropping his sword when a crossbow bolt became lodged in his shoulder.

"I thought we told you thugs to get out of our country! Leave now so I don't have to kill you in front of these ladies."

The man followed their savior's instruction's, turning around and running away. Turing around to meet their hero, the girls were shocked to find a boy that couldn't be much older than Camellia wearing overalls and a bucket hat while carrying a crossbow. Quickly getting over her shock, Camille said, "Thank you young man for rescuing me and my sister."

Smiling at the pair, the boy said, "Don't worry about it Miss, just doing the right thing. My name's Inari, and you two would be?"

"Oh right, my name is Camille and this is my sister Camellia."

Looking at the two, Inari asked, "You two aren't from around her are you?"

Shaking her head, Camille said, "No, we came here hopping to find our ancestor's homeland. We were hoping to find a new home."

Turing to her sister, Camellia asked, "Sister why do we have to go back? I liked Nippon better than here."

"That may be," Camille scolded her sister, "but we need to at least visit the land so we can pay our respects. However, maybe you're right, maybe we should go back to Nippon."

Looking at the two, Inari asked, "Do you two have a place to stay? If not I'm sure my mom won't mind feeding two extra mouths for the night."

"Thank you Inari." The older sister began before asking, "Where is your home."

"Oh don't worry," the boy began, "my house is right outside the village, we just have to cross the bridge first."

Amaterasu and Waka watched the events unfold, both thankful for the boy's timely rescue. The pair watched as the boy talked to the sisters while he lead them out of the woods and back to the main road. After walking for some time, the trio came to a stone bridge.

Whistling, Waka admitted, "That is an impressive bridge, it's bigger than the one in Sei'an City. The only problem is the name, I mean really, why name such an impressive structure after a ramen ingredient?"

Waka was further confused when her heard the goddess growl at him. While Waka went off on his tangent, Amaterasu was thinking, 'It can't be true can it? I thought that land was a different world. If it's true maybe I can finally meet my son.' When she heard Waka's criticism of the bridge's name, she imminently growled at her friend while thinking, 'The name means "maelstrom"!'

So this is the first chapter of my second story. Much like my first story, I didn't get as far as I wanted to in the first chapter, but I feel that at 13 and a half pages, I need to cut this off for a first chapter. So, you'll notice that I'm starting this fic after the wave mission, from here on out I'm straying from the cannon into AU territory.

It's likely that I'm not going to update this fic as quickly as I am A New Realm as the later is mostly my own ideas while I'm going to try to incorporate some elements of Okami and Okamiden into this fic. To do this I have to options, either replay the game again or watch some let's plays. Either way is going to take some time which I don't have a lot of these days.

In case you didn't read it on my other fic, college is starting to occupy most of my time now so I can't devote as much time to this hobby. Having said that, when I do have some free time, I'm going to look at the amount of activity this chapter and chapter four of A New Realm each get to help me decide which one I update first.

With the opening of this chapter some questions are presented including,

What did Naruto see in the book?

How will the new Team Eight work?

What will happen when Amaterasu meets her son?

I hope you have enjoyed the beginning of my second story. This is acw28 saying, "until next update.