Prior warning: I have strong paraphrasing of the parts everyone knows about in canon. I have also heavily laced my story with elements from DOSun and Twelve Years Old. Maybe I should change my summary to a fanfic of fanfics? Some parts are very familiar but some parts are very different.

Chapter 9

The day before the Exam though, I had invited Naruto over to my house to plan our Id pictures. He was going to paint himself pale with red swirls like in canon. I took the pale skin idea from him and added..glitter. Yes, and the next day as the picture was taken I yelled Twilight! I had a few laughs, but when Shika had asked to see each other's pictures he just lazily looked at it and gave it back without comment. Awww, I thought that would have provoked more of a reaction from him. It is another world..

Anyway, I felt like keeping this part of the timeline similar to the one in DOSun so after the two of us had gotten our ids we went to look for Naruto, we looked for him at his apartment, Ichiraku's, and even Sasuke's House. In the end though we found him with Sasuke at their usual training grounds. Sasuke had met Naruto in the morning to treat him to some noodles and cheer him up out of not passing only to find him, well happy. So me and Shika traded ids with Sasuke and Naruto to see how they looked like. Naruto's still looked ridiculous, even compared to mine.

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So here we are now waiting for Kakashi in the classroom. Naruto was about to put up the chalk eraser, but I stopped him only to suggest my own. I pulled a bucket, rope, hook and regular ink from my OPD, and set it up very professionally. I left the rope in Naruto's hands though, no use getting in trouble. Sasuke just rolled his eyes. Then I sensed Kakashi coming down the hall. We even did a count down and everything. The door opened, the bucket fell and Kakashi glared at us under inky bangs. "You little brats!" he had yelled. "Meet me up on the ro-" "Wait," I interrupted him, "I have something to clean that up with." So I used by ink remover seal to clean him up and we apologized, it had seemed to make a lot more sense earlier. We met on the roof and Kakashi told us to introduce ourselves. He body flickered about.

Sasuke went for: "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. My hobbies are getting stronger. I hate eating greasy-ass noodles. My dream for the future... no my goal for the future is to bring honor back to my clan by -" Sasuke took a deep, shaky breath, "killing someone I love."

Wait, what? I thought Sasuke came to terms to what happened that day. Did he doubt what was said? Well, after all it was concluded by a seven year old.. Or does he plan to honor Itachi's wish: To become strong, and come to kill him so that Itachi could atone for his sins..Or does he plan on getting strong by doing what Itachi suggested? Either way, believing that you need to kill someone is not good for the human psyche.

Naruto seemed disturbed as he said, "My name Naruto Uzumaki. I like to eat Ramen at Ichiraku's and hanging out with friends. I hate seeing people sad.. My hobby is preventing people from doing something they would regret. My Dream is to become Hokage-Sama and changing the world." Naruto sounded as seemed if his dream was overshadowed by hobby. Don't tell me that I changed the world this much? I didn't even do anything. What if this was not for the better. What if killing Itachi destroys Sasuke in this world? What if Naruto snaps and goes against the world? What if ...

I snapped out of my thoughts as everyone started to stare at me. Was I thinking that long? "My name is Shikako Nara but you could either call me Ko or Ko-Kun. I like to do human experimentation... on myself. Uh.. I hate the fact that I'm allergic to cats. My hobbies are reading books and making up my own seals. My dream is to be recognized as my clan's next heir, and making my brother the next Hokage. I although I don't know how to make either of them come true. I kinda suck at politics..."

Naruto and Sasuke were looking at me like they wanted to say, Good luck with motivating Shikamaru. And then after a second Naruto seemed to finally notice what I had said and he exclaimed, "Hey! I'm going to become Hokage!"

Kakashi was about to say something but not before I remembered my other hobby, the one I had prepared just for the purpose of getting a response out of Kakashi. "Oh yea! I have another hobby. In my spare time I write romance novels about forbidden love!"

"Forbidden Love?" Naruto echoed totally oblivious.

Sasuke was eyeing me as if thinking something along the lines of: Is she saying what I think she is saying?

"Yeah, about boys love," I answered as I took out a book from my OPD. "The main character is based on an ANBU agent that I never got the name of. So I named him Gyon Taji after that person's silver hair."

Naruto looked real confused as he said, "Aren't there usually a boy in a romance novel? I don't get it."

I turned to Kakashi with a maliciously innocent grin on my face, "Hey Jonin-sensei, do you know anyone in the ANBU with silver hair?" I flashed him the cover of my book, it had a scantily dressed young man on a bed, a thin blanket over a heavily ripped yet thing waist. The young man looked up at the audience with inviting eyes and had an inu mask in his hands. The young man in the picture had suspiciously familiar silver hair. He even had a mask on, after all I didn't know who my model actually looked like. Naruto peeked walked all the way around me to look at the cover at my book, he squinted and innocently declared, "Hey! This guy looks kind of like our Jonin-sensei!"

Kakashi coughed uncomfortably before continuing on, (Hah! Kakashi, that aught to teach you not to bring those books to training!) "My name is Kakashi Hatake, my likes and dislikes don't matter and you're all too young to know my hobbies. But one of you guys seem awfully precocious..," Kakashi muttered the last line, then he coughed to clear his throat. "Now that we all know each other, now I can tell you guys what we will be doing tomorrow."

"Yeah!" Naruto yelled, "Are we going on a mission? Save the day? Fight enemy ninja? I am so totally ready for it all!"

Kakashi laughed evilly. A silver of his chakra tried to make me see dark clouds gathering, and hear thunder far off into the distance. I could totally believe it though since evil laugh = lighting in back ground. Or at least in crazy land it does. The feeling of genjutsu feels kinda gross. I kind easily enough notice and dispel them but it sucks that I'm not very good at making them though.

"Oh its a mission all right," Kakashi said spookily, "A survival mission."

Naruto stopped bouncing off the walls.

"So you see," Kakashi started, "even though you guys graduated from the Academy, you aren't real Ninja just yet. Of the 27 kids who who graduated, only 9 of you will become shinobi. You still have to pass my test, which only has a 66% failure rate." Oh pish posh, I knew he hasn't passed anyone yet. I haven't been stalking him since he became a jonin sensei for nothing. It wasn't hard I just needed to go to the graduating class and look around for the only team standing around looking lost. I already knew that Kakashi likes to use Training Ground 3.

Kakashi leaned back looking smug, our shocked (not) faces.

"Meet me tomorrow morning at Training Ground 3 at five o'clock. Its gonna be harsh, its gonna be grueling. So unless you guys wanna be barfing the whole time, I suggest you don't eat breakfast." I was planning to follow the original Shikako's advice and eat at the appropriate times and even bring enough to share with the two tomorrow.

Kakashi than disappeared in a poof of leaves the work of a badass using the Body Flicker on us.

I went home, revealed that I had to take a test. Complained to Shika. Packed. Slept.

The next morning I went to the Training Ground 3, complete with river, 3 stumps, Memorial Stone, and forest. I lectured the two boys about the importance of breakfast when they came. As long as you ate light enough and timed it. Kakashi came and surprise, surprise it was his famous 2 bells, 3 students test. The other two were about to: a) rush head on. b) go plan in the trees. I grabbed Sasuke's wrist but I had Yoya tackle Naruto. I told them the test's true meaning, we were never going to get at him without team work and we made a plan. So Naruto distracted while me and Yoya tagged teamed Kakashi while Sasuke swooped in to get the bells. He missed, and Naruto got the bells. He made the decision to give up the bells, but it really looked like he didn't want Sasuke to take it.

There we went through the test, passed it with flying colors. We learned the meaning of the "Team work" catch phrase of Konoha, we had to put the mission in front of the person. Kakashi shows us the Memorial Stone, told us that on missions we would risk our lives, and Naruto learned that getting his name on the stone was not a good idea.

Kakashi dismissed us, I went one way the other two went another.

We got an official team photo it sort of looked like the canon one, except we didn't look like we all hated each other and/or were in our own little world.

I went to meet Ino at the Yamanaka Flower shop, and we went off to meet Sakura. Sakura had failed, her eyes were red and puffy but she knew what she was going to do next. Even if it was her second choice, but I knew that she could do it.

After that Shika, dad and me went to the Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka Memorial stone to swear our oaths. We said an extremely modified oath because of the ambiguity of our birth.

"We hear by swear that as the Sixteenth clan heads, I will entrust the oath entrusted to me by the Fifteenth head to the child that will become the seventeenth clan head. In order to protect both the Yamanaka and Akimichi clans and to protect and serve Konoha. To serve and support each other as we would our teammates, We, Shikamaru/Shikako Nara, will become one with the shadows," Shika and I both said at the same time before we were presented with the earrings that dad and his brother had worn as genin.

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We met the next morning at Training ground 3, Kakashi was late. Do to preoccupy the time, the three of us sparred together.

Kakashi gave the excuse, "Ah, I fell down the stairs on the way here and got lost," when he arrived.

We went to the Hokage Tower and got our mission to look for Tora the cat. Outside the tower I made everyone wait and told them that I was in my element. I then yelled, "Yoyo: Secret Technique: Cat Lady, search for Tora!" Where Yoya gave me a perturbed look before a poof of smoke appeared and when it cleared there was a mob of cats. All red and black but they were all different sizes, and ages and fur types. They all turned to look at me for confirmation. I complied, "Off you go now my pretties!" offset by me then cackling maniacally. The only one to stay with me was a little one that was the size of a kitten perched on my shoulder.

My new teammates gave me a look. Before soon my prowess was shown off since mini-Yoya told me that one of her split offs had found Tora.

The next day I found myself at the Training Ground 3, I questioned Naruto about his clones and we clarified that he could get info out of them. Then I taught the two of them about tree and water walking.

We went back to the Hokage tower where Naruto complained and the Third gave us a C-Rank mission. Tazuna walked in, we were all introduced to one another. We all went home to pack, and met up at the gates.

It was all very canon except that I had Yoya in Guard Mode, where she looked like a panther, helping me guard Tazuna. We passed the puddle, two Chunin attacked, Naruto was poisoned and swore an oath to himself. He even scared a rabbit and apologized to it. It was so canon in fact that all I did was stare at the fight with Zabuza numbly. As Kakashi and Zabuza traded trash talk and blows. Where Kakashi got caught in the water prison. Even the Fuma Double Shadow Shuriken trick was used by Naruto and Sasuke, except that they had planned it before hand. After all they did train together.

I just kept freezing in the face of battle. There was Zabuza and Kakashi fighting again and the in Haku came in to save him. The only thing I even did was restore Kakashi's chakra at Tazuna's house. As Kakashi trained the boys in the woods I guarded Tazuna. Another difference was that Sasuke and Naruto had both befriended Haku in the forest. The next day, it was round two. We arrived on the bridge, found all the workers passed out and mist everywhere. The Demonic Mirrowing Ice Crystals were used to fight Sasuke, Naruto arrives and Sasuke uses his Sharingan, Naruto passes out and wakes up only to find Sasuke sacrificing himself. Naruto goes crazy and in the other fight Kakashi gets hurt protecting Tazuna which I was supposed to be doing. I was stupidly listening to Haku's monologue about his depressing life, I had watched it as anime in my past life, hell even Yoya was listening intently. But listening to it from Haku's own mouth made it seem more real. Kakashi was only there for a second but he was gone in another taking Zabuza with him. And..I went back to watching Haku. Now he was taunting Naruto to kill him. Then Haku just vanished. Wait. This seems familiar...Shit! My body just moved on its own, I guess a Nara could be fast when they want to.

Since I suddenly found myself looking into Kakashi's shocked face. My body was turned sideways, my right hand tight around Haku's forearm trying unsuccessfully to push him away. My left arm had a fucking Kakashi hand right in it, right where the arm started under the shoulder. Kakashi's face would have been soo much funnier if I hadn't just pulled a Rin on him. I opened my mouth to laugh and reasure him but the only that came out was a weak cough. At least there wasn't any blood. Then Kakashi pulled his fucking hand out of my fucking arm, and it just...fucking fell off. Like thwap! There it landed it on the ground. The three of us: Kakashi, Haku and me just stared at it dumbly, our mouths were probably hanging open. Then Kakashi's eyes widened and he pulled me close to his chest as he dodged out of the way of Zabuza's sword. I kind of just stared numbly at my shoulder nub that was squirting blood, my other hand was still wrapped around a shocked Haku's arm. Good thing too because if he had stayed there he would have been fucking crushed by Zabuza's fucking two ton sword.

What was it that caused Zabuza to realize that he actually did care about Haku more than a mere tool? I'm pretty sure in canon he was pretty much unfazed by Haku's death. Then I heard a familiar voice, it started to verbally abuse Zabuza about something... I couldn't really hear anything. What was it again? I was going to do something... Oh yea! My arm was gone.. I tried to cast my eyes around but it was blurry. The only thing I could see was a blurry figure in front of me that was connected to the end of the only left hand. What was it again a poem...? That wasn't right...I needed to stop the bleeding. I think. I opened my mouth and weakly called out for Yoyo. "Yoya...Yoyo: Hemostasis: stanch the bleeding from my arm and try to fix the blood loss: Blood Bank Activate..." Yeah why did I make that order so long, I really need to shorten it one of these days...

I felt a nice warmth spread around my body starting from my stub. My thoughts started to clear up and then my vision followed, and with it the first thing I saw was an inky black stub. My first thought was that I had also somehow burned it but then I recognized that it was Yoya.

Surprisingly my hand was still like a vase around Haku's arm. As my hearing cleared up I heard him say, "-did you did that? You don't even know me." Haku was still so shocked that he was talking to me while Kakashi and Zabuza fought. One of Zabuza's arms were already hanging limply at his side. Sometime when I had stared at the two of them Haku had come to conclusion that since he should have been dead. The fact that he was alive meant that he owed his life to me. That I now, like Zabuza owned his life and therefore had the right to his death. So then Haku took out a kunai from my kunai pouch, pried open my fingers from his arm, and put it into my now outstretched palm and gently closed my fingers around it. It felt weird when he brought my hand up to his throat, I felt so weak.

He kept telling me to end his life, to kill him. He was even making my mission easier by putting the kunai at the weakest part of the neck. Just apply a little pressure he urged, and my life would end.

When I saw that he was about to move my hand for me though, I tried to stop him. And being the clumsy person that I am, I tripped. And i guess all those saying in my past life about waving around a knife while running was not a good idea.

I tripped and stabbed myself on my stomach as I fell on Haku. We laid there and I was on top of him with my blood soaking into his clothes. I quickly took someof my blood and wrote the seal for sleep on his forehead. He was beginning to get annoying and writing on him wasn't hard he was staring at my blood on his hand dumbly stating that it wasn't his blood. He fell asleep as I told Yoya to: "Yoyo: Clean up this bloody mess, and fix me up."

Then I collapsed on Haku, looking to the world as if we had just offed each other. The only one that was dead was probably me. Yoyo couldn't he's wounds, she might be able to stop bleeding coming from a missing limb but not plug up holes in my stomach.

I couldn't move and I was growing colder. But face down I could still vaguely hear what was going on around me. I listened to Naruto berate Zabuza about his lack of feelings when Haku had just jumped in front of him, expecting to die. I don't even think anyone even realized that the two of us were laying down on the ground with a sizable amount of blood underneath us since Yoya couldn't keep up with my escaping blood. Until Gotou came around on his big boat and gloated about the both of us being dead. And then even my hearing started to go quiet.

Third person POV

Naruto and Kakashi paled. Naruto was agonizing that although he hadn't frozen up again, but he was too weak to make a difference. First Sasuke and now Shikako, they were both dead. Naruto just slid to the floor, even the mysterious boost of energy he had earlier was gone. As Naruto slumped to the ground, Kakashi had rushed to Shikako's side expecting to see the both of them wounded but instead he had found the only one bleeding to be his student. The Haku kid had only been sealed asleep. Kakashi started to panic, it wasn't that he was bad at medical ninjutsu but that if he was too late than ninjutsu wasn't going to do anything. You couldn't heal the dead.

As Kakashi was attempting to heal Shikako, Zabuza, Zabuza went bat shit crazy. He had looked over at where Haku was. Covered in so much blood. At least the kid had taken out the other brat with him but... But when Gotou had started to disrespect Haku than he just snapped. He wanted to kill Gotou and everyone that came on the boat with him. Zabuza got the bandages off his mouth, somehow got a kunai between his teeth and slaughtered Gotou and his minions. Even if he had succeeded in killing everyone related to Gotou, he was armless. At the end of his last mission, he collapsed. Sasuke woke up, but now there was still the problem of left over mercenaries. An arrow fell and the towns people and Kakashi and Naruto worked together to scare them off. Kakashi approached Zabuza and allowed him one last request.

When Zabuza was next to Haku though it was revealed to him by Kakashi that Haku and that girl were not dead, that he had only succumbed to that girl's fuinjutsu. He told Kakashi that it was his time to die, that the time spent with Haku was a happy time if not a little regretful. He made Kakashi promise that Haku has lived most of his life as a tool and now he needed to be free. He made Kakashi promise to allow Haku to live his life however he wanted whether it be as a shinobi or a civilian.

"Hey, one-eyed bastard (Kakashi had covered his eye again), I think I now know why I was so adamant about treating Haku as a tool. Life as a missing-nin is not the life for a child. I think I did it for the both of us, if one of us were to die, than the other could go on to fight..to live...Free of hesitation ..and the burdens of grief. Haha.. I can't believe it took me this long to realize. Haku, he's more than just a tool. Now though, he's free.. free to live as he pleases." Zabuza sighed, as if he was tired of this shitty world. He did not take another breath.

Kakashi carried Shikako in his arms as Naruto and a senbon-free Sasuke helped to carry Haku to Tazuna's house. No one noticed, now that Shikako's life was no longer in danger, a certain black cat wasn't by her side anymore. The cat had watched as the life had left Zabuza, and as Team Kakashi was leaving there the cat was still by Zabuza's body. Watching the things that were normally left unseen.

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I woke up and bolted up right, which wasn't a good idea because I usually rely on my left arm to get up. I would have ungracefully landed on my back if it wasn't for the warm body behind me. It would have been more nice.. if Haku wasn't wearing his Hunter-nin mask. Over the Kirigakure symbol on his mask was the character for sleep, at first I was horrified. I thought that he had written it with my blood but after a second, I realized that it was just regular ink. After he helped me sit a little more steadily, Haku backed up to sit seiza, behind me.

After I gathered my wits about me, I noticed that there were two sets of eyes plus one that was staring at me. I cleared my throat, "What happened?" I inquired.

There was an awkward silence where Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke just kind of looked everywhere but me. I clarified,"What happened after I passed out?" It seemed that even what happened after I passed out was pretty much canon too. Zabuza and Kakashi fought with the former loosing, but then Gotou arrived taunted Haku and mine's 'dead' bodies. Zabuza went nuts and went on a suicide mission. It was the same as canon except that Haku was alive. I feel like a failure the original Shikako had saved both Haku and Zabuza, sort of. I leaned back but was startled by a rumbling noice, it was Yoya still in panter form. If it wasn't for her I probably would have bleed out. I scratched her behind the ears and thanked her, she welcomed me back with a purr.

"Umm, did anyone bring my arm back?" Apparently no one thought that I might want to bury or cremate it or whatever. Although that's not why I wanted it... The cough behind me startled me, it was Haku clearing his throat. I turned around in my futon, and there he was with sealing scroll, with the symbol for arm in the circle. He freed my missing limb from the scroll. It felt weird looking at my arm like that, at this angle.. Haku had even thought to wrap my at up in bandages before he sealed it. That was...thoughtful of him. Hah, at least he thought to bring it. Haku did that sort of kneeling walk that you only see in the presence of someone very important, lime I was a damiyo or something. He then presented it to me with a, "Here it is, Shikako-Sama." Everyone else in the room seemed uncomfortable with his formal speech, well.. So was I but how can I fix this? Sigh, I really need to fix this, don't I? Before it gets out of hand...

"Thanks Haku," I said as I took my arm and put it across my lap. His facial expressions stayed the same, a professional one, but why do I get the feeling that he's...ecstatic about something? Yeah, I really need to fix this, I really don't need him to follow me around and saving me everytime I face danger from the shadows or something. I'll never learn to get over battle apprehension.

I sighed, planning to rub my face with my hands. But, yeah I'm missing an arm. I achieved to do an awkward one-handed wipe of my face but it doesn't feel the same. Huh, let me do something. I pick up my arm and try to send chakra strings out of my... stub and connect it to my arm. There's a part of the arm that's just not there so if I want my arms to be even I have to leave a bundle of chakra strings to have enough length. Didn't Kankuro make a puppet out of Sasori's body? That seems kind of gross, I'll have to use formaldehyde, or at least this world's version of. -_-' I realy don't want to go around lugging around a dead body part even if its mine. I just hope that this world has some kind of prosthetic industry. The whole time I watched the anime I haven't seen someone missing a limb which is weird once you consider a ninja's job description. They probably do have a prosthetic industry since there are ninjas with the whole puppet mastery.

I sighed again before saying, "Yoyo, here, preserve it or something." I threw the arm and Yoya seemed to stretch before seeming to sallow the arm whole. Yoya will figure something out, she's awesome like that. Intelligent and self-learning and all. I was kind of absorbed in what I was doing so when I looked up after that everyone was kind of staring at me.

Kakashi was trying the best to look nonchalant but I guess it wasn't everyday that he saw a panther eat one of his students' arms. Sasuke looked like he wanted to face palm, if he knew what that was. And Naruto looked like he wanted loudly exclaim about how cool the cat looked, but was doing the best he could to suppress the urge. He reminded me that although he had patched me up on the field, I still needed to take it easy before I'm checked out by professionals at the hospital.

I took a deep breath before saying, "Hey, Haku? Can you help me take a walk outside, please?"

"Yes, Shikako-Sama"

Kakashi looked like he wanted to protest but then thought better of it.

So in the forest behind the house, Haku set me against a tree.

"Soo...Haku, what are you feeling right now?" I said.

"If you ask me of it, I would gladly give you my left arm, and live as your right hand. If you told me to sleep, Shikako-Sama, I would gladly rest in peace." Was that a pun? About death? Crap this is worse than I thought.

"No, I mean, how are you feeling about Zabuza?" I tentatively put out there.

"I feel nothing. I will believe whatever you want me to believe. I will believe whatever you believe I should feel. I am at your service, Shikako-Sama."

Great. How am I going to fix this? I forgot that Haku didn't see how Zabuza became angry in his deference of him. How am I going to do this? I wouldn't be able to believe anything he says about his emotions. Everything I say might have the opposite effect of what I want.

"Hah," I sighed, "Ko. Cal me Ko. Without the honorifics would be best, Haku."

"Ko-Sama," Haku tried out the name on his tongue, "than the same could be said of you. Haku died out there that day with the Kirigakure missing-nin, Zabuza. I wish to rechristen my self," Haku paused looking for something from me.

"Uhh," I intoned, "Continue?"

"I wish to take on the name, Sui, in my service to you," Haku, no Sui(?) stated.

I wonder if he took on the name Sui for a personal reason for himself. I mean there's the word Sui in Suimin(sleep) but doesn't Sui also mean water? Maybe he took the name for personal reasons, since you know he was born in the Land of Water. It;s nice if he took the time to really think this through.

I sighed yet again, "So, Sui? What do you want to do now?" I feel like we're not going anywhere with this.

"I wish to serve you, Ko-Sama, for the rest of my life. Because of my years under the service of missing-nin, Zabuza, as a mercenary; I have a variety of skill under my disposal. If you order me so, Ko-Sama, I would spend my remaining years as your shadow protecting y-"

"Stop," I said, "That isn't what I want at all," I wanted say more in the same vein but Sui looked devastated in a stoic sort of way. I relented, "Okay, Sui, if a mission is what you really, really want than I'll give you one when we get back to Konoha but for right now just follow us without being seen. But, Sui don't you see? You can do whatever you want. You can become a shinobi of Konoha, or even become a civilian. You're smart you could set your sights on any trade that you desire. If you really wanted to be a civilian I bet you that Kakashi would pull some strings that would at least allow you to become a citizen of Konoha. So, Sui can you please think about it? Even if you want me to give you orders; I want you...no I order you to do what you believe in. I want us to be on friendly terms, I want you to be firm in the opinions you give me. If you ever feel that you don't agree with me, I want you to voice your complaints. And if you don't change your mind about following me, and we can't be on equal terms. I want us to be at least friends. Friends like you are already with Naruto and Sasuke."

"Friends?" Sui finally, finally had a noticeable change in expressions.

Misunderstanding what Sui meant I answered with, "Yeah, I bet you that Naruto and Sasuke already consider you friends. Didn't you notice the betrayed looks on their faces when you revealed your face to them? Naruto and Sasuke had mentioned meeting you in the forest earlier. About having precious person you needed to protect? Wasn't your precious person Zabuza? I also have precious people I want to protect. I didn't just become a ninja because my family wanted me to, I became a ninja to protect my family. To protect Shikamaru, to protect my friends, like my friends at home and even Naruto and Sasuke and now you. But I also want to protect the peace loving Konoha that I came to love.

After a day more of rest we headed back to Konoha. We were almost all the way there when I passed out and Sui appeared out of the shadows to carry me princess style the rest of the way to Konoha, where he reluctantly left me at the hospital and followed Kakashi to meet the Hokage.

author's note: please please, review! I don't even know what the website means by views. I don't know if people read the whole chapter or if people even like it. help me, explain it to me! Even PM me about it. So please tell me, and review if you want to know pairings? I'm going to make Kankuro real pissed on our meeting so do you guys think if he has the balls to go against Gaara and maybe interfere with my chunin exam?