When I woke up from whatever jutsu the fucker used to put me out no one was there, which I counted as a good thing. There weren't any Anbu hanging around, and no angry genin either. I quietly dressed and checked myself out, the woman at the desk informing me that I was to report to the tower whenever I left. The report was given to Ibiki, who grilled me for two hours before finally setting me free. I'd apparently slept for seventeen hours, and he was impatient to get all of his information. I'm surprised he didn't sneak into the room and wake me up himself, or have an underling do it. I'm sure Anko would have volunteered. Speaking of Anko, she found me before I could even make it home.

"Come on midget, we're taking a training day!"

I figured it would be too much to ask, to have a day off. Technically speaking I'd already had one with all that sleeping I did. Anko didn't go easy on me. My theory was that she didn't have many people who would run missions with her without complaint, and seeing me near collapse had reminded her that I was only a genin. True, I had been training basically since birth, but was still wet behind the ears, so to speak. The head start I'd had over my peers meant that I already had the basics of life and general knowledge, like I'd started the race on lap two. Even if there were some geniuses among my age group they weren't quite caught up yet. Given time they would, especially if I slacked off any. Anko wasn't having that.

I dodged kunai, shuriken, and even a few snakes that were tossed my way, trying to keep inside the area that she had drawn out beforehand, breath caught somewhere in my chest as my vision turned black around the edges. We'd been going at it for hours, and she chose when I was near collapse to start talking shit.

"You're decent for a genin, I'd even say that you're alright for a chuunin, but if you don't want to die during the exams then you're going to need to be more than technically correct and 'aright'. I've got a new technique for you, since your sensei obviously hasn't given it to you, idiot that he is. We're not leaving until you've got it damn near perfect."

I had hope for my evening, right up until she told me what it was. Damn shunshin. Short range teleportation, like what I was doing with the fucked up replacement jutsu, only without the chakra drain and air displacement. Or at least that's what I thought it was. Turns out it's spreading chakra everywhere to go entirely too fucking fast. I was taught the leaf variation, which means leaves float out around where you used to be in order to distract the eye from where you're going. The first time I ran into a tree Anko laughed herself sick.

I was worried that Anko would keep to her word when the sun was hours gone and I still had yet to end up anywhere near where I was aiming for. She took pity on me, but not exactly in the way that I wished.

"Alright squirt, you're coming home with me. You nearly exhausted your chakra yesterday, and then I forced you to do it again today. It's good for building up chakra reserves, but it's best if you have someone to watch you."

I wanted to protest that the boys could keep an eye on me but turned my thoughts away quickly. They'd left while I was out of the village with Moto-san. Their first C-rank, to the land of Waves. I was extremely grateful to Anko for keeping me so occupied that I couldn't worry about them overmuch. Anko proved to be the best host ever when we had dango and the hidden countries version of Soda for dinner. We then stayed up late watching shitty daytime civilian tv, not that Shinobi would be caught dead on camera.

The next day I was back to hating her as I was ordered through rep after rep after rep of workout or jutsu. She kept it up for the next week, and by the time Genma got back from his mission I was working on my own variation of the shunshin, a special one to keep in reserve where I could drop seal paper that looked like flower petals. He just happened to enter the training ground when I ducked out of the way of my own technique, leaving Anko to laugh at me again. He just sighed.

"Continuing to corrupt my genin, I see."

Anko stood up straight, pointing at him rudely and beaming,

"Not corrupting, improving. She can use shunshin now, and her reserves are up by three percent."

He whistled,

"Not bad. Thinking of getting a little minion of your own, and just using mine as practice?"

She was silent for half a second and then scoffed,

"Of course not! I wouldn't want to be saddled with some brat. Speaking of, take yours back, I had paperwork due three hours ago that Ibiki won't be happy about."

She disappeared from the clearing and I leveled an unimpressed look at a guilty Genma.

"Not cool, sensei."

He knew very well that because of the curse mark, and the black spot on her reputation because of Orochimaru, that she wouldn't be allowed to take an apprentice or a genin team any time soon. He cleared his throat, casting about for a subject change and apparently finding one.

"Let's see how much you've been slacking in my absence, shall we?"

I was able to figure out during our spar/conversation that he had not been informed of what I'd been up to, and had just assumed that I was dicking off with Anko the entire time. I did nothing to contradict that. It wasn't exactly wrong in any case. The moment he left on another mission Nonami requested me again. This time it was for fuinjutsu rather than as a sensor. I followed her around, explained what some seals did on some rocks, and unraveled the ones she told me to take apart. She was looking decidedly smug, and it wasn't until we got back that she explained to me that it hadn't been an actual mission. It was an assessment. T&I apparently did shit like that every now and then to make sure that people who submitted seals for review actually created the seals. I passed.

The missions started to run together, and I managed to sweet talk Anko into leaving me out of a few of them, after I made sure she knew it was because I was tired, not anything against her personally. Nonami took it as a challenge when I asked to duck out, insisting that I needed to learn to push through weariness because other times I might not know the squad leader well enough to get away with ducking out. It was miserable, made more so by the empty apartment I was returning to. I began to look forward to when Genma was in the village, or not busy on Hokage guard duty, no matter that he always ran me into the ground as if to make up for his absence. It was still better than ceaseless missions, whether they were in the village or outside of it.

Several times I had thought of asking Genma for help, because as much as I hated D-ranks I wouldn't need to run any more missions at all until after the chuunin exams, no matter if I competed or not. I had plenty saved up, even for the increased prices that came with associating with Naruto, both in goods and my apartment. No matter if the landlord doubled the rent I would be fine for a while, such was the pay grade of A or B-rank missions. Once a few of my seals went through T&I I got payed for those too and a mark (a good one for once) went on my record and my fuinjutsu capability meant I got paid more for certain missions as well. I was willing to bet there were pay increases for summons and things like doujutsu or something, but all I'd personally seen was my own up in percentage because of the seals. Even with all of that, I didn't want to burn bridges. And running to my sensei would not be good for those who were requesting me. Now, if they were caught doing it on their own would be another matter, but they were jounin and a damn bit more sneaky than I was.

It was three days after I'd calculated Team Seven should return home from Wave when I got a B-rank mission that was technically in-village, and this one was actually Hokage approved for once. Still not sensei-approved, but he wouldn't have argued with the Hokage anyway. I was loaned out to the Barrier Seal corp for it, and we were tasked with looking over the seals around the village and repairing any that were showing signs of wear. I wasn't actually sent as a fuinjutsu user, for all that I loved barrier seals. The corp was comprised of people who knew these particular seals on the walls, who had learned them by heart and thrown their entire souls into learning them and maintaining them. I wasn't going to just turn up and show them up. No way in hell.

Instead I was there for two reasons, one as a sensor to 'feel' my way through the seals and help them look for breaks, and two as a learning experience. I had little doubt the Hokage was hoping I'd join the corp, people making new seals was uncommon since the fall of the Uzumaki and their seal-happy village, even our village seal 'adept' were more for understanding and utilizing what already existed. They were probably looking forward to new blood that wasn't yet wary of blowing themselves up enough to be scared of trying new things.

As it was the one from the corp I was assigned to work with was nice, probably going along the same train of thought that I had in assuming we would be working together in the future. Mihara Samba was tall, Jiraiya and Kakashi level tall, though his hair was a pale green that complimented his darker shaded green eyes perfectly. In his mid-thirties he was a tokubetsu jounin, no doubt prompted for his speciality skill in sealing, unless this was an extreme hobby of his. He wore the standard uniform and explained everything he was allowed to clearance-wise about the seals in an even voice about an octave lower than what I had expected. Very Japanese-ish Bendyswitch Cucumberpatch.

After I showed decent understanding he let me refresh the next seal, and it went fine. So did the next four seals. It was on the fifth that I noticed something strange in the chakra, and informed him of, as was my job in this mission. His only advice was that it happens, be careful when reapplying it. I woke up in the hospital. A sheepish Samba-san explained that the seal had been tampered with and weakened substantially on its inner layers, so when I had tried to replace it directly the new seal had overpowered it and the fallout had rebounded on me. Had it been Samba laying the seal he no doubt could have simply redirected it and placed the seal anyway, but I was new at this level of sealing. A report was filed and I was kept under observation, but I made a mental note of the peculiar chakra in the seal. I had a theory about that, involving a certain snake-man and an invasion.

In the show summons had just smashed through the gates to draw our forces over that direction and spread us thin, but here, in the world I was living, there would have been fantastic backlash from the seals if someone tried to physically harm the wall itself. Maybe in the show they hadn't checked the seals because there was no up and coming fuinjutsu user to be shown the ropes, but theorizing wasn't going to get me anywhere, I would likely never know unless I got back to my old world somehow to cross reference the wiki. I wasn't touching that thought with a ten foot pole.

I was still in the hospital when Team Seven returned, and I found out they were back when they stormed into my room, their Sensei trailing behind them as if he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going and just happened to end up here as well. They demanded to know why I was laid up in a hospital bed, Naruto puffing his cheeks out in annoyance,

"We leave for one mission out of the village, one! How much trouble can you get in while we're gone?!"

Sasuke looked like he agreed, and Sakura as well, funnily enough. I shrugged,

"Well, I was on a mission with the barrier corp and a seal went funny. I'm not actually that experienced with fuinjutsu."

Kakashi looked up from his book at that, one visible eyebrow raising.

"Barrier Corp? Anything to do with them is at least B-rank or above."

It was a statement of obvious fact, and he was fishing for information, I didn't know what information, but a plan was starting to form, my way out of this over-productive hell I'd dug myself into, and Hatake Kakashi had already saved me from fate once, maybe it was time to see if he was up for round two.

"Sa, well, I did run a few more C, and B….and A-rank while you were gone."

"WHAT!?"

Naruto was practically vibrating,

"WE FINALLY GET A C-RANK TO CATCH UP TO YOU AND YOU'RE OFF RUNNING SUPER COOL MISSIONS WITHOUT US?"

Sasuke huffed, though his expression was more worried than actually miffed,

"We were given a 'guard an old man' mission, just like you were at first and now you're off on high level missions? That's...a strange jump in difficulty."

Sakura shook her head in amazement,

"Your sensei must be really confident in your abilities!"

"Ahaha, well, you see, the jounin constantly requesting me, the assholes, have made a point to hide from him, so maybe he knows about it, maybe he doesn't."

Kakashi had disappeared behind his book again and my faith in the plan faded as he hummed,

"Genma always was odd, though, look at his teammates."

My mind filled with green spandex and I shuddered,

"Point taken."

Kakashi stayed for about half of the run down of the Wave mission before he left without a word, but I was too busy picking apart how things had happened. I was aware that Kakashi had been training them starting with whatever normally came after wall and water walking simply because they'd done that already with me, but I hadn't realized how far ahead of their storyline selves until I could compare it to what I thought should have happened.

Haku had barely escaped with Zabuza the first time because Kakashi wasn't nearly as drained as before, due to Sakura pulling a fancy trick with ninja wire set up during their 'free Kakashi' tirade that gave him an opening for a kill strike far sooner, and he wasn't too tired to realize the issues with that cover story. As it was Kakashi recovered far sooner and dominated the fight on the bridge, killing Haku in much the same manner, though there were several key differences in that part of the story as well. For one, Zabuza lived and went his own way without his 'tool' but with Naruto forcing him to admit he cared and had a heart, and Sasuke didn't get his Sharingan.

Haku wasn't able to push them enough, didn't have time to put Sasuke in a near death state before he was rushing off to save Zabuza from a chest full of lightning, and Sasuke of course didn't know what he'd been cheated out of. I was cold with the realization that something so essential could be changed by such small actions on my part. All I did was push them harder, from a younger age, and suddenly the way things were meant to be was crumbling around us at the seams. Partly, it was what I had wanted, but also it was terrifying. Because the more things changed the less I would know, and the less I would be prepared for. It made me feel ill, and I was probably paler than my chakra exhaustion should have merited when my sensei stormed into my hospital room, eyes blazing.

"Sonada Nonami is dead to us, understood?"

I could only nod in response, bewildered when he turned immediately and left. That night when I was finally discharged he was waiting in my apartment, takeout from Higuchi's as always when things went tough or weird. He forced the entire story out of me, every single mission, who requested me, what had happened, any detail that I could share was squeezed out into the open, and I'm sure he was taking note of names. When I was done he nodded to himself before fixing me with a hard stare. For a split second I was afraid, not for my life of course, this was sensei, but for my apprenticeship. He wouldn't hurt me, but I was a no-name orphan, I was used to being tossed aside for those with better connections. The fear was forced down as he leaned forwards.

"Listen up, I'm going to try to stay in-village more often now that the chuunin exams are coming up, but if I'm gone and this happens again I want you to find Hatake. He's an odd one but he'll do everything in his power to keep you out of a situation you don't want to be in."

I got the warm and fuzzies from the protective stance the two jounin were taking on the subject, but his wording caught up with me after half a second,

"Wait, Chuunin exams?"

He sighed explosively, taking the senbon out of his mouth so he could rub his face properly.

"Yeah, I can't exactly argue you aren't ready when you've met triple the requirement on missions or something other. I'll apply for a supplementary team, I'm sure there are some who need a third member to round them out, there's always at least one team with someone who got promoted in the last exam."

That...changed things slightly. I had three weeks apparently, and I spent most of the first one either training with Sensei or running around trying to get seal/experimental work done under the watchful eye of the Copy Nin. The moment Sensei told me, or I heard through the grapevine, that he was going to be out or on guard duty I booked it for Team Seven. I would work on seals in full view of them, or sometimes help with evening out spars or demonstrations, but every time someone came to drag me in to put me on a mission roster Kakashi would make long awkward eye contact. Most left at that point, though one hesitated and tried to speak with me anyway until Make Out paradise shut with an inordinately loud noise that echoed through the training ground. I still wasn't sure if they shunshined away or they were just that fast in their escape.

I occasionally badgered Kakashi for seal or general knowledge advice, but sometimes I couldn't bring myself to do it. He'd been my favorite character, and now he was my favorite person, awkward though he was he was also awesome as hell, and there was quite a bit of hero worship there. So I felt slightly lucky that he was the one that was there with me when I first passed Danzo in the streets. I'd always wondered what his chakra was like, so that I could easily avoid it of course, so I saw him, recognized him, and from my place between a silent Kakashi and chatty Naruto I honed in on him, actively searching. If I hadn't I doubt I would have felt it. If I hadn't been actively looking, hadn't been close enough to reach out and poke him in the side, I wouldn't have felt the familiar chakra. I stiffened, couldn't help myself. I'm sure he noticed, and that Kakashi noticed, but it wasn't like either of them could tell what I'd realized. The moment we turned the corner I looked up and met the jounins eye fearfully,

"That man we passed...whoever he was...he felt like an active sharingan."

Said dark eye widened and he glanced back at the corner we'd turned around, no doubt running through the faces of those we passed and trying to figure out who I meant.

"The one in blue?"

I shook my head, "The one in the bandages." When Kakashi narrowed his eye at the direction we'd come from, Naruto still chatting with his teammates and no one noticing our side conversation, I continued, "I practically live with Sasuke, I used to practically live at the Uchiha compound, and you're standing right next to me for reference, I'm not sure how I could have that mixed up, but it's there."

A heavy hand fell onto my head and ruffled my beanie, the jounin smiling at me from behind the mask. I couldn't tell if it was real.

"Maa, don't worry about it Asuka-chan. I'll look into it. In the meantime let's keep this between us."

The entire way to Ichiraku's I couldn't help but worry. Some part about Danzo and my own meddling, but more so about Kakashi. Would he be ordered to protect the village secret and ordered to end me? Would someone else be ordered by the Hokage to end me in order to keep the information silent? Did the Hokage even know that Danzo had stolen body parts from the people he'd had killed? All in all it was poorly thought out, but there was no way I could have handled it any better. I tried to work as if I didn't have knowledge of the future, tried to take a step back and look at information and then react based on how I should react with what I should know. This was part of it.

Three days later when Councilman Danzo died of a heart attack Utatane-san gave the memorial speech rather than the Hokage, who stood beside them with his head bowed, hat covering his face. That answered that, then, in part. My only theories were that either the Hokage hadn't known and had decided Danzo had gone too far, or had taken the chance Kakashi presented to have the ex-Anbu assassination expert do him in. It can't have been easy for the Hokage, I clearly remembered that he and the councilmen had been good friends. I tried not to worry about it, though cannon was falling down around my ears. Danzo played an important part in...everything, really, and even though he'd caused a lot of trouble I had no doubt that Root had actually done some things that really were for the good of the village. Now the only thing left to do was wait and see where the pieces fell.

Kakashi didn't explain to me what had happened, no one did. I don't know what they expected of it, with me having information of some sort and then seeing who I had information on and that they died soon after...but maybe Kakashi hadn't outed me as the informant. It was impossible to know, so I tried not to dwell on it overmuch, it would only stress me out, having so many theories and no way to get answers. Eventually I was distracted by the looming chuunin exams, and the more dangerous problem: Orochimaru.

To those of you who say the Danzo thing is a cop-out, I genuinely believe that he could have been taken out that early on, especially if he was caught off guard like that and yadayadayada, for all Asuka knows he took like ten Anbu teams with him during his 'heart attack'.

Also, sorry for the wait? Please review, I miss it.

~TimeLordOfPie