This is my first FemNaru fic, and trust me; I'm going to blow y'all into the next dimension! Let the epic begin!

A life is a complex thing.

A billion different paths are laid out for every person when they are born. Through their own choices, they choose one of these roads. That is how the universe works.

However, Kami wasn't satisfied to have only one of those worlds. Kami wanted some variety. And so, while said divine being was creating all of existence, it made a different plane for every possible world. Literal infinite worlds are created and tended to by Kami to this day.

But I digress. In the world of Shinobi, we are all aware of a certain orange-clad ninja and his growing future. However, what happens when we take a step sideways? What is one of the other paths that that boy could have taken? What if he wasn't even a boy in this path?

Chromosomes are so fickle, aren't they?

In the heart of Hi no Kuni, there lies a village. It is surrounded by forests as far as the eye can see, all of them of an unnatural height and girth. For you see, these weren't ordinary trees. Almost a century earlier, the Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama, had used his Mokuton powers to build this forest, in order to protect what lay inside: Konohagakure no Sato.

The most powerful of the Shinobi villages, it sprawls for miles in every direction, all surrounded by a protective circle of walls reaching up as high as the eye could see. There was one way in through these walls: the main gate. Every day of every year since its founding, the village would receive a constant stream of tourists, merchants, and diplomats through the gate. Even in war times these gates were open, though at those times they let in supply lines, retreating forces, and, in a time of crisis, invaders. But at all times, the gates were open, lovingly embracing all who wished to enter into its hallowed grounds.

Outsiders never failed to be amazed by the village itself. A perfect blend of nature and human inhabitation, it was. Gentle streams and beautiful clearings hovered at the fringes of strong, durable buildings that had survived for decades and would survive for decades more to come. At the rear of the village was the crown jewel that filled visitors with awe and natives with pride and a sense of safety: the Hokage Monument.

It was a giant plateau, rising suddenly out of the ground, into the side of which had been masterfully and proudly engraved the faces of the Hokages that had served Konoha with all their being. The first face was that of a man that was much older than he looked, at once both serious and caring, Senju Hashirama himself. Next to the village founder, bound together forever by stone, was Senju Tobirama, the younger brother to Hashirama. After his sibling had grown weary from defending the village he had painstakingly build in a single night, the Nidaime Hokage had taken up the reigns, gently taking the role of the ultimate protector away from his brother's shoulders.

Tobirama was said to be a force of nature, able to pluck water from the very air. Though he lacked the skill to fuse earth and water to make wood as his brother had done, Tobirama compensated by having a total mastery over any and all Suiton jutsu. His powers over the element was so great that Mizugakure no Sato, a rival village, took it as a personal offense. And so began the First Shinobi War.

Many great men and woman were lost as alliances were made, broken, and tested between the five villages that were only just starting to form. In the end, an alliance between Konoha, Suna, and Iwa managed to beat Mizu and its partner Kumo into submission. An ocean's worth of bad blood, sadly both literal and figurative, was left behind from this terrible calamity. Tensions mounted and escalated out of control. The Second Shinobi War came into being just as the Nidaime Hokage was ready to hand over his position as Hokage over to the prodigy that both he and his brother had proudly trained: Sarutobi Hiruzen. His face lies next to that of his teachers' on the Hokage Monument.

His new leadership tested by a baptism of war, Hiruzen bravely led Konoha into the fray. After a seemingly endless time of death and vengeance, Konoha once again emerged victorious, thanks to the valiant efforts of its Sandaime Hokage. In the peace that followed, Hiruzen threw himself into his work. Though he loved his family and new wife with all his heart, he loved his village with all his soul. Decades passed, and Hiruzen built the title of 'the Professor', because he had learned and mastered every jutsu that had ever been in Konoha's hands. He trained a team of his own in this time.

His favorite and most promising student was Orochimaru, who was the son of an unremarkable Chunin. The boy had extraordinary talent, and a thirst for knowledge that rivaled Hiruzen's own. The first to discover the Hebi Summoning Contract, he was soon one of the best Shinobi Konoha had to offer.

The second member was Senju Tsunade, the great-niece and granddaughter of his respective teachers. She had a fiery temper that could shake even the most stout-hearted man, but beneath that she felt a fierce duty to protect all those she cared about. It was this drive that led her to delve into the healing arts. She soon proved to be a prodigy in her own right, and was soon the greatest iryo-nin that Konoha had ever seen.

His last student, whom he saw as a kind of bothersome nephew, was Jiraiya. His parents lost in the Second Shinobi War, the boy had been forced to grow up early. He had done so in more ways than one, as was shown by his near-obsession with the female body. Hiruzen lost count of the amount of times he had to settle public complaints made by women who had been spied upon by Jiraiya in his 'research to discover what makes the perfect woman' as the boy explained it

Jiraiya was not untalented, but he paled in comparison to his two teammates, leading them to constantly joke about his weaknesses. Though secretly hurt, Jiraiya just laughed along, happy that the members of his 'family' took the time to pay attention to him. Jiraiya found his own Summoning Contract, the Gama one to be precise. He impressed the Gama elders over time, and they taught him the secrets of being a sennin. However, Jiraiya was at heart a fun-loving soul, and treated being a Shinobi like a game, unlike his best friend Orochimaru, who was serious to a fault. One time, in a skirmish with Ame, the three faced down the dictator of Ame, Sanshouuo no Hanzou himself. They survived, earning themselves the title of Sannin, or legendary three ninja.

After a few years as a Jonin, Jiraiya took on his own team. The member of this team that drew Jiraiya's attention was Namikaze Minato, an orphan from what was once an ordinary civilian family. The boy had near-limitless potential, and Jiraiya took him under his wing completely. Jiraiya trained Minato to be the best ninja he could be, and encouraged him when the boy started to experiment with making his own jutsu. His progress was meteoric, and when the time came when Hiruzen wished to retire, Minato was a serious contender for the title. However, Hiruzen was conflicted in his decision.

He could easily tell that Minato was the perfect man for the job, but his sense of loyalty to Orochimaru interfered with his focus. The snake-like man had long made it known that he wished to become Hokage, and Hiruzen respected his student's dream, because he did have the strength to become Hokage. However, recently, Hiruzen had detected a change in Orochimaru. There was a shadow in his eyes when he talked, and he started to avoid his friends. Around the same time, citizens had started to mysteriously disappear from their homes, never to be seen again. Hiruzen knew in his heart of hearts that Orochimaru was the culprit, but his love for his favorite student refused to accept it.

In the end, Hiruzen had to pick what was best for the village, and nominated Minato as his successor. His head would be the one carved next to Hiruzen's. When Orochimaru heard the news, he was furious, and the number of disappearances increased dramatically. Finally, unable to deny it any longer, Hiruzen tracked down Orochimaru to his secret base, where he found all the kidnapped villagers, all of them dead by some horrific means.

Orochimaru himself was there, and freely admitted to all the accusations Hiruzen hurled at him. Orochimaru revealed how he desired to learn every jutsu in the world, and so become all-powerful. Hiruzen saw the madness in his eyes as he told him this, but he couldn't bring himself to kill the man that was just as much his son as Asuma or Asuma's younger brother. And so, Hiruzen let Orochimaru leave alive.

Jiraiya himself tried to stop Orochimaru, but he too could not let go of his memories of the past, and Orochimaru left Konoha forever. Around the same time, Tsunade lost in quick succession her little brother and her beloved, and fled the village with the person who would have been her niece-in-law. Sarutobi didn't have the heart to brand her a missing-nin.

The tides of war rose again at this time, and Namikaze Minato with his new genin team were thrust into the front lines. On the team was Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Obito, and Inuzuka Rin. Kakashi was a prodigy among prodigies, rising to genin rank at the age of six. However, he took the suicide of his father hard, and left in his mind the unbreakable belief that the mission came above all else.

Minato personally thought that Sakumo, Kakashi's father, was perfectly justified in his actions, which had been to save his friends rather than complete the mission, but Kakashi would not believe it. Obito, a brash and bold boy at best, soon developed a rivalry with Kakashi, which was mostly ignored by Kakashi himself. Rin was both the possessor and object of unrequited love, for she had a raging crush on Kakashi, while Obito had a crush on her. This one-sided love ladder made for lots of annoying yet funny scenarios.

However, they all got a wake-up call on a routine mission. They had been sent to destroy a bridge so that Iwa, once their ally, could not cross over into Hi no Kuni. They were ambushed instead, with Minato on a separate mission, too far away to help. They managed to fight their way free, but Rin was kidnapped at the last second. Kakashi was adamant on leaving her behind in order to not risk the mission, saying "Those that don't follow the mission are trash." However, Obito could never be so heartless and retorted "But those that leave behind their friends are worse than trash!" After this, Obito turned around to go help save Rin. Making the most impulsive decision of his life, Kakashi followed.

When Kakashi arrived, he found Rin lying on the ground injured and Obito crushed by a rock slide, with a tangent of fifty Iwa-nin poised for the final blow. Kakashi wildly attacked, trying to distract them, but he wound up wounded next to Obito with his left eye torn out of its socket and his father's Tanto smashed to pieces. Taking out the kunai his sensei had given him, Kakashi hurled the special tri-kunai into the Iwa forces with all his strength.

Ten seconds later, amid countless yellow flashes, all the Iwa-nin were dead and the Yondaime Hokage was standing among the bodies. However, there was nothing that Minato could do for his student, for Obito was beyond the skill of any healer in the world to save. With his dying breath, Obito begged Rin to give his Sharingan eye to replace Kakashi's own, so that he would always remember his best friend. Crying hysterically, Rin used her amateur medical skills to transplant Obito's left eye into Kakashi's eye socket. Obito smiled at his friends for the last time, and died.

Rin and Kakashi took the death very hard. Rin herself couldn't take the strife, and fled Konoha and all its painful memories of the boy that she never knew loved her. Kakashi dealt with it by drowning himself in work, reaching ANBU in an unprecedented amount of time. To fill up what little free time he had, Kakashi forced himself to read over and over the explicit books that Jiraiya had started to write as a way to share his perverted fantasies with the world. It was a precarious balance, but it worked.

Minato felt dearly for the pain of his students, and the loss of his village in general, but he soon found a welcome distraction. A refugee from the recently destroyed Uzu no Kuni, Uzumaki Kushina was the most beautiful woman Minato had ever seen. After seeing her when he greeted the refugees, he quickly sought her out. However, she seemed immune to his charm, and flat-out told him that he was "pushy and arrogant and not very bright."

Minato was not known for giving up easily however, and continued to pursue her. After three months of fending off date requests and listening to her friends nag her about why she didn't want to date the Hokage, she agreed to go out with Minato "Just so that the craziness can end!" as she said. It was the best date of her life. After a while, she agreed to a second, and a third, until she found herself seeing Minato as a boyfriend. She had misjudged him, thinking he was just like every other confident male in the world. In truth, he was the sweetest, kindest, most romantic member of the opposite sex she had ever had the pleasure of meeting. The fact that he was the love machine to end all love machines in bed helped as well.

After six months of almost constant bliss, Kushina found herself wanting more. So, after one of their frequent dates, she grabbed him by his trench coat and said, bluntly as always, "If you ever want to see me again, you'll propose right now." Not so surprisingly, Minato already had the ring on his person, and immediately got down on one knee and slipped the ring on her finger. The look of happiness on his face was beyond words to describe. A month later, after a smallish ceremony that had to be hidden from view so that the village wouldn't riot in joy, the two were husband and wife.

Everything seemed right with the world: there was peace with no sight of war on the horizon, the Hokage was happily married and expecting his first child and the village was prospering like never before. How little did they expect the disaster to come.

The very week of Kushina's due date, the Kyuubi no Kitsune appeared out of nowhere, a force of nature and destruction. There had been rumors and whisperings of the king of the Bijuu living in Hi no Kuni, but no one ever had the courage to test these claims. Now they were confirmed in the worst way. Any who went up against the Kyuubi died, crushed like insects by the dozen. Minato's heart seized with grief when the demon finally came upon Konoha itself.

However, disasters come in pairs, for just as the Kyuubi breached the outer wall, Kushina went into labor. Knowing only one way to stop the beast, Minato killed his heart and ordered his men to hold off the fox while he went to stand by Kushina. The malevolence of the Kyuubi's chakra was immense, and Kushina quickly succumbed to it. The doctors worked desperately, trying to perform a miracle, but it was of no use. After a caesarean section, Kushina left the world of the living, never able to even hold the child she already loved with all her heart. Minato's sorrow could be felt ten paces away, yet he shed no tears. He spent exactly one minute holding Kushina's dead hand, and then took his child and ran towards the battlefield.

Minato's misery increased tenfold when he saw the dead bodies of all his friends, but he knew what he had to do. Summoning the Gama-oyabun Gamabunta, Minato ordered the boss summon to distract the demon while he prepared to condemn his child to a life he would not wish on his worst enemy. Going through nine handseals that were forbidden on all levels, Minato summoned the Shinigami, the terrible god of death.

Offering his soul, purer than any the Shinigami had ever seen, Minato begged the Shinigami to take the Kyuubi's soul and seal it into the body of his newborn child. Normally, the Shinigami would have demanded two souls in this kind of deal: the Summoner and the Sealed. However, the Shinigami saw that Minato's soul was worth more than any other, and agreed to the modified deal. Reaching through Minato's stomach and his child's, the Shinigami grasped the Kyuubi's soul, and ripped it from its still-living body. Any and all resistance was futile; the Shinigami could not be stopped.

The Shinigami pushed the soul into the newborn's body, forcing the innocent spirit to make room for this darkest evil. The deal complete, the Shinigami seized Minato's soul and ate it with undeniable relish. The last thing Minato saw before his essence merged with that of the Shinigami's was his child, his beautiful baby girl. "Megami…" was all he could say before he crumbled into dust and Gamabunta disappeared in smoke.

(Six Years Later)

It was just over half a decade since the tragedy of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Most tried to suppress any and all memories of the event, trying to focus on the now. However, to the villager's infinite hate, there was a glaring reminder of the ones they lost living among them: the Kyuubi child. It had disappeared from the orphanage a few months ago, but they knew that it still lived within the walls of Konoha.

If you asked a random person off the street what they would do with the kid, ten times out of ten they would answer "I would kill it, slowly and painfully." It was a monster, the reincarnation of the beast that had ruined their lives. It didn't even deserve to be called a girl. It even mocked them by resembling their beloved Yondaime! What was worse, it had managed to take over their precious Sandaime Hokage, worming itself into his mind. How else could the man forgive the beast that had killed his wife and forced him away from a retirement that he justly deserved? No, the Sandaime could not be trusted, and that made things difficult.

The villagers were not totally unsuccessful in making the creature pay, no. But it just wouldn't die! The merchants that the orphanage bought food from freely gave them poisoned food to feed to the monster, but every day it lived on. The orphanage took in 'volunteers' to teach it a lesson, every time beating it to a bloody pulp, but still it got up and moved! It was infuriating.

Whenever someone tried an outright murder attempt, the corrupted Sandaime showed up and arrested the potential heroes on the spot. The villager's were infuriated with the lack of progress, for they knew that they had a deadline. Sooner or later the beast would stop waiting around and slaughter them mercilessly as it had six years ago. Weapons were smuggled in with the 'volunteers', the orphanage cooks served nothing but rat-poisoned garbage to the beast, but it kept on surviving.

And then, it ran away, disappearing from sight and knowledge. Every morning the villagers thanked Kami that the beast had not snuck into their homes and killed them in their sleep, but they knew the time was coming. However, the possessed Sandaime had forced a curfew, preventing them from seeking out the beast and killing it. Fear and hate pulsed in every citizen's breast, and they soon became frantic. The civilians sought out allies in the Shinobi ranks and told them where they had glimpsed the demon, imploring them to 'save' them all.

Traps used on wild boar were laid out to capture the beast should it come by. Every single scrap of food thrown away was poisoned with the most lethal toxins the chemist could sneak out in case the beast came by to feed. But even three months later, there was no confirmed death of the demon.

Fast approaching was the time when the villagers would form a mob and turn over the village looking for the beast, Sandaime or no. It was only a matter of time.

Konohagakure no Sato has many alleys, back-end streets that are hidden from sight by the very nature of their length. There are even more ways between these alleys, tiny openings and alternate routes that would boggle the mind if they were all written down. So complex were these paths through the darkness around the village that there are only two beings that have them memorized. One was Tora, the Daimyo of Hi no Kuni's wife's favorite cat. This pampered creature used these passageways to avoid the ninja that were sent to drag it back to its mistress. The other creature was a girl who turned six that very day.

Though 'girl' wouldn't seem like the right word if you saw her. Her clothes, if they could even be called that, were little more than threadbare rags held together by the dirt caked into them. Her skin, where she had any, was black and purple from bruises and sores. The rest of her outer layer was composed of cuts in varying stages of recovery, burns, puncture wounds, and a thick sludge comprised of dirt, insect remains, and her own phlegm. Her feet looked like beets that had been thoroughly chewed and then spat out.

Beyond the heart-wrenching damage of the exterior, you could see every one of her bones, like a skeleton covered with the skin of some tortured animal. Her nails were black with filth, and her hair was the kind of hair other hair told horror stories about. Greasy, tangled, littered, basically every single bad adjective about hair could be applied to it. Her face was the worst part. Her teeth, when you could see them past her cut lips, were almost brown. Her bronze cheeks were covered with grime thicker than the dust in an antique store, and were marked with three lines on either side of her smashed nose that strongly resembled whiskers, giving her the look of a feral animal.

Her eyes, occasionally covered by eyelashes held together by hardened sludge, were a shade of blue that seemed to contain the ocean in their depths. However, they contained untold amounts of pain and suffering. Captives tortured and raped for twenty years before being released were whistling optimists compared to the horrors in her eyes. There was no light of intelligence, no humanly compassion. There was only an animal, intend on survival even after it had been put through every hardship the world had to offer.

The girl was lying in wait in a dumpster, waiting for the waste that served as her nourishment. Stealing real food was out of the question: the stands were in broad daylight, and the market had an impenetrable wall of traps around its storage areas: her scars were proof of that. Hunting in the forests was not possible, because she could easily get lost and even then there was the chance of running into a predator. Rats somehow knew to avoid her, and all insects and dogs (for bones, not meat) seemed to favor spots right by the fast-people, which she avoided at all times.

She didn't know what they were called; she wouldn't even be able to if they told her personally. The scary-people at the bad-place never spoke to her, choosing instead to speak with harsh actions. The other kids wouldn't talk to her, and she was never allowed out of the orphanage to speak to any one else. She had a total of six workable words in her vocabulary, including her name which the nice-man called her when he stopped the bad-people from killing her. For all intents and purposes, she couldn't talk. She didn't need to, though, considering she had no one to talk to. Even the nice-man only stuck around to speak a few words, pat her on the shoulder, and disappear.

After years of pain and nausea from poisoning, she had had enough. She had fled from the bad-place, and started battling for survival in her back-water haven. As was demonstrated by her hiding under rotting vegetables and maggot-ridden meat. The smell would have made grown men gag and vomit, but she forced herself to deal with it. Finally, there was blinding light and inedible waste fell down into the dark container. The instant the light disappeared, the girl shot forward, stuffing the refuse down her throat.

She paid no attention to the taste, which was revolting, the smell, which was abominable, or to the bile that surged in her throat. Every time she ate something, it made her feel like her insides were burning, but it was all she had. It was that or nothing, and with her malnourished body she wouldn't last three days without some form of food.

After forcing down all she could, the girl peeked outside the container. There was no one. Faster than any person could vaguely suspect of such an unhealthy body, the girl sprang out of the dumpster, and made for a crawlspace of another building, burrowing through the dust and spider webs before the lid even clanged. This was how the girl lived: hide, get food, run far away, and repeat. She took water from the streams that came into the outskirts of the village, but she did this as infrequently as possible because there was no cover there. Her home was the softest patch of ground she could find after her strength left her for the day.

She took the utmost care to remain unseen, diving for cover when predators came with animalistic ferocity. Most of her decision-making was instinctual, purely a hunter-hunted mindset, where she was the one hunted being trapped in the home of the hunters. She had been prisoner to the hunters in the bad-place, but now she was free. Pathetic as her current existence was, it was paradise compared to her personal hell in the bad-place.

However, for all her stealth, there was one person she could never hide from.

Sarutobi Hiruzen stared into his crystal ball, feeling every one of his years excruciatingly. He stared at his successor's daughter as she made her way through the least-walked paths in the village, desperately searching for food and avoiding detection. 'Minato, if you could return to this world, even for only an hour, I have no doubt that you would tear this village down brick by brick for what we have done to your daughter.' Hiruzen was old, too old to be Hokage. He lived more in the past than the present, and that affected his judgment. When he first found Megami amid the ruins of the battlefield, he had been awed and saddened by Minato's sense of duty to the village.

Wanting his sacrifice to be remembered, he had told the villagers of Minato's last act not two days later. It proved to be the worst mistake of his life. His rose-colored-glasses view of the village had led him to believe that the villagers would honor Megami and treat her like a hero for the burden she was forced to carry. Instead, she had been treated as if she was the embodiment of all evil in the world.

The villagers had gone into an uproar at the news, demanding her death. He had been forced to flee the scene with his ANBU swatting projectiles out of the sky. His own shinobi had to be restrained, and the half the council bayed for her blood. Most of the ninja clan heads didn't hate her, though Uchiha Fugaku and Hyuuga Hiashi did, but the rest had no love for her, knowing that any help on their part would bring hell down on their shoulders. His very advisors, the teammates he had so long ago, turned against him, telling him to go with Danzo's option of turning her into the ultimate weapon.

Hiruzen sighed, feeling misery at the villager's actions… and his own. He knew that his good will could only go so far, and yet he placed Megami into the orphanage instead of caring for her in the Sarutobi complex. He was aware of all the terrible deeds the citizens of the village did, but he did no more than stop an obvious effort. Hiruzen hated himself for it, but he could not bring himself to love Megami either. Kushina died for her, Minato was lost through her, and his peaceful life of retirement as well as his wife was gone because of what was in her. He tried to bring himself to love her, but his old heart simply could not forgive her, and so could not truly love her.

Hiruzen knew exactly were Megami was, for the crystal ball gave him a perfect sense of the target's whereabouts, but he knew not what to do. For the past three months, he had been warring with himself over what to do. He could find her personally, though he would have to use a great deal of energy to keep up with her when she fled, energy he didn't know if he had.

He could send ninja to get her, and more likely as not wind up with her corpse. Even if he did find her alive, his only options were to send her back to the orphanage, where she'd likely die, or take her in himself, and be forced to settle the darkness in his heart. He could give her an apartment, but she couldn't even speak, and any merchant she tried to buy food from would not sell or only give her poison. Raising her outside the village was out of the question, for he had no one he could trust enough to keep her alive; some of his own ANBU hated her. At the same time, he couldn't do nothing, for the risk of an angry mob going on an unstoppable hunt grew with every day. All in all, Megami was screwed unless some divine intervention occurred.

Hiruzen sighed once more, and cancelled the crystal ball, leaving the poor girl to survive one more night. Or so he thought.

The girl was slinking through the alleyways, simply moving so that she would not be found. However, she was not totally random in her scurrying way. She had started to angle herself towards one of her favorite dumpsters. The noodle-stuff was warm when they through it out, and it was actually the only food that didn't make her sick. However, she could not afford to develop a pattern that a predator could track, and so she went there as infrequently as possible.

She had just leapt out of an air vent and was about to sneak through a gap between buildings when she heard a chorus of yells that would have beat out the chorus in Hell. Saying word number three, the girl glanced at the source of the sound with the fear of the prey. Her weak eyes were blinded by the bright light of the street behind them, but she clearly saw an angry mob, armed with every weapon they could get their hands on. The villagers had cracked, on this the anniversary of their loved ones' death.

They had managed to snag an ANBU into their ranks and the man had personally seen to it that any loyal person to the Sandaime was dead drunk. Considering that it was a festival, the men and women easily agreed to the offers, unaware that the barkeepers had spiked their drinks with a cocktail of vodka and sedatives. Since most ninja developed immunities to drugs, the man had overdosed slightly, leaving the loyal shinobi passed out after one sip. With those traitors out of the way, the only one who could stop them was the Sandaime himself, and they knew that he could never hurt them. It was child's play for the ANBU to track the beast down. At long last, they could have their revenge.

The girl was unaware of all this. In her mind there was only one object of importance: the command to run. She did so wildly, stunning some of the villagers with her panic-induced speed. Beyond caring whether it would leave a trail or not, the girl smashed through a window, her hair gaining a smattering of glass fragments. Ignoring any pain her receptors sent her, she broke out through the other window in the random room out the other side, putting one building between the mob and her.

One building quickly became two, when she tore through some random backdoor into a small lawn. The mob had recovered by now, and had started to chase after her, but they would not take the risks she did. She flew over the fence of the lawn, tore around three corners in quick succession, and then leapt onto a dumpster, jumping immediately to desperately fumble for the top of the wall blocking her way. However, she had not the strength to pull herself over, and she fell to the ground.

The mob had started to move into the dead end, but the girl wasn't done yet. Yelling wildly to confuse them, she charged forward towards the first villagers. Their anger was replaced with shock for a second, but it was enough. She tore through their ranks on all-fours, knocking over the few in her way before reaching the alleyway again.

After that, it was an age of running, desperate maneuvers, and death-defying risks. She tried to jump over walls, squeezed through gaps most would not consider rats able to get through, and finally frantically lifting a manhole-cover and jumping down into the sewers. The villagers were spitting with rage, but adrenaline could only go so far.

They had expected quickly cornering the beast and taking their own sweet time with killing it, but they had been running constantly for almost half an hour. How the creature could be faster on them when it was living on the edge of existence, none of them knew, but what they were sure of was that they could not keep up with the creature at this pace.

Fortunately for the villagers, extremely unfortunate for the girl, there were ninja in the crowd, and they decided to take matters into their own hands. Dashing forward with lightning speed, a jonin with silver-spiked hair rushed forward into the manhole and grabbed the beast that had killed his sensei. He could have done this at any time, but wanted the villagers to have their moment. Now, it was death. The beast thrashed wildly, but he held it with iron strength as he leapt out back into the street. He threw the creature right towards the mob, yelling "KILL IT NOW!"

To some, Kakashi's behavior would seem totally out of character and crazy, but no one knew just how fragile the man's mind was. Losing his father was bad. Losing Obito was worse. Rin leaving him stung like a stab to the heart. But the death of his sensei had been the straw that broke the camel's back. His frail mentality cracked, and he became obsessed with killing the thing that tore his sensei, who was more a father to him than Sakumo, away from him.

The girl found herself in a place worse than hell. The Shinigami could not hold a candle to the fear that was instilled in her by the villagers' wrath. She instinctively knew that this time it would be different than the beatings in the bad-place. Now, they would not hold back, and the fast-people were with them. She had seen the fast-people jump over rooftops and flicker into smoke from the window in her room at the bad-place. They would do things to her that none of the bad-people ever could.

Words could not describe the pain that followed. With all people who would warn the Sandaime passed out and/or wasted, and the man himself not watching, there was no need to be quiet or 'gentle.' The villagers wanted to make her suffer, and each villager was given their own individual chance to let out all their hate by causing her pain. They took care to not hit vital areas, to stretch out the pain as long as possible. They cursed her and damned her with hysterical voices while she was slowly lowered into a bottomless pit of agony.

Most settled for simply beating the tar out of her, others used weapons to do what could be seen as death by a thousand cuts, a few even raped her, wanting her to feel pain on an entirely different layer. Every person was cheered wildly as they did their personal torturing. Any and all attempts to fight back were hopeless; she was trapped. Needless to say, her screams would have elicited mercy from Uchiha Madara.

Finally, the ninja got in on the action, and this was where things became first-degree lethal. The girl, who by now was a quivering puddle of terrified flesh, experienced types of pain so unknown and deadly that it felt like she had already died ten times over before it was halfway done. There were the classic Katon jutsu, a few Doton that involved pits with spikes and suchlike, one Suiton that left her just short of drowning and the cherry on top: a fist covered with lightning plunged through her chest by a bad-person who reeked of madness.

She practically vomited blood after that last one, and the onlookers knew right then and there that she was dead. Kakashi had pumped about half his chakra into that Raikiri, and had kept it active once inside, effectively cooking all her vital organs from the inside.

Kakashi tossed her to the side, leaving her to the rats, to be met by a cascade of cheers from the villagers. There revenge finally exacted, they went from an angry mob to a joyous riot, carrying Kakashi on their shoulders while going to drink themselves to the ground in honor of their dead friends and family, at last avenged. The last thing they ever gave to the beast was their spittle before leaving it away from all sight and memory.

They were unaware that Kakashi's Raikiri had not attacked her brain, and that meant she wasn't dead for another four minutes until her brain ran out of electricity. A lot can happen in four minutes. An entire existence can be changed in four minutes.

The girl studied her surroundings in the way a captive memorizes the place in which they are held hostage so that they can plan their eventual escape. One moment, she felt death in plasma form in the shape of the miniature lightning storm in her chest, and the next she was in a strange wet place, vaguely like the sewers in which she occasionally hid, without a scratch on her.

She didn't know how she got there, and she didn't really care; what mattered was that her instincts were screaming at her to follow the hall to wherever it led to. Having learnt since she could walk that following your instincts kept you alive, she complied, taking off on all-fours towards the end of the odd corridor. She passed many hallways and some doorways; all of them without door handles or locks, most of them black or grey in color. She ignored them, continuing on the pathway she was on.

After a few minutes, she came upon the biggest chamber she would ever see, cut in half by a cage with bars thick as a century-old oak. Where the two doors of it met, there was a single slip of paper marked with a character. The girl paid little attention to this, because she had frozen like a deer under headlights. The reason behind this was because she had just met the ultimate predator: the Kyuubi no Kitsune.

The Kyuubi stared at his container, nearly drowning in self-loathing and contempt. She was pathetic, if she even was a she! The tiny insect was easily the dirtiest the Kyuubi had ever seen of its kind, and the state of her body was appalling: he was trapped inside a soiled bag of skin and bones. The Kyuubi just stared at the thing, wishing that it had never existed while the back of his mind was working on keeping her alive, and failing to his great anger.

He was the Kyuubi no Kitsune, for Kami's sake! He had taken on all his brethren at once and won, he had managed to bed the Nibi no Nekomata, the most untouchable of the three female Bijuu, he had crumbled mountains into dust with one flick of his tails, and he was reduced to this: sealed inside this lamentable insect, and stuck responsible with keeping it alive, a task that suddenly seemed impossible. Life sucked with teeth.

The girl was kept out of the demon's inner thoughts, more concerned with getting as far away as possible. It did not matter that the fox with nine tails was behind the cage: it was the biggest hunter she had ever seen and she had to flee for survival. At the same time, her instincts were yelling at her to stay in the room. She was caught up in this internal conflict with no end in sight, and found herself suddenly wanting to be in the alleys of the bad-people's home; at least she knew where those went, instead of this maze-like place with the fox's cage.

These kinds of conscious desires were rare from her, usually driven by instinct entirely, but when she experienced them they were stronger than any thoughts from a normal person ever could be. And since this was her mindscape, though she was unaware of that, it reacted to her wish, reshaping itself from a dank sewer to one of the myriad alleys of Konohagakure no Sato.

It the girl was surprised, the Kyuubi was in a coma from the shock. One second it was mentally ranting how gag-inducing his current position in life was, simultaneously trying and failing to safe his prison, and the next he was behind a chain-link fence in an alley in the village of his container. The only was this could have happened was because of the insect, but that was impossible! None of those worthless ningen could control their mindscape with this power at this age. It was inconceivable.

Once again, the girl was unaware to the Kyuubi's thoughts, more concerned with trying to figure how what had happened happened. She had yearned to be in the alleys, stopping the simple primal thoughts she normally used, and the strange-place had turned an alley and the predator was behind one of those bendy-walls. Cautiously, being totally new to the act, she 'wanted' the fox to be smaller, like the normal one she once saw by the stream.

The effect was instantaneous. All things are relative, including size. The Kyuubi could have all his awesome power, and still be the size of a normal fox. As was demonstrated by his sudden shrinking from the height of mountains to the same level of sight as most rabbits. The Kyuubi was utterly dumbfounded by the change: the ningen had not only changed the scenery of its mindscape, but it changed his size as well! Shock and the tiniest modicum of fear was coursing through the Kyuubi as it found itself stuck behind a fence it could not climb in a space the size of a small room.

The girl was feeling very strange. She had made things change with just her thoughts, something her urges could never do. For the first time in her short life, she felt… confidence. The predator had shrunk to the size of prey. Now she would be the predator, and finally taste food other than the waste of the bad-people. In her mind, it was that simple. Experimenting with her 'wanting', she wished herself to be in the cage with the now-small fox. In a sudden shift of perspective, she was crouched in the fenced-in square with the fox.

The Kyuubi had, by now, recovered from the shock of such a psychically-able ningen, and whipped one of his tails at the girl, planning on scaring her into leaving his cage and leaving him to possibly die in her destroyed body peacefully.

The girl felt the blow, still containing the power to cause tsunamis despite the size of the appendage, but it strangely didn't hurt like the blows she got from the bad-people. There was pain, immeasurable pain, but she found that she could ignore it. Grabbing hold of the tail, she pulled, and surprisingly the fox was dragged towards her despite her meager strength. It was as if her desire for the fox's death was used instead of her strength.

Since it was her mind, everything was a battle of wills. Though she was unaware of the mechanics of this fact, what she did know was that her urge to hunt and feed seemed to make her vastly stronger. Using that, she punched the fox in the body, still holding on to one of its nine tails, driving it into the ground, forming a crater as the body hit the ground.

Kyuubi hastily changed his labeling of the insect from 'pathetic' to 'dangerous.' In a matter of minutes, it had discovered the powers of its mindscape, and had then made him feel the first pain he ever had since his brawl with his fellow Bijuu. The power, or rather willpower, behind the punch was incredible, and the Kyuubi suddenly found himself wondering if his believe that all ningen had no spines was accurate.

The girl then spun the fox around by its tail, before letting go and hurtling it into the wall of the space behind the bendy-wall; cracks spider-webbed away from the impact, strangely repairing themselves before the fox hit the ground. The girl ignored the walls, lunging forward to incapacitate the prey. The way this would go was very clear in her mind: weaken fox, trap fox, and eat fox.

A simple mantra from her primal brain, but it was straightforward. However, Kyuubi had decided to not pull any punches and knocked the girl away with a swipe of its paw, sending her flying into the fence with a sonic boom. The girl bounced off the fence, but instead of crumbling into a heap, she hit the ground running, once again hurling herself towards the fox.

It continued in this fashion for Kami-knows how long. The girl would land in a couple hits, the Kyuubi would send her flying back, and she would recover to strike again. Kyuubi simply could not believe it: how could such a pathetic, starving ningen have will power that could outmatch his own? He didn't get an answer, and continued to use every trick he knew to avoid the insect and tire her out.

Finally, the girl grabbed hold of the fox as it leapt into mid-air, and brought the squirming flesh to her rotten teeth and bit with all her strength. The semi-jagged and probably infected teeth pierced the thin covering of skin, unleashing the pulsing blood within to flow down the burning throat of the starving girl. The Kyuubi reacted by bringing all nine tails around to form a sort of furry club, knocking her away from him with the force of a thousand avalanches. The girl struggled to get back up, refusing to quit now that she was so close.

Now, the Kyuubi was not a ravaging, murdering bastard, except on Tuesday nights. He had a form of honor, though it was decidedly one-sided, like 'I never kill without a reason, but I can always find a reason to kill'. But one of his paramount rules that he could never in good conscience ignore was his 'draw blood' code. If he fought someone, be it ningen, animal, or Bijuu, if they managed to spill his blood, a near-impossible task, then he would concede defeat.

This girl was the first ningen to ever do this; after all, the Yondaime hadn't so much cut him as dragged his soul out with the help of a death god. But this girl had not only pierced his flesh, but had drunk his blood. That was something no one in existence could claim.

It was the thought of her drinking his blood that sparked the idea: the idea that would lead to this girl becoming a legend.

The Kyuubi thought that his wild idea was the only solution: it would make the girl stronger, give him some freedom, and it would, most importantly, keep her alive. Seriously, it was perfect. Now, how to implement it?

Kyuubi, in the manner of a kamikaze pilot, charged forward towards the girl, reversing the pattern the hunt had been taking. But the girl was prepared for the prey to be creative, and started lashing out her arm to strike the fox into submission once and for all. The punch connected, but not before the fox managed to sink its teeth into her neck. The girl clutched the wound, trying to ignore the pain but somehow failing.

The bite seemed to be beating down her new 'willpower', trying to send her back to being the prey instead of the predator. The girl forced herself to suppress it, but the fox had not been idle. The instant that her lifeblood had entered his mouth, the Kyuubi had started to chant in an ancient language, not spoken aloud for thousands of years. "Hac vinculum ex cruor, per consentio donatus, ego sic redimio nos, ego sic redimio nos. Per veneratio ex Deus, quod iunctio no, ego sic redimio nos, ego sic redimio nos. Pro vita quod diligo quod persevero ops, nos iam huic atrum hora, ego sic redimio nos, ego sic redimio nos." Roughly translated, this means "By bonds from blood, and consent given, I thus bind we, I thus bind we. By the honor of God, and connections made, I thus bind we, I thus bind we. For life and love and continued power, to help us now in this dark hour, I thus bind we, I thus bind we."

The instant the last syllable had left the Kyuubi's throat, he and the girl started to glow, she with a soft blue light, he with a vicious red. Cords of their respective colors burst from the glow, connecting to the other. The threads kept coming, twisting and turning around each other, until it seemed as if the two were held together by a corded rope of light. The seal started to glow with a white light, and threads branched out from it as well, but these threads seemed to be trying to cut the rope in half. However, the threads broke and disconnected the instant they touched the rope; the force that the Kyuubi had just invoked was stronger than the Shinigami.

The rope melted together, becoming thicker, until it was a single strand that was a rich purple. Slowly, an orb of light seemed to come out of the girl, and started to travel down the thread, going forward to meet the similar orb that had left the Kyuubi's currently-frail friend. The two orbs met in the middle, and started to merge into one. With the crack of thunder, the single orb broke into two again, traveling back towards the two members of the ritual, burning the thread in their wake. The very moment the half-orb entered the girl, she experienced mind-numbing feeling.

Her new concentrated thoughts had been whispers in the wind compared to the messages her brain was now processing. A million different sensations, sights, smells, and textures rushed through her mind, burning themselves into her very being. She could feel the sheer power of the thoughts physically changing her body, hastily adapting to deal with the sudden influx of thoughts it could not handle, healing all of her injuries as if they were cobwebs to be swept away.

At the same time, the Kyuubi grew to the size of a large man, before his body started morphing, becoming something more bipedal, more human. He too was experiencing foreign thoughts and memories, but these were of anguish and misery. For the first time in his countless years, the Kyuubi shed tears as he fell prey to an immeasurable amount of pain, loneliness, and emptiness that ate away at all of his demonic pride and contempt. 'How could she have survived all this? I'm the fucking Kyuubi, and I'm barely stopping myself from cracking. A girl less than a decade of age handled it without going insane? She truly was worthy of this ritual.'

After an eternity of having their minds being turned upside-down and inside-out, the two stopped glowing. The two of them simultaneously collapsed on the floor, unaware of one change to the seal written on the chain-links: there was a hole in the center.

When the girl awoke, she found herself lying inside a bed, the first bed she had ever been in, since the pile of rags in a corner at her room in the orphanage hadn't really counted as a bed. She was wearing a nightgown, a totally unfamiliar piece of clothing on all accounts. She was in a large-ish room, with a floor covered by an ornate rug, blue plaster walls totally unoccupied, and an open set of doors to a modest balcony, looking out over the Konoha forest. Her body felt… whole, as if she had actual meat on her bones, and she felt no gnaw of hunger.

'How did I get here?' she thought, before she froze at the workings of her own brain. She had thought. In words she had never heard of! 'What happened?' she asked herself, before freezing again at her mind's mutterings. Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice spoke straight into her mind, making her jump for the third time in as many second. 'Wow, you were so primal that simple thoughts and questions are strange to you. We'll have to work on that.'

The voice was male, had an undertone of power and authority, and rumbled like thunder in her mind. Instead of not comprehending the words, the girl understood them; making those two sentences the first she had ever comprehended and received information from. 'Who or what are you?' she mentally asked, asking the question before she could even wonder where the words had come from. It is a very weird experience when your own mind confuses you.

The voice spoke again, in a soft tone that strangely didn't seem to suit it. 'My name is Yuusei, the Kyuubi no Kitsune or Kyuubi no Youko. What is your name?' Since the girl had spent six years illiterate, she had never heard or understood anyone talking about the Kyuubi, and so was not filled with irrational fear. 'My name is… Megami.' That was what the kind old man called her when he came to save her from her potential murderers.

Once again, Megami was shocked by her involuntary thoughts and vocabulary. 'Try to ignore your thoughts until you get used to them. Just let me do the talking so I can explain how you went from feral survivor on the brink of death to a girl with an impressive vocabulary inside the Sarutobi complex.' The girl mentally nodded (no idea how you do that) and tried to just soak up Yuusei's words.

'Maybe I should start at the beginning. Your father was the Yondaime Hokage. The Hokage is the leader of the village, and supposed to be the strongest ninja in the village. Ninja are the 'fast-people.' Anyway, I was attacking the village, for reasons I won't tell you at this time. So your dad comes out, carrying you. He made a deal with the Shinigami and sealed me within you to save the village. I do believe that that was a great personal sacrifice.' Megami mussed over the words, trying to ignore how she automatically understood the meanings behind them.

So, her dad had chosen to seal Yuusei inside her to protect the village. She found herself half-hating the man and half-understanding him. The fact that she was feeling such complex emotions after six years of painfully simple urges was ignored with growing ease. On the one hand, she hated her father for condemning her to her wretched life for the villagers, who had hated her since birth.

On the other hand, the villagers acted differently when she wasn't around, so maybe they had been worth saving to her father. After ten seconds of contemplating her feelings, Megami settled on just letting it go; he was dead, so her feelings wouldn't really impact him, and she didn't need him anymore now than she had the first six years of he life.

Once this emotional issue was solved, Yuusei continued. 'Now, the insects that inhabit this village can't see past their own view of the world, and so they tried to kill you because they felt that you were me. For the record, you owe me a favor for healing your wounds and breaking down all those poisons in your food. This continued for the first five years nine months of your life until you escaped the orphanage. Three months later, three days ago, the villagers hunted you down and killed you, for all intents and purposes. Our chasing around occurred while your brain was losing electricity. This is where things get interesting. To ensure your survival, I put us in thrall.' Megami mulled over that word, 'thrall.' Her new vocabulary did not include that word.

'Thrall is a blood ritual, requiring the two participants to drink each other's blood. We did that. I then had to speak a spell that was around since before I was born. The ritual took place, hence you being alive right now. The current Hokage, that Sarutobi man that stopped a few murder attempts, found you the next day, like this. He brought you here, and you've been resting here recovering until you woke up.' Megami processed the information, all shock at her new brain functions now gone.

'What does this thrall do to me and you?' Yuusei answered a slight tone of excitement in his voice now. 'The ritual works by fusing our souls as one, and then splitting the amalgam into two, each of us with one, our portion of the shared soul. Basically, I am now half-you and you are half-me. This has a myriad of side-effects. One of them is the ability to share information telepathically, as is shown by your vocabulary, which I gave you while you were unconscious, as well as some basic knowledge; reading, writing, minor anatomy, some math, and a little worldly knowledge in general. This conversely means that I can finally experience the outside worlds after six years with nothing to look at but my own cage. Another side-effect is a merging of chakra stores, which ninja use to perform their jutsu and such. For now, you just have exponentially more powerful chakra than other ningen. But overtime, as the thrall bond strengthens, your chakra will change from demonically-supercharged human chakra to Hanyou chakra, effectively making you a Hanyou, which is a half-demon. Nothing too major; just enhanced senses, claws for nails, slits for pupils, thicker whiskers, and a tail or two.'

Megami considered that. She didn't have any particular attachment to how her body was, considering that it was normally weak and malnourished. Plus, those traits would be useful in a hunt. She actually found herself looking forward to it. 'Is there anything else, Yuusei-kun?' She felt warm inside as she said that; if felt nice to have a close friend to use such an honorific on, even if she had only learned the honorific subconsciously within the past three days.

'Yes. I myself will experience a few changes. Your humanity has leaked into me, tempering my personality somewhat. Before the thrall, I spend half my time cursing you quote unquote insects for even thinking of standing up against me and cursing myself for letting you succeed. Now, I am much less hot-headed. Also, I am now in human form. I believe that the phrase for my new body is smoking-hot. I'm not sure; I don't really care about how attractive I am to your species. Beyond our own personal changes, the seal itself has been damaged by the thrall. The seal was designed to keep our souls separate, and the thrall shot that all to hell. Right now, in its manifestation in your mind, it has a hole in the middle that has grown a few thousandths of an inch since the thrall occurred. Eventually, from what I can tell, it will break entirely, releasing me from your body. Oh, I almost forgot; since I'm immortal and you are in thrall with me, you too will share in my eternal youth.'

Megami was a bit shaken by that last part. She visualized (lovely word) on what life would be like without being able to die. Any mates she made would grow old and die while she remained unchanged; any children she bore would outgrow her and perish before her. She suddenly felt herself being crushed by years of loneliness ahead.

'Oh, sorry, that was insensitive of me. To clear up the issue, any children you have will be immortal as well; they'll stop maturing around twenty or so, as will you. Also, you can bless any man you consider to be your soulmate with your immortality. I'd offer myself, but I think that our relationship is going to be more father-daughter than lovers. You're a few millennia too young for my tastes.' Megami chuckled at Yuusei's playful tone, and realized that that was the first laugh she ever had. She liked the sound of it.

At that moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen walked into the room. When he had found Megami lying in the alley, unconscious but unharmed amongst the scene of an obvious attack, he had brought her straight to his home. He had given her one of the numerous rooms in the complex, which only housed Hiruzen's immediate family and a few in-laws. He waited for her to wake up, and silently banished the hatred he had for her.

After seeing her lying so innocent and helpless in that bed, he found himself wondering how anyone could hate her. His personal darkness now gone, he had considered the adoption option, but he knew now that that would simply raise hell, despite his hatred or lack of it; all administrative activities remotely concerned with his personal life would become objects of interest to the council. Since Megami seemed safer 'dead' rather than alive, he decided to keep her continued survival a secret. His family just thought that he was caring for an abused child that had run away from her parents. They hadn't seen her, so the story was believable.

When he walked in the door, he was glad to see her awake. He had cleaned her up while she was asleep, costing him thirteen bars of soap, his best comb, and enough water to fill a swimming pool. Now, she looked undeniably beautiful, as she sat upright in one of his wife's old nightgowns, her golden hair now flowing down to her shoulders in a silky waterfall. Hiruzen saw both Kushina and Minato in her, fused together to form this perfect girl.

He smiled to himself, and slowly approached her, thinking that she was still the feral girl from a week ago, albeit cleaner. "Megami, you're safe now. No one is going to hurt you. You're in my home, and I'm going to take care of you for a while. Okay?"

He did not expect her to respond in anyway, so he nearly had a pulmonary when she responded, in a clear, crisp voice that reminded him of the morning breeze from the ocean, "Thank you, yoi-jijii (literally nice old man). I thank you for taking care of me as I recovered."

When Hiruzen failed to respond, and turned purple, Megami leapt to her feet to do something to help the old man. The speed and grace she displayed with limbs that just days before had been falling apart at the seams only increased Hiruzen's shock and blood pressure. Megami, doing the first thing that came to mind, started to pound the elderly man on the back, bruising his brittle ribs in the process.

However, the impact was enough to break his shock, and he drew in ragged breaths. Once his overworked ticker had calmed itself, Hiruzen stared at his successor's daughter with total disbelief.

"How did you just talk?" he asked, shock evident in his voice. Megami shrugged and said "Um, I moved my vocal cords?" She spoke in a semi-sarcastic tone, reveling in her skills with language.

Hiruzen shook his head, as if to clear away the craziness. "But you can't talk." "Obviously I can, or we wouldn't be having a conversation. I owe you thanks for keeping me alive, yoi-jijii, but, with all due respect, are you senile?" Hiruzen brought his hands up into a seal and said "Kai." When the scene didn't change or waver, the old Hokage had to accept that what was happening was real. That didn't explain anything, though.

"But, you've never talked to anyone. You just grunted or ignored people." "That's because they were bigoted bastards/bitches who pounded me into a bloody stain in the ground. Don't know why they did, and frankly I don't care; the past is past, right? But why would I waste my breath talking to them?" Megami's newborn lying skills were not half bad, and Hiruzen found himself nodding on with the explanation; the girl, constantly abused, wouldn't bother begging them to stop, and she had never had never given true cause to trust him so that she would talk to him when he saved her.

"Now, if you don't mind, if I could have some clothes and money, I'd like to be on my way." It took a second for Megami's sentence to process in Hiruzen's brain, but when it did he looked incredulous. "Megami, everyone thinks you're dead. If you're seen, the people will just mob up and chase you down again in their stupidity. I couldn't execute them; I would probably get rid of nine tenths of the population, shinobi and civilian alike. Plus, you aren't exactly loved by the council."

Megami smiled, and Hiruzen had to suppress an image of the Cheshire Cat. "They'll recognize a starving feral girl filthier than a voyeur's conscience and lacking any true intelligence. What they'll see will be a lanky, polite, spotless boy with nice manners. Do you have any shears?"

While Hiruzen nodded at the girl's reasoning and good idea, he was unaware that the entire small speech was word for word Yuusei's idea. They didn't need to give the nice man an aneurism with the explanation of the deteriorating seal. An hour later, Megami had inch-long locks that somehow spiked; a pocket filled with enough money to rent a small, fully-stocked apartment, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit that was a remnant from Hiruzen's boyhood days when he was experimenting with fashion.

The suit was big enough on her to hide her slightly feminine build, and was so different from what she had been (barely) wearing before that no one would vaguely recognize her as the 'demon-child', even if they connected the hair and eye color to her. Her whiskers had been covered with a thin layer of make-up, effectively hiding them. Hiruzen barely recognized her.

"I wish that you'd stay here, but apparently your stubbornness to survive carried over to other aspects. Just promise me that you'll check up with me; I want to see that you're doing alright. And, if you're finding that memories of the incident are haunting you, I can give you the best shrink in the village."

Megami smiled, seemingly lighting up the room, and politely said, in a deeper and gruffer tone than her own, "I'll do that, yoi-jijii. And don't worry about any memories; they're locked up good and tight." In reality, Yuusei had mentally tinkered with the memories so that they wouldn't register as 'traumatizing' in her mind. It was strange to recall the pain of a pitchfork or the intrusion of an aggressive manhood and only think 'Hmm, hope that never happens again' in a conversational tone.

Hiruzen smiled, and patted Megami on the head, before letting her go on her way. He could have forced her to stay, but something about her just made you want to do things her way. The elderly Sandaime chuckled as the thought 'It appears as if you daughter inherited your charisma, Minato. And your thick skull, Kushina.' Continuing to chuckle, Hiruzen went to deal with the bane of paperwork, as well as forge some records for Megami's new identity.

So, what did you think? By the way, Megami, as of yet, has no last name. The villagers didn't give a shit about her name, and the Sandaime always called her by her first name. Her alias will be 'Uzumaki Naruto,' but whether she'll be Uzumaki or Namikaze Megami will be decided later. I hope you like the fic, and please give me your glorious reviews. Ja ne!