Chapter One: Mistaken Revelations

Here is a truth about the world:
All people make mistakes
Especially the good ones.
In life and in reading,
"Look underneath the underneath."
-Kakashi

The day starts off fine. Sarutobi is sitting at his desk, neglecting all the unimportant paperwork that he should be doing in theory but can leave to his secretaries in practice, when Naruto comes in the door.

It has been five years, and still he winces when he thinks that. He told Minato it'd be okay – not fine, but just okay – to name a boy Naruto, but naming his baby girl the same was taking things a bit far. He was tempted to change things on the fake certificate, but considering that her name was all she had left from her parents, he couldn't bring himself to take it, too, away from her.

Sarutobi notices her before she comes in the door, signals his ANBU guards away with a patterned flare of chakra, and slides his "reading material" in a drawer, locking it for good measure.

He really does not want the little kid getting a second look at his book. He doesn't want the kid to be perverted, or at least not because of him. The lovely and dangerous Kushina might be dead now, but he just knows she'll find a way to hurt him if that happens. It is perhaps because of this line of reasoning that he is shocked, though admittedly he would have been shocked anyway.

"Jiji," his surrogate granddaughter says, "What's a pee-pee and why don't I have one?"

Sarutobi finds himself caught between laughing and crying for a moment. Then he drags a hand slowly down his face, takes his pipe out of his mouth, and tells Kushina, in his head, that this is not his fault. In any way. "Naruto," he says, "You're a girl, you don't have boy parts."

While he can no longer claim he's too young to talk to kids about this kind of thing, Sarutobi decides he can say he's too old to give the Talk a fourth time. Once was really enough for a lifetime.

"Are you insulting me, Jiji?" Naruto exclaims.

Sarutobi cannot even bring himself to be surprised anymore. "What," he manages to say, "Do you mean by that?"

Naruto has the grace to look embarrassed at her incomprehensibility. "Well, I know being a girl isn't a bad thing, but all the other guys get mad when they're called girls so I have to get mad too." Or maybe she was embarrassed for some other reason and she's still as incomprehensible as ever.

"You… Why do you have to imitate the other guys?" Sarutobi is beginning to get an idea of what's going on but he can't for the life of him imagine why. "You're a girl, Naruto. You always have been."

Naruto looks confused, which is adorable, but Sarutobi can't even focus on her adorableness right now. His head is a mess and he needs some sleep and Icha Icha and Minato to be back here instead of him.

An hour later, Sarutobi has a vague idea of the disaster that happened here. When he deposited Naruto at the orphanage at the tender age of two, she lived in her steadily worsening dress for two months before a more sympathetic orphanage worker threw her an oversized T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. After a particularly bad haircut (worsened by Naruto's fascination with all things metal and shiny and pointy and dangerous), she came out looking like a boy.

Sarutobi had actually somewhat watched that happen, but he didn't think it would be an issue.

Apparently, it was an issue with the other girls, who proceeded to snub her as an icky boy. The boys mostly left her alone, too, especially because the caretakers didn't like the children playing with the 'demon child'. One boy, Akira, befriended her because it wasn't 'allowed', and ended up bringing her into the 'boy group'.

And now, Naruto thinks she is a boy.

And apparently has thought so for the past three years.

When Naruto returns to the orphanage, she goes to find Akira. Akira and she are best friends, and because everybody likes Akira everybody likes her too. They talk about everything and play ball together, and even though Naruto is slim and a little taller and Akira is more muscular, they are evenly matched.

"Let's play," she says as soon as she bursts into the room. Akira is really touchy about people going into his room but he lets Naruto because they're best friends, so Naruto is really surprised to see Tomo in there too. "Oh, hi, Tomo," she adds, as an afterthought.

Akira looks pained. "I can't," he says. Tomo nods, wisely, from behind his back and Naruto wants to sucker punch him in the face.

"Why not?"

"Cuz you're a girl." She stares at him. "Matron said you're a girl and I can't play with you because girls aren't any fun-"

"But I'm fun!" Naruto shouts. "We have lots of fun together, you said so!"

He frowned. "I did not."

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Matron's voice slams through the door before Akira can respond again. "Naruto! Girls aren't allowed in boys' rooms!"

Akira, maybe caught up in the argument, maybe angry that his best friend has deceived him, maybe too young to know better, maybe a thousand other reasons, sticks out his tongue. He shouts, "Yeah, that's right! Get out of here, Naruto! Nobody wants you here."

But Naruto doesn't know the mind of Akira. All she knows is her best friend betrayed her and doesn't want her and that she would never have betrayed him like that, even if he was a girl or the monster under her bed or the Kyuubi itself. Betrayal hurts but she doesn't cry there. Crying is weak and anyway, girls cry –and oh, but she is a girl. She runs fleet-footed back to her room and slams the door, and only then does she let the hot, angry tears seep out.

A little later, Matron comes and tells her to move to the girls' side of the rooms. Only there are more girls than boys and all the rooms are filled up, so for now she has to make do with a little closet and a cot.

She only hopes the girls will like her now, even if Akira said girls are icky, because what Akira said doesn't matter and he betrayed her and the room is small and smells like damp mildew and she wants to go back to before.

The girls do not like her. They are more obedient than the boys and Matron told them Naruto was a very bad child, always making trouble with that gang of bad boys. Plus, Naruto doesn't have any dolls, doesn't wear pink, and doesn't talk like them. The girls in the orphanage are all raised pink and cute and soft, in hopes of adoption, because good little girls are adopted and adoption means a better life, and Naruto doesn't seem to know this.

And anyway, a little while later Matron confides in Sakura, (her favorite, as all the girls know; a nice, polite girl with soft brown hair and beautiful blue eyes) that being friends with Naruto might hurt her chances of being adopted. And Sakura, who has a family looking into her, stops being nice to Naruto. Sakura, the leader and the nicest of them all, stops and tells the other girls (for the sake of friendship) that Naruto might hurt their chances of adoption, Matron said so, and nobody is nice to Naruto.

And maybe it is to rebel against them, against their pink and cute and soft, that Naruto does what she does. Maybe it was to rebel against flower arranging and tea pouring that she decides she wants to become a ninja.

So in the fifth year of her life, Naruto begs and pleads and finally Sarutobi enrolls her in the Academy, two years early. And after she begs and pleads and threatens to tell his secretary (a female ANBU, though Naruto doesn't know that) about his bad books, he agrees that she can leave the orphanage and he'll get her a nice apartment near the Academy (ostensibly to keep her safe and in the right part of town, because goodness knows little girls can't live on their own without ninja neighbors and a grocery just across the street and the Academy only one block away).

Naruto is a good student. In the orphanage, groups of ninja sometimes came to teach them how to read, and they were always nice and sometimes played Ninja with Akira and the boys after the lesson.

Naruto is a good student, and she loves the books they give her, with stories about great battles and adventures and pretty colored pictures. After the class has silent reading time, she goes up to the teacher.

"Sensei," she says, "What's chakra?" In the story, the First Hokage, the Shodaime, used something called chakra to move huge trees and defeat an enemy army all by himself. "Are we gonna learn to use it?"

Without looking up from his book, Takimoto says, "You'll learn all about it next year, when you have a little more to work with."

"What is it?" Naruto persists, and Takimoto pushes up his glasses and looks up.

"Well, it's…" His voice suddenly trails off; his eyes widen; his lips thin. Naruto knows and recognizes the signs of anger. Well, it isn't really anger. Sometimes Matron gives her that look, too, half-pain and half-anger and just a little shame on top of it. Sensei swallows and says, "You don't need to know that." And it should hurt her, but it doesn't, not anymore. She is used to it by now.

Once, the nice lady Midori-san who gave her clothes had sat her down and told her: "Some people, like the Matron, have lost precious people. Matron's husband was a ninja and he was killed a couple years ago. Those people get bitter and sometimes they get angry."

Naruto didn't understand. Midori sighed, blew her bangs out of her eyes, and whispered, "When people are hurt, they just want to hurt others. So that they're not alone."

So Naruto smiles and nods and goes back to her seat. She sits quietly through the rest of the class, and then they split up into boys and girls – the boys to go learn 'civilian' sports and the girls go learn civilian girl things like flower-picking and sewing.

Takimoto watches them while they leave. Naruto is last, behind the file of girls who have been friends all their lives. She, like everybody else in the village, knows the great clans by sight. She sees the two textbook Hyuuga girls whispering together, several civilian-born girls giggling, and the Nara and Inuzuka girls arguing. She looks back and meets Takimoto's eyes. He gets up and closes the door, fast.

It slams with finality that echoes in the hall.

Naruto eats lunch alone. The Inuzuka is also alone, because the Nara went to eat with the Hyuuga. But after thirty minutes, the boys come from their class (soccer) to eat and the Inuzuka fits in with them. Naruto goes to join them, but she doesn't know how to invite herself in.

So she waits until their teacher comes to pick them up.

The Girl-Stuff teacher doesn't talk until they are in the second Academy training field, all seated on the clover-spotted grass.

She sits down with them, in front of them, facing them. "Hey there, munchkins," she says, grinning, "You're now with me, the great Nonoko-sensei, to learn about girl stuff. Do any of you know why you're here?"

The civilians shake their heads quietly. The Inuzuka, a girl with wild long hair who is wearing pants, not a dress, yawns and shouts, "Girl stuff is boring! Why can't we learn cool stuff like the boys?"

"We need to learn to act like normal girls so we can blend in," Nonoko says. "Many of you will be infiltrators one day, and you can't do that if all you know is how to be a ninja." The girls are all quiet, and perhaps she realizes that the topic is a bit too serious. "And hey, we're much more fun than the boys!" She leans in, conspiratorially, and stage-whispers, "We get to learn about chakra a bit early."

"Cool!" The Inuzuka yells.

"It's nothing, we're already learning about it in the Clan," one of the Hyuuga girls huffs.

Hesitantly, Naruto says, "Takimoto-sensei said we won't learn chakra until later."

Nonoko looks right at her, and Naruto is startled to see nothing in her eyes. Nonoko is smiling, kind. "Takimoto-sensei is a stuck-up old geezer, though you can't tell him I said that." Everyone giggles. "And he's a boy, so he doesn't get to know anything about the secret girl ninja training we do." She pauses and waves her hand in the air. "We were going to start with flower-picking, but I think it's a good idea to try to feel your chakra today."

"Mother said I can't do that yet," the other Hyuuga girl mumbles.

"Everybody's a little different," Nonoko says. "Anyway, it's a good idea to practice looking for it. The boys won't get started on it until about next year. We learn it first because we start out with more chakra than boys and our control of what we have develops a bit faster."

"Why?" Naruto asks, emboldened by Nonoko's earlier approval. "And what is chakra?"

"Don't you know anything?" The Nara asks, looking away.

One of the five civilians, a brunette, looks up and says, "Isn't it magic?"

Nonoko laughs. "It's life energy. Well, it's actually a mix of your physical energy and spiritual energy, but since only living things have it, we also call it life energy. And, Blondie," she looks right at Naruto, "We have a bit more because us girls have a bit more life."

"What?" The Inuzuka looks confused. She turns to the Nara, "Tomo-chan, what does that mean?"

Tomo shakes her head. "Stupid, don't you know that children come from Moms?"

Nonoko laughs again, though Naruto can't understand why. "But we can't use a lot of it, because it's gotta stay in our systems in case we have kids. Anyway, we're also blessed with better control. It's because we have more tenketsu points. Tenketsu points are the places in our body that chakra can come out from. Since we have more, it's easier to let littler amounts out." She turns to the Hyuuga girls. "You'll be able to see them when you activate your Byakugan."

"Hinata-sama already has hers," one blurts.

"She can only keep it for a couple seconds!" The other says, looking ready for an argument.

Nonoko whistles through her teeth. "That's impressive." The girls stop fighting. "Well, today I'll teach you some tricks on trying to call out your chakra. Probably none of you will manage yet, so you can sit here trying until you get bored and then go out and find me the ten prettiest flowers you can. Class ends at three o'clock, so you've got two hours. I expect beautiful flowers!"

Immediately several of them run off to the fields. The civilians all go. Nara Tomo pauses for a second, and then leaves. The Inuzuka calls after her, "Aren't you going to try to get your chakra?"

She looks back. "It's illogical," she says. "Father told me that without intensive training to accumulate physical and spiritual energy, hardly any people bring out their chakra before they are seven. Have you gone through that, Shuuka-chan, or are you claiming to be a prodigy child like the Copy Ninja?"

Tomo sounds like an adult. The remaining clan children all waver and then run off.

But Naruto stays.

"I didn't even tell them how to reach for their chakra yet," Nonoko says in the silence, sounding amused. She stands up, walks over to where Naruto is sitting, and lays down beside her on her belly. "Do you still want to learn?"

"Yes," Naruto says, a little shy, now that she's alone with the teacher.

Nonoko smiles. "You don't sound very excited."

"Yes!" Naruto says, a little louder.

Nonoko laughs. "Good, good," she says. "Okay, well, reaching for your chakra is easy, but everybody has a different way of doing it. I'll teach you the way that worked for me, and then we'll practice it, and when, no, if it doesn't work, then we'll try a different one." Naruto nods. "Hold out your hand. Now close your eyes and imagine all the color in the world gathering in a ball in your hand." She props herself up on her elbows and demonstrates, holding out a hand and closing her eyes.

Naruto closes her eyes. "All the colors in the world," she says softly. "The whole universe."

She concentrates fiercely, trying to pull it in. Something burns along her arm and something tingles on her spine and something hurts like crying in the back of her throat. There is a ball of color in her hand, and it is warm and cold and beautiful and ugly and life and death and everything at once and nothing at all.

She feels like she can do anything.

Naruto can feel Nonoko shift and suck in a breath. She can taste the blue sky. She can hear the colors in her, all around her. She didn't know that there were so many colors in her body, so many things she could do.

"By the Great Sage," Nonoko whispers. And Naruto opens her eyes.

There is a ball of color in her hand, and it is blue like the sky, blue like her eyes, blue like freedom. She turns to Nonoko-sensei, and the ball fades with her concentration. Her hand feels heavy and light and a little tired. "Was that chakra?" She asks, and her voice is filled with wonder. "Was that it?"

In response, Nonoko holds up her own hand. A little ball of chakra –littler than Naruto's – forms at her palm. "This is chakra. This is my chakra," she says, voice cracking. "But yours was something amazing. Yours was just amazing. Oh, the Great Sage, yours was amazing."

Naruto doesn't know what to say, so she puts her hand down and feels blood rush into it.

Nonoko sits for a while before she talks again, voice shaky. "Do you know what this means, Naruto? Do you know what this is?"

Naruto shakes her head. "No, Sensei?"

"All my life, I have been overlooked and disadvantaged and disregarded for having small chakra reserves and an agile but not powerful physique. Though women have an advantage in control, it's much easier to improve control than it is to improve chakra capacity. In the world of ninja, men have every advantage. And when I was a little girl, in Kumo," her voice choked up, "after my mother died on a mission, my father belittled me and tried to take me off the ninja course. Women ninja are unnecessary, he said, and you're going to get yourself killed."

Naruto looks away from her teacher, uncomfortable with her distress.

"The most famous Kunoichi in history is Tsunade of the Sannin of Konoha, and she is famous for being a wonderful medic Nin with perfect control." Nonoko's voice rises and Naruto turns back to her. "Don't you see? Naruto, you can turn the gender bias on its head! You are only one girl, but with precedence for early chakra training in girls, we can lead the ninja world!"

Naruto does understand. This is Nonoko-sensei's pain, she knows. But instead of trying to hurt others, she's trying to help people like her. "I get it," she says, and louder, "I understand."

Nonoko's excitement is palpable now, and contagious. "Okay, what to start with?" She muses aloud. "Tree walking is definitely a little too dangerous…" She snaps her fingers, suddenly. "I got it! Okay, so chakra has a couple of basic properties. There's elemental chakra too, which has totally different qualities but basic chakra takes whatever shape you want it to, dispels in the air, and attracts. So when you coat your hand with chakra and stick it to the ground," Nonoko layers her hand with a thin screen of blue chakra and puts it to the grass, "and bring your hand up, the ground sticks to it." A clump of dirt comes away, attached to her hand.

Naruto closes her eyes and thinks. "All the colors in the world," she whispers, "like a glove."

Again, the world rushes around her. This time, she focuses enough to feel it – a form of color next to her, which has to be Nonoko-sensei. Thousands of blades, alive, and towers around her with branches coming out of them. They are color and life and everything.

She loses concentration. Naruto opens her eyes to look up at Nonoko. "Is something wrong?" Her teacher asks.

"Um," Naruto stopped, not sure how to explain it. "I felt something." At Nonoko's encouraging nod, she continues. "You were color, and the grass and the trees and the birds were all color and life."

"Ah, when I was little and reached my chakra for the first time, I felt it too. It's because when you're young and you first reach for chakra, you're more sensitive to chakra, because you've never felt it before. Over time it fades, but many of us Kunoichi train ourselves to keep looking for it. We have more Tenketsu to detect the chakra through, so it's a bit easier for us than for boys. You know…"

"Teacher!" "Nonoko-sensei!" Two of the civilian children come running out of the woods. "I found the ten prettiest flowers ever, teacher!"

Nonoko takes the flowers and examines them, smiling. She makes no move to talk about Naruto's chakra, and for that, Naruto is grateful. Maybe knowing how different she is would set her even further apart from the class, and she wouldn't want that.

With a smile and wave, she runs off to find flowers herself.

Every day, Naruto wakes up at 7:30 and goes outside. One of her quiet neighbors always leaves a small piece of bread for breakfast and a small packed lunch. Though Naruto doesn't know it, a female ANBU makes her lunch every day and leaves it at her door at the request of the Hokage.

She eats and runs to the Academy, getting there early to read the books, which are fun and amusing even if they don't have very many words. Takimoto-sensei is always perfunctorily nice. During class they study languages, math, and history, and then they split up into boys and girls and the girls go have lunch.

The boys arrive to lunch after the girls leave and she and the rest of the girls follow Nonoko-sensei to one of the Academy's seven training fields. Naruto becomes acquaintances with Nara Tomo and friends with Inuzuka Shuuka. When class lets out at three, Naruto pretends to leave but idles at the Academy gate until Nonoko picks her up.

They go to different places every day – after Nonoko realizes that many stores don't accept Naruto, they most often return to the Academy grounds or go to Nonoko's apartment complex. Nonoko teaches Naruto for a while, and then Naruto goes back home.

In her lonely, empty apartment, Naruto does nothing but practice what she is taught. She puts her hand against the wall and sticks it, testing it by leaning back. Sometimes she falls and bumps her head and sometimes her hand is forced away, like the wrong ends of two magnets were put together. She practices with her feet, which is much harder, trying to stick herself to the floor so she can't take a step.

At around seven, there is a knock on her door and dinner is dropped off. She eats in the uncomfortable silence, amusing herself by practicing sticking to the disposable wooden chopsticks, or picking up her food with chakra and one finger.

When other children are busy talking and playing and doing things with their families, Naruto has nothing but a minimalist room and her chakra.

Nonoko takes another swig of the sake. "It's kind of depressing," she admits to her longtime drinking partner and best friend, Yuuki. "She's some kind of sick genius. She picks up everything in a day or two. I would have to do nothing but practice with my chakra to pick up manipulation techniques so fast, and as I was, I was the fastest in my class back in Kumo."

"You're a good teacher," Yuuki says, smiling.

"She can revolutionize the whole world of ninja," Nonoko says. "With that kind of chakra, she can go to the top of the world. Maybe even get a flee-on-sight order like the Yondaime." She gulped down another burning sip of sake. "But I'm rambling."

Yuuki laughed. "It's okay. Who did you say was your student, again?"

Nonoko puts down her cup and considers her best friend. "I know there's a bit of a stigma against her," she says. "And I know it has to do with the Kyuubi." She watches Yuuki's eyes narrow. "Her name is Uzumaki Naruto, and contrary to what I've heard she's an agreeable and very cute little girl."

Yuuki hesitates, considering her words. "You... may want to be careful," she says finally. "Several people in this village despise her. Though most orphans live terrible lives anyway, especially in the financial aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, she's lived a worse life than most. The people who don't hate her don't care for her."

"Then that's all the more reason for me to help her!" Nonoko yells. The couple seated at the next table turn to stare, so she lowers her voice. "Are you listening to me? This girl's got talent and dedication. She's going places."

Yuuki stares at her best friend for several moments. "I'm not arguing with that," she says, in a low voice. "I'm just worried for you. There are some people who hate her. Who hate her enough to hurt her, and to hurt people who help her."

Nonoko smiles. "It's sweet that you're worried, Yuuki-chi. But I'm a ninja, you know? I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."

"It's not just civilians. There are lots of ninjas who lost family to the Kyuubi. Ninjas hate her too. I wouldn't be surprised if the administration disliked her."

"What do you mean?" Nonoko gapes. She lowers her voice to a whisper. "The Hokage himself turned in the forms for her registration at the Academy. Nobody else could overwrite the age limit law, anyway. The teachers were in an uproar about it for weeks!"

Yuuki leans in. "If the Hokage was really partial to her," she whispers, "She wouldn't have been left with all the other children in that ratty orphanage, right? And I hear that she, in particular, was so ratty and grimy, nobody could tell if she was a girl or a boy!"

The more Nonoko thinks about it, the more sense it makes. With that kind of talent, if the Hokage were really interested in Naruto, he would notice.

"Anyway," Yuuki continues, "You're from Kumo, and pretty new to the village anyway. There's already a bias against you. You don't want to make things worse for yourself by associating with her, right?"

No, I don't, Nonoko thinks. She still remembers the incredible hostility everybody treated her with when she first arrived as a runaway from Kumo. In retrospect, it was only prudent of them to be suspicious of refugees arriving in Konoha so soon after the Kyuubi attack. She had barely gotten her Chuunin-level teaching license, even though she'd been ready for the Jounin exam before what had happened in Kumo.

"But I can't just leave her," she whispers, reluctantly. "I mean, she's my closest student. She's not even just a student." Nonoko sighs. "You'd know if you met her. She's got a certain charm, along with all that skill. A charisma."

Yuuki frowns, brows furrowing. "Go to sleep and think about it. That girl is dangerous, mark my words, you don't want to get messed up with her." She empties her sake cup in one swing. "I'm telling you, Noko, you're going to regret this."

Regret? Regret hadn't crossed her mind. But Nonoko finds herself starting to doubt for the first time.

Maybe Naruto's amazing concentration and skill with chakra is not a miracle, but an omen.

After class, Naruto waits at the gate of the Academy. After a while, she sits down, resting her back against the wall. Nonoko is later than usual, but after the lights have dimmed down and even Takimoto has left, she arrives with arms full of books.

She sets them down on the ground beside Naruto and sits down. Perplexed, Naruto asks, "What's wrong, Nonoko-sensei? Are we going to have a lesson today?"

"Nothing's wrong," Nonoko replies automatically. Then she corrects herself. "No, there is something. Naruto-chan, I want you to know something." She leans in, and Naruto does, too. Nonoko whispers, as softly as possible, "The administration might be against you. Do you know what administration is?" Naruto shook her head a little. "That's the Hokage and the people with animal masks."

Nonoko leans back a little to watch Naruto's face. She wants Naruto to understand the importance of this. "But the Old Man's always been nice to me," Naruto says, faltering.

"Sometimes people put on masks," Nonoko says. "And if the Hokage did want to help you, he wouldn't have left you in the orphanage so long. He has absolute power in this village, after all. It's very dangerous. Naruto, if someday I disappear – if I'm not teaching or at my apartment, you need to run away. You need to go as far and fast as possible."

"Leave Konoha?" Naruto asks, startled.

"No, you can't leave Konoha. It would be too hard to get around the gate sentries and the Wall. But there are places in Konoha where the sun doesn't shine; do you know what I'm saying? There are places where the law is not enforced by ninja. Konoha is a huge city, and though the red light district is not a safe place for little girls, it's safer than having trained ninja after you."

Frightened, Naruto nods. "Ninja are dangerous. Okay, Nonoko-sensei."

Nonoko leans back and takes a couple books from her stack. "Now, one of the administrators asked me to run this to the Tower." She smiles, softly. "We can't have a lesson today, but I'll see you tomorrow."

Naruto nods. "See you tomorrow, Nonoko-sensei."

"Time's up," Takimoto calls. Only then does Naruto walk up with her test paper in hand. She lays it flat on her palm, using chakra to stick it to her hand, and as usual, in the rush of students, nobody notices her strange way of holding the paper.

When she first tried this, the paper shredded and ripped with her chakra. Now, even under the pressure of knowing she can't redo the test, the sticking exercise works perfectly.

Class is a fun challenge every day. Naruto knows she's in the lower ranges of the class, but the other kids are all bigger and older than she is, and she feels like she's learning a lot.

As usual, she eats lunch next to Nara Tomo and Inuzuka Shuuka. They're not great friends, but they stick together at lunch so none of them are alone. After the boys arrive, Shuuka runs off to play ball with them.

"Are you going to go?" Tomo asks quietly. Naruto is startled. Every time Shuuka goes, she thinks about leaving to play, but then she remembers Akira and the boys she used to run around with. It hurts a little, so she stays.

But she doesn't say any of that. "No."

Tomo nods and fishes out some candy from her pocket. "You can't tell Shuuka-chan, okay?" She whispers. "I only brought two this time, and it's her fault for leaving us for the boys." Naruto laughs and eats the peppermint candy.

She wants to tell Tomo that this is special for her, that she doesn't get candy very often, that Tomo is her friend. But the words don't form themselves. "Thanks," is all she manages to say.

"Mhmm," Tomo hums, smiling.

"Girls! It's time for class!" Nonoko's voice rings out in the Academy courtyard. Naruto gets out of her chair for the mad dash to be first to Nonoko, but this time, she waits for Tomo before setting off running.

They arrive at Nonoko at almost the same time, moments before two civilian children and a worn-out Shuuka.

"I don't know why you insist on playing with them when you can only play for a couple of seconds," Tomo whispers. "It's right after lunch, too. And you always get dirty and worn out right before class starts."

"It's fun," Shuuka says, panting. "My cousin's a great kicker. And the guys are a lot of fun." That's all she says.

Naruto hears the tense undercurrent. She knows that Tomo is angry about something, and Shuuka is only fanning the flames. The candy, she thinks, might be Tomo's offer to get Naruto on her side. She's seen the taking sides strategy happen with other children, but it's never happened to her. She's never been close friends with more than one person, and it was always assumed that she was on Akira's side.

She smiles a little. It's a pleasant feeling, having friends.

Today, Nonoko teaches them about how to talk about clothes. For the civilian girls, no instruction is necessary. Nonoko shows them all a shirt and the girls go off critiquing the color, cut, and style of it.

"My sister says loose cut shirts make you look fatter," one announces. "She told me if I ever wore one she'd disown me."

"You're so wrong!" Another exclaims. "It depends on the cut of the loose shirt. This one's got a nice cut, and it makes you look skinnier! See how it dangles at the right places?"

The clan-born girls and Naruto sit silently, bemused by the commotion. Nonoko turns to them. "Don't you girls have anything to say? You've been awfully quiet, and this is the tenth piece I've shown."

One of the Hyuuga girls - Naruto can't tell which one, even after all this time; they both look so alike - says, "We're not allowed to wear non-clan styles. Clothing doesn't matter much to a ninja, as long as you can fight."

"If you're stuck infiltrating an enemy nation with Hyuuga wear, you're doomed," Nonoko explains patiently.

"Hyuuga don't have to infiltrate. Our eyes are too valuable and conspicuous to give up to the enemy. Our bloodline is suited for battle more than cowardly things like spying."

Nonoko shakes her head. "Listen, kiddo, everything I teach you has a reason. And everything you learn can and will eventually help you. You may not understand how yet, but later you'll regret your pride. Pride only makes you weak." Realizing how harsh the atmosphere is, she turns to the other girls. "Do any of you have anything to say?"

When it's obvious Tomo and Shuuka are reticent, Naruto proffers, "It's a nice color."

The Sandaime's rage is palpable. Panther and Gull flinch back a little, unwilling to raise their own chakra to ease the Killing Intent. That might be seen as insubordination, and they're in enough trouble as it is.

"You fools," Sarutobi says again. "Why didn't you report this to me?" He slams the paperweight down on his desk, and the desk trembles. "I told you to report anything and everything suspicious!"

Panther gulps. "With all due respect, sir," she manages, "all the Academy teachers have been thoroughly vetted. The clans wouldn't stand for anything else."

"Are you suggesting, Panther, that not only do I have two incompetent ANBU, but I also have an incompetent Intelligence Department?" Sarutobi raises his chakra again. "Kurosaki Nonoko moved into Konoha only four years ago, from Kumo of all places. She was only accepted because of our need for active ninja. It says here," he slams a hand into the file on his desk, "that she pulled some ridiculous sob story about an abusive father to garner sympathy. And now, she is trying to get close to the jinchuuriki of Kyuubi, a girl who is arguably among the ranks of the most powerful people alive. What does this look like to you?"

Panther bows her head. "Yes, sir, you're right, Hokage-sama."

"Bring the girl to Ibiki before the sun sets."

Naruto feels a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"You can call me Minai-sensei. I will be taking the place of Nonoko-sensei in teaching you girls. Would somebody please tell me what you've been taught so far?" The new lady, a blonde with a crisp bun and beautiful hazel eyes, smiles down at them.

The girls shift with unease. Nonoko was fun, and sat down with them, and talked to them like they were all friends. Minai-sensei doesn't seem to be anything like her. "Where's Nonoko-sensei? Is she coming back soon?" Shuuka blurts.

"Nonoko-sensei has taken a sick leave." Minai's smile fades. "I didn't want to tell you girls this, but she's been diagnosed with a disease. It's highly contagious, and she doesn't want to affect any of you, so she's taken a leave."

"Nonoko-sensei didn't look sick yesterday," Naruto says. "And that means she's coming back when she's better, right?"

Minai's eyes are hard when she looks at Naruto. Naruto knows the answer almost before she opens her mouth, so she doesn't wait. She turns and runs for the gate as fast as she can. "Naruto, where are you going?" Tomo yells from behind her, but Naruto just keeps sprinting.

You need to run away. You need to go as fast and far as possible.

The Hokage leans back in his chair. Minai-chan seems to be handling the children well, for now. He switches the crystal ball to a view of the Intelligence Headquarters, where Ibiki is having a 'civilized' conversation with the teacher. Results so far are inconclusive, or so it appears.

The crystal ball is one of those wonderful Hokage perks not offered to anybody not wearing the hat. It has a variety of uses, many of which ensure that Sarutobi will never hand the hat down to Jiraiya, but also several downfalls. The ball has a temporal delay of about five minutes. And, contrary to its name, it is not an All-Seeing ball. Sarutobi can only focus it on places he knows intimately or chakra signatures he can feel. A chakra sensor would probably make better use of the ball, but it's a powerful tool and not to be given to any random Kunoichi who's spent her whole life learning how to sense chakra.

After watching the proceedings for a little while, he decides that enough is enough and Ibiki will hand him the results whenever they're ready.

Sarutobi spends another long while marking down paperwork and reviewing trade agreements and the like. Though his administration department has extensive checks and balances that run through all the paperwork before it gets to him, he still has to verify everything important. It's a pain in the neck.

Five or six packets later, he turns the crystal ball to the Academy's training ground three. Minai-chan's blonde hair sticks out from all the rest of the children. Sarutobi turns, almost moving on before he realizes what's wrong.

Naruto is gone.

Naruto has never been down this street before. The buildings are a little dirty, but very brightly painted. The women, some of which sit on the doorsteps in ornate clothes with heavily made-up faces, breathe foul-smelling smoke into the air. Noise wafts from putrid shops. A tall building with brightly flashing lights proclaims itself "Konohagakure Casino! Discover your fortunes today!"

She realizes she's the only child here, though she supposes that is because everybody else is in school. Naruto glances around and sees no ninja, so she slows to a walk. She is staring at the ground trying not to step in anything unsavory when a dirty hand grabs her arm.

"What are ye doing here, li'le gal?" The man who speaks to her is missing a couple of teeth; his face is stained with mud and weather, dotted with moles, and lined with wrinkles. "Come an' stay wit ol' me, eh?"

"Let go of me," Naruto says. "You're dirty."

His face contorts. "Wha' did ye say? Ye filthy li'le whore-girl! I'll show ye!" He raises a hand and Naruto cowers, frightened, when a voice stops him.

"What are you doing, you old beggar? That girl is a maid for my establishment, and if you don't unhand her Mother Tessa will be down on you." His hand goes down and he releases Naruto, smiling feebly.

"Nothing, nothing, honorable consort miss. I was just-a asking for some money. Didn't mean to displease Miss Mae none. I is just gonna be going now, thank you very kind, ma'am." He hobbles off, much faster than Naruto thought possible.

She turns to face her savior, a beautiful woman in splendid clothing. Her hair is up in elaborate knots and her face lightly painted in pastel colors. The light smile on her face fades as she considers Naruto. "Who are you? What are you doing here, girl? This isn't the right part of town for little girls, no matter what I just said."

Naruto stutters a little. "I'm, I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. I'm in danger. I have to run. Far away. They took Nonoko-sensei, and now they're going to take me and I have to hide and…"

Mae shushes her. "This street isn't any place for any kind of story. No place is place for a story. If you want to live in a place like this, don't tell anybody anything. It'll only hurt you in the end." She considers Naruto again. "Well, I suppose you should come with me. You look fast enough, and you'll be a hard worker if you know what's good for you. Maybe Mother Tessa will want a runner girl; goodness knows we can use one."

"Thank you," Naruto says, "Thank you, thank you."

"You don't have anything to thank me for."

Author's Notes:

I don't remember what kids talk like.

In response to a thoughtful critique by The Unicorn, the split-period gender-specific class schedule:
1:00 all go to their respective classrooms
1:15 girls are dismissed to lunch
1:45 all are dismissed to recess
2:15 girls return to class; boys are dismissed to lunch
2:45 boys return to class
3:00 all are dismissed to the next period

Thanks to shewhoflies, my lovely beta.

03.08.13 Minor Edits (Grammar)
04.11.13 Minor Edit (Typo)
12.01.13 Edits (Rearranging scene, worldbuilding, schedule in A/N)

Liffae ^-~