I was an artist, and I put on my makeup that morning like it was war paint, like it was the defiant, sharply angular work of art about independent whores I had hanging on my apartment wall, the one I had saved up money for five months to buy.

I was a Spring complexion, with hair a deep honey gold color, straight and coarse and thick like true sheets of golden honey, all one long waist length, and electric blue eyes. I'd seen a wire come into contact with water once and a huge spark of blue flash out of it. That was the color my eyes were. I liked showing off, getting that big effect, and so naturally my makeup had to reflect that.

It started simple. Foundation and blush to go with my skin, the warm color of a pink peach darkened faintly golden by the sun. Okay, so I was maybe a little bit vain. I drank up online descriptions of my coloring: that I looked best in clear, sharp colors with names such as parrot green, coral, turquoise, peach, cobalt blue, Chinese red, and lemon yellow, that I was personified by spring flowers such as daffodils, jonquils, and tulips. Warm yellow gold like the sun, the season reflecting new energy and fresh growth, vibrant new life. Spring was the time when the light came back to the world, when the ice finally melted away and what remained behind was beauty, happiness, and vigor. Grass, trees, flower buds, greenery, buzzing bumblebees.

That was me.

The foundation and blush went over the whisker shaped markings on my round, heart shaped, curving cheeks, not hiding them - nothing could do that, and anyway I didn't want to, didn't see the point - and then my lipstick became a bold, slashing line of clear, bright red, hiding my unusually sharp incisor teeth just enough for it to be a huge surprise when I gave one of my all-teeth grins. I was dangerous, I was powerful, and I knew it. My mascara was deep black, accenting the startling, bold, energetic color of my eyes.

On days when I wanted to feel sweet and pretty, I wore lighter mascara, warm pink lipstick, and maybe a touch of cornflower blue to the eyes. But today I wanted to feel strong, and so on came the candy apple red lipstick and the black, bold, defining mascara.

My kunoichi dress was its usual apricot orange, a color I had a strong fascination with, the color of poison, nature's warning color. The dress went on over my obvious curves - I was an early bloomer and a full woman with a huge appetite for soul cooking, proud of being a lot to handle, not one of those skinny girls who went on diets - and also over the intricate, beautiful blue and black seal tattoos adorning most of my body. My hair went up in its long pigtails, a playful but somewhat psychotic touch, my weapons holsters slid into place, and I was ready.

I was an orphan, I lived on my own, and so most elements of fashion I had figured out for myself, without much outside help. I was proud of that. Proud of my fashion sense and my artistic eye, my independence.

I sealed the cans of spray paint away inside the containment seals tattooed onto my palms, ready now for a different kind of art, and took one last look at myself in the full length mirror by my apartment's front door. I looked good, I decided. Fierce. "Rawwrr," I growled, snarling and making a claw and grinning into the mirror, and then I laughed at myself.

I'd needed some self confidence today. Konoha was a mostly secular, peaceful, and easygoing Hidden Village, largely commercialized for the tourism industry and prizing ideals like mercy and humanity to an unusual extent for a village full of murderous soldier ninja, but what I was about to do was blasphemous even by Konoha's standards. Sure to provoke a reaction.

I looked forward to it.

I crept out of my apartment building in the dewy dawn. I woke up early every morning, to have a cup of tea on my balcony and watch the sunrise amid my box gardens full of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. But this was early even by my standards. Nobody would be up at this time, and that was the idea. This project had to start early and would probably torpedo into morning classes at the Ninja Academy.

If I hadn't learned it all by now I was never going to pass into Genin rank anyway. The test was tomorrow; either I could do it or I was fucked.

I jogged down dirt streets lined with green trees and beautiful flowers, past white stucco building decorated with rounded multi-colored roofs, and up to the great sandstone Hokage Monument looming up out of the center of Konoha village in the mild weather. Splayed across it were the carved faces of the four Hokages, Konoha ninja village leaders and ninja force commanders, including the current one. All were men. A long line of what were considered our most important ancestors splayed out proudly for everyone to see.

I hurried around the Monument and ran up the pathway winding around the back of the Monument, up to the very top. I didn't stop for breath at any point along the steep uphill climb. I was planning on being a ninja, and if I couldn't even run up to the top of the village Monument without stopping, there was a problem. I stopped at the top, sweating faintly, taking deep, full, clear breaths of air into my lungs - good, strong lungs, lungs I was proud of.

I loved working out. There was just so much energy to it.

I knelt, leaned down, and fearlessly stuck a kunai knife right into one of the Hokage's craggy hairlines. I tied a length of ninja wire around the loop at the end of the kunai knife's handle, attaching the other end to my kunoichi dress' belt loop. I peered over the edge. If this wire broke or the knife dislodged, the fall was about 2000 feet to the ground. I probably wouldn't be able to make it to the nearest roof. I might be able to reach for another kunai in time and use it to tether myself to the side of the Monument in one great scar. Maybe.

I shrugged. "Can't say I'm not living my life to the fullest, dattebayo!" I said cheerfully, and threw myself from the cliffside of the mountain.

I fell steeply, shouting in excitement, the wind whipping my hair back, the ground coming up for me - I shut my eyes and a calm kind of peace came over me - and then I stopped with a jolt, tethered. My eyes flew open. The knife and the wire held.

"Awesome! So I'm not dying today!" I said cheerfully, and unsealed the cans of spray paint from the containment seals tattooed onto my palms. As I said, I was an artist. My messy, paint-covered apartment could prove it, the floor littered with old remnants of previous paintings, paintings I had sung to myself along with music as I'd created, the walls splattered with beautiful nature murals and paint balloon popping experiments that made my apartment look like a clown had been murdered inside it, the prized bizarre independent whore painting on one wall, my personal paintings on canvasses covering much more space.

Paint balloon popping, by the way, involved filling balloons with paint, hanging them from a wall, and then throwing weapons at them, and it was the single greatest invention ever in the history of mankind. Television? Cell phones? Laptops and the Internet? Long distance communications devices? Calculators? Nope. Paint balloon popping.

I'd been painting for years, and now was the time to show off my skills. This would be my latest, and possibly my greatest, work.

It was a graffiti work. Edgy, psychedelic, surrealistic, fantastical, and roughly angular, my painting combined a simple yet playful traditional style, an abstract POP art style, and a more ancient painting style reminiscent of calligraphy and ink paintings, fusing together many of my favorite sources to make a calling card that was entirely my own. It was like that with my private paintings, and also with my public graffiti art.

This one had to be a social commentary. I couldn't graffiti the Hokage Monument, of all places, and not make some sort of commentary. I implied homosexual love between two of the four men, and painted the other two over in obvious drag. Never let it be said Uzumaki Naruko did not go all out when she wanted to say something. I put heathenish occultist symbols around the artwork to liven things up a bit. Then I signed with my calling card: "LADY NARU" written in all pink gigantic block letters above the work, in hiragana because I thought it looked cuter, with black and pink hearts around it. (Black like my soul, cute like how freaking adorable I knew I was.)

I leaned back fearlessly over the horrible drop, grinning, unsealed a camera from one of my many seals, and took a photo. I'd have to clean it all off later, so I wanted working evidence that it had once existed. I took a few more pictures at different angles for good measure.

"UZUMAKI!" someone behind me screamed in - Anger? Fear? Horror? All of them? It was a mystery. I realized the sun had come up.

"Oops. That's my cue!" I said cheerfully, sealing the spray paint cans and the camera away again inside two of the many seals tattooed across my body.

I rocked myself so my feet rested sideways against the Monument, and in one movement I yanked the knife away and untethered myself from the stone, in that same moment pushing off with my legs, launching forward and landing on the nearest rooftop. All in one smooth, clean movement. "HA!" I shouted in victory, then looked around and saw the many green vested Chuunin ranked Konoha ninja chasing after me. Most of them adults. "Uh oh," I uttered aloud, and began a leaping sprint across the village, from one rooftop to the next, giving chase.

I couldn't help myself. I grinned and laughed out loud as I ran. This was fun! I could feel the whole village's hateful eyes on me as I leapt above them, people were shouting at me from the streets, ninja were screaming at me as they chased me over the rooftops but could never quite catch up.

"Uzumaki! This time you've done it! You're not getting away with it this time!" they called after me in vain. They said that every single time. Luckily for me, I had Grandpa Hokage wrapped around my little finger, so I would never be arrested unless I hurt someone - which I never had.

Yeah. He let me call him Grandpa to his face. That was how far in I had him. He was doomed. He was the one who paid for my apartment, dropping off checks at my place every month, and he had ever since I could remember, all the way back to when my blonde pigtails had made me look cute instead of homicidal and I was still a tiny little munchkin, and once you help out a little girl like that as their technical guardian it never really ends.

"HA!" I called back over my shoulder. "You're just jealous because you didn't think of it first, dattebayo! What's wrong, Hideki? Nervous because a twelve year old girl's got bigger balls than you?" I put a girlish little pout into my voice for good measure.

I knew all the rotation guards in Konoha by name. That was how often they chased me, and not always for graffiti art either. I prided myself for having a wide variety of troublemaking skills in my repertoire.

I set a few seal trap tags behind me in my wake - there were sudden gasps and shouts as surprised Konoha ninja were sucked inside. Then I ducked underneath somebody's clothes line and sprang through their window, yelling, "Sorry!" over my shoulder as they shrieked. I sprinted across their apartment, leaping down into the street below and taking countless twists and turns and corners through back alleys. Finally I made a hand seal and whispered, "Transformation Technique," turning into a beautiful slim dark-haired woman in her twenties, purple dress.

Out of all the Academy level techniques using chakra, the Transformation was my favorite and also the one I was best at. I could become anyone. I prided myself on my realism.

I smirked. "Too easy," I whispered smugly to myself, shrugging, as I faded away into the woodwork.

I made it all the way back to my apartment before they found me, and only because these two ninja in particular knew where I lived. Spoiler alert: They were my two main Academy teachers. Iruka-sensei and Suzume-sensei were my head teacher and my kunoichi seduction arts teacher, and they were waiting for me outside my apartment door. Iruka-sensei had a ponytail of brown hair and a wide scar across his nose; Suzume-sensei had frizzy black hair and glasses. Both were young.

Most ninja were. The ones who were alive. Grandpa was an exception, and I intended to end up like him.

I smirked and like a chameleon turned smoothly and silently back into myself. They scowled at me. "Naruko!" Iruka spat, irate. "What on earth are you doing when you're supposed to be in class?!"

"Iruka-san, I think the real question is why she was doing what she was doing when she was supposed to be in class," said Suzume in disapproval, irritated.

I held out my wrists, melodramatic. "You can take me in! But unfortunately, the discreet way back to the Academy has been mysteriously blocked up by a fallen support beam. Isn't that inconvenient?" My eyes widened innocently. "I guess you'll just have to take me the way that gets me seen by everyone!"

Iruka actually growled, and I beamed brightly. What infuriated them most, I knew, was that I had overcome every hurdle in becoming a good kunoichi. I was a visual and kinesthetic learner in a sound based class, so I'd discovered ways to make up for my academic deficiency. I had a best friend that I sparred with and practiced physical skills against every single day, and she had a special taijutsu style and a doujutsu. My seduction skills? Superb, and so much fun to perform.

I had chakra control that went about as smoothly as chili induced constipated shit, and I couldn't figure out genjutsu to save my life, but everything else was perfect, from my stances to my chakra strength and stamina to my hand signs. I had physical strength, speed, agility, and chakra power coming out the wazoo.

There were a couple of skills I hadn't mastered - I wasn't so good at sitting still and rote memorization, I couldn't break out of illusions, and the Clone Technique required so little chakra I couldn't do it to save my life. But everyone had something they weren't good at, and overall? I was a grade A student, the inconvenient pranks aside.

I also had a few clan skills hidden up my sleeve from my long dead family, but I didn't want to reveal them unless I really needed to. Part of the reason why I was coming quietly.

The other part was this. I let them tie, bind, and gag me, Iruka slinging me over his shoulder. And I was walked, clearly visible, silent, through the streets back to the Konoha Ninja Academy. The final piece to my art. Whispers and cold glares sprung up in my wake.

"Monster."

"Blasphemous! Typical."

"What on earth is the matter with that thing? And why don't we just lock her up?"

But those whispers were nothing new. I'd been hearing them all my life. Here was what was important. For a split, glorious second, I mattered to somebody. All eyes were on me. Nasty eyes, but still, eyes.

Here was the thing. Before Hinata, my current best friend, had come into my life, I had nobody. I was an orphan, and an unwanted one; everybody hated me. I didn't know why. I used to be a weepy little girl, thinking there was something wrong with me personally, but eventually I figured out? There were deeper motives to the adults' hatred, to why they wouldn't let their children play with me in the streets. Motives I didn't understand.

So I became hard and angry. Suck it up, buttercup, I told myself, and I ceased crying. For some reason, I was looked down on and despised, and that was just the way it was; I couldn't do anything about it and nobody would tell me why, so I stopped worrying about it. Being lonely even became a kind of comfort to me, the silence in my apartment where I felt most myself. I was chattery and warm and extroverted to all viewers, fierce and funny, but completely alone within. The peculiar thing about loneliness: you crave human contact, and yet when someone tries to reach out, you shun them.

I'd eventually gained a best friend in Hinata, after saving her from some asshole bullies. I'd hated being bullied myself as a younger girl, and now that I'd grown a pair, I sure as hell wasn't going to watch it happen to somebody else, I'd decided. I walked right up between her and her bullies, and kicked the lead bully where the sun don't shine. I yelled at them so loudly to fuck off that they'd all scampered away.

Hinata, the girl I had saved, had been able to look past the prejudice and see the person. She'd saved me, really. Helped me with my physical skills, with my academics, stolen Uzumaki clan scrolls back for me, helped me with my kunoichi arts skills, supported me when nobody else had. She was my savior, but I was hers too - Hinata, a naturally timid and shy girl from a strict and powerful living clan, always seemed to feel braver when I was around. She helped me; I protected and empowered her. We were reciprocal, even.

If it weren't for Hinata, I might have died off a long time ago. But it was still just her. I had no one else. Some people didn't even want to touch me, or even brush me accidentally, as if fearing I had the plague. Still others complained and looked down on me. Iruka-sensei and Suzume-sensei noticed me just enough to come get me after pranks, and scold me in class.

I was recognized by nobody.

In defiance, I had become a prankster and I had formed a goal: Someday I wanted to be democratically elected as the Hokage of Konoha village. And the first way to do that was to get everybody's attention.

So I sagged there over Iruka's shoulder, bound and gagged, in itching, horrific silence. And I let myself be carried through the streets past whispering, glaring, staring Konoha citizens. Back to the Academy, my admittedly self induced prison.

Author's Note: Since I'm doing a story about a fem Naruto pretending to be male, of course I had to do an openly female one. The idea is that these two stories will exist side by side. As you can see, I was experimenting with a bit of a different style with this one.