The Color Red

A/N: You may ask: Why the hell did you upload that? Will you ever even finish this? The answer is pretty simple: I don't know. I just throw this stuff out there and will write at it whenever it hits me.

This is my attempt on writing a character that isn't mature and aloof, but a child, hurt and , this turned out quite hilarious.

"This was the last time I let this go through, Naruko!" he spoke loudly, his palm impacting with his wooden desk for emphasis. "You didn't bring your assignments, again, for the umpteenth time this month! You "lost" your training gear for what has to be the sixth time this year and I won't keep replacing it!" He stood from his chair and rounded the desk to stand besides the girl that sat in the chair in front of it. She was frowning, jaw set and gaze stubbornly locked ahead. "Listen to me, Naruko! This is the last time I will replace your gear. If you manage to loose it yet again, you will have to buy it yourself!"

Naruko's jaw tightened and her frown deepened but she said nothing. Iruka had no idea what he was talking about. It's not like she did that on purpose! Well, the assignments were bloody boring so she may or may not have forgotten about them. But loosing her equipment wasn't her fault, dammit! He didn't seemed to care that she didn't have a place to stay or clothes to wear or even food to eat, noooo, all that was important was that she did what he told her to do and the rest was her problem. Like house and board, or the lack thereof. Or the meager amount of food she got, if she didn't loose her means of buying it when she had to move when the people found her hiding spot.

Currently she was "living" in an abandoned shed atop the Hokage mountain and it seemed to Naruko that said shed could be a more permanent housing than all the other places before. After she had to flee the storage house in the red light district two months prior she wandered the streets aimlessly, haunted by the sneers and hateful glares of the villagers around her. None of them would ever dare to raise a hand against her, the ANBU would behead them before they could so much as twitch, but they couldn't stop them from chasing her off property she didn't own. Naruko fled the village and ended up atop the head of the Fourth Hokage, looking sadly over the village that hated her so. On her way down she came across a small building, probably intended as a guard post when the bunkers were in use, but it served as Naruko's home just as well.

Iruka was still talking, filling out the form that would commission her a new set of basic ninja training gear. She had to leave behind the last set when she last changed locations. He berated her lack of enthusiasm in class while she mentally growled at him. You try sleeping on cold stone and then pay attention to the useless shit you spout!

When he then began reprimanding her for getting into fights- starting fights!- with the other students, she abruptly stood. A sneer marred her otherwise unmarked face and her elongated, fang like canines glinted dangerously in the light of the setting sun that fell though the window of the office. "Is that all?" she asked in a clipped voice, deep amethyst eyes glaring a hole into the wall behind Iruka.

The man frowned but nodded. When Naruko snatched the paper slip out of his hand and stormed out of the room, red hair billowing behind her, he shouted "And be on time tomorrow!"

Naruko steered clear of the busy streets, instead gliding nimbly through the countless alleyways that winded through Konoha. The only people she would meet here were the occasional ninja or a lost merchant that had accidentally taken a wrong turn. When she finally broke out of the bounds of the residential area and onto Training ground 24, she stopped to take a breath.

"Cat?" she called out tentatively. "Cat? Are you there?" Again Naruko received no answer. "Dog?" she tried again. "Bear?" She swallowed. "Yugao?"

The moment the name had been spoken, a woman seemingly appeared out of thin air in front of Naruko. She smiled kindly at her, shoulder length, deep purple hair framing her beautiful face. Not a second after her appearance, another person shimmered into sight. This time it was a man, his face hidden behind a cloth mask that covered half his face and the headband that was pulled down over his right eye. Silver hair that seemed to defy gravity was swaying gently in the breeze.

A smile blossomed on Naruko's face. Because these two, her two quasi-siblings, were her proof that she wasn't hated by everyone. Her proof that she wasn't alone. These two were basically her ANBU guards who were permanently making sure that she wasn't harmed. When things got very rough, they would help her out as much as they could, sometimes even defying the Hokage's order. Of course Hiruzen knew about these violations, but he choose to ignore those himself when he really needed/wanted to.

Said orders went alongside the law that the Hokage was not allowed to favor anyone in the village. And while he could support individual talent, it would have been an enormous scandal if he had supported a civilian. The civilian in this case was of course Naruko. Because she was an orphan, the status clan heir was out of her grasp until she either became a ninja or came off age. The ANBU, as a direct instrument of the Hokage's will, were of course also forbidden to intervene with the civilians in any way.

The law extended to some degree to all off the shinobi of Konoha. It stated, that no shinobi can intervene with the civilian population, in any way that may or just might alter the normal life of said civilian. This law went back to an incident, where a rich merchant had begun hiring ninja within Konoha and created a mini gang war. After that, the Second Hokage passed said decree.

That said, the shinobi part of the population did not frown upon Naruko or sneer at her. Quite the opposite actually. They tried their best to help her out as much as was allowed. Sadly that wasn't much. Aside from the fact that a ninja generally was busy with missions, they could not own property besides their own home that they could give to Naruko. And even if they did, Naruko was no old enough to legally possess property and would be sent to the orphanage. Again.

Of course she had been there before. But after the attack of the Kyuubi there were many many orphans. And some just couldn't be taken in. It was an underhanded process. Some children just dropped out onto the street. No one doubted that Naruko had been kicked out intentionally but the Hokage had to be impartial on every matter of the village. If he had just taken in Naruko, the civilians would have protested. And because the civilians were about 60% of the village's economical income, he could not risk it.

Naruko told him she understood, even though deep down, she didn't. She was happy that he gifted her so much clothing and other necessities whenever her birthday or another festival swung around. No one could say something about that. She was the daughter of a good friend after all. Shinobi would slip her food, distract civilians for her or set up genjutsu around her shelters or showed her new spots were she was safe. Every time something like this happened, her heart soared. Naruko was happy then, happy to see that someone cared. But the number of ninja and kunoichi that smiled her way on the streets was simply vastly outnumbered by the amount of civilians that glared at her and looked at her with disdain.

Without Yugao and Kakashi, she would have died at least once, not long after she left the orphanage at the tender age of five. Now, nearly eight years later, she was very close to becoming a ninja, so close to part with all the disdain that they threw at her. Yugao and Kakashi usually would face severe punishment for what they did, but the two of them took the girl in as an apprentice. It had been Yugao who taught her how to use her mothers sword and it had been Kakashi who taught her to walk on walls and water.

"Naru," Yugao said in greeting, gathering up the smaller girl in a hug. She smiled sadly at the redhead. "You must understand Iruka, he only wants the best for you. He's young and doesn't know what you are living through."

Nuzzling her face into Yugao's soft hair, the girl sighed. "Well, he doesn't have to be so mean about it... I can't help it that I left the trunk with the equipment behind."

As Yugao released her from the hug, Kakashi patted her head. "Sorry to say, little one, but I couldn't get a hold of it. The storehouse owner must have found it before I arrived."

Naruko snorted. "Of course you were late, big bro!" she accused with a cheeky grin.

Dramatically falling to his knees, Kakashi faked having a heart attack. "You wound me, little one!" he gasped mockingly. He was back on his feet, lazily with both hands in his pocket before Naruko could even glare at him. She pouted, having once again missed him dropping his "cool and hip" attitude. Her anger and sadness about Iruka was all but forgotten.

"Meeeeeeeh!"

Hinata squeaked in surprise at the sudden sound. She was already rather nervous, having sneaked out of the compound not five minutes prior. Hinata wasn't quite far away yet so no Byakugan could spot her on one of her secret adventures through the nearby park so she tied to ignore the noise from somewhere up ahead and moved on. She was running late already after all and if she wanted to meet her friend in time. Hinata would need to-

"MEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!"

"Eeep!" she squeaked again, the strange moan coming from directly behind her. Caught in her fright Hinata spun around, the instinct that had been beaten into her forced her body into a gentle fist stance and for a moment Hinata genuinely believed to be able to put up a fight, but there was nothing behind her. She brought her hands up to activate her Byakugan so that she maybe could spot-

"MEEEEH!" the noise came again, this time directly underneath her and Hinata couldn't even finish the activation as she flinched backwards with a muted squeak and stumbled, landing on her bum with a soft uff!

Pupil less eyes stared at the ground to her feet, and found a mop of red hair right in front of where she had stood not a second prior. And what got Hinata shaking in her plain white panties, was the fact that there was no body visibly attached to the redhead! She nearly fainted but then the head swiveled around and deep violet eyes looked pleadingly at her. The head was Naruko!

"N-Naruko!" she squeaked, crawling forward to her friend. "What happened to you!?"

The redhead, as Hinata now could see, was buried up to her neck in the ground. And she was pouting so hard that her cheeks were a fiery red. She groaned again and wiggled her head. "Don't ask questions, hime! Get me out of here!" Naruko whined.

Hinata could not hide her smile behind the flustered face she tried to make. Naruko looked absolutely ridiculous, like a red turnip that hadn't been pulled properly. An annoyed turnip but a turnip still. A glare from said turnip silenced her giggling and Hinata began scrapping away the earth around Naruko's head. until her shoulders were free to grasp. With a mighty heave, Hinata managed to pull Naruko from the soft earth.

The girls gasped in relief, grinning up at Hinata. "Whew, that sucked," she laughed.

Smiling lightly, Hinata patted her friend down, getting most of the dust off her hoodie. "Just who put you there?" she asked absently, kind of distracted by the toned feeling of the redheads stomach.

"Oh, that. Kakashi put me in there because I kept annoying him while making tat sound I did earlier." She pouted. "And I still wanted to train!"

A bit of worry hushed through Hinata's mind. Naruko was notorious to be challenged by the other students. Her standing as the last Uzumaki and her generally brusque attitude towards her peers caused much tension. The fact that her mother's reputation loomed over her like an ever present shadow got many others to try and prove themselves against the daughter of the legendary Kushina Uzumaki. Spars were a daily occurrence for Naruko so she trained herself harder than anyone else. She wanted to maker her mother proud after all.

And so she did. Up until now Naruko had not failed to defeat every challenger that came for her. And every time Hinata was left to see a bruised and exhausted Naruko drag herself from the academy towards god only knew what place she currently resided at. As much as Naruko tried to hide the fact that she basically lived on the streets, Hinata knew. But she knew better than to talk about it. After Naruko had rescued her from a bunch of bullies, Hinata did her best to support the girl. Be it lunch she brought for her or insisting upon lending her a jacket or kimono whenever she had the chance without forcing it.

If not for the fact that a clan could not take in the village's jinchuriki in fear of a rebellion, Hinata's father as the clan head would have taken the child in the moment she had been orphaned. Hiashi Hyuuga and his wife, Hitomi Hyuuga had been friends with Kushina ever since Hinata's mother and Naruko's ended up on the same genin team. In fact, Hitomi had been Naruko's godmother but back then no one expected that Minato had so seal the Kyuubi in his own daughter.

Hinata still grieved over the loss of her mother but Naruko had told her that now they both could get strong together and show them that the loss didn't bring them down.

"Hinata!" Naruko shouted, waving her hands in front of Hinata's face, effectively scaring her out of her thoughts. "You still with me?" Another squeak escaped the young Hyuuga and caused her best friend to laugh a little. "Come one," Naruko said with a smile, "Let's get some training done!"

Hinata followed after her, smiling because she knew that she could learn a few new things from Cat. Maybe even Dog would teach her a few things, tough he only ever seemed to talk to Naruko. "Wait up!" she called after her red haired friend, "Not so fast."

Naruko laughed madly all the while she ran through the village, the glares bothered her about as much as the wind in her face.

The village of Konohagakure was one of the greatest and most powerful ninja villages in the Elemental Nations. Out of the five great villages, it could be said that Konoha was the strongest, though Iwagakure and Kumogakure would disagree most fervently. But it was undeniable that Konoha was the economically strongest village with impressive military capabilities. It was the Will of Fire, according to the third Hokage and ruler of the village, that kept Konoha strong and growing even through the tragedies of the past. The second and the third great ninja war both struck Konoha hard yet they always came out on top. But that really depends on how you look at it. Konoha lost hundreds of good ninja in the third war as well as one of their biggest allies. Uzushiogakure, the village hidden in the whirlpools. Said village was on an island that was but a few kilometers away from the eastern border of the land of fire. But during the third war, Iwa and Kumo joined forces in an effort to get rid off the feared clan that inhabited the village. The Uzumaki.

It was a slaughter fest, no Uzumaki left the village alive and their village was ruined and burned to the ground, the soil salted to ensure that the Uzumaki would never return. But one Uzumaki survived. She had been in Konoha at the time of the attack. Her name was Kushina Uzumaki, daughter of the third Uzukage and by all means royalty, the princess to a fallen country. Kushina was in Konoha because only an Uzumaki could ever do what the village needed her to do. Containing the nine tailed fox and becoming the jinchuriki of Konoha. It had been a political move from Uzu to strengthen the alliance with Konoha. But when Uzu needed Konoha the most, they were left alone. And Kushina was left in Konoha with a burden to bear and a family lost.

But it wasn't all bad for the lonely red haired girl. She was fortunate to meet the love of her life, Minato Namikaze when she was but twelve years old. One would disagree that the situation she had been in (being kidnapped by Kumo) was far from favorable but young Minato saved her from a terrible fate and she fell in love with him the very same night.

And she was happy. For nine years she was happy with Minato, even though there was war, even though it was hard. Kushina, after the war ended, became pregnant and everything seemed almost perfect. But on the night she gave birth to her little girl, something went wrong. Kushina never saw what happened, too tired from labor and then nearly dead from having the Kyuubi ripped out of her. But with her last words, as she and Minato were pierced by the Kyuubi's claw, she wished her well with all the love her heart could give.

"And... be happy, my little Naruko... Mommy... loves you...!"

This is the story of the girl that became the new container of the Kyuubi. This is the story of Naruko Uzumaki, the spit image of her mother with the sharp mind of her father. Sadly, Naruko knew not of him. Minato's identity was kept from her out of fear for her safety. But because she looked so much like her mother and because many of the woman she had been friends with recognized her by first glance, Hiruzen Sarutobi decided to grant her everything Naruko's mother ever owned. It wasn't much, because many things were left in a house that had been used by Minato and Naruko therefore could not access, but there were pictures, books and a katana. A katana that Kushina always carried with her, either at her side or in a scroll. The only time it was not on her person had been the night she died.

And Naruko was glad to know that her mother had loved her. But the villagers decided that they would not look kindly upon the girl they believed to be a demon. The civilian population had been unaware of Kushina's special status but were made aware of Naruko's through an announcement right after the attack. An announcement that Hiruzen Sarutobi would regret to his dying day and only ever made because Minato wished for his daughter to be the heroine of the village. And because he had found it prudent to protect the girl from any kind of harassment on the matter, he decreed that no one was to speak of it, no one was allowed to talk to anyone about the fact that Naruko was the Kyuubi jinchuriki.

But it was impossible to uphold completely. Even if they didn't talk about it, they still steered clear of the girl, told their children to stay away from her. And so, Naruko Uzumaki grew up a lonely child, on the streets of Konoha.

Naruko was bouncing in her seat, the flip-up seat squeaking under her constant hopping. In time with the squeaking, Akamaru's ears twitched and he whined a little on top of Kiba's head. The young Inuzuka, whose nose twitched to the same beat, was about to jump up and growl at the girl just a row behind him when the door opened and Hinata ambled inside. He took to watching instead.

"Hey, hime!" Naruko greeted her, waving excitedly.

Hinata bowed her head at everyone she passed (Kiba returned the bow so hard he threw Akamaru off) and eventually quickly hugged her best friend before sitting down besides her. Kiba was just glad that the squeaking had stopped while he apologized to Akamaru.

"Are you alright?" Naruko asked Hinata, "Cat put you through your paces."

The Hyuuga smiled. "I am, don't worry. She healed me afterwards so it was no trouble at all."

Naruko snorted. "She tried to dice you."

"But she didn't" Hinata insisted kindly, "And I am all the wiser for it."

Rolling her eyes, Naruko said," Yeah, now you won't run into an ANBU with a sword. As if you could run from them in the first place."

"You know that's not what I mean," Hinata huffed, pouting slightly.

"Of course," Naruko laughed, pinching Hinata's thigh, making her squeak loud enough to garner the attention of all the other students in the classroom. "We are just new academy graduates! As if we could ever beat Cat!"

Rubbing her thigh while blushing madly, Hinata said quietly, "We have yet to graduate, Naru."

She just snorted in response before pinching Hinata's thigh yet again in the very same spot. "As if we could fail. I bet even dog breath could do it!"

Kiba turned around to them. "Hey!" he exclaimed indignantly, "What was that!?" But he then became lost in the apparent picture he found himself treated to. From his point of view, he could see that one of Naruko's hands was at least somewhere in Hinata's lap and the Hyuuga was blushing madly, fidgeting in her seat. He grinned as the lewd fantasies bubbled forth.

As Kiba zoned out, Naruko rapped her knuckles against his forehead with ever increasing sharpness. As his tongue began to lull out of his mouth, she pulled back. "God damn perverts," she muttered. Then she looked at Hinata, who tried to look anywhere but at her friend. She hummed lowly and then simply put her hand on Hinata's upper leg, not moving. The Hyuuga froze, not twitching a muscle, as her face steadily gained color until Naruko feared her head would pop and she pulled her hand back. Hinata sighed in relief and just as she was about to scold Naruko, the girls hand was on her thigh again, higher this time and Hinata made a small noise that was far too breathy to Naruko's ears so now even the Uzumaki began to blush.

"Woah," she whispered to herself. That had been... strange, to say the least. Who knew Hinata could make such noises? The last time she had heard something like that it had been Kakashi, loudly rectifying one of his books. Hinata's head was on the desk, sizzling suspiciously with her ears still on fire. Naruko had to admit that this... was almost as fun as swimming and sealing.

There was the distinct sound of something dripping that returned Naruko to the classroom. Kiba was actually drooling on their desk. She grimaced. Ew! She raised her hand but didn't wait for Iruka, who had just now entered, to even call her name. "Teacher! Kiba is drooling on our desk!"

Iruka felt the strong urge to simply turn around and and leave, but he couldn't just do that again? Instead, he sighed and called, "Yes? Naruko?"

"Kiba is drooling on our desk!"

The Inuzuka seemed to have regained his senses, drooling still covering his chin. "Am not!"

"Are too!" Naruko argued.

"That's because you were fondling Hinata's privates!"

"I was not-!" THUMP! was the distinctive sound of Hinata's face hitting the desk, fainted dead away. Naruko rolled her eyes. "Teacher! Kiba made Hinata faint!"

And Iruka felt like crying.

Mizuki was about to blow a gasket. He had already broken several pencils and his colleague was warning him that they would start charging him for these. Deciding that maybe he should put the offending pen down lest he break another one, he sighed. "I will tell you once more," he said carefully and slowly, "I want you to produce one clone. Here. Now!"

Naruko, standing in front of the desk, huffed. "And will tell you once more, that I have too much chakra to make one clone."

"Then you, and listen very closely now, fail!" Mizuki hissed, slamming his fist down on the table. The pencil he had placed there cracked loudly in the otherwise silent room.

His colleague chuckled. "That's 3 ryo," he remarked.

Mizuki rounded on him. "Say that one more time and I will shove the next pencil up your ass!"

"EEEEWWW!" Naruko made, grimacing extensively, "That's disgusting! I didn't think you were one of these people!"

Mizuki jumped out of his chair. "I AM NOT-!"

A sealing tag that was thrown in through the window prevented Mizuki from speaking anything more. In the window to the side of the room stood, lazily leaning against the window frame, Kakashi Hatake, nose buried in an orange book. "Yo," he greeted lamely, "I've come to pick up my apprentice."

Mizuki's colleague just nodded, crossed Naruko off the list, and left the room. The white haired chunin was meanwhile busy trying to pry the sealing tag off his lips. Once he finally got if off, leaving inflamed skin behind in a square shape around his mouth, he fumed at Kakashi. "Why wasn't I told about this!?"

Before Kakashi could respond, Naruko was at his side, pulling urgently at his pant leg. "Big brother! The teacher is one of those weird people, from your books! Trying to shove things up other people's bum!"

Kakashi raised a lone eyebrow at the chunin, who gaped wordlessly at Naruko. "Never pegged you for that kind of man. Well, it's a free world, isn't it?"

Mizuki was almost foaming by now, slamming his fist so hard onto his own desk, that it cracked loudly down the middle. "I AM NOT-!"

In that moment, both Naruko and Kakashi vanished in a bodyflicker and Mizuki's colleague put his head into the room from the hallway. "The desk is 1200 ryo, by the way."

Mizuki's cry of despair echoed through all of Konoha.

A/N: I dunno about you guys, but I liked it. Fem!Naruto is funny...!