I have a "few" words before I cut you loose on my work. Bear with me.

If you take anything given by any character as fact you have only yourself to blame since they are unreliable and biased. Assuming that I will state things openly is also a grave mistake.

The M rating is due to violence.

I don't presume to be a romance writer, so leave me out of your pairing wars. If you have an issue to share with me, please provide a specific reference (i.e. quote).

I own only what is not from the canon Naruto universe (i.e. the OCs). Naruto and all media stemming from that manga belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 1: Two Fools on a Tightrope

It came down to one breath.

Time ran smoothly up to the moment just after she scratched at her bald scalp, fingering the broken scab oozing pus and blood. All it took was one breath—one breath and a pebble.

If the pebble had been asked, it might have told a strange tale about coming from a rock that had once been pounded with water on a daily basis until a pair of bastards had decided to blow the place to hell in order to settle some stupid quarrel. As far as the pebble was concerned, the red-eyed bastard and the man that brooded over killer trees could have fought somewhere else. The resulting explosion had carried this pebble far from its native rock and to this moment when it was grinding against the other pebbles in the riverbed under the sandal of the bald woman. Warm blood coated the pebble, flowing through the sandal's cracked sole into the water.

This moment changed things. That pebble worked its way into the crack because a breath caused the broken ribs to pain the woman, so she changed her weight distribution. The path of the pebble diverged in time due to that one breath.

In the world that might have existed without that breath, that woman would have never made it past the developing village of Konoha. She would have died. The pebble's presence wouldn't have forced her to stop and pry it out of her sandal with a kunai, and a patrol would have caught and executed her on sight as a missing-nin.

The wayward woman kept the pebble as a good luck charm. It found its way much farther south than Konoha, and the woman lived to lose the pebble due to a hole in her pocket.

One breath changed everything and nothing.

Nariko stood before the enormous gates, blinking in awe. She could honestly say she had never expected this. She had heard of Konoha, hadn't everyone? However, she had never expected that her advancement in the accounting firm would take her here. She had hoped to be sent to one of the bigger cities, longing for the secure anonymity within a hoard of people. It seemed it was not to be. Konoha was a hidden village of shinobi. As such, it needed to be accessible to clients, yet out of the way of trouble, so its population was equivalent to that of a medium-sized town rather than a large city.

Despite how unique Konoha with its death defying ninja may have been, it was not exempt from taxes and financial matters. So there she was, goggling at the gates and trying to work up the courage to enter. The carter behind her cleared his throat, impatient to get rid of her belongings and to take a break. Moving back into action, she pulled out the appropriate papers.

Cause and effect. Karma. Was rushing to appease the carter good, or was impatience getting the better of her again at his prompting? If the former, well, that was good for her account. If the latter though… She hated going in the red. If she had, well, she had been blessed in a way; paying it forward would certainly help.

The ninja scanned her documents while his partner checked out the carter and her belongings. She flushed as he unzipped her suitcases and searched for whatever dangerous objects he was required to check for. When he winked at her, she grimaced and grumbled about ninja under her breath. Auntie Kasumi would have spit on these ninja, but karma would see that they got what they deserved. She would simply help things along.

Just as she was leaving the gates, the guards yelling threats alerted her to the chance. Turning, she spotted a colour-blind young boy (after all, what sane person wears orange?) sporting a fragile, fake smile as he scrambled away from the jeers and the fists of the two at the gate, tripping often in his blind haste.

Nariko glanced about the main street, searching for someone who would defend the boy. Instead, horrifyingly, everyone looked vindictively pleased at his torment. Even she knew that stepping forward in this situation would have consequences. However, impulsiveness was hard to curb and karma was her excuse.

"Hey you!" she roared, putting her impressive lungs to work. Her cousin had always said that the amount of noise she could generate was disproportionate to the size of her thoracic cavity. She trusted Shiro to know. "Stop that! What did that kid do to deserve that? A simple scolding would have sufficed."

People stopped and stared at her. The carter subtly tried to ally himself with the crowd, which was decisively against her now.

She couldn't have cared less. All she could see was a pair of the bluest, loneliest eyes in existence. They tugged at her. How could his desperate lonesomeness exist in the crowd?

She tried to convey that, for this moment, she was on his side. He seemed incredulous, something she couldn't understand. Most children were more than willing to accept any sort of alliance with an adult, especially in a struggle against another. That he didn't want one hinted at something very sinister. She smiled and held out her hand. She had the strangest feeling that she was coaxing a wild animal to feed from it. "Come here. Shall we go?"

He could not have been more than five, yet he approached with the caution of an abused old mutt, only taking her hand after seeing her glare around the street with contempt clearly written across her face. It matched the intensity of the anger they were throwing at her.

Her face cleared when she felt his small hand hesitantly grasp her own. It was dusty from when the guard had pushed him to the ground and as scrawny as the rest of his bony frame. He was too young to look like a beanpole. Someone must not have been feeding him properly. She wondered what sort of asshole would deny a child proper food.

So this was the world beyond the clan compound. This never would have happened at home; word would have gotten around too quickly, and the council would have stepped in. Glaring about once more, she beckoned the carter, who grimaced unhappily while he clucked to his horses, and stalked off with the boy in tow.

A few streets away, she slowed and allowed the boy to catch his breath. He had been forced to run to keep up with her. That crowd had made her uncomfortable though. Still, she couldn't actually believe that they would have been openly hostile. To raise a hand to strike another was something out of myth. Sure, people yelled, squabbled, and could be nasty to each other, but she had never seen real intent to cause lasting harm.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that he was still eyeing her warily as he panted. So cursedly suspicious, but apparently, he had reason to be. He was a ragged looking child: a grimy orange shirt, threadbare shorts, and thin sandals adorned his body. "What's your name, kid?"

He seemed to regain some spark. "Me? I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" He shot her the most blinding fake smile she had ever seen.

She smiled genuinely in return, which seemed to transform some of his falseness into reality. It hurt that he had resorted to lying with his smile in the first place. If he wasn't happy, she hardly expected him to pretend to be.

"Uzumaki Naruto, eh?" She noted his slight panic at her sly tone and quickly turned it sweet and bright. Obviously, blatantly sarcastic forms of expression weren't something he trusted. "I'm Nariko. What did you do back there that had them sniping at you like that?"

The boy's smile turned mischievous. She recognized that smile, having seen it on her cousins' faces many times. She hoped that he would share the joke. "I put superglue on their chairs a couple days ago."

Ah, a good prank and she had only been in the village for ten minutes! What a creative little kid: most children didn't even know how to get the childproof lids off superglue canisters. Motivation was important though. Light-hearted pranks were all good fun, but using those skills for revenge was petty. "Why did you do that?"

"For fun." He shrugged, obviously not telling the whole truth.

"Hmm," was her noncommittal response, "Well, where should I take you?"

"What?" Such suspicion!

"Where's your home?"

There was a good chance he wouldn't answer, but she really did need to get him somewhere safe before she could see to moving in. Her conscience would allow nothing less than that. Apparently, this Naruto was only cautious right off the bat because he didn't waste any time jabbering. That or he was really lonely and wanted somebody friendly to talk to. She was willing to fit that bill.

"The ladies at the orphanage kick me out during the day and won't let me back in until after it gets dark. I run around the village during the day. Some days I go visit Old Man, and when I have money, I go to the best ramen stand in the world!"

No home during the day? She stared at him for a moment, trying to decide if he was lying or not. Yet, the matter-of-fact way he spoke seemed to indicate that he wasn't. Still, this warranted future investigation. He was guileless, especially when it came to ramen. She had a bad feeling about the worshipful tone he spoke about that ramen stand with. Her wallet seemed to be cringing against her thigh, almost as if it knew exactly what she was going to do.

"Well, if that's so, then I guess you'll have to come with me."

"What? Why?"

She flinched at his frightened tone. Damn, she was going to have to be really earnest and careful when dealing with him, poor mite. "Well, since I got you out of trouble back there, the least you can do is help me move into my apartment. Shou-san, the carter lugging all my stuff around, is sure to be sick of dealing with me by now"—she ignored the man's half-hearted protests—"and I'm sure he would love to ditch my stuff. Personally, I'd like to settle my belongings in quickly, and then you and I can talk. Therefore, as the first part of your repayment, I shall commandeer your services for the next two hours."

"Commander?" Big words were apparently out of style here…

"No, it's 'commandeer.' It means I'm going to make you work for me."

Naruto pondered this for a moment. "Okay, lady, I guess that's fair."

She smiled and pulled him into the building with the address that matched the one written on the slip of paper. Sharp-eyed Auntie Kasumi had some contacts in Konoha, and, looking at the building with full knowledge of how much rent she was paying a month, Nariko had to say that she was grateful that Kasumi was not above using her connections to secure what she wanted. It was not appropriate behaviour for a member of the clan, but Kasumi had married into the family. She had leeway. After a meeting with the landlord, during which Naruto suspiciously disappeared, Nariko opened her door for the first time.

Naruto reappeared out of nowhere and whistled. "Wow, lady, you must be loaded!"

He skipped into the room and spun on the hardwood floor. As she prowled the rooms, Naruto trailed behind her, looking out all the windows, delighting in the echo of his voice, and inspecting all the closets and cupboards, apparently disappointed to find them empty.

Satisfied with the quality of the pipes (her father had insisted that she check that; she really didn't want to know what experience had led to that suggestion), she rounded up her helper and began to unload her belongings from the cart. She and the carter hauled up her meagre furniture while Naruto handled the least fragile of her belongings: the linens and the pots and pans. She discharged the carter with a generous tip and hauled her bones up the stairs.

It seemed so empty to her. Oh, the space was beautiful, especially those tall ceilings, but it was so sparse and dreary. The walls were all blandly white. She could fix that though.

This suite's previous tenant must have been a ghost because the landlady had told her that even the neighbour downstairs had been happy with how quiet he had been before he had passed away in the third bedroom. He must have been a photographer and used the main bathroom as his darkroom or something; she hoped the chemical smell would fade away. No one liked renting apartments that had had their previous tenants die within them, but Nariko wasn't wealthy enough to be fussy or worried about ghosts.

Naruto stashed away the linens in one of the closets as she reassembled her beloved desk and filing cabinet. She unpacked her dishes and keepsakes while he chased packing paper all over the floor before reluctantly bagging it.

The main rooms seen to, she dragged her bags into the room at the end of the hall across from the room her predecessor had died in. There was a room off the dining room oddly enough, but it hadn't felt like it was hers when she had stepped into it, not the way this room did. It had windows facing south—the direction that home lay in—and west. She supposed that this room was intended either as the master bedroom or the guestroom since the partial bathroom was attached directly to it.

She stifled a chuckle when Naruto pounced with a thud in the living room and glared skywards when the neighbour downstairs hit the floor with a broom and screeched about quiet and proper silence. Oh, joy. High-density housing was always much better with crabby neighbours, she thought.

Shaking her head, she kicked her closet door open. With her clothes out of the way, she hauled her bookcase into the room, grabbed a box of books, and kicked another ahead of her while Naruto messed with the door to the small balcony. She left him to it, shelving her books and scrolls. Theology was tucked alongside accounting manuals and calculus and physics textbooks. It was a good balance: the esoteric, the mundane, and the mathematical.

She stood in the centre of the room and spun in a slow circle. Shiro would have teased her about how boring it was. Hmm, she mused, what colour? Green? Blue? No, she knew those would get dreary very quickly. She wanted something earthy… Tan would work: it wasn't yellow, which would have driven her to tears eventually, or a cool colour like the deeper shades of blue and green. She needed some warmth to tide her over with her family so far away.

Satisfied, she headed back into the kitchen and deftly kept Naruto from climbing over the balcony railing. Why did boys always find the quickest ways to kill themselves the moment they were unoccupied? Falling four stories would not have been good for his health. Beckoning him back inside, she slid the glass door shut and grimaced as she realized that Konoha was a lot farther north than her hometown. It would get cold here. Cold and lonely.

Sighing, she headed over to the kitchen sink and demanded her helper wash his hands. "Where is this ramen stand you were talking about?"

That question animated him as nothing else had. Even he seemed to be able to smell that food offering. "Ichiraku's is awesome! It's not far from here, just a few streets over. Come on, I'll show you!"

He grabbed her wet hand and dragged her out the door, barely pausing to allow her to lock up. He then forced her to trot to keep up with him. They weren't going fast enough that she didn't have a chance to look around. Trees grew gnarled and twisted in the unpaved streets, augmenting the urban canopy. The buildings were mostly earthen-hued blurs. Naruto skidded to halt suddenly and, unprepared, she tripped over him was forcefully introduced to the fact that the ground in Konoha was just as hard as it was everywhere else.

"Ouch." She turned around to find Naruto cowering away from her, his hands upraised as if to ward off a blow. That simple defensive stance ignited rage. It decided her; he would benefit from her good fortune.

He began spewing apologies at rapid rate, perhaps hoping that the incomprehensibility of his speech would delay "the inevitable." She noticed the crowd gathering around them as though in preparation for a show.

"Geez, Naruto, warn me next time you do that please. I'm not as resilient as you."

He continued his fervent stream of words as she approached. The almost eager expression on a couple faces disgusted her. She put a hand on his stiff little shoulder and crouched in front of him. He froze at her proximity, so she smiled patiently.

"Calm down; it was obviously an accident. I doubt you meant to trip me. I was just unprepared. Don't worry about it." Naruto seemed to be stunned to silence. The crowd seemed incredulous. What was with these people? Didn't they have other things to do? "Let's eat. I owe you for helping me." The disappointed crowd dispersed.

At first, Naruto seemed totally gung-ho, but then he paused as they settled on the stools in front of the counter. "Wait a sec, lady; I thought you said I owed you for helping me out?"

"I'm not 'lady.'" She set her elbow on the counter and donned a stern expression as the chef watched them, obviously amused. "Would you like it if I called you 'brat' or 'boy' all the time?"

Naruto shook his head fervently.

"Then call me by my name. Say it with me: Nariko."

He muttered it quickly.

"What was that? I didn't hear you."

"Nariko-oneesan," he enunciated mockingly.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "No need to be so formal, but that'll do for now." He stuck his tongue out at her, and she laughed. She raised an eyebrow at him when he pouted at her and swung back and forth on his stool.

He grimaced at her. "You said you owed me, but you said before that I owed you and that I had to help out."

"I did. You helped a lot. I want to reward your efforts. Don't complain."

Naruto snapped his mouth shut after quickly ordering three bowls of miso ramen. From the pitying look the chef sent her, Nariko figured she was going to regret it if she didn't stem his orders now.

"Three's enough for you I hope?"

Naruto blinked for a moment, trying to hide disappointment.

"Despite what you said about my apartment, I am not 'loaded,' as you put it. I don't start my new job until Monday. The banks here probably aren't open on weekends, and I still have to buy groceries, so what little cash I have now has to last."

Naruto nodded and dug into his ramen with relish. Nariko was both impressed and disgusted by how much he could stuff into his mouth. He reminded her of her cousin Itsuki at eleven. Worried that he would choke on either some noodles or his chopsticks, she dragged him into conversation.

"Tell me; why do all the villagers seem to dislike you?" The sooner she heard the reason for the animosity, the sooner she would be able to allay her misgivings.

Naruto curled into himself and stopped his demolition of miso ramen. "I dunno. I think Old Man does, but he won't tell me. He says that I don't need to worry about it."

Pfft, didn't need to worry about it, eh? There was no need to worry why some ninja had cuffed his ear and why everyone glared at him? After allowing him another two rounds at his bowl, she probed him again. "Why are you in the orphanage?"

"Well, I don't really know who my parents are. I guess they're dead." She winced slightly at just how nonchalantly he said that. How could he be all right with that? "Old Man said that I have to stay at the orphanage until I'm eleven. He's gonna help me get my own apartment if nobody adopts me by then. I've only got six more years until I get my own place like yours; Old Man told me, dattebayo. Then the other boys won't pitch my stuff out the window, the girls won't hide my clothes from me, and Misako won't wake me up before everyone else then and make me go outside. When I get my own place, I can stay home during the day and have ramen all the time!"

"Is that so? What do they feed you at the orphanage?" Why was he so damn skinny if he ate like a horse?

"They try to make me eat these squishy things they call vegetables." Vegetables weren't usually squishy… "They're weird colours and they smell really bad. When I eat them, I get sick sometimes. That's why I like ramen so much better than anything they give me at the orphanage: ramen never makes me sick, dattebayo!" He gave her a real megawatt grin with his answer.

She smiled back and gingerly ruffled his grimy, matted hair. She would need to wash her hands… It was too perfect, too convenient that he was here and she had run into him so soon. Such convenience couldn't be real. She allowed the Uzumaki boy to go back to his ramen for a moment before she indulged her curiosity again. "Who's this old man you keep mentioning?"

"Old Man Sarutobi," he said, as though that answered everything.

Seeing that she was not going to get anything useful out of the boy, she turned to the aging chef, Teuchi. He explained that the boy was talking about the Third Hokage, the leader of the ninja in the village. Teuchi-san pointed out his younger face on the mountain. She smiled her thanks and went back to her ramen, occasionally glancing at the monument. It would be a good idea to understand the position that the Konoha those faces had shaped took on various issues and local history would help prevent her from getting lost in conversations. She almost shook her head wryly: always so disgustingly practical. Shiro-nii would have swatted her, and Itsuki would have sighed disappointedly.

When she asked Naruto to show her the orphanage, he grimaced a little, but she smiled at him and said "please" so winsomely that he caved. He hopped off his stool with a little difficulty—he was so short in comparison—and, after waving goodbye to Teuchi-san and his daughter, led the way through Konoha at a much slower pace than before.

She trailed after him through multitudes of unfamiliar sights, attempting to form a mental map of the village. Why had she come here again? Whatever the reason had been, it was rapidly losing ground against the harsh waves of homesickness.

Naruto occasionally pointed out spots. There was the big store with the cold places, the toy store that he wasn't allowed into, and the quiet place with all the stuffy people and the books. She saved her fascination for the last one (the library) for later.

"That's the orphanage," he said. The sign above the door of a well-appointed building in the middle of a side street agreed with Naruto's assertion. It seemed cheerful: the giggling group of girls playing with dolls on the front lawn were evidence, but Naruto's reaction contradicted this. He curled up on himself again. She set a hand on the poor mite's shoulder. Using her gentle grip to get him moving, she approached the building.

The girls glanced up when she lifted the latch on the gate and sneered upon spotting Naruto. He stuck his tongue out at them, but Nariko pulled him along behind her to keep an argument from starting. One of the girls seemed determined though.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "You're not supposed to be here!"

"He's here because I asked him to be," Nariko informed the girl over Naruto's gibbered snarls, keeping him from lunging at the child. "Where is Misako-san?"

The girls traded looks and shrugs. "Probably in her office, oneesan," the snide girl said politely. Nariko couldn't blame the girl for wanting to butter up a potential guardian. Naruto had met her first though. The group seemed to understand this because they scowled at the boy as she led him towards the door. Knocking elicited minimal response.

"You've got to hit the door really hard after lunch," Naruto whispered after tugging on the hem of her shirt. "Everybody's really loud, and the doorbell's broken."

Nodding, she uncurled her fist and slammed her palm against the wooden door. She smirked to herself when the girls in the yard stared incredulously. Just because she looked like a stick, it didn't mean she would snap like one. People always underestimated wiriness…

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Pick that up. Ume-chan, carry that hamper downstairs! Someone's going to trip over it if you leave it lying around in the hallway." Nariko got her first look at Misako when the door flew open. Naruto flinched against her side. Misako-san was a pleasant looking woman in her early forties, if harried and on edge. "Good afternoon," she managed to say after noticing Naruto. "What has he done this time?"

A constant troublemaker, huh? Perhaps he was an attention seeker. That wanted a firm hand, but essentially exiling Naruto from the orphanage surely wasn't the answer.

Naruto ducked behind her when Misako-san tried to grab him. Nariko casually blocked her seeking hand and smiled politely at the frustration that suffused the woman's façade. "Done?" Nariko asked, keeping her tone light and friendly despite all feelings to the contrary.

The orphanage director's eyebrows sought her greying hairline as she straightened. "Yes, what has he done to you? I promise that he'll be properly punished for whatever inconvenience he has inflicted upon you—"

"You misunderstand me. I have no complaint with your ward. I was simply interested in seeing where Naruto-kun lived."

Misako-san sent a nasty glance at the boy before smiling up at her, looking mystified, as though Naruto didn't get asked after. Such a thing almost appeared to herald the end of her world. "Are you quite certain? I mean, we are very well aware of his penchant for pulling malicious pranks upon citizens. You need not worry about offending us. I have dealt with this troublemaker before."

Nariko arched a brow at the woman. Why wouldn't Misako just let them inside? "No, it's all right. He's been very helpful actually. I just wanted to see—"

"Oh, it's nothing special," the director assured her hastily, "just a bed and a trunk…" Naruto opened his mouth, disbelief etched in his face, but the woman shot a quelling look at him.

"Is that so?" Nariko asked blandly. "Then you'll have no problem letting me in to look—"

"It's quite messy at the moment. He didn't clean up before he left this morning."

"Ah, yes, before dawn. I can see him forgetting to clean up when heading out before the sun." Nariko guiltily took a bit of malicious pleasure in watching Misako squirm. "It's quite all right. I hardly mind a bit of mess. I just wanted to—"

"Hours for visiting are on weekday mornings from ten until three. It's hardly a weekday, it being Saturday and all. I'm afraid I simply can't let you in right now. Perhaps on Wednesday?"

Nariko stared, not quite capable of believing the lengths this lady was going to prevent her from seeing where Naruto slept. Why Wednesday? Why not Monday? Such delay was not reassuring, but she couldn't do much to gainsay her. There was another route to take though. Pleasant retreat was the order of the day. "Oh, of course. I'm sorry; I didn't know."

"Oh, it's quite all right." Misako-san looked a little relieved. "Naruto, perhaps you'd like to come inside?"

"Actually, do you mind if he sticks around with me a bit longer?" Nariko asked as Naruto glared and stuck his tongue out. "He's helping me find my way around. I still need my guide or I'll get completely lost." She rolled right over the orphanage director's protests and steered Naruto back out the gate with farewell's rolling sweetly off her tongue. Nariko kept up a purposeful pace until they were four houses away. "I see what you mean."

"I told you," he crowed. "You shook the door! How did you do that?"

She snorted and cleared away her mischievous expression when he turned back to look at her. "It's not that hard. You just have to know how to apply the force. My brother taught me. Shiro used to be able to make houses rattle, but he's stronger than I am. Anyway, that proved rather useless."

"What were you trying to do?" he asked as he stumbled over a mostly buried rock that wasn't quite willing to be kicked. Nariko stifled snickers at his close call. "Why did you want to see my room?"

"I just wanted to know if they were treating you right. You're a good kid, but you don't look healthy to me. I wanted to see whose fault it was. Those girls look healthier than you, so I guess I know who's responsible." He grinned proudly at being called a good kid, letting the rest of her explanation pass in one ear and out the other. "Do you have a bed and a trunk?"

Naruto snorted and shook his head as he scooped up a pebble and tossed it at some trashcans. "Don't got a trunk. I got a cardboard box 'cause the trunks were too heavy to carry all the way up the stairs. Misako said so. It's falling apart now and it's got fuzzy stuff all over the bottom. It got wet too many times."

"All the way up the stairs?"

"Yeah, they put me in the top of the house where the roof slopes. The other guys didn't like sharing," he mumbled sullenly. "I didn't like sharing with them either. Being up there doesn't stop them from messing with my stuff though."

Well, she had tried the conventional route and it hadn't worked. It was about time to go make a fuss at a higher level. "Hey, Naruto, I want you to drag me to meet the old man."

He stared, obviously not understanding why she had specified dragged.

"If you drag me in there as you usually go in, I have a feeling that it will get us past any security faster. You hardly ever have to wait to see him, do you?"

He shook his head.

"You see? If you go in as you usually do, it will help get me in faster to see him. It'll be fun!"

Eager to obey the nice lady that had bought him lunch, Naruto grabbed her hand and took off with her in tow.

Naruto's manner did get them past security faster, but she was still forced to submit to checks. However, she noted that they went a lot faster for her than they did for anyone else trying to see the Hokage. As she pondered this twisted logic, Naruto's haste scorched the carpet. Only Nariko's intervention kept him from breaking the door off its hinges when they finally got to the office. Nariko knocked, but Naruto barrelled through the door only a second afterwards.

"Hey, Old Man!" he shouted happily as he approached the cluttered desk. "You've got to meet my new friend, Nariko-neesan!"

The Hokage appraised her with distrustful eyes half hidden behind folds of skin marred by liver spots and hairs that had randomly decided to relocate from the top of his head. She had a feeling that karma had had great dealings with this man, not all of them happy. Worse still, she had the uncomfortable feeling he knew something about her, which was ridiculous.

Naruto rambled on about their meeting and she watched the slow change that came over the old man. The distrust receded slightly, but a healthy dose of caution maintained it.

"This is wonderful, Naruto," the old man said firmly, stemming Naruto's profusion of words. "I am glad you have had such a good day. However, I think that my secretary would be grateful if you passed him these files. On your way down, perhaps you should snitch some sweets from the waiting room. Remember, the ANBU are waiting for you there, so be careful."

Naruto seemed on the verge of protesting when the Sandaime passed him a handful of scrolls, but a stern look sent him out the door. Nariko tensed.