Naruto 1. Chapter 1

**_Die Demon._**

Was written in bright scarlet letters across her front door in blood. Cat blood. She stared at the small kitten hanging under the words by a kunai in it's lower side, the wound was clean, trapping the kitten to her door without cutting it in half. She stared at it blankly as she felt the prickle of tears sting her eyes and blinked a few times as she stared at the small animal that she had been planning to bring home with her and keep.

The wound was made in the lower region of it's body to inflict the most pain, meaning that it had suffered greatly and had probably just died. It was sickening how cruel the people of the village could be. They could have killed it faster instead of letting it hang here on her door crying in pain until it had died, but that would'nt have sent the right message to her. And would have been too easy. '_And we can't have the little demon dying easily, can we boys' _a mocking voice she had once heard sounded in her mind. As fresh and clear as if he and his buddies had been seen and heard yesterday.

She gnashed her teeth as she reached up with both hands, dropping her school bag as she used one hand to support the lower body while she gripped the kunai in her other hand. Once she took care of it, and saw to her babies she would hunt down the sick fuckers who had killed the innocent animal just because she had dared to want to save it, and give it a home. She removed the blade from the kitten and caught it in her hand and cradled it against her chest as she started to snap the kunai in half and stopped herself as she stared at the scarlet stained silver black blade.

_I can use this to send a message of my own._ She thought as she unlocked her apartment door and walked inside. She looked around her apartment, silently taking note of anything that may be out of place before stepping inside. She could already hear the soft mewing of the injured and abandoned kittens that she had brought home with her. There were three in all, the rest had died from their wounds or had simply been too weak to continue living even after she had picked them up.

Saving wounded animals had become a habit of late, mainly because everytime she came home to her empty apartment after having the shit beat out of her every day had finally started to take a toll on her heart and mind. She would often sit curled up in a corner for hours rocking back and forth and muttering, 'There's nothing wrong with me' and 'I'll live' as if it were a sacred prayer. And when she was'nt doing that she was wishing that she had someone or something to talk too and break the silence.

But everytime she tried to make friends, or adopt an animal something happened to the person or animal in question, some unforseen accident. So she never really managed to make a connection with anyone or anything until she had come across her babies, and now another one was dead.

She would have liked to get pissed about it, but for now she would practice her new jutsu and see if she could save it. Then she would get even.

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Her new jutsu was a whopping success, and as a result her latest addition to her growing family was resting in the rocking doll cradle with the other two kittens, she had managed to use her new jutsu to restart the dead kittens heart and had used her medical jutsu to heal the fatal wounds that had killed it and then gave it something for pain and had sewn it's sides closed and then bandaged them and put it in the nursery that she had made for them.

She slipped on her black leather jacket and picked up her favorite mask, an ogor mask with long jagged fangs and slipped it inside of her jacket and picked up the bloody kunai, mentally going over what she was going to do to the person responsible for hurting her new baby. She had placed the bloody kunai in a place where it would rust at an unnatural rate, but had'nt dulled the blade very much which was good.

She hated to hear someone scream while she was hurting them sooo...a ball gag would probably be for the best. She found the one that had been stuffed in her mouth the last time someone had broken into her home, and put it in her jacket pocket and headed for the door when she heard a soft mewing sound right behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see the little black and white that she had patched up a short time ago looking up at her with a worried expression. "Mew?"

She sighed and bent down and scooped the little one up and cradled it in her arms. It mewed again and started to purr softly as soon as she held it against her chest and scratched it under the chin as she walked down the hall to her room. "You should'nt be up Baby. You were hurt very badly and now that I know your going to make it, mommy has to go out and find the one who hurt her little baby cat, and beat the hell out of them. So you just stay put, here in your new bed, and I'll feed you and your siblings when I get back, okay."

She put the kitten down on a small plush pillow that she sometimes let the other kittens sleep on and pulled out the hand sewn baby blanket that she had made for her babies and put it over the kitten, tucking the corners in as the kitten settled down and yawned, obviously to tired to argue with her as she rubbed her fingers along it's soft fur and quietly left while she could.

She had an hour to kill before she had to feed the little ones, and read to them.

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Okay, here is the first chapter of my new story. I know I probably should'nt but I think I'm going to name it Accidental companions and go from there. Now, this is a different story from the actual accidental companions, and will deal mostly with our main girl, and our favorite shinobi, and the relationships that they form. Not everyone in the story is going to be nice to her, but she is going to have freinds in high places, and is going to work hard to earn the respect of the other shinobi.

Now to explain a bit about the story itself.

Uzu is a new genin, who is made jounin on the cruel whims of the hokage.

He does'nt do it to punish her, he does it to punish her new students. Yes, she becomes the teacher of Kakashi, Gai, Anko, Asuma, Kurinai, Inoichi, and Ibiki.

The reason for this is they all hate her, well except for Ibiki, Gai and Kakashi-they don't really like or hate her. They made the mistake of upsetting the Hokage who in turn wants to make them aware of the struggles that she faces for their sake. So he strips them of their jounin ranking and puts them in her care hoping to teach them compassion for their fellow man.

Well, hope you like it since it's something new. The character ages are below.

Uzu-15

Anko-20

Kurinai-21

Ibiki-24

Gai-23

Kakashi-20

Inoichi-25

Asuma-23

bye-bye for now


	2. punishment

It had been a careless remark said by one or more of them, something along the lines of 'That damn Kyubbi bitch' or something equally stupid said in front of the third Hokage that led them ot their imprisonment in the Anbu headquarters as the Hokage sat outside their cell trying to think up a suitable punishment for them. And so far Anko had done nothing but whine like a little bitch. "Let us out, we have'nt done anything wrong!"

"Silence. I have had it up to here-" Sarutobi used his hand to measure just how fed up he was with the whole lot of them. "With your damn opinions of the girl when none of you even know her."

"But-"

"I said to be silent, don't make me say it again, or I'll simply kill you and make an example out of you." Sarutobi growled effectively shutting Anko and anyone else who had been about to speak, up. Sarutobi smirked at the whole lot of them. And it was'nt his usual happy looking smirk, it was the blood freezing 'I've got you right where I want you smirk' that he usually wore before he killed someone.

Truely terrifying.

"Let me ask you all this-have any of you ever bothered to speak with her even once? Have any of you ever visited her when she was in the hospital, barely clinging to life? Do any of you even care that the girl is the _only_ person in existance who is hated for something that she had _no_ fucking part of?"

All of them was silent, causing the elders anger to shoot through the roof.

"Have any of you ever found her lying on the floor of her apartment on her birthday drowning in her own blood? Have you ever found her strapped down to some metal slab in someone's basement missing her arms or legs, her eyes and tongue? Have you ever walked into her home to visit her and found someone sitting on top of her with her chest cracked open with their fingers literally wrapped around her heart, squeezing the life out of her?"

Silence again, but their expressions were telling. Some of them looked pleased by the thought of the girl having suffered so much, and others looked horrified by the thought of a small and defencless child being treated in such a way.

Sarutobi stared at the lot of them, his anger mixing with disappointment. He had hoped that out of all of the people in the village who knew the circumstances of the Kyubbi's attack and sealing, that these shinobi would care more for the girl than life itself. Obviously the fourth Hokage's legacy was wasted on ingrates.

He would have to do something extreme to teach them all a lesson. It took several more minutes but he finally figured out a way to teach them all a lesson about compassion for their fellow man. "Alright, I've got the perfect punishment for all of you. I'm stripping each of you of your jounin rank-" Everone gasped and he smiled coldly as he stood up and walked over to the cell.

"You will be genin again. And as such will have a specially picked jounin teacher. You will wear modified chakra restraints that can only be taken off by your new sensei, and you will follow your sensei's teachings to the letter or you will be charged with treason and publicly exicuted. If your sensei does'nt want to teach you then you will spend the next few months of your life in this cell cursing the day you dared to open your mouths."

"Now here are the rules that you must obey at all times-"

"You must obey your sensei. You must do as sensei say's even if it does'nt make sence to you. You don't have to like you sensei, because chances are pretty good that your sensei won't like any of you one little bit. In fact if your sensei decides to kill one or two of you for fun, I expect you all to stand there and smile like good little drones and bear the pain, got it."

Everyone must have realised how badly they had fucked up, because they all nodded their heads as they stared at him wide eyed and pale from the other side of the bars. Sarutobi smiled happily as he continued to speak. "You will not be allowed to touch your sensei inappropriatly, or harm your sensei using any sort of physical jutsu or mental."

"Not a single hair out of place on your sensei or dealing with me will be the least of the problems you will have. You will always speak politely to your sensei, you will always ask for permission before you do something... The person I am handing you over too is a very kind and compassionate person by nature, but even she has her bad days. She values manners and consideration above all things. It is her job to retrain you to be more considerate, thoughtful, and compassionate towards your fellow man."

Gai raised his hand in the air, the universal sign of asking for permission to speak. Sarutobi smiled at him and nodded his head indicating that he could speak now.

"Who will be our jounin sensei sir?"

Sarutobi grinned at them. "It's a suprise, but first thing is first, lets get all of you set up, and have some of your chakra sealed."


	3. intresting developments

Two in a half hours later-

Sarutobi stood outside of the apratment of the one person that many of the jounin wished would disappear off the face of the earth, the big bold redish brown color of the words on the apartment door was an instant attention grabber.

**_Die Demon._**

Bloody hell, the elder was'nt placing them in the hands of a fucking genin was he? "Sir, what are we doing here?" Asuma asked as he looked at his father with an uneasy expression on his face.

Sarutobi glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Someone must have ended up in the hospital for this shit, because there was no way in hell Uzu would let something like this slide. "Your here to meet your sensei."

Someone muttered a curse under their breath earning a dark look from the elder. "Shut up, you might wake her babies up." Sarutobi hissed as he opened the door and silently slipped in and looked around for the traps that he knew she set up to keep people out.

Everyone in the group frowned. _Babies?_ She had babies?

"Holy shit." Someone said in shock, it apparently had'nt occured to any of them that she _could_ or _might_ have kids that depended on her to care for them. Meaning that they would have to be more careful when targeting her or one of her kids could get hurt.

Sarutobi took care of the traps and motioned for them to come inside. The group slipped inside of the apartment and looked around. The place looked like it should be condemned, there were places missing in the wall paper, holes in the roof, and the floor...

Was covered in deep crimson stains that looked like someone had tried to scrub them clean, with a blanket pulled over them in an effort to hide them. There was broken glass beside one of the chairs in the living room, and a trail of fresh blood that led down the hall to the main bedroom. Sarutobi walked quietly down the hall and motioned for them to follow him.

He pushed the door open to the main bedroom and sighed as he caught sight of the teen laying on the bed on her stomach, sound asleep. Her face buried in the pillow her arms were wrapped around it, her pale blond hair slipping over her shoulders exposing her back and the scars that she had there. Sarutobi put his fingers over his lips and motioned for them to be quiet and walked into the room, missing the way the teen's slender shoulders tensed as they moved into her room.

Sarutobi moved ot stand beside the bed and cautiously moved to wake her when a little black and white kitten head popped up between her neck and shoulder, some of her blond hair slipping over it's little head as it flattened it's little ears back against it's head and glared at the lot of them before making a huffing sound and starting to chew on the soft skin of the girl's shoulder playfully. Sarutobi smiled at the kitten as the girl reached up blindly and carefully disengaged the kittens teeth from her skin causing it to start to chew on her hair and finger tips instead.

"Knock it off Baby, mommy needs to sleep a bit more..." Uzu said in a muffled tone as she shifted in her bed a little bit and then said,

"And you all had better have a fantastic reason for being in my room without permission, I have better things to do than deal with fools. You know that Sarutobi."

The elder chuckled a bit and looked down at her. "Yes, yes I know. But I have a mission for you that I think you might enjoy." The girl jerked her head up and looked at the elder from under a curtain of silky pale blond hair, her violet eyes staring at him blankly.

"What are you talking about?"

"Just as I said, a mission. A once in a life time thing. Come on girl, _get up_." Sarutobi said cheerfully as the girl bared her teeth and growled at him before glancing at the clock and cursing a blue streak. No wonder Baby was so wound up, she needed to get up and feed her and the other babies.

"Yeah sure fine. Just give me twenty minutes to feed the babies and get dressed." _And give them baths and change the bandages on two of them and remedicate them so that they stay healthy. _She thought as she got out of bed and picked up the black and white kitten then turned to the Hokage.

"You and the others can wait in the living room until I'm done. Do you plan to stay for breakfast too?"

Sarutobi grinned at the teen, "And miss out on having you cook for us. No way. I've been dying to have pancakes again." The elder said happily as the teen nodded her head.

"Pancakes it is then. If anyone wants something else they can tell me once I'm ready to cook."

The group watched the exchange curiously, the girl had ordered the Hokage to leave her room before coupling the order with a question. And the elder seemed not to be upset by her lack of respect for his status, in fact he seemed happy to listen to her every word. How strange.

This definatly was'nt what any of them had expected when they had come here, the simple exchange explained a lot about the hokage's reason for punishing them all. He not only loved the girl, but he trusted her and respected her as if she were an equal. And judging from what they saw of the girl's behavior she obviously knew this and was trying to live up to the elders expectations while trying to be considerate of his feelings.

How unexpected.


	4. a new teacher

Uzu walked out of the nursery fifteen minutes later and quietly closed the door as she wound the dirty bandages in her hand so that she could throw them away without causing a big mess and walked into the living room and tossed the bloody gauze in the trash and went to wash her hands. "So why do I have half the jounin forces standing in my living room? Did those guys I nearly killed last night blab on me? Do I need to make sure to cut out their tongues the next time I go after them?"

"No, but I'll be sure to warn them of your idea."

"Yeah, you do that..." Uzu said as she leaned against the wall across the room from the Hokage drying her hands as she waited for him to answer her question about the presence of the others in her home.

"These men and women have made me angry and as a result I have stripped them of their ranks. I'm promoting you to jounin rank, and they-" Sarutobi said as he pointed at the group who all looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Are going to be your students until I see an improvement in their character. I've sealed away some of their chakra to make them closer to a genin's level, using chakra restraints. Your the only one in the village who can remove the restraints, but I suggest that you do it _only_ if you need too since I will be sending you all on B and A ranking missions, considering your skill level and theirs...it would be an insult to all of you to be sent on D ranking missions."

"And you don't see stripping them of their ranks and handing them over to me as an insult?" The girl asked curiously, tilting her head to the side a bit.

"No, not really. Out of all the people in the village that I trust, Uzu-chan. I trust you far more. I know that as a teacher you will ensure their safety and well being above your own. I know that you will not abandon them to die without doing everything in your power to save them, nor will you hand them over to the enemy without a fight. You dear girl, frighten Orochimaru when you get serious, and that alone is enough for me to go on."

There was a subtle change in the atmosphere around the girl as she narrowed her violet eyes at the elder and put her hand towel aside. "Never say that snake's name in my presence again, Saru. I won't be held responsible for what I do to you if you mention him again." Her voice was very low, soft, but there was no mistaking the steel under the velvety soft tone as her violet eyes flashed scarlet for a second then back again before she looked away and used her finger tips to rub one of her temples as it started to hurt.

"Sorry, I had forgotten about your run in and fight with him during one of the missions I gave you." Sarutobi said carelessly as everyone else in the room gaped at them. Even Kakashi was in shock, he had known that as the fourth Hokage's daughter, Uzu would be strong, but to hear that she had run into Orochimaru-the legendary sanin and fought him and walked away alive.

Jesus christ! It was like they were in the room with another legend.

Uzu sighed tiredly. "Is there anything else I should know before I make my choice?"

"Yes, I'm not sure how long this assignment will go on, so you should only say yes if you really feel you can do this."

"And what happens to them if I say no?"

"A majority of them will be executed and the rest will stay genin forever." Sarutobi said cheerfully as he stood up and walked past her, stopping briefly to pat her on the head affectionately before going on to search for something to make coffee with as Uzu stood there looking at the group.

They stared back at her, some with dispassionate expressions on their faces and others with looks of intense hatred on their faces._ Ah, I see. So that's that way it is._She thought as she studied them. She made a soft humming sound and turned to look at Sarutobi as she asked herself, could she really handle being responsible for a group of people that partially hated her?

_Why not?_ She was already responsible for ten thousand three hundred and seventy nine people. So why not be responsible for own team? "I know I'm probably going to suffer something for this, but alright I'm in. I'll teach them."

Sarutobi poked his head out of her kitchen and grinned evilly at them as several people groaned and cursed. "Wonderful. Then I suggest you start with the bell test to check their team work, then go from there. But first I want pancakes, soooo-"

She laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, yeah, pancakes. I remember. alright, breakfast first, then training."


	5. the first lesson is trust

After breakfast Uzu and the her new students moved from her apartment to the secret training grounds that the Anbu used. Which was probably a good idea considering who she was dealing with.

"Alright, first things first. I want each of you to intoduce yourselves, tell me your likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams exct. Got it?" Uzu said as she leaned her back against a tree and looked over the group.

One of her students, a guy with short black hair wearing a green leotard lifted a hand in the air. "Yes, Gai." Uzu said in a slightly bored tone and the man looked a little suprised that she knew his name.

"Could you demonstrate, and tell us more about our youthful sensei? And how did you know my name?"

"I was warned about some of you. Sarutobi's way of giving me a fair chance, ya know. My name is Uzu Uzumaki, I'm fifteen. No real likes, no real dislikes, no hopes and dreams are for people who have futures. Something that I don't, now you with the pervy book. You start us off."

Kakashi looked up from his book and blinked for a second, not really remembering what he was supposed to be doing as he looked at his jounin teacher. Minato's girl was really something. She spent all of ten hours as a genin before being promoted, her father must be rolling over in his grave right now.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have no real likes or dislike and my hopes and dreams are my own, but I have lots of hobbies."

"Alright then, Gai you go next."

"Right! My name is Maito Gai, I am a taijutsu specialist. I like learning new forms of tai jutsu, and meeting youthful and hip people. I like my hip rival, Kakashi. His youthfulness burns as brightly as a thousand suns! Yosh! Kakashi, I challenge you to a contest of skill!" Gai said as he pointed at the silver haired guy that gave Uzu the oddest feeling of familiarity. Kakashi looked up from his book, his expression bored.

"Maa, did you say something Gai?"

"Oh! Well met my rival-" Gai started to go on another rambling spree when Uzu sighed and threw a kunai at the man. He managed to dodge it, but not enough to get away unscathed. He looked down at the cut on the back of his hand and then looked at her. She put her index finger to her lips and made a shushing sound then pointed at Anko.

The woman rolled her eyes and growled, "My name is Anko and thats all your getting."

Uzu sighed softly and closed her eyes. God these people were giving her such a head ache. "Okay, new plan. Just tell me your names and then we'll get down to buisness." Uzu said tiredly.

Ten minutes later Uzu pulled out a couple of vials out of her weapons pouch and looked them over before smiling happily. "Okay, here is what we are going to do. Instead of the bell test which promotes team work, we are going to promote_ trust_ instead since I'm sure all of you know how to work together. So I'm going to hand each of you a vial of poison. Now the poison can't kill you in small doses, but I'm not measureing out the safest dose for anyone. Each poison can and will kill you unless you trust me enough to give you these-"

She pulled out a hand full of pill tablets. "This is the pill form of the antidote for the poison. Two pills flushes the poison from your system all together, and saves you all from a very painful death. However those of you that don't trust me, will not get the pills, and will die right in front of us." She handed a vial of something red to Gai, a blue one to Kakashi, a green one to Inoichi and Ibiki, a purple one to Anko, a yellow one to Asuma and Kurinai and then pulled out several sheets of paper.

"Now first I want each of you to read and sign this. Then we'll get stearted."

Kakashi made a soft whistling sound. Wow, this kid was smart. She had all of her bases covered. She wasd doing everything by the book, making things legal by having them sign the papers she handed to them, she was far more orginised than any other genin he had ever seen. Gai must have thought so too because he elbowed Kakashi if the ribs slightly and grinned at him. He was excited to be undergoing such a task and nievely signed the papers without reading them.

Once Uzu had all of the papers back she looked them all over and noticed that several of her students were trying to screw her over and handed the papers back and watched those people sign before handing them back. Uzu smirked and went back to her tree. "Now, drink the poison and we'll see what happens."

Kakashi uncorked the vial and sniffed it to see if it really was poison and cringed when he realised that it was. _Well it is'nt a trust test for nothing._ Kakashi mused as he turned his head to the side to hide his face and tipped the vial back and held it in his mouth for a second as he put his mask back in place, and thought about spitting the bitter liquid out when Uzu spoke. "Don't even think about spitting it out or you'll be executed for treason by the Hokage."

Damn she really was smart. Kakashi thought as he swallowed the liquids then coughed a few times as he turned back around and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Uzu standing right there studying him. "You like living dangerously, huh Kashi." She said in an amused tone as she took his hand and pressed two white tablets into his palm and closed his fingers around them causing the copy nin to frown.

"I thought this was a trust-oh. Oh, I get it now." Kakashi said as it dawned on him just how easy this particular test was. All they had to do was show that they trusted her by drinking the poison and she would hand them the pills.

She smiled at him, and he blinked. That expression was dazzling. It literally transformed her appearance from just some cute and adorable kid to a goddess. She moved to give some pills to Gai, Ibiki, Inoichi, and Asuma while Anko and Kurinai both threw their poison in her face, the girl's body tensed and her smile faltered a bit but didn't disappear. "Ah, I see. She wiped her face, particularly around her eyes and looked at the two women before slapping them both so hard that they both fell to the ground next to each other and looked at her with stunned expressions.

"I understand your need to lash out at me, but you really should think twice before you do so. If you think about your current position you would see that having me act as your sensei is a way to teach you more about the very person that you hate. However, you should be more open minded and a bit more grateful. I didn't have to take this job, I have better things ot do than deal with a group of people who would rather slit my throat than look at me. I could have let Sarutobi kill you. If you think about it logically, I could have walked away and slept better at night for doing so. My life is your shield. It's stupid of you to think that I'm out to get you, because I'm not." She sighed as the two women glared at her.

"All of you leave. I think this is enough for today. Meet back here a ten thirty a.m. tommorrow."

Anko and Kurinai vanished without a word obviously happy to be away from her. Ibiki handed her a folded kerchief and walked away. Gai patted the girl on the shoulder and vanished before she could see the sad expression on his face. Asmua took off walking with Inoichi through the woods leaving Kakashi and Uzu alone.

"Well this was an eye opener, sensei."

She turned to look at him as she wipped the poison off of her face. "Something I can help you with Kakashi?"

"Not really. Can I help you with anything?"

"Doubtful. Go home Kakashi. Get some rest, and unwind."

"And what will you do, sensei?" Kakashi asked curiously as he looked at her. She shrugged. She didn't really have a clue, she would probably go home and unwind herself.

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Sarutobi shifted through the papers on his desk before throwing them in the air, bloody hell! He had stripped the only jounin capable of teaching the new genin and now the kids were sensei-less. Dammit, he didn't want to dump even more on Uzu but for the time being she would have to alternate out between her team and the kids.

He made a whining sound as he clutched at his head, he was not looking forward to telling her this. She was going to killl him, with like a rock or something. _Maybe I can fake my own death..._

Or he could simply burn the papers and ignore the kids for now. Death was looking better and better by the minute.

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Okay, there is chapter five! Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. I hope to get at least 50 or 60 reviews on this story. It's just that good.


	6. a secret attraction

Uzu walked around the village after Kakashi left her, she was somewhere close to the school when she ran into Iruka. "Uzu! Hey, how was today?" Iruka called as he came running up to her. She was strangely quiet for a second or so too long if the concerned look he gave her was any indication at all.

"It was...fine. How was your day, Iruka-kun?" She half lied. Iruka smiled and draped an arm around her shoulders, letting the half lie slide.

"My day was fine. Everyone met their jounin sensei's today-" Uzu cocked her head, he must not know that she was the only jounin left that could teach at this time. Meaning that the rest of the genin had probably ditched school and let Iruka believe that they had met up with their jounin sensei's. _And that means that they will probably be dumped on me to teach too, goddamn it. _Uzu thought as he walked with her down the street happily chatting away.

"So what was your sensei like? Did you like him? He was impressive right?"

"Yeah, most jounin are."

"Are'nt they? So is there anything new with you?" Iruka asked curiously and Uzu made a choking sound as her face turned pink. Oh the things she could tell him.

"I-I got a new kitten." She said weakly-speaking of she needed to pick up some things while she was out or her babies were'nt going to eat. Iruka smiled at her and dragged her into the Korean BBQ place that Choji's parents owned and sat down a stall or two from Shikaku, Choja, and Hiashi Hyuga.

"So we're eating here today?" She asked curiously as she looked around almost nervously. If Iruka thought her behavior was strange, he said nothing as three more people walked in and saw her. She muttered a soft oath and tried to escape but Kakashi, Gai and Ibiki had her trapped in an instant, Kakashi seating himself on one side of her and Ibiki sitting on the other side of her. Kakashi's hand lightly rested on her shoulder, subtly pushing her back down in her chair as she started to stand.

"Maa, your awfully jumpy Uzu-chan. Do you think that we're going to eat you alive or something?" Kakashi asked in an amused voice as he smiled behind his mask.

She gave him a nervous laugh as she subtly tried once again to leave her seat and escape, but Kakashi grasped one of her wrists in his hand, under the table, the stregnth of his grip making her feel even more trapped. "That's dumb, I would never think you capable of dislocating your jaw enough to eat a person." She said sweetly as she tried to get her wrist back from the man without giving Iruka a clue about what was going on.

"Kakashi! Ibiki, Gai, what are all of you doing here?"

"We came to see what our youthful sen-yow! Ibiki-san, did you just kick me?" Gai yelped as he jumped in his chair. Ibiki said nothing as Kakashi leaned forward and growled at the green clad man.

"He did'nt. I did. Don't say another word." Uzu obviously felt uncomfortable with them crashing her dinner date with Iruka, and that was fine since they were doing some recon on her. Unlike the others they didn't hate the girl and was curious to know more about her. Watching her interact with someone truely close to her could give them information that watching her interact with the Hokage could'nt.

And besides that, they had been worried about the girl after what had happened earlier.

"I didn't know that all of you were freinds with Uzu." Iruka said as he looked at the blond who tried to yank her wrist free of Kakashi's grip again, and jumped when his knuckles brushed her upper thigh as the man tipped in his seat before righting his ballance and shooting her an unreadable look and finally let go of her and shifted so that his hand was resting dangerously close to her inner thigh, causing her to stiffen in her seat and turn a bright shade of pink.

She gave him a wide eyed look and he smiled at her innocently and let his thumb stroke her through her pants leg almost warningly. Iruka clapped his hands together and she almost jumped out of her skin as she looked at him. "Sorry Uzu, did I scare you? I was just thinking that since your friends have joined us, that we might as well invite them to stay with us and talk a while."

"Ugh..."

"Great! I'll go get some menu's for them." Iruka said as he got up and walked over to the bar to get their menu's as Uzu turned her head to glare at Kakashi.

"Get your hand off of me now."

"Maa, but if I do you might run away."

"What I do outside of teaching is none of your damn buisness-" Kakashi raised a brow at her and slipped his hand between her legs and nearly laughed when she made a funny little 'eekk' sound and jumped in her seat before she grabbed his hand and tried to remove it from between her legs.

"Stop that you son of a-" He covered her mouth so quickly that she was stunned by the fact that she had never seen him move.

"Careful what you say about my mother, Uzu-sensei. I will hurt you if you finish your sentance." Kakashi said in a menacing purr as he removed his hand from her mouth. She growled and sank her sharp little teeth into his shoulder in retaliation, he jumped and yanked his hand away from her as he rubbed his shoulder. Ow, that had hurt.

"Keep your hands to yourself unless you have permission, _boy_." Uzu growled as she glared at him. He smiled behind his mask then glared back, it was so much fun to fuck with her.

"Okay, so give me permission."

"No."

"Why not?" He asked impatiently.

"Why do you want permission?"

"So I can tie you up and play with you." Kakashi said cheerfully as she gaped at him in horror. Was he joking? He had to be joking, right?

Kakashi looked at her horrified expression and wondered what she had against unwinding. She had understood what he meant right? So it was either something he had said, or it was him that she simply didn't like.

"I'm not a fucking toy, you don't play with me."

"That is'nt what I meant."

"I know exactly what you meant, and I refuse to let you use me in such a way. I have too much respect for myself to allow that."

"Then I'll simply have to convince you that I'm an okay guy not out to use you." Kakashi said as he rested his chin on his palm, his dark blue eye studying her. Personality wise she was like her mother, appearance wise she looked like her father so it made it difficult for him to tell her apart from the memories he had of the two. It was weird, both her apperance and her personality threw his mind into chaos. He was attracted to both, found them both nice despite how prickly she was. He wanted to get to know her better and at the same time he wanted to make her his. He knew that it would'nt work that way, but it was honestly what he wanted.

"Yeah, good luck with that." She said dryly as Iruka walked back to the table and handed them each their menu's.


	7. learning more

Kakashi glanced at the girl sitting next to him and smiled behind his mask. Loyalty was something that was earned, like trust. And yet he already knew that he was as loyal to his late sensei's daughter as a wolf was to it's pack. The girl was an extension of the family that he had thought he had lost, and the only reason that he had stayed away from her all these years was because he had been afraid that his presence in her life would only draw unwanted attention to her and get her hurt even more.

But that had'nt stopped him from leaving her small things around her birthday, and during the holiday season. It was always something small, like a hair comb made out of silver and with white and pink mother of pearl carved flowers with pale emerald leaves on the little vines and freshwater pearls every few inches to serve as flower buds on the vines. It was lovely, much like the girl herself was. And the year after that he had bought her a matching kimono for her.

He had never seen her use either one but he knew that she had hidden them away to keep them from being ruined by the villagers. It was a pity really since he had always wanted to see her wearing them. But he understood why she had hidden them away.

Still aside from how she had grown up, she really was a remarkable person. Strong, confident-despite the fact that the villagers had tried to beat that strength and confidence out of her, had tried to break her like a piece of glass. She was still innocent, though she was slightly sharper and more jaded than most people her age. And the fact that she was good enough to have the Hokage place them in her care spoke volumes about her character.

To the Hokage, she was the ideal shinobi. But to Kakashi she was more along the lines of the ideal woman. Beautiful, smart, cunning, strong, compassionate; she had so much affection locked away behind that icy wall that she had erected between herself and the rest of the world. Watching her interact with Iruka was like being let in on a huge secret. The cold icy indifference that she had shown this morning and while training them melted away and the person that she became once it did was easily the most drop dead gorgeous female that the copy nin had ever seen.

That smile of hers was radiant.

Iruka was laughing at something that Gai had said when Uzu looked outside and immediately got to her feet a look of alarm crossing her pretty face. When had it gotten so dark out? Kakashi frowned as he caught that look on her face just before she told them that she had to leave and took out her wallet and pulled out enough money to pay for all of them and laid it on the table. Iruka opened his mouth to argue with her but she was already heading towards the door.

"What was that about?" Gai asked curiously as he half turned around in his seat as she stepped outside. Iruka frowned and looked at him.

"Your kidding right? She's the demon container, she grew up fearing the things that could happen to her at night. She's probably going home to check on her babies and get ready for the next attack."

"She's attacked often?"

Iruka glanced at Kakashi and nodded. "Too often, she goes through three or four attackers every other night, one after the other. She normally only attacks to drive them off, depending on their intentions."

"Their intentions?"

"Yeah, like if they attack and wound her in a vital spot, try to kill her. Then she kills them. If they are just attacking her to hurt her, she breaks some of their bones and gives them a warning. After that if they upset her then she picks them apart."

"You seem to know an awful lot about her actions."

"That's because I've seen her at work. It isn't pretty. I heard that she faced off against Orochimaru when she was ten. And after seeing her tear a person apart up close and personal, I can truely see what Orochimaru was so frightened about when he faced her." Iruka said as he took another drink of his sake.

"It's that bad?"

"No, not really, what she does when she loses control of her temper isn't so bad. It's the inhumane way that she goes about it."

Kakashi tilted his head to the side, Ibiki mirrored the action as they stared at the school teacher. "Does it have anything to do with the demon?" Ibiki asked curiously.

Iruka shook his head. "No, no, no. It has nothing to do with the demon, it rarely makes an appearance at all. It has everything to do with her, the real her. It's like she has a split personality or something. Certain situations cause her to change personality wise. It's weird. Like someone flips a switch in her head. One side of her personality is the nice, kind hearted girl that grew up lacking human comfort or affection and the other side of her is only happy when she's covered in blood. She scares the shit out of me when she's like that, but..."

"But? But what Iruka? If this is something that you feel we should know then tell us everything?" Kakashi said as he sat back in his seat and folded his arms over his chest as he stared at the brown haired man.

"She always knows who's with her, even when she's like that. She's always aware of where her companion is, what condition their in, if they need help. And once she's done killing she'll walk right up to you and check on you. Even when she's changed into someone you don't know, she still worries about you and fights to protect you."

Kakashi made a soft humming sound and let his head fall back on his shoulders and stared at the florecent lights hanging from the ceiling for several minutes as he thought over what Iruka had just said.

It sounded almost like a case of split personality syndrome but the fact that she still worried about the people around her meant that she was fully aware of ever thing that happened, making it more of a defence mechanism than an actual honest to god change in her persona. Interesting. Rare, but interesting.


	8. conversations with friends

Uzu sat in the nursery with Alice in her arms, a small vet bottle in her other hand watching the smokey grey kitten suck down the formula in the bottle as if it were afraid that it would never eat anything again, and in it's mind it would have been the truth...if she hadn't picked her up. Alice had been part of a litter of nine new born kittens who's mother had been killed by abusive owners, the kittens had been stuffed none too gently in a burlap sack and thrown in the river to drown.

Uzu had always thought her keen senses were a curse but on that day she had been very happy that she had heard the weak meowing of the kittens in distress. She had jumped into the water and had save six of them from certain death, but the other three hadn't been so lucky, and due to how young they had been she couldn't use the same jutsu that she had used on Baby. Their small bodies wouldn't have been able to survive having her chakra pumped into them and they would have burned to death as a direct effect of her chakra.

Out of the six that she had saved, four had survived. She had kept one, the smallest of the litter, the runt and had taken the others to the Inuzuka's to find homes for them. Hanna hadn't disappointed her. She had found them all homes where they would be loved, and spoiled outrageously.

She pulled the bottle out of Alice's mouth and measured how much she had eaten as she used a moist towelette to wipe the kitten down to keep her clean and put her back in the small crib and picked up her sister Mica and glanced at the clock, it was about time to go. The little calico squirmed in her arms and got comfortable before she could even bother to think about eating. Uzu took her time, feeding them and taking care of Baby since she was old enough to eat solid foods, and tucked the three into their crib as the long hand of the clock reached the nine.

Uzu straitened her spine and got to her feet after pulling the baby blanket over the three and walked out of the room making sure to quietly close the door behind her. And walked down the hall to the living room and made ten or more Kage Bunshin, making sure to pump enough chakra into them so that if anything happened they wouldn't disappear with just one hit and sent them out into the village to keep watch like she had done every day since she was seven and had started her training at the academy.

One to watch the Hyuga's, one to watch the Nara's, one to watch the Inuzuka's, another to watch the Aburome's, the Akimitchi's, and the Yamanaka's. Two to watch Iruka, two to watch the hokage, and the last one acted as a scout and set traps around various parts of the village to protect it from attack. Why? Because she was paranoid of course.

Paranoid that while she sleeps someone might attack and kill everyone but her. Paranoid that the village would crumble and fall as ashes. It was a deep rooted fear that kept her up at night, made her watch the villagers and shinobi that much more.

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Kakashi was walking on his way home when he saw Uzu run across the street ten feet ahead of him and vanish into a dark alley. He opened his mouth to call out to her as she ran across the road thirty feet ahead of him in the same direction. He blinked and looked up as he heard the faint sounds of someone running across the roof top to his left and saw her jump from one roof to the other and wondered vaguely if he was stuck in a genjutsu of some kind.

"Kai release." Hn, that hadn't worked one little bit, so that meant that she had a bunch of shadow clones running around the village. He frowned and relocated to the highest roof top he could find in his general vicinity and saw at least eight shadow clones running around. Just what the hell was Uzu doing? He wondered as he compulsively started to shadow one of the clones and ended up outside of the Hyuga compound.

Whats going on here? He wondered as the clone sat down on the ground in front of the closed gate and simply sat there with it's arms crossed, staring blankly ahead until the right side of the gate opened a bit and Hiashi Hyuga stepped out carrying a small plate of rice balls and a bamboo thermos of her favorite kind of tea sweetened a bit with honey and set them down in front of her and shrugged off his blue cotton jacket and put it around her shoulders.

"You should take better care of yourself."

"Sorry, I can't do that because I'm taking care of the rest of _you_."

Hiashi smiled and dropped down to sit beside her. Even after almost ten years of having her sitting outside his front gate, she still made him curious. "I heard a funny rumor today from several of my clans men who were working in the tower today."

"Oh?" Uzu said as she poured some of the tea into the thermos lid and sipped it, and smiled when she realised that it was still warm. He must have been waiting up for her like he sometimes did when he wanted to talk.

"I heard that you were given a promotion to the rank of jounin. Are congratulations in order?" Hiashi asked and had to bite the inside of his cheek when she choked on the piece of food that she had just taken a bite of. He thumped her on the back a few times and stopped when she waved her hand to tell him to stop. He watched her take several deep breathes before she looked at him.

"Admit it Hiashi, deep down your subconsciously trying to kill me aren't you."

"No." Hiashi said in mock outrage as he smiled at her. She gave him a doubtful look before answering his question. "Yeah, I was given a promotion. I was also given my own team."

Hiashi looked somewhat suprised by her words and said nothing for a while. "Ah, I see. Who are they, would you mind telling me?"

"Their the demoted jounin who have been stripped of their rank for upsetting the Hokage. Inoichi, Asuma, Ibiki, Anko, Kurinai, Gai, and Kakashi." Hiashi's jaw dropped as he stared at her. She didn't look like she was kidding.

"Why would he strip the ranks of the only group of teaching jounin we have this year?"

"He said something about improving them as people. I think it has to do with their lack of compassion for their fellow man." She didn't tell him that the Hokage was forcing them to spend time with her to show them what kind of person she was. But somehow she got the feeling that he knew.

"So what will happen with this years genin?"

"I'll probably end up teaching them a bit. At least until someone else can teach them. At best I may end up teaching all of them combined for the next few months, then hand the genin off to someone else and switch back and forth for a while until they have learned everything."

"Then you would be teaching Neji and Hinata... I think I'm jealous."

Uzu looked at Hiashi and tilted her head to the side. "Why?"

"Because they will learn things that I myself am not privy too, and will become much stronger people because of it."

"You have nothing to worry about Hiashi, they both have a long ways to go before they are stronger than you."


	9. a new lesson

Sarutobi knocked on her door bright and early, just as she had suspected he would. She opened the door and stepped back to let him in. "Sorry for dropping in like this."

"It's okay, I was expecting you anyways." She said tiredly as she stiffled a yawn behind her hand and walked into the kitchen to pour them both some of the coffee that she had just finished making as he sat down at her kitchen table.

"Did you have a rough night last night?"

"Not really. It was actually more peaceful than expected." Uzu said as she poured herself a cup then another one for Sarutobi, she walked over to the table and handed his cup to him. He gave her a sheepish look and took a drink then sighed, well there was no point in putting things off any longer, she already knew something was up or she would'nt have been waiting for him.

"I made a miscaculation yesterday when I stripped your students of their jounin ranking." Sarutobi said nervously as Uzu stared at him.

"..."

"As a result there are'nt any jounin avalible to teach-"

"I'm aware, and I already have a lesson plan for them. Send them to training ground twelve. I'll be waiting for them there, but this is only a short time thing until you can find them someone who can teach them full time, when their other teacher can't teach then I'll sub."

"You may have some problems with some of them."

"If your talking about Neji, Lee, Shikamaru, Kiba, Sakura, Ino and Sauske...then I guess I'll have to have their parents there to make sure that they listen."

"That's evil, Uzu." Sarutobi said with a grin, Uzu shrugged. It didn't really matter to her. Either way you looked at it the kids were still kids and would listen to what their parents said.

"Yeah...just make sure that they are there."

"Consider it done." Sarutobi said as several tiny little furry things came running down the hall and launched themselves at Uzu's couch. She made an amused sound before one of her babies ripped one of her cusions apart with it's claws.

She slammed her cup down on the table and jumped to her feet, and raised her voice in a threatening manner. "Oi brats!"

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Uzu stood against the same tree trunk that she had been leaning against yesterday staring at her senior students as several of her clones set traps in the woods and several others fetched the parents of her latest additions to team hell. Dear god she was going to have one hell of a head ache after this lesson, she was sure of it.

Sure enough, Sarutobi appeared at ten thirty with all of the genin in tow.

"Here they are. Go easy on them, okay." Sarutobi said as he patted her on the shoulder with his hand and then stepped back to see how she would go about this lesson.

"Yeah sure. Alright kids, I know we all went to class together but-"

"What the hell are we doing here with this loser?" a bleach blond girl, Ino asked, her pale blue eyes narrowing at Uzu. Uzu glanced off to her left at the girl's father and snaped her fingers drawing the mans attention to her and pointed to the empty space next to her. Inoichi sighed and walked forward and stopped next to her.

"Inoichi, she's your daughter and while I know that your not at fault for her inexcusable lack of respect I'm going to use you to teach your stupid girl to learn _**to keep her mouth shut.**_ Give me your hand, and I suggest that you don't bite down of you could lose your tongue."

Inoichi did as he was told and lifted his hand so that she could grip it as she looked at Ino. "Ino your lack of respect will cost your father one brocken finger. If you speak without permission again, I'll break another and another."

Ino's expression darkened, "You would'nt dare hurt my father you bitch! And what is my daddy doing here anyways?" Uzu siged and pulled something out of her weapons pouch and stuffed it, a rag of some sort into Inoichi's mouth and then gripped his hand and pulled two of his fingers back at once. The was a loud snap followed by Inoichi's tall body jerking as he clenched his jaw around the rag in his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut.

Ino screamed in horror and started to run forward to attack Uzu but was stopped cold by a new arrival's justu. The kids all looked to the left as Hiashi Htuga, Tsume Inuzuka and her daughter Hana walked out of the woods after Shikaku Nara, Shiba and Choja. Ino looked at Shikaku and growled. "Why are you stopping me? She hurt my father!"

"But if I let you go your father and mother may end up burying you, Ino-chan. Besides, she's already healing his fingers. He should be able to use them again in a few minutes."

Ino blinked and looked at her father and noticed that his finger were in fact healing. She glared at the blond standing next to her father. Uzu claped her hands and smiled at the group.

"Thanks for dropping everything to be here on such short notice."

"Not a problem. Besides you have something you need our help with right." Hiashi said as he walked over to Uzu and patted her on the head before looking at his daughter, and nephew.

"The two of you pay close attention to what Uzu-sensei has to say, a lesson from her could save your life."

The kids all looked at each other then back at Uzu. Did Hiashi just refer to the loser as sensei?

"Dad, seriously what's going on?"

"I believe that I should clear things up. It was a mistake on my part not to tell you kids anything about your jounin teacher-" Sarutobi said as he stepped forward.

Everyone looked at him. "Uzu-chan has been promoted to the rank of jounin as of yesterday due to an incident. These people here to your right are her genin students as of yesterday-" Every one's jaw dropped.

"And today all of you are being welcomed to the ranks as her students as well. I trust that each of you will do as instructed and learn what you can until I can find a more stable teacher for each of your teams. That is all. Uzu, tell us all what your students will be doing today."

"Right. I'm going to be pairing each genin team with one of the adults. Those of you left over will form a team. Today's lesson is a simple track and capture routine. All of you will track and try to catch me. Those of you who are caught in traps will not be able to free your selves easily and will have to be very careful. In the woods behind me I have laid an active mine field, wire webs that will snare you like insects, and other things. Each trap is nothing life threatening, so you don't have to fear for your lives. Just be careful."

"After our first lesson, I will teach you a form of martial arts that is unknown to each of you with Hiashi's help." Hiashi perked up instantly and smiled.

"Alright. Pair up people, and make it fast because the more time you waste the longer I have to lead you into my traps." Uzu said as she vanished into the woods before anyone could say anything.


	10. the fool's power

Forty five minutes later Uzu was looking at the majority of people stuck in her traps, now there were only two students left, Hinata and Choji. The two didn't really have the skills nessisary to capture her, or fight her so all in all the excercise was a whopping sucess on her end. Not so much for everyone else though. Shikamaru had fallen asleep as soon as he had been captured, Gai and Kiba had tried to chew through the ninja wires that she had used to capture them and were bleeding where the wire had cut their mouths, Kakashi was sulking like Sauske.

Ibiki, Anko, Asuma, and Kurinai had been caught in a multiple layered gen jutsu and still had'nt figured out how to get out. Inoich and his girl, if she could even dub her that were currently trying to outrun a lightning summons. Sakura had been caught in a pit trap full of octopuses, along with Neji, Tenten and Lee.

Shino had gotten trapped in a huge spider web, after managing to do the immpossible and land a hit on her. Uzu shook her head, jeez they were all pitiful. "Choji! Hinata! Come out now, I'm ending this excersise."

Hinata and Choji came out automatically, having felt that they had no choice since she was their sensei and all. She looked at the two and smiled happily, earning confused looks from them. "You both did very well not to get caught in my traps, now give me your hands." The two looked at her nervously and reached out and took her hands, making her grin.

"Good job-you caught me. Now lets get the others free and go back to where were were before."

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

"I am truely speechless, my friends. Honestly, I expected much better out of a lot of you. Shikamaru, you are pitiful. You let yourself be caught all so you could take a nap, you should pay closer attention to what I'm trying to teach you, you don't normally get breaks on the battle feild. Sakura, and Ino-the two of you are perhaps the most disappointing of the whole group. What kind of konoichi's run around acting like bitches in heat all the damn time? Your obsession with Sauske will one day get you, and your team mates killed."

"Neji, Sauske, Shino, and Kiba, your too arrogant. You made the mistake of underestimating me of false information about my true skills. I can see that I'll have to beat the whole lot of you into the ground. And you-" She turned to look at the former jounin and pinched the bridge of her nose before sighing.

"I made those traps as obvious as I could, and even though you all knew they were out there, you still got caught. What kind of jounin level nins get caught in such obvious traps? Did you think that I would be captured easily just because I'm a kid? Oh well, I guess it does'nt really matter that much anyways. Hiashi, it's time for you to help me teach them some of that new martial arts. Are you ready?"

Hiashi activated his byakugan and got into a fighting stance. "I know that none of you genin know this particular type of combat, so I will mostly be using this part of the lession to teach you. I am going to use a type of hand to hand combat that has never been seen in the leaf village, and I am going to stregnthen it a bit with my chakra elements. Every shinobi has at least two nature elements that they can use. Wood, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Lightening and Ice. I will be using two today-yes Ibiki what is it?"

"Nature elements are an advanced jounin or even kage level jutsu."

"Yes that's right?"

"How did you learn them? And how many can you use?"

"Sarutobi taught them to me when I was really young. He used to take me on missions with him because he was afraid to let me stay in the village unattended. You know what I mean. Anyways, he taught me, and I picked up some new tricks to apply to them when I used to go out on solo missions. As for how many I can use, I have mastered three of them. Lightening, Ice, and Wind. I will be using wind and lightening today so please pay attention. Kakashi, you might want to use your other eye for this."

Uzu was about to start when Sauske broke the ranks and grabbed her by the front of her shirt and snarled at her. "Your lying. There's no way in hell you know those jutsu's you loser. Your just a weakling who's all talk." He shoved her away, causing her to stumble a bit as she stared at him for a second then laughed, the sound startling the raven and everyone else.

"Riggghhht. I'm the loser...ha,ha,ha. You people never cease to amaze me with just how stupid you really are. Don't let my bad school grades fool you, chums. I've been playing each and every one of you people since the begining. My I.Q is higher than Shika's, just because I hade that fact to make myself seem less of a threat to you does'nt mean that you should take everything I do or say at face value. Your shinobi for gods sake kids, grow up and act like it because I'm done playing games with you, now shut up and pay attention." Uzu said as she grabbed Sauske and shoved him back in line.

She turned to look at Hiashi and her smile faltered as she closed her eyes and let her chakra flair. The air around them seemed to thicken as small crackles of chakra began to convert to electrical energy, swirling around her body as the wind picked up and swirled with the electical energies as her eyes flashed to red, and her skin darkened a bit, the chakra and energy mixing together quickly creating a nearly gale force wind sparking with lightning then suddenly she was gone.

Hiashi spun around and deflected a blow aimed at his head, and then another and another, the genin stood there in open mouthed awe, both Uzu and Hiashi were moving to fast for their eyes to track. Hiashi jumped back as she swung at him and took off running as she vanished and reappeared in front of him, catching him off guard with a firm palm press to his chest, that sent him flying back.

_Holy shit! _


	11. slave driver

_Holy shit! _

_Where had Uzu been hiding all these abilities? _Kakashi wondered as he continued to watch the match between the Hyuga head, and the teen. Hiashi went into the rotation jutsu that his clan was so famous for, as Uzu's feet touched a tree trunk and she used the tree to launch herself at the spinning Huyga and used one hand to povault over Hiashi's head, flipped three times and reared back her fist as she fell towards him and stopped his rotation jutsu with a chakra infused punch to the ground.

Hiashi yelped and fell into the crater of soft earth under him and found himself staring at the business end of one of Uzu's kunai as the dust cleared. Sarutobi chuckled, it seemed the three years she had spent training with Tsunade when she was six hadn't gone to waste after all. "Game set match." Sarutobi said as Uzu put her kunai away and helped Hiashi up. The Hyuga chuckled and glanced at the blond.

It was official now, he would have to have Uzu-chan as a sparring partner until he could beat her. "Good job." Hiashi said as he patted the girl on the head. Uzu blushed at the open display of affection and quickly put some distance between herself and the Hyuga. If any one thought the action strange they said nothing.

Uzu looked at Kakashi for a second and asked, "Did you get that?" He was still so shocked that he could barely register her words, but managed to nod his head anyways.

"Good. Now for those of you who couldn't keep up, don't worry about it. I'll be teaching it to you at a much slower pace so that you can keep up. Gai, Lee this form of combat will be a great asset to the two of you, are you excited?"

"Yosh, youthful sensei! I am very excited! When can we start?"

"I am also very excited Uzu-sensei!"

Uzu smiled at them. It was nice to have such cheerful students, who actually listened and payed attention to what she was trying to teach them. "Every one copy what I do." Uzu said as she took a defensive stance, thinking that it would be for the best to teach them the defense part of the lesson first.

Two hours later everyone was sweating and panting. "Oh man, I knew I would have to listen to you some day Uzu, but this is such a drag. I never knew that you were such a slave driver." Shikamau panted as he rested in a doubled over position with his hands on his knees.

Choji lay on the ground, dead to the world. Ino slumped over resting her back against Sakura's, the two girls were for once simply too exhausted to fight with one another. It was nice for a change.

Everyone else sat down as Gai and Lee asked her to teach them just a bit more, she sighed and did as they asked while everyone else watched. The motions were smooth, flowing, like water. Uzu shifted from one stance to another then after showing the two several new moves got back into her original stance and added some speed to the movements to show how it would look once they got it down.

After three or four tries the two finally got it down and Uzu told them all to go home and meet back in the same place tomorrow for some sparring. Hiashi shook her hand and invited her to stop by his place for tea soon. Uzu nodded and waved as he walked over to Neji and Hinata and started home while telling them both how proud he was of them. Neji scowled, and Hinata glowed with happiness.

Shikaku slapped his son on the back and knocked him down, apparently Shikamaru was too wore out to be teased right now, so both he and Choji had to be carried home on their father's backs. Gai and Lee told her that they were going to go train a bit more, and she told them not to over do it as Ibiki, Anko, Kurinai, and Asuma vanished. Inoichi wrapped an arm around Ino and teasingly asked her to carry him home, he was tired.

The girl shrieked in outrage as he leaned a majority of his weight into her causing her to stagger while Tsume grabbed her son and called out a hasty dinner invitation to Uzu and then left. Shiba and Shino stood side by side waiting to say goodbye to her as she waved several others off before turning to them.

Shiba pulled something out of his pocket, a vial of a pale yellow liquid and told her it was a gift, she should use it well then said that she needed to stop by the house more often he had some books he wanted to lend her. Uzu smiled and nodded as she pocketed her gift and watched the two vanish.

Sarutobi, Sauske and Sakura were already gone by the time she turned around leaving her with just Kakashi.

"That was interesting. I never knew that you had such talents Uzu-chan."

"I wanted to keep it all a secret as long as I could just in case I needed to use my talents against the village."

"Ah, I see. You were going to pull a Trojan horse type deal on us."

"Yes, but only if it was deemed nessisary." Kakashi made a soft humming sound as he studied her. She really was something. Nothing was hotter than having a woman that was not only easy on the eyes, but having one that could kick your ass and look good while doing it.

"Would you like to have dinner with me?" Kakashi sudden blurted out and blushed under his mask as she looked at him with those wide violet eyes, oh man she was cute. Even when she was covered in dirt and sweat.

"Thanks for the offer Kakashi, but...your sort of a perv and I was warned about men like you-sooooo I'll have to say no." She said and she did this little leg slap, finger snap thing which ended in her pointing at him and he cocked his head. Was that a nervous habit of some kind?

She looked at her hand as if she was suprised to see it there, almost as if she had never really noticed that she had a hand attached to her wrist before, and lowered it back to her side and blushed. Yup, it was a nervous habit. He grinned behind his mask as she started walking away and called out.

"Okay, I'll let you go for now, but I'll get my date. Give me a date or give me death!" Uzu snorted and laughed at his antics as she walked away, not noticing the predatory look he aimed at her retreating back.

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We are finally at thirty reviews, and while i'm happy to have them, i'm also very disappointed. I thought i would get at least forty five or more on this story.

Is it just me? Do you hate me or something? your reviews are the **only** human contact i get through the week, so what the hell man?

Throw me a fricking bone.


	12. playing with mommy

Uzu walked into her apartment an hour later and was greeted by the pitter patter of little furry feet running through the living room, the kittens closing in on her location until they had her trapped, their eyes glowing menacingly in the faint light. "Did you miss me?"

"..." Wow, tough crowd tonight. She thought as she unzipped her jacket and kept her eyes on the two standing at her feet. If she made any sudden moves they might attack her, she doubted they would hurt her, but then again she had missed their feeding time and they were obviously upset with her for that.

"Are you guys hungry?"

**_"MEOW."_** Baby growled at her. Uzu blinked and ficked on the light and grinned when the kittens shook their heads, the had been momentarily blinded by the light giving Uzu the time that she needed to take off across the room before they realised what she was doing and quickly gave chase.

She shrieked as Mica closed in on her, her little claws extended toward the back of her calf. She swiped at Uzu with her tiny sharp claws, missed and went sliding across the floor into the wall. Uzu stopped moving and looked at Mica at the same time Baby did and Uzu laughed at the looks on their little faces.

Baby had the feline verson of 'what the fuck' and Mica had an 'If you laugh, you shall die' look as she stared at them and flattened her ears back against her head. "Okay minions, since Mica has so much trouble getting good traction, what do you say we all just call a truce and I feed you."

"MEOW..." Baby said as she walked over to Uzu and in a lightning fast move scratched her on the leg gave her a 'Take that bitch' look and walked to the end of the hall and sat down as if she had never done anything at all.

Uzu walked up to the kitten and scooped her up and held her in front of her face. "You better purr for me or I'm not feeding you." Baby blinked at her and started to purr as if on cue. Uzu rolled her eyes at the kitten, stupid cat.

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The next chapter will have a slight time skip and will start the beach chaos part of the story, think of it uzu will be stuck with all of her students at a beach for four days. What can go wrong, and will kakashi really look as good in swim trunks as we all think?


	13. beach vacation chaos

Two weeks later-

Uzu appeared at the training grounds wearing a huge grin. "Good news kiddies-" She started to say and everyone groaned except for Gai, Lee, and Kakashi. "Shut it or we're not going on a group feild trip to the beach." Everyone perked up instantly.

"As a reward for training so hard these past few weeks, I'm taking all of you on an all expenses paid trip to the beach. We will be staying in a nice little tourist town in very nice acomidations and we will be there for four days, so pack accordingly and meet me back here in an hour." Everyone vanished instantly. As soon as she was absolutly sure that everyone was gone she pulled a sealed scroll out of her weapons pouch and opened it, her eyes quickly going over her orders.

Group bonding with her students, could anything be less appealing? The mental image of Gai in a speedo made her start laughing until she cried. _Oh god that was so gay. I hope he does'nt actually _wear _one of those_.

And if he did? She would just have to see if Anko would gouge her eyes out. That might not be such a bad idea if she was'nt so sure that Anko would really do it. Maybe she should ask Hinata instead. At least she would hesitate and give her a chance to run. She waited there and sure enough an hour later everyone was there and ready to go.

"Say where is this beach that we're going too?" Sakura asked curiously.

"It's along the border between fire country and demon country."

Sakura looked shocked. So far away. "But won't it take us a day or more to get there?" Lee asked, Uzu grinned at them. Not at all. They would be traveling via teliportation, and thanks to her massive chakra reserves she could get them all there in the blink of an eye, no walking required.

"Not at all, because I'm going to teleport us all there. So everyone got their things?" Everyone nodded and Uzu clapped her hands happily and made enough kage bunshin to teleprt everyone at the same time.

"And away we go." She said as she vanished.

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Everyone stood outside of the hotel that they were staying at with stunned expressions on their faces. Holy wow, the hotel was the pinnacal of everything first class. It was so expensive looking that everyone was having trouble looking at it.

"Is that the place we're staying at?" Gai asked as he pulled out his wallet and started to count the amount of cash he had on him. It was'nt nearly enough to cover their rates. Uzu giggled, drawing everyone's attention.

"I told you before, this is _all expenses paid_. Everything has already been taken care of. Your jobs on this outing is to relax and have fun. Got it." Everyone nodded as a whole and she smiled again and led them all inside.

"Uzumaki party checking in." Uzu said as she stepped up to the counter and the guy standing there gaped at them as if he had never seen so many ninja's before in his life.

"Oh, yes of course. I have your keys here. Each room is the same size, and has one king sized bed. I'll leave it to all of you to distribute the keys." The guy said as he handed her a bunch of keys that she then handed to each of them.

It was a bit comforting to know that each of them had their own room so that they would'nt feel intruded upon by others, just in case they needed their privacy. The fact that the rooms were huge and looked like they cost a million dollars each did'nt really sit well with anyone unsued to such luxury. That and the mere fact that Uzu said that everything was all expenses paid, just sort of made everything seem more suspisous than before.

Just who the hell had paid for their rooms, and how did Uzu fit into everything?


	14. new mission

Uzu walked out of the changing room that sat off to the side of the sand and surf that she had brought everyone to enjoy wearing a black wife beater, and a pair of shorts, her long hair was tied back in twin ponytails at her nape and fell down to the middle of her back. She looked around and frowned when she noticed that everyone was there simply staring at the ocean with funny looks on their faces.

What a buncha sticks in the mud. "Hey why isn't anyone having fun?"

"We were wondering-"

"How were you able to get us rooms at that swanky hotel?"

"Did someone blackmail you into taking us out of the village? Admit it and we might be able to help you." Gai said with aworried expression on his face. Uzu blinked and stared at them all dumbfounded, she had bled almost to death just to bring their sorry asses here to have fun, and they thought she was being used by someone.

"Are you guys retarded or something? I had a lot of money put back from a bunch of suicide missons, I didn't think I would use it so I thought I would spend it on the lot of you as a reward for training so hard."

"You can't be serious." Her eye twitched. Her eye actually fucking twitched. Hn, maybe she was serious.

"You really expect us to believe that?" Asuma asked with a frown.

Uzu growled at Asuma. "I honestly don't care if you believe me or not, I'm here to enjoy some down time and the lot of you can just go to hell." She snapped before pushing her way through all of her students and stomping over to the yellow plastic bucket that she had brought with her and picked it up and went to go gather sea shells leaving her students all looking stunned.

"I think we struck a nerve." Anko said as she watched the blond walk along the beach, occasionally bending down and picking up random shells.

"I think you may be right."

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Uzu didn't stay at the beach with them after that, instead she went for a walk around the town. She stopped off at a diner and sat in a corner table outside on the patio and pulled out a scroll that Sarutobi had given to her before she had left and opened it.

It was a search/capture mission.

Momochi Zabuza had been seen somewhere in the area with his unknown partner. Uzu closed the scroll and took out her bing book and opened it.

Momochi Zabuza-mist nin

Status-rogue, S-class

Jutsu- Mist and water type jutsu.

Approach with caution. He has a partner.

_I wondered who died for this information._ Uzu made a humming sound and memorized the picture of the man she was going to capture as she picked up a menu and looked it over. She'd eat something small for lunch then go look for him.

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Five hours later-

It was getting late, the sun was about to go down and she had been checking the town for hours with no sign of finding her target, it was the damndest thing. If Zabuza was here in this town she should have found him by now, but she had'nt. Not a fucking trace.

She took out the map that she had bought of the town and marked off the area that she was in now and sighed, only three more area's to go. She could take care of those tomorrow before she hit the beach to play. Right now she was tired, dirty and wanted to go back to the hotel and eat something and get some sleep. She jumped down out of the tree she had been in and stuffed the map back in her pocket and started walking.

It took about an hour longer than she would have liked but she finally walked into the lobby and flopped down on the floor right under a vent and sighed as severla people came walking up. "And where have you been, sensei?" Gai asked in an amused voice as she cracked an eye open and glared at him and Kakashi both. The two were wearing their usual clothes instead of the yakata's that the hotel provided for them ot relax in, so they must have been getting worried about her and had been about to go looking for her.

"No speak idiotneese." She muttered as she pushed him back so that she could feel the cool air again. Gai chuckled at her and straitened back to his full height.

"We've been looking all over the place for you, Uzu, and I'm not feeling particularly forgiving-" Especially since she was his, and she had been god knows where doing god knows what since she left the beach in a snit.

"Shut it Kakashi, I'm still pissed with the lot of you and I don't particularly care if you want an explination or not, so fuck off." Uzu said in a bored tone as she pushed herself upright and picked a leaf out of her hair and held it in front of her eyes, where had she picked this pretty thing up? She wondered as she studied the lovely red orange leaf as she got to her feet and walked around Kakashi and Gai and headed towards her room.

"Well at least she's okay." Gai said happily as Kakashi gnashed his teeth and walked behind her, silently seething about her additude. They had had a valid reason for asking her those questions before, what he wanted to know is why she could never give anyone a strait fucking answer?

She unlocked her room, stepped through the door and was closing it when Kakashi's hand slammed into the door stopping her from closing it. She rolled her eyes and sighed. "What do you want now Kakashi?"

"A talk. Invite me in." He growled as he stared at her dirt smudged face. She frowned and tried to push the door closed on his hand. The brat.

"That sounds strangly like an order _genin_."

"That's because it is. Invite me in or-"

"Or what? You'll threaten me. Bully me. Sod off you, bastard I'm going to take a shower, eat, and then go to sleep."

Kakashi pushed his way into the room and sat down on her bed as she gaped at him in shock. "Go ahead, I'll sit here and wait for you to finish showering and talk to you when your eating."

"I'm not leaving you in here in my room unsupervised. Your a pervert! You'll probably do weird things to my clean panties or something!" Kakashi raised a brow at her and smirked as he pulled out a pair of pretty red panties that looked exactly like a pair that she had brought on this trip with her and watched her jaw drop as he lifted the fabric to his face and sniffed them.

Her face turned pink and her eyes widened a second before she shrieked and charged at him, her smaller body slamming into his own, pushing him back on the bed as she reached out to take the panties from him, he growled again and flipped them so that he was on top of her, one hand pinning her wrists above her head as he put the panties down next to her and grinned evilly.

"You sure do get feirce when you think someone is doing strange things to your stuff. The panties are'nt really yours. I bought them on a whim because I saw you wearing a dress with something like this underneath. I got a nice veiw of them when that nice gust of wind lifted your skirt. That was by far the best time I've ever had shadowing someone. Now, before I let you up, tell me what you've been up too today. Where did you go? What did you do?"

"I told you, I'm not telling, now get off." Kakashi smirked at her again and shifted his body so that she could feel his aching legnth against her stomach. Her face turned red and she started stuttering.

"What if I said I want you to _get_ me off? Would you let me touch you?" Kakashi asked as he leaned over her and pressed his lips to the pulse point in her neck, and smiled when he felt her pulse speed up under his lips.


	15. perv in the bath

"What if I said I want you to _get_ me off? Would you let me touch you?" Kakashi asked as he leaned over her and pressed his lips to the pulse point in her neck, and smiled when he felt her pulse speed up under his lips. Ah, so she was'nt as immune to him as she acted. Good to know since he was'nt leaving until he gave her a physical.

"Wh-What the hell are you-" She started to ask him but he silenced her with a searing kiss that almost stole her ability to think. She struggled to free her wrists and moaned in distress when his fingers tightened around them to the point of pain as he slipped his tongue into her mouth to explore the moist cavern. His tongue brushing against her own in an effort to coax her into kissing him back.

She was'nt such a fool that she would kiss him back, that would only encurage him further. He made an irritated sound in the back of his throat and broke the kiss to glare at her, she was resisting him. Dammit she was'nt supposed to be able to resist him. It was time to change tactics. He got off of her and let her push herself up on her elbows as she stared at him warily.

It was'nt that she didn't like Kakashi. As far as men went he was pretty cool. He was smart, cunning, sneaky, she could have easily fallen in love with him if he was'nt such a perv. Because pervs made her wary. "Go take your shower."

"Ugh, I think I'll just go to the hot springs instead."

"Great, I'm in need of someone to help me scrub my back."

"Then get Gai."

"But he can't do it right, and I'm a very dirty boy."

"I'll just bet you are, but I'm not scrubbing your back. I'm going to the women's bath."

"Hmmm, is that so. Well I guess I'll just have to let you go then." Kakashi said as she stood up off of the bed and walked across the room to get a change of clothes. tucking her things under her arm she walked out the bed room door and missed the dark look on Kakashi's face a second before he used a transformation jutsu to change his appearance to a dark haired exotic beauty with long legs.

He looked himself over in the mirror and smirked as he went to his room and grabbed his blue cotton yakuta and walked to the women's bath, he quickly undressed and put his things in a basket on one of the shelves and grabbed a towel and walked out into the fenced off portion of the hot spring and found Uzu sitting on a rock with a floating tray of sake and a cup, drinking as she soaked up some of the warmth.

"Ah, hot springs are the best."

"They are are'nt they." A velvety soft voice said as Uzu looked up and blinked as she saw a tall leggy black haired woman, she was drop dead geogous. _Wowza._

"Ah...h-hello." Uzu stuttered as her face turned pink and she quickly moved away from the new comer so that she could sit down. The woman smiled at her and sank into the warm water and sat down in the spot Uzu had been sitting in a few seconds ago, the blond looked so cute with that over whelmed nervous look on her face.

"Hello, I hope I'm not interupting you."

"Uh, no, no your not interrupting. I was just enjoying the warmth."

"It is rather nice isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Uzu settled back down as the dark haired woman scrubbed herself before dropping her soap. "Oh no. Where did it go?" Uzu sighed and stood up.

"I'll get it for you." She said as she moved so that she was an inch or so from the woman and dropped to one knee between her legs and felt along the bottom of the spring until she found the soap and picked it up and handed it back to the woman.

"Oh thank you! Your so sweet."

"Yeah, thanks." Uzu said as she frowned and stood up and started to walk back to her spot when the woman grasped her wrist and stopped her.

"Forgive me for being so bold, but you missed a spot, right there inbetween your shoulders I can see some dirt so to thank you for getting my soap for me won't you let me scrub your back?" Kakashi said in a coaxing tone. Uzu looked at the woman and blushed.

"No. No that's okay. I can get it myself."

"Please, I insist."

"N-No, hey what are you doing?" Uzu yelped as the woman all but tackled her in the water when she tried to walk away. Uzu wound up pinned under the dark haired beauty, her senses kicking into over drive as she felt the woman's tongue snake out to lick the swell of one of her breasts. Her mind went numb as she lay there trying to figure out what she could do to get the woman off fo her without hurting her.

"Mmm, your skin tastes sweet." The woman breathed as she licked the blond again. Uzu gasped in shock as she felt the woman's tongue slide over one of her nipples. There was something really odd about this lady. Uzu reached up and pushed against the woman's shoulders and felt something strange. Someone was trying to trick her with a genjutsu, the feel of the shoulders was all wrong, and when the woman leaned in and rubbed her chest against hers, she could'nt feel the soft mounds of her chest, what she felt was hard well toned muscle. This woman was'nt a woman but a man.

"What would you like me to do to you blondie-kun?" Uzu blinked as the woman-er man's face ended up very close to her face.

"Nothing, let me go-hey where do you think your touching perv!" Uzu nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the guy slip his hand between her legs and started to panic as she felt his fingers brush up against her core. She was so freaked by the situation that she didn't notice someone come into the spring until she looked up and saw Anko standing there with a curious look on her face.

"Hey Kakashi, what are you doing to sensei?"


	16. moving on

Kakashi lay on the stone floor crying, ow, ow, ow his nuts. Anko looked at the man then at their sensei, totally fearless in the face of such rage. "You son of a bitch..." Uzu growled as she leaked killing intent. Who did the shit head think he was sneaking into the women's bath to hit on her. _I'll kill him. I'll kill him dead, with like a rock or something._ She thought darkly as her eyes flashed from violet to crimson, her rage causing the demon inside of her to howl and throw itself against it's prison, begging for release.

It was tempting, really and truely tempting.

She was so pissed at him right now that she would love nothing more than to unleash the demon on his sorry ass. "If you ever...ever come near me again-" She'd rip him apart with her bare hands and she'd fucking do it with a smile. "I. Will. Kill. You." She hated perverts like him. Pushy, whiny people who never took 'no' for an answer.

She walked over to him kicked him in the ribs once and then walked off, slamming the door leading out of the hot springs behind her._ Bastard_. She thought angrily as she grabbed her clothes and quickly put them on and stormed back down the hall to her room.

She would spend the rest of the trip alternating between looking for Zabuza and trying to ignore Kakashi.

Kakashi would spend the rest of his short vacation trying to apoligise.

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I know that it's so very short but i plan to update again as soon as possible.

in the next chapter i plan to have the council set uzu up for a really bad trip, and uzu is only partually aware of what is waiting for her on her next mission.

It will be a seduction mission and she won't let her students go and expose them to such a thing, she she goes alone.

I'm not entirely sure how i'm going to set this up but i'll try. Suggestions would be nice...


	17. accidental companions pt 2

Three days after the group had returned ot the village from their little vacation at the beach. Uzu showed up late. Almost four hours late, and when she did show up it was to tell them all to go home, there would be no training or missions for the next week or so.

"Why?" Gai asked as they stared at her, she looked pale, sickly even.

"No reason, just go." I don't want any of you involved in the shit the councel has set up. She thought as she turned and walked away, not really caring if they disperced and went home or not. She was too bothered by her mission details.

She was being sent alone on an SSS-rank mission to inflatrate and seduce a rogue nin in a neghboring country. Chances were good that the nin had been warned of her arrival which meant that he probably knew what she looked like as well as knew some things about some of her fighting styles. Meaning that the council had set her up to be tourtured and possibly killed. There was no point asking anyone for help at this point, the coucil had covered their bases and threatened the lives of her _younger_ and more defensless students. If she didn't go on this mission, they would start killing the kids off, and she would be blamed for it because she refused to dance to their tune.

The Hokage would'nt know about it until a week after she was gone, meaning that even if a rescue team was dispatched, they might not make it in time, and even if they did...there was no telling what state she would be in. She had until late tomorrow before she had to leave, and in that time she had thought it wise to plan ahead. First of all she had gathered every bit of damning evidenc against the council pertaining to their traitorous actions, and other things and named _all _of their names. Each file she had on them was at least as thick as her hand was wide.

Each one naming the people that they had had assassinated, tortured and exiled as well as why they had done those things. She would give the key to the safe that the files were in to Kakashi or Iruka with specific instructions that if she was'nt back in a three days, to give the key to the Hokage.

She bared her teeth in what could have been a smile if she had been happy about anything, but all she felt now was a grim sense of satisfaction knowing that they would be stripped of their titles, put on trial as traitors and killed for their sins, but right now she had more pressing matters.

Being a girl; being sent on such a dangerous mission she felt it might also be in her best intrest to hook up with someone who would be gentle with her. Chances were very high that she might be raped by the enemy once they caught her, and they would catch her she had no delusions about that. The council were far too conniving not to give her away when they wanted her dead so much.

She had decided that no matter what happened, she could deal with it, but she was not going to have her first time taken in such a way, yet the only person that she could think of to help her in that department was Kakashi. he would probably be suspicous of her motives but then again he might not ask too many questions.

She had also visited the Hokage earlier this morning and asked him to take care of her baby's for a few days... She felt guilty for asking him in such a way when there was no garentee that she would be comeing back whole, or alive.

She was half way down the street when she finally looked up and noticed that she was standing right outside Kakashi's apartment building.

_It's now or never. _She thought as she walked up the steps leading to the third floor, counting them as she went, the normalcy of the action soothing her already fraying nerves. She stopped right outside of his apartment and lifted her hand and knocked softly, not really expecting him to be home right now, or that he would even answer.

Yet half a second later the door swung open and an angry looking Kakashi stood in the door blinking. "Wha-"

"Sorry for bugging you but..." _What do I say? What do I say?_ Uzu wondered as she stared up at him for a moment before she recalled his words from the beach trip.

_"What if I said that I want you to get me off, would you let me touch you?" _

"Do you still want me to get you off?" She said in a breathless tone as she rushed through the words.

"W-What?" Kakashi asked in shock as he took an involentary step back and let her slip inside of his home and quickly looked around outside to see if someone was lying in wait to ambush him. He was'nt uasually so paranoid but since Uzu had dismissed them earlier, Gai had been bugging him like mad.

_"Kakashi, my hip and cool rival. Let us train in a youthful fashion so that our sensei will be proud!"_

_"No thanks. I need to go home and do the laundry." _

_"the dirty laundry of youth can wait, my friend. Don't you want to bond over sweat and blood like the youthful men we are?" _

_"Eww, Gai." Gay much... _

After making sure that Gai was'nt lying in wait for him he stepped back inside and closed the door and locked it just to be on the safe side and looked at his sensei. She still looked pale, like she had earlier. _What's wrong?_ He wondered as he akwardly cleared his throat and asked her if she wanted to sit down or something. After the hot spring incident she had avoided him like mad, he had thought that she would continue to avout him until one of them dropped dead from exhaustion and yet he could'nt seem to bring himself to ask her why she was here now.

Mostly because he was pretty sure that he would'nt like the answer one little bit. "Sooo uh, what did you say earlier?" He asked curiously, he was sure that his mind had to be playing tricks on him since he could'nt possibly have heard what he thought he had heard.

"Do you still want me to get you off?" Uzu said with a cute blush as he stared-no gaped at her. His bottom jaw hanging open in shock, was it really so hard for him to believe that she needed him right now?

"Well, yeah-"

"Then strip." Uzu said as she stood up and unzipped her jacket and slid it form her shoulders as his dark blue eye went wide and he made a choking sound.

"Wha-you mean right now? This very second?" He asked curiously and she nodded her head, either he could answer her or he could'nt, thats all there was too it. A simple yes or no would seal her fate.

He studied her for a second and noted the determine look on her pretty face and sighed and quickly yanked his clean shirt up over his head and tossed it onto his couch as he grabbed her so that he could kiss her.

She was startled by the feel of his lips against her own, it was both painful and pleasent as their teeth clashed together and their tongues slid into each others mouths as he unfastened her bra and dropped it so that he could palm her breasts and tease her nipples. She made a strange sound and wrapped her arms around his body scraping her finger nails along the back of his shoulders, he broke the kiss to attack the spot where her neck and shoulder met and bit down.

She cried out in shock and arched against him, rubbing her body against his as he sucked the skin into his mouth, needing to leave a mark there as a reminder of who she had given herself too.

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i'm going to leave you hanging there. the next chapter starts three days after her mission started and she's in enemy territory


	18. sharing is caring, not

_"Do you really have to go?" Kakashi asked as Uzu slipped on her shoes. She looked at him from over her shoulder and felt like she should apoligize for using him like this but held her tongue and quickly forced herself to smile and act like nothing was wrong even though it felt like her heart was being ripped apart._

_"Yeah, I have to do some reports for the old man and then I have to get ready for a new mission." She was'nt sure why she had bothered with the half lie to begin with, Kakashi was'nt so stupid as not to know that she was lying to him. He was'nt a shinobi elete for nothing after all. He studied her for a moment before reaching out and picking up the key ring next to him and unhooked a key and grasped her wrist and pressed it into her hand and closed her fingers around it._

_"Here. When your done with your work, come by and we'll...cuddle or something." He said akwardly and she gave him a strange look as his mis matched eyes flickered to her face. those eyes saw far more of what she was trying to hide that she was aware of, but he trusted her and would'nt press her for answers if she could'nt give them._

_"You don't seem like the cuddling type." She said after a second or so and he gave her a humorless smile as he lifted his hand and smoothed her soft hair back from her face. A tender look replacing the humorless smile he had worn just a few seconds before._

_"But I would do it for you." Because I love you and am too afraid to simply say the words. He thought as his heart ached in his chest._

_Last night had been an eye opener for him in more than one way, he was'nt a stupid man by any means and partually understood Uzu's desperate need to get rid of her innocence so quickly. Whatever mission she was going on, she expected trouble, and while he had wanted to ask her about it he understood that sometimes it was far too hard to speak of things mission related. Especially if it was something classified in nature._

_She smiled at him and said nothing as she leaned up on her tip toes and kissed his lips. Kakashi for all his faults was a very sweet man. "Okay..." She said as she took out the key to the safe where the files were and handed it to him._

_"I don't expect to be gone for long-" she lied as he took the key and looked at her curiously. "But if I'm not back in four days...give that Key to the Hokage and tell him that there is a safe in my father's house, hidden behind a painting of the village. Tell him to use the key and open the safe and to use the contents well. I'll be depending on him."_

_"Alright..." Kakashi said as he slipped the key to the safe on the thin silver chain around his neck and let it fall to rest above his heart with his dogtags. _

_"I have to go now." She said as she turned and opened the door as he reached out, his heart thudding in his chest and quickly grasped her hand and squeezed as he moved just a little bit closer to her and said. _

_"I don't know what kind of mission your going on Uzu, but if you need me to save you...all you have to do is say the word." He held his breath for several seconds as she slipped her hand from his grasp and started walking, he closed his eyes and leaned against the door frame and was just about to go back inside and lock the door when he thought he heard her say._

_"Please save me..." Then vanished. He stood there for several minutes wondering if he had heard her, or if his mind was playing tricks on him again. _

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Four days later-

Uzu hated this place. Hated it. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. It had been four days since she had left the village and she had been found out yesterday, thanks to the red hair and eyes they had'nt known it was her until she had been about to assassinate the nin that she had been sent here to kill. In that time she had been disarmed, had her chakra sealed away, suffered a beating that had caused three of her ribs, and four of her fingers to break and now...

Now she was looking at the face of a man who intended to sexually assault her if the way he trailed his fingers along the inside of her thighs was any indication at all. "Your so pretty." He said breathlessly and she wished that she still had the blade hidden in her left shoe, she could have used it to kill him for touching her in such a way but that would only make things worse for her.

"And your not, now that we have that established let me go." His hand shot out and connected with the side of her face, her head jerked violently to the side and she could taste blood as it oozed out from between her lips.

"Quiet bitch. The only thing I want to hear out of you are screams."

"Good luck with that mother fucker." He slapped her again and she growled as she felt his fingers probing between her legs before his fingers slipped inside of her. She gritted her teeth until they ached and wondered if anyone would blame her if she ripped his throat out with her teeth.

"Ooooh, so tight, and slick and warm..." He said as he withdrew his fingers and his hands went to the front of his pants and started to unfasten them. He was going to enjoy this, breaking women was so much fun, especially the strong ones. By the time he was done with this one she would be begging for him to kill her.

"I would'nt if I were you-" Uzu panted as she glared at the man and gave him a jaded smile. "I have Aids..."

The man froze and looked at her with wide frightened eyes.

_Not thinking with your dick anymore are you asshole. _

"What kind?"

"The kind that's spread through bodily fluids like seliva, blood and..." She looked down at her lower body and let her voice trail off before she spit in his face, catching him right in the mouth since it was hanging open and smiled happily.

"And now you've got it too." The man ran from the room screaming...

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Kakashi handed the Hokage the key and told him what Uzu had said and watched the man frown. "When did you say she told you this?" The elder asked curiously. Kakashi shifted his weight and felt the over whelming need to squirm under the close scrutiny of those dark eyes.

"Four days ago, when she left the village on a mission."

Sarutobi tilted his head to the side and thought _carefully_. He didn't remember giving Uzu a mission four days ago, let alone permission to leave the village. "What mission?"

Kakashi looked at the man like he was mad as he uttered those words, was his mind slipping. "The mission that you sent her on."

"I didn't send her on a mission, nor did I give her permission to leave the village."

Kakashi was about to say something but stopped and paled as he realised what this meant. Sarutobi snarled something and jumped to his feet shaking with rage. "Go get Gai, Ibiki, and Asuma. I'm sending all of you out to find, rescue and bring back Uzu before it's too late."


	19. gather

Kakashi ran across the roof tops in a blind panic. Uzu was in trouble. She was on a mission that the Hokage had'nt sent her on, meaning that the council was responsible for her marching orders. Meaning that they had sent her on a suicide mission, and she had known their intentions when she had come to him. He gritted his teeth and applied chakra to his feet and sped up his pace. He had to get Ibiki, Gai and Asuma and go after her before it was too late.

_Uzu..._

He never should have let her leave his home. His bed or him. She didn't belong anywhere he could'nt see or reach her.

_I'm coming for you, baby. Please be alive. _Kakashi thought as his heart thudded in his chest, threatening to punch it's way through his chest and kill him. He didn't think he would be able to take it if she was dead when he got to her.

(**************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

A fist connected with her side, rebreaking her half healed ribs. She grunted and gasped for air as the nin that she had come here to kill, what was his name-Kozu grabbed a fist full of her hair and yanked her head back painfully. "Who sent you? If you tell me...I'll let you go."

Uzu gave a breathy laugh as she looked him in the eyes. "Your a damn liar. You would'nt let me go. Not alive. Or whole, and I don't tell. It's wrong."

"Not as wrong as giving you to my men will be."

She gave him a chilling smile. "I'm not scared of those pussies." Kozu reared back his fist and hit her again, this time in the face. Her head snapped back on her spine so quickly that it felt like her neck had just been broken as blood ran down her face from her nose and mouth.

"Then you won't mind if I rape you first."

"I have aids." She said as she struggled to stay awake, the son of a bitch had fists like a hammer. It felt like he had cracked something in her head. Her skull maybe? Kozu chuckled and freed himself from his pants and leaned in close to her as she glared at him.

"Now who's the damn liar?" He asked with a smirk as she felt him grip her hips and push his dick inside of her violently. She gasped in pain as she felt something tear but other wise said nothing as he did her. Really what was she going to say?

'You bastard?'

'Your a dickless cock sucking whore?' No she prefered to stay silent, and pretend like what he was doing to her was'nt hurting her any. She could deal with this kind of pain. But that didn't change the fact that she would kill him for his sin later. What worried her now was how was she going to face her students, Iruka and the Hokage once they knew that she had been passed around a few times.

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

"What's going on Kakashi?" Ibiki asked as he looked up from his paper work and frowned as he noticed Kakashi, Gai and Asuma standing in the door way to his office looking pale, angry and tense. Gai looked like he had been crying, his hands tightly fisted at his sides and he was'nt looking at anyone. He seemed too angry to look at anyone. What the hell was going on?

"We're needed for an important mission. Grab what you need and meet us in the Hokage's office in ten. We move out once we know where we're going." Kakashi said quickly and Ibiki put his papers down and got up out of his seat and grabbed his jacket and put it on as he stopped just in front of the shorter man and looked him in the eye.

"Lets go." He didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was it must be bad to make these men look so shaken and angry. Kakashi nodded his head and turned and all but ran out of the room and down the hall pushed several exhausted Anbu out of the way with a low fearl sounding growl. Ibiki, Gai and Asuma followed behind him watching the man clear the way almost violently. Something about this mission had him tied up in knots, and in a hurry. Unusual since Kakashi rarely got in a hurry about anything.

"What exactly is this about?" Ibiki asked as he glanced at Asuma. The man's lips were pressed together in a grim thin line as he looked back at Ibiki and uttered the one word that changed everything and made him feel like crying too.

_"Uzu."_

_(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)_

_thats it for this chapter. hopefully it will pick up a bit in the next chapter._


	20. attack

It had been three days since they had left the village to rescue Uzu and they had reached the enemy strong hold just in time to see the blond being led in chains to the middle of the base naked, her body covered in bruises and dry blood, her long hair had been cut so that it fell just above her shoulders, the soft tips clung to her dirty sweat streaked face, and Ibiki and Gai had to hold Kakashi back as she was forced to service several of the missing nins before she was beaten almost to death and dragged over to a large wooden pole sticking out of the ground and hung with her wrists above her head from a hook in the side and left her there.

Kakashi buried his face in the grass and tried to come to grips with what Uzu must have gone through during the time it took for them to find out she was missing and come for her. None of it was good, he could plainly see the dark smudges, the dry blood, and other wounds, the only comfort he had was that she was alive, even if it was just barely. He would take whatever he got as long as she was alive.

"Why do you think Uzu has'nt already escaped? She's strong enough too." Gai said after a second or so as he glanced from between the branches of a small bush that he was hiding behind.

"See those bands around her neck and wrists? They're chakra restraints. She could'nt escape even if she wanted too, they seal away chakra and make the one wearing them as weak as a new born baby."

"We make our move as soon as it is dark. We'll sneak in grab her and destroy everyone that gets in our way." Ibiki said softly.

"Fuck that. Destroy them all anyways." Kakashi finally said as he lifted his body so that he was sitting, his back was to them but there was no mistaking the definite bite in his voice. He wanted blood. Their blood. He wanted it on his hands, his skin, his clothes. He wanted to wear it as a badge of honor for his woman, who had been so viciously hurt. These people, these monsters in human skin, were going to die for their abuse of his female.

His honor, and hers demanded blood and death, demanded satisfaction. And that was exactly what they would get before he took her home. Satisfaction.

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

They were out there. She knew it, she could sense them even if she could'nt see them. One of the advantages of having a sharply trained mind. They had been there since this morning, watching, waiting for a sign or opening. It didn't really matter that they had witnessed her being used by the enemy, again, this was something that she could handle. She would deal with everything else as it happened.

But for the time being she would sit tight and grit her teeth and bear what ever happened. She knew that they would be with her as soon as the sun set. _Just another hour._ She had just another hour before she would be home free.

She closed her eyes again and focused on her breathing, drawing breath in and exhailing in a calm and almost meditative way until she felt herself drifting off in an exhausted sleep, since she had been sleep depived for several days now and was simply too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer.

Dark came faster than they had thought it would, and the four leaf nins all had their plan mapped out. Kakashi would get Uzu and find a way to use the special lock picking tool that Ibiki carried on him to unlock the chakra restraints. Gai and Asuma were to set explosive charges at several key points around the base and Ibiki would keep their way clear so that they could get out alive.

Kakashi stood several feet away from the rest of them as they checked their gear, his fingers subconsiously curling and uncurling at his sides. His palms itching to rip someone apart with his bare hands.

It had been a long time since he had felt so enraged and murderous. Almost ten years to be exact. He was'nt sure if he would be able to hold back if he saw anyone touch his female after what he had seen her suffer earlier. Friend or foe, he would probably kill them all just to reach her. "I'll clear the way in. You guys watch my back." Kakashi said as he walked down the slight incline to the front gate and smirked as the enemy spotted him and drew their weapons.

Too little, too late. They were dead men walking.

They rushed him and he smiled happily under his mask and let his chakra flair as the first guy reached him, swinging his kunai at Kakashi's throat, aiming to take him out with one blow. Kakashi caught his wrist in his hand and flipped him over his back and brought his foot down on the guy's neck snapping it before the guy could catch his breath and moved on to the next one.

It took all of five minute to dispose of the five men and push the gates open and waltz inside like he owned the place while Ibiki, Gai and Asuma all hung back and muttered curses about stupid Hatake's.

Uzu came out of a sound sleep with a startled scream as a crimson stained hand settled over her mouth. She thrashed around for a second before meeting a pair of mis matched eyes staring at her bruised face with something akin to sorrow on his face. "Shh. I'll get you down, just try not to scream again." He said gently as he trailed his finger tips from her mouth up above her head to her wrists leaving a red trail every where he touched and quickly picked the locks of the chakra suppressors and caught her slight body in his arms as she fell against him.

"Kashi..."

He tangled his fingers in her soft hair and hugged her for a second before he slipped an arm under her knees and started to pick her up when she stopped him. "Uzu?"

"I'm fine. Give me a weapon. I want to fight." She owed these bastards some pain, and she was in the mood to deliver. Kakashi hesitated for a second then handed her a short sword that he had had strapped to his back and framed her face with hsi hands and touched his forehead against hers. He wanted to kiss her so badly but was sure that she would lash out if he did, so he settled for the brief contact, needing it to assure himself that she was still alive and well before he let his hands fall away from her.

"Stay right behind me." He said softly as he turned to face the group of nins running towards them. Uzu gave him a feral smile as her ruby colored eyes started to glow, and his heart skipped a beat as he watched her in growing apprihention as she walked forward and used her chakra to create a katana and used it to cut down the first three to reach her while Kakashi took out three more behind her and turned so that the two of them stood back to back.

"Kakashi, can you buy us some time?" Uzu asked. He turned his head a bit to look at her as she took out another nin with a well placed kick to the chest before running him through.

"Yeah. What do you have in mind?"

"I'm going to use one of my jutsu to stop them in their tracks..."

"How long do you need?"

"Two minutes."

"Consider it done, sensei."


	21. aftermath

It was a slaughter. There was really no other way to put it. The jutsu Uzu used to level the playing field and get them out of there was an impressive one that took quite a bit of chakra. It had bound every enemy nin in place with pure chakra ribbons, rooting them in place to the ground and made it so that they couldn't even move or defend themselves as he had grabbed Uzu up in his arms and taken off running as Asuma and Gai started to blow things up.

They had just barely made it outside the gate before the entire base and everyone on it had gone up in a fire ball of red hot flames and smoke. Kakashi held Uzu tightly in his arms as he paused just shy of the woods to look back at the base. Not exactly the kind of revenge he had had in mind for the men of the base, but it would do since there were likely no survivors.

He looked down at Uzu's pale face as her head fell back against his shoulder, her eyes rolled back in her head and her breathing almost stopped. He carefully put her on the ground and shrugged off his vest and used it to cover her nakedness before checking to make sure that she had a pulse while he silently berated himself for worrying more about her nakedness than her life. But the possessive male in him simply didn't want anyone else to see her in such a condition.

Once he was sure that she was still alive and simply suffering from exhaustion and chakra depletion, he sighed in relief and gathered her slender body in his arms and picked her up and went to join the others.

The jurney home was going to be a long and trying one since they had no idea what her state her mind was in after being raped and tortured for almost a week. They would have to watch her carefully and not let her get her hands on any of their weapons since she might try to take them out with them.

He reached the small place that they had used to spy on the enemy, Uzu cradled protectivly in his arms sound asleep. She was likely to sleep for the next day or so meaning that they would'nt be able to get far in their travels tonight. But they had agreed before they had got there that they would camp out five miles from the enemy base where they had come across a water fall that they had thought Uzu would want to make use of.

If she was anything like the other females that had suffered through rape and torture, she would be prone to scrubbing her skin until it bled, panic attacks and a general fear of them as males. Kakashi was suddenly very pissed that there was'nt an understanding female among them that could comfort her since she would'nt likely let them touch or help her if she started suffering from panic attacks and such.

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Uzu slept for two day strait before finally waking up. A low groan escaping her throat as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position, alerting the four men that she was awake. "Uzu-sensei, how are you feeling?" Asuma asked gently as he walked over to her and stopped well out of arms reach and dropped to one knee and stared at her as she looked around, in the past two days since she had fallen asleep the worst of her wounds had healed leaving behind only some very colorful bruises varying from yellow, to purple to blackish blue.

She glanced at him from under her long bangs and studied him for a second. Had'nt this guy hated her a month ago? If so then why was he being so damn nice? Was he up to something?

Asuma seemed to know what she was thinking, his knowing smile telling her _everything_ and then some. Yes. He had hated her a month ago. But that was before he had gotten to know her a bit and realised that she was just another kid. A very strong, and kind hearted kid that was often blamed and hurt for things that she had never done. And he had gotten sick of the way he and others had been treating her.

She sighed and pushed some of her hair back from her face and scratched her cheek. "I'm fine. Just sore." She said in a raw, husky sounding voice as she shifted in her make shift bed and looked around. Kakashi stood, leaning his back against a tree several feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, and his expression blank. He looked at her, not quite sure what to say to her to make her feel better, so he stayed silent.

Not wanting to make the situation worse for her than it already was.

"Are you sure that your okay?" Gai asked worriedly and suprisingly enough Uzu smiled at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just want to clean up and go home."

"There's a water fall and a lake over there. It's close enough where if you need us we'll know, but secluded enough to allow some privacy. I brough some soap and have some extra clothes if you want to borrow them." Kakashi said as he reached down and snagged his pack and dug out the things. Uzu took the soap and the clothes and gave him a wane smile and thanked him before she turned and all but ran to the water fall.

_And it begins._ Kakashi thought as he watched her disappear through the dense under brush towards the water.


	22. vow

Uzu threw down the clothes and soap as soon as she reached the water and dived into the shallow crystaline waters head first to keep herself from crying. The mission was over and done with, there was no point in crying about something she had known would happen. The damage was done, everyone responsible was dead, it was time to get over it and move on. But she was'nt sure if she could move on as easily as she had first thought.

She wanted so badly to go back and do things over, to tell the council to go fuck themselves and watch the kids to protect them from the council's dark intentions. But she could'nt do that, and she was finding it hard to breathe. She broke the surface of the water but kept the lower half of her face submerged as she glared at the beauty around her. It was so peaceful, so pretty, and serene. Completely different from the chaos building in her chest. threatening to suffocate her.

Under normal circumstances she would love this place, but after the week that she had had she found herself hating it's beauty. It's peacefullness. Her eyes started burning and she blinked and wondered if it was too late to drown herself in the middle of the lake. She glanced toward a tree about twenty feet away and sighed in defeat. It figured that the four men would be watching her to make sure that she didn't do anything stupid.

She waded a little deeper into the water and stood up. It was pointless to hide from the problem. Just like it was pointless to cry about it. Her week in hell was over with, now all she had to do was deal with the after math. One day at a time. Yeah, she could handle that. "Come out Kakashi. I know that your there."

Kakashi stepped out from behind the tree and stared at her for a second before scratching his cheek and looking away. Unsure of what he could say to excuse himself for seeming like a peeping tom. "I uh...dropped something over-"

"Cut the crap Kakashi. It's alright. I know why your here." Uzu said as she moved just a step closer to shore as he sighed and ran his fingers through his silver hair in frustration. His body still tense, and tightly wound.

"Why didn't you tell anyone that you would be in that kind of danger?" He blurted out as she turned her back to him and stared at the water lapping at her skin. The question had been bugging him since the other day, but it had taken him a while to get around to it. He knew her. He knew that she was too protective and kind for her own good. The one's who had sent her on this mission had known that, and had obviously played her greatest stregnth as well as her weakness. He just was'nt sure how they had gone about it.

"I could'nt without endangering the ones that I told. All I was allowed to say was that I had a mission. Nothing more."

It was a half truth, and while he understood that he could'nt seem to stop himself from wading into the water, over to where she was standing and grasping her shoulder and forcing her around to look at him. He had never seen such a panicked look on her face before and immidiatly dropped his hand away and took three steps back, he gritted his teeth and silently swore that he would kill the son of a bitches responsible for this mess, for fucking up his female and for making him feel so damn helpless that he could'nt even touch her without feeling like a bastard.

"That's not the whole truth. I want you to tell me what they used to get you to agree to go on this mission."

"I...don't want to talk about it, Kakashi." How could she tell him that she regreated going on the mission and leaving her younger students exposed to danger and possibly death? It was just cruel. Saying it would make her the worst sort of person, the thought of betraying her former classmates for any reason, no matter how selfish made her feel sick to her stomach.

She lifted her hands to her face and hid her face from him, making him think for a second that she was crying before she ran her fingers through her hair in an irritated manner. "I really don't...want to do this now. God I feel sick..." She rasped as she felt her body starting to shake as tears slipped down her face. Kakashi stood there for a few seconds. Silent, unmoving, witnessing her breakdown and hating himself for not going after her when he had thought he had heard her say,

_"Please save me." _He was a man goddamn it. A protector. And Uzu was his chosen mate. His female, and someone had tried to kill her in one of the most agonising ways humanly possible. It was frustrating to him to see her like this and want to hold her, and know that he really should'nt. Because his touch might make things worse. He curled hsi fingers into fists at his sides and felt hsi knuckles pop as his finger nails drew blood.

"Uzu. I want you to listen to me, and I want you to know that I'm totally serious-" Kakashi said gently as she looked at him. God she was so pale, she looked so fragile that the wind could break her into pieces and blow her away. It scared him more than he cared to addmit. He dropped to his kness in the water, the crystaline waters soaking through his vest and shirt just shy of his shoulders as he reached out and grasped both of her hands.

"I know that this isn't the ideal way to hear this. I'm sorry for that. Really I am. But I love you, and I want you to know it. _Noone_ will ever touch you again. You have my word on this. I'll murder anyone who lays so much as a finger on you again-" He reached up and framed her face in his hands again and stared at her lovely face. Even with the bruises and dirt she was still the most beautiful young woman that he had ever seen.

She stared at him through teary eyes, unsure of what to say to him or even how to react to his words. He was pledging himself to her, she knew it instinctivly and because she was hurting she was'nt sure how to respond to his solem oath. He loved her. _He loved her._ Seriously? Was he insane? He lifted one of her wrists to his mouth and kissed the spot over the veins to show her that he meant everything that he had said.

"I love you. I'll do whatever you ask of me to prove it, to win your heart. I swear that I will never hurt you or allow another to harm you. Just know that I'm here when you need me, if you need me. Alright?" All she could do was stare at him and nod her head silently. Her mind sliding into shock.

Dear god he meant it. Every damn word. She suddnely felt like crying for a different reason.

Jesus this was such a mess.


	23. home again

Three days after Uzu had been rescued, she, Kakashi, Ibiki, Asuma and Gai walked through the village gates. Genma and Kotetsu and Radiou all stared at her as if she were a ghost as they welcomed the men back to the village. Kakashi stayed close to Uzu as he nodded to the men to aknowledge that he had heard them and walked on. Ibiki, Gai and Asuma did the same as they passed and walked with their wounded sensei.

The villagers in the shopping district all stopped to glare at her, some even went so far as to yell curses at her. Uzu shut them up with a murderous look that seemed to steal away their ability to speak as she walked by them. Curious to see where she was going, the four followed her until they reached Iruka's and she knocked on the door and waited as Iruka came tearing outside and stopped as soon as he saw her.

"Uzu..." _Where have you been? Why did you leave without permission? Why are you so beat up? What happened? Are you okay?_ Dozens of questions ran through his head as he took in his adopted sister's appearance. There were faint yellow and pale blue bruises on her left cheek, on her neck, on the soft skin of her exposed shoulder, the shirt that she was wearing was so big that it slipped from her slender shoulder and would have fallen off fo her completely if not for her breasts.

In the end iruka guessed that asking her what had happened would only hurt her more and he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a short hug, noticing the way she jerked the second his arms wrapped around her. "I've missed you." Iruka said softly as he pulled back. Uzu stared at him with wide frightened eyes before she seemed to realise what she was doing and quickly forced her face to go blank and relaxed her body.

"I've...missed you too nii-san." Uzu said honestly as she forced herself to smile for him as she tried to calm the chaos in her mind.

"I know a few others who have missed you too." Iruka said as he leaned down so that they were eye to eye. Uzu heard the sounds of four tiny feet from three four legged felines heading their way and smiled as Baby ran inbetween Iruka's legs and latched on to her borrowed pants leg, her little black ears flattened back against her head as her tail twitched in irritation.

**_"Meow!" _**(I've found you!) Baby made a rummbling sound that vibrated her chest as she meowed at Uzu and used her sharp little claws to climb up her leg as Mica and Alice sat down next to Iruka's foot and blinked up at her as if she were a stranger.

Uzu sighed and carefully picked Baby from her pants leg and cuddled the aggitated kitten against her chest causing Baby to glare at her as she started purring. She was going to scratch her mommy so badly once they were home. "Did they give you any trouble, Iruka?" Uzu asked as Alice walked over to her and rubbed up against her leg and purred cutely. She had missed her mommy pretty badly during her absence.

Iruka picked Mica up and scratched her under the chin and smiled. "No trouble at all aside from that-" He pointed at Baby and gave a mock glare. "Little monster bloodying my ankles when I got home late one night from work."

Uzu gave him an apoligetic look. "Yeah, sorry about that. She has abandonment and starvation issues." She said as Baby purred louder to show tham that she was quite happy with herself.

"Yeah, I got that. I bled for the knowledge, but whatever..." He leaned down a bit and hissed. "If she ever bloodys my ankle again, I'm sending her back to you looking like one of those stupid frou-frou poodles. Got it."

"Yeah, sure."

"Do you want to come in and sit for a while?" Iruka finally asked after debating with himsefl for a little while. Uzu shook her head no. She just wanted to go home and sleep for a while and settle back into her routine before anything else happened.

"I just want to go home and rest while I can." No doubt Tsume, Hanna, Hiashi and Shikaku and the others would be knocking down her front door once they all found out that she was back from her mission. They had probably been worried sick about her.

She collected her three babys and said bye to Iruka then turned and started walking again. Not really caring that Iruka had questions, or if he had figured things out already. She just wanted to go home, nothing more, nothing less.

Iruka grasped Ibiki's wrist as he turned to leave with the others and pulled him to a stop. "I'm not going to bother asking what happened because I already know enough. She was set up was'nt she?"

Kakashi, Asuma and Gai all looked at the teacher strangely and the man let go of Ibiki and swore as he ran his fingers through his long brown hair. "You all had better make sure that no one touches her again."

"We will." Ibiki said evenly as he stared at the angry man. Iruka growled at him.

"You expect me to just take your word for it. Sorry but it does'nt work that way-"

"You can take mine..." Kakashi said as he turned around and looked at the school teacher, Iruka glared at him for a second.

"Why's that?"

"Because I love her, and I've already pledged myself to her."

Four sets of eyes stared at him with mirroring expressions of shock and horror. Jesus christ could this mess get any worse? Iruka frowned and sighed after a second or so. Dammit, he didn't want to hand his little sister over to anyone, but he didn't really have a choice if Kakashi had already pledged himself to her. Kakashi was a decent man, when the mood struck him and once he gave his word he could'nt go back on it no matter how much he might want too later on.

"Alright. I believe you-" But that didn't mean that he had to like it. "Take care of her."

"I will."

"Make sure that she gets some rest."

Kakashi nodded his head and Iruka muttered something under his breath and went back inside his apartment.

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Holy shit. I almost have a hundred reviews for this story.

bloody hell...

I'm wanting to update some of my older stories, like Calico's love story and a few others but i cant think of anything right now.

If anyone has some suggestions then please let me know.


	24. can't walk away

Okay kittens, I've made a poll! And it only took me three years to master the knowledge to make one...

god I'm stupid.

Anyways vote and let me know your opinions and i'll do my best to make stuff happen.

Now on to the next chapter.

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Uzu walked into her apartment and did a quick look around. It looked okay, but that didn't mean that no one had set a trap for her. She walked around the living room after setting her babys down and could'nt help but notice that Ibiki, Asuma, Gai and Kakashi were still hanging around, just outside her door, all of them watching her as she did a sweep of her home and sighed when she found one trap.

A nasty one with explosives attached to it. She made a frustrated sound and flopped down in the middle of the floor and crossed her legs as one of her kittens rooted around the couch cushions until she found one of her hidden kunai and gripped the handle in her little mouth and jumped down off of the couch and ran to Uzu's side and dropped the blade and nudged it with her little pink nose and Uzu smiled and patted her on the head as she picked up the blade and defused the potentally lethal trap and ripped down the explosive tags and tore them to pieces, using her chakra to burn what was left.

"That was the only one... I guess that I should consider myself lucky." She turned her head a bit and looked at the four silent, brooding men. They kept their faces blank, their expressions carefully masked. Why didn't they leave already? She wondered as she started to stand and yelped when her legs refused to support her wieght and buckled on her instead. She hit the floor with a soft thud and lay there for a second as her vision blurred.

Goddamn it.

Of all the times for her body to stop working it just had to be now. Kyubbi was syphening some of her chakra to heal what was left of her wounds. While not exactly a dangerous thing for the demon to do on it's own, it did leave her feeling weak, and defensless. She would feel that way for the next few days or longer until she could rest and restore her chakra reserves. Until then she would be defensless against attacks from the villagers.

Kakashi moved forward as soon as her legs gave and dropped to one knee beside her as she lay on the floor panting as if she had run a marathon. "Uzu? Uzu whats wrong? Do you hurt anywhere? Do you need to go to the hospital?" He asked as he carefully rolled her over onto her back.

She blinked up at him, but didn't seem to be seeing him. It was as if her eyes were'nt working any better than the rest of her was. "I-I-I'm f-fine. Damn demon..." She stopped talking for a second as she tried to get up again and fell, this time he caught her and dragged her smaller body against his own and gave the others a worried look as he brushed her pale hair away from her feverish skin.

What was the demon doing to her? He wondered as she finally managed to rasp as she started to close her eyes, she felt so weak that she could already feel the grips of uncouniousness tugging her under, "Just really tired."

Kakashi held her and tried to beat back the feeling of panic rising in his chest as he held her as the tension drained form her body, leaving her limp and almost lifeless in his arms. If not for the fact that she was still breathing he would be really, really freaked out right now. He looked at Asuma and the man nodded in understanding as he caught the pleading look on Kakashi's face and vanished to go get the hokage.

Sarutobi might be the only one who could help her in the state that she was in right now, until then the others would hang back and protect her. It was the unspoken rule among shinobi, especially among many of the Anbu and it was a princaple that many of them lived by today; they would not leave their team leader defensless and alone. There was only two ways for them to leave her, one) she had to be dead. And two) she had to be well enough to be on her own again.

And even that would'nt keep them from watching her.

Not after the hell that she had been put through. Someone had to take responsibility for what had happened, and if no one else would then they, four would. They would protect and care for her as long as she lived. He landed on the red tile roof just outside of his fathers office and tapped on the window, not the least suprised when the man came outside through the window and stared at him for a second, his dark eyes looking him over in an almost calculating way that Asuma had come to recognise as fatherly concern.

"Where is she?" Sarutobi asked after several seconds. Asuma pointed to her apartment and his father nodded before asking.

"How bad off is she?"

Asuma didn't answer, honestly he had no idea what to say to his father about her condition. Sarutobi ran his hands over hsi face and noticed that his hands were shaking. His chest feeling painfully tight and difficult to breathe. "She said something about the demon before losing consiousness."

Sarutobi looked at his son and nodded as he took a step forward. "Then we better hurry just in case the seal is weakening..."


	25. the seal holds

Sarutobi walked through Uzu's front door with Asuma right behind him and paused when he saw Kakashi sitting on the floor with the sick gril cradled in his arms looking like the world was ending. The Kage blinked and took note of the protective/possessive way the man was holding Uzu in his arms, cradled against his chest, a pained expression on his face as he looked up at them.

"What's wrong with her?" He asked, his voice sounded raw almost as if he had been screaming for some reason, and for all the Kage knew he had been. Sarutobi walked across the room and dropped to one knee beside the man and reached out to take Uzu's limp body from him when a low feral sounding growl escaped Kakashi's throat and he turned his head to see the dark threatening expression on his face before he looked away from him.

What the hell? "I just need to check the seal, Kakashi. Nothing more." Sarutobi said gently, hoping to calm the seething fury bubbling in Kakashi's chest, he could see very plainly what would happen if he hurt Uzu while the man was so close. He could see his death in those unblinking mis matched eyes. He knew that Uzu had spent the night with Kakashi before her suicide mission and also knew that the man adored the girl, perhaps even loved her. And if that was true then Kakashi would'nt hesitate to strike him down in cold blood if he hurt her even the slightest bit.

Kakashi said nothing, he didn't even loosen his grip as the elder lifted the hem of the long shirt that Uzu was wearing and touched his finger tips to her stomach and pushed some of his chakra inside of her and heard her soft hiss of pain as the seal appeared as Kakashi siezed his wrist in a death grip and didn't let up until Uzu turned her head a bit and buried her face against his vest.

"Sorry." Sarutobi said softly as Kakashi let go of his wrist and let him finish what he was doing so that he could move Uzu to her bed. It took less than three minutes for the elder to determine the cause of Uzu's fever, and her pain. The seal was'nt weakening, the demon was just syphening off as much of Uzu's normal chakra as it could to heal the internal injuries that it had'nt been able to heal using it's own chakra. Mainly because it's own chakra was so damn destructive that if it had used it, it might have killed the girl.

He tugged the shirt back down in place, making sure that it fell back to where it had been before, around her knees and gave Kakashi a nod to indicate that it was okay for him to move her and almost smiled at how the man slowly got to his feet and lifted Uzu up and took off down the hall. "Lord Hokage?" Ibiki said from the door way as the elder got up and started to walk out of the apartment.

"The demon is syphening off some of her normal chakra and using it to heal her body the best it can."

"The seal?" Asuma saked curiously.

Sarutobi looked at his son and shook his head. The seal was holding, and she was alive. Those were the things that mattered the most. "I want your reports about the mission on my desk in two days. Take that time to rest up."

"What about her?" Gai asked as he motioned with his head towards the bedroom where they could all hear Kakashi going through her dresser and shit to find her more comfortable clothes.

"Kakashi can watch her for now. Go home and get some rest, and all of you can drop back by here later tommorrow to check on her."

"Are you sure thats wise?" Asuma asked as he tilted his head.

Sarutobi didn't really know what to say to them. He really didn't think it was wise to leave her alone with just Kakashi. The man seemed to be more emotionally invested in the girl than was healthy for either of them at the moment but at the same time it made him curious. Just what was Kakashi planning to do now that she was safely back in the village?

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Kakashi pulled his shirt up over Uzu's head, not really bothering to undo the buttons. Honestly what was the point? The shirt was just so damn big that the buttons were unnessisary. He held her naked upper body against him, her breasts pressed flush against his chest as he messed with the clean shirt he had found for her. The white cotton material would be cooler on her, and would probably be more comfortable on her feverish skin too.

He wrapped it around her for a second before he grasped her wrist and pulled it through the short sleeve and paused when he noticed the pale yellow and blue bruise on her shoulder and shifted his hold on her so that he could trail his fingers along the small wound as his eyes started to sting. He blinked several times, tried to breath through the sensation but eventually everything just seemed to cave.

His mind playing and replaying what he had seen before they had managed to save her. All he could see were those men, and the way they had touched her, forced her to take them inside of her body. He squeezed his eyes closed and tightened his grip on her for a fraction of a second as his mind continued to torment him with what had happened to her. Part of him was rebelling against what had happened to her, and the other part of him was'nt sure if he could take knowing what those bastards had done to her.

All he could think about was how scared she must have been. And how much it must have hurt. He buried his face against the side of her throat and bit his bottom lip to keep from screaming. Oh god this must be what hell felt like.

It just had to be. What other reason would something like that be allowed to happen to one of the kindest, most purest souls he had ever had the honor to come across? He took several deep breaths and collected the shattered remains of his heart and finished changing her and laid her on the bed and pulled the covers up around her shoulders and ran his fingers through his hair.

She would think that he would'nt want her now. She'd be wrong in that reguard. Nothing that had happened could possibly change his mind about his feelings for her. It would be a long road to recovery for her, and he would have to do his best to keep her safe from now on or one day her noble intentions would cause him to bury her.

And that was unacceptable to him. He would not bury his heart. Not ever. He dropped down to sit beside her bed and watch her. There was only a little while left until day break, and he wanted her to know that he would be here when she woke up. Because leaving her alone just was'nt an option any more.


	26. bonds

Hiashi stood outside of the massive door to the Hyuga compound with a frown on his face. It was well past three in the morning, with only a short time until sun rise and Uzu had yet to appear for her usual nightly visits.

It had been almost one week and three days since he had last seen Uzu anywhere. And for the past three nights he had been staying up late watching fo rher, wondering if she would be paying him and the rest of the clans a visit. She had'nt shown up yet, and he was starting to get scared.

He was'nt the only one starting to get that way, nor was he the only one looking for her. Inoichi, Choza, Shikaku, Tsume, Hana, and several others in the village had been looking for her. Each of them worried that she had been sent on a mission that she was'nt going to come back from, each of them had been prepairing their clans for the fight that they were sure that they were going to enter into if she didn't come back.

They would spare no one on the civilian and shinobi councils. They would spare none of their flesh or their blood. They would spare none of their women or their children. Uzu was too important to them to even bother with mercy towards her killers.

If she was in fact dead.

But he, like the others didn't think that she was. They would have learned of her death by now if she was dead, the council would be so proud of their achivment, of finally killing the poor girl that they would drag her mangled corpse through the streets of the village and let the villagers desicrate it as they saw fit. But due to the fact that noone had seen or heard anything just yet, they believed that she was still alive and well.

All well and good for the council. It bought them more time to live.

But the moment they found out other wise the great shinobi clans would be going to war.

"Still no sign of her yet?" A familiar voice asked from somewhere to his left. Hiashi turned his head to see Tsume sitting on a crate next to the wall that surrounded his clan home several feet away. Her dark eyes dull, and eerily calm. There was no expression on her face to show her worry or her fear, it was as if she had shut down her mind so that she could function without showing her emotions. In this state she was little more than a machine.

"No. Not yet. But she'll be home soon."

"You seem so sure." Tsume said as she looked up at him. He gave her a sad smile and reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"She's never left us for long before. If she's not back by nine tomorrow morning then we will gather and go see the Hokage. He might be able to tell us something."

"We could go now."

Hiashi sighed. It was true, they could go now; but would it really solve anything?

"We could..." Hiashi was about to say something more when Shikaku appeared, dropping down from the roof of the house across the street from the Hyuga compound.

"She's back!"

Both Hiashi and Tsume perked up instantly. "Your sure about that?" Hiashi asked as Tsume got up off of the crate and was in the Nara's face, growling.

"You know for sure that she's actually back?"

Shikaku nodded his head but looked uncomfortable. "What's wrong Shikaku? Is she wounded? Did she fail her mission or whatever she was sent on?"

Shikaku thinned his lips and started to shake his head but stopped, he honestly could'nt tell them much except that whatever had happened was bad. Real _bad _if the teen had several Anbu hidden around her apartment and Asuma, Ibiki, Gai, Kakashi and the Hokage all gathered at her place.

"I can't say. All I know is there are several Anbu hidden in various places around her apartment, and Gai, Kakashi, Asuma and Ibiki are there with the Hokage."

Hiashi paled a little and Tsume bared her teeth. Someone had a lot of fucking explaining to do if her other pup was hurt and she was'nt above amputating limbs to get some damn answers! "Have you contacted Shiba and the others yet?" Hiashi asked and Shikaku shook his head no and thinned his lips.

He didn't want to tell them about the bits and pieces of conversation that he had over heard about Uzu's present conditon. Even he was having a hard time believing that she was hurt so badly. Especially considering her skill level and the fact that she knew advanced medical jutsu that rivaled even Tsunade's. "Then lets go see her, right now. I want to know she's alive and well." Tsume said as she started to run past Shikaku.

Acting on blind instinct he grasped her upper arm and slung the woman around and let her go as she staggered back and then righted herself next to Hiashi and glared at him. Just what the hell did the Nara think he was doing?

"You can't see her yet." Shikaku said in a rush and paled a bit as the woman growled warningly and started to stalk over to him as Hiashi reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up off fo the ground and slapped a hand over her mouth when she opened it to curse at them.

"Why. Not?" Hiashi bit out the words from between clenched teeth, his temper starting to bubble up to the surface. His fear and worry starting to change to anger. Why could'nt they see their little princess?

"She's hurt." Shikaku said gently and Tsume went perfectly still in Hiashi's grasp as he narrowed his eyes at the Nara.

"How bad?" Hiashi hissed from between clenched teeth.

"Pretty bad. I know that the Hokage went to her place earlier to check the seal and make sure that it still held."

Hiashi's eyes widened a bit in alarm as Tsume started sobbing. Both Hiashi and Shikaku glanced at the woman as tears started slipping down her face. It was never easy to hear about someone that they cared for being wounded.

"Thats...pretty bad." And it was. For the Hokage to worry that the seal was'nt holding right must have ment that Uzu had been all but torn apart.

"Does she have someone with her?" It would be a fatal mistake to leave her alone if she was that wounded. Shikaku nodded.

"Kakashi was told to stay with her and watch her."

Hiashi nodded in understanding and let Tsume go. "It's okay Tsume...we'll go see her tomorrow and see for ourselves if she needs us." Shikaku said gently as he moved closer to the crying woman and gave her a hug.

Hiashi was quiet for a second or so before saying, "I'm going to ask her to come and stay with me for a while. She's always liked it here, and I already have a place for her to stay. I'll even invite Kakashi if she's too uncomfortable to stay on her own." He could pamper her like the little princess she was, and see to it that no one could get close enough to her to hurt her again while she was here. It sounded good in theory, but Uzu was a fairly stubborn girl.

Although, being close to the people that cared about her might help her heal faster. But then again, depending on her wounds it might also do more damage than good...

"Sounds like a plan. Your home is smack dab in the middle of the village, and if the rest of us were needed here for anything we would be able to reach this place much faster."

"You sound as if you think someone will try something, Shikaku."

The man thinned his lips again, it was starting to become a nervous habit with him. "Don't you think the same thing Hiashi?" Shikaku pointed out gently. Hiashi looked pissed for a second and lied.

"No." _Yes._


	27. holding you

Kakashi sat on the floor next to Uzu's bed simply watching the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her temputure had spiked an hour ago and went from one hundred and two degree's to a whopping one hundred and four point six. Draining his lover even more. He didn't know what Kyubbi was doing with her chakra but he was starting to get pissed. Wishing that the demon would finish healing her so that she could rest more comfortably.

He reached out and brushed his finger tips across her sweaty fevish skin and moved to get up when she whimpered and curled up on her side facing away from him. He leaned over her and kissed her temple, and walked into the bathroom and wet a rag with some cold water and grabbed a towel to use to dry her skin and hair and walked back into the bed room and pulled back the covers and stopped when she made a hissing sound and started shaking violently, her small teeth chattering as he sat down on the corner of the bed and lifted her up a bit and worked the buttons on her shirt. Sliding them free of the loops, baring her bruised and battered body to his eyes again.

A majority of the wounds had healed nicely, not even leaving a slight discoloration or any signs of scaring where she had been cut and screathed up. Even the places where her tormentors finger nails had scored her skin were healed. _Leaving only the bleeding wounds on her heart._ Kakashi thought sadly as he wrapped the fluffy towel around her body and gently dried her off. The wounds on her heart would be considerably harder to heal than everything else.

Mainly because he could'nt see them, he didn't know everything that had been done to her. She opened her eyes and gasped, a look of pure terror crossing her face before she started to struggle in his grasp, trying to escape from whatever monsters her feverish mind had conjured. A distressed moan ripping itself from her throat as she pushed at his chest. "No. Please. No more... I can't take it..."

Kakashi gnashed his teeth as his eyes started to burn and some of the tears that he had forced back before spilled forth as he grasped her small wrists and tried to stop her from struggling. The last thing she needed was to injure herself more in her current condition. "Uzu. Uzu stop. Stop thrashing around-" Her struggles were getting stronger, and he was having more and more trouble holding on to her. Finally after several minutes of trying to reason with her he finally screamed.

"I am not one of the ones who hurt you! It's me! Kakashi! Settle down, please..."

Uzu stopped moving her glazed eyes staring at him for a second or so before he saw a spark of recognition in her eyes. "K-kashi? My Kashi?"

He felt his lips curve up in a smile as he pulled her against his chest and buried his face in her hair and started crying in earnest. His tears resoaking her skin and hair as he held her, combed his fingers through her soft hair and placing chaste kisses on her cheeks from time to time. "Yeah...your Kashi." His voice sounded broken, even to his own ears. "I'm right here. I've been here the whole time. Noone is going to touch you-I swear it. _On. My. Life._ Noone is going to ever hurt you like this again."

She was quiet for several seconds her eyes drooping slightly, she had been so sure that she was alone, that the monsters were back for her that she had made her Kashi cry. "I'm s-sorry, Kashi..."

Kakashi lifted his head and looked at her face, his heart aching at the sad look on her precious face. "Don't say that. Never say that. You have done nothing wrong. There is no reason for you to say your sorry. Not to me. Not to anyone, okay?"

She bit her lower lip to stiffle the sob trying to make it's way out of her throat and he hugged her tighter, tangling his fingers in her hair as she whispered. Telling him the reason why she had left him. Her secret fear. "The council said that they would kill the kids." She could'nt remember which ones exactly, but in her mind all children were sacred and innocent and should be protected from everything that could hurt them no matter what it was. Or who it was.

Kakashi stiffened as he heard her softly spoken words, rage seeped into his mind and if not for the fact that she was defensless in her current state he would have left to go pay the fuckers a visit to make them pay for their sin.

He might still do it, but at least now he understood what had been driving her. He glanced at the digital clock beside the bed and noted the time, it was after seven in the morning and Uzu was struggling to stay awake. Her mind going back and forth from knowing who he was to being scared all over again, still he held her. He was too afraid to let go of her, afraid that she would disappear again if he didn't have her in his arms.

Sometime after seven thirty she finally managed to fall into an exhausted sleep. And at nine fourty five...her fever finally broke, signaling that Kyubbi's work on her body was finally done. And not a single minute too soon, Kakashi passed out on the bed next to her, his arms wrapped around her slender body as they both slept.


	28. taking care of her heart

_"I love you." He said as he pressed his lips against the slender wrist he held in his hand, his eyes never leaving Uzu's face as he laced the fingers of his other hand with her own, leveling himself up on his elbow so that he wasn't pressing down on her too much. Uzu smiled and squeezed his hand and he licked along the pale blue veins under her skin, gently nipping at the spot before sucking the skin into his mouth, the desire to leave marks on her skin was so over powering that he didn't really care where he left them as long as he was the only one other than her that knew that they were there._

_"Kashi..." He released her wrist and dropped his head to her neck, inhaling her lovely scent of honey suckles, wild roses, and lavender as he rubbed his face against her throat and rocked his hips. She gasped and let her head fall back onto the pillow with a moan. He was being so gentle with her, treating her as if she were glass, slowly driving away her ability to think and reason._

_"I love you." He repeated the words as he gripped her hand tighter, his breath coming out in short bursts against her skin. He had longed to be with her like this. Calm, slow, not the least bit concerned with the world outside. The was one of the most perfect moments he had ever known. In this place, there was only the two of them. The village didn't exist. Uzu was healthy, and whole, and-wait._

_He lifted his head as a sudden feeling of dread settled in his chest. Whole? Healthy? What was..._

_He looked down at her and quickly jumped back away from her as blood started leaking out of the corners of her eyes, a thin trail of blood slipped out of the corner of her mouth as she lay on the bed sobbing. A look of horror crossed Kakashi's face as several men appeared out of nowhere and started raping her._

_He lunged at the closest one, aiming to grab him and rip him apart but he passed right through him, stumbled and slammed into the wall as he heard Uzu's sobbing getting louder. His heart pounded against his ribs as he tried time and time again to reach her, to cut down the men hurting her before he collapsed to the floor clutching his head and screaming._

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There was a loud bang as Kakashi bolted upright in the bed with a hoarse yell of alarm and immediately noticed that he wasn't in his home and looked around to get his bearings. Yellow wall paper, a dirty shirt lay on the floor next to the bed and he was laying on a bed with a pale blue, turquoise, and topaz blue blanket on it. Uzu... His mate. This was her home, he was sitting up on her bed in her room.

He took a shuttering breath as everything from the past few days came back to him. Uzu's mission. The rape. The destruction of the enemy base. Everything came back to him in startlingly vivid detail. He looked down and felt the familiar pull of panic when he realised that she wasn't in bed and quickly surged to his feet and bellowed so loudly that the walls shook. **_"UZU!" _**

There was another bang from somewhere outside of the room and Kakashi's head snapped to his left and he crossed the room and threw open the door and all but ran down the short hall way looking for his female.

He stopped in the living room and noted that the front door was still closed, the window was still shut and locked so that meant that no one but himself and his mate should be in the small apartment. There was a clanging sound coming from the kitchen followed by a softly muttered swear and Kakashi felt some of his panic and tension ease up and sighed before heading into her kitchen and finding her sitting on her knees on the floor surrounded by some broken eggs, a packet of bacon and a large frying pan.

"What are you doing?" He asked curiously as he stood, leaning against the door frame staring at her pale face, his arms crossed over his chest as she looked up at him with a suprised look on her pretty face.

"K-Kakashi! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, I just wanted to get up and move around and fix something for breakfast-" She was babbling, her face turned a peculiar shade of pink as she averted her eyes and continued babbling.

"I didn't mean to drop the stuff and break the eggs and-" Kakashi sighed and moved to kneel down in front of her.

"Uzu, honey look at me-" Kakashi said gently and waited for her to look at him. When after three minutes or so she didn't look at him he reached out and lifted her face with his finger tips so that they were eye to eye.

She looked like she was going to cry. Was she really that upset about a few stupid eggs? Or was she thinking about something else that was upsetting her? "You should have stayed in bed baby. You had a really high fever up until a few hours ago and need the rest."

"But breakfast-"

"_I'll_ fix breakfast for us both." It would give him a chance to provide for her, something that he felt she really needed right now.

"But you-"

"Stop worrying about me Uzu. I'm fine." That was a bald faced lie. He wasn't okay, not after what he had seen her suffer through. His nightmares were a testament to his state of mind, but he was doing considerably better than her.

She was trying to keep herself busy so that she wouldn't have to deal with what had happened. She was grieving, and in pain and she didn't want anyone to know or see. He understood that, he had had a few break downs himself. Stress related, job related, and grief related. Which was part of the reason that he truly believed that he could help her through this as long as she didn't try to hide from it, he could help her face her fears and move on.

It would take time.

Months.

Years.

But he could be a very patient man when he needed to be, and he would wait as long as it took for her to get better.

He smiled at her and scooped her up off of the cold floor, she made a squeaking sound as he cradled her in his arms bridal style and carried her out of the kitchen and over to her couch and set her down on it and grabbed several pillows from the corner and propped her up and left the room for a second after giving an order for her to stay put and came back several seconds later with the blanket from her bed and wrapped her in it before touching his hand to her forehead to make sure that she hadn't irritated her condition in a way that would cause her to run another high fever.

Once he was satisfied that she was'nt running a temp he leaned down and brushed his lips across her temple and straitened up and walked back into the kitchen to clean up the mess and fix something for his mate to eat.

Some scrambled eggs, toast, some bacon and orange juice sounded really good right about now.


	29. attack! the copy nins nightmare

Breakfast was quiet and uneventful. Uzu ate all of the bacon, some of the eggs, and her toast before pushing her plate away and settling back in her seat. Kakashi looked up and took note of the things that she had eaten as well as the quantity of what she had eaten. It was'nt very much, but at least she had eaten something. He had known women who had been abused like her-refused to eat the first few weeks, while others had simply given up on life and slit their wrists. Feeling that they simply could'nt live with the shame of what had happened to them.

He had watched several of them. And had even attended their funerals when they killed themselves.

Such behavior was one of his main concerns, but Uzu obviously had ideas of her own since she was eating. And the fact that she had'nt tried to cut her wrists meant something too, but right now when she was hurting he could'nt block out the possibility that she may lose herself enough to do something like that. But he could hope that she would'nt. And right now hope was something that she needed desperatly.

"Are you done?"

"Yes, thank you." She said almost absent mindedly as she looked around her apartment as if she were trying to find something. He frowned and looked around for a second before asking her what she was looking for.

"My cats. I didn't see them last night before I got sick and I have'nt seen them this morning." Kakashi blinked and pushed back from the table and stood.

"I'll go look for them." Kakashi said gently as he gave her a slwo smile.

"Check the side room..."

"The one just down the hall from your room?" He asked curiously as he peeked down the hallway. The door to the room she had said to check was closed, and there were'nt any sounds coming from there, but that didn't really mean anything. For all he knew the kittens were curled up somewhere asleep, or sunning theirselves in one of the windows.

Well there was only one way to see and maybe if he could find the little fur balls Uzu might settle down and take a nap.

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Mica and Alice rallied around Baby as the little black and white tabby paced. Such humiliation was not to be born. Their _pet_ had had the audacity to leave them to their own vices. She had'nt fed them or loved on them even once since they had gotten home last night.

Such behavior was absolutly inexcusable.

Mica looked at her little sister and Alice licked at her left front paw nervously, her pale blue eyes never leaving Baby's black and white face. Baby was in one of her snits, mainly because they had'nt eaten anything but part of the reason for her snit was the fact that their mother had'nt taken care of them like she usually did.

All of them were worried that their mother didn't care for them anymore. Alice didn't think that this was the case but everytime she tried to tell Baby that, the tabby bit her little ears. Hard.

'Mommy would'nt abandon us.'

Baby turned her little head to look at the one who had just meowed those words. Her short fur bristling until it stood up making her look more fluffy than she really was as she bared her teeth at the two younger kittens.

'How do you know that for sure?'

'Cause we're nice.' Mica said as she turned her back to the tabby and licked her chest to get her fur to lay down. It was wierd, she always seemed to have a cow lick on her chest. She could never get her fur to stay down just right, and despite that their mother still loved her. Truly mind boggling.

'And we're cute.' Alice said weakly. Baby looked positivly murderous. Was that supposed to mean that she was'nt cute or nice? She was about to scratch and bit the two in retaliation when the door to the bed room opened a crack and one of the creatures from the night before peeked in at them.

"There you are. Your mom has been looking for you." Kakashi said as he walked across the room and leaned down and picked up Mica and Alice then reached for Baby. The kitten flattened her ears back against her little head and growled warningly. Kakashi gave her an amused look. If the little fur ball thought he would back down when his female was waiting for her babys in the living room, then the kitten had another thing comming.

He feigned his hand to the left and when she turned her head he snatched her up be the scruff of the neck and held her up in front of his face so that they were eye to eye and chuckled. The little tabby had the most vengeful look on her face that he just knew that she would be bloodying his ankles for the next few days if not longer. Cats were very vindictive by nature after all. Which was one of the reasons that he tried to avoid them, but the mere fact that his female liked them made all the difference to him.

He carried the three down the hall to the living room and handed them off to Uzu who hugged all three of them and he grinned when the little tabby started meowing and chirping at Uzu. Telling her all the terrible things that she was going to do to the silver haired stranger that had held her by the neck and much more.

"Their a lively bunch." Kakashi commented in amusment as the three started pushing and shoving at each other to get Uzu's attention. Meowing and growling and hissing as they did. Uzu giggled and made a place for them in her lap and scratched them all under the chin and behind the ears, making them all purr.

"Yup. They were probably sitting in there waiting for me to come in and feed them and stuff." Since she had'nt done it last night the three must be upset with her.

Kakashi smiled a bit and went into the kitchen and found some left over bacon and tore the pieces into halves and walked back out to the living room holding a paper plate with the bacon on it and handed it to Uzu.

"Here, they can eat this until lunch time." He said as he stupidly leaned down to steal a kiss and froze when he felt tiny sharp claws latch on to his crotch and looked down in both wary amusment and horror as the tabby struck in an effort tyo reach the bacon. Digging her little claws into his crotch until he started doing this weird little dance around the room yelling and cursing while Baby held on for dear life.

Uzu screamed something as Alice jumped down from her place on her mothers lap and ran over to Kakashi and shimmied up his pants leg, causing him to yelp and try to dislodge the kittens 'manhood' killing claws as there was a knock at the door.

Uzu felt torn between laughing and crying as the lock on her door was picked and the door opened. There in the door way was Hiashi, Tsume, Inoichi, Ibiki, Shikaku, Shiba and Anko. Just in time for Kakashi to yelp "Their going south! I'm ditching my pants!" As he pulled his pants down and sighed in relief when he could'nt feel any claws in his skin any more and turned to look at the group standing in the door way trying not to laugh at him.

Hiashi's face was red as he cleared his throat and looked away from Kakashi as two little kittens went scampering across the room from under the copy nins pants. "Did we come at a bad time?" The Hyuga asked curiously as Kakashi glared at the little fur balls he made a mental note to skin alive later and looked at Uzu.

"No." Hell yes they had come at a bad time, but he didn't have the authority to make them leave. Only Uzu could do that.


	30. a visit from friends

Uzu sat on the couch looking calm and composed when she was freaking out inside._ Okay, you can do this. It's just a visit. They don't know about the mission or what happened, so all you _have _to do is smile and be your happy, cheerful self and maybe they'll go away. _She thought as she petted Mica as Anko cornered Kakashi as he picked up his pants.

"Well, Kashi if I had known you would be stripping; I would have brought my video camera."

Kakashi looked at Uzu, worried that this visit might upset her as Hiashi, Tsume, and the others walked into the apartment and sat down where ever they felt like it. Ibiki walked over to Uzu and dropped to one knee in front of her and handed her the flowers that he had gotten for her. "How are you feeling?" He asked softly, he knew that the others were worried about her, and once it had occurred to him that they would be stopping by her place he had decided to tag along and make sure that they didn't ask too many questions about what had happened to her on her mission.

It would simply be too painful for her to answer them.

"My fever broke a little while ago...I still have a head ache and I'm kind of sleepy." Uzu said, sounding like she was pouting. Kakashi slipped his pants back on and looked around for the kittens, and after locating all three of them went over to the couch and stood behind Uzu and crossed his arms over his chest and looked threatening.

"Did your mission go well?" Tsume asked curiously as she sat down next to Hiashi and looked the girl over and frowned. Her pup's hair was shorter. The tips of the silken strands just barely touching her shoulders. Her face was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. She didn't look very well at all.

Uzu stiffened in her seat, her hand pausing in mid motion just above Mica's back and she looked at the woman as if she were seeing a ghost or something before she shook her head and looked back down and resumed petting the kitten curled up and purring in her lap. "Everything went fine." She lied with a smile, making sure not to make eye contact again because Tsume might pick up on her lie.

"So what kind of mission were you sent on this time? You know we were worried about you when you came back and didn't bother to visit us like you usually do." Shiba said smoothly, but Kakashi could tell that the man was fishing for something.

"I had to assassinate someone. I can't tell you any more than that." Uzu said softly as she petted Mica. The kitten stirred a bit in her lap and dug her sharp little claws into her leg and yawned and meowed at her before she got up and jumped down to go find her sisters.

Siba nodded his head in understanding.

"How badly were you hurt?" Hiashi asked curiously, knowing that Uzu was hiding something from them. He could tell by the stiffness in her posture, the way she had paused when petting her kitten, and the way she was refusing to meet their eyes like she usually did when she spoke to them.

"Not very badly. A couple of cracked and broken bones, some poison in the blood, nothing more than the usual." Uzu lied again and waited to see if Hiashi called her on her lie. He didn't much to her relief. Instead he smiled at her.

"That's good to know. Say, I was wondering if you were feeling up to spending the next week or so at the compound with me and my family. Kakashi could come with you and stay as my guest as well. How about it?"

Uzu glanced at the Hyuga, her eyes narrowed a bit. "You want to watch me."

"I do."

"Then your expecting trouble from the council?"

"Anyone with half a brain would expect them to try something." Shikakau said gently.

Uzu gritted her teeth and jumped to her feet. Dammit! Shikaku was right. She had been feeling so down and hurt after what had happened that she had totally forgotten that the council was out for her blood. "Uzu?" Kakashi said her name and made a grab for her, and missed when she took a step and staggered. He jumped over the couch and grasped her upper arm and pulled her back against him.

Shit. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was everything spinning?

**_Sorry, kit. I think that's my doing. _**

_What do you mean? _

**_I think I took too much of your chakra. Your going to be feeling weak, shaky and ill for the next week or so. _**Kyubbi said gently as Kakashi scooped her up in his arms and looked at the others.

"I'm sorry to do this everyone, but I think it's time for you to leave." Kakashi said in a firm voice that brooked no argument. Tsume jumped to her feet and reached for Uzu, wanting to check on her. She was starting to look a little green.

"Uzu! Uzu baby what's wrong?" Tsume snapped worriedly as Ibiki stepped between her and Kakashi.

"That's enough. Lets go and let her rest." Ibiki said as he grasped the woman's shoulders and spun her around and with Shikaku's help herded everyone out of the apartment and closed the door, leaving Kakashi alone with three hostile kittens and his sick mate.

Uzu lay in his arms quietly, the room was still spinning, her stomach lurched dangerously and her head fell back on her neck, her eyes closed as she tried to block out the sickening sensations while Kakashi carried her back to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed.

His fingers felt cool against her over heated skin as he frowned. It felt like she was running a fever again. "What the hell?"

"D-Damn demon...fur ball..." Uzu muttered weakly as she tried to breath normally, but for some reason couldn't seem to catch her breath.

"Is this because the demon took some of your chakra?" Kakashi asked as he brushed her soft hair back from her face and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders as she shivered.

She nodded weakly and blinked back tears. God this hurt. Why did it hurt so much?

"I see. Are you going to be sick?"

"I don't think so..."

"I'll go get the waste basket just in case. I want you to try and sleep."


	31. deeper meanings

"I think Uzu was hurt more than she admitted." Tsume said as she walked beside Hiashi and Shikaku. Both men were quiet for a second before Shikaku said.

"I think you're right. But she's never lied to us before...so if she was hurt worse than she said-"

"Why hide it? Come on Shikaku, you know as well as I do what happens to someone alone on a mission-" Hiashi pointed out.

"Right. Right. All that top secret hush, hush bullshit that forces shinobi to remain quite as they _try _and force themselves to go on living." Shikaku said as he nodded his head a little bit, knowing very well what Hiashi was thinking.

Tsume stopped walking and looked at them, her face draining of all color. "Y-You don't mean that-"

"It is a distinct possibility Tsume. After all, Uzu get _some_ of her orders from the council, and they are out for her blood. If they had the right kind of leverage to use against her, they could pretty much do whatever they wanted to her and the damn girl would just stand there and _let _them out of some warped sense of duty or something." Hiashi pointed out gently, though his frustration was more than evident.

"I'm going back-" Tsume said as she turned on her heel and started to take a step when Shikaku suddenly appeared in front of her and wrapped an arm around her middle and picked her up. She let out a strangled shriek before she recovered enough to open her mouth to tear into him for stopping her from going back to her Uzu-baby and making sure that she was really as okay as she said she was with her own two eyes, but Shikaku's words stopped her cold.

"Do you want to kill her Tsume? Because thats exactly what going back and confronting her would do. It would kill her. She told us the lie for a reason, and for now; as much as we may hate it, we have to let it slide and pretend that we don't _know_ anything. Because if we let on that we know, if we confront her and reopen the wounds that she's trying so hard to seal closed, it will cause her to self destruct. And I for one don't _want_ to _deal_ with that."

"B-But-"

"Shikaku is right Tsume. Just go about things as if nothing is wrong. Let the wounds on Uzu's heart heal a little more before asking anything. For now Kakashi has assumed the role of responsibility for her. And we'll just have to trust him to know what he's doing since he probably knows everything anyways." Hiashi said before he sighed a little bit and lifted his hand to massage his left temple, this discussion was starting to make his head hurt.

Shikaku put Tsume down and gave her a hug, trying to calm her worried mind a little bit before looking at Hiashi and asking. "Are you going to go back to her apartment tomorrow and try to convince her to stay with you again?"

Hiashi nodded his head and Shikaku smiled a little. "Good. Because if you can't convince her to stay with you then I'll have to take matters into my own hands."

"What will you do if that happens?"

"Drag her out of that hovel kicking and screaming if I have too. Either way you look at it, the council won't be able to touch her without sparking a full blown rebellion with our clans."

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Kakashi stood in the door way watching her sleep. Just like he had for the past few nights since rescuing her.

He stood several feet away, studying her features, absent mindedly monitoring her breathing patterns for any sign of distress or pain and jumped a little when something small and furry brushed past his leg. He glanced down at the small black and white tabby and was tempted to snatch it up and toss it out of the room but stopped himself when the kitten looked up at him, it's little yellow green eyes flashing scarlet for a second.

A chill shot down his spine for a second as he stared at those malevolent scarlet eyes before they changed back to yellow green and the kitten made a soft mewing sound before running over to the bed and scaling it and slowly making it's way up to Uzu's shoulder where it flopped down next to her and just sat there watching her.

Kakashi blinked and shook his head and silently left the room. Unsure of what to make of the kitten or the malevolent stare that it had given him.

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Baby lay on the bed next to her mother silently purring to herself.

The human didn't know what to make of her.

But then most humans weren't able to see or sense just how _different_ she was from normal kittens. They had a bad, _bad_ tendency to see only what they wanted to see. And nothing else.

She inched closer to her mother and rubbed her little head against her mother's cheek and purred. Humans were fools who understood nothing. So unlike her mother who _saw_, and _knew_ everything.

Everything that ever had been, and everything that ever would be.

Mother was all knowing and was well prepared for what would come next.

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Well, here is the next chapter of Accidental Companions.

It was a long time coming and sort of disappointing how short this chapter was, but I've left iyt open for all new ideas to work into the story and have even hinted at a deeper reason behind why Uzu keeps her kittens.

Keep reading and you'll find out why.


	32. unwanted guests

Uzu was up and around the next morning before Kakashi asked if he could use her shower.

He had found her standing in the kitchen, at the stove. Fixing something for them to eat and though he had been a little concerned that today would be just like yesterday, he had made his way into the kitchen to take things over so that she could rest when he realised that she wasn't jumpy like she had been the day before. She wasn't startled by his sudden presence behind her.

She didn't drop any of the pans or the food.

He studied her for a second, wondering what was different when he suddenly realised that she was trying to force herself to remain calm and collected. She was trying to put herself back together again, right in front of his eyes, and he was just astonished by her.

She was retraining her body to react naturally around others so that she wouldn't suffer untold embarrassment or shame for looking weaker than she was. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, though it was another conditioned response for her.

"Did I wake you?" She asked as she flitted the eggs in the big pan, sizzling and popping in front of her. He was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to react to the sudden drastic change in her behavior pattern and decided to just go with it since this was her way of dealing with what had happened to her.

"No. You didn't wake me." And it was true. She hadn't.

But a well placed little clawed foot on the inside of his thigh had. The smallest kitten out of the three she kept had apparently taken a little bit of a liking to him, though god only knew why. And had taken it upon her furry little self to make sure that he wasn't lonely while Uzu was laid low.

She had woken him up a little while ago, trying to make him more comfortable for her to lay on, and that was when he had smelled the cooking food and gotten up to investigate. "Are you feeling any better?" He asked quietly as he leaned his shoulder against the fridge next to her. Uzu's eyes flickered from the food to him and she gave him a small almost amused smile.

"I feel much better now Kashi." It wasn't exactly a lie. But it wasn't exactly the truth either since she still felt a little weak. Her chakra was still unstable and couldn't be used for the moment, but that didn't matter. She had been in weakened conditions similar to this one before and wasn't worried about being attacked or anything.

After all, she wasn't as totally _defenseless_ in her current condition as she might appear.

She had her traps. Then there was Kakashi.

And should he get taken down or knocked out, then she had her little back up system. It wouldn't be pleasant for whoever ended up on the receiving end, but hey; you couldn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs right? Kakashi stared at her for a moment then decided to try a little experiment and reached out and brushed his knuckles along her cheek.

She sucked in a breath and held it and herself perfectly still and he shook his head. "You shouldn't force yourself to endure this if you don't want too."

"It's not that I'm forcing myself exactly, Kashi. I'm not enduring anything. I'm standing still because I want you to touch me. It just feels a little-"

"Disgusting?"

"Yes and no. You aren't those men. I know this. I also know that your trying to help. But Kakashi, I can handle this part of what happened on my own. There is no need for _you_ to force yourself either. I know how difficult this situation is for you."

Kakashi's lips curved up in a small smile. "I know you do. That's just one of the things that I love about you-" Kakashi said with a grin as she blushed a pretty shade of pink and looked away for a second. "But at the same time Uzu, I need you to understand that as difficult as this situation is for the both of us. It's harder on you. And for that reason..." Among many others. "I'm not going to leave you alone. I plan to drive you crazy until your back to your old self."

Uzu was quiet for a second as she nodded her head. And he gave her a dazzling grin. "Alright then, now that that is understood. Do you mind if I take a shower before breakfast?"

"No. Help yourself." Uzu said as there was a knock on the door. Both she and Kakashi looked across the room and tensed. Kakashi pushed away from the fridge and straitened his spine and said in a very low, and dangerous tone of voice.

"I'll see who it is-" Before he went to take a shower, just to be on the safe side. Uzu put her arm out across his chest, stopping him before he could so much as take a step and called out.

"Baby. Open the door for mommy."

Kakashi blinked for a second then looked at her like she was crazy an instant before a little black and white blur came galloping into the room and ran over tot eh door and shimmied up to the knob and used one clawed little paw to turn the knob so that the door swung open as Mica and Alice appeared out of what seemed like thin air and hid themselves. One quickly hiding herself behind one of the potted plants and the other hiding behind the door as the tabby dropped down to the floor and raced across the room to the kitchen and jumped up on the counter and sat down and looked at Uzu and Kakashi.

The tabby's eyes flashed scarlet again and Kakashi frowned and tried to think of why the kitten's eyes seemed to change color like that as Hiashi Hyuga and the third Hokage appeared in the door way.

"Forgive us for dropping in like this Uzumaki-" The third hokage said as he poked his head into the apartment and looked around it with narrowed eyes and Kakashi was tempted to ask him if he had suffered a kitten induced horror too, but figured it was best not to say anything since the man would probably geld him or something. Kakashi relaxed and was about to take a step forward when he realised that Uzu had a dark look on her face and her arm was still up across his chest. Holding him back in place.

_This was an interesting approach for an assassin to pull._ Uzu thought almost cheerfully. The two men standing in her door way appeared to be Hiashi and third Hokage, but she could tell that they weren't for several reasons. For one thing the Hokage never called her Uzumaki. He called her Uzu-chan. Or just Uzu.

And two, the real Hokage and Hiashi both smelled like turkish tobacoo and other things. These men smelled like blood and decaying flesh.

"Kakashi. Go ahead and take your shower. I need...to take care of some things with lord Hokage and Hiashi-sama."

Kakashi looked at her strangely before it dawned on him what she was trying to tell him without saying. The two men before them were imposter's out for her blood, and she knew it.


	33. feline

"Hokage-sama. Hiashi-sama. Come in." Uzu said in an almost mocking tone as Kakashi's hand subtly moved back behind her, reaching for one of the deadly sharp kitchen knives that she kept when he felt her fingers wrap around his wrist, stopping him cold. He looked at her, his expression grim and questioning. His tightly leashed temper straining like a wild animal put in chains, in his mind. What was she doing? Why was she stopping him?

Did she think that she could take them? Because she was good, but she wasn't that good. Not in her current condition anyways. "Kakashi...go take your shower. I have something that I need to take care of-"

"Uzu-" He said her name warningly as he looked at her. She glanced at him, just for a second. The slightest flicker of violet shifting in his direction. She squeezed his wrist so tightly that it felt like she was trying to crush his bones. He made a funny little grunting sound, but said nothing as he studied her.

She smiled at him and he blinked, just a little surprised by how creepy that smile on her face was. Ah. So that was why she didn't want him in the room. She was planning to invite her would be killers in and tear them apart.

A bold plan of action, but foolish. Really, _really_ foolish. Especially since she was still weak and her chakra was still unstable. Still, she must have a plan or she wouldn't need him out of the room where he couldn't get hurt.

"Tell me that you have a plan." Because if she did, then he would listen to her request. If only to show that he trusted her ability to fight and defend herself, even now while in such a fragile state. She looked at Baby, the kitten's tail was twitching back and forth very slowly, her little body was tense and ready to spring.

"I have a plan Kashi. But I need you out of the room." She needed him out of the room and safely tucked away in another. Because she wouldn't want to have to _kill_ him for finding out why she kept her babies so close to her. It was after all a _Hokage_ rank secret, that many people had already been killed for.

The Uchiha clan for instance; had seen something that they shouldn't have and for that reason they had been killed before they could put the knowledge to use and destroy the village.

Kakashi nodded his head and leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek and growled softly in her ear. "_Don't._ Let them lay a hand on you." Then stood back to his full height and walked away from her, nodding to the men politely, almost respectfully. Damn but that man was one hell of an actor. Uzu mused as her would be killers entered the apartment and closed the door, both smiling, both trying to maintain the illusion that they were exactly who they looked like.

_Alice. Go keep Kakashi in the other room. Sit on him if you have too._ Uzu thought as she opened the line of communication that she had formed when she had used some of her chakra to help keep the kittens alive and healthy.

Alice came out of her hiding place and narrowed her eyes at the two men for a second as her blue eyes flashed a deep, molten amber orange color and took off running past the two men and ran down the hall, waiting until the last moment before morphing herself into a tiger sized feline with white/blue and green flames licking along her paws. Kakashi turned his head to look over his shoulder, a small frown on his face, the sounds of heavy foot falls alarming him to trouble before he even saw the large tiger sized gray furred feline right behind him.

His eye widened in alarm and he just barely had time to swear before he was tackled to the floor, just inside the bedroom door and the large unnatural looking tiger sized feline flopped down on this back and pinning him in place, before it started purring like an over grown house cat.

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_Gods what a mess._

Sarutobi thought as he walked down the street. The words from Ibiki, Asuma, and Gai's reports haunting him. _We saw Uzumaki-sama bound in chakra restraints and forced to- _He closed his eyes and tried to block out the rest. But it was hard. He just couldn't get past what he had been told. Or what he had read in the report.

Gods, poor Uzu. She had spent and entire week in that hell hole that the council had sent her too, expecting her to die, and had instead suffered a fate that was in many ways worse than death. "They'll pay." He said to himself, his tone dark and angry.

Oh gods, they _would_ fucking pay. They would pay for going behind his back. And they _would_ pay for trying to _kill_ his granddaughter. But first he needed to let Uzu heal. Having her stand with him and confront the council now could prove to be too much for her damaged heart to handle and he didn't want to hurt her any more than she had already been hurt.

He had however foresaw trouble and assigned several of the Nara, and Inuzuka clan to watch her apartment for a little while.

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okay, here is this chapter.

I can't really think of anything to add to it since it seems just fine as it is.


	34. Authors notes

Hello kittens-

Sorry that I haven't updated my Naruto stories like I usually would. I've had to start taking antidepressants again and it's hard to focus my mind. But that doesn't mean that I've forgotten anything. I'm just going slower.

I'm working on several things at once and I keep getting stuck. But at least I have something for you.

Some exciting news.

Tomorrow night I have to stay up all night for an EEG which means that I will need things to keep me busy and awake. So anyone with a story request update should pm me.

And I will do my damndest running myself into the ground to make sure that I update as _many_ stories as I can for all of you.

Thank you.


	35. Chapter 35- Sopa Warning!

**_Hey kittens, bad news._**

**_Sopa is back! _**

**_The bill threatening us and our beloved site is currently trying to be passed quietly. _**

**_Don't let the __domestic terrorists__ take away our rights to excersise our freedom of speech or creativity. Writing fanfic isn't hurting anyone as long as we don't make money from it or attempt to steal characters. _**

**_But we should rally to prevent the law regardless._**


End file.
