It was a fairly quiet night in a village located in the cradle of the country of fire. A village know as Konohagakure no Sato whose land was allocated by the Fire Daimyo in time's past to their most powerful and respected of shinobi clans, the Senju and the Uchiha. They'd brought forth many of local clans in the territory of the Fire Daimyo and in doing so created the greatest of the Hidden Villages. A village that would go forth and remain undefeated through three great shinobi wars. Two of which would be carried on the back of the current Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi who was currently watching a young girl he considered his granddaughter through a glass orb struggle to practice a technique from a fake version of the secret scroll of forbidden ninjutsu known as the scroll of seals.

He'd known something was wrong when he'd seen one of the young sensei of the shinobi academy approach the young girl through the orb he'd been observing her through earlier that day after she'd failed to produce a simple bunshin no jutsu and had subsequently failed the exam to become a genin. Especially when the girl went form morose to extremely excited once the young chunin had said his piece to her. The girl, Uzumaki Narumi, was a blond child of twelve with long hair held up in twin tails with the brightest of sky blue eyes. She reminded the Sandaime greatly of her father Namikaze Minato who was his original successor to the will of fire. But for now he settled in to watch what would happen with his young charge.

In one timeline the young girl known as Uzumaki Narumi would have had plenty of time to have learned the jutsu she was currently working on, but in that timeline she was a boy known as Naruto and his method of getting past the Hokage when caught would cause a delay in the Hokage alerting his ninja of what had transpired. In this one the man known as the Sandaime Hokage would be indisposed for far less time and would sent out the alert far quicker in worry for the young girl he saw as his own granddaughter.

"Narumu!" Called out a familiar voice as it broke through the silence of the night. "What were you thinking?"

"Iruka-sensei!" The young girl said in panic. "No, why?! You found me to quick I didn't finish learning the jutsu."

"What?" The young chunin known as Iruka said confused.

"I failed," the young girl sniffled. "I was told I needed to steal the scroll and learn a jutsu from it in order to pass the make up exam to become a genin."

Iruka was confused as there was no such make up exam available for anyone. So instead he asked worriedly, "Who told you that Narumi?"

Though before the young girl could answer he sensei a new person had joined them in the clearing of the forest.

"I see you've succeeded in getting the scroll brat. Though I wasn't Iruka to reach you first, but that's okay once you turn over the scroll to me I promise you'll be promoted to genin." The new arrival, a young white haired man, by the name of Mizuki announced.

Iruka realizing what had happened immediately called out, "Don't Narumi! He lied to you there's no such exam!"

"But, what?" The young girl said confused.

"Shut up Iruka!" Mizuki yelled in frustration. "Tch, whatever. It doesn't matter I'll just killed you both and take the scroll myself."

"Like I'd let you get away with that," Iruka responded as he got into a ready position in order fight his fellow teacher that he'd long since regarded as his brother in arms. Though he was caught off guard when Mizuki let loose a barrage of shuriken at Narumi instead and without thinking jumped in front of the girl knocking her over as he blocked the hail of shuriken with his own body.

"Iruka-sensei?" The girl questioned, scared.

"Run Narumi," the chunin coughed as blood leaked from his lips. "Run and try to make it back to the village," he reiterated to the girl.

Before she could move though the traitor called out to her. "Hey Narumi! You want to know why you're hated by everyone in the village?"

"No Mizuki! Don't!" cried Iruka wide eyed.

Ignoring the wounded chunin Mizuki continued on anyways. "The reason you're hated is because the fourth never killed the beast! Instead he sealed it away as you! You are the Kyuubi no Yoko Narumi!"

Overwhelmed by both the current events that were going on and the new information the young girl bolted off into the woods carrying the scroll that was Mizuki's prize with her causing the chunin to grunt with frustration before moving to follow her. It took several minutes but he finally caught up with the young girl in another clearing devoid of the dense tree Konoha was known for. Though this time he did so in the form of Iruka.

"It's okay Narumi you can trust me. Give me the scroll and I'll get it back to the Hokage," he told the young girl gently in an attempt to trick.

"No way in hell Mizuki," the girl spat viciously at him.

Releasing the transformation he turned back into himself and asked, "How did you know it wasn't Iruka?"

This caused the girl to grin at him viciously as she also release her own jutsu turning back into Iruka. "Because I'm Iruka," the injured chunin bit out.

This caused Mizuki to break out into laughter over the situation. "You would defend that demon even after all the pain she's caused you by killing you family?!" He asked incredulously.

"You're right," Iruka admitted forlornly. "The fox did kill my parents, but you're also wrong! Narumi isn't the fox! She's just a clumsy girl who tries her best anyways and she's my favorite student!" Iruka bit out in defiance.

"So be it," Mizuki stated as he pulled the Fuma Shuriken from his back. "Then you'll die along with the Demon!" He shouted as he wound up to throw the shuriken as his once long time friend.

"Shinra Tensei!"

Narumi was still panicking at the new information she'd been told as she hid in the root of a nearby tree not far from where Mizuki had run into Iruka. There was no way she was the demon who'd attacked Konoha all those years ago right? She was fairly close to spiraling down into a panic attack when the two started talking again. It hurt to be called a demon by Mizuki and even more so to here Iruka tell him he was right. However Iruka's follow up words caused a warmth to bloom in her chest. As she shifted to get up and was about to act to help her precious sensei who cared for her when she saw Mizuki pulled off the over large shuriken from his back and realized she wasn't going to be able to reach them in time to prevent him from harming Iruka. In her desperation she tried anyways but knew she wouldn't make it and was absolutely desperate as she reached out tears in her eyes when she felt herself black out as something else snapped inside her.

"Shinra Tensei!" She called out without truly knowing what she was doing.

Iruka watched as her former friend raised the Fuma Shuriken and was about to cut him down with it. When the voiced had cried out and he watched in disbelief as as Mizuki seemed to hit a solid wall before flying backwards into a tree and slamming into with a sickening crack. At this point he was thoroughly confused as to what happened as he stared at the now motionless form of his old friend.

It was a rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs that caught his attention as he turned his head to see the young girl he'd tried to save step into the clearing. He watched as she casually approached the now prone form of Mizuki. "King of Hell," the young girl intoned and though he couldn't see anything he watched as Mizuki body disappeared for several seconds before reappearing again. He continued to watch on the the girl seemingly created several black rods from nothing and begin sticking them in multiple spot in the corpse of Mizuki.

"Narumi?" He called out in confusion to the girl as both she and the corpse now stood together.

"Eh?" the girl said in confusion as she turned to Iruka and blinked her eyes. "What? What happened?" She asked in confusion.

"I don't know," the chunin admitted. "You did something? With Mizuki," he guessed.

"Ah," she replied numbly. "I don't know, but I can control his body now?" She said more as a question than a statement. She then blinked as she noticed the state of her sensei. "Sensei you're hurt!" She cried as she moved forward and reached out without thinking intoned, "King of Hell." Again, which summoned forth a head that looked like a Daimyo would except slightly more evil looking.

As the King of hell fully materialized it opened its mouth which has ethereal hands reach out and gathered up her sensei before pulling him inside its now gaping maw despite his panic and struggle. With a few chewing motions it then spit him back out.

"What, what was that?" Iruka asked before noticing with aww that he was now fully healed. As though he'd never taken the barrage of shuriken for his student.

"I don't know," the girl said cluelessly with a shrug.

It was only now that Iruka upon turning his attention to the girl did he notice something different. "You're eyes," he said simply.

"Huh? What about them?" she asked.

"They're purple. With several rings around the pupil..." Iruka informed her.

"Ah," was the intelligent response he'd gotten from her.

It was several awkward moments between the two before a masked Kunoichi appeared informing them of the Hokage's desire to speak with them both.

Narumi nervous about what was going to happen next asked her sensei, "Can you carry Mizuki? I can't control him very well at the moment."

Before Iruka could reply the Anbu hefted Mizuki into a fireman carry before disappearing. Iruka realizing the severity of the situation reached out to Narumi before they too disappeared in a Shunshin one he put his hand on her shoulder.

Upon arriving in the Hokage office they heard the old man speak, "What happened." He demanded more than asked.

It took half an hour to fully go everything that both knew before Iruka was summarily dismissed. The Hokage then turned his fully attention to the young girl who looked to be about to break out in tears. His heart cried out for her and he spread his arms opening in a welcoming gesture she took zero time in diving into as she wrapped herself in his embrace. She sobbed and cried for several minutes before tiring herself out. Tired as he was, the Sandaime decided this was more important and in a quick shunshin moved both to his private training ground.

"Now what's wrong Narumi-chan?" He asked the girl with evident concern in his voice.

"I failed," she sniffled out. "Not only was I tricked by Mizuki-Teme but I also failed to even finish learning the jutsu from the scroll. Now I'll never become a genin." She said morosely as she mourned he failure at her final chance to become a Kunoichi.

"Hmmm," the old man hummed to himself. "Do you remember what jutsu you were trying to learn?" He asked her kindly.

"Of course!" She said excitedly.

"Well why don't you show me then," he prompted her.

"Sure Jiji!" She shouted as she jumped to her feet and began to focus. It took several seconds before a poof was heard as she intoned, "Kage Bunshin" and several clones appeared next to the girl. Though honestly she was far more surprised than the Hokage as she stared at them for several second before a bright grin overtook her features and she jumped in excitement. "Yata, I succeeded, dattebane!"

"Very good Narumi," he praised as she continued to do a little victory dance in the clearing. He was quite proud of her truth be told. He'd placed several of the least dangerous jutsu in the fake scroll he'd replaced the real one with, but the fact she'd learned it in only a couple hours was still something to behold.

The girl turned to her grandfather as she demurely replied, "Thanks, Jiji, but I still don't get to be a Kunoichi now do I?" She finished sadly with her eyes downcast towards the ground.

Smiling the old man replied, "Now, now I never said that. Did I Narumi?"

It took the girl several seconds to realize what he was implying. However one she did a gigawatt smile lit up her face in excitement as darted forward and slammed into her grandfather. "Thank you Jiji," she murmured into his chest.

"You earned it, Narumi," He said kindly as he lifted her up to a standing position. He then pulled the scroll she had stolen, though technically was allowed to access, earlier that night. "Though I want you to do something for me, okay?"

"What's that Jiji?"

"I want you to actually read the full instructions of the jutsu you just finished learning."

"Really?" She asked incredulously. After all she'd already learned the clone jutsu why would she need to read anymore about it?

"Yes, Narumi, really," He said seriously.

"Okay, Jiji, but only because it's you asking!" she snarked. After several minutes of reading she finally realized what he'd wanted her to understand. Earlier in her rush to just learn the jutsu she'd completely missed the footnotes. The Kage Bunshin she'd learned has several special features. For one while the jutsu itself was chakra intensive to create. It actually returned leftover chakra to the creator. For another is didn't really have much of a limit in how far it could move from its creator and lastly it was meant to be a scouting jutsu. So anything the clone learned she did.

The old man meanwhile kept his eyes trained on the young girl and when realization dawned upon her face over everything she'd missed about the jutsu he finally spoke. "Do you understand now why I had you re-read the text over what you'd learned?"

"Hai, Jiji," she replied excitedly. "You wanted to learn everything this awesome jutsu could do!"

"Yes, but not just that," he told her seriously, which caused her to sober up and turn her focus onto him. "There is much you can miss in life and in learning period if you rush too fast. There's the saying you must walk before you can learn to run. Do you know why this applies to you?"

The girl sighed before responding, "Because I just saw a cool jutsu that made solid clones and then just tuned everything else about it out. I ended up missing cr-cru-tial? facts about it."

"Exactly," he said seriously. "By constantly trying to rush ahead to cool jutsu you missed something important that could help you become a far better Kunoichi instead. Something that'd gotten you into a lot of trouble at the academy has it not? When you dismiss other things as boring and don't pay them any attention?" He continued on getting a sad nod from the girl.

"Why don't I personally teach you how to do the next Jutsu in the scroll then?" He asked her in a softer voice.

"Really?!" Narumi exclaimed loudly. "Yata, another jutsu! Come on Jiji tell me!"

Smiling at her enthusiasm he began to explain the next jutsu in the scroll he'd made for her to take. "The next jutsu in the scroll you'll notice is called the Kage Shuriken no Jutsu. Can you tell me what that might mean from just the name?"

"It's a solid replica of shuriken?" She guessed.

"In a way, yes. Though you must remember that technically this technique can be applied to any thrown weapon. Allow me to demonstrate it for you first." At this he reached inside his robe an pulled out one of his own shuriken. Then got into the ready stance before quickly throwing it. Quickly running through the hand seals he intoned, "Kage Shuriken no Jutsu." Causing the singular shuriken to then multiple into ten as they slammed into the target each sticking into the target and damaging it.

"Sugoi!" Narumi stated as she watched the feat before her.

"Now, first you need to learn the hand seals for the jutsu," he instructed her and watched as she quickly went over and practiced the seals multiple times. Good he thought. She had obviously practiced hard at making individual hand seals and even paid attention to using them in different orders as she smoothly transitioned through them at a very good speed for a genin. Which made sense considering she was obsessed with cool jutsu. "Do you have the seals down?" He asked her.

"Hai, Jiji," she nodded enthusiastically in return.

"Good, now for the harder part. You need to take one or more shuriken or kunai and charge it with chakra. From there you throw it and use the seals. In order to successfully use the jutsu do exactly what you did for the Kage bunshin-" he instructed her.

"And apply it to the shuriken or kunai used?" She asked.

"Exactly, but remember you already charged the chakra for the technique into the shuriken so you need only to focus on dividing it instead of building up any more chakra. Does this make sense?" He asked the girl seriously which got a nod in return. "Good now try it, but don't be disheartened if it takes more than one attempt."

Now nodding furiously, Narumi got into position and pulled out a shuriken and took aim following the direction of her grandfather. She threw the shuriken and quickly made the seals necessary before intoning, "Kage Shuriken no Jutsu."

To his pleasant surprise she got in one try. Which made sense considering she'd learned the parent jutsu already and while her seals weren't quite fast enough for the shuriken copies to spread enough or be controlled mid flight yet she did get the jutsu done correctly.

Gathering himself he chose to sit on the grass of the training field and patted the space in front of him as he called her over, "Come sit." Which she did quite quickly. "There's several thing I want to go over with you if you're going to continue being a Kunoichi okay Narumi?"

"Kay," she agreed.

"First you need to understand. That while it can be boring learning certain things can be seemingly mind numbing. It is very important for any Shinobi to take the time to do so. Something that might seem stupid now could suddenly seem very important later. For instance you scored very poorly on the Academy chakra control exercises. Yet while that might seem stupid at the time, you waste a lot of energy or rather chakra when using even the two jutsu you just learned. Imagine if your chakra control was higher you'd have been able to produce two or even three times as many shuriken clones with the same effort." He continued as he lectured the girl.

"That makes sense," she admitted. Though the leaf exercise had never worked particularly well for her at all as the leaves she used were always damaged as they shot off her forehead. "But the leaf exercise was also really hard. I always damaged the leaf really badly and had to get new ones to keep trying." She explained.

"I see, but you do understand the importance of actually slowing down and listening to your sensei when they teach you something?"

"I guess," she mumbled.

"Next, we need to go over this." He stated as he reached into his robe to pull out a singular small scroll.

"What's that?" she asked excitedly.

"This is a corpse scroll. Inside is the body of Mizuki. Normally you'd not have seen this again, but something you said caught the attention of the Anbu who delivered it to me." He explained to her.

"OH! He's my Preta body now!" She exclaimed to her grandfather.

"Well, that's not what you'd said at the time. You admitted to not being able to control his body very well, but also what do you mean by Preta body?"

"Well yeah, I've got no practice at controlling him with my chakra! So it feels weird and he moves really clunkily. As for Preta? I don't know why." She shrugged. "It's just what came to mind. Though he can absorb stuff!"

"I think you need to be more descriptive than stuff Narumi-chan," he said with a slight smile.

"Ah, well he can absorb energy? That's what it feels like so I'm guessing that means chakra, but other than that I've got no idea, but.." She started as she bit his lower lip. "When he was not in the scroll thing I noticed I could see everything he saw now?"

"That's a useful tool Narumi-chan." He praised before turning serious. "You need to make sure you keep as much about your eyes secret as you can though okay?" He told her seriously which got a hard nod from her.

"Now let me show you how to use this scroll properly so you can take out and store the body as you need it."

It would take another thirty minutes of going over how the scroll worked and some practice before Narumi would get to where she could smoothly and quickly summon and reseal the body of her Preta Body quickly. Once done Hiruzen decided they needed to discuss one more thing.

"Now, that barely took any time and effort at all on your part when listening to instruction. So why did you struggle with your sensei's instructions in the Academy?" He asked of her.

This caused the girl to pout at she stared down at the sand for a bit before answering. "It's just easier when the person who's talking actually cares, dattebane."

"What do you mean Narumi-chan?" He asked patiently.

"Well you know, it was obvious in the Academy that the sensei in charge didn't. I honestly tried at first truly. Except in the first year they'd just constant send me out into the hall for asking questions for cl-clarficetion on things."

"Clarification?"

"Yeah that, and then in seconds year they kept doing it except halfway through you started asking why I was in the hall so much. So they just started ignoring me outright instead. Even when I asked questions or tried to listen in when they explained something they'd have me back up to the back of the area we were working in. I had to resort to watching the other students do things to learn the kata and how to throw stuff! So third year when it continued I stopped caring and started skipping to study on my own." She continued on.

"Or play pranks?" He asked knowingly.

"That too," she admitted sheepishly. "It wasn't till Iruka-Sensei in our last year that someone even tried but even then he ignored me at first and didn't start trying till after a couple of month, dattebane!"

"So why didn't you listen to him then and continued with your antics?" He prompted her.

"I dunno, by then it was habit and I guess, I just thought, I got this far alone I'd finish the rest by myself. That and between him helping other students or someone always seeming to interrupt him when he got to me, dattebane." she admitted sadly with a shrug.

"I see," the Sandaime said thoughtfully as he contemplated on a few things as they both sat in silence for a while. When he finally moved it was to pulled two things from his robes both of which he handed to his granddaughter. "Here's you hitai-ate for becoming a genin, and some money. Why don't you go get yourself something to eat while I finish up some things in the office."

"Yata! Thanks Jiji!" she shouted as she slammed into him for one more hug before dashing off to reach her favorite ramen stand. Only to stop turn around come back and collect the corpse scrolls she was given before running off again.

When Hiruzen returned to his office he only took a few minutes to center himself. Once ready he started making decision and calls as he reached out to those he needed to and remade several of the decisions that'd been previously in place. Including breaking a couple traditions and upsetting two of his Jonin. However he knew that once things were all said and done he'd done the right thing and that at least one of those Jonin would be happy with it, maybe both if the other realized how good the decision he made would be for the genin. Once done he finally leaned back to relax and thought on future. He couldn't wait to see what would happen. A knock on the door interrupted him as he was mid contemplation as a voice called out.

"Hokage-sama," the Jonin you've requested have arrived.