Chapter shout out! ThexDarkness, stephanieosila, and Vallrally!!

I don't own Naruto

Warning, a part of this chapter kind be considered a little more graphic than normal. It's not crazy blood and gore stuff, but it's more... descriptive than normal.

—-

'You cannot kill Iruka. You cannot kill Iruka,' I can't in my mind as I ripped another piece of chalk out of my non-braided hair. Iruka had thrown another piece at me when he had noticed that I wasn't paying attention... Again... Though there was nothing for me to do today, even more so than normal. Today was the day of the first stage for the genin exam... So what that meant to me was that all I had and could do was sit at my desk, and try not to disturb anyone, which was still pretty easy for me surprisingly.

With past experience with jackasses, I thought Ryoke would have at least come back in the past few just to 'remind' me who was the boss. Turns out, the threat against him still scared Ryoke shitless and stayed away from me, along with most of the class, and he was probably hoping that I would fail and fall off the edge of the earth.

'Not that me passing has really anything to do with me becoming a genin again or not. It all depends on Naruto. He fails and repeats the year, I fail and repeat the year. He passes and gets assigned a team, I pass and get assigned to a team, and try my hardest to keep watch over him from a distance.' I said to myself as I twirled a strand of hair out of boredom. Doing that was the only way I would watch over him, but if he was assigned a team, I wouldn't want to be in the way. I just need to watch over him to make sure he will no longer be alone. Gramps and I agree that once Naruto has people that he can fully lean on, and they can lean on him, that I should disappear, and stay out of his life. 'We just don't know what will happen if I stick around Naruto.... Not sure when I may cross paths with someone who still holds a grudge against me.'

I sighed and rubbed the last painfully and nearly faded bruise on my cheek, one where Ryoke's brother should me how hard he could punch with chakra helping him. 'Now if only Naruto would stop worrying about me. I can't let him get attached.' I looked over across the room at said person as Iruka was still going on with his speech, telling us how proud he was, and what we had to do to pass, not necessary in that order. When I looked over I caught Naruto staring at me with a worried frown once again. I smiled and gave him a piece sigh before turning my 'attention' back to Iruka as I began to re-braid my hair, fighting the deathly cold shivers that started to run down my spine.

Looking at and being around Naruto always brought a strange sense of nostalgia, because I felt like I was with Sensei and Kushina again, but today I couldn't handle it, seeing him, them, it reminded me of my latest horror filled nightmare that refused to leave my mind.

—

I was standing in a room, a room without any doors, windows, or lights. it was pitch black. But I knew this room, more than three-quarters of my nightmares happened in this room, which, unfortunately, meant that she was here was well.

Trying to tell myself that this was all a dream, not at all real, and to calm down never worked in this room because she was too good at her job at overriding the rational part if my mind, and using things at absolutely terrified me, no matter how much I know was not real. Everything in this room was against me, even my own body, taking a deep breath, smelling and tasting the air, even when I had no intention of releasing my breath.

The air was foul and reached so heavily of rust and iron that it was nearly suffocating and was definitely nauseating making me cough as I retched up what my mind 'thought' was in my stomach, just adding to the smell, and making my balance to waver. I stumbled blindly over to one of the walls and placed a hand on it, trying to steady myself as I leaned into it, but my hand couldn't find any traction on the slippery wall, and I fell to the wet and cold floor. Something deep inside told me that what had made me slip and what covered the all where the same thing, and it wasn't water.

Now beginning to panic, I tried to stand up, but because the floor was slippery as well, I kept on falling back down and getting covered in what the liquid was. On my third try, I stumbled as I fell, and landed on something solid but soft in a way piled up on the floor. I turned to see if I could make out what it could be at all, but then as if someone flipped the switch on the lights, the room was flooded with harsh white light, illuminating everything. The walls looked more like silent blood waterfalls, painting the ground with the dark ruby coloured 'water', and covered all the demanded bodies that litter the ground in scattered piles, just like the one that my back was leaning against, and that I was trying to ignore that one of the bodies had half a face with a purple marking on her cheek and had shoulder length brown hair.

Trying my best not to scream, but still whimpering, I pushed myself away from the bodies, trying to not recognize the faces, but they were everywhere! Some were stabbed, blown up, had bones at weird angles. I looked in the opposite direction when I saw a pair, one with long red hair, the other with spiky blond hair, lying on the floor together, a giant gaping hole in their torsos. After that, I saw the body I had leaned against, another crushed, and the last one had one of his eyes ripped out.

"No, no, no, no, no, no. This is not real. This is not real. It's all in my head, it's not real. This is her doing, not mine," I chanted as I tried to curl up and hide within myself.

"Oh, this is definitely all your fault, Harmony-chan," the other living person in the room finally said, her, the degraded other me that haunted my dreams all my life. "For once I didn't have to go out of my way to cause this, hehehehehehehehe."

"No, no, I-I didn't cause this!" I whimpered, cradling my head with 'painted' hands.

"Oh... But all of these people would have lived had you not abandon them."

"I didn't do that."

"Really? The what do you call disappearing in the middle of a war? Had you stayed for even a half hour more, he could have seen another day," I heard the sound of something being forcefully ripped apart, and then something... Someone hitting the floor right next to me. Willing my stomach to stay as calm as it could be I uncurled myself and opened my eyes, staring into the dead coal coloured eyes of Obito, his face splashed with gore and blood, and a few pieces of his esophagus handing out of his ripped neck because it had been stretched slightly.

Finally screaming, I picked up his head and threw it at the one of the piles with no real aim, and it had to land on a pile full of other decapitated heads. All at different stages of decaying. I watched in horror as Obito's head adjusted itself so that he was facing me, and opened his mouth as all the other heads opened their lifeless looking eyes, all staring at me

"Why did you leave us to die Harmony?"

"This is all your fault. All your fault. All your fault," the head began to chat, and the other bodies that still had their head relatively attached join in, slowly crawling and dragging themselves towards me. I tried to block them out and cover my eyes, but the other me knocked my hands away and held a kunai to my throat, laughing maniacally in my ear as she joined in on the chat, joyfully watching as the bodies got closer and closer.

"All your fault. All your fault! ALL YOUR FAULT!"

—

I jumped when I remember that my lungs needed to release the air that I was holding hostage right now, snapping back into reality, and I quickly finished up my braid like nothing had happened. As a child I had originally thought that after a few years of nightmares I would have gotten used to them and that they would no longer affect me that way that they still do, but it turned out that my imagination was severely against me all the time and created her, a psychopathic copy of myself that only made things worse as the fears when on and the horrors I'd seen and heard accumulated. She almost never did anything twice, but it was always in the same room, always played on my most recent or traumatizing fear, and she couldn't have picked a worse, or better, day to show me the lifeless bodies of my own team, even if one of them were still alive to this day.

'What if the new team I get assigned too, if I do 'pass', I find that I can't trust them? What if they get into a battle? What if they all get killed because of me?!' I panic in my mind, all different scenarios flashing through my mind, all ending up with someone in this class staring up at me with eyes just like Obito's, asking' why did I let that happen to them?'.

I sat there for a few minutes as Iruka wrapped up his speech and called the first person down. I stared at everyone that walked into the exam room, wondering how long they will last if they became genins, before I roughly shook my head, trying to get her out of my head and fully snap out of my dream.

'No one will die. There is no war going on, and Gramps would never assign a genin squad a task where their life is in danger. Besides, if he did, and I was on that squad, I would protect everyone to the best of my abilities, or else I wouldn't be able to call myself a proud kunoichi of Konoha,' trying to reassure myself that what I was doing was right, I looked around again, noticing that practically everyone was calm, probably thinking that they will all pass, but then I saw Naruto. He had his head in his hands and was freaking out 'Right, the clone jutsu is his absolutely worst. I should go and cheer him up.'

I got up from my desk and make my way over towards him. He must have heard me coming because suddenly he lifted his head and was acting like he was as calm as everyone else.

"Hey Harmony!" he greeted with his wide smile when I got close.

"Hey Naruto, Sasuke, " I said with a wave to Naru and looked over at Sasuke briefly, getting a 'hn' in return. I nodded blankly at him before taking the seat between the two, facing Naruto.

"Huh? Wha-" Naruto started off, confused.

"Don't worry, I know you'll do great and become an amazing shinobi," I told him but added something to the end in my mind as I began to stand up again, for Iruka was just called the first person with a 'K' at the beginning of their last name

'Just like you father and mother were.'

"Of course, I will! You're looking at the future Hokage, ya know!" I laughed before I heard Iruka call my name.

"I'll see you later, 'kay 'Future Hokage," I said, walking down the aisle to the exam room.

"Yeah, okay! Good luck harmony!" Naruto called after me.

'Luck has nothing to do with me passing or not Naruto. I just hope you pass, because I really don't want to have to spend another week in this room.' I thought to myself as entered the room, and was greeted but the sight of Scarface and another man with shoulder-length white hair. He looked familiar to me, but I just couldn't really place him in my memories.

"Good morning Umino-sensei," I gave Iruka a slight bow, but then paused like I was confused, or not sure what to say, "And..."

"Ah, this is Mizuki-sensei, he's a chunin that teaches one of the other graduating classes," Iruka informed me, so I smiled and bowed to Mizuki as well. If Iruka could trust this man to be here for my exam, then I guess I could trust him too... At least a little. The name Mizuki and his face were still familiar to me, but something told me that if we had known each other as kids, we didn't get along, or we ignored each other.

"Kakureta-san is a recent transfer from Tanigakure in my class," Iruka then informed Mizuki.

"Ah, so that's why I've never seen her at any of the previous exams," Mizuki said to Iruka but was looking at me the whole time. "Kakureta-chan, could you please make a clone?" I nodded and help my fingers up on the simple hand sign, summoning enough chakra to make two clones, both nearly perfect. One had paler skin and green eyes while the other was a little too short and too many freckles, but I knew that they were good enough.

Iruka and Mizuki both nodded as they examined my clones. "Very good Kakureta-san, you pass, just remember to keep on practicing," Iruka told me with a smile as I walked up to the table that they were sitting behind and picked out a headband.

"Thank you," I bowed again before walking out, placing my headband in one of my larger pockets so it was out of sight. If Naruto didn't pass I didn't want him to see it.

"I should have a few minutes before it's Naruto's turn," mumbling under my breath I made my way slowly out of the building, avoiding the hordes of parents that were either cheering, congratulating, scolding, or comforting the children that have already gone through the exam. With my head down I silently made my way through the crowd till I reached the tree swing.

I sat there for a while, humming random tunes with my eyes closed when the sounds of the surrounding parents went hush. Opening on the eye I saw it was because Naruto had exited the building, no headband in hand. 'shit'

"Over here Naruto!" I called out, standing up, and, waving my hand back and forth to get his attention. He didn't acknowledge me, but he made his way over. When he was beside me he sat down on the swing in between his legs, staring sadly at the crowd.

"Ah, geez, let me guess, you didn't pass?" I asked him, leaning against the tree.

"Hn," he pushed his goggles over his eyes when two moms could be heard, saying that it was a good thing that Naruto did pass. I glared at them before kneeling down.

"Naruto, what's wrong? You can always try again next time."

"I might as well give up. This was my third time. Third," he replied, not looking at me. I raised an eyebrow and moved so I was blocking his sight.

"Who cares if this was your third time. You know, I had an older brother, and guess how many times it took him to pass the stupid genin exam? It took him five tries! But no matter how many time he would fail, he never gave up!"

"So what did he do differently to pass finally?" Naruto asked me, only looking at me slightly. I softened my face and smiled.

"He finally let someone in. All those other times he thought that he could do it all himself and didn't need anyone's help. But by the time I was four and he was fifteen, he was a jounin, and if he really wanted to, he could have become an ANBU, and that was all because he had ambition, but didn't think people as a burden or that they were against him. Though these were all just stories my parents told me because it all happened before was born, and when I was little my brother was a hero in my eyes. He was sweet, smart, caring, and knew the best ways to make the monsters disappear," I stood up and wiped a small tear away quickly, before looking down at Naruto.

"And you remind me a lot of him, and a few of my friends as well, so I just wanted to let you know that if you ever need somebody, you can always count on me to be there for you, no matter what. You just remember that, got it?"

"Yeah, thanks, Harmony," he replied, smiling back.

"That's good," I said and then stretched. "Well, I guess I'll see you around then." I waved at him again before making my way to the training ground. If I was going to spend another year in the room, I need to release a lot of pent-up steam.

-3rd POV-

"So, these are the brats that I will be testing?" Kakashi asked as he leafed through the pages that the Hokage had given him. It was in the middle of the night when Kakashi had been summoned, and it had turned out that one of the kids that had failed the first stage had stolen the Forbidden Scroll, but in some way passed and exposed Mizuki as the psychopathic manipulation that he was. 'Naruto Uzumaki... Sasuke Uchiha... And Sakura Haruno. This should be interesting.'

"Yes, this will be your squad, but there was an odd number of graduates this year, so I am assigning you a fourth member," the Hokage said as he passes Kakashi the fourth paper, smiling as he smoked his pipe.

"A fourth member? I'm guessing you chose me because-"

"You have experience in a five man squad, yes. And don't worry, I'm sure you will get alone with this girl perfectly fine. Though I doubt that she will call you sensei. She has a weird thing against titles and honorifics."

"Huh, odd child," Kakashi chuckled at that, but his laugh got caught in his throat when he flipped over the page and looked at the name and photo on the paper.

'Harmony Kakureta.' Alarmed, Kakashi looked back up at the Hokage, who was still happily smoking his long pipe.

"I know what you are thinking, but that paper was created only one week ago, and only with Harmony's consent."

"But, she die- disappeared thirteen years ago!" Kakashi exclaimed doubtfully, though even after all those years, he still couldn't say that she had died then. He could pay his respects at her grave, but never it out loud.

"Yes, this has both Harmony and I confused. The last thing she remembered was being in that cave, and barely seeing you and Obito running towards her and Rin, but she said that after she woke up she was on the side of the road, a day and a half walk out of the village. After we had talked, and yes, I informed her of the status of all her teammates, she asked to have her rank of chunin temporarily revoked and be placed in the graduating genin class to look after the Fourth's son. But I knew that she just couldn't handle things right away and needed time to get used to this time," the Hokage informed Kakashi, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

"So, this is all real?" Kakashi asked.

"If you want to see it yourself, go to the training grounds. Harmony was there when I sent an ANBU to tell her of Naruto's passing, so she should still be there," Kakashi nodded one and the teleportation jutsu quickly, knowing exactly what training ground the Hokage was talking about.

Once Kakashi reached the grounds, it didn't take him long to find her. All he had to do was listen because Harmony always talked to herself or sang when she trained alone. Hiding up in some large trees, Kakashi peered down at her as she completed a simple set of taijutsu moves.

'Same red hair, and same odd sense of fashion,' Kakashi noted when he saw her and noticed that she was wearing the necklace he had given her for her twelve birthday, and the three bracelets that Obito, Rin, and Minato had gotten her. The necklace I had gotten her had a crescent moon pendant and the bracelets had started on two of them and another crescent moon on the middle, all symbols of her clan.

"It really is her," Kakashi couldn't help but whisper as Harmony stopped to rest a little. She was panting, sweating, and talking.

"Who's there!" Harmony demanded as she turned around, alerted by the noise that Kakashi made, and threw a kunai in his direction for good measure. Shaking his head, Kakashi caught the kunai but teleported again before Harmony came to investigate.

'It really is her.'

—-