The weeks after the bell test were as exciting as Kakashi had promised.
For their first mission the members of Team 7 got to paint a fence. Their sensei also made it very clear that day that he did not consider himself a member of the team unless they were either in life threatening danger or at the very least on a C-rank mission. In other words, he kept reading his book and chuckling every few minutes or so while Haruka wondered how Naruto and Sasuke managed to get more paint on each other than the stupid fence.
The next D-rank had them fishing trash out of the river, but at least with this one Haruka got to gloat. She spent the duration of the mission on top of the water, mostly just because she could, but also to avoid being thrown in. Somehow the boys ended up fighting over who had to pick up what kind of trash and instead of resolving the problem like reasonable people they started a brawl. Kakashi forced them to keep working even after they managed to roll down the river bank, but he did save them from drowning each other.
That day he had a really smug look on his face after training and she didn't figure out why until after Naruto tackled her. The blond was practically begging for lessons on how to walk on water. Haruka was kind of surprised he'd waited until after both mission and training were over. Still she didn't relent. Haruka really had better things to do, like find out what the hell connected Naruto to Kyubi's attack on Konoha. Also teaching them was Kakashi's job, not hers. But then of course Sasuke had to start making a logical case about how a stronger team benefited all of them. And seriously? Not an argument she'd expected from Sasuke 'as if I'd need your help' Uchiha. Sadly that didn't change the fact that he had a point, and so Haruka ended up teaching both of them how to walk on tree and then water walk over the course of several days.
***
Sai found her two or three times each week. At first he would tail her until an opportunity to catch her alone presented itself, but after the second time Haruka simply headed towards the Shodaime Hokage's stone head whenever she noticed Sai following. It might seem suspicious to anyone watching, but it was easier that way. Haruka didn't like being tailed at the best of times and Sai wasn't the most trustworthy person.
She hadn't tried asking about his monster again and he hadn't offered. Most days he would simply tell her about something that had happened, then she would try to explain it to him. Sai got confused by just about everything that had a reason based on anything other than facts and logic.
One day he'd asked why a mother would kiss the scraped knee of her child. Haruka had told him it was for emotional comfort, but he'd only given her a blank look and talked about the hygienic disadvantages of such an action.
Whenever he came up with questions like that she felt the need to tell him 'that's just the way things are,' and be done with it. She didn't though. Haruka tried to explain as best she could, but it was hard. After all, she'd never had parents to take care of her in that manner. The closest she had ever gotten to family were the paranoid head of T&I, a mass murderer and an eccentric, emotionally stunted man who liked to read porn in public. It wasn't ideal, but she wouldn't trade any of them for the world. And even that little dysfunctional group was likely more than Sai had ever known.
He seemed completely baffled the day she clarified that her lunches with Ibiki were not, in fact, reports. That the man wasn't interested in gaining intelligence from her, but merely curious about her day and how she felt. She confided that she hadn't understood it either at first and then explained it to him the same way Itachi had explained it to her. She didn't mention the Uchiha's name though.
Sai was too likely to relay anything he learned from or about her to his monster to be trusted with sensitive information. The way he sometimes worded questions very carefully had Haruka half-convinced that he didn't want to report on her, but had no choice in the matter. It was only small things, individually unimportant. Taken as a whole however they added up. He had never once asked her for specifics, names, dates, locations, nothing. He also avoided certain topics. The team's D-ranks were fine, anything to do with their training was not. He was too clumsy of a conversationalist to make the changes in topic even remotely subtle, but it was a clever tactic nonetheless. After all, one could not report what one did not know, and Haruka appreciated the effort.
***
Whenever Haruka wasn't training the boys, or with Ibiki or Sai, she followed Naruto around. He was an idiot and enjoyed juvenile pranks far too much for her tastes, but he was also a very kind and cheerful person, not a malicious bone in his body. Yet for some reason the villagers seemed to hate him. Many just ignored the blond little orphan, but some went out of their way to make his life miserable. Parents would pull their children away from him as if he was some kind of rabbit dog. Shop owners would suddenly be out of stock, remembering the items Naruto wanted had actually been bought by another customer who just hadn't picked them up yet or something equally unlikely. One had actually accused the boy of being a thief before he had even fully entered the shop.
It was ridiculous and she couldn't make sense of it until an old drunk guy called him 'fox' and asked—shouted reallyif he had come to kill some more of his children. Naruto had flinched back and ran down the street, Haruka however had stopped dead in her tracks. People insulted her blond teammate all the time, but he never reacted like that. He just kept moving and pretended not to hear them, hiding his pain behind boisterous claims to become Hokage and wide smiles.
Naruto had something to do with the attack twelve years ago. People hated him and were afraid of him. The only insult from the villagers Naruto had ever reacted to was 'fox'. The Nine-Tails took the form of a giant fox.
Was Naruto the Kyubi?
Was that even possible? Orochimaru had been obsessed with the Tailed Beasts, or rather with their ability to heal and reform even after death. That was why Haruka thought he was searching for a way to become immortal in the first place. He had tried to give the children that same ability. It was why her chakra was so fucked up. The Tailed Beasts were in essence nothing more than sentient chakra constructs, and Orochimaru thought replicating their chakra in a human would also replicate their abilities. But as far as Haruka was aware he'd never gotten that far. She did heal faster than normal, which while useful wasn't even significant enough to make a difference during a fight. The children also couldn't regrow lost body parts, much less reform after death. They were just somewhat more resilient humans with really weird chakra and advanced sensing abilities. Or at least Haruka was. Not all the children had been exactly the same and she didn't actually know if any of the others were still alive.
Orochimaru used to rant about something in the beginning. Something called 'jinchuriki' and what a pity it was that he didn't have one of those to experiment on. He never bothered to explain what they were though. The only thing Haruka could gather was that they were extremely rare and making one required a Tailed Beast.
She'd never heard the word from anyone but Orochimaru and didn't remember coming across it in any of the books she'd read either. Was that deliberate or simply because they were so rare? Would asking about it be met with a shrug and a 'no idea what you're talking about' or would it land her in one of T&I's lower levels?
Asking Ibiki wasn't an option, he'd already given her more than he should have and she'd promised to find the information on her own. Kakashi would probably know as well. Actually anyone born in the generation before hers seemed to know something. Haruka glanced back at the drunk man on the side of the road. Holding a transformation for an extended amount of time would hurt, but if she had to risk putting someone in danger by asking the wrong kinds of questions she'd rather it be that asshole civilian than herself or Kakashi.
So for the rest of that day she clung to the man like a shadow. Always out of sight and careful to stay well clear of any other shinobi. She manipulated her own chakra to match the environment as best she could, which practically made it impossible to sense, like a drop of water in the ocean. Haruka couldn't do that and use her chakra to mask her scent at the same time, yet, but Pakkun was the only scent tracker even remotely likely to come looking for her and he wouldn't blow her cover.