Juniper - Snakes 2

Actually, I meant to post this like 3 days after the April Fool's joke, but then I got caught up in the whole 'knitting hermit' thing and decided to knit myself a sweater and that distracted me from posting this. Then 53raph1m act-alike mentioned his/her birthday was today so I figured I would go ahead and get this posted to prove that I am writing the Forest of Death.

Notes – I just realized that Gaara and Gorou’s names are a bit similar. I don’t think it’s so close that you guys will have trouble but if you do I apologize.

Also, this is the first time we’ve really heard from Kyuubi. He’s been making random comments to Naruto for a while now but they’re going to be more frequent from here on out. Would it make more sense if I put Kyuubi’s thoughts in bold? I think I’m going to. Their voices are fairly different but that doesn’t make it any less confusing, let me know and I’ll change it in this chapter too.

I considered making Shino or Kiba the slowest, but honestly at this point in the manga, most of what we’re shown suggests that that isn’t the case. She was probably faster than Sakura in canon, but not at this point in this fic. She'll get her 'redemption' so to speak. It would be fair to say that in general, Team 7 is a bit out of touch with what their peers are capable of.

And I know some people are going to think Naruto got caught way too easily, but when you’re expecting some seriously nasty jutsu, a rag over the mouth isn’t something you’re watching out for. I’ll write more explicit fights in the future, this first one just wasn’t important enough and as is pointed out, one on one the Cloud team isn’t impressive; their skills lie in stealth and ambush. Once they lost the element of surprise, they lost the upper hand. Exactly what this Cloud team did will be explained, but not for a bit (as in not during this exam or the finals…sorry).

If you remember (and I know most of you won’t) Anko mentioned at the end Snakes I that Kakashi was monitoring his students communication through Amarante code. Now you know why he was so drunk; I mean, can you imagine getting just those few warnings and not even knowing who they were going up against (and when he found out the next day…).

I’m sure this new code is going to really annoy people but it’s too much fun to write to take out of something like this.

Reviewers' Answers:

Yes, Naruto's mother in canon is Uzumaki Kushina. I started writing this fanfic before they came out and I came up with a non canon replacement who's identity was actually important to the fic. For this reason, when Kushina was revealed in canon I decided to just keep going with the original character, so here his mother is a woman named Mitarashi Anmitsu who happens to be Anko's aunt and one of Jiraiya's student (along with Morino Ibiki and Namikaze Minato).

Seriously though, I'm like dying to know why so many people decided to tell me this now. Please? Someone?

Juniper - Not an Interlude

April Fool's!
I hope at least some of you figured that out ahead a time based on the obnoxious note at the beginning. I'm not normally that weird during the spiels...am I?
Anyways, I really only did because I was working on the rest of Snakes (I really am going to write the Forest of Death, I promise) and I got a review from Elfsong asking about a flashback to Kakashi burning down his house. It was just a week or so ago and I realized April Fool's was approaching and that it might be fun to mess with you a bit. At the same time I figured I could use to...not really clear anything up but pretend I was. I don't actually expect anyone to read it and feel that things make more sense, but maybe some of you will. As a bonus, I'll now know who is and isn't reading the blog, because reviews that don't know this is a joke will just be directed here!

Thanks again to all my reviewers. As annoyed as I some time get - and as easy as it is to take it out on the anonymous people I know online instead of those in my real life - it's a lot of fun to hear people enjoy this, even if it sometimes annoys the crap out of them.
A few quick notes that reviewers brought up:
I'm sorry not everyone 'got' or 'likes' the fact that Anko and Naruto are cousins. Here's the thing, I don't write 'speculation' fics. Instead, I pick things from canon and I pick things from the back of my brain and I throw them together and see where it takes me. I remember thinking that Anko looked a bit like one of the people in Jiraiya's genin team picture (other's had fun writing that she was the same person, I'm writing that she's the person's niece) and that led to one of the main canon differences for this fic. I'm sorry you don't like it, but it's fun for me to write.

Another reviewer (who may have been trying to flame me, I'm not really sure what people are on about when they don't leave emails) said the level of secrecy around the auto pass was confusing him. The auto pass itself isn't shrouded in secrecy. It's a public decision, the Hokage even says so, what is a secret is Naruto's injuries. That's why he asks Sakura not to talk about her team very much. I hope that clears it up a bit, I thought it would be obvious when she openly admits to Neji and the others that she passed with an auto pass but then won't name Naruto, but I guess not.

Naruto's identity is another thing that is confusing people, probably because I've had so much trouble moving on with the story - it would have been cleared up much faster by my original outline, but writer's block has pushed it back. In this fic at least, I figure if the Hokage and his teammate (Anmitsu/Anko's aunt have been clearly stated as his teammate) were having a kid not everyone would know. Mostly just higher ranked individuals. The same individuals who would not be involved in child welfare. Therefore, I really don't see why it would be so hard for the Hokage to hide Naruto. By the time he's in the Academy even with the amount of trouble he's causing, it's mostly going to be grunts doing the cleanup so I don't think they would have run into him. Maybe that's just me over thinking it, but that is the way it gets explained in this fic.

21 - Chapter 4 1/2

April Fool's!
Not the chapter, just the note about me going off to be a knitting hermit. Though really I think that would be my ideal job. I'm also curious to see how many people who also read 'Juniper' review cursing me for starting 'interludes' on another story (I promise I'm not).
Anyways, I'm sorry some were disappointed with last chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it, but oh well, you can't win all of them.
I actually didn't think Naruto was too out of character for this fic. I've shown him to be hyper sensitive to things said about his father, so it shouldn't have been too weird for this fic, meh.
To those of you who did enjoy it, yeah!
I honestly can't say when the next update will come, but as always, it will come; the only real question is whether or not you guys will feel like sticking around to read it.

Juniper - Interludes 9 & 10

Interludes 9 & 10 are up. These are the last two interludes so the next thing that will be posted will be the rest of Snakes, it might take a few months but that's what you'll get.

I also figured I would just address the lack of 'quality' here and get it over with. I think I've said this before, but I'm not really editing these anymore. It's not meant to be disrespectful to you guys or anything and I know the drop in quality will make some of you stop reading, but I've been working on these for years now. It isn't even a matter of lack of interest...okay it is but more because I can't write as fast as I come up with ideas so the chapters (when I can write) never seem to tell the story I want to tell when I'm ready to work on the next chapter...does that make sense? Basically I need to hurry up and finish them so that I stop getting urges to rewrite entire parts of them and editing...it just isn't my strong suit.
Sorry, it's the truth.
A lot of you have been helpful in pointing out things like missed words, misspelled words, and other grammar errors, but I haven't gone back and edited a thing...it's laziness but oh well.

As for updates... I ask you guys to remember one thing. I'm doing this in my free time for myself. I'm sharing it with you because I like getting compliments. But in the end this is fanfiction I cannot make money off of it and I do not intend to spend so much time on it that it looks professional, I hate to say it but it isn't worth my time to do that. I write when I can and I share it with you, please remember that in the future. I'm very, very happy with the fact that people like this and I don't want to sound flippant, but it's the truth. If I'm going to spend that much time polishing something I'd honestly want it to be an original story and not fanfiction.

This is of course the main reason that the interludes even existed. I didn't care that not all of you liked them, I was trying to figure out where most of the other characters were at this point so that the main action of the chapter would make sense to me. I liked most of them, some of them didn't come out the way I wanted but they still helped me make sense of the plot I had in my head. I can't tell you how annoying it was to read that people wanted to cut to the chase when I couldn't figure out what that chase was even going to be.
It was kind of insulting to hear (repeatedly) how alienating the interludes could be because to me they were the only thing keeping me interested in the story at the moment. I could delete the whole fic off the web and just play with it in my free time (and I have seriously considered this), but I like the fact that others enjoy it so I haven't done that. Hearing that I'm ruining my fic for other people...makes that a lot less fun...just letting you know. And if you can't remember what happened...reread it. I do it all the time with fics I like before telling the author that I can't remember what's going on.

That said...I do pay a lot of attention to constructive criticism. I may not always implement on the fics because they're comparable to a 1st or 2nd draft for me, but I do pay attention.

Juniper - Interlude 8

New interlude is up.

Juniper - Interlude 7

Before I get to the notes for 'Interlude 7' (if I can think of any), I wanted to address a running trend in last chapter's reviews. Namely that some of you were very confused by the 'Anko's cousin' thing.

I try not to just spell everything out in my fics. I like leaving people guessing a bit.
...Apparently I did that way too well this time.
I tried over the past chapters to make people wonder just why Anko was involved. I had Kakashi and Sasuke question it, one of them directly to her.
I made multiple notes of similarities between Naruto and Anko.
I had her talk to him more than anyone else about her family...namely her Aunt.
I had her teach him a family style of taijutsu.
Obviously I didn't spell out that Naruto was Anko's cousin until this past interlude, but I'm kind of surprised that no one at least guessed that it was a possibility.
I don't know if this is because Naruto's heritage has been officially revealed in canon, or if I'm just bad at getting readers to consider possibilities.
It could be either. And I apologize to those who were very confused by it.

As for the interlude...not much to say right now. Maybe I'll come up with something later.

Oh one last thing, unless I get another sudden burst of motivation, there will only be 3 more interludes. Unfortunately, unless I get another sudden burst of motivation, there may be a gap before the main chapter is posted because I'm still not making a lot of headway on it. I'll keep you posted on progress but let's just say that right now I've mostly managed to throw out the majority of what I had planned previously and rewrite the summary for the chapter. That's a good start, but obviously isn't much.

Juniper - Interlude 6

Okay I'm gonna use these notes to talk about my characterizations for a bit.
But that's in a minute.
First off, Interlude 6 is up. This is the direct follow up of Interlude 4. Chronologically, this takes place before Interlude 5 but I wanted to break 4 & 6 up a bit. If you were wondering why the Hokage was so...abrupt in last chapter, this is why.
Originally, I was gonna hold off fully clearing up Naruto and Minato's (4th Hokage) relationship until the chapter after 'Snakes', but it just didn't make sense to do that once I sat down to write this. Hopefully the original 'reveal' scene will just be funny now since you know exactly who Naruto's father is - namely that it's the same as canon.

So now onto characterizations!
I tend mention trying to keep characters 'in character' with canon, but I'll be completely honest, if I want a character to be different, they're gonna be different.
I don't label my fanfiction's as 'AU' but I treat them that way just by default. I'm not writing 'speculative' fanfiction here. I'm writing for fun and I'm playing with another person's long developed characters. I let Kishimoto handle the canon stuff. I let my fanfiction handle the 'I'm bored and wanna write weird shit' stuff.
Most of the time when I come up with a story, at least some part of canon is completely dumped so that I can run with a plot bunny. That changes characters by essentially removing a whole chunk of experiences and I try to take that into consideration.
Clearly this story's Kakashi is an example of this. He's possibly insane - though that's up to debate and he's not gonna clear it up any time soon.
Another example: Sarutobi.
I tend to be really, really mean to Sarutobi when I write fanfiction. I like his character in canon. But to mess with these characters, someone in power takes the fall. Sarutobi is an easy target. He'll probably never be a full on villain, but sometimes he is surprisingly pragmatic. And sometimes he is senile. He does care for the characters as he says he does, but he also has a village to run. Sacrifices get made.

I think that's all that needs to be said.

I suck...I mean "Juniper - Interlude 4"

Yes I know I said two weeks, clearly by now you should know not to expect much from me when I set deadlines.
Anyhow, the latest Interlude is up. I cut this one in half because I think it's going to make more sense chronologically if two other interludes go up before the last part of this one.
It is, however, still unedited. I'll go over it again in a few days so the chapter may get replaced if I change my mind and decide that the interlude I cut in half should be recombined into one interlude.
I'll also put up a post here in a few days explaining why two weeks became longer. If you've emailed, commented, reviewed, or pm'd me in that time and I didn't get back to you, I probably haven't read what you sent so just wait another week or so and I'll get back to you.

Mini Hiatus

I promise it'll only last like 2 weeks at the most and I'll probably still write that whole time so might have some new chapters then.
I'm trying to finish up a present for my mother and it'll go fastest if I just focus on it for now.
The only story that might get updated in the meantime would be Juniper. The next interlude is written but I haven't really looked over it yet, so if I feel the need to take a break from knitting I'll do that and post the next interlude. Otherwise I can promise some updates the 1st week of October.

21 - Chapter 4 C

Part 3 is finally up. Sorry for the delay.
This chapter originally had a slightly different ending, but I though the subdued ending worked well. I will say that even with this ending, Sakura's last line was originally something along the lines of "You're so not hot!" but I thought that came out a bit too valley girlish.

Sorry if all the 'relationship' stuff threw people, I didn't think there was a lot of it but I guess compared to the first few posts it was. This isn't a romance story or anything, but the rookies are growing up so you can expect some pairings, they just won't be central to the story (or based on anyone's whims but my own)...'cept one, but it's not important yet. The Kiba/TenTen thing came about when I looked back at earlier stuff and realized that I was writing a bit of interaction between them and really liking it. I threw TenTen into a few other scenes that she wouldn't normally have appeared in and liked it, so I decided to just go with it.

Also, I know some people have been really annoyed with Sakura lately. I hope this chapter have begun to redeem her a bit. She's felt as out of the loop as Naruto so she's been just as touchy about things as he has. It didn't really lead to great communication between them. I'm actually really happ with her train of thought in this chapter. It probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense (this is Sakura we're talking about) but at this point, she has the pieces she just hasn't really bothered to put them together.
I was also trying to bring out the fact that Naruto's well, a bit of a hypocrite. He doesn't really mean to do it, but he's not very good at socializing outside of the present...that made no sense did it?
I mean, he's fine in the moment at one on one interaction, but he rarely gets to a deeper level. I read a lot of fics where Naruto seems to know everything about everyone, that isn't the Naruto in this fic. He knows about as much about his friends as they know about him, which is one of the reasons that Jiraiya's bet was so unfair.

Going back and rereading the stuff at the tournament, I realized that this chapter might add some confusion about Naruto and elemental training. During the tournament, some shinobi jumped to conclusions about his training based on the jutsu he was displaying. They understood that Kyuubi seemed to be involved with Naruto's ability to create the jutsu but most were still assuming that the jutsu were still based in elemental chakra. However, up to this point, Naruto had not been tested like he was in the manga.
I did consider writing out more of their training with Kakashi...but I decided it wasn't really necessary. If you want me to expand more on it in the future just let me know and I guess I can have them talk about it. It's more likely that you'll get the chance to really see what they learned during another training session.
Also...I was a bit lazy this time and didn't feel like searching for the exact chapter where Kakashi and Yamato/Tenzo test Naruto. Therefore, I couldn't quite remember exactly what reactions the paper had for different elements. I know this was really lazy, but oh well. If I remembered any of them really incorrectly and it like totally ruins the story for you, just let me know preferably with the correction so that I still don't have to look it up.

Juniper - Interlude 2

Alright, 'Snakes: Interlude 2' is up.
No real notes this time but like I said in the chapter, if you have any suggestions for who should be featured in these interludes, just let me know. If I can include them then I will.

Edit ( a few hours later): There seems to be something wrong with the update. The story shows that it's been updated in my account but not on my regular profile and the link to it doesn't work. Therefore I have temporarily taken it down. I'm gonna wait a bit and try again.

Edit 2: Sorry for the extra delay. I didn't have a chance to reupload the chapter last night before I went to sleep and then I've been away from my computer til now.

Edit 3: Okay, the link came in email again, but it still isn't working. I'm gonna leave it up for a bit longer and if the story update still isn't working I'm gonna email, fanfiction.net

Edit 4: I emailed fanfiction.net this afternoon but I read that it can take a while to hear back from them so I'm not really expecting anything for at least a few days. Since reloading the chapter didn't fix the problem the first time I'm going to give it until the middle of this week until I try again. Hopefully by then I'll have heard from the site.

Edit 5: Apparently it's up now. I still don't know what caused the problem, maybe the site was just backlogged. If for some reason your link isn't working, try this one "Interlude 2".

Edit 6: I have no clue what's going on right now. The chapter stopped working a bit this afternoon, though right now the link above seems to work so I really don't know what's wrong with it.

Juniper - Snakes: Interlude I

Interlude I is up.
Okay, here's the deal. Because I was having so much trouble writing out the exam, I wrote these interludes. They'll be posted sporadically for a while as I work on the real chapter. None of them are as long as a normal chapter so I'm sorry if it seems like so little after so long without an update, but hopefully it'll tide some of you over until the real chapter is finished.
First up is Anko, who is not happy with herself right now. We'll probably meet up with her in another interlude later on as well, but this one focuses on her the evening after the Trio went into the Forest.
This one probably raised a few questions for some of you. For others it may have finally answered some. If it did absolutely nothing for you, then I apologize.

A quick note, while I do seem to be back to working on this (knock on wood), I'm not really back to editing heavily. I pretty much ran spell check and left it so if you spot any mistakes, just comment here and I'll fix them when I post the next interlude chapter.
That should be some time within the next week. I can tell you that it'll be from Ino's point of view, but that's all you get right now.

Juniper - Deleted Chapter

I know that it has now been nearly a year since I last updated Juniper. I do sincerely apologize for the long wait, but sometimes, life happens and I can't manage to keep up with a hobby no matter how much I want to.
If you have been reading Juniper for a long while, then I thank you very much for continuing to do so. If you're new to it, then I thank you for picking it up and hope that you enjoy it enough to stick with me until I finish.
For some of you who have been with it for a while, you may be confused by the story line right now for a lot of reasons, one of those reasons is the reason for this post. This past June/July I deleted the most recent chapter of Juniper. It would have been listed as Chapter 18 (Snakes II). The reasons were many. Among those was the fact that I thought it ended up being more confusing than it was supposed to be. It included several flashbacks that weren't integrated very well. I tried to hint at several things that you guys were supposed to pick up on, but that wasn't done well either and I've decided that some of them just need to be spelled out.
Trying to work forward from that chapter proved impossible when I was already facing difficulty with the story and with writer's block, so I decided to just delete it and work forward from a better point, namely the ending of Snakes I.

This note might confuse you a bit more and I'm sorry about that but for those of you who remember Snakes II shouldn't be left in the dark about the changes that will come up in the future. The events in the exam itself are being completely rewritten so I'll deal with them when that chapter comes out. The events in those flashbacks, are being changed a bit as well and I can deal with them now.

Here are the big changes:

Snakes II revealed in a flashback that the fishnet the trio was wearing had a jutsu on it to act as a weight training device. That still stands; however, in the current rewrite, the trio doesn't know this. They'll learn it a bit later. Also, the rules of that have changed a bit as well, so I'll make sure to spell it out in a later chapter for you.

Also, Houkou will not be going into the Forest with them. It still stands that Kakashi had Houkou with him before the exam, but he did not send the dog in with them. Houkou just doesn't have the training for it and Kakashi felt the dog would be a distraction.

The Amarante code is going to be explained more before we catch up with Team 7. I'm going to explain it in one of the upcoming interludes in more detail because it was too confusing to just drop it in the way I did.

Lastly, Kyuubi. I'm going to explain this in more detail as well. Some people caught on that Naruto seemed to communicating with it. Some didn't. So I'm going to use an interlude for that as well.
Since I'm sure I'm forgetting something or just didn't think to touch on something you guys were confused by, feel free to ask any questions you want. Just please do it here in the comments so that I can make sure I get back to you.
Thanks again,
Agent Spielplatz

Juniper

Sorry for the complete silence here for the past month or so. I was a busy little bee for a while.
Anyways, back to fanfiction now. Because Juniper is still causing trouble I'm trying something a little different from what I had originally planned. So far (knock on wood) it's going well. If it keeps going well (knock on wood) I might be able to get something up this weekend. 21 is also being worked on so those will probably be the first ones I update this month.

21 - Chapter 4 B

Part B of 'Chapter 4' is now up. I'll post the rest of Part B whenever I get to it.

Sorry about the slight delay. I started this chapter back in April and then managed to forget how Sakura and Naruto were supposed to lose the bet. I came up with this back in July but I didn't have the time to start writing it until recently. And before I did that I decided to edit the existing chapters a bit. I personally found this funny but I don't know if you peoples do.

I had more to say to it but blogger deleted it and now I can't remember what all I had to say. So instead, I'm going to go work on finishing a baby blanket. See you peoples later.

21 - Chapter 4

This is the last of the edited chapters (except I didn't really edit it at all). Originally the last part of 'Chapter 3' it is now 'Chapter 4 A'.

A few quick notes about the chapter:
There's just something sweet about the legendary prankster being too legendary for his own good. Tsunade's just started to reap the benefits of not believing Naruto. Also yes, Udon and Moegi were both promoted, so were Naruto's temporary teammates (who probably will not appear again). Akemi was, his teammates were not, no real reason for that but I might touch on it again.
And Sakura is giving Konohamaru and his friends way to much credit here.

I swear I've planning that Neji/Temari thing since the beginning. I mean I obviously plan pairings at the start...okay so I really had just decided after writing after mentioning them together in 'Chapter 1 A' that they wouldn't actually be together but I wanted something funny to replace that. Temari/Neji makes them a bit of an odd couple and I figured it would seem funny enough to Naruto to distract him.

Also I don't remember the manga really addressing Hyuuga Hanabi's age and I tend to switch it around in different fics. In this case she's supposed to be about ten and in her last year at the Academy (Naruto just doesn't know so he misstates).

The scene at the barbeque was the weirdest thing I have ever written. I had originally planned on Naruto being the one to meet with them so it was just supposed to be him poking fun at them and trying to embarras them until they turned it around on him, but apparently I couldn't write that so I switched it - which makes sense because I really don't know why I wanted Sakura going into Iruk'a apartment in the first place. Anyways, they all ended up weird but I didn't feel like re-writing it; just don't worry if Iruka and Kakashi's excuse doesn't make any sense, they aren't being remotely honest at this point.
Also, while Naruto may not care that they're together, he does not like the fact that they hid it from him. This will become a bit more obvious in the next part of the chapter.

Naruto and Sakura's training regiment goes something like this:
Every morning and every evening, they meet for a spar. For the first 2 weeks it was unsupervised but from this point out Sakura will be getting friends to supervise. Next chapter will explain exactly what they're doing but I'm sure som people can guess. It has to do with the whole increased dodging and no clones thing that Sakura was talking about at the Academy. They are not regularly destroying their normal training clothes, just very cheap pants and tank tops.


The next part of this chapter will hopefully be up in a week or so. Before that though I have a few notes about the story.

Okay basically after writing through what is now Chapters 1-3, I decided that my original outline was going to take too long and had too much 'down time' where nothing was really happening.
The first thing I did was bring in Kakashi and Iruka's relationship several chapters before I had intended (hence it feeling like it was just dropped out of nowhere). Originally that wouldn't come out until after another big event happened that Naruto would pick up on it himself. Putting it in early was also meant to save me from readers who are homophobic and might've yelled at me for throwing it at them out of the blue. This way I get rid of them faster.

After that I went through the old outline and started throwing out a few subplots and condensing it a bit. The 'focus' of the 3 original segments have been kind of blurred so the fic as a whole will flow together a bit better but the overall plot hasn't changed at all.
I will say that I decided to bring in Uchiha Madara, but not how much of the canon that comes with him will actually be included, you'll just have to wait for the rest of the fic to figure that out.
If you have any questions just let me know.

21 - Chapter 3

Parts A & B of 'Chapter 3' are now up.
Originally these were part 2 of 'Chapter 2' and part 1 of 'Chapter 3'.
They have only had minor grammar editing done to them so if you spot any mistakes just let me know.

A few notes:
I had a few people ask about the reasoning behind what was and wasn't taught at the Academy in regards to Namikaze Minato/Fourth Hokage and the War against Stone/Kyuubi. The Academy thing is pretty typical of school curriculum after disastrous events even in real life. In order to uphold public order, the Third had them teach the basics: the Fourth killed Kyuubi. As for the war, it was more a matter of not focusin on a hero who was already being mourned in hopes that it might ease any negative reaction that could come up if/when Naruto's connection to Kyuubi was revealed.
The reason it was revealed os early was just as Kiba and Sakura say in this chapter. The records from the war were essentially unsealed because enough time had lapsed. Kyuubi's sealing was realeased out of Tsunade's hopes that more information would lead to more understanding when Naruto's connection surfaced.
Also, yes, Naruto is the son of the Fourth in this fic (it's already been heavily hinted at). Also, Kakashi's little whit lie wouldn't sound all that off to the teens. Namikaze Minato was just a veteran of one of the Great Wars who did some really cool shit during battles. The Fourth was not named in their texts.

I decided no to write any more of the prelims (Naruto's was planned that way but I was originally going to put in more fights) because I was already working on the fights for the actual tournament and just didn't feel like putting more in here.

Also, Naruto isn't exactly correct about Team assignmen ts since in this fic, both Teams 8 and 10 are technically the same as his own. He wasn't really paying enough attention when that was being explained to him. His is right (in this fic's world) about the mission assignments though.

In this fic, Uzuki Yuugao (random puple haired ANBU) is the older sister of Uzuki Wata (an OC) and Ami (former classmate) and apparently another purple haired girl who is sitting next to her, but now I can't remember if she was supposed to be based off someone in Konohamaru's class or not so I also can't remember if she was supposed to show up again or not.

The manga (at least as far as I've read - I'm not current) hasn't really told us what - if anything - happened to Uzu no Kuni, so in this story it was taken over.

Jutsu:
Original -
Hiya no Jutsu - Fire Arrow Technique
San Teiru: Amekaze no jutsu - 3rd Tail: Driving Rain Technique
Yon Teiru: Chokkagatahishin no jutsu - 4th Tail: Epicenter Technique (It really means 'earthquake hitting above the epicenter' so it's basically the area that would have the most damage after an earthquake)
Sanseiu Juugan no Jutsu - Acid Rain Bullet Technique
Canon -
Suiton: Suigadan - Water Fang Projectile Technique

21 - Chapter 2

Parts A & B of 'Chapter 2' are now up.
This was originally the 3rd part of chapter 1 and the 1st part of chapter 2 but thanks to me changing my outline a bit they now make up the entirety of 'Chapter 2'.
Again, no real edits to the content itself, just checked really quickly for grammar mistakes but if you still catch any just let me know where they are (preferably here so I can keep track of them).

Few quick chapter notes:
'Coming of Age' in this fic is the celebrants 16th birthday.

When I originally posted this I was told that Akemi was a huge jerk. He wasn't actually supposed to be so hopefully he redeems himself a bit as the fic goes on.

See really quick, I can't even think of anything else to say, so if you have any questions or notes about mistakes in the chapter just let me know.

Ro7 - When You're Sleeping

Okay I lied. There's still another segment after this one, but this one is longer than most of them have been so I decided it was a good sized update. I'm starting to think I shouldn't even worry about how many segments the chapters are broken up into. I know it makes it kind of drag on but oh well.
'When You're Sleeping' part 5 is up.
Okay, so maybe it was just because I managed to write like 15 pages and refer to Naruto a bunch of times without actually showing him and I found it funny. He will be in the next segment of this chapter, and in most of the ones after this, I promise.

So here's the notes:
The actions of the Akatsuki in this fic are based on very little from the manga/anime. Like what we knew before time skip. So Sasori here isn't really based on what we know of him from the Sand arc, it's just his character and abilities, not so much his motivations and stuff.

Also, sorry if some of the convo's seem like overkill. Not everyone is on the same page right now so there was repetition. I hope there was enough difference in each of them that you got something new from each one.

I don't know Inuzuka Hana's age from the manga. She's meant to be 20/21 here. And yes, if you remember what I said a few updates ago about Jiro being Itachi's teammate, you now know that Hana was as well. I like tying characters together, but if it seems like too much just let me know. Some people think it's too much to remember, so sorry if it does seem that way.

Lastly, I really need to work on balancing conversation with other stuff. Now it's just coming across as chunks of dialogue interrupte occasionally by an internal monologue and I don't like it. I also need to work on my dialogue itself. Most people all talk the same and it gets boring when the characters' voices don't come through.
Bleh,
I'm out til next time, I totally need a cigarette.

Oh, one last thing. Apparently my already not so great editing skills are slipping. Now I've thought this over a lot, and I don't want to go back to beta reader in the normal sense. At least not before I update. Because I update randomly I don't want to have to work around someone else's schedule (or try to find someone who can work around mine); I like being able to update when I finish a chapter.
However, I've been thinking that if anyone is interested in editing a chapter after I've posted it, I would be willing to send them the file so that they can look at the source (and write in about corrections) rather than just trying to make a note of mistakes in a review. If you ever notice something bad in a chapter and you decide you want to do this, just let me know (along with an email adress and whether or not you can accept attachments). I might not take you up on it right away if I'm being lazy, but I probably will. You can also request older chapters if you really want to. I will update edited chapters if I get them - maybe not right away (again kinda lazy) - maybe something like once a month make any corrections I've been told about or something like that.
Just let me know if you're interested.

21 and other stories

Just a heads up if you read my fic 21.
I'm doing pretty much the same thing with it that I just did with Ro7. So over the next few days, before I put up a new chapter, you may see some of the old chapter numberings change.
The basic explanation is that I'm trying to...consolidate? Okay maybe not consolidate but reorganize my stories without having to do a full rewrite on any of them.
In the case of 21, I'm throwing out a subplot or two and restructuring it so that the story happens over a shorter amount of time.
All you'll notice on the site is chapter titles changing a bit.
As I get the same done on Juniper I'll let you know if any changes are going to be made to it.