A Little More Than This (Discontinued)

Chapter 12

Mei yawned loudly as Kakashi dragged her to the genins' photoshoot.

"Are you sure you want to wear that?" Kakashi asked gesturing to Mei's Khaki green pants and black tank top. "Yeah, I'm sure Tou-San~" Mei replied happily. Kakashi sighed and let her walk over to two over her female friends.

"Hey!!! What happened to you?" Sakura asked, poking her head. "Tou-San made me wake up extra early, and I didn't get to go back to sleep coz I was fixing my pants" Mei yawned. Ino giggled lightly, "you should let me fix your hair Mei, it might lessen the 'look-at-me-and-I'll-kill-you' look".

Too tired to care she allowed the two to brush and braid her hair, completing a look of a more childish self.

"How's your hair so long?" Sakura asked, gesturing to the braids that touched pooled around the floor as Mei sat on the ground. "I don't let Tou-San near my hair, he has zero say in who I do with it. So I haven't cut it in the last three years" Mei said, shrugging lightly.

"Mei Hatake!"

Mei sighed and waved goodbye going up the stairs and meeting a tall bushy-browed, bowl-cut ninja clad in green spandex and orange leg warmers.

"Hatake?" The man asked. Mei nodded shyly as the ninja flashed a blinding smile at her. "So you are the reason Kakashi and I haven't been keeping up with our matches!! My name is Might Gai!" Gai cried, beaming even more brightly at her. "Nice to meet you, excuse me" she replied, smiling shyly at him and finishing the walk up the stairs and crossing to the photographer.

"Say cheese" the Photographer demanded before clicking a photo of the young Tangerine head. Mei bowed at him before running down to the rest of the group.

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Pein looked longingly out his window, the large group of men and woman stood gathered around the young girl's grave. Pein sighed and glared at his paperwork, hoping that if he glared with enough hatred it would burst into flames before his eyes.

He wanted to be out with his organisation, mourning over the loss of the beautiful young girl he had watch grow from an infant. He wanted to hear the pitter patter of excited feet, running to a member to show them something the owner found fascinating. He wanted to see his fellow tangerine wriggle as Konan teased her about something or other.

'12 today eh? This world loves to show us pain'

~

Kisame could feel the heated glare from their leader and wished almost as badly that the orange-haired man was standing out in the dreary whether with them.

"Happy Birthday Baby Girl" he whispered, patting the grave lovingly. "C'mon we'll catch our deaths out here" Konan replied gently, placing a cautious hand on his shoulder. Kisame nodded sadly and let himself be lead away from the small weather-worn grave.

'You left too early Baby Girl. No-Body was ready'

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Mei sighed in content, having beaten both men across from her in their bet.

"H-how?!?" They asked. "I spend a bit too much time with Naruto-Kun and Chōji-Kun~" she giggled. "That doesn't explain how a young lady is able to cook and eat beef ribs in under 5 minutes!!!" Gai cried. "I get a lot of practice, there is a place to cook Beef ribs in a short amount of time here" she shrugged.

"How?!?" Kakashi demanded. "Cook it on the outside ring, no-one ever uses that part of it's always white-hot!" Mei giggled, starting to drink her orange juice. Both men sighed in defeat and started eating at a more humane rate. Mei giggled again as she spotted a young Gai look-a-like standing near the entrance. She waved a little to him and he moved over to the booth entrance, excitement shining in his eyes.

"Gai-Sensei!! I did it!!! I completed the Jutsu!!" The kid cried. "Well done Lee!! That's my student!!" Gai responded, giving him the thumbs up. Mei looked between the two before looking expectedly at Kakashi.

"Mei this is Rock Lee, one of Gai's students" Kakashi replied to the look. "Students? As in he has more then one?" Mei asked surprised. Kakashi choked back a laugh and Lee looked offended.

"Of course!! I'm in charge of a Genin team so I have two more" Gai replied. "Poor souls" Mei muttered, causing a full-blown laugh to erupt from Kakashi. Gai simply pouted and stuck his tongue out at her playfully.

"But I would like to meet them, maybe introduce them to an actual human" Mei said, looking over at Lee. Gai nodded and Lee lead the way, gesturing for the young girl to follow.

~

"Hey Neji!! TenTen!!" Lee called to the two a ways a head. "Why are you calling to them? They're so far away" Mei asked. Lee picked her up bridal-style, causing Mei to eep in surprise, then he ran over to the two at a near in-humane speed.

"Who's this Lee?" TenTen asked. "Mei Hatake, she was just with Gai-Sensei and Kakashi-Sensei" Lee responded. "First up, I feel really sorry you got out on green-spandex's team, second nice to meet you" Mei said, holding out her hand, which Neji took happily.

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Mei waved goodbye to Kakashi and walked into the Ninja Academe, her Headband displayed proudly on her hip, where it usually sat.

She walked to her usual Homeroom classroom and sat in a random seat. She was soon joined by a read-haired girl with shady blue eyes and a hooded young man with his hair in a pony tail, two of her classmates she'd never got to know.

Soon the rest of the class filed into the room, there was a large commotion across the room and the girl went to join. Mei, who was curious, went over and saw Sasuke and Naruto kissing, and the guy below him apologising.

Mei started laughing loudly, as the rest of the girls glared at Naruto. They broke apart and started gagging before glaring at each other.

Mei giggled lightly and went over to Shikamaru and Chōji and started talking to them.

~

Everyone in the class was seated as Iruka called out the Genin teams, that's when Mei noticed an uneven number of people, there was going to be one extra.

"-team 7! Naruto Uzamaki, Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha and Mei Hatake" Iruka called out. "See told you you'd be on their team" Shikamaru whispered. "Ah shut it Shika" Mei replied, poking her tongue out at him.

Iruka continued talking, but shot a glare at the two, which silenced them immediately.

"Who do you thinks, gonna have the best Sensei?" Mei whispered. "Your team, it has the Ninja that needs the most work as well as the Ninja the the best skills, you'll get him or her" Shika replied glumly.

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Naruto and Sakura had started getting impatient, but Mei just smiled out the window. 'Surely only Tou-San is this late'

Sure enough the door opened up and Kakashi's face appeared, getting a duster to the head and looking intently bored already.

"Ok my first opinion is that you're all a bunch of idiots" Kakashi replied. 'Expect you Mei. You're my favourite person right now'.