Quote:Aunt? Huh?
On Naruto: So I'm guessing he lived with his auntie as an infant, only being remanded to the rather haphazard (in his case only, and without Anko's knowledge since I doubt she'd stand for shit like that demon-boy or not) care of Child Services after her death? If the Academy lasts four years (what I'd been figuring, splitting the difference between the two and six years I've seen as the usual range in other fanfic) that would have him entering a little over three years later to be two years early, whether because he wanted to get away from the day care and that was as soon as he could manage it, or because they wanted him to be someone else's problem for a while.
Yondaime was Naruto's uncle, stet? And his younger sister, Surimi, was an ANBU trooper who died two or three years after her brother, at which point her son, our own lovable Jinchuuriki, went into the standard Konoha orphan/fosterage system. Surimi's husband was Anko's cousin, and besides having been disowned by his clan, no member of his immediate family managed to survive to the present day.
In short, aside from some random civilians in southern Stone country, Anko is at least tied for the title of Naruto's closest living relative, given that she's probably the only one of the potential candidates who'd be willing to acknowledge the connection... if either of them had a clue that they were connected like that.
Umm... oh! Climate. I think that Konoha has got to be a lot cooler than all those sunny days make it look - I mean, look at how Team 8 dresses, just as an example - at least, during those parts of its year that we get to see. So, long story short, I think that that continent in general and Fire Country in particular are subject to a seasonal monsoon on a par with what's seen in India. (I'd also placed the landmass in the local southern hemisphere, but that was mostly to be perverse and can be discarded as you please).
So, the rainy season - local summer - starts around late November-December, then pours buckets for the next three or four months straight, with temperatures rising steadily from ~80F/27C to the neighborhood of 100F/40C right before the weather breaks and it finally stops raining around early April. Then things reach the chillier side of mild during the day until next November, with nights getting steadily colder around the winter solstice.
So between December and April, nothing much happens in Konoha, except going out to patch the roof. Most of Fire Country is still forest, because otherwise the ground can't soak up enough of the rain to last through the rest of the year and the rivers dry up, plant life dies, and then everything gets washed away next time the rains come.
Rain Country gets its name because it's right to the north of Fire, in the foothills of the mountains that make up most of Stone. Which means that whatever moisture those clouds have left after crossing Fire (usually quite a bit) gets dumped there.
Speaking of mountain ranges (did I go into this here, or on Edenfalling's LJ?) - the northern edge of the Ninja Continent is a convergent plate boundary, much like, oh, the Andes in South America, or the Cascades here in the US and Canada - those mountains run from the 'spine' of the Lightning Country peninsula all the way west into Stone, at which point they blend into several other, even larger ranges with more in common with the Rockies or Himalayas.
As you go west, you start getting less rainfall anyway, but there's another mountain range of interest along the southern edge of Wind Country - it's rain shadow is the reason you end up with a desert so close to a rainforest in an east-west progression. There's a sort of long, narrow coastal trading nation to the south of that range and some balkanized city-states along the western edges of Stone and Wind, but other than that, the existing maps show everything of potential interest.
And I need to go eat. Back in a bit!
ETA: The clan Kayaku married into, the Kagami, are one that I've mentioned before. Their Blood Limit includes a sort of nictating membrane - which is shiny and reflective, hence the name of both the Limit (Kagamigan - 'Mirror Eye') and the clan that bears it - and grants them the ability to see a full three-hundred sixty degrees, much the same way the Byakugan often seems to. Differences - the Kagamigan doesn't need nearly as much chakra, it only involves normal acuity of vision, and it doesn't have a blind spot. And it can be hidden.
The Kagami themselves are of Stone extraction - clear skin, silky blond hair, light colored eyes - Deidara could maybe pass for one.
The Yuuhi are a major clan also, and yes, Kurenai is perfectly typical in pretty much all respects. Their bloodlimit, the Bunkougan, lets them see infrared and ultraviolet radiation in addition to normal visible light, which is mostly just wierd but can be very useful, especially in colder climates.
That brings us, in turn, to the point that we've gone in completely different directions on - the Haruno.
Your Haruno, IIRC, are an active ninja clan much like the Yamanaka and Nara, all of whom have pink hair and a bipartate conciousness from birth, which lets them essentially do two things at once.
Mine are a well-to-do merchant family with ninja ancestors, comperable in role and resources to Gatou, just more honest. Their hair colors vary by individual, but are always startling and identical to one species or other of flower, after which that individual is then named. The blood limit proper is much more subtle, not so much being a mind split as making it possible for the clanmember to subdivide and reassemble their mind without driving themselves batshit crazy. Doing so, however, takes considerable time and preperation, which limits combat applications, and doesn't improve its owners ability to track multiple trains of thought in the slightest.
What it does do, besides the spying and interrogation applications we've discussed before, is allow a properly prepared Haruno to take advantage of a Bunshin variation whose clones compare to Naruto's Kage Bunshin about the same way an Abrams compares to a Humvee - IOW, they're just as durable as their creator, and can last literally months without any further support.
...I think that's about it.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."