Thirty Years Ago

Naruto sat on the swing out front of the Academy, watching the other children get picked up. Naruto froze when he saw a thirteen-year-old Kabuto greeting a few Academy kids and leading them away. He suspected they were headed to the orphanage. He had been rather thoroughly isolated from the other orphans during his stay there. He barely remembered any specifics. Mostly he retained the emotions he had. Loneliness. Hunger. Cold. Anger.

He looked away from Kabuto, turning to his classmates instead. Naruto recognized their parents, alive and looking far younger than he remembered them. He watched Sasuke take the hand of a pretty Uchiha woman. Sasuke’s mother, Mikoto. Naruto only remembered her face from some photographs Sasuke had found. 

Sasuke was tugging on his mother’s hand, pointing towards Naruto. Naruto winced, seeing the look of pity in the woman’s eyes. She knelt down and said something to Sasuke, who childishly stomped, then turned away. Naruto had no idea what Sasuke was thinking. 

They knew the Uchiha had been under suspicion for the kyuubi attack for years, most of it manufactured by Danzo and his associates. Naruto’s shitty apartment was as far away from the Uchiha compound as physically possible. As far as he knew, no Uchiha in ANBU were assigned to guard him. He rarely encountered the Uchiha-run Konoha Military Police. He wondered what would happen if he sat next to Sasuke in class. Would the teachers make him move?

Naruto hopped off the swing, deciding it didn’t matter. He needed to start accessing and rebuilding his chakra right away, to begin restoring his muscle memory. With that in mind, he ran off for one of the training fields on the outskirts of the village. Often people would leave weapons behind, and if he was lucky he’d get there before a genin team was assigned to clear it out.

There was still plenty of time left in the day—the younger students only had an hour of physical training after lunch—and Naruto had nowhere to be, so he took his time. He avoided Training Ground 3 and the Memorial Stone. He had wasted enough time glaring at the thing. No one had put his mother’s name on it, and going back there wouldn’t make that any less true. He turned over Konoha for any evidence his mother had existed, anything at all, and he had come up empty handed. It was possible it was all destroyed when Pain attacked. He had time to investigate now, and more avenues to explore. 

Naruto dumped his collection of blunt and broken weapons in an unoccupied training ground with targets already set up. He smiled when he saw the towering trees of Training Ground 44, the Forest of Death. If money and food weren’t coming soon, he had no problem breaking into the restricted area and hunting his own meals.

He picked up a kunai, trying and failing to spin it in his hand. It fell to the ground. 

He sighed, then picked up the kunai again. 

Sasuke decided the silent treatment was appropriately childish, so once he and his mother had arrived home, he hid in his room. There wasn’t much to do in there. It was the room of a six-year-old. A stuffed cat, a stuffed reptile of some kind. Practice shuriken made out of thin wood. Blocks to play with. Sasuke didn’t imagine the kind of child who became a genin at seven-years-old bothered playing with blocks. Still, he rearranged them, if only as proof he had interacted with his toys. 

He regretted, briefly, not spending time with Sarada when she was a child. He would have more recent memories of how children actually behaved. He resolved himself to paying more attention to his classmates. While Uchiha were typified by their reticence, he imagined some childish behavior would be expected of him. The power-obsessed avenger his brother had turned him into wasn’t this Sasuke. 

This Sasuke was innocent. He wasn’t aware of the restlessness in the compound, of the tense meetings in the Naka Shrine as the clan plotted a coup. He had never heard of Danzo or Orochimaru. Sasuke liked tomatoes, idolized his brother, wanted his father’s attention, and aspired to join the police force. He played with stuffed animals and wooden blocks, and thought being a ninja was a fun game, not a harrowing, bloody career.

Sasuke spent some time throwing his paper shuriken at the target hung on the wall of his room. If he used chakra, he could even get them to stick. A few ended up embedded in the wall. His aim was all over the place. He knew that at this age he had poured countless hours into matching his brother's accuracy. Missing the target completely was unacceptable. So he pulled the flimsy shuriken out of the wall and kept practicing, trying to feel comfortable in the body he had stolen.

When he heard his mother call his name, Sasuke placed the paper shuriken in a pile and braved the rest of the house. He entered the kitchen, eyes downcast so he wouldn’t have to look at anyone. 

“Sasuke,” his mother chastised. 

“What,” Sasuke said sullenly.

“Tou-san is home. He’s had a long day. You haven’t even greeted him!”

Sasuke chanced a look from under his hair. His father, Fugaku, wasn’t even looking at him. 

“Welcome home,” Sasuke said quietly, climbing into a seat. He watched indifferently as rice and curry were spooned onto his plate. 

“Sasuke made a new friend,” Mikoto said, smiling as she sat next to his father. 

Fugaku made a noncommittal noise. Sasuke looked at him again, noted the lines of stress that marred his father’s face, the bags under his eyes. He had two major organizations to run, the MIlitary Police and the Uchiha Clan, not to mention any missions the village might need him for. Sasuke wasn’t entirely sure what his mother did, besides taking care of him. She could have gone back to being an active kunoichi now that he was in the Academy.

“Did he,” Fugaku said, not expressing any overt interest. Sasuke’s mother had once said that his father often talked about him in private. At the time, Sasuke had believed her. In the many years since, he wasn’t so sure. 

“His name’s Uzumaki Naruto,” Sasuke said, pushing his food around with a spoon. A carrot cut into a flower emerged from the thick curry sauce. He wondered what Naruto was eating that night. If he was eating anything at all. 

Fugaku’s brow furrowed, he had a pinched look around his mouth. “Is that so.”

“It’s his birthday today,” Sasuke said. “Kaa-san wouldn’t let me bring him home.”

Something silent passed between his parents. 

“He doesn’t have anyone,” Sasuke continued, keeping his eyes on his food. It looked completely unappetizing, but he spooned some into his mouth and managed to swallow. It was good. 

“It’s not a good idea to bring outsiders into the compound,” Fugaku said, as if that was all there was to say. Perhaps, to him, it was. 

“Anata,” Mikoto said, frowning. 

“Konoha is supposed to be one big family,” Sasuke said. “That’s what we’re taught at school. But Naruto doesn’t have a family. Everyone hates him.”

For a moment, there were only the sounds of spoons scraping against plates, chewing, swallowing, a glass being lifted.

“We can talk about this more later,” Mikoto finally said. “Finish your dinner.”

As the sun set and darkness shrouded the training ground, Naruto abandoned the poor weapons he had been abusing and started the long walk home. There was no point taking anything with him, even the more salvageable weapons. Even in a shinobi village, an Academy kid running around with live blades was frowned upon. Especially on this day, this anniversary of the kyuubi attack, Naruto didn't need any more negative attention from the villagers. 

There was another reason he avoided the Memorial Stone. He would have liked to mourn his parents, all the people who had died, the blank spaces on the Stone he hoped would never be filled. It was the sixth anniversary. Naruto was certain Kakashi would visit the Stone, as he did every day he was in the village. It was possible Obito might show up, he was known to lurk around the edges. When Naruto was safely inside his apartment, having taken back alleys and side streets to avoid any drunk civilians, he confirmed that a third person had visited that day.

Sitting in the middle of his bed, bloated with coins, was Gama-chan.

Shocked, aware that he was likely being watched, Naruto froze and looked at the chubby frog wallet. 

He knew he had to react. There would be no silent or heartfelt appreciation of this gesture. He was six years old. A kid that age would be losing his shit, so he did.

Naruto jumped and laughed, lifted Gama-chan above his head and cheered while he danced around his tiny apartment. He tried to remember what it was like to not have any real worries, what it felt like to be happy without strings attached. 

“Ramen, ramen!” he chanted, wondering if he would have been dumb enough at this age to carry a bulging wallet around. He certainly had been at twelve, when he had it snatched away by Jiraiya while searching for Tsunade. Naruto was relatively certain it was Jiraiya who had left him Gama-chan. Who else would have picked a frog wallet? As for the refrigerator and cupboards that had been filled in his absence, Naruto wasn’t sure. Probably a chuunin, or some ANBU. It was a shame no one had left him a cookbook. He had no idea what to do with all the eggplant. 

Deciding that it wasn’t too out of character for a kid to hide his treasure, Naruto tucked Gama-chan under a blanket and only took enough money to get about ten bowls of ramen. He ran out of his apartment and barreled towards Ichiraku. 

“Good evening,” a preteen Ayame said, smiling at him from behind the counter. Naruto glanced at Teuchi, who was busy slicing dough into noodles. “Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out?”

Naruto blinked at her. He had no idea if he had ever come to Ichiraku before. The memory of his first time blurred with the many thousands of times he had visited the small ramen stand. 

“I like ramen,” Naruto said, not knowing what else to say. Ayame couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve. He didn’t know when she had started working with her father. Was there some kind of civilian school she was going to?

“I like ramen too,” Ayame said, looking at her father. Teuchi nodded at her. “Would you like any?”

Naruto nodded, setting down his coins. “Can I have miso? With extra chashu?”

“Coming right up!” Teuchi said, adding noodles to a boiling pot of water. Naruto kicked his legs while he waited. Ayame picked a few coins up, but pushed the rest back towards Naruto. 

“You gave me too much,” she explained. “Can you count?”

Naruto snorted. “Yeah. I can eat a lot of ramen, though.”

He took the coins back, realizing that, since Teuchi and Ayame didn’t know him yet, they weren’t familiar with how much food he was capable of eating. And besides a can of red bean soup and the bento Sasuke had brought him, he hadn’t eaten all day. 

Naruto was through his first bowl of ramen, and was in the middle of convincing Ayame that he really could eat another, when the Hokage finally showed up. 

Took long enough, Naruto thought bitterly, smiling inanely at the old man. 

“Naruto,” Sarutobi Hiruzen said, sitting on a stool next to him. “What a happy coincidence, though it is a little late for you to be out.”

“It is?” Naruto asked, grinning at the new bowl of ramen making its way to him. “I was hungry, but I don’t know how to cook. Usually the grown ups at the orphanage cook for us. They never let me help. Is there a book or something I can read?”

Naruto happily slurped up noodles, saw Ayame exchange a worried look with her father. 

“Would you like anything to eat, Hokage-sama?” Teuchi asked. 

“No thank you,” Sandaime said, waving Teuchi away. “I was just out for an evening stroll.”

Naruto gaped at him. “But, jiji! Ramen is the best!” He drained the broth emphatically. “Can I have another?”

Ayame looked skeptical, but took his empty bowl and turned around to help her father.

“Did you have a good birthday?” Sandaime asked, not showing any reaction to the amount of ramen Naruto was consuming. 

“Yeah!” Naruto exclaimed. “I made a friend!”

“Did you?” Sandaime asked. 

Naruto nodded. “His name’s Sasuke, and he’s my best friend.”

“Oh?” Sandaime said. “That was my father’s name.”

“I wonder what my father’s name was,” Naruto said wistfully, accepting a third bowl of ramen. 

A heavy silence fell on the ramen stand, broken only by Naruto’s slurping. He shoved slices of pork and hard boiled egg into his mouth to stave off the hysterical laughter that threatened to break loose.

There were a lot of questions Naruto could use to back the Hokage into a corner. He had to pace himself.

“I hope me and Sasuke can be friends forever,” Naruto said, sighing into his nearly empty bowl. “Usually other kids aren’t allowed to play with me.”

Sandaime cleared his throat. “I hope so too, Naruto. How about I walk you home?”

“Sure! Thanks nee-chan, o-chan!”

Naruto waved at Ayame and Teuchi, a little annoyed he hadn’t gotten their names. Well, he had plenty of time to rebuild those relationships. 

As Naruto skipped alongside the Hokage, studiously ignoring the shadows that flickered across the rooftops, he thought of yet another reason why he couldn’t be seen doing certain things. 

The Hokage’s frankly disturbing crystal ball. 

Tsunade had never used it, but when it was unearthed during an excavation while rebuilding Konoha, she immediately recognized it for what it was. With that ball, and a certain forbidden technique, the Hokage could spy on anyone whose chakra signature he knew. Naruto had to get the damn thing away from him, otherwise he’d be severely limited in what kind of training he did. He couldn’t mass produce shadow clones if the Hokage could peep on him at any moment. Sneaking into the Uchiha compound was definitely out of the question. He would have to start showing up in the Hokage’s office on a regular basis, which was something he had started to do around this age. Besides Teuchi and Ayame, Sandaime had been the only person to treat him kindly. 

Naruto didn’t know if it had all been an act, a way to secure Naruto’s loyalty, if not to the village then to its leader. It was possible Sarutobi was genuinely kind, or as kind as someone could be when they sent children out to murder people and covered up genocides—Naruto included Uzushio in that category. Perhaps it was lingering guilt for not being the one who sacrificed his life to a death god in order to reseal the kyuubi. Almost anyone could have done it. It didn’t have to be Naruto’s father. 

The Hokage left Naruto at his apartment, promising to find some cookbooks and cooking supplies for him. Naruto locked the door behind him, something of an empty gesture in a shinobi village where people were trained from infancy on how to break into places. He mechanically made his ablutions, newly disturbed by his body-thieving predicament. It was profoundly unsettling wearing a child’s body, and Naruto didn’t know if he would ever come to terms with it.

It didn’t matter. He had to live with his decision either way.

Sasuke was hiding in a tree, eating his lunch. Naruto was sprawled on an adjacent branch, pouting. Their second day of school, when they had tried to hide out on the roof for lunch again, they were swarmed by classmates looking for Sasuke-kun. 

Sasuke loathed being called Sasuke-kun. Orochimaru had called him that, and it never failed to make his skin crawl. The perverse old fuck probably got off on it. Then there were all the girls, and a few boys, who harassed him for years in the aftermath of his family’s death, who called him that. He could neatly sort people he liked and disliked based on whether or not they called him Sasuke-kun. Even Sandaime used the honorific with him, which only fueled the hatred Sasuke held for that man. 

“I might visit Hokage-jiji after school,” Naruto said, patting the branch he laid on fondly. “I have to use a chair to reach the stove.”

“Kaa-san has a stool for me,” Sasuke said, passing the rest of his lunch to Naruto. Naruto sat up and eagerly took the leftovers. 

“Thanks,” Naruto said, grinning at him. “Your mom’s really good at cooking. Do you help her?”

“Not much,” Sasuke said. Unlike Naruto, he had learned to cook for himself. But he had the benefit of having lived with a mother who taught him the basics, a foundation upon which he built. 

“Is your brother back from his mission yet?”

Sasuke leaned against the trunk of the tree, closing his eyes. “He’s supposed to be back tonight.”

“Cool,” Naruto said. “You must be happy about that.”

Sasuke smiled. He was sure Naruto could see right through it.

“Yeah,” he said. “I haven’t talked to him in a long time.”

Naruto scrabbled against the wall of the Hokage Tower, found a foothold, then paused to rest. He reminded himself that he hadn’t yet learned how to mold chakra, much less use it to secure himself to any surface. He had to do it the hard way.

He was mildly surprised when someone grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him up. 

“What do you think you’re doing, kid?”

Naruto twisted to confront this interloper. It was an ANBU wearing a fox mask, with gravity-defying grey hair. Naruto crossed his arms and glared up at the man. He knew that Itachi was on Kakashi’s ANBU team, he just hadn’t thought about what it meant for his plans that day. It was bad timing all around. 

“Visiting Hokage-jiji,” Narurto said. He flailed around. “Let me go!”

“Oh?” Kakashi said, holding Naruto out. He stared at the ground below. They weren’t that high up. “Are you sure about that?”

“Stupid creepy mask guy!” Naruto said, thrashing more violently. “You’re worse than the other mask guys!”

“Kitsune,” a tired voice called. “Just bring him in.”

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”

Naruto was slung over Kakashi’s shoulder and carried into the Hokage’s office. 

“Naruto,” Sandaime said, idly packing his pipe. Naruto was dumped into a chair. “You know, I do have a door.”

“That’s boring,” Naruto huffed, looking around the room. It was a far simpler office than his had been. A few stacks of books. Reports on the desk. Some chairs. Windows. Portraits of his—of Sarutobi's—predecessors. The damning picture of his own father.

Naruto looked down at his right arm to make sure it was still there.

There wasn't a crystal ball in sight. Maybe he was being unduly paranoid, but the old man had an eerie way of knowing everything Naruto did. Naruto needed that ball.

"It's safe," Sandaime said, smiling benevolently.

"Boring," Naruto repeated, drawing out the word. 

The Hokage sighed, then puffed on his pipe. "How are things at school?"

Naruto pouted, then looked at the portraits again. He zeroed in on Senju Tobirama. "Did Nidaime hate Uchiha?"

The Hokage coughed. "I beg your pardon?"

"Is that why they all live in the same place? Far away from everyone else? Do you hate them?"

Suddenly, Naruto was being lifted from his chair. 

"Hey!"

"I think it's someone's naptime," Kakashi said from behind his ANBU mask. Naruto tried biting him but couldn't quite reach. He was carried out the window, whisked away before he could get an answer to his question.

Sasuke did what he had wanted to do for years. He hugged his big brother.

"I missed you too," Itachi said, rubbing his back.

Sasuke barely held back his tears. His brother sounded so painfully young. Sasuke endured being picked up and carried into the house, choking back all the things he never had the chance to say. Most of it wouldn't even make sense to Itachi. The Itachi who had taken Shisui's bloody eye and systematically cut down every member of their clan was twenty years dead. He only existed in Sasuke's memory.

"How was school?" Itachi asked, setting Sasuke down at the kitchen table. 

Sasuke thought about his answer as a plate of onigiri and a glass of juice were placed before him. A wave of nostalgia crashed over him, and for a moment he reeled with disassociation. The flavor of the rice, the smell of his home, the warm familiarity of his family's presence. After he had lost everyone, no place ever felt quite right. No place was home. Not Konoha. Not the house Sakura had bought. He had never gotten the chance to live with Naruto. If he had…well, it was too late to change what they had left behind.

"It was…"

Sasuke stared at the table, tracing the grains of wood with a finger. He didn't have a word to encompass all that he felt.

"It was fine."