Misplaced Princess

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Naruto speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

Naruto held her Konoha brand new, official hitai-ate in her hands reverently. She tried to swallow down the emotion of finally taking the first step toward her dream, but found that she couldn't hold back a few tears.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," she whispered in a strangled voice.

"You're welcome, Naruto," Minato said as happily as he could. He really HATED this. His little girl had been through so much already, and to eventually put her out on the front lines?

No.

He'd retire and one day hand the hat to her before that happened. That way, she'd be safe and guarded, just like he was now. (Not that he was going to say that to his wife or daughter. He did have some sense of self-preservation.)

"And you can still call me Tou-san or Dad: anything like that's fine."

Really, his guards were unnecessary, but it was a way for Minato to keep the boys close to him to shield them from facing the worst of shinobi life again no matter how skilled they were. Genma, Raido, and Iwashi - as well as Kakashi who was his student - were all interested in fuuinjutsu, thus why he put together their very interesting team.

The Hokage Guard Platoon also kept the council off his back.

"Un," Naruto chirped. "Thank you!"

"As I said, you're welcome, Genin! Now," he said and dramatically unveiled a mission scroll, enjoying the way that his little girl's smile beamed like the sun. The next best part was that she didn't even seem to notice that his student was holding a camera in the corner to get this moment on film. "Genin Uzumaki-Namikaze, your first mission is to retrieve something of great value to the Daimyo's family." Naruto's face was already falling, rather than lighting up in glee: damn that fox probably remembering and telling her! "You will retrieve THIS cat," he continued, holding up a picture of Tora and trying to ignore the KI rolling off the girl in waves, "who goes by the name of Tora! HOLD ON THERE, NARUTO! Reign in that chakra!"

"Sorry," Naruto squeaked, then decided to lift a single golden eyebrow at him a moment later in a more silent challenge.

"This is a right of passage, Naruto," Minato assured her. "I chased this cat. Jiraiya-sensei chased this cat."

"Maa, I didn't chase that demon," Kakashi whispered from behind his new camera, unbelievably grateful in that moment, again, that he'd been rather exceptional.

"Good news then! Since Kakashi has so kindly offered to be your sensei for this mission," (cue and ignore outrage in the corner,) "he can help you!" That made Naruto laugh as she turned and sauntered toward his student mischievously.

"Okay, Kah-kah-shi - Sennnn-sei!"

Kakashi dropped to the floor as if he'd been shot. When Minato realized it was due to a nosebleed, he reassigned the mission so that the two wouldn't be anywhere near each other. He also sent a couple of his clones back to the house to move Naruto's bedroom away from his students.

Kushina said it was not happening and stabbed both of them.

"I fucking hate that cat," Shikaku sighed half an hour later after showing Minato's time-traveling daughter how to use the coms system. Even though he was still going to get back at his Hokage for this horrible assignment, he had his reasons for accepting it - even though he was sure he'd have more paperwork piled on his desk whenever he got back.

Naruto - honestly, what a name - was a happy but cute and loud little brat, but he hoped that as they were hunting the damn thing he could quiz her about his son. Inoichi had more information about the girl and her life than he did, and that was unacceptable! "Testing: 1, 2. Can ya hear me, Whiskers?"

"Yes, but I don't like that codename," Naruto fumed as she made and sent hundreds of clones to go dashing through the village.

"I'll be damned. You're a regular army, kid," Shikaku commented, never having seen so many of one person on rooftops headed in all directions of the village. He'd never wanted to see that, either - but it was interesting. And a good tactic.

"Thank you! Oh! Can you still hear me? What do you think a cat would like? How 'bout I get her some cat food or some catnip or something?"

"I can hear you," Shikaku drawled out slowly, realizing how the kid talked as fast as Kushina. He preferred the relatively slow, steady, thoughtful approach of Minato. "And that cat's not normal, Whiskers."

"I guess this assignment is better than babysitting brats," she snickered - probably to herself, Shikaku thought.

"So kid," Shikaku said, putting down a silencing seal so that only she could hear him and laying down to rest in the sun. Fortunately, the original Naruto had taken off with her clones so she didn't see him hanging back. "Your father told me about your situation… What a drag," he muttered in the end, thinking of how to phrase it. "I understand you knew a future version of my son."

"Yeah," Naruto said, smiling as she thought of one of the kids she'd left behind. She hoped that she'd have people in her life to replace them, although it wasn't like the friends (and not friends) she knew were GONE! They were just little babies or toddlers, which was hilarious! "I bet he's a lazy baby," she said with a grin. "You should put him in the sun, cuz his favorite thing is to watch the clouds. We did that a lot together."

A smile came to Shikaku's lips. It sounded a little like his son might take after him in more than just looks. "Anything else you can tell me about him?"

"Well, the Shikamaru I knew - DAMMIT, THAT'S THE WRONG CAT! - Ugh! ANYWAY," she continued, forcing Shikaku to pull his earpiece out a bit. "He slept through almost the entire Academy, 'cept for when he went out pranking with me, Kiba, and Choji."

"Troublesome."

"HA! That's what he always said."

"Well, he's a Nara, kid: that's what you'd expect."

Naruto hummed before darting in another direction that a dispelled clone led her to. "I saw you quite a few times, ya know," she admitted before pausing. "You're a lot more open now." Quite a long period of silence followed, which made Naruto's throat feel like it was constricting.

"So you, the Inuzuka kid, and Choji-chan were friends with my son?" Shikaku finally asked, wondering what kind of dickhead he was in her old future that he wouldn't have been kind to her.

"Yeah! Oooo, I think I found her, hang on!"

"Where are ya, Whiskers?"

"That cat's fast! I'm PRETTY sure I found it," Naruto wound up mumbling, having definitely seen a cat that had a bow on - which was a clear indication that someone owned it. The blonde was shocked that there were so many cats wandering around the village. She'd seen a few around where she used to live but had no idea there were THIS many. "Is this thing we're hunting a ninneko?"

"No one knows, Whiskers."

"Huh. Oh. And yeah, they were my friends, I'd like to think. My only friends - more like skipping buddies, ya know." Her dad's friend - Shikamaru's father - didn't say anything, and for some reason, she didn't like the silence, so naturally, her mouth fired away on its own. "Choji's dad hated me, I think. He was really scary."

"Troublesome," Shikaku said again, feeling like whatever was going on was much more than her simply being the jinchuuriki. Kushina had been the jinchuuriki, and no one was afraid of her.

That's not true, though, is it? Everyone was afraid of Kushina - but for a different reason. Maybe Naruto is a violent little thing, too.

"I think I got her!"

Shikaku looked up and the girl's very blonde clones were disappearing en masse. "Dispelling all those clones doesn't give you a headache?"

"Not when we're doing stupid or physical stuff like this," Naruto said easily. "If I'm trying to learn a whole bunch of new information or something: THAT gives me a headache if they don't dispel, like, 10 by 10." She ran back with the cat to Nara-san and held her to her chest to make the cat stop freaking out. "This is her, right? Tora?"

"You got her, kid: that was fast," Shikaku smiled, although he felt bad for the beaming girl. She certainly didn't have the relatively easy Academy days that he and most of his friends had. "Let's take her back to the Hokage. Now, with most missions, you'll go to the Missions Desk. I'll take you there to show you where it is… We don't want to take this hellion back to the Daimyo's wife so quickly, though." At her questioning gaze, Shikaku laughed. "You take her back this quickly? You'll forever be on Tora Duty!"

"Why don't you let me have her for a few days, Minato?"

"Why?" Minato drawled, knowing that Shikaku always had a reason for everything he did.

"I could use the help."

"Put in a mission request," Minato seemed to insist, bouncing his pencil eraser on his desk as he more closely inspected his friend. "You'll have to tell me why you really want her for me to hand her over."

"Troublesome," Shikaku sighed. "Hokage-sama, I… feel like I owe the kid, okay? She's your kid, so… She should learn strategy, ne? Plus, so much crap comes across my desk, assisting me will show her an overview of what a shinobi's job is or can be - plus all the normal junk: which department is where - all of that troublesome stuff since she's without a permanent team right now."

And so began Naruto's months of working for the Jonin Commander.

It was also when she was (re-)introduced to the laziest, yawniest toddler she'd ever seen.

"Namikaze Naruto, this is Sarutobi Asuma," Kakashi said one day as they headed back to their ("temporary" in his case, he kept telling himself) home.

Asuma-sensei… She wasn't quite sure where that idea came from, but it almost made Naruto sad. Then again, Naruto was certain that in the weird lives that had previously been hers, she'd seen a lot of death.

It didn't make those feelings any easier, though.  If anything, it was the opposite.

"Nice to meet you, Asuma-san. Are you related to Ji- Sandaime-sama, I mean?"

"He's my Pops," he said with a bob of the head after the two bowed to one another. "Your dad's the Hokage? I thought Yondaime-sama was too young to…" Kakashi held a kunai at his throat, scaring the blonde girl to death.

"Don't Kakashi-kun!"

"Mind your questions, Asuma," Kakashi said - uncharacteristically hotly, Asuma thought. "It's a secret that they're related."

Asuma rolled his eyes: so much for it being a secret. "She looks just like him. AND Kushina-sama. AND she has his last name."

"Ah," Naruto laughed awkwardly, going along with the first story that she'd heard. She and Jiraiya - or even her mother and father should have taken a little time to tell her the lie they'd decided upon so that she didn't have to go over her ridiculous, top-secret, and frankly embarrassing time-travel story to anyone, ever! "I'm also related to Senju Tsunade-hime, so maybe that's why."

"Interesting," Asuma said, deciding to find Kurenai to introduce her to the blonde. They were about the same age, it seemed, and the blonde seemed a little more socially acceptable than Anko. (He really didn't get their friendship.) It was also hilarious how much attention Kakashi was paying the girl - unless he was guarding her or something. Which he probably was, now that Asuma thought about it more. "You've got the uhh," Asuma pointed at her forehead then looked at her more critically, "those diamond things."

"Ah," Naruto understood what he meant. Tsunade's "sealios," as Naru called them, were on her forehead, wrists, pointing up toward her ears, and the rest were in cardinal directions around her seal - but Naruto's were golden, locking up some of Kurama's chakra, to be released only in emergency situations. "I haven't learned Tsunade-baa's release yet, but you know," she added uncomfortably. Although she'd thought the diamonds looked cool, she doubted that anyone else would.

Plus, she didn't yet understand how the whole Strength of a Hundred Seal worked. The seals on Naruto's body were MUCH less complex than the one on Tsunade's forehead.

Asuma kept looking at her, making her uncomfortable. "What's your rank?" he finally asked.

Kakashi began twirling his kunai, looking more murderous than usual, Asuma realized.

"Oh," Naruto said, scratching the back of her neck and feeling her face heat up. "I'm just a Genin. I uh, graduated from the Academy later than most," she admitted in shame. She'd never heard of anyone graduating at over 15 years of age. It was really embarrassing. Fortunately, Asuma only said one word.

"Cool."

"Yeah! I mean, it's good to finally be working, ya know."

Asuma nodded and noticed Kurenai and Anko heading in a different direction from the corner they were on down the street. He straightened up and patted down his vest, ensuring that he looked his best. He gave Kakashi the stink eye when he snorted at him. He knew he was obvious, dammit!

"Yo, Kurenai-chan," the future chain-smoker shouted, getting the girl's attention. He noticed that, as usual, Anko really didn't want to come, but was glad that Kurenai dragged her down to see him. That had to be a positive sign for him winning her heart, right?

"Oh no," Kakashi nearly whimpered.

"What's wrong, Kakashi-kun?"

"Who's the chick?" Anko asked as she walked up, giving Naruto a very obvious once-over.

Or twice, or three times over!

"I'm Naruto; it's a pleasure to meet you," Naruto said with the manners her mother was trying to instill in her but not use herself. She didn't like the way this girl was glaring at her with a sneer that made her feel like she stank or something, (she KNEW she didn't!) but Kurama's voice in the back of her head made thoughts of saying something about it fly right out of her mind. For a few moments.

"The purple one is an ally."

The pretty girl standing next to "the purple one" smiled and introduced herself and her rude friend. "I'm Yuhi Kurenai, and this is Mitarashi Anko. It's our pleasure, right, Anko-chan?"

"No," Anko said firmly. "You're the idiot who went out with Gai and is messing around with Genma and my boyfriend!"

"I'm um - sorry?" Naruto asked more than apologized as she watched Asuma hold back Kakashi who seemed to REALLY want to stab the purple-haired girl. The Killing Intent he was putting out was impressive, but sharp, and Naruto backed a few paces away. "Gai-san and I went out to get some ramen, and um…"

"What is your problem, Kashi-kun? And it's this whore's fault that you're…"

"Kakashi's your boyfriend?" Naruto asked, interrupting with big eyes before her brain fully engaged. "Try calling me that one more time, BITCH," she said hotly, her hair flying out in every direction.

"Stop you guys," Asuma said tiredly. This "method" Anko had decided to bring Kakashi out of his shell totally sucked! "And she's just a Genin."

Anko snorted. "Genin! How old are you, fifty?!"

Naruto's eyes teared up, embarrassed that she had JUST made Genin at such a late age, but… "Just because I'm more developed than you as a woman doesn't mean I'm ancient, you stupid bimbo!"

That led to both girls rolling, punching, and slapping each other through the dirt, until Anko summoned her snakes, making Naruto scream and then bite her thumb as she ran away from the horrible things. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Anko stopped in her tracks when Yondaime-sama's toad appeared and just missed landing on the teens. Naturally, it was followed up by Yondaime-sama, himself. She glared at the girl she guessed was the Hokage's kid sister or something, waiting for her to throw her to the wolves. To the Head Wolf!

"Hey umm," Naruto began to say to her father, feeling like an idiot. "Hey!" She couldn't embarrass her parents now that she had them! And she certainly couldn't call him "Dad" or anything in front of people who didn't know! "Sorry," she said as she looked down, once again teary-eyed and feeling sick.

Anko could hardly believe her luck (which ran out when she found her sensei waiting to reprimand her around the corner,) but watched the blonde girl like a hawk to see what she'd do.

"Naruto," Minato said, less cheerily than he normally did. "Is everything alright?"

"Hai!"

"Then you're dismissed Gamabunta-sama," Minato said, allowing the toad to dispel while Naruto gave it a sad wave.

"What happened here?"

"I overreacted," Naruto admitted with a bow. "Please forgive me."

Minato sighed: something was just off about his kid lately. What had happened when she was with Jiraiya-sensei that had made her so melancholy, and dare he say it: tame?

Surely working with Shikaku hadn't dampened her spirit, had it?

When he first met Naruto as a teen - and that was a somewhat awful memory - she had been so fierce; so much like her mother. He sighed heavily and ruffled her hair, regretting that she didn't look him in the eye. "I'm glad you're alright."

"And I'm sorry to bother you again," she said with another bow. Her father touched her shoulder when she stood, and apparently Kakashi's, too, because a split second later, they were in her parents' living room. Her "aunt" and mother were sitting comfortably having tea. Karin-chan was sitting on her mother's lap getting kisses and Naruto felt something sinister twist in her gut. And it wasn't Kurama! "Please excuse me," she said, careful to move away and up the stairs slowly so as not to raise any suspicions.

Which, of course, alarmed everyone.

Kakashi was the one who eventually told on Anko, and also the only one who thought he might know what was going on with Naruto. The ideas her family was spinning went from ridiculous: being overwhelmed as a kunoichi (working as a courier for Shikaku-san? Were they serious?!) all the way to suffering from "time-travel cancer" (thank you, panicking but not being helpful, Kushina-nee.)

Finally aggravated enough to leave the room and check on the blonde kunoichi, Kakashi ambled upstairs while no one was paying attention.

Quietly knocking on her door, he was called in to find the blonde laying on her bed and cuddling a large, orange toad plush. "Yo."

"Yo, Kakashi-kun," Naruto said tiredly, making room for him to sit on the edge of her bed.

"What's up?" he asked, not knowing quite what to say. She was the one who needed to talk here, he guessed.

Naruto's eyes turned glassy as she twisted her lips. After biting her bottom lip - something he wanted her to stop doing - she looked away. "I'm a horrible person."

"Nah," he disagreed easily.

Naruto laughed bitterly, not liking one bit the way it sounded. "Who is not horrible, but jealous of a baby?"

"Ah," he said, seeming to understand - but Naruto doubted it. "Babies suck."

Naruto let out a snort and smiled at him in a heartbreaking way. "I don't know if I can keep living here, Kakashi! I don't think - no, I KNOW I don't belong here!"

The Jonin was silent for a few minutes, playing with his own fingers. "You were happier back there? In the other timeline: your past - our future…"

"No," Naruto said in a quiet but firm voice, "but since I came back from my trip with Jiraiya, things haven't seemed the same. No, they haven't seemed real!"

Kakashi nodded at her, an unusual look in his eye. "You were gone for a long time."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed - although it hadn't FELT like she'd been gone that long. "What was your longest mission? - The longest you were ever away?"

"Maa, in the war, I was rarely in the village. For years. But my longest regular or ANBU mission? That was guarding you and Kushina-nee when she was pregnant with you." He gave her an eye smile, but whenever he thought of that time, it was very hard to reconcile THIS beautiful Naruto with THAT Naruto: the fetus/baby/thing they'd been waiting for.  "It's hard to imagine you as a baby, but we used to do it all of the time," he admitted.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, that ugly feeling rearing its head again. What is wrong with me?!

"You wish you'd grown up with them," Kakashi guessed.

"Well, yeah: of course!"

"I mean... You previously said it was bad in your village," Kakashi mentioned after what seemed like a long period of silence, assuming that was even more true from things he'd overheard from his sensei - plus the way Naru-chan acted sometimes. (Not to mention the way she'd shown up, nearly dead: that he didn't like to ever think about.) It was also easier to discuss the Konoha she knew as a separate place.

He'd like to think that HIS Konoha would never treat a child badly. Then again, he hadn't always been treated especially well…

"Not always," Naruto admitted, turning to look up at the ceiling. "Sometimes I wonder, though, how I survived before I could take care of myself. People hated me, enough to kill me. …Someone must have helped me - when I was helpless, but I can't imagine who it would have been."

"That's not right," he said angrily. Really, he found it unusually hard to put his emotions into words.

"It's also not right to be jealous of a baby for simply being treated decently," she said, pulling her legs up to sit beside him, although she hid her face behind her hair. When he gently moved the long blonde strands behind her ear, she felt a shiver of something run down and up from where he'd touched her. Kakashi was just staring at her, and she wasn't sure how, but it seemed that she was even closer to him, which made her sit up more. He didn't say anything, even though he could probably hear her heart beating - it began pumping so loud and fast - and when she realized he kept looking at her breathing and lips, Naruto lost control.

Her lips met fabric, but when she reached for his arm she felt them - the real thing! Kakashi's lips were soft and warm and he was definitely kissing her back. When his hands moved to the back of her head and elbow, Naru crawled onto his lap.

It wasn't long before they needed air, but that didn't stop the teens. Their kissing became more desperate, Kakashi's arms wrapping around her waist. Naruto pushed herself flush against him, loving the way he snarled in a long, low growl and very into the way he bit and tugged at her bottom lip. She almost cried out as she grinded against his impressive erection - not that she would really know at all - but he silenced her moan by dominating her mouth with his tongue as his hands moved in different directions from her waist.

Something made a noise in the hallway, and reality crashed down on them. Naruto, once again, found herself holding a log.

"Oh my gosh… What did I do?!" each of the teens said - almost simultaneously - from their own bedrooms.

- "What is your problem, Kashi-kun?" the "Purple One" said. "And it's this whore's fault that you're…"
- "Kakashi's your boyfriend?!"

Naruto began to panic, tears beginning to stream down her face. He has a girlfriend and I AM a whore! Similar or that EXACT catcall began to echo in her head from the villagers in her past and Naruto's chakra erupted.

Minato was in her room in a heartbeat, and Naruto turned away as quickly as possible, hiding her formerly very turned-on body (and the log) and her probably bruised lips. As her father questioned her, trying to get her to explain what had happened, Naruto just cried more: confused, alone, and not knowing what to do.

Kakashi, in the meantime, found that even the mix of Naru's upset chakra, crying, and Minato-sensei's worried voice wasn't a complete cure for his hard-on. "Get it together, Hatake," he hissed at himself, trying to think of anything to make it go away.

Drowned puppies - Karin-chan's smelly diapers - natural disasters - Chidori-ing myself or more likely sensei Rasengan-ing me into dust…

"That's it: I'm moving out tomorrow," he vowed.

And he did, not realizing he was also leaving behind a confused blonde who might long resent her impulsive, reckless actions. And maybe even him.