Chapter 6: Childhood Arc: Five

Disclaimer: for every thing I own, there is at least a million things I do not own. Naruto belongs in the later category.

The clear spring day that I turn four, Tou-san takes me out to the park to fly a kite. Kaa-san had attempted to bake a cake that turned out to be more than a little blackened. Thus, she'd shoved Tou-san and me out the door, with my birthday present, the aforementioned red kite, and told us to buy a cake on our way back.

Tou-san had snickered all the way out the compound and down the street, my hand in his as we walked past the river and away from the center of the village. "Do you still want to go to academy in the fall?"

I nod and swing our hands back and forth. "I want to." There were actually two starting terms in the academy, one spring, and one fall to accommodate age differences during wartime. Peace would be different. Even though everyone knew that we would at long at last beat back Kumo and Iwa, no one knew which border skirmish would be the last.

"I'm just checking." I'm about to laugh, but an old lady tries to cross the street to avoid acknowledging us with a nod or a smile, and suddenly I am angry.

"Tou-san?" I tug at his sleeve. "Why is that lady over there being rude?" I may have said so far too loudly out of spite, because she draws herself up stiffly in an angry line.

"See here you little brat-"

I narrow my eyes at her. "It's better to be a little brat than an old lady who looks like she's smelt something awful." There's a sharp intake of breath next to me and Tou-san's pushing my head down into the proper position for a bow even as he does the same.

"My apologies Obaa-san." Tou-san took me by the hand again and crossed the street. "Don't do that again, Hana." He doesn't sound angry. Just resigned and somewhat distantly sad.

"Why? They are never nice to you." And indeed, the older people of Konoha went out of their way to be rude, either gossip or silence followed him around constantly. The shinobi population is kinder, but the greetings at times, are still quite frosty.

"Yes, but-" Tou-san straightens up. "Yamanaka-san. Nara-san." He bows politely to two men. I bow as well, certain that these are actually Inoichi and Shikaku.

"No need to be so formal." Inoichi pats Tou-san on the shoulder while Shikaku crouches down to look at me. "And what is your name?"

I stare back at him, taking in the features of someone who had once been simply a character. Since he doesn't know me, there's no need to worry that I'd surprise him in any way. "Inuzuka Hana." I look down, a nervous habit that a second lifetime is incapable of shaking. "It's good to meet you, Nara-san."

I see Inoichi suppress a smile. "Your daughter then, Kaito-san?"

Tou-san nods.

"She's rather grown up for a child." Shikaku straightens. Oh wouldn't you like to know.

I hold up four fingers. "Uh-huh. I turn four today." Best to nip the idea in the bud by actually acting like a child. Seriously though. I can't wait to grow up and be taken seriously for once.

But even as I think that i know it's not true. Being a child again is actually a relief. I had been on the cusp of making adult decisions, and while I was alright with that, I hadn't felt ready. I didn't want to feel ready.

And now I am just four years old, a small child again. I could go out to fly kites with Tou-san, and it wouldn't be strange at all.

Inoichi smiles indulgently and pats me on the head. "Well you should get to it. You only turn four once, after all." He nods to Tou-san. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Kaito-san."

Tou-san nods back. "Of course, Yamanaka-san."

Not for the first time, I wonder what Tou-san actually did, he's a chunin that occasionally had field duty, but what did he do? I didn't know. He slips his hand back around mine, and I squeeze it once for comfort.

We stop by the bakery, and as an indulgence Tou-san buys two cupcakes for the road and a gigantic cake to bring back to Kaa-san. As we walk, Tou-san sighs and motions for me to sit down on a bench just outside of the clan compound. "Would you like Tsume to take you out instead?"

I tilt my head at him. "No. I like spending time with you, Tou-san."

He offers me the other cupcake and buries his face in his hands. "I forget that you're only four years old sometimes, Blossom. The amount of anger that old witch directed at you today wasn't fair."

I pat his leg. "I think that they're mean because Tou-san's better than them."

Something that sounds alarmingly like a sobbing laugh squeezes itself free of Tou-san's throat. "I moved here when I was six, when my father died." He looks at me with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees the cake next to him on the bench. "As you must have heard by now, from Iwa. Eighteen years later, and the civilians still think that I'm a foreigner." A hot flash of anger rips its way through my heart. He's been here ever since he was a child and they still think that he's some sort of spy? He's fought for them. He's bled for them. This is his home.

"We should go out together again tomorrow." I say, wrapping both of my hands around his wrists. "I don't care that they're mad. I just want them to stop being mean to you. They're never mean when I'm alone."

Tou-san pulls me into a hug. "I don't deserve such a grown up child like you, Sprout."

There are tears in my eyes as I hug him back. You don't know half of it, Tou-san.

One month later, Kaa-san comes home from a mission and picks me up with a war whoop. "The war's over, Little Nose. Everything's back to normal again." She's covered with dirt, grime, and shallow scratches, and Kuromaru's trailing behind her with a limp, but there's blood rushing in my ears and I couldn't hear anything properly.

For practically my entire life in Konoha, the war had been raging steadily onward. But it is over.

And Tou-san and Kaa-san were both safe. I have to visit the memorial stone again to say thank you to Obito-san.

"Would you like a sibling?" Kaa-san's looking at me a bit nervously, and my eyebrows draw together. It's a bit early for Kiba to have been conceived yet, right?

"Am I getting a little brother?" I ask, and Kaa-san laughs.

"No." I frown. I knew it was too early, but what brought this on? "I just wanted to know if you'd like a sister, but it looks like you're looking for a brother instead." She ruffles my short brown hair and chuckles. "It'll be a while yet before something like that happens. But the war's over, and everything's good. We'll get started on your pre-academy training soon."

The next morning, Kaa-san wakes me at the crack of dawn for a jog around the clan compound. She points out the houses and the communal places that our family rarely if ever visits, and chatters on and on even as I huff and puff away behind her. There's really a reason why I hate running in the morning. Thankfully, the Triplets and Kuromaru didn't come with us, otherwise they'd be teasing me mercilessly for 'lazying about in the book place' and not running enough.

Sadly, they'd be right. Kaa-san pauses after we've made it around the compound three times, and pauses to let me catch up. "Did you channel chakra to your legs?"

I pause to think about it. "I don't know." I flop down on the dusty path. "I can't really feel what it's doing unless I'm meditating or concentrating on it."

Kaa-san taps her fingers idly against her thigh; she 's never really still. "Well, we'll just have to ask Kaito to meditate with you longer. You've got a lot of spiritual energy that you've got from him, but we need to increase your physical capacity as well, otherwise you'll never have the amount of chakra you'll need for the clan techniques." And thus she passes me to Tou-san with the instructions of meditation for an hour each day.

I run along the river back to the memorial stone late that afternoon as the sun falls to a few finger's widths above the horizon, Ichi, Ni and San running beside me. A small pouch of hard candies is strapped to my thigh and they click as I run. There's always more time for practice after all, and I really needed training. I couldn't rely on freakish luck to survive.

I find Kakashi in front of the memorial stone this time. He turns to look at me as I enter the clearing and I look back at him. He's as unamused as ever, but this time he says nothing, just disappears into the trees as I come to sit in front of the memorial stone.

"Uchiha-san, the war's over." I say to the stone. "I brought you some more candy. I'm not sure which flavor you liked while you were living, so there's a little bit of everything." I lay out the handful underneath his name and smile brightly. "Thanks for protecting Kaa-san and Tou-san. They both made it." I rise and bow, as the Triplets bark once in unison.

I turn to see Kakashi standing not a foot away from me. "I need to apologize."

I stare back into his one-eyed gaze, not sure that I'd ever understand him. "What for?"

He seems almost uncomfortable as he looks away. "For thinking you were here to make fun of him the last time." He'd been prickly last time, and I hadn't wanted to meet him again, but I didn't expect him to apologize for it.

"There isn't a need." I say as I trot off down the path. He follows, two steps behind me.

"You're a strange one, Inuzuka Hana."

I look up at him and raise an eyebrow, just like Tou-san would've. "Didn't you know? I'm four going on forty this year."

He almost smiles, but it dies not a moment later. "Another genius then." The words are as bitter as pure chocolate. "Konoha likes to break those."

I cross my arms and look up at him, the Triplets arrayed around me in a mock battle line. "I'm not to be broken. Not by Konoha, and not by anything else." The words are braver than I rightly know them to be, but I didn't intend to die until I lived past at least middle age, this time.

When I march off again, he doesn't follow.

Tou-san drags me along towards the center of the city a week later. He says it's to see a friend, but Tou-san has so few friends I am almost taken aback at the thought until we arrive at the Nara Compound. We slip inside, and he takes me towards a house near the forest. Despite it being past noon, it takes three minutes for the door to creak open after Tou-san knocks.

"Some of us would like to sleep now, you know." Ensui-san blinks blearily against the brightness of the sun and steps aside to let us enter.

"You weren't asleep. You were out at the bar yesterday despite what I told you about those places, and now you're hung over and cursing the world." I'd never heard Tou-san so casual with anyone besides Kaa-san before. So Ensui-san and Tou-san are actually friends.

"Just tell me why you're here." Ensui-san groans. "And please don't be loud about it."

Tou-san smirks. "Your romancing's not working out?"

Ensui-san shoots him a poisonous glare and sets a kettle to boil on the stove. "She's a troublesome woman." The words were so similar to Shikaku and Shikamaru that it was almost eerie. I wonder if Ensui-san gets married?

"But enough of your love life, I'm here to talk to you about Hana." Tou-san gestures towards me, and Ensui-san glances in my direction.

"Eh, what about your Sprout?"

Tou-san pulls the kettle off the stove and a few tea bags out of the cupboard in the corner. "She's got a lot of spiritual energy. I was wondering if your clan has the experience to figure out how to up the physical portion." Ensui-san sits up straight for the first time since we'd walked in.

"So it's a training puzzle we're looking at?" Tou-san hands him a cup of tea and Ensui-san looks at him with mock disapproval. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

A.N. And steadily we chug along, chug along, chug along, steadily we chug along, all through the day.

Thanks for the review, Sis. Your coordination during planning sessions for this fic are much appreciated.

Thank you to everyone who has favorited and followed. Your support makes me happy.

~Tavina.