Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto-Ojiisan has that honour. I make no money from writing fanfiction (unfortunately).
Chapter One: You're Under Arrest. . . . Sort Of
He whistled and waited for the echoes to come back to him. The pre-genin knew he was in trouble when he located a familiar chakra signature closing in on his five o'clock. The adults, he could handle. . . . but even though the chuunin approaching was a year his junior—he was definitely more dangerous to him. The pre-genin veered left, hoping against hope he could make it to the tree line. If he managed that, he might stand a chance—if he didn't. . . . well, then it'd be easier for the chuunin to make those damn body flicker clones around him. Left again, right, over a hedge, left, and—WALL! Oh, shit. Damnit!
The brunet turned slowly, blowing out his breath slowly. "Well, you got me."
The chuunin came to a halt a few feet away. He smiled. "Today."
The brunet smiled back. "Yeah. Today."
"Sorry, Iruka-kun, but you know that I have to take you in."
The pre-genin grinned widely. "Yeah, but there's still all the times you guys can't catch me."
The chuunin smiled back easily. "Not me. You only best the adults."
Iruka nodded, then sighed and finally, shrugged. "So. . . . Am I under arrest?" He wiggled his eyebrows at the slightly younger boy, who shook his head good-naturedly.
"You will be the death of me, Iruka-kun." Iruka offered up his wrists, an unrepentant grin plastered on his face. The chuunin continued, "I'm not going to tie you up, Iruka-kun."
Iruka pouted. "Why not?"
"Because you're not a dangerous criminal." The chuunin paused as Iruka nudged him in the shoulder. Iruka winked, the chuunin sighing. "Maybe I should rethink that statement."
Iruka slid his arm into the crook of the other's elbow. He turned to smile at his friend. "You definitely should, Shisui-kun."
"Okay, how is this: you are a reasonably dangerous brat." He mock-glared at his friend. Shisui, who graduated the Academy at seven, was a chuunin already at eight and though he was friendly and well-liked, he didn't often have time to make or keep friendships—which is why he'd taken an immediate liking to the trouble-making Umino Iruka. Not many people were allowed to call an Uchiha of all people 'kun' in public, but Shisui (as Iruka explained it) did not 'have his fan up his ass' like the rest of the clan—Shisui had laughed at that declaration and had been Shisui-kun ever since.
The brunet, barely a year older than Shisui himself, was constantly on the run from the Konoha military police. A master prankster and the child of two respected jounin, it was the Uchihas' duty as the military police to corral the boy, who, as a pre-genin, was definitely beyond the scope of the regular civilian police. Which meant that Shisui got to spend a lot of time with him—constantly the one to be assigned the difficult brunet over the last year as he had the best record of catching him—the adults just never understood the way Umino thought. Shisui, as a child himself, still had a more flexible mind and managed to catch him about fifty percent of the time, as compared to the grown-ups collective ten percent.
Out of curiosity, Shisui had once asked (before he had chased him for the first time) to see Iruka's dossier. He had been presented with a folder only about two inches thick. When he had told his aunt, the desk sergeant, that he didn't see the big deal about chasing the kid down if that was all the 'master' (and he had said it with air quotes, too) prankster had accomplished, the older Uchiha had grinned somewhat bitterly and then proceeded to pull out four more folders, each about twice the thickness of the first; while intoning, 'We only have a ten percent catch rate of the brat—these are all of the suspected cases of Umino-brand trouble.' After the first chase, he had grown a far healthier respect for his pre-genin friend. Now, he looked forward to their chase games and easy banter. Shisui still had his friends from the Academy and his genin team, but found he spent far more time with Iruka nowadays.
He 'frog-marched' him back to the compound (really, it was more like a leisurely stroll with linked arms—but the grown-ups had ceased to care once they realised that Iruka didn't mind being caught by their youngest operative) for his usual lecture and the customary holding period (about two hours—during which he and Shisui would use nin-sign-language to communicate from across the room, or less regularly, sneak off—which his mother allowed as long as 'the offender' didn't leave the compound and wasn't seen enjoying himself instead of being punished—civilians were nosy, in Shisui's opinion, and Iruka-kun's pranks were never mean. . . . just messy, or loud and always funny).
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As the boys neared the main police building beside the Uchiha compound, they ran into a younger member of Shisui's family—his cousin Itachi. Nine-year-old Iruka stopped in his tracks, pulling his friend up short beside him.
"He's so cute!" (Shisui rolled his eyes, both internally and externally—he swore—children would honestly be the death of his best friend—all you would have to do is throw cute kids at him and he'd be putty—Shisui swore the boy cooed at babies more than grown women did—it had actually helped distract Iruka enough once for the younger boy to catch him when the brunet had stopped to catch a civilian toddler's fly-away balloon.) "Can I meet him?" Iruka was fairly vibrating in place.
Shisui sighed. "I don't know him that well myself, other than by reputation. He's a prodigy."
"So are you," Iruka replied, and then, "but you're okay." He winked. Shisui rolled his eyes again.
"Is there something wrong with being a prodigy, Iruka-kun?"
Iruka waved the comment off, crouching down in front of the younger child. "Hi!"
Itachi blinked up at him owlishly. "Hello."
Iruka grinned. "I'm Iruka!"
Itachi blinked again. He leaned around the loud brunet to ask his cousin, "Does your friend always speak in exclamations?"
Iruka scrunched up his nose. "How old are you?" He began looking and poking around the younger boy, holding out one of his arms and then the other, then letting them go, as if assessing something.
"Six years old."
Iruka clucked (like a mother hen, but Shisui wasn't about to tell him that), "Well, are you broken or something, then?"
Itachi stared at him, deadpan.
Iruka poked him gently in the chest. "Kids are supposed to have fun, you know. You have the right to smile."
Itachi brushed some imaginary lint off his shirt. "I have a job to do."
Iruka cocked his head, a glint appearing in his eye that Shisui recognised all too well. He slumped in resignation.
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One year later. . . .
Though the Uchihas believed everything was better than okay (they had a particular talent for refusing to see or believe the truth. . . . or reason, for that matter), the Sandaime and his right hand man, the Yellow Flash, knew better. Sure, it seemed as if Iruka was in less trouble nowadays—but that was definitely not the case. He had just convinced his two best friends. . . . Who happened to be Uchihas, by the way—with friggin' Sharingans to be his lookouts. Reformed, Sandaime's ass! (Though the Flash's lovely young wife seemed to find them hilarious, particularly the Umino brat—she had recently found out his 'suspected pranks' folder, at a whopping 26.5 inches, was now a good twice the size of hers and it amazed her the Uchihas hadn't gotten files of their own—they managed such stoic faces—and Mikoto was just happy that her eldest son had a loving pair of friends—the boy was rather solitary.)
The Sandaime was, however, relieved at the Umino's sense of all-encompassing acceptance and special brand of love when he found the youngster comforting his friend after the pursuit and consequent death of Shisui's mother. He was also very pleased that the younger Uchiha prodigy seemed to emulate his older cousin, individually demonstrating pacifism and more compassion than any of their forefathers combined. So, begrudgingly (and against the civilian council's wishes), he let the three be.
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A. N. Uno: Honey—yes, this will be KakaxIru, but I like me my backstories, so you'll just have to be patient for this one.
Dos: I used the ages from Narutopedia, specifically so I could play with them a bit, as they often have a one to two year deviation and while I usually like being super specific, I wanted a specific effect here and their age system allowed me that wiggle room.
Tres: (Yes I know I missed the accent.) I am not trying to make Iruka super strong and different; its just that if you look at the numbers in the books (mostly going by the third one, honestly) that indicate strengths, his aren't that different than 'normal' jounin—a one-ish to three point difference on average (ones that aren't prodigies; Shizune, Kurenai, Kankuro, Temari, Sakura—though I admit the prodigies like Kakashi (and Guy on effort alone) do have him clearly outstripped—HA! I wish. . . . Stirpping shinobi—phew!) and outscores several tokubetsu (Hayate, Anko, Ebisu) and almost matches Genma and Ibiki—less than 1 point difference. He's not much lower than Sai either (1.5 points), who was Root Anbu. Also, since his parents were both jounin, its not too much of a stretch that he can have more hidden talents than just his echolocation and with a little work, obtain a higher level—I firmly believe that his reasons for failing a jounin exam would come down to his choices (like on his mission with Kakashi where the Copy-Nin sort of convinced him to be a teacher)—being a kind heart before a killer—and not due to his actual skill levels. End rant. . . .Thanks for listening, and:
Quatro: Sorry if I butcher the timeline. I am sometimes more fanon and head-canon than true canon, because it's been awhile since I read/watched the originals (and I started to get a teensy bit annoyed after Shippuden anyways)—but I read Fanfiction all the time so that sometimes supersedes my original sense of the series. Again, sorry if I wreck it. Additionally, Itachi kind of gets a two-for-one friend deal instead of just Shisui in this fic, because he and Iruka kind of come as a pair here :). Finally,
Cinco: I looked up how many pages of regular computer paper is in a stack of about an inch and it turns out to be about 250. So, if Iruka pulled about 2 major pranks each weekday (one at the Academy and one after, plus any minor other he can think of—but only major ones would get a report, some multiple pages long depending on the prank) and 4 each day off since he was around five—hopefully believable for a nin-kid—that would be about 4, 680 reports—a total of approximately 18.9 inches thick. Can't imagine what it'll look like after the famous prankster stage—though since in this fic, the whole Shisui/Danzo/Root/Itachi/Clan massacre thing still happens, Shisui won't be catching him anymore (sobs) so who will file all of the reports? (Wails. Then runs off.)
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