A/N:

I've been on a long hiatus from writing and some of my other bleach and naruto fics have yet to be completed, but I PROMISE I'll get to them. Some of them are in the middle of being edited because I want to improve the story and can't stand for bad quality, so I sincerely apologise to the people who might know of them and are looking forward to more chapters.

This fic was inspired by the real life turmoil I have with family relations, and I try to keep what would happen realistic based on the premise that Naruto has a parent but still isn't given the attention he needs.

AU - Kyuubi attack did happen but only Kushina died with the bijuu sealed into her, leaving Minato to raise Naruto alone. Uchiha non-massacre. It starts when Naruto is aged 9, just before entering the Academy, and Minato is a cold and distant father to the child he couldn't bear being close to after Kushina's death.
This story is probably going to be NarutoxItachi or NarutoxSasuke.


Naruto was waiting. For what, exactly, he wasn't quite sure, but he was waiting. For something – anything. Anything to take away the oppressive feeling of loneliness that weighed down upon his whole being each waking moment of his existence.

Although he had already come to expect that the man who was his father would never simply sit with him to talk or even look at him for more than a minute, he was still only nine and had lingering hope borne from the childish countenance.

Tomorrow would be the first day he starts at the Academy. In other ninja households, it was something to be celebrated, where fathers sit their sons down to regale them with tales of valor and provide encouragement for the tough challenges ahead.

Naruto was sitting alone at the dining table with two servings of dinner prepared in front of him, waiting for something that will never happen – someone who will never come.

The worst part of it was that Naruto felt guilty to be feeling sorry for himself. His father was a busy man, respected by all in Konoha. The Hokage had more important things to busy himself with other than be with his son. It has been this way since Naruto could remember, and Naruto is proud of his father despite everything. His father was the man who caused enemy-nin to flee on sight, but also the same man who brought Naruto up with gentle hands and kind words.

Yet, there had always been a sort of distance to the way his father treated him – as if he was just another child to be coddled by an adult.

With a sigh, Naruto dug into his food.

It was already cold.


"Hokage-sama, here is the list of fresh students of the Academy. The speech and initiation is tomorrow."

Minato politely thanked Iruka before skimming through the list and hastily stamping at the corner to indicate that it has been looked at.

"Naruto starts tomorrow." Kakashi voiced from where he was perched by the window.

Minato and the ANBU guards in the office were used to jounin entering from not-the-door by now that none were even remotely fazed by the sudden intrusion.

"And?" Minato raised his brow while still looking down and shifting through papers.

Kakashi paused for a moment, remaining silent. Then, he merely moved to lounge on the couch in the room.

There was nothing to be said – nothing he could say.

Minato always got defensive whenever the topic of Naruto was brought up around him. Naruto was given shelter and plenty of food, what more good could a parent do? – Minato would insist.

They both knew Minato was wrong.

The man was so strong but so broken, and only Naruto bore the brunt of the shattered pieces, while the rest of Konoha basked in the loyalty of their most steadfast protector.

Even while knowing that it wasn't remotely fair, Kakashi never reproached the man whom he respected above all other. Kakashi couldn't. Not when he had so many flaws and an irredeemable past himself.

After another few more hours with Minato plowing through paperwork like it was a battle to be overcome and Kakashi reading his choice-of-material-of-the-day, both men got up and left the office as per their routine.

Kakashi always walked the Hokage home in place of the ANBU guards whenever he was not away on a mission. It was against protocol for sure, but being the student of the Hokage, everyone saw fit to let them have their way. Plus, no one could really go against the Hokage's decisions.

When they reached the Namikaze compound, Kakashi was relieved to see that the lights were off and Naruto was already peacefully tucked in his bed. Call him a coward, but he didn't want to face the look of disappointment of the child he had grown unusually fond of, or the ice cold soldier his sensei turns into when around the bubbly boy.

"Good night, sensei." Kakashi bade as he turned to leave the compound, not stalling to hear the pleasantry returned.

Nearing the edge of the compound, Kakashi hesitated for a brief moment before hopping into a tree close to the spot where he knew an ANBU guard would be.

Sure enough, he was met with a masked ANBU who had his long black hair tied up into a pony-tail.

"How was he?" Kakashi asked as he perched himself on a suitable flat tree branch hanging over the compound.

"Quiet." Uchiha Itachi replied. There was only one boy Kakashi could be referring to.

Although being an ANBU was supposed to be a secretive affair (they wore masks for a reason), most jounin knew exactly who was ANBU and who wasn't. With jounin sharing whole subsidized apartment buildings and gossip in bars, it was usually obvious soon enough which jounin weren't on the usual mission rosters. If that wasn't already a giveaway, ANBU tattoos weren't hidden very well, especially after life-threatening battles when gear was torn and tattered.

The masks were worn mostly for the sake of civilians to live happier lives without knowing the faces of those who killed on their behalf and for preventing enemies from having specific targets when seeking revenge.

Suppressing a sigh, Kakashi knew that whatever conversation they were going to have was going to be mostly done on his part with this certain ANBU.

"The usual?" The question Kakashi posed left a bitter aftertaste on his own tongue because Naruto was quiet far too often these days. Sure, the boy was still jovial and bubbly whenever Kakashi went to officially visit, but when Naruto thought no one was around to look, he slipped into passive silence that didn't seem to suit the bright haired boy.

"More than." Itachi replied.

Kakashi expected that, but it didn't make hearing it any less painful.

The rest of the night was spent in the tree staring absently at a certain window of the apartment. It was an irrational and useless action, but Kakashi's warped sense of guilt forced him to punish himself stay by Naruto even though he knew doing something like that wouldn't help the boy in the least.

This became his routine for the next whole year while Naruto was in the Academy.


"Kashi-nii!" Naruto bounced up to him with a tray of sandwiches to offer one as way of greeting.

It was Naruto's tenth birthday – a year since he started at the Academy – and the Namikaze compound was open to friends and family as it was every year.

Also like usual, the only people in attendance were Naruto's ANBU guards who had to be there, and some other shinobi Naruto had made friends with. There was no one of Naruto's age group, and certainly no family.

"Nice. We can finally get the party started." Genma piped up from the fridge where he was pulling out bottles of sake. "The brat insisted on waiting for his Kashi to come." He continued with a smirk – the famous and fear-inspiring copy-nin reduced to being given pet names was allowed only in Naruto's presence and everyone knew that.

"The boss is going to be home around midnight so don't go crazy there." Naruto spoke around the two sandwiches he had stuffed in his mouth.

"I bogged down Minato-sama with enough paperwork to last us through the night." Iruka said as he winked.

Naruto simply laughed that trademark laugh of his and headed to the couch. No one expected the Hokage to show up for his son's party anymore after the constant years of no-show since Naruto's fifth birthday.

Kakashi frowned slightly under his mask and quickly schooled his expression before anyone could notice.

Naruto had taken to calling his father 'the boss' ever since he started at the Academy.

If Kakashi had been a trained psychologist, he would conclude that the boy was distancing himself from his only father-figure to protect himself from the pain of loneliness he had experienced all his life. But what did Kakashi know, right?

Settling in beside Naruto on the couch, Kakashi decided now was a better time than ever to approach the topic.

"Where are your Academy friends?" Kakashi was anything but subtle.

He felt more than saw Naruto tense slightly before relaxing once again.

"They're mostly assholes."

Tilting his head questioningly was Kakashi's way of probing for more information and Naruto gave in after some time of silence.

"Uchiha hates me, so the class hates me." Naruto finally admitted. "It's already been a year so I'm used to it." Naruto continued off-handedly.

Kakashi immediately looked to Itachi who was leaning against the wall behind the couch. The ANBU was supposedly on guard duty, but the chief gave them leeway to attend the party while still doing their jobs.

Kakashi knew the Uchiha was protective of his brother – the same one in Naruto's class and the exact one Naruto just slighted – so he was curious to see the stoic man's reaction.

Unexpectedly, Itachi didn't so much as glanced toward Kakashi from the attention he was receiving, but he was staring at Naruto. The thoughts and emotion in those dark eyes were indiscernible.

"I'll teach you a new jutsu once I'm back in a week." Kakashi promised Naruto. There wasn't anything he could say about the class situation and he asked about it only ease the weight of the boy bottling up emotions.

"I'll definitely have it down in a day." Naruto said as he grinned – full teeth and all.

Kakashi simply smirked and ruffled the blonde hair.

Naruto had a way of attracting people to him. It's a kind of attraction that isn't immediate, but before you know it, it gets under your skin and becomes an itch that is only relieved when you are close to the sunny boy. Kakashi suspects it wasn't really hate that the Uchiha brat (the younger grumpy one, not the older stoic one) was feeling.

True to Iruka's word, Minato never returned that night and the party only ended at close to two in the morning when Iruka, like the secret mother hen that he was, shooed everyone out of the building and forced Naruto to shower before tucking the birthday boy into bed.

Since it was already that late, Kakashi chose not to sleep that night and stay in his favourite spot on the edge of the Namikaze compound.


Kakashi hated new recruits.

They were arrogant without basis.

Weak.

He should never have let Minato talk him into facilitating the training camp of new ANBU recruits.

Although Kakashi wasn't officially ANBU anymore, no one ever really leaves, and the veterans usually get called back for specific missions that required their skill set or for training new members.

This intake of new members was especially large so the training camp was more of a way to thin the herd and let only the truly competent ones remain.

The rejected shinobi would feel sorry for themselves and disagree, but while Konoha wasn't at war, Minato rightfully saw no need to include more ANBU whose lives were occupied with sweat of their own and the blood of others.

"How has it been so far?" Kakashi asked a masked ANBU he knew to be Itachi. Somehow, Kakashi and Itachi had grown close – as close as two shinobi who had seen blood and death more often than love and life could get – over the years being Naruto's guard. One ordered to and one self-appointed.

"Number five will definitely make it through. The rest are subpar but show promise."

Kakashi raised a brow under an ANBU mask of his own.

Itachi hardly ever praised anyone's skill.

No, the Uchiha wasn't arrogant in the least. It was just that Itachi's own skill far surpassed an ordinary shinobi's so everyone else paled in comparison.

"Let's pile on the pressure then." Kakashi concluded as he leapt to another branch he could use as an alternative vantage point to survey the trainees.

This was going to be a long week. In his mind, Kakashi was already planning how to teach an Academy student who had minimal knowledge of chakra how to pull off the jutsu that he promised to teach.


At the end of the week, there were officially five new ANBU.

Numbers… one, four, five, eight, and nine.

It was a promising batch.

They managed to stay alert and wary even on the last day of the camp, and it was known that the difficulty increased the more potential the facilitators saw in them – this batch had been going through the most intense level of the training camp since day one.

The recruits now staggered into the ANBU building's hall, coming off from the high of physical exertion through the past week. They now had to go through the ceremony with their superiors in attendance to receive their ANBU tattoo and trade their training mask for an official ANBU mask.

Kakashi was seated with a group of senior ANBU and slouched next to Itachi. He was sorely tempted to whip out his reading material to pass the time, but with so many ANBU around, his chances of getting caught were high. He didn't want to suffer through having to explain the contents of the book to the stern-faced chief again.

The new recruits were now stripping off their shirts and removing their masks, pointing to certain areas of their skin where they wanted their ANBU tattoo–

Wait–

Removing their masks–

That–

Kakashi heard some sort of strangled sound from Itachi beside him.

He blinked.

And blinked again.

There was a collective intake of breaths of the ANBU around him.

Then it finally registered – the shock of blond hair and striking blue eyes was a marker anyone would notice.

The Hokage's son was standing there among the recruits, with too many scars Kakashi had never known to be on his body.

The top recruit.

"Uzumaki Naruto," the ceremony master read out, "may your Will of Fire burn strong."

The tattoo was inked just below Naruto's left collar bone leading to his neck.

As Kakashi was wondering how much trouble he would get into for disrupting the ceremony and pulling the brat out, he felt a flash of movement beside him before seeing Itachi appear in the middle of the hall to grab Naruto.

"Naruto." Itachi hissed loud enough for everyone to hear, which was surprising since the Uchiha never lost his cool.

A glance around the hall proved that this was new to everyone else as well.

"Your father hasn't heard of this." It came out as more of a statement than a question.

"He hasn't." Naruto stared levelly back at the Uchiha. "And he wouldn't."

The hall was eerily silent as they watched the Uchiha process the meaning behind Naruto's statement. No one moved to interfere, and no one would move before their chief gives an indication. Kakashi suspected the chief himself was unsure what to do in the face of having the Hokage's son conscribe himself into the ANBU.

"Uzumaki." Itachi whispered.

"Not Namikaze." Naruto acknowledged.

"Wrap up this ceremony." The ANBU chief finally spoke up. "Both of you," he pointed toward the pair in a tense grip on each other, "come with me."

Inviting himself to go along with them since he was technically the closest thing Naruto had to a guardian other than Minato, Kakashi followed the ANBU chief.

As soon as the office door was shut behind them, their chief sat at his desk and stared at Naruto.

"Why do you want this?"

It was the only question that mattered. If the brat was doing it only to get the attention of his mostly absent father, the chief wouldn't hesitate to throw him out. But if the boy truly had the desire to go through with it for his own sake, the chief would not reject their most promising candidate since Uchiha Itachi had joined.

"Because I'm strong enough now."

The answer wasn't what the chief expected, but with the fiery gaze that was full of conviction the boy had, it was acceptable.

"All new recruits are to stay on base until further notice. You will have to leave your home." Your father would know eventually, was unspoken but understood.

"I have a bunshin I used even during the training camp." Naruto offered.

The chief was impressed and only mildly surprised that the boy knew kage-bunshin. Going through the harsh camp and still having chakra to spare was no mean feat.

"Very well. Move your things and get your assignment. You start tomorrow." The chief said as a dismissal.


After they left the chief's office, Itachi rounded on Naruto.

"I didn't help you with your training for this." Itachi spoke so harshly it was came out almost as a growl.

Naruto looked like he was warring between cowering and retorting back.

Watching the two, Kakashi could see that their relationship had obviously grown past being mere guard and ward.

When had that happen?

Kakashi decided to intervene.

"Itachi, he made his choice just like you and I did."

The pair of sharingan eyes shifted to focus on Kakashi and even the copy-nin who had faced countless near death battles was more than a little intimidated. Itachi was feared even by Konoha-nin for a reason.

Now he knew why Naruto seemed to spend so much time on training grounds even without anyone to teach him. It had been Itachi helping him while being his guard.

"Do you know what you're getting into?" Itachi turned back to Naruto.

"I do." There was an apology hanging at the end of those words but Naruto knew it wasn't what Itachi would want even if the older boy was against this lifestyle for Naruto.

"I want to do this." Naruto confirmed again.

Itachi still wasn't happy, but he shunshined away without another word, leaving Naruto to stand with Kakashi outside the office.

Kakashi wasn't happy with what Naruto had decided either.

Heck, he never even knew the boy had such skill. He was a prodigy through and through like his father, but talent or not, Kakashi knew there was a lot of hard work put into training. No one got that good easily, especially at such a young age. Kakashi had to pause to wonder just how much of his time he had spent shadowing a bunshin while the original was off training somewhere.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Kakashi turned to address Naruto.

"Naruto–"

"I know." Naruto cut him off with a look that suggested wisdom beyond his years.

The bright blue eyes held power and knowledge that no child that age should have. It was the eyes of a shinobi to match the scars Kakashi now knew littered across the lithe frame.

Kakashi kept quiet and walked Naruto home.

Is that even really his home?


A/N:

Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think about it. Any opinion is welcome! (aka I REALLY NEED REVIEWS BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS UNCOMMON PREMISE IS GOING TO WORK)