A/N: This is an alternate timeline and next gen fic. Being perfectly honest, I think Naruto completely tanked after the Chunin Exams and haven't read or watched at all past Sasuke leaving the village/Kakashi gaiden. So I didn't think it would really be appropriate to pretend I did and act like I'm going by canon.

Obviously heavily OC based, but there's no real way to do a next gen fic without that. They'll be introduced as the story goes on, but I tried to keep the main cast limited to a reasonable number. The focus of the story is really only on two people anyway.

Anyway, I don't own Naruto, blah blah blah. Let's get this shit started.


Once again, Dad was gone before I'd even woken up. I doubted he'd be home until I could barely keep my eyes open waiting for him anymore.

Did he enjoy living like that? Probably not. I know I didn't, and Mom clearly didn't. But that's what you get when you're given a traumatized (though he'd never admit it) nut job as a father. Nothing he did ever really made sense.

Least of all the fact that when he found out Mom was pregnant, he stepped up and agreed to become hokage. Kakashi Hatake, the paranoid freak with one eye that wasn't even his, decided that he'd become a leader responsible for an entire village's wellbeing. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why in the universe somebody would think he was a good candidate. Ask him why he decided to do it, he'll talk to you for a week straight about how he couldn't risk leaving his son without a father. Mom said she was shocked when he told her. Apparently, being married to him doesn't mean that you can understand him.

Not gonna lie, when I was a kid, I loved that he was hokage. I loved knowing how important my dad was. I loved going to his office and seeing how cool and official it was.

Once I hit seven I pretty much lost any peace I had with his position.

Starting the academy brought up the fact that the other kids though that my dad belonged to them too. That didn't sit well with me.

"Fuck!" I jerked upright and hopped out of my chair to get a paper towel. I'd gotten lost in my thoughts and fallen face first into my cereal. Line up ladies, I'm as smooth as they come.

"Come on, you've gotta stop doing this kind of thing right in front of me," Mom said from her seat on the kitchen counter. "Not exactly making yourself look like a responsible adult."

"You're 40 years old and sitting on the same place you'd lay me down before giving me a sink bath." I laughed at her dramatic eye roll and returned to the table. "No wonder Dad stays away from home as much as humanly possible."

She slid off the counter and shook her head at me. "He doesn't mean to make it seem that way. Look, when he took this job he knew he had to stop being hours late to every single event in his life. You know how his mind works, everything is an extreme with him. Especially when it comes to responsibility."

I dropped my spoon in the bowl, shoving away from the table. "Yeah, yeah, excuses. Whatever. I'm gonna lie down until I have to leave."

Mom watched me with uncertainty in her eyes before speaking up right as I hit my doorway. "Sakumo?" I turned and cocked my head. "Clean your damn mess up."