Chapter 1: Chapter 1

I don't own Naruto

Naruto's Baby Chapter 1

A typical morning for Naruto with a start with the sound of the alarm clock in the dim morning light. He reached over and slammed the small clock off and sat up since the alarm clock would wake up Ai.

Uzumaki Ai, his precious and miracle baby girl.

Yes, the loud-mouth, knuckled-headed genin was a parent at the age of twelve. How did this happen one may ask? Well, Naruto doesn't even know himself fully. All he remembered one cold evening was a man who wore a cloak and with a red eye…then he woke up in a hospital. Since this sort of thing wasn't normal, Naruto had kept his child a secret from his peers. Only a handful of people knew of her existence.

Though another person was added to the list recently; Sasuke Uchiha. See, Sasuke had seen Naruto with the baby girl the day before. Naruto had gone to the doctor for his check up for himself and his child's checkup. He was given a required immunization, but he couldn't use his chakra for a few hours, and Naruto had used his Sexy jutsu to take his child to places without being discovered. Sasuke caught him red-handed with his daughter and demanded to know everything.

Naruto got up and did his shadow clone jutsu, a ninjutsu that he found very helpful in the last few months of knowing it. The two clones went to do their jobs; one clone began to make a bottle of formula for him, and the other began making some toast some eggs. The real Naruto went to the crib and picked up his crying child and hushed her softly. When he smelt a dirty diaper, he sighed and took her over to the changing table that was against the wall. He laid her down and did the rest…

Now his baby girl smelt clean and was wearing a clean diaper and her outfit for the day which was a pink dress with a headband that separated her bangs from the rest of her hair. Naruto had softly brushed her tuft of hair, playing with it a bit and making the girl laugh as she sat and clapped her hands. "What do you think Ai? Side bangs or down the forehead?" He asked cutely, but he decided to leave the bangs cover her forehead.

"Bottle's ready!" A clone shouted, and Naruto nodded and picked up the girl and took her to the kitchen table. The clone came over with the bottle, and when he handed it to Naruto, Naruto made him vanish and began feeding Ai, who greedily sucked the bottle down. "I don't starve you, why are you so hungry?" He asked, and when the other clone said that his breakfast was ready, Naruto made him vanish, and he finished feeding the girl until she was full. Once he burped her, he set her down and looked at the time. 6:30. He mentally counted. He usually had to meet with Kakashi-sensei around eight in the morning, though the guy was hours later. He took advantage of that most of the time, though he knew he couldn't miss training since he did that yesterday.

Naruto put Ai to sit down in her high chair, he began to eat his breakfast. Naruto knew that if he wanted to eat, he needed to eat fast and since babies seemed to want a lot of attention. And babies were often very messy creatures.

Throughout the morning of getting ready, Naruto had to get himself dressed and ready for the day, Ai spat up, cried, made another mess in her diaper, had to repack the baby bag for the daycare, and other things. It was hard for a twelve-year-old on his own. By the time he realized he was ready to leave, transformation jutsu on and everything, it was half past eight.

Naruto had to hurry. He grabbed the baby bag, and his ninja pouch with his weapons in it, and his headband. Just when he was about to step out, he always did a check.

Baby bag, check. Ninja pouch, check. House keys, check. Gama money pouch, check. Jutsu, check," Naruto mumbled as he did the check and when he realized he was missing something, he remembered. "Baby!" He went over and picked her up from her changing table and sighed, "Phew, okay we can go," he said and placed her on her sling as he headed out for the day.

"You're late," the day care worker said, and Naruto apologized, though, in his jutsu, he was Natsuko Umino, a distant relative of Iruka Umino who was now a single mother and new ninja to Konoha. He laughed nervously, "Sorry, it was a late start today," he said, and the worker sighed, "I understand it must be hard to adjust alone, but please be more mindful, we have rules for a reason," she said.

Naruto nodded and picked up Ai from the sling, "okay Ai, be a good girl for me. I love you," he said and kissed her forehead. She was handed over to the working who also said, "you won't be late picking her up again, will you?"

"No. I shouldn't have too many missions for today, so it should be fine," Naruto said and waved to his baby once more before he began running off to go meet with his teammates. He poofed out of his jutsu when he was in another alleyway, and no one could see him.

It took him ten minutes of running to make it to the spot where he usually met his teammates. He hopped from rooftop to rooftop until he jumped down and ran to see Sasuke and Sakura on the bridge, waiting for Kakashi-sensei.

He smiled like he normally did for Sakura, "Hey good morning Sakura, what's up?" He asked. Though when he saw Sasuke giving him a strange expression, Naruto's cheeks flushed pink and he returned the look.

Sasuke's mind had been reeling since yesterday when he met the infant. Naruto's baby. He couldn't process that fully, especially seeing how he acted around them. Like an immature kid. He wondered how was he allowed to have a kid if he was a boy, and how was he allowed to raise said, kid. Didn't they take away kids from dangerous situations? Wasn't Naruto raising a kid considered a dangerous situation?

Both of the boys turned their heads away when the tension rose too much.

Naruto fell asleep standing up as they waited for Kakashi-sensei, who was now running two hours late. Sasuke didn't say anything on it, figuring that he probably needed the rest. It was common knowledge that babies needed a lot of care and time into that care, so he imagined Naruto wouldn't be any different than any other parent who had babies.

Except Naruto was alone.

Sasuke then had a horrible thought. Who watched Ai while Naruto was away? He remembered he said something about Iruka being her caregiver, and also Kakashi under special cases. Was that why Kakashi was always late? Because he was watching Naruto's kid?

Sasuke scolded at himself. Why did he care? It was none of his business, and she wasn't his baby. He shouldn't be concerned. He wasn't.

"Hey guys, good morning," Kakashi said, waking up Naruto and getting everyone's attention from the pole he was crouching on. "Sorry I'm late, but I'm afraid I got lost on the path of life."

"HUH?" Naruto and Sakura exclaimed.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Either Naruto was a really good actor or Kakashi wasn't watching over his baby after all. He was just late.

Naruto sprang into action, demanding higher level missions. If Sasuke didn't know any better, he would have thought yesterday was a dream. Then when Naruto glared at him once more, getting in a defensive mode, he merely stared at him with an uncaring expression.

"BELIEVE IT!" Naruto proclaimed.

"Let us know when you're done fantasying so that we can start the mission alright?" Kakashi said.

"Right!" Naruto exclaimed loudly.

"Could you not be so annoying Naruto, just for once?" Sakura asked aloud, clearly annoyed.

That day, Sasuke questioned more and more on Naruto abilities not only as a shinobi but also as a parent. Pulling herbs that looked like weeds was one thing, but slipping into the water and nearly falling off the waterfall? That was stupid. Then choosing a large dog that dragged him to a minefield, Sasuke could already imagine Naruto doing something so stupid with that poor baby.

It was almost too much to think about without doing something about it.

As Sakura and Sasuke helped Naruto walk around after the minefield incident, the pink haired girl commented, "look at you. You're hopeless Naruto."

Sasuke smirked, "you really are just one big problem."

That irked Naruto a lot for two reasons. Naruto saw Sasuke as a rival and Sasuke also knew his secret, and when he was criticized like that, it struck him hard. "SASUKE!" Naruto shouted and as he was about to attack the Uchiha, who was walking away now, he was stopped by Sakura. "If you keep this up, I'm going to finish you off myself!"

A sigh could he heard from Kakashi, "guess we're not making a lot of progress on the teamwork thing, huh?"

"That's right, our team work is all messed up because of you Sasuke," Naruto proclaimed. There was more to it than what Naruto had a lead on. Naruto had been distracted that day because he was worried that Sasuke would tell Sakura about his child, or even worse…tell everyone about his child. It was stressful thinking about it! It was like Sasuke had something over him now. Naruto had to play it off as something else, though, "you think you're better than everyone else."

Sasuke had the right of mind to call him out on his bull shit. "Not everyone, just you, face it, I'm better and stronger than you are," he said and stopped walking away, "it's a fact," he turned to face Naruto, "unless you have what it takes to prove me wrong." Sasuke thought about a lot of things, and yet he couldn't get that damn baby out of his head. Was he seeing Naruto in a different light now? As a parent? No. He couldn't afford to see him as such.

Kakashi left them not long afterward, saying something about filing a report on their mission or whatever. Sasuke turned and left, only to be chased down by Sakura, "wait for Sasuke! I'll come with you."

Naruto sighed and then thought to himself, well if the missions are over for today, then I can pick up Ai early, and we can go to the park. Or should I use this time to do some training? I can't have her around since I don't want her getting hurt.

Naruto looked down when he saw a square box with kids in it. It was so obvious that it was sad. So Naruto played along until he got annoyed and told them that he knew they were in there. It was Konohamaru and his two friends, Moegi and Udon. The Konohamaru Ninja Squad, they called themselves. Naruto sighed a bit. He had a soft spot for them. After all, he had a daughter and soon, she would be a child. And then Naruto realized that he had a baby who would be growing up so fast and grew a bit sad at the thought.

"So, what do you guys want anyway?" Naruto asked, a little irritated.

"You know what we want, you promised to play ninjas with us today," Moegi said, and Naruto groaned a bit. "I don't think I said that," Naruto admitted with a light groan, "besides, I have some things I need to do today," he said.

"Oh yeah, like what?" Konohamaru asked. Naruto looked uneasy, as he couldn't tell them that he wanted to spend some time with his child. They didn't know he had a child. No one really knew.

Sakura came over with a very annoyed expression, looking at Naruto as though he was a strange creature. Naruto flustered a bit from her staring, and he nervously began laughing aloud. Then Naruto got the horrible thought, what if Sasuke told her about Ai?! That's why she's staring at me like that! She must think I'm a freak or something!

"Hey boss is this your girlfriend," Konohamaru asked, seeing how flustered Naruto was. Naruto snapped out of his thought and said, "Oh I uh," Sakura punched him before he could even finish that sentence.

"Boss!" Konohamaru exclaimed after he was punched. Naruto's lights were knocked out of him for a few minutes. He had been hit once already by an old lady, and he was exhausted on top of that. His entire day was reeling on him already, and when he woke up, he saw Konohamaru was hit as well.

"She's not normal," he said as Sakura was walking away. The kid turned to Naruto, "did you see how big her forehead is?"

Naruto knew that was the wrong move, and seeing Sakura running back after all four of them was scary. Like a bull running for the red cape.

And things didn't get easier when they met the sand genin, Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara…

When he saw Kankuro pick up Konohamaru as violently and holding him up as he did, he thought he saw his baby, only a child, in that same position.

"Daddy!" He imagined what Ai would sound like at the age of ten, and he heard skipped a beat.

Naruto gritted his teeth and went after the punk who was hurting him. Then when it was Sasuke who saved Konohamaru, he felt worse and even angrier towards the Uchiha. If he couldn't save Konohamaru from this punk, then how could he protect his only daughter.

He knew he needed to get stronger and train more.

After that encounter, Naruto was kneeling down and making sure Konohamaru was okay since he was nearly beaten up by Kankuro. "Are you okay?" He asked, "you got me worried."

"Uh Boss," Konohamaru stopped him, "you're acting like my mom, it's weird," he said, and Naruto backed off, "sorry!" He stood up and scratched the back of his neck, "I just didn't want to hear anything from old man third, ya know?" He laughed off, though Sakura eyed him wearily and Sasuke smirked when he saw how Naruto acted.

I wonder if Naruto's parental instincts kick in more now? Sasuke pondered to himself. Or if he imagined Konohamaru was Ai at that moment?

When the day was finally over, Naruto went to the Daycare in his jutsu form and met with an upset babysitter who stayed longer than she wanted to. "I'm sorry! Our missions ran later than usual," Naruto lied, and his child was handed to him. "Enough excuses. If you know you're going on missions, have a family member watch over her or pick her up on time," the lady sounded annoyed. Ai was sleeping sounded still, and Naruto was careful not to jostle her awake.

Naruto placed Ai in her sling to carry her in when he was being lectured, "I know you're alone, but please be more responsible Umino-san," the lady said. "Young mothers do have it rough, I know, but think more of your child more."

Naruto lowered his head, "of course, I will." He bowed and began walked back to the apartment. His body hurt, and he was beyond exhausted. He was glad that no one bothered him while he was in this female form. It was like a vacation from being his true self. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it sooner, especially when going to the store. No one even bothered him.

He walked in the store, Ai in her sling and walked around, picking out some groceries for dinner. He was allowed an allowance from the third Hokage so he could pay rent and other expenses, and his mission money helped him support Ai and get food and clothes, and whatever else she needed.

Naruto finished his shopping and realized that he may have bought too much stuff since carrying it would be a hassle.

"Do you want my help ma'am?" Naruto looked over and saw Sasuke. While many of the passersby saw the Uchiha as being helpful, Naruto saw it as an insult. How did he even know it was me?

Still, Naruto did need the help for today.

They walked to his apartment, Sasuke carrying some bags and Naruto carrying a few bags, the baby bag over his shoulder, and Ai at his front. The sun was setting, and when they got back, Naruto realized that he forgot to lock his door that morning.

Once they were inside, Naruto took off the jutsu and looked tired. He went over and put the groceries down on the table and freed Ai from her sling, putting her in her swing to make her fall back asleep since she had woken up.

"Thanks, I guess," Naruto said as he was unbagging everything.

"I didn't do this out of the kindness of my heart, I want some answers," Sasuke said, going over and sitting on a chair as he watched the baby swing back and forth, "do you always put her in the swing?"

Naruto looked over and said, "yeah, she loves it," he said and went to go put the items away, "and didn't I answer enough of your questions? What else do you want to know?" Naruto asked in a huff.

"How can you even raise a baby when you're such a loser for one thing," Sasuke said. "And who's dumb enough to let you even raise the kid? You barely take care of yourself, and someone thought it was smart enough for you to raise a child." Sasuke's words pierced through Naruto. He stopped moving for a moment before he turned and smacked Sasuke across the face.

Even Sasuke was caught off guard.

"You listen here Sasuke," Naruto's demeanor shifted into something scarier than a ninja. He shifted into a mother. "My child will have the best in the world, even if I have to work tooth and nail to get at it. She's well-fed and well-taken care off. You don't know what I go through to make sure my child has everything she needs and wants," Naruto said harshly, giving him a glare that no one had ever seen him give. Messing with Naruto was one thing, he can take all of the abuse he will get in the future, but when someone questioned his parenting or his love for his child, they crossed a deadly line.

Naruto went to the table and finished putting things away, but said, "you can leave."

Sasuke took one last look at Ai and got up, "fine," he left the apartment. As soon as he heard the apartment door close, Naruto shook at the kitchen sink and hung his head. Whether it be from his exhaustion or from today's events, or even from what Sasuke had just questioned him on, Naruto cried. He needed to cry because he knew he could now. All of the hits taken today, all of the feeling low about himself, he could finally let it out.

And he knew Ai would keep it all to herself.

Just before bedtime, Naruto had to give Ai a bath in her plastic tub, and while she liked to splash around in it, Naruto knew she had to be cleaned up. He felt better now, and as he was watched her playing with the bubble, Naruto began, "I had a long day. Yep, the world's greatest ninja's job is never done. I have a few stories to tell you, like how I save three kids from some Sand ninja jerks, or how I saved a dog from some minefields," he said. Ai splashed around in the water, giggling and looking up at her papa with big onyx eyes that were filled with wonder and joy.

Just seeing that smile made his rough day completely worth it.

"Yep, and soon, your daddy will get super-duper strong, and be Hokage, that's top ninja. And we will have a big house, and a lot of money and people will finally recognize me as the great ninja that you see me as " he said and booped her on her nose.

Ai started to make some babbling noises, and Naruto thought it was so adorable. Got up and went to grab the disposable camera that Iruka had given him, "smile," he said and took the adorable, and later would be, embarrassing of nine-month-old Ai, sitting in her plastic tub, covered in bubbles.

That was Naruto's day in a nutshell.