Summary: When Naruto is hit by a mysterious jutsu that reverts him back to his seven year old self Sasuke gets saddled with the unfortunate task of babysitting the hokage until he changes back to normal. The only problem? Sasuke may have told him his name was Itachi and that he was Sasuke's older brother.
"Mission report."
"The package was s-successfully delivered to the e-exchange point. No casualties, C-captain."
Sasuke nodded, crossing off the mission as a success. "Good. You may leave. Come back tomorrow for another C-rank mission."
The members of team six all bowed, sneaking glances at each other that they thought Sasuke wouldn't notice. It was the red head who spoke up though.
"U-um, Captain, sir…"
Sasuke glanced up from his book, "yes?"
The genin picked at the hem of his dirt-stained, navy jacket, avoiding Sasuke's gaze.
"You're a jonin aren't you?"
Sasuke's eyebrow twitched and he forced himself to relax his grip on the pencil least he break another one. He didn't need a second dock on his pay or another lecture from Kakashi, Sakura and Naruto himself. God knows Naruto spoke enough for a whole squadron. Ate enough for one as well. Sasuke inwardly cringed and slowly dropped the pencil onto the table. It wasn't worth it.
"Yes." He answered. No one said he had to be sociable, just polite as Sakura would always try to emphasize.
"Why are you here instead of doing missions? Did you get demoted?"
Really. Naruto made more than enough to replace a pencil or five.
"No, I didn't get demoted." Sasuke said, choosing his next words carefully. "I'm…on a break."
The children looked up at him with wide eyes. It was a look Sasuke knew all too well. Naruto used to always get that look on his face before he-
"Was it a tough mission?"
"Was it an S-rank?"
"Did you kill anyone?"
"Did you get hurt?"
"I bet you got your ass kicked."
"Shut up, he spars with the hokage you know!"
"No he doesn't! How would you know anyway?"
Naruto could more than afford the replacement costs for a couple pieces of broken furniture or a whole new room. Sasuke glanced down at the pencil. It was tempting. Lectures from Naruto usually ended in a bloody satisfying spar and his bank accounts taking a hit from the abnormal amounts of ramen the blond ingested and suggest he pay for after a good fight.
"Yo."
A chorus of gasps and the puff of smoke dragged Sasuke out of his musings and over to the window where Kakashi was waving, eye crinkled in what Sasuke interpreted as a grin. The jonin hopped off the window sill and made his way over to the excited team, winking at Sasuke as he strolled past. Sasuke barely managed to rein in a scowl.
"Kids." Kakashi said and the way the team stood to attention almost had Sasuke rolling his eyes.
"I have to borrow the captain for a bit." He knelt down and motioned for the trio of genins to shuffle closer. They did. "He's needed for a top secret mission. Hokage's orders."
The red head gasped, while the other two looked at each other, eyes wide.
"So don't mention this to anyone else, alright?" Kakashi whispered the last part to the enraptured team. The scene reminded Sasuke of Sakura, Sai and the girls murmuring furiously amongst themselves whenever he was at Ichiraku's with Naruto.
"It's our little secret."
A string of, "we won't," "we promise," resounded throughout the small room. Sasuke did roll his eyes that time. Typical Kakashi. He couldn't ever remember them being as obedient as this current generation of genins. It was nauseating to watch.
The children sprinted out of the room, muttering like a flock birds among themselves. Sasuke closed the mission book and dropped it on top of the pile stacked high up on the table. "You know, by the end of the day. Everyone's going to think I'm on a secret mission for the idiot."
Kakashi stood up brushing imaginary dust off his pants. "Who said you weren't?"
Naruto could afford a new chair.
"What."
Three sets of eyes were staring straight at him. Tsunade sighed for the hundredth time that day.
"You heard us. Naruto is—"
"I heard you."
He spots her twitch and doubts he'd be able to survive completely unscathed if she really went at him unrestrained. He might get a scratch or two if she was lucky. But really, how else did they expect him to react. Naruto was—
"A kid." She continued, ignoring him. "We don't know how it happened. Just that we found him like this." Tsunade moved towards the boy currently asleep on Naruto's favourite couch. Favourite, because Sasuke always caught the damn blond doing his paperwork on it.
"And you're sure it's Naruto?"
Tsunade gave him a patronising look. "Don't underestimate me brat. It's definitely Naruto. His chakra signature is exactly the same. Surely, even you can see that."
And Sasuke could. Naruto's chakra always gave off a bright, warm orange glow like a slow burning flame. The same that the kid was giving off right now, although it was a lot more unrefined then Naruto's usually controlled signature. This brat was Naruto all right.
"We're working hard to break the jutsu on him but…" She paused for a second. "The only people who know of this incident so far are the people in this room." Motioning to Kakashi, Shizune and herself. "I'll inform Sakura and Neji so they can assist me but other than those two no one else must know that the hokage is like this. Hopefully, he'll either change back to normal or we can break the curse before the end of the week."
Sasuke nodded. It wouldn't do to have the whole village panicking over something like this occurring in the first place and who knows what would happen if news got outside of the village. There was just one thing he didn't understand.
"Why am I here then? I'm not part of Naruto's guard."
The hokage was assigned a pair of chunin guards that cycled every eight hours. Jonin were considered too valuable for guard duty but it wasn't like Naruto needed or even wanted a pair of guards tailing him 24/7. Tsunade had been adamant on the issue though but had agreed on Naruto's condition of leaving the guards outside the door when he was in the office. Who's gonna attack me in the middle of my own office Ba-chan?
Sasuke wondered where those two guards were now.
Tsunade shot an irritated glare in Kakashi's direction.
The silver haired ninja spoke. "We found them unconscious outside the hokage's door and they've been sent to the hospital. They'll be interrogated after they wake up but it doesn't seem likely that they know anything about Naruto's…condition." He pulled out an orange book and continued. "As for why you're here, Sasuke. You're being assigned Naruto's…babysitter until we figure out a way to break the curse."
"What."
And now they were back to square one.
"You're being assigned—"
"I heard you the first time." Sasuke cut in. "Why am I being assigned as Naruto's babysitter?"
Kakashi grinned at him from under his mask. "Would you rather continue administration work? You still have two hours to go today."
Sasuke twitched. The administration work was punishment for a botch up on his last team mission. Naruto's lecture had lasted almost a whole hour and he knew full well how much Sasuke loathed being kept inside the village. He was also aware of how much Sasuke hated working with an incompetent team. How those fools had managed to make it past the chunin exam Sasuke would never know but he'd brushed off Naruto's rant with an, "I would've got the mission done faster. By myself."
Naruto had thrown up both hands and actually growled at him. "You were supposed to be working in a team, bastard."
"I don't need to, hokage. They screwed up, not me. If that idiot hadn't tripped the alarms I would've been in and out in less than a second."
"They tripped the alarms because you didn't tell them anything!"
Sasuke had emphasised that he worked well with people who were competent and not complete idiots. They should've been able to work it out for themselves. They weren't genin in need of a mentor. He wasn't there to hold their hands. They were his backup. They should've known. Naruto had let out an exasperated sigh and doomed him to a week of administration work. A spar had broken out right after that and he was sure that they'd been a jutsu away from blowing up half of Konoha. Luckily, or unluckily, Kakashi had been in the vicinity and an expert on noticing a Naruto-Sasuke fight when he saw one and had managed to stop the two before anything serious had occurred, and now here he was, stuck in between a rock and a hard place.
Kakashi slipped the book back into his pouch, eye still crinkled at the corner. "I'm sure Tsunade would be more than willing to extend your punishment, Sasuke…"
Extend…
The flash of red hair and the promise of dealing with two more hours of that did the trick. He'd only been doing this for two days but he'd had more than enough of admin work to last him this lifetime and the next.
"I'll do it."
"Excellent."
Damn the silver haired jonin and his damn books.
"Take Naruto back to your place—"
"Why?" He cursed the almost whine that had escaped his lips.
Kakashi's grin got wider, if that was possible. "Because everyone knows where the hokage lives. Your place is the safest for him right now. I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to break into your house uninvited. So just keep him there for now until we find a way to get him back to normal. It shouldn't be more than a couple days."
Sasuke was already regretting his decision to babysit the idiot. Admin work wasn't looking so painful anymore. Naruto had never actually been inside the Uchiha compound before. Preferring to meet him at Ichiraku's or his own place instead, which he was perfectly fine with. Sasuke had never deigned to invite him or anyone else for that matter to his place either.
Kakashi wandered over to the still sleeping boy and bundled a cloak tightly around him before pushing the bundle into Sasuke's unwilling arms.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" He motioned to the bundle currently trying to burrow into his armpit.
"What you normally do with children?" Kakashi offered, unhelpfully.
Sasuke shot him a dirty glare as if trying to say, and what would that be?
"It's Naruto so…"
Sasuke almost dropped the bundle right then and there and stomp out of the room. Extension on his punishment and pride be damned. Naruto as a child had been infuriating. He remembered the blond always being there wherever he looked. Always trying to beat him, always trying to annoy him, of which he'd succeeded in that aspect. Almost too well, Sasuke thought. He was not in the mood to deal with a snotty nosed brat pulling pranks on him and messing up his house.
"Just…Naruto-proof your house, maybe…"
A glance at Tsunade told him she was enjoying this a lot more then she should. She raised an elegant brow when she caught his dark expression.
"Kakashi insisted. Make sure no one sees him like that." She ordered as if Sasuke needed telling twice.
He felt a deep set urge to roll his eyes and punch his old mentor through the wall but nodded once instead. No point saying that to the fastest ninja in the village. If he wanted to be invisible then he would be. Without another word, he disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.
"So…" Kakashi began when the smoke cleared. "How long before he comes running back with Naruto do you think?"
Kakashi hadn't forgotten how Naruto had been as a child either.
The moment he stepped into his house he dropped the bundle unceremoniously onto the couch. The kid started and flailed around. Arms and legs getting tangled up in the cloak in a wild attempt to get out of his bindings. Sasuke sat down on a chair opposite and just watched. He couldn't help the smirk that pricked at the corner of his mouth when he saw the bundle tumble off the couch and land with a loud oomph on the floor. The blond leapt out of the pile with an angry huff and a petulant glare in Sasuke's direction.
"Hey! What's the big idea trapping me like that, bastard? Don't you know who I am?"
Sasuke arched an eyebrow.
"I'm the great Uzumaki Naruto you know, and I'll kick your ass for doing that to me!"
Naruto stomped over to Sasuke still casually seated in his chair and pointed a finger between his eyes. Sasuke stared at him, unamused.
The angry expression melted off the blond's face and he leant in closer to Sasuke. Eyes wide, head tilted to the side and mouth open where Sasuke could just see a peak of his tongue.
"Sasuke-teme?" He muttered, making the jonin twitch. How could this Naruto have known who he was? He was sure he didn't resemble his seven year old self in any way. His hair was longer for one thing and—
"Oi, oi, oi you look a lot like Sasuke-teme." The blond said, breaking Sasuke's train of thought. "Are you guys related or something?" Naruto was—
"Are you guy's twins? You're a lot bigger though and your hair isn't as dumb as his is. How old are you? Hey!"
The smaller Naruto had thought his hair was dumb? Sasuke was pretty sure he'd be permanently locked away or executed if he killed the hokage. Accidental or not. He stood up, prepared to just leave the blond here to stew in his own loud voice while he dealt with his own nagging thoughts. He didn't have the patience to deal with a child Naruto.
His silence didn't deter the kid for a second. "Hey, don't ignore me. I asked you a question. Are you Sasuke's older brother? You look a lot cooler then him you know, but not as cool as me of course!"
Oh? Sasuke finally glanced down at the tiny, blond hokage as if actually seeing him for the first time. Naruto looked about the same as he remembered him as a child. Bright. Obnoxiously so. Like he had a miniature version of the sun shining right behind him. Someone had obviously given the mini ninja a new set of clothes. He doubts his clothes would've shrunk along with him. He just wondered why it had to be bright orange. After Naruto had become hokage he'd forgone his usual bright orange attire for a more neutral black and green ensemble with the hokage robes on top. He still wore the hideous orange at home whenever Sasuke was forced to drag the idiot out of his bed because he'd 'forgotten' about a meeting. For not being part of the idiot's guard, he realised that he sure as hell acted like he was a majority of the time. Disturbed by the thought he didn't notice the little blond looking up at him with wide blue eyes, tiny hand clenched around Sasuke's pant leg and tugging on it as if that would get Sasuke to answer him.
"So, so? Are you his older brother or not? Can you tell Sasuke-teme something for me? It's super important!"
Before he could stop himself, he answered. "Yes, I'm Sasuke's older brother….Itachi."
The blond beamed up at him, eyes crinkled at the corners and whisker marks stretched tight across his cheeks. Sasuke felt his guts churn and his breath hitched. He winced, rubbed his stomach and cursed the older Naruto for reducing his diet to ramen and takeout. He really needed fix the blond's eating habits before he killed them both.
"Then tell Sasuke-teme he's a bastard and I'm gonna kick his ass at the academy tomorrow."
"…What?"