I don't know why but I never know what to write in the first Author's note. Disclaimer? Some intel about the story? Interesting anecdotes? Funny quotes? So many things...

So I'll make it simple. Naruto isn't mine. And thank whatever deity comes to your mind because it wouldn't have ended well. At all.

This fanfiction will contain the following: Not-so-secret-spoilers, Bad grammar (people, English is something along my fifth language. I don't have a diploma in it), questionable humor (I think that I have one. If I have a humor at all), mention of SLASH/YAOI/BOY ON BOY. I did write it (in caps too) so don't flame. Also, this is my second attempt at time-travel. I like those kind of stories.

Anecdote: I won't bash Sakura. Or Danzō. Or Sasuke. No one actually. It's a first for me. (Let's see if I can do it)

Also, this chapter was graciously beta-read by kitsuneluvuh so thank them. A lot.

And I don't have any funny quote in English so... I'll let you read the first chapter.

(・・?) Kaeru (・・?)

Introduction

The boy seemed perplexed by something. His head was slightly tilted, his chubby left cheek almost grazing his shoulder and his eyes were glowing with curiosity.

A villager walked and passed next to the boy. As usual, the civilian glared at the boy and spat right at the child's feet before walking to the nearest store to buy some things for the dinner. The light on the street was dim and the boy had to narrow his eyes when he noticed that he couldn't see clearly whatever had caught his interest.

Some ninjas stopped briefly by his side to find out why he was so silent and calm but the boy didn't move an inch and continued frowning softly and munching on his lips.

His sky blue eyes watched avidly the ants moving on the dusty ground and his mouth was slightly agape when he saw one of the insects transport the corpse of a spider. The spider was way bigger than the ant but the insect didn't seem to struggle with it.

The boy had seen how the ants had surrounded the spider and killed it. Of course, a lot of ants had died trying but the spider was now dead and the ants left were now scurrying away with the corpse.

His fingers hitched to move. In fact his whole body wanted to move. Staying so calm wasn't something that he did often, mostly because he had too much energy and needed to spend it before the night fell or he wouldn't sleep.

Suddenly a smile appeared on his chubby face and the boy turned his head to grin at the being who had just appeared from nowhere.

It was an adult wearing the formal garb of the Hidden Village shinobi. Along with the jounin vest and a mask with animal features on its face, the adult also wore a hoodie that covered its head and hid its hair. It was simply impossible to discern anything at all from the jounin. And as the adult had never spoke to the boy, he couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman.

"Kaeru-san!" The boy exclaimed happily.

He quickly dusted his ragged clothes and his smiles increased tenfolds when he saw the jounin tilt its head and pat softly its stomach.

The boy knew that the jounin hated close contacts and stayed put before nodding vividly and he closed his eyes as his smile grew bigger by seconds.

"I haven't ate yet," he answered to the silent question from the adult.

The jounin nodded and began to walk without a glance to the boy. However, the child knew better and scurried to follow the adult. He quickly caught up with the masked jounin and began to tell it all he did during that day.

They finally got to a familiar stall and the child's blue eyes twinkled in happiness when the familiar smell of miso broth and noodles greeted him.

"Old man!" he exclaimed loudly. "Three miso pork ramen!"

The jounin let out a small sigh and raised five fingers to the cook. The man, accustomed to the shinobi's strange ways, nodded with a wide grin and began to cook masterfully the ramen.

"Here they are!" The cook said as he put the five bowls in front of the strange pair. "Five miso pork ramen!"

The boy squealed happily and began to dig in while the jounin nodded softly to the cook and took out a seal. the adult put it on its toad mask and Teuchi, the cook, looked away politely.

He had known a lot of shinobi who liked to keep their secrecy but that masked shinobi was the one who went to such length to keep its face unseen. Teuchi was also sure that the shinobi's protégé hadn't even seen it.

Once they had both finished eating, the jounin stood, payed and the boy was quick on his feet to follow the adult. They walked silently in the darkening streets and the child's smile grew bigger by seconds when he noticed that the masked jounin was whistling an unfamiliar tune.

"Ne, ne, Kaeru-san," the boy said after a little while.

They were now in a public park and the jounin was walking leisurely. The boy wasn't too far from the adult as the latter would slow whenever the child stopped to look at something.

"Do you think that I'm a monster?"

The boy's happy and bubbly voice contrasted with the seriousness of his question. The jounin stopped walking and crouched in front of the child. The younger widened his eyes when he saw the adult trace a question mark on the ground and he observed the finger that was tracing other characters. Kaeru-san wore fingerless gloves and didn't have buff fingers. Nor hairy ones.

The boy scrunched his nose at the idea of his friend being hairy and cocked his head while he tried to decipher whatever the jounin was writing for him.

Kaeru-san had been the one who had taught him how to read and write so the boy was proud to say that he could read better than the children in his class.

「Why are saying that?」the jounin wrote messily on the ground.

Some of its characters were a bit messy and the boy had to narrow his eyes when he hesitated over two different meanings for one of them. Why did Kaeru-san write the "ta" the same way the jounin traced its nine?

"Someone said it today," the boy shrugged. It wasn't that important for him. Everyone called him like that and sometimes even he had some difficulties to remember his true name.

It would have been nice to hear Kaeru-san's voice saying his name. But that was just a wistful thinking. The jounin never talked, even to its fellow comrades.

「Was it one of the villagers?」

"Not really," the child scrunched his nose and scratched his neck. "It was a boy in class. He said that a monster shouldn't be accepted in a ninja school... Do you think the same, Kaeru-san?"

The jounin sighed heavily and shook its head slowly. The adult then tapped its chest and the child's eyes widened in surprise.

「It's the heart that matters.」 the adult wrote and sighed once again. 「Judging people by their pasts or their families is dangerous. You can lose inestimable friends and allies if you close your heart like that.」

The boy's smile was blinding and he tightened his hands into fists to contain his urge to just glomp his friend and almost family-figure.

The jounin then tilted its head and tensed before springing to its feet. The masked adult erased the characters on the ground with a swipe of its feet and jumped on a rooftop before disappearing in a whirlpool of leaves.

The boy blinked slowly and glanced at the three men squad. He recognised the Uchiha symbol on their jackets and nodded curtly to the policemen. The three men ignored the child and looked around them with their Sharingan glaring ominously.

"Dammit!" One of the Uchiha swore loudly. "Almost caught it!"

"The Frog isn't one to be caught by surprise attacks," the second Uchiha stated with a deadpan look at his companion.

"Shisui, just go to the Hokage," the third told to the second. "I'll stay with Rei and make sure that the Uzumaki boy gets to his apartment without being attacked."

The Uchiha named Shisui nodded curtly and jumped into a rooftop before leaving for the Hokage tower. Meanwhile, the boy blinked again and smirked at the two Uchiha left.

"Maybe next time," Uchiha Rei cursed under his breath.

However, the child heard him and glared daggers at him.

"Kaeru-san is way better than all of you!" He bragged loudly before walking to his apartment. "You'll never catch Kaeru-san!"

"Someday we will," the third Uchiha corrected sternly and the boy froze when he met those red eyes that glowed ominously in the darkness. "The Frog can not stray from its responsibilities every time it wants to fool around..."

"Enough Itachi-sama," Rei whispered deferentially. "The brats will piss himself if you keep using your Sharingan..."

Uchiha Itachi's eyes glared briefly at his companion before the Sharingan vanished and his eyes went back to their usual black color.

'I wonder why that Sasuke-teme's brother is so angry...' The child thought and he rubbed pensively his chin before grinning maliciously. 'It must be Kaeru-san's doing...'

囧

Sarutobi Hiruzen, third Hokage of the Hidden Village of the Leaves aka Konoha, sighed heavily and glanced from his tower of paperwork to the teenager bowing in his office.

"So?" The old and tired Hokage inquired while he signed another A-rank mission that had went successfully. Kakashi seemed to be on a roll. Maybe he should give him some vacations, that was his third A-rank in two weeks.

"The frog masked shinobi appeared once again by the jinchūriki's side. They went to eat ramen and walked by the village without a care about the strict surveillance they were under," Uchiha Shisui explained with a blank voice.

"Did you get to talk with him?" Sarutobi insisted while he rubbed his weary eyelids. "Or her?"

He didn't discriminate shinobi. And that Frog one was a force to recon with. It had appeared out of nowhere and had taken to stay by the young Naruto's side, helping the kid with whatever he was struggling with and avoiding effortlessly the troops of ninjas trying to capture him/her.

"No, sir," Shisui immediately answered. "The Frog vanished and even Sharingan couldn't trace it. Maybe the ninkens could..."

"I'll ask Tsume and Kakashi once they return from their missions," the Hokage nodded and joined his hand on his desk. The tower of paperwork moved slightly and he took a sharp intake of breath. If those papers fell, it would be the end of it. He'd have to stay the whole night awake to reorganise it.

"Also, sir..." The teenager seemed hesitating over something and Sarutobi stayed still. "We've seen the Frog with Danzō-sama..."

The Hokage narrowed his eyes and gritted discreetly his teeth.

"What happened?" He ordered and Shisui straightened his back.

"From what we saw," the shinobi explained with a strained voice. "The Frog menaced Danzō-sama to tell the village something. We still haven't found what..."

"I want your ANBU team on this affair," the elder said sternly. "This is a maximum security mission. You can't report it to the council, am I clear?"

Shisui nodded silently and vanished in a whirlpool of leaves.

Once he was sure that he was alone in his office, the Hokage grunted in frustration and glared at the window behind him.

"Must you antagonise them so much?" He grumbled and didn't bat an eyelash when a form appeared in the window and greeted him with a casual wave of its hand. "Come in, Kaeru, we have a lot to talk..."

The person nodded and opened the window before jumping swiftly in the office. Meanwhile Sarutobi cleaned his desk and leaned his elbows on it, his eyes assessing grimly the jounin in front of him.

The jounin wore the traditional garb and had a fit and toned body, that much Sarutobi could tell from its posture and its moves. But, as the jounin's clothes hid its face and as his jacket and pants were too big, the Hokage couldn't tell its gender.

Nonetheless, Sarutobi leaned for the male gender. The mask wearing stranger had this vibe around him/her that was way too similar to some of the Konoha shinobis. Namikage Minato or Hatake Kakashi to say a few.

"What did happen with Danzō?" The Hokage asked once the jounin was sitting in the chair in front of his desk.

Kaeru shrugged and waved one of its hands in the air as if it didn't really matter.

"Talk," Sarutobi ordered after making some quick hand signals. "Nobody can hear us."

The jounin sighed heavily and its shoulders sagged before the henge the masked adult wore vanished. The toad mask was pushed to the side and a familiar face with twinkling eyes appeared. As always when he saw the jounin's face, Sarutobi took a sharp intake of air and felt his chest constrict.

The jounin ran a hand through its distinctive male features and stopped his fingers on the seal traced on his neck. He pushed his thumb against it and the seal glowed briefly before dimming quietly.

"Aaah..." The jounin exclaimed as he let out his voice for the first time of the day. He stretched happily and the Hokage sighed heavily.

The Kaeru in front of him and the Kaeru who liked to taunt the Konoha shinobis were so different that it sometimes gave him headaches.

"This is just heaven!" Kaeru added before sobering and meeting the elder's eyes. "I talked with Danzō. If he keeps acting like that, I'll probably kill him. Is that okay with you, Hokage-sama?"

Sarutobi frowned and glanced at his joined hands, remembering his old days as a genin with Danzō. But then he remembered that he had in front of him the jounin who had come from nowhere and had sworn him his utmost loyalty. Or rather, his utmost loyalty to Naruto.

"Why would you go to that length?" Hiruzen inquired softly.

He was feeling old and tired. Maybe it was time to step down from his Hokage title and hand it down to a more capable shinobi. Maybe Jiraya or Tsunade...

Kaeru was out of question. That much had already been discussed the first time they met.

"One of my... friends was in Root," Kaeru shrugged and scoffed as he remembered his friend. "I promised him that nobody would live that kind of life ever again..."

Sarutobi frowned and shook slowly his head.

"Remember your mission," he told the jounin and the adult pouted like a kid.

"You gave me free reigns," Kaeru complained. "Why shouldn't I change some things? For one death, hundreds will live..."

The Hokage sighed and settled by just waving a hand.

"Don't kill Danzō," he ordered and the jounin's pout increased. "I'll be the one who will do it if he steps out of line."

"He already did," Kaeru muttered gloomily and Sarutobi rolled his eyes when he saw the professional shinobi act like a spoiled kid. "What about Ita-chan?"

"Uchiha Itachi," the elder insisted with a scoff. "I already told him that he had to stop taking ANBU missions and he's supposed to be bedridden in the hospital until Tsunade examines him."

"Well," the jounin drawled as he observed his nails. "He was the one in Shisui's team and almost caught me... It seems that the Uchiha aren't following your orders anymore. What will you do? Follow Danzō's plan? Let Ita-chan be the next Hokage? Or let Uchiha make a coup d'état?"

"Enough!" Sarutobi thundered and the jounin didn't even bat an eyelash. "I won't let the 'Uchiha massacre' happen, as you so gently put it."

"That's great," Kaeru grinned brightly and the Hokage felt his eyebrow tick. "If you didn't, I'd have come here for nothing..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed and kneaded his temples.

"Just get out of here," the elder barked when he saw the jounin cackle at his headache. "And make sure that the Uchiha don't catch you. I don't want you to give Anko other pranks ideas..."

"Yeah," Kaeru nodded and his grin began even more blinding. "You wouldn't want to see Ibiki shellshocked once again... But it was so funny, believe me!"

Sarutobi closed his eyes and counted to three. When he opened his eyes, the jounin wasn't in his office anymore and he let out a final sigh before settling to work on his paperwork again.

When Kaeru had appeared out of the blue two years ago, the Hokage hadn't expected that young stranger to be so powerful and full of knowledge about Konoha.

Hell, he even knew about events that still had to happen!

The Hokage grunted and leaned his forehead against his desk. His headache was now worse than ever.

囧

Hatake Kakashi leaned against the tree trunk and comfortably sat on the branch while he took out his loved possession. The last of the Icha Icha books, Icha Icha Violence. He made a sound of content and opened the book. However, just as he was about to indulge into his guilty pleasure, the ninja heard leaves bustling and soft steps coming towards him.

Kakashi felt lazy today so he merely closed his book and stored it away (he didn't want it to disappear in another Katon jutsu). When he saw the familiar Toad mask and jounin vest, the Konoha shinobi sighed softly and didn't move an inch.

The masked jounin ended in the same tree as Kakashi but he was suspended by his feet at a higher branch and probably looking around him to see if his trackers were still hot on his tail.

"If it isn't the infamous Kaeru-san," Kakashi drawled and he smirked under his mask when he noticed how the jounin had tensed when he had spoke.

So he didn't want to be found by whoever was looking for him.

It would be such a pity if he was to be found, right?

Kakashi's grin increased and his eye took an U-shaped form while a dark aura began to surround him.
That Toad was going to pay for that stray Katon that had destroyed his first Icha Icha Violence...

Kaeru raised his hands in a silent plea for his help and Kakashi merely eye-smiled brighter at him while his aura darkened. The silver haired jounin could hear distinctively the other man gulp nervously.

They both heard leaves rustling and Kaeru tensed before jumping from his branch when a big ball of fire flew towards it and collided loudly.

Kakashi swore under his breath and appeared right next to the Toad masked man, a kunai pressed against the jounin's trachea.

"Why is it that I always end running with you from Uchiha Itachi's ire, Kaeru-san?" Kakashi asked with a pleasant voice and his eye-smile at full power.

Kaeru shrugged and made a move to swipe the Copy-nin's legs but Kakashi was faster and he jumped away from the masked jounin. His kunai drew blood but Kaeru didn't seem to mind and didn't let out any sound.

"So you're a real mute," Kakashi muttered for himself before tensing and fleeing from the clearing that they had found themselves fighting in.

Blood ran freely on the jounin's clothes and the man didn't seem fazed by it as all his attention was on the approaching tracker. Red eyes gleamed ominously in the clearing and Kaeru gulped loudly.

"Uchiha Itachi," Kakashi drawled as he sat on a tree branch to observe how bad the Toad was going to suffer by the enraged Uchiha. "Why am I not surprised? What did he do this time?"

"Hn," Itachi simply answered in his monosyllabic way.

Kakashi rolled his eyes as did Kaeru. Then the masked jounin had to evade another Katon as it seemed that Itachi was really irritated at him.

The toad masked man raised his hands in a plea to appease the teenager but Itachi didn't flinch and kept on attacking him relentlessly.

Finally, Kakashi had enough of watching the two ninjas fighting and jumped to stop them. He deftly caught Itachi's hand and Kaeru's leg that had both been raised and the adult sighed heavily before flipping them both.

"So," the silver haired man insisted. "What did he do?"

Itachi's Sharingan vanished and the teenager gritted his teeth in irritation. However, he didn't try to release his arm and merely glared at the masked man. Meanwhile, Kaeru just shrugged and patted softly Kakashi's arm before pointing at his masked mouth.

"I see... If I release you, will you write it?" The Konoha ninja asked with a raised brow.

Kaeru nodded excitedly and Itachi stopped glaring at him. The Uchiha seemed now interested in the masked jounin who he'd never been able to caught.

The Toad masked shinobi, also nicknamed Toad, Frog or Kaeru, had appeared in Konoha two years ago and hadn't joined its shinobi troops but had stayed in the hidden village all this time, never taking missions, only looking over the jinchūriki Uzumaki Naruto. At first, everyone had been on high alert. It was an evident fact that the other hidden villages would like to have their jinchūriki with them.

However, the Toad jounin had never made any suspicious move. He just stayed next to the jinchūriki and made sure that the boy was fine and happy. A thing that not a lot of people in Konoha did and that was something that ashamed Itachi.

If his little brother had to suffer being alone like the Uzumaki boy did, Itachi wouldn't like being in the sidelines. He would be by the little boy's side and would make his darnedest to help him and make him happy.

So when he had been appointed as the jinchūriki's safe keeper to make sure that the Frog didn't kidnap him, Itachi had used this situation to help a bit the Uzumaki boy and began to fill the pantry and refrigerator whenever he had the time and the boy was sleeping. It was an outrage that the villagers sold him perished goods. The boy was lucky that he had the Toad to treat him for some ramen every night...

Thus Itachi had began to respect the Frog. Just a bit but as he was an Uchiha, it was something to recon.

Of course, Kaeru had to go and crush what little respect he'd won from the Uchiha heir.

And thus, this explained why the Toad masked jounin had to flee from Itachi's deathly blows once every three days.

囧

「I didn't let him catch me and went to the Hokage.」Kaeru wrote quickly in the earthy ground with his fingers.

Kakashi crouched to read it and frowned when he had to decipher whatever the man had wrote. That was the worst case of chicken writing that he had ever seen.

"Why did you do that?" The Copy-nin asked with curiosity.

Itachi was sitting on a burned tree stump and was meditating while the two ninjas discussed.

「He's sick.」the masked jounin shrugged and ignored Kakashi's penetrant gaze.

Kaeru tilted his head and seemed to remember something because he quickly went back to his chicken scrawls.

「All those times using Sharingan is wearing his body and eyes. He'll die if he keeps using it so much. So I asked the Hokage to cure him.」

"And Hokage-sama accepted?" Kakashi said with an unbelieving face. His eye narrowed and he assessed discreetly the man in front of him.

He was lean, with a slim and fit body and if Kakashi hadn't had a sense of smell similar to the Inuzuka, he wouldn't have known that the Toad was a man. Also, Kaeru wasn't really tall for a man and finding him in a crowd was the hardest thing ever.

Only a team composed of a Inuzuka, a Hyuuga and an Uchiha would have had a chance to catch him. Except that those families weren't going to work together anytime soon.

「Tsunade is going to help.」

"And now the Sannin Tsunade is going to help," Kakashi muttered. "What else? You're the Sage of the Six Paths? Hashirama's reincarnation? A girl?"

Kaeru nodded and a serious vibe began to surround him while Kakashi frowned. Whatever was going to follow next was going to be serious.

Serious like the next Icha Icha plot. Or the outcome of the next World War.

Kakashi lifted his forehead-protector and revealed his Sharingan, ready to recorder whatever the Frog was going to write or do.

「Yes.」the latter wrote. 「You have one thing left to know...」

Kakashi leaned towards the masked jounin and felt a soft rustling behind him. It seemed that even Itachi was intrigued by Kaeru's last revelation.

「In the Icha Icha movie that will come out in seven years, there will be an extra scene where...」

Kakashi sprang to his feet and wiped the earth with his feet and hands to erase the jounin's writing. However, it was too late as his Sharingan had already seen it.

"I hate you," the silver haired ninja grumbled gloomily while Itachi rolled his eyes.

Kaeru's shoulders shook, showing them that he was indeed laughing at the Copy-nin's despair. But after a while, he raised a finger and beckoned them to get closer. Kakashi folded his arms in his chest and Itachi glanced briefly at the other ANBU before sitting regally in front of the masked jounin.

「Do you remember our first meeting?」

The two Konohan shinobis reluctantly nodded. Those weren't really a good memory. Kaeru had been something along a wild beast during his first year in Konoha. He was now way tamer than his first year.

He had been the one who had ripped Danzō's arm after all...

As he had been the one who had tried to befriend them even if they persisted on rejecting him.

Kaeru was that tenacious.

「Didn't I tell you something really important at that time?」

Kakashi didn't know how but he knew that the Frog was actually smirking at him. He could almost picture it, a foxy smile with closed eyes. And seeing Itachi's tensed body, the Uchiha could too.

"I refuse," the two ninjas said at the same time.

Kaeru shrugged and clasped his hands before making his articulations creak loudly. The gesture was enough to convey his point.

"I still refuse," Kakashi insisted while Itachi used his "hn" as a back up.

The darkness that surrounded them was now suffocating.

囧

"Kaeru-san!" Uzumaki Naruto exclaimed as he got out of the school.

He ran to the adult and stopped at mere inches from the man, a wide and blinding smile on his lips. The masked jounin raised a thumb as a congratulation and greeting before glancing at the two gloomy ninjas that were sulking behind him.

"Why are those two here?" Naruto asked with eyes sparkling in curiosity as he glanced at the two more or less familiar faces.

He knew that Itachi was Sasuke-teme's big brother. But he had never seen the silver haired man before. However, the stranger wore a mask, like Kaeru-san, and Kaeru-san was like family for him. So it was probably Kaeru-san brother. Or son. Or maybe father. Who knows the stranger had white hair after all.

"Ne, ne, Ojii-san," Naruto said as he stopped right in front of the silver haired man. "Are you Kaeru-san's father?"

The stranger's only eye widened in shock and he paled while he ran a hand through his hair.

"So I already got to this age, huh," he muttered darkly. "Children don't lie..."

Kaeru patted him mockingly in the shoulder before hugging him briefly and tracing at the same time the kanji for 'father' on the stranger's back.

Naruto watched his almost father-figure hug the stranger and frowned. They seemed pretty close. And Kaeru-san let that stranger touch him while he didn't let him do that...

Was it because he was indeed a monster?

Naruto's smile faltered briefly before he put it back and smiled brightly at the masked adult.

"Why are you here Kaeru-san?" The boy asked politely.

For a moment, he had thought that he had a family waiting for him at the school gates and he had treasured that thought. He looked at his feet and bit nervously his lips. Kaeru-san never waited for him at the school gates. If he was here, it was for something else.

A hand was suddenly on his shoulder and Naruto tensed before he relaxed once he realised that it was Sasuke-teme's brother.

"We're here because Kaeru-san 'asked' us to look over you while he's away next week," Itachi explained with his soft voice.

Naruto nodded slowly and narrowed his eyes when he realised that it meant that Kaeru-san wouldn't be there for him.

"How long?" He asked with a nervous voice.

What if it was forever?

The masked man raised his two hands and tilted his head. It was something along his way of smiling. Naruto relaxed as he counted the seven fingers and he nodded with a bright smile this time.

"One week," he accepted and Kaeru's shoulders shook as he laughed silently. "But you must be back on the seventh day, 'ttebayo!"

The masked jounin nodded seriously before tilting his head while his shoulders shook once again. Naruto made a foxy grin when he recognised those moves and he sat on his heels, waiting for the adult's story.

「Those two will be your mother and father.」Kaeru wrote and maliciousness was seeping from every of his pores.

Naruto glanced at the two gloomy ninjas and his foxy grin widened.

"Restrictions?" He asked while he eyed the two men with an ominous glint in his sky blue eyes.

「Free reigns. Just don't kill them.」

Naruto's grin was now unbelievably wide.

囧

Sarutobi was wondering whether taking his midday break to eat something at Ichiraku ramen with Naruto or just go to sleep. However, those ideas flew by the window when he felt the familiar chakra of the number one knucklehead and problem maker of Konoha.

"So you're really leaving," Sarutobi said coolly while the Toad masked ninja appeared in his office.

Kaeru made the hand signs necessary for the protection jutsu and sighed softly once the shields were up. He then took out his mask and put it on the Hokage's desk while he put down his hoodie and shook his head to disperse all the sweat that had matted his fair hair.

Sarutobi observed the young man in silence, taking in stride the fair and ruffled hair, the distinctive features on his face and those sky blue eyes with red slitted pupils.

"Where are you headed?" The Hokage asked while the man scratched softly his tattooed neck.

The seal glowed briefly and Kaeru let out a loud yawn before laughing loudly.

"You should have seen them!" He exclaimed and Sarutobi sighed. As always when talking with him, the jounin didn't listen to him... "They were so shellshocked! It was even better that that time with Ibiki!"

"Don't traumatise my shinobis," the elder chided.

"Sorry, Jiji," Kaeru laughed feebly and scratched his neck. He looked so much like his father that Sarutobi felt his chest tighten. "But I've made so much progress with Itachi and Kakashi-sensei that I can't help it, 'ttebayo!"

The Hokage sighed heavily and pinched his nose.

"Sometimes I really wonder why you were the one sent here..." He muttered darkly while the jounin looked at him with a deadpan face. "Who would have thought that you'd end as such a fine young man, Naruto?"

The blond haired man smiled brightly at him and began to laugh loudly.

"Didn't I tell you already? I'm going to be the next Hokage, Jiji! So I better make sure that the village is still intact when I become Hokage, dattebayo!"

Sarutobi smiled at Naruto's claim and and he couldn't help it but frown.

What could have thought his successor to send the man to this time period? Did they have lost hope and sent Naruto here so he could change whatever had gone really wrong in their time period?

And how could Naruto be fine with that? He was here, out of his time and with all his friends so young and unknowing of their bonds. Naruto had always hated being alone and here he was, all alone once again just so he could save Konoha.

This Naruto was a hero in the shadows. One who will save Konoha from its destruction and who will disappear with time. Without anyone even remembering him.

'Such a sad fate that you've condemned yourself to, Naruto,' the Third Hokage thought grimly.

The blond haired Naruto grinned at the elder, almost as if he'd heard his thoughts and he winked at him.

"Don't worry, Jiji! I'll just leave the Village for a week. Besides, I'm way stronger than you think I am, 'ttebayo!"

Sarutobi sighed and nodded.

"Very well," he accorded. "Where will you go?"

"Suna," Naruto answered with a big grin. "I want to see a dear friend."

And thus the chapter ends here. What did you think of it?

Also, I haven't decided the final pairing.

Next chapter: Their first meeting.