"Ne, ne, Iruka? Wanna come eat ramen?" Naruto asked his favorite teacher.

Iruka sighed, ignoring the urge to massage his temples; he knew from experience that it wouldn't really help against his headache. "Not today, Naruto."

"Huh, why not?" The blonde asked undeterred.

Iruka frowned. He didn't have time for this. "Naruto. I told you, I don't have time today, I still need to grade two classes' papers and I have to work out what to do for the survival training of a third class. I. Don't. Have. Time," he enunciated clearly, annoyed at the blonde's persistence. He had had a stressful day – since all children had been as bad as on a sugar high due to impending festival – still had a lot to do – why couldn't he just get a bit of free-time on such a day? – and even his patience was running thin.

"You don't even have to pay, I will!"

Iruka started growling but cut himself off, this time pinching the bridge of his nose. Hard. The sting that was a result of that was temporarily enough to distract him from his ever growing headache, as he sorted through the papers in front of him to make grading them later on easier.

"But-"

Iruka snapped. "Will you SHUT UP!" He was absently aware that he shouldn't have yelled like that and that he really should go home but he couldn't, because the head teacher would have his head if the work wasn't done until tomorrow; never mind that Iruka had only one day for this but it wasn't the head teacher's problem so it was okay to work the others like that- Iruka was a really patient person but right now he felt like cursing- Because, fuck, the new head teacher was a demon- and he suppose he should keep better watch of his tongue but he was stressed, in pain and tired. And then there would be the festival later on-

He didn't notice that Naruto had frozen, or that he had accidently mumbled "fucking demon" out loud.

Thinking that the blonde had already left directly after his outburst to quiet him, he didn't notice him leaving with wide, tear-filled eyes either.

Naruto stumbled back to his apartment, tears trailing down his face as he tried to evade the villagers that tried to give him a present in passing in form of a fist, a foot or just something to throw at him, really.

And he tried to shut out the jeering insults of the villagers at the sight of his tears, but couldn't quite manage it.

But worse, were the laughing families and friends that were crowding the marketplace, so cheerful-

How could they be so cheerful, when he couldn't, no matter how much he tried and acted? Wasn't he supposed to feel happy if he acted like it long enough?

Why couldn't at least one of his precious people love him back? He didn't ask for much, he just wanted to have them look at him, at least remember that it was his birthday – he didn't expect to receive something but at least something else than- than that would have been nice, at least for them to acknowledge his existence so he wouldn't have to feel like a ghost…

He finally entered his apartment, closed the door and out of habit exclaimed "tadaima"- and promptly choked on the word. There wasn't anyone there, there never was but this time- this time there wouldn't even be someone outside his said little living space.

He suddenly felt himself breaking as he slumped to the ground, crying and sobbing uncontrollably.

And the people outside where still cheerfully making noise while in front of him was the dreary, run-down little dump and he was so alone-

Naruto tightly squeezed his eyes shut but there was still that infernal noise- he clamped his hands on his ears, desperately trying to block out the noise-

He didn't want to have to look at his apartment that refused to feel like a home, and he didn't want to hear how everyone was happy, but denied him that happiness and- shut up-

Unbidden, the day's memories flooded his mind- Sasuke with his disdain- Sakura insulting and hitting him- Kakashi giving him an eye-smile before abandoning him in favor of his teammates- his hands fisted in his hair, nails painfully digging into his scalp-

Tsunade throwing something after him and telling him to stop that- Jiraya looking at him annoyed- shut up-

Iruka yelling at him- stop- he choked on a sob- Iruka's mumbled "fucking demon"-

SHUT UP!

And suddenly the world suddenly became still.

Hesitantly, Naruto slowly let his hands relax and finally registered the pain. He must have broken the skin with his fingernails. Damn. Though, it should heal quickly, everything always did. Physically, at least.

He wondered why it suddenly was so silent, until he noticed that he could sense something…

He frowned, his eyes still closed. He wouldn't open them for now, he couldn't- didn't want to see and be reminded- but he was more concerned with the new sense… It felt like what he'd always been aware of somehow, what warned him when someone was near… That sense was the reason he'd been able to pull off his pranks unseen.

It was the reason he'd been able to more or less hide from Anbu, because he had been able to tell that he'd been blazingly bright, like the sun compared to others… and then he'd suppressed it, that glowing stuff, confined it into the… vessel in him, preventing wisps from getting past… he'd gotten quite good at it over time, though still far from perfect… The jounin and Anbu were somehow, sometimes still better than him in that regard-

Chakra!

He felt like hitting himself. Of course, that's what he'd been able to feel all along.

Naruto turned back to his strangely improved chakra sensory. Huh, now that he understood and focused, he could- huh, there were a lot of people moving around… briefly he remembered the festival but shoved the thought aside.

So yeah, of course there'd be a lot of people, but… he found he could tell which ones were civilians and which were shinobi.

And, now that he concentrated, he was sure he could even tell vaguely what age the civilians were… well not really, he didn't have something to compare to except those almost impossibly small chakra sources that were bouncing around with a lot of energy had to be children, and the slightly bigger ones that were moving more sedately had to be adults.

He focused further on the civilians. First, the children. There were some, whose chakra was slow and… not sluggish but not quite like water either, more like thick blood, yeah.

Then there were others whose chakra was more active, like water… He compared that to the chakra of the people that were definitely shinobi and cheered, there was a similarity. Then he compared to the adult civilians. He supposed those with the slow, thick blood chakra must be kids who were civilians since the chakra of adult civilians had the same consistency, and the other kids must be going to the ninja academy, since their chakra was better flowing like with the shinobi- though not quite at their level yet.

Naruto felt immensely proud at having figured that out.

He turned his focus on the shinobi. There were kids who were as old as he himself was, whose chakra sources were a kind of small that indicated that they were his age but in another kind of size were bigger than a civilian's, telling him that they were already genin, because it felt like about his peers' size- no he wouldn't think about them.

Anyway, then there were the really varying shinobi he supposed had to be chuunin. There were chuunin with rather low reserves like Iruka- not thinking about him- or Mizuki- fuck, not thinking about that either… then there were shinobi with really huge resources, though not jounin, much like with Izumo and Kotetsu from the gates…

And then there were the ninja that were definitely jounin, although that was varying as well. There were jounin with resources like that sensei from Team 8 or people with normal reserves like Ibiki, the bushy-brows sensei… and lastly those with huge reserves like Kakashi- not thinking about him- or that crazy Anko woman from the chuunin exam.

So, Naruto spend the next few- minutes, hours? – looking at other's chakra signatures and trying to glean from them as much as he could.

He, at one point, and if they were close enough – it was some people walking on the floor above his apartment – could even tell their individual signatures.

It was quite exciting.

…And also… quite soothing. He could sense their chakra, vague or not so, …warm… things that were around him and couldn't hide from him.

And there were so much…

He unexpectedly found himself smiling. He'd never thought there'd be a birthday that he would spent alone but smiling.

But really, somehow being surrounded by all those varying chakra signatures that were glowing like little candles in the dark- he didn't feel that alone…

Huh, this was kind of the best birthday he'd ever had… And now, if only there would be no attacks on him tonight…

That smile stayed on his face as he slowly fell asleep.

AN: If anyone can tell me how to edit chapter contents without replacing the whole chapter, I'd be really grateful.

Please review!