Author's Notes: Even though this piece takes place in my Door Number Two/Vis-à-Vis universe you don't have to read either of those before you read this; it would just help if you did. All you really need to know is that this work takes place in an alternate dimension/universe and as a result some canon information – such as the Fourth's name – are deliberately inaccurate. If that will bother you, either do not read this at all or read Door Number Two/Vis-à-Vis to find out why these inaccuracies exist.

For those of you already familiar with Door Number Two/Vis-à-Vis, if you didn't come here from Vis-à-Vis this is an apology of sorts for the long wait for an update. There won't be one such thing every time, but it's possible that there may be more if they – like this one – don't fit anywhere in the fic itself.

Title: Shrinkage (Part One of Three)

Author: Reaper Nanashi (Lady Shinigami)

Pairing: None intended

Word Count: 5756 (Total: 5756)

Category: Naruto

Genre: General/Humor

Type: Three-shot (Work In Progress)

Rating: T (bad words)

Date Submitted: 6/29/09

Disclaimer: Ultimately belongs to Masashi Kishimoto – I just play in the sandbox.

Claimer: I seriously doubt Kishimoto-sensei would allow this indignity to occur, people. It was just a cute idea, okay? Okay? . . . Agree, damn it!

Summary: It was an accident – a moment of acute unpreparedness made worse by a lack of critical information. Naruto did not want to be so vulnerable, but at least his Shadow was watching over him. "Except that I can't have you running around in orange. It's too much like you and people will start to wonder." "Wonder what? If I'm having illegitimate children?"

The Reasoning Behind It: Because I am a sick, sappy person and I wanted Naruto and the Yondaime to have some time to bond under the most adorable circumstances possible – because we all know that they need to spend more time together. The apology aside, it was easier to use the DNT/VàV universe so that the explanations could be kept simple and the fun stuff could take the lead.

Part I – The Merits of Composure

Arashi held it at arm's length and stared in astonishment. In the voice of someone on the edge of hysterics, he said, "Oh my god."

Naruto crossed his arms, annoyed. "Help, oyaji. Help, help, HELP. Are you familiar with the term?"

Arashi set it carefully on his desk, aware that his predecessor was staring as well, and slumped in his desk chair with one hand over his mouth. His eyes were still locked on it since in his helpless horror he was unable to turn away, but that did not matter since he was being glared at anyway. Softly, as though trying to not disturb a funeral, he whispered, "Wh . . . What happened?"

"It was an accident," Naruto asserted.

Arashi frowned. "Yes, I would imagine so, unless you keep stalling."

"I'm not stalling," Naruto replied. "I just don't want you to think this is some cry for attention."

He seemed fine, and with that reassurance of good health – if not good spirits – the shock began to wear off. A smile started to pull at the corner of Arashi's mouth, so he kept his hand over it. "Well, you already cried for help; generally, the cry for attention comes first. Sometimes they're the same thing."

Naruto scowled. "Cute."

"I think I should be saying that."

"Shut up!" the younger blond hissed, and then pouted, which did not help his case.

"Naruto, what happened?"

"What happened is that Akiko needs tutoring in chakra control before she hurts herself!" Naruto responded with an impatient flail.

It had started innocently enough – Naruto had stumbled upon Hitomi struggling to entertain a bored Akiko who was obviously looking for a chance to escape. Unable to leave an ally hanging and having noticed that his sister had an interest in all things ninja, Naruto had offered to teach her a technique. 'Teach' had meant carefully showing her the hand seals and then letting her spend time 'practicing', though without being very dexterous and, further, without being able to utilize chakra she would never be able to make it work. But at the very least her efforts would keep her quiet and occupied for a while and therefore she would see no need to try to leave the house and get herself into trouble. Hitomi would then be able to clean up or have some tea or read or something. Apparently, however, Akiko had been far more familiar with her chakra than he had imagined.

"What did you teach her?"

Naruto glowered. "Can't you guess?"

"Not all techniques have a unique result," Arashi explained. "If you can tell me exactly what you taught her, it'll help to fix it. And I say that assuming you tried to release it and failed . . .?"

Naruto nodded sullenly. "Chiisaikoro no Jutsu."

Arashi frowned. "That's a spying technique."

"So?"

"So, you taught that to her? Even if you thought she wouldn't be able to use it—"

"She's two!" Naruto howled. "I figured that if she used it on herself and it actually worked she'd just turn into a baby and never be able to leave the house anyway!"

"If she used the same amount of chakra that she did to achieve this then she would have turned into a day-old embryo and instantly died of exposure," Arashi replied, his tone severe.

Naruto grabbed two fistfuls of hair and yanked on them. "Okay, so I fucked up! That's why I said she needs tutoring in chakra control! Now help me!"

Arashi looked at him for a long moment, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "Shit . . ."

"That's not reassuring!" Naruto snapped, then added accusingly, "Aren't you my father, oyaji? Aren't you supposed to have an answer for all of my screw-ups?"

Arashi massaged the bridge of his nose and admitted, "Naruto, some of your screw-ups have surpassed even my imagination, vivid as it is."

"Perhaps," the Third put in, silent and ignored until that moment, "you should focus on your children and your work for now, Arashi. I will look into this."

"Thank you," Naruto answered. "At least someone around here is thinking."

That was more than enough for Arashi to handle, and he snarled, "How can I think when my twelve-year-old son who's apparently being hunted by the entire world has been reduced to the size of an obviously defenseless eighteen-month-old?!"

Naruto reeled back at the force of his raised voice, eyes wide. He rocked into place again, then his little face crumpled and he started to sob.

Arashi groaned. "Oh, damn it . . ."

Naruto lifted tiny fists and began rubbing at the tears on his cheeks and in his eyes. "Why am I crying?" he blubbered. "I don't want to cry. I'm not scared . . ."

"How can you know the technique but not know what it does?" Arashi asked incredulously. He sat forward and picked Naruto up off his desk, settled the toddler against his chest, and let the chair tilt backward. Slowly and gently, he ran the fingers of one hand through his son's very short blond hair; it seemed to help reduce the wailing to mildly hyperventilating sniffles. "The whole reason that the Chiisaikoro is an effective spying technique is because it revives the characteristics that the user – or target, in this case – had as a child. So if the person is in a tight situation, allowing the childish tendencies to come through could help a lot." Arashi rested his cheek against the miniaturized forehead. "You're just going to have to deal with it for now."

Naruto quickly cried himself into a state of lethargy, which allowed his father to do just about anything with him. Arashi, however, was far too protective to be even only vaguely upsetting to the baby. In fact, to make sure that Naruto would be as comfortable as possible in his new condition, Arashi left work early – and left the search for a cure to his predecessor – and returned to the quiet and safety of home.

"Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Hotaru shrieked, the instant she caught sight of him. "Oh my god, Hitomi was telling the truth! What happened?!"

Naruto jumped, startled from a level of consciousness that was just half a step from sleep, and Arashi began to bounce them both a bit as he made soothing shushing sounds at the toddler. He shot a quelling look at Hotaru, who closed her mouth with a sharp clip of her teeth, and in that way Naruto was prevented from cutting loose with a fresh bout of tears, though he was most definitely awake again. Still, Arashi was satisfied by the calm that was on display in the bright blue eyes and he moved over to Hotaru so she could have a look at the strange circumstances. Naruto twisted in his father's arms and crammed a tiny fist in his mouth as he gazed shyly at her.

"Now what happened?" Hotaru asked, her voice much softer as she examined Naruto closely.

"He was trying to give Hitomi a hand with Akiko," Arashi explained. "To entertain her he showed her a few seals for a shrinking technique." At her frown, he added, "Showing someone the hand seals to any jutsu doesn't mean that person can actually use it, Hotaru; that requires the addition of a specific amount of circulated chakra, which isn't taught until the second year of the academy." He shook his head. "Somehow, possibly from watching Naruto or me practice, Akiko managed to figure out how to use her chakra on her own and she did this." He indicated Naruto, who had laid his head down in the opening of the collar of Arashi's flak jacket.

Hotaru put her hands on her hips. "And what's his mental state now? Is he as old mentally as physically?"

Arashi shook his head again. "His mind is still twelve, but he does have the reflexive responses of a baby; I made him cry an hour ago because I yelled at him, and your shouting almost made him cry again. And, well, look at him now. He'll behave like a baby, but he can understand big words and answer questions promptly and comprehend abstract ideas. Pretty much as long as he doesn't get upset, he'll just be a miniature version of himself."

"I'm sure you're delighted," she sighed.

Arashi frowned slightly. "Assuming that the only other alternative was death, yes." She tilted her head and he turned away. "I'm going to see if I can find him other clothes to wear."

Naruto lifted his head suddenly. "What?! Why?! My clothes are fine!"

"The Chiisaikoro is a very modest technique, to shrink one's clothes as well," Arashi said, "but I can't have you running around in orange. It's too much like you and people will start to wonder."

"Wonder what?" Naruto groused. "If I'm having illegitimate children?"

"You are very vulnerable right now," Arashi chided. "The less you stick out as yourself, the better."

Naruto could not argue that, so for the next half-hour he clung to his father's shoulder while the older blond dug through aged wooden trunks in a dusty, unused room of the manor. All it seemed to contain was stacks of baby items – mostly clothes. Ninety percent of the clothing was tolerable as far as Naruto was concerned; they were plain and had very little childish decorations. The rest, however, were questionable.

"'Why does everyone think I'm a girl?'" Naruto read.

Arashi snorted. "When you were smaller than this, people couldn't tell your gender. Not that it's surprising since we dressed you in unisex stuff, but your mother got tired of answering and had this shirt made up. She put it on you every time she took you out."

Naruto grimaced. "Couldn't she have just gotten a shirt that read 'boy' in huge letters?"

"So I told her," Arashi confirmed, "but she thought it was more fun this way."

"Fun?"

"For her," came the clarification. "It was a subtle way of reminding me that I'm . . . pretty. Because you do look very much like me." He paused, then grinned at the contents of the trunk. "Ah."

All Naruto saw was some dark-blue fabric, some grass-green fabric, and then a flash of red before his father stood and let the trunk fall shut. They went to the master bedroom, where Arashi tugged Naruto's sandals off before setting him on the big bed and handing him the dark-blue fabric. Naruto sighed, set it next to him, then pulled off his jacket, shirt, and pants, which he traded for the new and slightly wood-scented clothes. He smiled when he realized he was wearing a miniature version of the standard-issue shinobi uniform, right down to the red spiral on the right arm. Village orphans often wore such clothes because they were cheap yet extremely durable and very unlikely to be fought over by children who wanted to own the 'coolest' things. Ninja parents, though, often clothed their children in them for the same reasons.

"Cute," he noted.

"Close your eyes," Arashi ordered, "and hold out your arms."

Naruto frowned at that, suspicious, but his father had never hurt him so he complied. Something was slipped over his arms one at a time, tightened around his body, then zipped up his front. Naruto felt a surge of dread when he realized he knew what it was.

"All right," his father said. "You can look now."

Naruto looked down at the miniaturized flak jacket and then glared up at his father. "You're a bastard."

Arashi had one hand over his mouth and was clearly too amused to be at all concerned about his son's annoyance. "I think you're adorable."

"You dress up like this," Naruto hissed.

Arashi simply opened his overcoat.

Naruto scowled and crossed his arms. His father was, of course, already wearing the full jounin uniform. It just did not look as stupid on him as it did on an eighteen-month-old. "Shut up."

"Oh, come on! Don't be like that," Arashi coaxed. "If anybody laughs, it won't be mean. You take yourself too seriously."

"As if I need to hear that from you, you workaholic," Naruto snorted. He turned his back petulantly, only to feel fingers slide across it before lifting him off the bed. He squeaked.

"It's all right," Arashi promised as he turned Naruto toward him and lifted his free arm to cradle the toddler against his side. He crouched to collect his son's sandals, then headed out of the room. "There's a handle on the back of the jacket." He chuckled. "And a D-ring for a leash."

Naruto groaned. "I'm not going to ask."

"I can't imagine that you'd think you need to," Arashi answered. "I'd be more than happy to humiliate you in front of yourself at any time. And by the way, yes, you were an extremely active child; it was the only way that we could concentrate on things like eating whenever we went out, without having to wonder if you'd gotten bored and wandered off to explore."

They did not meet anyone wherever they were going, but when they arrived in the den Hitomi giggled when she spotted Naruto. "I heard that," he muttered.

"Hi, Daddy!" Akiko cheeped from her place by a mess of dolls.

"Hi, baby," Arashi greeted. He set Naruto down near her, who she responded to with a startled stare.

She reached out and put one hand gently on her brother's head. ". . . Naruto-niichan? What happen?"

Naruto opened his mouth to snap, then closed it and sighed. "I did something bad and Dad punished me."

Arashi rolled his eyes, but seemed to have a sudden thought. Alarmed, he looked between his two children and said to his son, "Please tell me that you're still potty-trained."

Naruto crossed his arms and glared. "Of course I'm still potty-trained, you asshole."

"Asshole," Akiko giggled.

Arashi was so relieved he missed the invective. "Diapers are the one thing that I can do without," he told the room at large. "Anything else I'm okay with." He rose and turned to Hitomi. "I have to speak to Sandaime-sama for a moment. I'd like to leave Naruto with you. He's still twelve mentally, so he shouldn't be a burden."

"I can make exceptions," Naruto growled as he made clawing motions at his father.

"It's no trouble at all, Arashi-sama," Hitomi promised.

Naruto silently watched his father leave the room and struggled to gain control of a sudden and powerful sensation of abandonment. It was a temporary absence, he knew, and on top of that he had been left at home, not in an alley or a playground or under an awning the way he had been when the other people had learned his name. Still, his head dropped and he began to mope. But before he could get into such a condition that Hitomi noticed something was wrong, he heard his father's voice.

"He's in here."

He brightened and turned toward the doorway just in time to see Arashi enter with the Third, who seemed to be somewhat contemplative. Naruto got to his feet and without thinking lifted his arms, and with a smile his father obediently picked him up and held him close.

"Naruto, Sandaime-sama has looked at the Chiisaikoro's specs."

Naruto turned to the aging man. "Fix me!"

"It will have to wear off," the Third replied.

There was silence.

"What?!" Naruto wailed.

"Why?" Arashi asked, confused. "That doesn't seem very convenient."

"It would be even more inconvenient if it could be – intentionally or not – deactivated in the middle of some sensitive event," his predecessor pointed out. "Don't worry, though; it will wear off and he'll return to normal soon. He might have a few residual tendencies, but those will also go away in time. In the meantime," he said to Arashi, "you should do what you can to enjoy this."

"Enjoy it?" Arashi echoed, as though it was a foreign concept. He looked at Naruto and absently reached up to massage the toddler's head with the tips of his fingers; after a moment of bemused staring the child leaned into the caresses. He smiled. "I suppose I can do that, even if he hates it."

"Let me eat ramen until this blows over and it'll be hard to make me hate it," Naruto wheedled.

"Not on your life, mister," Hotaru answered firmly as she entered the room. She stopped and gave him a long look. "What are you wearing?"

"Don't say that!" Arashi cried as he turned Naruto away from her as though to protect him. "He's cute!"

"I didn't say he wasn't," Hotaru defended herself. "I just don't think that dressing him like that is any less conspicuous than that godawful outfit he was wearing before!"

"Hey!" Naruto howled. "My orange outfit is the best!"

Arashi placed his hand loosely over Naruto's face to quiet him as he explained to Hotaru, "Not so much as you might think; it's common wear for orphans and shinobi parents who don't wish for their children to argue over who's the favorite."

Hotaru's lips pursed with her displeasure, but she said, ". . . All right, then. I realize you know these ninja things better than I do."

Shizuka appeared in the doorway and bowed. "Supper is prepared."

"Thank you," Hotaru answered, and the girl bowed again and left. To the Third, she said, "Sandaime-sama, would you like to join us?"

"I appreciate the offer, but no," the old man answered with a warm smile. "I promised I'd be home today."

"Then we won't keep you," Arashi promised in turn. "You've done a great deal for me in the past hours and I'm not sure that I'd be in this particular state if you'd left me on my own." He braced Naruto's head and bowed low in gratitude. "I owe you."

The Third left and supper was a production all its own.

"Where's the high chair for Naruto?" Hotaru demanded of the startled housekeepers, most of whom had not seen him at all that day.

"There's no way I'm sitting in a high chair!" Naruto protested.

"Well you certainly can't have a regular chair," Hotaru replied. "You'd never be able to see over the edge of the table without standing! Akane, the high chair, please."

"I'm not waiting for that!" Naruto shouted. "I'm starving!"

Arashi waved at Akane. "Go ahead and sit; nothing else was considered for his condition either."

"Arashi!" Hotaru fussed.

He shook his head. "Why bother to have a high chair when there aren't any small cups or chopsticks for him either? At any one time Akiko only has a dirty set and a clean set available." He sat in his chair and put Naruto in his lap. "I'll keep him with me and feed him myself, okay?"

Hotaru lifted her hands. "Fine. Make things difficult for yourself."

Arashi grinned at Naruto, who rolled his eyes when the older blond said, "It's just a labor of love."

It was fun at first – the endeavor to see how much of his father's plate he could clean off before a stop was put to it – but to his dismay Naruto found himself uncomfortably full after emptying only a quarter of the dish. It was extremely disappointing.

"Better luck next time, brat," Arashi offered, with a knowing look.

Naruto did not really remember anything after that except for a sudden feeling of lethargy. The next thing he knew he was waking up to a grey dawn; someone had tucked him into his bed the previous night without waking him. He did not know what had awakened him, in that case, but aside from a handful of chirping birds there did not seem to be anyone or anything else in the vicinity that could have done so. Typically, he dismissed it and then shrugged to himself before he hopped out of bed, certain that someone somewhere in Konoha was just waiting to be terrorized by him.

He paused by the kitchen doorway and for a few minutes watched Aya make breakfast for the still-sleeping house. It was eggs and bacon and toast, which were perfectly fine, but Naruto – whose breakfasts, unless someone else fed him, tended to consist only of three-minutes ramen cups and milk straight from the carton – had never had those three without also having chocolate-chip pancakes. In hindsight, he realized that it had been over six months since he had last had them.

Instantly, he had a craving.

"Aya?"

The cook jumped and gasped as she turned toward him, a hand over her heart. "Naruto-sama! You mustn't do things like that to an old woman!"

He sidled behind the doorjamb to have a head start in case she chased him, and peeked in at her. "Sorry. I just wanted to know if you were going to make pancakes."

She tilted her head. ". . . I could, if you'd like."

He brightened. "Chocolate chip?"

She shook her head. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow, then, since I just used the last of those for cookies yesterday and I can't leave all of this as it is."

"I'll go get them!" Naruto offered excitedly, and he took off before she could say a word. He stopped in the vestibule to yank his miniaturized sandals on, saw in a glance that he could not reach the door knob, and got around that little inconvenience by unlatching the doggy door – for whatever reason there was one there – at the bottom and scrambling outside into the crisp morning air.

It took much longer than he had expected to get to the foot of the Monument, mainly because he tried to jump from one level to another without using the stairs and nearly broke his neck when his chakra failed to react as prompted to. Fortunately, it was only a drop of four feet or so and even with the painful burn from the chakra recoil he was able to absorb the impact, but when a repeat of the use of chakra only worsened the burn he was left with no choice but to take the stairs one at a time. He was so concentrated on not falling on his face that when he got to the bottom of the stairs an hour later, he had forgotten why he had wanted to get to the bottom.

"Oh yeah!" he recalled after a few moments of thought. "Chocolate chips!" He looked up the stairs and felt a dreadful ache in his quads and calves at the thought of having to take those all the way back up. Oh, sure, he was in good shape, but he was definitely not in the kind of shape required to climb up and down what equated to probably forty flights of stairs. Or more. Certainly more, since that was how his luck seemed to run. He whistled low to no one and muttered to the world at large as he headed into Konoha, "It's really amazing, the kinds of things I'll do for food . . ."

Once again, he was caught off guard by his total lack of speed. Without chakra to boost his body, he was only able to run for an extremely short distance. That meant he had to walk the rest of the way, but in either case he was still just eighteen months old and had no stride to speak of. Progress was, to say the least, slow.

Sometime later, he realized belatedly that rather than acquiring chocolate chips, he had been doing nothing but gawking at the village's many brightly-colored signs and the vendors shouting in the open market. Naruto shook his head and looked around to orient himself, but nothing seemed to be familiar. He looked even more swiftly then, feeling panic creep into his mind as his surroundings remained alien.

He was lost.

Naruto quickly hit himself on the head. All he had to do was figure out where he was; he knew that he was still in Konoha and there were not that many open markets, and he had known the village right down to the sewer system even before he attended the academy, so there was no way he was irretrievably lost.

Except that he was.

Thus the tears were inspired to fall, and passers-by looked at him curiously. He was not really surprised that no one actually stopped, since no one cared about the kyuubi brat, but the awareness that he was alone and exposed was very frightening at that moment and he simply wanted someone to notice him and care.

". . . Oh, sweetie, are you okay?" a soft feminine voice asked.

Naruto turned just in time to get lifted off his feet and into the arms of a stranger. He leaned back so quickly he nearly tumbled from her grasp.

"Oh! Honey, be careful!" the young woman chided. She was being gentle, so Naruto relaxed and allowed her to stroke his hair away from his eyes, however much good it did. "My goodness, you're so small – where could your mommy and daddy be?" she wondered. "Let's see if we can find the police for you, okay? I'm sure that they'll know what to do." Ten minutes of brisk and purposeful wandering and constant questioning later, the young woman lifted one arm overhead and called, "Junsa-san!" She hurried a short distance and then came to a stop.

"Do you need something?" a vaguely familiar male voice asked. Naruto was too upset to identify it.

The young woman held Naruto out and explained, "I found this child standing out in the street, all alone and crying. I've been asking around, but no one's missing him."

"I understand. Rest assured, we'll take things from here. Thank you for your assistance, oujosan."

Naruto was passed into the arms of the policeman, and after crooning a long and reassuring goodbye the young woman walked away. He looked up to see who he had been left with and choked back a shriek.

It was Itachi.

Naruto whimpered.

Itachi stared back at him for a time, obviously nonplussed thanks to his new problem. Finally, he said with the kind of decisive leadership typical of a young man who had been faced with the care of a very young child, "Come on, Sasuke. Mother will know what to do."

Their mother knew what to do, all right. The instant she laid eyes on Naruto she nearly dropped the dish of rice she had been preparing for lunch. "Oh my god," she said in muted horror, "what's he doing here?"

Itachi tilted his head. "A civilian brought him to us. She said he was alone and crying."

Mikoto set the rice down and cut the range off. As she wiped her hands hurriedly on a nearby towel, she muttered to herself, "It's a wonder the village is still in one piece." She raised her voice and instructed, "You two take him into the sitting room and stay there until I come back, is that clear?"

"Mom? Who is this?" Sasuke pressed as she rushed past.

"It's Naruto!" she called over her shoulder as she slipped into her sandals. "Don't leave this house!"

With that, she was gone. Itachi and Sasuke stared at Naruto in disbelief, which the latter responded to by blurting, "I want my daddy."

Almost ridiculously calm considering the circumstances, Itachi drifted from the kitchen into the sitting room and folded himself onto one of the cushions; Sasuke did the same for lack of anything better to do. Itachi set Naruto loose, and the blond wandered around the room thoughtfully.

"How can this be Naruto-sama?" Sasuke questioned, bewildered.

"If we are meant to know," Itachi replied serenely, "we will be told."

"I taught my sister the hand seals for Chiisaikoro no Jutsu," Naruto sniffled from his place halfway across the room, surprising the brothers. "She figured out how to apply chakra somehow and did this to me."

"I've never heard of that," Sasuke mused.

"It's an A-rank spying technique," Itachi told him. "Its rank comes from its ability to make someone into a child almost completely; all that remains from the adult form is the mental faculties."

"Not even chakra?" Sasuke wondered.

"Usually not," Itachi confirmed. "One generally applies the technique only to oneself, and it slowly empties one's reserves. When the reserves are too weak to sustain the child-traits, the technique simply wears off and the user returns to his or her adult body. Naruto-sama's case may be slightly different, but he's clearly very young; his chakra paths likely aren't strong and it's possible that if he tries to perform techniques requiring chakra, they would do more harm than good."

A short ten minutes later, Uchiha Mikoto could be heard outside roaring in a very unlady-like way, "If you destroy my house, Namikaze, I will rip your face off!"

Seven seconds after that, Arashi skidded into the open doorway of the sitting room. "Naruto!"

Naruto whirled, his big blue eyes glassy, and squeaked, "Daddy!"

Arashi rushed across the room and scooped the toddler into his arms. He pressed quick, firm kisses to his son's forehead, temple, and cheek while Naruto clutched at his long hair with small hands and began to cry. Arashi squeezed his eyes shut desperately, on the verge of tears himself. His were of relief, of course, but he really did not want to bawl like that even in his friend's house.

Fortunately, Mikoto was a wonderful friend. "Boys," she said firmly, "out. Arashi, we'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."

He nodded, not trusting his voice, and the instant he heard the shouji clip shut he opened his eyes enough to pick out a cushion through the wobbling, watery tears that were threatening to fall. They politely waited for him to sit before doing so, and he muffled choked sobs in his baby's hair. "You're okay . . ."

"Daddy, I got l-l-lost," Naruto whimpered as he pulled at his father's overcoat like a kneading cat that had gotten a claw stuck in the fabric. "Except that I w-wasn't lost because I already know everything-g about Konoha but I got s-s-scared anyway and . . . and . . ."

Arashi drew in a long, shaky breath to calm himself. He was done crying that quickly, but he doubted that he looked any less awful than he would have had he gone on for an hour and a half. "Shh, Naruto. It's okay now – you're safe with me. Don't cry . . ."

". . . and n-nobody helped because I'm just the f-f-f-fox b-brat," Naruto blubbered as he lifted little fists to his face and rubbed at his eyes.

Arashi kissed his head again and cooed soothingly, "Oh, don't say that. They probably just didn't know how to help; for all they knew, you could have simply fallen and scraped your knee and one of your parents was going to help you soon."

Naruto, much calmer himself then, sniffled and moved a hand to his mouth.

Arashi looked at him, stared, then grinned.

Naruto frowned. "What?" he demanded, and noticed that his voice was muffled. A second later he realized what he had done.

He was sucking his thumb.

Though Naruto would never admit it even under the most vile of tortures, between his insecurity and having no one to discourage such habits when he was a child, he had sucked his thumb – only in private, though – right up until the day that he entered the academy. A life change the size of that place had been enough to jolt him from the thumb-sucking right away and forever, it seemed, but his new condition had brought him back to it.

"God, you're cute," his father decided with his own absentminded sniffle. "It's sick."

"Shut up," he growled, and failed to prevent himself from the activity for more than a few seconds; as soon as he let his focus drift from concentrating on not sticking his thumb in his mouth, the digit went in again.

"Oh, let it go," Arashi chided as he got carefully to his feet. "Most of you is only eighteen months old; it's perfectly natural to still have a nursing reflex. But you probably shouldn't use your thumb, in case the tendencies carry over back into your twelve-year-old body; you might catch something from the germs. I'll see if I can find one of Akiko's old pacifiers – she chewed them to death on a regular basis so there might not be any left, but there's no harm in looking."

As they passed the kitchen, Arashi poked his head in. "Thank you, Mikoto. Itachi. Sasuke. That was quite a scare he gave me when he slipped past the guards, and it's good to know he was safe most of the time."

"What was he doing out alone?" Mikoto, having returned to making lunch, asked distractedly.

Arashi frowned slightly. "I never asked." He looked at his son.

Naruto sighed and pulled his thumb from his mouth. "I wanted chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast," he explained, "but Aya'd used up the last of what we had for cookies. So I went to get some."

Mikoto smiled and glanced over her shoulder at her two boys. "Sasuke likes chocolate-chip pancakes too."

Naruto allowed his thumb to migrate back to his mouth so that he would not be expected to respond and so he would not feel a need to respond and then say something infinitely stupid, such as, "Yes, I know." The fact was that he knew very well that Sasuke liked chocolate-chip pancakes, because Sasuke was the one who had introduced him to them after the revelation that Naruto had not known that they existed. It was kind of odd, in hindsight, how Sasuke had been so visibly flabbergasted at the idea, as though chocolate-chip pancakes were so mainstream that there was no way even a pariah like Naruto could not know about them.

Arashi made a face. "Wouldn't they melt? . . . Never mind – it doesn't matter. But thank you again."

"Not at all," Mikoto answered genially as he moved toward the door. "Konoha always looks far better when it hasn't been ripped to shreds by a panicky father."

There was no way she could see it through the wall, but Arashi stuck his tongue out at her anyway.

To Be Continued in . . . Part II – The Merits of Experience

"Chakra . . . failure?" Hotaru prompted anxiously.

Arashi said nothing, so the ANBU explained, "Every human being has a chakra system which is exactly like the systems of blood vessels and nerves in the body. Like blood, the flow of chakra helps sustain the operation of the organs, but the network takes time to form. When it's not fully formed and then put under stress, part of the network will give out in a fashion not unlike an aneurysm. Healing one of these breaks is extremely difficult, and if one of the arms of the network is severed entirely, it's impossible to repair."

Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:

To be clear for anyone who has come across this without reading Door Number Two/Vis-à-Vis first, I repeat that this work takes place in an alternate dimension/universe and as a result some canon information – such as the Fourth's name – are deliberately inaccurate. If that bothers you, you are free to read Door Number Two/Vis-à-Vis to find out why these inaccuracies exist.

———

"Help, oyaji. Help, help, HELP. Are you familiar with the term?"

For anyone who hasn't read the most recent chapter of Vis-à-Vis or otherwise doesn't know, oyaji is an impolite term for a father-figure (or a boss).

———

Apparently, however, Akiko had been far more familiar with her chakra than he had imagined.

This is unlikely, as she is only two years old, but do me a favor and pretend she's a prodigy.

———

"Chiisaikoro no Jutsu."

Chiisaikoro means "as a child" or "when one was a child". I may not be using it in the proper context, and as far as I know I made it up. So it's mine – hands off.

———

"And a D-ring for a leash."

I have heard it said that child leashes are cruel. That's bullshit. They save young and innocent lives, period.

———

"Junsa-san!"

A junsa is a policeman.

———

" … Thank you for your assistance, oujosan."

Oujosan is a term for a young lady, although it has been used to sweeten aggressive older women.

———

A life change the size of that place had been enough to jolt him from the thumb-sucking right away and forever …

My mother said that chewed her fingernails right up until she was twenty-three and pregnant with my older sister. Then, one day, she just stopped, and she's never done it since.

———

… because Sasuke was the one who had introduced him to them after the revelation that Naruto had not known that they existed.

Of course Sasuke likes chocolate-chip pancakes. Or flapjacks, or hotcakes, or whatever you want to call them.

—————

As VàV readers may recall, I said I'd have all of Shrinkage up by Sunday. As it turns out, I lied just a tad (don't worry, this is as distressing to me as it is to you), and I apologize. The simple explanation is this: it's my sister's fault because she's making me like Doctor Who, as if I need to be stalking another fandom. At any rate, I've been watching episodes of it all over the place, so I didn't get Part III of Shrinkage done. But it's almost finished nevertheless, so the delay shouldn't be too great. Obviously, this is Part I, and Part II – which is also finished – will be up tomorrow or sometime in the very near future. Ideally, Part III will be completed in the next few days and you won't have to wait long.

Oh, and peach mango Slurpees are kind of gross. If anyone was wondering.

——————————

Yondaddy is TEH SQUEE. Thank you for your time and attention.

–RN (LS)