Hinata had been doing what she usually did, namely sitting at the absolute back of the classroom trying to make herself invisible as possible, when two unfamiliar children who looked to be about Academy starting age ran up to her yelling "Mom!". While she was trying to figure out what the hell was going on, both children latched onto her, hugging her tightly.
"This has been the worst morning ever!" the blond boy who looked very much like Naruto said as he tried to bury his face in her shoulder. "Everyone's been staring at us, and not in a nice way and they've all been saying mean things too!"
"Why would you and your and dad's friends do something so awful to dad for his birthday?" the girl who was on Hinata's other side asked. "Dad's pretending to be happy because he doesn't want to upset you, but..."
While Hinata was trying to process what the heck was happening, she vaguely heard one of Sasuke's ever-present fangirls, Ami if she wasn't mistaken, say "Don't listen to Hibachi Naruto, we got you a present, but we hid it and the party won't start until you find it."
Naruto made a rather endearing whining noise at this, which made Hinata lose focus on everything else, including the strange children who were clinging to her and jabbering in her ears.
Then Naruto's attitude shifted to that determined one that Hinata loved very much.
"Alright! Let's get this party started" Naruto yelled before making a handsign, causing every available surface of the room including the walls and the ceiling to be covered in Bunshin.
"Boruto, Himawari, you two sit tight and behave for your mother. I'll have that present found before the cake's even been delivered." One of the Bunshin that was nearest to Hinata, causing her heart to go pitter-pat and her head to get all spinny said, making the part of Hinata that was barely holding onto consciousness wonder How Naruto had thrown his voice like that.
A second later, the Bunshin kissed her on the lips, revealing that it was solid, and therefore really the real Naruto. The next thing Hinata knew, the world had gone black and there were voices screaming "You killed mom!" above her.
Shikamaru discreetly poked the Bunshin on the desk in front of him as he tried to study this newest piece of the puzzle that Uzumaki Naruto had presented him with this morning upon arrival. The Bunshin was solid, but didn't feel wet or like dirt or a half dozen other substances. Kage Bunshin then.
Exactly when had Naruto learned the Kage Bunshin? How was he capable of making enough of them to put an S-Ranked Jounin in the morgue without dropping dead? Were the two "children" that Naruto had brought with him also Kage Bunshin? What purpose were they supposed to serve? This didn't feel like Naruto's usual sort of prank. And, if the target was Hinata, it was downright cruel. Naruto hadn't pulled a prank that could be considered anywhere near as cruel as what he might be doing to Hinata - whatever it was - in years. Naruto tended to prefer property destruction to psychological torture when it came to his pranks.
To sum it up, it was "Troublesome".
It was at that point that Assistant Instructor Mizuki had pushed his way through the backlog of students that had been trying to enter the room only to find the way blocked by Naruto's Kage Bunshin and started trying to push his way through Naruto's Shadow Clones and into the room.
One of the clones near the front of the class noticed the mild-mannered Chunin who'd been known to speak up for Naruto on occasion and gave the man an utterly cold look that had an almost predatory edge to it. Mizuki's response to that look was fear. Actual fear, as if he were utterly terrified of the pint-sized Dead Last who stood two ranks below him.
"Oh look, someone brought a piñata" the Kage Bunshin that had spotted Mizuki said, drawing the attention of the other Kage Bunshin who gave Mizuki that exact cold look.
"Love to stay and play Mizuki, but we've got a present to find Dattebayo!" one of the Narutos that Shikamaru was half certain was the original said.
This was apparently the cue for all of the Narutos to depart because, with cries of "Yeah boss!" and "Let's find that present!" and oddly one cry of "Let's go streaking!" from a Kage Bunshin who promptly dispelled, all of the Kage Bunshin went streaming out of the classroom windows along with the original, leaving behind a room full of thoroughly confused eleven and twelve year-olds and a silver-haired Chunin who was sitting in a puddle of his own piss.
"So," Chouji said, breaking the utter silence that had fallen over the room for almost an entire minute. "When is Naruto's birthday?"
"It's..." Shikamaru thought for about a second, pulling up his mental files on his classmates which contained all the information he'd passively acquired on them over the years. "Today actually."
"Oh man, that..." Chouji started before Kiba finished his sentence with "Sucks."
Several of the kids in the room, including one who'd been born the day after the Kyuubi attack seemed to agree with Chouji and Kiba's sentiment. While it was a school day, it was a half-day, and the rest of the day wasn't one for birthday parties no matter who you belonged to or didn't belong to as the case may be. Too many people spent the day in remembrance of family that had been lost, and nobody wanted to hear the popping of party balloons or the sounds of those ridiculous noisemakers on this most solemn of days.
One poor kid amongst the Nara who'd been born two years to the day before the Kyuubi attack was usually forced to wait a whole week after his birthday before he could have a party.
"That was just mean Ami." one of the girls in Sasuke's fanclub, Fuki if Shikamaru wasn't mistaken, said. "Telling Naruto he has a present on his birthday."
"I thought he was joking!" Ami replied, "Nobody has October 10 for a birthday!"
It was at that point that Iruka entered the room and rather than finding a semi-attentive class listening to a lesson just started by Mizuki, he found disorganized chaos surrounding Mizuki who was sitting in a puddle of...
Iruka went over and helped his frend up from off the floor. Then, he stormed up to where Kiba was sitting and yelled "KIBA! Get down there and clean that mess up right now!"
"No way!" Kiba yelled back. "There's no way in hell I'm cleaning up Mizuki's pee! Make him clean it up!"
"Are you seriously trying to blame that on the teacher?!" Iruka yelled, pointing to the puddle on the floor.
"But it really was Mizuki!" Kiba yelled back. "Naruto scared him and he peed and fell down!"
"Oh," Iruka said disbelievingly. "And, just how did Naruto scare a Chunin so badly that he peed himself?"
"Naruto gave him a real mean look and called him a birthday piñata!" Kasumi, who was the third member of the Ami, Fuki, Kasumi trio exclaimed.
Iruka then stormed up to the back of the room where a short blond with whisker marks on his cheeks was still trying to poke Hinata awake alongside his whiskermarked sister. Shikamaru noted the uncharacteristically nervous set of Umino Iruka's shoulders which the man was doing an admirable job of hiding.
"NARUTO!" Iruka yelled at the boy? that Shikamaru recalled Naruto had called Boruto.
This caught Boruto's attention. The boy looked up at the man who'd yelled at him and looked almost relieved.
"Uncle Iruka!" the boy said, sounding slightly desperate. "Mom won't wake up!"
Iruka swiftly snatched Hinata away from the two children that called her "mom", sharply booted the Boruto boy away from him and examined the Hyuuga girl for obvious signs of injury as he ran to the front of the room and out the door. Something about the set of the man's shoulders as he carried the Hyuuga girl was completely off. It was like he was trying to contain himself before he lost it in front of everybody.
"Aw man, another dead body!" Naruto's Kage Bunshin who was searching the woods near the "village" for his birthday present complained.
"Where do all these dead bodies keep coming from?" he asked as he followed proper protocol, which was to mark the location of the body and leave the scene as intact as possible for the forensics team which would be called in once his report reached the Hokage's desk.
Summoning a young toad which gave him a strange look the way the last three had, Naruto scribbled the location of the dead body he'd found onto a leaf and sent it off with the toad.
Sighing, the Kage Bunshin got back to work searching for his present. The sooner his present was found, the sooner the party would happen, and the sooner that this undoubtedly very expensive experience would be all over.
Hatake Kakashi had been sitting at the Memorial stone since dawn. Considering what day it was, about the only thing that would get him to move anytime before sundown would be an urgent summons from the Hokage.
As he entered the fourth hour of his vigil a certain orange clad blond haired boy entered the field in which the Memorial stone was located and made a beeline for him.
"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, I know it's probably cheating, but..." a boy that Hatake Kakashi usually avoided due to the pain being in his presence brought said "Could you help me find where my friends hid my birthday present? The party won't start until I find it."
Much to his surprise, considering he usually kept his cool better than this, Kakashi felt an upswelling of anger at his sensei's son's request. Though he usually kept his distance from the boy, he had heard enough about his comings and goings to know that Naruto didn't really have any friends.
That had been one of the things that had worried the Hokage in regards to the boy.
"Sure Naruto-kun," Kakashi found himself saying as a plan formed in his mind. "Why don't you go that way, while I go this way?" he continued as he pointed in two completely random directions.
As soon as the boy was busy searching some bushes in the area that Kakashi had indicated, said Hatake turned towards the direction of the Academy.
A pair of Kage Bunshin sighed as they dropped a dead weight onto a gurney near the hospital entrance.
"Found him passed out on Training Field 27" The Kage Bunshin on the left who'd had the man's feet reported when a medic came, looking like he was about to chase him off.
God. He'd almost forgotten how awful things had been back when he was this age. Running around this replica of Old Konoha was bringing it all back however. Whoever had set this place up had gotten it right all the way down to the stares, glares, and whispers he used to receive back before he'd saved everybody.
As the Kage Bunshin who were still trying to figure out why they looked Twelve and narrowed it down to something having to do with the fact that the main body looked twelve today were about to leave, Umino Iruka ran in carrying Hinata.
"Hinata!" the clone on the right yelled, catching Iruka's attention.
"What happened Iruka-sensei?!" the clone on the left asked.
Iruka turned and gave the clones a look that was a combination of anger, confusion, worry, fear and that cold look that Iruka hadn't given him in more than twenty years.
"I can't believe he kicked me like that!" Boruto wheezed as he clutched his ribs which were undoubtedly bruised.
"It's okay." Himawari said. "Auntie Sakura's here. She'll fix you right up!"
"Auntie" Sakura however was flinching away from all the attention that was suddenly pointed in her direction following the little dark-haired girl's statement.
It was at that point that the door to the room full of students who were taking advantage of the fact that they were unsupervised by eating, playing games, and having conversations slammed open.
"Alright you little fuckers!" A scary looking silver-haired man whose face was half covered in a mask and who had an eye covered by his hitai-ate yelled. "I don't know which of you brats convinced Naruto that he had a birthday present waiting for him and I don't care, but there had better be a perfectly acceptable, neatly wrapped present with Naruto's name on it sitting in an easy to find spot within the next ten minutes, or else!"
The man who had gotten the room's attention and nearly had everyone pissing themselves in fear then slammed the door shut.
Everyone turned to look at the whisker-cheeked blond at the back of the room as soon as the sliding door hit the doorjam with enough force to crack it.
"Oh, wow!" Boruto exclaimed with stars in his eyes. "Kakashi-oyaji is AWESOME!"
The door slammed open a second time, and the scary silver haired ninja stepped through, just as frightening as before.
"And, you had better get started on the party that goes with that present immediately, or there's going to be hell to pay!" the silver-haired nin exclamed, glaring at the room with his lone, merciless, charcoal colored eye.
"Why wasn't Kakashi-oyaji this awesome back when he was Hokage?" Boruto asked Himawari as the other children in the room started running about like chickens with their heads cut off, except for Shikamaru who sat his desk muttering "Troublesome".
"I don't know." Himawari said with a shrug.
