Today was the day. July 31st. Today at 7pm he would go get his school supplies in England, and because they were so far away it would be just 10am all over again. Until then, he was gonna go see Naruto then Mikoto. Mikoto had planned a birthday dinner for him at their house despite his many protests, so he was gonna head over there after he took Naruto out for the afternoon. He was gonna miss Naruto third birthday cause of this mission, so he wanted to see him and give him his present now while he had a chance.
He walked up to Ms. Yakushi's Home for Children and knocked thrice on the door. It was mid-morning during the week, so the children would be in lessons right now. A caretaker about his aunt's age in a bright, yellow kimono branded with the home's crest let him in. "Good morning, Shisui-san!" she greeted. He'd been here so many times the past two and a half years that he was on first-name basis with the staff. "Did you come to see Naruto-chan?" Everyone here knew he was friends with the boy, and he continued to come often despite protests from the elders that it was risky. "Yes, ma'am. I'm going to be taking him out for the day, cause I'll be missing his birthday this year for a mission."
The woman said something in the affirmative that he was only half paying attention too and led him down the little kids' hall. "Right this way. He'll be happy to see you. You're the only one that still visits him regularly, you know? Hatake-san, Uchiha-san, and Nara-san…they all stopped coming unless it's his birthday." she said. She stopped at a wall filled with the kids' artwork and pointed to one. It featured what looked like a sloppily drawn nine-tailed fox fighting a stick figure whose only distinguishable feature was a shock of blond hair. "Naruto-chan drew this. I'm sure he's told you, but the Yondaime is his favorite Hokage." She let him look for a moment and then continued on to his classroom at the end of the hall.
He had to suppress a laugh at the irony. Somehow, no one who wasn't on duty that day or knew the family personally had connected the dots and figured out who Naruto's parents were. "Cool. Yeah, he has, he's always talking about how he's going to be a super-fast ninja and save the Leaf Village just like the Yondaime." He was glad that Naruto was happy here. No one would think of the boy like a hero like Minato had wanted, but he was safe and happy this way. To all the caretakers and kids, he was just another war orphan.
The caretaker knocked on the door to Naruto's classroom before opening it. "Excuse me. I have a visitor for Naruto?" She said, poking her head in the door. He could see the kids were all gathered on the floor in front of the teacher, who was reading to them. Naruto jumped up and ran to hug him, yelling obnoxiously. "Hooray! Shisui-nii, Shisui-nii, you're here!" The boy had glued himself to his legs and was clutching on with tiny hands covered in splotches of red marker. It looked like the blonde had probably been told to wash them but didn't try very hard. "Are we gonna go play?" He appreciated that they always made sure to give him shirts with the Uzumaki clan emblem on them. Today, he wore a white t-shirt with the Uzumaki swirl on the back and matching red shorts.
He nodded, and he couldn't help but break out in a genuine, beaming smile looking at the boy grinning up at him. "Yup! We sure are." He replied, detaching the boy from his pantleg and leading him down the hall back to the foyer. "I've got a long-term mission coming up in a month and a half, so we're gonna go out today for your birthday instead before I get busy again."
Naruto pouted in the adorable, guilt-inducing way that only a toddler could manage. "Aww, you're going away? Are you gonna go fight Kumo ninja some more? For how long?" The boy stopped walking and stared at his beat up, dirty shoes. "Your gonna still visit me when you come back, won't you? Shukaku-ojiisan said that too and he doesn't come anymore."
He knelt down to Naruto's level and looked him straight in the eye. "Of course I am, Naruto. I'm not gonna leave you, I'll never leave you." He wasn't going to abandon Minato-sama's son, not after he'd taken him in like his own student and trained him during his brief tenure as the Yondaime Hokage. If the others wouldn't come, then he would. "I'm not gonna let you be lonely, okay?" he ruffled his hair and walked to the front desk to sign him out. The boy held onto his pantleg as he signed the paperwork, stubborn and clingy.
"Alright, now we got the whole day to play." He said, taking his hand and walking down the street towards the shops. "So, how old are you turning in November?" he asked, wanting to see if he knew.
The boy looked at his free hand, his face scrunched up in thought, before he held up the number proudly. "Three! I'm turning three!"
"Ah. Right." Naruto beamed at the short praise. "Do you know what that means?"
Naruto shook his head, confused. "It means…I'm turning three?"
He laughed. "Yeah, but not just that. That means you get to start training! All shinobi clan kids start training on their third birthday, and you're an Uzumaki so that includes you too."
"Hooray!" Naruto let go of his hand and jumped up and down, bouncing around in excitement as he walked along with him. "I'm gonna be the best ninja ever! I'm gonna be stronger than you and the Yondaime put together!"
Shisui laughed. "I'm sure you will. But remember, show respect. Its Yondaime-sama." He reached for Naruto's hand again as they walked into a shop. Naruto listened, stopped skipping around, and grabbed his hand.
The bell chimed and the clerk at the counter greeted them. "Welcome, shinobi-san!" He gave a short nod of greeting in their direction.
Naruto's face lit up as he saw all the toys lining the shelves and filling bins. "Wow! Can I pick whatever I want?" he asked, looking up at him hopefully.
He shook his head. "Not quite. I was gonna get you your own weapons sets, but you can pick which ones you want."
"Really?!" Naruto lit up and broke away from him, running off straight for the practice weapons display in the back. He knew for a fact the kids only had worn down, wooden sets at the orphanage. "Wow, there's so many!" He grinned at the energetic blonde as he took in all the different sets they had on display. Kunai, shuriken, and senbon, in both wooden, metal-plated, and metal. Getting your own real practice set of weaponry was an important right of passage in clans. Most clan kids had big birthday parties to celebrate the occasion, as their child was growing up from being a baby to a student. "Aw they don't have any that look like Yondaime-sama's!" The boy pouted for a moment and looked up at him. "Why don't they have any? I want one like his." Shisui suppressed the feeling of sadness that the boy's words brought up. He should be getting his father's kunai, but he wasn't even allowed to know who his father was. "Well, Yondaime-sama's kunai are unique, so he probably had them special-made. They don't just sell kunai with fuinjutsu seals on them."
Naruto's pout deepened. "Why not? What's fuinjutsu?"
"Fuinjutsu is the art of sealing. You'll learn about it in the Academy." He replied. "You can order your own fuinjutsu kunai when you become a genin, okay? But first you gotta go to the Academy and learn everything about fuinjutsu." He ruffled the boy's perpetually messy hair affectionately and pointed back at the display. "This is just for learning."
Naruto looked again at all the sets. "There's so many, though!" he said, throwing his arms up in exaggerated frustration. "Shisui-nii, what did you get?"
He pointed at the blunted metal plated kunai set. "This is what Mikoto-oba got me to play with for my first birthday. They're not real metal, so you can't use them for target practice." He pointed this time at the real metal kunai set of nine with the leaf village symbol engraved on them. "This is what my parents ordered me for my third birthday. I had these up until I went to the Academy, and they made me a brand-new set with the Uchiha fan on them."
He heard footsteps approaching and turned around to see an employee walking over. It was a plain-looking civilian teenager with long, black hair tied up in a bun and grey eyes. "Hello, shinobi-san! Do you need any help?"
He shook his head, smiling at the teen and gesturing at Naruto. "No, ma'am. I'm letting him pick out his first weapon set for his birthday in November." The teen considered the toddler. They must get toddlers coming of age in here often, because she doesn't grimace at the idea of a toddler getting real knives for their birthday.
"Wow! How old are you going to be?" she turned to Naruto, asking him with exaggerated excitement that came off a bit forced. Maybe she wasn't a natural with kids.
Naruto turned to her and held up three fingers proudly. "I'm turning three! And guess what? Guess what!" She played along. "What?" Naruto's face lit up. "I get to start training! Shisui-nii's gonna train me and I'm gonna be a super-fast ninja just like the Yondaime!" he exclaimed loudly for the whole shop to hear.
He shook his head at the boy's antics, amused. "Yomdaime-sama, Naruto." Naruto cringed at the correction. "Same thing! Yondaime-sama!" The employee laughed and walked off. "Just call for me if you need any help. My name's Yukina." He waved her off. "Thank you, ma'am."
Naruto picked up the metal set with the leaf symbol on them that he'd pointed at before. "I want this one. Can we get this one?" He asked, shoving it up in his face with both hands and bouncing up and down again, his eyes full of hope and excitement.
"Sure, we'll get that one. Let's get the matching shuriken one, too." He said. He didn't point it out for himself, wanting the hyperactive blonde to find it for himself. "Can you figure out which one it is?" He held the kunai set he'd picked out up for him to look at.
Naruto nodded. "Of course I can!" he yelled with more confidence and volume than was necessary. "Um." He took a moment, but he found it eventually and climbed on the first shelf, standing on his tip toes and reaching up high as he could. He could just barely touch the bottom edge of the package and knock it down. "There! Here, Shisui-nii! That was smart, wasn't it? Wasn't it?" he asked, shoving the package of shuriken into his hand with the other one and taking his free hand without even being asked.
"It sure was," he replied, "Very smart." They paid and walked out and Shisui let him hold the bag as they walked aimlessly down the street. "Hold my hand and leave it in the bag, okay? We'll open it up and practice when we get back. So, birthday lunch. Where do you wanna eat?" It wasn't that busy, being a weekday. Most people were at work or in school. "There's Akimichi's Barbeque, Ichiraku Ramen, Uchiha Senbei, Dango-ya…" he trailed off and glanced at Naruto expectantly.
"Akimichi's! Let's go to Akimichi's!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing impatiently in the direction the restaurant was over by the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clan areas and trying to pull him to go faster. "Come on, I'm hungry! Sitting all day learning is hard work, you know."
He laughed out loud at that statement. "Well, I can't let you starve, now can I." he said, picking the boy up and putting him on his shoulders. Naruto was just small enough that he could still do this. "Hold on tight, okay?" he said, a serious note to his voice.
Naruto wrapped his hands around his forehead and clasped his hands together in front of his hitae-ate as tight as he could. The bag from the toy shop was hanging off the boy's elbow and bounced against the side of his head as the boy steadied himself. Annoying, but tolerable. "Yes, sir!" he replied. "Shunshin, shunshin, shunshin!" the blonde chanted, yelling at the top of his lungs.
He channeled the necessary chakra and sped through the hand seals with practiced ease. "Shunshin-no-jutsu!" he called, and in an instant, they were moving at speeds second to kage-level ninja. Seconds later, they appeared to materialize in front of Akimichi's Grill.
Naruto was laughing with glee and swaying on his feet when he set him down. "That was awesome! Can we do again on the way home, too?" He said, hastily grasping his pantleg to steady himself.
"No, sorry Naruto. Once is fine, but as a ninja I can't afford to waste chakra even if today's my day off." Naruto pouted. "You good to go?"
Naruto nodded. "Yeah! Let's eat, let's eat!" he exclaimed, grabbing his outstretched hand as they walked in. "I want yakitori!"
Choza's wife, a pretty red-haired woman possibly of Uzumaki decent, greeted them. "Welcome, Uchiha-san, Uzumaki-chan! A table for two?" He nodded. "Okay, bar or booth?"
He looked at Naruto pointedly. "Booth!" Naruto yelled. He didn't even try to tell Naruto to use his inside voice. There was simply no low volume with this kid, he was just like his mother. Choza's wife sat them at a small booth in the middle of the far wall. "Here you are, your waiter will be with you in a moment."
He nodded. "Thank you, ma'am." Naruto ignored her, looking around the room at all the people. "Wow! It's so full! They must like Akimichi's too, huh? Hey, who's that boy at the counter?" Naruto pointed to a boy his age chowing down on a huge plate of food behind the empty bar. He had on a red t-shirt and overalls with the Akimichi clan emblem sewn into a patch on the chest.
"That's Akimichi-san's son. Why don't you go say hi? You'll probably be in the Academy with him." He replied. "Really? Okay! Make sure you tell me when the food gets here!" Naruto ordered, before he stood and jumped off the booth, darting between tables to see the Akimichi boy. He saw no harm allowing it. The shinobi in the room glared at the boy as he ran blindly to the Akimichi boy at the counter, nearly tripping a waiter as he did so. But the Akimichi were friends of Minato's, so he knew his son would be safe here.
The waiter came by, a random civilian from the lack of a hitae-ate. "What can I get for you, shinobi-san?"
"Two waters and yakitori for two." He said, holding up two fingers. "One adult and one child."
The waiter wrote it down and gave a short bow. "Okay, I'll have it right out." He nodded half-heartedly as she left, more preoccupied keeping an eye on Naruto.
Naruto was talking animatedly to the Akimichi boy in the overalls, who was apparently named Choji, with a wistful smile on his face. 'I'm glad he gets to grow up like this. The shinobi might hate him, but to everyone else he's just another clan kid.' He snickered as he overheard Naruto start telling Choji all about their trip to the toy store and how he was gonna train and learn the shunshin and graduate early and be just like him. As usual, the hyperactive blonde was dominating the conversation and not letting Choji get a word in. 'I hope the public never finds out that he's the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki. Its dangerous enough that his father's the Yondaime.' Moments like this, watching kids play like normal kids, it reminded him why all the fighting and the bloodshed was still worth it. He didn't want Naruto to have to grow up and see all the things he'd seen.
Footsteps heading his way. He didn't have to glance back to know it was the waiter, their footfalls were too forced and heavy. "Naruto!" he called. The boy's head whipped around with such force he thought the boy was gonna get whiplash from it. "Yeah?!" the boy yelled, for once his loud volume actually was necessary over the din of so many people talking. "Food's here!"
"Bye, Chouji-kun! Lets play sometime, okay?" Naruto said, waving a goodbye to his new friend. The boy then leaped off the stool he'd been sitting on and ran over, jumping into the booth and nearly hitting his head on the back in his haste. "Food, food, food!" he chanted, bouncing up and down.
The waiter laughed at his excitement. "Hungry, are you? Careful, don't touch it, its hot. Let your big brother dish it out for you." Naruto nodded impatiently. "I know, I know! But I'm starving I've been learning all day."
"Really, what did you learn?" the waiter asked, setting down all the platters in the middle of the table.
"We wrote our names and the teacher read us the story about how the village was born!" Naruto replied, throwing his hands up in the air in a gesture of amazement. He'd stopped bouncing in his seat in favor of kicking the pillar holding the table up. "The Uchiha and the Senju were at war for a long, long time and then they made a compromise and built the village!"
The waiter set their waters down – one glass for him, one cup with straw for Naruto. "Wow, that's really neat." The waiter replied, obligingly, as he was handing him the ticket. "Enjoy your food, shinobi-san."
"Thank you, sir." He replied, and the waiter left. "Itadakimasu!" they both said in unison, before filling their plates.
Naruto dug into his food like nobody had fed him all day long. "Shishi-nii, are we gonna practice with the kunai and shuriken when we get back?" he asked, barely understandable around his mouthful of food.
He motioned with his hand for Naruto to swallow. Somebody had to teach the boy how to be polite before he went to the Academy. "Yeah, we will. I'll set it up for you and show you how to throw them. You gotta train hard every day, okay?" He replied.
Naruto nodded eagerly. "Yeah, yeah! I will, Shisui-nii, I promise!" Naruto exclaimed.
Author's Note: This was so much fun to write, mostly because of kid-Naruto. I had another part to this chapter in my head, but this got so long that I'm gonna split it into two parts. Sorry, I know most people write Naruto crossovers and have them go to Hogwarts right away. I wanted to write about Shisui's relationships at home, too, cause he's Shisui not just Harry. Let me know if you find these too…boring, bothersome, I guess?... to read and I'll try to not do them as much and focus more on the plot. Though, I will say, I'm not writing about much of anything that's not going be a future plot point, and the Naruto anime had plenty of non-plot moments. Let me know if you think I'm taking too many liberties with Shisui's character. There's a lot of little details I gotta fill in with his character cause despite being important to the plot, the show really didn't fill out his background like they did Itachi's.
Thanks everyone for the views, favorites/alerts, and reviews! Speaking of which, to answer a question I got in a review. No I haven't planned any pairings. Shisui is just an about to be 11year old kid, so he's not going to be thinking about that just yet. And I have enough plot points planned that I think adding in romance, too, will be a bit much. I just don't think at this point in his development Shisui's ready for romance. A crush or two, sure, eventually. But I have to actually write that far along and not abandon this fic first! That's why I keep posting, I gotta post while I still have the inspiration to write it.