Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter 3

When Shikamaru woke up, he stayed lazing around in bed as he normally did, at least until his mom came in the room to wake him up.

This set of alarm bells in his mind. Ever since he made chuunin, his body rebeliously woke him up at an ungodly hour of 9 A.M. This had made it so that his mother never had to wake him up, and she quite happily stopped even trying to do so. The fact that she was apparently trying to wake him up now was something of a puzzle. He immediately started searching his room after his mother left, looking for any possible reason for her to be concerned about his morning waking time.

It was the view out of his bedroom window at the hokage mountain outside that made him suspicious of nearly everything around him.

The Godaime Hokage Tsunade's face was missing from the Mount Rushmore imitation.

Further searching of his room revealed that the calender was extremely out of date, by at least five years. It was one of the few things he never slacked off with, since he only needed to grab his pen and mark it on his way to the bathroom.

There was only one thing Shikamaru could say to this, "Troublesome."

All over Konoha, similar experiences were being had by at least nine other individuals, with some having stronger reactions to the circumstances. The Haruno's were woken up by Sakura freaking out at her apparently younger body, and had entered her room in an attempt to calm her down, only to freak her out more because to her, they had been dead for 3 years, killed by a sand ninja before they could be evacuated with the rest of the civilians during the sand-sound invasion. A similar scene occurred in the home of Ino Yamanaka when she spotted her mother, who had died on a mission about a year before she graduated the academy

In his apartment, Naruto woke up when he felt a pair of somewhat frail looking arms wrapped around him. Turning to look at the owner of those arms, he heard a noise that sounded roughly like a duck being strangled while trying to impersonate a dog growling and a cat purring at the same time. He had to try really hard not to laugh. Apparently Shinta was both a cuddler and a snorer.

Unfortunately for him, he failed to contain his laughter at the thought of the Great Kyuubi no Kitsune acting in such a cutesy manner while sleeping. This caused her to wake up, and revealing to Naruto that Shinta was NOT a morning person. It was proven when she immediately pulled the bed sheet she was under around her while giving Naruto a rather painful hammerfist to the top of his head, sending him crashing to the ground, breaking some floorboards when he hit head first.

"I AM NOT AMUSED MICHAEL," she screamed into the air. She grew even angrier as she could swear she heard a disembodied voice laughing.

That knock to Naruto's head however had forced an entirely different thought process into his mind, as he started to realize the implications of having the Kyuubi no Kitsune as a room-mate. Needless to say there would have to be quite a few changes, starting with a new apartment. He really didn't want to be hit like that again.

His current place of residence had only one bedroom, a kitchen, one bathroom and a living room. If he wanted his own bed, he would need a new place to stay, and the only person who was both willing and able to help would be the Hokage.

And some new ground rules would be nice, he reasoned, cus' that hurt like hell

AN:

this chapter just seemed to flow. it had a pace to it that just made it write itself and I was rather pleased with the results.

the next chapter has already been written and I'm waiting on my beta to return it to me. it could be as little as a day or as much as a month before I get it back, depending on how busy he is with his college graduation and life in general.

I have already planned out how i want part one of the story to go, and part 2 will be the main divergence point from the main plot, other than the aftereffects of the timeskip itself.

chapter five will have one heck of a twist to it though. I wonder how many of you can guess it.

oh well, please read and drop a review. Ja Ne!