A/N: Long wait, I know. But I warned you guys on my profile that I am usually a slow writer x.x;

Chapter Summary: School is in session and Naruto thinks that Ibiki-ji-san trained him in far more than desensitization because it's so easy now.

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School was so boring! Naruto already knew most of what Iruka-sensei was telling him, having heard it all from Hari already. But Jiji wanted him to go to all the classes that he'd been signed up for, so here he was, sitting the back of the weapons class, writing down notes - only because Hari insisted that he take notes - in romaji so that no one else could copy him.

Naruto looked around the classroom, noting that Sasuke was sitting by himself, diligently writing down his own notes. Naruto was sitting in the back of the classroom, overlooking everyone else because Hari said that it was best to have the upper ground. Naruto didn't know what that meant, but Hari said that he'd understand later on.

One thing that he did know was that he didn't really want anyone, especially the other children, to know that he was Senkensha. Not that anyone in the classroom knew about Senkensha except for Sasuke, but still. It would feel awkward and weird if someone his age knew.

He didn't like awkward and weird.

"Naruto!" Umino Iruka, Naruto's kinda awesome teacher, called his name out, "Name three major arteries in the body."

"Err, the aorta, external carotid, and femoral arteries," Naruto blinked, shocked that he'd actually been called on to answer a question. This was the first time that he'd been asked a question and he wanted to get it right, "The aorta is located in the heart accessible between the fifth and sixth ribs, the external carotid artery is located in the neck with the easiest access under the jaw bone, and the femoral artery is in the thigh where one of the easier places to access it is under the hip joint close to the groin."

Iruka looked at him with faint surprise in his eyes but turned back to his lecture with little fanfare. Hari idly mentioned that his teacher must not have expected Naruto to have an answer or to be able to such a comprehensive explanation. Naruto snorted under his breath and immediately plastered on the most innocent look he had when Iruka looked at him again.

He didn't want to get in trouble.

At least, if Iruka wanted to know if he was paying attention and checked by asking questions, Naruto was totally ready to show off his knowledge.

When class ended at sixteen hundred hours, four o'clock for civilians, Naruto bounced up to the desk and slapped a piece of paper with a peach colored post-it on it onto Iruka's desk with Jiji's written permission for him to go on the field trip that the class was going on next Wednesday.

Iruka called out to him as he left the room, but he didn't hear whatever it was that Iruka wanted to say because he was far too interested in getting home. Kakashi was supposed to have come back from his mission earlier that day so Naruto was hoping that he'd get to play a little with the man he considered his older brother.

When he got home, Hari warned him that someone was in his apartment. Naruto shrugged not at all worried because if it was someone dangerous, Hari would tell him and went inside his place like he always did, slamming the door open and bouncing into the small flat. He paused when he saw that it was ANBU Tori.

But it wasn't Anko, who had been Tori only the day before.

"Who are you?" He asked suspiciously, letting Hari have access to his eyes so that Hari could scan the ANBU's mind. That was a new thing, Hari being able to actually get into someone else's mind without them knowing. Naruto knew that Hari had tried it before and it had only been eighteen months ago that Hari hadn't be able to do it.

Hari had said that it had something to do with how unsullied his eyes had been back then. Naruto didn't know what unsullied was, but he had a mental post-it to ask Kakashi about the word when he remembered.

"I am Tori." The stranger said and Naruto shook his head.

"No, I know Tori-san and you aren't Tori-san."

The stranger in Tori's mask cocked his head to the side and blinked slowly at him. "Do you, now?" He asked in a strangely flat voice and Naruto backed up a step.

"If you hurt me, Nii-chan and Obi-nii will kill you," Naruto warned. His feet separated and his body dropped slightly into a ready position that Ibiki had taught him while under his training and he eyeballed the stranger intensely.

The stranger shook his head and stepped back as well, "I'm not here to hurt you, Naruto-kun," He said. He paused for a moment and then lifted a hand to Anko's mask and tipped it back on his head.

Naruto thought he looked a lot like Inoichi-san.

"What do you want?" No one in ANBU lifted their mask, not unless Jiji asked them too.

"I-" He was about to continue when Kakashi swung himself thought the window and crouched in between Naruto and the man.

Kakashi wasn't facing Tori and didn't acknowledge him at all as he spoke to Naruto, "Hey Kiddo," Kakashi reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair, "What's with the stance?" He gestured to how Naruto was standing and Naruto let himself flow smoothly out of his taijutsu stance and into his more regular half-slouch that he'd copied from Kakashi and that Jiji absolutely abhorred, but never mentioned.

Naruto was pretty pleased that Hari was so protective of him. And that he was so good at reading people.

"Did something happen to Tori-san?" He asked Kakashi, trying to not seem crazy or paranoid. With a frown, Kakashi sniffed under his mask. Naruto wondered if Kakashi was catching a cold.

"Not that I know of. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Naruto peeked out around Kakashi at the stranger who looked like Inoichi-san and then turned his eyes back to Kakashi, "Are we gonna play?"

"'Going to'," Kakashi corrected absently, "And yes, we're going to play today." His visible eyebrow rose and his Naruto could see his jaw move underneath his cloth mask as he spoke, "Unless you have something else to do?"

"Nope!" Naruto launched himself into Kakashi's arms and tried as hard as he could to ignore the fake Tori that Kakashi didn't seem to see and that followed them to the training area next to the Memorial Stone.

A murmur from Hari told him that the fake Tori wasn't dead, which sort of confused Naruto because if Kakashi could see the stranger, why didn't he react to him? And if he couldn't see the stranger then the fake Tori had to be dead, right?

Hari said no and told him that it might be important that he tell Kakashi about the stranger in Anko's mask.

Naruto wasn't sure that he wanted to talk to Kakashi about an invisible person who'd stolen Anko-ba-chan's mask. He had a strange feeling that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to mention it just yet.

So he didn't. Maybe he would later.

Kakashi quick-moved them to the memorial stone park (Naruto called it a park, and always would, not matter what his Nii-san said about it being a 'training area'. Training areas had people that trained in them, not staying empty like the park did.)

They played for a while, running and chasing and tree climbing. It was hours before Naruto finally collapsed in the grass and stared at the darkening sky, half exhausted.

"Naruto?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the almost-moping boy. Naruto flopped over onto his back and stared back up at the closest thing he had to a big brother.

"Nii-chan, I have never meet anyone so- so-" Naruto searched for a word to describe Sasuke's fanatic requests to speak with him. Hari provided the word he was looking for, "-obsessed before!" Kakashi smoothly sat on the grass beside the boy, gesturing for him to go on. "I mean, yeah, I can talk for his parents, but, you know, I sorta got a life myself, yeah?"

"This is about Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi asked with amusement coloring his voice as he indicated Naruto's anger and dismay. Naruto nodded, sitting up and brushing loose grass from his hair.

"Totally. I can't go two days without having Tori-san or Inoichi-san or Ibiki-ji passing along a message that Sasuke-teme wants to talk to his parents." Naruto shook his head, "Hell, even Mikoto-san and Fugaku-san are getting, well," Naruto grimaced, "not annoyed, really; but tired of me coming and going in their house!"

"Naruto-kun, he did just lose his entire family, everyone he knew. He grew up in a Uchiha neighborhood with every house around his for blocks boasting of only Uchiha's. Now they're all dead. It's not surprising that he wants to now that at least his parents haven't left him, even if they're dead."

"Kaka-nii," Naruto eyeballed him in a seriously manner, "It's been two months. I'm 'bout ready to just tell him who I am to give Tori and everyone a break from passing me the dumb messages." He shrugged absently then, "At least they write the notes on post-its."

Kakashi ruffled Naruto's messy, unbrushed hair, "It's up to you, Naruto-kun, whether you tell him or not. This isn't our secret, but yours." Naruto sighed again and crawled into Kakashi's lap. Kakashi rubbed his neck and arms, "Other than Sasuke demanding a lot of your time, how is everything else going?"

"Well, I have a lot of free time now. Ibiki-ji don't ask for me no more. I think Jiji said something about me to him." Naruto fiddled with Kakashi's vest, "I went in a coupla day's 'go. One of the dead asked if I was the one that graduated." Naruto got an indignant look on his face, "He didn't even recognize me! I mean, I've been gone a long time if they don't recognize me!"

Kakashi hummed, "Really?" He hadn't known that Naruto was still going by the T&I Department. He wondered what that said about Naruto's state of mind, as well as his state of being. Surely Naruto would prefer to be around friends his own age that didn't have to go wash blood off their hands before ruffling his hair or change their clothes before picking him up.

"Yeah. You know, I wear my Kaka-nii mask when I go there. No one glares at me." Naruto fingered the bunched up mask under his chin. It was stretchy and elastic, like the original one Kakashi had given him the second time Naruto had gone to meet with Ibiki.

Kakashi petted his hair and Naruto nuzzled the hand. He rather enjoyed the physical attention that Kakashi gave him. Very few, as in two, other people ever touched him nicely and he sometimes craved it. The ghosts he could talk to didn't generally like him, but if he found one or two that did, they couldn't touch him.

Changing the subject, Kakashi lolled in the grass on his back, Naruto on his chest, "How's the Academy going?"

Naruto was silent for a moment, letting his nii-san's rocking body sooth him. "It's okay."

Kakashi paused and slowly sat up, arranging Naruto in his lap again, "Okay? I thought you were really excited to get in early?"

"Yeah," Naruto slumped in Kakashi's arms, "I get asked dumb questions most o' the time." He pouted for a moment and then looked up to his nii-san with wide blue eyes, "Am I supposed to be able to answer... highly con-tr-val-uted hypa-thet-ical questions?" He sounded the words out like he was repeated them and Kakashi rightly assumed that Hari - Kyuubi - was behind them. Seven year olds didn't know words like convoluted and hypothetical.

"No, you're not," Kakashi petted Naruto's hair gently, "Are you being asked those kind of questions?"

Naruto nodded, leaning his weight into Kakashi, "Sometimes. Hari-chan tells me the questions in a way I can understand them, but it's hard to know how to answer. I get docked points for not answering fast enough too." A worried look entered Naruto's eyes and he tugged on Kakashi's vest, "I'm tryin' my best, Nii-chan, I really am, but I don't know- I'm tryin' to understand my senseis but it's really hard!"

Kakashi resolved right then to go and have a nice little chat with the senseis at the academy. Naruto was smart and very well trained, so the fact that he was having trouble with anything in the academy rang a lot of alarm bells.

Then Kakashi had to wonder if that wasn't the reason that Naruto was going back to the T&I HQ. His treatment at the HQ building probably was a lot easier to handle than anywhere else in Konoha.

That thought was a sad one, and Kakashi hugged Naruto tight.

"What'cha doin' Nii-chan?" Naruto's voice was muffled from his face being buried in Kakashi's vest and the silver haired nin loosened his grasp on the child.

"Hugging you." Kakashi rocked the boy lightly. Naruto scowled up at him, looking like he wanted to shake off the hold, but couldn't bear to have Kakashi stop touching him.

"Whatev'r," Naruto slumped in Kakashi's arms, letting himself pout a little. Hari told him to suck it up and enjoy the hug. Naruto pouted a little more, but didn't argue.

**To be Continued**