Four years later-

Kakashi walked down the hall to Naru's room and opened the door to see if she was up yet. She wasn't, even though the alarm clock was beeping, and the morning sun light was filtering through the window. She lay on her back, the covers kicked off, one arm thrown over her eyes and her ears twitching in her sleep. He sighed and shook his head at her. The silly kit was going to be late for school...again.

"Naru. Time to get up!"

"..." Naru didn't move, didn't respond, if not for the fact that she was breathing he might have thought that she was dead or something. She was such a deep sleeper, he sometimes got jealous of how easily she could sleep through things.

He walked across the room and leaned down and whispered. "Get up or I'll walk you to school and sit with you. All. Day. For the next week." He leaned back as she jerked and moved her arm away from her face to look at him.

"Nii-san?"

He chuckled at her and reached over and turned off the alarm. "Who else would I be?"

She frowned and shook her head. She had just had the strangest dream that she and Nii-san were kissing. And Nii-san had been using his tongue!

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head and slowly sat up. She wasn't going to answer Nii-san's question. She was going to ignore it. She stifled a yawn behind her hand and looked at the clock and made that familiar little chirping sound that reminded Kakashi of four years ago when she had first come to live with him.

It was past nine and school was going to start in an hour. It took her at least that long to eat her breakfast and get her things together. "Is breakfast ready?" She asked in a sleepy husky voice as she wiped her eyes with her hands.

"Yes. You might want to get up and get dressed so that you can eat and run." Kakashi said in amusement. Naru looked at him and climbed out of bed and staggered over to him and hugged him, burying her face against his stomach. He smiled and ran his fingers through her soft blond hair, noting that it had grown out considerably and she would need a haircut some time in the near future.

"How late did you stay up doing you're home work last night?" Kakashi asked her gently when she let him go and walked over to her dresser and pulled out some clothes.

"Till about one."

Kakashi frowned. "One in the morning?" Naru nodded her head and turned to make her way to the bathroom to get dressed.

"Yes." Naru said softly, feeling just a little ashamed that she hadn't been able to finish her home work easily and get to bed on time. But in her defense, she hadn't bothered to tell her Nii-san that some of the teachers at school had thought it would be funny to put her in advanced classes when she hadn't even learned the basics. She had gone to a lot of trouble to hide the notes about her bad grades because if her Nii-san found out that she had been placed in advanced classes to be humiliated he would get really, really mad and cause a scene and then she would suffer even more.

"Why are you having so much trouble with your homework Naru?" He asked as he walked over to the small desk and started to reach for one of the books but Naru was in front of him before he could blink. She grabbed her books and stuffed them all in her back pack and threw the pack into the bathroom then closed herself and her things up in the tiny room and muttered a tired sounding, "please go away now" from the other side of the door.

Kakashi frowned and made a mental note to swing by the school and check on Naru in an hour or so just to make sure that she was okay.

She came out of the bathroom ten minutes later fully dressed in a long sleeved black shirt with little silver and teal butterflies around the hem and a pair of black skinny jeans and a pair of ankle socks. Her nearly waist length hair was pulled back into a thick braid and she had some black and teal colored ribbons wrapped around the base of her ears so that they were some what hidden under the thick ribbons.

She grabbed her shoes and her pack and walked down the hall to the kitchen with Kakashi trailing along behind her thinking about buying a camera so that he could take pictures of how cute she was when she got dressed for school each morning.

It would also make great black mail material since she was a little bit self conscious about how she looked. She sat down at the table and traced little pictures in the wood with her finger tip as he fixed her plate and then set it in front of her. She said a soft thanks and picked up her fork and started to eat as he sat down and studied her. She didn't look too good to him. Her skin was pale, there were dark circles under her eyes, and her movements were sluggish and clumsy.

The total oppisit of her usual self. "Naru, are you feeling alright?" He asked gently as he stood up and leaned over the table and put his hand against her forehead then her cheek to see if she was running a temp.

Her skin felt a little bit warmer than usual but nothing terribly alarming. She finished eating and drank some of the milk that he had put out for her and then stood up and grabbed her pack and slipped on her shoes. "See you in a few hours Nii-san."

"Have a good day at school."

She looked at him and gave him a sunny smile that seemed forced to him and walked out the door as he cleared off the table and set the dirty dishes aside and then grabbed his mask, headband, keys and wallet and slipped out the door so that he could shadow her to school and watch her for a little bit just to be sure that she really was okay.