The rat that had once been Uchiha Izuna had been in the middle of writing a haiku when the two boys had barged into the library, disrupting his flow and causing him to mar his elegant calligraphy with an unsightly scratch. The "gel pens" that he'd stolen from the Uchiha boy while he was away at the Academy and broken open in order to retrieve the rather unusual ink had come in an array of colors that had been unheard of in his day, and this had been shaping up to be one of his best works yet, until he'd been interrupted.
"Don't bring that filthy creature into the library!" Shouted Uchiha Sasuke who was currently the only Uchiha in Konoha, or at least the only human one living in the district.
"He's not filthy! I just gave him a bath. Dattebayo!" the other boy - a blond - shouted.
Dattebayo? Dattebayo? Oh gods no! Please no! Please don't be what I think that is.
"I don't even want to know why you want to keep one of those...those things anyway. They're an abomination!" Sasuke shouted.
"Orenji isn't an abomination, he's nice dattebayo!" the blond yelled back. The rat on the blond's shoulder nodded in agreement, suggesting that the creature was a reincarnated Uchiha like him, and, as he was beginning to suspect, all of the other rats in the area.
"Whatever. Just keep that thing away from me." Sasuke said as he got down some ink, a brush, and a stack of paper. "Now that the rats are gone, we're going to be working on your atrocious handwriting. It is completely unbecoming of a Uchiha."
Unbecoming of a Uchiha? Unbecoming of a Uchiha? That blond wasn't a Uchiha, was he? He couldn't be.
As soon as the ink was prepared, the blond's new "pet" ran down his arm and onto the table much to Sasuke's disgust, dipped its tail in the ink, and started to write.
HI it wrote.
"Holy shit! They're intelligent! Dattebayo!" the blond yelled.
NO DUH BRAT. the rat wrote.WHAT DO YOU EXPECT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU KEPT ALL YOUR MEMORIES INTO THE NEXT LIFE?
"What do you mean "Kept your memories into the next life"?" Sasuke asked.
FOR MOST OF US, IT WAS PUNISHMENT. FOR ME HOWEVER, THE AFTERLIFE WAS BORING AS HELL, AND I GOT TIRED OF WAITING AROUND FOR KAKASHI. BETTER LIFE AS A CURSED RAT THAN SITTING THERE LISTENING TO ALL OF SAKUMO'S WAR STORIES FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME.
Sasuke took a while to process this, and then he looked shocked and devastated. "But I...I..."
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT KID, THOSE THAT HAVE EARNED THEIR ETERNAL REWARD WILL GO ON TO WHERE THEY BELONG, AND THOSE THAT HAVEN'T WILL BE BACK HERE NEXT WEEK OR MAYBE THE WEEK AFTER. YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING BUT RELEASE SOME UNLUCKY SODS FROM TORMENT, AND ADD A TINY BIT TO THE TORMENT OF THOSE WHO DESERVED IT. NO NEED TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT. WE'RE ALREADY SORTA DEAD, SO YOU TECHNICALLY DIDN'T MURDER ANYBODY.
Sasuke looked slightly mollified, but still exceedingly guilty. It wasn't as if the poor kid had known what he'd been doing. There had been a reason that the Absolutely No Contact With Sasuke rule had been set up after all.
"So who are you then?" the blond asked at the same time as Sasuke.
I AM UCHIHA OBITO, FORMER TEAMMATE TO HATAKE KAKASHI, AND FORMER STUDENT TO YOUR FATHER.
"My father didn't teach you." Sasuke said. "At least according to his journals he didn't."
NOT YOUR FATHER DIPSHIT, HIS FATHER. BY THE WAY, WHAT'S ALL THIS ABOUT SENSEI'S SON BEING A UCHIHA?
"You mean you didn't notice during training?" Sasuke asked.
NAH, TOO BUSY RUNNING AROUND IN THE RAT BALL GIVING THE PINK HAIRED FREAK OF NATURE SOMETHING OF A WORKOUT.
"Naruto has the Sharingan, therefore he's a Uchiha." Sasuke replied.
HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN ? !
"We think Naruto's my third cousin through Uchiha Izuna on the Uzumaki side." Sasuke replied.
He let out a manly shriek of terror at this revelation, or at least what would have been a manly shriek of terror had he been human and had the lungs for it. He just knew that his life as a rat had been going too well. Way too well. He'd been allowed to set himself up as the King of the Rats after all. This was why. Fate was just waiting for the sins of his last life to come back to haunt him, and had been setting him up for this.
As he crouched there completely panicked, he felt a hand wrap around his midsection.
"It's okay Uchiha-san. I'll protect you from that nasty whatever it was that tried to attack you. Dattebayo." said a voice straight from the depths of hell while the blond nightmare creature petted his head as he shivered in its hand.
How? How could this be his flesh and blood? How could this have inherited his eyes? How?
&!&!&!&
Sakura stared when Naruto showed up at training with a pair of rats instead of just the one. The one with the orange stripe painted on its face was riding on the top of Naruto's head the way it had been the day before. The other one looked half dead and trembled in Naruto's arms.
Normally, she was afraid of rats, really, really afraid of rats, but after seeing the small pathetic sight in Naruto's arms...
"Naruto! What did you do to that rat?" she asked.
"I didn't do anything!" Naruto yelled. "Something attacked it yesterday dattebayo!"
The poor pathetic rat looked like it was going to have a panic attack.
"What's with the extra rat Naruto?" Kakashi who had miraculously shown up on time, making her check the sky for signs of the apocalypse six times already asked.
"Eh, since they aren't going to be leaving the Uchiha district any time soon, me and Sasuke decided to put them to good use, kinda like the Inuzuka nin-dogs." Naruto said as he set the trembling rat inside a blue rodent ball. "You should see Sasuke's rat. By the way, I changed Orenji's name to Obito. I don't know what the other rat's name is yet."
"YOU WHAT?" Kakashi roared, looking positively murderous for some reason.
Sasuke walked into the clearing at that moment. There may have been a rat on his shoulder, but if there had been she was certain that she'd been hallucinating since she could have sworn that she saw the rat do a handseal and vanish.
"What did you do this time Naruto?" Sasuke asked.
"I just told Kakashi that Obito's name was Obito, and he got pissed for some strange reason." Naruto said. "By the way, where's your rat?"
Sasuke looked at the shoulder where the rat had been.
"Damnit. Shisui ditched me." Sasuke said. "He always used to do that."
&!&!&!&
Fugaku mentally chuckled to himself as he escaped from the hamster cage. That had been a piece of cake. He mentally lamented that he couldn't stuff his cheeks like a hamster could. Sunflower seeds were his favorite, and he'd wanted to take more than a couple for the road.
Behind him, he could hear the medic's brat yelling "What the fuck? !". When he reached the door to the building they were kept in, several of the other rats were already gathered there.
One of the rats gave his whiskers a dismissive flick as if to say "About time Loser".
&!&!&!&
Author's note: For those who want to read a more serious version of Naruto having the Sharingan that doesn't have the Uchiha Clan reborn as rats, or those who want to read both this and that version, Uzumaki and Uchiha is up. The first 8 chapters are mostly identical to those in Sharingan Rats. Both stories diverge in Chapter 9.