"Okay, Naruto. If you win the next card game then I'll listen to any one request of yours. If I win, you have to tell me how you and Hoshi keep avoiding my ANBU to get inside my office unnoticed and you have to use the door from now on," the Hokage said exasperated.
Naruto glared down at the cards placed on the Hokage's desk. Upon him turning four, we had found out he had astounding luck when it came to card games. I had also found out the library had E-rank jutsus available and checked out the few scrolls. We had gone through so many chakra control exercises, we were getting bored.
It was a challenge itself to teach ourselves hand seals. To put it simply, we sucked at them. Naruto was even better than me, mastering henge in two weeks. I just could not coordinate my small stubby toddler fingers the way I wanted them to go. Eventually, I got a little more creative in trying to perform a simple henge. I used my chakra sense to see how the chakra flowed inside me when I did manage to get the hand seals correct. Then I memorized the flow and spent a few days trying to replicate the same flow without hand seals. I could henge without so much of a thought now. It was ingenious and extremely lazy of me, but it worked.
Anyway, the point is that we could henge and Naruto and I weren't that bad at card games. Casinos were not our enemy. We were officially rich and had one of our pillows back in the orphanage stock full of our winnings. Thankfully, Tsunade-nee only rubbed off the love of gambling to me and not her bad luck.
With our new found money and our somewhat independence, we wanted out of the orphanage. Our only problem was that we weren't allowed until we became academy students. The earliest someone could get into the academy was six, although most started around eight. Eight, let alone six, was not early enough for us. Naruto was about to become five and I just turned four.
So here we are, gambling with Hokage-jiji in order to win a 'simple' request. We started small by letting him win a few times to boost his confidence. We lost pranking privileges towards the Hyugas because of this (not that we were allowed to in the first place). They didn't like having their hot springs filled with blue dye. They also didn't like having blue skin. It was a big loss to not be able to prank our favorite targets—they had the best reactions—but it would be worth it if we could enter the academy early.
"I fold," the Hokage groaned out a few minutes later. "I believe I owe you a request now."
Naruto grinned and I jumped up hugging him in joy. "We want to start the academy a year early!"
Jiji sputtered a moment before leaning forward and folding his hands seriously, "I would not recommend that Naruto. Starting early can cause detrimental effects on your mental health."
"Huh? I didn't get a thing you just said," Naruto scratched his cheek.
"What I mean is that starting so early is bad for you. You only have to wait another year before you start. What's one more year?"
I coughed.
He looked to me then back at Naruto. "Or two years?"
"It means a longer time at the orphanage!" Naruto yelled. "We want to leave it already!"
The Hokage sighed and sat there contemplatively for a few moments. I wrung my hands nervously and Naruto looked like he was about to die from anticipation. Suddenly Jiji grumbled something unintelligible and pulled out a scroll. Writing some long detailed paragraph, he handed the drying scroll to Naruto. "I'll agree to your request. But! Only Naruto can start a year early. I'm sorry, Hoshi, but I just can't let someone start the academy at four. You'll have to start with everyone else your age."
"But that means I can't leave the orphanage with Naruto!" I cried.
"Now, now. I never said anything about that, did I? You both are in a joint adoption so if Naruto ended up leaving the orphanage, he can take responsibility for you. You'll have to sign a few papers and prove to me that you can take care of yourselves though. Is that okay?"
"YES!" I squealed and both Naruto and I ran and hugged Ojii-san tightly.
"I still have to test you both," the Hokage admitted. "You'll be assisted by orphanage funds and you'd still get your weekly stipend from what Naruto's mom left, but do you have enough to rent an apartment or buy daily groceries?"
I snickered. "Don't worry about money, 'Jii-san. We have our ways."
"I don't want to know," he mumbled. "You'll have to learn how to cook and do your own house chores too."
"I can cook!" I said excitedly.
Naruto paled. "No, I'd rather not die. I'll cook."
"That was only once," I muttered. "Fine. I can learn to do the house chores and such. I'll be stuck at home while Naruto's at the academy anyway."
The Hokage nodded. "I guess you will handle things as you go. Here's a list of apartments and homes for rent or sale."
We stared down at the list he handed us curiously. I spoke up, "What's the difference between rent and sale?"
"Rent is paying a small price every month to the owner for as long as you live there. Sale is buying the place for a large price only once and becoming owner of the place you bought."
"Sale it is then," Naruto said. "I don't want to pay to live somewhere more than once, let alone every month. That's too much trouble."
"That's understandable," the Hokage said. "But, can you afford any of these places?"
"I told you not to worry about money. We're fine," I responded. "Can we go look at the places in person and then choose?"
"Go ahead. Make sure you come back by the end of the day and tell me so we can make this official."
"Race you!" Naruto snatched the list from me sticking his tongue out and ran from the room.
I stood stiff before bolting after him. "No fair! You had a head start!"
We spent a few hours looking at apartments, but no one seemed to want us there so we looked at different houses. We eventually found a really nice but small traditional house bordering the Hokage mountain and short walk away from our training ground. The house itself only had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small living room. It was quaint and the property was large so we could add on when we were older. It was hidden mostly in a forest so we didn't have neighbors, which was nice.
The previous owner was an old man who had given us the evil eye, but once we showed him how much we were willing to pay he lightened up. The home was surprisingly cheaper than we expected—only a million ryo. We took the contract back to the Hokage and he helped us fill it out.
A week passed and we started moving into our new home. We had some ANBU begrudgingly help us move in furniture picked out by yours truly. I'd say the orphanage was sad to see us go, but that'd be a lie. I'm positive the caretakers threw a party once we left.
Naruto and I ended up both sharing the master suite and turning the second bedroom into a guest room. We had been too used to sleeping in each others company at the orphanage. We were four and the bed was huge, so why not? Plus we liked cuddling.
Naruto started the academy the following week on his birthday and I started a garden to pass time while he was gone. The next month consisted of Naruto complaining about schoolwork. None of the other kids were 'cool' enough for him. This was a blatant lie on his part, but I knew not to say anything about it. His class hadn't done anything with chakra yet and most of the school day consisted of history, theory, and math. He absolutely hated it. The only thing that Naruto found enjoyable was the taijutsu class where they began learning very basic defensive forms.
When November came, something unimaginable happened.
"I don't want to!" I screamed.
"Come on, please," Naruto begged. "I'll show you some of the forms from the Academy that I learned."
"You barely know them yourself," I retorted. "And even so, I wouldn't! This is just mean."
"Not anymore mean than dyeing the Hyugas' skin blue," he countered.
"True," I mumbled. "Okay, I guess I'll help. I just have to find where their well is, right?"
"Yup! While their distracted by me, I want you to pour this into their well water, okay?" He pulled out five huge containers of white powder. I sighed and took the bottles.
"The poor Uchiha," I bemoaned. "Their asses will never be the same again."
Naruto snorted. "They deserve it. Their stupid police force keeps blaming me for things I didn't do! Why do they keep thinking it's me breaking into the girl's public baths?"
"You broke into the girl's bathhouse!?" I screeched. "Why wasn't I invited?"
"It wasn't me, I swear! Otherwise you would have come, hands down," he declared. "In fact, that's a good idea. Let's do that later."
"Does this mean we aren't going to prank the Uchiha's?" I asked.
"Oh, no. They are still getting what's coming. When you hear screaming and see a horde of policemen pass, run in and finish it. Be back in a half hour," he waved and ran off.
Fifteen minutes later, a good two dozen black haired Uchihas ran screaming out of the district smelling like skunk. I didn't even question how Naruto managed that as I plugged my nose and snuck into the Uchiha compound. Another fifteen minutes later, I was pouring the five containers of powdered laxative into their well water and then running the hell out of there before I got caught. The Uchihas were going to be feeling like crap all week. Hehe.
Naruto and I eventually met up back at the house and prepared to head to the woman's baths that night. However, something strange caught my attention. The streets were oddly bare and I felt as if we were being watched. I grabbed Naruto's shoulder stopping him in the middle of the road.
"Hm? What is it, Hoshi-chan?" he asked nonchalantly with his arms behind his head.
I closed my eyes and used my chakra sense to look around. Just as I suspected, there were several chakra signatures around us hidden. Most were civilian chakra levels, but I noticed one slightly higher level. It was probably a chunin. What caught my attention was the weapons each of them were carrying as they stalked around us from behind nearby buildings.
"We're in trouble, Nii-chan. Big trouble," I blanched. There were no police around right now because we had just pranked them either. They were probably washing out the smell of skunk as we speak.
"Eh? What are you talking about?"
The group of men chose that time to run out at us. Thinking quickly, I grabbed a shocked Naruto's hand and bolted north while dodging the big men. After a moment, Naruto began pulling me along instead as we ran through allyways. I blinked, flashing the chakra sense. Lots of men were coming from our left.
"Go right!" I yelled. Naruto pulled me right and we ran through another ally.
I blinked again and this time called left when suddenly I was yanked back and pulled from Naruto. He abruptly stopped at turned back to see me being choked by a lean middle aged man. "Hoshi!" Naruto shouted as he charged and tackled the man off of me. I gasped for air and slowly pulled myself off the ground. I watched as several more men entered the alleyway blocking both sides.
Naruto wasn't doing too badly in beating the crap out of the civilian until he was pulled off of him by another. "Payback, demon brat!" the other man held a knife. Finally grabbing my bearings, I ran forward and pulled chakra into my hand and pulsed it as I punched the man in the balls. All's fair in love and war, after all. His scream turned into a girlish wail before he passed out.
I had started trying to apply chakra to my muscles then pulse it on Tsunade-nee's recommendation in her last letter. So far, I could only get it to work two out of three times. The third time usually backfired with a long lasting burning sensation in my chakra charged appendage. It was the epitome of pain and I hated it, but I had to practice to get the chakra burst to have the right timing. Thankfully, this time it worked.
Seeing the man's obvious loss of his nuts, the rest of the men subconsciously covered their private area and let go of Naruto temporarily. It was enough time for him to get back up and finish his own target with a punch to the face. Two down, many more to go. I had no qualms about aiming for the guys' balls since I had no fighting style or taijutsu training before. All I had was three years of practiced chakra control which didn't give me much other than a two out of three chance of a chakra enhanced punch. Naruto was better off than me. He had some academy training in him, if only a little. He took up a defensive stance which I mimicked but had no idea what to do with.
We were beaten horribly in less than a minute and it pissed me off. Naruto was held down and punched repeatedly in the gut while I struggled in another man's grip. I had tried another chakra punch only to hit the backlash this time and was quaking horribly on the ground waiting for the burning to pass.
"Just kill him already," one yelled and I screeched in anger trying to get free. Naruto was fighting to stay conscious and was now covered in developing bruises.
"No," the one with the chunin level chakra walked up with what I recognized to be a kunai. "Fucking monster needs to suffer loss like we did."
A sudden coolness pressed against my throat and I stared into the brown eyes of my assailant. I felt the pressure increase and I whimpered as blood trickled down my neck.
"No! Let her GO!" Naruto growled, red eyes glowing, as a searing alarm went off in my head. My chakra sense went haywire as I witnessed Naruto's blue chakra shrink into nonexistence.
Then everything went to hell.
