UPDATE: I decided it is probably best to put 4 or more of these scenes in one chapter, otherwise this story might reach 100 chapters before I am even done with the timeskip XD
A/N: The following chapters are going to be brief scenes showing us different moments of the characters' lives during the time skip.
Guiding myself by canon, the time skip will be of five years, until Naruto &co are 12. I hope you will have fun reading these, and I will do my best to update them regularly in a short scene format. I really like this format from my other fic, The Sealed Journal, so I will apply it here as well.
Not sure how many of these small chapters you guys will get, but I will do my best to stop at a round number so that Book 2 can start with a nice 1 :D
1st Year
-Shisui-
"This is not what I signed up for." Shisui placed a screaming baby on the paper-filled table, his nose scrunching in displeasure.
Haruka removed her glasses and looked up at him through narrowed eyes. She motioned for one girl to pick up the wailing child and stood. Her back was ramrod straight, not a wrinkle in her kimono. "And what exactly did you sign up for, Arata?"
"Being the cool uncle that shows them cool jutsu and all that. Not… this."
"Then you should have brought your young relatives to an orphanage. My girls need to work and taking care of your children all the time is not part of their job."
"First, they are not my children, and second—"
"Believe it or not, Arata, I limit my kindness to giving them a roof over their head and food in their bellies. You and Saya took on this responsibility, you deal with it."
"But—"
"No excuses. Now get the child from Mika, her shift starts soon."
The idea of a house full of women was in theory quite perfect. Women knew how to care for children and with so many of them, six kids would be a breeze. Until it wasn't. Haruka kept an iron fist on the girls, their working times and how much of their free time they invested in what she considered unnecessary pastimes. Taking care of rogue Uchiha children was not on Haruka's list.
Shisui dragged his feet to Mika's room, happy to hear nothing but the geisha's honeyed voice singing. He knocked, then slid the door open.
"She's asleep," cooed Mika, her painted eyes soft. "She was tired, so she'll sleep for a while. Arata, you need to keep their schedules, babies like routine."
"At least use my actual name when in private Mika, else I might forget it."
Mika smiled at him, gently passing a sleeping Asuka. "Keep their schedules, Shisui. It will make your life much easier."
Shisui sighed. He abhorred schedules, despised routine, and yet his newest charges wanted only that. If little Mara asked him to read her the story with the cricket one more time, he was going to rip his hair out.
And yet he nodded. This was a fight he was bound to lose if he didn't play by the rules. Their rules. He was going to maim Itachi when he saw him again.
If. If he saw him again.
Another shrill cry echoed through the building, shaking the walls and making Shisui's hair rise. He knew that cry, was aware of the dreadful things following it. The baby in his arms stirred, but otherwise seemed immune to the commotion. Thank the Gods for small miracles. Shisui's luck, however, did not last as seconds later Mara came crying down the hall with a ragged doll clutched to her chest. Behind her, two-year-old Takashi wailed on the ground, his tiny cheeks red with anger as fat tears streaked all over his face.
"Mara's doll, this Mara's doll!" yelled the little girl, shaking the toy in her hand.
Yes, he was going to maim Itachi.
-Itachi-
His partner was odd. A former member of the Seven Swordsmen of Mist, Juuzou was unlike his reputation suggested. Itachi had read the Bingo Book and was familiar with each member of the deadly group, yet Juuzou was not what he expected. The Bingo Book catalogued him as a man of insane brutality, more monster than human that held no regard for human life and killed without discrimination.
The man looked the part, and in the heat of battle he certainly acted the part, but that only scratched the surface of Biwa Juuzou's self. Outside missions he was a pleasant, if reserved man. He didn't engage in pointless fights and never provoked. Itachi liked that about him. Juuzou was also, to Itachi's surprise, very well read and liked to engage in philosophical discussions. When the mood would strike him, he also told jokes. Bad jokes, but he had a sense of humor. He was a meticulous man and was almost obsessive in his need to keep clean.
"That's why I wield such a long sword," he once explained, when Itachi stared at him for a moment too long. "I always turn the blade's momentum outward, so any blood residual stays away from my person and lands on the surrounding environment."
Juuzou's terminology regarding their targets of any enemy he engaged was clinical. He treated those he cut down as variables needing elimination and his killing sprees as the effective and satisfying solution of a difficult equation. Itachi cared little for the man's motives, or the morals guiding him. It wasn't his place to care, as long as Juuzou stayed away from his business and motivations. That Juuzou did well.
And yet, even though the man was a walking contradiction filled with peculiarities, Itachi saw him as one of the more normal members of the organization. Between the infamous Madara that masqueraded as a simpleton, the leader who preached of love and peace yet dealt with death and war and his blindly devoted partner, Itachi saw Juuzou as a normal constant in his Akatsuki life. As it was, with the new recruits coming in, things were sure to change.
-Yahizui-
The repetitive movements of her cleaning rag over well-oiled weapons were not enough to drown out the sound of her room-mates talking. Not that they were trying to keep it down. She tuned into their words, somewhat curious about the little rebellious acts they planned now. They always did that, rebel against Danzo-sama's orders. They did small, petty things that earned them a narrowed gaze from their platoon leader, but were smart enough, or scared enough to leave it at that. At night they would talk and gossip and do all the lively things she had forgotten, or had never even done before.
She liked to listen, lived vicariously through their words. They didn't seem to mind. In fact, they ignored her completely, like she was a piece of furniture. After the first two months of tiptoeing around her when she first woke up, they understood she wasn't there to report them. No one had told her to do that, so there was no reason to do so.
Dai, the tall one with amber eyes, sighed. By his side, Su picked at a newly formed callus, her freshly buzzed hair forming a halo around her scalp.
"Hey man, why do I get my head shaved and Red over there gets to keep them long-ass hair?"
"Oh ye, young and stupid," drawled Dai, a toothpick dangling between his teeth. "Hi over there is one of the special ones."
"And what makes her so special? She's just as scrawny as the rest of us."
"Aye, but while you struggle to do well… anything and are nothin' but a street rat Root picked up from some back-alley brothel, Hi is a shinobi. She got her chakra control down, and her jutsus and all that."
"So?"
"You, and I and Kai, and even big Mo are just… cannon fodder. Orphans and street kids that show enough promise to train and won't be missed when we die. They don't even bother to condition us, because they know we are replaceable. The lot of us will probably die in the next year, maybe a year and a half if we're lucky. We ain't got nothing to say to no one and for the likes of us, good old-fashioned fear is enough to keep us in line. For the likes of her… well, you can only imagine. Red came here with nothing, no memory, nothing. She's a blank slate. See, we talk about her and she don't mind, because no one taught her she should be bothered by it."
"That still make no sense," snarked Su. "I can see she's a vegetable, but why does she get privileges?"
"It's the least they can do. She don't need no discipline, or punishment. They give an order and pretty lil' Hi there will do it. If they tell her to slice her throat, she probably won't even blink. So what do you choose, your free will, or your damn hair?"
"I choose being outta here, but hey, we can't all have our wishes come true."
Su stood from her cot and headed toward Hi. She stopped a few meters away, her large brown eyes studying, dissecting. Hi forced herself to not look at the girl. Dai had once complained about the emptiness of her gaze, and she didn't want to make the recruit uncomfortable.
"You really got fucked up, eh?" asked Su.
Hi didn't know what to answer. How could she, when all she knew was this? All she had experienced was this training, this bland food, this harsh environment, and the occasional hour with their leader, Danzo. There was nothing she could say, because she had no actual opinion on the matter.
-Kaito-
She hadn't been the first person he'd lost, most likely wouldn't be the last either, yet somehow this one hurt the most. Or maybe he had just forgotten how it was. Likely.
Kaito pulled his jounin vest up, zipped it halfway, and finished tying his headband. His gaze lingered on the team photo, and for a moment Kaito wanted to go back on his decision, get the boys, and find some way to keep the team together. It didn't last long.
He never wanted a genin team in the first place and putting them in Inuzuka Hana's team was the best decision he could have made. Ensui was a capable jounin and an excellent teacher who will play on the boys' strengths. And yet, Kaito couldn't help but think that it should be him who guides them further, who makes them strong. He quashed that thought, smothering it under the firm belief that it was better this way. His calling had always been the T&I. He opened the door with that thought in mind and stopped.
"What do you want, kid?"
"Well, ya know I was thinkin' that now since you're no longer sensei for Tojiro and Haku, you could…"
"What makes you think I would give up two perfectly capable, powerful genin only to saddle myself with an academy student that can't even throw straight?"
"Hey, I can so too? And how do you know that?"
"Word travels. Now move along Naruto, go play or something, I have work to do."
"No way! Nee-chan meant a lot to me too and… and I wanna get strong as well!"
Kaito stopped moving. Why were these people always popping into his life? All he wanted was to be left alone. Why didn't he ever get that? He could just brush Naruto off, let him pursue his dream of getting strong and pretend he didn't hear the real reason behind it. It would be easy, and likely the best option for his sanity, but it wouldn't be right.
"Revenge wouldn't bring her back, Naruto."
"Wha! How?—"
"Get strong for your own sake, and for the love of all Gods, find a goal that will make you happy. Find something that would have made her proud, don't chase a hateful mission, because hate brings only hate with it."
"Is that why you don't go after him?" asked Naruto, his voice small yet loud in Kaito's ears.
"Uchiha Itachi will pay for his crimes. Justice always finds a way." His answer didn't satisfy Naruto. "Look kid, as a shinobi, you will lose many precious people along the way. It's just how this life is. You can't go hunting after every enemy that kills someone you care for or someone you know."
"Yeah, and how do you know that?"
"Experience."
Naruto fell silent, his bright eyes dimming in defeat. Kaito resisted the urge to slap his face at how much like Kushina he was. "Come on, let's get some breakfast, I'm starving."
Some energy returned in his demeanor at the mention of food. "Ramen?"
"No," said Kaito with a sigh, "some real food."