Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Posted: 12/31/12

I apologize for taking so long to post this. I was hoping that I would have more time to write with Winter break, but it turned out to be the exact opposite.

Chapter 6: Sasuke

Naruto being dumbfounded would be considered an understatement in this case. "Where the hell am I? There is no way I'm in the past" thought Naruto. Today, his mother had brought him over to the Uchiha for a little play day with his new (old) friend Uchiha Sasuke. Yet, something about this Sasuke was…off. This Sasuke was not comtemplating joining Orochimaru. This Sasuke was not scheming on how to kill his borther. This Sasuke hadn't been twisted and manipulated by Madara. No, this Sasuke was having fun, running around like a normal 4-year old would, and laughing…wait, laughing? Ok, now Naruto was sure that he had screwed something up and ended up in a parallel universe instead of the past. However, this is how Sasuke was before the Uchiha Massacre. In short, this Sasuke was happy.

Naruto and Kushina had just arrived at the Uchiha compound when Naruto saw this strange Sasuke. Uchiha Mikoto instantly came out and greeted them and before Naruto and Sasuke knew it, the two mothers left them to go do…mother stuff.

"Hey, do you want to go play soccer?" said Sasuke, turning to Naruto.

"Okay, now things really are getting freaky. Who the hell is this and what happened to Sasuke?" thought Naruto. He couldn't believe Sasuke was actually asking him to play a game. Then again, he couldn't believe anyone had wanted to play with him, yet it seemed like everyone wanted to play with him now that he was the Hokage's son and not the village's plague or the 'Demon Brat'. The only person who didn't always want to play with him was Shikamaru and that was completely understandable as the Shikamaru in this timeline was still as lazy as the other timeline. Even then, Shikamaru would occasionally play with Naruto at the park whenever they met.

"Sure" replied Naruto to Sasuke's request. Sasuke smiled and ran off towards the field, Naruto following closely behind. Naruto was going to get as much of this Sasuke as he could before Sasuke became an emo avenger. Then again, Naruto was hoping that would never happen.

In his original timeline, the reason Sasuke became the emo avenger that Naruto knew and loved was that Itachi had massacred the entire Uchiha clan. That happened because the Uchiha clan planned to revolt against the village as a result of discrimination and isolation caused by the growing distrust of the village. It was believed that the Uchiha clan had a hand in the Kyuubi attack and more villagers began to resent the Uchiha as a result, when the only one involved in the attack was Uchiha Madara. While Madara might have been an Uchiha, he had abandoned the clan decades ago, back in the era of the founding of the village and the Shodaime Hokage. Since then, everyone in the village had pretty much dissociated Madara from the Uchiha clan, until the Kyuubi attack.

Yet there was no Kyuubi attack. That had been foiled the moment Naruto and Kurama returned to the past. Did that mean that this Sasuke was here to stay? Naruto hoped so. He would rather have the happy and smiling Sasuke, even if it did feel out of place at times, over the brooding emo avenger of the Uchiha clan.

For the rest of the morning, Sasuke and Naruto played a few games of soccer on the clan fields with the rest of the children around their age in the clan. Naruto soon got over the awkwardness and began to enjoy himself again. This was the normal routine for him…go play with someone, wonder why they were actually playing with him, and then just forget it the previous question and have fun.

However, there was one thing about Sasuke that was still the same as the Sasuke in the original timeline. This Sasuke had a bit of a competitive edge. Whenever Naruto managed to score a goal, Sasuke seemed like he had to score two goals in response. Naruto would then match Sasuke's two goals and Sasuke would score three in response. Yep, his future rival was still in there.

Lunch came in the early afternoon and both boys were panting hard. Both were bruised and battered from their little battle when their mothers came out. As expected, both mothers were instantly suffocating their own sons with their closeness as they checked the scrapes and bruises on their respected boys.

"So what do you want to be when you get older?" Naruto asked Sasuke. The two were out on the porch eating a pair of bento boxes for lunch. The what do you want to be question was a common question for children to ask each other.

"Hmm…well, I know I want to become a shinobi, and a strong one to. Just like my Niisan" said Sasuke.

"What's your Niisan like?" asked Naruto.

"Itachi-niisan's so cool and strong. But he's always there for me when I really need him. Especially after father's strict training. But, everyone's always comparing me to him" said Sasuke. "No matter what I do, it always seems like Itachi always gets the praise."

Surprisingly, Naruto saw a little bit of his former self inside this Sasuke. The part of himself that was always looking for attention.

Suddenly, Naruto and Sasuke heard a voice behind them and they turned to see who it was.

"Niisan!" exclaimed Sasuke. Naruto looked into the eyes of one who would eventually kill his entire clan for the sake of stopping a civil war, something that forced said person to give up everything they once cherished.

"Hello Sasuke-kun" greeted the newcomer. "And I see you have a friend. It's nice to meet you, Namikaze-san."

"Naruto" corrected Naruto. "I'd like to be called just Naruto, if that's okay."

"Very well, Naruto-kun" said the newcomer.

"Naruto, this is my Niisan, Itachi" said Sasuke, introducing Naruto to the one person he used to hate, but eventually developed a great deal of respect for.

"Hello, Itachi-san" greeted Naruto. "What do I do about you? Will you betray your clan this time around? Will you throw everything away? Or can I find some way that will make you stay? Some way that will allow you to look after Sasuke?"

Again, Naruto still had no idea as to whether or not Itachi would be forced to kill his clan. He would have to play it as if it still was going to happen and then be happy that it didn't if it didn't happen. He knew one thing for sure though; Itachi was probably one of the biggest factors for keeping Sasuke in Konoha. If he could help Itachi, the chances were much better he could save Sasuke.

The rest of the afternoon passed with the two boys continuing to play together. Naruto still couldn't help but feel that everything they played turned into some sort of competition. "Perhaps we were truly meant to be rivals. Perhaps it was fate…crap, now I'm starting to sound like Neji" Naruto thought to himself. Still, despite the newly found rivalry, the two genuinely had fun, that is until Kushina and Mikoto came and embarrassed them a little before they had to call it a day.

Minato was stressed out, and that would be considered an understatement. His day began with an exciting council meeting that really shouldn't have lasted more than an hour, let alone four, if a few elder council members hadn't opened their mouths. Then there was the load of paper work on his desk, primarily containing reports and requests from activity in the eastern part of the Land of Fire, the part of the country that was near the Land of Water, where a very bloody civil war was currently being fought. As such, this resulted in an influx of missions from merchants, fishermen, and previous Kirigakure customers taking their business to Konoha, landing a few huge piles of paperwork on Minato's desk. To make things even worse, he had his hands full with the Hyugas and Inuzukas.

Inuzuka Hana, the Inuzuka heir, and Hyuga Mijiro, a member of the Hyuga main family, had been placed on a genin team with some loudmouth by the name of Hoshino Ringo. Inuzuka Hana was the top girl of her class and Hyuga Mijiro was the top boy of the class. As per tradition, they were paired with the class dobe, Ringo, on a genin team. The team had failed the true genin exam, and as such, Hana and Mijiro were forced to be held back. Of course, this caused an outrage in their respective clans. Before Minato could think on that further, he heard a knock on his door. The last thing he needed right now was to be interrupted, at least until he heard who was on the other side of the door.

"Mina-kun, can I come in?" asked Kushina from outside the Hokage's office.

"Sure Kushi-chan" replied Minato. Kushina entered, Naruto not far behind. Kushina made her way behind her husband and began giving him a much needed shoulder rub.

"Mina-kun, why are you getting all stressed out again?" asked Kushina.

"It's that stupid tradition. You know, the one where you place the top girl and boy with the worst student in each class on the same genin team?" said Minato. Kushina nodded. "Inuzuka Hana and Hyuga Mijiro were good potential candidates, but they are being forced to be held back by that tradition. They failed because the final member of their team, Hoshino Ringo, was too far behind them and he eventually got frustrated at them until he just exploded. I get why the teams were originally formed like this, but wouldn't it be better if the teams were formed to succeed, not fail?"

In his head, Naruto was recalling his genin team placement, of course he had been the class dobe with Sasuke and Sakura being the top boy and girl in the class, respectively. It was true that he had heard horror stories of those teams falling apart and it was true that his team almost did as well, but they were lucky and managed to pass Kakashi's test.

"Well why not change it then? You are the Hokage after all…you can do whatever you want, can't you?" said Kushina, really getting into Minato's back rub.

"I am. I guess I could do that…ohh, right there" said Minato as he began to feel the effects of Kushina's hands at work on him.

"Then how about you do? I'm sure that would relieve some stress in the future" said Kushina as the tone of her voice actually turned a little on the seductive side. "Or I know a way to relieve some stress right now, Mina-kun." She leaned her head down to kiss her husband as Minato responded in full to her.

All at the same time, Naruto was witnessing the whole turn of events and he began blushing a rather bright red. And then he felt the sudden urge to cough for some reason. Minato and Kushina heard this cough and immediately remembered that Naruto was in the room as well. The blushes on their faces were probably brighter than Kushina's hair.

Needless to say, the following days, Minato reformed the groups for this year's graduating genin class and there was a greatly improved success rate with the teams that had passed. Instead of grouping students based on their standings in the class, he and some of the academy teachers looked more in-depth at the abilities of the students and formed the groups so that the students would be around the same level as each other and the members of the teams would be able to work well with one another. The fail rate went from about 66% to 33% and the jonin instructors actually began to see that they were better off when teaching students that were on the same level as one another, instead of having one genin on a team that may be far ahead of the rest of the team, being held back by the other two teammates, or far behind and holding back the other two teammates.

Time Skip (about 2 years)

A little more than two years had passed since Naruto and Sasuke had first met. It was also almost six years since Naruto had come back. Sasuke had his sixth birthday just the other week and Naruto's was about two months away. In about six months, they would be starting at the academy.

For their first two years at the academy, the main focus would be on general schooling, such as math, language, and history. Naruto wasn't looking forward to this that much, except that he was actually going to the academy. He was looking forward to the shinobi classes which, while there were few of them in the first two years, were still there. For the most part, the shinobi classes that he would take for the first years was nothing more than physical conditioning and an introduction to weapons. Sadly, they wouldn't get to the jutsu portion of the class until the third year, so Naruto still had to wait before we could start showing off jutsu left and right.

On his own, he had re-learned how to do the academy three and he even found that he could still do his signature jutsu, the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. He was glad that he still had large chakra reserves as that was one thing he didn't think he would be able to live without. Unfortunately, he had no explanation on how he knew a B-rank jutsu at the age of almost 6, so he wasn't able to use that jutsu yet.

Speaking of shinobi training and jutsu, Minato and Kushina had steadily increased his training since his fifth birthday, the landmark they set where they would start training their son for real. Naruto was thankful that because of his parent's training, he did have one jutsu that he could use. His parents had taught him the Henge no Jutsu, and while basic, at least it gave him something.

Even though his parents were beginning training, they still made sure he had plenty of time to play and be a five-year old. It was common for Naruto to go to the park and play with a few of the boys who would eventually become his teammates and friends in the previous timeline, most notably, Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Shino, and Sasuke. Naruto knew that if everything went well, they would all become incredibly powerful shinobi and great friends.

Naruto was sure that Shikamaru, Chouji, Shino, and Kiba were already getting clan training as well, but it was Sasuke's training that Naruto was really focused on. The past year or so, it was not uncommon for Naruto and Sasuke to be training together. Once a week, Naruto would go train with Sasuke and his father and on another day each week, Sasuke would come and train with Naruto and either Kushina, who had decided to become an active shinobi once again, or Minato, depending on who was most available that day.

It was during this time that Naruto managed to show Sasuke the Henge no Jutsu that he had picked up from his parents, and being Sasuke, he soon had learnt it. Both boys had somehow managed to pick up a jutsu that, while it was an academy level jutsu, they should not have known for at least three years. Sasuke was glad that he even managed to get some praise out of his father for learning a jutsu before he entered the academy.

The two of them really had become good friends and it left Naruto wondering what happened in the past life. If they had somehow had the opportunity to become friends in the previous timeline, would it have happened? Perhaps he should have gone to Sasuke that one day he passed the Uchiha on the dock. The time when both of them knew the pain of being alone. One thing was for sure though…he would not lose his brother again, no matter what happened.

A few more months had passed and Naruto had turned 6. It was about two months before he would start at the academy. Naruto had just finished with an exhausting morning of training. Normally, there would be a little bit of training in the afternoon, but Kushina and Minato were both finding themselves busy in the afternoon. As a result, Naruto was left to himself, although he really wasn't left to himself. The days when no one could watch over Naruto, Minato would usually assign an ANBU to keep an eye on him. In particular, the ANBU he would normally assign only had one eye to keep on him. Unlike normal ANBU though, Kakashi wouldn't keep to the shadows and simply tail Naruto. Sometimes he did, but other times he would appear and play with the boy a little. Kakashi had become fond of his sensei's son and even Naruto would refer to Kakashi as Kakashi-niisan. Perhaps it was just a cover for Naruto, but he did notice that Kakashi had acted more like an older brother to Naruto. This also raised the question of when did Kakashi learn that Naruto was Minato's son back in the previous timeline or even why wasn't Kakashi a little bit more forward. This was a question Naruto didn't know the answer to so he dropped it for now.

Besides, it was the second Thursday of the month. It was today that a lot of the boys around his age would gather in the park for a large soccer game. Naruto actually enjoyed playing this, seeing as he wasn't shunned by every adult the moment he stepped foot in the park.

On his way to the park, Naruto managed to pass Neji, walking along with his father. Neji gave Naruto a slight wave and Naruto returned the gesture before the two went their separate ways. Naruto couldn't help but feel a warm sense of accomplishment for helping save Neji from the loneliness that he had faced in the previous timeline. This Neji was actually happy and seemed to be rather carefree.

Naruto arrived at the park, around the time when everyone else was getting there. The teams were picked and thankfully, the same mistake wasn't made like it was the last time they played. Everyone learned that Naruto and Sasuke had to be on opposite teams or else they would just dominate the other team by themselves. Basically, the two needed to be on opposite teams to cancel each other out, and this only helped to fuel the rivalry that was already going on between the two friends.

Playing the game was Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba, Shikamaru, Chouji, and a few other boys that Naruto didn't know very well. There was also one boy, a newcomer, that had shiny black hair and rather large, round eyes. The most defining feature though was the eyebrows. "Is that Lee?" was all Naruto could think.

"Hello, I'm Rock Lee. May I join you?" asked Lee, politely.

"Hey, I'm Namikaze Naruto. There's an open spot on my team if you want to join" said Naruto, offering an invitation to Lee. Lee graciously accepted and the game began. Already, the addition of Lee onto Naruto's team showed to be a mistake, and not in a bad way. Lee had skill and the physical stamina to keep up with Naruto and Sasuke, threatening to throw off the balance that used to be present. But still, it was merely a game and no one cared much as to who joined in, they would just need to find someone with the ability to match Lee. Naruto was a bit surprised at this. He was certain Lee had not met Gai-sensei yet and already he was in good physical shape.

Naruto's attention however, was drawn away from the game when he noticed that there were a few girls off to the side playing by themselves. One of them was most definitely one Yamanaka Ino as she had blonde hair, a hair color that Naruto remembered only Ino and her family and himself having in the village. He looked at a few other girls, most of which he didn't recognize, but then he caught a glimpse of pink behind Ino. "Sakura-cha…umph" was all Naruto could say before getting pelted in the side of the head with the soccer ball.

Naruto opened his eyes a moment later to see Sasuke standing over him. "Hey, quit being a dobe and pay attention" said Sasuke. Naruto twitched at the mentioning of 'dobe' and that did not go unnoticed to Sasuke. Naruto got to his feet and rubbed the side of his head. Before getting back into the game, Naruto took another glance over at where the girls were and saw Sakura again.

"Don't worry Sakura-chan, even if you don't remember, I'll keep my promise to you. I'll make sure Sasuke is safe" thought Naruto before getting back into the game.

Author Notes

Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

I apologize for time skipping two years in this chapter, but I felt that it was better than going over every time Naruto and Sasuke got together. The next chapter will be the start of the academy and that is where a lot of things developmental wise will begin.

As of now, Naruto can use the academy three jutsus, and his personal favorite, the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. The Kage Bunshin, in my mind, does not require good chakra control as long as you have enough chakra to force into the jutsu, which Naruto has. Publicly, he can only use the Henge as that is the only jutsu people have knowledge of him knowing. Also, Sasuke knows the Henge as well.

Also, Minato has eliminated the tradition surrounding the formation of the team where the top students and dobe of each class are placed on a team together. I want to ask a few questions on how you would like to see the teams done and a few other things. (just answer these in a comment or PM):

Do I leave the teams the same as the original timeline? If not, then do I only use the rookie 9 to form the three teams or should I bring in some OCs? (I will say this though, the InoShikaCho, aka Team 10, will remain the same. That has proved to be a tradition that has worked well over the years)

Fan girls. Both Naruto and Sasuke will have them. Who would you like to see Sakura after and who would you like to see Ino after?

Please Review/Comment