DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own. I will take advice and suggestions from my readers while continuing the story; just leave a review or message me! I'm really interested to see what pairings you would like to see!

Thinking

Emphasis

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

"Wait: stop moving, hime! Just let me fix your hair a little! It's too big!"

Naruto really didn't like this Ino girl very much. She was so bossy - something she already knew - but now she was pulling her hair into two giant pigtails which creeped her out. "Pigtails:" hmph! It made her think of TonTon and she didn't want to look like a piggy, no matter how cute little TonTon was. If this girl puts pearls on me, I'm letting Nii-san eat her.

"How are you going to get a boyfriend if you leave your hair like this?" Ino asked, genuinely concerned.

"I'm four," Naruto deadpanned.

"Yeah! But you're going to be 5 soon, ne? Just like me! Daddy said our birthdays are a month apart!"

Naruto pouted at that. She thought that Bossy Ino was older than her, like all the other kids she'd met thus far. It was really frustrating being so much smaller than all of them. Nii-san had told her that her "horrible mother was tall for a flesh bag," so that made her feel even more humiliated about her size. Her father? That guy was some kind of weirdo that got turned into stone by a jutsu, according to Nii-san. Naruto had seen his giant head before, peeking out of the side of the mountain: he had to have been HUGE. The only thing that made her feel better at this point was that Kiba-kun and Ino-chan were super immature. "OUCH," Naruto shouted at a particularly sharp tug at her scalp, "Goddamn you, Ino-chan! Don't make me kick your ass!"

Ino had the nerve to just laugh while she tied an orange ribbon around Naruto's left pigtail. "Daddy says you shouldn't curse. Do you know any good ones? Mommy curses at him when she says he's being stupid, and my favorite one so far is 'asshole.'"

"Troublesome."

"That's not a curse word, Lazy!" Ino yelled.

Naruto flinched at the girl's loud high-pitched screech. "I think it might be, actually," she mumbled before yelling again. Shikamaru-kun said that word a LOT. She slapped Ino-chan's hands away from her before noticing the scandalized look still on Choji-kun's face. "Can I have a chip?"

"No."

"Asshole," both girls said before laughing out loud, although Naruto was quieter about it than the other blonde.

"Mom says dinner's ready! You can sit by me, Naru-hime," Kiba said. Naruto swore he was openly salivating. Hearing a low growl, she realized Tou-nii had snuck up on them and was now glaring at the dog-boy with his one visible eye behind his orange book.

"She'll sit by me, kid. What are you wearing, Naru-chan?" Kakashi asked, not really understanding what he was seeing. Naruto was covered in something orange and shiny that was hanging all over her. It definitely wasn't the cute little puppy shirt and black shorts she was wearing earlier.

"Gai-san gave it to me! Isn't it pretty?"

"No," Kakashi replied. He needed to find Gai and kick his ass. This would be no contest.

"Asshole!" Ino and Naruto snarked at him. Ino continued, "You can't tell a girl that something's not pretty! If she thinks it's pretty then it's pretty, dummy! Even if what hime's wearing is grotesque!"

Naruto called Ino a bitch for that comment, which Ino noted was another very good curse word, indeed. Kiba remarked that "bitch" was not a curse word at all, then began to go through all of the bitches he knew before Kakashi bonked him on the head.

"DINNER'S READY!" Tsume bellowed from another room.

Kakashi was painfully aware of what an introvert he was, and this gathering of the noisiest and some of the nosiest people in Konoha was just too much! At least Naruto's happy, and yikes: at least Anko's not here, too. He shivered at the thought of Gai and Anko being in the same room with the rest of these loudmouths. He really needed to ensure that the two weirdest people in Konoha didn't ever get together: gods forbid they have offspring. His quick mind tortured him with an image of a green spandex-wearing chibi snake wielder of youth, screaming to challenge him and Naruto in the streets. Oh dear God: if that happened, the bastard would make me the spawn's godfather, wouldn't he?

In a small dango shop in the center of the village, a purple-haired woman sneezed out bits of her dumpling. "Someone's thinkin' about me!"

"Anko! Honestly, your manners," her friend, Kurenai, scolded her as she quickly handed the snake mistress a napkin.

"Thanks, Nai-chan. Oi, I was just thinkin'... Have you ever noticed what a great ass Gai-san has?!" Kurenai spit sake through her nose. "Who's got shit manners now, Nai-chan?! But seriously! The guy's got buns of steel, I'm tellin' ya!"

"Are you alright, Rival?!" Gai pounded Kakashi on the back a few times, making the man nearly spit out his potatoes through the mask he was keeping up through a genjutsu. Kakashi nodded at him and quickly grabbed a drink of water. As always, all attention became focused on him as he drank through his "mask."

It made Kakashi terribly uncomfortable, which was why he nearly always swallowed his food whole when eating around other people. Dining with others was something he avoided as much as possible.

"Why do you wear a mask, Hatake-san? Is it because you're terribly ugly?" Ino asked, a pitying expression on her face. Her mother scolded her, but her daddy repeated the question in a silly voice to the silver-haired teenager. Daddy's so cool.

Children are horrible, Kakashi thought. Naruto seemed to be getting along better with Ino-chan, at least, which was a relationship he was determined to make work, even if the paler blonde was a nightmare. The fact that Naruto and Ino were continuing to whisper to each other in order to compare bad words they knew and could use in different ways didn't make him feel much better about it, but what else could he do? All the rest of the brats her age were boys and little punks at that. Kiba-chan might even have to be eliminated before hitting puberty if he keeps looking at her like that.

Tsume-san finally came to his rescue to stop a rather long and, for Kakashi, mentally exhausting conversation regarding what could be under his mask. He realized that Ino-chan was now talking about love, boyfriends, and marriage, and changed his mind, determining that this girl wouldn't do at all as a friend for sensei's daughter. At least the Nara brat looked as horrified with the discussion as he, himself, felt. To make matters worse, he looked over just in time to see that Tsume's oldest child, a prepubescent girl, staring at him with goo-goo eyes. Bleh!

"...and there's this boy! Sasuke-kun is the most handsomest, strongest ninja of our age! I'm going to be his wife and someday I'll be Uchiha-Yamanaka Ino-sama!"

Ignoring the loud groan coming from the Yamanaka Clan Head and his teammates chuckles at the poor father's expense, Kakashi decided then and there that Naruto will never meet this or any other Uchiha. Gods knew that all the Uchihas stupidly good looks always got them attention, and worse: plenty of action, from what he'd heard. Despite their overwhelmingly shitty personalities. I'll also need to ensure that Naru-chan can kick this boy's ass sideways. "How old is he?" Kakashi asked the table in general.

"Troublesome. Same age as the kids," Shikaku said before yawning openly and loudly. His wife slapped him in the stomach for being rude. "He's Fu and Miko's second son. Their first, Itachi-kun, is already a Chunin." The adult's conversation flowed into what a bad decision it is to send children out into the field so early, making Kakashi feel uncomfortable again. He made Genin at 5, Chunin at 6, and it was just the way it was; he never thought of doing anything else. Gai was being too loud beside him and he only caught the end of Naruto's eventual response to little Ino.

"Huh. I guess if I HAD to marry somebody, I'd marry Tou-nii! And he's not ugly! He's normal!"

Kakashi felt a panic attack approaching and it wasn't until Gai slapped a paper bag against his face that he realized he'd been hyperventilating. What did I do wrong?! I - oh gods! I've even let her sleep in my bed! He was so freaked out that he didn't realize that the children had left to go see the new puppies. The conversation around him only sounded like ringing in his ears as he was surrounded by concerned faces. Fortunately, Inoichi-san made the others leave the room.

"The war? Minato?" Kakashi's eyes shot open wider and Inoichi gave Kakashi the paper bag again. After a few more guesses and hand signs between the two of them, Inoichi began to chuckle, which obviously pissed Kakashi off enough to calm him down, the Jonin's shinobi instincts kicking in. "Don't tell me your reaction was due to what the princess said!" Seeing Kakashi pale again, he scolded the teen. "I thought I told you to read those child psychology books, brat!" In a lower voice, he continued, pushing back his hair and pulling at his long blonde ponytail. "You're really lucky, you know? It won't last for long, I can tell you..."

"Pedophile," Kakashi muttered. He got smacked hard in the head.

"Fuck you, Hatake - I hate pedophiles more than fucking rogues. I hate 'em more than Iwa!" He sat down glumly beside his silver-haired comrade and patient. "Just you wait... You know, it was only a short time ago that I was Ino-chan's world," he said sadly, staring straight ahead of him as he remembered his little girl saying about him just what little Naruto had said about Kakashi, so innocent and admiring of her father. "Now - gods... Now there's this little Uchiha shit that she actually spies on, and ugh! The squealing! I would feel sorry for the little brat, but that boy's forced my daughter's attention on him!"

Kakashi couldn't help but feel better and finally chuckle at the man's pouty expression. Inoichi smacked him again for finding humor in his misery, and Kakashi could finally breathe normally. Yeah, he remembered now reading about normal versus abnormal behavior in small children, and Naruto was all over the place. Having been kidnapped and - he didn't want to even think of the word to describe what she had been through with the Snake... She was in some ways much more mature than her peers, and in other ways, she was behind them in their development. From week to week he saw differences in her, though: positive changes. She's just an innocent little girl, he reminded himself.

Kakashi didn't notice Inoichi's eyes widen when he pulled down his mask and took a long drink of water.

Although Kakashi knew that Minato should be the one the little girl admired, it was kinda nice to have someone that didn't see him as a blood-soaked monster or simply a tool for his village. "Thanks, Inoichi-san."

Little did Kakashi know that it would only be a few months later when he'd see Naruto blushing as she put a flower crown on the Uchiha heir's head.

"You got it." Inoichi was very pleased to not only see that the brat was now calm, but that Kakashi had also trusted him enough to see his face. Who knew? His face is "normal," indeed!

The distant screams of the children and incredibly heavy pressure from enormous chakra caused them to sunshin to the nearby kennels.

Shikamaru sat on his knees panting, trying to make his shadow continue to hold the worker who had just attacked Naruto. The kunai he'd used had nearly made it all the way up her cheek to her eye. He fell to the ground at his father's presence. He'd read about the shadow strangulation jutsu, but had never seen it in use before now. He could only lay in the dirt, his chakra nearly exhausted, until his Uncle Chouza picked him and Choji up to sling across his broad shoulders. The last thing he noticed before he passed out was that Naruto's deeply cut cheek was steaming and the edges of it were healing. Interesting.

Naruto was just staring into the dark cell, trying with all her might to hold back Nii-san from destroying not only the man who'd attacked her but the entire village additionally. Finally, she recognized that Tou-nii was holding her tight - and also panicking like he so often did - but she just couldn't make her mouth work to say that she was okay. She was really scared. Snake said he was going to give her new eyes. Was that man going to do it right there? She hadn't even felt him!

"That's because he's a civilian, kit!" Kurama nii-san had finally calmed down enough to let her get close and bury herself in his scratchy fur. "What have I told you, Naruto?! I felt his intentions, but you were just so damn stupid-happy to be holding a whelp of all things!"

Making things worse for the bijuu, he could sense that her asshole father and mother's stupid chakra impressions had activated once again. When the hell will they just give up and get the fuck out of here?! Sharing a small cage with the idiot that ripped him in half, the bitch who'd nailed his tails with trees to a planetoid, and little Naruto was a right pain in his awe-inspiring ass. Meh, at least Asura is in here somewhere being all peace-loving and stupid...

Feeling the exhaustion from stopping a giant fox's rampage, she fell asleep in both his orange fur in her mindscape and against her dad's silver hair as he whisked her home.