DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.
Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naruto speaking to Kurama, etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
Naruto sat on one of the small beds inside the sparse room and waited for her father to come back in: her daddy, not her papa, (who was a normal-sized Yondaime.) Even if the ANBU people in the hallway had been nice to her, being underground was creepy and brought back horrible memories. She wasn't sure what was happening, only that her family didn't like it, and that Drunk Granny, her shishou, was being sent away.
Thinking about the old woman yelling at Jiji made Naru's heart race; it made it hard for her to breathe.
W- Was - was there air down here at all?!
If Drunk Granny left, would that mean that Shizuneechan would go away, too? Shizuneechan always followed Drunk Granny everywhere. And would Pervy Granddad follow, cuz Naruto KNOWS that old toad loves Tsunade-shishou and wants to be her husband.
Hashi-kun was missing... was she about to be "missing" again? Was it really so bad to fight back so she wouldn't be taken away and lose her family? She didn't want to go back to Lord Orochi-that SNAKE.
Slowly climbing off the bed she'd been left on, Naruto scooched down to the floor. It was cold. It was just like the snake's cave. She needed to hide.
"Naru?"
It was Kakashi's voice but Naruto couldn't reach him. Daddy... She could only see blackness and maybe a circle of light that was going out, like a flashlight that was turning into dying candlelight. Don't forget his name, don't forget your name: Kakashi, Naruto - no. Kakashi, Naru... Hatake.
"Speak child!"
"...You're pathetic! Get up! Kabuto, I don't care if the little bitch is biting and kicking, whether she's channeling the Kyuubi's..."
"There you are! You scared me," Kakashi said as he peered under the bed. "Naru? Are you alright?"
Considering that his daughter tried to bite him after hissing at him like a cat, she was not.
"Maa, it's cold down here, ne?" He received another hiss in response. "Alright. I'm just going to stay right here and you can come out whenever you're ready." Completely exhausted or not, disgusted with the Sandaime and wanting to kill Danzo or not, this was too big of a deal. "Naru, I am not leaving you," he said firmly. Kakashi watched the little blonde move further into the corner before she finally fell asleep. He unintentionally fell asleep almost immediately afterward.
Waking up on the floor in the ANBU quarters was worse than he remembered. Minato-sensei and his friends had taken him out one night and allowed him to have a drink (it was strong, he told himself: either that or his soda had been spiked, too) when he made ANBU, and he'd made a fool out of himself doing sad karaoke. It was said that Kushina was so mad about it, she'd punched him off the stage he had refused to leave and dragged him by his ankle all the way back to the ANBU barracks, leaving him to sober up on the floor. He was lucky compared to the "chaining" Minato-sensei was said to have received.
He wasn't sure that story was entirely true, but he did wake up on the floor. And sensei did have a bruised jaw the next day...
Biting his thumb underneath his mask, Kakashi summoned Pakkun. "Yo."
"Yo," Pakkun replied similarly before sitting back down and scratching a really annoying spot on his stomach. Kakashi had interrupted him from getting at it just right. "Why are you on the floor?" His summoner pointed underneath it, then looked back at him curiously before he sniffed at the room. "Why is she in the barracks? Why are YOU here?"
"Tsunade-hime's been forced on 'sabbatical.' I'm assuming Shizune will accompany her, and Jiraiya is looking for dirt on Danzo and the guy who attacked sensei: he says he's Madara. Hashi-kun's been taken," Kakashi explained succinctly.
"Uchiha Madara? I thought he was dead... He must be really old," Pakkun said reasonably. "Why's the pup under the bed? The floor's cold! And where are you going?"
"Nowhere," Kakashi replied but got up and laid down on the other bed, groaning like an old man. "Can you get Naru-chan out please?"
Pakkun ducked his head but easily walked under the bed, grumbling about lazy summoners. Deciding not to wake the girl - it was better like that with puppies - he bit the back of the large shirt she was wearing and dragged her out. He'd dragged Kakashi out from under beds before, and if she was anything like her adopted father, Naru would be a feral little nightmare when she woke up. "You have to put her on the bed."
Kakashi stretched and shrugged, tucking his daughter in beside him. She was whining in her sleep, and Kakashi once again thought about going rogue. He had KNOWN that living in the underground ANBU barracks was a bad idea for her, and here was proof of it, the very first night. Hell, after the things he saw in that cave full of Orochimaru's experiments and dead children, he had found it difficult to walk back into the underground ANBU HQ.
He could stay alive if he went rogue: of that, he was positive, but Naru was a little girl. Skilled or not, there was only so fast a small body could move, only so far it could travel in a day. The more Naru whimpered in her sleep, the more Kakashi weighed his options.
Things did get better.
Once again, Inoichi's ongoing help was both needed and appreciated, and because he nearly always brought Ino with him, Naru didn't feel completely chibi-friendless. It still hurt her, only seeing her best friend once a week for an hour or so at a time.
Angry at being otherwise separated, the vengeful pranks the two girls came up with were beginning to verge on what Kakashi would deem as threatening to the village. Frankly, after everything they had been through, Kakashi didn't mind it.
Because Tsunade was (forced) out of the village again - which Kakashi thought was completely ridiculous since the village needed her incredible skills - Ino was the only person her age that Naru saw. The girls' study group wasn't meeting anymore, because as always, Shizune had chosen to leave with her mentor.
The hospital was already declining because of it, and Kakashi avoided it like the plague.
Naru's presence had changed HQ for the better - or at least made it more interesting. Colorful chalk graffiti and outlines of the world's most elaborate hopscotch puzzle lined many of the underground hallways from all over the ceiling down to the floor. Even the older shinobi who had first complained about it were now occasionally seen hopping over squares on the wall or ceilings, based on a very silly set of rules that ninjas would change as it suited them.
It had taken Naru a few months to get used to her new living arrangements, and lining half of their room with stuffed animals and painting the room orange - oh, the sacrifices he made for this kid - had helped her. It had also caused many fellow operatives to do the same, and because of that, HQ was much "homier" than it used to be.
The thing that drove Kakashi craziest was his daughter's crush on his youngest kohai. The two were drawn together almost unnaturally, although the fox - "Kurama," he reminded himself for the hundredth time with a shudder - didn't want her anywhere near an Uchiha.
Neither did Kakashi. Mikoto-san was alright: she'd always been kind to him, and he guessed that she was the one to convince the Uchiha clan head, her husband, to allow him to keep Obito's eye. ...Then there was this additional Uchiha pretending to be an idiot that came by at least once a week. His presence was painful for more than one reason. "What do you want, Shisui-san?"
If Obito had been able to reincarnate early, he would've been Shisui: Kakashi was certain of it. A constant pain in his backside, Uchiha Shisui was as skilled as his deceased older cousin turned out to be, if not more so, and probably just as kind.
But he liked occasionally hanging out with his Naru.
Supposedly it was because Itachi had a brother-complex and Shisui was jealous - he said as much - so he needed to show his younger cousin and heir to the Uchiha Clan up, using Naru as his supposed little sister.
"Mou, so cold, Kakashi-senpai," Shisui said in mock hurt. "I wanted to see if Naru-hime wanted to come out and play!"
"Yes!" Naruto nearly shrieked.
His daughter loved Shisui. Kakashi was pretty sure that she had a crush on him, too. How horrible.
"Maa, I don't think so, chibi. I was going to give you the summoning contract today." He had wanted to do it ever since that night but figured she was too young. He had summoned his first puppy (Pakkun) when he was younger than she was, however, plus it would prove the perfect excuse to keep her away from red-eyed potential daughter-stealers.
"REALLY?"
"Really," Kakashi agreed, ruffling her hair.
"Can I watch?" Shisui asked, mainly to be annoying, but also because Lord Danzo had assigned him this additional mission. It didn't mean he had to report everything he saw, though. Unless forced.
"Yes!" Naru exclaimed.
"No. Go away," Kakashi said at the same time, trying to shut the door to their horribly orange shared room. "You already have a summons."
"Are there flying dogs?" Naruto asked. She really liked the crows her senpais summoned. They had soft feathers, liked to be pet, and could see lots of stuff from way up high! She liked dogs more, but combine the two? They would be unstoppable, and super cool!
"Maa, I don't think so."
"Can we go outside?" Naruto asked in desperate hope.
Kakashi sighed but agreed. He could read his book outside just as well as he could read it inside. Jiraiya had put a transmission seal on it, which sometimes included ideas for his next book as well as asking about Naru and giving him updates on his (and sometimes Tsunade's) investigations and travels.
Thirty training grounds were reserved for ANBU, and Naru loved few things more than being outside. Sadly, rather than just playing like normal kids, Naru was often allowed (or asked - which always pissed him off) to participate in ANBU spars. The skills she'd been forced to primarily learn under Orochimaru's abuse, naturally, garnered a lot of attention. Fortunately, Kakashi knew that he was a threatening enough presence to keep his daughter out of the field, but he could already see that the time was coming when she'd be forced onto an ANBU team.
It wasn't right!
Even he, the Academy's youngest graduate, hadn't entered ANBU until he was a Jonin and 13, and that was mostly because as Hokage, Minato-sensei and his family were required to have ANBU guards - and his sensei wanted to keep him close. An assassin before he'd reached the grand old age of 10, Kakashi didn't want Naru to grow up similarly. While he was like the night, she was very much bright like the day: the sun.
Plus, she meant too much to him. He was deeply afraid that ANBU would ruin her.
Shisui, fortunately, took the hint and undoubtedly took off to go bother his cousin since Team Ro was off this morning. Kakashi found a sheltered spot between the nearby trees and pulled out one of his family's summoning contracts.
"Alright chibi," he said while rolling out the large scroll. "You have to use blood," he began and sighed when Naru, nearly as fast as her birth father, had grabbed one of his kunai and split open her entire palm. No matter how quickly she healed, he hated when she did things like this! "You didn't need so much blood, hime-chan. You know you can nick your thumb instead; don't do that again."
"Kay," she said, biting her lip under her blue mask. Naru never liked to disappoint her father. "Can I do it now?"
Kakashi nodded and Naru proudly signed her name on the scroll, right next to her father's. Putting a handprint down on top of it, she smiled when she saw how small her daddy's handprint looked on it, compared to the way his hands were so big now. It was unfair that his little handprint was still bigger than hers.
"Are you ready to summon your first puppy?"
"YES," Naru squealed. She was SO ready to have a bigger pack! Beginning to move through the required hand signs, Naru's thoughts were in a tizzy.
I'm going to raise her, and love her, and keep her with me all the time and...
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Naru cried and slammed her hand on the ground. A big seal appeared and... "Pakkun? Nooooo! I didn't want you!"
"How rude!" Pakkun sniffed. "You're the one who bothered me! I was on a date."
"Ooo! I want to meet your date."
"You'll be lucky if I let you touch my paws after the way you talked to me," Pakkun said coldly and began scratching behind his ear; that spot had been bothering him for nearly an hour, but he feared that he'd look like he had a tick and would turn his lady friend off.
He looked at his summoner - well, his other, main summoner now. What a pain. "Seriously, Kakashi: if she summons another one of us with that attitude, she'll never find a bitch to work with her." Kakashi groaned but agreed as Pakkun returned to his date, he guessed.
Honestly, aside from raising his rambunctious kid, his ninken led more interesting lives than he did.
"Taicho," Yugao interrupted, "we've got a mission." She turned toward Naru, making grabby hands, and squealed. "You look so CUTE today, Naru-chan!"
"Thank you, Yugao-oba," Naru muttered, looking like she'd eaten a bad egg. Her father didn't like it when she failed to thank the old people who said things like that but didn't get what being cute had to do with anything important.
Kakashi sighed and headed back inside, holding his gloved hand out for Naru to take. "You know the drill, kiddo: stay inside the complex while I'm gone. You can practice summoning the hounds, but don't put too much chakra into it. I honestly don't know how big the ninken get and don't want to hear about you causing another cave-in."
"Kay," the little blonde said, pouting. That had only happened one time, it could barely be counted as a cave-in, and he never gave it a rest. She waved at Shisui (and Itachi-kun, who was with him and the only person on her father's team who didn't live in the barracks.) As always, and especially because it was funny and Itachi was super cute, she tried to run up to give him a hug, cackling when her father grabbed her by the neck of her top before swinging her onto his back. "Have a good mission! I'll miss you," she said when he put her back down. "Come back safe, Daddy, everyone," she said sincerely.
Moments after they left, Rhino dropped from the ceiling. "Hatake," he said, surprising her by handing her a mask that looked like her father's but had a longer snout and ears. "Prepare for your first mission. We'll be leaving in 30." Nodding stupidly, Naru agreed. She wanted to be like her father(s) but knew that her dad was not going to be happy about this development at all. She was a shinobi of Konoha, though, so it's not like she could refuse. Running back to her room, the little blonde began preparing a scroll exactly like her father always did.
Shisui, in the meantime, took a deep breath, having seen the interaction as he was about to leave. He was supposed to report everything on not only his clan but also weekly regarding the Yondaime's daughter to Lord Danzo. The problem there was that he liked the kid, plus she was Hatake's adoptive daughter and Hatake was a scary motherfucker!
Deciding to follow her since he'd have to later report anyway, he waited in the shadows, hoping the kid would be too nervous about her first mission (in ANBU of all the fucked up places!) to sense him.
It turned out that she was...