Hey y'all. I'm back with chapter 2 of A debt Unpaid. If you guys like what you read please drop a review it would make my day. I love any kind of feedback. Enjoy!
The hallway was eerily silent, save for the echoing of Kakashi's footsteps as he navigated the winding maze that was Konoha's Shinobi Hospital. His destination was the room of one Naruto Uzumaki, the young boy he had just taken guardianship of just a few hours prior.
As he followed the directions given to him by the Hokage earlier that morning the young shinobi took stock of his current predicament. He, a sixteen year old assassin "well former assassin now I guess" was now fully responsible for the life and wellbeing of a toddler, and not just any toddler but the son of his former Sensei who also happened to be the container of the most fearsome demon to ever stalk the Earth.
He ran his hand through his silver hair as he turned the last corner to reach the child's room, now so close to his destination his anticipation began to rise. As he reached the door to his new ward's assigned space he paused just before grabbing the handle.
"This is it." he told himself. "Come on Kakashi you can do this. He's just a baby, you've killed A-Rank ninja with your bare hands you can handle an infant"
After gathering his courage he turned the handle and slowly opened the door. Upon stepping inside, the former anbu was greeted by the sight of what at first glance appeared to be an empty hospital room.
The teen was about to walk out and try to find a nurse, while cursing the old hokage for giving him the wrong room number when he heard what sounded like light snoring coming from the small closet near the bathroom. The teen stepped toward the door and eased it open. He was surprised to find a small blond boy curled up on a pillow that looked to have been dragged from the bed.
"Huh, that's not weird at all." the young jonin said quietly to himself in an attempt not to wake the sleeping boy at his feet.
At this point Kakashi wasn't really sure what to do, should he pick the boy up and place him in his bed at the risk of waking him or call a nurse to have them come grab him. Unable to make up his mind he settled for just studying the young boy before him, and analyzing his appearance in his thoughts.
"He's small for his age, probably from under feeding." The teen thought darkly as he scowled beneath his mask. He didn't notice any visible signs of injury which was a small relief. His eyes then traveled up from the boy's small body up to his golden topped head. He chuckled to himself as he saw a small line of drool escaping the child's mouth and dripping onto his pillow.
"He looks more like his mother when he sleeps." he thought to himself lightly, before his attention was then brought to the three black lines adorning the boy's cheek. The signs marking him as the vessel of the Nine Tailed Fox.
"I wonder if they're textured or just a change in pigmentation?" he mused.
Unable to help his curiosity he tentatively reached out and stroked the boys cheek along the marks in an attempt to ascertain their origin.
What he did not expect was the foreign touch to wake the small boy who in his confusion and fright chose to sink his small front teeth into the teens hand.
"OW Shit!" the ninja yelped as he instinctively ripped his hand away from the boy and jumped back.
"He freaking bit me!" he thought incredulously, watching as the now awake infant's face began to scrunch up in apparent fear.
That's when it got loud.
"WAAAAAHH!" the baby began screaming as loud as his little lungs would let him. Large tears rolled down his cheeks as the young boy cried at a volume that could wake the dead.
At this point Kakashi was panicking.
"Ohshitohshitohshit, what do I do?" The usually unflappable silver haired jounin was looking around wildly as if a solution could be found somewhere else in the room all the while Naruto was on the floor screaming to all the world as if he had been stabbed.
"Great job Kakashi" he thought sarcastically "you've been his guardian for thirty minutes and you've already scarred him for life."
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he did the only thing he could think to do and reached down to grab the baby.
This turned out to be the wrong thing to do as Naruto then began to scream even louder at the contact.
"Hey kid listen you gotta calm down or you're gonna have the entire hospital on my ass.. Uh I mean butt… Don't say ass." The teen said in an attempt to reason with the boy.
Naruto either didn't hear him or didn't care "probably the latter" because he continued to scream at the top of his lungs.
Operating on pure instinct and memories of what he had seen other parents do with their kids in the past he pulled the child close to his chest and began rocking back and forth.
"Come on... buddy" he started awkwardly "it's alright now, I'm sorry I scared you. It's okay now, you're okay." The teen said in as soft and soothing a voice as he could muster.
After a moment Kakashi was relieved to see that it seemed to be working. The boy's cries gradually began to die down until they stopped completely. After Naruto had been silent for a few moments Kakashi took a risk and stopped his rocking to peek down at his charge.
The little blonde was passed out in his arms, face red from the screaming and with tear tracks down his little whiskered cheeks.
Kakashi couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped his lips as he took in the now sleeping child.
"All that screaming must have worn him out." the young jounin thought to himself. "I should probably put him down before he wakes up and we have an encore."
The teen then stepped over to the bed and began to gently lower the boy to the mattress when Naruto suddenly started whimpering. Stopping his movements he brought the child back to his chest and the noise stopped.
After a few moments he started to lower the child again, thinking. "Alright lets try this one more time."
Once again as soon as the baby left Kakashi's chest he started to whimper. Sighing in resignation the teen drew the child back up to his chest and accepted his fate.
"Well so much for that plan." he mumbled to himself
Seeing no other option he sat down in the chair by the bed and decided to wait for Naruto to fall into a deeper sleep so he could then extract the boy from his arms.
As the teen sat he again looked down at the child sleeping in his arms.
"He's pretty cute when he's not screaming" the tired shinobi thought with a small smile beneath his face mask. He then leaned his head back against the headrest of the chair and closed his eyes.
As they rested together the older of the two males began to contemplate his next steps.
There was so much he had to do before he could bring Naruto home. He had to buy clothes and bottles and cups and diapers, and every other thing on the mile long list of equipment required to care for babies. He also had to baby proof his apartment, which in and of itself was going to be a nightmare.
While Kakashi didn't have much in the way of personal belongings everything he did have was decidedly not baby friendly. Especially because most of it consisted of either weapons or porn, ahem literature.
Speaking of which he now wished he had brought his copy of Jiraiya-sama's latest book, it would have given him something to do besides sit here and freak out about how woefully unprepared he was for the monumental task he had set before him.
As he stared up and the tiled ceiling he couldn't help but think of his former sensei. Would he be happy that Kakashi was taking his son in as he had done for him, or would he be angry that his son's life was now in the hands of someone obviously in over their head.
Lightly shaking himself to dispel the thoughts plaguing him he closed his uncovered eye and decided to follow Naruto's example and try to get some rest.
Kakashi was suddenly awoken to the sensation of someone pulling at his mask. Instincts born from years of conditioning from many similar attempts had him quickly catching the offending appendage in a firm grip.
The teen let out a quiet groan, back aching from sleeping in a chair. He glanced towards the window and saw that the sun was now resting high in the sky, meaning it had been at least four hours since he had fallen asleep with the baby.
Speaking of the baby, the teens attention was then drawn back to the arm in his grip by the slight pulls of its owner trying to free it.
He looked down and saw two bright blue eyes staring up at him curiously as their possessor tried to wriggle his small arm out of Kakashi's grip.
Feeling the boy's attempts to free himself, the teen released his arm and stared down at the small child on his lap.
Blue met charcoal as the two stared at each other until Naruto deciding he'd had enough of the silence broke the ice by apparently trying to do his best impression of a goat.
"Baaaaa" the small child stated with a very serious look on his face.
Kakashi wasn't quite sure how to respond to that so he went for the basics.
"Hello Naruto, my name is Kakashi." the teen then placed a hand on his chest as he continued..
"Can you say Kakashi?"
After staring for a moment the toddler stood up in the teens lap and put his hands on his chest and spoke.
"Kaaaa." the boy said proudly with a beaming smile on his face.
Kakashi chuckled "Not quite buddy lets try again, say Kakashi"
Still smiling the boy spoke again "Kaka" he then giggled as if he found it funny to say
"Kaka kaka kaka kaka kaka" He said over and over laughing the whole time, before suddenly stopping and holding his stomach as it rumbled loudly.
The silver haired jounin found himself smiling at the blondes' antics as he stood up still holding the toddler.
"Eh I can live with that, now lets see if we can get you something to eat."
After wandering back out into the halls for a moment he was able to find a nurse and secure some milk and oatmeal for Naruto to have for breakfast. The nurse was even kind enough to give Kakashi a banana for himself.
Feeding the toddler was surprisingly much easier than Kakashi thought it would be. Naruto could hold his small sippy cup on his own, and he obediently opened his mouth every time Kakashi offered him a spoonful of the fruit filled mush.
The only time it got a little tricky was when Naruto had finished all of his breakfast and decided he was still hungry.
The little boy's bottom lip poked out and his eyes began watering, but just as he was about to work up a full crying fit Kakashi managed to avert the crisis by giving the small boy a piece of his banana.
Naruto made a humming noise of contentment as he munched on the fruit that the now dubbed "Kaka" had given him. Unfortunately it was now time for the teen to go. He had quite a bit of shopping to take care of if he wanted to be able to bring Naruto home the next morning.
So it was with a surprisingly heavy heart that he had to alert a nurse that he was leaving and set Naruto back into his bed. Luckily this time the blonde didn't cry when he was sat down, but his eyes never left the cycloptic jounin, watching him as he spoke with the nurse and informed her that he would be back later that night to sit with the boy..
"Okay Naruto I've gotta go now alright." The teen began in a soft voice. "But I will be back later to see you okay?
The blonde child didn't say anything he just kept staring at the teen.
"Ok bye buddy, bye bye" The teen said as he waved at the boy.
This time the child did respond, with his head cocked to the side he questioned. "Kaka?"
Kakashi just kept waving as he backed out the door and pushed it shut.
"Well that was easier than I expected." the teen said to himself as he turned to leave.
He realized he had spoken too soon as he suddenly heard Naruto wailing..
It was a heart wrenching sound that made his insides feel as if they'd been turned to lead. He was surprised to find that he had the immediate urge to rush back into the room and gather the boy up in his arms to quiet his despairing cries.
He started to turn around intending to do just that, but his more practical side squashed the notion.
"He will be fine, he's literally only known I exist for thirty minutes at this point "the incident this morning didn't count" and I will only be gone long enough to prep the house and do a little shopping. We're talking five hours at most he can handle it"
Kakashi was then brought out of his thoughts by a particularly loud cry of "KAKAAAA"
The hardened shinobi's resolve immediately crumbled "Aww screw it."
He then made a cross shaped hand sign and suddenly an identical Kakashi was standing next to him.
"What's the point of being able to use the Shadow Clone Justu if you can't abuse it, Right?" He thought before turning to his clone.
"Go back in there and comfort the boy. Stay with him until I get back, under no circumstances barring an endangerment to his life are you to allow yourself to be dispelled."
"I can only imagine the therapy that would be required if Naruto was to watch me suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke" he thought exasperatedly
He then spoke again " If anything happens create another clone and dispel it, but only once I dont have the chakra to keep making you guys."
The clone nodded and with a two finger salute turned, and headed back to the room to soothe the distraught child.
With that problem taken care of Kakashi then quickly continued his trek to the exit. He had a lot to get done and a short amount of time to do it, and if he was being honest with himself he wanted to get back to Naruto as soon as possible.
Though he had only been around him for a short time the sunny haired boy was already growing on the cycloptic teen. "Maybe this won't be as bad as I had originally thought."
"Ok this is definitely as bad as I thought it was gonna be." The silver haired jounin complained to himself as he held Naruto's legs in the air while he cleaned the boy up after a particularly nasty diaper change.
It had been a week since he had brought the young boy home from the hospital, and the teenager was already at his wits end. He had thought that his anbu training had been bad, but it was nothing compared to wrangling a hyperactive almost two year old.
The boy was impossible. He literally never slowed down unless sleeping, and even then he tossed and turned all over his bed. Three times this week Kakashi had been woken up to screaming because the boy jerked in his sleep and banged his head on his crib's railing.
The worst part though was his curiosity. He had to pick up everything, and once it was picked up it was then immediately placed in his mouth. Kakashi had pulled more trash out of the boy's maw than he cared to remember.
They almost ended up having to go back to the hospital when Naruto found one of Kakashi's shuriken from where it had been forgotten under his couch.
The teen had never moved faster in his life, an outside observer would've thought he used a sealess shunshin, because he was on the opposite side of the apartment but somehow managed to snatch the weapon out of the boy's hand just as it passed his lips.
They then had a very long conversation about not touching Kaka's pointy things.
Well conversation may have been too strong of a word.
It was mostly Kakashi lecturing the boy while the child in question just smiled up at him with those big blue eyes and giggled. The giggling was then quickly replaced with tears when Kakashi decided to use his Anbu Captain voice to finish the scolding once he realized Naruto wasn't understanding him.
Even If he couldn't get the words he could definitely understand the tone.
The teen shook his head of the memory as he finished diapering the squirming blond on the table in front of him. Today they would be going to the Hokages office to finalize the adoption paperwork.
While he had been given temporary custody the previous week, at the time they didn't have all the necessary documents together to process the full adoption. Kakashi had been informed by one of the Hokage's personal anbu yesterday that everything was ready and his presence had been requested at noon the following day.
So after packing a bag with everything Naruto could possibly need while they were gone, and getting him dressed in his little blue shorts and his yellow t-shirt with a dog on the front that said "Dogs are better than people." the pair set out on their way.
Not wanting to deal with walking through Konoha's populace Kakashi took to the rooftops while holding tightly to the blond in his arms. At first the teen was worried his young passenger might be scared but his worries were quickly put to rest when he saw the boy beaming and heard him laughing in delight.
When they finally arrived at their destination Kakashi gave the boy a quick once over to make sure nothing was out of place. While the teen was inspecting him Naruto reached up and grabbed Kakashi's face "Kaka gan, gan Kaka gan."
The silver haired jounin chuckled before responding as they walked in "Not right now buddy, we can go again after we visit the Hokage."
After checking in with the secretary they were quickly ushered into the old Hokage's office.
"Hello boys, glad to see that you made it, and almost on time too" the hokage said from his large seat behind his desk.
"Well you see we would've gotten here sooner, but just as we were walking out somebody decided to use the bathroom." the teen responded before adding "and this time it wasn't me"
Sarutobi chuckled "Well as long as you both made it I guess I won't complain."
It was at this point that Naruto saw the old hokage and he immediately began to squirm to get out of Kakashi's arms.
"JIJI JIJI JIJI" the little boy squealed as Kakashi set him down and he rushed over to jump into the village leader's lap.
Kakashi quickly squashed the twinge of jealousy at the fact that Naruto had practically ran away from him to get to the Hokage.
"Ah Naruto my boy, and how are you doing this afternoon." the old man stated before putting on a large smile as he sat and listened to the toddler rattle off nonsense in response with a few distinguishable words thrown in.
"Wonderful, it sounds like you and Kaksahi have been having a great time."
After hearing his guardians name spoken the young boy quickly looked back to the man he arrived with and as if he had forgotten he was there, yelled "KAKA! '' then wiggled down out of the older man's lap and ran back to the teen. Upon reaching him he stretched his arms up and Kakashi quickly approved his unspoken request and hefted the boy up into his arms.
Hiruzen watched all this with a knowing smile on his face. "It looks as if you two are getting along rather well."
The former anbu nodded in response before adding "Yes Hokage-Sama, everything has gone better than expected." he paused thinking back over some of the mis-haps from the past week. "Minus a few hiccups here and there."
The old man laughed again. "I'm glad to hear it, I've often said there a few things as rewarding or difficult as raising a child."
The teen nodded again in response agreeing emphatically with the difficult part.
Still smiling, Hiruzen then pulled a stack of forms out from the drawer of his desk. "This is all the paperwork that needs your signature for Naruto's adoption." the old man said as he handed the teen a pen.
Kakashi set Naruto down and grabbed a sippy cup full of juice, and a small container of animal crackers from his bag. He handed naruto the cup and set the container on the ground in front of the sitting toddler.
"Here you go buddy have your snack while Kaka talks to Jiji for a minute, okay?" The boy made a happy humming noise of acknowledgement as he devoured the small animals.
The teen then straightened and walked back over to the Hokage's desk. He took a moment to read over the papers signing each line as required until he got to the last page.
"Upon adoption the child's name shall be legally changed to Naruto Hatake." the teen read questioningly before adding "Why would you add that?"
The old Hokage sighed, he had suspected the young jounin would take issue with that part of the fine print. "It's a necessary change, it's just one more level of security for Naruto."
At seeing the teen's look of confusion he continued "I originally gave Naruto the Uzumaki surname of his Mother, as a way of protecting him from his father's legacy while still allowing the boy some sort of connection to his parents even if he didn't know it, but now since you are taking him in this allows for an even better solution."
He paused to stand up and walk over to the window overlooking the village before continuing.
Minato and Kushina's relationship was not a secret. While only a few knew she was with child, almost everyone knew she and the fourth were in love. Even other villages were aware of their connection since they were often seen on the battlefield together fighting alongside each other.. A blonde haired blue eyed boy with the surname of the Yellow Flashes lover"
He paused again this time turning back to Kaksahi, "it's not a difficult leap to connect them all together. Honestly we have been lucky that no one has made the connection thus far."
The former anbu nodded in understanding as he digested the old man's words. His practical side could see the obvious merit in the idea. The Hatake surname, while once feared, was nowhere near as memorable as Uzumaki or Namikaze. This would help to throw any of the foreign villages with a grudge off of Naruto's scent.
The more emotional side, which seemed to be interfering a lot more as of late, was taking a completely different route.
Kakashi himself was the last of his family, and given his personality and preferred choice of missions odds were his name would've died with him. Now though through Naruto his family could live on, as the teen couldn't see himself having any more children considering the one he had now was more than enough of a handful.
At that thought Kakashi froze.
That was the first time he had actually acknowledged the fact that Naruto was his child now. After he signed this last paper he would have a son. It was all there in black and white, Naruto Hatake. All of his insecurities came rushing back. Was he really sure he could do this, could he truly raise a child?
The teen then turned slightly and watched as Naruto happily munched on a miniature elephant, all the while humming happily to himself.
The boy must have felt Kakashi's eyes on him as he turned and charcoal black met ocean blue. The blonde's face immediately lit up, as he stood on his little legs and ran over and wrapped his arms around his Kaka's thigh.
Smiling softly, Kakashi reached down and ruffled the boy's hair.
He then turned back to the Hokage who now had on a smile of his own, and with all indecision gone from his mind signed the last paper. He then passed the forms back to Hiruzen who stamped his seal on the bottom and it was finished.
"Well there we go" the elder ninja began
"Now that all of that is squared away why don't I treat the two of you to a nice lunch in congratulations. I know of a lovely little Ramen stand just a few minutes away from the tower we could go to."
Kakashi responded as he bent down cleaning up Naruto's mess, and grabbing the boy himself.
"We'd be honored Hokage-Sama, please lead the way"
The three then set out for a small stand by the name of Ichiraku's, not knowing that their lunch choice would be the second life changing event for young Naruto Hatake that day.