"Eh, is it really okay for me to come in?" Naruto asked, toeing at the door frame with a faint anxiousness that didn't suit him. I knew what he was really asking, whether or not whoever was in there would be okay with him, and I beckoned him in. I'd encountered Naruto by chance at the market when I was carrying out my errands this afternoon, and feeling a certain obligation to, I invited him to come back with me for some tea and snacks.

"'Course! Imiki-nee doesn't mind," I assured him. Then I turned and called into the apartment, "Imiki-nee! I'm home, and I brought Naruto with me!"

We kicked off our shoes and, as per my direction, set the groceries down on the counter closest to the front entrance. As I padded in, I blanched at the realization that we had guests. Two unfamiliar men sat across from Imiki at our dining table, one with cool mist-coloured hair obscuring one of his calm eyes, and the other sporting vaguely familiar features of coal black eyes and dark hair that was a tad wild. I blinked at the scene, waiting for Imiki to deliver an explanation.

"Hi, Futaba-chan, Naruto-kun! Nice timing, you two—I just so happen to have guests of my own," my aunt explained sheepishly. "These are my former teammates from my genin days, Yokobue Waki and Uchiha Tairo." Imiki indicated the men across the table in turn, who smiled and waved at us kids with faces of varying enthusiasm. The one with light hair, Waki, I assumed, maintained his feeling of calm, while the Uchiha gave us both friendly smiles. I hoped I wasn't imagining things when I saw their gazes rest on Naruto a little longer.

"Oh," I replied dumbly.

The Uchiha—Uchiha Tairo, someone I hadn't seen walking around the compound at any point before—gave me a once-over. "She looks a lot like you, Imiki!"

"Maybe because we're related, Tairo," Imiki replied sarcastically.

I could feel the awkwardness radiating off of Naruto beside me, caught in a weird multi-guest encounter, and scrambled to get out of there. "Alright…we're going out, then."

Imiki redirected her attention back to me. "Oh, okay. Don't be out too late."

I muttered my assent and spun on my heel, making a stop by the refrigerator to grab the promised snacks, a whole pack of dango from the market, before dragging Naruto out the door with me. It was a little too weird to hang out at home when Imiki had her teammates over. I had also felt a strange vibe from one of them, too, but I couldn't pinpoint which one it was.

As we walked down the streets of Konoha, we gobbled down stick after stick of dango greedily until we got sick of it.

"Why'd you take the whole package," Naruto groaned, patting his stomach.

"I panicked..." I stared at the remaining stick in the tray with a certain spite, my hands sticky with the dango's sweet sauce. "Ugh, I can't finish it, but it's too wasteful to throw it away. Naruto, take it."

"No way! If I eat another stick, I'm going to burst," Naruto complained. I gave him a beseeching look, but he simply turned the other way.

We finally came to a bench near the heart of the market district and sat down. I set the tray with the lone stick of dango between us, feeling stuffed to the brim with sweets. "I'm too full to do anything," I sighed.

"Me too." Naruto's head lolled back against the bench.

Half of the reason today felt so slow was because Shuu had told me beforehand he'd be busy all day, otherwise I would've gotten him to hang out with us, too. He was doing more and more clan training lately, working hard to try and master the fireball jutsu, from what I'd heard. Something about it being a mark of his ability. It sounded vaguely familiar.

As we sat there on the bench, waiting to regain energy, I spotted someone familiar stepping out of the fresh vegetable market I frequented. I called out to the duck-butt, hoping he wouldn't just ignore me. "Sasuke!"

Sasuke turned around from the tomato display like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but relaxed once he saw it was just me. Naruto squinted at the boy with confusion, bringing to my attention the fact they hadn't actually met yet. Well, no matter. I beckoned him over with my hand, ignoring his look of suspicion as he begrudgingly crossed the street to our bench.

"What?" He gave Naruto a glance and narrowed his eyes in confusion.

I took the remaining stick of dango and pointed it at his face like a sword, startling him into stepping back a bit. "Eat this."

"Huh? Why?" Sasuke frowned. "Eat it yourself."

I looked at him very seriously and told him with a straight face, "I'm going to vomit uncontrollably if you don't take this stick of dango."

Sasuke's face scrunched up with disgust and he eyed the stick of dango like an enemy. "I don't even like dango, find someone else to take it!"

"I'll take it." A figure leaned over Sasuke and took the stick from me in one swift motion. I was left blinking at the space where the dango had been as Sasuke turned around to look at the person behind him.

"Nii-san!" He suddenly sounded like the kid he was rather than the apprehensive grouch he'd been a few seconds ago.

Wait, nii-san? I felt the blood drain from my face as I looked up at a young Itachi, who stood there calmly chewing on the dango and holding plastic bags in his other hand. All I'd wanted was to get rid of the dango stick, not start a whole Uchiha party!

"Are these your friends, Sasuke?" Itachi asked, looking at Naruto and I. The subtle undertone of his dark-eyed glance was calculative and analytical, as if he was inspecting us and making sure our influence on his brother wouldn't be negative. Naruto and I shuddered in unison, but Sasuke was oblivious to his older brother's effect on us and frowned, looking ready to respond when Itachi smiled, seeming to approve of us. "Well, you should go on and play with them a bit longer. I still have to run a few errands. I'll fetch you later."

"But…" Sasuke trailed off, but Itachi was already walking away, dango stick still in hand. Sasuke scoffed, kicking at the ground. "It's always later, later."

I pressed my lips into a thin line, unsure of what to do in this situation. Gosh, we'd stepped out of one awkward situation right into another. Sparing a quick look at Naruto, it appeared he was just as wary of Sasuke as I had anticipated. I scrounged my head for ideas of what to do. I'd started to put together a list of things I wanted to try this world of magical energy and super ninjas, but some were clearly unachievable with my current lack of skill…

Still, I couldn't leave Sasuke staring grumpily at the ground forever, nor could I leave Naruto sitting there awkwardly with dango sauce smeared across his cheeks, so I spoke up to break the silence. "Hey, let's go to the lake." The lake wasn't too far from here, easily crossable by bridge, though the water wasn't even deep enough to be classified as dangerous. It was probably more of a glorified pond, actually.

Sasuke finally paused in glaring at nothing, and Naruto perked up. "Why?" Sasuke asked.

"I wanna try something," I explained cryptically. "Come on, it's only a few minutes away." I hopped off the bench, and Naruto was quick to follow, eager to find something to do. After a few moments, Sasuke reluctantly followed us.

We reached the lake in minutes, at which point Naruto finally decided to question my motives. "What are you doing?"

I put a sandal-clad toe in the water tentatively. "I've seen my aunt do this a few times and I wanna try it." I tested the waters again. Sasuke seemed to catch on sooner than Naruto, who still sat there blinking dumbly, so I elaborated further. "Water walking!"

"Whoa, you can do that!?" Naruto seemed more shocked to learn of this than I, a person literally from another world, had been.

Sasuke wasn't as excited, but his eyes did widen a little in interest. "That's a really advanced technique, though."

"All you gotta do is direct chakra to your feet, right? Simple!" I said with forced enthusiasm. Chakra control and I didn't exactly go hand-in-hand, but I had to get to improving somehow.

"Wait, I wanna try too!" Naruto charged towards the lake, taking one step and stumbling into the depths of it. He toppled right over, sending droplets of water everywhere. I recoiled as some of the water hit me.

Sasuke sat down in the grass, huffing a sort of laugh. "Idiot."

The water was still rippling, but I tried to direct my chakra down my legs into my feet, anyway. I felt the warmth thrum under my skin as it moved, slowly pooling at my feet. Then, I took a step.

My foot caught the surface of the water for one second, and my eyes widened before I, too, stumbled. The water wasn't calm enough for me to sustain a foothold, and losing my balance, I fell over just as Naruto did, creating an even bigger splash. The blonde boy cried out in protest as I splashed him.

"Told you it wouldn't work," Sasuke called out triumphantly from his seat in the grass. My brow twitched in annoyance, and without thinking, I drew my hand through the water and whipped it towards him.

The water moved in a smooth, cascading arc before splattering all over Sasuke, whose expression of surprise mirrored my own.

Oh, no. I'm too young to die.

Naruto seemed to take this as an open invitation to start a sort of water war, and he immediately copied me and starting splashing Sasuke with glee. Sasuke looked taken aback for a second, being pummelled with water, but to my surprise, he leapt up and ran into the lake, starting a full-on water assault on us two with a dark glint in his eyes.

Naruto did more water-slapping than actual splashing, but the wide grins on his and Sasuke's faces told me they were having a lot of fun. I had no time to think on the anomaly that was a happy Sasuke, though—I was in the middle of a war.

Memories felt like they were echoing in my head as I giggled and splashed and was overtaken by waves of water, memories of doing this in another life but with different voices laughing and crying out, memories of cooling down on hot summer days by getting into these feuds. It was nostalgic and familiar, but whatever sadness I would have normally felt was easily swept away by the waves of water generated by the two energetic kids.

By the time things had cooled down, I had already been soaked head-to-toe in river water, and at one point Naruto had gotten all close and personal and pushed Sasuke over so he was splayed out on the lakebed. The water ran no deeper than our waists, so there was no real danger , but I'd still definitely swallowed more lake water than I'd have liked to today.

We reached an impasse, panting and crawling towards the shallower shore, and sat in a row, the water dripping off of us onto the grass. A brief silence enveloped us before Naruto sneezed, breaking the calm.

"I can't believe you dragged me into that," Sasuke grumbled, starting to wring out his shirt. He didn't seem to be all that upset, though, fighting the smile he had on just moments earlier.

"You started it!" Naruto cried.

"No, Futaba started it," Sasuke corrected, glaring at me. I put my hands up in surrender.

"Yeah, but you kept being a jerk, so you deserved it anyway, 'ttebayo!" Naruto declared, pointing at Sasuke accusingly. Sitting between them, I leaned back so I wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. I couldn't believe Naruto still had the energy to fight. I just wanted to curl up with a hot water bottle...wait, did they have those here?

Sasuke opened his mouth to undoubtedly argue some more, but before he could, suddenly another figure entered my view. Itachi had wandered down by the lakeside without us noticing. Sasuke followed my stare and jumped when he saw his brother, looking embarrassed of the state he was in. "N—nii-san!"

Itachi gave Sasuke a wry look, smiling knowingly. "You look like you had fun."

"I—" Sasuke cut himself off, flustering. Then, he jabbed a finger at me. "She started it, not me!"

"Hey!" I didn't want to be dragged into this!

Itachi didn't do anything more than laugh silently to himself, though, and gestured for Sasuke to get up. "I'm done with our errands now. All you have to worry about is explaining how you got so soaked to okaa-san."

Sasuke scrambled to his feet, falling into step eagerly next to his brother. He left us behind with little more than a cursory glance, but something told me he was starting to loosen up more a little around us. Or maybe he was just used to seeing me fool around at this point.

After the brothers left, Naruto turned to me and scratched the back of his head. "That guy's weird," he said finally.

"He's fine," I said dismissively. A little standoffish, a little inexperienced with interacting with kids his age, but not a bad person, not the spiteful teenager he was in the series by a longshot. A chill ran through me as the cold of autumn started to soak in. "We should get inside, I'm freezing."


LMAO SORRY GUYS THE OMAKE MESSED UP MY ORDERING SYSTEM... in my docs chapter 11 is labelled as ch 12 bc i labelled the omake as ch 11 :''') SO HERES THE ACTUAL CHAPTER SORRY AGAIN