Uchiha Shisui: 14 years old and 11 months (will turn 15 in October 19th)

Uzumaki Naruto: 7 years old (just turned 7 in October 10th)

Uchiha Itachi: 12 years old (June 9th)

Sarutobi Hiruzen: 63 years old (February 8th)

Chapter 4: Firelight

Today's morning seemed ordinary to Hiruzen until Uzumaki Naruto entered his office.

"Hokage-jiichan."

Naruto stared at him intensely as she closed the door behind her. All the while, ignoring the panicked look the Sandaime's secretary was giving her before she closed the door and locked it.

"What brings you here, Naruto-kun?" Hiruzen questioned, as he looked up from his paperwork. "You have the academy at 9 to attend to, right?"

"I will be at the academy today, Jiichan. I promise. Well... um, I know this sounds weird, but hear me out." Naruto took a deep breath and slowly signed 'I have my stalker with me' with the Konoha ANBU sign language that someone taught her just before she came here.

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, his mind was full of questions on how Naruto could have possibly known that.

"Naruto-kun, where do you learn that?" Hiruzen inquired, rigidly. Inside he was intrigued by the fact that Naruto knew ANBU sign language and the meaning of said ANBU sign language that Naruto just did. Hiruzen knew who Naruto's 'stalker' was and the fact that he was dead.

Naruto closed her eyes, concentrating. She can feel and 'see' at least four people; the Hokage Guard Platoon, and one that was not either an official ANBU nor the Hokage Guard Platoon judging by the seal in his tongue. She grimaced.

"Can we talk in private, Jii-chan?" Naruto grinned uneasily, as she continued, "I have something cool to show you!"

Naruto's eyes flickered lightly to the roof above as she signed 'Uchiha'.

Hiruzen's caught the meaning and with a hand seal, he activated a seal that was meant to make a barrier around the room, making it temporarily safe from prying ears and eyes.

Naruto still can feel the Ne ANBU there, so she made a rat hand seal to activate her own seal to doubled the privacy.

Hiruzen knew about her prowess in Fuuinjutsu, he was the one who introduced it to her after all; but he was impressed at how everything outside of the barrier was black and devoid of chakra. It meant that either outside and inside can feel, see, nor feel chakra at all.

"So, Jiichan," Naruto squirmed in her place, "you know Uchiha Shisui is my observer, right?"

Hiruzen nodded and motioned Naruto to continue when he saw Naruto was hesitant to continue.

"Um, you know that I know of the coup d'etat, right? Well, I kinda have a suggestion dattebayo." Naruto took a deep breath. "Why not make one of the Uchiha your successor? A trustworthy one, that is."

Hiruzen cleared his throat and he spoke, "Naruto-kun, what you are saying is; I need to make one of the Uchiha the Godaime?" Naruto nodded, her face expressed a positive answer. "That's impossible, Naruto-kun. All the adults in the Uchiha Clan supported my fall, and I can't just give them the 'easy' way to control the village by making one of them the Godaime."

Naruto pouted and exclaimed, "Jii-chan, that's why I said 'Uchiha Shisui' earlier."

Hiruzen widened his eyes. "What are you saying, Naruto-kun?" He leaned back to his chair with a pained expression etched on his face, the image of his old friend's grandson on the back of his mind. "I have a report from one of the Uchiha Clan that he is," his eyes darkened, "dead."

She shook her head and affirmed, "No, he's not, Jii-chan. He's alive."

"Naruto-kun, what did you say?" he leaned forward, of course skeptical witj his granddaughter-figure's statement.

Naruto rummaged her backpack and took out a big scroll. She opened them, bit her thumb and smeared some blood on the scroll did the rat hand-seal.

Suddenly, in front of Hiruzen, stood Uchiha Shisui, with his eyes closed and a wariness etched on his face.

Shisui took a deep breath and dropped down to one knee with his right fist to the floor.

"Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen stood up, alarmed but a look of understanding dawned in his eyes as he stared intently at his subordinate.

"Report," Hiruzen commanded. He had figured that if the Shisui in front of him was real, Naruto was in too deep with this whole thing. Whatever Shisui would say to him, Naruto would have a clearance just because she somehow had Uchiha Shisui with her.

"Uchiha Shisui, registration number; 011632. I was going to use Kotoamatsukami, before Danzō," Shisui didn't bother to hide his contempt by not using any honorific and stressed the name, but still had the pang of sadness as the elder was his grandfather's teammate, "took my right eye and disrupted my mission."

With that, Hiruzen's belief that Danzō can be redeemed was crushed to pieces.

Itachi was forced to calm his nerves with eating dango, dango, at the Naka River's dock. He was supposed to be planning something, anything. Yet, he didn't find the will to think or do anything right now.

As he ate his last stick of dango, he noticed his Crow approaching from the distance. He almost lost his balance when it was in front of him.

Shisui's eye that he had implanted inside the Crow's left eye was gone.

His stomach clenched tightly, already assuming the worst, and grabbed the letter that was tied to the Crow's foot and read the letter carefully.

Hi, Itachi. This would probably surprise you, but it seems even after the stunt I've pulled last night, I can't leave all of this to you. After all, I know that this is too much, even for you. I'm sorry if I hurt you because of it. I decide to live to see the day when the Uchiha name cleared. I will help you, so don't go around and do everything by yourself, alright? I promise I will contact you again later.

Shisui

Itachi burned the letter to ash as soon as he finished reading.

He quietly cried while holding his half-eaten dango.

Naruto scowled. She did have an inkling as to why the villagers ignored her existence to the best to their ability or fear her to death, but this was ludicrous.

"Why didn't you tell me that there was a test yesterday, sensei?" Naruto forced herself to speak calmly, even with his cold eyes and such powerful negative emotions directed at her made her want to run from this place as far as possible. "I didn't know because yesterday was October 10th, and that was a national holiday."

Tashiro was trying his best to ignore what was in front of him. But he gave up when Naruto didn't move at all from her position.

"I had informed the class. It's your fault if you didn't attend said class."

Was that when she kind of skipped classes because she was too stressed over the Uchiha? She didn't even skip, the Hokage jii-chan, her guardian, had sent a notice to the academy that she was sick that day.

"Please let me take the supplementary test!"

"I told you, I don't have time for it."

Naruto gritted her teeth, holding in the contempt when she heard his cold tone. She already flunked the test? Just like that?

"Can you allow her to take the supplementary test?"

Tashiro stood up as he glared at the newcomer. Naruto stepped back and eyed the two of them, uncertain.

"Iruka, what are you―"

"Tashiro, please consider."

Naruto glanced between Tashiro and Iruka. They seemed to be communicating with rapid hand signs, which made her curious and made a mental note to learn what sign language they were using; because they were different than the ANBU sign language and Konoha Police sign language.

"Fine! Why don't you test her then?" With that, Tashiro―her homeroom teacher with no common sense whatsoever― stormed out of the office.

Iruka, who she knew as the ninjutsu and taijutsu teacher, sighed deeply and then looked at her. Naruto was squirming in her place under his stare.

"Do you like ramen?"

Naruto's eyes brightened.

Naruto couldn't believe that Iruka-sensei was a very generous person. He had bought her 5 bowls of miso ramen with pork cutlets. That was almost the amount Jii-chan always bought for her when they were eating together at the Ichiraku. She had found her favorite teacher today.

Naruto shook her head as she stared at the orange sky. It was by this time that she woke up and prepared to save Shisui yesterday.

"Oh, crap!"

Naruto had almost forgotten that she left Shisui at her apartment with nothing but cup ramen in the cupboard and milk in her fridge. She had to go shopping then.

She processed to buy the ingredients to make miso soup, tamagoyaki, and onigiri. Nothing fancy because she was broke this month.

"I'm home." She entered her apartment, her stomach doing flip-flop as she placed her sandals at the genkan (entrance hall).

"Welcome home, Naruto. Oh, you bought some food, I take it?"

Shisui was sitting at her bed with only his left eye opened. She knew he can't open his right eye, because of a certain elder, but his lone midnight colored eye made her stomach felt like butterflies.

Naruto nodded with a watery smile. She was going to cry when she heard the 'welcome home' from Shisui. No one ever welcomed her home from her own apartment. Certainly, this was a first to her.

"Well, let's eat! Or... are you going to cook?" Shisui asked Naruto with a playful tone. "I hope you're a good cook if you were."

Naruto walked to the kitchen with a dark aura as she shouted, "Of course I am!"

Shisui laughed as he offered his help.

Hiruzen sagged his shoulders as he stared outside the window. He was waiting for Jiraiya to come and help him. Danzō was too dangerous for him to handle. He called Jiraiya, even Tsunade he called back by threatening to make her a nuke-nin and being hunted for the rest of her life.

His priority was to not endanger his people. After that, he was going to take back Shisui's eye from Danzō with the help from Jiraiya and Tsunade.

He was going to show Danzō why it was a bad idea to went about from under the Hokage's nose.

But only for today, he was going to mourn for the Danzō that he befriended a long time ago.

Author's Note: To be continued! I hope you guys enjoyed it~ If not, well, okay. I know this story isn't for everyone. Sometimes I think that this story plot itself was absurd, but well... hey, this is fanfiction. I can make Naruto barf dragons for all I care lol.

See you!

-Tonegawa Rie

P.S. I don't have a beta and English is not my first or even a second language, so I hope you guys understand the grammar mistakes or typos that this story has because when my English improved, I will fix the mistakes. Although, to be honest, I don't know how the beta-thing works.