Top of the Tree

III

I've always been absurdly selfish, so it came as no surprise that when I turned one and my Mom threw me a party, I kept to myself, repeatedly snatching my toys from the hands of other insufferable brats. They kept drooling all over my stuff! There's no way I'd let them keep my toys—they were mine, and any more drool would end up transmitting some sort of disease to my fragile baby immune system.

Since the beginning of time, or at least my beginning of time, I hated parties. They were annoying as hell, and I wasn't much of a drinker, so watching my friends make fools out of themselves gave me no amusement, instead pure annoyance. I remember one time in my old life my mom threw me a surprise party for my sixteenth birthday (my dad was out on a business trip). Of course I was surprised as hell, to the point in which I walked into the house's living room, heard everyone shout "Surprise!" turned one-eighty degrees and headed out the door. I didn't come back until morning, and even then I spent a month without talking to Caitlyn. What was the problem in celebrating a birthday in a small diner with close friends? She said I'll only ever be sixteen once. Back then I thought that as a valid point and shut up, but back then, well, I didn't know that I'd be reincarnated into a different world.

Anyway, the day came, and I had no idea. I didn't know the exact date I'd been [re] born into—which now I know is November 17th—so imagine my surprise when people came flooding in through the doors with their pests they call children and obnoxious presents. I suddenly found myself surrounded by children (I really can't stand them; never could). So yeah, not fun.

My solution was to stick to the adults—being cooed at by them was much more interesting than any loud child. I crawled towards the group of adults I found my parents at, and asked to be picked up (intentionally using the cutest baby face I had as to avoid rejection). My Dad looked amused, because he'd seen how I reacted to other children, and picked me up. I nuzzled into his neck, and the squeals of the many older women in the room became rather loud ("How adorable", "look! She's blushing", and my favorite "what gorgeous eyes she has"—though technically they're nothing special, just a dull shade of brown). I quickly glanced at my Mom, and she looked smug for some reason. Dad noticed too, because I felt is chest shake in a silent chuckle.

I heard some commotion by the door and turned my head. There I saw Jiraiya trailed by his genin team. I'm not ashamed to admit that a smile was plastered on my face, and cue to more squeals. He walked towards the group of adults, and his students went to mingle with the kids their age and check out the food. As Jiraiya approached us I reached my arms towards him.

"Jiya" I said.

He took me with a smile and messed up my hair (my Mom spent hours trying to get me to sit still and pull back my hair into pig-tails with a pair of blue ribbons) as he patted my head. From the corner of my eye I saw a scowl fold on her face. I cracked up.

The whole point of telling the story of my first birthday is that there were several important events that happened. The first was that I finally met Tsunade and Orochimaru. Can't say I was happy with the latter, but from what I knew, Orochimaru had yet to start experimenting on children, and would only start when I was much older. So for the time being I was safe. And as for Tsunade, I think she was far more enthusiastic to meet me that I was with her. She, much like the other women, started cooing on and on about my cuteness (yes, I know, I'm so modest), and then took me into her lap and hugged me to her chest, where I dully noted was flatter than I remembered, hm. But anyway, just like the other guests they walked in through the door, but instead of roaming the place headed straight towards the group adults, which coincidently was where they found me clinging to Jiraiya. They wished me happy birthday, which caused me to giggle (not sure why) and went on to congratulate my parents on my beauty. At some point I remember Tsunade commenting to Jiraiya how I'd be "the only women to be held by him willingly", which, to their surprise, made me snort in amusement, and she went on, "See! Little Kozue agrees, yes she does (insert cooing here)". Orochimaru didn't even attempt to pick me up (thank god!), and it's not like I'd actually let him, anyway.

The second important event that happened was that one of the guests, who was very heavily pregnant, went into labor. I didn't know who it was at the time, but now I know that it was Dan's sister (Tsunade's Dan, though at that point I don't think they had officially met each other). Now, originally I didn't know what my Mom's occupation was, but after that day I knew; she was a medic, more specifically a midwife, so instead of taking the mother-to-be to the hospital, she had the grand idea of delivering the child in my house. Imagine my amusement at night trying to sleep when there was a woman screeching in pain from childbirth.

Now that I think of it, it was quite an amusing scene, the pregnant lady. You see, what happened was that her water broke in the middle of a conversation with my mother, of whose lap I was in. She has the weirdest expression of morbid dread and joy all mixed in one. I started giggling furiously when she started to moan in pain and I knew it was wrong, but I just could help myself, must've been the baby in me finding amusement in other people's pain, or it was really me and I'd just never noticed how dark my sense of humor really was. Anyway, I could see a tick mark appear on her forehead when I couldn't contain my amusement, so for my safety, Dad took me and left for the kitchen. I could briefly hear her curse the world and my Mom encourage her: "That's right honey, let it all out, show those bastard of husbands what they've done to us—the torture they put us through!" I suppose Mom was a bit of a feminist.

So yes, a baby girl was born in the guest room of our house.

Later in the morning the new mother, her baby and my family sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Everyone looked worse for wear, with big black circles under their eyes, but there was a feeling of fresh in the air, and I couldn't quite place it. I mean, sure I had friends in my old life, but most of them were guys, due to my occupation, and when their wives did have babies, it didn't feel so… special.

"This is Shizune," Mom said, "I reckon you'll be good friends in the future".

Surprise was the only word to describe my facial expression.

The adults in the room laughed.

Mom started planning play dates for me. Can't say I was surprised, or pleased, for that matter. It was only a matter of time until y parents thought that I needed to meet other people, other babies. In my opinion it was counter-productive. I was a thirty-some woman stuck in the body of a one-year-old, thus playing with babies was hardly what I considered fun.

The play dates didn't turn out to well; I'd often sneak away to hang out with the adults or "play" by myself, in my own solitude. I think my anti-socialness concerned my parents, because often I'd find them staring at me with doubt. They soon got the hint that I wasn't a big fan of babies—or people, for that matter—and decided to try again when I was older, which was fine with me. So they decided to try having genin babysit me again.

I started walking two months past my first birthday. I was alone in the living room having runoff another team of genin. It's rather simple, really, how it all happened: I just looked around and found no one around, so I stood up and waked towards the front door of the house. We had a front lawn that was rather nice and it was covered in remaining snow from three days prior a snowstorm, which I've come to appreciate since it's such a rare occurrence in Konoha—even though in normal circumstances I absolutely hate snow. February was coming to an end, and I didn't know when would be the next time I'd see the snow, so I grabbed at some coats that were hanging behind the door and put the one that fell on the floor on me, which was way to big for my little body, put my shoes on and with a scarf, pulled the door's handle down, and got out of the house.

I understand that it shouldn't be possible for a one-year-old to do such things, and if I think about it there was probably some sort of ninja hiding in the shadows to ensure my safety, and saw everything I did, but I just couldn't sit and wait for someone older to come get me, I was bored, and in this life there was no such thing as the internet to keep me entertained, so sneaking out of the house was my next best bet to find entertainment.

I think someone must have notified my Dad on what I did, because ten minutes after throwing myself into the snow, which wasn't quite white anymore and more like brown, came someone to my so called rescue. In came a trio of, what I thought were, genin. They were around Minato's age, around ten or so, maybe nine, and they were all so very distinctive looking. There was one who had platinum blond hair tied into a ponytail, which probably ended around the middle of his back, a slightly taller one (I had trouble telling his height because he was hunched over lazily) had his black hair also in a ponytail that spiked up, and then there was the tallest of them all, a boy who was a little on the heavy side had a mane of wild brown hair and pink twirls drawn on his cheeks.

"Hey Shikaku, there's the kid," pointed out the tallest genin.

"That's the so called devil's spawn all the genin keep complaining about?" asked the blond one, almost scoffing.

The Shikaku kid just kept a critical eye on me, and due to my stubbornness I kept eye contact, daring him to do something I didn't approve; there was no way I'd let a little ten-year-old stare me down—as if. I heard him sigh and mutter 'troublesome'. I'd recognize that catchphrase anywhere. Of course it couldn't be Shikamaru, because he'd only be born in approximately eighteen years, so it had to be his father, although he was missing the scars and the facial hair, and if it was his father then this groups was no other than the senior Ino-Shika-Chou team.

They opened the gates to the fence that surrounded my house and walked over to me. They crouched to reach my level, and Shikaku decided to poke me in the forehead. Did I mention that I had four new teeth? (I went through my teething phase when I was six months old—can't say it was pleasant for anyone) I grabbed his finger, with what looked like the speed of lighting, and bit him. Hard. The boy yelped, and I wore a smug look. You mess with me, buddy, and you'll regret it. I suppose the message came across, because they inched away from me. And I ignored their presence and continued to play in the snow. Next thing I know they were huddled together and it was oddly suspicious, so I instead of sticking around to see what they had planned for me, I channeled chakra to my feet, as to not create any sound, and simply walked around them, heading towards the food district after getting past the gates, and my overly large coat, which might have belonged to my Mom, trailed on snow following me.

I suppose it worked because I only heard them scream (Oh shit, where is she?!) by the time I was a mile or so away. I didn't take any chances as to not get caught, so every time I saw a ninja who could recognize me I ducked behind people, in alleys, under stands and such.

My attention was on the ninjas that came and went, not the civilians, which was a mistake on my part, since I ended up bumping into the legs of a thirteen-year-old boy who was carrying several loads of ramen delivery bowls. Obviously my little form bumping into the boy sent him off balance, because next thing I knew, I was covered in ramen broth and noodles and toppings, not to mention lying on the ground. All I heard was a yelp in warning, and even then I didn't think anything of it.

It shouldn't have been an insult, but the boy looked around in search for the source of the bump. I knew that I was as tall as the average adult's knees, but seriously, look at the floor kid! Anyway, he finally noticed my presence and started apologizing furiously, which by that moment I was pissed off and annoyed. So as an apology, he took me to the ramen stand his father owned, cleaned me up, and even served me some ramen, which was by far the best I had eaten.

"This is Ichiraku Special," he said, "Dad doesn't know, but this is my proudest accomplishment—oh, and by the way I'm Teuchi".

I reached my chubby little hand out for him to shake, "Kozue".

"Do you have a family name, Kozue-chan?" he asked shaking my tiny hand.

"Sarutobi"

His eyes widened. He was surprised, I suppose. After all, it's not every day that you walk into the Hokage's infant daughter, or more like she walks into you. He sputtered a little, at loss as to what he should say.

"W-well, does your father know where you are?" he asked.

I wondered if I should I have lied to him or not. He was a nice kid—a happy and energetic kid—and he gave me free food, which definitely gave him bonus points. So instead of doing what I should have, which was lie because if my Dad found out he'd be furious, I told him the truth, that no, he didn't know where I was, and that I was headed to his office before I bumped into him (which was true, though I guess I got a little lost). He told his dad, who was out in the back of the store, that he was going out, and took me by the hand, and we headed towards the Hokage tower.

"I'm going to own the shop one day," he beamed proudly, puffing up his chest and everything, "What do you want to do when you're older"

Inwardly I laughed, as if I'd have a choice, "A ninja I suppose".

What he asked me next left me at a loss of words, I don't think he actually thought that I'd answer him, or understood the question at all, but I did, and my answer might have surprised him a little.

"Is it what you want to do?"

I stared at him in wonder.

"No," I paused, "but I've accepted that that is what's expected of me".

"How old are you again?" he asked incredulously.

"One"

We reached the tower and he dropped me off on the footsteps after I told him that I wasn't to surprise my Dad. He looked at me warily, but sighed and nodded in understanding. He left but not after getting me to promise to visit him in the Ramen stand. It took me a while to reach the top of the building, and luckily I didn't come by any other ninjas, because that could've been really awkward. I got to his office, and heard yelling.

"What do you mean you lost her?!"

I stood in front of the door in doubt; should I knock, or just barge in? Not that by doing so I'd accomplish what I wanted to, not with my little body; it didn't have the imposing presence that I required to make a point, which was: yeah, I'm capable of getting here on my own without any help, and you should stop hiring idiots to take care of me. But before my little hand reached the door, it burst open.

There was a suffocating pause that made my skin crawl in awkwardness.

In hopes of ending the silence, I wobbled around the boys that were earlier in my garden, who were looking at me skeptically, probably wondering how the hell I'd gotten there, and headed towards the desk in which my Dad too stared at me in bemusement. Once I was at the desk, I turned around to face the boys.

"Devil's spawn," I mocked.

They paled.

Inwardly I cackled.

Dad wasn't impressed. Not. One. Bit. Fortunately, however, I was too young to be grounded, so that was out of the question. No doubt he didn't question my intelligence anymore. After the episode he stuck an older ninja on me, never to leave my side, which to my amusement worked wonders. I suppose it worked like this: Whoever has nothing to do, gets to take care of me. So they were chunin and jonin looking after me.

I couldn't keep much from him, so I told what happened, from the part of the genin turning their backs on me all the way to the part in which Teuchi took me to the tower. I think that there was a hidden amusement in my Dad's eyes, because during my tale, his lips would occasionally twitch. His one-year-old daughter bested a team of genin. Didn't do much for the boys' dignity.

By dinner time the same day, half the village knew what I had done.

Including a man named Danzo, much to my displeasure.

It was fun writing this. Devil's spawn. Ha!

Anyway, thanks so much for the reviews and follows and favorites! They certainly helped my motivation, thus my updating faster.

And yes, I may suck at math, but I hate having inconsistencies in my fanfiction, therefore I planned it all out, including the ages and such. If you go to the Naruto Wiki, you'll find that Shizune was born on December 18th, which I had to go back and check before publishing this chapter. Also, Kozue meets new people! I really cracked up in this one, and I hope you guys did too.

Please review the chapter and make my day! (I also write faster with reviews)

CupcakeLoopy

P.S. I'm still looking for a Beta!