Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto *sigh* the things I would do. . .

Beta: Sabakunofaye


"When we get to my apartment you don't touch anything, alright?"

"Mmhmm."

"And I don't really care what you do just don't get into trouble."

"Mmhmm."

"I am a four-hundred foot tall, purple platypus-bear with pink horns and silver wings."

"Mmhmm."

"You're not listening."

I looked up from the seal I was sketching from memory onto a napkin and popped a green tea flavored dango into my mouth. Kakashi looked slightly irked that I had ignored him. A grin made its way on to my face.

"Aw is Kashi-chan feeling ignored? Don't worry, I still love you."

"Stop calling me that," he muttered. "What are you even drawing onto that napkin? How did you even get a pen?"

"Calm your acorns, I got the pen from the shop owner," I semi-subtly flipped the napkin over and put my hand over it, covering the storage seal I had been drawing.

Kakashi's eye narrowed, "Nice try."

Faster than I could see, he had snatched the napkin from under my hand and was examining it with a critical eye.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" He didn't pause long enough to let me answer before he continued. "Doesn't really matter I guess, since you did it wrong," he threw the napkin back at me.

Heat rushed to my face, "I did not! It should work!" Should being the key word. My memory had rarely ever failed me, I don't expect it to anytime soon.

"I can guarantee that once you seal something into it, you're not going to see it ever again."

"And why is that?"

"See that line? It's an eighth of a centimeter off."

"So?"

"So, it'll disrupt the flow of the seal. Even if you do manage to seal an object into it that line will mess with the chakra flow in the seal, probably making it blow up."

"Oh," I flushed and turned away, suddenly feeling stupid. Of course sealing would be more than just remembering the lines, I don't know why I thought it would be as easy as that.

Kakashi rolled his eye at me, "Don't get depressed about it. You're what, three? Most three year-olds don't even know what a seal is."

"I'm five!"

He waved his hand, dismissing my statement, "You've had your dango, can we go now?"

I pointed to the four dango skewers on his plate and raised an eyebrow, "Don't pretend you only came here for me."

Kakashi looked away, "Whatever, let's just get out of here."

He got up and put some money on the table before walking out. I scrambled out of my chair and followed behind him.

Next stop was his apartment. It was pretty nice even though it lacked personalization, but I suppose that's to be expected. There was a kitchen-living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. I walked around the apartment for a bit, just exploring. I looked through all the drawers, checked the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and looked around his bedroom. It was plainer than the rest of the apartment. The walls were a depressing gray and there was only the bare minimum of furniture in there. A certain orange book sitting on the dresser caught my eye.

Is that what I think it is? I thought excitedly.

It was, it really was! There, on the dresser sat Icha Icha Paradise. I grabbed it greedily and fell onto the bed, flipping through the book. In my past life, I was always so curious as to know what was in here and now I finally could! I read through the first chapter quickly and was already on the third when Kakashi walked in.

"What are you doing in my- don't read that!" He yelled as he grabbed the book out of my hands.

"But Kashi-chan! I was just at the part where Azami was telling Rei that she wanted his-," The rest of my sentence was cut off by Kakashi's hand silencing my mouth.

"Those books aren't for children," he stated firmly. "Go do kid stuff."

"Like what?" I asked as I pried his hand off of my mouth.

"You want to enter the academy? Then go practice."

He then threw me a blunt kunai, which I fumbled.

I opened mouth to protest, but then shut it as I realized my weapons training was severely lacking. It was actually non-existent, I hadn't even thought about the weapons part until now.

"See? You realize I have a point. Now run along and leave me alone," he said, pushing me out of his room and towards the door.

I sighed and walked out of the apartment. As much as I did want to practice I had no idea where the training grounds were. I walked around idly, hoping I would find it eventually. I passed the Yamanaka flower shop, that yakiniku place Team 10 always eats at, the dango shop, an unopened Ichiraku Ramen and I still hadn't found it. And to top it all off, I had no idea where the apartment was either so I couldn't head back.

Somehow, I ended up in the forest during my aimless wandering. I shrugged to myself, I guess I could just practice on the trees instead of the targets.

I found kunai throwing to be a lot harder than chakra control and jutsu's. My abysmal aim and hand eye coordination in my past life might have had something to do with that.

My first throw landed about a foot in front of me. There wasn't much force in that. The next throw grazed a different tree. The third one landed too far to the right and flopped harmlessly on the ground.

"Stupid kunai," I muttered as I went to pick it up. "Stupid little kid body. Stupid awful aim."

But during my mutterings there was this distant chuckling. And they sounded highly amused. I whirred around and gripped my kunai tighter, quite miffed that someone was laughing at me.

"Calm down," Chuckles said, "It's not as if you could hit me with that awful aim of yours."

It was then that a young boy, who didn't look much older than me, with silver hair and round glasses appeared. And he looked just like a mini. . . Kabuto. I glared at him, with a lot more hate and killing intent than a five year old should have.

Kabuto flinched at my glare, "Ah, I'm sorry for laughing at you! You just seemed so frustrated. . . I'm sorry!"

I softened a bit at that. Of course he wouldn't know why I was so angry at him, and I guess it wasn't fair to be mad at him to. Kabuto hadn't done anything, not yet anyways. He wasn't the insane freak who betrayed Konoha for the psycho snake.

Letting out a huff, I stopped glaring, "You wouldn't happen to know how to throw a kunai would you?"

He nodded, "I can show you how, if you'd like."

"That would be appreciated."

He walked towards me and grabbed my hand.

"First off, you're not holding it the right way," he said as he rearranged my fingers around the kunai. "Your stance is also completely wrong. Spread your legs a bit more, and your right foot should be tucked slightly inwards."

I did as Kabuto told me. He circled around me, adjusting my stance as he saw necessary. When he was done he gave me a nod. I took in a breath and threw the kunai. It landed in the tree, wavered a bit and then fell out.

He gave me a small smile, "A little more force next time and you should hit it."

We stayed like that for the next few hours, me practicing my throwing, and him silently watching, only speaking to give me advice or when my stance needed fixing. It was starting to get dark when his voice interrupted my throwing. I was mostly hitting the targets now.

"I have to leave, I have. . . training," he said, sounding like he wanted to stay. Or maybe I just imagined that.

"Oh, are you, um. . .going to be back?" I asked, kind of hopeful. He wasn't, dare I say it, an awful person to have around now.

His face brightened just a fraction, "Yeah, we can even meet back here if you want."

"That'd be nice. Can you be here in a few days? You can help me with some other stuff to!"

He hesitated a bit before nodding, "I really need to be going now. Bye."

Kabuto was gone, traveling through the trees before I could say bye. I sighed, he really wasn't the same person as he was in the anime. I guess spying and Orochimaru really screwed him up. But that's to be expected when your around that nutcase for so long.

I made my way out of the woods and wandered around, trying to find Kakashi's place. Soon it was really dark and I still hadn't found it. My feet were starting to get sore so I plopped myself down into a bench and took a break.

I wonder what Kakashi's doing, I idly thought as I stared up at the sky. Maybe he was worried. Maybe he didn't even notice I was gone. Probably not the last one, he was a jounin. He had to notice that I wasn't there.

My eyes were droopy and I was tired from a long day. Not only had I met two of the best characters of the anime, I had also met a chibi version of one of the antagonists. And neither Kakashi nor Kabuto were acting anything like I thought they would. I had met the Hokage, been recruited to become a ninja, would probably end up graduating early and becoming a part of the war, most likely dying early somewhere in that process . And I couldn't tell anyone about my worries because nobody expects a five year old to think that way and nobody would understand why I'm worrying like this.

I yawned and lied down. I found myself nodding off more than a few times. It wouldn't hurt to take a nap right? It would just be for a few minutes. . . Or that's what I told myself as I fell asleep.

I don't really know if it had actually been a few minutes or if it was a few hours, but somewhere in my nap, I registered somebody picking me off the bench and carrying me bridal style. I was too tired to care who it was, only caring that they were warm. I buried my head into their chest and snuggled into them trying to get warmed.

The person sounded slightly exasperated when they spoke, "You're an idiot." They stated, the voice sounding familiar. "Why were you sleeping outside?"

"Couldn't find. . .apartment," I muttered sleepily, "Really. . .tired."

"So you decided to sleep outside? Why didn't you ask for directions?"

"Didn't think of it. Now shush," I commanded tiredly as I tried to fall back asleep.

The rest of the trip was in silence and I found myself falling asleep, even before we reached the end.


"Wakey wakey!" A singsong voice called.

I pulled my arm over my head trying to block the noise out, "Five more minutes mum."

"Silly ducky, I'm not your mum. Although I suppose you wish I was."

I peeked open an eye to see It staring at me, with my eye. And giving me a sick grin with someone else's mouth.

There was a pain in my left eye, so much worse than it has been when I had lost it. I opened my mouth to scream but It's hand covered my mouth and It shook It's head, laughing.

"Tut, tut, Tsukiko-chan. If you scream now it'll ruin our fun."

"I don't want to find out what you do for fun," I tried to say around It's hand, but it came out muffled and incomprehensible.

"Did you think I'd grant you another life for just an eye? No, no, no. You're going to have to give much more than that to stay alive. So, what shall I take this time?"

It looked me up and down and reached for my arm. It gave it a sharp tug and there was this searing white hot pain. And it was gone.

"Oh my god, my arm! My arm!" I screamed, feeling hysterical.

It went to my leg next, pulled again and then that was gone too. I shrieked at the awful pain. I couldn't take it! I really couldn't handle this! It hurt so god damn much.

"Liars don't need their limbs, ducky! And you are essentially lying to everyone. Know how in that time in your old world, they cut off the tongues of liars? This is something like that," It said with a twisted smile.

It kept reaching and pulling off my other arm and leg. And I couldn't move at all. I felt so weak and pathetic. Not to mention the pain, oh god the constant burning pain.

"Now then," It said reaching for my neck. "Let's go for the head!"

And there was this sick snap that filled the room and then. . .

I bolted out of bed, screaming my throat raw. I looked around, so confused. This wasn't my room, my room wasn't this plain. Where were my posters? My wands? The icky shade of pink on the wall that my roommate thought would be a good idea? This wasn't my room! And the blankets were so constricting as I struggled to get free of them. They were all around me and they wouldn't let me go!

"I'm going to die! I'm going to die!" I yelled in between hysterical tears.

"Tsukiko?" I heard a soft, worried voice say.

Kakashi walked into the room looking concerned and I calmed down as I remembered where I was. He knelt down next to me and looked me in the eye.

"It was just a bad dream, Shrimp. Just a bad dream."

"I know. And. .don't call me. . .Shrimp," I muttered in between sniffles.

He snorted lightly and patted my head, "So you're alright now?"

I nodded and he got up to leave. I grabbed his pants and tugged on them. He turned around and gave me a questioning look.

"Can you, um, stay here tonight?" I asked, my voice just above a whisper. "I don't want to sleep alone."

He rolled his eye but said nothing as he walked towards me. I scooted over some to make room for him as he slid into the covers. A thought dawned on me.

"Kashi-chan?"

"Hm?"

"Your apartment only has one bedroom."

"And?"

"Did you give me your room?"

He remained silent for a bit before responding, "Just go to sleep, kid."

So I did. And that night, not a single nightmare was seen.


I'm sorry that took so long! I swear if I had time in between the awesome rides to write this I would've, but we had express passes so I couldn't. Still, I got it up didn't I?

So tell me what you think.

'Till next time.