To answer a question, I would have put more than OC on this story, but the site was being an ass, so… yeah.

Ninja Doorman

Chapter 3

"Hajime. Go play with the others." Said Hisoka, one of the adults.

I paused when my name was called. "I don't want to play!"

I'm two now. And that meant I could talk a little more without giving myself away. Normally I would be annoyed with not having much of a vocabulary. But here it helped people believe I was young mentally. They still reacted strangely around me however.

I was weird to them.

"If you are not going to spend your playtime with the other kids then go upstairs and help clean the playroom."

Ew. There were two playrooms in the building, one on the first and second floor. Those who have had a younger sibling at one point should understand my hesitation.

Little kids are messy.

My grimace at the order made the woman narrow her eyes and point at the stairs. With not much choice my shoulders sagged as I walked away from the nursery and up the stairs.

We received quite a "few" orphans a few weeks ago. It was not that hard to guess where they had all come from. The Nine-Tailed Fox did not just kill shinobi in his rampage.

They did not want the kids to start panicking, so they told us there was a big accident.

These little brats, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, just ate it up. Hell, even most of the children of those who were killed believed it.

The ages of these kids ranged from two to seven if you don't add the babies. The nursery was packed at the moment. Not a single crib was empty, and some had to actually share.

It was a really sad sight to see.

Thankfully it looked like some of the kids had family members, and would be handed over to their next guardians once the paperwork was filled out. This had been going on for a while, and the orphanage had been visited quite a few times over the last few days. But I bet most of these orphans were going to end up staying with us.

They will never see their parents again.

When the Hokage made an appearance a few nights ago I snuck out of bed and watched from the doorway. And in case you wanted to know, this was not the fourth Hokage.

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the man who was taught by the First Hokage and sensei of the three legendary Sennin.

I could not believe he was here. This was the first person from the anime I saw in person. The similarities between him and what I remembered him looking like in the anime were shocking.

With him stood two men in black wearing masks, one a bird and the other a bull. ANBU.

They were standing behind the old man who was in a conversation with one of the caretakers. It was then I noticed the man was holding a bundle in his arms.

Of course I knew that had to be Naruto. Who else could it be?

When I took a step to get a better view I must have made a noise since everyone turned to the doorway. Sarutobi handed the baby over to the woman before turning and walking up to me.

I was frozen to the spot, and I didn't even know why. This man is the Third Hokage. The God of Shinobi. Not only did I remember how caring the man was from my past life, but ever since I started living in the orphanage I have been taught to treat whoever had that hat on their head with respect.

"Hello, little one." He greeted me with a warm smile on his face. "What is your name?" my eyes staring back at him were my response as I subconsciously inched my way behind the door-frame. I didn't mean to do it. I knew this man was definitely not someone I should be afraid of. It was just a basic impulse to hide if you had no idea what to do. Thankfully the old man did not seem offended by my lack of an answer. "There is no reason to be shy." He said to me with a smile that looked both warm and amused. "My name is Sarutobi Hiruzen. What's yours?"

"Ha… Hajime." was my stuttered response.

"I'm sorry." The lady in the room inserted herself into the small conversation. "Hajime has never been known to interact with others often." She voiced with a small dismissive hand after she carefully adjusted the bundle in her arms.

One of my eyebrows shot up as I looked at her in annoyance. I really hated it when the adults either talked down to me or assumed I wouldn't catch their double meanings.

I'm challenged when it comes to Japanese vocabulary, not stupid.

"Hajime?" the old man asked with his face looking more amused. "That's a nice name."

"Thank you, Hokage-Sama!" I snapped out as I bowed. Maybe my bow was a little too low: but give me a break. This is like someone meeting the president randomly on the street while picking up dry-cleaning.

"There is no need to bow." He chuckled while holding my shoulders and making me stand straight. The contact made me able to feel his chakra. It felt… maybe like relaxing on a sunny day. That was the best way I could describe it. When I saw his face I noticed he was examining me. "How do you know I'm the Hokage?"

Again I froze.

'Crap.' A groaned in my head. The fourth Hokage died, so the elders would take a while figuring out who would fill the spot if the last Hokage didn't already pick. So I just said something I shouldn't.

My mind scrambled for a response. I can't just say I heard it somewhere, mostly because I don't know the proper words.

So in my mental state of panic I said the first thing to pop in my head.

"Hat…"

My hurried answer resulted with the man chuckling before smiling at me again. "It's not really subtle, is it?" he asked me rhetorically. At least I thought it was meant to be. "How about a surname?"

"I… don't have one." I voiced. I couldn't help it when my eyes drifted down to the floor.

"Oh?"

"Hajime has lived here his whole life, Hokage-sama." The caretaker in the room answered the man's unspoken question. I looked up and saw his features sadden I little. I got the look sometimes, when people were not talking about how strange I was. "I didn't work here back then, but I hear he was left here without a name. A few days later a letter came saying his name was Hajime."

The man patted my shoulders before letting go and standing to his full height.

"Would you like to meet someone?" the Third asked me. He was trying to change the subject, and I let him.

"Who?" I asked. I could already guess who this someone was, but I'm supposed to be a stupid two year old, remember?

"One moment." He said with a finger raised. He turned and collected the bundle from the woman. Hiruzen walked up to me again and kneeled down so I could see. The first thing I saw was some blond hair. That hair was connected to a small sleeping baby with three birthmarks on both cheeks that closely resembled whiskers. "This is Uzumaki Naruto."

My eyes were wide again. This infant would become the savior of the village. He was so small.

Before me is the main character of the show, the jailer of the Kyubi. It was hard to believe something as big as the Nine-Tails was in something so… tiny.

I raised my hand slowly and paused half way. For some reason I was compelled. My curiosity was getting the better of me.

The back of my hand rested on Naruto's forehead, and I instantly felt his chakra. Instead of a sensation I felt a sense of determination that was not from me. That was the first time chakra felt like an emotion.

"Hi…" I whispered to Naruto who seemed unfazed by my hand.

"Naruto is going to be staying here for a while until I clear a few things and can find him a nanny." Hiruzen explained with that warm smile on his face again. "Maybe when he gets older you two can be friends. What do you think of that?"

"Hai!" I almost yelled excitedly. Did he really have to ask? Not only would it be cool to be Naruto's friend (Maybe I could make him forget about the color orange while I'm at it…) but the chances I can survive in this world would skyrocket! This is like living next door to a doctor, or a police officer. "We are going to be friends!" the child part of me just had to say loudly.

A few seconds after I said that I suddenly froze as my eyes bulged in shock and fear.

It was like something was strangling me, not letting any air into my lungs. My eyes went to my hand on Naruto's forehead. I could see the sleeping baby scrunch up his brow in discomfort as my hand felt like it had needles dancing over the skin.

I felt fury, rage, anger, and wrath.

No single word could describe what I was feeling.

"This is good to hea…" Hiruzen stopped when he looked at me. His smile quickly went to a look of confusion, to worry, and then pure shock. "Hajime!" he called out as he took my hand off of Naruto.

I started falling back but never hit the ground. Hiruzen had scooped me up with his free arm in a quick motion. One of the Anbu took Naruto from the Hokage so the old man could gently lay me down on the floor.

My whole body felt like it was trying to rip itself apart, starting with my neck and lungs. I gasped and started to roll around but was stopped by a strong hand holding me still.

"Sparrow!" Hiruzen called out.

At the back of my head I was confused until I saw the Anbu with said birdlike animal as his mask.

The man's hands formed seals so quickly they might as well have been a blur. "Byakugan!"

So he's a Hyuga?

My right hand clawed at the wooden floor while the other grabbed the front of Hiruzen's robes. He was the closest, so my hand just had to grab it. I still couldn't breathe. It was like I was suffocating.

"Hokage-sama!" Bird yelled in surprise. "This isn't right!"

"What are you talking about?!" the old man yelled. "What is wrong with him?"

"His… his chakra system." The Anbu started. "His core is not where it should be! Instead there are six small ones throughout his whole body that send chakra to the sections they are connected to!"

"What?!" Hiruzen shouted as his hands pressed down on my chest in an attempt to help me breath.

I would have been shocked, but I was kind of in the middle of experiencing what it was like to be strangled.

"One in the center of his chest!" The Anbu started announcing the locations. "One at the base of his skull! One under both shoulder blades, and one above his pelvis on both sides of his waist!"

"How is this possible?" the Bull masked Anbu asked.

"I have no idea, but the cores are attacking his body by forcing too much chakra through his pathways! The core in his chest is constricting his lungs!" Bird yelled as he kneeled on the other side of me.

I bet my face was turning colors at this point. It was a miracle I didn't die yet.

"Can you block off the paths?" Hiruzen asked the Anbu who started to send blue chakra into his hands.

"I think so, but I have never seen anything like this before." He responded as I started to hear Naruto start crying. "Hold him down. I'll see what I can do."

My eyes closed as I started coughing. I started kicking as I tried to force air into my lungs.

Suddenly I felt a jab hit my sternum that felt like a needle. Not even a second later I felt two jabs hit around my collarbone.

The change was almost instant. I took in as much air as I could, but that didn't last long. I couldn't breathe again.

"Damnit!" Bird yelled as I looked at his mask. I was desperate. My other hand grabbed the front of his uniform as I begged with my eyes and mouthed the words Help Me. I didn't want to die again. Once was painful enough. "You're going to be alright. Just hold on!" he promised as he started jabbing again with two fingers.

I cringed as I felt him send his chakra into me with each small hit.

"I need to block all the main pathways, or else the cores will restart the others!" as he talked he continued jabbing at parts of my body.

He must have jabbed me almost a hundred times within the next few seconds.

And at that point I blacked out.

When I woke up the next day I was not in my room. Everything was white. The floor, walls, ceiling, sheets. Everything was white! So bright in fact that it was almost blinding.

"You're awake!" I heard from next to me. I turned my head slowly and saw that a young teenager was leaning on the wall next to my bed. He had dark short hair and had a Kanoha headband. "Nurse!" he suddenly yelled as he bolted out of the door, leaving me completely confused.

When he left, that was when I started to feel a bunch of stinging sensations like pinpricks across my chest.

I didn't really feel like getting up, so I just sat there until a nurse walked in.

"Oh! You are awake." She stated the obvious. She sat in a chair next to the bed and strapped something around my upper arm. Turns out she was checking my blood pressure. "That boy is a genin. He was supposed to watch over you until you woke up and then report to the Hokage." The woman explained.

I didn't really know what to say. And even if I did, I couldn't really say anything. It was hard enough just breathing.

I can't believe I was actually a part of a mission. Sadly I had the feeling I was a D-rank.

That really hurt my ego.

With nothing else to do, I just sat there in bed as the nurse ran a few more small tests. When she looked satisfied she walked out leaving me wondering if I was going to get a lollipop or not. I was good.

Just so you know that was the child part of me again.

So I just sat there with nothing to do. As you might have guessed, I got bored quickly. When the door opened my head spun so fast I was surprised I didn't break my neck.

"It's good to see you are recovering, Hajime-san." Hiruzen started as he walked in. I would have smiled upon seeing him again, but his subtle actions stopped such an action. He had closed the door after pausing to glance at someone. I was always a little paranoid in my past life, so I knew something was up. "How are you feeling?"

I watched as he sat down in the same chair the nurse used earlier.

"Umm…" I swallowed as I considered my response. "I think… I… better, Hokage-sama." Damnit! How do you say "I'm" in Japanese?!

"That is good to hear." He smiled as his hand rose up. It looked like he was going to pat me on the head or something, but he hesitated half way and lowered the hand back on his knee.

My eyes followed the hand as some emotions started to run through me. Why did he stop? I would have guessed this man was afraid of me, but quickly reconsidered. Not much can scare the "God of Shinobi."

It was like he was restraining himself actually, like it was somehow more for my well-being.

"Hokage-Sama?" I found myself asking while still concentrating on his hand.

"Yes, little one?" Hiruzen asked. His voice was calm, but somehow I had a feeling that was not really what he was feeling.

"Hand?" at this point I tried to restrict myself to simple one word questions. Let's see how long that goes.

"Oh… Sorry." The man was quick to answer with the fake cheerful smile on his face. "My arm has felt funny all day." he chuckled a little as he made a show of him stretching that arm.

I didn't like this. Something was wrong with this meeting.

"If it is alright with you I would like to ask a few things?" the tone made it clear this was actually a question.

"Ok…" I almost whispered.

I was really not liking this conversation. For some reason I wanted him to leave.

"These questions are going to sound strange, but try to answer them as best you can." He explained. "Do you understand?"

"Yes… Hokage-same."

"Good." Hiruzen crossed his arms as he let out a sigh.

Already I could tell I was not going to like this conversation.

Don't worry; Hajime is not going to be OP with his cores. Keep in mind they are actually smaller than a name one.