Chapter 4

It has been two years already and still no threats on his life were made. There were no assassins plaguing Konoha left and right, searching for the Yondaime's brat. There were actually a few mission requests that were always turned down by the Hokage. And one request to meet with the fire Daimyo which he responded with an B-rank messenger mission to inform the Daimyo that, at the moment, a meeting was impossible due to recent threats made on the boys life (which was a lie, but he knew the capitol had only a few competent spies and he was already feeding them bad information) lest the Daimyo himself came to Konoha, and he also included in the message that he was more than welcome to come for a visit, and the Hokage had even provided an escort, who was also the messenger and one of their best shinobi: Maito Gai.

Sarutobi would never say that he sent Gai simply to head off that particular expedition, but after Gai returned alone carrying a royal message urging the Hokage to continue to care for the boy to the best of their ability, he knew he made the right choice by sending the green-clad embodiment of energy. Apparently the Daimyo could barely stand him and sent him packing even after he insisted on staying as a paid vacation, as Sarutobi recommended to him with enthusiasm before he left.

According to Kakashi, who flippantly spoke about his friend and self-proclaimed rival one day after a mission report, Gai was hurt and confused about the lack of courtesy the Daimyo had shown him, but he vowed to run five laps around the village until he could come up with a proper explanation for the sudden reaction by their Daimyo. He eventually decided that it must have been something he said, and immediately went to Kakashi for assistance afterward. This prompted a very blunt conversation about Gai's mannerisms, which ended up in a contest between the two.

The Hokage laughed at that.

All in all, Sarutobi even began to hope that maybe there would be no more enemies with grudges toward Konoha or the boy, simply because of the rumor that he was the son of the Yondaime. Or if there were grudges, perhaps they came from manageable threats.

The Hokage was very content. For a long time he feared some sort of political boil over and still there was no word from Iwa. But regardless, they had enough time to instill the basics into the boy. He was going to be nine this October which was only a month from now and in another two or three years he would probably graduate from the academy and become a full-fledged ninja.

The boy showed promise; that was certain. When Sarutobi himself took the time to teach the boy the water-walking jutsu, Naruto immediately picked up on his demonstration and began trying to jump from the top of a raised bridge near the bathhouses and land on the water without breaking the surface. It wasn't something that youngsters picked up easily (not any his age or in this time of peace), but he was taught how to do that and tree climbing at six, so he figured Naruto could pull it off if he had his heart set on it.

And he did. Actually, his heart never faltered when it came to his training or the path to becoming a shinobi. He knew the boy trained constantly, even at home, and that he was having a few barriers pop up, especially in his chakra control area, but after a few days he had the water-walking skill down pat and Sarutobi left him, once again, under the tutelage of Kakashi, who arrived forty-five minutes late that particular day.

Yes, Naruto was growing to be a fine ninja. And no wonder either, with the great tutoring he was receiving from three different parties. Well… he was still wearing orange. Perhaps that was one thing that Sarutobi had yet to mention to the boy.

But with the Uchiha all but massacred, Itachi now gone, and Sasuke grief-stricken… well, the two boys that had fostered a well-known kinship suddenly couldn't face one another.

Sasuke was a wreck. He stopped showing up to class for a few days after the incident, but eventually Naruto asked the Hokage if he'd try and coax him out of his house, after failing to do so himself for several days.

When Sarutobi arrived on the Uchiha grounds after it was cleaned up, he ruefully stalked the courtyard as he remembered the silly reason why the Uchiha were dead today. Save two.

When he finally steeled himself and stepped up to Sasuke's home, a house once inhabited by his aunt, uncle and two cousins because he somehow felt that was more comfortable than living in the house where his parents were slain by his brother (and yet he still refused to live with a foster family or the orphanage as Naruto once had. Sarutobi knocked firmly on the hard sugi-wood door surrounded by great big maple trim colored blood red, a style of doorway very Uchiha-esque.

"Sasuke." The Hokage called, and was surprised when the door slowly opened up only big enough for the young boy to stick his small head and weary, onyx black eyes out the door as he gazed up at him.

"Hokage-sama?"

"Yes, Sasuke-kun." He said, smiling warmly. "I have visited you some times before, have I not?"

Sasuke nodded and opened the door all of the way, stepping back to allow his Hokage to enter. He wasn't really in the mood to entertain guests, but this wasn't just a guest: this was the Hokage. And you did not shut your door on the Hokage, no matter how upset, tired and grief-stricken you were.

"Thank you." said the Hokage.

Sasuke once again nodded. The fire that used to be in this boy was dying down. Sure, two years have already passed; however, in those two years Sasuke has secluded himself to different homes in the Uchiha district of the village that sat bare like a ghost town. Sarutobi saw the boy walking aimlessly from time to time, and wondered how many spirits haunted the boy, day and night. It hurt the old man to see such a young spirit react so solemnly when greeted. Not many children acted like Sasuke did.

It reminded him of Naruto a few years ago.

It was before Naruto met Iruka-kun, mused the Hokage.

Sasuke lead him down the hall at the entrance and to the right into a large living room area where he motioned with his small arm to a brown leather couch that used to be his Uncle's favorite place to sit, talk about current events with his father and laugh over jokes with his boys and nephews. Sasuke remembered that they once all played a board game on the small coffee table together, but it wasn't anything new or interesting. Everywhere he walked he saw the ghosts of the people who still continued on with their days, every once in a while greeting him like they weren't dead. His favorite was the old woman out by the bakery who gave him a small loaf of bread to take back home every week… but every time he stood in front of that house, his house, he was reminded that everyone really was gone and there was no bread in his hands, and no way of bringing any of them back.

After sitting down the Hokage smiled at the recently turned 5 year old who excused himself and went to make him and his guest some tea. He was a real grown up for such a young age, as expected of an Uchiha.

"I hear that you recently increased the size of your fireball technique." Called out the Hokage, while he peered around the home and wondered how the young boy felt about living in the houses of the deceased.

"Yes." He said, not offering any more information than necessary to answer the statement. He set the water to boil and breathed a lick of flame, after using only a few seals, underneath the pot to make the water boil quickly.

"Splendid." Sarutobi grinned, sensing the slight flare in chakra. "You will show me after tea, won't you?" The Hokage asked, looking around the room lit only by the waning sun creeping through a window behind thin curtains.

Sasuke nodded.

They talked somewhat, but when Sarutobi left after a brief demonstration of his slightly larger fireball jutsu and after making sure to praise the boy and offer a few pointers before leaving, he felt like he didn't learn much of anything from the brief visit nearly two years ago.

He visited from time to time, and he heard that recently he and Naruto were at least on speaking terms again, but they had lost their budding friendship. Instead, it was replaced with a strong, hearty rivalry.

The Hokage fondly remembered seeing one of their spars during a demonstration put on by the academy.

Naruto had improved in his taijutsu, and took to the training given to him by guest instructors like Gai and even Chouza, both of whom introduced different techniques including a very clever way of using a person's own weight against them as demonstrated by Chouza on Iruka, much to the academy-goers' delight.

Sasuke's ninjutsu was unmatched by anyone else in his class, but he was predictably accurate, if that was a flaw. Naruto seemed to be able to exploit it though, and he rarely fell back on his ninjutsu in a spar or even most of his fights, relying heavily on radical taijutsu that had him rolling backward and shooting a heel up against the extended arm of an attacker to throw him off or dislocate the limb, depending on the force he used, and then completing his movement by tucking his knees in and leaping up into a descending knee strike just as his toes touched the ground after the roll.

Sarutobi watched that particular spar, and felt pride in both of the boys when they showed that they were both resourceful and versatile, and yet strong.

In grades… well, Naruto was dead last. Sasuke called him dobe from time to time, but Naruto always insisted that grades weren't the only thing that made a good ninja.

As far as the massacre and the young Uchiha's mental health went, Sasuke told him that his encounter with Itachi was brief. He blasted him briefly with a powerful eye jutsu and then left him there at the compound. He told him to come looking for him if he wanted vengeance. Apparently, the jutsu wasn't strong enough to do real psychological damage. Or so he thought. The boy seemed level-headed, for the most part. And he had a good heart, but he knew that he was struggling with some transparent inner turmoil.

After Sarutobi asked the boy what indeed was it that he wanted if he were to go seek out his brother, Sasuke responded that he wasn't quite sure. Answers maybe, or questions that he didn't know to ask, so that he could come up with his own answers.

The Hokage smiled at that. The boy indeed had a good head on his shoulders, and he hoped that the two youngsters patched up their relationship and became friends again so that they could continue to improve like they had those first couple of weeks.

He looked down at his paper work on his desk when a knock came at the door, and after beckoning the visitor in, Hatake Kakashi stepped lazily through the doorway.

"Hatake-san. How was your mission to Taki?" asked the old monkey, grinning in his casual way when he felt everything seemed just fine. The twitch in his eye showed otherwise, and Kakashi didn't fail to pick up on that. "You are three days late." The Hokage pointed out to him.

"Right, about that… I met up with an old friend and had to take care of his dog for him while he was away for a couple of days, but the mission was completed on the fourth day."

The Hokage sighed. "In all seriousness, were you able to smuggle out the spy from Iwa?"

Kakashi nodded, gazing through a half-lidded single eye as he looked around as if uninterested, though he spoke politely. "He will arrive shortly. He is currently debriefing with Yamanaka and Morino-san."

"I see. You have written your report as well?"

Kakashi nodded affirmative and reached into his vest to procure a folder. "There are a few photos, but what is really interesting is the letter I procured while infiltrating one of Iwa's outposts northwest of Taki."

The Hokage raised a brow, impressed. "Really." He said, and reached out his arm as Kakashi handed him the folder. After looking through a few of the pictures and reading an excerpt of the letter and then looking to the actual letter folded away into its envelope, he frowned.

"It's a contract… on Uchiha Itachi. How odd."

"It seems like he established quite a reputation in Iwa. The bing books in the area, including the ones in Taki, list him as a high B class missing nin, which is barely accurate."

"Right. He is closer to a high A class shinobi," said the Hokage.

"Also, during my scouting around the border and according to our agent, Naruto's name and likeness are being passed around quite a bit. But the reason why nothing has happened yet is because they fear retaliation by Konoha and the Fire Country, and although the legends of the Yondaime are as ridiculous as they are numerous in the Land of Earth, they are not willing to risk outright war and their Kage has actually forbidden his shinobi from taking any of the contracts on Naruto's head."

Sarutobi looked grim. "Which means that they are planning it, rather than just lashing out because of the old pains they feel toward the Yondaime… he really was a dangerous person, back then in that evil war."

Kakashi nodded. I saw that firsthand.

Sarutobi sighed as he leaned back in his chair and picked up his pipe. As he lifted the spout up to his lips, a small ember suddenly appeared in its opening, lighting the tobacco on fire as he sucked in the smoke. Kakashi saw his Hokage look somber for a moment as he stood there, so the jonin paid special attention to him as he took in a deep breath after letting out a puff of smoke from his tobacco pipe.

Finally, when the Hokage spoke up, Kakashi felt as if weight was being redistributed on the man's shoulders, as if he were getting ready to set down some heavy burden upon Kakashi that would change the way he viewed his world.

"Kakashi… if you were in my position, do you think you could give the boy up, if it meant avoiding another confrontation like the third great war?"

Closing his eyes and turning away from the Hokage who could now only see the more concealed side of his face, Kakashi looked up to the ceiling as he tried to think about a good enough response to a question like that.

Hours later to the Hokage, but a measly twenty seconds to Kakashi who felt like he couldn't take enough time to come up with a satisfactory answer for the hypothetical, he finally spoke up. "Well… if I was Hokage, and you were not… and I had to decide whether or not to give up my sensei's only son to the land of his worst enemies…"

Sarutobi leaned in, interested in what the intelligent yet dismissive man had to say, especially after he broke the promise never to mention the truth about Naruto's relationship with the Yondaime, even if it was undeniably true and the current situation made it nearly impossible to avoid.

"I would come to you for counsel."

Sarutobi laughed.

Of course. Thank you for your trust, Kakashi-kun. The Hokage smiled softly and then waved his hand toward the door.

"Thank you for serving your village and your Hokage well. Take some time off, maybe go chase after a girl for once, eh, Hatake-san?"

The silver-haired jonin waved. "Same goes for you, professor." His eye closed up as he seemed to smile while he spoke his goodbyes and left the Hokage alone to look over the large file and reminisce about the mother of his children who passed away long before her time. He reached into the drawer on the top right hand part of his desk and placed on the desk a small picture of a strong kunoichi who was stolen from him not by the blade, but by illness over thirty years ago.

You wouldn't give up on the boy, would you, darling? He took off his hat and set it and his pipe down on the desk.

Author: Thanks so much for all of your reviews and for reading and your continued interest. This chapter took a little longer to dish out because I had to make sure everything sat well with the previous ones and for the plot later in the story, but if you notice any continuity issues please don't hesitate to let me know. I am not a good writer, but I am pretty good at learning from mistakes as long as I know I've made them. :p

By the way, the point of Naruto and Sasuke meeting at a younger age (and actually speaking and bonding with one another, unlike the manga/anime at that age in which they seemed to have just passed by and glanced at one another a few times, possibly because of Sasuke's distancing after the massacre) is to provide some background story for the parts after the academy. So this story assumes that Naruto is also two years older than Sasuke, which always made sense to me because he supposedly failed the final exam of the academy twice because he couldn't produce a bunshin or do whatever the previous tests were.

I guess this story is going to be pretty long if I maintain an interest in it. I also am doing trig for my transfer degree, so… encourage me! Heh.