Oh my God. I am so sorry for taking so long to update. I was planning on doing this like mid-January because I had loads of ideas, but it fell right in the middle of the mock exam period and I had absolutely no time to write, when I finally did, I'd forgotten all of my brilliant ideas, so this is what was left and it took my bloody ages. Thank you to all of my awesome reviews and I'm glad you like this so far (I'm not sure how far it will go) and thank you to Ravencaller, my awesome BETA, who did this after getting a rather frantic call from me last night.

So here it is,

Industri.

Chapter 3: A Life Unlived.

Yondaime

Itachi and I spoke for a little while longer and watched Naruto and Sasuke talk on the floor with each other. I summoned the same frog from earlier and gave him a new order, telling him to bring Kakashi and Iruka – Kakashi's boyfriend and Naruto's academy sensei – to the house. I had a few errands to run and I had a feeling I'd need their help. I said goodbye to Itachi and Sasuke, and as they were leaving, Kakashi and Iruka arrived at my door.

"Kakashi, Iruka – hello," I greeted them. Iruka smiled politely while Kakashi just lifted his hand in a lazy wave. "I take it you have been informed of the situation?" I asked, gesturing to Naruto who stood behind me. Iruka nodded just as Naruto finally realised who was at the door. He tried walking and managed a few steps before falling on his bum. We all laughed and Naruto just opted for reaching up towards Iruka and saying, in the most adorable voice in the world,

"'Ruka-sensei, up." Iruka bent down and lifted him up, balancing him against his right hip. I looked at him for a second before turning back to my student and his boyfriend.

"I need your help with some shopping. I have absolutely none of Naruto's baby stuff and although I can shrink most of his clothes to his size I want to buy him some proper baby clothes," I said. Iruka eagerly agreed, obviously enjoying the attention he was receiving from baby Naruto, while Kakashi simply gave me a bored look – one that said 'why do you this to me?' – and nodded.

We walked into town, as we didn't know what effect teleporting would have on the chibi. We picked up quite a few stares along the way, but thankfully most came from citizens who weren't really bothering to question it. A few of the woman would come over to us and coo over Naruto a bit. Most common, I found, was the pregnant ones or women carrying small children with them.

When we stepped into the baby shop, we received lots of amused stares. Apparently it was uncommon to see shinobi in this shop, much less male ones. We browsed around the shop for a while, just looking at the sheer amount of stuff that could be bought for babies.

Not wanting to spend too much money on this in case this… whatever it was… actually reversed itself, I decided on just getting the basics I'd need, like the cot and bedding, a high chair, clothing and carrier of some description. Iruka managed to find a crib pad with little tiny shuriken on them with matching sheets and a boppy pillow. It was at this point my not-too-much-money plan went down the drain. When Kushina had been pregnant with Naruto, she'd actually had to physically restrain me from going crazy buying things for my unborn son. Now, I had no one to stop me. I did actually start with the necessities, like the stuff in my mental list. But the moment I got to clothes, I went absolutely insane.

The sales assistant told me to use their test clothes on him to find out what size he was, as I had no idea. It would help me find out how old he was as well.

I handed Naruto to the shop assistant so she could measure him up. He squirmed about in her hold, refusing to keep still. She only smiled – apparently this was quite common for her – and picked up a stuffed toy, waving it above his face. He only continued to fidget. When he turned to look at me, I gave him a stern look. He immediately stilled and looked up at the toy in feigned interest. The sales assistant smiled and started measuring him. When she was finished, she pulled a plain white babygro from under the counter and slipped it on over his clothes.

"Well," she said looking up at me, "He's measuring about nine months, so that would be the size to look for. Obviously, you may want to go a bit bigger, as he's gonna grow and sizes in different styles can vary." I nodded and thanked her, taking Naruto off the counter and heading over to the clothes section.

"Well, Naruto, looks like you're nine months old. Isn't that nice to know?" I said, mostly to myself, but Iruka and Kakashi were standing next to me and I think Naruto was interested in knowing. I sent Iruka and Kakashi away to find the final things on my necessities list and gave them a load of cash to pay for them with, then went about picking out clothes for Naruto.

By the time I was finished, Iruka and Kakashi had taken back all my big stuff to the house, and I had bought enough clothing to last Naruto the next year and would cover everything from formal events to sleeping to everyday wear. Then again, when you're the Hokage's son you need all of this.

I placed a shrinking jutsu on the bags and slipped them into my pockets, leaving my arms free to hold Naruto, who was starting to get bored and would not keep still. When I got back into the house, I went into the kitchen, where I found Kakashi and Iruka. Both were sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. Upon closer inspection, I found they were drinking my best coffee. I was fully prepared to kill them, but I needed Kakashi's help, so I would have to refrain from doing so right now.

I handed Naruto to Iruka and kindly asked him to feed him with the baby food we'd bought earlier while I dragged Kakashi upstairs to help me assemble the furniture. When we'd put the changing table and cot together and filled it with clothes and whatnot, we headed back downstairs to Iruka.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw him. His whole face was covered in the green goop he had been recently trying to feed Naruto. My son, however, seemed to be squeaky clean. I smiled and went over to the sink, picking up the cloth sitting on the sideboard and handed it to Iruka.

"Bathroom's down the hall next to the sitting room," I said. "Sorry Iruka, take as long as you need." He thanked me and headed in the direction of one of my five bathrooms.

I looked down at Naruto, who looked up at me innocently. "Was that really necessary, Naruto?" I asked. He only continued to look up at me, a massive grin plastered on his face. "Come on Naruto, he was only trying to help me out. It wasn't like he was causing you an inconvenience, you were gonna have to eat sooner or later."

"I know, but have you tasted that stuff? It's disgusting," Naruto told me, pulling a face. Right now, I doubted he'd tried it either, as Iruka seemed to be wearing the entire jar. I felt sorry for him; when Naruto had been a baby the first time I'd been on the receiving end of food throwing many a time. I laughed a little at the memory, heading over to the fridge for a last ditch attempt to give him something to eat.

I took the fruit over to the kitchen counter and cut it in half, removing the stone in the centre and replacing one of the two pieces back in the fridge. Then I pulled a spoon out of a drawer and sat in the chair recently vacated by Iruka, in front of Naruto. I dug the spoon into the fruit and held it towards my son. He resisted a bit, so I reached forwards and pinched his nose closed. Naruto's mouth opened and I put the spoon into it, releasing Naruto's nose as it closed around the spoon.

He chewed for a second, making faces of discomfort and disgust, but swallowed and opened his mouth for more. So he was either hungrier than he had thought, or secretly enjoyed it. I suspected it was the latter.

After I had finished feeding Naruto, I lifted him out of his high chair and put him down on the floor. I went over to the cupboard and pulled out one of the trainer cups we'd bought. At this point, I was beginning to wonder how much our shopping trip had dented my bank account today.

I took a carton of apple juice out of the fridge and poured some into the cup, then topped it up with water. I then picked Naruto up and gave him the cup, taking him with me up to my study. I had a ton of paper work to get through before the end of the day. I would have probably already finished it if this whole dilemma hadn't come up. I set Naruto down on the floor with a few toys and sat down behind my desk, pulling out the first of about one hundred forms.

About five hours later, I was finally finished. I looked down to the floor where Naruto was sat. He was currently going through the process of trying to pull himself up using the armchair against the wall. He had been doing this for the last two hours when he could no longer entertain himself any longer. Naruto gripped onto the cushions once again and pulled himself up. I watched as he made sure it was properly balanced before letting go. He wobbled for a few seconds, before finally falling backwards onto his bum. Ten seconds: a new record.

I looked up at the clock. It was getting rather late. I saw Naruto reach up a hand and rub his eyes. He'd tired himself out already. I climbed out of my chair and went over to him, picking Naruto up and heading towards the bathroom. I set the tap running and laid Naruto down on the changing mat on the work surface by the sink.

"No," he said when I started to unbutton his clothes. "There is no way you are going to bath me. I am perfectly capable of doing it myself." I sighed.

"Okay Naruto, this is the last time I am going to tell you this," I told him, the next words coming out slowly. "You are not sixteen. Not physically. A nine-month-old cannot wash himself. You will drown." Alright, he probably wouldn't drown – I had put one of those non-slip mats in the tub after all – but it got my message across.

Naruto stopped protesting and let me undress him. I turned off the taps and lifted my pouting son off the worktop and sat him down in the water. I managed to wash his hair with relative ease, since he was pretty much ignoring me, but when I went to wash the rest of him, his mischievous streak seemed to return.

I knew what he was going to the moment that look flickered through his eyes, yet I didn't think to duck as Naruto picked up the cup I'd been using to tip water on him. I knew that if I were to catch it, I'd have to let go of Naruto, which I knew I shouldn't do. So I simply let the cup bounce off of my head and back into the tub, where it landed with a small splash. Naruto looked up at me and laughed. A proper baby laugh that sounded like a gurgle. My heart instantly softened.

"Come on, Naruto," I said gently. "Let me finish washing you and you can get out."

Naruto once again let me wash him before I lifted him out of the water. He shivered as the cool air hit his wet skin. I wrapped Naruto up in a large fluffy orange towel, and hugged him close to my body while I carried him through to his bedroom. Naruto looked around the room, obviously confused.

"This isn't my bedroom," he stated.

"You slept in here until you were five," I explained. "My bedroom's next door, so Kakashi and I set your nursery up in here."

I went over to Naruto's changing unit and picked a babygro from the underneath storage area, then lay Naruto down on the mat and started drying him off. He squirmed about as I rubbed the towel over his skin. Then I pulled out a nappy from the bag on the floor.

"You do know what a nappy is for, right Naruto?" I asked as I went about putting it on. He only looked up at me in confusion. "Use it to go to the toilet. I will not hold you over the toilet seat whenever you want to go, and you'll probably fall in if you try to do it on your own." Naruto' look of confusion turned to one of disgust.

"No – just no," he said. "I draw the line at that."

"Naruto, your body won't cope; you'll make yourself ill. Just do it, tell me and I'll change you. You did it when you were a baby and you can do it now."

Once I'd dressed Naruto, I lifted him off the changing table and took him into the room next door through the adjoining door. I sat Naruto down on my bed against the pillows while I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on a pair of pyjama pants. Then I lifted Naruto back into my arms and went downstairs, putting some water into the kettle.

Once again, Naruto reached up to rub his eyes, but he seemed to refuse to succumb to the tiredness. I poured the boiled water into one of Naruto's bottles, adding a couple of scoopfuls of formula powder.

Then I took Naruto and the bottle through to the front room and sat down in one of the armchairs. Cradling Naruto with my right arm, I slipped the teat of the bottle into his mouth. To begin with, his hands clasped at the bottle tightly, but the more he drank, the more tired he became. He was asleep before the bottle was empty.

I stood up, set the quarter full bottle on the floor and carried Naruto back up to his bedroom. I laid him down gently in his cot and tucked him in with the fox blanket Iruka had brought for him.

Finally, I bent over and placed a light kiss on his forehead and ran my hand through his thick blonde hair. My son. My beautiful son.

"Goodnight, Naruto," I whispered.