Disclaimer: I still wished I owned Naruto. Could use the money with the events that have occured.
After a couple seconds of complete shock, the reactions from the newly realized cousins were opposite, but similar in their own way.
"I gotta spend two days with this loser? I can feel myself getting dumber already," Sasuke said, disgusted.
"Is that right? Spending two hours with you is no walk in the park either, teme." Naruto said looking away. He didn't want Sasuke to see the smile on his face. His thoughts, however, were racing.
'I actually have family – no more days alone! I just wish it wasn't with Sasuke. I wonder what this traveler is like? I bet he is super cool and strong!" Thoughts like these would probably have continued forever if Sasuke had remained silent.
"Hokage-sama, does this mean that we have to... move in together?" The question on Sasuke's mind was so revolting, he shuddered when he asked it.
"Not yet. Depending on what is in these scrolls when we read them with the traveler, it could be possible that both of you will have to move. You will, however, eat and train together for the next two days. Kakashi will supervise both of you during this time. In fact, the only times you three should be apart is before breakfast and after dinner. Understood?"
"Hai, Hokage-sama," the three said in unison.
"Very good. Dismissed."
Kakashi led the two cousins out of the hospital. It was starting to turn into evening and the streets were filled with people heading home or running errands.
"Well, maybe this would be a good time to get some dinner and start. I'll buy," Kakashi said smiling under his mask. "What do you two like to eat?"
For a minute, they just walked in silence, until Kakashi got impatient waiting for an answer. Looking over at Sasuke, he noticed the look of annoyance on the boy's face.
'He obviously is going to have a hard time with having family again. I certainly can't blame him after what happened the last time he knew relatives…'
Kakashi's mind raced back to the day that Sasuke became an orphan. On a dark night, the brightest and strongest of the clan, a young ANBU Uchiha named Itachi slaughtered the rest of the clan. He would have killed Sasuke as well, but he was late coming home from school working on his kunai throws. Sasuke was never the same. Before, he was known to have as much spirit and joy of life as Naruto, but that changed to resentment, vengeance, and isolation ever since.
Kakashi then turned to look at Naruto, but he was not walking with them. He looked back at the hospital and saw Naruto just standing there, slightly scared. Then he noticed why. Most of the villagers were looking at Naruto with contempt, disgust, and even killer intent.
"Wait here, Sasuke."
Sasuke turned and watched Kakashi make his way to Naruto.
'What is that baka's problem?'
As Kakashi approached Naruto, the boy dashed into an alleyway. He took off after him and found him tucked behind a corner of a door.
"Naruto, come out here," he said sternly.
"You don't want to be seen walking with me in the village."
Kakashi sighed as he looked at the boy with concern. In front of him was the kid who all but a handful of shinobi resented and hated in the village. He had heard stories about how the boy was thrown out of stores, restaurants, and other public places. It was even worse on the tenth day of October, when the village would celebrate the defeat of the Kyuubi, the most powerful demon to have walked the land. The village was told that the Kyuubi was defeated by the Yondaime Hokage, but sadly this was not the case. If it had, Naruto's life would have been simpler.
Instead, the Fourth was forced into sealing the demon fox into his only son. The Third placed a law stating that no one was to mention anything about the day to the boy and sealed the events, creating the cover story to try to give the boy a new life. He was given his mother's clan name to try to hide his lineage. However, the Third had not anticipated that Naruto's birthday being the same day, combined with the whisker marks on his face, would lead most of the villagers, elders, and some of the shinobi to believe that the boy was the demon itself.
Luckily, none of the kids knew of the story, but due to his tragic upbringing as a orphan and the abuse the villagers gave him, the boy sought to seek attention the only way he could think of. The pranks he pulled were infamous, but gained him a reputation amongst his peer of being an idiot and he gained the title of "dead last".
Now with this new chance of a family, things were starting off on the wrong foot.
"Naruto, do you honestly think the villagers frighten me? I am a Jounin and former ANBU captain." Kakashi said firmly.
"But you could be hurt and decide not to come around again. Iruka-sensei and Ojii-san have to do things in secret," stated Naruto with the most genuine look of concern Kakashi had ever seen. "I am used to the treatment, the threats and looks I get. You and Sasuke don't deserve that."
Kakashi closed the gap quickly and lifted Naruto up to eye level. Naruto tensed as if he was expecting to be hit.
"You let me worry about that. Right now, our only concern is dinner. You are hungry, right??"
"Of course I'm hungry. I don't get a chance to eat much other than when Iruka-sensei takes me out for Ramen."
"Is all that you eat? Ramen?" questioned Kakashi. 'How is this boy still healthy if all he eats is Ramen? Is that the fox at work here?'
"I do eat fruits when Iruka-sensei and Ojii-san manage to get me some," Naruto pointed out.
Setting Naruto down, Kakashi motioned for the boy to follow him. Reluctantly, Naruto did so. They retrieved Sasuke and went to a favorite restaurant of Kakashi's. Along the way, both Sasuke and Kakashi noticed all the looks Naruto was getting. Some of the villagers would whisper and point at them, smirks annotating their obvious intent. A few even went to grab anything they had handy to throw, only to be stopped by the stern glare received from Kakashi. The strain of just walking the few blocks to the establishment was draining.
Finally they arrived at a small seafood place, specializing in steaming and other methods of indirect cooking. It was a small and quiet place near the Northern district of the village. Everything smelled of old wood and antiquity. Even the decor seemed a bit rustic.
They sat down in Kakashi's favorite booth, in one of the far corners of the shop. After a few minutes, a waitress came over and took their orders. She took the orders pleasantly from Kakashi and Sasuke, but when she turned to Naruto, she scowled as if a rat had made its way onto the table. Sasuke and Kakashi both saw this and turned to Naruto. They were stunned when it appeared that Naruto took it as simply as the sky being blue. He even smiled at the waitress.
"Just give him what I am having," offered Kakashi. The waitress spun on her heel and raced to the kitchen, where the waitress and the cook could be overheard discussing matters of demons and violence.
Sasuke was having a hard time processing what was happening since they left the hospital. Naruto was acting much differently than what he normally observed. Gone was the loud, confident idiot and in his place was a quiet boy, for whom it seemed that abuse was a daily and somewhat normal occurrence. With the treatment he got from the waitress, however, Sasuke just attributed it to the pranks Naruto did. That is, until he excused himself to the restroom to wash up and overheard that waitress and another individual.
'Do I have to serve that demon? This could set him off. I'd rather live to see another day.'
'Don't worry. I kept some... special ingredients for such an occasion.'
Sasuke didn't hear much of anything else as it appeared that the voices grew distant, but one thing he was sure of. It was the unmistakable sound of the joy. Shrugging it off, he dried his hands and went back to the table.
After a few minutes, the waitress came back with their orders of steamed vegetables, rice, and shrimp. Instantly, Kakashi and Sasuke noticed something wrong with the food Naruto got. The rice seemed brown and mushy, not white and fluffy. The vegetables seemed soggy and faded and the shrimp looked like it was gray rather than a hearty pink, in addition to being extremely dry. To their dismay, Naruto smiled at the waitress and happily ate the food, even though it looked spoiled. Sasuke barely could touch his food from the sickening sight of Naruto eating, while Kakashi looked ready to hurt someone – badly.
"Naruto, stop eating. We're leaving now." Kakashi stated, not holding back the disgust in his voice.
"Why? It could have been worse. At least we got food." Naruto whispered dejectedly.
Sasuke turned to Naruto with the look of utter disbelief. 'How can he be okay with eating rotten and poorly cooked food? Special ingredients?!? They literally tried to kill the baka. I could barely hold down my stomach just looking at that crap, and he ate it with a smile?!'
"How can you eat that stuff? It couldn't get any worse than that!" Sasuke stated emphatically.
"I can eat it because we weren't thrown out as soon as we walked in." Naruto muttered.
Kakashi had had enough. He bolted up from his chair and dragged Naruto out of the restaurant, with Sasuke trailing behind. As soon as the got out of the store, Kakashi turned to Naruto and let out his frustrations.
"You can't just take that, Naruto! You should have said something sooner. Is this how you are treated all the time??" Naruto nodded softly. Kakashi was shocked.
"Why didn't you say anything sooner? This is disgusting and unacceptable!"
Naruto just shrugged and leaped for the rooftops.
"Where are you going, Naruto?" Kakashi and Sasuke shouted to him. Naruto looked down at them and sighed, then turned away leaping back towards the central area where the Hokage offices and apartments were. All the two could hear as a muffled "Home" as Naruto disappeared from sight. The two just hoped that the next two days wouldn't go the same way as this, and went their separate ways.
Kakashi's apartment
It seemed that sleep was hard to come by for the three of them. Kakashi could not get the image of Naruto eating bad food or being nonchalant about his treatment in restaurants. Not even reading his favorite book could distract his mind. In the end, it took an hour of the one thing he hated doing to calm his mind, meditation.
Uchiha compound
For Sasuke, the walk home filled him with many thoughts.
'I can't believe Naruto acted like that. He took all that abuse and even smiled at times. Why?' Sasuke questioned everything that he knew of the boy. Eventually, he came back to one thought.
'If Naruto can't even stand up for himself, then he is more of a baka than I thought.'
Sasuke then settled to his evening routine when he arrived home, training and sleep. His sleep however wasn't anything peaceful. His nightmares usually consisted of the same thing. He would be racing back from a day of school only to see everyone he knew in his clan dead on the street. His friends, his aunt and uncle, everyone that was close to him. He would reach his house to see his older brother running his mother and father through with a sword. He would run away just after that and keep running, afraid for his life.
Tonight's nightmare was different. Usually he would wake up just after that, but this time he turned a corner and came to the village square below the Hokage Offices. Everyone was there, even some of the kids he knew. They were throwing anything they could find at this thing that was chained to the wall of the tower.
'Get the monster!'
'Kill it!'
'It will kill us one day. Kill it first!'
He couldn't see who or what it was that the crowd was attacking so he fought his way through the crowd. When he got to where he could see what it was, he was shocked to find Naruto chained to the wall.
'Look, it is the Uchiha survivor. He'll kill the monster!'
'Sasuke!'
'Sasuke!'
'Sasuke!'
He was shocked to hear the crowd cheering for him to kill the boy in front of him. He was more shocked to hear what Naruto screamed at him.
'Come on, Teme! You know you want to. You are no better than they are. End it!'
He looked down at his hands and saw the kunai in his hand that was not there before. As if it had a will of it's own, it flew from his hand and struck Naruto in the heart. Naruto smiled.
'I knew you had it in you.'
Sasuke screamed and bolted up in bed sweating profusely. He shook his head as if the image would come flying out of his ears. Needless to say, he couldn't sleep the rest of the night.
Naruto's apartment
For Naruto, it was difficult getting back to his apartment. He couldn't stop the tears. He wasn't crying out of sadness but from the deep feeling of shame. When he got back to the apartment, he triple locked the doors and then let everything out.
"Great, now those two are going to think I am pathetic. How can I become Hokage if the first time I am with a Jounin and a fellow student outside of school, I let myself get scared to walk down the street? If I can't at least keep it together, how can I get past the next two days? I can't fail a mission now – if I do, Ojii-san will never let me become a ninja."
He made a silent vow. He would not let his mask slip again in front of anyone.
(A/N: I wanted to go much further in this chapter, but I felt the need to supply the loyal readers with a chapter. Along with a very personal issue that has surfaced, I couldn't let this story rest with out an update. Please review and I will do my best to get one or two more chapters out by this weekend.)
