Well, people, welcome back. This chapter is dedicated to Moon Howling Banshee, for reminding us it was time to update. You were right, by the way, to appeal to Twin1. Twin1 went 'aw, of course I'll update!' and immediately went about fixing up your chapter. Twin2 just laughed. (She's mean like that.)

Chapter Seven – A Day in the Life

Toshi groaned as he opened his eyes to the dawn light streaming in through the tattered curtains.

Mornings. He fucking hated mornings.

With a heavy sigh, he rolled over and let himself fall out of his lumpy bed, landing on his feet easily. They had returned home yesterday, just after dusk, and Toshi bit down a guilty feeling of regret that they were not still out in the field.

He padded out to the kitchen and froze. The window was shattered, letting cold air blow into the room, dew settled on everything. Carefully avoiding the shards of glass everywhere, he cautiously approached the paper-wrapped rock in the middle of the room that had obviously been the weapon used to cause the damage and lifted it, quickly unwrapping the paper to read what was written on it.

Terrorists. Go home. Toshi snorted tiredly. Oh, how original. From the unsteady, misshapen kanji, he'd guess the vandals were drunk.

Again.

For a moment, just a moment, tears threatened to form. For just a moment, a tiny sliver of time, Toshi allowed himself to feel the hurt that these stupid attacks caused.

Then, he stubbornly shoved it down and sneered.

"Bastards," he snarled to the empty kitchen as he crumpled the note and set it alight with a quick katon jutsu. "'Go home'? I am fucking home. I was fucking born here. Stupid pricks."

"Toshi?"

The teenager turned to see his mother standing in the doorway, hugging herself as she shivered with cold. Toshi felt a jolt as he saw her wearing his father's dressing gown – she had been crying. She only ever wore it when she was crying.

Her face was thin and unnaturally pale; her eyes glazed with fever. There were dark rings under her eyes and she raised a slim hand to cover her mouth as she started a series of racking coughs that shook her whole frame.

"Are you okay?" she asked when she was able to speak, her eyes flitting around the trashed kitchen. "What happened?"

What happened? Anger sparked in the boy at the question and for a moment he wanted to shout, wanted to rage that this was all her fault. For an instant, he hated her big, Iwa-brown eyes and her accent that marked her – marked them – as outsiders, outcasts.

Then she looked away as she began to cough again, and the moment passed. Instantly, Toshi felt sick to his stomach at his own thoughts and he moved to the sink, lifting a chipped glass and filling it with water before returning to his mother's side.

"Here," he said, pressing it into her hands. "You go back to bed: you're not well. I'll take care of this. It's just kids being stupid again."

He tried for a smile, and she smiled sadly back at him, not fooled by his brave words. Reaching for him, she cradled his head in her hands and drew him forward, resting her forehead against his in a gesture of affection. Toshi could feel her temperature raging.

"That which is built on rock does not crumble," she whispered faintly. "Stand firm, my son."

Don't tell me that, Toshi pleaded mentally. You're supposed to tell me about the Will of Fire, or quote proverbs about trees.

Out loud he said, "Go back to bed, mum," before pulling away and kneeling to begin clearing up the broken glass.

He was just duct taping a sheet of cardboard over the window until the glass could be replaced when he heard a noise that was definitely not his mother's quiet-but-definitely-civilian steps.

Spinning around, he found himself face-to-face with Sasu-princess. The Uchiha was leaning against the kitchen doorway like he owned the place, watching Toshi work.

Toshi felt himself gearing up defensively. He was already in a bad mood, and today was meant to be a day off. He could not handle any of Sasuke's emo needling today.

"What'd'you want?" he demanded rudely. "This is private property, Uchiha-hime."

Sasuke raised an elegant eyebrow. "Actually, Mutt," he drawled, "This land is rented. From the Uchiha clan. Of which I am the sole survivor. So actually, I am well within my rights to… inspect… the premises."

Toshi growled – he'd known that, of course, but he'd hoped Sasuke hadn't.

He could guess why the other chuunin was here. The rent hadn't been paid in three weeks now; their bond was almost used up. Things were tight with money normally, but for the last few weeks they'd been given nothing but D-ranks: minimum wage work. Toshi had had to choose between sending rent and buying his mother's medicine.

Guess which one he chose.

Narrowing his eyes, Toshi waited for his teammate to smugly inform him of his debt and remind him that he had a week to somehow come up with a month's worth of rent before his family was turfed out on the curb. He wasn't going to start the conversation, he wasn't going to roll over and show his belly to this bastard. If he was going down, he was going down growling.

Sasuke's dark eyes flicked to the missing window, then skittered over the bare, slightly dirty kitchen before returning to Toshi's face.

"I'm going training," he announced. "You coming?"

Toshi, all ready for a fight, was thrown for a loop. "What?" he said cluelessly, trying to catch up with the abrupt and unexpected change in topic.

Sasuke's eyebrow raised higher. "Training. We ninja do that," he said seriously. "Are. You. Coming? Sakura's waiting out front, so make up your mind."

Toshi hesitated. It was his day off, and they had just gotten back from a week-long mission, but…

But.

"Let me change, I'll be out in five minutes," he said decisively. Sasuke pushed off the doorway and made his way back to the front door.

"I'm timing," he said loftily, not looking back. "Take any longer and we'll go without you."

Toshi raced through changing, stopped by his mother's room to tell her he was going out and pass her the right pills for her to take in the morning, and joined the two out the front with eight seconds to spare.

Sakura smiled at him, murmuring a 'good morning'. Sasuke didn't give any indication that he knew Toshi had joined them, just beginning to walk away, obviously heading towards the training grounds. Somehow, though, he didn't need to say anything.

Somehow, just being there was enough.

Hours later, the three of them were pleasantly tired. The team had started off with some teamwork-building drills, in order to "scare the pants off Sensei when we use our new skills to frisk him and get that damn book once and for all!" as Toshi put it happily. Then, Sasuke and Sakura had started a spar while Toshi worked on building his chakra bank, and Sasuke had accidentally knocked into him, resulting in a free-for-all fight that had degenerated into a water war when the trio had tumbled into the river.

After they had stretched out in the sun long enough for their clothes to dry, Sakura had announced that She Was Hungry and Screw Her Diet, so Toshi had suggested they go get some ramen.

Cheap, filling, reasonably tasty, and Sasu-princess disliked it. What better food could there be? Well, except dango. Dango was the food of the gods.

"Come on, milady," he drawled, jumping to his feet and offering his hand to haul Sasuke up as well. Sasuke accepted it, but apparently only so that he could punch Toshi solidly in the shoulder when Toshi pulled him to his feet.

Wincing, Toshi let Sasuke go and rubbed at his shoulder. "Should have seen that one coming," he admitted ruefully. Sasuke smirked.

"Idiot."

"Come on, let's go eat," Sakura urged, slipping between them and linking an arm with each of her boys. Sasuke grunted his agreement, and Toshi grinned at her.

"Sure," he said, choosing for once to forgo a sarcastic comment.

Together, the three of them made their way to the local ramen stall, Ichiraku's, and ate their fill.

"So what now?" Sakura asked, handing over payment for her bowl and smiling in thanks at the old man who ran the ramen stall. "Do you guys still want to hang out, or do you have things to do?"

Sasuke made a noncommittal grunting noise, so she turned to Toshi, who pursed his lips as he thought.

"Well, after that stupid circus of a mission," he said, grinning tightly at his (bad) pun, "I'm feeling rather judged and put down. I feel a need to exert my authority and laugh at other people's ineptness. Everyone? To the ninja Academy, to laugh at the students!"

Sakura giggled, and even Sasuke smirked at the suggestion, and, decided, the team wandered in the general direction of the Academy.

They were passing the Hokage Tower when Sakura caught an arm of each of the boys, checking them, and then pointed towards the big, red building. "Hey, is that Naruto?"

Toshi looked: yes, it was the weird boy who had so unexpectedly been dropped onto their team. The blonde was looking uncomfortable, standing just outside the entrance to the Hokage Tower. Every few moments he would peer in anxiously through the double doors, before his odd eyes flickered up and down the street nervously. His hands were at his throat, playing with the metal band he wore around his neck.

An odd fashion statement, yes, but Toshi wasn't going to comment. Everyone had their kinks.

"He looks lost," Sakura said, sounding worried. Toshi frowned at her.

"Yeah, because it's really easy not to know where you are when, y'know, you stand literally next to Konoha's biggest landmark," he drawled. Sakura swatted him.

"There's something weird about him," she hissed. "He never goes anywhere on his own, remember? And besides, he might not know the way around the village, or something."

"He is usually accompanied by Kakashi," Sasuke observed. "Kakashi was to be disciplined this morning for his conduct on our latest mission, remember?"

Toshi and Sakura both bit back sniggers. They weren't sure what Maro had done to offend him, but it was awfully funny watching Sensei browbeat him into submission.

Though smashing his hand against that wagon had been a little extreme, because as far as anyone could tell all the circus conductor had done was brush past Naruto.

"Do you suppose Kaka-sensei is still in there being chewed out by the Hokage?" Sakura asked, glancing up at the afternoon sun. Both the boys nodded without hesitation. "But he's been there since seven this morning!" she protested.

"First, we all know he arrived late," Sasuke said quietly.

"Thus allowing the Council to work up steam: a mistake by anyone's standards," Toshi added. "We'll be lucky if they finish ranting by the end of next week."

He and Sasuke smirked at each other, each remembering the time they'd been dragged before the Council when they were thirteen to face a charge of torturing a cat instead of rescuing it.

So totally worth the twenty hours of community service and week's docked pay.

Naruto shifted again, chewing his lip and shrinking back against the wall of the Hokage Tower, looking quite uncomfortable on the street alone. Again, he looked over his shoulder almost pleadingly, searching the lobby for someone – probably Kakashi.

Toshi glanced at Sakura's face and groaned.

"I'll get him," he sighed. He peeled off from the group and approached the twitching blonde. "Hey," he grunted. Naruto jerked and spun around to look at him, those disturbingly coloured eyes wide.

After a moment, he relaxed about half a hair and said, almost curiously, almost cautiously, "Toshi-kit?"

At least, that's what it sounded like. The kid had a weird accent, and never spoke up enough to really understand him. In fact – Toshi cast his memory back – this was the first time they'd spoken since the day he'd started a fight with the blonde.

Yeah. He kinda felt guilty about that, so he rubbed at the semi-circular scar Naruto's teeth had left in his wrist and said, "It's just 'Toshi'. Hey, you look lonely. Wanna come hang out with us?"

Naruto stared at him as if Toshi was speaking some weird alien language.

"Leave?" he said, looking back over his shoulder, back into the lobby of the Hokage Tower. "With… you?"

"And Sasuke, and Sakura," he said, pointing at where the pair were waiting. Sakura waved, Sasuke crossed his arms and began tapping his foot.

"But…" Naruto bit his lip, his fingers toying with the – hey, why was he wearing a collar? Okay, that was just weird. Toshi wondered why he'd never noticed before, and then wondered why he cared. Still, bizarre fashion sense.

"You're waiting on Kakashi-sensei, right?" he pressed. Naruto nodded.

"Kakashi-sir told me to wait in there-" He pointed to the chairs that lined the inside of the lobby, "But the mean person there-" He gestured at the chuunin behind the reception, "Told me to leave. Stupid female..."

A laugh was startled out of Toshi at the unexpected humour. "I hear you," he said agreeably, clapping Naruto on the shoulder and charitably ignoring Naruto's flinch.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go."

"But-" Naruto tried again. Toshi cut him off.

"Sensei won't mind," he assured the nervous boy. "He'll probably be quite a while, so… come have some fun with us. Sensei will find us when he's ready."

"Are... you sure?" Naruto asked anxiously. "Sure Kakashi-sir – won't be… mad?"

"I'm positive," Toshi said with confidence. "So? Are you coming?"

Naruto hesitated for a moment longer, then trailed behind Toshi as he walked back to the rest of his team.

"So. Ninja Academy is out," Toshi said as they arrived – after seeing how Naruto was on their C-rank, squad seven had figured out that he – for reasons unknown – didn't do too well with interactions. "What should we do?"

"We should use our time to train," Sasuke replied promptly, as if they hadn't been training all morning. Naruto nodded, eyes lowered to Sasuke's dark look, but Sakura and Toshi stared at him openly.

"Sasuke-kun, I have to ask," Sakura began, "Do you do anything else?" Sasuke fixed her with a blank look.

"I must train to become stronger. I must become stronger to kill my brother," he reeled off matter-of-factly. "What else is there?"

Toshi smirked: that was too good an opening.

"It's called a life, Princess. Get one."

"Kakashi-sir is my kinda-brother," Naruto offered, but the kits didn't seem to hear him as the boys began arguing back and forth, eventually exchanging a few blows but limiting their attacks to reflect the fact that they were on a vastly occupied street.

The Sakura-kit tried to break them up, saying something about, "Boys, please, we've gotten on so well today!" before sighing and making shooing motions with her hands, herding them down the street.

"At least take it to a training field," Sakura sighed, watching as the boys dissolved into arguing and mild brawling. "Naruto? Come on. We can watch these idiots fight this out and make bets on the outcome."

The blonde wore a bemused expression but followed tamely, so Sakura managed to guide these male representatives of her species to the same grounds they had just come from.

There was a brief fight, which Sasuke won, pinning Toshi to the ground and twisting his arm behind him until the half-blood cried for mercy and spouted a series of imaginative curses and oaths, all including Sasuke's bloody demise.

When Sasuke finally got off him, Sakura spoke up.

"What shall we do now?" she asked, her green eyes flickering to where Naruto was watching a butterfly avidly – it was cute how he seemed to be totally fascinated by the insect, but the medic was growing increasingly concerned about the blonde the longer she was in his presence.

There was something not right about him. She suspected some kind of mental impairment that made him act as he did, but so far her research to try and find a condition like Naruto's had come up empty.

"Naruto?" she asked, gentle as always when she spoke to him, "What would you like to play?"

Naruto chewed his lip, looking away. "I don't know any human games," he mumbled quickly.

"Let's play Poison Ball!" Toshi shouted, leaping up from the ground and flicking up a soccer ball. There was a startled pause.

"…Where did you keep that?" Sakura demanded, gesturing at the ball that had materialised. Toshi grinned impishly.

"You'll never know," he said mysteriously. "Let's play!"

Concisely, Sakura explained the basic rules of Poison Ball to a perplexed Naruto – similar to Dodge Ball, Toshi would throw, kick or roll the ball at his teammates in an attempt to hit them. If he managed to, he earned a point and the person he'd 'poisoned' became the next one to attempt to hit people. If someone caught the ball in their hands, they earned a point and Toshi was still in.

Sasuke scoffed at the game when it started, Naruto hesitantly dodging the ball, a tentative smile forming on the edge of his lips, but Toshi soon got him heavily involved when he managed to kick the ball so it pounded between Sasuke's shoulders and holler, "Come on, Princess! Quit being such a lady and play! Or are you too scared I'll kick your ass?" simultaneously.

Sasuke growled and launched himself at Toshi, the soccer ball rolling towards Sakura idly. She sighed.

"Sasuke-kun, try to hit him with the ball," she called. "You can't punch him – it's against the rules. Besides, balls hurt a lot."

Sasuke grunted, moved to collect the round item, and in half a minute, Toshi was once again 'in'.

Naruto participated as if in a daze, fascinated by this game – reasonably gentle, compared to the games he used to play with the others when he was younger.

Somehow, he felt warmed that they had thought to include him, even if it was only out of pity. He knew that the male kits didn't like him overly, much as they despised each other, and he couldn't figure the Sakura-kit out, so he had assumed that she disliked him as well, just to be safe.

Yet here they were, teaching him to play a human-kit game. A fun human-kit game, at that.

As if what Kakashi-sir had said was true.

As if they didn't think he was an animal.

As if his race didn't matter.

It was weird.

Humans were weird.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a ball launched unexpectedly at his face, and Naruto squawked, throwing up his hands to catch it, his claws sliding out by reflex.

He caught the ball alright: his claws dug deep furrows in the leather casing, and for a moment, everyone froze.

Naruto's eyes were wide as fear curled its cold tail around him. He dropped the ball, shaking his hands to dislodge it, and flinched away.

Now he'd done it. Now these human kits would be furious. He'd ruined their toy with his carelessness! They would shout, they'd be angry, they'd tell Kakashi-sir of his stupidness and Kakashi-sir would punish him for it and –

"Whoa," the Toshi-kit breathed, bending to pick up the ball and examining the deep furrows in the touch leather casing. Naruto's claws hadn't gone all the way through, so the ball was still usable, but there was no doubt it was damaged beyond repair.

Naruto cringed, waiting for the reaction, waiting for the angry words and possibly even blows, though he wasn't sure he'd stand for kits punishing him.

"Seriously, you've got to teach me how to do that," Toshi-kit said firmly. Naruto blinked, eyes jerking up to look at him.

"…Hands up, claws out?" he offered awkwardly. Sasuke-kit was looking at him as if weighing him up.

"You have unusual powers," he said. Naruto shrugged uneasily, made uncomfortable by the kit's dark eyes boring into him.

Sakura came to the rescue, stepping in to say, "Well, let's play something else, then. Naruto, do you know 'Eggs and Baskets'?"

When Kakashi got out of his meeting, it had been hours since he'd left Naruto in the lobby. Accordingly, he was a lot less surprised than he could have been when Naruto wasn't there.

After speaking with the chuunin behind the reception desk and dousing the woman in enough killer intent to fell a small quadruped when he found out she had sent Naruto out into the street alone, Kakashi wandered out into the busy main street in search of his charge.

It was fairly easy for the seasoned tracker to pick out his unique and strong chakra signature, and Kakashi followed the trail directly to the training grounds, where he was confronted with the sight of his genin-turned-chuunin team plus Naruto lolling on the ground looking up at the sky.

Naruto was chewing on a stick, which was making disturbing crackling noises as he bit into it, and Sasuke seemed to be amusing himself by controlling a small jet of fire just before his face, maintaining it constantly.

Sakura was the first to notice him.

"Hi Kaka-sensei, are they all done yelling at you now?" she asked. Kakashi smiled at her as the others all looked around, Naruto with a slightly guilty expression.

"Yes."

"Was it worth it?" Toshi asked cheekily.

"Yes. Now, it's…" he looked up: it was dark. "Late. You three should really go home. Thanks for rescuing Naruto."

Sasuke grunted, rolling so that he could stand up. "We want paid, Sensei," he informed his teacher. Kakashi smiled.

"I'll see what I can do."

He plucked Naruto up off the ground and began to steer him home, sighing heavily as, behind him, Toshi and Sasuke started to fight again.

Ah, well. Some things would never change.

Around a week later, after a great many more D-ranks and not enough pay, Toshi wandered into the kitchen to find a stranger pulling the cardboard down off his window.

"What the – what the hell are you doing?" he shouted, a kunai snapping into his hand automatically. The man turned and held up his hands in the universal 'don't kill me, I'm harmless' gesture, before reaching carefully for a yellow paper on the bench and offering it to the boy.

Toshi snatched the note, glaring, and skimmed his eyes over it, jerking up to the top to read more carefully before he'd even gotten halfway.

It was a notice from the man who'd been managing their rent since the Uchiha clan had been massacred. Instead of a notice to leave, like he'd expected sometime this week, it was a carefully-worded message detailing that it had been brought to his attention that not all the duties of the lessor were being completed, and that there were repairs that needed to be done that fell under this category.

There was also a note adding that as this had been an ongoing problem, Toshi should send in a list of every repair his family had been wrongfully made to pay for, and he would be reimbursed.

Apparently, the true owner of the property had assented to allowing the cost to be reduced from his rent.

Toshi rolled his eyes, unsure whether to grin, sigh, or hunt down a certain landowner and sock him in the mouth.

"Bastard," he whispered, laying the note back on the counter and turning to leave.

Twin1: I'm SORRY this took so long! I was... I was...

Twin2: Primarily, she forgot. Seriously, you guys all need to thank Moon Howling Banshee for this, or she'd have left it for at least six months more. (And the chapter was mostly written, too.)

Twin1: Reviews remind me to update! Puppy eyes?