"C'mon, Narumi, we're going to be late," Naruto told me, he tugged harder on my dress sleeve.
"It's our party, we can't be late. It starts when we get there," I huffed, but ran faster anyway, smoothing out my white sun dress so Mom wouldn't be so angry.
Naruto and I had been training our stealth skills, or rather, stalking Kakashi-nii-san. He knew about us this time, I was pretty sure, but he didn't do anything. Probably because it was our birthday. However, he did have a hobby of disappearing before showing up right behind us. I knew for sure that he got a kick from it, because he said the same thing every time, "Whatcha looking at?" He always knew when we were least expecting it, too, because all Naruto and I would talk about while stalking him now a days is when he would pop out of nowhere again, and even then it takes us by surprise. Of course, he would only stay long enough to watch our facial expressions before disappearing for good until we could find him again. If we were lucky, we'd find him twice a week.
Kakashi was going to our party. Actually, a lot of people were going to our party. At least, that's what it sounds like with all the names Mom listed when we asked who would be there. Of that list were Shikamaru and Sasuke, which was exciting, because I feel like this party is more for Mom and Dad than for Naruto and me. Still, I was really excited because we get to have cake and dango at the same time. It was a birthday miracle, that's for sure.
Due to my brother's incessant pulling we were only two minutes late. As expected, though, the Uchiha family was already there. Mom wasn't quite as impressed with our accomplishment.
"You're late," she hissed.
"Sorry, we were," I started. Naruto finished, "Stalking Kakashi-nii-san."
"What were you doing?" a voice asked.
Startling, we both whipped around to see Kakashi standing behind us. It was disconcerting because I could never sense him coming, even though I could feel chakra. It's like his disappeared , or something.
He smiled at us, judging by the crinkles by his eyes. "You two need to be more observant if you want to be ninja," he stated bluntly.
Gloom fell upon my brother and me. "Yeah, but we're still training. We'll get better, right, Naru?"
"Yeah, dattebayo. We're just showing you what you'll look like when we sneak up on you one of these days!"
Kakashi shrugged, "Anyway, happy birthday." Ruffling our hair, he moved around us to greet Mom.
We went to Sasuke, considering ourselves dismissed as our silver haired stalkee joined the adults. "That was lame, he totally got you guys," Sasuke commented.
"Yeah, well, you're lamer!" Naruto rebutted weakly.
"How?"
Brother got stuck on that one, "Well, um…"
"Naruto's faster than you," Shikamaru noted, smoothly joining our group.
"You came." I grinned at him, happy with his cool chakra. It was a nice change from Naruto's energetic and Sasuke's fiery energies.
He stared at me flatly, "I said I would, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but I didn't know if you were going to be napping all day or not."
He smirked, "Fair enough."
We settled into the family room and pulled out the shogi board. Naruto and I sat to the side, ready to watch a battle of the wills between Sasuke and Shikamaru. Shikamaru always won, not once had he lost. It was intimidating, really, so I opted out of any shogi matches with him.
"Narumi, come and greet our guests," Dad called.
Obediently, went over to him leaving Naruto to watch the game. He was standing by a blonde man with a mullet and light colored eyes and a girl, probably the man's daughter, was sticking close to him.
"This is my old genin team mate Yamanaka Inoichi and his daughter, Ino. Make sure she feels welcome, okay?"
"Sure," I turned to Ino, "Wanna come meet my friends?" I didn't give her a chance to be unsure of herself as I grabbed her and dragged her to the boys. Luckily, the game wasn't finished yet so Sasuke wasn't in a bad mood. "Guys, this is Yamanaka Ino. Ino-chan, that's Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Nara Shikamaru." A chorus of greetings ensued, and after that was over, we settled in to watch Shikamaru beat the daylights out of Sasuke in shogi.
By the third time Sasuke lost Ino and I had braided each other's hair. I had two French braids leading to mini ponytails, because my blonde hair was too short for really long ponytails. Ino's was long, though, so I did one French braid straight down her back. There wasn't any more hair to play with, so Ino and I voted for a card game, it wasn't until after that I realized why she pushed so hard for it.
Ino smirked as she laid down her cards, which were evidence that she had not only won, but wiped the floor with the rest of us.
"Gah, every time," Naruto yelled, slamming his cards down in frustration before falling onto his back in despair.
"Wow, you're really good," I told her.
Ino practically glowed with pride, "My dad taught me, and he's the best."
"It's just luck," Sasuke sulked.
"Luck loses it's hold after the first time, she's won eight games in a row. You're just grumpy 'cause you lost," Shikamaru goaded. This drew everyone into an argument over why it was or wasn't luck, and whether or not there was cheating, and if there was cheating, was it even allowed, because we were ninja and ninja cheat, but we weren't ninja yet.
We were just quieting down again when even more people piled into the house. "Hey, you finally made it," Shikamaru's father greeted, smiling lazily. A big man walked through the door, he had russet colored hair. He was huge in more than just height, but then again I'm five, so the comparison isn't all that it probably should be. Nara-sama's friend went to talk with him, leaving a boy, who was like a cuter, miniature version of him, to stand at the door, eating chips. I ran over to greet him, because that was my job, I think. Dad did call me over to say hello to Ino, so I figured that extended to any of the kid guests.
"Hi."
"Hello," he replied, munching on a chip.
"My name's Uzumaki Narumi, what's yours?"
"Akimichi Chouji."
"Cool. Hey, let's be friends, and since we're friends, my friends are your friends, so let's go!"
I lead him over to the group, we had moved outside because the family room just wasn't cutting it anymore. We were under the biggest tree in our back yard. I called it our climbing tree because its branches were low enough to grab, and were sturdy, so much so to hold even Dad's weight easily. Introductions passed quickly, and it was while Ino was showing Chouji how good at cards she was by beating him that I came up with an idea.
"We're all friends here, right?"
"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed.
Everyone nodded while Shikamaru rolled his eyes, "We wouldn't be hanging out if we weren't friends."
I ignored him, "And as we're such a big group of friends, we need a group name."
"Why?" Chouji asked.
"So that when we all get together, we can tell our parents who we're hanging out with without having to list all the names. And it'll sound cooler," I sat down, and we formed a circle so we could debate this properly.
"We need something short, so it's easy to remember us by," Ino noted.
"Something we all have in common, maybe?" Chouji suggested.
"So we're all included, dattebayo."
"Hn."
I raised my hand, "I'll go get the paper." Getting the paper and pen only took me two minutes, and apparently, it only took our group one to internally combust.
I sat beside Naruto to wait it out. "Brother, what did you do?" He had the smug look he always got after pulling the wool over some poor soul's eyes.
He grinned at me, "The ultimate prank."
"How is it ultimate?"
"They don't even know that I set them up." Meanwhile, the arguing got worse and worse, escalating in volume as it went.
"Hey!" it quieted down at the sound of Chouji's voice. "I think we should all go around the circle and say our suggestions. Narumi-chan will write them down, and then we will pick the top three, but you can't vote for your own, to be fair. Then we'll make edits and changes and vote again."
It was silent for a few beats before Sasuke shrugged, "Okay, who's going first?"
###########################
We all settled on the name the Game Changers. At first it was Game Players, this was derived, because we played a lot of games. Then Shikamaru said that life was like a shogi match, and Naruto said he wanted to be a hero. Ino noted that heroes change the world for the better and then suddenly we have an agreed upon group name.
Shikamaru was made our strategist, as he seemed to be the most capable, if his shogi skills were anything to go by. Naruto was our spokesperson because he could be really loud. I was the messenger, I would get the word out if we were hanging out and would report who was coming and other things like that. Ino was the psychologist, and if we needed it, she said, an interrogator because her clan has a special mind-jutsu. Chouji was the peacemaker, because he was the most level headed out of all of us. Sasuke was the police, because his dad ran the police force, and he said he was getting good at taijutsu.
"Wait, what about a leader?" The point that Naruto brought up stalled us.
"Well, who's the strongest? That's how we choose hokage," Ino said, frowning slightly.
"People get stronger though, there's no way to know if the strongest now will be the strongest later."
Sasuke nodded, "Shikamaru-kun has a point. Maybe… we shouldn't have a leader."
I tilted my head slightly, "What do you mean?"
"Well, we decided on the group name and positions within the group without a leader."
"But what if we all disagree, or it's split half and half? What then? We need a decision maker," Naruto pointed out.
"That's true," I agreed.
Ino shot up from her patch of grass, "I've got it! Let's have Chouji-kun be leader."
Chouji looked shell shocked, chip bag falling to the ground. "What, why me?"
"Well, the best leaders are the level headed ones. The fair ones, you are the best out of all of us. You solved the group name crisis."
This was true, without Chouji, we'd probably still be arguing over who gets to pick it. The voting took place, and it was unanimous that Chouji was our leader. The only person who didn't vote for Chouji was Chouji himself, but in the end we convinced him.
"Kids, dango's ready," Mom called from the back door.
We all raced into the house, tripping over each other to get there. Mom held out a plate stacked with the treat, and we all collected one and said thank you. Everyone looked to Naruto, as he was our spokesperson.
"What?" he mumbled through a mouthful of dango. Then his eyes lit up in recognition, "Oh, right," he swallowed the dango. "We're not called kids, anymore."
"Honey, you're not adults yet. You may be five now, but-," Mom was cut off.
"No, no, our friend group. You can't call us kids, we have a group name."
Mom looked interested, "And what's that?"
We all looked at each other, before grinning at her, "The Game Changers," we announced.
"Let's announce positions, starting with our leader."
At this point all the adults had dropped whatever they were doing and formed a crowd around us. They looked at Naruto, expecting him to be it, as he was the one to start talking.
They were surprised when Chouji stepped up to state his position within the group. "I am the leader and peacemaker."
Next was Shikamaru, "I am the strategist."
"I'm the policeman," Sasuke raised his hand.
After him was Ino. "I'm the psychologist slash interrogator."
"I'm the messenger," I said.
Naruto straightened his posture, as all attention was on him, "I'm the spokesperson."
Mom looked just as stunned as the others, dark blue eyes slightly wide. "Um, okay then," she stuttered.
The Game Changers went outside to eat dango.
$$$$$$$$$$$ General POV:
The kids, or rather, the Game Changers left the adults to their shock. How did this even happen? The party wasn't even three hours in and suddenly they've decided they're good enough friends to make an official group? That's the power of blunt innocence and cute faces.
"I know that this was the plan all along, but…" Minato trailed off.
Shikaku turned to Chouza, "Guess you have all the political pull with them, being Chouji's father and all."
The adults laughed, not really anything else they could do. Shikaku glanced out the window, where the kids were playing swords with the dango sticks. He could only imagine the headaches that their schemes would bring, but the alliance that would follow... He hummed, now that certainly something to think about.
Second Chapter Complete, Game Changers, unite!
Not sure if the name's going to stick, though. They're five, who takes five year olds seriously?