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CHIBI’D: A Fanfic of Unusually Small Proportions
WARNINGS: Many five-year-olds and some implied shonen-ai. Nothing too bad.
DISCLAIMER: Meh. I do not have Naruto in my pocket. That is all.
SPOILERS: None that I can think of, unless you’re stupid and a nitpick.
CHAPTER ONE OF THREE: Fountain of Youth
It should have been so, so easy, Kakashi would weep later while thinking of clever ways to hide vegetables. A D-ranked mission--there was nothing feasibly less dangerous, except for one of Iruka’s field trips.
D-rank mission. Yes, a D-rank mission; it’d been quiet, so the Hokage left the larger works to the older ninja and had the young geniuses of Kohona weed gardens, go shopping, and fetch this and that as the clients saw fit. It was a quiet existence, and a blissful one: though Naruto did his obligatory bitching and moaning over having to deliver packages again, Kakashi got to relax a bit and catch up on Icha Icha Paradise, which was a waste of time in absolutely no way.
The mission was simple, the day bright and beautiful--Kakashi would never have believed that something so sinister could have been conceived under such a lovely summer morning, in a lush, glittering spring, with a new issue of Icha Icha Paradise in his pocket. What bad could possibly befall a mission in which the main objective was to fill a half-dozen water bottles for Tsunade? Water was nothing remotely evil or ominous about water bottles!
Oh, but happen it did. Kakashi had happily seated himself on a handy branch and had just cracked open Icha Icha Paradise to his current chapter (“The Rhapsody of Your Gums”) when a piercing scream lit up the air. With all the fluid grace due a high-level jounin, Kakashi stuffed his precious paperback into his vest and all but flew from the branch, pinpointing the source of the scream without even struggling.
Naruto’s voice was much deeper than the screamer’s had been, and Sasuke was not one for screaming (unless Naruto parading around naked was involved in the equation), so that left Sakura. Sakura was not the kind of girl who screamed for any old reason; either Naruto had tripped with a kunai in hand and killed Sasuke, or Sasuke had taken off his shirt. Either would produce a shrill shriek from the pink-haired Shinobi, the first out of sheer horror, the second out of sheer bliss. Knowing his luck, though, it had probably been the former…
Kakashi bounced from convenient branch to convenient branch in the human equivalent of a ninja pinball; if Naruto had managed to pull a fight with Sasuke and win, he would have to get there as quickly as possible because blood loss would no doubt be heavily involved.
But--Kakashi drew up short, coming upon a little girl clutching desperately to a pair of orange slacks and some discarded khaki shorts. Not knowing any other person alive who had the gall to wear orange pants on a regular basis, Kakashi descended on the girl, a sudden and horrifying scenario coming into his mind, unbidden: those were Naruto and Sasuke’s clothes. For one reason or another, the boys of team seven were running around with no pants. That was…awkward, especially considering what kind of position the little girl might have found the boys in. Kakashi could only pray that it was no ‘position’ he might find within the covers of Icha Icha Paradise…
The girl was a pretty thing, probably not much older than four or five, and would grow up to be quite the woman--Kakashi knew, because he had an eye for these things. She was barefoot, and dressed in a short black dress. He smiled at the child from beneath his mask, and tried to not look like an intimidating and possibly very, very dangerous ninja. Or an escapee mental patient. Kakashi was used to being mistaken for both, with varying degrees of truth to the claims.
“Sensei!” the little girl cried, her huge green eyes brimming with anxious tears.
“Ano…sweetheart, have you seen the two boys who really should be in those pants?” Kakashi tried as the little girl blinked up at him.
“Sasuke-kun an’ Naruto?” the girl asked in a squeaky, childish voice, hugging the articles of clothing closer to her chest.
“Precisely. You’ve seen them?” --hopefully not very naked and not engaging in things that thirteen-year-old ninja are not meant to do in the bushes when on a mission!
She nodded, wiping at one tearing sea foam-green eye.
“They fell outta their pants, so Sasuke-kun gave me his shirt and told me ta go find you!”
They ‘fell out of their pants’? Well, I have heard worse excuses, I guess…
“Well little girl, where did you see them last? I’ll need to get them back into their clothes before poor Sakura-chan finds them…”
“Kakashi-sensei! I’m Sakura!”
“…” said the jounin, frowning at her.
Kakashi stared at the little girl with his one natural eye, really looking at her for the first time. Yes, she did look something like the only female member of group seven, but she couldn’t be much more than five years old. Haruno Sakura was nearly fourteen; even if the little girl’s eyes looked uncannily like the pretty ninja’s, and even if her soft pink hair looked just like Sakura’s, and even if she had a too-large Kohona head protector looped around her neck, and even if…even if…
“I’ll show you!” the Sakura-that-wasn’t snapped, grabbing the jounin by the wrist and forcibly dragging him through the forest trail, to where Kakashi himself had left his three genin to fill the water bottles Tsunade had sent for.
“You--oh…oh dear…” Kakashi would have usually been embarrassed to have muttered such an Iruka-like gasp, but the situation definitely warranted it.
And the situation was this: two half-naked boys were sitting on the edge of the spring Tsunade had specified for the mission, glaring at each other with a ferocity that only two rival genin could hold. So yes, check on the scantily-clad boys, but it wasn’t for the reason Kakashi had instantly leapt to. Unfortunately, this was something a little less probable: this was two five-year-old boys, one blond and one dark-haired, the blond wearing a far-too-large orange jacket that fit him like a dress, and the dark-haired boy wrapped in Sakura’s red dress and an expression of mute mortification.
“Kakashi-sensei,” said the tiny version of Sasuke, in a calm, though squeaky voice. “We have a problem.”
In all, Tsunade couldn’t help herself. It was just too funny.
“You drank the water!” The Godaime howled with laughter, her plentiful breasts jiggling with enough vigorousness to make even Kakashi’s head hurt. “The mission brief said clearly, multiple times, not to drink the water!”
“We dinnit drink it,” little Naruto harrumphed, his big blue eyes registering hurt at the accusation. “We fell in.”
“Sensei, he pushed me,” Sasuke snitched instantly (being an old snitching pro), pointing to Naruto with a frown.
“But then I fell in, too,” Naruto grinned widely. “’Cause it was all slip’ry!”
“An’ I jumped in after them,” Sakura added, not to be forgotten for her heroic, though seriously misplaced good deed. She had hoped that Sasuke had not known how to swim, leading to her saving him and possibly a round of mouth-to-mouth if the occasion warranted it.
“Same thing, same thing,” Tsunade said, waving them off. “This water is not meant to be ingested by ninja as young as you are--ideally, it’s for old hags like me, seeing as its main function is to temporarily reverse cellular decay.”
“Meaning…?” Kakashi prompted, turning one glaring eye on the Hokage. She smiled wanly.
“Meaning that the spring I sent you to is conventionally known as the Fountain of Youth. Meaning that drinking the water imbues youthful energy to the drinker. Meaning that team seven is now about five years old, inside and out.”
“But I don’t wanna be five!” Sakura shrieked, stomping in righteous kindergarten anger. “I was just getting boobs! Sasuke-kun won’t like me if I don’t have boobs!”
“I don’t like you anyways,” assured Sasuke-kun, happily licking the lollipop Tsunade had given him.
“Oh, but you just say that,” she said, nodding.
“Nope. I think you’re a cotton-candy-haired freak child.” He said, and stuck out his tongue. “So nyaaaaah.”
“What should I do with them?” Kakashi asked, just the barest trace of hysterical pleading invading his tone.
“Baby-sit them, I suppose,” Tsunade said with a shrug, as if she couldn’t be bothered with frazzled jounin and chibified ninja squads.
“Baby-sit them?” Kakashi repeated incredulously, his visible eye widening. Every adult with children he’d known had instinctively known better than to leave their spawn in his care; Kakashi was not especially good with children. It was to the point that Iruka even forbade him from entering school grounds--for one reason or another, Kakashi’s presence brought out the more animalistic side of the pre-K herd, and he hyped them up without really trying. Honestly, Iruka overreacted to everything--playing tackle football with the kids with ninja skills active had seemed like a very good idea at the time…
“The effects of the water should wear off eventually,” Tsunade added in what she clearly thought was a helpful tone, interrupting his reminiscence on Football Gone Horribly Wrong. Kakashi goggled.
“Eventually?” he demanded, feeling oddly like a parrot. Shock and horror utterly killed his charisma. “I refuse to sit for three children with adult ninja capabilities and very little self-restraint!”
“They might not remember they’re ninja,” Tsunade pointed out, giving Kakashi a glimmer of hope.
As usual, Sasuke completely shot down any hope he might have gleaned.
“I am Uchiha Sasuke, the only true survivor of the illustrious Uchiha clan,” the chibi dark ninja said, crossing his arms over his chest with a pout that would have been much more imposing had he been eight years older. “As master of Sharingan, I will track down my corrupted elder brother, Uchiha Itachi, and murder him in retribution of the slaughter of our entire family.” He paused, and blinked. “When I’m older, I guess.”
The spiel just sounded infinitely wrong coming out of a five-year-old’s mouth.
“Scratch that hypothesis,” Tsunade said with a nod.
“An’ you need ta have Uchiha babies, too, right, right?” Naruto squeakily inquired around the thumb he was industriously sucking on. “You need to have lotsa babies; that’s part of the grr-I’m-a-scary-mean-avenger-man deal. But hey! Now you’re an Uchiha baby!” Naruto found this very funny, and Sasuke found it very not. Before Kakashi even thought to intervene--usually Sasuke gave Naruto The Look of Most Certain Death, and the kyuubi backed off, leaving it at that--Sasuke leapt onto the smaller boy and it turned into a very loud, very cute fistfight laden with “I’m not a baby!” and “Booger head! Booger head!”.
Kakashi gave a shuddering sigh, praying for some passing-by god to strike him down where he stood. Being smote sounded much more appealing than living through what might shape up to be a very, very painful day for the leader of group seven…
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