Like Ninja Fighters

Like Ninja Fighters

Chapter 2: The First Battle

"They're both eighteen years old now. They need to know that they can't act like kids for the rest of their lives. This fighting should have stopped years ago," Sarutobi's voice came over the phone.

"Sometimes I think they're more childish now than when they were younger," Kakashi said, watching his two adopted sons as they played their videogame. Naruto stared intently at the screen, looking at the blonde-haired character with the name “Jun” while Sasuke focused on the black-haired character named “Nori.”

"Have the two of them gotten into a fight since they returned from school? I thought about having you pick them up, but as it was the end of the day, I hoped they would be able to manage a bus ride home. Do they look like they have had a recent fight?" Sarutobi asked, concerned, clearly double guessing his judgment to send them home on the bus.

Glancing over at the TV, Kakashi saw Naruto and Sasuke's characters double team up against the enemy fighters on the screen, kicking, punching, and fighting in perfect unison, their video gaming teamwork flawless.

"No fights," Kakashi said, slightly amused as he watched their fighting on TV. No real fights, he amended in his mind. Victory music blared for winning their latest battle on Ninja Chronicles 7.

"Their teachers were notified that they will be out of school for two days. You will be able to pick up their schoolwork after school tomorrow."

"Just two days? I thought the standard suspension time for fighting was three days," Kakashi clarified, as a few things clicked into place with this new knowledge.

"It's their senior year, and they can't afford to miss out on any last minute graduation requirements."

"I'll bet they weren't happy," Kakashi said, trying not to sound too amused. He knew why they wouldn't be happy for getting two days instead of three. Sarutobi would assume that they were upset for getting suspended in the first place. Kakashi knew better.

"Naruto seemed more upset than Sasuke. I thought Sasuke, considering his academic record, would be more upset about missing school. Instead he just told Naruto to be grateful it wasn't more days."

"Thank you for letting me know. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t about anything major. For the most part, they’ve settled their, uh, differences. Either way, I'll make sure to have a talk with the boys."

"Good luck."

"Thanks." As Kakashi hung up the phone, Sasuke and Naruto turned to look at him. He frowned at the dark bruise on Sasuke’s cheek and Naruto’s split lip, but overall, the boys seemed in extremely good spirits. As he looked at them, he realized calling them boys wasn't exactly fitting anymore. They were both legally adults now, soon to start at their university. They could act mature and be responsible when they wanted to be. Yet sitting there, watching them play videogames together reminded him of the first time that they had met, almost ten years ago...


- - - - - - - - - - - -


Ten years previously...


"So I'm going to get a brother?" eight-year-old Naruto asked excitedly. Kakashi just smiled.

"If you find someone you get along with," Kakashi said, trying not to sound as though he were brother shopping for Naruto. Essentially though, that's what they were about to do. Kakashi had been a foster father to Naruto for two years now, and Kakashi really didn’t have any interest in having kids of his own. Babies frazzled him.

Naruto had been placed in Kakashi’s care after his parents had died when Naruto was only six. Naruto had been paralyzed from the waist down when Naruto had first come to his home due to the result of the same car accident that had killed his parents. The doctors had said that Naruto would never recover feeling in his legs let alone walk again. But Naruto, ever the optimist and a determined and hard worker, didn’t let that get him down. It had taken almost a year, but he’d made a full recovery – stunning the doctors at his remarkable return to a full bill of health.

The emotional toil of watching the small child tackle such a daunting task still pulled at Kakashi’s heart when he thought about it. He’d come to care for Naruto like his own son.

Recently Kakashi had realized that Naruto wasn't getting along too well with the kids at school his own age, and Kakashi decided that perhaps he ought to – temporarily – take on another foster child. He currently worked from home, and he had the money. He knew that the system desperately needed more foster families to take kids in, and having gone through the system himself when he was younger, he knew that it was vital to have a stable foster home to look after children.

Besides, after juggling a gravely injured Naruto and his work proved he would be able to handle two children. Or so logic told him. Realistically, Kakashi couldn’t stand to see Naruto so down about not having friends when even the inability to walk hadn’t brought his spirits down.

They were currently at a center where foster children stayed briefly while the government found suitable families to take them in. On average, they were kept there less than a week. The building was a lot nicer than Kakashi remembered from his own days there. It was strangely nostalgic for him, but even so, Kakashi didn’t mind taking Naruto to see if there were any kids he'd get along with and take on another child in his home.

When Kakashi had first approached the director about what he was doing, she'd actually encouraged it, saying it would be better for both Naruto and any other foster child for them to meet beforehand. If they got along well, it was less likely they would get into trouble and be sent back. Kakashi remembered all too well the issues he’d had with some of the biological children of the foster parents’ whose homes he’d stayed in. Jealousy sometimes occurred between the biological children of foster parents and the foster children; Kakashi didn’t want Naruto or any foster child to butt heads. It wouldn’t be a healthy environment for either of them.

Thankfully the director understood what Kakashi was trying to prevent, and she was just grateful that he'd consider taking on a second foster child. His record was good, and even though he was a single parent, he worked from home.

Initially after Naruto’s parents’ deaths, Naruto was just going to stay with Kakashi until further family could be found. However, none had been reached, so Kakashi had begun the process to legally adopt Naruto. There was no way Kakashi wanted to send him back to the system, not when he’d become so close to him. He’d already been close to him before the car accident as Kakashi had known Naruto’s parents. In fact, sending Naruto away would be like ripping away Kakashi’s only remaining family. He had a feeling he would take the separation worse than Naruto.

So that was why they were at the foster center, basically brother shopping for Naruto. (Kakashi had refused to take on a young girl. He wouldn’t even know where to start with one of those.)

Kakashi read a book as Naruto took time to hang out with the other kids. Kakashi only glanced up occasionally to see what Naruto was up to.

Naruto played in the playground with the kids outside, did crafts with the kids indoors, played a board game, watched an episode of an anime show, and had a blast hanging out with all the other foster children. Idly Kakashi wondered why the school had sent home a concerned letter saying that Naruto was having trouble with the students in his classes; Naruto was thriving with the children here.

'At least,' Kakashi mused, 'we can come here for him to find kids to play with.' Kakashi was thankful that Naruto wasn’t hopeless at making friends. Maybe he just didn’t like any of his fellow students at his school. He seemed to like everyone here.

Hopefully Naruto wouldn't want him to bring home all these kids as siblings.

"Has Naruto shown interest in anyone?" the director asked hopefully, coming up to speak with Kakashi. He flagged the page in his book and turned to look at her.

"Everyone," Kakashi murmured, smiling warmly, his eyes crinkling upward.

"I see," she said. There was something in her voice that made Kakashi wonder if she wanted to say more. She flicked one of her blonde-pigtails behind her head, showing off her director’s nametag: Tsunade. He waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he finally decided to prompt more conversation.

"Did you have someone specific in mind?"

"There's a young boy who has been here for two months. We are reluctant to place him in a foster home. He doesn't talk to anyone. He just sits in front of the TV and plays videogames all day long. We tried taking him away from the games, but then he just sat and stared blankly and refused to eat. His name's Sasuke."

"Recently orphaned?"

The director nodded solemnly. She gestured over to a corner where a little boy sat in front of a small TV. It looked like it had been set-up just for him. His eyes were focused on the game, but they looked lifeless, dreary. If his fingers hadn’t been moving on the controller, it would have been hard to tell he was playing the videogame at all.

"His older brother murdered the rest of his family," Tsunade murmured, shocking Kakashi at the horror of it. "The cops showed up and then shot his brother before he got the chance to kill Sasuke. It seems the videogames take his mind off of the murder of his family. His entire situation was made worse than just witnessing his family’s slaughter because, according to police witnesses, when the cops barged in, the older brother was hovering over him with a butcher knife."

Kakashi looked at the child, wondering how anyone could recoup from such a life-changing tragedy.

"The police shot the older brother on sight. The brother’s body fell on top of Sasuke, and the knife left a scar on his shoulder. When he feels cornered, his hand reaches back and rubs at it. It seems that sometimes he has flashbacks of the incident. Since the police had to shoot his brother to prevent him from killing Sasuke, no one knows why the brother did what he did. There’s been no closure for Sasuke, and at times, it seems he’s stuck reliving it over and over again until his young mind figures out what happened. A therapist was brought in to try and speak with him, but he refused to speak to anyone."

Kakashi didn't know what to say. The boy's past was appalling, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it. Clearly the boy needed psychiatric help.

"Have they thought about moving him to an institution?"

"A team of specialists has already come in to observe him. They believe isolation will make his condition worse, not better. If his older brother had lived, it's likely he would have been more interactive, or at least more responsive. He would have been angry and hateful of course, but at least not completely void of emotion. Even those negative emotions would be better than this nothingness. He's got no one left. All those he held dear were killed. He never had any friends. Apparently he always looked up to his older brother and worked hard to make his brother proud of him. Even his older brother is dead. There’s no one left for him to admire – or hate. We keep a close watch on him. Although he’s a bright child, we fear he may attempt to harm himself."

"So in other words he's refusing to make any new connections, most likely in fear of losing them?"

"Probably. But your foster son, Naruto, according to his caseworker's report was having trouble making friends with kids his own age. Yet look at him right now! He's getting along great with everyone here. He was young when his parents died, but he too understands what these children are going through. I think he would connect even better with Sasuke, considering what Naruto went through with being paralyzed. He never gave up hope, the caseworker said, and she believes that was why he recovered so well. Apparently it also helped Naruto cope with his parents’ death."

"He says he doesn’t remember it well, but they were crushed to death right in front of him. Sometimes I think he just refuses to remember it," Kakashi said, his voice hitching. He had trouble dealing with the thought of how horrible the car crash had been. Naruto had to be pried from the back seat while the front of the car crushed into his small legs. The thought of the pain he suffered was horrendous, but even worse for Kakashi was imagining Naruto’s parents: good, loving people, whom Kakashi had known, crushed to death so brutally. They hadn’t deserved that. And neither had Naruto.

"Most people would get themselves into such a funk that mentally they wouldn’t be able to get better, but not Naruto. He thrives in happiness, and he seems to like reaching out to those who need a boost up. Even the ones who are just temporarily separated from their parents are connecting with Naruto. He seems to just shine. Maybe encourage Naruto to go and speak with Sasuke."

"I don't know that Naruto would talk to him. For one, he doesn't play videogames. He only plays computer...games..." but Kakashi trailed off as Naruto walked up to Sasuke of his own accord. Naruto stood above Sasuke, watching the character on the screen, his eyes widening when Sasuke made the character labeled “Nori” do an impressive back flip.

"What are you playing?" Naruto asked.

Even if he had heard him, Sasuke didn't respond. Naruto asked again louder, "What are you playing?"

"Hey. He doesn't talk," one of the boy’s Naruto had played with earlier explained. He had come up to get Naruto’s attention, and he seemed almost apprehensive that Naruto was attempting to talk with Sasuke.

"Why not?" Naruto asked.

"I think he's stupid," the other boy said, not bothering to whisper it in front of Sasuke.

"Really?" Naruto asked with a frown on his face as he looked at Sasuke. "He doesn't look stupid. Did you see that move he just did?" Naruto asked the other boy. The fellow orphan shook his head. Naruto bent down and poked Sasuke in the side. Hard. "You're not stupid are you?"

Kakashi shook his head and took a step forward, intent on telling Naruto to leave Sasuke alone, but the director held up her hand.

"Let him." Against his better judgment, Kakashi didn't interfere.

When Sasuke didn't respond, Naruto poked him again, harder.

"What's your name?" No response. Naruto waved his hand in front of Sasuke's face. "I'll pull the plug on your videogame unless you talk!" Naruto warned angrily. The other orphan looked at the two of them nervously before walking away.

The director put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder to prevent him from stopping Naruto from annoying Sasuke.

"Please, just wait," she murmured to Kakashi. Kakashi frowned at her. He usually didn’t tolerate such behavior from Naruto, but he had to admit he was slightly curious to see if Sasuke would respond to Naruto’s instigations or not.

Naruto walked over to the game console, frowning at it. It was clear he didn't know how to turn it off. Kakashi had never gotten Naruto any videogame systems; Naruto, like Kakashi, played computer games.

After all, Kakashi designed and critiqued computer games for a living.

Even though Naruto couldn’t find the off switch, he seemed determined to get Sasuke’s attention. Undeterred at not finding the game console switch, he put his finger over the power button of the TV. Kakashi realized it was something that he did frequently to Naruto’s computer monitor when Naruto was too engrossed in a computer game and had to head to bed.

"Stop ignoring me!" Naruto yelled, clearly upset with Sasuke's lack of attention. "You're not the only one whose parents died or left them! Stop acting like you're the only one who’s sad about something!" Sasuke's shoulders tensed, and Kakashi could see a look of slight success cross Naruto's face; he'd gotten Sasuke to react to him finally. "It's stupid of you to ignore everyone. It won't make them come back. And it won't make them happy to know they have a bad son who is mean and doesn't do what he's supposed to!"

Sasuke's head snapped up, and he glared at Naruto.

"I'm not the bad son," Sasuke murmured. His voice was low, quiet. Kakashi had expected him to yell back in anger. Instead, his voice was cold and almost uncaring.

It was sad that a child that young could sound so lifeless.

"Then stop acting like it!"

Sasuke threw the controller on the floor and stood up, coming face to face with Naruto. Sasuke looked livid, a drastic change from the emotionless mask he had worn. His hand had reached back to play with the back of his neck. The director looked like she had stopped breathing; she was that intent on observing the exchange between the two boys. Kakashi frowned, stepping forward; he didn’t want to see Naruto get into a fight. Not to mention, the director had said Sasuke started to have traumatic flashbacks when his hand played with the scar he’d gotten.

Naruto surprised everyone when he smiled happily at Sasuke.

"See? Much better! I'm Naruto," Naruto said, grinning widely now that he had Sasuke's attention. He offered his hand to Sasuke. Sasuke looked like he wasn't sure if he should shake his hand or hit him. He did neither.

"Sasuke," Sasuke mumbled reluctantly, removing his hand from the back of his neck, sticking both his balled up fists into his pockets. Naruto, un-phased by Sasuke's lack of desire to shake his hand, stuck his own hand into Sasuke's pocket, pulled out Sasuke's hand, and shook it. Sasuke let him.

Sasuke looked at Naruto as though he’d never seen a person before.

"Now, how did you do that cool flip thing with your character?" Naruto asked curiously. Sasuke gave Naruto a strange look before sitting back down, Naruto sitting close beside him.

Kakashi watched in bemusement as Sasuke proceeded to grudgingly show Naruto how to play the videogame.

"I had a good feeling about Naruto," the director said, smiling gently.

"I suppose so," Kakashi said, slightly surprised, but pleased with Naruto.

"The therapists were interested in seeing how Sasuke was doing, how he was feeling. They strongly suggested having a child his own age interact with him, someone who could understand him a little. Naruto could sympathize with how Sasuke felt without asking about it. He also wanted to interact with Sasuke with no other motive than to get to know him, or rather, to get to know how Sasuke could play videogames it seems. The other kids seemed fearful of Sasuke. I thought if only one of them would talk to him it would make all the difference. The boys seemed jealous of him, and the girls seemed to think he was too cool that they were afraid they would slip up if they talked to him."

"Naruto reads people fairly well," Kakashi conceded. He smiled as he watched on while Sasuke and Naruto played the videogame.


- - - - - - - - - - - -


On the way home from the center (no other child in tow) Naruto asked about Sasuke.

"Do you think we could go back again tomorrow so I can play with Sasuke? He said that I need practice if I'm going to be able to do the move that he did. Plus, he won’t let me use Nori. I have to use Jun, and Jun’s got a different type of flip than Nori. I gotta perfect it so I can beat him!"

Kakashi chuckled. "Sure."

One week later, Sasuke came home with them, a new videogame system in tow.


- - - - - - - - - - - -


Remembering the fact that a videogame (Ninja Chronicles 1 to be exact) was how the two of them had first met made Kakashi smile in nostalgia. Because it had been the videogames that seemed to open Sasuke up, Kakashi had always been loathe taking it away from them. Not to mention they seemed to take it seriously. He’d been extremely surprised when they had gotten actively involved in karate because they wanted to become like the two main ninjas in their favorite videogame, Ninja Chronicles.

They’d become almost fanatically obsessed with learning new moves, attempting to mirror the characters from the show.

Of course, even though the game had been an icebreaker between them, videogames had caused a lot of problems with the boys too: skipping school for instance.

It had also led to other habits that took away from their schoolwork. The current game was based off of a TV show that the boys had become addicted to, spending their time on the computer reading up on character information, re-watching the episodes, and even reading fan-fiction on it.

And even though Sasuke and Naruto didn’t talk about it, Kakashi had figured out that it had been the fan-fiction that had recently gotten them in trouble. He’d done his less than fun parenting duty by snooping on both Sasuke and Naruto’s computers after finding them in such a bizarre situation. He had found out that they were mirroring what they were reading between their two favorite characters in fanfiction (favorites never lie), an incident that had landed them in trouble.

Though trouble might not be the right word for what it had caused between the two. It was more like tension. After all, he wasn’t sure if he should ground them for exploring their, uh, curiosity. It left him less than comfortable, but he feared telling them not to do it would just make the situation worse. After all, knowing them, taking away the videogames had gotten them to just go behind his back. Telling them not to…not to…Kakashi wasn’t sure he could even put into words what was going on between them.

Movement brought Kakashi back from his thoughts as he turned to look at Naruto who kept shooting glances his way.

"Are you really going to let us play?" Naruto asked nervously, looking at Kakashi and then back at their game.

"You mean because the two of you ought to be grounded for purposefully getting into a fight to skip school in order to play a silly little videogame and don't deserve to play it?"

Naruto winced.

"I told you the agreement. You do this analysis," Kakashi said, holding up the stack of papers in front of him, "and finish all your schoolwork as soon as I get it to you tomorrow, then yes."

Sasuke and Naruto eyed the analysis.

"But how did you get stuck on the analysis on this game? I thought that you only did action game analysis for computer games, not videogames," Sasuke wondered.

"Usually. But the boss asked for a cross analysis between the videogame and its computer counterpart that’s in the works. You get to do half my report for me. You know I prefer computer games to videogames."

"Deal," Sasuke and Naruto said, both turning back to the game.

Kakashi sighed in relief. Quite frankly, he'd rather have them playing videogames when they were suspended than left alone to do what he had caught them doing together last month in Sasuke’s bedroom. Shaking his head, trying to quell the disturbing image of his two adopted sons doing – well, he'd rather not think about that.

He’d rather them be focused on the videogame during their two day suspension than other things.


Next Chapter: Evasive Battle Maneuvers


Just an fyi, I used the names Jun and Nori for the Ninja Chronicle characters because the Japanese voice actress who does Naruto is Junko, and the Japanese voice actor who does Sasuke is Noriaki.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! ~ Jelp