A Walk in His Shoes

 Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money this is just for fun. Needs a TON of help I know but wanted to post it up anyway. Just know that I am still not happy with this chapter and will continue to work on it till its not so painful to read?? Feel free to tell me how bad it is....lol...I know I suck at this but it seems so much fun to do and I need to work on some kind of hobby and fanfiction is just so much fun to begin with!!! LOVE IT =)  I myself am fully aware of just how awful it is so don't hold back....not that my skills will get better anytime soon.....just very realistic here......just cause english is my native tongue...lol doesn't mean I'm good at it to begin with. Its so sad really.....gives Moodysavage a headache just to read it lol.....one must torture ones sister....its part of the joys in life as an older sister!!

Past Moments in Time

The Third Hokage waited at the edge of the devastation created by the Nine Tailed Demon Fox Kyuubi and the Forth Hokage. Reaching out with his chakra and diligently searching the battle field till he finally located the Forth Hokage’s last lingering chakra signature that finally disappeared all together. His senses picked up the chakra signature of another close to where he last felt his dear friend and past student.

 

The grief that threatened to seize his heart had to be pushed aside as he quickly made his way towards the second chakra. Jumping from one broken tree to another he finally reached his destination. He didn’t have trouble locating his target among the disaster due to the fact his target was crying at the top of his lungs. The kid has a strong set of lungs in him thought the Third Hokage with a smile.

 

Gently he picked up the wiggling, whimpering baby and immediately noticed the three cuts on each of his chibi cheeks. The cuts were still red and fresh, but looked to be in the last stages of healing. The red haze was a clear sign that the Forth Hokage’s attack to seal the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox inside his small new born son was a success.

 

Sarutobi was heartbroken that the battle had come to this. The sadness the Third Hokage felt at the loss of his dear friend and the devastation to a small family just starting out. The chance for two people to see their son grow and share his joys and sorrow forever lost. The son left alone with no knowledge or memories of those who had loved him so dearly and hadn’t wanted to leave him so soon after his birth.

The Third Hokage quickly cradled the new born to him and took off towards the village hospital. He wanted to make sure everything was fine with the infant.

At the Konoha hospital Lady Tsunada met him and gave Naruto a complete examination. After a thorough examination of Naruto, she declared him in excellent health even with the circumstances of his birth.

…………………………………………..

The Third Hokage came to the decision that the best way to protect the Forth Hokage’s son would be to keep him from knowing who his father was and so had Naruto called by his mothers last name which was Uzumaki.  He also decreed that no one in the village could tell Naruto about his parents or that he housed the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox Kyuubi. They were strictly forbidden to even talk about it and if caught would be punished for it.

He hoped with these measures Naruto could grow up safe, normal and happy.

The problems Naruto would face for the rest of his life showed up immediately when the Third Hokage tried to find a family that would take him into their home and raise him as their own. No one was willing to put their family at what they viewed was a risk and danger. Everyone either gave weak excuses or openly declared they would never permit such an abomination in their home.

The family that Minato and Kushina had chosen in case of such an emergency was not permitted to raise him by the Village council. The council felt it was in the best interest of the Leaf Village to have him raised by the ANBU Ops. They would have control over him and could keep records on his development. They would place the ANBU in shifts and rotate them in and out of Naruto’s home between missions for the village inside and outside of Konoha.

…………………………………………

The village took time to rebuild from the devastation caused by the Nine Tailed Fox. Each Shinobi used his or her skills to reconstruct and strengthen their village and way of life. They pushed for more missions to fund the work and help take their mind off those friends and family they had lost during the battle. This left less ANBU to cover the village. Most of Naruto’s care givers only fed him and changed him when needed. It was a rare few that took the time to read to him or talk to him and provided the care a developing infant desperately needed to grow.

Itachi wasn’t sure what to make of his newest assignment. He arrived at the upstairs apartment to relieve the other ANBU operative. He had been present for the briefing regarding their small charge. The only facts they were given was that he was an orphan and that he required special handling and observation.

The first thing Itachi did was go over the reports recording each of Naruto’s caregiver’s shifts. After a quick run down it appeared most of the others gave the least amount of effort in Naruto’s care with Hatake Kakashi the only exception, he actually recorded reading and talking to him and trips around the village to help him grow.

“I do hope he has enough sense not to be reading his Ichi Ichi books out loud to Naruto. That wouldn’t be appropriate at all.”

“Just to be sure I should stop by and check on them both while Hatake is here for his shift.”

Dark eyes looked over his charge and wondered what kind of impact it would have on him if Hatake actually did read such material to him.

“What kinds of things do you hear about little one with each of your other caregivers?”

“I have to wonder about the things they don’t write about.”

 “You are too young to tell anyone or to even ask for help from someone if needed.”

“I don’t understand why they won’t give you to a real family to be cared for. “

“You need to grow up with so much more then you are getting right now. How will the lack of a loving family make you into the man you will be someday? What can I do now to change this life you live into something better?”

“Know this, little Naruto. We all make choices and those choices define who we are. The choices we make affect everyone around us and can either make you stronger or break you into little pieces till there is nothing left. What choices will you make when you are grown and able to decide for yourself what’s important to you and how you will protect that which is precious to you?”

“I’ll tell you who is precious to me, my own little brother, Sasuke, is more precious then any shinobi or village in this world. I would do anything and everything to protect him. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”

Midnight pools bleed to red while intently locked with sapphire blue giving the tiny chibi a peek of what his own precious person looked like. Naruto was able to see Itachi’s own little brother and feel his intense emotions that included immense pride, intense possessiveness, an obsessive desire to protect and an ocean of love for the little’s Uchiha. All this was too much for the baby to understand but would be filed away along with all his other memories that was stored and built up to form who he would one day be, all that would make him the man he would finally grown into, with time.

Itachi himself had a little brother at home and knew they needed more care then Naruto was getting from his other caretakers. Babies needed someone to talk to them or they would never learn to speak, or if they did it with the barest amount of time talked to, it would be with a poor vocabulary and would cause them to fall far behind the other children their age.



The Uchiha prodigy looked over the subject of his new ongoing mission. The tiny infant was clearly a new born, with a head full of sunshine blond hair, sparkling sapphire eyes full of life and a surprising tan skin tone for an infant. Itachi had always thought they came out looking as beat red as his little brother had when he was born. Sasuke’s skin had then turned the pale white the Uchiha’s were known for. Yet what caught his interest the most was the three cuts on each side of the infant’s cheeks. The thin cuts made Itachi think of the long whiskers of a fox. He briefly wondered if the sealing jutsu used to seal the Nine Tailed Demon Fox inside the tiny infant had caused the marks to appear thus clearly showing the villagers just what was contained inside the tiny form.

The infant wiggled and waved his tiny fingers. A tiny mouth was wide open and trying desperately to latch onto the waving fists at they brushed against scarred cheeks. Itachi found the infants attempts amusing. They reminded him of his own little brother Sasuke.

The differences between the two boys, when Itachi thought about it was like looking at night and day. His own little brother Sasuke had a chibi head covered in ebony waves of hair that felt like silk with eyes blacker then the polished onyx stones he had sitting on his desk at home. Dark eyes that clearly communicated a sharp intelligence quickly developing and growing in the littlest Uchiha.

“Smirk”

Itachi was so proud of him. (Brother Complex Big Time!)

Sasuke had been a quiet infant and was currently a quiet toddler. While currently Itachi was subjected to the loudest cry he had ever heard from an infant. At the shear volume Naruto was reaching he was genuinely surprised no one had complained about him as of yet.

Itachi quickly picked up the fussy baby and walked with him into the kitchen to warm a bottle for him as he had done many times at home with his own little brother. While he waited he rocked back and forth on his feet and twisted his torso in a lightly bouncing motion to calm the hungry baby. The crying lowered and finally stopped all together as blue eyes opened and peeked up at the raven haired Uchiha.

“Hiccup”

He ran a pale finger down scarred cheeks and very gently tickled the baby’s nose. A tiny nose twitched and Itachi chuckled.

Boy did he miss his little brother. After he had fed the baby and changed him into a clean set of clothes, Itachi sat down with him and talked to him. For hours he talked to the wiggling infant about the history of their village and the need for ninja’s and trained healers and the differences they made all around them each and every day. He talked about the shinobi world and the Uchiha clan and when he was finished with that he talked too little Naruto about his little brother Sasuke.

“Naruto”

“When you get bigger I’ll have to get you to try the tomatoes that are grown in my mother’s garden.”

“I am sure you will enjoy them as much as my own little brother Sasuke does!”

The warm laughter rolls out of the raven and the vibrations in his chest are like gentle ripples to the wiggling infant in his arms.

While he talked he stared into blue orbs that watched his every move. The emotions that flashed across the tiny features had him changing his tone and inflections in order to catalog the variety of changes he could get the infant to express.

Whenever it came to Itachi’s turn to care for Naruto he got into the habit of bring his little brother Sasuke along. Sasuke’s first response to the infant had been to give a look of extreme chibi boredom. But soon the look of boredom was wiped away as he learned that making strange faces and doing a wide range of sounds caused the infant to smile or giggle and his large blue eyes to widen in surprise.

Itachi watched as chibi Sasuke patted sunshine hair and talked to the infant in a language only a chibi could speak. He watched and recorded everything in the back of his mind, to save and bring out at a later date.

“Smirk”

Sasuke’s Uchiha pride would be devastated over the cuteness of it all.

“Smirk”

With his mangekyo sharingan he could have Sasuke relive these precious moments again and again.

“Evil Smirk”

When Sasuke gets older and not suspecting that he even has such sweet memories to recall, Itachi would take the opportunity to remind him of what he had forgotten.

“Wicked Smirk”

So with this in mind Itachi was sure to always have Sasuke with him and would subject both boys to long lengthy lectures about chakra control and training. He talked to them about loyalty to the village and the people around them. It didn’t matter that they were too young to understand what he said. One needed to hear something repeatedly in order to learn it. Besides the blond one didn’t seem as quick or as intelligent as his own little brother obviously was.

As soon as Naruto learned to walk he was immediately in the blink of an eye trying to run on his chibi legs after Sasuke.

“Sascake!”

Tan little legs moved furiously to catch up to a pale set that moved always just out of reach tauntingly close enough to touch for but a moment only to spin out of range the next instant. These kinds of games kept the boys busy for hours.

“Sascake!”

“My name is SASUKE!”

“DOBE”

“Say my name!”

“Sascake! Sascake! Sascake!”

 Proudly yelled the little blond bouncing in his excitement at having finally gained the Uchiha’s attention and was overjoyed that he was currently in his personal space. Usually it was so hard to get him to stand still and stand near him that he spent all his time trying to catch him just to be in his personal space.

Itachi glanced over them and their little argument. It was always interesting how Naruto always seemed to fight to get into Sasuke’s personal space. He wasn’t happy unless he was and didn’t seem to care in the slightest if Sasuke was mad at him and giving him a glare to reinforce the point of his displeasure in Naruto’s behavior towards him. Any kind of attention from Sasuke was good enough to make Naruto happy it seemed.

Simple minds only need simple pleasures so it would seem. The older Uchiha thought to himself.  It took so little to keep Naruto happy and content with the world around him. Most toddlers his age would think the world revolved around them and demanded as such yet he had never once witnessed such a trait in Naruto nor his own brother Sasuke for that matter. They seemed content with what they had. They sought out his attention and each others and that was as far as their demands went.

“Oh come on already!”

“Its not that hard to say, even for a dobe like you.” Sasuke was irritated beyond belief at his young friend.

  When the chibi blond called out to Sasuke it came out sounding as Sascake instead which frustrated Itachi’s little brother to no end. Itachi took to teasing his little brother when they were home calling him Sascake when they were alone just to provoke the little raven into attacking him and giving Itachi the fun of roughing his little brother up. He kept the teasing between them seeing as it would destroy his image if his parents or anyone else ever discovered how much he enjoyed himself at his brother’s expense.

Itachi would take the two boys to the grassy fields outside of Konoha to play. With Sasuke being almost two and Naruto around one the grassy area was perfect for them to run around in. Play time usually ran along the lines of Sasuke showing Naruto all the things he could do that Naruto had yet to learn. Sasuke would run and jump circles around Naruto or would lunge and punch with the occasional kick into the air. Naruto would try to mimic Sakuke’s moves but ended up falling down either face first or on his backside most of the time. Though such set backs never seemed to faze him nor discourage him from getting back up and trying again.

 Naruto had so much energy that Sasuke had to keep moving and running for hours just to tire him out. It would then take just a few moments in the grass looking up into the sky counting a cloud here and there when finally the quiet steady breaths coming from beside him would alert Sasuke that he had out lasted his rival chibi yet again.

“Chibi Smirk”

He lived for such moments. With his blond friend asleep Sasuke too could close his eyes and patiently wait for him to wake up.



A Uchiha doesn’t take naps.

Instead he would practice patience and self control which his friend obviously lacked in skills. At least this is what Sasuke thought to himself as he felt his body relax and the hands of sleep dragged his chibi thoughts into the sweet dreams only children are blessed with. 

Itachi regarded the two sleeping Chibi’s in deep contemplation, both so young with their whole life before them. Yet innocently unaware of the politics and power struggles going on around them. Ignorance was bliss so they say or was it ignorance of the truth, a method implemented to manipulate, control and use those who were innocent of the truth, yet blindly went in the direction they were trained to do?

Itachi’s thoughts dwelled on the sleeping boys. Though their looks were as completely different as opposites of one another as anyone could get, yet they shared so many of the same psychological characteristics. Both were strong willed, determined, headstrong, and extremely competitive with each other. Itachi found himself quite pleased with this development. This meant his little bother would always challenge himself and continually move forward in his rivalry with Naruto. Then even if in the future he was away on missions he imagined they would still continue to train hard and grow stronger together. He himself encouraged Sasuke and took him along with him when he trained on his own to provide a physical example of what Sasuke was capable of and would learn to do on his own in time.