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chapter three

"A strong person is not the one who doesn't cry. A strong person is the one who cries and sheds tears for a moment, then gets up and fights again."

Unknown

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Naruto and Sasuke saw each other often, thankfully. They were five years old, and their families were closer than they'd ever been, for some reason. In the other timeline, Minato and Kushina were friends with Mikoto and Fugaku, but in this timeline, it was like they were best friends. They relied on each other, although they were mostly brought together by Mikoto and Kushina's friendship. Naruto and Sasuke were practically raised as cousins.

No one ever would've thought that Fugaku would be friends with people. And he often wasn't, he mostly just tagged along with Mikoto to talk with Minato about things like politics or their relations with other countries. All business, all the time, as usual. Except for the fact that Minato ended up being his closest friend.

Since the boys also grew up close, Naruto and Sasuke made an unspoken pact to protect Itachi should anything happen. Sasuke still wasn't accustomed to having his family, and this would be one of the toughest adjustments he would make. He definitely didn't need to lose Itachi before something really good came from their relationship. Naruto was suffering with the same thing, and from a couple meetings with Kakashi, they deduced he was the same way. None of them were used to this, but there wasn't really anyone left to complain to but themselves.

Kakashi had already spoken with Sakura, however, Naruto and Sasuke hadn't seen her yet, since they were always under the watchful eye of Itachi. They hadn't managed to slip away, yet, but they were planning an escapade for the near future.

Now, Kakashi had organized a meeting for them. Itachi would be occupied by the academy, and Mikoto and Kushina were going out to meet with someone else. Fugaku would be at work, and the kids were going to be temporarily left under Kakashi's care, which was 'negotiated' by Minato, who was going to be at the office all day.

"Kakashi-nii, why is this taking so long?" Naruto complained. Now that Kakashi wasn't really his teacher, (yet, hopefully, he would be in the future) he was more of a big brother to Naruto, Sasuke, and even Sakura.

"We're almost there. Training Ground 44 is really hard to navigate with a bunch of four-year-olds." Kakashi replied, closing his eyes, touching the floor. He was sensing out chakra signatures. He spoke before Naruto and Sasuke could complain about being five, not four. "I already brought Sakura here, she's waiting for us there."

"ALONE?" Naruto gasped, getting a panicked look on his face. "You left Sakura-chan in this scary place BY HERSELF?"

Sasuke frowned, extending his chakra to sense for her. He wasn't as good as someone like Naruto, but all ninja had basic detection skills. "Kakashi, that wasn't a good idea."

"Sakura's quite strong, you guys don't quite know the full extent of it yet..." Kakashi looked at the two boys as if he was disappointed they hadn't noticed something important during training. Sasuke sighed, but kept walking.

"We know that, but this place isn't called the Forest of Death for nothing, ya know!" Naruto squeaked, waddling as fast as he could with his short legs. They were still small, after all.

When they finally arrived, they saw their female teammate sitting on a fallen tree stump, cleaning her kunai. Laying in a clearing behind her was a giant, disgusting centipede. It was dead, and it appeared it had its head ripped off. They assumed the severed head was lying somewhere else. "Hey boys," she cracked a grin at them, putting her kunai away, "long time no see."