Sakura woke up in the morning when she felt her parents' bed shifting as they were getting off silently, trying not to wake her up. Sakura glanced around warily before settling down when she recalled the previous day's turn of events.
The pink-haired girl sat up on the bed, rubbing her eyes as she yawned out, "Good mornin'... mom... dad...."
Sakura's mother, Mebuki Haruno, almost squealed at how adorable her daughter was.
She settled for ruffling the girl's hair while greeting her as well, "Good morning, sweetie."
"Morning, sweetheart. Why don't you go back to sleep? We are going out. Izumi-san from next door will be looking out for you," her father, Kizashi Haruno, suggested before informing her.
Sakura just nodded tiredly before flopping back down onto the large bed.
In the meantime, Sasuke was woken up by Itachi in a similar fashion as he had tried to get up to go to his team without waking his brother up. Itachi officially gained the title of chūnin a while back and thus had to manage his own team on missions (he is also in ANBU, not that Sasuke knew that).
"Mornin', 'Tachi-nii," Sasuke mumbled, still slightly tired from having been in the war.
"Good morning, Sasu-chan. Did you sleep well?" Itachi replied warmly, before asking.
Seeing Sasuke nod sleepily, Itachi smiled.
"Would you like tomato omelette for breakfast?" Itachi asked the younger Uchiha.
Hearing the word "tomato" made Sasuke perk up immediately. He nodded his head vigorously before running to his own room to get changed out of his favourite pyjamas (that obviously had tomato prints).
When Sasuke was done, he hopped down the stairs like the kid he was supposed to be, thinking to himself, Maybe I can just act like a kid for once and relax...
As Sasuke entered the kitchen, he was greeted by the sweet scent of tomato and egg. The scent made him drool slightly as he thought about eating his aniki's delicious cooking.
"Here you go," Uchiha Itachi addressed his younger brother as he placed a plate of piping hot tomato omelette on the table at Sasuke's usual seat.
Sasuke thanked his older brother before quietly saying "Itadakimasu" and started digging into his meal.
"What do you think?" Itachi asked Sasuke smiling at him softly as he settled down on the seat beside Sasuke's and also starting to eat his breakfast.
"It's good..." came the muffled voice of Sasuke as he felt his eyes begin to water.
"That's good," replied Itachi cheerily.
In the meantime, Naruto was still sleeping on a large branch on a tree in the famed Forest of Death. He does not notice that he was in the part of the woods that belonged to the snake mistress, Mitarashi Anko, a young lady in her teens who is notorious in Konoha's Torture & Interrogation Force for her ingenious techniques to break any enemy nin she gets her hands on.
Anko was making her way to her favourite training spot in the Forest of Death when she noticed the boy sleeping on a tree.
"Hey, brat. You know that this is the Forest of Death, right? It's dangerous for good little kids like you to be here. Run along to your mama and papa now, " Anko said creepily while prodding at the child's side with a twig.
Naruto groaned as he sat up, rubbing his eyes as his vision cleared.
"I don't have parents," Naruto muttered as Anko took a closer look at the boy in front of her.
"Ah, you're the kid that the villagers bully," Anko said in realisation, "the infamous demon brat...."
Naruto nodded his head half-heartedly, "I'm N-Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto cursed before chastising himself in his head for his slip of the tongue. He had gotten used to introducing himself as Namikaze Naruto. He frowned as he observed Anko carefully to see whether the woman noticed his slip-up.
She didn't seem to.
"Hey kid, why ain't 'cha at the orphanage?" Anko asked the boy in her normal tone.
Naruto blinked, trying to remember when it happened in his childhood before the war. Once he remembered the reason, his eyes darkened.
"The damned matriarch of the orphanage kicked me out, saying that I should go and die in a corner..." Naruto said in a sombre tone unbefitting of a child as he thought about the amount of pain that the woman had caused him to be put through both in his past life and this one.
"Not that I'd expect you to believe me," Naruto added hastily afterwards.
Anko had either ignored it or didn't hear the last statement.
"The damned old hag is still there? Why am I not surprised?" Anko murmured to herself.
Naruto was surprised when a look of apparent resolution appeared on Anko face.
"Would you rather join T&I and live in the T&I building, I let you stay in the Forest of Death or a nice apartment in the new flat? I'm sure Hokage-sama can arrange for any of that," Anko asked abruptly.
"If you don't mind, I would rather stay in this forest for the time being," Naruto replied.
"My name's Mitarashi Anko and I'll make sure that Hokage-sama would let me become you guardian!" Anko introduced before declaring her intentions.
"There's no need, Anko-san. I just need a place to stay," Naruto explained.
"Whatever. I'm going to have a talk with Hokage-sama."
Anko started to hop from tree to tree in the opposite direction of where she was initially heading toward.
Naruto sighed at his current predicament and checked his wounds. They had healed flawlessly and did not even leave a single scar. Naruto ran a finger over where he had been injured just the previous night as he thought about what he should do next.
He first decided to contact his two friends that he had yet to meet. Naruto had used an extremely complicated seal that he had used a concealing seal to shrink down into a small yin-yang symbol that he placed on each of his friends.
This seal enabled them to communicate telepathically while also keeping their chakra stores low to prevent the combustion of their bodies. The seal also had the hiraishin markers' signature so that he could instantly teleport to any of their sides should any of them be in trouble. Naruto reminded himself to teach his friends the basics of the hiraishin. The seal also enabled them to share images and memories with each other, making it extremely useful for sharing information.
Naruto decided to contact his friends and let them know of the specifics of the seal he placed on their bodies.
"Hello Sasuke, Sakura. It's me, Naruto. I forgot to inform you of the specifics of this seal as we were in a rush. This seal, apart from the function that I previously informed the two of you of, enables us to communicate telepathically. It is a form of telepathy that not even the Yamanaka can intrude upon. It allows us to talk like this as well as share our thoughts and memories in the form of images. This seal also acts as a lock on our minds, with false memories covering it up, so that even Yamanakas cannot read our minds. It also acts up should we be interrogated, causing our consciousness to be pushed to the back of our minds and not feel the pain of any torture involved while the questions are being answered by the artificial soul of the implanted memories. As such, they cannot claim that you are lying as the memories speak what they believe is the truth. It also enables us to share some of our abilities with one another. I for one am letting you have part of my accelerated healing ability. Lastly, it also acts as a hiraishin marker so that I can teleport to your location. I'll teach you how to use hiraishin later. If you heard me, please reply."
"This is Sasuke. I can hear you."
"Sakura here. I hear you as well."
"Good. How are things with your families?"
"I just met Itachi. I haven't seen my mother or father yet."
"They are good, I guess."
"Well, please do continue with what you were doing before I interrupted."
"Hai, Hokage-sama."
Naruto, satisfied by their reply, nodded mentally.
Naruto hopped off the tree, thinking about what he should do. He used his chakra to cushion his fall just before landing on the ground.
Naruto eyed the tall tree as he circled it, recalling that he only needed a minuscule amount of chakra to walk up the tree. He thought of the first time he did the chakra control exercise and how much effort he had to put in to finally get it right.
Naruto shut his eyes and started to concentrate a small amount of chakra on his feet.
He carefully placed his foot on the tree trunk, taking calculated steps up the trunk of the tree, managing to walk all the way to the top before walking back down to the spot that he had climbed up the tree to get to the previous night.
The exercise was not nearly as difficult as he thought it would be.
Naruto then shook his head slightly, walking over to the river in the forest that he still remembered the location of due to the second stage of the chūnin exams.
Naruto did the same thing as before, thinking of how he first succeeded in the exercise and painstakingly calculating the amount of chakra necessary and the steadiness of the chakra flow required.
His eyes shut in concentration as he took his first step onto the water, carefully stepping toward the middle of the river and staying there. When he was satisfied that he was far enough from the shore, he opened his eyes slowly to see himself right in the middle of the river, standing perfectly steadily, seemingly without any effort.
Naruto was surprised by his progress as chakra control was something that he was sure he was very bad at, especially considering how bad it was before.
He then thought of the possibilities for the use of pure chakra manipulation.
Naruto had easily learned the Rasengan and even managed to create the Rasenshuriken, somehow managing to do it without the help of his clones and with only one hand by the end of the war.
Every chūnin knew how to climb up a vertical surface and jōnin even succeeded in standing on water.
If that were the case, did it not mean that if one achieves a certain standard of chakra control, the person would also be able to easily stand on air and possibly even fly?
Naruto decided to give it a try. Air is matter after all, much like water and trees. The only difference is the state of matter.
On that note, Naruto walked back to the shore and started channelling chakra into his feet, trying to get the balance needed to stand on the air.
In the meantime, Sasuke had finished his breakfast and said goodbye to his older brother. He saw his parents coming down the stairs from their bedroom.
"Ōhayo, otō-sama, okaa-sama," Sasuke greeted politely, as he tried not to cry at the sight of his mother.
"Ōhayo Sasuke-chan," Sasuke's mother, Uchiha Mikoto, greeted kindly.
His father, Uchiha Fugaku, merely grunted in reply.
"Have you eaten?" Mikoto asked her son.
Sasuke nodded his head, telling her that Itachi had prepared his breakfast. This made Mikoto coo at how adorable her younger son was and how responsible her older son was.
"May I go out and train? I want to be strong like 'Tachi-nii," Sasuke asked his parents while using his brother as an excuse.
"Of course, dearie. Here's some money for lunch if you intend to stay out. Please do come back before the sun sets," Mikoto told her son sternly while passing him some money.
Sasuke thanked her quickly as he picked up his gear and left the house.
"I do hope that Sasuke lives up to his older brother's reputation," Sasuke heard his father tell his mother as he left the main house.
Despite everything, those too-familiar words made him feel sad.
Sasuke decided to contact Naruto and Sakura.
Are the two of you free to meet up? I just left the house to train.
Yes, my parents left the house. I am supposed to be watched by the neighbour but she is old and never remembers to check on me.
Yep, come to the Forest of Death. I'm doing chakra control exercises.
Sasuke started heading towards the Forest of Death, also known as training ground 44, not thinking much of Naruto's words.
Sakura did the same, setting up a simple genjutsu to hide the fact that she left should the neighbour decide to remember to check on her.
Sasuke and Sakura ended up meeting outside the training ground and went in together. They were unable to find Naruto no matter how hard they searched.
When they reached a clearing, they suddenly heard a voice from above, "Hey, I'm up here!"
They looked up only to see Naruto seemingly floating in mid-air. They were shocked when he started to walk down an invisible staircase that they could not see.
Naruto smirked at the looks on their faces when he finally stepped onto the ground.
"Are the two of you that surprised to see me?" Naruto asked cheekily.
Author's Note:
When communicating telepathically,
This is Naruto.
This is Sasuke.
This is Sakura.