Life
As Kaito stepped inside the Academy building, a chūnin in a standard Konoha flak jacket guided him down a long corridor toward the auditorium. The place was already packed with kids around his age, their excited voices echoing off the high ceiling like a flock of agitated birds. He quietly made his way to the farthest row in the back and took a seat, hoping no one, by some miracle, would sit beside him. People meant noise. Questions. Touching. He'd rather avoid all of that.
A few minutes passed, and the room filled to capacity. Naturally, someone sat beside him—just his luck. At least she was quiet, a small blessing. Kaito glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She looked... familiar, but he couldn't quite place her, like a half-remembered dream.
His attention shifted when he caught movement on stage. The Hokage—Hiruzen Sarutobi, the old man he'd spoken with a year prior—stepped up to the podium, his mere presence enough to hush the excited crowd. Every child turned to him with wide eyes and reverent, if somewhat bewildered, silence.
Hiruzen began to speak, his voice a warm rumble, but Kaito tuned it out. He'd heard the speech before, in countless variations—phrases about the Will of Fire, protecting the village, and working together as a team. It was all burned into his memory like an old, overplayed song.
His mind wandered instead, drifting to his meticulously planned future. After orientation, he planned to stop by the shop to grab basic ninja tools—kunai, shuriken, maybe some practice scrolls for his taijutsu forms. Weighted training gear tempted him, but it wasn't worth stunting his growth. His body still needed time to mature, and the Academy's curriculum only covered the absolute basics: chakra control exercises, fundamental taijutsu, shurikenjutsu, and a few watered-down, elementary techniques. Nothing he couldn't teach himself more efficiently, with far greater precision.
Roughly ten minutes later, the Hokage finished his address. The Academy staff began calling names for classroom assignments, their voices echoing through the vast space. Kaito lined up near the end, hands casually tucked into his pockets, simply waiting for it all to be over.
Then the auditorium door slammed open with a startling bang.
A girl burst in, panting, her chest heaving. Her long blonde hair, bright as the midday sun, was tied into wild twin-tails that bounced with her every breathless movement, and three distinct whisker-like markings sat on each cheek. Ocean-blue eyes, wide and almost feral, scanned the room like a predator—or a lost, desperate cat. She looked unkempt, energetic, and oddly... familiar.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Whiskers.
No way.
Did Naruto have a twin? A sister? He didn't remember that from the anime. Maybe she was a filler character that never made it past the Academy arc. But her look was too distinct, too iconic—like someone had perfectly gender-swapped the protagonist and dropped her into the world, fully formed.
Before he could make sense of it, she walked directly up to him, her energy a buzzing, chaotic force.
"Hey! My name's Naruto Uzumaki! What's yours?" she asked, a wide, unburdened grin splitting her face.
Kaito turned toward her, his expression neutral, unreadable. "Kaito. Kaito Shiranami."
She blinked, her smile faltering, a hint of confusion entering her bright eyes. "I-Is something on my face?"
"No," he replied, his voice flat. "Just a question."
Her nervous fidgeting paused. "Oh, okay! What is it?"
"Are you male or female?"
She froze. Her brain visibly lagged, processing his question, before her initial confusion exploded into pure, unadulterated fury.
"Y-you—!"
Kaito, ever pragmatic, raised a hand, cutting her off before her rage could fully erupt. "Sorry if that was rude. It's just… I could've sworn I saw someone who looked exactly like you, but with short hair."
She hesitated, her anger momentarily derailed by his explanation. Then she sighed, a dramatic huff, and crossed her arms. "A year ago, I had short hair. I started growing it out because all the girls in class were doing it."
He nodded slowly, processing the information. "So just to clarify—you are, in fact, female?"
Her eye twitched. The fury, temporarily suppressed, surged back with renewed force.
Then she lunged at him.
Kaito sidestepped easily, his movements fluid and precise. She wasn't slow, not by any measure, but he'd trained too long, too obsessively, to get caught by a straightforward charge. Still, she didn't give up. She chased him around the auditorium, a blur of blonde hair and furious energy, like an enraged ferret.
Students paused their chatter to watch the chaotic display. Some whispered, giggling behind their hands. Others laughed outright. Naruto, seeing a chair, grabbed it and hurled it with surprising force.
He dodged again, the chair narrowly missing his head. "Naruto, calm down! I just needed clarification!"
"Clarify this, you bastard!" she screamed, leaping at him with a wild abandon.
She was fast. Surprisingly fast for a six-year-old. Her stamina was ridiculous—she kept chasing him without missing a beat, her fury fueling her. He was still doing fine, effortlessly dodging, but even he began to feel a faint twinge of fatigue.
Then he saw it.
Tears.
She was crying, not from pain, but from sheer frustration and hurt.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
…Shit. He made a kid cry. A loud, public, snotty, crying kid.
This—this was precisely why he avoided people. Now what? He couldn't just walk away, not with the entire Academy watching.
With a deep, internal sigh, Kaito took a step toward her. Every instinct screamed at him to stop. She was crying—red-faced, sniffling, utterly raw in her emotional display—and he could already feel the familiar anxiety crawling under his skin, a suffocating presence.
Still, he moved closer. Just a few feet away, he bent slightly, minimizing the distance, and reached out.
He patted her head, awkward but gentle, his gloved fingers barely brushing her bright blonde hair. "There, there. I'm sorry for making you cry."
She stared at him, her tear-filled blue eyes wide and unblinking, as if he were speaking another language, or perhaps performing a rare, forbidden jutsu.
At least the tears were slowing.
He pulled a crisp, white handkerchief from his pocket—sealed in a sterile bag, always kept in the clean side of his pouch. Carefully, he unfolded it, his gloved hands precise in their movements, and wiped her cheeks. Don't touch the eyes. Don't touch the mouth. Keep the contamination controlled.
Then he saw it.
Snot.
He recoiled instantly, flinching like she'd thrown a poisoned kunai. His heart spiked, a sudden, frantic rhythm against his ribs. His gloves—it touched his gloves. The pure, clean surface was now compromised.
Her eyes, seeing his sudden aversion, began to water again, her lower lip trembling.
"Shit." He forced himself forward, battling his own rising panic. His hand shook as he held the cloth near her small nose. "B-blow."
She blew. Loudly. With gusto.
He clenched his jaw, wiped her nose with a grimace, and stepped back fast, already planning the ritualistic cleansing of his contaminated gloves.
She smiled—wide, puffy, and utterly, unburdenedly grateful. It was a messy, genuine smile that cut through his rigid defenses.
That's when he noticed the silence. Teachers. Students. Even the Hokage, standing near the stage, stared in disbelief. Hiruzen's mouth hung open, a comical sight. He knew. Everyone knew. Kaito didn't do touch. He didn't handle mess. He'd once dislocated his own shoulder by contorting wildly to avoid a playful pat from a well-meaning orphanage caretaker.
And now—tears, snot, direct contact.
Kaito looked at his gloves. Contaminated beyond redemption. He stripped them off with surgical precision, handed them and the snot-soaked handkerchief to a still-beaming Naruto, and pulled out a clean, sealed pair from his pouch. One of four. Always prepared for the inevitable impurity of the world.
"…Sigh. Done."
Naruto still smiled like he'd given her something precious, something she'd never known.
He looked away, unable to hold her innocent, grateful gaze.
It had been three days since chakra control training began. Most students—everyone except for the clan kids who had a head start—were seated cross-legged, eyes shut, trying to awaken their dormant chakra networks. The clan-born children, having already achieved that milestone, were rewarded with academic studies, poring over village history scrolls in a quiet corner.
Kaito sat among them, silent and focused, a picture of disciplined concentration.
Then he felt it.
A slow, warm pulse beneath his skin, radiating from his core. Like water flowing through a hidden channel. Alive. Familiar, yet entirely new to this body.
His eyes snapped open, a small, triumphant spark in their depths.
He'd done it.
Rising smoothly to his feet, he walked to the front of the classroom. Iruka-sensei, seated at his desk, looked up, eyebrows raised in question. He saw the quiet certainty in Kaito's eyes and nodded with an immediate, knowing understanding.
"You did it?" Iruka asked, a genuine smile forming.
Kaito gave a single, firm nod.
Iruka grinned, a broad, encouraging display. "Nice job, Kaito. Excellent work."
Kaito returned to his usual seat—back of the class, by the window. The light breeze and filtered sunlight made it the only truly tolerable place in the room, a small sanctuary from the chaos of his new life. He leaned into his palm, hoping for a moment of peace, of quiet contemplation.
Naturally, he didn't get it.
Naruto plopped down beside him like a falling boulder, her cheerful impact jostling his meticulously arranged supplies. She was beaming, practically vibrating with restless energy.
"How are you doing, Kaito?" she asked, her voice bright, almost impossibly close.
"Fine," he replied, his gaze still fixed on the endless expanse of the sky outside the window.
A few days ago, he had asked how she'd already unlocked her chakra network despite not being from a prominent clan. She'd grinned, a flash of pure joy, and said, "I got sent to the Academy a year early!" Like it was nothing, a simple, logical fact, not a significant advantage. A whole year of progress, handed to her on a silver platter while he had to claw his way forward.
She leaned closer, her blonde twin-tails brushing his shoulder, sending a faint shiver of discomfort through him. "Hey, Kaito, wanna get Ichiraku Ramen after class?"
"You can go. I've got training." He had a new routine to build, new limits to push.
Then came the silence. The pouting. And inevitably... the tears.
She sniffled, clutching the edge of her desk, her lower lip trembling. Her eyes glistened, brimming with unshed tears, like a kicked puppy.
Kaito twitched, a nervous tremor running through him. "Kaito, please?" she asked softly, her voice small and wounded.
"You…" he muttered, glaring at the innocent clouds outside, a futile attempt to escape the inevitable. She'd figured him out. She knew the moment tears appeared, he lost all sense of logic, all rigid adherence to his schedule.
He sighed, a long, defeated sound. "Fine… but afterward, you train with me. No whining."
"Yes sir!" she grinned, instantly perking up with a bright salute. The tears vanished like smoke, replaced by pure, unadulterated glee.
He gave her a flat stare, unimpressed by her chameleon-like emotional shifts.
Kaito entered the small ramen stand first, pulling out a disinfectant cloth from his pouch and meticulously wiping down the worn table and chairs. Ayame, Teuchi, and Naruto all watched, their expressions caught somewhere between amusement and resignation, a familiar routine by now.
Once satisfied with the level of cleanliness, he sat down. Naruto, radiating victory, flopped into the seat beside him, her exuberance a stark contrast to his quiet precision.
"Miso, please," he ordered, his voice crisp and clear.
"Me too!" she chimed, her voice eager.
When the steaming bowls arrived, Kaito bowed his head in a polite gesture of thanks, then reached into his bag for one of three sealed chopstick pairs. Always prepared.
He took a careful sip of the rich broth. "Good as always," he muttered, a rare, almost imperceptible sign of contentment, then began eating with practiced efficiency.
But something was off.
Naruto had already finished her bowl and sat fidgeting, her boundless energy unusually subdued.
"You're not done," Kaito stated, observing her from the corner of his eye.
"I'm full," she replied quickly, a little too quickly.
He didn't even look up from his own bowl. "You're lying."
She froze, caught in her deception.
"I hate liars," he added, his voice low, firm.
Her forced smile crumbled, her bright eyes dimming. "I—I don't have any more money."
Kaito paused, his chopsticks hovering mid-air. Realization dawned, cold and sharp.
"You're an orphan," he said quietly, stating the obvious truth. "But the village gives stipends. Is it not enough?"
She shook her head, her lip trembling, tears once again welling in her eyes, though this time from a different source. "It's enough, technically… but most stores won't let me buy anything. The ones that do… they sell me expired stuff, charge me more than everyone else, make me wait…" Her voice trailed off, thick with humiliation and raw pain.
His fist clenched beneath the table, a sudden, hot surge of anger that surprised him. So that was it. Willful neglect. Cruel, petty discrimination against a child.
He took a slow, controlled breath, pushing the unfamiliar rage down.
"From now on, I'll buy your food. Your clothes. Tools. Everything you need."
She blinked, her eyes wide with shock. "T-That's too much, I can't ask y—"
"Order whatever you want," he cut in, his voice brooking no argument, as he placed a stack of crisp bills on the counter, far more than two bowls of ramen would cost.
Her eyes welled up again—but this time, it was different. Not sorrow or frustration, but overwhelming, disbelief-tinged gratitude. She jumped up from her seat and, without a moment's hesitation, flung her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, exuberant hug.
Kaito's brain short-circuited. His body stiffened, every muscle locking into place, as he turned his face sharply away, raising a gloved hand to shield his neck, a primal instinct to protect himself from the onslaught of unexpected contact.
And when she leaned in to kiss his cheek—
He teleported back like a startled cat, a puff of smoke marking his instantaneous retreat several feet away. "W-What the hell are you doing?!"
"Haha, sorry!" she laughed, a bright, unconcerned sound, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Forgot about your obsessive-something disorder."
"It's OCD," he muttered, rubbing his neck with his now-contaminated glove, already planning the extensive cleansing ritual later.
She stuck out her tongue with a thumbs-up, utterly unbothered. "Still, thanks, Kaito. You're the best."
"Sigh… Just finish eating," he said, regaining his composure, his gaze flicking to the distance he now maintained. "After this, we train. No excuses."
"Yes, sir!" she replied with a noodle-stained salute, her smile radiant, a new, chaotic element in his perfectly ordered life.