When you think of reincarnation, you think of happy childhoods, hyper-intelligent children who aren’t actually children, jokes galore and smiles for days. At least, that’s how it goes in the fanfics I’ve read. So you’ll understand when I say nothing – even with foreknowledge – could have prepared me for the absolute fuck up my life had become just an hour after my birth.

Looking at it differently, I suppose it was obvious. I know – knew – who my parents were. I also knew they were destined to die almost immediately following my birth. Before… well, whatever this could be called, there was an obvious detachment from the situation.

Beyond the physical one of screen and person.

I felt bad seeing it, sure. It’s hard not to given what the story shows of Naruto’s childhood and his parents’s love for him. But at the end of the day, none of it was real. Naruto is a character created by the mind of a single man and his life unfolds between the covers of a manga.

Or so I thought.

Let me tell you this, though: there is little else more agonising than seeing your parents massacred by the very beast sealed within your stomach. Made even worse by the knowledge that the orchestrator of all this was the boy who was practically their surrogate son.

No amount of rationalising had helped the tsunami of grief, rage, and hatred. Not after they held me in their arms and looked at me with eyes filled with nothing but unconditional love, even as they condemned themselves to death.

Nobody had looked at me like that before. Talked about me like that before. Of all the plans and hopes they had for me when I would be born. They were so damn hopeful about it that I really believed their plan would work.

…Until Obito held a kunai to my throat and ransomed me with my mother’s life as the price. As much as I wished my father didn’t – he chose to save me.

Laid upon the altar of their sacrifice, I begged them to run – at least, I tried to form the words. Yelled until my throat was hoarse for them to leave me behind. I’d died before and wasn’t afraid of dying again. But the smaller, calmer part of me knew that even if they could understand me, they wouldn’t.

And so, I watched my parents die on the night of Konoha’s near-destruction.

Grief – a thick, chilling spike of a thing – ran my chest through. My throat burned, leaving me gasping like a fish for air. Tears pooled and blurred the world to my eyes. A pair of nimble hands slid beneath me and lifted me off my mother’s quickly cooling corpse.

“It’s alright now, Naruto,” a soot-stained face smiled. Deep wrinkles trailed and dug weathered lines into his skin, joining the crinkle of his smile. He smelt of ash, smoke, and polished wood. I blinked up at his kind, dark eyes. “I’ll take care of you now. I promise.”

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As it had for many others on that fateful night, everything crashed down in ceaseless destruction and death for Hiruzen Sarutobi. All within a single night. His wife? Dead. His successor? Dead. The village’s Jinchuriki? Dead. Leaving their infant son an orphan and the new host of the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Those damnable tails and ear-splitting roars would haunt his dreams for the scant years left of his life.

Hiruzen leaned against his chair, surrounded on either side by mountains of paperwork weighed to his desk by numerous mission requests. What Minato was thinking, unfortunately, he would never know. He took a deep drag from his pipe and looked upon the village that had become the purpose of his existence since his wife died

The Nine-Tails’s path of destruction had at last begun to fade from the minds of the people, but as a village, they had barely recovered from the tragedy.

Were it not for Minato and Kushina’s sacrifice, the village would have ceased to exist that night. Still, they had certainly seen better days. The other hidden villages were no doubt plotting around the tragedy and while he doubted war would be on the table, it did not mean that everything was peaceful in the Elemental Nations.

Let alone the internal problems the village was facing.

Every day, Hiruzen regretted his decision to let Danzo live. Seeing Naruto live a miserable existence when he should, by all rights, be lauded as a hero was heartbreaking and it was all because Danzo wished to take advantage of the boy’s pain and create an emotionless weapon bound to his every beck and call.

He expelled the hot smoke, slowly. Thick coils of misty white slipped between his lips. His shoulders sagged and relaxed but the weight of his guilt remained. For his own sake, Naruto would remain blind to his status for now. For all its vaunted kindness, the Leaf could be cruel.

Yet they would be kinder than Naruto, were he to hold himself responsible for his parents’s deaths. Their harsh words and glares would be nothing compared to the unimaginable cruelty of one’s mind – Hiruzen could attest to that.

The thought remained in his mind as he released the last puff of smoke and it followed him through the village until he reached the door of Naruto’s home.

As he usually did, Hiruzen knocked. Once. There was no reply. Regrettably, this was normal for them now. He knocked twice more before he heard scuttling behind the door.

“Come in, sir.”

He winced. The cold reply slipped beneath his robes and skewered him precisely in the centre of his chest.

“...Then, excuse me.” Hiruzen entered the house, removing his shoes beforehand. He crossed the spotless floor, peering into the kitchen at the neatly organised dishes on the washing rack. “You’ve been taking care of yourself, I see.”

Naruto rounded the corner and stared at him with unblinking blue eyes. Hiruzen struggled to maintain eye contact. How could he when he saw the faces of those he failed?

And it was clear that he had failed Naruto too.

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“I have to, sir,” said Naruto. “I live alone and I’m responsible for everything that happens to me. Now, can I get you anything to drink? Some tea? Coffee? I might have some orange juice in the fridge too.”

“Tea would be nice, child.” He stroked his beard, before adding: “With milk.”

As Naruto busied himself in the kitchen, Hiruzen took the opportunity to inspect the one-bedroom apartment – starting with the living room.

Like the rest of the house, it was almost devoid of anything personal. The blinds were down and the light from the television spilt across the room. It cast long, flickering shadows on the wall and ceiling.

The tape of last year’s Chunin Exam was paused and a half-empty glass of water sat on the coffee table between the sofa and screen.

The bedroom, however, was even more impersonal than the living room. There were no posters on the walls – not of Lord Hashirama and Lord Tobirama, himself or Minato. There was nothing that would lead him to believe he was in the home of a young boy.

The more he searched, the closer Naruto’s home looked like that of a Chunin’s. Every month since the start of the year, he searched to see if anything had changed. Especially given that he had recently joined the Academy. Hiruzen had hoped that the presence of other children so close to him would help ease the grip of cold caution around his heart.

Because evidently, he was not enough.

The Academy's first year mandatory reading list stacked the bedside table, as well as what seemed to be a journal at the very bottom of the list. Hiruzen stopped there. While he had no problem looking through Naruto’s home, he did not want to alienate the boy from him more so than he already was.

The rattling whistle from the kitchen led Hiruzen back to the living room. He took a seat at the dining table just before the walk-out balcony overlooking the village.

Naruto entered with a tray, carrying a teapot, two mugs, and a dozen biscuits. It was an odd food combination, all things considered, and not one Hiruzen had encountered until he started visiting Naruto – that being said, it had grown on him.

“So, how are you finding the Academy so far?” he asked between bites.

“It’s… interesting, but not as interesting as I had hoped.”

“How so?”

“If I had to divide the eight-hour school day, we spend two hours towards the end of the day sparring and training, with the rest being split equally between Mathematics, History, and… teaching us how to read and write.”

“Do you not think reading and writing are important skills for a shinobi?”

“I don’t think listening to the same question being asked three times in a row is important for a shinobi.”

“A fair point,” Hiruzen chuckled. “But it will be good for you, being around children your age that is.”

“Will it? I don’t think so because – and I say this at the risk of stating the obvious – people don’t like me very much.”

At the reminder of Naruto’s poor social status, he fought to not recoil as another one of his blunders reared its head again.

“Okay,” he sighed. “If you’re so smart, I’ll ask you a question. You have four tries to figure it out. If you get it right, you can ask me one question of your own.”

“...Any question?” Naruto asked.

Hiruzen’s heart almost shattered at the doubt laced in the voice. At the stuttering hesitance. At the child whom he saw in equal light to Konohamaru looking at him how he did – speaking to him how he did.

At the implication that Naruto did not trust him to be truthful. Yet despite the pain, he knew he only had himself to blame.

“Any question,” he repeated, gentler this time.

Before his eyes, the caution dissolved a little. Just barely enough that Hiruzen noticed it, and the sight gave him hope that his relationship with the boy was not unsalvageable.

Naruto adjusted his position, elbows propped in front of him as he leaned over the table. “Alright, hit me.”

“Very well,” Hiruzen smiled. “What has four legs, a body, yet cannot walk?”

“A riddle? I thought you’d ask me a mathematics question, or one about some weird historical fact.”

“When did I say so? Why, do you want me to give you a clue?”

Naruto chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “...Any drawbacks to this clue?”

“One less guess. Do you still want it?” At his nod of agreement, Hiruzen said, “It’s in this very room with us”

Immediately the child’s eyes fell to the tray, scanning its contents. Then, he looked left and right. “The sofa?”

“Not quite the object I was thinking of, but you’re not wrong.”

He clicked his tongue and returned to searching. A minute passed, during which Naruto scarfed down two biscuits, chewing them intensely.

“...The coffee table?” he frowned.

Hiruzen grinned, a small snort escaping him. “I said that the clue to the answer is in the room with us, not the answer itself.”

“...So did I get it wrong?”

“No, no.” Hiruzen waved his hands. “The answer is correct.”

Naruto clenched his fists and laughed softly to himself. “I knew it!”

“Well done, Naruto,” he sat back and smiled, placing his hands in his lap. “What would you like to know?”

“I…” Naruto frowned and clenched his jaw. “I want to know what’s so special about me, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“You visit me every month. Just me. There are so many orphans in the village but I’m the only one you personally give their stipend. Why?”

And there was the crux of the matter. Hiruzen shrunk back at the pleading light in Naruto’s eyes. He could not tell Naruto the truth. Not yet. But if he were to lie to him, the scant bit of trust he managed to build over the last half an hour would burn to ash.

Unfortunately, his duty as Hokage superseded his guilt.

“You certainly don’t ask easy questions,” said Hiruzen. “As for your monthly stipend, what can I say? You are a special boy.”

He eked out a laugh, reaching to ruffle his hair. Unconcealed hurt flashed across Naruto’s face and Hiruzen’s hand froze halfway across the table – the distance between them felt far greater.

“Alright then.” He reached within the folds of his robes and slid the wad of note across the table. “Here’s your monthly stipend. Make sure it lasts.”

He turned to leave as fast as possible, swallowing thickly as the door slammed behind him. The setting sun’s orange and purple hues lit the sky. Nebulous, dark clouds curved around the village while looming shadows crept after Hiruzen. Their cries of, “Have a good evening!” or “Hello, Lord Hokage!” fell on deaf ears.

He was locked in conflict with his guilt. It was a raging sea storm, with waves that rose and crashed against his flimsy resolve. Like he would a dinghy, all he could do was hold firm against its cracked wooden edges, praying that it remained steadfast.

He cursed Danzo’s name again. It felt hollow to him, though. Danzo may have been the one responsible for the villagers ostracising the boy, but the blame for Naruto’s ignorance landed squarely on his shoulders.

But as per usual, Hiruzen would lament. He would suffer in silence; perhaps even break out a case of sake if it became too much to bear sober. Because Naruto could not know the truth – not yet.

And if that meant taking all of the boy's enmity onto himself, then so be it. Hiruzen had done – and would continue to do – grislier things for the sake of the village.