Unplanned Paternity

4

Four years old

A pair walked towards the training grounds holding hands, one tall and silver-haired, the other short and blonde.

Kakashi listened attentively as the boy told him in great detail about the outing he'd had with his godfather the day before – Kakashi had finally consented to give him two hours with the brat, as Jiraiya was leaving the village today and wouldn't be back for goodness-knew how long. Even two hours seemed to be enough to expose the four year old to some questionable, purely Jiraiya pastimes, and it was just as well Naruto was so innocent.

"...An' then 'e did tha' weird dance thin' he does an' he stood on his hair an' felled over! Ero-jiji's an idiot," Naruto said matter-of-factly. Kakashi started and began to cough at the address.

"Ero – where did you learn that word?" he demanded, thinking it was a good thing Jiraiya was well and truly out of the country by now. Naruto blinked at him.

"The ladies at the hotsprings was yellin' it at him."

Kakashi closed his eye. He was going to regret asking this, but... "...They called him Ero-jiji?"

"No, they called him ero-somethin' else, but I can' 'member the somethin' else, so now he's Ero-jiji." Naruto nodded firmly.

"Uh-huh," Kakashi said, tugging Naruto out of the way of a jogging genin team.

Soon, they'd reached the sunny, grassy training field Kakashi favoured when teaching his young companion things. He'd promised Naruto something special today, to reward him for his first day of learning kanji, the more difficult form of writing used in Konoha.

It sort of surprised Kakashi how much the young boy seemed to enjoy physical learning: throwing kunai and taijutsu forms and the like: but as he always took pains to make it into a game of sorts, he supposed it wasn't too unusual. Neither of them knew how to play normally, after all.

"Okay!" he said bright, stopping in the centre of the training grounds, "Today, we're going to do something special."

Naruto nodded eagerly. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! You p'omised! Somethin' cool an' awesome, right? Right!"

"Whoa, hold on," Kakashi laughed, grabbing the flailing small fists. "Today, I'm going to set you throwing kunai at those targets over there."

Instantly, Naruto's face fell. "But that's borin'," he whined. "I know howta do that! You promised somethin' new!"

Kakashi grinned at the small boy. "I did, huh? Well, here I was thinking today I'd teach you how to throw live kunai, but if you'd prefer something different..."

Naruto's eyes were wide. "What's live kunai?" he asked. Kakashi reached into his kunai pouch and drew out one of his kunai – the sort he used in real fights – and knelt to put himself on Naruto's level.

"This is a live kunai," he said, showing it to the child. "A little more dangerous than the wooden mock-ups you've been taught with, ne?"

The awed look on the four year old's face was hysterical as he tentatively reached out a tiny hand to – very, very carefully – touch the flat metal blade. When his hand came into contact with the cool metal, he jumped and jerked the hand backwards, and his eyes snapping up to Kakashi's.

The adult smiled reassuringly, knowing Naruto knew him well enough to read the expression through his mask. "Now, you have to listen to me, Naru," he said firmly. "The rule that you're not allowed to touch Daddy's kunai is still in place. If I am going to teach you to use live kunai, you have to promise me that you will only ever touch them here, in this training ground, with me here to watch you, until I specifically tell you otherwise. If I find out – and I will, I promise you – that you've been touching these without permission, I will stop teaching you this instantly, and you will have to go back to wooden kunai and shuriken until you are taught this in the Academy. Do you understand?"