To The Future

Karasu-nii

Uzumaki Naruto, the Nanadaime Hokage of Konoha had achieved his dream about a week ago and he was already tired of the paperwork. He wondered how Jiji managed to do it for so many years.

It was late in the night or early in the morning when he was finally finished with the work for the day. He went to insert the ANBU roster file in the Hokage archives when in his sleep-deprived state, he managed to scatter all the files in that particular cabinet.

"Kuso. More work." he cursed. He just wanted to go home and sleep.

He began to collect the files when he came across the one from the year before he joined academy.

Curious, he picked up the file and took it with him to his office.

He had always wanted to know the identity of his mysterious ANBU protector during that year, whom he affectionately had called Karasu-nii. Unlike all his other ANBU guards, he had understood Naruto's loneliness and inexperience in taking care of himself and had chosen to help him directly instead of guarding against the shadows.

He was the person who had taught Naruto to read.

"But the Kanji is so boring, Karasu nii."

"You wish to be Hokage, don't you, Naruto-kun? A Hokage has to be very good at reading and writing, to handle all the paperwork. Now stop whining and get to it."

However, as much as he had tried, Naruto was unable to uncover his identity, before his guard duty was over when Naruto stared at the academy. He still had got occasional gifts like kunai and fresh groceries, which he knew were from Karasu-nii, but it wasn't the same. After some time those gifts had stopped too.

Naruto knew that ANBU had a very low survival rate and hoped that his mystery protector had simply gone on a long-term mission and didn't deem it necessary to continue the tradition when he came back.

Still, Naruto owed him a lot and wanted to thank him for all he had done for him. That particular year had been especially bad in regards to the villager's scorn since he was going to join the academy soon, and even Jiji had been very busy to spare any time for Naruto. If it hadn't been for Karasu-nii, he was afraid he would have snapped like Gaara.

He opened the file and quickly tried to find the identity of Karasu masked ANBU.

Eventually he found it and what he saw led to him dropping the file in shock.

Uchiha Itachi

Naruto wanted to bang his head against the wall. How had he not seen this sooner? Karasu-nii had always been small for an ANBU and had long black hair tied in a ponytail. Granted he had never seen Sasuke's older brother prior to he tried to kidnap him, but later with all the information he had, it should have been obvious.

It certainly explained Itachi's habit of calling him 'Naruto-kun', despite them being practically strangers.

Naruto sat down on his chair with a sigh and thought about what it meant. Itachi was dead so he wouldn't be able to thank him. Maybe he'll visit his grave. He wondered where Sasuke had buried him.

This surely led him to think about Itachi and his sacrifices. He wondered how much he had to kill himself to murder the children of his clan when seeing a child like Naruto in need had led him to break the ANBU code of no contact.

Perfect shinobi, indeed. Naruto snorted.

No matter how skilled he was at pretending to be one, Uchiha Itachi was never meant to be a shinobi. He didn't have the heart for it. Even Naruto, whom people called the ninja with a bleeding heart, had a little bit of ruthlessness that was needed to become a Shinobi.

Itachi on the other hand, abhorred violence. It was evident in his fighting style, which focused on genjutsu, instead of causing actual harm to his opponent.

Naruto realised that the massacre wasn't the first time Uchiha Itachi had to kill his heart to do what was needed. That would have happened years ago, probably when he became a ninja or when he joined ANBU. And nobody saw it. All they saw was the Uchiha prodigy, the genius.

Naruto shook his head. Sometimes he wondered what it probably the Shinobi system was all that was wrong with this world. It was a dangerous line of thinking for a Hokage, so quickly dismissed the thought.

He had promised to bring peace to the world and he had done that, for Jiraiya-sensei, for tou-chan, for Itachi. Now it was his responsibility to keep that peace. Perhaps, in a peaceful era, children wouldn't be forced to smother their hearts for the greater good.

He sighed and went to return the file to its original place and locked the office with fuinjutsu.

Soon enough, he was entering his home, trying not to wake up Hinata or the children. It was wasted effort, though.

"Finished with the paperwork?" came Hinata's voice, as she got up from the couch.

"Hai. You shouldn't have waited for Hinata-chan."

She decided not to respond to that, as always. "You look troubled," she commented, instead.

"Did I ever tell you about Karasu-nii?"

"The ANBU who taught you how to read?"

"Hai. It was Itachi-san." he told her.

When she didn't look surprised, he looked at her curiously.

"I suspected it was him. I had seen him once or twice with you, when I was.... uh, observing you." she turned red.

Naruto simply smiled at her.

"And I had also seen Itachi-san at some clan gatherings." she continued. "I wasn't sure, though, so I didn't tell you."

Naruto nodded in understanding.

"I just wish I could have told him how much it meant to me."

"I'm sure he already knew." his wife said. "You should get to bed now. You'll have to be in your office in the morning."

Naruto groaned at that. He was sure Kakashi-sensei had purposely left piles of paperwork before passing on the hat. As soon as Naruto was done with it, sensei was going to get pranked. Hard.