From Time to Time

Chapter 10: Family

Happy 10 Week Anniversary! I can't believe I've kept up with this so well for this long! It's a miracle! Thanks for sticking with me for this long you guys, you're amazing!

I slept until 5pm and I'm still tired but that's okay. (I'm nocturnal for those who don't know so I don't normally fall asleep until after 6-8 AM...😂). We're here anyway, even though it's kinda short.

On the agenda today! Kaeru's side of their meeting, Talking with Hiruzen, Family bonding and more revalations! The works! It's mostly fluff (I think? Kinda?), but that's how it's going to be from now on (for now at least...)

The pic at the top isn't mine, I don't know who the original artist is (I tried so hard to find out who it is too) and it doesn't have much to do with the chapter beyond Minato being family but that's okay. I just thought it was cute and sad.

Anyway...

Onto the Chapter!

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Chapter Ten: Family

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Finding out Naruto's plan to trap him was easy for Kaeru. They shared a brain, older as his own may be, and as much as he'd like to forget just how he behaved as a kid (Kurama rarely let him forget it), he remembered it intimately. He also remembered just how pitiful his traps used to be (at least compared to how they were now). Thus dismantling Naruto's plan was just as pitifully easy, especially since Kaeru hardly needed sleep anymore and the small blond was still adjusting to Kakashi's hell-schedule. Going from sleeping late everyday--sorry Iruka-sensei--to waking up at the crack of dawn, only to wait for hours for a perpetually late jounin wasn't easy. It took months for him to adjust properly and by the time he did he was leaving with Jiraiya for almost three years with an even crazier schedule.

Of course, that didn't mean he expected his counterpart to actually be sleeping when he showed up. He was a good enough, fast enough, shinobi to not get caught even if the blond was awake (he was a master of the Transformation technique and had better speed than anyone he knew of that was still living. He couldn't be annoyed with the boy for making his job easier though. His traps were hidden fairly well and likely would've gotten most unsuspecting shinobi but they were simple and disarming them was easy--he made a note to teach Naruto how to rig traps with seals so enemies couldn't disarm them without consequences.

He left the trap furthest from where the blond was sleeping rigged knowing he'd check it last.

When Kaeru hid, there was no finding him. At least not for anyone lower rank than jounin and that was only for the sake of his lovely stalkers--there were fewer of them now but he'd still rather not make them think he was up to something actually bad. He'd already made sure to openly discuss the pranks (when his tiny stalkers weren't around) he'd been playing on Naruto so they knew there was nothing sketchy going on. It was bad enough they freaked out when the blond pulled pranks, he'd rather not keep the pattern going--whether they knew about the Bijuu or not.

He didn't have to wait long before the younger Uzumaki was awake and checking his traps after finding the redhead wasn't caught in any of them.

It was too easy.

The last rope captured Naruto's ankles in a beautiful recreation of Kakashi's trap from the Bell Test (although his was better because he didn't even need to bait it). Honestly he didn't even think about Naruto having kunai, though he clearly didn't going by the way he stared at his thigh where his pouch was missing.

He slid down the tree, making sure Naruto saw, with a shit-eating grin on his face. He growled at the redhead and Kaeru couldn't help the genuine laughter that bubbled out of him. He wondered if it was self-centered to find his past self cute (and ignored Kurama's comments on the matter) but decided that since they were no longer the same it made no difference. Besides, if he was going to be a part of Naruto's life then he needed to treat him as family not as his past self. It was probably better to forget that mindset altogether--no matter how old he got he was still Naruto deep down and he still slipped (though he was pretty sure not many would believe that he was the future version of Naruto).