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The Hokage’s law was a stupid one.
Everyone thought so, though no one really had the balls to say it. Looking at the infant son of the hero of this village, known only for the beast sealed inside him, Racoon contemplates growing a pair herself.
She sits on the edge of his cot in an unbecomingly casual display for an ANBU. The boy wouldn’t rat on her- he couldn’t, being hardly eight months months old. She’s been out of the village more often than not lately: running missions and doing her part in restoring the village’s good name. According to Frog, he can sit up on his own now. He even tries to listen when his wards speak. They don’t talk much around him, not like they do the other children at the orphanage.
“Hello Naruto-kun,” Racoon coos. It’s the same greeting she always gives. Consistency, at the very least, is what she can offer him. A gloved finger dangles in front of his nose. Naruto is a happy baby and he responds to his name readily, shrieking in delight as he grasps at the thick rubber that covers Racoon’s fingers. “How are you today?”
The baby giggles, teething on her knuckle as she recites the events of her (admittedly bland) day.
She wishes she could touch him, knowing that her own daughter needed near constant skin to skin contact when she was an infant. Naruto, though, is not Racoon’s flesh and blood. It’s likely that accidentally sending volts of electricity into a developing child would harm them.
Racoon would very much like to give Naruto what he needs, but because she is who she is, she cannot.
Racoon settles for doing what she can and helps teach the boy to speak.
His first word is ‘hello.’
…
Boar isn’t scared of a baby.
He is, however, terrified of what that child contained.
He joined ANBU to leave the village. He lost his wife and sons in the attack, and though the village has permanently changed in appearance since that night, the wound is fresh and tends to fester. He prefers to work long term missions outside the village. Miles away, he pretends he still has a home to return to: a warm meal and two identical boys with bright blue eyes that’ll sparkle when he walks through the door. It’s easy to pretend you’re in the past when you don’t think you’ll get a tomorrow.
He does. Live, that is. He can never seem to die.
It must be a punishment then, that after failing to die for the fourth time, he's been sent to guard the very thing that’s dragged him into this despair.
Naruto is an unfairly cute child.
Boar watches as the boy tosses leaves around himself, giggling as they fall around his head, getting stuck in his blonde hair.
The amber color casts a stake through Boar’s heart all over again. Paired with those blue eyes… if Boar lets his mind wander he can almost see his own sons in the boy. He must be feeling especially foolish and nostalgic today.
The boy stands up, having grown bored of his game. Instead he begins to toddle towards the treeline, no doubt to find an unsuspecting stick or frog to mess with.
Racoon, he suddenly remembers, warned Boar that Naruto was a clumsy child.
The boy trips over a root, a gasp leaving his small body as he goes tumbling towards the mud.
He’s swept up into a pair of large arms instead.
Naruto blinks, looking at the masked man that held him. This one is not familiar in the way Racoon and Frog are, but his mask is made in the same style, so Naruto thinks they must all be a family of some sort. But Racoon and Frog both have inky black hair.
This Mask’s hair is bright orange.
Naruto’s hands dig into Boar’s hair.
“Pretty!” he shouts with glee, his blue eyes wide and awestruck.
Naruto is a clumsy child.
When Boar is his guard he never hits the ground.
…
Frog has been in and out of ANBU since he was fifteen. He’s almost 30 now. He never settled down and never ended up rekindling a relationship with his parents. He has many regrets. He’s made many mistakes.
Teaching Naruto schoolyard games is not one of them.
The boy’s parents were both geniuses, so it’s absolutely no surprise when he picks up Cat’s Cradle quick as a whip. Frog teaches him hand clap rhymes and how to dig for the coolest bugs. He teaches Naruto all the things Frog’s older brother taught him.
Frog loved his brother very much.
Killing him was like killing a part of himself.
Traitors are a dime a dozen though, and none are treated with kindness. Frog wants to see a day when no traitors come from this village. Naruto, the man suspects, is one such ninja who has abnormally high chances of defecting.
So he teaches him little games and ways to quell his anger and frustration. Frog shows him how the sun rises over the Hokage mountain and how neuts burrow under the leaves. He teaches the boy how to hold a toad without hurting it and how to build a crown out of grass and wildflowers.
Frog hasn’t spoken a word in over fifteen years. He doesn’t show his face in public and he’s prone to zoning out if he relaxes too much.
He is not a role model. He cannot give Naruto the affection or support a growing child needs.
Frog does what he can.
He hopes it’s enough.
…
Tiger doesn’t think this mission is worth her time.
In the past week, she’s only shown herself once to the boy when he had cut his finger. The boy had taken one look at her and pouted, upset she wasn’t Racoon.
“Ra-oba’s the only one who’ll talk to me,” the boy whines, sporting an overdramatic pout.
Tiger flicks him on the nose.
“Stop that,” she chides, ignoring his startled look, “pouting like a baby doesn’t fix anything.”
“I’m not a baby!” the boy yells, eyes wide and offended.
Tiger ignores him and finishes wrapping his finger. She disappears after that, leaving the boy to huff and puff on his own.
Two days later, the boy is alone in his bed, having been sent to the room early for talking back to the head ward. She’d accused him of cutting in line. The girl who he was accused of cheating did nothing as he was sent to bed without dinner.
Tiger watches, bored and restless, as the boy snaps upright. He marches over to the bed of the girl and begins to rummage through her belongings.
Tiger feels her eye twitch. He really is a child.
“What are you doing?”
The boy spins round, tumbling to the ground in surprise as he attempts to hide the page he’s taken behind his back.
“Nothing!” he yells, face red.
Tiger crosses her arms over her chest.
The boy wilts.
“That lady is always so mean to me,” he argues, pouting, “She did it on purpose, y’know? It’s not fair! I didn’t cut and then Maya-chan didn’t even say so! Ra-oba says that if something is wrong you should say so!”
Racoon should not be speaking to the boy so regularly, Tiger notes. She doesn’t think she’ll report the older woman, but the thought lingers.
At Tiger’s silence, Naruto’s opinions grow bolder.
“Aoi-ugly is a witch! She hates me and I know you’re gonna say something like it’s just my imagination but it’s true! Everything I do is wrong and she hates me!”
“No, you’re right.”
Naruto’s head snaps up, staring at the woman in shock.
Tiger shrugs. “That ward doesn’t like you. There’s going to be times when people who are in charge don’t like you and you’re just going to deal with it.”
“But what if I don’t want to?” the boy urges, his hands balling up in tiny fists around the picture.
“Well,” the ANBU says evenly, prying his hands off the portrait, “ripping a little girl’s pretty picture doesn’t solve anything now does it?”
Naruto lets go easily enough. “I don’t not like Maya-chan,” he grumbles, looking away, “I was just really mad.”
“You have to think of how your actions will make other people feel. You chose this picture because Maya-chan is proud of it, right?”
Slowly, Naruto nods.
“Making other people feel bad isn’t going to make you feel good. If anything it twists up your soul, then no one will ever like you.”
The boy’s head snaps up, “I don’t want everyone to hate me! Then Froggy-nii and Ra-oba will leave!”
Tiger hums, placing the painting back in the drawer. It wasn’t very good.
“Then be kind.”
Tiger leaves in a small swirl of leaves.
There’s a tray of hot food left on his bed.
…
Naruto never grows up with a single adult figure in his life.
He tries his hand at figuring out the faces behind the animal masks who watched over him, but every attempt seems to fall short. Jiji, at one point, tells him explicitly that doing so was a breach of their privacy, and if they wanted to show themselves they would.
Naruto knows they never will, but he keeps an eye out for orange hair and rubber gloves whenever he’s outside the orphanage. Froggy-nii and Tiger-nee didn’t have any defining features he can recite and it’s been a long time since he’s seen either of them. He hopes they’re okay out there without him. He’s a bit jealous they don’t need him like he needs them.
He’s four now and just moved into his new apartment like a big boy. Jiji leaves him a check for food and goes, too busy to help him settle. He wishes froggy-nii was here, Naruto thinks as he burns himself on the stove for the umpteenth time making ramen. Froggy-nii would show him what to do.
Usually when he gets hurt, one of the masks comes to help him. Since he moved here though, the masks don’t come around. There’s no one to tell him no and no one to teach him numbers and colors and games. There’s no one to catch him when he falls or ice him when he gets burnt.
He’s very happy to be away from the people who hate him, even if that means meeting a new group of people who hate him. He’s happy to live on his own. He’s happy to cook for himself. He’s happy to sit by himself at a table too high for him. He’s happy to be a big boy who doesn’t need looking after.
He’s happy here.
He is.
...
It’s Tenzo’s first night guarding the boy.
He’s crying.
According to his mission parameters, he’s forbidden from interacting with the child. It’s not like Tenzo would know how to comfort a crying child anyway. Vaguely, he wishes Boar-senpai was here. His senpai wasn’t particularly skilled, but he was very good with people and children. It’s a pointless thought though. Boar’s been MIA for five months now.
Racoon-san then. She’s a mother. What would Racoon-san do in this situation?
No. That’s not right. Racoon-san was banned from in-village missions after the extent of her involvement with the boy was revealed. Don’t channel Racoon-san. Racoon-san is not a role model.
Frog-san? No, definitely not. Tenzo’s heard that Frog-san has been removed from the force for psychological evaluation. Again.
Tiger-san would probably be the best to ask. She’s curt and responsible in a no-nonsense kind of way, but she’s been dead for three months. Tenzo didn’t know her well, but it hit many of his coworkers very hard.
What would Kakashi-senpai do?
Kakashi isn’t allowed to be on this mission either, though Tenzo doesn’t know why. Kakashi is very kind. Perhaps he had a lapse in judgment like Racoon-san did?
The boy lets out a particularly loud sniffle and Tenzo winces. Tenzo has only recently started to explore the extent of human emotions. He can label and dissect them well enough. He doesn’t know how to deal with them.
Another particularly loud sob has Tenzo making up his mind.
He abandons his post for 3.58 seconds.
When he returns, he does a thorough sweep of the area. Finding nothing out of place, he proceeds with his makeshift plan.
…
There’s a tree in his window.
There was always a tree outside his window, but when Naruto woke up there was also a small potted tree on the window sill.
It looks like the ones people with real houses have. The ones they put in the windows and spend hours and hours trimming. Naruto’s spent whole days watching people work on their gardens before. He always wondered what you had to do to get your own.
Apparently, you do nothing.
The next night passes and this time, there’s a small paperback book. “Bonsai for Beginners” is its title. Naruto reads it front to back three times before so much as breathing near his new tree. The small pot stays on the sill, in direct sunlight and gets watered regularly. The first purchase he makes in his new apartment is a small spray bottle so he can mist his bonsai daily.
Naruto grows up alone in his apartment until he marries, nearly twenty years later.
By then, he has a very impressive collection of potted plants and is an expert in Bonsai care.
He nevers learns the name of any of the ANBU who raised him. Like Jiji said all those years ago, it would be a breach of privacy to uncover their identities.
He does, however, collect the masks of his nameless old friends, all of which died well before he made genin.
The masks of Boar, Racoon, Frog, and Tiger hang on his wall in the Hokage office.
He never learns who gave him the tree.
…
The Bonsai tree in the window of the Hokage office make Tenzo smile each time he sees it.
Naruto calls him creepy.