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On a quiet, uneventful day, flickers of snow fell from the wide sky.
The soft pale light of the day lit up the entirety of Konoha, and zooming in on the elongated Hokage tower, white ice snow covered the roof diligently.
Then, disbelieved screams ensued, and several voices frantically apologized. Deep inside the Hokage building, past several rooms upon finally landing in the Konoha Scientific Ninja Tools Department, stood several people around a pool of bright clothes.
Shikamaru exhaled, silently stressed and rubbed at his head with eyes squeezed shut. The scientists around gasped in disbelief and shock. “Hokage-sama…”
From underneath the Hokage hat peeked out two large blue eyes, and then small, sticky hands reached up to keep the hat from sliding. “…guys?”
Shikamaru didn’t need to look around the wide room for clues, having instantly figured what had happened to Naruto, and squeezed his hands into his pockets. “Honestly,” Shikamaru sighed, the unlit cigarette between his lips. “Hokage-sama. You’re troublesome these days.“
The strongest Hokage known, upon entering the department, had accidentally touched a small pool of green liquid on one of the tables when distracted by one of the eager scientists, and had regressed into a child.
000
“The Science Department is working on a cure,” Shikamaru’s dragged out voice filled the tense atmosphere inside the quiet office, “As of now, the state of our Hokage must be kept hidden,” a tired glance towards the small, timid posture of Naruto behind the table filled with several unfinished documents.
“The leak of our Hokage’s vulnerability can mean a possible attack on him and Konoha,” he added, his sharp eyes flickering now towards the tall, cool appearance of a man leaning against the wall. The temperature of the room shifted. “Which means…“
“That responsibility falls on you…Sasuke.”
Sasuke’s dark hair fell over his forehead as he tucked his chin towards his chest. His leveled gaze landed on the suspiciously quiet pile of a mess behind the table, the blonde curls barely peeking out. The wide orange zip-up jacket Naruto usually wore was too big on his small frame.
An inexplicable look emerged on Naruto‘s expressive eyes, a slight defiance on his whiskered face that oddly fit with his current shrunken height. “Do not let Hinata and the kids know,”
A quietness took over the room, and several Anbu dispersed with a firm nod. Now, Naruto exhaled, rubbing at his blond messy hair in frustration, and the childish kicking of his feet subtly indicated the unpredictability of the age regression chemical. It was also another factor to consider, the possible side effects of the chemical.
“ Ah ,” Naruto complained, stubbornly refusing to look at any of them, feeling subconsciously flustered for some unknown reason, his 5-year old self more vulnerable and weak. “…Isn’t this a nightmare?!”
“Sasuke, what will you do?” Shikamaru blatantly ignored him and nodded towards Sasuke who shifted away from the wall and steadily walked up towards Naruto, his black cloak swirling silently. Somehow, with Naruto’s current height, Sasuke appeared monstrous and terrifying from this angle. Naruto smiled nervously, rubbing at his head.
“I know a place,” Sasuke started, staring down at him, a laid-back gaze in his black eye. “where no one can find him,”
“Wait, Sasuke,” Naruto gulped, tightly holding onto his chair, as the only hand intact reached down towards him, gripping his moving head. “Hold — hold on, let’s talk about this —“
Another blink of the human eye, and the two men vanished into thin air. Shikamaru stood alone inside the quiet room, and then sighed. “Well,” he muttered, in a bad mood. He dragged his feet up towards the unfinished documents on the table, and stared down at the papers that needed to be finished yesterday. “…time to get back to work.”
000
It was familiar — Naruto couldn’t place his finger on it, as he emerged in front of a large, snow-filled house, well-kept and clean.
The wind whistled, and Naruto shivered in his bright bare zip up jacket, as his bare feet and legs were engulfed in ice-cold air. It was winter, after all, but he complained, nonetheless, “Why the hell did you teleport us all the way out here, it’s cold as shit —“
It must appear comical for a 5-year old blond kid to curse casually, as he jumped up and down from one naked foot to another. Sasuke didn’t pay him no mind, however, and walked up towards the large, almost ghostly house from his current size.
Walking clumsily after Sasuke’s slow feet, the old wood covered in thin layers of snow underneath creaked, as the door to the house opened for them to enter. Inside, no light was on; and the curtains were pulled. Coldness that seeped from outside engulfed the entirety of the seemingly empty house.
Somehow, his mouth parted, a childish confusion and excitement taking over him, as his own feet clumsily ran past the tall posture of Sasuke to roam the entirety of the quiet house. The old but firm wood underneath his small feet squeaked, as he eagerly whirled around the open, empty room, looking up at the tall ceiling.
“Woah, are there ghosts in ‘ere!?”
Sasuke was silent. Then a controlled, suppressed exhale overcame him and it lowered the broadness of his tense shoulders. His shoes, he had taken off at the front of the house, and he noticed sharply the violent shivering of Naruto and the redness of his small nose. The excess snow on his blond hair began to melt, and Sasuke’s monotone eyes wandered down to the thin naked feet, the toes red and curled in. He must be cold.
However, Naruto’s face was unusually bright and curious, and Sasuke narrowed his eyes, calculated. A facial expression he didn’t see often these days, something he used to see more often during the academy days.
Then, after a beat, he walked up towards the unused fireplace against the tall wall of the living room and kneeled on one knee to get a fire going.
Sober, he figured that Naruto’s mental age was beginning to regress as well. They were in the old Uchiha district — the matured Naruto would have instantly recognized it, having helped preserve it, after all.
He felt Naruto’s warm chakra roam around the privacy of the house, and it was a child-like curiosity, almost. The ghosts inside the home laughed, delighted.
The ripping open of the dark curtains with small fingers, the gentle light of the snow-filled skies embracing each memory-filled fabric inside the house.
Sasuke teleported snow-filled wood from the forest into his hand and then placed some smaller ones neatly inside the old fireplace. Fire emerged from his mouth, and accurately engulfed the melting wood inside the fireplace. He watched, patient, as the wood cracked underneath the growing pressure, and a small fire spread, introducing gradual warmth inside the home.
Now.
“Naruto,” he called out into the depths of the house, and it was the first time in a long while he had called out to anyone inside his old home. A slow stir inside his bones, an old-age pain and sweetness overtaking him, as the small appearance of Naruto dragged himself back into the direction of Sasuke. His hideous orange jacket dragged across the wooden floor and a shiver ran through his small body.
“I wanted to explore more…“ came the soft complaint, and somewhere, inside Sasuke’s heart, behind the deepest corner, found its strings softening. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in a long time, the childish highness of Naruto’s hope-filled tone. And when Naruto’s too large eyes focused on Sasuke and then back on the crackling fireplace, the glowing blue inside his eyes melted snow on mountains. “Woah, you made fire…!”
That something as mundane as fire could excite Naruto, had Sasuke’s fingertips twitching, before they mindlessly reached up towards his cloak. He took it off, and spread it out neatly in front of the fireplace. With a casual flicker of his finger, he allowed Naruto to come closer, and step his cold feet on the cloak.
Naruto’s expression was of rare fascination and Sasuke faintly wondered, an old emotion inside his heart, if Naruto at this current age had ever seen the crackling of a fireplace outside the woods. Then he closed his eyes, as Naruto sat down in the middle of his cloak. His hand reached for the end of the black material and wordlessly wrapped Naruto with it.
“It’s my home,” Sasuke suddenly retorted, into the absent house, his tone low and inexplicable.
“Your home?” Naruto’s blue eyes mixed with the warm color of the fire, as he absentmindedly murmured. This was the Naruto who didn’t seem to know anything past his physical age, a child-like wonder in his gentle gaze and the hatred of the world onto his small shoulders.
This was bad. Sasuke narrowed his eyes, concentrating, as he decided on being blunt, “It’s the Uchiha district, Naruto.”
That snapped Naruto out of his trance, and he blinked, suddenly realizing how he was behaving, before his fascinated blue eyes watered down into a matured but confused look again. He looked back at the crackling fireplace, then down at his small fingers.
“Sasuke…what was that?”
“I’m not sure.” Sasuke stood up, walking past the small blond mess to take the creaky stairs leading upward.
Naruto watched him, dumbfounded, as his Uchiha emblem on his back reflected the one on one of the walls. Then he sniffled, and looked down at his now small toes, slowly warming up. He seemed to have forgotten the old home of Sasuke, the one he had used to protest for not to get destroyed.
“But why….?” Naruto frowned, then he looked off to the side and then out the window, the long curtains tucked aside. It was around evening now, the snow appearing more crystal clear at night, and upon a closer look, he felt a nostalgic smile sit on his lips.
“It’s snowing again, huh.” His legs itched to get up and take a closer look, lean against the window and gaze up into the night sky. He loved snow! Naruto exhaled, confused at himself, rubbing at his whiskered cheek warming up from the crackling fireplace.
Then he heard steady steps behind him approaching, and then he watched Sasuke turn on the small kitchen light, a soft yellow light engulfing the unused kitchen table.
Naruto’s heart squeezed once, then twice, and his eyes grew heavy at the sight. He was sure Sasuke must be having a more complex time than Naruto, walking inside an old house that used to be full of memories and grief.
He felt the need to be, the need —
“Sasuke,” he heard his own voice, high and childish, as he began complaining loudly, pointing a small finger at the tall man walking up towards him with dark material in his hand. “I don’t wanna wear dark clothes, don’t you have any orange? Even yellow is fine, or red —“
Sasuke closed his eyes with a sharp exhale, then threw the clothes at his small face unscrupulously. Naruto coughed, the clothes appearing dusty and as he looked down at them, he figured, with surprise, the sheer softness of the material. It was a bit larger in size, but it was sure to fit him well.
“Wear it,” Sasuke ordered, even and low, looking out of the window, figuring it was time for dinner. It wasn’t an option to go out with the idiot unless they wanted to be caught instantly.
Then he casually glanced down at the lowered blond mess, who seemed to sniffle, for some reason. Sasuke’s brows furrowed, barely, and he faintly wondered if it was still too cold.
Naruto was clumsy as he took off his oversized jacket and put on the black shirt with long sleeves, the Uchiha emblem at the front, which Naruto loudly groaned at. Sasuke looked down at him, unimpressed. The idiot decided to wear it the wrong way, and then he slipped into the equally dark night pants, along with the small socks.
Sasuke looked down at the small proud boy grinning up at him, hands on his hips, the clothes a tad bit looser than expected. Sasuke caved in at the expectant look and nodded in acknowledgment just because he knew the Naruto as of now would bother him the entire evening about it.
Naruto lit up at the silent nod of approval, and then looked around the vast room, eyes gleaming in something other than content.
Sasuke had a bad premonition, so he leaned down and decisively tugged at Naruto’s whiskered cheek. “Don’t cause trouble,” was his last, definite order before Sasuke let go of a screeching Naruto holding onto his red cheek. He turned towards the kitchen, deciding to cook something here. He didn’t have much at this house, but he usually paid for the place to be stocked up with necessities whenever he decided to return to Konoha.
A mischievous giggle came from the runt, and Sasuke exhaled, looking down at a single point of the kitchen sink as he already heard the quick, frantic steps of Naruto roaming the house again.
Sasuke forced calmness, as he continued to find the needed ingredients for something simple and edible tonight.
At the sight of snow falling outside the window in complete darkness, Sasuke faintly remembered the thin hands of his mother making warm, heartfelt broth at times of cold. He gently put the thought away.
Some time passed. The flickering of the lights in other parts of the house Sasuke noticed, were caused by small hands unable to sit still. Sasuke heaved an exhale, his broad shoulders dropping as he diligently cut up some more carrots. Naruto’s childish behavior wasn’t unusual, but it usually showed in appropriate situations involving Sasuke or his own children, not straight up reflecting in the pranks he used to make.
That meant, Sasuke thought as something crashed loudly in some part of the house, that the chemical was having Naruto’s mental state regress as well. And it was doing so unexpectedly quickly. Because Sasuke doubted the current Naruto would act that way, too prideful and admittingly matured.
Sasuke, for all his patience and calmness, almost snapped the knife in half when the lighting bulb inside the kitchen faintly shook as Naruto appeared to bounce up and down with a loud screech right above the kitchen.
And to Sasuke’s dismay, it went on like this for the next hour. Lights turning off and on, something crashing and falling inside the bathtub, the shutting and opening of doors. Sasuke was ascertained that Naruto had broken several things by now. Not to mention the loud laughter, the snickering and the terrible singing of his booming, high voice. He heard the running of water somewhere, and Sasuke carefully placed one of the plates with warm rice and vegetable sauce on the table. He took a moment to regain clarity.
Sasuke remembered Sarada having been a rather calm child. But then again, he had never stayed enough to experience her acting any other way.
As Sasuke placed Naruto’s smaller plate across from his, he found the house being oddly quiet, so he subconsciously sensed the warm chakra flickering in one of the rooms upstairs.
Sasuke gazed down at the two plates, blank. The small bundle of chakra soured in something akin to gloom, an emotion Naruto had grown accustomed to when he had been younger.
He found his legs stepping up the creaking stairs, the temperature significantly growing colder as the fireplace hadn’t warmed upstairs yet. Walking past each room that had been opened, he rightfully did not allow his gaze to stray away, as he finally reached the slightly ajar door. Pale light flickered from inside, and he opened it with his foot, as he heard a faint sniffle come from the bed.
The room hadn’t been placed upside down, surprisingly, rather the small pile of blond hair was perched up on the open window while sitting on Sasuke’s old bed. Snowflakes drifted inside on a quiet winter evening, and with his small back turned towards the door, the image of Sasuke’s childhood self and Naruto’s current appearance melted into each other.
The Uchiha allowed it to ache this time, and leaned against the door casually. “Are you done?” His deep, low voice broke the stifling silence, and Sasuke figured Naruto was already around the current mental age of his physically regressed state. That wasn’t optimal.
Then he froze when Naruto raised his head over his shoulder, his blue eyes too large for his small face. Big drops of tears ran down his whiskered cheeks, and his messy blond locks fell over his forehead as he shed tears without making a sound. “Why does no one like me…?”
Sasuke’s eye twitched, slightly in disbelief at the unusual sight. Then he exhaled, and gazed off to the side, vulnerable for an instant before he focused back on the grieving face. At least it was confirmed - this was Naruto’s mental age from his childhood.
“No one likes you?” Sasuke heard himself repeat, his own voice barely even to his own ears. Then he cocked his head to the side, and raised his eyelids, patient as he watched Naruto sniffle in quiet agreement.
Sasuke watched him for a quiet moment. He had never been the type of man to talk much, especially with comforting words. Rather, he preferred to have his actions speak for themselves, but he doubted that Naruto at his current state would be able to extract the hidden meaning behind his actions the way Naruto had accurately done upon maturing.
“You’re loud,” Sasuke started calmly, walking up towards him. “You break everything. And you cannot sit still for a minute.”
Naruto stared up at him, wide-eyed, and his face gradually scrunched up into grief and childish irritation at the blunt words.
“But,” Sasuke reached out his warm hand to methodically wipe at the wet whiskered cheeks, finding them cold against his fingers. “you’re liked.”
He thought of the bond with Naruto he had tried to sever. Then he pulled quite hard on his whiskered cheek, and Naruto whined loudly, complaining with a sullen expression.
Sasuke reached past him to close the dusty window, inhaling the frozen air that had flown in. He paid no mind to the crystal snow melting on the small bed, as he casually reached out to ruffle the snow out of Naruto’s hair.
“Come down to eat.” His lips twitched up into a pleased smile as he walked back towards the open door, before glinting over his shoulder. “I made rice, Hokage-sama.”
000
Sasuke figured, as Naruto stood up on a small stool to wash off the dishes, that Naruto had regressed to the stage where he was his old 5-year old self, mentally. The brightness of his blue eyes, the childish but rhythmic hum of his high voice, and the adoration and challenge in his gaze whenever Sasuke attempted to have him subdued was reason enough.
Any attempts at trying to have Naruto remember things like before winded up fruitless, and Sasuke decided that sufficient pressure on the scientists was needed to see progress, possibly with the assistance of his Kusanagi . He opted to wait for Shikamaru’s action, instead.
Sasuke assisted him by drying off the two plates, and the warm light of the kitchen had him laid-back and calm, no sense of urgency remaining in his bones. It was still snowing.
“I wanna go outside,” he heard Naruto mutter decisively, and Sasuke’s fingers twitched for a split moment before he proceeded to wipe the glass clean with one hand.
“And do what,” Sasuke retorted, dry.
“Build a snowman,” Naruto explained, as if it was obvious, pointing with a wet finger to one of the wide windows where the snow could be seen from the light inside their home.
“It’s cold and wet outside,” Sasuke glanced out of the window leisurely and didn’t feel like leaving the warm house in this cold.
“But…I’ve never built a snowman with someone.”
Sasuke was silent.
A pause.
And then, minutes later, Naruto found himself with blue boots a tad bigger on him, a thick dark jacket of his size and a large blue scarf wrapped around his flushed face in the middle of thick, soft snow. He had found blue gloves for Naruto as well.
“Go ahead,” Sasuke muttered, and huffed in mirth when Naruto squeaked and began running around the empty garden. His boots left a trail of small footsteps behind, as the snow glistened underneath the warm lights coming from inside the house.
Sasuke watched him calmly for a moment. Then he gazed up at the sky that wasn’t black, as snowflakes the size of pearls swirled in the calm air before they grew comfortable in the snow. Sasuke fluttered his eyelids shut and felt soft flakes landing on his dark lashes.
Smoke came out of his dry mouth, the sheer coldness reminding him of the Land of Snow where Team Seven had gone years ago on a mission. He wondered if Naruto had ever gone there again.
“Sasuke!” Naruto called out his name, loud and booming. How he still had so much energy, Sasuke couldn't help but wonder. His eyes landed on Naruto, as he ran towards Sasuke, before he suddenly fell face-first into the soft snow.
It was quiet. Sasuke’s hand already moved towards the direction where he was lying before the blond head raised itself up, snow left on his flushed cheeks and messy hair. Despite the coldness, Naruto let out a small chuckle, then a breathy giggle, his hopeful eyes calling out to Sasuke.
“Sas-ke! Snow-man!”
Sasuke lowered his hand, and the corners of his lips twitched up into a small, pleasant expression. “I’m coming.”
The carrot inside his jacket was warm. A snowman without a nose wouldn’t do, after all.
000
“Make a snow angel with me?”
“No.”
“Make one with me right now!”
Sasuke huffed, now openly perplexed, as Naruto shoved at him with his small hands to lie down.
And as the night grew colder and the stars emerged from behind the tranquillity of the night sky, at the old Uchiha district, just behind the snowy garden of the only lit up house, stood a wobbly snowman, tall and proud.
A blue scarf hung around his neck, along with two sticks as hands and a healthy carrot as a nose. Beside him were two angels in the deep snow, one large and small, next to each other.
000
On the same cold winter night, several days later, no warm light ensured life.
The snowman had been buried and destroyed from the wind and snow, the carrot gone. The two angels were dead, buried next to each other underneath the added snowflakes.
The wood inside the fireplace had turned into ashes, and the mess around the dead house caused by small hands left as was. The dried plates were lost next to the kitchen sink, along with two glasses.
The Hokage stood tall inside his own office again, far away from the Uchiha District. And the District had turned into a ghost town again.
So as Naruto stood by the large window and gazed outside calmly, the bright sun on a cold winter day reminded him of the faint memories of Sasuke’s warm hand and his pleased smile.