You really just punched yourself in the face with that one. "
Naruto was staring at his feet. "… I'm sorry, mister.
Am I really cursed?"
Despite myself, I smiled and poked him in the head. "You're certainly something, you Menace you.
"
"Stop that!"
"Oh? Maybe you'll like this better. " I ruffled his hair.
My hand was big. It engulfed almost his entire head.
Naruto leaned into it.
Then he froze.
But didn't pull away.
I pulled back first and tapped his head with the coloring book. "Here you go, kid.
It's a couple weeks late, but Happy Birthday. "
Naruto took it gingerly, carefully, as if it was the most important thing in the world.
"Only open it inside. I made it all myself so I don't want anyone other than you to see inside it first.
"
"… Thanks, mister," Naruto sniffled. Hiccupped.
Tug at my bleeding heart, why don't you. I sighed and ruffled his hair again.
He jumped me and tearfully clung to my waist for the next five minutes. He just won't give up until he grows on me like a fungus, will he?
I'm not going gently into that good night, you little brat.
Naruto did untangle himself from me eventually, but I had to nudge him all the way to his building's front door, the kid wiping his face with his sleeve all the way over. Even then, he lingered.
Staring at the cover and the words. 'Hanzo's Peerless Coloring Book, Collector's Item, Only One of its Kind.
'
"Well kid, I gotta run. Lots to do today, as every other day.
You have fun now and don't put anyone else in the hospital, hmn?"
"How do I change but still stay me?"
… Whoa.
I stared down at the kid who seemed incapable of looking at me anymore.
Don't ask all the hard questions at once, kid.
Naruto didn't say anything else. But he didn't move either.
Not beyond carefully hugging the book close to his chest and looking down.
I watched the kid some more, thinking. "If you're serious… Then you start by changing the stuff you do that's reactionary.
You already control what you with your own ideas. But when you react to someone else, it's them controlling you, not you.
"
"… Like my pranking, right?"
"And the stalking, the yelling, even everything else I've seen you do after those didn't turn out how you liked them. "
"Like when I put you in the hospital because I pranked the shopkeeper. "
"That's right. And you pranked the shopkeeper because…"
"… Because he short-changed me?"
"No, that's what he did, now what you did. "
"I got angry. "
"And?"
Finally, Naruto looked up at me again. "… And that's it?"
"No. Your anger was legitimate, the man wronged you.
That's not the problem. It's what you did with it.
"
This time, Naruto had to pry his own words out through his teeth. "I wanted payback.
"
"And you looked for the quickest, loudest way to get it. "
"Yeah…"
How much could I say that a five year old kid could remember? How far was I allowed to go before someone intervened here? "Justice and vengeance aren't the same thing, but they do overlap a lot of the time. Unfortunately, you can't tell between them, never mind the rest.
And your response is never equal to the crime because you never stop to wonder about it, Naruto. You have no restraint.
If you ask me how you can change but still stay you, my advice is to start there. "
"… Okay. " Naruto sniffled, wiped his nose with his sleeve and put on his best 'this is me determined to be good' face despite the huge tear tracks on his cheeks.
"I can do that. "
I flicked him in the forehead. Gently.
"Then I'm rooting for you, kid. Go on, upstairs you go.
"
Naruto grudgingly made tracks, stopping to look back at me repeatedly, even lingering in the doorway just to check I was still there before finally disappearing into the building.
And with that it was over.
Somehow I expected this to be a lot more difficult.
It was probably my daughter's fault. My little Yui, now she was a brat and then some.
I turned around and set off, checking my pocket watch to track the time. It had been a big expense, but time keeping was essential in the field of physics.
Also, it was essential to measure how long it took to be accosted by or on behalf of the Anbu or Hokage, or whoever else was currently looking through Naruto's new gift while he was washing his face in the bathroom. Paging through the scale-accurate line art of the life story of the nine tailed beasts, complete with their birth and their dad and their growth to adulthood and their real names.
It didn't happen on the way back to pick up my cart from home. It didn't happen on the way to my appointment.
It didn't happen while I was inside, bartering for discounts on repeat orders. It didn't happen while I was loading my cart with my very fragile box.
It did, however, happen just as I passed the first side alley on my way back home.
"You're quite the loremaster, Mister Masanari. "
The same nondescript appearance. The very kind of conversation opener I expected.
My free will gibbered in the self-same existential terror as for every Uchiha before. But the dread was ever so slightly lesser, the casually subdued mimicry had been replaced by merely subdued mimicry, and the voice was coming from slightly lower than before.
"Uchiha Itachi, right?"
"Hah! I told you he'd notice!"
Uchiha Shisui had just flickered into being on my right, and he was not transformed.
A burst of smoke, and suddenly Itachi wasn't either. "I never doubted you, Shisui.
I merely assumed it would take more time. "
"You mean any time, little cousin. "
Oh fatalism, where have you gone – oh there you are. "Am I being arrested?"
Shisui snorted. "Not hardly, we're here bearing gifts!"
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