Chapter 11

The next day found Anko, for once, waking up with a smile in a warm, dry bed to the smell of cooking drifting into her room. She rubbed her eyes, stretching out in the bed as she fought off the last vestiges of sleep, swinging her legs out of bed. To her surprise, she found her clothes neatly folded at the end of her bed, cleaned and dried by Naruto. She paused in surprise before slipping them on not having felt so clean and warm in a long time. She slipped on her sandals as sleepily made her way downstairs where she found Naruto calmly eating his breakfast, a bowl of rice and some Sashimi, with another place laid out next to him, obviously for her.

When he saw her come down he smiled in her direction before returning to his meal, reading through a scroll rolled out on the table next to his bowl. Anko just hesitantly sat down, once again kind of unsure how to take the small offering of kindness. In the end though her grumbling stomach won out and she hesitantly but happily tucked into the filling breakfast. When they were both finished Naruto stood up, grabbing his backpack off a peg in the hallway as he looked around at Anko.

"Umm, thanks for the clothes and stuff." The redhead just smiled and shrugged, making the young girl curious as to how he could be so off-handed about the kindness he showed her.

"No problem, it's what friends do right?" Not that either of them knew that, never having had a real person they could properly call a friend before. Naruto honestly didn't mind, having somebody around the house made it feel less empty and that worked for him. "Come on, we gotta get to the academy." Anko just nodded, glad for the distraction as she grabbed one of the bentos Naruto had prepared and followed him out of the house.

The day passed relatively quickly. A few people believed that was because Anko wasn't tying her hardest to annoy the teacher ceaselessly. In fact, the purple-haired girl was relatively subdued throughout the day, something their sensei was gracious for. She looked to be in thought during class, not about the boring lectures of course, but about a certain red-haired boy who she couldn't puzzle out. Itachi joined them at lunch again, surprisingly with Shisui in tow, the two Uchiha apparently having become easy friends since the other day.

Finally the day ended and reluctantly Anko returned to the orphanage, not accepting Naruto's offer to come around again. She wanted to, but it felt so wrong to be taking advantage of his hospitality; just to get away from her own problems. Naruto body seemed sluggish after that. He would have to go home to an empty house again. But, he managed to shrug it off as he jogged off towards the Uchiha compound, not forgetting his promise to Shisui. He knocked on the massive gate and waited for a few moments before a very unimpressed Uchiha opened it from the other side, casually observing the young boy with his Sharingan active.

"Yes?" Naruto gave his best respectful bow, just as his father had taught him before smiling lightly.

"I was invited to spar with Shisui." He made sure not to phrase it as anything remotely like a question and the man at the gate seemed to get that, moving aside for the boy to walk past.

"Shisui's home is the last one on the left down that road." He motioned in the correct direction before closing the gate behind Naruto, walking off without a second glance. Naruto gave him one more look before walking down the road he had motioned to, quickly finding the right house as he knocked on the door. He was greeted by a kindly, but somewhat tired-looking woman who took one look down at him, smiling instantly.

She had long black hair that fell about her shoulders in shiny waves, catching the weak sunlight that filtered through the trees in the area. Her eyes were the same black as most Uchiha but like Naruto had noticed earlier they had an unusual weight or burden to them. She looked well dressed and in shape leading Naruto to believe she was, or at least had been a Shinobi, probably retiring as his mother had to raise her family.

"You must be Naruto Namikaze, Shisui told me you might be coming over. Naruto quickly nodded with a small polite bow.

"Yes Uchiha-san." The woman smiled more fondly as she patted him on the shoulder.

"There's no need for that, please, Shisui is in the training ground around the back with his friend Itachi." Naruto smiled in thanks before following her finger and walking around the back of the house. He rounded the corner only to immediately dodge back lest he be incinerated by an enormous ball of flames that suddenly roared in his direction. He poked his head around the corner again with wide eyes only to see a sheepish-looking Shisui and a slightly amused Itachi.

"Sorry about that Naruto, I was just practising." Naruto just gulped as he nodded, having seen his brief life flash before his eyes; he hadn't eaten enough ramen.

"Uhh, no problem." Shisui smiled more brightly at that, motioning for Naruto to come over to where he and Itachi were standing together.

"Thanks for coming over. It's going to be good to have a sparring partner who doesn't know my every move." He purposefully looked at Itachi as he spoke causing the other boy to simply raise an eyebrow at the semi-accusation. Naruto nodded in agreement, he just thought it would be good to have a sparring partner, period. Until now, he'd had play-fights with his father who'd never really taken him all that seriously. It would be beneficial to have an actual spar with somebody else on, or at least close to his level.

"Do you want to start straight away?" Shisui nodded with a careful grin as Itachi quickly moved out of the way, he too wanted to have a spar with Naruto, but thought he would let his other friend go first. It intrigued him to see somebody defeat somebody like Shisui who had nearly as good a grasp on the interceptor style as he did. Both boys settled into the make-shift ring that was set up in the training ground, falling back into their individual stances.

The fight was relatively short, as was pretty much expected after Naruto's display in the academy. However, Shisui learned a lot from it. One thing he knew was that he seriously needed to activate his Sharingan to make his style as effective as it could be. Another was that Naruto didn't pull punches in a spar, ever; his aching ribs were pretty much testament to that. However, he was happy, hoping that he could learn from his defeats and better himself, as was the Uchiha way. He moved to the side, limping slightly from a particularly vicious kick from Naruto as Itachi took his place.