Sorry for the very late chapter. I have not abandoned this story nor is it dead.

Writer's block, and the fact i misplaced all my notes for this story. I still can't locate them, so I hope this chapter turns out good.

Anyways please read, review and i hope you are enjoying the story.

The ninja academy was nothing like the academy Naruto attended, which made Tatsu a tiny bit jealous and rather uneasy. They were brutal when it came to training the students and it made millitary boot camp seem like Disney land or something along those lines. The dark atmosphere was heavy through out the whole building. The teachers didn't sugar coat the fact that you could die on any type of mission. Than again Naruto and his class weren't living in the time of war so yeah it wasn't as brutal as it was now.

Tatsu was just glad he had Yew in all his classes. However his aim was still absoultly horrible despite his big brother's teachings and help from his father. He had his teachers as well as his fellow classmates diving out of the way, blocking the runaway shurikens or kunais or simply taking protective cover whenever it came to their shuriken and kunai target practice. He gave one of his academy teachers a bald spot from a runaway shuriken just a few days ago. Let's just say his acadamy teacher Kenshin greatly disliked him.

A female Uchiha by the name Megumi suddenly walked over to were Yew and Tatsu were sitting. She than suddenly sat down beside Tatsu and when he turned to look at her, she smiled sweetly at him just seconds before she suddenly punched him hard in arm making him yelp loudly.

"Ow! What was that for?!" He demanded as he rubbed the area where she struck him.

"Call it revenge for when you threw that suriken at me instead of the actual target. You're really bad at throwing things, yet your good when it comes to taijutsu but your lousey at everything else. I just hope when it comes to exsploding tags in a few weeks that you wont blow us all up or something." She stated coldly.

"It was an accident, I never once claimed that I had good aim and i'm still learning." Tatsu grumbled bitterly. "I'm not a prodigy like my father or older brother are."

"It's true that Tatsu always had bad aim, he's also bad at hand sighns even though he is rather good at making clones and henges. Than you have the fact that he is also afraid of dogs. However when he is freaked out badly he can do some impressive chakra control." Yew pointed out as Tatsu slumped a bit in his seat.

"Thanks a lot...dolphin-kun." Tatsu growled as he switched to english at the end.

Megumi blinked at that before she revealed a confused look on her face. "I thought the Hatake clan were famous for having the summoning contract with dogs, and what did he just call you anyway? I mean...I never heard a language like that before."

"Tatsu's clan is famous for having the dog summons...it's just Tatsu here is the very first one from his clan born with the fear of dogs and is not a prodigy. Lastly he always switches to that strange language and seems to enjoy calling me whatever he just said just now." Yew stated as Tatsu banged his head on the desk as he sat between the two.

"You are both evil...Dolphin-kun and Raven-chan." Tatsu whined making the two share a look before they laughed.

"I have to admite it's kind of amusing when he switches languages like that. Tatsu will have teach us that language so we can communicate in secret or something, I kind of want to know what sort of nicknames he gave us." Megumi said with a smile.

"Like you aren't evil as well, Tatsu?" Yew teased making Tatsu stick his tongue out at him. Megumi laughed softly at this.

"I think I like you two boys. So let's train together every day after school, so we can help Tatsu-kun get better with his aim so he doesn't kill all of us. Who knows the three of us might even end up on the same team someday, so I rather have a teammate who can actually hit his target when he is throwing things instead of making everyone around him a target." Megumi stated with a grin.

"She has a good point, I rather not end up like a pin cushion like you did to your father a few days ago." Yew said softly.

Tatsu winced at the memory of how he accidently threw a set of needles all at once when Sakumo accidently startled him and instead of hitting the target that was set up for him. He accidently struck his father right in the butt with the entire set of needles. Really didn't help matters much that some of the needles still had left over residue of posion from the last time they were used.

Sakumo had to rush and get a medical nin to help their father. Riku Hatake was not at all amused by this. Never in the history of the Hatake clan had they ever had a clan member born with such bad aim or with a fear of dogs and yet his youngest child was born with them.

Tatsu had over heard his father debating with some of his friends if he should even allow Tatsu to become a ninja or simply keep him as a civillian. Sakumo knew Tatsu over heard something but Tatsu would never tell him what he over heard that night. It hurt to hear his father say that about him and yet he could understand Riku's concerns perfectly.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he also wondered if being a ninja was a good idea or not for him. However the more he thought about how the village treated Naruto and even about Kakashi's childhood he couldn't help but grow more determined to change things. Only problem was how to go about it without messing up the entire time line and throw things so off course he wont be able to figure things out.

"Tatsu, are you okay?" Yew asked in concern st how Tatsu's exspression turned sad and very distant looking.

"Yeah, i'm okay...just lost in ny own thoughts. It's a good idea about the training. Say Megumi-chan, Aren't you having trouble with henges?" Tatsu asked her as she dropped her head slightly at this.

"Yes...but Yew has problems with clones." Megumi stated firmly.

"True. So we are all good at things and terrible in other things. So the three of us training together, we should be able to overcome our worst subjects and improve on them. Maybe even help Tatsu get over his fear of dogs as well." Yew said quietly.

"So where exactly are we training after scool at?" Tatsu asked them as he chose to ignore the whole fear of dogs subject.

"We can't train at the Uchiha compound... Trust me...other members of the clan do not like out siders using our private training grounds." Megumi stated with a frown. Tatsu almost rolled his eyes at that, seeing how it really didn't surprise him all that much.

"My place is not a good idea either...it's way too small." Yew said frowning.

"Than we will use my family's training ground than. I'm sure my dad and my big brother Sakumo wont mind us using it." Tatsu said softly.

"Than its settled." Megumi stated with a smile. They fell silent as the classes began once more. Tatsu found himself paired up against a girl with long wavy dark blue hair and sharp soul percing golden yellow eyes. She was wearing a sky blue dress and dark blue pants under it. She was kind of cute, and she practically reminded him of his girlfriend in his past life despite her hair and eye color.

She was also extremely fast on her feet and with enough training she could have seriously matched Tsunade's strength in some respects though not as strong as her. Her name was Serenity if Tatsu remembered correctly. He didn't really pay attention to all of his classmates or even remembered their names.

Tatsu somehow managed to be blocking her attacks even though he was sliding a bit across the floor with each strike she kanded on him. She looked surprised that he was able to block her attacks so easily since he honestly looked distracted. Tatsu smirked as he took advantage of her distraction and aimed a kick across her ribs to send her skidding backwards across the floor. She looked up at him in annoyance. She than smiled at him as she than henged herself into a dog making Tatsu freeze insteantly in fear at the sight of her. She than suddenly barked at him. That was Tatsu's breaking point. Even though he knew it was a henge his fear of dogs insteantly took over.

With a loud ear splitting scream that honestly sounded like a woman being murdered in a horror movie, he bolted away running like the devil was on his heels. Everyone could only stared wide eyed in disbelief when they saw Tatsu channel chakra to his feet to run up the side of the wall and litterly jump out the third floor window shattering it. Serenity dispelled her henge as she just stood there in frozen disbelief. The whole class had similar exspressions on their faces.

"D-did that just happen?" Megumi stuttered.

"Unless we are in some sort of genjutsu, than yeah that just really just happened." Yew said with wide eyes.

"Aren't we on the third floor?" Megumi asked him.

"Yep." Yew said.

Yew and Megumi than suddenly paled as they remembered which floor they were on. With identical screams they ran towards the window to look out. Almost insteantly their sensei Kenshin ran towards the window as well as the rest of the class to see what became of Tatsu. There was Tatsu clinging to a near by tree branch with wide eyes with his hair practically standing on end like a cat.

"Tatsu, you baka! What the hell were you thinking?! This is the third floor window, are you trying to kill your self?!" Yew screamed in rage as he pulled off his future son's temper perfectly.

"I don't like dogs!" Tatsu shouted back at him.

Kenshin slammed his head against the window frame. Riku's youngest brat is going to be the death of me, why couldn't he be more like Sakumo or like Riku? He thought miserably just as the tree branch Tatsu was clinging to than snapped making him scream as he dissappeared through the branches as fell to the ground below. The entire class all flinched at that as their sensei banged his head harder against the window frame. Yew was shaking in anger as he stormed pass everyone.

"Where-?" Megumi asked with wide eyes.

"To kill the idiot myself and if he is already dead I swear i will bring him back to life just to kill him myself!" Yew snapped in fury. "What hell was that baka thinking?!"

"Wait for me." Megumi said as she quickly followed after him. Serenity stood there blinking at what just happened before she revealed a tiny smile.

Meanwhile Tatsu's fall had been broken as he landed on top of two very familiar looking sages. Tatsu gave a nervous laugh as he looked down at Orochimaru and at Jiraiya. The pair had been with Tsunade when Tatsu suddenly landed on top of Ororchimaru.

Orochimaru who had been arguing with jiraiya at the time was obvious to the danger above him. Somewhere durring his fall Tatsu had stopped screaming as he landed right on top of Orochimaru without any form of warning.

The end result was orochimaru falling forward from the sudden weight landing on him as he accidently kissed Jiraiya as he crashed against his annoying teammate while knocking them both to the ground with Tatsu landing fully onto Orochinaru's back.

Tsunade at this point was howling with laughter as she quickly grabbed Tatsu around the waist before he could jump off Orochimaru's back and run away. He hung their lifelessly in her arms as Orochimaru and Jairay sprang away from one another gagging and frantically wiping their mouths on the sleeves of their shirts.

Orochimaru than glared at Tatsu while he looked ready to feed him to one of his snake summons or simply use him for a pin cushion. Jiraiya also looked like he was going to murder him besides looking like he was about to hurl up his guts.

"Sorry." He squeaked in fear at the pair of them.

"Knock it off you two, he didn't mean it." Tsunade growled at her teammates. "It clearly was an accident." She scolded them.

"You are Riku Hatake's youngest child, am i right?" Orochimaru asked him as he stared at the child closely.

"Yes sir...i am." Tatsu said softly as he tried to be as polite as possible to the snake sennin who would later turn out to be a traitor.

"How did you end way up in that tree, anyway?" Jiraiya asked him as he looked up at the tree just to see how far the kid had fallen out of the tree. He than gave a low whistle as he relised just how the kid had fallen from. It was sheer dumb luck the kid wasn't dead or seriously injured.

"I sort of jumped out the third floor window..." Tatsu said softly.

"The third floor window?! You could have killed yourself!" Tsunade yelled as she began checking him over for injuries. "You got very lucky you didn't injure your self, but whatever possessed you to jump out of the third floor window, you idiot?!" Tsunade demanded.

"A classmate henged into a dog...i don't like dogs." He grumbled under his breath. It was very quiet amongst the four of them before Jiraiya busted out laughing.

"No way, A hatake afraid of dogs!" He laughed. Tatsu feeling insulted growled at him.

"At least i'm not a pervert who hides in a tree peeping into the woman's bath!" Tatsu snapped as Jiraiya paled as Tsunade turned to glare at him.

"What?" Tsunade growled in rage as she cracked her knuckles.

"He lies!" Jiraiya shouted in fear as he inched away from her.

"I am not lying...you also paid me and my big brother to keep quiet about your peeping on the woman's bath, especially when we accidently noticed you up in that tree." Tatsu said as he remembered that incident from two days ago.

"T-that was you?" Jiraiya asked in fear.

"Yep." Tatsu said as he gave him a blank stare. "Also I would run if i was you...Than again you totally deserve what's coming to you for being a pervert." Tatsu said as Tsunade lost her temper as she violently began beating the living daylights out of him. Orochimaru than remembered something as he turned to look at the five year old child.

"Were you the one who set off those exsplosive tags a few weeks ago?" He asked. Tatsu paled a bit as he looked up at him.

"It was an accident." Tatsu said softly. Shame it didn't kill you...or put you in coma or something, you bloody traitor, even though you aren't one yet." He thought to himself.

"Tatsu!" Yew snarled loudly as he charged foreward and suddenly grabbed tatsu by his ear making him yell in pain. "Jumping out the third floor window?! Are you insane?! Do you know how badly you scared me and everyone else?!" Yew shouted as he began dragging his friend back towards the academy as he ignored how Jiraiya, Tsunade and Orochimaru watched them.

Megumi shook her head at the sight and simply turned and walked back towards the classroom as she ignored Tatsu's painful yelps from how Yew was dragging him into the classroom by his ear as he was scolding him the entire way. "Why do i have the feeling i'm going to be stuck with these two boys?" Megumi grumbled under her breath.

Latter that day when Sakumo arrived home he was starring wide eyed at his little brother who was training with Yew and Megumi. They appeared to be training like a team and were helping each other out. Sakumo sat their watching them train together. However his eyes widen when his brother began hitting the targets perfectly after Megumi screamed at him to focus on the target or else she was going to barbeque his ass. It seemed to work like a charm.

Sakumo insteantly felt a bubble of jealousy rise up inside him. He should be the one training his baby brother. He also didn't like it when people threatened his baby brother. That was his job. The next thing sakumo knew he was kicked from behind that sent him falling foreward out of the bushes making the three kids turn to look at him. Sakumo gave a nevous laugh as he sent a glare towards his father who gave him a smug look as he walked pass the kids.

"Sakumo, can you teach us clones? Since you can exsplain it better than i can." Tatsu asked with a hopeful smile. Sakumo than smiled as he began teaching the three. It was funny when Tatsu messed up on the hand sighns and caused himself to transform himself into a cat. Just as a few of Riku ninkuns arrived home.

Needless to say all hell broke loose as Tatsu screamed and shot straight up a tree trunk with three dogs giving chase after him since Tatsu was unable to release the jutsu. This caused Yew, Megumi and Sakumo to chase after the dogs to prevent poor Tatsu from becoming a cat burger.

Over an hour latter Tatsu changed back to normal looking truamatised as he clung to a tree branch for dear life. The three ninkuns were scolded by a very angry looking Sakumo. Yew was trying to coax Tatsu down from the tree and megumi sat under the tree trying to figure out why Tatsu was so bad with his skills.

Seeing how it was getting close to dinner time Megumi said her good byes and headed home when she spotted a older Uchiha member waiting to walk her home. Yew waved his good byes as well when his mom arrived to pick him up.

Sakumo looked at his little brother who finally came down out of the tree. "You okay Tatsu?" Sakumo asked as he looked at him. Tatsu had a unreadable exspression on his face but the clearest emotion Sakumo reconised was sadness.

"Big brother...can you make a promise to me?" Tatsu asked him rather suddenly.

"Sure, what is it?" Sakumo asked him.

"Promise me, that you will never take your own life...no matter what happens." Tatsu said. Sakumo stared at him with a 'what the fuck' exspression on his face. Tatsu ignored his exspression as he continued with a sad exspression on his face. "I heard a scary story from some older kids...it was about a man who abandoned his mission to save the lives of his teammates...but in doing so he was treated badly by his village and even by his own teamates who he saved. All because he purposely failed a mission to save them. Even the man's own child hated him for what he did, his child use to looked up to him and wanted to be just like him. The man grew so depressed that he believed the best way to fix the problem was to end his own life so he did. The man died unaware he would forever tramatise his only child, when his child came home school and found his lifeless body in a pool of his own blood. His child grew up alone, with no one there for him, especially when the child eventually lost teamates in terrible accidents, one of those accidents had been by their own hand and eventually even lost their sensei who sort of stepped into a father like roll to that child." Tatsu said softly.

Sakumo didn't know what to say as he listened to the story. His heart clenched painfully at the story but didn't fully understand why his little brother's story was so painful to him.

"I couldn't help but wonder, what happens if that senerio happened to one of us. I know missions are important...but missions can be redone to some degree...lives however can never be replaced so i respect the man for saving his teammates but i can never forgive him for abandoning his child like that. So i just want you to promise me, that you will never take the cowards way out like that, but instead fight, rebuild your reputation or do something productive like teaching or even take up a civillian job. Please promise me...it would put my mind at ease." Tatsu said as he made his eyes water a bit.

"Tatsu, i promise...but you have to promise me something in return. If i ever took the cowards way out like that...That you would look after my kid just like i would look after yours. And you have to promise me you will never do something so stupid like that either." Sakumo said firmly.

"Deal, but remember you made me a promise. I mean it Sakumo...if you ever kill your self...i swear to kami i will never ever forgive you and i would purposely bring you back from the dead just to kill you myself multiple times until i collapsed from using up too much Chakra." Tatsu stated firmly as his eyes held a deadly gleam in them. Sakumo shuddared in fear of that stare. Something about his little brother's stare felt like Tatsu was ripping his soul to peices and putting his soul back together once more.

Tatsu than lost his nerve and busted out into tears as he clung to his older brother tightly. Sakumo frowned as he tried to get his baby brother to stop crying. "Tatsu, ninjas don't cry." Sakumo said only for Tatsu to ignore him as he held on tighter to him and cried even harder. Sakumo sighed as he tightened his hold on his baby brother.

On the roof of the Hatake home the old man sat there starring with wide eyes at what Tatsu just said to Sakumo. The wolf was sitting beside him with a calm exspression. "You know Iruka and Kakashi are pissed about you screwing this all up, right?" The wolf said softly.

"I know...but i didn't think Tatsu would be so blunt and tell Sakumo that kind of a story!" The old man yelled as he looked ready to yank his hair out.

"He's getting worried, brat. He knows what is at stake. He wants to change things...but he is scared. He is not familliar with this time line." The wolf said as he looked at the old man. "He chose to keep his past memories and they are messing with his head. Two souls in one body fighting for control. Until he finds the balance between these two souls, he wont survive long enough to change anything."

"Maybe you should have him sighn the wolf scroll now, so you can help him?" The old man suggested.

"No bloody way. Tatsu will only be able to sighn it after he becomes a Gennin. Kakashi would skin me alive if i have the kid sighn it early and i fear him more than i do you, brat." The wolf said as a older looking man appeared with a scar across his nose. "Iruka?"

"Why are you here!?" The old man yelled with a panicked exspression on his face.

"I wanted to see Tatsu-kun for myself. I mean he did help my parents name me in this time line." The man stated before he watched as Sakumo pulled his little brother into a hug as Tatsu broke down crying even harder. "There was a reason why we gave you that list of questions to ask him Naruto, it was to prevent over welming him."

"I know, i messed up. Maybe it's better this way?" Naruto said sighing.

"It's hard to say, only time will tell. However the brat isn't alone on this." The wolf said as he stood up slowly.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

"That is for me to know, fox boy. Now if you'll excuse me i have a sword to make." The wolf said with a sly grin as he said nothing more on the subject as he vanished into thin air. Iruka and Naruto shared confused looks before they also left before anyone could notice them. Once Tatsu calmed down from his crying fit Sakumo gently ruffled his hair.

"Feel better?" Sakumo asked him.

"Big brother...can you help me get over my fear of dogs? I don't want to jump out of another third floor window at the academy...again or be chased by dogs any more." Tatsu said softly.

"Sure thing...wait...you did what!?" Sakumo screamed loudly.

Tatsu gave a nervous laugh as he cowarded under his brother's murderous exspression. "I uh sort of jumped out the third floor window at the academy today." He said nervously before letting out a loud squeak like yelp as Sakumo began frantically searching for injuries as he scolded his baby brother almost as badly as Yew had done along with his teacher.

To be continued...