Chapter 1: The Change
Shikamaru, the jônins leaders, Temari and Kankurou stared at the sight in front of them. The sight stared back at them.
"What is that again?" Gai asked, pointing.
Tsunade sighed in frustration. How many times would she have to explain this? "These are your students/teammates/younger brother."
Everyone stared.
Kankurou fainted.
Kankurou woke up and saw Temari standing over him. "Oh, Temari, I had the strangest dream! Tsunade came over and Gaara had been turned into a three-year-old."
"Um, Kankurou?"
"Yeah, Temari?"
Temari held up a small thing with red hair and dark rimmed bright green eyes. "It wasn't a dream." Gaara, three-years-old, laughed at Kankurou as his eyes grew as big as saucers.
"OH MY GOD!!!"
"That's not all," Temari said, pointing to the opposite wall. Three year old Naruto and Sasuke were arguing in their three year old style.
"OH MY %&#$%$&# GOD!!!!"
"Uh, Kankurou?" Temari pointed to another side of the room where Sakura, Neji, Lee, Kiba, Hinata, Shino, and Chouji sat, crying, whining, talking, fighting, or in Kiba's case, trying to destroy the Sand-nin's living room like a dog. The only thing keeping him from doing so was Hinata, who had somehow found a spoon and was whacking him with it whenever he got close to destroying something. All of them looked around three. And loud. And little. And baby-ish.
"SWEET MOTHER OF THE KAZEKAGE!!! SOMEONE WAKE ME UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE!!!!"
Temari thwacked Kankurou. "Snap out of it!! I'm just as freaked out as you!"
Kankurou took a deep breath and let it out slowly, sitting up. Temari put Gaara on his lap and went to stop Naruto and Sasuke from fighting. Gaara and Kankurou stared at each other for a while. Then Gaara broke into a grin that threatened to tear his face in half. Kankurou blinked in shock. He'd never seen Gaara smile before, it made a big difference.
A groan sounded from the floor near the chair. Kankurou glanced over and saw Shikamaru sitting they're leaning against the chair looking dazed. "This is so troublesome." He muttered.
Kankurou sat up suddenly, causing Gaara to roll of him onto the sofa. "Where's Tsunade-sama?" he asked.
"She went home," Temari said. "So did the other jônins."
"You mean they left us to take care of these brats alone?" Kankurou asked angrily.
"No we didn't," Kakashi said frowning, as he walked into the house followed by the other jounin teachers. "We went with Hokage-sama to learn exactly what happened."
Silence....
"Can we know what happened?" Temari asked glaring at them.
"They were all training outside of the village and a sound nin from Orochimaru attacked them and preformed a jutsu that reversed the aging process."
"You mean their just going to get younger and younger till they disappear?!" Temari shrieked.
"No!" Kurenai sighed. "The Jutsu just made them younger, the de-aging process seemed to have stopped when they reached three. Perhaps the sound nin didn't have enough chakra to make them any younger."
"Did Orochimaru want them to become so young they'd disappear?" Shikamaru asked.
"Hokage-sama doesn't think so, and I agree," Kakashi replied. "If that was his wish, he would have sent a stronger Shinobi. Hokage-sama thinks that he is working on a new jutsu that makes someone younger. Perhaps to use it on himself, making himself younger, but still containing his old powers. However, the jutsu hasn't done what he wished. It can't be seen if they have retained their old powers, but their minds are that of three year olds. They think like three year olds, act like three year olds. I don't think they have any memories after their previous three-year-old lives. Although they seem to remember each other and everyone else."
The three younger Shinobi looked at the little kids that were taking no notice to them. Gaara had gotten off the sofa and was playing with Naruto (Temari was holding Sasuke so he and Naruto wouldn't fight). Temari handed Sasuke to Kakashi.
"I don't want to take care of them!" Temari told him.
Kakashi sighed. "We're only going to ask you to take care of them sometimes, but some of them have to stay here."
"Like who?" Kankurou asked.
"Well, Gaara obviously. Naruto can't live in his apartment alone." Asuma said. "Probably Sasuke as well, since he also doesn't have a family."
"We can deal with Naruto and Gaara," Temari assured them. "Sasuke might be a problem. He seems to like to fight with Naruto and Gaara." Sasuke was trying to break out of Kakashi's arms to go over to Naruto and Gaara.
"But the others have to stay here for a while until their families can be informed of the situation." Gai said. "I can take Lee with me, and Neji too, perhaps."
Temari, Kankurou and Shikamaru had images of Gai brainwashing Neji so that he begins to act and dress like Gai and Lee. Bad mental picture.
"No, I think he can stay here," Kankurou said. Lee was enough; they didn't need Neji acting like Gai too.
"We're going to go inform their families. Their parents should be here later tonight to get them." Kurenai said as the jônins left.
Temari, Shikamaru and Kankurou all sighed in unison. "How troublesome."
Temari began processing in her female mind the responsibilities they would now have. "We need to get stuff for them," she said pointing with her thumb at the kids. "Shikamaru and I will go get baby stuff. Kankurou will you keep them alive till we get back?" Kankurou glared at her. (death-glare scale: 7) "Ok then! Lets go Shikamaru."
And they were gone.
They left him.
Alone.
With eight three-year-olds and one four-year-old (Neji and Lee are a year older then everyone else in the anime so basically everyone de-aged about nine years).
How dare she? Did she want him to die?
Tug-tug. Kankurou looked down and saw Naruto. "We wanna draw!" the blond nin told him. Kankurou sighed and got up. He found lots of paper and some how found a box of crayons. He sat Gaara and Naruto down at the table where they began to draw. Neji, Kiba, and Hinata sat down across from them to watch and draw also. Sasuke was sitting on the overstuffed chair with a book. On closer inspection Kankurou saw that it was his book How to Deal with Insane Siblings. Sakura was looking at a book too, Temari's flower picture book. Chouji was trying to get into the fridge and Shino was missing.
"CRAP!! I lost one!!" Kankurou yelled looking frantically around for the bug using nin.
"Shino's in the basement," Hinata said from the table. "He's lookin' for bugs."
Kankurou sighed. Good. He knew where everyone was. The doorbell rang and he went to go answer it. A jounin stood there and asked if he was informed about the parents coming later. Kankurou told him what Kakashi had said and the jounin nodded then left. He stood out side of the door for a while going over in his head what had happened to the leaf nins and his brother. Kakashi's words suddenly came back to him.
Flashback"They don't seem to remember anything that happened since their previous three year old lives."
End of Flashback'That means that Gaara's not insane yet.' Kankurou thought to himself. 'Nothing about Yashamaru betraying him has happened to him.' Kankurou thought about this. Gaara wasn't insane yet, but, if he remembered correctly, he wasn't exactly stable from never sleeping. Another thought popped up in his mind. 'He doesn't remember me not being a brother.'
Kankurou stopped his thoughts short and came back to that one. Growing up, Gaara had only seen people attend to him, or kids running from him or chasing him away. Maybe he could change that now. Kankurou smiled. Yeah, he could do that.
Kankurou came back in the house and was greeted by a teary-eyed Gaara and hysterical Naruto. Gaara clamped onto Kankurou's leg and buried his face in his pants leg. Naruto stopped in front of him.
"What the hell is wrong?" Kankurou asked, still not use to Gaara's three-year-old attitude.
"W-we were coloring on the table," Gaara sobbed.
"We weren't bothering anyone, and Neji came in," Naruto said, in a three-year-old hysterical fit.
"He ate my crayons!!" Gaara cried.
"He turned green!"
"HE ATE MY CRAYONS!!"
"We could only save the orange and red!" Naruto held them up to show him.
"MY CRAYONS!!!!"
Kankurou sighed. He hated babysitting. "Ok, let's go see," Naruto led him down the hallway to the kitchen while Gaara still clung to his older brother's leg trying not to cry (you know how kids wrap their arms and legs around older people's legs and have them walking around while their sitting on the people's foot? That's how Gaara is on Kankurou right now). Naruto explained that they left Hinata to guard their pictures. Kankurou was confused. Why would they need to guard their pictures and why Hinata? When they walked into the kitchen Kankurou stopped short. Neji was indeed green and lying on the table, groaning. Kiba was trying to snatch the pictures Naruto and Gaara had drawn most likely to destroy them as seemed to be his three-year-old hobby, but jerked back every time he came close, as Hinata was swatting him with a spoon.
"Alright, Neji, no eating crayons that aren't yours understand?" Kankurou asked the sick Hyuuga. Neji nodded. "Go to the bathroom. I don't want to clean up after you if you throw up." Naruto followed Neji, his three-year-old logic telling him that if Neji swallowed them that he could spit them back out good as new. "Kiba, leave their pictures alone." Kiba sat back pouting. "Hinata put that spoon away!" Hinata got down and went to the drawer to put the spoon away. She walked past Kiba then came back and whacked him one more time, then put the spoon away.
"Common Kiba," Hinata said pulling on Kiba's shirt, "lets go find Shino." She smiled at him and he stopped pouting and apparently forgot that she hit him. He followed her down stairs to the basement where Shino was last seen looking for bugs.
Kankurou picked Gaara up off his leg and set him down while he sat down on a chair. Where the heck was Shikamaru? And Temari? They were supposed to be helping him. Something tugged on his sleeve. He looked down and saw Gaara looking very nervous.
"What do you want now?" Kankurou asked, a little gruffer then he intended. Gaara shrank back, losing whatever confidence he had. Kankurou noticed something in the little sand nin's hand. "What is it?" he asked softer this time.
Gaara looked up at him and held out one of his pictures. Kankurou took in and looked at it. It was a crayon drawing of himself and Gaara. It was pretty good for a three-year-old's, at least he could tell it was them, but he noticed that it also wasn't finished. The marks on his face weren't finished colored in.
"Neji ate my purple," Gaara explained in a mumble.
"That's ok," Kankurou told him. "I still like it."
Yeah. Three year old Gaara....he liked. A lot.
Kankurou opened the door for Inuzuka Tsune, apparently Kiba's older sister. She smiled at him and greeted him curtly.
"Is it true? Kiba-aka-chan (baby brother Kiba) is three years old again?" she asked the sand nin.
Kankurou nodded, looking harassed. He led her into the kitchen where Gaara and Naruto were trying to make sand castles. Every time they were close to finishing it, Kiba barreled through like a hurricane and destroyed it (beginnings of his attacks). Hinata wasn't around with her deadly spoon so the two boys were on their own. As Tsume and Kankurou walked in, Kiba had just finished destroying another castle and Naruto had jumped up and was yelling at him.
Tsume laughed. "He's the same when he was a baby!"
"You mean he was like this when he was little before?" Kankurou asked shocked. That poor family.
"Kiba-chan!!" Tsume knelt down like she was greeting a puppy. "Kiba-chan come to nee-san!"
Kiba turned and saw her. He smiled wide and pushed past Naruto and ran to her. "Nee-san!"
Tsume picked him up. "Thanks for watching him till I could come."
"No problem," Kankurou said trying not to sound sarcastic or happy to be rid to the menace.
One down.
One by one the three-year-old leaf nins left. Sakura had just left, leaving Neji (now feeling much better), Hinata (Kankurou hid all the spoons and duck taped the utensil drawer shut), Naruto (disappointed that his theory on the crayons had been wrong), Sasuke (still immersed in his book), and of course Gaara. Kankurou sank onto the sofa with a sigh. He realized with a frown that it had been over an hour and Temari and Shikamaru still hadn't come back.
'Stupid bastards!' Kankurou growled in his head. 'Saying they were going shopping just so they wouldn't have to help—' His thoughts were interrupted when Hinata plopped a book down in his lap, climbed up onto the sofa to sit next to him then looked at the book expectantly. "What?" he asked. Neji, Gaara and Naruto also climbed up next to him and sat down waiting. Kankurou groaned when he realized what they wanted. "No," he told them. "Maybe later." All four looked up at him, their eyes teary and their lower lips trembling. Kankurou glared across the room at Sasuke as if it was all his fault. 'I hate kids.'
"Fine, fine," Kankurou opened the book and began reading out loud. "'I had a new horn and paper hat.....'"(I loved this book when I was little. In The Forest by Marie Hall Ets)
As he was reading the last page, the doorbell rang again and Hinata's father, Hyuuga Hiashi stepped in.
"Good evening," he said in greeting. He picked up Hinata as Kankurou stood to greet him as well. "Thank you for watching her."
"No problem," Kankurou replied for the fifth time today.
"I have a favor to ask," Hiashi began. He paused and looked down at Neji who was looking at the pictures in the book again with Naruto and Gaara. "The laws of the main and branch families state that a branch family member cannot live with the main family members. Right now I do not approve of this law, but I will talk to the elders of Hyuuga and asked them to make an exception. Since Neji's father, my brother is dead, I will not permit anyone from the branch family to take care of him. I would like the honor to do it my self, but I must speak with the elders first." Kankurou listened trying to stay patience as he waited for the Hyuuga head to get to his point. "Please allow Neji to stay with you until then." Hiashi bowed to the sand nin.
"Sure, that's fine." Kankurou replied. After the whole crayon incident he found that Neji wasn't that hard to take care of.
"Thank you, Kankurou-san," Hiashi bowed again and carried his oldest-now-youngest daughter out.
Kankurou shut the door behind him and turned to the four remaining kids all looking at him expectantly. "Guess what!"
"What?" they asked.
"Neji gets to spend the night!" Kankurou said trying to sound excited for them.
"Yeah!" Naruto and Gaara cried. Naruto didn't seem to have thought about himself, since he and Gaara had decided earlier that he was staying no matter what anyone said. Sasuke also seemed to figure out that he was staying also.
A low rumbling filled the room. Kankurou stared down at them. "I'm hungry!" all four cried in unison.
Curse you Temari, Child of the Devil!!
Ok . (kakashi face for kenshinsgurl516) sorry to people who read all my fics. I'm have a writers block for Past to Future. This wouldn't get out of my head so I wrote it instead.
Chapter 2: Fun at the play ground