[fic] The Uchiha Police Force
Title: The Uchiha Police Force
Series: Naruto
Author: Shingo the Pest
Rating: PG
Characters: Naruto, Fugaku, Sarutobi, various Uchiha police-nin
Word Count: 1,968
Summary: The rising tensions that build up to the Uchiha massacre, through the eyes of a lonely child.
Naruto didn’t like the Uchiha Police Force.
When the annoyed old lady at the fruit stand wouldn’t sell Naruto apples, it was the Uchiha Police who would drag Naruto away. When Naruto would sneakily paint penises all over the woman’s cart the next day, the stupid police officers would again chase after him for it.
(It was lonely in later years, when the only one who would chase him away was the hateful old lady herself. But eventually a teacher from the ninja academy would show up whenever Naruto got in trouble…)
He hated the police! Especially that stupid Ponpe guy and his wimpy partner. When rooky Officer Ponpe would bring Naruto in, he would make the boy sit in a hard chair all day, and wouldn’t let Naruto leave until late evening. “Have you learned your lesson, young man?”
Never! Naruto got back once by putting dog piss in Ponpe’s coffee. All the other officers in headquarters laughed at the sour face the rooky made, and Naruto had even felt proud of himself. But old Officer Shinsu had whapped Naruto on the head, saying kids shouldn’t play tricks. Then Shinsu took Naruto by the scruff, and threw him into the white room, despite Ponpe’s protests, “You shouldn’t put a kid all alone in there!”
Shinsu tolerated no argument. “If you can’t keep that little bastard under control, then you get no say in the matter.”
More than stupid Ponpe, Naruto really hated the older Uchiha police-nin. They had hard, emotionless faces, and he couldn’t tell if they were angry at him, happy with him, or pitied him. (He hated the most to think that they didn’t even care what he did.) They were better at catching him than Ponpe, and while he could bite and struggle with Ponpe, these men would clamp him in a grip so tight he couldn’t move.
---
By the cuff Ponpe dragged Naruto away from the red and yellow vulgarities painted on the police headquarters’ roof. A grrrrrowwwl from the stomach of the woman officer surprised all three of them. She shrugged. “It is about lunch time,” Ponpe’s partner explained.
Ponpe nodded absently, and glanced down at Naruto. Naruto scowled back.
“Maybe we should throw him in the interrogation room while we get lunch?” his partner suggested hopefully.
Naruto squirmed and Ponpe thought that would probably give the brat the least chance to get in more trouble…
“Nah, let’s just take him with us.” Ponpe decided cheerfully. His partner sighed, but said nothing as Ponpe tucked Naruto under his arm. Naruto squirmed.
At the lunch stand Ponpe set Naruto in between them, gave him a warning look, then ordered. The woman officer ignored Naruto, silently hoping she could still enjoy lunch with him there. The shop owner looked skeptically at the well-known troublemaker. Naruto curled a lip and scowled.
“Don’t worry about him,” Ponpe reassured. “He won’t do anything unless he’s left alone.”
Naruto flung noodles at Ponpe the entire meal.
---
He sat in Ponpe’s “punishment chair” where Ponpe could keep an eye on him, doodling with crayons.
Behind Ponpe was the chief’s office. The old guys were talking about something, and Shinsu was arguing with a scowled and unhappy expression.
Police Chief Fugaku caught sight of Naruto watching them, and stared back with that empty gaze Naruto hated. The other old guys in the office turned to see what had made the chief fall silent, then stared at Naruto too. Naruto scowled at them, and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t like them, he didn’t like them at all! Why were they staring at him!? Fugaku said something, and the others nodded. They were talking about him! Naruto bared his teeth, and Ponpe looked at him with a wondering face, then over his shoulder to see what was bothering Naruto so much. All Ponpe saw was the hustle and bustle of the Uchiha police headquarters, and the closed shades of the chief’s office.
“Jeez kid, what’s your problem?”
---
Naruto got into trouble several times a week. One day, as old Shinsu threw Naruto into the hateful white room, the old man said something creepy. “You’ll be the tool that helps us win against Konoha,” the geezer murmured, before shutting the door for the rest of the day.
A few weeks later, the entire police force would be gone.
---
Naruto hadn’t been caught by the police in a week. He was just dying of boredom, and felt antsy amongst all the scornful villagers. He thought about locking up mean Mr. Kike’s dog in a shack, but when he remembered Officer Shinsu and the creepy Police Chief, he just walked away, the dog barking and growling at his heels.
But later that day, the Toku boys threw rocks and chased him out of the playground. So he hid in a tree and aimed spitballs at them.
The Toku boys never would have figured out what was going on if a police-nin hadn’t caught him at it.
He felt something heavy land on his branch, and looked up to see Chief Fugaku himself glowering (rather emotionlessly) from above. Feeling a sense of oncoming doom, Naruto gawked as the silent man grabbed him and teleported them both down.
The Toku boys goggled then jeered at him when they saw him in the police’s hands. He cursed back at them, creepy police bastards bedamned, kicking and spitting. Fugaku was actually at a loss, having never had trouble like this with his own boys. Mikoto would be laughing at him if she was here.
The brief ruckus brought the attention of an old man walking through the park.
“Fugaku. What do you have there?”
Naruto felt the chief’s fist tighten painfully, and he winced. The chief was looking impassively at the old man in long robs and a funny hat.
“Sarutobi. I was taking care of a troublemaker. Don’t you have more important things to do than question everything myself and my fleet does?”
The atmosphere between the two men was alarming. None of the kids were sure what was going on and the Toku boys snuck away. Naruto wished he could too.
“I rather like kids,” the old man said conversationally. “I’ve made it a point to spend time with our developing ninja.”
Fugaku’s eyes narrowed. “Itachi has told me.” There was a strange hostility in his voice.
The old man puffed on his pipe. “Yes. Itachi has great potential. And a drive for peace. I’m sure your son Sasuke will grow up to be just as strong and wise, if he’s given the chance to live that long.”
Naruto was shaken as Fugaku’s arms jerked in anger. “You and your’s have no right to regulate our clan! Our traditions are ours to follow-!”
“Your traditions are brutal and create monsters! No amount of power can justify the killing of siblings and family!”
“Your village never would have gotten this far without our power!”
“I’ve fought too hard against the inhumanity of our enemy’s to allow such things within my own people!” The stomp of his staff emphasized the Hokage’s anger.
“We’re not one of your’s-!”
“Give me that child,” Sarutobi ordered.
Fugaku looked outraged, before realizing Sarutobi was talking about Naruto. His expression became considering.
“Afraid Sarutobi? Afraid of the power we can wield?”
“I can’t prove my suspicions about the demon’s attack seven years ago, but I don’t want to see you or your’s anywhere near that child.”
The police chief roughly pushed Naruto towards the old man, who caught the boy gently. Naruto peered up at the old man, who smiled down at him. “Come, we’ve got better places to be.”
---
“Better places” turned out to be Naruto’s apartment, with a boring shinobi who watched him everyday. The shinobi worn a rabbit mask and was as impassive and creepy as the old Uchiha policemen. Whenever Naruto tried to run off and have fun, the ninja would follow him, and just when Naruto was sure he had lost the stupid sucker, the shinobi would appear again. He wasn’t allowed to do anything fun.
One day, doodling in his apartment, he saw Ponpe and his partner walking through the street. Quickly, Naruto opened his window, grabbed his glass of water, and splashed it down on them.
They sputtered and hollered, then caught sight of him hanging out his window with a satisfied grin on his face.
“You- you little brat! I’m gonna climb up there and you’ll be sorry!”
“Yeah, we’re gonna make you sorry!”
“Come and get me, you two losers!”
They were making way to his door when the babysitter-nin stopped them.
“Please leave.”
Ponpe looked confused. “Hey, we want to get our hands on that brat up there! Let us through!”
The expressionless shinobi didn’t budge. “My mission is to keep track of Uzumaki Naruto. Please leave.”
“What- but- …just let us whap him on the head once, and we’ll be on our way.”
“I’m sorry but no. My orders do not allow that.”
Ponpe looked confused and annoyed. He turned to leave. But his partner had an angry look on her face.
“This is because we’re Uchiha, isn’t it?”
The guardian said nothing.
“You asshole, we’ve had enough of regulation! We’re Konoha shinobi too! We’re police, and we have power of our own. More power than you cowards want us to have.” She was right in the babysitter-ninja’s face.
“If you threaten me, I’ll have reason to bring you before the Hokage,” the man warned her. There might have been just a hint of pleasure in his voice.
“We’re leaving,” Ponpe asserted, as he grabbed his partner. The two left incensed.
---
“You’re to have no contact with the Uchiha Police Force or any of the Uchiha,” the babysitter-nin told Naruto.
---
Sarutobi’s expression was remorseful at the Big Event. The babysitter-nin had been dismissed this morning, and Naruto would have hollered for joy if it wasn’t for the dozens and dozens of bodies wrapped in black cloth that were being carried out of the Uchiha complex. People and ninja watched in shock and hushed words.
The next day there was a ceremony with lots of long long speeches, and the entire village watched and cried as the bodies were cremated one by one.
---
After the Big Event things were quiet. There was no fun in making trouble, or in the people’s hateful reactions. Some days Naruto just stayed inside his tiny apartment, and looked through the books he couldn’t read. He doodled all over their pages. (It wouldn’t be until years later that he would realize their value as texts and notes on ninjutsu and sealing. In one of them, he would find the beginning plans for the Rasengan, and he would wonder.)
Sometimes Naruto saw the old man in robes, and the man would smile at him, pat him on the head. But there was a sad, heavy silence around the old man, and Naruto didn’t feel comfortable around the jii-san right now.
It had been two weeks since Ponpe and the other police officers disappeared. The police headquarters was empty and ghostly. The entire residential block on the west side of town was empty. The Toku boys had dared each other to go in, to see if there really was blood all over the walls.
Alone Naruto walked down a street, heartsick, and at a loss for what to do.
“Hey, hey kid!”
Surprised, and on guard, Naruto looked up at the man waving at him. It was the same man whose lunch stand Ponpe had taken him to eat ramen at. The stand was currently empty, and the man was smiling at him encouragingly (and with maybe just a hint of pity). “Hey kid, are you hungry?”
Naruto paused, then went into Ichiraku.
Series: Naruto
Author: Shingo the Pest
Rating: PG
Characters: Naruto, Fugaku, Sarutobi, various Uchiha police-nin
Word Count: 1,968
Summary: The rising tensions that build up to the Uchiha massacre, through the eyes of a lonely child.
Naruto didn’t like the Uchiha Police Force.
When the annoyed old lady at the fruit stand wouldn’t sell Naruto apples, it was the Uchiha Police who would drag Naruto away. When Naruto would sneakily paint penises all over the woman’s cart the next day, the stupid police officers would again chase after him for it.
(It was lonely in later years, when the only one who would chase him away was the hateful old lady herself. But eventually a teacher from the ninja academy would show up whenever Naruto got in trouble…)
He hated the police! Especially that stupid Ponpe guy and his wimpy partner. When rooky Officer Ponpe would bring Naruto in, he would make the boy sit in a hard chair all day, and wouldn’t let Naruto leave until late evening. “Have you learned your lesson, young man?”
Never! Naruto got back once by putting dog piss in Ponpe’s coffee. All the other officers in headquarters laughed at the sour face the rooky made, and Naruto had even felt proud of himself. But old Officer Shinsu had whapped Naruto on the head, saying kids shouldn’t play tricks. Then Shinsu took Naruto by the scruff, and threw him into the white room, despite Ponpe’s protests, “You shouldn’t put a kid all alone in there!”
Shinsu tolerated no argument. “If you can’t keep that little bastard under control, then you get no say in the matter.”
More than stupid Ponpe, Naruto really hated the older Uchiha police-nin. They had hard, emotionless faces, and he couldn’t tell if they were angry at him, happy with him, or pitied him. (He hated the most to think that they didn’t even care what he did.) They were better at catching him than Ponpe, and while he could bite and struggle with Ponpe, these men would clamp him in a grip so tight he couldn’t move.
---
By the cuff Ponpe dragged Naruto away from the red and yellow vulgarities painted on the police headquarters’ roof. A grrrrrowwwl from the stomach of the woman officer surprised all three of them. She shrugged. “It is about lunch time,” Ponpe’s partner explained.
Ponpe nodded absently, and glanced down at Naruto. Naruto scowled back.
“Maybe we should throw him in the interrogation room while we get lunch?” his partner suggested hopefully.
Naruto squirmed and Ponpe thought that would probably give the brat the least chance to get in more trouble…
“Nah, let’s just take him with us.” Ponpe decided cheerfully. His partner sighed, but said nothing as Ponpe tucked Naruto under his arm. Naruto squirmed.
At the lunch stand Ponpe set Naruto in between them, gave him a warning look, then ordered. The woman officer ignored Naruto, silently hoping she could still enjoy lunch with him there. The shop owner looked skeptically at the well-known troublemaker. Naruto curled a lip and scowled.
“Don’t worry about him,” Ponpe reassured. “He won’t do anything unless he’s left alone.”
Naruto flung noodles at Ponpe the entire meal.
---
He sat in Ponpe’s “punishment chair” where Ponpe could keep an eye on him, doodling with crayons.
Behind Ponpe was the chief’s office. The old guys were talking about something, and Shinsu was arguing with a scowled and unhappy expression.
Police Chief Fugaku caught sight of Naruto watching them, and stared back with that empty gaze Naruto hated. The other old guys in the office turned to see what had made the chief fall silent, then stared at Naruto too. Naruto scowled at them, and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t like them, he didn’t like them at all! Why were they staring at him!? Fugaku said something, and the others nodded. They were talking about him! Naruto bared his teeth, and Ponpe looked at him with a wondering face, then over his shoulder to see what was bothering Naruto so much. All Ponpe saw was the hustle and bustle of the Uchiha police headquarters, and the closed shades of the chief’s office.
“Jeez kid, what’s your problem?”
---
Naruto got into trouble several times a week. One day, as old Shinsu threw Naruto into the hateful white room, the old man said something creepy. “You’ll be the tool that helps us win against Konoha,” the geezer murmured, before shutting the door for the rest of the day.
A few weeks later, the entire police force would be gone.
---
Naruto hadn’t been caught by the police in a week. He was just dying of boredom, and felt antsy amongst all the scornful villagers. He thought about locking up mean Mr. Kike’s dog in a shack, but when he remembered Officer Shinsu and the creepy Police Chief, he just walked away, the dog barking and growling at his heels.
But later that day, the Toku boys threw rocks and chased him out of the playground. So he hid in a tree and aimed spitballs at them.
The Toku boys never would have figured out what was going on if a police-nin hadn’t caught him at it.
He felt something heavy land on his branch, and looked up to see Chief Fugaku himself glowering (rather emotionlessly) from above. Feeling a sense of oncoming doom, Naruto gawked as the silent man grabbed him and teleported them both down.
The Toku boys goggled then jeered at him when they saw him in the police’s hands. He cursed back at them, creepy police bastards bedamned, kicking and spitting. Fugaku was actually at a loss, having never had trouble like this with his own boys. Mikoto would be laughing at him if she was here.
The brief ruckus brought the attention of an old man walking through the park.
“Fugaku. What do you have there?”
Naruto felt the chief’s fist tighten painfully, and he winced. The chief was looking impassively at the old man in long robs and a funny hat.
“Sarutobi. I was taking care of a troublemaker. Don’t you have more important things to do than question everything myself and my fleet does?”
The atmosphere between the two men was alarming. None of the kids were sure what was going on and the Toku boys snuck away. Naruto wished he could too.
“I rather like kids,” the old man said conversationally. “I’ve made it a point to spend time with our developing ninja.”
Fugaku’s eyes narrowed. “Itachi has told me.” There was a strange hostility in his voice.
The old man puffed on his pipe. “Yes. Itachi has great potential. And a drive for peace. I’m sure your son Sasuke will grow up to be just as strong and wise, if he’s given the chance to live that long.”
Naruto was shaken as Fugaku’s arms jerked in anger. “You and your’s have no right to regulate our clan! Our traditions are ours to follow-!”
“Your traditions are brutal and create monsters! No amount of power can justify the killing of siblings and family!”
“Your village never would have gotten this far without our power!”
“I’ve fought too hard against the inhumanity of our enemy’s to allow such things within my own people!” The stomp of his staff emphasized the Hokage’s anger.
“We’re not one of your’s-!”
“Give me that child,” Sarutobi ordered.
Fugaku looked outraged, before realizing Sarutobi was talking about Naruto. His expression became considering.
“Afraid Sarutobi? Afraid of the power we can wield?”
“I can’t prove my suspicions about the demon’s attack seven years ago, but I don’t want to see you or your’s anywhere near that child.”
The police chief roughly pushed Naruto towards the old man, who caught the boy gently. Naruto peered up at the old man, who smiled down at him. “Come, we’ve got better places to be.”
---
“Better places” turned out to be Naruto’s apartment, with a boring shinobi who watched him everyday. The shinobi worn a rabbit mask and was as impassive and creepy as the old Uchiha policemen. Whenever Naruto tried to run off and have fun, the ninja would follow him, and just when Naruto was sure he had lost the stupid sucker, the shinobi would appear again. He wasn’t allowed to do anything fun.
One day, doodling in his apartment, he saw Ponpe and his partner walking through the street. Quickly, Naruto opened his window, grabbed his glass of water, and splashed it down on them.
They sputtered and hollered, then caught sight of him hanging out his window with a satisfied grin on his face.
“You- you little brat! I’m gonna climb up there and you’ll be sorry!”
“Yeah, we’re gonna make you sorry!”
“Come and get me, you two losers!”
They were making way to his door when the babysitter-nin stopped them.
“Please leave.”
Ponpe looked confused. “Hey, we want to get our hands on that brat up there! Let us through!”
The expressionless shinobi didn’t budge. “My mission is to keep track of Uzumaki Naruto. Please leave.”
“What- but- …just let us whap him on the head once, and we’ll be on our way.”
“I’m sorry but no. My orders do not allow that.”
Ponpe looked confused and annoyed. He turned to leave. But his partner had an angry look on her face.
“This is because we’re Uchiha, isn’t it?”
The guardian said nothing.
“You asshole, we’ve had enough of regulation! We’re Konoha shinobi too! We’re police, and we have power of our own. More power than you cowards want us to have.” She was right in the babysitter-ninja’s face.
“If you threaten me, I’ll have reason to bring you before the Hokage,” the man warned her. There might have been just a hint of pleasure in his voice.
“We’re leaving,” Ponpe asserted, as he grabbed his partner. The two left incensed.
---
“You’re to have no contact with the Uchiha Police Force or any of the Uchiha,” the babysitter-nin told Naruto.
---
Sarutobi’s expression was remorseful at the Big Event. The babysitter-nin had been dismissed this morning, and Naruto would have hollered for joy if it wasn’t for the dozens and dozens of bodies wrapped in black cloth that were being carried out of the Uchiha complex. People and ninja watched in shock and hushed words.
The next day there was a ceremony with lots of long long speeches, and the entire village watched and cried as the bodies were cremated one by one.
---
After the Big Event things were quiet. There was no fun in making trouble, or in the people’s hateful reactions. Some days Naruto just stayed inside his tiny apartment, and looked through the books he couldn’t read. He doodled all over their pages. (It wouldn’t be until years later that he would realize their value as texts and notes on ninjutsu and sealing. In one of them, he would find the beginning plans for the Rasengan, and he would wonder.)
Sometimes Naruto saw the old man in robes, and the man would smile at him, pat him on the head. But there was a sad, heavy silence around the old man, and Naruto didn’t feel comfortable around the jii-san right now.
It had been two weeks since Ponpe and the other police officers disappeared. The police headquarters was empty and ghostly. The entire residential block on the west side of town was empty. The Toku boys had dared each other to go in, to see if there really was blood all over the walls.
Alone Naruto walked down a street, heartsick, and at a loss for what to do.
“Hey, hey kid!”
Surprised, and on guard, Naruto looked up at the man waving at him. It was the same man whose lunch stand Ponpe had taken him to eat ramen at. The stand was currently empty, and the man was smiling at him encouragingly (and with maybe just a hint of pity). “Hey kid, are you hungry?”
Naruto paused, then went into Ichiraku.