Third chapter after a long wait. Most of this obviously happens before the Uchiha Massacre. And the person was totally obvious, so I present you, The Orphanage. Unbeta'ed.

Disclaimer: This seems to be absent from former chapters. I do not own Naruto.

You mean Tayuya-chan, right? She went home allready. I heard her muttering something about me bragging too much."

Hiruzen nodded, it was understandable. Who wouldn't get tired of Naruto's constant over-positiveness? But still, it was rare to see either one of them without the other. It was like the two were connected at the hip.

But it wasn't like anyone wanted them any other way, especially Tayuya, who tended to get vulgar in her words and violent in actions unless Naruto was present.

But this behaviour requires further explanation. Tayuya was two years older than Naruto, and was born in a small village at the border of Stone and Grass countries. A few weeks after her birth, the recently defected Orochimaru raided the village. A group from Konoha was informed of the presence of the Sannin, and headed towards the village in hopes of capturing or eliminating him. The group consisted of a Hyuuga, an Aburame, Kakashi Hatake and the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze. They did not make it in time.

Orochimarus snake summons had smelled them, and the Sannin fled, leaving the village nothing more than a pile of rubble and ash. When they arrived, the Hyuuga scanned the remains with his eyes. He noticed one survivor, and led the rest of the team to her. Kakashi dug the baby up from the rubble, and everyone noticed that it was a miracle she had stayed alive, as the pieces of concrete had formed an airpocket around her.

Seeing that tracking Orochimaru would be pointless now, they decided to take her to Konoha, and give her to the orphanage.

When they arrived at Konoha, Tayuya was shortly adopted by the Aburame from the mission and his wife, was given the name Tayuya, and lived happily her first year of her life. But at the night of the Kyuubi attack, both of her foster parents died and she was given back to the orphanage. If she would have been an Aburame by blood, the clan would have taken care of her, but because she didn't have the bug users bloodline, the clan couldn't afford to take care of a random civilian girl right after the losses they suffered from the Kyuubi.

Unfortunately Tayuya had allready been raised for a year as an Aburame, resulting in her having developed their rather antisocial tendencies, and never made friends at the orphanage. She usually sat in a corner and fiddled with her memento of her foster parents: an old Aburame flute, made out of an ancient insects leg, with a sharp blade on one side of it, it also having been a part of the insect. It could be used as a weapon, but luckily she had been trained not to slice anything on the blade. But apparently that particular training was forgotten every time anyone of the orphans or orphanage workers tried to touch the flute, and she would lash out with potentially lethal force.

When the Sandaime Hokage heard of her, he got an idea.

He had until then been taking care of the then three year old Naruto along with his wife, but Biwako had gotten busy lately, and he had to raise the toddler with an Kage Bunshin while he was doing his duty as Hokage. His son Asuma wasn't fit to raise a child, and his other son was in a conflicting situation, where his girlfriend refused to date him if the young Sarutobi would take care of the child dubbed as 'the demon brat' by some of the villagers who still feared the power of the nine-tails, even when sealed in a baby, and directed their fear as hate towards Naruto, under his wing. His son had tried to reason with her, but that had only led to troubles between the two. It seemed that they had currently broken up, leaving only Hiruzen and Biwako willing and able to raise Naruto.

It had been very chakra consuming to create one Bunshin every single day. His clone had been telling Naruto stories of the past Hokage, especially the Yondaime. The blonde toddler seemed absolutely delighted every time he was told about the great victory over the mighty Kyuubi.

Back to the Sandaime's idea, he one day took Naruto to a visit to the orphanage. He told the employees that he wanted to relax from his village leaders duty, and tell the orphans stories about ninja. The employs weren't happy with Naruto's presence, but none had the backbone to tell the Hokage no (not that it would have stopped the Sandaime). And it would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for most of the orphans (those who would never become ninja) to meet the Hokage anyway.

Hiruzen gathered the orphans, and told Naruto to sit next to one certain salmon-red haired girl. Then he began telling about the Yondaime and his heroic deeds. Everyone was listening in awe, even Naruto and Tayuya. Naruto even though he had heard most of the stories many times, and Tayuya had never before really listened to stories when they were told, and was amazes that the things the Hokage said had really happened.

Hiruzen then came to the part where the Yondaime had went to a mission near Iwa, with his student Kakashi Hatake and others to locate the traitor Orochimaru. "They arrived at a village near the border of the nations. They had heard that the village had been attacked, but they didn't arrive on time, and the village was destroyed. Orochimaru escaped and the village was destroyed. But, they found a survivor. An infant with bright-red hair. The girl was brought to Konoha, and I think you all know who she is"

The orphans (Naruto was technically also an orphan) looked at Tayuya in awe. The Sandaime continued to tell them how the group decided to take the young Tayuya to Konoha and save her. Naruto was exited, because he was sitting next to a person who was saved by the Yondaime, his hero. Tayuya was trying to remain apathic to the whole ordeal, but was awed anyway.

She had moments before been told about a pretty amazing person, by the way it was told, even though Tayuya allways remained a little pessimistic and figured that nobody could possibly have been that perfect of a person. And now she was told that she wouldn't probably even be alive if not for the Yondaime. Shebhad found the first person to look up to.

Suddenly, she noticed a hand hovering in front of her. The odd blonde boy with whiskers on his cheeks was holding it in fron of her, and asked, "Can I be your friend? Please?" the orphans backed away in fear of blood on their clothes, due to them remembering Tayuyas violent tendencies when not let alone. Hiruzen looked intently at the chain of events that fell in place in front of him. This was the moment that defined Naruto's, Tayuya's and his futures.

Meanwhile Tayuya was considering to simply whack the annoying brat into oblivion for annoying her, but something about his face made her hesitate. Perhaps it was his unusual whiskers or his disturbingly overpositive smile? She asked him: "Why?" The question itself confused the other children, who had never before seen Tayuya hesitate hitting someone who was invading her personal space. Naruto grinned. "Because the Yondaime is my hero!" Tayuya thought a moment, and answered, "OK, but only because you like the fourth." The orphans were dumbstruck. Tayuyas behaviour just didn't mach up with their minuscule knowledge of how the world works.

Then the two young children shook hands. Naruto wore the widest grin, while Tayuya merely smirked. All the while, the Sandaime chuckled, having a minor fear that this event might have broken some of the childrens minds. Eventually he continued with his story, with Naruto and Tayuya being the most enthusiastic listeners.

The Sarutobi told the orphans about the Kyuubi attack, (naturally leaving the beasts origins and sealing out) and made sure to paint Minato as a hero every five seconds. "The Yondaime eventually defeated the beast, but not withoutba cost. Not much is known about how he won the battle, but his body was never found again." A loud, dissappointed "Awww...!" was heard from his crowd. Hiruzen finished his story, and then let Naruto play with the children for a little time, especially now that none of the adults were watching what the children did, and didn't stop Naruto from playing with them.

Naruto did play with them, but he still spent most of his time with his new, first friend. Naruto was also Tayuya's first friend, and the two of them got along very well. The Hokage was meanwhile simply observing them, and answering questions from the slightly older orphans, who wanted to start attending the ninja academy. As a method to kill time, he was also locating his bodyguards, a team of ANBU, who were following him everywhere and staying as much out of sight as was possible. Not many people could locate them, and doing so said much of their skill in the shinobi arts.

Eventually came the time that Hiruzen and Naruto had to go back to the Hokage tower, and leave the orphanage, much to Tayuyas disappointment. She did, however, ask Naruto if they would visit again. To which Naruto answered that he would convince Jiji to allow him to visit again. Hiruzen smiled at his accomplished plan. Now he just needed to convince the correct person to do his bidding, and all would fall into place, just like he wanted. The Hokage imagined himself doing a false evil laugh.

When he then later that day sat in his office, he called his secretary through the intercom: "Could you please send Kame in here?" and waited for his trusted ANBU to arrive. In less than twenty seconds, she appeared in front of her Hokages desk, Turtle mask on, saluting him. He nodded. "At ease. You may remove your mask." She unmasked, and was no longer Kame the sensory ANBU, but Rin Nohara, a ninja of the village hidden in the leaves.

"Hokage-sama." she greeted him. She had brown, chin-lenght hair, brown eyes and purple rectangular markings on both of her cheeks. She was wearing a standard ANBU clothing along with her Jonin flack-jacket. "Hello Rin." The Hokage smiled at her. "I am sure you know that I have summoned you here because of your wish to, at least temporarily, leave the ANBU." Rin nodded, and the he continued. "That is fine, and your resignation form is right here, filled with all the needed signatures, and the additional standard mandatory session with the Yamanaka to seal off your memories of state secrets, for the protection of Konoha. Apart of a selected few wich would be more usefull for us if you remembered them." Rin didn't say anything. "Though I am curious, Rin. May I ask you for a more spesific reason than your official; 'Training/Personal Issues Leave'? Not that it is a bad or unexpected thing to do."

She looked a bit uncomfortable, but the Hokage didn't lose his curious gaze on her. "...You may, Hokage-sama. As you know, I truly need to retrain myself in ninjutsu," he agreed, as due to her special circumstances it was understandable. ", and...I have some...personal...goals, that I wish to accomplish." Hiruzen smirked. "These 'goals', you speak of... May they be of... romantical, nature?" the now former ANBU paled. "Perhaps even towards a certain... copy-cat?" Rin groaned as the Sandaime chuckled. Her Hokage could sometimes be way too perverted for his own good. The Sarutobi collected himself. "Sorry about that. All with good humor, right?"

"However, there is also another reason I called you here for. A task for you." this caught the Noharas attention. "Well, actually it is more like a favor I would like you to do for me, as you won't really have any obligations. And now that you aren't in the ANBU anymore, you will have time to do it." "What is it, sir?" "I would like you to adopt a child." Silence. "...Sir?" "I am serious, Rin. Here's her file." He gave her the orphanages file on a four-year old, salmon-red haired girl. Rin looked through it, and took especially long to look at the part portraying the girls personality and history as a Konoha citizen.

"I do not understand, Hokage-sama." "That was to be expected. Let me explain. Today, I was visiting the orphanage with Naruto-chan. And somehow, he instantly befriended her, making most of the orphanages personality description invalid. Surely you understand what I mean Rin. Naruto, made, a friend! There is no way I would not want him to keep this new friendship. Unfortunately, I am busy. I am the leader of the worlds greatest military/mercenary organization. I can barely take care of Naruto with a Kage Bunshin, and to an even lesser extent, accompany him to the orphanage to play with the children, because without my precence, the orphanage workers would just throw him out! Don't you see? Naruto needs a friend, Tayuya needs a friend, I need time, and you need a normal life. Everybody is happy!"

Rin coughed in her fist. "...Hokage-sama," she mumbled "you are rambling..." Hiruzen caught himself doing just that. "Hmm. Yes, anyway, this is exactly what I am trying to avoid. Raising Naruto on myself has been impossible. That kid is unbelievable: he never gets tired, can eat Konohas coffers empty and has a vicious streak rivaling Anko's. I need you to do this Rin." she sighed. "I understood that Biwako-sama has been raising Naru-chan ever since that day. What is stopping her from doing this?" "She tricked me!" Hiruzen exclaimed. "Three months ago she had suddenly claimed that she desired to quit being retired, and wanted to continue as the head of Konohas hospital, and wanted me to take care of Naruto while she would be working full-time. I am absolutely sure that Biwako dumped that hyperactive brat on me because she had a mental breakdown! Please!" "And how exactly am I supposed to take care of not only a four-year old girl, but also a three-year old hyperactive boy who has driven my lord Hokage into insanity?" "That is an excellent question. And the answer is Tayuya. While I was visiting the orphanage, it was the most relaxing evening I had ever spent with Naruto. The kids are really close friends, and will likely spend most of the time with each other. This is the perfect arrangement. And as a bonus, I truly see both of them becoming amazing ninja in the future. They have talent. Please consider it, Rin."

She nodded, and exited the office to think over the old mans suggestion. She really did need a normal life, now that she had quit on the ANBU, and raising one-, basically two, children, would give her that, or at least, something along those lines. She was young, and raising kids was never easy, not even thinking about their personalities being ms. Antisocial and mr. Overpositive. And then there was a tiny little fact that was commonly agreed upon by all ninja world wide.

A Kage of a hidden village NEVER suggests.

A new chapter, obviously telling about Naruto and Tayuyas first meeting, along with Narutos AU childhood/living arrangements. I'm personally not too happy with this, but it doesen't matter. Sidenote: I erased Konohamaru from existence. I'm evil.

R&R