Originally published on aff 2007-06-29 - 2008-07-22

I.

The sound of small feet thundered on hard wood, a flash of obscene orange nearly missed by her grandparents. Momogi slid to a stop before her parents' bedroom and placed her hand on the knob, testing for traps. The last time she'd tried to sneak into her parents' room ended with her dangling from Karasu's hands upside down for a half-hour before her father finally took pity on her under threat of celibacy from her mother. Shikamaru hadn't been pleased and so he'd made her go deer hunting with her grandfather and the other elders of the Nara clan. She never wanted to gut a deer ever again. Shivering with the horrible memory of deer-gut smell, the young kunoichi carefully turned the knob of her parents' door and slipped inside as quiet as a shadow. Her parents lay unsuspecting on their bed, curled around each other in such a way Momogi knew her but would be sore for days if she got caught. She crept closer, crouching down so if they looked up they wouldn't see her, set her knees beneath her shoulders and lunged.

Momogi landed perfectly between Shikamaru and Kankurou. If perfect mean that she landed half on her mother's chest and her father's face. Shrieking in mad laughter, the twelve-year-old squirmed in her mother's grasp as her father mercilessly attacked her bare feet. She managed, in the heat of torture, to pull off a kawarimi no jutsu, a pillow now in Shikamaru's grasp instead of his daughter. Momogi reappeared at the foot of the bed, grinning at her parents.

"Come on, Mama!" Momogi grabbed at Shikamaru's hands so he couldn't pull the blanket back over his head. "You said we'd get there early! I let you sleep two extra hours! I'm not gonna get to become a genin because of you!"

Shikamaru groaned lightly and elbowed Kankurou in the chest to wake him up. Half-hearted grumbles accompanied Kankurou's rude awakening, even though his daughter was within earshot. Shikamaru kicked him off the bed before the first curse left his mouth and turned to his daughter.

"Go on ahead to the Academy. We'll be right behind you."

"You'd better be, Okaa-san." Momogi replied, disappearing in a puff of smoke and burning ozone.

Kankurou turned to look at his lover who stared back at him in almost exasperation. Still, Shikamaru only shook his head and moved to get up, Kankurou not too far behind. Indeed, they didn't want to be late, not when Momogi would be waiting for them and could enlist help for payback in the form of her many uncles and aunts. Namely, Ino and Naruto. The twelve-year-old was quite devious like that, and on more than one occasion her deviousness often cost her what little allowance she was given. Because one antic cost Ino her cigarettes and from then on, Momogi never bothered the elder woman when she had a cancer stick hanging from between her lush lips. Shikamaru had been the one to take up smoking after Asuma's death, but had kicked the habit because of Momogi. In turn, Ino picked it up, claiming she had no babies to worry about.

And so, about an hour later after Momogi's departure, Shikamaru and Kankurou made their way to the Academy, greeted by the other jounin and parents as they waited anxiously for their children to emerge. Ino and Naruto came closer once they spotted the odd couple, Naruto lifting his hand in greeting.

"Hey," Ino murmured around her smoking stick of paper.

"Hey yourself," Kankurou replied, eyeing the kunoichi's newest attire. Ino had shirked the jounin vest for another type, open in the front and passing her hips. She still wore her customary purple, but it was muted, and her hair was tied in a messy bun. Naruto looked pretty much the same in his orange and black jacket.

"So, did you get any genin this year?" Shikamaru asked and in response the pair smiled.

"Team Seven is Naruto," Replied Ino, grinning widely, "and I have Team Five. Momogi, Sunao, and Terazuma."

Shikamaru blanched a bit. "You're teaching my daughter?"

"Better me than, oh, I don't know, Lee."

Shikamaru shuddered and before he could reply, the doors to the Academy opened, spilling forth the newest generation of genin. Momogi held up her new hitai-ate proudly to her parents' view as she ran over to them, laughing when her father picked her up and swung her a bit before setting her back down.

Naruto glanced at his niece by deed before looking up to the sky, at all the little strands of webbing from newborn spiders, smiling at how they glinted like silk.

Naruto had no idea what that meant.