About 6 years after the 4th Great Ninja War

Mika stared as one of her five-year-olds ran across the dining room, his blond hair strewn on his face. She wondered how he could see through that hair that was covering his eyes. Her question was answered right after she had thought about it. He couldn't. He bumped straight into the table that her other two children were sitting at.

"Itai," he said, rubbing where his head and the table collided. "Who did that?"

"You did it to yourself, baka," the redhead answered, standing up from the table. As usual, he was working on another set of puppets he made himself. The impact of the blond's head and of the table made the delicately made puppets fall down and break.

"Don't call each other names," the other kid said. Among Mika's children, she was the only girl. She had blue hair, amber eyes and looked nothing like Mika. None of them did.

"You can only say that because your origami don't break when they fall, Konan," the redhead stated as he picked up the broken pieces of wood that fell on the floor. He was glaring at the little blond, who was still rubbing his head, messing up his hair.

"I just said not to call each other names," Konan replied calmly. She stood up from her chair and went to help out with picking up the puppet pieces. "We're only five and you already do bad things."

"Being stupid is a bad thing," the puppeteer prodigy replied. "And we're already five. Deidara should know that he should not just bump into a table."

"Gomenasai, Aniki, Aneki" Deidara said, looking down. It wasn't very obvious because of his hair but he always did that. They knew he was looking down. "It's because I can't see through my hair."

"Well, then, just cut it," the redhead started walking out of the dining room, carrying his puppets with him. "And don't call me Aniki, my name is Sasori."

Mika walked up to the now sobbing Deidara and carried him up. Among her children, Deidara was the smallest, lightest, and probably the youngest. She wasn't sure. She didn't remember that part very much.

Funny. She doesn't even remember very much. How come she's the mother of all these five-year-olds? How come not one of them even looks like her? How come none of them look like each other?

"Ssh, Deidara," Mika comforted the child, pushing away his blond hair to reveal his watery blue eyes.

"I-I was just, just being, hic, respectfuuul," Deidara said between sobs. "It wasn't, wasn't my fault."

"I know, I know," Mika rubbed his back and hugged him. She sat on a chair and motioned for Konan to come closer. She was also trying to comfort Deidara so she only had to lean towards her mother.

"Tell all your brothers to come here," Mika told her. In a second, she was gone. Konan, she was the most obedient one. She never questioned anything she was asked to do.

She's the total opposite of another redhead, Nagato. Nagato refused to do anything he was told to. Instead, he'd pass on the work to somebody else. It was amusing when they were little, but now, it's only irritating. It wasn't fun when your commands becomes a pass-the-message game.

Itachi, on the other hand, was also a bit of an opposite to Konan. The raven-haired boy would only obey after he was told the purpose and if he 'rendered it worthy.' Mika took note to give him reasonable explanations to his questioning. He's been the clever one ever since he had started talking. Which was when he was six months old.

Mika's thoughts were cut when the rest of her children showed up in front of her. Deidara had stopped crying but was clinging to her for dear life.

"I know I told you before," Mika said. "But I just want to tell you again. No one fights with each other..."

"No one calls each other names," Itachi synchronized with her.

"And no one makes others cry," all the others chorused.

"It's not my fault that Deidara's a crybaby," Sasori countered.

"You know the rules, Sasori," Mika told him. Then she turned to everyone and continued, "And there's a new rule. Everyone should call everybody honorifics. And nobody objects to this."

"But we don't even know who's older than who," said another little boy with his silver hair covering his own face.

"Hidan, you're noisy," a brunette with the same 'hairstyle' commented.

"Ooh burn," said another little one, who has blue hair, too.

"Shut up, Kisame. You're the one to talk," Hidan folded his arms. Everybody stared at him.

"Where did you learn those words, Hidan?" Mika finally broke the silence.

"Umm... Nowhere," Hidan said.

"Well, you're not to use them anymore. You're forbidden from saying those. All of you are," Mika told them. "That's also a new rule. And another, I want you all to cut your hair."

"What?" Konan finally uttered the word she never said. She questioned what she was asked to do.

"We're making Nagato's life easier. We wear this hairstyle because he does, too. But he has reasons. And we do it so that people won't make much of a fuss that Nagato's hiding his face," Itachi stated.

"I know," Mika sighed. "And I really appreciate it that you want to help your brother. But it's causing troubles now. Deidara bumped his head."

"It's okay," Nagato spoke up. "You can find different hairstyles and not cut them. And then they won't question why we all have long hair or why I hide my face."

"There. It's settled," Mika said. "I'm going to the hospital tomorrow to ask in what order I gave birth to you, if that's what you'd like. Then, you'll have no excuse to use honorifics. Okay?"

"Okay," they all answered in chorus.

"Good," Mika smiled. "You can all go back to what you were doing now. Dinner's at 7"

The five-year-olds scattered and soon, only Deidara was there. He was starting to doze off. Mika carried him to the room all the children shared. It was two rooms that they turned into one by taking down the paper walls.

Looking into the room, no one, not even Mika if she didn't know, would think that this was not a daycare nor an orphanage. It had far too many beds and different things to be a room where siblings sleep. It had far too many children to house.

And with surprisingly different personalities, too. Who's to think it really was a room for children when there were so many thick books and large scrolls piled up so high on some desks and night stands? When there was this whole cabinet filled with puppets too intricately carved to be realized as a five-year old's work? Paper cranes, paper flowers and paper portraits hanging on the ceilings and on the walls? Different katanas mounted on high shelves?

The only child-like stuff in the room was the differently-colored clay on one night stand and that was barely even recognizable as things that a five-year old would have, what with the skillfully made figures. It was beautiful, what even the little blond boy in Mika's arms could do.

Mika laid Deidara into his bed. It was the nearest of the eight beds to the door because he would often go into Mika's room at night to sleep beside her. Still, that didn't stop Deidara from getting his own bed and picking his own sheets. He chose yellow, the color of his hair. His sheets were, by far, the brightest in the room as well as, again, the only child-like.

Mika remembered when they all were tiny enough to fit into one crib each. Now, they won't even share anything. Who knows what would happen when they're all teenagers.

"Okaa-san," Deidara stirred. "Stay with me?"

Mika looked at her child and was met with the most beautiful blue eyes she'd seen. Deidara knew how to use his assets well.

"Until you fall asleep," Mika said before lying down beside Deidara. The little boy nuzzled against her and she thought of how she had come to be this child's mother.

It was the greatest mystery of her life. And there were far too many of those than she could think of.

So... I just thought that having the Akatsuki as babies was cute.