(Another story in the Whispers of the War Maidens universe. This was an idea we tossed around for a while before ultimately deciding to leave it out of any of the major sagas, and instead make it a story all of its own. Don't worry if you haven't read anything else from the series, you can enter this with a clean slate. That being said, since Ino's and Karui's saga stores haven't been posted yet, you can consider this a glimpse into some of what each of their respective stories will cover in the future.

Those of you who have been following the Temari centric stories may notice a few tiny references to some of her plot points.

Additionally, those of you who have read other installments of this universe, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's par-for-the-course. However, this is strictly a romance fiction, and it does feature several segments of "light lemon" content as a result. Expect lots of emotions from the three married couples featured in this work; Shikamaru/Temari, Karui/Choji, and Ino/Sai. Also, if the Whispers of the War Maidens series interests you, don't forget to check out the other works.)

Summary: We hereby swear that as the sixteenth heads of the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance that we will entrust the oaths that were once entrusted to us. In order to do this, we will bear the seventeenth heirs to our respective clans. This is one of the many promises we made, and now, it's time to fulfill our oath.

WotWM: Fulfilling the Oath
Chapter 1

For a married woman, she all too often found her bed cold at night.

Really, it was a good thing she liked being independent, because Shikamaru always worked late. She couldn't blame him, he had village matters to tend to, and one Hokage in training to chase after until he was blue in the face. Even though Kakashi implored Naruto to take his time, the blonde was too busy running headlong after his goals, inadvertently dragging Shikamaru, Kakashi's assistant in training, along with him.

She wished that Shikamaru was home, in bed, making love to her. However, as it stood, the only companion for her was the bright moon and stars above.

Sadly, there was no shooting star that she could cast her deepest wishes upon. Not that it mattered. She was sure that the stars never would answer her, so she had stopped praying to them long ago. Instead, she rolled over, grasping onto her husband's shirt. They weren't practical to sleep in. She blamed her large chest for that, she couldn't fit in them.

He would probably laugh now, if he saw her cuddling into his favorite sleeping tunic.

Still, she allowed herself the guilty pleasure. Her mind was on other things, drifting to the next day, and her hand rested over her belly, and then slid just a little lower. Hopes a prayers chipping away in her mind once more. Maybe this time...maybe, but she wouldn't find out until the next day.

Knowing that made her restless. She couldn't even sleep long enough to dream.

Morning came, and so with it came the doctor appointment Temari had been agonizing over.

"There's no way."

"That's what the tests show."

"There's no fucking way."

False positive…

That phrase was starting to piss Temari off to no end. She was sure, damn sure, she had heard wrong. There had to come a day when she rose to the occasion. Temari knew first hand that it would have to be sooner, rather than later. She also knew that this was not how she wanted it to go. She promised Shikamaru she would give him a child. She promised...

So why the hell wasn't her body doing what she wanted it to do?

"You're kidding. Please tell me it's some kind of sick joke?" Temari looked pleadingly to Ino, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip.

"Relax, it happens." Ino replied with a small shrug. "I can give you a full exam as many times as you want, but that answer isn't going to change. It just takes time."

"Not on my side of the family. My mother didn't have this kind of trouble."

"Temari, it'll be okay, trust me."

"Fuck, she had Kankuro and I nearly back to back. We're only a little over a year a part. I shouldn't be having this kind of trouble." Temari growled as she flung herself off of the medical table, bare feet slapping onto the floor. "Ino this is ridiculous. We've tried everything. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you. Actually, your chances of conception are better than most." Ino said with a roll of her eyes as she pulled off her gloves. "You have none of the regular scar tissue I normally see in kunoichi, and you still have both of your ovaries. At your age, a lot of female ninja have had their uterus removed after sustaining injuries."

Temari knew that she was lucky, but that was more because of her fighting style than anything else. "Then why can't I get pregnant?"

"It's his bloodline, not yours." Ino thought long and hard about divulging the best kept truth of their allied clans. At first, Ino had kept it quiet, but Temari was starting to blame herself. That wasn't going to be good. "The fact is, our three clans respond well to each other's chakra, and our pheromones. We're hardwired to reproduce within our community. If you were Yamanaka, Akimichi, or Nara born woman, you wouldn't be having this problem. In fact, most of the time Yamanaka women are trying to stop pregnancies, not get them."

"Why didn't Shikamaru tell me this?" Temari demanded to know.

"I don't think he knows." Ino murmured.

"Then why didn't you?"

Ino took a breath. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to. It's not exactly common knowledge, even among our clans."

"Ino, he and I have been at this for almost two years with no result." To say she was just a little upset was a huge understatement. "I was starting to think it was me."

"You know it's not you. Sakura, Shizune, and I have already told you, you are fully capable of having children." Still, she understood Temari's lament. "It's been six generations since a leader married outside of the three clans. Even worse, it's not just one of us, all three of us did." Ino pinched the bridge of her nose. "It works both ways, you know. Sai isn't going to have an easy time impregnating me either."

"Well, there's got to be something." Of that, Temari had been sure. There had to be a failsafe, all clans had something in place to determine rank and order. "If we don't conceive, what members step up? Is it taken to a vote, or do we just adopt in an orphan or surrogate when they're young?"

"We take food pills." Ino said. "There's a recipe protected by our clans to remedy this, but it takes time to make."

"Why? Fertility herbs are pretty common, aren't they?"

Ino made a noise, someplace between a yes and a no. "It requires time to grow the herbs. Also, Akimichi clan recipes normally come at a cost, and this pill isn't any different. It would ultimately require a great deal of chakra to even activate them daily. The chakra needed would easily put any formation team out of the mission rosters."

"What?" Then it dawned on Temari. "It truly requires that much?"

"Yes, and formation teams, as a village rule, must have every member mission ready." Ino nodded, truth be told, she fully expected this. "Even when we act independently, we must be prepared to deploy. Who knows when we will have to help our formation members in a moment's notice."

"Which means, Shikamaru and I can't use them unless we're willing to pull Choji and Sai out of the ANBU rosters for a while." Temari hated to admit it, but sometimes she loathed clan politics and regulations. "Would he be willing to do that?"

"Sooner or later, he'll have to be. Let's just sit on this for now." She had been growing the rare ingredients they would need ever since she heard about Shikamaru's proposal to Temari. "If Sai and I ride out our first year of marriage and we don't conceive, I'm going to assume that the food pills are the only option. At that point, we'll resort to the old formation contingency plan for this. Until then, keep giving yourself some time, you may get lucky."

"I hate this…"

"Tem?"

"I'm a woman aren't I?" Temari hissed out a hard breath. "I follow everything to the letter, so does Shika. Did you know I actually jumped him in the training ground when he didn't come home during the window of opportunity?" She ripped off the gown that the office gave her, flinging it into the nearby hamper with force. Cussing at length, she gathered her clothes. "The more I think about it…the more I realize, I want a baby. When Shikamaru and I first started screwing each other, I didn't really think about it much. I knew I was going to marry him. I figured a kid would come from that sooner or later…but…god damn it!"

"Get changed, and you can come to my place for dinner." Ino suggested then, knowing that Shikamaru was going to be pulling another late night. "Mom will be there too, so we'll just kick Sai out and call the rest of the formation ladies. When was the last time we had an all-out gossip fest over dinner?"

"God I don't even remember." Temari sighed as she finished pulling her clothes on. "I have to admit, I could use a little bit of that right now."

"Great it's settled then." Ino smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Not entirely. "Tem, really though, try to have fun, and don't think on it so much. You'll be a mother soon enough..." Ino swallowed hard then, her hand resting her own midriff. "You, Me, and Karui."