Disclaimer: Author does not claim any ownership over Masashi Kishimoto's intellectual property

Scene 00: Homecoming

The maw of a hive organism, the main portal of Konohagakure lay haphazardly open, a bustling artery of pedestrian traffic of residents, farmers, and traders. The people flocking in and out of the hidden metropolis hurried, harried by a mild, yet persistent rain immediately upon leaving the city. Not quite a downpour, but long since overcoming a drizzle, it had begun to muddy the road to where travelers ignored the well-worn ruts and opted for rockier trails around the depressions on the main road. No surprise on this downpour, the pale gray clouds had been slowly plodding towards the village since sunrise on lazy currents at what some elders quixotically termed a leisurely walk through Fire Country. 'Celestial garden-tending?' came to mind.

It was a refreshingly lukewarm shower, enough for a person to become moist if out for several minutes, but an hour or more before the frail gambled on catching cold. With the consistency of a mist or spray some noticed. Tranquil inconvenience at most, bearing on a calm azimuth taking it right down that road. The only inconsistency, first noticed by the leaves of the trees, was that the water tasted of the sea.

Until that walking pace it took stopped, that mild mist ceasing right at the foot of the gates, hesitating, before pulling back, continuing to rain misty-spray perpendicular to a roadside inn, 'hidden village gasthaus' so to speak; turning inane banter about weather into inane banter about portens, omens, and ill-tidings oh-my.

"I know the rain hates my land," a pineapple-haired blonde quipped from where she dangled her legs off the veranda, bared shins exposed to the mist, giving a dubious smirk as she swung her legs from where it rained and where the rain had back off from, "but," she continued in a dusky, tone with wariness creeping in, "I have never seen it snub an entire city." She gave a cocked look to her companion. A non-commital shrug was all she got in return. "That's it, lazy?" She sniffed. "Too obvious."

"Nice clouds though," he remarked. Facing her from where he sat against one of the veranda's posts, he drew wind in from pursed lips. "With everybody still wound up, Temari, more discretion or overwhelming force is what it will take for them to hurt us again."

She just grunted. "Fluffy and white are nice clouds, that... its not even gray enough to be depressing, just a mocking tease." She took another sideways glance at him. "You know, you didn't have to see me out."

"Spent too long at the hospital as is. Need to take a step back, plus..." he trailed off, his eyes breaking away from her gaze as hers focused in on the subtle pitch in the tempo and pace of his speech.

"Plus?" she mimicked.

"Thanks." It came out hesitant, slow, a drawl. But what caught her attention was how his eyes came to focus again on her.

She took a deeper breath. "Impressive. You insisted on seeing me out of the village to say one word."

"I mean it." he replied deadpan, no snark nor snide to his voice, no evasion of intention.

It was her turn to look away. "Strange times coming by Cloud-boy. How inconvenient..." she trailed, finding strategic deflection as she stared at a parasol-toting traveler walking up to the steps of the guest house. The woman tapped her sandals up against one of the supporting posts, before tipping down her parasol, patterned with a hollow spiral, aqua wash against an indigo field. Cerulean irises met a storm-gray glance as the traveler caught her gaze.

"Afternoon, miss." The newcomer remarked noncommittally, shimmying herself onto the deck with her knees. She loosened the straps to her satchel and the frame slide away from her back to rest on the varnished pine planks.

"Sakura?" Shikamaru questioningly asked as he had blink before looking at the woman again. There's a resemblance he thought to himself, superficially at least.

"Don't be rude, Nara," she told him. "Her forehead is narrower than her shoulders." And, she doesn't have the bust of a washboard, she didn't add. She clicked her tongue. Taller than me, that's rare, she thought. Body type underneath that coat says slim… for old, she mentally appended. Good skin, face is more expressive than that strawberry siren, but the hair is a vivid rouge. Cherry instead of strawberry then, you've known her longer than I. Temari straightened and drew her legs together, giving the woman a nod. "You'll have to excuse him. Lazy and uncouth," she coolly remarked.

The woman just settled her hands behind her and nodded. "You called him Nara, right?" The bait not being taken, she continued. "Par for the course as far as the men of that family go."

Reserved as she typically composed herself, the backhanded comment drew a smirk out of the Kaze-hime. Flirting with the idea of an accomplice in roasting the deadpan snarker cum slacker-genius, she decided to be courteous to the stranger. "Desert Rose, Temari," she introduced herself jocularly. "Par for the course over there is Shikamaru." Said three-hole dogleg simply looked down.

"Namikaze Kushina." The red-headed woman replied in kind. As a solicitous innkeeper came by, wearing an obnoxiously amber robe for a man of his age, complete with a matching zig-zap broad stripe that matched his stubborn refusal to admit defeat to male hair-loss, she quipped, "I'll have Jasmine tea with cups for six, with a serving of rice cakes, anything that you have ready for a hungry me to devour, please." Puzzled, the man just returned inside.

"Coming home?" inquired Shikamaru, feigning and failing at polite interest. He injected a curious tone into his voice. "You must be referring to my dad, but we've never met."

"Oh, we have, Widdle-Cwoud," she replied in her own measuring way, gauging to see his eyes open at the use of one of his mother's insufferable nicknames that women emasculate the men of their households with. Before he could catch his gaffe and close his hanging mouth, she continued, "of course, you were only about," she paused, gesturing midway up her side from the deck, "this high when we stood you up, cutie."

Wrestling with the feeling to trust her or to pinch himself out of what could be a sadistically trite genjutsu, Shikamaru just said. "You have me at a disadvantage."

The auburn-haired 'familiar' stranger just remarked reminiscingly, "as did you and your mother when I practiced diaper-changing on you." Both his and Temari's ears picked up on the change of her voice at the end of her statement just before the smirking mask replaced a sad glimmer in Kushina's ashen eyes.

"You must not have been back here for a long time," Shikamaru commented as the host came back with Kushina's order.

"Neither do I have plans to take up residence here again," Kushina slyly commented. "Please," she indicated the food and patted her stomach. "I just stopped here for a pick-me-up, not a pig-me-out before I went into town."

A little taken aback, and her guard returning from the brash –though amicable- manners of Mrs. Namikaze before them, Temari just smiled. "Ma'am," she began.

"Miss." Kushina interrupted with just enough steel wrapped up in a silken voice.

"Miss Namikaze," Temari quickly corrected herself, "thank you…" Shikamaru strategically mumbled his thanks out from behind a triangular cake of sweet, sticky rice jeweled with plum. "But the amount of cups, are your companions behind you?"

With a mock-theatric sigh, Kushina said, "No, traveling alone, but I imagine some old friends will be dropping by." She made a show of looking into the inn, then the woods, finally out to the road and raised her voice. "Soon… maybe, no?" She shrugged, sitting back down. "Well, that makes things simpler for my errand."

"Shopping?" edged out Temari.

"I wish," sighed Kushina, knowing by measuring both the blonde's and the boy's body language that the innocent roundabout traveler routine was no longer cute. The woman fidgeted. "No elegant or dignified way to say this, young Nara," she told him. "Circumstances in this town…" she began in a lecturing voice.

While Temari could appreciate the woman's humor, Shikamaru could only find it… troublesome.

"Long story short, young woman, I went through some years I'm not very proud of, and likewise very angry…" Kushina's voice changed from patronizing to bitter, "at myself, my husband –I miss him so- and that town. But, recently circumstances have changed to where I can have my little boy back again. Custody battle, so to speak."

Enthralled, yet annoyed at the child-abridged speech she was getting –Temari would prefer to be lied to than for certain truths and details being omitted- she just bade the woman to go on. "When did this happen…"

"Well, around a baker's dozen years ago, you see-" was all Kushina could say before Temari and Shikamaru immediately rose. Finally noticing that the rain had died and the sun had actually scattered the clouds some minutes back into Kushina's tirade, it was only now that the chunin genius and the desert rose felt killing intent. But, it wasn't from the woman serenely beginning to pour tea into the three empty cups. She tsk-ed the two in a faux-motherly manner, before addressing the air. "Come now everybody, it's rude to sulk away in the shadows from a friendly tea gathering." The woman waited, and began again. "Two ways to handle this. Civilly," she indicated the tea, "or the no-hospitality method."

Holding suspense of disbelief, jaded, or experienced, Shikamaru had trouble pinning down, it was little surpise to see a familiar trench coat-fishnet attired kunoichi drop into place asides the supposed Konoha prodigal along with two white-fox masked individuals attired in extra gear. ANBU is after you? He blinked for a moment as Anko likewise measure Kushina before tentatively taking a sip of the Jasmine. "Namikaze," he blurted out. They are all

extinct?! The last died during… during… Temari saw a tightening in his jade eyes. The name is familiar… she noticed. "Minato…" she mouthed questioningly to the contemplative Nara.

Anko only gave Shikamaru a look accompanied by a waggling of her finger to her lips before returning a predatory observation onto the newcomer. "Old time sakes out the window and all, how did you survi-" she caught herself. "Whatever happened, why now?"

All the verpine-mannered vixen could receive in reply was a shrug. "Because I sense opportunity," Kushina remarked, Temari noticing the iron core in the woman coming unsheathed from the flirtatious personality. "An opportunity to correct what has been done to my family, not some town who betrayed their savior and his blood."

"And what convinces you that the council would even let you accomplish that?" Anko pointed out, as the two ANBU that stood upon the roadside continued their stoic guard.

Kushina shared a look between the two adolescents before eyeballing Anko. Her right hand reached into her left sleeve and hitched as it pulled back, the hand remaining in the sleeve. "With the most overpowering weapon to lay down even the mightiest Kage!" she exclaimed, slate eyes brightening into a tarnished luster of silver. As the cackling began, Shikamaru scooped his left arm through a dumbfounded Temari and leapt clear into the lee of a tall pine, shadow-walking it to the wood line on the opposite side of the road, whilst the two ANBU likewise leapt clear, the first channeling air, the second earth as elemental chakra's began to be manifested.

"I can take care of myself!" She screamed. "I saved your ass, Widdle-Cwoud," she mocked, breaking free and becoming flustered that Shikamaru had the presence of mind to have grabbed her weapon-of-choice with his other hand.

"Internal affairs…" he told her quickly. "I'm not going to let another friend down!" he remarked to her curtly. "Especially not for the sins of another generation…" he murmured.

Out of instinct, and long beyond past semantics, Anko merely stayed her seat and extended her left wrist towards Kushina, a delayed black mamba summon already emerging from her palm towards Kushina's heart. In my world, talking in battle is not a free action.

As the mamba's deployed its fangs to pierce into sweet flesh, Kushina in turn merely drew the Sword of Unquestionable Authority. Whilst the earthen ANBU went into his element to strike from below and the second would come in from the opposite axis; Occam's Razor meets execution should Anko either fail and then fix this renegade kunoichi in place for a hammer-and-anvil burial. Only, that Anko's mamba never struck, only pain as her summon banished itself back into where it was summoned, her palm. She snapped her hands, ready to spring back for immediate option two when she saw Kushina, several hairs astray, looking very much triumphant and deranged with a stray red hair between her lips, pointing right down at the weapon she wielded in her right hand. Anko focused to analyzed its composition and capabilities, and hopefully, discover weaknesses.

"Unified Hidden Villages District Court?" She read on the portfolio, stunned, giving Kushina a look, realization dawning in her eyes. "You got visitation rights?!" she exclaimed unbelievingly, getting an ear-to-ear grin from Kushina.

"Full custody, actually… us refugee widowed kunoichi moms have our rights too you know!" bubbled Kushina her sides astitch with legal lulz.

Anko could only giggle before she sharply exclaimed. "Hot Potato!" as the two ANBU managed to avoid executing the wielder of the Sword of Unquestionable Authority. It was Kushina's turn to be taken aback as Anko commented, "Safe Word! In Love, in Liquidations, it's a must!" The two assassination specialists disappeared as soon as they saw the wax printed seal of the dreaded UHVDC. "How'd you know even the Hokage would have to bow down to them, Uzumaki?" Anko wondered.

"Easy," remarked Kushina casually. "Having a career in peacetime-assassinations would ensure that everybody in ANBU has warrants out ."

In the wood line, the Leaf and Wind ninja stared at the other, Shikamaru settling down on his haunches contemplating what a nuisance a simple farewell to a girl –former foe- he corrected himself, had been. Bemused, Temari slung her fan back onto her back, giving him a conspiratorial look. "I can understand how familiar she seemed to you earlier."

"Do tell?" Shikamaru grunted back, wondering what it was that he missed.

"Uzumaki." She pointed out glibly.

He perked up, his attention diverted. "Still in recovery last I saw him."

She shook her head. "Head out of the clouds, Shikamaru," she carefully chided him. Receiving only a frown, she rolled her eyes. "Didn't hear Anko?" She asked rhetorically, knowing she'd only receive silence. "That Uzumaki," she pointed at Kushina. A snicker escaped her as she knew that the unflappable snark had been caught speechless by what she had observed. "Citing my country's newly-founded and proven friendship," she changed tones, knowing that this time, Shikamaru had nothing to rebut her, verbal or otherwise, "in light of these recent developments, I will monitor this in person to be reported to the new Kazekage." She sauntered up to him and crouched till they were at eye level. "After all, this could prove… troublesome."

End Scene

Omake

Deciding to detach themselves from what would become a spectacle, Shikamaru and Temari opted to return to town before more complications arose at the roadside inn. Looking sidelong at Temari until she glared a prompt to him, Shikamaru ventured, "The UHVDC, do they really have that much power?" Receiving only a terse nod, he prodded. "In your village?"

He almost missed her slipped step, almost. "Notice why my siblings and I arrived so early and frustrated to the Chunin Exams?" He enjoyed watching her fidget. "Wind Country does not have much arable land. Kankuro and Gaara did the math and found a way to produce other cash crops that would raise profit values exponentially."

"What did you grow?" Shikamaru inquired, piqued in how something as simple and mundane as farming began somewhat appealing to him.

"The most wonderful flowers!" Temari gushed, treating him to the fey sight of her performing a pirouette following by a vibrant gait zigzagging across his path. "We sold it in Water and Rock countries as "Purple Sand." He dared not speak, lest the spell should break. "Till those bastards came and destroyed the latest crop of Popp-" she stumbled, "Purple Roses!"

"That's a shame," sympathized Shikamaru, whose ideal plant was the humble blade of grass, who only grew softer as it matured, and in numbers, achieved perfection.

Temari hiccupped and pawed up at the underside of her jaw. "Always next season, and thank Gaara for having more than one gourd." She walked a few meters off the trail, digging her left hand into the ground and grinding away the topsoil onto the palm of her right. "Definitely going to like it here Cloud-boy."

End Omake

Author's Notes:

Timeline is set for post Sasuke Retrieval Arc, ShikaTem's appearance definitely pinning it there unless I can find another incidence after that where Naruto manages to hospitalize himself aga-oh wait, nevermind.

Story Concept: Take "Naruto is not a punk bitch" concept and throw in a catalyst that would make him a very strong character that doesn't have to master a finishing move minutes before the next fateful encounter. Plus, the boy needs a mom. Repeat: the boy needs a mom (or conveniently develop a momma complex later on)

Characterization is kicking my ass right now. Currently purchasing the American mangas used (cheap rules! And I'm still legally supporting the industry… sorta) and eventually I'll nail the speech patterns instead of my fanciful interpretations of idealized characters, till the character development engine of the story gets kicking at least. I can say this is a goal of mine: Infuse characters with more personality moments than Wong Fei Hung attack-callouts.

Naruto being part slapstick, I find it difficult to take away the comedy, though I think that sections .6-.9 of the writing actually became a parody-gag without it meaning to be. Still, I hope to propel the story through drama… not so big on the action, is probably why I took the abbreviated comedy escape as the way out.

As to honorifics and other Japanese terms abound… I'm trying to cut down on those, hence the Ms., Ma'am moments.

My main worry right now is making the badass mom not so badass, but I've already seen a couple of disturbing parallels (and homage of sorts) to "The Bride" of Kill Bill. So please, critical (or complimentary?) comments on my characterizations, particularly Kushina, would be most welcome, ja?

To the 'shippers. Don't hedge any bets yet. Except for the Shikamaru and Temari… I lost control of that one right off the bat

Regarding the Unified Hidden Villages District Court, I think I just found my own running gag. Someone's got to regulate them after all, can't have one clan fleecing people when you could standardize hitman commissions.

Any other types of feedback, hell, everything's welcome.