Many Shinobi had vices. One simply could not do the job that they did for so long without picking up eccentricities or bad habits; the blood just became too much to handle. Lots turned to alcohol: often a deadly mistake. While the liquid drug was good for forgetting one's problems, it had the unfortunate side effect of making one forget one's surroundings too. It was an assassin's wet dream to snag a drunkard as a target. Few things were as easy as slitting someone's throat as they stumbled home roaring drunk.
Alcohol was not the only drug vice. Nicotine was also popular, and any cigarette seller could do quite a good trade in a hidden village. The Sandaime Hokage himself indulged in this vice, even though he was rather old fashioned in using his pipe as the primary method of consumption. While tobacco posed some risks (Like the danger of running out while on a mission in the middle of nowhere and going into withdrawal, or the lingering scent alerting an enemy to your presence.), it was probably one of the tamer drugs, and was tolerated by most ninja in a village. It was when shinobi started experimenting with less... savoury... drugs that comrades started to grow concerned. Some villages outright banned substances like opium, some just told their soldiers to keep that shit to themselves and confined to off-duty activities.
Then there were the ninja that lost themselves to the comfort of the human embrace. Some indulged in rather adventurous night time activities with their significant other, others spurned serious relationships altogether and single-handily kept brothels afloat with their needs. Unfortunately there was danger there too, as it was all too easy for enemy agents to infiltrate houses of pleasure in order to seduce information out of a randy shinobi, or every just straight up kill them. There was a reason that seduction specialising agents were so in demand.
Gambling dens also did excellent business inside a shinobi village. Usually gambling went hand in hand with alcohol, but there was always a certain extra allure to wagering money that appealed to many. Shinobi lived their lives on the edge most days of the week, and a lot cracked under that kind of pressure. Time off from do-or-die situations was needed for them to function. Others thrived on the adrenaline. Imagine their dismay when their time off started to become a chore, whittling away dull hours until they could be sent out on the next mission. The thrill seekers were the ones that became gamblers: receiving that familiar rush of adrenaline from the risky games that they played. Like all the other vices, there was danger in gambling too. Addiction meant debt, and debt meant that someone held power over you. Shinobi could not afford to have weaknesses like heavy debt that could be exploited ruthlessly by an enemy. One of the duties of the Intelligence corps in any hidden village was keeping tabs on any notable gamblers and their debts. Should any shinobi become too entrenched in their losses, the village would have no choice but to cut them loose before they became a threat via blackmail.
Those were the three main shinobi vices: alcohol, women (or men, if you're that way inclined) and money. However, that is not to say that those three are the only vices shinobi have been known to adopt in order to cope.
Some pick up strange habits of dress or behaviour. Masks or eccentric clothing were a popular choice, and some got a kick out of wearing provocative garments to draw attention. Whether that attention was sexual (Kunoichi were especially guilty of this vice, but some men have been known to 'flaunt it' too.) or just generally eye-grabbing (Those that could get away with neon colours whilst still remaining stealthy often took full advantage of eccentric wardrobes.) was often besides the point. Verbal tics were a common behavioural quirk, and a certain loud-mouthed clan from the old village of Whirlpool was particularly famous for it. Other behavioural quirks could range from annoying selective hearing in casual conversation to a deliberate complete inability to read a clock. A vexing amount of shinobi also took up obsessive behaviour when it came to a particular interest. The man that was obsessed with taijustu practice to the point of ridiculousness was probably harmless. The girl that took the meaning of 'innocent crush' to new heights was less so. There were rumours that the Uchiha took up the responsibility of running the military police partly for the esteem attached to the duty and partly for the opportunity to set up an elite task force that dealt with reports of stalkers seriously. (Not-so)suprisingly, most of the reports came from young Uchiha men fending off blushing bride wannabes.
There were as many vices as there were shinobi, so many that it would probably take all day to list them all. Fortunately, for the purposes of this tale, one only needs to be aware of the vice of one jonin kunoichi in particular.
Kohari was a compulsive thief.
Stealing was not a crushing social taboo among shinobi. Most found themselves stealing on missions at one point or other. There was often no other way to obtain that disguise to infiltrate an area other than nicking the clothing from a clothes line, or no other way to restock rations than to raid someone's food store. For Kohari, that is how everything started.
Being civilian raised, Kohari was desperate to measure up to her team mates when she was placed on her first genin team. While her mother despaired at how un-ladylike she had become ever since getting her hitai-ate, Kohari was determined to fit in. She cut her hair short. She wore functional clothing instead of uncomfortable fashionable trends. The only moisturiser that ever touched her skin was actual moisture: rain and bathwater. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried, there were some areas of shinobi life that caught her off-guard.
It was on their first C-rank mission. The wife of a rich lord wanted them to track down and obtain a rare jewelled hairpin for her. It was a simple investigative mission, one that she and her genin team mates had been thrilled to get for their first C-rank. Most genin had to suffer through escort or courier missions, but they got to go off on a treasure hunt! They managed to find the hairpin without too much trouble. It was in the possession of a moderately wealthy merchant's wife. The four of them disguised themselves as jewellery pedlars and attempted to buy the pin off of the woman for a price that made Kohari stagger.
The woman refused. The hairpin was an heirloom, passed down from her grandmother to her mother to her. The woman explained that the pin would never be for sale, as it was worth more than any amount of ryo they could offer her. Kohari was disappointed, but thought that was that. If the woman wouldn't sell, then they wouldn't be able to complete their mission. At least they could inform the noble lady of the location of the pin, and perhaps she could keep trying to tempt the woman with monetary compensation for the lovely hair ornament.
But that was not the end of the mission. Kohari watched in shock as her jonin-sensei and her team mates calmly planned an elaborate break-in of the woman's house. Moral convictions hammered into her by a civilian upbringing made her ill at the thought of what they were doing, but she participated in the operation anyway. By dawn of the next day they were running through the trees a good distance from the town where the merchant woman lived, the necklace in their possession and ready to present to the noble woman.
Kohari felt sick again as she watched their client croon over the hairpin, delightedly telling them that it was just the thing she wanted to compliment the new court kimono that her husband had just gifted her. Determinedly ignoring the steady feeling of guilt in her gut, Kohari pushed aside all thoughts of how heartbroken the merchant woman would be to find her treasure missing and reminded herself that retrieving the hairpin was her mission. Shinobi always completed their mission.
That was the day that Kohari got over her silly civilian attitude towards stealing. They were ninja, she could, and inevitably would, do a lot worse in her career than stealing.
Besides, neither her jonin sensei nor her team mates seemed fazed at all at the theft. Kohari decided that stealing was no longer the taboo thing that her parents told her it was. She wanted to fit in, and if the ability to rob without batting an eye would get her there, then she was going to do it. Next time it wouldn't bother her either.
…but she had to check. She had to make totally sure that she had successfully discarded her silly civilian hesitation over stealing, so she tested herself.
It started with little things. Things that she didn't really have to steal, but she might need anyway. They were never important things: an apple, some rope, a small mirror, a strip of colourful cloth. It made her heart stop in terror each time she tucked away something that didn't belong to her inside her pocket. But she was a shinobi, trained in stealth and swift movement. She was never caught.
By civilians.
"Why do you do that?" Ikkaku fixed her with a curious look as they pushed their way through the throngs of people crowding the market place.
Kohari stared at him blankly. "Do what?"
"You're always pocketing things that don't belong to you." Her teammate said bluntly. "Like that ribbon you just swiped from that stall back there."
She had to flush a little at that, embarrassed at finally being called out on her bad habit. "I don't know." She said slowly. "I just... do it." She frowned. "Is it bad?"
Ikkaku shrugged. "I suppose it's not too bad." he said carefully. "And it's not like you ever seem to take anything expensive, or something that will be missed... so I suppose it's okay."
Kohari scuffed the tip of her sandal over the firm pressed dirt of the road. "Am I... weird?" To be honest, she was starting to get a little worried about her behaviour. What had started off as small tests to make sure that she was okay with stealing things from civilians had morphed into a twisted tradition. Every time they journeyed outside the village on a mission, she swiped an inconspicuous souvenir.
"Not as weird as some of the other people we know." Ikkaku told her. "I mean... think about Jiraiya-san... he invents perverted spying jutsu for fun."
Kohari screwed up her face. "Don't remind me." She muttered. "I was at the public baths the other day with a couple of my friends, and we ran into Tsunade-san. When we caught the pervert peeping at us she totally flipped her shit and smashed him through a wall." She couldn't help but snigger at the memory even though it still gave her the creeps that Jiraiya had even managed to peep at them in the first place. "Their sensei was sooo mad."
Ikkaku snorted. "I can imagine." He said dryly. "Anyway... what I'm trying to point out is that everyone's got a bad habit of some kind, and randomly stealing junk isn't the worst one you could have."
"It's not a habit." Kohari corrected firmly, regaining a little bounce in her step. "I'm gonna stop doing it soon, you know."
Ikkaku just shrugged and redirected her attention to a nearby dango stand.
The conversation with Ikkaku wasn't exactly encouragement. On a fundamental level, she knew that stealing from civilians so much was unnecessary and a little mean-spirited, but she couldn't help but feel like Ikkaku had sort of given her permission to continue. She was only pocketing useless junk after all, nobody was getting hurt. Even though she had long since grown comfortable with the idea of possibly stealing from civilians, she didn't stop the 'tests'. What had started off being a little bit frightening had now become something a little bit exciting. It made her flush with victory each time she gained a new treasure with the original owner none the wiser. With a shrug of indifference and a mental reminder that she wasn't stealing anything that people would actually want, Kohari started eagerly awaiting opportunities to test her skills and play her game. Life continued on, and she definitely did not have a habit.
Kohari was twelve when she killed for the first time.
It was a fairly typical first blood scenario. They were on a C-rank mission guarding a merchant caravan and were attacked by bandits. Everything happened so fast that her training just took over. The man rushing towards her swinging a rather chipped katana thumped to the ground in an instant, her kunai sticking out of his eye socket. She killed two more before the fight was over and she could fully comprehend what she had done. The porridge that the caravan leader wife had dished out for breakfast that morning ended up in the bushes, and Kohari was ashamed to find herself shedding a few tears of panic as she continued to dry heave into the dirt. Ikkaku and Shinku weren't much better off. They too had taken down men for the first time in the scuffle, and both of them had lost the contents of their stomachs at the same time as her.
Homura-sensei was very patient with them, talking all three of them through their thoughts as they logically went over their actions during the fight. After a moment, they all came to the conclusion that fighting to kill was the right decision in this situation, because it was possible that any mercy granted to the bandits might have led to their clients getting hurt. The bandits had rushed them with intent to kill, and the three of them responded in kind. Self-defence.
Kohari felt better after thinking it through. So did the boys, and the caravan moved on with it's journey.
She would never forget that man with the chipped katana as long as she lived.
Years later, when she looked back on her genin years, she came to the conclusion that it was that C-rank that probably transformed her cute little game of junk-swiping into a compulsion. From then on, whenever she went on a mission she always nicked something from some unsuspecting civilian in the first town she came across. The stolen item would then become a good luck charm for the rest of the mission. The practice calmed her down and helped her focus better. When she realised that she'd become a little dependent on collecting her charms she tried to stop, but she never quite managed to go through with it. Something always caught her eye, and she wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else until she had stolen it away.
By the time she was fifteen she was a hardened killer... and a diabolical shoplifter.
It was all rather embarrassing, but Ikkaku told her that he thought it was kind of cute, and that made her blush. She brought him back a tiny stuffed teddy that she nicked from a festival booth during her latest mission. He actually paid for the flowers that he gave her in return, and he teased her mercilessly about it. She might have been mortified about the whole situation, if not for the unbelievable fact that Ikkaku had given her flowers.
By the time she was seventeen, Kohari had fallen for her teammate.
She was still a compulsive thief.
Ikkaku still said it was cute.
They passed the jonin exam together at age nineteen. Sure they hadn't set any records getting to the high rank, but they'd made it! Kohari was proud to say that she was now a jonin of Konoha. She was no longer that uneasy civilian raised genin trying desperately to fit in. She was one of the elite fighters of the village.
Her mother still wailed about how un-ladylike she was, even though she had recently started growing her hair out a little longer to please the woman. Kohari knew that her mother wouldn't really be happy until her daughter had snagged herself a good husband though: every girl's dream (insert eye-roll here). She was happy being a ninja, running missions and serving the village. She was good at it.
At twenty one, Ikkaku asked her to marry him. She said yes. Her mother nearly tore all her hair out.
"I didn't mean marry another shinobi!" Mother protested. "What would your Father think?"
Kohari had long since stopped being affected by her mother's guilt trips about her dead father. Privately she thought that the kindly shopkeeper from her childhood memories would be rather happy for her that she was marrying Ikkaku: a man that loved and cherished her no matter what flaws she had.
Even though the idiot still mercilessly teased her each time she came home with a new trinket that didn't belong to her.
So she married that idiot, despite her mother's complaints, and they were very happy together. For a moment Kohari thought her mother might get off her back now that she was happily married, but now the woman was singing a new tune.
"Soooo... when am I getting grandchildren?" She wanted to know, grinning toothily at Ikkaku from across the dinner table.
Kohari hurriedly changed the subject. At twenty two she was still a kunoichi in her prime. She didn't want to give up her career for children just yet. Ikkaku's blatant relief at her change in subject told her without words that he agreed with her. While other couples jumped right into baby-making after getting hitched, she and Ikkaku still weren't ready for that.
The years passed, and she was delighted to be handed a genin team for the first time. She promptly failed them for being annoying little shits that didn't have a sliver of what it takes to be a good shinobi, but it was still nice to get chosen for the honourable position of teaching anyway. She failed another team six months later before finally striking gold on her third test. Her little genin brats were adorable, and they were hers.
It took the midgets six months to notice her shoplifting habits, and they joined in with Ikkaku's teasing of her compulsion, much to her annoyance. When she lifted a bag of candy from a street vendor after a week on the road with nothing to eat but ration bars that tasted of cardboard, she very smugly decided not to share with her drooling students. Suddenly the teasing stopped, and her chirping little birds started buttering her up like they wanted to eat her up alongside the candy.
It worked. She was a total sucker for puppy dog eyes, and she conceded the rest of the bag to her tearfully thankful students.
She was weirdly possessive of her students, but she was still a little surprised at the twinges of sorrow she felt as they presented themselves to her in their shiny new chunin vests, freshly promoted. She was damn proud of them. Not only had they passed on their first try (practically unheard of), but all three of them had advanced together (definitely unheard of). It was all thanks to her, they told her. There was no way they could have done it without her. She blinked back tears as she swept them up into a group hug. They weren't midgets anymore, and all four of them were going their separate ways now that the three were chunin, but they would always be her brats. She told them so.
They told her to stop being so sentimental. Of course they would always be her brats.
Kohari beamed.
"I think I'm ready." Kohari told Ikkaku quietly as they sat nestled up on the sofa together that night.
"Hmmm?" Ikkaku looked up from his book. "Ready for what?"
"A baby."
A slow smile spread across Ikkaku's face. "What are we waiting for then?" He said slyly, tossing aside his book.
Kohari giggled and fell into his embrace.
At twenty nine years old, after trying to get pregnant for almost two years, the medic-nin told Kohari that she wouldn't be able to conceive. No one could tell her whether it was damage from all of her years of combat, or whether she had simply been born that way, but in the end it didn't matter. She couldn't give Ikkaku children.
She cried and cried and cried and cried.
Ikkaku stubbornly told her that she was perfect to him no matter what. Children or no children.
Kohari still wished she could give him more.
Maybe it was her subconscious desire to gain something. Maybe she just wanted to plug up the hole in her heart in the only way she knew how. But her shoplifting habits were slowly and steadily getting worse and worse. She was no longer stealing harmless junk. Some of the things that she stole now probably had a decent bit of value to their original owners. A beaded sandal. A multi-coloured hand knitted scarf. A delicately painted handmade fan. A pink seashell on a necklace. There was more, but guilt made her hide the hoard of stolen items where Ikkaku would never see them. She stashed them in the upstairs room of her parent's old house, knowing that her mother's arthritis prevented her from climbing the stairs these days.
She hit a new low just after her thirty fourth birthday, stealing a little girl's doll from it's perch watching over what was obviously her father's udon stall. She cried over the well-loved felt toy in her mother's upstairs room. Whether she was crying in guilt over her theft or mourning the child she could never have, she never figured out.
She managed to return the doll six months later as she drifted through the town once again. No wonder the family would be scratching their heads over that.
She stole a green shawl later that same mission and realised that she could no longer stop. She dreaded what Ikkaku would say if he found out. Surely her swiping problem had grown past 'cute' now. There was something wrong with her.
Avoiding the Academy as she walked through the village was now part of her everyday life. Watching other couples have what she could not hurt deeply. Ikkaku was clearly worried about her. He suggested that maybe she was working too hard. Maybe they could take some time off missions together? Visit a hot springs or something?
Kohari sobbed into his shirt and admitted that it might be nice to take a step back from it all. If she didn't go on missions, maybe she wouldn't have to steal things anymore. It would be nice to be a good person once again. Even if it was only temporary.
The hot springs trip was short lived. A messenger bird at their window told Kohari that her skills were desperately needed for an emergency solo out near the border of the Land of Rice Fields. It was with a grim heart that she put away her vacation clothes and pulled out her mission gear. Ikkaku was reluctant to let her leave. No doubt he suspected that her state of mind wasn't exactly the best right now.
Maybe she wouldn't come back this time.
The mission was not pleasant, but it was well within the scope of her capabilities. She may be fast approaching old age (for a ninja), but she was still a jonin of the leaf. There was still a lot of pride to be had in her abilities. Fighting, at least, was something she was good at. Something she could do without screwing things up.
She was a little disappointed that she survived the mission after all. Wondering whether that meant she was suicidal or not, Kohari set her course for home and tried not to think about complicated things. She fingered the comb that she had filched from a market stall on her way north. Yet another item to add to her collection of shame.
Being waylaid by a thunderstorm was the icing on her frigging cake. Rain was simply pouring down and visibility shrunk to almost zero. It would be foolish to try and run through weather as bad as that, so Kohari hid herself away in some random barn to wait out the rain. She amused herself by watching the family of civilian farmers move around in their home next to the barn. Their screen doors were thin enough that the light of their candles shone through, showing Kohari the silhouettes of the people indoors like some sort of faint shadow show.
Kohari figured the family much be pretty poor with screen doors that thin and no studier wooden coverings in sight. The house and barn were in pretty bad disrepair, now that she looked around properly. She wondered idly if it had been a bad year of crops for this family, or whether they were generally this hard done by all the time.
She watched the flickering shadows, counting heads.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
"Big family." She muttered darkly.
Maybe that's what their problem was: too many mouths to feed. Six of those nine heads she counted definitely belonged to children sized figures. Six children.
She couldn't even have one.
"Maybe the gods are punishing me for my looting." Kohari whispered to herself. "After all, what kind of mother would a thief make?"
Probably not a very good one. She thought miserably.
She waited for the night to pass in silent anguish. It was a blessing when sleep finally came to take her away from the shadow picture show of a happy family that she was being forced to watch.
When she woke, the sky was clear, the rain was gone and the sun was a decent way up in the sky. As as stretched out the kink in her neck she shot a stealthy look towards the run down home that was her torment last night. The thin sliding doors were now open, revealing the depressingly bare interior of the small family home. A woman with thick brown hair hummed as she wiped down the small wooden veranda. A tinkle of laughter heralded the arrival of the woman's children. They burst from the house, bundles of energy and giggles. Four little boys and two little girls. The eldest looked to be about twelve, the youngest about four. They ran rings around the smiling woman as she lightly scolded their boisterousness.
"Watch out for each other on the way to school, hey?" The woman commanded firmly.
"Yeah Mama!" The children chorused around her as they began to stuff their feet into civilian sandals.
The eldest rolled his eyes at the woman. "Mama, ya tell us that every day! I got it sorted!"
The woman ruffled his tufty short hair playfully. "Jus' reminding you." She said with a twinkle in her eye. "Now get! You're gonna be late!"
The children yelped and jumped to their feet. A few started eagerly racing ahead, while the littlest slipped her hand into her eldest brother's firm grip as she trotted to keep up. Both the farmer woman and Kohari watched as the children disappeared out of sight, obediently walking off to their village school. Once their backs were no longer in view, the woman sighed heavily, breathing in the sweet air of the day and stretching out her back. Kohari watched her closely. This woman had what she didn't: children. What was so special about her? What did she have that Kohari didn't?
Well... for starters she probably doesn't have kleptomaniac tendencies. A vicious voice in the back of her head whispered.
"Shut up!" She hissed back, eyes still fixed on this woman.
It was a mystery to her why she hadn't left the stupid barn already. The storm was gone. She could disappear back to Konoha now. But she stayed hidden in her spot, watching the woman as she vanished back into the shadows of the small house.
"Much too nice a day ta stay indoors, huh?" The woman cooed, re-emerging out onto the veranda with something completely unexpected (although considering what she'd already witnessed of this family thus far, perhaps it shouldn't have been) balanced on her hip. A baby around six months old with dark brown hair squirmed in her grip, babbling away in happy baby language to his mother. The woman chatted back to the boy about nothing in particular as she knelt down on the wooden slats of the veranda. With one hand she spread out a rather thin blanket and gently placed her baby down on top of it. A warm smile on her face, she bopped the tiny boy on the nose with one finger.
"Mama's in the kitchen. Holla if you need me baby." The baby giggled and wiggled around on his blankets. He looked like such an even tempered child. Kohari couldn't imagine him 'hollering' for his mother at all. She watched at the woman straightened, blew a kiss at her baby and made her way back into the house.
Kohari sat there, utterly frozen, looking at the baby left out in front of her. The kid wriggled around a bit more, babbling quietly to himself as he basked in the sunlight. Kohari finally let herself relax, and she smiled down at the boy, wondering what it would be like to have a little one to giggle all day in the house she shared with Ikkaku.
Abruptly the baby stopped wriggling around on his blankets, going rock still. Kohari leaned forward with a frown. Was there something wrong? Why had he gone quiet like that? Why hasn't his mother come back to check on him?
Slowly, the baby turned his head towards the barn, blinking round dark eyes...
...directly at her.
Kohari stiffened, frozen under the gaze of this baby. There was no way that he could see her. She was a jonin. No civilian would ever be aware of her presence, let alone a civilian baby. There was no way on earth that this kid knew where she was.
Kohari shifted slightly, sliding to the right a little on her perch. The boy's focussed gaze followed her movement precisely.
Kohari gulped. It was impossible... this kid was born out in the middle of nowhere. His family had probably never seen shinobi before, let alone have any idea what chakra was. Yet... somehow she suspected that the kid was some sort of natural chakra sensor. He knew where she was based on her chakra signature.
Or was she just imagining it?
She sent out a subtle flare of chakra, watching the boy carefully. His eyes widened as the wave of chakra washed over him, and his mouth dropped open to babble excitedly in her direction. A chubby hand waved in her direction, like he was pointing to her.
Or reaching out to her.
Kohari had no idea why she did it. One minute she was hidden in the barn, the next she was crouched down in front of the child, examining him at close quarters. The baby didn't squeal in fright at her sudden appearance, just started chattering in excitement. He had to be a sensor. There was no other way that he could have realised she was there.
"Hello there." Kohari reached out a trembling finger to gently brush the boy's cheek. It was soft, and the baby nuzzled her hand, completely unafraid of her.
Poor kid. She thought. Having a talent like that and no opportunity to use it.
Natural sensors were relatively rare, most had to train up the skill with painstaking effort even if they had a good inclination towards the art in the first place. Even if you applied yourself, sometimes a person could never do much better than picking out a few strong chakra signatures that got close. Kohari wasn't too good at it herself, but Ikkaku was decent. The Umino clan had a few clan jutsu that were sensing techniques. Ikkaku always lamented that he didn't have the talent to really make use of them, he could really only get his echolocation to work half of the time.
His family is poor too. She thought idly. He probably has a life of hand-me-downs and hunger to look forward to.
For some reason that thought annoyed her. Were his parents stupid? Why have seven kids when you were obviously this hard done by? And they were farmers to boot. One bad harvest might break them, and it was always the littlest ones that suffered the most from stints of starvation.
The baby was still nuzzling her hand, and through their contact she could feel the faint pulsing of his chakra coils interacting with her own steady aura. He was so young, yet he had enough chakra for it to be noticeable. The kid had decent potential.
A familiar itch made her hands shake, but she squashed it down.
As she patted his head, she examined the boy just that little bit closer. His clothes were also a dead giveaway his parents didn't have money to spare. The tunic he was wrapped up in was thin and ragged. It could have once been either white or black, now repeated washings had turned the garment a hard grey. There were noticeable food stains all over it.
The baby smiled at her, and reached out his hands to tug at her light brown hair, giggling in innocent joy.
Kohari caught herself as she stared to stop thinking clearly. She withdrew her hand from the boy's cheek, carefully extracted his tiny hands from her hair and took a step back.
And another step back.
Then a step forward.
Her hands whirred through a couple of hand-signs.
Ignoring the itch when it started was impossible.
She was a compulsive thief.
Two hours run from the farm she skidded to a halt, finally coming back to her senses. She stared down at the sleeping boy in his makeshift sling and her heart shuddered in her chest.
"What... did I just do?" She whispered in horror.
Stealing junk was cute. Looting trinkets was an unfortunate coping mechanism.
Kohari was horribly certain that gaining a child through a five finger discount was not something that anyone would be able to overlook.
The boy squirmed a little in his sleep, his hands clutching at her flak jacket. He snuffled cutely and snuggled against her.
His mother must be beside herself.
It wasn't too late to take him back. She had managed to return things before. That doll had found it's way back to it's original owner eventually, so she knew she was capable of letting go of her loot. Taking the boy back now would be best. If she was lucky, the mother might not have made a big deal of her child's disappearance yet. She could drop the boy off on the wooden veranda and make her escape.
She didn't move.
He was so warm, nestled up against her like that. His hair was fluffy, and she couldn't keep herself from petting it gently as he breathed deeply in genjustu influenced sleep. His chakra flickered against her senses, and she found herself unable to look away from the sweet child in front of her.
You'd be saving him from a life of poverty. The demon on her shoulder said.
Letting him cultivate his talents in a place where people would appreciate him.
A life lived out from under the shadows his elder siblings would cast, with his parents' undivided attention.
Jonin make very good money. He would never want for anything.
"But... his family... they love him..." She reminded herself.
Do they?
Of course they did! She saw how much his mother loved him by the look of adoration on the woman's face! The boy may not always get the attention he deserved, and he may never get the chance to develop his talents as a sensor and become a great warrior, but his family would love him. He would be happy.
Sure, until the first season of ruined crops. Then he'll starve to death. Love can't feed hungry children.
"I'm sure his parents would find a way." She muttered.
What about when he's older, and everyone's better than him at something, and he comes to the heartbreaking conclusion that he's not special, just because his stupid civilian family can't tell a natural chakra sensor when they see one? If he was your child, then Ikkaku could teach him the Umino jutsu with pride.
Ikkaku would be so happy to teach the Umino justu to the boy. His clan arts were dying, what with the clan having shrunk to only the members of his immediate family in recent years. It was part of the reason that being told she was infertile broke her heart so. Ikkaku gave up his duty to clan tradition to stay by her side.
Ikkaku would love the boy as much as she did (even though she'd only known the baby a few hours, she loved him so much that it ached. Surely it wasn't a bad thing, if she stole him out of love?)
Ikkaku would be so happy.
Did it really matter if it was the boy's original family or her and Ikkaku that loved him? Sure, the kid's family would be upset for a while, but they had six other children. They would get over it.
Her grip tightened on the sleeping child.
"Mine." She whispered.
She started to run back to Konoha. There was still a long way to go until they got home and she could introduce Ikkaku to his son.
She wondered what they would call him.
A day's travel later, she had a thought that made her heart sink.
What would she tell people when they asked her where the child came from?
What would she tell Ikkaku?
Obviously the truth was out. Kidnap was very much looked down upon as a way of adoption, no matter what good reasons she might have. No one could know that she had stolen the baby like one of her shoplifted trinkets. She had to tell people the kid was an orphan. An orphan that she saved from a certain death on the road. Maybe his parents were killed by bandits, and she was too late to save them, only rescuing the boy? Yes. That would work.
She looked down at the slumbering boy, unable to plug her panic entirely. What if they didn't believe her? How could she convince people without a shadow of a doubt that the boy was a victim of a ruthless bandit attack?
Slipping the boy out of his sling and laying him gently to the ground in front of her, she weighed her options. Her paranoia was probably unjustified. Why would people accuse her of lying? She was a jonin, one of the most respected Kunoichi in the village. People trusted her.
Will Ikkaku buy the orphan lie?
That was the question. Her husband was far too good at seeing through her. He knew about her stealing habit better than anyone. He was also privy to her intense desire for a child and grief that she couldn't have one. If anyone could sniff out her lie, it would be him.
And he would leave her. Kidnap would be the one flaw that he wouldn't be able to ignore. He would definitely leave her if he found out the truth.
All she needed was proof. Something that could convince Ikkaku without a doubt that the baby she had brought him was the unfortunate victim of a brutal attack rather than another of her stolen trinkets.
Proof...
She blurred through more hand signs and touched a glowing finger to the baby's forehead, placing him under another genjutsu. On the surface, the genjutsu didn't look any different to the first sleeping jutsu. But this one was more potent. It was the sleeping genjutsu used by field medics to put people under when they needed to preform emergency surgery. The baby would not wake up until she wanted him to. Not even pain would pull him out of it.
Kohari drew a kunai.
She carefully slashed a jagged line across the baby's face, trying not to wince as the blood started to flow. Despite the genjustu the boy whimpered a little in his sleep, but didn't stir. Kohari tossed aside the Kunai and blotted the torrent of blood with the kid's ragged blanket. With pressure properly applied to the wound and the danger of the baby bleeding out now minimal, Kohari blurred her hands through some more hand signs. Green glowing hands peeled back the blood soaked blanket, and she quickly got to work healing the painful looking gash into a puckered ridge of a scar.
A scar that would back up her story of a rescue from bandit attack.
She sat back and admired her handiwork. The scar wasn't too bad. It actually added a bit of character to his face. And it wouldn't matter if the scar was noticeable. He was going to be a shinobi. Scars were a point of pride amongst ninja. The jagged line across his nose might even make him popular when he started at the academy.
Kohari mopped the rest of the blood off him gently, cradling her son close. Dimly she noticed that she should buy some better clothes for him in the next town she came to. The rags he was wearing were now stained with blood on top of everything else.
Two days travel away from the village Kohari had released the boy from her sleeping genjutsu, and he woke to find himself in the arms of a woman who was most definitely not his mother. He didn't scream and struggle when he realised that home was nowhere in sight. He just looked at her in bafflement, unable to comprehend where he was or what he was doing in her arms. Fortunately, he seemed to like her well enough, but there were some moments where he cried out obviously for his mother, and no matter what she did she couldn't comfort him.
She tried not to worry about his moments of misery. Babies had reasonably short memories. He would forget all about that woman soon enough.
It was almost too easy to fool people when she made it home. The Hokage clucked over the boy in sympathy when she made her report, and even helped her out by extracting adoption papers out of one of his filing cabinets for her. Not even the Sandaime doubted that Ikkaku would say no to adopting the orphan. It was no secret in the village that the Umino family were heartbroken when they were told they couldn't have children. The female chunin working in the office of Hokage tower cooed over the confused baby as she walked through, pinching his cheek and patting his head. Kohari cuddled the boy close, whispering reassurances to him as he squirmed in discomfort from the attention. When it all became too much, he turned and buried his face in her flak jacket, hiding from his admirers.
Aw... her boy was shy.
Ikkaku's eyes widened in surprise as he met her at the door of their house. He stared at the baby for one long moment.
"Who... is this?" His voice was choked up, but he didn't sound accusatory. He didn't suspect.
Kohari smiled at him. "I saved him." She told him softly. "His parents were travellers killed by bandits."
Ikkaku reached out one calloused finger, like he couldn't believe that the boy on her hip was real. The baby didn't hide in her flak jacket this time. He looked Ikkaku over in interest, blinking wide brown eyes at the new person in front of him.
Ikkaku slowly traced the puckered ridge of skin over the boy's nose, face drawn in sadness. "You had a rough time of it, didn't you squirt?"
The boy blinked at him, tilted his head to the side and slowly smiled at Ikkaku.
Kohari saw on Ikkaku's face the instant that he fell in love with her latest 'souvenir'. Ikkaku's face stretched into a smile of wonder, and the man gently mussed up the thick brown hair on the boy's head.
"I guess this little one needs a place to stay." Ikkaku said dryly. "What did you have in mind?"
Kohari grinned guiltily. "Well... since we're not really using the spare room..." She trailed off meaningfully.
Ikkaku rolled his eyes. "Kohari. The answer was always going to be yes."
They had their first family hug right then and there.
They needed a name to fill out the adoption papers. The boy was too young to speak yet, and wasn't able to tell them his name, and Kohari had found no evidence of the boy's name amongst the travellers belongings. It was sad that neither of the boy's parents had lived long enough to tell her their baby's name.
So they had to give him a new one.
In the Umino family tradition of naming children after sea creatures, the name neatly printed on the adoption forms was Iruka Umino. Turning in the forms to the tower the next day made the process official.
The Umino family was finally complete.
"I think I'm going to ease back on missions now." Kohari told Ikkaku one night after tucking Iruka in.
Ikkaku nodded and kissed her forehead. "For Iruka?" He asked.
"Yes." She smiled. "I want to be here to raise him properly, instead of always being away on missions."
"Whatever you want." Ikkaku told her softly. "My pay will be more than enough to support us, especially when you add that to our savings."
Kohari smiled and kissed him, this time on the lips.
She never did curb her thieving ways entirely. Even though she rarely went out on missions anymore, she still did take the occasional job to keep her skills sharp. Inevitably, she would end up pinching something small each time she left the village. But they were always small things. She was back to stealing junk, which was a relief.
If the pretty junk brought a smile to Iruka's face every time she came home, well... that was just a bonus. The shelves of his bedroom told the stories of her travels. A tiny wooden dog from the Land of Frost. A yellow paper fan from the Wind border. A ball of multi-coloured string from the south of the Land of Fire.
"You always bring back interesting stuff." Iruka beamed at her. "Thanks Mom!"
Kohari drew him in a hug.
I always bring back interesting stuff, huh? She thought with a smile. Iruka squirmed in her arms, giggling. No. I bring back the best stuff.
Iruka finally stopped wriggling and succumbed to the hug. Her boy was the best.
A/N:
I have no idea where this came from. What started as an amusing little thought exercise about shinobi coping mechanisms in my head turned into a rather disturbing story about Iruka...
I have no regrets. Writing this was interesting, I can only hope that reading it was interesting too. I'm interested to know what people think, so reviews would be wonderful. Did I ruin Iruka's back story of loving parents for you? Do you sympathise with Kohari? Or do you think she's seriously screwed up?