Disclaimer: Ha! I'm just a poor student whose parents are paying her way through college. Like I'd own Naruto.
Notes: Written for naruto_wishlist on LJ, though my assignee fell off the face of the Earth before this was posted, so it ended up not being for her anymore. The santa-nin got revealed a week or so ago and I just haven't gotten around to posting this here because I'm lazy and don't really like it. Anyway, three short stories about the Inuzuka. First is Tsume. Hana is next. (Edited 6/16/10 to fix errors and a few other things.)
Character chart:
Shippo (Tail): Inuzuka, father of Hana and Kiba
Akaiha (Red Teeth): Inuzuka, sister of Tsume and aunt of Hana and Kiba
Aoke (Blue Fur): Akaiha's dog, mother of the Haimaru Sankyodai, Hana's dogs.
All are my creations, though I was given help with the names, haha.
Tsume
It's evening and Tsume is hurrying home, jumping from roof to roof. Kuromaru dashes after her, one step behind, unable to catch up with the nimble woman.
Tsume lands lightly in front of the Inuzuka compound, bends over, her hands falling to her knees for support, and vomits into the bushes. Kuromaru moves up next to her and she presses a hand into his thick, black fur. She heaves again and Kuromaru makes a small whining noise.
"Tsume?" A voice calls her name from the door and Tsume glances up. She spits twice and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, still leaning on Kuromaru. Akaiha looks worried and steps out to help Tsume, but she straightens up and walks past her sister into the house.
Kuromaru's claws click soothingly against the tiles of the kitchen and Tsume fills a glass with water. Akaiha is there in a second and snatches the glass away before Tsume puts it to her lips. She sets it on the counter before turning back to her sister.
"If you drink that, it'll come right back up," Akaiha warns. Tsume scowls and coughs, opening her mouth to say something, but shuts it after a moment of contemplation. "If you want to gargle," she continues, "you can do that in the bathroom."
"If I had wanted to be scolded, I would have gone and talked to Mom." Akaiha doesn't flinch from Tsume's tone, just dumps the water out of the glass and turns it upside down to dry next to the sink. Tsume huffs and glares harder at Akaiha, but it doesn't appear to be having any affect of her sister, so she turns away.
Tsume stumbles over to the table and Akaiha turns on the water again, holding a rag under it. Kuromaru puts his head in her lap, and she absently strokes his right ear. He lets out a long sigh and she can feel the heat of his breath on her hand. She shuts her eyes for a moment, trying to get her bearings.
"Is there something wrong, Tsume?" Akaiha holds the cool rag to Tsume's forehead. She leans into the gentle touch, reaching up to take the rag from Akaiha's hand, but she holds firm. Tsume frowns and wipes her mouth with her other hand again, echoing Kuromaru's long sigh.
"Hokage says he won't be giving me any more missions while I'm pregnant." She'd just returned from a short tracking mission that she completed, done mostly alone. And she finished it absolutely fine. Her stomach wouldn't be getting in the way for a while, her being only 17 weeks pregnant. Her vest covered the small curve that was already there, so that definitely isn't a problem.
Akaiha looks thoughtful as she drags the rag lightly over Tsume's brow. A dry hand smoothes her hair back from her face, and Tsume wonders when her sister started acting so motherly. After all, she's the one having a baby.
"I don't know how he even knew," Tsume continues when Akaiha says nothing. "I'm barely showing." She absently undoes her vest and presses a hand against the small bump on her lower abdomen. She moves her hand in a slow circle, bumping Kuromaru's nose in the process. He flinches back and walks away to the fridge, which he noses open. Akaiha takes the cloth away from Tsume's forehead and walks over to the sink, and Tsume feels oddly lonely.
"Why don't you get some rest?" Akaiha suggests after a long pause, wringing out the cloth over the sink. "You don't look so good." Tsume barks laughter at this statement and leans her elbows on the table, her head in her hands.
"Thanks," she says, rubbing her eyes. The statement is probably true, considering how little sleep she's gotten in the past few days, and the fact that she'd just thrown up her lunch. She hasn't had a chance to eat dinner, but her stomach still hasn't settled and she thinks it would be best not to.
"I'm just telling the truth," Akaiha says lightly, nudging Kuromaru away from the fridge and shutting the door after pulling something out. She puts some meat on the plate and sets it on the ground where Kuromaru starts to wolf it down. "So spoiled, don't you think?"
Tsume hums in agreement and stands slowly. "Speaking of spoiled, where's Aoke?" She asks after looking around for the conspicuously absent dog.
"Asleep," Akaiha responds vaguely, rummaging through one of the cupboards. Tsume nods but stops quickly, since it makes her stomach lurch. She's never thrown up as much as she has in the past few months. How she's gaining weight, she doesn't really know.
"I still can't believe the Hokage thinks I'm incapable of going through missions just because I'm pregnant. He's acting like I'm disabled or something." Akaiha looks over at her, and Tsume continues. "So what if I need larger rations on my missions and I get sick occasionally. That doesn't make much difference in my performance. I mean –"
"Tsume." Akaiha cuts her off sharply, and Tsume has to look at her sister. "Stop acting like nothing's changed. Everything has. You're going to have a baby in less than five months. You won't be able to take on missions for a long time. You need to be here to take care of that child. Shippo won't be able to take care of it for extended periods of time, and neither will I. You know that a baby needs to be nursed."
Tsume stands next to the counter, a bit dumbfounded. Akaiha has always been so good-natured, so collected. Tsume can count on her hands the times she's heard her sister raise her voice in the past few years. Akaiha watches her for a moment before her features soften a little.
"Tsume," she starts, her voice calm and soft, "You're eighteen. You're so young. Even though the life of a shinobi hardens a person and ages them mentally, you're still just a teenager. You need to recognize that.
"I love you, Tsume. I only want what's best for you and the baby. You know that." Tsume nods again, retches, and vomits in the garbage can that's conveniently next to her. Akaiha walks over to her and wraps her arms around Tsume in a loose hug before guiding her out of the kitchen and into her room.
"It's hard to believe you're only twenty," Tsume says lightly, curling up under the blankets on her bed. Akaiha smiles and tucks her in. "Or maybe you've suddenly turned into Mom." Akaiha flicks her nose for the comment and leaves the room without responding.
"She's right, you know." Kuromaru jumps on the bed next to Tsume, settling down. He puts his head on his paws, just short of the pillows.
"I know," Tsume replies tiredly. She shifts so her back is to her faithful partner. "I guess I always knew all of that. I just had to hear it to really believe it." Though she won't admit it, Tsume is quite stubborn and set in her ways.
"I wonder how Shippo will react to finding that you're pregnant with his child," Kuromaru muses, rubbing his good eye with a paw.
"How do you know I haven't told him already?" Tsume retorts, slightly irritated that Kuromaru knows this fact. Only her mother and sister know of her pregnancy, and she's simply not ready to tell her almost-boyfriend the truth.
"Because the only time you've talked to him after you found out was to ask him to return the watch he had taken." Tsume only grumbles in response. It's not like he really needs to know. After all, most dogs don't stay around to be a father to their puppies, and considering the way her father didn't marry her mother or spend too much time raising her and her sister, it seems to be the same with the humans of the Inuzuka clan. It doesn't even occur to her to change that.
Before she dozes off, she mutters, "I'll tell him tomorrow." It shouldn't be too hard. And, even if he's not thrilled with the prospect of being a father, she knows that she can handle him and this whole thing just fine by herself. After all, she has helped so many dogs give birth to litters of puppies.
"I can do it," she mumbles in her sleep, and Kuromaru nudges her neck to remind her that she's not alone. "We can do it," she corrects herself, pushing her head into her pillow and falling into a deeper sleep.