(Author's Note: Wretched Yuri: Welcome! This is my second story to be uploaded to For those of you who have read It Runs In the Family, I hope you enjoy this story as much as the other, and to newcomers who haven't read either story, all I can say is that I hope you like my little version of Naruto. Enjoy chapter 2 guys.)

Chapter 2

"Tousan, Tousan, Tousan, Tousan, wake up Tousan, Tousan, Tousan, wake up Tousan!" Naruto chanted jumping on his father on his side of the hotel bed he was sharing with Mishota. Jiraiya groaned as he rolled over. Naruto was only ever this energetic if he ate a lot of sugar.

"Wha?" Jiraiya mumbled unintelligibly. It had been late when he and Mishota had returned to their hotel rooms, to find their children fast asleep in their respective bedrooms.

"I'm hungry Tousan! Make me breakfast please?!" His son begged, jumping around still. Jiraiya grumbled as he pulled himself out of bed. Mishota mumbled under her breath and rolled over. Jiraiya felt his eye twitch with annoyance as he looked at his wife and then his son. Naruto had learnt at a very young age that Mishota slept like the dead and couldn't be woken, whilst Jiraiya slept a lot lighter, and if Naruto pestered him for long enough, he'd wake up. Eyeing his son's unusually exuberant behaviour, Jiraiya stumbled through the hotel rooms. Knocking on his daughter's door and opening her door when there was no reply, he found it empty, her bed neatly made and her things neatly packed as they were every morning. His eye twitched again. He hated it when Karuma let Naruto have lots of sugar and then vanished the next morning when the sugar rush caught up to the boy, leaving Jiraiya to deal with him alone. With a groan, Jiraiya continued on to the kitchen, not even listening to Naruto as the little boy rambled about anything and everything, promising himself that he would get payback on his daughter.

Sitting quietly on the sand in a secluded little beach, Karuma cracked open an eyelid and glanced around at her surroundings. She could have sworn she just felt someone walking over her grave. 'Otousan must be awake.' A small smile tugged the corner of her mouth as she sank into her morning meditation, ignoring the presences that were the ANBU as they watched her from a safe distance.

Jiraiya was slumped at the kitchen table, exhausted, as Naruto raced around and around the apartment. Karuma entered the apartment, and met her father's glare. Her gaze turned to her little brother. She caught him effortlessly by the back of his collar, lifting him up as his knees curled up like the Kit he was. She shook him in their father's direction.

"Tousan's tired and grumpy. Come on. We'll go to the forest and you can run your energy off. We might play tag if there are no humans around." She turned and left with her little brother, who voiced a sheepish gomen over his shoulder to Jiraiya. As soon as the door was shut, the man sighed as he returned to the room he was sharing with his wife. She stirred as he climbed into bed.

"What are you doing back? I thought I heard a noisy Naruto?"

"Karuma's taken him to the forest to play tag." Mishota frowned slightly as she sat up, resting her hand on her husband's chest as she looked at him.

"Did you tell her too?"

"No. She took one look at me and grabbed him and left." He admitted, looking at his wife. She sighed.

"She's always been like that." She murmured. Jiraiya shrugged as he stroked her hand where it rested on his chest.

"She does it to help out and be useful, you know that. We don't have the energy to mind Naruto all the time, she does. She enjoys spending time with him." None the less, Jiraiya felt just as guilty as Mishota did. Ever since they'd left on this travelling trip almost a year ago, whenever Jiraiya and Mishota wanted some alone time, or weren't in good moods, their daughter would take her brother and give them some peace and quiet.

Both adults quickly fell asleep, knowing their son was safe with his sister, while two blurs moved through the forest. One was rather small and golden, and the other larger and bright red. The two blurs remained this way the entire day, playing together through the forest. When they returned to the apartment, Naruto was sitting on Karuma's shoulders, his head and arms on top of her head, yawning sleepily. Jiraiya and Mishota were at the kitchen table, waiting for them. Tea was spread across the table and little Naruto's nose started quivering as he smelt the food. Blinking open his little eyes, he climbed down from his sister's shoulders and plonked himself onto his seat, acting more like the quiet, withdrawn child he was, rather than the sugar high crazy kid. Karuma ruffled his hair as she sat down next to him, although even she showed some signs of tiredness. Racing through a forest with a kid all day can get pretty exhausting.

"We heard you met some of Konoha's ANBU yesterday." Jiraiya commented as Karuma filled her plate with food, while Mishota filled Naruto's.

"They helped us out of a situation." She replied in her calm, quiet way.

"So they said. What happened?"

"Some boys wanted to have fun with Oneechan but she told them no. They didn't like that." Naruto replied, lifting his head from the table to glance at his father before yawning. Jiraiya and Mishota turned their gazes on Karuma as she shrugged. They were well aware that their daughter attracted a lot of male attention.

"They smelt like unwashed feet." She explained crossing her hands patiently in her lap as she waited for everyone else to be ready. Her father chuckled at that. They all picked up their chopsticks, and with a chorus of 'Itadakimasu' began eating.

"We're going home tomorrow." Jiraiya said suddenly. Brother and sister stopped eating and looked at their parents before sharing a look. Identical grins spread across their faces, and even though one was blonde and blue eyed with whisker marks, and the other was a redhead with mismatched eyes and weird eye markings, their grins were identical in the faces of brother and sister. Their parents both chuckled at that and Mishota's eyes softened as she regarded her two children.

"We thought it was time to go home and have a rest before we move to Konoha." She told them, still chuckling. Mother and father watched as their son did a happy dance in his seat, but it was the glow of joy in their daughter's mismatched eyes that touched them the most. They both sighed mentally. Karuma was such a solitary creature. She preferred the sky and the forest and the streams to being with people.

The first thing they did when they arrived back at the cottage was straighten the place up. After a year of their absence, it needed re-painting, sweeping, dusting and airing. Karuma flew through the chores she'd been given to do and raced off into the forest. Mishota watched her go from the window, knowing what it was that had her daughter pulling away from her humanity. When the clan had been killed, Mishota had used a forbidden demon technique to seal all of their bodies into a scroll, and had taken their loved ones with them. Once they'd found this cottage, she and her daughter had found a place in the forest that they thought was nice, and had dug the graves for their kin. When Jiraiya arrived, he joined them and helped. There had been 300 people in their Clan. Now, only 4 were living. One grave Karuma had dug by herself, a little way off from the others. The grave for her best friend Ren. From a young age, they had been arranged to by married, but neither of them had cared. When they'd first been told to get to know each as children, they'd fought 24/7. From that grew one of the strongest and deepest friendships Mishota had ever seen. The two had been joined at the hip. And he had died in Karuma's arms, protecting her as she protected Naruto while Mishota tried protecting everyone. Mishota knew that Karuma missed Ren. It was written all over her face. Out in the forest, the young woman dropped down beside the grave. It had been testimony to her father's ability to make things, that each grave had a marker, with that person's name on it.

"Ohayo Ren. I'm sorry I've been gone so long." She whispered, tenderly trailing her fingers across his name on his marker as her mismatched eyes swept over the clearing, filled with 296 graves. (A/N: It's a big clearing okay?)

She proceeded to sit and talk about the family's travels, about her parents, Naruto and having to move to Konoha. She was quiet after a while, just sitting, knees tucked up under her chin as her arms wound around her legs. She was aware that her parents were worried about her. It wasn't right for her to spend so much time out in the forest, in her fox form, away from people. She sighed. She missed Ren. She missed his fly away locks of bright red hair, his violet coloured eyes and his carefree laughter.

"I miss you so much Ren." She murmured, her gaze dropping back down to his grave. The saddest thing was that she knew it was time to move on with her life.

"Hey kiddo." She glanced to her left as Jiraiya sat next to her.

"Tousan."

"I thought I'd find you here." He told her, looking around the clearing. They were quiet after that, Karuma playing with the grass by her feet while Jiraiya simply sat next to her, smoking his pipe and writing down ideas for his next novel.

She found it amusing that her father was the author of a smutty series called Icha Icha, but he wrote other novels as well, and those were quite good to read. Most people thought Jiraiya was a clown, and a pervert. He was both of those things, but he was also a very perceptive, serious man. Being a clown and acting like an idiot was simply his way of dealing with the things he'd done and seen in his life as a shinobi. She was very close to both of her parents, but she couldn't talk to them about her problems, she was far too secretive for that. This was why she was always glad that her father could read her like an open book. He didn't need her to tell him what was wrong, he just knew.

"Leaving will be good for me won't it?" She asked quietly. Jiraiya nodded. "Being around people my own age will help me jump out of the grave I'd put myself in with Ren when I buried him." Jiraiya looked over at his daughter, puffing on his pipe. He understood what she meant when she said that. Most people would have been confused by it. But her father understood that she meant that she'd shut herself away, thrown away her happiness, left it with the dead form of her best friend.

"Yes it will." He told her. "Ren wouldn't want you moping around and slowly reverting to a normal fox just because he's no longer around. He'd want you to be happy." She sniffled slightly as tears worked their way down her face. Her chin wobbled as she fought the tears she hadn't let herself cry in public for years. Jiraiya put his writing materials away and scooted over beside his daughter, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. She broke down then, tears pouring down her face as she sobbed loudly, burying her face against her father's shoulder. It took quite a while for her crying to subside, but then, it had been bottled up for such a long time. When she was done crying she simply sat in her father's arms as he rocked her gently back and forth, before pulling back slightly.

"Tell me a story Tousan." She asked him as she wiped her face on the back of her hand.

"A story huh?" Jiraiya commented, tapping his chin. "Well, there was this one time when…" Karuma smiled as her father began recounting a story of his life to her before chuckling at what he was saying.