Bolt let out a small gasp upon hearing his father's name being uttered by the strange and scantily clad woman who had practically made a mad dash towards him and was now unabashedly invading his personal space, their faces mere centimeters away from each other, with him being able to hear and feel ever breath that left her mouth. "Wait, what did you just say?" he asked.

The woman blinked a bit, as if Bolt's words had awoken her from some strange and magical trance, before giving Bolt a funny look and saying, "Hm?"

Bolt quickly backed away from the strange, blonde-haired stranger before pointing an annoyed and accusing finger at her and repeating, "What did you just say right now? You… you called me by my old man's name just now!" When the woman gave him a strange look, Bolt's patience immediately grew thin, his fists clenching in frustration over how overly complicated this woman was making a simple task such as answering a question be. "Who are you?" he questioned. "And why do you look so much like him? What's your affiliation with my father?"

The woman's eyes widened a bit as she let out a small gasp of surprise. "Your father? Naruto…," she lightly pointed at Bolt, "is your father?"

"Yep!" a cheerful and youthful female voice said from behind her. Naruko looked behind her to find a girl who bore a striking resemblance to the woman with whom she had woken up with. The little girl, holding a stuffed rabbit in her arms, ran up to the woman with a cheerful smile on her face and said, "Big brother's papa is my papa too!"

The woman's eyes widened upon hearing the smiling little girl's words. "'Papa'?"

Himawari jovially nodded. "Yep! My name is Himawari!" She then pointed towards her brother, who was gawking at his little sister, shocked that she was already sharing private information with a woman that neither of them had ever met until today. "And my big brother's name is Boruto, but a lot of us just call him Bolt!" She bowed. "It's really nice to meet you!"

After a brief moment of hesitation, the woman slowly, and somewhat awkwardly, returned the gesture, much to Himawari's joy. "It's… it's really nice to meet you too."

Himawari face lit up so much that one could practically light an entire room with her face alone. "You're really pretty, you know that right?"

The woman thought about it for a moment, trying to recall if she had indeed ever been given such a compliment before. At the moment, she could vaguely remember hearing someone call her such things such as "lovely" and "beautiful", and since they practically meant the same thing as "pretty" she decided that that was enough to properly answer the young girl's question. She nodded her head slowly. "Yes, I think so."

"Hey, Himawari!" Bolt cried as he quickly made his way to his little sister's side, grabbed her shoulders, and forced her to take a few steps back while keeping his eyes on the strange woman the entire time. "What do you think you're doing?!" he hissed.

Himawari looked up to her brother innocently. "I'm making friends with someone!" she answered in such a way that made it perfectly clear that she thought that the answer was perfectly obvious.

Bolt frowned disapprovingly at her. "Himawari, we barely know anything about her! And look at her," he nodded towards the woman, "look at how suspicious she looks!"

Himwari looked towards the woman and looked at her face. While Himawari trusted her big brother's judgment on almost anything, she honestly couldn't see what was so suspicious about her. She looked like the least threatening person in the world right now. She turned back to her big brother. "I don't see it," she said.

"What do you mean you don't see it?!" Bolt cried, both out of frustration and anger. Realizing that he wasn't going to get anywhere with her, he turned to his mother and asked, "Mom, what's going on here?! Who is she? And what is she doing in your room dressed like that?"

"Ah," Hinata began, her mind racing as she was quickly trying to come up with a credible cover story to tell her kids, "w-well… she is, um," her eyes darted to the side for a bit in the hopes of getting some last-minute inspiration, which was exactly what she got once she saw one of the family's many family pictures sitting in a picture frame besides her bed, "your aunt."

"Wow, really?" Himawari asked. "Like Aunt Hanabi?"

Hinata nodded. "Yes, but from your father's side."

"Wow," Himawari said. She turned to the woman who was still watching them from her place on the floor. "I didn't know papa had a sister!"

"That's because he doesn't Himawari!" Bolt thought. "Can't you see that mom's just making all this up? But that does raise the question," Bolt eyed his mom suspiciously, "of just why mom is covering for this lady in the first place. What the heck is going on here?"

"So, what's your name?" Himawari asked.

"My… name?" The woman adorably placed her index finger onto her cheek as her eyes looked up as she thought about it. In terms of names, all she could really remember was angry female voices yelling "Naruto" at her before everything went black. Strange, was Naruto her name? Was that the reason why she had a strange, nostalgic, and familiar feeling whenever she thought about it? No, that couldn't be it. She knew who Naruto was, but was it possible that the two of them shared the same name? Perhaps, it certainly wasn't unheard of. "Well… I guess my name is Narut-"

Hinata internally screamed in panic before quickly crying out, "Naru…," she desperately thought of any other possible name that would fit and make sense, "ko! Naruko! She's your aunt Naruko Uzumaki!"

Bolt gave his mother a funny and incredulous look. "Naruko?" he thought. "So dad's named after fishcakes and his supposed 'sister' is named after… wooden festival clappers?"

"Wow, what a pretty name!" Himawari cried. She began running up to "Naruko", which caused her to anxiously and frantically crawl backwards until she inevitably backed herself into a wall (the blanket hanging on for dear life around her body as she did), much to everyone's surprise, causing her to let out a surprised yelp of pain as she crashed into it. Himawari's face fell as she stopped approaching her aunt and asked, "Auntie Naruko, what's wrong?"

Naruko looked at Himawari's sad face and felt a pang of regret for reacting the way she did. Why did she act this way every time someone approached her? Surely there must've been a reason for it. Whatever the reason was, it seemed to have caused her to develop a kneejerk reaction whenever someone seemed to be approaching her or attempting to touch her. Not that that really mattered in this case. Despite admittedly not remembering spending much time with children herself, this little girl, Himawari, was absolutely adorable, and all she had ever wanted to do was to interact with her. Himawari didn't deserve to feel whatever… what was the emotion Himawari was expressing right now? It was sadness, right? Naruko couldn't remember ever seeing someone being even remotely sad before, but even she knew that someone like Himawari didn't deserve to feel sad over her own foolish behavior. Once Naruko had calmed herself down a bit, she answered, "N-Nothing, it's just… just…." Curses, she couldn't think of a good enough reason to justify what she had just done.

Luckily for her, Hinata understood exactly what she was trying to do and said, "Your aunt just doesn't want you touching her right now, especially since she still needs to get dressed for today."

Himawari let out a tiny and surprised gasp as she realized her own folly. "Oh!" She gave Naruko a small, apologetic bow. "Sorry Auntie Naruko! I forgot!"

She then ran behind Bolt and started pushing him out of their mother's bedroom. "Hey, what are you doing Himawari?!" Bolt cried.

Himawari gave her big brother a small pout. "We need to let mama and Auntie Naruko change, Bolt! And that means no boys allowed!"

"Himawari," Hinata said, which earned her a curious look from her daughter, "your aunt and I would really appreciate it if you BOTH left so that we could get changed, do you understand?"

"Aw," Himawari said glumly, obviously disappointed that she wasn't going to be able to give her aunt some of her very own fashion tips like she secretly wanted to. "All right, fine." She led Bolt out the door before taking the doorknob and saying, "But make it quick, okay? I want to play with Auntie Naruko!" She then looked at Naruko and gave her an expectant and hopeful look. "You WILL play with me, won't you?"

Naruko took a moment to try and remember what "playing" was and, after she remembered all of the times when she had uttered the word herself and remembered exactly what she meant every time she said them, gave Himawari an awkward, uneasy, and yet somewhat apologetic smile before saying, "Sorry, but I don't think you're old enough for that sort of -"

"Um," Hinata abruptly interrupted, "what your aunt is trying to say is that she'd really like to play with you, but your auntie and I really need to do something first!"

"Something?" Bolt asked, poking his head from the side of the door frame with a curious and suspicious eyebrow raised. "What 'something'?"

Hinata walked up to her bedroom door and put a hand on the doorknob. "I'll tell you later. Right now, your auntie and I really need to change and get on our way, so can you two leave now, please?" The two Uzumaki siblings gave each other strange looks before nodding their heads and making their way down the hall.

Hinata let out a small sigh of relief as she slowly closed the door. That was a little bit too close for comfort. She took a moment to soak in the sudden peace and quiet before walking up to Naruko, kneeling down, and asking, "What were you thinking? Himawari asked you play with her and you immediately assume that she's talking about doing something… adult?!"

Naruko sheepishly averted her eyes away from the concerned mother. "I'm sorry, but that's the only type of 'playing' that I know of."

Hinata let out an exasperated and weary sigh as she buried her face into her hands and shook her head. "What have I gotten myself into?" she quietly wailed. She then raised her head, took a deep breath to recompose herself, and said, "Well, we might as well get dressed." She extended her hand, offering to help lift Naruko up, which only caused Naruko to cower closer to the wall again. Hinata frowned. "You must really not like being touched, huh?"

Naruko blushed as she shook her head apologetically. "I'm… I'm sorry. I'll try working on it."

Hinata gave her a kind and reassuring smile. "You don't need to if you don't want to, but thank you. That's definitely a good step forward, and it'll help you be able to interact with other people without raising as much suspicion." She then stood up and encouraged Naruko to do the same. "Now come on, let's get dressed."

At first, Naruko simply stared in awe at the woman that was showing her so much kindness. From what little she remembered, all women have treated her with either disgust or contempt, so to find a woman who was willing to show her a great amount of kindness was surprising to her.

Eventually, after she had recovered from her initial shock, she slowly stood up and let Hinata lead her to her closet, which Hinata opened up for her, indicated towards the contents inside, and said, "You can pick any clothes you like. We look about the same size, so I'm sure everything will fit."

Naruko hesitated for a moment before rummaging through Hinata's closet, looking for anything that was familiar to her. When she did, she smiled happily, picked it up, and innocently showed it to Hinata with a proud smile on her face. "Can I wear this then?"

Hinata looked at what Naruko had picked and immediately her face went beet red, because the "clothes" Naruko had apparently chosen was a piece of sexy lingerie that Ino had gotten her as a joke on her first baby shower. She swallowed down a nervous gulp before lightly pointing at the lingerie Naruko was holding and asking, "Um… no offense, but… are you planning on wearing anything else over it?"

Naruko gave the married woman a couple of confused blinks before tilting her head curiously and innocently asking, "Hm? Now why would I do that?"

Hinata simply shook her head as she gently took the lingerie out of Naruko's hands, careful not to touch her as she did so. "Maybe I should pick your clothes for you after all…."

Author's Note: For those who've been patiently waiting for the next installment of this story, here you go! Sorry for the wait, but life, you know? In all honesty, I kind of like this story a little bit more than my other Naruto story, simply because this one allows me to let me have a little bit more creative freedom, you know? Ah well, that's enough rambling from me. I hoped you liked this chapter! See you next time, whenever that might be!