AN: Hi,

Back from the Hiatus! I have ideas, so many ideas. If you want to add to them, please do. At worst it wouldn't fit, at best you can see your little plot bunny come alive.

To: Blue16Talons: Thanks! I'll take your feedback and stop breaking sentences like that. Thanks. Constructive criticism like that is half the reason I write this. To be honest though, while I tried to avoid it, I don't know if I just made it worse.

I would advise sticking, the next chapter is very, very important. If you miss it, this fic wouldn't make any sense.


"The hottest fires forge the strongest steel"- unknown


Chapter 3: Of Bonds and Children


I gazed into the frigid night sky in my icy-cold battle armour and watched a broken ring of smoke drift upwards into the night.

Normally, I would have simply made another one- a normal one, but today was not a normal day. This smoke was not enjoyed despite it being of the very finest tobacco, a handful of which easily cost more than a c-rank mission.

The funds would be drawn from my own bank. It was done to give myself the edge of calm, as opposed to the twitchy rigidity that had killed other kage before me.

Well, I mused, this pre-war coldness has finally come to an end with outright confrontation. Perhaps Tobirama-sensei was right, the villages cannot be trusted.

Who is it this time? Kumo? Kiri? Iwa? Suna? Kusa? Taki?

When in a shinobi village, nay, when leading a shinobi village, one must never trust anyone, no matter the situation.

It was that trust that had killed kage before me.

It was that trust that killed Uzushiogakure.

"ANBU wolf, approach with caution, send summons to meet Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Sanin".

I did not say 'please'. I am Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

"Hai, Hokage-Sama" With a whoosh and a thin, rapidly dispersing trail of chakra-smoke bleeding into the Natural Energy of the place, Sakumo Hatake left efficiently, as I would have expected from my greatest operative.

I removed my Hokage hat with the calm of a man who has lived through two wars, lead through one, and will now lead through another, if worst comes to worst.

No, Hiruzen I chided myself If 'worst comes to worst', I wouldn't be the one to lead The Leaf, as I would be dead.

No.

I would be alive, and The Leaf would be dead.

I shuddered.

That truly would be the worst possible situation.

Luckily, even Onoki Himself couldn't burn all of Konoha down to the ground. Though he could cripple us.

Perhaps it is for the best that Orochimaru is currently in the land of grass. He always has an unpredictable style of handling things, that would not be wanted in this type of situation.

Even if his raw firepower is much needed in this time of crisis.

My fingers ghosted over the edges of a small, fist-sized replica of the Konoha memorial stone, and with a puff of chakra- and no smoke, the Hokage's office was empty once more, and the words "For the Will of Fire" were only a whisper in the wind.


Sakumo is still off on some mission. Hibana, Pakkun, Kakashi, and my slightly-less-glorious-than-my-usual-glorious-morning-self are slouched/lying/are sat rigidly straight and probably imagining it to be an infiltration mission while reciting the shinobi rules, respectively.

'It will be easy', I thought.

'I know how humans live', I thought.

Judging by the (lovely) breakfast, full of fatty, meaty, fresh steak and biscuits, I was wrong.

How?

"Thot zhun ihz-" Fuck it "The sun isn't even up yet" Hibana's teeth, I'm not kidding, elongate, her eyes turn white, her head swells like Iruka's shut-up-you-brat-no-jutsu or whatever it's called and in a dangerous calm-

"So what if it is, eh" I whimper and shrink into my two minute-old blue coat "That's what I though. Quiet, brat. Do you care to say anything, Pakkun-kun?".

And of course he's under the table. Asleep. Lucky bastard.

"I said, 'do you have anything to say', Pakkun-kun"

Poor little shit.

"You seem tired Pakkun-kun. Perhaps breakfast will leave you a little too bloated…"

He shoots out from under the table like a bullet somewhere between the size of a foot and a fist aaand-

Thump

Yep. He's on my head. Which means Hibana's glare is-

Yep. At my head.

She… deflates, for lack of a better term.

Then she… chuckles?

"I'm such a bitch. In more ways than one, too. Now Pakkun-kun" he sits ramrod straight "...eat. I'm only sadistic to the point it hurts you, not cripples you, or your potential. Your brother, whose head you're sitting on, is much larger, so covering a distance like your bed to here is less tiring. Here" She… picks him up? Eh? What?

At my confused expression she explained:

"I'm a mother, and you are three months old. You are a large pup, but you were at Pakkun-kun's strength about two months ago. Don't worry though, unlike him, you'll get the real deal in training."

Still, Hibana has a kind side?! Fucking hell!

I looked for a moon and the subsequent cow jumping over it, asteroids clashing and-

Nothing.

Now now, I have bigger things to worry about.

Like the 'real deal in training' thing, and the 'I will only hurt you to the point it doesn't maim you' thing.

Well...

"I need an adult"

Hibana grinned-

"I am an adult"

Well…

Shit.


Training as a Ninken, while it needed plenty of exercise, wasn't just physical.

History. Yay. Geography. Urgh. Maths -boredom, but at least I have m'ah stale 69 jokes.

Science. It was fun the first time, ego-boosting the second…

And wrong here. Apparently, 'scientific technique' is something that's been around about thirty years.

Oh, and Orochimaru invented 78% of everything that has to do do with science. Really. No lies.

Orochimaru. The dude who just casually slaughtered two kage and somehow managed to ally with Konoha enough to send his son there after the Fourth Shinobi world war.

Anyways, away from the morbid fascination I have with ruining a perfectly good mood, apparently, the Hatake clan and the Inuzuka was- are a pair of extremely close clans.

Like, Senju-Uzumaki, sharing-clan-techniques close. Apparently, a Hatake was responsible for developing a shielding technique that was incorporated into many of the Inuzuka's techniques. SpecifIcally, some due named … Hatake-Inuzuka Kiba.

Yep. Naruto's friend, Kiba, 'master panty stealer' of Konoha, was named after that. Waste of a good name, if you ask me. Even if the 'panty-stealer' moniker was probably from a filler. Or fanon.

Hey, I distinctly remember a filler about a ninja ostrich. 'Konoha's bloody panty stealer of doom' isn't that far off.

Well. No internet. Guess I'll never know.

Anyways, back to the Inuzuka-Hatake mass orgy that spanned this headache: it's also why experienced Inuzuka (And Hatake), can spam clan techniques without hand-seals.

You see, the chakra flow doesn't need any hand-seals as, get this, the Hatake clan incorporated their anti-ninja-bullshit, hand-sealless, samurai battle style into the Inuzuka's after the Kaguya clan almost annihilated them and said Inuzuka saved them.

I guess it explains the family possession being a sword.

I guess it also explains Kakashi's ninken summons, and his scent-tracking being better than Kiba's, in part one at the very least.

It doesn't explain his lack of a non-summons partner and his lack of Inuzuka Clan marks. Or even different-coloured marks, to show a close-but-different clan like 'that sweet little Nohara girl'.

Guess who? Fuck the plot, that's who!

The "I've planned for you to meet the newest child hailing from our medically-based sister clan- the Nohara", is good in a way.

It would partially explain Rin's infatuation with Kakashi.

It would not explain the lack of a "hey do I know you", or the more likely "So you are that little failure who showed her emotions while being a clan shinobi in-training" showing up in a flashback somewhere.

There being a Nohara clan is really anti-fanon. But then again, there is apparently a 'Lee' clan, which is almost equally anti-fanon.

Ergh

The whole 'This works for this but not for that' is getting to my head. And splitting it. Diagonally. With an axe.

I would ask her to just stop pouring knowledge into my head, but it'll help. Eventually. I guess stuff like 'Kakashi is probably Rins cousin twenty-times removed' does break up the monotony, but in a 'Oooh, Godzilla likes you, squishy human' kinda way as opposed to a 'Oooh, chocolate cake!' kinda way.

You know. I think. I hope.

Anyways, Kakashi, Pakkun and I lived with Hibana for a grand total of a year, all of us picking up skills and developing a bond so close that we could work in sync.

It turns out that Pakkun was too weak to be Kakashi's ninken partner, and the rest of the pack, practically being infants, were far too… well, dumb. I don't really know how to soften that. At three months, they were far too stupid to develop a Ninken-Shinobi bond, and when they were, Kakashi was too old to... well.

It's complicated.

You see, there is a kind of time limit on when a ninken can bond with their partners, the younger the better. It's limited by both age and maturity, and while the Inuzuka clansmen were therefore allowed to act like children, even in a war, the Hatake clan had no such legal protection. After all, they were relatively new to the leaf.

The Inuzuka and the Hatake were different, in some ways. For example, almost all Hatake that don't have a hyphen in their clan name were good at Kenjutsu, or were at least good enough at Kenjutsu to hold their own in a fight

It doesn't go both ways though, because 40% of the Hatake population, out a grand total of something abysmal, like, 20, were Inuzuka and these Inuzuka-Hatake clan-crossbred-paperwork-ninja's-knightmare things wanted their children to grow up like them.

Which meant the Hatake clans newer generation was learning how to fight with ninken and the like.

There was even talks about merging the clan grounds, and just designating the Hatake as a branch clan of the Inuzuka. I mean, it practically was at this point, and a hundred years ago in the warring clans era, it would've been. Grouchy clan heads and 'clan secrets' and all that.

After all, teaching the basics of the 'four legs technique', aka the basis of Inuzukan taijutsu would've basically been treason unless it was being taught to a clanmate.

I swear, I should've already known this, if the Hatake clan was basically a mini Inuzuka clan plus swords, It would've at least shown up in an omake. I mean, Hatake Kakashi is one of the main characters.

Hmm

Perhaps it did show up, and I just… never found out. It's not even that unlikely.

I mean, I was never really into Naruto. I read a few fics, watched the episodes, but I've never cosplayed, told anyone, recommended it, or even wrote a fanfiction. I mean, I was a mature kid in my last life, but I was a kid.

The only reason I got through it was via Narutospot, a series of coincidences, and sheer boredom of having everything I was 'learning' already in my head from previous lives.

I only read the manga because I was in Japan, and there was a library. With manga. Well,

Well, manga that didn't have fanservice in it.

I mean, Tsunade's one and a bloody half meter breasts almost got Naruto banned, but we had, like, ten copies of the manga, the whole way through, just sitting there, and the cost of selling it would never get us all our money back. It's like living outside a soap factory, and selling handmade bath soaps. It's just never going to lift off the ground.

"Satoru-kun, use less chakra you little twit!" Hibana barked as I meditated attached to the underside of a tree.

I complied.

Well, this is the only time I'll be able to get away with daydreaming

"Kakashi-kun! Satoru-kun! Tsūga!" I cut the chakra flow to my feet, shook myself out of my meditative trance, and reflexively softened my fall.

I closed my eyes.

Around me was a) grass, b) four tree's and c) two simple bulls-eye target post with holes and scratches marring the surface.

Well, presuming she want's me to hit my one…

I visualised pulling a strand of energy from my… thoughts, it's the only way to describe it. You know when you think of something, again and again and again? It's like that, but a thousand times stronger, neural pathways firing repeatedly as my body uses its adaptations to form yin chakra, from the mind.

In each of my cells, new, yet-to-be-unnamed subcellular structures pulled and twisted and if you had a byakugan, you would see bright red from my head mix with a deep, eye-wateringly bright blue as they churned and twisted and moulded with a flourish and a double-helix of chakra-infused smoke. Yang, from my body, and chakra from an even, thorough mix of the two at a ratio of 1 is to 1.

A light baby blue aura surrounded me as I forced the yin to move, moving the yang along like a steering wheel attached to a bus as I then proceeded to leach the yin away and back into my coils as my yang struck the ground with the force of a miniaturized freight train and a resonating, musical chime as my body vibrated with a deep roar as it forced me to kick off the ground five times, each faster than before, propelling me towards the training post, spinning like a miniature tornado.

-But the wind shifted

-Moving towards a tree

-nononono no chakra shield

-fuckfuckfu-

Hibana stood in my path like a dam, and just casually picked me from the air, much to my relief and subsequent annoyance.

"Hey" I tried to smirk, but I probably looked like I was having a seizure. "I totally had that".

Now she smirked, and actually pulled it off, as she dropped me on the ground like a sack of potatoes.

"You 'totally had' a hospital ticket? Because, it looked like you were going to collide with…" She trailed off, smirk still present as she strided over to the thick, menacing tree that almost killed me, tapping it. "An eighty-ton Hashirama tree. While your head is pretty thick" I 'humphed' and turned around "I think that might be a little bit thicker. I mean, I can't be sure. You never know.".

I turned and prepared the best comeback I could before-

-Kakashi slammed into and partially through the bull's eye on his target.

I stared.

He clearly hadn't thought it through enough, which was weird for Kakashi. But I guess he might either be trying to show me up, not that that needs much effort, impress his mum, annoy me, or all of the above.

Because damn, if being shown up by four-year-old isn't annoying, just what is?

I refrained from yelling 'oi, Bakashi!'. Soon now. Very soon now.

Soon now. Very soon now.

Damnit Obito, you're taking your sweet time.

Hmph.

And why hadn't he 'thought it through'? Because he was still in the post, arse end out to the world, and his I-just-woke-up-and-shinobi's-don't-comb-thirty-centimeters-of-hair hairstyle poking over the upper parts of the now-heavily-damaged target.

"Now, pups" Hibana spoke up in a weary tone. Kakashi and I sharpened and paid attention "I got your here at this hour" What hour? I mean, it's dark-o'clock at the moment "to blow off some steam. Pakkun-kun is still asleep. I would highly recommend your inside voices, and quiet footsteps. Think of it as Shinobi training for infiltration missions."

And she just had to pull the Shinobi card. Damnit. No more antagonising Kakashi…

"And ninken need to be able to replicate dogs, alongside hiding signs of their existence. Being quiet is essential when deep behind enemy lines."

Well…

I guess if I want to be a ninken...

She smirked, but, lo and behold, not at me! "Kakashi, get yer butt outta there".

He glared at the world. She walked up to him and gently pulled him out, placing a quick kiss on his forehead.

"-kisses". What?

Hibana echoed me playfully "What?"

She probably heard it way better than me.

"Shinobi don't need kisses. It's 'emotion'" He explained things like a boring paperwork nin describing the 'horrors' of being a nuke-nin, and how it will 'break your heart and soul'.

How is it linked? They both sound like the personification of something that's saying something not because they want to, but have to.

"Well, you're not a shinobi yet, mister. You are a four-year-old toddler."

"-ot".

She smirked deeper.

"What?"

"-not"

She cupped her hand to her ear, singing-

"I can~'t he~ar yo~ou".

"I'M NOT A TODDLER, I GO TO PRE-ACADEMY".

He backed away, mortified as I burst out laughing, rolling on the floor.

Taking a deep breath, and pretending to get back his composure:

"I, mother, am not a toddler. You see, I attend the pre-shinobi institute of-"

Hibana joined me on the floor.

Kakashi grumped.

Mentally, I smiled.

Hibana being a bitch aside this was...

A perfect day.


Hibana put Kakashi and I to bed, sharing a bed with Pakkun, as she left for her own room.

I don't know why, but something doesn't seem right.

Maybe it's in the air. The cold, bitter air. The way that dinner seemed… bitter, and there was a strange tension in the air.

Something shifted in the corner of my eye, and I got up with a start and a short, rough bark that I muffled before it could get past my muzzle.

"You too, eh" Pakkun was up. Kakashi was being a silent, 'perfect shinobi' "Satoru, honestly, I-"

Poof

What the fuck-

Kakashi and I immediately migrated to each other's backs, him clutching a kunai, and me baring my teeth.

Pakkun didn't dispel himself.

Kakashi didn't force it.

Then what did?

As if by some invisible hand, the air pressure briefly dropped.

Then it happened.

It started with the water-cups on our bedside table.

With a drip-drip-dripdripdrip we found long, prominent crack just… appearing in the cups.

The windows shattered, the wind howled, and the mirrors broke.

What?

And nothing else happened.

So we walked onwards like a bizarre pair of conjoined twins, pausing in sync, breathing in sync, if I was human, walking in sync.

Both of us simultaneously spun threads of yin and yang into chakra, as at our age, the amount of chakra that we don't have to force our body into giving out isn't even nearly enough to fuel a four-legs technique.

We held our chakra like a loaded rifle as we passed through the corridor, and into Hibana's room, and-

There she was.

But there was something a Little. Bit. Off.

It wasn't her movement. It wasn't her smile. It wasn't even her smell.

Well, kind of.

On one hand, I could smell blood.

If she was Sakumo, I would've warned Kakashi already.

But I wouldn't, not yet. After all, there is a certain reason for those of the female gender to have the scent of blood about them, while not having as much as a papercut.

Yes. A period.

Now here's the thing:

Kunoichi are taught, before Kamawari, before Henge, before Bushin, a simple, period-control seal.

I mean, being caught in enemy territory in an infiltration is bad enough. Being caught with a stomach cramp and period blood is even worse.

It's why kunoichi are usually better at sealing. They practice, one seal, every day. It can erase itself, if the kunoichi-in-training doesn't want to waste paper, ink, chakra…

Or want's a baby.

Well, not if a 'Kunoichi-in training … want's a baby', more of a 'Kunoichi wants a baby'.

But still.

Perhaps she wanted a child, her and the child died in childbirth, I inadvertently saved her, any number of things.

But I'm pretty sure that period blood doesn't smell like normal blood.

I wouldn't know, I live with three males and a female, the latter inhibiting her period.

But still. I'm only 'pretty sure', not 'completely sure', so I don't do anything.

I regret it to this very day.


I've spent much more time planning than writing this chapter.

Additionally, my time online is still limited (though I can plan with a pen and paper).

So, if you see any mistakes, please let me know. What are your thought's on the removal of the original Chapter one? If wanted, I'll post a 'side story' with it on. Or, just bring it back.

My main issue is that people are here for Kakashi, not Satoru, at least, to start off with.

See ya next chappie!