Review Reply: Crystal-Wolf-Guardian-967: Thank you :)

On with the story.

Normal POV

Inside the house, watching the happy couple in the garden granny broke out into a laugh. "Oh, she said yes!" Mebuki wiped a tear away and Kizashi pulled her close.

"When one's heart is overfilled with joy, some may spill from the eyes." Kizashi took Mebuki's hand and pulled her close as they looked at one another with love.

"You can say that again!" Exclaimed Chiyo. "I win the pot!" she laughs triumphantly. This startled Kizashi and Mebuki before a smirk crept onto Kizashi's face and he crossed his arms.

"Actually, you bet he would propose before sundown. I bet her would propose before noon." He gave her a knowing look and Mebuki walks up to Kizashi is shock.

"But you don't gamble." She says as she looks confused by this revealation.

"Betting against my mother is not a gamble." He explains as he extends his hand to his mom. "It's an investment." Chiyo glared at her son and dropped the money in his hand.

"Ohhh." Despite losing the bet Chiyo got to work on another plan she had.

Not too far from where the Haruno family spoke another Oh could be heard from a room in the house.

"Oh, what a happy, happy day! My little baby's getting married." Shukaku said as he wiped his eyes and threw his arms open as Sakura was looking in the mirror holding up a red dress in her arms and she whirled around and put a hand over his mouth.

"Shhh!, Shukaku, someone will hear you." She chided him.

"I can't help it. You know dragons are very emotional." He tells her and she gives him a look.

"You're not a dragon right now; you're still a squirrel like creature." She tells him and he waves her off as he picks up his fluffy tail and pulls it close to him.

"Oh it seems like just last month you and I were saving Konoha." He wiped his eyes with his tail and Sakura turned back to him.

"It was last month, a year ago." She tells him as she smiles at the memory of all they went through.

"How time flies! You know baby," he climbed up and on to her shoulder. "This must be a magical moment for you."

"It's not every day I get engaged." Sakura tells him as she rubs his furry head.

"No, I meant telling ME you're engaged." Shukaku said as he pointed at himself and Crikee rolled his eyes at Shukaku.

"After all you know, I'm the guy who gave you and pretty boy the hook up." He drops into her arms and flexes his little arms. "Am I a guardian, or am I a guardian?" he wiggles his brow at her earning a giggle before she pulled him in for a hug.

"Oh, you're more than that, Shukaku." She looks at him with fondness. "You're my most trusted friend."

"Oh, that did it!" Shukaku cries and sniffles all teary eyed.

"Are you crying again?" Sakura asks and holds him at arm's length to examine him.

"No, I just got some exfoliating cream in my eye." He says as he rubs his eye. "Of course I'm crying, girl! What you think?!" he exclaims as he whips his tail at her before jumping up to hug her. "Oh, Sakura, I'm just so happy for me." This earned a laugh.

"You?" as she giggled at opened her eyes to look at him he was gone. "Uh . . . hmm?"

"This wedding business is a big status boost for me." Shukaku gushes, alerting Sakura where he had vanished too so she looked up at him as he rested atop her head. "When those ancestors look up the career ladder, all they're gonna see is my behind."

"So glad my getting married is helping you out, Shukaku." She says with sarcasm.

"All right, I get you Ms. Missy. But you know I'm thinking about you, too." Shukaku says and an idea sparks in his eyes. "In fact, I'm gonna plan your wedding." He grew genuinely excited at the idea. "First I gotta work me up a theme. You know, theme is everything."

He jumped onto the mirror and paced the top of it in thought before looking at her with a raised brow. "How about "Rainbow of Memories"? Huh?" This earned a funny look from her. "No, that's too "Junior Prom."" Sakura laughs.

"What is Junior Prom." She asks and he makes a face.

"Forget it, girl. I've got it! The theme is "Think Pink."" Sakura looks in the mirror at her hair and smiles at him letting him have his fun. "You know, pink is the new red, girl. It's simple, it says it. Now watch my smoke." Sakura broke into giggles.

"Crikee, to the fabric store!" and they both disappeared from her room.

"Sakura?" Sasuke calls as he pokes his head in her room with a troubled, humored, and annoyed look on his face. "It seems your grandma invited someone to help us celebrate the engagement." He makes a face and she follows in suit.

"Really? Who?" She walks up to him and he leads her out to the front door.

"Konoha."

"CONGRTULATIONS!" the crowd cheers and waves at them both.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Granny Chiyo asks as she has a few other helping her carry trays of food and beverages. "Sorry it's sort of slapdash." She says. "It took us by surprise you know." She lies and they laugh at each other knowing better.

"Make way for the happy couple." She announces and everyone gives them a bow.

"Now, this is a battlefield." He mumbles loud enough for her to hear but quiet enough the others couldn't.

"What's our strategy, General?" She asks coyly and he hears the challenge in her words.

"Divide and conquer." He tells her and the smallest smile hints on his lips as she giggles.


Off in the shrine Shukaku wakes the spirits in need of help.

"All right, all right, allright, wakey, wakey, dead people. We've got work to do so let's move with purpose." The ancestors awake and groan at Shukaku for waking them.

"I've got and important announcement to make." He stands atop his pedestal looking down at them. "Hold on to your ectoplasm, now. Sakura's getting married!" His announcement sends them into bursts of cheering and congratulating.

"All right, all right, all right, simmer down." He commands. "I know just how you feel. Time is a-wasting so let's move, move, move!" in his excitement he didn't see the looks on the ancestors face's as they came up to him.

"The theme is pink! I want to see pink flowers, pink ribbons, pink bows." he tells them as he tosses each sample at them. "I don't mean salmon. Don't show me no blush. I mean pink as a freshly slapped newborn's behind." He pats his fluffy bottom for emphases.

"How about a pink slip?" The old woman with acupuncture needles in her hair asks him and Shukaku's little ears drooped.

"Excuse me? Don't nobody want to see your drawers, Prunehilda." He insults her and she gasps at his response.

"Actually," Ryuusuke's bellowing voice came. "She meant this." And hands Shukaku a small light pink scroll. Shukaku pulls on some glasses and reads the roll before him.

"Hey this look like a for-real pink slip." He looks at Ryuusuke. "You know like a "You're fired" pink slip."

"Oh, it is." An ancestor chimes with a chuckle.

"Say what?" Shukaku asks in shock.

One of the ancestor's pokes his back side with a pitch fork. "The pink slip is for you." He pokes him and Shukaku yelps as he turns back to the pink slip Ryuusuke held up.

"It is written, once a woman marries, her husband's ancestors take over the duty of guardianship." He laughs a deep joyous laugh.

"No, no, no" Shukaku says as he reads over the scroll in denial. "Y-your scroll must have a-a typo. That – That can't be."

Another boisterous ancestor comes up to him. "Oh, but it is. You're out of a job." Another shoves the first away.

"Out of a pedestal." The pitch fork wielder pushes her aside.

"And out of our hair, FOOL!" They begin to rip him from his pedestal.

"OH, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, I AIN'T GOING OUT LIKE THIS." Shukaku yells as his claw drag across the wood. "It took me 500 years to get this pedestal back, and I ain't about to give it up."

"Hear me, you lazy lounge rodent. The moment Haruno Sakura is married, you've got your old job back." Shukaku gulped at those words. "Remember gong duty? Perhaps this will ring a bell." Ryuusuke whirled him in a circle and threw him at the gong held up by another ancestor.

As he hit and the ancestor drops it they all howl in laughter. Shukaku pulls himself off the gong and gets hit in the head with the pink slip as the ancestors' celebrate inside chanting 'Shukaku's on his way out!'.

Shukaku looks at the slip as his tail curls around him. "What am I gonna do?" his sadness evident in his eyes, posture, and tone.


"So tell me will it be a big wedding?" a woman asks Sakura who was about to eat a sweet granny had made.

"Absolutely." She says.

"Oh, no, absolutely not." Sasuke says to the woman who asked him the same question.

The observant eyes of the Haruno's witnessed this and they looked at each other in shock.

"Children?" another question came.

"As many as possible." Sasuke states in hopes they wouldn't ask anymore.

"Oh, maybe one or two." Sakura says as she picks up one of the village children.

More answers came in the same pattern.

"We'll have to think about it."

"Right away."

"Blue."

"Pink."

"Mild."

"Sweet."

"Yes."

"No."

"Oh, dear, did you hear that?" Mebuki asks Kizashi after hearing their daughter and future son-in-law's responses.

"Not exactly a harmonious couple, are they?" he responds.

"What should we do?" her concern palpable.

"Perhaps we should give our gift to the children now." Kizashi suggests when the gate of their home burst open and a solider rode in and up to Sakura and Sasuke.

"General Uchiha, Haruno Sakura, orders from his majesty, the Hokage." He hands them both scroll which they accept.

"Is there trouble?" Sasuke questions.

"Yes, sir. Report to the imperial palace." The solider says.

The couple looks to one another and smile.

"We'll leave at once."

In no time they excuse themselves and prepare to leave.


Sakura, now change, joins her fiancé in saddling their horses.

"This must be pretty important for the Hokage to want both of us." Sasuke tells her as she feeds Khan.

"He knows a winning team when he sees one." She tells him with a smile.

"Since when are they the winning team?" Shukaku scoffs. "The ink ain't even dry on my pink slip, and I'm being replaced."

"Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp!" Chrikee squeaks at him.

"Yeah, I know. You're right." Shukaku's shoulders and tail drop. "How could I have been so selfish? Look at them." He gestures below as in their private moment Sasuke took her hands and smiled at her.

"Those two clearly got it going on. Crikee, I've made a decision." He sounded determined. "I've gotta kiss my pedestal goodbye, 'cause my girl's happiness comes first."

They both nod in agreement yet the sound of approaching steps drew their attention down where Mr. and Mrs. Haruno enter the stables.

"Papa, Mama." Sakura calls and her father speaks first.

"We were just admiring the Cherry Blossom tree." He gestures to it.

"It's so lovely this year." Sakura tells them as he admires it from there.

"The blossoms reach the sunlight above," he accepts the blossom in Mebuki's hand and approaches. "Yet, unseen, the roots reach for the rainwater below." He places it in Sakura's hair and smiles at his beloved daughter.

"Sun and rain – so different, yet only by working together do they create harmony and life."

"I know, Papa – The lesson of Yin and Yang." Sakura says recalling the few times she heard it before now.

"And to help you remember that lesson," Mebuki and Kizashi removed two necklaces they were wearing and Kizashi held them up for the other two to see as he put them together.

"Father, Mother, your necklaces." Sakura was in awe.

"Not ours – our great-great-grandparents." Mebuki explains.

"And now . . ." he places the white one on Sakura. "Yours." Then the black on Sasuke.

"Thank you, sir." Sasuke meant those words as he accepted it.

"Oh, they're so beautiful." Sakura says allowed as she admires it.

"But, you'll be surprised how heavily they can weigh." He explains. "To share the burden you must work together," he tells them.

"Like the sun." Sakura looks at Sasuke with another smile.

"And the Rain." Sasuke turns and looks back at her as he takes it all in.

"Wait a minute." Shukaku whispers from above. "Old man Kizashi got a point, now." And the mischievous squirrel turns to the cricket. "Sakura and Sasuke are as different as sun and rain."

Below the coupled waved off Mr. and Mrs. Haruno as they left.

"And when the infatuation wears off, their tree of life's gonna wind up with root rot." He says and Crikee chirps at him frustrated that he was about to go back on his word.

"Oh, yeah, sure she seems happy. That's the real tragedy here! The girl don't even realize how miserable she is." He gestures and Crikee pulls on his antennas furious.

"That's why I gotta nip this thing in the bud." He plays with his whiskers and looks at Crikee who was now chirping angrily at him. "This is not about my pedestal. This is about Sakura making the biggest mistake of MY, uh, I mean, HER life." Shukaku paced ignoring Crikee's obvious squeaks of protest.

"Ma, how could I have been so selfish? Sakura is a girl worth fighting for." He grins mischievously. "And, after all, I am the girl's guardian." He turns to his companion who was quiet finally. "Crikee, I'm gonna break them up!" In pure anger Crikee screams and falls back in disbelief that anyone could be so selfish.

"Ooh, so I guess that means you're on board." A smile taking up his whole fuzzy face.

A.N.: Off to meet the Hokage and find out what it is he could need from the dynamic duo. Leave a review if you want :) Have a good morning, noon, evening, and night my lovely goblins and ghouls.