Déjà vu no Jutsu

by Vixen Tail

Take one dead, thirty year old career soldier, stick in the body of a child during the Second Great Shinobi War. Add a mini-Namikaze Minato, ninjas, chakra, tailed beasts, and shake well. Is it any wonder she thought she was insane? Second/Third Great Ninja War era SI AU.

4. Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation

Disclaimer : Why do I still have this part? I don't even own my own bed, why would you think I own Naruto?

Rating : T at least for bad language and some violence at the moment. Will be starting to climb in violent content and various types of naughtiness from here on out, so watch for the M rating popping up.

Author's Note : So this part is covering one year of the time between the Second and Third Great Shinobi Wars now that my SI, who really isn't an SI but an OC cause kami-sama knows she's better (or worse) than me, is on her way to being a great kunoichi assassin if not even a remotely sane individual. There is an ass load of history, facts of life in a ninja village, some speculation on cannon events that may or may not be true, and psychology knowledge covered by this, but we're setting up the mind sets and situations and getting that shit out of the way for the epic-ness that is the main part of this story to happen the part after next. Supposedly. Don't worry, Natsumi's still cracking perverted jokes at other peoples' expenses and giggling hysterically over their reactions at the same time as meddling in the cannon part of the previous storyline to knock it even further off track. For those of you who want to know about Sakumo's eventual fate… it's in the next one. I think. Which might be delayed in posting because I'm moving again, and I won't know where and when exactly until a week from now. Joy.

---

Part Four: Of Kenjutsu and Adaptation

Human nature would hold whoever could kill the other had the right morals to enforce their view above others, end of story. Examples would be the Holy Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the World Wars, ect…

Modern society holds that debate and reasonable arguments will prove a set of morals right above another's… eventually. Subject to change on the whims of popular view when 'new' evidence brought to light.

… I think we may be royally screwed.

---

Her taicho had knocked up his girlfriend when she had been gone from the village and taking the Chūnin Exams.

Hatake Kakashi was a whoops baby.

Natsumi fell to her knees, clutching her aching ribs and trying to breathe between gales of laughter that would not stop. She dimly realized that was exactly why her kenjutsu master had told her to put the bokken down before he told her his news.

Sakumo rolled his eyes at her.

"Yeah, yeah. Gaki. Laugh it up, I see now just how much you care for me." The silver haired shinobi rubbed his face as his apprentice tried to recover from that news being dropped on her. He wasn't really all that annoyed with either the young assassin or the situation, as the Hatake clan did have to be continued sometime, but it was still kind of embarrassing to be forced to admit to your student that you got your girlfriend pregnant and would be juggling a newborn while he taught her in half a year or so.

"Sorry, t-taicho. Reall-ly." The assassin gasped between giggles, peering up at him through watering eyes and unable to do anything with the smirk on her face that gave the lie of her apology away. "Just... I-I would've expected that-t from sensei, not y-you."

The only living member of the Hatake clan, for the moment, groaned in acute pain as he was reminded of his best friend and what he was likely to do with that information. He joined her on the ground as he let his knees give out and landed in a heap on the floor of his family dojo. "He's never going to let me live this down."

The civilian lady Sakumo was seeing was pretty nice, really. Sweet tempered and a girl-next-door kind of beauty, Yamamoto Eri worked in the marketplace near the clan compound district. That was how her old ANBU captain had met her. Natsumi had finally met her face to face not too long ago, after the older looking man had caught her out following them for a laugh. Eri had just laughed herself at the kunoichi after the relation between the two ninja had been cleared up and the reason for the stalking given, handing the misplaced former soldier an apple from the basket she had been holding her groceries in.

Natsumi had flat out ignored Minato's snickering later when she told him why she was bugging him so early that day and what had been up with the fruit.

Eri was awesome.

She was typical of a civilian of Konohagakure too, which is to say a bit more forthright than anyone that lived outside the village gates. Having no qualm in pointing out to the killer that lived down the road from them that they're tracking blood all over the place, would they please clean it up before anyone slipped?

The civilians of Konoha had the right to be that brash, they frequently dealt with people that could set fire to their homes with an exhale and pin a fly to a wall with a sharp piece of metal you wouldn't ever spot on one. They also married shinobi and into ninja clans, though that was rare in the noble clans, and had friends, husbands, and wives that were missing a good number of days out of the year. They ignored it if you entered your apartment or home in the dead of night and when the blood trail lead up to and into your open window; simply putting the keys, which only the civilians ever got around to using, you gave them so they could water your plants and care for your pets under the doormat so you could get it back later when you finally woke up.

A good thing shinobi only trapped the rooms they didn't normally keep weapons on them in unless they were beyond paranoid, just the bathroom and the bedroom were generally lethal if you tried to waltz straight into one.

The civilians of Konohagakure no Sato were treated better than the civilians in any of the other great shinobi nations, and they knew it.

An entire faction of one of the founding noble shinobi clans of the Leaf was tasked with keeping them safe from both outside threats and the ninja that walked the streets with them, so that fact of life was hard to deny. A lot better than Kumo, from what little she saw of it that one time her ANBU squad had a target in the hidden village itself.

It was also kind of hard not to get confidant when you knew the shinobi you were talking to in the first place. He would be that boy from the family across the street that used to play with you or your own children, or that girl who would always greet you nicely when on her way to the academy.

There also were the legions of D-rank missions that were done every day for them.

It was common for civilians to take a small amount of money and an issue they had or a request to the Genin Corps, which dealt with all D-ranked missions within the village if the missions were not needed by the jōnin sensei currently teaching new teams of jōnin candidates.

The Genin Corps, made up of all the ninjas who would probably never see combat missions or anything outside of Fire Country's boarders and had next to no jutsus above D to use themselves, were really what the civilians were used to dealing with. They made up about forty to sixty percent of the shinobi ranks of Konohagakure at any given time, ninjas that weren't expected to stay in the corps for any more than five to ten years before retiring to raise the next generation.

They were the messenger ninja you saw darting from roof to roof, the ones that cleared up the training fields so any stray weapons, traps, or sealing tags wouldn't kill someone, and the ones that continued to complete the D-ranks so the next group of jōnin candidate genin could take them when it was their turn.

D-rank missions were also the bane of all jōnin-sensei, because of the mind numbing, boring, and tedious work of keeping three preteen genin on task and not goofing off when given a mission to weed a garden or fetch some elder's groceries for them.

Those were the missions used to get new ninjas used to reaching for their chakra to ease more strength out of muscles or speed to their feet, to give them skills they might need on later missions to support themselves when undercover, to build teamwork when one genin was better at something than another. Those missions also ensured that the civilians wouldn't shy away from these new assassins and killers that could destroy a good portion of the village on a whim, since civilians had known said murderers when they had been young enough not to have all that blood on their hands.

Bingo books weren't just for shinobi, after all. Civilians had to know who to avoid the hell out of when outside the walls too… and whose name they could try to use to scare off bandits.

It was social behavioral control at its finest. The civilians that saw you grow up and you spoke to everyday expected you to act like a proper human being regardless of what you did outside the walls, so the shinobi tried to act like proper human beings when inside the great wall that shielded the village. There always would be those few that couldn't, Maito Gai was one name that came to her mind, but it would usually be excused because they came off to civilians like any batty eccentric would.

Nutty but still nice, at least to their comrades in arms and inside the village.

Natsumi breathed deeply a few times, trying to get that sore feeling of laughing too hard out of her ribs. Since they were cracked anyways from their last training session, she probably shouldn't have let herself laugh so much. Tsunade was going to throw a fit at her the next time she saw the Slug Princess. "Propose? There really isn't much else I can think of."

"I guessed that myself, thanks."

"You'll be a great father, taicho. I'll help you and Eri-san out too." The assassin sat up and patted the man on the knee. "So long as you don't try to emulate sensei anymore, I think your kid's going to turn out fine."

"Hey!" Sakumo glared at the cheerful ghost eyed ANBU agent, finally huffing and gesturing for her to get up. "If you're done having a laugh at my expense, let's get to work."

Natsumi grinned at him and darted to where she had set down her bokken.

\V/

"Why do you always grab me to shop with?"

"Cause you hate it just as much as I do. I'm sharing the misery, Shikaku-kun." Natsumi winked back at him, smirking at the flat look the Nara heir was aiming at the back of her head. "Besides, you're a better judge of quality, and this way your kaa-san stops asking you to do chores for her so we don't have to listen to you gripe about it later."

The shadow master slouched even further, and the assassin was sure he would be glowering if he cared any less for what they were doing. "Why not just do as Fugaku-san does? Send a gift of whatever throwing weapons a person favors."

She rolled her mismatched eyes as she tugged him down another street. "Because Fugaku-sama has no imagination. It's Minato-kun's birthday, not the anniversary of his last promotion."

Shikaku finally cracked a lazy smirk. "Insulting and helpful, I like it."

"Of course you do. Two birds, meet one stone." Natsumi sniffed haughty as she stopped to check a window display. "I'm highly tempted to let Mikoto-chan borrow my bladed hair sticks for her wedding just so she can stab him when he's being too uptight Uchiha on her. Especially if the two of them are going to force the rest of us into attending a formal wedding with some of the biggest snobs in the village."

The dark haired and tanned teen standing next to her as she scoped out store windows cocked his head to the side curiously. "Borrow?" The assassin had stressed that one word strangely, almost in a sing song kind of tone.

"Yeah. You know; something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?"

"Can't say I've ever heard it before." Shikaku frowned, looking off in the distance and probably trying to place that quote in his head.

"Huh, and here I thought that ancient tradition would never die." Natsumi tapped her fingers against the glass she was looking though. "How about that?"

"A well-crafted piece of work." The Nara heir remarked as he peered through to where she was pointing. "Saa, I thought you said gifting weapons had no imagination behind it."

"Standard weapons, no matter the quality, yes. We go through them like water." The assassin opened the door, wrinkling her nose at the tang of hot iron that gusted out of the blacksmithing store. "Unique weapons, though, those tend to be kept carefully stored away or used only when in emergency. Because non-standard weapons in a fight usually means jutsu aided or with some kind of effect you have to be insanely careful around."

Standard weapons were also issued per month, out of the replacement funds the village took out of every ninja's pay. It kept the traffic down in the blacksmith shops for others that would need the services of a blacksmith, otherwise there would eventually be one hell of a waiting list to get kunai, senbon, or shuriken in large enough quantity to not care if you lost two or three every time you sparred with another or lost entire braces of them on mission.

Every time you or your team brought in an enemy shinobi or nuke-nin you also got a bonus per pound of steel they had on them, because that ninja's weapons were sent to specific shops to be melted down and reused in the Konoha standard molds. There also was a standing D-rank mission posted every week to collect lost weapons in the training fields, and Natsumi could recall Jiraiya getting that one for the team more than once.

Besides, those were some very familiar three pronged kunai.

"Kushina-chan would be proud. Pranking enemy ninjas."

Natsumi threw him a smirk over her shoulder. "What can I say? I'm multitalented. Think I should get him some new brushes, or would that be infringing Kushina-hime's prerogatives?"

Hey, maybe her kouhai would get a hint for his hiraishin sooner.

"She's getting him some better quality ink and more blank scrolls." Shikaku gave her an unamused look as he followed her into the store. "And yes, I know you all are really using me to keep track of who's getting who what. I demand a bribe if I'm going to keep doing this."

"We could also sit there and poke you with a stick when you try to take a nap."

"…you're mean, Natsumi-chan."

\V/

Sometimes, Natsumi really hated the mission office ninjas.

The only way out of the Genin Corps without picking up some major skills in a specialization and finding a sensei to teach you more was a promotion, and only about a third of the ninja that were sent to the Corps ever made chūnin.

The Chūnin Corps were the shinobi version of nine-to-five workers of Konoha. They ran the sensitive information to one ninja or another; filing away Intelligence and jutsu knowledge in respective libraries; looked over the missions contracted to the village and tasked other shinobi to complete them; processed the unholy legion of paperwork that grew every day; filled in the ranks between the jōnin candidates that hit the same rank as them; and eventually retired and did the same thing as a civilian except for the whole 'prior shinobi experience' and filling in the battle ready ranks of ninjas available.

The newer Chūnin Corps members were pretty nice, excited by the rank most had thought they would never see.

The older ones that were or nearly were retired were assholes.

It was almost like they knew when a ninja of the jōnin-track had plans and conspired to make them or someone else you wanted there miss whatever was going on. Like how she was going to end up missing her kouhai's birthday if this took as long as they said it would.

She pinned the poor messenger-nin with a glare over the top of the scroll. "This couldn't wait two days?"

The career genin rapidly paled. He might be older than her by at least two years or so and taller, but she was a rank above him that he wasn't imagining he'd see. "Sorry, ma'am."

Natsumi blinked, not expecting his answer to the question because it had been mostly rhetorical and slightly hostile. She had though he would run after giving her the missive, Minato and Inoichi had repeatedly claimed she wasn't pleasant in the morning when woken up before she wanted to be.

"Whatever, scram." She blearily checked the just rising sun for a moment and then slammed her apartment door in his face.

Swiftly yanking off the worn shirt she had stolen from Inoichi when they were still genin and his laundry had ended up in her pack for whatever reason, she started to make a list of what she had less than two hours to do it all in as she started the shower.

Time for shinobi was a strange thing. Only Intelligence, R&D, and medical specializing ninja actually used timestamps; for patrols around Konoha, shift changes, experimentation notes, and patient medication records.

That was it.

The rest of the shinobi world used the sky. You had until high noon for a spar, get to this location before sunset on that day ended, the target needs to die before the moon rose, be home before the sun rose again.

The only reason that was the way it was, was because the tick of any clock would betray a shinobi's presence to those with sharp enough ears since there were ninjas around that could pinpoint an enemy by their breathing. That on-mission sensitivity was hard to come down from and also made it hard for most shinobi to deal with the incessant tick of clockwork near them, so they never usually used them when off-duty or at home either unless they were genin or they lived with civilians. Some shinobi got good enough to judge the hour by how high or low the sun was, and some even got to half hour increments, or by their scarily accurate body clocks.

Those skills usually only developed around the time a lifelong ninja got around the sannin's age of mid twenty, and by then you'd never remember to put that in your report.

The digital timepieces of her last life wouldn't have been a problem, but nothing around her said any kind of technological development was heading in that direction anytime soon.

It was probably how Kakashi got away with being chronically late after the Yondaime's death. The memorial stone was in a forested part of Training Grounds Three, and anyone asking him to be somewhere when the sun rose wouldn't have a good way to argue when the sun actually rose with the forever tardy Hatake without sounding like an insensitive dick over the Fourth's death.

If the worst happened, she was going to lobby for a clock to be put in the memorial stone.

Natsumi sighed heavily and assembled a quick mission pack after wrapping herself in a towel, taking the pre-packed rations she had stored in her fridge and throwing that into the backpack she always had ready for a trip outside the village. It held a few changes of clothes, her sleeping roll sealed courtesy of Kushina, replacement weapons if needed, and the other odds and ends she had found useful in other missions in ANBU already, it was only in need of perishable supplies and her ANBU kit, because that was in a sealing scroll sealed into her closet door since ANBU technically didn't exist.

The whole business of being sent a missive by messenger nin about a mission was a little worrying to her, because she wasn't on a cell and notices from the mission office were not given to her but to Sakumo if she was requested for her shinobi specialties or as a kunoichi to run a mission.

After genin rank of the jōnin-track, you were sorted into one of two categories for chūnin.

Either you were assigned a general use cell with a leading tokubetsu or full jōnin, or unassigned for further training. Natsumi, Minato, Kushina, Fugaku, and Hiashi were all unassigned chūnin. She and her kouhai for their apprenticeships for kenjutsu and fūinjutsu respectively, the only Uzumaki in the village because of the nine-tails, the Hyūga clan head because he was a clan head, and the Uchiha heir because of his work with the Military Police. Then there were the cells, of which only Chouza, Shikaku, and Inoichi were on the same one while Mikoto and Hizashi were on separate teams.

Missions were also taken in one of two ways when you were a chūnin. Either your team leader decided the cell you were assigned needed a new mission or the mission office needed you to take such and such mission with shinobi A and B and or C because you all had the specialty mix to complete it as requested, but those last ones were funneled through unassigned ninja's masters if available or the leader of your cell for scheduling around training and injuries.

It was also the only way a chūnin of the Chūnin Corps could get another promotion, to impress a jōnin that led the mission and get a recommendation for a partial rank advancement.

A shinobi wouldn't be able to pick a few of their own missions until B-rank, or tokubetsu jōnin. That rank was when permanent pre-structured cell formations were normally dissolved, unless you were tasked with a team of chūnin to lead for the experience, and either new teams were made up specifically for a mission or you and how many other ninjas picked up a mission out of the mission office's list of available jobs that needed completion.

A-rank shinobi, full jōnin, were a league all of their own and were allowed to pick and choose their own missions that called for their specialties, both for themselves and whatever team they were asked to lead, unless requested by name by a client.

ANBU was another matter entirely, but they had their own mission office and the missive didn't have that black stamp on the bottom for a needed assassination mission.

Why the hell had an unassigned kunoichi with an available master to handle mission requests just been summoned to the mission office when the sun hit the base of the Hokage Monument?

(ooo000ooo)

As the first one there, the ANBU assassin checked around the meeting place and picked a spot so she could see who she was going on this mission with.

She hadn't yet had the opportunity to take a mission with other chūnin she didn't know, as Sakumo would only be letting her do the D to C-ranked assassinations needed by ANBU if they came up for the time being. Perched in a branch as she was, Natsumi was only mildly surprised when the male Aburame chūnin nodded to her when his bugs pinpointed her in the tree.

Never having the same problem other kunoichis she grew up with, as long as they had less than eight legs she was fine with the insects, the assassin leapt out of her perch and landed lightly next to him. "Know who else we're waiting on?"

"I do not know who all was assigned to the mission. Why? I was not the one picked to lead on this mission."

The ghost eyed kunoichi straightened up with a nod to show she understood. "I was, though I was told you've run missions with our last member. Mesuji Natsumi, nice to meet you."

The bug user considered her a moment behind thick, dark glasses. "…Aburame Shibi."

Oh. "The heir to your clan?"

A nod was her only answer. Having dealt with both Hyūga twins and Uchihas when they were not feeling very talkative, Natsumi just nodded back and kept quiet.

The crashing sounds of someone running through the underbrush started coming their way, and the assassin had to wonder if whoever that was making Shibi subtly cringe was the last member of their temporary team.

An Inuzuka… if the wild hair, red triangles on the cheeks, and the large dog following her were any clue. "Well, at least I ain't gonna have to wait on your asses. Let's go. Tsume the name, girl."

Wait… ah, fuck.

Didn't Shibi and Tsume dislike each other until the bug user saved either the dog or the other teenager from death?

Natsumi just knew this mission was going to give her a headache, and maybe some more cracked ribs.

Damn it, her last set had just healed up under Tsunade's hands three days ago.

\V/

"It's not my fault sempai is out of the village." Minato gave Fugaku the look he considered that comment to deserve. "She had a mission. I'm just the one telling you."

"Lay off, Fugaku-san." Kushina aimed her brush at the Uchiha heir's head, warning him that she had no problem getting ink all over his face if he didn't stop. "Some of us only have so long free, so stop complaining if someone who is on mission anyways isn't here."

Fugaku huffed at them. "Our research will not be able to continue without Natsumi-san."

"Then complain to the mission office." Hizashi offered levelly, ignoring the glare aimed his way from the older teen. "But we should return to the main reason we are here before nii-sama needs me to leave and return to the clan compound."

"Yep! Minato-kun's birthday!" The redhead abandoned her work and stole one of Natsumi's favorite way of flustering one of the males, all but laying down on the flushing blond's lap. "Aren't you excited?"

"I don't need a birthday party, Kushina-chan." Her fellow fūinjutsu user claimed, warily eyeing the teen encroaching into his personal space. Natsumi did it to him enough, he didn't need Kushina picking up that habit too.

Chouza froze with one hand in his bag of chips. "Why not?"

"But it has been a while since all of us had the time to meet up at the same place, other than the now monthly meetings we have at Biwako-sama's or Tsunade-sama's compounds." Mikoto countered quickly before the orphan could give a reason they would have to respect, smirking at his annoyed look. "If Natsumi-chan can make it back, it would be even better."

"Besides, remember how pissed she was when we let you claim that last year and she found out?" All but laughing at his fellow blond's predicament, Inoichi turned his grin at the rest of them. "Minato was all but pouting the whole week she wouldn't talk to him."

Minato finally turned fully red, glaring at the mind walker. "She wasn't all that happy with you, either. And I can distinctly recall some cringing on your end."

"So the moral of the story is we're having a party whether you like it or not." Shikaku interrupted before the sniping could get worse. "Natsumi-chan gave me her presents for you before she skipped out for her mission, and I don't feel like annoying her the way you two idiots did. She's bad enough when she's cheerful."

Both blonds blinked at the Nara heir, and Minato started frowning. "Wait. If you knew sempai wasn't here, why did you let me tell Fugaku-san when you got here first?"

"Cause I don't feel like being glared at either. Still don't, so stop it."

\V/

This was… hmm, awkward.

The main part of their mission was done and it had only been a day since they set out, but… her two fellow shinobi were still setting the other off.

Natsumi looked between the Inuzuka teen and the Aburame, wondering what kami she had pissed off lately. Shibi, being a naturally quiet kind of guy as well as a seemingly impassive shinobi, was rubbing Tsume's, a very loud kunoichi with less than tolerant patience for standing on ceremony and for what she saw as useless, fur the wrong way by simply staring at her.

At least the assassin was kinda sort of sure he was staring. The sunglasses made it hard to tell.

They also really did know each other for a long while now, if the way Tsume was barking at him was any measure.

There was this pounding sensation throbbing behind her left eye, and Natsumi was starting to get fed up with all of this. Maybe she had been a little spoiled by going ANBU straight out of the academy and by being snatched by the Toad Sage as soon as the war ended, but she hadn't had to deal with two opposite personalities clashing while on mission before. There was no personality in ANBU, they sometimes didn't really even seem like humans behind the painted masks, and she already got along well with her own kouhai and his fellow blond.

"Look, I think we all know there's some kind of unresolved sexual tension going on between the two of you. But stow it, we're on mission right now."

Tsume's jaw hung open for a moment, mid-insult.

After a small start of shock on his end, Shibi turned that blank visage of his to her.

Natsumi glared at the both of them, Kuromaru panting doggy laughter as he sat next to her. "For fucks sake, you're acting worse than academy students. Yes, even you Shibi-san. So now if the two of you are done with the pissing match over who killed what bandit, I've got a birthday party that had better be happening to crash."

That verbal smack to the face done, the assassin grabbed her pack and tantō and leapt up into the trees, hightailing it back the way they came.

Screw the few days of observation, she knew exactly what was wrong.

\V/

"It's not a clan thing of hating another tracker on principle, Hokage-sama. It's a bit of an extreme personality clash."

"Thank you, Natsumi-chan, for going along with this." Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Tell me what you saw."

The assassin hummed and nodded, bouncing a little on her feet as she assembled the information she had in her head. There really hadn't been a way to say no to the order, but it was nice of the Sandaime to say that.

The mission hadn't been her mission but an analysis of how two C-ranked ninjas being considered for promotion got along during their mission.

Anyone being assigned a Yamanaka clan member for a quick mission were usually suspicious of being reviewed for mental health reasons unless said Yamanaka was needed to screw over a target's or witnesses' heads. Inoichi had told the Hokage that sometime during their meetings his wife still hosted for them every month even with Jiraiya out of the village, and suggested her to the older ninja in case of irritable or touchy shinobi who wouldn't ignore any doubts cast on their methods by the presence of one.

The assassin had been the one to give him a number of psychology tips from her past life, and knew how to do field assessments on soldiers already. Natsumi wasn't really sure why the Yamanaka clan heir had done it, but it resulted in her 'emergency' mission two days before her kouhai's birthday when someone got fed up with listening to Tsume try and find Shibi's breaking point.

Damn sneaky blonds. Damn sneaky kage too, for that matter. Using the meetings between younger shinobi as a way to sound out alternative means for troubleshooting the issues between your shinobi.

Tsk, tsk.

"Inuzuka Tsume is brash as most of her clan is, respecting only quality skills and forceful personalities. Aburame Shibi is a naturally quiet shinobi, and like the rest of his clan is either unwilling or uncaring about establishing dominance with someone he knows is a comrade, and ninja enough to like confusing her to hell and back in the meantime. Tsume-san keeps challenging Shibi-san as per her clan's normal habits of placing new people in the pack hierarchy, but he's not responding like she's expecting so she keeps doing it over again when he shows good shinobi traits she likes to see in the village's pack. The only reason she's getting irritated is because they're stuck like that. But since Kuromaru isn't against Shibi-san's presence, I can safely guess Tsume-san is only frustrated at herself for knowing there's a problem but not realizing what it is or how to fix it."

Inuzukas were interesting from a psychology standpoint. You didn't just deal with one Inuzuka, you dealt with an Inuzuka and however many littermates they had.

Each member of the clan, regardless if they turned out to be ninja or not later on, were raised with either a canine companion or companions whelped from one of the parents' ninken and the kennel dogs a few years after their own birth, as few as one and as many as five in a litter. Those dogs were seen as shinobi in their own rights within the clan and sometimes without as well; able to start training to fight alongside their human between the age of four and six as well as use their own chakra to speak to humans once they reached adult size at about ten to fifteen years of age. The ninken of the Inuzuka clan could live up to a grand total anywhere near thirty-five to forty-five years before succumbing to old age, about as long as a ninja could realistically work for before being retired from active duty, and would never be replaced if killed in battle or they died of natural causes.

Inuzukas lived and worked so close to their dogs that they unconsciously adopted traits from their chakra using ninken to the point they seemed even more canine-like, in the pack-like way of viewing everyone, being able to understand the younger dogs unable to speak the human language aloud, and the mentality of defending the pack and obeying alpha. The pack being those living in Konoha and alpha being the clan head or the Hokage. The physical, almost canine traits could either have been selectively bred into them or old marks of the Wolf Summoning Contract still showing in later descendants.

Legend in that clan had it that the dogs they had now were reared from the wolves summoned and kept in this dimension long enough to have a litter of pups. That Contract, if it had ever existed, was missing now, but since the Dog Summoning Contract was held by the Hatake clan and the Inuzukas hadn't raised unholy hell about it, it was possible they did once hold the Wolf Contract.

Aburames were another curious clan.

There was little known publicly about the physical adaptations of those ninjas to the destruction beetles that marked their existence, but their mentality was also pulled from the insects they mainly used. Kikachu were hive minded, like bees and wasps. The queen produced the next generations, the workers kept the queen alive, and the soldiers kept the whole hive safe. Aburames considered Hokage-sama the queen, the civilians the workers, the shinobi corps the soldiers, and Konoha the hive.

Logical and rational thinking was prized to them and most were unconcerned for individual welfare compared to survival of the whole, they were the damn near perfect soldiers if not generally good leader material. Which was why a lot of civilians gave the clan members a wide berth, and even shinobi were careful around the clan.

Natsumi had to wonder if the fellow shinobi Sakumo had saved in lieu of completing his last mission had been an Aburame, as it would account for the initial backlash against her old captain if he went against the wishes of an unusually fanatical clan ninja and failed whatever objective they had in the process. Aburames were another of the noble founding clans of Konoha and they had a decent amount of political heft behind them.

The rise of the Third Great Shinobi War from the botched mission would account for the rest of the pressure that made her taicho take his own life, and he probably had done it only so his son didn't have to deal with most of it. The man was irritating when he got around to fussing about how others saw her small form in ANBU armor now that he could do it to her and not just in his head, and she could only dread how bad he was going to be about Kakashi's wellbeing.

Unlike an Inuzuka's frontal challenge to sort out dominance before working with another, an Aburame would just melt into view to complete a task and then fade away into the background content with their efforts.

Tsume and Shibi didn't really have a problem with each other, one was teasing the other without knowing it in the beginning and continuing to do so since he couldn't find a way out of the loop.

"It'll work out itself, once Tsume-san figures out that Shibi-san's not just going to conform to her expectations and she needs to place him without fighting him over everything to see where he dominates. Shibi-san can't do it because he honestly can't figure out how to do that or get the idea across to her even if he's been trying to. But until then they shouldn't be assigned anything you care about being traced back to Konoha, Hokage-sama."

The older man nodded, gesturing to the scroll she had wrote it all out on. "When you go see Minato-kun, take Inoichi-kun your analysis so it can be filed with his clan. I believe they are still holding your kouhai's birthday party in the Nara clan compound."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

(ooo000ooo)

"Oh, Inoichi-kun!"

"Aa… Natsumi-sempai?"

"Hmm? Is there a problem, kouhai?"

Minato looked a little pale. "Put the tantō down, please."

Inoichi heard that and dove to the floor in the nick of time, warily eyeing the shaft of sharp metal embedded above his head and still humming from the force of the assassin's throw. "Is there a reason you just tried to kill me?"

"Oh please. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." The still irritated teen-woman huffed, eyeing him in return for the ugly look he was giving her ANBU issued tantō. "And that's for the suggestion you gave Hokage-sama. Here, you file the damn report on it."

The scroll beamed the mind walker between the eyes, snapping his head back and knocking him out of his chair.

Shikaku cracked opened one of his eyes, peering over and barely blinking at the sword sprouting from the wall of his home because he was more interested in the abuse she was heaping on her old teammate and his current one. "And now for the rest of us who want to know why you almost killed someone in my kitchen?"

Natsumi gave him a dirty look of his own, stripping off her mission pack and letting it fall to the floor before yanking her short sword out of the living room wall so she could put that away in the scroll Minato had given her for her last birthday and she used for her ANBU kit. "Inoichi-kun gave Sarutobi-sama my name if he needed some ninjas evaluated for how well they work with others, since I'm not a Yamanaka by clan or name but I do work with him on some of his projects and wouldn't be immediately suspected of doing that kind of evaluation right off the bat. That's why I almost missed my kouhai's birthday."

Kushina shoved a plate in front of her face. "Cake?"

Derailed, the assassin blinked at the offering. "If can't kill it, hime, why would I want cake?"

"Chouza-kun's okaa-san made it."

"Mmm… kay." Plate in hand, Natsumi fitted herself in between Shikaku and Hizashi and across from Minato, Inoichi, and Chouza.

Mikoto snickered at her, and all the ANBU did in return was a rude gesture since her mouth was full. Hey, Akimichi cooking was really good.

"At least it had to be important, right?" Inoichi accepted the Akimichi heir's offer of a hand up, rubbing the mark on his forehead as he reclaimed his seat and took the scroll back from Fugaku. "If they called you out with so little time to prepare?"

"It was a pissing match between an Inuzuka and an Aburame going around in left hand circles. All they need to do is get over themselves and screw each other. Problem solved."

Natsumi decided the various spit takes were the second best part of her day so far, next to making it back in time for her kouhai's birthday. Hiashi really did have a great pair of lungs on him given how far that milk went.

Wait… who had been Hana's father?

\V/

Mesuji Natsumi was an odd woman trapped in a teen's body.

Kushina had known that she was since her home country was destroyed, when the mismatched eyed girl had silently sat by her and let her grieve for her missing home on her shoulder. She hadn't know just how odd until she was rescued from being kidnapped by Kumo nins and been fully informed as to what was behind those ghost eyes of the girl's had been another strange turn.

It hadn't been until Mito-baa-sama died that Kushina began to appreciate just how lonely the other kunoichi had to have been before, Natsumi had eight years to grieve about people and places long dust before Minato pulled her out of it and she started to claw her way out of that depression. Admittedly when the older Uzumaki had died the redhead hadn't been in the best state to understand that thought, and gave the assassin a few sharp words about loss.

Then Natsumi told her what she had lost compared to the lone Uzumaki, and Kushina felt some kinship with her after the horrible embarrassment of grating open the other girl-woman's hidden scars about her old life.

There were times when the assassin was more there than here, the commanding, war hardened soldier that had come before rather than the quirky, mischievous kunoichi she was now. You could tell when Natsumi just stopped, going silent, serious, poised, and her eyes grew colder than how they looked framed by a bone white and black streaked mask.

Those incidents were getting farther and farther between, and Inoichi told them it was perfectly normal, kind of like how Kushina would never get over losing Uzugakure but would finally adapt to that loss, but it was still creepy to see happen to someone you half expected to tell you to get laid so they didn't have to deal with your grouchy attitude anymore.

Talking to her when she was like this was another thing entirely. Only Minato had complete success at it, Inoichi and Shikaku had some successes of their own… but she would also respond to Kushina as much as the boy-turned-teenager that saved her from her own mind.

When no one could find her within the village, either she or Minato were sent up to the Hokage's Monument to fetch her.

"Natsumi-chan?"

"You don't have to keep coming out here if you don't want to, hime."

"Aa… I have a question." The icy cold eyes turned to her, warming only a little when she didn't flinch back. "Do you know…?" The redheaded teen placed her hand over her stomach.

"Honorable Mito-sama was the last one, its common knowledge in ANBU if you have the rank for it. You were taught exclusively by her. Yes, Kushina-hime. I put it together." The assassin sat down over the edge of the cliff, gesturing her to sit as well. "Why ask?"

Kushina sat next to Natsumi, carefully thinking of how she wanted to address her concerns. She had suspected the misplaced soldier had known, and the confirmation was just setting her more on edge. "Do you think any of the others will catch on?"

"Unless they join ANBU as well, I highly doubt it. Most of Konoha think he was sealed into something else, like how Suna has the one-tail contained in a teapot. Saa, a few of our little group of friends will be told, of course. I'm mostly sure someone's told Hiashi-san and Fugaku-sama already." The red head lost all the color in her face, and the ANBU turned to her and placed her hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Do they treat you any differently than me? I highly doubt they care beyond being thankful someone's keeping track of his royal furriness."

Shock at the slight against the nine-tails made the Uzumaki snort a laugh out even if she was scared half to death from the subject matter. "I'll have to remember that one."

The assassin hummed, dropping her hand and turning back to the view of the village from the Hokage's Monument. "You want to know if you should tell the others yourself?"

"Well… yeah, you know."

"From a security standpoint, no. The more people who know the more likely it will get out." Before Kushina could stammer out a thanks and scramble to leave, Natsumi continued. "From a psychology one? Yeah I think you should. There was this little pithy saying once upon a time, a burden shared is a burden halved. Stupid sounding, but it got me out of one hell of a rut back in the academy."

The jinchūriki absorbed that as the teen-woman next to her came to life a bit, swinging her feet. "I know it's a bit rude to ask, but was there anything like me back then?"

"Nukes, maybe. But that was more instant obliteration in a large area than a force of chakra made real through someone else's will that could stomp Konoha flat in a few minutes."

Not having expected a readied answer for her question, Kushina looked directly at Natsumi. "Where they ever used?"

"Yep." The smile the assassin wore was lopsided and grim. "Twice as far as I knew, and another whole war was fought over who could possibly maybe kill who first with them."

"D-do you think I'll be used like that-t?"

Yes, but Natsumi didn't think that would go over well with the unsettled Uzumaki teen right at that moment. The assassin sighed and tugged at her loose and long hair, something she had never gotten around to cutting before it became a sort of signal her body recognized to mean off-duty and relaxation time. There had to be a way to get Kushina willing to use Kurama's hate in defense of the village sometime soon, because it had happened before.

"You have to understand, Kushina-hime, the village is only about forty or so years old right now and what I can recall had been in place and squabbling for centuries. I know it doesn't seem like it because we were raised here, but Sandaime-sama is actually older than Konoha is as a village. If I recall our history lessons right he was around five to ten-ish when the first buildings were built, and our village was the first one founded as a permanent shinobi stronghold for several ninja clans. Our world right now is trying to figure out how this method of dividing and hording power is working for or against them, and we're nowhere near close to figuring that out. My last life had some defined lines where world powers were concerned, and even that wasn't conflict free. I can estimate another war on the horizon before any kind of uneasy peace breaks out for however long, and even that will be continually tested because no one likes being second or even third best."

I can guess because I already know it's going to happen, I just can't tell you that yet.

The jinchūriki stared hard at her. "Why not? Konoha has come out on top in the last two wars. Wouldn't the other Hidden Villages respect that?"

"But we lost a Hokage per war. This last war only proved that they were right to found Konoha for the next generations, the sannin beat that into everyone's heads to the point that no one argued. When this next was comes to be if we can keep up the reputation the Densetsu no Sannin started and hold onto Sandaime-sama to prove the method will hold true for later generations and we can make it a decisive victory without losing a major pillar of Konoha, then some kind of respect will be offered anything with the Leaf symbol on it and the mass majority of the fighting will have been done and over with."

It's what Namikaze Minato had done almost on his own merit, becoming the Yellow Flash and hammering Iwa almost into bloody dust by himself. It was what Uzumaki Kushina helped to do becoming the Red-Hot Bloody Habanero, a mix of Kurama's rage and her own protective nature for those closest to her aimed at ripping apart Konoha's enemies. It was why the Shika-Ino-Chou team-up became famous enough that the next generation was sorted that way from the very start. They had done that to show the rest of the shinobi world that Konohagakure was not a village to mess with unless they wanted to lose badly.

It was why Konoha was targeted first by Uchiha Madara even if the nine-tails was the last bijuu he needed for the Moon-Eye Plan; to test the method of extraction, bring down the best of the villages, as well as take revenge for honorable Hashirama-sama kicking him out. Even if had meant he would lose sight of the nine-tailed fox while he gathered the rest of the nine bijuu.

It also made the division of power unstable, taking out two of the key fighters of the Third War and new kage of Konohagakure, making the other villages think they could grab that title of the Strongest Hidden Village of the Five Great Shinobi Nations if they only struck hard enough to make a fracture someone could take advantage of.

Kumo tried for it once, snatching the Hyūga heiress under the guise of a non-aggression treaty. Then Hiashi had beaten the shit out of the kidnappers before killing the abductors of his daughter and Sandaime-sama had to offer him up to keep the conflicts of the Third Great War from rising again, but it proved that Konoha might have been weakened but not down by a long shot when Hizashi took his twin's place and war didn't break out again.

"If there was an opportunity to ensure any children you or I may have would never see any kind of war until their own twenties, what would you do to see it happen?"

"Oh… I would do a lot."

The two of them sat there, each contemplating exactly what they would do for that prospect becoming reality. Natsumi finally nudged the jinchūriki, curious as to why she had been sought out. "What's up, anyways? It's my day off from training."

"Sakumo-sama is pissed at you for telling Tsunade-sama about his girlfriend. She demanded to be the medic consulted for the pregnancy and whacked him a good one for not telling her himself."

"Aa… I think I'm going to stay up here for now. Tell Minato-kun to fetch me when taicho gets over it."

Well, Natsumi never did find out what happened to Kakashi's mom. Better safe than sorry, and Eri was a nice lady.

\V/

She was going to kill Inoichi.

Not happy had been how she felt when her last 'emergency' mission rose up, and 'pissed' was starting to describe how she felt now with a long term mission about the same subject matter staring her in the face.

However… the Hokage ordered her to do it, so she'd do it.

Kami-sama help them all if she missed taicho's son being born, though.

Natsumi sighed in defeat and looked up from the mission scroll in her hands to the office ninja. "Targets?" She accepted the second scroll filled with D or C-rank assassination targets to take care of while they were gone, gesturing for the two other chūnin to follow her out of the Hokage's Tower.

Tsume and Shibi were staring at her back as they hit the courtyard outside and Kuromaru joined them, and she could sort of see why if she wasn't in the mood to appreciate the whys of it. Being told that younger ninja you ran a mission with was actually an assassin specialist benched from ANBU for the length of her kenjutsu apprenticeship was a little jarring, about as much as being told she had been tasked with finding a way to solve the problems between them while they played backup for her mission of a string of minor assassinations for ANBU.

An assassin training in the ninja ways of the sword moonlighting as a shinobi psychologist… hey, she was creepier than she thought she was!

Cheered up enough by that realization to be somewhat sociable, Natsumi turned back to the two plus dog behind her. "Come on, we got a place to be first before we grab mission kits and leave."

"Breaking the news to your friends?" Tsume asked warily, not sounding too sure about the reason the ghost eyed teen had.

"That… or attempted homicide. I'm not picky."

(ooo000ooo)

Inoichi spotted her coming this time, blanching white and scrambling up to run for dear life.

Natsumi stopped in the middle of the Senju clan compound's front yard, watching the mind walker disappear into the forests within the compound. "Damn. Someone warned him."

"I did, Natsumi-chan." Sakumo's hand hit her upside the head. "No harming your friends. Do we need to have this conversation again?"

"Hey! I intentionally missed last time." The assassin gritted out, one had going to reset the bun her hair was in. "And no, taicho. We don't need to have that conversation again, they don't have visible scars."

As the stare down between master and apprentice was going on, Minato turned to the two other chūnin he didn't recognize. "Why are you two here? Does sempai have a mission again?"

"Err… yeah. We've got a… um." Tsume floundered mid-sentence as she watched, vastly confused by what was going on and how much she could tell someone else about the teen dancing around the older Hatake's reach. And was that the young Hyūga clan head and his brother over there with the heir to the Uchihas and his intended bride? When the hell has she been hit with a genjutsu?

"Assassinations, kouhai." Natsumi pulled a face at her taicho, getting bopped on the head again. "We're going to kill a few people, solve the issues between those two, and hopefully come back in time for Eri-san to have taicho's kid. If not, I make no promises that I'll still have two teammates coming back. The dog will be fine, either way."

She ducked the third swipe at her head, hiding behind the amused Chouza and sticking her tongue out at the silver haired man.

Shikaku pushed himself upright enough to look at the two newcomers and the dog. "They're the two 'going around in left hand circles'?"

The Inuzuka and ninken both looked slightly incredulous about everything going on, and the Aburame's eyebrows were visible over his dark glasses. The Nara heir felt for them, really. Sometimes he didn't know how he had been pulled into this circus either.

"It's not really their fault, which is why I've been tasked to solve it for them. It's just a matter of how they view the world."

Then a saving a life thing that I need to work out how to do if I'm the only one supposed to see any combat on this mission.

"Sucks to be you, then."

"I'm hurt, Kushina-hime. I thought you liked me."

"Shut up, Natsumi-chan."

\V/

There were many small clinics in the village that took both ninjas and civilians as patients, but the main hospital in Konoha was segregated. It had to be, because then no shinobi would feel alright about dropping one's guard enough for a iryou-nin to check them over if just anyone could get into their part of the hospital wings when they couldn't defend themselves at an instant's notice.

The clinics were treated more like stationary first-aid stations by the ninja ranks, used as stepping stones until they were stable enough to either leave for home or make it to the hospital, rather than mini-hospitals that the civilians saw them as.

There were times when the shinobi side and the civilian wings mixed, when there were more injured ninjas than chakra using medics and when ninjas had civilian significant others and they became injured or ill and said shinobi didn't recall in time that they had their own side of the hospital when rushing them there.

Like when Hatake Sakumo panicked about Yamamoto Eri's contractions and took her to the kunoichi medical wing. Senju Tsunade would have knocked the frantic would-be-father through a wall or two if the situation hadn't been so dire. Instead, she tasked the group of friends showing up in the waiting room with sitting on one of their fellow's master until she could deal with him later.

Minato sighed, a bouncing foot up and down giving away his nervousness. "Sempai's late."

The Akimichi doing the actual sitting on Sakumo, his legs to pin the older shinobi in place, looked up to the darkening sky outside the hallway window. "The baby's early, Minato-kun. It's not her fault."

"She's still going to be pissed with those two if she doesn't make it." At the low whimper from the man on the floor, Shikaku slapped his own face with his hand before the glaring Inoichi could do it for him. "Bad word choice, sorry Sakumo-sama."

Eri's water had broken, but she was also bleeding heavily and in more pain that she should be. Tsunade had sent for Biwako by sending Hizashi out to summon the older kunoichi, but the two of them hadn't arrived there yet. Kushina and Mikoto were in with the civilian woman, claiming teammate rights to stand in for Natsumi and her master in the delivery room.

"Why are you sitting on my taicho, Chouza-kun?" A female in a Panther ANBU mask slid through the window the Akimichi heir had just looked through, slinking over to where the silver head on the floor was as she pushed her mask up so everyone could see her ghost pale, mismatched eyes. "Biwako-sama is in there now. She came through the other window."

Thank kami for retired kunoichi midwives.

Sakumo surged upright, actually knocking Chouza off his legs. "Let's go… but, aa… you might want to change first."

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi had made it back in time to see Kakashi born, a month premature but healthy, and ew. Also ow.

Did she really want to go through that sometime in the future?

Eri would be fine, seeing as Tsunade had been fetched before anything really bad could happen. Biwako had taken care of delivering the baby while the Slug Princess handled the damage an active chakra network in a newborn could cause before it harmed the mother too badly.

Apparently Kakashi wasn't just happy being labeled a child prodigy at three or five or whenever, he wanted it sooner.

Brat.

Natsumi did manage to get why Kushina and Mikoto had been in with the new mother, and learned a bit about how shinobi viewed each other that she hadn't had a reason to find out yet.

Next of kin for shinobi were backwards seeming, to say the least. Usually, when a genin ninja was orphaned guardianship went to either the master or jōnin sensei, not their closest blood relative. It was partly to keep a newly orphaned shinobi from having to deal with a new home situation while in training or handling missions, and partly to keep that ninja within the village as a Konoha shinobi if the only blood relations where outside the walls.

Teammate rights were similar to sibling rights, you would have the power to step in like a family member since a ninja spent most of their time with their teams after a certain amount of time on one. It inevitably evolved for ninjas to consider their cell their family, and make their plans for the worse to involve them.

After you reached chūnin rank you didn't even have to have run a mission with a shinobi to claim being a teammate, you just had to know one well enough that the rest of the ninjas that had ran missions with said shinobi wouldn't protest it.

Eri was considered Sakumo's wife, for all intents and purposes in the shinobi ranks, for the impending wedding and for having his child. Mesuji Natsumi, as an orphaned kunoichi not yet at the age civilians would accept being self-sufficient, was legally a ward jointly cared for by Jiraiya and Sakumo, and now Eri as the not-so-last Hatake's sort of wife. Uzumaki Kushina and Uchiha Mikoto were the closest kunoichi to Natsumi, since neither Minato nor Inoichi had the gender to witness the birth of a child not their own although they had the rights for it and Sakumo was banished until he calmed down.

That was why the two kunoichi had stepped in Natsumi's and Sakumo's place, the assassin wasn't expected back for another month and her master wasn't calm enough to hold his soon-to-be-wife's hand.

Now in the sort of standard uniform of the Chūnin Corps, the only thing the hospital had to replace mission damaged clothing before discharging shinobi because she had thrown her mission pack at Tsume's head when she hear where her taicho was, Natsumi smirked down at the fluffy silver head of the baby in her arms. She could admit he was kind of cute, it that lobster red and wrinkled look of all newborns.

Okay, yeah, she wanted one or two herself eventually.

"Didn't you have another few weeks out there before coming back? I know you just came in the village since you were still in uniform." Sakumo's low voice carried over to her, from where her kenjutsu master was sitting next to the sleeping form of Eri.

"Well… I finally got fed up with the two of them, threw them head first in a bandit encampment and didn't help until they got over their issues." At her old taicho's flat look, the assassin rolled her mismatched eyes. "Tsume-san's loud voice attracted attention of a wandering band of scruffy idiots, said idiots attacked thinking we were travelers and a dog in the middle of an argument. Shibi-san kept the Inuzuka teen from being beheaded while we were killing them. Something in her head went click, and now they can deal with each other. Mostly. I sped through the rest of my targets and we decided to run back because we had been out of the village a while and there was only two months to go before Kakashi-chan's due date."

"Don't you still have to report in?"

"If you wanna hold your son, say so taicho." Natsumi got up and carefully transferred the new Hatake clan member to his father. "And no. Hokage-sama gave me leave to report tomorrow instead of doing it then, giving me the news that you two-err... three, were in the hospital at the same time."

Sakumo smirked at Kakashi, who had started to fuss with the transference and the shifting sources of body heat. "Anything else to report?"

"I may have… acquired an unfortunate nickname for my mask while out there."

A silver eyebrow rose, but the man didn't look up. "From speeding through your mission like a green recruit?"

"…maybe."

(ooo000ooo)

Sosen no Fukushū. Avenging Ancestor.

Natsumi was sure some kami out there was laughing at her, but Minato was the only one she could hear at the moment. "Shut up already."

"Sorry." Her kouhai didn't look remotely apologetic about laughing at her or for the grin on his face. "But still… appropriate."

The assassin rolled the ghost eyes that gained her that nickname and slumped further into Minato's couch. Since either of her pale green and blue eyes were the only identifiable part of her in ANBU armor, some idiot she had missed sight of had recalled that when spreading the gossip of the assassinations she did. Natsumi was now wavering between being annoyed she was technically being called old and being impressed someone had escaped her notice after spotting her. She did have to hope the rumors would go away, that little nickname wasn't something she wanted attached to her name.

It was a very good thing it was hard to judge the age of someone in ANBU uniform and the idiot only saw her blue eye, or some of the ninjas that had been in Suna for the Chūnin Exams would put her eyes together with the mask of the rumors and point fingers at her being an assassin and not a kenjutsu user in training. They might still do it, but most who spread those rumors wouldn't believe that a young woman would be the cold blooded killer called Sosen no Fukushū without hard proof, and since the only other person in this world with her odd eyes was her kaa-san it would just give life to more rumors about dead women killing people. Civilians could be idiots sometimes.

Since other shinobi villages knowing that Konoha had a light blue-eyed assassin of that much renown wouldn't damage the village's reputation, their Hokage wasn't all that annoyed with her. She would still be docked mission pay, and until the rumors died down whenever a foreign ninja came to Konoha she would be required to either be in ANBU armor and on-duty or wear her green contacts, but eh.

Since ANBU wasn't supposed to exist, there was an entire branch of Intelligence that handled rumormongering to counter any sighting or stories of ANBU agents caught in the act. They also held the negotiators that haggled the prices for missions the civilians paid for their work being done, and the propaganda department that made sure the people of Fire Country thought only good things about Konoha and horrible deeds went on in other villages.

Which meant there were members of the Chūnin Corps that were paid just to go out to little towns and foreign countries and drink at a bar or four and exaggerate rumors circling around to keep a specific ninja from being identified. By the time they were done, Sosen no Fukushū might be anyone from a male Hyūga clan member to a nuke-nin under a genjutsu trying to keep from being identified.

Natsumi was just happy to be back in the village. Even if it did mean most of her friends would have a good laugh at her expense.

Besides, an almost four month long C-ranked ANBU assassination mission paid per target was a pretty hefty chunk of mission pay even with the knock off the top for risk taking.

"Natsumi-chan! Someone else is looking for you!" Kushina simply waltzed right into the blond's apartment, grinning at the two of them. Most of their friends knew exactly where to find her most days, right where she was currently sitting. "We need to put up a sign that says if you're not home, check Minato-kun's place."

"And I would like to know who's looking for me before I bother going to see who it is." Natsumi stuck her nose in the air. "It looks like neither of us is going to get what we want."

"She has a dog with her and another teen full of bugs, does that count?"

"Ah, fuck." Tsume and Shibi then. She had gotten back her mission pack from the Inuzuka when they reported to the Hokage that morning after taicho and his family was moved to his home, so what did they want? "Right."

The assassin got two feet from the door before she realized Kushina wasn't following. "Hime?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't think my kouhai needs someone to watch him ink a seal anymore. Apparently it's been a few weeks since he last screwed up an explosive tag, if the char marks on his table are any judge. Unless, of course, you want to stay and watch for another reason then I'm all for you staying."

The Uzumaki went red with a squeak and sped out of there even as Minato blushed and glared at her for the crack against his competence in his ninja specialty before she closed his apartment door. The following small thuds might have been some sharp things lobbed at her head, but her adorable kouhai wouldn't do that to his respectable sempai.

Mmm… maybe she should tone down the violence a little.

Kushina was writing something on the assassin's own apartment door, Tsume and Shibi were watching her do it as Kuromaru lounged against the railing. "Okay. Hime, what are you doing?"

"Writing my notice." The jinchūriki finished with a flourish, putting the brush full of ink back wherever she had stored it. "And now we both have what we want."

If she's not home, go next door.

While Natsumi had been decrypting the hurried handwriting, and taking apart the stasis seal around it in her head, Kushina got close enough to press a noisy kiss to her cheek. "Bye bye, have fun!"

"There is a lot I can do with that, Kushina-hime!"

"I'm looking forward to it!"

The assassin snorted when the last flicker of red hair disappeared out of sight, turning back to her unexpected guests. "If the two of you have some kind of clan problem, I'm kicking you to the Nara clan compound. Kami-sama knows Shikaku-kun did more of that than I did."

"No we're… wait, what?"

"I believe this conversation should take place inside. Why? We have just come by to express our gratitude for allowing us to solve our own problems in time."

Natsumi clicked her tongue at them, unlocking her door and letting them into her own apartment. "Mmm kay? There really hadn't been a lot I did for you two, you had the problem in hand and feeling for the solution even before I was asked to take a look and later play mediator. Tea?"

"You may not think much of it, Natsumi. But we would have been passed over for promotion if you hadn't." The future head of her clan took a seat on the floor in front of her own couch, letting her ninken sprawl across her lap. "As is, we maybe got a suspension as chūnin for a few weeks until they get off their asses and confirm it."

Suffixes were not something the Inuzuka clan used much, seeing no point in them if everyone was pack. The only ones they titled -sama was the Hokage and their clan head. Although the assassin admitted it was now a little strange not to hear a tag on her name when not in the middle of a mission and if something was urgently needed from her.

Since the wild natured teen was settling down for the moment, Natsumi figured she did want the tea. Shibi nodded his agreement, either to the tea or the statement, the assassin couldn't figure that one out.

"And ya took us with you on mission even knowing what we're like."

Natsumi almost missed her stove top with the kettle. As it was it still gave a dull clang when the two pieces of metal collided. "What?"

"Hokage-sama must have lied to us about Natsumi-san being able to refuse to assist. Why? Her reaction speaks of surprise."

"Um, no. I just wasn't aware I could have refused." At the two blank looks, and wow was Shibi a master of that expression, the assassin gave them a flat stare in return. "ANBU, remember? We don't turn down missions. Ever."

Tsume looked a little ill, recalling that while it had been a mostly boring run around the greater parts of Fire Country and a few of the border states for them, it had been a strings of killings for her. "Oh shit, right."

"It is likely that Hokage-sama intended for you to assume so. Why? In order to secure your assistance."

"Yeah, you are able to refuse secondary missions if they're not your main specialty, Natsumi."

Well… you learned something new every day.

"Damn, thanks for telling me now." Natsumi waited until the two of them had taken a sip of tea. "So, this isn't to tell me you're madly in love and are expecting the first of many kids you want to name after me?"

Hmm… apparently it takes more than that to make an Aburame spit take, though Shibi did turn an interesting shade of pale green and flailed slightly. On the bright side, Tsume got hers all over an unimpressed Kuromaru.

Well, it was a challenge to work on in her free time.

\V/

Sakumo had snatched her up and shunshined away, right in the middle of a conversation with Fugaku. If Jiraiya hadn't had such a habit of the same thing when he needed one of his students to make up excuses for him, Natsumi would have been a little more annoyed when the man put her down right in front of his home.

"I need you to watch them for me, Natsumi-chan. I've got a mission to deal with."

A pat on the head later, and the silver haired new father was gone. Judging by the frown on his face, taicho wasn't happy at the mission slotted for the moment his paternity leave ended.

Toeing off her ninja sandals by catching the clasps with her exposed toes, Natsumi placed her armful of Uchiha scrolls on a table close to the door and entered the Hatake clan home. Fugaku would send someone for them when it became apparent Sakumo wasn't returning her or them. "Eri-san?"

"In the kitchen!"

Following the sounds of the woman's voice and Kakashi's baby gurgles, which he was so getting teased over later when he was old enough to appreciate it, the assassin found the mother of her old ANBU captain's son making dinner. "What brings you by today, Natsumi-chan?"

"Taicho was pulled for a mission. He's tasked me with being his hands here until he's back." She probably didn't need to know about the 'watch' thing.

Eri sighed regretfully, but smiled softly at her fussing son before going back to the soup simmering on the stove and humming some lullaby to keep the newborn from crying.

There was a very good chance that the woman would have died in childbirth if Natsumi hadn't told Tsunade about her pregnancy before Sakumo panicked over her contractions and the blood.

Even when married or living with ninjas, civilian women tended to continue going to civilian doctors for pregnancy and child birth. Apparently, according to Biwako later when the emergency was over, that wasn't a very good idea at all. Shinobi parents were much more likely to have ninja children, with chakra networks active sooner than most civilian born ninjas had, who only got around to unlocking their networks in the academy unless someone took interest in them and showed them how.

Kakashi was exceptional in that regard, but he had almost unwittingly killed his mother trying everything he could to find a more comfortable position in an ever contracting space without a kunoichi midwife on hand to keep him from doing so.

Natsumi wasn't at all apologetic now about telling Tsunade about her taicho knocking up his girlfriend. Since that had let the two women meet and get to know each other before the little brat decided he wanted out and let the sannin realize the baby was a clan child, not an average ninja's, and all the complications that could have in the process. Her taicho had later cornered her and thanked her for spilling the beans to the Slug Princess about his girlfriend's condition, even if he had been less than appreciative at the time she had done so.

She wondered if that was the start of the end, her old captain's unknowing risk of Eri's life that eventually killed her. Was that the first crack in his confidence as a shinobi?

Natsumi stripped off her weaponry, piling it up on the floor next to her before extending a slightly calloused hand out to Kakashi, who was set up on the table in his little basket and waving his tiny fists at her. Eri looked over to them at the first clangs of metal, turning back when she realized the kunoichi was respecting her mandate of 'no weapons on your person when handling the baby'.

The assassin was sure there was a story behind that, but Sakumo had changed the topic too fast for her to ask when it had been brought up the first time.

"Are you going to be joining me for dinner then, Natsumi-chan?"

"Probably. Do you mind if I go grab Minato-kun and Kushina-hime when Kashi-chan naps? I still don't really know what the two of them eat when I'm not there to cook for them. Scratch that, I know exactly what Kushina-hime eats, and she doesn't need any more."

It really was possible to live off ramen if you vary it between flavors, Kushina was living proof. Natsumi just wanted to cringe over the sodium intake of Konoha's jinchūriki.

Both of them.

(ooo000ooo)

After Eri sent both Kushina and Minato home, each with seconds of dinner in a bento box for tomorrow, Natsumi went around the compound once to check out the perimeter as the older woman gave the baby a bath.

The only thing that saved her life that night was Kakashi loudly laughing at something and the sound carrying out to her.

Natsumi turned her head to see if she could pick up the sound of what was amusing the baby so, and caught the sight of a tip of a short sword being swung at the back of her neck. The assassin dropped forward, swinging a foot backwards as one of her hands went for a weapon. The blade sliced through her long hair, but she knocked the attacker forward onto her back and the kunai she never removed from under her left foot was firmly shoved back into the adult sized attacker's heart.

Rolling the man off her, and ignoring his blood seeping through her shirt, Natsumi leapt up onto the roof of the large, traditional style house. She caught sight of another figure making its way silently to where the upper floor bathing room was, and cast her kinjutsu to alter how the supposed killer saw reality.

Fugaku, even without the Yin release hint, had been instrumental in helping her develop the assassination technique further than the double sight effect it had initially done. Natsumi had played around with the levels of Yin she used in Suna when taking the chūnin exams like he had suggested, though he had asked about varying amounts of chakra, and figured out how to make a target see what she wanted them too. This version of it skewed depth perception, not the flicker sight of paranoia the first one suggested. The would-be assassin wouldn't be able to throw right if his or her life depended on it.

Her next target realized something was wrong when she misjudged a step and knocked a few loose tiles together, cutting off the sound of Eri's voice as she talked to Kakashi.

Natsumi grabbed the neck of the woman and shoved her bloody kunai through to the heart again, before the would-be-assassin had the opportunity to do anything. Slowly lowering the heavily bleeding woman to the tiled roof, the ANBU assassin flared her chakra in the standard pattern for 'attack, backup needed'.

That signal flare also alerted another assassin, the heavier footfalls of a male abandoned any attempt of surviving the mission and started slamming doors on the first floor, trying to find his targets. The ghost eyed teen used the window Eri had left open to enter the bathroom where she was with baby Kakashi.

The woman had already wrapped the wet two month old in a towel and held him securely in her arms, backing away from both the open window and the door to the hallway while trying to keep them both in her sight. She had to clap a free hand over her mouth at the appearance of the blood splattered teenager her husband taught, who ignored that to station herself between her taicho's wife and the door to the hall.

That door was thrown open a few tense minutes later, but it wasn't a man she didn't know. Hatake Sakumo looked all three of them over quickly then gestured to the assassin. "Eri, stay here with Kakashi. Come on, Natsumi. We're hunting."

She just nodded and slid pass Jackal, who nodded back at her, and followed her taicho down into the living room. Sakumo had apparently made it home in time to catch her signal and to keep the third attacker from going any farther than he had, because the man was sliced clean in though in the main hallway.

"Damn, taicho. Remind me not to piss you off any time soon."

Sakumo only bared his teeth at the corpse, biting a thumb and flexing his fingers rapidly through hand signs before slamming a hand down on the floor. Natsumi had never seen the man Summon his Dogs before, the Contract was too well known as belonging to the Hatake clan of Konohagakure no Sato for him to use it in ANBU, and watched the sequence avidly. A surge of chakra and an implosion of smoke answered, and a moment later an oddly dressed greyhound stood on all fours in the hall with them.

The dog looked around and shook her head. "Assassins, pup? In your own den, even. What have you been up to?"

The silver haired man knelt down to her level, almost vibrating with anger. "If it hadn't been for my own little assassin, they would have killed my mate and pup, Aki-sama. I think there may have been another."

The greyhound looked straight at Natsumi and she was going to assume the dog smirked. The assassin had an uneasy feeling about what the look was supposed to mean if directed at her.

"Then let's not waste any time. Follow me, I'll track the rat down for you."

(ooo000ooo)

There had been a fourth member of an Iwa assassination team, this one waiting outside the village for either the return of the assassin team or dawn's break to hightail it back to Earth Country. He wouldn't be doing that, as Sakumo, Aki, and Natsumi had eventually gotten around to knocking him out and handing the ninja over to T&I for processing… once they pried the man out of the greyhound's jaws and kept him from bleeding out.

Since neither master nor apprentice saw any sleep that night and dawn was staring to peek over the walls of the village, Sakumo simply grabbed the younger assassin and hauled her home with him after dismissing his Summons' pack leader.

Eri and Kakashi had been moved to the master bedroom, according to Crow who was standing guard just inside of the compound walls, with Jackal guarding the hallway door. Natsumi thought she saw Monkey on the roof where the woman had been last night. They did pass Horse cleaning the hallway, who gave both benched ANBU members a backward wave as she scrubbed the blood out of the hardwood floors. Tiger was checking each room upstairs, dropping what he had been on and clearing out one of the guest bedrooms when Sakumo asked him too, and Lizard had been flickering around doing the same downstairs.

It was almost like being back in ANBU headquarters, even if the new Lizard was female now, with the two squads Sakumo once looked after in the Second War keeping watch for them. Natsumi didn't even bother doing more that stripping out of the blood crusted clothing she had been wearing all night before collapsing into the bed.

\V/

Kushina was still fussing over her hair a week later.

"Honestly, hime. The only reason I never got around to cutting it was because there always were more interesting things to do." Natsumi pulled the now shoulder length mass up in a high-tail. "It's more manageable this way."

"Yeah… but once we evened it out after that idiot hacked it off, you lost more of it." The jinchūriki was clutching her own ruby red locks, as if someone would come around and try to chop hers off. "I liked your long hair, you know."

Minato, who had been unfortunately forced to listen to the two kunoichi about hair length for the last half hour since they were camped out on his couch, rolled his eyes. "And sempai puts it up nearly on a daily basis, Kushina-chan. It seems more practical this way."

The Uzumaki threw a glare his way. "Are you saying you think my hair isn't practical?"

"No! Just… that for sempai it seemed practical. Your hair looks good the way you have it." Natsumi's fellow orphan backpedaled hurriedly, dropping the inky brush he had been holding to wave his hands in front of him to suggest the other teen had taken his comment wrong. "It looks… um, pretty?"

"And now you're suggesting I'm more concerned over how my hair looks than how practical it is." Kushina huffed exasperatedly and got up. "I'll see you later, Natsumi-chan."

The assassin hid a grin and waved goodbye to the other chūnin, looking back just in time to see Minato clap a hand over his eyes and groan.

"I'll never understand girls."

"Well… that's not a girl, kouhai. She's a teenager."

The blond peered at her between his ink stained fingers. "Very funny. Why are you here, anyways? Aren't you usually learning how to swing a sword now?"

"Taicho wanted family time with Eri-san and Kashi-chan after the scare last week, and I'm really hiding from Fugaku-sama for a little while. He's not happy with me." Since she had both forgotten to have either of the others return his clan scrolls that night and to alert the Uchiha Police Station about the assassination attempt. Natsumi could understand the first part, hell she wasn't happy about not returning the scrolls. The Police wouldn't have been alerted even if they had the time to do it between keeping Eri and Kakashi alive and finding the fourth idiot, so there.

The assassin then started to sniff theatrically, pouting over to the fūinjutsu user. "Do you not like me too, kouhai? I'll leave if you want me to."

Minato gave a weak laugh, dropping his hand to pick up his brush again, scanning the fūinjutsu seals laid out so he could work on them spread over his table. "Wouldn't Fugaku-san come here first to find you? This is a little obvious, sempai."

Natsumi shrugged, falling back onto the couch and stretching out. "Eh… I'm not going to put that much effort into hiding from him. He's not that scary. Sides, you can take him."

Even with ink on his face, though the streaks were kind funny.

"Your faith in my skills is astounding." The blond deadpanned back. "Go bother someone else."

"Ooh… permission."

Minato's eyes widened and he turned around to face his open door. "No! Wait… ah hah, someone's going to kill me."

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku looked pale under his tan when he saw her behind his front door.

Natsumi's ninja senses were tingling. Something was up. "Shikaku-kun? Something wrong?"

"Get me out of here." The Nara heir hissed, gripping the assassin's arm tightly as he drew her inside.

Aikido beamed at the female friend her son had brought into the living room. "Hello, Natsumi-chan. Was there something you wanted?"

"I have to steal Shikaku-kun for a few. Someone attacked taicho last week and he wants his security layout looked over."

Shikai gave them both a knowing look over his wife's head, shooing them both out with a lazy wave when the woman looked over at him to see if it was alright. "Scram then. Be back by evening, son."

The shadow master wasted no time in leaving, something highly unusual for anyone in the Nara clan. Natsumi kept her mouth shut until they passed the clan walls. "And now for the real reason I played extractor? Cause I have to say, there are fees for this kind of thing."

"Kaa-chan wants to arrange a marriage for me, since apparently I'm too lazy to find a wife." Sighing, Shikaku ran a hand over the back of his neck. "There's nothing wrong with Yoshino-san, really. She's… okay. Just, I can't see myself living with her."

The assassin hummed, turning that over her head as the two of them headed somewhere the Nara was leading them to.

The scare with Eri and Kakashi had left her wondering if she had assumed wrong about Sakumo's reasoning for his suicide, and had her carefully looking over her time here to see if there had been any other misconceptions because there seemed to be a lot in the series of events she had put together for her taicho.

If Eri had survived the birth even without Natsumi's meddling, she would have been weakened a lot from the bleeding and dealing with a newborn baby. If Natsumi hadn't been with the two of them when the older man had been on mission, they might have been able to kill her before anyone knew about the attack. Their targets didn't include a newborn baby, though, and T&I was operating on the conclusion that Iwa hadn't heard about the birth of the man's son yet for the reason why.

Sakumo already disliked Earth Country a lot for going after his wife, what would the older Hatake's feelings be like if they had killed Eri and were about to do the same to Kakashi?

If the Iwa ninjas managed to kill the weakened wife of the last Hatake, but missed the baby, would that have pissed her taicho off enough to gain the moniker of Konoha's White Fang? Would he gain that title since Eri and Kakashi were fine?

Now Shikaku raised this problem up. Marriage for shinobi in this generation didn't really go hand in hand with liking the other person, usually it ended up being because there was a child involved or someone was arranged for it.

Love wasn't something specifically sought out by sane ninja, because that was one hell of a weakness to have and most didn't have the lifespan for that search to take. If they had the time to get to know someone it was because they were ninjas too, or because they were stuck together for the purpose of procreation.

Natsumi had thought her friends were, at the very least, okay with whoever they ended up with. Like Fugaku and Mikoto, who respected each other and got along well; Hizashi and his fellow Hyūga girl, who were tolerant of the arranged match and each other; or like Sakumo and Eri, who genuinely liked the other and were getting to the point of affectionate caring.

Minato and Kushina were exceptions to that hard and fast rule, even the assassin could see the beginnings of something developing there, and she had assumed everyone else would end up with maybe a lesser degree of that in time.

Konoha was easing out of that mindset, by the next generation it wouldn't be until fifteen or twenty that the clans would start thinking about continuing the bloodlines with longer lifespans to consider, but right now most clans were looking into appropriate partners for their heirs. Only recently were there couples that waited longer than that to get together and start on the next generation.

"Who do you see yourself living with?" Natsumi asked idly, still turning the problem around in her head.

Had Shikaku ended up an alcoholic with this girl?

She couldn't recall ever seeing the clan head of the next generation without some kind of alcohol nearby. Had he really been that miserable with his arranged wife to try and find something to numb the days with? Alcohol wasn't something used by shinobi a lot, and definitely not on a daily basis. It dulled too many needed skills and senses for ninja to really like being drunk or even tipsy.

"You."

Natsumi tripped.

The heir of the shadow jutsu clan caught her before she hit the ground. "What?"

"Me?" No squeaking. Nope, not her.

"Well… yeah. You're not predictable." He eyed her suspiciously. "And sometimes you can keep up with me. Which is better than most of the people I deal with."

"…I'm not really all that sane, Shikaku!"

The teen snorted as he let her go when the assassin found her feet. "Sanity's overrated. Yeah, we've got rational thinking. You've got tangents and angles to work with, and damn do you work them. Besides, who in the shinobi corps can you call completely sane?"

Shutting her mouth fast enough to click her teeth together, Natsumi had to give him that one.

"And kaa-chan's really been after me to ask you about this. She's still planning the wedding in her head, has been since the academy and I brought you two over."

Stop… wait. "Was she planning on Minato-kun too? Cause that's kinda weird."

Shikaku blinked, jaw open to counter whatever next objection she had. He shut his mouth after a stunned moment, and started laughing.

"What? He's like my little brother. Incest is wrong!"

The Nara snorted and tugged her into a careful hug. "Since there wasn't anything else you brought up, I take it you don't mind?"

No, her brain hamster was going in panicky little circles and couldn't get anything coherent enough to use back to her.

Natsumi inhaled deeply, trying to get her heart to settle down from oh shit level of activity to what the hell? "Are you sure? I mean… I'm a kunoichi, my head hasn't been okay since I was five here, and there are so many ways I can think of for this to go wrong."

What about Shikamaru?

"Yes, shinobi, don't care in the slightest, and we'll work it out."

"…you're telling Minato-kun, Sakumo-taicho, and Jiraiya-sensei."

"You're mean."

"You're marrying me."

(ooo000ooo)

Minato stared at them, the ink still streaked across his face. "You know, sempai, when I told you to bother someone else… I didn't mean for you to go out and find a husband."

The only thing Natsumi could do was shrug uselessly, still not too sure how they ended up here in this situation. "Two birds, meet one stone? It occupied some time, didn't it?"

Shikaku snickered.

"Right…" Her fellow orphan switched targets, now staring down the no longer smirking shadow user. "Excuse us a moment, sempai. Shikaku and I need to have some words."

The assassin wordlessly turned and went back out the door, shutting it firmly behind her. Not interested in the least to hearing her kouhai threaten her fiancée's body parts and wellbeing if she wasn't treated right.

Well… that had gone well.

Now just taicho was left, sensei had to get back to the village first before he could be told.

Was she sure she wanted to do this? She could be wrong for the reason Shikaku picked up a bottle.

(ooo000ooo)

"You sure do get up to some interesting things when not training, Natsumi-chan."

The assassin shrank a little under Sakumo's raised eyebrows. "Sorry, taicho."

Eri whacked her new husband on the arm with her free hand, the one not cradling Kakashi. "Hush you. Congratulations, Natsumi-chan!"

She couldn't help the small smile inching across her lips when the woman beamed at her happily. If there was anything the assassin was thankful for, it was that Eri hadn't been scared of her after seeing the aftermath of what she had done to other living people in order to defend her and her son that night. Natsumi had held worries to that effect the day she woke up after the attack, but the woman had hugged her, bloodstained clothing and all, and thanked her for protecting them.

Kami-sama bless hidden village civilians.

"Thanks, Eri-san."

Next to her, Shikaku was glaring at the older man for whatever reason. Had she missed something? Taicho looked satisfied, so that was possible.

"I'll talk to Shiki-sama about the marriage contracts." Sakumo finally grinned at the two of them, one canine peeking out from one side of his mouth. "Since I am still your legal guardian."

Ooh… right. No wonder Shikaku hadn't argued telling the men of her life what he wanted from her even if it meant facing a protective Minato. Sneaky.

(ooo000ooo)

Mikoto peered at the assassin and the shadow user, who were talking to the six-year-old Nawaki about ninja specialties in the Senju clan compound. "Well, that's working out well."

"I think Shikaku-kun would have been the only one who wouldn't have gotten hung up about her past life, you know." Kushina nodded firmly, still smirking. "Besides, they both can now have those confusing conversations about theoretical things and war tactics on their own time."

Inoichi had his face firmly buried in his hands. "I'm claiming amnesia if anyone asks me, just so you both know."

Setting up one of his friends and his old genin teammate was probably the lowest point he could see using what the misplaced soldier taught him on her. He was still mostly sure Shikaku had seen through most of it himself, but the tactical genius had apparently seen something he wanted so the teen went along with Inoichi's arguments about what was probably best for Natsumi.

Scoffing at him, the Uzumaki flicked her hair over her shoulder and faced him. "You know Shikaku-kun wouldn't have been very happy with the Chūnin Corps girl his parents were thinking about. And Natsumi-chan probably never would have gotten around to finding someone with all her work between Sakumo-sama and ANBU, if that's kinda the same thing that happened in her last life. This way they both are happy."

"Can a Yamanaka get amnesia?" The Uchiha genjutsu specialist mused aloud, tapping her lips with the pads of her fingers. "I always thought your clan was mostly immune to those kinds of things."

The heir of the mind walker clan drew himself upright, glowering at the two kunoichi. "I have nothing to say to that, and I'm going over there next to Chouza-kun now."

Mikoto smiled as Kushina finally burst into the giggles she had been holding back since the arrangement between the Nara clan and Hatake clan, on Mesuji Natsumi's behalf, had been announced. "I still have no clue how you got him to help us."

Her best friend sobered up enough to give her a serious look for a whole moment. "Like Natsumi-chan says, blackmail is such a wonderful thing. Did you know Inoichi is seeing a girl from Intelligence? Ran- something, I think."

\V/

Jiraiya came back to the village one year after he left, to check in with his Hokage and his students before going back out. The Toad Sage was more than a little bemused at the changes that had happened since he had been gone.

Four-month-old Kakashi was seated in Natsumi's lap, trying to see if the rubber kunai his father had given him would break skin if he stabbed hard enough with it. The assassin was pretty sure she would be getting a bruise right there when the near toddler stopped.

"And the assassins?"

"Iwa. Taicho's not at all happy with anything coming out of Earth Country at the moment."

Humming his understanding, the sannin eyed the almost-toddler in her lap. "So when did this happen?"

"While we were out in Suna for the chūnin exams." Natsumi gave her sensei a lopsided smirk. "Taicho knocked up his girlfriend. It really was something I was more expecting to hear about you, sensei."

Jiraiya scoffed, puffing himself upright. "I don't make that kind of mistake, neko-chan."

"You mean you haven't… yet." The assassin quickly pointed at the baby. "Kashi-chan's here, can't hit me."

Kakashi obligingly giggled to himself, giving up on drawing blood for the moment and sticking the ring end of the kunai into his mouth to gum. The Toad Sage rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. "Who made that one up?"

"I did." Eri shot the white haired man a look from the hallway. "Who is this, Natsumi-chan?"

"Jiraiya of the Sannin, Eri-san. He's taicho's friend and my old sensei." The assassin ignored the protest of being called old from the man, grinning up at the woman who married her old ANBU captain. "Are you done shopping?"

Having already known the teenager her husband taught swordsmanship to wouldn't let anything that could harm either her or her son into the house without blood being shed, Eri simply nodded when she put together the white haired pervert she had heard a bit about already and one third of the Densetsu no Sannin. "Would either of you like some tea?"

"I won't be staying for long, miss. So no, thank you." The Toad Sage eyed the woman as she left the two of them with the baby. "I can see why Sakumo went for her. Indomitable, isn't she?"

Natsumi made a rude sound in her sensei's direction. "She was fine with me killing two of those Iwa idiots the night they tried to kill her and Kashi-chan. There isn't much I've seen so far that throws Eri-san off her stride."

He shot her a look, smirking finally and changing the subject. "So, I've heard a little about you as well, neko-chan. A little whisper about a ghost eyed assassin in a cat mask going around Moss Country?"

Natsumi groaned and slumped, taking one hand that had been bracing Kakashi upright to cover her eyes. "Those rumors are still going? I swear, I'm going to find whoever started them and give him an Avenging Ancestor to worry about."

"I hear the first few versions out between the Lands of Tea and Rain, but the subject matter has changed a bit from the first sightings before I started heading back." Jiraiya snickered, running a hand over his jaw at the teen-woman's predicament. "I don't think you have much to worry about, as long as you keep yourself from being seen again. But still, you have to admit it's appropriate."

"That's what Minato-kun said about it, too. The two of you think so alike sometime that it's scary."

The Toad Sage was now currently in Ame teaching three more orphans? Good to know.

"Alright, one more question and I'll go find where my wayward apprentice is hiding out." Jiraiya drew his copy of her marriage contract out of his bag. "Sakumo sent this to me by his Summons. You sure about this, Natsumi-chan? Nothing says you have to get married anytime soon."

The assassin smirked faintly at the papers. "I can't stand the larger clans and the way they nose into everything, despite what Fugaku-sama assumed I'd be doing once I was old enough. This is… comfortable, I think is the word I want. Shikaku-kun and I have known each other for a long while, and the Naras aren't as fussy as the more combat oriented shinobi clans."

As a matter of fact, the Nara clan was as excited to have her as anything else they ever got excited about.

Fugaku had gotten her comprehension speed tested against an Uchiha's sharingan once, when they were more than a little stumped on her jutsu method and just a little bored trying to find something else to look in to. It apparently was something a lot of the R&D ninja did when at loose ends, according to Orochimaru. She had barely passed the first test and failed the second when shown pictures and having to identify where what object was in them, by keeping up with a sixteen year old chūnin MP with the first level of the sharingan active then when the eye was in the second stage, but the fact of the matter was she had passed without the bloodline.

The Naras figured that with her comprehension speed and Shikaku's tactical intelligence, the next generation wouldn't be able to go wrong. Natsumi wasn't so sure about that, but she had been forced to accept some things were not turning out as she thought they might so she was now going along with that. However, she was sure the comprehension was from another life of watching for enemy movement or acquiring targets in fast moving vehicles, and not something she would be able to pass onto any kid they might have.

Nervous about how the next generation was going to turn out, yes. What was going to happen to Shikamaru? Uneasy about getting married, no.

It was Shikaku after all.

The Hyūga and Uchiha clan might be slightly annoyed with her for the moment, and she hadn't known being friends with the head of one and the heir of another made you a common topic of discussion and speculation before, but Fugaku had gotten over himself to congratulate Shikaku last week and the twins had been mostly accepting of her decision from the start.

Seriously though, she thought it was a little creepy that elders she had maybe meet a few times had been talking about her possible dating life. Finding out Kushina was another much talked about kunoichi had been hilarious, though. The redhead still went beet red when anyone brought up the Uchiha elders. Minato also had his own admirers in every clan, much to his own dismay. The evening she told him about it he had repeatedly hit his table with his forehead muttering about fangirls.

She and Minato were more acceptable to the larger clans because they were orphans and shinobi, a kind of fresh blood and new talent for the larger clans that encouraged keeping bloodlines within the clan. While the elders of the clans wouldn't really care for civilian born ninjas, because then they would have to deal with their civilian families, orphan shinobi were still the favored picks if you had to marry outside a clan.

Fugaku had wanted to add her comprehension speed to the Uchihas' sharingan, but he forgot to inform her of that. Not that Natsumi ever saw herself in one of the noble clans in the near or far future, they had more rules and regulations about how to dress and how to act than she really wanted to think about.

Trust the Toad Sage to play devil's advocate. "Comfortable? That's not really what you should be looking for in someone you'll spend the rest of your life…"

Jiraiya trailed off at her raised eyebrow, grimacing to show he realized what she was hinting at with the nonverbal clues about how exactly her life had gone by once already. Eri was listening in, after all. You didn't spend a lot of time with ninjas without learning to be a little sneaky yourself just to keep up.

He leveled a finger in her face and wiggled it admonishingly. "We'll continue this later then, neko-chan. Tell your taicho I'll be here for… uh, Eri-san?"

The woman bustled back into the room with a tea tray, smiling broadly at the three of them. "Yes, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Just Jiraiya, please. Would you mind if I came back for dinner?" The white haired man scratched the back of his head, getting used to the idea of one of his good friends being married and with a son.

"Of course you can come for dinner. Should I find where Natsumi-chan hid the sake as well?" Eri was still smiling, but it looked more like a smirk if you tilted your head to the side and squinted.

At the sannin's incredulous look, the assassin shrugged. "It's still in the cupboard, Eri-san. I just put it under a minor illusion that made taicho think it was baby powder."

"So that's why he never remembers to get any."

(ooo000ooo)

"You realize you don't have to do this marriage thing, right?"

"You realize you've asked that three times now, right sensei?"

Jiraiya huffed and rolled his eyes at her, grumbling under his breath about stubborn cats and biological clocks. The two of them were waiting on Minato, who had taken the reappearance of their old sensei and his fūinjutsu master with as much excitement as the assassin had ever seen out of her kouhai their entire lives so far.

Well, his anyways.

The blond future Yondaime had insisted the both of them go to the team's old training field, while he fetched Kushina and set up to show them something he had been working on. So the two of them were sitting under a tree in Training Ground Three, talking about the same topic they had been on since they left the Hatake clan compound.

"Do… do you think it's a bad idea?" Natsumi asked slowly, trying to place her feelings about the older looking man's seeming concern over her impending marriage. "I know you haven't really had the time to get to know me when you taught me for half a year and have been out of the village for a full one right after… but I still do want to hear what you think about this, sensei."

The Toad Sage shot the teenager-woman a sideways look, once she didn't see because the assassin was staring off into space with a furrowed brow. The sannin hummed lowly, sorting his thoughts out and the impressions he had taken of her.

"I think it may not matter in a few years, you'll come to like the Nara gaki just fine. I'm just concerned you're jumping the bit too fast, neko-chan Why not look around for a year or so before agreeing?"

"So, you have commitment issues. Nice to know." Natsumi laughed as the man spluttered out a series of choked coughs. "We've got until we both make tokubetsu jōnin to decide if we're staying and tying the knot or breaking it off. There's wiggle room, sensei."

Not entirely surprised when the ANBU dodged the swipe at her head, the sannin settled back against his tree with a scowl aimed at her cheeky grin. "Fine. If you know what you're doing I'll sign the contract for you. Neko no gaki."

The assassin's grin faded, turning into a softer smile. "Thanks."

Jiraiya snorted, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "For what? A bit of ink on some paper? You need your head checked, neko-chan."

"I've needed that checked out for years, sensei, but the last time I did so I accidently threw Inoichi-kun out of my head with a nasty memory of what being gutted feels like. I'll skate by with how I am, thanks."

"I'll give you that." They sat in silence for a while, both thinking just what kind of damage the misplaced soldier might have in her head. "Why did Minato-kun want you out here, anyways? I didn't know you were interested in fūinjutsu."

Interested isn't the word I would use, sensei.

"I'm interested in Summoning Contracts, not the rest of it. So I know a bit." Natsumi quirked a smirk at the raised eyebrow. "I needed another goal after ANBU, sensei. So… Summoning Contracts."

"You trying for any animal clan in particular?"

"I think taicho wants to pass the Dogs on to his son, or I would have asked him." The assassin hummed, playing with a blade of grass as she thought. "I know I want something sort of like the Dogs, though. Something I can use when I get over my head, like when the Iwa assassins came after Eri-san and Kashi-chan. I could have used something to fetch backup without alerting the last one going through the main floor, even if they weren't combat usable."

"Toads?"

"No offence, but hell no. I think Minato-kun might kill me."

"Slugs?"

"Should go to a medic."

"Don't tell me you want the Snakes."

"One word, sensei. Creepy."

Laughing at that slight to his reclusive teammate, the man tried another few that were all shot down as either belonging to a clan already or another variation of the word creepy. The whisper-whistle of something sharp and metal thrumming its way through air reached the both of them minutes into the exchange, and their heads snapped up just in time to see the missing blond appear and catch something in a flash of light.

Minato then promptly flailed in midair, losing his way and needing rescuing by the Toad Sage.

Hiraishin. He had put together his Flying Thunder God technique while she had been off killing people and babysitting a baby. Damn blonds.

Jiraiya set his apprentice on the ground near Natsumi, checking over the blond for anything missing before getting irritated. "What the hell was that?"

"Shunshin in a seal, sensei." Minato panted, one hand over his heart. "It's… a lot harder because you can't see where you're going, but it's not only faster but instant."

"You're using the kunai I gave you for your birthday for it?"

Ah, history. Hello to you too.

The blond threw her a wide grin, still thrilled with the success of surprising the both of them. "Yep, with the seal wrapped around the handle, gives you a target to aim for when you activate it long range with a component chakra seal trigger. Doing it in midair is easier than trying to use a stationary target."

"Landing issues?" The assassin asked knowingly, it would explain the number of scuff marks and scratches her kouhai had been getting over the last couple of months. "If you're using a seal intended or like the one for teleportation between distances similar to a Summons Contract, how much of a problem is situating the area of summoning around a general target giving you? Is that why you're doing it in midair right now?"

Minato acquired a bit of a blush under his flush of success. "Not really similar to a Summons Contract but along the same lines, it's a space-time compression seal I had Kushina-chan check out with me before any testing on my end, styled after one like sensei uses. It basically removes the space between you and the seal, if you're the one to arm it. But kinda on the landings. I think it's more an orientation problem than location or trajectory. I was hoping I could use you as a test subject, sempai. To see if it's a comprehension fix, reaction time, or just one flaw you needed to get used to."

"I see you know more than just a bit, Natsumi-chan." Jiraiya interjected archly, causing both of his students to blush. "Let me look at that seal, Minato-kun."

The blond handed over the three pronged kunai, still unable to rid himself of his grin. The assassin thought that was fair, he must have been working on it the entire time the Toad Sage had been gone from the village. She wondered how much of his time she had wasted by sitting on his couch and verbally poking him.

The sannin eventually handed it back, first the metal kunai then the seal paper, shaking his head exasperatedly at the both of them. "The stuff you gakis get up to when I'm gone. Next you'll tell me Inoichi-kun has been selected to be the next Hokage."

Natsumi coughed into her hand. "We thought you knew, sensei."

At the man's gaping expression, her kouhai started snickering. "No, Inoichi-kun's not taking over the village, sensei."

"He's doing a hostile takeover T&I, actually." The assassin finished for him with a nod.

Jiraiya blinked, expecting a rebuttal that didn't come from his other student because it was technically true. "What?"

Minato shot his sempai a look to get her to quiet down. "He's rewriting a lot of the interrogation manuals, sensei. There is no hostile takeover."

"Yet."

The blond opened his mouth, and then shut it. He couldn't disagree with that either given his fellow blond's temperament. "Yet."

The Toad Sage eyed the both of them. "I don't think I want to know."

"Wise man."

"Shut up, sempai."

\V/

"So another half a year?"

"There about." Sakumo rubbed his jaw while the Toad Sage poured him another saucer of sake. He was still wondering where it had come from, he had been sure Eri threw out what he had before the wedding. "I would like to keep her nearby until Kashi-chan can hide himself if anything happens, maybe a full year more. But Natsumi-chan doesn't have long left on her apprenticeship, and there is only so far I can stretch teaching her. She picks up on a lot of it just by watching me."

The white haired sannin sighed, looking up at the stars peeking out of the darkening sky. "I'm hoping to be out for another few years, but that doesn't sound likely from the rumblings I'm hearing coming from the other hidden villages. Tell neko-chan you want her around for that last half a year after she's done, I can guarantee you she'll stick around longer than that if you make it clear what you want."

"You can, huh?"

"Hey, she was my student."

"She's my subordinate."

"So true." Jiraiya hummed, giving his friend a sideways look. "How are you feeling, about the attempt on your wife?"

"Pissed. But I'm sure Natsumi-chan told you that." Sakumo gave his friend a half-hearted glare, who didn't even had the grace to look sheepish. "It's just… if she hadn't been there that night, Eri might not be alive. Kakashi too. I mean, they almost got her just before trying to kill my wife. Did a number on her hair, though, even if she ducked in time."

"Natsumi-chan doesn't care about her hair, Sakumo. I asked her about it, and she said she had been thinking of a cut, anyways."

"Damn odd kunoichi, that one."

Jiraiya snorted, thinking of how right his friend was without knowing the half of it. "Odd maybe… but a damn good one."

"That," the silver haired man raised his saucer in salute, "goes without saying."

---

monophonic : She's rather proud of herself too. There is some screwing around cannon in this chapter, but I don't think anything else that major is kicked in and beaten with a rubber chicken for another part or so.

cormalin : Err . . . damn. Thanks though. That would explain why I couldn't find it. Hanzo's a beast either way, yeah?

KleverKilva : I have no plans not to finish this. I kinda want it done and complete even if it goes past my initial five parts, myself. There are not enough finished ones out there.

Mybffisazombie : Since you are the only one that expressed an opinion either way, screwing the pairings it is. Still was going to happen, but still. And though this part is sadly lacking much of the Toad Sage, I think you'll still like it.

DWM and Vaughn Tyler : Five minutes of fame, just for leaving something for me. Welcome to the nut-job cheering squad.