Trouble Brewing in the House of Sand
Chapter 4: A Fairy Tale
A/N: This section is on crack, even by my standards. If the insane amount of time-manipulation, plot-hole development and stretching of reality that goes on really just messes with your mind, I understand and apologize. (This was written before Kushina.)
It's never sat well with me that Kankuro is such a normal kid (his favorite and least favorite foods are hamburgers and spinach, respectively), and I know I've seen other people around this fandom mention how odd it is that he's so average when his childhood must have been completely insane. Thus, the changeling theory.
Also, Special Cookie Award goes to my reviewer Renjiro, for mentioning that Yondaime isn't his name, it merely means "The Fourth (Hokage)". Techincally, our beloved "Lamont" is also "Yondaime", he's the 4th Kazekage... is it just me, or is weird that the two Yondaimes don't have names and have little demon children?
"And now, once again number one for the nineteenth week in a row, that's right, it's Mr. Sandman by B-Rad and the Screaming Chocolate Orgasms!" announced the radio. A bubbly, happy tune began playing, accompanied by bubbling, happy female voices.
"Mr. Sandman, ooh, bring me a dream-,"
Rosemary reached over and switched off the radio. "I swear, Jafar," (She had taken to calling her husband Jafar during her pregnancy. This wasn't his name, either.) "I'm going to have an allergic reaction to that song."
The Kazekage stopped wrestling with the teakettle briefly. "Just think of it as the baby's theme song."
"Don't say that," shuddered Rosemary. "You'll have me hating it before it's even born and drooling on the Persian rugs."
"Uh-huh," he replied absently, returning to his war with the teakettle. In recent months he and his wife had been getting along well, and as a result he had directed his anger at the Ancestral Possessed Kettle. "Come on, you stupid piece of junk, boil the -- -- water!"
In another room, Yashamaru was watching his sister's kids. Temari, now two-going-on-three, was just beginning to mix real words into her speech, and he was encouraging her. (Kankuro, age one-going-on-two, had begun speaking at the normal time. In fact, everything Kankuro did was at the normal time.)
"Can you say Yashamaru?" Yashamaru asked brightly.
"No," Temari said simply.
"Well at least try," he pleaded.
"No," Temari said again, more firmly. Yashamaru wished, as he often had when watching her, that she spent less time with her 'father'; she seemed to have picked up Daddy's dislike for his brother-in-law.
The door opened, and an unimportant flunkie showed Yondaime into the room.
"Uncle Yondai!" Temari cried joyously, breaking away from Yashamaru and toddling over to him. "Uncle Yonai, look at the new Kankwo, isn't he great?" she asked in garbled Temarese, pointing to the little changeling.
"The new Kankuro?" Yondaime asked, confused despite his inexplicable ability to translate Temari's chatter. He looked down at the baby boy crawling on the floor. "Oh... lot of radiation in these parts?" he asked Yashamaru. "Mutations common?"
"Maybe he'll lighten up," shrugged Yashamaru.
"I meant the wings-,"
"He's a fairy, Uncle Yondai," Temari explained, delighted he could understand her. "The Normal Fairies came when he was a baby and replaced him."
"He's a changeling?" gasped the Hokage.
"What?" Rosemary asked, having been informed privately of the visitor. She was surprised to see her former lover; the two of them had broken off their relationship upon her pregnancy. "Yash, get out of here," she ordered her brother, who retreated obediently. "Now, what's all this about changelings?"
"Temari says Kankuro's a fairy."
"I have wondered about the wings," Rosemary said, not particularly shocked. "So, aside from that, what's up?"
"I need a baby," Yondaime explained. "Trouble with a kitsune, you know."
"Well, you can't have this one," Rosemary laughed, patting her slightly-rounded stomach fondly. "He's not yours."
"I know, sweetheart, but I was thinking of Temari or Kankuro... they're a little older than I'd have liked, but they're the only kids I've got, and you wouldn't believe the fight that the Yamanakas are putting up over their kid, so I've got to use one of my own."
"Well, you can't have Temari," Rosemary said, "she's the only one who can deal with our kettle." A scream of pain and obscenities burst from the kitchen, not unlike what would happen if an evil teakettle had unleashed a torrent of steam on a hapless kage who was trying to make it boil water. Yondaime and Rosemary ignored it.
"But if Kankuro's not human, I don't think I can use him." Yondaime turned to his illegitimate daughter. "Hey, Temari-chan, how do you get rid of a changeling?"
"Uncle Yasha says that if you throw it in the fire, the fairies will take it away and give back the old one," Temari explained blithely. Yondaime relayed this message to Rosemary, who picked up Kankuro.
Temari, realizing where this was going, rushed to his defense, pulling her magical brother back towards the floor. "Nononononono!"
"Temari, let go!" Rosemary snapped.
"Nonononono!" she repeated, tugging relentlessly on Kankuro's foot. "My brother, my brother. I want him to stay!" she yelled in solid understandable adult, stomping on Yondaime's foot when he tried to grab her. "He's my brother!"
Normal Fairy changelings have a defense mechanism; when threatened, their wings fall off to aid them in looking human. And so Kankuro's dropped off now.
Temari grabbed up on of the shed wings with her free hand and swiped at her mother with it. She missed, but created a gust of such ferocity that Rosemary was forced to drop Kankuro.
"The girl's a natural-born ninja," Yondaime said proudly, and, wanting to encourage her, decided to let her keep the fairy child she was so fond of if at all possible. "Temari-chan, is there another way to get the human baby back?"
Temari, still clinging protectively to Kankuro, thought for a moment, then said, in Temarese, "You may be able to go to the Court of Norm and steal him back... Be careful. They will offer you hamburgers and soda; do not eat or drink. Time passes differently in their realm; the baby may be much younger than he should be. You might bring something to bargain with... they like manga."
"What's she saying?" Rosemary asked. Yondaime held up a hand to silence her; he didn't want to miss any of Temari's instructions.
"Manga?... ok, go on. How do you find them?"
So, Yondaime Hokage began his quest. He journeyed far and came to the Court of Norm. There, he presented himself before the Fairy Queen, Jane Smith, and promised that in return for the life of his son, the fairies would be allowed to base a manga off of his (baby Kankuro's) life.
The bargain was excepted, although the fairies did try to cheat. The first baby they brought out looked like the right one, but Yondaime, wary of their tricks, touched it with spinach, the herb that repels Normal Fairies. The fairy child disappeared, and the real one was brought, still a newborn.
And so, with his infant son in his arms, the legendary Yondaime hitched a ride on the back of a passing toad and rode to his Village's rescue.
"So, what's the boy's name?" the retired Hokage, an old man with liver spots and a crack pipe, asked when his successor returned.
"Kankuro," Yondaime had replied.
"Naruto, huh?" the old Hokage said. He was a little hard of hearing. "I like it... it's a little different."
"Not Naruto, Kank—," Screams around him reminded him that he, the toad, and the baby had another appointment to keep. "Ah, never mind, yes, his name's Naruto."
And so Uzumaki Naruto came into the world.
Next Time on Trouble Brewing: The Kazekage gets a brilliant idea! Or something.