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.

6. Sentry Patrols and War

Disclaimer : I own my own bed! … finally. Still don't own this.

Rating : Err … M? Just to be safe.

Author's Note : I really hadn't intended for this story to go on so long, but my mental cart that held the plot left the rails back in part 2 since Jiraiya stepped in to bitch slap me and so many of you have expressed an interest in how Shikamaru would turn out with Natsumi as a mother… now I kinda want to find out too. So I have no idea where this is going now, after so long wavering over whether or not Natsumi was going to die like planned and deciding that bit of the plot was now scrapped.

I've also decided the previous five parts are now the prologue to this, covering the needed shinobi day to day life information and the growing years before this part and the next however many will follow since it seems that we've slowed down a hell of a lot. The titles are changing to match suit. Then we'll have the last section of the story, a few part long epilogue, which Natsumi will take a backseat for, either dead or still alive but just there, as the next generation deals with the remnants of whatever the nut job assassin couldn't deal with for them or just made worse. There may or may not be a time skip somewhere in there. Any objections?

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Part Six : Sentry Patrols and War

War is a conflict that determines not who is right, but who is left to say what's right.

So why is it still one of the major course of action used to solve struggles between world powers?

---

Natsumi pulled a face at herself in the mirror, inspecting the reflected image of her standing in the full length mirror and holding her arms out to the side like Mikoto had told her to do. "Damn, that is kinda creepy."

Her face was getting tanner, no longer so pale now that she didn't run as many missions behind a painted clay mask and full body armor covering everything but her eyelids on occasion. It just highlighted her pale, mismatched eyes even more than it had before, to the point it really did look like her left blue eye had no color when in the right light.

She still had those jolting moments of strangeness where she looked at her reflection expecting Fiona's face and saw Natsumi's far more familiar features; but those had become more than a little rare now a days with the vast amount of mirrors showing that she no longer had the dead soldier's strongly German influenced facial structure but the assassin's narrower face.

Sometimes it made her doubt she had ever lived another life, up until something meshed with that annoying little story she recalled reading and she could accurately predict what would happen next using it.

"You're a very strange woman." Kushina told her frankly, still sorting out the various layers of silk to fashion the final layers of the assassin's wedding kimono. "You don't like to shop, you absolutely fail at color coordinating, and I don't think you've ever seen your full body in a mirror before."

"…I have. There just aren't many of these this clear where I usually work and live." The ghost eyed, physically young woman protested, shrugging her shoulders only to be stabbed in the back with a pin by Mikoto. "OW!"

"Stop moving, or I'll do worse and we'll have to pay the cleaning bill for getting blood out of silk too." The Uchiha kunoichi absently threatened the fidgeting woman, checking her work to ensure the reincarnated former soldier hadn't ruined her tailoring work.

Natsumi could no longer do it herself, even if she had the skills from a previous life, because of the sharp nails the Leopard Summoning Contract had given her.

They had shredded a fair bit of cloth and paper until the assassin caught on to what was going on with her thickening nails. She now had a standing appointment with an industrial strength nail file every day she wasn't on mission, keeping the fast growing sharp points controlled unless they could be useful in clawing someone's eyes or throat out.

"Why the hell am I getting married first, anyways?" Natsumi grumbled, turning her head to inspect her full, silk draped form in the mirror again. "I always thought it would be you, Mikoto."

"Fugaku agreed to hold off on getting the last half of his own promotion until I got promoted, even if I am waiting for Kushina before attempting the spar." The genjutsu mistress answered the question smugly, straightening out the lay of the silk down the assassin's back. "It was very sweet of him."

Kushina held up a bolt of silk across the assassin's front, checking to see if it really did match her coloring. "Your contract with the Nara clan just said until you both were tokubetsu or full jōnin… and Shikaku finally racked up enough Intelligence missions for his own promotion. So now you're getting hitched first."

Natsumi's lips twitched as she shot the Uchiha kunoichi measuring her arm's length a teasing look. "My soon-to-be-hubby is better than yours."

Mikoto stabbed her with the pin again, but the assassin was sure it was on purpose this time. "Shush."

She shot her a glare in return and started swearing under her breath.

"I think it's funny too," the redheaded spitfire informed her friends with a smirk, "that Shikaku got the full jump and not just the half step like Fugaku."

The next Lady of the Uchiha clan shot the jinchūriki a glare of her own for validating the assassin's odd sense of humor. "I'm pretty sure he just did it so Natsumi didn't outrank him once they're married."

The next Lady of the Nara clan hummed her agreement, trying to fight off a grin and failing spectacularly. "Probably."

Mikoto sniffed disdainfully at the both of them.

"Okay, Natsumi. You can shed the-" she blinked down at the pile of silks now on the floor, "-outer layers."

"Oops… oh well. Taking a break." Taking the step down, the nearly naked assassin turned to her friends while she rubbed the various pinpricks left in her skin. "That is freaking hard."

"Standing still?" Lips twitching as she fought down a smile, Kushina pulled the finished layers of the kimono off the floor and set them aside to be sewn up. "We do it for nobles and such when they want to intimidate their guests with a show of power by hiring ninjas for silly things like banquets and balls. Why are you so twitchy today?"

Rolling her arms up over her head and bending backwards to stretch out her lower and mid back as well as her shoulder muscles, Natsumi waited until she felt a few pops in her spine before answering. "Cause I hate being touched with pointy objects. Generally, it's a bad thing in our line of work."

"Like you can kill someone with a pin."

The assassin snapped back upright, grinning widely. "Wanna bet?"

Both Kushina and Mikoto shot a look to the corner where there were some rather large pins intended to hold long swaths of material together when sewing.

"I don't think we should take that bet, Kushina."

"Maybe not."

Barking a laugh, Natsumi winked over at them as she checked to make sure her small arsenal she brought with her was still all there. "Doubt me not, ladies. I will prove you wrong."

Giving up on fitting the assassin for the kimono she would be wearing to her wedding for the time being, Mikoto turned to the politely smiling if a little pale looking matron of the tailoring shop the three of them were in. "Atoka-san, I think we would appreciate some tea."

"Hai, Mikoto-sama." The elderly civilian who owned the kimono shop bowed to the three of them before bustling out of the small fitting room she had shown the future wives of the heads of two clans into. Probably very grateful for the excuse to leave the three gossiping kunoichi in the room alone, sometimes civilians didn't like listening to ninja talk shop around them.

Natsumi kept snickering as she sorted out her clothing. "I hope I don't have to call you Mikoto-sama now. Fugaku-sama and Mikoto-sama just sounds like I'm brown nosing the both of you."

The Uchiha genjutsu mistress just flapped a hand in her direction, nudging the ANBU standard leather under-armor plates closer to her so she could reassemble herself faster. "Why did you start calling him that? I can sort of recall it was in the academy that you picked up the title."

"Why? Cause he was a snotty little teme when I first met him." Kushina almost choked herself on her laughter with how fast Mikoto's head snapped around to Natsumi so the man's intended wife could glare at the woman mocking her intended husband. The assassin simply shrugged again, making sure she was put together right before facing the two of them and continuing the conversation. "What? He was. Then Minato told him I should've been the Rookie of the Year for our first year there and he lost a lot of his superiority complex against the kunoichi side of the class. Well… some of us. He still hated the fangirls no matter what they did."

If Natsumi hadn't been a part of the generation Fugaku grew up with she wondered if the heir to the Uchihas would have still had that slight disdain for the female shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato he had shown when he was younger.

With her little mental stumbling block not too long ago she had been trying to find where and how she had affected the people around her, and Fugaku had been more than a little cold to her in the beginning when they met in the early days of her academy years. That had changed not too long after to be more like wary respect when he learned she had been mentoring Minato's taijutsu development and exactly how good she had been before the rest of them caught up enough to her mental age to understand themselves.

Honestly though, if she was the cause of that she had no problems accepting the blame.

"Then it turned into a way of teasing him about his lofty noble clan and young age… and to remind him about the fangirls he used to cringe from."

Rolling her eyes at the next Lady of the Nara clan and her dreadful sense of humor, Mikoto opened her mouth to make some comment but froze before saying anything.

Alerted to something being wrong, both Natsumi and Kushina grabbed the few weapons they had previously decided were enough for a shopping trip inside of Konoha and waited for the most chakra sensitive of the three of them to tell them what had caught her attention.

The Uchiha genjutsu mistress turned to the door just as a member of the Genin Corps all but tripped inside with the fluttering owner of the kimono shop behind him. "Mesuji-san! Shikaku-sama's in the hospital."

The assassin didn't wait for anymore, she bolted out the open window.

Kushina rounded on the messenger-nin. "Details."

"The team he was on returned from their mission, kunoichi-san. Without the team leader and the remainder of the team had to be transported straight to the hospital the moment the gate guards caught sight of them."

Mikoto had already sorted away the silks they had been working on by the time the jinchūriki turned to her with a pale face. "Atoka-san, we will have to come back to try this again and have the tea later. My apologies."

"Oh! No, it is alright. We will save this all here for you to return." The still pale matron bowed to the remaining two kunoichi customers. "Take my well-wishes for Shikaku-sama's health to Natsumi-sama, Mikoto-sama."

The future Lady of the Uchiha clan nodded once firmly in thanks and acknowledgement, leading herself and the redheaded kunoichi out of the fitting room to head after their missing friend to the hospital.

(ooo000ooo)

Natsumi might not have the fine chakra senses of Minato, the moment he wanted them; or Mikoto's uncanny accuracy, who could pinpoint someone's position even when they were suppressing their chakra nearly a mile away; but she had her own ways of tracking down the closest to her that was similar.

She figured out early on in her kunoichi career that sensing other shinobi through her chakra was too disorientating for her to do, just simply too different from what she had known for her to accept it as accurate over her usual five senses. It made the orientation period after attempting the chakra sensing too long for mission use and her too inaccurate as well as too slow to make a good sensor, so she would never be known for her senses like her kouhai or one of her best kunoichi friends.

However, she found that she could tease out the feel of another's chakra in her usual senses if she knew it well enough to follow in emergencies, without having to concentrate solely on the feelings of the chakra around her and pinpointing them specifically as human and ninja or not. It was something Sakumo had tried to help her develop between the rare and rarer ANBU missions he still took after Kakashi had been born, though he wasn't at all impressed over her limited range with it unless she knew the target well and the skill had been only occasionally used to check their surroundings for eavesdroppers from time to time.

It may not be all that accurate to pick up the exact locations of everyone around or judge how much of a threat they might be by how much the chakra was controlled, and definitely something Natsumi couldn't use on missions unless she was tracking down her well known teammates or sensing for unseen watchers within a very limited range, but it got her close enough for the job she used it for inside the village.

Usually locating the unfortunate soul she wanted to poke at in that moment.

She knew Shikaku's and Inoichi's chakra almost as well as she knew Minato's and Kushina's.

That same skewed sense that would never be useful in her missions lead her faithfully through the hospital, past a number of alarmed medics and nurses up to the third floor where she could feel both Shikaku's dark silky and Inoichi's wet earth sensation, Minato's icy windburn not too far behind with Tsunade's itchy salve sense.

Her heart thumped in fear, knowing from the limited experience she had with this kind of sensing that her kouhai was only icy when he was pissed and the medical specializing sannin only itchy when she had been healing. As she got closer she could also pick up Chouza's ginger tang from the recovery room her old genin teammate and her intended were in.

Minato had to throw out an arm to catch her and keep her from barreling into both him and the Slug Princess. "Shikaku's alright, Natsumi, and Inoichi's just chakra exhausted. It's Chouza, though. He used two of the three Akimichi food pills and they only just stabilized his metabolism."

"You can visit, little shadow, but do so quietly." A slightly grimy Tsunade added, looking like she only just got out of the operation room, jerking her thumb to the closed door behind her. "Kami help you if you wake the Akimichi because I won't be nice."

Natsumi slipped past the two of them and let herself in as silently as she could.

Shikaku had collapsed on one of the visitor's chairs, on the opposite wall from where the hospital beds that contained his teammates. He only stirred when the assassin brushed her sword calloused fingers under the two livid scars carved into the side of his face.

The young man cracked the eye open to check who it was touching him, then swept the small woman into his lap so she could hold onto him and not just hover uncertainly over him. "Ambush, Natsu. It's not as bad as it looks, just an anti-coagulant that must have coated the katana that scratched me."

"This is a bit more than a scratch, Shika." She had known he ended up with the two arching scars on the left side of his face, but not how he got them. Seeing them only just healed was twisting her guts into knots and making her heart hammer. Natsumi shifted only enough to swing her legs over his hips so she could see the damage better. "I'm going to hunt down the ass that did this and rip out his spine."

Shikaku huffed out a hollow laugh as he set his hands on her thighs. "I got her. Not much left for you to hunt."

The assassin scowled, still upset at the sight of his scars. "Leave me something to do, please. I would like to feel useful somehow if I can't help."

"I think you help just fine." The Nara heir told her as he pressed on her back to get her to lay against his chest.

She went with an exasperated huff, stretching out her arms to circle them behind his neck. "We're staying until someone wakes up, right?"

He wrapped his arms around her lower back in return. "Yeah."

(ooo000ooo)

Inoichi finally stirred once the moon hid itself behind the first rays of the sun peaking over the rim of the walls surrounding the village.

"Awake?"

The blond mind walker cracked one lavender, pupil-less eye open; blearily taking in the position of the low but familiar voice that called him out. It took him a few moments to realize exactly what he was looking at. "Even here? Is there going to be anywhere safe from the two of you?"

"Shush. I finally convinced him to sleep a little." Natsumi gave him an irritated and tired blue eye glare, tightening her grip on the insensible Nara that she was lying on top of. "How are you feeling, besides the chakra exhaustion?"

Shutting his own eye, the Yamanaka grimaced at the vertigo sensation that was making it hard for him to concentrate on anything and sorted out his last few memories. "Like shit. What happened?"

"Long story or the shorter version? Cause, I don't know the long story and I'm not waking Shikaku just to hear how much of a fuck up your last mission was."

Inoichi huffed out a hollow laugh, pulling another face at how much that had hurt his ribs to do. "Short then."

"Your team leader's missing, presumed dead unless the Hunter-nin teams come back with a different report. He didn't return with you three and Shika said he stayed behind to give him enough time to escape with you two." The assassin laid her head back down, keeping one eye on the blond like she had to promise her intended before he would let himself pass out. "Chouza's fine now, but he used two of the three Akimichi food pills and he's practically as thin as I was back after ANBU the first time."

The muscles of his jaw clenched and the bedridden blond opened up his eyes to stare at the ceiling. "Fuck."

"Mmm, don't think Shikaku would appreciate that."

Inoichi's mouth twitched. "Nice to know some things never change."

"I think I might give a few people heart attacks if I started being serious."

"True." He looked around, carefully since moving his head was making it spin, and located the covered form of the Akimichi heir. "Ah… hell."

Natsumi hadn't lied or even bothered to cover up the truth, Chouza was nearly as thin as she had been after nearly starving herself just to keep up with her old ANBU squad. On an Akimichi's frame, her once stick thin look was nearly skeletal seeming for the broad and tall frames of the body size jutsu clan members.

"Before you ask, Tsunade-sama said he'd be fine with a little more rest and a lot of food. In a few months we won't ever be able to tell he got this bad."

Inoichi just grimaced again while keeping his eyes on the boney frame of his last teammate. "That doesn't really help, Natsumi."

"I know." The misplaced soldier huffed a hollow, painful laugh. "Trust me, I know."

\V/

The day Chouza woke up for the first time after being carried into to the Konoha Hospital, the nurses noted that the Akimichi heir's friends, who ranged from the Nara heir to the head of the Hyūga clan to a number of other shinobi of some note, snuck or talked their way into the recovery room to seemingly camp out for the day with a number of soup and stew containers.

"You've always had the greatest timing, Chouza." Natsumi joked lightly as she seated herself on the foot of the way too skinny Akimichi's hospital bed. "How the hell that turned into waking up just in time for us all to be free to come and visit you I have no idea."

Chouza just shrugged with a smirk, already digging into the food the assassin had gotten Tsunade to approve to bring to him. It was all soups and broths for the moment, but if the tokubetsu jōnin could keep up with his metabolism without needing the medication developed by the Slug Princess for insensible Akimichis he would graduate to soft foods next and his preferred hard foods not too long after that.

"I seriously want to know who taught you to cook, Natsumi." Kushina set the next crock of soup the assassin had spent nearly three days making in preparation for her intended's teammate waking. "I mean, I know you've got the experience for being this good but I haven't even seen half of these before."

"I've learned them here and there, some when I was a civilian and a lot more when I was a soldier way back when. That's French onion soup." Pointing at the pot that she had abducted from the Hyūga kitchens when Shikaku's had ran out of containers, Natsumi grinned at the deadpan expression on Hizashi's face as he set that one down next to the crock the jinchūriki had transported in. "And that is split pea. Never really liked that one, to be honest."

Shikaku raised an eyebrow at the fan stamped on the crock he was holding. "And the Uchiha's? Who else did you raid for bowls last night?"

"I'm pleading the fifth."

"What?"

"I know that one." Minato rolled his eyes as he slipped passed Hiashi on his way out, holding the container he was bringing in over his head so it didn't knock into anyone and spill. "It means she's going to refrain from commenting because answering would incriminate herself."

Kushina smirked, taking a break near the window since she had started transporting the soups and stews at the same time as the assassin had. "I like it."

Chouza had been sidetracked from his eating at the sight of the barely healed over scars carved into his teammate's face. Natsumi snapped her fingers in front of his face when she noticed his distraction. "Eat, before I force feed you. I'd bet I would be the first to do it in Konoha's history, too."

"But-"

"Chouza, you're the one everyone was worried about. Superficial scars and chakra exhaustion do not compare to your almost skeleton thin frame. Eat."

The Akimichi heir meekly went back to spooning up the soup he was eating under the stern stare of the assassin.

"I do love your ability to mother the men we all know, Natsumi." Mikoto smiled as she sidestepped past Hizashi brining in yet another suspicious looking container. "And steal just about anything not nailed down at the same time."

"Shush you. It's not mothering, it's ordering."

"Isn't that Biwako-sama's bowl?"

"Yet again, pleading the fifth." Natsumi sniffed in the Uchiha kunoichi's direction. "…actually she found me in her kitchen and let me have those ones for a few days."

"Well, nice to know someone can catch you when you feel like being sneaky." Minato deadpanned as he picked his way through the soups and stews his sempai had made. "What is this one?"

"The stew left over from a pot roast I made last night. That one is the last one Chouza's allowed to have." Smiling evilly at the hopeful look the Akimichi pinned her with, the assassin switched the empty bowl with the one of French onion. "Last Chouza."

"What did Tsunade-sama say about these?" Restacking some of the containers so they wouldn't tip over and spill, Inoichi carefully placed the two crocks he had on the stacks they had brought in already. "I know more than half of what you made are not local recipes, or possibly not found anywhere around the world."

"I don't think Tsunade-sama knows I can actually cook. She might just have assumed that I can't cook and threw some things in a pot for most of these. I'm pretty sure she also tested all of these for food poisoning too."

Chouza choked on his mouthful of soup.

\V/

A runaway, silver speeding bullet hit her the moment Natsumi let herself into the Hatake clan compound's outer gates.

"Natsu-nee!"

"Hey, chibi-chan." The assassin ruffled the three-year-old's fluffy hair fondly. "What's kicking?"

"I'm not kicking." Kakashi looked adorably confused as he tried to understand the weird things that came out of his sister figure's mouth on occasion. "And I'm a boy."

Natsumi pried the young child's arms off her thigh and pulled him up to sit on her hip. "Are you sure about that?"

"About the kicking or the boy part?"

"Stop trying to confuse my son, neko-chan." Sakumo's voice carried over to the two of them, the man himself sitting at the dinner table writing out yet another mission report for the mission clerks to file away for other missions' intelligence planning.

Probably working on follow up report for the same mission that killed him in another life, adding in information that he had either forgotten to include the first time or only just now found out had been important in some way.

It was standard practice for cell leaders and ANBU captains to submit another report after the usual mission reports for the whole team or squad, it was more often known as the intelligence report. It covered the ungodly amount of minor details about other villages and towns you found out, as well as the rumors each ninja heard while on mission and small facts you hadn't included in the mission report for whatever reason. That report wasn't due nearly right after returning to the village like the mission report, but it was considered polite to turn it in anywhere from three to six months after a mission taking you out of Fire Country.

The assassin's lips twisted downward as she eyed the paperwork in her old ANBU captain's hands.

If there had ever been a reason to hate the inevitable piles of never ending forms and written reports that came with being a part of any military outfit, the current favorite of hers was that the older looking silver haired shinobi had almost committed suicide on behalf of a badly botched mission that hadn't succeeded anyways. The clan he had gone to deliver a missive to refuse by letter, one taken to Konoha by an elderly member of the clan who hadn't survived much beyond delivery.

It had been on hell of a slap to the face, to realize the issue had been a complete nonissue other than the whole getting caught thing because the clan in Mist would have refused the help anyways.

"I… need to ask you and Eri-san a question, taicho."

The hesitation in his old apprentice's normally calm and even, or dry and sarcastic, voice drew the older shinobi's attention like a lodestone. He paused in writing, holding the brush off to the side and gave the ANBU assassin called Panther his full attention. "Eri's in the garden. Kakashi-kun, go fetch your kaa-chan."

Natsumi fidgeted under the steady and inquiring gaze of her old ANBU captain after she set the boy down and the hyper child ran off to find his mother. "So... how are you?"

"Fine, something you know because you had dinner with us yesterday." Sakumo set his brush down, a faint smirk tugging his lips up at the corners. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Jiraiya being out of the village and not expected to be back for a few more months, and a certain someone's wedding in a week... would it?"

The reincarnated former soldier hesitated, frowning. "You're an evil, evil man, taicho."

He had the gall to laugh at her and was still snickering when Eri wandered in, half listening to her son explain how great it would be if Natsu-nee stayed for dinner and showed him a few ninja things out in the yard. Even if he was in trouble for walking up a wall and leaving dirty footprints all over the ceiling before shocking poor kaa-chan out of a year of her life.

The civilian woman looked between the young woman that had saved her life once and the husband that had taught her much of how to do it. "Is there something wrong, Natsumi-chan?"

Shooting an exasperated look at the sliver haired ninja snickering with amusement at her, the assassin turned and greeted the terrific woman who married the lump of unhelpful male her taicho was being. "I've got a question... more like request, really. Jiraiya-sensei's not expected to make it back in time for my wedding, and I need someone to stand in as otou-sama... and okaa-sama of the bride. I was wondering if the two of you would do it for me."

Eri smiled softly at the uncomfortable kunoichi. "I would love to stand in as your okaa-san, Natsumi-chan. And Sakumo, as soon as he behaves, would love to stand in as your otou-sama as well."

The older of the two silver haired males in the room abruptly stopped laughing, peering suspiciously at his wife. "What does that mean?"

"It means stop laughing at your poor, hardworking, and babysitting old apprentice before I exile you to the couch." The civilian woman turned to beam at him too, but she had an evil smirk on her face instead of the sweet smile the assassin had been gifted with.

Natsumi's lips twitched, trying and failing to stop the answering smirk from crossing her face.

Yet again, Eri was awesome.

Sakumo muttered a few thing to himself that he was lucky his wife didn't catch, a few of the words Natsumi could pick up involved 'damn', 'running', 'women', and 'life'; and not necessarily in that order.

The only reason the civilian didn't catch it with how close she was standing to her husband was because Kakashi became curious over where his Natsu-nee's parents were if she wasn't really his sister but was asking for them to be family. Which diverted Eri enough in explaining the concept of death, being an orphaned shinobi, the legalities of that, as well as wedding traditions to a three-year-old genius not to hear anything else.

The assassin gave her old ANBU captain a salute on her way out the door, grinning the whole time.

Life had been disrupted, her work here was done.

\V/

"How are the three of you doing?" Natsumi asked the next day, taking a seat next to Shikaku.

Inoichi didn't even bother to look up at her and even the still too thin Chouza had stopped eating, and from the look of the chip bag half full in front of him not too long ago either.

Her intended shot her a sideways look. "What are you doing here?"

"This is your normal training grounds. You three were usually here with your team leader for training for the last few years." The assassin ignored the automatic wince from all three men sitting in the training field. "You know, I don't think I know his name."

"His name was Taka." She was rather impressed her intended husband actually managed to keep much of the bite out of his tone, trying not to snap at her for poking at something that still had to be sore even weeks after their team leader's death. "Why are you asking, Natsumi?"

"Grief counseling." Inoichi answered before the assassin could, recognizing what she was doing from his own training with his clan. "Do you really think that will help?"

"Well… I spent eight years without any and I nearly went off the deep end before you all finally got me some." Natsumi pointed out dryly. "Admittedly I needed the counseling because I had nine deaths to come to terms with and I was stuck on denial for a good few years… so what do you think I think? Humor me, boys."

The Yamanaka heir knocked his head back against the tree he had been hunched under. "Revenge is sweet?"

"Something like that. And if you forced me through all that, including the parts I really didn't want to deal with like the post-traumatic stress disorder and my own death, the least you can do is tell me a little about Taka."

Inoichi laughed weakly, covering his face with one hand. "Now I feel like an ass if this was how you felt."

The assassin huffed, shifting around for a more comfortable position for a collection of bruises on her thigh from a sparring accident two days ago. "Ignore that, it'll fade with time."

"She's got a point." Shikaku laced his fingers together behind his neck with a grimace. "We did all but tie her down for her therapy."

"Tie down? You froze me in place after paralyzing me. So that… and I really do want to know about the man. If you three respected him this much he had to be a damn good shinobi."

Natsumi listened as the three of them shared some of what they knew of their KIA cell leader. Of what the man had done in certain situations; the fact he hadn't liked the Nara's control over shadows for the first few weeks they had been assigned together; how he adjusted to it; what they did to celebrate the man's promotion; and the varied little details they had known of the KIA jōnin Taka Lin.

\V/

Minato stared at the scarred man, scowling. "I swear to kami-sama, if you're thinking of leaving the closest thing I have to a nee-chan at the altar on her wedding day… I will kill you."

"What? No! I don't plan on leaving Natsumi at the altar!" Shikaku lost a few shades of color in his scarred face, looking a little queasy at exactly how icy the blue eyes of the blond's had become from how he had interpreted his comment.

"Shika's just panicking." Inoichi snickered from the other side of the soon to be married, or dead, man. "Even genius are allowed to panic on their wedding day, Minato. Don't kill him for it."

The crunching noises stopped and Chouza, well on his way to recovering from the metabolism unbalance caused by his clan's high leveled jutsus and taking two of three food pills his clan developed but still with an appearance almost too thin for an Akimichi's bone structure, looked over at the three of them curiously. "Did Natsumi panic?"

He was dressed and ready, just waiting on them to get themselves together.

"Well, I can't speak about right now. But I do know she's got a few worries of her own."

The fūinjutsu user and the shadow master both looked over to the mind walker and spoke at the same time. "She does?"

Wrapping the obi around his waist, Inoichi tied the formal kimono he was wearing to the ceremony shut. "She's… what age did she say she was when talking to you, Minato? Nearly forty-five? She's an almost forty-five-year-old woman in the body of a seventeen-year-old, marring a seventeen-year-old man. Two of the few words I managed to pry out of her yesterday were 'cradle' and 'snatcher'."

Shikaku blinked a few times, working out that logic in his head. "So what, does she want an older man?"

"Asked her about that too, she muttered 'cougar' just loud enough for me to hear."

Chouza snickered. "Sounds like Natsumi."

Minato pulled a face. "I don't think I really wanted to know that…"

Inoichi kept Shikaku from asking another stupid question that would get his head almost bitten off again by his bride's brother-in-all-but-blood by continuing with what he had gotten out of the ANBU assassin the day before. "She also stated she would've settled for a civilian idiot that wouldn't know what she has done for most of her life if Shikaku hadn't talked to her about marriage, and this was considerably better than what she had figured she'd end up with if she ever got around to desperately wanting a family of her own."

The mind walker's fellow blond now looked irritated at the bent the assassin's mind had taken her in assuming her probable married life.

Shikaku, on the other hand, looked more relieved now than when the fūinjutsu user stopped glaring at him. "So, she does want to marry me?"

Snorting, Minato gave the newly confirmed Nara clan head a deadpan stare. "She almost flat out freaked when she was told you were in the hospital, Shikaku. Kushina told me she didn't even wait for the full report before bolting for your side during the first fitting for her wedding kimono. I had to keep her from running into Tsunade-sama on her way to make sure you all were okay."

"…oh."

The blond seal user shook his head at the shadow master. "You know, Natsumi calls me her idiot in polite conversation. I think that may have to change to 'idiots' so she can include you too."

(ooo000ooo)

Kushina, finished with braiding the long hair so it could be put up in a few minutes, took a seat next to the fully dressed bride carefully applying the makeup she couldn't talk her way out of. "Excited?"

"Panicking." Natsumi countered flatly, still staring at herself in the vanity mirror with the lip brush suspended a full inch from where she was supposed to be painting with it.

Hugging the slightly shorter woman carefully so she wouldn't muss anything that would need to be fixed in a hurry, she smiled up at the assassin still staring at herself. "You'll be fine. You say a few words, follow Shikaku around, and it'll all be over. You'll be Nara Natsumi this time tomorrow."

The ANBU agent gave her a slightly wide-eyed look. "I don't think that's helping, hime."

"How about thinking of the wedding night?"

Natsumi blinked a few times, left side of her lips twitching upwards. "Maybe."

Kushina dissolved into giggles, burrowing into the reincarnated former soldier's silk clad side. "You really are a pervert."

"Well… yeah." Finally getting around to the reason she was holding the makeup up in the first place, Natsumi smeared the red color over her lips. "What was your first clue?"

"Mine was what you said to me and Shibi on mission!" Tsume barked from where she was putting herself together, ignoring the fact her kimono was gaping open enough to show a fair bit of chest for the moment as she carefully pulled up her stockings to keep her long and sharp nails from ripping holes in it.

Mikoto sniffed haughtily, trying to hide her smirk, and adjusted her Uchiha crest stamped fan tucked into her obi. "There was that one time you said to Shikaku that he made a good pillow and every girl needed a pillow like him in their bed… or was it life?"

The alpha of the Inuzuka clan turned around with a fanged grin and a laugh once she was done with adjusting herself so she wasn't falling out of the kimono. "She did? Wow, talk about predicting the future."

Throwing an irritable look at the two of them gossiping behind her, Natsumi finally stopped obsessively checking her small arsenal of sharp and pointy things with her off hand and set the makeup Eri had lent her for the occasion off to the side. "I'm ignoring you both. I never should have introduced you two if this is how you intend to act."

The next Lady of the Uchihas smiled prettily at the seated bride glaring at her through a mirror's reflection, and then turned to the alpha of the Inuzukas. "Would you like to get some tea sometime and hear all about what Natsumi thought was appropriate to tell a few people to their faces and the offhand comments she's made over the years I've known her for?"

"I would be delighted." Tsume answered just as formally, trying and failing to fight off the wicked grin inching across her face.

"Shut up you two."

Kushina smiled softly at Natsumi's reflection, still leaning against the now marginally calmer assassin. "Feel better about this yet?"

"…yeah."

(ooo000ooo)

Eri beamed at Natsumi as the bride and her handmaidens came out of the dressing room, clasping her hands just beneath her chin. "You look lovely, Natsumi-chan."

Sakumo almost reached a hand over to mess up the kunoichi's braided and tied up hair, only deterred by the glare his wife dropped her smile for just to warn him off. "Err… you do look nice, neko-chan."

The assassin couldn't keep the lopsided grin from pulling one side of her painted mouth up. Eri was still her favorite woman in this life, just over Senju Tsunade for what she could make her old kenjutsu master and ANBU captain do with just a look. "Thanks."

"We should get this started before Kakashi-kun decided to try out his chakra control on the walls again." Commented her old ANBU captain, rubbing the back of his silver head sheepishly.

"Yeah… I think it's a bit too late for that, Hatake-sama." Mikoto interjected softly, tilting her head to find out exactly where the youngest Hatake was currently. "I feel him a few feet up the north wall in there."

The mother of the child in question pinched the bridge of her nose. "My apologies. I'm going to go get him down, you two start this already."

Both kenjutsu users saluted her at the same time, giving the respect a ninja normally gave their kage. "Yes ma'am."

(ooo000ooo)

"Stop worrying."

"I'm not worrying, I'm… concerned."

Shikaku huffed in her ear, exasperated. "Well then, stop being concerned. I'm a little afraid your kouhai is going to kill me if he starts thinking you didn't want to do this."

"Minato won't kill you." Patting absently at the tan arm wrapped around her waist, Natsumi peered around the people gathered at the wedding reception to where her favorite blond was standing with a very pleased Kushina near the bar. "I think."

"Confidence inspiring, dear." Her newly wedded husband drawled wryly into the same ear, causing the assassin to snicker. "What is it that's concerning you? It has to be something good, I've never seen you this uncertain about anything before."

"You weren't there for my chakra control lessons, so of course you haven't." Hesitating only a moment more, and encouraged by the squeeze of the shadow master's arm, his new wife turned her head to look him in the eye. "Don't laugh."

Shikaku raise an eyebrow at her.

"I don't know how to be a wife." Natsumi narrowed her mismatched eyes at the man's slowly growing amused smirk, driving her elbow back into his gut with an annoyed huff. "I said don't laugh."

"A laugh is verbalized, Natsu. Therefore, I'm not laughing."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with your husband, Natsumi-chan." Both newly wedded Naras turned their heads to the familiar voice and scrambled to salute the Hokage. The shinobi world's 'Professor' waved them down. "I just came to offer my congratulations."

Natsumi blushed darkly, embarrassed that the man had heard her concerns over what kind of spouse she would make. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"Hiruzen, please. You two certainly have earned it." The Sandaime corrected easily, smiling calmly at the two newlyweds that tried getting some time to themselves by situating themselves in an out of the way corner. He took the assassin's hand to pat it comfortingly. "Don't worry so much dear, every shinobi that married started with the same worries you have."

"Even you, Hiruzen-sama?" Shikaku asked for the both of them, since his new wife was too self-conscious to ask herself.

"Even me. Although, my concerns were more too how I would protect Biwako and any children she would give me from the enemies my predecessors and I have gained over the years." The head of the Sarutobi clan smirked and added dryly, "then ANBU decided to solve that problem for me. I think even you have taken turns on the Hokage's home guard shift, Natsumi-chan."

"I have, Hokage-sama." Clearing her throat, the assassin finally raised her head to look at the Fire Shadow. "Thank you."

"I do hope you are not thanking me for guard duty, I might have to start asking for the Yamanaka clan to inspect the mental health of all active ANBU agents as well as the more visible ranks."

Natsumi laughed weakly. "That'd make Inoichi happy."

Hiruzen hummed, a faint teasing grin appearing on his weather beaten face. "Would annoy a fair few ANBU too, I'd imagine. Feeling better yet, Natsumi-chan?"

"Yes, Hiruzen-sama."

Patting the hand he was holding one last time, the kage of Konoha folded her hand into her husbands. "You two will be fine. Just remember assumptions are not always a good thing in a relationship."

Shikaku set his chin on his wife's shoulder as they watched the middle aged kage walk away. "Hard to have doubts when the Hokage himself has faith in you."

"That's… putting it mildly." Taking one last moment to settle herself, as it probably wasn't the last time the Hokage would sneak up on her and she dearly wanted to know how he did it even to Hyūgas, the assassin led her husband out of the niche he had found for them by the hand. "Come on, let's go rescue Shibi from Tsume. She got into the sake already and I think he's losing patience with her."

"How can you tell?"

\V/

The week of paid vacation time Sarutobi Hiruzen gifted to the newly married Naras went by without a sighting of the newlyweds… and anytime the two missing Naras were mentioned Minato turned a bit pale and Kushina broke down into giggles.

The newly named Nara Natsumi's lips twitched as Tsume blithely told her exactly what had happened and who did what when she had been on 'vacation'. "This is why I keep you around."

"Glad to know you think I'm useful." The wild woman sniffed, fanged grin on her face the whole time. "I also had a very nice little gossip party with a certain Uchiha while you were playing housewife. Wanna hear what I learned?"

"Since I was the one to do most of it… oh wait, I did all of it and only had occasional help now and again, I'm pretty sure I can guess."

"The guts you've got to have to say some of that to those people… man, if you weren't married I'd ask you to run away with me." Tsume whistled lowly, smirking as Kuromaru twitched from the doorway and lifted his head to look over at them.

"I don't think Shikaku would appreciate that." Mikoto interjected serenely, doing a fair bit of her own smirking as she poured another round of tea for all the women in the Nara's tea room.

Kushina was too busy trying not to suffocate herself by laughing too hard and trying to keep it quiet to provide much for the conversation taking place in the reincarnated former soldier's new home.

Shikai had gifted Shikaku's old childhood home to the newlyweds, moving himself and Shikaku's mother to a smaller one on the edge of the forests the Nara deer herds lived in. The new head of the Nara clan had eventually gotten around to telling his wife that it was traditional, every time the clan head's son took over the position the house exchanged hands to make way for the next generation.

Natsumi smiled blandly at her three female friends. "I have no idea what you could mean."

"Please," The redhead gasped out between giggles, pointing one finger in the assassin's face, "we all saw the smirk on Shikaku's face when the two of you finally surfaced."

"How badly did Minato pale?"

"Oh, he twitched. Kinda like he does when someone manages to stab him on mission." The Uchiha genjutsu mistress told the kenjutsu using assassin frankly. "I don't think he could look your husband in the eyes at all before they left on their mission."

"Oh, my poor, poor kouhai." The new Lady of the Nara clan couldn't stop the wicked smirk from inching across her face. "He'll adjust, as soon as Kushina-hime finally puts him out of his misery and marries him… or at least takes him to bed."

The named Uzumaki cut off her laughter with a squeak, flushing bright red.

\V/

Even if they were newly married, Natsumi was still called out on mission not four days after her husband and his team plus one had left on their own.

"What's up with this, taicho? I've been getting more assassinations the last few months than I've had all last year." Picking up the black streaked cat mask and fitting it over her face, Panther turned to the fully dressed Wolf in the ANBU staging locker room, masked face cocked to the side.

"Hmm… not too sure, neko-chan." The occasional captain of her ANBU squad got a spare katana to replace the one he had given her out of the locker used for temporary weaponry storage. "But I know Iwa's getting restless and Kumo's been testing the boarders more than they had been."

Natsumi nibbled her bottom lip under her mask as she situated the ordinary steel bladed katana on her back.

She had completely blown the original start of the Third Great Shinobi War out of the water by keeping her taicho skilled enough, and not slightly desperate to raise a son on his own, to complete the mission that had formerly doomed him... but she also knew there would be something that would happen to kick off another war.

Like what she had told Kushina a long time ago, they hadn't proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone or anything going up against Konohagakure no Sato would not survive the attempt yet.

Now the only thing she wanted was to make sure Konoha wasn't at fault for starting the next war, because that will have eroded much of her authority even if they survived it the first time through.

"So what's the mission?"

Wolf swung his head to motion Jackal and Horse over to where he and Panther were standing. "We have an assassination of a nobleman in the Land of Iron. The target is going to be fairly well guarded, and the contract calls for a public execution, so we'll need iron tight alibies to both be in the country and to leave it during the confusion of the noble's death. Any questions?"

Silence was all that answered him.

"Move out."

\V/

Natsumi came home after two weeks on mission tired and slight achy, and she plastered herself to her husband's back to peer over his shoulders and see what he was working on in the study once she was finally home. "More tactics?"

"Sarutobi-sama's been asking me to help the current Jōnin Commander with working out the initial tactics of the missions going through the jōnin assignment hall."

The assassin smiled tiredly, listening to the rumble of Shikaku's voice through his back. "Well, that sounds fun."

"It's something to work on." The tanner Nara craned his head around to try and look at her, finally giving up and hauling the shorter woman into his lap. "Natsumi?"

"Mmm," not at all against the new position, the kunoichi simply settled herself in a better position for a nap, "didn't want to spend the night at ANBU headquarters. Tired."

"Tou-chan asked we go have dinner with him and kaa-chan when you got home. Mind?"

"Wake me before we've got to be there."

(ooo000ooo)

"Iwa and Kumo are arguing?"

"Yeah, surprised me too." Natsumi threw a lopsided grin at her husband's father. "But that's the general take of the rumors going around up near Iron Country, Iwa's accusing Kumo of substandard assistance and Cloud's countering with a few pointed suggestions of Rock's own failure to uphold their promises."

The old head of the Nara clan hummed lowly as he thought that over. "Have you heard anything from Kirigakure no Sato?"

"No one's heard anything from Mist, old man." Shikaku told him dryly. "There's nothing coming out from Ame either, but that's more normal than Kiri suddenly going quite."

Letting the two born Nara males argue good-naturedly about what was and what wasn't normal for the Village Hidden in the Mist, the assassin stared into her tea as she swirled it around. Aikido took the opportunity to inform her of the news she had missed by being out of the village, from the few jōnin promotions to the news of a confusingly large number of newborn babies that seemed to have gone missing a few towns over to the current spat of rumors going around.

With Iwa's failure to cause the death or at least damage the head of the Hatake clan's reputation and Kumo's failure to snatch the Uzumaki kunoichi out of Konohagakure, it was almost too simple seeming for the two of them to turn on each other over the usual squabbles of who was more wrong. Suna was, of course, completely content in Konoha's vouch of assistance and with Kiri suddenly going completely dark like it had threatened to do since the end of the last war, there seemed to be little to start another war over with the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

It was starting to look like there wouldn't be another war just yet, not with the reason Sakumo once committed suicide over not happening here. Why would the other three countries try to chip away at Konoha's superiority without even a halfway truthful reason to hide behind to do said chipping?

Natsumi was fine with the war being staved off for a little while, just… she didn't want what had happened to Kakashi and Sakumo in another life to happen to another family. She would be a lot happier if the bullshit excuse the other countries were going to come up with had already happened and she didn't have to sit around and not know what they were going to pull to sucker everyone into another continent spanning war.

"Natsu?" Shikaku prompted when he noticed his wife's inattention.

She gave an apologetic smile at the two males she was having tea with. "Sorry, tired. I'm thinking we're missing something, though. It just seems too neat of an excuse to drop our guard."

"I'm going have to agree with your little lady, son." The older Nara told his clan head. "We're going to have to tighten security up, even if these rumors start spreading to our own people."

"But for now," Aikido interjected firmly, eyeing her son's wife even as she poured herself more tea, "you two go on home. Are you sure you're not doing too much, Natsumi-chan?"

"Meh, I need another nap… or some actual sleep, and I'll be fine." Pausing again only to yawn, the assassin set her empty teacup down firmly. "But that sounds good right now."

Inspecting how tired she was and just how much she could hurt him at the moment, her husband cocked his head to the side with a small smirk. "Want me to carry you?"

"I'm not that tired." Natsumi mocked glared at him and got up from the low table. "Shikai-san, Aikido-san. Thank you for having me over."

Shikaku echoed his wife in her verbal polite leave taking, wandering out of his parent's newer home at the edge of the Nara's forest after her once the older couple gave their own polite pleasantries. "Are you sure you don't mind if I go meet up with Inoichi and Chouza?"

"Shika, I'm exhausted." Natsumi gave her husband a lopsided grin over her shoulder. "I really can't see myself doing anything but collapsing in bed. If you have better things to do than sit around the house until you're tired, go do them. It's silly of me to expect you to watch me sleep, since you tend to do that in the morning anyways."

"Troublesome woman."

"And proud of it. If you see Minato tonight tell him I'm still alive, would you?"

The head of the Nara clan rolled his eyes at his Lady, splitting off from her on the main path through the Nara compound on his way to the compound's gates.

Natsumi rubbed at her mismatched eyes as she let herself into her home, kicking off her new ninja sandals. She had managed to wear the treads off her old pair, and it looked like she would actually have to go out and replace these too because the pair she had grabbed from the general stores were a size too big for her small feet.

With the intent of maybe getting herself something to nibble on before bed so she wouldn't be starving when she woke up, Natsumi headed to the kitchen… and paused, hand drifting to her few kunai tucked in the wide belt she wore when off-duty.

Someone she didn't know was in the house. The same way she knew where the people she cared for were also let her pick up when an unfamiliar chakra got near her position.

Natsumi was pretty sure she didn't know anyone whose chakra felt like smooth cut gemstones and another that grated against her like rock grit. It didn't feel like anything Konoha would produce, but it was similar to the feel of Iwagakure ninjas she had picked up on two missions ago… and a Konoha-nin wouldn't have a reason to linger in her home without announcing themselves the moment she got in sight of the house.

"Screw the food, I'm more tired." The assassin muttered to herself to cover the pause in her movement, turning on the spot to go up the stairs.

She had her katana in the bedroom, she just hoped Shikaku didn't mind that she was about to get blood all over the upstairs hallway.

Natsumi only got halfway to her sword before the first of the stalkers in her home tried to take her down, the one that felt like rock grit. He attempted to shove the tip of his tantō into her ribs, and the assassin he was targeting only just managed to keep it from going through anything majorly important by twisting around just a few seconds too slow to avoid it entirely. He got one of her few kunai through the throat in return for the deep cut scoring her ribs.

Carefully lowering the heavily bleeding, but not yet dead, attacker to the floor silently, Natsumi hissed out a painful breath as she pressed a hand to the sluggishly bleeding wound. She had almost missed the man's approach and paid for it with a solid three inches of slit skin and muscle in between two of her ribs.

This had gotten off to a bad start already with her walking into the ambush nearly blind, there was still another chakra source in the house she had to deal with and she hadn't had the chance to make sure that other signal was the only one in there with her.

This was shaping up to be a night even worse than the night before her wedding.

(ooo000ooo)

Shikaku easily sidestepped the slap to the back as he entered the small bar Inoichi had picked out, giving Minato a sideways look of faux disdain. "Sloppy. Natsumi said to tell you she's alive."

He grinned at the Nara, saluting him with the small saucer of sake he was holding. "Duly noted. Get the night off from your husbandly duties?"

"She said there wasn't much of a point in making me watch her sleep." The shadow master explained with a shrug as he took a seat next to a much recovered Chouza. "And if I had better things to do that I should go do them."

"You," the Yamanaka heir clapped Shikaku's shoulder after leaning over the Akimichi's back, "have a terrific wife. And you," the mind walker then pointed in the face of his fellow blond, "Natsumi's going to be pissed to learn you've just been playing along with her poking at you."

"Sempai's known I've been playing along, even if she wasn't there to see it, for a long while." Minato protested mildly, slapping Inoichi's hand away from his face. "I haven't had a problem with the jokes she cracks, her or sensei, for about a year now. But you know she's never happy unless someone cringes at what comes out of her mouth, and with me doing it she doesn't go out of her way to find the limits on others that might take offense."

The Yamanaka's mouth hung open as he processed that. "Cheaters, the both of you. I've been just waiting for her to make the wrong comment to someone just too see who jumps down their throat about it."

Shikaku cocked his head to the side and took a moment to think about that. "Well… there's Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama, Sakumo-sama, Minato, me, Fugaku, Hiashi, Hizashi, you, Chouza, Kushina, Tsume, Shibi-san, Mikoto… about most of the clans in Konoha already know about her sense of humor, including the Hokage, her coworkers in ANBU maybe, most if not all the jōnin and chūnin in the village that have run missions with her… there are a whole lot of people that already know about it."

"Exactly!"

Minato snorted at him. "It would have to be either a noble or a civilian to make a complaint, and sempai is scarily well-behaved around those."

"I've seen her around Eri-sama," Chouza mused aloud, snagging the small bowl of pretzels and bringing it closer to him so he wouldn't have to lean over to reach them, "and Kakashi-kun. She is almost proper acting around them."

"That is more of a slight bit of hero worship." The fūinjutsu user corrected, more than a little tipsy already. "Ever see Eri-sama boss Sakumo-sama around? That's why Natsumi is so respectful around her."

"That has some scary implication for my immediate home life."

Laughing at the paling Nara, Minato shook his shaggy blond head. "Naw, she might respect the kind of care it takes to mock one another like that but she doesn't want that for herself or you."

"I know the two of you joke about being siblings a lot, but how do you know that?"

"Whose couch do you think she and Kushina gossiped on before your wedding?" The young man asked archly, pouring himself another saucer of sake. "I've heard more about Natsumi, Kushina, and Mikoto than I really care to repeat. Though there still are a few things I still really don't want to know about-"

Halfway through Minato pouring the liquor a small spotted cat jumped on top of the table the four of them were sitting on. Shikaku, pale already from the conversation topic, blanched white under his tan when he recognized the Leopard as the first of the cubs his wife had taught to hunt. "Kenta?"

"Assassins, the lady said. You're needed at the den of deer."

\V/

"I'll be fine, dear. I'm just going to go to sleep, you said. Little liar."

"Hey, that was the plan until I noticed the home wreckers." Natsumi sniffed, poking listlessly at the plate of hospital food given to her to eat for dinner. "…and I'm really sorry, okay?"

Shikaku sighed heavily, rubbing his scars as he slumped into the visitor chair next to his wife's bed. "I'm setting one of the clan's kunoichi in the house until your back on active duty, just so you know."

"I do not need a watcher."

"Apparently, you do. Or did the two assassins from Iwa and the other two from Kumo that just tried to take you head off not tip you off that you might need one or two?"

There wasn't much the assassin could say to that, so she just shoved the tasteless food to one side of her hospital bed's tray table and did some slumping of her own back into her pillows. "How bad off am I?"

The shadow master sighed again, reaching out one long arm and picking up the medical report clipped to the foot of his wife's hospital bed so he could read it off to her. "Clean break of the right femur. Mild blood loss. Chakra depletion. Bad break of the right fibula, tearing of the tendons in your right knee, might not be able to walk in a straight line for about three months."

The assassin bit her lip hard. Had she been in another life, those injuries would have been permanently crippling for the rest of her life.

Thank kami-sama for chakra assisted healing.

"Fuck me."

"I would love to, but Tsunade-sama said no high levels of activity until the knee heals completely."

Natsumi weakly snickered. "What about Iwa and Kumo?"

"Hokage-sama's pissed at both of them." Shikaku informed her flatly. "Not only did they attack the wife of a clan head whose wedding he had attended himself, but they attacked an ANBU captain in her own home within Konoha and nearly succeeded in taking her head. I didn't know that you had a promotion until he told me."

The ghost eyed woman on the hospital bed blinked at him, surprised. "I didn't know either. Cool, I've been promoted."

The Nara she married rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah well, Fugaku's irritated that someone got through the security checks to try for your pretty little head. So he and Hokage-sama are going through the village's security for the next few weeks until Iwa's ambassador gets back to him with Stone's official stance on why two of their assassins were just killed in the Nara clan compound by the wife of the clan head… and why two of Kumo's assassins were killed with them, one by said wife and another by the clan head himself."

Natsumi keenly felt a possible Helen of Troy incident in the works. It probably hadn't been what Iwa and Kumo had been after in trying to make her half a foot shorter than she already was, but with her current position and knowledge of history she was afraid it might go that way.

The assassin was a good friend to a number of clan affiliated people as well as the heirs and heads to three different clans; the Uchihas, the Hyūgas, and the Yamanakas; as well as the wife to another clan's head and where the Naras and the Yamanakas went the Akimichis went as well. That didn't include her burgeoning friendship with the alpha of the Inuzukas and the Aburames by default, as Shibi hadn't yet extracted himself from Tsume's grip and she saw the stoic bug user fairly often with the brash alpha of the Inuzukas. She had also technically been a daughter to the Hatake clan, as a ward of the head of the clan for the duration of the last bit of her childhood; a well-known individual to the Sarutobi clan; and a favored guest to the last of the Senju and known by the two other sannin of the village, one of which she had been the student of.

That was all four of the founding noble shinobi clans, the two clans that had produced the Hokages and one of which had founded the Village Hidden in the Leaves and was practically royalty in the village, a number of the older and more respected clans in Konohagakure, and a fair few of the highest ranked ninja in the village that would probably call her a friend at the very least.

She was also, surprisingly, rather popular to the civilians for a kunoichi wife of a medium sized shinobi clan's head. She hadn't known it before, but a few of the people who owned and worked in the stores she shopped at for groceries, presents for her friends, and her other day to day items were rather fond of her for some reason. Natsumi had the sneaking suspicion it mostly had to do with Eri, from when she had saved her life and had been nearly terrified that the wife of her taicho wouldn't want anything to do with her after the attack.

That woman had been a shopkeeper for a few of the merchants in Konoha before her marriage to one of the popular but nearly extinct clans of the village, and had the connections to ensure there was nothing but good things spread around about the teenaged kunoichi who saved her and her son from being murdered in a dispute between Hidden Villages.

Iwa and Kumo probably hadn't known much beyond her Hatake connection, seeing as she had been the one to foil the assassination attempt on Eri and that was most likely the reason why Iwa targeted her to kill this time around. Since Natsumi was both an assassin and an ANBU agent most if not all of her work was done in the shadows, where rumors were not spread around about other agents because there were rarely any survivors from operations to do the spreading, and only her kenjutsu usage was common knowledge to any and every one that wanted to know what she did for Konoha.

That meant there really hadn't been much on her in the rumor mills before she kept her old ANBU captain's wife and son alive for him, and there probably hadn't been anymore since then until now.

Yeah she was a jōnin, but that promotion could have been from anything... like trading favors to higher ranking shinobi to a ninja specialization that wouldn't see much combat work anyways. By the very nature of Natsumi's work for Konohagakure no Sato her abilities were not very well known outside of a small circle of friends, superiors, and ANBU coworkers; something that no longer applied to her with the two foiled assassination attempts under her belt telling more about her skills than anything else publicly known about her.

This incident would put her on the radar of any spies and rumor hunters looking to mark out Konoha's more unknown operatives. The fact that she had killed one of two of Iwa's assassins and incapacitated the other before summoning help for her own injuries while also dealing with one of Kumo's was a hot topic of gossip around the village at the moment, because her husband and kouhai had all but panicked when Kenta went to fetch them and they had a messy and loud fight with the last Cloud sent assassin right in the front yard of the house.

It would also probably have a lot of political repercussions the misplaced soldier was only now feeling out.

"Has that last Iwa assassin I snagged talked any?"

"Inoichi's working on it, and he's not being nice about it either."

Natsumi's lips twitched upwards at the tone of voice her husband had used. She hadn't been nice to the second Iwa assassin she had sensed, already pissed about the deep cut and blood loss she had been dealing with, and the man would probably lose a leg if T&I didn't kill him first. "Why, dear, are you happy about that?"

"Yes." Totally unapologetic, the Nara picked up the apple from the fruit basket Chouza had given the assassin when he had visited earlier and bit into it. "You're the second wife of a clan head that Iwa tried to kill, and this time they had Kumo's help for it. If Minato and I had gotten there even a little later that last assassin could have killed you when you passed out from the blood loss and the chakra depletion."

Being reminded at how close she had come to dying made the ghost eyed kunoichi wince and press a hand to the healing scar on the left side of her ribcage. Natsumi was a little afraid of what may happen if she kicked the bucket again, unsure if her mental state would survive another rebirth in a world she hadn't known in either previous lives. That and she was rather attached to this one, thanks.

"Sorry…"

"Why are you apologizing?"

Cause I royally screwed up how your lives were supposed to go, maybe? No wait, I'm going to become one of the major reasons the Third War is fought over. Fun.

"I got blood all over the upstairs hallway."

"It's already washed and clean, don't worry about it."

The bedridden assassin crossed her arms under her chest and scowled out her hospital room's window. "Damn it, Shika. Let me feel guilty, would you?"

Her husband made a show of thinking about it for all of a second, before shaking his head and continuing to eat the fruit his teammate had left for his wife. "Umm… no. You didn't ask for them to try and ambush you in our home and make an attempt at your neck. I am mostly sure there isn't anything you've done recently that could be traced to you by them for the reason why other than keeping Eri-sama alive. Since I'm more than sure you're not feeling guilty about killing the idiots that tried to kill you, I won't let you feel guilty over nothing… unless there is something you're not telling me."

The hazards of being married to a genius. Sometimes they were too smart for her peace of mind.

Natsumi barked out a weak laugh, digging her sore shoulders even farther into the pillows behind her. "Have I told you my little theory yet? The one about the next war?"

Shikaku listened to everything she had once told Kushina, and got a small impromptu history lesson about a world gone by that couldn't stop fighting even if the lines and divides of power had been clearly defined.

"Alright… I can see why you might think you're guilty, because that is a solid sounding theory to what may happen shortly. But it hasn't happened yet and you didn't go out of your way to provoke either Iwa or Kumo, keeping Eri-sama alive doesn't count because that was what you were supposed to do when foreign nin go after our civilians. Therefore if a war starts over their inability to stop trying to murder the woman who marry into Konohagakure's shinobi clans, it's not just because you needed some help keeping yourself alive."

The reincarnated soldier opened her mouth… then shut it, unable to counter that argument without letting on that she knew more than she should. "There was a saying back before, those who failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I can see echoes of my history in the current events here, and have to wonder if we're going down the same road."

"And that is all fine and good, but we don't have that kind of recorded history yet to repeat." Shikaku pointed out dryly to his miserable wife. "You'll drive yourself insane… well, worse than you already are, if you keep looking for similarities between now and then. Not to mention I thought we already dealt with the past you can recall, I distinctly remember you saying it didn't matter a few years ago."

"I don't particularly want to be known for starting a war, Shika."

"And you won't be." Holding up the core of the apple to keep her from interrupting, the shadow master continued in a deliberate tone of voice to keep his sometimes scatterbrained significant other focused on him. "No, you won't. Yes you're hospitalized because Iwa and Kumo tried to kill you and that may be a reason Sarutobi-sama decides to no longer be nice about the killers sent into our village, but Eri-sama was another Iwa tried to kill. You're not to blame for them making the attempts, all you're to blame for is stopping them. You'll be one of two reasons if this is what the next war is started over. And with all due honesty, I like you and Eri-sama alive."

It was a very twisted kind of logic. On one hand, if she hadn't been here to keep her precious people's important people alive and healthy the war would have started sooner because of Konoha and killed her old ANBU captain. On the other, being here might have started it only a little later than it had occurred in another life and she might just be the reason behind both of her husband's reasons it's occurring.

Natsumi rubbed her face, trying to straighten out her thoughts from where they had gotten twisted around in loops. "My head hurts."

"Yeah well… you frequently make my head hurt. Suffer."

The bedridden assassin laughed weakly. "I shall suffer in silence then."

"I can still hear you."

Natsumi threw one of her hospital standard flat pillows into his face.

\V/

The Hokage and the ANBU General Bear-sama were taking advantage of her recently bedridden condition by forcing her to read through personal files for ANBU. Partially on the excuse that she needed to form up her own ANBU squad and some mentioned standing orders to report to them any major issues she noted in the files.

Natsumi thought the two of them were being rather mean about her so called 'accident', the official cover for being almost killed by Iwa and Kumo assassins that nearly nobody that the assassin knew believed for a moment due to the simple fact of the locations of her injuries.

A deep cut to the ribcage, two broken bones, a number of smaller cuts and bruises, one prisoner transported to T&I, and three bodies taken out of her house does not an accident make, apparently. Go figure.

Had she ever mentioned she hated paperwork?

The newly promoted ANBU captain slid the file she had been reading over to the other side of her bed, picking up the next one and cracking it open to see who was inside.

She had current, past, and almost ready ANBU agents stacked up like sacks of rice next to her bed while she tried to find three other ANBU that would be able to either support her for assassinations or handle the logistics of getting in and out of other countries for said assassinations. Something she had found to be a little more difficult than just passing the boarders by unconventional means.

There were possibilities open; she could keep Sakumo's old main squad together and add a new man, even if the shinobi who led them before had finally decided to completely retire from ANBU in order to have more time to raise his son; or pick up the ones or twos out of other squads whose captain had decided that they didn't mind giving up for a new captain.

She could even make up a whole new squad out of the incoming agents. Not really something she wanted to do, but it was an option.

Panther could even mix it all up and start from a base of an agent or two she already knew then fill in the empty slots in her squad with newbies or loose ANBU agents.

At the moment, she was maybe leaning more to keeping Jackal and Horse and then maybe snagging a new field agent from the incoming rookies. Both of them had worked with her before, but they both had also known her before she was a captain and that may add some tension to the mix.

Not something you wanted when establishing yourself as a captain and also breaking in a new member.

Maybe keep just Horse? Nix Jackal, the man was as hardcore an ANBU member if there had ever been one and might resent the promotion going to a younger member of the shadow guard he had once helped trained.

Horse was another lifelong member of ANBU, but the woman had started out in seduction before a mission gone strange scarred her face and she transferred to the sabotage squads using the medical skills she picked up when in recovery for the botched mission. She was pretty blasé about the command structure she was under as long as the orders didn't get anyone killed or horribly maimed.

Panther wouldn't be keeping Tiger, Lizard, Crow, or Monkey with her own squad for the same reasons; they had already worked with her when she had just been starting out.

Natsumi leafed thought a few more files, discarding the medical support and espionage or assassination specialty ones because those rolls had been already filled. "You know, its bad manners to loom over someone's sickbed, sensei."

The Toad Sage slid over to sit on the foot of the bed, warily eyeing the files his old female student was paging through. "How did you know it was me?"

"Oil. You feel like oil."

Jiraiya's eyebrows rose up. "You can feel me? As in a chakra sense?"

"Sort of." Natsumi flapped a free hand in his direction to show he only had it half right. "It's more of an overlay on my usual senses, and I can only use it to recognize those I know well and keep track of them."

"I haven't been back since you apparently developed this, because I know you would've told me about it the last time I was here. How did you know it was me?"

The bedridden assassin finally looked up and grinned at the white haired sannin. "Because the only one Shia-chan down stairs would let through without a major ruckus and would feel like an oil to me is you, sensei. I was halfway convinced you would feel like a hot springs or maybe something perverted when I could finally get your measure."

"Ah, so you do know your husband set watchers on you." Jiraiya rubbed the underside of his jaw with one hand, taking in the brace that was keeping the reincarnated former soldier's leg straight so it could heal correctly. "I wondered about that."

"Well, it's not like I can defend myself at the moment and Shia-chan's not the only one watching me." Natsumi responded bitterly, gesturing with the file in her left hand to the brace on her right leg. "I can't even get up out of bed on my own for the next few weeks until the bones set in place, so there's an entire ANBU squad hanging around with a full Uchiha MP checkpoint just outside the gates. Can you say overkill?"

The Toad Sage cocked his head to the side at her tone. "You've never had a serious injury before, have you? It could be worse, I once had most of the bones on my left side broken. Took six months before Tsunade-hime would let me go back to active duty."

She pulled a face at him. "I know perfectly well I'm being a little bitch about this, sensei. I just hate being confined and watched."

The white haired sannin laughed at her, reaching out a hand and messing the ghost eyed woman's loose hair up. "Nice to know your that aware of it, neko-chan. Now, where are the others? I thought with you down, they would at least guard your back for you. If that Nara gaki you married skipped out to take a nap while you're down…"

"Shikaku's on mission right now, and so is Chouza and Inoichi, so you can't go after my husband with a house sized toad, sensei. Minato's got a solo C-rank for his sealing skills out in Suna, Kushina's working on her fūinjutsu again but I saw her just this morning. Fugaku and Mikoto visited yesterday, Hiashi and Hizashi are going to visit today and let me meet the girl the younger twin is going to marry. Tsume's got clan stuff to deal with, and Shibi-san won't drag himself out of his compound without the Inuzuka doing said dragging." Having run out of fingers to count down on by the second to last set of friends she had, Natsumi cocked her own head at the man who taught her half of the skills she had as a genin. "Tsunade-sama's not due to check in on me and my leg until next week, taicho and his family came by last week, and now you're here to do said guarding."

Jiraiya sniffed self-importantly. "How do you know I'm going to stick around just to guard your back if you have an entire clan to do it for you now?"

The bedridden assassin laughed at him and his posing. "Why are you in the village a few weeks early? You weren't due back until the month after next."

"Alright… I might give you that." The Toad Sage's eyes drifted back down to the braced leg stretched out before her. "How bad was it?"

Natsumi glanced up at him from the file she had been trying to reread after being distracted, following his gaze back down to her leg and sneering at the broken limb. "A clean and a bad break in the thigh and calf. Wrenched the knee pretty badly too. Other than a few other cuts and bruises, which are mostly healed up now, I did have a case of chakra depletion to deal with right after."

She finally figured out what depletion felt like. Added to the flu and starvation sensation of chakra exhaustion was a bone deep ache all over you couldn't do anything about and almost no energy to even sit up but just enough to keep you awake. It was horrifically nasty to deal with, and something Natsumi never wanted to feel again.

"What's going on, sensei?"

"What do you mean?"

The assassin pulled another face, this time at the older looking man pretending to be innocent. "You had to have heard of this outside of the village, and that means something spooked you bad enough to come back, drop in, and make sure my head was still attached. How bad are the rumors getting? And what the hell was up with the rumors going around Iron Country?"

"Heard about that, huh?" Jiraiya tugged a hand through his unruly hair with a sigh. "They were misleading everyone with their ears to the ground trying to see what was going on within their villages. I think only about half of it was true."

"And my other question?"

He huffed at her stubborn insistence for more information. "Iwa put a bounty on your head. Ten thousand dead, twenty-five alive so they can make an example out of you."

Natsumi slammed her head back against the headboard her pillows were stacked against, shutting her eyes for the moment.

No wonder she had been promoted, assembling and training a new ANBU squad took at least a half of a year and it would keep her in the village for a good while even after she healed up from the broken bones. Hokage-sama was covering for injuries again, this time it was her turn. "Fucking perfect. What else?"

"Beside the small fact you're going to need to avoid the bounty hunters now? Talks with Iwa broke down just after the attempt on your life, Kumo followed them and cut off any communication with us. Hiruzen-sensei is going to send the diplomats back, with a full ANBU squad, to figure out what they are playing at before calling it either way."

The right side of the bedridden assassin's mouth pulled up. "This is just getting better and better."

"It's not your fault, neko-chan."

"I see someone talked to my husband just before he left."

"Maybe. Did manage to make you concerned over his wellbeing for a few seconds, didn't I?" Counting the small lift of the lips as a win, Jiraiya pulled a stack of papers he had bound with two wooden boards and a piece of twine. "I found this here and there, and thought you may know what it is."

Distracted from her worries, Natsumi took it simply out of curiosity and paged through it in favor of her ANBU files. "Why give it to me?"

"I don't recognize the cipher from anything I've ever seen before. I was hoping you could save me a trip to the eggheads."

The assassin blinked, cocking her head to the side as she ran it against every cipher she had ever known but unable to pick apart anything. "I don't recognize it either."

"Damn, that means I do have to deal with Intelligence."

"Poor you, sensei." She tilted her head to the other side, already distracted with trying to pick out a key to the code. "You could just leave it here and I'll ask Shikaku to look at it when he gets home."

Jiraiya hid a grin with ease, pleased that the younger looking woman had dropped the ANBU files in favor of his decoding 'problem'. "I could do that. I knew there was a reason I liked you, neko-chan."

Natsumi arched an eyebrow at him, not even looking up from the puzzling word game in her lap. "It may take a few weeks until he gets back to take said look, you know."

"Knew there would be a catch." The white haired sannin rubbed his jaw before getting up off the Nara's bed, mostly certain her husband would never get the opportunity to take a look at the cipher. "Suppose I have a reason to stick around then, don't I?"

(ooo000ooo)

Hyūga Misaki was… a very impassive seeming woman. She had the dark hair and pearly, nearly metallic eyes of any Hyūga, but something was pinging off her radars as not quite civilian. She hadn't known the Hyūga clan had civilian members and was currently trying to find a polite way to ask.

Natsumi blinked a few more times, floundering for something to say as she looked between the stoic Hyūga twins and the serene female Hyūga sitting between them on the couch she had managed to badger Jiraiya into moving into the bedroom just a little while earlier. "Uh… It's nice to meet you?"

"Likewise, Natsumi-sama."

The assassin suppressed the automatic grimace, still not used to the automatic and respectful suffix she gained marrying Shikaku. She hadn't even gotten used to being called that by her own Summons.

"Just Natsumi, please." Coming up blank on a polite way to phrase her question, she decided to just jump in the deep end for at least something to talk about. "Are you a kunoichi, Misaki-san?"

"Of course, Natsumi-san." The Hyūga woman kept on smiling serenely, and Natsumi would have almost said creepily if the woman didn't seem to genuinely radiate peace from her pores. "I specialize in body guarding noblewomen."

Oh… oh. The female side of the hired shinobi guards she was specifically trained to evade or kill to make it to a target. How… nice.

"That is… ironic."

Misaki blinked, changing expression for the first time Natsumi had seen to something similar to polite curiosity. "Why would you say that?"

"You do know you're visiting a bedridden assassin, right?"

Her lips twitched, and the Nara kunoichi homed in on the slight show of personality like a bee to honey.

"Ha! I knew there was some character in there." She glanced to the stony faced Hizashi sitting next to his intended wife to his twin brother who had a similar passive expression on his face. "I dearly hope you didn't just bring her around for my approval, so what's up?"

The twins exchanged a look over the other woman's head, Misaki herself simply sitting there with the same creepily polite smile. Hizashi was the one to answer. "You were not the only target of Kumo that night, Natsumi. Misaki-san herself was targeted but the attackers couldn't get close enough to the clan's compound to attempt anything."

Said woman nodded firmly, clearly having been told the Nara clan head's wife's concerns before even making the trip over to the assassin's house.

"Okay… I see someone else talked to my husband before he left the village." Natsumi's lips thinned, torn between being more annoyed or more exasperated with her husband. "I know if I keep telling myself it I might end up believing that, but that's going to take time."

Hiashi slightly frowned at her for her tone. "You may not have that time, Natsumi. The ANBU squads that escorted the Iwa and Kumo ambassadors have returned to the village."

Blinking her mismatched and ghost colored eyes, the assassin stared at him for a moment then turned her head to the Hyūga woman. "Would you mind going to bother Shia-chan about some tea, Misaki-san? I'd do it myself but-"

"No need to continue, I understand." Bowing politely, the Hyūga woman rose from the couch and left the room.

"What happened?" Natsumi asked the moment the rice screen slid shut behind the woman, completely confident in the privacy seals she had inked throughout the Nara's clan head's house to keep anyone from eavesdropping in on them. She was counting the days until she no longer had to rely on the information her friends could share with her, firmly of the opinion that the day she could walk back into ANBU HQ and get her own Intel again wouldn't come fast enough.

"Both squads were attacked almost immediately after crossing the border countries, they left the ambassadors there and retreated to Konohagakure. Hokage-sama does not believe we will see our ambassadors alive again and has ordered all outgoing squads, cells, and teams to treat any shinobi with Iwa's or Kumo's hitai-ate like threats unless proven without a doubt that they wish to defect."

The bedridden ANBU captain almost bit through her lower lip. As far as figuring out the current intents of Iwa and Kumo went and what Konoha's stance would be in return, that was a pretty clear message of no tolerance.

"Hokage-sama hasn't declared war yet?"

"Unless there is another attack on us, by either village, he does not wish to." Hiashi huffed, frowning even more to the point a crease appeared in the middle of his forehead. "There are many who have expressed a wish to simply go after both villages immediately for the affronts of being caught attacking two of Konoha's clans, even if my own has not made the attempt on Misaki-san public on Hokage-sama's request."

Sarutobi Hiruzen was probably already balancing a lit powder keg with the two attacks she had foiled already. Letting the civilians and shinobi ranks know that not only were two of the less powerful but still popular clans targeted first by Iwa then by both Rock and Cloud was one thing, but one of the four noble founding shinobi clans had also been a target would probably push current public opinion into wanting another war to show the other Hidden Villages that attacking Konoha's ninja clans was just a fast track to being smashed.

No wonder the Hokage had asked the Hyūgas not to make knowledge of the preempted attack public, Natsumi figured he was trying to keep the village squarely in the right for this next conflict. No one would label Konoha as bloodthirsty if she was just trying to ensure the safety of her shinobi when home within her walls.

Jiraiya had probably been recalled to assist Intelligence in formulating rumors that would reach both Hidden Villages about the consequences of another attack on Konohagakure or her shinobi. Natsumi had been suspicious of her old sensei's non-comment to her speculated motive for his return, this had just cleared up her confusion over it.

He must have only heard about the rumors of an attack on the Nara clan on his way back, the assassin hadn't thought the rumors would have spread to Ame in time for the timing of the Toad Sage's return. It was still pretty cool of the older looking man to come and visit her anyways.

"Well… shit." She swore more under her breath just as Hizashi's fiancée returned with a tea tray. "Now I don't feel as bad."

"Finally."

Natsumi smiled politely at the younger of the Hyūga twins. "I have no problems throwing pillows into my husband's face, Hizashi. You are not safe even all the way over there."

The leader of the Hyūga branch house warily eyed her even as Misaki served them all some of the jasmine tea the assassin favored.

"Misaki-san? Would you like to join me and a few other clan affiliated kunoichi for tea sometime? I'm sure we can tell you some interesting things about your clan head and your intended husband."

The Hyūga woman's bland smile deepened into something that if you looked closely enough, could have been called mischievous. "I would love to join you and a few others for tea sometime, Natsumi-san. Just let me know when."

Hiding the smirk behind the rim of her teacup, the assassin watched the Hyūga twins lose a few shades of color and Hizashi looked at Hiashi in alarm.

\V/

Natsumi had healed enough to start heavily limping around her house by the time Minato returned to the village and had the usual two free days to recover and visit her before reporting back in as available. Not that she was supposed to be doing said limping, but she was tired of either reading ANBU files or trying to send poor Shia to find something other than tactical manuals or ninja scrolls in the house and needed some kind of escape from her own bedroom.

By the kami themselves, she would not be carried in her own home. "I swear, the moment Shikaku gets back I'm sending him straight out to a bookstore."

"I could run out and find something for you, sempai."

"Minato, you would probably just bring back whatever fūinjutsu scroll that managed to distract you on the way." The assassin bluntly informed the blond who was situated behind her as they sat back to back in her front yard. Natsumi had demanded some outside time and painfully evaded both Jiraiya and Minato until they gave up to get herself some. Now she had her eyes closed and face turned up to the sun as the future Yondaime was bent over his mission report and writing the last of it so he could turn it in the next day. "Not that I would mind that… eventually, but I want something completely brain rotting. Fantasy stories, maybe some completely false historical accounts, hell… I'd even read a trashy romance novel right about now."

Shinobi were not very good at recording history for some reason, which might have something to do with the heavily secretive nature of a ninja's life.

There was more on the history of Fire Country and the series of Daimyos that ruled there than the pitiful handful of books on the how and why Konohagakure no Sato was founded. Most of those records of the establishment of the Village Hidden in the Leaves were classified beyond hell and back again and held a place in the Sarutobi and Senju clan libraries.

"You're life isn't enough of a fantasy for you?" Her almost-brother asked archly.

Natsumi had explained to him that she couldn't throw shuriken because of how unreal it seemed to even try a long time ago, and he had kept that tidbit in the little mental box he occasionally worried about when he had the time and opportunity to wonder just when the woman who had taught him a lot about taijutsu and helped him through more than just a little of the academy's tasks and homework would snap.

Minato knew Inoichi had a similar count of how many times the misplaced soldier had flinched or shied away from something when they had been academy students and genin, and he didn't even want to know if Jiraiya had something similar. She was too skilled to show that kind of hesitance now, and it almost seemed like ill-wishing to keep reminding himself of the few times she had flatly refused to do something he never had a problem with when they had been younger.

He also knew the ghost eyed woman they worried over was exasperated by all of their concern, but Minato couldn't help it. Even their old genin teammate couldn't completely call her sane because he hadn't gone back through her head to actually look for any mental breakage, and unless the currently recovering ANBU captain consented and Hokage-sama approved he never would.

Humming a little, Natsumi stretched out her arms and then sighed heavily. "At the moment? I can't even walk very fast. Riveting life I'm leading, huh?"

Minato laughed at her bland tone. "Bored?"

"More than just a little."

He huffed in exasperation at her. "You're supposed to be healing. Convalescing, taking it easy, recovering from injuries, ring any bells? I seem to recall Tsunade-sama telling you she would break your other leg if you pushed yourself too hard. Your bones are not quite set yet, sempai."

"I am healing. I'm just healing in the sunlight for the moment." Natsumi drove one of her elbows backwards into her kouhai's ribs, sniffing at his grunt and consecutive swearword when he smeared the wet ink on his report. "I would have been healing in the sunlight faster if you and sensei had just let me gimp my way out here."

"Sensei doesn't want a visit from his scary teammate who can shatter mountains with a pinky because neko-chan has issues with being carried." Jiraiya grumped from the porch, looking up over the top of the translation the kunoichi had compiled for him to eye her.

"My issues have issues, sensei. I'm pretty sure everyone here already knows that. And neko-chan has claws." The unapologetic assassin returned sharply. "I am no one's pet to be carted around. It's another thing entirely if I couldn't do it on my own but I can walk, damn it all."

"Would you refuse to be carried if you were injured on mission?"

"Hell no." Natsumi scoffed at Minato's question. "I've been carried on mission before. Matter of fact, when we needed speed back when I was just an ANBU agent before sensei snagged me out of there, Horse would carry me. I did that for half a year and countless missions in the end of the Second War. I can stand it, but I would really rather do it myself no matter how slow I am."

"…oh."

Laughing, she hit the ground trying to look at her flushing kouhai. "Did you really think I have a pride problem? Your faith in me is astounding." Natsumi faked sniffed, holding her hands to her face as if to cover up her face and ending up just covering her smirk. "I think I may cry."

"Why are you two making my wife cry?" Shikaku asked dryly, not bothering to figure out what was going on because he knew Natsumi was safe with her brother figure and her old teacher.

"Shika! You're home! Do me a favor?" The lame ANBU captain twisted around even more, trying to both keep her healing leg straight and look at her husband at the same time. She only continued when the man warily nodded to her question. "Go to the bookstore and find me something other than technical manuals and jutsu scrolls to read, please?"

"Why me?"

"Because Shia-chan refuses to leave the house just to find me something else for me to read, Minato would just get lost in some scroll with obscure sealing techniques and forget to bring me back something," Natsumi paused and lifted her head up just enough to look at the bemused Jiraiya before dropping her head to look back at her confused husband, "and I really don't want to know what sensei's taste in literate runs too."

"Oi!"

The Nara clan head's lips twitched, pulling upwards as he watched his wife bat her lashes at him from the ground. "Anything else, dear?"

Natsumi suddenly pouted, eyeing him and the smirk he was now wearing suspiciously. "You're going to put me back in our room, aren't you?"

"Yep. Any last words?"

Still jutting out her lower lip, the assassin turned her head just enough to peer at her kouhai's face over his left arm. "I blame you."

Minato blinked down at her, confused and distracted from fixing his mission report. "Wait, what?"

Shikaku huffed out a laugh before picking his pouting wife up off the ground and throwing her over his shoulder. "I don't want to know."

\V/

"You are not handing our four-year-old son a sharp blade and teaching him to throw it at people, Sakumo."

Natsumi paused in the doorway at the sharp tone in Eri's voice.

Uh oh… this didn't sound good.

Poking her head into the Hatake clan compound kitchen, the assassin spotted her blank faced old ANBU captain and the sheepish silver haired boy standing right next to him across from the very irritated woman standing in the middle of the room. Before she could say anything, Sakumo flicked his fingers at her in his personal version of the standard hand signs, telling her in vague signals to wait in the hallway for the target.

Hand signs in Konoha only had a general set, shinobi were expected to develop their own personal signs over the course of their careers. A ninja's personal signals started in the standard set taught to genin and developed outward, picking up slight variations due to the work they do or the situations they've seen.

You could tell a lot about a shinobi or kunoichi by the influences on their personal codes; how much work they did in ANBU or T&I, which type of missions they tended to be sent out on, the friends or coworkers they preferred to socialize with.

Sakumo had a set that started out in T&I and remained strong in the terms used by a lot of espionage specialists, he had the heavy influence on tracking vocabulary and the occasional ANBU influenced term or sign. Which told Natsumi that her old taicho probably had started in either Intelligence or Interrogation and worked a lot with Jiraiya before he started being sent out on tracking missions, evolving into his infiltration work in ANBU. The older looking man's hand signs would develop even more over the next few years, probably picking up a stronger vocabulary in combat terms if he continued to pick up jōnin level combat likely missions.

That would be, of course, if Eri didn't find a way to kill him first.

They, being the shinobi that saw Kakashi a lot, were rapidly running through everything they could to teach the brilliant, genius level four-year-old boy that the civilian woman who was his mother wouldn't protest him learning.

He had the basics of his father's tracking skills and the Hatake's basic katas, Natsumi's stretches and taijutsu tricks, a grounding in Shikaku's tactical strategies, Kushina's calligraphy tips and chakra control hints, Minato's beginner sealing skills, Mikoto's genjutsu basics, Hiashi's and Hizashi's poker faces, Inoichi's soft interrogation skills and Fugaku's version of them.

There wasn't much more of any ninja basics they could give him, and the sliver haired boy had started working his way up to the moderate skills of each subject even without them teaching him most of it. Leaving very little room to keep the kid happily occupied and not bored out of his skull.

She was relatively sure the son of her old ANBU captain would still be going to the academy early even with his mother's concern delaying his enrollment a year or so, because there just wasn't enough they could teach him without having the child swear to Konoha's shinobi code to protect and serve the village with his skills. She had plans to let the kid in on the old method of picking specialties the academy graduates of the Second Great Shinobi War, it would at least keep him somewhat occupied for hopefully a year or two if not interested in the lesson plans.

Kakashi slipped out into the hallway with her, gray eyes flicking back to the kitchen before the boy reached his sister figure. Natsumi picked him up, setting him on her left hip before silently limping out of the house to where Shikaku was waiting for her and the Hatakes for the now infrequently held informal meetings between a fair few clan heads, their closes advisors, and a few other noteworthy shinobi of Konoha.

The man blinked at the sight she and Kakashi made before reaching out and taking the heavy child from his wife, who shouldn't have been lifting any weight with her still weak right leg. "They're going to be a bit?"

"Yeah. You okay there, Kashi-chan?"

Even if he had already started protesting her use of her babyish nickname for him, the silver haired child just silently nodded under her hand ruffling his hair.

Natsumi sighed, tugging a few unruly hanks of the kid's hair. "It'll be fine. This isn't the first time something from your tou-sama's life clashed with something of your kaa-chan's expectations."

Her husband winced at the news. "This'll take a bit then?"

"Probably." She carefully lowered herself to the ground, biting her thumb and flicking her fingers in the series needed to Summon one of her felines before slamming her hand on the ground.

Kenta glanced around and sneezed from the smoke produced by burning chakra once he was sure there wasn't an immediate or stealthy need for him. "Something wrong, Natsumi-sama?"

"I need you to hunt down Minato and tell him we'll be a little later than planned." Scratching under the big cat's chin, Natsumi smiled at her favorite Summons. "Please?"

The Leopard huffed, nipping at her fingertips before turning on the spot and stalking off.

"I'm pretty sure that's a breach of your Contract, dear." Shikaku drawled out, smirking at her over Kakashi's head. "I don't think Tamika-sama will appreciate you sending her minions off on your personal errands."

The ghost eyed woman sniffed haughtily at him, grabbing his leg to just as carefully haul herself upright again. "This is tracker training in nonviolent conditions, Kenta even agrees with me."

Kakashi finally cracked a small smile, tugging at the Nara's arms to be put down so he could inspect the charka scorched ground where Natsumi summoned the young feline to. "Tou-sama said Dogs are better."

"Taicho is entitled to his opinion," the assassin stuck her nose in the air, "but it is still an opinion, not fact."

"I don't think you're going to gain ground here, Natsu." Tugging the shorter woman's braid, Shikaku grinned at her annoyed expression. "Konoha is mainly canine territory."

His wife pouted at him with narrow, mismatched eyes. "My cats are awesome. It's not my fault if no one else can see it."

Kakashi snickered, brushing off his dirty hands on his pants legs and looking up at the assassin with a toothy grin. "I think dogs are better."

Natsumi wrinkled her nose at him. "And now I'm tempted to indoctrinate you into the feline way of thinking."

"You are not brainwashing my son, neko-chan." Sakumo poked her on the forehead before shutting his front door behind him. "Eri will just be a few moments more."

"That was quick, taicho. How long have you been sentenced to the dog house this time?" The assassin put the long suffering Shikaku between herself and the annoyed older looking man, grinning the whole time. "Already injured, can't abuse."

"I'll lock her in a room with you when she's cleared for active duty if you keep her on the injured lists and at home." The Nara clan head offered idly, a sly smirk stealing over his face when his wife huffed at him and punched his arm.

"So?"

"Eri's not happy with me, but she now knows we're running out of things to teach him." Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand the head of the Hatake clan set his other on his son's head. "We'll be discussing teaching him to handle weaponry later tonight."

"Good luck?" Natsumi offered uncertainly, biting her lower lip.

Neither Eri nor Sakumo had survived in the story she could only hazily recall, so she didn't know if they could work out the differences between civilian life and Konoha's shadow military habits between themselves.

She did recall from her last life that mixed marriages of civilian and military didn't tend to work out well very often, keeping secrets from your spouse and living with a killer didn't tend to make for good relationships.

There was always the few exceptions to those rules, and she desperately hoped her second favorite couple would be one of them… for Kakashi's sake if not their own.

(ooo000ooo)

Eri was by no means settled when she joined her family and the Nara couple for the trip to the Sarutobi clan compound. Natsumi chose to walk with the older looking woman, leaving her husband to walk with the civilian woman's shinobi husband and her son. "Are you alright?"

"Not going to try and convince me this is for the best too?" Eri gritted out lowly, narrowed eyes on the path they were taking.

"You're his kaa-chan, it's not my right to say anything about how you and taicho raise your son." Linking their arms partly to comfort the woman and partly for the support for her right leg, the assassin worriedly glanced at the woman's taut and drawn face. "I would just like to know how you are feeling right now."

"Pressured."

"Fair enough."

Eri didn't last five minutes in silence before spilling what was worrying her to the kunoichi. "Why do you want to teach him to do this now? I thought I would be losing him when he goes to the academy in four years, not now when he's four."

"I never looked back once Minato and I left the academy… but we were orphans, Eri-san. No parents. Kakashi-kun has both of you, and even genin don't leave their home unless they stay at that rank for years. Sometimes not even at chūnin do ninja leave home."

"I'm surprised you're not trying to do your psychological double talk to get me to agree to this."

Natsumi nodded slowly, unsurprised at the bitter comment. "I have the feeling you wouldn't appreciate it."

The civilian woman laughed, but it wasn't a happy one. "No, I wouldn't. Thank you for not doing it."

"You're welcome."

Eri nibbled on her lower lip, and the assassin finally figured out who she had copied that habit from. "How did you start down this road, if you didn't have someone at home to send you to the academy?"

"All orphans are sent to the academy first. If you fail out, for either little to no chakra or too few usable skills, you get sent to be apprenticed for some trade skill or sent to the civilian schools."

"You don't have a choice in it?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose I could've purposely failed out of the academy, but I don't see a reason why I'd want to."

"Of course you don't." The civilian woman patted the assassin on the arm. "I worry that Kakashi is just going along with all of it because of you all expecting him to be a ninja."

"Aa… okay."

Eri shot her a suspicious look. "You're going to tell Sakumo about our conversation, aren't you?"

Natsumi merely smiled slyly. "He won't hear a word from me, Eri-san."

Her old ANBU captain didn't need to hear about his wife's worries from the assassin, he had already heard every word his wife spoke even if he had been talking with Shikaku a ways behind the two of them.

Marks of the Dog Summoning Contract included sharp canines, a sensitive sense of smell, and acute hearing.

\V/

Two and a half months after being attacked in her own home, Natsumi was let back on active duty with the understanding that she had two weeks to prove that the attack hadn't shaken her confidence in her ninja skills to be let back on ANBU duty.

Minato decided he wanted to run a mission with her, obstinately to keep an eye on her recovery and to make sure she didn't reinjure her leg being reckless.

Natsumi wanted to know in what reality she had ever been reckless on mission.

Her kouhai wouldn't meet her eyes as they consulted the jōnin assignment hall's wall of missions for something inside Fire Country that would fit the assassin's needed criteria to prove she was fit for duty. The ghost eyed kunoichi bit back her ire and pointed at a border inspection. "What about that one?"

"Should work." Her annoying brother figure mused aloud. "Want to pick up a few others for backup?"

"Why? It's an inspection." Snatching the mission tag off the wall, the assassin inspected the file number stamped on the back of it to match it with the corresponding Intel in the file cabinets. "Worse thing that will happen is we'll meet some nuke-nin out across the border trying to knock over one of the more remote villages."

Minato took the tag from her to look at the general mission parameters while she got the more specific details and the relevant Intel reports. "It's a long mission, sempai. Just so we're not alternating being asleep or on watch every other day is a good reason to take some chūnin with us."

Running the whole length of Fire Country would take at least three weeks at a good pace set for chūnin, added in the time to do the inspections of all the outposts along the way they were already looking at nearly a month long mission if they added more personnel. As long as they didn't run into enemy activity along the way, that is. Natsumi really didn't want to be out of the village that long for something that wasn't an ANBU mission.

"Adding chūnin would just make the mission longer."

"You are still on the injured lists for at least another week. Some of that time would just be getting you back to fighting form." He shot back patiently, tapping the wooden tag on the table the assassin had spread out the intelligence reports on. "We can pick up a taijutsu specialist to help you out, as well as a medic-nin just in case."

She would've protested the idea of an iryou-nin if the mission hadn't needed them to get close to the border Countries nearest Earth and Lightning.

The relations between Iwa and Kumo in regards to Konoha was still as frosty as an Iron Country winter storm and now every mission getting close to either country had the standard warning of high level combat possible. Meaning that possible medic wouldn't just be there for her, he or she would be there for the whole team. "So a tai specialist, a medic, anything else you want to bring along?"

"Backup for the taijutsu user?"

"We're going to have one hell of a footprint out there."

"It's not a stealth mission, sempai. There isn't a reason to conceal our presence much more than the usual reasons."

Natsumi sighed, pouting at the faintly grinning blond across from her. "I miss ANBU."

"One more mission, Natsu." Minato gathered up the intelligence reports to be refiled since they were taking the mission. "Go and make the team request."

With a huff, the assassin got up and walked over to the mission desk with the wooden tag.

(ooo000ooo)

Mebuki pounced on her boyfriend with her mission scroll in hand. "Jōnin! We're running a mission with two jōnin, Kizashi!"

Patting the woman on the arm, her easygoing significant other smirked as they walked out of the Chūnin Corps assignment hall. "You don't say."

"We impress them and they might put a recommendation in our files to get out of the Corps!" The blonde taijutsu specialist whooped. "Tokubetsu jōnin, or even full jōnin. Think about it."

Kizashi snagged his copy of the mission scroll out of his girlfriend's weapon pouch. "Which two jōnin? We're not babysitting some Intel paper pushers, are we?"

"Nope, not Intelligence." The purring voice had both chūnin twisting around to see the short, dark haired, ghost eyed woman and the blond haired, blue eyed man standing over her right shoulder. "Kenjutsu and fūinjutsu specialists."

The redheaded chūnin winced, rubbing at the stubble under his chin. "Ouch. Sorry."

"Shush." Stomping on his toe, the green eyed taijutsu user smiled blandly at the two higher ranking shinobi waiting on them. "Kokkali Mebuki, ma'am. Taijutsu specialist."

The jōnin kunoichi smirked at their antics. "Nara Natsumi, kenjutsu specialist. The lout behind me is Namikaze Minato, fūinjutsu user."

"Err… Haruno Kizashi, ma'am. Trap specialist."

The assassin blinked at him. Haruno Sakura's father was a shinobi?

Looking between the red haired man and the blonde woman next to him, the reincarnated soldier noted the woman had some clear green eyes and had the same face as the pink haired medical ninja had once been drawn with.

Huh… maybe both parents were shinobi?

"Mission is probably going to take us at least a month and some weeks, so plan accordingly."

"Natsumi just got off the injured lists, so we'll be starting off slow." Minato slung an arm over the shorter woman's shoulders. "And we'll have an iryou-nin with us. Meet at the main gates with mission packs tomorrow at dawn's break."

Mebuki and Kizashi nodded sharply, passing the jōnin pair to assemble what they would need for an extended mission.

Natsumi sighed, grabbing Minato's left hand and bending the pointer finger back until the arm fell off her shoulder. "Who's the medical specialist?"

"Tsunade-sama's picking someone."

Turning to inspect her kouhai's expression, she peered at him suspiciously. "You tipped her off we were getting one of her iryou-nins, didn't you?"

"Nope. Shikaku did."

Natsumi huffed. "You all need to stop, I'm starting to feel like a glass doll."

(ooo000ooo)

Nara Shia was their medical-nin.

Natsumi cracked up when she spotted the young kunoichi that had watched over her recovery waiting for them to depart for the mission.

Minato sighed at the Nara almost bent double. "Any time now, Natsu."

Still snickering, the assassin backhanded him in the gut. "Wow. The things you learn even before you leave on missions."

"Shikaku-sama was clear on his instructions that you not be informed of my specialization when I was assigned to you for your recovery, Natsumi-sama." The younger kunoichi simply shrugged blandly at her clan head's lady wife and gave her a lazy grin. "I hope you are not too annoyed with me."

"I'm impressed you managed to keep that from me for almost three months." Natsumi rubbed her eyes, still grinning widely. She had never suspected it, she had thought the younger woman had been a bodyguard or something. The Nara clan did have a long history in medical research and it really was something she should've guessed at without being told otherwise. "You ready, Shia-chan?"

"Yes ma'am." The iryou-nin patted the apron most medics used to hold the tools of their trade for long missions.

"Wait, does that mean you're the new lady of the Nara clan?" Mebuki asked, looking from the long suffering blond fūinjutsu user to the kenjutsu using kunoichi. "The one that was almost killed by Iwa and Kumo a few months back?"

The assassin blinked at her a few times, surprised. "You didn't make that connection when we met the first time? Usually it's the eyes that people recognize and put to the rumors."

She flicked her green eyes up at her boyfriend's red hair, which was styled out in the pattern of a five petal sakura blossom. "I don't tend to notice those things, honestly."

"Point." Natsumi agreed with a nod and a lopsided smirk and a sideways look to the same feature. "Shall we get started then? Minato's leading, you two flank Shia and I'll bring up the rear."

\V/

Missions that Konoha decided needed to be done were kind of like the guard duty from her last life. Mostly boring and routine, since these kinds of missions were more about ensuring the Leaf's and Fire Country's security than killing off threats to the village and sneaking in and out of other countries.

Natsumi learned that Mebuki was really good at taijutsu by three weeks into the mission, though. She wasn't nearly as fast as Minato or as devious as the ANBU captain herself, but it was almost as fun as facing off with one half of the Hyūga twins back when they had all been chūnin.

The short haired blonde kunoichi was game for the challenge of keeping up with the recovering assassin's taijutsu, but by the time they passed the halfway mark for their mission had to admit to her boyfriend, if not the two Naras on the team or their blond mission leader, that there was still a wide gap between the two of them. She did want to know where the physically older kunoichi had picked up the style from.

Natsumi tugged the end of her braided hair as she thought while the team was on a break, since they were making good time between outposts. "Honestly? I've forgotten a lot about it. I was told my kaa-san taught it to me, but I know the style is unfinished and rough in places. I've never had the time to work on it and I wouldn't know even where to begin to turn it into an actual style of taijutsu."

"I could tell, even from what little you needed to kick my ass around." Mebuki mused, staring at the assassin thoughtfully. "Would you mind teaching me? I think I can polish it up for you."

"Um… if you want?" The older of the two Naras frowned slightly. She had never thought to see what a taijutsu specialist had thought of her old combatives based taijutsu. It worked for her, and that was really all she had cared about. "Don't know when I'm going to have the time, I've got some work that had to be put on hold for my recovery that I need to get to once we're back in Konoha."

"Maybe you should think of dropping something?" Minato asked her dryly.

Natsumi pulled a face at him. She knew her kouhai wasn't very happy that she went back to ANBU even after they had made jōnin, annoyingly enough their sensei agreed with him and the both of them reminded her of it every moment they could. "Hush you. I know what I'm doing."

He flicked his eyes down to her right leg pointedly.

She stuck her nose in the air. "That's not from that, thank you very much. And if taicho could do it as a clan head, I can do it as the wife of a clan head."

"He was the only one in his clan, and he stopped once he wasn't anymore."

"You think he did. I know better."

Kizashi blinked, confused, looking between the two jōnin. "Do what?"

Natsumi smiled mischievously. "This and that."

She would have added more just to tease the redhead since he was really cool with anything poking at him… but something brushed the very edge of her senses. The reincarnated woman couldn't place what it was, she was too poor a sensor for that.

"Minato? You're better than I am."

Her kouhai pressed two fingers to the ground, frowning. "I got two closing in fast. Jōnin level."

"Hide yourselves, now." The assassin snapped at the three lower ranking shinobi after biting down on her thumb and twisting her fingers in a now familiar jutsu. Natsumi jerked her head at Kenta, her favorite Summons, and the teenaged Leopard slunk off to guard the others just in case.

The assassin stayed low in a crouch and Minato stood straight up, staring off in the direction he had picked up the chakra signals in. Her kouhai palmed his three-pronged kunai as her hand drifted to the hilt of her katana.

"Wouldn't do that, cats. Or we'll stomp you like rats."

Minato looked up into the trees, frowning faintly at the heavily muscled, dark skinned but light haired man wearing goggles and a vast number of swords on his back standing on a low branch. "Well… that's a first. I've never been rhymed at before."

"I have. The hime thought it would be funny to speak in nothing but rhymes for a whole day once." Natsumi interjected idly, not moving a muscle. Her kouhai had said there were two after all. "Where's your little friend, big guy?"

"Wouldn't you like to know. I have a feeling it would be better to show." Jumping down to the ground, and landing with a solid thud, the man straightened up to tower over even the assassin's six foot and change tall younger brother in all but blood.

Natsumi sprang upright and used the flat of her sword to block the kunai on collision course with her kouhai's head. "Hello to you too."

The shinobi that had tried to sneak up on them was built similarly to the first one, but there was enough different between the two that the assassin was unsure if they were family or not.

"I'm pretty sure this is Fire Country… unless I'm wrong, sempai?" When Natsumi didn't answer him the blond fūinjutsu user turned his attention back to the first man. "And you two are from Lightning from the looks of the Kumo symbols carved into your hitai-ate. So, what the hell are you doing in our home territory?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." The second man sneered acidly at them.

"Yo bro! Ditch the losers and let's go!"

The crackle of lightning had the hair on the assassin's arms standing straight up and she darted out of the way and to the second shinobi to show up. Trusting her kouhai to get out of the way at the very least as she distracted the other man with her katana blade to his face. He used the padded Kumo standard arm braces to turn the edge of her blade away from him on her way past him, and although she managed to hack a good gouge into his bracer she didn't hit him at all. "Damn, you're fast. Not going to save you, little girl."

Natsumi smirked at him, taking one hand off the hilt of her sword to palm the hiraishin kunai her kouhai had badgered her into carrying for the mission. "I don't have to be fast, sweetheart. That's his job."

Throwing the kunai and purposely missing the man, she only had enough time to wink before the seal pulled her in another direction.

Basically, she and Minato switched opponents without letting them in on the switch.

The larger of the two Kumo-nin didn't have enough time to bring up either padded forearms to block the kunoichi's next swing. She scored a good hit on the man's bicep, not quite striking bone but deep enough he had to staunch the bleeding with his other hand and limiting the effectiveness of anything else he could pull off now.

At least, it should have.

Natsumi's ghost colored and mismatched eyes narrowed on the faint steam rising off the wound she had scored. Something about that was tickling the back of her mind and made her wary of accepting anything she would normally assume about her current opponent. Usually that little tickle meant she was missing something. "The hell?"

Minato ended back to back with her after exchanging a few blows with the slighter of the two Kumo shinobi. "Something wrong, sempai?"

"I think he might be healing already."

The larger of the two grinned at her. "Smart lady. Look, it's already fading."

He lifted the bloodstained hand off his bicep to show a slowly closing cut, not nearly as bad as it had been when Natsumi had just cut him open.

"So, if I slice you up enough times will that slow down?" The assassin tilted her sword so both of them could see the man's blood run down the edge of her blade. "I'm game to find out if you are."

"B, I think we overstayed our welcome." Shouted the smaller of the two, rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth to mop up the blood Minato drew by smashing his fist into the Kumo-nin's face. "Let's kill them and get out of here."

"You'll find that a bit harder than you think." Minato told them evenly, pulling a few more of the three-pronged kunai out of the kunai pouch strapped to his thigh. "I'm sure neither of us are injured yet."

B finally grabbed the hilts of two of the swords stacked up on his back, scowling at the two of them. Natsumi didn't really want to cross swords with him, lightning chakra could be channeled through the steel in a katana's blade as she learned from sparring with her own taicho. Instead she defaulted to the same trick that made the silver haired retired ANBU captain to glare at her when she did it, the water bullets she no longer needed hand signs to spit.

The one labeled B cursed as the bullets he cut apart sprayed him with water, recognizing what she had been aiming for only when he was sopping wet. "That's dirty pool, girl."

Natsumi batted her lashes at him. "So is attacking a patrol thinking you'd get away easy and free, boys."

The wet Kumo shinobi smirked at her. "You're kinda cute, little kitty cat. But sheath those claws before we go get the dogs."

"Did he just hit on me?" The assassin asked, surprised and slightly disgusted. "What the hell, man? I'm married!"

Minato's right eye twitched. "Natsumi, settle down. I'm sure he didn't mean it how it sounded."

"Natsumi?" The still unnamed second Kumo shinobi asked, looking at the shorter woman's eyes when she turned her head to glare at him. "You wouldn't happen to be Nara Natsumi, would you? There's a pretty penny on your head set by Iwa."

"You'd have to take my head first to collect that," the now vastly annoyed assassin quipped, "and I'm not betting anything that you two can take us on and win."

Minato didn't add a word, and the ANBU captain knew he was more annoyed with himself for actually using her name rather than at the two Kumo shinobi now looking to take her head. He started the next exchange now that they were finished testing each other to see if it would be an easy fight or not, tossing the hiraishin kunai in his hand at B's head and flashing to catch it once the Kumo shinobi simply tilted his head to let it pass him by. Natsumi didn't wait to see what else her kouhai was going to pull on the ninja, she spun to keep the shorter of the two from sucker punching her in the gut and flashed her sword at the man's face again.

She missed him but sheared off some of the man's hair off and returned the sucker punch with a kick that connected with the man's ribs. In return he managed to dig a Kumo standard kunai into the meat of her right thigh before the force of her chakra assisted Brazilian jujitsu kick knocked him into a nearby trunk.

"Fuck." Natsumi hissed, flexing her right leg to make sure the kunai wasn't lodged in her femur again. "Now I'm getting pissed. That just healed up."

He sneered at her as he pushed himself up, but he was distracted by something behind her.

The assassin shifted her katana so the mirror polished blade could reflect what was going on for her while also keeping an eye on the man in front of her, and smirked at the sight of B being held down at Minato's kunai point. "Well, isn't that a pretty sight."

"B, I think it's time we go."

"Sorry Blondie. Time to go." B dove forward to get the point of the three-pronged kunai off the back of his neck, spinning around once he had the purchase on the ground to do so and barreling past the ghost eyed woman who barely scratch him with the tip of her sword. He snatched up the slightly shorter man and took off from the clearing without a backwards look.

Natsumi let herself hit the ground, scowling at the metal sticking out of her thigh. "Well… at least they didn't break my bones this time."

Placing his hand to the ground again to track the two out of Fire Country, Minato did a bit of frowning himself. "Damn. I wanted to know what they were doing here."

"I might be able to answer that." Flicking her hand, the Yin release based illusion she had placed on the ground faded away. Leaving behind the white, over the shoulder fastened Kumo jōnin vest. "If they are any type of organized, that is."

"They might come back for that."

"In my defense, I hadn't been stuck with a kunai when I cut it off the shorter one."

Blue eyes flickered over to her. "Call Kenta and the others back. I'll take a look through and we'll leave it here."

Natsumi was perfectly content to leaving the snooping to her kouhai, as a fūinjutsu user he was used to looking twice for any traps in the things he handled. She just flared her chakra to call her Leopard back to her, and hopefully bring Shia with him to take a look at her thigh. In the meantime, the assassin pulled a few copies of the various bingo books she had acquired in ANBU. She had one possible name and two descriptions as well as village of origin, it should be enough to narrow down who they were really and why it was something about B pinged her radar.

Minato cursed quietly, not finding anything in the Kumo jōnin vest. "Nothing here, sempai."

"Found out who they were, though." Natsumi waved her beaten up copy of Kirigakure no Sato's bingo book at her kouhai. "The Raikage's son, A, was the shorter of the two. B, or rather Killer B, is the jinchūriki of the eight-tails. They're tag-team taijutsu partners. Don't think we're going to get away with the switch again now that they've seen it once."

Killer B was also one of Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto's teachers in the ways of being a jinchūriki, in the far possible future and just before the Fourth Great Shinobi War. The assassin wanted to kick herself for not connecting the dots right before the fight had progressed to the second exchange of attacks aimed to kill one another, a demon container was not something she ever really wanted to fight seriously.

He frowned at the book in her hand. "Then it's time for us to leave. How close are Kenta and the others?"

Since her summons had a trace of her own chakra in them, Natsumi could pinpoint them even without having Minato's range. She pointed to the south. "That way. Can you piggyback me?"

Nodding once, the fūinjutsu user took three strides over to the seated assassin and swung her to perch on his back. "Hold on, sempai."

"Wait. Do you mean you-" She didn't even have the time to finish asking her question, Minato used hiraishin to get them to the medic who he had planted one of his seals onto near the beginning of the mission. "-you suck, kouhai."

The three humans in the clearing whirled around at the sound of the ANBU captain's voice, Shia immediately homing in on the kunai still sticking out of her lady's thigh. "What happened?"

The blond, who was technically the mission leader, jerked his head at the taijutsu user and the trap specialist. "Watch our backs, but keep close. We're moving as soon as Natsumi's good to run."

"They missed the bone, thankfully. That would have set you back a few weeks in recovery, Natsumi-sama."

She huffed irritably, scowling at the kunai the iryou-nin pulled from her thigh. "Heal it so we can at least get to the next outpost. I'll let you sit on me there if it means I can go back to what I was doing once we're home."

"I want that in writing."

Natsumi stuck her tongue out at Minato, accepting the hand up Shia offered. "Let's go. Kenta!"

The Leopard leapt down out of the trees, brushing up against the assassin's right mostly to reassure himself it wasn't serious. "Natsumi-sama?"

"I'm going to need you to take a message to Hokage-sama later tonight. Do you want to hang around or be re-Summoned later?"

The first Leopard Summons she had ever taught to hunt eyed the fresh bloodstain on the bandage Shia had wrapped around her leg. "I will remain, Natsumi-sama."

"Mebuki, Kizashi, we're leaving." Minato called out to the remainder of their team once he was sure the ghost eyed woman's leg could support her weight.

\V/

Shikaku woke when a very familiar sound of the shower turning on reached him. Getting up, he padded his way into the bathroom and slid into the shower stall behind his newly returned wife.

"You know, one of these days I'm going to accidently stab you for trying to sneak up on me." Natsumi turned her head just enough to give him a less than impressed look when he reached over her shoulder to adjust the shower head higher.

"No you won't. You always know when I'm here so it wouldn't be an accident." Looping an arm around her waist and pulling her backwards, the clan head of the Naras looked down her body for any new scars and found the short and puckered one in the outside of her thigh. "Ouch."

He traced it with his other hand, making sure the ghost eyed kunoichi wouldn't confuse it for another.

"A Kumo shinobi stabbed me with a kunai. The next Raikage even, I think." Frowning, the assassin repositioned the shower head again back to where she had it before. "Don't do that, I'm cold."

"Well, it is winter. Why didn't you just come to bed?"

"If you hadn't noticed, it's raining outside." She hadn't thought she would miss actual snowstorms, but the powdered ice would be preferable to the sleet Konoha winters were known for. At least then only her feet would freeze, and she had no problems shoving her cold feet on her husband as long as they weren't wet. "And I was trying not to wake you up."

"Wet wife. Can't expect me to pass that up."

Natsumi huffed a dry laugh. "Nice to know I'm appreciated."

Shikaku hummed as he turned her around and wrapped his arms around her waist, frowning when she dug her still freezing fingers into his back to warm them up faster. "How was the mission? Besides very cold."

"Ran into Kumo about two weeks ago and couldn't figure out what they were doing in Fire Country. Iwa's pressing the borders, they actually managed to wipe out one of the outposts without alerting the nearby posts overnight when we were out there." The assassin sniffed, trying to warm up her nose with the steam starting to fill the room. "That's why we're a week late coming back… well, that and little Shia-chan decided I needed to fully heal from the stab wound before we left for the next guard station."

"We had another run in with Iwa while you were gone, too. Hokage-sama decided to take the issue to their door."

"What did they do?"

"T&I think they were just bounty hunters after you, but they claimed Iwa as their village so…"

Konoha was pulling the bullshit excuse? Huh. Well, they had killed a few Konoha ninja out on the border. Serves them right. "Ballsy bounty hunters."

"Come on." Shikaku reached over her to turn off the water. "I've got a better plan to warm you up than letting you boil your skin off."

"Kinky." Natsumi flared her chakra. Since her chakra was suiton based she could cheat and use it to keep herself dry if she didn't mind the drain on her reserves.

The Nara raised an eyebrow at his dry arm. "I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to do that."

"What, dry you off?" The assassin circled an arm around him and flexed her chakra again. The water peeled off his skin just as it did when she did it to dry off quickly. "Works just fine."

"Huh."

"Don't tell me I managed to distract you with a chakra trick. That's just sad, Shika."

He gave her a lopsided smirk. "Fine. Bed time."

Her eyes widened, but she didn't have time to back up or evade her husband as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. "It's like, five feet to the bed!"

"And I said I'd warm you up."