Okay all, here's the next chapter of Another Chance. Thanks to all of you who reviewed and added me to your faves and alert lists. It's really appreciated.
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Another Chance.
Chapter Eight – The Event That Couldn't be Avoided.
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Minato was furious. He sat across from a representative of Cloud and felt his anger rise.
"You're telling me that you want the death of one of my Shinobi because yours was killed?" Minato questioned angrily. The representative nodded.
"It is only fair that we have justice. You signed a peace treaty with us and then killed the one who signed it." The representative stated.
"He snuck into our village hospital and attempted to kidnap my son." Minato stated.
"Who told you that?" The representative asked.
"My son told me that!" Minato yelled. Minato glared fiercely at the representative.
"None the less he was the head of our forces and you killed him. We demand that his killer be killed in kind, and bought to our borders so we can see that the deed has been done." The representative stated.
"If we refuse?" Minato asked angrily.
"Then Cloud will have no choice but to take its own brand of revenge." The representative replied.
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Naruto and Sasuke were sat in Sasuke's room.
"If I'd told you I was gonna get sick then this might not have happened." Naruto said sadly.
"Naruto... we had no way of knowing that they might want to steal you instead of Hinata." Sasuke said sadly.
"I don't even know why they would want me. I mean Hinata has Byakugan and you have Sharingan. I'm..." Naruto trailed off.
"It could be because you're a Jinchuriki." Sasuke quipped. That was when the pair heard talking coming from the living room.
"It's my Mother and yours." Sasuke stated.
"Let's go and see what they're talking about. We might learn some more about why they wanted me. Or even what's going on now." Naruto quipped. Sasuke nodded his agreement and the pair snuck down the stairs expertly and listened just outside the kitchen door.
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"How is everything going? I heard that a representative from Cloud was in the village." Mikoto asked Kushina. Kushina sighed.
"It doesn't look like they're going to back down. Minato seems just about ready to go to war. He doesn't want to hand over Hizashi for slaughter. It's not right. They won't even acknowledge the fact that their Ninja tried to kidnap our son." Kushina replied. Mikoto licked her lips nervously for a moment then asked a question.
"Why did they want Naruto so badly? I mean I know he's your son. I'm not saying that he isn't special. It's just..." Mikoto trailed off.
"Why take him when they could snatch someone with a Kekkei Genkai?" Kushina questioned back. Mikoto nodded.
"Naruto does have a Kekkei Genkai. It's not an obvious one, in fact it's not widely known at all." Kushina said softly. Mikoto was confused as she looked at her dearest friend.
"He has what's known as special chakra. He inherited it from me. He has almost limitless reserves, and the more he trains the more those reserves will grow. I was kidnapped by Cloud when I was fourteen for that very reason. That's how I first realised I loved Minato." Kushina said softly.
"So they wanted Naruto for that reason?" Mikoto asked.
"If you were them, wouldn't you want to breed a bunch of Shinobi with limitless chakra reserves? Why do you think Minato picked Naruto to be the Kyubi's Jinchuriki? Naruto is one of the few people capable of being able to contain the Kyubi." Kushina replied.
"Like you were?" Mikoto asked.
"That's a story that I don't want to get in to." Kushina replied.
Mikoto sighed as she sat at her kitchen table while Kushina stood up to make them both some tea.
"Kushina?" Mikoto asked softly.
"Yeah?" Kushina questioned back.
"I found out that I'm pregnant yesterday." Mikoto said softly. Kushina turned around and stared at her.
"How far along are you?" Kushina asked.
"Four months. I didn't even realise. There wasn't even any morning sickness." Mikoto said softly.
"Funnily enough I'm one month pregnant too." Kushina quipped. Mikoto stared at Kushina.
"I'm serious. I thought I was dying from the morning sickness but I went to check with the med nins to make sure. Seems Naruto is going to get a little brother or sister." Kushina stated.
"I wonder how Itachi and Sasuke are going to take it. It's been three months since their father died and I'm going to drop a bombshell on them." Mikoto stated.
"Just hope for a girl. Girls are far more understanding than boys." Kushina replied. Mikoto laughed loudly.
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Naruto and Sasuke stared wide eyed as they hid next to the kitchen entrance. Then they snuck back upstairs.
"Wow!" Sasuke exclaimed. He didn't even bother to hide his shock.
"Yeah you said it." Naruto replied.
"Not only are we getting new siblings but we managed to find out that you have a Kekkei Genkai too." Sasuke added.
"Have you noticed that we're starting to sound a lot more like kids?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded.
"I think we're just naturally adapting. It wouldn't hurt to talk to Kyubi about it though." Sasuke replied. Naruto nodded.
"I'll try and talk to him when I go to sleep tonight." Naruto said.
"It sounds like your Mother was Kyubi's Jinchuriki before you were." Sasuke said softly. Naruto nodded.
"I'll ask Kyubi. He hasn't got any reason to lie about it." Naruto replied.
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Hizashi and Hiashi Hyuga were sat in the Hokage's office. Minato looked at them both.
"Cloud wants retribution for their Ninja." Minato said bluntly. Hiashi looked furious.
"They breached the treaty by trying to abduct your son and you're telling me you're seriously considering what they're asking?" Hiashi asked angrily.
"I don't want to consider it at all. However their representative refuses to listen to any other grievance. As far as he's concerned we killed one of their ninja and they want the ninja's killer to be killed in kind." Minato replied. The Hyuga twins were sitting in silence for a few moments.
"If we wait they may calm down and consider the other options." Minato added after a few minutes.
"But the longer we wait the more risk there is of war between Cloud and Leaf right?" Hizashi asked. Minato nodded.
"Then it might be best for me to hand myself over." Hizashi said sadly.
"No! I refuse to hand over one of my ninja for the sake of a treaty that they obviously intended to break as soon as they signed it!" Minato exclaimed. Hiashi nodded.
"There is no way that I will hand over my twin brother for execution." Hiashi added.
"Then what will we do?" Hizashi asked. Neither man knew how to answer that question.
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Naruto and Sasuke had snuck out to walk around the village and found themselves in the park. They took note of a stranger who was watching other children playing. Naruto took note of Neji, who was pushing Hinata on a swing. Hinata's mother was watching over them as she held on to little Hanabi. Kiba, Shikamaru and Chouji were racing around playing. Sakura and Ino were collecting flowers. Sasuke and Naruto glared at the stranger. They knew he was the representative from Cloud. However they had their own plan.
They walked over to the representative, both putting on faces of childish curiosity.
"Hi mister!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully.
"Hi." Sasuke stated much more softly.
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The Cloud representative had decided to sit in the park and await the Hokage's choice. After all, he knew that if he went back to Cloud without Hizashi Hyuga's head, or the man himself to be executed, then there would be war. He'd known of the plan to abduct the Hokage's son from the very beginning. Most of the council had known. Of course nobody had thought that their head ninja could fail. But he had failed. Now the representative was there to make sure that they got something out of the failure. What he didn't expect was to see two children come up to him.
"Hi mister!" A blonde boy exclaimed loudly. The representative blinked at the curious child.
"Hi." A dark haired boy also said softly.
"What is it that you want children?" The representative asked.
"We're just curious." The blonde child stated.
"Yeah, you're not from around here." The dark haired child added.
"What's your name? I'm Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze and this is Sasuke Uchiha." The blond child asked, introducing himself and his friend. The representative looked at the two children, wondering whether or not he should introduce himself. He was also wondering where he had heard the name Namikaze before.
"Come on mister! It's rude to not give your name if someone else gave their name first!" Naruto exclaimed loudly. The male felt his lips twitching into the beginnings of a smile but suppressed it quickly.
"I am Rekei." The representative decided to tell them. It was his first name but it didn't tell them where he was from. The blond, Naruto, gave him a wide grin.
"My Dad is the best Shinobi ever! What does your Dad do Rekei?" Naruto asked. Rekei looked at the boy curiously, and the child's big eyes stared back at him.
"My Mom is a Kunoichi." The dark haired child, Sasuke, added.
"My father was a Shinobi. He died a long time ago." Rekei answered. Somehow the two children's big eyes and endearing expressions were pulling him in.
"That's sad. My cousin, Tenshiko, she lost her Mom and Dad when she was a baby. My Mom said they were Shinobi on a mission and something bad happened to them and they died. So now Tenshiko lives with us." Naruto said sadly. Rekei was confused as to how the children of this village could seem so innocent.
"We're friends now. Right Rekei?" Naruto asked.
"I supposed we are." Rekei replied, meaning to humour the innocent child, who couldn't be more than eight years old.
"Well, three weeks ago something really bad happened to me." Naruto said sadly.
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Sasuke looked at Naruto, and Naruto made a hand signal behind his back. Sasuke knew what that meant, even though Naruto never used the same gesture.
"Go with it Sasuke I have a plan." That's what it always meant. So Sasuke decided to go with it. After all, when did Naruto's plans ever really fail on them? Except when they tried to get Kakashi's mask off, but that was an exception to the rule.
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Rekei wasn't sure what made him ask, but he did.
"What happened to you then?" Rekei questioned gently.
"Well my stomach was hurting real bad and I had to go to hospital. Itachi-Aniki took me. He's Sasuke's Aniki, but I call him Aniki too!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Yeah it was so scary because me and my Aniki went to pick up Naruto so we could both go to the Academy together, and Naruto was really sick." Sasuke joined in. They sounded genuinely frightened by the experience.
"And when I got there they had to make me go to sleep and Mom told me they had to cut open my stomach and take out my appendix because it bursted!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Yeah. Naruto even has a scar!" Sasuke said excitedly.
"Wanna see my scar Rekei?" Naruto asked cutely. His big blue eyes looked up at the man cutely.
"Um... sure I guess." Rekei said blankly. Naruto lifted up his shirt, and presented a nice scar to the Cloud representative.
"Isn't it cool? Mom said it might go away when I get bigger! But it's so awesome!" Naruto exclaimed. Rekei gave the boy a tiny smile.
"Hey tell him what happened that night Naruto." Sasuke stated. Rekei was confused then.
"What happened then?" Rekei asked. His interest was genuinely peaked now.
"Well after I said goodnight to Mom and Dad and went to bed, I was sleeping and someone came into the room. He was mean and he had kunais so he musta been a Ninja. I didn't see his face." Naruto said. His face took on a wide eyed, scared look.
"It was scary because I tried to run away but I couldn't because I wasn't well, and the man picked me up and Auntie Mikoto and Hizashi-San came to see me and the man jumped out of the window with me!" Naruto exclaimed.
Rekei now remembered where he had heard the name Namikaze before. It was the family name of the Fourth Hokage.
"Did you know that Ninja's can run down walls?" Naruto asked curiously. Rekei nodded dumbly.
"I didn't! I was so scared I thought I was gonna go splat! But he ran down the wall with me. Then Auntie Mikoto and Hizashi-San chased after us, and Hizashi-San told the mean man to put me down." Naruto stated.
"Hizashi-San?" Rekei looked to see two children standing there. Both had the white eyes of the famed Hyuga clan. One was a boy and the other was a girl. It was the boy who had spoken.
"Yeah, Hizashi-San. He's really cool. Do you know him?" Naruto asked the white haired boy.
"He's my father." The boy replied. Rekei almost felt like he'd been suckered into a trap.
"I'm Naruto. This is Sasuke." Naruto stated.
"I'm Neji and this is my cousin, the Lady Hinata." The boy replied.
"So what did my Father do?" Neji asked. Rekei wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest of the story. But Naruto carried on anyway.
"Well the mean man wouldn't put me down. Even though your dad, Hizashi-San, told him to three whole times!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Oh p-p-poor N-Naruto-Kun." Hinata stuttered out. Naruto nodded.
"And the mean man put a kunai to my neck. See I still have a cut!" Naruto exclaimed. He proudly showed off a tiny mark, where it was obvious that the head Cloud Ninja had pierced his skin lightly. Rekei knew it must have been to make Hizashi Hyuga and Mikoto Uchiha back away from him.
"After he did that, Hizashi-San hit him real hard and he let go of me and Auntie Mikoto caught me. She gave me to my Mom, and my Mom was so upset that she was crying!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Your Mom doesn't cry!" Sasuke exclaimed.
"Well she did because she said that she was so scared she was gonna lose me forever and ever." Naruto replied.
"So my Father saved you?" Neji asked.
"Yeah. But someone is coming from Cloud today. Because the man who got hit by your Dad, died, and they're really mad about it." Naruto replied, as he nodded. Rekei felt a little ill as he heard the child describe his experience. Then he looked at the other boy, Neji, and realised that if his negotiations went the way he wanted them to, then that boy would lose his father, the same way Rekei himself had lost a father on a mission.
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Minato, Hiashi and Hizashi had walked over to the park. All three of them were out of ideas. This discussion wasn't going to be easy. That was when the men saw the Cloud representative, talking to Sasuke and Naruto, and they stopped. They heard the whole conversation easily. Then they saw the look of guilt cross the representative's face, and smirked to each other.
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear that the two of them planned this together." Hizashi quipped.
"You mean Naruto and Sasuke?" Hiashi asked. Hizashi nodded.
"It's kinda scary actually." Minato quipped. The Hyuga twins looked at Minato curiously.
"Think about it. If they know what's going on, and they took the time to plan a strategy to use their childlike innocence to make the enemy feel guilty, and if it actually works, then they must be geniuses. Imagine that. Then imagine the fact that we didn't even notice that they're geniuses, and Naruto is my son." Minato quipped. Both Hyuga's thought about it for a moment, and then nodded their agreement.
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Rekei sent a bird messenger to the council of elders in Cloud, as well as the Raikage. He felt that it wasn't fair for him to take away the father of another child when it could be avoided. Of course he didn't put it that way in his letter. He just stated that Konoha was a tough nut to crack and that the plan had become unviable. Especially as he'd also found out that Hizashi Hyuga was of the Branch family of the Hyuga clan. That meant that his execution wouldn't allow them any secrets into the Byakugan anyway. The caged bird seal prevented this. If it had been Hiashi Hyuga then he wouldn't be able to say this, but it had been Hizashi to end the Ninja's life. There was nothing any of them could do about it.
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Sasuke and Naruto snuck over to the Hokage Tower a few days later, once the Cloud representative had left of course, and listened to see if their plan had worked.
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Minato was amazed as he sat in his office.
"They actually gave it up. The representative, Rekei, gave up, saying that it wasn't in the best interests of peace with Konoha for them to carry on this dispute over revenge." Minato stated. Kushina blinked.
"What do you think it was?" Kushina asked.
"I think it was our son being a lot more intelligent then he leads us to believe." Minato quipped. Kushina couldn't help laughing then, at the confused look on Minato's face.
"Oh, by the way, seeing as this seems to be the right time to tell you. I'm pregnant." Kushina stated. Minato, who had just started to drink from a glass of water, spat out a mouthful of the liquid and started coughing. Kushina began laughing again.
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Naruto and Sasuke grinned at each other then left the Hokage Tower.
"That really creeped me out." Sasuke stated.
"What did?" Naruto asked.
"Us acting like a pair of innocent kids." Sasuke replied.
"How are we going to react to our parents hiding their pregnancy news?" Sasuke quipped. Naruto grinned evilly.
"Act like kids would?" Naruto questioned back.
"If you can handle pretending to be innocent for a little while." Naruto added. Sasuke smirked evilly as he caught on to Naruto's idea.
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That evening, while Itachi and Sasuke were sat at the dinner table with their mother, Mikoto decided to make an announcement.
"Boys there is something I have to tell you." Mikoto started. Both Sasuke and Itachi looked at Mikoto, waiting for her to carry on.
"I went to see a medic nin for a check up. I was hoping to go back on duty as a Kunoichi of Konoha. But they told me that I'm pregnant." Mikoto finished. Itachi and Sasuke stared.
"What does pregnant mean?" Sasuke asked. His big eyes were looking at Mikoto innocently.
"It means that Mother is going to have a baby." Itachi replied before Mikoto needed to answer. Sasuke looked at Itachi quizzically.
"But I thought there had to be a Mother and a Father for a baby to come?" Sasuke asked cutely.
"There does. You see this happened before your father died Sasuke." Mikoto replied.
"How comes you didn't know until now then?" Sasuke asked. Mikoto and Itachi both sighed.
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Kushina and Minato were sat with Tenshiko and Naruto at the dinner table.
"Naruto, Tenshiko, we have something to tell you." Minato started.
"What is it Mom?" Naruto asked cutely.
"Well, you're going to have a new brother or sister." Kushina replied. Naruto cocked his head to one side.
"How comes?" Naruto asked. Tenshiko tried not to giggle into her food.
"Well because there are things that happen between a Mom and a Dad that sometimes makes babies in a Mom's stomach." Minato replied.
"What things?" Naruto asked. His big, innocent blue eyes bored straight into Kushina and Minato's souls.
"Adult things." Kushina tried to head off her son.
"What adult things?" Naruto asked.
"Things that are hard for you to understand Naruto. But you will when you get older." Minato tried to end the conversation.
"Is that like that stuff that Kakashi reads? He has this big orange book that he carries all the time and it's got adult things in it. That's what Kakashi said when he came to visit." Naruto asked. Kushina turned as red as her hair and Minato had a furious look on his face.
"When I find Kakashi I'm going to kill him." Minato hissed.
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Somewhere, on a mission in Suna, Kakashi Hatake sneezed loudly. Then he shrugged and carried on reading his Icha Icha Paradise book.
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"Why would you want to kill Kakashi?" Naruto asked. Tenshiko was out right laughing now.
"For... special reasons Naruto." Minato replied.
"Am I getting a brother or a sister?" Naruto asked Kushina.
"I don't know yet." Kushina replied.
"How comes?" Naruto asked. Kushina and Minato both banged their heads on the table while Tenshiko carried on laughing.
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Okay all that's the end of this chapter. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Please R&R and let me know what you think of course. I'll catch you all next time I update readers.
