Our Father in Nirvana (and Thy Son on Earth)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and my teddy bear will back me up on that.

A/N: A wildly inventive witticism an intelligent individual does not make.

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Hatsuoki was one of those females who were beautiful without having the looks for it. A quality shone out through her eyes and lit up her whole face with a sort of bright assertiveness, and Naruto imagined that she had a beautiful soul.

He thought it, and then promptly beat himself up for thinking it.

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Hatsuoki asked, setting out tea for the twins and Awaimaru as the blond punched himself in the face.

"We've no clue," Leiko said sadly, "We just met him."

"I thought you were cousins?"

"We are," Hinako affirmed.

Hatsuoki and Awaimaru exchanged glances. Clearly, this tale would have some explaining to do.

"Alright," panted Naruto after he was through teaching himself a lesson, "Here's how this works."

And so, during the drinking of several cups of tea and snacking on some very tasty cinnamon biscuits, the tale of Uzumaki Naruto and his Great Big Fuck Up was narrated to one Ao Hatsuoki of the Chroniclers and her asshole pal, Awaimaru.

000

Earth, meanwhile, had its own kettle of fish to fuss over.

Sakura was the first to recover, leaping over to Kaya's prone body and pumping chakra into it in a hectic attempt to jerk the heart back into action. Sasuke geared himself next, picking up Pumpkin and depositing her on the sofa. Sai pulled out a book and perused it, trying to find the proper thing to say after applauding the death of a woman crucial to the success of their mission, and Kakashi and Minato sort of milled around as though hoping Kaya would leap up and say 'April Fools!'.

It was a far fetched hope, but what the hell.

Sasuke sent a jab of chakra into Pumpkin's cheek. The pulse galvanized her parasympathetic and sympathetic systems and she came awake with a great shudder.

"Hey," he said, "Your mistress was just shot. We'll need to question you."

Pumpkin looked for a moment as though she was appalled by his total lack of consideration, and then he realized no, she was just about to vomit. He stepped aside with all the speed and grace of a ninja, and she threw up on the dusty carpet.

"Vomit," said Sai helpfully.

Minato and Kakashi milled around some more, and Sakura yelled at them.

"Don't just stand there, do something! Go out and see if you can find any clues as to who that guy was! Sai, get the girl some water from the kitchen!"

"Do I know where the kitchen is?" Sai muttered, but went to look for it nonetheless.

Sasuke proffered Pumpkin the tablecloth from the coffee table, and she wiped her mouth on it gratefully. He marveled at the servants' art of being able to appear grateful even as one wipes puke from ones' lips, and then stood up with her.

"I should help him find the kitchen," she said shakily, "I…I…need to walk."

And with legs as shaky as her voice, she followed Sai out of the room.

Minato and Kakashi had leapt out through the hole as ordered to by Sakura, and Sasuke approached the pink haired medic.

"No hope for her, I'm guessing?" he asked.

Sakura sat back and shook her head, and they looked down together at the still pretty face of Ao Kaya.

"Does this mean Naruto's father is stuck here?"

Sakura suppressed a shudder. "You better hope not."

But as they continued to gaze hopelessly at the dead body, they didn't think they really had a say in the matter any more.

000

Hatsuoki shook her head. "That," she said, "Is bordering on unbelievable."

"Really?" Awaimaru frowned, "Seemed pretty commonplace to me."

"That's because you were an adventurer when you were alive," Hatsuoki told him in an exasperated tone, "This sort of thing was all you ever heard! In the shinobi world, people don't just get sent to nirvana on errands!"

"That would render death a mere inconvenience," Hinako nodded. Leiko glanced askance at her twin for the mild profoundness of that statement, but otherwise kept mum.

"Yeah," Naruto said desperately, "So, can you lend me a hand or what?"

"I'd go with or what."

"What?"

"The thing is, little boy, I have no power over the mortal realm," Hatsuoki explained, "The power to control the family jutsu left me when I died and moved on to the eldest child with the Ao blood, and so on and so forth. And right now the eldest child in the family is Kaya—" Hatsuoki broke off here with a funny, pained look on her face. The three cousins and Awaimaru looked upon her with concern, as though she was a constipated puppy they'd chanced across in a kennel. Abruptly as it came the expression passed and Hatsuoki's face regained that bright assertive quality that made her so damn beautiful.

"Well, it seems as though Kaya is dead." The woman pulled out a pipe shaped like a dragon and put a pinch of tobacco in it from a silver box on the table. Awaimaru made a displeased noise, but she shot him a look as if to say hey, back off. This is a pipe-smoking sort of scene!

"…What?"

"Kaya is dead," Hatsuoki said irritably, "I know because she—well, she's one of the last ones of my family left, isn't she? I watch them all now. A sort of karmic connection to sense what level of health they're in, so I can appear in a dream or vision and warn them if they're going to die without reproducing." She struck a match and lit her pipe. "The propagation of my clan is very important to me. To the shinobi world, too."

"One of the last…" Naruto said in a horrified whisper, "One of the last…does that mean, does that mean there's still someone who can help my dad?"

"Yes. She's has five children and a little brother. The brother will be the next oldest child; he will have received all the family powers now."

"She's got five kids?" Hinako said in disgust.

Hatsuoki shrugged. "One for each husband she's had, I believe. The girl can't really maintain relationships well. Each child is being raised by its respective father."

"And the brother?" Leiko asked.

Hatsuoki smiled the preening smile of a peacock who knows its feathers are the best in the pen.

"Ah now, he is something, is little Hoshi, isn't he? He was born into the wrong clan, as far as I can tell. He has no love for any of his family, even his sister. He hates us all, hates what he sees as our pomp and pretentiousness, our extravagant splendor. He doesn't believe Chroniclers need opulence. He tried to lobby for change, tried to get his parents to use some of their wealth to better their entire village—maybe the entire world, I wasn't paying much attention back then—and they denounced him. I believe he's taken up arms against us, joined a group of rebels who are determined to bring every wealthy family in the world to its knees and loot the ancestral homes in the name of good deeds and philanthrophism."

Naruto struggled to follow the flow of events.

"Then, the man who can help—who can set this straight, get me back to Earth—he's not going to be happy to do it?"

Hatsuoki's smile widened.

"Oh, he'll be happy to do it."

Hinako frowned, "But then, what's the problem?"

Awaimaru laughed as he cottoned on to Hatsuoki's train of thought. "Hoshi will be happy to help your friends," he grinned, "For a price, of course."

Naruto, Leiko and Hinako remembered how Awaimaru had insisted on repayment before opening Hatsuoki's gate for them. They thought they knew exactly what he meant, and they were right. Ao Hoshi would do the job. But he would demand compensation.

000

Pumpkin sat down on the couch again, her hands clamped tightly around a hot cup of coffee. Sakura sat to her side, a sympathetic hand rubbing warm circles on her lower back.

"Now, Pumpkin, I know your mistress was a very important person to you—"

"Important!" Pumpkin wailed, "She was my life! She saved my life! Oh, my poor mistress Kaya, gone where your Pumpkin can't serve you, what life will I live now?"

"A free one?" Sasuke suggested. Sakura threw him a look that suggested he may be the least sensitive jerk she'd ever had the misfortune to share an atmosphere with, and he fell quiet. Sai had gone to fetch Minato and Kakashi. No doubt the two were milling around outside the house as though hoping the real Ao Kaya would show up there and declare the body in the house an imposter.

"Pumpkin," Sakura said kindly, "Did your mistress tell anyone else about the jutsu? How to reverse it, maybe? Did she tell you?"

The maid took a deep breath of air, and a deep sip of coffee, and then her eyes filled up with tears. "Hot," she choked, "Hot!"

Sasuke hastily offered the tablecloth again, and she rubbed her tongue on it to stop the burning before answering Sakura. "She never told me outright," Pumpkin confessed, "But I often was nearby when she was practicing the arts. I picked up something or the other—but it's useless!" she cried at the sudden way Sakura's eyes had perked up, "It's useless, I can't do it! You need to be an Ao to do it! You need—to be—part of her family!"

Sakura's face fell, and she looked at Sasuke who knelt at Pumpkin's feet.

"And there's no next of kin?" he broached the topic in a gentle voice, "There's no more members of the Ao Family?"

"Of—of course—but…," and here Pumpkin let the true grief of her position overwhelm her and burst into fresh tears.

Sai chose this point to return with Minato and Kakashi, the former of which stared at Kaya's body and feebly joked, "So, she's still dead then, huh? Pity, I was hoping for a Jesus-esque resurrection."

And in the escalation of Pumpkin's sobs, and Sakura shouting at the tactless blond, and Kakashi leaping to his sensei's defense, no one heard Sai point out that Jesus had been resurrected three whole days after his death. But then, it didn't really matter, so that was that, and that was it.

Eventually, Pumpkin was calmed and they found out about Kaya's black sheep little brother, and it felt like a breath of fresh air: they had hope again.

Minato said, "Where does he live, then, the little rebel?"

Pumpkin said, "In the village. He's the man who sent the one who—shot—Kaya-sama."

Kakashi opened his mouth to deliver a dialogue at long last, and Sai beat him to it.

"Oh, good," he said, "Just when I was thinking this was getting easy again!"

Such was life.

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:D I love this chapter. I wrote it in, like, ten minutes. When inspiration strikes, it really beats one to a pulp.