At dawn, Tsume found Ashi sitting on a rock near the borders of the Inuzuka compound, hugging his knees.
The boy had been uncharacteristically quiet after returning home, shying away from all the praise his family had given him.
"Ashi-kun, talk to me." She said, crouching by his side.
"My koishii is going to die, baa-chan" he said in a desolate tone.
Tsume raised her eyebrows. "Everyone dies, Ashi. But Ishoo-chan is young, and powerful, you shouldn't be so worried. She has you, doesn't she?"
Ashi shook his head. "Baa-chan, when we were there and the Ookami came through me, I had to fight and kill the ninja that were trying to take power from her. Baa-chan, she gave her own flesh and blood, she gave it to the earth so that everyone could have some, and still they wanted it for them alone. And I know what happened when Kaguya stole that power from the earth, she stole what was willingly given to everyone out of love. That is what my koishii's bodies are, they are power given to not one, but all, and if I fail… I can't let Ookami fail again, baa-chan, even if I have to kill my beloved. But it's so hard, baa-chan, and koishii knows and expects me to and it's just so hard!" he cried out, tears rolling freely down his face.
"Yes, I know it's hard. But Ashi, if you were chosen, it's because you are strong enough." Tsume wiped his tears with her hands. "Ookami knows the soul of every Inuzuka, and he has only graced the bravest, kindest and most honored as his vessels. Besides… the gods have sent your koishii to Naruto and Sasuke. You are not" she held his hands, "listen to me. You are not alone protecting her. But" and she gave him a serious look "I think it's time you make your intentions clear to your koishii's parents."
Cheap and plentiful energy was wonderful in many levels, but for ninjas everywhere in the eastern nations the best thing that came out of harnessing solar energy was the development of electric showerheads that made the hassle of running out of hot water a thing of the past.
Most ninja families had built extra bathrooms just so everyone could enjoy their long, piping hot showers at whatever time they felt like it, and the Uchiha-Uzumakis weren't different.
Their home now sported three different bathrooms, the main where they could actually bathe in the large round wooden bath, and two other much smaller ones, one at the dojo and the other annexed to the kids' bedroom, the teenagers having never had any issues with sharing the same sleeping space not only because they were basically the same person, so had no conflicting tastes or other sibling issues, but also because they didn't feel the need to isolate themselves from their parents, what with being almost all the time away in missions (the recent years having proved Amachi's idea of rescue and retrieval teams specialized in bringing back targets alive and often in one piece a resounding success), having the dojo for slumber parties and whatnot.
It wasn't a surprise, then, that when Naruto and Sasuke got home both showers in the main house were being occupied, while food was left to cook by itself in the oven and the rice cooker, as it was the case whenever Amachi, who was as lazy as Shikamaru when it came to cooking (and had actually traded recipes with the man so he could feed Temari decently when she came over to Konoha, the couple having decided that neither was interested in traditional marriage and so living in separate villages suit them just fine), made dinner.
Not that their parents complained, the kid cooked better than Chouji's mother.
"Oi! Are you gonna finish soon?" Naruto knocked on the door and called out to the main bathroom from the hall, bright orange towel and pajamas in tow.
"Go away! I got here first!" was the feminine reply. Naruto rolled his tired eyes, and gruntingly made his way out to the dojo, muttering about demanding temes and barbershops.
He pushed open the tiny bathroom's door. "Don't even think about shooing me, 'm tired, teme", he said as he hanged his towel and clothes behind the door and began undressing.
"Wait for your turn and I won't throw you out then", Sasuke said, sighing under the blissfully hot water.
Naruto pushed the shower curtain and went in the teeny shower space regardless of the warning.
"Dobe I've spent almost ten days out and I only had one wash up in the lake four days ago before getting back home, let me finish, damn it."
Naruto grabbed the washcloth and poured some liquid soap in it. "Turn around; I'll wash your back. And we can have a decent bath tomorrow; I'm taking the day off. We can go to the onsen and relax."
"Bad idea." Sasuke turned his back to him.
"Why?" Naruto started scrubbing, and smiled at the appreciative groan he got in response.
"Because if we go, the Inuzuka boy will find a way to be there at the same time. I can't control what happens when they go on missions, but hell if I'll let him ogle our babies right under our noses." Sasuke growled.
"Sasuke, Ishoo-chan would be on the other section of the onsen."
"He wants both, usuratonkachi." Sasuke turned around and inspected Naruto's face. "That's better", he said, nuzzling his cheek. "Turn around."
Naruto's jaw was still hanging when he did. "What did you say?"
"While you were pretending they were innocent little tykes, I talked to Amachi-kun; he told me the little mutt is in love with them. And he called Ishoo-chan koishii in front of everyone when we were coming back." Sasuke said in a conversational tone, while scrubbing his back.
Naruto went livid at the thought. "That little son of a bitch!" he snarled.
"He didn't touch her while they were alone, though. Not that he could, he had turned into a giant white wolf. It's supposedly the wolf-god that protected the Shinju tree, or so Kiba said." Sasuke explained. "But I pushed Kakashi around a bit, and he admitted the kids have been putting up with this koishii thing for the last year."
"What did you do to him?" Naruto growled, angry at himself for not heeding the warning signs he felt the last time they had sparred with their children's team.
"Hn. Considering that the kid didn't do anything else and that Ishoo-chan had just thrown him over a bridge into the lake, and also that he did show proper etiquette to me, dog etiquette, mind you, but he's an Inuzuka, what else we could expect… I just scared him off a bit. I don't want him around the kids outside missions until he comes and asks us to date them or something, though. It's not proper." Sasuke sighed and stepped out of the shower, grabbing for his towel.
Naruto was still livid. And confused as hell. "Giant white wolf? Wolf-god? Dog etiquette?"
Sasuke finished getting dressed and pecked him on the lips. "Be waiting inside. Don't take long, dinner is probably ready." He left Naruto wondering by himself.
The kids hastily got up from the table when Naruto came in from his shower.
"Don't even think about it", he growled at their guilty faces, motioning for them to sit back down. Sasuke was calmly sipping tea at the other side of the table, and poured Naruto some as he sat down next to him.
"Now," Naruto said in a dangerous tone, "I want to know every single thing about this Inuzuka Ashi business. And don't give me the short version either; we can all stay up late, I've got the day off tomorrow."
"Heh, um, you won't need both, so I think I'll go wash our plates…" Ishoo said, trying to slip off her chair again.
"Oh, no, you don't, miss; you stay right there where I can see you blush, ttebayo." Naruto warned.
"That is not fair, you know, what with all the bruising on your face and Chichi having practiced not blushing since he was born", Amachi complained.
"Do you want me to tell Tsume-san about you kicking her grandson's balls?" Naruto threatened. Both teens shook their heads, fear evident in their faces, but successfully hiding the fact that the kick guess was wrong, and the reality was way more compromising. "Good. Spill it."
So they did, in the confusing way that only their fathers, Kakashi and Ashi understood: one talking, then the other, sometimes both together or one beginning and the other finishing the sentence. In the end, it amounted to a single discourse, more or less, which went somewhat like this:
"Er. Ashi-baka is infatuated with me"
"Both of me"
"Cause he knows how it works"
"And then he started having these delusions that since I'm a male and a female, then we are a pack"
"And that he's the alpha male, talk about delusions of grandeur" two young sets of eyes, one black and the other green and brown, rolled in contempt.
"And then he started calling me koishii"
"I've tried reasoning…"
"Pleading…"
"Threatening…"
"Blackmail…"
"And beating him up, but after twelve months it was just waaaaay too much trouble and trying to make him stop was interfering with our training"
"And our missions"
"Kakashi-sensei ended up ordering me to ignore his crap"
"At least he doesn't actively beat up the fangirls, though he growls. They think it's just because of nee-chan and that he's growling at some invisible boy or something, bless their empty heads"
"And keep them empty, 'cause I very much appreciate using the female section at the onsen"
The twins grinned ear-to-ear, making their parents scoff and facepalm, respectively.
"And then there's this whole maturing of this body I've been going through, and it hurts like hell, no wonder Tsunade baa-chan has such a foul temper, growing tits is a pain, literally"
"Not to mention the whole hips thing, did you know these things are opening up? Seriously, the bones are moving away from each other, it hurts"
"And then the night that the blood came I woke up feeling this ginormous pain in my belly, and I was stuck and couldn't wake aniki, and the blood spilled and hurt aniki, and I got out of the house cause I couldn't think and didn't want to hurt even more, one body hurting that much is enough, thanks"
"And Ashi-baka was at the gate and I held him and the land, the place where Chichi found us, just pulled us"
"And then Ashi-baka sat me down against that rock I was, and I wanted to thank him, and I touched his face, and then he kinda turned into that wolf, sort of like you said you'd turn into Kurama back in the war, but not like chakra. It was like… nah; you definitely don't want to know what that was like. It was seriously gross, and that's me talking."
Naruto looked at Sasuke for confirmation, and Sasuke nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. "The wolf is flesh and blood, not solid chakra. Its power is very intense too, but it's a different…"
"Taste" the twins explained. "Like the power from the blood."
Sasuke nodded again. "Though the blood is that concentrated to the umpteenth power. And it disrupts chakra. Some ninja tried to reach them with ninjutsu and blew himself, or herself, to pieces. Sorry for the lack of clarity, there wasn't enough left intact to identify the body."
"And that's what happened." the teens finished.
"Do you love him?" Naruto asked.
Both twins scratched the back of their respective heads, wincing.
"Um"
"Er"
"I think this question is too difficult to be answered at this moment in time."
Naruto deadpanned. "Let me make it easier on you: would you kiss him?"
Sasuke's eyebrow went up.
They both watched attentively as Ishoo blushed all across her face, including her nose. She had always been a champion blusher.
Naruto squinted and focused on her. "Has he kissed you?"
Her blush spread up to her hairline. "I can defend myself, you know."
"Really" Sasuke asked mockingly. "You've spent a year trying to make him stop calling you his beloved and he not only continued but did it in front of me. Nice defense skills." He deadpanned.
"Don't you look at me like I was gonna get pregnant tomorrow or something, fine, I have to beat the shit out of him, but I do and he's never hurt me. Not that he could, that I'd lose control, or that I could get pregnant anyway" They said.
"How do you know?" Naruto asked, looking at Sasuke and realizing neither of them had been informed of that.
They sighed. "Sakura-chan said when she tested my ovarian tissue that there are key reproductive structures missing. I can simulate ovulation and moon cycles, but what my body produces isn't an egg, it's basically a catalyst to some sort of reaction and that is what probably makes all that blood. I think it's a reaction from the body for having lived this long anyway; it's trying to do the job it was made for. Sorry." Both faces looked dejected.
"On the other hand, I have absolute control of the energy required to get it up, so it's not like he can get into my male parts without my express consent" Amachi said.
"We didn't raise you to give us grandkids, there's nothing to be sorry about. I won't let him hurt your feelings, even if he can't force you to do anything, and I will definitely not accept him to be disrespectful. He's banned from this house until he officially comes to discuss this matter with me, and I'm holding him off your team until that, too." Naruto looked at both twins, and nodded angrily before he left the table.
Konohamaru hated night shifts.
'Join Anbu, they said. Being Naruto's personal guard will be fun, they said. It'll help for when you become Hokage, they said', he thought, they being his old teacher Ebisu and his ex-team mates Udon and Moegi.
At least, he mused, he wasn't the one on duty the day Ishoo had disappeared. Poor Moegi had been chewed out for hours by that psychopath Sai, like Sai himself would be able to notice the damn girl leaving the house, bleeding or not.
It didn't help that Moegi had been so terrorized of the man that she had shown up for guard duty that night with a cold, too. It couldn't be helped; Sai thought people getting sick was a personal offense to him, so people usually didn't bother taking sick leaves unless they were about to drop dead.
Naruto had quite understood afterwards when Konohamaru had complained, and stopped Moegi's demotion, but it was the principle of the thing.
It wasn't that Naruto's kids were bad, either, but Konohamaru had been the star ninja of his generation, and then when the kids started at the Academy, the village went crazy about them. It had died down somewhat since they graduated in record time, and the R&R teams, of which theirs was the first, were more often out of the village than not; there was also the fact that the subsequent genin teams to come out of the Academy had also been full of amazing, spetacular ninja, but none of that helped Konohamaru not feel somewhat betrayed.
After all, he was the Sandaime's grandson, and Naruto was like his older brother. He had, perhaps futilely, expected to be put in a better position than he was at Anbu. Not that he wanted to be treated special, but he thought he'd be at least sent to important missions, or, when he was scheduled to be part of Naruto's guard, he'd be able to sit and discuss important matters with him, to be prepared as he himself had been by Tsunade to be the next Hokage.
He had never expected to be ignored by his friend at work.
Sai had briefed all of the personnel selected to be Naruto's personal guard in advance and pointed out that the family would not interact with them except when absolutely necessary while on guard duty.
Naruto was as friendly as ever to him when they met while both were off-duty, but with the heated political issues in the west countries and Sai's insistence that Anbu personnel take advanced courses in technological detection and surveillance, which extended work hours, and his friend having a family of his own, those times were rare at best, and always short.
And Konohamaru had never really wanted to date anyone after Moegi had fallen in love with Udon, of all people, instead of him. Calm, reliable, boring old Udon, who had decided to become an Academy teacher after becoming Chuunin.
So it was obvious that Konohamaru was already not a happy camper when Sasuke opened the front door and gave him an urgent message for Sai, at three in the morning, saying that Naruto had requested him to deliver it.
His mood didn't improve when a thoroughly pissed-off, half-naked, interestingly bruised Sai answered the door.
"What?" Sai said in a murderous tone.
Konohamaru silently handed him the scroll and turned around with his back to the wall beside the door to wait for his response. It was obvious that Sai was having one of his "sexy parties", and since that episode with the upside-down donkey and the Ping-Pong balls it was customary for all messengers to wait outside in that manner for his response.
Ten minutes later, Sai met him outside in full uniform.
"You are to follow Inuzuka Ashi at all times, starting from now until further orders. This mission is classified. You are to detain the subject, preferably alive, if he tries to approach the Hokage's home when the Hokage isn't there, if he tries to approach the house unannounced, or if he tries to contact the Uchiha-Uzumaki children anywhere else. Understood?"
Konohamaru's jaw almost hit the floor. "Yes, sir", he muttered in his outrage.
Sai inwardly sighed when he heard the tone in his subordinate's voice. "I'll be replacing you on your previous post tonight. Move."