Here's the next chap.
Keep the feedback coming!
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Chapter 11
Sasuke had been depressed for a couple of days, but he had pulled through mostly thanks to Naruto, and Sakura – with Fumiko's disguised meddling. What the underage masterminds hadn't taken into account, but soon found to be very helpful in their prank endeavours, was Itachi. He didn't have direct involvement, but he made it in his interest to know who was teaching his little brother's class and drop coded hints of weak points in skill, or likes and dislikes. These tiny bits of information tended to prove very useful.
A prime example was their current victim. During breakfast their informant had hinted to Sasuke that the jounin was not as efficient as most in spotting traps. So they had set up a whole string of traps before the teacher even arrived to the classroom for their first lesson.
She had opened the door to a bag of flour into her face, taken a step to slip on the puddle on the floor and skid into the room to fall over a trip wire. This triggered the release of the finale, a string of ropes linked to a retracting pulley on the roof set up at the open window. As soon as they were activated they shot out, wrapped tightly round the woman and hauled her out the window and halfway up the building. This is where stayed for the majority of the day as the kids cleaned up the classroom, lied whenever someone asked where their teacher was and did as they pleased, thanking their luck that one of the ropes had gone round the ninja's mouth and acted like a gag, neutralising her ability to call for help.
All eleven of the pranksters were gathered around Shikamaru, Choji and Ino's bench having a massive game of 'shithead', using 13 decks of cards. They were not bothered in the slightest by the chaos raining down around them with the papers being thrown, some kids chasing each other, a group of girls dancing on the desk and the unfortunate boy that was hanging by his ankles from the ceiling.
This was the scene Kakashi walked into when he opened the door in his normal ninja gear. His shoulders slumped and his jaw went slack in disbelief. He thought the Hokage had been exaggerating on the problems caused by Naruto's class, but he was proven wrong. Someone who noticed his presence called over to inform him the teacher was away to the bathroom. Kakashi highly doubted the truth in that, but he wasn't there for the teacher. He looked around for a certain blonde. His eye caught sight of him, and Fumiko close by, just as Sasuke yelled protest that the 'Dope' was cheating and the group all laughed at his discomfort. Curious, he walked over.
They all had various numbers of cards in their hands and no more than six in front of them, three face down and three on top of those facing up. Looking at the fuming Uchiha he saw he had all six cards in front of him and at least 2 whole decks worth in his hands, meanwhile the smirking Naruto had one card in his hand and none on the desk. They went round in a circle, each taking a turn to put down varying numbers of cards onto the pile or growling and picking the growing pile up. It came to Naruto's turn.
He threw down his last card with a grin and declared them all 'shitheads'. He received a kick in the shins from Shino and Kiba and a duet of Sakura and Hinata's fists slamming down on top of his head.
With a curt nod Hinata retracted her hand and looked to Kakashi. "Can we help you with something?"
He was surprised for two reasons. The first being that none of the group had given any indication that they had noticed him standing a little ways off to the side and the second was that last he heard the Hyuuga princess was very shy and never spoke out, and when she did she always stuttered. That obviously was not the case. He cleared his throat and come right up beside the group of children.
"The Third Hokage has asked me to bring Naruto Uzumaki and Fumiko Akamori to him." His eye creased as he gave them all a friendly smile.
Their friends all looked at them hoping for an explanation, but all they got was shrugs of the shoulders. It was near the end of the day anyway so they retrieved their bags, they hadn't bothered to bring anything other than the cards and supplies needed for the prank out.
"We'll catch you guys later." Naruto called from the door as they made to follow Kakashi.
"Troublesome." Mumbled Shikamaru as the door slid shut behind them.
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They stood quietly in front of the Hokage. Kakashi was still there and they weren't sure if he was going to rat them out or not.
"I've had you two brought before me today to put a question to you."
This was met with confusion from the children and Kakashi.
"After the 'loss' of Danzo," he actually used air quotes, "the resistance to a certain request from Kakashi here has become basically non-existent."
The kids remained confused but Kakashi got a mixture surprise, excitement and elation.
At the seeming decision to not explain further Naruto asked the Third the obvious. "What 'request' might that be?"
However, it was Kakashi that answered. "To be assigned Guardianship of you, Naruto."
Naruto choked on thin air and Fumiko did her best to hide a smirk. She had thought that might happen when Danzo was finally gone.
"However," the Hokage interjected, "that was well before Fumiko here fell into our laps and she has been a hot topic ever since."
Fumiko froze and Naruto couldn't help getting an odd feeling in his stomach.
"The council refused on the base on a pointless old law to allow the Guardianship of two individuals to a single ninja so..."
"So I have offered to adopt her as there is nothing to prevent that." Kakashi finished, amused that the girl in question strongly resembled a fish with the way she kept opening and closing her mouth, and her wide eyes.
Naruto, at the sight of his gob-smacked flatmate, recovered his own voice. He looked to the Hokage pointedly. "Does he know what he's getting with us? All of us?" he had included Kyuubi in his question and the Third knew it. The boy glanced at the confused frown he could make out from underneath Kakashi's mask. "He doesn't, does he?" he scolded in a brief role reversal.
Sarutobi shook his head. "I doubt he would have believed me if I simply told him." He admitted. "Although, he is aware of Fumiko's cute extras."
"How's that?"
Kakashi felt like he had been forgotten in the back of the room as the Hokage explained his statement to the blonde boy. He looked to Fumiko. She was still gaping. He walked over, knelt down in front of her and placed a comforting hand on her head.
Her mouth closed and she stared at the smiling man. He barely knew her and he was going to do something so amazingly nice for her. Tears welled up and her ears and tail popped out.
This surprised Kakashi for a second but he didn't back off, or retreat in fear like so many others. He just chuckled softly and moved his hand from side to side gently.
That was it. The dam broke. She dove at him, knocking his ass into the floor, and clung to his vest with her eyes shut tight and squeezing out tears of happiness.
He chuckled again and hugged her tight. You can't help but love a kid this cute. He thought as he adjusted her arms so they were around his neck and stood off the floor, keeping her held securely in his arms. "Well, since at least the adoption is decided, could someone please explain what Naruto here has hinted I'm missing?"
"On you go Naruto." The Third told the boy, passing all responsibility to him.
Sly old geezer... Kyuubi complimented.
I'll say... his container agreed then went into the lengthy story of both his and Fumiko's 'past' lives, their unplanned trip through time, that he knew of his lineage, a short explanation on Fumiko's lineage also and of how he was now merged with Kyuubi and had physical attributes similar to Fumiko. He had then proceeded to release the genjutsu he placed on himself every morning, he had been working on infusing it into a wearable item so that he didn't have to worry about it deactivating while he slept.
Kakashi's jaw got lower and lower the further on the story got. He had felt Fumiko's grip tighten and she hid her face in his neck when Naruto got to her part of the story and told of her missing eye and tail, and her scars. It was unconscious, but by the time Naruto had finished telling that part he had held the girl closer and started to rub her back to ease her discomfort, to which both Naruto and Sarutobi had smiled. He couldn't believe his eyes when Naruto unleashed his fox ears and tail.
"I can go a step further and go into my fox form. It has nine tails like Kyuubi but is way smaller and takes loads of effort." Naruto pouted, but grinned when he shared a look with Fumiko. "Fumi though can go into her own fox form no sweat seen as she is actually half fox."
"You can?" Kakashi asked in wonder. He was echoed by the Hokage, to whom Fumiko stuck out her tongue, but she nodded to Kakashi.
"I couldn't do it when I didn't have my tail." She gave a short look of concentration and in a swirl of blue light the fox-girl was replaced with a fox kit. It was the cutest little fox either of the two men had ever seen. Where foxes were usually one colour with white tips on the ends of the ears and tail, Fumiko was white with brown – the shade of her human hair – on the tips instead. The front edges of her ears were a light cream, the same with the area around the eyes, and she had a light pink nose. There was a gradient of tones of brown on her chest, stomach and along the underside of her tail, and a wide ring of light brown around her back ankles.
Large emerald eyes looked up at Kakashi from the circle of his arms and he could just feel himself melt. If anyone ever dared to try and hurt her, he swore they would find a Chidori shoved up their ass.
Naruto just had to shatter the moment. "She'll do tricks for ice-cream."
In a flash she was gone from his arms and chasing the idiot around the room growling, "I told you to never mention that! Get back here Nami! I'm going to maul your face and make those whiskers scars! That's it, I'm asking Kyuubi to sing 'Bunch of Coconuts' until you pass out!
That brought the boy to a halt with a plea of, "No! Anything but that!"
"Wish granted!" she appeased and sunk her teeth into his hand.
The wide eyes of the two adult ninja followed them around the room, with Naruto swinging his arm to rid himself of the fox and Fumiko refusing to let go, as they conversed on the situation.
"You still want to take these two on?"
"Without a doubt." Kakashi answered resolutely, still watching the children's antics.
Naruto finally managed to dislodge the fanged piece of fur and called over to Kakashi and Sarutobi. "One last thing Kakashi." He made a few hand signs and pressed his injured hand to the floor. He hadn't had to call out in years so he didn't bother, his throat hurt from screaming anyway.
There was a large puff of smoke and as it cleared two things could be seen. First was that Naruto no longer had his fox ears and tail, and second was the large dog sized Kyuubi in the middle of the room. Kakashi stared in shock for a few moments then rubbed his hand on the back of his head. "I should have seen that coming."
"You still agree?" the Hokage pressed.
"Yes."
"Good. With that sorted we can make arrangements when you find a place for you all to stay.
"Actually I just bought a 3 bedroom house." Kakashi smirked.
"How'd you manage that?" Naruto asked after the puff of smoke announcing Kyuubi's return to his mind.
"I'd like to ask the same question." the Third agreed as Fumiko used the desk to spring onto Kakashi's shoulder.
He laughed at her behaviour and poked her nose playfully, laughing further when she went cockeyed. "I actually started saving when you first assigned me the task of investigating Danzo."
"I should have guessed." Sarutobi sighed.
Naruto's ears snapped forward. "What about our apartment?"
"That's right!" Fumiko seconded. "All of our friends use it as a place to hang out in their spare time or get away from their parents for a bit."
"Do you think we could keep using it for that? We would all pitch in to keep it in order." The blonde asked with his cutest face.
"Please." Fumiko accompanied jumping onto the desk, putting her ears back and curling her tail round her legs.
The Hokage's lip quivered in his weakening resolve to not be moved, and Kakashi was desperately trying to control the urge to laugh at the blatant attempt to manipulate the respected Third Hokage.
"Alright." He conceded defeat.
The children cheered in joy, joined by Kakashi as he wanted in on the fun. The kids heard this and, with Fumiko turning back to her natural form, tackled Kakashi into a 'family' hug. This life had suddenly become far better than either of them could ever have imagined.