Konohamaru knew he shouldn't have asked Tsume-san to use her bathroom.
Now here he was, running around the rooftops like an idiot. How the hell could he have lost the damn kid? It had been less than 5 minutes!
He hadn't called in for a search party, this mission was embarrassing enough without Sai – or gods forbid, Naruto – knowing he had let the Inuzuka kid out of his sight.
It took him over two hours to finally find the brat, snoring under a willow tree in the Uchiha Gardens.
"I'm leaving with Ishoo-chan again by the end of next week" Sasuke told Naruto as they showered.
"No way it's been a month already" Naruto complained.
"It will be in less than two weeks, this time I'd rather we prepare for it."
"Who are you taking?"
"Dog-breath, his mutt nephew and Karin. As far as we know, there's been a lot of gossiping about what's going on in Water; I don't want to take any chances."
"Why aren't you taking Kakashi?"
"He's helping out with the Chuunin exams planning. I'm already taking Kiba, the committee needs one of the jounin from the R&R teams to help with the second challenge, or else it'd be too damn easy for those kids."
They were already dry, and Naruto sat on the toilet and pulled Sasuke on his lap, burying his face between the other's shoulder blades.
"I hope it works and Amachi-kun doesn't black out this time." He said in a muffled voice.
"Hn" muttered Sasuke, smirking.
"Let's go, let's go, LET'S GO ALREADY, I wanna get this shit over with!"
It was hardly sunrise yet, and Sasuke rubbed his eyes while following the seething, scowling girl, with Karin trying really hard to hold her laughter beside him.
"Don't be so upset, Sasuke-kun, it's just PMS" she said, snickering.
"Hn" he grumbled.
The past week had been hard. The twins had been nervous and jittery, and though they tried to get out of their parents' way as much as they could, the very air around them reeked with dreadful anticipation, and it affected both him and Naruto.
The only respite the two men had had been at work and two days where the R&R team went on a quick mission to grab a couple S-rank rogue nin who decided to rob some sensitive shit out of the University and killed a bunch of students and a pregnant teacher in the process. It had earned Ishoo and Amachi their bingo book debut.
The R&R team usually worked in the shadows when hunting for criminals, and their prey had never been able to identify them, so the kids had been renowned basically by their rescue abilities. This time, though, one of the stupid criminals had said something stupid about Naruto and Sasuke in the middle of a busy street of a small village north of the University. It was enough to make the already angry teens go berserk.
They had uncloaked in the village's square, and the lone man had no chance. He tried to divert the twin's attention by taking a child as hostage, and Ishoo just hacked him and the hostage to pieces in front of everyone. Amachi had then grabbed the screaming nin's head and made it watch Ishoo rebuild the child, offering to do the same to him if he led them to the hideout.
That alone had terrified the entire village.
Ishoo actually had rebuilt the idiot that fueled their fury, but she had ripped off his genitals and made him eat them after that. He was the only one who survived the onslaught, and was currently held in a padded room in Konoha's penitentiary.
All the villagers could get out of him when they found the hideout was incoherent screams. The other six men had been turned inside out alive by the girl before Amachi killed them.
That had all happened in one hour. Kakashi and Ashi only found out about it when the twins rejoined them, entirely covered in guts and blood.
The reward for their heads had still to be calculated, but Kakashi bet it would probably be worth a small country, at least.
When they got home, the twins had hugged their fathers in silence for a long time.
The two Inuzukas met them halfway to the gate, with Hinata. She was supposed to have the week off, but had asked to accompany the party. Ishoo had always liked her, and Sasuke wasn't about to scoff at the extra help in this situation.
"So, where are we heading to this time?" Kiba asked, adjusting his backpack. He looked to the side to see the two teens talking quietly with Izumo and Katetsu at the guard post.
The guards left the post with questioning looks, and Ashi jumped behind the counter.
"Um, Sasuke-san, your daughter told us that you wanted to talk to us?" Izumo asked.
Sasuke turned to face the man, and saw his daughter stretch a hand to touch Ashi's face across the counter. The boy dropped behind it, and she turned to face her father, blushing furiously.
He ignored the guards and went to her, but she raised her hand to halt him.
A horrible wailing and crunches sounded behind her, turning into growls after a few moments.
She moved to the side door and opened it for the Ookami, going inside after the enormous beast came out and sat near the door. She rustled inside for a bit and came out again.
"Neither of you has seen anything. Hokage's orders. Understood?" Sasuke told the gaping guards. They nodded hurriedly, but didn't move until Ishoo had finished strapping Ashi's backpack to her front and mounted on the wolf-god.
The huge creature moved next to the party, and the guards quickly retreated to the guard post.
"Kiba-sensei, will you do me a favor?" Ishoo asked, looking down. Kiba came closer respectfully, and nodded.
"Get the baka a long yukata for next time" she completed, still blushing.
Sasuke summoned two birds, and they left, following the lightning-quick wolf.
The sun was already up when Naruto woke, after noticing the lack of heat by his side.
He jumped up and got out of the bedroom. Curse Sasuke and his xaireaphobia*.
"Damn it" he said as he got into the main room. He looked to his side and saw Amachi pulling out something from the oven. "Why didn't you wake me?" he asked dejectedly.
"You want a list?" the boy asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Naruto pouted.
"Don't start with that, they'll be only a few days away. And I might even stay up this time, if things go right." The boy said with a sad smile.
Naruto went into the kitchen and hugged his son, looking up at him awkwardly afterwards. He was always self-conscious of the boy's height advantage over his parents.
"Sorry. Hey, how about we spar after breakfast? Wanna teach your dad some tricks so he can maybe beat that damn bastard someday?"
Amachi laughed. "I don't know if I should pity you or mock you for trying to win against him, all Chichi has to do is look at you funny and you forget what you were doing" Naruto made a face at him, and he laughed harder, "But hey, it's worth a shot. At least you can make enough clones to make it interesting".
Naruto winced as he felt the clone being dispelled.
"O crap, Shika caught me" he said.
Amachi chuckled as he fiddled with his ramen. "Told you to just tell him I'd be with you today."
"Che, it's not fair for you to help me out, though." Naruto scratched the back of his head.
"Like I have anything better to do, all the pretty ladies are out on missions today. Anyway, it's not like your work is that hard; your entire backlog is simple stuff you only leave behind because it's boring and you're disorganized"
"Well, what can I say, organization comes from the Uchiha part of the family" Naruto said, huffing at his son.
They were interrupted by a feminine squeal.
"Amachi-kun! I thought you'd be on a mission today!"
Akimichi Hariko hugged the black boy from behind, and Naruto almost choked at the lewd smirk in his son's face.
"Um, excuse-me, Oyaji, I got to take care of this. I'll meet you up at your office in a few, ok?" Amachi gave him a wide smug grin before thanking Teuchi and Ayame, and then left the restaurant with the girl hanging on his arm.
Teuchi laughed at Naruto's embarrassed face. "Now that boy is definitely going places!"
Naruto almost groaned in embarrassment when he looked at the two teenagers. Akimichi Hariko wasn't fat, but she had the highest waist to hip ratio in Konoha, and Amachi didn't make any effort to hide his approving looks at her ass. It didn't help that the girl left her flat abdomen exposed by her clothing, either, though that was a necessity due to her specialty jutsu. Her looks were the cause of many accidents, since people who saw her coming just couldn't help but turn their heads to see her going, either hoping she was or wasn't flat as a board behind – which she wasn't.
Amachi had always made it perfectly clear to everybody that he wasn't interested in anything but flirting with anyone, but, instead of branding him a pervert, a lecher or having any kind of negative reaction, girls simply went crazier about him. Unlike Sasuke's old fangirls, they weren't jealous of each other, and the "ebony god", as they called him, could be seen with as many as ten girls hanging around, catering to his every whim, hugging him, fanning him, and so forth. And he flirted with all of them equally, holding hands, kissing their cheeks and actually paying attention to what they said, which ended up making him the first source of information to be procured by Sai when he had to investigate any villager not on his blackmail list.
Naruto believed the only reason there weren't any boys after his son or his daughter (who craftily pretended to be naïve and aloof so she could ogle at the girls at the onsen) was Ashi's constant murderous glare to anyone around them. The girls didn't care a bit about the Inuzuka's constant presence, much to his chagrin.
Ino and Sakura usually joked that Amachi's popularity was poetic justice to the previous generation of kunoichi, who had had to suffer Sasuke's cold shoulder through all their adolescence.
Naruto, on the other hand, thought that maybe all that genetics talk was crap and somehow something of Jiraya's character had passed on to his kids without his intervention.
He looked up at the clock on the wall and almost choked at the time, pulling out his wallet, paying for lunch and hurriedly thanking Teuchi and Ayame for the meal before running to the office through the roofs.
"I really hope Sasuke won't lose them, they're moving too damn fast" Kiba mumbled.
"Don't worry, I can sense her from miles away" Karin said behind him.
He almost fell of the bird turning around to face her.
"You can sense her? How the fuck can you do that?" He asked.
"Every female's primal energy shifts to yang** when they're nearing shark week. It´s the same… flavor to Naruto's chakra. I can't sense it as well as I can sense chakra, but Ishoo-chan produces like a million times what Naruto does, it shines out like a beacon", Karin said with a shrug.
"Yeah, but Hinata can't see it" Kiba retorted with a huff.
"She can't see it because her kekkei genkai is a refined seeing apparatus to specifically trace chakra. I can because it's less sensing and more a passive synesthetic response from my body to the energy. It's like you with smell, all you use the chakra for is to enhance the nervous response to them, but your sense is heightened compared to other people even when you're not actively pouring chakra on it. My clan used this response as an aid to develop seals." She explained.
"How about Ashi, can you sense him too?" Kiba asked curiously.
"Sort of. Can't sense his chakra, somehow that wolf-thing conceals it, but it pulls yang energy from her, so I can see her energy feeding it." Karin said.
He nodded. It made sense that the Ookami was connected to the energy output.
A few hours later, both Sasuke and Karin hailed for a stop at the same time, and they landed on a clearing.
"Lunch break, guys, let's get a fire going" Hinata said with a smile.
A few minutes later, Ishoo came out of the wilderness carrying a gutted, skinned deer.
"Somebody get me a spit before I drop dead from starvation" she grumbled. Kiba quickly hacked an oak branch, and soon the scent of cooking meat was wafting through the clearing.
The Ookami came to lay curled around the sitting girl, licking its bloody chops. She petted him absentmindedly while they finished fixing up the food.
"This is so much better than last time, thank you, guys" she said in a small voice, when the food was cooked.
"Heh, don't mention it, kid, it's part of my job as Ashi's Alpha. I just hope some of the hot springs in Water will be clean, that'd actually make this look like a vacation for us." Kiba smiled at her, and Hinata elbowed in the ribs, blushing.
Sasuke kissed his daughter's forehead as he handed her a plate and sat beside her, the Ookami moving to give him room.
"I want to see what kind of herbs are growing there, too. Sakura thinks medicinal herbs might benefit from your energy." Karin commented.
"Have you seen her? Last time I saw her she was at the market with Lee-san" Hinata said with a smile.
Karin laughed. "It's a good thing she trained under Tsunade-sama, that baby's been using her bladder as a punching bag. Good thing Lee is patient, too, every time the baby kicks her too hard she smacks his head, says it's his fault. Goes to show who wears the pants in that family" she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
A/N
* Xaireaphobia – fear of saying goodbye. One of a few mental issues that people with post-traumatic stress disorders pick up, especially those that have lost people dear to them. I thought it'd be natural for Sasuke to have it, and indeed, in canon, he not only doesn't say goodbye to people, but nearly all his partings are extremely traumatic.
**Yup, you read it right, yang, not yin. Yin energy is female basal energy, necessary to the reproductive phase. It's converted into yang energy for menstruation to occur, though.