Thorny Devil managed to fall into the spare room of ANBUs, accidentally push Wren against the bookshelf and spill the coffee the Lark was about to start drinking. But before any of the men could point a finger at her that she just wasted the whole cup of life-saving liquids (with adds) and disturb her sleeping schedule for the nearest two weeks she caught on the Lark and, as every woman in need, started shaking him feverishly to the point pencil and a few sheets of paper joined the brown stain on the floor.

'It's jinchuuriki!' she hollered in high pitched voice, so unusual to her stance, making all of them stand up from their seats 'The jinchuuriki started teething! He already has one tooth showing!'

And that was enough. Not a moment later the three-cell men marched out right toward the room where Minato stationed. Additional block of paper and three new unpacked pencils accompanied them from under Wren's hand with utmost ninja-like silence. Thorny Devil at the same time skipped two steps at a time to the second level of Kazekage's mansion. She was so flustered and shaken over what she had seen she didn't even think twice about that she knocked far too shortly against the office's door or that she entered it without the sign of invitation. What greeted her was pale face of Kazekage covered in cold sweat, but she didn't notice even that.

'Kazekage-sama!...' she rasped feverishly against her tight mask of Thorny Devil, trying her best to regain her breath 'Kazekage-sama!... red alert!... I just found… found out that the jinchuuriki-'

The hand landing harshly on the desk's surface cut her off right in the middle of the sentence.

'Subordination!' yelled Daichi with voice that almost turned his eyes all white 'Do anyone of you even know that word anymore?'

The girl stopped and slowly let go the breath that got stuck in her throat. Then, slowly, her gaze fell on the floor. White ANBU's mask, the mask of Roadrunner; it lied there, useless and broken in three uneven pieces. A trail of blood followed from it in rather wide blotches on the floor and ended just behind the desk that cut off her vision right from the place where she stood. Only now that her blood stopped deafening her sense of hearing she heard quiet moaning from behind the desk. A slight careen to the right also showed the legs of someone who did look like Roadrunner. They seemed to be whole, just as his body and arms. The way he clutched at his face and how it bled buckets from between the fingers however, was another story. Daichi showed his canines in more than threatening way. Thorny Devil felt how her skin tightened on her neck.

'Army of idiots! Soldiers from dirt, more useless than sand clones!' he howled, though more than anger, during his voice sounded fear. He did his best to hide it, but he failed at it. He had been trashing inside his office for past hour like a caged beast and he came to nothing – completely nothing at all. He had no idea how to deal with teething Gaara, or rather – he didn't want to even get there. It's been some time since he had seen Gaara turning into the bundle of pure hatred and it shook with his well being to the point of heavy shock. He had seen it only a couple of times in his life and it was in the earliest days of the redhead's life – when as a toddler he desperately needed to sleep for most of the day and night and wasn't allowed to even blink for longer. At such times Shukaku simply pulled a nightmare on them, breaking through all seals and the whole village was more than once on the verge of death. He didn't even want to count the deaths from there or he'd break. And now the first thing Gaara did over the bloody tooth was to snap at Minato, his guardian angel and practically the thing closest to his personal paradise. He didn't even want to think what would happen when other teeth would join others or worse, would come slowly, one at a time, making it a painful path of suffering through twenty steps. Nobody knew how jinchuuriki would develop in anatomical changes as nobody put monsters into unborn babies. His future was dark and unknown and he didn't want to face it, so he did first thing he found soothing at best; he changed his fear into rage and poured it on the first person that stood nearby, and it came out to be Roadrunner. It was a good thing actually, considering that they had some unclosed problems with what he did, thanks to that he wouldn't have to search for justification later. Even if he really wasn't against all that happened.

But Yashamaru was family and things concerning family had to come first. Even if a member of family was the slyest of foxes. So he aimed for that face. After all it was the thing Roadrunner was the most proud of. Maybe now he would wear the ANBU mask with more pride, that whore.

'Whoever gave you right to even look at my personal medic?' he seethed, looking at Roadrunner. The man only kept moaning, hidden in his personal world of pain 'I don't even want to know what's happened or why did you decide to break both of his hands – something a medic needs for work like a ninja needs his tools – but I want you to stay away from him as far as you can. Do you hear me?'

No response. Only more never stopping moaning that kept on being uttered like a broken record. Maybe he damaged his brain. He didn't know; he didn't care. He kicked the man on the side, making him fly near his mask and forcing him to remove both hands from his face. Thorny Devil obviously gasped at the sight but he didn't want to even check what made her utter such sound in this atmosphere. He turned her eye to her, frowning with the rage that still didn't subdue down.

'Get out.' he said to the man who slowly gathered the pieces of his mask from the floor. Then he waited painstakingly long seven seconds as the fastest of ANBUs slowly gathered it, got up spreading even more blood over his floor and practically crawled out of his room on his feet, only because he would kill him if he would see he'd do that on his knees. When the door closed he sat behind the desk and turned around on the chair to not face the terrified girl anymore. 'What do you want.'

'J-jinchuuriki…' said the girl in a bit squeaky tone but then she regained her posture '…I mean, Gaara-sama is causing problems. I discovered he had started teething. He has blood coming from his mouth and he seems to be very lively.'

'And you're telling me this now.' he seethed in ironical tone, knowing very well he didn't let her tell anything else sooner. The taste of power over people was rotten but he was far too deep to not live with love-hate relationship with it. 'Go to form a barrier around him and have the barrier nins watching him all the time. If he gets naughty, send for me. Dismissed.'

The girl bowed and vanished. Daichi let out the breath through his nose. Then took the book from his personal library and threw it against the wall. What a screwed up life he led.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato was as badly frightened as the Kazekage- perhaps even more. He still wasn't scared of Gaara himself, the little redhead scarcely could be blamed for anything going around. Any baby feeling bad was prone to tantrums, kicking, squirming and basically attacking anything around them to the best of the abilities their tiny, weak bodies allowed them to. It wasn't Gaara's fault that some GENIUS had had the fantastic idea of stuffing a deranged monster into his brain, and that said monster made him able to project his tantrums, kicking and general fussing into the environment. Or that the environment happened to be solid, abrasive and plentiful.

No, he was scared of what the baby could do, and that if anything happened to him, Naruto would be brought back to Konoha. In the end it all came back to that. The first days after Kushina's death Minato had been too busy being drugged out of his ass while the burns and gaping holes in his body were treated to know what had happened. He'd told Sarutobi-sensei what he should do on regards of Naruto, what he should tell the civilians and ninja that had managed to survive the Kyuubi's attack.

A little part of him still was sure the man had listened to him, that his sensei's master had done everything he could to make sure people would understand what had really happened, how it would have even a matter of decades- maybe even less before the monster was back to destroy everything they had, manipulated by a psycho in a arts and craft mask or not. If Kushina had died on her own and taken the monster down with her, all they would have managed was to make the creature even more pissed at them- they might know it wouldn't be permanent, but there were few things Bijuus feared more than death. By tying it to his son he had prevented that from happening, and how had everyone reacted?

Naruto had had seventeen attempts on his life just on the first week of his life.

In the end it was Sarutobi who had taken the baby in, because no nurse wanted to tend to him and because the Sandaime Hokage feared that rather than treat him they would try to poison him if any doctor would try to approach him. Kakashi had told him how Uchiha Mikoto had wanted to take Naruto in until he was out of the hospital, but had been gently rejected by the Hokage- or maybe Fugaku himself. Minato didn't know and didn't want to find out. Even if it hadn't been the latter, he didn't know if Naruto would have been safer or even in greater danger, surrounded by a whole district of highly trained ninja police. As it turned out - surprisingly - Minato did happen to mind.

He minded so much that when the council basically told him he was to give them his son so they could rise him in the loveliest little lab; apart from people and human contact while they conducted all sort of experiments to make sure he wouldn't accidentally release the Kyuubi and figure dout how to make sure he grew up to be the tamest, greatest weapon Fire country had ever been in possession of, Minato had smiled and told them it would only happen over some dead bodies. Theirs, to be precise.

The legal, political and power battle that followed was as fierce as short lived- Minato used every dirty trick he could think of. He asked for every favor he had ever done, squeezed every last and dirtiest bit of blackmail he had accumulated over years as bodyguard, ANBU captain and Hokage, called upon the treaties of friendship Konoha had with the Uzumaki clan- which was perhaps the one true reason to be relieved Kushina and he had decided to be dumb and stick to old Konoha tradition where people waited for baby's safe delivery before asking for mother's hand in marriage

It didn't matter that Minato took care of Naruto as his son, that everyone with sight would be able to figure out he was his son – Until Minato legally claimed him as his, Naruto was a member of the Uzumaki clan, and they were fierce to protect their own.

They might have lost their land and scattered all over the continent, but they were still Konoha's allies. It didn't spoke well of Leaf Village as a hole if they started enforcing incarceration on their own allies. Especially if Konoha wanted to remain updated on the clan's constantly expanding knowledge of sealing methods. In the end, the council had given an ultimatum. Minato would be allowed (how generous!) to keep his own son under his care, provided that he would give up his power and influence as Hokage and left the village. Everyone would know he had selfishly chosen his son over his responsibility as a Kage and treat him accordingly (like a traitor) and live his life with the council constantly breathing down his neck to know what he was doing, where he was and ensuring that he didn't take Naruto far away they wouldn't have an use for this.

He could choose this and probably be driven to suicide by ostracism alone, like what had happened to the White Fang, or he could just give this baby he could hardly call his own or have any attachment to, and go on with his life. Start another family, had new kids that wouldn't be monsters. Minato had told them they bored him and asked them to tell him where was he supposed to sign. And this is where he was now.

If nothing else, meeting Gaara had only cemented his belief he had done the right thing- Sure, they were essentially incarcerated in this country, but at least he wouldn't have to live his life wondering if someone was going to put a knife on his son because he took his eyes off him for a Minute. No one in Suna knew what Naruto was, and he planned to keep it that way. He wanted Naruto to have as normal a childhood as far as shinobi life standards allowed it. If it hadn't been for that sacrifice, Naruto would have been the one alone in a locked room with no one to take care of him until some idiot with sticky fingers decided to stick his nose when no one called for him. And with everyone in Konoha knowing what he was, chances weren't really very high.

So no, he couldn't afford to let this baby kill him here and now. So he would have very much liked someone to come and tell him everything was going to be all right and that he was just exaggerating and being paranoid as result of combining the unrelenting heat and a developing dose of cabin fever. Unfortunately, just when he was about to ask for this, Lark, Wren and Vulture decided to appear, each one of them looking like if they were holding their own funeral procession. Not exactly the most reassuring of sight. In fact, they probably looked like if they needed it more than he did, and he was basing this on body language alone. He took a look at the tense, grim ANBU and cocked his head.

'What.'

'We heard there had been problem.' said Vulture and sat down in the nearest corner. 'So we came to assist.' The notepad was opened and Wren slowly started writing something in it. Lark sat down on the floor with crossed legs.

'To observe.' he added.

'Ah.' Minato said, nodding lightly, looking down at Gaara and then pulling at him a little so they ANBU would be able to look at him. 'It's a baby. It's drooling. Not too long ago he sneezed all over me and I need a new shirt.'

Lark and Wren looked at each other, and then Wren vanished. Only to show up with a shirt that looked like a mash up of bad fashions, including brown stripes with bright blue dots over it.

'You're welcome.' he said simply as he offered it to Minato.

Minato looked at it, then back at the ANBu librarian.

'I don't even know where you would get such a thing.' he said brightly, adjusting Gaara on his grip again when the baby flailed a little. 'Your fetishes scare me. Go get me something normal- and for gods sake, make it sleeveless. I don't know how you can go around cloaked all day in this heat.'

He thought about the request for a moment.

'Something sleeveless my size. And gender.'

This time Lark vanished and kept on being gone until Thorny Devil entered the room. Before she had any chance to greet anyone else he reappeared with a scarcely usual bag of potatoes all civilians wore around this place, looking suspiciously like if sleeves were actually just cut off from it. Then he offered it to Minato without a word. Gaara looked at them appearing and reappearing like a boring TV show. Quite true it was as he saw such things endlessly in his whole life. Minato looked at it, then at the man, and sighed before taking the shirt and inspecting it. Thank goodness he specified size and gender, otherwise he'd have gotten something even bigger. What was this, Jerboa's hand-me-downs?

'You know, you can go through my clothes.' he said as he sat Indian style and placed the baby on his lap, where he'd be sure not to roll off while he produced a Kunai and nicked the material, before ripping a long strip of the waist. He dangled it a few inches over the baby's face before letting him take it.

'I don't mind. I don't have anything to be ashamed of.' And he ripped another long strip 'Just the usual pornography.'

That made the Wren look up from his place, but he hung his head down again pretty quickly.

'Are you really hung up on having your shirt?' said the Lark getting up again. 'Because of you are…'

'I'll get it.' said the Vulture simply, interrupting the uneasy but confidential tone of Lark who didn't really want to go and check what hid under the 'pornography' and how real it was. Konohanins could be so obscene sometimes. 'Is there any specific one I should bring?'

Gaara gladly took the stripes, but quickly let go of them as they didn't seem to be anything interesting nor anything edible enough to swallow. The place in his gum was now swollen enough to hurt when he bit on things so he didn't even try to chew on the material.

'Please, do it quick.' said Thorny Devil 'We will have company soon.'

Minato shook his head in negative - why bother, now he had already shortened this thing so he wouldn't look completely ridiculous on him (now it would just go for relatively ridiculous) and if Gaara was going to keep spitting at him, all the better he didn't wear his actual shirts for it. The tone made him pause, though.

'… the cover is orange and called 'Icha Icha'.' he said as he pulled off the shirt, momentarily covering the sly smile. "Collector's edition. All five volume sprinted so far.'

Came with perks of having your sensei being the one writing them.

'Just kidding though- I left them at home. If anyone wants to borrow them, just tell the toad I said you could.'

All ANBUs just looked at each other and nobody moved from the spot. Vulture was actually the only one to come back to his place from where he came out to begin with. Gaara lightly threw the strip of material up and watched it fall down on the floor. Not very soon later a group of four other ANBUs – all of them visibly female – walked in. They had identical masks resembling harvest ants and the only difference that could be told between them all was their height and the color of their very small lines over the black holes of eyes.

'We're the barrier ninjas.' said the tallest of them. 'We come on order of Kazekage-sama. We will set barrier now.'

And with that, they sat down in a square and covered the whole room in a light transparent glassy shield.

'No, please, stop that-' Minato said, immediately finishing stuffing his head through the new shirt and picking the baby back up. 'Turn that thing off.'

Nobody moved or did a thing. Only Wren kept on writing something in the notepad.

'Orders are orders.' said the smallest one and nothing changed.

'Great, I'm ordering you to stop now, and if you still don't want to stop, I'm ordering you to tell Kazekage-sama I'm ordering you to stop.'

Yes, Kazekage-sama, please do go on and bring even more people he doesn't know and have them use powerful chakra all over a baby feeling unwell, I'm sure that won't stress him at all.Just as if Gaara had only been waiting for that, he rose up his head and looked at Minato with a frown. Something seemed to be not right again, but this time it was an old feeling he already knew. Nevertheless, he communicated all of them to the world with the one and same signal.He meeped and tried to push finger in his mouth, but took it out immediately as it wasn't pleasant and started crying. During that, his stomach let out a rumble loud enough for everyone in room to be heard. All ants rose up and one of them vanished. The barrier changed from a square to triangle.

Oh, this wasn't good. Of course Gaara's be hungry- he'd been eating less than usual, but Minato had thought it was just him being moody, not teeth pains. After all, Naruto didn't stop chewing on things, if anything he had started to chew on them even more furiously than before. Maybe his baby had anger issues? Kushina would be proud.

'…guys?' Minato shushed at Gaara softly, pulling him up and rocking the little body 'Does anyone here know some jutsu to cool down things fast? Not frozen, just cool.'

Wren rose his hand up high.

'I love you, Wren.' Minato said in the middle of tending to fussing baby. 'Get the baby's mix from the refrigerator cool down the nipple, just don't let it freeze.'

Given how the milk irritated him, he'd taken to have the baby's daily batch already watered down prepared so he could just put the thing to heat and be done with it. It seemed Gaara was going to learn to drink cold milk today.

The Wren did just that. He was gone maybe for a few seconds, during which missing ant came back and snapped her fingers; after that, all ants vanished, but if anyone concentrated, it was obvious they stayed nearby. When Gaara finally got his bottle he latched on it with unforeseen greed – he stopped only after the second swallow as he saw that milk had different temperature now. He stayed still for a moment, looking pensively at the bottle as it kept on being cold in his hands and very slowly took it in his mouth again, watching Minato like if somehow he was the one who was in control of how things worked out. A moment later he was once again greedily swallowing it, even if from time to time he actually moved his jaw down a bit due the irritation and let the milk spill outside his mouth.

'Yes, I know baby.' he said in the warm, affectionate tones he used when he was trying to coax Gaara to do something he was suspicious of. He didn't try to pressure him and waited until Gaara finished analyzing weather this was a good thing or not before letting him take the nipple again in his mouth 'It's cold so it will feel better, and in this heat, anything cold feels better, right? -okay, ease up there; we don't want you to get a brain freeze.'

He wiped the baby's chin and straightened a bit the angle of the bottle so the baby would be chugging down at lesser speed. He didn't think cold milk would hurt him, because it hadn't hurt his son. But then again, they didn't even drink milk from the same animal, so he was basically gambling away. Gaara kept on looking at him as he talked to him, and eventually closed his eyes out of pure pleasure at how the milk filled his stomach with accompaniment with soft loving tones he had never imagined before could exist. He opened them right away just to look at Minato again and make sure he was still there and slowly let himself to drift away as he looked at the other unwelcome but not really bothering people in the room. Then he opened his eyes again to look at Minato and let out a responsive sound around the nipple. He didn't let go of the bottle for another time, not until it emptied to the last drop and then he kept on sucking on it even longer, frowning when it didn't let him swallow anything but air. Once it fell out of his mouth, he had the expression of a grim reaper during the most serious job he ever had to do. Then he once again put finger in his mouth and started sucking on it as the cold numbed the swollen gum and it didn't irritate him enough to stop. Then he looked up at Minato and reached out for the taken bottle.

'Ubu!' was the lord's demand. Minato looked at the baby, before lifting the bottle and inspecting it. Empty. Completely empty. Gaara probably hadn't finished a whole bottle for at least a week. And hadn't he always hoped the baby would start eating more so he'd gain some much needed weight?

'You are still hungry?' he looked at the baby and again at the bottle, before looking at the ANBU team. All mask stared back impassibly.

'…can anyone ask Ants if any of them they have kids?' he said, taking a rag and pulling Gaara to his shoulder so he could help him burp. He had no idea if Gaara should be allowed to have more or wait out a bit so he wouldn't get sick. 'If no one does, someone's going to have to ask Kazekage-sama.'

Yashamaru's disappearance from the household apparently had promoted the man to 'Member of human's species with the most knowledge on how to handle kids'. That alone should tell how little did all of them know. All ANBUs looked at each other in silence. It seemed that as much as Minato was a ninja, he was still being misinformed. Not that they could blame him since he was a foreigner, but then, he has even stationing here for awhile and he should have known some structures deeper…

'No use asking them.' said the only kunoichi 'I doubt they will ever know the answer. I will go ask for Kazekage-sama's presence.'

And once again, one of the person of the room had vanished. Gaara looked at it with a frown then his attention was back to the bottle as he reached for it again, sure that between the short talk the thing had to get filled again, even if there was no visible change.

'Noo, baby.' Minato said in his bets 'not yet' voice a she pulled Gaara back against his shoulder and started patting him again. 'First you burp, and then we'll decide if you need more milk or not, all right?'

Gaara let out an annoyed squeak at the bottle being taken away but he leaned over the shoulder obediently; indeed, he felt like if he could use such action now. As he burped and let the milk dribble down his chin, the older redhead descended down the stairs, looking like if he became anemic during last two hours.

'What's happened?' he asked, looking obviously disturbed. Gaara looked up at him and something flashed in his eyes, but he didn't do a thing. Instead, he started searching for a bottle with his eyes. Minato in the meantime unscrewed the bottle and gave Gaara the cool nipple to play with while he looked at the bottle- hopefully baby would interpret it as it being refilled.

'Baby's still hungry. Wren cooled the bottle so it wouldn't hurt his gums, but since it's the first time he takes it cold, I'm not sure he should have it.' je left the bottle over the table. 'I don't want him getting sick over it. On the other hands, he hasn't been eating much for days, so I'm not sure how much to give him, should I give him some.'

Daichi looked at him, then at the bottle. Gaara obediently took the cold nipple in his hands and turned it upside down, looking at what was inside the such turned object and tried sloppily gnawing at the brim of it. What?... What did the man want from him? He was the leader of a country, not a freaking… a…

…well, okay, he was a parent. But he wasn't a nanny and such things as 'how' and 'how much' that touched food were completely unknown to him. He looked at how Gaara frowned looking at the empty bottle, then covered his face with a hand. At such situation he had to work through deduction. What would make baby monster not angry?

'Give him as much as he wants.' he said. After all, Shukaku will stop him before the redhead would hurt himself, right? That's why the monster was there to begin with, as an ultimate weapon, but also ultimate protection. 'We have enough for him to eat for the next week, the amount shouldn't be a problem.'

Minato looked at him with an expression that obviously asked 'are you *sure* you know more than I do?', but in the end just shrugged and took the dirty towel off. If baby was hungry, he probably could do with a bit more of milk, he'd just have to make sure he didn't have too much of it.

'I'll need that back.' he said, placing his hand palm up for the baby to return the nipple to him. Gaara looked at him and in response, took the thing into his mouth, trying to suck at it. Minato rose his eyebrows and made a 'come on' gesture with his hands.

'I'll need that if you have any interest in feeding, Little Red.'

Gaara slowly sucked on the thing while he stared at Minato, then he blinked and let go of it right into Minato's hand, thoroughly salivated.

'Very good.' he wiped the thing off before throwing it at Wren for a second cooling. It was a matter of moments to have the thing ready for the baby to take, but just a she was about to let the child take it, he held is slightly off, looking at him seriously.

'…say 'Mii' again.'

Gaara looked at him in silence as he scanned through Minato's eyes and mouth. Then he turned his head toward Wren as he vanished again and flailed toward him. After a moment of silence he turned back to Minato with a very unhappy frown.

'Bubu!'

'Miiii.'

Gaara only looked at Minato again and then looked again at the spot where Wren was just five seconds before. Then his eyes once again fell at the Kazekage who seemed to not be moving anywhere else, at least not for now. Then he skimmed through the rest of people. Once his eyes fell on Lark, something clicked and a handful of sand shot right up from the floor, catching the man by the neck. The only thing the ANBU managed to do was to rise up one arm high enough to block at least part of the sand from catching him fully around the chest and jaw. Gaara's pupils once again started shaking as he slowly rose up his lips to let the saliva drip onto his chin.

'Bubu!...'

Just like that Gaara got his bottle.

'Put him down.' The paling blonde said seriously, pointing at the ANBU. He had a seal ready, but it would take at least thirty second for it to make the sand loose enough, and if he startled the baby he might snap something

'Down, Gaara.'

The redhead looked at the ANBU for a moment, but then the bottle caught his attention and he immediately forgot about the whole situation. Lark fell down right on his bottom while Gaara started chugging down at the milk even more ferociously than on the previous one. Slowly, even his belly rose and became more hard as it was filled to it's best.

'Sorry Lark.' the blonde said, looking in alarm at the baby's belly. Gaara never ate this much. Never.

'Everyone keep seals ready.' he said as he stuck the first one on the back of Gaara's neck 'We are going to be changing them every fifteen minutes. Someone start timing.'

And they didn't have to wait much. As Gaara was put up to burp the food, he simply vomited with just swallowed milk, making Minato's back shirt wet and smelling of fertile donkey female. After a moment of silence as everyone stared as it sunk into the material, Gaara broke in tears, uncomfortable with the experience he had to endure just so suddenly. But before the ANBUs had even time to actually start the barrier or even climb up the walls, he once again reached out for the bottle and wailed loudly at it, not stopping the crying. Sand slowly started sizzling on the floor like piece of fat over the hot frying pan.

'…I want you to sign me an IOU worth shower for this.' Minato told the Kazekage, teeth practically chattering as he shuddered in disgust. It wasn't the first time a baby puked on him. Not being the first time didn't make it the single least more appealing than last time had been.

So… Gross…

'I want it on writing!' he said again, getting up and starting to rock the baby in an attempt to make him calm down. Daichi's eyes only glinted at that.

'It's milk on the shirt. Just change clothes.' he said as he walked from one corner to the other one. 'Next time you will ask will be a wash of clothes everytime they get covered in dirt.'

Gaara didn't want to calm down. He hid his face into Minato's face for a short while, but then he once again reached out for the bottle that laid out of his reaching range.

'I just changed. I want that shower-' he nodded at Vulture's sign that the first fifteen minutes had passed and placed a second seal '…and now because you said so I also want my clothes clean.'

He was about to add he wanted them hand washed by the man himself, but then Gaara started going at the bottle again. At loss, Minato gave it at him. It was empty, but maybe the cool nipple would be good as a makeshift dummy or something.

'I wrote a letter.'

'If you want shower ask someone to give their share of water to you.' said Daichi with a careless shrug. 'Or shower together with someone else. I'm not wasting water on some barely swallowed milk and dirty shirt.'

Gaara started sucking on the empty bottle and it seemed to work for him; for at least this very moment. But it was becoming obvious he saw through this when the sucking slowed down and his face turned more pink.

'What letter?'

'On the table.' the blonde said, gesturing with his chin as he kept rocking the baby lightly in a helpless attempt to calm him down. The way the baby was acting wasn't normal at all, Gaara rarely finished a whole bottle, and now he chugged two down in a blink and kept asking for more?

He was so desperate he actually wished Yashamaru was here, and not only because he was afraid he'd do unspeakable things to his baby. Then again, if Yashamaru had been there, who knew if anyone would have been able to coheres him into approaching Gaara?

'It's for a friend of my lover. She has two of the most perfect kids you could imagine.' he tried not to think about how Kushina had gushed on about how cute Mikoto's second child had been- to the point he'd looked like a baby girl, and how she hoped he and Naruto would grow to be as good friends as their respective mothers were. How could they have known what would happen just a few hours later?

'Since you are going to be reading my mail either way, you might as well read it before I seal it down and send it.' he said a little sarcastically, though not particularly angry about the suggestion- of course they'd check what he wrote back home. They would do that even if he hadn't known about Gaara's existence. The letter on itself wasn't remarkable in every aspect, Minato briefly apologized for the long term of silence claiming adjusting to the weather and learning to deal with a baby without any sort of experience as an excuse, briefly inquired about how her family was doing and asked her to keep an eye on Kakashi before somewhat desperately tackling the topic of Naruto having begun teething and him being out of his mind without knowing how to deal with it, and sort of pleaded her for any sort of long or short term sort of help on how to address the matter.

From the description of the baby's ailments and the progress of said teething, however, it was obvious he was referring to Gaara. Daichi read through this with rather unpleasant frown.

'Why are you sending this outside the village.' he said as he scanned through the paper. 'Do you want people to track down to Gaara?'

Minato sighed - the melodramatic effect might have been more efficient if Gaara hadn't accidentally backhanded him in mid-flail halfway- before turning to the man.

'Yes, I'm sure they'll be able to connect the dots to the son no one but the people here know even exists and figure out he's a jinchuuriki based solely on the fact it's a baby and it's teething. God knows I couldn't possibly have one of my own in my own house.' He adjusted Gaara again, trying to stroke his nape to see if that calmed him down a bit better than the rocking. 'Sign it and send it. The sooner we have an answer the better for all of us.'

'Your sarcasm wasn't needed to explain that.' said Daichi with even more deepened frown as he fished out the pen from his pocket and signed the letter. 'Gods only know what a misery would happen if we had two jinchuurikis here and at stage of a baby. I don't want to even imagine such things.'

And with that, he forwarded the letter to the nearest person who had immediately vanished along with it. Gaara threw bottle on the floor and very loudly demanded attention with a shout that was more angry than needy.

'Yeah… that'd be crazy.' the blonde muttered morosely, fighting with the squirming child in arms to keep him from falling out. He looked after the disappearing ANBU in stress, wondering if there was any way to make the letter get there any faster. Suna might be generally low in funds and not count with the most impressive numbers when it came to the military, but they surely bred some of the best messenger hawks Minato had ever seen. It should barley take a full day for it to arrive to Konoha. What worried him was how long it would take for the woman to answer, or if she'd even bother to. Minato and the dark haired beauty hadn't been especially close, generally he'd known her in quality of 'Fuu's girlfriend', 'Fuu's fiancee', ''Fuu's wife' and 'mother of 'Fuu's child'.

It was only after everyone figured out he was the named bastard who had knocked Kushina up and (supposedly) ran off into the sunset to avoid responsibility that the woman had come over. At the time he had been at the hospital and she had told him how sorry she was and how she'd considered Kushina as close to a sister and how he could count on her and her family to help with the child they had conceived and anything he could need -there might have been a bit of crying involved on such a speech, but he'd been close to despair and still a bit drugged, so he preferred not to think about it too much- but that had been then.

Minato didn't care what Konoha thought of him by now, but he did worry what over half a year amidst the gossip might do to change anyone's mind. And if she didn't answer, he'd have to … No, he didn't even want to go there. Not if it could be helped. He concentrated upon the child instead, picking the bottle and leaving it on the counter before leaning on it himself, pulling Gaara close again so he'd stare into his face.

'Gaara, baby, you can't still be hungry,' he said sternly. 'You already ate twice and puked on me once, that's more than enough for the night.'

Gaara stared back, his expression restless and unevened. The way he clamped his mouth and glared at Minato like if he somehow found a new enemy didn't indicate he understood what was good for him. At all.

'Bubu!...' he said and it was a threatening tone of voice, mostly childish but with animalistic undertones. He turned his attention to the bottle and the sand immediately delivered it; he started sucking on it again, but dropped it on the floor just as quickly. His anger grew and showed up as another thin trickle of blood along the chin. The tooth was slowly making it through the gums also. 'Ahnnn!...'

Minato frowned as the sand grappled around like a drunkard before delivering the bottle to the baby, who shook at it as if he could self-generate the milk by kinetic energy and then dropped it again. Minato picked it once more and pointed at the baby with it.

'Gaara; I can clean it and cool the nipple again for you and I'll even pretend that's not practically a dummy and let you chew on it, but you are not eating again for at least an hour or more.'He used the back of his hand to wipe the baby's chin, unsettled by the contrast of the red against Gaara's pale skin. At loss, he turned to look at the Kazekage. '…Naruto didn't bleed like this when he started teething, is this normal?'

Daichi had only looked to the window and shrugged.

'Not that I know of it.' he said, avoiding looking a baby that once again tried to get the bottle within the range of reach 'But nothing is normal with this thing.'

Which was obvious – Gaara simply should have died because of all abuse that was inflicted upon his lithe newborn frame, but he didn't and this would be ridiculous if a hemorrhage from a growing tooth would e his end. The little redhead let out even louder shout, this time bordering on a quite deafening scream, his face now the mask of quite angry person. Then once again tried to get closer to the bottle.

The blonde's eyes hardened at the Kazekage's words, and he cradled Gaara closer in response, despite how violent he was becoming. It was something that always seemed to happen when the two were in the same room, the older redhead would inevitably say something on regards of his own son being something other than human and Minato would just get pissed at him and extra protective of the redhead. This didn't seem to change no matter how many times Gaara had already flattened him against walls and ceilings or that he was essentially a hostage to this child.

'Little Red…' again he started pacing around with the baby in his arms. The bottle was piled with sand again, rendering it unusable. 'Wren, please cold down another bottle? Put very little milk on it.'

He didn't think it was a good idea, but he was at his wits end here.

'…Maki-san gave Naruto some weird, crunchy weed-thing.' he said while he raked his memory for anything that could help, and suddenly remembering the stalks the younger girl had left him with. It hadn't helped very much- Naruto tended to just cry for attention until he tired of it, but at least munching on the thing seemed to distract him a bit. And Gaara tended to have longer attention span that his son when it came to new things. 'I'm not sure what it was, but it's spicy and sweetish.'

And actually seemed to work better on calming Minato down better than his son.

'Licorice.' muttered Daichi and sat down on the nearest chair. It seemed that this one would be long and never-ending matter. 'I wouldn't give him licorice for one tooth. Besides, do you want him to feel more pain once he starts brushing tender flesh over the branch? I don't want a crazy house here.'

'Here.' repeated like an echo Wren, showing up with another bottle of milk, properly cooled down. Gaara immediately turned his eyes to it and 'nhhhed' toward it, reaching out for the object.

'Well, I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about kids so I just improvise with mine.' the younger man said somewhat defensively, taking the bottle and offering it to the baby while making sure to keep it at an angle that wouldn't have the baby chugging it down like his Master's love usually did with sake. '…I never had to take care of one before, and I didn't have much age difference with my younger siblings or cousins. Since I came here I managed by listening to the old lady who lives next to me or Maki-san.'

And Gaara wasn't the right age, temperament or situation for him to use his very limited experience with his own soon accurately 75% of the time. Minato leaned again on the counter, tiredness and frustration obvious on his demeanor as he slumped against the surface.

'Don't you have anything that will numb his gums?'

'There should be some gel that would numb the pains of internal tissue in my cabinet…' said Daichi with a light frown. Then he flicked one of his fingers and another ANBU vanished only to reappear with it in hand. Gaara sucked on the bottle with maniacal obsession, until at one point he hiccupped and vomited with milk again, not even trying to get the bottle out of his mouth. The way he looked at Minato during that was a show of the panic that slowly arose inside the kid. Minato immediately pulled the bottle away, too unsettled by what was going on to make any of his usual fussing about the disgust he felt at the warm liquid spreading over his front.

'Gaara, slow down, you are going to choke like this…!'

The baby only looked up at him, and for one pensive moment when it looked like if he was about to cry the silence ensued, followed with the sound of vomit dripping on the ground (the master of the household looked at it as if it contained Chinese porcelain that was being carelessly crushed on the floor). After that, the kid resumed the feverish sucking until he once again vomited. His stare changed from scared to bewildered as he spilled more milk on the ground and then… he started drinking again until the bottle was completely empty.

The blonde shuddered lightly. Everything seemed to smell like milk, which wasn't really terrible as far as unpleasant scents went. Only in this heat he knew for sure it would be so in a matter of twenty minutes. He bit his lip, slowly letting go of the bottle now that the bottle was empty and producing a third seal to stick on the little redhead at Vulture's sign another fifteen minutes had passed. He held the piece of paper in place until he was sure that it would stick, slowly rising his eyes to meet the dark ones across the table, the message on them all too clear.

What now?

Daichi didn't answer, not immediately. He just kept observing as Gaara started sucking on empty bottle then dropped it on the floor and burped without any satisfaction and how a trickle of milk dribbled down his chin. And then, how after five seconds, he looked down at the floor and started reaching for it again.

'…how much more milk do we have?...' he asked, regretting for yet another time that in Suna there weren't any Hyuuga doujutsu possessors so they could see what was going on with Gaara from the inside. This behavior was weird, Gaara always ate very little and never showed a need to eat more than he was given (unless it was less than five swallowing gulps). Why was this happening? He couldn't tell. Lack of calcium possibly? Was the monster freaking out over the small tooth?

'Enough for a day of such drinking.' whispered the Thorny Devil just behind his ear. He nodded and looked up at Minato.

'We will keep going like that then. Maybe in-between we can gather more information from the Monk itself so we would know in what direction we should work.'

'We can't keep feeding him like this.' Minato looked up at the bottle, reached up for it and gave it to the baby again after wiping the sand off it 'He'll get sick to his stomach.'

He looked down at the sand in the floor, then at the group away from him. After ten seconds, when it became painfully clear that by 'we can gather more information' he had actually meant 'you go and gather', he let his shoulders sag.

'…your conception of teamwork leaves much to be desired.' he muttered resentfully, before biting his thumb and writing the symbol for 'truce' on the wall.

هدنة

'Let's talk.'

The one small eye opened just right above the sign, but it looked, more than anything, unhappy it was called out. Then it blinked once and the sign disappeared.

No.

And the eye closed. Gaara twitched lightly and put the bottle in his mouth again. Minato held him closer and frowned thinking for a moment. He drew the symbol for 'host', coupled with 'Ghasbi' one of the new signs that he had been assigned to learn for this week by Wren. It was used in reference to unlawful possession of an object, but by connecting it to the symbol of Host, the meaning was clarified to mean reference to the young jinchuuriki. The blonde hesitated for a moment, hand poised to add something. After a moment hesitance he let it fall back down.

'Let's talk, Ichibi.'

Shukaku's eye opened again, this time visibly bent upside down. It seemed to be frowning and unfocused.

What do you want, dirt. it wrote on the wall with much more unfriendly scribbled writings than before. It was almost like if he had to do ten other things besides writing. Minato let out a displeased snort- oh, gee, what could he possibly want from the demon locked inside the little redhead's psyche? He wrote down the symbol for 'truth' and circles for emphasis.

'Nothing, baby just seems to have developed a sudden psychotic inclination for bulimia, just wondering if you didn't have anything to do with that,' he gave the monster a big, fake smile, before frowning. 'What are you doing to him? You are making him sick.'

The monster didn't answer at all. Only the word 'bulimia' got repeated with question mark for a few times. Then, as if the stovewas burning, the eye turned up, showing only black whites and stilling in this position.

'Allow me to illustrate.' the blonde said, pulling the baby in front of him as if it were some show-and-tell sort of contest 'This is your host. His stomach is this size-' he separated his fingers a few inches to further emphasize its smallness. 'In humans, that's where food goes to. And until it's empty again, any extra you make him swallow is not only going to be wasted, but it will make what little he did ate go bad so he'll be even sicker and able to eat even less. It will also physically hurt him.'

The eye slowly closed.

Sick. was what it left after. Gaara looked at it with unease as he slowly opened his mouth ajar to start intensively salivating. Minato looked at it, then down at the baby. The swollen gums seemed to have gone down a bit with the cool nipple, but Gaara didn't seem much more comfortable than before. He turned towards the small group surrounding the table.

'I have no idea what he's talking about.' he turned back to the wall. 'You *want* Gaara sick? I thought you didn't like him crying.'

In an answer the two angry eyes snapped open and glared right at Minato.

Take off the seal. it wrote. Then, very soon, the whole wall was covered with 'take it off's.

The blonde didn't flinch.

'What for?'

Gaara suddenly let out a squeal making it obvious he was tired of being ignored and threw the empty bottle right into the wall. It didn't bounce off; it just got stuck to it.

'Bubu!...' he cried. The expression on wall didn't change, only sentences started covering the floor and the ceiling. With all the deliberation in the world, Minato cradled the baby close and started stroking it's head gently.

'Tell me why do you want the seal off. Give me a good reason and we'll think about it.'

The wall slowly moved, covering the writings as the eyes kept on observing the pair of an adult and child.

Danger. he wrote simply Blood.

And then again.

Danger.

Blood.

Damage.

Pain.

Take it off take it off take it off…

Blue eyes scanned the wall quickly, jumping over the shallow incisions made to create the words, over the walls and ceiling, then back at the baby.

'Shukaku…' he said after a few moments, eyes moving towards the gel lark had left on the table. 'You think Gaara's being hurt because – because he's teething? Because of what's growing in his mouth?'

Take it off.

'Answer me.'

DAMAGE it wrote in big bold letters as suddenly the saliva started to turn into diluted pinkish color. Both eyes closed and Gaara shifted in the hold, putting a fist in his mouth. The sand on the floor jerked harshly. Minato closed his eyes. So this was it. Of course Shukaku had attacked him. Even if he hadn't seen or felt him do anything bad at his precious host, Minato was the one holding him, the one closest. Obviously he'd be the prime suspect as to who was causing the child such discomfort. He brushed the scratches on his cheek absently for a moment, then walked to the table, sitting down before looking at the gel. Of course, it came in unmarked bottle. He didn't know how did such things work in other families, but medicine in ominous unmarked jars and bottles was defiantly encourage in this one. He had been here in long enough to at least know they were generally color coded and blue meant they were safe for consumption of even small creatures like Temari and Kankuro. He smeared some of the pale, greenish goo over one finger and did his best to smear it on the baby's gums.

'No one is damaging Gaara, Ichibi. He's just growing teeth, all humans do it, and it's bothersome. Overfeeding him won't make it go away.'

As an answer, Gaara clamped his jaws upon Minato's finger; if it wasn't for that he actually had no teeth yet, the blood would probably run free. Something in the wall moved like if it was alive and the sand on the floor jumped again in rage. The seal was burning off and as Gaara let out a shout at his gums being touched, a few grains did its best to stick to his pale skin. Maybe it wasn't, but logic didn't seem to be working with Shukaku. The bottle fell from the wall, but it rolled right up to Minato's legs where it got noticed by Gaara. Unbestknown to him, he reached for it with his best intents.

Minato opened his mouth but didn't really make any sound, air leaving him in a noiseless gasp. Fuck, it hurt. If anyone had told him this small, frailish infant had enough strength in his jaws for this, he wouldn't have believed it. He'd thought he'd be used to it already, what with Naruto thinking that anything and everything was for him to munch on, so more often than not he used his father as a chewing toy. He was lucky Gaara didn't have teeth like his own baby; otherwise he'd probably need stitches. It took a bit of struggling, but he finally managed to pull his finger out of the baby's mouth, inspecting for damage before the higher activity rate of the sand made him pull yet another seal.

'Stop that already.' the blonde said dispassionately. 'This baby is teething and you convincing him to go binge eating isn't going to make it go away.'

But Shukaku didn't stop. Gaara almost fell out of Minato's hold, wanting so desperately to get a hold on the object, his face showing that only focusing on the bottle was riding the need for crying away. Not far though, once the bottle was unobtainable, he immediately decided to show his unease to the world. It was never-ending circle. Daichi brushed his face like if it was covered in dust.

'Don't tell me this is going to be it for the closest month or two.'

'You know, I have enough with one baby whining about something I can't do anything about.' the blonde said softly, all pretense of respect lost. Not because he was particularly angry at the Kazekage, but because when it came down to it, he was as scared as desperate as the man. And because the man being able to wallow in that fright made him rather envious. Without knowing what else to do, Minato was reduced to something that felt bitterly enough like attempting to sweet-talk what was not only an inhuman aberration, but one mad as a hatter to booth.

هدنة

'Ichibi, Don't you like having your host well-taken care for?'

There was a stop on the wall and for a moment even Gaara gave up on the bottle, getting back to cuddling Minato along with actually trying to get under his shirt. Triangle shapes blinked on the wall and rose from it, making quite a nicely mouth upon he flat surface.

I know how to take care of the host, human.

'Do, you really?' said human mocked, his tone downright acidic while he pulled the baby so he could hide his face against his shoulder. 'Do you know of human children, Ichibi? You must have seen more than one in your ridiculously long life. In case they all look the same to you, let me enlighten you- Gaara isn't. He's smaller than he should be. His whole development is shot to hell, he should have started teething several months ago. This is what having you does to him.'

Minato stroked the little body, ignoring how having Gaara this close made the still humid shirt stick to his skin in sticky splotches.

'You might be used to grown humans and pottery, but this baby is neither. Human children need care beyond you dragging mauled bodies-' he had to stop at that, because just remembering one of the first videos where he'd just stared for twenty minutes at the sand tearing a shinobi to bits and keep trying to drag them to Gaara made him sick. Well, maybe not the act itself, gruesome as it had been. Maybe it was the way the Kazekage had oh so casually clarified this was the monster attempting to feed the newborn.

'You don't know how to take care of a human child. If it weren't for your chakra this baby would be dead by now, but don't think this means he's safe. You can pour all the chakra you want on him for as long as it pleases you, but the first several years are important in human development, and your host can't even sit when he should be walking already. He can barely lift his upper body!' If that was a fault exclusive to Gaara, Minato didn't seem to have much of a problem shoving the fault onto the bijuu's shoulders. 'You have been pretty spoiled with the strongest shinobi in this country so far, Ichibi. Do you really want your current one to not even be able to walk on its own? Because if someone manages to get past you, just like before, your little human will be all on its own. And it won't be much help for your preservation if he's too weak to even lift a kunai.'

You're just a vermin, human. was written slowly. Under it, the small writing that could be described as challenge also showed up. Shukaku indeed was cocky with inviting him to the fight after such talk, but that was also the way he lived. Gaara hiccupped under Minato's hands, coddled a bit. Then he slowly turned around and started looking at the bottle like if it slowly started getting covered in gold and happiness.

'Wuuu…'

'…You want a challenge?'

Minato put the baby down on the floor with all the care in the world, not that Gaara seemed to care or appreciate it, too immersed in his new obsession to even notice. He walked past the child to write something new underneath the monsters provocation, and this time, he didn't bother translating it to Sunnha, using instead the seals he'd been taught by his wife and family.

'屍鬼封尽'

Then he ripped the soiled shirt off himself, flinging it to the side. His torso gleamed lightly with swear, and was covered in small nicks and fading bruises from the occasional trouble the baby had given him, as well as old, faded scars. By far the largest one was on his side, where large burn marks almost blended with what not-too long ago must have been a massive wound. The blonde brushed a hand over his stomach in something that at any other moment might have been provocative, but the moment his skin made contact, chakra flashed lightly on the area, revealing the half-formed shape of the seal, interrupted halfway before he was able to finish performing it.

'…if this was enough for the Kyuubi to go down, do you think you will be any different? Fancy sealing or not, death is universal, and with this, yours would be permanent this time.'

The mouth on the wall closed and slowly drowned in itself.

Don't be so cocky, vermin. it wrote on the wall, but with the way the writing shook it could be visible that the monster was not exactly calm or so sure of itself anymore. The redhead looked up at Minato and broke into thin pitiful wail after the arms that didn't hold him anymore. People around just watched the scene, all senses sharp and ready to react. To some, death of the bijuu didn't sound so wrong anymore. Little number of them actually saw how it went wrong on the village's future, as the monster was their only hope to actually stand up and defend themselves from the rest of the cruel world. Daichi looked even further; would existing of Suna bring any good even after that? There was no guaranty that Shukaku wouldn't drown it just as he wanted to do it now. He remembered his effort and sacrifices he made for this, but if the things were to close right now…

…he couldn't bring himself to actually care all that much. They were all doomed anyway, no matter which path he led them (or even if he didn't try to lead them at all). And if Shukaku were to die, would death of the Fourth Hokage be any of the real waste? Sure, he wanted to get laid. Sure, it was a nice body and a nice personality – as much as sarcastic the blonde man was for the most of the time, he surely knew how to take care of the kids and that was a nice add to the side of his in eyes of someone who didn't know how to take care of emotional needs of his own children at all. But then, he was the Hokage – exiled or not, he was still the advantage of the other village over them and their massive weapon turned on us with trigger on. If he were to die, the threat would also vanish. And he didn't really believe that Konoha would leave them alone, with or without him. What they did to Amegakure was loud in the private circles and couldn't get unnoticed by him if he wanted to get along within politics. Nobody was clear. Everyone bore sins. And thus, nobody and at no time given was safe.

So, in the end, he didn't stop anyone and didn't command anyone from stopping anything. For once it was good to stand behind and not in front of the line, looking deep into the loaded gun. The bottle tripped and laid on the floor, unnoticed.

Gaara wasn't happy with that. No, Gaara wasn't happy with anything so far. His stomach hurt, his internal insides hurt all over and he felt unwell with how milk went back and forth his mouth for the reasons he couldn't understand. He felt tormented by the pressure from inside his brain and body enough and now the big safe and warm man left him on the floor just like that and went to do something else, who knows if not forever. What's more, something was blocking his third pair of limbs and he couldn't search for him nor even catch him to bring him closer. He felt so helpless. And he hated it.

'Uwaaaah!' he said, voicing his uneasiness out loud and feeling how the monster inside him trashed, angry at how Minato answered and what he was about to do out of sudden. He felt murderous intent and he hated it, but what could he do? His neck burned and blocked him. And then another sort of unhappiness hit him as his gum just started giving too much pressure and dribbled with blood again. Stop that. Everyone, stop that. He just wanted to feel warm like before. Floor was so empty and lonely after all.

And there was nothing he could do. Again. He cried to the wall. Again.

Minato didn't move from the place, watching the monster's last message and waiting for anything else to come, but it seemed like the beast had finally had enough. The skin of his stomach stung like an infected wound, a friendly reminded about how the Death God didn't appreciate things done halfway. And it would have been a lot more unpleasant if it hadn't been because he stopped there and then. He wished he had gone through it, still. Even if it had meant to be locked forever in whatever hell the nine-tails resides now, at least he wouldn't have to be here, making the mistakes he was doing, feeling like if every door that opened for him was a dead end. A string of bad decisions one after the other, and not so much as a glimmer of hope things would get better.

He wondered if this is what Sakumo had felt like, while he kneeled in the tea room with the sharpened tantō next to him.

'…you'll have to give us time.' he said finally, the words neither request nor demand, just a plain statement. 'It will pass eventually, and I'll take care of him. That's all I- all anyone here can do, and that includes you, Shukaku.'

Gaara was still on the floor, no difference with how he had left him except he was now on his back and squalling up to the ceiling, little limbs flailing in an effort to call attention. The baby wasn't even strong enough to lift himself by his own means. Minato leaned down to pick the child, wincing lightly when the action made the skin in his stomach bend, aggravating the pain to a slow burning. He joined the rest of the group at the table, feeling everyone's eyes on him, feeling the monster's frustration and bloothirst- and not meeting either. He had to keep this baby alive, had to keep the monster from taking over, had to make sure these people he was learning to appreciate didn't die needlessly. Gods, he had to keep Naruto safe. And as Kushina had kindly remained him- you needed to be alive to be able to protect anything.

'…I need a new shirt.'

Wordlessly, one of the ANBUs stripped from his grey vest and handed it to him. Gaara slowly calmed down in his hold as he turned around to glance at the group and then back, to hide inside Minato's wet shirt. Daichi slowly let out the held breath. So it was not going to end up in bloodbath after all.

'…yeah, make me feel bad about it, why don't you…' the blonde complained, but he still gave Lark a light, tired smile before figuring a way to put the shirt on with Gaara still bodily attached to the remaining fishnet. Then he practically slumped on the chair as if his body had lost all will to hold him upright.

'All right my ANBU friends… And Kazekage.' he added as an afterthought, seeing that the man was still in place, surprisingly enough. 'This baby is teething, and it's not going to be pretty for any of us. But we are going to deal with it the best we can.'

The blonde took a deep breath, straightening a bit again on his seat and crossing his legs while he shifted Gaara a little higher so his legs wouldn't brush the tenderized skin on his stomach. Then he turned to the older redhead.

'You might want to get your other kids somewhere else until we can figure out some safe way to deal with all of this. Even if they don't seem to register in the sand's radar yet, I don't want it to decide to start now.'

Daichi slowly rose up from his chair.

'Fine, I will tell Yashamaru to not come back home.' he said as he unfolded his quite crumpled clothes now 'And I will move my kids under his care. Nothing new he wouldn't be able to deal with… you. 'The stretched finger pointed at the Wren 'You take them there. Then come back. We shall all assist with this crisis situation. The mission will be over once I say it is, not earlier. Mobilize the rest to be ready for eventual uproars on your way back.'

The Wren bowed and vanished.

'Your kids in my house…?' Minato didn't sound especially thrilled about the idea, and maybe a few weeks ago he would have protested long and hard about it, but by now he was so drained he just made a vaguely complaining sound. It kind of made sense, and with the kids there, Yashamaru couldn't do anything too terrible to Naruto, right? 'If they break something, you are paying for it. And your kids better not eat mine, or I'll feed them to my toads.' the stopped to wipe Gaara's chin.

'What are you talking about, you live in my property.' said Daichi with voice raised up enough for everyone to hear 'Whatever they break is mine and thus it's my loss, not yours. I decide if it's worth paying for the loss or not. Besides…'

Black pupils turned to Gaara. The redhead didn't look back, only sniffed loudly by his nostrils.

'…my kids are well behaved, unlike this monster you hold in your hands. They might be frivolous but they won't cause any serious harm. Worry not.'

Minato looked down at said 'monster'. It was currently clinging to him like an abused puppy, but he wasn't going to start this discussion with the redhead again.

'Maybe, but some of the things there are from my family, so I'd rather not have them broken. They aren't exactly replaceable.' Most didn't get done anymore, or the places they had been done with had ceased to exist awhile ago. Even so, he didn't worry too much. Now that Naruto was crawling, he had baby-proofed the residence to the best of his capabilities, and most of the really important things were kept by his summons or in scrolls. He didn't think he had anything that he would mourn too badly if broken. By far his most important possession was the necklace he usually wore and it had shown remarkable resilience to a very lively (and a not so much one) baby, so he thought it would handle it.

'Back to topic, I'd rather keep the number of ANBU in immediate surrounding down to just the usual ones-' that meant Thorny Devil, Lark, Vulture and Wren- 'If you want to leave the rest around, you can do that, and maybe keep the ants outside and ready to mark perimeter at signal, but I don't want them close enough the baby will see or sense them. He's going to be stressed enough as it is.'

'I can do that, if that's important. But don't think I will hold missing of any of your limbs responsible in such case.'

'It is important because whenever new people appear Gaara gets scared. He already knows me and the group and how they work, and he hasn't tried to do any lasting damage these past weeks, so I want to think he's getting used to it. If we add more people he's more likely to attack anything on sight.'

And to be truthful, not all of the redhead's ANBU could hide their contempt for the baby too well. Or for Minato, for taking him out of the cellar.

'In the meantime, we'll have to hold until Mikoto-san answers.' There didn't seem to be any way around this. He looked down at Gaara, frowning. '…if he's teething, does that mean we can start giving him other things to drink besides milk?'

'That's usually how it goes. However I don't think this is a good idea.' Because to be fair, chewing on things had to brush against the teeth and if Gaara was going to feel any more pain than he already had… he just didn't want to think about it. 'Just keep him with milk, he seems to be inclined to It anyway.'

'If you say so…' though the truth was that after today Minato didn't think his already lacking affection for donkey's milk would get any better. 'I'm just saying because Naruto already was teething as well-' he just wasn't going to specify when he'd started '…and after that he started biting on everything, even if it hurt. But food seemed to distract him, and the cold bottle seems to make Gaara better.'

And truth was, this was a baby that didn't sleep. Ever. It was a baby that had twenty four hours to either entertain himself or spend feeling his paints. The more they distracted him the better. Daichi gave him 'the look' and sighed.

'Fine, I can prepare something-' he said as he started getting up.

'No need, no need, I will do it, Kazekage-sama!' piped the Thorny Devil immediately and almost forced the man onto the chair 'We can't have a man cooking while woman is in the room! Take care!'

And she had ran out of the room. Daichi looked after her.

'…at least she knows her place.'

Men nodded, but it was obvious the way their shoulders shook they were barely containing laughter. Or fear. Possibly both. When Diachi looked back at them, they stopped. Gaara yawned in the hold and slowly shifted around to look at the room. When his gaze fell on the bottle of milk, however, his senses immediately sharpened.

'Ah…' he mumbled and reached out his hand toward it 'Uwah!...'

Minato broke out of wondering if Suna was really a Mecca of sexism or if maybe if the man was just a terrible cook when the baby shifted. What he had seen just now was so out of character for Devil that he had no doubt her teammates would be teasing her for it endlessly late, but he'd have to wonder about such vague things later, because he had an overexcited package to tend to now.

'Oh no, young man, not again.' he said, turning Gaara around so he was sideways on his lap and giving his back to the bottle. 'You just ruined two shirts in a row and I'm not losing this one, understood?'

Gaara obviously didn't understand. He shifted in the hold and tried his best to peek out from the hold to look at the object and did twice as much to reach for it, despite the obvious distance.

'You want to go down? Fine.' Minato had no idea how long it had been, so he played safe and applied another seal on the baby's neck. Then he made a show of very slowly going through the motions to leave him on the floor on his own. 'But this time you stay down.'

Green eyes looked up at him with confusion, but the little redhead didn't protest much about being put on the floor. More, he seemed to be even happy as he was put closer to the bottle and made a few, very miserable, but indeed effortful tries at crawling closer to it. Only after he was maybe ten centimeters closer to it, something clicked in his mind as he looked up and actually noticed, that cold floor he was on didn't really equal Minato's hands and that he was left alone all on his own again.

The loud crying followed. Blonde rose his eyebrows faintly.

'See?' he extended his hands as if to pick the baby, but didn't actually lean down to reach for him. 'You can have me or the bottle, but not both right now. Pick one.'

Gaara didn't have to be told twice. Immediately he rolled onto his back, then onto his belly again, until he was facing Minato and desperately tried to shift closer, all the time giving off a very loud and desperate cry, marked with a trail of snot and tears on the floor.

'…woah, did you actually understand that?' the blonde asked, rather surprised by the baby's quick reaction to his words. He immediately picked up the baby and tried to soothe him, using the what was left of the bib after all this drooling (though if that cleaned anything or just made a bigger mess would be an acceptable debate) and pressed his forehead lightly against the child's.

'Are we actually developing some level of communication?' he cooed affectionately, trying to get the baby calmed down again 'Give me a sign, Little Red. Bottles have been officially banished of the 'accepted-as-sign' league.'

Gaara's only response was cease of crying as he cuddled up to the warm hug of safe arms. It seemed like if Minato was truly all he needed, no matter what his inside urges told him. Thorny Devil decided to come in a few seconds after that with a plate full of very liquefied milky broth mixed with grains and a small glass filled with broth based on something that smelled strongly off goat's meat. The baby rose his eyes slightly to that, but without letting go of Minato.

Minato thanked her quietly, taking a moment to both let the baby calm back down and make sure what had been brought would be softened enough. It all seemed too much, especially now Gaara had just been sick, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least test try if he'd be willing to give new food a try. When he was sure the baby had finally finished his remarkably easily solved drama, he reached for one of the things floating in the milk. He grabbed at it with fingers, momentarily ignoring the spoon, and was pleased when the thing practically disintegrated when he tried to squish it.

Picking another, he carefully brought it closer, stopping short of the baby's face to let him have a go at inspecting it.

'Here, Little Red. I'm assuming this is edible, so have a try.'

Gaara slowly rose his head toward the fingers, obviously his interest picked by the new thing. However, before he did anything, he simply sent the fingers a dangerous glare as he kept sniffing the air in very animalistic pattern. Then, very slowly, he descended upon them and tried to suck the thing off. It pleased him enough to take everything in his mouth… and to start spitting the grains. Obviously the milk ingredient played big role here, but solids did not.

The sniffing Minato had expected. Like Naruto, Gaara tended to give everything a good and thorough sniff before shoving it in his mouth. Some days he wanted to tell himself that meant he wouldn't have to bother too much about the kids accidentally eating poison, only neither Naruto nor Gaara seemed to understand things such as raw ink weren't edible. In the end he was forced to admit they probably didn't really care and just liked admiring new scents.

Even so, Gaara generally was enthusiastic as any other kid with shoving things into his mouth and thoroughly munching and drooling on it. He wasn't very surprised when Gaara was agreeable enough to slurp his fingers into his mouth. He was, however, not expecting him to spit the softened grains right back out. For a moment he stared at the way the tiny brown specks accumulated on the baby's lips in drooly chunks. Then he started laughing, shaking the baby lightly while he tried to surpass the shaking of his shoulders.

'Oh, Little Red.' the blonde chuckled after a moment. 'Surely it can't be that bad? I know Thorny Devil did it-' The girl looked at them and sighed, obviously feeling defeated on cooking field '-but I'm sure she tried very hard! Let me see."

For a moment he contemplated what was by now pooling at the little redhead's chin, before shaking his head in negative. He fished a few grains with his finger again, and slowly gave them a try. They… weren't that bad, actually. He had no idea what exactly *what* they were, the tiny granules looking nothing like the cereal he usually let Naruto have, but they were soft and had a vague sort of almost-not-like almond aftertaste.

'See, not that bad?' he said, licking the few ones left on his fingers with all the parsimony of a six-year-old. He then picked a few more and offered them again to the little redhead. 'Go on.'

Gaara looked at Minato with a light awareness as he leaned down to suck the thing from his fingers… and to spit the grains all back again. He however, seemed to get more excited about it as he flailed toward the plate with a very similar gesture he did toward the bottle before. The Lord Emperor was pleased. Thorny Devil observed it in silence and didn't dare to let a single expression slip, even if Lark nearby her was about to burst into a roaring laughter right in front of his Kazekage. Daichi noticed that but ignored it, as for now. He didn't know what was so funny, but he could let this slip, as long as the man succeeded into looking like if he didn't do a bad thing.

Minato chuckled again and kept finger feeding him bits of the food, figuring at this pace the milk wouldn't hurt the baby too badly or make him sick, and that or sure at least one or two of the grains would eventually make it down the baby's gullet.

Gaara obediently played with Minato until everything he had to swallow was swallowed and until everything he wanted to spit out… was, well, spat out. Some of the grains indeed flowed right to Gaara's stomach but it got no reaction from him. Maybe if Minato could look closer or more inside he'd notice how Shukaku actually stopped around his own paranoia and began inspecting the grains as new objects that had to be built into the walls of the toddler and had no idea how to do it. But what was not seen…

'Awuu…' murmured Gaara laying satisfied against Minato after the long calming play. His hardened belly also deflated a bit and he felt more comfort. This man was the best after all. Minato was more than satisfied. Sure, most of the food went right past Gaara's chin, and maybe he had managed to get down half a tiny coffee mug of both liquids and grains, but he hadn't expected Gaara to eat much, and his sudden and unnatural obsession with milk seemed to have died of natural causes, hopefully permanently. He also didn't want to overfeed him in case Gaara didn't respond well to the milk, watered down as it was, but at least it had gone well as a test trial. Maybe he could give the child a few spoonfuls of tea later in the night, to settle his stomach.

The sand had also seemed to momentarily calm down, stopping its frustrated slithering over the floor. For the moment everything was fine. Maybe they would be able to do this after all.