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Chapter 21: Teamwork?
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"Hello, Itachi!" Musume's clone swung into the Uchiha's room, smiling. "You can't avoid me now, can you?" She grinned.
Itachi widened his one remaining eye. "Uchiha-sama..."
"Oh, don't be so formal!" The clone giggled, hopping into the room and onto the younger Uchiha's bed.
Itachi stiffened.
"What is up with your mother, anyway? She is sending me all these reports from council meetings and she is such a stick in the mud! Almost as much as you were." She sighed.
"I don't know what you are talking about..." Itachi muttered, looking to the side.
"Oh, Itachi, you can't fool me!" The clone waggled her finger. The clone didn't pay attention to the stricken look on the Uchiha's face, as it was so proud of its conclusion. "You are here to avoid your mother. An eye injury isn't really all that life-threatening, is it? I even bullied Tsunade to give you a look."
Itachi relaxed slightly. "I don't know what you are talking about Uchiha-sama."
The clone preened. "I can read you better than that Itachi-kun! I've known you since you were a little boy, haven't I?" The clone blinked. "Speaking of little boys- what have you been teaching Sasuke?"
"What? Nothing." Itachi protested.
The clone poked him in the chest. "Exactly. That boy is pathetic! He could be a cold-hearted bastard of a killing machine under the right circumstances." She bemoaned. "Not that we want that, he gets a lot too into it..." She trailed off, turning away from the confused Itachi. "But anyway, you are his big brother. You should get him up to par. Do you want him to get killed on a mission or something?"
"No! Of course not!" Itachi whispered in horror.
"Then what?" the clone asked, leaning in.
"I... this life is not one I want for him." Itachi sighed. "All this violence..." He stiffened when he realized who('s clone) he had just said that to.
The clone however just patted him on the shoulder. "It's alright, Itachi. You are a very good shinobi, but that doesn't mean you have to do things that you don't want to." Itachi looked at her with a confused and almost lost expression on his face. "Though I would definitely recommend giving your brother a good talking to at the very least, and some pointers preferably."
"Yes, Uchiha-sama." Itachi whispered, looking down at where his fingers were playing with the edge of his bed sheets.
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"Hello!" Naruto bounced into the rather somber gathering of other gennin.
"Who are you?" Kiba snapped. Akamaru barked at his partner in a scolding tone. "What? No, he doesn't look anything like the Hokage."
"Ah- well I am Namikaze Naruto." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head.
"What are you doing here?" Tenten asked.
"I'm supposed to learn how to be on a team or something." Naruto shrugged. "And since that is what you are working on that, too, Dad said that I should come do some missions with you guys."
"Why don't you go on your own team?" Kiba growled.
"I don't have a team- I've been training with the pervert toad sage." Naruto rubbed his nose.
"Relax, Kiba." Kurenai put her hand on the shoulder not occupied by dog.
"They can't replace Hinata." Kiba grumbled. Akamaru yipped agreement.
"They are not trying to, Kiba." Kurenai patted her student's shoulder and then turned to Naruto. "We were picking these tomatoes."
Naruto peered at the field and then at the red eyed jounin. "Why?" He asked finally.
Kurenai felt her eye twitch. "It builds teamwork."
Naruto looked at her dubiously, his eyes squinted. "Really?"
"Yeah, shrimp. Get picking." Kiba snapped.
"Alright." Naruto shrugged. His father had told him to do whatever Kurenai-sensei said. "Kage Bushin!" He cried. A hundred Narutos cheered as they leapt over the short stone wall and started to pull all the tomatoes off of the plants.
The entire team stared at Naruto. Though Shino didn't change his expression at all beyond a raised eyebrow, the other three's jaws were hanging low.
Kiba finally shook his head violently, almost dislodging his dog. "Hey, idiot! Only pick the red ones! What are you doing?" He yelled.
"What? You said pick the tomatoes, you didn't say anything about color!" The Narutos chorused.
"Idiot!" Kiba yelled. "Don't you even know what a fresh tomato looks like?"
The Narutos rubbed the back of their head. "Eheh!" They all ran back to the cart and deposited the tomatoes, then dispelled in a large poof of smoke. "Sorry. I was just trying to help." The original Naruto said sheepishly.
"Thank you, Naruto, but the point of this exercise is to work together." Kurenai said, her voice still a bit shaky to see the young boy's display of his immense store of chakra.
"Oh." Naruto squinted. "Can't we all work together to improve for the exams instead? They are soon, but the physical bit isn't until next Monday."
"Which is why we are taking it easy. We can't have anyone else getting hurt before the exams." Kurenai sighed, though she was rather tired of these D missions as well.
"Oh." Naruto shrugged. "Then how about ramen?" He asked, perking up.
"No. You are here to learn how to be on a team. We need to all get to know each other." Kurenai protested.
"Bonding over ramen is a perfect way to get to know each other. And then we can say our likes and dislikes or something..." Naruto trailed off at the sharp look from Kurenai. "Heh heh. Pick the tomatoes, yes, ma'am."
Akamaru yipped and Kiba's eye lit up. "Hey, can you teach us that solid clone technique? It would make this a lot easier, and then there could be a hundred of Akamaru and I!"
"Sure!" Naruto replied happily, grinning.
"Absolutely not!" Kurenai spun around from where she had been walking off.
"Aww... why not?" Naruto pouted.
"You should not give away powerful techniques so easily." Shino deadpanned.
"But you guys are allies." Naruto protested.
"That is not the reason, though it is a good point." Kurenai said shakily. "The reason is that that is a forbidden technique."
"Cool!" Kiba said, looking at Naruto with a hungry look on his face that made the orange clad genin give him a wary look.
"No, not cool! It is forbidden for a reason. That technique requires an amount of chakra that you three do not have. You would die if you tried to make even three clones." Kurenai said harshly.
"Huh. But Musume-chan taught it to me when I was five." Naruto said, his eyes squinted in confusion.
"Five?" Kurenai asked weakly.
"Uchiha Musume?" Shino asked.
"Yeah." Naruto answered both questions.
"She did something to your chakra coils when you were very young." Shino said slowly. "Is that why you have such a large store of chakra?" He asked.
Naruto grabbed his right elbow with his left hand and his chin with his right, looking upward. "That could be." He mused. "And a good thing, too, otherwise I would never survive her training practices!"
"Why the hell is the head of the Uchiha clan training you?" Kiba sniffed.
"She is involved with the Hokage." Shino said blandly.
"What?" Kiba asked. "Is that some sort of code?" Kiba asked.
"How did she do something to your chakra coils?" Tenten asked, ignoring the other two boys in favor of focusing on Naruto.
Shino stared at Kiba and the dog boy returned the favor with a belligerent look. Shino started whispering into the Inuzuka's ear.
Naruto cocked his head to the side, wondering at the girl's intensity. He spared a brief look to Shino and Kiba before turning back to Tenten. "I dunno." He shrugged. "I was a baby and she was a bit... odd back then." He grinned. "Well, more odd anyway."
"Has she ever done it for anyone else?" Tenten pressed, leaning forward intently.
"I don't think so." Naruto paused to think about it. He turned his wide blue eyes back to her. "Why?"
"I..." Tenten shook her head violently, paused, then turned and walked away.
Naruto watched her go, confused. Maybe this was one of the 'mysteries of women-hood' that the pervert sage always was talking about. He pouted when he realized that Tenten was not going into the field to pick tomatoes, but seemed to be leaving entirely.
"Oh! You mean having sex!" Kiba yelled. Shino's ear tips turned red. Kiba threw his head back and let out a barking laugh. "The bug boy is trying to give me the 'birds and the bees' talk. That's pretty funny!" Akamaru barked his agreement.
Shino pushed his glasses higher on his nose, the red creeping up his cheeks.
"Hey, hey, sensei." Naruto pulled on her red sleeve. "Is this sort of thing what we're supposed to do to get to know each other?"
Kurenai planted her face in the palm of her hand.
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Musume had had several close calls- all the shinobi in the village were, of course, quite perceptive. And there were shinobi crawling all over the town in preparation for the exams. She couldn't help but be excited and nervous at the same time. Excited, as there was definitely going to be a lot of chaos in the next month, nervous because pretty much every loop the town had been attacked and she was just starting to get the village into a shape that pleased her. It would be annoying if it were razed.
So to avoid the ninja, she had developed a technique of existing partly within the demon space. It was an odd sensation- sort of freeing, actually. She could relax more then when she was trying to keep herself contained within the human skin. Even when she didn't have to hide anymore, she might keep up with the dimension-straddling. Until then, she left only the human body out in the physical world. She should seem just like a normal civilian to ninja senses. It did leave her senses feeling a bit dulled, though, at least in the physical world.
In demon space, however, she could feel that there was something else close. A familiar energy... but not within the town itself...
"Hey! Musume-chan!"
Musume jumped a foot into the air, her back stiffened. "Brat! Don't sneak up on people!" She snapped reflexively. Then she cursed silently. Why did she acknowledge him?
"When did you get out of the hospital?" Naruto pouted. "You didn't tell me."
"I... uh, just got out." Musume said weakly.
"And you feel sort of funny." Naruto looked at her with squinted eyes.
"I'll show you funny!" Musume growled, brandishing a fist.
"Hah! You can't catch me- your heart is all messed up." Naruto said smugly.
"Why didn't you think of that before you scared the crap out of me?" Musume growled. "I could have keeled over."
"Eheh." Naruto chuckled weakly. "I guess I didn't think of that."
Musume grinned. "Well, it was a good scare, so I can't be too mad. But if your dad were here..." She trailed off with an evil smirk on her face.
"Is that because you are having sex with him?" Naruto asked.
Musume choked on what she had been about to say, her heart doing a bit of a flip before she thumped on her chest. "What did you just say?" She asked, too calmly.
Naruto went pale and looked around for an escape route. "Er... it's just what Shino was saying to Kiba..."
"Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba?" She asked sweetly.
"Er... yes?" Naruto replied, hopeful that Musume's wrath would soon be directed elsewhere.
"Those gossiping bugs!" Musume growled to herself.
"Well, you did run around the village in a sleeping shirt." Naruto replied, before realizing what he had said and covering his mouth in horror.
"What? I wasn't in a... what?" Musume asked in confusion.
"Ahahah!" Naruto said loudly. "I have to get back to do some team building I think!"
Musume caught Naruto by the scruff of his shirt. "When was I running around in a nightshirt?"
Naruto's eyes widened. "Dad told me not to tell you!" He wailed.
"Not to tell me what?" Musume growled, angry enough that bits of her demon self started to leak back into this reality.
"Well, when the Hyuuga were attacking the Uchiha, Dad said you didn't stop to change, and you were in bed... he said really it was lucky that you were wearing anything at all..." Naruto babbled.
Musume let go of him in surprise and the young shinobi bolted. She tried to think back to that night. She couldn't really remember what she had been wearing, besides that there must have been some sort of clothing, as it had ended up soaked in blood and sticking to her skin. Had she been in only a shirt?
Well, that would certainly explain why everyone knew that she was sleeping with the Hokage... after all, it would have been his shirt she was sleeping in. Which shirt was a somewhat important question, though, as a good number of them did not really cover her butt...
Musume suddenly threw back her head and laughed, startling the people around her. "Well, I'll be damned." She grinned. She had defeated the Hyuuga head half naked, probably mooning the entire village. Talk about adding insult to injury. She grinned at the thought and wished she could remember that night more clearly.
Musume stiffened with a startled snort as the memories from her clone hit her. She sighed. On the one hand, she was released from the hospital. On the other hand... her clone had almost ruined it with Itachi. Whatever bug was up the Uchiha's butt needed to be dealt with. Her clone's behavior would make it tricky to convince him of that, though. She firmly resolved to never again leave a clone active for more than a few days. And she really meant it this time.
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"Kazekage, it is so good to welcome such a loyal ally to our town." Minato said, shaking hands with the other village leader. "It is a shame that your youngest child was not able to make it, but I look forward to seeing how well our children can do together." Minato continued.
"It is always a pleasure to travel to the other towns and cement our relations." The kazekage said in a monotone. He turned behind him, gesturing toward a boy in a cat costume and face paint. "My older son Kankuro." He indicated the blond girl with an oversized fan. "My daughter, Temari."
"My son is out with some of the village shinobi on low level missions. We weren't expecting you until tomorrow." Minato gestured for the Kazekage and his entourage to follow him into the dining room of the tower.
"We decided to move a bit more quickly, so as to not miss the opening ceremonies." The kazekage muttered.
"Of course." Minato replied, though his mind was busy trying to puzzle the aloof man out. The village of sand was not known for putting out overly emotive individuals, but something about the kazekage indicated nervousness. "After some refreshments, I will give you a tour of the facilities that will be used for the exam. Your children, of course, cannot join us, but will be entertained by my son if they so wish."
"I would love a tour but my children will be fine with their instructor." The kazekage replied.
"Alright." Minato smiled and indicated the spread of brunch on the table. He watched the children enter stiffly as well.
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"Hey Uchiha-kun!" Naruto dashed up to Sasuke, barely stopping in time to keep from bowling the other boy over. "How did it go with Musume-chan? Are you going to be in the chuunin exam, too? Is there a place you know that Musume-chan never goes?"
Sasuke held up a hand and shook his head, trying to get his bearings as the hyperactive blond bounced in front of him. "Namikaze-kun, one question at a time."
"Oh. Well, I guess the most important is... hide me! Musume-chan is going to kill me. And if she doesn't, my dad will. All the places I go to hide she goes! I'm doooomed!" Naruto howled, grabbing onto Sasuke's shirt and going half limp.
"What the! Get off of me!" Sasuke grabbed the orange sleeves, trying to pry Naruto off of him. "I have to meet with my team."
Naruto looked up at him hopefully. "Can I come?"
"We're both going to be in the chuunin exams. I can't lead you to my team so you can see our strategies!" Sasuke retorted.
"But if I spar with you, you can look at me with your sharingan and copy my moves." Naruto said, his eyes looking up at the other boy slyly.
Sasuke stiffened, regarding the other genin speculatively. Itachi had randomly fallen over onto Sasuke the other day at the hospital. He had stared at his little brother with his remaining sharingan eye until Sasuke's had activated from sheer nerves. But how would Naruto know that he had it activated? No one outside of his team and his brother knew that. Well, he allowed, and very possibly Uchiha Musume. "We'll see what sensei says."
Naruto let go of Sasuke and jumped up into the air, pumping his fist. "Alright!"
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"Minato!" Musume bounced into the Hokage's office. She grinned at the sight of him buried up to his neck in paperwork. Her pile had become quite decimated from her forced bed rest. It seemed that the original was much better at getting things done than old and somewhat fraying clones.
"Musume." Minato looked at her with a raised eye that said 'what are you doing out of the hospital and bouncing around?'
"I got released. All better." Musume put her hands on her hips proudly. "And just in time for the first part of the chuunin exams." She preened. "I told you that I would get out of there before then."
"Indeed. We could actually use you as one of the proctors, potentially..." Minato trailed off, shuffling through some schedules. "We could definitely use another on the first written portion..." He muttered to himself. "Losing so many ninja right before the exam is wreaking havoc..."
"That could be fun." Musume allowed, presuming that the first exam was the same as it had been in previous loops. "Is that really alright? I'm still not technically a ninja of this village." She was willing to be a bit distracted from her real purpose in coming to see him- it wasn't as if she wanted to talk to him about it. High spirits from successfully tricking basically the entire village at the hospital notwithstanding.
"Other non-nin are being used for non-crucial roles and as monitors." Minato waved the question away. "You are certainly qualified to help out with registration or for monitoring for upper genin or low chuunin level skills."
Musume hmmed in contemplation. "Ibiki is doing the written part this year?" She asked.
Minato looked up, mildly surprised. "Why, yes, it is. How did you know that?"
Musume shrugged. "Mikoto has been giving me reports of your meetings." And Ibiki almost always did the written portion this year.
Minato winced. "Which reminds me, you need to give your report about what happened to Ibiki and Inoichi. It's a wonder that you managed to escape them when you were released from the hospital."
Musume smirked. "They underestimated how much better I was feeling." More accurately, they hadn't realized that she had left a clone there for days and thus when they came to take her in for questioning, she 'escaped'. Too bad for them that those chakra-suppressing cuffs both would have no effect on her actual body and had disrupted the already unravelling clone.
"You really need to talk with the two of them. I have briefed them that the exact nature of how you were able to negate the jyuuken strikes are likely a clan secret, but they will still want to ask you questions about that. As well as about what had happened in general."
Musume winced. "Can I avoid them for a bit longer?"
Minato gave her a disproving look.
She decided that since he hadn't outright forbidden her from avoiding them as long as possible that he had given her tacit approval. She changed the subject to the real reason why she had come before he got it in his head to order her to cooperate.
"Did you ever key me into the wards or do I need to break into your house?" Musume asked.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Minato replied, causing a jolt of ice to drop into her stomach. "We can't afford a show of favoritism at this point."
Musume's belly couldn't decide if it wanted to be mad or not, the result leaving her rather queasy. She put her hand on her abdomen absently. "We don't need a show of favoritism to have the whole village assume that there is favoritism. We are mates." Her voice did not come out as sharp as she intended, ending up in an unflattering no-man's land between whining and depressed.
Minato winced and put down his papers, stepping around the desk. "We're not officially... mated." He raised his hands helplessly as Musume began to twitch and the killing intent in the room rose. "I mean to say, we mated, but we're not married... and there is so much going on at the moment..."
"Fine." Musume snapped before spinning on her heal and stalking out of the room.
Minato sighed and rubbed his eyes. "What the hell am I going to do about this whole mess!" He groaned to himself.
Musume, however, had remained within hearing range, tucked into a pocket of demon space. She looked down at her mate and felt like something was tearing her apart inside. Being locked inside the damn brat for near infinite loops hadn't even approached this level of hurt. How was she supposed to tell him about her problem now? Not that she could... but she didn't need to tell him how many she was pregnant with...
It seemed like his problem was easy enough to fix- he just needed to propose marriage, right? Something like that. Damn the human customs! Even if he were to reject her at this point, she didn't really know that it would change her mutinying 'feelings'.
She snarled and flashed away.
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A/N: Happy Valentine's Day (almost)! I don't know if people are excited about the chuunin exams... but it'll be in a while. Maybe 2-4 chapters? Some parts of it are written, though. I'm starting to be afraid I'm writing a story that wants to be an epic... Noooo!