((A/N: Hey! Another chapter! We're almost at 30 chapters haha. Wow. Never expected to write this much for one story, yknow? Anyway, I'll get into the review responses and then right into the chapter!

Ori Heartlyng- oh no he's totally fine! He was just scared being in the house alone so I called a friend of mine and asked him to stay with my bro. It's all good. Thanks for the well wishes anyway, that's sweet of you!

PhoenixAshes42- More Itachi time, as you requested! Itachi in this chapter since you asked so kindly u3u

There's lots of Uchiha-ness in this chapter, and the next chapter should have some more baby Naruto in it, and we'll have some Jirouko time too. I feel like she's been so busy with Clan training that she hasn't been able to see her babies anymore, so the next few chapters will have babies in it - human babies and coyote babies, of course.

Also I don't know if you guys realized this or not but this story not have over 200 followers? wtf. Anyway, I don't really know what to do as celebration bc I don't have my tablet so I can't make art for you guys or anything, so I decided I'll just work on a bunch of omakes and post it over in my Naruto Tidbits story. Maybe that'll be a cool celebration? Eh.

Enjoy the chapter!))


Rae watches the scene in front of her with something akin to horror growing in her stomach. It had started as a wary, fleeting thought of 'shit, shit, how do I fix this-' and had grown like a damn tree until she was practically screaming inside her own mind. And yet, the only thing that could really come to her mind right then, was 'oops'.

She was in the Uchiha Compound, in the backyard of the Main House. Fugaku was away, thank Kami, and Mikoto was, as usual, left home to deal with her two sons by herself. At least, she was alone, until Rae came around.

With her litter of coyote pups following her.

The twenty four hours haven't gone up, yet, so she was being forced to spend more time with them. She didn't mind, most of the time at least. Some of them were really great company, and despite how obnoxious or crude some of them could be - cough, cough, Akio, cough - she still enjoyed being around them for the most part. They were family now, and even if they felt less like a family to her and more like a bunch of children she was stuck babysitting, she knew the family feeling would come in time.

However, when she remembered half way through splashing around in the mud with them, that she had Fire Jutsu training at the Uchiha Compound, she had inwardly panicked. Manabu-sensei had snickered at her, then told her in a faux serious tone that introducing the coyote pups to her friends would be for the best.

So she took them to the Uchiha Compound with her.

Only, as usual, she didn't know where to find her current Fire nijutsu sensei, so she went down to find Itachi instead. Itachi was a friend, so surely she could introduce him to her new 'family', right? Nothing could go wrong, right? They'd play, he'd show off his amazing fire jutsus or do some cool kunai throwing for them, they'd all be in awe and a few might even worship him a bit, but it'd all be fine... Right?

Only, it didn't happen like that.

Rae had seriously overestimated how good a bunch of puppies would act in a new environment.

Umi was on the roof. Akio and Kira were trying to follow him up, scratching up the walls with their claws as they went. Ari was sneaking away little slips of meat from the counter whenever Mikoto wasn't looking. Tsuru and Ahiru were the only ones being mildly behaved in this situation, as they were both in the middle of a very serious looking discussion about what bugs were the slimiest, with Sasuke of all people. Inu was simpering in the time out corner after he had peed on Sasuke's slippers - Rae had very discreetly rubbed given him a thumbs up for that one.

Itachi was staring at all of the commotion with a faint sort of resigned grief on his face, and Rae wonders if he always looked this tired or if it was just her.

"So, how have you been, 'Tachi?" Rae grinned, trying her hardest not to notice the bubbling panic rising up in her stomach. She really didn't want any of the Uchihas to be angry at her, so she hoped that if anyone did get angry, they'd be angry at the coyotes.

No, wait, that felt kind of like pushing them under the bus. Family wasn't supposed to do that.

Itachi turned and leveled her with his best 'are you kidding me' look, and Rae gulped audibly, nervous smile still on her face.

"I didn't know you were interested in summons, Kei-kun."

She shrugged, scratching at her arm half heartedly.

"I didn't really know I was interested in it either, honestly. Manabu-sensei only told me about them recently, and technically I haven't even signed the contract for them yet. Consider this... ah, I dunno, pre-contract training? I have to spend time with these guys because they're gonna train and be raised beside me or something."

He blinked, then nodded slowly.

"Like a second family," he mused, looking back at the coyotes currently trying to hop up onto the roof. Akio was up there now, laughing down at Kira when she failed to jump up high enough to land up there with him. He promptly fell over when Umi came up behind him and jumped on him. They both tumbled down off the roof and onto the ground, and while Rae might have felt a momentary panic about seeing them fall from such a height a few days ago, she knew now that coyotes were made of some pretty tough stuff.

Plus, it was pretty funny that now Kira was the one laughing down at him while she stood on the roof on her own.

"More like a third family," Rae grumbled. Itachi heard, though, and simply let out a silent nod in agreement. He knew how she felt about Konoha, and how she felt about Suna. Suna would always be her first home, and her first family was there. So, really, Konoha was more like a second family to her. Now she had a third. Rae lets out a tired sigh. So many families, so many people to keep up with.

Then Itachi looked off to the side, radiating curiosity, and Rae's eyes followed his. She scowled.

"Where do you think they're going?" He asked, watching Sasuke's retreating form with mild curiosity, disappearing into the forest beside their home. Rae was staring at the spiky tufts of brown fur that was following him, though, with a wary expression of defeat.

"They were talking about bugs, what do you think they're gonna go do in a forest?"

Itachi looked pensive for a second, before his face soured.

"Oh."

She nods.

"Oh indeed."

She stands, wiping the dirt off of her knees where she had been kneeling on the wooden patio with her Uchiha friend, and looks down at Itachi.

"I don't wanna be covered in bugs when they come back, so I'm going inside to see if Mikoto-sama made some food. Wanna come with?"

He nodded without a second of hesitation, and stood up beside her. His clothing was significantly cleaner than hers, considering she was wearing the same muddy outfit she had been wearing a few hours before. She hadn't even thought to change her clothes before leaving for the Uchiha Compound - a sign that she was getting rather comfortable around them. She didn't know how she felt about this. On the one hand, she trusted Itachi more than she trusted anybody else in this village, and that was a hard fact. Hell, she probably trusted that boy more than she trusted her own judgement most days. He was an honest, loyal kid, and she felt like there was nothing she had to hide from him.

On the other hand, Itachi was the only Uchiha that she felt that way about.

Don't get her wrong, Mikoto is a calming presence in her mind and she loves the little booger that is Sasuke, but she simply doesn't implicitly trust them with her secrets like she does with Itachi. Don't even get her started on the amount of anxiety the brick wall that is known as Fugaku causes her.

So, yes, she didn't know how to feel about her level of comfort around the Uchihas.

"Can I use your bathroom to wash up, Mikoto-sama?" She asks the busy woman. Mikoto was attempting to cook a meal for all of them - all of them, Coyotes included - but Ari, being the sneakiest and oldest of the bunch of pups, decided it was her job to sneak away slips of food whenever she could. Mikoto was too kind hearted to whack the misbehaving animal on the nose whenever she came around, so she was simply cooking more. She didn't seem to mind it, however much she may complain about it under her breath.

Rae thinks perhaps Mikoto misses having babies around, even if they weren't human babies. She briefly wonders if her home was this hectic and busy when Itachi or Sasuke was a baby.

Probably not with Itachi, honestly.

"Of course, Kei-kun! If you're willing to wear some of Itachi's clothes, you could take a bath upstairs."

Rae looked over her shoulder. Itachi, despite pretending to be not listening in on their conversation, was inching away slowly with red ears. She grinned.

"Sure! A bath sounds nice. I've been moving around in mud all day, uck!"

Itachi's shoulders fell dejectedly.


Rae tries not to be in the bath for too long. As nice as it would be to escape from the hell of being surrounded by seven rowdy coyote pups and one human baby - Sasuke, of course - she was not cruel enough to leave all of that to Mikoto or Itachi, eventfully considered the only two mature people around while Rae was gone.

So, getting out of the warm water roughly fifteen minutes later was a chore for her, but it was a chore she got done.

When she began putting on the clothing given to her a few moments ago, however, she pauses. Itachi was growing already, and in the months that she's known him he had shot up a few inches already. She was still clinging onto the last threads of her height, but he was already an inch taller than her by now. His clothes would fit, not problem, but it still made her sour to think of the way the black shirt was just barely big enough to occasionally slip down her shoulder. Not enough to be considered inappropriate, but enough for her to be constantly reminded that she was no longer taller than her Uchiha companion.

Donning the high collared black shirt and the black shorts that reached just past her knees, she padded out of the warm bathroom silently and into the cold hallway. It wasn't really cold, not all that much at least, but the room had been steamed up with warm air and so the rest of the world felt so much colder to her now.

She padded down the wooden steps with only slight creaking, and paused when she noticed the noises.

Or, rather, the lack of noises.

She was suddenly very wary, and jumped down the last few steps altogether. Feeling rather proud of the fact that she didn't stumble when she landed, she looked around cautiously.

They were all asleep.

Rae looked around at the pile of sleeping creatures. She could clearly see where Umi and Kira were, as they both had differently colored fur than the rest, but all of the other coyotes spiky, brown tufts of fur blended in with each other until it looked like one large lump of brown fur. Sasuke was there, too, laying on top of one of the many bodies of brown fur, while Tsuru's head rested in his lap. His chubby hand was resting on the back of one of the others pups, as if he had fallen asleep while in the process of petting one of them. Aside from the occasional whine in their sleep, it was silent as they all dozed in one big puppy pile.

Rae stared, wide eyed.

How. How did Mikoto make them all calm down in the fifteen minutes I was gone, when I've been trying for over ten hours?!

She chalked it up to the fact that Mikoto had to raise Sasuke. He had enough energy in him to last for days. Of course she'd be able to put a bunch of pups to sleep with her mothering skills.

Rae looked around the room, suddenly uncomfortable at the idea of staring at a four year old boy sleep. No matter how cute the scene was, it was still creepy. So, she tiptoed around the pile and made her way to the front door. Mikoto and Itachi weren't in the room with them, and when she made her way to the front, she saw Itachi's slippers were still there by the front door while his blue sandals were missing. He must have left the house, then.

She grumbles about being left behind as she stuffs her sandals onto her feet, occasionally pushing Itachi's shirt higher up onto her shoulders.

She shuts the front door behind her silently in the hopes of not waking up the sleeping children, both animal and human alike, and began jogging out of the house's front gates. When she was past the gates and she was certain they wouldn't wake up with every little noise she made, she grinned and began running away from the house.

She made her way through a few twists and turns that were slightly familiar to her by now, and her grin widened when she came upon a familiar scene.

Her Uchiha teacher was standing in the center of the clear training grounds, arms crossed across his chest with a scowl on his features. Honestly, she was too used to Manabu-sensei for it to really work on her, so she simply let out a sheepish wave and made her way over to him.

"Sorry I'm late Sensei, I had to take a bath at Mikoto-sama's house."

He blinked at the excuse, then sighed roughly. He was probably used to her ridiculous excuses by now, even if it's only been two days.

"Today we'll be learning more on the fireball jutsu, the basic Fire Jutsu that every Uchiha is pushed to learn."

Rae grinned.

"You won't be doing it today, though."

She pouted.

She knew, of course. Her Uchiha teacher never really had let her do any of the Fire Jutsus he had been teaching her. He would talk about it for an hour or so, make sure she was listening, demonstrate the jutsu, and then crush her hopes and dreams whenever she asked if she could do it, too. She pouted every time. Kenta had let her do water jutsu from the very beginning, so why couldn't she do fire jutsus? Why were the two so different that she wasn't allowed to even begin one of them when she already excelled in the other?

"Do you understand, Kei-sama?"

She pouted, but nodded along anyway.

"Hai, Satoshi-sensei."


And so passed her Fire Ninjutsu training. She did none of the Jutsus, simply watching an jotting down a few things in her mind that she thought was interesting, and watched Satoshi-sensei do all the cool jutsus.

Nearly an hour and a half passed like that, and Rae wondered if the Coyotes would be alright without her. Now, don't get her wrong, she isn't foolish enough to think that they couldn't handle themselves. They may not be a functioning team right now, and they sure as hell aren't very strategic when it comes to thinking things through, but should it ever come down to it, they do know how to protect themselves and each other.

Not to mention a fair few of them knew a few nasty jutsus to throw around. She knows for a fact she could have gotten seriously injured when she had gotten stuck in one of Akio's Earth Jutsus, if it weren't for Ari managing to bite him into submission before the damn pup felt the need to drop half the clearing onto her head.

"Are you paying attention, Kei-sama?" An irritable voice comes from above her. Rae startles in her seat on the ground and looks up at the voice, only slightly cringing away at Satoshi-sensei's angry scowl.

His scowl was a little more fierce than Manabu-sensei's was, mostly because Manabu-sensei just always looked angry, while Satoshi-sensei really was angry.

He sighed, crossing his arms and looking down at her with the typical Uchiha Look. You know the look. The one that made everyone feel so insignificant to them? Yeah, that one.

"I said to attempt the Jutsu, but if you weren't listening..."

Rae startles again, but this time out of sheer surprise rather than simply being caught off guard. She immediately jumps up to her feet, her hands clenched into fists by her side and a wide, wide grin on her features.

"No, no, no! I was listening! Show me the Jutsu, I can totally do it!"

Satoshi-sensei looked like he either wanted to be smug about getting her to pay attention, or have an aneurism from her enthusiasm. Ugh, happiness, I'm going to die, Rae mentally mocks, but she lets none of that slip onto her face in the fear that he might catch onto it and not let her do a Fire Jutsu.

He sighs roughly, but begins to repeat the hand signs needed for whatever jutsu he was about to show her.

Rae copies them excitedly. Finally, finally after waiting for so long - for three days, that is - she would finally get to do a fire jutsu! There was an enourmous amount of excitement and joy in her at the idea of getting to learn two separate nature affinities, something that most couldn't do well into their Chunin or even Jounin lives. She was doing it before she was even a Genin. She felt giddy about the idea of being able to show off something like this.

Then she thought of her sister, and her grin promptly fell.

...What would her fire look like? Rae never learned why exactly Kamiko Shimizu was called the White Flame of Konoha. She didn't know if it was simply a monikor, a title for a technique that she had used a few times, or if it had something to do with her actual flames itself. She already knew her sister had a Fire affinity. Would Rae's fire come out white? Would it be the normal bright red?

She is yanked from her thoughts when Satoshi-sensei opens his mouth and exhales a steady stream of hot, bright red fire. It reaches a few meters and disappears as quickly as it appears, lighting the small wooden log that he had been aiming at on fire. He wastes no time in turning to look at Rae expectantly.

She takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. She hadn't molded the chakra yet, hadn't done the hand signs yet, so it wasn't a breath of fire. Satoshi-sensei looked a little less than patient at the moment, however, and Rae gulped as she begins molding her chakra with the hand signs.

She pauses at the last sign. Her fingers bent in the Horse sign, she lets her eyes widen as she holds her breath - she wasn't going to make the same mistake she made the first time she tried spitting a jutsu out - and feels the chakra swirling inside of her.

This was not the same as Water chakra. Water chakra was cold, feeling as if icy waves after waves were crashing into her body when she molded that kind of chakra.

This chakra... it was warm. So smooth and soft and warm. It encompassed her entire body, although it was much hotter in the center of her stomach, where she knew from Manabu-sensei's teachings that her chakra usually pooled. Her entire body warmed up in an instant, as if she were sitting in front of a camp fire on a cold night. It was comforting and the warmth spread over her like a soft blanket.

She inhaled, then exhaled.

A small stream of fire flew from her lips, close enough to her face to crack her lips in the excessive heat. It was a small stream, not even half as large as the stream of fire Satoshi-sensei had used. It was not nearly as wide or as hot as his had been when he used the Fire jutsu, either.

But most of all, it was not red.

She looked on in an odd kind of fascination at the oddly colored fire. She cut off the jutsu before her breath was even finished, lowing her hands and cutting off all chakra past her lungs. She looked off to the side at her current Uchiha teacher in question, and he looked back at her with an odd expression. Not fear, not anger, and not even confusion. Just a contemplative look, as if a theory he had held had suddenly just been proven and he didn't know whether he liked it or not.

"So it is true, then," he begins, his voice having the same odd sort of contemplation to it that his face held. His eyes spun, then, and they turned from the usual Uchiha black to a deep shade of red that Rae recognized as the Sharingan. He looked at the flames on the other side of the clearing, then looked back at her, as if he was seeing something else for a second.

Seeing someone else for a second.

"You are the younger sibling to Kamiko Shimizu."

Rae paused, and her brows furrowed. Was there ever any question that she was? She hadn't known people were doubting whether or not she was Kamiko's younger sister. Then she thought why does that matter.

She was pretty sure the 'White Flame' of Konoha did not have blue fire.

"W-why is that important?"

Rae curses herself out mentally for stuttering. Now was the worst time of all to appear weak, especially in front of an Uchiha of all people. The damn people could smell the blood in the water - or, rather, she supposed they could see the blood in the water from a mile away.

Satoshi-sensei looked at her quizzically, before closing his eyes and letting out a tired sigh. He opened them again and they were back to being the normal shade of dark onyx.

"Has anyone ever spoken to you about your sister? Since you came back, I mean."

She shakes her head no, still confused and on edge. Satoshi-sensei was one of the people who knew of her memory loss, which would explain why he would have to ask if anyone else has told her about her sister. Rae didn't really know if her memory loss was supposed to be kept a secret or not, but she didn't see why someone would want to keep something like that a secret. She didn't mind people knowing she was not Keiko.

His brows furrow, and for just a second he looks angry. Not at her, though, and Rae can't place who he must be feeling angry at. She feels angry too.

"Sit," he commands, and she promptly does so in the exact spot she was standing in. He crosses his arms over his chest and opens his mouth to speak. He's silent for a moment, closes his mouth to swallow, then begins again.

"Kamiko Shimizu was known as the White Flame of Konoha for a reason." Duh, she knew that already. His eyes narrowed on her, as if he could tell she was thinking that, and she quickly looked down. He continued after a moment of silence. "The Hakuen Technique was why. When your sister was young, younger than you are now, the Third Shinobi War broke out across the Nations. It started small, a few sabotages here, an assassination there. Things that could be ignored."

Rae makes a face at the idea of someone ignoring an assassination, but she's silent as she allows the older man to continue.

"But when it got worse, much worse, many young children were sent out to fight in the war. Some as back up, and some, on the front lines. Your sister was one of the few young ones who were unfortunate enough to have been chosen to fight on the front lines. This was because she had shown potential. She was powerful. Because of it, she was sent out to kill other children half her age. It was a terrible, bloody life for a child that young, but it was her duty, and she accepted it.

"She fought, and killed, and she lived. She hated it, but she did it. However, the fact that she survived the front lines of war meant that she was strong enough for war, so she was sent out again and again."

He hesitates for a moment then, and Rae feels curious enough to look up at him. He looked angry again.

"She was nine years old when she invented the Hakuen. The 'White Flames'. Did anyone ever tell you that she had both a Fire and Water affinity, like you do?" He didn't wait for a nod or a shake of the head, and continued on. "Her fire came out blue, just like yours does. Then, one day, her squad was hit by something.. something rather powerful. It was too much for her team to take on, and though they sent for backup, it was not enough. Nearly her entire squad died. A scarce few survived, her included. When your sister saw the death of her comrades, the death of the people she had been forced to look after for so long, a new power awoke.

"For the longest time, people thought it had to be a Kekkai Genkai, a bloodline ability. There was no way someone could one day wake up and start spewing out fire hot enough to burn the water right out of the air. Hell," he gave a single, wry laugh. "A few compared it to the Sharingan. A powerful ability that would only awaken when someone has reached the peak of their emotions. But, I am not telling you this to discuss what that power was or how it came to be. The point is, she started using white flames. It was an accident the first time, but she learned from it. She honed this new ability of hers, until it was something people learned to fear. It took a lot of her chakra, for sure, but it could decimate entire camps of our enemies in one fell swoop... But there was one flame that she could not perfect. The last Fire Jutsu she ever did. Tell me, do you know how your sister died?"

Rae shakes her head no slowly, trying to wrap her mind around everything she was being told. What did he mean, she just suddenly woke up with white fire one day? Was it not something she learned to do? Was it really a bloodline ability? Would she have it one day? Why does Satoshi-sensei know all of this?

"She died because she went up against something powerful - the same powerful thing that killed nearly her entire team when she was nine years old. She knew, then, that she could not defeat it with simple fire jutsus alone. She distracted it, and her allies fell back. They trusted her. Their trust was not misplaced. She saved their lives that day, by giving up her own.

"Shirou Bakudan. The first time she ever used it was also the last time she ever used it. The White Bomb. Not a very creative name, I know, but it was what she deigned to call it whenever she spoke of it, so it was what everyone knew it by."

Silence. Rae hesitates, but she finally manages to lift her head to look into the dark, dark eyes of her sensei. He looked at her, without seeing her. She wondered if he was seeing her sister now, in her place. There was a pained expression in his eyes.

"What... what did it do..?" Rae speaks, her voice cracks halfway through. She doesn't even have the mind to hate herself for how weak she sounded in that instance. Curiosity burned in her, but most of all, a swirling of other emotions she could not place took root in her chest, squeezing until her heart ached for some unfathomable reason. Satoshi-sensei looked down at her, and for just a split second, she thought he felt the same aching in his heart she was feeling. He opened his mouth to speak, and his eyes darkened with an unspoken and unseen memory of something she knew not of.

"It killed everything."


((A/N: Um. Ta-da? I don't know how I feel about this chapter? I wanted to talk a little more about Kamiko without giving too much away, and it feels kind of eh to me. Whatever. Let me know what you guys think about it instead.

This chapter had very little in the way of her coyote buddies, I know, but since they're going to be in literally almost every chapter afterwards, I think that's okay from time to time lol.

Question!: What do you think this 'something powerful' that Kamiko went up against was? Hint: it's not an original creature. It's something that is canonically in the show and manga both 8)

ALSO, as mentioned above, I'll be writing several omakes for my side story, Naruto Tidbits! INCLUDING AN OMAKE ABOUT KAMIKO :D So go read it when it's done! Which should either be tonight or tomorrow, since I am filled with ideas to write about Kamiko and her life. l

See you next time around! Leave reviews, reviews are love!))