OOOOoooOO

Chapter 28: Splitting Hairs

OooOooOOoO

"Argh! I have three more tails then you! Why do you keep winning?" Sotan groused.

"Some things are not about power." OAF replied smugly, raking in the winnings.

"Ch!" Sotan huffed. "So... what's it like being summoned, anyway?"

"Changing the subject from your abject defeat, eh?" OAF snickered. When the buff colored fox bristled before the white continued. "I'll allow it, as the new subject is quite interesting." They both leaned forward, the collection of game tiles and bone winnings forgotten for the moment. "It is the best decision that the Lord has made since the bald monkeys sensitized to chakra. So many of us are killed, as you know... but if you are killed when you are summoned- you just come back here! Plus it is fun!"

"Fun how?" Sotan scooched forward.

"Well- you are summoned to attack humans. But you have a human on your side, too. They do those funny things with their fingers to help you. And you get their power as your own while you're there, at least a little bit."

"And the Lord's kit has a ton of power..." Sotan trailed off, his eyes going distant.

"You got it." OAF grinned.

"I think next time I might..." The two foxes stopped talking and flew backward from each other, barely missing being squished by a giant foot.

"Hey, what the..." OAF stopped, his eyes bugging out slightly. "Is that...?"

"What is she doing here?" Sotan hissed, trotting around the tanuki warily.

"Yes, kill, they don't love you like I love you, feed your mother with blood..." The giant hissed, sending reverberations through the forest.

"She has the same look that the Lord usually does." OAF commented, dancing uneasily on all four tiptoes, his two tails lashing so quickly around each other they almost tangled.

"That's... exactly what she looks like." Sotan mused, pacing after the large coondog nervously. "can you see a human?"

"What do you mean can I see a human? Are you on some kind of drug?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Being able to peer into the human world is one of those things that requires power not anything more ephermeral." Sotan smirked. "Ah, there it is. A small red-headed thing. Eugh... that human does not look healthy."

"The one-tail was trapped?" OAF asked, a twinkle in his eye. "But the Boss has never been fool enough to be trapped." He said confidently.

Sotan looked at the other fox with a wry smile. "No." He said finally. "But she is occupying a human and paying attention to their reality. It makes how they travel very linear, their time-sense constrained, their general appearance distracted. That was a good call."

"So what do we do about it?"

"The Lord is in no shape to battle the intruder." Sotan mused.

"But she's the only one with the tails to be able to!"

"I know." Sotan scowled. "When they are trapped in the humans they seem to be unable to cause trouble here. Plus the Lord's mate's protections seem to be holding relatively well..." He barked in frustration. "I don't know!"

"Well next time we are summoned you could tell the kit." OAF offered. "If they can get rid of the human carrying the one-tail, then problem solved, no?"

OoOoOoO

"Hi Bastard! Pinkie! Douche-bag! Lazy Pervert!" Naruto called out, causing Team 7 to cringe and then sigh. Except for Sai, who simply smiled the same as he usually did.

"Naruto what..." Kakashi started, then noted who else was walking beside the hyperactive blond. He stiffened.

"Sensei? Is it really ok for them to come to our team meeting? I'm going to be fighting Naruto unless Ino-pig beats him." Sakura said, then coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like 'no way'.

"It is, you fool girl, as I refuse to make Naruto look like he is kicking a puppy when he fights you." Musume growled.

"Hrn!" Sasuke snorted, crossing his arms.

"What's wrong Sasuke?" Naruto whispered, loud enough, of course, for everyone to hear him.

"Hn!"

"Oh, because she's training someone else again, not you? I thought your brother was going to train you?"

Sasuke closed his eyes, as if in pain.

"Itachi won't be that bad! He only has one eye, ne?"

"Naruto." Musume scolded. "You should know by now that Uchiha are cheap enough that having two eyes just adds to their fun, not make them more effective at overpowering opponents. I'm sure Itachi can find multiple ways to get Sasuke stronger that involve intense emotional pain. That is what he's best at."

Naruto squinted his eyes shut. "Hmm. I'm sorry Musume-chan." He turned back to Sasuke. "But he's your brother, so he won't do anything too damaging!" Naruto grinned, though it faltered slightly at Musume's barely stifled bark of laughter.

Sasuke let out a very un-Uchiha groan.

Musume grinned evilly before turning to face the rest of Team 7. "Well. Like Sasuke grunted, I'm training you, pinkie."

"Why her, cunt-rag?" Sai asked.

"You want to train me?" Sakura squeaked at the same time.

Musume gave the pale boy a long look. She had never had any particularly strong feelings either way about Replacement-Sasuke, though he did seem to be turning said Uchiha slowly insane when they were both on one team... which was always a plus. "You know, I really want to find you funny, but I have a feeling you have a legitimate mental disease, and that would probably be against some social more." Musume mused.

She then turned back to answer Sakura. "Yes. You are pathetic." Sakura visibly wilted. "Unless Kakashi objects?" Kakashi threw up his hands surprisingly quickly. Musume narrowed her eyes. Why was he so willing to surrender? It was suspicious. "Weren't we not on speaking terms?"

"Uh..." Kakashi's visible eye flicked to the side quickly, then back to look at Musume.

"You're really that bad of a sensei? You would just let someone you hate steal away one of your students without even a 'be good'?" Musume was almost annoyed enough to want to rescind her offer.

"..." Kakashi's eye shut in a nervous eye smile and sweat started to form on his brow.

"You weren't going to train her at all, were you? Why the hell not?" Musume stomped up to him, poking her finger into his chest. "Females are worth the time and effort just as much as males. And you can't just overpower one member of your team or rely on your own skills to get through missions!" Musume continued to wind up, endless loops of frustration boiling over and combining with her general stressed state.

"Kakashi, I..." Keisai stopped what she had been saying, as the leaves settled around her from her quick movement. She felt a chill down her back at unmistakable presence of her clan head poking the ninja in question. Both Kakashi and Musume froze, the Uchiha in confusion, Kakashi with sweat now running down the side of his face.

"You look rather... guilty." Musume noted, looking between her clan member and the Kakashi's single visible eye, which was now open and looking dilated.

"Keisai is with them all the time!" Naruto said helpfully. "She sometimes helps us train, but usually her and Kakashi go off somewhere..."

"Him!" Musume burst out in surprise.

"Um..." Keisai started, but shrugged helplessly when she could find nothing to say.

"Oh, that hardly even counts!" Musume protested. "He has a Sharingan!"

"Implanted!" Keisai protested hotly.

"You are splitting hairs, kiddo." Musume growled.

"What?" Naruto looked between the three adults, turning to the other genin, but they were no help. "Is this about the baby?"

Everyone looked at him in shock.

"Or the marriage?" Naruto hazarded.

"How do you know that?" Keisai asked, scandalized, right as Musume burst out "Marriage!"

"Heh heh!" Naruto looked pleased with all the horrified attention. "Trade secrets!"

Musume was torn between being proud and wanting to strangle the brat. "Wedding?" She growled instead.

"Uh... in a few weeks. That is, if you approve our proposal." Keisai said nervously, moving closer to Kakashi. Musume's eyes pinched closed when the stoic copy nin wrapped his hand around Keisai's protectively.

"Of course I approve." Musume sighed. "I'm beginning to get the feeling that only Itahi and Shisui actually read thee damn proposal. All up in arms about something that they don't even understand at all!" She pumped her fist into the air in frustration. "Why such a sheep mentality?" She bemoaned.

"You approve?" Keisai asked in stunned disbelief.

"Ask me one more time and I'll say 'no'." Musume grumbled.

"Thank you!" Keisai squealed, glomping her surprised clan head.

"Um..." Musume held her arms out to the side helplessly, though fortunately it was soon over.

Keisai ran back to her fiancée and snuggled up against him. "See, it wasn't that bad." She said, beaming. Kakashi put his arms around her slowly and then looked up at Musume, a complex expression in his one visible eye.

"I have to go." Musume said quickly, starting off. She suddenly stopped and pointed at Sakura. "I'll see you here tomorrow at dawn. And bring that blond friend of yours." Sakura opened her mouth in protest. "No buts! I don't care what your current squabble is, bring her or I will do terrible things to everything you hold dear. Ask Kakashi." She snapped, before whirling on one foot and running away as fast as she could and not slip into demon-space. At this rate, if she did, she would immediately give birth.

She was feeling a maelstrom of emotions, most hormonally driven, so she could mostly ignore it, but some were all hers. She was growling and snapping to herself and not really paying attention to where she was going, which is why when she tripped she went crashing through two trees before smacking into a third. "First fox's hairy ballsack!" She snarled incoherently, untangling herself from the trees and pouncing on what she had tripped on. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

They had been knocked apart, but it was obvious that Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui were acting like slightly more than 'just friends'.

"Of course. Awesome. This makes my day." Musume punched a tree to the side of her so hard it exploded. She turned back to three Mangekyo eyes staring at her. She instinctively dropped into a crouch and started to snarl.

"Uchiha-sama, we can explain."

"Explain why you are making those eyes at your clan head when I specifically told you to be careful with them or explain why you are disobeying my order about Uchiha-Uchiha relationships?" Musume snarked.

Both Uchiha looked a bit guilty, but did not take off their Sharingan, nor even lower it to a more normal level.

Musume sighed, suddenly feeling tired. "I'm not mad at you two."

"You're not?" Shisui asked dubiously.

"No." Musume's eyes flicked to the trees with some chagrin. "Despite the destruction to the contrary."

"We are disobeying you." Itachi pointed out in a monotone.

"Well, I suppose. But I did say Shisui could use it with my supervision and I never mentioned it to you. I figured you would have enough sense not to show those eyes to anyone. But perhaps I should have been more explicit..."

"You knew?" Itachi asked, surprise barely coloring his voice.

Musume snorted. As if her luck was good enough that the traumatizing experience that gave Shisui his mangy eyes would not give Itachi the same. Especially since the one thing Uchiha had bigger than their egos and tendency towards being totally emo was a misplaced guilt complex.

"But... we were..."

"Lalala! No details. Can't handle that right now. Anyway, no children, no foul in my mind. You two won't be making inbred babies with each other."

"That's true..." Shisui allowed. Both of their eyes relaxed back to black as they looked at each other in confusion.

"For clarity, you are sanctioning our relationship?" Itachi said slowly.

"It seems like I'm sanctioning everyone's relationships but my own." Musume grumbled to herself before she waved a hand dismissively. "You can always donate your sperm later." Both males choked on that. "Oh, whatever. You can do it in a cup or something." She turned around and looked at the trees, strangely sad. Their lives were over, and for no other reason than she had tripped then lost her temper. "I see now why you always had such a stick up your ass. You probably enjoyed it."

Itachi pretended they could not hear her, though the blooms of red over his cheekbones showed they he was not entirely successful.

"Uchiha-sama, that goes too far." Shisui said nervously.

Musume turned back to him, her eyebrow lifting. "Oh, the oppressed asks for rights?" Shisui winced and Itachi's eye started to bleed red again. Musume grinned. "Good for you."

Shisui looked to his lover in helpless confusion again.

"It is probably impossible to understand her. Her logic is practically inhuman." Itachi said softly.

Musume looked at the Uchiha sharply, but his expression gave away nothing. "You two should know at least, that I like it when things are changed." she said finally, her eyes not watching Itachi. He had always been such a dangerous one.

"What do you mean, 'everyone but yourself'?" Shisui asked, breaking the tension.

"What?" Musume asked.

"Uh... never mind. We'll just be on our way." Shisui said nervously.

"No. You know what- I will rant to you two." Musume said, smacking her fist into her palm. "Why is it that Minato thinks our relationship is so taboo? We are the correct sex, similar age..." In the relative sense, sort of... "already mated for kami's sake! And everyone knows about it anyway. It looks like we are hiding what we are not hiding this way, doesn't it?"

"Well..." Shisui hedged.

"Yes." Itachi replied, his lip twitching, unsure whether it wanted to curve up or down.

"Itachi!" Shisui hissed, flicking his eyes to the clan head nervously.

"She agreed to an exchange of confidences, we will not be revealed." Itachi said confidently

"When? And all she has said so far is stuff that is going to come out eventually."

Musume snorted. "You two will have to come out eventually, as well." Shisui twitched unhappily. "But it will not be I that makes that decision." She added. "That is not a fun sort of chaos- people will lose their mind to their irrational and boring prejudices. Maybe once we free Orochimaru and set him up with some young spry lad, preferably a turned spy or a former missing nin..." Musume trailed off, smiling happily.

"That... won't happen, will it?" Shisui asked worriedly.

Musume grinned, but her teeth looked to sharp to be joyful.

"Stranger things have been made to happen." Itachi's mouth was now decided on a definite curve upward.

"Well." Shisui said carefully. "Why don't you then make something not-so-strange happen?"

Musume tilted her head to the side.

Shisui coughed. "Just make him marry you."

Musume looked at him with big eyes. "How?"

Itachi nodded to the felled and exploded trees. "You are quite angry, and quite powerful, are you not?"

Musume's slow smile lit up her face. "So I am, aren't I?" Something that was becoming easy to forget in her self-inflicted mediocrity and human-riding vacation from demon space. Something that she could make Minato remember... without hurting him too badly, of course. Her hormones and... feelings wouldn't allow for that.

"He is spurning you and making you sit in the cold like a guilty teenager when you should be treated like a precious thing." Itachi said, almost perfectly calm. Shisui started to say something, but he stilled at Itachi's raised eyebrow telling him to wait and see.

Musume's eyes narrowed, her rage coming back to the forefront from the simmer it had calmed to. "I have a dandelion head to see about an attitude problem." She said, right before dashing off so quickly it seemed she had teleported- or used Body Flicker.

"You are good." Shisui said in awe. Itachi's lip finished its curl into a full self-satisfied smirk.

OOooOoOOooOo