Recommended Story: 'Parents Returned' by dracohalo117
Chapter Twenty-Nine
'I am so nervous about this.' Sakura thought while waiting in a room Kushina had brought her to within the castle and left her inside. 'How will they react to hearing this? We're already trying to figure out how to make this work, and this new change will only make it harder.' She paused to put a hand on her stomach, not sure why other than it helped her feel better.
"The one thing I can be sure of is that Naruto-kun will not be upset." She said softly to herself. "He will be surprised, and many a bit uncertain of if he can be a good father, but I know he will be there for me and never abandon me. Hinata... I think she might be a little jealous, honestly I couldn't blame her, but I don't think she'll be angry at me."
The doorknob turned, immediately getting her attention, and she saw the door open with Naruto and Hinata come in. Seeing the blue eyes of her mate, Sakura smiled and felt as if all her worry had evaporated.
"Hey Sakura-chan, Mom said you wanted to tell us something?" Naruto greeted, closing the door. "You alright?"
"I'm fine, I just got some news." She answered, then looked to Hinata for a minute. "Actually, would it be okay if I talked to Hinata first for a moment? Just to clarify something between us girls?"
Naruto nodded. "Sure, I'll be outside." He went back into the hall, leaning against the wall.
"Hinata, you're okay with me being with Naruto-kun for the rest of our lives right?" Sakura asked.
Hinata tapped the orange ring on the pinkette's arm. "Would you have this if I wasn't? Besides, we went over this alright so why bring it up again?"
"Thing is, my news is kind of... big, and I wanted to make sure you wouldn't freak out or something."
"Why would I freak out?" Hinata asked.
"Hinata, I'm pregnant. And it's Naruto-kun's." Sakura confessed.
Hinata blinked. "Well I would hope so."
"You okay with this? I mean, I know you probably wanted to be the one who got pregnant first and all." Sakura said.
"I admit I am a little jealous, but not enough to get angry about. Besides, given how you became a succubus before me I shouldn't be too surprised. I don't have to be the first in everything among Naruto-kun's girl."
Sakura smiled, feeling a lot better. "Thanks Hinata. Now it's time to tell Naruto-kun."
"How do you think he'll react?" Hinata couldn't help but ask.
Sakura kept her smile and briefly glanced to the door. "I have faith that he will be happy. Family and love are important to Naruto-kun, and now I'm giving him more of that."
"Let's try to keep this a secret within the group. I don't think I like the idea of the local residents finding out about this." Hinata suggested.
Sakura nodded. "Agreed. Even if we did get off on the wrong foot, I'm not going to trust them on this when they themselves admit it's okay to separate a mother from her child for years."
"Tsunade, please hurry back." Jiraiya said to himself while filling in for his wayward teammate. "You made your point already, now you can come back."
There was a knock at the door, and rather than wait for permission to enter Homura and Koharu invited themselves inside.
"Jiraiya, when is that petulant woman coming back?" Homura asked right away.
Jiraiya frowned. "Let's try this again, only this time you knock at the door and wait until I give the okay for you to enter. That sound good to you two?"
"Answer the question boy. You're not the hokage so you can't refuse us." Koharu practically threatened.
Jiraiya stood up. "And you're not the hokage so you can't give orders."
"Now see here-"
"No, you see here! What is your job title?" Jiraiya cut in.
"Don't interrupt me." Koharu complained.
Jiraiya kept his firm look. "I said what is your job title?"
The old woman looked perplexed by this. "We are the elder advisers to the hokage. What does it matter?"
"Since you asked..." The peeping tom said, now looking a little more smug as he pulled out a book and opened it to a page that had been indicated by a bookmark. "I thought that with multiple members of the civilian council so obviously losing sight of what their actual roles are and thus assuming what their limits are, I'd look up the legal parameters of each role in the village government. Remind them what their job and range of authority actually is. And of course to be fair and thorough, that means I checked all roles, not just civilian."
Both Homura and Koharu tensed slightly. "What is your point?" Homura challenged.
"My point is I found a few things about the roles of the elder advisers that may surprise a few people to learn. So tell me, do you both know what being an elder adviser actually means? Or do you both need a reminder of your job too?"
"We know what our jobs are." Homura insisted.
Jiraiya smirked. "Let's see about that then." He looked at the book. "Elder advisers, originally created to honor the oldest veterans for their years of faithful service, oh, what have we here? According to this, it's not a paid position."
"Preposterous!" Koharu all but shouted, looking like she wanted to slam her hands on something.
Jiraiya ignored her. "As outlined by the Nidaime Hokage Senju Tobirama when Konoha first started realistically getting experienced elder shinobi, the position is given to a limited number of elders because it would be unrealistic to have all elderly shinobi be at council meetings. To make it fair for everyone, and because he felt people shouldn't be paid solely for having an opinion, Nidaime-sama established the position as completely voluntary and done pro bono."
"Maybe it started out that way, but it's not that way anymore." Koharu stated.
"I thought you might say that, but the fact is even if it is now a paid position, it was never meant to be hoarded by two people. Rather elders were meant to take turns, to prevent the advice provided by the elders from getting stagnant and irrelevant. Paid for each time advice was requested, not something to be made into a salary, and elders only showed up to meetings when requested. They were not to show up each time like the meeting couldn't happen without them. And even if that's changed too, your role has no authority whatsoever. You can't even give orders to an academy student, let alone a jounin or sannin like myself."
As anyone even a little familiar with the two senior shinobi would expect, they did not look the least bit pleased to hear this. "If you think you can get rid of us you sniveling brat, you couldn't be more mistaken." Koharu warned.
"Oh, I think otherwise. You two have been doing this for over a decade consecutively. More if we count the time Minato was hokage. That's roughly five hundred meetings you've been to at the least. You two have absolutely no knowledge or advice left to give that you haven't already given before. And if you do, that makes me suspect you're withholding valuable information for a reason." Jiraiya's eyes got a brief gleam. "So which is it? Are you just repeating yourselves, or are you withholding intel? It's one or the other and both are reason to remove you from your jobs."
"We don't have to take this. We have a good thing here and we're not giving it up for anything." Homura proclaimed. Having to take no missions, no requirements except show up somewhere and say a few words, and let the hokage deal with the consequences of things going wrong. It was practically being paid to sit on your ass. No way these two were going to give that up for anything short of death.
"Then you won't mind my new policy. Elder advisers must undergo a regular mental health exam to ensure they aren't suffering from senility, dementia, or other old people problems that compromise the quality of their advice. If you two insist you still have use, I want a professional to verify it. Refuse, and you're too much a risk to be taken seriously and therefore will be completely suspended from the role."
Homura and Koharu looked predictably unhappy with this. "What makes you think you can get away with this?"
"I'm the acting hokage. So until Tsunade comes back, what I say goes. But go ahead and disobey. With what happened to Naruto and Tsunade recently we're very interested in seeing just how loyal the people of this village actually are when they have to prove it. So please, by all means, show me who you think truly knows what's best for Konoha."
The two elders kept sporting their dirty looks, but they left the office without another word.
Satisfied, Jiraiya turned his chair around to look out the window and see all of Konoha. "All the pieces are falling into place. Soon we'll find out just what this village really values." He paused for a moment, looking a little pensive. "I just hope that if things go to hell, Tsunade has her own end ready."
Tenten sighed as she just walked through the village, having no true destination in mind. She wasn't trying to get away, more away from somewhere. More specifically, her own thoughts. But of course one cannot simply walk away from their own mind.
'Neji is being put in an arranged engagement? And he's not immediately fighting it?' This was the predominant issue for her at the present.
When Hiashi came brought this up to the Branch House prodigy, Neji had of course been surprised. But he did not given in to that surprise, rather he had responded maturely and agreed to at least meet the woman though he made no promises that he would accept her as a fiancee before then. Hiashi looked like this was fine, but his words made it sound like Neji was obligated to not deny this anytime soon, and Neji seemed to understand.
'What the hell? Just when Neji's starting to break out of his fate fixation, he goes right back to accepting whatever role the clan head assigns him? Even if he doesn't like it?' She asked herself, having gotten the impression that Neji was going with the motions expected of him more than anything here. This was what bothered her the most, aside from one other aspect of this.
"And Neji gets a potential love life before I do?" She asked herself out loud, albeit in a whisper. "I mean, it's not like I've been in a hurry for one. I haven't intended to have one anytime soon, but I did kind of assume that I'd get to date before either Neji or Lee did. Worst part is if I did want to date someone I have no idea who."
The fact of the matter was the weapon expert sadly did not have much of a social life. That seemed to be one of the costs of trying to separate herself from the other girls, the fangirls and the inadequate kunoichi, in her effort to prove herself a competent and serious shinobi. When she needed to be a normal teen and not a shinobi, she barely had anyone to spend time with.
Her team was the focal point of her social life, thus immediately making her first dating options being Neji and Lee. For most of the time she had known him, Neji's high and mighty attitude had been a major turn-off for her. Sure he had gotten better since the Chuunin Exams thanks to Naruto and Hiashi, to the point that he was more bearable to be around long term, but she knew he was still struggling with some of his long held habits and beliefs. Changing a paradigm was hard, and while he seemed to accept that life wasn't scripted out in advance, he still kind of put himself on a pedestal, just not one as high as before. If he learned some more humility and how to be less serious she might have considered him an option in time, though this whole engagement business threw that option practically out the window.
When it came to Lee, as nice as he was she just wasn't interested in him. Mostly because of how much he tried to mimic their sensei. Dating Lee would in a sense be little different than dating Gai himself, and that was a box best left unopened. So aside from those guys, the only other options she really had were the other boys that were a year younger than her. Age wasn't the problem, it was the fact that she didn't know any of them at all. Heck she didn't even know the names of all of them.
Sasuke was an automatic no, for reasons too obvious to even waste time justifying. Shikamaru was smart from what she saw in the finals, but he gave off the impression that he intended to be single for a long time if things went his way. The Aburame heir whose name escaped her was similar, and the Inuzuka heir hadn't come across as mature enough for her the one time she saw him. And Naruto wasn't an option considering he wasn't around and Neji's cousin had made her claim to him quite clear.
"This is depressing." Tenten said with a sigh. "Maybe I'm just not ready for a relationship. Hell, I didn't even consider wanting one until this happened with Neji."
"You can come in now Naruto-kun." Hinata said when she opened the door.
"Is everything alright?" He asked as he entered the room. So far Hinata and Sakura looked normal, or at least what was now normal for Sakura.
"There's nothing to worry about. Sakura's just got a surprise for you." The white-eyed girl told her one and only.
Naruto quickly looked concerned and turned his eyes towards the pinkette. "Is there something new about your change?"
Sakura found it really hard to make eye contact with the boy. "Not exactly. But I will be experiencing some new things soon."
"Nothing bad right?"
'Part of me wishes Mom was here, but part of me is glad she's not here to do anything to Naruto-kun for what happened.' She thought, making herself look at the whiskered blonde. "Not really. Some of it will be uncomfortable, but-"
"Sakura, you better just say it." Hinata cut in. "The more you try to sugarcoat it, the more you're only making Naruto-kun think you're in trouble."
Sakura looked to her mate and could tell that Hinata was not wrong. Naruto wasn't panicking, but he did look like he was expecting bad news. "You're right." She then took a deep breath. "Naruto-kun, I'm pregnant."
Naruto blinked. "You are? For sure?" She nodded, and he quickly knelt in front of her to make better eye contact. "Are you okay? Are you... upset?"
"No." She was very quick to say. "I'm nervous, but I am definitely not upset about this. I did want to have kids with you someday, this is just sooner than expected."
"What do we do? It's entirely your decision." He said.
Sakura shook her head. "No Naruto-kun, I didn't get pregnant alone. My decisions regarding what to do about this may outweigh yours, but that doesn't mean you don't get a say. What do you want?"
"I want to keep it." He admitted. "I know I don't know much about families, hell I'm still learning about love and sex. But there's no way I'm going to make any kid of mine have to grow up without any parents."
The pinkette smiled. "Thank you Naruto-kun. As afraid as I am, I know being with you and Hinata will make this easier."
With that, Naruto looked back to his first mate, seeing her smiling. "You okay with this Hinata-chan?"
"I do admit part of me wishes I could have been pregnant first, but I'm not mad I'm not. I have other things I want to do before having kids, so I can wait."
"I have one very important thing to say regarding this baby." Sakura brought up, making the others look towards her. "I don't want it raised here, around the people that took Kushina-okasan from her son. I'm not going to take the chance that anyone here would do the same for my child. Especially if it's a boy. You both know if I have a son they will try to take it."
Naruto and Hinata couldn't help but agree. This might have been overreacting, but they had every reason to suspect this outcome.
"We have to go back to Konoha then." Naruto stated.
"But is that place any safer for it?" Hinata spoke up. "Konoha wasn't exactly nice to Naruto-kun, and all that bad attitude isn't going to go away overnight. Maybe it would be better to find somewhere other than Konoha to bunker down for a bit."
"You sure about that?" Naruto asked. "I mean, I know things can be rough, but what's the worst that can happen? Sakura-chan's parents wanting to kill me?"
"How about that group that want the Kyuubi?" Hinata asked.
"I haven't forgotten them, but what can they do in Konoha that they can't just as easily do in another village?" The whiskered blonde asked back. "If anything, Konoha actually offers the best defense against them for us. The only place that would be better to protect us would be here or some place in the Elemental Nations Akatsuki's never heard of before."
"Hold on Naruto-kun, Hinata's got a point." Sakura added. "While yeah Konoha can defend us from threats outside itself, that doesn't mean we'd be safe from threats already inside it. I mean, not to open old wounds, but when you were younger, weren't you attacked by Konoha citizens more than anyone else?"
Naruto closed his eyes, remembering a few times in the past people had gotten a little too swept up in their dislike of the kyuubi, then reopened them. "People have gotten better though. It's just a few bad people left now that everyone back home is dealing with, right?"
"You really want to take that chance?" Sakura asked. "I'd rather make sure the problem is solved before going back."
Naruto leaned back up. "Like what?"
"Do we even know when we will go back anyway?" Hinata asked. "I don't think Kushina-okasan is done with everything here, and if I remember correctly succubi pregnancy are shorter than humans. You might give birth before we go back."
"Maybe you should." Naruto suggested, surprising the girls. "You said you didn't want anyone taking it from you. If we leave before its born won't that make them want to take it for sure?"
Sakura sighed and laid down on the bed. "There's too much to think about right now. I just want to relax for a moment and just be happy."
An idea came to Hinata. "Well I know one thing that will help make that happen."
Sakura sat up. "Like what?"
"Hey kids, everything okay in there?" Kushina asked as she knocked on the door to the room Sakura had been last seen in. That had been hours ago, and Kushina hadn't seen or heard anything regarding her son or his two girlfriends since then.
'I hope Naruto took the news well.' She thought before putting some of her ninja training to use to pick the lock and steathfully enter the room.
What she saw was clothes strewn across the floor and Naruto sleeping peacefully on the bed with Sakura and Hinata doing the same on either side of him. A blanket covered them all but enough was exposed to make it abundantly clear that none of the three were clothed underneath.
Kushina culdn't help but smile. 'Minato and I did the same when I told him I was pregnant. Well, not the same literally. We never got to have that threesome. My son sure is lucky. Life owes him a little luck.'
Quietly she left the room.
"Making connections with the incubus is not going well."
"We got Kushina to cooperate in time didn't we? We can do the same here."
"But Kushina back then was alone, confused, and going thru an unexpected change. It was easy to get her to comply. Her son is not in the same situation. He can afford to be rebellious, and back it up."
"Then we clearly cannot approach him in a way he could interpret as threatening. Maybe we should have someone try to reason with him. Maybe him see how him staying here can be to his benefit just as much as ours."
"But how do we get his attention without risking his ire?"
"Let that to me."
