Shoichi liked to think he was a pretty average guy. He worked very hard to reach such a state, after all. So it's never a good sign when his team head comes to find him. Usually it's because it's his turn to play Runner during training, but he can already tell that it's something important.

Shoichi's team captain is Seo-taichou, she's much more formal than most shinobi, and he can't actually remember her first name. Which. Is not great.

"Sakurai! You need to go to the Academy."

"Hai Taichou, do you know why?"

"No. Just that it's urgent. Get going." Sao-taichou jumps away, knowing that he'll go. Which he does. Obviously. As anyone who survives more than a single year as a shinobi knows, there's a sixth sense that you start to build. When something is going to go wrong, you're rarely surprising. That feeling, like a suiton jutsu building up behind you, grows in the back of Shoichi's mind as he makes his way to the academy.

In the front yard there is a giant, and obvious fake, tree. It's made of real wood, but it looks more like a cartoon tree, than one found in nature. A sinking feeling makes its way through his chest. His oldest is out of the academy, and his youngest isn't yet in it. So either Asano grew a tree, or Hideo did. Personally he's voting for Asano, because she was the one with the crazy, never re-creatable birth, because that would really make things much easier.

That said, his life has never been easy. So when he enters the front door, and is led to the head teacher's room, and Hideo is sitting there. He knows what's happened, in essence at least.

"Follow me, we are going to the Hokage's office." The head teacher, Rei Yamanaka, says from behind her desk. Shoichi gives his son a significant look, full of, 'what did you do?!' because it's one thing to many sort of have a dead bloodline, and another thing entirely to draw the Hokage's attention.

Shoichi has been in the Hokage's office before, for his rise to chunin for example. Unlike jonin though, chunin don't regularly meet him. Sometimes he will hear a jonin joke about the Hokage, full of respect, but still a joke. Shoichi never has, and never will feel that way about the Third.

He is called God of Shinobi and Grandfather, his children have each called him ojii-san at one point or another. For himself, personally, he can never forget the fact that the Hokage has lived through multiple wars, and taught Orochimaru himself. Shoichi doesn't doubt that the Third is great, he does wonder why people think he is good.

"You many enter," the secretary at the front desk says, with a tired smile. She stands and opens the door so can get in. After bowing and waiting for a minute, the Hokage looks up from his paperwork.

"Rei-chan, what brings you here today? Ah, a student!" The Hokage smiles and Shoichi is reminded that, like all shinobi, he must have been taught how to put others at ease, "and a parent too! Oh my!"

"Hokage-sama," Hideo's teacher bows again, "my student, Hideo Sakurai, grew a tree at the academy." The Hokage's cheerful shuffling of paperwork pauses, ever so slightly, and he puts the papers he was moving down.

"Is that so?" The Hokage asks, when she nods he turns to Hideo, "Can you grow trees?"

"Yep!"

"I see. Can you show me?"

"Um? Do you want a tree in your floor?"

"Fair point, fair point, let's go to somewhere foreign diplomats won't see," the Hokage gives a gentle smile and Hideo giggles.

The Hokage leads them into a large, bright room that Shoichi has never seen before. It is too big for a the space available, which is explained by the seals placed along a seam bisecting the room.

"Could you grow a tree for me here?"

"Yeah? I depends, do you want a tree that'll survive, or one that is just. There. For now. The one at the academy will wither and die pretty soon."

"I see, could you grow one that will survive?"

"I think so? Those ones are harder." Hideo knelt to the floor and placed his hands firmly on the dirt. Or a minute or so, nothing happened, despite the light sweat breaking out on his face. Then the ground shook a little, and a small crack appeared. Hideo stopped and laid down on the ground, shaking slightly.

"Man," he gasped, "I've never grown multiple trees in a day. Gimme a minute." After several heaving breaths he sat back up and placed his hands against the ground once more. This time, quite quickly, a small sprout appeared.

The sprout turned into a sapling and the sapling turned into a tree, and the tree grew up until it brushed the rather high ceiling of the room.

Shoichi turned from the tree to his son, now pale white and shivering despite the layer of sweat.

"He's got chakra exhaustion." Shoichi pointed out, he wouldn't do anything without the Hokage's permission. Most of his emotions were dulled by shock anyway, so he couldn't quite grasp the same urgency he normally would.

"Ah, a medic is coming to do an infusion." The Hokage said, having not even twitched as he prowled around the tree. "Did you know that your son could do such a thing, Sakurai-san?"

"No!" Shoichi gasped, for some reason surprised by the question. It was one thing for Hideo, a 10 year old boy, to hide such a thing, and quite another for an adult chunin, father of four, to do so.

"I didn't imagine you did, but it felt prudent to ask. And Yoko-san, does she know?" The Hokage asked, fingers gently tracing along the bark of the tree.

"She's never mentioned such things to me, but I can't imagine she does," Shoichi said, uncertain. She might not have told him, but she would have told the Hokage.

"Shall I call for her?" The Hokage asked, glancing up at him.

"You could," Shoichi said, adding, "she won't be able to make it up the stairs on her own." So many people forgot about her wheelchair, stuck in memories of Yoko as a young unmarried kunoichi.

"That can be dealt with. This however, is a very serious situation. You understand that your son has been learning the mokuton for a while now, months at least, but I suspect years." The Hokage looked past Shoichi and nodded before a medic rushed to Hideo's side.

Oh. Shoichi paused, realising he had left his 10 year old son lying on the ground in chakra exhaustion.

"Hokage-sama, may I take him to the hospital?" The medic inquired, when the Hokage nodded both Hideo and the medic disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Let us return to my office. Rei, you are dismissed," the Third made his way back out of the room. Shoichi followed, only partially out of terror (mostly because his mind had completely evacuated his body).

A few minutes later Yoko rolled into the office, making Shoichi pause. It should have taken her longer to get here. The streets of Konoha weren't made for wheelchair users, full of cracks and constantly uneven as they were. The Yoko he remembers from years ago did impossible, or at least implausible things regularly, so he shrugged it off.

"Yoko Sakurai, were you aware that your youngest son, Hideo Sakurai, possessed the wood release jutsu known as mokuton?" The Hokage asked, leaning forward slightly in a way that made Shoichi's breathing speed up.

"I was not." Yoko said, looking around the room and nodding slightly before she slid into place beside Shoichi. Shoichi turned to give her a smile when she added,

"But I married Shoichi because Nara blood increases the strength of other bloodlines."

Shoichi didn't freeze. He was a shinobi. Shinobi didn't freeze. He reminded himself that he had told Yoko when they married that he was the last remains of the Nara Shadow Clan (or, had been before Shikaku had his own children). He has told her anyway, what did it matter if she had known in advance?

Well. Actually. I was pretty important. It meant that there was a leak and she somehow learned from her own sources. Which meant someone knew the identities of at least one Shadow Clan. He had never even told Yoshiko.

Furthermore, the effect of Nara blood on other bloodlines was definitely a secret. He only knew it because he was warned not to marry into any bloodlines with obvious physical traits like the Uchiha or Hyuuga as it could have… dangerous consequences.

The Hokage sighed.

"I feared such a thing. Very well. I am about to share an A rank secret with you both. There is another mokuton user within Konoha's ranks. He will identify himself as Yoko's brother and will teacher Hideo to use the mokuton with the understanding that he will be joining ANBU, should he be suitable." Should he be loyal.

Shoichi twitched as a figure appeared on the Hokage's left. He had eerie black eyes, a mockery of Yoko's own dark wide eyes. His hair was only a shade or two darker than Asano's. He wore a faceplate like the one worn by the second Hokage. He looked like Yoko's brother.

"During his time with you, he will go by the name Yohei. He is your younger brother and has been a dedicated shinobi since your eldest child was born. Yohei spends most of his time working long term missions in distant countries. He is almost 10 years younger than Yoko, so you have never been close, which is why they hadn't met him and you don't know very much about each other."

"Hai Hokage-sama," Yoko and the so called 'Yohei' said in unison. Shoichi echoed it a moment later.

"He will move into a nearby building within a week at which point you will introduce him." The Hokage continued, more tense than Shoichi had seen him since the war when he stood on the balcony and declared to Konoha that they were at war. "Shoichi, you may go," The Hokage said with a brief nod while Shoichi moved towards the door, pausing momentarily if he would say the same to Yoko. He did not.

Sometimes he forgot that Yoko had been part of ANBU. Most days she was his wife, the mother of his children, the woman he came home to. In his day to day life he forgot that she used to have use of both her legs. That she had likely murdered hundreds. He forgot that she was so dedicated to Konoha that when Yoshiko went rogue, Yoko killed her.

Yoko killed her sister.

Sometimes it was easy to forget the worst parts of a person when, in so many of their interactions he saw only the best parts of her.

Shoichi walked home slowly, trying very very hard not to think about the changes that were coming into his life. (It was impossible, his brain was analysing the new information without his consent. That said, he could try be purposefully obvious to the outcomes he arrived at. The important thing would be that he tried.)

"You found out, didn't you?" Asano asked. Shoichi's left foot twitched in surprise (he had worked very hard to train his foot to be one of his biggest tells). Somehow he had already arrived home, and Asano was waiting at the door?

"I found out what?" Shoichi probed, dark acceptance sinking into his gut as he remembered the secret his children had been hiding from him years ago. Hideo's chakra exhaustion. Taro's childish attempts at secret keeping Asano, trying to sneak out with her brothers. He had expected (hoped) it would be something easy - like Taro being gay! Or Hideo accidentally using chakra in a fight on the playground. Or Asano having the renown bloodline.

Asano was a good secret keeper. If she had the mokuton he wouldn't have ever had to learn about it because she would have never used it in public.

Most of the time Shoichi liked to pretend that his daughter didn't have nightmares every night, that she recognised references she had no right to recognise. Most nights he pretended that she didn't murmur, and whimper, and plead in gibberish as she laid in bed between him and Yoko. Shoichi sometimes indulged in self deception.

"Tou-san! I'm not silly!" Asano said, using a more childish tone than she ever used naturally. "Nao-sensei said to never tell anyone what you think that they think until they've told you what they think." Then she paused, as if realising that she had made no sense what so ever. "Anyway! Where is Hideo?"

"Hideo is at the hospital, sweetheart." Shoichi said, laying down the sofa, knowing that Asano would take the opportunity to crawl onto him, which she did.

"Why is Hideo in the hospital?" Asano murmured, her head resting on his chest.

"He got chakra exhaustion, he'll be fine tomorrow." Shoichi replied, running a hand through his daughter's hair. It looked so much like that of 'Yohei' that some part of him wondered if Yohei truly was Yoko's brother, and the all that had been said there had been an act specifically for him. As a shinobi, it was important that one accepted the reality to which they were presented though. Killing enemies is good. Enemies killing allies is evil. We are the good guys.

"Hideo recovers from chakra exhaustion really quickly." Asano said, tapping a pointer finger gently on his shirt over a scar on his shoulder from a poisoned attack.

"Is Tou-san home?" Kimiko called from her room. Shoichi reached up to protect his ears.

"YEAH! HE'S OUT HERE ON THE SOFA!" Asano called from less than a metre away from his ear. Asano was weak in a lot of parts. Her skin was sensitive, her digestive system was sensitive (although improving), her immune system was weak. Her voice was not weak, not in the slightest.

A few moments later Kimiko climbed on top of Asano.

"I'm an Asano-sandwich," Asano laughed and Kimiko giggled. Shoichi took a deep breath, causing Asano to clamp her arms around his sides as she and Kimiko wobbled unsteadily. He could deal with this. It wasn't the end of the world. He loves his family.

A/N: The POV character is labelled in the tile of each chapter.