Chapter 36

The Naruto clone gently laid Mei on the large bed. Her cheeks were still flushed and she seemed to be having quite the fever dream.

The blond Jinchuuriki gently shook her shoulder, causing her eyes to slowly open back to the land of the living. "N-Naruto."

He blushed and looked away, suddenly interested in the misshapen drawer handle to his left. "Yeah. You passed out in the springs, so I brought you here. It's pretty hard to breathe in there 'n stuff." Naruto mumbled out that last part as he stood up to open the window and let cool air blow into the room.

Mei shivered and busied herself with getting the sheets over her still damp and nude body. What she really needed right then was cool air to breathe and get all the mist out of her lungs.

She looked at Naruto.

Their eyes met.

Both of them blushed and glanced to the side and away from the other person. Mei clutched at the sheets and covered her already covered body even more. She hunched forward and hugged the sheets to her torso.

Naruto took notice of this and sat at the foot of the bed. For some, unknowable reason, he was finding interest in all the inane details that the room had to offer.

The patterns and swirls within the hardwood floors. The tiny micro fractures in the purple paint of the walls. The fact that the mirror was tilted ever so slightly to the side. The scores of tubes of different makeup products on top of multiple surfaces.

"S-So~ Uhhhh…" Naruto began the conversation with words of unsureness and nervousness. "So M-Mei… I don't…" Naruto stopped and looked down again. A giant blush threatened to break out on his cheeks again, though he pushed it down through sheer sense of manpower and will.

He scratched his neck and snuck a look at the woman he had been laying with mere seconds prior. She remained in that hunched position, her liquid logged hair pushing forward and covering her eyes and facial expression from view.

She looked so… vulnerable. Like someone who had been brought down to levels they were unaware existed. Someone who had been abused on a moral and emotional level. Naruto wanted desperately to say something. Something cool and heroic and the thing that would make her smile and look up and give him a warm, friendly hug.

But nothing came. The room was deafening in its silence.

Then he heard something. Something that came so suddenly and so softly that he thought he mistook its very existence the first time he heard it.

Then it happened a second time. Then a third. Naruto completely turned his head to face Mei.

Her head was still downcast, but every so often, her head would rise and fall ever so slightly in tune with those small sounds.

They were sniffles.

She took a long, slow, shaky breath. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that she was suffering in grief and guilt. That she was on the edge of losing it and bawling like mad.

Both he and she were naked, though he didn't really notice. He was sort of used to it at that point, being unabashedly bare in front of the people he cared about.

Naruto crawled his way to her side and tried to put an arm around her shoulder, but was rebuffed. She shoved against him, hard.

It was so sudden and without warning that Naruto was unbalanced and fell to the floor. It was there that he stayed as Mei began to cry.

He got up and tried again, this time more firmly. He wrapped an arm around her and brought her snug against his chest. The cool dampness from the hotspring water making a sharp contrast against the hot tears falling on his chest.

Naruto made small shushing sounds into her ear and pressed a check against her temple, reminding her that he was near and there for her.

Like all things eventually do, her crying began to end. In its last throes of existence, a dark, tortured laughter came from her lips. "You must think me so pathetic." She said self-deprecatingly. "To you, the person you see as your mother just forced herself on you."

Mei leaned away from his face and body. "Leave." She ordered.

Naruto didn't.

Her eyes darkened as she glared holes into his head. "Leave. Forget what we did, what I said."

Naruto did not leave. He did not forget.

Mei's face went downcast. "I don't love you. Is that what you wanted to hear? You're my son and I could never love you like a husband. Now go."

Naruto didn't want to hear that. He did not go.

Hot tears began to spill over her eyes and face once more. Torturously, she began speaking in clipped, oddly toned snippets of words and dialogue. "Please… please please please just go. Just leave me. Just forget and sleep and when you wake up, greet me with 'good morning mom, what's for breakfast?' just please… please… please…"

Naruto refused her offer. "I… I love you Mei." Naruto said slowly, stopping the tears from falling from her eyes. "I've loved you for a long time like you were my mom." He wrapped an arm around her once more, though this time he snuggled into her chest. "Yeah… it's weird. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I just had sex with the woman I respect as my mom. I'm not going to forget. I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to pretend. Because if I did, then I'd just admit that I was weak."

Mei's breath hitched.

"You know what? I'm going to tell you something."

Mei didn't answer.

"Back then, three years ago when this whole thing started, you decided to give yourself up for an arranged marriage. The only thing you knew was that you were going to be marrying the thirteen year old son of the Fourth Hokage. You did it for your people and the people of kekai genkai everywhere. You also knew that he was already arranged and married with four other kunoichi of the different villages. Kurotsuchi, Yugito, Fu, and Temari."

Mei remained silent as Naruto paused.

"You didn't really meet Kurotsuchi until the ball though. You know, when I lost my arm and Temari lost her leg."

Mei continued to stew in silence.

"See the thing is, I was her boyfriend at the time. That was how you saw us, but when we first met, me and her… I just fucking hated her."

Mei couldn't help it. Her body responded by taking a twitching in a sudden, singular string of laughter.

"Oh yeah. I hated her so much. She was abrasive, rude, disrespectful, pulled pranks on me, abrasive, loud, mean, abrasive, short-tempered, abrasive, oh, and did I mention abrasive?"

A short series of chuckles emanated from her lips.

"But see, this weird thing happened. I spent time with her and learned about her and heard her laughter and I trained with her and I saw movies with her and then this really really strange thing happened to me. She confessed that she liked me. Isn't that weird? I hated her so much up until that point, then I suddenly found myself completely and utterly enthralled by her. I was in love. I couldn't help it. I couldn't identify what it was right away because I had never felt it before."

"What are you trying to say?" Mei whispered. "That you secretly hate me for what I did?"

"Don't go throwing yourself a pity party. It's unbecoming. What I'm trying to say is: relationships can change. Sure, I would have liked it better if you'd subtly tried to wriggle yourself out of your role as my mom, but subtly was never your strong suit, was it?"

Mei didn't answer for the longest time, instead she thought long and hard about what she was about to say. "I… leveraged your emotions against you. I forced you have sex with a person you thought was your mom. I raped you. I did something heinous and immoral."

"The only thing heinous and immoral is your line of thought. Sure, you might have forced yourself on me, but I'd be hard-pressed to call something like that 'rape'."

"You mean you're okay with fucking your mom?" She asked darkly humorously.

"I mean… I'm willing to try and think of you as something else. Maybe a girlfriend, a wife, a lover. Only what you want though."

Mei wrapped her arms around Naruto and dragged him down into bed. She pressed her face hard against his. Hot tears falling once more from her eyes. This time, though, she wasn't sad. She was happy.

"You know what?" She asked with a humorous twitch to her voice. "I actually asked Kurotsuchi, Fu, and Yugito about what turned you on a few days ago."

"You did?"

"Yup. I just sat down at the breakfast table and asked what I should try in bed with you. Because I thought you were just a hungry male specimen that would fuck anything with a working vagina."

"If that's not offensive, then I don't know what is."

"Oh shush. Then I talked to them and I heard their stories about you. I never actually considered myself your mom figure. It was news to me."

"I've called you mom on multiple occasions before that."

"I thought you just being smart because I was doing motherly things. But they weren't motherly things you know. I was trying wifely things. Making you meals, doing your laundry, chastising you… things that wives do."

"Things that wives do? I swear to god, if you do any more of my laundry, I'll… do something drastic."

"Why?" She whispered.

"Because… I appreciate it when you do those things, but it's weird to hear that you were only doing those things because they were 'wifely'. Sounds old-fashioned. You're the kage of the Village Hidden in the Mist for god's sake. Have some dignity." Naruto said is a humorous tone of voice.

Mei chuckled a little bit. "Some dignity huh? But dignity is so boring. Having a 'silent dignity about you', just leads to boring sex."

"Is that what it leads to?"

"Absolutely."

"Well isn't it just so good that you have none to speak of?"

"It's just the best."

Naruto snuggled into her and got ready for bed. Her eyes, though, were open wide in thought.

"Hey Naruto." She whispered just before nodding off to sleep. "Did you mean that? That you're not going to leave me? That you love me?"

"Mei… there is no one in the world capable of feeling more love for you than I feel right now."

Mei accepted that answer and decided to allow sleep to grace her being.

00000000

The next morning.

Somehow, don't ask how, it just happened that way, but somehow, as Temari walked to open the door to the mansion, she felt an impending sense of importance waiting behind that door.

Until a few moments ago, it had been ringing at intervals of two seconds. Temari's heavy footfalls apparently were noticed by whoever was outside, so the ringing stopped once she was at the end of the hallway.

Inexplicably, she could feel sweat begin to bead on her forehead and begin sliding down her face. The Land of Water was always humid, but the mansion made sure to keep itself regulated on the inside. She shouldn't be sweating, yet she was. Her hand was shaking. She suppressed a shiver.

She looked at the door in front of her. It was large. Imposing. But that wasn't the thing that made her stop in front of it, reach out for the door handle, and pause.

No, it was the person or thing on the other side that was giving her troubles. Even on the inside of the mansion, she could feel an aura of uncertainty, madness, anger.

Her pupils dilated, her breath hitched, her fingers twitched furiously. Slowly, she reached to the side of the door, where she kept her battle fan, and grasped it furiously. Whatever was outside, was angry and strong and somehow knew of the barrier of seals that would eviscerate that person the second they tried any sort of violence towards the mansion.

Temari gulped. Why was she so frightened? Things had been normal until a few seconds ago.

She backed up and placed her prosthetic behind her, readying it for an unfolding as soon as she opened the door. She thought about calling for help against this person outside, but thought better of it. The outside walls had no sound seals when the inside ones were active, a flaw in design. The person would hear her as soon as she tried and likely resort to more brutal and effective methods.

She didn't know. Whoever was outside might have an expert in sealing with them. They could be trying the coy attack, knocking on the door and just waltzing right in to attack her and Naruto and Mei and Kurotsuchi and Fu and Yugito.

Nope, she wasn't going to let that happen. Behind her back, she unfolded her major war fan and held it propped on her shoulder. Reaching a hand forward, she unlocked the door, unlocking both the mechanism and the deadly arrangement of invisible seals.

In a practiced display of frightening strength and power, she swung her hand forward and used her war fan to blast the door off its hinges, splintering to pieces as soon as it struck the person the other side. Without letting any movement go to waste, she brought her prosthetic forward and blasted out cutting winds of hot air at the still standing individual who had yet to step indoors, then used her fan like a club and sent a debilitating downwards blow at the person.

Temari winced and froze. It felt like she struck iron with how little give she got from the strike.

The dust settled, the splinters fell, Temari tried to move, but her muscles were locked in fear at the massive killing intent directed at her.

It was Tsunade of the Sannin behind the door, which relieved her of the fact that it wasn't the akatsuki who had come to attack, just the kage coming to check up on them. Then she realized that Tsunade was covered in micro cuts, bruises and splinters. Her body was shrouded in a bluish greenish chakra shroud, probably the thing that displaced the majority of the wind blades.

The war fan clattered to the ground and her prosthetic refolded back into her leg. Temari lost her support and fell to the ground, devoid of the energy left to defy such an imposing presence. "T-Tsunade-sama. I can't tell you how sorry I am for attac-"

Temari was halted midsentence as Tsunade brushed her way in and stumbled through the hallways. Worried that she might have seriously hurt the Hokage's mental faculties, she ran up to her and tried to get her to sit down and rest. That is, until she realized a very important detail about the Hokage.

The fact that she was shitfaced.

"Get'sh offa me." Tsunade drawled out, stumbling over to the bar that was located in the living room and grabbing a random liquor off of the shelf. She uncorked the bottle using he mouth and took a swig. Tsunade sighed in contentment and brought out a few shot glasses. "Where'sh Narutooouuu." Tsunade asked as clearly as she could.

"Busy." Temari replied

Tsunade sighed explosively and began massaging her temples with alighted green chakra. She vacated the room for several moments to go to the bathroom and came back completely sober. "Medical flushing." She explained. "Though it isn't usually used with alcohol."

Temari leaned her back to look down the hallway and out the door to the blinding whiteness of the rising sun. There were splinters of wood strewn about the front lawn.

"A-Aren't you mad that I just attacked you?" Temari asked slowly.

Tsunade waved off the assault with little concern. "If I was mad at everyone that attacked me indiscriminately, there'd be a lot fewer people in the world. Now I ask again, a little less drunk this time, where's Naruto?"

Temari did a sort of exasperated sigh and walked over to a wall that had strange black markings that went in swirly patters. "Do you really want to know?"

"If he's training, then I can wait for him to come back."

"He's definitely physically predisposed at the moment." Temari turned away from the recently sobered Hokage and tapped a few of the swirly patterns, then bit her thumb and rubbed the blood on a small square next to the piece of sealing.

All at once, the sound seals on the walls and rooms dropped out. Moans and groans of carnal satisfaction permeated the halls for a few seconds before Temari could put up the seals once more.

There was a small blush threatening to break out on Tsunade's face. "You could have just said he was with his wives." Tsunade said.

"But then you would have asked me to go get him, and I'm not stepping in on any more of those engagements. They're into some really weird things." Temari muttered that last bit under her breath. "Do you want to tell me why one of the strongest people in all the elemental nations suddenly showed up at our doorstep with no words of warning and completely smashed beyond belief?"

Tsunade sighed and began twirling around the bottle of liquor by the lip. She was obviously mentally predisposed. "There are a few things I need to talk to you about. Well, they were supposed to be for Naruto, but I'm guessing you could relay the messages."

Temari nodded in understanding.

"First off:" Tsunade said, pouring herself some more booze. "After Naruto's little incident with Sasuke, there's been the decision to crack down on the more volatile elements within the elemental nations. Namely Akatsuki and the Uchiha brat. To do that, the village leaders are looking to conscript the help of the samurai from the land of Iron and begin a strip search of every single country on this continent."

"Are you… asking for our help?"

"No. In fact, I'm asking you to stay as far away from the main continent as you physically can. Actually, it's probably better that Naruto doesn't hear this particular tidbit of information. You know how he can get sometimes."

"Better than anyone else." Temari watched in slight fascination as Tsunade began once more to down glasses of alcohol insanely fast. Why she was doing that just when she had medically flushed the alcohol out of her system, Temari would never know.

Smacking her lips at the taste of tequila, Tsunade began on her second point. "Second off: Jiraya seems to think there's a lead in the land of Rain, so he's going over there to check things out… it's going to be dangerous and it's going to hold a lot of risk."

"Is that why you're drinking so heavily?"

"Part of the reason. Anyway, Jiraya doesn't want the art of Senjutsu to be lost to the world, so he wants Naruto to desummon himself to the country of toads as quickly as he can to begin instruction."

"Senjutsu?"

Tsunade leaned back and rubbed her temples with an annoyed expression. "I don't know. The perv just said it had something to do with 'allowing nature to enter you and calm your chakra, becoming stronger, mentally more proficient, and more powerful as a result.'"

"Sounds like the perv just likes getting high in the woods." Temari replied cheekily.

"I'd think the same thing if I hadn't actually seen it for myself." Tsunade mumbled. "Anyway, world's going on a manhunt, Jiraya is going to Rain to see if the leader of the akatsuki is there, Naruto needs to go to the land of giant toads… other than that…" Tsunade looked off into the distance with a slightly conflicted expression on her face. "Well I guess there's that." She said, barely audible.

"What is it? He has cancer? The world's about to blow up? I'm pregnant? Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised by much."

"Do you want a divorce?"

Temari paused, a surprised expression appeared on her face. "What do you mean by that?"

Tsunade poured out some of that sweet tequila into a couple of dishes, then pushed one to Temari. "You're eighteen right? Not quite drinking age, but it's close enough."

Temari indeed took a small sip of the liquid, but it burned her tongue and scorched her throat. She wasn't impartial to spicy foods, but the taste also was just horrible to her. She didn't know how other people could choke the stuff down. "Okay, I'm not going to drink." Temari decided. "Anyway, if we get a divorce, aren't the villages going to start killing each other?"

Tsunade shrugged. "You know… three years ago, nobody thought this was going to work, least of all me. It would have been written down as a valiant, if somewhat weird, attempt at creating lasting peace between the nations and everyone would have gone home with a few wounds to lick after all the dust settled." The mature woman paused to drink her booze. "Then you guys went after the Uchiha brat and got your shit kicked in, then the ball happened and two of you were permanently maimed, then the training camp practically burst into flames within the first two weeks of it being created. Honestly, I was ready to throw in the towel and cut my losses, get my godson out of there."

"Why didn't that happen?"

"The same reason there has to be sound seals on the house at this hour. Naruto has a special sort of presence about him. It just makes people want to follow him, listen to him, feel for him. I've felt it firsthand when he practically let himself die for my sake. Anyway, relations between the nations couldn't be better. Interfighting is at an all-time low. Trade is booming. The lives of the people are improving bit by bit. And best of all, paperwork is dwindling." There was a happy, melancholic smile on her face.

Temari looked dubiously at her. "So we're getting a divorce now? That's pretty… fast."

"I'm not handing you your divorce papers on a silver platter like I did your marriage papers. If you aren't happy with him, then give the word and you'll be back to being the heiress of Suna."

"But… I don't get it. If things are going well for the elemental nations, then why are we splitting up? Or I guess, why am I splitting up?"

"It's for the exact reason why things are going well that we're having this conversation. I'd have given this option to all five of you, but seeing as the other four are… predisposed, it looks like you're the only one being given this option. The bottom line is, because everyone is so nice and friendly with each other, I doubt much a fuss would be raised about one of the harem members exiting because of a loveless marriage."

"That sounds… simple."

"If that's how I phrased it, that's not how I meant it. I'm sure that quite a lot of animosity would be stirred up by this information, but with everyone mobilizing at the moment and with eyesights pointed to the bigger baddies, I doubt there would be any blood spilt. The bottom line is this: if you're happier here than you would be out there, then you're free to say. But if you want to exit and live a normal, happy life, then give the word. It's the least the kage could do after screwing your life up this much already." Tsunade slammed down the dish with a resounding clink. "Anyway," She said, looking a little tipsy. "I still need to get completely shitfaced and now that I have no more responsibilities," Tsunade paused to burp into her hand. "I suddenly have a responsibility located at the bottom of several bottles of booze. Now if you'd excuse me, I think I know the way out."

Temari was left in an intense thinking pose at a bar with a dish of tequila out in front of her. She stayed like that for several seconds before clearing away the boozy mess and getting started on her breakfast.

Footsteps began to make themselves known throughout the house as the horny lovers finally untangled themselves from their morning embraces and made their way to the breakfast table in mixed states of dress and mind state.

One after another, they came, they ate, they talked, they left.

Temari was left at the breakfast table alone for the second time in a few days.

It was on the fifth minute of silent thinking in a very elegant and thoughtful pose, that Temari realized she wasn't alone. Turning her head to the side, she was met with a presence that she really shouldn't have been surprised was there. Once he knew that she acknowledged his presence, Naruto turned and gave her a smile. "So, you wanna talk?"

"W-What do you want to talk about?" Temari asked, a little bit shocked and confused at his ability to sense exactly what she wanted and needed at that particular point.

"It's not about what I want to talk about, it's what you need to talk about. Now come on, spit it out. Don't have all day, after all." Naruto said in a high tone of voice. He was joking, she knew. He'd wait years for her to open up to him because that's just the sort of person he was.

"How do you know I want to talk?"

Naruto lazily pointed down the hall. "I'd say the front door being made completely out of splinters and dust would be a good sign. Or I guess I'm more clueless that I thought." He said with a goofy smile upon his face.

Temari paused for a total of two seconds before relenting to his smiling face. "Naruto… I have to talk to you about something important." She said in a completely serious tone.

His smile vanished. He began to look serious and completely ready for a serious conversation. "Shoot."

Temari took a deep breath. "Tsunade walked in a few minutes ago and told me some things. Some very important things. Things that are very important and could affect your personal life and our relationship."

Naruto began smiling again. "Is that all?"

00000000

A ways away.

A singular frog head popped out of the murky waters and tested the air. It was raining heavily and even though it was high noon, it could have been mistaken for dusk it was so dark out. Most of the darkness came from the absolutely dense cloud cover. The city made of metal pipes, metal rods, and metal bones was impressive to just stare at. So heavily industrialized it was and so heavily adapted to the rain that it looked like an alien homeworld.

An arm brushed its way out of the mouth of the toad, followed by another arm, then a head, a torso, and legs. The man who popped out of the deceptively tiny toad was none other than Jiraya of the Sannin. And he had his serious face on.

Jiraya looked up, down, diagonally, and to the sides in every which way. The buildings were so tall and imposing that even if his chakra senses were accurate, there might be a workaround that would allow people to see him step out of a pond toad.

Seeing as he wasn't dead at the moment, he pulled his arm out of the rain smock and allowed for the rain to pelt his palm and fingers.

The water falling from the sky was supercharged with chakra. It had to be some sort of security system. A way of tagging unwanted visitors. Though anyone with the calculation ability to actually keep track of that many people had to be insanely powerful.

A god even.

Jiraya shook his head to clear the mental fog and walked in search of the nearest inn or other such rentable space.

He needed information.

And he was going to get that information.

Even if it killed him to do it.

AN/ Hello all, gent here.

So whatcha think? Naruto accepted Mei. Mei got over her inhibitions. There's news from Tsunade. Temari needs to ponder and question some deep deep shit. Jiraya is in Rain. The land of Iron conference is just about to happen.

So yeah… shit's kicking off.

Have a gentlemanly day.