Chapter 37- Purposeful Parenting Part 2

Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto were all sitting at the local park with their eggs lying in the sand. None of them were saying anything, they were just staring at the eggs as if expecting them to actually do something.

"I can't believe we're at a park with a bunch of eggs." Sasuke said finally.

"They're not eggs." Sakura said calmly. "They're our children."

"Sakura, please don't say that again." Sasuke practically threatened.

"Kakashi might be in the bushes watching our every move!" Sakura argued. "If he sees us not taking care of our eggs like they were our children then he'll um… well, he never really threatened us with anything, but who knows what he'll do? Probably a brutal training thing…"

"I can handle anything Kakashi dishes out!" Naruto said ambitiously.

"Let's just take our eggs and hang out with them a little bit on the play ground." Sakura said as she picked up Kajitsu the egg.

"That's easy for you to say." Said Sasuke. "I have three eggs to take care of. You two each only have one."

"If you're going to use THAT as your excuse then fine." Said Naruto as he scooped up lil Pansuke.

"My children are happy enough just building a sand castle right there in front of me." Sasuke evaluated.

"Well, Kajitsu is going to play on the swings." Said Sakura as she went over to the swings.

"Hey, hey!" said Naruto as he chased after Sakura. "Pansuke wants to play on the swings too! He told me he wanted to!"

Sakura balanced Kajitsu on the seat of the swings. After steadying it perfectly, she stepped back and looked the situation over. It only took her a few seconds to realize that this probably wasn't going to work.

"Pansuke LOVES the swings!" Naruto announced as he plopped down his son with little care. As he stepped away, Pansuke rolled off the seat and landed in the sand with a PLOP!

"It doesn't look like he loves the swings." Sakura said as Naruto rushed to Pansuke's aid.

"Are you all right, Pansuke?" Naruto asked.

"You know, it's kind of hard to pretend when these things don't have faces." Sakura sighed.

Then she accumulated a package of markers and the two of them went over to where Sasuke was still sitting with his eggs in front of him. When she reported that she would be drawing a face on her little Kajitsu, and Naruto agreed as well, Sasuke seemed mildly interested to join.

"My daughter has blond hair and blue eyes!" Sakura announced as she searched for the yellow marker.

"Hey!" said Naruto. "Just like me!"

"No, not just like you!" Sakura snapped.

"Well, then I'm going to make my son have pink hair and green eyes." Naruto decided.

"A pink haired child named Pansuke?" Sasuke said, sounding almost disgusted.

"YES!" said Naruto as he grabbed the pink marker.

"All your children have the Sharingan, I see." Sakura observed.

"Of course." Said Sasuke. "They're my children."

On the back of each of his eggs, Sasuke also drew an Uchiha fan.

Meanwhile, Kiba, Hinata and Shino were having similar issues with their eggs. They couldn't take their eggs seriously if they didn't have faces so they all crashed at Kiba's house to get some markers. They went to Kiba's house because Kiba and Shino didn't want to deal with Hinata's father, and Shino's father turned them away at the door with a simple, "No."

"Okay…" said Kiba as he picked up one of Shino's eggs. "They all have to have sunglasses like you."

"And curly brown hair!" Hinata agreed.

Shino just sat there and accepted the torture as Hinata and Kiba took it upon themselves to decorate his daughters so they had a more Shino-ish look. That is, if Shino turned into an egg and was covered in smudged makers. Yeah, all Kiba had was the washable kind. BUT THAT'S OKAY!

"What about the daughter in which I am sharing with you?" Kiba asked Hinata.

Earlier, he had made the grave mistake of saying, "Our daughter" which immediately was followed by extreme awkwardness as he desperately tried to explain that they were only sharing responsibilities and he hadn't meant to imply anything. Hinata laughed a little as Shino stood there like a tree and eventually came to the conclusion that they'd just call her, "The daughter in which I am sharing with you."

"Hm…" Hinata said thoughtfully. "Since she was originally your daughter, perhaps she should look like you."

"Yeah probably." Said Kiba. "But I'd feel bad making her look just like me since we're sharing her."

Hinata shrugged.

"I'll make her look like me but I'll give her your eyes, okay?" Kiba offered.

"Okay." Hinata said.

After slaving over their eggs for a little while, the best team ever decided that they were going to take their children someplace fun.

"How old are our children?" Hinata wondered out loud. "How do we know where to take them?"

"Well, since we have a bunch of girls, we should probably go someplace that girls would enjoy…" said Kiba, looking grievous.

"Kiba, why would you say that?" Shino said, using his ANNOYED face, which meant his brow was slightly furrowed.

"I'm just saying!" Kiba said. "You have three daughters, and Hinata and I are both sharing a daughter, so that makes four daughters, which means there are NO SONS!"

Shino could only stare at Kiba with this uninterpretable expression on his face that might have suggested, "Kiba, you are a total moron." Or perhaps it meant, "I have no idea how to even react to that." It's likely it just meant, "This is so stupid." Perhaps he was trying to convey simply, "I'm Shino." Then again, the most likely thing of all is that he is just saying, "No."

"Should we take them to the mall…?" Hinata said nervously.

"Good idea, Hinata!" said Kiba. "Is that what girls like to do?"

Hinata shrugged. "I guess." He said.

"I think we should train them to be ninjas." Said Shino as he followed his team anyway, while also trying to balance Moujo, Jijo and Sanjo.

"Shino, get real." Said Kiba. "They're eggs."

Shino got that expression again.

Meanwhile, Team Gai were chillaxing with their sons. They had all gone over Tenten's house because…um. Just because. For the same reason they DIDN'T go to Lee or Neji's houses.

Neji was staring at his completely blank egg as it sat on the table in front of him.

Lee was apparently giving a life lesson to his son.

Tenten was in the bathroom.

Finally, Neji stood up with a sigh.

"Neji, where are you going?" Lee said, looking up from his lesson with Lil Lee.

"Lee, do you feel like babysitting my egg?" Neji replied as he went for the door.

"NOOOO!" Lee screamed as he jumped to his feet as well. "You must watch baby Hichou constantly so he can learn who his father is! If I baby-sit him then he might get confused!"

"Lee…" Neji began. "Listen to yourself."

"What's your point?" Lee asked.

"You're acting like you actually believe that those eggs are alive." Neji spelled it out for him. Then he stopped. "Wait. You ARE acting, right?"

"Of course I am!" Lee said passionately. "But Gai said that he would be spying on us and if we were treating our eggs properly then he would become angry! And after Get Neji A Friend Day, I thought for sure that we'd do the best since our team are the best friends ever."

"Lee, I am not your best friend."

Lee gasped as if that was news, just as Tenten strolled in while carrying Lil Gai.

"What are you two arguing about now?" she asked.

"I am not arguing." Neji said. "Lee is arguing."

"Whatever." Said Tenten since she didn't really care anyway. She put her egg on the couch and sat down. "Don't you think we should take our sons someplace?"

"I was thinking exactly the same thing!" Lee exclaimed.

"I can't believe this." Said Neji, throwing his hands up in the air. "Lee is stupid enough to actual refer to his egg as his son and treat it like an actual person. Tenten, I know you naturally have no common sense simply because you lack a Y chromosome, but I thought you were at least smart enough to not—"

Then he stopped talking because both Tenten and Lee were staring at him with blank expressions.

"Are either of you even listening to me?" he said.

They both suddenly jumped. "Oh yeah!" said Tenten. "Of course we were!"

"Every word!" said Lee.

"No you weren't." said Neji. "You didn't hear ANY of my condescending remarks."

"Right, so let's forget you ever even bothered and just go someplace with our egg children!" Tenten said.

"…Fine…" said Neji. They won this time, but next time they won't be so lucky! (insert INNER NEJI shaking his fist at them and screaming "CHA!") (Yes. Neji DOES have an Inner Neji. And from now on, we will tell you what Inner Neji is saying.)

"What should we do?" Lee wondered.

Inner Neji: Why are we even doing this?

"Why are we even doing this?" Neji said.

"Because our teachers are forcing us too!" said Tenten.

Inner Neji: Tenten is a stupid female.

"Let's see…" said Lee. "Where would our manly children want to hang out?"

Inner Neji: I can't believe he's still going along with this.

"I can't believe you're still going along with this." Said Neji.

"I'm just doing what Gai tells me to do!" said Lee. "Gai is my hero!"

Inner Neji: Duh.

"I wonder how long we're going to have to do this for?" Tenten said.

Inner Neji: Tenten is a stupid female.

Okay…I guess doing this is as pointless as Canadian subtitles. So we'll just move on!

Last but not least, Team 10 had decided to go to the local movie theater and just movieplex.

"I hope no one thinks we're weird for carrying all these eggs around." Ino said as they entered their second movie with their eggs.

"They probably do." Said Shikamaru.

"Chouji, do you think you could take care of Shika and Cho?" Ino asked as she held out two eggs for Chouji to carry. "Since you don't have any and I have three… I think it's fair."

"How about I just take one?" said Chouji with a raised eyebrow. "After all, they're YOUR children. Why should I have to take two of the three?"

"Fine." Said Ino. "You take Cho then."

"Okay, since he IS named after me." Said Chouji with a shrug.

"I've been meaning to bring that up again." Shikamaru said as he led the group down one of the rows where they could sit down.

"Don't tell me you're bringing up the fact that it seemed as though I had previously planned to name my male children after you guys!" Ino interrupted.

"Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say." Said Shikamaru. "And you seemed so defensive just now and before that I'm willing to believe my hypothesis is correct."

"He's got a point, Ino." Said Chouji.

"It's not true!" said Ino. "It was just a spur of the moment thing! If, some time in the future, I have kids, I will definitely not name them after you guys!"

"That's all right." Said Chouji. "I'm satisfied with your fictional son who is actually an egg to be named after me."

"Um…good." Said Ino. "Because you won't get any more than that."

"What movie are we watching anyway?" Shikamaru said as he placed Shikataro in the cup-holder and the previews started.

"Um…" Ino said and then she paused. "I don't really know."

"I'll go check." Chouji shrugged as he frolicked off.

"You know, Ino." Said Shikamaru. "I don't care if you previously planned to name the eggs after us. The only reason I'm bringing it up constantly is because it amuses me that you're so defensive about it."

"Well, you know what, Shikamaru?" said Ino, putting her hands on her hips. "YOU'RE lazy!"

Shikamaru frowned as Chouji returned.

"The Disembodied Head That Ate People." He said.

"WHAT?" said Ino and Shikamaru.

"That's the movie we're watching." Chouji clarified as he sat down.

"Ooohhhh…" said Ino and Shikamaru with a sigh of relief.

"Is this appropriate for our children…?" Ino wondered.

"Well, let's just say that in egg years, they're plenty old enough." Said Shikamaru.

"Are WE old enough?" Ino questioned.

"Let's just say we are." Said Shikamaru.

"It said it was rated R." Chouji explained.

"Well, it's not like we even bought tickets anyway." Said Shikamaru.

"Shikamaru, you are being uncharacteristically bad ass right now!" Ino said. "You're sitting through an R rated movie, standing up to me and movieplexing all at the same time!"

"To be truthful, Ino…" said Shikamaru. "The only reason I'm staying is because I don't feel like moving. I'm standing up to you only to make fun of you and I'm movieplexing because you guys are."

"Oh." Said Ino. "I take that statement back then."

Meanwhile…

Asuma, Kurenai, Gai and Kakashi were all sitting around a table drinking tea.

In unison, they all took a sip of their tea and then placed their cups down on the table in front of them.

"Do you suppose we should actually check up on our students?" Kurenai asked.

They all looked at each other, one at a time, each making eye contact with the next.

"Naw," they all said together, and then simultaneously threw their heads back and laughed.