Chapter 38: Springtime of Youth

BOOM

Sasori's apartment shook slightly, jogging his elbow and ruining the graceful arc he had been tracing across the schematic on the drawing board before him. Sighing, he set the parchment-wrapped stick of graphite aside and picked up a small lump of tree gum, using it to rub away the grey line.

The darker ink strokes on the schematic remained, done in Poe's sturdy hand. Sasori was impressed with his apprentice's latest invention; the young man's talent would have been wasted in Sunagakure. The design for a trio of insect-like puppets with light-producing crystals embedded in their spines that could produce visual genjutsu when used in tandem was inspired. Sasori felt the need to add only a few small suggestions for improvements before returning the schematic to his apprentice. Unfortunately, some of the explosions being produced in the canyon above were emphatic enough to reach down to the depth of Sasori's abode and disturb his work.

Before Sasori could return to his work, a heavy knock came at his door. Suppressing a sigh at another interruption the puppet master rose from his stool and headed to his apartment's entryway. Upon opening the door, Sasori was greeted by a tired and surly-looking blue wall wrapped in a black cloak with red clouds.

"Deidara's back from the Land of Lightning," Kisame informed Sasori.

"I was aware," the puppeteer replied evenly.

BOOM

"He's still up there sulking," Kisame added, giving the ceiling a baleful glare.

"I was also aware of that."

Kisame leaned down to glare at Sasori. "So do something about it. You're his partner."

Sasori sighed. "What exactly would you have me do, Kisame? I'm hardly his favorite person."

"I was aware," Kisame replied in a mocking imitation of Sasori's bland tone.

"If that's all, I should get back to work; I need to return to Sunagakure in the morning," Sasori interjected. "I can't really leave the Kazekage alone for too long or-"

Kisame wrapped his hand around the doorframe with deceptive gentleness, his wide blue fingers applying enough force to crack the stone. "Talk to him," the fish-faced shinobi said reasonably. "Sedate him. Send him on another mission. I don't care. But deal with your partner before I have to go up there and fillet him. I'm trying to sleep."

Sasori sighed. "Very well." Taking his own cloak down from a hook inside the door, he wrapped the garment around himself before exiting his apartment.

"Thank you," Kisame murmured, before heading back to his own quarters. Shaking his head, Sasori headed for the surface.

Contrary to Kisame's unstated opinion, Sasori was not indifferent to his partner's feelings. The growing distance between Deidara and himself was something Sasori regretted, even if the decisions that had led to it were sound. Sending Tenten back to Konohagakure and then into Hyuuga Neji's bed had been necessary. Her marriage to the Hyuuga head had been her own choice and the right one for the Akatsuki, but Deidara blamed Sasori for the circumstance, and the most recent news, that Tenten was pregnant with the Hyuuga's child, had only worsened Deidara's temperament.

Deidara's absence when news of Tenten's pregnancy arrived had not even been Sasori's doing; the blond bomber had been conducting a long-term surveillance of the jinchuuriki of the Hachibi in the Land of Lightning. Sasori had allowed Tenten's letter to reach Deidara this time, hoping it would calm him down enough to prevent any rash action. The bomber hadn't gone off half-cocked, but his distance and despondency since returning was worrying in its own way.

Sasori made his way to the surface and then down into the adjacent canyon, where the sound of smaller detonations filled the air. He found Deidara in a flat stretch of cracked rock. Piles of rubble littered the area and smoke lingered in the air. The blond bomber himself was seated on a convenient stone shelf. A few discarded sake bottles were scattered around his feet, and he had another in hand, taking a swig as Sasori watched. He wasn't drunk enough to dull his senses though, and turned to glare at Sasori when the puppet master approached.

"Go away," Deidara muttered. Setting his sake bottle down Deidara formed hand signs and pressed them to the stone at his feet. The rubble piles shifted at the touch of his chakra before melting together and rising up in dozens of two-meter pillars that resolved themselves into human shapes with an astonishing level of detail. Sasori could tell that their eyes had no pupils, and their flowing garb and long hair seemed real enough to move in the wind. Though he'd never met the Hyuuga clan head, these figures could only be he. With a negligent gesture Deidara formed a wad of clay into a bird and sent it winging at the nearest statue, which it blew apart in a brilliant flash.

"Deidara…" Sasori began cautiously.

Deidara gave the puppet master a sour look. "What's wrong, Sasori? Worried about me going off half-cocked and doing something to ruin your elaborate schemes?"

"Should I be worried?"

Deidara snorted and set loose another pair of clay birds that homed in one two more Hyuuga effigies and reduced them to pebbles in a spectacular explosion. Sasori absently tilted his head as one jagged rock fragment flew past his cheek. Looking out over the field of statues, Deidara sat silently for a moment before rising to his feet. His hands blurred, and a flock of the winged bombs erupted from his palms, sweeping the field clean in a matter of seconds. He gazed out over the smoking rubble silently for a minute before speaking.

"No. I'm not going to do anything. What can I do?" Deidara asked bitterly. "You forced the woman I love into the arms of another man and now she's having his child. What am I supposed to do about that, un? The time when I could have fixed this with a few bombs has passed."

"What could you have done before Tenten got pregnant? Or before she married the Hyuuga?" Sasori inquired.

"I should have killed him before you ever forced her into his bed," Deidara muttered.

"That must be the alcohol talking, because you're smarter than that, Deidara," Sasori replied. "Tenten would never have forgiven you for killing the Hyuuga."

Deidara fixed Sasori with another glare. "You don't care at all, do you? You're as wooden as your puppets, un."

The red head considered that. "Perhaps; sacrifices were made, but I remind myself of what they achieved. Tenten has given us more information than I imagined was possible when she volunteered to go undercover; she's advanced the Akatsuki's timetable for overthrowing the kages by several years. Thousands of lives if not more will be spared thanks to what she has done."

"Easy to say when you're not the one doing the sacrificing," Deidara shot back.

"You're right," Sasori acknowledged. "For one who adopted the goals of the Akatsuki far more recently than the rest of us, I've been humbled by Tenten's willingness to sacrifice for our cause." He paused. "I regret that she has been forced by circumstance to become so deeply involved with the Hyuuga. It will end in tears eventually, and I wish I could spare her that pain."

"But if you could go back you'd do it all over again, un," Deidara accused.

"I would."

"And if you could get some bit of information you needed by selling her to other men you'd do that, too."

"I would," Sasori repeated. "The goal we've chosen is too important to do anything less. Tenten understands that."

Gazing out onto the field of rubble as the smoke dispersed, Deidara sighed. "It would hurt less if I could blame her, un."

Sasori cocked an eyebrow but didn't comment.

"If she'd deceived me, or been less than honest about her relationship with the Hyuuga; hell, if she'd just decided she loved him more. But she's never hidden anything from me, unlike you," Deidara continued with a glare.

Sasori shrugged. "I wasn't sure what you'd do if you'd found out she was marrying the Hyuuga when the announcement was first made. Was I wrong to be worried?"

Deidara grunted wordlessly. "Maybe." Shaking his head, he looked at Sasori quizzically. "What do you want?"

"Smaller explosions," Sasori replied cryptically. When Deidara just directed a puzzled frown at him, the puppet master elaborated. "Kisame's become a tad grouchy about the volume of your sulk."

"Is that all?" Deidara asked sourly as he closed his clay pouch.

Sasori shook his head. "The next jinchuuriki is mine to take, and I'll need your help to face it, if you're ready to get back to work."

"All right; the Nanabi is next, isn't it?"

"It is," Sasori affirmed.

Deidara leaned back. "I thought we'd lost track of that one?"

Sasori shrugged. "The Nanabi's jinchuuriki, Fu, was missing for a long time, certainly. She was an infant when the forces of Leaf and Rock crushed Takigakure in the waning days of the Third Shinobi World War. Takigakure loyalists spirited her away, and no one ever found her, though Orochimaru and Onoki tore that part of the world apart looking."

"So how did you find her?" Sasori allowed himself a small smile at his partner's faith that it had been his spies who located the wayward jinchuuriki.

"Most of the Takigakure loyalists were hardcore elites; they planned to raise Fu to her maturity and power and use her to resurrect Takigakure. It would never have worked, she would have faced at least three jinchuuriki if she ever took the field, but it seems that the girl also had no interest in fighting. One of those old loyalists started thinking about a peaceful retirement being more pleasant than a doomed blaze of glory, and decided to sell Fu's location. I got to him ahead of the kages."

"So where is she?"

"Haunting the old ruins of Takigakure, actually; so are you prepared to face her? My source informs me that she can fly both in human form and when transformed into her bijuu, and the Nanabi's power makes it virtually invulnerable to direct attack."

Deidara shrugged. "Sure. Sounds like fun."

"Good. We leave in the morning." Sasori headed back towards the concealed tunnel leading down into the base, but paused on the edge of the killing field. "You should let her go," Sasori said in parting. "You know Tenten well enough to realize that this changes things. She won't abandon her child, even if it was conceived for a lie."

"I know that. But you make letting go sound so easy," came Deidara's quiet reply after a moment.

"They're here."

Amaya stopped her nervous pacing as Ken spoke up, from his perch in the second floor window of her house in the Uchiha compound. He was looking out at the compound gate.

"Are you sure about this, Ken?" Amaya asked again. Henged brown eyes turned to her calmly.

"I'm sure I want to do this, but it's your secret Amaya. If you don't want to do this just say so and we can have lunch with them without broaching the subject."

Amaya sighed, resisting the urge to grind her teeth. It was touching that he was so willing to put the decision in her hands, but it didn't make her choice any less stressful.

"You trust them, right?" Ken asked.

"With my life," Amaya replied automatically. "But… it's not just my secret; its clan business, too. I don't want to break Sasuke's trust, especially when he's done so much for me." Though Amaya and her last living relative had separate houses, they had dinner together most nights, and she always knew the nights that Sasuke got back from a day spent with one or more of his CRB-mandated partners. The flat, expressionless look on his face spoke louder than words.

Three of the women the CRB had chosen for Sasuke were pregnant already and had been moved into housing on the Uchiha compound. They would be the mothers of the next generation of Uchiha, and while Sasuke was never anything less than courteous to them, Amaya could see the drain on him from the whole process. An outsider might have envied Sasuke's place, bedding multiple women, all young, attractive, and fit. Half were clanless kunoichi and half daughters of prominent civilian families with a record of loyalty to the village. But something that had always been intensely private and personal among the Uchiha had taken on the trappings of a manufacturing process, with all the warmth and closeness that entailed.

Ken looked at Amaya earnestly. "We don't have to do this if you're uncomfortable with it, Amaya. I mean it. It's nice just knowing them as Kano."

"But you want them to know you as Ken," Amaya finished the thought. "Bad enough that I dragged you here, but I've asked you to hide who you are from everyone," she noted guiltily.

"Amaya," Ken said firmly. "I wanted to come here. I was alone in my world; I would have sacrificed far more to see you again."

"But I don't know how to send you back," she fretted. Almost a year after bringing Ken to her side on instinct she was no closer to discovering how to trigger her Mangekyo sharingan's power consciously, much less how to reverse it.

"Which I don't care about; look, we can just have lunch as usual. We don't have to tell them."

Amaya shook her head. "No, they're leaving soon and they deserve to know. We'll do it."

"You're sure?"

Projecting more confidence than she felt, Amaya nodded. "Yes." As she spoke, there was a knock at the front door. "Well, that's them." With Ken at her heels, Amaya descended the stairs and opened the door. Outside, Kaede and Kiran were waiting. Both looked slightly weary, but happy. It had been only a few days since their wedding and they'd be moving to Sky City in just a week. Standing at her best friend's side at her wedding had been one of the most uplifting things Amaya had gotten to do recently, but the fact that 'Kano' had only been able to attend at all as her date had underscored what his anonymity was costing him.

Kaede and Kiran noted Ken's presence in Amaya's home when they sat down to lunch, and while neither was much for demonstrative outward reactions, they appeared pleased. That seemed to be the universal reaction to the amount of time she spent around him, and Amaya wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Even not knowing who Kano truly was Amaya's friends seemed to approve of him – which she didn't mind – but some other reactions had been less than positive experiences. When she'd been mingling with guests after the wedding, she'd been cornered by one of the Senju elders who sat on the CRB and quietly informed that Kano was an acceptable choice if she'd finally decided to do her duty and settle down to have some children. It had taken all of her training in decorum to smile and thank the old bastard instead of punching him in the face.

When the meal was done it was Amaya who spoke up after a subtle nudge from Ken. "Kaede… there's something I need to tell you before you leave." She sighed. "It's something I should have told you a long time ago, but I didn't know how."

Kaede went still, then nodded and slipped off her dark glasses, revealing her silvery Aburame eyes. "Okay. I'm listening."

"When Ken died, something happened to me that I was ordered to keep a secret. If it becomes known what happened, I'll be executed for having broken a secret law created by the Shodai Hokage."

Kaede frowned. "I don't see how Ken's accident would have gotten you in trouble, Amaya. What are you talking about?"

Amaya looked her best friend in the eye, unveiled her sharingan, and then let it morph into its clover-leaf Mangekyo form. "This is the Mangekyo sharingan," she admitted. "A cursed power obtained by an Uchiha when they kill someone they love, even accidentally."

"I can see why that would be outlawed," Kaede murmured, brow furrowing in thought. "Why tell me now, though?"

Amaya glanced at Ken. "Because each Uchiha gets a different power from their Mangekyo sharingan; I didn't even know what mine was for a long time. I discovered it accidentally when I was a captive of the Toma. Which leads to the other secret that I…"

".. that we've been keeping," Ken interrupted. Then he formed a single hand sign and released his perfect henge.

Kiran only looked puzzled at the transformation, but the blood drained from Kaede's face. "That's not possible," she whispered. "I watched you die."

Ken rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "You know, that's the first thing Amaya said to me, too."

"What is this, Amaya?" Kaede demanded. "Some kind of genjutsu? It's in very poor taste."

Ken leaned across the table and took the Aburame kunoichi's hand in his. "I'm real, Kaede. Kami I've missed you."

Kiran started moving towards Kaede with concern on his face, but she held up a hand to halt him. A number of kikai beetles emerged from her sleeve, buzzing around Ken and landing on him, which he accepted with a calm smile.

After a minute the insects withdrew. "It's him," Kaede confirmed raggedly.

"He's your deceased genin team partner?" Kiran asked. "How?" He looked at Amaya. "Your eyes can bring back the dead?"

Amaya shook her head. "No. If I could do that I'd bring back my family. As far as we can figure out, I was thinking about Ken while the surgeon was preparing to cut out my eyes, and somehow the sharingan reached out and found another Ken, from another world where some parts of the past played out differently, and brought him here. In his past, we both died at the Chuunin Exam and he lived."

After that, the conversation went well into the afternoon, as Ken shared his similar but eerily unique past. By the time the story was done and they had to depart, Kaede seemed satisfied with Amaya and Ken's explanation.

"So you're not mad at me for hiding all this?" Amaya asked anxiously.

Kaede shook her head. "I know how difficult it is to decide whether or not to reveal clan secrets even for a good reason. I'm just glad and honored that you chose to trust me with this knowledge. It won't pass any farther."

"Indeed," Kiran voiced his agreement. "Kaede thinks of you like a sister, as do I. Thank you for your trust."

"I would like to make one request of you, Amaya," Kaede continued.

"Anything," Amaya replied immediately.

"I know you're going to set out to hunt down Itachi once you're ready," Kaede said, nodding thoughtfully when Amaya didn't deny it. "Promise me that before you start your hunt that you'll visit us in Sky City."

Amaya blinked. "Why?"

Kaede laughed. "Well, we'd like to have you as a guest at least once. Also, we may be able to offer you some assistance or information. Just promise me, Amaya."

Amaya nodded slowly. "All right, it's a promise."

Kaede relaxed. "Thank you, Amaya." Pausing on the threshold of the Uchiha compound, Kaede glanced back. "I should have known you two would find each other again," were her wry parting words.

When they were gone, Amaya sighed. "You were right. It's a weight off of my shoulders not having that secret between us anymore."

Ken nodded. "It'll be nice having someone else I don't have to pretend around, even if they are leaving soon."

Amaya detected the wistful note in his voice. "It's hard working with Gai-sensei and Lee-sensei, isn't it?"

Ken shrugged. "It is and it isn't. They treat Kano as well as everyone else they work with even though he's a stranger to them. It's only reinforced my respect for them. But yes, I do regret having to deceive them, even for a good reason. I know they'd understand, but I could never tell them. For Gai-sensei in particular, asking him to choose between friendship and his duty to the village and the Hokage is something I could never do." Ken paused and then glanced at Amaya. "Should we tell Tenten-sensei?"

Amaya considered it. On the one hand, sharing her secret with the wife of the Hyuuga clan's head was an even graver breach of Sasuke's trust than telling Kaede. On the other hand, she knew her teacher would be overjoyed to see Ken again. "Why don't we consider it after her babies are born and her situation calms down a bit?" Amaya suggested.

Ken considered that. "All right."

Heart racing, Amaya stepped into the wide room carved out of solid rock deep beneath Konohagakure. Once again she wore the combat uniform of an ANBU trainee: flexible pale grey armor that covered torso, shoulder and thighs. Her sky steel katana rested across her back. Waiting for her was her impassive silver-haired sensei, his one visible eye boring into her.

"Yamanaka Ino believes you're ready to resume your combat training," Kakashi observed curtly. "I do hope you're not going to prove her wrong."

"I won't, sensei," Amaya answered formally.

"Good to hear," Kakashi replied, unsheathing his own blade, "because if I don't see improvement, I guarantee you'll need the services of a different kind of medic before I'm done."

Amaya shrugged, drawing her sword with a hiss of steel on sheath. "I've gone this long without being scarred by the 'great Kakashi'. I intend to continue the streak."

Silver-haired jounin and raven-haired chuunin vanished into blurring motion at the same instant, and sparks flew through the air as shinobi steel collided.

In the forest outside Konohagakure, bird song and the music of a babbling brook filled the air and the noontime sun shone down on the tree tops. Leaves shifting in the wind produced a constantly changing mosaic of light and shade that played over the soft grass by the side of the stream. Under the shade of a mature oak, Uchiha Amaya and Isamu Ken sat together, sharing an artistically prepared lunch packaged in a few wooden boxes.

"This is great, Amaya," Ken commented as he dipped his chopsticks into one box and lifted out a grilled dumpling covered in a pale yellow sauce with red specks in it. "I've never had anything quite like this," he added after chewing and swallowing.

"It's traditional cooking from the eastern part of the Land of Lightning, so most people in the Land of Fire haven't had it," Amaya replied.

"I see. The spicing is different, but good. Is this from a new restaurant in town?" Ken inquired.

Amaya's gaze dropped. "Umm… actually, I made it."

Ken blinked in surprise, glancing back over the half-consumed spread, which had included vegetables carved into flowers and had been as much art as food. "Seriously? Wow Amaya, when did you learn to cook like this?"

Amaya's reply was one word: "Kikiyo."

When Amaya and Kaede had accepted their positions in the Lightning Daimyo's guard they'd expected to learn from their time there, by observation if nothing else. They hadn't counted on being two of only a handful of kunoichi in the entire guard at the time, and Kikiyo's passion for teaching. The dusky-skinned lightning mistress had taken them under her wing, and educated them in a lot more than ninjutsu.

Amaya and Kaede hadn't been sure what to expect the first time Kikiyo invited them to her quarters for 'kunoichi lessons', but it certainly hadn't been a gourmet kitchen. No one looking at Kikiyo would have pegged her as a culinary genius, but she was. Her explanation was a blunt and earthy as they'd come to expect from her. "A man who's thinking with his stomach is almost as oblivious as a man who's thinking with his dick. Capture the attention of either one, and he'll be putty in your hands."

Watching Ken happily munching away as she remembered those words, Amaya felt her cheeks go hot for a moment. Ken looked at quizzically. "Is something wrong?"

Amaya coughed. "Bit into a pepper," she murmured.

Ken nodded. "So this is nice," he said, gesturing to their surroundings. "What's the occasion?"

Amaya grinned at the query, glad for the change of subject. "I'm back in," she informed Ken happily before munching on a pickled carrot.

"Into…" Ken glanced around nervously, "… ANBU?"

"Yup," she chirped, "and not just back into the cadet pool; thanks to all the training we did while I was in treatment, Kakashi said I'm ready for my final evaluation."

"Congratulations, Amaya! That's great!"

"It is," she agreed, but then her smile faded. "It does, however, mean that I'll have to leave Konohagakure soon, and it won't be a short trip."

Ken nodded. "They don't test you here?"

Amaya shook her head. "Not exactly; turns out ANBU doesn't have a formalized test like the Chuunin and Jounin Exams. They send out a batch of trainees who they feel are ready along with a veteran commander on an actual ANBU mission, and that's the test. Mine just happens to be a long-term mission."

Amaya watched understanding flicker across his face and winced. "How long?" Ken asked.

"I don't know; several months at least, maybe more." Amaya sighed, looking away. "I'm sorry, Ken, I didn't want to leave for so long. But I don't get to pick the evaluation mission, and ANBU's the only place I'll ever get strong enough to face Itachi. I need to do this."

Ken's hands rested on her shoulders, drawing her back to face him. "Of course you need to do it. You'll go on this mission, and you'll get it done and become the best ANBU Konohagakure's ever had. Amaya, I answered your call because seeing you again and seeing you happy was what I wanted. I'm not going to ask you to put your life on hold for me. It's not like you won't be coming back."

Amaya bit her lip. "Thank you," she whispered. "I swear I will find a way to reverse whatever my sharingan did to bring you here; I won't leave you stranded."

Ken leaned closer. "Amaya, listen to me. I don't care if you never figure it out, because I don't want to go back. I was alone there; I lost my precious people, and I was living my life out of obligation to my family and the village more than anything. Here I get to see you again, and that matters more to me than anything I left behind." He paused. "You're cute as hell when you're feeling guilty, but seriously, stop it."

Amaya felt her cheeks burning anew and moved half on instinct, her momentum bearing Ken down onto the grass before their lips met. She felt his powerful arms wrap around her, and melted against him. It was very nice, but eventually her burning lungs reminded her that even if she could breathe underwater now, oxygen intake of some form was still necessary. Amaya drew back, her eyes meeting Ken's as he drew deep breaths as well.

"Remind me to tell you how cute you are more often," Ken commented, looking up at her with one of his silly grins.

"Shut up," Amaya growled, absently guiding a few stray locks of her hair across her forehead; she hadn't wanted to wear her hitai-ate to their picnic, so she had styled her hair to sweep across her forehead and cover the Toma brand.

Ken captured her wrist when she was done, and drew her hand to his lips, kissing the backs of her fingers. "I love you, Amaya," he said plainly. "I loved you when we were genin, and I love the woman you are now even more. Don't regret bringing me here for a second, because I don't."

"I love you too, Ken," Amaya replied. "Something in me died when I lost you and I didn't think I'd ever get it back. But in my darkest hour there you were again, like a dream. This all feels like a dream, and I'm scared to wake up."

With her hand still in his grasp, Ken rested her palm on his chest and she could feel the racing beat of his heart. "This is real, Amaya. Don't doubt it. I'm here for you, and I'm not going anywhere. When your mission is done I'll be waiting, and when you face Itachi you won't have to do it alone."

Amaya didn't know what to say to that, but Ken made words unnecessary, his hands caressing her cheeks and drawing her lips back to his once more.

"Neji?"

"Hmm?" Hyuuga Neji glanced up from the shogi board he'd been studying distractedly for the last several minutes.

"It's your move," Nara Shikamaru informed him.

"Oh." Neji pick up one of his wooden tiles and moved it.

Shikamaru shook his head, a wry grin stealing across his face. "I never thought I'd see you this nervous, Lord Hyuuga," he observed playfully.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Neji replied.

Shikamaru moved a tile of his own. "You're a lot more skilled than this. I should have invited Lee over; I think he'd have a chance against you right now."

Neji scowled at his friend. The comparison was insulting; Rock Lee was a famously bad shogi player. It wasn't a knock against his old teammate; Lee simply didn't possess the subtlety and skill in deception necessary for the game.

Then Neji looked back at the board and realized he'd fallen into a simple gambit that his uncle had taught him to avoid back when he was a chuunin. The Nara heir would win in three moves. He leaned back with a sigh. "What's taking so long?" Neji demanded irritably.

Shikamaru shrugged, glancing at the clock; currently it was half past two in the morning. "Nine hours of labor isn't unusual for a first pregnancy, Neji. We might see the sun before your daughters."

"What if something's gone wrong?" Neji fretted. He was distracted from a momentary temptation to activate his byakugan when Shikamaru palmed one of the shogi tiles and flicked it at him. Neji caught it a few centimeters from his nose and gave Shikamaru a faintly offended look.

"Put that thought out of your head, Neji. Tenten's got Sakura in there, not to mention your clan's midwives. She'll be fine. So resist the urge to peek. If she didn't ask you to be there it's because she doesn't want you to see her like that."

Neji dropped the tile on the board with a terse nod of assent. Shikamaru returned it to its starting position along with the other game pieces. "Let's go again. Try to last more than ten moves this time or I'll have to tell Lee you're ripe pickings." The Nara laughed at the Hyuuga's wordless growl.

They made it through another three games, and the sun was indeed staining the horizon pink and orange before a knock came at the door. Neji was there in a flash, opening the door to discover a startled branch servant, his hand still falling to his side from the knock. "Th-the Medic Haruno has sent for you, my Lord," the young man said, quickly regaining his composure. Then he blinked as Neji disappeared down the hall as quickly as he'd appeared in the doorway.

Sakura was packing up her tools in her black leather doctor's bag when Neji burst into the antechamber of the birthing rooms. She looked up calmly. "That was quick. Did you shunshin the whole way?" Neji directed his best disapproving gaze at the scarred medic, but she just laughed.

"Are they all right?" Neji demanded.

"You doubt my skill, Lord Hyuuga?" Sakura replied archly. "Yes, Tenten and your daughters are fine. It was a long labor, and your eldest didn't want to come out head first, but we corrected her. Tenten's ready for you, if you want to go in."

Neji swept past the smug medic and into the next room without another word. There he paused in the doorway, taking in the sight. It was plain that the midwives had taken time to clean her up. She looked tired, and there were dark marks under her eyes, but she was freshly scrubbed, her hair loose and falling behind her shoulders as she sat up in bed. In her arms were two bundles of white cloth with tiny pink heads peeking from the tops. Neji just stood there for a moment, watching his wife watch their children, the look of wonder on her face melting away the tension that had been building inside of him all night.

When Tenten looked up at him with a radiant – if weary – smile, Neji fell in love with her all over again; the love of his life, his wife, and now the mother of his children. "You are so beautiful," he said as he crossed the room to her bedside.

"Liar," she said playfully. "I'm a mess." Then her face straightened. "My lord, meet your heirs," Tenten said formally. She raised the bundle in her left arm slightly, and Neji took the baby in careful hands. "This is your eldest."

As Neji held his daughter in his arms, her tiny, pale eyes opened and she stared back at him with a quiet dignity that would have done Hinata proud. "Azuna," he said, glancing at Tenten who nodded in return. It was his mother's name, and they had agreed it would belong to their firstborn daughter. "I hear this one was giving you trouble."

Tenten looked at the baby fondly and then at him, mischief in her gaze. "Stubborn and determined to do things her own way. She was taking after her father before she even left the womb."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Neji replied loftily.

Newborn Azuna's eyes closed as she returned to sleep, and Neji placed her back in her mother's embrace, taking up the other bundle in his arms. The babies were identical in appearance, but the gaze his younger daughter turned on him seemed almost curious, and she cooed happily in his arms, tiny hands waving for a moment.

"Rika," Neji whispered. When he looked at his wife this time Tenten looked startled and her eyes were misty.

"That's not a Hyuuga name," she pointed out carefully.

"It is now," Neji replied firmly. "I dare any of those old men to tell me that my sister-in-law is not my family." The squirming bundle in his arms attracted his attention. "Besides, I think she likes it." Rika did indeed favor them with a toothless smile.

"Thank you, Neji," Tenten whispered.

"Thank you, Tenten," Neji replied earnestly as he returned Rika to her mother. "You've given me gifts without equal. I love you so much."

"I love you, too." Tenten smiled at him again, and if Neji noted – as he occasionally did – the hint of something else undefinable behind Tenten's happy mien, it was easy to disregard as nothing more than his imagination. Nothing could impinge on the joy Tenten had brought to his life.