Title: Koumajutsu
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own "Naruto" or "Inuyasha". This will be Canon Naruto and Alternate Universe Inuyasha.
DO NOT EXPECT CHAPTERS THIS LONG ALL THE TIME!!
NOTE: I made up languages for this story. Any word that is obviously not English (or the frequently used Japanese words) is probably going to be gibberish. I don't do it very often, and where I do it I generally have explained the meaning of the word within the chapter the word appears if I need it to mean something specific. If I do not explain the word within the chapter it appears, I try to give it up to contextual interpretation.
Example: "shavden" was hinted to refer to Vvim and Terrence's dead mother.
Chapter 49: Deathwishy Child
Naruto could not help but be excited when the familiar mountain surrounding Sunagakure came in sight. Returning to the place wasn't as exciting as returning home to Konoha was, but it was still a great moment. For a brief second, his heart clenched and his eyes watered up with the emotion he felt at seeing the narrow canyon passageway through the mountain that served as a gate to the hidden ninja city.
In a way, he had more waiting for him in Suna than he did in Konoha, but in the end Konoha was his home and no matter how hard it got, no matter what he had to endure from the townsfolk, he still loved his hometown and he would always return to it for as long as its doors remained open and welcoming to him.
However, just as Jiraiya had said to him, if he ever needed a place to go—if Konoha became unfriendly territory to him because of certain circumstances—then he could go to his home in Suna. He knew Jiraiya was talking about Kyuubi at the time, even if the old toad hermit never actually verbalized it.
Naruto glanced at Sakura out of the corner of his eye. Today, he decided. Today she would have to know, because he knew he couldn't hide it for the duration of their several month stay in Suna. She would find out eventually, and he didn't want her to feel bad when she did find out. It was one thing to simply not mention it in Konoha when it was unlikely for 'it' to pop up randomly and bite him in the ass.
Sakura was probably going to laugh at him and call him a loser. He could feel his cheeks warm up in embarrassment at the very thought of Sakura laughing at him. Hinata had been nice about it. When he told Hinata he had adopted a bunch of kids, she didn't laugh at him and the word 'loser' probably wasn't even in her vocabulary.
But he had to tell Sakura anyway, even if she did laugh at him, and even if she called him names. She was his teammate; she deserved to know. Right? He wished he felt something other than dread for telling her. When he turned in his training report to Tsunade talking about all the embarrassing things he'd been through with Jiraiya, it was easy to take on a cocky 'Yeah-It-Happened-So-What-Got -A-Problem-With-It?' attitude.
Where was the cocky attitude when he needed it?
Quit brooding, kit. Kyuubi told him. You're making an awful lot of noise, and I am trying to nap.
Stupid fox, Naruto thought with all his might, hoping said fox would hear it. If Kyuubi did, he didn't say anything about it.
Just tell her. You don't have to be worried about her disliking you just because you screwed up for the hundredth time. She loves you, so get used to it.
Naruto's jaw dropped and he turned wide eyes on the girl walking beside him. "Are you serious?!" he demanded and she suddenly stopped talking. He realized his mistake. She'd been talking to him, and he had no idea what she'd just said before his rather random outburst.
She looked triumphant and suddenly stopped walking, pointing at him with an accusatory finger. "I knew it!" she said; behind them the other five members of their party stopped walking to look on them in confusion. "You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying!"
"No-uh-yes!" He stammered. Damn Kyuubi. He dropped a bomb on Naruto and left the human to pick up his own pieces. The fox was never any help when he was needed! "I mean, yes! I was listening!"
"Then how do you explain 'are you serious' as a proper response to 'are you listening to me'?! Seriously, Naruto! Of all the more intelligent choices Tsunade could have picked to be ambassador, she chose you, and you can hardly keep up with anyone's conversations, ever!" Sakura was still upset that he'd refused to tell her about Vvim.
It wasn't that Naruto didn't want her to know… he just didn't know how to begin because there was more to the issue of him having kids than just telling about Vvim. He had to show her.
Naruto sighed and tried to scratch the flesh beneath his cast. "Sorry… My hand hurts," he lied, "it was hard to concentrate." It was a really big lie, because Sakura had stuffed him so full of medicine that morning it was a wonder he wasn't prancing around pretending to be a daffodil. He couldn't feel his hand.
But she believed him. She bit her lip for a moment and then said reluctantly, "I'm sorry for yelling, Naruto. How bad is the pain?"
Ino interrupted abruptly with a quick, "Sakura, no. He can't have any more medicine until five o'clock at the earliest. You know that, so quit being a softy!"
Sakura looked like she wanted to protest but she didn't. She set off toward the hidden ninja city again. Ino went to catch up to her. Ten-Ten, Fuyumi, and Hinata went after the two, and Naruto then fell in step with Lee.
Lee smiled brightly at Naruto. "Naruto-kun, shall I tell you of my recent trip to the Gagazet Mountain springs with Gai-sensei to take your mind off of your pain?" Naruto simply nodded and Lee regaled a tale of Gai-sensei's idea of "spring training". For regular guys (basically anyone who wasn't Lee or Gai-sensei) the training was more like sheer torture. Naruto gave Lee loads of credit for actually living through the torture and being able to tell the tale afterward.
When they made it to the entrance to the city, the city guards took a look at their letter of introduction from Tsunade and provided them with a map of the city. Ordinarily someone as important as an ambassador would receive an escort, but Suna had less than half of the population that Konoha had, and with as busy as the city was, there was no one to spare at the moment.
Since it was a Saturday, and barely after 12:00 in the afternoon, the Sun Festival was taking place. Naruto had to go to the newly built ninja academy at two o'clock to keep a promise. He also would have to see Gaara at some point. Sakura elbowed Naruto—when had she returned to his side?—to get him to pay attention to the guard.
"I apologize, but Kazekage-sama will be unable to see you until later this evening. Arrangements have been made for you and your three-person guard to stay at Kazekage-sama's home; the others may find suitable lodging"—he pointed to a hotel on the map—"at the Dawn Shard. If you have any questions, feel free to return here."
Sakura asked, "Where is Kazekage-sama's home?"
The guard pointed it out on the map and then circled it with his pen. "Here. You may proceed there at your discretion. The servants there will be able to direct you where you need to go. As a recommendation, feel free to enjoy the Sun Festival and visit the local glass shops."
The guard gave them all a friendly smile and shooed them into the city. The group stopped just inside the main gate and looked around. Merchants and shinobi and civilians all wandered hither-thither, roaming from caravan to caravan and purchasing the goods the merchants brought from other parts of the world.
"Wow," Ino breathed happily, "I feel a shop-a-thon coming on…"
"Aw," Naruto whined, "but I'm hungry. I was hoping we'd stop and eat!"
"Hmph!" Fuyumi flicked her long braid over her shoulder. Naruto noticed she had a strange curved blade tied to the end of her braid which would potentially turn even her hair into a weapon. He'd never seen a woman with such a weapon before, but then again, he rarely saw kunoichi with hair longer than mid-back either. Ino was an exception to the rule. "If you're hungry, take Sakura-chan with you."
Ten-Ten grabbed Lee's wrist and dragged him toward the many booths, their one map in her hand. "Come on, Lee! Someone has to carry the bags, and no one is more capable than you are!"
Lee perked up. "That is correct! I am very capable of…" he trailed off and then groaned, seeming to realize she'd exploited him and his weakness. "Wait, Ten-Ten, uh, I um, think I hear Gai-sensei calling?" He also seemed to realize he wasn't doing very well at lying, but it really was funny to watch him attempt it.
"Nice try, Lee." Ino chuckled before the group of them disappeared into the crowd of people, leaving Sakura and Naruto alone.
"Grr," Sakura grumbled, "You owe me, Naruto. Even Hinata is going shopping, so you know I'm going to miss some really good stuff!"
"But the food is great too," Naruto tried to say. "Besides… I think they abandoned us on purpose."
"I got that feeling too," Sakura admitted. "How is your hand feeling now?" She turned to him with a small smile and shuffled her feet a bit as if nervous. He wondered what was bothering her.
"It's okay, really… The stitches on my chest itch more than my hand hurts." He hoped he was reassuring her. He looked around, hoping for some random thing to spark up a conversation between them; he had no idea why it suddenly felt awkward to be alone with her.
"I'll need to check those stitches later on," Sakura said. She took his good hand in hers and started pulling him toward the street on their left. He gripped her hand firmly, lacing their fingers. Walking was a good idea, because it seemed to make things a little less awkward between them. "Keep an eye on where we go. I've never been here, so I'm sure it will be easy getting lost."
"I'm familiar with the city, Sakura-chan," he promised her. "I can get you unlost if you get lost."
"That isn't a word," she reprimanded him with a giggle.
"Well it is now." He 'harrumphed' and it got him another giggle. He smiled down at her, wondering when she got to be so much shorter than him. He could remember being called a runt by her. Now she couldn't say that about him anymore. "Are you hungry for anything, Sakura-chan?" he asked her.
She thought for a moment before shrugging. "I am a little hungry, I suppose. I'm not really particular for anything at the moment though."
He looked around and saw a nearby restaurant. "How about that one?"
"Go for it, dead-last," drawled an incredibly familiar voice nearby, "that is, if you want to risk getting sick off spoiled meat or rotten vegetables." Both teens looked toward the owner of the voice and Sakura squealed happily upon seeing who it was.
"Sasuke-kun!" she shot toward where Sasuke was leaning up against the alleyway wall of the restaurant. She threw her arms around Sasuke and, surprise of all surprises, Sasuke allowed her to touch him without pain of death. Sasuke even slipped an arm around her waist in a deluded half-hug.
Grr, Naruto was going to hit Sasuke. Even when he wasn't supposed to leave Konoha, somehow he got to leave Konoha. And Sakura still thought Sasuke was the coolest thing since they made juice boxes with pop-in straws!
But of course, there wasn't much Naruto could do except be all jealous over his best friend getting an enthusiastic hug from a cute girl with pink hair, so that's what he did. He got jealous, huffed, crossed his arms over his chest, and stated in an annoyed tone of voice, "Well, I'm going to eat!"
He stormed toward the restaurant but didn't get far before Sasuke had him by the wrist (thankfully he'd grabbed his good wrist…not that he'd have a good wrist if Sasuke kept up with the pressure-applying because DAMN IT HURT!). Sasuke said, "Naruto, I'm serious. The place is under inspection and liable to be shut down by the end of the day."
Naruto couldn't actually confess to having heard a word Sasuke said. His eyes were stunned and staring at something on Sasuke's forehead. "What's the point? You couldn't even lay a scratch on this anyway," Sasuke had growled at the Valley of Ends. Sasuke had it back again. He wore his old forehead protector… the one with the gouge through the leaf symbol.
Hi to you too, Sasy-chan, Kyuubi whispered in a mocking voice. Sasuke rolled his eyes; a silent communication that he wouldn't respond to Kyuubi. Now, now, Sasy-chan, don't think those sort of things. Sasuke sighed.
Sakura neared the boys and said, "Okay, I'm missing something. Are you two planning on kissing, or do you really have some sort of com-link buried in your brains that lets you guys hear each other's thoughts?"
Naruto blinked at Sakura, then at Sasuke, and then he grinned widely at "Amunet's Boyfriend". "Kiss, huh? We could make it all kinky and stuff, and bring you in the middle, Sakura-chan," he told the girl. That got him a screamed 'pervert' and a hard slap, but it didn't lessen how humorous he found her shocked expression.
"What is wrong with you?" Sakura asked Naruto, but then apparently decided she didn't want to know (or was better off not knowing). "Just—stay away from Jiraiya. And Kakashi, as much as you possibly can." She turned to look at Sasuke and totally ignore her somewhat perverted teammate. "Sasuke-kun, what are you doing here?"
Sasuke shrugged. "You want the truth, or something that sounds good but is a lie?"
"The truth," both Naruto and Sakura said in unison.
"No lying," Sakura added.
"Hokage sent me here with a message for 'Konoha's Ambassador'. Kakashi's around here somewhere too, but he ditched me right after we rented a hotel room Thursday night. Said he saw an old friend." He seemed bored as he said it. As people in the street groused about having to move around the three teens, Sakura grabbed both of them by the hand and pulled them closer to the alley and out of the way.
"A message?" Sakura asked curiously.
Naruto was more concerned with… "Thursday night?! How did you pass us up? You were still in Konoha when we left, and we got stuck in a sandstorm yesterday, laid up in the way house at Creevy's Oasis!"
"Naruto," Sakura said patiently, "we stopped walking at three on the first day. Sasuke-kun probably passed up Wren Rock."
Sasuke nodded his agreement. "Oh, and the message is 'if someone asks you what the message is, make up something inventive.'"
"But why would Tsunade-sama send you here?" Sakura asked.
More importantly, "Make up something inventive?! What kind of crap is that? I'm good, but I'm not that good!"
"I thought you were still on probation." Sakura really was ignoring him… Didn't the girl know Naruto was going through a crisis? How was he supposed to come up with some ingenious reason for Sasuke and Kakashi to come see the Konoha Ambassador (who was him, of course, not that he really needed to be reminded of that totally awesome fact) without his beloved Sakura to force him to concentrate on…
Hey, he had a really good view down Sakura's vest from where he stood… Ooh, she wasn't wearing a breast band, which probably meant bra, which definitely meant "more cleavage than normal", oh life was so goo—Naruto, you're off track. Kyuubi told him.
Oh, yes… he was panicking. "How the hell do I come up with something like that?" Naruto moaned.
"Shut up, Naruto!" his two friends said to him. Naruto pouted because no one cared of his crisis. Sasuke continued with a clipped, "Due to certain developments in my personal relations, Hokage has deemed me fit to be a shinobi."
"Certain developments?" Sakura asked.
Naruto snorted, "Fit… yeah, whatever."
"What kind of developments?"
Sasuke glared at them both. "Apparently there is an underground kunoichi fan-girl society, and once I appeared with a girlfriend, a 'hit' was put out on my girlfriend's head. But, since no one can locate my girlfriend at this time, and I am not willing to divulge the information of her whereabouts under pain or threat of death, the rabid females of Konohagakure deemed it more worthwhile to form a mob and chase me through the streets. In three hours following your departure from the city, I became far more hunted than any missing-nin has ever been forced to deal with. Apparently I am better off dead than shared." Sasuke shuddered slightly as Naruto nearly bit his lip off trying not to laugh.
Sakura's eyes blazed furiously. "How dare those bitches take action without me there! I am president of the Sasuke Uchiha Fan Club! Oh, they are so dead when I get back to Konoha!" She immediately began pulling at Sasuke's clothes, lifting his shirt up to check for bruises or scrapes. "Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke glared at her. "You ask if I am alright." He actually huffed in irritation. "Alright, you say? No, I am not, in fact, alright. I spent three hours on Monday ducking shuriken and dodging kunai. Konoha became a war zone as nearly four hundred women tried to murder me, and no, they were not going to give me a clean, quick death. They wanted to rip me apart—slowly. They had plans to tie me to a bed and… how did they say it again?" His face scrunched up as he imitated a shrill female voice. "Sex Uchiha to death."
Naruto couldn't help it. He snorted several times as he tried not to laugh and then deemed it too difficult a task and gave in to full out laughter. "Man am I so glad I don't have a fan club!" Naruto cackled.
Sakura 'harrumphed' and turned her nose up at Naruto. "Don't be so sure about yourself, Uzumaki, Naruto!" she told him seriously. "You do have a fan club! As far as I'm aware it only consists of one person, but let me tell you! One person is all it takes." Naruto went slightly green and Sakura snickered slightly. "That's right, so shut your damn mouth, Naruto."
Naruto gulped. "Okay, Sasuke… if I die because of a rabid fan girl, um… you can have all my stuff, okay?"
"Same to you," Sasuke said. "Except my death seems more imminent than yours, since, well… it's just not safe for me in Konoha. Anyway, that's why Tsunade took me off probation, but she's keeping the tracking bug in me."
"What tracking bug?" Sasuke had a tracking bug in him? That was news to Naruto.
"The one that was put in Sasuke-kun's arm when he came back, stupid," Sakura said. Naruto couldn't help but let a stupid grin cross his face. Team 7 was back together.
His stomach growled. Both of his friends heard it and looked at him (Sakura kind of glared at him that his stomach would interrupt her time with Sasuke, and Sasuke kind of smirked as if he had known that would happen ahead of time). "Naruto, how can you possibly eat as much as you do?!" Sakura demanded. "And be as hungry as often as you are?"
"Hey! I'm eating for two people here," Naruto insisted. He slid his good arm through Sakura's and squinted at Sasuke, trying to telepathically say that he should do that as well. Sasuke didn't get the message, since he just stared at him like he was crazy (which, him being crazy wouldn't be debatable at all). "Sasuke, grab Sakura! I know this good restaurant you'll both love!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes and did not move to take Sakura's arm. Sakura didn't notice his obvious wish for some personal space since she invaded it like an alien and latched onto his arm with her free one… Naruto was so not going to let her arm go… Lee might be Naruto's friend, but Sakura was Naruto's teammate. Therefore, Naruto was supposed to have certain benefits that Lee did not when it came to Sakura. Arm grabbing was one of those benefits (though sexual harassment laws might see it differently but at least she wasn't protesting).
"It better not be a ramen stand, Naruto, because if it is…" Sakura warned him slowly.
"It's not, I promise! It's called Parson's Diner. They're really good. Old man Jiraiya won't eat at any other places in Suna." Sakura looked downright deadly hearing that. Naruto hastily amended, "It's not a hooker house! I promise!"
Sasuke sighed. "Surprise of all surprises, I suppose." He said. "You better be paying for your abnormal appetite, because I don't have much on me."
"Lunch is my treat," Naruto promised. "Besides, I have…" He trailed off for a moment, trying to decide if he should just blurt it out or wait until their mouths were full and hope that they'd be too busy choking to laugh at him. The latter sounded better, so he went with that. "Money," he finished lamely.
Sasuke and Sakura glanced at him with odd expressions. He knew they knew he was not telling them something. They'd find out in due time… if those accusatory glares didn't force him to give out early.
Thankfully he managed to hold off blurting it out until they reached Parson's Diner. They sat at one of the small, circular tables and the red-haired waitress gave them each a menu. Sakura took a look at the menu and groaned. "I can't read a word this says!" she said. "It's written in Suni!"
Sasuke said, "Don't feel too upset. I can't read it either."
Naruto grinned smugly at his teammates. "Well, I can."
Both of them stared at him in shock and surprise. "I feel one-upped," Sasuke admitted.
"'Cause I'm better than you," Naruto smirked. "Jiraiya made me learn the native languages of all the places we went." He looked at the red-haired waitress and felt like showing off. It was always a good idea to show off when he could, especially when he was about to get laughed at. He grabbed his teammates' menus and handed them back to the woman, ordering their drinks and meals for them. As he ordered, he spoke Suni, just because he could.
"Show off," Sasuke muttered darkly before brooding.
The waitress took down the order and went off toward the kitchen.
Sakura, on the other hand, was mildly impressed. Naruto knew how to speak Suni, and read it, so she could assume he could write it. But from what he'd said, he knew other languages too, and that made her curious. What other languages did he know?
"Oh yeah!" Sakura said, remembering something she'd asked before she got side-tracked after learning Naruto had a kid. It bit her in the rear that he wouldn't tell her about his kid, but she figured he must have a reason for it. "That agreement you helped with! What did you do for it?"
Naruto felt his cheeks warm up as Sasuke looked between Naruto and Sakura with his usual blank stare. Sasuke didn't know about that. It was too bad he couldn't remain ignorant. "What agreement?"
"Erm," Naruto hesitated, but Kyuubi sleepily told him to suck it up and talk about it. "Well, that wasn't… well… it wasn't really my fault," Naruto began.
Sakura blinked and then asked, "What do you mean? Did you help with the Chunin exams coming here, or didn't you?"
"Well, it ended up with that result, but that wasn't exactly what I was trying to do." Naruto winced at the memory. It was definitely the opposite of what he wanted to happen. "See, Jiraiya and me went to the Zodiac Mountains, and I… accidentally wrecked something that… probably shouldn't have been." His friends looked at him with such dry expressions on their faces he knew they were not surprised. "It wasn't my fault though! There were like a million women, and they were like, 'Hey!' and I was like, 'Hi!' and then it was like, eh, and suddenly, BAM! And then the girls were all like, 'Zeve di koda?' and that's like… only the most embarrassing thing to be asked ever, so I was like, 'Nore vakuro di patrodaxen!' and they were like, 'Dosten!' and they came at me, and well…" he trailed off. "Um, yeah, so that's how it happened… and then I came here with the old toad pervert and he left me! I don't even know where he went, but I was by myself for weeks!"
"I think you lost me," Sakura said slowly.
Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know! I was totally lost too!"
Sasuke frowned. "So basically you didn't tell us anything that really explains anything."
Naruto took a deep breath and thought real hard about how to explain things. "Okay, first Jiraiya and I went to the mountains. Then I was just walking along minding my own business, and I saw something sparkling. So I had to investigate it! It was a coin stuck in a crevice between two rocks. I managed to get it out but… um… doing so kind of caused a rock slide. Even though no one was hurt, they still made me do community service to pay for the damages to the city. The job they needed me to do was deliver a message here, and then take the response back."
"So what was the most embarrassing thing they asked you?" Sakura asked.
Naruto huffed. "They asked if I did it on purpose! Can you believe that? I mean, if I wanted to purposefully cause a rock slide and wreck things…" He felt insulted just thinking of it. It was as if they'd accused him of being weak! If he wanted to cause damage, he would cause real damage, not just cause a small rock slide that happened to knock down a wall on a restaurant.
The waitress brought their food and drinks out and Naruto ate the food gladly. Sakura and Sasuke looked less certain about it, but they did take some in their mouths and found that it was edible even if it wasn't all that great. (Naruto would've preferred ramen, but…).
Sakura said, "So how did you end up with a kid?" as soon as Naruto's mouth was full.
His cheeks burned as Sasuke glanced at him in surprise. Naruto could practically read Sasuke's thoughts. The other boy was recalling how Naruto proclaimed to be able to get pregnant in his female form. "'t's nurt zat!" Naruto told Sasuke through a mouth full of food.
Sasuke merely raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'Isn't it?'
Naruto panicked, trying to figure out how to say it properly. Just how did one broach such a sensitive topic? He really, really didn't want them to hate him. Kyuubi insisted that Sakura loved Naruto for who he was and that her feelings wouldn't change because he made a mistake, but how could Naruto believe it? People hated when others made mistakes, therefore they must hate the person who made mistakes as well, right?
"It's not what, Naruto?" Sakura demanded. "Its high time you start talking! You said you have a little girl! What about her mother? And when did all this happen?"
"Well, they don't have a mom," Naruto began, swallowing nervously. He began to tear up his napkin as nerves gripped his stomach.
Sasuke let out a surprised, "They? You have multiple children?"
Sakura looked downright shocked. "Just how many kids to you have?!" she wanted to know.
Naruto winced at her tone. "Well, seventeen… But, but it's not really, I mean, not what it sounds, or really, it's not that bad!" Naruto was really attempting to save himself, but doing that was really hard. "Sakura-chan, I can explain! Really!"
She glared at him with a hard look on her face. "Then by all means… start explaining, because I fail to see how being a man-whore makes you any better! No woman could possibly have seventeen kids, so that suggests multiple partners! And that's disgusting!"
Naruto hung his head a bit. "Sakura-chan… I…" he didn't know how to say it. It would be so easy. Really, all he had to do was say, I screwed up so bad a woman died giving birth and felt awful so I adopted seventeen kids. But then again, that was a hard thing to admit.
Sasuke had a novel idea. "Why don't we finish eating, and if it is agreeable to you, Naruto, you could introduce us to your kids."
Naruto sent a grateful smile at his friend, but even Sasuke looked a bit disconcerted. He was probably also thinking badly of Naruto. Naruto wished he was more like Sasuke or Neiji or Shino. All of them would probably not have a single problem breaking such important news to someone.
They finished eating in silence and Naruto went to pay the bill. When he returned to his friends, Sakura was just lifting her travel pack on her shoulders, but Sasuke offered to carry it for her (which was surprisingly nice and thoughtful of the other boy, but probably also done to one-up Naruto who was about to ask if he could carry it for Sakura so he could one-up Sasuke…).
"Well, let's go meet your kids, Naruto," Sakura ordered.
Sasuke put a hand on her shoulder and whispered softly in her ear, then said a bit louder, "If you want to introduce us to them," as if Sasuke was a peacemaker. Maybe Sasuke knew Naruto felt awful.
They left and Naruto led them down familiar streets, stopping in front of the broken picket fence surrounding his Sunagakure property. His cheeks burned as his good hand pushed the broken gate open. He didn't look at his friends. He didn't need to. Shock and dismay rolled off them like torrential waves as they got a look at the run down place.
The building didn't look any better than it had two years earlier when Naruto purchased it. Graffiti littered the outside of the building and it looked like something that should be condemned, not lived in. Naruto felt even more embarrassed. He'd given them money to put toward repairs. It looked worse now. Where were the children? The younger ones usually played in the yard. He paused at the front door, looking up at the sign that read "Nana's House".
"Naruto, are you saying you know Nana Reiss?" Sakura demanded with an incredulous look on her face.
Naruto scratched the back of his neck self-consciously. Of course now would be a good time to mention that, but then what to do about 'Amunet'? "Yeah… um, about that…" Naruto sighed. He closed his eyes, wishing that life had an easy button. "Er, just… come in. There's… a few things… yeah…" He opened the door and let them in the house.
The first room they entered was the entrance hall. The house was eerily quiet; Naruto felt unsettled. Where were they? "Mesa Theroux?" he called out. There was no response. His stomach churned. He pointed to the door on their left. "Wait for me in there. I'll be right back." He didn't wait for their response before heading through the door on the right.
The door led into the dining hall. Through there, he was able to get to the kitchen. He was able to relax instantly when he saw his live-in caretaker. The white-haired old woman was just pulling hot cookies from the oven. The kitchen was stifling, even though the windows were all open.
She looked up at him in surprise when the door opened. "Oh! Master Uzumaki," she smiled warmly at him. "I did not expect you!" The plump lady set her tray on top of the oven and got her spatula, removing the cookies from the tray to a cooling rack. "The children will be happy to see you. Vvim really wants to meet you."
"I had to come…" Naruto told Mesa Theroux. "Terrence's graduation is today. I didn't want to miss it." He watched her move the cookies; it was almost mesmerizing the way they went from one place to the other. "Where are the kids, anyway?"
Mesa Theroux chuckled at him. "Today is Vvim's birthday. The children decided Vvim needed a special birthday outfit, so they are at the tailor's. Afterward, they will go to support Terrence's graduation."
"Oh…" he felt a sort of foolish amusement toward his own worry. What did he think, that they'd been adopted? It was impossible, since he had already adopted them. He decided the best time to ask about the house repairs would be while it was still on his mind, so he brought it up. "Why haven't there been repairs made to the place?"
He did know he needed to return to his friends and finish explaining things, but he was procrastinating. Worse still, he knew he was procrastinating. "It was the children's decision, Master Uzumaki. I did argue with them, but I'm just an old woman and there is only one of me. They decided to use the money for something else."
She built up a plate of previously cooled cookies, then offered him one. He gladly took one. He'd definitely hired a worthy woman to take care of his kids (she was a great cook!) because he'd never gotten better cookies from anyone else (not that many people ever offered him any though so he was biased). "But Mesa Theroux," he started. She looked at him with a quick glance of amusement.
"How many times must I tell you not to call me 'Mesa Theroux'? You make me feel old. Just call me Anna." She chuckled at the properly scolded look on his face. "I'm a civilian, Master Uzumaki, and you've got seventeen ninja children running about—and if they aren't ninja yet, they fully intend to be soon enough. I'll not argue much with that!"
"But you're in charge of the money!" Naruto tried to argue. "I don't want the roof falling on your heads if one tough wind blows through the city!"
She set the plate of cookies in front of him. "Master Uzumaki, this old house is a fine example of Suni architecture! It'll not be falling even if an army comes at it. Sure, it looks a bit old fashioned, but I'll have you know the founding fathers of this orphanage built this house with the sweat and sand from their backs!"
"And I thought the kids didn't want to be ninja! That confuses me; why would they all want to be one now?" Naruto bit into the warm, chewy cookie, trying to contemplate that strange occurrence. He knew a few of them were shinobi before he came along due to the city 'owning' them, but Terrence was the last of them who had been forced by the city to go to the ninja academy, and once someone started at the academy, they couldn't simply stop going. There were still a few who didn't have to be shinobi due to Naruto adopting them.
"They have a great influence in their lives who they admire and look up to," Anna said. Naruto felt his cheeks pink for the thousandth time that day. "You truly are a one-of-a-kind."
Naruto stuffed more cookie in his mouth to hide his embarrassment. Anna had a real knack for making him feel self-conscious. But maybe she could help him with his current problem? "Mesa Theroux," he began again, but changed course when she gave him a small 'look'. "Erm, Anna…" Her expression seemed to say 'that's better', so he continued, "My teammates are here, and I'm trying to figure out how to explain me having seventeen kids to them."
Anna gave him a long, speculating look before shrugging. "Why don't you start from the beginning? I find a good story always starts with a beginning." She turned around and started getting another batch of cookies on the tray to go in the oven.
"Yeah, but there's so much more to it than the beginning! How do I explain Nana, and… and that." He couldn't even say it aloud. He hated that he failed. Maybe if he were just a little bit smarter, Vvim's mother might not have died in childbirth. Maybe if he didn't always fail at everything, it might not surprise him so much when he actually did something right.
"Master Uzumaki, if you start from the beginning, and I would think Vvim's birth would make a great beginning, then you can let them ask questions and answer them until you feel you've told enough of it for them to understand. It is really quite simple that way." Anna put more cookies on the plate before him even if he had only eaten one so far.
Naruto felt his shoulders sag. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to choke. He just wasn't ready to tell them. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he could tell anyone except his Konoha friends—and he had told a few people about it before, too. Some of the people on the Argreena knew. He had friends from the "sex academy" (the Seduction-Infiltrator Mastery School, in other words) who knew about it. His gay friend Cleo knew. Temari knew. But what if his Konoha friends thought he was weak because of it, or a loser, or a freak?
He wasn't a hero like his father the Fourth Hokage. He screwed up a lot. His broken hand was testimony to that. If he had been smarter, he might have found a way to destroy the inky monster thing instead of breaking the bones of his hand trying to release the cables on the lift tray.
Anna reached out and pinched his cheek with a small, comforting smile on her face. (Well, it was either meant to be comforting, or else she was secretly plotting to kill him… one could never be too careful around those Suni people, if Gaara was any indication—though Anna, being a civilian and all, probably wasn't plotting his death). "You did what you could for the shavden, Master Uzumaki. Terrence and Vvim know this. They do not blame you, and as much as Terrence is older than you, he still respects you as his nana. Now, you take this plate of cookies." She pressed the plate into his hands. "Return to your team and offer them a cookie. Let everything else just fall into place."
Naruto sighed and took the plate from her. "Yes, Mesa Ther—"
"Master Uzumaki, don't you make me get the spoon!" Anna said sternly. "I get enough of that name-calling from the children. I don't need it from you too!"
He gulped, flushed a rather pale color at the idea of a whacking, and then amended, "Yes, Anna…"
She smiled pleasantly. "Now, how many of your team are here? I must know for how many glasses of milk to bring out. I know children just love dunking their cookies!" Her eyes twinkled merrily and he responded with a quick, 'two others' before taking the cookies out of the kitchen.
When he got to the sitting room, he found the interior had changed quite a bit since his last trip. The kids had added a lot of furniture to the once perfectly uniform room. Paintings (probably done by the kids themselves, since most of them lacked talent of any kind) hung on the walls in random places, held up by frames that were either made of recycled materials (also probably the work of the kids) or else second- or third-hand resale frames.
The mismatched furniture sprawled everywhere in the room, almost creating a clown-like environment. Some of the furniture coverings had poke-dots, some of them were plaid, and some of them were flannel patterned. Some of the furniture were upholstered in well-worn leather that had torn but been repaired crudely. Other pieces of furniture were just plain one color of fabric. Some had been sat on so much the springs were shot just by looking at it, and still there were others that had a pillow nest on them.
Some were recliners, others were love seats, a few were pouf chairs with such wide seats they could fit an ogre's bottom in it without hesitation. Some were pull-out couch-beds, some were couch-futons. In front of (or beside, depending if the furniture was a chair or a couch) each piece of furniture was a coffee table or a couch end for snacks and drinks to rest on.
Despite the fact that there was furniture everywhere, there still seemed to be a purpose to the placement of the furniture. Every piece of furniture was placed to create a very large circle around the center of the room where there were eight televisions on an obviously home-built circular entertainment center.
Naruto rolled his eyes. 'Terrence,' he thought. It had to be the boy. Terrence was an electronic freak. He probably used his meager inheritance from his mother's death to buy the televisions, and by the fact that there was only one universal remote control and only one movie player in the center of the whole mess, he could easily guess Terrence made it so that all eight televisions were interconnected so that all the kids could watch the same thing.
It was an interesting home theater set up; Naruto had a television once, but it had been a black-and-white screen that was so old it didn't have a remote control and half the time it didn't work. It had six owners before he got it. His landlady sold it to him for fifteen dollars so that he would be able to keep an eye on the news in case school got canceled in the winter. He never had a shelf to put it on, so he'd always been tripping over it in his tiny apartment until he just got rid of it. He always had to work anyway, so snow-day or not he would have to leave the apartment.
Most of the paintings appeared to be self-portraits, but there was a very large painting covered with new (not even littered with moth eaten holes) bright orange cloth made of velvet, as if the cloth were a curtain to keep the precious painting as free of sand as possible, while the others looked dusty and had bits of sand gathering in the corners. He wondered what the painting was of, but then Sakura and Sasuke caught his attention.
They had not sat down. From the way Sasuke's shoulders were tense and Sakura's lips were pursed, he guessed they were a bit nervous. At least Naruto wasn't the only one, then. His nerves were becoming so frayed (he probably would cry if they started laughing at him, or if they hated him, or if they were disgusted at him, or… or… STOP. He had to stop thinking) he wasn't sure how much longer he would last before going berserk. Why was it such a big deal to tell them, but not a stranger? They'd known him since forever-ago, so this should be easier! Then why did he feel like tearing out his hair?
And why wasn't Kyuubi bothering to reassure him that everything would be okay? Oh yeah… the fox said he was going to take a nap (and expressly told him not to get into trouble and die in the meantime).
"Um, Mesa Theroux made cookies," Naruto began lamely as he walked up to them. He held out the cookies. Neither of them took a cookie, so he gave up and set the plate on the closest coffee table. The coffee table looked like it had seen war and survived to tell the tale. Since they were in a hidden ninja city, he rather randomly thought the table just might have done that. He waved to the furniture. "You guys can sit down." He glanced at one of the many clocks on the walls (no matter what angle a person sat at in the room, they would always be able to know what time it was) and saw he only had an hour until he needed to be at Terrence's graduation.
That certainly didn't leave much time for an important explanation, did it?
The two of them sat on the closest ogre-sized pouf chair (which happened to be a rather attractive orange color even if Naruto did say so himself…) and Naruto sat on the sturdy coffee table in front of them. He wanted to RUN AWAY, but he couldn't. Not only would his pride not let him back down, but they'd probably just chase him down and whack him around a bit, then he'd have a few more injuries and he'd still have to tell them.
There was no escaping this now.
"First off," Sasuke started when no one was saying anything, "who is Mesa Theroux?"
"She's my," Naruto began, but a grandmotherly tittering sound cut him off.
"Tut tut, young Master, you make a woman feel old." She set a tray of three dunkable glasses of milk on the table beside Naruto and then flicked Naruto's ear. He winced and rubbed the abused appendage. "Don't go teaching your friends to call me names, Master Uzumaki." She smiled and held out a hand in greeting to the two, shaking their hands pleasantly. "I am Anna Thomson. Master Uzumaki hired me to be a live-in caretaker for the children."
Naruto felt as if just a little bit of his nervousness went away. He felt a hint of a smile creeping on his face. "Yeah, well you're totally qualified for the job! You can make homemade ramen!"
Sasuke's lip twitched and Sakura hid a small smile. Anna sighed and ruffled Naruto's hair. The white-haired woman glanced side-long at Sakura. "Boys will be boys; I trust them to think with their stomachs. It makes it so much easier to tell when they're lying." Sakura giggled.
Sasuke asked, "What's with this room?"
"I donno," Naruto said, shrugging. "It wasn't like this two years ago; I haven't been back here since then. Haven't had the time or the opportunity. Mes—Anna, erm, hehe…" She had looked ready to clock him upside the head, civilian or not. "Anna, why did this room change?"
Anna lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. "There was no need for an interview room after this place ceased to be an orphanage." She placed a hand on her hip and peered speculatively at Naruto's teammates. "Well, then, drink your milk and eat your cookies. Master Uzumaki, will you sleep here? Shall I clean up your room?"
"I can clean," Naruto began but Anna frowned at him. "I guess you can…"
She smiled victoriously (why? It wasn't like she won a battle or anything…) and said a brief note of departure to Sasuke and Sakura before leaving the room. When she was gone, Sakura said, "She seems like a really nice lady."
"She is," Naruto agreed. Then things sort of fell silent and Naruto knew it was time. It was time to just get it over with. "It started when I gave birth to Vvim," he began, and then he flushed dangerously pink as he realized what he said. He quickly corrected it to steer the amusement off his friends' faces. "I mean, this old woman was pregnant and there was no one else around to help her give birth! I didn't really pop a kid out myself! I just was there."
Thankfully they stayed quiet so he could tell them the story. He pushed forward, screwed up half the story and had to backtrack because he'd had a temporary case of verbal dyslexia, but finally he managed to tell them how he'd come across Terrence while he was out in the desert alone. Terrence led him to a cave his mother was in. His mother gave birth to Vvim and then passed away.
Sakura asked a lot of questions about the birth at that point and she determined that Vvim's mother had bled out and that was why she died. "It can happen to anyone giving birth," Sakura said. "Sometimes it just can't be helped. Even in the hospital, the birthing procedure isn't one hundred percent guaranteed, and we have IV and blood bags and medicine."
Sakura probably didn't know how much it meant to Naruto to hear her say that. He was really grateful she didn't condemn him or call him a murderer. He took the death of Vvim's mom pretty hard when it happened, and it was several days before Jiraiya could coax him to talk about it.
After that, he had to tell them about Terrence pleading with him not to make him go back to Suna. Terrence begged Naruto to just let him tag along until Terrence turned eighteen. Then Terrence would be of a legal age to be on his own without being forced into the military and he could disappear with his sister.
Naruto told his friends how awful he felt after lying to Terrence, which led him into adopting an entire orphanage (since the Number One Ninja Uzumaki, Naruto could not possibly just leave those kids without a family and without anything to look forward to), using Jiraiya's money to fund all those adoptions, and then using more of Jiraiya's money to purchase the orphanage and turn it into a privately owned agency (not city funded).
At that point, Sasuke had drawled, "Why am I not surprised? The only one more likely to do something as ridiculous as that is Lee."
Sakura had said, "Well, I think its great of you, Naruto! I never would have imagined you'd do something like that." And of course then it clicked in both his friends' heads.
In unison (Sakura shrieked, and Sasuke spoke in monotone), they asked, "You're Nana Reiss?"
Sakura totally freaked out. "MY IDIOT TEAMMATE IS THE HOTTEST, SEXIEST SINGER IN THE WORLD?! Impossible! Ino is going to freak out! THERE IS NO WAY YOU ARE NANA!! He's a civilian! You couldn't hold a note if it meant your life! I've heard you sing, Naruto, so don't lie to me!"
"I was like, twelve back then, and I was singing the rubber ducky song to annoy Sasuke! You can't judge my voice on that!" Naruto yelled right back. How did things suddenly get back to normal? At least they hadn't yet pieced the Amunet part of the puzzle in… "And it isn't like I planned to get kidnapped by a creepy gay guy with an obsession for leather! Jiraiya left me to go play with some hookers, and Cleo was nearby and heard me humming."
"Nana is a black man," Sakura insisted. "YOU ARE NOT BLACK!!"
"I CAN BE A BLACK MAN IF I WANT TO BE!" Naruto shouted.
Sasuke ate a cookie and watched the shouting match as if it were tennis. Ah, sweet world… this is what he left Orochimaru for… Er, wait… at least it was mostly quiet with Orochimaru between the screaming of random prisoners who were being tortured…
"NANA IS HOT AND GORGEOUS AND NOT A DORK! YOU ARE A DORK!"
"BUT YOU NEVER SAID I WASN'T HOT OR GORGEOUS! HA! SO THERE! YOU THINK I AM!"
Sasuke sighed heavily. Somehow it always led back to arguing between the members of Team 7. It had always been that way, and probably would always remain that way.
"YOU ARE NOT!"
"YOU KISSED ME UNDER THE BRIDGE, SO I THINK YOU'RE LYING!"
Sasuke grabbed another cookie and one of the glasses of milk. It might be a while, he figured, dunking the cookie as he watched the two idiots scream at each other from a one-inch distance as if they were a mile away from each other. He didn't have much of a taste for sweets, but eating the cookies and drinking the milk would give him something to do for the time being.
After a half an hour of screaming back and forth (Sakura objecting and making some comment to back up her objection, and Naruto insisting he really was 'Nana Reiss'), Anna came back into the sitting room. Her appearance hardly deterred the argument. Anna watched in slight exasperation. "My gracious! If that isn't a sight I don't see every day with the children," she saw the empty plate of cookies (Sasuke was just polishing off the third glass—hey, no one else was drinking it anyway).
"The cookies were very good. Thank you, Miss Thomson," Sasuke said politely.
"Call me Anna, young Master. I'll not have it any other way." She glanced at the arguing two and shook her head a bit.
"Very well, Anna," Sasuke said. "If you don't mind my asking, what does 'Mesa Theroux' mean? I am unfamiliar with the words. Are they Suni?"
"Mm," Anna gathered up the plate and the tray of empty cups, accepting the cup from Sasuke as he politely held it out to her. "It means 'Respectable Grandmother'." Throughout the screaming and shouting, somehow Sakura and Naruto ended up on the other end of the room. Sasuke wasn't sure when it happened, or how, but at least they weren't shouting in his ear anymore. "That Naruto," Anna spoke fondly, as if of a member of her own family. "He is such a good boy. He saved my life two years ago, you know."
"Did he?" Sasuke curiously wondered what was wrong with Naruto… He was like a magnet for people who needed to be rescued from this situation or that one… or maybe the other people were magnets, pulling Naruto in when they needed help?
"Oh yes. I was born here in Suna, but my husband was a merchant so we traveled the world. I was on my way to move back home after my husband passed—poor Paul, may he rest in peace, Goddesses willing—when my wagon was caught in a sudden flash flood. He saved not only my life, but he rescued my camel and my shipment of goods; the dear." She smiled warmly. "It wouldn't have mattered to me if the shipment was lost since it was to be my last one and I had plenty of money in the bank already, but he wouldn't hear 'no'. And when I asked if there was anything I could do to reward him, all he wanted from me was directions to the cheapest hotel in town." She finished up her tale with a repeated, "Such a good, fine young man. There ought to be more like him in this world."
Naruto finally glanced at the clock nearest him—and panicked. "AGH! NOW I'M LATE!" He hastily shed his travel pack, not too clear on why he never took it off earlier, and dashed toward the door shouting, "MESA THEROUX!! MESA THEROUX!! Ven que je! Ven que je!"
"Calm down, Master Uzumaki," Anna called to the panicking boy. Naruto turned around, surprised to find she was already in the sitting room. She glanced at the clock. "You should be fine. The graduation test is always done alphabetically by last name, and Terrence is all the way in the 'R's. What box are you looking for?"
"I mailed a box, with lots of stuffs in it!" Naruto said. "Where is it? I mailed it like six months ago, so it better as hell be here, 'cause otherwise I'm going to beat up the ninja mailman I gave it to if I can find him. I think he was number 68791… did the package come?!"
"I always put your mail in your office, Master Uzuma"—Naruto was gone before she could even finish her sentence and after a rather noisy crash on the second floor (and a screamed "ow!") Naruto returned downstairs.
"LATE! I've done it, I've become Kakashi, this is NOT GOOD, I'm LATE!" Naruto shouted, shooting out the front door.
"Wait up, Naruto!" Sakura called, hastily bowing and thanking Anna before taking off after Naruto. "Thank you so much for your generosity!"
Sasuke only nodded to Anna before hurrying after. Sakura was the polite one… Sasuke had been polite enough for one day.
xXx
"Rasmussen, Claire," Temari called out. The young kunoichi-in-training stood up in the bleachers and headed down through the crowd of spectators watching the graduation day ceremony. Since the founding of the hidden-in-sand ninja village it had always been a practice that anyone who wanted to watch the graduating academy students make Genin status could turn up. It was only in recent years that they had an actual school to hold graduation at, however.
In the past, most 'academy level students' in Sunagakure were trained by their parents, and deemed fit to be Genin level when their father held a public display of the student's skill and proved their worth to the rest of the city. Sunagakure had certainly come a long way since its founding.
Temari glanced at her brother. If he ever cared to show expression on his features, Temari imagined Gaara would be in tears out of sheer boredom. He'd never shown up at a graduation ceremony in his life—not even his own. At the time of his graduation, Gaara had been too busy slaughtering a bunch of sand shinobi who were assigned to assassinate him, which really put Gaara in too grumpy of a mood to bother showing up for graduation.
Temari felt it was safe to assume Gaara only showed up at this graduation because of the young woman seated next to him. Kagome had not failed to attract attention during the proceedings. One boy had failed the test his own father made (these graduation exams were so flawed, as parents made up their own children's final exam and they were usually designed to be fail-proof so as not to bring disgrace on the family) because he was too busy drooling at Kagome.
The failure had earned a fang-showing sneer from Gaara, proving to Temari that Gaara knew just why the boy was distracted and it hadn't been Gaara's fault either. Even though it was slightly oppressive to the atmosphere to have the Kazekage present, Gaara had so far not distracted anyone like his beautiful companion did.
Claire's father made a showy speech about how Claire had always had the most difficulty with a proper wind-raising jutsu… it was always a showy speech. It was always a lie. Temari's own graduation was the same. Poor Temari, she can't control her wind-raising jutsu, so if she cannot do it today she will not be a kunoichi… And then of course Temari took out her hand-fan, performed the seals she'd had ground in her skull over the course of years, and created a desert tornado. It had gone above and beyond what was expected of her.
She was only asked to make a gentle breeze that would cause a feather to float in one place. … Sure, the feather floated in one place for a few seconds… Then the friction of the sand on sand caused the sand to become molten glass and the molten glass coated the feather, encasing it like a precious artifact. She had presented the item to Baki as a gift later that day and asked the old man to be her husband when she grew up. Baki probably never laughed as hard as he did that day. Then again, Temari had always been very forward about what she wanted—no one could argue that.
Claire—of course—succeeded and was given the forehead protector as a sign of her passing.
Claire went to sit back down with her father with a look of pride on her face. Temari wished someone would wipe the smug looks off the faces of all those kids. Maybe if she asked Gaara? Hmm, best not. He might decide it was time for a desert funeral.
"Ravenworth, Kyle." Temari called out. Kyle came down with his father. There was another showy speech. Poor Kyle, he couldn't ever disarm an exploding tag without it blowing up in his face and ending up in the hospital… Well, at least this boy's face was half covered in burn scars, proving that at one point he actually did have trouble with the exploding tags. Still… he passed with flying colors. If Temari had been made Kazekage, she would've cracked down on the school with everything she had. But she wasn't Kazekage. She was just Temari…the Kazekage's sister. And the Kazekage currently holding the position didn't care how they graduated, so long as they never got in his way on the battlefield.
Kyle. Sat. Down. With. A. Damn. Smug. Ass. Look. On. His. Face.
Temari's fingers itched to smack that face. How dare he! No one ever focused on the weak points! It was a flaw in the school system. They were designed to fail if certain circumstances arose, because they would NEVER work on their weak spots. At least Konoha's Genin-academy curriculum always focused on the hardest ninjutsu spell taught to Genin at the academy, and they had a written exam.
"Reiss, Terrence!" Temari sounded a bit harsh as she said it, but no one came at her response. She glanced around. Still no one. "Terrence Reiss!" She called again. Even Gaara was glancing around curiously. Temari spotted the familiar boy (it helped to spend her off days at the orphanage—hem hem, not orphanage… Naruto's house—helping out, because she got to know the kids by name and face) sitting with his two-year-old sister on his lap in the very front bench on the bleachers.
"Is he here or isn't he?" Kankuro asked in an annoyed tone of voice. Kankuro didn't know the Reiss family… Temari thought it was particularly ingenious of Naruto to choose the name Reiss. It was Suni for 'whirlpool'. But it would be pretty suspicious if all of a sudden a crap load of Uzumaki brats started sprouting all over Sunagakure.
"Terrence, what are you waiting for? Kankuro is here to do your exam," Temari snapped. She knew what the boy was waiting for, and he knew she knew. Still, he didn't move.
"Hey, kid." Kankuro said, taking a few steps forward, "Let's go."
"No." Terrence said simply.
His sister, man that girl was just the cutest thing ever!, stuck her tongue out at Kankuro. The two of them made a strange sight. Terrence had bright red hair that almost looked like Gaara's. It was spiky (and it looked like blood when it was wet—damn, Terrence was a sexy nearly-seventeen-year-old! Temari would eat him if she could get away with it) and he had the brightest blue eyes to match a perfect sky. Even his many freckles didn't stop him from looking good. They seemed to accentuate his looks like an adorable blush. Terrence always had to wear a load of sunscreen because his pale skin burned very easily, very quickly, and very badly. Terrence said he looked a lot like his father before the man had taken off, leaving his pregnant wife and son alone to fend for themselves.
Vvim looked like a miniature female replica of Naruto, if anyone knew who Naruto was of course. Terrence assured Temari that Vvim simply took after their mother in looks and was not at all related to Naruto. Temari had tanned skin, spiky blond hair, the same amazing sky blue eyes as Terrence and Naruto, and her spiky hair was pulled back with an orange ribbon.
While Terrence wore his usual white tee-shirt and black shorts, Vvim seemed to look extra special. She was decked out in a cute orange vest over a black mesh shirt. She had a short mesh skirt over orange spandex shorts. She even had combat sandals to match her outfit, black soles and orange straps. Temari glanced around for the rest of the 'Reiss family' and saw them sitting in the spectator stands with their brother and sister. They couldn't all sit together, so they were spread out quite a bit wherever they could find a seat. None of them looked so special. Those who were Genin wore their nin-gear and all of them wore their regular, slightly ragged clothing (patches on holes, crudely sewn tears). Vvim's outfit looked brand new.
She was such a spoiled little girl.
"No?" Kankuro asked in disbelief. It was hard to believe only a few seconds of silence had passed. "You can't not take the exam, kid."
"Shut up, you pumpkin brained dufus!" Vvim called out boldly. "Terry don't have to take no test until Nana shows up! Just like you says at the start!" She imitated Kankuro's voice near perfectly, "'Parents will test their student on the student's weakness.' Terry has Nana, and Nana is coming! Wait until he gets here!"
Kankuro's lips flapped like a fish. The many Reiss's in the crowd snickered. Gaara… Gaara actually looked interested. His eyes were actually open enough that he would be able to pay attention. Kagome looked curious.
"I know I said that," Kankuro snapped finally. "But you're orphans! Just because the place isn't city funded any more," the child wasn't going to let him continue on his line of thought.
"NANA WILL COME!" Vvim yelled. "IF YOU SAY HE WON'T I WILL BITE YOU!"
Terrence had an emotionless look on his face, but his eyes sparkled.
Kankuro looked at a loss. Then again, he was never really good with kids when he couldn't use candy bribery to get them on his good side. He probably didn't think to bring candy today… Kankuro looked at Temari, hoping to gain some insight on how to handle the situation.
"Come on, Temari," Kankuro half-whined in a low voice not meant for children's ears. "He's the last one on the list. I've been up all damn night, I'm tired." He glanced around at Gaara and then whispered even quieter, "Gaara's wearing that smile he always wears before someone dies. Something's gotta give, quick, before something dies. And as much as the kid has already insulted me by calling me a pumpkin brained dufus, I don't think it will make anyone happy if Gaara gives the girl a sandy funeral for back chatting."
Temari snuck a glance at her youngest brother and winced. He did have that smile on. He only wore that smile when something interesting was about to happen, and Gaara always seemed to find death very interesting. Not a good thing, but he was their brother and he was raised to kill. What could they do?
Before the two siblings could debate over their options, Terrence was addressing Gaara. "Kazekage-sama," he said in nothing short of a respectful tone (though the brat didn't bother to stand and bow), "is it agreeable to you that we wait to proceed until Nana arrives? He promised to be here."
Gaara's face was unreadable… was he secretly plotting Terrence's death, or amused that Terrence would talk to him? It was a very tense moment in the yard; people watched through narrowed eyes. Some even scooted away from Vvim and Terrence as if fearing his boldness might rub off on them and get them killed in the meanwhile.
And then, as parents and students and spectators alike watched and listened, Gaara spoke. Temari doubted anyone expected what Gaara said. She sure as hell didn't expect it. "I do not know, Reiss-san. I grow bored, very quickly, without anything to entertain me."
There was the subtle hint of a death threat in there, Temari was sure of it. 'I grow bored quickly, and when I grow bored, people die…' Temari was sure that's what he was saying. She didn't know if the adorable Terrence saw that or not…
"YOU WANT ENTERTAINMENT?!" Vvim shouted, climbing down from her brother's lap and shaking a fist at Gaara. Poor girl, have pity on her Gaara… She's too young to understand. "I GOT YOUR ENTERTAINMENT RIGHT HERE YOU… YOU…" she seemed to fail to come up with something offensive right away, but then she yelled, "SNICKERDOODLEPANTSHEAD!"
Temari had never seen the look on Gaara's face that appeared at that moment. On anyone else, it might have been considered unadulterated delight, but Gaara never looked like that. Even when he wiped out a hundred enemy men in a desert funeral, he never wore that look. He smirked. He never…
This could not end well.
And then Gaara asked in a… curious tone of voice? Gaara was never curious over disrespect! He slaughtered people because they sneezed around him. He asked, "You are aware I could make you disappear in less than five minutes, aren't you?"
Vvim sniffed haughtily, "Yeah, so? That's no big deal!" Not a big deal? Didn't she know what Gaara was referring to? Her death! Oh, Terrence, stop her! "I can make a whole bowl of Mesa Theroux's ramen disappear in less than two minutes."
And Kagome was giggling. She was trying not to. Her hands were pressed to her mouth in a vain attempt to stop the laughter, but it wasn't working. Even Terrence looked a bit disconcerted, but he did look resolute. The other Reiss's in the stand looked about to take a stand and fight if they had to—even those who were not yet shinobi.
Gaara sat up straight in his seat and Terrence stood up. Reiss's everywhere were getting to their feet. "Gaara, she's just a kid," Kankuro said urgently.
Gaara merely waved his hand as if dismissing him. Temari thought her little brother looked even more curious now. His eyes were locked on the child's. "What is this 'snickerdoodlepantshead'? It is not in my vocabulary." He inquired, though why he had changed the subject was completely beyond Temari's capabilities to understand, and why he would even ask such a silly sounding question was enough to make Temari's head spin in circles.
Vvim paused for a moment and scratched her head. "I donno. I made it up. It sounded good, though, huh?" She beamed so brightly, it was almost blinding. Jaws dropped all over the place. Was Gaara being… altruistic? Was that the word to go by? Whatever it was, he certainly seemed to be indulging the child…somehow.
"Indeed," he said (how could he get by with such a monotonous voice all the time?) and nodded. "It is a very… interesting… choice of insolence." Okay… she was about to die… Only, Vvim didn't die. Nothing happened for a moment.
"What's insolence?" Vvim asked. "That's the stuff that goes in walls, right?"
"It means disrespectful," Gaara told her.
"Well, 'course!" Vvim huffed and crossed her mesh-clad arms over her chest. "You deserve it too. You think you're all that special, but you're not! It's my birthday, you know. I'm more special. My brothers and sisters even got me this birthday outfit! But you don't even have a sense of fashion, 'cause you're wearing yucky looking clothes. What'd you do, bleed on yourself?"
Temari couldn't help it. The strange look on Gaara's face made her laugh (though thankfully she kept it muted enough that he didn't hear—or if he did, he ignored it). Someone needed to stop the child, but Terrence wasn't going to be that one. He was smiling as if secretly amused and proud.
"If you are so special," Gaara stood. Orphans moved. Just a few seconds was all it took for the shift, and sixteen orphans were behind the unaware two-year-old. Vvim was the youngest. The rest of them were all at least five, but they still understood. Gaara smiled. "Perhaps," Gaara continued, waving to his now open chair, "you should sit in my chair. If I am not special, I should not get a chair, correct?"
"I don't want your stupid chair," Vvim snapped. "When I'm Kazekage, you want to know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make everybody wear orange. If anyone wears stupid yucky your color clothes, I'm going to BITE THEM."
Was Gaara biting down a laugh?
"Kazekage?"
"YOU BET! I'm going to be the greatest Kazekage EVER!" She gave him a cheesy thumbs-up. It was so reminiscent of another blond idiot… God, this child had a secret death wish. "My brothers and sisters even teach me stuff too. I can hit the target with a kunai, and I can do a handstand, and I can BITE."
"Interesting. You seem very intelligent for a child of such a young age. Perhaps you would reward me with a demonstration of your knowledge?" She gnashed her teeth with a rather insane look on her face, and he amended, "I can easily take your word on the biting. You have very nice teeth." She looked proud. URG. Where was Naruto? Was he really going to make it on time? There were several sandstorms in the past few days… he might not have made it in. "Are female handstands done differently than male handstands?"
'GAARA! Did you get possessed and no one noticed?' Temari demanded mentally. This was not him! He wasn't indulgent of weird, deathwishy children! 'Vvim, stop, you're too cute to die so young,' Temari pleaded mentally.
"No, dummy! Everyone does handstands the same!" The other Reiss's were biting their fists. Some of them couldn't hold in their laughter. Gaara still had that weird expression on his face. Temari, for the sake of her own sanity, decided it was amusement. Not 'I'm about to kill you' amusement, but 'this is actually kind of cute in a disturbing way' amusement.
"I do not believe you," Gaara said. He waved to Kagome in example, "Higurashi-san does not do handstands." Temari hoped Gaara wasn't so formal in private. He then waved to Temari. "Temari can do a handstand, but only in certain clothes."
"Piffle," Vvim rolled her shoulders as if stretching, then stretched her arms to her toes and above her head. "I'll show you! Girls are just as good as boys!" She stuck her head in the sandy terrain with her hands braced. She lifted her knees to her elbows and rocked in place for a moment before barely stabilizing, then slowly raised her feet in the air. For a moment, she looked like she was going to tip, but then almost like the sand had its own mind, a little string of sand wound around her feet. It was so gentle, the child didn't notice it.
Of course, if Gaara wanted the girl to notice, he would have let her know it was there. But what was amazing was the fact that Gaara of the Sand was HELPING a little girl do a handstand. Her mesh skirt became upside down on her belly, showing off the child's orange spandex shorts. As the other orphans realized Gaara wasn't going to kill their sister, they took their seats in the stands again. Even Terrence (with a smirk on his adorable face, god, Temari would love to pour syrup on…bad girl, bad…) sat back down because for some reason, Gaara was simply helping himself be amused. He wasn't going to hurt Vvim, even though she'd insulted him, threatened him, and then insulted him again…
"See?" Vvim demanded and then pulled herself out of the handstand and stood up, brushing herself off. She looked smug, but not in the same way the cheater students looked smug when they 'passed' the final exam and got their bands. Vvim looked pleased because she worked hard to learn something and was able to be proud of it.
"I do see."
"Yeah, well, I bet you can't do anything cool like that." Vvim boasted.
Surprisingly, a literal smile crossed Gaara's face. "Perhaps not a handstand. I learned to do them as a child, but have not done a handstand simply to do it for many years." He agreed.
Vvim sniffed haughtily and put her hands on her hips. "Then what good are you? You don't make a good Kazekage if you can't even do anything cool."
"It is your birthday, correct?"
Vvim looked suspiciously at the Kazekage as he knelt and dug his hands in the sand. The orphans tensed, worried that the time had finally come. "What does my birthday have to do with anything?" Vvim demanded. "We were just talking about how you can't do anything cool."
"Ah, but it has everything to do with the conversation," Gaara indulged with a smile. "I never had a birthday to celebrate"—it was true enough, as Gaara spent every birthday in mourning for their lost mother—"but I do realize birthdays are special, because special people make events special. Will you have a birthday meal today?"
"Yup! Mesa Theroux is making birthday ramen and a cake. And my brothers and sisters bought me these special clothes and my new shoes and this pretty ribbon," she pointed to her hair where the ribbon was firmly secured with bobby pins so it wouldn't get lost on a hard wind. "I'm two today, you know."
"Two is a very special year," Gaara agreed so seriously it was hard not to smile. This was truly a day to lock firmly in Temari's memory. She wished so badly to have brought a camcorder. Too bad this had to remain just a memory, because fat chance Gaara would ever act this way again. "Will you have gifts at your birthday meal, to open after you gorge on sweets?"
"My clothes and shoes and this ribbon are my birthday present. And Nana and my brothers and sisters and Mesa Theroux is all going to be there. What else is there?" It was such an honest and sincere statement, it tugged at many heartstrings. Those who were better off than an orphan would get lots of toys and useless shit. She was grateful to have her family and the clothes on her back.
Gaara lifted his hands from the sand, bringing up handfuls of the white sand that was present everywhere in the city. The sand began moving, shifting, floating out of his hands to form a tight, sizeable ball in front of him. Everyone became very tense, but the child moved closer out of curiosity.
"What magic is this?" she demanded, unable to feel the powerful chakra waves flowing out of Gaara and into that ball. On the surface of the ball, particles of sand twitched about. Temari knew that inside that ball, the sand was shifting so fast it was creating a superheated friction that was turning the sand into molten glass. It was something he did when he was bored in his office. Temari wished he wouldn't, because she always ended up carting them to the glass shops to be sold. Sure, they fetched high prices for their incredibly life-like nature, but Temari was tired of haggling.
"I can use chakra to control sand. Do you know what chakra is?" In a way, it was kind of cute; both Gaara and Vvim seemed to be two basket cases having a conversation. Somehow, the two seemed to be able to compliment each other quite nicely. Vvim wasn't afraid of him, and maybe that was why Gaara was so curious over her. Most kids knew before they could walk or talk to stay away from Gaara if possible, and to never insult or be rude to him or else it might mean imminent death for them and their family.
She huffed. "'Course!" Then she paused, threw her lip out in a pout, and said, "I know its made in my tummy, but I can't make it yet. Terry is teaching me though, so I'll be okay. I'll be able to make it when I'm Kazekage."
"That is a very reassuring thought. Do you know what is happening inside this ball of sand?" She shook her head. People held their breath, wanting to know, wanting to hear the soft spoken kage. Temari saw Naruto and two others hurry into the yard, but they all stopped short to watch the display from afar. Temari knew Gaara sensed their approach, but Gaara never looked away from the child's eyes. It was interesting to watch.
Vvim's features screwed up as she leaned her nose close to the ball and tried to see if she could smell what was happening. "It smells like burning. Are you cooking? 'Cause you shouldn't if you are. Stuff that smells that bad, yeah, you suck at cooking."
Gaara put his hand on the ball finally, squeezing his fingers inside. The loose sand fell uselessly, as if simply picked up by a wind that released it. What was left was a sparkling glass kunai that looked like a diamond cut in the shape of a kunai, not glass molded to look like a kunai.
"That was so cool!" Vvim shouted, jumping back away from the smirking kage to point at the kunai and shriek some more about the 'coolness' of chakra. "I'm going to be able to do that!" she insisted. "I'm going to work real hard to do that!"
Gaara actually laughed. It wasn't an all-out, oh-my-god-that-was-funny-as -hell laugh, but it was more of a what-an-amusing-child chuckle. However, he definitely laughed, and everyone heard it. Temari almost thought someone had a heart attack in the stands, but a second glance simply showed it was a matronly woman who'd fallen off her seat backwards and into the person behind her.
"Perhaps you will. It is work, but it is not difficult. Temari can coat an item with glass when she tries. Now… shall I give you a demonstration? You did provide me with one. It would seem fair, would it not, that I return the favor?" Her head bobbed up and down in excitement and she bounced in place, her spiky hair jumping and her skirt waving.
"What are you going to show me? Is it cool? Will it be the most awesomest thing ever? 'Cause Kazekage's have to do awesome things, and if you can't do awesome things, you can't be Kazekage, you know!" Naruto was snickering with pure pride as he looked at the little girl.
"I will let you judge me. But… I need assistance. Would your siblings volunteer?" He glanced at the stands as Vvim assured him her brothers and sisters would. "I require assistance only from those who are Genin," he added. "If you are not afraid, like your sister seems not to be, then please come down." Terrence did not stand, but eleven of the other sixteen came down.
Gaara looked back at the child. "You should return to your brother."
"Piffle," she muttered. "Everyone always says I'm not safe." She scuffed her toe on the ground in a pout.
"I did not say anything about safety," Gaara added. "You are less safe in the bleachers than you are by me. Nothing penetrates my shield. But you will see better from there."
Naruto scoffed as if to say 'you wish, buddy, you wish.' He remained quiet though. Vvim hopped back to Terrence, reassured that she had a better seat by her brother. Gaara stood up slowly, looking like the incarnate of death for a brief second before a half-smirk twisted his lips in a disturbing fashion.
"Today when I woke, I dressed for the festival, to spend with Higurashi-san." He tilted his head toward the girl in the chair. She blushed as red as her dress. "I did not arm myself with any weapon, because this city is my weapon." Gaara usually never spoke this much, but he looked like he was having fun. Even when he was teaching a few years back, he never spoke as much. Today was going to be a monumental day.
Temari would have to mark it in the pages of history. Maybe she could hire a painter to paint a portrait of Gaara surrounded by happy, questioning children. Of course, Gaara would have to be smiling. Temari could have it no other way, really.
"Therefore, not arming myself with any weapon, the only weapon I have on me is this." He showed the orphans the glass kunai. It glinted with the afternoon sun. "I will not need my sand shield to defend myself from you. I will only use this." A few of the orphans bristled nervously. Vvim whooped and hollered in excitement, cheering for her siblings. "Attack me now with the intent to kill."
Temari closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to watch the children all die at her little brother's hand. She heard k-chink noises and ting noises. And then it was over and… she didn't hear the sound of terror being raised. She heard… clapping? Whistling? She opened her eyes.
There her brother stood, unharmed. There stood the orphans, untouched but shocked. Their weapons all lay in halves; they'd used kunai and shuriken, thrown it at the kage because he asked them to. And Gaara's glass kunai looked still in perfect form. She should have kept her eyes open.
People were amazed and shocked. Vvim looked ecstatic. Everyone else calmed down to hear her when she charged at the kage and gave his knee a bear hug. "THAT WAS SO AWESOME!" Vvim said.
Gaara glanced down at the kid, his expression blank again as if he was trying to figure out if he should shake the kid off his leg or let her stay attached. He seemed to be leaning toward shaking her off. "I appreciate the compliment," Gaara said. "And a very pleasant birthday to you. What is your name, girl?"
Gaara was spared having to shake her off when she let him go to look up at him in delight. "I'm Vvim Reiss."
"Well, Reiss-san, I have been suitably put in my place. I shall indeed work much harder to be a more satisfactory Kazekage." Vvim nodded solemnly. "As a gift of your birth, I will let you earn this kunai if you would like it."
Somehow, it fit. He was the kage. He gave children sharp, pointy objects.
He needed to be educated in 'children-iquette'. Do love child. Do hug child. Do praise child. Do NOT give child sharp, pointy, potentially dangerous objects. Ah well, today was certainly a start, and if Temari's plan worked out as she hoped, Naruto and Gaara would hook up. She'd been plotting to hook the two up since her little brother became so obsessed with the blond. And since Naruto was Naruto… he could be more for her brother than anyone else could. Naruto could be female or male whenever Gaara felt in the mood. (Temari was fully aware her little brother was bi-sexual, even if Gaara didn't realize it yet).
"'Course I'd have it!" Vvim said, but Gaara still didn't give it to her. He held it just out of reach. "Well, are you gonna give me it or not? You said you were!"
"There is one condition." Gaara continued.
"Birthday gifts are free!"
"Everything has a price," Gaara drawled in his monotone. "Particularly when it is from me."
Vvim threw her lip out in a pout. "But I don't have any money and I really want that kunai! Its special like me!"
"I am certain we can make arrangements. Tomorrow, if you wish to earn this kunai you will report to Kazekage tower at thirteen-hundred hours. I do not accept tardiness. Be on time. Understood?"
She bounced on her heels in excitement. "Okay! What time is thirteen-hundred hours?"
"One PM." Gaara looked back at Temari. "I believe it is time to continue." He said.
Temari smiled gratefully at her brother. He hadn't killed the child! "Vvim-chan, go sit in the bleachers now, okay?" Temari asked. She looked at Terrence. He was already getting up; he had noticed Naruto. Naruto seemed to realize that was his cue to come forward. He stumbled toward the crowd with a large box wrapped in one arm.
"Shit, Temi," Kankuro hissed, "don't tell me the blond brat's this 'Nana' guy?"
"And if he is, does it matter?" Temari said in response. "Look, there's nothing in Suni law stating shinobi from other countries can't own a privately run and funded business, so he's within his rights."
"But this gets into military business when he's raising our kids to be shinobi!" Kankuro breathed. "Temari, the council won't like this at all!"
"Fuck the council," Temari snapped as quiet as she could. "Naruto isn't raising them for his own benefit. The minute Naruto adopted them he could have taken them all back to Konoha, but they love Suna, and he knows what its like to love the city you live in unconditionally. He could've taken our shinobi and kunoichi children away but he didn't. And it's thanks to him that even though they don't have to be forced into the military these kids still want to be ninjas. I am personally monitoring Naruto and the children. Yes, the blond twit has the opportunity to steal state secrets, but he himself admitted to me if he wanted our state secrets he wouldn't use little kids to get them. He'd get them himself."
Kankuro pursed his lips for a moment. Then he asked, "You're monitoring it?" Temari nodded. "Alright then… I'll drop it. But if the council finds out, you better be around to explain it."
"The city has benefited from Naruto taking over the orphanage. The orphan death-rate literally plummeted to zero percent since he took over. The kids aren't getting ill all the time, they're not starving to death, and they're not getting themselves killed in training sessions or on their missions. There has been less injuries incurred on missions and in training. These kids are happy to have their nana, so let them have him." Temari ordered. "He changed their fate simply by adopting them. That's a good thing."
"I just hope you know what you're doing letting another country raise our kids." Kankuro muttered.
They turned to watch. Gaara had seated himself again beside Kagome, looking curious. Naruto was rustling through the box, muttering to himself in a low tone. Finally he looked back at his companions. "Sasuke, come-ere," he said in his regular slurred, annoying voice. Sasuke stepped toward the boy and Naruto shoved the box at him. "Just needed someone to hold the box." Naruto explained. Sasuke looked annoyed but said nothing.
"Okay, Terrence, this is gonna be awesome," Naruto chirped. "Took me forever to think of what to do for your graduation, but then it hit me and I was like, hells-yeah!" He rustled in the box again. "I've had a lot of teachers. My teachers each taught me a valuable lesson so I thought, 'hey, I can do that too!'"
He pulled out a tiny, ordinary wax figure that was barely more than one-inch tall. It was army green in color. He handed that figure to Terrence. The boy looked at it in confusion. "What the hell, Nana? You're supposed to be giving me an exam, not a toy army guy."
"I'm getting there!" Naruto insisted. He looked at the mess of half-weapons on the ground, then at Gaara. "You're gonna be buying them all new shit, 'cause weapons ain't cheap you know." Gaara merely shrugged. Naruto pulled out a large doll from the box.
"Okay, I need volunteers!" He chirped. "I was gonna do it myself, but then Sakura-chan," he tilted his head at Sakura standing off a ways near the entrance to the yard, "might beat me up for ripping my stitches. Then I was gonna use my other Genin kids, but… well, they're weaponless. I promise this'll be real easy work!"
Parents raised eyebrows and then sent their newly graduated Genin kids out of the stands. Temari was curious now. Gaara was looking more than interested. "What do you need us to do?" Claire Rasmussen asked.
"For the moment, just stand there. I'll explain it." Naruto showed them and the crowd the doll in his hand. "This here is a classic, collectable, state-of-the-art, thirteen-inch tall, military grade figure of a Jounin-class shinobi. I'll be using it to represent Konoha in my example. And that… well, that's just an army guy. It's going to represent Suna." Many people bristled.
Kyle Ravenworth asked, "And how come Suna doesn't get to be represented by," Naruto swiftly cut him off.
"'Cause I said so. Listen and you might figure it out! Okay, so, if we look at Konoha's awesomeness, you find that Konoha has a growing population of one-hundred-fifty thousand people, or something around there anyway. Fifty percent of the population is civilian, and fifty percent of the population is military." He waved the doll around a bit. "Suna has a declining population of sixty thousand people give or take, and forty-five thousand of you guys are military. The rest of it is made up of civilians and traveling merchants who are always gone by the next week."
"The point?" one new-Genin asked.
"My point is that you guys are outnumbered. We're also the coolest, most awesome hidden village ever, but you haven't realized that yet. Take a look at any major hidden city and you'll see that out of all the cities with a kage, yours is the smallest! Because of that fact, you can't just be shinobi or kunoichi. You have to be a hundred times better! You have to be able to compete with growing numbers. That's why my test for Terrence is to play a game I used to play in Gym class at the academy in Konoha."
Dead silence. Then… "You want me to play a game?"
"Believe it!" Naruto chirped. "Lets see here… you. What's your name?"
"Kyle," he responded.
"Okay, Kyle, you come here. Sakura-chan, come here, I need your help." The pink girl trotted forward and Naruto tossed the doll back in the box, dragging out a length of rope. Kyle looked nervous. Temari blinked. Yes, definitely nervous. "Sakura-chan, will you tie Kyle's hands behind his back, please?"
Kyle clearly did not want to be tied up. "It'll be okay, Kyle-kun," Sakura assured the boy. "I've played this game a lot of times. You've got the easiest role."
Naruto looked over the crowd again and then pointed to Claire. "What's your name?" Claire told him and Naruto continued as he pulled a bunch of exploding tags from the box. "Sakura-chan, if you'll do the honors of attaching these extremely dangerous and deadly exploding tags to Kyle?" Claire was shaking. Kyle looked panicked.
Temari wanted to laugh.
But parents did not. Kyle's father stood in the bleachers in an outrageous howl. "My son has already passed his exam! Untie him! He doesn't need to be tested again!"
"This is Terrence's exam! He volunteered to help!" Naruto yelled right back. "Besides, this is all elementary crap you learn in school! My teacher didn't let me graduate when I failed to do what was expected of me! I would never let Terrence pass if I thought his weakness would hurt him in the field. You're a shinobi, so I shouldn't have to point out to you that weaknesses always manage to bite your ass when it counts most."
Kyle's father stood stunned for a moment before sitting down again and watching apprehensively. Of course, Temari thought, they wouldn't want to reveal that their child actually sucked. They would bring more disgrace on their family for cheating their child's exam than their child would've brought for failing. Who cares if the danger was too much for the kids to handle…? But that was Suni pride. Temari knew it well.
Naruto looked back at the group. "Okay, Terrence. Your job is 'one against many'. The game is a three-man mission gone wrong. Kyle and Claire are your teammates; Kyle was captured and tied up and exploding tags were put on him, by all these guys here." He waved to the rest of the students. "You need to protect Claire and Kyle while Claire gets Kyle free. The rest of them just have to incapacitate you. If they manage to, then your mission fails and you fail the exam. Once Kyle is free, you pass the exam."
"Nana, there are fifteen people there." Terrence frowned.
"Bah! Fifteen is peanuts!" Naruto grumbled. "I had thirty kids in my class. Try one against twenty-seven, and then complain." He glanced at Claire, Kyle, and Terrence, then at the rest of the students. "Does everyone understand? No killing. You might want to pick up those weapon halves so no one impales their foot. You can use all the space in the yard."
"Yes, sir," was grumbled around.
"Okay, have at it." Naruto said. Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke moved back to stand by Temari and Kankuro and watch. Instantly Terrence had to deflect a kunai aimed at him. He shot toward Kyle (Kyle was much shorter, and four years younger) and grabbed the boy's arm.
"Claire, stop shaking like a whiny bitch. Cover our backs and retreat to the far wall." Terrence ordered.
Temari watched as Claire panicked. Her classmates were leering at her. She couldn't move. The girl had frozen in place. Terrence grit his teeth and pushed Kyle toward the far wall. "Keep moving. Don't jostle those tags or you're a dead man, not that it would bother me any." He then grabbed Claire's arm and yanked on it. "You had a choice to become a shinobi. I didn't. Why the hell are you stopping now?" He shoved her toward the far wall and deflected another kunai.
Temari frowned. It could've been over already, but most of the students didn't appear to realize that. They were apprehensive of the bigger, older Terrence. Most of them were only eleven or twelve. One or two of them were thirteen. Terrence was nearly seventeen, and he'd absorbed each and every lesson in like a sponge soaking up water. But with as many times as his back had been turned and unguarded, he could've been taken down.
"This is a mess, Naruto," Sasuke commented.
Sakura frowned, "Temari, do you teach at the academy, or is it just a place to stick the kids for eight hours of a day?" Temari felt slightly offended, but she could hardly disagree. She'd already picked out two who couldn't throw a proper kunai, and one who couldn't figure out how to hold a shuriken. Temari snuck a look at Gaara. He was frowning. He probably saw all the errors too.
Terrence got Claire and Kyle to the far wall and with a wall at their backs, he ordered Claire to get Kyle free. They could barely hear Claire say, "But I'm awful with disarming exploding tags!"
Kyle said, "Terrence, I can get rid of the exploding tags; just remove the ropes for me."
Terrence looked furious. "Claire, stop whining and remove the tags. If he dies, so much the better! The world could use one less Ravenworth; they're all bastards anyway." He performed the hand seals for a wind-raising jutsu and a small, weak, but sturdy tornado swept toward the 'enemy'. It was easily dodged, but it got the others to back off a bit.
Naruto groaned. "Now I feel bad, 'cause Terrence doesn't even really have to try and the girl doesn't know how to remove exploding tags and I don't think the boy can get himself free of ropes—and even I could get free of ropes by the time I was seven!"
"Are they real exploding tags?" Kankuro asked silently.
"They're just paint tags," Sakura said. "It's just a game, after all. The only difference is they're using live weapons, and when we played in Gym class, we got fake weapons that were shaped similar but they'd have colorful powder inside that would burst out and coat the thing it hit."
Sasuke snorted. "I don't think I'd feel safe to give these kids live weapons. I bet their parents feel real good watching this mess."
Temari narrowed her eyes at the end of the yard. Kyle was trying to talk Claire through removing one tag. Claire's hands shook so bad she almost cut the tag wrong, but one of the ten tags were off safely enough. Temari looked at Terrence. He was mostly just acting in defense, but he looked annoyed. He made three sand clones of himself and attacked one of the closer students. The girl panicked and fainted.
Gaara approached Temari and the others. Gaara looked annoyed, which probably meant he was actually feeling like decapitating something. The general order of things told Temari that wasn't a good thing. "I am bored. I will be at Kazekage tower." Gaara said.
"As you will," Temari and Kankuro said in unison. What else could they say?
Sasuke spoke, "This is supposed to be Terrence's test, right?" Naruto nodded, and Gaara paused. "Then," Sasuke continued, "why not give him a real test?"
Naruto asked, "What do you mean?"
Sasuke shrugged. "Where is Fuyumi, and Lee, and Ino? You've got enough of us here to make up the 'many'."
Naruto beamed at Sasuke. "Shit, yeah, that'll really make it cool."
Gaara blinked. "Will this make the test interesting?"
Sakura shifted nervously. "Naruto… I thought you wanted Terrence to pass… If you send us in there, he probably won't."
Naruto said, "Just call the others on the communicators and tell them to meet up here as fast as they possibly can. Everything'll be cool." He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, nearly clocking out Temari's eardrums. The 'test' halted and panting students (Terrence hadn't even worked up a sweat, but he did look temperamental) turned to look at Naruto. "All you sucky Genin students get off the field! Some of my friends are coming in. Not you, Claire! You stay."
Sakura had taken out a small walkie-talkie. "Fuyumi-chan. Ten-Ten-chan. Do you copy?" There was a small break as students miserably left the field. Then, a voice from the communicator said, "Fuyumi here. 'S'up, lover?" The person seemed perky enough.
A second voice said, "Ten-Ten here. Yes, Sakura-chan?"
The first voice, Fuyumi, said, "Sakura-chan, before you say anything—"
Sakura sighed deeply. "What did you break, Fuyumi-chan?"
"Nothing much," Fuyumi grumbled.
"Ten-Ten, what did she break?" Sakura demanded.
"I actually don't know. We all had to split up because Lee offended Fuyumi." Ten-Ten offered.
"The brat shouldn't have told me to get dressed! I am dressed. He's just lucky I left his manhood intact." Fuyumi snapped.
Sakura looked at the communicator as if by pure will she could make the person on the other end see her dry expression. "Fuyumi," she said finally, "you know Lee doesn't mean anything by it. Look at what he wears all the time! He's always got clothes covering practically every inch of him, and you wear as little or less than possible sometimes."
"Oh, so because he wears a disturbing spandex body suit, I should too?" Fuyumi demanded.
"I didn't say that. You just have to make Lee an exception to all the rules you normally live by. He's always telling Ino to get dressed too, and do you think Ten-Ten wears Capri pants because they're comfortable?" Sakura released the button and waited for a response, rolling her eyes. "I swear, I should be a certified councilor."
"Fine, I won't kill the brat." Fuyumi said finally.
Ten-Ten's voice sounded amused as she said, "You know he's older than you by three years, right?"
"Three years older and still a Chunin. How pitiful." Fuyumi said.
Sakura groaned. "Fuyumi…" she said in warning.
Ten-Ten said defensively, "Not all of us were raised by freaking machines!"
"I wasn't raised by machines! My mother simply had high expectations!"
"Where are you guys?" Sakura attempted to ask.
"Your mother was a machine, so admit it already!" Ten-Ten yelled.
"Don't you talk about my mother that way. I'll slap you so hard your grandma will feel it!"
"STOP IT RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" Sakura yelled. There was dead silence on the other end. "Where are you guys?"
"Lee and I are in a glass shop. Where do you want us?"
"Ino, Hinata, and I are at the Kazekage's house."
Sakura closed her eyes and winced. "Fuyumi, please promise me you didn't break anything at the Kazekage's house." Dead silence followed her pleading. "You did, didn't you?"
"Well, I'm sure it's an improvement," Fuyumi began.
Sakura glanced at Gaara. His eye twitched. "What did you break?" Dead silence. "Fuyumi…"
"They tried to poison me!"
"Let me talk to Ino."
A brief second later, Ino said, "What's up, forehead-girl?"
"What happened?"
"A servant offered Fuyumi a drink so she threw him out the window. You know how she gets when she's in foreign territory. She won't drink from anything except her own canteen."
"So what broke?"
"The window. It wasn't open. The servant is okay though. I checked. I don't think he's ever going to offer a drink to anyone again though."
"Fine, so you're at the Kazekage's house, and Ten-Ten is in a glass shop. How long do you think it would take you guys to find the shinobi school?"
"Lee and I are in the shop across the street," Ten-Ten said. "I'd just have to convince him to stop giving the shop girl a speech about proper clothing and we could be there."
Ino said, "We've got the map, so it shouldn't take too long. Why, what's up?"
"Just get here and come around back to the training grounds and I'll explain everything." Sakura said. She turned off the walkie-talkie, looking very annoyed. She was nothing short of polite as she addressed Gaara. "I apologize for Fuyumi. We'll pay for your broken window." Gaara ignored Sakura's apology.
"How long will I have to wait?" Gaara questioned.
Naruto bounced up and down rather exuberantly. "LEE! Over here!" He called, waving to the boy in green spandex and a Chunin vest. A girl with twin buns in her hair followed behind Lee. Temari guessed that was 'Ten-Ten'.
Lee dashed over. "Sakura-chan, it is great to see you again!" Sasuke snorted in disbelief.
Terrence came over to the growing mass of people and demanded, "Nana, what is going on? It's almost five. We all promised Mesa Theroux to be home by six for dinner."
"Well, you'll probably be late," Naruto admitted. "She won't mind."
Ten-Ten inquired, "So, Sakura-chan, what's going on here? I see we are keeping high company." She bowed in greeting to Gaara. "Kazekage-sama," she said politely.
Sakura quickly explained what was going on to her two companions. She had just finished when Fuyumi and the others showed up and had to re-explain everything. By that time, Gaara had returned to his seat and Kagome.
"So basically," Fuyumi said, "you want us to attack those kids. A Genin, a Jounin, and five Chunin… against an academy student."
"Uh huh," Naruto said. "Terrence, this is Fuyumi, Sasuke, Lee, Sakura, Ten-Ten, Hinata, and Ino."
"This is stupid," Fuyumi said. "The kid'll be slaughtered."
Terrence simply turned around and headed back to his current teammates. He spoke to them quietly.
"The girl already got one of the tags off. Once Kyle is free, then that's it. Terrence just has to protect him till then." Naruto said. "Or you have to knock him out. Whatever comes first."
Fuyumi said, "Fine, then. I guess I'm in."
"I'm in."
"I'll do it if Sakura's going to," Ino said.
"Far be it from me to halt the test," Lee said.
"I-I am n-not sure how m-much help I w-will be," Hinata said, "b-but I will try."
Sasuke simply shrugged.
Ten-Ten said, "I'll help."
"Going to need to give them more room," Naruto told Temari and Kankuro. He went to suggest that Gaara and Kagome move out of the way. A shinobi who was there basically for the purpose of being at the Kazekage's beck-and-call took the chairs away. Temari and Kankuro joined their little brother by the bleachers. People had moved to make room for Gaara, but he did not sit down. Temari knew it was mostly because he hated crowded places and having people breathe down his neck.
Within a few moments, everyone was ready. The Konohagakurians were talking quietly amongst themselves and Terrence was tense but standing in a guarded position a few feet from Kyle and Claire. Claire looked resigned but resolute at the same time. Finally Naruto trilled another loud whistle and the Konohagakurians took out exploding tags from their nin-kits.
Temari watched as they circled chakra through the exploding tag, altering the spell. They were probably making it less dangerous. Claire followed Kyle's instructions to removing the tags with sweat perspiring on her face. The Konohagakurians did not attack, which made Terrence tense up. They began setting exploding tags around Terrence like a mine field; they must have come up with a strategy to use in the short time before Naruto whistled.
It was definitely interesting to watch. Exploding tag after exploding tag was laid until there was a large enough field surrounding Terrence's meager position that they would not be able to jump free. They were trapped.
While the other members of his team of seven lay tags, Lee had dragged log-targets from the other side of the yard. Sasuke finished putting down his portion of the mine field and then helped Lee with the log-target. They dug a hole in the sand with great difficulty and stood one of the logs upright in the hole, burying the bottom half. They tested the sturdiness of the log by wiggling it; it was fairly stable in the ground since they buried it so deep.
Fuyumi worked on tying together the length of cables each of the seven were able to produce from their nin-kit. Terrence watched apprehensively and could be heard hissing, "Claire, hurry it up! How many do you have to go?"
"Eight more," Kyle responded. "Don't rush her, idiot. This is my life on the line!"
"Maybe that's why I want her to rush?" Terrence sneered. "Accidents happen in the field, why not here?"
The Konohagakurians were burying another log end. Sakura and Hinata were using a rock they found to pound a kunai deep into the log, right up to the eye of the sturdy weapon. Ino was tying the end of one of the cables to another kunai eyehole. When she had it set, she called, "Sasuke-kun!" and threw the kunai at the boy. The three ten-foot cables that were tied together flew after. He wound the thirty feet of cable up loosely and easily leapt up onto the top of one of the logs. Hinata and Sakura buried another kunai up to the eye in the second log using the rock as a hammer.
Ino put the second newly made thirty foot cable on another kunai and gave it to Lee, who did the same thing as Sasuke, loosely winding up the cord and jumping up on the top of the log. "Hard as you can, Lee," Sasuke said.
The two began swinging the kunai end of the cable in a wide sweeping circle. The cable moved so fast it kept slicing a whistling noise through the air. They released at almost the same time, and the kunai flew toward the wall behind Terrence, burying in the wood, too high for Terrence to reach. The end of the cable remained in the hands of Sasuke and Lee; they pulled the cable taut and fed it in the eyehole embedded in the log, where Fuyumi and Sakura then wrapped it around the log several times and then held it firmly.
Once it was secured, the invasion commenced. Sasuke tested his weight on the cable, balancing as easily as if he were stepping on firm ground. Assured it would hold, he took out a kunai in one hand and a smoke bomb in the other. He threw the smoke bomb; it landed and quickly formed a smoke screen so that Terrence could see nothing. "Terrence, I can't see!" Claire cried.
Sasuke moved swiftly across the cable, followed by Ino. Lee tested his weight on his and then crossed followed by Ten-Ten. The four disappeared into the smoke screen—they were lucky there wasn't much of a breeze or else the smoke would've disappeared already—and then Kyle could be heard screaming, "LET GO!"
Then Kyle was silenced. Moments passed and everyone watched the cables. Lee and Ten-Ten came back across the two cables and jumped down. Ino and Sasuke were on opposing cables as well as they came out; Sasuke had Kyle on his shoulders carefully so that he didn't disturb one of the exploding tags.
The smoke dispersed when Sasuke had handed down Kyle. Kyle seemed to be unconscious; he was still breathing. Terrence saw Kyle in the hands of the enemy and went pale. Claire burst into tears. "I'm sorry, Terrence! I didn't see them! I swear!"
"STOP WHINING!" Terrence yelled.
Sasuke called, "Are you coming to get him back or not? You still have to get rid of the tags."
"I'm thinking!" Terrence yelled, looking apprehensive.
"Thinking has a price." Sasuke said seriously. "Cut one of the tags. Maybe it will motivate him to think a little faster."
Fuyumi was holding Kyle. She took out a kunai and looked the unconscious boy over as much as she could before deciding on the tag on his left arm. With a quick slice of the weapon, the exploding tag popped and red spread from the center of the tag like blood, even though it was just paint.
"What the hell are you doing?" Terrence demanded, eyes wide.
Kyle's father had objects as well. "Stop this immediately! That's my son!" Kyle's father seemed to think it was real blood. "This is an outrage!" Temari was surprised people remained in the stands, but then again, the Kazekage was present and he hadn't attacked, so they were probably holding themselves back.
"Are you coming to get your teammate back?" Sasuke asked again as if neither of them had spoken.
"Come on, Claire." Terrence said. Terrence was able to jump up and grab onto the cable, then swing himself up onto it. He had to lay on the cable and reach down to Claire for her to jump up to his hand and help her up. It was almost painful to watch the Konohagakurians lay this perfect trap for the two and be able to do and say nothing about it; they were just spectators, if they interfered with Terrence's test, not only would Terrence be failed, but there were consequences for interfering.
Terrence grit his teeth together and then used the wall to brace himself and stand on the cable. He helped Claire up. The girl started forward, balancing precariously. They barely got ten feet on the twenty foot line, far enough to be above the mine field, before Fuyumi began unwinding the cable from the log. She was going to let it slack. Terrence saw it and leapt to the other cable. "Claire, get over here."
The warning came too late; the cable slackened just a bit and she lost her balance. She screamed as she fell, barely able to catch the cable with one hand. She dangled with her feet just two feet off the ground, but the exploding tags were buried beneath sand so she wouldn't know if she was going to step on one until she did, which was why she clung to the cable.
Terrence growled in frustration. They still hadn't really attacked him, yet they outsmarted him. He raced toward the 'enemy' and leapt off the cable, landing next to Fuyumi. He kicked out at her stomach, but missed when she released the cable and dodged the kick. Claire had barely managed to lift her feet up so she was grasping the cable upside down by hands and feet, but she then started slipping toward the ground. She screamed.
Terrence grabbed the cable and yanked it taut again, only now he was in the middle of all the Konohagakurians. Hinata said, "I'm so sorry to have to do this to you," before unleashing a series of punches on Terrence. The hits became doubled because she knocked him into the log each time.
It was quite clear she had held back a great deal, though. Terrence didn't relinquish his grip on the cable though. "CLAIRE, CROSS!" he demanded.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" Lee shouted, drop kicking the log from behind. The log literally snapped off and both Terrence, the log, and the cable holding Claire up went down. Terrence was trapped under the log. Ino and Ten-Ten were a distance away with the unconscious Kyle. Sakura released the other cable and it slipped out of the eyehole, falling uselessly.
Claire was trapped barely an inch from the ground, hyperventilating. Terrence was trying to get up from under the log. He managed it but then had to dodge a chakra enforced punch from Sakura that left a crater in the ground and sand flying everywhere. Fuyumi threw two shuriken, one after the other, that Terrence had to dodge. Ten-Ten hit Terrence with a barrage of weapons, pushing him toward the mine field.
Terrence noticed where they were herding him and swore violently. He formed the signs for a wind-raising jutsu, but it just didn't work. He formed the signs for a clone jutsu, but it didn't work. Sasuke and Lee attacked with a fire jutsu and a kunai. Terrence deflected the kunai and ran from the blaze shooting at him. Exploding tags popped under the sand like popcorn.
Terrence was panting. "Goddess, accept my soul if I die today," he muttered, "I didn't even want to be a shinobi." Sakura and Fuyumi gripped each other's hand, lacing their fingers. Chakra flowed between the two of them and gathered in a green glow over their kid-gloved fists. They punched the ground at the same time, and beneath Terrence, the ground trembled before starting to split; the women were remodeling the yard. The split grew to be two feet wide. Sand filled it as Terrence tried not to fall in it.
He stepped away from the split. Hinata was there, apologizing again before unleashing another ferocious storm of hits that knocked Terrence into the hole. He clung to the edge of the hole, his feet dangling in the deep, treacherous hole. Sand just kept falling in, making Temari wonder if the hole had a bottom.
"This game seems pretty dangerous," Temari remarked to Naruto.
Naruto grinned. "Well, it can be when you've got such powerful people playing, but Terrence isn't doing too bad against seven of Konoha's best. They'll make sure he doesn't die or get too hurt."
Sakura and Fuyumi switched sides and did their move again, only this time their hands were further spread apart when they punched the ground. The ground groaned, literally, as it began closing. Terrence barely managed to drag himself out and collapse on the ground panting.
"It's a lot different when you got a lot of screaming academy students playing it in the gym. The biggest threat is you might sprain your ankle or the colored dust from the toy weapons might stain your clothes." Naruto added.
Terrence rolled away as Lee dropped a, "Dynamic leg drop," toward him.
"'Course, they're going easy on Terrence." Naruto stated, even though it was so obvious it was a surprise the very wind didn't scream it. "Terrence wouldn't stand a chance against any of my friends. We leaf-nin are ten bajillion times better than any sand-nin, you know," he boasted.
Gaara actually chuckled—Temari wasn't sure whether to hide or make a call-to-arms in case of a rampant Gaara-kun (not that he'd like to know she thought of him as 'Gaara-kun')—and said, "It is a very interesting day today. I have not been back chatted this many times in years."
Terrence had managed to get out of the way of Sakura's chakra charged fist, but only walked into an assault from Hinata, who still apologized before attacking. Hinata sent Terrence tumbling into Sasuke. Sasuke grabbed both Terrence's wrists and twisted his arms behind his back. Fuyumi was about to hit Terrence in the gut when the stands erupted in the calls of the students in the stands.
"Cla-ire," the kids chanted, "Cla-ire! Cla-ire!"
Claire was shakily crossing cable Sakura had dropped. Temari guessed the child had used a wind-raising jutsu to secure the cable through the eyehole. The chanting seemed to give the girl spirit, because she moved faster and made it to the other side… where Sakura and Hinata were ready to intercept her.
"Not today!" Claire yelled. She formed the seals for the wind-raising jutsu and formed two thin, dangerous tornados that swept fast after Sakura and Hinata. One of the tornados split away from the two Chunin girls and swept toward Ten-Ten and Ino and the unconscious Kyle. Claire raced after that tornado but she concentrated more on the first one, keeping it chasing Sakura and Hinata.
Ten-Ten and Ino had to leave Kyle or risk being picked up by the tornado. The tornado had done its job so Claire let it dissipate and knelt down by Kyle. She was smart enough not to forget that she was potentially under attack, so she threw every ounce of her chakra reserves into a sand shield, pulling it over herself and Kyle. It would only last a few minutes, Temari could already tell.
The crowd was crowing and whistling for Claire's successful run. Terrence looked beaten and bruised and had a bloody nose, but he was grateful looking nonetheless.
"Going to have to K.O. him," Fuyumi could be heard saying.
Terrence twisted in Sasuke's grip, throwing the younger boy off him. "Claire was right," he panted, "Not today."
"Obstinate little fuck," Sasuke growled, getting up. "Figures Naruto's stupid persistent attitude would rub off on his brat."
Lee said, "The youthful Terrence has the right attitude! Never give up, young Terrence! Never surrender to your enemy, even after your last dying breath!"
Hearing that, Gaara murmured, "Your friend is a madman. Are you aware of this fact?"
"There's something wrong with most of my friends. You're a great example of that." Naruto offered. Gaara snorted heavily.
"That girl, Vvim, looks much like you. She has also your lack of intelligence. She does not fear me." Gaara stated, changing the subject as the battle began to change. The seven Konohagakurians were now going right after Terrence, but the bugger was proving to be rather slippery. He defended and dodged, but didn't attack. The Konohagakurians could only wait until the sand shield came down to attack at the other two, so they were trying to knock Terrence out.
"Isn't she cute though? Don't you just want to hug her when you look at her?" Naruto grinned widely with pride.
"Why is she named 'Vvim'?" Gaara asked curiously.
Naruto shrugged. "I'm bad with names." Naruto didn't turn around, but seemed to randomly say, "Look out behind you, Gaara."
Gaara looked behind him. Temari snuck a look. Vvim was beneath the bleachers looking up at Naruto with nervous curiosity written all over her face. She wouldn't leave the bleachers, but she was watching, curious of the man who gave birth to her and who she heard about every day of her life—the man who she loved as her nana—but who she had never met. Since Vvim had never really been formally introduced to Naruto, she was a bit scared of the unknown and afraid to rush out to meet it.
Gaara looked back toward the mock-battle (where Terrence was still dodging and ducking) after deeming Vvim as non-threatening. "She is a mild curiosity," Gaara admitted. "Shukaku admits she would not harm the child. It is a rare day when Shukaku refuses to harm something."
"I'd no idea Shukaku was a girl." Naruto blinked. "Gaara, is there something you haven't told me?"
Gaara rolled his eyes. "I assure you. I am male. If you must see proof…" he trailed off carelessly, hardly seeming to care he'd just offered to let Naruto see him naked.
Surprisingly, Naruto smirked in a perverted manner. "Not in public! I'd hate to share." Gaara smirked as if sharing in a secret joke. Temari was disturbed at the mental image and asked herself why she was plotting secretly to get those two boys together.
Finally they cornered Terrence; at the moment they cornered him the sand shield came down and Claire was revealed. She was working on her last exploding tag. Kyle appeared still unconscious.
Ino broke away from the group after Terrence and went after Claire, wetting a cloth with a small vial of presumably chloroform. Claire got the exploding tag off and went to get the ropes off, but Ino got to her and there was hardly a struggle as the chloroform made quick work of Claire's conscious state of being.
Terrence was really obstinate. They were beating him up but he just wouldn't be knocked out. "Use chloroform on him then!" Sasuke said finally.
"No!" Sakura, Ino, and Fuyumi snapped in unison. Sakura explained, "If we do that, he could slip into a coma from being all beat up."
"Options?" Ten-Ten asked.
"Tie him to a pole," Ino said.
Fuyumi suggested, "Beat on him until he just clocks out."
Lee was holding Terrence's left arm and Hinata was holding the other. Lee said, "He is very exhausted."
"P-perhaps y-you should q-quit," Hinata suggested warmly to the boy. "Y-you c-can return to t-the academy and t-try again next g-graduation."
Terrence gave her a black eyed glare, looking disgusted at the idea of quitting. "Beat me until I'm unconscious." He told them seriously. "I never wanted to be a shinobi, but the system grandfathered me in, and I will never bring disgrace on my city or my family by quitting." He spat bloody spit on the ground before him to further show his discontent.
"Sometimes you have to quit," Sasuke pointed out. "In most cases it serves a better purpose to quit than to let the enemy catch you."
"Yeah, well the enemy already has me!" Terrence snapped.
The statement was followed with dead silence for a moment and then a soft chanting began. "Ky-le. Ky-le." They said. It would've been better for Kyle if they stayed quiet because he was struggling with the ropes and clearly unable to get them off. However, if he got free, Terrence would graduate.
The Konohagakurians wasted no time. Ino immediately took her cloth of chloroform and went to use it on Kyle. The boy gave up trying to untie himself and finally dislocated his thumbs, pulling his hands free and standing up in a guarded position even as he yanked his thumbs back into place. Ino paused in her steps.
Silence reigned for a moment. Finally Naruto beamed. "That was totally awesome! If I could graduate all three of you"—not that Claire was awake to hear him say it—"I'd do it, but I only get to let Terrence pass and it's impossible to graduate twice in one day anyway!"
The stands erupted with cheering so loud it was a surprise the whole city didn't come to investigate. The spectators and the students were cheering for Kyle and Claire and Terrence. Terrence was released and he lowered himself to the ground as Fuyumi and Sakura began looking him over with glowing green hands. Terrence's brothers and sisters raced from the stands to congratulate him.
Kankuro chuckled and handed Naruto a forehead protector emblazoned with the sand-nin symbol. "I was a bit uncertain about you raising our kids at first, but after this, how can I be?" he asked.
Gaara said, "Kankuro, have you no manners? If Kyuubi's host desired something from us, he would take it himself not use little children." He said it so seriously, and so close to how Naruto himself had worded it that Temari nearly laughed.
Kankuro looked shocked at the slight reprimand, but then he chuckled. "Heh, right. I should've guessed."
Naruto looked at Gaara. "Wanna keep quiet about that, huh? Some of my friends are better off not knowing about Kyuubi."
"You wish to live a lie?" Gaara inquired.
"No, not exactly, but Kyuubi won't be in me forever, so eventually the lie will be real and I won't have to deal with it." Naruto said.
"What do you mean?" Temari asked. "You're not really thinking of releasing the demon, are you?"
Naruto scratched his neck. "I've been thinking about it, yeah… but… I haven't made up my mind entirely. On the one hand, he does have a family back wherever he comes from he says. On the other hand, I'm worried he might go ballistic and kill everybody." He sighed and shook his head. "Just don't go spreading word of that around; I'd probably be burned at the stake for it, and I kind of like being soft and chewy. I'd better head over to Terrence."
Naruto turned and walked toward the hiding little girl beneath the bleachers and knelt to talk to her, easily introducing himself and coaxing her out. He handed Terrence's forehead protector to Vvim, probably telling her to give it to Terrence when they managed to wade through the crowd. People were finally leaving.
Gaara frowned. "Shukaku said Kyuubi lies. Kyuubi never had family."
"No offense, Gaara, but Shukaku has been known to lie and manipulate too, so we really can't be sure who is lying to who at this point." Temari said. "I just hope Naruto doesn't do it."
Gaara's face became void of emotion as Kagome made her way over from where she'd been seated on the bleachers. Gaara didn't like talking about Shukaku around Kagome. "I think I know some of them!" Kagome blurted out. "I met them in Konoha!"
Gaara nodded sharply, acknowledging that Kagome had spoken. "I must go to Kazekage tower," he began.
Then a little girl with spiky blond hair bumped into his leg. He looked down at the child, who beamed up a him oblivious to the fact that he could make her disappear should he so desire. "Nana said I could invite you over for my birthday dinner! We're having ramen!" She saw Kagome, seemed to recognize that Kagome had been sitting next to Gaara most of the afternoon, and chirped, "You can bring your girlfriend too! We're going to dinner right now, so you have to come!"
"She's not," Gaara began, but the child was already back at her nana's side. "Why does everyone say that? Kagome, are we involved?" Gaara demanded.
"Well, today really was sort of date material, but then I promised to help you find a girlfriend, so I guess we're not." Kagome replied. "But I won't let you let that cute girl down, so you will go to dinner."
"I'll never get any work done with you around," Gaara told her.
"Then just sit back and enjoy the vacation," Kagome said. Temari smiled. Too bad the council didn't like her. She was good for Gaara. Ah well, Naruto was a perfect second choice.
xXx
Naruto beamed at Terrence as the boy looked in pure disbelief at the forehead protector Vvim was handing him. "You did it, Terry! You're one of the most awesome shinobi in the whole village now!" Vvim boasted, clearly feeling nothing short of pride for her brother.
The other kids crowded around to congratulate Terrence, even as Fuyumi and Sakura were still trying to make sure Terrence hadn't broken a rib or anything. They didn't bother to heal the minor bruises and scrapes using their chakra. Instead they used an antiseptic to clean the wounds and put bandages on the worst of the scrapes.
Finally Terrence was free from the medic-nin inspection and his little sister dove at him, nearly knocking their heads together in her excitement to grapple him. "You should'a seen yourself," Vvim said. "You were like, everywhere."
Terrence chuckled and hugged the girl. "Yeah, I was, wasn't I?" he asked her. Terrence looked at his watch and said, "It's getting to be seven thirty already. I sure hope Mesa Theroux didn't eat all that ramen without you, Vvim."
The child's eyes went wide and she squeaked, "She wouldn't, would she?"
Naruto laughed. "Nah! I asked her to make lots of extras, so my friends can eat over." He tilted his head toward where Sakura and the others were conversing off to the side and out of hearing range. Ino looked downright shocked, and Hinata was smiling secretly. Naruto figured Sakura was explaining what was going on in more thorough tones. At least he shouldn't have to explain everything again… Sakura seemed to be handling that part.
"That's good!" Vvim said, and her eyes locked on something behind Naruto. Then she asked, "Nana, can I invite Kazekage-sama for my birthday dinner?" Naruto glanced at other demon host. He was talking to Kankuro and Temari. Naruto nodded. They were already going to have a full house, but he saw no reason why he shouldn't invite Gaara. Besides… if he didn't get Gaara in close contact with the girls he'd brought for matchmaking, then he'd never manage to set Gaara up.
The child raced off and Naruto held a hand down to Terrence, helping Terrence to his feet. "I'm sore all over the place," Terrence groaned. "Sore, and exhausted. I doubt I'll make it through dinner before passing out. Out of all your friends, I think that raven haired chick did the most damage. I can't make chakra."
Naruto grinned. "That'll go away in a day or two. You really did great for only having two years in at the academy. They've done this all their lives and you lasted over two hours. Aren't you going to put it on?"
Terrence glanced at his bare forehead and shrugged. "Aren't you?"
Naruto simply shrugged. Vvim barreled into Naruto's legs, hugging his knee like it would run away. "Nana, I asked!" She said.
"Great! Is he coming?" Naruto asked, using his good arm to swing the child up on his hip.
"Well I don't know. I told him to come and that we're going there now."
Naruto said, "Then you did your job. I'm sure he'll come; you're too cute to ignore you know." Naruto wouldn't be surprised if Vvim grew up to have an ego the size of all of West Sands. But she would undoubtedly be a beautiful woman when she grew up, so it would even out. "Come on everybody!" Naruto said to the kids. "Last one to the house is a rotten egg!" He raced ahead of the kids and they chased him through the streets, laughing and screaming—having fun, like he very rarely got to do in his youth.
He launched over the broken picket fence and held the giggling Vvim in his protective embrace as he rolled in the sand of the yard. "I win!" he laughed, but then Vvim shot up away from him and as screaming children neared the house, she raced toward the front door.
"Nu uh!" Vvim screamed. "Last one inside's a rotten egg!" The kids all passed him as he was getting up and darted into the house, kicking off their shoes with laughter. Naruto smiled.
This is a family, Kyuubi told him. I have eighty nine children. You have a long way to go to catch up, but you're on the fast track. Sadly you have more boys.
Naruto trudged toward the house. "How many do you have?" he asked the demon.
Only one; the rest are girls. You are lucky. You have only four girls.
"I'm not complaining," Naruto told the demon. "I love them all."
You would have to be a fool not to.
xXx
Dinner went by quickly, but definitely not quietly as the dining room was filled with people. Gaara and Kagome both came. Naruto sneakily positioned Gaara between Ino and Fuyumi, but since he didn't want to make it too obvious what he was doing, he sat across the table from Gaara with Vvim seated on one side of him and Kagome on the other side.
The dining room was very large and had one very long table spanning the length of it. There were seats enough for thirty people, and only two seats remained empty by the time all the seats were taken. Even though Naruto was seated next to Kagome and he wanted to talk to her—mainly to ask how she got her color back and if she was doing better now, and to ask when Arsendibar had left her in Suna—he still didn't get a chance to talk to the person next to him.
Conversation was shouted throughout the hall; a few scuffles broke out and had to be split up, but nothing really major occurred. Naruto heard Ino suggesting the dinner was like "dining with seventeen of Naruto's clones".
Fuyumi and Ino talked medic business around Gaara. Gaara was assaulted with a bombardment of questions from Lee down the table as Lee made inquiries of the glass economy, though Gaara would not raise his voice to respond. Sakura and Hinata and Kagome shared a corner side of the table, so they managed to pick up a conversation. Sasuke tried not to involve himself whatsoever in the proceedings and dinner conversation, but three of Naruto's boys coaxed him into a conversation involving kunai and shuriken. A lot of kids screamed and shouted for this or that thing, or yelled things at Naruto that might have sparked a conversation if something else hadn't interrupted.
By the time the candles on the cake were blown out (all two of them) and everyone had eaten their sweet treat, it was already ten o'clock PM. Everyone was stuffed—even Naruto was—and there was not an ounce of left over food.
A long lull of silence swept over the table. Vvim was falling asleep on her seat. Terrence got to his feet and said, "It's bedtime guys."
Vvim jolted awake. "I'm awake!" she whined, "I don't need to go to bed!" A yawn escaped her, betraying her.
Anna smiled. "You're awake now, but you won't be when you crawl in that bed. Now march, young lady. Even a kage has to sleep sometimes." Kids scooted back from the table and began picking up their dishes (all dishes used were mismatched or chipped, but no one complained or cursed Naruto for not providing better dinnerware for his seventeen charges).
Vvim had to stand on her chair to collect her dishes, and then slide off the chair with them in hand. Anna led them all into the kitchen where they were heard depositing their dishes in the wash tub. With them gone, Lee burst out, "It was very noble of you to take them in, Naruto-kun! I would have done the same thing myself!"
Ino grinned and seemed to leer at Naruto for a minute, "I think I can see how you could be Nana. You have grown into a sexy—"
"INO-PIG!" Sakura shouted, slamming her fist on the table. "Don't you even finish that, or you're a dead woman."
"Aw," Ino pouted, "come on, Sakura. You can't possibly tell me you haven't seen it. You're the luckiest girl in Konoha—you have two incredibly sexy guys on your team. If you try to tell me you haven't imagined them two going at it—"
"INO!" Sakura was blushing profusely. "No, I have not." And then she grumbled with her eyes squeezed shut, "…Until now…"
Fuyumi snickered and jutted her thumb at Gaara, "Now imagine Gaara-kun in the mix," Sakura fell off her chair.
"Did you just call me 'Gaara-kun'?" Gaara asked in his usual dead drawl.
Fuyumi smiled rather sinisterly at him. "Yeah, I did. And you liked it."
Gaara's expression seemed to be a cross between 'I want to kill her right here and now, in front of all these people' and 'I can't kill her or there may be consequences… but I could make it look like an accident…'
Kagome giggled, "Gaara-kun. I like that."
"Don't start," Gaara growled at her.
Anna came back into the room and smiled at the group of them. "Master Uzumaki, the children would like you to go to the sitting room. When they have cleaned up for bed, they wish to show you something."
"Okay," Naruto said. He got up and began picking up his dinnerware.
"Master Uzumaki…" Anna warned him sternly. He gulped and set the plate down.
"Yes?" he asked, trying to sound innocent but knowing he sounded guilty.
"You are much trouble. Take your friends and retreat to the sitting room. I shall clean up." Anna insisted.
Naruto decided it would be better to just go, so he led the way to the sitting room. Sakura asked, "She doesn't let you clean, does she?"
"Not really. I've tried to tell her a million times I can, but she doesn't listen to me." They entered the sitting room and Naruto went straight for the orange pouf chair, sprawling on it like it were a couch. Naruto was surprised Gaara didn't make an excuse to leave, but then he saw Kagome was kind of glaring at him when he hung back as if to go. Gaara waited until everyone else was seated before choosing a seat as far from everyone else as possible.
With a smirk on his face, Naruto asked, "Now, I believe you were mentioning me and Gaara and Sasuke having a three-some… But you know, as hot as I have to agree they are, I really need some female flesh in there somewhere."
Hinata's face went from pale to bright apple red in seconds. Fuyumi laughed, "I'm sure Sakura would oblige! What do you think, Sakura?"
Sakura glared bloody murder at Fuyumi. "Fuyumi, I'm going to murder you and hide the body!"
"Aww, come on, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, "I mean, you totally made out with me under the bridge…" Shocked faces went all around the room. "Oh, sorry, didn't anyone know about that yet? Yeah, Sakura-chan has incredible lips."
Sakura grabbed a couch pillow from the seat she was on and brought it toward Naruto, struggling with him to suffocate him, even as he laughed. He had to be careful of his broken hand, but she wasn't really forcing him or anything. "Kill… you… Naruto…"
Naruto laughed, "You know you want me, Sakura-chan!"
Even Lee was laughing quietly. Lee was reassured that Sakura did not want Naruto—whether or not they kissed under the bridge (which was hearsay since no one saw)—because she was mad at Naruto.
"You—perverted—monkey-brained —turd!" Sakura growled.
"Hey, there are kids present!" Terrence called from the entry way. "Keep your clothes on."
Naruto and Sakura stopped immediately and everyone looked at the seventeen kids as they filed into the room, each in their scrappy plain pajamas. Vvim was half asleep in her brother's arms, hardly able to keep her eyes open.
When the kids were settled beneath the very large painting on the high wall, the one with the velvet cloth cover Naruto had pondered over, Terrence said a quick, "To you, from us." He reached up and yanked a pull cord; the curtain moved aside and Naruto immediately knew that was what they spent the repair money on.
It was a beautiful painting, and very lifelike. The subject of the painting was Naruto, only Naruto hardly felt like he knew the person in it because that Naruto looked really… amazing, was the only word he could come up with to describe the Naruto in the painting. The painting seemed to bare everything about Naruto to the world, and at the same time, it hid it all.
He was seated atop a sturdy table. One of his legs swung over the edge of the table, dangling barefooted; his other leg was folded up in a half pretzel. He was wearing his orange jump suit jacket, but it was unzipped, revealing a torso covered in mesh-net. His legs were covered in orange pants to match the orange-and-black jacket. Beneath his bare foot, his toes rested on the edge of a basket of ripe, large oranges.
His face looked very peaceful—almost benevolent—with his eyes closed and his lips just barely parted. His blond hair almost made it look like he was floating under water; it didn't look messy and in disarray, but it looked perfect, like it were natural. His whisker-scars didn't even look awkward on him there. His necklace from Granny seemed to have the same effect as his hair, the chain of it looking like it was floating and the three pretty crystals seemed to glitter. His forehead protector was on his head, polished but not new, with the cheerful leaf-nin symbol standing out in the center of it amongst blond hair that floated around it.
His hands held an orb out in front of him. Inside the orb was a beautiful tree littered with orange dots and green leaves. Light from the orb seemed to light up Naruto's face with an uncommon glow, almost making it seem like the Naruto sitting there wasn't completely human. It made Naruto remember those demon fangs he now had; he'd managed to get away with not wearing the cloth over his mouth by not opening his mouth too wide. And then there was the whole demon eye he couldn't get rid of.
He wasn't really human, was he?
Surrounding the image of Naruto was smaller images, like a frame, of ten other people. Two long, rectangular boxes at the top and bottom, and three square boxes down either side of the painting. Those ten other people seemed to make up the missing pieces of the main Naruto's humanity. Where the main Naruto seemed ethereal, these people each showed a portion of his personality that seemed to make up who "Naruto" was in entirety.
'Naruko' was in the upper right box, lying on her stomach with her elbows propping herself up. Her hair was in the familiar pig tails and the long blond hair pooled around her, but she was the completed form of her. She wore an orange sundress and tan sandals, her feet kicking the air playfully. She had an ice cream cone in one hand that she was licking on, and an orange rubber ball in the other hand. Her bright blue eyes seemed to stare out of the portrait, as if the girl saw the people outside the portrait and was saying, "I'm bored, so let's play a game."
The upper left box displayed a portrait of 'Honey'. Honey had skin as gold as her name, with eyes like sweet, melted chocolate; her lips were shining as though painted with lip shine. Her black hair was thick and mussed, as if she'd spent the night tussling in a bedroom somewhere. She wasn't dressed very well. She lay on her back in the frame, a sheer piece of garment tied shut only by a loose ribbon on her ample bosom.
Honey wasn't wearing a bra; it was easy to tell that much by looking at Honey's chest area and seeing through the sheer soft orange cloth. The ribbon was painted to dangle over Honey's visible breast just where her nipple would be, though that didn't make Honey look any less provocative. Beneath Honey's breasts and all of her stomach was visible for the world; her long fingers barely teasing the surface of her flesh. Her lips were curled in a coy smile. One of her legs were jutted up in the air, the other lay flat. The sheer orange robe she wore was bunched up around her rear end. She wore sexy lingerie of the same soft orange color the robe was painted as.
Honey's expression clearly desired a different kind of 'play' than the playful Naruko.
Beneath Honey's box was one of the square boxes. In that box, painted to be seated up against a wall, was Gen. Gen wasn't cute like Naruko or sexy like Honey. He was gruff looking with greasy, nearly black hair, pale skin, thin lips, and sallow cheeks. His dark eyes seemed shadowed, like one who had seen too much in too short a time. His lips were forming a scowl. He was dressed in all black and had bloody weapons lying all around him. Blood splashed his greasy cheek and dripped from his hair. In his hands he had a dagger covered in blood, but it almost looked like he was wiping the blood off on an orange kerchief. He looked like an escaped convict.
Beneath Gen was another square box, this one harboring a portrait of a ditsy looking bookworm. Her name was Pepper and she had the bushiest brown hair possible for one person to have. Her clothes were too big for her tiny form and she had thick glasses tipping off her long nose. She wore a brown skirt and a beige shawl, almost appearing as if she were dressed by an old lady. She was kneeling down to try to pick up an orange book that must have dropped from her bundle; the rest of her stack was tilting precariously the other way.
Underneath Pepper's box was Ico. He was sitting on a dirt path, his clothes ragged and torn, his feet bare. The youth was dirty as if he hadn't bathed in ages. He had messy red hair and sparkling green eyes. He was leaning up against a crossroads sign with a map in his hands—a map he was holding upside down. On Ico's left cheek was an orange star marking. The confused boy looked ready to tear the map up, though anyone else would have simply chosen the right path, because that road led down a cheerful, not-dangerous-looking field, and the left path walked straight into a dark, scary, think-twice-before-entering forest. Even the crossroads sign clearly labeled which path to take. The crossroads sign pointing right said, "Home", and the crossroads sign pointing left said, "Danger".
Lying along the bottom of the frame in the left rectangle box was Nana. The black skinned man had all of his hair done in corn rolls. He wore a sexy black silk shirt and tight leather pants. He lay with an exasperated and exhausted expression on his face, brown eyes barely visible. Random orange toys surrounded him, and an orange baby blanket covered part of one of his legs as if the place Nana was lying was a spot for all toys to be thrown when done playing.
Beside Nana's box was Amunet's box. She was dressed in sturdy deerskin pants and had a deerskin vest buttoned on, showing dark chocolate cleavage. She was also lying down, but she was on her side with Hugo the Tearblade in her hand. A fur-lined deerskin cloak lay beneath her. Around her neck was her unmarked forehead protector. Her short curls fell in her eyes, even though there was an orange ribbon in her hair supposed to keep it in place. Her nin-kits were secured to her tense body; she looked both ready for a fight and completely relaxed at the same time. Her wrists had the guards that kept vials of various substances in them.
In the square box immediately above Amunet was Ashe, a smirking boy with white-blond hair slicked back. He had pale skin, was small and thin, and had gray eyes. He sat cross-legged, chin on one hand, his other hand raised at eye level. If the portrait could move, then the gold coin in his hand would be flipping back and forth from finger to finger. He was surrounded in what could easily be assumed stolen money and goods, since his torn orange tank top and his loose white cotton pants spoke of little wealth. Ashe didn't even have shoes, as was clear by how his feet were filthy. Still, he looked happy amongst his treasures.
Above Ashe was Myrn. She was the last of the females. She had a completely emotionless expression on her face. She didn't wear much in the way of clothes. She had on what appeared to be a bra made of black leather, and a skin-tight leather skirt barely reaching her thighs. Dangling from the bottom hem of the leather bra, as if to cover more flesh, were strips of orange beads. The pale flesh of her legs showed through her fishnet stockings.
Myrn's hair was platinum colored, held up high in a ponytail, though the length of it still hung to her waist. She was crouched as if ready to pounce like a cat on a mouse. Her hands clutched the ground, the nails creating gouges in the dirt. Attached to her thigh was a blank forehead protector. Attached to her other thigh, and to her backside, were nin-kits. Sharp, circular blades lined her wrists like bracelets, looking so dangerous it was a wonder she didn't cut herself on them.
The last male was in the box above Myrn, and below Naruko. Tek had a lonely stare on his face as he looked off at nothing. He almost seemed like a ghost because he was so pale, but he had orange hair and blue eyes. He hugged his legs to his chest, his chin on his knees. His clothes were so ragged they were transparent, and not in the way Honey's robe was either. These were once sturdy looking clothes. He looked malnourished and frail.
It was a beautiful piece of art, and it truly displayed each of the ten identities he created while he was at the Sneak-Thief Mastery School perfectly. No matter what the place or the situation, and no matter what kind of people he had to integrate with, using one of his ten identities (if he couldn't be himself of course) he could infiltrate the place with ease.
Naruto couldn't stop the ironic smile cross his face when he noticed someone had written on the wall in black, bold permanent marker, "Do yoo no where yor nana is?" Someone else had squiggled out the misspelled words and wrote the correct spelling beneath it. When Naruto had adopted the kids they became his children even if some of them were as old, nearly as old, or even in Terrence's case, older than him. By law, they were his kids. Being that he was male, if they were to get attached enough to call him by anything, one would expect it to be a variation of 'father'.
Instead, the children called him 'nana', the respected Suni title for someone who plays the role of the father, the mother, and the nursemaid, because most of the richer families in Suna hired nursemaids for their children and parents played a very small role in the raising of the children. Someone who played all three roles (bread-winner, house-maker, care-taker), mostly those who were single parents of the lower class society, usually earned the title of 'nana'.
And they didn't call him nana because of his fake identity 'Nana Reiss' either, because he'd adopted the kids before he went to the Sneak-Thief Mastery School; they called him that before he left them. He created Nana Reiss with the children in mind.
"Well, what do you think, nana?" one of the boys asked.
Naruto smirked and slipped a hand around Sakura's waist. "See that, Sakura-chan?" he asked her, loud enough that everyone could hear him. "That's proof right there that I'm dead sexy! Feel free to drool at me any time, and if you ever want a four-some between me, Sasuke, and Gaara, just ask! I'll have 'em naked for you faster than you can say 'hot mama'…"
Sakura glared death at him. "Naruto…" she warned him, "I… am going to kill you!" Still, her face was beet red. He laughed and made a dash for the exit. His friends were all chuckling at him (with the exception of Gaara who looked mildly constipated—or disturbed…it was hard to tell with him…). The kids looked like they had expected such a response. Terrence pulled a second cord and the orange velvet curtain closed over the painting.
Gaara turned to look at Terrence, a measured look of curiosity on his face. "Why would you waste money on such a thing?"
Thanks to: Chibi Miko (welcome to the story! I wish you luck on reaching the end, 'cause it'll be a while), loki09 aka ttre208 (welcome to the story...you didn't have to read it all so quick), Rebel Reader Bitch, supersillee06 (Kakashi is dead...?), yumeniai, Dark Inu Fan (we'll just have to wait and see), Arcander (it does serve a purpose), Natsumi Tsuchi-Ookami (Kagome is a bossy girl), zoey tamagachi (Its not unfair... I did say who she was going to be with a while back, and then changed my mind and now those who don't know have to wait till it starts happening to figure out who it is), Akina no Akuma (that's okay... I have a repetitive habit too: I update... seems fair), DarkRavie, and of course, to everyone else who reviewed chapter 48 after I posted chapter 49.
ANSWER: This chapter got to be too long, and I didn't have the heart to split it into pieces. Technically its not finished, but as stated at the beginning of the chapter, any words not specifically defined are up for contextual interpretation.
1, 2, 3, 4, tell me that you love me more, 5, 6, 9, 10... (leave a review to prove you're sure)...
