(To those that are wondering, listen to Cat Stevens: Father and Son, in any scene involved with Naruto and Minato.)
Crveni and Plava mewled in Naruto's arms as he held the twin infant girls, dinner was taken over by his mother when his young sisters came to visit. Not blood-related sisters, but his God Sisters. The red and blue haired girls mewled on Naruto.
The long-sleeved orange shirt he was wearing was soft, the infants cuddled closer to him, while Michael's wife smiled. Ruža, Michael's wife, watched as Naruto cuddled her children. Slowly making sure to caress their backs with his thumbs.
"Such soft little things," Ruža says as she sips her tea, her blue hair tied into a ponytail. "They seem to take you as their own, you are the first they've been held by other than us and hadn't cried. Perhaps fate, Naruto, brought us together in this juncture."
Naruto nods, smiling while nudging his head side to side. Michael took a seat by his wife, relaxing on a loveseat that was obviously a hand-me-down due to all the creaking. "Sup Shenlong, how ya been?"
Michael watches as Naruto nods to him, brightly smiling, and then he noticed Ruby's presence in the room when she almost squeals. "Oh, so adorable~"
Ruby walks over to where Naruto was sitting on the couch, sitting next to him, "can I hold one?"
The chuckle off Michael was all she needed when she reached over, taking Plava off Naruto's hands. Interestingly, the babies still remind silent despite Ruby holding one of the twins now. The girl was surprised when the baby snuggled closer to her chest, nervous when it started grabbing.
"Um," Ruby looks at Ruža, "what's she doing?"
"She's probably hungry, can you hand her to me please?" Ruža held her hands out for her child, taking the babe after handing it to Naruto, she placed a blanket over her chest area as she slipped her tank top down. "Crveni is the hungriest of the two, she always wants to eat."
Ruby blushed a little bit, "oh, she was searching for…milk."
"Yep," Ruža laughs at Ruby's nervousness, "don't be embarrassed. It's a natural and healthy thing for a baby to breastfeed. Some families have wet nurses if they've got the money, but, I prefer my power being given to my children."
Michael chuckled a little bit, "Ruža is basically saying it's nothing to be awkward over. Just don't let people tell you that it's wrong, because well, that's what the part of the human body is made for."
"So, why do…boys have them?"
"Believe or not it's leftover parts, like an old tire of a truck."
"R-really?"
"Yep, it's the weird nature of biology, sometimes it does things weirdly…but it's easier to just keep leftovers than to rebuild it."
"Oh wow, that's…weird, but cool!" Ruby said excitingly as she began to wonder what else were spare parts.
Finally deciding it was best to leave sleeping dogs lay, she watched as Ruža went back to feeding the baby. Rocking back and forth, Michael smiles, rubbing his wife's shoulder. "You know, we gave Naruto the title Shenlong because he saved my life."
Naruto rubs the back of his head, smiling a little bit, it was still as honorary and the best filling he ever got in his young life.
"His mother and he have the titles Akashen and Kishen, Red Spirit and Yellow Spirit in our old language. When part of tunnel five collapsed, I was stuck in the rubble, and Naruto was basically what was known as a "Smaller Fitter," a child who could get into small openings to plant explosives." Ruby looked horrified, as did Yang who was listening from the kitchen, with Kushina getting a sad look on her face. "Judging by your looks, you don't think that this was right."
"How could it ever be right?!" Ruby almost yells, "you're making kids use explosives."
"Labor Union Laws, L.U.L weren't established, he and his mother were pioneering for our labor contract. Smaller Fitters became outlawed in the law, forcing them to use more expensive robotics, but kept children safe. They also got a pay raise, getting paid the same as adults." Michael tells her, he sighs, "but some managers in our mine still act like they're God."
"Child labor is still wrong."
"Well, that's true, but sometimes boys must become men before their time."
Ruža chuckled a little bit, looking at Ruby, "Naruto was a salty ass kid. Michael came out holding Naruto, he had broken five of his fingers when he managed to dig the tunnel wide enough, but a large stone dropped on his hand, he didn't even flinch when he started helping his mom pull him out."
"Naruto's a hero," Michael pointed out as he looks at Naruto, "screw what other people think of him. I owe that young man my kids, my life, and if anything, ever happens to your mother, spirits forbid, you'll always a have a home!"
Naruto smiles, a lone tear falling down his eye as he looks at Michael. Bowing his head, he accepts Michael's declaration of brotherly love, still there, once a union brother always a union brother. Taking a deep breath, everyone just looked at each other.
Kushina was busy in the kitchen, cooking multiple pots of vegetables. She had peppers added into a noodle pot that she was making and that they were almost done. The useless bits of the large trout Naruto had caught was placed into a small bag she would use as fertilizer for her garden once she ground it up enough.
She takes a deep breath as she started mixing dishes together, only to hear a laugh. Turning back, she saw that Taiyang broke the horror from earlier by telling a joke, Yang's laugh was boisterously and like when Naruto was a young child.
"Papa, that's too funny, not another please!"
"Okay, okay, please just one more my little fox."
"Okay…please don't kill me with it."
"I would never."
"Okay, okay, ahem. What has blonde hair, blue eyes, and the light of my life?" Minato asks Naruto as he looks at his young son.
"Um, is it you and mama?"
"Well…sure, guess it could be. But, I don't have fox ears…"
Minato reached over, pinching Naruto's cheek, smiling a warm fatherly smile. "You're the light of my life Naruto, you'll always be loved, even if…"
"Even if we go on vacation!" Kushina interjects as she looks at Minato, a nervous laugh, "right honey?"
"Right…vacation…" Minato drawls, chuckling a little bit, and looking at Naruto.
Taking a deep breath, "find yourself a girl that isn't afraid to run her mouth and will both chastise you for idiotic mistakes and love you for who you are."
"Okay papa," Naruto nods as he looks at his father, "I love you."
"Love you too, C'mon, let's eat." Minato and Naruto turn to see Kushina carrying a pot of noodles towards them.
Kushina was looking at the noodles, seeing a small image of her husband in them. She closed her eyes; a lone tear fell down her face as she remembered him in detail. The strength of his arms, the smell of his hair, the light he seemed to give off with his yellow aura.
She missed him, she still missed him as if it was the day after it all, but she endured over time. The wound that was loss slowly closing, never fully healing, but healing all the same. In the greatest sense, it was duality given true form.
An old flower must die to give rise to new flowers, and with those new flowers, vibrant colors are to be born as well. Yellow Lilies and Red Roses, making an Orange Rose Lily. Life, no matter how hard, continued.
The sun doesn't set over the deer, death may weep at its duty, but it's true that gift that suffering truly ended. When it became okay to let go, to know that you have done all you can, and you embrace it like an old friend.
Minato Namikaze embraced this old friend, six years ago, but to her felt like day one.
She watched him slowly go, the loving light fade, the young youthful appearance becoming old. At thirty-eight he looked like an old man when it finally came, white patches of hair when it had formally been a solid blonde.
The stress on his body, the daily needs, him losing his ability to even walk! Why would she wish him back, why would she wish such pain and suffering on the love she made her only child with, was it selfish?
No, and yes, we will always want them back, but we know we'll see them again. Sadness and sorrow are just as much a piece of life as Joyfulness and fulfillment. Somewhere, something deep in us all, there's that little feeling of knowing it's never the end.
Just a new beginning.
Everyone was stuffed, Kushina's specially made Orange Trout Miso Ramen was filling, loaded with noodles, and a healthy bit of spices. Rice, Rice Cakes as well, some steamed cauliflower, a few green bean cans, and some corn could really make a fine dish.
It was a mixture of Menagerie cooking mixed with its ancestral Mistralian style main course. Kushina. Like Taiyang had once said, could pass for a perfect Mistralian woman. Perhaps she was at one point, being born there, later migrating to Menagerie.
Menagerie was promised to be The Land of Faunus, though Taiyang agreed that the country itself was a hot debate on what a country was.
It had a sort of council system, a system of clan council, with a head clan ruling all others. Not so different from Constitutional Monarchy, but much looser in the control of ruling figure. Though the main heads, The Belladonna, ruled with words only the council could vote on massive history-changing decisions.
The choice to declare themselves a legitimate country, for example, fifteen years ago, was one such vote. A vote that nearly sent the world on the brink of war once more, The Year Without Vytal, the year where every country didn't participate due to ill will towards one another.
It was brought back from the brink when Nicholas Schnee, former head of The Schnee Dust Company, threatened to cut off funding to Atlas. At the time, Atlas was still under construction and mainly under the financial duty of the S.D.C, and if they'd pulled funding then it would've ultimately failed.
Atlas had no choice, but to at least accept that Menagerie existed, even if they believed it was illegitimate. Mistral, the proprietor of much of Menagerie's systems demanded vessel payments, as reparations for their effort in starting up the country itself.
Menagerie reluctantly accepted that it, at the very least, owed a debt to Mistral.
Vacuo accepting Menagerie was a no-brainer, in Vacuo, if you had guts you were a for sure bet. They almost slobbered at the chance to make friends Menagerie, if anything, to keep on The White Fang's good side at the time.
Before they became what, they are now regarded as today, terrorists.
Taiyang couldn't exactly blame them, you can only take the high road so long, and eventually, you run out of patience. When the White Fang became violent, everyone was shocked, but Taiyang was always wondering when.
The number of times he saw a Faunus student getting bullied. How many warnings and parent-teacher conferences did he have? He couldn't ever count exactly, and when one of his students by the name of Tayuya announced her joining The White Fang, she attacked the first person who made fun of her.
Not just punched, stabbed, she had always had been a loose cannon, but she always had a gentle heart underneath it all. Then, like that, she was forced to run. The man, shocked, understood. It was the same thing with The White Fang, you can only take so much.
Then you must retaliate.
Bear in mind, this doesn't condone violence, because that it in itself will just perpetuate a very harsh cycle of vengeance. One side doing more damage to the other until there is nothing left, nothing left but what once was.
Bones with flesh on them.
He had wished she'd just came to him more, perhaps he could still have accepted her as a student despite her allegiance, it wasn't illegal to be A White Fang member. There was no law against it, just like the H.A.F.L, there was no law against them.
They were blatantly violent towards Faunus, and never once tried peaceful resolutions.
The White Fang tried to be peaceful, but people like those in the H.A.F.L would never stop.
Not until they painted them the monster.
Taiyang watched as his daughter conversed with the boy she came to love, perhaps her true love, perhaps puppy love. He was scared, admittedly he still is, he didn't want to see his Little Rose get hurt. However, on the other end, he didn't want to see her grow up.
He just had a nightmare the other night, where he was walking into his daughter's room, only to see she wasn't there anymore. It broke his heart having that dream, it scared him to the core as well, it was sort of the same kind of dream he had before Summer went missing.
However, there was still faded photographs that he never paid attention to in the dream, perhaps that empty room wasn't a sad reminder of what once was. Perhaps it was getting ready to be renovated, welcoming grandchildren.
Three months in, still too young to even dare have intercourse, and here he was wondering what being a grandfather would be like. Indeed, his father always did say that he was the worrying kind, always had been.
He just wanted his daughters to be happy, and he knew better, Yang was dating the bowl-haired boy. He didn't need her to say it, he could tell, and thought it kind of disappointed him that she still dived right into the nit and gritty of a relationship he couldn't deny that his daughter was like her mother.
Passionate, fiery desire, prideful, outgoing, and above all else strong.
The only time that she wasn't strong, the only time he had truly seen her break down, was "The Kiba Incident" where she had given herself away to a boy under peer pressure. Perhaps it was the very same thing that drove her to spy on Naruto a lot, make sure he wouldn't pressure Ruby.
Taiyang had been around Naruto enough now to get a read on what his intentions were, and even though he could detect an underlying layer of lust, it wasn't as impure as one would make it seem. Indeed, even though romantic love involved being with a person, to take things further always had to be driven by some underlying form of lust.
Not especially a bad thing, but something to be wary of, because they both could end up hurting each other. That was his biggest worry, both were socially awkward, and both didn't know what to do. It was like an engine hesitating, there was sometimes misfires.
He could tell, both unsure of what they thought should be their limits, and he wasn't a fool either. They both are cute and adorable, but both weren't privy to his own brand of fake sleeping. He followed them out one night on the airship, finding them making out.
To Naruto's credit, the boy wasn't seeking any other part of his daughter's body, just kissing her deeply. Ruby was the one that initiated the kiss and all that. However, he could tell by their hands rubbing each other's backs that both weren't sure what to do next.
Should they just kiss, should she allow him to feel her up a little, should he take the initiative?
Taiyang had been around the block, he had what would probably be considered the sexiest woman alive on Remnant in the form of Raven, but her brash nature and eventual heartbreak broke them apart. He found his perfect soulmate in Summer, and just like with Naruto, he wasn't sure what he should've been doing at the time.
Raven sort of corrupted Taiyang in a way, it was rather funny, in the sense that every argument they've ever had up until their breakup was settled with angry sex.
Holes in the wall, a few thrown knives there and here, and next thing they were doing was ripping bedsheets apart. So, Taiyang had a once unhealthy mind about sex and love, and the thing to him was both simple as it was complicated.
An oxymoron.
Sex was simple, it was just two people, taking each other. Sweaty, without much inner passion, and even if it felt good there was just something about it…that…just seemed…guilty. Sure, the sex with Raven was probably the best he'll ever get, and that's not knocking Summer at all.
Making love, however, that was an entirely different ballgame. He never had it until Summer, and all this time he always believed sex and making love was the same, how ignorant was he. Making love was probably just as spiritual as it was passionate.
Compared to sex, making love was him finally opening, his most vulnerable state. Summer too, opening, and as well in her most vulnerable state. There was not a fast pace, sheet ripping, animalistic mating in making love. It was slow, it was meant to be sensual, it was like forming a connection.
Two souls, finding each other, and forevermore loving each other.
Perhaps this was his fear for Yang, she was so much like her mother, and he was scared that she would venture more into the thrill and self-serving side of the spectrum. While, Ruby on the other hand, in a bit of irony, was like her mom.
To his and Summer's discredit, Summer was pregnant with Ruby before they got married. However, the key point was, they knew what they wanted, while Taiyang and Raven kind of got forced into it when Yang was born.
It wasn't fair to Raven, and in a way, wasn't fair to him, he loved her still. Raven, she was the mother of his firstborn child, even if she wasn't around or in the picture. He knew better after Kiba went missing, he knew that she was still watching their daughter from a distance.
It was sad really, almost tragic in a way, but he'd endure like usual. His smile unwavering, his hope inextinguishable, and the youth that burned in his old man body was still in full force.
So, in conclusion, he was glad that Ruby picked Naruto. And from what he saw in the boy's eyes while kissing his daughter right now, there was nothing but love in them. Innocent love, gentle love, a type of love that was like comforting in a way.
"Having fun?" Taiyang asks the pair, they broke the kiss immediately and looked at him with blushing faces.
"Oh, hey da-dad, how long have you been watching us?"
"Eh, long enough, say Ruby shouldn't Naruto show you around his home village tomorrow?"
Ruby looked at Naruto, he smiles and nods, giving Taiyang a thumb's up.
"Can we call it a date, Naruto?"
Naruto nods, and motions at the clock, signaling it would be a long one.
"Cool…I'll pack us a picnic…"
Naruto kissed Ruby's cheek, and before she could react, he flicked her ear.
Before she could retaliate Naruto disappeared in a flash, leaving her fuming.
"Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze!" Ruby activates her semblance, "I will get you back for flicking me in my ear, you loveable fox!"
Taiyang couldn't help it, he allowed a chuckle and watched as Ruby sped to where Naruto appeared outside.
"Taiyang!"
"Gotta catch me first Summer!
"I'll clobber you when I do!"
"Hey now, I was only stealing a small bit of revenge!"
"You're still mine!"
"Gah?!"
Taiyang felt something slip down his face, falling off it as well, and he looked down. "Summer…"
