A/N: I'll be honest, I haven't read or watched that much of Naruto so I hope this is as close to accurate as possible. I've mostly just happened to glean a lot of knowledge on it peripherally. I do not know where the names Shinachiku and Hanami came from as hypothetical children for Naruto and Sakura, but the names came up so often in my brief research that I assume they're used for a reason.
This was originally conceived with Hinata in the main role, but the nature of her character made it incredibly hard to do what I wanted. As such, Sakura was swapped in which fit better for this.
Lastly, this will not be a long story. Expect only three chapters.
Under most circumstances, the sight of Ino Yamanaka and Naruto Uzumaki slumped down in their chairs at the kitchen table would look unusual at best. It's an unusual friendship – one forged in the shared commiseration of loving someone that will never love you back.
"Sai asked me out. I'm going to give him a chance," Ino says as she slightly lifts her head off the table to rest it on her hands. "I think it's time I start trying to move on."
Naruto pauses, then tilts his head to look at her. His depressed state is the only thing that keeps him from making a much louder exclamation of shock. "Sai? We're talking about the same guy, right? Awkward and won't stop talking about my dick?" he tries to confirm.
"He's attractive and called me beautiful."
He barely bites back a retort that she's not exactly setting a high bar for herself if that criteria was good enough for her. Then again, it's not like he's in a position to say anything. He'll probably never move on himself at the rate he's going. That's fine with him though. It's been an accepted part of his life ever since he made his promise to Sakura.
Ino fully sits up in her chair slowly to get a good look at Naruto. She considers him for a moment and seems to hesitate on her words. "I heard you turned Hinata down," she eventually says.
The young man looks away, cringing at the memory of how that particular encounter went. Naruto nods, not trusting his voice to not make a fool out of himself.
"Why?"
Naruto blinks. "You know why," he automatically responds.
She does, of course, know exactly why. When she was 14, Ino realized that perhaps she liked Shikamaru more than she could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, by the time she had the revelation, she could already see the way the winds were blowing. He was already spending large amounts of time with Temari on her poor excuses for "diplomatic visits". With as much as Temari had become a friend of hers, Ino couldn't justify trying to barge her way between the two of them so she simply stood aside. It never stopped it from hurting however.
With their similar experiences in love, Ino Yamanaka understands Naruto more than most.
That doesn't keep her from staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate despite his obvious discomfort with the topic.
He doesn't disappoint. With a sigh, he mumbles out, "It wouldn't be fair to Hinata. How can I be in a relationship with someone when I'm keeping Sakura in my heart?" Naruto lightly pounds his chest with a closed fist for emphasis.
Ino taps her fingers on the table. "Why Sakura though? Why not Hinata?" she muses. If she's honest, she's always kind of wondered what drew him to their mutual friend.
Naruto turns back to look at her, then looks up to the ceiling. Matters of the heart have always been hard for him to talk about. Not so much because he doesn't want to, but rather that he simply doesn't know how. But he knows that Ino gets it, so he tries.
"Hinata's very... gentle," he trails off as he shifts uncomfortably in his seat and hopes that the meaning of what he's trying to say gets through to her.
It doesn't. Ino instead stares at Naruto like he's the biggest idiot in the world. "If that's news to you, I don't even know where to begin," she gets out, exasperated.
He holds out his hands to try and stop her. "No! No, I mean- I mean-" Naruto stammers out as he tries to keep himself from getting beaten up by Ino. He puts his head in his hands and muffles a groan. "Hinata is like a small campfire at night. It's warm. Inviting. Gentle."
Ino tilts her head, unsure why he's trying to make this sound like a bad thing. He scratches the back of his head, an obvious nervous tic. He doesn't know how to explain that when he imagines a future with Hinata, it's very quiet. Peaceful, but quiet. Gentle. While he's certain that she would always love him, he worries that it's simply not the kind of life he wants.
Jiraiya once told him that life is an adventure and Naruto has taken that statement to heart. He would tell Ino this, but he simply doesn't know the words. He doesn't know how to say that Sakura's eyes simply have so much more life in them than Hinata. That her eyes promise a lifetime of excitement. Of adventure.
With Ino's gaze still upon him, waiting to clarify, Naruto holds out his hands like he's holding the most precious item in the world. His eyes glaze over as he imagines that he sees the brilliant light of Sakura's life in his hands.
"Hinata's fire is gentle," Naruto tries one last time as his voice drops to a low reverent tone, "But Sakura's fire can roar."
Unlike what his younger self would ever believe, Naruto Uzumaki loves mornings. The hard part is getting enough sleep to appreciate it.
Stretching like a waking cat, the Seventh Hokage ungracefully rolls out of bed and drowsily slips a shirt on before following the smell of breakfast out to the kitchen where he's reminded just how lucky he is.
Sakura Uzumaki is peacefully oblivious, swaying her body back and forth to a nameless tune she's humming while flipping eggs at the stove. This moment, and many others like it, is why he loves mornings so much. It's the time of day when his family is together without responsibility.
Quietly stepping behind his wife, Naruto slips his arms around her in a hug and holds her tight as she sways. He moves his head down to give her a kiss on the cheek from behind and then utterly ruins the moment when his voice cracks hoarsely as he tries to say, "Good morning".
Pausing, Sakura turns around to laugh quietly at his failed attempt to be cool. She doesn't mind though while she waits for Naruto to finish coughing his throat back into normal operation.
"I'm pretty sure it was my turn to make breakfast, you know," he says as he reaches back out to her.
She shrugs, "I was in the mood-"
"We're hungry!"
"-and so were the other two people that just so happen to live in this house."
Naruto turns around to look at the kitchen table where his children are seated, impatiently waiting for their food. Shinachiku and Hanami may look almost exactly like their parents, but in a strange twist, their personalities are switched. His son acts much like his mother. His daughter though... Naruto is already dreading the day he starts getting reports of a pink-haired whirlwind storming through Konoha and causing trouble.
Gesturing with his head back to their bedroom, Naruto tries to take over cooking, "How about you get your shower in. I'll finish up."
His wife gives him a suspicious glance, but agrees and heads off down the hallway. He listens for the sound of the bathroom door closing and immediately spins around to his children. "You remember where you have your mother's birthday presents hidden, right?" he confirms with them. They both nod. "Good. That's only a couple days away. Did you two decide where we're going to go eat?"
Shinachiku suddenly looks around behind him and points a finger. "Dad, the eggs are on fire," he informs him as if this is a completely normal occurrence.
Sure enough, he turns around to a sight of a raging flame coming from the pan of eggs. Naruto feels his soul escape him. "How?" he despairs. He was only looking away for thirty seconds!
The smoke alarm goes off.
Naruto supposes that having five minutes before something goes wrong isn't the worst start to a day that he's had.
"That bastard!" Naruto shouts as he pounds a fist into the open palm of his bandaged hand. "I can't believe him! It's been over two years and that asshole still won't send us a message! I should go beat him up and drag him home again."
Sakura takes a drink from her bottle of water, exhausted from their training and sparring. "He'll come back when he's ready. He said he would," she reminds him.
A message had come through to Kakashi this morning from Sasuke. Nothing was included for Naruto or Sakura. Again. Surprisingly, Sakura was the one who promptly dragged her teammate out to the grounds to fight immediately after.
"Why did you want Sasuke to come home so bad?" she asks.
"Ehh? I made you a promise," he reminds her as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
That's her fault for not explaining better. "No, I mean," she tries again, "you said you had your own reasons for wanting him back. You said he was important to you, but you two hated each other. You even complained about having him on our team."
Naruto leans back against the tree they're taking shade under following their training session and thinks about it. Back when he was in the Academy, Naruto would have done anything to have even a single good friend his age. He tried, oh he tried, but he would always make a fool out of himself or people would ignore him. That's why he had such a grudge against Sasuke when they were growing up. Sasuke had everything that Naruto could have ever dreamed of. He was skilled. He was popular. All he had to do was take the stick out of his ass for just a few seconds and he could have all the friends in the world. It pained the younger Naruto to see someone have so much that he himself wanted and seemed to just be taking it for granted.
When he thinks back on it, the two of them were never exactly "friends" when they were Genin. At best, they simply had a rivalry that grew more and more tense with each day until it had snapped.
But he had acknowledged him.
And for some reason, for some unknown reason that Naruto will never fully understand himself, that feeling was more powerful than any friendship he'd ever had. He wonders if Sasuke feels the same way about him.
"I don't really know," he tells Sakura, defeatedly. "Before leaving on his trip after the war, we called each other 'brother' and I don't know why. It's just... a feeling."
The pink-haired kunoichi furrows her brow at the vague response, but Naruto isn't looking at her. He's off somewhere else, seeing some distant land in his eyes. "Back when the old Sage guy told us about those two brothers – Asura and Indra – everything made so much sense to me. It was dumb and I hated it, but the idea that Sasuke and I had this bond because we were some kind of reincarnations of brothers explained so much."
Naruto pauses to pluck at some grass and throw it in the air before continuing. "I don't like the idea of fate and stuff like that, but maybe that's what destiny is. Just a feeling you get. I hope not. I don't want Neji to think I'm a hypocrite."
Slowly, he shrugs as if trying to shake off the weight of the question. He turns his head to face her. "What about you? You wanted Sasuke back because you love him, right? Why do you love him?" he asks.
Sakura immediately reaches out and pounds him on the top of the head in what is sure to leave a bruise. "Don't question a girl's heart, idiot."
"Sakuuraaa," he protests in a light whine, rubbing his head. "I'm just curious."
Huffing, she slides over and begins to apply medical chakra to where she hit him. Naruto's eyes droop in obvious contentment and drowsiness as she considers his question. She supposes that the heartfelt answer Naruto gave her means she owes him one in response.
The problem is that she doesn't really know what to say. She's barely had any meaningful conversation with Sasuke in many years. Aside from their words exchanged while attempting to kill each other, she was able to spend a whole hour with him after he was released from his detainment in Konoha following the war. By the time that hour was up, he was already on his way out for his journey, ending in his refusal to take her with him.
A total of a whole hour of conversation over the past 6 or 7 years.
Sakura is older now. She can better appreciate that the reasons people have for crushes when they are younger are usually childish thoughts. It's this that makes it difficult for her to explain why she loves Sasuke in a way that doesn't make her sound shallow.
Wishing she understood herself better, she finds herself mirroring Naruto's own words.
"I don't know. I just do."
It bothers her more than she thinks it should that Naruto finds absolutely nothing wrong with her answer.
Kakashi Hatake was probably Naruto Uzumaki's most hated person.
Well, for the past month or so. He'd get over it after a while.
Three years after the war, on Naruto's birthday, there was an assassination attempt on the Sixth Hokage. While Kakashi had recovered, something seemed to change a little in the man. Replacing Shizune, Naruto was drafted shortly after the attempt on his life to become the Sixth's assistant under the guise of "training for the job". In reality, he thinks it was just Kakashi being lazy and trying to dump work on the poor boy. Regardless of how annoyed Naruto was at the time, he still appreciated the opportunity. It put him that much closer to the position he had been seeking all his life and the fact that he was doing more of the paperwork than the actual Hokage at the time meant that many were treating Naruto as though he already had the job.
It wasn't until Naruto finally became the Seventh that he realized how lazy Kakashi really was. Taking over the office of his dreams, Naruto elected to make a few modifications to the space. Newer flooring to replace some sections that had started falling apart, different furniture, additional cabinets to help keep the constant paperwork sorted, cable hookups to support modern computer technology, etc. Except, when they started moving things around and ripping up the floors, they found entire stockpiles of old paperwork that the Sixth had seemingly hidden away due to not wanting to do it.
Chipping away at the absurdly late documents was a challenge, but by doing a little bit each night, Shikamaru and Naruto were eventually able to finally get close to finishing. The final batch of Kakashi's forgotten paperwork is all dated several years back. It's old, but the bright side to this is that Naruto can ignore and toss out most of it due to it being irrelevant from age. Still, somewhere beneath the ancient Request For Leave forms and security proposals that he'll need to discuss with Shikamaru, Naruto finds something a bit unusual.
An uncashed and undelivered mission paycheck made out to Sakura Uzumaki.
It's not dated, but it has the Sixth's signature on it and it has a mission number noted in the corner - standard policy to limit fraud on missions being paid out twice. The amount of money that the check is for is hefty and deep into the S-Rank range of payouts. A single small piece of paper is attached to the paycheck via a paperclip. On it, the words "I'm sorry" are written in Kakashi's handwriting. Nothing more.
Naruto narrows his eyes and flips the check and attached piece of paper over a couple times, looking for any hint of other information. The idea that his wife would have somehow not noticed a payment of this size is laughable. After all, there are a lot of zeroes on it. The logical assumption is that this is a duplicate and was already cashed out.
With the mission number being the only place to start, Naruto reaches over to the laptop on his desk and enters it into their new records system. It returns no results. This isn't all that surprising since they're still scanning and imaging the thousands upon thousands of documents they have in storage, but it is slightly unusual. The effort started with the newest material and worked backwards. This mission should be in there. Unless...
The Hokage leans back in his chair and briefly closes his eyes to think. The obvious solution would be to call Sakura and simply ask her. Instead, the mischevious side of him thinks of a better idea. Since today should be the last day of late paperwork, bringing home a nice bonus for his wife would be a nice surprise. Or maybe he could even tie this in as the birthday gift that he still needs to buy.
Assuming it's even legitimate.
The second most likely culprit that would know what's going on would be his old sensei since he signed it and wrote the attached note, but something makes him hesitate on getting the older man involved. The words "I'm sorry" imply some kind of regret or failure on Kakashi's part and Naruto has never seen him do this before. Rather than drudge up potentially bad memories, he decides to deal with it himself.
Grabbing the white cloak off the back of his chair designating him as the Seventh Hokage, Naruto dons it and steps out of the office while grinning that maybe things are looking up for once.
"It's been bothering me though. Shouldn't I know why I love Sasuke?" Sakura vents from her place on the floor of Ino's home. Her arms are splayed out, exhausted.
The Yamanaka is sitting at a desk nearby, lazily filling out a report. She shrugs lightly. "Does it really matter? The end result is that you love him. Who cares how you got there?"
Sakura drags a hand over her face slowly in mild frustration, unsure how to respond. She's never felt like this before – like she needs to justify it to herself. It's an uncomfortable feeling and leaves her thinking she's missing a piece to a puzzle that she didn't even know she was working on.
Ino flips to start working on what must be the seventh or eighth page of her report. She takes a moment to look over her friend. "Are you sure you're trying to understand or are you just looking for an excuse?" she asks, maybe a little harsher than she meant.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The blond haired kunoichi waves her off, "Never mind."
Deciding to drop the subject, Sakura wonders, "What are you even working on?"
"The Hokage asked me to update a psych report for a couple people. Not sure why."
"Really?" The medic sits up and tries to lean closer to take a look. "Who?"
Ino immediately snatches the paper away to keep her from peeking at classified material. She then knocks the girl on her head in punishment. "Bad girl. You know better than that."
The many aspects of Konoha that the Yamanaka has involved herself with has always impressed Sakura. Her friend is an accomplished medic, a skilled interrogator, and has even been making waves in the Barrier Sensing Team. The sheer adaptability to any role has made her an invaluable asset to the village. Ino has even mentioned something about wanting to take on a Genin team someday.
"Is this what you do all day? Roll around on the ground and moan about Sasuke?" Ino teases her.
As expected, Sakura falls back down to the floor and rolls over. "No. Naruto usually keeps me company," she grumbles, not enjoying being made fun of.
"Well, he tends to keep things interesting at least," is the non-committal response.
"You don't even know the half of it," the medic's eye rapidly twitches angrily. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to drag Naruto to the Hokage's office these days when he's summoned? His fans are everywhere and he stops and talks to every single one. He's so damn polite about it too. And oblivious! These girls are practically throwing themselves at him! There was this one girl-"
"Hold on," Ino interrupts and holds up a hand, "are you being jealous right now?"
"WHAT!?" she squawks back loudly.
All Ino can do is laugh as her friend fumes at her silently. Glancing at the top of her report where "Subject – Sakura Haruno" is written, she scribbles in her new findings.
The Vault is the nickname given to the storage area of important documents. This largely means legal documents and mission reports. Endless mission reports. Access is heavily restricted due to how much potentially classified information can be acquired which was one of the driving forces behind updating their computer systems to streamline the process. The reason Naruto finds himself here now is because while nearly all missions in recent history have been documented and imaged into their systems, the most heavily classified files are still "Eyes Only" in the most restricted of rooms in the Vault that only a select few are allowed to enter.
It's a smaller area than most would expect as there aren't very many missions needing that level of secrecy. Primarily, they are the kinds of reports that could have started wars with other nations. The need for these kinds of things dropped to almost nothing after the war due to the unprecedented level of peace and cooperation that exists now, which brings Naruto to question what exactly the mission was even about. It must have been after the war since that's when Kakashi took over.
It takes about ten minutes of rifling through security mechanisms and filing cabinets before he finds it. What he sees on the mission report is nothing like what he expects. For one thing, Sakura wasn't even assigned to the mission. It says she rejected it. The names are blanked out from the report, but he knows her registration number by heart.
-012601: Mission Refused.
-R: Unable to complete. Reassigned.
-R: Critical Mission Failure. See below.
Naruto narrows his eyes. Why did Kakashi want to pay out to Sakura on a mission she wanted no part of? In addition, the R symbols used were reserved for special cases of non-registered ninjas that lived in Konoha. It's actually a classification that the Sixth created when trying to figure out how to handle the former Root members when the organization collapsed. Many of them are now retired, but there are still a few floating around in service.
So, Kakashi tried to assign the mission to Sakura and she refused to do it? It appears that he then assigned the mission to a former Root ninja who failed, then had it assigned to a second former Root ninja who also failed. Extremely unusual.
The exact details of the mission are removed from the page and it's left blank. The start date and end date are removed. All that's left are some handwritten notes.
-Apr 7th - Sakura Haruno is actively interfering with mission objectives. More direct plan may be required. Searching for a new specialist.
-Oct 10th – Sakura Haruno has captured and interrogated mission assignee. Her loyalty to the Hokage has been severely damaged and may be beyond repair.
-Oct 30th – Mission placed on indefinite hold.
-Undated - Due to the birth of Shinachiku Uzumaki, this mission is now unnecessary and considered moot.
"What...?" Naruto whispers to himself faintly as he focuses entirely on the final note.
He knows - better than most due to his role as Hokage – that there are very few reasons that the birth of a child would make a mission "moot".
Naruto Uzumaki pulls out the undelivered paycheck and stares at it, hoping with all his heart that he's misunderstanding it all.
"Leave us."
It's a simple command, but not one that Sakura is used to hearing from their new Hokage. Kakashi doesn't speak with authority very often among the old members of Team 7 ever since he took up the office, but she thinks that's mainly because they spend half of their time teasing him about how silly the hat makes him look more than anything else.
She resists the urge to glance at who left. It's not proper protocol to poke around and look for info on who has guard duty. Two pairs of feet step out and close the door.
"You needed to see me, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asks.
Kakashi lets out a long, suffering sigh. He's cleared the room of fragile items and there's no paperwork at all on his desk. All appointments are rescheduled. One way or the other, he expects this to take up much of his time. Getting the ball rolling, he asks, "How much do you know about the history of the Nine Tails, Sakura?"
The kunoichi blinked, not having expected this to be the topic of conversation. It's not something that would need the level of secrecy her former teacher seemed to want. "Is this about Naruto's mother?" she asks.
"We can start there," Kakashi says. He hums lightly as he props up both of his arms on the desk and arches his fingers together in front of his face. "As you may have heard from your teammate, Kushina Uzumaki was brought to Konoha from Uzushio in order to become the jinchūriki of the Nine Tails. What you may not necessarily have been told is why it had to be her."
"Not exactly," Sakura agreed.
He pauses for just a moment to determine his next words. "The Uzumaki are an interesting bunch. While nearly all of them are gone now, the older records indicate that their abnormally high life-force carried many interesting properties which would trigger unique mutations in their chakra. You've likely heard about the chains that Kushina could wield or the healing attributes of the girl that Sasuke found, Karin."
"Did something happen to Naruto? Why bring this up with me?"
Kakashi shakes his head. "He's fine. I bring this up because these properties of Uzumaki chakra make them well suited to being jinchūriki. It helps buffer and protect against corruption from within. The fact that Naruto is the Fourth's son is not the only reason the beast was sealed inside of him. A major factor is that there simply was no one else that would safely be able to contain it without additional risk."
Sakura shifts her weight to her other foot, unable to extrapolate where he's going with this.
He leans back slightly and opens a drawer where he removes a single piece of paper. He passes it over to Sakura. She glances over it quickly and her eyes immediately widen in shock. It's a psychological evaluation about Naruto written up in Ino Yamanaka's handwriting. Almost the entire thing is censored from her except for a section about relationships. It's summarized in two bullet points.
-Despite the low probability of it ever being returned, Subject possesses no romantic intentions for anyone except Sakura Haruno. This is unlikely to ever change for the rest of Subject's life.
-Subject is content with this, despite everything. He claims he once asked Jiraiya why he never married. While Subject provides no details as to what Jiraiya said, he does say that the two of them are extremely similar in this regard.
Sakura crumples the page into a ball and throws it back at the Hokage. "W-Why are you showing me this!?" she stammers out in a bewildered yell of embarrassment.
The Sixth maintains his calm. "There are concerns - ones that I find myself rather agreeing with - that one day the Nine Tails will no longer be on a working relationship with our village. Perhaps not in ten or twenty years, but we do not know what it will do when Naruto eventually dies. It might not matter for well over a hundred years, but when the time eventually comes, we must have a contingency plan to seal it away again if needed."
The medic feels her heart drop out from under her.
"Sakura Haruno, in order to protect the future generations of our world from the threat of the tailed beasts, your mission is to engage in a relationship and secure at least one child from Naruto Uzumaki."
