Eleven years later

Izumi and Hashirama stared at the ceiling of their bedroom. They lay side by side, neither moving a muscle as the sounds of cries kept getting higher and higher. Finally, Izumi said in a disheartened and tired voice: "Just what about our experience with the first one made us think that getting a second one would be a good idea?"

An equally tired and irritated Hashirama answered, still looking at the ceiling too: "It's just the two of us here. I think that we can be honest about the fact that the second one was an accident. The father in me wants to say a happy accident, but I can't do it at three in the morning."

Izumi gave him a side look: "If we let him cry any longer without doing anything about it, we will officially become the worst parents of our group of friends."

He gave her a side look too: "Well, what are you looking at me for? He is your son too."

She gave him a glare: "Both of us know that it's your turn. Once it is past midnight, it is no longer my shift!"

He was glaring now too: "But I'm the Hokage, and tomorrow is the final event of the Chunin exams. How will Konoha look in front of the other Kages and dignitaries if its leader clearly looks sleep deprived on such an important event? For the sake of Konoha, you should be the one to go tonight. I will take your shift another night. Promise"

Now she was clearly steaming. She propped herself on her forearm and gave her husband of five years a Mangekyo Sharingan enhanced glare: "Like I would fall for that this time around. You still owe me from the time Akihiko was still a baby. Now get your ass out of this bed or the Kages and dignitaries are going to know that the Hokage's wife beats her husband. Which is worse for Konoha in your opinion?"

Hashirama tried to hold his stance but failed miserably after three seconds. Truth be told, he was little terrified of her ever since she tried to set him on fire while she was giving birth to their second son, Akira. Pregnant or In-labor Izumi was a far cry from her usually calm and collected self. All of Konoha agreed on that.

He got out of bed with a sigh, not even bothering with putting on a Yukata to cover his muscled torso, and got out of the room heading for the nursery. Izumi finally let herself drop the glare and fell back on her pillow, but the cries still kept coming from the slightly open door, so she couldn't fall right back to sleep. Knowing Akira, it will take Hashirama sometime before he could get him to calm down again.

Suddenly a sleepy and whiny young voice came from the door: "Mommy, he's doing it again."

Izumi sighed, without opening her eyes: "I know, kid. I can hear him."

The young disapproving voice came again: "I don't do that, me."

She gave a chuckle even if she felt too tired to do it at this time. Akihiko might have no recollection of it, but she remembered vividly when he used to do the same thing Akira was doing right now. After all, her eldest child was barely three years old.

She opened her eyes and adjusted herself slightly to take a look at him, and her heart did that weird thing it does ever since she first laid eyes on him.

Beside the half open door, a carbon copy of a younger Hashirama stood. The only thing that her son got from her and not his father was the color of his eyes. They were black instead of light brown. But the rest was all his father, from the slightly tan skin, to the wide eyes and the brown silky straight hair. The biggest difference was that Izumi had firmly refused to let her child have that hideous bowl cut, even if everyone, Madara included, thought that it would be hilarious. Instead, Akihiko had a stylish, shoulders length cut with two bangs framing his face, like his father.

At the moment, he was clad in the pajama she had put him in earlier in the night, and was holding the lion shaped stuffed toy that was receiving his favors at the moment. He would get tired of that in about a week, according to his normal pattern.

The presence of the toy with him and the wide puppy dog look he was giving her at the moment only meant one thing. Sighing, she decided that she didn't feel like fighting him on it right now, so she opened a bit more space in the middle of the bed and asked him: "Do you want to get in, buddy?"

Akihiko gave her a triumphant smile, run to the bed and jumped in. He put the stuffed toy to the side and hugged his mother's neck, closing his eyes and sighing happily. She chuckled a little bit, and noticed that the crying had stopped.

After a while, Akihiko was fast asleep as Hashirama appeared in the doorway, still holding Akira and gently rocking him to sleep. The light from the corridor was enough to make the insides of their room visible, and he too chuckled when he noticed the new occupant of his bed.

Izumi turned from looking at Akihiko to her husband and smiled: "That was fast."

He shrugged: "Just a dirty diaper."

She smiled evilly at the thought of him having to deal with one of their son's diapers this early in the day. That was his karma for trying to avoid his responsibility.

Hashirama on the other hand smiled while looking at his eldest: "If I put the other one in bed with us too, do you think that he will try to kill him at some point during the rest of the night?"

Izuumi laughed: "Probably."

Both smiled fondly, remembering Akihiko's antics.

After the founding of Konohagakure, Hashirama and Izumi had avoided talking about any kind of relationship for two years. The Hokage and his advisor were insanely busy, so they didn't have the time for it anyway. The village had a yearly celebration for the anniversary of its founding, and they decided to give it a shot and go on their first date during its second edition.

Things went well on that first date. People were so used to seeing them together that no one knew that they had decided to take things to the next level, and just thought of them as friends hanging out together. They managed to keep their budding relationship a secret for quite a while, but eventually their siblings turned suspicious, especially Tobirama. The poor guy had to spend quite a bit of time in an office with them every day, and it didn't escape his perceptiveness, when they started acting a bit less professional with each other. He shared his suspicion with Madara, who he had surprisingly become drinking buddies with over the years, and the couple admitted to it after being confronted by their respective families.

Confronting them turned out to be a bad move, because once they no longer had to hide, the two most shameless people in Konoha really let go of their inhibitions, and they both had a talent for making people feel weird, especially after a couple of drinks. Tobirama paid a heavy price for his big mouth.

Over the next four years, they really got to know each other more, now as couple and not just friends. They shared a lot of their most intimate thoughts, their hopes, fears and pasts. Hashirama's past wasn't that bad for a shinobi, the worst thing about it was the deaths of his mother and his brother Kawarama, as well as his bad relationship with his father. Still, she loved listening to every bit of it.

She had always known that there was far more to him than the goofy exterior he presented to everybody. She loved the more complex and serious of him just as much she loved his funny side. Hearing about the fears and pains of the God of Shinobi was a weird experience too. It humanized him more, and made her feel like talking about herself wouldn't be as bad too.

Sharing her past with him was a far more difficult task. Once things got more serious between them, at about two years after their first date, she knew that she would have to share everything with him, not just her life as Uchiha Izumi. Their relationship was strong at that time and she knew that it was the real deal. Love with a capital L.

Their relationship wasn't the sparks and fireworks she used to see in movies or that she had witnessed with Madara and Izuna. She knew that Hashirama had had a crush on her for a while, and that he had fallen in love with her faster than she did him, and she was grateful for the fact that he knew not to rush her and let their relationship move at a pace that didn't overwhelm her. At some point, her insecurities about them just became background noise, and once she realized it, she knew that it was time for her to take a more active role in their relationship if she didn't want to lose him.

Hashirama had heard her outburst in the tent that day, and even if he never pushed, he knew about her weird situation. Bit by bit, she started narrating her past to him. She told him about her childhood, about Command and the other Numbers. She told him about her first murder, her first war, her first infiltration, and then about the worst ones. And then she told him about the person she had loved the most in her past life, and about what she did for him in the last moments of her life.

Hashirama had just listened to what she had to say. He hugged her when he felt that she needed it, but he never interrupted, pried for more or gave an opinion or judgment. The only thing he talked with her about was the role that One had played in her life. Hashirama didn't like him one bit. It wasn't some petty jealousy as he knew that their relationship was that of siblings. Hashirama just felt that One had used her quite a bit.

From his understanding of her past world, he came to think that One had dragged her into a situation that any good older brother wouldn't have. One had been too selfish. He wanted a family and an aunt for his kid, so he did just what he wanted, without caring for the consequences on her. It was especially aggravating giving that they had grown up together, so he knew how unadjusted she was at that time, yet he still didn't care. Hashirama was a bit grateful that all of these events had ended up leading her to him, but at the same time he had to point out that a chain of events that involved a mass-murder/suicide couldn't possibly be that good.

In the end, Izumi chose not to dwell too much on his vision of things. To her, One and his kid were the happiest memories she had of her past life, and it wouldn't do anyone any good if those memories were sullied too. Her actions might have been principally motivated by them, but she also had saved plenty of other people in both worlds as a result, so it all evened out as far as she was concerned.

Still, it felt good to get it all out of her chest. She had chosen not to share too much of this with Izuna and Madara, but at least she could talk about it with someone. It shocked even her how much she came to trust this man.

Four years into their dating, Hashirama had finally gathered enough courage to ask her to marry him, giving that he was about 80% sure that she wouldn't say No. It took her by surprise, as she was getting used to their routine, but she had ended up agreeing without so much as thinking about it for a second. She knew that they would be spending the rest of their lives together, and she wanted it to become official.

Plus, awkward morning or late evening encounters with Tobirama and Itama in their house were becoming too much. Her house wasn't an option because Madara wouldn't let his two morally corrupt siblings bring their activities under the roof where his growing child slept, and it would be too awkward for the Hokage and his advisor to go into an inn in their own village.

They had initially wanted a simple ceremony, but the wedding you set out to have is never the one you end up with. Both of them were too high profile personalities for the thing to go unnoticed, and as the guest list kept getting bigger, Madara, Izuna Tobirama, Itama, Touka, Yuri, Mito, Anko, Elder Hizashi and Hashirama's only living grandmother kept vetoing any suggestion the couple made to keep things simple. In the end, they had ended up with a village wide celebration, guests from all countries' hidden villages and courts, mountains of gifts, and shows and traditions from all the clans of the village.

Even if it wasn't what they had asked for, both had enjoyed their day quite a lot, and the most important thing to them was that thousands of people had ended up celebrating their joy with them on that day.

Things went as planned for a while after that. They had decided that they would wait a year before trying out for a child, just to settle into married life. During that time, Hashirama dedicated himself to his newest personal project: A house entirely made of his Mokuton. It took him quite a bit of trying, and a lot of studying architecture, which he hated, but it had been ready by the time Izumi reached her sixth month of pregnancy.

The house was situated in the northern edge of the village, and took quite a bit of space as did all Senju constructions. The lay out was something they had worked on together: It was a U shaped one story house with five bedrooms on the left wing, three bathrooms, a huge living room and the kitchen in the middle of the house, two studies and a small library in the right wing. A wooden porch with multiple entrances run on the inside side of the house, and overlooked a beautiful garden with a koi pond. Further away in the property there was a small training ground with targets, and the whole thing was surrounded by a low wooden fence.

The master bedroom that the couple occupied was the biggest and the only one with an attached bathroom. Fully equipped bathrooms were something that was only recently introduced during the building of their village and having one exclusively for their use in their own room was an extravagance that all their siblings had scoffed at, even the usually shy Itama. One of the rooms had been turned into a nursery for Akihiko initially, and then he had moved to a new room to leave space for his new brother. The two other rooms were currently unoccupied and served as guestrooms whenever their siblings or their kids wanted to stay around.

Hashirama and Izumi each had their own studies to work from home, and Akihiko had a small desk in the library where he practiced his writing and reading, just like Kagami used to have. Izumi cooked most of their meals and the family had them together in the living room most of the time. Cooking was the only thing that Izumi had the time to do, so they had to have some hired help to clean round this big house as well as guard the children when no one was available.

These past three months they had only needed two cleaning ladies ,as Izumi was still on her 'maternity leave', so she could mostly work from home, but they were officially interviewing for nannies for when she would have to go back to work properly in a month.

Akihiko had particularly been delighted when his mom had started staying more at home when she was seven months pregnant with Akira. Even if she still worked a lot in her study, she had the time to teach him a lot of things herself, like writing and shurikenjutsu, something both his parents didn't have much time to do normally.

Akihiko's principal teacher was his Tobi-ojisan. When he became strong enough to start training, the parents had had a difficult choice to make. Both the Uchiha family side and the Senju family side had wanted to be the ones to take over his education.

On one hand, Izuna as a jonin had more time, still had a lot more hands-on experience than his deskbound counterpart, and had already shown how much of an outstanding teacher he was with how brilliant Kagami had turned out.

On the other hand, Tobirama too had an outstanding student in Hiruzen Sarutobi and had the advantage of being a Senju and the person who had witnessed Hashirama's training the most. No matter what, Senju Akihiko was the most likely to become the next Senju clan head and he needed to be trained in his paternal clan's traditions and techniques, especially that his looks weren't the only thing that he had inherited from his father. He also had the ability to use the Mokuton.

Tobirama had promised that he would make time to teach him properly even if his schedule was as full as Izumi's most of the time, and had even agreed that he would cooperate with Izuna later, if Akihiko ended up having the ability to awaken the Sharingan.

Still, everyone secretly wished that Akihiko wouldn't awaken it because even if the Uchiha had started marrying outside the clan these few years, everybody was holding their breath at the possibility of a Sharingan wielding and Mokuton using Senju clan head. Needless to say that Hashirama and Izumi's union hadn't been met with 100% approval rate. The elders might have been delighted by this ultimate proof of the stability of the alliance, as well as most of the other clan heads and higher ups, but some traditionalist weren't.

When they had initially told the two years old that he would become a big brother, he was ecstatic. After all, Daddy and Uncle Madara were big brothers too, so it must be awesome. After Akira was born, he was initially thrilled, and always tried to take responsibility for his baby brother.

But as the weeks went, he started noticing the effect Akira had on his life. He was no longer his parent's only prince, and the center of attention wherever he went, now he had to share the limelight with the new brat. Moreover, a new born needed more care than a two almost three years old, so Hashirama and Izumi both had to focus on him a bit more than they did his older brother, which only fueled the jealousy of Akihiko.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when cousin Kagami had come back from one of his missions and directly went to see baby Akira before stopping by to help him train in taijutsu. It was a honest mistake, since Kagami just wanted to visit Akira first to get it over with, and spend more time with Akihiko like he had promised, but the latter didn't take it like that. He was feeling like he was being replaced by this new comer, no matter how hard his parents and uncles tried, and thus the unaware Akira had become public enemy number one.

It started with glares and refusals to share his toys with him, and had now escalated to showing off to anyone who would listen how much better than his brother he was.

Izumi like everyone else thought that it was a bit cute, but she knew that they would have to do something about it soon, before it escalated to something bigger and more dangerous.

When he made sure that Akira was asleep again, Hashirama decided that this might not be the night to anger Akihiko more by bringing his brother into bed with them too, so he brought him back to the nursery and then got into bet too.

Both parents silently stayed in the dark, each an arm around their son, and thinking of the same thing. In about eleven years, it might be his turn to go through the Chunin exams too. Eleven years might seem like a lot, but when it came to children, it went by fast. Just look at Kagami, yesterday he was a two years old running away from his mother to come sneak into his aunt's bed, and today he is a finalist.

The Chunin exams were a Konoha tradition, that Tobirma came up with ten years ago, and that some other villages started participating in too. It went a little bit like this:

The kids who were enrolled in the shinobi training kids in the village's school were trained in various skills by senseis from all backgrounds until the age of twelve. Once they passed an exam designed to make sure that they had all the basics down, they were split into Genin teams of three under the guidance of a Jonin, who took them on simple missions, so that they would put what they have learned so far into practice in a relatively safe environment. The Jonin also had the responsibility of getting them started on the creation and improvement of their own techniques. Basically, they were half students and half shinobi. On their second year, they even started to get a small pay as the difficulty of their missions increased.

Kagami, after reaching the age of fourteen years old, was on the verge of taking the last step of the exam to fully become a shinobi. His years in the village school had been more about socializing with other students and making friendships than training, since his father and mostly Izuna had already taught him all the basics. Most parents still did this, but lately they had started letting the school teach a part of the shinobi curriculum without interfering, once they made sure that their kids' education would not be mishandled by strangers.

Two years ago, Kagami had passed his first exams with honors, graduating at the top of his class with a record score. He had then been put in a team with Sarutobi Hiruzen and the daughter of the Hatake clan head, who was the same age as them. The team was put in the care of Senju Touka, a renowed kunoichi, and someone Izumi had secretly been keeping from taking on any teams until Kagami was ready.

The funny thing was that the poor Touka had only ended up with one actual student. The heirs of shinobi clans traditionaly had their own personal Masters outside from the school, so Kagami had Izuna, and the father of Hiruzen had specifically called in a favor to get Tobirama as his son's teacher. Touka often joked that with two thirds of her team gone during training hours, she could at least focus on making a great kunoichi out of the Hatake girl. But still, during missions, she was a capable sensei, and her students all benefited greatly from her team work spirit and great experience in the field.

More than a month ago, she was one of the Senseis who had deemed their teams ready for the exam, and let them participate. The team had been as outstanding as they had expected, setting new records in both the first parts of the exam, and coming to the third and last part as the only intact team.

The first and second part of the exams were always different in their details, as they were designed by the extremely cunning Nara clan head, since he was the head of the Chunin division of Konoha and the only one qualified to know what he needed in his future recruits. The Hokage and his advisors never interfered, especially not in a year when their personal lives were so hugely involved.

After the first two parts, the Genins that had succeeded had a period of thirty days to prepare for the final step that never changed: A good old fashioned one-on-one competition. The thirty days were less about leaving them time to prepare, and more about letting the administration the time to organize an event that attracted visitors from everywhere.

The first edition of the Chunin exams had reminded Izumi of the sport's events of her last world, so she saw in them an opportunity to make some good money. She immediately set out to work on a marketing campaign, to get more visitors in, to boost tourism, but what was most important to her were the gamblers. Nobles and normal citizens alike loved to make bets on these types of fights and she provided the service.

To Tobirama's despair, she had turned his initiative into a money grossing event instead of the morally uptight vision he had first, but he shut his mouth pretty quickly when the results came in and they noticed that they had made in profits over a single weekend what the entire Chunin sections made in a month. It was all for the good of the village.

These past few days, Izuna had been training Kagami as hard as he could, since the competition was fierce. Even Izumi, Hashirama and Madra had pitched in a little, something they never usually did to avoid confusing the boy. Their goal was to teach him enough simple techniques, so that he would always have something to surprise his opponents with if his regular stuff didn't work.

Izumi couldn't teach him how to use her strength, as his chakra control wasn't as good as hers, but she still remembered her old Raiton techniques and he copied them with his Sharingan quite easily. Hashirama and Madara both were experts in Futon, so they taught him all he needed to know to be able to enhance his Katons.

Truth be told, Hashirama was caught between two fires, because he also loved his brother's student, who was also one of the teens Kagami might have to face later. He tried to make time for both, so that they would be on equal footing if they had to face each other in the end. Izumi loved the little guy too, as he was Kagami's best friend and she saw him almost as much as she saw her nephew these past few years, but she was biased. And in the end the entire Uchiha clan was behind only Kagami, just like the Sarutobi clan was supporting only Hiruzen.

That day, both parents got to sleep in a little later than usual, waking up at eight in the morning instead of six. They got out of bed and, after waking up Akihiko since he too wanted to go cheer on his Kagami ni-san, Izumi went to the kitchen to prepare for breakfast. Everything was almost ready, and she was just waiting for Akihiko's milk to boil, when a strong arm went around her waist, pinning her against a solid chest, and a head came to rest on her shoulder. She smiled: "All done?"

Hashirama nodded without removing his head: "Yes. I mostly put in the new clothes, since Elder Anko already has most of the other stuff in her house. His bag is by the door, so we won't forget it, like last time."

Izumi chuckled. Anko had designated herself as Akihiko and Akira's real grandmother from the start, and she was the one who baby-sited the most for Konoha's first couple. She had already told them that she didn't feel like attending the Final round this year, so they would be dropping Akira in her house, before heading for the Arena. She already had most had most of the things needed to take care of an infant in her house by this point, but Akira had outgrown the stuff she had in her house, and she had asked them to bring by new clothes the next time they brought him.

They kept going over the details of their day one more time as Akihiko run around all over the place while happily squeaking in the new day clothes his father had changed him into. Once the milk was done, they went to sit at the table, and the toddler took it as his sign to come ask for his food.

Breakfast went fast, and soon they were out of the door and walking to Anko's house. The old woman happily received Akira and his bag, and then she turned to Akihiko: "Hiko-kun, you're sure you don't want to stay with me too? We can have a lot of fun together."

From his spot in his mother's arms, Akihiko vehemently refused with a shake of his head, but then he seemed to realize something and asked: "Kira's not coming to see Ni-chan and Kurama-san?"

Anko shook her head: "No, Kira-kun is staying with me, the whole day. So you'll have your Mommy and Daddy all to yourself."

Everybody had expected that he would be throwing a party at such good news, but instead his expression grew complicated as he stared at his little brother. Izumi thought about it, and finally came to the realization that her two sons had never actually been apart ever since Akira was born. This was Akihiko's first time leaving his brother, somewhere that was just a wall apart from where he was.

So maybe he didn't dislike him as much as she had initially thought. She grew curious to know how Akihiko would react after being away from his ototou for a few hours.

After they bid Anko good-bye, they started walking towards the Arena. The closer they got, the more they started meeting groups of people heading to the same direction they were, so Hashirama had to fight Akihiko for his hat and start wearing it, to officially be back in his role as Hokage.

AN: Surprise! I'm back! So this is the first part of the epilogue of A Good Deed. I actually never really planned on writing this, even if I already had imagined some of these scenes. But today I had a seven hours long bus ride, so I had to find something to do. I initially planned on continuing my new story, but when I looked at the date, I realized that today is the three months anniversary of this one, and I remembered that some of you wanted a sequel or a longish epilogue to really seal the deal, so I tried to do something for the occasion. I didn't have time to finish it, so I split this epilogue into two parts, with the next one being the final part of the story. I will try to post it either on Sunday or next Tuesday. This is basically what I imagine that their lives will be after. I can't objectively judge how it turned out, because I tried myself at writing something cute or at least heart-warming, which is totally not my scene. Anyway, I hope that you will enjoy this, even if I'm a little insecure about it since this wasn't a part of the plan. And as always: Stay safe and Healthy!