Hotoru decided that today she's going to teach her kids to stick fight.

Grabbing three training staffs, she snatched her sleeping kids from their beds which resulted in carrying a half-asleep Kushina who's still dozing off, and then Fuji who had tried to scratch out her face right when she tried grabbing her outta bed, Fuji didn't even see who it was before she went into attack mode but when she did, she slumped into her arms and just waited to go wherever she was being taken.

Seems Kushina needs some awareness training, Fuji could use some work too, she used to be completely alert as soon as someone opened her door, she's gotten too comfortable seeing as she was able to walk into her room and Fuji had stayed undisturbed up until she came too close to touching her.

Hotoru took them to their indoor, private training room where she dropped them flat on the mat, throwing the two other bō's she had at them, they were both caught by Fuji before one could land on a half-asleep Kushina, tcking she began showing them the movements they're going to be copying from her.

Kushina was bleary-eyed and dozing, Fuji was trying to shake Kushina awake more by shaking her while maintaining focus on what Hotoru was doing as she knew that it's most likely the reason why they were dragged out of bed.

"Today we're learning Bōjutsu," Hotoru said while she finished a spin,

"Bōjutsu?" Fuji whispered to herself

"Bōjutsu is the art of using a long stick as a weapon to do a variety of blocks, strikes, sweeps, and entrapments. The bo may even be used to sweep sand, dust, or dirt, into an opponent's eyes" Hotoru explained

Kushina who was rubbing her eyes and yawning asked, "isn't that kinda fighting dirty?"

"Why yes, yes it is, that's the point Ku-chan, after all, were ninja, and you two are ninja in training so let's get that out of your head that we have morals because we don't, not all the way at least, were not samurai, so we fight dirty, isn't that right Fu-chan?"

Funi tensed at the scrutiny in her ma's eyes, but she knew what she was talking about as they already had this talk.

Flashback:

"Fu-chan?" Hotoru called

"Yes, ma?" Asked Fuji

"I was visiting the forest today..." Hotoru began

"Oh? How was it?" Fuji asked, anxiety bubbling up.

"Oh y'know, walked to pick herbs and such, but I saw the most peculiar thing," Hotoru said while tapping her pointer finger on her lip

"What did you see ma?" Fuji asked, hoping it wasn't what she thinks it is.

There were these marks all over the trees, I followed the trail they led to, and guess what I found?" Hotoru led on

Fuji took a deep breath, flashbacks of what happened came to her with more explicit detail and asked the question she didn't want the answer to, as she already knew what her ma had found.

Her voice, somewhat shaky as she tried to keep control of her breaths, "what did you find ma?" she asked.

Hotoru who was studying her daughter for any reaction was internally berating herself for cornering Fuji the way she was even if she didn't mean to, looks like she did spend too much time in the war, it also seems that Fuji wasn't used to having her around or trusts her enough to tell her these things, something she regrets as she wasn't around all that much, but Fuji should have told her about the forest incident as she's her Ma, but seeing her daughter go pale, with her hands shaking in fear, her nails turn into claws as her eyes glossed over, she knew that she couldn't continue the conversation to where it was heading, she needed Fuji to be comfortable enough to confide in her, still, she had to get her point across.

"Fuji, y'know... It's alright to come to me when I'm at work when you're scared or just want to spend time in my presence okay? I want you to know that, now come here I wanna cuddle" Hotoru said as light-toned as she could

Fuji listened and sat on her mother's lap, somewhat awkwardly, but when she got comfortable she began to purr, something she hadn't done since she was much smaller, it felt sort of freeing.

She closed her eyes.

Hotoru smiled and played with Fujis hair, and sang her the lullaby of when she was still just a screaming baby,

Flashback ended

They didn't exactly talk about what happened but Fuji knew that her ma knows of the incident just not how it went exactly, but she thought that they were over this already so why was Ma bringing it up again?

"Hm? What's Ma talkin' bout, Fu? What'd she mean by that?" asked a curious Kushina, now wide awake without a trace of exhaustion on her.

"I don't know Ku-nee why don't we ask hm?"

Turning to her ma she asked in a challenging tone, What are you talking about ma?"

Hotoru sighed, she had thought that maybe Fuji would open up more about what happened if Kushina was around but seems she was wrong.

Forcing a smile, she shook her head and said "nothing, now let's get started on today's lesson shall we?"

...

Fuji was right when she thought that'd they'd be going over what their ma was showing them, too bad Kushina was too sleepy at that time to remember anything, Hotoru smacked her with the bo anytime she did something wrong,

Though Fuji too got smacked a few times, she might have remembered what her ma had shown them but with her body being a lot smaller compared to theirs, she had to figure out the right adjustments, and sometimes they weren't always right.

...

"Kushina, no, no not like that, like this do it again," Hotoru said while fixing Kushinas position with her bo

When Kushina was unable to meet the standards even when she was in the right position, just a little shakey and awkward, Hotoru sighed, looks like bōjutsu isn't for her, maybe...

Yes that could work, well it was an idea at least, smiling she turned attention to Fuji

"Fu-chan you keep doin' those katas hm? I'll leave you a clone but I'm gonna try some'n different with Ku-Chan Kay?"

"Okay, ma!" Fuji yelled back while going over her form.

Smiling a bright smile, she made a clone of herself and turned towards Kushina,

"Come on I'm going to teach you how to wrestle" smiling Kushina walked out of the room hand in hand with the original, to wrestle some 'willing' servants in the other room.

Fuji sighed, wiping the sweat off of her brow, she restarted.

...

Hours later after Kushina was able to accomplish a few moves, some moves weren't very practical for real-life battle but most of them could be incorporated into her fighting style for her to perfect and tweak with, Fuji had worn herself out with how many swings she did, her arms felt like they were going to fall off, but they both did an incredible job.

While the plan was to train as a family that plan didn't exactly go how Hotoru wanted as it seems Kushina might not be fit to use a bō the same way her little sister can, but that's not going to stop Kushina from learning how to effectively dodge and be able to use the weapon against the holder, that's Hotoru's goal at least.

Kushina's more of a Taijutsu-styled fighter, she's unpredictable, can kick ass, and learn on her feet, but she can be so much more with some training, Fuji is more of a see it once she succeeds it type of person, a mid-range fighter that can think up at least a hundred different ways to beat you and make it happen, she thinks outside the box on the spot making her unpredictable just like her sister, they both work hard while training, but when it comes to textbook knowledge Fuji just has an easier time learning things while Kushina has to study 4x as hard, luckily she's being taught by people who grew up with the same problems, Fuji was one of the very few odd ones out.

She just wants them both to have an equal opportunity to kick ass, which is why she'll have them switching, Fuji will now learn some Taijutsu moves catered to her, while Kushina will learn a different form of Katas that will be easier for her to pick up on.

That'll be saved for tomorrow, for right now her girls deserve the rest of the day off with how well they did.

"Who wants to go get ice cream!" she yelled excitedly

Kushina and Fuji both yelled out there I do's and off they went.

The rest of the day was spent together like how an actual functional family would do.