Atsui's been looking forward to coming home for a while now. There's been a good number of missions lately, clean-up duty after the war ended, so he's been run pretty ragged. Now it's time for a break that he hopes to spend with his dear sister, his only remaining family.
He tries unlocking the door but the key doesn't fit. Maybe Samui left a key on the inside. That means she's home. Before he can grab the door handle, the door opens and... a little girl is standing in front of him?
"I'm sorry, you have the wrong domicile." and she closes the door.
Atsui remains still, blinking. He looks around to make sure he has the wrong place. Those are the same houses he remembers his neighbours having. He looks over the house in front of him. Yep, that's his and Samui's house.
He hears giggling inside.
"Hey!" He swings the door open only to see the girl laughing, and so is… his sister? She can laugh?
Samui looks to the girl. "I told you he'd react funny."
"Samui… since when do you have a sense of humour? And who's this kid?"
Now two other people enter the room. He looks around confused but is quickly brought up to speed and is very open to the idea of having guests over. He and Naruto seem to hit it off and quickly become friends in the following days. Although he bolts the moment studying is brought up. In hindsight, Samui regrets putting these two hotheads under the same roof.
The next week went on as normal. Kotori continued going to the Academy, the other kids continued to show interest in her and especially in her adoptive father.
Some of the kids that previously swarmed her stayed away since Takai seems to have permanently moved seats, and for some reason Kotori wanted to stay where she is.
Conversations with Takai went… quickly. When she gave answers in class, they were short and concise and didn't open much to follow-ups. Her other neighbour, Hayai, didn't seem to care that Takai's sitting on their desk so at least he seems chill, and he's more talkative so that helped.
Observing practice classes, Hayai is incredibly fast even among his peers. He fights using a very erratic taijutsu, relying mostly on kicks and sweeps. He rarely has both feet on the ground at the same time and even then, he has his hands on the ground more often than his feet. Takai on the other hand is among the slower kids in terms of speed but her reflexes are sharp. She relies more on heavy, precise punches and they are very heavy.
By the end of the week, she'd come somewhat close with the boy mostly because he didn't seem judgemental and didn't mind being around Takai. Others began distancing themselves from their desk because of the quieter girl but Kotori didn't care. She'd made up her mind.
The last day of the first week, she and Naruto wait outside for Takai. As every night, she leaves the Academy and goes home accompanied by a condor. This time, Kotori chases after them.
The condor turns around and spreads its massive wings, screeching.
Kotori stops, putting her hands in front of her. "Uhh hello?"
Takai pets it on the head. "It's okay, Moukinmaru." She looks questioningly to Kotori but then sees the man behind her classmate and recognizes him. Her eyes widen. "Ah…"
"Hey there. I'm Naruto. You're Kotori's classmate, right? Nice to meet you."
Takai looks down and bows. "I'm… Takai, sir."
"No need for the sir part. Let's all just get along."
Kotori approaches the bird of prey, very slowly extending a hand. "Is he friendly?"
Takai pauses for a moment as if trying to find her words. "He can be." She looks to the condor and with a motion of her hands seems to communicate with him.
The condor Moukinmaru calms down and allows Kotori to pet his feathers. "So soft. They're nothing like my feathers."
"Your feathers are nice." Takai's face shows little when she says that but the odd compliment makes Kotori smile widely. This is more than she's really gotten out of her in a week.
"You go home alone, right? Do you want us to walk with you?" Naruto steps closer and pets the condor, too.
She nods lightly. "Okay."
Naruto sends a Shadow Clone to go back to Samui's house to warn the siblings and Hinata that they might take a while to actually return. Takai takes them to her home, about half an hour from the Academy, on the edge of the village and on the highest point of one of the hills. This is a part of the Hidden Cloud they hadn't really explored.
Getting closer, they hear screeching from the skies above. More condors. MoukInmaru spreads his wings and takes flight to join his brethren.
"Woah, there's more of them!" Both Naruto and Kotori look around excitedly.
"My family raises Lightning Condors. They're endangered."
Kotori turns to her. "So your family's home?"
"Still working. They come home later."
Naruto's relieved a bit. He was worried she might be an orphan, too, but it eases his mind that she does have a family.
Takai's home is fairly small and cozy, and currently empty. She invites the two guests inside and prepares some tea for them as they sit down in the kitchen. The house has a large balcony and seems to have been built around comfortably housing the Lightning Condors and taking care of them.
"Sorry it's small." Takai sits down.
"No, not at all! It's really cool! I really didn't think I'd see so many birds here." Kotori looks excitedly out the windows where some of them can be seen circling.
After some moments of awkwards silence and tea-drinking, Takai speaks up again. "Why did you want to come?"
"Umm cause I wanted to be friends! Isn't that why you sat down next to me?" Kotori grins.
"But…" Before Takai can continue, Kotori stands up and goes to her, taking her hand to pull her up.
"Hey, let's go see the condors! I wanna see more of them!"
Takai's eyes may be hidden, but her smile is visible even if he tries to hide it by looking down. She gets up and the two go outside on the balcony where multiple cages are lined up. They serve as birdhouses that condors can use when they need them, mostly when they're sick or injured and can't reach their nests up in the hills.
Takai whistles and some of the condors descend, perching on the railing or on the roof or on the balcony flooring.
Naruto decides to sit back and just observe.
Kotori pets some more condors. "Their feathers are really pretty and bigger than the ones I make."
"What are your feathers, anyway?"
"Huh?" Kotori just looks at her confused.
"What bird are they from?"
"I… don't know? They're just... 'feathers'. I don't think it's from any bird." She forms the seal and conjures one. Brown with some black markings.
Takai brushes the condor near her as if looking for something. One feather falls off easily and she holds it in front of Kotori. "Can you make any feather? Like this one?"
Kotori takes the feather and looks at it closely. "I've… never tried…"
She molds her chakra again, this time specifically thinking of condors and their feathers, and in front of her appears exactly what she imagined. A much larger feather than what she's made until now, black in colouring with a white strip. Kotori's face changes from confused to gleeful in a second. Takai seems to be smiling, as well.
"It worked! It actually worked!" Kotori jumps with joy and uses her chakra to move the feather around. She's progressed from just summoning to being able to move it around somewhat freely, within a certain range. She's progressed quite a bit in so little time.
She molds her chakra again and summons more feathers, some smaller but still taking after the condors around.
"Figured something out?" Naruto calls out, leaning on the balcony door.
"Yeah, look! I can make different feathers!"
"Hey, that's cool! Can they do different stuff?"
"Umm I don't think so. But it's progress! I learned something new about my jutsu!"
Kotori makes her feathers dance around the condors who screech in return and look very curiously at the display. She tries to make more but reaches her limit to how many she can control at once.
The front door opens and closes. "Takai, we're home!" A male voice calls. The girl goes to greet the people coming home. A man walks in first, light skinned with short dark hair, followed by a larger dark-skinned woman with long curly hair. She looks like a grown-up version of Takai.
"Oh dear, guests? There's a surprise."
Naruto walks over with his usual smile and extends a hand. "Hi, I'm Naruto Uzumaki."
"And I'm Kotori Uzumaki! Takai's friend from the Academy" His daughter chimes in from the back.
The woman returns the handshake, visible confusion on her face. "I'm Futoi."
The man shakes hands with Naruto, as well. "And I'm Yukai. I'm sorry, did you say 'Naruto Uzumaki', the hero of the war?"
He still can't get used to being recognized and being called a hero. "Yeah, that's me."
Takai's parents have a look of shock before they immediately bow profusely. "It's an honour to have you in our home. I'm so sorry for coming so late, we had a long shift at the hospital."
"There's really no need for that."
Futoi and Yukai go dress out of their work clothes into something fitting for guests. They make sure to prepare more drinks and even offer them to stay for dinner. Naruto hesitates as he'd kind of like to go back but Kotori seems to be having fun here with Takai, so he graciously accepts.
They have dinner and chat for the following couple hours, the girls quickly going out to play more with the condors.
Futoi looks at her daughter with teary eyes. "I'm so glad she's made a friend. I never would've thought it'd be someone from another village." Her husband places a hand over hers, his eyes also teary.
"Kotori said she wanted to be her friend since day one. Apparently she doesn't have many?"
"Ah, no." Yukai looks embarrassed. "When she hit her growth spurt, other kids began mocking her, so she closed herself off. We've tried to be here for her, but…"
"I went through something similar, myself, but I had someone who didn't care about that." Futoi looks to Yukai lovingly. "It means so much for her to finally bring someone over. Your sister is really kind."
"Ah, she's not my sister. She's actually kind of my daughter."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I just assumed… You just don't look old enough to be her father."
"I'm not. I met her along the way to the Hidden Cloud. She got caught up in something nasty and my girlfriend and I ended up adopting her, even though we're not that much older. I'm really more like a teacher to her than anything."
"I see. But it's fortunate she has a family to call her own now. Even if you're still young, you're taking care of her, right? And you're officially her father."
"I suppose. But she's been through a lot. She really wanted to be a shinobi so I can give her that, at least. I don't think she sees me as a dad and I don't wanna overstep or force her into anything. As long as she's happy, then I'm fine just being her teacher." He's holding his cup with both hands, swirling it mindlessly. "Sorry, I'm just rambling."
Futoi and Yukai share a look before turning their attention back to Naruto. "I don't know about your situation, but it sounds like you care about her a lot and are looking out for her. That's pretty much what a parent is supposed to do, right?"
"Yeah, I guess."
In her tired, sleepy state, she did call him and Hinata "dad" and "mom" but that's probably more due to exhaustion. It's been over 2 weeks by this point and she hasn't actually referred to them by any title, not even sensei so even he's not sure how to confront Kotori and talk to her about it. Maybe she doesn't want to or it'll push her away. Then again, just earlier this evening he told Kotori to act when she sees someone in need, so isn't he going against his own words by ignoring the issue?
"I think we should get going. We've stayed long enough. If it's fine with you and Takai, could Kotori come visit again?"
"Yes, of course! Any friend of Takai's is always welcome!"
"It'd be our pleasure. Before you go, just one question. Do you by chance know Shizune and Sakura Haruno of the Hidden Leaf?"
"Of course I know them. Sakura and me were in the Academy together and on the same Genin team. And Shizune's a good friend. How do you know them?"
"The thing is, we're both Medical ninja and were part of the Support Division during the Fourth War, we worked under them. I just wanted to ask, if you see them again, to wish them well. I doubt they'd remember us, though."
"Don't worry, I will."
With that, Naruto and Kotori take their leave, with Takai looking much more energetic than before.
What none of them knew, however, is that an additional condor chick had suddenly appeared during Kotori's experimentation with her jutsu. As the chicks go into the nest, the mother looks confused at the increased count. She prunes her little birds but one of them disappears in a puff of feathers which vanish into thin air once they hit the ground. The caster has moved too far from their jutsu to keep it active.
They get home a bit late to see Hinata sleeping on the living room couch, apparently having been waiting for them. Naruto lifts her princess style and takes her to their room, as Kotori goes to hers.
Takai's character improved considerably as she and Kotori became closer. She became more active and more open, although some of the other kids just became more annoyed with her because of it. Her not caring about them hasn't changed, though, so she continued to ignore them. That annoys them even more. It's a vicious cycle.
"Hey!" A boy calls out to Kotori during break, when she's hanging out with Takai. "Listen, if you actually wanna stay here then ditch her and come with us. You're gonna be the lowest of the low if you stick with her. I'm Kitsui Yotuski of the Yotsuki clan which was one of the founding clans, so I can really help you a lot if I'm in the mood." His voice has a certain pitch to it that makes his voice annoying to listen to even if he wasn't as stuck up as he is.
"Yeah, so don't get on his bad side!" One of two boys standing behind Kitsui calls out.
"I don't really get the whole clan thing so I'm really fine where I am." Kotori doesn't even fully turn to look at the boy.
Kitsui's eye twitches and he draws closer, two other boys practically glued to his back. "You Leaf… Listen, if you're in the Hidden Cloud, you do as we say, got it? Our home, our rules."
Takai stands and places herself between him and Kotori. Kitsui grits his teeth and throws a punch with an overly dramatic yell, eyes closed. Takai doesn't move. Maybe she knows she can take the punch and not really feel it, or maybe she knows that the punch is going to be stopped.
Speaking of which, the punch is stopped. Kitsui opens his eyes to see his fist stopped by Hayai's palm.
"Man, that's not groovy at all." Hayai takes his hand off of his classmate's and shakes it like he was hurt by the punch.
Kitsui steps back. Hayai isn't a member of a prominent clan, but he's among the top of their class. In a straight out fight, Kitsui knows he'd lose.
Kotori also makes her way next to Takai. "Is this how your Hidden Cloud does things? If that's how it's gonna be, I should just tell Naruto Uzumaki we should leave." She purposefully emphasizes his name.
It's a tactic Kotori has had to use a few times. Scaring kids into behaving by dropping the name of someone they'd fear. Seems like Nauto's name is just as effective as Miss Shiina's. It doesn't always work but it has a high success rate.
Kitsui's breath stops. For a moment he forgot the girl in front of him is related to the Hero. If word got out he's the reason the relationship with the Hidden Leaf became strained, he'd be a disgrace to his clan.
He clicks his tongue and turns around, his… friends? Followers? Lackeys? joining him in the strategic retreat. "I'll let you off easy this time. Don't expect it to happen again."
Takai quickly turns her head to her new, and only, friend. "You're gonna leave, are you?" she says in a slightly panicked voice.
Kotori looks up and grins, patting her friend on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm here for a while."
Takai smiles, relieved.
Kotori turns to the boy. "Thanks for the save, Hayai."
"Hmm, well it's not like ya needed it. I just didn't wanna let him do whatever he wants, is all."
Kotori and Takai continued to spend time with the condors, under adult supervision. Being around the condors, seeing them fly, play, chase each other… Kotori's not sure exactly how or why yet but she feels her powers getting under control the more she learns about the birds. She keeps conjuring the larger condor feathers and she definitely is better able to use them than her old, unidentified feathers.
Some of the younger condors have begun chasing her feathers around; they've taken it as a challenge to catch them. The feathers' speed is much greater than before and she's able to direct where they move. Their numbers have also steadily increased.
Kotori giggles with joy. "This is awesome! This is… my jutsu." Her face can barely contain her grin.
"I'm glad they helped. The Lightning Condors are really good birds. I hope I can fly with them some day, with a jutsu." Takai looks up to the adults flying high above her home.
"Wow, fly? Is that even possible? That'd be awesome!"
Takai nods. "Yeah., it would be."
A voice comes from the roof above them. "Lord Tsuchikage can fly. Some Wind Style jutsu can help you fly."
"So... " Kotori looks up. "Why exactly are you here, Hayai?"
Hayai is lying on his side, resting his head on his hand. "Got nothing better to do. And it seemed fun."
Hinata also had her turn to watch over them while Naruto was away on missions, so she got the chance to meet Futoi and Yukai, as well. This time their shift at the hospital ended quicker so they weren't home quite so late. As usual, they were respectful and Hinata acted in the dignified manner she usually does.
Yukai passes their guest a cup of tea. "Thank you for continuously watching over our daughter."
"It's quite alright. Takai is very responsible for her age. We helped her treat some injured condors earlier and she was very proficient. You've taught her well."
The larger woman Futoi seems overjoyed at her words. "Oh I wouldn't go that far. We've tried to do what we can. Really, I think Kotori has had a more positive impact than anything we've done."
"Naruto told me of what you spoke about before. You really made him think long and hard about a lot of things." She giggles. "It's a pleasant sight."
"I'm glad we could. You two are doing a good job with Kotori. Being so young, it must be difficult."
"It's certainly not what I expected of this mission but…" She looks outside to Kotori and Takai playing with the condors. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Hinata turns to the parents. "Are things fine the way they are, though? Kotori says that the other kids…"
Futoi interrupts her. "Aren't an issue. Takai is strong for her age, both in body and spirit. I went through something similar when I was younger so I know- things will definitely change from now on."
A thunderclap rumbles through the evening sky. The air becomes colder. Droplets fall slowly one after another. Futoi and Yukai gather the kids inside and get the condors that need cages settled as the healthy ones fly off to their own nests.
"Looks like rain. We've been getting a lot lately. Might be the rainiest season we've seen yet."
Hinata and Kotori decide now to be the time to head back home, before it starts raining harder. Kotori grabs onto her adoptive mother's back and they Flicker back.
Everyone in the Hidden Cloud is blissfully unaware of the giant being that lurks in the clouds outside of the Hidden Cloud Village, just beyond the range of the sensory unit that guards their home from invaders. Its paws stepping on the clouds themselves, its quadrupede figure is obscured by the storm. Its tail opens its maw and hisses, masked by the thunderous roars.
Name meanings
Takai (タカイ) = 'tall' or 'high'
Futoi (フトイ) = 'thick'
Yukai (ユカイ) = 'pleasant'
Hayai (ハヤイ) = 'fast'
Kitsui Yotsuki (夜月 キツイ, Yotsuki Kitsui) = Kitsui - 'tough'