Dudum, the next chapter is finally here! I hope you enjoy it. I've been working on it so intensely, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Beta says it's ok though, so I trust their judgement. Warning though, there's a fair amount of POV changes in here, which is also kinda implied in the chapter title.
And btw, yes, that means Beta betaed it. Thanks, NightsBlackRose13!
Interlude: Through Everybody else's eyes
Obito woke up, saw his Nee-chan still in bed on her side of the wall and was instantly wide awake with excitement. She was still there, which meant she wasn't going away too soon and although she never failed to come back in the evening to sing for him, he couldn't help but miss her over the course of the day.
Not that he was alone then, what with Naoko watching him and Toshiro back from the academy in the afternoon. And sometimes, Naoko even allowed him to play in front of the house where other children would join him, or Toshiro would grumpily let him be in his room provided he was quiet – but Nee-chan was different. With Nee-chan, he didn't need to be quiet. She would listen to him when he told her about the butterfly that got caught in the bush in front of Inabi's house and how they rescued it, she would hug him and tell him how proud she was when he showed her the progress he'd made with hiragana. And together, they would lie around, on the ground and on the bed, and tickle each other until they were gasping for breath in laughter. The only thing better than having Nee-chan with him was having Nee-chan and Kakashi – and Ume-baa – with him on the playground. Those were the best days.
So the first thing he did when he saw her was to get out of his own bed, even though it was warm and comfy, cross the few feet of distance over the not so warm tatami mats and crawl into hers, which was again very warm and comfy. She murmured something and wound her arms around him so he could snuggle closer.
"Good morning, Nee-chan," he said as low as he could because sometimes, when nee-chan wasn't quite awake, yet, she would be startled when he was too loud.
She blinked and he giggled because she looked a bit like an owl when she did that, especially with her hair all unruly and sticking up from her head. And then she smiled and gave him a kiss on his forehead.
"Good morning, Obi," she whispered back.
He looked at her, barely able to contain his excitement. "Are we doing something today, Nee-chan?"
She chuckled. "Oh, I don't know. Would you like us to?"
"Yesss!" He looked at her with big, shiny eyes, anticipation written all over his face.
"Lucky you then," his Nee-chan drawled, a fond smile on her lips. "I just happened to schedule a playdate with Kakashi on the playground for today."
Obito squealed. "You're the best, Nee-chan!"
Suddenly, staying in the warm comfy bed wasn't so important anymore. He wanted to get out, be on the playground, have Nee-chan and Kakashi around now. He started squirming in her hug, drawing out another chuckle from her.
"So impatient, Otouto. I learned once that good things come to those who wait, you know."
"But I don't want to wait, I want to go now!" he pouted.
"I think you're missing the point, Obi," she said in a deadpan that went entirely over his head. He proceeded to tug at the sleeves of her pajama shirt.
"Can we, Nee-chan? Go now?"
"Obi, if we go now, Kakashi won't even have arrived there yet. I made a date, which implies that there was a specific time we agreed upon."
"Oh," he said, briefly pausing at his sleeve-tugging. "But that doesn't mean we have to stay here, right? We can go to the playground by ourselves and wait until Kakashi comes, right? We can spend time together then, just us!"
She smiled at that. "Yeah, that we could. It sounds nice."
All the excitement came back in a rush and with an enthusiastic yelp, he began to work himself out of the hug again. This time, she let go of him.
They got dressed, his Nee-chan helping him while he babbled happily away, and made their way out of the house. A few steps into the direction of the playground, he turned to look at her, struck by a new idea.
"Nee-chan, can we get ice-cream?"
She snorted. "Ice-cream instead of breakfast? That's not very healthy, you know."
He thought about it, shortly.
"Can we have breakfast first and then ice-cream?"
She ruffled his hair with a quiet laugh.
"Sure we can, Obi."
)()()(
Sakumo watched with an amused smile as Kakashi grabbed Obito's arm and guided him towards his mother.
"Kaa-chan, this is Obito, Etsuko's little brother." His son threw a quick sideglance at mentioned girl and continued with a solemn voice. "He is my friend."
Etsuko bit her lip in a valiant attempt to suppress her laughter.
"Obito," Kakashi continued, now turned toward the other boy. "This is my Kaa-chan."
Obito grinned brightly and waved at Sayu. "Hellooo, Kakashi's-kaa-chan-san!"
Sayu's brilliant smile came right back at him. "Hello, Obito-chan. You can call me Sayu, it's shorter than Kakashi's-kaa-chan-san."
"Ok," the little boy readily agreed.
Cute little boy.
Sakumo hadn't quite expected to come back from the war and suddenly have three children instead of one single son, but after spending the better part of yesterday's late afternoon and evening listening to Kakashi and noticing the repeated use of the words 'Etsuko-nee' and 'Obi', the thought didn't even seem remotely strange to him anymore. Ume's letters had prepared him, too, after all and besides, who was he to reject his son's chosen siblings? If anything, he was glad that his boy had formed such strong connections with the two Uchiha children. He had worked with enough of them to know that, despite appearances, people from that clan cared. Deeply. Kakashi would probably never make more loyal friends.
And that was not yet considering his own fondness of them. It was increasing steadily with every encounter.
In the meantime, the two boys had successfully persuaded Etsuko to reenact some of the training she had endured at Hanako's hands. The girl didn't seem to mind as she began walking up the climbing frame, sticking to the metal with nothing but the chakra-covered soles of her feet. She launched into a retelling of her latest adventure, changing her voice to imitate those of her teammates and executing various little stunts to enrich the narrative. She seemed relaxed and in a good mood, none of the tenseness from the last time they'd spoken apparent.
Something had happened in the last 24 hours, and it was good. Maybe the little intervention he'd planned for later today wouldn't even be needed? On the other hand, there was no harm in following through with. Like that, he'd be able to see with his own eyes. Peace for his soul and so on. Besides, he'd already spoken to Hanako and persuaded her to agree with the help of a few bars of chocolate.
Well.
Maybe a bit more than a few. It seemed he'd spent more money on chocolate for Hanako that day than he had for the entire decade before for Sayu and himself.
He still considered it money well spent, though. The kids might have a need for it, after what their sensei had planned for them today on their "day off". Although he didn't know exactly what it would be, he felt safe in the assumption that it was going to be out of the ordinary. Hanako's ways were always out of the ordinary.
Sayu came over to where he sat and nudged his knee playfully with hers.
"I don't even know why we're here," she said with a soft laugh. "Etsuko has both of them practically enchanted."
He grinned back. "Damage control. Also, we need to take over for her when Hanako comes swooping in."
"You sure she will?"
"Mm-hm. She said so and added that I should ignore anything her 'cute little student' was going to say about a day off."
Sayu laughed at that and Sakumo stopped speaking to listen. He liked the sound of his wife's laughter very much. He was a lucky man for hearing it so often.
"You know, I'm glad we decided to do this," he continued after she stopped. He looked her directly into the eyes. "I know that you met her just the day before yesterday and that you have no reason to go out of your way to help her, so I want you to know that I appreciate all of it very much."
"That's a given," she answered with a voice that was soft but earnest. "She means a lot to Kakashi and you, how could I not care? Besides, even I could see that something wasn't right. The talk about her teammates clearly made her very uncomfortable."
He nodded. Of course she understood. "Do you think the boys are giving her trouble?"
"No. I believed her when she said that they were doing a lot to help her feel welcome. It must be something else."
He sighed. "Well, we'll find out today, I guess."
Before either of them could say another word, a loud squeal erupted from where the children were playing. Sakumo looked up just in time to see Etsuko being thrown onto Hanako's shoulder, letting out another yelp. The jounin instructor lifted her hand and waved at him and Sayu.
"I'll borrow her for a bit," her voice boomed over the playground, making the rest of its occupants turn their heads. "See ya later!"
One heartbeat later she was gone, leaving nothing behind but a trail of dust.
For a moment, nothing but shocked silence filled the air, until little Obito turned to look at them with huge eyes and wobbly lips.
"She took Nee-chan away," he said, sounding forlorn and heartbroken.
"Obito," Sayu began but was promptly interrupted when the boy gasped and reached for Kakashi's arm, switching from sad to agitated in the fraction of a second.
"We need to save her," he yelled. "Come on, Kakashi!"
Addressed boy nodded and turned to look at his parents. "There's no time. Catch up with us later, Tou-chan, Kaa-chan!"
And then the two tiny boys began to run in the direction Hanako took off.
Sakumo sighed again.
He'd expected to be doing some kind of damage control at some point. Well, here it was.
Damn Hanako.
)()()(
Hanako was enjoying her day.
Everything was going according to plan because of course it was, she'd been putting a considerable amount of time into thinking things out, after all. She mentally ticked off the boxes that had led to the situation as it was right now:
Verify that her cute little minions did indeed have the figurines on them and that said figurines were doing their work as chakra transmitters.
Check.
Put a handful of tadpoles into the purified water of the big civilian shrine right next to the market. Leave a half-eaten pocky stick and a carving saying NAWAKI WAS HERE on the shrine wall.
Check.
Smuggle three furious cats in a basket from the Uchiha compound into the Inuzuka one and set them loose. Leave a half-eaten pocky stick in it and a message saying TO TRAIN THE WILL OF FIRE, SINCERELY WILL-OF-FIRE-Junior on a piece of paper.
Check.
Leave graffiti on the Hyuuga compound wall depicting numerous huge eyes and the caption I SEE YOUUU. Put a half-eaten pocky stick on top and add UCHIHA STILL RULZ PS: I'M FIVE in a corner.
Check.
With China Doll thrown over her shoulder and the knowledge that the boys were indeed moving out – pity that she forgot where she learnt that trick to seal her own chakra into paper, it was a really useful one – she was ready to enter the final stage of her plan: THE GRAND CHASE.
Hanako grinned cheerfully as she thought about the details of her prank-exercise. It was all pretty simple, straightforward and therefore ingenious, really. Havoc was wrought, incriminating evidence planted, forces of order mobilized. The boys would know the moment police officers came after them, not to mention the moment the figurines went searing hot in their pants or wherever they kept them, and move out in the direction of training field 21 on their own. China Doll was getting special treatment because she was new. Hanako nodded sagely to herself as she thought that, yes, she was demanding but not cruel.
"Let me down, sensei! What the fuck is happening?!"
Was that in her head? Or was it China Doll? Ah, yes, indeed, her baby student had started to come around. Or maybe she just hadn't heard her before. She was speaking to the other direction after all and the wind was really loud while running.
"Ts, ts, language dearie," Hanako replied. "I know you're excited but you'll see in a bit, don't worry! Patience is a virtue." After a short pause she amended the statement. "Sometimes. Seldom. Right now, definitely."
Etsuko, smart child that she was, shut up after that.
)()()(
Something was coming their way. Fast.
Shikaku saw Inoichi squinting at something from the corner of his eye and was busy pretending that he had not noticed anything out of the ordinary. Involvement in whatever was approaching was simply too troublesome. He hoped that his blond teammate would see it the same way.
"Shikaku," said blond teammate piped up. "Something's coming."
Shikaku sighed. Hope, as he'd learned a long time ago, seldomly converged with reality.
"So?" he drawled in as bored a voice as he could muster.
"You think sensei should know?"
He opened his mouth to respond but never made it that far.
"What should I know?"
Toudou-sensei had the remarkable talent to unfailingly appear whenever and wherever his name was mentioned. And most of the time, he appeared out of seemingly nowhere, scaring the living bejeezus out of his victim. Shikaku was 99% sure that he got a kick out of it.
Inoichi, completely unfazed by his sensei's sudden appearance, stretched out his arm and pointed at a dust cloud at the horizon. It was getting steadily bigger.
"Ah," Toudou-sensei said.
Chouza came over from where he'd been taking advantage of the break in training and hurriedly decimated a bag of potato chips and together, Team Toudou was watching the cloud come nearer in peaceful unity.
It was clear to see that it was not heading in their exact direction, rather bypassing them in a flat arc. It was also clear that the cloud was, in fact, a person running in high speed. A woman with a wild violet mane reflecting the sunlight, dressed in a jounin vest, shorts and bandages at the ankles, a huge grin that was even visible from where they were standing and … a strange bundle on her shoulder.
Shikaku squinted.
The bundle was waving at them.
He recognized the woman. That was Mitarashi Hanako, known for her battle prowess, unconventional ideas in the field and a considerable dose of crazy. She was the jounin sensei of the Sandaime's son, the Shodai's grandson and, if he'd heard right, also –
"Was that Etsuko?" Chouza asked.
"I think that was Etsuko," Inoichi answered.
"Who's Etsuko?" Toudou-sensei asked.
"Shikaku's bride-to-be," Inoichi answered. He looked inordinately pleased with himself, in that calm, focused way of his.
Shikaku groaned. That bastard.
Suddenly, Toudou-sensei was all attention. "You've got a bride-to-be? Man, congratulations! Where was she? I only saw Hanako there."
"She was thrown over her shoulder," Chouza supplied helpfully, back to munching on chips.
For a moment, there was silence as Toudou processed this.
And then he broke into unrestraint guffawing.
"You're … AHAHAHA … engaged to a … HAHA … toddler?! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Shikaku closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. When he opened them again, he saw his sensei still doubled over from laughing, Inoichi standing on one side looking smug and Chouza on the other, good-naturedly patting Toudou's shoulder.
Back-stabbing traitors, all of them. Even Chouza, who was guilty by association.
So troublesome.
)()()(
"Stop bugging me, Nawaki," Tsunade said and gave him a gentle flick on the forehead that sent him staggering back some steps until he hit a chair with the back of his knees and flopped down on it. "I actually have a job to do. Shouldn't you be out training anyway? Making sure that the baby of your team doesn't surpass you? Or is it too late for that already?"
Nawaki stuck out his tongue at her as he rubbed the sore spot on his forehead. "Haha, very funny, Nee-chan."
"Oh, dearest little brother, don't worry." His sister's voice had suddenly become the sonic equivalent of a sly cat's grin.
His eyes narrowed in a suspicious squint.
He didn't like this. At all.
Her grin widened even further as she announced with a sing-song voice: "All sorts of gods will look favorably upon you because Nee-chan has put a bet on you."
Nawaki's mouth fell open in horror. "You put a bet on me?!"
"Of course I did," she said smugly. "I have formidable luck."
"Tsunade-nee, how could you?!"
Through the mist of his general panic, he caught a glimpse of her laughing at him like the evil witch she turned into on occasion.
"Relax, Otouto, there're exactly two members in this betting pool: me and myself. Also, I put in a time limit of four months."
Nawaki scowled. "You think she'll have caught up to me in four months."
"On schedule for your birthday," Tsunade confirmed cheerily. "And no, not caught up. Surpassed."
"You're mean, Nee-chan!"
"Not mean, just helping your motivation. You do want to become Hokage, don't you?"
"Of course I do! I will make both Hashirama-jii and Tobirama-jii proud!"
Nawaki had not quite finished with his declaration when a knock sounded from the door of Tsunade's office.
"Come in!" she said in a voice more resolute than when she talked to him but still far away from that strictly-business-tone she used with practically everybody else. Nawaki knew immediately that a teammate of hers was coming. He was proven right as soon as the door swung open.
"Orochi-nii!" he beamed and hopped off the chair in excitement. "I haven't seen you in ages!"
The tall man that entered was as familiar to him as his sister. Sure, he oozed that mysterious, powerful aura that most people found intimidating, but Nawaki had known him for years now. Due to the age gap of fourteen years between Tsunade and him all three of Team Hiruzen had already been jounin by the time he'd been born which meant that Tsunade had forced babysitting duty on whoever was available.
Really, once you'd slobbered all over someone's hair during a piggy-back ride the potential for fear just vanished.
"Brat," Orochimaru greeted him. "I've been busy."
Nawaki nodded enthusiastically. "I know! You've been fighting at the front lines, right? It must've been so exciting! The most challenging thing we ever got to do was getting supplies to an outpost within Fire Country borders."
Orochimaru raised a single eyebrow. "Go and earn a promotion if you're so bored."
What other people would've seen as an annoyed dismissal, Nawaki actually understood as the advice it was meant to be. Orochi-nii didn't do annoyed dismissals – they lacked style. Orochi-nii valued style.
So he just nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right."
Orochimaru accepted that as the end of the discussion and turned to face his teammate. "Tsunade, I need you to –"
"Hello to you, too, Orochimaru," Tsunade interrupted him flatly.
"– extend the duration of effect for the preventive serum –"
"We already talked about that, I can't do that without causing serious damage to the liver and kidneys –"
"– found a way to circumvent this by adding the components of–"
"– that would attack the heart instead which is not –"
" – is nothing that can't be counteracted by the new pill I've been working on –"
Nawaki decided then and there that he'd probably overstayed his welcome.
"Bye, Nee-chan!" he yelled extra loudly. "Thanks for helping me!"
"Yes, yes," she replied absentmindedly, already immersed in the world of science.
Tsunade-nee and Orochi-nii were both glorified nerds in his opinion and no display of their admittedly terrific skills could convince him otherwise.
He walked out of his sister's office, out of the hospital – and was unsure where to go next. He hadn't planned anything else for today since he'd been convinced that Hanako was going to spring some kind of surprise on him. That conviction was still alive but it also meant that he needed something to do until it happened.
Might as well go train then. When Orochi-nii was right, he was absolutely right.
He didn't even make it halfway to his favored training field when the pocket in his shinobi trousers started to burn holes into the fabric.
Nawaki frantically turned the insides of them out. Some change fell out, pieces of scrap paper, and Hanako's chocolate wrapper figurine.
It was glowing red and, yes, searing hot. And then it burnt itself to ashes.
"Uh-oh," he mumbled.
"Senju Nawaki?"
Nawaki turned around to face the stern expression of an Uchiha police officer.
"Uh, yeah?"
"I need you to answer some questions for me. You're connected to a recent string of vandalism all over the village. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
"Vandalism? What?"
Dread was forming in his gut. The figurine burning into ashes. A police officer asking about his connection to a string of vandalism.
This smelled like one of Hanako's pranks.
"Uh …"
He was probably supposed to run.
"I'm sorry, officer, uh, but I don't think I can help you."
Then he turned around and ran.
)()()(
They were already there when he finally arrived at training field 21.
He collapsed in front of them, panting and gasping for breath. "What the hell, sensei?!" he wheezed, pointing an accusing finger at the jounin.
Hanako ignored him and clapped her hands excitedly.
"Ok, smoochy-cuties, now that we're all together we can finally proceed to the fun part. Regashi, Nawaki, you probably already figured it out so this is for you, China Doll: today is all about the art of escaping pursuers."
"What," Etsuko said.
"Three moderately important places in Konoha have been redecorated today and the police force is eager to find out who did the redecorating. Luckily, a clue has been left at each of the places that will identify the responsible persons as you."
"Oh no," Nawaki mumbled. "The vandalism charges."
"What?" Etsuko said.
"So now, you have to try your best to evade the police officers since of course you want to be the first ones to tell the Hokage what you did for the village, right? Did I mention that you want to see the Hokage? No? Then here you go: you desperately want to see the Hokage."
Nawaki saw Regashi groan quietly.
"Everything clear now? Gooood. Now, my sweet little whole-wheat-dumplings, I'd suggest you to get a move on it. Police forces will be here in approximately half a minute. Good luck!"
Nawaki had a coughing fit when he managed to inhale some of the dust Hanako whirled up with her exit. It tasted pretty bad, too.
Regashi helped him stand up at some point. The three of them looked at each other in varied degrees of despair and resignation.
"Let's go see my father then," Regashi finally sighed.
)()()(
The Sandaime Hokage sighed.
"Hanako," he said, slowly and carefully. "What made you think that this … project was a good idea?"
Hanako grinned unabashedly. "It was exercise for the Police Force, exercise for my little minions and fun for me. A win-win-win situation." She was blithely ignoring the dark looks that her 'little minions' as well as the lone Uchiha officer were shooting at her.
"It's war time, Hanako. The Police Force is the major defense force of our village."
"All the more reason to keep them on their toes, then."
Hiruzen closed his eyes and rubbed little circles on his temples.
He opened them again. "You're dismissed. No, not you Hanako, you stay for a while."
He got a chorus of "yes, Hokage-sama!" and couldn't help a fond smile appearing as the children filed out.
"So," he began as soon as he was alone with one of his strongest jounin and the most prominent prankster in Konoha history. "Which security lacks did you find this time?"
)()()(
"Do you think Hanako-sensei is in trouble?" Etsuko asked quietly as soon as they stepped out of the Hokage Tower.
"Nah, don't think so," Nawaki said, with his arms put behind his head and generally much more relaxed than twenty minutes before. "It's not the first time she pulled a stunt like this. I think she is the Hokage's favorite bringer of chaos or something."
Regashi nodded. "I think she actually achieves something with each of her pranks. Otou-san values her input very much."
"OK."
Nawaki watched her settle into a posture that was a little less rigid than usual. He even detected a slight bounce in her step. She looked more relaxed than he'd ever seen her before and suddenly he realized how young she was. It was strange that he hadn't noticed before.
But then, she was kind of super smart. Weird, but smart.
"So, now that the general threat of Hanako is over: do you have any plans?" Regashi asked.
"Not really," Nawaki answered.
"I need to go back to the playground," Etsuko said. "My little brother might be worried. Hanako's abduction was rather abrupt."
Regashi's and Nawaki's eyes met for the fraction of a second.
"Do you mind if we join you?" they asked in unison.
Surprise crossed her features. "I, uh, no, I don't mind."
"OK, then it's settled. Next mission: safely escort Etsuko-chan to the reunion with her little brother," Nawaki announced.
Etsuko snorted.
)()()(
They never made it to the playground.
On a patch of grass not too far from it, they were stopped by a pretty woman with long dark hair bound in a ponytail who'd started waving at them as soon as they were within sight.
"Etsuko-chan, over here!"
Nawaki stared in wonder as a real smile bloomed over his teammate's face. Said teammate proceeded to head in the direction of the woman without hesitation, so both he and Regashi followed her.
The woman was seated on a red blanket that had enough space for at least five other full grown people. In front of her were a picnic basket and two little toddlers, one with black hair, pale skin and huge black eyes and the other with silver-ish hair and really pale skin.
The black-haired one immediately stumbled on his feet and yelled "Nee-chan!"
Regashi chuckled. "Obito, I assume?"
Etsuko actually beamed. "Yup!"
And then she was off to meet her little brother, who promptly tackled her to the ground.
Nawaki scratched the back of his head. "Did you just see what I did?" he asked no one in particular.
"Yes," Regashi answered. He sounded just as surprised.
They just stood and watched as the little kid started babbling, with Etsuko listening intently to every word, watched as she made her way over to the woman who embraced her shortly but tightly, watched as the other kid got comfy at her side.
Until she turned her head to look at them with a raised eyebrow. "Are you two just going to stand there and watch?"
Nawaki's face went red in embarrassment. Yeah, they probably looked stupid.
As soon as they had settled on the big red blanket, Etsuko introduced them.
"Sayu, these are Nawaki and Regashi, my teammates. Nawaki, Regashi, this is Sayu. And here we have Kakashi and Obito."
"Hellooo," Obito said.
Now that he was up close, Nawaki could see how strikingly similar the siblings looked. It was not just due to the typical Uchiha coloring, which helped of course, but also due to the minute details in their behavior. The same gestures, the same smiles – and boy, Etsuko was smiling so much –even the same way of intoning their speech. For a short moment, it seemed like they were one person in two versions.
The only difference was that Nawaki had the feeling that Obito was happy far more often than his sister.
"We were going to rescue you, Nee-chan," the toddler was just saying. "Kakashi and I both were! But Sakumo and Sayu said you were ok. We still wanted to go, but then Sakumo said that we should trust that you're strong and we believed him because we know Nee-chan is reeeaaaly strong. Right, Kakashi?"
The other boy nodded and added with a much quieter voice. "Also, Otou-chan is right."
"Yeah, Sakumo is cool."
It took a moment for Nawaki to connect the clues.
Silvery haired child with a father of probably the same coloring since the mother was dark haired. Whose name was Sakumo.
"How do you know Hatake Sakumo, Etsuko-chan?" He burst out. "And why did you not tell us?!"
"Nawaki," Regashi said.
"Tell you?" Etsuko asked in genuine confusion. "Why?"
"Why? WHY?! Because you know the freaking WHITE FANG!"
"Someone called me?"
Nawaki craned his neck and was suddenly confronted with the sight of his ultimate hero. A master of lightning, kenjutsu specialist with no peer, major strategist of the village: Konoha's White Fang Hatake Sakumo embodied everything that he wanted to be. He was strong, intelligent, kind –
"Nawaki, you're swooning," Etsuko remarked casually.
The heat rising in his face was immediate.
"Hello, everybody!" Sakumo smiled warmly. "That's quite a party going on here, hm?"
He walked around them to sit down next to his wife. "How are our kids doing?"
"Fine, fine," Sayu answered, barely suppressing her laughter. "Obito and Kakashi are still full of energy and Etsuko has brought her teammates. They were just coming this way together, so I invited them to join us for our picnic. I bought too much food anyway. Such a nice coincidence, don't you think?"
"Coincidence," Etsuko echoed.
Sayu smiled even wider.
Nawaki was occupied by something else, though. He squinted at Etsuko. "Did they just say you were their kid?"
Sakumo laughed. "Well, it's nothing official of course, but they sure feel like our kids. Besides, it's shorter than calling each of their names." And then he reached over to ruffle their hair, including Etsuko's.
This time, it was her who went red all the way to the hairline.
Nawaki huffed. "You know what, next time you fail to mention that you were practically adopted by a legend you better have an explanation ready. If I have to make an idiot out of myself, I'd like to be prepared at least."
Etsuko became even redder.
It was totally worth the short moment of mortification on his own side.
And here you go. I hope the POV changes weren't too jarring. Tell me what you think! And join me on tumblr! There's loads of cool stuff on there (hint: if anybody ever wanted to hear my voice, you can do it now on tumblr).