A/N: No Among Us jokes about the title, please.
Something was off in the capital.
He'd been feeling it ever since the bombing that seemed to have claimed Hyuuga's life, and he was definitely feeling it now.
Even in his brief moments of insanity, he couldn't help but see inconsistencies. A strange look here, an unexplained feeling there, and he feared he would become further unstable if he didn't deal with it.
And deal with it, he did.
Early in the morning, five o'clock, the king summoned every staff member, from the maids to the guards on duty, one profession at a time, and demanded to see each ID.
Sakura happened to walk in while he was going down the list of cooks, but stopped short when she noticed the lineup.
Fugaku looked up in surprise. "Lady Hayashi, what a surprise. What do you need?"
"I was going to ask a question," she replied warily, seeing the staff start to stare her way. "I'll go ask the queen, forgive me for interrupting."
His eyes seemed to soften at her, and he waved it off. "Don't worry, Hayashi-san."
She bowed to him and left the room, but gave a wary glance back for a moment. "What on earth is happening to make me feel so uneasy? Something… something is wrong, but I can't figure out what it is."
Interesting.
The eyes of the unseen followed her as she exited, hurrying down the hallway with an air of trepidation.
His own narrowed at her, something about her long, vibrant hair catching something in his memory. Who did she remind him of…?
Naruto soon greeted her, waving his arm as he called, "You wanna play a card game with us?"
She paused, hesitating, glancing around the empty hall before turning back to the blond and nodding. "Sure."
His thoughts were soon clouded, rational thoughts choked with visions of her. He escaped back to his own solitude, murmuring a name to himself in desperation in his lapse of madness.
Yes, something was indeed afoot in the palace. Both under his control… and out of it.
He needed to deal with this quickly. Otherwise, Sasuke's progress would...
"Oh, my angel," he said to himself, wrapping his arms around himself in a sad facsimile of a lover's embrace, his eye flickering. "I need my angel… give her back to me!"
By the end of the day, Fugaku was only a little over halfway done and completely exhausted.
He fell into bed with a heavy sigh, making his wife look up from her book. She smiled, resting his head in her lap and stroking through his hair.
"How did it go?" She questioned softly.
"Everyone's IDs were valid," he replied grumpily, closing his eyes. "And the only two that raised concerns had already been validated a while ago. They just haven't gotten their official cards because they're immigrants and we haven't gotten new cards from their home country yet."
He let out another sigh, and Mikoto hummed in thought.
"Well, we'll just have to be more cautious in the future," she murmured, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead.
"I suppose," he grumbled. Opening his eyes, he asked quietly, "What are you reading?"
His wife just smiled and began to read aloud, stroking her fingers through his soft ebony hair.
Fugaku's eyelids fluttered shut, his wife's voice making the stress melt away from his body.
A/N: I love writing FugaMiko fluff. Really takes my mind off of how dramatic this fic can be.
Please tell me what you thought.
