Mikoto is trying to appear upbeat for the sake of Eizo, who keeps asking where Daddy is. "Daddy went to get Sasuke," Mikoto keeps telling him.
"Where is Daddy?!" demands Eizo for about the hundredth time.
"Oh, shut up!" snaps Itachi, who is lounging around looking miserable. "You know where he's gone. Stop asking."
Eizo turns and glares at Itachi. Itachi has never actually snapped at him before. "Itachi sick. Itachi shut up."
"Stop it you two," says Mikoto in her best 'do as you're told you little S###s' voice. She does not pause in her sweeping because she knows they will not disobey that tone of voice.
Itachi goes back to reading and Eizo goes back to colouring. Mikoto keeps sweeping.
Suddenly, Eizo's jumps up and runs to the door yelling, "DADDY'S BACK!"
Fugaku bursts into the room with Shisui dangling over his shoulder. Behind him follows a man with long unruly hair. The man is carrying Sasuke, who does not look happy at all about being carried.
"Delivery for you, Itachi," says Fugaku, dumping Shisui on the couch beside Itachi.
"I don't have eyes anymore," says Shisui dazedly. There is a bandage over his face where his eyes should be.
"You probably shouldn't have carried him upside down like that, Hokage," says the man.
"He'll live," says Fugaku, appearing quite pleased with himself. He picks up Eizo, who is clambering to be held, and hugs Mikoto.
"Nice little family you've got here," says the man, with just a hint of jealousy in his voice. "Very quaint. Be a shame if someone caused the apocalypse."
"Someone like you?" says Sasuke, glaring at the man.
"Yes Princess, someone EXACTLY like me," says the man.
"Call me that again, old man, and I'll kick you in the nuts."
"You know, calling me 'old man' is too accurate to be insulting, Princess."
"Fine, Uncle Madara."
The man freezes and turns an angry glare on Sasuke. "What did you just call me, Princess?"
"Uncle."
"Never call me that again."
"Never call me Princess again."
They glare at each other menacingly.
"This is Madara Uchiha," says Fugaku. "We have a year long truce with him in order to convince him not to revive Kaguya and bring about the end of the world. He seems to have taken a shine to Sasuke."
"You don't say," says Mikoto. "How about you tell me what happened?"
Fugaku explains how the battle went, and how Sasuke was instrumental in defeating Zetsu and paving the way for the truce with Madara.
"So Sasuke helped save the world then?" says Mikoto thoughtfully.
"Yes she did," says Fugaku.
"I think that deserves a reward," says Mikoto. "Like being ungrounded."
"No," says Fugaku without even pausing to consider it.
Mikoto raises an eyebrow. "Yes," says Mikoto. She still has her trump card. "Remember how I let you grow a mustache on the condition you'd owe me a favour at some point, and when that time came, you have to do exactly what I ask you to?"
"Yes," says Fugaku, suspiciously.
"I'm going to call in that favour now," says Mikoto, smiling because she has her husband trapped. "Unground Sasuke."
Fugaku takes a deep breath and turns to Sasuke. "Sasuke, you are not grounded anymore."
"Awesome," says Sasuke. "The first thing I'm doing now that I'm allowed out is going to Madoka's house to tell him we made it back safe. And then we're going to Naruto's house to change our hair back to normal because Naruto's parents gave us an AWESOME reaction."
"You mean your hair is not naturally green?" says Madara, astonished.
"Nope," says Sasuke.
"Well," says Mikoto cheerfully. "What do you all say we gather some food, grab Madoka and go over to the Uzumaki house? I need to see Kushina."
"I'm not coming," says Itachi.
"We can't leave you here by yourself," says Mikoto cheerfully. "You are too close to your due date. You are coming."
Kazama leads everyone into the living room, which is a living room once again. It was the music room for the past several years. "As you can all see, the music room is a living room again," she says. She opens a door that used to be the back door. "Through here is the extension. The door to the left we will explore last. Let us go right."
Kimiko runs to the first door on the right and opens it. "This is my room," she says shyly, but proudly. The room is about the right size for a child's room. The walls are lilac and the curtains hanging at the windows are a purple-grey. On one side of the room is a pair of white bunk beds, and on the other a white dressing table, complete with drawers and a mirror.
"It is Burifu's room too, since Kimiko generously offered to share her bunk beds," says Arashi, smiling. "The next room is for Jiraiya to use when he's in town, and for us to use as a second guest bedroom when he is out of town." Arashi opens the door to reveal a simply furnished room containing a bed, a dresser and a writing desk with a chair tucked under it.
"Nice," says Jiraiya. Kimiko re-attaches herself to his arm.
"This is a long hallway," comments Minato.
"Wait until you see what's on the other side of this wall," grins the Tenzou, knocking on the left-hand wall. "I'm quite proud of what we made."
"The other two rooms are fist, though," says Hashirama quickly. "We're saving the best for last."
"Wait, did you two build this extension?" demands Mito.
"Oh yes," says Hashirama. "We had a few people helping us to do the plumbing, wiring and windows, but we built everything wooden and designed the layout."
"Alright, the final bedroom," says Kazama, opening the second-to last door on the right. The door opens to reveal a large, mostly empty room. "This is the guest room. It can fit as many people as we can fit in fuutons on the floor." She open a cupboard to the left of the door. "In here are as many fuutons as will fit on the floor," Kazama says. "Naruto has a habit of bringing people home." she looks pointedly at Ikkaku, Kohari, Minato and Kushina.
The look does not go unnoticed. "Hey, why didn't you include the Mizukage in that look?" demands Ikkaku.
"Because Iruka brings her home," says Kazama, smiling. "And Iruka can bring home a girl if he wants to." Kazama closes the cupboard. "That cupboard over there," she points to the big double-doors at the far end of the room. "Is for guests to put stuff in. So is that cupboard, although that cupboard also has towels in it." Kazama points to a smaller door at the end of the room.
There is a strange panel between the two cupboards, which Tenzou heads over to. "Alright, this is a feature designed for when there are less guests, but they don't all want to share a room." She flicks a switch beside the panel. The panel begins to move forward, along a rail that runs down the centre of the ceiling. There are several other panels behind the first one, which follow the first along they rail. Once the first panel reaches the end of the rail, all the panels stop moving. They around 90 degrees to the right, making a solid wall. The wall begins about 1.2 meters from the doorway, cleanly dividing the room in half, and leaving a gap between the door and the wall, which lines up with the center of the door.
"Does it work if there is a power cut?" asks Kushina.
"Yes," says Tenzou. "In the event of a power cut you simply pull this lever here," she pulls the lever below the switch. "That switches the mechanisms over to manual. Then you crank the lever like so and it operates." Tenzou turns the lever, making the panels rotate 90 degrees and travel back down the rail to where they stack up against the wall.
"We are almost as proud of this room as the other side of the wall," says Hashirama, grinning. "Let me show you the beds."
"You have fuutons in the cupboard," says Kohari, shaking her head. "Why do you need beds?"
"The fuutons are for when we have more people than the beds will accommodate," explains Arashi. "It is a legitimate concern."
Hashirama heads over to the left hand side of the room and flicks a switch. Two panels detach from the wall and fold down, making shelves, one just above the floor and one at eye-level. The panels on the right hand side of the shelves move out from the wall, flip over and recede back into the wall. The sides now facing outward have rungs on them, making a ladder. "The mattresses and blankets are in this cupboard," says Hashirama, opening the cupboard to the left of the shelves and the switch. "These are the bunk beds."
"Yes, I love bunk beds!" says Kushina, grinning.
"But you won't need to sleep in them," says Hashirama, grinning and crossing to the other side of the room. "There's a double bed too." He pulls a lever and an entire section of the wall slowly descends, guided by wooden poles that extend from about halfway down the big wooden panel to the inside of the alcove the panel fits into. At the same time, two short posts slide up out of the floor. The top corners of the panel come to rest on these posts, creating a large bed. Unlike the bunk beds, the double bed has its mattress attached to it. "Tada!" says Hashirama, gesturing to the double bed. "Blankets and pillows are in that cupboard." He points to the cupboard on the opposite side of the bed to the switch.
"And before you ask," says Tenzou, gesturing to the windows. "The curtains are cord-drawn, so use the cord or you'll wreck the mechanism."
"This is pretty fancy for a guest room," says Tobirama, sceptically.
"I prefer the music room," says Kazama.
"You have a music room?!" Minato's face lights up, and he can't help grinning.