Ninety Five

Naruto peers over the side of the hospital crib at his baby brother. The baby just lies there, sleeping. "He's got red hair," says Naruto, sticking his bottom lip out. "I wish I had red hair."

Minato laughs. "Isn't he cute?" He pats the baby's tummy.

Kushina, who was sleeping nearby in her hospital bed, finally wakes up. "Is he asleep?" she asks.

"Yes," says Minato. "Let's decide on his name before he wakes up."

Kushina sighs. "I still can't think of anything I like."

Naruto pats his Baby Brother's hair and says, "You named me after a ramen topping, so why not name him after one too?"

Minato grins. "Actually you're named after the main character of Jiraiya's first novel."

"But the character is named after a ramen topping," points out Kushina. "Oh! What about Menma?"

"Menma?" says Naruto, frowning. "That's my least favourite topping."

"I like it!" says Minato. "His name is Menma."

Menma screws up his face and then opens his eyes. He starts crying loud enough to break Naruto's ear drums.

Minato picks him up and rocks him. "There, there, Menma. Daddy's here."

Menma quiets down and stares up at Minato.

"He has your eyes," Minato says, grinning widely at Kushina.

"Bring your arm back like this," Madara demonstrates to his fosterlings. "And then throw like so. It's a lot like throwing a shuriken, really." The stone Madara threw skips across the surface of the river and lands on the other side.

"Ooooh, my turn!" Sekitei skoops up a stone and aims it carefully, with her face screwed up in concentration. Then she throws her stone directly into the river. "Oh. It didn't skip."

The twins try, with no success, and start throwing stones into the water.

Tachibana tries to skip a stone across the river. It skips once. "Oh, I misjudged the water's movement," says Tachibana, picking up another stone. He pauses to listen to the river, and then throws the stone. This time, it skips twice.

Sekitei manages to make a stone skip once and claps her hands. "Yay! It skipped!"

Lucy barks at the stones.

Tachibana pauses in the middle of aiming his next stone and says, "There's someone coming this way. He's coming from the road, I think."

"I can sense him," says Madara. "He's not a shinobi."

"How do you tell?" asks Tachibana.

"I can tell by the chakra," explains Madara. "Shinobi have a lot more chakra than civilians, and it has a different feel to it. You'll understand it better if you pay attention to the feel of other people's chakra."

"Oh, I see," says Tachibana.

"You're blind, Tachi," says Yatsude, rolling his eyes. "Stop saying that!"

"Excuse me!" a man emerges from the trees.

"Yes?" says Madara, pulling Sazanka, who waded in too far, back to the edge of the river.

"My cart has broken down, and there is no one else nearby," says the man. "Please help me fix it."

"Certainly," Madara agrees. He turns to the four older kids. "Stay here, and stay out of the water until I get back. I'll only be a few minutes."

"Thank you, sir!" says the man, and leads Madara away through the trees. Madara takes Ajisai with him.

As soon as Madara is out of earshot, Sekitei wades out into the water and starts splashing around.

"Uncle Madara told us to stay out of the water," says Tachibana, frowning in Sekitei's general direction.

"So?" says Sekitei. "I can swim, and I'm in my swimsuit. Why shouldn't I swim?"

"Because Uncle Madara said to wait until he gets back," says Tachibana.

"We can just get out of the water when you sense him coming back," says Sazanka and splashes over to Sekitei to join in the fun.

Yatsude wades out up to his knees, but Tachibana grabs at him. "No, you can't go!" he says. "You can't swim yet. What if you fall in? You might drown."

"He'll be fine," says Sekitei, rolling her eyes. "We're here and we can swim."

"I can almost swim!" insists Yatsude, yanking his arm out of Tachi's grasp. It's not his fault he's slower at learning to swim than his siblings. "Besides, they aren't even that far out."

"Yatsude! Stop!" Tachibana tries to grab him again, but Yatsude splashes away, going deeper into the river.

"I bet you're just too scared to go in the water without Uncle Madara here!" says Yatsude. "Scaredy Cat!"

"Hey!" says Tachibana, his bottom lip wobbling. "I have good reason to be scared. What if I can't find the riverbank again?"

"You have Lucy," says Sazanka, splashing water at Tachibana.

Yatsude wades out further. One of his feet slips, and he nearly falls. Maybe he should go back and wait for Uncle Madara. No way! Not after he just called Tachi a Scardy Cat. Yatsude continues wading towards Sazanka and Sekitei. Then, when he is in up to his waist, he slips again, and this time the current drags him down and pulls him under.

Yatsude tries to swim, but the water pulls him towards the centre of the river.

He hears his siblings yelling his name, and Lucy barking. Then Sekitei and Sazanka grab Yatsude and pull him towards the surface. Yatsude grabs at them, trying to keep his head above the water. He should've listened to Uncle Madara.

"Stop that!" says Sazanka, and then all three of them go under.

Sekitei tries to swim to the surface, and away from the twins.

Where is she going? Yatsude wonders, reaching out and grabbing her arm, wanting her to help him get back to air.

Sekitei swallows a mouthful of water. Sazanka grabs Yatsude's arm and tries to pull him to the surface. Yatsude, trying to help, kicks his legs. His efforts have the opposite effect to what he wants. Instead of propelling him to the surface, Yatsude goes sideways, bumping into Sekitei and jerking all three of them back down.

Yatsude is running out of air. His siblings start to go limp as they run out of air too. Yatsude realizes he made things worse by trying to help. Tachibana and Lucy can't help them. Uncle Madara is fixing a cart over on the road, so he can't help either.

Yatsude feels terror overwhelm him. Acting purely on instinct, he grabs his siblings and shoots a long chain out of his back. He wraps the chain around a tree branch that he saw as he went under and uses it to pull the three of them out of the water. They fly into the air and onto the riverbank, landing painfully on the stony shore. The chain disappeared while they were in mid-air. Yatsude feels faint. The chain drained him of his energy.

Lucy and Tachi run up to them. "Are you alive?" Tachi asks. "What was that chain? Your chakra is really low!"

Saznaka and Sekitei cough up water and stagger to their feet.

"What happened?" asks Sekitei.

Sazanka starts crying.

Yatsude just lies on the stones, too drained to move.

"This is exactly why I told you to stay out of the river until I got back!" snaps Uncle Madara, emerging from the trees.

"It was Yatsude's fault!" says Sekitei. "Tachi told him not to go in, but he didn't listen!"

"He was copying you!" snaps Tachi, hitting Sekitei.

"Enough!" snaps Uncle Madara. "I don't care who started it, or whose fault it was. Tell me what happened, and don't leave anything out, add anything in or blame anyone."

Sekitei tells him what happened, rather shamefacedly. Tachibana fills in the blanks of Yatsude using the chakra chain.

Madara picks Yatsude up off the stones. "I'd better get you to hospital. We need to make sure your chakra isn't totally drained. All four of you are in big trouble. Yatsude, Sazanka and Sekitei, the three of you disobeyed me and went into the river when I told you not to. Tachibana, since you tried to stop them, you would not be in trouble. But you hit your sister in anger, and I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour. It is unacceptable. The punishment for the four of you is no outings and no sweets for a week."

"I'm sorry," says Yatsude. His hero is angry with him.

"Good," says Madara. "Now don't do it again." He turns to the other three. "Come." He walks away through the trees, back to the road. Tachi, Sazanka and Sekitei follow, hanging their heads in shame. He leads them back to the road, where another Uncle Madara - probably a clone - is reattaching the wheel on a cart filled with farm produce. The man who owns the cart is standing to one side holding Ajisai.