Yes, children, I am back with another chapter! After getting a well-deserved pep talk, I finally gave in and decided to continue this story. It was one of my first stories after all, and it deserved a better ending. Also, I haven't introduced all of the Naruto cast's kids. Can't end a story and all the characters aren't involved, right? Right! Enough of my idle chattering, and let's get to the next chapter of this wonderful story.


Yuna Uchiha walked to the lonesome Uchiha estate where her parents lived, sighing in resentment. There was always a troubling fact that emanated from the small home of the remaining Uchiha member: He was the last of the clan and strictly forbidden to leave the village for any reason. Sasuke Uchiha no longer went on missions, and his wife, Sakura Haruno, was the main one who requested a restraining order put on the man when he returned to Konoha permanently. Yuna was aiming to learn what became of her father and his clan. She wanted to write a poem of the romance that embodied her mother and father's relationship initially, but now she more curious about her father's past that he spoke so little about. Her mother, Sakura, had taken drastic measures to be sure that Sasuke mentioned nothing to his daughter of anything family-related. Yuna was going to find out why. Her godmother, InoYamanaka, told her an interesting story about their differing worlds and how they matured in the darkest of ways. It was Yuna Uchiha's moment to figure out the forbidden within her family. Thanks to Uzumaki Taiyou, the man of gentle disposition, she was going to learn of her family in secrecy.

Sasuke Uchiha opened the front door to the house to sit on the porch. He wore a red kimono and brown with brown socks against his pale skin. Yuna gasped, never seeing her father outside of the house except for teaching students, and stopped her walk to the house. She stood there motionless as her father watched her with calm, solemn deep brown eyes. Hesistantly, Sasuke opened his arms and motioned for Yuna to come towards him. Yuna wanted to flee from him, but she couldn't resist the struggling warmth trying to reach out to her. She took slow steps to her father, and then walked briskly to his embrace. Suddenly, Yuna bowed before him. Sasuke was firm and his arms remained open. Moments later, he cleared his throat and watched as his daughter snapped her head up to him. He then realized how distant he was from his own child. She was never held by him in any way since infancy, so she did not understand his gesturing for a hug. Sakura also made it known that she didn't want them to bond over anything, even their own last name, which she begrudgingly accepted out of weakness. At least, she made it known to Sasuke. Yuna was unaware of the wall put between her and her father.

"Do you hate me so that you do not wish to touch me, daughter?" Sasuke asked gently with his deep voice.

"Otou-san," Yuna whispered, eyes widening. He actually wanted her to embrace him in return! She bowed again then said, "I would be honored to touch you, otou-san! But... I thought you didn't want anything to do with me."

"I want very much to be a part of your life as I should be," Sasuke said after a smooth silence. "With your mother not being home, I am free to say hello."

"You mean..." Yuna started, tears falling from her eyes. Her father did love her! She leapt into her father's arms and called out to him, "Daddy! Daddy..."

Sasuke embraced his daughter, struggling to fight against the lump in his throat. He pet her soft hair, amazed by the texture, and shushed her loud sobbings. As they sat there, resting in each other's warm embrace, Sasuke slowly joined his young daughter's weeping. He was finally able to speak to her for the first time in her life. Since his betrayal in his teenage years, many privileges were taken from him. One important privilege was speaking to his own flesh and blood: He was not permitted to mention anything related to the Uchiha clan to his daughter, and he was not allowed to do anything with his daughter outside of training her unless said otherwise by his wife, Uchiha Sakura. The most he could do for Yuna as a baby was rock her to sleep when she had little nightmares or trouble sleeping. Sakura cared for Yuna most of the day, and he secretly tended to her at night. He was there at a time when she could hardly see him in the dark. Since then, however, Yuna had always waited for Sasuke to bring her to slumber as he always had.

As a baby, Yuna could hear Sasuke's soft voice singing lullabies to her and feel his arms protecting her. Once she became old enough to walk and talk, there was less of a presence from him at night. Now, her mother usually tends to her when she can't sleep. She only knows that Sasuke either drinks tea in the kitchen in the wee hours of the night or sits in his room reading a novel. On several occassions, Yuna wakes up at the same hour from different nightmares or strange dreams and decides to walk around the house. She discovers her father sitting down with a light on, almost luring her towards him. Sakura, however, would also become attracted to his light and separate the father and daughter instantly. Yuna only wanted to be in that special place Sasuke made for her at night. With her mother gone, maybe she can regain her father's attention.

"Daddy," Yuna whispered into Sasuke's shoulder. She felt his chin move against her shoulder blades and shivered a bit. He rubbed her back to ease the chill and smoothed it away. She said, "Why didn't mommy call for a nurse to take care of me like she usually does when she leaves?"

"I told the nurse that was supposed to be here that there was already another nurse taking care of you," Sasuke said, smirking. "She wanted proof of the other nurse's presence, so I showed her to the kitchen and pointed to pots and pans that I just assembled. I was actually making dinner for tonight and said the nurse went shopping for more ingredients."

"But the nurses that come here usually have licenses or approval notices at hand," Yuna said, inching away from her father's shoulder. "How did you prove the nurse was here when she wasn't?"

"I forged a license and approval notice," Sasuke answered, smiling at his own cleverness. "Your mother keeps the documents under the floorboards beneath her bed in her room. The nurses who sleep in your mother's room place all the documents in a hidden safe until her return. The last nurse who watched over you was distracted by Akimichi-san's visit. I just so happened to be leaving my room to sit in the backyard when I saw your mother's door open. I noticed the licensing papers all lined up on the floor. While she was speaking to Akimichi-san, I copied the basic format of the documents and taught myself to forge everything as months went by."

"But, daddy, what if you get in trouble?" Yuna asked, panicking. "Those documents are signed by Lord Uzumaki! Mother will have you locked away again!"

"That was the really easy part," Sasuke whispered against Yuna's forehead. "Your mother asked me to join her to the hospital a few weeks ago to file a request for a new nurse. I asked about an old nurse and the receptionist gave me an old request form that was in the same basic format of the new request form. As I pestered your mother to ask for the old nurse again, she left me with the paper in my hands, thinking I couldn't possibly use it for anything. Should I be kept away from you, it is a result of her own mistake not mine. Lord Uzumaki will have to punish your mother for going against my restraining order."

"You sneak!" Yuna said, lightly pushing her father. "You forged a new request for Lord Uzumaki to sign."

"You should not have to worry so about your own father when he is imprisoned in his own house," Sasuke said, frowning sadly. "It is not fair to you."

"I just wanted you to love me, daddy," Yuna whispered, innocently. "I thought you hated me all this time. I didn't know when you were going to abandon me and mommy, and I didn't want you to leave us. Other children have caring fathers. I didn't understand why I couldn't have the same thing. I didn't understand why other fathers smiled and you didn't. I thought you were sad because of me."

"No, Yuna-chan," Sasuke cooed, clutching her tiny body in his arms. "I care for you and love you like any other father. Daddy just made some mistakes in his past. I want to be with you always. That's why I forged the documents. I wanted to speak to you just this once."

"You did all of this just for me?" Yuna asked, smiling brightly.

"I may be old, but I know how to think," Sasuke said, rising to stand. "We all can learn a valuable lesson from this I'm sure."

"That Uchiha's are vastly intelligent?" Yuna suggested, smiling brightly.

"No! That I can outsmart an old fox," Sasuke said, putting a finger to his lips and winking. "Come on, let's eat before the food gets cold."


"Daddy, where did you learn to cook these rice dishes?" Yuna asked, covering her mouth with an open hand.

Yuna was enjoying herself that evening. She opened up a great deal to her father, Sasuke, and she learned that Sasuke liked joking around her. Perhaps that affability of hers truly did come from his genetic pool. All this time, she thought her father was a silent man who didn't want anything to do with family. All along he wanted to keep his family together and be a part of it while it was there. Sasuke was stirring a steaming pot of soup in the kitchen while Yuna sat at the dinner table in the dining room.

"My mother taught me," Sasuke answered, remorse etched into his handsome features. "After she died when I was very young, I had to keep practicing for myself. I learned new recipes from other restaurants and became well-acquainted with gourmet rice dishes. Sometimes, I combined my knowledge of rish dishes with soups and main course meals. Even when I started a family here with you and your mother, I kept teaching myself how to cook rice in different ways. The reason you kept spotting me in the kitchen so late at night is because I was trying to practice. For some reason, the minute I begin cooking, you come into the kitchen to watch me. I still haven't the slightest clue why you've been doing that."

"Wow, I'm really weird," Yuna remarked, laughing. Sasuke chuckled as he added chopped onions into the pot. "Well, I keep having these dreams that force me awake. Every night, they're all the same. I hear a voice singing a sweet melody to me. I can actually feel someone holding me and keeping me warm. The wind blows in my face, and it is always a cool breeze. I'm always being fed some type of warm drink and the lullaby fills my ears again. As time passes, I hear my mother's voice asking the same question: what are you doing?"

Sasuke stiffened at Yuna's words. He wasn't tense because of the dream; he was tense because that dream was a memory. When Yuna cried in her sleep, Sakura would never wake up to hear it - only Sasuke got out of bed to check the baby. Yuna's cries were very faint, however. It would take a miracle to hear her at all sometimes. Since Sakura changed her diaper before bed all the time, Sasuke would rule out that her cries were from a dirty diaper. Instead, he made the assumption that Yuna was hungry. Sasuke would retrieve Yuna from her crib, sing to her, and go into the kitchen to make some milk for her. Yuna seemed to despise cold baby bottles since Sakura refrigerated her natural food, so Sasuke concluded Yuna preferred her food warm. He would warm some leftover rice, grind it, and mix Sakura's breast milk with the rice. After blending it, he would warm the mix again and place it into a blender until it liquidated. Once the milk was prepared, he put the mix into an unused bottle and fed her the concoction. Who would have thought that would silence her! As Yuna kept eating, Sasuke would venture into the backyard and sing the rest of the lullaby to Yuna. Of course, he burped her and rocked her to sleep after her midnight snack. However, Sakura was overly cautious about Sasuke's restraining order and fathering skills. It was up to her to question how someone who was supposed to remain indoors was able to care for a baby so well.

To think that Yuna would have these dreams that were really memories of Sasuke was impressive. Sasuke was literally taken aback by Yuna's power to remember something so small! Sasuke then concluded something else of importance: whenever Yuna cried or woke up, Sasuke would take Yuna into the kitchen. Because Sakura was so firm in keeping him away from Yuna at night now that she was older, Yuna must have subconsciously thought that if she ever had problems sleeping to go into the kitchen. He brought her there to feed her for six years until Sakura put an end to it. Now, every time he cooks in the kitchen at the same hour, by sheer coincidence, Yuna finds him there to watch for what she believes is an inexplicable reason. The real reason for Yuna being in the kitchen at the same hour was because she remembered the pattern.

"Are you okay, daddy?" Yuna questioned, noticing the stiffness in Sasuke's back.

"Yes, I'm just surprised," Sasuke answered, adding seasoning to the soup.

"Surprised by what, silly?" Yuna teased.

"That you remember me bringing you in here every night when you couldn't sleep," Sasuke said, looking into Yuna's green eyes. Yuna gasped, eyes widened. He said, "When you were a baby, I got you out of your crib and brought you outside to feed you some rice and milk. I didn't think you'd remember that so well to dream of it. To also come into the kitchen while I'm practicing my cooking is quite remarkable of you. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before."

"You were the man who sung to me in my dreams?" Yuna asked incredulously, earning a silent nod from Sasuke. "That silly old counselor Kakashi-dono said it was a suppressed desire."

"A suppressed desire?" Sasuke questioned, concerned and amused by his former teacher's assumption.

"Hai," Yuna chirped, giggling. "He said I might be fantasizing about a future boyfriend. I thought the voice seemed too familiar to be a fantasy, though."

"Well, I haven't gotten to know you just yet to worry about suitors," Sasuke said, walking to the diner table with a steaming bowl in his hands. "Boyfriends will have to wait until I'm ready. I'm too old to be killing the younger generation right now. Tonight I made a special recipe that my mother taught me," he said, changing the subject. "I thought it would keep her closer to me...and to you... You are an Uchiha, after all."

"Was grandmother really pretty?" Yuna asked.

"Yes," Sasuke said, smiling as a tear came down his cheek. "She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever known."

"How did she die?" Yuna asked, watching her father place two bowls of soup onto the table.

"...Your uncle..." Sasuke started, voice cracking. "My older brother, Itachi, killed her and the rest of our clan with exception to me... Your uncle had a very special place in my heart...because...he was the father I wish I had in my life. In his honor, I want desperately to become a great father to you. Your grandfather praised your uncle for his skills as a ninja since he was enrolled in the academy. When I tried my best to gain his respect, he never showed it to me. Itachi did, though. I only wish our lives weren't tampered with so dramatically those years ago. I would love to speak with him again."

"Oh, daddy," Yuna whispered, holding Sasuke's trembling hand. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked - "

"No," Sasuke said, letting his tears fall. "This is something you should know about. You shouldn't have to be shielded from your own family origins, Yuna. My mistakes should not dictate your knowledge of your own family name."

"I just want to speak to you, daddy," Yuna said, smiling and caressing Sasuke's hand. "If mom isn't back tomorrow, then I'll ask more about our family then. For now, I just want to be with you. I want you to be my daddy while mommy is gone."