The bed was softer than theirs, smaller too, but he didn't mind. His hime was cuddled up facing him, which was different than normal as it was her breath against his neck that woke him. Rather than move and disturb her he merely lay beside her, admiring this woman that had come from being an annoyance to…
What was Yamanaka Ino to him?
Girlfriend, best friend, lover, fiancée, wife? So many titles woven into the lies and gossip that had plagued their first few weeks as 'a couple', that when they… no she admitted it… when HE couldn't deny what he felt for her anymore, had left them struggling for a name to put to one another. The only one he felt right saying was she was HIS. Just as much he was HERS. He loved being hers, the joy it felt to say someone was there beside him, willing to be with him, the Kyuubi container. Jinchuriki's had the worst luck when it came to love… at least most. His mother and Tsunade's grandmother did alright, Gaara had Matsuri, but the lives of all the others he knew of seemed rather. Lonely. He had all but settled on being alone himself till he found a little broken girl in a pile of rubble. She had nothing left, no one, everyone said she wasn't going to live a past a week. She stubbornly refused them, and he began looking after her, her words and actions reminding him of himself. Over the two years he went from being Uzumaki-san, to Naruto-san, Naruto, Naruto-pappa, to finally.
"I love you, Daddy."
His eyes closed as her voice once again filled him with indescribable emotion. Had it really been almost three years?
"I got to see our little light bulb, and know she's doing alright, I'm a happy mommy."
Ino. The only times he had truly felt that… Lost… was the night Iruka saved him all those years ago, when he had learned of his tenant. When he had lost Hotaru. When his hime, the woman he cared the most for in the entire world lie dying before him. She looked up to him, smiled, just like his little girl had… and was gone. For a moment everything, was gone too. He couldn't recall Sakura pulling him away so the others could begin working on resuscitating her. Nothing.
But then she was brought back. From the very brink. Now here he was feeling her move in his arms, alive, warm, even her breath against his neck that should have irritated him left him nothing but breathless and thankful to anyone and everything for keeping her.
[flash!] Ah, her mother was taking pictures, sneaky. He kept his eyes closed.
"Chigusa-okaachan can you take another one? I'd like to have one for us as well."
"Please Mom?" Ino was awake too?
"We it's not as cute when I know you two are awake but fine."
"Good morning love." His hime called out so softly, drowsily.
"Good morning Hime." He would love to wake up for the rest of his life to this.
[flash!] Well maybe not THAT.
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Fakers!
Chapter Sixteen: Shopping
By
Hibiki
Plot mine. Characters Kishimoto's. UGH UGH! ROCK WITH STICK MAKE GOOD BOOM BOOM! Fuck I'm in a weird mood.
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"So your apartment should be aired out by now, however you don't have any food there and your sheets are..." She trailed off as they ate breakfast. Also she couldn't think of a way to mention his sheets looked like he had them since the first shinobi war. Truly only he would call those moth eaten shabby things, bedding.
"Old, yeah. I really haven't needed to replace until now-" Men really would sleep naked in a cave wouldn't they? "-but since it isn't just me." Oh he's blushing. She chuckled smarmily. Pervy boy. "Maybe we should."
"Satin feels great, perfect for a couple starting out. It also helps keep off friction burns." Her mother had no tact. "It's expensive but OH so worth it." Pervy Mom. Yeck she didn't want to think about her parent's doing it, can we go back to thinking about her man and her doing it?
"Friction burns?" She hid her face in her hands. Someone strike her down. Now. Why does he have to be so good at it but denser than a post about sex?
"Ino just what have you been doing with this boy?" The older female draped herself over Naruto's shoulders. "He's so… pristine still. Not having issues in the sack are we, it'd be a shame is The Stud couldn't perform." Naruto went crimson, fidgeting his fingers like a pale eyed friend of hers.
"We really haven't gotten that far yet MOM." She emphasized the M's trying to get her mother to quit it. "So we aren't up for a surprise test in sex ed." Her mother giggled. "Breakfast is no place to discuss these things!"
"Test…" Naruto frowned. "Test." Now he looked at the ceiling hand on his chin in thought. His eyes widened. "OH SHI-Oooot." He looked as her mother glared a bit at his almost faux pas. "I almost forgot today the exams start! I need to get over to the testing center to make sure the girls are doing okay" She loved him for it, but her man was a worrier.
"Well let's go, we can go shopping afterward." They thanked her mother and headed up to change.
Satin sheet huh? Nice advise mom.
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His darling students had decided to take the exam after all. They stood before him calmly waiting for him to talk. He had appeared as they strode for the building, and he had to resist pulling a Kakashi.
"I congratulate you all on passing the first of the four parts to this exam for Konoha chunin hopefuls." The girls blinked in shock, even the always smiling Haruna. Ino laughed at their confusion, but only a little.
"We all had to join up together didn't we, Sensei?" Haruka, ever the clever one, asked as she figured it out.
"Konoha prides itself on it's safety for all ninja, Genin, Chunin, and Jounin. You joined the ranks of ninja as a team, who watch each other's back. The people in your team are your family… in this case more so than others… stupid triplets messing up my speech" The quartet of girls laughed at him as he pouted. Rubbing the flesh between his eyes he continued. "Anyway, as you three move up the ranks you will always be with others, either under them or leading them. If even one ninja in the team falters, then the mission fails. That is the first test… and lesson, of the Chunin Exams."
"Hai! Sensei!" His girls snapped to a salute and his chest swelled with pride.
"Go on, ladies. Do your best, and be safe, I am already very proud of you all." Haruna surprised him by dropping the salute to hug him. The other two did the same not a moment later. Without a single thought to propriety, he dropped to a knee and pulled them into a tight hug, his voice catching on the lump pooling in his suddenly scratchy throat. "Keep each other safe, okay? I'll see you at the end of the second exam." They nodded and the trio ran off to the examination room. Ino's hands wrapped around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze as they watched the girls go.
"You're more like their father than their teacher, you know that?" He blushed.
"Is that bad?" He was just following what he felt was natural, he didn't have much knowledge training others, even Konohamaru's training was a little… eccentric. (perverted more like it)
"For you? Never." She slid off him and he stood. "Ready to go shopping?"
"Yup."
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It was easy enough to find some suitable set of sheets for his bed, so quickly had they done it they did one of their favorite things, exploring this store. This was the oldest shop in the city, so some items were rather obsolete and bizarre, yet Naruto knew of no better place for nifty things at great prices. He had brought Ino a few weeks back and she had fallen in love with the place just like he had. As he fiddled with a small tin toy that shot sparks out of it's mouth her voice broke over the sound of the wind up metal frog.
"Koishii… come look at this." There was a waver in her voice that had him dropping the toy to hurry to her. She was in the children's section of Jii-san's shop, why women always gravitated to that section… he would guess it was that 'clock' Sandaime-jijii always commented on when he talked to Asuma-ojisan about similar questions.
He stopped as he came across her, admiring her find. She stood beside a crib unlike any other in the line up, not just in age but in style. It was the style that made him pause, then run his hand over it's unique design softly. The wooden baby bed was definitely set for either gender children. It was purely androgynous, as all the colors, despite the dust and age were still sharp, were neutral. Browns and yellows mostly. The railings at the top looked like the rest but as you went lower, around the child's height ran a series of nearly interconnected bug shapes, the same cutesy styled insect as the pillow and blankets inside it. The mobile that hung silently above it, had the same.
"Hah! I'm surprised anyone's even interested in that old thing. Had it about ten years now, no buyers. Blasted thing didn't even have the decency to get smashed apart in the Pein attack." The old shop owner barked as he limped around the corner, eying the crib they were looking at.
"T-ten years?" Ino's eyes met his as they had the same thought.
"Yeah, back then a set of movies were going around that the normal folks got stupid over. Kinda like them Princess Fun crap going around now. Got so bad there was a whole slew of girls named after the heroine in it. I tried my hand selling it's merchandise, did alright too but I got stuck with this crib when the series failed." he paused, as he ran his hand over his chin, trying to decide something then he smiled.
"Say you two wouldn't perhaps be interested in taking this number off my hands would ya? I'll give you quite a deal on it!" Naruto was fascinated by it, but really, he wasn't certain how Ino would react if he did buy it. You don't go around buying baby items with your girlfriend for the heck of it. Even with as clueless as he was, that was a step in a direction he wasn't certain either of them wanted.
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Ino looked over as Naruto ran his hands over the side of the crib again, deep in thought. Looking at it once more, confirming it to herself, Ino nodded.
"Sure Jii-san, we'd be happy too." She ignored Naruto's pointed stare as she ran her hands lovingly over the railing designs.
"Great! I'll see if I have any boxes we can fit it into. I threw out that old princess butterfly one because I got tired of looking at it ages ago." As the old man walked into his back storeroom, still mumbling about something or other like eccentric old men often did, Ino's eyes fell upon the mobile once more. The Brown bug with a light bulb for a rear turned softly towards her in the air conditioning.
"It was Princess firefly, Jii-san." She smiled.
"You know, if you were worried about what the village were saying about us before now, this…" Naruto started, tilting his head towards the special little bed, Ino shrugged. To hell what anyone else thought.
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"You didn't have to pay for it, Hime. I coulda gotten it." As it turned out the bolts had rusted well enough the trio decided to leave it whole for now, for the sake of not breaking it(Jii-san didn't want to be stuck with it for another ten years, and Ino and Naruto wanted it as pristine as they could). A pair of Naruto's lifted the now sheet covered crib as they hauled it after their girlfriend towards his apartment. True enough the whole village was alight as they realized what the Man/Men (?) carried. Excited whispers and jealous stares followed them as they walked. It wasn't so bad, but she did have a blush when men kept looking at her belly.
"H-HIME-CHAN!" Aw shit. Her Daddy was staring at her, having come from what looked like Shika's direction. This wasn't good at all because he noticed the crib then at Naruto. "Kisama…"
"Naruto we're going to have to go my parent's, sorry hun." The two men smiled at her though they watched with wary eyes towards her father. Turning to the man who had given her life she froze him with a look her mother had perfected. "Daddy stop it. RIGHT NOW." The man faulted for a moment uncertain of how to continue. "We need to have a family discussion before this blows up, right now, lets head to the house." She turned to Naruto again. "Sorry again Koishii, I know it's a long way."
"It's no problem, it's not heavy just… big." The three/four blondes began walking towards the Yamanaka clan compound. They were all silent before Naruto spoke up, a little sullenly. "Looks like we'll have to tell them huh?"
"If only you want to, are you… okay with that?" He nodded.
"Yeah, I think so… um just let me send someone to get some things okay?" A new Naruto appeared and nodded solemnly before running off. Inoichi watched the exchange mutely.
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"Oh what a darling little bed! It reminds me of all those movies we use to watch when Ino was just a little girl! Oh what where they called?" Her husband sighed.
"Chi-chan, calm down."
"Mom, please." Oh dear this was going to be one of those serious talks... She looked about a little dejectedly, there had been too much drama lately and she was getting a little tired of it. Not to mention Naruto was being so quiet too, she didn't like that. A man like him looked like he was one to always talk and smile, that serious look of his didn't fit his face at all, neither did his silence. After a moment, another Naruto popped his head in and handed the original a small wooden box before disappearing in a pall of smoke. The tall young man then walked over to the table and sat, Ino practically hovering over him with worry. Her husband followed and soon all of them were sitting around the table.
Naruto's hands stroked the box absently, as if his mind was a thousand miles away, that same look still apparent on his visage. The silence was rather tense, like the calm before the storm. He closed his eyes and took a deep calming breath. When his eyes opened, they were not the same as they were before. While the color nor shape had changed, the person behind them changed. These looked infinitely more… she couldn't put her finger on it, but now she knew what her daughter had meant when she said his eyes could remind her of fathomless oceans.
"You see…" He broke off uncertain. "I had once… " he sighed again shaking his head at his own bewildered state.
"Tell them, like you told me." His Ino, not hers, remarked. He nodded taking a shaky breath, cupping her hand softly. A few moments later, with that same hand, opened the box and softly, hesitantly, pulled out a picture of a bed ridden little girl with the most adorable hazel eyes she had seen.
"Chigusa-san, Inoichi-san. I'd… I'd like you to meet someone very special to me."
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By the time Naruto had finished his story, Chigusa was in tears and he himself close to it. Naruto was wrapped in his daughters arms as they comforted one another and he couldn't find it in his heart to be upset by it. Years as a interrogator, and a ninja during three wars and countless missions had steeled him for such senseless deaths, yet the way the other man spoke, he couldn't really call Naruto a boy any longer, pulled at him. Biological or not, the man before him was a father, like him. Only Inoichi's daughter was alive… Naruto's was not. Inoichi could imagine the pain. Rather easily.
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Rage, anger,! The Kyuubi had murdered his family! The Yamanaka heir readied himself to rush headlong at the monster, to take his hate out upon it, and die trying. Just as he was to leap a giant toad appeared before them, a in a wave of red and blonde hair, the Kyuubi was gone. His vengance gone. His wife, his daughter. Gone. He had…. Nothing. Collapsing to the muddy ground, he wept. Bitter tears mixed with the rain that fell, his voice growing horse from screaming at the world. Then Shikaku was before him, his face horribly torn by the claws of the monster they had fought. He was saying something. His family… was..
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It had been one of the worst days of his life, Inoichi's eyes closed, The only one that came close was still fresh in his mind.
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He and his wife had rushed as quickly as they could when they had heard. Their baby was hurt, maybe even dying. They said nothing, there was nothing to be said, all they could do was get to their daughter as quickly as possible. What they found when they made it to the hospital would remain seared into his mind forever.
"HIME!" Naruto's form hunched over hers as he shook. Sakura pulled him away, and Inoichi glimpsed his baby girl, blue tinted lips curled into a smile as her eyes looked unseeing where her lover had stood. Tsunade and others rushed in blocking his view. But he had seen enough. She hadn't moved. She wasn't breathing. Oh god. He crumpled to his knees as his wife covered her mouth to keep from screaming. Oh god oh god. No. no NO!
"I have a heartbeat!"
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He couldn't repress a shuddering sigh as he fought to keep control. He rose, his legs felt weak under him but he kneeled by the younger couple.
"Naruto." The younger man looked to him, knowing the pain he found there. He wasn't certain who was surprised more when he wrapped the man into a hug. "Son."
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"I told you he was a great dad." They had left the crib at Ino's house, the box with Hotaru's things nestled in it's sheets lovingly, as Naruto's apartment didn't have the space for such an item. Chigusa broke down hugging them tightly for trusting her to hold something so precious.
"You only like him because he accepted you." Actually it was because he loves you. He thought softly.
"Is it wrong to want the father of your fiancée to like you?"
"Fiancée huh, so you have interest in marrying me, it sounds like?" Urk. Stupid mouth. Of course he did, but he was worried they were moving too fast.
"Well you ano.. Um." Crud she was raising her eyebrow, that meant the wanted him to answer so he couldn't stutter out a non committal. "…Yes." Hell it was true anyway.
"Right answer." Ino… "But I'm not ready to think about marriage… Just yet." Was she reading his thoughts or something with one of those Yamanaka jutsu's of hers? "So be a good boy and wait for me."
"Forever if I have to."
"Also a right answer." She pulled him close and kissed him with all her passion. "Let's get home, I know something I am ready for. So let's hurry it up, lover."
"Right!"
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Now THAT is an out. I dunno I thought I'd be geared up for writing smut but I made the mistake of watching what I thought would be a happy story with my niece and nephew. I wanted something cute and uplifting to help me write some fluffy quirky happy shit that was funny.
And I made the mistake of picking UP and watching it for the first time. Thank god my niece is a cuddly as I am because Uncle Allan (me) just about cried like a little girl when the old man thought of his wife. I still had to endure my mum basically doing Chigusa's bit from chapter 15.
"Oh good grief, it's not that depressing. Your being pathetic."
"But… but he LOVED her so much and they …" *whimpers and cuddles niece.*
"It's pathetic a grown man boo hooing over a cartoon."
"But your crying too."
"Grandma's a girl, she can. Your just a silly uncle Allan, Uncle Allan." -_- Traitorous niece.
OMAKE!
Stupid Ero-sennin! Why did he hafta shove him off the cliff, He was going to die, dattebyo! KYUUBI you stupid fox give me some of your CHAKRA! Blackness over took him. When he awoke he was in his mind… or his head was strong enough to crack stone and concrete and he was in the city sewer system again. He rooted around, dodging large rats, before he came to a large room. Something was moving beyond a large gate.
"Hello?" He called out, and a loud, large and rather… unintelligent voice called forth.
"Hello, I am a nine tailed fox and you may call me Kyuubi. I do so wish to eat your soul so please come here so I may do so." There was the Kyuubi… in all his… actually he looked like a retarded dog with extra tails attached with duct tape.
"What no way! I want you to give me some of your chakra!"
"I cannot so do that person who I am imprisoned in, because you-RAT!" The massive fox pointed like a retriever at one of the many rats running though his mind. "I want to eat a rat, they look so very good and I do hate them."
"Anosa Anosa! If I got you some rats you would give me some chakra right?"
"Oh yes, Kyuubi would love little prison person very much and would call him master if Kyuubi could have some rats to eat."
"That is WACK, JACK!" Kirabi exclaimed as Naruto finished his account on how he could control the Kyuubi without any prior training.
[/omake]
Next Chapter: Tests