Author's Note: I'm sure several people around here already know about the huge blow up of indignation due to the mirroring of FFNet site in other locations.
As a tech savvy author, I'm not really worried about this. It does bite that people are trying to make profit off our works, but I feel more keenly the loss of all the stories that will no doubt be deleted by panicked authors.
FFNet was hit hard, but I have the knowledge of how to make a mirror, and it's quite an easy process. They couldn't have prevented it, and it might happen with any other fanfiction archive.
There are archiving sites such as the Wayback Machine that periodically back up sites in such a way. FFNet has done its part by blocking such sites from replicating it (though, to be honest, I find that a real pity. It would be wonderful to read there old stories that FFNet wrongfully deleted over the years), but malicious sites don't respect anyone's wishes, and such archiving sites do work on the basis of respecting site owner's wishes, expressed through a file called robotsTXT.
I'm not going to remove my stories from here. In case FFNet shuts down, I'll continue to post them on Archive Of Our Own (under the nickname Realta). If you're an author, consider keeping your stories online as well, even if you choose not to post anything else. Your fans would thank you. Before deleting your account, remember that on the internet, nowhere is exactly safe. If you're thinking of deleting, but haven't yet, remember that if someone copies your story, you still can prove yours was posted first if you don't delete it now (in case you don't have it anywhere else).
That's all I had to say about this.
If you don't know what's happening, search on google
wildrhov tumblr fanfiction stolen
and look for the link with the title "All Fanfiction net Stories Have Been Stolen".
Be careful about following any links pointed as the mirrors in these posts, they contain malwares that might infect your devices. You don't need to check if your story is there or not – if you have a story currently on FFNet, it will be there. It will remain there even after you delete it off FFNet – there's a story I deleted last month which is still on the mirrors.
After this long note, I hope you enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 2: Starting Anew
It was Naruto who thought about the idea of using shadow clones to go out on dates.
They were beyond busy, with her resuming work and the twins to look after, specially since some people on her council seemed to think that overloading her with work would make her give in and retire. Taking a few hours to relax with Naruto everyday was nice, but impossible... until he suggested they create the time.
"So, I took you out on dates while we were in Konoha. Time for you to take me out." Naruto suggested one day.
She was sitting on her desk, trying not to despair at the paperwork that kept piling up as she caught up on several details Temari's summary hadn't covered for brevity's sake. Naruto stood before her in one of his black and orange jackets – he would cook inside it if he went out on the midday sun like he was proposing.
"I'm busy, Naruto." she told him with a small sigh. Naruto pouted.
"I'm not seeing you use any clones, except this." he walked up to the playpen and poked the fake teddy bear her clone had transformed into. Naruto had followed her example, and turned a clone into an obnoxious orange teddy bear that the twins were fascinated with – probably because it was so bright and glaringly out of place amongst their toys. She forgave Naruto's continuous presence in her office while the twins were there – they wouldn't be there for long, she just wanted to get used to the shadow clone technique for a few days before sending clones to work in her place. Her clones would still disperse against her will sometimes. "You're not going to get better if you don't practice more."
She blinked. "You want to go on a date with my clone?" she wondered.
"Why not?" he asked cheerfully.
"...because it's a clone? On a date?" she asked quietly. Naruto smirked at her.
"You don't seem worried about the fact they're clones when..." Naruto choked as she forced his mouth shut with her sand, her eyes widening. She was certain she knew what her husband was going to say, and her ninjas didn't need to know details of her sex life.
"You don't say this sort of thing aloud in a ninja headquarters, Naruto." she hissed. He spluttered when she took her sand back. "Fine, but don't complain to me if the clone disperses on its own." She quickly shifted her hands and made a shadow clone.
"If she disperses, I'll do it too." he shrugged.
"You're a clone?" she asked with curiosity.
"Yup. Original is getting beaten up by the brother-in-law." Naruto told her with a small grin. Gaara took his words to mean they were training together. She hoped Kankurou at least had the sense to give Naruto more appropriate clothes, or train in one of the refrigerated training facilities inside the building.
"Okay, let's go." her clone announced, taking Naruto by the hand. She watched them go, and once the door closed behind them, she shook her head and returned to her work.
"You already know where to go?" Naruto asked excitedly as she strode purposefully down the hall.
"Yes." she agreed. Naruto's eyes lit up.
"Where are we going? Somewhere nice?" Naruto wondered happily.
"We're going to buy you clothes." his face fell flat, and he stopped walking. He quickly caught up to her when she didn't stop with him.
"I don't need clothes." he muttered sullenly, probably already sick and tired of being told to buy clothes that weren't orange.
"Yes, you do. You're moving to Suna. You're going to get sick if you walk around with the clothes you wear in Konoha everyday for an extended period of time. You can only wear colors like black and dark blue here if they're made of special fabrics." she knew out of experience that his clothes weren't appropriate for Suna. She didn't often leave her office, so she could get away with wearing his jackets, but Naruto wasn't one to stay cooped up inside day in and day out.
Naruto blinked, then grinned. "How about I wear plain orange?" he suggested.
"You still need long sleeved clothes that aren't meant to warm you up." just like that, his mood lifted once again. She wasn't trying to stop him from wearing his favorite color – Naruto was good enough a ninja that he could afford to have eccentricities.
"So... Are you taking me to the place you buy your own clothes? They're dark." she nodded silently as they walked out of the compound.
The midday sun was beating harshly down on them. The sand that covered her face, as well as her whole body, protected her from it. Naruto was probably only kept from nasty sunburns by Kurama and his body's ability to heal quickly – but those weren't going to keep him from getting heatstrokes or becoming dehydrated for sweating too much. Because he was a clone, at least that wasn't an issue at the moment.
"Where's it? In the market? I love Suna's market, it's always so colorful, and there are so many different scents." she listened quietly as he began to talk about his previous visits and the merchants he met.
When he walked closer to her and slipped his hand into hers again, she held his hand back silently.
At a moment during their walk, he tugged on her hand. "Hey, do you want to go out to dinner tonight? Eat something nice?" she looked hesitantly at him.
"I don't want to leave Yukio and Yuraku with anyone else." she told him quietly. "Maybe we can buy take out and eat at home." she offered instead.
"That works." he agreed with a happy sigh. "I still need to find a place that has good ramen here, but I suppose we can have that weird meat you like."
Gaara smiled. "That doesn't exactly qualify as 'nice' food, but okay." Naruto shrugged.
"They're our favorites, who cares what other people think?" he tugged on her hand again. She chuckled.
Naruto was delighted to find orange clothes for himself in the store she usually bought her clothes from. He even found an orange and red coat, which he was more than happy to get. She just sat and waited for him to get at least enough clothes for him to wear throughout the week, giving him a nod or a shake of her head every time he asked her opinion on something.
He took less than two hours to get himself an appropriate wardrobe. He made clones to take all the packages away before she insisted to help him carry them home.
"Where to now? Let's do something nice." Naruto asked as soon as his clones were gone.
"We can walk around the market if you want." she offered, considering how excited he had been to talk about it earlier.
"Let's go, then! Hey, maybe we can find a nice toy for Yuki-chan and Yura-chan." he suggested as he dragged her along.
"They have more toys than they can play with. Yuraku's favorite toy is you." Gaara teased him.
"Maybe we can get him something else orange." Naruto remarked as they walked.
"I don't mean your clone. He's the happiest when you're playing with him." Naruto glanced behind them, and she felt the presence of a clone of his then, so she didn't bother to turn around.
She was surprised when she felt a shawl be placed over her hair. She did turn around this time, to see Naruto give her a grin before dispersing into smoke. The clone that had been with her chuckled and righted the shawl over her head and shoulders.
"Oh, I knew this would look good on you. You look beautiful." It was a seafoam green colored shawl, with golden borders and several details in gold in the middle. "It's the same color as your eyes."
Gaara looked askance at him, unsure why he had brought her a shawl. Did he want her to start dressing in a more feminine way? She had been wearing dresses lately, but she could describe some of them as 'tomboyish' at best. Naruto flushed. "Hum, you told me once... about girls and shawls." he offered. Gaara's eyes widened.
In Konoha, men gave flowers to women they were in love with. In Suna, men gave women shawls. A small smile turned her lips. "Thank you. You don't need to pretend you're in love with me anymore."
Naruto pouted. "Don't doubt the strength of a friend's love." he poked her nose lightly. She chuckled.
"I never doubt the strength of your love for anyone." he leaned in and kissed her lips. She felt her heart swell at the gentleness of his kiss.
Gaara started at her table, when the sudden memory of the sweet kiss hit her.
Her clone had dispersed from emotional overload.
She smiled and ran her fingers over her lips, warmed up by all the nice feelings her clone had been feeling before its life had been cut short. "Naruto, you're so silly." she murmured.
Hopefully he had managed to catch the shawl before it blew away in the wind.
One of her priorities once they returned to Suna was to find a place where they could live. Gaara knew Suna well, just as Naruto knew Konoha. So, she took the responsibility to find a house they could buy or rent.
Much like Naruto had done, she searched the houses she liked, then led him to visit them, so he could choose. It didn't take long until they found a place they both liked.
It sat on one of the residential areas that were very far away from the Kazekage compound – it was a peaceful little neighborhood, with no buildings taller than three stores, which had a fairly close knit community. Naruto loved their neighbors, she was fairly sure they had influenced heavily on his choice.
Their new house was small in circumference, but it was one of the tallest around – the kitchen and living room were on the first floor, there were two small bedrooms on the second and the master bedroom with a small adjacent office on the third. What endeared her to the house was the terrace – she loved watching the sky. Specially on the nights she hadn't been able to sleep as a child.
Once they had acquired the house, Naruto made moving seem like a triviality.
"So, one of the bedrooms on the second floor will be our office, we can turn the other one in a play room, how about?" she nodded once.
Their children would stay with them. Gaara slept far better when they were at her arm's reach, and though having them on a futon, closer to the floor, was much safer, the amount of dust in Suna made sleeping near the floor somewhat hazardous for children that young. Instead, they were sleeping with both babies between them, while a clone watched overnight to make sure no one would fall off the bed. She spent most of the night awake, watching them, either way. The short naps she took throughout the night, as well as the longer nap she was taking every afternoon, they were enough rest for her.
"We should have gotten a house with a guest bedroom." Naruto frowned.
"Kankurou can house anyone from Konoha who comes to visit you." she pointed out. "He can house you, while they're visiting."
"I suppose..." he nodded slowly. "Where do you want to start?"
"Bedroom and kitchen. This way we can finish organizing everything while living here." she replied easily. They could bring their children along once the bedroom was livable.
"Bedroom, it is!" and they walked up the stairs. "We need to bar the stairs before they start crawling." he noted.
"We need to do several other things to baby proof our home." she sighed. "We should make sure our weapons are always sealed or locked away. We can use the third floor office as storage."
"Good idea." Naruto agreed easily. Neither of them were extremely dependent on weapons to protect themselves, which was good. Yuraku was so curious, he would no doubt grab at anything left within his reach.
She cleaned the room off the dust, then they washed the walls and the floor together, before they started assembling the furniture they had brought with them – most of it Kankurou had made himself.
As she had hoped, they managed to finish up the bedroom and kitchen by the time evening arrived, and she took their sons to their new home once office hours were over.
"We can finish organizing everything on the weekend." Naruto silently agreed as he concentrated on cooking them dinner. Yukio and Yuraku had already been fed, and they were nearly asleep by her side – thus why Naruto was so quiet.
The babies didn't fall asleep, though. By the time they had finished dining, Yukio was wide awake, and his brother was successfully fighting off sleep. "I don't think they're sleeping any time soon... Do you want to sleep?" Naruto wondered aloud. Yuraku tried to turn when he heard his father's voice behind him.
"Not really, no. I have to..." she began, but Naruto interrupted her.
"You're not working, by the way." he told her pointedly. "Your work hours ended an hour ago." she raised an eyebrow at him.
They ended up sitting on their bed, with the twins lying on their stomachs, surrounded by toys. They both grabbed books to read, but they were distracted by the babies at the moment.
"I was thinking about taking them to the park tomorrow morning." she told him. Tomorrow was Saturday, and though she had often worked on weekends before, she didn't intend to leave her family to do so. Her ninjas knew how to contact her in case of an emergency.
Naruto was shaking a toy in front of Yukio, and the baby was staring at it. Yuraku was trying to reach for it, but it was too far from him. "Isn't the sun too hot for them?"
"If we cover them well, the early morning sun should be fine. They need to get used to it." when his father ignored him, Yuraku started to whimper. She rubbed his back and gave him another toy to distract him. "It's been too long since I took them outside."
"Yeah. I still think we should have stayed in Konoha until they were a little older." Naruto hummed. Gaara pursed her lips.
"I agree with you. But..." he interrupted her.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Those annoying..." he finished in a mutter so low even she couldn't hear it, and she was watching their children so she couldn't read his lips. She could guess it was likely a curse, Naruto hadn't been very happy with his own council of late, let alone hers. She was used to having her council attempt to interfere in her personal life, but that was somewhat new to Naruto – even if they did interfere in a broader way ever since he was born, probably even before that, considering his father had been the Fourth Hokage.
She was kept from commenting when a sliver of sand shot out towards Naruto and grabbed the small, soft toy from his hand, hitting Yukio on the forehead with it after Naruto was startled into letting the toy go. The boy started and looked at Naruto with wide eyes as they gaped at him.
"Did you...?" Naruto began, but she quickly interrupted.
"No." she studied their son and relaxed a little when she saw he wasn't hurt. But he was frowning, he looked like he was about to start bawling.
"Aww... Poor baby. Did the bad teddy hit you?" Naruto cooed, patting his hair, holding back laugher. Yukio wasn't comforted. His eyes filled with tears.
Before he started crying, she took her baby gently and sat him on her leg, bouncing him so he would calm down. It worked like a charm. "Here. It's okay." she soothed him.
"Why did he hit himself on the forehead?" Naruto placed the toy on Yukio's hand, and he brought it to his mouth.
"...I don't know. Maybe he can't gauge the strength needed to bring the toy to him?" she guessed.
"Did you do that as a kid?" he asked, not for the first time.
She gave him the same answer as always. "I was four-years-old in my earliest memory."
"Could you grab stuff with your sand then?" he wondered.
"Yes." Naruto grinned.
"For some reason, I thought you would just know how to do everything. I never thought you would have to learn it as if your sand was a third limb."
"People usually assume that." Even she had assumed as much. Apparently, it wasn't the case.
"Don't you need to use up chakra to do this sort of stuff?" Naruto wondered.
"Not really. The amount of chakra needed to move this little sand is negligible." Naruto hummed, watching Yukio contemplatively.
When Yukio dropped his toy, Naruto grabbed another one and tried to once again encourage their baby to grab it. After a long time, Yukio reached out with both his hands and grabbed the toy, and considering it was the first time the baby had ever reached for anything they offered him, she wasn't sure if Naruto was happy or disappointed that he didn't try to use the sand again.
Nothing had changed.
For years and years she had feared people's reaction to her real gender. But living in Suna after her secret was revealed made her feel silly for ever being afraid.
After all, no matter what she did, her terrible past would never be forgotten by the people of Suna – even if it was long forgiven. A change in her gender definitely didn't make people daring enough to start acting condescending around her.
Her position remained the same, people's respect for her remained the same. No one challenged her – even if a few elders still insisted she should retire. They were the same elders that had tried to find excuses to depose her from day one. For them, this was just another excuse.
But she experienced quite a curious phenomenon. Most men continued regarding her as a man, as their equal, despite the fact she was dressing in female clothes increasingly often. Women, on the other hand, were more than happy to forget she had ever considered herself male, and they were full of pride that she was a woman like them.
That made her fully realize how people had grown to admire her.
Amongst everyone, Naruto was an oddity. The way he regarded her had changed, for obvious reasons, but she couldn't tell for sure whether he saw her as a man or as a woman. At different times, it felt like he saw her as either. It wasn't as clear cut as seeing her as a man in battle, and as a woman at home, no. He treated her one way or another completely at random, or at least she hadn't seen a pattern yet.
In a way, he was the one who made her feel the most comfortable. She wasn't sure whether she saw herself as a woman or as a man – sometimes she felt like a little bit of both. She couldn't really disregard her physical gender, but she also couldn't disregard the way she had been raised to behave like. Naruto never made her feel self-conscious about her gender confusion. He helped her stop feeling embarrassed whenever she wanted to be more feminine, and he never tried to correct her whenever she wanted to be more masculine.
Slowly, he was convincing her to stop putting so much thought to it all, and just focus on being Gaara.
"You're sure we're getting married in Konoha?" she turned her eyes from the stars they were watching towards Naruto.
"There aren't many flowers here during the Spring." she noted, since that was probably the reason Naruto wanted a Spring ceremony in the first place. Naruto was strangely fidgety.
"It'll probably be easier for your friends to attend if we stay in Suna." he said quietly. Gaara hummed and looked away again, leaning against him.
"Most of the confirmed guests are your friends." she remarked, somewhat amused. Naruto frowned.
"That's exactly why I'm asking. Do you think more people from Suna will attend if we have the party here?" he wondered. She blinked.
"No." she replied bluntly. "I'm... not the kind of person who reaches out to as many people as you do." she almost told him she was a private person, but in a way, so was Naruto. He was just extremely good at keeping people close, yet at an arm's length.
"But you do have a lot of friends." Naruto muttered, frowning.
"Attending a person's marriage is something a little too formal to most people."
"So, they're still intimidated by you?" it didn't really sound like a question, so she didn't answer. Naruto sighed after a few seconds. "I guess you did make most of your friends after you already were Kazekage." he reasoned.
Not to mention she could murder most of them with a single hand gesture, and she was fairly sure they were keenly aware of that. Matsuri was one of the few who didn't flinch when they caught sight of her sand moving – that was becoming more and more evident as Yukio's tentative grasp on the sand grew. He had no qualms making sand move for him wherever he was, whenever he felt like it.
"Maybe we could..." he trailed off when she placed a finger over his lips.
"Don't worry about it, Naruto. My closest friends and family will be there, and that's enough for me." she told him honestly.
If she was even more honest, having a ceremony at all wasn't nearly as important to her as it was to Naruto. Still, she was making sure Naruto got a ceremony he deserved, since he did want one.
Naruto huffed, but he didn't argue. He just rested his chin on her shoulder and stayed silent. She smiled, realizing he was sulking. "In fact, I would be perfectly happy if you were the only person there, wearing nothing at all." she murmured. He froze, his arms tensing around her.
After a few seconds, he chuckled, his mood successfully lightened.
"Naruto?" she watched her husband askance.
She had left him alone with the twins just long enough to quickly run to the grocery store and buy the butter she had forgotten. She returned to see the babies sitting up, propped against pillows, as Naruto threw something white on Yukio's forehead every few seconds. At closer inspection, she realized they were tiny pieces of marshmallow.
"What are you doing?" she insisted.
"I'm trying to make him use his shield." the next piece hit him just above the eye. He blinked and gurgled, looking interested towards the marshmallow peppered around him, but not enough to try and reach out. Naruto threw a small piece on the middle of Yuraku's forehead, and the baby giggled in response, attempting to throw the toy in his hands towards Naruto. He failed to relinquish his grasp on the toy, and it just hit his own feet. "His shield doesn't seem to work, like yours did."
She pursed her lips. "My shield only protected me against lethal attacks before I was three. You're just annoying him." though to be fair, the only one who looked annoyed there was her.
Naruto frowned. "Really? How did people know it worked at all, then?" he asked suspiciously.
"You guessed it right." she replied with a sigh. Naruto's eyes flashed, then his smile became forced. "Stop wasting food. They're too young to eat sweets, too, and you know they put everything in their mouths." she chided him, using her sand to gather the small pieces of candy off the floor. At least he had the sense to throw something they wouldn't choke on.
Yukio was very interested in watching her swipe the marshmallow away, and both babies stared at her as she walked away. She still had to make lunch for Naruto and herself before feeding them.
Yuraku cooed at her back. "Yes, mom crashed our party and took away the fun." Naruto cooed at him. "What are we going to do now?"
It didn't take long at all until they were both laughing with Naruto on the floor.
"Any new information?" Gaara and Naruto sat on the meeting room with their full Kage ensemble on. She was a shadow clone, so their children weren't in the room. Several ninjas of the intelligence division of both Suna and Konoha sat around the table with them.
"No, Hokage-sama. We've found nothing." a Konoha ninja said in a monotonous tone.
"My ninjas found nothing, either." a Suna ninja added. "We're pretty certain there are Uzushio ninjas who survived the attack that night, or they wouldn't be hiding their secrets so well." Gaara steepled her fingers, watching them.
It had been little over five months since her sons were born – five months since Uzushio had attacked Konoha in an attempt to abduct her, and nearly killed Naruto and her in the process. They had believed all of the ninjas had been killed by Naruto and Kurama that night, but that didn't seem to be the case.
The dead could keep secrets well, but they couldn't cover their own tracks. As it was, any and all signs that there were ever resurgent Uzushio ninjas were completely gone. They seemed to have realized they couldn't underestimate Konoha.
"They're being cautious now." a Konoha kunoichi hissed low. "They made major mistakes twice. Next time they attack, we should be prepared for the attack to hit us hard."
"It's been five months." Naruto sighed. "Are they going to attack any time soon?"
"...No." Gaara said quietly. The attention of all ninjas in the room was on her, and Naruto was looking askance at her. "I don't think they'll attack any time soon."
"Why not?" Naruto asked with a frown.
"They were after you first, then they came after me while I was pregnant with your children. Both times their attempts were frustrated, because they underestimated our ability to fight against them." her eyes narrowed. "But they seem to be after someone of your blood, and our sons fit that requirement. I think, if they're patient and capable of waiting, then they're going to wait until they're old enough not to be under our constant supervision, but young enough that they can't fight back an attempt at abduction." Naruto's confused frown turned into a blank expression, but she could see the horror in his eyes.
"It doesn't make sense." Sasuke said with a frown. "My daughter's six, and she's an Uzumaki too. Neither I nor Karin obsess over her anywhere as much as you do over your children. She's been going to school on her own for a year now, and they've shown they're capable of infiltrating Konoha. Why haven't they tried to abduct her, if they want an easy target with Uzumaki blood?"
"I don't know." Gaara said quietly, uncomfortably.
"Karin didn't light up when that Raki guy used his sensing jutsu. Only my sons and I did. Whatever they want, probably only my family branch has it." Naruto told him with a grimace.
"She didn't?" Gaara asked sharply. Naruto looked surprised at her and slowly shook his head. She hissed as something that had been bothering her since the day she was attacked in Suna sank in. "His voice, his eyes, the feel of his chakra... I think that Raki is a living clone of yours, Naruto." everyone started around her. "He lights up at his own jutsu. He died that day, in Suna, yet he's still alive..."
"But if that guy is a clone of Naruto, and what they want is related to his blood, why are they even trying to kidnap him? They already obtained his DNA somehow, and they cloned him..." One of the Suna shinobi asked quietly.
No one around the table could answer that.
They left that meeting with more questions than answers, and a sense of impending danger to their family.