You were just waiting in baited breath for this weren't you? Oh I know I know. Ok maybe not but whatever. I wrote this while primarily listening to Modest Mouse... don't know if that explains anything but it might. You never know.
Chapter Two, coming at cha!
Disclaimer: I own nothinz!
The Barking Trickster
Chapter 2
Appearances can be Deceiving
'Wow, this is pretty warm' was Naruto Uzumaki's first thought as his mind came back to a conscious state.
'A little too warm…' was his second thought.
'Why can I barely move?' Was his third.
Naruto soon came to realize that, he was indeed trapped under something incredibly soft and warm. Now what this was, is up for grabs.
It felt like the sheets on his bed, but they were never this heavy.
So he wiggled and squirmed and fidgeted until he came to the very edge of the bed. He slipped out from under his sheets and instead of the resounding thud he had expect when he hit his wooden floors, he was instead treated to a solid 'thump'.
He stared curiously down at his floor, where a strange purple piece of clothing had softened his fall. Now, Naruto wasn't one who focused too much of his attention on cloths. He preferred orange and something comfortable. That was really it.
He did not own anything purple. That was for sure.
He picked up the object in question and found himself extremely confused. It looked like clothing… but it didn't look like it would fit anywhere on his body.
"Kinda looks like a giant sling shot… but with two places to put things? And man can it hold some big water balloons or something." He tossed the strange purple double sling shot to the side and took a cursory glance at his room.
What he found, he admitted, was unexpected.
His room was, for lack of a better word, overran by cloths. A pile half as tall as him covered his bed. Cloths of all shapes, sizes and colors littered his floor. It looked as if someone had thrown their hamper into his room with an explosive note in the very center.
"Uhhhhh…" He, once again, was no clothing aficionado, but it was clear to him that well over half this stuff wouldn't fit him and besides that, much of it was very… colorful. Naruto cursed his lacking vocabulary.
He spied something that looked like what he might wear, a pair of shorts just about his size. He leaned down to inspect them, perhaps they were his.
His arm stretched out, more on instinct than anything.
That's when he noticed it…
The markings... the tattoo. And it all came flashing back.
The home invasion. The brothers and Oko. The strange, if not a little friendly, fiery head. And….
The Kyuubi...
His body went into a noticeable slump.
He, as in him, the one and only Naruto Uzumaki, contained the Kyuubi no Kitsune.
He wasn't even sure what that meant. Did that mean that they had to kill it and seal away its body? Maybe they couldn't kill it… maybe…
He was the Kyuubi.
He stared down at his hands and half expected tails to shoot out of the base of his spine at any moment.
He furiously shook his head back and forth.
'No… no. I would know if I was a fifty foot tall fox.'
…'Right?'
"The kids awake." Naruto rounded on his door and found one of the coyotes from last night. Truok he believed. He looked wholly uncaring, but a little pity could be discerned by the observant. Pity for what reason was questionable.
"Oh snap, really!?" The now familiar voice of Te'telo shouted from his kitchen.
The excited coyote bounded over his brother and into the room.
"What's up, Ace?" The coyote was as non-chilante as physically possible it seemed. "Yea, yea hurry up. You gotta tell us how this 'stove' thingy works."
The coyote went behind him and began nudging him towards the door with his nose.
At this point, Naruto had had enough. He had been nice, friendly, and offered no small amount of patience.
His eyes narrows and his jaw clenched for a moment.
"Ok, wait wait wait!" He spun around till him and Te'telo's faces were right next to each other. Te'telo still seemed as calm as ever. The bastard stopped that grin atleast and now frowned curiously.
"You… you… "
"Coyotes."
"Coyotes! Whatever, you just think I'm gonna find out I 'contain' "He made the quotation marks with his hands. "The freakin' Kyuubi and… and…
"Just get over it?"
"YEA!"
Te'telo's expression changed to one of thought before it changed to pity.
"Man, I'm so sorry. I know it's gotta be pretty rough…"
"Damn right it is! I mean-"
"And not to mention embarrassing."
"You're telli- wait what?" Naruto's face scrunched up in confusion. He thought he knew what embarrassing meant.
"Yea, it's gotta suck." The coyote grinned as if he had just heard a piece of personal info best left unsaid. "Of all the Bijuu, you get the fox that might as well be a bitch with all its whining."
The air found some new space between Naruto's jaw and the roof of his mouth. Te'telo shook his slowly head while he sighed.
A paw reached up and patted Naruto on his shoulder.
"Don't worry, we won't rag on you for it." He then nudged Naruto again towards the door. "But don't expect too much pity, now hop to it Ace. I've heard some good stuff about these 'pancake' things."
Naruto was now in a dilemma. While he wasn't the brightest person, he could surmise from that little interaction that he contained the Kyuubi and wasn't the Kyuubi. Now the problem was thus, are his ears working right?
Did he really just hear that coyote, Te'telo he reminded himself, say he should be embarrassed for getting the 'whiney bijuu'. This required in-depth investigation.
As he entered his connected kitchen/living room, he took notice of yet another Coyote staring intensely at something in his fridge. This one was a bit stranger though, as he had markings trailing down his entire body. They looked somewhat similar to his strange new tattoo.
He reached up and flipped the knob on his stove and a small blue fire sprang to life on one of the burners. He didn't even react to Te'telo's cheers of excitement.
He reached and gripped the handle of his fridge.
When he opened his fridge all the way, he found that the strange new coyote was staring at a half-empty carton of orange juice.
"Ummm…" the strange coyote turned to him. "Who are you and what are you doing?"
The coyote made a face as if Naruto had asked the stupidest question in the world. Well, Naruto assumed that was the face the coyote was making. He wasn't very good at reading coyote faces.
"Boy, joo know me," Naruto took a step back. The thing spoke just like that baboon, Oko. His voice was a little off though, deeper and a little more gravelly. "And dis ding righ' here says 'concentrate' and I am."
He turned back to the orange juice, his face the picture of 'concentration'
Naruto didn't often feel like the smartest person in a room, or sanest for that matter. The saying "There was a first time for everything" made much more sense, between one coyote wondering how to make pancakes and another staring at orange juice.
"Yea…" He heard a sigh from his couch. On it sat Truok. Naruto decided to huddle towards the, so far, most normal Coyote he had met.
He sat down beside the coyote whose half-lidded eyes turned to him.
"I know what you're thinking… and yes…" Naruto blinked confusedly. "They are that crazy." Another sigh.
Naruto looked exasperated at that moment. "I'm pretty…"
"Confused?"
"You guys gotta stop doing that!"
"Sorry sorry." The coyote held up a paw in an appeasing manner.
"Soo…?" Naruto offered Truok the stage for continuing.
"Yea, you gotta be feeling pretty out of it and confused right now."
Naruto could only nod.
"Probably wondering why Te'telo referred to the Kyuubi as a whiney bitch?"
Naruto could, once again, only nod.
"And why there are cloths all around your bedroom?"
Naruto was getting pretty good at nodding.
"And that's not even mentioning why an animal that sounds like someone complete different from last night is 'concentrating' on your orange juice."
Naruto's nodding skills reached a new pinnacle. When it comes to nodding anyways.
"Welcome to my life."
They both let out sighs just as Te'telo screamed in rage as he figured out he needed batter to make pancakes.
"So what cha wanna know?" The-thing-that-sounded-like-Oko-but-wasn't asked.
"Well…" Naruto searched for the right one to ask first. "Who are you?"
Once again, the face as if asked the stupidest question in the world.
"Joo ain't very bright up der are ya?"
Naruto's eye brow twitched visibly.
"That's Oko, ace. You know, the baboon from last night?"
Naruto looked dumbfounded for a second before hesitantly forming a question.
"But if he was a baboon last night, how is he a coyote today?"
"Oh…" The two coyotes looked at each other before grinning sheepishly. The other could only sigh.
"We forgot to mention a little skill of ours." Te'telo smiled apologetically as he leapt towards Naruto's table but instead of the big coyote breaking his table like he expected, a small black cat landed on it.
Naruto blinked once. Twice. Three times. He rubbed his eyes and blinked again for good measure.
"Did… did…?"
"Yea, it's pretty sweet. Just wait till you get the hang of it!" The cat then attempted to grin, but it's not something a cat should ever do.
"Wait…" Naruto reached up and rubbed his ears. "Did you say, when I get the hang of it?"
"Yea man, you think a coyote summoner wouldn't be able to transform?"
"I can…" Naruto scratched his head. This was all just a bit too much. "Wait, summoner?"
"What, did you think we get out kicks out of tattooing small children? Though I suppose some older people of the feminine variety would be fun." Te'telo followed this with a perverse giggle.
"So…" Naruto's brain filed in the information into the correct slots which allowed him to say, "I can summon talking, shapeshifting coyotes?"
Te'telo and Oko nodded while Truok shrugged an affirmative.
"That about sums it up, Ace."
"And I can transform too? Into anything?"
"Pretty much anything…"
"That…is… AWESOME!"
"Hell yea it is!" Te'telo shot a righteous kitty fist up into the air.
"So, how do I do it?"
Te'telo assumed what could be called the kitty version of a lecturing posture but he was cut off before he began.
Oko looked strangely formal as he held up a paw, silencing Te'telo.
"Na, na. Dere will be time for dat later. Right now, I'd say da bruddas are almost outta time." He motioned to both of them.
Te'telo centered his view on Naruto while Truok shrugged.
"What?" he asked after a moment of intense staring from Te'telo.
"Well, are you gonna keep us here or what?"
Not sure how to respond Naruto could only stare dumbly.
"I don't particularly care. I'm up for going home anyways." Truok let out a small yawn.
"Well, I figured I would hang around!" Te'telo said matter of factly and still looked at Naruto.
"Well what do you want me to do?" said a confused Naruto. He didn't like being expected to do something and have no idea what exactly it was.
"Come 'ere boy." A moment later, Oko had placed his paw in Naruto's hand.
Naruto felt a strange ripple go through the tattoo and his arm. The tattoo flashed a strange deep red for a second before settling back into black.
A tugging sensation followed. It wasn't as if he was being tugged around by a leash or something, but as if someone was lightly pulling a string he had wrapped around his arm.
It tugging straight towards Te'telo. He then noticed that he felt two more tugging sensations, both of them much more muted. They pointed directly towards Oko and Truok, who was stretching and gazing out the window, almost as if saying bye to Konoha.
"Whoa…"
"Ja, ja. Ya get use to dat." Oko nodded sagely. "Ya pretty much know where any coyot' is, even if deys not usin' yo mojo."
"Mojo?"
"Ja, ja. Ya use da mojo to summon de coyot's and do da fancy tricks joo humans love. And I tell ya, joo got alotta mojo, wid da prissy little fox in ya and all."
Naruto instantly remembered what Kunula, who he realized must be extremely important, had said the night before.
"Why don't you guys like the Kyuubi." Naruto then realized that his question was rather stupid in actuality. The Kyuubi was a rampaging fox that massacred villages. "I mean…"
Truok snorted from the side. "Short story? The coyotes are what the Kyuubi hates most in all of existence. Doesn't help that we, Kunula-sama mostly, embarrassed him on several occasions, and on all of them he threw a hissy fit of massive proportions afterwards."
Naruto, as he had become accustomed to, was dumbfounded.
"The Kyuubi… " He tried to wrap his head around the idea. "Threw a hissy fit?"
Three nods.
"And… you're alive?"
Three nods.
"…I'm not sure I want to know how."
"Bijuu's can't travel to the summoning realm anymore." Truok shrugged as he said so. His eyes widened for a moment.
He turned, waving his paw for a second. "Well, I'll see you guys later. Good luck, kid. Don't let Te'telo get you killed."
"Later br… wait! I take offense to that!" Te'telo's message had just a moment to register before Truok grinned and poofed away into smoke. He huffed and curled around his self. Betrayal in the family was hard to take.
Naruto cocked his head to the side.
'He disappeared in smoke? This stuff gets weirder and weirder…'
"Don't worry ace, I got your back. My bro doesn't know what he is talking about. Who do you think hooked you up with all that awesome clothing anyways?" He began mumbling under his breath about "lazy bastard brothers".
Naruto deadpanned, "About that…"
"Yea yea, I threw in a few things for your own personal enjoyment." He wiggled his eyebrows comically.
"Huh?" Six year old, meet perverted joke. Perverted joke, go ahead right over his head as usual.
"Errr…" Te'telo seemed honestly confused that the boy didn't get his meaning. He even wagged his eyebrows!
"Da boys a bit young for dat 'telo."
"Oh…" Te'telo seemed rather put off by this revelation.
"Young for what?"
"Errr… nothing! You got some new sets of cloths anyways, so it's cool."
Naruto felt his eye brow twitch. "You must be colorblind or something, nearly everything in there is purple or some other crazy color. There is hardly any orange!"
"Coyotes are colorblind." Te'telo deadpanned. "Besides, you need cloths with longer sleeves anyways."
Naruto who was blushing from his small blunder scratched the back of his head.
"Why?"
"To hide the tattoo and the seal, come on Ace think about these things!" Te'telo urged as if it was clearly obvious.
"Speakin' of da seal."
Naruto turned to Oko who was slowly making his way to his 'walik', which lay draped gently across the back of his couch.
"We best to get it done, before joo try any of da shifting."
Naruto lay, spread eagle, on his now clear kitchen floor. He wasn't totally sure how he should feel at the moment.
One, he had been trying to pry the reason the Kyuubi hates Kunula and the Coyotes from Te'telo for most of the time and with little results.
Oko had warned him against "taintin' da virgin minds" and then mentioned something about how it would upset Kunula.
Te'telo suddenly whole heartily agreed to not mention anything about the Kyuubi/Kunula relationship. Naruto wasn't exactly sure what 'virgin' meant but it must be important.
Another strange little thing was that a man was currently making strange markings on his skin and on the floor around him as well.
The form that Oko seemed to like was very… interesting. A loincloth wearing, dark skinned and heavily tattooed form. He also had a bone in his beard, twisted around into a knot.
The last strange point was that the markings were being made with a mixture of a strange ink substance and his blood. Now Naruto wasn't squeamish, but anything involving him cutting his arm and then having his own blood painted on him could never end pleasantly.
The seal also began at his heart and centered around it, which was also another unpleasant sign.
It became clear that it was necessary though… but Naruto couldn't help but wonder…
"Why?"
"Huh?"
"Why do I need this seal thingy?"
"Well, boy." The loinclothed man paused for a second and scratched his chin for a moment. "Well…" He set back to work.
"Dis seal here, it had to be made afta we had a few summoners. Ya see, joo humans ain't suppose to transform. It was ok when ya just change joo a little but…"
He let out a hesitant little giggle.
"When dey really started changin' alot, dey lost dere head little by little till… well…"
"Well… well what?!" Naruto didn't have fond feelings about becoming a head-case.
"Well, dey kinda started believing dey were da animal."
"Oh…" Naruto's nervousness was on the rise. "But what does this seal do to stop that?"
"It acts like an anchor da holds a part of ya spirit to ya human mind. It let's ya be sane and change as much as you wan'." Oko started tracing a large circle around Naruto with the paint.
"But its kinda strange, it tends to… "Oko searched for the right word. "Change." He settled on with a nod.
Oko waved away Naruto's questioning look with a wave of his hand.
"Joo will see when it be done."
He finished the circle and backed up to admire his handy work.
He slowly walked around his creation and observed each piece individually. Naruto realized that there was much more to the shape shifter infront of him than meets the eye.
"So…" Te'telo began from a position projecting his boredom. He had assumed his coyote form some time ago it appeared."Will it hurt him?"
"Hm." Oko crouched down and seemed to correct a small line. "I don' really rememba. I guess we will see."
"Wait!" Naruto cried out in indignation. "What do you mean joo don' really rememba?"
Oko calmly ignored him as he stood back once again and after a moment nodded.
"Ja, ja. Dis looks good." He clapped his hands together but instead of bringing them apart he began rubbing them together.
"Hey, Oko wait a second…" Naruto gulped loudly.
Oko showed no signs of stopping as he slammed his hands down on the seal and Naruto could only seize up as the seal seemed to… twist.
It flashed for a second, a dark red. The color of blood almost.
It twisted around one way, before twisting another. It seemed to work like a lock as crazy as that seemed.
With each twist, another small flash of light.
Soon, with each twist, the seal began making its way across the floor and towards the center. Right above Naruto's heart.
It finally stopped just before it all reach Naruto, pausing. It flashed once more, brighter than before, and surged forward to come directly over Naruto's heart. It looked like some strange tribal symbols that was made in layers.
A noticeable whisp of smoke rose off the seal before it once again twisted, but this time it moved fluidly with the turning motion. It twisted until it covered his entire left pectoral muscle.
"Hmmm…" Oko said with a little reverie. "Da boys gotta lot of spirit and da mojo." The man let out a little cackle.
"Joo know, Te'telo. Dis boy will be fun." He said as he slapped the coyote on his back. "I feel it in my bones."
Te'telo just grinned.
And Naruto just sat up wondering if he was going to end up with strange markings all over his body.
"So, what happens now?" Naruto asked as he turned to his two friends/summons.
Te'telo let a grin spread across his face.
"The real fun begins now, Ace."
Yamada Fukui was, with his slicked black hair, having a good day.
Yamada was, at a first glance, a well mannered, average store owner. Many people were perfectly fine with that first glance as well as they entered his large buzzing flower shop. Yamada's scents wafted across the entire neighborhood and even the most hardened of Shinobi didn't mind a sweet smelling place to live.
One of the reasons his day was so good was his newest cashier, a petite classic girl next door. He let a leer spread across his face as he watched her from behind, his head slowly drifting sideways to get a better look around the door way that separated the back room and the main shop.
She would be a stone cold fox in a few years, no doubt in his mind.
He had unanimously decided that this was one of the better decisions he has made lately. His patented self assured smirk was donned as he straightened his collar a little and made his way up behind the girl.
Yamada went for the gentle, caring boss routine as he made way for his hand to rest on her hip, but his plan hit a small snag. The phone rang and the girl answered in her cutesy little voice. She quickly turned to yell into the back room but jumped slightly in surprise to find her boss right behind her.
"F-Fukui-dono, it's your wife." The girl had such an innocent voice too! He smiled gently before taking the phone and turning. He let a small sigh escape his lips before putting the phone to his face.
"Yes honey?"
Loud sounds.
"I know honey.
More loud sounds.
"Yes, yes. I don't mind at all." He slowly turned, taking in the view of his shop as he focused on his wife's voice. At first that is.
A man had just entered his shop. He wouldn't be much different than anyone else in the store at the time if not for the fact that the man's trench coat was just a little big for him.
"Umm… honey, darling. I-I gotta go." His wife's outraged voice didn't register as he slammed the phone down, staring intently at the approaching man. The man was well kept and looked the picture of an average, if a bit handsome, fellow looking for a few flowers for his wife or lover.
Fukui somehow knew that the man went for that exact image.
"Why, hello there Fukui-san."
"Oh… umm." Fukui pulled at his collar. "I-I wasn't expecting you so early."
"Well, you know how the old saying goes…" the man let out a hollow chuckle that was nearly contradictory to his appearance. It didn't help that it made the cashier and the customer she was working with shift away from the man slightly.
"Oh yes. Quite. I believe I have your…" Fukui fiddled with his fingers for a moment. "Order?"
The trench coat man nodded.
"Yes, your order is in the back."
Yamada set his hand on the new cashier's shoulder as the man made his way into the back room. "Would you be a dear and keep an eye on the shop as I deal with one of our valued customers?" The girl blinked cutely for a second before nodding her head. He squeezed her shoulder and smiled a smile that was a little too forced.
Yamada shut the door with a bit more force than necessary.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Yamada's voice was angry but low.
"Why Fukui-san, I am just here to get the order." The man had a casual air around him as he waved his hand vaguely as he spoke.
"Yes, I know that but in broad fucking daylight?" Yamada produced a plastic bottle and popped the cap off. He threw his head back and with a noticeable gulp calmed down considerably.
"Now, now Fukui-san aren't you the one who thought the flower shop would be the perfect co-" He twisted his head around as a loud scream was heard through the door. Not one of terror or even surprise.
But of disgust.
Both men startled, made towards the door way.
Fukui wrenched the door open and found all of his customers and employee's fleeing.
"What the hell?" was his only remark as his store was vacated to the last person.
Then it hit them.
It was a smell, overpowering and encompassing. It seemed to etch itself into their nasal passages and overload them, short circuiting and frying them.
It was the most horrible scent either had ever had the privilege to smell. It was familiar though. Far too familiar.
It held a tinge of the familiar smell of a rotting corpse.
"Fukui!" The man yelled as he covered his nose with his coat. This was not good, if a ninja came to investigate…
"I had nothing to do with this!"
"Hmmmm. That was…" A small hooded figure mumbled. A pair of binoculars extended from under his hood as he lay across the top of a building.
He had them zeroed in on the entrance of a shop that people seemed to be fleeing out of.
"…Unexpected."
He jumped to his feet and the hood twisted around, indicating the short figure was looking for any witnesses. Satisfied with his search, he quickly slid down a drainage pipe and into an alley.
He checked his surroundings again before throwing his hood back, revealing shockingly red hair tied up in a knot on top.
"Oh well, serves him right I guess."
The boy sprinted off, not knowing he had just narrowly avoid a stomach-wrenching smell that was slowly seeping into the neighborhood.
The red head laid himself across a coach and dumped his binoculars on the floor infront of him.
He let loose a yawn as his features seemed to… shift. His hair slowly settling into a rich blonde as it also shortened to the point where the knot just fell apart and into random spikes no less. Three pairs of whisker marks sprawled their way across his face as his irises took on a deeper shade of blue.
Naruto Uzumaki let his eyes droop.
"Wakey wakey, eggs and bacey!" Naruto shot up from his sleep and rounded on the only other occupant of the room.
"Damnit 'telo!" The coyote grinned at the boy's outburst
"What? No thanks for the hard worker? And watch the language young man!" He wagged his paw, mockingly.
"Yea, thanks for overdoing it."
"Ok ok, I can admit that was a bit of an accident."
Naruto cocked his head to the side. Te'telo it had became apparent, was a prodigy of shape shifting. For him to just mess up was rare.
"What happened?"
"Well, I finally decided on a smell and…."
"And…?"
"I kinda went with rotting corpse." Naruto cringed. It made a little sense now.
"That explains them all freaking out that badly but where'd you mess up?"
"I didn't mess up! I just… over did it." Te'telo grinned sheepishly.
"How much?"
"Let's just say that that neighborhood should be avoided for a few years."
"That's a bit much!"
"Well, I'd like to see you try to transform into a flower with a tailor-made scent!"
Naruto's face became void of emotion.
"You bastard…" a deadpan response.
Naruto had discovered something.
Shapeshifting was hard.
It was awesome of course but that didn't make it any easier.
He had been going at it for a year and he could only change into any male human form and that of a coyote.
It was a rule of sorts for any shape shifter, that you had to understand what you were changing into. You didn't just go "I want to be a rabbit" and BAM! Rabbit.
No.
You had to understand the rabbit, watch it and learn about it. Te'telo said once he got his first animal, the other would fall into place. This was something to look forward to atleast.
Most animals were driven by one or two things and weren't that different as a whole. If he understood this, their form was in his grasp.
Coyote and Humans were the exception in this case, as he was one already and he got the other for free… sort of.
Now females, that was a whole different bag of tricks that Te'telo didn't even try and go into. He simple said "You'll get it sooner or later" and left it at that.
Te'telo tried to explain the mechanics of shape shifting once. It wasn't about changing your appearance or even your body. It was about changing your spirit or very essence. You change your spirit and your body follows. It was all very confusing and left Naruto nursing a head ache.
The less said about changing into plants and inanimate objects, the better. Then there was the oh so fun dilemma of size and clothing…
"-RUTO! NARUTO!"
"Huh?" Naruto snapped from his recollection of all he knew about shape shifting.
Te'telo stared at him impatiently.
"Way to zone out there, Ace!" Naruto had the decency to look embarrassed.
"Sorry 'telo. What were you saying?"
"I was just telling you the best part."
Naruto had the strange urge the flick his ears in curiosity, a side effect of spending too much time as a coyote romping around the Forest of Death.
"Yea, it seems after that whole Uchiha thing..." Naruto blanched for a second recalling all that stuff that went down a few months ago. "You're village has gotten a little paranoid."
"What happened?"
"Seems that the fella that we pranked had a, shall we say, less than legal business." Te'telo cracked a grin and let Naruto fill in the blanks.
"So, ninjas showed up?"
"Yep and one look at the back room and they busted the guy."
Naruto cocked his head to the side in thought. He shrugged.
"Serves him right for that crap a week ago."
"Little vengeful aren't we?"
"As if coyotes are any better!"
"They grow up so fast!" Te'telo shifted into the form of a middle aged housewife with an apron on. It looked like an older version of Ayame, the ramen girl, after Naruto took a better look.
"Next thing you know he'll be all grown up and starting his own harem." The Te'telo-turned-housewife dabbed her eyes with her apron before bursting into full blown crocodile tears.
Naruto sighed as his over dramatic friend/teacher/summon went into a full, more than likely planned out, routine.
He blinked and opened his mouth slightly in confusion.
"What'sa harem?" He questioned out loud to nobody in particular.
"Kiba…"
"Mom…"
"You didn't do anything stupid today did you?"
"Mom!"
"Hey, hey just making sure!" Tsume Inuzuka held her hands up and grinned.
"Yea but… YougottagotalktoIruka-sensei!" Kiba spat out the words at incredible speed and tore out of the Academy's yard.
Tsume sighed as she palmed her face.
"It's always something…"
"That's what you get with giving him free reign." Her partner mumbled from her left.
"Like you put any effort into disciplining the pups, Kuromaru." The dog shrugged before turning back to the Academy that the oldest of Tsume's children had just exited with her triplets.
Hana, who would be graduating this year, ran up to the duo and began tugging on Tsume's vest until the woman paid her full attention.
"What is it Hana?" Tsume quirked an eyebrow.
"I did what you told me to." Tsume nodded in response, with a little pride.
It was a training exercise of sorts for young Inuzuka, just beginning to master their tracking skills, to commit as many people's smell to memory. It wasn't unusual for an Inuzuka to know the exact smell of many people that they had graduated with.
"And?"
"Some people smell really strange." Tsume shrugged, it wasn't that unusual. Some people didn't bathe and others bathed too much.
"That's not that unusual." Tsume patted her girl on the head and slowly began to meander to the door, to see exactly what Kiba had done.
"I know, I know! But… one guy…." Tsume froze in a cringe.
'Don't tell me she found a scent she likes already! She's barely even hit puberty! Anything but the birds and the bees!'
The Inuzuka clan as a whole was more passionate than the average person and it was almost common place for a young one to find a particular scent they liked and become attached to that person. This often caused trouble though. If the person rejected the Inuzuka or, even worse, encouraged… well… it could end up pretty ugly.
She slowly turned to her daughter who seemed preoccupied at looking in one direction. She followed her daughters gaze and she found it on a boy being scolded by one of the teachers. A boy in orange.
'Oh fuck me sideways…' was Tsume's first thought. While the Inuzuka didn't harbor any ill-will towards the Kyuubi container, there was a little problem with Hana chasing after him. The boy was far too young and Tsume was sure he had no clue about anything regarding females. This couldn't end well for Hana.
"That kid. He smells really weird." Hana pointed straight at the boy and then turned to her mother for an explanation.
'Then again, it could just be the Kyuubi she's smelling…' The Kyuubi screwed up most things. She turned to her partner who was staring intensely at the boy.
Kuromaru, the lazy patriarch of the Inuzuka dog's of war, walked up to Naruto Uzumaki, the container of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Tsume could only watch in fascination as the dog dismissed the teacher with a snarling growl and struck up a conversation with the boy.
Most people reacted weirdly to talking dogs, some stared and others even freaked out.
The boy was weirder though. He seemed… relaxed. Far too at ease speaking with a dog. Like an Inuzuka.
Kuromaru seemed to say something confusing or perhaps ask a question, as Naruto scratched the back of his head.
The boy shrugged before fishing out a small blunt practice kunai and holding it out to the eye-patched dog. He took it in his mouth and nodded in thanks to the boy, who shrugged again and sprinted off.
"Now what exactly was that about?" Mother, daughter and three dogs looked at Kuromaru expectantly as he neared them.
"Take dis." He said between his teeth. Tsume immediately did. "And smell it."
Tsume arched a brow but raised the harmless weapon to her nose anyway. Getting past the kunai's original smell, Tsume found the kid smelled of ramen, forest and… animals?
No that couldn't be right.
Inuzuka's smelled like dogs and if one spent enough time around a certain pet or summon they could smell like it. But no one just smelled like animals.
Tsume, using skills honed with the decades, broke apart the single scent. Dissecting it in a way that would leave many surgeons glaring with envy. What she found was, to quote her daughter, "strange".
At its basis, the kid's scent seemed like it couldn't decide what it was. It would change a little, leaning towards one scent but then do a flip and land on another. The most prevalent though appeared (or smelled) to be fox and… dog? No.
Not really dog, but close. Similar but wilder in a way. Almost excited or… bouncy. If that made any sense at all.
She couldn't discern much more than that without smelling the kid himself.
She pulled the kunai out from under her nose and took a good look at it.
"And that is in the top ten of the weirdest scents I have ever smelled." Kuromaru nodded solemnly. That was a lot coming from Kuromaru, whose senses were of legendary caliber and had seen more of the Elemental Countries than some ANBU squads could claim.
"We can agree there." Tsume looked down at her partner. "You think it's…?" Her implied meaning was apparent to Kuromaru and no one else.
"I'm not sure. Possible…" He gritted his teeth in thought before shrugging. "Keep an eye on him I say."
He turned to Hana. "Don't worry too much about it."
Hana's narrowed eyes looked between her mother and Kuromaru.
"There's something you're not telling me isn't there." A statement, not a question.
Tsume smiled and patted her daughter on the head, ruffling her hair.
"So?" Tsume questioned back. Hana snarled slightly and strode away, her small pack of triplets in tow.
As Tsume watched her eldest stalk off, she couldn't help but wonder….
"You don't think she's gonna try and get to the bottom of this do you?"
"I wouldn't mind finding out myself…" he said with a thoughtful expression.
"Kuromaru…"
The dog turned to his partner to find her twirling a kunai and her face graced with a sickeningly sweet smile.
"Don't go encouraging my daughter to stalk a boy, pretty please." She pouted slightly after. The dog could only back away hesitantly, causing the women to let loose a bark like laugh.
Never let it be said that Tsume Inuzuka didn't know how to push her partner's buttons.
AN:
And there is that. 6kish words. I'm planning on more, shorter chapters.
First of all, I am assuming Hana is around 5-6 years older than Naruto and Kiba. This would leave her around 18-19 for the start of Canon. Don't go assuming this is the start of a pairing or anything.