Hi everyone!
I got another chapter out pretty quickly, and it's the longest one so far. It's a lot of talking but I promise the next couple of chapters will have more action!
I hope you guys like this story so far! It's about to get more interesting, well, in my opinion it is. Let me know what you think please. And if you see any glaring mistakes please let me know.
The wind was unusually strong that day. It whipped through the tall buildings lining each street. Fallen leaves and free trash tumbled across the ground. People were hunched over trying to force their way through the offending breeze. Chōchō held onto her groceries as though she were a protective mother shielding her precious children.
Sarada walked alongside her friend with her arms clasped behind her back. "My mom won't tell me anything about the girl. I mean she was in the hospital a couple of days ago and now she is just gone. They aren't telling us something." Sarada paused to see what her friend thought of the issue. But when Sarada turned to her plump friend she saw that Chōchō was not paying her any attention. Sarada sighed in frustration. "You're just like Bolt."
"What?" Chōchō exclaimed finally hearing something her friend had said.
Sarada cooled her temper with a deep breath. Being an deep feeling Uchiha with an overly emotional mother meant that she would be battling to keep control of her own emotions for the rest of her life.
She started again, "This girl, this mysterious girl that no one knows, just shows up during the attack, and now she is gone. And no one will tell me anything. Not mom, not Aunt Ino, not the 6th, no one!" Sarada swung her hands about to emphasize her point. She looked at her friend and the bags she was carrying. "You sure you don't want me to help you carry that?"
"I've got it." Chōchō answered as she adjusted her grip on the brown paper bags. In truth, she thought her friend was too distracted to be trusted with such a task.
Sarada just shrugged and continued her previous train of thought as they turned down another street that led to the Akimichi household, "I mean it's just weird. It's like they are pretending like she doesn't exist. Mom keeps leaving randomly. Inojin says his mom has been working more than usual lately. I know they must be doing something with her."
Chōchō let the other kunoichi work through her own thoughts. Whenever Sarada got worked up over something it was always best to let her smooth her thoughts out before trying to interfere. Soon enough Chōchō saw just that come to fruition as Sarada's face reflected her inner emotions.
"Do you think I should try to find her?" Sarada asked, though she was still deep in thought.
"No." Chōchō answered quickly. "No. I've been dragged into your other adventures and it never means anything good. So, no, let the grownups handle this one. Your mom will tell you whats up when she thinks it's time." Chōchō advised, for once being the voice of reason between the two.
"I know but shouldn't they-"
"How's Bolt?" Chōchō interjected, quickly changing the topic.
"What?" Sarada asked slightly taken off balance by the question.
The two girls stopped and looked at each other for a second, each one trying to size the other one up. Sarada's dark eyes watched her friend wondering just how much the other ninja actually knew. After all she had been so careful.
"You two have been training a lot together. I was just wondering how that was going." Chōchō accused with a lilt of aloofness to her voice. She started towards her home again and Sarada followed her lead. It had worked before and it was working now. For some reason the glasses wearing kunoichi got defensive each time the blond haired, whisker bearing son of the hokage was brought up.
Sarada lifted an eyebrow before answering simply, "We're on the same team. It makes sense for us to train so much together. Plus the Uchiha and Uzumaki families have always been close. Just like Ino-Shika-Cho."
"Oh, I guess you're right. We just don't spend as much time training as you guys do. You're pretty dedicated." Chōchō clucked smugly. The girls stopped in front of Chōchō home.
Sarada smirked, "Well, you're not dealing with an idiot like I am." And then she turned on her heel and walked away.
Bolt shuddered in his father's office. He didn't feel cold but something had worked it's way down his spine. He shook himself to be rid of the feeling. He then turned to his father bent over stacks of paper, "So are you going to tell me?"
Naruto continued scribbling something nearly illegible on the page as he asked, "Tell you what, Bolt?" Naruto took the crisp page and handed to a shinobi in a mask. In a flash the masked man was gone.
Bolt tried not to get too irritated at his father. After all the man was working and Bolt needed to be patient. "About mom, why does Aunt Hinabi want to see her?"
Naruto stopped for a second and leaned back in his leather chair. He looked up at the ceiling as though some answer would be written up there. A bandaged hand came up to support the Hokage's chin. It was a posture Bolt had seen his father hold a thousand times before. It was Naruto's thinking pose.
"Hmmm, I'm not sure. But if it was really important I think Hanabi would invite me as well." Naruto decided satisfied with his answer. He turned back to the pile of work waiting for him on his desk. Bolt, however, was not satisfied.
"Well, if you had to take a wild guess what do you think she wants? I mean, it wasn't an invitation, it was a summons!" Bolt exclaimed gesturing wildly. The Hokage's son wondered how his father could take such little interest in this.
Naruto finally looked at his son. "If it's important your mother and I will handle it. But I assume it is some sort of Hyuga business that Hanabi doesn't think I need to know about." Naruto saw his son was still not pleased so he added, "Why don't you ask your mother if you're so worried."
Bolt knew his father was done with the conversation. The 7th had already worked things out in his own mind so there was no use still worrying about it. So Bolt decided to drop it. And bring up another topic of interested instead. Not that he was interested, just his 'kinda' girlfriend.
"So what about this new girl?" Bolt asked leaning against his father's desk. The old desk which had served many Hokages was covered in papers and scrolls, laptops and phones, ramen cups and drinks. Bolt resigned to keep his desk in neat order when he took the mantle in his father's place.
Naruto stopped his work again and looked at his son in an accusing way, "What about the new girl?"
Bolt blinked in confusion at his father's reaction. "Well…" he started, "Who is she? Is she the bad guy? Where does she come from? What's her favorite color?"
Naruto laughed at the last bit and relaxed. "We're not too sure yet son. She seems like she is pretty confused about things. We're trying to help her work things out."
"So where is she?" Bolt asked.
"In good hands." His father responded vaguely.
"Are you going to tell me anything or am I being led by the nose here?"
"Led by the nose, huh? You're starting to sound like your mother."
"And that's still not an answer." Bolt retorted.
A moment of silence passed between the Uzumaki men. Naruto didn't want to say too much about the mysterious pink haired girl until he figured out just who she was, or better yet, who she thought she was. There was no need to pull in anyone else until Ino got some answers. Bolt, on the other hand, watched his father debating what should and shouldn't be shared.
Naruto leaned towards his son and perked a single golden eyebrow. "Why are you so interested in her, she your type or something?"
Bolt instantly colored to his ears. He jumped away from his father's desk and yelled, "No!"
"I don't know…" Naruto murmered leaning back again, "You never take this much interest in other things."
"Stuff like this doesn't usually happen!" Bolt fought back.
"You've just started asking a lot of questions all of the sudden. You sure you're not-" but the seventh hokage was cut off.
"No! I'm not." Bolt interjected. "And I was... asking for someone else." But even that sounded lame to his own ears.
"Oh, I see, asking for someone else." Naruto picked up a stack of documents and started to stack them in a neat order against the desk. "Well, then, that makes sense."
Bolt just growled in frustration. His father knew exactly what buttons to push. Bolt stomped over to the door and pulled it open with a huff, "She's not even my type, stupid old man!" And then the young man slammed the door behind him. Even through the shut door Bolt could hear his father's chuckling. His ears burned even more but he muttered, "I don't need help in that department." I think.
"You're finally here." Ino said sarcastically to her best friend.
"It's so windy out there! People are being blown about the city. I stopped to help someone right their stall. There were all these sweet buns rolling about the street." Sakura recalled motioning in the air. Hanging at her side was a bag of said sweet buns. "The old woman gave me some if you want any."
Ino gave the bag a snide look, "Were those the ones on the ground?"
Sakura just dropped the bag to her side and looked at her friend exasperated. "Yes, Ino, these are the buns that were rolling through the street." Sakura answered just as sarcastic as her friend. "If you don't want any that's fine, Sarada will like them. You know, she always tries to say she doesn't like sweets like her father, but I always catch her with something sweet after dinner."
Ino just laughed, "Inojin is the same way! He gives his father such a tough time about his 'old school' drawing style, but I've caught him trying to emulate his father's paintings late at night before. Kids man, who knew they were such complex creatures?"
"Where we this finicky when we were kids?" Sakura asked.
"Of course not!"
Both women started to chuckle. Sakura quickly sobered up first though. "I know you have news but so do I."
"You are related to her." Ino guessed.
"I am." Sakura answered. She paused for only a moment before adding, "And so is Naruto."
"So you did check…" Ino trailed off.
Sakura sighed and finally took a seat across from her life-long friend. "I did. There was no reason not to. That girl in there is… is…" Sakura couldn't find the right word.
"Your daughter." Ino offered.
"No!" Sakura blurted, "I mean, no. I have one daughter, Sarada. I don't know this person."
"So you and Naruto never… you know." Ino made an obscene motion with her hands.
"No! Ino!" Sakura blurted getting angry.
"Okay, okay. Just had to be asked. Now we know. We can cross that off the list of possible answers." Ino reasoned trying to do damage control.
"You're getting as blunt as your husband!" Sakura accused.
Ino shrugged and then placed a hand on her friend's knee. "Now we just need to figure this out. We're all going to get to the bottom of this."
Sakura took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. It was amazing that her rival could still get under her skin like that. "And your news?" Sakura inquired trying to move on.
Ino widened her eyes like she always did when she had good gossip. She turned in her swivel chair and grabbed something off of her desk. When she turned back to Sakura she held a recorder in her hands. "I recorded my discussion with Hanami earlier. Listen to this." Ino pressed the red play button on the front of the machine.
"So you say Sakura is your mother and Naruto is your father. But they don't remember you." Ino's voice came over the recorder.
"That's because they are my parents! If you just tell them to come see me!" The young girl's voice sounded distressed. "I don't know why they don't remember me. Something strange is going on!"
Footsteps on a cold cement ground rang out as sharp notes.
. Click. Click.
"You want to see your parents, that's it right? Then you have to give me more information." Ino bargened. "What was that chakra box? Why were you there during the attack? How did you know how to fight it? We need answers!"
The sound of sniffling could be heard. "I don't know. My brother knew more than I did. I just did what he said. He -"
The girl was cut off, "Brother?" Ino asked shocked. "You have a brother?"
"Yes! I've been trying to find him! But I can't sense him." Another large sob. "I just want to find my family, please Aunt Ino, help me."
That's when Ino stopped the tape recorder.
Sakura stared at the offending machine. "There are two of them…" Sakura finally muttered.
Ino placed the machine back on her desk. "It seems so. I know I said I would wait to tell Naruto what's going on but if there is another one of them out there he has to know. We don't know what kind of threat these kids are."
Sakura shook her head, "No, you're right. We have to tell Naruto."
Ino sighed in relief. "I'd hope you'd see it that way because I just got a scroll from Naruto saying he wants to meet."
"I'm coming too." Sakura informed her friend.
"I thought so." Ino stood and walked to the door which she opened for her friend. "Well this turned out to be an interesting week."
The 7th Hokage looked at the semi-circle of people standing before his desk. His advisor Shikamaru stood to the far left with his arms crossed against his broad chest. Kakashi stood behind him, a silent watcher of the current hokage's proceedings. Sakura stood right before him, never quite making eye contact with her old teammate. Next was Ino and Sai standing close to one another. Probably communicating silently in that weird way they seemed to always do. The blond haired leader stared at his peers with tired blue eyes.
"Please, someone, tell me we have some answers." Naruto requested already starting to rub his temples.
Shikamaru looked at the other's lined up across from him. No one seemed to want to take the plunge so he uncrossed his arms and took a step closer. "After investigating the battle scene and the evidence left there wasn't much for us to pull on. We do know that the explosion was caused by a sudden appearance of a large amount of chakra. But we were unable to locate the source of chakra. On the box there was no seal or markings that would warrant that amount of chakra being stored in such a simple container." Shikamaru motioned towards Sakura. "I spoke to Sakura about her Hundredth Seal and Saori's heart, but both examples require a living specimen to generate the chakra. My team and I are still doing research to see if there is any relic similar to this one."
Naruto just shook his head in understanding. "And the invisible man?"
"There is no trace of him. Besides the damage from his fight with Jane Doe we have no evidence of his existence."
"I struck him to. I know something was there." Naruto added as though he were trying to legitimize the young girl's claims.
"Well, I doubt we will be able to get any more information unless they attempt another attack." Shikamaru concluded. "That being said, it seems as though we are not the only ones being attacked in this manner. I've been communicating with the Kazekage's men and it seems like they have experienced something similar. They are sending me all the information they have as we speak."
"Gaara, he was attacked too?" Naruto asked puzzled.
"The attack was a bit further out of the city. There was only one injury to the chunin that found the pot." Shikamaru explained.
"A pot?" Sakura asked before continuing, "That means the vessel could be anything."
"Precisely." Shikamaru confirmed. "I won't be able to progress in my research until I hear more from the Sand Village."
Naruto grasped in his chin and shook his head in agreement. "Understood. Good work so far. Let me know what Gaara's people say." Naruto then turned towards Ino. "And what about the girl? Did you figure anything else out?"
Ino stepped forward and pushed her blond hair behind her shoulder. "I've run every test I could think of. This girl is under no jutsu. They only other thing that I can think of is that there might have been some medical procedure. But Sakura says she did a thorough investigation of her medical condition when she was brought in. She would have noticed something then."
Naruto looked at Sakura for confirmation.
"It's true." Sakura answered. "I can do a follow up examination but…"
"But what?" Naruto asked, a single eyebrow perking up.
"But there is something a bit more pressing than that." Ino answered for her friend.
Naruto leaned back in his chair. He looked from one kunoichi to the other. The friends had a habit of causing mischief when they had secrets. The hokage was ready for just that when he asked, "And what is more pressing than figuring out who this young woman is and what kind of threat she poses?"
Ino looked sideways at her best friend. It wouldn't be easy telling Naruto what they had discovered. Ino took in a deep breath and started, "Sakura conducted a DNA test, and well, the kunoichi has almost the exact same genetic make-up as Sakura."
Naruto's eyes widened. It wasn't the news he had expected to hear, to say the least. He searched his old teammate's face. There she stood across the room, still refusing to meet his eye in a very stubborn way. He turned back towards Ino. "Meaning?" He asked her.
"Sakura and the girl are related." Sai said simply, as though it were of no consequence.
"Related? Related how?" Naruto asked now standing.
Ino tried to make eye contact with her friend again but Sakura would not budge from her rigid stance. You're really going to make me tell him?! You are going to own me more than dinner!
"We aren't sure, but that's not it." Ino informed the group. "Hanami claims to be Uzumaki Hanami. She thinks she is your and Sakura's daughter. Sakura tested their DNA and there was a match. But Sakura also tested your DNA against the girl's." The silence in the room was thick and palpable. Everyone was waiting for Ino to tell them what they already knew. "The test came back positive. Hanami is somehow related to both of you."
Each person in the room reacted differently to the news. Shikamaru bowed his head and started to rub his forehead as though he was already recalculating. Kakashi didn't bother to hide his wide eyed stare as he looked back and forth between his two former students. Sai didn't seem bothered in the least bit. Ino was breathing heavily as though some great weight had just been lifted from her shoulders.
Then there was Sakura. She stood in the middle of the room silent but with the lightest tinge of pink coloring the tips of her ears. She quickly brushed her equally as pink hair behind one of her ears. She knew that this was going to complicate things. The most important thing was to stay calm and come up with a reasonable explanation.
Naruto looked at Ino with wide eyes and a slightly gaping mouth. His blue eyes took in each person's reaction one at a time. He swallowed and then admitted to the group, "She called me dad the first time we met." He then looked directly at Sakura, "But that isn't possible."
"Of course not." Sakura agreed.
It seemed as the two were trying to convince the group.
Sai just blurted, "So you guys never had sex or a secret child?"
Ino hit her husband on the arm, hard.
"What?" Sai complained while rubbing the sore spot. " When we were team 7 it seemed pretty obvious that they- Ow!"
Ino had punched her husband harder.
"We've already ruled that out." Ino hissed.
"So we figure out how exactly she came to be and we-" Naruto started but was cut off again.
"Actually, that still isn't the most pressing thing." Ino interjected.
"There's more?!" Naruto scoffed unbelievingly.
Sakura just spit it out, "She has a brother."
"There's two?" Shikamaru blurted, again the wheels in his mind started to turn. His eyebrow met as he frowned heavily. It was too troublesome.
Naruto met his friend's eyes for the first time. "So there is another?"
Ino stepped forward instead of Sakura. "We think. It's highly likely though. She says she can sense his chakra but wouldn't give me an exact location."
Naruto turned towards Sai. "Send out your ink beasts in every direction. I need to know the moment you find anything of interest."
"Hai." Sai answered and then disappeared.
Kakashi stepped forward for the first time. "If this is some sort of genetic manipulation it sounds a lot like what Orochimaru use to do. I'll see what records we have on the matter and what Anbu can find."
"Thank you, Kakashi Sensei." Naruto said nodding his head once. Kakashi was gone in a flash just like Sai.
Sakura turned towards Ino. "I think it is time for me to speak with Hanami. She may be a bit more forthcoming with information if I am there."
"Agreed." Ino echoed. "I can make arrangements as soon as you are ready."
"I'm ready now." Sakura informed.
"I will start prepping." Ino answered. She turned to Naruto and bowed before walking out of his office.
"Sakura." Naruto stopped Sakura in her tracks. The medic looked at her leader. The tall man came around his desk and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't fret too much. We'll figure this out." He then graced her with one of his goofy grins. And it did help settle Sakura's nerves, despite her being shaken up about someone messing with her and the Hokage's DNA. She gave him a sweet smile in return and then left.
Naruto's smile disappeared instantly. Shikamaru who always paid attention to small details did not miss it.
"What's wrong Naruto?" Shikamaru asked, worried that it would affect his work load. But also concerned for his friend.
Naruto sighed heavily and plopped down in his chair in defeat. "I know now why Hinata was summoned by her sister."
"What did you just say?" Hinata asked shocked.
Hinabi stared at her sister with a hard expression. "I said, Naruto and Sakura have a daughter together."
"There are two of them?!" - Strongbad
Bonus points if you know what that is from.
Thank you so much for reading! It means the world to me!