DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe. This Natsumi is mine, though. So is Ichika!
Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Natsumi speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
Tsunade was the one to help bring Hatake Haruka, a whopping 4.1kg baby into the world even though Natsumi was scheduled for her cesarean a full three weeks before her due date.
Natsumi held her newborn baby girl but barely saw little more than the sprout of thick silver hair as Sakumo cried his eyes out and held them because… No, no, no. "Seal the room. PLEASE! SEAL THE ROOM!" She looked up, panicked, into her husband's shocked, dark eyes as the baby then began to cry. "Sakumo get all the kids in here, NOW!"
"Are we under attack?" Everyone in the delivery room knew very well that Natsumi was an excellent sensor.
"I don't know… I don't know! PLEASE do as I say!"
Tsunade and Orochimaru were already acting, though, and had brought their entire entourage - sunshinning everyone who had been in the nearby lounge to soon see the baby into the delivery room. Kushina locked it down with so much chakra that it made the baby howl and shake.
"Oh my precious girl; I am so sorry," Natsumi tried to soothe her new baby.
"ANBU is on alert," Sakumo said gravely, having pushed a code through his tattoo.
"What is going on?!"
"Is… that the baby?" Kakashi asked and then felt foolish for the words he'd used. The adults - plus Minato and Kushina - were obviously preoccupied with something else and there was a baby RIGHT THERE. He couldn't help but wonder what kind of baby it was, though: if it was a boy like it was supposed to be. –His mother might not have wanted to know if the baby would be a girl or a boy but Kakashi knew better. Ichika bugged him a lot.
"Obvioushwy it's da baby, siwwy," his problematic sister drawled, "but someting's wong."
"What is it, Natty?" Sakumo whispered into his wife's hair.
"There's something out there: it was right outside the room. Outside the wall." Oh God: HOW was she supposed to describe Zetsu and WHAT was he doing here? –Well what he was doing there was obvious, wasn't it? "Are you safe in there?"
Kurama was hulking down inside of his locked cage again, looking grim. "I thought we had more time. I wanted to give you more time!"
Natsumi leaned her head through the cage's bars - it was closed and locked again just to be careful while she was giving birth - and was surprised when the fox leaned his head against hers, too. She ran a hand through his soft, long fur and promised to protect him.
"He's here surveilling."
She blinked out of her mindscape when she heard Sakumo giving orders through a communication device he'd pulled out of nowhere.
"There was a shinobi here that was not one of ours… Or a being. I don't… One half of him has something at least half… like earth chakra," she said, swallowing hard: "the strongest I've felt. He…" She very gently bounced her understandably fussy newborn as she tried to root, "that half felt kinda like Nawaki," she hissed in disbelief as she wondered if Tsunade's son had the Mokuton, like part of Zetsu was sort-of made of! "The other half… I don't know. …Tar?"
Now everyone was gaping at her. But how the hell was she supposed to describe "Kaguya's will" or whatever the black half of that thing was supposed to be made out of? She sucked in another breath. "He's moved - by the Hokage!"
Minato grabbed Sakumo and Dan's shoulders; Orochimaru leaped over to grab Minato's - and they disappeared. "NO! It's too dangerous!"
Kushina started to release the seals to the room, cursing about how they shouldn't have been able to teleport outside of the barrier seal she devised but Tsunade grabbed the back of her top before she could either leave or let the seal up.
"We guard the jinchuuriki and kids, brat," Tsunade said in a tone that offered no argument. How quickly Dan had safely put down their infant son had been pretty damn impressive. She picked up her baby, carefully sliding the sling Yamato-chan was in over her head. He was such a good baby: he was still asleep!
"Right," Kushina said shakily. "Right," she repeated with determination and used her chains to additionally seal the room.
Natsumi kept her senses focused on Sakumo and Minato but tried to smile as much as she could at her little ones after allowing Haruka to attach. Zetsu finally seemed to have just faded into the ground and Natsumi let out a loud, shaky breath, tears falling down her face. All her boys were safe for the moment; the Hokage and Dan, too. Zetsu hadn't attacked any of them. She gave a sad smile to her older children.
"Pups, she's a little busy now, but I want you to meet Haruka-chan."
"Kaa-chan?" the twins asked shakily. They both stood on their tip-toes before climbing up on one side of her bed, glancing at the nursing baby but looking at their mother, more worried than anything about what had just happened for several seconds. Nawaki had tried to crawl up, too, but Tsunade picked him up on her other hip so that he could see over the other side of his godmother's bed.
"Everything's alright," Natsumi told Tsunade. The woman's eyebrows were pinched with worry. "That… thing's gone."
Tsunade didn't look convinced. –That was good: Natsumi wasn't too convinced he was completely gone, either. Worse: he'd be back. She KNEW he'd be back.
"Wait a minute," Kakashi hummed, trusting his mother about whatever had just happened. If Okaa-san says it's okay, then it's okay. There was an important issue at hand that needed to be addressed, however. "Haruka-chan sounds like it could be a girl's name." He closed his eyes when suddenly pretty and mischievous blue, violet, and amber eyes twinkled at him from around the room. "Ugh. You can't be serious."
"Don't be rude about your beautiful new baby sister, Kashi-chan."
Ichika whooped and Kakashi dramatically dropped to the ground, moaning in despair. Nawaki laughed at him and slid down his mother's leg so he could give his best friend a hard time. Kushina began tickling him - even with her chains coming out of her back! - clearly hoping to lighten the mood
- but Kakashi's body felt numb.
"Hey Kakashi: maybe one day, Yamato-chan will marry Haruka-chan," Nawaki joked.
"Gross," Kakashi groaned as Tsunade, Kushina, and his mother cooed over the idea before quickly going back to whispering to each other. "That's just… disgusting.'
At that same moment, in the Hokage Tower, Minato sank into a chair as the Jonins discussed what they'd just seen. "Natsu was right," Sakumo breathed, pulling his hand through his long hair. Minato knew that it was something his brother-in-law did when he was significantly stressed.
Which was understandable. His heart was still thumping in his chest.
"She seemed to indicate that he… it wasn't human," Dan said, thinking about what had just happened and, worse, what he had just experienced.
"I don't know if we can assume that," Hiruzen said, finding and relighting his pipe again. "The shinobi world is filled with marvelous Kekkei-Genkai, undoubtedly evolving, and it's silly to believe that all of them have been discovered or documented."
That had all been quite surprising, however. Hiruzen had been in the middle of paperwork (and once again contemplating how best and when to deal with Kumo) when he received his ANBU head's emergency signal and moments later, this group of shinobis had teleported out of nowhere into his office… Dan's body had dropped into Orochimaru's arms… Minato's wind-enhanced kunai had flown by his head while Sakumo's lightning was, as usual, making it impossible to see when so close to it. The room had quickly been overrun with summons and… "What a mess we've made." The office was wrecked; papers were everywhere!
Well, you can't have Enma, snakes, wolves, toads, and shinobis attacking all within a confined space and not expect a mess to be made, Hiruzen supposed. "Report, gentlemen. What exactly did you see?"
"More alarming than what he looked like was what I experienced," Dan said, shuddering slightly as he thought about it. "When I began my jutsu, I found something that was NOT normal." Not human. "It… It was pure malice. I was immediately thrown out. –I did feel that he was blocking his other half."
Hiruzen's eyebrows rose before furrowing. To his knowledge, even the Yamanakas could not shirk off Dan's Spirit Transformation Technique. "This is a first, isn't it?" Dan nodded grimly. Hiruzen could tell that he was shaken by whatever it was he'd experienced. "Are you alright, Dan?"
Dan nodded uneasily and continued. "I was only able to momentarily access the black half of that thing." To Dan that didn't make sense! Even those with mental disorders, breaks, barriers… anything he could imagine: he simply hadn't experienced something like that before. Normally he simply overcame such things. The Spirit Transformation Technique had always been unbeatable, one-on-one, but came with great risk: his physical body was left completely without defense. "Perhaps, somehow, two shinobis have melded themselves into one?" he mumbled to himself, thinking out loud.
"Was it Kumo again?" the Hokage asked darkly.
"It was a plant," the men said as one before looking at each other in disbelief. Each couldn't believe he had admitted that, but it was agreed, wasn't it?
"I scented Aloe Vera, sir," Sakumo added reluctantly. He knew that sounded ridiculous. He pulled a face when one of his wolves brought him a green piece of the thing. He put it in a collection bag and ruffled his partner's fur to praise him.
"I need to investigate what my snakes have found, sensei," Orochimaru said. He was allowed to leave and reverse-summoned himself to Ryuichi Cave. Orochimaru's snake summons were surly and only two of them could speak in human tongue but they could all, of course, speak to each other. And one of them had managed to take a bite out of the side of that… thing. Unfortunately, that same snake had also been viciously bitten by one of Sakumo's wolves - making him dispel - when the ninken went for the being that had appeared in the Hokage's office.
"Natsumi-nee reported that it was close to her hospital room," Minato said, thinking quickly. "It's doubtful that its appearance there was circumstantial, particularly considering the attack made on the Hatakes shortly after the twins were born. Isn't it interesting that he - it - left after Natsumi said she sensed it? She said it was outside so the man er, the suspect couldn't have heard her. Perhaps it sensed our chakra spiking or wavering when she alerted us to it."
"Did you feel any KI, sir?" Sakumo asked the Hokage. He knew the man was especially attuned to it, more than anyone he'd ever heard of, no matter how contained the Killing Intent could be.
"No. Perhaps the shinobi was only after information and not here to kill." Hiruzen chuckled mirthlessly and wondered what so many sleepless nights fretting over Kumo's actions, particularly their recent attempt to take Uzumaki Kushina, had done to his senses. "I hope you won't reveal that I sensed nothing until you arrived." His eyes were directed at the youngest shinobi in the room. Minato squeaked and agreed that he'd never say anything. Hiruzen chuckled again before smiling genuinely at the teenage Chunin. "Your observations were quite astute, Minato-kun."
"Oh, um. Thank you, sir!"
"You're quite welcome." He held his hand out to take the sample Sakumo's ninken partner had obtained. It did, indeed, look like a very thick piece of aloe vera - with wolf slobber all over it, of course. "I'll give this to Orochimaru as soon as he's back. If that shinobi, or 'thing' as you all seem to have agreed to call it, was close to our jinchuuriki, I think it wise for you to return to her, Sakumo."
"Thank you, sir." Sakumo sunshinned out, summoning his entire pack when he got back to the hospital and calling on a squad to reinforce the Hokage and his pack's positions.
It took an irritatingly long time for Kushina to let him back into his wife's room.
Once they were more or less alone and the twins were asleep in the bed that had been brought in next to Natsu's (Sakumo had knocked the pups out with a genjutsu since they were being brats and pretending to sleep long after they really should have been,) the couple felt it safe to discuss what had happened. Sakumo nudged his wife so that she'd sit up more and scooch down in her bed. He sank into it behind her, despising hospital beds but loving his wife and newborn's scent.
"The Hokage's okay," Natsumi knew. She rested her back against him, allowing her head to drop back for a second on his shoulder, too.
"The whole thing was weird," Sakumo complained as he rested his nose against his mate's neck, turning the entire plant-man thing over and over in his head. "I don't like anyone close to you," he growled.
"Don't I know it," Natsumi lightly chuckled. She sucked in a deep breath and smiled, feeling a surge of love and hormones overwhelm her when her daughter finally fully opened her dark blue eyes. "Sake! Look!" Haruka yawned widely, making her parents further melt.
"Maa, I don't want her to have my droopy eyes." His wife snickered at him so he softly poked her side. She didn't deny that he had droopy eyes for once. "She's a big girl," he commented as he stroked her little cheek. Natsumi scolded him for making the baby try to root again so soon after feeding so he reached for her little fist, smiling when her tiny hand wrapped around his fingertip. "Maybe she's not so big."
Natsumi lightly laughed. "She's almost twice the size either of the twins was."
"True… Well, in WEIGHT - but there were two of them and I seriously doubt you would've enjoyed having to carry over eight kilos of baby." Natsumi snorted, thinking that idea was horrible. "And they're all three almost the same length - or were."
"All with long legs," Natsumi smiled. All three of her babies had really long legs. She always thought they were adorable, all pulled up and a little skinny. Not so much Haruka-chan's though. Haruka-chan had more meat on her. She squished one of those pudgy little thighs between her fingers – pudgy compared to Kakashi's skinny long, legs when he was a newborn, especially - grinning when her newborn's nose wrinkled up in response.
"It's hard to believe," Sakumo breathed. His older pups seemed so BIG now in comparison to baby Haruka. Maybe that was a stupid and obvious assessment but he'd missed SO much of their growth. He wiggled his index finger back and forth and his newborn daughter seemed to glare at him; she'd definitely narrowed her eyes at him, whether she could really see him or not. He and Natsumi both began shaking with laughter. "Oh, she's going to be a fighter: I can tell."
"Like her Tou-san."
Sakumo kissed her cheek. "Like her Kaa-chan."
Natsumi sighed, wishing that wouldn't quite be true. They had to one day, all too soon, prepare her for the future, though, didn't they? Today's events were proof and reminder enough of that. Now she didn't feel so bad about training her kids the way she had as they grew. –Not that she planned to do anything but keep their training "fun," though. She just didn't have the heart to knock them around the way she knew some shinobi parents did.
She felt that was child abuse and was always very vocal about it. "Old times," compared to the time she came from in the future or not, some of those training ideas shinobi parents had were just wrong.
- Although her friend, Ami (a civilian,) had screamed in horror and fear the first time Natsumi threw Kakashi high - not that high - into a tree. He had loved it, though, and her little brat had just bitten the crap out of her while they were sparring. Natsu knew by then that Kakashi-chan loved to go sailing through the air. That pup was a lanky little monkey and loved being in the trees.
That was why she made sure not to train her kids when Ami was around anymore. Her entrepreneurial partner also wasn't fond of the way Natsumi and Tsunade occasionally dumped cold water on their kids but that's what Tenzo-sensei had done with her – plus that's what the Senjus had done with Tsunade so it had to be okay.
Right?
Gosh. She hoped it was okay.
"Kakashi really was upset about having another little sister."
"He'll get over it," Sakumo said between kisses to her cheek, shoulder, and neck. "Maa, it's a lot of responsibility to have a little sister."
Natsumi clicked her tongue, resting her head on his broad shoulder again and ready to finally get some rest. "Sexist bullshit…"
"Yare, yare. Get some sleep. I'll keep you safe."
.
Nearly three months later -
Tsunade knocked on the door, jerking her head in a gesture for Natsumi to remain outside while Nawaki ran into the Hatake manor to get into God-only-knows what kind of trouble with the Hatake twins before school. It was cool outside this morning so both mothers were "wearing" their babies in clan-embroidered sling wraps. "Put a silencing seal down, would you?" Tsunade would've done it herself but she used paper seals while Natsu could activate and put down simpler seals with only her chakra. Once she'd taken care of it, the blonde kunoichi took a deep breath, decided to be nice, and told her best friend to sit down on the porch swing.
"Bossy woman," she heard Natsu mutter.
Now Tsunade didn't feel so bad about the news she had to pass on. "We're going to be sent out."
"Oh," Natsumi said, blinking slowly at her friend. Natsumi knew Konoha would eventually retaliate for Kumo's actions: taking Kushina - but wasn't Kushina's kidnapping attempt probable retaliation for Sakumo killing their jinchuurikis? It never ended, did it?
"Wait," she said in a dawning realization. "You mean, Konoha's going to war, or that WE are being sent out on a mission?"
Tsunade groaned out a sigh and shuffled Yamato into what she hoped was a more comfortable position for him. Natsumi looked pained as she leaned over to run her fingers through her son's dark blonde tuft of hair before stroking his cheek. Natsumi was an excellent godmother and she really doted on baby Yamato, even more than she had with Nawaki when he was a baby. She figured that it was because the younger woman had much more experience being a mother now. "How strong are you right now, Bartender?"
Natsumi sighed but flexed her awesome arms, making her friend snort. "Uzumaki healing, baby. …I've been doing little but training since less than two weeks after I delivered when Ruki-chan's asleep and the pups are at school."
"That's just unfair," Tsunade groused. …It had taken her two weeks longer than that to heal and she was Senju Frickin' Tsunade!
"Do you know how lucky we are to be this awesome?" Natsumi asked, "Compared to most mothers?"
"It ain't luck, Natsu-chan," Tsunade replied, making Natsu let out a quiet bark of laughter. "I could use a drink." Potentially going to war with an infant at home? Tsunade didn't like it AT ALL.
"You sound like an alcoholic. You'd better watch out!"
"Shut up; you know I'm joking. …Sort of."
Natsu snickered; she did know that - and might be wishing to avoid and hide from her shinobi-related responsibilities for even a few minutes longer. Gosh: as difficult as dealing with administerial bullshit was in her businesses, being a kunoichi was so much worse. So, SO much worse! "Sakumo's been a right pain in the ass, keeping me out of the loop."
"He's like that; always has been. Being ANBU head… I bet he's even worse than he used to be. –Poor you!"
Natsumi clicked her tongue. "I'm a very lucky woman," she said indignantly and then adjusted the baby and sling so that she could nurse Haruka-chan again. Her youngest was a little pig. "What's this about a mission? Or war?"
"Well, it's not like the war ever really ended," Tsunade drawled, snorting when Yamato-chan seemed so interested in what Natsumi was doing. "It's more like things temporarily cooled off between nations."
"We need alliances a hell of a lot more than we do enemies," Natsumi commented.
"Dan says the same thing. What about Sakumo?"
"Sakumo says NOTHING!"
Now it was Tsunade's turn to snicker a bit. "He's trying to protect you."
"That better not be misogynistic bullcrap."
Tsunade lifted an eyebrow as three five-year-olds then rolled out of the house like a single tumbleweed, all laughing and followed by a large group of puppies. She hummed and wondered if she had ever had that much energy. "Sakumo's brother had a lot of sexist ideas about women's roles. Sakumo's WORLDS better than his brother - who got all those ideas from his shitty father, to use Sakumo's words."
Natsumi winced. "Maa, sexist or not, I know Sakumo still misses his brother, Daichi-san, terribly."
"I'm sure. He was a good man despite that bullshit. I punched him in the balls when I heard him advising sensei about kunoichis being taken out of the field one time." She hummed, remembering what happened and feeling a little guilty about it. Daichi-san had definitely learned his lesson that day, although… "I think I might have taken away his ability to have children. I was young, you see, and didn't know my own strength."
Natsumi gaped at her. "That's probably why Daichi never put a name down for his heir's heir in the archive… Good God, Tsunade! That's terrible!" Both women snapped their attention to their older children when they heard a sharp, feral snarl.
"DON'T BITE MY KID, KAKASHI-KUN!"
"Sorry," Kakashi said, getting a hold of himself and then bowing to Tsunade and (to a lesser extent) Nawaki. Nawaki had used a senbon on him! They'd agreed to no weapons! "Sorry. Asshole."
"I HEARD that," Natsumi scolded.
"Maa, maa, Okaa-san… That was Ichika cursing!" Ichika flipped her lying brother off and Natsumi facepalmed.
"Where are they GETTING this stuff?!" The redhead took her twins in to wash their mouths out with soap; something Ichika thought highly unfair although she might later agree that just washing her finger wasn't bad enough considering whatever that rude gesture meant.
Apparently using the middle finger meant something pretty darn bad. She didn't plan to do it again. Unless doing so would be really funny, of course.
.
"Your baby's fat," Tsunade commented after putting Yamato down in his crib next to the younger infant. They'd just made it back to her place after dropping their wild little animals (more literally in the Hatakes' case, she thought) off at the Academy.
"She's solid," Natsumi corrected her firmly although Tsunade WAS a medic. Did that mean that she was serious?! "But she's okay, right? I mean, seriously! I'm only breastfeeding her."
"She's at the 99th percentile, so I guess so. She's healthy; that's for sure; just big." Really big.
"Natsu," Tsunade said more seriously a few minutes later since they were alone and wouldn't be interrupted for a bit, "when will your 'formula' be on the market?"
"It's already on shelves at the Capital," Natsumi bragged proudly.
Their baby formula, "Oroumila:" the stupidest fucking name for a product Natsumi had ever heard let alone been a part of, was selling like gangbusters. She and her partner had really ramped up production two weeks ago after testing came back with phenomenally positive results. "Oh shit. Are Hokage-sama's war plans why Orochimaru canceled the marketing beta-tests outside of Fire Country?"
Tsunade crossed her arms under her breasts, REALLY hoping they'd settle down after she was no longer breastfeeding. Otherwise, they were going to concuss and give her black eyes when she was out in the field, according to her oh-so-amusing husband. "It's just like that teme not to tell you. Oh… Got a hot bit of gossip about him!"
"Oh?" Natsumi asked, her bartender-senses tingling.
"I walked in on Orochimaru and Jiraiya having sex."
"Oh, God... I so didn't need to know that."
Natsumi was not all that surprised, though. Hentai-writing author or not, the sexual tension between Jiraiya and his male teammate had been getting worse and worse lately since Jiraiya had been spending more time in the village. Maybe they'd both feel better now. "Please don't tell anyone else. People can be really weird about stuff like that, especially civilians, and Orochimaru and I have to deal with a lot of those as we expand our business. Plus, I really want them to be happy."
"As if I don't know those things; they're my teammates!" Tsunade sneered, in disbelief that Natsumi might think she'd share this with anyone else. "They were in my bedroom." Natsumi gasped. "It happened while they were babysitting after the kids had fallen asleep. They were on our floor, but STILL. Dan was so mad; he almost immediately attacked them with his Spirit Transformation Jutsu… It's always his first go-to when he gets really serious."
"But then he'd be in one of their bodies having sex with the other one," Natsumi nodded, understanding completely and guessing he wouldn't like that.
"So he stabbed each of them in the ass with a kunai. I refused to heal them just on the principle that they'd agreed to babysit and couldn't have been paying attention. They're still limping."
"Maa, sometimes the simple ways are the best ways of dealing with things," Natsumi understood. "Tsunade, do you want to spar?" She wasn't sure that she wanted to ask more about what might be their upcoming, re-activated kunoichi duties. Leaving her children made her feel absolutely SICK. This must have been how Sakumo felt when he got his orders after the twins were born. Tsunade seemed just as troubled. Natsumi helped her make tea and didn't press her on anything.
"You remember that black and white guy?" she eventually asked.
Natsumi's eyes popped out of her head as she slowly nodded. She'd asked Sakumo if they had any intelligence on the future Akatsuki she knew as Zetsu several times and he always changed the subject or supposedly had to leave. It was such a pain that he could blame his position and kage-level clearance for not informing her of things. "I do." –Natsumi hadn't known that anyone had SEEN him before now, though.
"After a lengthy analysis, we think that he might be responsible or somehow at least associated with my family's past Mokuton abilities. Not that the DNA made sense: he's more like a plant than a person. …And yet he's - it's - sentient."
Natsumi cocked her head and blinked stupidly at her. She thought it was the other way around, although she couldn't be sure. Black Zetsu had supposedly been around for millennia, according to Naruto, but she didn't know. "The black and white… man has Mokuton?" Of course, she KNEW but... Oh well. Natsumi doubted that Zetsu was a man in any way.
"Senju cells are wrapped up in that white substance we obtained."
"No kidding," Natsumi breathed. Maybe getting an early pool of data would help them defeat the bastard years and years before she had hoped. –It's not like Natsumi knew how to seal him away as Naruto and Sasuke- "teme" were reported to have. And sealing him away is supposedly what was required; their only hope of defeating him for good. "Tsunade… What if it's the other way around? –What if someone got hold of your family's DNA?"
"You don't think I checked? No… I took Kushina and The Pervert with me to further seal down the crypt but nothing had been taken from it. It was sealed tight."
And wasn't that something? Natsumi didn't know exactly what Zetsu was, but… "Your grandfather's remains aren't in the Senju Crypt, though, are they? I thought they were interned at the Hokage Memorial. And your great-uncle's, too, right? Or is that site just for show?"
"What are you saying?" Tsunade asked, not liking where this was going at all. "Shit! I'm going to kill someone if the Hokage Fucking Memorial has been tampered with! It's in the center of the fucking village!"
A week later, Tsunade's grandfather's remains were unsealed. The First Hokage was found to have had a large bite taken out of his body. His body had been sealed with his soiled armor on and had never even been examined before this, unbelievably.
Konoha might not yet know it, but it had its first clue that Madara was alive and Natsumi planned to exploit it.