A/n: So...chapter 8, right?
Ever had one of those days...when you want to curse everything? You run around all day muttering, "Murder," "Fuck," "Burn," "Damn," or some other not-so-very-nice word before "it" under your breath. That, or you replace "it" with anything that you lay eyes on. "Murder that guy who pissed me off...murder the cat...murder the curtains..." Like that, right? Heh. Villians have days like that too.
Disclaimer: If any of these people were mine, I'd have them tell you that they aren't mine...except they'd be mine and they'd be bragging about how they're mine, and thus with a much more fortunate fate than what Masashi Kishimoto has planned.
However, I could make Ren come up and say that I own her and others...except that wouldn't fit the thing very well.
Pein held his face in his hands and wondered how the fucking hell he got into this situation. He thought he said "No." What part of "no" didn't they understand? He opposed it! He wouldn't allow it! His child wasn't going to be raised in Akatsuki base!
And yet, here he sat, head in hands, elbows on knees, ass in chair in hallway in orphanage in Amegakure.
'Stupid Kai,' he thought bitterly. 'She tricked me into this—"Let's go take a romantic stroll," she says. "Let's go on a date and eat ice cream by that river that goes through Amegakure." Date my ass! Stupid children…stupid Kakuzu, so penny-pinching I couldn't even buy a fucking condom…stupid Tobi, pairing us together like that…stupid crack in the ceiling, letting the rain in and waking me up—I wouldn't even be here if I hadn't woken up! Stupid Itachi, letting Tobi let that Ren girl stay…'
His thoughts continued to curse anything that he thought ever set anything resembling a foot within ten miles of the rather large plot of land that the Akatsuki household was built on, mostly Kai for bringing him here.
' …stupid pants,' he cursed eventually. ' I hate jeans. And that should have been the hint—we shouldn't have needed to get out of uniform for a romantic stroll.'
Pein was brought out of his hateful thoughts by a nudge in his side. He looked up discontentedly to see Kai grabbing his arm to pull him up. Reluctantly, he stood, knowing that remaining in his seat would only make him look like a horrible person. Well…it would be stubborn, and that would be childish, and anything childish was unleader-like, and even when Kai was the only one to witness it, he still had to maintain the image of the Akatsuki leader.
"Sweetheart," she murmured, her expression sheepish as she led him outside, where there was a small playground and their child was supposedly playing or the like. Pein braced himself. "Do you remember…we were talking about names, right?"
Pein scanned his memory for that incident, and instantly assumed the worst. "Don't tell me you seriously named it Hikari even though it's a boy."
Kai blinked. "No, that's not it."
Pein sighed. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. "Then what is it?"
"Well…" Kai trailed off, her pace slowing as they approached the door. "Remember…how I said that maybe we should prepare two names of each gender, just in case something happened and we needed both?"
' …oh shit,' Pein cursed. ' Oh fucking hell no. Don't tell me…' "Which would only be in the case of twins," he enforced, and cursed himself when his voice cracked.
"Um…" Kai stalled, stopped at the door and mostly in the way of Pein, who now had his eyes closed tightly in a prayer that this was just a dream. "Well, I didn't have to use both, but…I probably would have if they came out a little differently…"
A stream of curses flooded Pein's mind. The use of the word "they" proved it, and he truly felt that it was all too soon that he heard the squeak emitted from the door as Kai opened it and called out, "Haruka!"
Pein was a very well-trained shinobi, and he knew how to identify the number of enemies approaching just by the vibrations in the ground from their footsteps. The same went for young orphans. And as a shinobi, he knew that there were quite a few little orphaned children running to Kai when she called for "Haruka."
Kai muttered a curse, and Pein opened his eyes to send her a triumphant glance, even if she was ahead of him and didn't notice. She went on to scan through the small crowd of young girls she had gathered, trying to identify her own daughter. Evidently, she failed, and she called again, this time using the word, "Shikai!"
Pein's hand flew to his forehead when he realized that Kai had actually used that name. He told her to not just flip through the dictionary looking for random words to call her child after. It was just a stupid random word for god's sake! Pein sighed and decided to let it go just as he heard a young voice demand, "And who are you?"
Pein looked at the speaker and saw a boy, looking a bit older than most three-year-olds tend to, blue hair much like his mother's falling in one defiant, spiral-patterned eye. Hiding behind him with obvious excitement was a girl about the same age, looking hopefully up at Pein through strands of brown hair much like his own with the same eyes.
"We're your parents," Kai explained after a brief pause. Pein thought he understood—the whole situation seemed more like some scene from the mind of a crazed and perverted girl than reality.
The girl's eyes shone hopefully, but the boy's gaze darkened. "Where have you been for all our lives?"
Pein suddenly wished that Akatsuki wasn't made up entirely of the more villainous characters. If he had a few people with actual morals, maybe he could throw at the kid that it was better than someone else's story there, but instead he only really knew people who were the cause of all the suffering.
Kai answered instead. "Shikai-kun, we've been very busy, and we're sorry that we had to leave you here. But, now, we think that our home is safe for you two, and we're taking you home."
"Do you really think it's that simple?" the boy (Shikai, Pein supposed) demanded. "Do you think that we'll really live with you after you ignored us for the first four years of our—ow!" he cried as the girl behind him yanked his ear and hissed, "You're the one who keeps complaining about this place!"
Pein didn't pay attention to any of it. He didn't want to be here anyway, and Kai could fill out the paperwork well enough without his help. The owner of the orphanage probably thought he was under the influence as he scribbled his signature limply and plodded out the door behind Kai, the girl skipping ahead and the boy quietly holding Kai's hand.
The sun was rather close to the horizon when Pein finally trudged into the house behind the three other members of his family. Kai opened the door (and Pein wondered vaguely why they always left the door unlocked), and the girl charged in. It took her but a second to start thumping loudly up the stairs, and then he recognized the loud squeak that could only be from the opening of Itachi and Tobi's room, then she was rambling loudly enough for Pein to hear, collapsed in a kitchen chair, "Hi!—I'm Haruka, and I guess I don't know my last name because I'm an orphan, but I guess I'm not anymore because my parents just came and picked me up, and my parents took me here, and that's why I'm here, and if you're here too then I guess that means that we're related or something, or maybe we're just roommates, but still, I'm Haruka, and my daddy has piercing in his nose that look like they hurt and I live here now and it's nice to meet you whoever you are, but whoever you are, you really do have cool eyes."
Thump. Haruka fell unceremoniously on the floor.
Pein shot a glare at Kai. "I told you so," he mouthed.
A/n again: Haruka and Shikai seem pretty smart for three-year-olds. Why? I'm the youngest of the family. I don't exactly have experience with younger children. And I don't much like younger children.
So instead, something about being the children of Kai and Pein makes them, like SUPER-BABIES and they're more like...somewhere between four and eight, I think. (the other reason they seem older--I can't judge the age of anything. Especially small children. Have I ever mentioned that I probably should not be a parent? Ever?)
By the way, I've been in a pretty good mood. Why? On deviantART, I have 325 pageviews. TTuTT it's more than I really thought I'd ever get...which might possibly be a bit pathetic on my part, but...it means I'm in a good mood. Don't spoil it, on Pein of death. Er, pain. (oops)
...and it occurs to me I've never looked at how many times this story got looked at...I don't think I should--if 325 feels like all that much to me, I'm slightly worried by the possibility of a heart attack...
Oh, I mentioned that seven-page chapter, right? Well, that's next chapter. Which actually works out pretty nicely, because I did mean to make you guys wait for some amount of time longer than usual for it, and tomorrow and Saturday look pretty crowded on my calendar. It might technically be filler, but it's humor, and it's LONG.
Preview: When two children are introduced into Akatsuki, what do you think is going to happen?
Special: Names:
I have some explaining, don't I?
A few of you people have read my first Naruto fanfiction (to the point that I've posted), "What I Regret." Yes, the main character is an OC named Haruka. This, however, is an entirely different OC named Haruka. The names are a bit of a coincidence which I will continue to explain.
Shikai...is not really a name. There's a story or two behind this.
My brother likes paintball. A lot. Not speedball, but woodsball, the tactical stuff. So he's got this team with all these codenames. His is Farsight.
A friend of mine brought in a Japanese-English dictionary. We flip through it randomly. I eventually figure, "What the hell, I'll look up Far Sight."
When I told it to my brother, it was Toi Shikai (there were several words for each, but those were the first ones that came to me).
Haruka is an actual name for a girl that means things along the lines of "far" and "distant" and that.
So Haruka Shikai is technically Far Sight, and thus it's pretty safe to say they're a tribute to my brother.
Because he's a very good brother when he's not trying to kill me.
Hikari is a girl's name that means "light." Not such a fitting name for the son of the biggest villian.
And why do so many little orphan girls come running to the name Haruka? Think about it. An orphan is pretty "far/distant" from his/her parents. It seems the kind of name that a lot of little orphan girls would be named.