A/n: Haha! Now I can ramble all I want and it won't seem quite so long because the chapter's always longer because it's freaking SEVEN PAGES! So I choose to reminisce (if I spelled it right) now, because I have all the time in the world (er...probably)

I could ramble about my actual life...but I guess you guys don't care about that, do you? Nope, I guess not.
Too bad.
I went to the homecoming dances of two schools. The second one was last night (or I would have posted then) and I went with someone as "Just friends". Incidentally, we're not "just friends" anymore :-)
And I'll leave it at that because you really probably don't care.

Back during the transition--between when I posted the first in the series and this story--I remember someone being dissapointed about no more "interesting pairings" (I think the term was). I tried to console them and make sure that a bit more fluff got in there. That attempt...FAILED. Instead, I have something that I personally consider more plotful (I am the author, and I say it is a word) than the last one. There are fight scenes! And not just in the filler! Wooo!

Originally, I only planned to include the three OCs that you see now. But, I wound up including more in later chapters. :sigh: this story's getting a lot longer than it should.

Have I mentioned that this chapter's filler? Meh. At least it's entertaining...I hope. Seven pages, something funny better happen.

The chapter after this is pretty long, too...six pages, according to word count.
But I've never mentioned--it's six pages because I like writing in more focused areas, and the indent is down to what it would be on paper. So it won't make this thing have to scroll for seven pages this time, or six pages next time, because here it takes about the whole screen rather than a school essay's width.

It occurs to me that I've failed at accuracy. Because Pein's name doesn't seem to actually be Pein. And apparently that funky eye thing isn't something he was born with...
TOO BAD. Pein is a lot easier to say than...er, whatever his real name is (I don't even pay attention to it anymore). And I wrote all this before I had accurate information, even if it was posted afterwards. I didn't know better. And if I can leave Konan's name as Kai, then I can leave other things innaccurate, too.

I meant to have the cat play a larger role. But that seems to have failed.

And look! The pancakes might not just make themselves! except it's eggs today...courtesy of Tobi...
So Tobi's the only responsible one in the family. Maybe Kai too, but she's not quite so...aggressive? about it.

Eh...I guess that's it. To the Disclaimermobile, Akatsuki!
(A collective sigh emits from the crowd of humanoids that is Akatsuki)

Disclaimer: I'll be simple. Masashi Kishimoto owns Akatsuki, not me.
However, those small children by the names of Ren, Haruka, and Shikai are mine. Oh, and the cat, Sayuri, but she doesn't show up here.

For the second time that week, Pein rolled off his bed and onto the floor. It took him a moment to realize that, but when he did, he was hardly pleased. He had a thought laced with vulgar language about what he'd do if Tobi had slipped into his bed again as he pulled himself high enough to see who invaded his sleeping space.

There, in his bed, were two heads of blue hair and one of auburn, two rather small bodies and one adult. Kai and those two children…whose children were they? The sad thing was that it took Pein a moment to remember that they were his own children. And another to remember each of their names. Haruka and…Shikai. Typical orphan name and stupid dictionary name, courtesy of Kai.

Once more, Pein was faced with the issue of revenge. At least none of today's convicts were going to glare him out of it. Although guilt may be an issue…nah. Pein wasn't going to let two orphans—ex-orphans, no less—send him on a guilt trip. Sending them off to that orphanage "for life" wasn't an issue, why would a little punishment for the little kids in Akatsuki…never mind. Just having them live with Akatsuki was more than enough punishment for anyone.

At least Haruka survived her first encounter. Neither Itachi nor Tobi had exactly taken very well to her when she walked in on their…ahem…bonding, and it seemed that Itachi was very short to temper when it came to his relationship, considering that he jumped straight into a small dose of Mangekyou Sharingan. Pein couldn't say that he'd yet bonded very well with his daughter, nor really that he planned to, but he was still rather grateful that he held back enough that Haruka was now sleeping in his bed rather than on the mattress on the floor, where she was set come bed-time. Presumably, she awoke in the middle of the night and sought a warm body to be in bed with. Why Kai and Shikai were there, though, he couldn't say he knew. They were sharing a bed in the first place, its not like they weren't warm enough in their own bed.

Sighing and standing, Pein ran a hand through his hair and started toward the bathroom, passing Kai's bed and seeing the likely reason why he had three parasites—er…friends, of varying degrees, in his bed: Kai's bed had been taken over by a sprawled, snoring body topped with a full head of thick, tangled, mangled and messed blonde hair. Noticing several wet spots of drool on the sheets, he felt rather certain that Deidara would chase anyone out of any bed. How Sasori put up with it, Pein didn't think he wanted to know, but his mind leapt to answer the question anyway—'Well, Deidara is technically a girl, and Sasori is technically the boy, so Sasori's probably on to—'

Pein ran into the door of the bathroom, and decided that the bump on his head was well worth the distraction from those thoughts. For crying out loud, they were his own childr—no, they weren't, they were totally unrelated to him. But he was Pein and Pein is the leader of Akatsuki and the leader of Akatsuki is straight and doesn't like to think too hard about what Sasori and Deidara do in bed together.

Maybe it was because of all those drooling mouths that Deidara was in Kai's bed. Sasori probably got fed up with…that, and he probably kicked the blonde out.

By the time he finished thinking about this, Pein was as closed to dressed as he was going to get this early in the morning, and he proceeded to descend the stairs and get out his newspaper.

Just as he located an interesting-looking article about new discoveries about a pair of experimental botanists who haven't been seen since an incident a decade or two ago, he heard a few thumps from overhead, and then a lot more at increasing speed, until Haruka flung herself off the stairs and into the wall at the bottom of them. Pein sighed and set the newspaper down as she stood up breathlessly and flew into the chair next to him.

And then he cursed himself. There weren't enough chairs.

Sighing, he pulled Haruka from Kai's chair to his lap, where she turned around and craned her neck to ask, "Otou-chan, who else lives here? Yesterday, there was a scary old man with really cool eyes and a scary man with scars on his face—why are we living with scary people? Do we have handsome knights to protect us from the scary people?"

'Shit,' Pein cursed. 'She's not going to get along well with everyone else.' "Haruka…chan," he began, pausing after her name. That "chan" bit had an odd taste in his mouth. "When you meet everyone else who lives here…be aware that…not everyone is blessed with beauty," he told her. It was a lot harder trying to talk her into being okay with the other members of Akatsuki than he thought.

"Do you mean that we live with ugly people?" Haruka pouted.

"Well, that's one way to put it," Pein agreed. "Think of them like…the dragons that protect the princess's castle." If she thought knights would protect her from scary people, she probably read too many fairy tales. Hopefully that meant she believed in dragons.

Haruka's eyes brightened. "You mean I'm a princess? Really? Oh, wow! I never thought my father would turn out to be a king!" She giggled.

Pein opened his mouth to correct her—he was not a…well, technically, he was. He was the King of Akatsuki. Yes, he liked the sound of that. He would no longer allow himself to think of himself as the Great Feared Powerful Leader of Akatsuki. He would now think of himself only as the Great Feared Powerful Almighty Notorious KING of Akatsuki! The thought of it made him happy—giddy, even, and he almost giggled, except that would be unleader-like—nay, it would be unking-like.

A small hand pulling at the end of his nose interrupted his cheerful dreams of power, and he made a strangled cry in alarm.

"Otou-chan," Haruka questioned, "why do you have things in your nose? They look like they hurt…"

"Haruka-chan," Pein explained touchily, his voice warped humorously by his nose being closed. "Otou-chan made many mistakes in his youth, and one of them was not using a condom."

Haruka's face lit up at his voice, and then tilted in confusion. "Otou-chan, what's a condom?"

Pein stammered, wondering why "drinking too much" turned into "not using a condom." And he continued to stammer until someone walked into the room.

"Leader-otousama?" Sasori's voice asked, then paused as the puppet took a better look at the scene before him. "Hm…so this is your child? Did she just ask an odd question?"

"What's a condom?" Haruka asked again.

'Of all the people who could have walked into the room right now,' Pein wondered, 'why did it have to be the one who would actually explain it?'

Sasori paused, taking a deep breath, before he explained, "Well, when a man loves a woman very much, he'll take her into bed with him, and he'll—"

"Sasori!" Pein scolded, feeling certain that his face was a lot less pale than it should be.

Sasori shrugged. "Never mind. You'll know more about it when you're older." He proceeded to his own chair and sat down.

Haruka swiveled around again to face Pein. "Otou-chan, I thought you said we had dragons to protect us," she said.

"We do," Pein assured her, silently hoping that Zetsu would somehow forget about breakfast or something.

"Then why do we have a handsome knight, too?" she wondered.

It took Pein a moment to realize that Haruka just said that Sasori was handsome. As in she liked Sasori. Sasori the pervert who just tried to honestly explain what a condom is in full detail. Pein threw a glare to the redheaded puppet.

"What?" Sasori asked innocently. He thought about it for half a second and added, "Leader-otousama, you should know quite well that my heart belongs to Deidara-chan. Not Imouto."

Pein continued to send a suspecting stare at his eldest son until Haruka craned her neck again to ask, "Otou-chan, if he calls you Otou-sama, does that mean that we're related?"

'Oh yeah,' Pein thought. "Yes, you are…well, technically," he added. Honestly, if his own actual son turned himself into a puppet, he somehow doubted that he'd be living in the same house. Odd how the fact that he wasn't his son gave the opposite effect. "Haruka-chan, that's Sasori-san," he introduced, figuring that it wouldn't hurt. "Sasori-san…Haruka-chan."

Sasori flopped his hand sideways in a wave, and Haruka sighed distantly. Pein brought his glare back to the puppet.

Thump. The noise came from upstairs. Thump thump thump…thuthump, thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump—WHAM! Shikai slammed into the wall much like Haruka had, laughing maniacally.

"Get back here, you brat!" Deidara roared from somewhere upstairs, more thumps following as Shikai bolted into the kitchen and hid behind Sasori, trying to hide a cruel giggle.

Deidara reached the bottom of the stairs and ran into that wall. Pein vaguely wondered if it would be best to remove that piece of wall for the safety of all as his elder daughter stormed into the kitchen wearing only a pair of boxers, head twitching psychotically and fingers swiping about inside both ears. "Otou-sama!" he cried. "Otouto just gave me wet willies—two of them!"

Shikai snickered behind Sasori. "Oh come on!" he chortled. "It was funny—don't tell me it wasn't funny!"

"It wasn't funny!" Deidara screeched, fingers still in ears. "You wouldn't think it was funny if I gave you two wet willies!"

"Yeah it would!" Shikai argued mirthfully.

"Oh really?" Deidara wondered huffily. The next thing anyone knew, Deidara was behind Shikai, hands clapped on his younger sibling's ears. Shikai's expression was horrified at first, then gradually turned to disgust and he started screaming, "Oh my god, ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

He slapped his hands over Deidara's and the blonde removed his hands, grinning evilly. "Still think it's funny, brat?"

Shikai ran straight up to Pein and started whining, "Otou-sama, I don't even know who this person is but my ears feel horrible! Y-you won't stand up for him—her—it doing that to your only son, will you?"

Sasori laughed, and Shikai threw a glare at him as he explained, "You might be his only birth son, but you're not the only one with that title, Otouto."

It took Shikai a moment to retort, "What does that mean anyway—why do you keep calling me Otouto?"

Pein realized that neither of his children had yet been introduced to the concept of them not being considered his only children and rushed to explain this. "Oh, yes, Haruka, Shikai?" he started, then thought again about how to phrase it all. Finally, he continued, "This is Sasori-kun and Deidara-chan. They are technically your brother and sister."

Shikai stammered, and Haruka swiveled about again to wonder, "Really? Wow—I didn't know we'd have siblings! This is so great!"

"This is so horrible!" Shikai contradicted. "Otou-san, why didn't you tell me this sooner? Why didn't you take us here sooner instead of leaving us in the orphanage if you can support all these other people?"

"Shikai-san," Pein explained, "it's all a very long story, and you wouldn't understand it at this age."

"What wouldn't I understand?" Shikai demanded.

Pein hesitated. "Well…"

Fortunately, it was that moment that Kai chose to walk into the kitchen from the stairs, fully clothed. She seemed to have been eavesdropping, seeing as she could instantly say, "Shikai-kun, it's all very complicated, and we will tell you one day, but right now is not the time to discuss this."

Shikai turned from Pein to glare at her and challenged, "When is the time to—…" His eyes widened, and Pein turned in his chair to see what his child was responding to.

Kisame had just emerged from the stairs, and stopped when he saw Shikai's stare, making an expression of exasperation as he sighed, "Yeah, I know, I'm a total freak with the blue skin and the gill-looking things, but that doesn't mean you have to sta—"

Shikai left Pein to bolt up to Kisame, where he gawked from a closer distance for a few seconds before he breathlessly stated, "You're awesome!"

Pein couldn't help noticing the tight grip on his robes pulling the cloth taught, and looked to see Haruka staring fearfully at Kisame. 'I thought so,' he thought. "It's okay, Haruka-chan," he consoled, hoping the warmth in his voice didn't sound too fake. "He's one of the dragons I was talking about."

"You're a dragon?" Shikai asked incredulously.

"Um…" Kisame paused, looking at Pein in a quest for an answer.

Shikai didn't let Kisame finish before wrapping his arms around Kisame's knees. "You're my hero!" He loosened his grip to look up at the blue face. "Can you breathe fire?"

"Eh…not really," Kisame admitted, until he realized Pein glaring at him intensely for letting his child down. "Er—I mean, I can, but, I'm not exactly, the best, or anything—and I can't exactly do it in the house—yeah…"

"Wow!" Shikai exclaimed in awe. "Can you teach me how to?"

"What? No, of course n—uh, I mean…" Kisame caught another glare from Pein and changed his speech. "Um…when you're a bit older?"

Shikai pouted. "That's what Otou-san said, too—can't I do anything now?"

"I could teach you the fine shinobi art of Helping Okaa-chan Do The Dishes," Kai offered with a touch of humor in her voice.

Shikai directed his displeasure at her. "That's boring," he declared. "I want to learn a real ninja art."

"Shikai-kun," Pein told him seriously, "you're three years old—"

"Four," Shikai corrected.

"Okay, four years old," Pein corrected. 'Why are children so defensive about their age?' he wondered. "Even if you were just sent to normal ninja school, you wouldn't be learning anything serious for a few years."

"But—"

"No buts," Pein interrupted. "Don't expect too much out of yourself at that age."

Itachi rounded the corner of the stairs, followed closely by Tobi, and seemed to be as aware of the conversation as Kai had been. "Otou-sama, with all due respect," he pointed out as Tobi moved toward the stove, as today was his turn to prepare breakfast, "when I was his age, I could already—"

"Itachi-san, in case you've forgotten," Deidara pointed out, "you're a freak of nature, un—in the best possible way, I mean," he added when Itachi's eyes gleamed red. "You shouldn't compare others to yourself."

"Yes, but he is Otou-sama's son," Itachi explained. "Considering his gene pool, he should have more potential than I had as a child."

"Yeah, but what about the gene pool on Okaa-chan's side?" Deidara asked, receiving a cold and questioning stare from Kai. "I mean, I guess I don't really know anything about her strength, seeing as I've never seen her fight or anything, but how good can she be when she's a girl?"

"Deidara-chan," Sasori said. "You clearly learned nothing from your parents."

"What?" Deidara demanded. "I learned plenty from my parents—that real men aren't afraid to show their feelings for anyone or anything, that you should never hide yourself and your feelings—"

"Deidara," Kisame began, sending a strange expression to the blonde-haired artist, "Um…you kind of need a woman to make a kid…"

"That's nonsense!" Deidara denied, holding his hands out to indicate himself. "The very fact that I'm here should prove that!"

A brief moment of silence followed that statement while everyone else processed that statement. Incidentally, it was at this point that Kakuzu and Hidan emerged from behind the wall of the stairwell. The silence broke when Kisame looked at Deidara with some expression halfway between fear and question. "You mean…really?"

"Yeah, really, un!" Deidara answered assertively.

Kisame hesitated before wondering, "Is that really physically possible?"

"Well," Pein began, "that might explain something…"

Sasori slowly turned to Deidara, his eyes seeming slightly widened. "Deidara-chan…there are several things that I would say and do to you, but there are small children in the room."

Deidara grinned stupidly until Kai coldly told him, "Deidara-chan, some day I should show you what we women are capable of…"

"What, se—?"

"Small children!" Tobi interrupted, whipping around with a frying pan full of scrambled eggs in hand, not paying enough attention to not hit Hidan in the back of the head with the scalding-hot metal. "Oops," he muttered nonchalantly, carefully replacing the frying pan before turning back to face the rest of the room.

Everyone by now was used to Hidan's religion and the immortal tendency that came with it, but Haruka gasped at the hiss of burning flesh and covered her mouth as her eyes widened fearfully, and Shikai's eyebrows flew up as his eyes mirrored his sister's.

Haruka screamed. "H-H-H-HE—HE'S D—D-D-D—DEA—"

"TOBI!" Hidan roared, whipping around to face the masked member. "Why the fu—"

Tobi's fist flew into Hidan's face and he repeated, "Small children!"

Hidan growled as Tobi's fist receded. "Tobi, why the bleep did you hit me with a frying pan?"

"It was an accident—Tobi swears!" Tobi apologized fearfully.

Haruka turned to look at her father, the little skin left from her widened eyes shown to be pale as a sheet, and he knew she was seeking an explanation. He sighed in response and thought aloud, "I suppose some introductions are in order…"

Naturally, it was at this moment that Zetsu came around the corner of the stairs, white side confirming, "Did someone say someone died?" while his black side muttered something about not eating any real food in ages.

And it was at that moment that Haruka fainted.

A/n again: Poor Haruka. She keeps fainting...of course, she's one of the luckier Harukas that I've made (one lost a leg, one died humiliatingly among so many other things--and that doesn't even include before I settled on that name...)
Did I ever mention that I recycle OCs? This is the first time that the name's shown up twice in one fandom, though (well, from my stories, anyway). And again, the names are entirely coincidental this time. It's not the same Haruka that I use most everywhere else.

A note about Japanese in the above passage:
Imouto means younger sister (my brother has warped that term into Emo Toe. It's kind of annoying...)
Otouto (I mentioned earlier, but just in case) means younger brother.
Incidentally, Haruka and Shikai are orphans, and having been raised in an orphanage surrounded by other orphans...well, orphans don't usually have younger siblings (I mean, their parents are kinda dead), so they're not exactly familiar with the terms (in the rare cases that Shikai considers Haruka a sister (he's all "macho" and doesn't like to sound like he has a sister to be a potential weakness (or something)), he just consders her to be an older sister, much like she considers him to be an older brother. These names they figured because the owner of the orphanage was the youngest in his family. And they're twins, so the time that came between their births has kinda been forgotten, and they're excused to both be the older sibling. Or at least, so I say.)

Ah...what else? Oh yeah. That article that Pein was reading. Haha...that's my theory on Zetsu. In case you're interested:
My theory is that he was once two guys who worked with plants (botanists). I'm guessing they were mad-scientist kinda guys (or at least one of them was). So they're doing some kind of experiment with a Venus flytrap about...I don't know, the fusing of species or something. They wound up fused with the plant and each other.
And that's how (I think) we wound up with the Zetsu that we all know and love (and most of us are kind of creeped out by).

Preview: How does one explain Akatsuki to a small child, anyway? (bah, short preview for a long chapter. Of course it's filler.)

Special: Deidara:
Oh, Deidara. Foolish little Deidara.
Honestly, this whole concept was the result of experimental freewriting. Which, believe it or not, is how I figured out ItaTobi (haha...I'm rewriting that story before I'm posting it anywhere).
But I still figured out some kind of an excuse.
Deidara's birth parents were not both male (probably...) but I guess he wound up with two male foster-parents. It's one of those things that doesn't matter to the plot, so I'll be really lenient on it and give about ten different possible stories.
One is that his mother died, and his father decided he wasn't straight and went with some guy, but Dei was so young that he never knew his mother and always assumed that both fathers were his birth parents.
One is that both parents died, and maybe his godfather was gay, whether he had a parter (I don't know how gay marriage laws in Naruto work) or if he found one later doesn't matter, but he would have found another dude before Deidara even really realized that they weren't his real parents.
And I'm sure you can imagine all the other possibilities, because fangirls are an imaginitive sort of people, and often perverted, but that's pretty much what the story behind Deidara saying that is. Perverted.