So.

The eighth chapter.

Standard disclaimer applies.

Which means that I own Naruto - in my dreams.

Chapter 8

Of Fainting and Creating Heirs

Hinata sighed.

The past week had been nothing but stress. After the ceremony, she had been continually visited by people who were eager to meet the next Uchiha bride, not to mention the countless formalities she had to go through. Some of the rituals, such as feeding the bridegroom-to-be's paternal grandfather's uncle's son's nephew's mother's niece's father's grandmother five hundred and one plates of rice, were just plain silly.

Not to mention the old woman's mouth had stunk like HELL.

Rotten teeth aside, she had also faced the problem of explaining to two furious teammates and a dog why she was suddenly engaged to Uchiha Itachi, and how the matter had suddenly, inexplicably, and very conveniently slipped her mind before.

If Kiba and Shino got any idea that the two families were forcing her into this, they would happily take it upon themselves to ensure that Uchiha Itachi would never be able to father a child. And they wouldn't be the only ones, either. There was a long line waiting behind them, containing the likes of Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Naruto, Kurenai, Tenten, Lee, and…well, it was a VERY long line.

The future didn't look so bright suddenly.

Not to mention the cherry on top – she had, with not even a moment's notice, again been summoned by her father and possibly his miserable excuse for a council.

Several shockingly vulgar phrases went through her mind upon hearing this. Hanging around rough hospital shinobi was taking a toll on Hinata's inside manners. The outside was still perfect though.

As she walked through the pristine white corridors of the Hyuuga Compound, the anxious teen wondered what could be the potential reason for having to drag herself before them this time. Surely she had made no mistake in the ceremony – many had praised her later for displaying perfect grace and poise – and her work at the hospital had been going quite smoothly too. Even the stuttering had occurred very little recently, preventing her from behaving in an embarrassing fashion – at least in front of members of her own family. Hinata couldn't think for the life of her what the problem might be.

But of course there was a problem. There always was.

She slid open the door to her father's study and stepped inside, kneeling obediently as she did so. Immediately, the difference stood out like white against black. Instead of the full council convening in a dark room, this gathering was only attended by her father and a couple of the kinder women. The room was airy and well lit, and its three occupants seemed relaxed, enjoying themselves with some green tea sitting around her father's huge mahogany table and swapping memories from long ago.

All three of them turned to see her when she entered. The eldest, Hyuuga Hiroko, who had been Hiashi's nurse when he was a baby, stood up with wide, welcoming arms. "Well, if it isn't the princess herself! Come join us, my dear."

Hinata timidly tiptoed forward and bowed down to the ground, touching her head to the floor. The other woman, Hyuuga Natsu, laughed, patting her head. "What a formal little girl you have, Hiashi! So polite! Sit up, my dear – won't you have some wabishi?"

Completely surprised, Hinata looked up to see the two women smiling at her. Hiashi's face was as impassive as always, but even he couldn't look scary when there were two laughing cherubs of old ladies dangling from his arms.

They exchanged pleasantries. Natsu and Hiroko asked her what she was doing with her time these days. When she replied, blushing, that she was extremely preoccupied with receiving calls, they exchanged knowing glances. "Are you coping with it, dear?" asked Natsu in a kindly voice. "Don't be discouraged. During my own wedding, I received so many old aunts complaining about my facial features that I nearly ran out of the wedding! I had a very bad complexion, you see. I was afraid my husband would abandon me on my wedding night!"

Hiroko laughed. "I remember that day. You looked as scared as a newborn colt, Natsu. Although the amount of attention you will receive will far exceed that, dear," she continued, turning to Hinata. "A marriage between two clans as great as ours will certainly receive a lot of publicity. You will find yourself beset by dozens of people curious to see who from their family is to be the chosen one. And after the marriage! Good heavens, the Uchiha will not let you sleep, so eager will they be to see their beloved son's wife."

"Speaking of the Uchiha, don't you think it wold be wise to inform Hinata of the reason she was called here, Hiroko-hime?" asked Hiashi. Though looking as cold as ever, the presence of the warm-hearted grannies appeared to have relaxed him slightly, so that he looked rather like an indifferent spectator instead of a razor-sharp man. "Hinata," he continued. "We were very pleased by your performance in the engagement. You have shown utmost poise and grace, and have not shamed the Hyuuga in front of the Uchiha."

Hinata blushed with surprise. This was the first time her father had complimented her in her whole life.

"However," continued Hiashi, "An elder from the Uchiha clan pointed out that you and your betrothed have barely even met before. You are not very comfortable with each other, as is understandable. The Hokage insists that you two achieve a level of intimacy very quickly, to hurry up the process of delivering an heir."

Hinata choked on her tea. Though the words were said delicately, silkily, their meaning was unprecedented. Was she here… for a sex talk?

"As a solution, we have come up with an alternative which is acceptable to both families."

Hinata felt her blood turn into ice. The last time she had heard the equivalent of these words, she had been told to marry a man she barely knew. This time, they were talking about creating an heir, for god's sake! What would he suggest now?

"Our suggestion is that you meet Itachi Uchiha thrice a week in his private rooms at the Uchiha Estate," Hiashi stated.

Hinata fainted.

Itachi sighed.

He had been trying to meditate for the past fifteen minutes without the slightest bit of success. It was hard to achieve inner clarity, after all, when Shisui was right by his ear whispering, "Hinata and Itachi sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes…"

While outwardly betraying no sign of distress, on the inside Itachi swore he was going to kill the impudent wretch someday.

This was not the only thing distracting him, nor even the most frequent. Other thoughts plagued his mind. Thoughts of his fiancée. He hadn't seen her since the engagement, although she had visited his house several times to complete the ancient traditions. To be honest, Itachi had been avoiding her, all because of one stupid question that had popped into his mind during the night.

What was he supposed to say to his wife-to-be?

He couldn't exactly treat her like he did his teammates or Shisui. She was, after all, his fiancée. Itachi wished he could have a little bit more experience in this. The idea had briefly come to him to ask his father, but the old widower would probably just stare at him blankly and then answer, "You have to talk to her? Like she's a human?"

Fugaku wasn't exactly an expert on the issue of marital bliss. And that was the understatement of the millennium.

Plus his life was going to become more difficult since the nice, meddling idiot of a Hokage had directed him to spend his afternoons with Hinata three times a week. How was he supposed to behave?

Now more than ever, Itachi wished he could have his mother for this.

And then he was promptly swept away by a memory, into one of those warm, balmy days when it was summer, and his father wasn't home to pester him to train, and okaa-san was still alive.

(FLASHBACK)

Eight year old Itachi Uchiha leaned against the kitchen counter where his mother stood making cookies. He had recently been promoted to chuunin, and he had a ton of missions to deal with. This day, however, was special. Not only was it an off day, which was extremely rare, but his father was also out of town, gone to Cloud on some business. He was alone with his mother and his 4-year old brother, Sasuke, who had just begun to learn the alphabet and boasted about this whenever he could in the form of loudly screaming, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP…!" Today, however, he was asleep, so Itachi was with his mother in the kitchen.

"Itachi-kun," his mother said, gently breaking him away from his reverie, "Could you pass the bowl over there please?"

He had jumped up, eager to help, and rushed for the bowl. Picking it up, he tried to run back only to trip over his own feet and fall, the bone china breaking and its shards embedding themselves into his arm.

He didn't scream or cry. He had been trained to face worse than this. So why was his mother screaming? She ran towards him with a towel, tears streaking down her face and, carefully pulling out the shards, cleaned and bandaged his arm.

When he asked her about that later, she said that a mother's worst fear was to see her child hurt. She then carefully kissed him on the forehead.

After his father had returned from his visit, he had seen the bandage on Itachi's arm and questioned him. Naive as he had been, he had told the truth.

Fugaku had calmly stood up, pulled his wife into a room, locked it and brutally beaten her.

(END FLASHBACK)

Itachi's eyes snapped open as he made a promise to himself. The question of what to say to his future bride suddenly had an answer, sounding something like this:

"I swear to God, Hinata Hyuuga, I will never let anyone hurt you as father hurt okaa-san. I swear that I will protect you to the best of my ability. You have nothing to fear from me."

To say that Tsunade was intoxicated would probably be like saying Naruto liked ramen. It was that obvious.

Shizune stood in front of the deranged Hokage, her eyes roving all over the place for help as the formerly sane person she called her mentor drank like a whale. Whatever had possessed Uncle Dan to entrust her to be reared by this woman, anyway? Maybe he had been swayed by the huge chest that was currently in danger of popping out in front of the eyes of a very interested Hatake Kakashi. Honestly, the man was a pervert. She had known that he read those awful Icha Icha novels, but seeing him eyeing his previous mentor's teammate's chest made her feel slightly queasy.

Not that he was the only one guilty of ogling. Jiraiya, with an enormous nosebleed, had been kicked out of the office window again. That window had been broken so many times by the Toad sannin that she was honestly considering billing him for the charges of fixing it. Or just leaving it that way to teach Tsunade a lesson.

No. That would probably lead to herself being flung through a wall by her deceased uncle's enraged fiancée.

Shizune didn't need this, not now. Why did everything have to happen to her? She had gone to the Hyuuga compound with Jiraiya for the customary weekly lesson, which would be ending soon, considering the pace Hinata was cruising at (she had grown up in a house where manners and etiquette were considered more important than breathing, after all) and found her charge slumped unconscious to the floor, with several attendants hovering around her. After they had managed to revive her, Hiashi Hyuuga had promptly explained that his daughter was supposed to meet somebody whom he referred to as 'him' only for conversing and finding common ground to initiate intimacy.

The girl had blushed like crazy through the whole thing and then refused to tell either of them a single word about what had happened.

So, on top of that, this inexplicable bout of foaming-mouthed drunkenness was driving her crazy. And, for God's sake, if Kakashi didn't stop staring at Tsunade-sama's endowments, she was going to emasculate him for sure!

Why was he here, anyway?

"Hospital…teammates…fight…stupid…moron…saké...broken…father…kill…saké! Heirs...experiments...saké... byakugan... sharingan... SAKÉ!"

The Hokage had been blubbering something along these lines, and while Shizune was usually an expert at figuring out her guardian's drunken speeches, this time it had flown right over her head. The reigning world champion at the sport, Jiraiya, had submitted to his tendency to blow great spurts of blood from of his nose at the sight of Tsunade's ample cleavage hanging out. He had been consequently flung through,the window, and was thus unavailable for comment. Kakashi didn't seem any better than her at deciphering the comments, but she couldn't see his expression beneath that stupid mask of his, so that wasn't of any help.

The seven-thousand-and-fifty-seventh time that the Hokage screamed, "SAKÉ!" Shizune lost her temper.

"Tsunade-sama!" she said sharply. She did not need to shout. Shizune seldom used her 'cold' voice and for a very good reason – the ice in it would have put the Snow Country to shame. "If you don't shut up right this second, I promise you that you will never drink saké again."

Tsunade bristled. "Are you threatening me, Shizune?" she demanded.

"No, I am making a promise. Kakashi-san, I would appreciate it if you would stop staring at the Hokage's chest, otherwise I might induce Jiraiya-san to stop selling his books to you…" she paused for a minute to survey the horrified look on his face with satisfaction, "…and if someone doesn't tell me why you are here, I swear to God I will make every person in this office wish they had never been born."

A momentary silence descended before a nervous-looking Tenten, who was presumably here for her briefing, stepped forward and said, in trembling tones, "Shizune-san, Sasuke and Naruto got into a fight again over something that Naruto said, and then ended up using their Rasengan and Chidori respectively, which wouldn't have mattered so much if it hadn't been for the fact that they actually managed to connect. Naruto is fine now, because of his otherworldly ability to heal, but Sasuke is in the hospital, and Hokage-sama was just, um, instructing Kakashi-sensei about the follies of allowing his students to fight when so many of our shinobi are in Suna…" She trailed off nervously.

Shizune sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"All right, I will handle this," she spoke commandingly to Tenten, who was standing there with two other nervous-looking chuunin. "You three, go back to your houses, your appointment has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning at 9 o' clock. Kazuo ," she continued, referring to the more brutish-looking brown-haired teen, who started nervously at being addressed. "Please assist Jiraiya-sama into the hospital, as I fear he is unable to walk right now. Take the help of Minami-san from the translation department. She will be working in Room No. 3. At the hospital, leave Jiraiya-sama at the reception – he will be taken care of there. Kakashi-san, kindly return to your duties. Tsunade-same, no more saké. You have had enough. We'll have to choose the medic who will attend to Sasuke, not that there are many free ones…"

Shizune rifled through the pages of the enormous shinobi ledger lying on one of the side tables, and then sighed when she saw the only person who was available for this.

"Ah well, I guess Sasuke has a date with Hinata-chan again."