CHAPTER 14: A BREAK OFF THE ACTIONS

-CHAPTER START-

Opening his eyes from his near eternal slumber, the first thing that Gaara noticed was the fact that his sister and brother was beside him on his sand futon while his sensei was sitting on a chair nearby, looking outwards the window of his hotel room with a cup of coffee on a table in front of him.

Baki immediately realised that Gaara was already up and slowly turned his head towards his location. "Gaara." He said, doing his best to hide his fear. "How are you? How was your sleep?" Even though Baki may have looked like a hard ass guy who only considers his team as weapons for his village, he actually liked and cared about his team, except for the fact that Gaara kept on threatening him with his sand every time he even bothered them. But then again, everybody was bothered by Gaara, so it doesn't really matter to him.

"I... Am fine. Better." Gaara answered with his trademarked emotionless answer. Actually, during his sleep, he was talking with Shukaku, and found out a lot of things about her. She even taught him how to manipulate his sand better in his mindscape. She also realised that Gaara wasn't one to show emotions. During the time she saw him, all those tears and love mostly came from the fact that he only reacted to huge emotional events. He's too used to walking around without emotions on his face, and as such, he actually talked with everyone, even Shukaku emotionlessly. Though she still made him cry sometimes from her tales of her previous hosts and how that stupid priest changed her.

"Good." Baki said, nodding. He had actually received the low down of what happened after he was knocked out by the Uzumaki-Namikazes from Temari and Kankurou, and what he heard scared the shit out of him. Those guys are strong enough to incapacitate him without him knowing for a very long time and were good enough to fix Gaara's faulty seal, allowing him to finally sleep. And even now, he could see that Gaara looked much better than he usually was. His mood was much better too.

But he never knew that Temari and Kankurou never told him of what happened within Gaara's mind, not for a second believing that someone would believe them.

"Gaara, I heard of what happened from your siblings, so I think it would not be a wise move for us to ask for reparations, since you attacked them first." He said.

Gaara nodded once and said, "I know."

Baki remained silent for a while before asking a very important question. "Gaara, they said that your seal was fixed. That is why you could sleep, wasn't it?" the unasked question of whether or not he'll go crazy again was voiced between the lines of his words as he spoke them to Gaara

"Yes. I could now sleep. No wonder people liked to sleep. It... is a good feeling. And I no longer heard Mot-Shu-the Ichibi screaming for blood, so I might just not do so." Gaara said. But then, channelling his old crazy persona, he added. "But do not push me." Gaara actually hated calling her that, but appearances need to be kept, so he still called her the Ichibi in public.

"Aww, thank you, Gaara." Shukaku answered. "It'll be strange if somehow everyone thought that I am suddenly a good girl. The cover is still necessary, no matter how."

Sending an internal nod towards Shukaku, Gaara looked towards his two siblings beside him, completely ignoring the slight fear apparent on Baki's face from what he said. Stroking his sister's ponytail, he thought, "I will protect that smile of yours, nee-san. I will make sure that no one will remove it from you."

Getting up but leaving his futon of sand, Gaara walked towards his gourd and wore it as he always did, on his back. Once again ignoring Baki, he walked outside the hotel room and took out the souvenir that he received yesterday: the Hiraishin Kunai. Lifting it in front of his face, he channelled some chakra to it.

Just as Naruto promised, he appeared in front of him in a yellow flash before quickly grabbing him and disappearing once again, the entire process taking just a second. Gaara was gone in a flash. Literally and figuratively.

-AT THE UZUMAKI-NAMIKAZE COMPOUND-

Gaara appeared right in the middle of the training ground and immediately fell on his knee before recovering much quicker than nearly everyone else who was brought in by Naruto using the same method. "Does it always felt that way?" Gaara asked, his tone still emotionless.

"Lighten up, bro!" Naruto said cheerfully. "Anyway, it does. Only those who are used to it will not puke his entire day's food out. My dad flashed around for hundreds of times in a battle. I can only wonder what he felt during that."

Standing up from his position, the first thing that Gaara saw was the fact that the desert that was the training area five days ago was gone! The sandy brown desert that he created during their fight a couple of days ago had mysteriously disappeared! As if sensing his confusion, Naruto said, "The entire training grounds had a special series of seals on them that could restore it to its preset condition, usually the condition before the seal was activated. Just by channelling enough chakra, the seal will activate, restoring the entire field back to its original state." Naruto said before he looked towards Gaara beside him, his mouth agape at such a seal.

"You know, Gaara-kun, my father, the Sage of Six Paths was one of, if not the best sealmaster ever in history of mankind." Shukaku said towards a stunned Gaara. "Compared to what our father could do, what he did was nothing."

Gaara snapped from his thoughts on hearing this particular tidbit of information, keeping it within his mind. He then looked at Naruto again before asking. "Naruto-san, can I train here? This would be the best place for someone like us to train, and I'm sure that with the seals on, you'll be able to recover the area soon enough."

"Yeah, go ahead. I told you already, didn't I?" Naruto said, smiling. "Just beware of my daughter and her student. You won't like it when she's angry. Scratch that. You won't like it when they're angry."

Gaara just nodded before walking straight towards the training area in front of him before the cork on his gourd popped out and his sand moved automatically around him, like a snake coiling to strike. With his newfound levels of control, the sand didn't just move automatically, they were also much faster and tougher and were capable of forming and reforming into anything he wanted as he thought of it. Together with Shukaku, they both were capable of countering any threat, Shukaku taking care of any genjutsu or tactics to confuse him while he dealt with the physical aspect of any attacks.

Meanwhile, close by, Sakura was on her knees, panting for breath as sweat trailed down her entire body. Her sensei's as crazy as ever! She haven't slept for three days! And Kushina looked fresh as a fucking daisy, even when she's together with her all the while! "Damn bloodline," she thought. They've been training hard for the exams, something which Sakura knew would shock everyone when she finally let loose all her skills within the exams. They even taught her two Doton jutsus! Although they're just low rank Doton jutsus, she knew that Kushina expected her to use them to its maximum capability during the exams.

Kushina heard from afar as the sound of Gaara's sand moving around hit her ears and looked at Sakura. "Sakura, I think we'll end it here for the day."

Immediately Sakura collapsed in fatigue, their day's training and three days of not sleeping sapping her out of every ounce of her strength. As she sat on the ground, her chest rapidly puffing for breath, she asked her sensei. "Kushina-sensei, just three days of lack of sleep turned me like this, what does 12 years of your life without sleep would be like?" She asked, remembering Gaara's story.

Kushina hummed thoughtfully before saying with a shrug. "Truthfully, I have absolutely no idea. Our bloodline allows us to go even for an entire week without sleep, and even afterwards, we only needed short breaks to continue fighting. I think dad once forced himself to go nearly two weeks without sleep. But even with our bloodline, he still slept like a log for 10 hours after that."

Sakura, being trained for a bit in medical skills and any related knowledge relating to human physiology and nature, gasped at this. "Two weeks?! And he slept for only 10 hours?! Normal human, heck, even ninjas would've died!"

Kushina nodded. "Yup. Ninjas don't play fair by human standards, but in the end, they're still human. We, on the other hand, pretty much transcended humanity. Insanely powerful, body physiology so different that will make even Tsunade confused yet somehow was able to breed with regular humans well and gave birth to children with the same bloodline as their parents, not combining the half demon aspect of us and our insane survival capabilities, we are practically the pinnacle of humanity. If you could say so."

Sakura just nodded her agreement at what her teacher's words were before she said, "Sensei, can we list the... survival capabilities of your bloodline?" As an aspiring medic, or at least she hoped to be, such a thing would be of massive interest to her, and she kept getting more and more information from them the longer she lived with them. "Let's see... the capability to eat and digest anything, even dangerous and usually inedible items, the capability to digest and reproduce any consumed poisons-"

"That was more of a fighting capability, but still a part of our bloodline. I thought you asked for survival capabilities?" Kushina cut her off.

Blushing, Sakura continued. "Yeah. Okay. Continuing. The capability to breath in nearly any atmosphere with the exception of complete vacuum but includes underwater,"

"But our fighting capability decreases dramatically underwater, both due to lack of oxygen and the water's own resistance as well."

"Okay. Ability to see in the dark with infrared sight and chakra sight even in total darkness, kidneys capable of filtering any toxic material and channelling them towards the... uh, what was that organ again?" Sakura asked.

"Betcher's Glands."

"Right. Betcher's Glands. Okay, next. A full body membrane that acts as a suit, allowing survivability and full operational capabilities even in dangerous and toxic environments without needing specialized equipments, a body that can withstand nearly anything thrown at it thanks to a combination of tough skin, the aforementioned pseudosuit, dense muscles and extremely tough bones. Did I miss something?" She said and asked at the end.

"Yeah. Our maturity rate, remember? And our immunity to diseases." Kushina continued.

"Okay. So, you took longer to grow during pregnancy or something. A year, right?"

"Yup."

"So, a year of pregnancy, but only taking a year to have a trainable body though actual training started from birth with the application of special seals, and another two years to achieve maturity and being able to breed. So three years in total for full maturity, allowing for extremely fast birthrates, and combining that with the fact that you're born with all of said advantages allows you to survive anywhere, anyhow. Oh, and that you can heal faster than anything on the planet, even regrow organs and limbs given enough time even without chakra. And near unlimited stamina for anything you could use it for, highly efficient digestive system, and a lot of others that I'm sure I forgot."

"Yup."

Sakura shook her head. "Every time I thought of your bloodline sensei, I was awed. Each and every time. No exceptions. It's just... crazy. Crazy in concept, crazy in power." She then had a thoughtful hum coming from her lips before she continued. "If so, doesn't that mean that if somehow, we are able to open up new grounds or lands at a faraway place or another planet, you guys would be the best candidate for the colonization process right? Quick breeding means that you can populate the area faster, and insane survivability means that you can live practically anywhere. Your settlers will be able to populate an entire town in less than thirty years if they gave birth nonstop every year."

"That's true." Kurumi responded. "But then again, ninja technology still hasn't grown that much that we can populate an entire planet. But maybe a foreign land would be fine."

"Still, that's pretty terrifying, especially for the locals. You guys drop in, set up some hidden bases or whatnot, start fucking like rabbits, and in 10 years there'll be an entire army of nearly immortal hanyou warriors of various sizes and ages with skills unimaginable and power unparalleled, all ready to kill and crush any opposition you meet." Sakura said. Already being quite... intimate with the workings of sex thanks to the strangeness that was the Uzumaki-Namikaze, she had no problem using what she would once considered vulgar words in talks nowadays.

"Well, we still prefer diplomacy then just destroying everything we see. Does not make a good argument on peace like that, you know." Kushina answered. "Well, enough of that. Get in the house, and rest up. The next two day will be a free activity day for you, so you can do anything. I'll even throw in a bonus: it's an all expenses paid holiday. Just bill it on us. I know dad won't mind. We don't spend much, and thanks to our own performance in high-ranked missions, we gain more money than we can use them for."

"Really?!" Sakura squealed in delight at this. "Anything?! I can buy anything?!"

Shrugging while turning around and sending a quick wave goodbye, she said, "Yeah, anything. Go ahead, you earned it."

But before she could leave, she felt Sakura grab her hand. "Kushina-sensei, wait."

"Hmm?"

"Umm... What if... you go out with me tomorrow?" Sakura said, uncertainty in her voice. But as she said her piece, she gained more confidence and continued speaking out her idea. "It's just that... I never saw you going out, or enjoying yourself for a while. I mean, you're a girl! A lady! And a beautiful one at that! But the only thing that I ever saw you do was train and train and train even more! Why not take a break once in a while? Socialise with others. I'll get Ino, maybe your Hina-mama if she wanted to, or maybe Yakumo as well. We'll have a girl's night out! How's that?"

Kushina scratched her chin, thinking of a way to respond to her student's invitation. True that she didn't have much of a social life, but then again, most people shunned her family, and when combined with the fact that she didn't need too much of a rest in anything, it made her and her family push almost all their remaining time towards training and getting stronger. Sure it is good, but not having any social life at all would be terrible. Internally agreeing, she made her reply.

Watching Kushina's mouth open, Sakura was about to cheer up when Naruto's voice cut through the air. "I think that's a good idea too." Turning around, she saw that Naruto was standing behind her, the sight of Gaara training with an entire sea of sand - which she now knew he made with his chakra – behind him was quickly ignored to listen to Naruto's words.

"You should go with them, Kushi-chan." Naruto said. "Go have some social life of your own. It's something that's quite rare for both of us. Meanwhile, I'd love a date with my two queens, so I'll take your Hina-mama and Kuru-mama with me. You can go and enjoy life as a regular 6' something superhuman girl for a bit. Forget your training, your schedules, the exams and just have fun. Bill everything to the family. Even your friends'." He said.

"Thank you Naruto-san!" she said before quickly turning around to face Kushina. "So, we're set? Tomorrow morning. How's that? I'll run towards Ino and Yakumo right now. They might still be at the training grounds!" She said, her tune beyond happy. It's been a while since she met her friends and went out with them, so having received an all-expenses paid holiday like this was definitely a good idea. And her sensei could do with some recreation of her own. She wasn't sheltered, but she didn't know much about regular life as well. She immediately ran towards the mansion, ready to meet her friends to tell them of the gathering.

Watching Sakura's disappearing back, Kushina turned towards her father. "Are you sure that's a good idea dad? I mean, the villagers might just shun them as well."

Naruto was thoughtful for a while before he said, "I think it is a good idea. You never had a pretty normal life ever since you're born, and now, with Sakura with you, you can experience such a life, no matter how short. Sure, people may shun us, but they knew better than to do so against a clan head's daughter. No matter what, they know that as a clan head's daughter, it will be a bad idea to refuse treatment to you. Besides, your pals are all clan heirs. And since they interacted well with you, watching them shunning you will give them a bad reputation. And besides, you'll need to have experience of living like a regular girl as well in order to be someone who wanted peace. You won't know what's peace if you haven't experienced it yet, right? I'm sure that this will help." Naruto said his lengthy piece.

"Well, if you think it's a good idea, then I'll go." Kushina said, turning around to go to the mansion.

She felt it as a hand squeezed her shoulder, knowing that it was her father's. "Don't forget to enjoy yourself Kushina-chan. No use letting you go like that if you didn't enjoy it."

Returning his loving squeeze with one of her own, she said, "Okay dad. No worries, I will."

And so, both of them continued with their regular activities: training their asses out.

-WITH SAKURA-

Throwing on her regular clothes instead of the all black training gear that Naruto gave her, she dashed out of the house, intent on finding her friends. It's been a while since they had a get together, what with her near-constant training with the Uzumaki-Namikazes. "She should enjoy life for a bit," She thought. "Powerful as they are, they seemed to lack the initiative to take a break. That's all fine and good thanks to their bloodline, but never was a good idea. I guess Ino can help me take her somewhere nice. It's all expenses paid too!" She happily thought in her mind.

Reaching the regular training grounds used by Team 10, she heard the sounds of combat coming from the area, where she immediately assumed that the team was training, so she decided to approach them from the nearby tree lines. She saw that Team 10 was actually having a team spar with Team 8, their senseis watching from the sidelines.

Asuma had a cigarette clenched between his teeth as he watched his team spar with Kurenai's with her standing beside him. They decided to have a sparring bout between the two teams. He sure as hell knew that they need the experience to enter the exams. He may be lax with his kids, but that doesn't mean that he ignored them. The three showed of their skills as Ino continually kept Yakumo at a distance with quick threats and the use of her clan's jutsu, though Yakumo still managed to snap off a genjutsu or two to confuse Chouji who missed with his Human Boulder technique. Shikamaru was standing still even as his shadow darted around to control the battlefield trying to stop Kiba and his dog.

But unfortunately for Team 10, Team 8 had the advantage here in the form of Aburame Shino. His bugs were too numerous for him to hold down properly and attacking him is useless since he could command his bugs even without moving. Ino's attempt to use the Mind Body Switch jutsu failed horribly as she only managed to target his bugs instead of himself, and he could drain their chakra dry without even trying.

In the end, Team 8 won, causing the members of Team 10 to fall on the ground on their ass, extremely drained thanks to Shino's bugs even as Kiba had a huge grin on his face with their success while Yakumo was just smiling softly.

Clapping was heard from Asuma as he walked towards his genin team, pride in his eyes. "Good job team. You might not win, but I could see that your skills have improved. Even Kurenai's team has improved."

Kiba replied boisterously. "Yeah, Asuma-sensei! I feel like I could kick anyone's ass in the exams, no problem!"

Sakura had an evil laugh coming from her Inner at this. "Wow, dog boy's fucking stupid if he thinks he can win. Sasuke-kun's even better now, and even Sai can hold his own. And we? We improved the most! Look at these muscles!" Inner said as she showed her mental biceps towards Sakura. "We'll kick that mutt's ass like no tomorrow! Count on it!"

"Yeah," She internally replied. "And if that's not enough, there's the Uzumaki-Namikazes. Hinata will crush him like a bug, and Kushina-sensei might just need a flick of a finger. Or maybe absolutely no movement at all." She said.

"Yeah," her Inner replied. She could even feel her shivers. "That Wind Blade jutsu was deadly. Extremely."

"No arguments there." She said, ending her internal conversation as she neared both the teams.

Ino, on the ground panting due to the spar, suddenly saw Sakura coming and immediately waved her. "Hey Sakura! Come here! What's up?" she said, as loud as her tired body allowed her.

The jounins already realised her presence earlier, so they didn't act the least bit shocked at her presence. Bowing in respect to the two jounins, Sakura approached the two teams. "Hey Ino, Yakumo."

"Hi Sakura," Yakumo said. She might not be as close to her as Ino was, but she was close enough to happily greet her. They're comrades anyway, and what sort of comrade ignored their friend's friend?

"So, Sakura. What brings you here?" Kurenai asked as she watched Sakura sitting together with the two teams. "Planning to train together?" everyone already knew that she stayed with the Demon, so they were quite surprised as she appeared with them, especially since she usually disappeared from team training and meetings near instantly.

"Oh no," she said, maybe a bit too quickly. "I've had enough of that for the entire day. And quite possibly the entire month. I'm here to talk to Ino and Yakumo."

"Oh? What about?" Asuma asked. Sure, it wasn't his type to bother about his students' personal life, but this close to the chuunin exams, secrets and skills might be told accidentally, and might turn around the results of a battle. Quite a lot of money was flying around during every Chuunin Exams in the form of bets hidden from the knowledge of the genins entering, so any intelligence gathering attempts would be thwarted before they started.

"Nothing much," Sakura said with a shrug. "I just wanted to invite Ino and Yakumo for a get together with us girls."

Ino, who heard this immediately had her ears perk up. It doesn't matter if she was tired to the bone, any invitation to a get together like that will not be missed by her. "When? With who else?" she quickly asked.

Sakura chuckled. "Always the gossip queen, eh Ino? Anyway, I wanted to invite you, Yakumo over there and Kushina-san."

"Kushina? Naruto's daughter? Why?" Ino asked, a small frown marring her tired face.

But before Sakura could answer, Yakumo's KI suddenly spiked. Nothing threatening, but still there. "Ino-san," She said, her voice had just a tiny bit of threat in them. "Do not badmouth Naruto-san or his family in front of me." She said. "He helped save my life, and most probably my family's, and only thanks to him I was able to be with all of you here."

"Okay, sorry." Ino said, realising her mistake before she looked towards Sakura and saw her angry face. Realising this, she quickly said, "No! No! I mean, she didn't really connect with us even during the academy. Why did you suddenly wanted to invite her for a get-together?"

Placing a hand on her chest, Sakura drew huge breaths a couple of times to calm her rage down, smoothing even Inner's rage towards Ino. Unknown to her, even Asuma and Kurenai and the other members of their team was listening. Looking towards Ino's face, she said. "You know what she was right?"

"Yeah. Everyone did, remember?" Ino said, matter-of-factly. "Granddaughter of the Yondaime, Uzumaki-Namikaze's son, the second owner of the Astarte bloodline and also a seven-tailed bijuu in human form." Ino replied, remembering the Great Reveal and that one time she revealed their bloodline to them all.

"True." Sakura said, calmer this time since Ino didn't say the last part with scorn, hate or anger. "I lived with them nowadays, and I just found out something. Ino, do you know that she never had a day out? Most, if not her entire day was used to train, train and train some more, never taking a break."

"What?" this time, Kurenai responded. The thought of someone like Kushina, who was a very pretty and strong kunoichi training like that was something that made her both proud and worried. Worried of both her physical and mental state.

"She never had a day of respite in her life. She trained beyond what humans, even ninjas can go to. She had strength. No. She had strength beyond strength within her, both physically and mentally." Sakura said. "As I lived with them, I saw them. Training, training and training even more. I… I even saw their bijuu form training." Sakura shivered at this.

"What?!" This time, Asuma said this. "Dad never got involved when they did so! He said that it's too devastating!"

"And he's right." Sakura said. "That was one of the most terrifying, shocking yet awe-inspiring and grand thing I have ever seen. Imagine watching two godlike beings slam into each other, their massive chakra flying around, spamming powerful, most oftentimes overcharged jutsus without mercy, even obliterating massive areas of forests. No wonder Kurumi-san alone did a massive damage when she was controlled. I thank every god in this world that sent them to our side instead of against us."

"But what does that got to do with anything?" Ino asked, still not getting the point.

"She never came out." Sakura said. "She was exposed to all the darkness of the world and was able to retain her sanity, but rarely does she ever walk outside her house with her friends, if any. She… she didn't have many friends, Ino. She never knew the joys of just spending a nice day with her friends. She was by no means shy, but she was shunned by everyone, just because she's a hanyou. She didn't have nice clothes, her entire ensemble was functional and combat-worthy. She went outside her clan compound expecting attacks at every moment. She never knew enjoyment, her every waking moment was filled with training, combat simulations, devastating battles and other similar things."

Sakura then gained a determined look on her face. Looking straight into Ino's eyes, she said, "That's why I wanted her to go out with us. She never had the chance for it, so I hoped that we could be going out together. Let her forget being a ninja for once, and just be a young, albeit 6'4" tall superhuman girl. She's still younger than us, if you remember. What do you say?"

Ino was horrified as she heard Sakura's tale. Being a social animal, she went out any moment she possibly could with her friends, even if it's just to have a quick drink, some shopping, or anything, really. Her friend network was large and wide, yet she never knew of someone who could survive living like that. Immediately she gained a cheerful look on her face. "Of course! We cannot let someone like that remain so! We'll be going out all over Konoha tomorrow! Yakumo, you in?" Ino said while looking towards Yakumo at that last part.

"Of course." Yakumo said with a smile. The heiress of the Kurama clan continued. "I may not be too outgoing, yet even I had friends of my own. We should fix this." Yakumo then looked at Sakura before asking. "Where will we meet?"

"I think in front of the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound at 10 in the morning would be fine. How's that?" she said.

"That's a good time." Yakumo said, smiling.

"We'll be there!" Ino said, a bit too energetic when comparing her tired look from before.

"Okay!" Sakura said with an enthusiastic smile. "She never slept at night, so we'll be there, no worries."

"You guys better enjoy yourself," Asuma said. "We're giving you all the day off tomorrow and the next day. Have some rest, then enter the exams."

"Make sure you rest." Kurenai said, agreeing to Asuma's words.

"OKAY ASUMA/KURENAI-SENSEI!" The respective members of their team said as Sakura left, a smile on her face.

-AT THE UZUMAKI-NAMIKAZE COMPOUND-

Naruto entered the house and saw that both of his wives are preparing dinner for the day at the kitchen from the smell that the room was emanating. Following his nose, he entered to see Hinata and Kurumi, both wearing white aprons while cooking their dinner. Standing beside the two, he watched as Kurumi chop vegetables using precisely controlled bursts of Wind Blades by running her palms over them and Hinata cleaning the fishes using her water manipulation. Pride filled his chest at the sheer amount of control the two had over their strengths as they continued their duties using their ninja skills. "Of course. Power is nothing without control. That's one of the first things that Kuru-hime taught me," Naruto thought.

"Hello my two queens," he said before giving a light kiss to both of their cheeks.

"Hello." Both answered calmly, busy with their respective works.

"Aww… my wives are busy. No problem." Naruto said before leaving their sides, walking backwards a little. "You know," he said. "Sakura gave me a good idea. Let's go on a date tomorrow."

"A date?" they asked simultaneously as their hands stopped their respective works.

"Yeah." Naruto said. "Kushina's going out with Sakura and her friends, so I think we should do the same. Take some break for a while. Besides, I never took you two out on a date, right?" He said, smiling.

Wiping her hand on the apron after washing it, Hinata slowly paced towards Naruto before standing right in front of him and places a palm on Naruto's cheek before tilting her head upwards to look at Naruto straight into his shiny bright blue eyes, love visible within them. "Naru-koi, we know you loved us. You don't need to take us on a date like that just to show us."

"She's right, honey." Kurumi said. It's her turn now to walk towards Naruto, holding his other cheek while stroking his whisker marks, a part of him and her that made him look so sexy. "We don't need to do that. We know it, and you know it."

"But still," Naruto tried countering, though he's actually lowering his head to ease Kurumi in stroking his whisker marks. He liked it, and they both knew it. "I wanted a sense of normalcy in our family, a sense of regularity. Kushi-chan... she never felt that, ever. I just realized it as Sakura suggested her going out with her. We... we wanted to become the ultimate guard to Konoha, to our daily peace, to our normal lives. Yet we never taught her that normalcy. Shunned ever since we returned to Konoha, our entire family mostly spends time within this compound. I think it's better if we were to show our faces a bit more often to the people. They may hate us now, but who knows?"

"That's... quite the good idea." Kurumi said. "We cannot just stay in here. Sure, it's safe, but it detaches us from the people outside. I think it'll be a good idea for us. It might be necessary for us to have some form of outside presence. So far, we only went out for grocery trips, missions and council meetings. I think we should get out more."

Hinata looked towards Kurumi before shrugging. "If Kurumi-chan's fine with it, I'm fine with it too. Though I recommend that we postpone the 'get out more' part later, maybe after the exams."

"It's settled then! We're going out tomorrow!" Naruto said out loud in happiness, a feeling that was shared by everyone around him, making them all break out in smiles as Kurumi and Hinata continued making their dinner, Naruto watching his two loving wives from their backs.

-NEXT MORNING-

Kushina slowly opened her eyes, ending her nightly meditation session, watching around with his enhanced senses to observe everything around her at 4 o'clock in the morning. Because Astarte like her and her dad didn't need too much sleep or was able to forgo sleep entirely for a while, they need another method to rest in the night if they do so. And the method that they chose was by meditating throughout the entire night.

Even on non-combat situations, the Catalepsean Node of an Astarte is also active. This allows them to rest their mind, and their body's rest was taken care of by the Larraman's Organ to recover the body's condition to its optimal levels and both the Second Heart and the Multi Lung, combined with the better blood composition granted by the Haemastamen can recover their stamina faster than anything, both in and out of battle. This results in them needing much less sleep than regular humans, only about an hour, yet gaining the all the benefits of a regular 8-hour sleep.

This allows them to deprive themselves of sleep, yet still capable of fighting at full capacity, especially when chakra reinforcement towards the brain was performed to help them hold back sleep further. Kushina and her father once sparred non-stop for an entire week just to test out their body's amazing constitution, and the only thing that happened was that by the end of the week, they're quite tired, about at the level of an all-out spar between two good jounins, but needing only 8 hours of sleep to recover themselves fighting fit.

Unfortunately for her, this gave her a new kind of problem.

Her dad's instruction to take a break for an entire day, when combined with their Astarte body means that Kushina now had nothing to do, and she's already up and running. She had spent the rest of the night meditating, and she cannot sleep anymore, already fully energized and raring to go. Racking her mind for something to do this early in the morning, she decided to take a simple walk. Not that she cannot use that time to train, mind you, but she thought it would be prudent to follow her father's orders and just take it easy for an entire day.

Getting up from her cross-legged position on the floor beside her bed, she stood and shook her legs to remove the kinks in them before going outside her room, the darkness of the early morning not bothering her one bit thanks to her Occulobe. Walking from her room towards the outside of the house, passing by her parents' room along the way, she stood right in front of the door before taking in a deep breath of the cold, crisp morning air. Still wearing her light brown-coloured pyjamas (which was also combat –worthy thanks to the amount of seals placed on it, slipped between the seams of the fabric), she started her walk throughout town.

Slowly walking around, her breath creating mists in the air thanks to Konoha's cold morning temperature, she looked at all the sights of the town in the morning, before everyone was awake. Her sensitive senses caught wind of blood, coming from a nearby cat that had a large rat in his mouth, fresh from his hunting trip, his eyes glowing in the darkness of the night. Her ears perked at every tiny sound, listening to the sound of her own footsteps, the skittering bugs on the town's floor and the crunch of gravel underneath her foot as she treaded lightly, unconsciously practicing and applying her silent walking technique. She saw through the darkness as ninjas hopped on rooftop on patrols, their chakra glowing a light blue in her eyesight as she saw their body temperature being maintained by a layer of chakra around them from the reddish glow their body heat was emitting in her eyesight.

As she continued her walk, she realised that she felt as if she entered a whole new world. The early mornings, where the air was cold, the ninjas are hidden and the animals are active felt like an entirely new experience for her. The eerily silent surroundings felt as if it could swallow one's entire spirit whole as the darkness of the night, not even lighted by the moon, not visible in the night sky enveloped the usually bustling village. She saw as activities in the night continued, with silent patrols moving around, intent on keeping peace in the night as they did in the day. She was definitely enjoying this night stroll of hers. No glares, no looks of anger or hate, nor were there anyone else that would think her stroll was anything but. It felt as if she owned the night, the entire town to herself and her alone.

At that time, she felt what her dad wanted to say to her, the peace that she never felt. She felt alive and living for the first time since coming to Konoha! She realised, as she walked down the empty Konoha night streets, her only friends being the nocturnal animals and the environment, she knew total, absolute peace. She didn't think about training, about life threatening movements, about the people's feelings of her. The only thing running through her mind was how free, how peaceful her current condition was.

Unconsciously, she clenched her hand, balling them into fists. If not for her tight rein over her chakra, her bijuu-level chakra might just explode out for even the weakest of sensors to feel. The sheer hammering of emotions that this one walk in the dark of the night caused her was truly something to behold. Does it really matter that she was born as something human, yet more than a human, and was still able to feel all of these emotions? Her father taught her that emotions are good, but if left unchecked will turn bad. And combining that level of 'bad' with their powers, it'll escalate rapidly. Thus why her father always trained her to rein in her emotions and never acted on them.

She had a sudden parallel line of thought ran through her mind as she thought the above. What'll happen if her, any of her descendants and any of her father's were to push away the life of a ninja, and lived as civilians? They are human, yet so far from a human that regular living might be quite difficult for them. The same traits that increase both their survivability and combat abilities backfired when they're placed in a situation where their abilities are unnecessary. What use was acidic spit if you were to work as a farmer or shopkeeper? What does the ability to eat one's brain to gain their knowledge be used for when they were to work as a doctor? Sure some of the abilities that they have would be useful, such as extreme strength, stamina and requiring less sleep be good for miners and enhanced senses be used for hunting, but do you need insane amounts of chakra when you're just a trader?

Shaking her head to break those thoughts, she spoke in her mind. "I guess I'll know when the time comes. For now, I'll enjoy this night while it lasts." Letting her raging emotions calm down, she continued her slow walk down the streets, catching every sight and scenes of the night and storing them within her mind. At that exact moment, she made an oath to herself. She will not stop. She will not rest until she was acknowledged by the village. No, the world! She'll make sure the same peace that she felt this night will be felt by not just herself, but also by her descendants, her father's, and all of their family members! Demons they may once be, but it doesn't make them any less human once they became a human!

Mind made up, she continued her walk all over the village. "Grandfather may be right about humans," she said to herself, referring to the Sage of Six Paths, "In that they're all very full of love when they do love something and that they can love something that's not human as well as they could love themselves, but they are also full of suspicion and discrimination." She then continued with her oath. "But I will make them learn! No, not me alone. We, the Uzumaki-Namikazes will make them learn of us! We are not evil! Nor do we want to threaten them! We just wanted to live in harmony together, in peace, protecting everyone as warriors of the shadow, as ninjas! They'll learn yet that we are not the ones to be feared." She thought as she walked, intent on enjoying this moment of peace and tranquillity while it lasts.

-9 IN THE MORNING-

Kushina came back quite late, entering the house back at 9 o'clock. And right upon entering the house, she was met by her father, who was standing in front of the house, arms crossed. "And where did you go, young lady?" he asked his daughter.

Kushina fidgeted a little at this. She may not be too old compared to her father, his fourteen to her eight, but he was still her father, and she was drilled from when she could understand words (which was quite young, really) that fathers rule. Especially when your father's a whole couple magnitudes stronger than you are. "I just went on a walk. You said no training, so I just walked around the village. At night."

"And?" Naruto asked. He already saw that her daughter had a certain fire within her eyes as she entered the gates before that same fire became a look of guilt as she saw his face.

But she gained back that fire at her father's question, and stood straighter and taller as she said, "And I learned something dad. I learned about the peace that you wanted us to keep. The peace that you wanted to remain all the time."

"And?"

"And I, Uzumaki-Namikaze Kushina will do my absolute best to ensure that we will achieve said peace, and made sure that our children and their children and their children will not be discriminated and hated. I will make sure that in the future, the peace that will be created will last, and that wars will not break out no more! That is my oath to myself, father." She replied.

Naruto nodded at her words. "Good. We have the same ambition then. But know that there will be no such thing as a world with no wars, Kushi-chan. There will be wars for various reasons, even the most mundane of reasons. But it is our job to ensure that it will either end quickly or will not spill out uncontrollably. Got that?"

"Yes dad!" Kurumi said, cheerful at his dad's acceptance of her oath.

"Okay. Now get ready." Naruto said with a nod before he turned around and entered their home, Kushina following behind him to get ready for her outing with Sakura and her friends.

A while later, Sakura was waiting for Kushina's arrival in front of the gates leading to the mansion with her usual assemble. She actually picked it because it is both stylish and with the application of some seals combat-worthy, and she decides to wear it for today. Hearing footsteps from the house, she turned around and faced Kushina, who was wearing a much different clothing than she usually did. She wore a short sleeved, round necked white t-shirt with orange lines at the seams that had the Konoha logo on where the heart of a regular person would be and a pair of black denim pants. They hugged her body nicely, showing off curves of a grown lady that man would drool over.

Sakura looked at Kushina, appraising her choice of clothing. "Simple, but really showed your stuff, Kushina-sensei."

"Yeah," she replied. "Didn't have much clothing that's not for battle."

"I know," Sakura said with a sad tone. "Come! Let's go! Ino's already waiting!" She said before she went outside the gates, Kushina following right behind her.

Ino and Yakumo were already outside the gates, waiting for the two to arrive. She turned towards the gates as she heard them open and greeted Sakura with a friendly "hi!" but she lost her words as she saw Kushina, for the first time outside her usual longcoat. Both Ino and Yakumo gaped for a while at Kushina's look before Ino snapped out of her trance. "Wow! Kushina-san, that looked nice on you! Look at you! That neck length blonde hair, your beautiful eyes, and curves that man would die for! Not to mention that those whisker marks made you look more... exotic, and the fact that you're deadly strong just adds to that." her eyes then shot towards her chest area, and she felt a spark of jealousy as she watched her boobs, bound within her shirt with a black sports bra. "How big are those?" she asked, not bothering about decency at all.

Also one who didn't care less about decency, she answered. "D-cups, approaching DDs." Kushina answered. "Mom said they'll grow bigger as I grow, so it might reach Es."

Just then, Ino realised a little fact that she missed thanks to the unusual clothes that she wore. She just realised that Kushina was tall, on a height that made her look damn tiny. "Kushina-san, how tall are you?"

"I'm about 6'5", I guess. Makes me stand out, no?" she said, a cocky smile on her face as she placed a hand on her hip.

"It sure did," Ino said. "How tall can you get?"

"Mom said that I might be as tall as dad when I'm older, maybe a year or two, so I'll be 7'-ish by that time."

"Wow." Ino said, her mind already spinning with how she'd look in the future. "You'll be like a giant blonde beauty! People would want to have your hand in marriages considering your looks and your lineage! Your dad'll have to chase the suitors away!"

"I won't. She knows how to choose the perfect man for herself," A voice said.

Turning around, the four of them faced Naruto with his wives beside him, a hand on their shoulders. "Hey girls." She said, greeting them all. "Have fun with her, all of you." He said before leaving them all. Not one of them realised that Naruto called them girls when they're all of the same age.

"We will." Ino said, bowing a little. As she watched Naruto left with his two wives beside him, Ino cannot help but felt strange at the sight of the 7' giant that was Naruto, being surrounded on both sides by his much more normal 5'-ish wives. They looked like dolls compared to him.

"Strange right?" Ino heard Kushina said. "Dad may be a giant, and so will I be, but my mothers never said anything about it. Our bloodline made regular life harder for some reason, you know. Our size facilitates a bigger everything. Bigger rooms, beds, clothing, everything. Our super strength made it necessary for us to control our own strength to prevent us from accidentally breaking someone's hand if we gave a handshake. Yet they still loved him, more than anyone knew. There can be no other man for them than him, and for him, there will be no other women. I don't know when I will get the same mate or husband for me that can feel the same to me." She said, a sad look on her face.

Ino, sensing the peculiar feeling that Kushina's words did, immediately changed the topic. "Hey! Enough of that! We're here to enjoy the day, so let's go!" she said as she walked ahead, leading the entire pack towards Konoha proper, intent on enjoying themselves to the fullest while letting Kushina enjoy the same things that a regular girl did. After all, she's just 8 years old, and an 8 year old shouldn't think about finding a mate or assassination attempts. They should be thinking about the world and all the fun stuff awaiting them out there, not how to change it!

And so, they started their walk, going in a different direction than Naruto and his two dates. As they're walking, Ino asked Kushina, "Where is your dad going? He's with your mothers too."

"Dad's taking the two of them on a date. He never had the chance to do so before." She answered easily.

"What? How did they marry if he never took them out for a date? They should at least have one. I mean, how will you fall in love with someone you didn't know?" Ino asked in return, confusion apparent in her voice.

"Kuru-mama's sealed within dad since he's a couple hours old, so I cannot say that she never knew him. In fact, as she was sealed in my grandma, whose name I now carry, she always talked with her about her son." Kushina said. "In fact, my grandma and grandpa's best days of life were when they saw my father, newly born and still a toddler." Her next words gained some hard edge to them. "Unfortunately, someone attacked during the birth, killed the Sandaime's wife and released my mother from my grandmother's seal before controlling her and forcing her to attack Konoha, forcing my grandfather to seal her into my father. So, in a sense, my mother already knew of my father for a long time, even before he was born." She said, the topic about her mother's forced attack on Konoha still a pretty taboo subject to her.

"What about your Hina-mama then?" Yakumo asked. "She's not your mother, but you still called her such. She's a Hyuuga right? Those eyes were really telling."

"Hers... In a sense, Hina-mama's topic was even worse. She... she was banished from the Hyuuga clan for being weak and worthless after they branded her with a despicable seal on her forehead, the same seal that she shows to everyone."

"You mean that mark over her forehead?" Ino asked.

"Yeah. That mark... I won't talk about it. Suffice to say that it was one of the cruelest seal still used in Konoha. She was banished from her clan with nothing but the clothes on her back. In fact, some of the Hyuugas even attacked her, which made dad notice them. And so, dad crushed them after torturing them badly and ate their brains, but they didn't need to know that. He then met the Sandaime, wanting to adopt her into his clan, but since the Uzumaki-Namikaze wasn't an established clan at the time, the only way to do so was to marry her. And so, dad married both of them at the same day, the Hokage acting as witness." She said.

The three were utterly horrified! They never knew that her family had such a history! In fact, their history was nothing but pain, pain and even more pain! "How... " Yakumo stuttered out. "How did you all live through those?! Those kind of challenges... they'd break a regular person! I'd be insane if I were to go through all that!"

"And who said our family's regular? We're anything but. Our insanely powerful and multifunctional bloodline, our extremely sad family history, our rapid gain in strength, the story of our lives, they're nothing if not extraordinary. Mom won't choose dad as her mate if he's just a regular guy. She's a bijuu, and she had a high standard. Dad filled them all. Hina-mama's been through tough times, and even though she knew that she'll go through more, she never was stronger, in both body and spirit. Dad? He's the worst off. Being hunted, shunned, tortured, among others from a young age. I'm the luckiest in the family, I guess. Born outside Konoha, I learned a lot about the world and how it works, allowing me to gain the strength of will to not just kill every single person that even looked at me wrong." Kushina said with a nonchalant tone.

The truth of their lives hit Ino and Yakumo smack in the face, tears nearly flowing out from their eyes. Kushina, sensing this, immediately said, "Oh, don't worry. We've already accepted the fact that our lives are going to be hard. No need to cry for us, you two. We hold back our own tears and pain so that everyone else would live happy. That's what our jobs are as ninjas – to be in immense pain and dying a cruel death, just so that others could live happily. We sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. That's what we are. Do not forget." Kushina said, trying to calm them down.

Getting strength from Kushina's words, Ino wiped her tears on a piece of facial tissue that she carried before saying, "I understand. I do."

They continued the walk in silence for a couple of minutes. Not many walked through the area where clan compounds were located, so this gave them some privacy as Ino let her feelings stabilise for a while. Yakumo was also horrified at how her saviour was treated, yet she felt as if she could understand them. A being of immense power destroyed your homes and killed your loved ones, so you wanted to avenge them by killing the boy the being was sealed into. Almost like her story with her own Ido, minus the 'killing the girl who had the Ido sealed in her' part from before Naruto helped her.

The gloomy atmosphere hung over the party for a while as they walked, the cloud of despair hung over Ino and Yakumo and consequently made Sakura less cheerful as well, though thankfully, she avoided having said cloud on her head. Kushina also sensed this, but she had no idea what to say to them all, so she kept walking in silence.

Suddenly, Ino's mood did a complete 180 degrees; her cloud of despair disappearing like it was hit with a ray of sunlight before she turned around from her position as the party's lead, her eyes shining in determination. "Kushina! I've decided! Today, I will have you enjoy life! For a day, you won't be Kushina the ninja, but Kushina the girl! You cannot just remain ignorant of life and its small bits of pleasures! We'll go around town and have fun! You got that?!" she shouts out.

Kushina just sighed at Ino's abrupt change, though she had a smile on her face. "Oh dear." She said as she facepalmed while shaking her head. "Guess it can't be helped then, I'll have fun with you all today."

"Damn right you will!" Ino said. She then looked towards Kushina and realised something about her. Something that she failed to realise before, but now that her mind was in 'enjoy mode', a little something struck her as being quite peculiar. "Kushina, I just realised something. Your clothes... they look good on you."

"Thanks." She replied.

"But... are there no other clothes that you have for casual events? I mean, someone like you should have a couple sets of attires to wear depending on the situation right?" Ino asked. She's filthy rich, being an ex-Hokage's granddaughter and the fact that the entire Uzumaki clan's treasury was theirs should made them rich as hell, and should be able to afford a variety of clothing. So why did she went out with them in such a simple attire? It nearly blew her mind.

"Hmm..." She hummed. Even Sakura was interested in this. She rarely saw her in different clothing, either her PJs, her full ninja garb, her all black training attire, or completely naked. This would be the first time that she saw her wearing regular clothes, so her interest was justified. "Well," she said, shrugging nonchalantly. "I do have some, but they're either for formal occasions or for ceremonies. This is practically my only piece of casual clothing. Most of the time, I just wore my ninja clothes. Like Sakura's, they're quite stylish, battle-ready and most importantly, looks badass. What?" She said that last part after she looked at the horrified faces of Ino, Sakura and Yakumo. "...Was that weird?"

"...Weird?" Ino answered slowly. "One should have at least a couple sets of clothing! You cannot have just one!"

"It's true," Yakumo said next. "As much of a traditional ninja clan ours are, even I had a couple of regular clothes that I use when I'm not wearing my regular clothing. You should have some extras!" She said, the last part a bit forcefully.

"Right! You can't have just one shirt for everything!" Sakura said.

"Why? It's practical, simpler and easier to wash." Kurumi replied.

"No! You're a lady! You can't just use the same shirt every day!" Ino then had a more thorough look to Kushina's face. "Speaking of which, you didn't use makeup too, am I right?"

"Yup." Kushina answered, pride apparent in her voice. Not many could claim to have a beautiful face even without any makeup, and she's sure that she and her mothers are some of those who could.

Ino had a completely horrified look on her face as what Kushina said entered her mind. This... It's a blasphemy! This cannot be allowed! No women of worth will not use beauty products! No matter how beautiful she is! Her look of outrage slowly turned into anger and determination rolled into a single facial expression package. "I will not allow this! Kushina, by the end of this day, I'll teach you to use beauty products even if it kills me!" She shouted out. "No! In fact, we'll teach you how to be a beautiful lady! We cannot let your natural beauty be wasted on these... plain clothes!"

"YEAH!" Sakura and Yakumo cheered. Kushina just made a defeated sigh at this. She just cannot help but follow these girls. "You know what?" she said, "You guys are just too forceful for me to say no to. Alright. Lead the way." She said, gesturing for Ino to start walking.

"No problem! Kushina, by the end of the day, I'll make sure you'll look more beautiful than everyone in the village! Either that, or my name isn't Yamanaka Ino!" Ino said with a powerful, unwavering determination in her voice as the entire party walked away towards Konoha's commercial districts. Unnoticed by everyone, Kushina turned around and winked towards someone behind them before walking right ahead.

-WITH NARUTO AND HIS WIVES-

Naruto smiled as he watched Kushina's wink from afar. He knew she knew that he's watching her. Hey, she may be extremely strong, but he's still a father, and fathers must care about their beautiful growing daughter no matter what. Except one father, but he's no longer considered as a father. "She left with all of them and Ino's somehow all pumped up," Naruto said towards Kurumi and Hinata who were beside him, Hinata had her Byakugan on.

"Yeah," she said as she turned her Byakugan off. "And what they said was true too. We never did teach her much in the way of being a proper well-dressed lady." Hinata said, frowning at the thought that her daughter wasn't able to act like a regular person because they never taught her. "She grew so fast, we cannot even teach her much in such a short time." she said.

"Yeah," Kurumi said slowly. "I never expected the fast maturity and growth rate of the Astarte bloodline to be able to affect her life that much. She was never taught much in the way of life, only in the ways of fighting," She said, her voice filled with regret. "Why did I think rapid growth rate and increased body size would be good when I made that bloodline?!"

"Hush, Kuru-hime." Naruto said, admonishing her. "You know as well as I do that those two traits are some of what made the bloodline so deadly. Our children could be trained heavily from a year old, and be battle ready by two years old. The increased body size means a larger muscle mass and also increased strength while also giving our organs the space they need to grow to their maximum size." He said, calming her down. "Know that every part of the bloodline you gave me, and consequently our daughter was made with power and survivability in mind. Enough spying on our daughter. Let's have our date!" Naruto said to try to calm Kurumi from her guilt, getting excited at the end before turning around and going the other way from where Kushina went, his two wives following him with a smile on both their faces.

-WITH KUSHINA AND THE TRIO-

Kushina had a smile on her face as she walked with the three, her parents already leaving the area. She already knew that her dad would follow her. Call it a child's instinct. Even if she's strong enough to kick an entire army's worth of ass single handed, her dad still wanted to watch over her. His smell was nearly unidentifiable if not for the fact that she knew by heart the smell of his body. He's her father anyway. She should know.

Totally not realising Kushina's smile nor the fact that Naruto watched her just now, Ino kept walking ahead, chatting nonstop with Sakura about all the stuff that she was going to have Kushina do today. "...So we're going to take her shopping for new clothes! She's going to need a lot more when we're done with her today! Maybe go and get some facial treatment while we're at that! And after that, maybe we could hit the spa and just relax! The training we all did... it made me stiff to the bone!"

"Yeah!" Sakura replied enthusiastically. "And you know what? Naruto said to me that we could bill all expenses to his clan! All of it!" she said, remembering Naruto's words yesterday.

Ino's rapid fire words and legs stopped at this. Turning around, she faced Sakura, her mouth slightly gaping. "A-Are you sure...?" she said, her entire body trembling slowly.

"Yup!" Sakura answered, not realising the predicament that her words caused to all of them.

Ino's trembling increased as she looked to the ground, covering her eyes from everyone's sight. Sakura, only now realising this, walked closer towards where she was standing, a hand outstretched to tap Ino's shoulder. "Ino...?" She said slowly, afraid that she broke one of her best friends.

Her hand touched Ino's shoulder, and she jumped backwards in a defensive stance as Ino suddenly jumped high up, her entire body radiating an aura of happiness. "YEEESSS!" She shouted. "AN ALL EXPENSES PAID SHOPPING SPREE! NO LIMITS!" she touched ground, and in an instant she appeared right in front of Kushina, her eyes shining with untold glee. "Oh! The joys of shopping with infinite budget! You'll know soon enough how it is!" Ino said before turning around and continued her walk, a spring in her step as she whistled in happiness.

Sweatdropping, Sakura said, "Uh, Ino, it's not infinite..."

Kushina held Sakura's words back with a hand on her shoulder. "Let her be," she said. "We have lots of money anyway, more than we spend. And combined with the high-ranking missions that we take and grandpa's money, we gain much more than we use," Kushina said of her family's economics. "We'll have no problem with that, especially combining the Uzumaki's fortune. We can probably buy the entirety of Konoha and then some," she said nonchalantly.

"WHAAAAAT?!" both Sakura and Yakumo shouted out. "You guys are that rich?!" Yakumo said out loud.

"Yup. We managed to recover some of the Uzumaki's ancestral treasure when we went there before. Also, the fact was that the Uzumakis invested in some parts of Konoha and had a considerable amount of money stored in Konoha even before our downfall. All of that was inherited by my grandma, and now to my mother." She said. No matter that Uzu was gone and crushed underneath the heels of a merciless army, their history was something that she was extremely proud of no matter what. She'll ensure that the Uzumaki-Namikazes will never forget a part of their own legacy, not now, not ever.

His father and her mothers will be the start of a new legacy within the Uzumaki's history books. That she was sure of.

Hearing this, Yakumo gained a confused look on her face. "Wait. From the way you said it, Uzumakis sounds like a clan. A powerful clan at that. Why have we never heard of it? It was never taught about in the academy." She asked.

"A valid question," Kushina answered. "The Uzumakis are one of the most powerful clans ever, only behind the Senjus and the Uchihas. Unlike those two, we specialised in 2 things: longevity and seals. An Uzumaki was capable of living for hundreds of years, with records saying that some of us are about 300 years old. We are also capable of healing much faster than a regular human, and with proper treatment can even heal from debilitating injuries. The Astarte bloodline that I have just amplified this healing capability a hundredfold. Our mastery of seals is such that even some of the most complex of seals looked simple for us. Combining that with the fact that seals can perform nearly anything if you knew the correct formula, we are envied by many.

During the Second Shinobi World War, Uzushio, the land where we Uzumakis came from was attacked by Kumo, Kiri and Iwa, nearly destroying us completely, but not before inflicting catastrophic losses towards the army. Konoha's late counterattack defeated the coalition's army, making the Second War the fastest war to end. Only a handful, less than 5 Uzumakis survived. Even that was the best number of survivors that was theorised. One of them was my grandmother, and another was the Shodaime Hokage's wife. No one knew where the rest was.

The reason why you never heard of it was that we were erased from the history books, even when our contribution to the ninja world was far and wide. High-level seals came from us, and so does jinchuuriki seals. We also became the mediator between the Senju and Uchiha, creating Konoha. If you ask me why we were erased from the history books, then I'd say that it's probably because of Konoha's regret at not being able to save one of its strongest ally. They mourned us by placing the Uzumaki spiral on the flak jackets of high ranked ninjas, but our history was removed from the books."

Yakumo was shocked by this. An extremely powerful clan, wiped out by an army of three villages but not before dealing an immense blow to them, and their reward was by being deleted from history without mercy? "Cruel..." She said, tears nearly flowing from her eyes.

"Naah." Kushina answered calmly. "We have decided that just like the legendary phoenix of lore, we will rise on top of the smouldering ashes of our old history, stronger and better than ever. The Uzumakis will be reborn with a new name, and the world will learn the name Uzumaki-Namikaze, the reincarnation of the Uzumakis of old, having all their skills and capabilities and a couple upgrades of our own," She said, her eyes sparkling with determination to make the Uzumaki rise again in the world.

Still wiping her tears, Yakumo cannot help but be awed from her strength of will. Her clan was wiped out, yet she remembered their history with all her heart and even swore to rebuild it back. And she cannot help but support the unwavering resolve behind those sparkling blue eyes of hers. "I'm sure that you'll succeed, Kushina-chan." Yakumo said, before quickly covering her mouth as her face lights up in a luminescent blush. "E-excuse me!" she squeaked out, looking elsewhere.

Kushina just laughed at this before saying, "No problem. Call me whatever you want. I'll answer it, as long as it involves my name in it."

Her blush receding, she slowly asked, "Then, is it fine...?"

"Yup!" she answered boisterously. "No problems!"

Yakumo let out a sigh of relief. Calling her with such an intimate pet name was something that she totally didn't expect herself to blurt out so suddenly. "Okay, Kushina-chan."

Suddenly, they all heard Ino's yell from up ahead, she already walked far ahead of the group. "Heeeeeeey! What are you guys doing over there?! Come on, let's go!" she said, before urging the group forwards with a wave of her hand and leaving them as she continued her walk.

Chuckling, Kushina said to the group. "Well, let's not leave her waiting. Let's go." All three of them sped their walk to catch up with Ino, an entire day to themselves.

-WITH NARUTO AND HIS WIVES-

Naruto was walking towards a different part of Konoha after he left his daughter, both his wives beside him. Wearing a casual white T-shirt and black pants for Naruto, a matching one piece dress for both Hinata and Kurumi, coloured according to their liking, lavender for Hinata and blood red for Kurumi, their dress flowed around them like water with every one of their bewitching strides, showing their nearly unparalleled beauty to the world.

"Naru-koi, where are we going to?" Hinata asked. She didn't force Naruto to do this, but even she cannot help and find it romantic, how he wanted to treat his wives to a nice date. Her only hope was that the people won't bother them too much. Both Naruto and Kurumi's reputation was still in quite a dump, their status as councilmembers be damned.

"Hmm..." Naruto hummed as he continued his walk. "To be honest, I never really thought about that," he said with a smile, causing both Kurumi and Hinata to look at him with a look that said, 'are you an idiot?'. "What if we just walk around? Maybe then we can find something to do." He suggested.

Kurumi just shrugged. "As good a suggestion as any, I guess. We don't have any plans anyway today, and spying on Kushi-chan would be strange."

"So? Let's just walk around." Naruto said. Still feeling like there's nothing better to do on a day of rest, they walked together with Naruto, just enjoying their day calmly. Which was actually only slightly better than doing nothing. Which they all knew.

An idea for a prank suddenly popped in Naruto's mind, and he decided to follow through with that idea, a large grin on his face. Still walking between his wives, Naruto morphed into his demon form without prior warning nor any notice without even breaking his stride, still walking at the speed of his wives' steps, except that he's now a waist high, golden blonde coloured ten-tailed demon fox, the large grin still on his face.

Hinata immediately cried out as she saw this. "Naru-koi! What are you doing?!" Even Kurumi was shocked if her facial expression was to be seen.

Naruto stretched his forelegs on the ground before shaking his entire body before standing straight on all fours. "Aaah... It's been quite a while since I last walked around in this form." He said. He then looked towards Hinata and Kurumi who had a shocked and fearful expression on the face of the former and a matching grin on the latter. Gesturing for them to come at him with his snout, he spoke, "Climb on. I think it's going to be a nice day for a good prank while making us known to the people even more," he said.

"But they might attack you in this form!" Hinata shouted out, worried towards her husband. He may be strong and smart, but sometimes his childishness was a bit too much for her to bear.

"Don't worry. Not that I can't take it. Besides, they did it a couple of times before I'm 4. What's the difference?" Naruto said, confident in his ability to tank any damage that the people would do to him.

Hinata was about to dish out a counter-argument, but Kurumi cut her off with her words. "I think that's a great idea, Naru-koi." She then looked towards Hinata's worried face. "Don't worry. I didn't train Naruto to be a weakling. Besides, it'll help us more later if we were to go out more in our demon form," she said.

"How does being hated by everyone help?!" Hinata cried out. No matter what, she still thinks that it was a bad idea.

"Well, for one thing, people would recognize us more. So, if a huge battle that required the use of the bijuu form were to happen, people would instantly recognize us. It's turning a bad publicity into a good opinion, though this might only occur quite a bit later. And might even backfire if done improperly," Kurumi said.

"Yup," Naruto said, now sitting on his haunches. He then stood back on all fours before once again gesturing for the two to climb on his back. "Now, hop on. We're going for a stroll!" he said, somewhat excited at the prospect of walking around in public in his demon form.

"Trust in him, Hina-chan." Kurumi said before climbing on Naruto's back like a horse, sitting with both legs on one side due to her dress. "Wasn't it you who said that you'd trust each of Naruto's actions?" she said on Naruto's back.

Hinata gaped for a while as she remembered her words. She seemed to struggle with herself before finally letting out a sigh. "I guess," she said before climbing on Naruto's back, feeling the strong muscles yet soft fur of his demon form before sitting with the same pose as Kurumi. Standing up, he started a slow trod towards Konoha's residential area, ready to surprise the hell out of everyone there, his ten tails flicking around at the thought.

-BACK TO KUSHINA-

The party of four entered Konoha's commercial district a while later, Ino still leading them with unbridled enthusiasm. Her excitement was infectious, and it wasn't long before Kushina joined in her chatting and laughed together with the three as they told stories of their daily lives.

Ino, realising that they've entered the commercial district, immediately shot towards Kushina, urging her to follow her to her favourite store. "Kushina! Come on! Let's go!" she said before grabbing Kushina's hand and pulled her. But just as she held her hand and tugged it, she gasped before she looked at the hand she was holding and towards the arm attached to said hand. Only then she realised it.

Her arm wasn't like a regular person! It may look beautiful and perfect from the outside, but underneath the lightly tanned skin lie extremely dense and tough muscles! Now that she had a good look at her arm, she saw that the entire arm was tough and rock solid, with a strangely smooth yet leathery skin while her hand felt solid as steel! She looked towards her face before looking at her entire body from top to toe. At that, she understood. She was primed and ready, her entire body made to fight from the way she could see her entire frame, her body in a position ready to deliver a punishing kick to her if she so much as twitched a wrong move. And from what she could feel of her body, that kick would most probably rip her head off of her body in one hit.

Letting the arm fell beside her, Ino slowly whispered to herself, so slow that it wasn't even heard by everyone. "So you are right... you're not quite human..."

"Yes," Kushina replied, her enhanced hearing having no problem listening to Ino's small whisper, causing her to jerk backwards and looked at her in fear. "Oh, relax," Kushina said, waving her off as she slowly went off her defensive stance. "We're human, yet more than human. We already know this, so we'd have no problem accepting the fact that someone might not realise this yet. Your response was actually quite normal, Ino. Don't worry," she said, alleviating Ino's fear.

"It's true," Sakura said. "I've lived with them for two months, and let's just say that they have a lot of difference than us."

"True that," Kushina said again. "Here's an example. This might be a bit horrifying, but bear with me for a while." She said. A Hiraishin kunai popped out of nowhere into her hand before she channelled Futon chakra through it, causing it to hum as a near-invisible blade of wind stretched from it, the humming of the rapidly vibrating wind chakra faintly heard around them.

"Wha..." Ino said, but before she could ask, Kushina brought the extremely sharp wind blade to her arm, slicing through it and even cutting through the bonemetal alloy like there's nothing in its way! But much to Ino and Yakumo's surprise, the injury was already healed by the time the blade passed, only leaving the stains of what little amount of blood that managed to escape her insanely fast healing.

Ignoring the gaping looks of both Yakumo and Ino, she stored the kunai back into its storage seal, a very tiny seal located at her palm for instant access, the lack of chakra smoke showing the level of control she had over her chakra usage. She then explained to the two what the heck actually happened. "That was my chakra enhanced healing, really. By channelling chakra into my wound or a location where I was expecting an injury, I can heal even faster than usual, just like that. But then again, I heal slightly slower at low chakra, about double that time just now and multiplied by ten when I'm completely drained, which means that my arm will be cut off if I were to do that. I still heal faster than anyone or anything though. No to mention that I can completely regrow said arm or just attach it back, letting my healing factor work on it."

"And just now..." Ino said, remembering the fact that she whispered so softly about Kushina being not wholly human, yet she heard it nonetheless.

"Those are also the result of my bloodline. It gave us hearing on a level unmatched by anything, allowing us to catch even the tiniest of sounds." Kushina said. "Your whisper sounds more like a firecracker going off, but I still heard that clearly."

"But doesn't that mean that you'll be hearing absolutely everything? And that would also mean that using sudden, loud noises would hurt your ears right?" Yakumo asked, still unable to properly consider her as a being that doesn't play by the normal rulebooks, but instead as an oversized girl. Because unlike Sakura, she never experienced the sheer power and skill her powerful body contained, thus letting her make simple assumptions on what she knew of her: a bijuu hanyou and a giant.

"Yup," Kushina answered happily. "Every little detail, no matter how small. That last part is also true, if not for the fact that we have an organ that controls our senses, blocking what is unnecessary, filtering useless information and extra, unneeded noise. Or was that our own Lyman's Ears? Not sure. Anyway, it allows us to listen through the explosion of an exploding tag without any problems while being able to find the perp who activated it easily with our chakra and infrared sight and our enhanced sense of smell. All in all, we're a pretty awesome bunch." She said, pride blossoming in her chest at the last part.

Yakumo was gaping at first, but her creative mind immediately ran through all the advantages that her enhancements provided to her in terms of being a ninja, a warrior.

A weapon.

Immediately it also thought of how she would be when she was forced to live as a regular person. And what her mind came up with was utterly horrifying in its absolute truth: she cannot. Her bloodline, her entire being was to become the perfect warrior. The most powerful weapon. Better, stronger, faster, bigger than anything else that anyone could come up with. In a sense, she's a literal human weapon, she and her father the truest manifestation of the word. Nothing can come that's better than they were, and nothing can come that they cannot destroy or kill. Being a half-demon with such an insanely powerful body, anything that they cannot overpower as a human will be overrun by their power in their demon form. For such a being, living among regular humans is nothing but impossible. These thoughts ran through her head at speeds that Shikamaru wished he didn't have, that lazy bastard, and she immediately cried, sobbing hard at the cobbled pathway that made Konoha's commercial district.

The three was absolutely shocked when Yakumo suddenly cried hard as her tears fall on the ground. Immediately Kushina's mind linked her condition with what she said just now, and quickly she crouched before placing a hand on Yakumo's shoulder. "What's wrong, Yakumo?" she said slowly.

Still sobbing hard, her entire tiny frame shaking, Yakumo said out loud, almost bordering a shout. "Nothing's wrong with me! But everything's wrong with you! Your parents had such hard lives, yet you all still lived happily! Your physiology, your entire being, you were born a weapon! Normality was never within your hand! Not now, not ever!" she said, her tears falling onto the road.

Kushina slowly sighed before saying in a calm tone. "Normality is overrated anyway. We're happy with our lives now, Yakumo, and that's what's important. True that we might not be able to live a regular life. Heck, I reached that same thought this morning! But if there's something that you should know, it's the fact that we never give up. And dad will do all he could to help his children and their children and their children how to live like a normal person, if they so choose to. We may be born a weapon, I know, with all our capabilities and strengths, but that doesn't mean that we are unable to live like a normal person with some extra... stuffing, so to speak. Now chill out," Kushina said, lifting her up to a standing position. "We're here today to enjoy ourselves, not to feel all sad and gloomy at something beyond our control. You don't need to cry, nor do you need to cry for our sake. It's just how we are," She said, smiling lightly.

"*sniff* Okay..." Yakumo said, trying to get her tears under control. Even Ino felt like crying right now, and only thanks to Sakura placing a hand on her shoulder without saying anything that she managed to hold back her tears. After a while, Yakumo finally dried herself of her tears before wiping it on a hanky and standing back up. "I learned a lot about you today, Kushina-chan. I really do. And I am never gladder for such a powerful ally at my side. And for that, thanks." She said wholeheartedly, pouring her entire feelings into her words.

"Heh. No problem," Kushina said, her smile turning into a grin. "But don't praise me just yet. We might have to fight each other later, who knew. Life just likes doing that sometimes," She said.

"Let's just hope not," Yakumo said. Facing against Kushina was the last thing she wanted to do. She could trash her easily in seconds. Or maybe in a second. "Come on, I think it's better for us to continue with our trip for the day. We've been bogged by emotional stuff one time too many already," She said.

"Yeah!" Ino chirped happily from the back. "We've had too many revelations, and now it's time for some shopping! Let's go!" she said, this time pulling Kushina's arm for real, who just followed the flow of the trio around her, her smile still on her face.

A short while later, they entered Konoha's commercial district area, where the place was bustling as it ever did. Stalls of travelling merchants opened up at roadsides, right in front of stores on fixed lots, all of them selling different wares for the people to buy as sellers shouted out their wares to the passersby, offering competing prices against those that sold similar products around them. The smell of freshly slaughtered meat assaulted Kushina's sensitive nose, and she saw that it was made by a butcher, the meat of the animal that he sold hung on large hooks in front of him as people crowded his stall. The sight of a peddler selling his items, which consists mostly of trinkets and decorative items entered her eyes as she looked around as all her senses was being bombarded by the environment of the district. Honestly, she hasn't been to the commercial district often, preferring to avoid the dirty glares that people shot towards her even now.

Feeling a tug on her arm, she saw that Ino was tugging her towards a boutique close by. "Let's go there!" she said. "That boutique was one that I usually go to! They made nice clothes that I'm sure you'll look good in!"

"But will I fit?" Kushina said, her worry not quite showing in her tone. "Ino, I'm over 6' foot tall and larger than most women, in case you haven't realised it yet. Not many ready-made clothes can fit me you know. No one made clothes for giants," she said, no feeling of hurt heard through her voice even when what she said was a little sensitive.

Ino felt as if she had a slap from her face, Sakura thought as she looked at how Ino recoiled from what Kushina said. "Damn, that's something wrong to say there," Sakura said.

"Yeah," Inner responded. "In fact, Ino must've had some sort of shock to her. Look at her face! At least Kushina-sensei's a good person. Anyone else, and they might just spit on Ino's face. And we both know what her spit does."

"Yeah," Sakura said, suppressing her shiver. "I still can't forget that time when Kushina-sensei spat on that tree just to demonstrate. It melted! No wonder they could eat steel and concrete!"

Oblivious to the talk between Sakura and her Inner, Ino's mind was spinning with any way that she could recover this situation. Quickly fixing her words, she stood straighter before saying, "D-don't worry! I-I'm sure they can make some special clothing just for you! I mean, you looked real good, it's just that you'll need your clothes tailor-made for you!" she said, trying to recover from what Kushina said.

"Yeah, no worries," Kushina replied, making Ino let go a sigh of relief. No one wants to anger some insanely powerful half demon, no matter if it's incidental. "They'll just have to make clothes appropriately sized to me or something like that."

And so, being urged by Ino, the group walked straight towards the boutique with Ino hoping that she won't do any more stupid mistakes in her words like she did just now...