****Disclaimer**** I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters. This chapter is a little longer than most but then Sakura has a lot of work to do LOL.
Chapter 5
Chores
The cameras were still closely following Sakura, Ino and Hinata as they bustled around the house. Hinata took on the breakfast dishes and Ino gathered the laundry. Sakura began the long process of organizing the kids rooms. Kibura had a room to herself and Pinkumaru since her sisters no longer lived at home. Kibura hardly spent any time in the room so normally it just a matter of tidying up the bed, but today was a different matter.
"Kibura!" barked Sakura. "How many times have I told you to shave that dog outside?"
There was pink fur scattered across the room. Kibura of course was no where to be seen; she'd left long ago to work on a mission. Sakura stared at the mess for moment as if deciding what to do about it. She pulled a notepad from her hip pouch, before she flipped it open, the camera panned in on the cover. It read, "Sakura's Rants".
"I keep this notebook so I can write down things I have to discuss with the children. Otherwise, I'd forget," laughed Sakura.
She wrote quickly in the notepad and returned it to her pouch. She tidied the bed and swept the floor. Kibura was going to catch it from Sakura tonight when she got home. Sakura was plotting Kibura's punishment. The konouchi laughed to herself and pulled out the notepad again, writing quickly.
"Babysitting," muttered Sakura. "That'll teach her." She laughed humorlessly again.
Sakura closed the door behind her to keep the younger kids out of the freshly cleaned room. She pulled out a different pad from her pouch and crossed off Kibura's room.
"The twins," read Sakura aloud.
Sakura crossed the hall to the twins room. They were too lazy to ever make their beds let alone pick up their laundry or anything else in their room. Sakura took a deep breath before opening the door. The door swung open mere inches before something stopped it.
"How did they get out of here?" asked Sakura shaking her head.
She pushed a little harder to open the door just wide enough to slip into the room. For a moment she disappeared behind the door and then it opened completely to allow the cameras full view of the room. Blankets were strewn around the room. Socks hung from every available surface and shogi pieces were scattered across the room like a mine field. Sakura held a shogi board up to the camera.
"Honestly, I don't understand them. Somehow they had this board lodged against the door, but were able to get out themselves. And the socks! I can never figure out where they come from. I am quite positive we don't have this many socks in the whole house."
Sakura's Rants came out of the hip pouch once again and the ninja scribble in the pad furiously for a few moments. She sighed.
"Not that this will do me much good. Like the Nara family, they'll just give me an 'it's too troublesome'."
Sakura piled the socks in one corner for Ino to collect, knowing that tomorrow would find the same number of socks in the same locations, almost like they purposely hung the socks around the room. Only that idea seemed too troublesome for the twins to do. They really only enjoyed watching the clouds go by. The shogi board was returned to it's place on the table and Sakura gleefully set up a horrible situation on the board know that the girls couldn't stand to look at the problem and not solve it.
"This is their daily punishment for leaving a messy room," laughed Sakura. "I asked Shikamaru to give me shogi puzzle book to prevent the girls from being too lazy."
Once the beds were made again, Sakura crossed the room off her list of chores and a look of dread crossed her face.
"Deidura and Inokura room," moaned Sakura. "Ever since Diedura started blowing things up, their room has gotten harder to clean."
The ninja crossed the hall again as she wondered why she hadn't put them in a row rather than across hall. Slowly she pushed the yellow door painted with birds and pigs open. Sakura looked around the room. The wall were covered in clay splatter, but under the clay were a plethora of posters. Over Inokura's bed was a poster of Neji with a handlebar mustache drawn on it in permanent marker. Over Deidura's bed was a poster of the "Black Cat", Train, with glasses drawn over the eyes in a different color. There were old posters from when the girls were little like Pakkun and the Nindogs, kittens with shoes on, Hannah Monanta and the Jonas brothers. All were defaced in various shades of permanent marker. Sakura shook her head at the poster war that had been rage for a number of years.
Piggy banks and ceramic birds lined every flat surface. In the center of the room lay the shattered remains of pink pig with flowers. No matter how many shattered knick knacks she found on the floor, the number never seemed to decrease.
Pillow stuffing clung to the clay and other various parts of the room. Sakura started by pulling the stuffing off the walls and dropping them into a new pillow case (of which she now had an ample supply since Deidura's new habit of blowing up her sister's pillow started). The clay wasn't as easy to remove and as Sakura muttered under her breath to herself, she pulled out the "Sakura's Rants" notebook. Of course she recorded the carnage to the room. Once the room was satisfactorily cleaned up, Sakura glanced at her watch.
"Darn, it's getting late already. I need to be getting the little ones some lunch soon. Maybe I have time for Gaimaru's room." She said hurrying out.
Being the only male offspring and a single birth, Gaimaru had his own room. In general Gaimaru was a bit untidy but nothing like his two older sisters. Or at least that's what Sakura thought until she pushed the door to his room open.
"OMG Sakura, what is that smell?" coughed Ino coming up from behind her.
Gagging Sakura replied, "I don't know Ino. It's the first time his room has smelled this bad."
Ino leaned in and cautiously sniffed. "Eww, I think it's boy. When was the last time he bathed?"
"Uhm, yesterday or was it the day before. Ooops, I've lost track. Looks like I forgot to write that one down."
Ino backed off slightly. "Well, I picked up all the laundry except for Gaimaru's which I'll get right now. Should I make lunch for girls?"
"Yes, please," whimpered Sakura stealing herself to enter Gaimaru's room and the shrine to his father, Gai. She looked across the wall before entering the room. There were life sized posters of Gai on every wall progressing from his youth to a more current shot of the green clad jounin. The progression of the pictures showed his hairline recede until the last picture, in which he was wearing the awful toupee. The konouchi took a deep breath and plunged into the room with Ino hot on her tail. They quickly tossed out the sweaty socks and the several pair of dirty jockey shorts (even though Sakura had cleaned his room yesterday, just like every day). Unable to stand it anymore, Sakura dove for the window and wrenched it open, taking huge gasping breaths at the fresh air.
Ino waved nastily as she carted off the dirty laundry leaving Sakura in the stench. Even with the dirty clothes gone and the window open, the room still stank. She wondered if Gai had given the boy some cologne or something that intensified the raunchy odor. Still standing at the window, the female ninja pulled out her notebook and jotted down a few notes, even though she was sure she wouldn't forget to mention the stench to her only son.
The morning was rapidly slipping away and the chores weren't even close to being done. She still had 4 bedrooms as well as the playroom and the general living areas to clean before the kids returned home from school or from their missions. She thought about asking Kakashi to give the kids some missions away from home, but ever since his edict allowing Kakura to live with him, the konouchi had felt a bit resentful to her old teacher. Though if she were being honest with herself, the fact that he'd taken on the girl permanently and Jirakura nearly permanently, had been a big help as the family increased in size.
Shaking off her momentary distraction, Sakura went the sextuplets' room. When she tried to turn the handle, nothing happened. The door was locked. Sakura whipped out "Sakura's Rants" and scribbled in it violently.
"I have told them a thousand times not to lock this door!" growled Sakura. "How am I supposed to clean this room if it's locked?"
Sakura calmed herself and focused on the door knob. Nothing happened. She pulled a kuni from her pouch and tried to pick the lock. Still nothing.
"They are getting better at keeping their door locked," mused Sakura. "Well, they usually keep their room neat and their laundry turned in. One less room for me to worry about this morning."
Sakura heaved a huge sigh, she hated to see her little girls gain so much independence. It had almost killed her when Kakura had run away to her father's and the Rokudaime had supported a 6 year old's decision to leave her mother.
Sakura proceeded to the room of the next set of children, her 6 years olds. Kisura, Tobura and Nagatura shared a room, though Sakura was sure that soon Nagatura would be moving out to the sextuplets' room. Sakura had been putting the child to bed in her room every night, but usually after Sakura herself went to bed, the girl joined her older sisters.
Sakura opened the door to the bedroom. The camera panned the bedroom. One corner had a neatly made bed and everything seemed in place. The rest of the room was in chaos. Sakura walked into the room and stood surveying the damage with her hands on her hips. A frown creased her face as she once again reached into her hip pouch. Before she had a a chance to withdraw the little notebook, something fell with a plop onto the top of her head. A growl escaped her throat; the konouchi looked down to find a dango had rolled off her head onto the ground. She looked up just in time for a second dango to slip down the stick and hit her right between the eyes. The ceiling was a pin cushion of empty dango sticks and Sakura was standing directly beneath the only stick that still had food on it.
"Everyday!" grumbled Sakura. "I didn't even feed her this many dangos. Yet there they all are! I swear I'm going to stop feeding that girl dangos!"
Sakura wrote it down in the notebook, although like the smell in Gaimaru's room, she wasn't likely to forget her daily rant for Tobura. The konouchi walked up the wall to the ceiling, pulled the dango sticks out and threw them into a trash can across the room. The cameraman's mouth gaped open at the sight. Having pulled the very last stick out, Sakura pushed off the ceiling and did a flip to land on her feet. She straightened the candy colored sheets on Tobura's bed and pushed aside the pile of homework that Tobura had once again forgotten to take with her to school.
The ninja reluctantly turned to the third bed in the room. Kisura's corner wasn't exactly neat either. Like most of the other beds in the house, this one too was still unmade. Sakura touched the sheets and quickly pulled her hand back.
"It's WET!" she shouted.
One of the cameramen couldn't hold back a snicker and the ninja rounded on him, fury plain on her face. She took one step in his direction before she recovered her equilibrium. He paled and flinched back slightly. Sakura reached down, gingerly touching the wetness. She sniffed her hand delicately at first and then more vigorously.
"It doesn't smell like anything so it probably just water," she sighed relieved.
She stripped the bed and dumped the pile outside the laundry room door. Fetching a clean set of sheets and some towels, she returned the bedroom. Somehow in her absence, more water had spread, this time onto the floor around the bed. Sakura contemplated how to set up her blue daughter so that this kind of thing didn't happen again or at least was easier to deal with next time. Sakura left the bed sheets on a dry part of the bed, to be put on later after things had had a chance to dry.
She checked the water filled, but empty aquarium in the room for leaks but everything seemed fine with it including the water level. The cameraman looked puzzled at the lack of fish in the aquarium. The ninja ignored him, left and returned with a net full of live fish. She dropped them into the running tank.
"Midnight snack," smiled Sakura. She poured a little food into the tank, the fishes last meal so speak. "If I don't do this, Kisura has a tendency to chew on her sisters at night."
"Chew on," stammered the cameraman, breaking his silence for the first time.
"Well, she's constantly teething. She has an incredible amount of teeth. Even the pediatrician was just shocked to realize that her teeth just keep coming in. She is constantly losing them too, but what do you expect she chews on everything."
When the room was sufficiently tidy, Sakura left to deal with the 4 year olds' room. The room was fortunately pretty routine since the girls spent most of their time in the playroom. There was sand on the floor, but that was to be expected with Gaakura's affinity for sand. Where ever she went, the sand seemed to follow, even if sand wasn't apparent to the naked eye. There were also, of course, bits of thread, usually black from Sakazu's sewing projects. Sakazu's bed was still made as it usually was and glanced at it.
"Well, won't that be fun to remove during bedding day." Sakura pointed out the thick black stitches holding the sheets in place. "She slips into the top and never has to worry about her bed being unmade."
The ninja shook out the sheets on Gaakura's bed and a good deal of sand fell out. Shaking her head, Sakura quickly remade the bed and swept up the sand. Rather than dumping the sand in the trash however, Sakura added the sand to a large jug.
"Gaara told me this was the best way for her to gain chakra enriched sand. She some times plays with the sand in the jar which just adds to it's power. Although I doubt the wisdom of doing this."
Sakura left the room without adding anything to her notebook. She would talk to the kids over lunch. Finally Sakura tackled the last of the bedrooms, Kidura's room. She took a long handled feather duster with her. Like the four year olds room, Kidura's was never bad, but had it's quirks. The major one was the cobwebs. Everyday Sakura cleaned the cobwebs from all the corners and everyday the cob webs were bigger.
Sakura laughed sardonically, "I'm half afraid that one day the whole room will be filled with webs and I'll get stuck in here."
"Sakura! Lunch is ready!" called Ino.
"I don't know what I'd do without them. Chores always take so long."