What is this. Tell me if I'm confusing, please.

Also, tell me if there's too many non-canon old Konoha people in here. I just threw them in so that more clans were represented.

(I mean, my headcanon is that Shiro is Kiba's grandpa. -laughs- Kuromaru lacks a relation to Akamaru, though...)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, because Obito is not working at Mt. Doom, and because I have no idea whether Konoha made a pact with Iwa or not during this time. (laughs)

Chapter 24: Hokage's Predicament - Mist's Madmen, Mold, and Mariko's Children

~Part 1~

There were certain things that the Hokage should take lightly, and certain things he should not. The fact that the Uchiha complex was on fire should've alarmed the public, seeing as the blaze could be seen all the way from the center market, but Tobirama was not at all concerned for the well-being of that clan in particular. However, upon hearing that his two-year-old daughter had scraped her knee at the park, he was up and out of the office faster than the Flying Thunder God himself.

Well, the Uchiha could deal with their own problems, right?

The lucky duck who happened to be babysitting the baby girl that day just had to be the monkey. Actually, Tobirama wondered, why anyone would entrust the Second Hokage's daughter to the monkey was beyond him. There were certain things that the Hokage should question, and certain things he should not. This was something he would definitely question his wife about. On the other hand, he would not delve into why the Uchiha suddenly lit on fire. That was their own problem (some kid had probably been practicing a Katon, is all…)

Tobirama's little girl was safe and sound, just a little teary-eyed at the scrape on her knee after she fell off the end of the slide. ("That's why you're supposed to catch her, Saru…")

The white-haired Senju suddenly wondered where in the world his wife had gone, and under what circumstances had needed Hiruzen of all people to babysit the little girl. And where was his son? Tobirama was sure that a blue-haired four-year-old roaming the streets of Konoha was sure to be cause of alarm, seeing as no one besides the Second Hokage's wife had hair like that. That, and the boy was the spitting image of Tobirama himself, if he was only four and had dyed his hair with bright blue paint.

"I don't know," Hiruzen said, upon intense interrogation by his former sensei. "I was just asked to babysit her."

"And Mariko?"

"No idea."

Tobirama asked about his son, but at that question, Hiruzen only shook his head helplessly. Unable to find anymore leads, and with a complaint about how the Uchiha now had a mold problem, of all things, Tobirama headed back to his office on the request of his frenzied secretary (who had sprinted out of the building in search of their Hokage).

So, the Uchiha fire had obviously been put out, but somehow, they now had fungus growing from the floorboards of their basements. Only now did Tobirama seriously wonder what was going on. Within the hour, the Hyuuga came in with a complain that they too had mold in their basements. Tobirama set off as Sherlock in this mystery, a complaining Toka as his Watson.

Meanwhile, a blue-haired four-year-old was spotted in the center market, riding on the shoulders of Inuzuka Shiro. Why any sane person would leave the Second Hokage's son to the lively, albeit crazy dog boy was a mystery to all persons involved. In addition, Shiro's trusty best friend, a dark, smoky gray and black dog named Kuromaru, ironically, padded alongside his partner. At times, Shiro would allow the blue boy to ride on Kuromaru's back, like a boy on an miniature horse.

"Hey, Shiro, have you seen Aki?" Biwako called, seeing her teammate strolling down the road. The mention of the haughty Hyuuga extracted a rather dark look onto Shiro's face. He shook his head.

"I heard they have a mold problem," Shiro replied.

"We do." Said Hyuuga appeared behind the Inuzuka, eyeing the blue boy on his shoulders suspiciously. He wanted to ask why in the world Tobirama's boy was with Shiro, but refrained, because he feared the answer to the question.

"We do too!" came another voice, a very familiar Uchiha one. Kagami sauntered up to them, exchanging fist bumps with Shiro. "There's even mushrooms down there."

"That's just gross," Biwako said, wrinkling her nose.

"Hold on a sec, I might have some on me still." Kagami feigned wiping his hands all over Biwako, going as far as to grab her ponytail. The long-haired girl shrieked with laughter and shoved the Uchiha away.

"Hey, I heard about your mold problem!" Hiruzen yelled, jogging down the street. He really should've have started running, because the two-year-old bouncing his in arms began to wail. She tried babbling a few of the words she knew best, and one sounded like "Mama!" which made the entire group cringe as the shopkeepers glared accusingly at them.

"Daddy goes fishing," said the blue boy. None of them knew what this meant. It was super adorable, though.

"Don't yell around kids," Biwako scolded. Hiruzen shut his mouth.

"Mommy doesn't like fish," continued the blue boy. Again, what relevance this had to the current situation, they had no idea, but it sure was cute. Kagami bent down and ruffled the boy's hair fondly.

"This hair is crazy blue," he muttered.

"Bluebells in jingle bells make cows fly over the moon," the blue boy responded. The entire group held back stifled laughter at the level of cuteness the boy emitted. They weren't sure if he was confused, stringing random words together, or just mixing the things he heard around him in a sentence. (He probably heard "blue", and then thought "jingle bells", and mixed the two, and then for some reason pulled up the memory of his mother reciting a poem to him…)

If anyone was to go googly eyed over an adorable little boy, the last person they expected to see was Koharu. She had suddenly approached them, and was now talking nonsense to the four-year-old, who actually comprehended much more than they expected. He also could respond much more intelligently than they knew, but he just didn't show it (though the bluebell jingle bells thing was actually something he wanted to say).

"Have you heard? The Hyuuga and the Uchiha are facing a mold crisis," Koharu announced, after petting Kuromaru on the head. The dog whined happily and slapped his tail on the ground, promptly sitting down and nodding his head excitedly.

"No kidding," Kagami deadpanned.

"It's a mystery!" said Hiruzen, as excited as the dog.

"Miss miss!" giggled the little girl. The group cooed at how adorable she was.

"Anyway, why are you guys taking care of the kids?" Koharu asked, eyes narrowing.

"I was told to," Hiruzen and Shiro said both at the same time.

"Stars! Oh stars!" came a voice. The group of teens turned to see a white-headed boy parading down the street, dragging along two of his friends. One was the First Hokage's granddaughter, and the other was a rather dejected looking boy with the longest black hair any of them had ever laid eyes on.

"We're tired of your singing, Jiraiya," the blonde girl piped up.

"Please stop," said the other boy.

"Benny and the Jets!" continued Jiraiya. The group of teenagers cringed and also wished the little boy would shut up. His voice was incredibly grating on the ears. "—in the sky, with diamonds!"

"Jiraiya!" snapped Tsunade.

"Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry," Jiraiya sang on. "And good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singin' this'll be the day that I—"

Besides the fact that Jiraiya strung songs together just as adeptly as the blue boy made up random sentences, and the fact that when he stuck to one song, he didn't even sing the lyrics in order, the group discovered that Uzumaki Mito's insane strength had indeed been passed down into the Senju bloodline, because little Tsunade, not even ten years old, had socked Jiraiya in the face hard enough to send him flying down three blocks.

"Snowball flies!" laughed the blue boy. Hiruzen sniggered.

Tsunade and Orochimaru promptly left Jiraiya twitching in the dust.

While the group of teenagers found that both of the Hokage's children really like dango—despite not knowing whether giving dango to a two-year-old was safe, seeing as she could've choked on just about anything bigger than "baby-bite-sized"—the Hokage himself was busy making personal visits to the raging mold sites.

"I'm serious, here," said Kagami's father, glaring. "The source is a form of ninjutsu."

The most recent clan head shot the Hyuuga a condescending look, while the Hyuuga proudly ignored it and asked Tobirama his opinion. The Hyuuga honestly didn't care if the Uchiha hated him; he dealt with things fairly and reasonably. When his son Aki had been defeated by Kagami—after Kagami struggled long and hard in the beginning, nearly falling to Aki's 64 Trigram Palms—the Hyuuga head congratulated the young Uchiha and acknowledged his hard work and effort.

That was back when Kagami's father wasn't clan head, though.

"Well, it definitely looks like it was planted here," Tobirama commented, pointing out the older mushrooms in the corner. The fact that there were mini-mushrooms atop mold atop mushrooms was already gross enough, but the bushy bulge of ridiculously fast-growing fungus in the corner was insane. Toka, who had called Tobirama to the scene, even cringed at the mass of…disgusting overgrowth of fungi. Tobirama continued, "It also looks like its feeding on moisture and…chakra."

Now everybody blanched, sickened by the repulsive mold. Was mold even supposed to grow on mushrooms? And how in the world did mushrooms grow on mold? None of them thought it was possible, yet here it was.

Toka swore she heard Tobirama mutter "crazy Kiri nin" under his breath, but couldn't really make it out clearly. She pretended like she didn't hear it—in any other case, she would've socked him and sent him flying into the mold—and announced that they should take a look at the Hyuuga party's case.

So up the stairs the group went, careful to avoid any overgrowth of the mucky green stuff.

"Go to sleep, go to sleep," Hiruzen sang badly. At this point, Team Tobirama, Team Toka, and Biwako's team were all gathered just outside of town, by the playground, in a joint attempt to take care of the Second's children. Somehow.

The little girl ended up just crying, because Hiruzen's singing was so atrocious. Danzo clicked his tongue, and unexpectedly, took the baby from Hiruzen's hands.

"You can't do it like that." Then, in a mind-blowing moment of awe, Danzo began to sing a lullaby to the sweet snow-haired baby, with the voice of an angel. The entire group went slack-jawed, gaping openly at their teammate. When the baby finally mumbled to sleep—most adorably, of course—the group continued to stare at Danzo with their jaws hanging to the ground, whilst the Shimura boy glared at all of them, told them to hush up now—though no one had said a word—and gingerly slipped the baby back into Hiruzen's arms—despite fearing that in his shock, Hiruzen would drop the baby.

"Danzo-nii-chan sing," giggled the blue boy. And then he grinned widely, and he looked so much like Tobirama that the entire group had to slap hands over one another's face to keep from laughing. (With the exception of Aki and Danzo, who were still dead serious. Perhaps they smiled on the inside.)

Dinnertime approached, and the group toted the children to the barbecue house. It was there that Hiruzen bluntly asked:

"What are babies supposed to eat?"

To which everyone yelled:

"You idiot!" and "What have you been feeding her all day?!"

And then the monkey answered:

"Uh. Dango and ramen."

He was promptly slapped on the back of the head several times by several friends.

The Hyuuga basement was just as shocking as the Uchiha, besides the fact that instead of the sickly green of the mushroom-mold combo, it hosted a red and yellow polka dot frenzy of fluffy mold. It was the kind that was usually whitish-cream on fruits left out too long, but fiery red with ugly yellow spores puffing every which way. This was definitely not possible. Though there was clearly a lack of the nature-defying mushrooms, there was a lovely, horrendously stinking supply of red weeds sticking out in all directions.

"Crazy Kiri nin," was heard once more, but Toka shook it out of her mind.

"It started in this corner," Tobirama said. "Again, planted."

The nastiest bulb was growing in the corner, looking as if an any minute, it would spit out a superbly ugly red flower that stank more than the mold and the weeds. Did mold and weeds even go together?

Probably not.

"You have to feed a baby properly!" Koharu scolded, glaring at her teammate.

"I'm sorry! Ow!" Hiruzen was hit several more times on the head. He doubted his head would be smaller than a melon by nightfall, with all the people hitting him.

"Saru, Saru, Saru!" chanted the blue boy. He was obviously delighted with the fact that his teammates were consistently hitting him up the backside of the head for his mistakes. Hiruzen thought he was cruelly similar to his father, the blue boy was.

"You know, this is why girls usually take care of the kids," Biwako stated firmly. "We're much more sensible."

"I'm surprised Hiruzen hasn't dropped her yet," Danzo said flatly. Kagami sniggered.

"Hey, I can take care of the boy!" Shiro exclaimed, in self-defense. "I'm doing pretty good! What do ya think?" The Inuzuka turned to Tobirama's son, smiling.

"Doggy boy be good and sit," was all the blue boy said. Shiro couldn't fainted from shock then, while everyone else had a great time laughing at him.

It was then that most of them wondered where in the world Mariko had gone.

Unbeknownst to both groups, Mariko had been running a few errands when she was kidnapped by…what do you know, a group of…

Crazy Kiri nin.

These Mist shinobi acted as friendly travelers, accidentally bumping into Mariko, and at the same time throwing a genjutsu over her, strengthened by the accompaniment of a drug-soaked cloth, sending the blunette into a confused daze. Totally caught off guard, she was bound and thrown into the back of a not-so-suspicious caravan. The Kiri nin then awaited the moment they could sabotage Konoha's recent success in village management. Again, unnoticed, a one of the crazy Mist jounin tailed the group of chuunin with the kids, while the other had planted the mold in the houses of dominant clans.

Now, with the Second Hokage distracted, they carried out their plans.

(Let it be known that the Second Mizukage had "nothing to do with this plan". Or so he claimed. After Tobirama's pact with Kumogakure, and then friendly relations of Iwa, the tide had turned against Kirigakure, prompting some sort of response.)

The child was sitting on the bench, staring at the centipede crawling past his toes. His blue hair was shaggy and tickled his ears, but he didn't care. Mama would have him get a haircut soon, anyway. It was only when the waiter almost dropped a cup of hot tea on him that he saw the masked man in the corner, emanating an foreign essence. The boy immediately recognized "not-Konoha" with this man, and promptly told the dog boy:

"Not Konoha!"

Of course, Shiro failed to understand, and only ruffled the boy's hair.

The Kiri nin shot the lights, and the restaurant went dark. There was a shout, a scream, and another Mist shinobi set the kitchen on fire. Both the boy and the girl were grabbed, tossed over their shoulders, and taken away.

Hiruzen leapt to his feet, and Aki's Byakugan was activated in an instant.

"Sarutobi, the kids!" he exclaimed. Hiruzen made for the door, but a noxious gas filled his nostrils and knocked him out.

The last thing he heard was the boy yelling,

"Saru!" and the little girl's screams.

~To be continued~

This has gone from funny to serious. What is this.

Besides that, a continued story! No worries, it won't be as botched up as the Hurricane one, which I rushed on.

AND don't worry about the seriousness: It turns out to be funny (and ridiculous, no worries. I'll try to keep things fun.)

Also, Tobirama would generally lack worry for Mariko's whereabouts, because he's generally confident that she can handle herself in the village. There's always the threat of crazy Kiri nin (that's just a standard these days, lol) but there's no way anyone expected it.

The children remain nameless, because I can't think of anything good enough.

Also. One day, in the far future, when Naruto and co. begin singing "Ga ga ooh lalaaaaaa" and "tonighhhhhhht we are young", Jiraiya finally understands why everyone wanted him to stop singing.

Headcanon: After Madara dies ("dies", I should say), Kagami's father becomes clan head.

Naruto Shippuuden's "Chikara" arc is influencing me too much. There's a ton of little kids in there, and the smallest one is so plain adorable that I can't help but imagine her when I write Tobirama's little girl. Well, the girl in the anime sort of annoys me, so I make her even cuter here.

Also, I had to refrain from making a Tobi comment in the blue boy's dialogue, because that would SO not fit. lol.

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