In which Konoha is overthrown by geese, Koharu is moody, and Hiruzen find that he is troubled by his love life.
I don't even... a fun, random story for you all.
Takeshi = the most random child you will find in the series of Naruto. Beware.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, because there was no chapter this week... (I heard there's a double chapter next week though...!)
Note: I totally wasn't eating a really good papaya at some point during this story...
Chapter 43: Papaya
"He did what?!" exclaimed Koharu, eyes widening and mouth slightly agape. And then she was absolutely livid, face pink and looking like murder. If one thought that the Second Hokage was a fearsome figure when angered, then they had it coming for them – this was Utatane Koharu, overly protective and tetchier than a stubborn mare.
"Koharu, Koharu, calm down," called Biwako, grabbing her friend's sleeve insistently. Then, more sternly in a whisper: "Sit down, you're making a scene!"
Koharu grudgingly plopped back down in the chair, picking hesitantly at the remnants of her lunch. The café shop waiters and waitresses cast them uneasy glances; they knew very well the consequences of anything that had to do with this young generation of shinobi. Last time someone got angry in this shop, Uchiha Kagami had nearly set the place on fire – he was a sweet kid, really – and a poor Inuzuka boy who broke the windows cowered behind a vegetable stand down the street. And then, someone else got angry, and it all ended with an Akimichi crushing half the shop.
"I will not calm down," she hissed. "How could he do that?!"
"It's okay, really," Biwako insisted, smiling gently.
"No, no it isn't."
"It's not a big deal, let it go." Biwako took a sip of her drink, pausing. "And besides, this is between me and him. You don't have to do a thing."
"He's my teammate, and you're my best friend." Koharu folded her arms, eyes narrowing. For a moment, she was a striking replica of the Second Hokage, her former sensei, with a stance as cold and calculating as the white-haired Senju on a bad day. Then again, usually the icy Hokage could be melted down a few degrees with a bundle of blunette, but there was no such remedy for Koharu. Well, maybe Kagami, but Koharu was a moody thing and needed to be handled with much care.
Biwako sighed. "Well, don't say anything too obvious. He probably doesn't even know."
"How can he not know?"
"He probably didn't do it on purpose."
"Probably," echoed Koharu pointedly. "Or probably not."
"I don't think he would leave me on purpose." Biwako made a face and set down her drink with a frustrated clink. The ice cubes in the lemonade swirled lightly, tinkling gently against the glass. It was a beautiful day; sunny with blue skies, picturesque Konoha at the height of spring.
"Well I think I should tell him," Koharu said.
"Hint at it. Don't say anything obvious," repeated Biwako, relenting just a little. Koharu would not be persuaded otherwise, and she was getting tired of this hassle.
"He ditched you."
"He forgot."
"He left you standing."
"It slipped his mind."
Koharu threw her hands up. "I'm not getting anywhere with you today."
"That's fine," sighed Biwako, dejectedly slumping back into her seat.
"See? It pains you to think about it." Koharu grinned smugly, knowing full well that she was right. Biwako was worried about what had happened the day before, no matter what claims she put up to defend with. "I'm going to talk with him. We have a mission to start later today, anyway."
"Don't say anything—"
"Too obvious, I know," laughed Koharu. She stood and smiled at her best friend. "I'm not that awful, you know."
She threw a casual wave over her shoulder, and Biwako watched the kunoichi disappear down the street. Playing with her ponytail, she looked up at the cute umbrella that adorned the table of the outdoor café – business was good and everyone was bustling about. A couple sitting in a farther corner caught her eye; she realized that she knew the girl, and smiled to herself. They looked so happy.
She supposed that Koharu was right. Somewhere, deep inside, she struggled with the tidal wave of feelings that came along with the life of a teenage girl – and Hiruzen was the source.
"Saru, you're going to either stop fidgeting or give me forty," Tobirama snapped aggressively. The monkey immediately stopped whatever it was that he was doing, and stood at attention. Tobirama glared, still holding the mission description scroll in a death grip. "You know what, give me forty anyway."
Hiruzen made a pitiful noise that Koharu inwardly smirked at, and dropped to his knees.
Really, sensei? Hiruzen's face asked, puppy dog eyes and all.
"If you don't start now, I'll make it eighty."
Hiruzen looked to Koharu for help, and when she offered no assistance whatsoever, he glanced meekly at the ever-silent Homura. The glint of Homura's glasses revealed nothing. Both he and Koharu were wise enough to remain silent when the Second Hokage was in a bad mood – and there was no blue-haired heroine around to save them – but their unfortunate third teammate was not as quick to catch on.
"Saru, one hundred. Now."
Hiruzen whimpered and began his one hundred push-ups without further ado, coming to the realization that waiting another second would probably add another fifty to his list.
Koharu sighed to herself. It had been a while since Tobirama was this agitated; she wondered why. Meanwhile, he handed out the mission description to her and she read it over briefly. Something about guarding a lord's daughter on her marriage arrangement trip because the other party was far away, and the area was potentially dangerous. Koharu thought to herself, why would you marry off your daughter to someone so sketchy?
She estimated a total of three days, and then they'd be back. It wasn't a far trip there and back, and the subject of their escort was not traveling far either.
"She's requested that a woman accompanies her at all times," Tobirama informed them tiredly. He nodded sharply at Koharu, who slid the scroll into her weapons pouch. "I've heard that she's quite the picky one."
"Lovely," deadpanned Koharu. Her reply was so much like himself that Tobirama couldn't help but smirk.
Hiruzen stood up then, rubbing his arms and cowering slightly behind Koharu. Given his current situation with both Tobirama and Biwako, Koharu was tempted to smack him out the window. But the poor thing was confused and sore, so she refrained from doing so…for now.
"Hokage-sama, what is the weather for the next three days?" asked Homura.
"Should be sunny," replied Tobirama. Then he glared at the bespectacled boy, because he despised the way he was addressed. "Homura, don't call me that."
"Sorry, sensei. Habit."
Tobirama didn't stop glaring, because it wasn't habit at all. Their habit was calling him sensei. Homura, in particular, was often thrown between the two because when he addressed Tobirama in the presence of his team, informality was accepted. However, when he worked with the village council, they clicked their tongues disapprovingly when he addressed the greatest shinobi in the village with a term of familiarity. And thus, Homura was a confused child.
"Now get out of my office."
The three scrambled; Koharu made a mental note to see where their poor, agitated sensei's wife was.
"Eh, Koharu-chan, how've you been?"
"I'm well, how about you?"
"I'm pretty good." The blunette smiled sweetly, toting her one-year-old daughter. Her son peeked out from behind her skirt and giggled at Koharu, a bundle of cuteness in the form of a blue-haired boy. "What's up?"
"Sensei's in a bad mood," Koharu began. She wasn't quite sure how to explain, but the look on Mariko's face told her she didn't need to. The blunette burst out in laughter, startling the baby girl in her arms.
"He's always in a bad mood," she laughed. "This one kept him up all night." She bounced the little girl in her arms. "Oh, that reminds me – he has to babysit Takeshi for the rest of the day."
Koharu found that odd; didn't Danzo usually do that?"
"Poor Danzo's got a difficult mission, so he's not around," Mariko said, as if reading the girl's mind. "Oh well. The Hokage can use some non-paper related work, right?"
She grinned, bid Koharu a good day, and skipped off to the Hokage Tower. It seemed that the blue-haired woman was forever a teenager – despite how tiring that seemed – and had a bottomless pit of energy to spare. Koharu had seen Mariko a few times, absolutely spent, and that was either after childbirth, after some life-threatening event, or after an entire day of carrying her children to twenty different places because Tobirama insisted on it for some reason.
"KOHARU!"
Her thoughts were interrupted by a horribly familiar voice – and it was horrible because he was so annoying and sweet and doting that she could puke.
A bundle of hand-picked flowers was thrust into her face.
"Good luck on your mission," he said, so very sweetly. Why was he so sweet?
Koharu bashfully accepted them, granting him a small smile. His face lit up when he saw that she was pleased with him. He was a puppy dog, far cuter than the rowdy Inuzuka of their age group, and he followed her around because he usually had nothing better to do.
Well, either that, or he was avoiding his entire clan.
He also served as a surprisingly well-disguised bodyguard.
There was a time when a few older chuunin boys had tried to harass Koharu – as expected, the Sharingan came out with an unforeseen viciousness, and the Uchiha crest on his back scared the living daylights out of them. Those three rambunctious chuunin were never again seen within fifty yards of Koharu, and they fled at first sight of Kagami.
"Thanks," Koharu replied.
Then, unexpectedly, he swooped down and planted a chaste kiss on her lips before skipping away briskly.
"I have a mission too, so I'll see you later!" he called over his shoulder, waving.
Koharu touched her lips, and then hid her face behind her bouquet. That stupid, sweet idiot. She wished her face did not redden so easily, and spent the last hour before her departure in a mental quarrel with her lovey-dovey girl side and the warrior kunoichi that tried to murder all her emotions with a thousand Hiraishingiri strikes.
"I'm busy," was the reply to the soft knock on his office door.
But his request was not taken seriously, and the door clicked open. A bouncy little boy bounded over to his father's desk and patted his leg insistently, gurgling nonsense because he liked to gurgle nonsense.
"Daddy, Daddy, guess what I did? I did this, and then I did this, and then I saw some gooses and gooses were so big! Daddy guess what?!" Takeshi grabbed the Hokage's leg like his life depended on it. Tobirama, though still in a sour mood, could not help but scoop up his son and place him on his lap.
"What?" he asked, just to entertain the boy's question.
"I saw gooses!"
"That's nice," he said. He lacked the motivation to actually continue the conversation, though he knew that Takeshi would carry on nonetheless. His wife had entered and was carrying Kori, silently watching this father-son exchange.
"Daddy guess what?"
"What?"
"The gooses were THIS BIG!" Takeshi threw his arms out and ended up nearly falling off Tobirama's lap, laughing excitedly. "Daddy, can we be gooses too?"
"Why do you want to be a goose?"
"So we can fly! And then I also wanna be a deers, because deers are super fast!" The three-year-old began babbling some sort of strange theory about how the Naka River was the home to a thousand deer that could manipulate shadows – Tobirama assumed this was about the Nara clan – and would join the geese in some crusade for justice.
He tousled the boy's hair and he recoiled; he was just like his mother.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"You are now in charge of him," Mariko said, pointing at their son. "And I heard you were in a bad mood."
"I'm not in a bad mood."
She made a face. "Do you need a hug?"
Tobirama glared at her, attempting to continue his paperwork around the squirming little boy in his lap.
"No, but you can have him back for now," Tobirama said, gesturing to Takeshi.
"No." Mariko narrowed her eyes. "You promised, and I have to go to the hospital for Kori's checkup. Her cough came back."
This softened the Hokage a tad, and he waved Mariko over to his side of the desk. He gently took his daughter from Mariko, while balancing Takeshi on his knees.
"Her cough's back? You're sure?" He held Kori with one arm and pressed a finger of chakra to the baby's forehead. As far as he could tell, her chakra circulation was fine, so it was probably just a common cold. The usually silent baby girl giggled, before breaking off in a small cough.
"I think she's just got a cold," Mariko said. "Mito's back from Uzu today, so she'll check up on her too."
Reassured, Tobirama returned his daughter to Mariko, but not before pressing a kiss to the baby's forehead. Mariko gave him a look that said she wanted one to, and he turned his face up to her.
"Lazy," she muttered, before pressing her lips to his briefly. He smiled and hooked an arm around her head, keeping them together for a few more seconds. They were interrupted by Takeshi, who screamed:
"I'M THE HOKAGE!"
And proceeded to stamp all of the papers within reach of his little arms, branding each and every one of the documents with a hard, red "DENIED".
"Takeshi!" exclaimed Mariko, scooping up the little boy from his father's lap. Tobirama groaned and sorted through the now ruined papers — Toka would have to copy them, and she would get pissed at him for making her do work, and then he would have to go through them all over again.
Takeshi, on the other hand, had gone dangerously silent, a fat tear blobbing down his cheek.
"Sorry, Daddy," he mumbled over Mommy's shoulder, despaired at his father's unhappiness. Mariko, who found Takeshi increasingly heavy nowadays, let the boy slide to the ground.
Tobirama sighed.
"It's okay," he replied, beckoning the little boy over. Takeshi padded to his father's lap, grabbing his knee with his head hung low. The white-haired Senju ruffled his son's sapphire head and patted his cheek to console him. "Hey bud, come back up here."
Takeshi's face broke out into an overjoyed grin as he clambered back onto Tobirama's lap, settling himself and hiding halfway behind Tobirama's jacket. He reached up at patted the faceguard that his father wore fondly.
"Daddy, can we still be gooses?" he asked.
"Sure we can," replied his father. "Is there anything else you want to be? You want to be Hokage?"
"No," Takeshi said, changing his mind — children tended to either stick with one thing for an unbearably long time or change at the slightest inspiration — and picked something else he wanted to be. "I wanna be a deers."
"A deer?"
"Daddy is one of the gooses, I'm a deer, and Uncle Hiruzen's a monkey," giggled Takeshi.
"That's right, he is a monkey," Tobirama answered, shoving the last of the faultily stamped papers into the recycling bin. "Now, tell me, why am I a goose?"
"That's 'cause you've got white hair," Takeshi explained, as if that made all the sense in the word. Tobirama supposed that some geese were white, and that there was some sort of logic to his son's madness.
"Then why are you a deer? Deer aren't blue."
"If I say deers are blue, then deers are blue," Takeshi informed his father with the most serious face one could put on. "Besides," he added, "Mommy's a deer, and Mommy's blue."
"Why's Mommy a deer?"
"Because I said so."
Tobirama threw Mariko a glance, but the blunette was cooing softly to their daughter, who was currently in a state of frustrated confusion. The little one was hungry, and she began to whine and burrow into her mother's breast. Mariko sighed and nodded at Tobirama, signaling that she would head home for now.
Tobirama, on the other hand, was fairly distracted by Takeshi.
"I don't like butterflies," Takeshi stated bluntly.
"And why is that?"
"I dunno, I just don't."
And later: "Daddy, what's your favorite fruit?"
"Papaya."
"What's a papaya?"
"You've had it before."
"I have?" Takeshi made a face and twisted to look up at his father, the Hokage who was currently trying to finish as many papers as possible so that he could go copy the ruined ones himself and not bother Toka. Wait, he thought. Kagami's in the village. I'll have him do it. There was a benefit to having a cheery Uchiha on one's side — for one, he was not evil, and secondly, he was the sweetest kid on earth besides Takeshi.
"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy," insisted the blue boy.
"What's up?"
"Why isn't it called Daddy-ya?"
"Why isn't…what?"
"Papaya. Why isn't it daddy-ya?" Takeshi tugged at Tobirama's fur collar. The Hokage glanced down at this son, and Takeshi continued, "Is it the same reason why mooses are the same as deers but not the same as deers and more like buffalo?"
Tobirama sighed. The Academy would have a great time with his son.
"Honestly, Takeshi, that is not something I would know."
"We're not lost."
"We're lost."
"We are not." Hiruzen shook the map like a peacock ruffling its grand feathers, bristling in defense.
"Are you sure the map's not upside down?" hissed Koharu, shaking an angry finger in his direction.
"I'm sure," replied Hiruzen, showing her the map. It was, indeed, right side up.
"Then why don't you let me or Homura take a look? We can help, you know," growled the kunoichi of the team, arms folded. They weren't even at the lord's manor yet, and already bumbling through a forest that was probably on the wrong side of the Fire Country. At this rate, Koharu's estimated three days would extend to three weeks.
Homura reached over and gently took the map from Hiruzen's hands; the monkey relented, watching curiously as the silent, bespectacled chuunin read over the geographic lines and borders carefully. Without delay, Homura began trekking in a somewhat northbound direction. He said nothing, only walked.
The other two followed obediently – Homura, in these cases, tended to be the most useful. He was probably the only sane one, too.
Kagami found great pleasure in accompanying the Hokage's son. While he sped over papers with his handy-dandy Sharingan, his other hand flying over blank pages with a pen that could have given the Flying Thunder God a run for his money, Kagami held a rather interesting conversation with a blue-haired Senju boy.
"Gagami-nii-chan," giggled Takeshi – he still couldn't really say Kagami's name correctly – patting the pile of papers, "do you know why a papaya isn't called a daddy-ya?"
Kagami glanced up briefly before returning to his hasty but neat scripting.
"I think it's because the young shinobi papaya had called his father papa since birth, so the name is to remain papaya forever," the Uchiha answered easily. He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the little boy was fiddling with his forehead protector. Kagami had taken off the hitai-ate when Takeshi had asked, and the boy seemed to enjoy the glint of the metal and the dip of the Konoha symbol.
"But why did that papaya get to decide?" Takeshi asked.
"Well, that papaya was known as the God of all Papayas, just like how your uncle was the God of Shinobi," explained Kagami. "Someone as powerful as the God of Shinobi can name important things, right?"
"Like how Uncle Hashirama made the Hokage?"
"Yeah, just like that," agreed Kagami, smiling. Finishing another document – he was a naturally artistic boy, and could even copy down graphs and pictures with ease – and adding it to his growing stack, the Uchiha watched the boy ponder this.
Meanwhile, at this desk, Tobirama listened silently. He diligently went through his papers, once in a while taking a few that Kagami offered, newly rewritten. Tobirama had always been fast with paperwork, most of the time. Hashirama used to tease him that he was faster and better with papers than with women – and then Mito would slap the back of her husband's head, clicking her tongue – but Tobirama never really cared. (Not when he could easily defend himself with the claim that Mariko would say otherwise.)
What Tobirama really found amazing, however, was Kagami's patience. The boy never failed to answer Takeshi's questions, even the most incessant, annoying ones.
When Takeshi said, "Your eyes are red marbles", Kagami then replied:
"They sure are! They're the most rare ones, you know?"
At that, Takeshi giggled happily and clapped his hands.
"Daddy's eyes are red too. But they're not marbles."
Tobirama made a face at this, but continued signing documents nonetheless.
"Mommy has green marble eyes," Takeshi chirped. He began listing as many people as he could, deciding whether or not they had marble eyes.
"How about you? Do you have marble eyes?" asked Kagami.
"I dunno," mumbled the little blue boy, "my eyes are like Daddy's."
"Yeah, but that means your eyes are like red suns," Kagami offered, smiling. Tobirama smiled slightly, because the Uchiha never failed to cheer up the little boy across from him. Takeshi's face lit up, and he bounced excitedly.
"Suns," the boy echoed.
"And your hair is like the ocean," Kagami added. "So you're bigger and better than all those marble-eyed people, right?"
"Suns," repeated Takeshi, in wonder. Kagami reached over and ruffled the boys hair, causing him to squeal in protest. The two burst out in laughter, and Tobirama could not help but smile some more at them. Kagami, with years of caring for a little sister under his belt, was a splendid sibling. He will become a wonderful husband and father, Tobirama thought.
"I can be…the SUN HOKAGE!" squawked Takeshi, stumbling to his feet and leaping over to Tobirama's desk. "DADDY, DADDY, WE CAN BE THE SUN-DEER-HOKAGE-GOOSES!" he screamed, slapping Tobirama's leg with his little hands.
"I'm sure we can," agreed Tobirama, sighing when Takeshi bumped into the desk and sent a flurry of papers fluttering to the floor. Kagami went to pick them up, laughing.
"Wait, wait, wait," Takeshi said, holding up his chubby hands. He waited until he had all the attention. When both Tobirama and Kagami went still and were silent enough for his liking, he said:
"Can we also be papayas?"
"We apologize greatly for our tardiness," Hiruzen said, surprising the two of his teammates. The Sarutobi was subserviently kneeling before the portly lord and his daughter, bowing deeply with his head to the floor. Koharu and Homura followed suit, so as to refrain from angering the lord. His daughter, a tall, wide girl with pretty eyes and a round heart-shaped face, watched them timidly. Her stature made for awkward greeting – she nodded at them from behind her father, who was shorter than her – and she was terribly shy.
They began their real mission, accompanying the princess. Hiruzen walked alongside the carriage while Homura scouted slightly to the north as they traveled westward. Koharu, as requested, remained inside the carriage with the girl. She occasionally leaned out to talk to Hiruzen.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"What was what about?"
"You apologizing."
"Oh. I dunno." Hiruzen shrugged and looked oddly distant, staring off into the trees with no real aim. He pretended to scan for danger, but his eyes were blank and tended to stray off to nothing in particular.
"Is something bothering you?"
Hiruzen shrugged again. He sometimes hated when Koharu could read him like an open book, because she picked at it like a scab. Sometimes, Hiruzen just wanted to think about things by himself. Arriving late to the lord's mansion had, in fact, bothered him. If the lord had been an impatient man, then the difference of a few hours would have cost them their mission. Maybe he would have looked elsewhere for closer, faster shinobi. Certainly not a couple of teenage slackers who weren't capable of arriving on time.
Of course, this directly correlated to his love life (because that makes so much sense). He had arrived horrendously tardy to his date with Biwako. To his horror, she wasn't even there, and he supposed that she'd gotten tired of waiting and had wandered away. Maybe she even found one of her girlfriends and ate lunch without him. Even worse, maybe she ate lunch with another guy.
He'd scrounged the area for her, but she was nowhere to be found.
Well, that was probably a given, seeing as he'd arrived three hours late.
It wasn't his fault, honestly! Okay, it was his fault. Apparently, cheering up Tobirama-sensei should not include spray-painting the Hokage Mountain blue – it was only the hair, though – and convincing everyone that they were now living in the brand new republic of Hurricane-gakure.
And thus, Tobirama sentenced the poor monkey to a series of grueling, time-consuming jobs that made him three hours late, despite Hiruzen's determined "explosion of youth". Such a blast of energy and grit allowed him to finish these jobs at an inhumanly speed, but he was still merely a chuunin who liked to pull pranks, and thus was late to his meeting with dear Biwako.
"Hiruzen, pay attention!" snapped Koharu, pulling the boy back into his head. "Homura's signal just came on; two at four o'clock," she hissed out the carriage window. The wide-eyed princess watched warily, tucking her straw-colored hair behind her ears nervously. She had big blue eyes and a round figure; had she been a little smaller and a shinobi, Koharu would have mistaken her for one of the Yamanaka girls.
Hiruzen glanced behind his right shoulder, but all he caught was a few of the princess's wagons and a couple of travelers conveniently sticking with them for safety. The chuunin leapt over to the other side of the cart train, and surveyed the forest from there.
A kunai flew past his head, and he flicked it away with one of his own.
"Koharu, close the windows!" he called. His teammate did as she was told, snapping the carriage windows shut and drawing a scroll. She debated whether or not to scrawl a seal down on the door, and figured that if she closed off one side, she could defend the other. Koharu inked the left door, sealing it shut, and told the girl to sit up against it. Immediately, the nervous blonde scuttled to the other end of the seat, while Koharu drew a short blade and waited at the other.
As expected, an enemy nin crashed the door open, and she sliced him through the gut without hesitation. From a distance, Hiruzen made a face.
"You didn't have to kill him," he called.
"I didn't," Koharu said. "I just stabbed him."
"You killed him."
The enemy nin crawled up and groaned.
"No, no I didn't," repeated Koharu, throwing a kunai for good measure. The man went down, stayed down, and didn't move. Hiruzen waved frantically.
"You killed him!"
"No, he's just down!"
Hiruzen made a face; he wasn't fond of Koharu's brusque attacking nature. She was fierce and struck immediately, a snake with deadly venom shooting from its fangs.
The enemy shinobi came in a group of four, and were taken down without much difficulty. In fact, Koharu surmised that they were no more than three genin and a chuunin, none of them more capable than their three-man cell. Homura returned from scouting and traded places with Hiruzen; Koharu was stuck in the moving cabin.
At dusk, they reached a small in where they would spend the night, and Koharu accompanied the girl to her bedroom. As she was requested to, Koharu remained unobtrusively in the corner of the girl's room, stationed by the window in case of enemy infiltration.
To her surprise, the girl was still uncomfortable. Koharu could not tell if the young duchess was just nervous, or if she didn't want Koharu there. In an awkward moment of uncharacteristic openness, Koharu offered to make conversation with the girl.
"So, do you know who you're marrying?"
"I do," she said. "I've met him before."
Well, then I suppose it's not as bad as not knowing him, Koharu thought to herself. She wondered vaguely what her fiancé looked like, and recalled a doe-eyed blunette skittishly wandering the Konoha streets several years ago, simply because she'd gotten lost and couldn't get back to the Senju complex. The poor thing was probably traumatized, and Tobirama hadn't really paid her any attention until later. But then, Koharu also supposed the Mariko was lucking in that she had a pretty little love story. She'd heard that all the Hurricane siblings, save the oldest, had been successfully married off and were living happy love stories.
Koharu had never liked happy princess endings, to be honest. She thought them to be too perfect, too shiny and dazzling and superficial.
The blonde girl was silent, now, absently braiding a thin lock of hair. Despite her large stature and apparent shyness, she was quite pretty. She was not beautiful, nor was she plain. Koharu thought that this lord's young daughter had a decent face, and was a kind girl (if she spoke up, anyway).
"Do you…like him?" asked Koharu. She then thought about her question. "Pardon me if I'm being rude, I was just curious."
The girl flashed her a tiny smile and shook her head. "Not at all, I enjoy your company. I've never had many friends…my father never let me socialize beyond the court."
Koharu nodded, somewhat understanding. Kagami's father often tried to rein in his son and keep him under a tight leash, but Kagami was more of a cat than a dog, and tended to wiggle his way out of any restraints, even if it meant hiding under the Hokage's desk, playing rock-paper-scissors with Takeshi.
"He's a nice gentleman," said the young princess. "Chikusa is a noble man."
It occurred to Koharu that she didn't even know the girl's name – what was it, Mara? – but she refrained
from asking to be polite. It would be rude to suddenly ask their employer her name.
But there was a sense of dreaminess and wonder that came with her description of him – "dark-haired and quite tall", she said – that made Koharu wonder. Then, the antsiness from earlier returned, and a telltale glance at the window made Koharu frown. Even so, she continued her conversation with the girl until night fell, and they both went to sleep.
Naturally a light sleeper and a kunoichi who studied sensory ninjutsu under the Second Hokage himself, it was expected that Koharu immediately knew when the girl woke up. Mara, surprisingly quick and agile for her body build, had cloaked herself in a dark cape and had slipped out the window within seconds. A glance over her shoulder showed her that Koharu had leapt to the window, bewildered.
Mara took off at a sprint.
Koharu leapt out the window after the princess, pausing only to knock fiercely on the boys' room window. She then cursed the hotel for no apparent reason – they should've gotten a second floor room, instead – and began to track the princess.
It wasn't hard, really. She was obvious and not sneaky, and thus Koharu trailed her easily. Curiosity spurred her to watch where Mara was going, and was shocked to see a figure meeting her halfway. The tall princess embraced with an even taller man, whose broad shoulders impressively encompassed her own.
"Dark and quite tall", was it?
"Why does this happen to us," she muttered, drawing a kunai. She whipped out from behind the cospse of trees and shouted: "Step away from the princess!"
Startled, the two of them broke apart and the man drew a short sword.
"No, Chikusa," exclaimed the princess.
Chikusa.
Koharu wanted to slap something, she was so tired of shenanigans. Really. For once, she would like a princess escort mission to end without trouble, like it was supposed to. But, alas, this was the shinobi world, and odd things were bound to happen at any point in time. For all she knew, Hiruzen might actually be a monkey. He was just hiding his tail.
"She's a hired guard, don't worry," said Mara.
"She's pointing a kunai at me," the man rumbled, in a low, baritone voice.
"I sort of ran away from her," Mara whispered.
"Oh my gosh," exclaimed Koharu, snapping. "If you two are going to meet up, just tell us! We're not your father, we're not going to forbid you from meeting someone!"
She threw her hands up, and the secret couple watched her with wide eyes.
At that point, Hiruzen and Homura came running, and happened upon a confusing sight.
"Um. What's going on?"
Hiruzen dodged a punch from Koharu, and then whimpered and ducked behind Homura.
"Wahh, Koharu, don't kill me!" he wailed.
"You're all idiots," she hissed caustically. Then, whipping around: "Princess, if you would please inform us of the next time you wish to meet your fiancé?"
Bashfully, the princess nodded.
Koharu walked around a corner and punched a hole in a wall, Tsunade-style.
"I think it's her time of the month," Hiruzen whispered from his cot. Across the bland, empty floor, Homura pretended that he hadn't heard his teammate. Unfortunately, the Sarutobi never left things to silence, and continued, "It's definitely her time of the month. What do you think? You know, Biwako isn't as moody as Koharu…though I haven't seen her since…"
He trailed off and stared at the ceiling, worried.
"Hey, Homura," he called over. "Do you think Biwako's mad?"
Silence.
"Homura?"
The subject of Hiruzen's attention feigned sleep.
"I know you're awake," Hiruzen whispered, dragging himself off his cot and slithering towards his partner. "I see you."
"That's creepy, okay," said Homura bluntly, turning around and staring at his friend, half on his mattress, half sprawled across the tatami mats.
"No, but seriously, do you think she's mad?"
"Nah. Just go talk to her."
"Thank you, oh wise one who never talks to me."
Homura rolled around again, closed his eyes, and hoped that Hiruzen would just shut up now.
"I'M THE GOOSEKAGE!" came the cry, so loud that half the passersby turned. Danzo, holding the hand of a wobbly three-year-old, pretended that nothing had just happened. The next time they turned down a busy street, it turned into: "I'M THE SUNKAGE! SEE MY SUN-DEERS!"
Danzo swore that the boy was trying to say "see my tsunderes!" except with a twisted pronunciation, because he melded the last syllables into a single E sound. He continued holding the boy's hand, nonchalantly walking towards the Hokage Tower.
As soon as Kagami came into sight, Takeshi screamed:
"AND YOU'RE THE MARBLEKAGE!"
"Ah, Goosekage-dono, how are you?" Kagami kneeled and grinned at the little boy. Danzo, completely lost, stared at the two of them.
"I'm off to my office!" announced Takeshi. "How are your gooses in Marble-gakure?"
"Hey, I thought that you guys were the gooses, and we had the deers."
"No, Konoha has deers. We have ducks!"
Kagami was thoughtful. Then: "Okay then, shall we have a deernin and goosenin exam, then?"
"I'm not a deernin yet," explained Takeshi, as if this conversation made all the sense in the world. "But Danzo-nii-chan is a ducknin."
This must've been some sort of twisted shinobi terminology, in which deers were genin, geese were chuunin, and ducks were jounin, because that was all Danzo could deduce. Kagami continued bantering with the little blue one until Takeshi claimed that "Mount Deerkage was about to fall on its geeses because Uncle Hashirama said so". At this, Kagami laughed, claimed he had something to do, and skipped away.
"Hey," Danzo said. "Why am I a ducknin?"
"Because Danzo-nii-chan can fly."
Danzo decided not to pursue this conversation any further.
"Yo, Koharu!" A bouquet of flowers was thrust into the girl's face upon her return to Konoha, and this time it was a prettily arranged Yamanaka item. Koharu accepted, ignoring the leer on Hiruzen's face, and timidly took the offered arm. Kagami skipped off, literally dragging her behind him. "This barbecue shop just opened, let's go check it out!"
And then, to his surprise, Hiruzen came face to face with Biwako, who smiled gently at him.
"Biwako!"
"Hey," she said, taking his arm.
Poor Homura sort of just slunk away with his book, only to run into Danzo and an excited sapphire-topped three-year-old who insisted that Homura was a goose.
"You're not mad?" asked Hiruzen, after a few moments of awkward silence.
"No," she said carefully. "You're not mad at me, are you?"
Shocked, Hiruzen made a face so comical that Biwako stifled a giggle.
"No! I accidentally made Tobirama-sensei mad, and he made me do all this stuff," – Hiruzen waved his arms dramatically – "and then I was late! By like, three hours."
"Oh."
"You're mad," he said, face falling.
"No, I'm not." Her smile returned. "It's okay; just find me earlier next time and tell me."
"Sorry, I had that mission, and then it took like five days, and then—"
Biwako planted a kiss on his cheek and he shut up.
"I told you, it's fine."
Hiruzen's face lit up, and he happily sauntered down to the Hokage Tower to submit his mission report, a relieved Biwako at his side. To be honest, both of them were about to burst out in tears of relief.
They arrived to find that Konoha was not, in fact, being taken over by crazy Kiri nin, but by a much greater menace.
"LORD SUNGOOSEKAGE-SAMA HAS ARRIVED!"
More papers were ruined, to say the least.
Watch out, Hiruzen. The title of Third Hokage may be knocked out by the FIRST GOOSEKAGE!
I don't even...
Ken and Chikusa, from KHR? No? Yes? No? No.
Double chapterrrrrrrrr.
Emeralds is churning out slowly...like badly made chemistry ice cream.