Hiiii lovelies! Here we have another chapter, right on time rather than freakishly late! I absolutely loved your responses to the last chapter, and I can't wait to read them for this one! I plan on replying to all of them once I have this uploaded, since I'd rather upload than spend an hour replying and forget...yeah...I think we'd all appreciate that, yes?

Funfact: "Hatake" seems to have to do with herons as well as fields, from something I found so there you have it as to why this story is going to be effing full of them. Everyone say "yaaay!"

Funfact: Wooden training swords of some/many/lots of kinds were/are called bokken, and were blunted swords used for training. Rather than, you know, using actual swords which are all sharp and cutty.

Funfact: The stipend given to samurai which is mentioned in this chapter, as well as referred to in a few others, was called a koku which was also the measure of volume/worth for rice. Since rice was (and still is kind of) the staple food at the time, it makes sense to measure wealth in it, especially among farmers or people who depend on farmers.

Funfact: Although if you were samurai in this period (if 1600 to 1700 is interpreted as the "golden age" of the Tokugawa system), you were on good footing in society, there were still little sub-levels within the class. Stipends, given in koku, also varied on how much land one had, one's connections to who, as well as family lineage, historical alliances of one's family, and distance from Edo (modern day Tokyo, for those who remember their Inuyasha trivia). And then there were the promotions/family connections which might provide more wealth, better places in the hierarchy. That's how come the Hatake can barely make ends meet whereas the Uchiwa are lords.

Funteaser: I want to know how many of you pick up on the plot in this and figure it out! It's okay if you don't though, it'll get explained in a chapter or two.

With that, Enjoy!

That night Kakashi and Sakura managed to sift through the gifts that had been given to them. Sakura was amazed at the number of them, as well as who they were from. The only samurai she'd ever been close to was Ryo, and none of her friends had married samurai of Kakashi's rank. And the stories he'd told of these people, to explain to her who they were and how he knew them, told Sakura a great deal more about Kakashi than it did about her new neighbors and future acquaintances. He was a tricky man, kind and giving while at the same time resolute.

The Uchiwa clan head's gift was as strange as it was lovely. A statue of a peaceful looking woman cradling a fat little baby to herself, carved in a rich red-hued wood to sit on a small stone pedestal. Sakura had never seen anything like it before, and was already thinking of places she could put it when Kakashi made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. A quick glance at his face showed a storm brewing in his head. She lifted her hand away from the statue and slowly lowered it to her lap. In the lamplight the wood glowed as though it were living, but that didn't seem to sway Kakashi's opinion of it.

"What's wrong, Kakashi?"

"That is not an appropriate gift for our family, I will speak with Lord Uchiwa tomorrow and beg that he reconsider his gift. We cannot keep it."

"You are going to walk all the way to town for this? That will take half the day, Kakashi!" he nodded once, picking up a new package and turning his face deliberately away from the statue. Sakura checked the protest which was forming on the tip of her tongue, she didn't want to have a fight with him over a gift from someone she'd never met. He took a breath to continue, fiddling briefly with the gift.

"If he won't reconsider, Tenzou and I will drop it in the river, that is the end of it Sakura. Now, this is for you from the innkeeper's wife." With that, they were done speaking about the statue of the woman and the merry, fat baby. But that was just as well, for they'd been showered with other gifts. She would try and forget it.

A few minutes later, Sakura opened a package with a hand-carved box from Tenzou—who owed Kakashi nothing other than respect at first glance, but through his gift showed a years-long friendship. Despite their antagonistic relationship—there had been threats of having Tenzou make dinner himself if there was to be no fish, which had ensured them fish—the brown haired man had spent much time on the box. He had detailed the lid with herons in and flying over serene grasslands. The sides were an amazing work of vines twined together. Under Sakura's fingers, the wood was like the silk of the uchikake she'd worn the day before but it was almost warm to her touch where the silk had been cool. Glancing up at Kakashi and catching his eye briefly, Sakura ducked her head with a smile. Her fingers curled possessively about the edges of the box. It must have taken weeks, if not months to finish.

"So I see that is yours, a good thing I didn't grow attached to it over the winter. Although it is lovely—what shall you keep in it?"

Another present was the novel which was Shisui's personal gift to them. Sakura had opened the wrapping on it, and read the title emblazoned on expensive orange tinted silk—she had never heard of it, but Kakashi's hands had twitched after her words and she gave it over without making him ask.

"Your favorite?" his nod was silent, but the traces of his boyish grin played on his face.

"I shall read it to you someday—for now, however, I must beg that you keep Tenzou's box and I keep this wonderful novel."

Later that evening, after Sakura had made them dinner with the fish Tenzou had caught—even a good little meal for Pakkun, their new puppy—and later still after each of their baths, Kakashi couldn't help himself. Sakura had bathed first, so the hot, clean water could ensure that her long hair was flushed completely of the vile concoctions which had been put on it for the wedding. He had come into the house, into his room, and found Sakura.

Her hair, usually a soft pink when dry, was as vivid as a sunset because of the wet from the bath. The long strands of one lock were splayed out between the teeth of a comb as she tended to her hair before bed. He knelt, quietly and slowly, just behind her and touched her shoulder. Sakura's eyes, the color of grass, the color of spring, found his own good eye over her shoulder. Her eyelashes were pink, he saw for the first time—they had been blackened somehow every other time he had had the chance to look into her face. Perhaps with soot, or perhaps he'd never looked hard at her.

"May I comb your hair, Sakura?" those grass green eyes—he could well and truly say he had never seen eyes like his wife's—didn't widen, but her gaze did flick over his face for a moment. And then a comb was pressed into his hand—the one she had been using moments before he came in.

Without the waxes of the hairdresser and the snarls of sleeping on unkempt hair, it was an easy, soothing task. Certainly not the task of the morning, which had almost left Sakura crying and Kakashi himself highly unnerved. Her hair was nearly dry by the time he set down the comb, and Sakura gathered it back into a plait over her shoulder. He leaned in a little closer, but swayed back when she turned a little and met his eye.

"This might keep the tangles away until morning," she said getting up to put away the combs and get ready for bed. A few strands of her hair floated surreally to the floor in her wake. They were delicate, tinted orange by the light of the lamp, and they made him strangely happy. She had let him near, and there on the wooden floor was the proof.

Later, long after she had fallen asleep, Kakashi trailed his fingers against her long braid and marveled at the texture. He fell asleep that way.

Sakura had awoke in the darkness before dawn, before Kakashi, and just as she had the morning before, freed herself from Kakashi's arms to begin her day. Remembering poor Tenzou's trauma of yesterday, she got dressed and put her hair up properly before going out to the main living area. She had water heating and was chopping vegetables—getting ready for breakfast just as the day before—when Tenzou wandered in, stifling a yawn and running a hand through his hair. He took a second take at the sight of her, but this morning she didn't look like a deranged spirit and he didn't force her away to the bathhouse.

Sakura could feel the routine of it settling into her already, which she was glad for. She heard the sounds of doors sliding open and shut in the house, but the sounds didn't produce Kakashi. Sakura slid a questioning glance at Tenzou before starting on the rice. He caught it, and cleared his throat a bit before answering her.

"He likes to pray before breakfast, rather than after."

"Oh," Sakura made a mental note to ask Kakashi to show her the family shrine—it was her duty to maintain it. She would also have to make him show her the family cemetery, where the death markers of the Hatake clan were. She would have to start making the offerings, burning incense, and cleaning those places.

"And I pray after breakfast," Tenzou added after her soft response. Sakura was quick to lift her eyes from the food to his face, leveling a hard stare at him. The brown haired servant wiggled under her scrutiny for a moment.

"Sakumo considered me to be almost family, and it would be a terrible ingratitude to not consider him in the same way." She didn't know what to make of that, and so awkwardly went back to her chore. Pakkun wobbled over to her—a sleepy puppy indeed—and collapsed himself at her side. She petted him absently while she stewed about Tenzou.

He was in his mid-twenties, and had been with Kakashi's family for years—a decade, perhaps?—and there was something about how he was treated that spoke of something lurking in his past. Despite Kakashi's willingness to bully him, there was also a sort of respect between them, as though Kakashi felt Tenzou deserved more than what he'd gotten in life. They looked nothing alike, and hardly acted like brothers so Tenzou being Sakumo's bastard son was an unlikely theory.

As she checked on their miso, Sakura realized that she couldn't learn everything in a day. When Tenzou was willing to tell her who he was, he would. It would be rude of her to ask now, when he hardly knew her.

"Tenzou, can I ask you to get more water from the cistern?" Sakura startled so badly she almost knocked over a pot. Kakashi had come in behind her, almost silently—using the crackle of the fire as cover. Tenzou, sitting across from her, looked up at him quizzically. Kakashi let out a dramatic sigh—he and Pakkun seemed to be good at those.

"I've just now remembered that Asuma and Kurenai are going to be here shortly after dawn—Asuma could only bear to give me two days of rest, when I asked him last week."

"Kendo and tea, then?" Tenzou asked, standing up and stretching. Sakura turned a little so she could see both men as they discussed their visitors.

"Indeed, it's probably kendo or hand-to-hand today," Kakashi replied, sitting down next to Sakura. His attention turned from Tenzou to her. "Every other day, Asuma and Kurenai come over in the mornings. Asuma and I practice, Kurenai makes tea and helps Tenzou. We'll have to see how that changes, since you're here now Sakura," at his boyish smirk, Sakura's cheeks flushed with warmth. It was ridiculous, but she couldn't help it. He was sweet, and he made her blush. Perhaps it was because of how serious he could be at times, that when he lightened up he was like a completely different person.

"And I can ask to borrow his pony and cart, for my errand to Uchiwa-sama's house," he said quietly as Sakura went back to her cooking. She didn't look up, even though it would have been polite to comment on his words. She really liked the statue he had deemed inappropriate, but she wasn't going to fight him to keep it. Kakashi sighed and took her free hand in his. Sakura looked up into husband of two days' face, looking into his good eye.

"Sakura, it is for the best that we not keep that. Really, only a member of the Uchiwa family should have one. I'm honored that Lord Fugaku feels that I am part of his family, but there are boundaries which must be maintained between families and this is one of them. Do you understand?"

"Is this one of those weird samurai things that you're going to tell me about soon?" There was a beat of silence before Kakashi's eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile.

"You could call it that, yes."

In the pre-dawn light they finished their small breakfast, and Kakashi went on the hunt for his kendo bokken just in case Asuma decided it was kendo day. Sakura quietly cleaned up the food, laying out and pressing the leftover rice so she could make sushi later—once it was properly aged—and feeding Pakkun. Tenzou went to the river to get water to fill the cistern, mentioning that he would be back before Kurenai arrived with Asuma.

Sakura wondered why Asuma, the nephew of the village lord, was living so far away from his family's land. He lived on the edge of Kakashi's, and she wasn't sure yet if he actually lived on Kakashi's land or if he had his own which were situated close to the Hatake fields. It would make sense that he have his own land to care for, and as a samurai his own koku stipend from the Shogun based on that land. But it made more sense for him to have those lands close to those of his kin, which was what puzzled her. The Sarutobi lands had seemed to be on the far side of the village, near the shrine where she'd gotten married.

Maybe Kurenai would explain it to her, if she asked. Such a question was nosy, she knew, but Sakura felt like she couldn't deal with not knowing. There were other things she would have to deal with not knowing or understanding, she could tell that much. Kakashi already planned on never explaining to her why the Uchiwa gift was so inappropriate, she saw from how he'd deflected her question, her request that he tell her more, that he was never going to elaborate. His pause before answering her had told her volumes, volumes that included shielding her from whatever it was that he felt was bad for the Hatake household.

When Asuma arrived, Kakashi suggested they do their sparring outside of the fence, leaving Sakura with Kurenai who would help her get further settled into the house. His old friend—once part of a wonderful trio when Obito was alive—could see something on his face it seemed, and agreed readily to the change in their routine.

"Married two days and you already dislike it? For shame, Kakashi," Asuma teased once they were a little ways from the house. Kakashi shook his head with a rueful smile. Asuma was a welcome distraction to the chore of the day—and he would also understand why it was so urgent. Already Kakashi should have looked at the gift and begged its return before Sakura even arrived—he knew that Fugaku might do something like this. He was a liability to the Uchiwa, having been so close to them during his youth, having been the best friend of the clan heir, and it was logical to include him—he'd even taken a woman of foreign descent as his wife, it must have seemed obvious to the other family.

"No, nothing like that, I'm sure I will be as happy with her as Obito was with Rin—not everyone is as lucky as you are to get a love-match, Asuma. I'm troubled because of the gift Uchiwa Fugaku presented us with—I respect his own views, but they are not my own, I cannot keep it." He bent his head as he started his stretches, his friend doing the same in time with him. The sun warmed him through the dark material of his clothing, sending the chill of the morning air away.

"What is it that he gave you, my friend?" He and Asuma had made an agreement about what they would tolerate from the Uchiwa, and what they would draw the line at, long ago.

"A statue, of a mother and child. I have to ask, may I borrow—"

"Of course you can. I'll even help you load it up. You can't keep that in your house, especially now that you're married to a girl with pink hair." They finished their stretches in pleasant silence, moving on to their training smoothly, having practiced together like this for much of their adult lives. Ever since Kakashi had returned to his family home after the Uchiwa were finished mentoring him. Asuma lived closer than Obito, and so it went.

They fought hand to hand, and each step was as though it was choreographed, each kick was delivered with surety, and dust swirled around their feet as sweat beaded on their faces. Asuma was broader than Kakashi, and he used that to his advantage when he threw his punches and lunges. Kakashi used his less bulky body to spring back with lightning fast kicks, dodging and feinting against hits that left his ears ringing if they caught him—all the more incentive to not let them hit him.

An hour later, Kakashi had gained an unlikely upper hand against his friend and had knocked him down. Asuma had laughingly stood up and clapped his hand on Kakashi's shoulder. He was limping just a bit, evidence of the injury he'd sustained two years ago, during the peasants' rebellion.

"After we get cleaned up, I'll go get Gin and the cart. We'll get that statue on over to Lord Uchiwa, and that will be the end of those troubles, yes?" Kakashi nodded gratefully as they turned their steps toward the bath house to wash up a little. He was glad he could trust in Asuma's help. His eye, the blind one, ached suddenly—Obito. Kakashi was perhaps paying Obito back poorly by his actions, but there were lines that couldn't be crossed, there were rules that had to be followed. Obito had never been good at following the rules, however.

Kakashi had always been the one good at following rules.

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