Author's note was too long, it's been banished to the blog like a certain snakey-villain's bastard was banished to the country. It was way too friggin' long. In other news: I love all of you who have so far favorited, subscribed, and REVIEWED this story. More on that on the blog, though.
Now, funfacts,
Funfact: I wanted to have "ma" and "mo" be modified from the same stem symbol, but nothing I saw in my research foray showed them to be any sort of alike in any of the character sets. So I actually had to edit this and change some things. So there's that, look at me be awesome and have integrity!
Funotherstuff: I'm trying to reference The Tale of the Gutsy Shinobi here in this chapter, you'll hopefully see where. Yes.
Funotherstuff: Totally dodging the childbirth bullet this time by going for my vague-as-possible-route because last time I caught hell for things I said about it. Apologies, but I don't really know where descriptive ends and squicky begins according to BossladyRiver so here you go, this is where I (artfully, might I add) aim for neither.
Funotherstuff: The last sentence is an homage to the last sentence of the first chapter and has also been pinging around in my head for like eight or nine months.
Without further ado,
Enjoy!
Sleeping arrangements were awkward that night. Shizune was allowed to sleep in the room which was normally where Sai, Naruto, and Tenzou slept. The three men instead slept out in the main living area, along with Lord Gama. The household had gone to sleep quickly—Jiraiya and Sai had at least pretended to go to sleep—save for himself and Naruto who sat outside on the porch to get away from the man who planned on taking them to Edo before the week was out.
"Kakashi told me samurai go by different names…that true?" Naruto's voice was soft and, aside from the gravel in it from being nineteen, he sounded remarkably young. He'd told Tenzou a few weeks ago, in such poorly constructed language that Tenzou wondered how true it was, that he had no family where he'd come from. The brown haired man sighed, looking out over the moonlit garden and vegetable patch.
"Yes, once you're old enough and know enough you take a new name," he said, trying to make his phrasings simple. Naruto was a persistent learner, and as long as he was paying attention he could understand the gist of most everything. His sentence structures were also getting better and better, no doubt helped along by Kakashi's insistence that he learn to read and write in the new language he was learning.
"And you know enough, and you're old enough—do you know what you're going to call yourself?" Tenzou smiled, standing up from his spot on the porch to go down to the ground itself, squatting down when he got there and drawing in the dust with a finger. Naruto followed him, inspecting the characters closely in the poor lighting. Tenzou outlined them as he spoke softly.
"This is Gama, you see? Ga-ma, which will be my surname. And this," he pointed to the second set of characters, tracing them as he had the others, "is my name. Ya-ma-to. Sakumo-sensei wanted to give me one of his own name characters for this, however I told him I would save it for any children I might have—just in case I never became a fully-recognized samurai. This name," he gestured again at the name in the dusty, "is all mine. I've never told it to anyone before because there wasn't a point to such a dream. But now…"
"Now we're going to go to Edo and give that pervy old man what-for, right, Tenzou?"
"I wouldn't say that exactly, Naruto, but we will definitely try to stay ourselves despite him, yes?"
Anko sat primly in the litter while Iruka and his father rode on horses just a little ahead. They had spent the night in rooms Iruka's father kept for them in the hopes of a visit—the old man was delighted to see both of them, barely restraining it in his conversations with them during dinner and again this morning during breakfast. He was also pleased to be outside and on a horse, something which Anko did not fault him for. It was summer here in the north, although spring still clung to the air desperately. She was glad for it, because it was becoming miserably hot in Edo and the heat had thankfully not followed them to Fujimi. They passed through the village, where the streets were devoid of people after the shouts of the litter bearers as they neared the gates—better to pretend to not be around than to throw oneself to the ground in deference to the lord of the fief. It was novel how long the journey was out to the Hatake homestead—Iruka was destined to be a lord, so while Anko attended a lot of celebrations it was often as the hostess of the events and so she didn't get around Edo much. And since she had married, she rarely travelled to Kyoto to visit her father—she had probably visited him twice in the last four years, an arrangement which suited both of them.
She had adored her older brother as a child. He had been just a year or so older than her, and despite being quiet and straight-faced a lot of the time he had treated her nicely and paid attention to her. She had been ten when he had been sent away suddenly, to a far-away place called Fujimi to live with a lord there. Anko had, initially, assumed that he was being sent to train as a samurai to succeed their father. She had actually believed that for several years, having heard nothing from her father—and her mother had been sent to the convent as a nun shortly after Tenzou had been sent away. It was only when she was fourteen that her father casually corrected her assumption—she had asked when the lord in Fujimi would send Tenzou back to them, as a recognized samurai, and what his new name might be. Orochimaru had informed her that her (supposed) brother was likely helping to plant the rice along with the rest of the servants to the fief.
Anko, who had watched peasants harvesting rice once, had been shocked nearly to tears at the thought that her sweet older brother was doing hard labor while she was learning to embroider of all things. She had long imagined, until Iruka had set her to rights, that Fujimi was a terrible wasteland infested with demons of all sorts where her brother struggled to even survive.
But this place, the town itself and the surrounding area, was a nice one and Anko half-wished suddenly that her father had sent her out here as well—he had no use for a girl, he'd sneered to her mother all those years ago. Anko had actually been quite glad to live alone in Edo surrounded by servants who feared her, thinking that without her mother around she would develop her father's ill temper and fell desires. Against all expectation, she did not take after that cruel man. She went to court as was expected to—she was a distant relative, after all—and smiled behind her hand as she was supposed to. She had felt caged her entire life until her father had opened the latch and freed her by marrying her off to Iruka. Anko wondered if Tenzou felt caged here or if he was free.
Silly girl, she sharply reprimanded herself, of course he is caged here. He is the rightful, if illegitimate, son of Hebi Orochimaru and he is the servant of a pauper samurai. Anko had no problem with legitimacy or not. Men would always have to have successors, else the world would fall to pieces. So long as stability was maintained, Anko had no opinion on who was married to whom. She knew that not everyone felt this way, but she certainly did. Her favorite (only, supposed) brother was her father's illegitimate son, and her husband was only legitimate because of old Sarutobi's wishes and declarations—she had no room in her life to scorn bastards.
The house, of a nice size she thought, came into view slowly as they turned a wide corner about a quarter mile away. In the mid-morning air, it nearly glowed. She wondered if Tenzou was the only servant or one of many. Anko remembered from last night that his master was Iruka's great friend, so she hoped that her brother had been treated well in the years since she'd seen him. A tall, youngish man with yellow hair was outside trying to play fetch with a distinctly unimpressed dog. He straightened to better make out their group of horses and litterbearers before he scrambled—all elbows and knees—up the porch and stuck his head in the house. Probably yelling, the lout.
Soon after, a man white shocking white hair came out, hastily adjusting his clothing so it sat properly on his body. Iruka's friend from childhood, then. Hatake Kakashi. Closely following him a young woman with a shock of pink hair on her head—it wasn't a harsh pink, by no means, it was just pink. Probably the wife he rushed back to Fujimi for then—Lord Gama had informed them some time ago that their travel plans were slightly postponed and that the white haired man had had to return to his wife who was gravely ill.
As they approached the fence, Iruka and his father making hearty greetings already, three expressionless men appeared from nowhere and took charge of the horses and direction of the litter. One of them helped Anko down, and she saw them doing the same for her husband and father-in-law.
"You are more than welcome in my home, my lord," the Hatake man said softly with a bow, "but know that you are not the only visitors we have at the moment. Though, it is nice to see a familiar face."
"Ah, a face that's never brought you fortune, Kakashi-kun, at least not the kind of fortune Lord Gama has showered on your head. Has he told you what he's making me do? Redistribute the entire district, reorganize the koku for all of the samurai families, all for you for the most inexplicable reason." Their host's mouth twisted at some hidden joke.
"I can assure you that in a few moments it will be quite understandable to you, my lord. Now, allow me to introduce my wife, Sakura?" Anko could tell by the careful tension of the girl's obi that she was with child and unused to the changes in her body—no wonder Iruka's friend had been so desperate, this girl was pregnant with their first child.
"Sakura, I hope to have some of your tea—it has been a long time since I've had the pleasure—and that you'll share it with my son, Iruka, and his wife Anko. They've just returned from Edo, safe and sound thanks to Lord Gama, and Anko has expressed some interest in meeting your servant, Tenzou." Anko twitched her lips in not quite a smile at the old man's words—he was concealing that she was Tenzou's sister. Kakashi looked taken aback for a moment before Sakura bowed and replied.
"Sarutobi-sama you are always welcome to join us for tea. As for Tenzou, I think you will be much impressed with the change you'll find in him since you last spoke."
The inside of the house was nicely kept and clean, the screens in good repair and new. Their dog nosed around Anko's feet, whuffling excitedly and growling just a touch before Kakashi tried to drag it away from her. This was certainly turning out to be an experience—Anko giggled a little and stopped the man, dropping to her knees gracefully and petting the wiggling dog a little.
"Pakkun! No!" Sakura knelt a little slower and got the dog under a bit of control. Pakkun twisted his head around and licked her face while still straining towards Anko in hopes of a little more attention. Over their heads Kakashi complained that Sarutobi-sama had given them a poor guard dog, so pleased to see strangers. Iruka asked his father with some suspicion if the old lord had given all of Ryuk's puppies away, to which the old man's answer was innocent and vague.
"Who is it, Kakashi?" Anko looked up at the new voice and her mouth dropped open.
He looked the same as fifteen years ago, while he looked completely different at the same time. Her father's imperious black eyes, wide now but able to slant coldly, set in her father's rectangular features. There was a softness to his jaw, however, that their father did not have—and his nose was different as well. His mother maybe? Anko's eyes flicked up and down his body a few times, realizing that he wasn't dressed as a servant but rather as a samurai complete with an ornate wakizashi peeking out from his obi. His feet were covered in pure white tabi, unlike the patched and repaired ones on Kakashi's feet. What?
Tenzou took a moment longer to recognize her before her identity dawned on him and a wide grin split his face—it looked like he smiled much more often than her father, but not enough to leave the faint lines on his face that Kakashi had. He reached down and pulled her up, grasping her arms and holding her out a little to get a good look. He hadn't seen her for years and years—despite her father-in-law being the daimyo of the district he lived in. Anko wondered if he would fix the little broken latch on her writing desk? Despite her best efforts on the frantic journey to Fujimi, the little desk had suffered some damage at the hands of the servants Lord Gama had brought with him.
"I thought I would never see you again, Anko," he said softly, releasing her arms to hold her hands.
"Sarutobi-sama said that you were a servant here," her voice was soft, in a way she'd never used with him before. When they'd been children she had been loud and boisterous around her older brother bossing him around because he let her. Suddenly Anko wanted to rough him up for scaring her for so many years that he was living in poverty and destitution, forced to do things like get his hands muddy and grow rice and onions and radishes. Tenzou watched her closely for a long moment, dropping her hands and squaring his shoulders a little.
"I was. I was until yesterday, when Lord Gama arrived here and claimed me as his daughter's future husband. If you came here with him yesterday you would have seen me as I've been used to living." Anko stared at her brother for a long moment, seeing just how much he had changed while at the same time he was still the sweet little boy she'd known all those years ago. Suddenly she smirked in a way that had Iruka cringing in the periphery—everyone else around them was quite still and quiet.
"Oh," she said, drawing out the sound while raising her eyebrow at the faint defiance in Tenzou's voice. She studied her brother, as though she was trying to read the truth of the matter from his very stance. Iruka had cringed so far out of her field of vision that she could no longer see her poor husband. Her smile was likely more than devious—Ironically, their father would be proud.
"Father will be most displeased after the week he's had, what with losing his lover and heir all at once. It makes me so happy that I can visit you and not visit him. You will live in Edo, I assume?" Her tall brown-haired brother nodded once. She tried not to think that just yesterday, not even a full day ago, her brother who was so finely dressed and respected now had been a servant then. Someone to order around. She would have to write a thank-you of some sort to Lord Gama after this was all over if she didn't see him first. Speaking of Lord Gama, though…Anko bowed deeply to everyone in the room before sweeping through the house to the back garden, ignoring Iruka's faint protest. That old man loved gardens, so that would be where she'd find him, she was certain.
Sai gladly turned over his notes to his master, allowing the old man to critique his storylines and his drawings of the last few months. Jiraiya was a master at building stories, from sweet and happy romances to dark tales of lust and betrayal, and Sai wanted so much to emulate them in style and execution if not pure talent. His master had had a short tale printed before his twentieth birthday, a tale of daring-do in the manner of the ancient classics about long-ago shogunates and emperors, and had continued the practice into the present day.
They sat out in the garden, shaded by a brave little maple sapling—Sakura had informed him months ago that they had planted it in celebration of their wedding. Sai curled his hands up on his knees, listening to Jiraiya quietly review his work with a few hmm's and ahh, I see's over the extensive number of pages that had accumulated over the winter and spring. A few of his brothers twittered as some horses and a litter drew near to the house, but his brothers said that nothing was amiss and that neither of them should bother coming out of the garden. They all knew that Sai drew comfort from his art and that their master was always pleased to write or read a new story.
After things settled down, save for some murmurings in the house as their hosts greeted more guests—Sai was glad he had specified that his master was to provide enough resources for the Hatake family to expand their house into a proper compound—so did his brothers into more casual conversations about everything that Sai had missed when he'd been stuck here in Fujimi. He whistled occasionally to remind them that while he had been stuck out here, he had not suffered for it.
At least, that was until the woman had come out of the house. Her steps were dainty and ladylike, quite different from Sakura who showed her displeasure easily and violently when driven to it, and her face gave away nothing of her real feelings. Until she stopped right in front of his master, who looked up first in puzzlement but soon breaking into a smile at her. Sai noticed that her hands were balled into white-knuckled fists and almost warned his master before remembering that the man could take care of himself. Besides, long experience with Sakura's temper cautioned him not to get involved in fights that weren't his.
"Lady Umino, it is good to see you—I trust that—" The illusion of a calm, highborn lady evaporated faster than Naruto ate fish. Her voice was tightly controlled as she spoke quickly, her voice angry and deadly soft. Sai remembered suddenly that Lady Umino was Lord Tenzou's sister and his blood went a little cold as he remembered some of the stories from late last night and early this morning that his brothers had told him. Lady Umino was, as far as they could tell from the last few months of watching her, that she was as terrifying as their master on her bad days.
"You must have known. You can't tell me that you didn't know, you must have known for months and you could have freed my brother from that hell months ago or even years and you did not. Lord Gama, you have shown my husband and I much kindness since the fire in Edo but I can only wonder now if you didn't do it as a bartering chip to secure my brother Tenzou for yourself in case Sarutobi-sama wouldn't hand him over. People are not chattel that you can shuffle from place to place, if you think so then you are no better than your rival, our father. I expect you to treat my brother much better than that in the future, Lord Gama."
And then she was gone. Sai glanced impassively over at his master, before trying to quell a smile on his face. Jiraya's own face was slack at being told off by such a tiny woman, while in the distance Sai's brothers twittered at the thorough dressing-down Lady Umino had given their master. It wasn't often that people spoke out against him and lived, and this was the second time in as many days! Suddenly his master recovered himself with a wry smile on his face.
"It stands to reason that her temper is alike to my stubborn Tenzou, their mothers were cousins after all. And don't think," he raised his voice as he continued, "that I don't know which of you are laughing. I'll allow it for now, but don't expect it to continue once we return to Edo. We will have to be on double time protecting my daughter and son-in-law, you all know that." Sai's brothers quieted, returning to gossiping about what the winter had brought to them in terms of scandals and power-struggles and their master's on-going vendetta with Lord Shimura.
They sent Kakashi over to Asuma's house when her pains had started in earnest in the middle of the night, while Kurenai hurried to theirs to help. It was just starting to turn towards fall and away from summer. The rice was just weeks from being harvested, and between the contractions Sakura was glad to have the help Lord Gama had left them before he had taken Naruto and Tenzou to Edo with him. Izumo and Kotetsu had never harvested rice in earnest, having lived in the city for much of their lives but they were amiable enough learners and Sakura fully planned on making the shinobi work as well—she knew they gossiped about her constantly, two grown men did not whistle that much she didn't care what they said.
Her mother, Kurenai, as well as the midwife and another woman from the village, were there to help her. In the last few months several of the women in Fujimi had started to make advances of friendship with her, after seeing her beautiful needlework and her sweet temper when she delivered her completed pieces in town. At least those were the reasons one of the shinobi gave to her, a young man who leered too much and had brown hair which stuck up at odd angles—she called him Dog-boy as punishment for him refusing to take a name, and Sakura refused to call him "shinobi-san," for the rest of their lives. One of the two shinobi accompanied her everywhere in the last few months, shadowing her silently through the village with a watchful eye turned towards those she passed in the street.
Kakashi certainly appreciated that she didn't leave anxious and return tearful, especially as it got harder for her to move around as her belly expanded as time went on and the baby got bigger. Sakura right now, through the pain was looking forward to having this child out of her.
It was many hours later, well into the daylight of morning, that they finally coaxed the baby out. Sakura could only stare as the other women helped cut it away from her and clean it, cooing at the poor thing even as it tested new lungs out after a healthy slap on the back to clear its mouth. She barely noted the mess the two of them had managed to make, the blood and fluids all caught on old towels or being swiftly patted away from their bodies, as her mother handed the naked little boy to her. His skin was hot and a little sticky to the touch—he would need a bath soon—and he had a full head of black hair that glinted just a bit red in the light.
Sakura only distantly heard her mother calling out to Izumo to run and get Kakashi. She ignored everything around her, sitting gingerly on the towel-covered old futon. The little boy was still crying, a shrieking, awful sound that probably only his mother loved. She didn't know when she felt Kakashi's hand on her shoulder, his warmth at her back and then his damp breath on her neck. She just leaned back into him, still holding their little boy who she supported in her arms. She hurt all over, like nothing she had ever felt, but the weight in her arms was worth it. Surrounded by heat, from her husband at her back and her newborn son at her front, Sakura dozed off.
When she woke, it was no different although much later in the afternoon. Kakashi had his arms wrapped around her to make sure she didn't lose her grip on the baby in her sleep. He was awake, it seemed, and once he realized that she was awake too he asked her if Botan would be acceptable for the little boy. Sakura smiled, taking one of Kakashi's hands. She kissed his fingertips and then guided them over the infant's forehead, cheeks, and his puffy, pouting lips. They would name their next one Tenzou or perhaps Masaki, as she had wanted, Sakura mused, her mind still drowsy. Botan was a fine name though, she thought as she mentally committed it as her son's name right then.
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