Chapter 42
Happy New Year 2014!
Beta'd by Black Sparrow
The moment the front door closed behind the last shinobi Shiori's tears started anew. Oh god, what was going to happen now? Had her mere presence and interaction with Konoha's citizens really changed so much that she couldn't predict anymore what was going to happen? The black haired civilian didn't know but damn it, this made things a lot harder to cope with than she had thought.
Taking a deep breath Shiori turned back to the morose looking teens and quickly wiped the tears from her face before smiling somewhat wobbly at them, all three of them returned the smile more or less successfully.
"I'm sorry about this. I'm still learning to cope with the harder parts of being married to a shinobi. Would you now please activate the Fuinjutsu barrier?" Shiori said before turning to her now cooled down cup of tea.
All three Genin nodded thoughtfully before they jogged down into the cellar to activate the seals on the wall. They could feel the walls coming up around them before the pressure vanished from their senses nearly entirely. Team Seven returned to the living room where their sensei's wife was waiting with a plate of fruit and cookies as an afternoon snack.
"Please help yourself," Shiori said while she handed a healthy cookie that was nearly twice the size of Hinako's hands to her daughter. The toddler already had an increased metabolism thanks to her father's genes and was eating twice as much as a civilian her age.
"Shiori-san?" came the shy question from the only female kunoichi present.
"Yes Sakura-chan?" Shiori answered curiously.
The tea house owner had been working through her paperwork while Kakashi's Genin had first played a little bit with Hinako before leaving her with three Naruto clones to boss around. The young ninja in training were now occupied with sharpening their kunais and other weapons. They had spread them out over the long dining room table while leaving some room for Shiori's paperwork and Sasuke was showing his two teammates how to do this as clean and fast as possible while both Sakura and Naruto were imitating him as precisely as they could. They had learned this in the Academy but neither Naruto nor Sakura had ever resharpened their weapons more than a handful of times and Sasuke's way was not only more accurate but also a lot faster.
"How did you meet Kakashi-sensei?" the pink haired girl asked shyly while she checked her latest kunai over for bumps and scratches.
Shiori paused in her work and thought about the question before snorting, "As cliché as it sounds, it was a damsel in distress situation. I was being bothered by a persistent and very drunk admirer and Kakashi stepped in when he hit me."
"That's so romantic," Sakura sighed, before she furrowed her eyebrows and asked, "Wait, what? This admirer hit you? I would have beaten him into a pulp for daring to do something like this!"
"Yes, you probably could have Sakura-chan, but you can't forget that I'm a civilian. Sousuke-san was physically a lot stronger than me, even when drunk… I was pretty lucky that Kakashi had taken that route to get home… a lot of girls aren't," the young mother explained with a bittersweet smile.
"Is it that common?" Naruto asked wide eyed and beside him Sasuke had put down the kunai he had been working on and also paying attention.
"Well not as much to kunoichis or civilian clan members, though it happens to them too. But yes it does, though Konoha has it pretty good under control. The police force has never tolerated such behavior and they run extra patrols around the time most businesses close to reduce the possibility as much as possible. Still, there are more than enough chauvinistic assholes who can't seem to take a no from a woman and find a way to slip by the patrols. In the more rural areas it's even worse; there it is not uncommon for women to be seen as property that men can just take and do with whatever they want," Shiori explained seriously.
"That can't be real," Sakura said horrified.
"Oh it is. I was born in one of those areas Sakura-chan and have been told my whole life that my husband will take care of everything as soon as I'm married and that I'm expected to obey his every command... I was a year younger than you are now when my parents died. The villagers expected me to marry a forty five year old man because I had no family left and he offered and they would have continued to pressure me until I gave in," the black haired civilian told the children in front of her, they needed to understand that the world was different than they were led to believe in the Academy.
"But you escaped!" Naruto said wide eyed and slightly panicked.
"Yes, Naruto. I sold my family's farm and left as fast as possible on the following morning. I was twelve years old, like hell I would marry someone like Fuji-san," Shiori said wryly while she took note of the Genins reactions.
All three of them watched her fixated while she told them how she had made her way to Konoha and then started a life here. Especially Sasuke looked contemplative; maybe it helped him to realize that he wasn't the only one with a tragic stroke of fate and that there are different kinds of hardships.
Sakura on the other hand had wide eyes and seemed to be disillusioned about the romantic meeting between Shiori and Kakashi. Out of all three of them she had been sheltered the most and hearing about how women were still treated like property, even HERE in Konoha made her contemplate what could have happened to her if she hadn't chosen the path of a kunoichi.
Naruto in turn looked at Shiori with admiration, the black haired civilian wasn't sure what she had done to deserve this but it made her feel warm being looked up to by the sweet little hyperactive boy.
"All this happened to you and you never gave up!" Naruto now exclaimed while he abruptly stood up from the table, "You are awesome, Shiori-neechan. I promise I also will never give up no matter what!"
The black haired civilian's eyes widened before she suppressed a giggle and drew the blond boy in front of her in a hug; he was too cute for words sometimes. Sasuke and Sakura didn't know if they should find Naruto's outburst embarrassing or not, and in the end decided to just smirk amused at each other while they watched as Naruto turned red.
Hinako-chan had looked up startled by the sudden outburst from the dining room table and was now watching with big eyes as another copy of the blonde boy she was riding on was now being hugged by her mother… she wanted a hug too!
With careful moves Hinako untangled herself from her packhorse and toddled over to the group at the table, the clones just shrugged at each other before they dispersed. Hina-chan only vaguely noticed the sudden smoke behind her; she was too intent on reaching her mother.
"I want one too!" came her demanding call when she was only a few steps away.
Shiori looked down from poking Naruto's beet red cheeks at her little daughter, with a laugh she fished the toddler from the floor and settled her against her chest for a good cuddle. The silver haired little girl sighed in satisfaction before her eyes closed somewhat and she breathed in her mother's calming scent.
Sakura cooed while her eyes were fixated on the youngest Hatake, she even had hearts in her eyes, as a result both Naruto and Sasuke threw each other a weirded out gaze before returning to sharpening their tools and packing them away.
They had just finished with putting everything away and Shiori was contemplating on letting them run through katas in the courtyard to keep them occupied when they heard a loud bang from the front side of the house and they felt the Fuinjutsu barrier disintegrate. Alarmed Shiori hurried to a window and what she saw took her breath away and made her heart pump nearly twice as fast.
Kakashi was fighting with a figure that looked suspiciously similar to the Anime Danzo; the two were fighting at a high enough speed that she only could see blurs the moment they moved again. Now also Anko and Asuma had entered the fray and sending attacks in Danzo's direction. Horrified the black haired civilian moved a few steps back and grabbed at Hinako. What the hell was the twisted Elder doing here? He shouldn't be confronted for another three years or so, so why was her husband and his comrades fighting him?
Beside her Sasuke's hands clenched and unclenched before he said, "Shiori-san, I think you should go into the back of the house."
Naruto on Shiori's other side looked blatantly frightened but nodded to Sasuke's sentence.
Before Shiori could answer she witnessed Asuma going down, a high pitched noise escaped her when she saw the sensei of Team Ten go down, she hadn't even really realized what she had just seen when Anko was the next one to go down. The snake user's screams, even seeped through the walls, were like a punch in the gut and Shiori vaguely realized how the Genin around her turned white and Hinako started to cry.
Mechanically Shiori hurried to her sobbing daughter on the floor and lifted her into her arms when she heard a retching sound from Sakura and then a satisfied exclaim from Naruto.
The blonde boy turned around and said with a conflicting face, "Kakashi-sensei won," before rushing to the door.
Shiori couldn't do anything to stop Team Seven from going outside and so just bit her lip and stared out of the window while she kept Hinako's eyes away from the scene that played out in front of her. The black haired civilian watched helplessly as Naruto was called over by Kakashi and then they somehow unsealed Anko's Ten no Fuin. Her friend lay so helplessly still on the hard ground that Shiori had problems suppressing her tears. Hinako beside her head started to whine and wriggle but the blue eyed woman didn't relinquish her grip on the silver haired toddler, her daughter really didn't need to see this.
Only after Anko had been transported away the young mother let Hinako take a look out of the window, predictably she started to chant 'Daddy' the moment she saw Kakashi outside with a group of strangers.
Shiori was unsure what to do now, she wanted to check Kakashi and Gai over but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea. Her husband had until now always kept their relationship hidden. With Hinako in her arms it was not hard to guess to who she was married. The black haired civilian was ripped out of her thoughts when the front door opened once more and Kakashi's Genin reentered the living room.
"Kakashi-sensei says it's okay if you want to come out," Sakura said quietly, she was still white as a sheet.
Unbelievably relieved Shiori made her way out of the house, the three teenagers trailing behind her. Her appearance drew the attention of all shinobi in her front yard.
A normal civilian would have at that point turned around and vanished back into the house but Shiori prided herself on not being one of those simpering creatures. Instead she made her way directly to her husband, though the intense gazes of the masked shinobi were pretty intimidating the black haired civilian didn't shy away, there were two reasons for this. Firstly these masked men and women were Konoha ANBU, Kakashi had explained the purpose of the shadow forces to her some time after they had started dating. The ANBU forces were the final defense and protection of the village, each one of them had and still was undergoing an unbelievable gruesome training regime to protect the citizen of Konoha, to protect her and Hinako, so Shiori had nothing to fear from them. Number two was Kakashi's reassurance, there was NOTHING more important to her husband than Hinako's and her safety, the silver haired Jounin had proved this time and time again, so when he said she could come out he was more than certain that nothing would happen to them even when he was injured.
Shiori came to a stop only an arm length away from Kakashi, his uniform was covered in blood and god knows what else but the black haired woman still just barely remembered the rules concerning soiled uniforms and so stopped herself from hugging her husband. At least it didn't seem as if he had any grave injuries.
"Anata…" Shiori started before she bit her lip, she had no idea what to say to him, what to ask.
Her husband thankfully understood her even without sentences and so gave her a quick reassurance about his physical state before turning his attention to their daughter. While Kakashi was talking to Hinako Shiori glanced around her, there were seven ANBU members besides Gai and Kakashi and all were pretty much speechless if she read their body language right. Interesting.
As if she had talked out loud, Kakashi introduced the two ANBU captains to her before warning her about talking about what had happened beforehand. After a quick goodbye he and Gai vanished in direction of the Hokage tower.
The moment their sensei was gone Sasuke and Naruto flanked Shiori on both sides while Sakura held herself laterally behind Sasuke. As a response Lizard-taicho cocked his head in amusement before turning his attention back to Shiori
"… Hatake-san?" the ANBU captain asked inquiringly.
"Yes, but I go by Inoue in public," Shiori answered friendly while she bounced Hinako slightly up.
"Very well, we will probably be finished in an hour, until then please stay away from the scene," the shinobi with the Lizard mask stated before he and the rest of the ANBU operatives started to scan their surroundings.