Ch.4
Life the past week was wonderful. She ate ramen of all flavors. Chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, miso, fish, kimchi, that was only the surface too! She wanted to try all she could discover! That was how she discovered the holy land: Ichiraku Ramen~! '*Slurp~!* Mm~! Sho gud~!" Kurama muffled through a mouthful of mushroom ramen noodles.
"Daddy! I think we have a new numbuh wun custumuh!" The little girl behind the counter called out to the holy man making the godly food that Jiraiya was sharing with her for his last day here.
"Number, one, customer, dear." Teuchi corrected the girl patiently. "That being said, you've been here six days straight for dinner. As much as I appreciate the business, ramen is very fattening, I advise you order kelp noodles instead if you're gonna eat it so often." Kelp noodles?!
"I wanna try that! Kelp noodle fish ramen, please!" Kurama ordered, holding up her empty bowl as Jiraiya silently wept tears for his empty wallet. It would strengthen the flavor of his salt ramen! Oo~, salt ramen made with the tears of despair~. Yum…
"She's an Uzumaki, Teuchi. I think all this would go to the best places." Jiraiya told him after he recovered and both shared a pervy grin and thumbs-up while looking right at Kurama's bust. Fully covered in a properly-sized tunic or not, they were glorious.
"Just pray Tsunade never hear's you talk like that, Sensei." Teuchi said in warning to the old toad, who snorted and rolled his eyes.
"The worst she'll do is punch me through a building." Jiraiya scoffed and turned to leave. "Well, I gotta go, Kurama. Remember, my weekly allowance is for living expenses for you and Naru, not on extravagant things like ramen. Get a job if you want to indulge."
"I will! I can't deny myself this godly food! Sage would praise this place to the ends of the world." Kurama praised and turned back with shiny eyes at the sight of green noodle fish ramen being set in front of her. "Itadakimasu!" She dug in and moaned sexually at the flavor and texture of kelp noodles. She was gonna have kelp noodles all the time if she could help it!
"That looks delicious." A man said as he sat down next to Kurama. The vixen paid him no mind as she devoured her meal. "An Uzumaki? Ah, you must be the one brave enough to mother that poor kid. Good on ya." The words of the man made her 'ramen brain' turn off.
"Huh? Got a problem with it?" Kurama growled around her mouthful, taking in the lazy-looking, easy-going man with short spiky black hair, sharp, narrow eyes and a clean, sharp face.
"Got Uzumaki Ramen Brain, huh? I'll repeat myself. An Uzumaki? Ah, you must be the one brave enough to mother that poor kid. Good on ya." He repeated, word-for-word.
"Uh, thanks. Who are you?" Kurama asked as she now looked the man over. He looked…lazy. The man was a trained ninja, had the body for it. He had scars running up his arms that vanished under a fishnet shirt covered in a stained brown tank top. Over both he wore a common Jonin jacket. He was handsome and devoid of scars besides one that ran into his hairline, splitting it on the left side, a sword wound. "What interest do you have in Naru?"
"I'm Shikazu, brother to the Jonin Commander who is also the head of my clan." Shikazu said with a disarming smile. "As for the kid, nah. That kid has every right to live her best life, but a lot of people just can't live and let live, y'know? I'll have what she's having!"
"That's her third bowl!" The little girl…Ayame, if Kurama remembered, answered.
"Then what she's currently having!" Shikazu laughed as he clarified.
"Okay! Daddy, Kelpie bowl!" Ayame declared.
"But kelpies are a myth, dear!" Teuchi teased and laughed at his daughter's face as he prepared a bowl, since he figured Kurama might not be satisfied at 3, she's been eating five bowls each visit. Truly, Uzumaki can put away more food than most humans can stomach. "So, Shikazu, are you snooping out info for your brother again? Heard you went to talk with the Uchihas before their district was moved."
"Eh, more-or-less, but curiosity too. A new Uzumaki, from out of nowhere, whose looks scream dead-ringer for our dearly departed Kushina and her distant aunt Tsunade? I would be a fool not to investigate just to see if she's as beautiful as either." Shikazu shrugged and Kurama felt her face warm from more than her mouthful of kelp noodles.
"Uh~." Vixen brain, work! "Well…do I meet expectations?" Kurama wondered why she asked that while brushing her hair back out of her face and thrusting her chest out a bit.
"Exceeded more like. Good to know the Uzumaki genes are as strong as ever." Shikazu winked and Kurama giggled, looking away from him and trying to focus on her cooling meal.
"I would hope so with how old I am." Kurama voiced before wishing she could bite her tails.
"I wouldn't bet on your age, even in a range. You could be 18 or 92 and it would be impossible to tell." Shikazu snorted and Kurama was grateful for the nearly-ageless longevity of the Uzumaki. At its strongest, the Uzumaki were known to have a lifespan stretching centuries.
"How old are ya?!" Amaye asked excitedly.
"Old enough to know better, sweetie." Kurama deflected with an amused snort before she downed the rest of her bowl. "Well, flattery somehow ruins my appetite, I'm full."
"I'll pay for your last bowl. You head home." Shikazu told her and Kurama blushed even deeper. She then retreated from the strange feelings and encounters as fast she could by ninja roof-running. She may not be a registered ninja, but this body was already able to compare to Chunin without her using her actual chakra and only using this body's local chakra.
"Brain, what is with all these new hormones?! I didn't tell you to make them!" Kurama argued with the organ in her head as entered her apartment, only to see Inu standing guard in front of Naru's nursery. Hiata made it into a nursery. "Hey Inu, need dinner? Or, wait, did your day just start or…?"
"I've been here for the past two hours you were out, fox." Inu said curtly.
"Then you must be snackish. There's nuts in this cabinet, help yourself to any of the leftovers, I just had ramen at Ichiraku's." Kurama replied and she passed him to check on Naru.
Inu didn't make any sudden moves for another hour or so before his stomach loudly gurgled and moved into the kitchen. Kurama watched him check every bite for what she guessed was poison before eating it. Kurama also wondered how on earth he ate without removing the mask he wore. That was actually very weird and impressive.
=Fox=
Things went like that for a few weeks. Inu would stiffly stand guard, not engage in conversation and disappear at times. It was unnerving to have to sleep, which her body was needing more of as time went on, with Inu possibly creeping in the hallway or outside the windows on guard duty. During the day, he was mostly content to leave her alone, since even though she's getting private, secret ninja training from Dai Maito, it is all mostly theory right now in her apartment.
That said, she needed to arrange a babysitter for Naru. "Thank you so much, Mikoto-chan." Kurama said with relief at the sight of Mikoto watching over Naru and her infant son Sasuke, the two children still too young to get into much, but clearly pleased to play grabby-hands with each other as they laid on their sides facing one another. It was absolutely fucking precious~.
"It's fine, I have been waiting for you to ask. I won't mind watching over her. I was supposed to be her godmother, but the civilian council and elders say a napkin is not a binding contract." Mikoto huffed, looking annoyed.
"Nap…kin?" Kurama asked with a tilted head in bemusement, causing Mikoto to blink.
"You know, napkins? Disposable paper towels or cloth towels to wipe your hands clean when you soil them at a meal?" Mikoto told her, wondering inwardly about how odd Uzumaki are.
"I thought those were table towels?" Kurama scratched at her long red hair.
"Well, same thing, but table towels are generally much nicer than napkins are." Mikoto informed her new friend with a mild sense of pity for how oblivious the redhead is about common things.
"Okay, why did you have, wait? Kushina got drunk and just wrote it up on the stop and forgot about it." Kurama said in a deadpan.
"Yes! How did you…ah, Jiraiya must've told the story." Mikoto giggled and Kurama inwardly winced, thankful that the Uchiha had given her an out on explaining her knowledge.
"He said that Minato and Kushina did the same thing to him at a high-end restaurant. They then reiterated it after discussing his book and neither remembered the dinner, so they wrote up a proper contract stating he was Naru's godfather that day." Kurama groaned, rubbing her face in secondhand embarrassment for how drunk Kushina could get, while fucking pregnant!
If it was not for Kurama, Naru would have been damaged in some way. The fact Kushina had a demon in her belly was not an excuse to drink! "Kushina was a wild, amazing person." Mikoto lamented and Kurama, momentarily, shared in the melancholy. Kushina was a better vessel than Mito. At least Kushina fucking spoke to her now and then.
"Kurama! It is time to fan your knowledge of Youth." Dai, her instructor, was a tall black-haired man who wore a green bodysuit, green variant of the Jonin Flak Jacket and had bushy hair, bushy eyebrows, bushy mustache and bushy goatee. He burst into the apartment, but promptly shushed himself at seeing Naru and Sasuke playing on the blanket on the floor.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Kurama said, rushing to leave. "Behave, Naru."
=Fox=
Kurama came back to her apartment to find Mikoto with blood on her hands, talking to an ANBU while Inu stood on high alert holding a crying Naru and Sasuke. "What happened?!" Kurama demanded fretfully, taking both Naru and Sasuke and cradling them to her bosom.
"Three rather drunk civilians broke down the door and made a go for Naru with knives. I stopped them quite easily, but not without cutting the femoral artery of one of them and breaking the arms of the other two." Mikoto told the secret vixen professionally.
"Mikoto! I just got word! Where are they?" Fugaku with sixteen officers arrived up the stairs.
"I'm fine, dear. One of them is dead, two incapacitated. I've just finished giving my report to Mouse when Kurama arrived." Mikoto told her husband as the police entered the secret demon's home. "They, of course, waited until Kurama-chan wasn't home, assuming Naru was defenseless. Thank goodness Inu-kun and I were here."
"I see." Fugaku gave Naru a glare before he schooled his features and turned to Kurama. "I will personally see to it that these men are held for their crimes, Lady Uzumaki."
"Be glad you have any to hold, Uchiha-san. Were it me, they would all be dead." Kurama swore and got understanding nods before the police swept in, cleaned up the site and left. "Now I have to bother the super to replace the door." Kurama bemoaned and carried the babies into the pristine den. It seems all the blood was removed by ninja forensic teams somehow.
"I will ask the Hokage about a stronger detail." Mouse said before leaving in a swirl of leaves.
"I agree. I was patrolling the other side of the complex when I heard the commotion. Unless I am sitting in your living room the whole time, someone can get past me like they did this time." Inu stated with his head bowed. "Forgive me for this failure."
"You helped save my daughter. You did well." Kurama said, feeling weird for wanting to thank the adolescent for what, in her opinion as well, was a failure. "Perhaps you really should just sit in the living room. I feel I can trust Naru with you when Mikoto isn't available."
"I, thank you." Inu said with a deeper bow.
"Now then-oop!" Kurama blushed as both Naru and Sasuke tried to suckle her nips through her top, which was a green sport bra that Dai insisted she wear due to A; her immense bosom and B; the intensity of his Taijutsu training. This meant she had no underwear bra on and her thimble-sized nips had a faint outline the babies were trying to nom on. "Heh, hungry?"
"Sasuke! Oh, I'm sorry." Mikoto said with a blush of embarrassment.
"Don't be. They're babies, they're hungry and I have two buffets mushed into their cute chubby little faces~. C'mere you two." Kurama went to the sofa and casually rested Naru on her thigh a moment to lift her top up, then held the babies stable as they suckled from her nips. She sighed and leaned her head back, enjoying the feeling of both of her breasts being supped from.
"Just know that I started weaning Sasuke." Mikoto sighed as she sat down too, looking at her bloody hands. "I need a shower."
"Down the hall, last door on the right." Inu informed her while facing away from Kurama.
"I'm not going to find anything recording me like a Toad, am I? I know who has lived here before." Mikoto asked, causing Inu to sputter and rush to check.
"There isn't. Even if there was, I don't mind. Jiraiya is all talk. When it comes to actually engaging a woman in sex, he backs off and stops flirting." Kurama assured her friend.
"Why do you say that?" Mikoto asked, surprised at the secret vixen's defense of the Sannin.
"Because when I offered to fuck, he turned me down like a bashful virgin. I also know he's deeply in love with someone. I think he feels like it's a betrayal to them if he bedded someone else." Kurama told Mikoto, still holding Naru as she fed, but Sasuke was just dozing against her boob. He would remain there until Naru was finished with her meal.
"Heh, I guess the rumors in my Genin days were true then. Well, maybe most of them. One rumor was that Tsunade-sama, in a drunken stupor with her three teammates, bedded one of them and hid the pregnancy. There were 10 months early on at the start of the second shinobi war that she was absent. No one knew why besides the Hokage and he won't tell. From that rumor came another saying that the Fourth Hokage had been the bastard of either Jiraiya or Orochimaru, most favoring the snake due to how Intelligent Minato had been." Mikoto said before Inu returned confirming the bathroom was peeper free.
"Well, I cannot confirm anything about that, but since so many say I look like a red-haired Tsunade, she's blond with my figure?" Kurama questioned and Mikoto shared a nod with Inu. "He even carries a photo of her with him. Not a sexy one either, one with her in full Jonin uniform. He clearly loves that woman. What happened to her?"
"Her brother died on his first mission, his sensei had been Orochimaru-sama which some say was the man's first leap into madness. Not months later her lover, a man named Dan died on a mission with her nearby due to an Iwa Ambush. She rushed to his aid, but he died just as she started healing him. All her medical knowledge and the two she loved the most died." Mikoto said with sympathy for the woman.
"...Then where is she?" Kurama asked, since her actual question was not answered.
"Left the village. She has been drinking and gambling for over a decade now." Inu said with contempt.
"...Why…why did she leave when she still had a man who loved her here?" Kurama asked in bafflement. She never felt love before, until she adopted Naru. She couldn't imagine living without her now, so the fact this Tsunade woman left Jiraiya for reasons he could have helped her with just made no sense.
"No idea. She and Jiraiya-sama have had their differences? I guess? The tales of the beat downs Tsunade-sama have given the Toad Sage for perving is legendary. I don't know what their problem is." Mikoto told her with a frown. "Something has always been between those two. I heard it was some crush Tsunade-sama had on Orochimaru-sama that started it."
"She denies a man who loves her to the point he commits celibacy in favor of another man?" Kurama asked, still confused. "And she had a lover in a third man named Dan?" This Tsunade woman sounds like a slut. Kurama herself had no stones to throw there, she believed in communal lustful affection like real foxes do, but to deny Jiraiya? Utterly alien to her logic.
"I think she grew out of the crush, Mikoto-dono. From what I hear in ANBU, Orochimaru-sama said that he felt bad for his friends and that Dan kinda swooped Tsunade off her feet at the right time. The Senju princess saw both her teammates as just friends at the time and Dan shared her interests in Medical Jutsu." Inu voiced from the door, still looking away from the topless woman, who now could set the babies to the side to snooze and pull her top down.
"Well, be that as it may, I'm going to take a shower and then take Sasuke home. I'll volunteer to babysit weekends, but I'm busy otherwise. Thank you for offering to guard Naru during the week." Mikoto got up and went to the bathroom to wash up.
"Have a good day, Mikoto-dono." Inu said as Kurama noted the smell of arousal coming off the boy. Oh, it would be fun to mess with the boy, but not right now, not with the door to her den smashed down and needing to talk to the superintendent about it. "Since you are here, Kurama-san, I will go speak to the super about your door." Yay! Less social interaction with prickly property managers!
"Now, what do I do while Mikoto is in my shower, the door is broken and Inu is not here to tease?" Kurama muttered to herself before images of that Shikazu man appeared in her head and she felt funny. Why was that happening so much? Not just with him, but with a few males she met! But it was mostly that Shikazu. With his messy, spiky black hair, his sharp lantern jaw, those narrow, soul-piercing eyes-fuck, what is happening to her?!
Kurama sat there wracking her brain for why it was conjuring this and what hormones it was shoving at her frontal lobe. She was not commanding any of this. How automated did she let her body get? Why couldn't she stop it? Ultimately…she kinda liked it. The loss of self-control was oddly intoxicating when it was herself she could blame.
"It looks like someone is daydreaming about something fun~. You have a few men or women on your mind? The village might be happy if it's a man." Mikoto teased the secret vixen after she returned with some of Kurama's spare clothes and her hair in a towel.
"W-what gives you that impression?!" Kurama flustered and then gasped when Mikoto boldly leaned down and pinched her nips through her sport bra! "Uhn~!"
"These signal flares! Honey, I know a few people if you need relief. Some girls too if you prefer them." Mikoto released the more buxom redhead, who covered her nips with a blush.
"I-I'll keep that in mind…" Kurama deflected meekly, feeling oddly backed into a corner and liking it. Then, she roamed her eyes over Mikoto, realizing that she found women attractive too.
"Married, sweetie." Mikoto giggled.
"Damn monogamous mating practices…" Kurama grumbled with a pout.