"The kids are getting rambunctious," Kushina noted idly as she looked over the village from her perch on the large wooden balcony attached to her home.

Mikoto raised an eyebrow. "Are you talking about Satsuki's group or Enkai's little gang?"

Kushina favored her with a dry glance, the answer going unsaid. "Something's gotallof them in a tizzy, ya'know?"

Her friend giggled, shaking her head. "I'm fairly certain it's boy trouble."

"Kota, you mean?" Kushina asked, pausing briefly before nodding. "There's a lot that seems to be related to him happening these days. Why do you think the younger kids are mixed up?"

Mikoto smiled conspiratorially. "It's a bit of a practical joke on Kota's part. Apparently Satsuki, Yakumo, and Naruko are planning something-he wasn't specific as to what that something was-and Sakurai, the Haruno boy, overheard them. Kota left the other boy's underpants in his room when he knew Satsuki would drop by to see him. Enkai, Hanabi, and Konohamaru know enough to fill in the blanks. The former of which is having a great deal of fun at his sister's expense."

Kushina barked out a loud laugh. "Hah! Good on him. I'm glad to see he isn't shy about teaching hard lessons." The redhead sighed and leaned back. "I just wish that girl of mine would wise up and drop the crush on pinky. His parents might be ninja, but all four of his grandparents were civilians."

Mikoto frowned. "Careful there, 'Shina-chan. Enkai might pick up more of your bad habits."

Kushina rolled her eyes. "I swear, that boy... there are times I really want to smack him upside the head with the fact that his father was civilian-born, but..." She shook her head.

When they were ready, when they could keep the secret. Not before.

"For what it's worth, I do understand what you mean. The civilian mindset takes a while to breed out in most people. Minato was... an exception. Some people just... they take to our world like a duck to water." Mikoto stated with a sigh.

"Less a duck and more a shark," Kushina replied, taking a long pull from her tea. "Every now and then you just suddenly get a monster instead of a baker, a printer... or a blacksmith."

"You have to admit it's impressive how tightly he clings to the illusion," Mikoto commented with a tight grin. "Part of me wants to find a proper jounin to apprentice him to, but the other part of me is actually a bit scared of what might happen if he was properly motivated."

"Speaking of the boy, how are the gates doing?" Kushina asked, shifting the topic.

"You would have to ask my eldest about that for details," Mikoto hedged, "but given what I've heard I think they're passing the safety standards and are going to have the first ring deployed within the month. There's still some discussion between Shikaku, Itachi, and Hiruzen about positioning, but there have been some decisions made already."

"Good. I hope the Hokage keeps this one in his back pocket for a while. It's a huge ace to have up your sleeve. In fact, I-" Kushina opened her mouth to continue, but the clatter of running feet cut her off even as a young girl's voice rang out through the large house.

"Moooooom!"

"Out here, ya'know!" Kushina cried, ignoring the way her friend winced at the not-a-jutsu blast of sound.

Arriving in a surprisingly-controlled burst of speed and a blur of orange, Uzumaki Narumi jumped and landed just outside the door with a quick habitual scan of the entire area. "Hey Auntie Mikoto! Mom, the Old Man wanted to talk to me and gave me something to give you!"

Kushina blinked, exchanging a look with her friend as she took a scroll from her daughter and put it to the side. "What did the Hokage want to talk to you about?"

Narumi paused, having pivoted and almost launched herself off into another barreling run as was obvious by the way she had to turn back and subdue the boundless energy that characterized her. "Uhh..." Her eyes darted about, fixating on various pieces of the scenery as she bounced on the balls of her feet. "He might've wanted to do a lecture on politics and stuff? It was about jinchuuriki stuff."

Kushina grimaced. "Right, I forgot to warn you about that. Now that you're close to graduating, the Hokage is going to want to give you a few pointers on what you should and shouldn't do in the field." Her eyes softened and she sighed as she pulled the younger girl into a hug. "I'm sorry, my little typhoon."

"S'not your fault," Narumi muttered as she wrapped her mother in a tight embrace as well. "Uhh... could I get some advice, actually?"

Kushina blinked, pulling away and staring at her child. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?"

Mikoto snickered off to the side as the young girl put on an expression that was part exasperation and part embarrassment.

"Moooo~ooom!"

"Alright, alright!" Kushina stated clapping her hands and taking a deep breath. "Wise older kunoichi mother-mode, ya'know! Hit me!"

Narumi blushed and flicked a glance to Mikoto before shaking her head violently enough to send her long blonde ponytails flying. With a still-red face, she asked, "Umm... I think Sakurai and Kota are dating or something and I... I'm not sure what to do about it. Since I like Sakurai and everything..."

Kushina's eyebrows rose, impressed that her daughter had realized that she needed someone's advice. Idly, she considered the question and... well, she could play into the boy's little prank, or... Across from her, Mikoto narrowed her gaze at the flash of a grin on the other woman's face.

"I mean, I asked Hinata for advice, since Satsuki's in a snit and Yakumo's all gloomy, but she just smiled and said that, 'if anyone got in the way of true love I should tear their heart out and make them eat it before they died to know what it felt like.' Naruko cocked her head. "Which, if Kota was an enemy might work, but..."

Mikoto and Kushina exchanged a look as the blonde girl devolved into muttering again. The former signed in a series of quick motions the equivalent of, 'someone should do something about that girl.'

Kushina hummed. "Maybe consider that a last resort," she stated dryly before changing tracks. "Well... it's not like you don't like Kotaro all of a sudden, do you? Just because he's fooling around with the boy you like, right?"

Mikoto cleared her throat pointedly and was soundly ignored.

Narumi screwed up her face, making the whisker marks on her cheeks twist adorably. "I guess not. I mean, I want them to be happy, but I thought he was going to set things up with Tenten, Satsuki, and Yakumo."

Damn boy, you've got ambitions, ya'know!

Not letting the surprise show on her face and taking note of her friend's genuine lack of surprise over the revelation, Kushina coughed once before speaking. "Well, that's your answer, then. Just see if Kotaro and Sakurai wouldn't mind you joining in for some fun, ya'know!"

Narumi blinked once, then twice, then felt her eyes begin to surge wide as her retreating blush advanced wildly to color her entire face not unlike one of Satsuki's tomatoes. "A-ah, bu-but, I-I-I mean-together!?"

Kushina chuckled as she clapped her daughter on the back proudly. "Hah! Don't worry about it! Your mother got into a lot of the same messes back when I was young, too! I was really popular with the guys, ya'know!"

"I don't wanna' know what you got up to before you met dad!" Narumi cried.

Mikoto, who had been drinking her tea, snorted so hard the liquid almost went out her nose as Kushina cackled like a mad-woman.

Narumi furrowed her brows at the two women, nearly breaking down before freezing and feeling her face twist into a tableau of disgust. "Oh-ewewewewewew! Perverts!"

A minute or two later, with her daughter having fled the scene and Mikoto managing to clean the tea from her nose, Kushina sighed as she leaned back in her wheelchair. "Ah, yeah... that's the good stuff."

"You shouldn't tease the girl like that, 'Shina-chan," Mikoto chastised, her own slight blush fading. "It was an accident when it happened."

Kushina grinned as she grabbed the Hokage's forgotten scroll from the table where it had fallen. "The first time, yeah, in the trenches with Minato and Fugaku boozed out of our gourds? Yeah, that was an accident. Then someone got jealous and demanded a repeat." The redhead's grin turned sly as she looked over the unfurled paperwork to her friend's red face. "You ask for it, it's not an accident, 'Koko-chan."

The Uchiha matriarch huffed and looked away...

...only to curiously allow her eyes to wander back as Kushina hummed low in her throat. "What is it?"

Kushina shrugged. "Evidently, Hiruzen's got some hotshot medical student and he wants them to take a look at my medical records. Probably just another bout of regret from the old man for not being there." She looked off towards the city and sighed. "He shouldn't bother, it is what it is. Even Tsunade said as much, and I doubt whoever he's got is better than her."

Mikoto nodded sadly, unwilling to allow her eyes to linger on her friend's wheelchair. "At least he's asking permission. He didn't have to."

Kushina made a face and, with an absent hand-seal, spat a blot of ink onto the scroll before scrawling her fingers through it in a messy signature. "Whatever. Maybe thinking about an old cripple will keep him from bugging Narumi too much."

Reading her friend's mood, Mikoto made an easy decision. Her family could fend for themselves tonight. "How about I go get the sake and we have a girl's night in?"

Kushina's smirk in reply told her the bawdy joke was coming, but at least it was better than sullen silence and melancholic brooding.

…

"Okay, combat exercises." I sighed and looked skyward before allowing my face to drop back to Sakurai. "Normally, I don't have the girls do these, but you need stamina, endurance, and calluses-"

Sakurai grimaced and opened his mouth.

I preempted him. "-which do not have to look rough and dried out. They're a thickening of the skin and padding of toughness to deaden extremes of sensation on nerves, not... whatever you were thinking of."

He blushed. "Ah, okay. Sorry."

Training Sakurai was very much an exercise in patience for me. "I swear, if you get killed because of a fashion statement or something, I'm going to figure out how to raise you from the dead just so I can kill you all over again."

My student winced.

I clapped my hands. "Anyway, because I have neither the time nor inclination to do so, you're going to be using this to do so." I stepped out of the way and let him look at the multi-pronged training dummy. It was a basic affair overall, built to the same standards the ones Guy and Lee used. A central pillar had multiple poles sticking out of it, vertically sectioned into rotating parts. That way, when you hit one part with a strike it would spin and hit you with another part. In another world, it would have been called a Wing Chun dummy.

It was basic, but... well, basic wasn't bad.

"The academy has these, but... um, why is it made out of metal?" Sakurai asked tentatively as he stepped closer to it.

"Because I have higher standards and wanted something I could use for myself, not just you." I stated bluntly. "Also, it's chakra conductive metal-" His mouth opened and I raised a hand. "-do not ask where I got it, I had to call in a few favors." That was my story and I was sticking to it. "Also, it'll be important for your medic training once I get you up to an acceptable level."

"M-may I ask how?" He asked, feeling out the various striking surfaces and wincing as he doubtless imagined them making contact with his arms and legs.

"The poles are hollow. I'm going to fill them with cuts of meat and pig bones. The first exercise will be cutting them up as you go through your forms," I stated impassively.

Sakurai's eyes widened. In a voice filled with trepidation, he asked, "you said 'first?' What's the second?"

I shook my head. "You have to prove you're worth that level of training. You haven't even accomplished the basics yet, so ask me again in a month or two."

Sakurai grimaced, but nodded. "Ah... um, Ino asked about the bruises again today."

"I'd expect she would." I stated as I turned to walk back to where I'd sat up a small workstation near the training ground. Nothing sensitive, but I refused to effectively waste the time watching Sakurai sweat and bleed.

"I-I told her that I was taking my training seriously like you said and she got worried I was overworking." Sakurai stated, following me to my little desk.

The wonders of sealing being what they were, I could put both the training dummy and my work station away with the snap of my fingers. "Then you respond?"

Sakurai took a deep breath and tried to firm his voice. "I made a promise to someone. I have to do this, Ino."

"Use a firmer expression next time; imagine you're getting angry at someone or something, but not half-bad," I praised as I began pulling out scrolls and getting my ink ready.

"It's just... this still feels like I'm tricking her," Sakurai said weakly.

I looked up at him from where I was kneeling at the desk. "I imagine you want her to fall in love with you just because you're you and not because of anything you do or how hard you try to win her affections, correct?"

Sakurai nodded.

"I'd call that lazy." I said bluntly, earning a frown from the other boy as I explained. "There's something to be said for resolving to find someone who loves you for you, but if you're convinced that Ino won't then your only options are to change yourself into someone she will like or change her into someone who will love the current you. Pinning your hopes on random chance to create a situation where she realizes your true feelings and reciprocates them just tells me that Ino doesn't matter enough for you to work for her. It tells me that you don't see her as being worth the time and effort to put in to change yourself."

"That's not it at all!" Sakurai argued, insulted and angry. "I-I just want it to be...real. Not, not artificial!"

I inhaled deeply.

Give me strength.

Reaching out with my chakra, I opened myself up in a way I'd only done with the girls before, trying to communicate my viewpoint. Just as I'd told Sakurai, you couldn't rely on happenstance to do your work for you. Once I'd realized how important the girls were to me, I'd started putting in extra effort, just in ways that weren't obvious. "You're not manipulating Ino. You're not faking anything. You're changing yourself into someone that she's more likely to find attractive. If you want her to find you attractive as you are right now, then you should grow a spineand confess to her. Choose."

Sakurai deflated slightly as I stared him down, biting at his lip before nodding slowly. "I-I'm sorry. I forgot how much I'm already asking of you."

He bowed.

I waved him off. "Just get to practicing. I want three hours of forms today and you're burning daylight. We'll be here until after dark if need be."

"H-hai, sensei!"

I sighed.

Goddammit, not another one.

Instead of focusing on that mess, I unfurled my preliminary work on an artificial spine. The real work was going to be in the seals I'd have to create to substitute the frankly absurd damage to the woman's chakra coils. Frankly, I had no idea how she was even alive right now, let alone in as good a condition as she appeared day-to-day.

I frowned as I looked at the design. It was... limited. Simple.

Slowly, I sat down my brush and stared a hole into the paper as the sound of metal on flesh echoed across the field. I could do better than this, I know I could. The question was... should I?

Pulling a new sheet of paper out, I started a new design. Perhaps she wouldn't want it, but even if she didn't... somewhere down the line this might be something I could use.