Kushina Uzumaki POV

"Finally, I'm back!" She shouted on the top of her lungs as Minato used Hiraishin to bring them back to Konoha.

"Not so loud Kushina." Minato hushed at her and then let out a tired, defeated sigh as Naruko started to cry once again.

"Hush, my sweetling. Look, we're back in our home." She said as she rocked little Naruko in her arms and then raised her in the sky so that she can see Konoha as well. "Now, let me show you glory of the great ramen as well."

Naruko started giggling at her words and her face brightened up instantly. "See Minato. Even Naruko likes Ramen."

"That's not-" Minato started to speak but she had already rushed into Konoha so she couldn't hear him anymore.

Five minutes later.

She hugged the bowl of Ramen and cried tears of joy.

"We've finally been united, my dear Ramen!" She sobbed and then paused as Naruko squirmed uncomfortably in her arms. "Oh, you want a little bit of ramen as well, Naruko-chan. Don't you~ don't you~"

"I think she's squirming because she's in a new place and you're being too loud." A voice came from the side and her head swivelled to see her little student sitting on the seat beside her.

When did he arrive there?

On second though, never mind.

"Oh Ren-kun, my cute little pudding. I missed you!" She shouted as she went to glomp the little tyke, only for him to dodge her hug expertly.

"Not now." Ren said as he scrunched up his brows. "You stink."

She felt as if an arrow pierced her heart and glared at the little tyke. "That's not me, you brat. That's the smell of living in Mount Myaboku for the past 3 months." Then she paused. "Oh… I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

Ren gave her a deadpanned look as she let out an embarrassed chuckle. "So, do you want to hold little Naruko?" She asked as she expertly used her baby to escape from her blunder.

Ren stared at her daughter for a brief moment before a gentle smile formed on his face and he gave a nod. "Why not."

She handed him her daughter but before she could even teach him how to hold a baby properly, she found him doing just that.

Worse, he was doing a better job at it than her, considering how Naruko immediately quieted down in his arms.

Seeing her confusion, Ren explained. "I've been taking care of little Satsuki back at home whenever Mikoto-san is busy, so my Babysitting skill have been rising up slowly. If this continued, then I'll become the #1 Babysitter in all of Konoha."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Hoh~ Practicing for when you'll get your own kids, my chubby dumpling."

Ren gave her another deadpanned expression at that, even as he continued to gently rock baby Naruko in his arms. "First, I'm only 5 years old. And second… I'm not that chubby."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"…if I'm a dumpling then you're a tomato."

She paused as her brain registered the words. Then the anger came.

"What did you call me brat!?"

"What? You can dish out but don't want to take it, my little tomato-chan~~" Ren said in a sing song voice and her knuckled popped from how hard she was clenching her fist.

"Wanna say that again, brat?"

Ren stared at her for another moment before he smiled. "You don't scare me anymore, Tomato-Sensei. I've mastered my escaping skills in the past three months when you were gone."

"Is that so." She said as she got ready to jump at him and bring down her wrath on his cute chubby cheeks. Only to pause when she heard someone clearing her throat in front of her.

She look in front of her and saw Teuchi-san giving her a disappointed look.

"Please finish your Ramen before it gets cold Kushina-san." Teuchi-san reminded her and her eyes widened in horror as she realised that her ramen was indeed getting cold when she wasn't paying attention.

Not on her watch!

She immediately dived into her ramen and cried tears of joy as she tasted heaven after 3 whole months.

Especially since the only thing that she could eat in Mount Myoboku were the rations that Minato brought for her, or the grubs that Ma prepared for her.

…that was not a life that she would wish for anyone.

"Another one!" She shouted as soon as she finished the first one and noticed that Teuchi-san had already left to prepare another bowl for her.

*sniff sniff* He knew her so well.

Then she turned to look at Ren who was softly singing a lullaby to a sleeping Naruko and paused.

…there might be some truth to Ren's boast about being the #1 babysitter. After all, he seemed to be far better at handling Naruko-chan than even she ever was.

Remembering all the nights when little Naruko woke up crying and she couldn't calm her down because she had no idea what was wrong, a sharp glint entered her eyes.

"Ren." She said as she put her hand on his shoulder and gave him an intense stare. "How about you come and live in my house from now on. I've neglected your Fuinjutsu studies for the past three months and it's only fair that I make it up to you."

Ren gave her his third deadpanned stare of the day. "You just want to use me for my babysitting skills."

"Ack! No. That's totally not it!" She said nervously as she quickly backtracked but then paused upon noticing that he wasn't buying her words. "Okay… so what if I want to hire you as a babysitter. What's wrong with that?"

"Not interested." Ren denied immediately.

"I'll pay you. I'll pay you a lot." She said as she fake sobbed in front of him. "Please. Can't you help your dear Sensei just this once."

"No." Ren mercilessly replied and she slumped down on her chair.

"My disciple is so cruel." She lamented even as she continued to think up of ways to get him to work as her babysitter. Hm… her husband was a Hokage, so maybe there was something she could do about this situation.

"Here's a pork ramen for you Kushina-san." Teuchi said as he laid another bowl in front of her and the tearworks started once again.

"Oh! my dear Ramen~"

—

"So… you are saying that, in the last three months that I was gone, you learned how to fly?" She asked with disbelief even as Ren flew around in her living room, a giggling Naruko-chan held firmly in his arms.

"Yeah. The wind release Jutsu I'm using to manoeuvre around still needs some improvement, but most of the work has already been done." Ren said as he gently landed in front of her and proceeded to tickle Naruko in her tummy which sent her into another burst of giggles.

'I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous.'

"So…" She said with forced cheerfulness. "What else have you been up to in the past few months when I was gone."

"Learning a bit of Ninjutsu. Taking care of little Satsuki. And going to the shinobi academy." Ren said and then frowned. "I was perfecting my flying abilities so I didn't have a lot of time to do anything else. Learning how to fly is hard work, dattabane!"

Her eye twitched as he used her verbal tick to mock her.

Worst of all, he was claiming that learning how to fly was hard work, when he accomplished it in only 3 months… while also going to the academy, babysitting Satsuki-chan and learning Ninjutsu on the side.

…the brat was simply asking for a good beating at this point.

"So… Ren-kun." She said as golden chains started to emerge from her back. "I think I remember you calling me tomato-sensei when we were in Ichiraku Ramen. Wanna say that again?"

Ren looked at the dozens of adamantine sealing chains emerging out of her back and gulped. Then he let out a forced chuckle. "Now, Kushina-sensei. How can I, your most respectful disciple, ever say such rude words to you. You must have been hearing things."

"Oh, so you're calling me deaf, is that it?" She asked as her golden chains inched closer to him.

"hehehe" He laughed nervously. "Now, now, Sensei. Let's not do anything here that you might regret."

"Regret?" She said, giving him a 'kind' smile. "Oh, it's not me who's about to regret anything here."

With those, her coiled golden chains rushed toward Ren-kun.

He couldn't get far before the chains caught him by his arms, one of them gently taking little Naruko away from him and to safety, while rest wrapping him up neatly. Like a dumpling.

"Now… let me explain to you in detail about why no one calls me a tomato anymore." She said and she reached for his cute chubby cheeks.

No one came to rescue Ren Uchiha that day as she molested her student's cheeks to her heart's content.

—

Minato Namikaze POV

When he returned home from work, he found his wife and her student in a deep discussion.

"Even if it could be done, the seal would be extremely complicated. Enough that only Masters of Fuinjutsu would be able to create it. At which point, the price of those seals would skyrocket whether you want it to or not." His wife said.

"Perhaps. But can't we simply make it so that the seal can be used again and again. Maybe carve the seal in a stone tablet or something along those lines so that it becomes a permanent seal."

"It can be done. But such seals are even harder to make than the seals drawn on regular paper scroll. So the price would increase even more at that point."

"Can't we just create hundreds of shadow clones and use them to make hundreds of seals?"

"In theory? Yes. But in practice, few Fuinjutsu masters have even a fraction of the chakra that I do." His wife said. "And even I have to use most of my chakra to suppress the Kyuubi. So making hundreds of shadow clones to do your work is nothing but a pipe dream."

"I see…" Ren said, sounding both surprised and dejected.

"Cheer up now, my dear disciple. Where there is a will, there is a way. I'm sure that someone as smart and talented as you will surely find a way to accomplish your desire."

Before Ren could reply, he decided to make an entrance as eavesdropping on them too much would be rude. Even for the Hokage.

"And what desire is that?" He asked as he entered the living room.

"Minato!" Kushina cheered up once seeing him and ran at him for a hug.

But he didn't fail to notice that Ren didn't seem surprised by his presence at all. Meaning that the boy that already sensed him before he even showed himself.

Which was kinda scary as he had impeccable chakra control and was capable of hiding himself from some of the best sensors in Konoha.

He returned Kushina's hug and twirled her around for a moment before gently depositing her on the floor.

"Now… what is this special seal that I'm hearing about?" He asked as he searched for Naruko with his chakra sense and found her sleeping in the next room with a shadow clone of Kushina hovering nearby.

"Oh. Ren just had this wonderful idea to create giant birdlike contraptions and then use Light Density Jutsu and Wind Release Propulsion Jutsu to make those contraptions fly around the Land of Fire for quick transport or leisure flights."

"Huh, that's a rather novel idea." He said, gazing at Ren who simply shrugged.

"I was going through our history scrolls the other day and found out about the Sky Nation. And I thought that if those people can create technology that can help them fly around, then why can't we do the same. Or an approximation of it at least."

'And it would be very useful in war as well.' He thought, remembering just how much devastation the Sky Nation had brought to the Elemental Nations before they were eventually defeated.

"The idea is not bad. But I'm not sure if our sealing knowledge has evolved to the point where such seals can be made." He pointed out.

"Meh. Don't worry about that." Ren said with a negligent wave of his hand before he paused. "Oh, and before I forget."

Then Ren took out a scroll from his dimensional pocket space that he called Inventory and threw it over at him.

He caught the scroll and glanced curiously at Ren. "What is this about, Ren-kun?"

"See for yourself." Ren replied, sounding rather smug.

He raised an eyebrow and did just that. And froze immediately.

For in the scroll were names of dozens of shinobi and kunoichi.

And beside their names, were designations like 'Spy of Kumo', 'Spy of Iwa'. And after dozens of such names were even more names who were given the designation of 'traitor', 'highly corrupt', 'team killer', 'Danzo's agent', 'Orochimaru's agent', etc.

"Ren-kun… is this real? Because if it's a joke then it's in very poor taste." He told the boy with a serious look on his face even as his hands shook in excitement and trepidation.

"Of course this is real. And with this, we would finally have a leg up in the Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence department." The boy replied and he nodded.

'That and so much more.' He thought to himself. "How did you even find out about these people, Rem? And how good is this information?" He asked.

"When I recently got an upgrade on my bloodline and unlocked my Inventory space, I also unlocked an ability called Observe which allows me to see the basic information about anyone or anything that I look at. This ability allowed me to look at various civilians and shinobi around Konoha, and take note of the ones who are our enemies. I've been doing this for some time now. So even though I didn't catalog every single person in Konoha, I believe I got most of them."

"I see." He said, considering the value of the scroll in his hand before he gave a morose chuckle. "It seems like I'll have to pay you the reward for another High S-class mission Ren-kun. Not even a shinobi yet, and you've already accomplished more S-class missions than many shinobi do in their entire life."

Ren simply shrugged at his praise. "Konoha is my home. So of course I'll do my best to keep it safe."

He nodded. "I hope you don't mind doing a more thorough sweep later. I'll have Kakashi assigned to show you around to the more restrictive areas of Konoha and have you see all the shinobi that you were unable to see before. I'll pay you another low S-rank mission reward for your efforts."

"Sure. Why not." Ren said with an uncaring shrug and his lips twitched.

This was the first time he saw a shinobi have such an uncaring attitude toward an S-class mission. But then again, Ren wasn't even a shinobi at the moment so he can't really blame the boy for not understanding the value of such missions.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me Ren-kun. Did you have any more dreams about the future?" He asked.

Ren thought on his words for a moment before he nodded. "I did. But it's nothing important. Though, I'm curious about what you did with Orochimaru after I informed you about my dream."

—

Tsunade Senju POV

"I heard that congratulations are in order." She said as she entered the R&D (Research and Development) Department of Konoha and found Orochimaru hard at work alongside a dozen other scientists.

Orochimaru gave her the look of a highly offended cat, or perhaps a snake in this case, before he went back to his work.

"Now, now. What up with that look. I thought you would be more happy after finally becoming the Head of the R&D Department." She said teasingly, amusement dripping from every single word that she spoke.

Orochimaru paused in his work and turned to glare at her.

"I would be very pleased by this indeed, if I was not surrounded by incompetent buffoons!" Orochimaru hissed as he looked at all the scientists working in his department with visible disgust. "How have these people not burned the entire Konoha to the ground with their idiocy is beyond my comprehension."

"Water Release Ninjutsu." She offered cheerfully and Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.

"You are enjoying this far too much."

"Of course. When I told you that running the medical department is very hard, neither you nor Jiraiya believed me. Now, I'm finally glad to see that you're going through a fraction of the things that I suffered through when I created the entire Konoha Medical Department from the ground up." She said. "Seeing you struggling like this warms my soul."

Orochimaru stared at her for a long moment before he shook his head. "I do not know what that fool Jiraiya sees in you. You are a cruel, cruel woman."

"Heh! Compared to you, I might as well be the paragon of virtue." She replied before she paused to take in her teammate's new lab. It was definitely an upgrade from his last one. "It can't be that bad, is it? The Hokage must've given you some benefits otherwise you would've refused to work as the Department Head."

Orochimaru pursed his lips and then let out a sigh. "It isn't that bad. My fundings have seen a tenfold increase. I have access to all the personnel I could ever want. And while these scientists are not that smart, they're not that bad either. They can accomplish basic tasks which saves up a lot of time for me."

"Having access to more experimental subjects in the form of enemy shinobi and bandits probably doesn't hurt either." She pointed out and Orochimaru's eyes glinted disturbingly in the light of the lab.

"I suppose." He hissed. "But it's still not all that good. I have to spend a lot of my time to train these buffoons. Not to mention that I have to spend almost all of my time to work on the tasks given to me by the Hokage, and have no time left for my personal experiments."

She didn't believe that he had no time at all for personal experiments. But she believed that his time for personal experiment must've taken a large hit, hence his bad mood.

As for the task that the Hokage gave him…

"How are the experiments on the Hashirama cells coming along?" She asked, her mood souring a bit at the mention of those abominable things.

"It's coming along well. We've already reached the point where we can replicate those cells."

"Already?" She asked, surprised by how quickly Orochimaru accomplished such a thing.

"Of course." Orochimaru said with a proud smile. "Now, the next step is to graft those cells into limbs which can then be attached to our crippled shinobi. I expect another year or two before we are able to accomplish that goal."

—

AN: Sorry for the delay in uploading this chapter. I fell back on my addiction recently and have been trying my best to claw my way back to a semblance of normalcy. I hope I'll be able to provide steady updates from here on out.