DISCLAIMER

The following is a fan-based

FICTION

Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto and Shueisha.

Please support the official release.


Chapter 28: Doggy and Buggy

If you wish to Donate and Support: ptreon DOT com / socialistbukharin


Expanding the building took a while to get off. Weeks and weeks of checking workers on the task had paid off by seeing a few more rooms added to the growing 'family'. Oh, and two new bathrooms.

All in all, a good investment as it made more room for an already 'stuffy' house situation. Tsunade approved, so did Shizune and the Sand Trio. Speaking of these last three, there had been a growing pressure from Suna to see them returned.

Turns out that Gaara was, for some dumb reason, was their best replacement to the Kazekage. Turns out, for equally saner reasons, Gaara was not planning to go back home.

Once you get a girl to get more accustomed to a place that isn't 24/7 a desertic hellhole, you can't expect her to just go back there.

Home or not, Suna was just... bad to live at. And the same emotion was shared by the redhead's siblings. Adoption? That was something I had yet to break to them but it wasn't too pressing at the moment.

At the same time, however, I would dare to say that something else came up during this process of expansion: the Fifth Hokage had been sworn in, and it was Orochimama.

How unexpected. No, wait, it was painfully expected with Minato's dirty laundry making his chance of 're-election' kind of doomed.

As this was happening and I left Ruruko and Itachi to oversee the expansion, I got invited by Orochi-hokage to talk with stuff.

To my relief, it wasn't the plan to turn my home in a sex shack. To my disgust, it was paperwork-related.

"You want me to just... give you stuff to reform the government?"

"In a general sense, yes. I am not tasking you to reform the constitution- that's not a chore a single fellow should deal with," Orochisumiremarked mirthfully, happy that she was sitting in the big chair with the big hat. "You mentioned your country relied on a curiously complex government to handle affairs on a more 'decentralized but fair manner'."

I slowly nodded at this. "Well, we have the head of state and government. Assuming that the former is the Daimyo as he hardly has any involvement in Konoha's politics and you are the latter, then you should form a 'ministerial cabinet'".

"Go on," Orochisumi hummed, paper and brush at hand as she started to write down my notion of modern governance.

Democracy was somewhat to neglect. The idea of an 'elected' Hokage was feasible within the circumstances things were less shifty in the home front but also the foreign affairs. So no, no electable Hokage.

The same didn't expect over new positions. Orochisumi's own perspective saw the need for a proper Ministry of War and one for Economic Affairs. Those two were crucials in the handling of the major affairs, but she saw a point in adding a Ministry of Foreign Affairs to have trained diplomats at ready, and one that fully ended the 'Uchiha divide' in regard to the police in the form of a 'Ministry of Home Affairs'.

I hope Fugaku is not going to see it as a bribe from his future son-in-law.

The meeting didn't last long. As the new Hokage had promised, this wasn't anything about having me take any active role (yet), so I was soon off to enjoy a walk and clear my thoughts.

For a moment, I even thought I would have been hunted down by Anko. Kind of surprising that Orochisumi managed to convince her to 'take a long-term mission in the Land of the Hot Springs'. In simpler terms, Anko got sent to a vacation to spare me any troubles.

That being said, someone did in fact hunt me down. And that someone was-

"Uncle Jooohn!"

A certain 'bug' girl. She came out of nowhere with a random tackle which failed to bring me down as she latched onto my back.

"F-Fuu? What did we say about random tackles?"

"That only naughty kids do that?"

"And?"

She snorted. "I am not a naughty kid. I am just booored! Ruko is buuuusy!"

"And?"

"And Uncle 'And' is cool!"

I rolled my eyes as I just decided to go for a walk with Fuu. But as I got into the village proper-

"Yo, it's Jonno-pops!"

"Bark!"

Kimi so happened to be there too.

"Kimi, it's been a while. Hello to you too Akamako-tan."

The pupper barked again happily.

"Yeah, it's been long enough, pops and... who's that?"

"I am Fuu, doggy!"

Kimi pouted. "Well, you are 'Buggy' now since you smell like a Bug."

"Deal~!" Fuu giggled, confusing Kimi as she thought it had been an insult than a friendly banter.

"Say, Kimi-chan. Wanna tag along as we go for a walk?"

The tomboy perked up. "Duh! That sounds cool! Wait, where are you from, Buggy?"

"Taki. I'll stay over for a few months."

"Neat, then I can show you some cool places," Kimi beamed giddily. "But you promise me that you give me a tour if I visit."

"Sure thing, Doggy~!"

And just like that, I felt quite glad that I had gotten two kids to befriend each other.

These two definitely made the walk somewhat exhausting considering their seemingly endless energy (Fuu's case was a bit too literal), but all in all it was all manageable within what I was usually familiar with.

Konoha was peaceful enough now that the air of hostility against me and my family had slowly dissipated, so it was nice to be able to get out of the house more than usual.

But as I found no issue in the stroll, someone did feel a bit unnerved by something else.

After all, Fuu had been most happy to also guard me since she was a ninja and I wasn't so...

Of course she would treat the stalking foxy figure on our asses with a degree of concern and displeasure.


Kushina was trying to make sense of the few documents she was reading.

The divorce process was, 'oddly enough', working faster now that Minato was no longer the Hokage. He had tried to reach out to her, but the woman had cut him off entirely.

Mikoto had been an angel for giving her a place where to stay. It was nowhere near the Uchiha compound, but not for a lack of trying. She just was a persona non grata to most major clans.

And this place at the outskirts worked just fine with what little income she had to her name.

She was retired- technically she could go back to be a kunoichi within a year but... could she do it?

It's been years since Kushina had put that bit of her life behind her. Minato just wanted someone at home to take care of the kids, a task she had horribly failed due to her bastard of a husband.

And the documents that Orochisumi had sent her, regardless if the intent was to hurt or warn her, opened more of a situation on what was going on with Minato.

It was around the time they had started to date- maybe even before that. Minato had been asking for a 'mission' regarding Kushina to 'facilitate further cooperation'. The whole dating was a bit of a scam to 'make things easier for the village'.

The funniest bit was that the Third Hokage not only put a foot down on the matter but even sent a stern letter to Minato to 'not date Kushina if he didn't truly love her'.

Turns out that the warning was more than ignored. This whole mess... Kushina wanted to know what led Minato to trulyhateher like this.

Sure, she had treated him poorly as a child but she could tell that any adult could tell the true core issue was her own traumas. All she did was not because she was born rotten, but rather she hurt so much inside for her home's destruction that she had to lash out.

It was wrong, she had been a bad kid, but that didn't mean she- she deserved this outrageous abuse!

Yet, here she was, hands to her hair as she tried to wrap her mind over the remnant of her life.

Her kids were pretty much out of reach. Kushina was still trying to get Mito back as she had been the most hurt for sure, but... she also held a degree of regret for Na- Ruruko and Menma.

The former was her first sin, and Menma was her biggest mess as a parent. One could say that was Mito, but Menma had been pushed away and now hated her for it.

Mito was going to need therapy. A lot of it. Just like Kushina had accepted to get her didn't make the nights of crying any easier. Not when she realized how much of a monster those mental suggestions had made her to be. But it could at least give her a humble few decades of getting something new for herself.

She had planned to write a letter to Menma and Ruruko. Not for this year, maybe not for the next one. But eventually, once her life was fully pieced together to handle this hurdle.

Kushina couldn't even force herself to 'be their mother in her mind'. She had just sullied such a good thing in her thoughts that it sickened her to the core how bad things had gone.

Granny Mito would hate her for sure. She would understand, but she would hate what she did while under Minato's manipulation.

But that wasn't the worst part.

That blasted ero-sage. The bastard had the nerve to try and tell her to not listen to others. To not take her medicines, to go back to Minato and 'talk it out'.

She was glad the bastard had been disciplined by the new hokage, but perhaps Jiraya had been the lucky one as he dodged a sudden case of castration through the means of a spoon.

Kushina was... not doing well. That was the best way to summarize her situation.

Not the worst, but definitely far from good. She was making progress, painstakingly slowly, and, eventually, she would make it back to be a good person. Not the same as she used to be, the old jolly Red Habanero was gone, now replaced by a sorrowful broken husk.

But who knows... this loneliness is indeed her best chance to a happy life.


AN

So, Mito is going to appear next time, Kushina is out of this story for good (yes, she is gone for good), and Kimi and Fuu are about to become the best friends... and do some naughty stuff together!