Chapter 10:Family values
Yashamaru and Tenzo have both been on the run for about a month give or take.
Hiashi had been having a bad night, and it didn't look like it was going to improve anytime soon. It had started with his daughter getting kidnapped by the Kumo ambassador, escalated when he'd killed the fucker, and now to top it all off, Kumo was demanding his head on a platter in exchange for not declaring war.
The thing was Konoha really couldn't afford a war at this point. They'd been bluffing their way through international politics for the last five years or so and they really couldn't afford for anyone to figure out just how paper thin their façade of strength was. Danzo had made it clear they had two options. Give Kumo his head on a platter, or give them his brother's head on a platter. Danzo didn't particularly care which, but they had until morning to decide, which basically meant Hiashi had two hours to salvage the situation.
Hizashi was being an unhelpful self-sacrificing idiot of course. It was like he'd never paid any attention to politics at all. Giving Kumo what they wanted would be taken as a sign of weakness. Besides, like hell was he going to kill his brother to appease the bastards that kidnapped his daughter. Not when he'd had a much better idea.
"But Hiashi, Konoha can't afford a war and the clan can't afford to lose you. This is the only way." Hizashi rambled on. Hiashi was not impressed.
"No."
"But…" Hizashi tried again.
"No. I have a much better idea."
"What?" Hizashi demanded sulkily. Hiashi sighed, sometimes it was really obvious that he was the older twin.
"All we really need to do is tweak the story a little so that nothing that happened tonight was Konoha's fault and therefore the village can't be held responsible."
"And how are we meant to do that. We're part of the village, our actions reflect back on the village, we can't just separate ourselves out like that." Sometimes, Hiashi thought despairingly, Hizashi could be a little… dense.
"Well I can't. You're right the clan needs me. But you can."
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
"Like I said we need to tweak the story a little. It should probably go something like this. Hyuuga Hizashi went off the deep end, kidnapped his niece, went missing nin and killed the Kumo ambassador on the way out. Sound about right." Hizashi just stared.
"It's plausible, considering the ongoing pattern of Konoha desertion. It's out of everyone's control, which means it's not a legitimate excuse for war. And best of all it allows both sides to save face and pretend they weren't being the lying ninja bastards everyone knows they were." Hiashi grinned manically. Hizashi gave him a long suffering look.
"Sometimes you frighten me."
"But you know I'm right." Hizashi just sighed.
"Yes, you're right. At least it beats being killed by those Kumo fuckers. But you'd better take good care of my son Hiashi."
"You look after my daughter, I'll look after your son. Seems like a fair deal." Hiashi always did love getting his way. Hizashi chose to ignore the cloud of smugness.
"The things I do for family."
…
Hyuuga Keitaro, an otherwise uninteresting branch clan jounin, had the attention of the entire jounin lounge, and he was making the most of it. Konoha's foremost gossip mongers hung off his every word.
"Yes, it's true." He told them. "Hizashi has done a Hatake with the clan heiress. Hiashi sama is not pleased." That set the whole room to whispering.
"But why would he take the clan heiress rather than his own son. Surely it would make more sense to take the less high profile child that he was closer too, rather than his clan heiress." Aburame Shinta asked, slightly confused.
"Has anyone who's done a Hatake ever gone for a low profile kid?" Anko wondered aloud, "Seems to me they all tend to grab the most politically volatile kid they can."
"I heard some guy in Anbu kidnapped a couple of Danzo's baby root agents a few weeks ago." Genma pointed out. "That's like the opposite of high profile. That's like, so low profile it's underground."
"Yeah but that counts as a personal strike against Danzo, which makes it high profile." Raidou mused.
"I don't know if there have been enough incidents for us to establish a clear pattern." Kurenai interjected.
"Kakashi, Itachi, Tenzo, Hizashi, and I've heard some rumours out of Suna say one of their jounin ran off with their jinchuriki." Ibiki counted off on his fingers in a bored tone. "That makes five incidents already, even if you don't count the more ambiguous incidents like the thing with Tsunade. I'd say that's enough to star getting a basic idea."
"Wait you mean it's spreading." Hayate burst out in shock. "I thought it was just Konoha."
"No he's right I heard about the Suna thing too. Desert Scorpion Yashamaru wasn't it?" Tsume drawled. Ibiki nodded in confirmation.
"That's what I heard. The Kazekage was spitting poison over the whole thing. Apparently the jinchuriki was his kid." Tsume's eyes showed no sympathy.
"You snooze you lose. If you can't keep hold of your cubs you don't deserve to have them."
"You sound like you support the idea?" Hayate said cautiously.
"Not exactly. I mean obviously the village can't allow it to continue. But…"
"But what?" Ibiki enquired suspiciously.
"But I can see the temptation. If the cubs are that poorly supervised it's practically begging forsomeoneto run off with them. And I mean, now that the idea's out there, if you're going on the run anyway, why not take the opportunity to grab one." There was an awkward silence. "What? I'm an Inuzuka, we practically wrote the book on aggressive adoption, back before the village was founded."
"Ok, moving on from disturbing reminders about clan practices bestleft in the past"Ibiki said sternly. "Did anyone see the thing with Hizashi coming."
"Fuck no. Bastard's far too straight laced. Can you imagine him taking care of all that prissy hair on the run?" Genma burped for emphasis.
"Thank you Genma. We're all sure you're very manly." Kurenai said primly, "But honestly I can kind of see why Hizashi would want to leave. We all know it's not exactly fun being part of the Hyuuga branch clan."
"But why take Hinata not Neiji?" Raidou wondered.
"Fuck knows. Maybe she just happened to be closest when he snapped." Anko speculated. "Anyway all of you are missing the most important thing."
"And what would that be?" Ibiki asked flatly.
"Why, clearly this has now become enough of a thing to set up a betting pool." Anko grinned gleefully.
…
The kids were… a little socially stunted. Tenzo felt more than a little underqualified to teach them social skills. It wasn't like his were much to write home about. Still after the third time someone had run screaming from little Sai's truly disturbing smile, he decided something had to be done.
He took them to the onsen. It was not a success. Shin had tried to stab two of the other guests for attacking Sai. This would have been more acceptable if the reason they'd been attacking, hadn't been that he'd peeped over the wall into the women's side, and then loudly announced that all of the occupants needed to lose weight. Even Tenzo knew that was just asking for pain. He just wondered if he wanted to know where exactly Shin had been hiding the knives.
His second attempt involved taking them to the playground. In retrospect that had been an even worse idea than the onsen. As far as he could work out, Sai had managed, within about forty seconds, to insult the intelligence, parentage, and species of the three toughest kids in the playground, when they reacted predictably, Shin had thrown explosive tags at them. It ended with the playground destroyed, the civilian kids crying, and Tenzo carefully shuffling away with Sai and Shin under his arms before anyone could ask any awkward questions.
He decided he didn't really know what he was doing, so he went to the bookshop to gather reference material. There were actually a surprising number of books targeted at improving social skills. Admittedly none of them were targeted at brainwashed mini-assassins, which in Tenzo's view was a bit of an oversight. Given the habits of most ninja villages it seemed like a fairly large unexploited market. Still, he could make do with what was there, he'd just need to… adapt things a bit.
…
"A man must bemysterious." Kakashi declared imperiously. Naruto gazed up at him with wide curious eyes.
"Why is that, Nii-san?"
"Because it makes us seem alluring, and wise, and that attracts women." Naruto seemed confused.
"But I already attract women. They're always running up to me and squeaking about how cute I am." Kakashi just shook his head sadly.
"Oh little brother. You attract women now because you are five years old and adorable. But that doesn't last forever. You have six or seven years tops before you become a snotty teenager. You need to plan ahead." Naruto looked down in embarrassment. Forward planning was not his strong suit. It only lasted a moment before he perked up again.
"Teach me to be mysterious Nii-san. I'll be the most mysterious ninja ever, dattebayo." Kakashi's eye crinkled.
"Of course, Otouto, I will teach you everything you need to know. Now the first step is simple. We will need to get you a mask."
"A mask, like your one, Nii-san?"
"That's right. Now a mask serves many purposes. It makes people wonder what you look like, why you are hiding what you look like, what it would take to make you stop hiding. It makes your whole appearance into also reminds people that you are a ninja with a dark and dangerous past, which is always sexy." Naruto nodded furiously as he listened.
"Like in Jiraya sama's books?"
"Aa that's right. And of course on a practical note it makes it harder for people to make an accurate description for hunter nins. I'm one of the most famous missing nin's on the continent and yet when I take off my mask no-one has a clue what I look like. Yes, masks are very useful things, we should definitely get you one." Naruto looked up at him with starry eyes, and a grin like the sunrise.
"Yes Nii-san, I want a mask just like yours." Such a cute little brother.
…
Yashamaru sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Gaara." He asked wearily.
"Yes Uncle Yasha?" Gaara replied innocently.
"What did I tell you about killing people in our hotel room?"
"That if I'm going to get blood everywhere I should take them out to a back alley first."
"That's right. And do you know why I said that?" He continued with long suffering resignation.
"Um, plau-si-ble deniability? So that if anyone asks we can pretend it wasn't us." Yashamaru looked mournfully at the bloodstains on the carpet and decided the deposit was a dead loss again.
"That's right." He sighed again. "So why, exactly is there ninja flavoured jam all over the floor?"
"I'm sorry Uncle Yasha, I didn't mean to. They just came in through the window and I panicked and mother said their blood would taste good, and I just crushed them. It was an accident." His eyes were wide, and his lower lip trembled, he really was terrifyingly cute when he didn't want to get in trouble. Yashamaru was wise to his tricks though.
"First of all what did I say about believing what people tell you?"
"That everybody lies." Gaara was less tragically cute now and more sulky.
"and so…?" Yashamaru refused to give an inch. It was important to set clear boundaries, and there was no way Shukaku got to replace his sister as the brat's mother. For one thing he was far more scared of his sister than the bijuu, he did not want to think about the hell she would make his afterlife if he let the kid replace her with a chakra monster.
"And so, just because the chakra monster in my head says it's my mother, doesn't mean it's telling the truth." Gaara said grudgingly. "But Uncle Yasha, it would be so cool to have a giant chakra monster as a parent."
"Yes well we can't always have what we want. Parent's are one of those things you just get randomly stuck with at birth I'm afraid."
"But Kaito back in the last village said that if you got adopted you could have new parents, and Shukaku said that they'd adopt me and then they could really be my mother, and it would be so cool." Sometimes Yashamaru wondered just what he'd done to deserve this. Then he remembered he'd brought it on himself.
"But…" It seemed Gaara was really keen on having a demon parent.
"No." There was no way Yashamaru was going to chance his sister's wrath on this one. No matter how much Gaara begged. Gaara turned on the puppy eyes.
"Please Uncle Yasha." Yashamaru gave in. "They can be your father, you need a replacement father much more than a replacement mother." And besides, it wasn't like Gaara's father could get andmoreangry with him. It just made strategic sense for him to be the one replaced.
A/n:And the peanut gallery this week consists of Anko, Ibiki, Hayate, Kurenai, Genma, Raido, and Tsume. Along with a couple of oc's who exist basically to deliver their lines and then vanish into the ether. And a large mass of indeterminate jounin who don't say anything, but listen avidly.
And yes Shin's brother complex may just put Itachi's to shame, Gaara is the world's cutest little homicidal maniac, and Kakashi is slowly turning Naruto into a mini me of himself. Gai will be impressed the first time they meet. (Don't worry it's all superficial though, Naruto is still his adorably mayhem causing self.)