Self-Reliance

[copy and pasted from FF.net]



(Imbri crawls into a hole and dies. Naruto appears, kneels beside the hole, and pokes at the Author’s dead body with a long stick. Sasuke sighs.)



Sasuke: What did her in this time?



Naruto: Overwork on her portfolio. Poor thing. I was kinda starting to like her.



Sasuke: At least she had the decency to finish another chapter and some more art before having a mental breakdown.



Naruto: Yeah. Lucky us. (pokes Imbri) Might be a bit before the next one, though…



Imbri: Uuuuuuurgh…curry…





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SELF-RELIANCE



Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. I don’t own Sasuke. But Sakura and Ino need sedated.



Summary: Sasuke is pregnant and forced to do Various Painfully Feminine things, including but not limited to shopping, and Kyuubi is a scary, scary bastard when he doesn’t get his mate and kits…



Warnings: Featuring SasuNaru angst, mpreg, and IrritatedAndFemme!Sasuke. Don’t like it, don’t read it. Like it, review. Review often. Reviews are my happy crack. If you’re going to flame, at least be witty about it.



CHAPTER TWELVE: GREEK TRAGEDY





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He knew that it was either a dream or something that Naruto had talked him into doing, because Sasuke just wasn’t one for cloud watching. Wasting an afternoon just lying in the sun and staring up at the foamy curls of cumuli didn’t make sense to him; they could be studying scrolls or training, something tangible and productive that bettered them in some concrete way. Naruto didn’t care about self-betterment; he’d rather curl up on the mat of early-summer grass and sun himself. Sasuke was quickly learning how the boy had won himself his deep golden tan---he stretched out in the grass with a rumbling purr, his shirt slid lazily up to his armpits, the faded spiral of his tattooed stomach gleaming in the sun. The light cast a dizzying aureole over his blond hair, intensifying the serenity on his features as if he was some kind of benevolent and infinitely languid saint.



He foxily closed his eyes into my-God-I'm-happy slits, gesturing for Sasuke to lay down with him.



Sighing at how easily he bent to the dobe’s childish whims, Sasuke stretched out on the grass next to him, frowning as Naruto slid him closer, looping one arm around him. Idiot and his immature begs for snuggles and kisses, anything soft and solid that assured him of his mate’s presence…



“I was thinking about names again,” Naruto announced sleepily, slitting open one sky-blue eye and yawning widely. “Boy names, in case you’ve got a son or three in your tummy. What do you think about Satu?”



“Means fairytale. I don’t think you want to label your son that early on.”



“Eheheh…yeah, guess not. Iruka?”



“You already want to name a girl after Sakura---we can’t name all our children after people we like. Originality, dobe. Try for originality.”



He paused for a moment, thinking deeply---his frown brought his thin whisker-scars into high relief, and that expression always looked comical on him. Like some kind of eighty-year-old Go player, Naruto held a playful exaggeration to his expressions, as if trying to make sure you caught precisely what he was feeling. He wasn’t one for subtlety, that was for damn sure.



“Nasuke,” Naruto said proudly, grinning. His mate moaned as if the mere idea was physically painful, smacking the shaggy blond mop of his sun-hazed hair with one hand. Naruto yipped, affronted, though it was half a laugh.



“That one doesn’t even deserve comment, moron. You’re not allowed to try again. Yasuo?” Sasuke offered, reluctantly catching an infectious yawn.



“Yeah-what?”



“Yasuo. Peaceful one. Maybe it’s hopeful thinking on my behalf, considering they’ll be half yours. ‘Peaceful’ is not the correct adjective for any of your spawn.”



“Hmm…” Naruto yawned again, resting his cheek against the crown of Sasuke’s head, tickled by his shaggy black hair. “Don’t know if we’re so good at this game. Maybe we’ll just have to wait and see what hits us, right? I think that when they’re born…we’ll totally know. Well, of course we’ll know if we have three girls, three boys, two boys and a girl or two girls and a boy, and…meh. I’m tired, Sasuke.”



“Yeah?” Sasuke mumbled, though he agreed.



Naruto closed his eyes, his breathing deepening as he allowed himself a rest, a nap, safety in the presence of his mate. “Can we just sleep? Just you, me, and the kits…that’s more’n enough.”



“’M tired, Sasuke,” Naruto whispered hoarsely against his throat. “Can we just sleep tonight? Just you, me, and the kits…that’s more’n enough…I…”



“Don’t say that,” he snapped quickly, before the other dream could come back to smother this peaceful feeling with thick, unforgiving hands. This was gentle, this was restful, this was some kind of distant and roundabout assurance that It Will Be Alright, and---and he needed it, needed it desperately, and he’d dig his fingers in if the nightmare wanted to stifle this faint sensation of warmth and contentment he was lavishing in.



Naruto opened his eyes, confused, worry drawing out his true age. He skimmed his thumb over Sasuke’s lower lip, as if trying to brush the frown away.



“That’s a really bad color for oatmeal to be,” Naruto said, and Sasuke abruptly woke up. Voices floated in to him through the half-open bedroom door; he hazily sat up, rubbing at the throbbing headache that had settled in over his temples the moment he’d opened his eyes and found his apartment to be flooded with the stench of burning oatmeal. At first, he thought that his dobe had come back from that gods-be-damned A-level mission early; had a nice chat and tea with the missing-nin and then had traipsed on back home to tease and tickle and be a general and sorely-missed annoyance.



The screeches issuing from the kitchen convinced him otherwise. Yes, he had idiots in the kitchen, but not the one he’d been banking on.



He fought the urge to growl and gather his weapons for an all-out siege. Sasuke didn’t react well when confronted with stupidity so early in the morning---he’d gotten far too used to sleeping in, waking on his own without intrusion from Naruto (who would lay perfectly still and watch him sleep until he awoke on his own) or from anyone else, for that matter.



“You were supposed to watch it, Ino-pig!” a second voice snapped, slightly shrill with an edge of irritation. Ah, Sakura. He knew that shrill anywhere, having heard it coupled with the usual “NARUTO! You idiot!” that had filled his teenage years with such companionship and warmth. “I was making the toast!”



“He doesn’t need two sources of carbohydrates,” Ino snapped, her voice rapidly crescendo-ing into a high-pitched yell wavering on the edge of ruining Sasuke’s eardrums. He put his hand over his ears, moaning---he felt like he had a hangover, and he hated to think that being emotional could have such side effects. Pounding headache, crusty, dry eyes, scratchy throat, sensitivity to noise---and all because he’d spent the last three days moping somewhat industriously. Naruto’s fault. Then again, Naruto was the largest source of pure angst in his life since Itachi and his penchant for clan killing.



“He can have whatever we manage to shove down his throat! Once you can see their ribs, you start worrying less about what they’re eating and focus more on the simple fact that they are!” Sakura growled back, and something clanged loudly in the kitchen. Sasuke feared it was the toaster, and he didn’t mourn its passing if that was the case. Naruto, being lazier than he was inclined to be culinary, thought that toast was a perfectly good substitute for a full meal if at least six slices of toast were present, and the bare minimum of two different spreads were being used. Not sharing his toast philosophy, Sasuke wasn’t entirely against burying the toaster in the backyard while the dobe was gone. It would serve him right for leaving.



“Stop screaming!” Ino shouted, making Sasuke grit his teeth in annoyance---if his stomach didn’t burst by the time he was full-term with fox-spawn, his ears definitely would, thanks to Ino’s sweet motherings. “You’re going to wake him up, Forehead-Girl!”



Women. There wasn’t much that could be done with them, but one still had to deal with them. Having had his clan killed, he’d learned that one can actually live without them, but he was stuck with the living-with-them part of the adage.



“Goddammit!” Sasuke roared. “I’m already awake!”



The silence in the kitchen was distinctly cowed, like the catatonic stillness of mice at the leering shadow of a feline’s paw. Sasuke briskly exercised his swear-word vocabulary as he fought his way out of bed and into a robe, tying it loosely around his waist and positively stomping into the kitchen. Sakura was poised with a spatula in hand, halfway through the motion of beating Ino to death with said cooking instrument; Ino had the fire extinguisher in hand and, had she not been under the influence of Sakura’s spatula-rage, she probably would have been putting out the merrily smoldering pot of oatmeal.



Sasuke blanched. This was not a constructive way to start a morning.



“You!” he barked, glaring at Sakura. “Water jutsu. I’d do it myself but I feel disinclined to waste my chakra because both of you are totally---utterly---“ Unable to find words anymore, Sasuke balled his hands into fists and bellowed like he hadn’t since his argument with Naruto the morning before he left. Call it sorely-needed venting---which, Sasuke’s vindictive streak cheerfully informed him, the girls utterly deserved. How could invading his kitchen when he was still asleep and then---mess---how could this be considered nice and calming to do to a pregnant person whose temper was notoriously short to begin with? Sasuke gritted his teeth, trying damnably hard to rein in the vast lexicon of curses that begged to leap out of his throat and verbally flay the girls alive. There had to be a jutsu for that. Orochimaru had taught him tons of more useless things; why couldn’t he have taught him how to torture people to death simply by having a temper tantrum at them?



Sakura shrank away, looking like she might melt. Ino seemed avidly plotting a way to faint and not bash her head on a floor still littered with glass from Sasuke’s sensei-target-practice the night before last. He’d spent the entirety of the last day in bed, too angry at himself for being a mess to motivate himself into movement, much less cleaning. He remembered eating lunch, but that was just about it. He hadn’t been hungry, he hadn’t been awake, he hadn’t---he hadn’t been anything.



Sasuke seethed. He couldn’t even find words.



“Completely…incompetent,” he hissed, Sharingan flickering in his dark eyes. “Kakashi let you in, didn’t he? Stupid---shitty---well-meaning---“



“Sorry?” Ino tried weakly. “We made…well, the oatmeal looks like cement and the toast is thoroughly burnt, but…there’s orange juice. Do you want some orange juice, Sasuke-kun?”



Sasuke took a deep breath. Let it out. Resisted the urge to strangle them with his bare hands, seeing as his laughably round belly completely ran a skewer through any hope he had for looking or acting badass. He had to settle for pregnant and seriously irate instead…



“I would like some orange juice, and an explanation, Akimichi-san.”



“You can still call me Ino,” the blonde girl said waspishly, putting out the oatmeal with a jutsu she’d been taught as a child---Squirt Gun no jutsu, a fun prank that Kiba had first shown her. It was enough to douse their problematic attempt at breakfast. “Mmm…sorry. Chouji was going to come over and make breakfast, but he, ah, had to stay with the flower shop because Dad wasn’t able to take it.”



“It would have been much prettier if Chouji had made it,” Sakura said somewhat mournfully, looking down at the wrecked remains of toaster, toast, and oatmeal pot. All smoldered happily, belching smoke. “He’s a really good cook. I guess we should have planned better.”



“Really?” Sasuke growled sarcastically. He poured himself a glass of orange juice, frowned distastefully at the mess his kitchen had become, and sighed.



“Any chance that we can make it up to you, or should we start running now?” Ino asked, a nervously twitchy smile on her face.



“Like I could run after you,” Sasuke muttered, rolling his eyes. “Feed the cat, allow me to make my own breakfast without complaining about me overtaxing myself---which, for chrissake, I am not doing---and leave before I lose my temper.”



“Sasuke-kun, didn’t you want to go shopping?” Sakura asked, tossing the pot in the sink to be dealt with later (probably with an arsenal of ninjutsu, seeing as nothing less than that would get the burnt muck from the bottom of the cookware). “I took the day off, and, ah, you look like you could do with clothes with a little more…uh…”



“Growing room,” Ino finished tactfully.



“One: I do not want to go shopping. I have to go shopping. Two: I have your husband---“ He gave Ino a dark look. “---coming over at noon to work on a jutsu. Will that be enough time?”



Sakura quailed a bit. “Maybe,” she said slowly, and he knew she had some sick and twisted idea in her head that now that he was pregnant, and on all accounts fifty percent more female than he’d ever been, that made him a woman. Both of them probably had this neat little daydream involving him, them, shoe shopping, and fun female hijinks. Sasuke shuddered at the mere thought. Yes, pregnant and female were usually interconnected, and he was making a good go at certain issues he had with femininity, but that didn’t mean he suddenly had the inexplicable urge to do their hair and eat chocolate, dammit. It was bad enough that his mere presence (pre-pregnancy, even) seemed to surface the various cookie-baking, maternal, omg-I-want-to-be-a-mommy instincts embedded deep in women---now they were trying to get him to share those baffling, uncontrollable feelings of maternal ecstasy and feminine solidarity. No. Hell no.



Why couldn’t they wrap their minds around that? Had they really been patiently waiting for him to turn female, seeing as they were leaping upon the concept with a vicious sort of cheerfulness? Sasuke knew that they were getting a cruel and perfectly unfair joy out of watching him squirm this way---child genius Uchiha Sasuke, always so well-kept and reserved, suddenly snogging the dobe with a gut full of fox-seed, a mess inside and out and only getting worse as the months progressed…



Sasuke nodded shortly, teeth gritted into a permanent scowl that looked half-painful. As if he was the gracious one (and not Sakura for taking the day off from work to be with him, or Ino for offering her seriously misguided emotional support), he sighed in defeat, saying, “fine, I’ll go out for an hour or two. Just to get clothes.”



And he thought that that would keep him safe from ninety percent of the Female Togetherness, but, as usual, poor Sasuke was abysmally wrong.





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Uzumaki Naruto really was a good ninja. He had to be---his favorite color was orange, so it was just a given that his stealth skills were impeccable (so that he could somehow manage recon without incurring the retinal wrath of anyone even looking sideways at him). He was a good ninja. Since half-melding with the Kyuubi and calling up control of his vicious chakra, Naruto had become quite the fighter---nearly as messy as Lee due to his half-bestial nature, but nonetheless effective. Brutally effective. Tsunade sent Naruto regularly on missions where the opponent was meant to end up very, very bloody and dead. Nothing too stealthy, though, because of Naruto’s brash fighting style, notoriety, and undeniable orangeness; she saved stealth missions for Neji, Kakashi, or Sasuke (before Sasuke had gotten pregnant with triplets and temporarily dropped out of regular missions, that is, but that was another thought for another time).



“What do ya do with a drunken ninja, what do ya do with a drunken ninja, what do ya do with a drunken ninja earl-y in the mooorniiiing?”



Naruto was a fairly good team leader, even. He carefully balanced the strengths and weaknesses of his teammates, and wasn’t afraid to admit he was wrong, or to ask help if he believed someone more fit for a certain task. He didn’t like admitting defeat---something about the proud fox within him expressly forbade it---but he wasn’t against backing off if it would save lives. His strangely dualistic personality lent him an odd charisma, and people followed it like butterflies to something sweet, fascinated. If he got his act together, he might make a decent leader.



Naruto was merciful, even to his enemies. Naruto forgave, a rare trait among shinobi, and it made him a fair opponent in battle. Although, Neji decided wrathfully, an eyebrow twitching as he felt fingers running through his hair again, battle was the only place to meet Uzumaki Naruto.



“Shave his balls with a rusty kunai, shave his ball with a rusty kunai, shave his balls with a rusty kunai, earl-y in the moooorniiiing! Next verse---take it, Neji!”



Because, outside battle, Uzumaki Naruto still acted like one gleefully obnoxious child, despite his quick jaunt into adulthood.



“I don’t want to take it,” Neji growled, shivering with revolt as the girl who’d attached herself to him leaned in and licked his earlobe, her hands tangled in his long hair. Naruto had been right, damn him. They practically fawned over his long, glossy-dark hair. His wife...his wife would not be pleased...



“Shpoil shport,” Naruto accused, wavering slightly with a ‘drunken’ air. Neji had not known that the blond was such a flawless actor; he himself would have thought him drunk had he not watched him purposefully pour every saucer of sake the girls had shoved into his hands right into a flowerpot when they weren’t looking. He sort of wavered, his eyes slightly hazed, bright color standing out on his cheekbones. The effect was incredibly realistic, and Neji was left to wonder how many times Naruto had called up on this dubious talent during missions.



“Yes, he is quite the spoilsport,” purred the girl attached to Naruto’s arm, a raven-haired beauty with an ample bust-line and wide, false-innocent eyes. She refilled his sake saucer with a giggle, nodding at her friend to do the same for the other men.



Konohamaru looked sorely tempted to drink the sake he was offered---it’d be his first real sip of the stuff, and boyish curiosity was enough to make him daring---but at Neji’s stern look, he decided that he’d have to sneak it away, like Naruto had. Although, seeing as the plant was already sufficiently watered, he had to be more creative---when the girls were giggling over his scarf, he faked a drunken hiccup and pitched forward, dousing Naruto’s front with the contents of his saucer. The kyuubi-boy licked the spray of alcohol from his lips and grinned. Which, if nothing else, just pissed Konohamaru off more.



He licked his lips slowly, carefully, not breaking eye-contact with the prostitute attached to him, Uo.



You certain it’s this one? He mentally queried Kyuubi.



Yes. But our bitch is prettier, Kyuubi replied sulkily, wrapping his tails around himself and looking away.



Stop whining and help me get her alone…



“You’re being a tease,” Uo told him primly, advancing on him with a clear intent in mind.



“Whoa girls,” Naruto said laughingly, and then a little sharper as Uo’s red-painted claws deftly unzipped his pants, then shoved her hands into his pockets and jerked down. He blushed as his teammates gaped, his pants half-parted from his person. “Whoa! Lady, I’ve got a ma---er---girlfriend at home, and ki---ds on the way! Don’t be playing around down there! Hey---no---don’t touch that!”



“Children are a waste of internal organs,” Uo said distastefully, and frowned at him. “What’d you come here for, ducky, if not for a little release? A pregnant lover wouldn’t give you what I will.”



“You’d be shurprised,” Naruto grinned hugely, resuming the drunken act as he clutched at his pants. “She putsh out more’n you’d believe!”



Neji did not want to inquire how close Sasuke fit into this girlfriend persona.



“Want to see if there’s a difference?” The prostitute asked sweetly, leaning in so that her soft lips just brushed his ear. “My room is much…quieter, ninja-san.”



Neji and Konohamaru both gaped as Naruto wavered to his feet, waving enthusiastically at his teammates—-unbalancing himself so that he reeled to the left before righting himself---and crowed, “Ofta the purty lady’s room! Shee ya, boys!”



“He’s smashed,” Konohamaru whispered to the Hyuuga, paling as the prostitute assigned to him started unbuttoning his jacket, teasing long nails over his exposed navel. “Drunk off his fucking ass---“



“He has a plan,” Neji assured him quietly, although he secretly wondered what the hell Naruto was doing. The fake-drunk was over-the-top; he wasn’t actually going to fool around, was he? Wasn’t precisely in his personality to do so, but Neji never was sure what to expect from the most surprising ninja of Konoha…



In Uo’s room---a small, stark affair with a bare futon, a low table, and a single pot of simplistically arranged flowers---Naruto heaved a theatrical sigh, running a hand through his hair.



“Man,” he said loudly. “I was wondering how long it’d take for you to get the message.”



“Not drunk at all, are you?” Uo asked, smirking.



“Nah. How was my acting?”



“Horrible.”



Naruto winced, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Eh…thought so.”



“Come here,” Uo purred, tugging at his sleeve like a little girl might.



“Well, sweetie, I would, but I’ve got a feeling I’d get a couple needles to the spleen if I did. How ‘bout you disarm first?” Naruto chirped, stretching out on the floor. The girl’s eyes widened, and she carefully, quietly slid up her long sleeves. She had thin acupuncture needles strapped to her forearms, ready for instant disposal into unsuspecting soft spots. Naruto continued to grin winningly as she unclipped the catches to the harnesses, dropping the needles and sliding them beneath the table with one pale foot.



“Better?” she asked flatly, rubbing her wrists and glaring at him with heavily-lidded blue eyes.



“Better,” Naruto agreed. He untied his head-protector, letting it fall to the hardwood floor with a slither of fabric and a clink of metal. He smirked.



“You’re an astute one, I see,” Uo smirked, licking her fingers. “Quite the ninja. Chuunin or jounin?”



“Jounin,” said Naruto, and he didn’t complain or comment when Uo slid forward, catlike, and worked the vest from his shoulders, lining kisses in the hollow of his throat. “You know, I heard that most prostitutes don’t kiss their clients.”



“Most prostitutes don’t get sweet, golden jounin boys to kiss.”



“How would you react if I said I don’t want to be kissed?”



“I’d assume your pregnant girlfriend is more than just any old lay,” the girl breathed along his neck, her tongue darting out for a short, gratifying taste.



“You’d be right there. And I assume that you know why I’m here, if you’re so up on ninja.”



“Ducky, can’t you just let me kiss your pretty face and give your cock a bit of attention?” Uo said, sighing at him as he batted away the hand that was sneakily trailing down to massage slow circles over his crotch, fingertips tracing his hips. “Honestly, I’d think you were a man-lover by the way that you treat a lovely lady such as myself…that is the case, isn’t it? Come now, my breasts don’t bite…”



“Perfectly aware of that,” Naruto grinned, sliding one hand to cup said breast. He drew a teasing circle over the hidden areola with his thumb. “And honestly, my cock gets enough attention for my tastes. More of the romantic type, you know…I’d go for self-service before running off for a prostitute. Just look at the bright side---I’ve already paid you, and you don’t have to give me any---er---servicing. I just want to ask you something about a girl we’re trying to find, Uo-chan, and it’d help if you’d---“



If he had blinked in that short moment between clipping his d and taking a deep breath to continue on his spiel, he would have died, his throat slit open like an overripe grape burst between two unforgiving fingers. If he had blinked, he wouldn’t have caught the short gleam of metal as it hurtled at his neck with speed best described as ninja---Naruto jerked back with a startled bark, and the kunai scooped hungrily at the air mere inches from his jugular. It missed, thankfully, and---training allowing him to forget that she was a ‘lady’---he planted his feet in her stomach and kicked hard as he arched back up from his prone position. Uo shrieked and hissed like an affronted cat.



She twisted at the last moment, hair whipping as she spun, landed, and skidded to ground her momentum. She snarled at the jounin from one corner of the room, crouched like some kind of animal that might spring. Might spring? Would spring. That was a fighting pose, taijutsu…the way Uo carried the kunai affirmed that she knew how to use it. How she’d managed to hide the kunai amid her cleavage without performing a hasty and messy mastectomy was beyond Naruto’s comprehension. She had to be a ninja.



Naruto decided he just had the worst luck ever.



Look for the demons and they come after you, Kyuubi intoned darkly, utterly missing the irony. Demon? Who was he to point paws?



Naruto ignored the distraction of Kyuubi and his bad humor as the prostitute pursed her lips and blew out a cloud of chakra as she shouted “Kiri-gakure-no-jutsu!” and the room was suddenly deluged in mist. Visibility dropped instantly to zero---the oldest escape tactic in the book---and Naruto wasn’t surprised when he felt the light kiss of blade just below his Adam’s apple.



Shit.



“She doesn’t want to be found,” Uo hissed, lightly biting the kunai into the sensitive skin of his throat. “You didn’t help her before, so now would just be chauvinist face-saving on your behalf---idiocy. Hypocrisy and idiocy. Go back to your shit-village and don’t come back, jackass.”



“Hey, sweetie,” Naruto growled with a feral grin, calling up whorls of hot chakra to burn away a six-foot hollow in the thick mist. “Not going to let you go that easily. What happened to playing kissy-face?”



Uo froze mid-leap; she obviously hadn’t seen this sudden whip around from the boy she’d labeled a playfully cute ditz. Then again, he was a jounin, and one usually doesn’t get that far simply by connections and carefully slipped paperwork…she raised the kunai again as she watched the red chakra clouding his form---what kind of chakra was that? Boiling and bubbling in hot pops and sizzles; the carpet at his bare feet smoked and curled, the mist-jutsu hissing away, the human chakra that had created it giving rein to whatever the hell this kid was wielding. The jounin abruptly dropped it, thin wisps of toxic-red chakra curling about his grinning face as he stepped forward and took the shocked woman’s thin wrists.



His hands were tight and feverishly hot.



“I was serious about talking,” He said, that smile never leaving his face, though Uo thought that it held far more teeth than a smile really ought to. It was more like he was baring his teeth at her, waiting for her to prod hard enough to provoke him into biting.



“Screw you,” she shouted, jerking her hands from his---and finding that she couldn’t. Her wrists would be twisted, bruised; his bite-smile just showed even more teeth as his nails dug in mercilessly. And he’d seemed like such a gentleman, too, Uo thought mirthlessly, wincing as she won herself bracelets of half-moon nail-marks for her struggles.



“Hyuuga Hanabi,” the blond jounin said in a low, intense voice that left little or not room for negotiation. “You know her. Where is she hiding?”



“Like I would tell you---“ Uo started to snap viciously, but he snarled---snarled?---all teeth and narrowed red---red?---eyes.



“If you like your hands, bitch, you will tell me,” he growled dangerously. “They’re half your way of income, so I’m sure you’d hate to see them fall to harm. See, my patience is very thin---bitch and kits at home, and I’d really rather be with them than catering to this gods-be-damned frivolity known as a ‘ninja mission’, so it’d be best for both of us if you’d comply easily.” He paused, licked the back of her hand thoughtfully, and added: “I’ll start with your smallest finger, and move in until I get to that precious opposable thumb you humans treasure so much, breaking each one after my temper frays a little more. Answers I like might save you fingers. Then again, I haven’t had the best of days, so maybe not. I’m a bit vindictive by nature.”



“If I scream for help,” Uo hissed. “Men will come in and detain you.”



“I think you’ll find that they won’t be able to hear you,” he said, taking her delicate pinky between his thumb and forefinger and seeming to contemplate its pale fragility. “I’ve been away from my mate for nigh on three days now, and I’d rather not have this drug out any further than it must. You will tell me what I ask in tight little replies, and I might not break your whole fucking hand. We start now. How do you know the bitch we’re looking for?”



“S-similar circumstances,” Uo gasped as he slowly but surely began applying pressure to her pinky, bending it back to an angle that couldn’t be comfortable. In fact, as her face shone with a fine sheen of sweat and her breathing starting to come in pained little whimpers, he decided that it was definitely not ‘comfortable’. He smirked.



“A deserter as well?” He asked lightly, as if amused. “Good. I’d hate to break the fingers off an honest whore.”



“Not a whore,” she said angrily, spots of color rising on her pale cheeks. “I’ve never slept with any of the ‘customers’---I just use a simple genjutsu and their own lust finishes it. They think they’re screwing a beautiful woman, and I leave the room while they give themselves a hand job. This is a cover, so I can deal with shits like you.”



The crack of her finger being snapped was sickeningly loud. Uo smothered a shriek, writhing.



“Don’t be rude. I’m far older than you will ever be, bitch, and that demands respect. So, I assume that you’re just the lookout watching over the den. Unfortunately for you, you’re a hindrance to my plucking out that kit you’re hiding. Next question: where’s the den?”



“Den?” She echoed, eyes focusing in and out once in bleary pain.



“Where are you hiding the bitch?”



“Fuck yourself!”



He rolled red eyes in exasperated amusement. “I seem to be getting that a lot lately…so listen---“ CRACK went her ring finger. “---you’ve got three fingers left on your pretty right hand. I’m running short on mercy, so if you don’t stop screwing around, I just might break it at the wrist and call it a day. Tell me now.” He applied pressure on her slender middle finger, which made her knuckle pop ominously. Uo quailed slightly, exhaling a pained little hiss.



“She---I don’t know; they move weekly to avoid detection---“



“Not sure I like that answer,” he mused. “Care to illuminate?”



“---the slums usually; no questions are asked in the slums, so---aaaaaieeeh---the---the east of the city---please, just leave---“



“Bitches,” he said with a theatrical sigh. “The lot of you lie through your teeth. You really don’t know where they are. Not important enough to know, likely.”



Uo gave him a smoldering look of snarled hatred, holding her injured hand to her chest.



“Brighter than I took you for, brute.”



“Stupider than I took you for, bitch. I don’t get lied to. Lucky for you, this game is not even worth my time…”



He inhaled deeply, paused for a moment, and seemed to relax somehow, his entire frame softening like an image seen through sea-worn glass. That horrible, red-spice chakra was suddenly gone with a faint trail of smoky scent; Naruto sighed and tossed her a roll of bandages from his thigh-pouch. As if that made it better.



“Thank you for your time, Uo-san,” he said with politeness so put on it grated like a physical force. “I’ll see myself out.”



Naruto didn’t quite care when the bouncers---gorillas of men; why was it that they thought they needed to look like they slept on the bench-press to affirm their masculinity?---tossed him bodily into the street with a flying throw he didn’t even try to break from or stop. His disappointment at the busted information source---and he and Kyuubi had gotten so close---made him almost physically tired. Then again, he decided as he squinted at the night sky, riddled with hazy stars and low-clinging clouds, it was around…two in the morning?



Neji and Konohamaru were waiting for him outside, looking disgruntled in general. The Hyuuga was purposefully unbraiding his long hair---muttering soft curses at anyone who’d look at him straight---and the junior member of the team sort of moped.



“So, troops, how went the battle?” Naruto asked cheerfully, brushing gravel from his loose pants.



He was met with glares on both sides, and a sad, pathetic, my virginity is now partially gone and I blame you entirely whimper from Konohamaru.



“You’re late,” Neji said flatly.



“Got distracted. She tried to seduce and kill me, and I tried to seduce her to get information,” Naruto rubbed at his near-slit throat, which was rapidly healing. “I thought I might have it for a second there, so I uh, pushed a bit, but she actually didn’t know anything about where the kid is. Didn’t work out so well. Neji, ‘Maru, how’d you fare?”



Konohamaru turned a fantastic berry color, looking away.



“…I’ve got nothin’…” he mumbled, flushed.



Neji snorted dispassionately. “I’m thoroughly versed in the life’s history of that prostitute, and my hair hasn’t seen such lauding since Ten-Ten first met me, but the only information she gave me worth anything is that the festival colors this year are blue and aqua. Somehow, I doubt this knowledge is intrinsically vital to our mission, save for the unlikely occurrence that we are put on the festival decorating staff.”



Konohamaru blinked. “There’s a difference between blue and aqua?”



“One’s bluish, and the other one’s kinda, like, greenish-bluish and---never mind. Anyways, that was a bust. Might’ve been better had I been able to follow Uo-chan, but that didn’t happen, so we need a plan B.” Naruto leaned up against a tree, sighing. “Plan B. Plan B, plan B, plan B.”



“Merchants?” Konohamaru offered, playing with his long scarf. It’d gotten knotted several times during his ‘adventure’, and he’d rather not tote around a scarf knotted by giggling whores and stinking of their thick perfume. His mother would be less than pleased, and his reply of “it was an enemy nin, I swear!” wouldn’t quite cut it with mum. Mum always seemed to know better. He wondered idly if a stain-stick would be sufficient in working the lipstick out of the weave, but he feared that nothing short of a jutsu would rub it out. Damn.



“Merchants are all mouth and no eyes,” Neji said, shaking his head shortly. “They see little and what they do know is ceaselessly embroidered. The slew they’d offer would be more gossip than any full information.”



“’Zactly,” Naruto agreed. “Two options: we contact the Hidden Village of Mist---which, as you know, isn’t an option---or we talked to the other locals. I think their information might be less biased, and they wouldn’t have a skew.”



“But wasn’t that what we just did?” Konohamaru asked, freeing the last knot with a sigh. “We didn’t get info from the girls---at least nothing we can work off of---so---“



“Not those locals,” Naruto said brightly, and turned to the forest. “The other ones.”



“Other locals?” Konohamaru demanded, turning a curious look on Neji---as if the Hyuuga would actually know what the blond was yammering on about this time. No such luck. Naruto was already gleefully tromping through the underbrush, a bobbing yellow mop hastily disappearing into the dark, mossy embrace of the forest. “Naru-nii, where are we going nooooooow…?”





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It was very, very pink. All of it. From the curlicue script that lit up the door as Motherhood, A Maternity Boutique, to the goddamn walls---pink. Glaringly pink. Testosterone-scorching pink. The kind of pink that made undeserving straight men sleep with their mothers, gouge their eyes out with brooches, wandering the desert until vultures picked at their flesh…



Sasuke was not dealing well with it. Sakura and Ino had done the obligatory oohing and aaaahing over the various cute and fashionable clothing that circumstances allowed them to shove on Sasuke, and Sasuke himself just wanted to close his eyes, answer every question poised with an instant yes, and make the whole mess of pinkness go away.



Bowing his head to hide his scalding embarrassment, Sasuke jerked several articles of clothing off the rack that looked like they might fit him, totally ignoring the parts of Uchiha law that they blatantly broke (such as rule 836: no Uchiha male may dress in the clothing of the opposite sex, unless doing so fulfills mission requirements, rule 374: no Uchiha male may wear asexual clothing past five years of age, and, of course, his favorite---rule 32: proper Uchiha attire should chiefly be black, blue, red, gray, or forest green with neutral colors as balance; yellow, orange, and pastels may only be worn during festivals, and then for no more than six hours at a time. Pink may not be worn under any circumstance, given the notoriety of the Uchiha Clan, and the undoubted ridicule that would come from a Sharingan master clashing with his own eyes. ) Right now, though, he didn’t care if he even broke the sub-section describing the improper uses of bows (even if a shinobi of the Uchiha clan decides to wear bandages, he or she must knot the ends and trim them, so as not to give the impression of wearing bows: remember, clan dignity comes first)---he wanted to get out of this store as quickly as ninjaly possible.



He trotted to the changing rooms---hating to think that women, pregnant women, were using the stalls around him---and quickly forced on a pair of elastic-waisted pants and a simple white linen shift. Yes, these were masculine enough…sure, the shirt had tiny blue flower-buds embroidered throughout the sleeves, but he wasn’t precisely in the mood to complain. They weren’t mother-screwing-eye-gouging-vulture-picking pink. That was good enough.



“Sasuke-kun?” Sakura queried outside the stall door, making him stiffen. He took a gulping breath---as if having to be in this store wasn’t bad enough; the girls were going to poke and tease and generally make an ass out of him.



“What are you doing in here?” Sasuke hissed, peeling off the first shirt. A quick glance at the next shirt made him blanch---it was bright purple and had Baby On Board emblazoned across the front, as if anyone couldn’t tell just by looking at him. While purple wasn’t expressly addressed under Uchiha colors schemes (mostly because the Uchiha clan, on a general whole, was direly homophobic, and so certain words were conveniently left out of their vernacular, such as purple, sausage, and gay) it was still a firm and definite no for addition into his maternity wardrobe. He must have not been paying attention, he justified, to have picked up that monstrosity of thread and fabric. Then again, this whole store was enough to distract any male with even the barest drop of testosterone.



“What am I doing in here?” Sakura echoed, a scowl in her tone. “I’m female. Not that I can say the same for you, so it’s more of a question of what you’re doing in here.”



“They didn’t have a men’s dressing room,” Sasuke replied, sounding aggrieved.



“Gee,” Sakura said dryly. “I wonder why.”



“Don’t. Be. Sarcastic.” Sasuke bristled.



“Can I come in?”



“Can you find a way to die without making too much noise?”



“God, you’re bitchy today,” Sakura muttered, and simply pushed open the stall door.



He could have been naked for all she knew. As it was, he was halfway there, and, thanks to his growing triplets, he was showing far more flesh than he felt comfortable with at the moment. Suddenly realizing he was shirtless, he colored ripely, jerking back on his too-snug black t-shirt---he got it halfway over his stomach before realizing what sort of an idiot he probably looked like, struggling with a stupid shirt and his damned belly; he gave a frustrated growl and sat down on the bench in the dressing room, burying his hands in his dark hair. For a long moment, the only sound was of his hissing, perturbed breathing---quick and shallow, a toe’s-width away from Sharingan and an unholy amount of bloodshed.



“…you okay?” Sakura asked tentatively, hanging at the edge of the stall doorway. “Look, maybe shopping wasn’t a very good idea.”



“It’s fine,” Sasuke said with brutal finality. “I need clothes.”



“…Ino and I can just pick them out,” said Sakura, quickly adding: “---masculine clothes; no pink or bows, don’t worry! I’ve read the Uchiha family laws of conduct, I know what is and isn’t allowed. Of course, I read the rules when I was twelve and picking out the color schemes for our imaginary wedding, but I suppose the rules haven’t changed since then.”



“You have no idea what my size is,” Sasuke said leadenly, hands still knotted in his hair. Sighing, Sakura dug his hands out of his hair and dropped them into his lap---daring on her behalf, but a necessary show of gentleness between them. Sasuke was frazzled, and if aggressive kindness was enough to jerk him out of it, she’d hold his hands until he jerked them away, and watch out for him just like Naruto had begged her to do. Sasuke carefully extricated his hands from hers---scowling deeply---and gave a short litany of growled curses. Sakura ignored them.



“We’ll aim for ‘big’ and go from there,” the pink-haired kunoichi said sagely, patting his dark head and knowing that he didn’t have the energy to bite or complain. His state of drained chakra could be abused, Sakura found. “You go back home---we probably shouldn’t have shepherded you out in the first place, and Chouji should be there soon for his lesson, so---“



“I am not so weak,” the Uchiha said in definite, measured tones. “That I can’t deal with a shopping trip. I will not go back home with my tail between my legs. If you and Ino are better fit to pick out what will work, so be it, but I will try them on before I leave.”



“This is a masculinity issue with you, isn’t it?” Sakura asked with a weary half-grin.



“Yes,” Sasuke begrudged tetchily. “Now go get something that will fit around this bloated stomach of mine so that I can leave.”



It was no less than an hour later that Sasuke was finally freed from that unique torture known as trying on clothes while women squealed at his “adorable little baby-tummy!”. He’d suffered through it with an astounding level of grace considering his rather frazzled state, mainly surviving by keeping his mind elsewhere. Elsewhere included quietly replaying such personal triumphs as Naruto’s Eighteenth Birthday, The Ramen Meal, and What Happens When An Argument With the Dobe Goes Wrong. He had to keep himself sane some way, and not having a personal Kyuubi to keep him entertained, his libido was forced to creatively make up the difference.



And Sakura and Ino had thought that the smirk on his face had been because he enjoyed their attention. Silly, ignorant girls.





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A/N: Next chapter, Naruto gets a new admirer of the four-footed persuasion, Sasuke and Sakura have A Talk, and Konohamaru stops being a brat. Yay for that much, at least.



I finally got an LJ up and running---my user name is TheNinjaKitty, and the link is on my bio page, as usual. I post mumbling rants, previews and teasers of chapters before I post them on FFand artsy things. Go visit me and leave me a comment---I’m always lonely for a bit of loving .