Self-Reliance

[copy and pasted from FF.net]



SELF-RELIANCE



Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto. I don’t own Sasuke. But behold the forensic-nerd lingo!



Summary: A brief episode of CSI manned by ninja, Naruto industriously mopes about, Chouji is a sweetie, and Sasuke attempts to open up. Craziness in general.



Warnings: NaruSasu (omggay), mpreg (right, as if that was anything new), character death, and angst (again, nothing new).



CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Open Wounds





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A/N: Almost twenty thousand words; 44 pages. I am certifiably insane. I didn’t want to write this chapter; I don’t even particularly like this chapter. But it just wouldn’t stop GROWING. This chapter actually got shortened by about six pages, because breaking 50 pages just hurt my head to do.



Give love to my new beta---if this chapter didn’t break her in (and break her spirit), I don’t know what will. Arcane Theorem is God to have put up with me. GOD, I say.





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Naruto and Konohamaru did not speak much the next week, aside from the occasional mutters over whose turn it was to catch dinner and whose fault it was that they weren’t getting any leads. Konkon did not return after four days, so his teammates essentially wrote off his so-called conversation with the fox as a psychotic episode due to mental strain, no matter how Naruto argued otherwise. Since they’d taken to treating him with the soft-spoken tones and false smiles best lavished on the senile, Naruto spent most of his time up in a tree, throwing down the occasional command or curse at whoever approached him. Truth be told, the mission was proving both long and boring; they hadn’t found anything, no matter how they’d combed the city, and he was silently beginning to yield that Uo and all related paraphernalia had been some kind of fluke---the group she had been associated with had probably moved on already, Hanabi with them…



Naruto, awake and irritable on the morning that marked the end point in their allotted mission time, stared up at the forest canopy and resisted the urge to tromp around in the underbrush until he found something cute, furry, and utterly undeserving to maul.



It wasn’t fair. He didn’t want to be on a mission. He wanted to be at home with his mate. He wasn’t much for missions that included low levels of blood and argh, so this roaming the city day in and day out---and finding nothing---was enough to wear at his patience.



He huffed a sigh, scratching at his mop of unbrushed hair---it stood out in electrified disarray, messier than usual. Naruto knew he smelt a bit---a week and a half and counting since his last bath---but that went just as well with the persona he’d adopted when going around the city. He pretended to be a drunk (and, as proven on multiple occasions, he was very good at it), Neji posed as a blind beggar and Konohamaru acted as his help, accompanying him like one might a disabled granny. Anyone who looked like they might recognize his eyes as the Hyuuga bloodline and not blindness was quickly assaulted with a dual genjutsu, something Neji excelled at. Now if only their clever disguises would be rewarded with a lead or two. Unfortunately, the spring festival in Bunsuikai had flooded the streets with tourists, so it was difficult to pick out the natives that might know about the missing-nin from those there simply for the festival.



Neji was unduly optimistic on the whole about it---he didn’t mind if they needed to ask the Godaime for an extension to their mission; he seemed sure that Hanabi was in Bunsuikai, and it didn’t bother him if they had to stay for a few more weeks. Naruto squinted cantankerously as he thought about it. Of course Neji wouldn’t mind mucking about in the woods for a bit longer---his wife wasn’t the one pregnant with triplets, sickly enough that it would be a damn miracle if she carried them to term. No…that was Naruto’s problem, an issue that weighed down his mind and kept him staring wistfully up at the smattering of stars until dawn faded them out.



He knew Sasuke, and Sasuke was brooding and self-destructive. He needed to be watched constantly, and though he’d asked many of his closer friends to do just that in his absence, he didn’t have much faith in their abilities to keep Sasuke above water. Most still feared him a bit---though Naruto couldn’t imagine how, as he currently looked absolutely pathetic, tired and pale and waddling with a kit-swollen stomach---so they wouldn’t go against his moodiness. Naruto seemed to be the only one with balls enough to growl at Sasuke when he was being dumb, so not being available to perform that duty tugged at him.



If something happened to Sasuke while he was gone…Naruto couldn’t even contemplate the thought, really. He set it neatly aside to be brushed away under the carpet in his mind with the rest of the dirt.



Naruto quickly opened his eyes, startled, as he felt an abrupt weight on his chest---his mind immediately wanted to equate the feeling with the weight of Sasuke’s head when he sighed and flopped down next to him, wanting to be near him but far too stubborn to say the word “snuggle” aloud---but a pointed, red-and-cream face filled his vision the moment he opened his eyes, and not the tangled nest of blue-black hair he’d been hoping for.



“I found it,” the fox said, her golden eyes dancing. “The place where the bitch is at. She smells a lot like that white-eyed tod with you, the one that gives me scraps.”



Mentally, Naruto smirked. So Neji did have a soft spot for animals, then.



“Where is it, Konkon-chan?” Naruto asked, giving her head a gentle pet. She warmed to the touch, closing her eyes into good-humored slits and rubbing her head and cheek against his palm. Her whiskers tickled.



“In the no-fur part of the human town, where packs carry sticks to chase us out and kits throw rocks. Their dens are large, and this one has many rooms---I hid in the bushes and watched for an entire day, Kyuu-kun, just to make sure. Bitches go in and out,” Konkon said, tail twitching. “They all smell heavily of chakra, but this one---this one in particular. I think she’s sick.”



“Sick?” Naruto echoed uncomfortably. Right, on top of everything else…



“Smelt…off,” the fox agreed. “The one you were looking for wore dark eye-coverings and needed a good kill---the human was too thin, I think, though I’m not a very good judge of these sort of things.”



“Thin with sunglasses…well, that’s something to go off of, I guess…” Naruto muttered, rubbing his chin. “Konkon-chan, you are a doll. Thank you for your help.”



The fox beamed with pleasure, demurely wrapping her thick tail around her dainty paws. “It was my pleasure to help the only human intelligent enough to be adopted by the foxes. Come on, come on, Kyuu---I’ll lead you there!”



“Hey guuuuuuys!” Naruto boomed, hearing the snorts and mumbles that meant he’d woken up his teammates. He’d soon be assaulted by one black glare and one white one, equally fierce at having the loudest and most obnoxious ninja playing rooster with their sleep schedules. He grinned at the two men in the sleeping bags, the fox tucked under one arm and a huge grin on his face because, above all else, he was probably going to be able to go home. “We’ve got her!”





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Naruto returned to the village in the middle of the night, his timing just as poor and intolerable as usual. Sakura came by at eleven to wake Sasuke up, shaking him out of a dead sleep. He would have been angry had she not screamed “he’s back-he’s back-he’s baaaaack!” when she slammed open his bedroom door (Kakashi had let her in…again). Sasuke had gotten dressed as quickly as possible---tossing on a jacket (which no longer zipped up past his stomach) and sandals (which took a bit; he could no longer see his feet).



The family members of the return group were huddled together in the Godaime’s office, sedately doing the whole small-talk graze as if they weren’t waiting for news with baited breath. Sasuke briefly waved at Hinata---half-asleep and toting a snoozing Yuji---before taking a seat until the jounin team finished their debrief. Sakura hovered at his side, making quiet inquisitions as to how his back was feeling, was he sure he wanted to wait up, she could bring Naruto home for him if he wanted…



Sasuke answered all this with silence and a tired glare. Sakura ended up relenting, flopping down in the chair next to him with a sigh. Thankfully, the debriefing didn’t take as long as he’d anticipated, and he blinked up at the creak of the door. Neji came out first---looking weary, the white robes beneath his jounin jacket smattered with bloody handprints---and he was instantly engulfed by his wife and son. Hinata squealed all sorts of frantic questions at him---none of which Neji answered; he placated his wife with a gentle stroke of her glossy dark hair and a quiet “later, Hinata-sama”.



Konohamaru trailed the Godaime, a baby in his arms. Sasuke briefly did a double-take at that---it was a little ghost of a baby, wrapped in Konohamaru’s chuunin jacket and sleeping fitfully---but the baby was quickly passed to Hinata’s father, Hiashi. The boy gave a brief, whispered explanation to the head of the Hyuuga clan---he started a bit, shocked, and then took the baby without another word.



Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. The brat and the Hyuuga were back, so where the hell was their team leader? He drummed his fingers on his knees, nervous and not precisely able to voice it or recognize it as such. The ache of the last two weeks came to a sudden and abrupt head, one of the more illogical voices in his head screeching that he’d dreamt the truth: Naruto was injured, Naruto was dying, Naruto was dead and Sakura and Tsunade were not telling him because they feared a miscarriage; cosseting him, dammit, and---



---and a blond head popped in the doorway, followed by the muscle and lank that was Uzumaki Naruto. Like Neji, he had blood on his uniform, but he didn’t look that worse for wear---that was, until he looked up at Sasuke, and the Uchiha saw something cold and brittle in his eyes that instantly twisted his stomach into a knot.



That was not one of Naruto’s favored expressions. That was something harsh and foreign, best fit for Kyuubi, though the eyes that glanced sideways at him were wholly blue.



He smiled at his mate, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. Sasuke shifted uncomfortably in his chair, silently taking the hand Sakura offered to help him to his feet. He usually would have batted it away on principle, but his knees were feeling strangely weak. He blamed it on his growing belly and left it tactfully at that.



Naruto and Sasuke stared at each other from opposite sides of the room, gauging the other’s expression like preteen wallflowers at their first school dance. They silently and carefully dared the other to make the first move, to toss aside his masculinity with a jubilant cry and trot over, arms open.



“You’re back,” Sasuke, the first to speak, said. He phrased it in the softest, most reserved tone he could muster when he wanted to take a fistful of the taller boy’s hair and kiss him forcefully until that gods-be-damned expression faded from his face. If it took blood in his mouth to accomplish it, Sasuke wouldn’t be against it. “You look like you’re not missing any limbs, too. Surprising for you, dobe.”



“The limbs you can see, yeah,” Naruto said, smirking. “You might have to check the rest later to make sure I really am intact.”



Sasuke let the exaggerated sigh of relief building up in his chest escape as an ‘irritated’ hiss; had he caved and smirked up at Naruto, the already failing image Konoha had of the last decent Uchiha would be utterly destroyed. A more physical part of him wanted to latch onto Naruto and simply glare at the looks he’d get from the group of fellow shinobi. A part of him didn’t want to care, but another, larger, scowling part of Sasuke cared very, very much.



“Dobe,” Sasuke growled before he could bite back the impulse---thankfully, though, the familiar taunt just made him soften a bit and sidle up closer.



Naruto slid his calloused hands over each individual part of his mate from jutting belly to down-turned face, making sure that he was just as sound as he looked. He ruffled his dark hair briefly, winking as he brushed a rough thumb beneath his chin. After a few moments of cautious touches and light strokes, he grinned, his verdict in.



“You’ve gotten huge!”



“Doesn’t anyone say ‘hello’ anymore?” the Uchiha heir groused, momentarily mourning his incredibly dead pride. Yes, huge was a word that could be applied to his figure with increasing accuracy; no, it was nothing new. The idiot just liked saying it, rubbing it in with grins and teases.



“And how are the kits?” the kyuubi-boy asked playfully, creeping his fingers up Sasuke’s shirt hem to drum lightly against his stretched belly.



“The kits are fine,” Sasuke gently assured him. “A little spotty for a while, but we’re doing better.”



“You’ve lost weight again,” Naruto said accusingly.



“Stress,” Sasuke admitted, and bowed his head slightly. Something about the jounin’s tone made his chest tighten, the slight growl reminding him who was meant to be the submissive one. Maybe not submissive---Sasuke was anything but totally submissive---but at least compliant. He had his own responsibilities now---possibly just as important as the responsibility connected with the Konoha headplate looped loosely around his neck---and Naruto’s slight frown made it perfectly clear that he hadn’t exactly lived up to that responsibility. “I’ll gain it back and then some with you home. The pressure from you, Sakura, and Chouji has become nearly ridiculous.”



“Promise?” Naruto asked, smiling winningly. He tangled his hands in his hair, leaning back in a way that was probably meant to look askance and relaxed. It would have, too, had Sasuke not seen and recognized the way the finer muscles in his shoulders shook with suppressed tension. He chewed on his lower lip, looking down so that Sasuke could barely see his bright eyes past the veiling fringe of his dark blond lashes. “I’ll check and you know it. It’s my solemn duty to make sure you and the kits are safe…always…’cause you know there’s shit out there that could---could hurt you…”



That fake smile faltered. He stooped the several inches between them and kissed Sasuke’s nose, tilting his chin up with a gentle hand. It was obvious that all eyes were locked on this very public display of affection; Sasuke could feel the prickle of glares without having to spare a glare back at them. He growled inwardly---he’d come out about this relationship weeks ago; cessation of the jaw-drops and ogling would be courteous at the very least. He bristled at them, then dropped his irritation and focused entirely on his mate. This was more important at the moment, because Naruto’s slowly crumbing expression was as painful to watch as a slow bleed.



“Dobe,” Sasuke whispered into his mate’s ear as Naruto leaned into him. “They’re staring.”



“Let ‘em stare,” Naruto said softly, and pulled Sasuke into a timid kiss, just barely pressing his lips against his mate’s. Sasuke, a little more desperate for that kind of contact than he wanted to admit, arched up into it, open and ready and therefore stunned when he felt Naruto trembling. Breaking the kiss, Sasuke realized that there were tears in his eyes. Tears, true tears, running silently down Naruto’s face---tears gleaming, aqueous, in his blue eyes and dampening his whiskers. Sasuke drew back in his embrace, shocked.



“Don’t worry about it.” the kyuubi-boy said, rubbing his moist face with the heel of one hand. He snorted as his nose ran, flushed with embarrassment. “Just a rough mission, and you know what a crybaby I am…” His voice hitched with a jagged sob, making the tightness in Sasuke’s chest redouble with a fiendish vengeance. “I’m gonna have to figure out a way to make sure I never have to leave you and the kits again, that’s all…”



Baffled, Sasuke did the only thing he could think of: he held the taller boy to him, allowing him to bury his face in his neck and shoulder and cry.



Neji sighed aloud, snaking an arm around Hinata’s waist as she stared at her former crush, her pale eyes wide and dismayed. She sniffled softly, looking up at her husband for support. He curled a hand over her dark hair and sighed again, unable to explain in a way that wouldn’t compound his team leader’s pain. Konohamaru watched them knowingly, his expression closed. He’d carry that mission with him for the rest of his life, a neat stack of horrors like Kabuto’s cards that marked the lives of shinobi. It came with the territory.



“I want to go home,” Naruto said quietly, his eyes dark and lifeless. He twined one hand with Sasuke’s, his expression so blank as to age him---more than making him an adult, it made him old.



Yondaime had looked like that, Tsunade thought, watching Sasuke tug Naruto towards the door. Tears on his face, blue eyes dim, old and young at the same time… The night the fox had thrust his triangular red head through the protective canopy of the trees, tails lashing like thick rushes of flame, the night that he’d left his village and came back a baby with a curse, Yondaime had looked like that. The resemblance was uncanny, and why not? The Fourth and the Sixth were not so unlike each other, past the surface similarities. Tsunade could only hope that he wouldn’t leave so young---Konoha needed a face like that in the Hokage’s chair just as much as it needed it on its mountain range.



“Oi, Naruto.” Tsunade interrupted, keeping the boy in an unwavering golden focus.



Naruto turned to look back at the older woman, so very not the playful fox-boy she knew that it twisted her heart in a knot to look at him. He needed a bath, he needed rest, he needed something stiff and whatever comfort Sasuke knew how to offer. This mission had hit him hard and wore him down, leaving him stripped of the bright defenses he had against the world at large.



“Yes, Godaime-sama?” Probably the first time he’d addressed her properly, too. Tsunade found that she didn’t like the sound of the title when it came from him. ‘Granny Tsunade’ was better, ‘the hag’ was better---anything was better, as long as it included one of his golden grins and mischievous jibes.



“You asked for three weeks,” she said stridently, hands on her hips, not about to let her façade slip. A part of her wanted to sigh and gather the boy---no, he wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a man, and therefore complicated---in her arms, giving him a peck on the forehead. That used to fix things, didn’t it? Once upon a time that had been comfort enough, but now it was nothing short of trite. He was a man---not a brat, and certainly not a little brother. He had to find his own ways to cope now. “And I gave them to you. I need an answer for the elders, Naruto.”



“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Naruto said, barely above a murmur. Sasuke looked up at him searchingly, confused, but Naruto remained locked in a steady gaze with the Godaime. He ignored his mate and the hand that was knotted in his shirt hem, tugging slightly to get his attention. His eyes didn’t dip to give him any kind of answer---he just carefully untangled Sasuke’s fingers, a gentle rebuke. Sasuke neither liked the motion nor the thinly-veiled chide. He felt confused and scolded, and he wasn’t accustomed to either sensation. “I wanted to say no for a long time, just ‘cause I didn’t want to put Konoha through that kind of upheaval.” He said softly, looking anywhere but at those in the Godaime’s chambers. He swallowed the sudden lump rising in his throat and bravely pushed on, finally meeting the Godaime’s steady gaze. “But recent events have changed my mind. The answer’s yes… I’ll do it.”



Tsunade exhaled slowly, a weight lifting from her shoulders. She tried to smother her pleased smile---this is how it was meant to happen, she knew---and it flitted at the edge of her lip-sticked mouth before she tucked it away. It might take days or weeks, but the morning would come where Naruto would burst into her office, put his hands on his hips, and yell at her to pack her bags---that chair was his. She could unfold the smile then, but right now the mood was too somber. Right now, the young Hokage needed rest.



“I’ll round up the elders,” the Godaime said. “You’ll come before them tomorrow morning. I’d suggest you rest until then---get some sleep, and keep Sasuke-kun company. He’s missed you, Naruto-kun.”



Naruto nodded, leaning against Sasuke again as he helped him pick his way home.





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They followed the bobbing red flag of the fox’s tail through the streets, no longer worrying about genjutsu or blending; each was altogether too sure that the fox was right, and it was an unspoken consensus that if this was just another dead end, they’d resort to harsher means of interrogation, flashing their village head-protectors like sheriff badges.



Konkon took Naruto’s group towards the upscale part of town---the “no-fur” part as Konkon had put it, the portion where the wildlife had been firmly chased out---through alleyways and convoluted short-cuts in a foxily meandering route. They followed in silence, exchanging looks as she proudly stopped before the door to a small house, the lawn neatly kept up. Konkon sat on the doormat, grinning and swishing her tail. Naruto gave her head a grateful pat, and she preened a moment before bowing---even Neji blinked at that; it was an unmistakable bow, her red head inclining until in nearly touched her dainty front paws---and then she bounded away, tail a-wag.



Konohamaru was the first to make a go at the door. He jiggled the doorknob, sighed, and proclaimed it to be locked. His next motion was to paw around in his knapsack until he found his lock-picking equipment, but Naruto, as impulsive as ever, beat him to the punch.



Literally.



As Konohamaru gaped, Naruto slid in beside him, took the doorknob, and wrenched it forward---thanks to bestial strength, it completely cleared the door, coming through the wood it was mired in with a horrendous splintering sound. Grinning, he dropped the doorknob and beamed at his teammates.



“Hey, look! I fixed the door,” Naruto proudly informed them, kicking open the split remains and innocently gesturing them inside.



Neji and Konohamaru followed with mutters, mulishly obeying their team leader’s command of “fan out and look for shit”.



Neji found the body. A girl, curled up on the bedroom floor, her slit wrists crossed over her stomach, eerily peaceful in repose. Her long black hair was fanned out beneath her head, her young face just as pale and composed as it had been in life, and he didn’t need to gently lift her eyelids to know that the irises would be milky lavender, as per the Hyuuga clan. He hated the looks of it---the fragile wrists slit unceremoniously, the blood staining her thin shift like a psychopath’s fingerpainting---and, above all else, he hated that if her hair had been shorter, her face rounder and more inviting, she would have been the very image of her elder sister. It turned his stomach to think about, and only a carefully blank expression kept him from swallowing hard and looking away.



It was not the kind of death Neji was used to seeing---bodies contorted in agony, rage, the hot will and anger of a ninja living on through the empty shell---and it took him a moment’s thought to realize that she was dead, and not simply asleep.



Naruto found him. He heard the blond before he bothered to look up at him---heard his startled intake of breath, his tired curse, and then the exhalation that was a half-sigh.



“She’s been dead for at least three hours,” Neji said, touching Hanabi’s cooling face with his fingertips. They came back pale with a fine dusting of makeup. “Suicide. She slit her wrists.”



“Dammit,” Naruto said quietly.



“Guys, I didn’t find---oh God,” Konohamaru took the scene in with huge, dark eyes, his mouth half-open. Unlike the older men, he had not seen death, not to the degree that it became flat and tiring and no longer awoke righteous rage deep in their chests. “Oh God. Is she---is she dead?”



Neji nodded shortly. Konohamaru wavered a bit, and Naruto shot him a look. The last thing they needed was their junior member getting a weak stomach; if he was going to be sick, he would carefully tell him to do it in the other room and not spoil the scene for the cleanup crew. He steeled himself after a moment, though, taking short, shaky breaths to prove that he was adult enough to be on this mission.



“I’ll contact the backup,” Naruto said, rubbing his forehead. What a waste---a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of life. “I’m sure they’ve been watching us, and it’s under their jurisdiction to take the body---“ and how quickly it became ‘the body’, from ‘her body’, from ‘Hanabi’. It was easier when death was faceless. “---back to Konoha…come on. The less we touch things, the less paperwork we have to fill out.”



“No,” said Konohamaru.



“No what?” Naruto repeated tiredly. “No, you don’t want to do paperwork? Sorry little dude, but that’s kinda what A-level is all about. Tons and tons of paperwork that nobody even looks at---“



“No---no, I mean---just wait,” Konohamaru interrupted suddenly, his brow furrowed with thought. He chewed idly on his thumbnail, staring unblinkingly at the corpse. “This isn’t right. Where’s the blood?”



“No…” Neji said softly, lavender-white eyes scanning over the scene with a more detached interest than before. The kid was spot on. “Damn. He’s right. There should be more blood than this. By the lividity on her, I’d say she wasn’t moved---she died here, and I don’t even see enough trace blood to suggest that there was a cleanup…”



“Exactly. There should be a hell of a lot more blood than this if the cause of death was bleeding out, and…her blood…” Konohamaru knelt down and ran his fingers through a pool of the girl’s blood, rubbing it between his fingers and taking it to the light for examination. He frowned, muttering about the color, and then wiped it on his pants. He looked pointedly over at Neji. “The blood’s too red.”



“Too red?” Naruto echoed, blinking. “I thought blood is s’posed to be red and stuff.”



“Yeah---but no, this…look,” Konohamaru held up his fingers. “It’s very red. That means that her body wasn’t able to process the oxygen carried in her red blood cells, and that only happens when…”



“Since when were you so well-versed in blood?” Naruto asked, blinking.



“Godaime-sama thought it’d be good for me to have knowledge that compliments my stealth skills…Shizune-san has been tutoring me on serology, poisons, and…” Still frowning, Konohamaru rubbed his fingers together again, distracted. “…and I’d almost think cyanide, but it’s not that red, and I know for a fact that I have the genetic marker that makes me able to smell it, but there’s no bitter almond scent…hmm. Help me search her body. I’ve got a hunch.”



“What are we looking for?” Neji asked, obviously thinking that his bloodline somehow came into play.



“Pinpricks. Needle entry---pre-mortem, so there might be some bruising around the wound. We should check the easiest deposit places…arms, thighs, abdomen, buttocks…” Konohamaru colored, suddenly a fifteen-year-old boy again. “Um, Neji-san? Could you---could you check her down there? …I don’t really want to examine her ass.”



Neji nodded shortly and undressed the girl with professional finesse, running his white eyes over the cold flesh to find the telltale puncture mark as Konohamaru gingerly rolled up her long sleeves and made a similar search. He muttered a curse upon finding the needle’s miniscule bite mark on the inside of her right bicep, the bruise dark. Konohamaru had almost missed it since the blood had settled over the bruise after her death, staining the flesh a deep red color. He sighed, pointing it out to the Hyuuga, who nodded grimly.



Konohamaru sat back on his heels and irately brushed his hair from his bleak eyes.



“It wasn’t a suicide,” he said darkly. “I didn’t think so…see, the cuts on her wrists are nearly dry---post mortem. The person staging this knew what they were doing, obviously, ‘cause they thought to even include shallow hesitation cuts, as if she was fighting with her resolve to kill herself. Cause of death, though, wasn’t bleeding out. It was asphyxiation, and I’d bet my scarf---“ he waved it for emphasis, flipping the loose end with its Konoha seal over his shoulder. “---that she got injected with succinyl choline, a poison which paralyzes all the muscles and makes breathing impossible. It’s also a bitch to trace. So yeah…this was a homicide, sensei, probably meant to throw us off her trail.”



“’Maru?” Naruto said, giving him a pleased grin. “That was badass. I knew bringing you along would be a good idea---I give you a big gold star for team spirit and a buttload of brownie points.”



“Eheh, it was simple deduction,” the younger ninja replied, blushing lightly at the praise.



“But what it means, I’m afraid, is that this isn’t Hanabi,” Neji said, holding the girl’s chin in one hand and scanning her features impassively. “A look-alike, but they forgot to include that Hanabi has a recent scar above her right breast incurred during a sparring match with myself.” He let her chin drop; it rolled laxly to the side. “Konohamaru-kun is correct in saying that whoever staged this knew what they were doing…it’s the work of a craftsman. If not for our own personal knowledge of Hanabi, it might’ve been a perfect illusion.”



“Are you sure it isn’t Hanabi-chan?” Naruto asked, blinking. “It smells like her. That’s what drew Konkon here---the similarity of her scent to yours, Neji, and I agree with the fox. I can smell Hanabi here, too.”



“…could she have staged it, then?” Konohamaru queried in a tiny voice, as if he didn’t like the thought of a nin from his own age group murdering an innocent girl and gracefully posing her dead limbs like a puppeteer…



“High possibility,” Naruto murmured. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for concentration. “Her scent’s still real fresh. I could follow it…”





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Sasuke drew a bath for Naruto as soon as they got through the door, half because Naruto smelt terrible and was crusted with blood (which Sasuke could only hope was not his own), half because he would fall asleep in said blood-crusted clothes if he was allowed to. He was dog-tired, barely able to walk straight.



Sasuke set the water as hot as he dared, rummaging around in the cupboards until he found the antiseptic bath salts that Sakura had dropped by---ideally for his use when trying to soothe muscles worn-out from carrying triplets, but he decided that Naruto deserved some soothing of his own.



Naruto followed him wearily to the bathroom, settling Sasuke down on the toilet seat as if he was a doll best set on the shelf. It was sort of an unspoken that he didn’t want his mate to leave, so the Uchiha stayed put, despite his personal belief that watching someone else bathe was pure silliness, especially since Naruto meant nothing romantic or sexual by it. He sighed as the blond undressed, pulling off each article of clothing with weary disdain. He quietly unbuttoned his flak jacket and set it aside, tossing his black shirt, sandals, pants, and underwear in a tangled heap.



Sasuke would have appreciated the now-familiar tanned body, but the deep scratches in his back (something Kyuubi obviously refused to heal; he’d have to ask Naruto why the fox was disagreeing with him again) and the bruises on his forearms distracted him from the broad shoulders and flat stomach. His trained eyes recognized those wounds as not being defensive; someone with claws had scrabbled at his back, writhed against his hold. He’d had someone pinned, and they’d fought back. That didn’t bode well with Sasuke.



Naruto slid into the water gingerly, with a chorus of mumbles, yips, and growls of pain. The open cuts on his back obviously recoiled at the hot water, and sore muscles put in their two cents in informing him that he hurt, and that he needed rest. After he relaxed a bit, stretching out in the tub and giving his body a chance to work out its knots, Naruto sighed.



“Are you sure the kits are alright?” Naruto asked, taking the scrubber Sasuke tossed at him and getting to work on his various wounds. He sucked in his breath through his teeth at the elaborate pain-tangos that were dancing over his skin. “You said they’ve been ‘spotty’. Spotty is not encouraging.”



“They’re fine, dobe,” Sasuke said quietly, not about to start an argument with him at this point. “I’ve got little hands and feet pushing and kicking at my abdomen at all hours, now. I think they miss your rubs.”



Usually, Naruto would have grinned beatifically at that, motioning Sasuke closer so that he could massage his belly with a damp hand.



But he didn’t. He just closed his eyes wearily, sinking lower into the tub and sighing again.



“You don’t look fine. You look terrible. Worse than when I left, and that’s sayin’ something.”



“And I thank you for your kind support,” Sasuke griped irritably.



“I’m just being honest,” the blond said flatly. He ran a hand through his wet hair. “I should have told Tsunade to send someone else. I shouldn’t have left.”



“It was a mission. We’ve been over this.”



“Have we?” Naruto muttered, looking up at the ceiling. “Oh---wait, yeah, we did go over this. You yelled at me, I yelled back…man, I miss the times when we could just beat the shit out of each other and call it a day. Now we have to talk things out…or yell. Mostly yell.”



“It was easier when we just decided things by who inflicted the most bruises, but that obviously isn’t an option anymore,” Sasuke sighed, rubbing absentmindedly at his stomach. “Not with me like this, at least. I know neither of us are kings of civility, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk.”



“Man, you did miss me, didn’t you?” the kyuubi-boy queried with a smirk. “You must’ve gotten pretty damn sick of silence to actually be suggesting we talk.”



“You first,” Sasuke said, giving him a leveling look. He crossed his arms over his chest and resisted the urge to shake Naruto; dammit, what was wrong, what had happened, why was he falling to pieces, why was he giving him this surreal cold shoulder? He wanted to snap at him with demands, but he corralled the urge and taped it up with his insufferable patience. Naruto would tell him. Yes, Naruto would tell him, and if he didn’t give the information freely, restrictive wires and mild torture might eventually become involved. “Why not start with why you’re suddenly brimming with angst?”



“…it’s nothing. ’M just tired,” Naruto mumbled, climbing back out of the tub. Sasuke, recognizing this as the brush-off it was, was on the edge of feeling sharply indignant. Naruto was skirting him. Naruto was snubbing him, short and irritated. This was not how Sasuke had imagined their two-week separation ending. His mental version of this had included a lot more licks and cuddles, which he had planned to squirm away from. He’d cave at Naruto’s whining, though, as he always did---as mannishly as possible, just to keep the dobe in his place.



This---this attitude that Naruto was pulling, though…Sasuke was hating it fully.



Naruto dripped purposefully all over the floor until Sasuke, fed up, threw a towel at him. He roughly dried his hair and body, tossing the towel back and slouching out of the bathroom naked. Sasuke blinked at him---he wasn’t particularly complaining that the idiot wasn’t fond of clothing (that mess of golden hair and skin was not something anyone could call hard on the eyes), but usually he’d prance about and be a general moron (claiming it was the Uzumaki Clan Nakie-Nakie Dance of Good Luck).



“Get some clothes on,” Sasuke yelled at his damp backside, half-kneeling over in order to gather up the bloody things he’d left on the floor---not because Sasuke was some sort of housewife (he physically recoiled at the term), but because he feared that he’d trip over them in the dark when on one of his numerous nightly trips to the bathroom. Things had their places for good reason, his perfectionist nature agreed with a short nod, and he didn’t want to fall over and harm his kit-heavy belly due to Naruto’s inability to clean things up. His back protested leaning over that way---too much baggage out front---which only made him more irritable.



“Yeah, yeah,” the blond said, disappearing into their bedroom. Sasuke tossed his uniform into the sink as he waddled past, rubbing knuckles at the small of his aching back.



Naruto was already in bed when he opened the door; he’d thrown on those heinous green-and-orange boxers and a t-shirt, curled up among the covers, and promptly fell asleep. Or so Sasuke had thought---the moment he crawled into the futon next to him, familiar hands crept to settle on his stomach and thigh, rubbing gentle circles as he industriously pretended to be asleep. The dobe. Probably thought that feigning sleep would discourage questions, but he couldn’t help himself when it came to touching his mate. Sasuke suffered through his silly little game---rolling his eyes at the ceiling, exasperated with Naruto, but not about to tell him to stop massaging.



He would have been happy enough to leave the matter until morning---Naruto was always more cheerful when ramen was shoved in his face---but ‘pressing’ matters made him squirm, suddenly in dire need of the bathroom.



Definitely one of the worst parts about this pregnancy, Sasuke thought ruefully to himself. It was just his luck that everything else in his abdomen would be constricted due to the babies taking up a great deal of room. The fact that one or more of them had a fondness for punting his bladder didn’t help matters, either.



Sasuke fought with the need to pee for a moment before becoming fed up; he tugged at a fistful of Naruto’s hair---the best way to get his attention, he’d found---and grimaced.



“Naruto,” Sasuke said softly into his mate’s ear, making his weary blue eyes open to look at him. “If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to wet myself.”



“You sure?” Naruto asked, sounding pained. He squinted over at Sasuke, registering the twitchy expression on his face---he really had to piss---and yet not affected by the look. Usually, he would have fallen over backwards with an explosion of giggles at his mate’s squirminess, but today he seemed too heavy with thoughts to even move.



“I’m sure that I have three extra passengers pressing on my bladder, yes. Much as I enjoy this, I will wet myself if you don’t let me up. I’ve been holding it for a while as is.”



Naruto helped him to his feet, leading him again to the bathroom by one thin wrist, and he waited outside the door like some strange sunny watchdog as he relieved himself. The moment he was finished, Naruto dragged him back to the futon and curled up with him again. Sasuke felt that reassurance was what Naruto undoubtedly needed---he seemed unable to let his mate out of his sight, and touching him was the only thing that kept him from jittering and crying again. He wanted to probe---what could have happened to hurt Naruto emotionally on this mission; why was it that he needed to be so damn touchy-feely? The blond had his cheek resting on Sasuke’s chest, lulled half to sleep by the steady assurance of his heartbeat.



Cautiously, Sasuke stroked back his hair. It felt like dry summer grass rasping between his fingers, and one blue eye opened to look up at him.



“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Sasuke asked quietly.



He paused, jaw squaring as he fought with something large, heavy, and totally intangible.



“No. Not right now,” Naruto mumbled, closing his eyes again. “Still hurts.”



“Something happened on your mission?” He pressed, not about to let him go.



“Shit happened on my mission. Welcome to the reality of being a ninja.”



“You don’t need to be sarcastic with me, moron,” Sasuke growled, lightly punching his upper-arm. Naruto just took the hit, not returning it with a grin or groaning with affronted pain. Again, it was unlike him, and it made Sasuke’s stomach hurt. “I’m better-versed in sarcasm than you’ll ever be. What kind of shit happened?”



He chewed on the story for a moment, tasting each thought as if it was thick and bitter. Sasuke glared shortly over at him, sighed, and then scooted closer, pressing his cheek into the jounin’s shoulder. His mate seemed to soften slightly at the contact, the knot in his chest loosening. He licked his lips.



“We were trying to find a missing-nin,” Naruto said finally, not opening his eyes. He curled up closer to Sasuke, his breath warm against his throat. “Hyuuga Hanabi.”



“And did you?”



“Yes. I wish we hadn’t.”



Silence. Naruto really thought he could leave it at that.



“Keep going,” Sasuke said shortly.



“…it was a screwed up mission. The kid---the kid had her reasons, and, for once, it wasn’t because she was suppressing the urge to go clan-killy or because she was in the market for Ultimate Power. Took a while to find her; she had people protecting her like you wouldn’t believe---wish I had that kind of loyalty from a bunch of criminals, too. I got the help of the forest folk---“



“You’re shitting me,” Sasuke said, forcibly beating down the mental image of his mate happily frolicking with the bears, deer, and bunnies. It came too easily for his liking.



“Nah,” said Naruto, sliding his hands beneath the covers and drawing his knuckles thoughtfully over Sasuke’s belly. He didn’t miss the tremble of his hand, but thought it best not to press the matter. Naruto would get to it, and if he didn’t, he’d pin the idiot with his considerable weight until he caved and told him why he was suddenly so touchy and needy. “That’s not the point, though. The point is that we did find a missing-nin---not the one we wanted, though, and this one looked, at first glance, to be a suicide.”



“Naruto,” Sasuke urged quietly. Naruto had stopped for a long moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked like he was fighting tears. Naruto wasn’t proud enough to pretend otherwise, either. There was something surreal to that, Sasuke thought, shaking his head. Naruto was Naruto.



“‘M-Maru figured it out,” he ground out. “…proved that the girl was a look-alike who’d been dolled up and poisoned to throw us off her trail. There was enough of Hanabi’s scent that Kyuubi and I could follow it, and…we…we found her, but…”



The girl turned on him with a snarl, holding a shaking kunai in both hands. She fully realized that she was no match for two other jounin, especially considering that one was a cousin whose bloodline was far superior to her own, and the other was something of a legend in his own right. Hanabi took her breaths in ragged gasps between gritted teeth, sweat standing out on a pale face pinched by Byakugan. Spots of moisture blossomed on her shirtfront.



Naruto exhaled softly, horrified as it abruptly clicked into place.



“Hanabi-chan,” he said gently, lowering his weapons. “Where’s the baby?”



“Fuck off!” the girl jounin snapped, furious. “Just---just leave me alone!”



Naruto took a step nearer, holding his hands up in treaty. Even so, she hissed and jumped back, stiff as a cat. He was almost reminded of Sasuke---had her eyes been inversed, the resemblance would’ve been uncanny. His heart hurt for her because of that---because of what that moistness meant, because of what had become horribly clear to him.



“You’re leaking,” Naruto pointed out gently. “Time for the baby to eat again?”



Hanabi did not look particularly well. She was a small girl, all tight angles and long, dark hair, and Naruto could only wonder how she’d managed to carry a baby full term in a body still so childlike. Her small breasts seeped milk, and her baby was probably hungry, wherever it was. Hanabi’s hands still shook and she refused to lower her weapon, hateful tears gleaming in her creamy lavender eyes.



“Hanabi-chan,” Naruto said in a placating tone, making a show out of obviously dropping his kunai. They fell with dull clatters, and he heard Neji hiss beside him. “We’re not going to hurt you if you can explain what’s going on.”



“Explain?” Hanabi barked. Her kunai shook so hard, Naruto didn’t think she’d be able to wield them properly if it came to a fight. “There’s nothing to explain!”



“Look, it’s---er---obvious that you’ve got a kid somewhere, and far be it from me to deny it a mom. We weren’t sent to kill you, or even collect you, for that matter. We were sent to find out why the hell you’re waging personal war against your own village.”



“You really want to know?” she asked, shuddering. Her tears spilt over, and her shoulders curled in. She desperately wanted to fall to crying, but the stubborn will of a shinobi kept her from it. Even if she had Naruto’s guarantee. Even if he sympathized. She couldn’t fall apart. It was difficult to watch---a battle without weapons or enemies, but nearly as harrowing. “You shouldn’t even have to ask. Someone like you---you’re like me. You know what they do to us. You shouldn’t…shouldn’t ask…”



“She wasn’t alone,” Naruto said, wincing as the memory brought up the pain in the girl’s face, clear and so whole that it twisted his stomach in all sorts of sympathetic knots. He knew that look of betrayal far too well; he’d seen it in the reflections from mud puddles as a child, blank and horrified as yet another villager made warding motions at him and scuttled away. Those eyes had brightened lately, given a form of contentment by a surly, dark-haired boy with a growing belly, but he still recognized that dullness.



Hanabi had had no such dark-haired boy. Her eyes had been like ice, utterly lifeless.



“A lover?” Sasuke tried, blinking. He couldn’t convince himself that the solemn young Hyuuga had left her village for a lover---the girl had been no-nonsense, all about her ascension in the village ranks and her family’s eyes. She was fairly infamous for it, a junior genius under the Hyuuga banner. Sasuke had watched her climb with wariness, mostly because her white eyes had been an uncomfortable foil to a pair of black eyes that’d also left the village under missing-nin status. Hanabi had been a good shinobi and not a lot else---she had a single minded determination to her, and in that constricted visual frame laid power and nothing more. The thought of her running off with a man---or, he told himself fairly, a woman---just didn’t mesh. It was against everything the girl stood for.



“No,” said Naruto, so softly that Sasuke barely caught it. The fingers splayed over his stomach shook harder, and the kyuubi-boy chewed morosely on his lower-lip. “Would’ve been easy if it was just a lover. We could’ve fixed that. She…Sasuke, she…she was pregnant when she left.”



“She had a baby.” Sasuke phrased it as a statement, not a question.



Naruto nodded listlessly. His head lolled to the side, fitting into the curve of Sasuke’s neck.



“Hanabi took us to the safe-house she was staying in on my word that I wouldn’t let harm befall her or her baby. It was a stupid promise to make, but I thought I could keep it. I wanted to know what the hell had happened---did she run away from a forced marriage? Had she found comfort in someone she shouldn’t have? Like---okay, I know this is gross and stuff, but my first thought was that it was Neji’s baby or something…you know those bloodline clans. They’re all incest and eewness.”



“I’ll ignore the fact that you just insulted my entire lineage as well as myself and your own kits if you continue on,” Sasuke said with far more diplomacy than he usually offered. “The baby. Whose baby was it?”



Naruto sighed and looked away. “…that’s why she left.”





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The infant had a fine thatch of silvery hair and the obligatory milky Hyuuga eyes. He was surprisingly plump and well considering his mother’s condition, and he actively whimpered and reached for her as soon as she came into his vision. Weary and uncaring, she slid her loose shirt from her shoulder and offered her hungry son a breast; her glare at the three men hovering in the doorway simply dared them to object. As team leader, what Naruto said, went in this matter, and he didn’t care if the girl wanted to nurse in front of them. It was what breasts were made for, he justified, and it’d be easier to talk to Hanabi if she wasn’t worrying over a fussy baby.



“So that’s the little guy, eh?” Konohamaru asked quietly, smiling absently at the baby. “He looks good, Hanabi-chan. Didn’t know you were pregnant, though---is that why you left? Did his dad not want him?”



Hanabi was deathly silent. Konohamaru swallowed, looking away uncomfortably.



“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”



“You don’t know any better,” Hanabi said quietly, coldly. “I didn’t expect you to.”



She turned her pseudo-blind gaze on the kyuubi-boy, her look enough to send tagteam shivers up his spine. If there was one thing the doujutsu clans had down pat, it was intimidation…be their eyes white or swirling red, it was difficult to fight the impulse to shudder and look away. Naruto licked his lips nervously, twirling the loop of a kunai around one finger. It was a nervous habit, but he didn’t like the entire vibe he was getting from Hanabi. He could smell that her chakra pathways were a mess---knotted in some places, almost too sluggish in others to pulse at all---but nothing short of atrophy to the mind and body produced that kind of effect. He almost didn’t want to ask, but his mission would not be over until he did…Naruto swallowed hard, steeling himself to simply blurt it out in his usual fashion.



“You left,” Naruto said swiftly, the turns of his kunai rising in tempo. “Why? I can see that the baby definitely has a place in the equation, but whose is it?”



Silence. Naruto didn’t let it bother him; as per his nature, he rambled right on. It was something of a survival mechanism.



“ I’d think that your family would frown a lot more on hunter-nin killing than it would on having another grandchild in the ranks…I mean, you don’t have to get into the---er---details if you don’t want to, but…but we’ve gotta know if we can leave you alone, or if I have to truss you and junior up and send you packing back to the village.” Naruto gave her a long look. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Just…enough to go on, right?”



“You’re higher rank than I am, Naruto-san,” Hanabi said. She sized Naruto up frostily. “I have to honor your request, but I will say right now that I refuse to go back to Konoha. I have disgraced my family, as I’m sure my cousin well knows.”



Neji said nothing to the accusation. He slouched in the chair he’d been offered, his expression blank as a clock face. Hanabi took this as an invitation to begin; she changed breasts so that her son wouldn’t interrupt her midway through, chewing momentarily on her lip before launching into her damning rendition of the last year of her life.



“It happened on a mission to the Field Nation,” she said quietly. “Standard recon. I was brought in with Yuuhi Kurenai and Namiashi Raidou as the long-range scout and a backup fighter. I hadn’t thought the mission would bring any problems, any friction…like I said, standard recon on one of the little wayside towns. Nothing bad was supposed to happen.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “But then---then Orochimaru was there, and Yakushi Kabuto, and before I knew what was going on, my teammates were both dead. Orochimaru wanted to make it a clean sweep, but Kabuto argued for my life on the basis that I was yet another prodigy, and it’d be a waste if they didn’t learn what techniques I was capable of. Orochimaru allowed him to have his way only because of his own greed. He’d never had a Hyuuga before, and he wanted to see all of my bloodline techniques. Perhaps he had wishes for a Hyuuga body in the future…I neither know nor care. It is irrelevant to me.’



“Orochimaru had me battle some of their henchmen, to test me.” She looked down, a war of emotions raging on her usually pond water-still face. She had to take in a sharp breath before continuing on. “I killed them all. I was desperate. I didn’t want to die in that snake pit.”



“You were justified,” Naruto assured her, though it was obvious she didn’t need his thoughts on it. She acted as if she hadn’t heard him, her thin fingers lightly stroking her son’s silvery hair.



“It went that way for four days. I was kept in a holding cell until they fetched me to fight. If I didn’t show a new technique during the battle, they kept putting enemies into the arena. I was exhausted by the second day; wounded by the third. The fourth day almost killed me. I’d broken my right arm and several ribs to a nin formerly from the Hidden Village of Rock, so fever and shock had set in overnight. Kabuto called me to his chambers to heal me---so that I’d amuse his master longer; Orochimaru liked seeing a Leaf chuunin wriggling in his grasp---but…”



Naruto knew the rest of the story without her having to tell it. Sakura had told him about cases like this that she saw as a medic-nin---cases of female ninja who’d drawn short straws during their missions and had had their bodies used against their will…he should have been more indifferent to the girl because of his status as the team leader. He should have closed off his emotional faucet the moment he’d understood the enormity of Hanabi’s problem, but Naruto found himself unable. In this way he made a damn shoddy ninja.



It was hard for him to watch that tiny girl cradle her bastard child, forcing herself to finish her mission report in thin, forcibly calm voice that trembled. She was so like Hinata in that moment…Neji watched her with perfect apathy, but Konohamaru stared at Hanabi with horrified dark eyes.



“Kabuto kissed me,” Hanabi whispered. “When I bit him he slapped me, and…and I…tried to fight, but that only amused him more…he…”



“He raped you,” Naruto finished tightly, barely able to keep the kyuubi-growl from his tone. “That bastard raped you.”



Tears fell onto the baby’s plump cheek. She wiped them away absently, her white eyes still so very shallow and blank. She’d burned the pain from her mind as any true Hyuuga would, but it still had its tenacious vestiges.



“The rescue team came and extracted me several days later, but I was so ashamed of what he’d done to me, I refused to go to the Godaime. It wasn’t more than a month later that I realized I was pregnant with a bastard he had unknowingly forced onto me. I fought my way to jounin by the time I was four months along, so that I could be sent out to further reaches of the nations…that made it easier for me to slip away unnoticed, and it gave me a head start.



“I am currently under the protection of a group of missing-nin from various nations, bound together by similar circumstances. You met Uo-san…she is from the Hidden Village of Sand, and she, too, has a child. All of us do…we work under a dowager of the Mist village---she is very rich, and lost her children to the last great ninja war. One of her daughters was raped by a Cloud village ninja, and she died during the bastard’s birth. We…similar girls…we assuage the dowager’s guilt, I suppose. I had to leave Konoha, Naruto-san, because I could neither abort the child nor keep it in my family. I would have died either way, from trying to perform an abortion on my own, or for keeping the bastard in my family…do you understand now? I---I tried to explain to the hunter-nin, but---but Uo-san killed them; she said my family would trace us, and…” Hanabi’s lower lip quivered, and a rash of tears ran down her thin cheeks. “…and I’m sorry.”



Konohamaru had said nothing during the whole of her story, his expression carefully devoid of anything. He’d tried to rein in his sympathy, his compassion, because he was a shinobi on an A-level mission, and certain things were expected of him. But that pained quaver in the girl’s voice had been more than the last straw; he dropped his bag with a snarled curse and wrapped his arms around her, taking her and the baby to his chest.



Hanabi clutched at him and cried, and probably not for the first time.



Naruto cast a glance at Neji, motioning him out of the room with a short jerk of his chin.



“Why didn’t she tell anyone?” Naruto demanded as soon as they were out of earshot, sure that as her cousin and brother-in-law, the man would know. “Why the hell did she do this to herself? We’ve got safety nets for this kinda thing---even if she’d decided to keep the baby, Tsunade could have---could have---shit, we could have done something!”



The rest of his rant came out as a frustrated snarl; he turned on his heel and kicked an unsuspecting hank of yellowed grass. The neighborhood the missing girls were staying in was bad. There wasn’t really any other way to put it. There weren’t houses without missing windows; paint peeled off of heavily locked doors, children’s toys rusted on unkempt lawns, and it all seemed very, very weary. This was the kind of place that Konkon and her own clan lived---foxes without habitats and broken young mothers without hope, unlikely and unhappy neighbors. Naruto hated to think about it---hated to think that this was Hanabi’s sentence. She and her child were innocent, really.



Naruto was starting to realize that life was unfair all-around. Fox boys with curses, murderous elder brothers, doujutsu clans with imbalanced rules---in the end, they all got gypped. Fate was a cheater.



“Eight of Konoha’s hunters are dead because of a misunderstanding,” Naruto said, his hands knotted in his hair as he fell to pacing. “And she’s all in pieces…”



“She is a Hyuuga,” Neji said impassively. Naruto winced at the rebuke---cold and detached, as if he was removed from the situation, and not a key player. She was his baby cousin. He’d watched her grow up. How could he set that aside as if it meant nothing? Were the Hyuugas truly that cruel? “A bastard is intolerable.”



“How can you say that?” Naruto barked, slamming his fist into the doorframe. The wood groaned in protest, splintering beneath the heel of his hand. His blue eyes spat sparks. “She’s your family, your wife’s sister, and you can see probably ten times better than I do how much she’s hurt! Raped, Neji, and a baby---she’s thirteen! Fucking thirteen!”



“It is the unfortunate possibility of being a female ninja. When she cannot protect herself, it sometimes happens that such grievances occur.”



“You,” he snarled, lips curling back to show his fangs. “Are a prick, Neji.”



“It doesn’t change the situation,” Neji replied, unmoved and unruffled. “Hanabi is still a rogue nin, and we will still take her in as per our mission. Godaime-sama may pass the judgment she will when we bring her back into the village.”



“She’s not gonna come easily,” Naruto sighed, leaning back against the door and rubbing a hand at his weary temple. “Hanabi’s been brainwashed with the ‘bastards are intolerable for Hyuugas’, too, so…”



Neji sighed, quietly and hollowly. It was a betrayed emotion, slight for anyone outside of a doujutsu clan, but Naruto caught it. That was enough for Naruto. He understood.



“If she comes back to Konoha, Hanabi will be ostracized from the Hyuuga clan.”



It was an ultimatum. Much as he’d like to, Naruto couldn’t fight the old family and their ideas of right and wrong. He might’ve had a say in things as Hokage, but as a foxy loser just barely a jounin…no, he couldn’t say anything against it.



“Know what?” he said waspishly, tossing the kunai he’d been holding. It hit the ground at his feet, embedding nearly to its hilt. Neji took in that askance taunt of bestial strength without blinking---he might have been impressed had Naruto embedded the kunai in his heart, but the blond was all words when he was angry. To push him past the soft, sandy edge of his temper took a full-out tragedy. “I’m starting to hate clans. Really. I mean, you’ve got the Uchihas---who, I think, almost deserved what happened to them, ‘cept for Sasuke who was too young to be all that clan-killy---and then the Hyuugas…do you pissants spend whole days making shit rules up? When did it ever sound like a good idea to brand small children with brain-mushing curses, or let kids become contract killers? Geeze, guys, am I the only one seeing a problem with this? The Akimichis seem to be the only ones getting it right, and everyone just gives them shit for being fat and happy.” Naruto’s face curled up into a sneer, short and bitter. “What a crime.”



Neji pursed his lips, the closest he could possibly get to irritation.



“I didn’t claim to agree with the rules, Uzumaki. I’m simply saying that we cannot fight my clan on this. Hiashi-sama won’t see it.”



“The baby’s his grandson.”



“I realize that, but it changes nothing. The child is a bastard. Unless you intend to strip the Hyuugas of several hundred years’ worth of tradition with your bare hands, I think you’ll have to simply deal with that.”



“I think…” Naruto looked away, his eyes darkening ferociously---not red with Kyuubi’s fire, just dark. Opaque. Even with his keen senses, Neji had trouble picking apart what that dullness meant---fury? Resentment? It was something thick, something acidic. “I think it’s time I do something about this. Maybe not with my bare hands, but---but I could have some influence if I wanted it.”



Neji’s expression turned curious, then, his eyes widening slightly in an unconscious need to take in more of the kyuubi-boy’s demeanor.



“What do you mean by influence, Uzumaki?”



Naruto gave him a sideways look. It was almost a smirk. “I mean that Tsunade has elected me for the position of Rokudaime---she’s backin’ down. I mean that if I accept, I’ll finally get to fix your shit-ass family. I know I’ve been promising for a while, and dude, if rules are going to get that poor kid and her baby ostracized, I’ll personally bitch-slap the Hyuuga elders until they stop being dumb. Geez.”



Neji stared at Naruto for a moment---slightly embarrassed at the strength of his boast, he had slouched a bit, hands shoved down into his pockets---before slowly nodding. He didn’t say anything---no “about damned time” or “wonderful, it only took you six years”---just nodded, looked away, and went back inside to face their current situation.



At the sound of three distinct thuds---a sound he only too readily recognized as kunai meeting flesh---Naruto’s stomach slid down like he’d fallen from a great height.



Oh hell. Oh hell no. He said---he said he didn’t agree with his family, dammit---



Naruto marched back into the safe-house, throwing open the door and coming face-to-face with the cool, calculating gaze of one Mitarashi Anko. She had a kunai in one hand, poised to throw, and only the sheer force of rage on Naruto’s features stilled her hand.



Konohamaru sported the jutting handle of a kunai in his back. He’d attempted to block Anko from her real target, Hanabi, but had obviously failed. The girl had two kunai above her left breast and was quickly turning ashen. Her son screamed in her arms, the blanket he was wrapped in splotched with red coins of blood. Neji had already drawn his own kunai and was at a stalemate with one of the backup jounin, an eerily masked hunter-nin.



The ANBU cleanup crew, Naruto realized, tasting copper in his mouth. Shit.



What happened next was almost too quick to spell out easily, to put in chronological order. It all occurred within a matter of seconds, and by the time of three blinks, one person was dead and two were well on their way there.



Eyes tightened with the bulging veins of Byakugan, Neji drew blood first. He jammed his open palm into the hunter-nin’s chest, sealing his primary chakra systems and causing him to fall to his knees, screaming and convulsing. Juuken was not exactly as gentle as it looked.



Hanabi fell right after that, wavering for a moment like an autumnal flower clutching desperately to its last petal. She fell, eyes closed, and Konohamaru shrieked a horrified curse. He knew she was dead. The baby continued to shriek.



And Naruto, feeling Kyuubi boil just beneath his skin like heat eating away at a thin covering of plastic wrap, took Anko by the throat and slammed her into a wall. The plaster creaked, dust littering her knot of violet hair. Her first reaction was surprise, then fear---this one was short, but Kyuubi purred that he’d make it longer, make her scream---and finally she stiffened, raging.



“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Naruto hissed between his fangs, hearing Konohamaru and Neji scramble for Hanabi and the baby, tuning them out as background noise.



“What are you, insane?” Anko hissed back, her dark eyes alight. Kyuubi---coiled up for a pounce that Anko would neither see nor feel considering that he no longer had a corporeal body---flattened his ears to his skull, red eyes burning. The hair stood out on his nine lashing tails, making him out to be even more massive than he really was. Naruto almost wished Anko could see the fox; his mounting rage would have been enough to make the woman piss herself.



“I realize that you’re Tsunade-sama’s pet project,” the shinobi screamed, clawing at his wrist. “---but do you actually think that Konoha would trust you to man a team by yourself? You’re a jinchuuriki---you’re not even human---!”



And that, of course, was the final straw.



His hand tightening on her throat, Naruto leaned his weight into her and snarled, “Don’t push me.”



Anko wheezed suddenly, the color dribbling out of her face as her dark eyes widened. She could no longer breathe, and Naruto was not relenting his hold. Shocked, she scrabbled at his back with her nails, digging in in hopes of making him let go, but he didn’t even wince. He just grimaced at her, all fangs and red-hot blue eyes, and she felt a cold sliver of fear fester low in her stomach.



What had happened to the bouncy little boy she’d ushered into the forbidden training ground in the chuunin exam so many years ago? This wasn’t him. This thing that had her about the throat, deaf to her gasps and chokes, was not that boy.



“You were meant to come in only when I called in to report,” he said, calm and cool considering his body was hazed by red chakra, thick and hard to breathe through. “I outrank you on this mission, and yet you dare to go over my head and kill a little girl?”



With a final growl he let her go, expecting an immediate answer. She choked, retched dryly, and panted, her expression sinister.



“I report directly to the elders,” Anko croaked, massaging her throat and snarling up at him with all kinds of hatred. “My orders were to follow you and finish the job if you couldn’t seem to get it right---and what do you know, you didn’t.” One hand clutching her neck, she bristled at him, her lips curling back to match his snarl. It was hard to tell which one was the animal. “You were going to leave without following through and exterminating the missing-nin and her bastard.”



“My orders were simply to interrogate in order to come to a decision on her punishment!” Naruto snapped, livid. “And my orders came from Godaime-sama!”



“I suppose we’re clashing, then, Naruto-san,” she said, and smirked darkly. “A case of miscommunication, although I have to assume my orders outweigh yours.” Her gaze lowered, hardened. “Move aside so that I can carry out my mission.”



Naruto took the words like a physical blow.



Kill her, Kyuubi hissed, thick red hackles bristling. The bitch crossed us; kill her and be done with it. No one takes that kind of tone with us, boy, no matter what her affiliation is.



“We’re not going to kill a baby!” Naruto roared, blue eyes flashing.



“But the mission clearly stated---“



“Screw the goddamn mission! There are things bigger than that, things more important. The hell did this kit do wrong, except for being born in the wrong place in the wrong time?”



“His mother was a rogue,” Anko said coldly, sizing up the other jounin with a deep look of smothered fury. She was losing face in front of her team, and nobody---especially the kyuubi-boy---did that to her. “He will grow up just like every other orphan of war from an enemy: he will hate us, and he will seek revenge. It happens to every single orphan taken in, without fail.”



“Didn’t happen to me,” Naruto growled dangerously, his eyes impassively dim.



“You’re Konoha-born, you aren’t---“



“This body came from Konoha,” Naruto said levelly. He turned---a mock to any nin, to purposefully turn one’s back to the opponent---and gently took the baby from the protection of his dead mother’s arms. He gathered the infant’s beaten body to his flak jacket covered chest. The baby mewled softly, blinded with pain, and twisted his tiny fingers in the blond jounin’s vest. “But the thing inside me has always hated the village. I didn’t give into the demon telling me to kill you just now.” The gaze that glared down at her should have been crimson; she could have understood the spice then, could have written it off as demon possession. But Uzumaki’s eyes were totally, bitterly blue, a wintry stare that was almost painful to match. “How is that for loyalty, Mitarashi-san?”



Anko stared at him, mouth half-open, and Naruto neither smiled nor pulled one of the comical expressions he was known for. He just stared steadily back, lips drawn into a fine white line, suddenly a man in all the ways that really counted. He cradled the baby in his arms, gently wiping a dribble of blood from his chin with one thumb. The eyes that looked back at him were deadened and blurred by tears of pain. Poor kid. He didn’t even have the strength to cry anymore. Kids didn’t deserve shit like this. He was going to end up another Iruka, waking up in the middle of the night, clutching old scars and screaming until someone took him into their arms, or another version of Naruto himself---ostracized for the very crime of being born, never truly fitting in due to a shame he’d been born into…



“It won’t go on your record,” he added, as if that was the only thing driving the older woman. “I’ll submit the report myself, notarize it, write it up in blood if that’s what you want. Call me insubordinate any day---I like the taste of that far better than being called heartless or a coward.”



Naruto turned back to his team, not missing the glow of approval in Konohamaru’s gaze. He took the infant from his older friend, wordlessly, a gentle reminder to Naruto that those who served under him didn’t care if he lost face in their presence. They knew that the man at his core was far superior to whatever moral fiber society had to construe against him. That was why they would follow him into hell if he decided to march there, lead by friendship and awe instead of fear.



Contrary to what Sasuke thought, Naruto had not gotten to jounin by brute force alone.



“Konohamaru, tend your wound. Neji, release your opponent’s chakra system and wrap the body. Anko-san and her team will accompany her home,” Naruto said to his team, blue eyes fiery as he looked at the kids---and they were kids; Konohamaru was the youngest at fifteen, Neji was nineteen, but Naruto himself was only eighteen. They could barely be called adults in all reality, though circumstance had called them to be adults nearly their whole lives. It was times like this that they really realized it, when their job required them to be killers but their souls begged for compassion. Naruto no longer had the same qualms about killing as he had had as a boy, but he was not a hard man, either. That was one of the reasons Tsunade had always kept her eye on him, silently pledging him for ranking even before she took the position herself…



“Hai, sensei,” Konohamaru said quietly, sliding the whimpering child better in his arms, so that his bloodied cheek didn’t have to feel the edges of kunai and shuriken in his vest’s pockets. He quirked a weary smile. “Hai, Naruto-niisan.”



Neji folded his hands into his robes, tucking a long strand of black hair back with his perfect plait.



“Hai, Rokudaime-sama,” Neji said, bowing his head.



Naruto didn’t correct the Hyuuga---not Hokage, not officially, not yet. He just hunched his shoulders a bit, nodding.



Anko was left to gape in horrified surprise.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Sasuke was silent for a long time after Naruto finished his short debrief, not sure of what he should say, or if he should say anything at all. Naruto didn’t seem quite open to talking anymore---he had inched away from Sasuke during his story and laid on his back, arms crossed over his chest and his gaze locked on the ceiling for all the answers it didn’t hold. That pinched expression finally made sense.



“Yeah, so she had a baby,” Naruto said crossly, ranting as much to himself and the ceiling as to Sasuke. “Hanabi left because she was pregnant, and the Hyuuga clan is all ‘grr, we don’t give a shit that you got raped! You’re a Hyuuga---deal’. Anko killed her. I didn’t stop her. Wasn’t able to stop her. I don’t even know if there’s a difference anymore.”



“Ah,” Sasuke said carefully, watching him sideways.



Hit a sore spot, did it? One pregnant woman and you instantly see a correlation. Dobe, I’m not going to die like that, especially with you here...



Naruto’s expression wobbled and he chewed on his lower lip in an effort to hold it in, but the emotion crested and he was unable to fight it off. He exhaled shakily.



“I don’t want you to leave me,” Naruto said softly, tears spilling down his face again.



He didn’t try to hide them or wipe them away---he didn’t care who saw his spectrum of emotions, which was entirely foreign to Sasuke. He’d been taught to stifle---when he was happiest, he kept it to himself because someone jealous might yank it away; when he was saddest, that equated an intrinsic weakness in himself that a good ninja would stamp out. As an Uchiha, keeping a tight lid on his emotions had been taught to him from birth.



Not for my kits. I’m not going to let them live like I have.



“I’m not going to leave, dobe,” Sasuke whispered back with false irritation. “Like I could waddle off even if I wanted to…by the time I’m full-term with these kits, I’m going to be damn well immobile.”



“…I’m just so selfish,” said Naruto, his breathing hitching. When Sasuke tried to touch his arm---a strangely sympathetic gesture for the genius---Naruto flinched. “I’ve never had anything like this before---never anyone I could love, never anyone I could be certain loved me back---and now I have to wonder how the hell I survived so many years like that. Realizing you loved me---it was like breathing air for the first time.” He sighed, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes for a moment before continuing on. “At first I was scared out of my mind when I realized you were pregnant with my kits, but then I saw I might have a chance that you’d like me, need me, and I greedily took it. I dove into this whole thing headfirst, and I don’t really regret that, but I still wonder if it was the right thing to do for you.”



“Naruto---“ Sasuke tried to interject, but he was instantly shot down by a growl.



“And I know I’m selfish---so selfish because even if it isn’t good for you, I can’t allow myself to stop pursuing you. You’re mine---my responsibility. These last two months…they’ve been good. Bad and good, but worth it. And if someone took you away from me, I’d kill them, their families, and everyone they’d so much as looked at.”



“That’s not a bad kind of selfishness. A little over-the-top, but not bad.”



“Yes it is!” Naruto barked, stiffening. “It’s blind, it’s possessive, and it’ll smother you just like it smothered Sakura-chan when I ran after her, and---and…I can’t have you leave me. I can’t. It’d kill me.”



Sasuke could have accused him of being a drama queen, but he didn’t. He didn’t chide or laugh or even question, because Naruto meant it. With every fiber of his being he meant what he said.



“Dobe,” Sasuke muttered. “Why are you suddenly rethinking all this?” He huffed an annoyed sigh, glaring briefly at his mate. “I thought we had a general agreement over how this should go. You stay with me and help me with the kits. I get to jounin as soon as I’m combat-able again, and then we both work sporadically so that we can be here enough for them. It sounded like a fair idea---what changed?”



Naruto looked over at him for a moment before answering, weighing each individual word. “Tsunade…asked me…if I---if I wanted to…” he swallowed and looked away, that dim expression coming back like a tight glove over his usually jubilant features. “…she asked if I’d be the Rokudaime Hokage.”



Sasuke went silent. Very, very quietly---in that soft and dangerous tone that meant he was angry, hurt, insulted, furious; a whole gamut of things that made his dark eyes cut like jagged chips of glass---he asked: “When?”



“Almost a month ago. I’ve been agonizing over it, but I don’t know if---“



“You didn’t tell me,” Sasuke said guardedly, practically bristling. What else was slipping past without his knowledge? What, was he too weak now, too fragile in his pregnancy that he couldn’t be told what was going on in the world around him? He squared his jaw angrily, feeling the heat of Sharingan warm his blood. “Anything else you’d like to put out on the table---any more secrets about you that I need to know? Hokage---dammit Naruto, why didn’t you tell me?” This time, when he punched Naruto’s upper-arm, it stung. “Were you just going to show up one day wearing the robes and go ‘hey, Sasu, guess what?’”



Naruto looked uncomfortable. “It might’ve passed my mind.”



“Dammit, Uzumaki---“



“Look, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think I’d take it. Up until---“ he made a nebulous gesture, as if his mission couldn’t really be put together in coherent terms. “---until all that, I thought I was going to decline.”



“Why the hell would you decline?” Sasuke snapped, locking him in a defiant stare. “You’ve been spouting off about the Hokage position since you could spit out the word Hokage---and now that you’re finally there, you’re hesitating? What’s gotten into you?”



“It just feels…wrong,” Naruto mumbled. “I’m not doing it for the reasons…the reasons I should be doing it for.”



“What’s your reason, then?”



“Guilt,” Naruto said quietly.



“Guilt?” Sasuke echoed slowly, his eyebrows rising in question. Naruto sighed explosively, digging his hands into his tangle of hair.



“You aren’t me---you don’t get it.” Naruto sat up, hunching over his knees. Every muscle in his back and shoulders was hard; he looked as if we wanted to lash out at something. Words were hard, actions were easy. Maybe that was part of what made shinobi relationships so difficult to manage. The whine in Naruto’s chest was low and thin, like that from a broken dog. “What it’s like---what it’s like to know that I’m the Kyuubi, to know that the blame for so many deaths lies squarely on my shoulders…I didn’t kill Iruka-sensei’s parents or Yondaime, but I damn well might’ve.” Naruto looked at him over his shoulder, his blue eyes hazy. “He’s a part of me, Sasuke; neither of us can deny that. Maybe it wasn’t this bad when I was a kid, but Kyuubi and I have become interconnected since I went through puberty. He’s me, I’m him---sometimes, I see what he’s done. Who he’s killed.” He rested his forehead on his knees, defeated. “Sometimes, I recognize the faces.”



“You didn’t commit those crimes,” the Uchiha said, trying to pull apart why the blond seemed so bent on the subject---he thought it was perfectly clear that the two were separate entities, which made Naruto blameless as far as Kyuubi’s sins went. “You---“



“But he did,” Naruto argued, cutting in tightly. “I have to fix it, even if I can’t fill Yondaime’s shoes or give Iruka-sensei back his family. I’m trying to make it better. My whole life has been this big mess of desperate and futile attempts to ‘make it better’.” He hung his head. “And no matter what I do, it’s still all broken up. I can’t make up for killing the Fourth, I can’t make up for everything Kyuubi did…it seems like my whole life revolves around that…”



“So what’s this?” Sasuke challenged sharply, angry spots of color rising on his pale cheekbones. “What’s this relationship, these kits---more attempts to assuage your guilt? And over what? What are you ‘making better’ this time?”



“I---I don’t know,” Naruto whispered, and if Sasuke hadn’t had such sharp ears, he would have missed the remark entirely. “Am I fixing you? Can I fix you? I’m…not sure.”



“Fix me?” Sasuke echoed, indignant. “What makes you think I need fixing? I’m not---not some woman, some broken toy---“



“No,” Naruto said carefully. He didn’t uncurl to look up at Sasuke. “But you’re not whole, either. Neither of us are.”



“Waxing philosophic now?” Sasuke bit, and drew away. He fought to his feet---it really was starting to become a fight now, and Naruto knew that at the moment, that lack of smooth movement and strength burned his pride more than anything else. “Don’t even try it with me.”



Naruto’s head jerked up. His expression was unexpectedly sharp.



“Don’t try?” he repeated, his voice rising in pitch and volume. “Don’t try---you want me to stop trying to make this work?”



“I didn’t say that,” Sasuke snapped back, and Naruto didn’t miss the brief flash of red in his eyes.



“Then what are you saying, Uchiha?”



“I’m saying that you’re making excuses, Uzumaki,” Sasuke said tightly, his body wiry and stiff with anger. The copy of surname was a particularly hard smack. He literally spat out the word, eyes narrowed into hot crimson slits. “You have a responsibility to this village, and to me---you’ve never been one to go back on your words, and I’ll be damned if I let you start now.”



“Responsibility,” Naruto agreed flatly. “Responsibility to a village that hates me. Responsibility to you, who’s only liked me for maybe two months.”



“Like,” Sasuke repeated, hearing the disbelief in his own voice before he could bury it, mask it. “What do you mean---“



Naruto overrode him, almost howling. His fingers bit into his own arms, and he bore teeth.



“Face it---if not for your clan restoration, you’d never have come to me.”



His eyes widening in shock, he opened his mouth to disavow it, to explain, but the jounin cut him off again, not about to let him anything. He wouldn’t hear it, and so Sasuke was left standing, his mouth half-open without anything backing it up. For once in his life, he wanted to say something and was yet unable.



“Don’t deny it, Sasuke,” Naruto growled, his voice dipping back down in volume. He’d thrown his blade in anger, and the pain had been inflicted---Sasuke was not physically bleeding, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t bleed out. “If Itachi hadn’t killed everyone off, you would’ve been just as screwed over by your clan as Hanabi. I would’ve been just the dobe, probably not even that. I’ve always needed you, but now---now you need me.”



Sasuke’s voice, when it came, cracked. The accusation hurt far more than he was willing to admit.



“Fuck, Naruto,” he said softly, a misplaced tremor in his tone. “Do you actually believe what you’re saying?”



“Yes.” The blond replied very, very coldly. Sasuke could nearly feel the heat emanating from him; Kyuubi was making attempts to buffer his anger, but the fox’s growls would only keep him from a shouting match for so long.



“If you think---“



He winced, holding his stomach. His frustration made the muscles draw taut painfully, and the kits, upset at their world suddenly tightening around them, kicked their dismay. “---if you think---“ The cramp worsened, making him hiss between his teeth. “If you think that I am that shallow, you obviously don’t know me half as well as you think you do. That was uncalled for. That---shit---”



His Sharingan abruptly failing, Sasuke allowed his shaking legs to give out---he sat back down, hugging his arms around his belly and leaning forward in order to loosen the muscles before the cramps started squeezing the kits. Naruto watched this with wide eyes. Sasuke’s choppy breathing was unexpectedly loud in the silence that loomed between them.



Naruto exhaled softly, the spice of his anger falling unexpectedly flat. The weight of guilt made him want to reach out and apologize, to massage his hard belly until he could drop his anger enough to relax again, but he knew better.



“I’m hurting you again,” the kyuubi-boy said, half in whisper. “I---I’m sorry. I’ll stop, I just---I’m sorry. I don’t believe that you don’t care for me now---exactly opposite, really, but I don’t know if I---”



“Don’t apologize,” Sasuke snarled, still hunched over. His dark hair fell into his face, masking his expression. “Just shut up. Don’t talk about it---don’t talk about it now.”



“S-Sasuke, I---“



“Shut up,” the Uchiha snapped again, groaning slightly. His breathing was evening out, but he still wouldn’t look up. “If you can’t control what you say, just shut up.”



“But I can’t, can I?” Naruto got to his feet, not making eye contact with his mate. “I’m going to go for a walk. Sort things out. I’ll…be back.”



“You’d better be back,” Sasuke growled, his hands tightening in fistfuls of his shirt as he hugged his sides, the hot gleam of a reawakened Sharingan making his glare crimson. “If you ever want that door to open for you again, you better come back, bastard.”



Naruto heard the heavy thump of a kunai bidding him farewell as he shut the bedroom door behind him.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was, of course, raining outside. Late spring rain, warm enough that he didn’t need a jacket, but heavy enough that he was soaked to the bones within mere moments. He shivered---not having thought to put a jacket on, and so tromping about in the rain in nothing but a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he’d had the forethought to fish out of the dirty clothes---and cursed softly.



The last two weeks hadn’t turned out like he’d hoped they would. No. Scratch that. The last seven months hadn’t turned out like he’d hoped they would…had he things his way, he would have had an uncomplicated, possibly even demure version of Sasuke to tickle and tease from the very beginning of the pregnancy. Sasuke would have stayed in bed with him on the morning of October 11th, very female and very naked, and there would have been an undoubtedly messy confession of true love, or something nearly like it, over toast and orange juice. He would have forced Sasuke to take some time off, to eat well, to rest, and there wouldn’t have been fights, a near miscarriage, stubbornness, and just pain in general.



That Sasuke would have been healthy now, round and glowing at almost seven months with triplets, and they’d be happy. Maybe not running around in flower-filled meadows happy, but at least adjusted enough that they weren’t sniping at each other and having arguments about things both small and horrendously monumental. Sasuke would be in good shape, the kits would be developing well, and there’d be butterflies and sunshine, dammit, sunshine.



Then again, that wouldn’t have been Sasuke in any way, shape, or form that he was mentally describing. That Sasuke wouldn’t be nearly as attractive, because his neuroses and angst made Sasuke, Sasuke. A Sasuke who didn’t fight wouldn’t have been anywhere near as enticing, but there were days when Sasuke and his myriad of issues were too much of a challenge, even for him.



Which, of course, brought Naruto’s issues into a nice, endless loop.



Naruto sneezed---wonderful; all he needed now was to get a cold---and slouched through the empty streets, his bare feet cold and now very muddy. Even if Sasuke did forgive him, he wouldn’t let him in as such a mess…served him right, really.



He ended up in front of the Yamanaka flower shop---it was the only place with lights still on, so he stood for a moment in front of the window, fogging up the glass. He wondered briefly why they still seemed to be open---it was at least midnight, and nobody in their right mind would buy flowers in the middle of the night---but then he shrugged. He pushed open the door with a cheerful little jingle.



Chouji was sitting at the front counter, a book open in his lap. He blinked for a moment, disoriented.



“’The hell are you doing open at midnight?” Naruto asked in greeting, softening the words with a grin.



“I think the real question is what the hell you’re doing in a flower shop at midnight,” Chouji grinned back. He scratched the back of his head, flushing. “And…eheh, I guess I forgot to close up. The book I’m reading got real good all of a sudden, and you know how it is when you’re reading a good book. Time just sort of flies.”



“Ah,” said Naruto, sauntering in closer. His muddy, bare feet made unapologetic squelching noises on the clean tile. “Guess that makes sense.”



“Yeah,” Chouji agreed, settling his chin in his hand. He seemed to be gauging the blond’s face, trying to untangle why he felt the need to visit when the rest of the village was obviously asleep. “Welcome back, by the way. Did you just get in?”



“Yup, just an hour or two ago. How’re you doing, buddy-bear?” Naruto asked, hands in his pockets, a clearly forced grin on his face. “Gonna have babies yet?”



“Considering Sasuke-san’s condition, I’m hoping it’s only one baby,” Chouji said, coloring slightly. “And no, not yet. I still haven’t gotten the jutsu down right, but Sasuke-san says I’m really close.” He paused, taking in Naruto’s stiff shoulders and bloody lower lip---chewed to ribbons; a bad habit for someone with as sharp of canines as Naruto sported---with a knowing eye. “How’s he doing?”



Naruto didn’t reply to that immediately. He prowled around the flowers, fingers trailing over this dewy blossom or that rain-beaded leaf, his attention allotted to anything brighter or more distracting than Sasuke and How He Was Doing.



“Ne, Chouji…flowers are supposed to say shit, aren’t they?” Naruto asked softly, half wondering if bringing Sasuke flowers wouldn’t get him slapped. He didn’t like being treated like a woman, but there were only so many forms of expression and treaty available to clueless males… “Roses for love, daisies for purity, and so on and so forth.”



“Yeah. Got a particular message you want to give someone?”



“How cleanly does ‘I’ve been a stupidly possessive idiot and I really want this to work between us, especially since you really can’t take care of three kits on your own, but I don’t know if our lifestyles and vastly different personalities can mesh properly to maintain a good relationship, much less to raise children’ translate into flower-speak?”



Chouji looked pained. “Not very,” he admitted. “Want to shorten it to ‘I’m sorry’?”



“Don’t know if that covers it,” Naruto said with a sigh, running his hands through his sopping wet hair. “Don’t know if anything I say can cover it totally.”



Naruto bowed his head slightly, looking down at a sunflower that rivaled his own luminous appearance, his bruised fingers brushing over the tiny yellow spurts of petal. If Naruto was a sunflower, Sasuke had to be some kind of flower as well---a rose was the first thing that came to mind because of its opulence, but the longer you touched roses with warm fingers, the more they opened up, baring their creamy golden hearts. Sasuke wasn’t like that. Sasuke was some tightly-furled flower that bloomed only very rarely, and whose stems and leaves were ostensibly prickly. If you squeezed the Sasuke-flower too hard, your fingers would come back weeping blood from thorns, no matter if you’d been trying to caress or crush.



Naruto’s expression looked especially thorn-bitten.



“There’s a spare stool,” Chouji offered carefully, pointing to the piece of furniture currently being used as a stand for several potted ferns. “If you want to…you know, sit for a bit and talk…I wouldn’t be against listening. It’s been a slow evening anyhow.”



“What do we talk about?” the blond asked, not at all sure of where to start. To tell his woes completely, one probably had to start way back when he was twelve and accidentally got shoved lips-first into his asshole rival, but that would take more time than even the ever-patient Akimichi had.



“Whatever comes to mind,” Chouji said fairly, shrugging.



Naruto chewed on his already-bloodied lower lip---a habit he’d have to get out of if he wanted to keep his worries from being so clearly advertised. He tossed thoughts around in his head for a bit, shuffled them, sifted them between mental fingers until he could put it into a form that Chouji could understand. It was difficult to put into words, elusive. He knew what it felt like in his chest---this great salty emotion that was so strong as to nearly make him gag---but he didn’t know how to verbalize it.



“You probably have never made a decision just out of guilt, have you?” Naruto blurted finally, too exhausted to beat about the bush. Bush-beating wasn’t really in his personality to begin with, though. “You’re not the type of guy to make decisions like that…”



“I married Ino out of guilt,” Chouji replied calmly, utterly unruffled by the bluntness of his own answer.



“What?”



“Ino…” he trailed off miserably, his expression knotting into a neat lump of worry. This was obviously not something that was easy to talk about, but Naruto was quickly learning that most of the important things were not simple. “Ino is…self-destructive, Naruto. She---she hurts more than she’ll ever let on to the outside world. She never has seen herself as good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough.”



“Here’s an idea for an anniversary gift, Chouji: get the girl a damned mirror.”



Chouji smirked a bit at that. “Yeah, she has many of them, believe me. Even so, she never sees herself when she looks in the mirror…sees this broken thing in her head that’s never good enough for her standards. Until I married her, she sought self-medication to soothe that hurt inside---she partied, drank, slept around…”



“Sakura-chan called her the wild party-girl,” said Naruto. “I thought she was, y’know, kidding. Those two fight all the time like that---pig this, forehead that. I didn’t think that she really was that way.”



“She was. She was bad about it, too. I married her to make that self-destruction stop, because if I hadn’t done something and it’d killed her, I would have been guilt-ridden for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong---“ Chouji quickly shook his head, his wild red-blond hair flopping messily with the movement. “---I love Ino. I just…I married her for my own reasons. They might have been the wrong reasons, but we’re still together and she’s no longer the anorexic girl with a constant hangover who cried in front of the mirror whenever she thought I wasn’t listening. So…so sometimes it’s necessary to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, if it turns out right…does that make any sense to you?”



“Yeah, but…it’s just so hard,” Naruto mumbled, looking cross. “All of it. Six months ago I was a happy little bachelor with no prospects past my next bowl of ramen, and now…now I’ve got Sasuke---if he doesn’t pack up and waddle away while I’m gone, that is---three kids just around the corner, and now Tsunade-hag wants me to be Rokudaime on top of everything else. And---and don’t get me wrong, either---I love Sasuke.” He paused, an odd look on his face. “Feels weird to say that, though. We barely ever say that to each other, you know that? Him---we---we’re complicated. I like this. I like him. But I’m still trying to get a grasp on all of this at once---mate, kits, possible leadership of a large chunk of the ninja world---and it’s hard.”



“A bit of a responsibility overload, huh?” Chouji asked, smiling gently. The ascension didn’t particularly surprise him, and he was inwardly glad to hear it---unbeknowest to the blond, he had quite the handful of supporters who had waited to hear this kind of news. He wouldn’t be as alone on the pedestal as he thought, really.



“No shit. And I want it all, but I don’t know if I can handle it all. Especially Sasuke.”



“You two seem to be getting along pretty well, though. Um---from what I’ve seen, at least.” Chouji sighed, plucking a drooping orange flower from the bucket by the register and rolling the stem between his big hands. “And God, Naruto, he’s been miserable without you. I can attest to seeing that much every day since you left. He hasn’t been eating enough or sleeping enough…he’s got everyone worried, especially Sakura-san and me.”



“Ha,” Naruto said flatly. He scratched at his whiskered cheek---a common enough movement had his fingers not been trembling slightly. The little things he didn’t think to suppress were what betrayed him. “That’s it right there. He needs me. Not just like relies on me or anything---he needs me. I like that, and I need him, too---if he left for good, I’d go nuts, Chouji, I really would.”



He paused. Sighed. “But this sickeningly logical part of my mind keeps saying that that kind of desperation is a bad thing, ‘cause I can’t save him from everything. I try to keep him happy and together, but the thing of it is, I know I can’tstop him from falling apart, if it came to that.” He sighed shakily, going back to chewing on his lip, heedless of how the bloodied lip probably stung. Chouji was starting to see why the tender skin had split. “I can’t fixwhat the Uchiha clan did to him, what the line of snaky bastards have done to him since childhood, and I don’t understand most of it, you know? So when he’s hurting, I can’t touch him…I can’t go to that dark little place labeled UCHIHA CLAN, ‘cause I didn’t have to watch my entire family die in front of me. My pain is different.”



Chouji nodded slightly, contemplative. He gave Naruto his best sympathetic look---it worked well on broken flower shop girls and ailing schoolteachers, so he thought it might be his best shot at reaching out to a jittering, confused fox. Naruto needed that---someone who’d give his shoulder a reassuring pat and tell him it would be alright, even if both of them had no idea how things were going to turn out.



“…both instances…they were not your fault. It wasn’t your fault the Kyuubi was sealed inside you. It wasn’t Sasuke’s fault that his brother went nuts. You’re just the survivors of pain, so you are forced to live with the…the actions of others. You didn’t kill villagers. He didn’t kill his family. Kyuubi and Itachi shaped your lives, but they aren’t you.”



“Tell Sasuke that,” Naruto groused, pouting with a suddenly childlike exaggeration. “Seriously, he’s got a guilt trip over brother-dearest the size of Tsunade-hag’s bra cup.”



Chouji blinked for a moment, and then laughed. He had a warm laugh, genuine, and Naruto found himself relaxing slightly at the sound of it. Even so, the Akimichi’s expression folded silently, a strangely pensive look settling into his dark eyes.



“I can understand,” Chouji said finally, looking down at his hands. His fingers were teasing the petals from a perfectly undeserving flower, brilliantly orange and soft. “Not about the clan killing---the Akimichi clan is just as big and happy as it’s ever been---or the fox possession, but as far as…um…tangled relationships go, I…I have similar troubles---er---just---complications in general, I guess.”



Naruto quirked an eyebrow at that, foxy curiosity settling in. “Between you and Ino?”



“Kind of.” He paused, sifting mutilated petals between his fingers. “…no, not really. It’s complicated.”



“I’ve got a pregnant dude back at my apartment and a village that’s going to throw a bitch fit come tomorrow morning. Believe me, man, when I say that I understand complications.”



The big ninja didn’t say anything for a while. He just played with the ranunculus and chewed on his thoughts---when his voice finally did come, it was barely above a mumble.



“Shikamaru,” Chouji said, very, very quietly, “hasn’t been with Temari for over a year. They both have…pretended, because Gaara wants to see his sister with a man, and Shikamaru is just too lazy to call it quits. He…well…even when he was with Temari, he wasn’t really with her.” He dropped the petals, sighing. “Shikamaru, Ino, and I have been together for a really long time.”



“Together-together?”



Chouji colored, mortified, and looked down at his hands. “Team Ten has always done everything together…even love, and…yes. I s’pose it’s wrong, but…”



“Wait, wait, wait!” Naruto threw up his arms wildly, as if he were flagging down the very conversation. He scowled at Chouji, jabbing an accusing finger at him. “Do you think it’s wrong, or are you just saying that ‘cause you think I think it’s wrong?”



“I…” He closed his almond-shaped eyes as if admitting it was physically painful and he didn’t want to see the expression it brought out in Naruto’s features. “When I’m with them, I don’t think it’s wrong at all. I love them. More than anything else, I love them. Both of them.”



“Chouji, you don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Naruto said quickly, holding up his hands in treaty. “Ever. If you love them both and they both love you---hell, far be it from me to judge. What’s with the complications, then?”



“Shikamaru has managed to convince himself that because Ino and I are married, we don’t want him with us anymore. Which isn’t true. Ino and I married because…because both of our clans need an heir and…and Ino needed something solid, something that would be there tomorrow morning...he said it was a good idea, too---his idea, in fact---but now I have to wonder if we did the right thing. I didn’t think that it would change between the three of us, but it did. I’m…so selfish. I want them both, because they make me happy. It’s selfish---I know it’s selfish---but I can’t help…what I feel for them…”



So selfish? God, that sounds familiar…



Naruto sighed. “I think I’m starting to see why Sasuke’s pissed at me. Chouji, stop angsting about it---you’re the center of their universe, and if you stop being their stability, both of ‘em are gonna break down. I say I don’t give a damn about threesomes. I say love is love. I say I hope you’re happy together.”



Chouji smiled a little at that, involuntarily. He rubbed at his cheek embarrassedly, blushing a bit at his ridiculously candid friend.



“You’re going to be a hell of a Hokage, Naruto,” he said warmly, and meant it---like all Akimichis meant what they said, probably making them the most honorable ninja clan in Konoha, at least in Naruto’s mind. Power levels and notoriety weren’t everything. “Not exactly as orthodox as the elders would like, but I think…I think you’re refreshing. Thank you.”



“No prob, no prob,” Naruto grinned, waving him off. “Hey, you gave me advice on my bitch, too, so I think it’s only fair that I reciprocate. So, buddy-bear, I think I’m off to stop Sasuke from waddling out on me…what kind of flower was that in its past life, by the way?”



“A ranunculus,” Chouji said, blinking down at the mutilated stem in his hands.



“I like it,” he grinned good-naturedly, that familiar joking tease filtering back into his tone. “Orange and pretty, just like me. Could I have a couple to try my luck with Sasuke? I’ll probably end up with ‘em shoved down my throat, but a guy’s gotta try.”



“Sure,” the Akimichi said, and gathered several of the lacy orange blossoms into a bouquet. He handed it to Naruto with a final smirk, winking. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow at the announcement from Godaime-sama, right?”



“Unless someone assassinates me first, yeah,” Naruto deadpanned, swinging the bouquet of flowers over one shoulder as he sauntered back to the door. Chouji didn’t even mind the muddy footprints at this point, though Ino would throw a monumental fit in the morning. She’d probably chase him with the mop again. “Eh…now off to convince Sasuke not to kill me…”



Naruto threw a wave at his friend as the door jangled shut behind him. Feeling satisfied, Chouji grinned and got back to his book.





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This is kinda for the reviewer who asked for some ItaNaru…but, since I hate ItaNaru, it came out cracktastically. Even so, the general decision from my LJ group was “it hurts so good”…you make your own decision. Just as a precaution, though, I’d advise not having anything sharp in your hands when you read this omake---the need to gouge out your eyes may become overpowering.



So OOC it hurts to look at straight, but it IS an omake…





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OMAKE THE THIRD: PLAYING DOCTOR

“Take---off---the fucking---cap---“ Sasuke snarled as he arched through a contraction, his teeth gritted in an expression of abject pain. Naruto, ready to do anything that might help his laboring mate, took off his walrus nightcap, the only true friend of his early childhood, and stuffed it into his back pocket.



“How bad is it?” Naruto asked worriedly, gently stroking Sasuke’s sweaty hand as he bit back another howl.



“If you ever come near me with any part of your genitalia again, I swear on the mass grave of the Uchiha clan that I will tie you to a tree and remove your penis inch by inch!”



“…bad, then,” the blond answered himself, cowering slightly. He would have thought that Sasuke’s threshold for pain would have been greater than this---only through about an hour of labor, now, and the doctor had yet to see them---but the labor clearly seemed to outstrip any form of torture the chuunin had previously encountered in his career. He dabbed the sweat from his lover’s forehead, carefully keeping his fingers away from his panting mouth. He’d already been bitten twice.



“Next time---“ Sasuke gasped as the worst of the contraction crested, leaving him hunched over his bulky stomach, knees drawn and legs spread as he rested in the short lull. He hated being in such an ungainly position, but his body was automatically reacting to the stimuli of his clenching uterus---each progressively stronger spasm made the urge to bear down harder to fight. Where was the goddamn doctor? “---next time you carry the babies, bastard.”



Naruto mentally made note that no, it wasn’t intrinsically his fault that Sasuke was the pregnant one, but fighting with his completely irrational mate on the matter would have done him absolutely no good. They had hours of labor left to endure together, and Naruto didn’t want to spend great chunks of that time ducking lethal projectiles.



He sighed in sheer relief as the door swung open, admitting a sickly-looking doctor and a scantily-clad nurse. The doctor---a tall and imposing figure with a weirdly blue complexion and a handshake as rough as sharkskin---introduced himself as Doctor Kisame, his assistant being one Nurse Itachi by name. Naruto didn’t need the suddenly crushing pressure of Sasuke’s hand to tell him that he’d been staring at the nurse---he was gawking at her unabashedly, trying his damnedest to discern the sex of the medic. Some part of him wanted to immediately say male, but the nurse wore a tight dress---so tight that it limned his/her slender hips and slinky figure---white tights, and far from sensible spike heels.



“What seems to be the problem?” the nurse asked, and Naruto winced at how deep his voice was. Male, male, male, male, male. Which made it worse in his mind.



“I’m having a baby,” Sasuke growled lowly, obviously not nearly as distracted by Nurse Itachi. Naruto, on the other hand, had to pointedly look away as he bent over to fetch something by Sasuke’s bedside, flashing a great deal more than he really needed to see at the moment.



“Really?” Doctor Kisame asked, one blue eyebrow arched.



“Three of them,” Sasuke corrected, and sucked in his breath through his teeth as another contraction ebbed over him. He had to bite back a scream as he arched through it---a fairly bad one, then, Naruto gauged as the finer bones in the hand his mate held were ground into mush. Kisame grinned surreptitiously, leaning over the patient in order to begin his ministrations.



“Nurse, keep the proud papa-to-be occupied, will you?” the doctor queried his assistant. “I’d rather he not watch this…I’ve had fathers faint on me before, and I haven’t got the time to revive a pansy.”



“Of course, sweetie,” Itachi purred, tossing his long gray ponytail over one shoulder as he attempted to untangle Naruto from Sasuke---both fought him on the matter, Naruto with a bewildered tangle of stutters and Sasuke with a acidic tangle of curses that are best left out of print.



“B-b-b-but I wanna---“ the kyuubi-container attempted to whine, but a gloved hand on his ass distracted him a bit.



“Don’t worry,” Itachi gently told Naruto as he led the dumbstruck blond to a chair in the corner of the room (Sasuke had commenced howling all kinds of obscenities, but Kisame had duct-taped his mouth so all was well for the time being). “Kisame-san is a very good doctor. He’ll take good care of your wife.”



“He’s---uh---not my wife,” Naruto said, blinking at the term when applied to Sasuke. It just felt…weird.



“Oh,” Itachi murmured, and then, smirking, added: “Well then, indeed…how about you tell me a bit about yourself, Naruto-kun?”



The nurse slithered into his lap, pushing the blond back in his chair as he spread his legs as far as his tight little outfit would allow, straddling him with every intent of conquest as his laboring mate watched on and screeched incoherently. Naruto was less than pleased by the package dropped unceremoniously into his lap, and he stammered and blushed, mortification and full-out terror battling for supremacy. Nurse Itachi slid his skirt up a bit with hooked thumbs---as high as he could without turning the delivery room into the setting for a particularly twisted hentai, Naruto decided hysterically.



“So…be a good boy and tell me where it hurts,” Itachi rumbled silkily, brushing his cheek against the kyuubi-boy’s whiskered one as he sort of squirmed in his lap, calmly inching his painted nails down to the waistband of his pajama pants.



“Go---go help Sasuke; he’s the one having a baby!” Naruto barked wildly, not at all sure of what he’d do if the nurse decided to start rolling down his opaque hose, baring firm flesh nearly as china-white as the tights themselves.



“Should I do this to him instead?”



“Yes---no---I mean---holy fuck, what are you doing?”



The latter half of this tangled sentence had been directed at the good doctor; he’d pulled a massive and oddly-shaped blade out of literally nowhere and was calmly pulling loops of fabric from it in order to ready it for immediate use. Sasuke, quieter than he’d been since the first contraction hit (mostly because he had a thick swatch of duct-tape over his mouth), had the look of a deer staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun. He was very pale.



“Me? Preparing to operate,” Doctor Kisame replied easily, as if it were just that simple. He continued unwrapping lengths of cloth from the laughably oversized sword, each swatch showing more and more lethal peaks and gleaming edges. “The patient lacks the ability to keep herself with a working vagina---I won’t ask why that is---so the only viable option is to perform a c-section and remove the babies via an incision in the abdomen.”



“Wait!” Naruto barked, his eyes widening to the rough size of dinner plates. “You can’t---that---that’s not a scalpel, dammit!”



“And?” Doctor Kisame drawled dryly, hefting the massive, scaled blade against one palm. Sasuke, staring up at the sword that would soon be shredding his bursting midsection, echoed Naruto’s sentiments with a pathetic whimper.



“And you’d better lie out a towel,” Nurse Itachi added helpfully from Naruto’s lap. “He’ll bleed a bit, I’d imagine, and I just finished doing the floors.”



“I know,” the doctor smirked, showing at least four rows of angular fangs. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had on a waxer, my dear nurse. If not for you, I would have never known how pleasantly the polisher vibrates.”



“The things you learn,” Itachi purred, drawing his purple-painted nails along Naruto’s thighs. “Speaking of which, would you like to clean with me sometime, Naruto-kun?”



“Naruto?”



“Naruto! Naruto! Dobe, stop screaming already…”



Naruto snapped awake, shaking all over and gasping for breath. He could feel Sasuke’s weary glare the moment he opened his eyes---he clicked on the bedside lamp just to make sure that Kisame wasn’t hovering about with Samehade in hand and a cesarean in mind. But no, Sasuke was safe as a man eight months pregnant could be, looking drowsy since he was being denied the sleep he direly needed. The belly-mound that rose beneath the rumpled covers was proof enough that he hadn’t delivered the babies yet, so the kyuubi-boy sighed heavily, rubbing at his forehead. Much as he tried, he couldn’t wipe the particularly disturbing mental images from his mind.



“I’ve heard about having nightmares connected to impending fatherhood,” Naruto moaned, flopping down next to Sasuke and covering his face with his hands. “But that took the cake. Hell, that took the entire dessert bar…”



“Should I even ask?” Sasuke asked, yawning widely. His mate gave a whimper that sounded suspiciously like “floor wax”, so he took that as a firm and resounding no. He sighed as Naruto whimpered again like a thoroughly kicked dog. He clicked off the lamp, ruffling his mop of blond hair as he snuggled closer. “Just go back to sleep, dobe. It was just a nightmare.”



“Oh God…” Naruto sighed, still shaky. “I pray on all things holy that it was just a nightmare…if I ever have to see Itachi in a naughty nurse outfit again…”



The lamp clicked back on. Scowling, Sasuke pointed an ominous finger at the door.



“Couch. Now.”



…owari?





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I’m sorry. It hurts me, too. Okay, it probably doesn’t hurt me quite as much as it hurts you (personally, I take great joy out of the thought of Itachi in opaque tights), but I thought I might need to comfort you after inflicting that kind of omake on you. Don’t worry---it won’t happen exactly like this in SR.



…I guess the only real difference is that Itachi won’t be in drag. Hmm. Might need to rethink the ending…



Eh. Next chapter within a month. Check my LJ for updates/ side stuff/ fanart/ pre-post snippets---I’ve gotten good at posting stuff regularly there. Including pieces of the SR prequel lemon. Yes, lemon. New SR pic, by the way---it’s on my bio page, as usual.



One last time: Arcane Theorem is God.



And now I sleep xx…