Constellations (complete)

7 years later

Sasuke sat eating his lunch under the tree that had become his favorite place in the last few years. This tree was in, of all places, the new addition to the Konoha cemetery, but one would be hard pressed to recognize it as such.

Part of the attraction for Sasuke was the constant stream of people. The location had become the destination for pilgrimages from all over the world. As he chewed, he basked in a constant hum in his body that had been courtesy of Maro, his youngest son. These people, all the hundreds that came day and night, were his family.

It had all started four years ago. He’d been out tending the bright yellow daffodils he’d imported and then planted along the south wall of the family’s property. Neji had been nearby swimming in a sea of paperwork.

Neji’s oldest came running out. “Father, Dad. Keiko is drawing on the living room wall.”

Both men raised their eyebrows; their children never misbehaved, well, except for the uncanny rivalry between Naruto’s and Sasuke’s oldest boys that occasionally ended up with bloody lips and black eyes.

They followed the boy into the house and stopped at the entrance to the living room. Sure enough, Keiko, ridiculously strong for a ten year old, had shoved all the furniture away from one wall and, brush in hand, was eyeing some preliminary strokes on the largest wall in the house. Keitaro, her twin sat sprawled on a tipped chair and was watching her with amusement.

They looked at what was the beginning of a…teacup? A tree? It became clear that the kid wasn’t an artist.

“Keiko?” Sasuke asked.

She barely acknowledged them with a nod and went back to staring at the wall intently.

“Here,” Keitaro said and waved them over to the pile of books and paper at his feet. He picked up a scroll and a schoolbook lying open to a page that had Naruto’s picture on it. Sasuke took it and flipped it to read the cover, ‘Kages of the World – A History.’

Then he looked at the scroll and it became clear. Keiko had started a family tree. But it was a disorganized start and she had quickly run out of room on several edges of the paper.

“She decided she needed something bigger,” her brother snorted.

Neji moved to stand by her and they both studied the...tree? Herring?

“May I?” She looked up at him, bowed and handed him the brush.

He went to the far right side of the wall and wrote in a list, one below the next, spacing them to span the whole height, the names of all seven of their children. Then he stepped to the left a couple of feet and listed the names of Neji, Sasuke and Naruto.

“Of course!” She was clapping her hands and laughing. “I should have thought to start at that end.”

Soon everyone was piled in the living room watching Neji draw. It didn’t take long to realize that with three families, this could take on daunting proportions. Instead of branches, Neji and Keiko had a quick conference and opted for vines, but even so, the tangle was getting confusing.

Finally Sasuke’s youngest son, a shy gentle boy, said, “What about colors?”

When everyone looked at him, Maro blushed and muttered, “I just thought if each had a different color…”

There was an outcry of delight.

‘Of course!”

“Brilliant!”

“Great idea!”

Sasuke left the room and was back in a few minutes with some drop cloths and three buckets of colored ink; one red, one blue and one orange.

Several hours later, it was dark out and Neji had handed his brush to Sasuke so he could go fix food for everyone. Most of the wall had some ink on it. Sasuke’s oldest had even gently and painstakingly helped the youngest children participate by guiding them into putting tiny colored hand prints on the wall.

Sasuke had smirked as he witnessed several latent Uchiha traits in the boy, the most prominent of which was his struggle to devise a method that wouldn’t make a mess.

Finally, Keitaro had come to the rescue and put a fine layer of chakra over the children’s hands. After they dipped and pressed their hands to the wall, he released the chakra and the ink fell neatly back into the buckets. Of course, he ruined it by swiping his finger through the orange and poking thumb sized dots on each of their foreheads.

But Sasuke marveled at the chakra control of the ten year old. He was sometimes afraid of the immense power he sensed moving below the surface of the blond children in his house. Such things made people into targets.

After some time, Sasuke began to get agitated. While the wall was a dizzying maze of red and blue vines, the orange was a couple of short streaks, stopping far to the right. He realized he knew nothing beyond the name of Naruto’s father. He grabbed the children’s school books and found they revealed nothing beyond that same reference.

Neji picked his way over the buckets and piles of paper and children and wrapped his arms around Sasuke from behind.

“I don’t know anything.” He shook his head in frustration. “Why don’t I know anything? What will this mean to the children?”

He shot a look at Keitaro, who was standing in a corner with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the short orange line, frowning.

“Hang on.” Neji raised his sleeve and activated a special tattoo on the back of his forearm.

Five minutes later he answered a knock on the door. Tsunade stood on the other side, her brow arched.

“The emergency grandma button?” She propped her hands on her hips as she took in the absolute disarray of the room.

He pointed to Sasuke and Keitaro. After following the boy’s gaze to the wall, she nodded and grinned. “I can fix this.”

She was gone in a swirl and back soon after, Hyuuga Hiashi at her side.

“Hey, can you help me with this?” She nodded her head between Keitaro and the chair that was piled with lamps and a rolled up rug. She was holding several leather bound books and a dusty box.

He scrambled to make a place for her to sit and before he could move away, she dumped the pile into his arms.

“Let’s see…” She ran her finger down the stack of leather volumes in the pile he held. “Probably…this one.” And she slid one out from the middle and began flipping through the pages.

“These are from the Hokage’s vault. The council has always felt it was important to keep impeccable records on this subject.”

“Here.” She turned the book to face him and poked at the pages.

His eyes widened and his smile lit the room. “Father! Dad! Look! Keiko!”

On that page and several preceding pages was a complete history and genealogy of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina.

Sasuke hauled her into a hug and when he pressed her back into the chair, Neji was standing with two plates of onigiri and two cups of ginjo. He gave one each to Tsunade and Hiashi. “Get comfortable.”

The ink swirled and the stories flew till dawn. There was a moment of astounded silence as the blue lines joined the red halfway down the wall to merge and become purple. Neji and Sasuke looked at each other with a new appreciation and several of the children realized that they were family by blood and not just by writ. Hiashi, who had mellowed and now spent every spare second with this family, just smiled serenely and nodded.

But it wasn’t over yet. One day several weeks later the men noticed that Keiko was very quiet. After dinner, Sasuke and Neji found her staring at the creation that now covered twenty linear feet of wall. She was frowning.

“Do we have mothers?” Neither man knew exactly what to say. Each child had a different mother and none of the females were residents of Konoha.

With promises to talk about it more later, the family went to bed. But Neji was unable to sleep. He prowled the house all night and finally in the morning before he left for the Hokage’s office, he told Sasuke, “Bring the children to my office at the end of the day.”

When the family arrived, there was a small crowd of people around the conference table, including the old council, the new council and several local villagers.

“I’d like to call our meeting to order. Shikamaru?”

“Yes. First, I’d like to announce my resignation from Konoha council. Neji-san and Lee-San are considering several candidates and hope to make a selection soon.

“I am leaving that position to head a new project.” He propped a board on an easel and flipped back the cover. There, in fancy lettering, was the title, ‘Families of Konoha.’ The word ‘Konoha’ was lightly scratched out and off to the side was written ‘The World’ with a question mark next to it.

Below that was a map of Konoha and, upon inspection, the attendees could see that the map had been altered with thick black lines. The cemetery was three times its current size.

“Hokage-sama has appointed a committee to develop a new park.” Shikamaru bowed to Keiko. “Keiko has asked a pointed and relevant question. Her question takes her family outside Konoha’s borders and suddenly their living family numbers in the hundreds, or, depending on one’s perspective, perhaps thousands. When we all ask similar questions, we find the same is true for most of our families.

“Our esteemed elders,” he nodded toward the previous council, “have pointed out that if we go back enough generations, we find that nearly all of Konoha…”

“The world,” one interrupted.

Shikamaru nodded. “We find that nearly all the world was, at one time, closely related. Of course, we already know that Hyuuga and Uchiha are distant family.

“So, Hokage-sama believes it is a worthwhile endeavor, for simple aesthetics, as well as the fostering of peace and brotherhood, to explore this topic and develop a physical location where we can all see and touch our places in each other’s lives.”

Keiko gasped and squealed as she realized what was being said. “A giant family tree with all of Konoha?” She stood on her toes and quivered with excitement. “And more?”

“Exactly.”