Another Perfect Wonder

 

Kakashi was awakened by familiar words. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious or even where he was but he recognized those words. That particular chapter had gotten him through many sleepless nights plagued by dreams of real and imaginary demons, lonely solo missions without even his ninken for company, extended missions with teammates who’d grown anxious waiting for something to happen, Team Seven training where he pretended he wasn’t watching, and well those solitary moments that whose purpose brought porn into existence.



His eyelids fluttered as he held onto those words, his eyes flickering desperately as they tried to obey his shinobi instincts Move, Open, Get up. He ignored the pain as he listed to the right, jerking when a foot caught him in the stomach. He tried rolling to the left, this time a kick to the obliques he’d exposed. He lay flat again protecting his stomach as he rose to his elbows and began to crawl. The words, those familiar achingly familiar words seemed to mock him as they took on a sing song quality bouncing along with the rhythm of the person on top of him.



Heel, toe, heel, toe, shoulder blade, kidney, shoulder blade, kidney, heel, toe, This is our only chance to be happy, we must seize it now, heel, toe, heel toe, shoulder blade, kidney, heel toe, after a lifetime of serving others are we not allowed anything for ourselves? You are what I want most in this world. Your father can not deny us if you are carrying my child.



Heel, toe, heel, toe, shoulder blade, kidney, heel, toe, They reached for each other with a level of passion that could only be attained by the truly desperate or the madly in love. She shuttered as his rough fingers pressed inside her, her legs spreading wider, her moans growing wanton, heel, toe, heel, toe, shoulder blade, kidney, heel, toe.



She cursed, breaking a nail as she fumbled with his breeches to grasp the…





“What are you doing in there?”





Kakashi’s world grew mercifully silent and the bouncing stilled.





“Nothing just reading.”





“Go read elsewhere you little fool. No matter how weak they appear an enemy ninja is always dangerous.”



The weight slipped off of him, stepping on his already damaged hand in the process. Kakashi inhaled his lungs expanding painfully against his injured ribs. He slipped back into unconsciousness dreaming of a disgraced samurai on the run with a pregnant ninja.

 

---

 

After catching 10 fish Iruka slowly plodded to the village. His first stop was Mama-san’s restaurant. After several minutes of vigorous haggling Iruka was termed a shrewd devil and Mama-san was the owner of the four largest fish - fish that she immediately added to the menu as a special offering after figuring a mark-up percentage on each fillet that would make a yakuza money lender blush.



Iruka’s next stop was the general store. When he was last at the shop the owner’s pregnant daughter-in-law and young grandson asked for catfish which he didn’t have. This time he had caught two sizeable ones just for them and left with a 35 ivc store credit.



He skipped the other restaurants and instead headed for the more affluent section of town where he quickly found several proper matriarchs who each thought their children were more deserving of fresh protein and were willing to pay to prove it. As he was making his way back to the poorer sections he was approached by one of the women who took in wash from the richer ladies.



He passed his night with an emptiness in his stomach that had more to do with fact she’d spent a whole day’s pay on a small fish rather than the fact it was the one he’d planned on eating himself.



The next morning Iruka went to the general store and spent a portion of his credit on rope, nails, pitch, several liters of vinegar, six bottles of neutralizing shampoo, black walnuts, a saw, self heating pain patches, tarpaulin, lye, tea, several plastic bathtub stoppers, and ten wooden planks.



He left all of the items except the tarp, rope and two planks at the hunting shack and made his way to Giha village. He quickly sorted the goods he’d stashed earlier and prepared them for transportation. The longer damaged blades were sandwiched between the larger intact sections of wooden walls and bound with a portion of the rope.



The shorter damaged blades and several pieces of the dry wood were placed in whatever pieces of cookware would hold them. He dragged them to the edge of the ravine and began clumsily trying to carry them up the steep walls. It didn’t take long for his mostly present companions to take pity on him.



“I told you his chakra was sparking!” Arisa declared triumphantly at Shinsuke, Matashichi and the scowling Cloud ninja who’d drawn the short straw that day.



After Iruka was given a full 15 hours without any type of supervision the night he discovered Giha village the Cloud ninja made sure one of them accompanied the Snow ninja to make sure their guest was properly monitored.



“Yeah whatever,” Matashichi scowled at the beaming youngster.



“What are you doing Urui-san?” the older teen asked curiously addressing Iruka’s pseudonym.



Iruka scratched his head and blushed sheepishly surveying the items around him. “Salvaging. No one will be upset will they?”



“This garbage?” The Cloud ninja whose holier than thou attitude brought to a mind a mutant love child between Hyuuga Hiashi and Sasuke. “Who cares if some half-breed refugee takes it?”



“Ryuu-sama, it’s nice to see you.” Arisa calmly stated looking over the Cloud ninja’s shoulder.



Iruka watched the asshole’s eyes widen as he braced himself for a blow that never came. He was surprised when the man patted Arisa on the head and called her a twisted little bitch worthy of her chosen profession after he was spared the violence that would have been delivered if the purple eyed woman really was behind him.



“Well, Civilian,” the man said pronouncing the word with no small amount of venom, “How did you plan on getting this out of the ravine?”



“Don’t mind him Urui-san. Takamoto’s really not that bad. He’s just mad his moth-” Arisa began.



“Finish that sentence and I will tell your mother about a little orange book you were reading last week.” The man smiled making Iruka think perhaps Orochimaru had contributed to that mutant love child mix. “You know the orange one with a title that sounds like an Akita puppy during allergy season.”



Iruka watched the two ninja snipe back and forth at each other. Between Matashichi’s heavy sighs and Shinsuke’s eye rolling he gathered the two of them arguing was a fairly common occurrence.



“Ignore them, Iruka,” Shinsuke advised while grabbing one of the larger pots for Iruka while Matashichi grabbed another muttering “effective teams should not include family members.”



To his surprise Takamoto and Arisa managed to grab two other parcels and quickly scaled the ravine while trading insults with each other. The teacher in Iruka had to admit it was a rather effective form of training the innocent girl to fit in with rougher crowds but he drew the line at telling a child a filthy mouth will come in very handy on future seduction missions.



Once they’d dropped Iruka’s belongings on the covered porch Takamoto declared such stepping inside such an impoverished residence was beneath one such as himself ordered the others to resume patrolling.



Iruka set a large pot of snow in the fire and another near it before laying the weapons and cast iron pots in the bathtub and filling it with a bit of lye and cold water. He returned to the main room and watched the snow turn to water then began to boil as a suspicion that had been nagging him since his first day in village grew stronger.



He’d been seen enough for Kakashi to know he was in the area. When he went to the general store quite a few people had asked if he was the scar faced fisherman and would he be willing to sell his catch by the portion.



There had been no signs of chakra when he was in the ravine or any of the signals used by Konoha ninja when making covert contact. The toilet lid was still in the lowered position, there were still three dirty dishes in the sink, the bed covers were still untucked in the lower left corner and a pre-teen had managed to get her hands on Icha-Icha in a town where the closest thing to pornography was an animal husbandry manual.



He speared the plastic stopper and drained the tub then rinsed the dishes and weapons with the boiling water, coughing as the acidic steam burned his nostrils. He poured a full bottle of neutralizing shampoo into the other pot of melted lukewarm water and mixed it with the same stick he used earlier to spear the tub stopper. He plugged the tub again and poured the mixture over the dishes to stop the chemical reaction from the vinegar and lye. He left that to marinate while he resumed information gathering.



After watching Takamoto, Iruka figured he would be the best source of information. The man was braggart and thought everyone was below his intelligence level – something Iruka encouraged by pretending not to understand the insults hidden in big words. He walked to the back of the hunting lodge where several metal basins and foot tubs were stored. He chose one that was large enough a small adult could easily bathe in it and grabbed his fishing gear. He felt the shinobi watching him as he reopened the holes he’d drilled in the icy lake and made a few closer to shore with shorter lines and smaller hooks.



After several hours he had fish of all sizes nestled safely between layers of snow. He’d gotten lucky this morning with his keepers lightening his load but it was unlikely they’d reappear so fast and blow their cover. He placed a piece of the wood he’d recovered from Giha over the top, then laid his makeshift fishing poles over that and used rope to cinch it to the handles of the tub. After securing his cargo Iruka tied the ends of the rope to his waist and set off.



He plodded into the village and headed straight for Mama-san’s shop. Once she made her purchase he went back to the affluent area of town and sold what his customers thought was the majority of his catch. He then traipsed back to the general store and sold one of the two large catfish he’d reserved for them. His last stop was the working class section. He scooped out the snow with both hands to reveal several bream, crappie, and sunfish. These species were generally smaller and considered beneath high-brow taste but fresh and nutritious.



He charged $2.00 for a hand sized fish and some were bartered - scraps and bones from the butcher’s apprentice; a promise of rice flour from the baker; pieces of cloth from the seamstress; tofu, natto, miso, and a few root vegetables that would soon be bad from two men who worked for a local farmer.



Once the smaller whole fish were sold he quickly cleaned the catfish and chopped it into steaks of varying thickness that he sold from a quarter to a dollar each. After peddling all of his wares Iruka stopped by the general store to purchase stationery and then went to Mama-san’s. He wasn’t surprised the enterprising woman was also the post master and chief representative of the small business owner’s league.



“Well if it isn’t the little fox demon, have you come back to sell me more fish?” The woman gently joked.



“Mama-san! That’s not very kind!” Iruka shrieked.



“What? It’s not like I called you the Kyuubi no Youko or something horrible like that,” the woman chuckled, “with that sweet face and shrewd mind you are just like a little demon fox using your magic to transform into a little child and be hand fed by humans.”



“It was all over town how you took those few fish on the hill and started a bidding war between our grand ladies. Today I hear you did it again then took little fish to the other side of town. When that wasn’t enough you divided up a large one so everyone could afford it.”



“Shrewd little demon-child, shrewd” she cackled while shaking a finger in his direction in mock chastisement. “Now let me guess you have a few mussels hidden up your sleeve for me to purchase at a premium rate?”



“No Mama-san. I came to order dinner and to warm up. A nice bowl of donburi and tea will hit the spot.” Iruka smiled. He’d felt the watchful eyes upon him when Mama-san mentioned the Kyuubi and saw the wry expression on her face.



Once again Naruto had saved his life. If the real demon container hadn’t wormed his way into his heart one prank and bowl of ramen at a time mentioning the Kyuubi and its devastating attack certainly would have been one test that he could not pass.



As it were he could only shake his head and try not to laugh. The boy’s last letter had mentioned his first experience with fangirls. Not the shy stalkers like Hinata, but the aggressive let me bear your children type.



The boy simply stated, “They can’t help it, I’m a fox”.

 

Author's Note: Thank you for reading