Work Text
13 years ago
During the end of the war, Shikaku's life was saved by the Yellow Flash. It was the end of the war and Shikaku found himself in some trouble. More than half of his squad was dead, the other half wasn't fairing so well, and the InoShikaCho team had their hands full just trying to keep them alive. Choza was on one side of the battlefield fending off the enemy who had gotten the drop on them from behind, which is never good given their situation. While Inoichi was handling the enemy ninjas off to the left, while protecting a comrade who got injured during the surprise attack. Shikaku was at the center of it all trying to protect what was left of their squad until help had arrived. However long that might be. They were told that backup was on their way, but still, they couldn't get there quick enough, not to mention the young Nara himself was running very low on chakra. Currently, their position was only 3 hours away from the bridge that Minato's team was defending. If they could get word to the blond flash then they wouldn't have to wait too long. But as luck would have it, just as Shikaku had thought this, one enemy ninja's jutsu had smashed their radio to bits, so the idea was shot to hell right away. Shikaku was starting to panic, something truly rare, the noise of the fighting around him was getting too much and he didn't have enough time to come up with a good plan to buy them time. There were too many explosions surrounding the area for a flair to be seen from their position. And even if they were able to get in touch with Minato's team, there was no telling if they weren't dealing with the same situation as his team was. Shikaku's thoughts were cut off when a spiral of chakra-infused water came hurtling at him with deadly force. If that were to hit him in his current state, Shikaku was sure that he wouldn't be able to move fast enough to survive the blow. His reserves were all but empty by now, he couldn't move even if he wanted to, his remaining teammates looked to be in about the same boat as he was. With a mental sigh, he resigned himself to his fate and closed his eyes to wait, he knew that the village would have something to remember their sacrifices, probably carve each of their names on a memorial of some kind. He didn't want to go out this way, however, there was little choice in the matter, so he waited... but nothing happened. All he felt was a light breeze flying past him and some droplets of water falling on his face. No bone-crushing pain. No agonizing blow to leave him winded. Nothing. Curious to know if he was simply just imagining it, Shikaku opened his eyes. His vision was filled with the sight of bright, spiky blond hair, a Jonin jacket, and sparks of electricity. It took a few moments for the realization to sink in, the world seemed to be going in slow motion in those moments as he gazed up at the creator of the Flying Thunder God. Minato had arrived just in time, "h-how?" Shikaku whispered out as time caught up with him, it was then that he noticed that all the bombs that had been going off around them had stopped. He looked around to see most of the enemy forces that were attacking them laying on the ground bleeding, while some were tied up by the other members of his squad and Minato's genin team. He looked back at Minato to see that he had already taken care of the ninja that was about to end Shikaku's life just seconds ago, the Nara blinked before smiling. "Whatever, glad you can make it, Minato, I owe you one," Shikaku stated just before his legs gave out on him and he fell to the ground from exhaustion. Minato Namikaze turned his attention back to the fallen Nara, "I guess it was just your lucky day, eh Shika-chan?" Minato chuckled, Shikaku raised his eyebrow at the 'chan' part but was much too tired to argue with the blond. "How did you know where to find us?" Inoichi asked from the spot where he had collapsed. "My team managed to complete our mission quicker than expected. On our way back, I noticed that more bombs were going off in this direction than any other so I wanted to check it out to see why." Minato explained as he dropped the enemy ninja's dead body at his feet, "It's a good thing I did, or else we would have lost a great strategist." Shikaku chuckled, he shrugged his shoulders, "You give me too much credit." 3 Months later-Konoha Shikaku was standing behind one of the churches in the village, his two friends and teammates standing with him. No one else was around, they had already convened inside the church for the wedding, his wedding. But it wasn't the happy occasion that everyone else in the church insisted it was, why? A month after the war ended, Chouza threw a party to celebrate his engagement with his wife. He invited Inoichi, who was planning to get married the month after the party. And Shikaku, who was still single at the time. Shikaku wasn't planning on settling down so soon, unlike his friends, he was still sixteen, after all, there wasn't any rush. Yet, after he got to the party, he was cornered by a girl from a civilian clan who had good relations with his clan. She was a bit pushy but Shikaku looked past it to enjoy the party his friend had thrown. They may have been teens still, but they were teen ninjas that were still getting over the war so they were more than allowed to drink and do other adult things that the civilian kids were envious of them for. Anyways, throughout the night, since good parties thrown by teen horny teens usually lasted until late the next morning, the girl, Yoshino, would not leave him alone. Yoshino was the type of girl who saw what she wanted and went after it at full speed. Unfortunately, Shikaku happened to be her target this time around, and she would be damned if she left empty-handed. As the night went on, Shikaku's cup never seemed to empty during the time that she was by his side when he couldn't hold his licker anymore, Yoshino graciously volunteered to take him home. Long story short, when Shikaku awoke the next morning, they were both naked in her bed, it was right then and there that he knew exactly what she was after the night before. And booked it out of there so fast that it put the yellow flash to shame. Shikaku made sure not to wake her up in the process, somehow, and avidly avoided her for the following month and a half. It was safe to say that he was not happy about her actions towards him when he realized his mistake. He didn't even like girls all that much, to begin with, even though he knew he would have to marry and produce an heir at some point, he wanted to do that on his own time. Besides, he was willing to work something out with the girl of his choice, yet, since Yoshino forced him to, he knew that he had to find a girl to settle for just in case she was successful that night. But, as luck would have it, Yoshino beat him to the punch and announced her pregnancy within that month and claimed that Shikaku had been dating her secretly since before the war. It was a lie that Shikaku's parents sort of accepted, they knew better. Yet they were afraid that with the knowledge of their son's sexuality, which they found out from him when he became a genin, he would never marry. They accepted the lie and made arrangements for their marriage as soon as possible. When Shikaku discovered the wedding plans sitting out on his father's desk one night, he knew that it was too late for him. So, when he saw Yoshino again, he got her alone and made it clear that he was not going to be with her because he accepted her, but for the sake of their unborn child. Yoshino wasn't happy about that, but there was nothing either of them could do to back out of the wedding now. Yoshino was not planning to go through the embarrassment of divorce at any time in her life so she had to accept it. Shikaku sighed, "This is gonna be a nightmare, I wish I knew how to time travel to the point I messed up and erase that mistake." "Man, who killed the party over here?" Minato asked walking over to the sulking teen groom. The three looked over to Minato standing there with his usual bright smile. Shikaku sighed again, "troublesome, I got caught in a trap by that demon, and now I'm paying for it with my life," he sulked. Choza and Inoichi tried and failed to comfort the Nara. Minato shrugged, "Haha, yeah, I heard about that, rookie mistake bud, but don't worry, you'll get through it." He gave Shikaku a thumbs up, and the Nara gave him a 'are you kidding me' look before the blond continued, "Uh, what I mean is, at least you'll get to have a son during peacetime. Who knows when another war could break out? It could be months, days, years...just enjoy this while you can." "Yeah, who knows, the next war could send us all overseas and I won't be able to see my wife or my daughter's." Inoichi sighed depressingly as he joined his friend on the ground, "I don't want to go overseas." "In another country, away from home," Choza joined his teammate and best friends on the floor as well. "Not even knowing when or if we'll ever come back again. We could be tortured until we die." The air around the trio grew visibly darker and a mini stormcloud materialized over them with rain, lightning, and everything. Almost as if they were in an anime or something... "I thought that was only a thing that happened in anime and manga," Minato whispered to himself, as he walked over to the three guys. He waved his hand over the cloud and it disappeared as if it were only an illusion, however, the dark aurar stayed, Minato sighed, "Oh well." The blond shrugged his shoulders, "Come on Shikaku, how about this, what if I make you a deal?" Shikaku lifted his eyes to Minato, "a deal?" The blond nodded, "what kind is it?" Minato thought for a bit, "Hmmm, how about this if you like, I can help you out. You can come to me at the end of the year and I'll draw up a contract that you can use to get out of the marriage without any problems." Shikaku gave Minato a calculating look, if he took the deal, Minato would most likely keep his word and do as he said. If he didn't take the deal he would be trapped in a loveless marriage forever... "okay, but first, I have demands, I need something that is for sure." "Whoa, Shika, you're not thinking about doing this are you?" Inoichi asked, mildly surprised that his friend would take the deal. "Yeah, I mean, sure it sounds all nice and all now, but think about it," Chouza said. "If you do, you'll be right back where you started, without a wife the council will-" "I know, Chouza, but I refuse to be stuck in something I didn't choose for myself. Especially when there's a way out right in front of me," Shikaku stated, he looked at Minato, seriously. "I need you to set up something that would allow me to have some freedom, more than two years after the fact. I don't know what you can do but do what you can to get me out of this." Minato nodded as he thought for a long time, the trio knew of his intelligence, they knew he would find some way. "Yeah, I can do that, nothing is set in stone, however, by the time you're divorced, it will be done...um, but uh..." his smile dropped a little as he remembered something. "What's the matter?" Shikaku asked watching Minato from his squatting position on the ground. "What's the matter, Minato?" Choza asked curiously. "Hm..." Minato scratched the back of his head, "Nothing, I was just wondering if age was going to be a problem, Shika-chan?" Shikaku looked at the blond as if he had grown a second head, "Uh nah, a few years is fine with me as long as we can find some middle ground, we should be alright." He stated, "And why are you calling me 'Chan' again? You do know I'm a guy right?" Minato's smile returned to full brightness, "then it's a deal!" He ignored the question as he turned to walk away before stopping, he turned back, "Oh right, by the way, the priest has arrived." "What! When did he get here?" Inoichi all but yelled as he got to his feet along with the others. Minato tilted his head to the side a little, "about two hours ago, why?" The blond replied, "Everyone's waiting for you." Shikaku yelled in frustration, "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? We could have talked about this later!" He got up and started making a run for the entrance to the church, "come on guys! Oh man, the old man is going to kill me for being so late!" He said as he ran inside, followed by his two friends and Minato, who was chuckling in amusement. TO BE CONTINUED...
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Shikaku Nara stood in the nursery holding his firstborn son, Shikamaru, it's been only a few days since his birth and already Shikaku is wrapped around his tiny little finger. Even though he's still only fourteen years of age, he's become a husband, regrettably so, and a father. He doesn't mind the father part so much since he would gladly do it all again as long as he could get to have Shikamaru in his arms, he wished he didn't have to with Yoshino though. It was a well-kept secret that Shikaku wasn't all that into girls, he'd sleep with one once or twice, but he preferred men more than women. But only his closest friends knew that. Yoshino didn't, that's why she went after him in the first place, she figured that fourteen is old enough to start a family, after all, most of the ninja families have been pushing for younger marriages ever since the end of the war to replenish a number of their fighting forces. And now that he's got a son from that troublesome woman, the elders would be more open to divorce than before, but even so, Shikaku was told that he had to wait. Minato had come to Shikaku two days after the birth of Shikamaru to tell him that he finally completed his plans on the contract that would release the Nara from his forced marriage. Shikaku, when he heard those words being said, almost jumped up and kissed the blond right on the lips, but refrained from completing the act. With a heavy sigh, Shikaku put his son back down into his crib as he felt a familiar presence behind him, "what can I do for you Minato?" Shikaku turned around to see said blond sitting in the open window, leaning on the side of its frame, "I had the dream again last night," he said solemnly. Shikaku took a seat across from the blond in the window, "you want to talk about it?" Minato shook his head, "it could help." Minato frowned at his friend but gave in easily, "I saw the village being destroyed, men, women, children; all of them dying during the attack. I saw someone with golden blond hair stand up to the thing that was killing everyone, I couldn't see him, and every time I tried to see who it was, my vision went blurry. And then I see you with that same person, you both look so happy together and...I don't know what to make of that dream, every time I have it, I feel so sad when I wake up and I don't know why." He looked up to Shikakau, "Do you think that some spiritual being out there is trying to tell me something?" Shikaku looked at the blond for a moment before rubbing the back of his neck, "No, it could mean anything as far as I know. I'm not a psyche or anything, I've never really been into that sort of thing, you know that." Minato nodded his head slightly, "Yeah, just wish I could find out what it all means, I didn't even see what it was that was attacking the village, all I know is that it was very big, read and...hmm." "Something wrong?" Shikaku asked Minato shrugged his shoulders, "Nah, I just got this feeling that the thing that was attacking was very confused more than angry, kinda like it had no idea of what it was doing, you know?" Shikaku thought about those words for a second, "Well that's certainly something to think about, but then again, I-" but he was cut off when someone yelled his name. Both men looked over to the door with wry eyes, stomping feet were their only warning before Yoshino walked into the room with an apron over her clothes and a frying pan in her hands. She walked into the room and scowled at the sight of the two sitting in the window casually as her son slept, she folded her arms as she blocked the door, "Can you tell me why Shikamaru isn't in his playpen out in the living room?" She asked angrily. Shikaku and Minato blinked at the woman for a second before patting his hand on Nara's shoulder, "Looks like she's at it again, good luck Buddy, I'll be rooting for ya." Minato said as he snapped off a salute before flashing away with his famed jutsu, leaving Shikaku to fight the brave fight. Shikaku sighed, "Troublesome." A month passed by without Minato having that dream again, he was getting back to his normal life, well normal for a young ninja anyway. He had spent most of his free time going out on dates with his girlfriend, Kushina when he wasn't on missions. They had been together since they were genin, a little before Kushina had gotten kidnapped by Kumo, they were going strong, and many people could see that. They never made a big deal about announcing that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, they just went with the flow most of the time, catching a bit to eat after a mission, or seeing a movie on their days off. But it was on one of these days off that things took a surprising turn as both Minato and Kushina were called to the Hokage tower to meet with Kushina's mother. When they got there, they were met with the sight of an American-looking woman with bright blond hair and bright green eyes standing next to a man with orange hair and bright blue eyes, that man was Minato's father. Minato didn't look at his father when he stood to greet the two as they came in, they were never on good terms for many reasons. Reasons that are not meant to be spoken of in the light of day where people can hear. As Minato and Kushina walked into the room, they noticed that there were more ANBU in the room than usual, most of whom were centered around Kushina's mother, she guessed that it was for her job and left that thought alone. "Is there something wrong, Sandime-sama?" Kushina asked as she bowed in greeting to the kage at his desk. Hiruzen Sarutobi puffed on his pip before nodding once, "Yes, Kushina, as you can see, the 7th Prince of Chine has sent his beast ambassador to talk to you. As well as the clan head of Uzu is also here to request of you." "Huh? Of me?" Kushina asked as the 3rd nodded, "Why me?" "Yes, and if I may ask, what does this have to do with me since they're here for Kushina?" Minato questioned. "Ah, that's my son, as bright as ever," Minato's father, Honsho, said. Minato narrowed his eyes at Torangette, "Shut it, old man." "Oh Mina-chan, you wound your father!" Honsho said, dramatically fainting to the floor. Minato rolled his eyes, "whatever." "Anyways," Akina said with a yawn, "let's get down to do business, I've got a plane heading to London in about three hours. The quicker we get this over with, the better," she flipped her long blond hair as she sat down in the visitor's chair. Hiruzen sweatdropped at her antics, "You haven't changed much have you, Akina." Akina shrugged her shoulders, "Right, well, on to more important things, Kushina, Minato, we need you both to...." Months passed by and things were quiet, they were peaceful, and everyone felt that they could now relax and let down their hair without worry. Things seemed to be going in the right direction, it was just weeks until the end-of-the-year celebration would take place, marking the first year without war for a while. Everyone was getting ready to start a whole new year all over again when suddenly... BOOM...CRASH...and other noses of destruction and chaos rose from the gates of the village, drawing everyone's attention to it as many started panicking. The civilians ran about in the streets trying to get away from all the death and distortion that was going on all around them. Why? "The Kyuubi is attacking us, sir, what do we do?" Asked one shinobi to his commanding officer. "What else can we do? We hold it off until Minato can get his ass back here to help us out!" Said the commanding officer to his subordinate. "Right!" The shinobi said saluting, he was just about to run out to deliver the good news but then stopped, "Uh, if you don't mind me asking sir, where is he? We haven't seen much of him for a couple of weeks now." The officer grunted, "Haven't you heard, the little brats gonna be a father, sheesh, of all the days to be born! This kid's luck must be fucked up." Out on the battlefield, many shinobi were doing their best to hold back the giant chakra monster known as the Kyuubi, they've lost many people already and their numbers since the war weren't all that great. They were losing fast and they needed something to help them turn this fight around before they were completely wiped out. But as luck would have it, something did happen, something wonderful and amazing, just as the Kyuubi was transported into the center of the village, Minato showed up and battled the beast. It was told that he fought with such spirit that it pushed the chakra beast back enough to leave the village's wall, out in the surrounding forest, people could still hear some of the fight going on between their blond war hero and the beast. Everyone cheered when they were told that the Kyuubi had been defeated by Minato and Kushina, but those cheering soon turned to mournful cries once they were told the price that had to be paid. The village mourned for weeks afterward, yet even though they mourned for the loss of their two heroes and were thankful for what they'd done. They could never forget what they had done to achieve their goal. Talks of how Minato sacrificed his first and only child to seal the fox within the tiny boy's body quickly spread. the name Naruto, forever to be known as a curse to all the villagers who had lost someone that night. For the good of the village, Hiruzen figured that he wasn't going to reveal who Naruto's parents were to the villagers, even though it was quite obvious who they had been, the villagers were just too blind to see.
12 years later
Naruto is smart, very smart, his brain would be described as a mad genius but without the mad part and a little more genius. Ever since he turned one year old, and even before then, Naruto had been very observant. He noticed the things that people normally wouldn't, the things that people try to hide, and people never let their guard down around him, that was something that he noticed right away. The glares, the whispers, the way people didn't seem to want anything to do with him, yeah he noticed it all, and he was only one year old. Ever since he was small, he's noticed how people acted around him, or when they spoke of him, he wasn't blind, he could see the hate that was there and he only knew half the reason why. When Naruto was two years old, he was kicked out of the orphanage since he was already able to walk and somewhat talk. He was tossed out on the street without anyone there to care for him or make him feel loved. No one acknowledged the fact that he was different from the other kids, other than being the holder of the Kyuubi. He had met the fox the day before he got kicked out of the orphanage. The Kyuubi, Kurama, explained to him that he was the reason why everyone hated him and that he was the one that attacked the village, but he explained to Naruto, in simple terms so a toddler would understand, that he was used by a masked man going by the name 'Madara Uchiha'. Kurama was surprised by the way Naruto had theorized that the attack on the village that Kurama was forced to do was to distract people from something bigger, a plan that needed a big enough distraction that Kurama had to be brought into play. The part that shocked Kurama the most was that the little blond was right! Before Kurama was sealed inside Naruto, he had managed to break the genjutsu just in time to catch some of the conversations that Minato was having with Kushina and a masked man. Kurama remembered that the three were talking about a secret organization that wanted to rule the world with a twisted view. Kurama had been so angered by the masked man using him for his gain that he made a deal with Minato before the sealing that he would let them seal him if he could help kill the masked man. Minato was skeptical at this but agreed anyway since he knew that he didn't have long. With their joint efforts, Minato, Kushina, and Kurama had managed to kill the masked man. Afterward, the older blond was feeling bad that he now had to seal Kurama into his son's body and wanted to let the fox go. But Kurama wanted to keep his part of the deal and told Minato that it was okay. Even though he was being controlled, he still killed a lot of people, it was the only way that the fox could think of to repent for what he had done. Kurama also vowed that he would look after Minato and Kushina's son after they were gone, Minato was grateful to Kurama, having had this much trust built between the two, Minato asked for another favor, his last wish. Kurama agreed and Minato told him the details that surrounded Naruto's birth and about a contract that he had drawn up a few months earlier for an old friend but had to change due to recent events. Kurama was unsure what Minato meant by that but agreed to see this wish through til the end, after getting the location of the contract, Minato sealed Kurama into Naruto's boy. Kushina was already dying from complications from a prior disease that was made worse by the birth complications that she went through while having Naruto. While Minato had been poisoned by the masked man during their last fight, the poison was acting fast as it made molding chakra to summon the Shinigami difficult and needed help from Kushina. When Kuram was done telling Naruto all this, he was happy that he didn't need to wait years and years to explain it more understandable so that someone who wasn't there could get the picture. Kurama soon came to learn that Naruto's brain was way more developed than the average one or two-year-old's brain would be. Kurama also found out that Naruto had a habit of solving puzzles with pieces that people would never be able to connect with and would take much longer to find those pieces before putting them together themselves. As the years went on, Naruto and Kurama agreed to build up a mask that would lessen the attacks that the villagers took out on him nearly every day. The mask was hard to maintain in the beginning, but he got a hang of it. The mask was made to make Naruto seem like nothing but a smiling, loudmouth idiot without much brainpower to go off on, Naruto perfected the mask at the age of five while he secretly learned the ways of a ninja from Kurama when no one was looking. He mastered the shadow clone and clone jutsu at the same age and perfected the substitution before his sixth birthday. During his seventh year of life, Naruto stumbled upon a few academy kids practicing henge, some were trying to do some low-level ninjutsu, while the rest practiced their taijutsu and ninjutsu. Naruto was drawn to the actions as he watched them all from the bushes, after they left, he went back to the abandoned building that he had been living in since he was kicked out of the orphanage, it wasn't much and the wind still got in during the colder seasons, but no one had kicked him out of it yet. As Naruto practiced everything that he saw that day, with Kurama correcting his mistakes, there was currently a council meeting going on that was to decide if the Kyuubi container should be allowed to join the academy or not. It was a losing battle, most of the shinobi side wanted him to go, while some did not. The ones that wanted him to go were: Sarutobi, Nara, Akamichi, Yamanaka, and one of the remaining survivors of the Karama clan. Those who didn't want him to go were: the Uchiha clan and the civilian council. The only neutral party in all this was: the Hyuuga clan. The 3rd Hokage was getting tired of all the arguments on the matter and made his final ruling since this was a shinobi affair, the civilian council didn't count when it came to the voting. This angered the civilian council, but they would be fools to go against their kage, so they grumbled quietly as Sarutobi ruled in favor of allowing Naruto into the academy. Sarutobi sent out an ANBU to tell the boy the good news and dismissed the meeting when the ANBU reported back that he found Naruto living in an abandoned building after being kicked out of the orphanage, Sandime was saddened. However, he knew that it would be unwise for him to move the boy from his perfect little hiding spot away from the villager's view. In a stable building, he made it a point to become Naruto's 'silent guardian' from then on. Having his ANBU bring food that can easily be cooked over a fire, blankets for those cold nights, and other things that would help the boy live a little easier than he was before, not making it obvious that Naruto was getting anything new to draw suspicion from the village. Hiruzen was surprised one day when he came to his office to find a letter from the young blond waiting for him to read, it was a thank you letter for both him and the ANBU involved, and he was even more surprised by how well-written it was for a seven-year-old. Using big words to express how grateful he was for help, the letter also explained that he knew what he contained. He knew that Hiruzen was the one helping him, that he had made friends with Kyuubi, aka Kurama, and that the fox in no way was controlling him, it brought a smile to the aging king's face as he read it. Not too long after that, Naruto went to the academy and concluded that he would have to either be the deadliest and fail his class and hope for the best in the end. Because having a dumb 'demon' was better than a smart one. Or he would have to try his hardest not to make it to the top of the class and incur the wrath of every living being that ever hated him, he decided to go for the second option because he just couldn't resist solving puzzles. Plus finishing a test before anyone else made him feel very good, but he made sure to get some wrong, don't want anyone accusing him of cheating now, do we? Anyways, the students would pick on him, bully him, teachers try to fail him and kick him out of class for something that he didn't even do, you know, all the things that you would expect from the common demon haters. By his second year at the academy, he deduced that all the lectures were more of repeated material from all of the books that he 'borrowed' from bookstores and the library. He had memorized every last word that was written in the books and matched it up perfectly to everything his sensei, Iruka was teaching the class, the first week was fine, but the second week felt like he was slowly being tortured to death. During these times, he made sure to go inside his mindscape to train with Kurama. In the third year of the academy, they FINALLY let the students do taijutsu training. Naruto had to resist the unbelievable urge to march over to the Hokage tower to give whoever made this curriculum to bow down at his feet as he gave them a piece of his mind. He ranted endlessly to Kurama that day on the subject, but he continued keeping up his 'close to dead last' appearance in front of the others. He made sure to lose to everyone at least once and end some fights in a draw a few more times before the year was done. After taijutsu, they finally learned some low-level ninjutsu, the basics of some other stuff in the classroom that he blocked out because he already knew it, and weapons handling. To be honest, by the end of his third year. Naruto knew almost everything....okay fine, he knew everything that was taught by the academy and then some, he memorized everything and furthered his studies on his own. He tried to take the genin exams early once, it was the middle of his third year and he wanted to try his luck, but they wouldn't let him. He would have tried again at the end of the third year, but he knew that they would find some way to make him fail the exams, so he waited for his class' turn. This brings us to now, Naruto was walking down the hallway in his usual 'kill me orange' jumpsuit that he found in a dumpster behind a clothing store, it completed his 'idiot look'. "Kurama, what's the meaning of these low-ranking tests again?" Naruto asked the fox as he walked the empty hallway, he was about a good 30 minutes early for class today, something that was out of character for his persona, but he couldn't get to sleep last night after one of the villagers almost stumbled upon his little 'home'. "It's to test to see if those worthless brats could match up to the ninja lifestyle," Kurama answered. Naruto mentally shook his head, "Not what I mean, I feel that this is not the real genin test, but more likely a test to see if there was anyone that can practice what had been preached." He reached the room and slid the door open, continuing his thoughts as he continued to his usual seat in the back row, the spot where he goes when he doesn't want to be so loud. "I don't think that this test is what it seems, if it was this easy to become a genin, then there would be a lot more civilian-born ninjas out in the field, and not just shinobi-born." Kurama's interest has been peeked by this thought, "What are you thinking kit? Do you think that they lowered the standards of the academy so that more civilians could get a piece of the action? You do realize that's not something that would strengthen the village, only cripple it in the end." Naruto snorted, "Yeah, like 'looking underneath the underneath' is going to make a difference when one of those dumb fan girls is captured and raped because they were too busy trying to impress Sasuke to see the enemy coming." He chuckled, "honestly though, I think the real test comes when the jonin sensei's come into play. Don't you think so?" Kurama chuckled at the idea of one of the blind Uchiha fan girls getting caught in an obvious trap set by an enemy, "You sure do get a brain on ya kit, it's been wasted on this pathetic excuse of a school. You deserve so much better."
"I know right, oh! I should drop this stupid mask once I become a genin, this shade of orange hurts my eyes."
"Why are you keeping it then?"
The mask called for it," Naruto heard a rumbling in the hallway and looked around in time to see the two banshees of the class almost break down the door to get inside first. Naruto's sweat dropped, "yeah, those standards weren't lowered, they were dropped and stomped on....repeatedly," he said as he watched the two girls rush over, still fight, and trying to sit next to Sasuke, who ignored them, and was sitting....in the middle of the row. "I worry for the ninja forces with them around, I hope they grow out of it soon." "The embarrassment for their parents and elders I feel when I see shit like this," Kurama sighed as he shook his head. Just then Iruka walked into the room holding a stack of papers in his hands and started talking about the test, "a written test? Seriously? Alright, I think I need to show these guys what a real ninja is supposed to be leaning in the academy," he said feeling his hands twitch to his weapons pack at his side. "Whoa, whoa kit, relax, you'll blow your cover, and then what? Take things slowly," Kurama said as he felt Naruto calm down a bit to just pout. "Alright, so instead of doing what I saw you were thinking, how about you just ace this test as fast as you can and then go home? And I'll finish quickly." Naruto stopped himself mid-nod when he thought of what Kurama had said, "something wrong?"
"That Mizuki guy, he's been eyeing you recently, I have a bad feeling that he wasn't to get you to fail for something he's planning."
"Any idea what that something is?"
"Not a one, but, I don't want you getting caught up in something so dangerous, I made a promise to your father that I would protect you. I wouldn't want you to get hurt or kidnapped so that some sicko can do...things to you."
Naruto shuttered, he blinked his eyes to take a look around the class to see that everyone had already started the test, "note to self, find a seal that makes time go slower when talking to Kurama inside the mindscape." He thought to himself as he turned his full attention back to the paper in front of him, the temptation to ball up the test was a struggle indeed, but he shook off the feeling and got started on the test. He picked up his pencil and started writing down answers, almost in the blink of an eye (five minutes) Naruto had finished the test and put his head down for a nap. The test went on for about an hour and a half more, way too long in Naruto's opinion, for a two-page test. Their next test was weapons, Naruto ignored everyone's shouts about how he 'cheated' at throwing a blunt object at a wooden post, "Why don't their arguments make any sense at all?"
"'Cuz you're supposed to be the deadliest and you scored a perfect score on both Kuni and Shuriken."
"But still, I wonder what it's like to be them, their poor brains don't seem to get a whole lot of exercise," the class went back inside to take the last part of the test. He was just about to take a nap when someone tapped him on his shoulder, without turning around, "What is it Shikamaru?" Shikamaru was a little taken aback that the blond knew it was him without turning around, "uh, can we talk?" Naruto turned around to face Nara for a moment before sliding over in his seat so the boy could sit down, "what's on your mind?" "You seem different today, usually you are all loud and stuff, but today you seemed checked out. Are you okay?" Shikamaru asked he didn't know for sure why he came over to ask that, but he got this feeling that that's what he should do. Naruto was taken aback by the fact that the Nara would come over to ask him such a thing when no one in the class ever did before. He gave the boy next to him a serious look before nodding, "Meet me outside out by the front gates after you take the last part." "Huh? Why?" Shikamaru asked just before Iruka came in and called his name. "Just do it," Naruto said putting his head down to take a nap until his name was called. Shikamaru eyed the blond for a second before getting up to do his test, the time flew by like it's loose grass in the wind. Naruto was the last name called, everyone was still in the room, most sported a headband while others didn't, mostly some of the civilians. He walked into the room and waited for Iruka and Mizuki to stop having their silent conversation with smug looks on their faces, Naruto already knew all that he had to do without Iruka having to explain it to him...again. With a sigh, Naruto quickly performed all three of the required jutsu, doing the clone jutsu first, making three of himself, one clone hanged into Iruka, the other into Mizuki, while the third substituted himself out for the chair that was sitting in the corner of the room next to the two chunin. He undid all of his Jutsu when he saw the positively shocked faces of both males and walked over to the table, he grabbed a headband and walked out of the room without a word. He walked down the hall without stopping by in the classroom, no one was going to believe that he passed, he was fine with letting them think that he failed until it was time to come back to school for the team thing. He left the building with his headband in hand, he saw Shikamaru waiting at the gate and he asked, "Come on, let's get something to eat," Naruto smiled brightly at the lazy Nara. Without having anything better to do, the shadow user followed the secret genius.
Council meeting room
"You all must be wondering what this meeting is about," asked the 3rd, "I would like to inform you that something has come up. It has to do with the late Minato and Kushina, and the whereabouts of their 'lost' child." "What about them, have you found their child?" Asked one of the civilian councilmen. "The child has been living in the village of Konoha for the past twelve years, you people just didn't notice," Inoichi stated in a bored tone worthy of a Nara. The civilian side, as well as most of the shinobi, said turned to look at him, "Inoichi is right, the child has been here all this time," Hiruzen confirmed. "WHAT, THEN WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WE KNOW ABOUT IT!!" Yelled a pink-haired civilian councilwoman. Hiruzen sighed heavily, "Please refrain from being so loud, Mrs. Haruno, I'm standing right here." The woman looked ready to open her mouth again but then he spoke, "Naruto Uzumaki." Silence rained over the council room for a while, "what about the demon brat?" Asked Fugaku. "Well, like most of our other meetings, we always end up working our way from talking about building new buildings over to him. So this time around, I thought that I would save us all the trouble and start with him." Shikaku knew that Naruto was the son of Minato and Kushina already. He could tell in the way the boy looked and acted, on those rare occasions when he did see the boy. He had even told his son to hang out with him and not listen to the whispers that the villagers had spewed about the young blond, but he knew his son knew better than to believe them and would eventually make friends with the blond in time. Now that he was thinking about the blond, he decided to pay more attention to this meeting's topic. There may be a way for him to adopt Naruto into his clan, after all these years of trying and being blocked by either Yoshino or the clan elders, he was determined to succeed this time around. "What about Naruto that you had to draw everyone to the meeting room to talk about it?" Shikaku asked when he found no one had spoken yet. Hiruzen smiled at Shikaku, "When I say that this meeting is about Naruto, there's something I forgot to mention....this meeting is about you too, Shikaku." "Me?" Shikaku sat up straighter in his chair, "what is it?" Hiruzen sat back in his chair as he puffed his pipe, "do you remember, a few years back, a deal that was made between you and Minato ?" Shikaku nodded, "well, it seems that the deal is still valid, even after his death." The Sarutobi reached into the inner pockets of his robes and tossed a file over to Shikaku, "I had intended to make this meeting between just the two of us, but then Choza and Inoichi found out and wanted in as well. With them being notified, there seemed to be an unmentioned notification for the others to come as well, even though this was strictly a shinobi affair," glares at the civilian side. "But since we've already started, there's no point in hiding it." Shikaku nodded his head as he took the file and opened it, he looked it over with lazy eyes that soon widened in shock. "H-H-Hokage-sama, this can't real-" "I'm afraid it is, I have witnessed it myself when he wrote it," Hiruzen stated with a sad smile. "Can someone clue the rest of us in on what's happening here?" Asked Hiashi. "Gladly," Hiruzen smirked, "you see, back when Minato was still alive, he made a deal with Shikaku here before the birth of his son and marriage to his wife. That deal is confidential, only Minato, Choza, Inoichi, Shikaku, and I know of all that pertained to this deal. However, after the Kyuubi attack, the deal perimeters had to be changed, about a week before the attack, Minato had...a sort of vision, if you will, about the attack, but wasn't sure if this vision until the attack happened. On the day of the attack, or more accurately, about an hour after the attack began, the terms of the contract were slightly changed. "Shikaku..." the said man broke out of his stupor enough to look up at the Hokage, "I believe that you should remember that time when Minato came to you to talk about your deal, yes?" Shikaku blinked, "Well I remember talking to Minato at the time, but I was a little distracted by what was going on, so I only remember bits and pieces of what we talked about." He looked down at the papers in his hands, "but this...it's a little out of my hands, don't you think? I don't think that I would have believed half of this if I hadn't known at least some of Minato's and Kushina's secrets back then." Hiruzen nodded, "Hokage-sama, not to intrude, but this still doesn't make any sense to me, could you perhaps explain it more?" Asked Hiashi, the rest of the people in the room seemed to want to know the same thing as well. Hiruzen looked at Shikaku, he looked like a fish out of the water, but then again, who wouldn't be when something like this is presented? "What I'm about to tell you all is an SSS1 class secret of international proportion, if any of you breathes a word of this outside these walls, you will be executed on the spot. No questions asked, is that understood?" He said with a 'hint' of killing intent directed to the people in the room, making some civilians whimper while some shinobi shook from the amount that slipped into the air. When Hiruzen saw that he had everyone's word not to tell, he began his tail A whole day passed without anyone leaving the council room, they talked and argued about the subject of Naruto and his parenting. Most couldn't believe most of what they heard, whey they learned was that Minato's father was the ambassador of the second son of the Prince of China himself. Having said man was placed not only under the prince's second son but also in a very high spot of the UN Government and also the top boss that held the power to shut down and burn any or all the hidden villages. No questions asked. Everyone in the room knew of his political power and knew not to fuck with him. Seeing as how the man was a genius in his craft of secrets and very dangerous undercover work that took place in other countries; Such as Russia, Spain, Germany, with ties in the British government to boot. Another thing that the council found out was that Kushina's mother, the clan head and queen of Uzu, was also a somewhat retired spy who was discovered by the secret organization of MI6, who later grew up to work part-time for the CIA and the DWMA. With the knowledge of Naruto's grandparents out of the way, they came down to Minato and Kushina themselves. It was a Kage-kept secret that Minato had been born in Britain and traveled the world with his father, learning all of his father's many tricks and different languages, until he was the age of six before being dropped off at the front gates of the village. Minato was taken into the orphanage and taught the ways of being a ninja until his father came back to check up on him when he was ten. Minato, for his part, was very smart and therefore an asset to anyone he could meet, the knowledge that he possessed at that age was stunning, thus his father enrolled him into the spy academy in the UK before he graduated early at the age of thirteen. Going down in the history books as the youngest to have graduated, when he was done there, he took a break from that life to go back to the elemental nations where he took part in the war. He helped the village that raised him to win the war when he was fourteen, but before he left the village, he met and fell in love with a girl named Kushina. The two, when put together, were in a word: Godly, they complemented each other very well and pushed each other, but Minato always showed his smarts while Kushina played the deception game and hid her's, coming in average in her class. Minato graduated from the academy when he was ten before his father came to get him, while Kushina stayed until she was twelve, going out with Minato whenever he came to visit the village from the UK. Then they came back to more recent events, Hiruzen told them what happened the day that the Kyuubi was defeated, seeing as when Minato had gotten Kyuubi to the woods, Kushina put up a barrier so the masked man couldn't escape. However that meant that they couldn't get any help either, so Hiruzen and most of the ANBU that were with him had to stay back to watch everything that happened. They were also close enough to the barrier to hearing the conversation between Minato, Kushina, and Kyuubi. To say that the council, both sides, were shocked out of their minds at hearing that, well it was enough for some of the civilian sides to rethink the actions that they had taken against the young orphaned container, while a certain pinkette plot a way to get a piece of that political power for herself. However, her plans were crushed into a fine powder when the contract that Minato made for Shikaku came into play. The contract stated that if the villagers didn't uphold his last wish for Naruto to be seen as a hero, which he hoped they would. But got a feeling that they wouldn't at the same time. His son Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze would be given to his trusted friend, Shikaku Nara, in the highest level of protection there was for an unnamed orphan to ever get. Even though an unnamed orphan could simply just get adopted by a clan head and be saved by the clan, the adoption would take time and some loopholes would make it next to impossible for adoption to go through, so Minato had to think of something better. Minato, Knowing that even if the elders of the Nara clan were so chill about most things, like say gay marriage, they couldn't allow their clan head to marry or remarry anyone without a product of their union. It was a law that was about as old as time for any clan, everyone knew that there were people out there who would marry into a clan and do so for the power that came with it, and would mostly never produce an heir for the clan head to leave their legacy too. There were also people out there who would marry into a clan head and produce an heir that wasn't of blood relation, of this, the CRA (clan restoration act) was made. Yet, that wasn't the only way to ensure a blood-related heir for a clan head and their partner, that's where Minato's contract came into play. If Naruto wasn't taken care of by the village as the yellow flash had wished, then he was hoping that Shikaku wouldn't mind marrying his son. Shikaku, for his part in all this, had had information overload and fainted on the spot after everything was said and done, he didn't wake up until the next day. Even then he still had a hard time coming to terms with what his deceased friend had asked of him. TO BE CONTINUED
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Naruto was walking down the street with Shikamaru, they had a week until they had to go back to the academy to get their teams. It's already been three days since they had the genin test, and Shikamaru had taken to meeting up with Naruto every day to talk and hang out. After they had left the academy, they went to Ichiraku ramen to talk, Naruto had let some of his genius come out and it drew Shikamaru like a magnet. Already they had a bond like no other, when people walked by them, from the outside, it looked like the two boys were just talking about random things that had nothing to do with anything at all, but in reality, it was a higher level of thinking. Naruto found out that Shikamaru was a genius too, albeit a bit of a lazy one, but one nonetheless. Naruto seemed to be the only one who challenged Shikamaru enough for the lazy Nara to do anything that seemed troublesome, that was the same the other way around. They became fast friends over bowls of ramen and a single game of shogi. They also played Go and Blackjack, but they were always tied in Go and Shogi, while Naruto beat Shikamaru in Blackjack every time. On the second day of their growing friendship, Naruto decided that it would be beast to test Shikamaru to see how smart the Nara was and told Shikamaru about Kurama. "Yo, so I got something to tell you, it's a really big secret that no one from our class, or generation for that matter, knows about," Naruto said as they watched the early morning sunset together. They didn't have anything else to do, they could have a sleepover at Naruto's place because it may draw attention to his home, and he wasn't sure how safe he would be at Shikamaru's house just yet. Hence the test, if Shikamaru failed, then he got his answer and would say away from the boy, but if he passed, then things would go on. "Yeah, sure, I hope it's not something troublesome like you an undercover spy here to infiltrate the village or something," Shikamaru joked. It was an inside joke between the two of them from the day before, something that probably only they would understand. "Nah, Nah, nothing like that..." he chuckled, then frowned, "but it does have to do with the village." "Hm, shoot," Shikamaru waited for the blond to speak. Naruto nodded, "So I'm not going to beat around the bush, so try not to jump out of your skin when you hear this, okay?" Shikamaru shrugged, "no problem, what's the secret?" "Okay, so you know how like twelve years ago there was the Kyuubi attack and a lot of people died because of it?" Shikamaru nodded, "Well the person that the War Couple (what they called Minato and Kushina after the war) sealed the Kyuubi into was me, and that they were my parents. How do you feel about that?" Shikamaru blinked at Naruto for a second, "uh, wow, I did not see that coming." He thought for a second, "well actually I figured that they were your parents just by looking at you, but what I didn't know was that the Kyuubi was sealed, no one ever talked about how they 'defeated' the Kyuubi, just that it was done. I had always wanted to know how, guess I do now...man that must be troublesome to deal with, am I right? You know because of the villagers and all?" Naruto sighed in relief that Shikamaru had passed his test, "Man am I glad you're not an idiot, well that's a load of my shoulders!" Bonk, "Ow! What was that for?" He asked rubbing the spot on his head that Shikamaru had hit him on. "That's for thinking that I was so stupid as to think that you a kunai and not the scroll, dummy," Shikamaru got up and folded his arms. "Eh? Where are you going?" "Home, and you're coming with me, if you're the container of the Kyuubi, I want to keep an eye on you so that those idiots don't try something stupid on you. Something killing the 'demon' in his sleep could release Kyuubi so that he could go on another rampage like before," Shikamaru reasoned. He let a soft smile slide onto his face, and he held out his hand to help Naruto up, "no let's go before my mom comes looking for me, I'll let you borrow some of my clothes later too." "You're tired of the orange too?" Naruto asked after getting to his feet. "Even if your mask called for it, you should have ignored the call," Shika deadpanned. "Point taken," Naruto said as they started walking to the Nara compound, it wasn't that far from where they had been lying a few minutes before. Once they were in front of it, Naruto paused at the door, "Oh, can you just bring me some food after you guys eat dinner, I don't eat much just a little something would do." "Huh, eh what's up with you, you do know that my clan is not filled with idiots right? When you get right down to it, we're just a bunch of-" "Lazy-ass geniuses? Yeah, I know, but I've also heard that your mom is a civilian and I just want to play it safe, just trust me on this okay?" Naruto said as he turned and ran to the side of the house before looking back at Shikamaru, "I think I should get out of these clothes while I wait. Do you have a bathroom in your room or close by it where I won't get noticed?" Shikamaru gave Naruto a critical look for a moment before shaking his head, "There's a bathroom in my room, once I get inside, I'll just set aside some clothes for you. My room's the second one on the left of the second floor," he turned to open the door, "try not to get caught while I'm talking to my mom." "Will do!" Naruto said before disappearing around the corner. Shikamaru sighed as he opened the door to go inside the house. He walked to the kitchen after taking off his shoes, as usual, they were having pizza again, since his mom couldn't cook anything big, they mostly had fast food more than actual home-cooked food. He walked over to the kitchen table to see that this time, along with the pizza, there were some homemade (burnt) chicken wings with white rice. "I get the wings, but what's with the rice? Who eats white rice and pizza together?" Were his thoughts as he started to get out the plates to set the table, he was just about to fix a plate for Naruto when his mom came in. "Oh, Shika-chan, you didn't have to do that, I was just about to come and do it," Yoshino said as she walked over to the table. Shikamaru noticed that her hands were littered with bandages and were mostly wrapped, "how's she make the chicken with those on? But then again, they are burnt, so I guess that's why she has the bandages on..." he thought, "Nah, I got it, it's no big deal." He said as he watched get the utensils so that they could eat the rice, "Hay mom, can I ask you a question?" "Hm, sure thing honey, what's on your mind?" "What do you think about...Naruto Uzumaki?" Yoshino froze, the chopsticks she had in her hands dropped and she turned around slowly, a dark aura seemed to surround her. Shikamaru could tell right away that something was very wrong and that he didn't want to hear what she had to say about his new best friend. "Uuh, you know what, I'm tired, so I'm going to bed now." He quickly made his second plate of food, since he had already made the first one when his mother wasn't looking, "I'll just take this up to my room, night," he then quickly left the room. "Wait, why do you have to plates?" Yoshino yelled after her son. "Midnight snack!" Shikamaru yelled back as he was halfway down the hall already, when he got to his room, he set the food down on the small table he had in his room before going to his closet. He picked out some of his old pjs that he either didn't wear anymore or just didn't like, it was usually the pjs that his mom picked out for him that he didn't like. For some reason, his mother kept on picking out weird pj's in the style of oversized shirts and booty shorts, he concluded that she must have wanted a girl when he was born, so he always took the offered nightwear for when I came over. He would just re-gift them to her and explain that he didn't want them and they were never used, but I stopped coming over, along with Choji for whatever reason, after seeing him become a fangirl to Sasuke. Shikamaru laid the chosen pj's out on his bed, they were oversized shirts with the Nara symbol on them and the pair of booty shorts that went with them, he was hoping that Naruto didn't get the wrong idea when he saw these. "Hay, Shika, are those the clothes you lending me?" Shikamaru turned to see Naruto coming out of his bathroom, "Yeah-" he froze when he got a good look at Naruto. In one word: anorexia was the only word to describe the blond's form, Shikamaru knew it was rude to stare and all, but he couldn't take his eyes away. The towel covered most of Naruto's body, actually hanging off of him, there was some meat on his bones, but you could still see most of it, you could almost count all of his ribs too. Suddenly Shikamaru felt bad about complaining about how his mother couldn't cook, at least she put food on the table most nights, some nights it would have to be his dad who did the cooking for them. "U-uh yeah, you can keep them, I've got lots," he said forcing his eyes away from the blond, "I don't even like these anyways so you can have them if you want." Naruto didn't miss the way that Shikamaru stared at him, "I know that I'm skinny, you don't have to hide it, and I don't accept pity either so you can cut that out right now." He said as he finished drying himself off, he walked over to take a good look at the clothes that were being given to him. "thanks for the clothes, they look warm!" He said as he quickly got rid of the towel and shoved the clothes on him, the fit was baggy but it was better than the orange monstrosity that he had been wearing. When he found it, it smelled like trash! He had to watch it three times in the river to get the smell out, thank goodness that the fish kept away from him while he did his washing, the worst smell that he could have, other than smelling like garbage, is smelling like fish. The booty shorts felt like boxers on him, but he didn't care, these clothes were the first ones he'd ever gotten that weren't thrown away or found in the trash, and he liked the fact that they were still known. "Did your mom buy you these?" He asked as he turned to face Shikamaru, who had walked over to the table to start eating his food, he looked at the food on the table for a moment, "What's the name of this?" Shikamaru blinked up from his pizza, "Uh, pizza...wait, you've never had pizza before?" When Naruto shook his head, Shikamaru widened his eyes, "What that's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! I mean, you must have at least seen it somewhere before...oh, and yes, she did." "Hmmm," he tilted his head as he thought, "I've seen the stores that had a sign that says pizza on it, but I've never been able to get my hands on one. Most of my meals consist of some rabbit, vegetables, and...deer," his head shot up from where he was examining the pizza slice in his hands. "But that was only once when I was hungry and I couldn't find anything else to eat, I promise!" He said in a slight panic when he remembered that Shik meant deer, he didn't want to offend his new friend with his past sin, but he went into panic mode when Shikamaru didn't say anything for a while, just blinked at him. "I swore on my life that I didn't hunt it down or anything, it was just laying there with its legs all broken, and blood was going everywhere-" "Whoa, whoa, Naruto, it's okay..." Shikamaru tried to calm the blond down but he was already crying. "-And it was making these weird crying sounds that made me want to cry, and Kurama said that I should eat him because we hadn't eaten anything in three weeks-" "Naruto, stop, I said it's okay." "And I told him that I didn't want to, but he said that it was either him or me, so I dad to do it. Did I mention that we hadn't eaten anything in three weeks, and-" "NARUTO! Sheesh, stop it already, I already told you that it was okay," Shikamaru finally broke through to the panicking blond who was close to hyperventilating. Shikamaru had a hand on Naruto's shoulder as he tried to calm the boy down some more, "It's okay, okay, you were hungry, it's not your fault...are you calm now?" Naruto nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'm fine now," he breathed in and out slowly to calm down his heart. He cleared his throat, "Thanks for that, nobody's ever done that for me before, well maybe Kurama, but still," he turned to Shikamaru, "thanks," he smiled brightly at the boy. Shikamaru nodded, "No problem, just hurry up and eat before the pizza gets cold." They fell into a comfortable silence after that. Meanwhile, while Naruto was calming down from his panic attack, Shikaku was having his own, it was very close to a heart attack as well. After Sarutobi had told everyone about Naruto's heritage, some people decided that Shikaku may not be the best option for marriage and that Naruto should marry his son instead. However, when Sandime showed everyone Shikaku's name on the contract, where he had signed his name and everything, there was no way out. If Shikaku didn't uphold the contract, then there were some consequences that Minato had set in place to make sure that Shikaku had gone through with it, the punishments were things that Shikaku had vowed on his name as a man, not a ninja, but as a good and just man, that he would never, ever, on his life, do ever again. With that said, we joined Shikaku, his two friends and teammates, and Hiruzen in his office the next day after the meeting had been settled. "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I ca-" were the words that Shikaku Nara, the clan head of the smartest clan in the village, and the usually calm ANBU commander, kept saying. He was rocking himself back and forth in the corner of the Hokage's office as he had a small mental breakdown. "Um, Shika, are you going to be alright?" Choza asked concerned, he didn't think he would be fine with the situation, but he didn't think that he would handle it like his long-time friend was. It was odd to the calm, lazy-faced Nara panicking in the corner of their leader's office, but it was also a little funny, so he was filming it. "Does it look like I'm alright?!" Shikaku state. "Shikaku, there's no need to snap at your friends, they're only here to help," Hiruzen said. "Then why's Choza filming me?" "Sorry, this was just a rare occasion to see you panic, but I'm done now," Choza put his camera away and turned to the Hokage. "So there's no way for him to get out of this?" Hiruzen shook his head, "No, I've looked, but the contract was fixed, there's nothing that I can do." The room fell quiet after a while, Shikaku took this moment to think about the decision logically, there's no way out of this contract. He had to marry the twelve-year-old son of his dead best friend, and Minato knew that he would do anything in his power to help out Naruto. So once this is over, Naruto would be known as Naruto Nara instead of Uzumaki, hmmm.... "Wait!" Shikaku got up from his corner to face his friends, Hiruzen could see a glint of hope in Nara's eyes, it piqued his interest to see what he would say next. Maybe he could get out of this after all, "Hokag-sama, the last time I checked the medical records, Naruto was born a boy, so..." he trailed off when he saw the old man shake his head, "but, he is a boy...right?" He looked to his friends for an answer, he did check the files, Naruto was a boy, completely. "Shikaku, I'm sorry to tell you this, but yes, he is a boy..." Sarutobi was cut off by Inoichi. "Then the marriage can't go through if he's a boy, right?" "No, it still can." "How?" The three men asked at the same time. "Because all males that hold the Kyuubi, or any other tailed beast, can carry children until their late fifties to sixties. Just like all females that carry tailed beast can impregnate their lovers, please don't ask me how, because the explanation was more than enough for me the first time around. I do not wish to relive it a second time," the aged kage went to his desk to take his seat, "now, on to the matter of hand," he gestured to the chairs so that everyone could sit. Once everyone was seated, Sarutobi spoke again, "Shikaku, this contract was supposed to come to light much sooner." "How much sooner?" Shikaku asked, wry of the answer. "About a month or so ago," Hiruzen answered, "the terms of the contract state that you would have to marry Naruto into your clan if there was no way that you could adopt him before he took the genin test. So that means...." "That he would have to marry the boy after he became a ninja of the village," Inoichi supplied. "By becoming a genin, he automatically qualifies to be an adult, making his own decision and such," Choza spoke up. They all turned to Shikaku who was in deep thought, after a moment of thinking again, he looked into Hiruzen's eyes, "Did he pass this time around?" He was hoping for a 'no'. "Yes, he did pass this time, I was surprised when Iruka came in to hand over the graduates list three days prior," Hiruzen said. "Three days!! How long was I out for?" Shikaku asked. "About a day and a half actually," Inoichi answered, "you did somewhat wake up yesterday, but you were just sleepwalking." "That technically doesn't count, because you are still unresponsive," Choza stopped his friend from asking that question. Shikaku rolled his eyes, "Fine, so troublesome, how long until I have to, you know." "Two days, give or take," Inoichi stated. "that long huh..." A storm cloud appeared over Shikaku's head as he was back in the corner, "Man, I haven't been home in three whole days, Yoshino's gonna murder me." Inoichi walked over to Shikaku in an attempt to comfort him, "Well think of it this way, at least you'll finally get to divorce her like you've always wanted." Shikaku sweetly dropped, "You do know that she's going to ask for a reason and try to take me to court. I can't say, 'Oh hey, I'm divorcing you because back when we had our first child, I willingly signed a paper to marry another child of the same age', I would be dead before I even hit the ground!" Choza thought for a moment, "Hmm, maybe you can, not in those exact words, but something clothes." "What did you have in mind, Choza?" Hiruzen asked. "Well, just say that you have a binding contract that obligates you to marry someone else at a certain point in time and that you didn't know about it until recently." Shikaku sighed heavily, "What? No good?" "No, that's fine, but now I have to go tell her, that's the problem," the Nara clan head moped in the corner as the storm cloud made thunder and lightning effects over his head. "I'm getting too old got this," Hiruzen got up and walked over to the moping clan head, he waved his hand through the cloud to dispel it. "Come on, let's get going, maybe if I'm there, she won't be compelled to end your life so gruesomely in front of a kage," he said giving the younger man a grandfatherly smile. "You don't know what she's like," Shikaku groaned as he got up to his feet. A few minutes later at the Nara compound, Yoshino was downstairs making something for breakfast, trying not to burn anything again, when a knock was heard at the door. She being the only one who was away, went to answer it. It was to her surprise to see the 3rd Hokage standing there with her husband and his teammates. "Lord 3rd, what can I do for you?" She asked sweetly. "Yoshino my dear, my I come in, there is something important that we need to discuss," Hiruzen said with a warm smile. "Yoshino nodded as she opened the door wider, "Yes, please come in." Shikamaru and Naruto had spent the night talking and playing shogi until they dropped, Shikamaru would occasionally go downstairs to raid the frig for snacks while he and Naruto continued playing their came of all-night shogi. At some point they had fallen asleep on the floor next to the shogi board, it showed that Naruto had won the last round they played last night before drifting off to sleep. They were so deep in sleep that they didn't hear the screams of "WHAT" and the ever-present scream of "Please, not the face!" or "You're going to kill him, stop!" and the new scream of "ANBU, restrain her NOW!" No, they didn't hear any of that, not one word because they were in a sort of sugar coma from all the sweet snacks they ate while they played late at night. When Shikaku came upstairs to see if his son had been scared by the commotion downstairs not too long ago, he was surprised to find that his son wasn't alone in the room, in fact, the person that they had been talking about that somewhat, but not really, caused all the noise downstairs was sleeping on the floor with his son. "Oi, Shika-chan, wake up, we need to talk," Shikaku said as he shook his son away. It took a few minutes but his son finally woke up, his eyes blurry as he looked up at his father, "Dad? When did you get home?" He looked around the room to notice that it was morning, the room was covered in empty snack bags, and Naruto was still asleep next to him, "uh...What's going on?" He asked when he noticed that Choza and Inoichi were also in the room. "That's what we need to talk about, son," Shikaku turned to his friends, "can you two take Naruto downstairs for some real food?" He asked them, gesturing to the mess in the room, he got two nods for his troubles when they took the half-awake Naruto downstairs. "Thanks," he turned back to his son once the door closed behind him, he felt nervous about talking about this to his son now, and he looked for a distraction. Shikamaru, being intoned by his father wanting to ask something, but not able to for whatever reason, decided to ask his question. "Dad, oh come you and mom are never happy," he asked, it's a question that's been on his mind since he was four years old, but every time he asked it before, they would lie to him. Saying that they were when he could tell that they weren't, he was very observant as a child, he picked up on every little thing. Shikaku looked at his son for a long moment, he was going to go for his usual lie, but saw there was no point in it anymore, not with recent events coming into play. "Well son, you want the truth?" Shikamaru nodded, "All alright, here it is," he closed his eyes for a moment before breathing out, "I don't love her and..." He opened his eyes, "and she never loved me." Shikamaru looked confused, "then why did you marry her?" "Because it was the right thing to do, at the time anyways." Shikamaru waited for more, "Back before you were born, your mother, Yoshino, saw me at a party during a quiet time in the 3rd war. I had seen her around, she seemed like she could be a good friend when need be, so we started talking, and before I knew anything, there were drinks in our hands. Cups all around us, empty ones, and we hadn't moved from where we were. It was getting late and the party was ending, so I chose to be nice and walk her home, the next day I was woken up from her bed and kicked out of her house before the son even came up." He sighed, "the battle picked up again and I did see her after that until she came banging down my door saying that she was pregnant. I barely knew her, we weren't in love, yet the elders wanted us to get married," he got comfortable on the floor in front of his son as he went with his tail. "It was troublesome, but I still did it, a few months later I was a husband, and a few weeks after that, a father.....but don't think that I didn't want you as my son, I did, I would do it all again if I could have you as my son." He smiled at his son, "after we had you, there was an unspoken rule between us that along as we don't pretend to love each other, then we won't hate each other more than we already did." "Wait, does that mean that mom never wanted to have me?" Shikamaru asked, a small bit of pain gripped his heart, but he tried not to show it, "and don't lie to me either, Dad," his voice cracked at the end. Shikaku still saw the hurt his son tried to hide, "No, she wanted you, she wanted you with all her heart, but that came later. I don't know for sure what her plan was back then, but in reality...she uh....she never picked you up until you were one year old." his fist clenched when he saw the crestfallen look on his son's face, "I wanted to divorce her after you were born, I wanted so much to divorce her, but I knew that she would fight for her spot as my wife. Even when she didn't love me one bit." "Why'd she do it?" Shikamaru asked, looking up at his dad. Shikaku looked deep into his son's eyes before speaking, "Power, money, whatever it was, I don't she got what she was aiming for." "What makes you say that? Did something go wrong with her plans or something?" "Well yes and no," Shikaku stated slowly, "no, because she got to be my wife and I was given the position of clan head, which worked out in her favor. Yes, because she didn't realize the amount of work that came with being a clan head's wife." "What do you mean?" "Being a clan head, you have to take care of the clan and everything that has to do with it, paperwork, meetings, clan-related events. But being a clan head's wife, maybe not as much work is involved, but still, you would have to make sure that some things get done, the small things that the clan head is too busy to take care of. It's not hard work, any woman that's married to a clan head could tell you that much, you could ask Choza and Inoichi's wives the next time you see them, I know that they'll tell it's more of a hobby than anything else. But your mother...." he sighed deeply, "she made everything difficult. Simple jobs became big ones, she would always dump it on someone else and then try to do the next thing that was similar to the first and end up doing it all over again." Shikamaru scratched the back of his head, he remembered the times when his mom looked like she was overwhelmed by something but never knew what it was. "If she was so troublesome to do the work, then why give it to her?" "Because it was her job, and no, we as a clan don't give the woman boring jobs like taking care of the house and children, it was already a thing that people took note of before the marrying part. Yoshino's job was not simply to be a housewife, her job as my wife was to organize the events, set up the meeting, and greet the guest that came over." Shikamaru was about to ask something, but Shikaku cut him off, "why you marry the clan head, you become the second representation of that clan, it's an old tradition but it's what has been done for years. Your mother didn't seem to understand that at first." "Did she ever get used to it?" Shikaku scuffed, "I was just lucky that we didn't have any meetings or events at the compound in the past few years, or I'm afraid that she would have ended up embarrassing the clan. Not to disrespect her in any way, but she was troublesome in every sense of the word." They fell quiet as Shikamaru took in everything that his father had said, once he felt that he had come to terms with what was said, he nodded. "So what else did we have to talk about?" Shikaku became nervous again, Shikamaru sighed, "Dad, come on, what is it? Why are you beating around the bush so much, you usually go straight to the point....is this something bad?" "Depending on how you look at it, no, it shouldn't be too bad." "Shouldn't?" Shilalu felt like banging his head on a table, "you're too smart for your good, you know that?" "Troublesome, dad, spit out, I'm getting hungry here," Shikamaru said just as his stomach made it known. When Shikamaru gets hungry, he gets crabby. "Straight to the point," Shikamaru nodded, "I have to marry Naruto." A pregnant pause stretched between the two as they stared at each other, "what?" Shikamaru finally asked. "I have to marry Naruto." Another long pause happened between them, "That's not funny...but you're serious, aren't you?" Shikaku nodded once, "why?" "There's a contract that I signed, it had to do with me divorcing your mother after you were born, but because Mianto told me to wait, that's what I did. When the Kyuubi attacked, the contract was changed a little bit, that change brings us to today," explained Shikaku. Shikamaru was silent for a long time, "why did you agree to marry Naruto? Was there a mix-up on the names or something? Because the last time I checked, he was a little young to be your type." Shikaku nodded again, "Ha, tell me about it, Minato was a bit of a troublesome guy at times, but when it came to making decisions like these, he did it with the utmost seriousness. The 3rd even looked into it, I took a look at it too, there was no forgery, mix-up of names, nothing." He let out another sigh, "And I have to marry a twelve-year-old kid in about two days." "Huh? Why so soon, shouldn't you guys wait until he's of age?" Shikaku bit out a hollow laugh, "because he will, technically, be of age in days." Shikamaru looked confused, "You both passed the genin exam, him passing this test is enough to warrant his entry into adulthood. Thus, we'll be married in two more days," he stood up as he spoke and walked across the room, only to stop at the door. "I don't know how you feel about your mother before now, whether you liked her or hated her, but you're getting a new one now," he opened the door and walked down the hallway, "even if it's already set in stone." Shikamaru watched as his dad left, "so, dad's getting remarried and the person who's replacing mom is the same age as me," he shuttered, "what has the world come to?" He asked as he walked out of his room, he followed the path down the stairs and to the kitchen where a myriad of yummy smells were coming out of the kitchen. He followed the smells to the sources where he found Inoichi, Choza, and Naruto having breakfast, at a table full of freshly made homemade food, he walked over to stand next to his dad, who seemed stunned at the sight as well. "What is all this?" He asked. Naruto looked up, "Oh hay Shika, come and eat, I made breakfast, there should be enough to go around." "You made this?" Shikamaru asked as he and his father absently sat down at the table. "Yep, me," Naruto grinned as he went back to eating, Shikamaru looked at his dad for a second before looking at the food, and then they each took a bite. "Oh my Kami..." said the two Nara's before they started devouring the food before them. "I think that means that they like it," Inoichi chuckled. After breakfast was done and the dishes watched, Choza and Inoichi bid them goodbye and left, making sure to give Shikaku a brief pep talk before walking out the door. Once the guest was gone, Shikaku returned to the living room where his son was talking to Naruto, "Naruto, can we talk?" Shikaku asked as he took a seat on the couch in front of the boys. "Sure, uhm, is this about me coming over without permission? Because if it is, I just want to say that I asked Shika not to tell and-" "Relax Naruto, you're not in trouble," Shikamaru said calming down the blond again like he did the night before. "Dad just wants to tell you something, right Dad?" "Right," Shikaku said looking nervously at Naruto again. Naruto looked between the father and son for a long moment before a look of realization struck his face, "Oh, you're the one that has the other end of the contract! Am I right?" Naruto said while pointing to Shikaku stunned silence reined supreme over the living room as time froze for the two Nara's in the room, "Uh, right?" Silence met his ear, "Kurama help, I think I broke their minds."
"Relax it, they're just shocked that you knew after all this time, maybe you should explain."
"Right," he cut the connection and took a deep breath, "Okay, let's try this again, you see...." he told them all about how he found out about the contract between himself and Shikaku a few months ago when he was visiting Hiruzen for the first time. The Sarutobi head had left to go get them some tea and snacks when he saw a box at the corner of a shelf in the bookcase that was in the office, when he went to check it out, he found that the box had his name on it. When he took the box from the shelf, he opened it to find pictures and other small things worth remembering, underneath it all was the contract. He had remembered that Kurama told him about the contract, but not what it said or was meant for. He just knew that it concerned him, so he read it. He saw the name 'Shikaku Nara' a few times on the paper, as well as his name, and something about a marriage, being as smart as he was, deduced that this was a marriage contract between him and this person. At the time he didn't know who Shikaku was, but he didn't have time to think about that since the old man was coming back, so he put back everything he found and played innocent. He was just meeting the old kage for the first time and didn't want to be rude, said the old man still didn't know that he knew. "After I left, I tried to look you up, but there were pictures to go off of and all I had was your name. Every person I tried to ask would just call me a demon and kick me out of the store," he explained to the now-unfrozen Nara. "But after overhearing some of your conversations upstairs, mostly the beginning part about someone named Yoshino, I concluded something and made a guess. So was I wrong?" Shikamaru blinked at Naruto for a moment, "h-how did you? When did-that was one hell of a guess kid," he said still stunned as stared at the blond. "Yeah, Kurama tells me that a lot," Naruto said rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "I was right after all, huh?" The father-son duo nodded, "how do you feel about this Naruto? "Shikaku asked slowly, "How do I feel? How do I feel," he shrugged his shoulders, "Well I feel like I've had the most time to get used to the idea. I looked at the wording and I saw no way out of it, so I don't see the point in fighting it. Although I am a little put off that my father would have me marry a guy who is about fourteen years my senior, I've read that stranger things could have happened. Plus there are even wider age gaps in some other countries, so really, I can't complain. At least you're not some sick pedo that knowingly agreed to this deal just so that you can live out a fantasy of being with a very young blond or something, right?" Naruto smiled brightly at the two dumbfounded Nara, they had both thought that he would overreact or run away screaming, but they were floored by the amount of calm thinking that went into his words. Shikamaru recovered from his shock first, he looked over at his still-shocked father, "Does this mean I have to call him mom? Or will it be Dad?" Shikaku looked over to his son, "You can call me Naruto like always, but I guess after the marriage is done, maybe you can call me Mom in public." Naruto said as Shikaku's eyes turned back onto him, "him, but only if there's a person around that knows about this or whatever, but other than that, Naruto's fine." Shikamaru sighed, "This is weird." "I know," Naruto turned to Shikaku, "could we have 'the talk' now? Kurama keeps telling me that I need it, but I don't know what for, since we're talking now and all." Shikaku got up from the couch and slowly walked out of the room, seemingly in a daze, "I need to lay down." TO BE CONTINUED
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was the morning of the team placement and Shikaku had yet to come out of his room since he first went in, Choza and Inoichi tried their best out of his room. But every time they got close to the door, they heard mumbling that sounded like "How am I going to do this" or "I can't believe this is happening". In light of this being the rarest of things for them to see from their friend, the duo decided that they could leave him be until now. During those two days, while Shikaku was locked up in his room, Shikamaru had taken the situation and turned it into a positive one. Shikamaru could not deny that this was by far THE weirdest thing that had ever happened to him. EVER. But what could he do? It was already set in stone from what he could tell, he took a look at the contract too because he wanted to see it for himself as well, he couldn't find any way out of it either, so what was the point in fighting it? He had to give Minato credit where it was due, the man knew what he was doing when it came to wording and thinking ahead. The part that surprised Shikamaru, and slightly Naruto, was the fact that Naruto could carry children, the young Nara figured that was what blew his father's mind so much. Then again, would it be so bad? Shikamaru had always, always wanted a little brother or sister, this could be his chance to get one, but this was still all too weird. Instead of having a small meltdown like his father, Shikamaru had taken the bull by the horns, so to speak, and got to know Naruto better. It was the day before the tea placements when Shikamaru invited his friends over to tell them about the addition to his family. He was hoping that after he did this, he and his friends would find some way to be close again like they used to when they were kids. Sadly, that wasn't meant to be. "Hay Shikamaur, what you call us here for?" Choji asked as the three long-time friends sat in the living room. "Well, there's this thing that's happening, it's a little troublesome, but I thought I could talk to you guys about it. You know, since we've been friends for so long and all," Shikamaru said in his usual lazy tone. "Yeah, sure, what's on your mind?" I asked, even though this was cutting into her Sasuke stalking time, she still wanted to be there for her friend. "Well, my dad's getting remarried," Shikamaru said, he watched for their reactions, he suspected about two of them. One emotion of the two could go either way for both, or just one of them. The first emotion, for both of them, was surprise, "but I thought your dad was already married," said Ino. "Is there something wrong with you folks? You know clan heads rarely get divorced," Choji said, surprised enough to pause in eating the chips he brought. "It's not a recent problem, it's something that's been going on for years. Before I was born, even." "What's the problem?" Ino asked, Choji also wanted to know since he put down his chips, it showed how worried he was for his best friend. Shikamaru eyed his friends for a bit before speaking, "they never loved each other," he said. He saw that Ino was going to ask an obvious question, so he answered it before she could ask, "It was a setup, mossetup my mom's part and was, forced by the elders. I don't have all the details, but seems that my mom just wanted power and status, so she married a clan head to get it, although, she knew that she would have a better chance at marriage if she had me. Her plan worked, sad to say, and she married Dad, They never once loved each other and Dad had been trying to find a way to divorce her and still keep me, but it was hard." "So did your dad fall your love with someone someone all this time, is that why he's remarrying now?" Choji asked as Ino squealed. "OMG!! The tail of true love concurring all reveals its beautiful head once again!" Into exclaimedInto she hopped off thoppeduch, a pen and paper in her hand from who-knows-where, "Tell me eveTelling. What's she like? Is she pretty, did she run away from a curl and demanding life? Was she also married? Does she have a kid? Is it a boy or a girl? Do the two of you get along?" She gasped as more ideas came to her, "is she a prince? Doesprinceme from a faraway land? Is she rich? ACK, I just can't take it anymore, YOU HAVE TO TELL ME NOW!!!" By now Ino's questioning had turned violent quickly as she was in Shikamaru's face, her hands making fists in the collar of his shirt, as she shook him back and forth to get her answers. Thankfully, Choji was there to help get the crazed Yamanaka off of his best friend before said friend suffocated from lack of air. "Thank Choji," Shikamaru said once he could breathe again, he took in a deep breath of air, "Listen, this situation is a little...dilate right now, so I would appreciate you two kept your mouths shut on this, alright? Do I have your word?" "You got my word, Shika, now give me all the juicy details already!" Ino said as she started bouncing up and down in her seat. "My lips are sealed," Choji said. Shikamaru hesitated for a moment, he didn't know why, but he just got a dad feeling. A feeling that said 'stop now' and 'they're not ready' screamed in his head, but he ignored it, why? Because these were his friends, Choji had been like a brother to him all his life, and I was like a sister, plus an Akamichi wouldn't do anything to hurt their friends. Be it by accident or not, they would always protect their friends and family, the same could be said for the Yamanaka, so he told them everything that had to do with the contract. He told them almost everything about Naruto, making sure to leave out the Kyuubi, aka Kurama. When he was done telling them everything, the room was quiet, I had never been this quiet before and it furthered Shikamaru's worry. He knew that he made a mistake when Ino quickly got up and walked out the door, soon followed by Choji, there was no yelling, no joking, no talking of any kind, they just left. He waited until they came back to "gotcha", but it never came, he waited until late evening, just hoping that he didn't just make a huge misjudgment of his friend's character. He hoped and waited, but they never came back. Naruto, who had heard the whole thing happen, walked over to him to comfort him, giving him some homemade ice cream that he learned to make from a book. For a twelve-year-old kid, he seemed to be playing the role of mother quite well and he wasn't even married yet. Following day-Nara kitchen table It was finally time to get the team placements on their way, Shikaku had finally come out of his room and to face the facts. He was getting married to a child........well maybe not face those pacific facts, but he was ready to face the fact that Naruto was going to be a part of the family now. He could deal with that fact just fine, he didn't want to think of the wedding that would be taking place later on today as a wedding. Oh no! It wasn't a wedding, it was just a very special ADOPTION!! Yeah, that's it, no marriages going on here, he was just adopting Naruto into the family, it may look like a wedding, and sound like a wedding, but it wasn't. It wasn't damnit! And that was what he would tell all of his friends, every last one of them, there was no way that they would not believe him because Naruto's last name would have been changed to his last name and that would be proof enough. If anyone else tried to look any deeper, he would have to start burning files and giving bribes, this secret would not be found out! "HAY DAD! Could you please not go nuts on us at the table, please?" Shikamaru said as both boys looked at the older man, they were sitting at the table eating breakfast, all of them this time, when Shikaku started muttering to himself about secrets and bribes. It was freaking them both out and they wanted him to stop, "It's too troublesome to go through this so early in the morning." "Uh, sorry, did I..."Shikaku trailed off as he stared sheepishly at his son and son to be wif-second son. "You've been mumbling something about 'secret not getting out' and 'adoptions' for the past twenty minutes. Are you feeling okay, Mr. Nara?" Naruto asked as he looked worriedly at the older man across the table from him and Shikamaru. "Uuh, haha, sorry about that, must be the stress that's all," Shikaku deflected as he turned back to the breakfast in front of him. Freshly made pancakes, fluffy scrambled eggs, perfectly crispy bacon, and to top it all off, a cup of warm coffee for him and orange juice for the boys. Man, Naruto's going to make a great wife to some lucky person someday," he thought with a happy smile, ignoring the fact that that person was going to be him, he was still trying to keep his sanity after all. Naruto and Shikamaru leaned closer together, "I think he's lost it, I read in a book once that people who receive shocking news that they're not used to tend to go into shock and find a coping mech to deal with it." Shikamaru whispered to the blond. Naruto nodded, "do you think we should tell him about what happened yesterday between you, Ino, and Choji?" He whispered back. Shikamaru thought about that for a moment, "Nah, it's best not to, I don't think his brain could handle that little fact, not after what he was mumbling about a few seconds ago. I don't want to overload his brain before he walks us to the academy, besides, they could still come around." Naruto was about to whisper something back when he noticed Shikaku looking at them, "Boys, I've been a ninja longer than you, therefore, I can hear everything you're saying," he deadpanned. "Sorry," both boys said as they went back to eating their food in silence. "And I'm not crazy, thank you very much." "Then why were you mumbling all that stuff to yourself just now?" Shikamaru deadpanned with Naruto. "Mumbl-I wasn't troublesome, just eat your food before you late," Shikaku said giving up the fight, "brats," he muttered under his breath as he took a sip of his coffee. "Okay!"
Academy
The walk to the academy, thought to be uneventful, was anything but. As soon as the two boys were ready to go, Naruto having borrowed some more of Shikamaru's clothes since they burned the orange thing yesterday, they set off. As soon as they were on the main road to the academy, people kept staring at Shikaku and his son with concern in their eyes, while they gave Naruto the usual glares, at which point it didn't even face the blond. As they neared the school, the glares and other stares continued, if not intensified, a few women even were ever so bold as to walk up to Shikaku to say how 'sorry' they were that he had to marry the 'demon brat'. Not even caring if the so-called 'demon brat' was standing right in front of them the whole time. Shikaku dropped them at the building a little late because of all the women who came up to him to say how 'sorry' they were for him and his son, some of the women, and maybe one or two men, slipped their numbers into the clan head's pocket. Telling him to call them whenever he needed a more 'human' partner in the sack, Shikaku made a mental note to burn all of their numbers after he got home, "Okay boys, looks like you a little late today, sorry about that. I don't know what marriage those people were talking about, but anyways, I'll come and pick you guys up so we can meet up with the Hokage." "Wait, I thought the 'adoption' was going to take place in a chapel or something," Shikamaru asked, he had caught on his dad's coping thing during breakfast. He thought that he would play along for now, seeing as how his father had been held up in his room for two straight days before this. "Nope, Lord 3rd said that he would be overseeing it, something about security and not having someone willing enough to do it for us. It's a drag, but hay, what can we do?" Shikaku stated in a bored tone. The two boys shrugged their shoulders, "okay then, see ya later," Shikamaru said as the boys walked into the building as Shikaku shushinned away. Inside the building, Naruto and Shikamaru kept getting glances from the other students, a feeling rose in the two and only worsened once they sat down. "So, is it true? Did this dobe freak find some way to force your dad to marry him?" Asked a random boy from the class, all eyes were on them, they all wanted to know, it had been the only thing that they could talk about ever since they first found out about it. "What are you talking about? I don't see a freak around here," Shikamaru said in his usual lazy tone, but on was getting nervous. on the inside"That freak right there, the date of the class! He did, didn't he?" Asked the same student. "How low can you get to force your way into a clan?" Asked one random girl in the class. "I know, and to go as far as to marry an older guy too? That's disgusting!" More negative whispers filled the room as everyone glared at the blond, Naruto was looking down at his desk, "It's not like I had a choice in the matter," he whispered under his breath. "What was that freak? I didn't hear you that time, maybe speak a little louder when talking to normal people!" Shrieked Sakura after seeing Naruto's mouth move. Naruto glared at the pinkette heatedly, "I said at least I'm not a stupid fangirl that's going to get myself killed because I was chasing after some boy!" "WHAT WAS THAT!?" Sakura yelled. "Troublesome, if you can't what he said from over there, then you have no business being a ninja," Shikamaru stated. Sakura, in a fit of rage, got up from her seat and marched over to the two boys' seats, "Who do you think you are, telling me what I can't and can't be?! Huh? I'm the top girl of the class and both of you are the bottom, I don't see how either of you even passed!" "Well maybe if you stop eye-raping Sasuke so much, maybe you would, I bet he doesn't even know you exist," Naruto shot back. "I bet Sasuke is gay, how 'bout that!?" This one comment was soon followed by all the girls in the room, except Hinata, to get red-faced faced angry. "Oh great, now you've done it," Shikamaru said as he quickly grabbed Naruto's hand, "c'mon, we've gotta get out of here before they explode!" Naruto nodded, though he was scared of the girls, he didn't feel like getting beat because of their stupidity. The two quickly ran out of the room dodging many flying objects like books, pens, pencils, rocks, and a few desks and chairs that weren't bolted down, the boys ran for their lives out of the building and into the street with an angry mob of kunoichi-wanna-be's chasing after them. They ducked, dodged, swerved, zig-zag, and other complex things just so that they wouldn't get caught, "oh man, this is beyond troublesome!" Shikamaru panted after they had finally lost them in the men's bath house. "Yeah, but we can't stay in here forever, one of 'em is bound to grow a pair and come in after us. We need a plan," Naruto said as he caught his breath. Shikamaru looked at Naruto for a moment, "Looks like you've got a plan, care to share?" Naruto smirked, "How about you help your new mama with his latest prank, it's sure to have them running for the hills in no time flat." "That sounded weird, you calling yourself that, but whatever. It'll be troublesome, but I'm in." "Alright, here's the plan...." Fifteen minutes later-outside the men's bath "Ugh! I can't take it anymore, those bastards have to pay for insulting Sasuke-kun like that!" One fangirl screamed. "Yeah!" Cheered the girls outside the bathhouse as some people stared at them while they passed by the noise. "We can't! That's the men's bath house!" One girl, Ino, reasoned, "We're girls, we can't go in there after them!" "Why not?! Didn't you hear what they said about Sasuke-kun?" Sakura yelled. "Yes I did, but still, we can't go in there!" Ino shot back. "And why not?" Asked a random girl. "Because what if there are perverts in there?" I said, all the girls shivered at the thought. "So what do we do?" Asked another random girl, "We can't go in there because we're girls, but as the Sasuke Uchiha Fan Club, we have to defend Sasuke's honor!" One girl with dark brown hair done up in two bushy pig-tails stepped forth, "I will go," she said bravely, the other girls gasped. "Are you sure, Amiko?" Ino asked worriedly. "Yes, I'm sure," the name, Amiko, said. "But...but what about the perverts?!" Yelled Sakura as the other girls shook and nodded their heads in agreement with the pinkette. "Then I will lay waste to them, just like I'm going to do to those basterds for disrespecting OUR SASUKE-KUN! They WILL NOT get away!!" All the girls cheered for their fangirl in arms as she moved forth, getting close to the entrance before turning around with a bright shine in her eyes. "I promise you all, that by the time I get back, here, those losers will be begging for forgiveness at our Sasuke-kun's feet!!" Amiko then went inside the bath house, leaving behind a crowd of cheering girls in her wake, The seconds turned into minutes, and those minutes led up to an hour until suddenly, a scream was heard from within the building. It was a high-pitched girl's scream, "Oh no, those fiends! What could they be doing to her in there?!" Asked an angry and terrified girl from the group. "I don't know, but I'm going to the" Sakura started to say until Amiko came running out of the bathhouse, her clothes were wet from what they could tell and she had tears in her eyes as she ran. "Oh, my Kami! Amiko! What happened to you?" Amiko looked at the girls before her with tears in her eyes, she started to say something, but no one could understand it. Before anyone could be asked what she was trying to say, the girl took off down the road, her sobs becoming lower and lower as she ran, the girls that were left behind stared after their friend. They were stunned, shocked even, could she have seen to had caused her to ask like that? They all wondered, suddenly all the girls started to get scared, "I-I-I-I'll g-g-go n-next!" Said another girl from the crowd. They all turned to look at the girl with raven black hair and a beauty mark on the side of her right eye, "Kiko, are you sure?" They asked her. Kiko nodded her head, "I'll go, and this time, I'll drag them out for sure!" She started to head for the door before I called out to her, "Wait, maybe we should have some come in there with you? Amiko went in there alone, so maybe two would make a difference," the blond reasoned to the girl. She turned to the others, "Any volunteers" The girls looked at each other for a while before one girl stepped up, she had bright green eyes with light brown bangs covering her left eye, "I'll go with her!" "Me too," another girl said. "So will I!" Said yet another girl, "With the four of us going in, there's no way that they can outmatch us, it'll be two to one for each of them! We've got this in the bag!" "Yeah, she's right," Sakura said, she, as well as the other girls, were gaining their confidence back full force. "All you guys, ONWARDS!!!" Yelled Kiko, the other three girls gave a battle cry that sounded a lot like 'for Sasuke's love' before rushing in. Half an hour later, all four girls came back out of the bath, they were all wet and crying, just like Amiko. "Those, those, those monsters! What did they do to you?!" Sakura asked. The girls were crying hysterically, they could barely get the words out, I had enough of this and went over to Kiko. She slapped the girl across the face, which did well to calm her down a bit before asking, "What happened in there?" "S-S-Sasuke-ke-k-k-k-ku-n, h-h-h-he, h-e's, he's" But she couldn't finish the sentences because she pushed away from the Yamanaka and ran away from the group. The other crying girls leave with her, all of them finding their own route home from the location with their eyes blurred with tears. Huffed in frustration, she turned back to the remaining that were still there, there were seven of them, including herself and Sakura, this was getting ridiculous! What could that lazy ass and the dobe be doing in there to scar off five faithful Sasuke fangirls like that? She needed to know, she hated not knowing, and today wouldn't be any different, "alright girls, this is getting out of hand. We need to shut this down now! So I say that we all charge in there and don't stop until we have stopped those two from doing whatever it is they are doing before we all take turns in beating the fucking shit out of them. Who's with me?" "HAI!!" The girls said in unison. "FOR SASUKE!!!" "FOR SASIKE!!!" All the girls ran into the bathhouse full force, none of them stopping even when the manager came over to get them to leave, or at least enter through the women's bath, but now, he was almost run over for his troubles. In the shadow, Naruto and Shikamaru watched all the girls frantically searching for them, Shikamaru turned to the blond, "You ready for the last wave?" "Born ready," Naruto said In an instant, the two vanished, the girls were looking everywhere they could think of for the two boys when they finally sucked it up and went to check the baths. They rushed in, not wanting to see something they didn't want to, "Hay, what are you bitch think you're doing in here?" Came a voice from the bath, it was deep and manly, but it wasn't yet the voice of a man, taking a chance, the girls peeked at the person who said those words. A squeal was heard once they saw who it was, there, sitting in the water before them was their naked Uchiha with his usual scowl. "W-we're s-sorry, Sasuke-kun, we were just looking for those two losers that had insulted you earlier," Sakura said turning into a Hinata, followed by the rest of the girls. "Oh, you mean these guys?" Sasuke said as he moved aside for the girls to see one Naruto and one Shikamaru, both tied up and in the water, "Yeah I found them hiding away while I was taking a bath. You can come and get them if you want." "R-really, we-we-we c-could get in the water? Y-your wat-water?" Stuttered one of the girls in the group. Sasuke shrugged, "yeah, I mean, that's who you came for, right?" He asked with his arms folded. "Y-yeah," Sakura turned to the rest of the girls behind her, "l-let's get them girls!" She was still blushing from the idea that she would get to be in the same water as Sasuke, the girls were thinking the same thing as they all ran into the water and made their way over to their targets. But just as they took a step closer to the two boys, something grabbed them from under the water and reached their wast, they looked around to see that Sasuke wasn't there anymore. The thing that grabbed them started to come up, it was Sasuke, or more likely, Sasuke, there were seven Sasuke to be exact and they were all holding on to one girl each. Some of the girls were close to fainting as they noticed that 'their' Sasuke was moving to stand up, some blood came out of their noses at the mental image, but that changed quickly once they saw the rest of Sasuke. To say that they were shocked faces on the girls that Sasuke was holding onto would be the understatement of the year because as they looked down to see how impressive the 'last Uchiha's dick was, they were stunned out of their minds to see something else. When all of the Sasuke's stood up, they all saw that Sasuke had no dick, but instead, a pussy, and it was, in a word: loose. Needless to say, all the girls were in the ultimate level of shock as they continued to stare at what they all could never dream of being between Sasuke's legs. They were so shocked in fact that they all turned Orochimaru pale, "So, you girls like what you see?" The Sasuke asked, the girls looked into the faces of each of their Sasukes, shocked/stunned/mortified into silence, what's wrong? Isn't this what guys all wanted to see? I have to say, when I had the operation done it kind of hurt a little, but in the end, it was worth it." "W-w-w-w-w-wh-wh-why S-S-Sasu-suke?" Sakura timidly asked, she was shaking and couldn't move a muscle. The Sasuke sighed as one, "Because, I didn't find any joy in being a guy, so I thought, why not try out being a girl instead? You guys always seem to have so much fun chasing after my balls, I thought that I could give it a try, I've found three so far that would make great fathers to my children." "F-f-father's?" One girl stuttered. "C-c-children?" Another girl stuttered out. The Sasuke nodded, "Yep that's right," they stepped away from each girl, "I'm pregnant!" All the girls stared down at Sasuke's bellies were now suddenly nine months pregnant, just then seven other guys rose from the water, all naked. They all walked over to Sasuke, one man, in particular, made his way to the front of the pack and grabbed the raven-haired 'boy', bringing him into a very heated kiss. "D-d-d-dad? W-wha-what are you doing to Sasuke?" Ino asked, because yes, the man that was kissing Sasuke right now was her dad, and the rest of the guys that rose from the water were also the fathers of the girls that were currently there watching. The man, Inoichi, looked over to his daughter, "Ah, Ino, good, I was hoping to tell you about this tonight while we celebrated your team placements, but I guys now's a good enough time than any." "W-what do you mean?" Ino asked, close to tears. "You see, the council thought it would be best if Sasuke turned into a girl and carried all of his children, they forced us all to marry him earlier this month. And now I'm glad to say that he's now carrying your new little brother! Congratulations Ino, you're about to be a big sister!!" "What, what, but, this can't it's I-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Into screamed at the same time as the others as they all ran out of the bathhouse crying and screaming that it wasn't true. Meanwhile, all of the Sasuke and the other fathers dispelled, the bath turned into an empty broom closet, and Naruto and Shikamaru were watching all of them leave. "You think we went too far with this one?" Shikamaru asked. "Maybe, what do you think they saw in that genjutsu anyways?" Naruto asked. Shikamaru asked, "I don't know, it's called the 'Hell View' for a reason, I'm guessing that they saw their worst nightmare or something." Naruto nodded, "So you think we should head back to class now to see what our teams are?" "Troublesome, I guess we'll have to," Shikamaru looked down at his watch, "it's almost lunchtime, what should we get to eat?" He asked as they walked out of the bathhouse, ignoring the run-over manager with footprints on his face. "I dunno, I think I would like to try some more of that pizza we had a few days ago, oh! And some ice cream too, I wanna see how other people make theirs," Naruto said, licking his lips at the thought. "Whoa, are you having cravings now or something? I thought that only happened when you're pregnant." The blond just shrugged his shoulders, "who cares if it's a craving or not? It'll be the first time that I'll have ice cream that wasn't thrown away. Now come on, onward to the ice cream!" Naruto took off running to the closest store with an ice cream sign. "Oi! Naruto, we have to get back to class! Okay!" Shikamaru yelled as he ran after the blond. Meanwhile, Iruka had walked into his class a few hours ago, expecting to hear the idol chit-chat of his students when he found none. He thought it odd for his class to be quiet now at all times, but he just thought that they were finally taking things seriously and smiled at the idea. When he walked into the classroom, he looked up at his students, ready to give his little speech when he noticed, there were only boys in the room. "Uh, am I missing something? What happened to all the girls in the class?" Iruka asked as he looked at all the empty seats, he also noticed that two of the boys were missing, "and where's Naruto and Shikamaru? I thought they would be here for the team placements." "They were here sensei," said one Shino Abarame. Iruka turned his eyes to the bug user, "Well where are they now? The class has already started." "They were here, but then Naruto made a comment about the girls being useless fangirls and that Sasuke was gay, and then all the girls, besides Hinata, chased after them. I don't expect that we'll be hearing from those two for quite some time," Shino informed his teacher. "How long ago did they leave?" "Half an hour ago." "Oh, and they probably won't be back today, huh?" Shino nodded, "Well then I guess we'll have to go on without them. Team one...." At the same time at the Hokage tower, Hiruzen was looking at his Jonin sensei, "All right everyone, let's listen in to the team placements and see how the kids react to them." "Hai" Hiruzen started up his crystal ball, it showed Iruka was just starting to tell the class about the teams, he widened the range of the scope to see the rest of the class. "Hm? What's going on here?" The aged Kage asked when he saw the lack of girls in the room, "What happened to the students, there are only boys here!" "That's not all, it seems that Naruto and my son are missing as well," Shikaku stated as he looked into the ball with the rest of the joints. "I know I dropped them off earlier this morning, where could they have gone in such a short time?" "Hokage-sama, should I set my ninja hounds out to find the missing students? They should be there to see what team they are likely to be on in the future," said Kakashi in a bored tone. Not even looking up from his book, he took it out once he saw that there were only boys in the classroom. Hiruzen thought for a moment, "Hm, I don't know about the girls, but have your best dogs find the two missing boys. If the girls either forgot or are running late, it's fine, I'm sure they wouldn't want to miss hearing which one of them ended up with the Uchiha after all." Kakashi nodded and went to summon his ninja hounds, a puff of smock later and Pakkun was standing in front of the group, "Yo, what's up Kakashi?" "Pakkun, I have two missing boys that need to be tracked down and brought back to class to hear what teams they will be placed on," Kakashi said as he read his book. "Sure, do you have there sent or something with it?" Pakkun asked. Shikaku walked over with the little pug, "One of them smells like me and some grass mostly from all the cloud watching he does. The other one would probably smell mostly of ramen and...if I was to put it into words, sweets," he said as he thought of what Naruto would smell like, he noticed the others in the room give him a look, "what? He bugged me for cinnamon rolls on our way to the academy, he ate about ten of them by the time we got to the building." "Uuuh, okay, cinnamon rolls, ramen, and grass got it," Pakkun puffed away. By the time Pakkun found Shikamaru and Naruto, Naruto had convinced his son-to-be stepson to have an early lunch. This lunch consisted of pizza, seasoned fries, soda, cake, and ice cream for dessert. Since the young Nara and Uzumaki had never had so much sugar in their bodies at one time, they went on a sugar-induced prank spree all around the village. It was a shock to the others, especially Shikaku, to hear that his son, Shikamaru Nara, was helping Naruto Uzumaki, pull off pranks throughout the village. Pakkun had reported back to the Jonins that he needed help right away because their latest prank had ten civilians covered in paint, and the Inuzuka's dogs were running free. It was an even bigger surprise that some of the ANBU that found out what the boys had done had yet to catch them after five to ten minutes of finding them. So doing the most logical thing that the jonins could think of, they decided to send Kakashi out to help his former ANBU pals. Hiruzen and the rest of the jonin watched from the crystal ball ass Kakashi led the ANBU team to first, track the boys down, and second, capture them to bring back to the classroom. So far, Shikamaru's and Naruto's genius minds put together proved to be too much for the copy ninja, as they had led three of his ANBU teams into paint and sparkle-filled traps, and two fell into a mudslide. And Kakashi's last team, which he had been leading himself, fell into the genjutsu trap that they had set for their fangirl classmates not even an hour before, these two earned the title of 'Prank Masters' that day. While Shikaku was staring in awe at the two's teamwork and how well they evaded ALL ANBU team's capture, he started to get used to the idea of what was to come. His resolve was: that even if Naruto was at the proper age to marry, he would still be Naruto. After that thought, Shikaku decided to make a choice and lend a hand in capturing the two boys before the day was done, it was like a fierce game of shogi, as Shikaku described it, but it was never a boring one. They played their little game of cat and mouse, some of the Jonin sensei getting involved here and there to help capture the two boys on their 'crime spree' through the village. By the time that lunch was over, the two boys had given up because they had found out that Shikaku was playing their little game, they gave up and went back to the academy of their own accord, but still did not let the remaining ANBU nor Kakashi capture them in the end. With the chase over and done with, the ANBU had realized something: they couldn't catch one, let alone two, twelve-year-old boys! Not to mention that the two boys were just hyper and nearing their sugary limit as they started to get sloppy at the end, but still, they were ANBU for Kami's sake. ANBU! They should have been able to capture them with no problem, not no, they kept slipping out of their hands every time they got close even to grab just one. The ANBU's pride had been severely bruised that day, no doubt about it, they needed to up their training. Hiruzen couldn't have agreed with them more, so they put all the ANBU's training into the hands of ....Anko Mitarashi and Ibiki Morano, many ANBU vowed to get the two boys back for this fact one day. As for the situation back in the classroom, somehow someone, or one, had found a way to get all the fangirls back into class after lunch. They were all wearing black and some were still crying, every time they looked over at Sasuke, they would all cry even more as he reminded them of everything they saw back at the bathhouse earlier that day. None of the boys asked, or wanted to know, what the hell that was about and Iruka was swearing off anything to do with the fangirls and Sasuke if it wasn't ninja-related. Now that everyone was back, Iruka had to go over the list of teams all over again, the joy he must have felt. "Team seven will be...." Iruka was just about to say the team over again when a Jonin with sparkly orange and dark green paint all over him appeared. He handed Iruka a note from the Hokage, "thank you, why are you covered in paint and sparkles?" he asked the sparkly man. "I just had a long day trying to get a dog from doing things to my leg that should only be done to another dog while I was chasing two of you corrupted students. Do not ask and your mind will be spared," said the paint-covered man as he lit a cigarette, "if you'll excuse me, I have to go scrub some paint out of my uniform," he glared at the two boys he was talking about before being shunned out of the classroom. "Okay, that happened," Iruka said as he looked at the not, he looked up at Naruto and Shikamaru for a moment before addressing the class. "It looks like there's there's a change in the line-up, team seven was going to be Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki, and Sasuke Uchiha....." he waited until Sakura's outburst of tears calmed a bit before he continued. "However now, team seven will be Kiba Inuzuka, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha," another outburst of tears from some of the fangirl section before he went on, your sensei will be Kakashi Hatake. Team ten was going to be Choji Akamichi, Ino Yamanaka, and Shikamaru Nara...." "NOOO!" Yelled Ino as she cried into her desk, while Chji had a look of disgust on his face. Iruka sighed, he was very tired by now, "but now the team will consist of Choji Akamichi, Shino Abarame, and Ino Yamanaka. Team eight will be Hinata Hyuuga, Shikamaru Nara, and Naruto....Nara?" He took another look at the list, "Huh? Did the Nara clan adopt Naruto?" He asked himself. "Something like that," came a smooth and lazy voice to Iruka's right, he jumped, not prepared to have another visitor so soon. "Shikaku, what are you doing here? The school doesn't get out for about another half hour, plus the kids would be meeting their jonin sensei by now," Iruka explained to the clan head. Shikaku nodded, "yeah, it's a drag, but the paper explains why I'm here," he said with a yawn. Iruka looked at the note again, he looked up at Shikaku, then back at the note, then up at Shikaku again, "Is this a joke?" Shikaku shook his head, he looked down at the note again, "I don't know what to say about this...." "Say what you want, but the facts are there," Shikaku said, he turned to his son and the blond next to him, "Come on you two, we're leaving." The two boys got up from their desks, "should Hinata come with us?" Shikamaru asked, "I mean we are supposed to be meeting our sensei's now." Shikaku looked over at the Hyuuga heiress, he shrugged, "might as well," he said and walked out of the room to wait for the kids. Naruto looked at Shikamaru, "what was that about?" Shikamaru shrugged, "Do," the two started for the door before they noticed that their teammate was still sitting at her desk staring into space, "c'mon Hinata, we're leaving." Hinata 'eep'd and got up to follow her teammates out of the room. After they all reached the hallway, they turned to see Shikaku leaning lazily on a wall. "Hay dad, what's up, I thought that you were going to pick us up after school." "There's been a change in plans, after your little stunts in the village today, the Hokage got a visitor that he wants us to meet. He said it was important and to bring all three of you there right away." "U-uh, e-excuse m-me, M-Mr. N-Nara, but h-h-how come yo-you're p-picking us u-up and n-not our s-sensei?" Hinata asked as she pocked her index fingers together as she looked at the ground. Shikaku looked at the girl for a moment, "So this is the girl that Hiashi keeps saying is a disgrace to the Hyuuga name. She doesn't seem so bad, all she needs is a little confidence boost to pick her up, add a little training in and she'll be a great kunoichi." He thought to himself with a small smirk, "Well, the sooner we get to the tower, the sooner you can find out," he said kindly as he pushed off the wall, "hold on to me," he held out a hand to Hinata which she timidly took. The other two just held onto the end of his jacket before they all disappeared in a swirl of leaves. They reappeared in the center of the hokage's office, "we're here," he said letting go of Hinata's hand. In the office, Hiruzen was sitting at his usual seat behind his desk, and a person was standing off to the side next to the window in the room. It was a woman with shoulder-length platinum blond hair, bright green eyes, and pale skin, she wore an all-black outfit that consisted of tight jeans, a fitting black t-shirt, high-heeled boots, and a leather jacket. When she saw them appear in the room, her eyes were trained on the blond kid that came with them, she pushed off the wall, ignoring everything the old man said, to walk over to the whiskered cheek boy, she squatted down in front of him so that they were at eye level. "What is your name?" The woman asked in a German accent as she looked into the stunning blue eyes of the boy. "Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki, and you?" Naruto asked not missing a beat as he watched the woman, staring into her bright green eyes deeply, searching. The woman smiled at Naruto, "Well Naruto, outside these walls, I have many names and have been called many things, but right here, you can call me granny." This stunned the blond boy for a few seconds before he hid it behind doubting eyes, the woman's smile grew wider, "You're not easily fooled. I like that about you, we can do a DNA test later, but for right now," she stood up at her full height then, her eyes still on Naruto as he looked up at her, "we've got a wedding to get to!" She smiled brightly at Naruto. "Wait, who are you again? And what are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked, Hinata nodded her head. The woman looked at the young boy with a smirk on her face, "I'm the one that's going to train you lot into strong, sneaky, angels from hell. Do you have a problem with that?" She asked. "D-does, that m-me that y-you o-our sensei?" Hinata stuttered. The woman looked at the Hokage for a minute, the aged kage nodded once, and the woman turned back to the Hyuuga and nodded. "Yep, I'm one of a kind, there's no one else like me, and you three are very lucky to have me of all people as your sensei," she said pointing her thumb at herself. "Why? Why are you our sensei?" Naruto asked curiously, "You're not even from here, you're from somewhere else, someplace far away that doesn't have Japanese as a language. You as look like you've travailed a lot, you must also buy your clothes from different places, your shoes say you've had enough training to walk anywhere in them, and your hair says you're rich and live comfortably. From your clothes, I can tell that you're not a girly girl like your make-up would suggest, your lip gloss says you like to flirt and your eyeliner says that you like nighttime better than daytime. Hmm, but you still get up early enough to see the sun rise every morning even though you would rather be asleep. Your eyes tell me that you're a trained killer...am I...ht?" Naruto said as he analyzed the woman before him without breaking a sweat or looking too hard, inside his mindscape, Kurama was smiling proudly. Everyone in the room, except the woman who was smiling brightly at the boy, looked at Naruto as if he had grown a second head, "Naruto, how'd you know all that?" Shikaku asked in awe. Naruto blinked, he looked at the older Nara, "Isn't it obvious? I thought it was plain as day!" He looked at the others in the room, "Your guys seriously didn't see all that from just looking at her?" "Well, I've taken note of half of what you said, but I couldn't tell that she liked to flirt or that she likes to watch the sunrise." Shikaku stated as he turned fully to stare at the young blond, "How did you know all that other stuff?" Naruto turned back to the older man, "I don't know, I just looked, it's what I do. I look at people and figure out what they are trying to hide or say," he shrugged, "It's a little game I used to play by myself when I was younger." "T-that was a-amazing, N-Naruto," Hinata said. "Thanks, but it's nothing special, I do it all the time," he said looking at her, "I can tell a lot of things by just looking at a person, like how you have a crush on me." Hinata 'eep'd as Naruto turned to Shikamaru, "or how Shikamaru likes mint-chocolate ice cream when he's sad or feeling down, "he turned to Shikaku then. "And I also noticed when you finally accepted the facts of the arrangements." Shikaku had a stunned look on his face but said nothing, "he turned to Hiruzen, seeing the old man sweat, he didn't tell anyone that he knew that the man was hiding porn in his top left drawer. There was no coming back from that, especially not with a kage, so he asked, "Did you guys get Mizuki for his crimes yet?" Hiruzen was surprised, "yes, we got an anonymous tip about it and I had someone confront him." "What happened with him?" Shikaku ashed, he had heard of the man's suspicious behavior after the genin exams, but no one knew what happened to him. Hiruzen had a sad look in his eyes, "we had found him just after he had killed one of the students from the academy who failed the exam." The room was quiet for a while before the woman spoke, "I'm sure that he's being taken care of as we speak." She stated instead of asking, Hiruzen nodded, "Good, now, enough of all this sadness," she turned her smile back on the group that entered the office, "Let's all get ready for a wedding!" She said happily, she saw that there was something that Hinata wanted to ask, "Don't worry, I'll let the old man fill you in after we're done, but first, we gotta get things ready. So, uh, you name Hemata, right?" "H-Hinata," Hinata corrected. "Right, well Hinata, I want you to go home and pack all of your things," she looked at all of them, "that goes for all of you, even you string bean. Pack all the clothes that you can, pack anything that you need and want to bring, then meet me at the gates within the next two hours. We've got a plane to catch!" "Huh? But aren't you supposed to give us a second test to make sure that we're on pare?" Naruto asked. "How did you-" Shikaku started but was interrupted by his son. "C'mon Dad, that first one was way too easy, a monkey with chakra could have passed it," Shikamaru stated. Shikaku, from that point on, decided to stop questioning how Naruto knew things, it was getting to be too troublesome. "Fine, whatever," he nodded his head at the woman, "what do you have planned for them?" "Them? I said you're in it too, string bean, now get to move!" The woman stated getting a little irritated that everyone was still standing there, "Or should I show you what happens when people get me upset?"An evil glint came into her green eyes that made everyone in the room shiver. "Nope, I still like living, come along guys, let's get going," Shikaku said motioning the three out the door. "W-wait, what should I tell my father?" Hinata asked. "Just tell dear old dad that your new sensei's taking you guys out on an intense training trip to whip all of you into shape, now get moving!!" The woman said, Shikaku quickly grabbed onto three kids and shunned them out of the office. The woman sighed happily, "I love it they do as I say." "Akita...promise me you won't scare them too much when they're at your training grounds. I would hate to have to explain to both the Hyuuga's why they're down one heiress and the Nara's why they no longer have a clan head or heir to their clan." Hiruzen said tiredly. Akita turned back to the aging kage, "You know, you're starting to look your age more and more every time I see you...you should find a successor soon. I'm sure your grandchild will appreciate it if you did," she then turned and walked out the door, "say ya old friend." TO BE CONTINUED
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The four-man group reappeared in front of the gates of the Hyuuga compound, "All alright, Hinata, go pack your stuff and meet us back here when you do. Then we'll go back to my house so the rest of us can pack before we meet back up with that woman at the gate." Shikaku said in his usual commander voice, even though on the inside, he felt unsure of the whole situation. Hinata nodded, she took a hesitant step forward before looking back at him, "C-c-could-one of you c-come w-with me p-please?" She asked in a soft voice. "I guess I'll go with you," Shikamaru said, he could see that the girl seemed very scared to go into the compound by herself. "I hope nothing troublesome happens," he thought as he followed Hinata into the compound, there was no one in the courtyard, which he was thankful for, if there was someone there, then they would have to explain everything to them over and over again before they would let them go on their way. The woman had only given them all two hours max to pack everything, what they were going to be doing, or where they would be going once they had packed up, he didn't know. He was sure that they would find out once they got to the gate, by the tone of the woman's voice, Shikamaru had a feeling that she would be a very troublesome, but worthy, woman when it came down to their training. He was in the process of figuring out why the woman had asked for Naruto's name first and seemed to know Hinata's. Even if she did need to be correct, he remembered that she seemed to know all of them, "must have read our files beforehand. But why did she ask us to pack all of our stuff? Usually, you would only need to pack lightly, a change of clothes, some rations, solder pills, and weapons, that's about it. Yet by the way she said it, it sounded like she wanted us to pack as if we were to move away from the village for a long while. Troublesome, why do I feel like we're in for a long and bumpy ride?" "Uh, S-S-Shikamaru," Hinata said softly, breaking the boy from his musings, Wh-whatt wedding do y-you guys keep t-talking about?" "Wedding?" He thought for a moment before he remembered, "Oh right, didn't you hear? My dad's getting remarried soon, I thought everyone knew since there were a lot of people that came up to us to give their 'condolences' earlier today." When he saw Hinata's crestfallen look, he remembered what Naruto had said back at the office, "so you do have a crush on Naruto," he whispered to himself a little. He was a little surprised at how right the blond had been ever since they left. He had seen that his dad didn't look so apprehensive with Naruto as he had been before, then there was the thing with Mizuki, with him only hearing whispers about it himself, and now this. He chuckled, which made Hinata look more down when she heard the sound, "Oh, sorry, sorry, I wasn't laughing at you or your feelings, honest. I was just thinking about how right Naruto had been ever since I met him," Hinata looked up at Shikamaru at that, she still looked about ready to cry, but not as much now. Shikamaru rubbed the back of his head as he looked around, he just noticed that they had reached her room while he was busy thinking things over, he noticed that her room was pretty plain compared to what he remembered seeing in Ino's room when they were still small. There was no paint on the walls, there were stuffed animals, and no floral bedspread, nothing in this room even said that a girl slept there, it was more like a generic room meant for guests or something. As Hinata stood there waiting for Shikamaru to finish analyzing the plainness of her room, she started busying herself with getting out all of her clothes and other things that she wanted to take with her. She was happy that she was able to be on the same team as her crush, but then the roamers of how Naruto was marrying Shikamaru's dad had started up that morning and she didn't know what to do. She couldn't think. How was this happening? Was this real? The thoughts kept welling up and turning around side her head, splashing all of her nerves with cold water, waking her up and knocking her out at the same time. For so long she had loved the bond, but then to hear that he was meant to marry someone else? She couldn't stop herself from thinking that her cousin might have been right about all that fate stuff that he's been going on about since his father died, this truly was a hard pill for her to swallow. "Would you like some help, Hinata?" Shikamaru asked, startling her a bit. "Y-yes, y-you can h-help," Hinata said as she continued to put clothes on her bed before getting her suitcase. "I d-don't have a s-sealing -s-scroll t-to lighten t-the load, s-so w-we'll have t-to do i-it the old f-fashion w-way, t-that's i-if you don't m-mind?" Shikamaru shook his head, "Nah, it's fine, I don't mind a little old-fashioned now and then. It keeps things fresh," he said as he helped her put all of her stuff in the suitcase. An awkward silence fell over them as they packed, they were almost done when he spoke again, "So, uh...you like purple a lot, huh?" He asked lamely. "Huh, o-oh, y-yes, I l-love it..." Hinata said as she kept her eyes down, she did only have a few clothes to pack seeing as her father didn't want to waste time and money on his failure of a daughter. "I-I like it b-because it remreminds o-of when I-I was little." "Oh, okay," Shikamaru said as he placed the last of her clothes into her suitcase, "did something special happen when you were little to make you like purple so much?" He asked kindly. Hinata zipped up her suitcase as she thought, she stared at the suitcase, even though it was a deep purple, "I was h-happy." She had said it so softly that he almost didn't hear it, but he did, he wanted to talk about it more, find out what happened to change things. Find out why she stuttered so much, but then they heard a commotion coming from the courtyard, he knew the sound of his father's voice anywhere. The tone his father was using right now, however, wasn't his usual lazy one that was for sure, "C'mon, well talk about this more later, we've got to get going before something troublesome happens." Back out in the courtyard, Hiashi Hyuuga, head of the Hyuuga clan, was far from happy. Who was his anger directed toward? Shikaku Nara, why? It's not the fact that the man had his son go into the housing of the compound, for the main branch no less, it's not for the fact that they were here to collect his failure's things. He could care less about that, no, what Hiashi Hyuuga was made about, was the fact that the demon was here, standing at his door steps! He loathed the demon since he attacked the village so long ago, in truth, he wanted to kill the demon the day that he was sealed away inside the body of the War Couple's only child, how dare he desecrate the body of such a beautiful child! But, due to his position as clan head to the Hyuuga's, he had to be neutral on the matter, lest he tip the scale in the demon's favor, "Why are you here with that...thing?" Hiashi asked coldly as he openly glared at the beast before him. "As I said to you before, Hiashi, we're just here to collect Hinata's things on orders from their new sensei and then we'll be gone. There's no need to get so upset," Shikaku said for what felt like the eighth time that evening, they had been waiting quietly, not bothering anyone as he talked to Naruto, but then out of nowhere, Hiashi came up to them. Disrupting their conversation quite rudely, he might add, asking why Naruto was there with him. It still bothered Shikaku to no end why most people still hated the boy, even when they knew full well that he only contained the fox, the Sandime Hokage had even done a demonstration to all the villagers on how a sealing scroll worked two years for all the civilians that had stilled attacked Naruto. It doesn't seem that the lesson sunk in because those same people, albeit a few' still attacked Naruto for selfish reasons. Shikaku had gone over all the reports from that night as well, he knew of all the people who died that night because he had to compile a list of names to put on the hero's stone as a tribute to all those who died that night. Nowhere on that list did say that a Hyuuga had died from the Kyuubi attack, or that any Hyuuga's died after the attack because of the Kyuubi, there were no names reported of someone close to the Hyuuga clan head dying either, so what was the problem? Shikaku voiced all of these thoughts to Hiashi and watched as the calmed, pail-faced man, turned red in rage, the Hyuuga was so caught up in his rage-filled rant that he didn't notice that he was spilling some of his secrets. That demon is a monster, blah blah blah, he killed many people, blah blah blah, and because of him I got pregnant with that failure, blah-wait, "what?" Shikaku asked a little taken aback by the revelation he just heard, Hiashi was panting after all that, but then he remembered what he just said. A sharp intake of air was heard, he turned to see his daughter standing there, the purple suitcase he bought her when she was six was at her side. The Hyuuga head was stunned that he had let his oldest child hear all of what he said, this was shameful to him, but to Shikaku, it was an eye opener, a quick look at his watch had him groaning. "Hinata, Shikamaru, time to go, we've got to get to the gates before the timer runs out!" He called to the two shocked kids behind Hiashi, without another word, Shikamaru grabbed the hand of the teary-eyed Hinata, her suitcase rolling behind her closely, once they were in front of Shikaku, they waited for him to take them away. The older Nara looked at the Hyuuga's head in disappointment, "I thought you were better than this, Hiashi, but I guess that you can't judge a book by its covers, eh?" He placed a hand on Hinata's shoulder as the two boys took the edge of his jack once more, he made the hand sign to shush them away, and he heard Hiashi call out to them before they disappeared. But it was already too late. The four arrived at the Nara compound a second later, they were all standing inside the main house, in front of the front door, "let's hurry and get packed." Was all Shikaku said before he toed off his shoes and went into his room to pack his things, he didn't know for how long they would be gone, but that didn't matter, "where could this woman be taking us?" He wondered that over and over as he packed, "Wherever it is, I better make sure I'm ready for anything she throws at us." "Are you going to be okay, Hinata?" Asked Shikamaru. A small smile came onto the girl's face, "W-well, at least now I know that he doesn't hate me because I don't meet his standards." Naruto watched the Hyuuga for a minute, "what are you saying?" He asked curiously. Hinata looked up at Naruto for a minute, for the first time since ever, she didn't blush, "I'm saying that he never hated me because I didn't measure up to my cousin, Neji. He just hated me because he never wanted me," she looked down at her suitcase with a sigh, "now I know why he liked Hannabi more than me, it wasn't because she was better than me, or that she seemed tougher than I am. It was because he wanted her when she was born, as for me...It was just a little mistake that he just couldn't hide," she looked at the two boys again, "story of my life, huh?" Naruto looked puzzled, while Shikamaru looked mad, "Don't say that, you may have been a mistake to him, but he doesn't get to decide who you are." "Shikamaru, it's okay, I already figured all that out a long time ago and it's fine," Hinata reassured him. "Troublesome, no it's not...." "Shika, listen, don't you hear it?" Naruto asked with a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder. "Huh? Hear what?" Shikamaru asked as he looked at the blond. Naruto nodded his head to Hinata with a small grin on his face, "She's not stuttering anymore, you didn't notice did you?" Hinata beamed at him for noticing, while Shikamaru did a double take before mumbling another 'troublesome' with his arms folded. Naruto and Hinata chuckled, "So it was all an act, yeah?" "Mhmm, it was just my way of getting back at him for treating Hannabi like a queen and me like dirt. It's a little selfish, I know, but still, you should see his face when I stutter in front of him, or when he knows that I have a 'crush' on you." Hinata giggled, "Looks like you got everything else right but that." Naruto chuckled, "Actually, that's where you're wrong, Hina-chan, I've noticed your crush ever since the first time I saw you spying on me. You're a very clever girl to keep up the act for so long," he said as he took off his shoes and started walking over to Shikamaru's room, "but not as clever as me." "Oh? Well maybe we should put it to a test one day," Hinata giggled as she took off her shoes and followed the blond. The two left behind a grumbling Shikamaru with a purple suitcase, he quickly took off his shoes and followed them to his room. When he got there, he saw that they already had the shogi board set up and playing a game while a Naruto clone packed a large suitcase. Only put all of Shikamaru's clothes in it because Naruto didn't have any of his own. "Would you two like to explain to me what the heck you guys were talking about back there?" He grumbled as he sat down to watch them play the game. "Hm, oh, right, well you seen...How do I explain this?" Hinata thought as she made a move on the board, she snapped her fingers and turned to Nara, "I was acting." "Acting?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, "Why? What was the point of doing all that acting for so long at school, if it was all for your dad?" Hinata giggled again, she just found this whole thing funny, here she was confessing to her classmates, the supposed dobes of the class, that the fact that she'd shown them after all these years was a lie. "It's a simple answer when you think about it really," Naruto said as he made a move on his side of the board. "How so?" Shikamaru said Naruto looked at him with a raised brow, and Shika rolled his eyes, "Humor me." Naruto shrugged as he watched Hinata make another move, "when I first entered the academy, I didn't notice at first, usually I would, but I didn't because I had my act to keep up. The fact of the matter is that she put up a mask so that her father would underestimate her. And then at some point of her choosing, she would take off the mask and show him what she was made of. I suspect that she's got a plan up her sleeves, but I couldn't get close to her to know what it was or if it's still in play?" He looked up at Hinata who shrugged with a sly smile on her face, "she was going to turn the tables on her father to achieve some goal, but that's just me guessing." "Then why the crush?" Shikamaru asked. "To throw off my father," Hinata said as she made a move that could have won her the came in to move if Naruto had not thought ahead. "I don't know what made my father hate Naruto so much back then, or how in the world that would lead to him getting pregnant with me, but I knew that he hated him and that was enough. I knew that if I could get him angry enough at me for liking someone he didn't want me to, then that meant that I wouldn't be under his watchful eye as much. My theory was sound and I proved that he didn't watch me as much as Hananbi whenever I went out, but he still watched me just as much, if not more, using the branch members as his sources." "But why?" Naruto asked. "Hm?" Hinata looked up at him, "What do you me?" "Why did he use the branch members to watch you, if he didn't care about you as much as your sister?" Shikamaru asked. "No, that's not what I meant Shika," Shikamaru looked at the blond confused, "What I meant was, 'why did he watch her'? If he was watching because he actually cared about his children equally and didn't want a repeat of what happened to her when she was only five years old, then he would most likely make a clone of himself to watch her. Along with the clone, he would have the branch members watch her as well I would think that he would either make two clones to team up with the branch members to watch both of his daughters," Naruto took on a thoughtful look as he made his next move. "another option would be that he would have just his one clone follow Hinata around with a bodyguard, but I've never seen Hinata with one before, but that's not the case. So I'm led to believe that he doesn't give much of a damn about her, as sad as it is to say. But since she said that he watched her more than ever, he must have been on to her plans, or suspected her of something but couldn't prove it, am I right?" "Damn you're good," Hinata said looking mildly stunned before making another move, she could win in two more if she played her cards just right. "What! He's right?!" Yelled both Shikaku and Shikamaru. The younger of the two paused and looked over to his dad, "when did you get here?" "Oh, sorry to eavesdrop on you guys, but when I finished packing, I thought I would come over and see if you guys are ready." Shikaku said as he walked into the room, dropping a large carry-on bag by the door before sitting next to his son, "We have about half an hour to get to the gates now." Hinata nodded, "Right well, I'll explain before then," she made another move, "I did have a plan, yes, it's been something I've been striving for since I was four." "That long huh?" Naruto asked before he made another move, "I win." "It was-wait what?!" Hinata and the two Nara's looked at the board in front of them. "How'd you do that? I counted two moves before she bet you," Shikamaru said as he stared wide-eyed at the board pieces before the Naruto clone came over to pack up the game and put it into the suitcase he packed for them. Naruto shrugged as he got up, "it was too easy to see the move that she was going to make beforehand, so I just trapped her, letting her think that she could win. I was going to go for a longer game, but then Shikaku said we only had about thirty minutes to get to the gate. So I had to wrap it up. Now come on, we have to go, Hina-chan can explain everything on the way." The others agreed and got up from their spots, they picked up the stuff that they needed to carry, Hinata had her purple suitcase, Shikamaru had his forest green suitcase with both his and Naruto's shared clothes, and Shikaku had a dark brown carry on. Naruto disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes and came back holding a layered bento box filled with food that he had his clone make for them to eat when they got hungry. They now had about twenty minutes left to get to the gate, their hands were full, but luckily Shikaku had a storage scroll and sealed both Hinata's and Shikamaru's suitcases, as well as the lunch that Naruto made. They all grabbed onto him and he shushed them to the gate with just two minutes to spare, thankfully they made it just in time because the woman from before was already there looking out for them with a stopwatch in hand. They shuttered to think what would have happened if they were even a second late. "Good, my new grandson-in-law knows how to get to places early, that's wonderful to know, or else we would have had a problem," the woman said. Her smile was sweet, too sweet for Shikaku's liking, but they all breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they wouldn't find out what would happen if she got some bad news, especially from her new grandson-in-law. The woman clapped her hands happily as she faced them all, "Alright you four, here's the plan for the rest of the day, I have some contacts that are going to meet us at the border of Fire Country and take us to the airport. We'll make a quick pit stop at the border where the Elemental Nations meet up with the rest of Japan, from there we're going to stop for the night in an Inn or a hotel, or whichever we can find that's not all booked for the night. We'll stay there until early in the morning when we'll set off again for Tokyo, we'll spend a whole day there and have the wedding later that night before we move onto the Tokyo Airport where we'll take a flight to our final destination. Any questions?" "What are we going to do in Tokyo for a whole day?" Shikamaru asked, Shouldn't we just rough it until we get to the airport? Not that I mind the break and all, but what would we do there?" The woman smirked, "I'm so glad you asked, in Tokyo, I have two friends who will be helping me start your training. Any more questions?" "What's our final destination from the airport going to be?" Naruto asked. "That's a surprise, anyone else?" "Oh me," Hinata said, "I was wondering what we should call you, I know you told Naruto to call you granny and all, but what about the rest of us?" The woman sized the Hyuuga girl up for a second before smiling sweetly. "As of this moment, you will all call me Granny A, or if you like, GG, either is fine by me, just don't call me old. Is that all the questions?" "Wouldn't us calling you Granny, be the same as calling you old?" Shikamaru asked, the other two kids nodded in agreement. The woman's eye twitched, "so you have a problem with the name that I'm giving you?" The woman asked, a dark aura appearing around her, her killing intent was off the charts, and even Shikaku's knees buckled while the other three fought to stay standing. "If I said that you can call me 'Granny', then that means you can call me Granny, as in a sweet lady with wisdom throughout her years, NOT an old bag that just sits in a rocking chair all day drinking tea! Is that clear!" "Hai!" All four said with straight backs as they stood in a straight line for the woman now known to them as, Granny. "Yes, what?!" Granny yelled at them. "Hai Granny!" They shouted with a salute. Granny cut off her killing intent and the air around them wasn't as dark as before, "good, now let's get a move on! We're burning daylight!" "Hai!" They said as they all marched behind the woman-like soldiers. "What was that just now?" Asked Asuma to the other jonins that had stopped the watch the noise at the gate, And who was she?" "I don't know," said Kakashi as he stared at the back of the retreating group, "but whoever it was is strong, did you feel her killing intent?" Kerunai shivered, "Yeah, I felt it down the street it was so strong, do any of you know who she is? I've never seen her around before." "I don't know who the fuck she was, but she's got my vote for badass konoichi of the year!" Anko exclaimed, she had come running from the Donggogo shop when she felt the strong killing intent, only to see the hilarious sight at the gate, she would have to remember to make fun of Shikaku when he came back. "That woman is Akita Uzumaki, the head and queen of Whirlpool," the 3rd said appearing out of nowhere and almost scaring Anko enough to drop her dongos. "She's also the mother of Kushina Uzumaki and the second sensei of Minato Namikaze." "That would make her Naruto's actual grandmother," Kerunai stated in awe. She looked back at the gate to see the woman, but the group was already gone. "But how..." Kakashi started. "That's a secret only meant for a kage," Hiruzen said, "now if you'll excuse me, I have to see to some files." Even with ninja speed and stamina, it still took them two full days before they finally reached the border where the Elemental Nations meet the border of the rest of Japan. They had taken a few shortcuts that were pointed out by Granny's contact, when they reached the border, they found a nice enough Inn to spend the night in. As soon as they got there, everyone was out like a light before their heads even hit the pillow, the only person that was still awake at the time was Granny. The next morning, Granny was kind enough to wake everyone up by splashing them all with cold C-ranked water jutsu, then tried to dry them with a B-rank fire jutsu, needless to say, the four were afraid to fall asleep near the woman ever again. After changing their clothes from wet to dry, they had breakfast, and Hinata finished telling them what her plans had been since she was four. "So Hinata, we never finished talking about what your plans were yesterday," Shikamaru said with a yawn as they ate. "Hm, right, when I was four I saw one of the branch members of my clan get killed for some stupid reason by a main branch member. I didn't like what I saw, it was then that I vowed to myself that I was going to find a way to break that tradition and stop the main branch from from doing such things to their flesh and blood. " "Are you any closer to finding the answers you're looking for?" Asked Granny in a sweet tone. Hinata shook her head sadly, "I've been trying to learn all I can about seals and how I could break that seal. Yet I can hardly find any books on seals, both in my family's library and the public one, which I found to ly odd." "Same here, it's like they want you to learn the technique or something," Naruto said. "That is odd, did you both look in the jutsu library or check the ninja-related bookstores?" Shikaku asked. "Yeah, I checkeeverywherere that I could think of in the village, but there are only a rare few that I've found. They all either talk about the subject in theory, or it's a history of people who used them and how they used them, not how they are used. For example, one book I found talked a lot about how the toad sage Jiraya had used a sealing jutsu to win a fight in the second ninja war, but we had already covered that in class two years ago before we started getting into taijutsu." Hinata explained the other two nodded their heads. Granny and Shikaku stared at them for a moment, "Hold on, are you telling me, that it honestly took two years for the academy to start your guys on taijutsu?" Shikaku asked them, at their nod, his face palmed, "oOhKami what has the civilian council done to the curriculum of the school?" He asked himself as he shook his head as he shook his head. "So it was the civilian council that changed the academy so much!" Hinata exclaimed, "I had a feeling that it was them because I had overheard some of the older kids in my clan that graduated saying that the standards seemed to have changed." "heard that too," Shikamaru pipped up from his pancakes, "it's a shame, if the standards had changed, the council would not want the village to be number one anymore." "I would have liked to see what the standards were like back in your day, Mr. Nara because then it might have been a challenge," Naruto said as he finished eating. The other two nodded as they finished as well, When we get back, we should see if we can't get Lard 3rd to change things up with the academy." "Yeah, that's an idea," Shikaku said, then he noticed what Naruto called the Hokage, it was usually something disrespectful like an old man or sometimes Jiji. He guessed that was also part of his mask and let it slide, Okayy you three, get back upstairs and get ready to head out, we'll be checking out in about half an hour." " 'Kay!" They said and left the table. "Shikaku," Granny said once the kids were out of earshot, Shikaku looked over at her, there was a seriousness that settled in between them. "You do know that once we reach Tokyo, you and Naruto are going to get married, yes?" Shikaku nodded once, "I got the feeling, yes, but I wasn't sure when you would pull that on us yet so I kept quiet about it." "Good boy," Granny then took out a file from who-know's-where and slid it across the table to Nara's head. He looked at the file for a moment before opening it, "the council wants proof," was her cryptic message. Shikaku looked over the file with a grim look, he sighed heavily, "I thought they would at least give me the luxury of waiting a year at most, but to do this so soon?" He closed the file and slid it back over to Granny who took it back, the file was never seen again. "You don't have a year, two days at the most, but then that's it," Granny grinned, "looks like the two of you are going to have to sit down and have a nice long talk about what is what before anything gets done. But knowing him, he's probably found all about the little ins and outs, but may still need you to clarify a few things for him." Shikaku hung his head, "Trouble, why did it have to be me?" Later that day, they reached Tokyo by around noon, they met up with two of Granny's old friends from her time in the DWMA. One was named Sid, he was a tall black man with well-built muscles, he had cornrows in his head, a whitheadbandnd, and was dressed in jonin attire. The second friend was a man named Stine. This man had on a white lab coat, gray, almost white, hair, with stitches all over his clothes and one on his face, he had what looked like a giant screw running through his head. They were an odd pair, the two men, but they did spend the rest of the day teaching Naruto, Hinata, and Shikamaru a little more than just the academy basics as they worked on combat practice and weaponry. By the time the son was ready to set, everyone was tired out from the training, so they took a break from training to go sightseeing, they stopped at a nice restaurant for dinner before Granny dragged Shikaku and Naruto away. Being curious, the other followed them to the hotel chapel, Sid and Stine were the first to get what was going on and left the scene, telling the others that they had to return to the DWMA. Without warning, Granny pushed everyone into a dressing room with some fancy clothes and told them to change, Shikamaru mumbled about a troublesome woman being pushy before doing as asked, not wanting to anger the woman after such a nice day. When everyone was done changing into their clothes, they noticed that they were dressed for a wedding, Hinata and Shikamaru put two and two together and got out their cameras so that they could take pictures of Naruto in his wedding attire. Imagine their surprise when they see the most adorable, whispered cheek, blue-eyed, blond girl with hair extensions in an American-styled wedding dress coming down the aisle! Many pictures were taken of said blond before they realized that it was Naruto. "Ha ha ha, oh man, I had no idea that you looked this feminine before now. All you needed was some makeup and longer hair," Shikamaru laughed. Hinata couldn't contain her giggling as she stared at the blushing Naruto, "you sure do make a good bride, Naru-chan," she giggled so much that she was almost rolling on the floor. "Are you two done now? I would like to get this novel so I can take off this heavy dress," said the blushing bride. "Whoa, whoa, Naruto, what's the rush? Can't we just stay here and enjoy the moment?" Said a nervous Shikaku, sweating bullets in his white tuxedo, "It's not so bad is it?" Naruto glared up at the older man, "would you like to wear this dress?" "No, I don't think it would fit," Shikaku said looking down at the blond bride with a sweat drop, making the other two laugh harder. Granny was trying very hard not to giggle along with the two kids, but it was beyond difficult. She quickly cleared her throat, drawing attention to her after a while, Okayay everyone, got too complacent. I'm ready to start." "Wait, don't we need a priest to sanction this wedding?" If not execute me for this great sin that we're committing, he added in his head. "There's no need, I will be marrying you two today, now get ready, we don't have all night!" "But...." Granny whipped around to give the older Nara a glare that could chill a person to the bone, "what was that, grandson of mine?" "N-nothing...Granny," Shikaku said shakily. "Grate, places, now," Granny said as they started the wedding. About an hour and a half after the wedding, Shikaku felt as if he was in hell, why? Because his new wife was a twelve-year-old boy, he had to get on a flying metal container of death that could kill them all at any moment known as a plain. He hated flying, he became a ninja for the Pacificc reason that NINJA DOESN'T FLY, and he liked the discounts they got at the clothing stores, those were nice. But enough of the shallow stuff. "Hay dad, who's taking care of the clan while you're gone?" Shikamaru asked once the plane had taken off from the ground and was in the air. They were lucky to have gotten seats close together on the plain, it was packed by the time they finally got on it, and it was in first class too. How Granny managed to accomplish this, they will never know. Shikaku opened his eyes a little to look at his son, who was sitting in the row next to him, he was trying to stay calm as the metal death trap took flight, but it wasn't working as well as he hoped. "U-uh, I left my brother in charge of things while we're away," he said as he tried to think about other things than the plane ride, "I just hope the place is still standing when we get back." "Why do you say that?" Shikamaru asked, "Don't you trust your brother?" Hahaha, yeah, I trust him with missions and maybe setting up a good party, but as far as the safety of the clan is concerned...." Shikaku thought back to when he was younger. A visible shiver overtook him, "Let's just say that our parents picked me as clan head for a reason, if they knew that I let him take over for even just a day, they'd turn in their graves." "Is he that bad?" Asked Naruto asked from the window set ext to Shikaku. "No, not really, most of the time he's very reliable," Shiaku said fondly. "Then what makes you think your clan's compound won't be there when we get back?" Hinata asked from the seat next to Shikamaru. Shikaku sighed, "Because there are sometimes when he can be the biggest idiot there is." Granny turned around in her seat, which was the one in front of Shikamaru's and Hinata's row, "Don't worry love, Granny's set security precautions just in case." Shikaku almost wanted to sigh in relief, but just nodded his head in thanks instead, Soso where's the flight going? You never told us." Granny smirked, "You'll see when we land," she turned back around in her seat and put her headphones on. Shikaku sighed, This is going to be a long fight," he stopped one of the flight attendants as she passed by, Could I get a White Russian?" The flight attendant nodded, she looked to the blond next to him, "Would you like anything?" She asked. Naruto thought for a moment, "I would like....uh, I want to try that Whit Russian thing too, please," he said sweetly. "Oh no, I'm sorry dear, but that's a drink for adults, maybe when you get older," the woman said. "Could I get you something else?" "Uhm, okay, how about some Sake?" Naruto asked. "Hm, I think I would like to try that too, see why dad's so hooked on it," Shikamaru smirked, "how about you Hinata? Would you like anything?" Hinata thought for a second, "I guess I wouldn't mind trying it too, everyone in my clan seems to like drinking it a lot." Naruto nodded, "Yeah, three orders of Sake please." The flight attendant shook her head as she looked at the three kids, "I'm sorry, but those drinks are not for kids, please pick something else." Naruto pouted, he looked at Shikaku, who hadn't been expecting them, his son included, to ask for their first taste of alcohol so soon. "Can we, please?" Naruto asked with his adorable puppy dog eyes, "It's just one drink." Shikaku tried his best to look away, but Naruto's puppy dog eyes were like the Infinite Tsukiyomi, even when you're the best at breaking them, this ninjutsu was unbreakable. The flight attendant was watching him with stern eyes, daring him to make the order for them, while everyone else in first class was watching to see if he would break under so much pressure. They could all feel the level of intentness, the detail, and most importantly, the practice that went into those huge puppy dog eyes and they were all glad that they weren't pointed at them. The three-way, or more like five-way if you add Shikamaru and Hinata, stare-down went on for about a few minutes, with Hinata adding in her own puppy dog eyes to increase the effects that it had until finally, he broke. "ALRIGHT! Alright, you guys can have your drinks," Shikaku finally said the people who were watching the whole scene play out groaned that he lost the 'battle', Naruto cheered and Shikamaru gave Hinata a high five, "But, only one each and you have to drink it all, no matter how much you don't like it after trying it." "Okay!" The three chimed, and the flight attendant scuffed and left to make the drinks From her seat, Granny was smirking, You don't know what you've just unleashed, string bean, this is only the beginning." The plane landed some odd hours later and all five of the group got off the plane, one was still sleepy from the flight, one was well rested, and the last three....were 'slightly' drunk. It was sometime at night when they finally landed, the the genin couldn't be more thankful for that, when they got close to the security line, Granny handed each of them a pair of sunglasses for them to wear and a small bottle with liquid inside it that looked a lot like water. It wasn't. But whatever it was, it sobered the three up very quickly, and since they sealed most of their stuff in a scroll, they didn't have to wait as long as they would have if they had had their stuff. When they finally made it out of the airport there was a cab waiting for them, going with the flow, and because Granny told them to, they got in areas taken for a ride that lasted about half an hour. They exchanged the car they were riding in for a bus that took them across the desert, Shikaku was between a very sleepy traveler and an alert shinobi at the same time, so were his son and the other two, while Granny seemed to be as calm as ever as they went deeper and deeper into the dessert. They tried to ask where they were going, seeing as how they had landed at Las Vagus International Airport and were already on a bus going into the desert, it was a little unsettling to not know where they were going, or what they were getting into when they reached. Although, Granny didn't seem to care so much for their plight as she ignored them throughout the whole trip. "We're here!" Granny sang after they had gotten off the bus. "Where are we, and why are you so loud?" Shikamaru asked as his hangover started to settle in on him, the other two didn't seem to be doing much better either. "I told you brats you could have one each, but nooo, you just had to go and order more while I was asleep, huh?" Shikaku said, he was a little mad that his son was getting into his little habit of drinking Sake for fun, he'll need to find a way to get him out of it soon before it's too late. He sighed, "And who was the one that was using my card to pay for all those drinks anyways?" He eyed the three hangover genin before him, they looked nervously at the ground, but they weren't selling out each other. "Oh give it a break, String bean, so they had a few drinks behind your back, so what? It was their first time drinking, it's not like they're raging alcoholics now," Granny said as they started walking into the city where they were dropped off. Shikaku sighed again, "Well....they're loyal to each other, that's a plus, just wish they wouldn't go behind my back to get what they want. This better not turn into a bad habit of there's or things will get troublesome," he sighed again and returned his gaze to the city before them, "so where is this?" Granny smirked, "Death City, Nevadan!" She said proudly, And your new home away from home," she turned back to them, Welcome home guys." The four looked up at all the architecture of their 'new home', it was nothing like they had ever seen before. Tall buildings, sloping streets, and modern, very modern, compared to the little village that they had left behind, this place made each of them feel like they had just stepped into the future. "Okay great, what are we going to be doing here?" Asked Naruto, he was starting to get a headache from the bright-ass laughing sun, their village had a sort of shield over it to protect them from the son, he figured that out when he was five and was chased out of the village by the villagers. "I'gladde you asked my adorable grandson," Granny said as she started walking up the sloped streets as the others followed, or tired to keep up. "You see, this city was founded by an acquaintance of mine, he asked me to find four new students for him to help him in a never fight he's been in for a long time. However, he doesn't want just any little snot-nosed kid to help him out with this little problem, oh no, he said himself, he wanted MY student's help and who was I to refuse his please? So now that I have my four, we're going to see him now," she said happily as a perfectly symmetrical building with cartoon-ish sculls came into view, the building stood tall at the top of thousands of steps. "Come on everyone, let's get going, we can't level him weighting!" Granny yelled down to the four that were gawking up at the steps to the building, well one was staring at the building as if he was trying to remember it, and another was gawking at the steps. Shikaku shook his head and started up the steps, he glanced back at the three still at the bottom, "What's the matter you three? Is your hangover too much for you? Maybe you'll think twice about drinking so much, mee?" He said, uncharacteristically sadistic as he walked up the stairs. Meanwhile, back in Konoha, a purple-haired kunoichi was feeling proud for a reason she couldn't explain as she ate her dogs. Shikamaru turned to the other two with him, "Let's promise never to drink again unless we need to, agreed?" "Agreed," Naruto and Hinata said as they all started walking up the steps to the DWMA. TO BE CONTINUED
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
A well lit hallway led the group to the doors that would answer more questions than not, a room beyond the door holding something older than time itself. A being that takes away life, but still lives it within these walls. Pairing out onto the world through a glass mirror, a being that stands tall and is said to be the thing you see at the end of your line. The darkness that cast a shadow on the light, his name is Lord Death....and "he created the DWMA!" Granny turned back to look at the person who spoke, "Yeah, you got a problem with that kiddo?" "Now, now, Akita, it's their first time here, and besides, no one who knew of the school's existence would know that I run a school." Lord Death said in a cheerful tone, he turned to the new arrivals in the Death Room, "All alrighty then, how about we start with introductions first? As you already know, I am the owner and creator of this school, Death Weapon/Mister Academy, or the DWMA for short, and I believe in your language you would call me the Shinigami, yes?" "Uh, yes...well, I guess since you've been around for so long, your Japanese would be well-versed, am I right?" Shikaku asked as he scratched the back of his head. Lord Death nodded his head, "Yes, though, I haven't gotten around to using other languages in a while, so I had to relearn some of it before you got here." He turned his head to his laptop that was sitting on a nearby table, "and since I needed to relearn the language, I thought that I would give that Rosetta Stone program a go." He turned back to the team in his office, "So, Akita has already told me a little bit about you, but I was hoping to get to know more, who would like to go first?" Naruto looked at his other teammates and shrugged his shoulders, "I guess I'll go. Hi, my name is Naruto, I recently just got married so my last name changed from Uzumaki to Nara," Death looked over to Akita with a questioning look, she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the blond. "Uh...I like reading and training, I guess. My favorite thing to do is cooking, but I mostly bake, and I don't like when people judge a book by its cover. It's nice to meet you." Hinata went next, "Hi, my name is Hinata Hyuuga, I like flower pressing, reading, training in new fighting styles, and cinnamon buns. I also like baking, and I hate when people judge others on how they look instead of what they can do. I look forward to learning new things here," she finished with a small bow which Lord Death returned. Shikamaru yawned, "'I'm Shikamaru Nara, I like star gazing and cloud watching, I sometimes like training, and I take naps when I'm either really tired or just bored. I dislike loud people and doing unnecessary things, I also hate when the teachers don't challenge me enough, oh and it's nice to meet you." "Hm, maybe that's why he was always sleeping in class," Hinata whispered to Naruto. "I would have fallen asleep too if our other classmates weren't so troublesome," Naruto whispered back. Hinata smirked, "Ooh look at you, not even married for a full two days yet and you're already acting like your husband." Naruto blushed a little, "whatever." "Ahem, if you two are done now, I think the older gentlemen would like a chance to speak now," Lord Death said. "Sorry," Hinata and Naruto said. Shikaku sighed, "Name's Shikaku Nara, I like more or less the same things as my son, but I like to train more often. I recently just got married and I'm not sure how that's going to work out down the line, but what's done is done, it's nice to meet you." Lord Death looked over the four in front of him, "so is anyone going to tell me who's married to whom? Or do I have to guess?" He asked while making his face look like he was raising an eyebrow when none could be seen. The four-man team looked at each other for a moment, debating whether or not they should tell him or not, but it didn't seem like they had a choice in the matter either way, because Akita spoke up then. "Naruto's married to Shikaku due to a contract that my stupid son-in-law made before he went off to summon you and died. The little clone of Shikaku there is now technically my great-grandson," she explained. Death looked at her like she was crazy before taking a good look at the little blond standing next to the blue-haired girl, "hmm...." he came closer to Naruto to get a better look at him. Realization struck him, "OH! You're Mintao's son! My goodness, how the years fly by before I know it, I'll be looking at another century, ha ha ha," he turned to Shikaku, "so you're the one that Minato roped into the contract all those years ago, eh?" Shikaku had a depressed aura around him as he hung his head, "Well I guess I you get what you pay for, of something like that," he sighed, "troublesome." Death laughed a little bit at the man, "Oh, now, no need to get so down and out about it, from what I know of Naruto's parents, they were very lively people in their day. I'm sure that Naruto will be just the same, who knows, he may even surprise you in some ways." "Honestly, he's already doing a bang-up job of that, he was able to run analysis on Granny over there," Shikaku informed. Death turned a surprised face to Akita, "really?" The woman only nodded, "well I'll be," he looked back at Naruto, "looks like you four will be able to do this job for me after all." "Oh right, about that," Naruto stepped closer to Death, "Granny told us that you needed four students for this, is the fourth student already doing the job? When do we get to meet them?" "When?" Death turned to Akita again, "you didn't tell them?" "I thought that was what you were going to do?" Akita replied, she was now sitting at the nearby table typing away on the laptop there. Death sighed as he turned back around, "Okay, since you leave me no choice, I will explain, first allow me to tell you all about my school since I'm sure that none of you have heard of it before now. You see, for as long as anyone can remember, there have always been bad people in the world, some worse than others, but there is something out there that is even worse than that. It is called a Kishen, and it makes people go mad and only brings chaos and disorder wherever it goes. A long, long time ago, I fought the Kitshina and won, I sealed it away by ripping off its skin and making a bag out of it before stuffing the Kitchen inside it, gruesome, yes I know, but it had to be done. However, that did not stop the madness that he had already spread out into the world, and every day, there are people out there that's fighting against the madness even as we speak." The room fell silent so that everyone could register everything that was said, Shikamaru stepped up with a serious look on his face, "What do you want us to do?" He asked, "This Kishen guy sounds dangerous, and we've only just become ninjas officially a little under a week ago, what could we do to help?" "Ah, but not what I need you all four, nope, no ninja skills required here," Death said as he fanned away the idea with his large cartoony hand. The four ninjas almost made a pitfall, "if you don't need ninjas, then why did you ask for ninjas?" Shikamaru asked. "Oh, that, well you see, when I gave Akita the job of finding me someone for this job, I told her that I would like someone that is around, or is close to the age group of kids that went here. I also told her that they needed to be trained and skilled enough to go undetected, essentially blending into the background, but I didn't want someone from the Spy Academy to be brought in. They're always so stiff when they're still in the academy and I wanted people who could adapt well. That's where you all come in, clever huh?" Death said with an eye smile that looked somewhat out of place in his mask, "Anyway, I see that you're all still a little confused, so let me put it another way. I want you to spy on the students and staff." ...... "Hay, Lord Death, I think they're gonna need a little more information than that." Akita said with a sweat drop on the side of her head, "Nothing changes with him." "Right, well, how do I put this? I believe that there is a spy here in the school, but I can't tell who it is, so I need you all to keep an eye on the students and staff. Report back anything you find out of place, or anything that you feel is not right, you may not know what's normal around here, so keep a watchful eye out for anything. I'll let you know when you've found something that's truly out of the order or not." "Sounds fair enough, I suppose, but you still haven't told us who the fourth person on our investigation team is going to be," Shikamaru said with the others nodding their heads. "Seriously, you guys haven't figured it out yet?" Granny said with a bored, yet irritated, look on her face. Naruto looked at her strangely before he started thinking, "Four, four, who could...." his eyes drifted over everyone in the room before landing on Shikaku. "That won't work," Granny smiled at the young blond, Death was neutral, and the other three were confused, "Shikaku, no offense or anything, but you're too told." A large red arrow shot out of nowhere and impaled Shikaku in the back, "how do I not take offense to that, I'm only twenty-six," he said with a little hurt in his voice. Naruto chuckled, "No, no I meant you're too old to be a student here that's all, I looked into one of the classrooms on our way here and everyone looks to be fifteen to sixteen." "And right you are Naruto, but you're also wrong too." They all looked at Death, so he continued, "I had a feeling that something like this might happen if I left Akita in charge of gathering students. I'm just glad that there's only one adult among you or else this would have required the whole day to get through." Shikaku rubbed his temples, "what did I sign myself up for?" He thought to himself. "Shikaku, right? Please come here so we can get started," Shikaku walked over to the death god thinking that he might as well just go with the flow, he stood in front of Lord Death awaiting instructions. "Now then, what I'm about to do now is irreversible, but it will also extend your life span to a few more years. You can always choose not to go through with this mission and we could find someone else to take your place, however, time is running short. The spy could get away during the time it takes us to find someone to replace you, so, what is your choice?" Shikaku blinked up at the taller figure, "Well in my opinion the benefits outweigh the risk, plus I don't see the point in turning back now since I'm already here and know everything that's going on. I also don't like that my son's team's first mission is so far outside the village and would be considered an A or even S rank mission, so I'm going to see it through." Death nodded once, "Every well then when I'm done with you, you must vow to never tell anyone else what I've been. It will cause a lot of problems for us both, do you understand?" Shikaku nodded, "Good, now relax and close your eyes," he did what he was told and felt Death's overly large hand touch his forehead. Everyone in the room looked on at the two, at first it looked like nothing was happening, but then Shikaku's started to glow a dark blue that turned lighter with every second that ticked by until the light surrounding him turned completely white. Suddenly, Shikaku's body started to shrink, he got shorter and his visible scars faded into nothing, when the light faded away, Shikaku opened his eyes to look up at Death, "it is done," he said as he took away his hand. Shikaku looked down at his body, realizing that he changed more than he thought he would, even though he had no idea what he would change into, he was glad that he didn't have to change genders to finish the mission, that would have been too weird. "What did you do to him?" Hinata said in awe as she and the two boys walked over to the now younger-looking man. "It is no secret that I am the Lord of Death itself, but what no one knows is that even if I am a Death God, I can also be the bringer of life." Lord Death said drawing everyone's attention, "There's a rule that I am not to do anything like this unless in special cases. I felt that this case would be one of those and acted accordingly. But be warned, there is no going back to the way you once were, you have to change both inside and out, for me to bring you back to your original age, I would have to either shorten your life by half or take it away all together depending on when you ask." "I understand that much, but what did you do exactly?" Shikaku asked still not believing what he was seeing. "I just turned back your clock, you will still have the mind of a twenty-six-year-old, and that will not change. As far as everything else is concerned, by the looks of you I would say," Death leaned to the side a little as he thought, "Hmm, you've gone back to your original fourteen-year-old self. Yep, that's my best guess," he nodded cheerfully. "Whoa, this is so cool," Naruto said, not having any other words to describe the situation. He turned to Lord Death with a smile, "So, what's next?" "What's next is to get you guys settled into your new home and give you the rundown on your classes," Death said happily as he straightened his form. "From this point forth, you will be attending the DWMA as regular students while you complete the task that I've given you, your homeroom class will be Crescentmoon. Your teacher will be Sid, as for your category, I will be placing Shikaku and Shikamaru as weapons, and Hinata will be a mister....hm, but I'm not sure about you Naruto, you seem to be a mix of the two somehow." "Misters? Weapons?" Shikamaru asked, "What do you mean by that?" "He means that you two will be in weapons-only classes, while Hinata will be in Mister-only classes, by midday your classes should collide for homeroom," Akita said getting up from her spot at the table. "I'm not so sure if I get it, what are-" Hinata started, but was cut off. "A mister is a person that fights with their weapon or weapons partner. A weapon is as it sounds, it's a person that can turn into a weapon for their mister. When the two fight, they share a similar soul wavelength that will increase their odds at winning in a fight." Death explained, "Even though a weapon without a partner can still transform and fight, they can only transform a part of their body to do so, but if they were to have a partner who can match their wavelengths, then they can fight better together." Shikamaru nodded his head as he took in the information, "All alright, so me and my dad are weapons, but how come you can't decide what Naruto is?" Granny walked over to Naruto and leaned down to his eye level, "I don't know, his mother was a great katana, and his dad was her mister, but no one in the Elemental Nations knew that." She straightened up, "I sense that he has strong weapon abilities, then again, he'd do well as a mister too. This is something that's never happened before," she said the last part to herself, "hmm," she turned to Death, "well since we already have two weapons, maybe you can just put him in mister classes. If his weapon abilities show more promise down the line, he could get a tutor." Death nodded, "sounds good to me," he looked up at one of the few windows that he had in the room. "It's already getting pretty late, how about we call it a day and you all can come back to see me bright and early tomorrow morning for more information on your mission, okay?" He said, pointing an eye smile at them again, "oh and one more thing," he said as the group was about to leave, "I would like to know how old each of you are, you all look a little young to be ninjas, so I would like to know." "Oh okay, these three are twelve and you already know my age," stated Shikaku. A confused look came over Death's face then, "Twelve and already married? What's the reasoning for that?" "It's like I said before, Shikaku here was the one that Minato roped into the contract all those years ago when he summoned you for help in sealing the Kyuubi," Akita stated looking bored. "Really?" Death looked at Naruto and Shikaku again, "when you two said you were recently married, I thought you were just exaggerating your engagement to each other. I didn't think you two were being serious!" He turned to look at Akita, "And he's your grandson, why let him tie the knot so young?" "It was a part of the contract actually," Naruto spoke up, they all turned to face him, "When my tou-san wrote the terms, he was thinking about my well-being, I guess, so he made it this way. I'm pretty sure that he was in a rush when he was rewriting it or else it probably wouldn't have turned out this way, I've heard some people say that all rational thinking goes out the window when you're in a panic. It would only make somewhat sense for the person writing the contract in that situation back then would go so far." The room once again went silent in the wake of Naruto's thinking processes, it was truly amazing how someone so young could manage to put so much thought into almost everything that he said. Shikamaru chuckled and rubbed the back of his head, "Man, now I know this has already been said, but...I still don't get why you didn't show everyone how smart you are back in the academy. It might have shut up a few people at the very least." Naruto shook his head, "no, it would have only made it worse," he said knowingly. "Right," Shikamaru sighed and turned to everyone else, "so where are we sleeping tonight?" "Don't worry you pretty little pineapple about that, Shika-chan, Granny's got ya covered," Akita said doing a somehow cool version of Guy's 'good guy' pose. "Can we stop for food on the way? We haven't had anything to eat since yesterday evening," Hinata said picking up her suitcase. "Ah, if it's the food you all are looking for, Death City has lots of places to eat at," Death chimed in, he unrolled his large cartoony hands and handed a map of Death City to the closest person, Shikaku, to look over. "You can follow this map to find your way around so that you won't get lost while you're adjusting to your new home, and don't forget, come back here early before school starts to get more details on your mission." Shikaku nodded as he took the map from Death, "got it, thank you for seeing us," he said with a small bow that Death returned. The rest of the group nodded and said their goodbyes to Lord Death before leaving the Death Room, back out in the hallway, Akita led them back outside so that they could start moving into their new home before getting something to eat. About an hour after they finished putting their stuff down and started looking at the map for something that they could all eat, they settled on a small restaurant that was only a ten-minute walk from their new home. The home in question was two apartments made for two people since the Mister Weapon partners usually lived together to help sync their wavelengths to their partner. Hinata and Shikamaru to one, Shikaku and Naruto to the one next to them. Akita already had an apartment in Death City that was relatively close to the two teams and would be returning to it for the remainder of their stay. The group of five made plans to go to the restaurant together, but then Akita got a call before they could even reach the door. The call was urgent and needed her attention right away so she couldn't go with them. But she did promise to settle the situation and meet them all at the restaurant as soon as she could, so she would be joining them later. When they got to the place, it reminded them all a little of Konoha's BBQ restaurant, which wasn't half bad. They took their seats in a nice corner of the room and waited for their food to be served, they didn't have to wait long since their waiter was quick to get them anything they had asked for. Halfway through their meal, Akita showed up to join them like promised, "that was fast, the way you made it sound, I thought you would have met us by the time where were almost with our food," Hinata observed. "Yes, yes, I guess I always make it sound worse than it already seems, but it was nothing really," Akita shrugged her shoulders and started grilling up some meat. "What was it that you had to do, or can you not tell us that?" Shikaku asked as he took out some rice for the older blond. Akita giggled, "Yes, that part of me is a secret...well, at least for now anyway." "What do you mean?" Asked Naruto and Hinata. "You'll have to wait and see," Akita winked at them, they went back to eating and talked about the small things, like the weather or the differences between Death City and Konoha. They were nearing the end of their meal when Granny had to take another call, this call, however, was shorter than the last and she came back by the time the check arrived at the table. They paid the bill and went on their way, just when they were in front of the apartments, she clapped her hands. "Wait, before you four go, I have a little surprise to tell you all about," she said happily. The four turned to look at her, "huh? What surprise?" Asked Hinata. Akita smirked, "Well, since I took on the role of your sensei, I have to make sure to train you all, right?" They nodded, "But I can't, sorry!" "What!" Shikaku and Shikamaru said at the same time. "If you can't teach us, then why become our sensei, I mean other than to give us mission experience, why do it?" Hinata asked. "Calm down, calm down, hon, even though I can't teach you all, I still got you covered!" Granny said with a foxy smile, "That call I took back at the BBQ place was asking a friend of mine returning my call from a few days ago. I had to cash in a favor with this friend, but it was worth it." "What did you ask your friend to do?" Naruto questioned. "I asked my friend to train this team," Shikaku was going to say something, but she continued, "All of you, that includes you too, string bean." Shikaku sighed deeply, "Anyway, my friend is bringing some of her assassinates along with her, so I will have to ask you all to be nice and also get ready to work hard when she gets here. As you will find out, she's not one to mess with." "When does your friend get to the city?" Shikaku asked. "About two weeks from today." "That long huh?" "Yes, so enjoy your freedom while it lasts because when she gets here, there will be none of that, got it?" "How tough is your friend?" Hinata asked. Akita got an evil glint in her eye, "as nails..." the Hyuuga gulped, both Nara's mumbled 'troublesome' and the younger blond thought about what this new person would be like when she got here. Akita drew them out of their musings, "now then, I'll be off," she said as she started walking off in the direction of her apartment, she stopped at Shikaku and put a hand on his shoulder. A chill went down the older Nara's back, a frightening chill, "make sure you take good care of my grandson, if anything were to harm him under your watch, I will do everything that I warned you about at the airport that would and more, do we have an understanding?" Shikaku nodded his head quickly, fearing the blond woman that was griping his shoulder painfully, "good, have a good night," she then shushed away and Shikaku took a calming breath. "She's going to be the end of me one of these days, troublesome woman," Shikaku muttered to himself as he started heading back to the apartments, leaving the other three to wonder what the two were talking about before following behind the older male. The inside of Shikaku's and Naruto's apartment was painted dark green for the walls and dark brown hardwood floors. There were two bedrooms and one bathroom, the kitchen area was close to the front doors and the whole place was furnished in earthy tones. Two light green couches sat next to each other in the living room across from the kitchenette, one couch was sitting against a wall and the one next to it was a few feet away from the window on the wall across from the entrance. Two sets of three pillows rested on each couch in the colors dark brown, dark green, and dull yellow. On the opposing wall from the entrance stood a large window with its built-in seat in front of the window that had been covered with a curtain. The curtain started as the same dull yellow as the couch pillow and faded into a dark brown nearing the bottom, behind the curtain was an orange light that indicated that it was now sunset and night would soon follow. There was a love set sitting in front of the couch that was in front of the window, it was the same color as the other two but only had one set of each color of pillow that the others had, and on the wall in front of middle couch stood a large flat screen tv. In the middle of the area was a low coffee table with the TV remote lying on the edge of it, Naruto whistled at the site of the apartment, "nice place, it's like they knew you were coming," he said as he walked over to the middle light green couch and plopped himself down on it. "What's that supposed to mean?" Shikaku asked lazily as he walked over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, he was surprised to see that it was overflowing with food already, since it wasn't when they had left, "maybe you have a point about that." He said as he grabbed a can of beer and closed the frig, he took a long drink from the can before walking over to the couch next to Naruto and taking a seat. "See, told ya," Naruto smiled, turned to face the TV, "what this thing?" He asked since it was the first time he had seen a flat-screen TV before, the other TVs he'd seen were a little old-fashioned. Shikaku looked at the TV on the wall, "Oh right, this is the first time you've seen one that looked like this isn't it?" He asked as he reached forward and took up the remote, "This is one of those smart TVs that I've been hearing about recently, I hear you can go on the internet with these things." Naruto looked at the TV in awe, "Whoa, is that possible?" He asked as Shikaku turned on the TV to a random station and started channel surfing. "Well, that's just what I've heard, although, I don't suppose you would know how to get on to the internet with one of these would you?" Shikaku asked as he took another sip from his can. "Hmph," Naruto folded his arms, "those stupid villagers wouldn't even let me lay eyes on a computer for more than five seconds before I got the boot." Shikaku laughed lightly, "I'll take that as a no then, well how about I show you?" Naruto gave the older male a confused look, "you know how to use one of these?" Shikaku chuckled again, "Yeah, man, I never thought that little bit of knowledge would be the one thing that you didn't know about." He sighed, "And here I thought you were Mr. Know-it-all, what a shame," Naruto puffed out his cheeks cutely and tossed a pillow at the Nara, making Shikaku laugh, "Alright, alright. What do you say we watch a movie, huh?" Naruto thought for a moment, he had hardly ever gotten to watch TV before the whole marriage thing started. If he stood in front of a TV store to watch for too long, the owner would come out and throw a bucket of water on him to him to leave. To be able to sit down and watch a movie without someone coming over to him to chase him away would be great! "Alright, what movie should we watch?" He asked Shikaku. "I don't know, I'll just go on Netflix and see what they have," he said as he went to the site and pulled up his account, he logged in and handed the remote to Naruto. "Pick something that looks interesting while I go to the bathroom and we'll watch it together when I come back," he finished his can of beer and left for the bathroom while Naruto tried to figure out who to work the remote and pick a movie for them to watch. It took a few seconds to get the hang of how things worked, he never did have any real experience with technology thanks to the villagers, but when he figured out the basics of how things worked, he became an expert. Looking through the movies, he found a movie called 'Gifted' and pressed the play button after reading the movie's summary, the movie itself was about a smart girl and her grandmother wanted to show the world how smart she was. But her uncle wanted the girl to remain as normal a kid as she could be, it was for this reason that Naruto was sucked into the move even before Shikaku could exit the bathroom. When Shikaku did come back out of the bathroom, the movie had just started, so far the girl had gone to school for the first time and didn't like it, "so, you picked this one, huh?" He asked as he watched the characters on the screen for a moment, he looked down to see Naruto completely entranced by the screen, looking almost zombie-like in a way, he chuckled and went to the kitchen to make them some popcorn to eat. Even though they had just had BBQ not too long ago, Shikaku had forgotten how much he would eat when he was fourteen for first time, he could honestly say that if he didn't like sake so much, he would have given Choza a run for his money back then. Not that he had gotten fat or anything because of his appetite by then, his body was too lazy to do that, but he did eat a lot back then, the only reason he stopped was because of Yoshino's cooking, which was where the sake came in handy. When he sat down next to Naruto with a large bowl of buttered popcorn, he put some of the slightly salted snacks under the blond's nose and watched said blond jump a bit making him chuckle more. That earned him a playful glare before they both turned back to the moving while eating the popcorn. "What's this called?" Naruto asked as he ate some of the popcorn. "Popcorn, people usually eat it when they watch a movie," Shikaku said as he opened up another beer for himself, he handed Naruto an orange soda and got another glare. "What? You don't like soda?" He asked confused. "No, it's not that, I just like that flavor...or color," he grumbled the last part to himself but the older male still heard him. "Troublesome, would you like a different flavor then? There's grape if you want, or Coca-Cola, or...?" He waited for Naruto to think about what he wanted. "I don't feel like soda right now, besides, I already had soda at the restaurant," Naruto said as he took a handful of popcorn. "So...?" Naruto tore his eyes away from the valiant fight on the bus that the little girl from the movie had gotten into to defend a classmate's school project, "can I have another White Russian?" He asked curiously. "Eeeh, no, I don't think popcorn goes well with a White Russian, pick again." "Hmm, Sake?" "I think you had enough of that." "Bloody Merry?" "You must be crazy." "Whine?" "When did you drink Whine?" "Uhg, you're killing me here!" Naruto groaned. "I'm only asking you what you want to drink, I was hoping for a more, I don't know, sane answer. C'mon, be the reason here, can't I get you something else?" Shikaku asked, trying to ignore the fact that when he checked the cabinets for the popcorn, he noticed that they had all the drinks that Naruto had just mentioned and then some. He was starting to get the hint of what someone was trying to say, but was hoping that he was wrong about it, either way, he would have to man up and ask Granny where all the alcohol came from in the morning. But for now, he wanted to relax a bit and finish the move before going to bed. Naruto sighed, "Okay, how about some of that stuff that you had before the movie? It looked interesting, what's it called anyways?" "Beer and no, can you choose something that's not so full of alcohol, please?" Naruto scuffed, "Are you implying that I'm some sort of alcoholic or something?" He asked with a raised eyebrow as he turned to look at Shikaku fully. Shikaku sighed as he took some popcorn from the bowl, "No, I just don't want to deal with a drunk blond right now, plus we have a mission tomorrow, so you shouldn't be drinking so much anyways." "Ooh, but you can? That's your second can of beer in the past hour!" Shikaku froze with the can of beer halfway to his lips, he put down the can and turned to the little blond, "Must you be so troublesome?" "Must you?" Naruto folded his arms over his chest making him look even cuter, the two stared at each other while the move played uninterrupted in the background, until finally Shikaku caved in. "Fine, you want to drink so badly, then be my guest," he said as he put down the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and got up to go over to the kitchen. He didn't see the little victory dance that the blond was doing on the couch, but he knew what he was doing. Still grumbling about troublesome blonds and whatnot, Shikaku decided to put Naruto's newfound drinking habits to the test, not to be mean or anything. And this was diffidently not his way of being petty for losing to the little blond, no not at all, because that would just be childish. He was going to see how much blond could drink before he gave up and then they would go into their rooms and go to sleep for the night, if they both woke up the next morning with a killer hangover, then it would be a lesson well learned. They were going to regret it in the morning when they woke up, and who knows what they would both do when they finally did get plastered. But this was their night and they didn't know when they would get a better time, school meant homework and learning new things, or old things, so paperwork was expected either way. Thinking about it made the older Nara mutter a quick 'troublesome' before taking an arm of alcohol over to the blond on the couch, then came back for another arm loudly, careful not to drop any of the glass bottles he had, then he brought over some snacks. "The hangover is going to be a killer in the morning, there's no doubt about that, but for tonight, let's drink our hearts out!" The Nara said cheerfully. Naruto chuckled, "I guess we'll see who can drink the most out of the two of us, huh?" Shikaku raised one of the beer cans he brought over for a toast. Naruto got the hint and raised his glass as well, his own filled with whine, "Bottoms up! They both said together before they started drinking the night away. To be continued.....
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The night was going pretty well in Shikaku's option, he had his sake, he had food, he had entertainment, and he shared good company. What more could he ask for?! However, his thoughts of merriment were shortly cut off when he heard a ringing sound coming from the kitchen. By this point in the night, time was irrelevant, as his eyes were too unfocused to read the clock on the microwave, he thought the sound was coming from the movie that they were watching now. From what he could remember of the past few hours of drinking, they had finished 'Gifted' and went straight into 'The Avengers' movie series after he heard that Naruto didn't know Ironman, The Hulk, or even who Thor was, Shikaku couldn't believe it! Shikaku, as a child, could be described as the biggest nerd that hit the planet, but because of his brain, and how big a fan he was of fictional heroes. He kept this a secret from everyone but, his friends Choza and Inoichi, in later years when he was forced to marry Yoshino, he brought Shikamaru into the fold about his nerdiness. Long story short, the Marvel and DC Universe had raised another child from the Nara clan, and now both father and son were big fans, then came the thing with Naruto. Now that they were together, Shikaku thought it was his duty as a good husband since he wanted to make it work out this time around, to educate Naruto on the wonders of hot guys in costume with their powers, sense of justice, and fandom branding. Yes, it was a good night indeed, but then the phone kept on ringing Thor's right with Luke and he couldn't deal with such disrespect to a good movie, any movie in fact, so he got up to answer the phone. The trip to the phone was like going on a trip to another world where up and down looked the same as left and right, he couldn't stand up straight for too long before he would sway. Walking in a straight line was ranked as an S-rank mission right now, for its near impossibility. But like all good ninjas, he would complete the mission at all costs! This mission, as he dubbed it, was seen more as an F rank than anything else, but with all the alcohol that he and Naruto had consumed that night, well, an S rank seemed appropriate at the moment. On his way to the kitchen, he only fell once, which was only because he was trying to figure out how the chairs he had been sitting on turned into evil snakes and quicksand, making him think that they were trying to swallow him up into the cushions. Naruto had a good laugh at that, as did Kurama, the fox had allowed Naruto the privilege to experience what it's like to get drunk, but he would take it away only if he had a sense of danger, if they were on a mission, or school work needed to be done. Since none of that was happening now, Kurama sat back and enjoyed the show that Shikaku was putting on for the both of them. Finally, after crawling over to the kitchen counter after falling from the chair, he pulled himself up on wobbly legs and tried to make his way over to the phone. He almost made it the whole way this time.....until his feet decided to trip on air and send him into the wall. Let it be known that Shikaku Nara has never, in his life, been so drunk that his ninja reflexes had turned on him, it was embarrassing to any ninja to be seen this way, thankfully Naruto would keep this secret from others who were not trusted worthy or just don't need to know. But that's not to say that Shikamaru and Hinata wouldn't get a good laugh tomorrow morning when they heard about this night, that was a promise. Anyway, thankful that the wall Shikaku had landed on was the one that held the landline that managed to stay ringing for Shikaku's whole show of clumsiness. Straightening himself out as much he could, he cleared his throat so he couldn't sound too drunk when he answered the phone, he picked up the receiver and said, "Helwoe?" This earned him a long pause of silence from the other side of the line, and another burst of laughter from the blond Uzumaki sitting on the couch in front of the TV. The other person was silent for a few more seconds before finally speaking, "Is, uh, i-is this Shikaku Nara? Head of the Nara clan, speaking?" They asked the drunk Nara head. Shikaku nodded his head and waited for the other person to answer, it took another outburst of laughter from Naruto to realize that the person he was talking to was on a landline, and not on Facetime. "Ooh, hai, t-is he (yes, this is he)" Shikaku said, cursing himself mentally for sounding so intoxicated, "note to self," he thought, "never drink with an Uzumaki again....unless celebrating something and there is no mission to do in the morning, then must have coffee on standby." He nodded to himself again as he smiled proudly at his thoughts, but then he remembered that he was still on the phone with a stranger, whose voice sounded familiar somehow, but he couldn't put his mind on how. "Wha *clears throat* what do you need?" He tried to say as soberly as he could. "Uh, uh, um," the person then cleared his throat as he finally got over his shock, "Uh, Shikaku, this is Hiruzen Sarutobi, your third Hokage, do you remember that much?" The person asked the Nara, the second ticked by on both sides of the phone as Shikaku thought back over the long day and trip he had. "Hmm," he thought some more, he went over everything as he usually fast brain, slowly caught up with the situation, and now realized why the person on the phone was so familiar to him. It was the Sandime Hokage that was calling him, and while he was drunk off his ass at that! Shikaku tried to quickly sober himself up as much as he could before continuing with the call. "H-hai, H-Hokage-s-saama! I-I wasn't spelling yo call sum soon," to bad the rest of his body was still drunk and his bought could barely keep up with the words that he was trying to get out. "Hmm, Shikaku, might I ask why you are talking this way? I hope you're not getting drunk while on a mission from the team's sensei, are you?" Hiruzen asked, there was a light sarcasm in his voice as he listened to the other man stutter out mispronounced words. "N-no, we're not in any museum right this moment," Shikaku said regaining some control over his vocabulary, Naruto, seeing that Shikaku was getting flustered by the person on the phone, walked over to the kitchen. Kurama enhanced his hearing so he could hear the conversation they were having, he decided to hell the poor Nara out and asked Kurama how to make someone sober quickly. Kurama came up with coffee, and the blond went to look for what was needed to make it, soon he had a cup of hot water in his hands and was mixing it with instant coffee. He handed the hot and bitter drink over to the older man, getting a look of relief once the first few sips did their work, Shikaku nodded his head at Naruto, "Thanks." He said thanking the blond before turning his full attention on the kage once more, now that he was working his way to being only half as drunk as he was when the call started, "my apologies, Hokage-sama, but I was not expecting this call so soon, I thought you would have called in the morning." "It' is morning," Hiruzen said over the phone before realizing that the call wasn't in the same country anymore, "but you're in another time zone, so I guess I see your point." The Kage cleared his throat, "Sorry, it seems that I had forgotten the time difference between us now, by the way, what time is it now where you are, so I know when to check in." "It's alright, Hokage-sama," Shikaku said, his eyes not focused enough so he could read the microwave, "it's...midnight now," he stated in awe. He hadn't realized that it was so late already, the last time he had checked, it was only 7:30 pm, "wow, I hope my liver will forgive me in the morning for losing track of so much time, or else I'm screwed tomorrow!" "Hm, that late huh? Well, as long as I have you right now, I would like for you to give me an update on what you guys have been up to so far since you left. I tried calling Akita, but now that I know the time, I can see why she wasn't answering, Kami knows that woman loves her sleep after a hard day." Shikaku hummed his agreement, the morning before they left for Tokyo, they had tried to wake Granny up for breakfast, but she wouldn't budge, so they went back to sleep. Only to be woken up why a water jutsu later that same morning. He sighed, "Yes, that's true, well then, since we left the village gates we made our way over to an Inn to spend the night before leaving the next morning. We headed to Tokyo the next day, arriving around early to late evening time, where we were met with two of Granny's....friends, we spent a few minutes getting to know each other before the two started the kids off on some taijutsu and combat training. After training, we parted ways with two Granny's two friends and ended up at a hotel chapel where Granny officiated the wedding between Naruto and myself, so after we made our way to the airport to board a flight that would take us to Vagus. Once landed, we were taken to the cab where we were transferred to a bus that took us to a place called 'Death City', the same place where the famed DWMA is located. We had a meeting with the owner and founder of the school, once introductions were over with, he gave the team their first mission. We'll be starting it in the morning," he finished explaining to the man over the phone. "I see, what type of mission is it?" Hiruzen asked. "For right now, it's an info-gathering mission, it may turn into an assassination mission later on, but only time will tell if that will be the real case or not," Shikaku stated, that he was started to lose his buzz little by little the more he talked with the man, but he was still plenty buzzed from before, although, now he was pretty sure that he could fake his way through a drunk test if the breathalyzer is kept at bay. Hiruzen thought for a moment before responding, "Very well," he said, "I will be expecting you to send me the reports on your progress and the team's success on their first mission. When you get back, I'll be sure to pay you all for this mission, seeing as how you are all still my shinobi, however, I am worried about this mission being higher than a D or a C rank mission, being their first time acting as a team." Hiruzen sighed, "but still, this is already out of my hands, please make sure that you all come back alive and well." "I'll do my best," Shikaku said honestly, "is there anything else that you want to talk about before I go?" "Hai, there is," Hiruzen hesitated a little before asking, "have you and Naruto...." he trailed off. "Have we...." Shikaku thought for a moment, then he remembered, "Oh, oh no, actually, we haven't quite gotten around to doing that just yet. Um, why do you ask...or is the council asking?" "...Both," another sigh, "the council wants the Namikaze bloodline back in Konoha, as well as the Uzumaki's. Some are even talking about overruling your recent marriage to Naruto right now so that they could hand him over to someone else to do the job in your place. I fear that the person that they try to give Naruto to would be Sasuke Uchiha." "The Uchiha? Why? The last time I checked, he didn't show any interest in the male population other than as his opponents to fight against, while the female population would be no more than servants in his time of want. So why?" Shikaku thought about his question for a few minutes, "unless they're trying to use bloodlines he possesses, they want to make him make the Uchiha's sharing stronger by adding the Uzumaki and Namikaze bloodlines to it. With those two bloodlines, the Uchiha clan would be unstoppable." "Exactly," Hiruzen confirmed "....I'm also sorry to inform you that the council, the civilians mostly, put a deadline on how long you have to come up with another heir." "How long?" "Two months, at most, also when the time is up, you all will have to be back in Konoha. No questions asked. No delay, understood?" Shikaku thought about this for a moment before thinking out loud, "What's happening in two months that they would want us back in that Pacific period? Are they expecting important to happen?" "......." "Hokage-sama, Is there something wrong?" "...." just as Shikaku thought that he would have to ask again, the kage finally spoke up, "They're betting on you not to be able to do it they say that there's no way you could. Not because of age," Hiruzen quickly added, "but because they say that the fox wouldn't let you, that he would interfere with the process somehow." "What makes them so confident about this? They don't know anything about the Kurama, other than he was the one to attack Konoha all those years ago, how can they-" "Because I overheard some of them talking about a deal they made with someone to ensure that only the Uchiha can impregnate Naruto." Shikaku could sense that the older man was under a lot of stress concerning this topic, he waited until he heard the shift in his kage before he knew the aged man was alright. "Shikaku, I'm giving you a mission that starts as soon as you hang up this phone with me, do you accept?" "Hai," he subconsciously straightened up his posturing as he spoke, "what is my mission?" "I can't believe I'm saying this, but...I want you to make sure that the council doesn't find a way to get hand over Naruto to Sasuke, by any means necessary. Whether you're in the village or out, want you to protect Naruto with your life, is that understood?" "Hai, Hokage-sama," Shikaku stated. "Good," Hiruzen was about to end the call then, but as an afterthought, added, "Make sure he's happy, that's all." "H-hai, I'll do my best," Shikaku said before hanging up the phone, he hesitated because he wasn't sure how happy he could make a twelve-year-old boy who was preordained to marry an older man. Even though it wasn't for political reasons, Minato was never one for politics, hence why he never wanted to be a kage, but the council had nominated him before he died. They thought he was the perfect man for the job, so when he died during the sealing, the ones who wanted him to become the Yondaime Hokage were even angrier at Naruto and Kurama. Shaking those thoughts out of his head, he walked back to the living room and sat down heavily on the couch, he was so lost in a daze from the call and his new mission that he didn't notice Naruto trying to get his attention. It seems that the young blond had sobered up in the time it took to make the coffee and ended then called, "Hm? What is it?" "I asked what movie should we watch next?" Naruto asked giving Shikaku an odd look, "you okay?" Shikaku nodded dumbly, "uh, yeah, I'll be okay," he said as he leaned forward to grab a bottle of sake, or whatever was left of it. They were also running low on snacks, "would you like something to eat?" He asked, he was getting tired of the junk food and wanted something more solid after all that drinking they did." "I saw a flier for a pizza shop that opens 24/7, is that okay with you?" Naruto asked taking out the flier that he got while they were on their way over to the restaurant, Shikaku nodded took the flier, and walked over to the landline to make the order. While he was doing that, Naruto decided to return to the conversation he was having with Kurama before Shikaku ended the call, "so how would I do that?" he asked his tenant. "All you have to do is to get him a little drunk again and I'll handle the rest, it would be better if he was more pliant while this is happening. I can sense that he's hesitant to do what needs to be done, but doing it this way would work out just as well, if not better. Given the situation, the results will come out the same, but with a little less work on both parts to get there." "How do I, you know, that? I'm not now really...." Naruto was cut off in his questioning when Shikaku called out to him, "Yeah?" "What toppings do you want on your pizza?" He asked the blond. "Pepperoni-" he said but then Kurama had something to add to the order.
"Do they have beef or rabbit as a topping?"
Naruto asked, then Shikaku asked, about the beef, not the rabbit knowing that no one puts rabbit on pizza, "they have it, he said," Naruto nodded and Shikaku turned back around to finish the order. "I don't think they have a rabbit as a topping, Kurama," the fox pouted, "anyways, where were we?" "Never mind Kit, just leave it all to me," Kurama then cut the connection and went to take a nap until the pizza came. The pizza arrived about an hour half an hour later, Naruto and Shikaku ate in silence as they continued to watch more movies on Netflix. The silence was just about to reach suffocating levels when suddenly, Netflix interrupted their movie by asking them, 'Are you still alive? Do we need to call a doctor for you?'. "But how would they know where we live?" Naruto asked after reading the question, Kurama had taught him some English when he was five just in case of times like these. Shikaku chuckled, "donno, but I guess it's because we've been watching movie after movie for about," he looked at the clock on the wall, "almost seven hours now." "Oh...is that not healthy?" Naruto asked. Shikaku shook his head, "nope," he lifted a bottle of some alcohol that he'd been drinking, "so is there a reason why you keep letting me toss these back like water again? Or are you waiting until I'm bedridden with kidney failure to answer?" Yes, he was drunk again, not that he minded, it relieved some of the stress of everything that'd been going on in the past few days and since his boy was fourteen again, he could afford to drink like this for for a little longer. People do say that a Nara can drink as much as an Akamichi can eat, and they're not lying. "Uh, how about another movie?" Naruto said avoiding the question, he was already scrolling through movies until he saw one that was titled Fairy Tail, "how about this one?" He asked already clicking on it......"Uhhh, Naruto, what movie is this?" Shikaku asked as he started to focus on the movie more, so far it showed a mom and her daughter moving into an English apartment, they were up to the part where the daughter was being woken up by strange noise coming from her wardrobe. "what's it called?" "Fairy Tail, why?" "Hm, well I think that enough movies for one night, don't do? Yeah? Alright let's go to bed," Shikaku said as he switched off the movie, got off the couch, and left the living room. "Aww, but I wanted to see what was in the wardrobe that was making all that noise," Naruto whined, he didn't like cliffhangers. "Well go bad, we've been up for a long time already, we've still gotta get up early in the morning." "Okay," Naruto pouted as he got up from the couch, he was a little wobbly on his feet because of all the drinks he just had. He followed Shikaku into the room he disappeared into, and he had to make a pit stop at the bathroom, when he was done, he dropped himself on the bed. He sighed in relief at the soft bed and closed his eyes, a minute later, he felt the bed dip and a shadow came over him, he opened his eyes to see Shikaku's eyes staring back at him with a small smile on his lips. "W-wh-wha-what a-are you d-do?" Naruto asked as his face grew red. "Well, despite all the traveling we had to do today, it's still technically our honeymoon." Shikaku said as he lowered himself over Naruto until their bodies were touching, "But I won't push you into anything. Tell me when it gets to be too much for you, then I'll stop, okay?" "O-okay," Naruto said as he looked into those dark eyes that were over him, it was almost like they were hypnotizing him, he felt lost in those dark pools. Before he knew anything, they were making out on the bed, "K-Kurama, what's happening here?"
"Relax kit, it's okay, I made your body release some pheromones that would attack and turn him on. He is still drunk enough for it to work, but continuous enough to know what he was doing, looks like he had made up his mind to do the job after all. I just gave him a little extra push, that's all."
"Is there anything that I need to do?" Naruto thought to Kurama as Shikaku deepened the kiss more.
"All you have to do is relax and go with the flow, he will guide you in what you wants you to do, and I've got the rest covered. Trust me, that baka Uchiha won't be getting his dirty hands on you anytime soon, or ever, if I have anything to say about it."
Shikaku wasn't sure if what he was doing was his actions or not, but when he saw Naruto come into the room and lay down on the bed, there was something inside of him that wanted to take the blond right then and there. He held himself back enough so that he wouldn't rape the young blond, but that feeling inside of him was growing, this was all that he could do to keep himself from hurting Naruto. Although, the more he made out with the blond, the more it seemed as though he was used to this sort of thing, "but how much does he know about it?" Shikaku thought in the back of his mind, he decided to ask Blond about it later and continued his actions. Making sure he went slowly, just in case this was Naruto's first time going all the wall. While he was getting ready for bed, he noticed a note lying on the bed a little before Naruto came in, he read it and found that it was a note from Akita telling him that there was a small collection of lube on the nightstand on the right side of the bed. Shikaku couldn't believe that she did that for them, but then again, he could because he had gotten to know her a little during their short time together. Now that Shikaku and Naruto were making out so heavily, he was kind of glad that she thought of it.
Lemon
"Naruto, are you ready for this? Let me know now because when I start, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop so easily later on," Shikaku said after breaking apart their kiss. Naruto was breathing hard, he had kissed other people before, but those were forced kisses, this one was his first real kiss. It breath breathtaking and it made his heart skip every few beats, he felt like he was on cloud nine right now. When he heard Shikaku's question, he wasn't aware that they had stopped kissing, blood rushed to his cheeks as he nodded, "Y-yes, I'm r-ready," he stuttered out, looking deeply into those dark pools. He was lost in them, a world of shadows and darkness, he was lost in them and he didn't care that he was lost, "take me," he breathed out, Shikaku nodded and pulled away from him, much to Naruto's disappointment. "Where are you going?" The blond asked with a pout that made him look so much cuter than he already was. Shikaku smiled, "don't worry, I'm still here," he said as he walked over to the right side of the bed, he opened the nightstand drawer and took out a small bottle of lube. The color was lime green, there was a smell that was coming off the bottle that was the same as the color, inside the draw there were other bottles of lube that were different colors, he counted about ten travel-sized ones and six larger ones with neon coloring. "How many times is she expecting us to do it?" He asked himself as he closed the drawer, he turned back to the bed, Naruto had taken the initiative to crawl his way over to the middle of the bed to see what the older man was doing. "What's that?" The blond asked innocently. "This is lube, it'll make things easier, for both of us," Shikaku stated as he sat back down on the bed, he laid the bottle down to one side for later, he needed to get Naruto ready before he could use it. "Now, where were we?" Naruto's blush became brighter as his lips met with Shikaku once more, they wasted no time in deepening the kiss like before, but this time Shikaku decided to add some tong. His tone lightly brushed against Naruto's lips, only taking a second after the lips parted to rush in and tangle itself with the other, softer tong. The two tongs played for a while until they had to part for air, they soon came back together after a few seconds went by, Shikaku taking this moment to slip his hand under Naruto's shirt and play with one of the pink nipples there. Squeezing them a little made the blond make a cute sound that went straight to Shikaku's groin, Naruto moaned into the kiss the more Shikaku played with him, making sure he gave both nipples a chance, he went to the other and gave that one a small squeeze like the first. Shikaku broke the kiss again so that he could leave a trail of kiss down Naruto's neck, while his hands played with his nipples, Shikaku let his free hand fall into the blond's pants. "Aaaaahhh" Naruto moaned out as he felt Shikaku's thumb brush the tip of his dick, he was already leaking precum from all the stimulation he was getting since his body wasn't used to getting so much. Shikaku smiled against the blond's neck, he picked a spot between Naruto's neck and shoulder before his lips clamped down on it and started sucking on it. He lightly brushed his thumb against Naruto's tip again just so he could hear that sound again. It didn't take much more time before Naruto came all over Shikaku's gentile touch, the older male chuckled as he leaned back from the panting and flushed blond to take in the sight, "You done so soon, Naru-chan?" Naruto blushed and looked away from his gaze, Shikaku chuckled again, "Don't worry, I'm not through with you yet, Naru-chan," he said seductively as he helped lay the blond down on his back on the bed. Shikaku made quick work of Naruto's soaked pants, throwing them to the floor before doing the same to his shirt, he then took off his shirt and pants, not wanting Naruto to feel self-conscious about his body. When they were completely naked, Shikaku kissed his way down Naruto's body from the blond's lips to his half-erect cock, he smirked at the smaller dick before giving it a lick from the base to the tip. He took Naruto into his mouth and started sucking again, slowly at first, but he picked up the pace as Naruto's screams of pleasure grew louder and louder. While he was sucking Naruto's dick, his hands searched for where he left the lube he got from the nightstand. He found it and squeezed a healthy amount into his hands, he brought the lubed hand up to Naruto's bottom and pressed a finger to the tight hole. "Nnha, wha-ahhh, what's t-th-that?" Naruto asked as he moaned, the finger was wet and felt weird as it slipped its way into his hole. "It'll make things easier later, I promise," Shikaku said as he placed soft kisses on Naruto's twitching cock. Shikaku's finger slid into Naruto's warm heat, he moved it in and out slowly before adding a second finger, then a third for good measure. When he felt Naruto was about to cum again, he pulled away from the smaller dick to tower over the younger male on the bed. He removed his fingers and lined himself up at Naruto's entrance, he looked the blond in the eyes, "Ready?" He asked with both hands on the blond's hips, he got a nod and slowly moved forward, he almost came when the tip of his dick was engulfed into the tight heat, he kept himself from doing so as he slowly pushed forward. He was almost fully inside of the blond when he couldn't go anymore, there were still a few inches of his dick left outside to go, but Naruto couldn't take it anymore, he waited until the walls around his dick stopped contracting before he started moving again. Slowly he pulled out halfway way then moved back in just as slowly, he picked up the pace after a while and found his rhythm while drawing out pleased moans from the blond under him, soon enough, he was slamming himself into Naruto with ease. They both screamed and groaned together as they moved as one, Naruto was close again, Shikaku could feel how close Naruto was and pumped his dick with one hand as he continued to thrust into the moaning blond. "AH!!" Naruto screamed as hot cum shot out of his dick, it painted both him and Shikaku in ribbons of white. Shikaku thrust into Naruto a few more times before he reached his peak, he grunted as he filled Naruto with his semen, letting the blond tight hole milk him dry before coming to s stop to catch his breath. He pulled out of Naruto and laid himself down next to him.
Lemon end
"That was fun," Naruto said with a big smile on his face as he caught his breath, he turned his head to look at Shikaku, "Can we do it again?" Shikaku chuckled at the blond, "Maybe later, right we have to get some sleep," he said as he got up from his back and started pulling away the top sheets to get to the cleaner ones underneath, Naruto followed his lead. Shikaku turned off the lights and was getting ready to finally call it a night, until Naruto asked, "Can we do it again at lunch?" "Uuh, I guess so," Shikaku shrugged, "why not, sure, if we have the time, we still have a mission to do for Lord Death in the morning" "Yes," Naruto silently cheered before yawning cutely and going to sleep, Shikaku followed soon after. Meanwhile, with Shikamaru and Hinata, Shikamaru had just found out a surprising secret about his female teammate. After the two had come back from the restaurant, They both got ready for bed because they were both tired from the long trip they had earlier that day, so they wanted to get as much sleep as they could before their mission in the morning (unlike some people). Shikamaru let Hinata use the bathroom first since it was the gentlemanly thing to do, something he learned from his mom when she wasn't being so troublesome all the time. They said goodnight to each other and went to their room, their apartment mirroring that of Naruto's and Shikaku's, the only difference was the color theme, instead of dark green, brown, and yellow, there was dark purple, light purple, and cream colors. Shikamaru thought the colors were a little more feminine for his state, but didn't say anything, after some time went by, they were both fast asleep in their rooms peacefully....until Shikamaru was woken up. Sometime during the night, there seemed to be either a ghost or a cat in heat hiding somewhere close by, but after listening to the sounds that were being heard, Shikamaru was brought to the realization that it was his dad and his new step 'mom' that was making all the noise. Unable to ignore how embarrassing it would be to hear his dad please Naruto all night long, he wouldn't be able to look either of them in the eye without hearing those noises, so being sensible, he left his room and made his way to the living room. He was just getting back to sleep when he heard someone moving around in the apartment, he looked up to see who it was and was met with the sight of Hinata. "What are you doing out here, Shikamaru?" Hinata asked. "Oh, it's you," Shikamaru sighed, "it seems that my room is next door to the room that my dad and stepmom are using tonight. They were so loud that I couldn't sleep, so I came out here, what about you?" Hinata held up an empty glass in one hand, "I got into the habit of waking up at random times during the night to get water when I was younger," she explained. "It's an old habit from when I was much younger...would you like to sleep with me? In my room, I mean, I have enough space on my bed for another person to sleep comfortably, if you want." Shikamaru thought about the question for a moment as he sat up on the couch, even though the couch was soft, it was also not meant for sleeping. He nodded his head, "Sure, if you don't mind me being there, then I accept," he stated with a half smile on his face. "Great, you can go on ahead, I need to get my water," Hinata said as she walked over to the kitchen to get her water. "Okay," Shikamaru said gathering up his sheets and migrating over to Hinata's room, he laid down under the covers and turned off the lights. He was relaxing back into half-sleep when he felt the bed dip on one side, signaling that Hinata had returned to her bed. "Goodnight," he said sleepily. "Night," Hinata replied and they both went to sleep. Later when the sun was climbing over the horizon, Shikamaru woke up with the need to pee, he slowly got out of bed so as he wouldn't wake Hinata, then went to the bathroom. He was happy that the sounds that Naruto and his dad were making were now over, that meant that they wouldn't be too tired from the mission that they had to do that day. He opened the door to the bathroom and got ready to empty the tan, but then stopped when he noticed that someone was already doing just that. His brain was still half asleep, so it took him a minute to notice who it was that was already in the bathroom before, "Hinata?" He asked as he rubbed his eyes tiredly, he heard an 'eep' sound come from Hinata. "Oh, Shikamaru, good morning, did you sleep well?" Hinata asked as she turned back to the toilet. "Yeah, better than the....." Shikamaru to a second to process what was happening right now as his sleeping brain finally caught up with the times. Ans he noticed some things, 1. Hinata wasn't stuttering while she talked to him, even though he just walked in on her on the toilet. 2. Hinata wasn't sitting down on the toilet like he had expected her to be, instead, she was standing with her back to him. 3. She was pee while standing up. ....."Uhm, Hinata, why are you standing in front of the toilet?" Shikamaru finally asked as he stared at the Hyuuga heiress's back. "Because I'm peeing, Shikamaru, why?" Hinata asked as she finished and moved onto the sink she washed her hands after flushing the toilet. Shikamaru blinked at her for a second, "Wait, yo-you're a BOY?!!" "Hmmm," Hinata pulled the elastic in her pajama pants and looked down, "yes," she looked up at him, "you didn't notice?" Shikamaru was in awe and shock at the same time, "n-no," he admitted, "I mean, everyone else thought that you were a girl. Why would you have your true gender if you were a boy all this time?" Hinata shrugged, "Because I look so much like a girl that people just naturally assume that I am, who am I to prove them wrong?" She then walked out of the bathroom, leaving an awed Shikamaru behind. He turned to watch her leave for a moment before turning back around to do the thing that he came to do, when he was done in the bathroom, he found Hinata back in her room getting her stuff ready for the day. He leaned on the side of the door frame as he watched her or him, what was he supposed to call her now? "Troublesome, what is supposed to call you now, supposing that we call you anything different from before that is," he stated in his usual bored manner. Hinata turned to look back at him for a second as she thought, "Does it matter?" She asked before turning to get her towel, "Would you like to take a shower with me too?" She smirked as she walked passed him to the bathroom. Shikamaru blushed, "wait, why am I blushing?" He asked himself as he followed her to the bathroom, he wanted more answers, "How can you look so feminine? Is it because of your bloodline or something from your parents?" He asked staying out of sight to give her privacy, even though she said she was a guy, he still felt like she was a girl, "and keep it a secret for so long? Even your dad calls you a girl, is there a reason for that?" Hinata turned on the water, "Maybe, maybe I just like being a girl, maybe he just wanted a daughter, or maybe I did this to piss him off. Honestly, I don't care," she looked back at him, "you can call me whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me, I was going to tell you all today anyways." She stripped and went under the hot water, "however, it doesn't matter what I am on the outside, whenever I'm in Konoha, I'm to be considered a girl at all times." "Huh, what sense does that make?" Shikamaru asked looking into the bathroom at Hinata but then ducked back behind the wall when he saw that she was naked and that she was, in fact, he. "W-why would you be considered a girl, when you know you're a guy?" Hinata pocked her head out from under the water to look at the hidden Nara, "really, we can share the water, I don't mind," she said, chuckling when she saw him turn red again. She went back under the water, "Alight, truth be told, my father told the elders that I was a boy when I was born and got a negative reaction when they saw me. They said 'There's no way that it can be a boy, it must be a girl, for the sake of the clan', so my father explained to me when I was just two that I was to never show my true gender to the world until after I'm married to a respectable boy. I didn't mind at the time, since I didn't like girls, but when I grew older, I couldn't help but wonder why, why keep it a secret. Why make me believe that I was something I'm not? Why? And all the questions kept building up until one day I finally asked, I was only three years old when they finally answered me, although, I had to threaten them about me telling the world about it. But still, it worked either." "What did they tell you?" Shikamaru asked as he listened to Hinata in the shower. Hinata sighed, "They told me that I looked too much like a girl, and until my features change to that of a male, then it would be an embarrassment to the clan if I was to say I was a guy instead of a girl. They also threatened me right back, saying that if I told anyone, that they would put the caged bird seal on me, so what could I have done? I couldn't fight back, back then, I was only three, what power did I have?" ".....And now? What will you do?" Shikamaru asked after a moment of silence. "Hm, I'm going to do nothing," Hinata replied. "Nothing?" "Nothing." "Why not do something? You're older now, you could gather power and fight back, why let them control your life?" "I'm not...." ".....then-" "Shikamaru, listen to me, my life is not ruined, and I will fight back, but there is a skill to be had when it comes to dealing with politics. You should know this because you're the heir of the Nara clan, and I'm the 'heiress' of the Hyuuga clan." "I understand politics well enough to know that it's troublesome, but that's not what I'm asking." "....Then wha-" "You're acted by home, the thing about liking Naruto, it wasn't just to piss off your dad, was it?" By that point, the shower was starting to get cold, so she turned off the water and wrapped herself up in a towel, "no, I guess you caught me," she said as she came out of the shower with the towel. She looked Shikamaru in the eye as they stood face to face, Shikamaru had come into the bathroom sometime while they were talking, "When I was four, I saw what a branch member went through whenever the main house is either displeased or bored with them. Do you know what they do? They kill them, it's not because the branch member did something wrong, they always try to do everything they can to be on the main branch's good side, but when the main branch wants something, no matter what it is, they tend to get it. Ever since that day, I've looked for the signs, it wasn't hard to find, they flaunt their power every chance they get, just to 'keep the rest in line', it made me sick to even be related to them. But I can't do anything, not right now, the only thing I can do is wait it out, wait, and gather power. It's something I've been working towards since I was small, but it was hard," she admitted, she looked down at the tiled floors of the bathroom, she sighed. "Since my father knew that I would be strong-willed, probably just like the other father that I didn't know about until recently, then he kept a close eye on me to make sure that the secret got out." "Why does your gender matter so much to them?" Shikamaru finally asked. Hinata chuckled, "because any male member of the Hyuuga clan, branch or main, that has a child with another male, will get a child that looks like me. Male, but feminine at the same time, the elders don't like that fact, and even though it's not known to the rest of the villagers, or the world, they want to keep it under wraps. A clan secret, so to speak." "So you have to wear dresses and be all shy and stuff because they're embarrassed by your gender?" Shikamaru asked incredulously. "No, they're embarrassed of me, all of me," Hinata said as she walked passed him to head back to the bedroom with Shikamaru following, disregarding the fact that he thought she was a girl just moments before. "When I was born, my father was yet to be married, I was unplanned, the resulting factor of a torrid affair between my father and his secret lover, there's no record of the other man on paper anywhere. I would know, I have snuck into the village records room many times before looking at those papers to get answers for who I am and what is my other half, so far, all I've come up with is that the other person in question was not from Konoha, he wasn't born there, nor did he live there at any one time. but there was one thing that was known about him." "Which was, if you don't mind me asking?" Shikamaru asked as he sat on the edge of the bed while Hinata dressed in front of the wardrobe in the room. "He was part of a clan that used to be great assassins in the ninja world, doing just about any job that came their way, but then they started to lose control of themselves and eventually were wiped out for their actions. I believe that they were called the Star Clan, but I can't do much else on them," she explained the last part sadly as she finished dressing and stood in front of the mission, she looked at Shikamaru's reflection in the mirror, watching for his reaction. But the Nara was just sitting there, thinking, the room fell into a long silence as the two stayed where they were, waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Shikamaru spoke, "Well, this just turned into a troublesome morning," he sighed as he got up and walked to the door, "I'm going to take a shower." He turned back to Hinata, "You'll need to tell the others about this, maybe we can help you achieve your goal," he then walked out of the room completely to take his shower. A little later that same morning, after Shikamaru and Hinata made and ate breakfast, they walked next door to see if the other two members of their team were up yet. They knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer, but no one did, they knocked again a little louder thinking that they hadn't heard the first, but they still got no answer. Heaving a sigh, Shikamaru took out the spare key that Granny gave them to each other's apartment in case of emergency, he put the key into the door and opened it, calling out to the occupants inside, after not getting an answer, he and Hinata walked into the apartment silently. They closed the door behind them and found that the coffee table in the living room was covered in empty to half-empty liquor bottles, three boxes of pizza, with three slices left in the box, and other backs of junk food littered the table's surface. In other words, it looked like the sight you would see when a stressed-out Akamichi gets up in the middle of the night for a snack to calm their nerves, in the kitchen was a half-finished cup of coffee with another cup in the sink. One of the chairs at the kitchen counter was knocked over and two empty bottles of sake had made their way to the ground sometime during the night, but thankfully did not break on its way down. "What the fuck happened?" Shikamaru asked out loud, he knew that when his dad got to drinking with his friends they could and would go all night unless someone stopped them. However, never before had he seen his father, all people, leave behind a mess such as this, and the fact that Naruto was with him while this was happening made Shikamaru a little hesitant to think about what could have happened between the two to cause this mess. He walked further into the room to look for his father and blond stepmother, the apartment was so quiet this morning that he thought that the two of them had gotten up already and got started on the day. However, looking at the place now, he wasn't so sure what to expect, add that to the fact that he wasn't sure of which room the two now occupied after the noisy event that woke him up at about four in the morning, led to him, unfortunately for him, that led to him walking in on them while they were still in bed. Together. Naked. With the night's evidence all laying out all over the top covering their sheets for the world to see, being shocked out of his mind, he could only stand there and stare at the sight before him. "Shika? What's wrong, did you find-" Hinata's question died on her lips when she walked over to see the thing that Shikamaru was staring at, it was there in the room that they were both standing in front of, lay Naruto and Shikaku still sleeping soundly in their bed. She looked between Them and Shikamaru before nodding to herself, for the sake of his sanity, she delivered a chop to the back of Shikamaru's neck, she caught him as fell and helped/dragged him to the living room couch. She sighed, "I guess seeing his dad in bed with his stepmother, who's the same age as him, was too much of a shock to his innocent mind," she shook and walked back to the room they were at before. She took a deep breath in and steeled herself for the embarrassing moment that was about to happen, she walked into the room and shook the closet person to her awake, they woke with a start, "Mr. Shikaku, it's time to wake up now, we have to be at the DWMA in about an hour and a half," she informed them. Shikaku groggily opened his eyes and took a look around his surroundings, "what time is it?" He asked with a yawn. "7:30, you have about thirty minutes to get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast so we can get there before the start time." She said as she went over to the other side of the bed to wake up Naruto from his sound sleep, she shook the blond softly, and when she didn't get a reaction, she shook him a little harder. "Wow, you guys must have gone at it all night or something, because he's wiped out," she stated stunned, looking at Shikaku, she could see that he was hiding a major blush. She turned back to Naruto and frowned, he wasn't waking up, the only thing he'd done since she started trying to wake him was roll over to his other side away from her. "I just go make breakfast while you two get really," she said, giving up after her third attempt at waking up the blond from his bed. Thirty minutes later, Shikamaru woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs, even though he had already eaten about an hour ago, he could still eat more food. He walked over to the kitchen counter sleepily as if he had just woken up from a nap, he sat down on one of the stools provided and waited for a plate. Hinata turned to see him waiting at the counter, looking at her expectantly, "what? You want more food or something? You just ate a few minutes ago," she stated. They stared at each other for a while, Shikamaru blinked, "really? I don't remember that," he stated to her. They stared at each other for a while. And stared. And stared. And blinked as Shikaku and Naruto finally came out of their room, the new arrivals sat down at the kitchen counter and watched the two stare at each other, Naruto turned to Shikaku and whispered, "What's going on with them?" Shikaku shrugged, he tapped his son on the shoulder, about to ask Naruto's question, when Shikamaru lifted an index finger to his father, "Shh, I'm winning." "Ehh, okay," he said looking between Shikamaru and Hinata, "when will breakfast be ready?" Shikamaru and Hinata continued to stare at each other, without breaking eye contact, Hinata replied to the older man, "Soon," they two continued to stare at each other some more as the other two watched. They stared. And stared. And sta-"oh my FUCKING KAMI! Would you two please just give me some food before I kick someone's ass this morning?" Naruto yelled out, interrupting the staring contest and drawing all attention to him, he stared at them with cold, angry eyes. "I swear if we have another staring contest before I get some bacon and coffee in me, then I'm going release Kurama on all your asses because he's giving me a headache just asking for this fucking bacon thing that I've never heard of before." He snapped his fingers at the three who were still staring at him as if he was some kind of alien from another world, "well, come on, chop chop, or do I have to sacrifice one of you to the fox?" His eyes narrowed, and his face told them that he was more than willing to do just as he said if he didn't get his way. This was the day that everyone found out that, despite the cheerful little ball of sunshine they've all come to know over the years, Naruto was far from a morning person. The other three looked at each other for a moment before Hinata turned back to the stove to finish up the eggs that were slowly turning to a golden brown, while the bacon was just getting crispy enough to crunch on. Shikaku got up and walked over to the cupboard to take out the coffee that his new wife had asked for, he was sure that from now on, as long as the blond got his coffee in the morning, he wouldn't get pummeled by frying pans like in his last marriage. And Shikamaru thought it best to help Hinata hurry up with the requested bacon so that Naruto wouldn't release Kurama on their asses as he said. None of them was sure if he could complete the act or not, but if one thing was clear, they all knew he was smart enough to figure out how to get it done. After a few moments of waiting, Naruto got what he asked for, he'd never had bacon before today, but Kurama assured him that he would enjoy it, true to the fox's word, Naruto loved bacon. He might even go so far as to say it was slightly better than ramen, slightly, but the coffee was his real goal, without it, we would be in a grumpy mood all day. It was this fact that Kurama waited a day or two before he had to tell the blond that he could no longer drink the heavenly liquid that the blond loved so much, he would rather not have a repeat of when Naruto was six years old and wasn't able to find a coffee source of two days. The little Uzumaki interwiki had pranked the village hard in those two days, and because of that, it became an unspoken rule in the village to make sure that Naruto had his morning coffee, even if the villagers did hate him, facing Naruto's parking wrath was even worse than half a session with Ibiki. So it was best to wait until Naruto was less likely to kill, or just maimed, someone. After a safe breakfast without anyone being freed by a fox demon, much to Kurama's disappointment (it's been a long time since he had the taste of humans for a meal), the four-man team decided to stretch their legs by heading off toward the DWMA via rooftop. They had just made it to the front of the building in under thirty minutes and were led inside, passing new and old students alike as they went. When they got to the Death Room, they were given permission to enter and walked right in, they found Lord Death waiting for them in the same spot he was when they first met him the day before. He greeted them cheerfully and they apologized for being late, but he brushed it off (he may have known why they were so late but chose not to say), "All alright, now that all of that is out of the way, let's get down to business, shall we?" He asked as he clapped his overly large hands together. "Hai, what is it that you would like us to start with, Lord Death?" Shikaku asked seriously. "Well, since you all with be attending the academy, you should look like you're a student here, correct? So I've taken the liberty of picking out a few selections from our uniform catalog for you four to try, you can keep the ones you like and I'll take back the ones you don't." Out of nowhere, Death takes out for somewhat large bags filled with folded uniforms and handed one to each of them, "you can all take these come and wear them back tomorrow if you like. As for your classes, I've placed each of your scheduled classes inside of the bags." He took out a stack of books from somewhere and handed each of them three textbooks, two paper books, a Japanese-to-English translation book, a handheld to mirror the size of their hands, and a cell phone that seemed to reflect each other personalities: Naruto's phone was red with black strips as decoration, one of the strips at the top right was a yellow smiley face with one eye closed and his tong sticking out. On another strip on the bottom left was the poop emoji smiling, Naruto wasn't sure why that was, but the poop's smile was nice to look at so he let it slight. At the center was the word 'Boss' in black bold letters with a white outline, all the strips sparkled with black glitter, which he liked a lot. Shikamaru's was a forest green with a black image of a deer with a white outline around it, white cloud was in the background, and over the deer were the words 'Troublesome Calls'. It was nice, but not overly complicated, he liked a phone, now if only he knew how to use this type of phone, which he'd never really seen being used in the leaf village before. Hinata's was somewhere between a dark and a light purple, with a unicorn with wings (what are those called again?) standing up on its hind legs. Across the bottom of the phone was the word 'Unbreakable' in big bold, white letters. The words sparkled a little in the light, much like Naruto's phone, she didn't mind the design, however, it seemed a little overly girly for her, and wondered if she could change it up a little later on. Shikaku's was a dark brown with a cheery blooms tree on the back, it was a very realistic-looking tree. It was almost as if someone had shrunken down a tree at the height of its blooming and then managed to place it on the back of his phone, he couldn't lie that it was nice. This had always been his favorite tree ever since he was a kid, he wondered how Death knew that, if he even knew at all, but instead he asked, "What are these for?" "Those are cell phones, I don't know how many ninjas in your village use them, or if they even know of them at all, but here in Death City, we like to use all the resources we can to make this just a little bit easier. With this phone, you'll be able to call up anyone from anywhere and talk as long as you want, but the best part of it all is that your calls won't drop." Death cheered, The four before him gave him a confused look and his sweat dropped, "Right, I forgot that, uh, *clears throat* anyways, these phones are special, they're unlike any other phone there is. You also can't them anywhere else because I was able to make all of them myself, with some input from some long-time friends, of course, but the base of the design is all mine. This phone will even work underwater and at high altitudes well, it doesn't need much to charge it, about a minute or so and it'll be good to go, you can also use just about anything you choose to lock and open it so only you can get in. From blood, fingerprints, eye scan, soul wavelength, and even chakra, or all the above, this phone will be able to recognize you as its owner and keep all others out, unless you decide to let them see what's on your phone, then that's all up to you. I've placed a book on how it all works inside your bag, any questions?" The four standing before the Good of Death just blinked their eyes at him before shaking themselves out of their daze, "Uhm, what's our first class going to be?" Naruto asked looking at the phone in his hands as if it was the rube's cube. "Ah, I'm glad you asked, your first class will be all together, so you'll be able to meet some of the other weapons and misters while you're at it. Now, you best be getting on your way, since you four arrived here late, classes have already started so get a move on. Oh! And try not to make a habit out of coming to school so late every day, I would hate to suspend you four before you could start your mission, alright?" Death said in a stern but cheerful voice, the four before him nodded and said their goodbyes to the Shinigami before leaving the Death Room to head to their first class. TO BE CONTINUED