Industrious - Chapter 66

Yakumo moaned my name.

I cut her off with a searing kiss.

The mother of my child, no matter how unconventional the birth, was not a master of prana bindu. Not in the traditional way, at least. I'd taught her a piecemeal set of lessons in the art, ultimately designed to fight the congenital condition that threatened to keep her from being a shinobi.

In some ways, her education was ongoing in the art.

But in others, she'd become skilled enough that she could hold her own.

As the moon rose higher, I pistoned myself in and out of her harder and faster, her body responding in ways that no virgin should have been capable of.

Our bodies meshed together, nervous systems lighting up as we competed with each other to trigger the most powerful responses.

She never really stood a chance, but it was cute that she tried.

In the end, she collapsed next to me and I curled an arm around her, pulling her close.

For tonight, at least, I allowed myself to fall into a deep slumber.

…

Standard blue jounin fatigues?

Check.

Chunin vest?

Check.

Half-face mask?

Check.

Hair dyed a straw-blonde?

Check.

Normal weapon loadout for a Konoha shinobi?

Check.

I hummed and looked myself over in the mirror as I reached up and tilted the headband down into a slant to cover my right eye.

Hataki Kakashi had, after all, 'died' years prior. He'd never become the infamous Copy Cat Ninja wandering around Konoha reading porn in a depressed haze like some cyclopian cryptid. It was true, according to what I remembered, that he'd worn a half-mask over the bottom of his face even as a youth, but plenty of shinobi did that. Plus, I'd added my own spin on it.

I lifted the pink haori with the flower-print aesthetic and slipped it over my shoulders, carefully tucking my swords outside of it.

“You look like a complete weirdo.”

I turned and raised my only visible eyebrow at Yakumo, who was staring at me from the bed, looking pleasantly tired and sore... if a tad exasperated.

“So like a normal jounin of Konoha, then?” I asked, my voice changed as I constricted muscles in my throat to shift it to a lower octave.

Yakumo blinked. “I'll have to remember that trick. Hmm... so what name are you going with for this identity? Which number does this make, anyway... you've got at least one other that fixed Naruko's mom, right?”

“I'm just going to keep Kota,” I waved her off, adjusting the clothing I was wearing.

“Really?” Yakumo asked, her tone deadpan. “You're just going to give them your regular name?”

I shrugged. “It's not like 'Kotaro' is all that rare. There was at least one other at the orphanage I was raised in. I'm pretty sure there's a vegetable merchant a few streets over with the name, too.”

“But how many swordsman ninja have that name in Konoha?” Yakumo asked dryly.

“I don't recall Kotaro the blacksmith's apprentice being a ninja,” I replied defiantly.

“Kota... my dear lover whom I care deeply about, the father of my child... you can't seriously keep making that argument at this point,” Yakumo stated.

I stared at her blankly, keeping motionless until Yakumo began to twitch.

“If I disassociate hard enough, anything is possible,”I stated.

Yakumo sighed and rolled over. “Ugh, fine. Live in denial. Just don't expect me to put up with your... weird fantasy lives or whatever. At least you sized yourself up to look mature.”

I huffed and pouted behind my mask and returned to perfecting my cosplay. “Whenever you get up, I left a lunch plate sitting on the counter with a stasis seal.”

“Mmm... I'm going to sleep in a little longer, thanks honey. With my parents watching Kokoro I want to take a little break from being a mom. Heh... I only lasted three weeks, huh? That's pretty sad.” She curled into herself and sighed.

I took a few steps over to the bed and sat down on the edge, thankful I'd taken the time to make a western-style one. It was less convenient than the eastern-style futon you could roll up and put away, but I'd gotten tired of dealing with that and wanted more support. Also, I'd put seals on the legs and headboard of the frame to stop noise from being transmitted through the floor and walls.

There had been... complaints.

“You're acclimating to an entirely different lifestyle,” I comforted her, my hand slipping through her hair. “Trying to do so without a break or without help would be a mark of arrogance or desperation. Take the time you need to build yourself back up. If that means a day, take the day. If that means you need to cry, cry. If you need me to do something, all you have to do is say it. I'm sure one of my identities will be able to figure something out for you.”

She giggled, almost against her will as she finally turned her head to meet my eyes. “Thanks, Kota. You're more than I deserve.”

I bent down and kissed her forehead, drawing a soft sigh from her. “I love you too, Kumo-chan.”

“Now go out and give those kids hell, okay? They're taking time away from me, Ten-chan, and Satsuki. And your daughter most of all,” she ordered me intently.

I chuckled and nodded, rising up and heading out.

Sighing, I decided to take a jump through the window like a barbarian instead of using the perfectly good door. I'd finished a version of the hiraishin a little while ago and had been covertly installing seals around Konoha for emergencies, but they were for emergencies. I didn't need to be broadcasting that I could teleport whenever I wanted. In fact, I didn't need anyone to know that at all. The only people that would be informed would be my women, in fact, and only if a crisis occurred and I needed to evacuate them from the village.

In that even, though, I'd simply remote-activate the skin-tone colored seals I'd put on the bottoms of their feet and pull them to me.

I was also working on a kind of sensory seal as well, designed to tie into the system and remotely activate the teleport if a preselected set of conditions were met.

Which, yes, would be difficult to explain to the Hokdage were it to happen.

It was far preferable to me that I be stuck answering awkward questions about withholding groundbreaking sealing technology from the village than mourning a dead lover, though.

Especially when I was still irreplaceable and one of those lovers was the Hokage's successor's sister.

Itachi would probably understand my motivations and let me off with a slap on the wrist given I was taking steps to protect Satsuki.

All I'd need to do if it came out was dodge the possibility of an escape route outside of the village being brought up.

And that was easy enough. I had no reason to leave, anyway.

Not until and unless Konoha decided to give me one.

I came to a stop on a tall building in a ninja-crouch with a sigh of disgust aimed partially at myself. “I'm being whittled away at, piece by piece. I know that. I had a plan. It was a stupid plan, but it was a plan. Leave this fucking disaster of a planet, get into space, and...”

Yeah, that was kind of why it was a stupid plan that hadn't survived first contact with a cute girl.

“What was it... A boy has the right to dream.” I hummed, feeling the growing presence of my watchers as they finally caught up with me.

Mostly, I ignored them.

I'd come to expect the shadows that followed my every step, likely as both bodyguards and enforcers should I decide to do something silly like publicly criticize the regime. As much as the Hokage could privately dismiss any knowledge I withheld with a good enough excuse, the weakness of doing so publicly would necessitate a stronger response.

Just one more of those ugly little social contracts you had to sign in order to operate in a society like this.

“That's certainly... an outfit, I suppose.”

I rolled my visible eye at the slow drawl.

“Nara-san, I'm pretty sure I'd ask your wife for fashion advice before you,” I replied in an equally dry tone.

The Jounin Commander huffed a quiet laugh as he stepped up beside me. “And have you asked one of your girls what they think? Since we're on the topic of women's opinions and all.”

I sighed. “Did you decide to track me down to ask about my romantic relationships, Jounin Commander? Or did you have something more practical and relevant in mind?”

“Just giving a newly-minted Jounin some advice,” the man stated, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a flick of chakra. “The Hyuuga girl. Her clan's not happy about her getting selected for special treatment.”

“Cry me a river,” I replied, a hint of snap in my voice. “I'm not happy about being selected to give her special treatment.”

Shikaku hummed, continuing regardless of what I'd said. “And because her clan isn't happy, they're making noise. Which means no one is happy, what with the Hyuuga having mutinied against their elders and everything.”

I made a noise between a sigh and a growl.

Yeah, so don't get me wrong. I was entirely happy that the Hyuuga clan weren't sitting under fuuinjutsu-gunpoint held by a bunch of old assholes that should have done everyone a favor and died before they became everyone's problem. I really, really was. Being what amounted to a slave to your own family was pretty fucking awful. And I'd seen enough of the records (not that anyone knew about it) to confirm my guess that the powerful old men and women in charge had done what powerful people do when they can force someone into compliance.

This is one of those times where I look back at the edgy Naruto fanfiction I used to read a lifetime ago and realize that 'obedience seals' for 'sex slaves' already kind of existed.

Thankfully, it seemed nothing of that sort – seal or no seal – had been attempted on the young sisters Hinata and Hanabi, if only because of the Hokage's direct intervention and the placement of an overseer to ensure the girls weren't targeted in reprisal. That and, as best as I could tell, Neji sparing them in his rampage, had apparently been enough of a warning for the rest of the clan not to be actively cruel towards them.

Just... well, passively.

Neglectfully cruel.

Politically, though, almost all of the Konoha clans had a group of old people at their head. When one clan decided to murder their old people, regardless of their crimes, it tended to make all of the other old people nervous as hell.

The result was that the Hyuuga were persona non grata in most of the village.

Which, I had to admit, retrospectively made the rise of the Uchiha make a lot more sense.

If the Hyuuga had properly repudiated Neji in the wake of the murders, the rest of the village would have been more or less forced to accept that this was just a case of a single prodigy shinobi cracking under the pressure of his too-young appointment and going rogue. Instead, though, Neji was still a figure of great respect in the Hyuuga clan. They'd even kept him on the clan rolls despite the fact that the village had formally placed a DOA bounty on his head and publicly listed him as a nuke-nin.

It was probably a satisfying act of defiance to the now-free clan.

But it didn't help things at all.

So on one side of things you had a fairly conservative political order made up of experienced and retired shinobi that pulled the strings behind the village with their connections to the greater political feudal network of the Land of Fire. And on the other side, you had a group of people that actively celebrated the deaths of their clan elders to the point of desecrating their bodies and leaving their heads on the compound's outer wall for over a week while they had a wild and raucous party.

There was a bit of tension, all things considered.

I took a deep breath, calming myself to-

I stopped.

No.

I was done.

This was it.

This was my line.

“Sounds fun,” I replied with a deliberate tone.

Shikaku slowly panned his gaze over to me, turning from the city proper and staring at my crouched form. “This is the part where I give you advice on how to properly defuse the situation you're walking into.”

“Eh,” I waved him off, channeling my inner Kakashi. “It'll work itself out. See ya!”

Then I was gone, busting into a hybrid speed move that combined the various forms of enhancement I'd studied and mastered.

I appeared in a clearing just a few moments later.

Hyuuga Hanabi?

Check.

Uzumaki Enkai?

Check.

Sarutobi Konohamaru?

Check.

What was not check-worthy were the people accompanying my young students-to-be. One redheaded Uzumaki who seemed to be half-hungover and looking for a fight, the all-black-clad Special Jounin Ebisu, and a pair of nameless Hyuuga.

Who were all glaring at each other.

To their credit, the kids at least looked completely done with this situation.

“Alright, I'm here now.” I waved at the adults. “You can go, I'll take things from here.”

To drive the point home, I made 'shoo-ing' motions with my hands, as if trying to brush away irritating piles of dust.

The kids blinked.

The adults blinked.

“This is the guy who's supposed to be teaching us?” Enkai squawked, pointing at me in disbelief and turning to his minder. “He looks like a retard!”

I was in front of him in an instant, the kids freezing as I invaded the personal space of their little group. My disguised blue eye pierced Enkai's shocked gaze as my chakra brushed up against his and he felt the oncoming certainty of his own death for a split-second. His face went white as I reached out and-

-patted him on the head.

“Maa-maa,” I chuckled, “kids say the darndest things sometimes.”

The three froze as I rose up, not daring to move, think, or breathe as I looked at the adults... all of whom had shifted subtly into stances that were ready for a fight.

“I said you can go now.”

One of the two Hyuuga 'guards' stepped forward and glared at me. “We represent the Hyuuga clan. The Hokage may have forced our hand in allowing a child of the forsaken line of the Head Family to be given special instruction, but as she is still a member of our clan, we will be overseeing-”

They flew back, hitting trees so hard they dented the bark as they cried out in pain.

Shocked inhalations of breath came from around me.

Stepping forward, I began to walk towards the two opponents I'd casually destroyed, humming as I went. “No. You're not. You're not any of those things. You're a hindrance. A nuisance. An aggravation.”

I stopped in front of their crumpled forms.

“But I am not without some understanding of how the world works, unlike you,” I stated, reaching down and pulling their forehead protectors free.

Exposing their clan's greatest shame.

The Caged Bird Seal.

One thumb on each of their foreheads, the stunned ninja still in disbelief over how casually they'd been put down, I flexed a bit of chakra.

And the seals disappeared.

“There we go, all better.” I clapped my hands, staring at them with a manic grin underneath my half-mask. “Little bit of carrot. Little bit of stick.”

One of them made a vague noise of incomprehension.

“When little Neji freed your clan, he just killed all of the people who knew how to activate the seal, contrary to what you all liked to say,” I hummed. “So your reward for basic competency is going to be that you send two people with Hanabi every time we have class. I remove their seals. They turn around and leave.”

“Or what?” The first one who'd spoke to me asked, a trace of defiance returning to him now that the shock was wearing off.

I brought my foot down on his shin and shattered the bone in a single motion.

He clenched his teeth against the sudden pain.

“I hurt you until you do what I say,” I answered plainly, happily, merrily. “If you have a complaint, I'm sure one of your clan's elders can talk to the Hokage about this arrangement.”

Equal parts hatred and fear boiled on the man's expression as his compatriot jerked his head and grabbed the man to begin retreating.

I turned towards the Uzumaki and Ebisu.

We stared at each other.

I reached up and scratched at my mask.

They twitched.

“Leave.”

They hesitated for a fraction of a moment, then vanished in a puff of leaves, apparently satisfied that the Hyuuga 'observers' had been dealt with and ready to stick to the original arrangment.

I looked down at the children, all remarkably recomposed as they shifted into a line and stood at attention. “Well, now that we've got that settled, let's sit down and have a chat. Names, likes, dislikes, hopes for the future... all that stuff.”

Konohamaru only whimpered a little bit.

~~~

I'd like one week without any drama.

Just one.

Ugh.

Long story short, one of my visiting relatives is in the hospital and they're probably going to extend their stay with us for... a while. Thankfully, it looks like they got him in before a cardiac event happened and he's due to recover in good time at this point so long as nothing else happens.

I'll be working on an update of Mind Games for this week provided nothing else in my life catches fire.

Thank you for your patience and support.