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electrasev5nwrites · 10 months

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Ninja Daily: Vapors 82

“Not now.” Aiko pushed her nose further into her pillow and tightened her grip around Mitsuo with her right arm. Funny. He was shaped differently than she remembered—less round. And significantly less furry than usual.

Blearily, she raised her head just enough to see dark hair and remind herself that she hadn’t fallen asleep snuggling her dog.

“Oh. Good morning, Sai.”

Her fingers had been outside the blanket and were cold, so she wiggled them under the covers to flatten against his abs. Sai was too disciplined to jolt or complain about being used for his hot body, so she didn’t feel guilty at all.

“May I be released?” Sai sounded surprisingly detached and polite for someone being treated like the world’s tallest teddy bear. “I am under orders to report to the Hokage’s office for an assignment.”

Aiko frowned at that, trying to remember if she was meant to report. She couldn’t think of any call… so that meant he was going on a mission without her. Unusual. “What time?”

He seemed to be attempting to check the time through the mostly covered window. “In twenty minutes, I believe.”

She paused. “Are you already packed for your mission?”

“Yes, but the equipment is at my residence.”

Ten more ninja points to Sai. God, he was good at this game, wasn’t he? He should have been a boy scout. He and Yamato could flit about and be impossibly anal and good-natured, saving puppies from trees and carrying old ladies’ groceries.

‘Maybe I’m a little tireder than I thought. Something was definitely wrong with that phrase.’

“Aiko?”

“If you think you’re escaping without a good morning kiss, you are severely mistaken.” Jokingly, she pressed a kiss against the back of his neck and nuzzled him.

Sai gave a good natured sigh and twisted around to give her a flat look.

She giggled and released him. “Alright, alright. You know you’re going to be late anyways. Just tell the Hokage you’re sorry.”

“I apologize for my tardiness, Hokage-sama.” The little twerp gave her one of those patently false grins. The knuckles in Sasuke’s hand creaked ominously when he unconsciously formed a fist. “I was detained by a fair maiden.”

“My god, it’s catching,” Shizune breathed lowly, eyes wide with horrified fascination.

Naruto was practically vibrating with rage. “Not you too,” he growled, grabbing Sai’s collar and yanking on it. Sai merely blinked at him.

“My apologies. I-”

‘This has gone on long enough.’

“I don’t want any of your excuses,” Tsunade interrupted. For the first time, she genuinely rued handing the boy over to Hatake’s team. What the hell was it about that man that inspired devotion and imitation?

She tabled the thought for later.

“And Mr. Ukki needs to be watered every other day, but the begonias can go a week without. They like to be rotated every other day, though, so that they get sunshine everywhere.”

Aiko nodded along and tried to look attentive, even as Naruto detailed how often his mail needed to be picked up to prevent the post office from sending him nasty missives about his full box. Every other day, apparently. He wrote a lot of letters.

“Look, how long are you guys really expecting to be gone?” She raised an eyebrow inquisitively, but Naruto didn’t get the hint.

“I have no idea!” He chirped cheerfully, flashing a toothy grin. “But I bet it’s going to be awesome! I told you we were working with Asuma’s team, right? He’s a wind type too and he agreed to give me some pointers.” He gave a fist-pump. “I’m going to get that wind-natured Rasengan.”

‘Well, whatever works.’

She wasn’t particularly broken up about not being brought along on this mission in specific, though the timing stank. Yamato and Sai could take care of the boys, even if team Ten wasn’t there to pick up the slack. How much trouble could they really get into in a temple, for kami’s sake?

“You do that.” Absentmindedly, she tousled his hair (and was a bit miffed that she had to reach so far up to do it. If he didn’t stop growing she was going to put bricks on his head to stop that shit herself) and grinned at the indignant yowl the action drew out.

“Cut that out, Nee-chan,” Naruto whined, ruffling his hair back up into the ragtag arrangement of spikes that he seemed to favor. Personally, it looked utterly without law or order to her, but it wasn’t her hair. He gave her a surprisingly stern look. “If you ever want to be awesome like me, you’ll have to at least get the original Rasengan down, or you’ll never catch up before I make it even better. Even the pervy sage has the first level.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aiko muttered resentfully, pursing her lips and looking away.

‘Even the pervy sage? He has a twisted way of gauging competency. Proficiency with the Rasengan is hardly the only measure of strength.’

“I mean it.” He slung an arm over her shoulders and steered her out of the post office, his free hand gesturing animatedly even though it was full of envelopes. “You can’t give up just because the second part is harder! Even though that’s so weird, because once I had the first part down, the second really wasn’t that big of a deal and I don’t understand why you’re having so much trouble-”

“Okay, okay,” she interrupted. “Feel free to stop insulting me at any time.”

She probably did know why she had gotten stuck on that stupid purple rubber ball she was beginning to hate. This was hardly her first rodeo in regards to free-form movement of water: so as soon as she’d gotten past the barriers of problems created by maintaining multiple currents without letting them bleed into one another, the water balloon had been easy enough to burst. Cockily, she had thought that the second practice aid would be similarly easy, assuming that she was just that good.

Apparently, air currents were very different to manipulate. Moving air in general was hard. Grasping the damn particles was a massive pain, and forcing them to move according to her will sucked. She could make one current, but as soon as she tried to maintain more than that everything fell apart. Using air as a medium wasn’t as intuitive as using water as a medium.

Hopefully she wouldn’t have such a hard time when it came to using raw chakra and no medium, even if it apparently handled more like air than like water.

As soon as Naruto had gone, she flitted off to run through her self-assigned route. She’d had it on her mind throughout their conversation: apparently, she had been sleeping too deeply to wake up at her alarm, and her brother had come to find her immediately after his briefing to ask her to take care of the house while he was gone. So she had been almost two hours late to run her circuit.

‘It was dumb to stress. Nothing happened, of course.’

Konoha’s northern forests were just as peaceful and free of enemy nin as they could generally be expected to be.

Of course, that left her not knowing what to do with herself. It was bizarre to be stuck in Konoha when almost everyone she spent time with was out on a mission or working. Karin was in the hospital, Ino and Hinata were probably training, and Anko was nowhere to be found. ‘I suppose I could hunt down Kakashi and see if he wants to eat ice cream and talk about boys.’

Involuntarily, she snorted. Probably not, though it was incredibly poor timing for every girl she was remotely close to to be out of town. She’d have to wait for Karin to get back in from wherever she was. Well. She supposed she could talk to Anko, but that was bound to end in tears and humiliation. The older girl was hilarious, but maybe not the person she wanted to gossip about her first sexual experience with. Ino or Karin would find it much easier to relate to her current experiences on the same level, and Anko wasn’t maternal enough to be able to empathize with her throughout the barrier of their lack of shared experiences.

‘So instead of anything remotely enjoyable and useful, I will instead go to that awful meeting.’

She slumped, not caring that she was walking down one of the main streets and she probably looked like a lunatic about to break out into tears. It had been outright cruel of Tsunade to keep from assigning her to a mission just so that she was in town for one of those council meetings, even if it had been couched as a favor. She’d never thought she’d end up with the inverse of a sinecure. It was thankless and idiotic and took up far too much time.

Aiko probably spent far too much time moping over the fact that she had to go to that stupid meeting. That meant she had to rush through preparations to be fit for public. She had replaced the first mesh bodysuit with one that followed more closely to the design of a swimsuit than the weird things with half-legs and half-sleeves, and preferred it immensely. It didn’t weigh down her limbs but still provided protection to the majority of her vital points. The only weapon weighing her down was the single Hiraishin kunai she carried strapped to the underside of her right arm. It did mean that she had to be careful with how she held her arm to keep it from showing, but it was better than going totally without conventional weapons. She was never unarmed by any means, but sometimes steel could do what fists, seals, or ninjutsu just couldn’t. As had become tradition, she slipped on a kimono (orange this time) and the blue butterfly pin before she hurried out the door at the most dignified trot she could manage.

She spoke her piece early: advocating for a re-design of the genin corps, and then sat while the other suggestions were volleyed. Some of them seemed to completely miss the point to her. What good would encouraging more shinobi to settle down to reproduce early do? Trying to persuade more civilians to send their children to the Academy was a little closer, but still wouldn’t get at the real problems.

On the bright side, there did seem to be a chance that she could make a positive change in Konoha through her assignment. By whose standards that chance might be positive varied, however. Probably not by those of the grumpy old men and women who were her peers in the Council.

At this point she wouldn’t deny that the large council had been right to notice that the current graduation rates weren’t putting the village on track to regain full military strength. They had been experiencing a time of comparative peace for long enough that they really should have been in the full bloom of power for the last couple of years. But they weren’t. Konoha was hardly about to lose their position as one of the five strongest villages, but their large numbers and economic prosperity hadn’t lead to a proportional increase in sheer power.

Sarutobi hadn’t been an incompetent peacetime leader, though he had been better in a time of war. (As far as she could tell, he had been better at warfare but preferred a soft touch). He had altered the graduation and academy requirements after political affairs had settled down between the time of Uchiha Itachi’s enrollment and her own. In wartime, the philosophy had been to churn out as many moderately competent soldiers as possible as quickly as possible, which made it easier for children who had already been trained by family members to meet minimum requirements and test out of the system.

That system had many drawbacks, but the one that mattered to the Council was that it was a short-term stopgap measure. Those unprepared soldiers (who had less mental conditioning, less maturity, less everything that mattered) burnt out faster than their counterparts, cracked under stress and were unable to acclimate to other conditions, or got killed and were totally lost as resources.

Those truths were the ones Sarutobi had used to alter the Academy curriculum and requirements. It became much more difficult to graduate after that, and she didn’t see a single example of a student who spent less than four years in the Academy in the last ten years. It was a stark change from the prior situation, and one that she could appreciate.

But it wasn’t perfect either. Though even the dead-last by the new graduation standards was ahead of the curve for the old requirements, the few elites that the system hoped to nurture had a lot riding on their frail shoulders. The third Hokage must have been a big believer in the master-apprentice relationship at that point in his life, because it was clearly where he had drawn inspiration. Much in the manner that he had been taught by the second Hokage and he had hoped to teach the fourth, the aim was to give Konoha a backbone of A and S-class warriors that would outnumber the high-ranked analogues in other countries through close personal attention to their most promising canditates.

Of course, in pursuit of that aim, they had sacrificed the large proportion of respectably B-classed shinobi that formed the meat of the forces in places like Cloud and Stone and had to make do with masses of largely self-taught C classed shinobi who struggled up to Chuunin from the genin corps instead.

The genin corps as a concept wasn’t unique to Konoha, and nor was the fact that those within it were encouraged to become relatively low level jacks of all trades as opposed to specializing. A genin corps member with the talent to succeed in that type of competency could pick a specialty after becoming a Chuunin and make special Jounin, but that was about the pinnacle of what someone who wasn’t picked to apprentice could expect to achieve.

To her eye, the obvious solution to their low numbers of high level fighters lay in the way that they thought about the genin corps. She did understand that not every child had the raw natural ability of a future elite, and that it wasn’t necessary to push them that way – or even intelligent to think that it would be advisable to try to make everyone perform to such high standards. Someone had to perform the bulk of the low-risk and glory-less missions that paid the bills, of course. For most Konoha shinobi, D and C class drudgery was the characteristic common denominator of their lifetime of servitude to the village and not an episode that was short and quickly forgotten when they moved up in the ranks.

But the reliable drones who kept the village buzzing with prosperity in times of lazy peace became a liability in more dangerous times. They were vulnerable to strike teams from the enemies’ higher-ranked and more specialized shinobi. Having higher quality shinobi in fewer numbers was a great strategy for assaults but a shitty one for defense. So Tsunade would have to compensate by increasing the numbers of lower ranked shinobi on any specific mission. Once their numbers started to thin from casualties… they would be on the defensive.

‘Actually, she’s probably reinforcing all the border outpost guards now.’

It would have taken a few days to rearrange all active assignments, and Cloud’s jinchuuriki had only been killed less than a week ago. It would take a full day at the very least for genin and Chuunin teams to make their way to the border outposts. More than that, if they were doing sweeps on their way out, which they just about had to be.

Any half-decent strategist would know that. If she were in charge of Cloud’s forces, she would have gone with a strike force deployed as soon as they’d decided to blame Konoha to hopefully get in before fortifications could be flawlessly tightened—she would aim take out a few high value targets to put Konoha on the defensive, sow panic and confusion. That type of strike could make it possible to wring concessions and force Konoha to back down.

But that was a personal preference. Others might not see the value in anything less than peace or total annihilation. It was admittedly risky to allow your enemies to hold some of their own strength. Not that there weren’t dangers in going for ‘mercy’ and being internationally perceived as weak. Lightning might actually have to challenge Konoha to keep their status. If that was their motivation, then a war in name would suffice. If this really was a vendetta fueled by the Raikage’s sense of loss, however… He would only be satisfied with blood and ash.

Time would tell. But probably not much time.

She must have spoken relatively well, because her suggestion wasn’t tossed out. It wasn’t adopted either, but that didn’t seem to be the way things were done in bureaucracy. Yet another session and smaller committee would be dedicated to investigating the support and logistics available for three of the possibilities mentioned in today’s meeting, hers among them.

Konoha was struggling under the weight of its own bloated government, in some ways. But at least those structures could be manipulated into the occasional bout of usefulness.

Still dressed up like a porcelain doll and not particularly unhappy about it now that it wasn’t a novelty, Aiko wandered out from the council hall en route for dinner. There wasn’t enough time for her to bother getting groceries for dinner before she went out to check the forest in her self-imposed patrol that even she was beginning to feel serious about.

“Uzumaki-chan?”

The unusual address and a voice she hardly ever heard caught her attention. Kurenai was giving her a polite wave from inside the restaurant Aiko had just wandered into, sitting with a blue-haired woman she didn’t recognize.

“Kurenai-senpai,” she greeted politely, gracing the older girl with an incline of her neck. The hastily-chosen title was a formality to be polite and not because she had actually worked with Kurenai enough to see her as a mentor figure.

Kurenai seemed to note the same truth with a bit of amusement. “I don’t think there’s any call for that. We hold the same rank, after all.”

There was something dry but not exactly displeased about the way she said that. Bitterness wouldn’t have been entirely unjustified, considering she was probably hyper aware that Aiko’s promotion had come almost shockingly early in her career. Sure, she was older than Kakashi or Itachi had been when they hit Jounin, but the ‘average’ Jounin could hardly be compared to people like that. And there was probably more than a fair share of bitterness aimed at those extraordinary types, if one was to be honest.

So she didn’t protest, and gave Kurenai a self-effacing smile that was intended to communicate that she wasn’t the egotist that many would expect from someone who had shot up in the ranks. “Kurenai-san, then?” At the amused look on the brunette’s face, she blinked innocently and modified the question to a saccharine, “Kurenai-neechan?”

“That’ll do. Would you sit with us? This is a friend of mine, Otohime. Otohime, this is Uzumaki Aiko.”

“Otohime-san,” Aiko nodded politely, and took a free chair without letting onto her confusion at the invitation. Was Kurenai just curious and friendly, or was there a specific reason?

Looking at her dinner companions didn’t seem to answer that question. Otohime was pretty as a picture, and almost impossibly delicate for a shinobi. The conversation that followed indicated that delicacy was because she was in fact a civilian who Kurenai had been friends with since childhood.

The other two had already ordered, but the waitress that came around didn’t mind having their meals delayed until Aiko’s was ready as well.

“So.” Otohime blinked golden eyes at Aiko, seeming to see right through to her soul. “You’re really a kunoichi, then? Aiko-chan, you’re so little!” She reached across the table and grabbed her hand. Aiko was momentarily stunned by the other woman’s forwardness and didn’t respond before Kurenai chuckled.

“Don’t be alarmed, but if you’re not careful, she’ll talk you into resigning and sign you up to work for her.”

Otohime’s grip tightened around Aiko’s hand, and she gave a faux-stern pout at her taller friend. “What she means is that I recruit dancers, but she makes me sound like a yakuza. Kurenai-chan, why are you so unkind to me?”

Uncertainly, she pulled her hand out of Otohime’s soft, perfumed grip and tucked it onto her lap. “Ah, flattering, Otohime-san, but I’m afraid I have no natural ability.”

The look she received was absolutely scathing. “If you can learn taijutsu, you can learn traditional dance.”

“No, I keep telling you that you’ll be surprised,” Kurenai interrupted fondly, leaning on a hand. “There’s a big difference between learning to perform the dance of death and the less…” she cleared her throat and shrugged. “Well, you know what I mean. Besides, I think Aiko-chan’s current career is going relatively well. I feel like I know you much better than I do because I hear about you every so often. Hatake is insufferably proud of you, I hope you know.”

Embarrassment warmed her cheeks, but she couldn’t imagine him ever saying anything like that. Maybe he would say something to her if she needed encouragement, but he wasn’t the type to brag.

Kurenai must have read the question in her expression, because she easily answered it. “Of course he’s proud, everyone wants to see their students end up doing well. He’s not a man who shares those feelings openly, of course, but whenever Asuma has to whine about Shikamaru-kun being uncooperative he’s always just a little too hasty to muse that he never had those sorts of problems.”

“He is kind of a jackass,” Aiko admitted frankly, forcing the smile off her face. An attractive, intelligent, and ultimately well-meaning jackass, but a jackass nonetheless. She actually liked that about him. Difficult, cantankerous people were fabulous, and his bitch-fu was among the best when he cared to drag his nose out a book to deliver scathing commentary.

Apparently the other two women hadn’t been expecting that bit of bluntness. Kurenai twitched, but Otohime tossed her head back and laughed. “I’ve not met the man, but that’s an amusing character description when juxtaposed with how fond you seem. Perhaps you should introduce me?”

“I like you far too much for that,” Kurenai deflected dryly, before seeming to remember that Aiko was there. “No offence meant, of course!” She waved cutely to deflect a sense of hostility.

Aiko shrugged, forgetting how ungainly the motion would be in formal dress. “None taken. He can be difficult to deal with outside of professional settings.” She stopped and added, “And in them, I suppose.”

Conversation changed after their food arrived, leaving talk of shinobi that Otohime was unfamiliar with behind in favor of the food, weather, and the most recent princess Fuin movie. The focus on anything but the depressing political climate was almost too pointed.

“It was very nice to meet you, Otohime-san.” She genuinely smiled at her two dinner companions when they parted at the door. “And talking with you was fun as well, Kurenai-neechan. Thank you for the dinner invitation, this was much better than eating alone.”

“It was no trouble on my part,” Kurenai assured her, buttoning the jacket she had brought to contend with the night air. “I miss a large dinner party when Asuma’s team is out of town.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Aiko put a finger to her lips in mock thought, itching to confirm a theory. “You two are a couple, yes?”

Kurenai looked like she’d been slapped with a fish. “O-of cour- Where did you hear that?” she rapidly changed tracks, fighting off a blush and giving an ineffectual glare to Otohime, who was engaging in the least graceful hyena cackles Aiko had ever heard.

“From you,” she confirmed blandly. “Before now, it was just a pet theory. I hope to see you again!” Aiko whipped around and set off for home without letting Kurenai recover from her embarrassment, in large part because she liked having the last word. Of course, the setting sun was a reminder…

‘It’s time that I go check on those seals again.’

Really, she was starting to feel spectacularly silly about it. It was possible that her fear of Danzo was outweighing her good sense and that she was engaging in a futile exercise.

At war with herself, she wandered to the outskirts of town and took a deep breath of the heady air. Eventually, she decided, ‘It can’t be embarrassing if no one else knows about how silly I’m being. If I don’t do it, it’ll bother me all night and I won’t be able to sleep. For my own peace of mind, if nothing else, I can go check one more time tonight.’

She seriously considered going home first and changing. But it would be a waste of time. She would just have to change into bedclothes as soon as she came back again, and changing twice would be stupid. Of course, she could just change directly into bedclothes, but getting seen wandering the woods in a kimono would still be less embarrassing than the same in her pajamas. It would just be a quick trip.

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Seal after seal, working from the village to the borders, showed nothing out of the ordinary. Until they did, and she was blinking at a rush of color to her left. Reflexively, she leapt and turned—which saved her life.

She didn’t take much time to gape at the three blades quivering in a tree-trunk several inches from her torso.

‘Well, shit. I think I can’t count on the element of surprise.’

“Where the hell did she come from?” a practically dressed blonde woman seemed to ask her group at large. And it was a rather large group, considering that she was one girl. Two full squads… eight enemy shinobi. Well within the limits of Konoha’s territory… Had they really all managed to creep past a patrolled border, or did this mean that a larger force had actually taken an outpost?

Unsettling thoughts to be investigated later, she supposed.

“Ah, hello adorable Cloud shinobi!” Aiko greeted cheerily with a very Kakashi-esque wave. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Aiko tilted her head and blinked cutely, letting the loose bits of her hair move over her shoulders.

A dark-haired man twitched.

Confusing the hell out of them might work just as well as surprise. She probably looked quite the picture—unarmed as far as the eye could see, suddenly appearing in their midst in a full kimono with her headband tucked around her blue and red obi. Thankfully, her kimono was only secured tightly at the waist and allowed her a lot more range of movement than it appeared to. If she had to do anything especially acrobatic like high-kicks she might be indecent, but that was a lesser evil compared to dead.

‘Strangely, I really like the theatricality of this. There are shinobi who wear kimono in the field. I do like pretty things, and these sleeves are great for hiding things… Maybe I should give the wardrobe change a try.’

Unfortunately, no matter how weird she chose to act, they weren’t all off balance enough to fail to recognize that she was a possible threat. “Sorry little girl.” She didn’t recognize the pale man who moved into a defensive posture, but he was a total fox, with incongruously dark eyes and slightly mussed sandy hair. “We can’t allow Konoha dogs to live.”

Suddenly, she hated him. He needed to be taken down a peg or two. Sure, Konoha sort of sucked, but Naruto wasn’t going to settle for being Kage of just any shithole. And besides…

“What’s so wrong with dogs?” Aiko grasped three Hiraishin seals and blurred into motion, dropping directly behind him and yanking his headband off with brutal force that snapped his head backwards and took to the trees in the next motion. Even as she did it, she darkened her chakra signature and went absolutely silent, crouched in the treetop above-head to give herself a moment to think as she slipped the stolen headband under her sleeve.

‘What do I do? If I kill them all, there would be no chance of reconciliation with Cloud, and that’s if I could even manage that. I don’t actually want to be the impetus for a full-fledged war. The Raikage is attacking us because he’s convinced we’re responsible for B’s death. We’ll need every ally we can get to destroy Akatsuki, or at least to not be fighting on two fronts. I could get reinforcements, but anyone else would probably just want to kill them all.’

But she couldn’t let them think Konoha was weak either. The only thing that would stall further escalation would be to scare the absolute fucking crap out of them. She did have one tool in her arsenal that was unmistakably Konoha’s and undeniably terrifying.

Grimly, she swallowed. ‘Let’s hope that the thunder god is still causing nightmares in Lightning, because most of them look way too young to remember Minato.’

“Up there!”

‘He’s a sensor,’ she noted dimly, switching position rapidly even as the practically-dressed blonde woman she’d noted earlier charged up the tree she’d been hiding in. That one must be one of their big guns, then. Odd that she was the only woman in their party.

Stealing the cutie’s headband had been an impulse, but it really wasn’t a terrible idea. Humiliating them could backfire if they were the types to get stronger and perform better when pissed off, but it would also be a good demonstration of strength on her part.

As would separating them. That would be good psychological warfare: if they didn’t know what she was doing, seeing her pick off party members without a trace of a body would be seriously unnerving.

She stopped moving just long enough to hone in on one of the more intimidating-looking fighters (not so coincidentally, one who was on the outskirts of the group) and darted in with the aid of a seal to use inhuman speed to snatch him up by the back of his weird asymmetrical flak jacket and ricocheted the both of them outside of Konoha’s borders. Her left hand shot up to tug off his headband and her right rabbit punched him twice between the shoulder blades and sent him stumbling forward in the same instant that they hit the ground in a new location.

He spun around just in time to see her cheekily hold up his cloud insignia with one hand before tilting her arm to let it slip down her wrist with the other one. “This is nice, I think I’ll keep it, Shinobi-kun.”

‘That oughta leave him steaming.’

The curve to her lips belied her thoughts—it was hard to lie to yourself. She’d done that because it was funny just as much as any tactical reason. Killing these people could backfire, but leaving them stranded and confused in some rice field would be an utterly humiliating way of asserting her superiority over them. (Even if, you know, they would probably wipe the floor with her in a fair match. What the hell did actual physical superiority have to do with dominance?)

One of the first things she needed to do was thin their numbers and leave anyone who wasn’t going to end up in Konoha’s custody thoroughly fucking disoriented. With the flying thunder god on her side, she was almost certainly faster than any of them could hope to be. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t get her when she inevitably stopped to get her bearings, especially if she was so outnumbered.

But she had been gone almost two full seconds, and she could hardly leave the others alone within her country’s borders. So she blurred back into motion, Hiraishin war-song drowning out all other sounds in her ears.

“t fuck just-”

“She’s here again!” The only unmarked shinobi in that clearing was frowning in her direction. Damn, he was a hell of a sensor.

“You’re annoying!” Aiko barked out, grimacing at the hottie who had besmirched her hometown and summon animal in one fell swoop. He had to go. But he was too annoying to be released into the wild to awkwardly stumble until he found someplace to give him directions (as hilarious and embarrassing as that would be).

She crouched and sprang to dodge the blonde woman—and hell, she was fast—and darted to the man who had been a thorn in her side. Unfortunately, he was quick on the uptake and had already moved the first time that she flickered to snatch him in a flanking maneuver.

He didn’t dodge her the second time. He probably didn’t even know what had happened until her hand fisted in the black zip-up sleeveless top above his asymmetrical flak jacket.

“What the hell!” Tsunade stood up with such force that her chest bounced up nearly to hit her in the chin.

“I brought you a present!” Aiko chirped, shoving her blonde captive into the beautiful mahogany desk with an unpleasant thunk as his forehead collided with the dark wood. Belatedly, an ANBU leapt out of hiding and reached for her prisoner.

Tsunade looked pained. “Is that a lightning shinobi?” Her tone was merely incredulous, but that didn’t stop her from reaching out and punching the poor blond chump in the head with enough force to send him flying to the back wall before the ANBU could secure him. Something in their prisoner’s back crunched when he collided next to the doorframe. After a moment, he peeled off and limply fell forward.

She almost felt bad for him. Getting caught up in someone else’s transportation technique was sucky enough when you weren’t immediately pummeled in the head by a Kage afterwards. He probably wouldn’t be walking in a straight line for a few days.

Well. As long as there wasn’t any more head trauma, he would probably be fine.

“Yes, I think there’s six more in the northwest, about twenty-five kilometers south of the yellow outpost. Do you want the rest?”

“In my office?” Tsunade asked a bit weakly. The ANBU securing the chump with wire didn’t seem more impressed. The door flung open and Shizune burst in, wielding steel.

“If you don’t want them, I could just ditch them outside the border like wayward puppies,” Aiko generously offered, brushing her hair back and dropping the two collected headbands on Tsunade’s desk with an absentminded clatter of metal plates. “I should hurry though, I don’t want to leave the rest alone.”

“Those poor bastards,” Tsunade muttered. Shizune just looked confused. The Hokage stiffened seriously and pinned her with an intense stare. “I don’t want any more in my office. Their aim was probably something in the village and we don’t know that bringing them in wouldn’t help them. This one will do as a political prisoner—he’s one of the Raikage’s bodyguards.”

“Grass and Wave Country it is,” Aiko muttered with a distracted nod.

“Wait don’t go back out-” Tsunade slumped slightly, having leaned over her desk in an attempt to reach the teen before she left. “without reinforcements,” she finished wryly, dropping back into her seat. “It would also have been nice to know where exactly she found them. Shizune, get me the best sensor we have in-village, and a strike team.” She held up a hand at a sudden thought. “Two teams! We need to check on that outpost.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama!” Shizune nodded and darted out of the office.

“You, get that man to Ibiki,” she brusquely commanded the ANBU. He hightailed it out of there, the man called ‘C’ slung ungracefully over his massive shoulder (a tousled blonde head hit the doorframe with a rather sickening crack as Boar made a run for Torture and Interrogations).

Alone in her office, Tsunade swallowed down nervousness and resisted the urge to tug on her ponytails. Sitting her office when she knew one of her shinobi was fighting within her borders was against everything in her heart.

After having two of their comrades spirited away (and plenty of time to ruminate on the odd disappearances) the remaining Cloud shinobi had apparently figured out the working strategy of ‘not staying still’.

It was frustratingly effective when she was fluttering about a group as large as this one. Her perception and predictive ability was good, but not flawless by any means. Being outnumbered and trying to pick out targets put her at a vexing disadvantage.

‘Why couldn’t they be stupid enough to stand their ground?’

Time to be a bit more blatant.

Aiko shoved her hands into the opposite sleeves (obscuring the movement so that it would be difficult to tell where the weapon would be coming from) to unhook the kunai on her right arm and drew it out in a snapping motion, directly at the blonde woman.

“Hiraishin!” Someone called out with a strange clipped tone that blurred as she slipped time and space like a fucking champion. She didn’t see who had yelled, but was thankful that using the conventional method had finally clued them in. Now if they would just please be obliging enough to be irrationally frightened of Konoha’s bogeyman technique and scarper off, that’d be great.

She was too close to her target to see if any eyes widened in comprehension or fear. In the same millisecond that she emerged in front of her target with her hand already wrapped around her weapon, she ducked down under the arm that was moving to deflect her kunai with a Cloud arm guard (snatching her kunai down with her) to hit the other girl with as much force as she could muster with her free hand, along with an explosive-primed seal.

Unfortunately, she was no Tsunade. It would hardly be a finishing blow, but she would have hoped to at least stun her opponent. It was not to be.

Even as the force of her blow brought the other girl curling over, a vicious and flexible double-kick snapped Aiko’s knees in a direction that they definitely did not want to bend. Horrifyingly, her opponent seemed to have suddenly grown several inches of razor-sharp toenails that cut into the flesh above Aiko’s knees, puncturing her pretty kimono and sticking it to her flesh with dots of hot blood.

‘Her taijutsu is probably better than mine. She’s faster than I am sans Hiraishin, and she’s definitely physically stronger. It’s like taking a punch from Naruto, sturdy little bastard that he is.’

If she didn’t have Hiraishin, she might in serious shit. But short of something like a disorienting poison or a state of unconsciousness, that massive cheat card could hardly be taken away from her. So Aiko avoided the next blow by means of orienting between three seals to settle behind the group (most of whom had spun to look at the two girls).

The gaping dolts weren’t here to look pretty, apparently, as demonstrated by the unpleasant speed with which two men spun to leap in her direction. She darted backwards and ran a few feet up a tree before jumping to another one, raising her voice in a taunting shout. “You know, you chumps have already failed!” She gave an involuntary ‘huff’ when a flying- was that an axe of all the things- forced her to dodge and flip upwards, grimacing and crouching to get the momentum to bound across the clearing over the blonde lady’s head, at least one man in hot pursuit.

At least she was faster than they were, but even if she was faster, dodging so many put her at a disadvantage. “The grumpy one is in the Hokage’s custody, and at least one team is on the way out here. How does it feel to completely suck at your job?”

An incoherent growl rose up from behind her and the unbearable heat of a near miss from a lightning strike seared across her back, probably singing her clothes from proximity.

‘Ah. Right. Shinobi from the land of Lightning and all that jazz. Can’t stay still if I don’t want to get fried.’

“I guess that means that it sucks to suck.” Aiko swallowed hard, feeling mildly ill from bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. She flung the kunai in her hand straight up into the air so that she could flicker to it and get an aerial view of the clearing. Three of the freakishly persistent lightning shinobi were already in the motion of looking up when she blinked down. She hung suspended in the air in a crouched position for a bare instant to survey the area.

‘One, two, three, four… where are the other two?’

Ah. There they were. One was blending into the tree she had just been on under a genjutsu (that was lucky, he could have killed her if she hadn’t just switched trajectories) and the other one was hiding under ground. Shit shit shit. Neither of those would be easy to grab.

One of the men was slightly further away from the others. That had to be her next target. She drew the kunai close to her chest and snapped it back out in a path that should end a few feet above his head and caught it again a heartbeat later, kicking her feet onto his shoulders and letting her momentum help her ride him to the ground. He hit the dirt face-first in what had to be a painful forwards fall, but the maneuver (and the slight unresponsiveness in her knees that she hadn’t accounted for after the clawed kick they’d taken earlier) left her on a downward path that was going to end with her knees buckling under and her ass hitting her heels. Her torso wanted to bend forward, but the woman in purple and black was coming in hot.

Fuck, didn’t she ever give up or take a second to react? She was relentless and demonically fast.

Aiko could see how the current tableau was going to play out as if it had already happened. If she didn’t move, that scarily strong woman was going to knock her head straight off her shoulders. (Or cut it off with the freaky claws she’d gained in the last minute-and-a-half. Where did those come from?) There was no chance that she would be able to unfold her legs and jump out of the way in time. Perhaps she could roll to one side or another, but that would leave her vulnerable on the ground in the next second as well.

So Aiko snapped her torso backwards with painful force, flinging her hands over her head up to blindly grab at whatever she could reach of the shinobi behind her, came up with a handful of his hair (and barely missed grasping a shoulder) and pulled on the first tag she felt. That one wasn’t nearly far enough away, so she took the millisecond necessary to seek out the tag in Mist and pull on it and two others.

If she’d done that right, they were probably in Wave. She probably hadn’t, however, since the next thing she knew was that she was soaking wet, having apparently landed on a body of water. Her head collided with the surface with a cold shock and she would have sputtered if she wasn’t breathing in salt water. Her body was still curled up backwards, but at least landing in water gave her the mobility to straighten simply by kicking her legs straight (even though that left her floating face-up instead of in any tactical position).

A blow to the back of her head made her see white and lose her grip on a fistful of short-ish hair.

‘Right. That guy. He’s still here and conscious.’

The force of the punch had actually sent her further underwater and would have been considerably worse if it hadn’t been slowed by their surroundings. Her opponent was on top of her in the water, the preferable position. He could very easily kill her.

If she’d stayed, that was. Aiko frantically pulled on the first three tags she could register (by coincidence, the one in Mist, one on the northern border, and one in Grass) and landed somewhere between the three, violently spitting out foul water even as she awkwardly touched down on solid ground with her hastily bent legs. She was probably in Rice country, though she wasn’t about to consult her map. Especially since there was still a fist curled in her hair.

She yanked her head forward and ignored the pain, because the angle dragged his arm up and allowed her to twist just enough to elbow the man behind her with adrenaline-fueled force that audibly snapped a rib. He howled in her ear and let his grip loosen out of shock. It was all the opportunity she needed to turn the rest of the way to push one palm on his chest (planting a seal reflexively) and wrap her fingers of the other hand around the warm metal of his forehead protector. She removed it with the simple expedient of leaping straight upwards and pulling it with her (though there was more than a bit of hair caught in the knot at the back, ew).

‘What happened to my kunai?’

Fuck. It had probably been dropped in the water, and she wasn’t in the mood to go back for it.

“Bye bye, asshole!” Aiko bit out with considerably more venom than was strictly necessary. He’d been a bigger pain in the ass than anticipated.

The five Cloud shinobi still in the clearing were inured enough to her coming and going that they didn’t jump to see her reappear. Though there was at least one confused double-take at her dripping hair and clothes. She took a moment to tug the hairpin hanging limply from her skull free and tuck it under her obi for safe-keeping. Damn, that was a good accessory. A lesser bit of jewelry would have been knocked free in a scuffle like that.

“Almost halfway done!” Aiko taunted as she crouched in a ready position, concealing her breathless and mildly lightheaded state from gulping in water instead of air a few moments ago.

“Don’t be so arrogant!” The blonde woman called out in a bizarrely low growl. Hadn’t her voice been much higher a few minutes ago? Odd.

“We should retreat!” The look that accompanied that call was wide-eyed and frankly a bit crazy, but at that moment Aiko loved the older man who’d given it. “If there are more coming, our mission is lost.”

“Coward!” The rasp was all but inhuman. And it frightened the Cloud shinobi as much or more than Aiko did, because all but one of the men in that clearing turned tail to run. “We can’t get our primary target, but there’s a shinobi right there!” The odds looked significantly better for a bare instant, even if she was now mulling over the unpleasant possibility that there was something going on other than murder that she hadn’t figured out.

Then her heart thudded to her gut. ‘I’m in over my head.’

It wasn’t just that she was outnumbered by high level shinobi. Or that she knew she couldn’t possibly have reinforcements in time to help if this went badly. Those things weren’t bad enough on their own merits, so it was just the cherry on top that she’d never fought a jinchuuriki before.

Well. There was that time with Gaara, but that had been short and she’d had back up. And he had been overwhelmed by his demon into a state of stupid brutality. The blonde woman who had just sprouted the beginnings of a virtual cloak of chakra was definitely in control of her facilities, judging by the obvious intelligence glittering in her eyes and mona lisa smile.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck.’

#vapors #uzumaki aiko #electrasev5n #ninja daily #fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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spellcasterlight · 2 years

Note

I am super curious about ShikaHina Godparents!

Hi there @shinobimagpie! 😁

Warnings: None - under the cut simply for length!

We all have at least one grand story idea that we will never ever finish, this is one of mine! Just over 8K words currently that will sit there forever 😂

Sooooo we all know Asuma and Kurenai get pregnant with Mirai during Shippuden, this story was an alternative timeline where they get pregnant just after Naruto leaves the village. Shikamaru being picked as godfather and Hinata as godmother and their journey as being pushed together sooner and having that period to grow.

I’ll put some extremely rough extracts under the cut!

Thanks for the ask! ✨

WIP Titles Game! 📓

Ao3 ✨ | WIP Game Always Open ✒️| Ko-Fi ☕

Kurenai telling her team she’s pregnant:

“Pre-Pregnant?!” Hinata Hyuga gasped at her Sensei’s news.

“That’s so great Sensei! Congratulations!” Kiba cheered and Akamaru yipped at his side running over to jump up into the genjutsu users arms making her laugh. “A new pup for our already awesome pack!”

“Yes congratulations Sensei” The last member of their group, Shino, added as well.

“Well you guys are taking this well!” Kurenai smiled still patting Akamarus head.

Hinata pushed her forefingers together trying to will away the embarrassment from the question she was about to ask. “W-Who is the father?”

A silence snapped into place that was broken by Kurenai’s laugh.

“Seriously guys! That should have been your first question!”

“Hey-hey yea!” Kiba yelled raising his fists and smirking. “Who is it Sensei?! Do I need to rough him up good?”

Kurenai snorted at Kibas threat but then had the good manners to look embarrassed when she saw Kiba was serious.

“I doubt you could Kiba, It’s-” The older woman broke off to blush lightly. “It’s Asuma.”

“Asuma-Sensei?!” Both Kiba and Hinata exclaimed.

“Hinata?”

The Hyuga blinked a few times when her Sensei took a gentle hold of both her hands.

“Y-Yes?”

“It would mean the world to me and Asuma if you were the baby’s Godmother.”

“Oh Sensei;-” Hinata had to sniff to hold back the rush of happy tears; she smiled sweetly. “-n-nothing would make m-me ha-happier!”

The Hyuga Heir engulfed her Sensei in a hug while Kiba and Akamaru cheered in the background.

Shikamaru coming back from a mission to find Hinata dancing with baby Mirai in the living room:

He had been away with Lee and Kiba on a mission for the past three days and they had only just got back to the Leaf Village. He had, very quickly, told them to go home and he would call in at the Hokages office to tell them the mission was all clear and to deliver the scroll they were sent to get in the first place.

Lee and Kiba were great friends and amazing shinobi but did they have to be so loud? A moments peace with the two of them trying to train and one up each other for three days straight was in no way possible and all he wanted was to leave off the scroll, go home and just go to sleep.

“Here’s the scroll from the Land of Lightning.” He muttered handing over the scroll to Shizune.

“Thank you, I trust all went well?” The medical ninja asked with a small knowing smile.

“I want nothing more than to sit in silence for the next week.” He sighed tiredly. “Goodnight Shizune.”

Shizune laughed. “Sleep well Shikamaru.”

As he leisurely roof hopped home, not sprinting as if the hounds of hell were on their tail like he had done for the last three days thanks to Lee and Kibas ‘training’, he noticed a light on in Asuma and Kurenais house and, groaning lightly, knew it was his Godfather duty to make sure everything was alright.

He opened the back door quietly and poked his head into the Living room; and found the loveliest sight.

Hinata, in a modest nightdress of purple and pink, holding baby Mirai, dancing slowly in the centre of the room and singing lightly with most breath-taking smile.

He opened the door more and leaned against the frame drinking in the sight, his want to go home and sleep evaporating.

‘I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy. I'll be your hope, I'll be your love, be everything that you need. I'll love you more with every breath, truly madly deeply do’

Her voice was light and airy and practically a whisper but it was the most beautiful sound. He closed his eyes to appreciate her voice fully.

‘I want to stand with you on a mountain I want to bathe with you in the seaShikamaru!

He opened his eyes at his name. She had spotted him at the door and was smiling brightly at him, bouncing the still sleeping Mirai in her arms.

“Hi Hinata.” He smiled lightly at the Hyuga Heir.

“Kurenais sleeping.” Hinata told the male Chunnin, whispering.

“And Asuma?” He found himself mimicking her whisper.

“He’s on a mission.” She paused to push a lock of hair behind her ear. She blushed and looked down at the baby in her arms. “I missed you.”

“I was only gone three days.” His lips twitched up in a grin as he made his way into the house.

“Felt like longer.” She confessed her eyes softening still gazing at the infant.

He walked so he was in front of her and the baby and wrapped his arms lightly around them both; his hands held her upper arms in the lightest hold he could muster.

Her blush came back and he saw her gulp in nervousness.

He leant his forehead against hers and breathed deeply. “I missed you too.”

When he pulled back he smirked and used the position of his hands to get her to start swaying lightly with him again. She giggled when she caught on to what he was doing and for a beautiful, silent moment, the Godparents danced in the Living room with their Goddaughter; it was the kind of thing songs were based on.

“I like your singing.”

She gave an embarrassed smile. “Thank you.”

“You not going to finish it for us?” He raised an eyebrow at her and she pulled her pretend annoyed face making him grin.

It was another moment before she leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes again.

‘I want to lay like this forever. Until the sky falls down on me’

He had the fleeting thought that he was a coward.

A braver man would have kissed her.

After the second Chunnin exams Hinata is mad at Shikamaru for not telling her what was happening:

“Shika? Can I talk to you about something?”

“Yea course.” He looked up to her and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She dropped down beside him and wrapped her arms around her knees, she seemed to search the flowers across the way for the words she wanted to use.

“What if-what if I’m not good enough to become a Chunnin? What if everyone else passes and I’m still stuck as a Genin? The only Genin of our friends; how would I be able to look at any of them?”

Her arms gripped tighter around her knees. “What would my father say?”

Her face fell into her knees. “How can I look after Mirai as only a Genin?”

“Is that what’s troubling you?”

“Hinata look at me. You will get nothing thrown at you that you can’t handle. You should believe in yourself more.”

“Do-do you believe in me Shika?”

“How can you ask me that? You should know that. I’m your biggest fan Hinata.”

===============================================

She arrived at the her teams training grounds half an hour early due to her nerves not letting her sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Kiba and Shino appeared soon after so the three had more than enough time to join the queue to register when they arrived at the exam hall.

“Shikamaru!” Kiba yelled upon seeing the Nara. “What are you doing here?” The dog owner grinned. “Did no one tell you you’re already a Chunnin?”

The Nara rolled his eyes. “Funny. I’m a proctor for this round of exams.”

“A proctor?” Kiba scoffed. “You kept that quiet! You could have been hitting us up with insider knowledge! We could have aced this test!”

“I could have yes.” The shadow user raised an eyebrow. “But then you wouldn’t learn anything, besides-” Shikamaru shrugged carelessly. “-I have full faith you’ll all pass.”

Shikamaru took the last few steps to be beside Hinata before pulling her into a light hug. “Good luck Hinata, remember, I’m rooting for you.”

He pulled back and smiled at her. “You’ll do amazing.” He started walking backwards away from them. “I’ll see you all when you’re done.”

When the Nara had turned around and was out of earshot Kiba snorted again. “Asshole; did he tell you he was a proctor?” The dog owner turned to the girl of their team and frowned at her hard expression.

“No.” She said coldly, her eyes narrowed at the shadow users retreating back. “No he didn’t.”

===============================================

Three cheers to us all! Chunnin one and all!

And one of us a Jounin. Tenten added nudging Neji who took a small sip of his drink.

I would not have accomplished such a task without you and Lee. He told her honestly.

Yes my friend! Lee yelled; he raised his glass. To teamwork and friendship!

Everyone raised their glasses and several shouts of Lees words shouted back.

I’m glad we all made Chunnin. Shino spoke lowly but everyone heard. I am proud of us all.

So true! Kiba replied taking a large amount of cooked chicken off the grill in the centre of their table. The Inuzuka chuckled before practically shouting. No thanks to mister proctor here!

Yea that was such a shitty thing to do Shikamaru! Ino piped up pointing her chopsticks at the man in question. Not telling us you were a proctor and all.

You didn’t need to know. Shikamaru said simply, watching Choji load up the grill with more food than was strictly needed.

Hinata met Shikamaru’s eyes across the table and a small, strange wave of anger flushed through her and she snapped her gaze to the table stabbing her food with her chopsticks.

Hinata are you ok? She looked up to Sakura who was sitting beside her.

Yea you’ve been kinda out of it since we left the Hokages office earlier. Ino flipped her blonde locks over her shoulder lightly. Is anything wrong?

Oh n-no no I swear I’m- She took a deep breath to try to calm herself down. -I’m ok. She made herself smile brightly. Can we order more of this s-sauce? She held up the dish of the tartare sauce. It’s really nice with the sa-salmon.

Sakura turned to wave down a waitress. Excuse me! Can we have more tartare sauce please!

Ino leaned on the pink haired girls shoulder and shouted. And more salmon slices to go with it please!

Hinata gained a real smile before frowning again as her eyes drifted over to the Nara again. She gasped slightly and started eating with gusto when she saw he was staring at her.

Goodnight everyone! Lee yelled, walking backwards as he held up both thumbs in a ‘thumbs up’ motion. Well done friends on our promotions!

Hinata can I borrow you for a second?

N-no you may not borrow me Nara, I am not a pencil.

Both Neji and Shikamaru looked at her like she had gone insane.

Hinata internally sighed. How did Ino making being angry at someone so elegant looking? One small glare and a flick of her ponytail and whoever it was knew they were in trouble, she just sounded ridiculous.

Would you like me to escort you home Hinata? It is rather late in the evening. Neji asked with an even gaze.

Hinata sighed to herself again. Her cousin was asking if she wanted to talk to Shikamaru or if she wanted an out.

I can see myself home. She tried smiling at her cousin but it felt more like a grimace. Thank you Neji, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Neji didn’t ask any questions; he simply bid the two good night and walked on.

The purple haired girl stared at the ground willing herself to stay mad.

‘He lied to me’ She told herself again. ‘He could have helped me but he didn’t.’

Do you wanna walk? He indicated the opposite direction her and Neji had previously been walking.

Fine. She said bluntly and started walking, not waiting for him.

He caught up with her easy enough, but she could see a small downturn to the corner of his lips.

Congratulations on making Chunnin. He started smiling lightly at her. I never got to tell you earlier with everyone around.

‘With you avoiding me you mean to say.’ Hinata bit her lip. ‘And yes, I did become a Chunnin; no thanks to you.’

I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were a proctor for the exams. She finally said, not managing to sound as angry as she wanted.

She found her anger again when he chuckled shrugging slightly. Well it was-

Hinata cut him off before she lost it again.

After I told you how scared I was at the thought of not passing and letting everyone down.

She rounded on him with her fists clenched.

Shikamaru’s small smile fell. Hinata what-?

When you could have helped me right from the beginning. Hinata uncharacteristically glared at the shadow user. Did you want me to fail?

Want you to-? Shikamaru’s face contorted with disbelief -Hinata you’re kidding.

You think this is funny? It- She turned away so he didn’t see her expression change from angry to upset in a flash. It makes me wonder what else you’re hiding from me.

Hiding from you? The Nara took a few hurried steps to be in front of her again. What would I even want to hide from you? Where is this all coming from? He was starting to sound slightly frantic. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.

Yea-well-I-I’m leaving! She took a deep breath through her mouth. Why don’t you go-go-! She said the first thing that came to mind. –go; make out with Temari! With that said she turned to stomp her way home.

What? Hinata! He called after her when she had taken a few hurried steps back up the path.

She continued to stomp away like she had seen Sakura do to Naruto when he annoyed her.

Hinata!

He grabbed her wrist to stop her walking away, she didn’t turn to face him but she heard him sigh.

“Troublesome” He muttered under his breath. Hinata will you just listen to me? She made herself take another step but his grip held firm. Please Hinata?

Fine. She spun out of his grip and crossed her arms over her chest and forced her chin up like she had seen Tsunade do when Kiba was messing around during a mission debriefing. Talk.

Hinata. He said beginning to sound distraught. I didn’t tell you I was a proctor because you would ask me about the exams.

So I was right! She managed to yell. She had to place her hand over her eyes to hide the treacherous tears that had started to prickle at the corners of her eyes. She wiped at them almost violently before glaring full force at the man in front of her. You wanted me to fail!

Stop saying that! He yelled back, throwing his arms in the air. It stunned Hinata slightly; she had never heard him yell before. Wherever you got that stupid idea from knock it off! It’s insulting!

He sighed deeply scrunching up his eyes. I didn’t tell you I was a proctor so when you passed, because I knew you would- he quickly added –you would know you earned it yourself.

Don’t you think if I had just told you how to pass the first round you would forever be asking yourself if you earned it? Asking yourself if you truly deserved your promotion? He tilted his head in an enquiring way. You earned your advancement to Chunnin, no if’s or but’s this way, it’s yours, fair and square. His shoulders dropped. Hinata I didn’t want you to fail; I’m proud of you. I have always been proud of you.

That...made so much sense. That thought pattern was Shikamaru to a T, and it was true; she would constantly be second guessing herself if she was just given the answers.

Hinata winced; she must have sounded like such a child.

She gulped, really feeling the tears in her eyes now. Shika I- She stopped to shake her head. No words could possibly convey how stupid she felt.

She was shocked when she felt his arms around her.

Please don’t ever think I would ever want to see you fail Hinata. She felt him squeeze her lightly. I’m your biggest fan remember?

That was what pushed her over the edge; she started to cry silently.

How could she ever think bad of Shikamaru? She couldn’t remember a time since their meeting on Kurenais doorstep, from the moment they first met as official Godparents, when he had not done everything in his power to build her up.

I’m sorry Shika. She hugged him back, snuggling into his chest. I thought- She sniffed. –I thought you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to help me. Her eyes slide shut as a shaky breath left her. I was so stu-stupid.

He didn’t reply and she didn’t have the nerve to break the silence.

His grip loosened and she slid out of his hold, staring at the ground in shame.

What did you say about Temari?

It took her a second to remember but when she did her face lit up like a tomato.

I-umm-I

‘Go make out with Temari’ He quoted. He raised an eyebrow at her. Now why would I want to do that.

I-umm She stuttered again.

You’re enough of a handful it seems. Her head snapped up to find his eyes closed, like he was afraid of her reaction to his words. Couldn’t handle another troublesome woman even if I wanted to.

‘Was he saying...?’

She found herself smiling. I’ll try being less tro-troublesome in the future.

When he opened his eyes he smiled.

I can’t-She could feel her heart beating a mile a minute-I don’t want you to have to deal with any other troublesome woman instead of m-me.

They slipped into another silence she, again, didn’t have the confidence to break.

Seeing you angry was weird. He said matter-of-factly.

I’m exhausted. She confessed with a heavy sigh. Being angry is a lot of work, how do Ino and Sakura do it so often?

Shikamaru laughed lightly at that placing a hand on her back, she knew this meant she could slip into a one arm hug which she did.

They have more practice, it’s practically second nature to them by now.

I don’t like it. Hinata stated with a frown. I had- She looked up at the Nara. –I had to keep reminding myself to be angry at you because I didn’t want to be.

He stopped walking and she almost spun in slow motion on the spot to face him.

I didn’t want to be mad at you at all. She watched his eyebrows pull together in thought. But the thought of you wanting me to fail, it was almost like; like it clung to the edges of my mind and it wouldn’t let go and I just- Her head bowed and her hands came up to clasp against her chest. –I-I needed you to know how upset and hurt that thought made me.

When she looked up again he was looking off into the distance.

I have to tell you. He still didn’t look at her but his gaze lowered slightly. It hurt you thought that at all.

I know; I’m sorry.

He sighed openly. Troublesome. His signature slogan somehow felt like a slap.

Hinata crawled into bed and, due to the rollercoaster of emotions she had been through that day, found sleep easily.

The Hyuga council talking about marrying Hinata off now that she is a Chunnin, Hinata defending Shikamaru and seeking refuge in the Nara home:

Several days later Hinata was informed about a dinner with the entire Hyyuga council that night.

When you are called to dinner with the whole Hyyuga council Hinata knew it couldn’t be good.

“Now that you a Chunnin we should start thinking of a good match for you Hinata.”

Hinata froze in shock.

“What if she doesn’t want to marry anyone?”

“Hanabi; this doesn’t concern you.” Hanabi followed the orders in her fathers harsh tone and became silent.

“A powerful shinobi, a clan heir of course. No-one less for the Hyyuga clan.” One of the clan elders began.

‘The Hyyuga clan.’ She thought. Not her; they didn’t care about her.

The elders hmm’d their agreement.

“The Uchiha would have been a good match if he had not left the village.”

“The Sabaku clan in Suna have two sons, sons that might be Kazekage one day. One of them would be good for the Hyyuga.”

‘Good for the Hyyuga’ Hinata heard for the second time.

“What about-“

“N-Nara”

The silence that followed Hinatas input was deafening.

“The N-Nara clan have a s-son.” Hinata stammered out slightly louder. “What about Sh-Shika?”

“Shika? Are you already on such personal terms with the Nara clans heir?” Hinata flinched. She knew what the elder was implying. That her and Shikamaru were already intimate.

“Uhh I just mean’t-”

“Doesn’t matter.” Hiashi interrupted. “The Naras would be a poor choice.”

The elders again hmm’d in agreement.

“Their clans jutsus are primitive and their clan members are too unruly. Not a good choice at all.”

“Bu-but”

Hinata stalled.

“Yes girl? Do you have something more you’d like to add?” The same elder sneered.

“The N-nara clan are one of Konohagakure’s ol-oldest clans and their medical contributions to the village are unmatched. I-I think it would be unwise to-”

“They do not hold the powerful position we would want to obtain with your marriage.” Hiashi stated.

“Besides-” The clan head continued. “I have heard many things about this Nara heir. He is not a strong enough shinobi to join forces with the Hyyugas”

“Wh-what?” Hinata asked absolutely gobsmacked. Where they even talking about the same person? “H-he’s the smartest shinobi in the village a-and he has mastered m-many-”

“I will not tolerate anymore interruptions Hinata.”

Insulting Shikamaru was the last straw. Something inside Hinata snapped as she slammed down her bowl on the table. “And what if I don’t want to marry for power?” She asked practically spitting fire at her father and all indications of her stutter gone in her anger. “What if I want to marry someone I love?”

“A foolish thought for someone in your position.” Hiashi replied without skipping a beat.

“And Shikamaru is a thousand times better than you could ever know!”

“Be quite you stupid girl” One of the elders yelled.

“You would throw away your whole future on some boy from an inferior clan” Another elder added.

Hinata didn’t look away from her father “Shikamaru loves me father”

“Hinata” Hiashi warned; his voice laced with venom.

“And you or the Hyyuga don’t give a damn about me as a person” Hinata stood from the table; shoving it for good measure making the cutlery and bowls shake in protest. “Why would I choose you?”

“Hinata enough”

“No father” She let out a sad hollow laugh. “I can’t believe it took me so long to see how worthless you really are.”

“Bite your tongue girl!” An elderly woman on the council proclaimed.

“Shikamaru has never yelled at me, or thrown me away to die like you did.” She glared outright at her father.

“Shika has been nothing but supportive of me; he has cheered with me at my greatest and he has held me and let me cry at my worst.”

“I have seen him look after children, adults and shinobi alike and he is beyond amazing.”

“And the Naras are talented, smart, and caring people with more medical knowledge then the rest of the world could ever dream of having and you think they are worthless?” She demanded; the disbelief surrounding her voice couldn’t be hidden.

“So I choose Shikamaru AND the Naras! I don’t want to be the Heiress to a clan that won’t even treat its members like people or respect other clans as their equals!”

And with that she stormed out to the meeting room leaving everyone in a stunned silence that spoke volumes.

=================================================

Shikamaru didn’t think much when he heard someone knock on their front door, even this late at night.

“How troublesome” He muttered to himself; yawning as he walked towards the door.

He opened the door to find-

“Hinata?”

The Hyyuga stood on the Naras doorstep with one bag on each shoulder and another with the straps bunched up in her hands. Her eyes had a red tint to them; she had obviously been crying.

“Hinata what’s wrong?” Shikamaru asked lightly placing his hands on her arms.

Hinata sniffed before answering.

“Can-Can I come in?”

He kicked himself for not doing that first.

“Here give me those” He took the bags from her shoulders with a little help from the byakugan user.

“Th-thank you” She replied timidly before entering his house.

“Is it a mission Shikamaru?” His mother called from upstairs.

“No it’s Hinata” He called back, setting her bags down beside their sofa and guiding her to sit down in the single chair at the side of the sofa. She still had an iron tight grip on her third bags strap, so much so that Shikamaru was half worried she was going to rip it, and blinking rapidly trying to fight back more tears.

“Hinata? At this hour?” His mother was downstairs in a flash.

“Hinata what’s wrong? What happened? SHIKAKU!” Yoshino suddenly yelled, making her son flinch. “Get down here now!”

“What, what is it?” The man in question asked also coming down the stairs. His lazy attitude disappeared when he saw the Hyyuga girl in his living room.

“Hinata what happened?” Shikamaru asked kneeling down beside her seat, placing a hand on her leg.

The purple haired girl opened and closed her mouth several times, still blinking back tears, before answering.

“I-I gave up my clan t-title and my ho-home”

Yoshino outright gasped.

“Why?” Shikamaru asked leaning in slightly to the Hyyuga. “Why would you do that? You worked so hard, you were so close.”

“He disrespected your clan-” She stated looking at the elder male. “He disrespected Shika-“ She looked at Shikamaru this time, placing her hand on his cheek, which he instantly covered with his own hand. She gave a sad smile before withdrawing her hand back to her lap, bringing Shikamaru’s hand with hers. She ran her two thumbs over his knuckles for a few seconds before continuing. “- and I just-just couldn’t; sit there and listen to his lies”

#shikahina #shikamaru nara #hinata hyuga #WIP #wip game #writers tag game #thanks for the ask!#asks are open!#❤️❤️❤️

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neonghostcat · 2 years

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A musing on self-indulgence

I wrote another post and decided to put that one in the queue for Thursday so I could post this on its own.

I effectively just had a self-therapy session and thought it might be potentially interesting to other people.

Behind the cut, I start out talking about the reception The Guardian Ghost fic had, realizations about Cultivate, and my writing in general. I was literally realizing these things as I wrote them, so it's not very well organized.

Please feel free to keep scrolling. ;)

Guardian Ghost is straight up murdering Blanket Fort's stats.

By the time this post works its way out of the queue and gets posted it will most likely have become the fic with the most views on my account. (As I write this, it only has ~100 views to go.)

It already earned more than 2x the number of subs while live and more than twice the comment threads. It's not even that far behind in Kudos and Bookmarks.

I don't want this to come across as bragging because that's not it, but I've been overwhelmed this entire time by the reception the story has got. I sincerely appreciate it, no question! It's just blowing my mind a bit.

I think that a huge part of me being very stunned by it is because even now, after all 11 chapters are out and people enjoyed it, there is still a part of me that's somewhat apologetic about how I let the story get away from me and indulged all those whims I had.

Intellectually I know there's no reason to apologize. Even if people hated the choices I'd made for the story (which people did not, everyone has been fully on-board the whole time), it'd be perfectly fine!

I think it's touching on some unexplored/unresolved... "fandom trauma" I suppose? Or maybe more I am realizing I have internalized so many 'good writers/stories don't do [x]' destructive mandates/bad advice over the many years I've been a writer. And the very positive reception to me saying, "WHATEVER, this is my pretend-birthday fic, so I get to write whatever the hell I want!" is making me realize...

...wtf Dobby has always been free. The only chains are those I bind myself with.

This is especially good to understand because now I 'get' my hesitance with finishing Cultivate and why I kept working on other stories. I effectively applied a similar mindset and I was nervous about its reception, so I just worked on other things that were a little less indulgent.

Not that I'm saying any of my fics for SVSSS have been anything less than self-indulgent, but I'm usually indulging in the relationships part.

It's very indulgent of me to write SY/SQQ as a sort of gentle scholar on the outside and goofy nerd on the inside who shows more of himself to the people he feels closest and safest to do so with.

It's indulgent of me to have one of them be Binghe, and the two of them have adopted each other as family. And if I write him being romantically interested in his shizun (which I rarely do), any jealousy is rooted in puppy love, not a fear of losing a sense of family with his shizun. (Because he gets to be secure that he is shizun's family.)

It's unquestionably indulgent of me to write Liu Qingge as a taciturn badass who goes stupidly soft for SY/SQQ and is like an awkward, but very courtly knight rather the often stupid-awkward and blistering guy from half the scenes with him in the book. Because as much as I still love the book LQG, I liked the more chill and thoughtful hawk of a man from the animation. That was a guy who'd size you up and eviscerate as necessary. And I make him soft because I'll fite anyone who says that's not who he is inside (book or animation version), ah! 🤭

And, hooboy is it indulgent of me to give everyone (especially Binghe) friends. Even if mostly I've hinted at a deeper friendship rather than fully explored it, I make it clear these friendships either exist behind the scenes or are ready to grow at any time, just add water.

But when it comes to plots? Not nearly as indulgent as I could be.

I love all my fics for the fandom. There are few things I've written that I'm as proud of as these.

But every time people have commented on The Guardian Ghost loving those things I just said, "Fuck it - I'm adding it."? I've got super emotional.

There's a good reason why it can take me hours to answer all the comments. There have been a few more than usual, sure, but it's mostly because everyone's been so supportive I've had to take breaks and focus on work so I could think about how to respond and not sound like a hot mess, lol.

Is it too sappy to say thank you to the people who basically in aggregate forced me to realize that I'm not having BadWrongFun that no one will want to read? It's a bit embarrassing to realize it took this for me to finally give myself permission.

Anyway!

It helps me internalize things like this by thinking through them and writing them down. And maybe someone else will need to hear something like this too, so I'm sharing it.

#author blog

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d-lissa · 1 year

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2ha book 3 - Beginning to 233

Ok, so I was gonna make this about how Shi Mei FINALLY showed some character and how great it was, he even made me tear up the little bastard, tho it was still too little too late and I am still expecting him to come back somehow, but then-

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENNED ??? EXCUSE ME ??? WHAT DID MO RAN DO TO CONTROL THE DRAGON OF THE MOUNTAIN DID HE CONTROL NANGONG SI TO KILL HIMSELF ?? WAS HE ALWAYS RELATED TO THE RUFENG SECT ???? AND WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS TAXIAN JUN DOING HERE I AM SCREAMING WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENNING A RIFT IN REALITY ??? WHAT ??? HELP ??

Goddamn I cannot with this fucking book. I feel light headed. Actually, I'm the one that's gonna die from this, I can feel it. RIP Shi Mei, I will never know what the fuck your deal was.

Ok so now we got dimension travelling, Taxian Jun is back as a corpse, sure, whatever, I guess. TOTALLY makes sense. He sees Wanning and immediately starts to flirt and being innapropriate, I am not even surprised by this, this man seems to only have two moods, egocentric mass murderer and hornee for the shizun. One of his underlings starts to badmouth Wanning and he kills them without even looking, too busy staring at the face of the man he claims to hate. God, this guy is a mess. Mo Ran, where are you, please come back, rpotect your boyfriend's chastity, it is in grave danger.

I am ... Gonna stop for now. A break is needed. Just the title of the next chapter is ready to give me a heartattack.

The fuck you mean "The Emperor is Back" I cannot with this story T^T

#2ha #erha #mo ran #taxian jun #chu wanning #ranwan #i have a headache #somehow it's not even the mtl fault #just ... the implications #oh my god #i am freaking out so much i can't even push the evil shi mei agenda #no wait i can #ok am I the only one that doesn't get who the fuck hua binian is ?#Like is that really our mastermind ? Really ? Some rando from another sect that we haven't interacted before this arc ?#i can't accept this #NEW THEORY ! Hua Binian is actually Shi Mei !#does that make sense ? fuck no #but I wanna have fun so i am taking my theory about how shi mei never actually existed and that someone made a puppet for mo ran #and i am saying that that person is hua binian #kinda sus that he doesn't have half of his face #and that the half we see is apparently super pretty #pluuuus both healers !#am I grasping at straws ? yes ma'am #so shi mei is actually hua binian and binian took him away to protect his identity #and while I'm going full crack i am gonna assume he is related to song qiurong because that makes sense i guess #i liked that theory ! who's to say hua binian isn't just ANOTHER fake name #my god this is a mess XD

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wisteriaslibrary · 7 months

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MXTX textfic

CHAPTER 1: Lan Wangji’s Credit Card

Wei Wuxian Added Xie Lian, and Shen Qingqiu

Shen Qingqiu: Hi Wei Ying

Wei Wuxian: Heyyyyy

Xie Lian: Hi!

Wei Wuxian: Bro Shen Qingqiu what phone do you have

Shen Qingqiu: You know Binghe..I have the IPhone 14

Wei Wuxian: You have to get his credit card I need some new shoes!

Xie Lian: I thought Lan Wangji would just buy you some new stuff just ask him?

Wei Wuxian: I would but uh 🌚

Shen Qingqiu: What the hell did you do?

Wei Wuxian: I kinda lost his card at the McDonalds….

Xie Lian: Am I surprised?

Wei Wuxian: Okay shush! What about you Xie Lian?

Xie Lian: Well San Lang was going to buy me the same one as you Shen Qingqiu but I didn’t let him so, I have a Nokia flip

Shen Qingqiu: Why? Why would you?! 🤦🏻

Wei Wuxian: Not even Lan Qiren is that bad…

Xie Lian: Well uhm I lost my other phones so, yeah. But Uhm Wei Wuxian we really need to find Lan Wangji’s Card

Wei Wuxian: Why are we talking about his card now?

Shen Qingqiu: The real question is why were you using Lan Wangji’s Card at McDonalds Are you that broke?

Xie Lian: Okay ^ but you could’ve said it in a nicer way..

Wei Wuxian: So I kinda like spent all my money on importing spicy food and using it to make Mukbangs on BliBli. So I needed some money!

Shen Qingqiu: Dude it’s like 47 yuan….

Wei Wuxian: Okay well if you guys want me to get his card so bad then help me!

Xie Lian: I don’t have a car

Shen Qingqiu: I do but I don’t feel like driving

Wei Wuxian: Wait outside your houses I’m gonna pull up in 5 mins omw 🤪

(An Hour Later)

Wei Wuxian added Hua Cheng, Lan Wangji, and Luo Binghe

Wei Wuxian: Herlp

Luo Binghe: No

Hua Cheng: ^

Lan Wangji: What is it Wei Ying?

Wei Wuxian: This is Shen Qingqiu, wei Wuxian crashed the car into the McDonalds drive thru and now the building is on fire and we are in the police station and we might get arrested help!

Luo Binghe: Shizun!!! Why do you hang out with them! Do you not want to hang out with me?!!!!

Hua Cheng: Tell Gege to text me

Wei Wuxian: His Phone exploded!

★・・・・・・★★・・・・・・★★・・・・・・★

Original fic on AO3 by me: MXTX textfic (3402 words) by Lan_Zhanstan

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wontonhakao · 5 years

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Shizuns (originally planned to colour but i got no time 💦)

#ScumVillainSelfSavingSystem #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #楚晚寧 #冰秋 #2ha #I AM IN SHIZUN HELL GUYS #I am basically luobinggbing&moran #i am also changgeng #I love the shizuns #give me more #sqq and wanning ftw

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gpoymangacaps · 4 years

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why choose one shizun, when you can have both? - shen qingqiu & chu wanning [talk to me on twitter!]

#chu wanning #shen qingqiu #the husky and his white cat shizun #2ha #svsss #scum villain self saving system #my art #hahahah omg sorry guys i am unfortunately in danmei hell

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winepresswrath · 2 years

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I love Wangji, I really truly do, but every time I see "Wangji moved forward healthily after WWX's death" I am just flummoxed. He didn't! He didn't! He's just quieter about his insanity and has actually quite a lot of family to support him even if he beat up all the grandpas who like him. He very much branded himself in grief and wore mourning white every day, what the hell

He permanently etched the symbol of the people who burned his home down into his body to feel closer to a guy he never got around to asking out! I do think Lan Wangji has more going on beyond his love interest than any other MXTX romantic lead, but that is not saying much because MXTX likes them very obsessive and at least a little unhinged. As is her right! More power to her. Hua Cheng doesn't care if Xie Lian burns his house down because his house only exists as an extension of his broader goal to protect and care for Xie Lian. Binghe is Binghe. I'm very proud of him for moving past his destroying the world because he feels unloved stage, but by the grace of Shizun do people avoid getting stabbed in the eye for making eye contact with Shizun. Lan Wangji legitimately loves both Xichen and Lan Qiren and cares about their opinions! He has a positive mentorship relationship with the juniors in general and clearly cherishes Sizhui. He has a place in his clan as a teacher that he does seem to value. He helps the common people in ways no one else does and I'd say that's probably 30% looking for Wei Wuxian, 40% trying to live up to the kind of person he believes Wei Wuxian was, and 30% his own desire to help where he can and use his talents to be of service to people who need him. He still strikes me as pretty consumed by Wei Wuxian's absence. He holds himself apart from the world, except for the things that remind him of Wei Wuxian. He has things in his life that he wouldn't set on fire for Wei Wuxian, but still absolutely nothing he wouldn't give up for him. Considering that he helped to raise a child during that time period that's saying a lot! He doesn't know what's going to happen when he chooses to stand by Wei Wuxian on that staircase. That's what makes it so romantic! He can trust that he'll have Xichen's private support, but for all he knows he'll be a fugitive indefinitely. It's very possible he's going to see Sizhui very rarely and give up any kind of public relationship and ongoing support, and that's something he's willing to risk. To me that feels indicative not only of how much he loves Wei Wuxian but how lightly he holds everything in his absence.

#Lan Wangji #cw: self harm #like if you asked Xichen right before WWX came back #Is Wangji ok #and you were someone he cared for and trusted #i think he'd say something like #I'm grateful he left seclusion #he seems to be enjoying his work #he hasn't self harmed recently and while he keeps alcohol in the house he has not been drinking #so that's a big improvement!#it's interesting because Hua Cheng is also motivated to becomes a better person and protect people by way of true love #but I do think lwj wants that more on his own merits #with Wei Wuxian inspiring him to change his approach more than his goal?#once again cql vs mdzs strike #let's protect the innocent together vs. right or wrong I just want to be by your side #and take the consequences with you #it's a big difference! these are not people having the same experience #both of them are imo living pretty bleak lives when WWX isn't about #they're sad! they're just capable of channeling that sadness is fairly productive ways

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discourse-is-just-a-pastime · 3 years

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coming from the dead for a second here because I seriously wonder:

How come there are so many anti in the MXTX fandom?!?

and this come from me seeing an bulletin account being like "we don't support event that promot ra.pe and pedo.philia".

svsss is an age-gap teacher/student story where the student eventually ends up overpowering his shizun and making his life hell and being obsessive about him. The big moment of the novel at the end is heavy dubcon/noncon to save the world?!

In mdzs wwx litteraly has a non-con fetish and wants lwj to "force himself" on him. and this is not even the most problematic shit I could bring out form mdzs. "unredeemable" characters, incest, mass murder and the list probably goes on.

even in tgcf you could argue against the one "pure" ship from mxtx. xl is basically dating a dead guy since hc is dead. you could even argue about some agegap (if you squint very hard) because if am not mistaken xl was already a teen when he save hc who was a child. And this doesn't include any of the other thing that happens in the novel that would also be problematic.

How do they survive in three novel that are basically filled with stuff they hate?!? It seriously as weird as anti in the hannibal fandom.

#fandom stuff #svsss spoilers #mdzs spoilers #tgcf spoilers #like what the fuck kinda logic is that?!?!#go back to another pure uwu fandom and leave us the fuck alone

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dangermousie · 3 years

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Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.

#asks #cdrama #cnovel

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manggaetteokkie · 4 years

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Why 2HA adaptation might not be as bad as we think...

Okay so BL novel “The Husky and His White Cat Shizun” (chinese title: “二哈和他的白猫师尊”) aka 2HA is getting a live adaption which will be called “Immortality” (“皓衣行”). I know that usually, fans of original works are less than excited about this kinds of news and with good reasons. The issue is that those who buy the IP rights to a novel simply see its popularity and think that they can profit off of it without actually trying to understand the reason behind its popularity. Too often, BL fans see themselves forced to endure any of the following: 1) sex change of one of the male leads, 2) creation of a random female love interest, 3) turning a happy end into a bad end, 4) adding a bunch of scenes unrelated to our main pair that ends up dragging the series, 5) turning romance into brotherly affection... the list goes on and on. Sometimes, companies think that as long as they film any two guys together and sell a bit of physical touching here and there, fans will jump on it like rabid dogs which... is kinda stupid because, y’know, we have eyes (and standards) too.

So obviously, with the unprecedented popularity that came with the release of The Untamed, even more producers are starting to see the potential of danmei (BL) novels and with it came an onslaught of IP rights being bought and adapted. The list is pretty extensive, with some big names that I’m sure anyone who’s even slightly in the Chinese BL novel community has heard of before. Of course, included in that list, with the casting for the leads done and filming underway, is 2HA.

Quick overview of the story for those of you that don’t know: the story is set in the POV of the “gong” (top), a character named Mo Ran (also known as Mo Weiyu) who is the disciple of Chu Wanning, the “shou” (bottom) of our story. In his original life, Mo Ran had become the Emperor of the cultivation world through slaughter and tyranny, with the only one ever coming close to stopping him being his shizun, Chu Wanning, who eventually lost his life trying to stop him. After achieving the top by committing pretty much all crimes and sins known to men, weary and tired, Mo Ran decides to take his own life and ends it all. Unexpectedly, instead of dying and going to Hell, he transmigrated to the first year he became a disciple. As a thirty-something man in the body of a teen, he decides to do things right this time around and save the one he couldn’t save the first time around. As he goes through life a second time, truth after truths reveal themselves, with the biggest surprise being that the Shizun he hated so much in his previous life, and who Mo Ran thought hated/scorned him, actually turned out to be protecting him the entire time.

Mo Ran, in his past life, was powerful, cruel, merciless and arrogant. There was nothing he could not obtain and he knew it. He was cynical, had a very jaded view of the world and was kind of unstable (lots of mood swings and temper tantrums). After his rebirth, he still maintained some of the arrogance and cynicism, but is more mischievous, confident and cheeky. He is very much like a husky, looks kind of scary and big, but can be extremely loyal to the ones he recognizes and can be a bit dumb sometimes. Chu Wanning on the other hand, is an unflappable person with a frost-like exterior, but a heart of gold. Basically, he cares a lot but it’s easier for him to look like he doesn’t than to voice his feelings. He gets embarrassed easily and covers his embarrassment using anger. He is extremely strong, likes peace and quiet, and always abides by the rules.

Their relationship is kind of complicated. Initially, Mo Ran was in love with a fellow disciple called Shi Mei (despite the word meaning junior female disciple in Chinese, it’s actually the name of a male character). In the original timeline, Shi Mei died and that was the start of Mo Ran’s decline. After his rebirth, Mo Ran decides that he will do everything in his power to prevent Shi Mei from dying again. Don’t be mistaken though, Shi Mei is NOT the male lead. You’ll see as you read more that despite being in love with Shi Mei, Mo Ran is pretty obsessed with Chu Wanning because their relationship was kind of... complicated in the original timeline.

This is pretty much the premise for the story, but do be warned that it goes much deeper and darker than what you might expect (it’s rated R-18 for a reason). So why exactly am I writing all of this? To put it simply, I just kind of want to hype up the series and its adaptation a little, or at least, pique enough interest to give the live action adaptation a chance. Not gonna lie, when I heard 2HA was getting adapted, I was pretty skeptical because how. Mo Ran and Chu Wanning had a pretty physical relationship in the pre-rebirth timeline and that’s partially where the obsession that Mo Ran feels towards Chu Wanning stems from. There’s just basically a lot of unresolved sexual tension between them throughout the novel that I simply couldn’t see getting adapted. However, after thinking about it and reevaluating things from a low-expectations-standpoint, I think it might actually be possible to film something close enough to the original work. Here are some of the factors that influenced my opinion:

First, the series is set to air for 50 episodes (just like The Untamed). Why is the number of episodes important? Because it will determine how closely the adaptation will follow the original story and how much random stuff they can fit into it. Let’s take a step back and evaluate: 2HA’s novel has 311 chapters + extras while MDZS has 113 + extras. Obviously, people might have an issue with the number of episodes (”How are you going to air the same amount of episodes for a series that’s thrice as long??”) but I think it’s a good amount. Why? Because it pretty much guarantees a solid pacing that’ll keep the story moving forward without stagnating. I don’t think there is too much to worry in terms of too much source material being cut because quite a few chapters are R-18/romantic lining scenes that would not have gotten adapted anyways. Once those get deleted, I think 50 episodes is an acceptable amount.

Second, the entire production seems to be solid. The rights were actually bought by Tencent who, if you forgot, was also responsible for The Untamed. With prior success, I believe that they now have a pretty solid idea of how things should be run. Also, the CGI and world-design team is the same one as for Ashes of Love, which has me pretty stoked because while CG in chinese dramas has always been a hit or miss, Ashes of Love is definitely amongst some of the best I’ve seen (see below for examples). (P.S. there are also rumours that Lin Hai, the one responsible for The Untamed’s OST, might be working on 2HA but this is mere speculation at this point.) Overall, 2HA is looking to be like the most high-profile and expensive BL adaption yet.

Third and finally, the casting.

Holy.

Okay.

This is what has me the most hyped.

Let’s start with Shi Mei, who will be portrayed by actress Chen Yao (or Sebrina Chen).

I know I’ve said that despite the name, Shi Mei is a male. As it turns out, likely for censorship reasons, “Immortality” could not escape from the clutches of the dreaded sex change so they went ahead and turned him into a girl. While not ideal, in my opinion, it actually works out pretty nicely here. In this case, it means that Mo Ran is in love with a female character which would further draw censorship’s attention away from the fact that Mo Ran really has a thing for his beautiful shizun. While it would have been perfect if everything could go according to source material, the fact that it’s Shi Mei that went through a sex change actually works pretty favourably in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention the actress set to play Shi Mei has some good experience acting similar roles so overall, I say that I trust her.

Next, we have Chu Wanning who will be played by Luo Yunxi (or Leo Luo).

For this character, I have no worries whatsoever. If you’re unfamiliar with this actor, I highly recommend you give Ashes of Love a try. He played the 2nd lead and ugh. He’s so good at playing beautiful and elegant characters that are forced to undergo a ton of suffering and pain. Luo Yunxi used to be a professional ballet dancer so he moves with grace and his fight scenes are amazing to watch. Also, he has great control over his facial expressions. He’s able to act out characters that suffer a lot without making them seem weak or powerless. Even the way he cries can be considered both beautiful and heartbreaking.

Finally, we have Mo Ran who will be portrayed by Chen Feiyu (or Arthur Chen).

Mo Ran is an extremely complex character. From pre-rebirth’s insanity and arrogance, to post-rebirth’s hope and reservation, to post-revelation’s love and devotion, the actor’s going to have a lot on his plate. Originally, when I first googled him, I thought that while he’d manage to pull off post-rebirth teen!Mo Ran fairly well given how clean and refreshing his face looks, he’d have a harder time pulling off pre-rebirth’s arrogance, craziness and general “hardness”. However, after seeing some costume designs and makeup edits, I think that the boy might just pull it off. Also, while the actor is nowhere near as solid as Luo Yunxi is, it seems that he’s willing to put in extra time and effort (as seen by his Weibo post about how he’d been studying the source material) to make up for it. I think that with enough dedication, he might just be able to pull it off.

(Psssst! By the way, keeping this strictly between you and me, another reason why I’m such a fan of this pair is because of the height difference. I mean just look at this?? Their height difference is pretty much bang on with the novel height difference after Mo Ran grew past Chu Wanning’s height. Not to mention, don’t tell me you see this and don’t automatically picture a the big dorky puppy following his reserved and cool master around?)

So yeah, all of this just to say that it might be okay to kind of have some expectations for 2HA. I really want to keep my own expectations down as low as possible given the amount of times we’ve been burned but I want to remain hopeful that, with the success of The Untamed, it can pave the way for better and more faithful danmei adaptations, with 2HA being one of them.

#the husky and his white cat shizun #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #2ha #immortality #皓衣行 #haoyixing #luo yunxi #chen feiyu #chen yao #leo luo #arthur chen #sebrina chen #chu wanning #mo ran #mo weiyu #long post #talking with zb

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animeyanderelover · 3 years

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Hi dear! It's me again! I'd love to see prompt 15. “Shh princess…don’t cry over this scum, he doesn’t deserve your tears.” with our wonderful girl Tsunade!

Tsunade!!! Hell YES!!!

Warnings: Blood, violence, death, manipulation

Prompt 15: “Shh princess...don’t cry over this scum, he doesn’t deserve your tears.”

You stood speechless there, all shaken up, not wanting to believe what you had just witnessed. The place you stood in looked completely destroyed, deep craters everywhere and trees ripped out from the ground, showing the aftermath of a brutal battle. But this battle hadn’t been fair at all! It had been decided from the very beginning who would win and the loser had died a truly horrible death. But what shocked you most was who had been the one killing him. She was still standing above the corpse, panting heavily and glaring with hatred down at the man, her clothes, face and hair blood covered. “Tsu-Tsunade?”, you managed to stutter out, your voice nearly breaking. She quickly turned around, shock visible on her face. “(y/n)?!” How had it come to this?

Flashback:

“What happened to her?!?!” Wasn’t that Tsunade’s voice? “She got attacked on her mission! According to her teammates she was attacked by an enemy who stabbed her quite a few times and then attacked with paper bombs. She stood too close and was caught in the explosions!” And that was Shizune’s voice. “Several organs have been damaged!” “She’s losing too much blood!” “We’re losing her!” Many voices suddenly started to yell panicked around and you couldn’t figure any longer out what they were saying. You tried to open your eyes, wanting to know what exactly was going on. It took you a lot of strength, but you managed to do it. At first everything was blurry, but after a moment you started to notice a pretty, blonde haired woman who was busily yelling at all the other people. “Tsunade...”, you mumbled quietly. Never in your life you had seen her snapping her head around that swiftly, for a moment worried that she would break her neck. “(y/n)!! Don’t worry, everything will be alright!!! I promise!!!” Her voice sounded terrified and you could clearly see the tears that were swelling up in her eyes. Black dots started to appear before your eyes, slowly growing bigger and bigger. “It’s getting...so dark.”, you murmured, having troubles to keep your eyes open. “No!!! Don’t close your eyes!!! Look at me!!!”, Tsunade yelled at you desperately, but you couldn’t even hear her clearly. It felt like you were somewhere underwater and Tsunade’s voice sounded like it came from above the water surface. By now nearly everything in front of your vision had turned black and it seemed so inviting to just close your eyes and drown in the darkness. ‘Beeeeeeeeeeep!’ “NOOOOO!!!!!!”

When you came back to your senses the first thing you noticed was a blinding light. “Am I dead?”, you questioned yourself, but only a few seconds later you hissed painfully, feeling pain everywhere. You forced your head to look up to see why you were in so much pain. Most parts of your body were covered in blankets, but every spot from your body that wasn’t covered was wrapped in bandages. You started looking around, trying to find someone who could answer all your questions. “Hello?!”, you called out. At first nothing happened, but then the door was suddenly slammed open and Shizune and a few nurses stormed in. “She’s awake!!”, one of them called facilitated. “Inform Lady Tsunade immediately!!”, Shizune ordered them before she quickly went to your side. “Are you feeling alright?! Do you need something?!” You blinked irritated before answering:”A glass of water and an explanation to what exactly happened would be nice.”

Your jaw had dropped and you stared horrified at her. “A...whole week?”, you asked with a shaking voice. Shizune nodded with a pained expression on her face. You had been out for a whole week?! “Tsunade! How is she doing?!”, you suddenly asked her worried. Shizune lowered her gaze, a sad expression on her face which gave you all the answers you needed. “Terrible. I’ve never seen her that broken.” You felt a stinging in your heart. But suddenly the door was slammed open once again, but this time it was ripped out of it’s place. You gasped when you saw Tsunade. She looked horrible! There were dark bags under her eyes, she looked awfully pale and it seemed like she hadn’t eaten something for quite some time. As soon as she saw you, she broke out in tears. (y/n)! You’re awake!” She immediately stormed towards you and hugged you, careful to not hurt you. Shizune quietly left the room whilst Tsunade was crying heavily, wetting the bandages on your shoulder in no time. “I was so scared of losing you. Y-your heart stopped beating for a whole minute.” You tried to calm her down bu gently stroking her hair, feeling guilty that you had given her so much worries. “Hey, I’m alive! Don’t you know what I told you on our first date? No way that you’ll ever be able to shake me off.”, you tried to ease the mood and to your relief it worked because Tsunade started laughing a bit even though she was still crying.

The next few weeks Tsunade refused to leave your side at all. She stayed with you in the hospital and even after you were released and were able to go back to your apartment she refused to leave you alone. Helping you with everything since you couldn’t really do much in your state. You looked like a mummy with all the bandages covering you! But she was the Hokage of the Leaf Village so you had to force her to go back to work, during this time Shizune always stayed with you. But it had one advantage, since Tsunade wanted to be near you she worked incredibly fast, wanting to finish the tasks as fast as possible just to be able to go back to you. Thanks to her you also didn’t end up with your whole body littered in scars because of the burnings from the explosions. She had worked on a Jutsu to smoother your skin so that the scars on your body were nearly invisible. She took great care of you and you felt blissed to have her as your girlfriend. But all of that was about to change soon...

It had been pretty late when you had come home, spending nearly the whole day in the hospital for one of your daily check-ups. And it seemed like you were on a good way to going back to your full strength. You had expected Tsunade to be waiting for you in your apartment and you were a bit surprised when you didn’t find her. At first you had thought that she would be in her office, but you hadn’t find her there as well. Even Shizune didn’t know where she was, telling you that Tsunade had left earlier this day to solve some ‘problem’ without letting her exactly know what it was. That was the point where you had started to get worried. It wasn’t typical for Tsunade to leave you without letting you or Shizune know where she went. You stood for a moment there, thinking about where she could possibly be before an idea popped up in your head. What if you would start searching in her desk in the office? If she left some clue about where she had went and what problem she would have to solve then you were sure you would find it there. So you went to the building of the Hokage and went in the office. Luckily you were one of the few persons who were allowed to go in there without permission. You immediately walked to her quite messy looking desk. Oh dear, Tsunade and her sense for neatness. You decided to start looking in her drawers at first, assuming that if she would have left some clue about where she had went, she wouldn’t have left in on her desk. As soon as you opened the drawer, it nearly exploded, being stuffed with too many files and papers. “Tsunade!”, you cursed quietly. Damn, as soon as you would find her, you would definitely force her to clean up her desk. You sighed and started picking up all the files that had dropped to the ground before one file caught your eye. Different from the other ones this one was marked in red, looking more important. You looked around. Should you take a short glance? You were debating with yourself. You shouldn’t. But when you grabbed the file to put it back in the drawers a photo suddenly dropped out of it. You bent down to grab the picture and your eyes widened for a short second. That man on the photo...that was the guy who nearly killed you!!! You slowly opened the red folder and picked out all the papers inside. The first thing you noticed were a lot of pictures from this man. And with a lot you meant a lot! Judging from the dates that were written down on them, you were able to tell that Tsunade must have kept an close eye on him for weeks. You started looking for the picture with the earliest and latest date on it. The earliest date was about eight weeks ago. You raised an eyebrow. At that time you had layed unconscious in the hospital. The latest picture was from this day and you also noticed something else. On it’s back was something written. The name of a city and a time of day. You knew this city, it was only a few kilometers away from here. In the folder you also found countless other things from the man. Name, age, past life... At first you didn’t understand what all of that meant, but then a thought hit you. A thought that scared you. What if she planned to...? You couldn’t finish that thought, trying to deny this. How late was it? You looked at the clock, that was hanging in the office. According to it you had one hour left. You quickly stuffed everything back into the drawers and then started storming out of the office, pleading that your suspicion wasn’t true.

You were completely out of breath when you reached your destination, you hadn’t run this much since quite some time. But you didn’t really got the time to catch your breath because in the very next moment the ground suddenly started to shake. A short yelp of surprise escaped your lips whilst you stumbled back. What was that? An earthquake? No. That was something different. You quickly followed the direction from where the shocks seemed to come. Shortly after you reached a field, or at least what you assumed had been once a field. It looked like a bomb had blown up there, everything was destroyed! “I’m sorry!! Please forgive me!! I’ll do anything, but please don’t kill me!” The terrified voice caught your attention and that’s when you noticed the two persons standing inside all this chaos. One of them, the man, was laying on the ground, trembling and looking up to the person who was standing in front of him. You gasped when you realized who it was. It was Tsunade! You heard her scoffing at the man, clenching her fist tightly. “Did you hesitate or stop when you attacked my people? When you attacked (y/n)? Did you care for whether they die or not?” The man was shaking, unable to answer. “You didn’t. And so won’t I.” With these words she slammed her fist down, punching the man right in his stomach. You heard a sound that sounded like bones breaking and in the next moment blood was splashing out of the man. You needed a moment to proceed what had just happened. She had punched a hole right through his stomach. You started shaking. “Tsu-Tsunade?”

End of flashback

“(y/n)?! What are you doing here?!”, Tsunade asked you panicked, walking with fast steps towards you. “Stay away!” She flinched when you screamed those words at her and you yourself were a bit surprised as well, but it was pure instinct. “(y/n)...I-I understand that you’re a bit shocked from all of this, but please believe me, he deserved it!”, she desperately tried to reason with you whilst stepping closer to you. You didn’t move, just staring at the man, deep in thoughts. You admitted that you had hated him as well, after all he did cause you some damage and you did wanted to have some kind of revenge, but not like this! This had been just unfair, he hadn’t stand a chance against her! No one deserved to die like this, having a hole punched in his stomach. Tears started to swell up in your eyes, falling down your face. You quietly started sobbing, feeling conflicted about your feelings. What were you supposed to do now? How were you supposed to feel about Tsunade now?! Tsunade quickly engulfed you in a her warm embrace, rubbing circles soothingly on your back. “Shh princess...don’t cry over this scum, he doesn’t deserve your tears.” A part of you screamed at you to push her away, to scream at her, to run away, to just do something to get away from her as fast as possible, but you couldn’t. You just couldn’t! Because you still loved her. And you knew you would always do...

#yandere naruto #yandere naruto shippuden #yandere tsunade #yandere tsunade senju

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kayparker20 · 3 years

Text

Inner Turmoil - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Friends In The Know

FFN | AO3

The sun was just beginning to go down as Sakura stepped through the glass doors from Konoha Medical into the light breeze, carrying the few leaves that had begun to fall from the trees on it’s path. She tilted her head up and sighed softly, enjoying the moment after her long day with Tsunade and Shizune. The air was crisp and just chilly enough to make her wish for her lab coat that was hanging on her office chair. Just as a smile started to grace her lips she was shocked out of her serenity.

“Hey, forehead!!” The noisy blonde called out to her long time friend and rival.

Sakura flinched and turned around at the sound of her name, finding herself facing one of her best friends. “Hey, Pig!” She smiled lightly in her direction and then frowned slightly as she began walking toward her. “Could you have been any less abrupt?” She grumbled.

“Do you wanna go for lunch! I have some amazing gossip!” She giggled mischievously, ignoring her friends’ annoyance.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at her and sighed. “Just what did you hear at Yamanaka’s Flowers today, Ino, that was worth ruining my “I can finally breathe” moment?”

Ino set her hand on her hips as she cocked them to the side. “Depends, are you gonna come to dinner with me? And no amount of work is too exhausting to hear this, trust me.” The blonde added a sly smirk, knowing her friend wouldn’t refuse despite her irritation.

Sakura looked around the village and down at herself. She had just got off work from the hospital. Her hair was pulled back but she could feel some sweat still dampened in the roots of her hair. She scrunched up her nose at her current appearance but shrugged her shoulders anyway. “Okay, fine, but nothing too upscale and you’re paying.”

Ino nodded excitedly. “Okay, how about the tea shop? We could get some dango too.”

Sakura couldn’t hold back her smile. The promise of sweets was just too convincing now. “Of course, you know I’m always up for dango!” She agreed, knowing she was definitely just bribed with her favourite treat by her close friend.

Ino smirked and laughed. “How lame, you’re so easy to win over, Sakura.” She linked her arm in Sakura’s and dragged her down the street, easily maneuvering around passerbys.

Ino watched Sakura carefully for any signs of nervousness. Sakura seemed tired and that was all. No fidgets, just bags under her eyes. No marks around her neck either. But of course a medical ninja could fix that easily, right? She only hoped her fake rumour would get her to fess up to what she already knew. Asuma seemed to all but outright say Kakashi and Sakura were together! Ino has suspected that there was something because they spent so much time together, but no one else seemed to question so maybe she was reading too much into it? But, she hadn’t seen Sakura seem so happy until lately.

“Ino, why the hell are you staring at me. You just passed it.” Sakura growled.

“Oh, nothing. Just wondering about my theories.” The blue-eyed woman said innocently as she turned back into the shop. “Two, please!” She said to the host before Sakura could respond.

Sakura became thoughtful as she looked around her favourite place to come sit and relax in the town. It was homie, with wooden chairs and tables. It had a couple of faded booths which was where they always chose to sit. The floor was worn out and some of the tile was cracked. It had a clock that was either five minutes ahead or behind, depending on the time of the year. It wasn’t fancy but it smelled amazing and the tea was always delicious.

What on earth could this gossip possibly be? Swearing if it is one more stupid thing about some guy’s lower regions, Sakura thought about how she’d knock Ino into the next week. Maybe she heard about the night at the bar from a couple months ago? No, that's too old if she wanted to talk about that, then she would have said something way sooner.

There hasn’t been anything I’ve seen in a long time that seemed noteworthy so what could she have that is soooo juicy? It is something more creepy about someone? God if it is I don’t want to know while I’m eating…

“Soooo, Sakura. Ready for the hot gossip?” Ino said, munching on the dango the waitress just dropped by.

Sakura met Ino’s eyes out of her dazed thoughts and nodded silently. “Yeah, spill it Pig but it had better be good.”

“Well, apparently there’s a jounin who is sleeping with his former student.” Ino said nonchalantly. “And I can confirm it’s not Asuma sensei.” Ino giggled and crossed her legs under the table.

Sakura's eyes widened for a second and she raised an eyebrow. “Is that really what you have to tell me?” She stared at Ino with a plain look.

Sakura panicked inwardly, wondering if Asuma had told everyone he found her tangled in Kakashi’s sheets. Everyone was there at the bar that night, and he literally carried me out. But then why am I just now hearing about it!

Ino huffed and rested her chin on her hand. “Yeah, it was. I’m trying to figure out who it is. And there’s no way it's Kurenai cause she has Kiba and Shino to choose from? I don’t think Kiba or Shino look good enough to cheat on Asuma...And I mean, Tenten is way too annoyed by Guy sensei you know?”

Sakura scrunched up her nose. “Why are you still calling them sensei? We’re all jounin too now, you know. We’re their equals, not students anymore.”

Ino narrowed her eyes at Sakura for a moment. That seemed suspicious. “You mean, you and Naruto don’t call Kakashi sensei?”

Sakura rolled her eyes and shook her head even though she felt her heart pounding in her chest. “No, neither of us do. Not since we became Team 7 again, before the second bell test, he specifically clarified we were no longer his students, but that we were his equals.” Sakura sighed and dropped her head down. “It took some getting used to, but no, Naruto and I do not call him sensei because he sees us as equals and asks us not to.”

Ino studied Sakura a few moments before letting out a small laugh. “Oh, come on Sakura just tell me already! It’s no secret that you two are close and have been for awhile now.”

Ino thought about the way they seemed so comfortable with each other. Sakura never tried to knock Kakashi into next month like she would anyone else. Kakashi literally kept his personal space with anyone else but Sakura, being as they seemed to share touches sometimes. She just seen her comforting him at the memorial the other day.

Or how Kakashi absolutely hated to get any sort of medical attention or to be in the hospital in general. But he would bring her coffee sometimes and whenever she was his nurse his complaints dialed back considerably.

Sakura just looked back at her friend and tried to feign disbelief. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Ino.” She said in a level tone, but she noticed her friend's reluctance to look her in the eyes as she muttered her defense. “Are you trying to say you think it’s me and Kakashi..?”

Sakura wasn’t sure how to tell anyone besides Naruto and Hinata who were the only ones who had known about her feelings, besides Asuma and Kurenai. Is it really that obvious? She felt her shoulder becoming tense as this conversation went on. She hasn’t even ever told Ino about the night at the bar, she didn’t want to tell her before. She had figured Ino would have turned it into a scandal, even though she loved her friend she also knew her friend loved her gossip.

“Even Asuma sensei says you’d be good for Kakashi!” Ino argued, trying to get to the bottom of her rumor. It was the only people that it made sense for, well if it were real, it would have been. However, that statement wasn’t exactly a lie. He had said ‘a strong woman like Sakura is exactly what Kakashi needs.”

Sakura tried to fight her blush, having remembered how Asuma found her and Kakashi days ago. “And just when did he say that?” She squeaked.

Ino stared at her friend, watching her clearly trying to hold back something, though she wasn’t quite sure what. “About a month or so ago…” Ino sighed and slumped back against the cushion of the booth. “The night I found out about Temari and Shika… He told me that after I left with Choji that some drunk wouldn’t take a hint and that Kakashi acted rather… Aggressive and possessive of you in the situation. He said he’d never seen him that way, no matter how much he had drank.”

Sakura stared a moment, debating on how much of the truth she was ready to tell. If she told Ino everything, then the whole town would know by tomorrow. When would she see Kakashi next, they hadn’t even discussed this yet. She didn’t want to ruin something before it hardly started.

She couldn't lie to Ino, because sooner or later everyone was going to know. And she definitely didn’t want to lie to one of her best friends.

“He did, yes… I was drunk and scared. He’s always been protective of us, especially since Sasuke left.” Sakura smiled softly. “He walked, er, well carried me home that night. I was hardly able to stand. Genma was also getting flirty with me and I don’t think he had been a fan of that.”

Ino nodded, watching her friend intently before sighing. “Damnit, I really thought it was you. It’s the only one that made sense. You guys are always together if you’re not with Naruto or me.” Ino met her eyes. “And you both deserve to be happy… And it almost seemed like Asuma was trying to hint at something.”

Sakura gulped, feeling a little guilty but she just smiled. She could tell a tinsy bit of truth. “Well, to be honest.” She paused and glared at Ino. “And this had better not be repeated. But, I do sort of…” Her face flushed now, not being able to fight it back. “You’re not entirely wrong. I do have feelings for Kakashi... I only have just recently been able to really accept it.”

Ino's eyes widened and she sat back up straight and grabbed Sakura’s hands. “Sakura…” She squeezed them lightly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you…” She watched as her friend instantly shook her head with a smile.

“You didn’t, Ino.” She sighed and let go of her hands. “I just… Haven’t told anyone. I mean, come on. He's much older than us, right? Most people would never approve.”

Ino just laughed and shook her head. “Sakura, we’re ninja. We’re lucky we’ve made it to 20, you think people are going to have something to say about us dating someone in their 30s?”

“I think some might have something to say about a sensei dating one of their former students…” Sakura mumbled softly.

All the doubts she had been able to cast off the other night came rushing back now. Could they really work? How would Tsunade feel about it? What if people think he had done something to her when she was younger? Would he get in trouble, would they hurt him? She didn’t even think of any of that.

“Sakura!” Ino snapped and waved her hand in front of the pinkette’s face. “Breathe! What’s wrong? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“N-No, it’s all-” Sakura stammered.

And then they heard the bell ring as someone else entered the tea shop, and Sakura’s heart dropped at the sight of a shock of white hair that hung over a masked face and another dark haired nin with smoke swirling around them.

“Asuma sensei!” Ino called over.

Asuma and Kakashi glanced over at the sound of the Sarutobi’s student calling out to him. Asuma gave a sly side glance at Kakashi once he noticed Sakura was there with Ino. “Well, look at that.”

Kakashi couldn’t help the eye crinkle he gave Sakura as soon as he saw her as him and Asuma strode over to their table.

Sakura’s heart was pounding in her chest but she instinctively moved over in her seat for Kakashi to sit down. He looked over at him and smiled lightly. “Hey, Kakashi!”

Ino watched them carefully as she moved over for Asuma and recrossed her legs. “I didn’t know Kakashi sensei liked it here too.” She rested her chin on her as she propped it up on the table. “I was just telling Sakura about this rumour going around.”

Asuma laughed. “Don’t let him fool you.” He shocked his head. “He likes his sweets just as much as the next ninja.” He added slyly, subtly glancing at Sakura as he said it. “And rumour? God what did you hear now that I’ll have to tell you is most likely a lie, hm?”

Ino smirked mischievously. “Mhmm, I see. So, how about sweet girls?” she giggled. “And that rumour is, that there’s jounin sleeping with their former student.” She gave Kakashi a rather bold stare, making clear she had already narrowed down who she thinks it is.

Sakura kicked her friend under the table and sent her a silent glare, trying to ignore Kakashi’s closeness. It was rather hard to do when she had already felt so cold. “I don’t ever remember even seeing Kakashi with a girl, let alone hearing about one.” She retorted quickly.

She stole a glance at Kakashi, to find him giving her a sideways glance. She quickly looked away and crossed her arms, frustrated she couldn’t just get away from the situation without getting away from him, which was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

“Is that so? Interesting.” He contemplated a moment. “And I take it you think it is me, and Sakura perhaps? Or maybe you think it’s Naruto!” He joked.

Ino watched them suspiciously, still not fully convinced there wasn’t something. Sakura seemed a tad bit awkward now but also like she was resisting something, and there was a definite hint of jealousy at the thought of another woman being involved with Kakashi, for them not being together. “I doubt it would be Naruto, that’s for sure.” She smiled, feeling triumphant. “Care to maybe be a little more forthcoming than Billboard over here?”

“Hm, I think when those two ninja are ready, they’ll clear that rumour right up for you, in due time.” Kakashi shrugged slightly and gave an eye crease as he leaned back against the booth they had sat in.

Kakashi could sense Sakura’s nervousness, and clearly the blonde had been grilling her before his and Asuma’s arrival. He thought it was a bit cute to see her so worried about this. And the knowing glint in Asuma’s eyes was rather comedic, being as he had found them in his bed in nothing but sheets.

“Can I get you two anything?” The hostess from earlier asked the two new guests at our table.

“I’ll have a coffee. And I guess I’ll buy my former student here another dango cause I know she’ll get me to even if I try to say no.” And he gave a bored look at Ino. She only shrugged happily in response.

“I’ll have a chai tea, and another vanilla chai with extra vanilla for Sakura here.” Kakashi said as he brought his arms on the back of the seat, brushing his fingers across Sakura’s hair for a moment.

The split second contact made Sakura stand up a little straighter against the booth, hoping for the warmth of his arm to come against her shoulders, but not in an obvious way. She noted how he had seemed so relaxed, even when Ino had made it clear what she was thinking. How did he always manage to be so cool and collected all the time?

“Alright, I’ll be right up with those!” And the waitress glided away.

Sakura turned to see his arm lying along the back of the booth behind her, and without thinking she scooted closer to him, their thighs making contact under the table. She shivered slightly as the door opened again, another customer entering the shop.

“So, Ino. Choji tells me that you are feeling better lately?” Asuma asked her with hopefulness.

Ino sighed and looked back down. “Well, it’s not like I can change it…”

Sakura watched her friend sadly, remembering how torn up she was that night. “You know, I think Choji really cares for you.” She said with a pleasant smile. Maybe, if Ino can feel like she’s enough for someone else, she won’t be hung up about Shikamaru.

Kakashi then brought his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him. “Instead of sitting there shivering, just say you’re cold.” He said with nonchalance as she flushed red.

Ino watched them with interest, wondering if it was just Sakura who harbored feelings. How ‘platonic’ of a move was that? Kakashi wasn’t the touchy feely type of friend, thinking of how Guy sensei seemed to annoy him. She was even less convinced, thinking again of how comfortable they seemed together, even at Sakura’s current nervousness that was a little unusual.

She could almost think that Sakura was ashamed to be with her teacher, maybe? Could she be scared to tell her? Does she think she would tell everyone? Or maybe she’s afraid of Lady Tsunade finding out. Ino shivered slightly at the thought, that woman could be scary when she was angry. She wouldn’t want to be on that side of her, that was for sure. Really, all she wanted to see Sakura be happy and support her fully in it. And Kakashi made her happy but clearly there were some doubts that needed to be cleared up.

Then she realized what Sakura said and she just stared a moment, not able to say anything. What was she trying to say? Choji was her friend and teammate. He’d always been there for her, of course he cared about her. “Well, yeah. We’re teammates, of course he cares about me!”

Asuma shook his head. “That’s not what she’s saying, Ino.” He sighed and then pulled something from his pocket. “He went on a mission with his Dad, and asked me to give this to you because he didn’t have time.” He handed her a folded piece of paper. “I figured I’d find you here.”

Ino raised her eyebrows at the paper and then took it. “Okay…” She thought for a moment and then looked up at Sakura. “Oh, Sakura. There wasn’t any rumour by the way” She looked between her and Kakashi again. “I just wanted to see if I’d get you to tell me something I thought already happened… And I’m still not fully convinced either!” She smiled and then moved off to leave after Asuma got up. She picked up the dango the waitress had left. “Thanks, Asuma sensei.”

Once Ino walked away, Sakura fully melted into Kakashi, the tenseness leaving her body instantly. “God, am I really that obvious?”

Kakashi only smiled under his mask. “No.”

“Kurenai has known for months that you two had feelings for each other… It’s obvious because we’re ninja and we can see things.” He smiled. “Now, whether you two were gonna do something about it was a different story. And I may have planted it in Ino’s head after the bar.”

Kakashi just looked at him. “It was not obvious.”

Asuma laughed. “The fact that you spent so much time with her made it obvious for you alone, my friend. Not to mention the possessiveness you had expressed at the bar.”

“Okay, fine.” Kakashi stood up and grabbed Sakura’s hand, realizing he probably had exposed himself that night but just hoped they blamed it on the sake. “But, anyway, see you later.”

Sakura grabbed her tea just in time before he made the seals for the transportation jutsu, finding herself now sitting on his couch. “Hey, a warning would have been ni-”

“I missed you.”

Sakura's eyes widened and she set down her drink. He missed her? She had missed him but she didn’t want to seem too clingy. She sometimes wondered if that was what drove Sasuke away from her, that she was always wanting to be around him and talk to him. She didn’t want to make Kakashi feel smothered… But then again, they were together most of the time the last few months weren’t they?

He brought his hand up the back of her neck and wound his fingers in her hair and pecked her forehead before sighing softly.

He really missed her. It had only been two days since that morning, but he really wanted her presence. She stood up and brought her hands to each side of his face. “I missed you too, Kakashi.” She smiled lovingly, looking up at his eyes.

Kakashi grabbed her one of her hands with his free hand, resting it over hers on his cheek. “Did you tell her?”

Sakura pecked his lips through the mask. “No, not quite…” She looked to the side. “I wasn’t sure if you were okay with people knowing yet…” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t even get to tell Naruto and Hinata yet…”

“How are we going to…” “They both know…” Sakura looked back up at him. “I already told you that I cried to Hinata about the first night… And she ended up telling Naruto.” She ran her fingers up into his hair. “He asked me about it the other morning, and convinced me to tell you how I felt. It was almost like he knew already.”

Kakashi brought his mask down, a full smile gracing his lips and pecked her lips before sighing. “Because he did.” He brought her hips into his and held her tight to him.

Naruto only knew because he had outright and asked, or rather demanded it from Kakashi a couple weeks ago, after the night at the bar. It was a surprisingly serious conversation coming from Naruto.

“Wait, how had Naruto known! And for how long! I had only just told ANYTHING to him the same morning I came to you!” Sakura lifted her gaze to meet his eyes and stared at her lover in disbelief.

Kakashi was lounging on his couch, trying to read Icha Icha, whilst trying desperately not to picture the characters as Sakura. Ever since two nights ago after bringing her to his place after the bar, he couldn’t stop wishing she was still here with him, no matter the distraction. It made him feel so much disgust towards himself, to desire her so much more now. An obnoxious pounding on his door brought him from his thoughts, clearly making the presence known to be Naruto.

“Naruto, what do you need? I know I’m not late for any sort of training.”

“That’s because it’s something else. We need to talk, Kakashi!” There was a hint of anger there that had caught the copy nin off guard.

He stood up, setting his book down on the table and walked over to open the door. “Naruto, what is it?”

The blonde stomped right past Kakashi into his apartment and turned back around to face him as he shut the door.

He watched Naruto seeth, staring at him, his fists clenched. He had a feeling he knew what this was about.

“If you’ve got something to say Naruto, then tell me.”

He narrowed his eyes further. “What are you doing with Sakura?” He snapped.

Kakashi looked down. “Is this about the other night? Did you hear about it?”

“She came crying to Hinata about it this morning.” He scoffed. “Of course I fucking heard about it.” He grabbed Kakashi by his shirt collar. “How dare you just use her like that! Our teammate, Sakura, of all women! I thought you were better than that, damn you!”

Now Kakashi was confused. He blinked and stared blankly into Naruto’s eyes. “Used her?” Kakashi kept his voice level and calm. “Naruto, I did no such thing.”

How could he ever use Sakura. Why would Naruto think he would? What did he hear? And from her? Did she think something happened? Did she feel harassed by him? Did he hurt her? His heart sank.

“If you didn’t do anything, then why is she at my house telling my wife about waking up in your bed, and crying!” His grip only tightened.

Kakashi looked at him. “Naruto, did you hear anything else, besides that?”

Naruto was infuriated by how calm his elder had been until he said that. He stopped, his grip loosening slightly, before slowly shaking his head. “No…”

Kakashi sighed and furrowed his eyebrows. “She was in my bed, but not because I slept with her. Now if you could let go of me, we can sit on the couch and talk about this like adults.”

Naruto gave him a suspicious look before letting go and moving to sit on his couch. He watched as Kakashi rotated his shoulders before sitting down next to him.

“She woke up in my bed, because I put her there.” Kakashi sighed. “And I’m rather ashamed of the whole situation, I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.” Kakashi drug his mask off his face and ran a hand through his hair. “It started at the tavern we all go to. She was there with Ino, we all know she’s torn up about that Nara kid and the sand girl.”

“Yeah, Temari. Gaara’s sister. I’m aware.”

“Ino drug her out for a girls’ night but she ended up getting drunk and sad and called Choji to pick her up. Leaving Sakura at the bar. I was there in the corner with Genma and the others like usual.”

Naruto grumbled and was getting impatient. “Okay, just get on with it. How does this end up with Sakura at my house crying, Kakashi.”

“Some guy started trying to hit on her and wouldn’t take a hint. She came to the corner and I had been drinking. I saw them and I just.” Kakashi sighed. “Seeing him going after her like that, and she was looking at us desperately and it just made my blood boil to see that guy with her. I was jealous but she looked so scared, I felt this need to protect her but also to make it clear she was off limits. I wasn’t thinking. So I pulled her in next to me and acted like we were together…”

Kakashi sighed. “Damnit, Naruto. I’ve had some type of feeling for her for like a year now and I just. I was drunk and she seemed to not mind being so close to me but then she was getting too drunk and wanted to go home.”

Naruto watched, his eyes widening at the confession. “Kakashi…?”

“She couldn’t even stand on her own. I was going to walk her home, well actually I had to carry her. And then she was clinging to me and said she didn’t want to be alone.” Kakashi sighed heavily. “So I brought her here and then she started crying, saying that no one has ever looked at her with love, the way she sees all her friends looking at each other…”

He couldn’t believe he was telling Naruto any of this. He was probably going to beat him with the nine tails chakra soon. Naruto has always been protective of Sakura and here he was admitting he had feelings for her, their 34 year old sensei feeling attraction for their 20 year old teammate. He was just waiting for Naruto to start accusing him of being a creep and pedophile. He already felt that way towards himself.

Naruto’s heart clenched for Sakura. He hadn’t thought about how so many of them had found someone, and Sakura had still been alone, still hoping for Sasuke. However lately, she had seemed to be rather close with Kakashi, she always seemed happy whenever he was around even when he was being his infuriating self. And then for Kakashi, for being so torn, for the fact he had just accused him of doing the very thing he had gone out of his way to do...

“I just wanted her to feel cared for, but then I was realizing she was drunk and I was drunk and it felt wrong and I tried to back off right away and just comfort her, telling her she wouldn’t always feel like that..”

“Kakashi, what did you do?”

Kakashi sighed, the guilt weighing obviously. “She pulled my mask down and kissed me and for a second I let myself go and things got heated and then I snapped back to reality and backed off. I told her she should get sleep and let her take the room and apologized for it.” He was on the brink of tears now.

Naruto moved forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Naruto, I would never use her. It just… It wasn’t right. That’s not what I wanted and now I’ve probably made her think I hate her…Or maybe she feels violated and doesn’t trust me anymore.”

“No, Kakashi…” Naruto said it with a smile. “I’m sorry that I…”

“No, don’t be.”

“You have to tell her, Kakashi.”

“No. I’d probably just ruin her life. Besides, she was drunk. We both know she really wants Sasuke.”

Kakashi’s mind ran through the billion other reasons why he couldn’t tell her.

“She hasn’t seemed all in love with Sasuke when she’s around you. She may not realize it, but I’ve seen how she looks at you.” Naruto said softly. “It’s part of why I was so angry.”

Kakashi shook his head. “I was your guys’ sensei. I’m fourteen years older than you! I’m disgusted with myself that I could ever think of her as anything more than a close friend, sister or comrade!”

Naruto scoffed. “Kakashi, you of all people should know that we’re lucky to make it to 20 or even 30 as ninja! Elite ninja at that! You can’t tell me the others are gonna be that worried about some damn age gap when two people are happy! Tell! Her! Damnit, you both deserve to just be happy!”

“Oh yeah, but they’ll be worried that I was her sensei when she was 13 and now we’re together when she’s 20? No, I won’t humiliate her like that, people will think I…”

Naruto growled in frustration, thinking of all the time he has seen them spend together. Of the way Kakashi seems less self hating when he’s with her. How Sakura seemed to not focus so much on Sasuke’s absence as often now. How damn happy she seemed around him, and now how broken she had looked at the fear of his rejection.

“Kakashi, you have to…”

“Imagine what the others would think, you can’t pretend there isn’t going to be anyone that won’t think I’m disgusting!” The silver haired nin stared at Naruto stoically. “People will think it’s been going on the whole time, since she was like 14. And it's not right to put her through that!”

“So, what! It hasn’t, and anyone that matters knows it too! Kakashi, you both deserve to feel happy, to feel love! What about giving her the happiness she deserves, happiness she feels around you!”

Kakashi stared at him, he was used to Naruto and his speeches and rants, but he never thought he’d ever be on the receiving end of one. His shoulders slumped forward as he hung his head low. “What if you’re wrong? What if she had drank too much or she’s just vulnerable right now? Maybe I do try, but what if Sasuke does come back?” He laughed disdainfully. “Can you really tell me she wouldn’t run right back to him?”

“She wouldn’t have been crying at my house over you if she felt anything for him anymore! Can’t you just try to let her in! You can’t possibly think she would hurt you? And I assure you she doesn’t think you’re disgusting… And neither do myself nor Hinata.”

“I can’t. I can’t risk losing someone else, Naruto. What if I tell her and she’s disgusted? You have to understand that, don’t you? Besides, almost everyone I’ve ever cared for has died. If she...”

Naruto sighed, the fact that Kakashi has said as much as he had is shocking. He’d never tell Sakura.

“Let’s have breakfast two weeks from now. Okay, Kakashi?” Naruto gave him a smile. “We’ll think of something!”

Kakashi sighed, after finishing telling Sakura about that day.

Sakura just kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He gripped her hips tight and held her close, eagerly returning this kiss. He was still a little worried for them, but he couldn’t be convinced it wasn’t worth a try when she was right here in his arms.

Sakura’s mind was reeling. Kakashi told Naruto he had loved her before any of this had started. Naruto had told her to go tell Kakashi that she had loved him, assuring her that it hadn’t been a mistake, that he would have been happy for them. He had almost set it up. Did he even know that it was the same day Sasuke left?

“Kakashi, I love you. You’re not disgusting, you’re human.” She said as she slowly parted from their kiss. “And… I’m sorry that Naruto came over threatening you.”

He laughed now. “It wasn’t so great then. I still find it crazy how he gets people to open up and do the right thing, but I’m thankful he got through to one of us...” He scratched the back of his head. “Remind me to never get either of you too angry.”

She giggled slightly and pecked his lips again. “Perhaps we should tell our team mate that he can rest easy with his self given mission to get us together…”

And just like that, an obnoxious pound came on the door. “Kakashi!” Naruto's voice rang through the door with giddiness.

“It’s open, Naruto.” Kakashi said with a smile.

He held Sakura tightly. He couldn’t ever have felt happier than he did now. He had someone to love, that also loved him. And really he’d developed quite a circle of people he cared about. He couldn’t wait to see Naruto’s happiness that he had succeeded in helping him and Sakura finally admit they loved each other.

Naruto burst into his team leader’s apartment. “Listen, I told you! Has Saku---” And then stopped dead when he saw Kakashi, with Sakura in his arms and both of them beaming.

“I was just coming to see if she told you!!” Naruto exclaimed excitedly. “Ohmygod, Hinata is gonna be so glad to hear this!” He ran over to them and hugged them. “Finally! See, Sakura, I told you!!!” He laughed and squeezed them harder.

Sakura smiled but quickly shoved him off. “Okay, okay! I know…” She laughed and leaned her head against Kakashi’s chest. “It seemed that you knew a little more than you let on though, Naruto.”

Naruto scratched the back of his head a little bit. “What can I say! I was only trying to help.”

Naruto looked at them, smiling and wrapped up in each other. They looked so genuinely happy. For once, two people he had seen go through so much, a lot of which they had been through together, were fully smiling and it was because of love, the one thing he truly feels everyone deserves.

“So, am I gonna become an uncle!” Naruto clapped his hands together excitedly.

Sakura’s face turned dark into a crimson shade. “Naruto!”

“Oh, come on. Don’t act all shy, I highly doubt he hasn’t taken you already Sakura!” He giggled mischievously and she just hid her face in Kakashi’s chest while the white haired nin just smirked to himself. “If you’re so eager for those nieces and nephews you better scat, Naruto.” He chuckled as he hoisted Sakura over his shoulders and started heading to his bedroom.

“Oh, come on! Don’t even think of doing it in my hearing range!!” Naruto shrieked before running out of the apartment.

The blonde ran right back to his own apartment, more than ready to eat something and try to forget the idea of two of his closest friends making him nieces and nephews. Even if he wanted them, he has absolutely no interest in witnessing the process.

He strolled through the streets of Konoha, wondering what he felt like eating for dinner this evening.. The sky was now completely dark, and the stars were shining. He brought his hands up behind his head and sighed softly. The breeze rustled his hair, and made the fabric strips of his headband flow with the wind. “I can’t believe it took them so long!”

“N-Naruto!” A dark haired kunoichi called out softly from Ichiraku’s as he approached, her face tinting pink.

“Hinata!” He hurried the rest of the way to his favourite shop. “What are you doing here?” He grinned ear to ear. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe what finally happened!”

Hinata watched him lovingly even as she still blushed from his presence, excited to see him once again. “I figured you’d come here for dinner!” She giggled lightly. “But what happened, Naruto? Is everything okay?”

Naruto sat on the stool next to her and shrugged slightly. “I was actually wanting something sweet, but you know I’ll never turn down ramen! Especially from Teuchi!” He grinned and then straightened his back out once again. “But Kakashi and Sakura are finally together!”

“Wait, you mean…?” Hinata perked up from her seat and watched him for a moment.

“Yeah, like, they finally admitted each other’s feelings for each other!”

“Oh Naruto, that's so amazing! I was so worried for Sakura.” She sighed. “So, it was that easy? Do you know what even happened?”

“Uh… Well.” He chuckled nervously. “No, not really but I may have had a chat with Kakashi a couple weeks ago after I found Sakura crying with you that one day.” He scratched the back of his head. “But it turned okay! And then when he didn’t show up to breakfast, I asked Sakura about it and convinced her to tell him!” He scoffed. “Because there was no way Kakashi was going to tell her.”

He thought about the day it had been. Initially, he had not meant to plan it on the day Sasuke had left town all that time ago. However, he figured that even though the pain was still there, that it shouldn’t change him trying to help the people that he still had here, find the happiness they very well deserved.

Hinata just hummed softly in response. “How long do you think they have loved each other?” She thought for a moment herself.

Sakura had always been attached to Team 7, but she had specifically grown close to Kakashi it seemed after he saved her from Sasuke. She doubted that Kakashi would have had feelings for her then though because they were only about 16 then. That was roughly four years ago. Kakashi was too much of a good man to leer at underage girls. Then again, he never really seemed to leer at all.

Hinata continued thinking more and more about it. They had really become inseparable maybe in the last year. She would always hear Sakura telling her about something they had done or find them training together. Sometimes she ran into them around the village.

Naruto watched her and pondered the same thing. He hadn’t thought about it before. “Well, I think it honestly snuck up on Kakashi, but he said about a year ago. And I definitely don’t think he ever really planned on acknowledging it at first.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He was disgusted with himself. And he was also convinced she still loved Sasuke.”

Hinata frowned slightly. “How could he have thought that when she’s always so much more… Content around him.”

Naruto shrugged. “Kakashi is one mystery I have yet to solve, but something tells me Sakura might know. Tsunade mentioned one time that almost everyone he’s ever been close to has died. And if he blames himself for them the same way he blames himself for Sasuke, I’ll bet getting romantically involved with someone was terrifying…”

“Did he say as much as well…?”

Naruto thought for a moment before nodding slightly. “He said he couldn’t lose someone else…” He smiled. “I don’t think it’s easy to pinpoint when either of them fell, but I’d say for her it had to be in the last year because that’s when Sakura really started to seem happier, and he was less likely to be found reading Pervy Sage’s books, and more likely to be found wherever she was.”

Hinata nodded. “I don’t think Sakura was fully aware but I think she’s had some sort of feelings for him since he saved her from Sasuke after she went off on her own to kill him…”

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe… She didn’t start to seem better around him until the last year as well really. But she had been so determined to better herself and to bring Sasuke home, I don’t know if she truly realized her feelings when they began.”

“That sounds about right, Naruto.” Hinata said happily as Teuchi brought their order to them, always knowing what they would get.

“So, Kakashi and Sakura huh?” He smiled his usual closed eyed smile.

Naruto nodded as he took a huge bite of his ramen. “Yeah! It only took them a year to figure it out.”

Time Skip - Two Days

Ino sat at the entrance of the village, waiting for Choji to come back from his mission. She was a little nervous, holding the letter Asuma had given to her from the Akimichi man. She fiddled with the end of her skirt with one hand, re-reading the letter once again.

Dearest Ino,

I know we are supposed to have lunch tomorrow, but Lady Tsunade is sending me and Dad on a mission and we had to leave as soon as possible. I asked Asuma to give you this letter for me so you knew I didn’t stand you up.

I wish I could tell you in person, but I get too nervous everytime I’ve tried. Truth is though Ino, I love you. I’ve loved you since we were 12 and you were all about Sasuke, and then I loved you still when you were falling for Shikamaru. I know I’m not cool and mysterious, and or a lazy genius, but I’ve always wanted the best for you and for you to be happy. It hurts so much to see you hurting so much, but I would do everything I could to make you the happiest girl if you’d give me a chance.

I know how much you like to eat healthy, so if you’d like to go on a date, meet me at Ichiraku’s around 5p on Sunday, we should be back by then. Naruto said they have some new low carb recipe that Sakura said tasted really good so I thought maybe you would want to try it?

With Much Love,

Choji

Ino gripped the paper tighter, it getting wrinkled more in one spot from the way she held it. How could she not realize Choji’s feelings for her all this time? She never had a second thought about it until Sakura said something and Asuma confirmed it. Of course Asuma knows, we all trust him with every aspect of our lives.

She felt her heart clench everytime she read his comparisons of himself to Sasuke and Shikamaru. All this time he had loved her, he had to watch her yearn for someone else. She was inflicting the very pain on him that Shikamaru had given her, not that either of them meant to.

She never really thought about Choji romantically. But ever since she read the letter, she couldn’t help but smile. He had always been there when she needed him without question. He’d always respected her and made her feel valid. He always made her happy and even paid attention to little things like how she wanted to eat. He cared about her in ways she’d never had someone care for her before. He was strong and kind and determined and loyal.

Over the last few days, she began to realize that a guy like Choji would be the exact kind of guy she would want to spend her life with, someone who made her feel like she mattered.

Feet shuffling on the dirt road startled her out of her thoughts and she looked up, making eye contact with dark brown eyes. She gave a shy smile. “Welcome back, Choji!”

Choza gave her a curious look but stood back, letting his son approach his best friend’s daughter. He’d know for a long time Choji had loved her, but was never sure if she’d ever come around. He watched the situation with hopes for his son.

Choji grinned and watched her with curiosity. “You waited at the gate for me?” He glanced at the note in her hand, instantly recognizing the paper he handed to Asuma two days ago. “Oh, so you really read it? I.. I uh wasn’t sure if-”

“Choji, of course I read it!” She strided over to him, folding it and slipping it into her pouch as she took her steps. “I’ve read it more times than I can count…”

She grabbed his hand and beamed at him. “Why wouldn’t I read a note from my teammate, especially when it was given to me by our sensei?”

She knew he would have probably been surprised. He always doubted himself even just a little bit still, no matter how much they tried to build him up. She also knew that he definitely had to have compared himself to others as more than just ninja but as men in her life. She wanted to make him see that he was just as amazing as any of them, especially for how kind he was.

She looked at him for a few moments, watching the way the armor he wore laid across his shoulders, the red fabric flowing with the breeze around his legs. How he wore the Akimichi clan symbol across his chest, just like Choza.

He flushed and gently squeezed her hand. “Well, I knew it was probably sort of obvious…”

Ino leaned her head against his shoulder. “Well, actually, it hadn’t been obvious to me. Apparently everyone else knew though, thinking back on Sakura and Asuma telling me over lunch that you ‘cared’ for me.”

“Well, do you want to go to Ichiraku right now?” He grinned happily. “I’m starving.”

“You just got back from a mission!” She stood back and placed her hands on her hips. “Don’t you want something barbeque? I know you’ve probably lived off of chips the last two days. I’ve tried to stop worrying about diets anyway. Training keeps me fit as can be!”

“If you’re okay with it, then of course I want barbeque!” He smiled.

She grabbed his hand again and began walking towards his favourite restaurant. “Hey, Choji…” She gazed at him happily. “Thank you for always being there for me, and caring for me even when I couldn’t see it.”

His cheeks flushed again and he held her hand tightly. “I’ll always care about you, Ino…” He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged it off. “There’s uh… No need to thank me for that.”

He watched her, seeing her beaming smile at him. It made his heart flutter. Could she really be looking at him like that, in that same starry way she used to look at Shikamaru? How did it change so quickly? Is she being serious? No, of course she is, Ino would never hurt him intentionally, he knew that.

“I was just.” Her smile faltered a little bit. “I’m sorry that I never noticed sooner. It had to be painful…” She looked towards the sky, the clouds passing them by overhead. “But when I realized, it just clicked. There is nothing more I’d ever look for in a guy than someone like you, Choji.”

“R-Really? What’s so special about me?”

“You’re kind and caring. You’re strong and determined to always be your best. And you always do the right thing, even when it’s hard for you. You’ve always been there for the people you care about.”

Choji stared at Ino in awe. He would have never thought anyone would ever have said such nice things with him, and especially her. Sometimes she even seemed like she would never even think to look in his direction romantically. She had even seemed mean to him sometimes when they were growing up, he’d almost given up hope for ever being able to be with her.

“Thank you, Ino…” He brought her close and gently kissed her forehead. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“Of course, Choji!” She chuckled lightly. “Now, come on!” Ino dragged him into the barbeque restaurant and got them a table with the host. “They have some kind of ‘low fat’ dish here I heard, and I know how much you love it here so I figured it would be the perfect chance to try it! Even if I don’t fully diet anymore, it hurts my stomach to eat too many carbs after avoiding them for so long.”

He beamed. “That makes perfect sense, and the tab is mine.”

Shikamaru passed by the restaurant to see them through the window, laughing and talking. Ino seemed to be giddy and Choji’s face was red. Temari was with him and she peered inside and smiled. “Hey, looks like the big guy scored now too, huh?”

“Ino is gonna be such a drag for him.” Shikamaru sighed but a small smile graced his lips. “I’m glad she finally realized and gave him a chance…” He watched as Ino slowly slid her foot up Choji’s leg, his best friend’s face reddening even more and he chuckled. “Ah yes, the confident and the insecure would make the balance on the scale now wouldn’t it…”

An hour had passed now as they finished eating and Ino just couldn’t stop smiling. She watched as Choji ate his normal amount of food, and even what was left of hers. She never did understand how he has such an appetite but he never made comments about her lack of one like other guys had in the past. She appreciated that bit so much, his respect for the way she wanted to eat, and her own for his.

She gently reached across the table to wipe off the access sauce from the corners of his mouth with her fingers. She slowly brought them back to her lips, and slowly slid her tongue across the surface, licking up the barbeque sauce, whilst keeping full eye contact with Choji the whole time, enjoying the way his eyes slightly widened and how red he turned.

“Choji, would you come home with me tonight?” She asked in a serious tone. She was definitely teasing on purpose, but she didn’t want to make him feel used either.

“O-Oh?” He stammered. “I mean of course, anything you want. I’d be glad to, I just uh…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think you would want to uh...Yeah.” He fished money out from his wallet and quickly set it out on the table.

Ino got up and glided to his side, whispering softly in his ear. “I want to be with you Choji, and I meant it.” She gently nipped his ear and spoke in a normal tone. “But only with whatever you’re comfortable with.” She gave him a small peck on the cheek before sauntering towards the door.

She heard a cat call and was about to turn to see who it had been to shoot daggers in their direction before she felt Choji’s arm on her waist, pulling her close. “Let’s go, lovely.” He smiled down at her and she just pressed into his side.

They walked to her house in silence. It was comfortable. Ino ran her hands up and down his back, appreciating the muscle she felt as his body tensed slightly. He gave her nervous smiles and rubbed uncertain circles into her hips. As they got to her room, she felt her start pounding, becoming a bit self conscious. It was no secret she had slept with a lot of guys, and she was fairly certain Choji hadn’t been with anyone to her knowledge. Did he have any judgements towards her? Was she moving this too fast for him? She didn’t want to make him feel pressured.

She held his hand as they walked to her room, trepidation starting to overwhelm her. As they entered her room, he shut the door gently. He sat on her mattress, it bouncing slightly in response. He pulled her into him and kissed her softly. She responded instantly, bringing her hands up to cup his face. Her eyes slid closed and she hummed contentedly as he moved little awkwardly against her mouth, she could still sense his uncertainty.

“Choji,” She spoke softly against his lips before pulling away. “We don’t have to do anything, if you’re not comfortable. I don’t want you to feel pressured…” She looked down. “Or like we’re moving too fast…”

He stared at her before taking two fingers and using them to raise her chin and look at him. “There’s nothing I don’t want to do with you…” He smiled softly. “But I can’t help but feel a little… Inexperienced.” He kissed her again, a little more firmly this time. “I haven’t done this, and…” He turned red as Ino was sliding her hands up his shirt.

“I was inexperienced once too, babe…” She gave him a sly grin before kissing his jawline.

“But uh,” He groaned slightly. “I’m not like other guys…” He grabbed the hem of his shirt, keeping it down before she could pull it up any further.

Ino stopped and stared at him a moment. He was handsome and strong. He didn’t have super defined muscles or abs but he was still sexy if you had asked her. She had wondered for years why there weren’t women all over him. He was tall and built well and approachable. His hair was thick and long even if it was messy it had suited him. “You’re right.” She pushed him back on her bed, and positioned herself on top of him, straddling his hips. She brought her hands up to her ponytail and slowly pulled it down.

He stared at her, mortified at what she said. “H-Hey…” He started. “I’m sorry, I just-”

“She put a finger over his lips and leaned down, her hair brushing the side of his face. “You’re way better.” She kissed him passionately, bringing her hands to rest on the side of his neck.

Choji kissed her back right away, moving his hands to her hips. He couldn’t believe it. She thought he was better? That he looked better? She was on top of him and he couldn’t help but begin to feel turned on by the way her hips shifted over his or how soft her lips felt as he kissed her. He’d waited seven years to show her how he loved her and she was all over him now and he couldn’t think to even know what to do.

She slid off her top, now just in the wrappings around her chest and her skirt. He tried not to gawk, not wanting to be disrespectful at all. Suddenly he felt her hands on his and she was guiding them along her torso, and hooking his fingers on the wrappings. They slid away and then back up his torso, lifting his shirt from his body. He shivered slightly at her touch, she was so confident and open, something he always loved about her. He felt hot all over as he sat up, letting her lift his shirt over his head, and held her in his lap. He pushed back just as firm into the kiss, gently nipping her bottom lip as soon as she slid her tongue across his bottom lip.

She moaned and there was never a noise he couldn’t imagine that could have sounded better. He gripped her hips and pushed his own up into her without thinking, rubbing his hardening length against her core. Once again, a moan fell from her lips and it was enough to give him confidence to keep going. He fumbled with the wrappings, eventually getting them unwound from her chest. He moved his kisses down her jawline and nipped at her neck.

“Choji,” She sighed softly and ran her fingers through his hair. “Please, don’t stop.” She bucked her hips against his and he felt her grip tighten on his strands as she grinded herself against him.

He groaned, trying to restrain himself. He moved his hands from her hips up to cup her breasts and gently kneaded them, holding his thumbs over her hardening buds. “God, you’re so beautiful…” He whispered softly before placing a kiss on her collarbone.

Ino flushed red, the raw honesty in his voice catching her off guard. She’d been called hot and sexy, a 10, and so on. But she’d never felt like someone meant it so sincerely and truly believed she was beautiful. She ran her hands down his torso slowly, loving how smooth his skin was before coming to the waistband of his pants. “So are you, Choji…” She panted.

He rolled her over onto the bed. “Are you for sure about this?” He looked into her sea colored eyes. “I want this, I love you, but I don’t want you to think you have to be with me…” She placed a hand on her cheek, pressing his hips into hers again, moaning in response.

Ino threw her head back onto the mattress as he grinded against her again before nodding. “Yes, I want this. I want you. Please, Choji.” She tugged his pants down and backed up a bit onto the bed.

Choji eagerly followed her, and quickly slid off her skirt, and settled himself between her thighs as he kicked off his pants. “I hope it won’t be horrible…”

She smiled before reaching up and kissing him softly. She wrapped her legs around his hips, bringing him closer to her, feeling the tip of his length at her entrance and she whined into the kiss as soon as he made contact. “I need you…” She whimpered.

Choji bit his lip, he had dreamt of this moment so long, but it was still hard to realize this was real. He slid his tongue into her mouth at the same time he slowly entered her. He moaned long and low as he sunk himself into her. “Fuck, Ino…” He buried his face into her shoulder and took long, deep breaths. He wouldn’t last like this, and he had to make her at least climax once, damnit.

She gripped his shoulders and let out a moan. “Oh my god…” She moved her hips against his and moaned again. “Choji please, I need it.” She knew he was probably struggling being his first time but she wasn’t going to be offended if he came fast, it was expected. “It’s okay, I know but please, move.” She begged and stroked his hair.

He kissed her shoulder and slowly rocked his hips into hers, finding a rhythm she seemed like that didn’t drive him over the edge. She was so soaked, and it was for him. He slid his hand down her side and down to her clit, rolling it with thumb. “Does that feel okay?” He asked.

Ino was panting and squeezing his shoulders. The slow pace felt so much more amazing with him than it ever could have before. He was so caring and gentle. She loved feeling so taken care of. And then she shivered as his hand ran down her side, and when he started rolling her clit she started squirming and moaning all over again. “Fuck, Choji…” She whined and bucked her hips up involuntarily. “Oh, my god.”

He watched her writhing under him from his touch and only made him harder. She was even wetter and she was so tight around him as he moved. Every time she moaned it drove him even closer to the edge. He began to thrust more firmly. He stopped playing with her clit and pinned her hips to the bed. “Tell me if this hurts and I’ll stop, I just..” He moaned. “Oh, Ino you’re amazing.

“Don’t you dare stop!” She threw her head back and moaned loudly, the sounds of her pleasure and their skin slapping filling the room. “Faster, Choji, please…” She whined and he just obliged, wrapping her arms around her and rocking his hips into her as fast he could, holding her tightly.

She could feel her body tensing, she was so close. She brought her arms around to his back, digging her nails into his skin. Her legs squeezed his hips as hard as she could as she was reaching her limit. “Choji…” She panted.

He kissed her, sliding his tongue into her mouth, feeling every bit of bold now. She kissed him back, swiping her tongue along his. “Ino…” He moaned into the kiss and swirled his tongue around her. He slid his fingers into her hair and pulled firmly and began leaving hot kisses down her jawline and neck. “I love you.”

Her back arched and she moaned out his name. She writhed under his touches and met every motion of his hips against her own. She ran her hands through his hair, tugging at the strands. “Choji, I…” She bit her lip. She couldn’t say it back yet, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“I know, baby.” His hips jerks and his body tensed. “Fuck.” He gripped her hips hard, leaving bruises. “Ino, I’m…” He groaned as he felt her tighten around him and quickly pulled out just before his release. He rolled over onto his back, his eyes closed in bliss. He panted, trying to catch his breath.

Ino snuggled up to him, laying her head on his chest. She gave his chest a few pecks before smiling at him. “So, how was it for your first?”

His eyes slid open and looked at her. She looked absolutely stunning, even with her blonde locks a mess and her makeup a little smudged from sweat. Her eyes sparkled and she looked so happy, laying in her bed with him. “Better than I ever dreamed…” He said honestly as he wrapped his arm around her and held her close.

“It was amazing.” She traced patterns in his chest, sighing contently.

He smiled and just held her, pulling the blankets over them. “Do you mind if.... If I stayed here with you tonight..?”

He flushed at the thought but he really loved being with her, and he was so comfortable holding her in bed. To feel her warmth and how welcoming she was to him, it was one of the nicest feelings he’d ever had.

“Of course you can stay.” She wrapped her leg around his and laid her arm over his torso before letting her eyes slip closed. “I’d love that…”

He held her close as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe he was really with Ino now. That he had lost his virginity to her, that she never even blinked or had a second thought. He knew he’d always been insecure but he was really surprised that she desired him so much. He didn’t think he’d ever make a woman feel that way. He kissed her forehead before falling asleep, holding her tightly.

#kakasaku #kakashi x sakura #sakura x kakashi #sakura haruno #kakashi hatake #kakasaku fanfiction #kakasaku lemon #kayparkerwrites #trauma #depression #friendship #hurt/comfort #romance #lemon #naruto #naruto fanfiction

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shikadainara · 3 years

Text

an in-depth breakdown of b*ruto episode 178

sorry i’m late i was lost on the path of life

tl;dr yeah ok i can have my hopes and dreams about what specifically i would want but. BUT. honestly yeah the episode was more or less what i expected would actually be in it from the preview, so i can’t complain. i still sobbed!!! that’s all i really wanted!!

time to rewatch it! (warning: long post. LOL)

obviously this is nothing new but i still can’t get over how nice the exterior to the nara household is, good for them. i don’t think i noticed the solar panel before? good for them!

i’m entertained at how the episode does open with shikadai tying his hair as he walks, i just think it’s neat. i love how the camera frames it like seeing a nara with their hair down is something forbidden we’re not mean to see

temari has purple slippers i dedicate her commitment to her favorite color. (also i am Just Saying... purple........ the bisexual flag--)

yeahhhh ok so. i get the need for wanting to frame the narrative like this, but this really doesn’t make any sense. shikadai is 12, and is also a chuunin, like... he should know by now that his dad is always kinda a mess on this day of the year, and why that is. and even if he honestly really did just forget, the fact that he’s still asking his dad why he’s not at work while looking at the way his parents are dressed... did this not clue you in or what????

the fact that shikamaru’s up and ready (i really don’t think he gets much sleep on this day, every year...), and it’s shikadai who’s just getting up. i do think it’s cute that we do get to see a tiiiiiny bit of temari’s parenting that doesn’t involve being an out of character irrationally angry woman when she tells shikadai to not come crying to her when he’s late in getting ready, yeah that definitely sounds way more like her lol

temari says she told him about all of this the other day (shikadai blatantly forgot, he tries to pretend he didn’t but she doesn’t press him for it)... that does make me emotional thinking like. she is pretty painfully aware of how hard this is on shikamaru, and days in advance told shikadai about it, to try to make sure he understands what his father is going through........ she really does care about him so, so much.

i said this based off the preview, but... i would like to interpret that temari is purposefully doing the dishes(/rest of house chores) to give him space to grieve.......

the fact that while explaining what today is, shikamaru has to get up, leave the room, and talk while not facing his family, as if he wouldn’t be able to say the words as easily while looking at them........ god. that. that hurts.

tsunade being the one to give this speech kinda feels random? like yeah she was the one that was kage during the war but...? i do feel like it would have been more fitting to have naruto say the speech since the whole entire point of the war was to protect him (and bee) but ????? ok

no one in the uzumaki family talks during this episode which is fine by me LOL. i would assume the memorial is on the day the war ended (which would also make it naruto’s birthday/memorial of the kyuubi invasion) but if it is, it’s never stated. maybe it’s the day the war started, idk

the collection of people up front feels pretty random??? kakashi as the previous hokage, sure, guy i guess because of how important his contribution the war against madara was and also because he is kakashi’s husband, shizune kinda has to be there if tusnade is, but... iruka? like yeah he is vital to the narrative, but to konoha? he is the headmaster of the academy i think now so i guess...? but then? ibiki??? anko??? i say this as someone that REALLY loves anko, she was my favorite character as a kid and i still love her but,,, huh? SHE WAS KNOCKED OUT DURNG THE WHOLE WAR!!??!?

then you see everyone that was in naruto’s class + team guy + sai except hinata is in the crowd. which of course to the narrative, to us the readers, those are the main characters (if you ignore how more or less everyone was super shafted throughout all of part 2) but!!! team guy’s only real connection to the rest of them is that they took the chuunin exams together, and neji and hinata were are cousins. that’s about it. was it that specifically all of these characters made such a contribution to the war compared to every other single shinobi from konoha that lived ??????

shikamaru staring up to the sky did made my heart clench... no matter how different he is now than he was when he was a 12 year old genin...... i do feel like he’s never entirely ditched his true self of just wanting to stare at the clouds all day.... i’m not entirely sure what the intent was here, but i’m sure there’s supposed to be some symbolism here. the sky is actually nearly entirely clear (the way is framed, there’s only a tiny cloud in the corner,) and then he closes his eyes and hums. maybe it’s supposed to be about the closure he gets in this episode...

ok and then here’s ao cool whatever. since i only skim through b*ruto for the characters that i care about i do not really careeeee since i won’t watch again until something interesting happens to said characters that i care about LOL

?? who voiced the receptionist they sound familiar but i can’t place it at all

katasuke is the bitch that made the scientific ninja tool for b*ruto so he could cheat in the exam right

what is ao doing here. is he supposed to be doing something evil. it sure looks that way

... who is the glasses orange scarf guy??? he kinda looks like a mix between udon and ebisu and aoba but i know he’s not any one of them lol

TEMARI AND KARUI STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER... i don’t think in any media they’ve ever??? ACTUALLY TALKED TO EACH OTHER???? BUT THEY SHOULD BE CLOSE FOR THE OBVIOUS REASON....... I’LL TAKE THESE CRUMBS THOUGH THANK YOU

OKKKKK admittedly like. in terms of Pleasing Me, Personally, it’s a damned if you do, dammed if you don’t situation like.... they do kinda HAVE to acknowledge that neji died during the war so. i appreciate that hinata like........ cares. i guess. i’ll try to not post the whole rant about why neji’s death was (logistically how he died aside) narratively and thematically absolute bullshit, kishi (i believe) saying that neji died so he could play cupid for naruto and hinata like!!! fuck off with that shit!!! maybe if it wasn’t for the goddamn “naruto-kun’s big warm manly hand” line i would feel a little bit actual sad but no.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOSHINO AND CHOUZA HELLO!?!?!?!? COULD YOU REALLY NOT HAVE PUT THEM IN THE CROWD??

ino also has an unnamed mother that the anime made up that i believe was only in like a single episode (and was cameoed in RtN i think?) but she should still be like. Alive. so her too.

MITSUKI PLACING FLOWERS IS SO FUNNY TO ME LIKE YOU DO KNOW YOUR PARENT’S SUBORDINATE/DOUBLE CROSS TRAITOR WHATEVER DID CAUSE THE WAR RIGHT BFIOBU*EHW$

aaand. here’s shikamaru and ino’s conversation. i’m not sure if i can put this into words, but... just... the way that they talk to each other, the weight of 15+ years of sadness about this, the way that they just!! fully know what the other is going through, the way that they’ve known each other for their whole lives and survived through everything together, the way i feel like they’ve avoided talking about this topic as much as possible over the years, hell even during this conversation the way they’re almost bickering to avoid having to directly confront their feelings, but it is unavoidable.......

i also do wonder what their relationship with each other’s parents were while growing up: shikamaru does refer to inoichi as “inoichi-san” here, contrast to how their kids all call each other’s parents just “uncle” or “aunt”

siri play sad naruto flute.

ok since i did go back to rewatch the episode from shippuden right before watching this one for the first time i do wish a liiiittle less of the episode was about this flashback with the same reused footage like i get that they do have to put it in here but Still.

THE FACT THAT SHIKAMARU IS SMILING WHILE RECALLING WHAT HAPPENED, AND THAT THERE’S A LAUGH IN HIS VOICE........ I WANT TO CRY AGAIN

ino saying that it was so unfair how cool they looked in the end, and then giggles...... ino............. this must be so, so painful for her to recall, and yet.........

IT IS SO FUNNY HOW THEY SKIP OVER THE IMAGE OF SASUKE THERE AHAHAHAHA god i hated that so so much i can’t believe that’s manga canon. the line is perfectly fine and makes me cry just DO NOT RELATE IT TO SASUKE!!!! literally the only time they “”interact”” is when ino is introduced and ino just, for lack of a better word, glomps him???? THAT’S IT??? i feel like they might’ve changed it just because, well, you know the endgame pairings. but still. bye sasuke

damn you know what i do kinda wish they didn’t skip over the “get rid of that box before your mother finds it” part i AM curious as to what it was i mean it’s implied it’s something adult related so SP probably couldn’t show that on TV BUT!!!

ok ok all week i tried to not imagine what shikamaru and ino’s conversation would be since i wanted to go all “surprise me!!” BUT??? BUT. SHIKAMARU ASKING INO IF SHE THINKS THAT THEIR FATHERS HONESTLY, TRULY BELIEVED IN THEM?? HE’S BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT ON EVERY SINGLE DAY THIS YEAR THESE PAST 15+ YEARS, AND SURELY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN AT THE BACK OF HIS MIND ALL THIS TIME!?!?! of course. OF COURSE HE WOULD FEEL THIS WAY!!! HE’D HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING FOR SURE OR EVER FINDING OUT!!! like of course we as the readers know that shikaku and inoichi absolutely 200% felt that way but... from his perspective... you know what i don’t even think this idea ever crossed my mind HOLD ON THAT IS THE SOUND OF MY HEART SHATTERING--

and then he just... smiles. says that he won’t let that get him down, since it’s not like they’ll ever find out anyways. sure, it’s been 15+ years, he has had to have largely come to terms with everything by now, but...... still....

then he talks about the idea that the day will come and leave everything in the hands of their sons (now looking over at team 10′s turn to place flowers) just like their dads did... it is worded like a question, but showtaro morikubo’s absolute masterful performance does. it does portray a tone like he is absolutely 100% sure that it’ll happen, one day...

i’ve said this before but. i KNOW shikamaru has definitely spent so much time thinking about this. sure it hasn’t ever really been brought up on-screen (yet), but....... i want to see him talking about a direct contrast on what his grand plan through life he thought of by age 12, ending with him passing away by old age. obviously he did a complete 180 on they type of person he wanted as a wife LOL. it is kinda brought up at the start of shikamaru hiden while he visits the grave, says he hasn’t found anyone he’d give his life to protect... (well. now he has a son where if you see the recent chapters he is very, VERY protective of.) but i would like to see this change in his character be directly be brought up and examined

........ that being SAID. i sure hope neither of them actually like. die. i’m GOOD, thank you. they sure as hell can’t until they’re ready to pass things down to their sons, at least. until then, absolutely zero narrative reason to do so, but...... still. we don’t need to make everything an EXACT copy of what happened in naruto you can let them live kthx

they both say “what kind of half-baked response is that!” and then laugh just. I LOVE THEM SO SO MUCH TEAM 10 IS FOREVER

there is some symbolism in how ao walks over from a really dark shadowy area into the light when he decides that he has to pay his respects...

i do like how he does reflect on how he really should have come here earlier, but better late than never i suppose

i was expecting a... more elaborate explanation for how he lived??? especially since he was standing RIGHT NEXT to shikaku and inoichi... he just. happened to survive for whatever reason while every single other person died on impact

that survivor’s guilt does hurt to see

i do like seeing how he chooses to do something with his life, aside from being a shinobi, and live it to the fullest for the sake of everyone that died in the explosion. that’s nice

ino saying “i’m sure are fathers are happy!” AAAAAAAAAAA

IN HINDSIGHT....... I ABSOLUTELY SOULD’VE PREDICTED SOMEONE WOULD DROP A “YOU LOOK SO MUCH LIKE YOUR FATHER” AT SOME POINT IN THE EPISODE...... and. i did kinda chuckle, because like, no shit duh lmao. i’m sure shikamaru heard that all the time as a kid!!! and hell, i’m sure he still gets it from time to time over the years up to this day. BUT LIKE... SHIKAMARU’S FACE. HE LOOKS LIKE THAT, RIGHT NOW, IT’S ACTUALLY SOMETHING HE REALLY, REALLY NEEDED TO HEAR. LET ME CRY

hearing shikamaru say oyaji, and then the way his tone suddenly shifts to something very... quiet and somber? when he says “nara shikaku”..... something about that. man.... also it’s hard to see but there is a sweat drop on his face as he says all of this...

“sometimes, i end up wondering...” don’t lie to yourself. you think about this so, so much........

the flashback where ao says “listen to me calmly” when he says the bomb is coming this way sure reminds me of ino telling shikamaru to stay calm as she tells him that his son has a bomb around his neck

THE ADDED PART OF THE FLASHBACK WITH THEIR VERY LAST MOMENTS...... THE WAY THEY’RE SMILING AND JUST??? BELIEVE IN THEIR KIDS IN THE VERY END. just like how it’s described in shikamaru hiden where the narrative says that shikaku was a shinobi until his very last breaths-- actually, no. in the very end he was a father.......

“THEY BELIEVED IN YOU, WITHOUT A HINT OF DOUBT.”

AAA?A?AAAAAAAAA?A?A?A??A!??!!??!!

INO STARTS TEARING UP BUT I CALL ABSOLUTE BS THAT SHIKAMARU WOULDN’T ALSO JUST BURST ONTO TEARS ON THE SPOT, HE MAY BE 32 WHATEVER YEARS OLD NOW BUT... HE IS STILL SUCH A CRYBABY AT HEART, HIS ENTIRE CIRCLE OF LOVED ONES KNOW THIS.

you know who DID start crying though??? ME

i do wonder, is this the same hillside that shikamaru went to after asuma’s death...? (only in the manga tho, the anime had him on a rooftop instead)

is that??? someone watching them in the back left?? when shikadai finds him? i cannot tell what that is

i am. trying to follow temari’s logic of telling shikadai to go find shikamaru and... not also going with him?? i mean i figured from the preview that, yeah it does look like it’s only the two of them, but... i can’t come up with a reason. not a super big deal but. obviously my heart yearns for that shikatema content that’s ok i can write my own fanfic i guess!!!!

also like...... i imagine it can’t be THAT hard to find him, i’m sure that he only has a small handful of Spots Good For Coping(™) when he just needs to be by himself, that i would Think his wife would know where they are. and said wife would tell shikadai. but idk

after all of this, shikamaru wants to just treat his son to go eat out whatever he wants...!! what a good father

....... now like. the logic of “temari is currently making dinner and that’s why she’s a) not there and b) told shikadai to go fetch is father” would make perfect sense. but... if they’re going out to get food then... no?? shikadai would interject to say so if that was the case..... that makes this all make no sense seriously what the hell is she doing

i do wish that like. shikadai like.... uh. actually learned about more shikaku?? this scene is more brief than i thought it would be idk i felt like it would be part of the middle of the episode and not at the end, oh well. he’ll find out in due time

THAT BEING SAID... STILL. THE ENDING WHERE HE JUST CARES SO SO SO SO MUCH ABOUT SHIKADAI!!!! WONDERING IF HE’S WATCHING HIS BACK!!! I LOVE THEM I LOVE THEMMMMM

not quite sure whatever ao is doing at the end of the episode???? IS IT EVIL??? i mean like that it’s him catching a leaf seems like he’s going against konoha but i mean konoha fucking sucks so. that is not evil i guess LOL

whatever not like i’ll care to actually find out!!!!! anyways let me know when the nara family (or anyone adjacent to them) does anything so i can care LOL

in conclusion. good shit.

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