Chapter Text
The main house is in utter, abject chaos, the likes of which Mikoto can truly never recall before. If any of the elders ever saw any of them in this state, it might just kill the old coots.
Might be worth a try.
Mikoto shelves any vaguely mutinous thoughts for when her sitting room doesn’t look like somebody let the Kyuubi loose in it – and Mikoto has experienced the sort of destruction the kyuubi can do to her living room first hand, she knows – and tries to figure out where, exactly, to start.
At least Fugaku seems just as stupified as she is, as they’re both just standing in the doorway when surely they should be doing… something. It’s good, Mikoto decides. They’ve been fighting so much lately with the stress and the grief and the constant eyes on them and her husband’s unbelievable bullheadedness – best not to consider her own stubbornness in that accounting, not when she’s right and they both know it– so it’s good to have this clear, tangible moment of solidarity. A straightforward shared moment of bafflement.
Because the thing is, it’s first thing in the morning, and there’s nobody in the house besides Mikoto, Fugaku, and the boys. Somehow, someway, three very well-behaved boys – three prodigies, which she’s having trouble wrapping her head around at the moment – have managed to overturn furniture, spread the contents of their packs across every corner, and are all three in their own separate tailspins.
When did Shisui even get here? What is he even doing here? He’s officially meant to be headed off on a month-long mission to Frost at nine, and unofficially meant to be starting his ANBU examinations at nine-thirty. Why is he participating in the destruction of her house?
All three boys freeze when the pair of adults appear at the threshold. Then both Sasuke and Shisui start trying to explain at once, while Itachi just looks between his parents and puts up his hands helplessly, as if he doesn’t know how this happened, either.
Mikoto glances at her husband and stubbornly does not laugh. Fugaku’s got a better poker face than she does, but even if Mikoto wasn’t a jonin with jonin levels of perception, she’s been married to the man for almost a decade, he’s having just as much trouble not cracking as she is.
Well, good, then. He could afford to loosen up a little in the privacy of his own home. And if that thought sounds suspiciously like Kushina, nobody else hears it, anyway.
She strides into the room, sorting through the chaos with the practice of a woman who once had two younger brothers and still has three young boys. Shinobi rank and technical adult statuses and technical parentage be damned, Shisui is fifteen, Itachi is eight. They’re not yet men, they’re her boys. And boys, even well-behaved ones, are naturally predisposed to chaos.
So she retrieves Sasuke’s missing sock from where it’s wedged under a tipped-up arm chair, shooting a pointed glance at Fugaku to right the furniture, then takes Itachi’s hitai-ate from him, running it under water and polishes whatever was on it off with a kitchen towel.
“What possibly happened there?” she asks the boy. Itachi looks directly at Shisui.
“It was supposed to be for shining!” the eldest boy defends. Mikoto nods, frowning down at the headband.
“I suppose it might be a little shiner.” she concedes, handing it back to Itachi. “And don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asks. Shisui blushes.
“I, uh, the clasp on my kunai pouch broke this morning and – I know, bad luck, right? Anyway none of the shops open until nine and I have to be at the gate by nine so I thought I’d just see if I could borrow Itachi’s spare, just for this mission until I have time to get a new one. And then I had that paste that was supposed to be for polishing and Itachi was talking about making a good impression on his new team so I thought…” As Shisui rambles Mikoto goes to the supply closet, retrieves her own spare kunai pouch, threads the rings on the end of the knives along one finger, transfers the boy’s supply into the now empty pouch, and drops her own into the broken one. She’ll fix it later, and in the meantime it’s not like her spare is going to see the sort of use that requires a working clasp.
“There we go, that one ought to be a better fit than Itachi’s, at any rate.” She glances between Sasuke’s rogue sock, Itachi’s shiny hitai-ate – shiny, why does it need to be that shiny? It’s not like he needs to blind someone with it. It’s fine, it’s good to take pride in one’s appearance – and Shisui’s faulty equipment. Nods. Misfortune comes in threes, and now that they’ve knocked all three out first thing in the morning it’s shaping up to be a good day.
“Thanks, Mikoto-san.”
“Of course, now if nobody has any other crises?” none are forthcoming. “Good. Then, march, we have places to be.” The boys hurry to get their shoes on.
Fugaku smiles, coming up beside her. It’s always been a rare sight, moreso now than ever. It’s a shame, it’s such a handsome smile. “What would we do without you?” he murmurs.
“Oh, you’d survive somehow.”
“Perish the thought.”
She kisses his cheek as the boys head out the door, calling their goodbyes to the clan head as they go. “I have some errands to run while I’m near the market. I’ll bring Sasuke home with me.” Maybe she’ll stop by the memorial stone, with Kushina so close to mind today.
“All right, dear, have a nice day.”
“You as well.” It’s not quite an ‘I love you’, except for the ways in which it is. It’s not quite amends for the colder partings they’ve had more often than not in the last few years, except for the ways it’s exactly that.
She smiles back at him as she goes.
ooo
The academy brings several expected and several unexpected revelations.
Expected is the fact that the truly exceptional number of clan heirs and main line children are being clustered together into one class. It makes sense, the expectations and scrutiny for anyone teaching these kids will be much higher than an average class.
Expected, too, is the class being assigned to Funeno Daikoku, he’s one of the more experienced instructors in the academy, and he has experience with clan heirs from Itachi and Hana, though Mikoto doesn’t always think very well of how he handled them. It will be fine or it will be dealt with, and at the moment Mikoto has very little grounds to complain. Hopefully the man was only having a bad day, or at least has learned from embarrassing himself in front of two seated clan heads and their heirs. So that’s fine
Less expected, though Mikoto’s not sure why, it’s only logical, is the presence of one Uzumaki Naruto among the throngs of new students and their families. There’s her godson, who was supposed to be as close to her boys as a brother, making his way through crowds that watch him like he might bite. There’s Kushina’s precious baby, right there and out of reach and alone.
Or, not quite alone, actually. Once the shock of seeing him so close passes, Mikoto notices that Naruto is clutching the back of another boy’s shirt, the older boy creating a bubble in the crowd big enough for the two to move through. She doesn’t know this boy, she’s never seen him before in her life.
Itachi does. At least she assumes he does, by the way the other boy waves and starts making his way through the crowd towards them. Mikoto nudges her elder son urgently, “who is that?”
“Which one?”
“The older one.”
“Umino Iruka.”
“Isn’t that one of your new teammates?” Itachi nods, looking strangely comfortable with the idea, given he’s never been much of one for new friends.
Mikoto was a little concerned, when the decision came through that Itachi would be joining a pre-existing team with a recent opening due to a chunin promotion, rather than staying with his original sensei. She was never Minazuki’s biggest fan, didn’t like the way he looked at her son like he was jealous of a genin, but given the circumstances of the team’s dissolution, she thought having someone familiar on Itachi’s new team might help him adjust.
Apparently she needn’t have worried.
“Do you…know each other already?”
“Sort of. He’s Izumo and Kotetsu’s friend.”
Ah, so they’ve met through Hana. That would explain Itachi’s relative comfort with the situation. Good, good, that’s one less thing to worry about.
Sasuke makes a big production of sighing as Naruto spots them, too, and waves enthusiastically. “Do we have to?” Which…sounds like Sasuke knows Naruto. How on earth would Sasuke know Naruto? It’s not as though her children are often left to their own devices, and unless they’re regularly running into the village jinchuriki entirely unsupervised at the public park, the only place they regularly go is…
The Inuzuka compound. To see Hana, who knows Iruka, who’s leading Naruto through the crowd as they speak.
Okay. All right. Well, that’s…unexpected.
“Yes.” Itachi answers, poking his brother’s forehead fondly. “You’re in the same class.”
“He’s so loud.”
“So is Kiba.”
“Exactly.”
“You like Kiba,” Mikoto points out. Though ‘like’ might be a strong word. More accurately Sasuke ‘tolerates’ Kiba, or perhaps has simply been ‘stuck with’ Kiba for half his life, and has formed an alliance to get more precious time with their busy older siblings.
“Kiba’s fine a little bit at a time,” Sasuke concedes, “but both of them? All day?” Still, as dramatically reluctant as her four-year-old might be, he waves back. “Gonna be so loud,” he huffs, not looking nearly as annoyed as he’s capable of. She should see if she can get Sasuke into some acting classes, just to channel all of the drama somewhere productive.
Right, like that would ever get past the elders.
For the moment Mikoto just pats his shoulder and smiles as openly as she dares around this many critical eyes, not wanting to discourage the pair from approaching.
Not far from the Uchiha family, Iruka stops suddenly, looking down at his feet. They’re close enough that Mikoto can hear if she really strains her ears. Enough to hear the older boy ask “–you lost?”
Through gaps in the crowds the jonin can make out a little boy sitting on the ground, hair pulled back into a spiky ponytail. He shrugs. If he answers, it’s too quiet to hear.
Closer to eye level, a very familiar woman is weaving through the crowd, looking equal parts irritated and panicked. Mikoto nods to Nara Yoshino, and she starts heading their way as well.
Naruto offers the boy on the ground his hand. The kid makes no move to take it, tilting his head. Then he shrugs again, and lets Naruto pull him up. Never let it be said the Nara are not a consistent clan. That is textbook tired and bored, right there, like someone pulled pre-genin Shikaku right into the future.
The boys return to their trek, now with Iruka holding firmly onto each of the younger boys’ hands. “He seems like a reliable sort,” Mikoto notes to Itachi. Tacit approval, if nothing else, because the oppressive nature of the clan’s expectations since the Kyuubi attack have managed to train her boy into waiting for permission before making friends.
Mikoto used to love this clan with her whole heart. She misses being able to do that.
“He’s nice,” Itachi affirms.
Yoshino reaches them first. “Uchiha-sama,” she greets respectfully, nodding to each of the boys and generally pretending not to be as harried as Mikoto knows her to be, having known her so long.
“Nara-sama,” she responds, because she knows the game of masks as well as anyone else, and everyone is watching the head families for weakness, just for the sport of having them all together. It’s probably a security risk, honestly, to have this many powerful people and their vulnerable heirs out in the open. Mikoto has never spotted so many ANBU in one place outside of headquarters.
Yoshino leans a little closer, lowering her voice “have you seen–”
“I think I’m looking at him.” The Nara doesn’t quite spin, but it’s a near thing. Instead she casually adjusts her feet so she’s standing beside the other woman, rather than facing her. Out of the corner of her eye, Mikoto watches the moment Yoshino sees her son in the gradual relaxing of her shoulders. Which means she watches the moment Yoshino sees Naruto, watches the way the woman’s head turns just a little, just enough to catch Mikoto’s eye properly.
Yoshino knows exactly who that boy is.
The Nara doesn’t stiffen, no shade of the panic returns in seeing her son so close to Naruto. In fact, there’s a deliberate effort to the way she stays relaxed that wouldn’t register as meaningful to anyone but an elite jonin who already knows her tells, and that Mikoto knows is meant to communicate that she not only knows who the boy is, and who his parents are, and what he holds, but that she is absolutely not one of the ones who hates him for it.
Mikoto dips her chin, barely more than twitches, acknowledges that she understands. Non-verbal communication on the level of a pair of decorated intelligence officers, because anything more might be noticed, and that sort of exchange being noticed would bring treason charges down on the both of them.
The boys reach them, and Iruka looks immediately relieved when the stranger they picked up on the way is clearly related to Yoshino. Oh, he’s the spitting image of Shikaku, no doubt there, but he’s got a distinctly Yoshino furrow to his brow and a distinctly Yoshino frown on his face and an identical set of crossed arms when she addresses him.
“Where did you go?” Yoshino hisses.
“Nowhere,” Shikamaru shrugs again.
“What do you mean nowhere?”
“I got tired, so I sat down.”
“You sat down?”
“Mhm.”
“In the middle of the crowd?”
“Mhm.”
Mikoto tries to process a child as stubborn when pushed as his mother and as generally affectless as his father and comes up short. What are the odds he didn’t get either of their intelligence? Because if he did he’ll be unimaginably difficult as a student, but as a shinobi? Blank faced and snarky and tenacious and idly picking apart the enemy’s weak spots? Mikoto certainly wouldn’t want to face him.
If he ever manages to graduate, the future of the Nara clan looks bright.
As it is, Yoshino has clearly weighed making any sort of scene against letting the kid get away with this one and decided to save a bit of face with a hissed: “we will be talking about this later.” the boy seems utterly unconcerned, turning to look at the other two pre-genin he finds himself with.
“Nara Shikamaru,” he says bluntly, shoving tiny hands in tiny pockets as his mother keeps a hold of his elbow.
Before the other two boys can introduce themselves in turn, a girl laughs somewhere close behind the little group and Naruto takes off running toward the sound. Mikoto does not turn to look, she knows who it is already. Instead she scans the crowd, watches whose first reaction to Naruto doing anything is to scowl. Who grabs their child when he moves. Puts names to faces. Files away who among this crowd poses a threat to her godson’s happiness and makes sure she won’t forget.
“Heya, Sunshine,” says Inuzuka Hana, joining the group with Naruto now perched on her shoulders. “Sorry we’re late, someone had a bit of trouble being out of bed on time.”
“It’s so early, Hana-nee.” Kiba whines, flopping down at his sister’s feet.
Shikamaru nods in solidarity, introducing himself again, to Kiba. The boy is…potentially not the most comfortable socially, but Kiba makes up for it with a constant stream of chatter.
“Finally free of the crutches, Iruka-kun?” Hana asks, looking totally at ease in the crowd.
“Hah, yeah, finally. Feels like I haven’t trained properly in ages.”
“You guys are back to training again today, though, right?” Both Iruka and Itachi nod.
“We should probably head over pretty soon, actually,” Iruka says, glancing at the clock on the wall above the entrance. “I figure we’ll just head over together, yeah?” he confirms with Itachi.
Mikoto decides as her son nods in what only she and perhaps Hana recognise as relief that she likes this Umino Iruka very much. She doubles down on this when he glances at Naruto before he goes, promising he’ll bring by celebratory first-day ramen when he’s done for the day.
Hana wishes them luck and offers both boys a fist bump without letting go of her hold on Naruto’s legs. She’s practically bouncing, asking Sasuke if he’s excited and Shikamaru what he’s been up to lately, grinning and gregarious and free.
The Uchiha and the Nara are strung tight as bows in this crowd with everyone watching for them to slip up, but the Inuzuka take a different tact. The Inuzuka manage to act as though they’re entirely unconcerned by the eyes on them. Kiba might well be actually unaware, young and blissfully sheltered as he is, but Hana is definitely not.
She knows what she’s doing, claiming Naruto, treating him like an Inuzuka in a crowd this large and influential, turning her back to the better part of the crowd in favour of addressing friends. Her dogs circle the group like great, hyperactive puppies, but it’s a little too deliberate, a little too much like they’re guarding them, if one knows how obedient the Haimarus usually are. Which, of course, nobody does. Only Mikoto’s immediate family and Hana’s team interact with the triplets often enough to know how they are at rest.
Tsume is just as aware of the eyes as her daughter, glancing consideringly between Mikoto and Yoshino, then deliberately positions herself behind Hana, so that anyone who wants to gawk at the little boy will have to crane to see around the Inuzuka head.
She knows why they’re watching, too. Holds Mikoto’s gaze long enough that there’s no mistaking it. Does Hana? The Uchiha isn’t willing to discount the possibility.
It will need to be discussed, all of it. Not here, with so many eyes on them, and not now, but soon.
Kushina will forgive her for not making it to the stone, especially if it might benefit her son.
ooo
They don’t need to discuss it to know now is as good a time to talk as any, just wait until the orientation is over and leave together. The Uchiha and the Inuzuka are allies now, and Yoshino’s an old friend. Mikoto’s not certain she would have dared bring this up with Yoshino, if Fugaku wasn’t looking to improve their relationship with the Nara already. Things are so tenuous these days, it’s hard to remember who their friends are.
The Yamanaka and Akimichi joined them briefly as they headed inside, both parents present, but they’ve since begged their leave, which is fine. Mikoto doesn’t not trust Yuna and Kei, necessarily, but she doesn’t know them well enough to discuss something that constitutes treason to voice. Yoshino knows them better, if they had important information to share, she would have pushed.
Inoichi and Choza’s positions afford them a bit more flexibility than Shikaku has as the Jonin Commander or Fugaku as the Chief of Military Police, enough to be there for their children’s orientation, but not enough to be grabbing coffee with friends.
Mikoto is ostensibly a housewife, retired at least insofar as she’s in the reserves, and beyond a bit of freelance herbalism conducted out of her home, Yoshino’s the same. Any ANBU operative worth her salt knows better than to keep too consistent a schedule, especially if she rarely has cause to leave the village these days. These two are no different. It’s astounding how willing people are to overlook women who go from active duty killers to nice harmless homebodies the moment they get married, simply because they don’t disappear long enough to be taking missions. Like their brains shut down. Like ANBU doesn’t need code breakers or…whatever it is Yoshino does at this point. She could very well be the Commander by now, it wouldn’t be surprising.
It would be a potential complication in the conversation they’re heading into, but on the other hand if Yoshino was the ANBU Commander and she did tell the hokage that they were breaking protocol and talking about Naruto, she would be sacrificing her anonymity in the process, which is almost certainly a bigger priority.
Mikoto trusts Yoshino, they’ve known each other for twenty years. They’ve saved each other’s life several times. They used to be part of the same ANBU squad. It’s always a risk, but it’s a relative controlled risk.
As for Tsume, she’s got the day off, booked it off to make sure Kiba didn’t come home to an empty house after his first ever day of school. Mikoto’s heart goes out to her friend. Nobody is trying harder to keep all of her plates spinning than Tsume, who wasn’t raised to be clan head and certainly not the head of a clan rocked by as much tragedy as the Inuzuka were during the Kyuubi attack. Who’s raising two kids alone, one of whom is a little genius with all of the dangers of being so young and so competent, even during relative peace.
“Coffee?” is the first word out of Yoshino’s mouth after the kids have been deposited safely in their classroom and the crowds of parents have started to disperse. Mikoto nods automatically, glancing at Tsume.
“Oh, well, I was going to get some stuff done around the compound–”
Right, yes, Tsume was a latecomer this morning, after the unspoken agreement to talk had been reached. Mikoto takes for granted that people she’s deemed as competent – and Tsume is undoubtedly very competent – will follow tiny cues like this, but Tsume’s a tracker and a sabotage specialist. She doesn’t need to excel at subtlety, once the target knows she’s there it’s already too late.
Yoshino steps on her foot with all the grace of someone who was once on a team with Inuzuka Kiba, so convincing a trip that Mikoto almost thinks she stumbled. They say having children can really mess with your balance, such a shame to see once promising careers end that way. No sense in not exploiting such perfectly ridiculous assumptions.
“Come on, Tsume-chan, coffee?” the Nara repeats.
“You work yourself to the bone as it is,” Mikoto agrees, “surely a break couldn’t hurt. It’s been too long since we caught up.”
“We’ll go to mine,” Yoshino offers, shooting Mikoto a look. The Uchiha nods, they certainly can’t go to her house. Even if they could, it’s so far since the relocation. “It’s close to the Inuzuka compound, you won’t even lose any time in travel.”
“All right, sure, coffee. Suppose an hour’s rest couldn’t hurt, could it, Kuromaru?”
The large dog snorts, “a day’s rest would be better.”
“You can rest while I fix the kennel roof, ingrate.”
“Or you could both rest and I can send Ensui to fix the kennel roof?” Yoshino offers a little too quickly “get him out of my hair for an afternoon.”
“Oh no, that’s–”
“Tsume-chan please take my brother-in-law off of my compound for a couple hours before he drives me insane. He’s your genin teammate, surely he can drive you insane for a while instead?” Yoshino interrupts in a whisper, still trying to avoid drawing too many eyes. They look altogether like proper clan ladies, and they’re making a semblance of proper, vapid small talk, nattering about coffee plans as they are. Or, well, Yoshino and Mikoto look like put-together clan ladies and Tsume looks like a properly fierce Inuzuka, which is more-or-less the same thing by their standards. They’re all playing their parts, at any rate.
“Why doesn’t he take a mission?” Tsume sighs.
“He’s in recovery. Chakra exhaustion, nothing that stops him from swinging a hammer.”
“I’ll think about it,” Tsume agrees as they pass through the Nara gates. “I thought Nara were supposed to like rest.”
“Rest, sure. Three weeks sitting on his hands seems to be a bit much, though.”
“Three weeks? For chakra exhaustion? What was he on his death bed?” Tsume seems like she’s half kidding, until she sees the look on Yoshino’s face.
“I did think someone had told you,” she murmurs, loosening up a bit now that she’s on clan lands and squeezing Tsume’s arm comfortingly. The Nara are mostly awake by this time, or waking up at least. A couple are milling about or heading out into the village in mission gear. Mikoto tries to remember the last time she was on Nara lands. It might have been with Kushina. Must have been when they came by to see the new baby.
They really have gotten awfully isolated, haven’t they?
“I…” Tsume chews on her lip, a tick Mikoto recognises from Hana, when the kids were studying for the graduation exam in her sitting room. “I was gone for a week and a half, then I was back overnight, then I was gone three days, then I was gone again two days after that. I only got back last night. I guess…I guess I haven’t really been in the village to be told.”
“You’ve been gone three weeks straight?” Mikoto asks, probably failing to hide her alarm.
“Well, no, like I said I was back a couple of times.”
“For a night or two,” Yoshino says, “I’m pretty sure that violates protocol.”
Tsume shrugs. “Village is shorthanded still. Especially on trackers, it is what it is.”
And that…that’s where the differences between their public masks ends. Because Tsume can act carefree and Mikoto can act perfect and Yoshino can act unbothered, but none of them can afford to show weakness. She must be exhausted. No one would ever know it. Mikoto certainly doesn’t know her well enough to know what to look for.
Not like there’s anything either of them can do on her behalf. Who would they go to? The hokage? The man who let the Uchiha be shunted off to the edge of the village? No, Mikoto would have gone to Minato in a heartbeat, if Minato would have let the village get to this state in the first place. The warhawks on the Hokage’s close council are as much to blame for the chronic understaffing as anything else at this point.
She will not go to Sarutobi Hiruzen. She can’t trust him.
“Ensui can do the roof,” Yoshino repeats a little more forcefully. They head into the house, and the masks fall further. “Can you start on the coffee, Miki-chan?” Miki-chan, there’s a name she hasn’t heard in a minute.
“You still keep it in the same place?”
“Sure do,” Yoshino calls back as she makes her way through the house. “Ensui!” she calls out the back door. Mikoto puts the coffee on to brew.
“What?” comes a muffled response.
“You want something to do this afternoon?”
“Depends what!”
“Just come here!” She shuts the back door again. “He’ll be here in a minute, he only lives two doors down. You wanna sit down, Tsume-chan? Kuromaru? We can talk in here, the whole house is plenty warded, but this room’s got an extra layer.” She nods to the little study off of the kitchen, bare-bones save for a cluster of chairs around a low table. A place to strategise.
The coffee’s brewing and Yoshino called her ‘Miki’ and for a moment when Mikoto looks into that room it’s like nothing’s changed in four years. For a moment Kushina and Taji are in the kitchen with her, whispering about one thing or another they're trying to keep quiet from the men or from the village. Birthday surprises and unproductive fears and new trap ideas that would work against Kumo or Iwa, if only they were to somehow reach the right ears in ANBU or Intel.
She's not, of course. Those birthdays are over and those fears were realised and those battles are long since won. But it's a comfortable bubble of nostalgia. It's nice to remember without it hurting so much.
“What do you need done?” Ensui asks, coming in the back door. He catches sight of Tsume and draws a sharp breath. “You look like shit.” Apparently, while Mikoto can’t accurately gauge Tsume’s condition on sight, there’s someone who absolutely can.
“Charming,” Yoshino drawls.
“You’re one to talk,” Tsume responds to her former teammate without missing a beat.
“You need something done, Tsu?”
“If you’re looking for a project.”
“Sure I am, it’s either that or I start painting new spots on the deer.”
“‘S just a leaky roof.”
“I can manage that,”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll come by after lunch, yeah?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s perfect. Thanks.” She looks a little startled that he agreed to help.
Maybe they’ve all been a little too distant, these last few years.
It’s hard, with the ones who were always the first to reach out all gone. Minato and Kushina, sure, were always drawing people into their orbit. But Dekai too, and Kiba. They’re a little out of practice with this whole ‘friend’ thing.
“Great…well, anyway, I’m gonna grab lunch.”
“You’d better run, little brother,” says a new voice from the hall, “they’re drinking Yoshino’s good coffee.”
Mikoto freezes.“Was I not supposed to use–” Yoshino shakes her head before the Uchiha can even finish the question.
“No, no. But if I let him get into it we never have any left over for moments like this. Silly, I guess, since we haven’t– well nevermind. We are now, so I was right to keep it separate.”
“Sensible,” Mikoto agrees.
“Hey,” Tsume says, before Ensui can actually make a break for it.
“Mm?”
“Next time you’re hurt I’d better hear about it.”
“I was fine, it wasn’t–”
“Ensui.” There's something in her eyes that Mikoto can’t read. Doesn’t need to, really. It’s none of her business, and everyone’s lost enough people that injuries are a touchy subject on the best of days.
“You’ll hear about it.”
“Good.”
Ensui nods and scratches Kuromaru between his ears and disappears out the back door.
“Aren’t you supposed to be not here?” Yoshino asks her husband. All earlier tact has been left behind.
“Sure am, just dropped by to grab a file. Here I go, off to be not here.” He kisses Yoshino goodbye and waves. “Have a nice chat, everyone. Please do not keep me appraised of any topics covered. I’m sure it will be womanly small talk that I’d only be bored to tears by hearing.” beyond the obvious absurdity of that phrasing, Shikaku has also never been this chipper in his life. The man was born tired.
“Womanly small talk?” Yoshino asks with an arched eyebrow.
“You know, perfume and flowers and definitely not plots, plans, or confidential information not to be shared on pain of, say, treason.”
“Who said anything about treason?”
“Oh, nobody, love. Not me, and not you, and not the godmother and pseudo-guardian of a child we don’t know and who there was absolutely no chance of you seeing up close today.”
Well, he’s certainly got their number.
Mikoto pours the coffee into three earthenware mugs and heads into the study, nodding for Tsume and Kuromaru to follow, staying pointedly out of the conversation. The Inuzuka hurry after her.
“Did you want to stay and chat, Shikaku?” Yoshino asks slowly.
“Definitely not. Perfume, flowers, bored to tears. Certainly nothing I’d be mandated as Jonin Commander to report. I’ll just go ahead and trust the three of you have it all under control. Sage knows between the three of you there’s not much you can’t handle.”
“Have a nice day at work, love.” Yoshino says, twitching a reluctantly amused smile.
“You too, love you.”
Then he’s gone and they’re well and truly alone in the house. Yoshino shakes her head, entering the study and shutting the door behind her. “Don’t let that get to you. He’s a cheeky bastard but they couldn’t torture anything he’s actually serious about out of him, and he's dead serious on this topic.”
The Nara woman pulls a folder out of a secret drawer in the low table and takes a sip of her coffee. “Anyways, to the point: Uzumaki Naruto.”