#shisui curse when upset

[raveneira]

hi, do you think when sarada awoken the mangeko (as much as i wish that trashy awakening wasn't real it unfortunately is) because of she cared for brto and was a die hard fan or was she just really upset that no one belived her and thought she was spouting nonsense? for me i low-key feel that it is the latter since sarada seems to have more concern for herself and the fact that she thinking that everyone denying her reality affected her so much to the point of awakening ms? it's still bad tho

Unfortunately if we're being realistic, nobody fkin knows what triggered it, there are two primary theories in the fandom and both are factually false

1 She was overwhelmed, everybody suddenly hunting/attacking Boruto, hearing Naruto was killed, her father not believing her, and finally her desperate plea for him to save Boruto is was caused her MS

2 her immense love for Boruto and fear of him being killed is what triggered it

Both of these are factually wrong, others may wanna live by Ikemoto's bs rules but Im not, Kishimoto didnt spend 15 yrs establishing this power up for us to just be like 'well none of that matters now cuz Ikemoto did different' stfu, the original creator >>> an incompetent assistant that constantly says fk what Kishimoto established in his own verse to make whatever bs plot/scenario he needs to work. In this case, he needed 'change Boruto's fate' and justify Sasuke leaving with Boruto for 3 years so he pulled that omnipotence bs and then made Sarada awaken her MS solely to convince Sasuke to believe her, there was literally no other purpose than that.

So for a memory refresher, why is her MS awakening factually wrong? because neither of the explanations people give are how the MS WORKS.

This is literally in part one where we're first introduced and explained to how the MS is obtained.

Itachi says you have to kill your closest friend to obtain the MS which isnt a lie, but its not the entire truth either, but the general idea is the same as I will show here where we get more detail.

Tobirama, like Itachi, are correct in their statements, but once again it is not the entire truth either because as we've seen several times the BASE Sharingan can evolve without feelings of hatred, but a strong desire to protect those dear to you, grief, and losing a dear loved one are all triggers for the Sharingans evolution, this is further proven by the fact that Kagami and Shisui never fell into the 'curse of hatred' and still had fully evolved Sharingan, Shisui even had MS despite wanting to follow a completely pacifistic path.

Now lets go over the actual difficulty in how it is obtained, lets look at the databook first, I took the liberty of highlighting the relevant parts for those who like to stay in denial whenever this topic comes up.

A cursed ocular ninjutsu only obtainable through great sacrifice.

Through the entire history of the Uchiha clan, it was rare for a member to be able to weild the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Here's the part I want you to keep in mind going forward because I WILL be coming back to it later.

Through the entire history of the Uchiha clan

Remember that for later, now moving on to the next point, ok so thats databook statements but what about in verse? the same thing.

It was rare to obtain the MS, the clan would literally slaughter eachother trying to gain it to no avail because its NOT a simple and easy thing to obtain, otherwise everyone in the Uchiha clan would've had MS if it was just as simple as killing your own kin or being overwhelmed etc [refer to the bs reasons ppl give for why Sarada gained hers] but it actually took SPECIFIC requirements to gain, and we were shown what those were several times.

I think you notice the common theme here, Obito got his MS from seeing his best friend kill Rin, his first love, Kakashi got his at the same time from the act of killing Rin by accident, Itachi got his from watching Shisui commit suicide, Sasuke got his after killing his brother and then learning the truth about Itachi and his clan.

The theme is clear, the requirements to awaken it are even more clear, there is literally no amount of gaslighting anyone can do to overrule whats literally been consistently shown in the canon danm manga by the original creator himself.

'Oh yall just wanted Sarada to be edgy like everyone else Im glad her MS was different' is the stupidest response to this, nobody said they wanted her to be edgy, they just want her danm MS to follow the rules that have been established for 15 years. Also Shisui wasnt edgy and he had MS, so I dont even know how anyone thinks thats a gotcha anyway, she could literally still be the loving Sarada she's always been and still get MS because hatred isnt the only way the Sharingan evolves. I dunno why someone actually thought that was a rebuttal, but it just goes to show how ignorant these ppl are about how the MS works and only care about things being 'different' instead of caring about the actual worldbuilding.

Now lets move onto Sarada, her base Sharingan, although lackluster, still evolved in a way that was consistent with what was set up in OG. She awakened her sharingan for the first time due to her years of pain and longing of missing her dad and then being overjoyed when she was finally about to meet him at last. This wasnt unusual because Sasuke awakened his third tomoe because of how overwhelmed he was that Naruto considered him a brother, his first bond, and his dear friend, despite Sasuke literally trying to kill him right now and cut ties with him, Naruto's sincere love for him made his final tomoe appear. This is why the base Sharingan evolving in this way is not unusual, as long as the emotions are strong enough and struck a cord with them, then the Sharingan will evolve.

This is not the same for MS though, it is a completely different eye with a completely different set of rules, this is why Sarada's awakening is complete ass and not only that but literally breaks the rules of the verse.

Keep this in mind, she hears Naruto, her idol, the man who she aspires to be like, who at one point she wished was her dad, is dead, but not only that, she hears Mitsuki say hes going to kill Boruto. Remember this for what Im about to say next.

This is several minutes after she was told Naruto was dead and that Mitsuki was going to kill Boruto, her eyes didnt budge when she heard Naruto was dead, nor did her eyes budge hearing literally EVERYONE is actively hunting Boruto now.

At the very least the news of Naruto's death was more in line with how the MS awakens, so if she heard that and got her MS from it then it wouldnt have been all that difficult to accept, but unfortunately thats not what happened, she just sat there and cried, no reaction to Naruto dying, and no reaction to hearing and seeing Mitsuki trying to kill Boruto.

So what did trigger it? her being overwhelmed? false because thats what she was in the panels I've shown, she had been sitting there for several minutes with all this chaos goin on around her and no MS, not even her dad not believing her is what triggered it, literally NOTHING anyone tries to say it was triggered it, your literally looking at the panels, her eyes didnt BUDGE.

So what did trigger it then? if none of that did it then what did?

I shit you not, I cannot make this shit up, what triggered her MS was literally because 'Why cant Boruto ever catch a break?'

When I tell you my blood boiled reading that line words cannot describe the rage I felt because the total and I mean TOTAL disregard of everything, EVERYTHING that has happened to her dad, her idol Naruto, and Kawaki was infuriating because she NEVER asked why they cant catch a break, but now all of a sudden because poor Boruto is going through it right now all of a sudden its too cruel.

Her father lost his eye and got fatally beaten up by both Borushiki and Isshiki, Naruto was nearly killed by Isshiki and Borushiki, Kawaki was hunted down by Delta, Code, Isshiki, and Momo, Amado put karma back on him without his permission or anyones knowledge, Kawaki was slowly being consumed by Isshiki through his karma the same as Boruto was with Momoshiki and she didnt give af about NONE of that.

NONE OF THAT

She didnt give af about ANY of it, know who she did tho? Boruto, in chapter 69 who is she telling Mitsuki she feels bad for being unable to protect? Boruto, who is she angry at herself for not being reliable for? Boruto, who does she want to get stronger for so she can help them more? Boruto. This is literally right after Naruto nearly died, Kawaki nearly died, and Boruto nearly died, but the only one she gave a danm about was Boruto.

So you want the real answer to what triggered her MS? Ima be real with you, its honestly anybodys guess because Ikemoto is so bad at properly building up and portraying things clearly compared to Kishimoto, you can see clearly what the MS triggers were for everyone I showed and it isnt up for debate, its clear as day, but Sarada? you literally have to friggin guess because it just pops up so randomly your caught off guard wondering where tf that even came from.

Im not even kidding I've reread this scene so many times and I can NOT pinpoint what the trigger actually was, the only thing I can say is that the turning point was Sumire telling Sarada the cause of everything thats going on, Sarada then falls apart more because 'This is too cruel, why cant Boruto ever catch a break' which again is complete bullshit but I digress...so then she pleads for her dad to believe her and help Boruto because he's innocent but Sasuke doesnt, this is supposedly where the shift happens because her eyes are hidden during these panels.

She basically tells her dad that even if none of this makes sense to him, just to please trust her and grant her this one selfish request, aka saving Boruto.

Im not even kidding but...this is just so danm bad for her...like if I were to be completely generous and unbiased here then I can only make one conclusion from whats been laid out here and that is that her MS awakened simply because she desperately wanted her dad to save Boruto, she wanted her dad to do her this favor no matter what, she wanted him to do it so badly that her MS awakened.

That is the only explanation that can be taken from this, and that is why this is rightfully seen as the WORST MS awakening we've ever seen and why its a complete and utter disappointment because look at this shit, LOOK AT IT, she's just standing there crying and beggin daddy to help when she's had the chance to do something her danm self.

Remember earlier when she heard Mitsuki say he was gonna go kill Boruto? if she was that concerned why she aint go try to stop him? she heard everyone else out to hunt him too and yet she didnt try to go protect him from them either, I mean she could jump infront of Boruto to protect him from KK, she could jump infront of Boruto to protect him from Kawaki, she can abandon her mission to come save Boruto from Shojoji, but FOR SOME REASON she cant stand up and protect Boruto from all the people hunting him right now? her childhood friend this fandom swears up and down shes madly inlove with? she cant stand up and protect him when he needs her the most!?

I aint sayin I wanted her to be the one to leave with Boruto hell no, but leaving with him and protecting him are two entirely different things, she could've easily saved him from Inoshikacho, Chocho would've definitely tried hearin Sarada out, Sasuke could've arrived and Sarada tries to appeal to all of them there, most likely Inojin and Shikadai wouldnt believe her, Chocho is her best friend so she'd know atleast something has to be wrong for Sarada to be so insistent, and Sasuke would be the most inclined to believe her because hes already witnessed something similar with the infinite Tsukiyomi, so is it really all that impossible that Ada, who literally has Otsutsuki dna, to mass brainwash ppl? Sasuke could've told Inoshikacho to leave and let him deal with Boruto and then thats when they discuss Sarada staying behind and Sasuke leaving with Boruto for the time being.

There was no NEED for MS to achieve that, all it would've taken is a little time and effort and CARE to make that ending WORK without having to throw in a forced af power up to justify it because you were too lazy to actually write something that made sense.

But if she MUST have gotten her MS before part one was over, I can show the best opportunities they could've made it happen at.

Kawaki was about to kill Boruto, she tried asking him calmly what is going on but Kawaki just tells her not to interfere if she doesnt wanna die which shocks Sarada because this isnt like Kawaki at all, they were all friends and teammates and not long ago Kawaki was on edge trying his hardest to protect Boruto and now hes suddenly trying to kill him. Boruto told her to run but she refused and chose to protect him anyway despite Kawaki being serious about killing her if she interfered, however when actually faced with that reality she froze which resulted in Boruto saving HER instead and losing his eye.

This was a good place for MS to awaken because someone she thought was a friend is now trying to kill her other friend, her friend shes known since childhood and she cant understand why. She thought she could protect him but failed to be able to follow through and that caused her friend SHE was supposed to be protecting to end up protecting HER and losing his eye because of it. She's feeling immense guilt, betrayal, frustration, helplessness, and now she knows for sure that Kawaki really will kill both of them without hesitation.

However for this to work the scene will have to be changed a bit, Kawaki would knock Sarada out of the way cuz she isnt who he really wants to kill and then proceed to seemingly kill Boruto right infront of her before she can react in time to stop it, I say seemingly because Momo has consistently saved Boruto from otherwise fatal/irreversible injuries. Anyway after Kawaki seemingly deals the fatal blow, Sarada's MS will awaken, right then is when everyone arrives to restrain Kawaki, things play out relatively the same but only even more hostile since he apparently killed Boruto, eventually after their back and forth Boruto wakes up but its Momoshiki in control now same as the manga and he helps Kawaki escape the same way too, only difference is everyones not just shocked Momos helping but that Boruto somehow even survived, this is just another flex of Momos healing capabilities however.

Anyway thats one way she could've gotten MS that is consistent with the established rules of how the MS works.

The other moment that would've worked is the Boro fight, when everyone was getting taken out one by one and seemingly all about to be killed and Sarada was helpless on the ground after being crushed, that was more than enough reason for her MS to awaken as Boruto, Kawaki, and Mitsuki were all out cold and as good as dead.

Unfortunately neither of those happened, and thus were given the weakest, stupidest, most lackluster MS awakening in Uchiha history. Speaking of Uchiha history, remember that like I told you to remember? this is why.

A cursed ocular ninjutsu only obtainable through great sacrifice.

What did Sarada sacrifice for her MS? nothing, she sat there and cried and then begged her dad for help.

Through the entire history of the Uchiha clan, it was rare for a member to be able to weild the Mangekyou Sharingan.

THROUGH THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE UCHIHA CLAN, it was RARE for a member to obtain the MS

Keywords, through the entire history of the Uchiha clan, so tell me Saradas MS is bullshit deniers, why was it SO RARE for Uchihas throughout their ENTIRE history to gain the MS if all it took was being a little overwhelmed and scared? this clan faught WARS, children DIED loved ones DIED Uchihas [and Senjus] lived in constant fear EVERY SINGLE DAY and they NEVER awakened it it from that, not even through killing their own kin willingly to gain the power up worked, so please tell me how Sarada can just change something THATS NEVER BEEN A THING in the ENTIRE history of the Uchiha clans existence, please tell me how you think Sarada can just completely change history just by crying and begging.

You cant, because its bullshit and you know it, the MS was rare for a reason, it took SACRIFICE, it took LOSS, you didnt gain it by just sitting on your ass crying and doing nothing, being scared wasnt enough to trigger it, being overwhelmed wasnt enough to trigger it, fearing for your loved ones life wasnt enough to trigger it, but you want me to believe suddenly NOW it is? do you have any idea how disrespectful that is to the entire Uchiha clan to say that none of them ever had to die, they just simply had to be in a chaotic situation [which they were] and cry about it and boom, every single Uchiha could've had their MS easy peasy.

Gtf outta here man and just be real, her MS is bullshit plan and simple and it breaks the established rules of the verse created by Kishimoto himself. IN NO WAY is simply desperately wanting your dad to save your friend enough to awaken your MS, maybe evolve your base Sharingan, but not MS.

So yea to answer your question, the most accurate conclusion to be had from this scene, although factually incorrect for the rules of the verse, In Ikemotos verse however, Sarada's MS awakened because of her desperation for her dad to save Boruto, she wanted that so bad her MS awakened as proof of just how desperate she was for her dad to grant her request, that is the truth of what triggered it.

Im not saying this happened out of some romantic love she has for Boruto, no, but thats still her dear friend shes known her entire life, I dunno why ppl treating her MS awakening in reference to him means she loves him romantically...like I literally saw a tiktok recently where Sarada says 'I awakened my MS for you' and when asked why/how she saids 'Because I like you' and I was just like 😑 yea no wonder people keep defending this garbage, they really do NOT understand how the MS works at all. Out of all the Uchiha's we've seen awaken MS, Obito was the only one who did out of romantic love, the rest was familiar or platonic love, so why her MS awakening is somehow proof of her romantic love for him that till this day is still unconfirmed is beyond me but whatever, these ppl will stay delusional no matter what the facts same so yea, I hope this was able to answer your question.

[shisui-uchiha-rp]

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[kumeramen]

…stingy bastard 💢 *VIGOROUSLY EATING* 🍡  

[kidsinsaturn]

Hi, how are you ?

I hope you are doing well and hydrated

How do you think madara, shisui and Itachi would react if the reader announced that she was pregnant? How would they handle pregnancy hormones and cravings and when the reader goes in labour?

If you want to you can delete this ask since I think this was highly specific and I asked too much of you

Lots of love from your random follower who loves the way you write

pregnancy

[🗼] hii guys if you could support me with some manga caps of the uchiha pls I feel like I’ve used the same ones for a long time thank u 🫶🏻🫶🏻

characters: madara uchiha; shisui uchiha; Itachi uchiha

genre: sfw;

warnings: fem!reader;

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-madara is proud greatly, sooner or later you had to be pregnant with his children and he can't simply feel more excited

-deep inside him, he is a little scared of what can come along the journey of pregnancy, so when you announced you were having his baby he planned a whole list of what to expect

-those are the sweetest and kindest months of his life, he is very abrupt with anyone else but with you he has always been a lot softer

-so now that you are carrying his child and that you may be a lot more sensitive, he had to always think before speaking to you

-madara is very helpful of course, even though he has the weight of his clan on his shoulders, he always tries to make time for you. he doesn't want to miss any day of your pregnancy

-very taken aback and offended when you have your sudden mood changes lmao if you are suddenly screaming at him, a part of him wants to argue back, but he knows that's just foolish

-he is there for you all the time, even when he is not present, he will have always a trusted person at your service at all times. if that person misses just a bit, they are banned lmaoo

-he doesn't hide his faces when hearing your weird food cravings, he gets them for you, but he is telling you honestly how disgusting your tastes have gotten

-the week before going into labor, he doesn't work or he is working from home. he told his counselors that you are giving birth anytime soon and that he will be unavailable, that's it, he didn't even wait for a response

-at the day, he is always by your side, yelling and cursing at people for moving too slowly. if you are uncomfortable, he will reprimand the people who are in turn haha

-his heart will stop racing the moment he sees you with the new uchiha baby in your arms, he is afraid to touch the baby, not wanting to hurt his own child, but when he finally does, he can't simply ask for a better thing

-the moment you announced the news, shisui actually screamed hahah

-you have been trying for a child for a while now, so these were shocking news for this young gentleman

-a part of him doesn't feel ready yet, he feels that he may fail as a father and a family man, but he disregards those thoughts quickly, his full focus on you now

-he asks the current hokage to free him from his jounin duties and just give him short, simple missions so he can be near you if you need him

-itachi becomes your immediate maid when shisui isn't with you. shisui asked him kindly if he could watch over you and of course itachi knows this is such an important moment for the both of you

-shisui is very versatile and he can read you so easily, so your intense moods are expected by him, he tries to do his best and not disturb you more

-he is very good of course, shisui never misses. he plays manages to make you feel a lot better. and if some day you are upset with him, shisui does his magic and at the end of the day, you are back in your bed being spooned by him

-during the first months of your pregnancy, shisui goes to mikoto and fugaku for some advices, he hasn't done anything bad but he wants to be fully prepared

-he does too many extra things because he feels insecure, unsure that he can't be the father your children deserve aww

-your food cravings don't really gross him out, but he can't have a straight face when you ask for one, his expressions always make you laugh, his whole aura lightening you up

-shisui is simply wonderful while you are pregnant. he feels excited with just the idea that you are carrying his child, wow he can't still assimilate that

-every night you get free belly rubs, he is always willing to feel your belly grow each day, there isn't one day he doesn't rub his hands tenderly along your waist

-right before the baby is about to be born, shisui is talking to your belly, as if he were talking to his child. he has full conversations and will look at you offended if you interrupt him and his baby

-when you are in labor, shisui is there to calm you down with his hands, caressing all your swollen areas while holding your hand. he has high pain tolerance, so he doesn't flinch when you grip his hand tightly

-cries when his baby cries, and when you have his child in your arms, he asks itachi to take a picture of his small family

-this is everything itachi ever wanted

-his face doesn't change a lot except for his soft grin and his tender gaze, but he is actually shitting himself

-he commits himself to never leave your side. you won't have a bad day with itachi because he is doing everything in his power for you to have a healthy pregnancy

-of course he knows there will be rough times when you won't even want to talk to him, and he is heartbroken, but he knows all of this is for a beautiful ending

-mikoto is there for you too, along with sasuke, and fugaku !! itachi's whole family is more than ready to support you

-when itachi isn't with you, any of those three will be there. mikoto is usually the one who stays the most, advising you with all the pregnancy. she loves you each day more and is glad that his son found a great woman

-during your first outburst, itachi felt so down, he actually wanted to cry from seeing you in such state; he was mentally getting prepared for the day you were going to give birth because he wasn't ready to see you suffer so much just to give him a child

-he tells you every night how much you mean to him and how thankful he is that you are carrying his child. he is very touchy and clingy during night and is always ready and awake if you need something midnight

-itachi can cook any meal, but some of you cravings weird him out actually. he tried not to make you feel bad, but sometimes he couldn't help the "what" that came out without thinking

-your new big tits full of milk make itachi fluster so bad !! haha he feels ashamed of even thinking about you like that but he can't help it ok,,, he loved your boobies before and now that they are full and so soft with his baby's food,,, he will ask to touch them every tuesday

-if you ask for foot massages, itachi is there to do them, even bath you if you want. seriously a part of him just wants to tell you to stop doing anything, he is doing it for you ok you have already done so much by just carrying his child

-at the day of labor, itachi is so nervous. he wants this day to be prefect and he won't allow anyone to ruin it. he can be blunt and mean if he wants to and he won't hesitate to tell people off when they aren't doing their jobs correctly

-while you are giving birth, he offers you his hand, it hurt like shit but he lets it pass. he is actually shocked with how much strength you have and how strong you are for giving birth to a whole human being. itachi respects you 10x more now

-with his baby now on your arms, itachi can rest now, however a new life will now depend on him and he is more than ready to start this new chapter of your lives with the best woman along his side

[youngblood-182]

Random Hidan Headcanons

He just lives in my head RENT FREE OKAY

-I always like to imagine being Hidan's best friend.

-He is incredibly chaotic, and if you are as chaotic as he is...lord help everyone around you. NO LITERALLY, YOU TWO WON'T SHUT UP.

-One of my favorite headcanons that I literally almost wrote a series on is Hidan working at a liquor shop, as a part time job and the reader coming in to buy liquor with her friends who have NEVER met Hidan. Your eyes meet across the shop, a smirk crosses his face and suddenly he's over the counter with a "What's up whore?!"

-Your friends are obviously appalled but are even more horrified when you yell back "About to get fucking shitfaced asshole" (I am imagining those friends being Shisui and Kakashi for some reason hehehe) he'll respond with a "Fuck you for not inviting me bitch!" and you will respond with a, "I texted you assface!"

-Your friends will definitely be very concerned and I imagine the ride back will just include Kakashi going absolutely insane over what just happened and Shisui asking too many questions for you to handle. Meanwhile, you are just smiling in the backseat and giggling over the chaos that you both caused.

-The both of you drinking together would cause absolute chaos, random challenges, him being absolutely flirtier than usual, trying to skateboard and failing in the dark, screaming matches, loud music, dancing, and whatever will entertain the both of you in the moment. (No one wants you two in the same room but you always find each other, Kakazu is losing his mind please help him)

-but I can see Hidan being the type of guy to hold your hair back while you throw up and while he holds some concern for your wellbeing he is absolutely fucking roasting you for puking your guts out.

-"How the hell did you drink that much you dumbass?" He has one hand holding your hair back as you lean over the toilet, the other one grabbing the bottle of water he brought when you stumbled in the bathroom drunk off your ass saying you had to puke.

-He's not the type to show a lot of emotion or show he cares conventionally but you have come to love his little bits of affection he shows you in your friendship such as: you're upset about something? he's coming over and while he feels awkward around heavy emotions, I know damn well he will do everything in his power to make you smile. AKA threaten to beat someone up.

-Someone broke your heart? They won't be alive much longer.

-He'd make a terrible wingman though, because he secretly has feelings for you but mans doesn't do relationships but won't let anyone near you anyway. VERY POSSESSIVE. Will try to fight anyone who nears you with inappropriate intentions.

-He doesn't like to talk about his feelings, he just resorts to violence. No thoughts, head is always empty a true himbo.

-Don't even get me started on his texting habits, he types in all caps in my head and it is usually curse words. His slang is otherworldly no one can decipher what he's trying to say half the time.

-He listens to heavy metal, you can't change my mind on this one. I am just imagining him rolling up to your home BLASTING some Metallica and honking his horn until you walk out of your home he doesn't care about your neighbors.

-He has a very dark sense of humor and as his best friend you also share that same humor, prepare yourself for some very fucked up memes.

-He's a stoner too, I love stoner Hidan. So many thoughts on him, he gets like 10x more affectionate when stoned out of his mind and while he still curses he's less likely to call you bitch and more likely to call you babe

-He says he doesn't have deep talks while he is stoned out of his mind, but his softer side comes out (I don't think this man has a fully soft side, but the littlest bit comes out when he is stoned with you he likes thinking of the future with you.)

-I feel like if he ever decided to tell you he had feelings for you he would either make a move while he was stoned or he got jealous over watching another guy flirt with you. He is too scared to ruin the friendship you guys have built (I know a lot of people think he wouldn't care but, you mean a lot to him)

-Physical affection is very rough to come by with him, he'll throw his arm over your shoulder like it's a part of your body but otherwise he doesn't enjoy hugs unless you're literally having a full blown breakdown.

-The two of you together is absolutely chaotic and no one knows what may happen, but they do enjoy seeing the way your eyes light up when you are around the other. <;3

[xkaileo]

Hi! For the one shot request, would love to see something with animals - saw a very cute prompt when I googled ideas (I have so little creativity which is why I read so much!) where one of them works at an animal shelter and the other comes in to pet the cats when they are sad. Maybe something along those lines? Thanks so much for considering! ❤️❤️❤️

Ahh I'm so, so glad you sent in this request! I had a lot of fun writing it, honestly.

Growing Felines

"I'm not going to make it in today, it seems," Shisui said over the line. "The snow's just too thick, and my car won't start." Oh, Sakura could not believe this. She'd struggled to make it here through all of the snow, and now she was stuck here alone?

"Damn," she said over the phone. "Kakashi can't make it in today, either." Sakura wasn't a fan of working alone at the shelter, but it seemed she had no choice today. Her coworkers, Shisui and Kakashi, were stuck at home in the snow, and Sakura was the only one who'd managed to make it to the shelter for the day. Curse her managerial position! With the weather outside getting worse, she felt she would be staying overnight with the animals to make sure it didn't get any worse. They tended to get upset when the weather turned sour like this.

"You gonna be okay there by yourself?" Shisui asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Maybe one of the volunteers will make it in, so I won't be on my own all day." Part of her was hoping that she might see that one volunteer today… There was one boy that always came in. Sasuke Uchiha. He was quiet, withdrawn, and rarely talked, but Sakura noticed when he was with the cats, he seemed to smile a lot. She'd never asked why he came so often, but he was one of their most active volunteers. He never seemed to have much to say, though.

"Hmm… maybe." Sakura frowned at the tone in his voice. "Well, good luck, Haruno!" With that, Shisui hung up the phone, leaving Sakura wondering just what crazy idea Shisui had. She knew Sasuke and Shisui were related, but… no, it couldn't be that. Could it?

Shaking the thought off, she went to do a headcount of all of the cats, making notes as to which kennels needed a bit of cleaning and the conditions of the cats that they'd noticed were ill. Most of them were doing much better, and there weren't any that had severe conditions that would need immediate veterinary attention. Hana lived not too far from the shelter, but if Sakura could avoid having to drag Dr. Inuzuka out into the snow for anything, she would. They'd just have to make do with phone consultations if they had any questions.

---------------------------------------------

Sasuke hated the snow.

He hated it because it reminded him of that day. After all, he'd been stuck there for days and days. The memories plagued him for years. A snowstorm where no police could get out, and a poor, tormented little boy stuck there with his murdered parents because no one could get out there to help him. Sure, years of therapy had made him better than previously, but days like today were days that he wanted to be out of the house and distracted.

Even despite the terrible weather.

Thus, he made a point to bundle up well and make his way to his truck, thankful it had four-wheel drive that could carve through the snow with ease. He'd just go for a drive around the city, pick up a few things, and come back. No other plans. Why bother with them? He would've preferred not to talk to anyone today anyway.

As if on cue, while he was sitting in the driver's seat waiting for his truck to warm up a little more, his phone rang. He pulled it out, frowning at the caller ID. What the hell would Shisui want today? Shisui was one of the few people who knew what today was, and yet he was calling? He should have known the kind of mood Sasuke would be in. Sighing, he opened the phone and held it to his ear.

"What?" He asked, clearly grumpy.

"Ouch, don't bite my head off, cous'," Shisui defended over the other line. "I just wanted to ask you something. Just a little personal favour, if you could." A personal favour? Today? Well, in all fairness, Sasuke was one of the only people who had a vehicle that could traverse through weather like this.

"What do you want?" He wasn't going to give Shisui an answer just yet. He'd hear him out, at the very least.

"Look, you know how garbage my car is in this weather. I'm stuck at home, and so is Kakashi, according to her. Sakura's at the shelter all by herself. Could ya check on her, maybe?" Wait… Sakura. That was the girl that worked at the shelter with him. Sasuke bit his lip, contemplating. Sakura was tough… she could handle things there on her own, probably.

"Sasuke~" Shisui's teasing voice rang in his ear. "I know you like her~."

"Shut up," Sasuke bit back. "I told you that in confidence." He hadn't even meant to, but Shisui, annoying as he was, had managed to get it out of him. Now he hadn't stopped teasing him about it. Then again, what wasn't to like? Sakura was cute, she was nice, she was friendly, sweet, warm, welcoming… All traits anyone would like in a girl like that.

"C'mon, Sasuke. At least check on her. You don't have to stay if you don't want to. But I am genuinely worried about her being there all alone." Sasuke drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing a sigh. Alone. Sakura was alone right now. He couldn't ignore that. What if something happened? What kind of a person would he be if something happened, and he could have done something about it?

"Fine. I'll check in on her. I'll text you. Bye." He wasn't going to listen to anything more Shisui had to say; he'd probably just tease the hell out of him. He turned on the four-wheel drive and kicked it into gear, making his way down the rural roads until he reached the shelter, swearing as he tried to find a place to park. He could see Sakura's car, but by now, the blizzard had covered it in snow; she had no hope of ever making it out of the parking lot. Shisui was right; it was worth coming here to check on Sakura if she was all alone.

Stepping out of his truck, he squinted through the snow to try and make out the door, barely able to see it through the blistering snow. He managed to move forward, checking back occasionally; the moment he couldn't see his truck, he was finally able to see the door, breathing a sigh of relief. He found it was open, struggling to pull it open against the wind and drifts that had practically barricaded it; there was at least a foot-high drift in front of it. He made it in, hearing the door slam behind him as he stared at the pink-haired girl sitting behind one of the computers.

After checking the kennels, Sakura made her way back to the main desk and worked on some paperwork when she saw a shadow outside the door. She shielded her eyes as a mess of black hair, blown around by the snow, covered the boy's face as he struggled to make it through the door. She could feel her heart pounding; who would have dared to come out in this weather? Was it someone… untrustworthy? And here she was, all alone…

He pulled his scarf down, brushing snow off his shoulders and stamping his boots to loosen the snow out of the treads. She was uncertain about his intentions but came around the desk with a concerned expression.

"Are you crazy?" She asked, mouth agape in shock. "The storm's--"

"I could ask you the same thing," Sasuke replied dryly. He unzipped his jacket, glad it was warmer inside. "You're out here all by yourself?" Okay, so maybe he had a point. She was a little crazy to have come out here on a day like today. What made her even consider it? There was no way she was going to make it out of there on her own. Hell, he wasn't even sure his vehicle would make it out of there, but he could deal with that later. He'd figure something out.

"I had to come in! Someone had to look after the cats…" She couldn't have just left them on their own. They could have gone without food or water for days, and she couldn't have that happen. Sasuke could understand that; he was only a volunteer who came to visit the cats when he was lonesome, partly at the behest of his cousin Shisui. As they stood there, the power flickered for a moment, drawing both of their attention.

"Oh, no," Sakura griped, scrambling back to the computer. It had been just a brief flicker, so the backup battery had kicked in, but she needed to get the paperwork done fast. She hit the save button, realizing she probably wouldn't have time to finish it all. At least she was caught up to a certain point; she could do it when there was more power. If the power was flickering, that meant they would lose heat… and she would have to make sure there was extra insulation.

"Look, um… I appreciate that you're here, so… do you think you could help?" Sakura's eyes were pleading. He'd planned to turn around and leave, but he couldn't ignore that look. He'd never been quite this close to her; she was prettier than he remembered. Her skin was fair, and her hair looked soft; her bangs framed her face while she'd pulled the rest up into a high ponytail. She wore red glasses as well; he could swear he'd seen her without them before.

"Sure." He knew they weren't leaving from here, but he wasn't about to say that just yet. She didn't need to know that he'd come out here almost entirely with that intention, nor did she need to know that he'd come in through that door, intending practically the same thing. He made sure to lock the door for them to leave. That way, nobody else could come in through the door unnoticed.

"Okay. We'll carry the blankets up from the basement and start packing them around the windows to keep some of the cold air out. I think there are towels there, too, so we can use those. Then we'll put some of the smaller ones inside the kennels for them to curl up under. After that, we'll make sure their food is good and boil water to keep in thermoses to top it up as the water starts to freeze. Let's see, there are six thermoses, but they're all about two litres each, so…" Sakura started doing some math in her head as they moved down the stairs, whispering to herself under her breath.

Sasuke was listening, but… he was also busy paying attention to her. Standing behind her, he could just faintly smell her shampoo as the hair in her ponytail swayed back and forth with each step. She was… kind of short, too. She had to be almost a foot shorter than he was, maybe a touch less. She also seemed to like the colour red… He could tell by the fact that she always seemed to have something red to complement her outfit. Today, it was her hair tie and her shirt; other days, it was a red headband she wore, and in the summer, he often saw her wearing red sandals or sneakers.

He followed her to the basement, following her directions to grab blankets. They made their way to the singular room that housed all the cat kennels, stuffing blankets and towels against the windows. They then moved to open each kennel individually, carefully stuffing more blankets in and refilling each of the cats' water dishes before closing them in. After that, they were left with a few more blankets as the lights went out on them, the sudden darkness surprising Sakura.

"Sasuke? Hold on-- I have a flashlight," she called, scrambling in the bag that was at her feet. She fumbled with the flashlight; Sasuke could hear where she was and crept toward her in the dark, hoping he might find her before she had to use the flashlight. As she finally found the button and turned it on, Sasuke was nearly right in front of her, causing her to squeal in surprise and jump back, startling a few of the cats.

"Sorry," he reassured, raising his hands. "I didn't mean to startle you." Sakura could feel her heart pounding in her chest, though she breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, she only had one flashlight, though she had quite a few sets of batteries they could use. With the power out, their heat would be out; the building was well insulated, and they'd done extra work, not to mention there was enough food if they were stuck for a day or two--something Sakura made extra sure of during the winter months, given the shelter's location--but hopefully, they'd at least be able to shovel their way out.

"Come on. There's probably enough hot water that we can make some hot cocoa if you like." She led the way out, Sasuke following not far behind her as they found the small kitchenette. Sakura found the hot water, prepping herself a tall mug of cocoa.

"Is there any tea?" Sasuke asked, doing his best to peer into the cupboards in the dim light. "I'm not really a fan of cocoa." More accurately, he didn't like anything sweet.

"Yeah, um, there's some black tea up in the cupboard here, I think." Sakura pulled the tea down and got a mug ready for him, pouring the water over it and putting the lid on for him. She grabbed a couple of packets of honey and a couple of sugar packets for once it had steeped, grabbing a couple of snacks for the both of them as well. She opted for a few things in the fridge likely to perish first; without power, the food in there would go bad first.

They made their way back to the cats' room, stopping by one of the visitation rooms to grab a couple of bean bag chairs to sit on. If they were in the room for the cats, they could at least monitor them in case anything went wrong. Sakura handed him a small bag of chips, giving him a warm smile.

"So… you decided even in the snow to come out and visit the cats?" She was pretty curious about the reasons he'd come out. He heard the question but wasn't sure if he wanted to answer. He chewed his lip, contemplating whether he should tell her the truth or not.

"Yeah… something like that." Sakura found his mysteriousness a bit intriguing. He'd barely said a word to her any time he'd been here, except one or two in greeting or passing. She was often busy with paperwork while he was just there to visit. He spent more time talking to Kakashi and Shisui than anything. This had to be the most he'd ever spoken to her at all.

Sakura set the flashlight between them, facing upward so they could see each other. She was doing her best to read him, but she couldn't get much. Even his facial expressions gave nothing away, but he seemed… awkward. The way he spoke, it was like he was trying not to admit something. It intrigued her. She wanted to know more about him. That, and… she might have thought he was a little attractive.

Okay… a lot attractive.

"...Shisui called me," Sasuke admitted. "He said you were here alone, and… that he'd like it if I could check on you." He sipped at his tea, pleased with how it had steeped; he preferred it black and unsweetened. "I have a pretty big truck, so I was the only one able to make it out here before the snow got bad." So much for that now. His truck was probably half-buried, too. He was glad for the darkness in the room; Sakura couldn't tell that his cheeks had tinted a faint pink colour.

"You came all the way out here just to check on me, then?" Sakura felt her face heat up, at a loss for words. He nodded, which left her speechless; he looked away out of embarrassment, making her heart beat a little faster.

"Oh, wow," she commented, internally scolding herself. Talk about a lame response! "So, um… I'm guessing your truck is probably stuck now, isn't it?" Sakura reached for one of the blankets, wrapping it around herself as she shivered. She could notice the difference when the heat wasn't blowing from the vents. It was still more than warm enough, but she missed the warmth.

"Yeah. It's stuck." He didn't have to see it to know it. "So I'm… just as stuck here as you are." He didn't mind it. She seemed like good company, if nothing else. Shisui had probably planned for this. Shisui seemed to like to play matchmaker once in a while.

Sakura laughed awkwardly. "Well, um… I guess it's a good thing this wasn't like, a date or something." Oh, she was just digging herself deeper and deeper, it seemed. If Sasuke hadn't been so good at maintaining his composure, he might have choked on his tea at that statement. A date? Yeah, it… would be a pretty lame date. Wasn't it kind of like one, in a sense?

"Mm… I wouldn't really know." He sipped his tea. "So… Sakura, what do you do other than… work here?"

"Oh, not much, honestly. I live with my friend Ino, who's going to school to be a fashion designer, so I tend to, um… end up having to model whatever designs she has a lot of the time. She pays me a little for that, and I get a lot of free clothing out of it." Sasuke saw her shiver and reached for two more blankets, wrapping one of the smaller ones around himself then throwing the larger one over her before wrapping one half over himself.

"It's warmer if we're both under it." He was a little chilled, but he wasn't about to admit it. Looking at her… He could imagine her being a model. She was pretty. Very pretty.

"What about you?" Sakura asked, moving a little closer as he'd instructed. It was warmer with both of them under the blanket.

"I… write music." He'd thought about going to school for it, but it was easier to do it from home and do his research. Cheaper, too; he lived on a large acreage he'd purchased with an inheritance from his parents. With the house and the rented farmland, plus the hefty life insurance money he'd spent years living off of, he could spend years living out there. "Not much else. I live alone just down the road from the shelter, actually."

"Oh, really?" That wasn't what she expected. Musicians were always exciting types. "So you just come to visit the cats when you need inspiration?" It made sense to her. Creative types always looked for inspiration in the strangest of ways.

"No." Why did he find it so easy to talk to her? Something about the way she spoke made him want to open up to her. He chewed his lip like he was trying to hold back his words, but it was no use. "I come when… I start to feel like I'm too alone at home."

Sakura suddenly felt sad. "You don't live with anyone there? Not even your parents?" An acreage like that, she would have assumed he still lived with his parents. Maybe not a wife--they were far too young for that--but not even his parents? That seemed odd to her.

Sasuke shook his head. "I… they're not… around." He couldn't open up that much, but by his expression, Sakura figured it out. He didn't have to say anything more. There were one of two options there: either they were dead, or he never spoke to them any longer. She reached up from underneath her blanket, reaching underneath his and gently rubbing his shoulder. He looked at her, staring down not at her hand but her face. She was… quite close. She'd been the one who brought up a date. Was she… possibly interested in him? Had she said something to Shisui at some point?

Sakura saw the change in his demeanour, heart thumping in her chest. They were close, faces almost inches apart; it was like he was leaning down toward her. She'd heard Ino talk about this kind of feeling, but… she'd never experienced it. Well, they were alone, basically in the dark… What else were they going to do? They couldn’t let the cats out of the kennels, at least not unless they were strictly holding them. At least some of the cats were able to visit one another across their enclosures.

He was so close to her, his face only inches from hers. He could see her eyes in the dim light; green eyes were the rarest colour, and hers sparkled a bright jade colour. He wanted to kiss her, but… was it appropriate? Should he? No, maybe not yet. This was the first time they were really having a conversation. He wanted to know her better first.

“So…” he cleared his throat and moved back a bit. “You live with your best friend, you said? Anyone… else you spend time with?” He felt it was too tacky to ask her if she had a boyfriend or girlfriend. Sakura was a little miffed he moved away, but she’d just have to deal with it.

“Oh, no, not really. Well, there are a couple of girls we hang out with as a group, but… not anyone otherwise. No boyfriend, either. What about you?” She was a little oblivious to his prying.

“Mm… I have a friend, Naruto, but we haven’t talked in a while.” Wait, Naruto… why did Sakura recognize that name?

“Hold on. You mean Naruto Uzumaki?” It couldn’t be the same one, could it? Sakura remembered him. Ino had dated him at one point, in the last few years of high school.

“Yeah, Naruto Uzumaki.” Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “We, um… we were foster brothers for a while until I moved away in high school. I haven’t seen him since.” Naruto had been annoying, but they’d looked out for each other at least. He’d yet to try and reach out,m. “Then there’s also Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo.” Wait… Karin. Karin was a girl’s name. His girlfriend, maybe?

“Oh, so… is Karin your..?” Why did her heart drop at that idea? Him being taken was… a sad thought.

“No. Ex, actually. High school.” He hadn’t been as invested in that relationship as Karin had. He’d felt it was unfair to her and broken things off, though he knew she still pined for him. She seemed never to let him forget it. One day she’d have to, but for now, he could ignore her.

“Oh, I see.” That was a relief. An ex she could handle. Just as she opened her mouth to ask another question, a loud crash came from outside in the hall. It sounded like it came from the supply room, but Sakura wasn’t sure. Had someone broken in? Worry crept up in her spine as the flashlight started to flicker.

“What was that?” She whispered, instinctively huddling a little closer to him. He looked out toward the door, frowning and unconsciously moving closer to her as well.

“I don’t know. Do you have extra batteries for the flashlight?” He reached for her bag, digging through it in an attempt to find them before the flashlight died.

“Yeah, um, inside the pocket there.” She helped to hold the light for him, unscrewing the back and pulling out the old batteries. He took the flashlight and inserted the fresh ones, breathing a sigh of relief as the light flicked back on without issues. He stood up, turning to Sakura for a moment.

“I’ll go check it out. Wait here.” He was about to take a step before Sakura stood, shaking her head.

“Can I come with you?” It wasn’t an offer but rather a question. “I— I don’t want to sit here alone.” She was sure the cats would be fine, but it would be a problem and a half if someone had broken in. Sasuke hesitated before reaching for her hand, grasping it and nodding.

They made their way out into the dark hall, Sakura sticking close to him as they worked their way to the storage room. Once they opened the door, they were hit with a blast of cool air, and from what Sasuke could see, it looked like one of the windows had cracked. Something had hit the side of the building—a tree, it seemed—and a part of one of the branches had cracked the glass.

“Just a broken window, but not too badly. Is there some tape here?” He rooted around for something, anything; duct tape would work best. Sakura found a toll and handed it to him, giving her the flashlight so he could reach up and tape the glass. It would be enough to hold until a technician could adequately repair the window. Sakura shivered in the cold as he worked, wishing it wasn’t so chilly. He was done quickly, grabbing a few boxes to put them in front to help insulate.

“Come on. Let’s head back.” He could tell she was cold; he made a point to snag a couple more of the blankets to wrap them both in. Once they were back in the kennel room, he wrapped her in one blanket, then wrapped two of them around them both, keeping her closer for warmth. It wasn’t cold in the shelter yet, nor was it likely to get too cold, but it was better that they stay warm than try to warm up.

“Here. Stay close.” He could feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “We’ll, um… we’ll stay warmer if we share body heat.” That sounded creepy, but how the hell else was he supposed to put it? He kept an arm around Sakura, making sure she was close to him. Sakura could feel herself nodding and agreeing, leaning against him and glad for the warmth he provided.

“Thank you,” she said, her lips forming a small smile. “I-I mean, not just for this right now, but I mean… for coming out when Shisui asked. I probably wouldn’t have gone to investigate that window if that happened while I was on my own.” She was thankful he’d come. It meant she had someone to talk to, someone who could hold a conversation. Talking to cats was fine for a little while, but they didn’t make for too many intellectually stimulating conversations.

“Yeah,” he responded softly, shifting so he was more comfortable. He was pretty comfortably warm; a nap would have been pretty nice right about now. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. What else were they going to do as the storm raged on outside? Well… there was at least one thing he wanted to confess, but… maybe not yet. Maybe after the storm was over, he could ask to spend more time with her. That wouldn't hurt, would it?

Hours passed as they chatted idly, listening to the cats and hoping the storm would slow down soon. There… wasn't much to talk about. Sakura did most of the talking, chattering away for a lot of it, and while he contributed, he preferred to listen. He liked the sound of her voice. It was something he could get used to hearing.

"Sasuke?" She asked, drawing him out of his thoughts. She'd asked a question, but he'd been too busy thinking about her to listen to what she'd asked.

"Hm?" He tilted his head to the side curiously.

"I… I know we should stay close for warmth, but… Are you tired at all? I thought maybe the bean bag chairs, we could, you know, lay them out kind of like a bed? A nap wouldn't hurt." Oh. A nap. Now that she mentioned it, he realized he felt a little tired. It probably had something to do with sitting in the dark for so long; the room had stayed warm, and while they could hear a few of the cats padding around and mewling, most of them seemed to have gone to sleep. They understood they were in a safe, warm environment, especially with Sasuke and Sakura sitting there with them.

"Oh. Yeah. We can." He stood up and lifted the more oversized blanket off himself, wrapping Sakura in it. He dropped the one he was wrapped in to the floor, grasping the bean bags and thinking about it logically. If they laid them primarily flat, and one of them--probably Sakura, since she was lighter--laid down on them first, they could be adjusted to form a comfortable bed. He pulled them together and instructed Sakura to lay down, and she did so; once she was comfortable, he settled in beside her, reaching for the flashlight to keep it close. They'd turned it off a few hours ago to save the battery, preferring to listen to each other talk.

"Hey… Sakura?" Sasuke at least wanted to ask her one thing before they fell asleep.

"Mmm?" He could tell she was sleepy, and he wondered if she'd even remember what he was about to ask.

"I was wondering." Wondering was putting it mildly. "You… mentioned you didn't have a boyfriend, and I know this isn't an ideal situation, but…" He bit his lip, trying to squelch the nervous feelings that were creeping up. "Do you think maybe… you'd want to do something a little more appropriate after?" He grumbled. That sounded… not right. "Another time, I mean." That sounded better.

Sakura was too sleepy to hear his entire statement, but she caught parts of it. He wanted to hang out again after the storm let up? It sounded like a great idea to her. She couldn't put her finger on why he was asking if she had a boyfriend, though. Why did that matter? She was too tired to comprehend what he was asking entirely.

"Mm… sure. That sounds like fun." Her voice was quiet, notably half asleep. Sasuke was relieved to hear that. He suspected she might not have got the entire question, but it was enough. Even if it was platonic… He would like to spend more time with her. Why not? She was fun, energetic, animated, and could carry a conversation all by herself, and didn't seem bothered that he contributed little.

Hours passed, the storm raging on outside as they both slept, only being unceremoniously awakened as the lights in the shelter came to life all at once, nearly blinding them out of sleep. Oh, that was unpleasant as hell! The sound of the furnace going again caused them both to sit up, rubbing their eyes and trying to open them. Sasuke felt that usual grumpiness coming on; he hated being woken up when he wasn't ready to get up. His gaze turned to Sakura, who was sitting up on one of the bean bag chairs, rubbing her eyes and trying to straighten her hair. Cute, he thought to himself, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Looks like the power's back." That meant they should be able to leave.

"What time is it?" Sakura's phone had died overnight, so she had no way to contact anyone. Sasuke checked his, seeing the time. It was about six in the morning, but the shelter had notably cooled.

"It's about six," he confirmed, putting his phone into low battery mode. "Come on. We can probably get out of here now. With the power back, the cats will be fine." That was one bonus about their furry friends: they were more equipped to deal with the elements than their human caretakers, even in a cooler environment. It was still dark outside, but at least they'd be able to head home and get some proper sleep.

"Oh, well, that works. Let's top up what the cats have for food and water for the day, and we can head out… assuming we're able to even get out of here." She was pretty sure her car was snowed in; she'd parked right up against the building in the hopes that she might be able to avoid her vehicle being buried. That didn't seem likely. How silly of her to have done such a thing.

They changed the water and litter boxes in each kennel, then refilled the cats' food bowls before doing another double-check around the place. With everything seemingly in place, Sakura grabbed her keys and jacket, putting away the blankets and bean bag chairs before meeting Sasuke in the entryway.

"Okay. Let's see…" She opened the door, unsurprised by the pile of snow that was in front of it; it had to be almost up to her knees. Peering out, they could see that the storm had lightened considerably; it was still snowing, but it was more of steady snow than a blizzard. Her car was up against the building with snow piled up almost to the windows; the drifts had blown up against it, making it look worse than it was. Sasuke's truck was parked further up, and with its raised wheels, it had been spared the brunt of most of the drifts, though it was still going to be a challenge to get out.

"I… don't think we're getting my car out," she admitted. "Well… If you want to head home, that's fine. I can wait here and shovel my car out once the snow stops, or I can call Ino to come to get me." It was better than nothing.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sasuke scolded. "I'll drive you home. It's fine. The roads probably aren't cleared yet, but that shouldn't be a problem." He pulled out his keys, indicating for Sakura to lock up the shelter before trudging through the snow. He made sure to walk ahead of her, doing his best to flatten the snow so the drifts would be easier for her to traverse. He looked at his truck, then at her… Ah, with the way his truck was lifted and the fact that he hadn't put steps on his truck yet...

He followed her around to the passenger side, opening the door for her. "Just stand there," he instructed, and she did as he said. Damn, she was practically going to have to crawl into his truck; it was so high up, and she couldn't even reach the handle at the top to pull herself up into it. Without warning, she felt hands on her waist, causing her cheeks to flush as Sasuke lifted her high enough to reach the handle.

"I, um-- I-I got it," she stammered, holding on for dear life as she swung into the seat. He closed the door behind her before coming around to the driver's side to start the truck. Well… Days like today were why he had a vehicle like this; on an acreage, a tiny little car wouldn't do. He needed to be able to get down his driveway through crappy snowstorms. The truck flared to life, and he immediately put it in four-wheel drive, carefully wedging himself out of the snowdrifts. They took it slow down the road, Sasuke following Sakura's directions back into the city and to her house.

The streets were deserted. Vehicles could be seen abandoned along the freeway, along which they crawled at about a quarter of the speed. They made it to one of the smaller residential areas to a little townhouse; one vehicle could be seen parked out front, and there appeared to be a space where a second was usually parked. He pulled in front of the small driveway, putting the truck in park before hopping out and around to the passenger side to help Sakura out. Once she was safely on the ground, he looked down at her, taking a deep breath. This was his last chance to be direct.

"Sakura?" He asked, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck. Sakura could see just how nervous he was; he seemed… awkward, in a sense.

"Hm? What is it?" She was genuinely curious. He'd been too kind to her yesterday, coming to check on her; she could at least hear out whatever it was he had to ask.

"I was wondering… Would you maybe like to go on… a proper date, another time?" He knew that what they'd done wasn't exactly a date, but it was close enough, right? His offer shell-shocked Sakura; that was not what she'd been expecting. A date… a proper date. He wanted to go on one? And with… her, nonetheless? Had she been totally out of it all night? Well… now that she thought about it, there was that one time where she was pretty sure he was about to kiss her, but he'd backed off.

"Oh, um… I think I'd like that," she admitted, her posture turning shy as she looked away. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn't help it; he had an air of aloof mystery surrounding him, and she wanted to learn more. She wanted to know more about him specifically.

"Great. I'll… I'll call you." He had her contact number from a pamphlet he'd been given when he'd signed up as a volunteer; he could get it from there. There was one last thing he wanted to do, too. Stepping forward, he raised a gloved hand, stopping before taking off his glove to touch her face. Her cheek was warm and soft, fitting gently into his palm. Sakura felt herself freeze at the gesture, glancing at his hand before looking up into his face.

Sasuke leaned down, gently pressing his lips against hers. He kept the kiss brief and chaste, but… Damn, he'd wanted to do that since yesterday. Running a thumb over her cheek, he smiled and stepped back, bidding her farewell. Sakura waved and hurried inside, doing her best not to slip on the ice patches she was sure were hidden under the fresh snow. Once he saw she was inside, Sasuke put his truck into gear and drove off, and for once… he was driving with a smile on his face.

Sakura stepped in the door to the townhouse and was met by her blonde friend standing in front of her like a mother about to scold a child.

"Oh, you have some explaining to do, Forehead. A lot of explaining. And I want it to start with hot stuff out there who just kissed you in the driveway."

[ladykissingfish]

A Date with an Angel // Part Three // Sasori and Itachi

Sasori

“Do you like this place? It’s really colorful, isn’t it?” “It’s alright.” “These nachos are delicious. Do you want some?” “No thanks, the cheese would upset my stomach. I’m mildly lactose intolerant.” Konan just sighs to herself and picks her drink back up, slowly sipping as she tries to think of a good topic for conversation. Earlier, when the redheaded house member Sasori had invited her to spend an evening with him, her surprise had been greater than with any of the others so far. When she’d first been introduced to the household back when she moved in, she’d taken one look at Sasori and had been shocked; later on she sat in Nagato’s room and demanded to know why he was employing children to do the type of work that they did. “Children?”, he’d responded, shaking his head. “Sasori is no child; he’s 35 years old. He’s older than me and you, even.” 35?? With his short stature, smooth, unlined face and vibrantly colored hair ... it was simply unbelievable. The more she got to know him, however, the more she realized that he was indeed very mature; maybe too mature. He never smiled, never laughed, and made even less conversation than Kakuzu did. Whenever Konan made meals, he never joined any of the others at the table. “Don’t worry; it don’t have anything to do with you or your cooking,” Deidara had told her one night when she questioned it. “The guy just never eats. Hardly sleeps, either. It’s like he’s not human or something.” Considering his quiet, serious personality, his choice of venue to take Konan to tonight was entirely odd. “A comedy club?”, she’d asked, as he guided her through the doors. “Mm. They’re amateurs but really quite good. I’m sure you’ll laugh a lot.” And laugh Konan did — but not Sasori. His facial expression didn’t change once all evening, and he didn’t so much as crack a smile through even the most hilarious of acts. Now it was the interlude between sets, and Konan was trying to find something, anything to make conversation about. Before she can, the next guy comes on. It’s a man with a small dummy that he sits on his knee, that “tells” the jokes for him. Konan happens to glance at Sasori and is startled; for once, he seems interested. His eyes stay fixated on the little wooden toy throughout the man’s set, and when he’s done, it’s the first time that Sasodi cracks any kind of a smile. “Are you a fan of ventriloquism?” Sasori turns towards her, and unleashes more words than she’s heard him say in the entire time of living at the house. Sasori is gesturing, he’s vivid and animated as he explains the process of creating dummies and puppets, and the finer points of ventriloquism. “I didn’t know this was a hobby of yours.” He raises an eyebrow, and tells her it goes far beyond a hobby. The show is over so he takes her back home, and brings her straight to his room (which she’s never seen the inside of before). She gives a little gasp upon entering; Sasori’s shelves are filled to the rafters with various wooden constructs, some unfinished, some painted, some clothes, some with hair and jewelry and —

Konan goes to pick up a smaller one laying on a bench, gently turning it this way and that. “This is so realistic,” she says, softly. “I wish I had the patience for creating art like this.” “What do you mean? Your art is amazing as well.” She blinks when he says that; surely he’s not referring to — “I’ve been in awe of your origami for quite some time. The things you create are very beautiful. I’d love it if you could teach me your technique sometime.” Konan blushes; nobody except Yahiko had ever complimented her origami hobby before. She sees a piece of paper laying on his desk, and begins slowly folding and teaching him how to make a basic flower. After observing and asking questions, he’s able to replicate the simple lotus. She then asks him if he could walk her through the process for creating one of his pieces, which he does, from sanding to sculpting to painting. “Things like this are better than humans,” he tells her, quietly, at one point. “These you can create, and you can control. But you never really know what a person is thinking, or feeling, or what they’re going to do next.” At the end of it, Konan glances up at the clock on his wall and gasps: 1am?! Where had the time gone?? She gets up and thanks Sasori for (what turned out to be) a lovely evening. He hesitates, then takes her hand and gives it a light kiss. “You are welcome to come back any time you wish,” he says, as he walks her to his door. “I’m a night owl so if I’m not out on a job, I’ll be awake and working.” She nods, smiles, then returns to her own room. Before she falls asleep she thinks of another flower to teach him: the campanula. These bright blossoms offer beauty, and intricacy ... and are a symbol of new friendships.

Itachi

“Oh my Goddd.” “What’s wrong, Konan?” “Nothing; it’s just, I haven’t felt this relaxed in a while. Itachi smiled and took a sip of his lemonade, before answering, in his quiet way, “Me, too.” When Konan had been approached by the dark-haired Itachi earlier in the day and asked if she wished to spend some time with him that afternoon, she’d been excited. Itachi was somebody that mostly kept to himself within the house; always quiet, very soft-spoken but when he DID speak he always said the most profound things Konan had ever heard. He was one of the most calm and mature members of Nagato’s team, an Konan’s shock upon discovering that he was only 21 years old was immense. One night she went into the kitchen to cook everyone a meal, and was pleasantly surprised to find Itachi there ahead of her, doing prep-work for the dish she had said she was going to make. From then on, the two developed a slow, lovely friendship, punctuated mostly by them cooking together and occasionally watching a movie in the living room. Today however was the very first time she went anywhere with him in public, and she was nearly flabbergasted when they pulled up to a well-known luxury spa. “This — Itachi this kinda stuff is expensive. I can’t let you —“ but he just waved her off, took her inside, and told the lady behind the desk that they both wanted “the works”. A slow, soothing full-body massage, manicures and pedicures, eye and hair treatment, mud masks, as many desserts as they wanted (Itachi especially seemed to have a thing for the sweet dumplings), and now, a hot tub. “I wouldn’t have thought a guy would be into stuff like this,” Konan commented, reaching for her sweet tea. “Man or woman, everyone needs the chance to relax, don’t they?” Konan nods, and then says “Well I’m sure that all of you that work for Nagato do. But me? What am I doing that I deserve something like this? MY job isn’t nearly as stressful, and —“ “You take care of all of us. You’re there for us. That may sound simplistic, but that’s no small feat, my dear.” The two are quiet for a while, listening to the relaxing nature-esque background music of the spa, before Itachi says, quietly, “If — if you ever feel like talking about HIM, you can talk to me. I don’t know if you’re ready but I want you to know I’ve experienced loss, too.” Konan closes her eyes; while she appreciates Itachi’s kindness, she’s NOT ready to talk about Yahiko. So she asks instead, “You lost someone close to you?” He nods, faces her, and tells her the story about losing his parents in a car accident when he was 12. His voice wavers when he tells her that they were coming home from a parent-teacher conference for HIM, and how, for the longest time, he blamed himself for their deaths. “Me and my younger brother Sasuke were taken in by my older cousin Shisui,” he explained, now smiling. “Nice guy but definitely not father material. I guess it’s just the Uchiha curse; you lose someone and have to go to someone else. It happened to me, to Obito —“ Konan stops him, and is REALLY surprised to learn that Itachi and Obito are distant cousins. “But anyway, I just want you to know I get it. If the day ever comes when you want to talk, I can be there for you.” She scoots over in the water and hugs him; she blushes when she realizes her towel has slipped, and for a brief few moments their bare chests are touching. “S-sorry about that,” she says, backing away and covering up. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies; but he’s blushing quite hard as well. The drive home is quiet, each feeling comfortably invigorated and relaxed. When they get to the front door, Konan leans up and kisses Itachi’s cheek, thanking him for a lovely day. He tells her that she made the day even lovelier. They go inside and all of the boys make it a point to go up to Konan and tell her how great she looks after her day of pampering, which she appreciates. She goes into the kitchen to start dinner, and once again finds Itachi there ahead of her. She smiles and ties on her apron, and the two create another delicious meal together.

[supertvngames]

Naruto AU - Shuji Uchiha Scenarios Part 1

Shuji Uchiha is the adoptive brother of Naruto Uzumaki. And the half-brother of Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi Uchiha from their mother’s side, and half-brother Shisui Uchiha from their father’s side. And as well as my OC.

-Pre OS-

Mikoto Uchiha adopted Naruto but has to move out of the Uchiha Distract and into the late 4th Hokage Minato and his wife Kushina’s with the newborn child. Over a while, an Uchiha man was given permission to help Mikoto. The Uchiha man is the father of Shisui Uchiha. They accidently conceive a child, the child was named Shuji. Weeks after Shuji was born, his birth father died.

While growing up, Shuji had a big brother worship towards Shisui as Sasuke towards Itachi. Shuji and Sasuke tend to argue who’s the better big brother, Shisui or Itachi. However out of all his big brothers, Shuji actually favors Naruto because Naruto took the time to listen to him and play with him. Shuji is also seem patient with Itachi than Sasuke is. Even if Shuji likes Shisui better, he looks up to Itachi. And Shuji even considers Sasuke to be most relatable.

Shuji even met Izumi, Itachi’s lover. Shuji sees Izumi as a big sister-figure, mainly due to Shuji not being as stingy as Sasuke especially when it comes to Itachi.

Shuji is practically a mama’s boy, he is always seen with his mother Mikoto. Shuji learn about not just cooking and cleaning, but learn about Mikoto’s fighting skills at a very high level. Mikoto is a role-model to Shuji.

Shuji doesn’t get along with his stepfather Fugaku. Mainly due to Fugaku not being the type to open up his feelings and being a hardass.

Shuji, in-person, witness the death of his mother Mikoto and his big sister-figure Izumi in the hands of Itachi. Naruto was staying for afterschool after a prank gone messy. Shuji and Sasuke found each other as they see Itachi, as he spares them seeing the potential of them obtaining the Mangekyou Sharingan. Both Shuji and Sasuke try to fight off Itachi yet they had no progression. Shuji had to break down the news to Naruto about Mikoto’s demise.

Shuji did his best to enter the academy, to be with his remaining siblings, so he wouldn’t be alone at the house. He was then accepted.

Shuji tries to convince Sasuke to move into his and Naruto’s house because they’re family, and they’re all that’s left for each each other. Sasuke, however, prefer to live in an apartment, to which Shuji visits to keep his half-brother company and see how he’s doing. They train from time to time.

Shuji along with Naruto have been oppressed and discriminated by the Konoha villagers. Shuji has notice that this has happened before the Uchiha massecre, however now, it’s more nasty. Shuji simply doesn’t understand why they hate him and his big brother but he definitely wish the villagers are dead.

While with Naruto, Shuji noticed a girl who has been looking from afar. The girl was Hinata Hyuga. To Shuji, she seems rather cute and nice. Shuji encourages Hinata to come and hang with him and Naruto. Shuji even noticed another girl, Hinata’s little sister Hanabi Hyuga, to which both Naruto and Shuji convinced her to stick around as well.

Shuji helps Naruto train, especially when it comes to preforming the ordinary beginner jutsus.

Shuji does make time to make food and clean, and Naruto does his share as well since the two are working together.

-Original Series-

Shuji and Sasuke may have hold resentment towards Itachi for what they did to their parents and clan. However, Shuji wants to put the revenge mission on hold. After all, there’s nothing they can do for right now. Both he and Sasuke had some disagreements. Yet they still train together.

When Shuji sees that Naruto failed the graudation exams, he purposely funk himself so they could be ninjas another time. Shuji simply doesn’t want to leave his big brother’s side, until Naruto told Iruka that Shuji failed the graudation on purpose because he knows that they need the money.

When first meeting Konohamaru Sarutobi, Shuji thought he was some sort of strange kid even for the grandson of the 3rd Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi. Shuji, like Naruto, began to befriend Konohamaru. Naruto and Shuji played with Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon. Even invite Hanabi after convincing Hiashi that she needs to stimulate her mind in order to be an effective fighter. It’s the only way to have her live her life better.

Instead of a three-man squad, it’ll be four-man squad for each team: Team 7 - Naruto, Shuji, Hinata, & Sasuke Team 8 - Kiba, Shino, Sayuri, & [A new girl character, a non-clan one] Team 10 - Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, & [A new girl character, possibly a Sarutobi] Same could be said for Team Guy/Gai, and two more teams in the same year as them. One team would have three girls and one boy, both teams have females senseis

Shuji overheard some girl’s talk about Naruto, how she is badmouthing him as an orphan. Shuji pummels Sher to the ground. Enraged that someone is making of his brother after he and Shuji lost their mother.

When seeing he’s on the same team as his brothers and the girl he loves, Shuji was rather happy that they got to stick together. Shuji can fight along side with his relatives and his love, he reassures Hinata that they can all protect each other, they all have each other’s back. Yet, Shuji couldn’t help himself to protect Hinata (and his brothers).

When visiting the Hyuga District to pick up Hinata, Naruto and Shuji get violently angry at Hiashi for badmouthing his own daughter Hinata, being stopped by Kakashi. Hearing Hiashi says that Hinata is a “failure” and that the Hyuga, Shuji remarks that if she was a failure, she’d be taking after him, a lousy good-for-nothing selfish man who is nothing more than someone who brought two girls into the world only to refuse to take responsibility as a father.

After seeing Hinata having a bad situation at her household, Shuji offers to invites Hinata to his and Naruto’s house, at least dinner so he could cook, maybe once every afternoon as a getaway and to get to know each other.

There are times in B rank missions that Shuji ends up in trouble to which Hinata comes to his aid, although, Shuji isn’t upset. Shuji is, in fact, happy to see Hinata becoming stronger and more confident.

Shuji would even help out Naruto and Sasuke from danger as well, especially if it seems over his head, yet he doesn’t want to bear losing his only family he has left.

Shuji would grow from 1 tomoe at the early of the original series, to 1-&-2 tomoe, then 2 tomoe at the middle, later 2-&-3 tomoe, and then fully mature 3 tomoe at the end of the original series.

Shuji did run into Orochimaru at a different place and time, possibly on a mission soon before the Chunin Exams arc with a mix members on Shuji’s part. However, unlike with Sasuke who woke with the power up, Shuji woke up yet he is technically dying but manage to fight on.

It was until later on, Shuji was at death’s door compare to Sasuke when receiving the Curse Mark, until something alerting happens to either of his brothers or Hinata. Shuji finally overcomes the mark’s effects on him and began to have a murderous anger.

When Shuji sees how horrible Neji went through, being enslaved with a mark that can kill you, losing a parent, all that at such a young age. All the while, Shuji holds a grudge against Neji for looking for an opportunity to kill Hinata, yet Shuji still sympathize Neji.

Shuji sees that Gaara, like his big brother Naruto, a special power (although, it’s the power of a Tailed Beast) to which his own village fears and hates him for something that can’t be helped, yet also sees that Gaara got it worse than him and Naruto especially since he has his own father trying to kill him, unable to communicate with his siblings properly. Shuji pities Gaara.

After the Invasion on Konoha by Suna and Oto, Shuji’s speech patterns became more aggressive, especially after the mark reactivates. In Japanese, at first, Shuji’s 1st person pronoun was “Boku”, then it became “Ore”, to show how aggressive Shuji became.

Shuji begins to see that things between him and Hinata aren’t going anywhere. He sees Hinata showing more visible affections towards Naruto.

Shuji and Neji are having a rocky relationship. Until later on, when Hinata becomes temporarily blind, seeing Neji took care of her and even go out to help her condition, Shuji finally fully forgives and trusts Neji, and even tells Neji what’s on his mind, which is vowing that he will find a way to free him and the Side Branch family.

When he and Sasuke heard that Itachi return, and is after his big brother Naruto, Shuji was scared and furious. By the time he and Sasuke run into Hinata, Shuji explains to her on the way that Naruto is in danger and that they need to find Naruto as quickly as possible.

Shuji have to remind Sasuke that they have to run away with Naruto and nothing more, they can’t take on Itachi since he did defeat Kakashi. By the time, they did met up with Itachi, Shuji tries to think of how to escape with Naruto, only to see Sasuke charges at Itachi with a Chidori with Shuji thinking “What a dumbass”. Shuji tries to help Sasuke out but Itachi beats the crap out of Shuji and put him in a coma as well.

By the time both Shuji and Sasuke woke up from their coma, like Sasuke, Shuji became different than he was before. Shuji became rather moody, bitter, and has guilt. The encounter with Itachi and Kisame haunts him. He, his brothers, and Hinata were in a no-way-out situation to which they all could get killed. Shuji tries to rationalize and justify his failure only to see the fact he wasn’t good enough. Shuji finally begins to see why Sasuke couldn’t put the revenge mission on hold, so Shuji then train with Sasuke more than ever.

Naruto and the others began to see Shuji is becoming more and more bitter after each mission and those missions was that they either failed or even success through dumb luck. Especially since he and Naruto seen the suffering and unfortunate events in different places. Shuji ask them how many times they are going to get beaten before they wise up and they realize that being a ninja isn’t a game. Think of Leo from TMNT 2003 Season 4, I admit he was a jerk but he has his reasons.

When Kakashi told Shuji let go of his revenge like Shuji did once before he was put into a coma. Shuji told him that he didn’t let go, he put it on hold, and that Itachi plan to take his older brother Naruto away from him. Shuji already lost his mother, his big sister figure Izumi, and eldest brother Shisui, he not planning to let Itachi go around free. Kakashi tells him that he too lost his loved ones and he only look into the past. However, unlike Sasuke, Shuji doesn’t buy it, his response is “you no longer seek retribution? You dishonor your loved ones. I will honor the memory of my fallen”.

Well, that’s it for the scenarios for Shuji Uchiha for now. I might have more plans for him, some I having a bit of a mix feeling, but I’ll discuss them another time. Until then, see ya.

[ramiel-enthusiast]

Why do you hate Tobirama when he was right about all he said and even tried to channel Uchiha's unstable emotions into something useful and gave power and influence to them when other clans had no such privileges? In his lifetime, a mad Uchiha caused the First World War, crippled his sister-in-law and terrorized the country. Uchiha turned into overpowered vengeful terrorists for the trauma other Shinobi had to deal with. Tobirama should have sent the Uchiha to a madhouse isntead.

what does this mean bro

first of all, all the “First World War” and “vengeful terrorists” shit is like... exclusively madara (and maybe a bit of help from obito)??? just because madara was crazy does not mean the whole clan has to go to the madhouse sdfhlskdjfl

second, wtf do you mean abt channelling their “unstable emotions” like are you saying that all uchihas are born unstable?? that an entire clan is just full of weird crazy bitches that need to be watched over 24/7?? and dont try and act like all the uchiha have that “curse of hatred” going on. the “curse of hatred” is literally just “reacting negatively to traumatic experiences” like... duh youre gonna be angry and upset if something awful happened to you? kagami/mikoto/shisui/etc arent immune to the curse” they just werent traumatized or they happened to be good at coping.

and lastly the uchiha didnt have a bunch of political power and exclusive privileges.. when tobirama made them into the police force he just used that as an excuse to push them to the outskirts of the village. this marginalized the uchiha clan and made them have a poor connection with the rest of the village. he isolated them, hell, even hashirama calls his brother out on this. and the uchiha clan didnt like this!! fugaku peacefully brought up their concerns and requested to be reintegrated into the village and he was shot down!! then they were silenced and pushed further out of the village (which, ya kno, is kinda funny because this whole scenario is oddly reminiscent of what some US cities did to poc... pushing them out and claiming that they were “improving the city” and Totally Not Racist. this shit really just was thinly veiled oppression)

ofc, unless im overlooking something?? when did the uchiha clan ever use their “political power” to their advantage? what unique influence did they have in the village besides ppl respecting the strength of their doujutsu? tbh all i know abt the uchiha clan politically is that madara got cucked out of being hokage twice because tobirama wanted to throw shade + they got kicked to the edge of the village even after they asked to be reintegrated into it.

[narutoaus]

Harry Potter AU- Hatake Kakashi

Sorted into Slytherin

Became the Slytherin team Seeker in his second year

Became Team Captain in his fourth year, the youngest person in history to become a team Captain until Itachi.

Became a prefect in his fifth year.

Excels in all of his classes, but with particular skills in Defence Against the Dark arts and Arithmancy

Decided to take Care of Magical creatures and Arithmancy in his third year. Arithmancy because he was interested in it, care of Magical creatures because Gai wanted to take it and he wanted one more class with Gai.

Decided to become a professor when Gai told him that it was what he wanted to do, because he wanted to follow a different path from his father.

During the Summer before his third year, he came inside after hearing a loud crash in the kitchen and found his father's body laying on the kitchen floor. Sakumo had committed Suicide after being labelled a failure and traitor for choosing to save his partner from an attack, rather than focusing on catching the criminal that they were chasing. 

That summer was when his dream of becoming an Auror ended

Is part of a prestigious pure blood clan, and the only living member of that clan after his father's death. 

During his first year, Kakashi realized that Obito would be unlikely to buy a lot of his books for their second year because he had been disowned by his clan for being sorted into gryffindor. That year while him and his father were getting his books, he asked his dad if they could pick up an extra copy of everything for Obito. Sakumo has never been so proud of his son.

Has a pet dog, Pakkun, that he brings to school even though it’s not one of the standard animals that students can have. 

Bought Gai a Tortoise during the summer before their second year so that he had a friend to keep him company in the common rooms, since Kakashi couldn’t be with him. 

In his fourth year he picks up two new friends, both of whom are first years. Shisui he starts to hang around because he realizes that Shisui likes to hide away from people in the forbidden forest and Kakashi wants to make sure that he’s not alone and is looked after in case anything happens. Tenzo he sees in the hallways one day, brand new Slytherin, being bullied by some second year gryffindors. He walks up behind Tenzo and as soon as the Gryffindor’s see him they run for it, and then before Tenzo can protest he legit picks him up and starts to talk away. This is his friend now and Tenzo will learn to accept this.

Him and Gai often get into a lot of trouble in their first year for staying out after curfew, but all they’re doing is studying and chit chatting a bit too late and they have lost track of time. Because of this, the teachers stop taking points from them in their second year and start just telling them the time and watching them scramble to grab their things and say goodnight before running to their common rooms. 

During his Sevnth year Kakashi is upset to find out that there will be no Quidditch because of the Tri-Wizard competition. 

He puts his name into the cup as a potential champion because Gai tells him it won’t be the same type of victory being named Champion if Kakashi wasn’t even in competition with him for the spot.

Absolutely face plants against the slytherin table and groans when it’s his name called out as champion.

Is absolutely devastated to find out that Gai is going to the Yule ball with someone else. It took him days to get up the courage to ask his friend to the dance, only to be turned down because someone asked him a day quicker. 

Ends up going to the Yule ball with Baki, who assures him he only asked him because he was feeling sorry for him since he looked so sad after Gai’s rejection. But Baki spends all night dancing with him so he’s not keen to believe his lies.

Is horrified to find out that someone precious to him has been put in the lake for his second task, because he knows who it is. Unless someone else considers Gai more precious than he does, it is going to be Gai. And if somehow by some miracle it’s not Gai, it will be Tenzo. Either way, he feels sick to his stomach and it definitely affects his performance because he’s so terrified of losing someone else precious to him. 

Ends up starting the fourth task in last place because of poor performance in the second and third task (he got second just after Baki in the first task) but ends up winning even though he enters the maze last because at the end of the day out of all the champions, he is the most diverse in skills. 

Absolutely ends up facing down a spider to save Kisame from it, and Kisame will never let him forget the fact that he screamed in terror when it came running at him, even as he called out a curse and put it down.

Everyone is both surprised, but unsurprised to find out Kakashi wins. Surprised because he had been doing so poorly before the final task, but unsurprised because he is Sakumo Hatake’s son and regardless of how Sakumo fell, he was a fantastic wizard who was extremely diverse in his skills and Kakashi got that same diversity and intelligence 

Join’s the Tokyo Threstral’s National team during the summer after his seventh year. Becomes the team Captain during his second year with them. The only team that has a chance against his team, is of course Gai’s. 

Chooses to teach Defence against the dark arts and Arithmancy after getting his training to become a professor, because those were the two classes he excelled at and thus the two classes he would enjoy teaching the most. 

Proposes to Gai during their first year as Professors. It’s the end of the year and they’ve just seen off all of the students when Gai starts gushing about how the next year is going to be even better, and this time Hufflepuff will beat Slytherin for the house cup. Kakashi just ends up smiling and saying ‘Marry me’, which Gai think’s he has misheard. But Kakashi repeats himself and ends up getting crushed in a hug from Gai as he repeats ‘yes’ over and over again

[depressedkakashihatake]

Harry Potter Au Masterlist- Kakagai

This one is a bit long since i put both Kakashi and Gai together, so it will be all under the cut :)

@tenzoyamato @itachi-uchiha-deserved-better @uchihashisui-kun @temarihime

Gai

Sorted into Hufflepuff

Chaser for the Hufflepuff team

The son of a Squib and thus looked down on by a lot of pureblood and even half blood families

His father, Dai, was made Caretaker and the Muggle Studies Professor in his fourth year, so that he didn’t have to live separately from the boys to go to his muggle job so he could support Kakashi and Gai. 

Met Kakashi on the train to Konoha in his first year, and instantly decided that this would be his rival. That if he could become as good a wizard as Kakashi, that no one would be able to question his skills ever again. 

Went from having mediocre scores in all of his classes, to being the second best student of his year just under Kakashi because of his rivalry and drive to be as good as Kakashi. Is not at all surprised that people say he would make a great slytherin, but still likes that he’s in hufflepuff.

Became a Prefect in his fifth year and Head boy in his 7th year. 

Excels in Transfiguration and Charms, even beating out Kakashi’s scores in both classes from 3rd year until their seventh year.

Took Care of Magical creatures and Ancient Ruins as his chosen classes in his third year.

Decided that he wanted to be a Professor in his fifth year while he was thinking about what he wanted to do with his life. Made the choice because he realized that Professor Senju wanted to retire in the near future and he thought he would make a great transfigurations professor (he does)

His Father and Him moved into the Hatake residence during the summer before his fourth year. This happened because Sakumo died just before his third year started, and in his will he left the Hatake residence to Maito Dai to ensure that Kakashi would get it when he was old enough. 

In his 7th year the Tri-Wizard tournament is taking place at his school. When the Yule ball comes around, he ends up going with a student from one of the other schools who asked him out, which ended up being a mistake because the day after they asked him to the dance, Kakashi asked him. He still remembers the crushed look in Kakashi’s eyes when he told his best friend that he already had a date. Though, to his credit, Kakashi did not try to make Gai feel bad for his choice at all and instead ended up going with Baki

Was extremely surprised to find out after the Yule ball that he was Kakashi’s most precious person. He found this out because he was called to Headmaster Hiruzen’s office one day before the second trial, and woke up after the trial with Kakashi sitting over him with a stupid smile. Genma ended up filling him in on what happened. 

The only year he did not celebrate doing better than Kakashi in some of their classes was their third year, because that Year Kakashi was in such a bad place that he was actually in the bottom ranks of their year for most of the year. 

Is an Animagus that can transform into a Tortoise with a beautiful red shell. Like to chill out by the Castle lake and visit with Rin, who turns into a Koi fish. Also likes to take naps with Kakashi by his side.

Only ended up asking Kakashi out near the end of their seventh year. Did so by telling Kakashi that they should go out for dinner during the summer to celebrate finally graduation, and Kakashi smiled over at him and said “It’s a date”

Joined the Kyoto Kneazle during the summer before his first year of further education. Purposefully chose to join a team that Kakashi was not on, both so that they could continue their rivalry in quidditch and so that they didn’t over power other teams too much. 

Became the Captain of the Kyoto Kneazle’s in his third year on the team, only a year after Kakashi became Captain of his team. 

Kakashi

Sorted into Slytherin

Became the Slytherin team Seeker in his second year

Became Team Captain in his fourth year, the youngest person in history to become a team Captain until Itachi.

Became a prefect in his fifth year.

Excels in all of his classes, but with particular skills in Defence Against the Dark arts and Arithmancy

Decided to take Care of Magical creatures and Arithmancy in his third year. Arithmancy because he was interested in it, care of Magical creatures because Gai wanted to take it and he wanted one more class with Gai.

Decided to become a professor when Gai told him that it was what he wanted to do, because he wanted to follow a different path from his father.

During the Summer before his third year, he came inside after hearing a loud crash in the kitchen and found his father's body laying on the kitchen floor. Sakumo had committed Suicide after being labelled a failure and traitor for choosing to save his partner from an attack, rather than focusing on catching the criminal that they were chasing. 

That summer was when his dream of becoming an Auror ended

Is part of a prestigious pure blood clan, and the only living member of that clan after his father's death. 

During his first year, Kakashi realized that Obito would be unlikely to buy a lot of his books for their second year because he had been disowned by his clan for being sorted into gryffindor. That year while him and his father were getting his books, he asked his dad if they could pick up an extra copy of everything for Obito. Sakumo has never been so proud of his son.

Has a pet dog, Pakkun, that he brings to school even though it’s not one of the standard animals that students can have. 

Bought Gai a Tortoise during the summer before their second year so that he had a friend to keep him company in the common rooms, since Kakashi couldn’t be with him. 

In his fourth year he picks up two new friends, both of whom are first years. Shisui he starts to hang around because he realizes that Shisui likes to hide away from people in the forbidden forest and Kakashi wants to make sure that he’s not alone and is looked after in case anything happens. Tenzo he sees in the hallways one day, brand new Slytherin, being bullied by some second year gryffindors. He walks up behind Tenzo and as soon as the Gryffindor’s see him they run for it, and then before Tenzo can protest he legit picks him up and starts to talk away. This is his friend now and Tenzo will learn to accept this.

Him and Gai often get into a lot of trouble in their first year for staying out after curfew, but all they’re doing is studying and chit chatting a bit too late and they have lost track of time. Because of this, the teachers stop taking points from them in their second year and start just telling them the time and watching them scramble to grab their things and say goodnight before running to their common rooms. 

During his Sevnth year Kakashi is upset to find out that there will be no Quidditch because of the Tri-Wizard competition. 

He puts his name into the cup as a potential champion because Gai tells him it won’t be the same type of victory being named Champion if Kakashi wasn’t even in competition with him for the spot.

Absolutely face plants against the slytherin table and groans when it’s his name called out as champion.

Is absolutely devastated to find out that Gai is going to the Yule ball with someone else. It took him days to get up the courage to ask his friend to the dance, only to be turned down because someone asked him a day quicker. 

Ends up going to the Yule ball with Baki, who assures him he only asked him because he was feeling sorry for him since he looked so sad after Gai’s rejection. But Baki spends all night dancing with him so he’s not keen to believe his lies.

Is horrified to find out that someone precious to him has been put in the lake for his second task, because he knows who it is. Unless someone else considers Gai more precious than he does, it is going to be Gai. And if somehow by some miracle it’s not Gai, it will be Tenzo. Either way, he feels sick to his stomach and it definitely affects his performance because he’s so terrified of losing someone else precious to him. 

Ends up starting the fourth task in last place because of poor performance in the second and third task (he got second just after Baki in the first task) but ends up winning even though he enters the maze last because at the end of the day out of all the champions, he is the most diverse in skills. 

Absolutely ends up facing down a spider to save Kisame from it, and Kisame will never let him forget the fact that he screamed in terror when it came running at him, even as he called out a curse and put it down.

Everyone is both surprised, but unsurprised to find out Kakashi wins. Surprised because he had been doing so poorly before the final task, but unsurprised because he is Sakumo Hatake’s son and regardless of how Sakumo fell, he was a fantastic wizard who was extremely diverse in his skills and Kakashi got that same diversity and intelligence 

Join’s the Tokyo Threstral’s National team during the summer after his seventh year. Becomes the team Captain during his second year with them. The only team that has a chance against his team, is of course Gai’s. 

Chooses to teach Defence against the dark arts and Arithmancy after getting his training to become a professor, because those were the two classes he excelled at and thus the two classes he would enjoy teaching the most. 

Proposes to Gai during their first year as Professors. It’s the end of the year and they’ve just seen off all of the students when Gai starts gushing about how the next year is going to be even better, and this time Hufflepuff will beat Slytherin for the house cup. Kakashi just ends up smiling and saying ‘Marry me’, which Gai think’s he has misheard. But Kakashi repeats himself and ends up getting crushed in a hug from Gai as he repeats ‘yes’ over and over again

[raendown]

"I'm not leaving you alone, not like this" - for Iruka/Shisui or Iruka/Tenzou. They weren't on your list but hope they're okay ♡ thanks, lovely.

AO3

-

Iruka found him drifting, buoyed by the raft he had madehimself but floating along wherever the current took him. With a gaze thatsharp Tenzou didn’t need to open his own eyes to know that Iruka’s had lockedon to him and he shivered, tempted to roll away on his little craft but knowingthat to do so was to admit that he was being utterly ridiculous.

Splashing met his ears and he knew his boyfriend had justwaded in to the shallows. Before he had any time to think up a possible escapeplan that might somehow preserve his dignity he felt the course of his driftingchange as he was pulled in by an irate teenager with a ponytail and a verydisappointed expression.

“Are you done moping yet?”

“I’m not moping,” he insisted despite all evidence tocontrary.

“Oh you are. And being extraordinarily melodramatic aboutit, I might add.” Iruka raised his eyes to the sky. “You’ve been spending waytoo much time with that Hatake Kakashi.”

Tenzou sniffed and stubbornly kept his gaze on the clouds. “Senpaiis cool. I could stand to be more like him.”

“I would prefer if you weren’t.”

He chewed that over for a moment, trying to decide how Irukahad meant it. Was it an insult against his senpai or a begrudging complimentthat his boyfriend preferred him as he was already? Sometimes it was hard totell with Iruka. And sometimes it was both at the same time, that was always anoption. He didn’t realize how long he was taking to respond until he heard anirritated sigh and out of habit he finally turned his head to look at Iruka.

Were he being perfectly honest with himself he was moping.Just a little. But if spending time with Kakashi had rubbed any traits off onhim it would be the stubbornness to deny, deny, deny his feelings.

“I’m perfectly fine. You should just go back to the village.”

“Really? Perfectly fine? I don’t think so, I’m not leavingyou alone.” Iruka gestured to the raft underneath him with a very judgmentallook. “Not like this.”

“What’s wrong with this?” Tenzou demanded.

“You’re being ridiculous! We had one little fight, Ten, andit wasn’t even a big one. But you’re out here moping the day away like youthink I’m going to break up with you just because you don’t want to come tosomeone’s birthday party. “

Very carefully so he wouldn’t upset either the raft or thedelicate heart inside his chest, Tenzou sat up. “You’re not?”

“Of course not! I’m a little annoyed that you don’t want tospend time with my friends but it’s nothing to break up over!” Some of theanger drained away from Iruka’s face to be replaced with gentle sympathy andTenzou knew exactly what he was thinking. It was easy sometimes to forget howunfamiliar he was with the way other humans interacted, how unsocialized he hadbeen until Kakashi pulled him out of ROOT to give him a new life. Much as hedidn’t want that sympathy he was happy to see Iruka just a little less angry athim.

“It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with them,” headmitted. “I don’t like parties. They make me really uncomfortable, too manypeople that I don’t know. It just…it sets off too many alarm bells in my headand I panic.”

“That, um, I didn’t think of it like that. I’m sorry.” Iruka’smouth twisted and he looked away with shame in his eyes.

Tenzou hated that he put that there. It wasn’t Iruka’s faultthat he couldn’t crawl inside someone else’s head to know what they werefeeling. Desperate to make that shame go away and apologize for not speakinghis mind, he scrambled to the edge of his raft.

And fell in the river.

Whatever shriek of surprise had been trying to claw its way outof his mouth was swallowed by the water he crashed in to, cursing himself forforgetting how small the little craft was and how easy it would be to capsizeit with one sudden shift of weight. Thankfully they were at least in theshallows so he got his feet underneath him quickly enough and stood up coughingthe Naka out of his lungs. Iruka, the traitor, was laughing at him.

“Okay! I’m not angry anymore! That was so great!”

“Hey shut up!”

Iruka did not shut up. He continued to laugh even whenTenzou splashed him and stomped off towards dry land, abandoning his raft andhis boyfriend both, hoping he could march far enough away to hide the smileblooming on his face. Things would be fine between them. He wasn’t going to getdumped for skipping one stupid party, Iruka understood him a little bit better,and he’d made the brightest boy in the village laugh without even meaning to.

Definitely a better ending to the day than he’d expected.

[vesperlionheart]

All of You

@alyseb630 I’ve finally gotten around to that Itasaku request and I’m not sure how it turned out, or if it’s what you like, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it! 

Itachi wasn’t often frustrated, but after his promotion to ANBU captain, he had found the pressure everything his superiors had warned him it would be. And that was fine. The safety and protection of his precious village wouldn’t be easy. He was proud to be the one bearing the brunt of the responsibility. At least this way he spared someone else the headache.

Things grew easier later on in the year when he found synchronicity in a mixture of friends and strangers alike; all soon grew into a second family at a rate he would have previous thought impossible. Shisui would always be there, closer than a brother, but there were new faces and distant face on the team he was lucky to discover, like the sensor Hyuga Neji and medic Haruno Sakura. He hadn’t expected them all to grow so close, but almost a year later the headaches were gone and life flowed on like a stream.

Until they didn’t.

He read another report and frowned when his team roster was denied.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he calmly ask Tsunade. “We would be ideal for this mission.”

“You can do this without a medic,” the blond answered easily, barely looking his way.

Itachi knew she was right, but it didn’t make sense.

“In spite of our reputation, Uchiha can not predict the future. It is wise to travel with a medic.”

“Hyuga has first year medic training, and he’s more competent than the trained medics on other teams.”

“He is our sensor, not our medic.”

“You’ll be fine. Don’t complain.”

Itachi shifted from one foot to the other awkwardly, uncomfortable with rebuffing authority. “Is there a reason you are not addressing with me why Sakura Haruno has requested a leave of absence from my team?”

Tsunade finally looked up. “I never said she requested anything.”

“That is not an answer, Hokage sama.”

Tsunade glared openly, but didn’t reach for her drink, so Itachi knew he wasn’t in the worst of troubles. “Listen, you’re competent. You’ll get the mission done. Sakura’s business is her own. You’re dismissed, Uchiha. Get packing, you have twenty one hours before departure. Don’t waste them.”

There would be nothing more to gain and he knew it, so Itachi bent at the waist and promptly excused himself with all the dignity befitting an Uchiha.

In his twenty one hours before setting out he didn’t divert from any of his pre mission rituals, though there was a tugging in his heart that only hurt more and more as hours slipped by.

When the rest of his team departed, he carried a regret in his chest he couldn’t understand until three weeks later when they returned. His quick-call team roster had been updated by the Hokage and Sakura’s name had been permanently removed. He checked the other rosters, even the ones he shouldn’t, and couldn’t find her name anywhere.

But she was still working at the hospital.

It wouldn’t be the most curious thing he could possibly do, but Itachi made an appointment for a post mission check up and requested her services specifically, pulling the clan card when someone else tried to see him.

“I will only be treated by a clan approved medic,” he told the older doctor who came in with a clip board and an attitude.

“But Haruno san is still seeing her other patients!” the doctor protested.

“I will wait.” Itachi was not willing to take no for an answer, even if it took him hours.

And it did.

But eventually swept into the examination room in her lab coat and messy hair, half pinned up to stay out of her face. Her smile stretched into something that reached her eyes when she saw him and it was like all the hours and days he had spent upset with her unexplained absence broke up and faded away.

“Itachi, you’re looking alright.” She closed the door behind her and left her clipboard on the end table. “Let me see your eyes for. I want to make sure my work wasn’t undone.”

“It wasn’t, Itachi mumbled, bending forward and activating his eyes upon her request.

She slipped her fingers into his hair and he felt the pads of her fingertips warm as her medical chakra seeped into his brain, probing the lines of his optic nerves. She swelled through him and he was content to drown. All too soon she pulled away and reached for the clip board again.

“Your chakra is…different,” Itachi remarked, surprised with the observation.

His words caused her to frown. “A bad different?”

“No, just…different. Heavier.”

“That’s interesting. None of my other patients were able to tell when I examined them earlier. I can’t even tell. Well, regardless, I think I’m still able to do my job well enough to see you are in perfect health. Ah, it warms my heart to see a patient following his doctor’s orders. You haven’t been pushing your Sharingan.”

“You told me not to.”

“Does that stop Kakashi?”

Itachi considered the question and then chuckled. “He’s an old dog. Don’t blame him if he can’t learn new tricks.”

His joke made her laugh and his whole belly filled with warmth.

“You look perfect so far, Itachi, what are you really concerned with?”

“Why were you taken off my team?”

There was a reaction, but she hid it like a pro. If he hadn’t made it a habit to study her so intently for months on end, he would have missed it. She shrugged and offered him a sympathetic smile that was too plastic to be true.

“I’m sorry, that decision was out of my hands. I’ve recommended a medic to act in my stead, but I guess you don’t need one these days. I haven’t seen many of you stop in.”

“I had to find out from the Hokage. If it was in your power to do so, I would have appreciated you telling me in person. I…” Itachi bowed his head, but didn’t lower his voice. “I thought I would have earned that right as your friend.”  

Sakura cursed under her breath, and when he looked up through his bangs he saw the frustrated flush of color on her cheeks. “Please don’t. I’m sorry….I…I just couldn’t go with you. It’s not something I can help anymore.”

“I understand that. I’m not upset that you’re off our team, Sakura. As your captain and your friend, I know I’ll need to let members go when the time comes. I just wished you had felt comfortable talking to me about it.”

She swallowed and nodded. “I should have let you know, I’m sorry.”

His voice was softer for her. “I’m not upset.”

“But you’re hurt, and that’s worse,” she said, face screwing up in frustration. “Damn, I didn’t-I hadn’t thought it would matter.”

“You’re one of my closest friends,” Itachi said honestly.

He hadn’t expected it to be true, but after working so closely together for almost a year, he knew it was one of the most true statements of his life. He couldn’t imagine going back to a time before Sakura, or Neji, or Hana, or anyone from the dream team. But especially Sakura. She had done the most to break up his stiff exterior and expose the softest parts of his personality and it was such a relief to find a friend he could be that vulnerable around and still feel safe.

“Itachi, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I was stupid,” Sakura sighed, bowing her head to him, shoulders sagging. “I was a bad friend.”

“I know we work together, but we’re not just colleges. Be more honest with me next time.” When she glanced up Itachi took the opportunity to poke her forehead. “Everyone needs time off, now and then. Do you know when you will be ready to return to active duty?”

She rubbed her forehead, hating how he always used her Yin seal’s rhombus as a bullseye. “Maybe in six-seven months?” she admitted under her breath. “I’m not sure.”

“Is there something I can do to help speed up the process?”

He might have been mistaken, but he thought she almost laughed. Her eyes widened a fraction before she caught herself and shook her head with a privet smile. “Sorry, that part is out of my hands, and there is also the possibility of it taking longer.”

“That is fine, but please don’t fall off the face of the earth and forget the rest of your team. You’ll check in every so often, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

He hadn’t known it to be a lie when she said it, but that became a bit more obvious when the next two weeks dragged on without hide nor hair of his former teammate. He hadn’t been the only one to notice, too.

“I haven’t seen her recently either, but I know she’s regular at the hospital,” Sasuke told him over dinner one night.

The pair ate regularly, but didn’t speak so plainly unless there was something to speak about. The exception to this was when their parents were out. Itachi hadn’t wanted his mother hearing his question and getting any ideas.

“I thought the original team seven would have meals regularly.”

“We do,” Sasuke said. “Sakura has just been too busy to attend.”

“For how long?”

Sasuke glanced up through his bangs at his brother and his stare was full of annoyance. “Just a few weeks. Why all the inquiries? She stand you up for a date or something?”

Itachi flushed. “We were not romantically affiliated. She is merely a…friend.”

“Then ask her what’s up. If you care, put it out there and see what she says.” Sasuke waved his chopsticks in the air and then pointed them at Itachi. “But leave her alone if she wants you too.”

Itachi’s gut rolled. “Do you know something?”

Sasuke ignored his brother and reached for more pepper strips to pick out of the stir fry. It was an odd thing to have his precious younger brother deny him something, but it convinced Itachi that his concern regarding Haruno were founded. Something was going on.

And a small part of his consciousness hated him for it, but he made another appointment for a ‘pain in his left eye’ and requested the usual specialist. Like last time it was almost an hour later before she arrived and this time he noticed the genjutsu.

“Sakura, what’s wrong?” he asked before she could put her clipboard down.

“I thought that you were the person with something wrong. When did the pain in your left eye start bothering you?” Sakura asked, deflecting easily.

She reached for his head, ready to run her fingers through his hair in the usual procedure, but he caught her wrist before she could.

“Is it something you really can’t share with anyone?” He caught her eye and held her gaze. “Or is it just me you need to hide from?”

“Itachi, is there really a reason for this visit or are you just here to pester me?” She started to bristle. “I said I needed some time off.”

“You said you wouldn’t fall off the face of the earth, but Neji and Hana both miss you, and Shisui hasn’t seen you in months. We all feel your absence and we care about you. We’re family, remember?”

And she did. He could tell she remembered the exact words by the reaction on her face. Those had been her words months and months ago when the rain was cold and the mud heavy on their backs. She hadn’t run off ahead of them like a proper medic should, and because of that most of them were still alive, but she was heavily wounded and manic with reservoir chakra running through her body.

‘You’re my f-cking family so shut up, captain,’ she had screamed in his face before lifting him onto her back to carry over her shoulder.

It hadn’t been the first time she called them family or referred to them as such. She went through hell for them. Itachi was having a hard time believing she was choosing to shut them all out of her own free will.

“Sakura?”

With a pained sigh, she backed up, dropping her wrists at her side. Angling slightly, she fit her hands over her hips and moved the ends of her lab coat back to stand fully. “I should have known better. You’ll be able to see through the genjutsu if you activate your Sharingan.”

“And that’s what you want me to do?” Itachi asked, almost hesitating.

Sakura forced herself to grin. “You won’t blab to anyone so I guess it’s okay. Just don’t think the worst of me, okay?”

“I could never.”

Her smile eased into something more natural. “Yeah, I know.”

Itachi pushed chakra into his eyes and felt them pinwheel open, bleeding red and exposing the truth of the world. At first it wasn’t obvious, but he saw the changes soon enough. Sakura was radiant in new way, with healthy skin and a pretty flush high on her cheeks, but it was the swell of her stomach that finally drew his eye.

“You,” he gasped, sliding off the examination table. He knelt down in front of her, eyes level with the baby bump. “You’re pregnant?”

“No more missions for me, not for a while. Sorry I didn’t tell you, but it’s a bit more complicated than just a simple pregnancy.” Her face pinched and he watched the rest of her body ripple with new anxiety. “Please don’t think the worse of me.”

His heart felt heavy, but he refused to let it show. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone. The missions you couldn’t take…that all makes sense now.”

“It’s not so straightforward. Here, get back up on the table. Listen from the beginning. I’m not supposed to tell anyone new without the parents consent, but I think they’ll be okay if it’s you.”

“Parents?” Itachi echoed. “As in….more than one?”

“The child isn’t mine, I’m just carrying it.”  

“I don’t understand.” He glanced down at her bump again and them up at her face. “Not yours?”

“The parents are friends of mine and I’ve been their doctor through the last seven messy miscarriages. The parents have a rare non-complementary chakra situation that makes it dangerous for the mother to carry their child to term.”

He bussed with a new fear. Sakura faced a danger he couldn’t protect her from. “If it’s dangerous then why is the burden yours? Are you safe?”

“I’m fine,” Sakura insisted. “It’s only dangerous to those without flawless chakra control, and that’s been the one thing I’ve always been excellent at since my academy days. Technically it’s an A ranked mission, but I don’t see it that way.”

“So you’re not in any danger?” Itachi asked, still sounding worried.

“No, there have been a few close calls, but I’m doing just fine. I’m cutting back on work though, which is why I’ve been terrible about getting to these appointments on time.”

“I’ve never minded that,” Itachi said, watching her with new eyes. 

She seemed radiant with the glow of a pregnant woman. The feel of her chakra thickening during her last examination suddenly made sense. He remembered hearing about how some mothers produced more chakra during the first and second trimester of their pregnancy to accommodate the new life. For clans with rich bloodlines it was a bigger deal. If Sakura’s chakra felt the way it did, Itachi didn’t doubt the child she was carrying would one day be extraordinary.

Sakura turned back around and found a chair to ease herself into. She sighed as the rigid frame of her body went slack. “But I’ll admit, it hasn’t been as easy as I first assumed. You would think with all the babies I’ve delivered I would be a bit wiser about it all. Nah, the cravings still catch me off guard. Why dango and grilled squid? Why?” she laughed.  

“Are you being taken care of by anyone else?” Itachi asked. “Your old teammates, do they know?”

Sakura nodded. “I knew I’d have to tell Sasuke because of the Sharingan, and I suppose I should have factored you into the equation as well. I didn’t know you’d be this persistent, captain.”

Itachi quirked a single brow. “You were the one who first called me family. You signed up for this. Don’t complain when family comes to check up on you.”

“I’m thankful, really. Still, I need to ask you to keep this to yourself. The family doesn’t want this being public knowledge for both their sake and mine. Once I start to really show, I plan on going with them on a retreat until the baby is born. I’ll come back with some ‘injuries’ to explain my recovery.”

“No one worth the time of day would think any less of you if they knew the truth. You shouldn’t feel the need to hide anything, but I’ll respect your wishes no matter what they are,” Itachi answered.

Sakura smiled and it was enough to melt his heart. He felt like there was warm honey inside his chest whenever she looked at him like that. He had always felt a little soft for Sakura, and told himself that was normal for ‘family’ and teammates. He felt close to all his precious people and Sakura was no different. He realized how stupid that sounded when she looked at him like that, resting her fingers over the swell of her stomach and smiling with a motherly glow. There was a word for it, but he dared not ruminate on it.

“Thank you, Itachi,” Sakura sighed. “I’m glad I could tell you. Don’t mind me if I rest in here for another hot minute before going back out on my feet.”

“Take all the time you need,” Itachi instead. “You know how clan brats can be.”

Sakura laughed and it was a sound Itachi wanted to spent the rest of his life working for.

When he showed up on her doorstep the next day she answered in a fuzzy robe over her pjs, enough to hide the bump without a genjutsu. Her hair was a mess around her face, and judging from the bleariness of her eyes he had caught her just after waking up from a nap.

“Itachi?” she asked. She yawned and ran a hand through her hair. “What are you doing here. It’s my day off.”

“I know, and I hope you were able to rest. I brought you something,” he said, producing a pair of packages.

The first was wrapped in brown paper and smelled strong enough for her to know what it was before he pulled the paper back. The grilled squid was still warm. Underneath the squid he carried a plastic canister of fresh dango from the cart seller she adored.  

“What?” she breathed, eyes wide as she swallowed audibly. “What is this?”

“Hopefully a help. You mentioned the cravings.”

Sakura blinked and then leaned out into the hallway, seeing no one, she tugged Itachi in and then closed the door behind them. “Yeah, I did, but what does that have to do with you showing up knowing exactly what I wanted? It’s not your kid, Itachi.”

“It’s not yours either, but you’re still dealing with it. Let me help.” Itachi lifted the paper back and the smell almost made Sakura melt in wanting. He grinned at her reaction.

“Itachi,” Sakura groaned. “I’m going to be gross and hormonal. You don’t want to be around for that, trust me.”

“I’d like the choice, if that’s alright with you and the family. If it’s you, Sakura, I want to be around for all of it.” He spoke with the clearest voice, leaving no room for doubt.

“It sounds like something a boyfriend would say,” Sakura joked, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

“I’d like to be that too if you’re alright with it,” he said without hesitation.

Sakura flushed and covered her face with her hands. “Itachi!”

He left the food on the counter and reached for her wrists, pulling them away from her face enough so he could see the way her eyes watered. “All of it,” he insisted with a whisper of his voice. “All of you, I want to be there for everything you deem worth sharing. And next time,” one of his hands reached to touch the swell of her belly, “I hope you’ll share this with me too.”

Sakura cursed softly under her breath and then bowed her head. Itachi held his breath, waiting for her next words, praying he hadn’t been too aggressive in his advances. She lifted her eyes enough to meet his and sighed.

“Then kiss me already, you idiot.”

Happily, Itachi obliged.

[the-formerone]

and here’s my submission for the @narutogiftexchange! I got @blackkatmagic, who requested "ShikaKiba arranged marriage!au with mutual pining and a happy ending. Maybe an emphasis on clan traits and the differences between them?". i hope i did it some justice! it’s .... much longer than i originally anticipated, but hopefully, it’s up to snuff!

brown eyes steal me Word count: 10,213 Pairing: ShikaKiba Rating: T Summary:  "You planted a -," "I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there." "Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original, but cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

"You're shitting me."

Hana is hiding her laughter behind her hand, and their mother has her arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow raised as if Kiba is the one being unreasonable.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Tsume drums her clawed fingers against her hip.

"Curse one more time under my roof," she hums, "see what happens."

Kiba ducks his head, rolling his eyes as he does. Hana snickers, elbows on the dinner table. Their mother stands above them, looking ridiculous as she always does in that stupid pink apron of hers. She's twirling a ladle in one hand, brandishing it like she's just waiting for the right moment to smack Kiba over the back of the head with it.

"You are of marrying age," Hana says, cupping her chin in her hand. "It only makes sense that ma's been getting some offers for your hand."

Kiba rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. He's not - he is not entirely sure  what he's supposed to be making of this. Arranged marriages weren't really uncommon in the shinobi world. They helped preserve bloodlines, helped enhance kekkei genkai. They were also good for economics; combining families meant combining wealth and resources.

But the Inuzuka weren't the most sought after clan when it came to those kinds of matches. Before their clan and the Hatake had split, when they had more prestige, sure, but in this day and age? Not particularly.

The Inuzuka were too brash, too 'difficult'. Which essentially meant that none of the smaller clans understood how the Inuzuka operated, and the larger clans were too well off to need a match with them.

The Inuzuka were a mid tier clan; sure, they had a seat on the clan council, but they didn't have as much sway as the Uchiha or the Hyūga. Even the Yamanaka had more sway because whichever way they voted was a sure indication of where the Akimichi and Nara would stand.

But Kiba was Tsume's second child. Kind of a runt next to Hana as far as their family was concerned, but they were born for different reasons. Hana's father had been a distant relative of the Hatake, and she had more wolf in her for that. She had been born to lead. Kiba's dad had been from a family of raccoon dogs, which clearly had seemed like a good idea until he had gone feral and his mom had to scare him off.

Kiba had been a love baby. Which was lucky, in that he didn't really get most of the responsibility for the clan foisted on him, and unlucky in the fact that since the moment he figured out what sex was, his mother had been sure to be teasingly lewd about how much she enjoyed the process of making him. Which was suitably mortifying for a thirteen year old.

"Make Hana get married," he grumbles, narrowing his eyes up at his mother. "She's the heir."

Tsume snorts at that, twirling the ladle. Kiba watches as the light glints off of it, preparing to duck or dodge as he might have to.

"I haven't picked my heir yet," she says, light as the breeze shifting through the window.

Kiba rolls his eyes. As if. The Inuzuka had been matriarchal since their inception. The only time a man led the family was in times of absolute crisis. In the Warring States period, the four year old Inuzuka Chiharu had assumed the mantle of clan head even though her older brother Tadashi was seventeen and clearly in a better position to lead them.

Then again, great-great-granny Chiharu had been a badass in her own right. Kiba may have gotten his tattoos at ten because he showed promise, but Chiharu had gotten hers at three. Which was obscene and had never happened since even though from what he's heard, Hana could have done it earlier than seven (that wolf blood at work), and their mom had gotten hers at six (Tsume had been born ridiculous).

"Besides," Tsume says, as she turns back into the kitchen and begins ladling the nikujaga into bowls, "Hana has several suitors. And you don't have any."

Kiba does not really need to be reminded that he isn't dating anyone. And that he hasn't since that fiasco with Naruto when they were fifteen. It hadn't worked out even in the slightest. Which was fine. It was fun while it lasted, and Kiba had learned a lot about how sex with another guy could work (theoretically; they hadn't actually ever made it all that far) but they were too alike for each other's tastes and being friends seemed better than dating someone who was essentially themselves.

"Hana's dating a snake," Kiba returns. "That doesn't exactly a suitor make. And Akimichi Maruten, which is okay, I guess. At least he isn't in his thirties."

Hana turns to him, smiling in that pretty way she does before she opens up a summon's mouth and shoves its medicine inside.

"Be nice," she chides, looking terribly like their mother.

At least Tsume had the grace to sound mean when she looked mean. Hana's face was too kind and it made her all the more frightening.

"Oh, and Iruka-sensei," he adds, trying not to stick his tongue out. Knowing his academy teacher had a thing for his sister was just as weird as knowing Mitarashi was barking up that tree, too. "I'm not sure how well dolphins and dogs mix. And all that's without considering Shushin no Shisui gets tongue tied when you walk in the room."

Hana reaches out and Kiba ducks back, but not in enough time to escape her fingers pinching down on his cheek.

"I'm pretty sure I taught you manners when we were kids," she says, but the pinch is as light as the smile on her face.

She's not upset with him. Kiba can tell she's more embarrassed than anything else. It was common for Inuzuka clan heads to take more than one partner depending on where their blood was; those with more wolf in them like Hana typically stuck with one, while those with more dog like their mother would have several.

It's clear Hana hadn't thought she was that hot on the market until it was pointed out.

"You did," Kiba says, handling the pinch with more grace than he would have when he was twelve, "but when mom came back, she taught me the opposite."

Tsume slams down the tray of bowls on the dining table with enough force to crack it. Thankfully, the Inuzuka dining table had seen Tsume's wrath for longer than Kiba had his teeth. He's actually pretty sure he teethed on one of the table legs now that he thinks about it.

"Do you want to be a brat or do you want to eat?" she asks.

Hana lets go of his cheek and starts doling out rice for the three family members, and Tsume unloads the tray, setting a bowl of soup in front of each of them.

"How did anyone know I was even - ," He has to take a breath, fighting down the urge to roll his eyes as he says it, "Of 'marriageable' age?"

Tsume starts eating first, picking up her bowl of beef and potato stew and attacking it like it's her first meal of the day.

"All the brats in your year are of age," she says around a mouthful of thinly sliced beef. She says it like Kiba's an idiot who can't keep track of time. Which is only half true. "It came up at the last clan council meeting."

Kiba nods slowly, eyes tracking to Hana who pointedly doesn't look at him. Tsume may not have named her heir, but she did take both of them to council meetings on occasion. Never the both of them at the same time, though. He had thought Hana seemed a little too perky towards the end of last week; she had come home smelling like she knew a secret. That was typical enough for a shinobi; Kiba was used to that smell. But if he had known it had something to do with him, he would've been twelve times more irritating about it as he had been.

"So what, all my year mates are getting married off?" he asks, lifting his bowl of rice so he can start eating.

"Looks that way," is all Tsume says.

Kiba valiantly doesn't roll his eyes and he starts eating. He can guess who's going to be married which way. Hinata and Neji had been a sure bet ever since they were kids, even though nobody liked the idea at the time. They were genetically cousins and siblings, which made Kiba feel uncomfortable down to his bones and also Neji was a piece of shit when they were younger. But the kids from that match would be absurdly strong.

Sakura had gotten pretty terrifying lately, and her being so cozy with the Godaime made her prime real estate for any of the noble clans that wanted an in. Kiba wasn't sure of who had kids young enough to marry her; Sakura was one confidence boost away from being the top bitch of the Twelve and he doubted she would suffer anyone over five years older or younger than her. That knocked out the Shimura and the Sarutobi for sure.

He'd think the Uchiha were a safe bet; there were plenty of guys in that clan that were still single. Sasuke would be inadvisable considering his mountain sized crush on Naruto. Yeah, those two had pretty much been born a package deal. It was probably only a matter of time before Kushina as the Uzumaki clan head made an offer to the Uchiha.

Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru couldn't be with each other for the sake of preserving the Ino-Shika-Chou dynamic, which meant any of them were up for grabs. Ino and Shino would probably be a decent pair, all things considered. Though she wasn't the biggest fan of bugs, she spent a lot of time working her family's flower shop, which meant she understood the symbiosis between plants and insects.

Tenten would be a reasonable match for Chouji if she hadn't declared herself queen of the lesbians after she lost that fight to Temari when they were twelve.

Which really only left Shikamaru. Which didn't need to make Kiba's heart hiccup inside of him, but did anyway, which was fine.

"Well who's left?" he asks, probably punching too much bravado into his voice. "There aren't enough girls to go around."

Hana shoots him a glare for that, but Tsume just keeps eating.

"Surrogacy -,"

"Exists, I know," Kiba says, cutting his sister off before she can lecture him. "I got the talk at the academy, you don't have to remind me."

And he very sincerely didn't want to be reminded of that awful video and lecture he had to sit through about the dark ages of sexism and how kunoichi only very recently had the same rights and privileges as male shinobi and that the population of kunoichi had been decimated during the Second and Third Wars to destroy the morale of the villages that employed them and war crimes and statistics and stress and wasn't it so wonderful that Orochimaru had developed his innovative in vitro fertilization processes because now anyone could have a baby with anyone and kunoichi didn't have to leave their careers and thus weaken the village by being out of commission for two years blah, blah, blah, he got it, okay?

The Inuzuka had never had a problem producing women who could handle the stress of shinobi life. That was every other clan's problem.

"Is your real question who's asked if you're on the market?" Tsume asks while she portions out herself a second bowl of soup.

Kiba shrugs.

"Am I allowed to know?"

He's aware that clan council conversations can be top secret, the inside ears only type of thing and he doesn't want to get his mother in trouble by asking her to talk. Then again, he knows the story of how one time, she got court martialed during the Third War by someone stupid enough to think she'd commit treason by trading secrets with the enemy.

The Uchiha had their ridiculous Curse of Hatred that made them only give a shit about their family, but the Inuzuka had the curse of caring-too-goddamn-much-about-everything-and-everyone-we-say-is-ours, which was a long way of saying you couldn't accuse a loyal dog of doing bad without getting bitten back.

"It's your future, pipsqueak," Tsume drawls. "Ask away."

Kiba narrows his eyes, suddenly suspicious that this is some kind of test. He knows that Hana and his mother aren't opposed to scheming together against him. He hadn't liked taking baths as a kid (Tsume's brand of tough love followed into washing hair, and Kiba got a lot of shampoo in his eyes as a kid because of it) and the two of them had ganged up on him to get him into the tub more times than he can count.

But this is his future. His future saddled with another person. He doesn't think they'd play lightly with that. He's well aware that the Inuzuka deal with divorce well (divorce but never separation; Hana's father still lived on the compound even though the marriage hadn't worked out. He and Tsume were still good friends. But Kiba's father? Kiba's father was gone, and nothing could bring him back without putting the clan in further danger) but he also knows that they wouldn't want that for him if they could help it.

So they've already picked someone they think will stick with him. Out of stubbornness or a desire to please their own clan has yet to be seen. They also probably already chose somebody who wasn't promised to someone else, like Naruto and Sasuke were (essentially) promised to one another.

Hana had a couple of men in her dating pool which meant that having future Inuzuka brats running around wasn't Tsume's primary objective. That only left resources and economics as a reason, that and clan politics.

He tries to think of who could possibly want anything the Inuzuka have to offer enough to want Kiba’s hand instead of Hana’s. He’s the secondborn and the runt, but he isn’t useless. But if they were after him, it only meant that the people pursuing Hana were too serious to allow other suitors into that shit show of a matchmaking contest.

Hinata would have told him if it were her or Neji, or even Hanabi. He doubts Shino. Their parents were all on the same genin team, so there’s little by way of secrets between the three of them. Ino loves gossip too much to keep her mouth shut about the kind that involves her; her little spy ring in the village itself was almost intricate and reliable enough to match Jiraiya’s same network across the elemental nations. Shikamaru would probably end up marrying a clanless kunoichi like his father had before him.

Sakura came from a civilian family, so she’d probably be handling her match herself. And that probably meant she was either aiming for a lower level family or for one of the noble clans and not a mid-tier one like the Aburame or the Inuzuka. Chouji didn’t like men as far as Kiba knew. Lee had that thing with the incumbent Kazekage.

When he exhausts everyone in his year and can’t think of anyone out of it, Kiba shrugs his shoulders and asks. He’s bracing himself for disappointment, but he’s sure his family wouldn’t screw him over on purpose. If it came down to it, he knows his mom would want him to have a love match if at all possible. It was Hana who needed to have healthy heirs regardless of if they had two moms or a mom and two dads or whatever.

“Who is it?” he asks.

Ino grins at him, mouth wrapped around the sstraw of her smoothie. The look on her face is positively shit-eating, and she sucks down her fruit-and-protein-and-honey-kale concoction du jour, her arms folded neatly on the counter. She boxes Shikamaru in even though they're in public, even though the gesture is innocuous enough.

She's positively glowing.

"Shut up," Shikamaru groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ino drinks more of her smoothie, as if to prove that he's the one that's talking too much, and she's just sitting there being quiet and loving and supportive, like a good friend should be.

Settled on the kitchen table in the Nara estate are tools. Gardening tools. Because Shikamaru has to secure territory in the Nara forests for his fiancé. There are pruning sheers, shovels, buckets, and Shikamaru is up to his elbows in fresh dirt.

There was plenty of space in the forest for several more generations of Nara to claim a little space. The pieces of land parceled out were smaller now, much smaller than they were in the Warring States Era, but they were still big enough that Shikamaru had to get his hands dirty to make his nice.

To his father's standards, to his mother's, and to his betrothed's.

"You," Ino drawls, plucking her straw from her mouth and twirling it in her plastic cup, "are taking this way more seriously than you said you were going to."

Shikamaru can feel the dirt that he's smeared across his nose. He tries to rub at it, and is immediately aware he's only made it worse.

The patch he chose wasn't anything special, not by Nara standards. It wasn't near the especially potent medicinal herbs, or near the flower gardens. It was within hearing distance from the arm of the Naka River that flowed through Nara territory, and a short walk away from a shallow point where you could skip stones from one end to the other.

It was a nice grazing spot for the braver does, the ones that had taken a shine to Shikamaru since he was first allowed to venture into the forest alone when he was ten.

"You planted a -,"

"I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there."

She was the one who helped him pick out exactly what he'd wanted in the first place. Where else would the Nara go for a betrothal plant than to the Yamanaka? She'd walked him through how to take care of the tree when it flowered, and what to do if the deer got brave enough to nibble on it even though it was supposed to repel them.

"Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original. But cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

Shikamaru groans as loudly as he can, trying to drown her out. He oughta know better. Nothing can annoy Ino into silence. He and Chouji would know. They'd tried.

"Nara Kousa," she continues, teasing the name out around the straw of her smoothie. "I like it."

She crosses her legs under the table and Shikamaru lays his forehead down on it. It's cool, and his face is still hot from doing yard work all morning.

"Besides, they can always pick a 'Shika' name for themselves if they're named clan head."

Shikamaru tries to kick her under the table. Ino moves her legs, expertly dodging and managing to kick him in the process. Shikamaru groans again, wonders what he did to deserve a best friend like Ino.

He had spent all day in the heat gardening. Marking his territory. Staking a claim and making it nice. His parents weren't allowed to follow him into the forest, but Shikamaru could feel Yoshino's eyes on the back of his neck, browbeating him into taking this seriously.

Not to mention the claims of other Nara men and women that had made proposals. There were several little plots like Shikamaru's, decorated with flowers and plants brought in from outside of the forest, wind chimes, and empty lanterns for decoration. Those knick-knacks were for the more human side of things; the side that wanted to impress, please the eye.

But the fact that Shikamaru had to mark his territory had been weird from the moment he undid his zipper to the moment he pulled it back up. Weird, but not out of place. Not foreign. The Nara may not wear their bond with the deer on their bodies, but that bond ran deep in their blood, and it left Shikamaru little room for discomfort.

Besides. He was going to marry -

His ears turn red. Ino must see it because she gives a haughty laugh like one of those villainess women from dated kunoichi movies.

"You haven't even proposed yet!" she crows.

Shikamaru is well aware that he hasn't proposed yet. His father was doing that for him. Well, he was drafting the contract. His dad had given him a wry grin when he came back from that clan council meeting.

"Technically, he isn't your fiancé."

A technicality, sure, but one Shikamaru was hung up on.

Inuzuka Tsume had apparently accepted Shikaku's proposal of his son's hand with very little fanfare. That much was unlike the woman, and the match was unlike those her clan had made in the past. The Inuzuka under all clan heads had been eager to mix dog bloodlines. A match with a deer clan was unprecedented.

"I think they'll get along," his father had supposedly said to Tsume.

'Get along'. Of course Shikamaru and Kiba got along. They were half the troublemakers of their year when they were in the academy together. They did well on missions. They hung out off duty.

"But you have the biggest crush on him," Ino needles, tapping his shin with her foot.

Shikamaru peeks up at her. He can't kick her off the property. One, because his mother loves Ino and won't let him. Two, because she helped him get the dogwood and all the supplies into the Nara compound in the first place, and it'd be rude to kick her out now. Three, because she used the blender to make a smoothie, and Shikamaru didn't want to clean it himself.

He settles for an insult.

"You're why I don't like women."

That only makes her lift an eyebrow and lean forward.

"The Yamanaka have been providing the Nara and Akimichi sakaki branches since the beginning of time," she says, flicking his forehead like she usually does to Sakura, "You don't need to like women. You but you do need me."

She leans back in her chair when she feels she's suitably chastised him. Shikamaru rubs the red spot on his forehead. She used her ring finger, which was the softest on her hand. It was when she used her middle finger that she meant business.

"So," she says, cocking her head to the side. "When will you go off to do your groomly labors?"

He resists the urge to tell her that 'groomly' isn't even a word. She'll catch it for the deflection it is, and then she'll ream him to hell and back for being nervous about going into the Inuzuka compound to do manual labor for a month.

"I start tomorrow."

Ino's eyebrows lift to her hairline.

"Tomorrow?" she splutters. "It can't be tomorrow!"

Shikamaru shrugs. A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He'll take it.

"When I finish carving a space for us on Nara land, then I go to him and prove that I can maintain it."

Ino flaps her hands, nearly knocking over her smoothie in her rush to stand up.

"C'mon, shit for brains!" she shouts. "You need a pedicure! And your hair needs deep conditioning, and dear god, your under-eye bags - ,"

A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He repeats that to himself as he lets his childhood friend drag him up by the elbow and through the Nara compound. There are about a dozen uncles and aunties perfectly willing to help Ino buff Shikamaru into something presentable for his Inuzuka fiancé.

If his nosy cousins already weren't aware of the fact that Shikamaru was leaving for his groom labors, they certainly were now.

They make Kiba dress up, which isn't the worst thing they've ever done. He was Hana's dress up doll for a good portion of their childhood, so he's pretty sure he can survive this.

He isn't even in his Inuzuka finest, or his wedding furs. He just looks - well, nicer than he usually does. Hana poked her head into his bathroom earlier and told him to put some gel in his hair. Make a good first impression. It sounded like bullshit, because he had known Shikamaru since they were academy brats together. There were no good first impressions he had to make.

Until he's standing just inside the front gates of the Inuzuka compound and he realizes that Shikamaru's parents are there as well. Which would be all well and good if Shikamaru weren't standing between them, holding a buck about two or three times his size on his shoulders like it's nothing.

Kiba's nose catches blood, and Akamaru beside him opens his mouth to taste it on the little breeze. He's sure all the dogs on the compound can smell the fresh kill, and all the humans on the compound are dreaming of venison. And as the Nara approach, Kiba can feel his pupils dilate. Can feel his blood rush up in his veins, the hairs on his arms standing up.

There's a smear of blood on Shikamaru's forehead, either from wiping the sweat off of it when he finished the kill, or smeared as an apology and offering to the life of the buck he killed. There's a hunting knife bouncing at his hip that Kiba can tell is the weapon he used to kill the limp animal on his shoulders. And behind the three Nara, there is a trail of that fresh blood, probably leading all the way back to the compound.

And Shikamaru is shirtless. There is also that.

The writhing shadows of his clan sigil are painted in thick green and black swaths on his chest with brushstroke and fingertip, and Kiba can smell the earth and ink that went into the broad design under the smell of the blood still leaking from the buck, trailing in a red wave down Shikamaru's back.

A man. A half naked man. Brought him a fresh kill. And left a trail of blood back to his home, his den so that Kiba could find him again. Could walk right into that land of plenty and shack up, if he wanted.

It was an invitation. A show of prosperity and prowess. And it makes Kiba's throat dry.

He may be a little lightheaded.

The three Nara walk forward. Kiba settles a hand into Akamaru's white fur to steady himself. His knees feel weak. The smell of fresh blood and ink and the medicinal herbs that made up the sigil on Shikamaru's chest is so very different than what Kiba is used to smelling on the other shinobi. It's nice. Really, really nice.

He probably should've listened to Hana when she tried to warn him.

"Deer are really sensitive to smell," she had said, arms folded across her chest. "They're big on pheromones."

'Big' on pheromones. More like the understatement of the year. Of Kiba's lifetime. Of the millennium.

Shikamaru stops ahead of his parents, who flank him. He stops, gets down on one knee in front of Tsume and carefully removes the deer from his shoulders, muscles hardly straining with the effort.

He lays the carcass at her feet, then lifts his head and bares his neck to her. It makes Kiba's stomach drop, this easy show of deference to his mother. Shikamaru wasn't marrying into the Inuzuka, Kiba was the one marrying out of it. But here Shikamaru is, doing that.

Tsume reaches out and rubs the flat of her palm against the side of Shikamaru's neck. It makes something in Kiba rear up on its hind legs, ready to spit. That kill is his. That man is his. Clan head or not, his mother shouldn't be marking him.

He only realizes his grip on Akamaru's gone too tight when his partner turns his head and nips at his wrist. Kiba bites down on his yelp and snatches his hand away from Akamaru's scruff.

"Sorry, buddy," he says.

Akamaru whuffs lightly at him, then turns and looks back to where Tsume marks Kiba's fiancé.

Fiancé. God, that was weird. Kiba has a fiancé.

Hana snickers at him from behind her hand, but she doesn't reach out to touch Shikamaru. Kiba counts it as a blessing. He'd probably snap at her if she did.

"Pulling out all the stops for your first introduction, aren't you, Shikamaru-kun?" Tsume asks.

Kuromaru, the grumpy old man, sniffs at the other side of Shikamaru's throat, and Kiba has to work to stifle the snarl that wants to fight its way out of him. He loves Kuromaru, he really does, but he likes that old dog's teeth that close to Shikamaru's fragile skin as much as he likes his own mother's hand there.

Shikamaru looks up at Tsume, the long line of his pale throat exposed to her tenderness or her wrath. Kiba wants to barrel roll into him and cover him bodily, keep all of his soft parts away from tooth and claw and harm.

But Shikamaru only smiles, dark brown eyes flicking from Tsume to Kiba. And for the moment that their eyes meet, Kiba can feel the air get sucked out of him.

Throat still bared, blood on his forehead, sweat beading between his collarbones from the summer heat. Kiba wants to bite him.

"I'd like to impress you," Shikamaru says, turning his gaze back to Tsume, "if you'll allow it, haha-ue."

There's a little quirk to his mouth, more attitude than blind deference, and Kiba wonders how Shikamaru knows how to play the Inuzuka.

The overly polite form of address makes Tsume bark out a laugh. She reaches out with both her hands and drags Shikamaru to his feet by his shoulders. She gives him a solid pat on the shoulder, and Shikamaru doesn't even wobble under the weight of her blow.

"We're gonna have fun this month, kid," Tsume says. "But I'm not the one you need to impress."

She gives her eyebrows a suggestive wiggle, but Kiba can't really notice it around the little branches he now sees in Shikamaru's ponytail. Tiny little twigs. Almost like antlers.

Wow. Wow, he's going to die at twenty.

Shikamaru's positioned himself so firmly on the line between predator and prey that it leaves Kiba's head swimming. It's a very good confusion. And it is one that Kiba will have to (get to, get to, get to) deal with for a month.

"And," his mother adds, smirking as she does, "I'm not sure it'll be that hard."

When he carves up the buck he hunted, it's about as gory as he expected it to be, and he regrets the waste of blood that he had to leave to make a trail from the Inuzuka to the Nara compounds. He does it before he changes out of his hunting clothes, while his clan's sigil is still stark on his chest.

The Inuzuka were only about thirty strong, and Shikamaru was careful with his portioning, and managed to feed them all with it. The Nara deer were much bigger than average, had been bred that way. And the buck Shikamaru took down for his 'groomly duties' had been big as hell.

He feels eyes on him as he does it, thirty pairs of eyes to be exact. But he keeps his own eyes downcast. He tends his cookfire, starts it with wood gathered from the Inuzuka compound and his own persistence. Cooking the buck over an Inuzuka fed flame was a good way to show the combining of their families, each nurturing the other though their eventual union.

His eventual union. With Kiba.

While most of the Inuzuka are reasonably wary of him at first, the children (who are much easier to please) ram into his legs demanding seconds. They rub their little cheeks on his knees and so do their ninken partners. They climb him like a jungle gym, drag him down to their level so they can wipe their little hands on his cheek or on his neck, or press their cheeks to his.

Maybe they mark him as 'friend' as 'clan' as 'pack' too soon. They're children, after all, and they may not be too sure of what they're doing. The adults are more wary, but they trust the instincts of the little ones. People still so close to wildness without being lost to it are good judges of character.

"At least," Hana says, jostling his arm with her elbow. "That's what they say."

Hana and the other adults are more conservative with their scent marking, even though it took Shikamaru about twenty minutes to get the seal of approval from every Inuzuka child on the compound. The adults prefer to wait for him to settle into his month of labor before they give him their approval.

He gets it from Hana in the clinic. She's eager to pick his brains, to figure out all he knows about the Nara medicinal sciences. Hana favored homeopathic medicine even over chakra, and she was a dedicated student. She wanted information, and she soaked up all Shikamaru had to offer in the short time he spent among the Inuzuka.

One day after he helps her make her first fever burning poultice, she drags him in for a hug that ends with her rubbing her cheek firmly against his. The Haimaru brothers quirk up their ears as soon as she does it, and by the time Hana lets him go, Shikamaru is drowning under the weight of three full grown wolf dogs and the sound of Hana's deep belly laugh.

He gets it from a couple of uncles while he helps maintain the kennels. From aunties when he thatches a roof or two. Does more housework than he really expected himself to do. On more than one occasion, he gets it from Tsume when he makes meals for her, Hana, and Kiba, especially when he makes sure he's the last one to start eating, even after Kiba's begun. There's a pecking order, and he knows his place on it.

The little ones are as free with their affection as their seniors are once they notice that they aren't the only ones that like Shikamaru. They take to ambushing him when he's napping between the jobs the uncles and aunties give him. They'll dive bomb his stomach, tug on his hair. The Inuzuka kids rough house way more than the Nara kids do, and they're always prone to raucous laughter when he attaches their shadows to stop them before they can knock his guts out of place for the umpteenth time.

Kiba doesn't touch him. But he watches.

Shikamaru stays a month. Does yard work. Brushes dog fur. Holds open the mouths of two of Kakashi's ninken (who take more after their summoner than they lead on) while Hana shoves a fistful of Nara-Inuzuka collaboration engineered medicine down their throats. He's pretty sure he gains a few more toned muscles in his back from having to hold up anywhere from two to nine children at a time.

He sleeps in the main house, in a room away from Tsume, and Hana, and Kiba. The dogs come to visit him. To Shikamaru, it seems like the dogs like his company better than the people do. He isn't always a fan of their play fighting, but whenever he's asleep, Kuromaru and the Haimaru brothers sniff him out like he's a beacon of peace and quiet. Which, to be fair, he probably is.

Hana lets him in the room when Kuromaru's mate Nōtō starts her labor pains, and he's there when Hana ties off the umbilical cords of the pups after Nōtō licks the membrane off all six of them. While Nōtō is preoccupied with cleaning her puppies, Hana cuts their cords expertly and leaves Shikamaru with the clean up.

He tries not to touch the puppies if he can help it, not wanting to mark them while their mother is still so sensitive. He does his best until Hana puts a towel and a puppy in his hands, and tells him to rub her down.

Shikamaru stares down at the pup. Not a runt, but not the largest one either. A pretty little one, sweet. He's careful when he uses the towel on her face to clean her up, and her little yips begin and melt into the noise the rest of her siblings make.

He feels a pair of inhuman eyes on him and he looks up to see Nōtō staring at him. She's intelligent the way all Inuzuka ninken are intelligent, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. It's no wonder she's Kuromaru's mate. She looks about a size and a half larger than him, and roughly as mean.

With slow, careful hands, he places the pup down at her side where the others are jostling for her milk. Nōtō sniffs at his hand as he takes it back, and Hana plops another puppy in his lap before he can get worried about their mother ripping his hand off.

The first puppy seeks him out a lot after that. Even at two weeks, ninken bred dogs are smart, capable trackers. The puppy is awkward on her feet, wobbly and chubby and sweet looking. She yowls loud as anything when she legs lost in the kennel and can't find him, and Shikamaru thinks it's better to scoop her up and scratch her behind the ears than to let her just scream herself hoarse.

He names her Taikō in his head, and when Hana catches him calling her that, she laughs. 'Light pink' after her mother's 'deep pink', though neither of them are anywhere even close to the color. Nobody seems surprised that she follows him around. Even Kuromaru and Nōtō don't seem willing to stop her.

"Her chakra pathways are too small," Hana explains during a check up of Taikō and her five siblings. "It happens. She won't be an active duty ninken, but she's not really a pet either. She'll stay on the compound and she'll help her siblings and the other dogs train."

Or she'll bother Shikamaru until the cows come home. She seems pretty keen on that, judging by the way she's always gnawing on his ankles when he's still for more than a minute at a time.

It's kind of like having a tiny useless assistant. Shikamaru likes it more than he lets on. He's gonna be sad to have to leave her behind when he does go. But now, he just likes her company. She's puppy eager, that's for sure, but she naps on his belly and the Inuzuka kids are much less likely to throw themselves on him when Taikō is sleeping there, too.

The month goes by. He's touched by every ninken, dog, and person on the Inuzuka compound except for Kiba and Akamaru. He tries not to take it as an affront. He knows he's doing the right things. He's proved himself a capable hunter, provider, and even healer several times over. He can take care of Kiba, and whatever children they have. He knows he's doing everything right.

And if Kiba wants to do things the Nara way, he could take another husband, or another wife if Shikamaru didn't do is job well enough. The thought doesn't even think to sting. Shikamaru had several aunties with more than one husband; polyandry doesn't make him puff up. But Kiba... He doubts Kiba would feel the same way.

The Inuzuka were an all or nothing kind of people.

Shikamaru doesn't press. He knows better than to corner any animal into any situation. He does his labors, and he waits. And on the evening of the thirty-first day, when he's packed up all of his things, and Taikō, the Haimaru brothers, and Kuromaru are all asleep on his bedroll with him, he doesn't bat an eye open when another nose sticks itself into his doorway.

He keeps his breathing steady when Akamaru settles his chin on Shikamaru's shoulder. And once Akamaru is asleep, he reaches up a hand, and gives the dog a little scratch behind the ears.

He sleeps swaddled in dog fur.

He repeats the words over and over again to himself in his head. He has to make sure he won't forget them. The Inuzuka weren't big on speeches. They trusted actions more than words, but the Nara were intellectuals. Kiba had to say something good.

He was getting married today. And if he fucked this up, he was pretty sure he was going to run back to the Inuzuka compound and hide in his room until he was in his sixties.

Shikamaru had played the game well. Had played it right. Kiba hadn't spoken to him, so Shikamaru hadn't sought him out. Instead, he fixed leaksand delivered pups. And played with the kids and helped the aunties with the laundry and the uncles with the cooking.

He had slaughtered an entire buck on day one. Kiba hadn't been sure that he'd be able to breathe past his nosebleed. Then Taikō started following Shikamaru around and Kiba knew he was gone.

It takes him so little time to tell his mother he'll accept Shikamaru's hand, it's kind of embarrassing.

Tsume looked at her son like he was an idiot, and drummed her fingers on her arm.

"I already accepted his proposal for you," she said, lifting an eyebrow. "How do you think an arranged marriage works?"

His silence was all his mom really needs. He turned beet red when she started laughing, tried not to choke when she slammed her hand down on his back in congratulations.

"That's my boy!" she bellowed, giving him a cheerful shake. "Enthusiasm! That's good for every marriage!"

She dragged him in for a hug with her elbow around his throat and Kiba followed, allowing her knuckles to dig into the top of his skull because it kept her from seeing how red he'd gone in the face.

And now he's here. After walking the old blood path Shikamaru had made with that buck all the way to the Nara compound, Akamaru at his side, wearing a formal kimono and the pelts his father had worn when he was marrying his mother. He feels kind of lightheaded even though it's autumn already, and the cool air does its best to steady him.

Akamaru buoys him, leaning against his side to keep him on his feet. Kiba is pretty sure he's going to die. The Inuzuka are moving as a pack, more than half of them accompanying Kiba on his procession. It's a little excessive in his opinion, the Inuzuka showing out in their furs, their faces painted with more red paint to accompany their solitary tattoos to celebrate the occasion. It serves to make the civilians more skittish, but the shinobi that have a closer proximity to the clans give them a respectful berth.

Kiba leads the procession. His mother is at his left, his sister to his right, and Akamaru right at his side. The Haimaru brothers follow Hana, and Kurmomaru stays in step with their mother, Taikō laying on her father's head. He follows the smell of old blood, picks it out underneath the newer smells of other people using the footpath. The extra paint on his chin makes his markings longer, and there is a slim triangle on his forehead that just touches the bridge of his nose.

The Inuzuka dress in white to further highlight the red they wear on their faces, only flashes of other colors in the pelts they wear on their sleeves and the grey hakama they wear. The raccoon dog pelt on Kiba's shoulders weighs heavy, but the dog pelt beneath him is a little more mooring.

He doesn't really start to panic until he gets to the Nara compound. Shikamaru's family is there to welcome him, invites all twenty of the present Inuzuka across the threshold.

Shikamaru is nowhere to be seen. Kiba opens his mouth discreetly, tries to taste the air to find his mate (tries to keep his brain from absolutely just stalling at that realization right there), but Yoshino's knowing smile keeps him from asking about it.

"Kiba-kun," Yoshino says, dressed resplendently in green and gold. "Welcome."

She sweeps forward, and Shikaku keeps step with her. There are little branches in their hair, small, almost twigs, hidden among more ornamental combs. Kiba sees them.

Yoshino lets her hands rest lightly on Kiba's shoulders and gives his nose a gentle buss with her own. The touch is gentle, and Kiba can smell her softness and the tightly corded power that rests in her hands. Clanless kunoichi or not, Nara Yoshino wasn't the housewife she presented herself as. She smelled like honing oil and night shadow. Like power.

It's at home, mingled in the tenderness of her touch, and Kiba relaxes minutely under her hand. He had been worried that he wouldn't fit in with the Nara. That despite their standing as a shinobi clan, they'd be prey, skittish and keyed up in the face of a dog like him.

He couldn't have been more wrong. The same way Shikamaru walked that thin line, his mother dances, and his father glides. He smiles at his incumbent mother-in-law, and feels as though he's going to fit in just fine.

Shikaku steps in cleanly as Yoshino steps to the side, and busses his nose against Kiba as well. Shikamaru's father is all oak trees and hiddenness, and as soon as he's in Kiba's space, he's giving him a firm squeeze on the shoulder.

"Yoshino will show you the way," he says.

Kiba nods. Akamaru flicks his ears as Yoshino tenderly takes Kiba's arm and leads him for the first time, away from the bulk of his pack. Shikaku stays with Tsume, and it's an odd sort of trade. Clan head for second-born son. It's a show of trust if Kiba's ever seen one.

He doesn't look back.

Yoshino doesn't lead him into the main house. She bypasses it entirely, walks forward still until she reaches a visibly new dwelling. It's a nice house, one level, which is all Kiba can imagine himself or Shikamaru needing for now. It's settled on a nice piece of land, with lush green grass all around it, and two small saplings recently planted in the upturned earth by the porch.

Yoshino pats Kiba's arm and leads him up the front steps.

"This will be yours," she explains as she slides off her sandals once they're inside. "An older pair lived in this one until they moved in with their son and his husband. I hope that's alright."

It's more than alright. The scents of the older couple are sunk deep into the bones of the house, and Kiba likes it. This place may not be his, not yet at least, but it was lived in. Comfortable. There were creaky floorboards, little places where children had practiced throwing things they shouldn't have. Dents, cracks.

It was clear that attempts had been made to clear out the specific smell of the other couple, and for the most part, they'd worked. All Kiba could smell was the general Nara scent of moving shadow and wet clay. And Shikamaru.

Akamaru steps forward after politely shaking his paws at the door, and trots into the house. The furniture inside is mostly new, but some things are hand-me-downs. There's a stack of quilts sitting near the kotatsu that look old enough to tell Tsume what to do.

"It's perfect, haha-ue," he says, words careful even though his smile.

Yoshino laughs lightly at him and gives Kiba's arm another squeeze.

"That's not necessary," she says, waving a hand. "Though it's nice to get a little respect around here between Shikamaru and his bum father."

And that is definitely the kind of talk Kiba is used to.

"You just call me 'mom'," Yoshino insists, "or 'kaa-san' if I'm upset with you. 'Haha-ue' is for weddings and funerals, or when you're kissing ass."

Kiba chuckles, then reaches out. He busses his nose against her cheek, and his boldness is rewarded. Yoshino leans in, a doe with her new dog-toothed fawn.

"Haha-ue it is then," he replies.

Yoshino gives him a little pinch, still smiling.

"I already like you better than my boy," she says. "But now I've got to go make sure Shikaku isn't ruining my wedding."

She untangles herself from him, and Akamaru trots back over. He rubs his head against her hip and she drops a hand to scratch underneath his chin. His tail wags and his tongue lolls out of his mouth.

"Your wedding?" Kiba asks.

Yoshino lifts an eyebrow at him.

"You know what they say about the clan head," she drawls. "The clan neck is the one who really runs the operation."

It startles a laugh out of Kiba, one that Yoshino only smirks through. It's the exact kind of thing he really should expect a Nara woman to say, especially one that managed to give birth to and raise Shikamaru.

"Stay here," Yoshino instructs, carefully sliding her sandals back on. "We'll be back for you when the priestess is ready."

Kiba nods, and with that, Yoshino is gone. He scuffs his foot against the polished wood floors, and ambles through his new house. In the living room, there are bookshelves laden with knick-knacks and pictures in frames. One of them is of Team Ten in their genin days. Another is just of Shikamaru and Chouji napping, a third with Ino braiding Shikamaru's hair while he sleeps.

There's a window near the bookshelf, and he steps into its light so he can read some of the titles better. A fair amount of theory and philosophy, military strategy and the like, but they're dwarfed, utterly dwarfed by dime thriller novels, the kind Kurenai-sensei makes them read when they're doing research for a genjutsu.

He runs his thumb over the spines of a few familiar ones. It's funny. He never would've pegged Shikamaru as the type to -

Akamaru's warning snarl is all he gets before he's stuck like that, a finger on a book, standing in the light. He should've known better. Should've known better than to make a shadow where there were Nara.

He grinds his teeth, tries to figure out who in Shikamaru's family would want to hurt him and why, wonders what would happen if Akamaru tackled his assailant, when he sees him through the window.

Shikamaru is there, mimicking his position, hand outstretched. He slowly brings his hand back to his side and Kiba copies him. Shikamaru walks forward and Kiba does. He settles Kiba's hand against the latch, then has Kiba press open the windows.

The light is soft on his face. Warm. Kiba narrows his eyes at his fiancé. Shikamaru makes the both of them rub the backs of their necks.

"This is the really, really lame part," he says. "Fair warning."

Kiba bares his teeth.

"Can I have my arm back?"

Shikamaru sighs, breaks the jutsu.

"You can have your whole body back," he says. "I just have to get your attention. You have to come to me. Of your own free will."

Kiba narrows his eyes.

"I've already come."

Shikamaru shakes his head.

"You've come to the compound. You came to the house I prepared for us. But it's different," he explains. "You need to come to me."

A failsafe, in all likelihood, against unhappy unions. A last chance to turn tail and run. A bride or groom could make up any story they wanted about the Nara that used their shadow to get their attention, and the Nara would release them from the contract.

It was so wildly different than what Kiba had expected.

He puts his hand down on the windowsill, and flings himself bodily out of his new house.

Akamaru barks up a storm, tries to push himself out of the window himself. Kiba waves a hand at him, and he hears his partner calm down while he approaches Shikamaru.

"How close do I have to come?" he asks, toe to toe with his fiancé.

Shikamaru's cheeks go a little pink. He scratches his jawline, and jerks his head back.

"Further."

With that, he's running. And if Kiba knows how to do anything, it's chase.

It sets him on fire, the way Shikamaru flickers just out of sight, a little flash step away to put some space between them, then bolts. He watches him push off the ground like it's in slow motion, watches him take the first step, lift his arms to help him, watches him go.

Kiba's running before he can think about it.

His blood thunders in his ears, all thoughts of nerves and cold feet flying out of the window. Shikamaru leads him on a merry chase through his home turf, ducking and leaping over and under low-high branches, downright barrel rolling where he will, damn near ruining his own wedding kimono.

He fakes Kiba out against a tree, and Kiba's claws leave grooves in the wood where he launches himself off of it. Was it does that ran away from bucks before mating? Trying to tire them out to see if they were worth the rut? Or was it does that led bucks away from prying eyes, into privacy?

Kiba doesn't remember. He hadn't done a good enough amount of reading before all of this happened, even though Hana had given him books. He's always preferred to learn by doing.

The forest is awash with little light and more sound. The deeper they go, the quieter it gets, until Kiba can only hear the other deer in the forest, and Shikamaru running ahead of him. There's a little sound, a water sound like a river far from its source, and Kiba's breath in his chest. He's burning with his pelts on his shoulders, with the tightness of his hakama and the white haori underneath it.

Shikamaru turns over his shoulder and winks at him, and Kiba's about two minutes away from losing it.

The further they get into the forest, the stranger the world around him gets. These are trees the Shodaime didn't grow, ones that sunlight has never seen, that no one outside of the Nara can tend to. It all smells wetter, thicker, darker, cloying as the shadow that the Nara employ in their ninjutsu.

And then he smells oak and honing oil and he's distracted. Confused about why he smells his father and mother-in-law even though he's pretty sure he's several kilometers away from them.

Then, the couple whose house he moved into, and other uncles and aunties, and Kiba has to remind himself how his mother taught him to breathe through the distractions. He shakes his head, focuses, breathes deep into his belly. Then he keeps up the chase.

Shikamaru must step over a border of some kind, because he takes a step and then falters. It's all the opening that Kiba needs. He throws himself into Shikamaru, takes him down from behind, rolls them until he's straddling his fiancé, the both of them breathing heavy.

Then, Kiba sneezes. In his fiancé's face.

"Oh my god."

Shikamaru wipes the spray Kiba has managed to get on his cheek with the back of his hand, but makes no move to push Kiba off.

"I'm so - ,"

"Don't worry about it," Shikamaru says, managing to shrug even though Kiba has him pinned.

Kiba leans back, wants part way to pull himself off, but finds he doesn't really want to. Can't quite make himself. This is the most he's touched Shikamaru in their brief courting period. Closest he's come to scent marking him.

It occurs to Kiba in that moment, that Shikamaru's parents have marked him. And in front of the Inuzuka no less. And he marked Yoshino back. He marked Shikamaru's mom before he marked Shikamaru.

He's gonna die.

"I didn't peg you for allergic," Shikamaru continues. "Though it may be because this place might be a lot for a sensitive nose."

Kiba wrinkles his brows and opens his mouth to ask what in the world Shikamaru is talking about when the stink of the plot around him gets caught in his throat.

This is Shikamaru's territory. He had only barely noticed it, was too busy tackling Shikamaru over the unseen border and into Shikamaru's own slot of land. Shikamaru led him here, let Kiba be the one to drag them both over the invisible line into the place that Shikamaru had carved out for himself.

And above them, there's a dogwood tree.

Above them, being relative. It's only a sapling, but Kiba recognizes the smell, the slim branches of the young tree.

"Dogwood?" he asks, trying to keep at least some bravado over the way he's suddenly feeling choked up. God, what the hell. "That's not very original."

Shikamaru shrugs again. Kiba tries not to dig his claws into his fiancé's shoulders.

"Ino said the same thing," Shikamaru replies. "But originality isn't the point."

Shikamaru's hands rise, settle on Kiba's hips. He doesn't try to flip them. Instead, he lifts his chin, bares the skin of his throat just a little bit more, and there's a snarl in Kiba's throat that comes out before he can stop it.

"They mean durability," he continues. "Reliability. Resilience and strength."

"Sturdy foundation for a marriage," Kiba grits out, trying to focus anywhere but the way Shikamaru's thumbs rub slow circles against his hipbones.

"That's what I thought," Shikamaru says, voice low and even. "Know what else they mean?"

"What?"

"You give someone a kousa flower when you aren't sure if they like you or not."

Kiba's eyes clear in a heartbeat. Shikamaru is staring up at him, throat still bared, his brown eyes cool and even as the ground beneath him.

"You don't think I - ?"

Shikamaru shrugs, gives Kiba's hips a squeeze.

"Not while I was doing my work on the compound," he explains. "I guessed when you sent Akamaru. I was pretty sure. But - ,"

But the nature of the ritual the Nara employed. The chase, and the way out before it ever happened. It hadn't really taken that long for their parents to settle on the match. And a month wasn't very long to perform wedding labors, was it?

But Kiba never would have guessed that Shikamaru had ever been unsure.

"That's why you - ,"

Planted the tree. Told him he needed to come further than obligation dictated. Would it have been enough for anyone else, if Kiba had just stood toe to toe with Shikamaru back in the Nara compound? Did he really need Kiba to chase him all the way into the forest, to drag them both into Shikamaru's territory?

Or was that Shikamaru's way of being sure?

"I choose you."

The flowery words he had prepared for the wedding ceremony leave his head as soon as he thinks to conjure them. Kiba does what he does best; he follows his instinct.

He draws the flat of his palm over Shikamaru's bare throat, draws a clawed thumb down the column just to see Shikamaru's adam's apple jump. Shikamaru looks up at him, still as a caught animal.

"I choose you," Kiba repeats, and he leans down, busses his nose against Shikamaru's, scents him the Nara way.

"I choose you," he says, dipping his hand around Shikamaru's throat and giving it a squeeze, dipping his head down forward to breathe him in.

Shikamaru shudders, presses up on his elbows and Kiba allows it, allows it because it presses the two of them closer together. Kiba noses at where Shikamaru's heartbeat thrums in his throat, wants to put a claiming bite over the vein.

"Great," Shikamaru breathes. "Wanna get married?"

Kiba chuckles and rears back, presses his forehead against Shikamaru's. He smears the red triangle on his forehead against his fiancé's even as Shikamaru reaches up, tugging the furs off of Kiba's shoulders and shoving his haori down, baring his arms and chest to the cold air of the deep forest.

The rut comes after the chase, and Kiba bites Shikamaru's throat, stakes the claim he's been craving, and Shikamaru arches underneath him, digs his fingers into his side as the bite draws a bead of blood.

"Let's get hitched," he rumbles into his husband's throat.

Shikamaru shudders out a laugh. And when he hitches his hips up and rolls them, buries his face at the front of Kiba's throat and bites down just like an Inuzuka should, Kiba's vision whites out.

They don't leave the forest 'til nightfall.

[shyyynobi]

Tattoo

Pairing: ShisuiSaku Rating: M Requested by: @sunrises6 Prompt: Tattoo So this was a lovely idea requested by a person that reads my fanfic, "You Are My Fate". Consider this a side story for the present time. No, this is not how my main storyline will end, although there are aspects that will be in it -- I guess it's a treat for those who follow my story but also follow me here. ^^ I got a bit carried away with this idea, and then it turned into this monster. Filled with angst and Shisui x Saku goodness.                                                                              Thank you sunrises for the wonderful idea! And if anyone else has any prompt requests, please send them in ~~

Shisui didn't know when it started, but it did. He regrets getting stabbed that day, the knife lodging itself closely to his spine -- another one nearly ghosting into his kidney. It had been a rough day, Izuna and him had been flagged down -- four Yakuza men swamped them, and by sheer luck Shisui was able to gun down two, Izuna dropped his knife somewhere in the scuffle, and one of the last two men knifed him in the back.

It wasn't until Izuna was dragging him into their car speeding through the city to reach their resident doctor that he realized he was losing consciousness -- barely able to hold the puncture in his side that was bleeding out. He woke up to an empty hospital room. Or what he thought was a hospital room, until he realized it was the medical wing of the Uchiha offices, specifically tailored for their doctor to treat and take care of the host of Uchiha men that without fail always hurt themselves. With a trail of detectives slowly catching onto their illegal activities, Madara made the decision to tighten the circle -- upping their security and tying any loose ends that could possibly indite them. Which is why Sakura became the resident doctor for the Uchiha clan. He heard them yelling one night, he had been sitting outside with a cigarette between his lips when the pink haired woman stormed out of Madara's office, refusing to give up her job at the hospital to be held captive by their clan to service them when she had children at the hospital to take care of. That same night, he had been asked to follow her so she wouldn't do anything reckless, and she let him sleep on her couch being the kind woman that she is -- with puffy eyes and a red-tipped nose she told him goodnight before disappearing into her room. He fell asleep listening to her sniffle at the loss of her last freedom that didn't involve their clan had been stripped away from her. They were a curse to her, even he knew that. That was a few months ago, so when he woke up that night in her stead, she walked over to him with pure concern etched in her brow. For a week she took meticulous care of him and nursed him back to health, changing his bandages, helping him walk, she refused to let the other nurses leave his side. For everything that this woman was, she was dedicated to the people under her care. Perhaps it began then. As a doctor her eyes were immune to the sight of naked men. Besides, she had already seen Madara and Sasuke twisted in the sheets. What was he compared to their clan leader? But during that long week they talked. About everything. He became an ear for her. She started to confide in him. They talked late into the night, and on one of those nights she cried to him. Although he couldn't move, he watched the beautiful doctor stuff away her pain with a pseudo smile to silence him on the subject. Then they talked about his tattoos. Shisui wouldn't miss the way her eyes would trail over his torso, his abs constricting under her intense gaze, and her fingers would trace over his tattoos. Slowly, she enjoyed memorizing his tattoos and asking what each intricate design meant. He would tell her, and he understood then why Sasuke and Madara fell in love with this woman. Her expressive eyes sparkled with the information, and he could have sworn on more than one occasion he saw her tug her lower lip in curiosity. "Do you enjoy working for your clan?" she asked one night, scribbling down information on a clipboard. "Of course I do," he answered quickly. She took a step forward, tilting her head in wonder, "but look at you. You're closer to Madara than anyone -- what if you don't make it here next time?" Shisui shrugged, "my clan is everything to me. What Madara asks of me, I know it's in the interest of our clan." She stared at him, a small huff of disapproval escaping her, "you shouldn't put such blind faith into people -- especially him." He was no fool, he knew Madara already claimed her, "that's funny coming from the person sleeping with him." Sakura glared at him, gripping the clipboard with a renewed anger,  "you don't understand anything about my decisions."

"I don't. As you don't understand our clan and the decisions we make." They ended the night upset with one another. She released him two days later. What he couldn't understand was why she became a fixation for him. Which left him here, standing outside of the medical room, fresh cut on his hand in an attempt to see her. It was ridiculous, and perhaps the sickest thing he's done to garner a woman's attention -- but he only made it deep enough to need a few stitches. "Shisui?" she questioned when he entered, spotting the blood on his hand instantly. She ushered him inside and cleaned him up, "this is the fourth time this month -- what does Madara have you doing?" she griped, her needle threading through his skin. He winced and twisted his face, but ignored the pain in favor of admiring her. "...I've been careless lately," he admitted. She pursed her lips and finished the job, glaring at him before pressing the back of her hand to his forehead, "you're really hot -- are you ok?" Shisui nodded, deciding he needed to apologize now -- "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought up your relationship with Madara that night -- it wasn't my place to judge you." The doctor looked shocked -- nearly confused as to why he was apologizing before sighing lightly and keeping her hands on his own, "please don't. You have nothing to be sorry for, I should apologize -- I was the one intruding, and it was wrong for me to ask and then get upset by the answer." She moved to pull away from him, but he gripped her wrist gently, holding her in place with his good hand, "Sakura--" A look of recognition crossed pretty features. She smiled, soft and light. Quietly, she leaned towards him and pressed her lips against his. He didn't understand why, nor did he care to ask questions, "thank you," she murmured against him. She knew he loved her. He took her that day, there in her office. She ripped off his shirt and traced the designs of his tattoos, lost in the intricacies of their symbols -- until she noticed a black and white cherry blossom stained proudly beneath his heart. Their bodies joined together, she blinked at him - confused at it's meaning. "I love you." It was a silent promise. Unlike that of Sasuke, who abused her. Unlike that of Madara, who controlled her. He spent the night spilling himself into her. Their bodies a harmonious ring of pleasure until they were both spent, locked in eachother's embrace. Shisui snuck away to see her whenever possible. If Madara found out -- the repercussion for touching what was his could possibly end him. His leader had the power to put him in jail or kill him, and he wasn't sure which option he preferred. So on the days when Sakura would be draped on the clan leader's arm, kissing him and then being stolen away for the night -- Shisui would struggle with the urge to claim her as his own in front of Madara. Purposely, he would be forced to stay in the meeting rooms while Sakura's moans could be heard by him and the other men -- Madara made sure everyone knew she was his. Still, they would see each other in private. They were playing with fire, they both knew this. And on the nights they would get together, she would ask him questions. About their clan. About the trade routes. About their next plan and movements. It never occurred to him that the smart doctor had ulterior motives. He found her curiosity exciting. Swept away in the being of this woman, her lips would sing his name and Shisui would look into her lovely viridian eyes, kissing her in hopes that she understood he wanted to save her from all of this.

He should have known better. She told him she was pregnant. That same night, she asked him to leave with her -- to escape what was about to happen. "Please," she begged him, "please come with me, we can start over!" With his hand on her belly, it killed him that he didn't know if it was his or Madara's. "Why?" he pulled away from her, wondering why tears were welled up in her eyes. "I told them everything -- Everything you told me, everything Madara ever told me. Pictures, videos -- where they can look, what they can find. The police are hosting a raid later, we need to leave!" she pleaded with him, crying for his safety. Shisui shook his head, unable to believe she did this to him -- to them. "I have to tell Madara..." he echoed, his chest aching at the betrayal of her words. "I'm sorry," she cried, "I didn't plan to fall in love with you, but I did." "You used me," he whispered, a hollowed mess in the hard knife that drilled itself through him. She shook her head profusely, trying to hang onto him, "I didn't -- I do love you, please come with us." Sakura tried to bring him closer to her, but he pushed her away with a snarl. "Get out of here." "Please...We need you," she whispered. His black eyes that had always been the most loving out of all of the Uchiha men were hardened, black voids that she had been accustomed to seeing. It broke her, and numbly she whispered a small goodbye before disappearing. He stood there, wanting to reach for her but being unable to -- the chains of his clan suffocating him. Just as she said, a raid occurred that night without any of their men knowing. In the depths of Mirago lounge -- not only did she manage to get the federal agencies involved, but the police that had once been backed by the Uchiha name were now under federal indictment -- chained just like the rest of them. He watched each member of his clan get arrested -- Madara's wrath a vocal entity as he was pushed to the ground, handcuffs clicking around him. A white haired male with a badge pointed a gun at him, but he couldn't move. Shisui dropped to his knees, realizing he should have left with her. Clan member turned on clan member. In that moment, he noticed the ugly truth of his clan. Everything that happened occurred because of them. The countless lives. The lavish parties. The gun wars that had been fueled by their hand. Each head of black blamed another for time off of their sentence -- enough that  Madara could no longer control it. Sakura disappeared out of their lives, much to the pain of his clan leader and himself. She must have told him about their child too, because Madara searched frantically for the woman he held possession over -- but no officer would speak of her name, not even the white haired detective that seemed to be the head of this operation. Being the right hand man of the country's most notorious clan leader earned him a life sentence along side with him, and quietly he suffered -- wondering why he didn't listen to her. Madara exhausted every resource he had to find her within the confinements of jail -- but her name became a ghost on their lips. It seemed that only she told him what she had done, her name to be classified and in hiding after the raid for her own protection. A single woman managed to take down their clan, stripping the city of the danger they provoked. Shisui smiled to himself at the thought, rueful and filled with a longing for the woman that he could have made a life with. One day, he had a book returned to him by a guard that asked to borrow it when he noticed him reading it in the yard, it had been odd at first -- but Shisui remained cordial and friendly with most of the prison guards. Laying down in his cell, he noticed a gap in the pages and thumbed through, lips parted in a gasp when the picture lodged in the pages fell in his lap. Sakura... She was standing with a young boy in her arms, black, wild, and unruly hair contrasted against pale skin and vibrant green eyes -- looking like the perfect mixture of them both. The young boy had a glimmer in his eye, pointing at the camera mid-laugh, causing his mother to laugh -- catching the most beautiful picture of mother and son together. Shisui flipped the picture and on the back in Sakura's fine handwriting a name was written --  Sora. His son. The hair alone mimicked his own, being one of the few Uchiha with curly hair compared to the straight locks that each of his clansmen sported. His face shape, eye shape, even the singular dimple on his right cheek -- the boy looked like a clone of him when he was a child. "Sora..." he tested the name on his lips, understanding now why she pleaded for him to leave with her. His chest ached, knowing he wouldn't be leaving this cell and having a family within the city waiting for him. Unknowingly, hot tears ran down his cheeks. After hours of staring at the picture longingly, Shisui noticed something on Sakura's wrist. There, on her wrist displayed for the world was a black and white cherry blossom tattoo that matched his own.

[scenariosofkonoha]

Head canons of things the Uchihas do when they get mad at s/o

Okey dokey, we’re going to assume that you pushed all these boys to the absolute edge. Also, I just did Shisui  Itachi, and Sasuke, bc that’s what people normally ask for and doing more than 3 is a lot, but if you wanted someone else, just drop me another ask with them!

Itachi

He’s normally very calm and very level headed throughout almost all fights, but if you somehow push Itachi Uchiha to a point where he is genuinely angered at you; he’s like a switch. He will go from being one of the most communicative people in the entire world to a complete brick wall. He will refuse to talk to you, touch you, or acknowledge you even exist. This is mainly because he doesn’t want to say or do anything in the heat of the moment that will be hurtful to you, but also because you just made him so upset that he just doesn’t want to deal with you.

He’ll probably leave the house for a while and just walk around, try to get rid of some of that tension within his chest. For the most part he is good at controlling his anger, but not necessarily dealing with it, if that makes any sense. He’s most certainly someone who allows it to build and build until he snaps. He doesn’t deal with it, he just pushes it away, but even Itachi has his moments when he can no longer push it away.

Even if he’s finally reached his breaking point, he will never yell at you, or even slightly raise his voice. He will be brutally honest, but he has never raised his voice or cursed at his S/O before. This is partially because he does shut himself away from his S/O when he is truly angered, but he also knows that he can be intimidating when he get angered  (remember that time the Uchiha hoebags confronted him about Shisui? Yeah.) and the last thing that he wants if for his S/O to be scared of him, so he has just a very conscience anger.

But assuming if it’s a major fight between the two of you that caused him to become like that, if he saw you cry, because you were so worked up, that anger would vanish in an instant. He may be mad at you, but you’re still his everything and he refuses to let you cry, especially cry over something that he has done. Bless his heart.

Sasuke

His anger towards is S/O is a bit different than his general anger, because he still most definitely cares about you, but his actions and what is going through his head do not always match up, especially in circumstances where he’s upset, so he ends up coming off having a very heartless anger that’ll rip daggers right into his S/O’s heart.

If you specifically do something to piss him off, compared to just the situation in general angering him, then he treats you as if you’ve completely betrayed him. In his mind, you should have known better than to have done whatever that upset him, so he will treat you like the enemy or a disobedient child, depends on how badly you’ve angered him.  

His entire body language stiffens up. It’s evident that he’s angered about something just by the way that he acts towards you; you don’t even have to hear him say anything to know that there’s something that you’ve done that’s angered him. His back becomes more tense and he just gives you these cold glares without telling you anything at all; glares that are colder than his normal smolder. He’ll keep at least one to two feet distance from you at all times and if you go and try to grab his hand or touch his shoulder, he will either pull away or push your hand away. He’s finicky about personal space when he’s mad.

If you’ve angered him to a point where he’s fuming, then expect for him to throw plenty of insults your way. He becomes very defensive of himself, and with his record, the best way to be defensive is to be offensive to you. He will make it seem like everything’s your fault and that you’re too dull to see it. It’s all very shady and very belittling towards you, but that’s the best way that he can defend himself.

Shisui

Shisui is also very level headed for the most part, but if he is pushed to the edge and lets his anger get the best of him, he can become extremely vocal. He’s definitely a yeller in arguments, and he also ends up cursing a lot while arguing with you, but you have to push him really far to get him actually cursing and yelling. Now, he doesn’t really curse at you, like he will never call you a ‘bitch’ or anything, he will say stuff like “what the hell were you thinking” or “all of this is fucking stupid.” If he is at the point where he’s using profanity, it’s more directed towards the situation and not you.

Lots of hand movements. He talks with his hands a lot to begin with, but when he’s mad, he cannot keep his hands still. They’re caught up on his hair or against his temple or being flung out in the air as he’s arguing. He literally cannot keep himself still for more the 2 seconds when he’s in an argument. He paces the room and just needs to be in constant motion when he’s all riled up about whatever it is. This never translate into him being violent though. Dear Lord, that’s probably the last thing Shisui would do, but he does need to be physically moving through arguments.

His anger probably has roots in many things. I don’t want to necessarily say that he bottles things up, but if his problem is deeply rooted in multiple things then it’s going to work him up a lot more than just one thing. He becomes more stressed out and his anger becomes more evident if his problem is something that deals with his S/O, the village, his clan, and all of that mess. He won’t fuss over small things, but he knows all that is a serious matter, and it causes him to become angry quicker just because of the seriousness of it all.   

I could easily see Shisui using alcohol or cigarettes or something along those means as an outlet for his anger if he cannot immediately settle it with his S/O. I don’t think that any of these things are common practice for him, but if he’s at a point where he cannot get all of the tension out of his system at quick enough rate, he might turn to something just to help him calm down. He’s not used to be so worked up that it takes it’s toll on him and he just wants it to end and if a drink or smoke will do that, then he has no reservations.