Konoha Children's Crusade Chapter 19 Part 1

Chapter 19: Family and Friends



Tsudemi was mad at first. She yelled at her dad for being late and for not coming home last night and most of all, for how when he did come back to the village, he didn't come and find her right away.

Kiba apologized, said he was sorry, said he had to help the ANBU out and then how in a bit he'd have to go meet with the Hokage's inner council.

Tsudemi railed a bit when she heard that he still had stuff to take care of before he came home, but eventually she calmed down and gave him a big hug. Kiba then introduced her to some genin girl from the Hidden Cloud. Two minutes, later she and Tsudemi were talking and chatting like old pals. It was always like that with Hidden Cloud Shinobi; once they found out who Tsudemi's mother was, it was like they had this instant bond.

Mako was glad for his friend. He was glad that Kiba came back, and that Tsudemi was all happy and everything to see him. He was glad that Tsudemi made friends with this new kunoichi. After they made their formal introductions to the genin, he was glad that Kiba picked Tsudemi up and swung her around and called her his little girl and hugged her tight.

He was also more than a little bit jealous.

In theory he had it a thousand times better than Tsudemi. True, his mom wasn't around anymore, but at least she was alive somewhere. At least she could send him a letter once in awhile. And also true his dad wasn't around much either, but at least he was stable. Karui's death had destroyed Kiba-san. He was drunk for a year and a half. The only reason Tsudemi ate during that time was because the Hokage's wife made sure that they always had something to heat up for a quick meal in the fridge. When he finally sobered up, Kiba had lost the ability to work with other people. He couldn't handle a real mission period. He talked to his dead wife. He spent days in bed doing nothing but sleeping. He would disappear for days into the woods with his dogs, leaving Tsudemi to fend for herself. Eventually the Hokage made up this special long range patrol mission for him so he would have some way to earn something for his family.

Kiba was a complete mess.

But when he came back home, and when he was sober, he was genuinely happy to see his little girl.

Mako sighed and watched Kiba shower Tsudemi with affection. The dogs danced around them greeting Akakaru and generally raising a ruckus. Everyone was genuinely happy.

That never happened in the Aburame clan.

Don't get too close, the insects pheromones might interfere with each other. We'll separate here… If we stay together, we might frighten the other insects away. You are going to be a shinobi Mako; A shinobi's face must be a mask. He must never betray any emotion. That emotion could give an enemy every advantage he needs. Plus surges of emotion might agitate the insects. Do you know what happened to your Great-Uncle Murune? He got so upset after he failed the chunin exam that the kikaichu beetles panicked and started to burrow their way out of his body to escape. He had to be hospitalized for two weeks, and he was never able to use the kikaichu beetles again. They rejected him completely.

Mako idly let a wasp climb from one finger to the next, and thought about his mother. The Kamizuru clan was dying out. "Or," he chuckled idly to himself, "maybe they're not, because I'm one of them as well." His mother, Mei was young and pretty, and seemed to like his father well enough. They were a good couple, everyone always said so. They had a perfect house and a perfect yard and then they had him, a little baby.

And then she left.

Not all the inter-village relationships that came out the shinobi alliance were considered 'good' ones. Tsudemi's parents for example. They fought, screamed and hurled dishes at each other. The ANBU stopped by their house once a month on the complaints of their neighbors and the concerns that someone was about to get killed. One time, the ANBU arrived after the argument was over and had officially interrupted a very intimate makeup session. Most of the shinobi in the village laughed about it for weeks afterwards. No one laughed harder that Kiba and Karui. Yet despite all the fighting, Tsudemi's parents stayed together.

Unlike Mako's parents.

Maybe because it was an arranged marriage, maybe because she missed the Hidden Stone village too much, maybe because the Aburame clan were too cold too impersonal, maybe because everything here was just a little too sterile, too boring… Too perfect.

Maybe it was because of him.

He tossed the wasp in his hands high into the air, where it joined the rest of the workers that he had 'borrowed' from the large paper nest that was dangling from the guard hut he was leaning against. It joined the others flying slow figure eights and loop-the-loops.

He liked wasps. They always stayed close to their nests. If they did leave, they never went away for long. Mako sighed to himself. He especially liked wasps because, unlike the kikaichu beetles, the damn wasps would listen to him.

He looked up at Tsudemi's laugh. Apparently Kiba had just said something hilarious. The Cloud kunoichi was snickering as well. Kiba was definitely one of the cool dads. He never shied away from having fun or telling jokes or doing other wild things like sneaking them into the 'Forest of Death' training grounds so that they could see what it was like and get a head start on the competition.

He told the wasps to fly in a counter clockwise circle. As they did so, he sent a single one flying up as fast and as far as it could through the circle. Then he had it curve in a tight arc and dive back down through the hoop. Then he practiced it again, having each wasp break out of formation in series and trade places with the one returning from the dive. "This will be good practice," his father had told him. "You are going to have to practice hard if you want to master the kikaichu techniques and become a leader in the Aburame clan one day. Right now... I fear you have a long way to go."

Mako sighed and watched Kiba and Tsudemi give their goodbyes to the Cloud genin. As she left, the dogs leapt up and made their goodbyes as well. "I could get used to having a cool dad," Mako thought to himself. "Even if it meant that I had to drag him home, semiconscious, from a bar every now and then."

He couldn't see what his insects saw, not exactly. They had to come to him first. His dad could have his bugs spell out words in the air. Mako wasn't that good yet. Once an insect had direct contact with his skin, he could give it new orders, or they could report back what they saw. It was a weird feeling for him, connecting to the insect hive mind. Not weird bad, but weird like a thousand little thoughts tickling your brain all at the same time. It took a lot of practice to pick and choose amongst all the bug messages to get the ones that were important. That was another reason he liked wasps, they were very easy to read.

The wasps liked him too. Every now and then they would take the initiative to try to communicate back to him. Right now, wasp number six was trying to get his attention. She waggled in the air, going in a clockwise circle. He acknowledged her with a nod and held out his hand. The small swarm stopped their formation and returned to him, crawling up his wrists and arms. A few lodged themselves in his hair. Number Six was the last to land. She stopped on his thumb. Mako jerked his head up in surprise and looked around surreptitiously. The crazy chunin girl was here! He shot a glance back to where Tsudemi was animatedly talking to Kiba while petting one of his dogs, and shook his head. They were still having their reunion. He wasn't going to bother them about this.

He thanked Number Six and she buzzed happily. Then he gave instructions to the swarm. Find and follow the chunin. He wasn't sure why he was following her or what he was going to do when he found her, but the Aburame clan was supposed to be skilled at gathering information. And at the moment he was sure he had nothing better to do.

*******

Hishyota swore and scanned even farther out with her byakugan, still nothing. "Any sign of the little jerk yet?" she grumbled again. All of her clones answered the negative. She sighed. "When the heck did he give us the slip?" she muttered under her breath.

"It must have been back at the store," one of her shadow clones remarked. "We know that we were chasing a clone, and one of us had eyes on him the whole time out here. So we know he couldn't have done the switch here." Hishyota nodded once in agreement. Then she undid the shadow clone jutsu.

She didn't like it when her clones talked back to her like that. It creeped her out that they could come up with their own ideas and theories that were sometimes better than hers.  To be perfectly honest, she didn't like the whole idea of the clones in the first place. Undoing them always sent a shiver down her spine. She always had this brief moment of panic... What if she really wasn't the original?

To be even more honest, she didn't like the idea of ninjutsu anyway. Just look at the amount of trouble it allowed her brother to get into.

Hishyota sighed and started back to the store. She nodded at the handful of greetings she got as she walked down the street. Here and there some self important fool stopped her and chatted her up hoping to score some points with the eldest daughter of the Hokage and/or the head of the Hyuga clan.

Being famous was bad enough. Everyone in the village treated her like royalty. Okay, fair enough... You take the Hokage, marry him to the head of the richest clan in the village and of course any babies that pop out are going to be instant celebrities. She understood that. That didn't mean she liked it.

But being a shinobi was worse.

Oh, it wasn't so bad in the Leaf village. Practically everyone there was a shinobi, or related to one, or friends with one. Once you got outside the village gates and into the Fire country proper, well... That was a different story. How do you sit down and talk with someone who can vaporize you with a breath, or kill you with their mind, or summon a toad big enough to eat your whole house in one bite?

Very very politely. Certainly not like they were a regular person.

Hishyota wanted so very very badly to be that regular person. The double whammy of being famous inside the village and infamous outside of it was just too much for her. She prayed that one day she would wake up and be normal. She dreamed at night about being normal.

Dreaming about being normal beat out the other dreams that she had. Late at night as she lay in her bed, dreading the nightmare that would come, she wondered  maybe if she was normal, all of the bad stuff wouldn't have happened.

That was why she was drawn to Hana Uchiha so much. Like her, Hana was born a celebrity. Like her, everyone pointed and whispered behind her back.

Unlike her, Hana embraced the role life had cast her into... Of course Hana didn't have the the nightmares she did... maybe.

The market door rang as she pushed it open. Choji-san looked up and waved, but never paused in his storytelling to Ichisui who stood there smiling eagerly and nodding in all the right places. You'd almost never notice the glazed look in his eyes. Hishyota waved back and walked over to the last place she saw her brother, the pumpkin display.

Nothing. She heard some noise the next aisle over and wandered over to investigate. One of the market employees was picking up apples from a display and throwing them in a rubbish bin. "Excuse me," she asked tiredly. "Have you by any chance seen an obnoxious brat, about eleven years old, with spiky black hair and Hyuga eyes in here?"

The clerk, some teenage girl from the Akimichi clan, glanced up. "Nope, I haven't seen anyone in here for a while." She scooped up a double handful of apple mush and tossed it in the bin with a rattling thud.

Hishyota stepped back a bit so she wouldn't get any splashed on her. "What happened here?" she asked, pointing at the display

The Akimichi girl shrugged. "Apparently sixteen apples decided to all go rotten at the same time." She scooped up another handful and dumped it in the garbage. There was a rattle as they rolled around in the can. "Weird huh? I mean I just set them out this morning and they were all fresh!"

Hishyota tilted her head quizzically as another handful of mush went in. Instead of a splat, it bounced and rolled. She quickly turned on her byakugan and took a quick peek at the rubbish. The apples were fine, someone had blasted them with a genjutsu to make them all appear rotten. There was only one person she knew of who was angry enough to zap an innocent pile of apples, one person who was good enough to cast an area effect genjutsu and hold it for this length of time. "Excuse me," she asked again, turning off her byakugan and trying to hide her amusement. "I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but if you haven't seen the boy I was talking about, did you by any chance see a girl about my age, dressed in black? She'd probably be wearing a cloak."

The Akimichi teen frowned, in obvious distaste. "You mean the Uchiha girl?" she pointed. "She's two aisles that way. I don't know why Uncle Choji even lets those little monsters into the store." She looked up quickly at Hishyota. "Hey you don't think that she did this... do you?"

Hishyota laughed. "Oh yes," she said sarcastically, "I'll bet she also hid snakes and spiders in the rest of the produce." She shook her head scornfully and walked away in the direction the clerk indicated.

She found Hana staring intently at a bunch of broccoli. Hana glanced up her way, nodded once and went back to examining vegetables.

"Hey," said Hishyota, sliding up next to her. "What did those poor apples ever do to you?"

The latest bunch of broccoli apparently met Hana's standards of approval and was carefully laid in her basket. "I'm trying to decide," she said casually, "whether I should kill your brother fast and messily in public, as a warning to let everyone know not to mess with me, or whether I should make his death slow and painful so I can enjoy it more."

Hishyota nodded. "Definitely slow and lingering. You could sell tickets."

Hana looked up with a trace of a smile on her lips. "Really?"

"I'd buy one."

Hana flashed a very rare smile and then subjected the radishes to her penetrating stare. "So... What did Jiraiya do to you this time?"

Hishyota sighed. "You know how Mom is away? Well, he always seems to go a bit bonkers with the pranks and the scheming when she leaves. We were supposed to help get ready for the sleepover tonight, but he said that he had bigger plans." She shook her head. "Then the little freak managed to give me the slip."

Hana looked up. "Isn't he afraid that your dad would punish him?"

Hishyota snorted. "Dad's idea of a punishment for pranks is to say: 'That was really cool! Brilliant as always! Now don't do it again.'" She scratched her nose. "Now I'll just have to wait until mom gets back. Of course by then he'll have come up with some excuse like he was helping an old lady or buying toys for orphans or something."

"That's a lame excuse," said Hana.

Hishyota sighed. "My mom called him on it once. He managed to produce an eighty year old woman who swore he spent the whole day weeding her garden, treating her bunions and doing her laundry."

Hana snickered. "How did he do that?"

Hishyota shrugged. "No one knows, and Jiraiya never reveals his secrets." She glanced over at Hana. "So... What did he do to make you carry out an apple massacre?"

Hana scowled. "Nothing."

Hishyota tilted her head. "He did nothing to you? Or he did something but it's nothing you want to talk about?" Hana's reply was to pull her hood up over her head. "I see," said Hishyota quietly.

"He said he and Mibuki were going to hang out for a bit," Hana muttered angrily. In front of her the display of radishes began to vibrate ominously. Tiny wisps of smoke began to hiss into the air.

Hishyota ignored the new genjutsu on the radishes and thought for a second. "So Mibuki went with him huh? Sounds like Jiraiya is going to try for one of his big schemes..." She tapped her fingers on the bins thinking. She turned suddenly to Hana. "Do you want to get even with the little twerp?" Hana's hood nodded once. Hishyota smiled. "Good, because we are going to get him busted."



"...So I open my eyes and Asuma-sensei and three other medical-nin are all there leaning over me. One of the Medical-nin gives me a poke and says 'Choji-kun? Are you okay? Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is?' I looked up at Asuma -sensei and I  blurt out 'Barbeque!' The Medical-nin looked really concerned at this but Asuma-sensei just waves them away saying. 'Don't worry, he's doing just fine.'" Choji smiled reminiscing. "I ate so much barbeque that day, and Asuma-sensei promised to pay for it all. By the time I was done he had to wash dishes to settle the bill." Choji chuckled. "We all laughed at him for a bit, and then we all pitched in to help him. Even Shikamaru washed a few dishes." Choji sighed. "Ahhh... those were good times."

Ichisui smiled and nodded again. His cheeks were starting to get sore, which was usually about when Choji-san started to wind down. Today though, something must have sparked a streak of nostalgia in him, for he was showing no signs of stopping.

"Using his shinobi skills, finely honed through years of training," Ichisui narrated in his head, "our hero prioritizes the needs for this mission, to formulate the best way to complete the mission and escape unseen." He quickly checked on his siblings.

Chiryo and Fugawari were done with their part of the shopping list. They stood next to him with full baskets with Chyrio growing more bored by the second. Fugawari was doing an anxious little jig, indicating that sometime in the next five minutes he was going to need a bathroom. They quickly became his first priority. Many trips to the market had taught Ichisui that there is nothing more dangerous than a bored six year old and a three year old with a full bladder, especially when they have chipmunks at their disposal.

Next on the threat triage was Mibuki. He was missing. That was worrisome. Undoubtedly he would turn up sooner or later, whether or not he turned up with his share of the shopping was another matter entirely.  Someone would have to take care of that.

Normally, Hana wouldn't register on the triage. Hana could take care of herself. No matter what happened he could count in her to finish her part of the shopping. The one time Hana did make it onto the threat list, was when she was angry. Right now Hana and Hishyota were grumbling angrily to each other, plotting something. Ichisui quickly added them to the number three spot.

He smiled and nodded again at Choji-san. He had somehow segued into the story about the time he escaped from a hungry shark by drinking all the water in a water prison jutsu that he was trapped in.

He turned to look back. Hana and Hishyota were walking toward him with a full shopping basket and an expression of grim determination. "Oh dear," he thought, bumping the pair of them to threat level two, "this can't be good." There was a tug on his shirt and he looked down. Fugawari had his legs crossed and one hand pressed to his crotch. He took in a deep breath, ready to start a fuss, a telltale sign that he couldn't hold it anymore. Chyrio was idly tossing a chipmunk from hand to hand. He made a decision. This mission was a bust.

He turned to face Choji-san to make his apologies and try to extricate everyone out of the store with a minimum of fuss, chaos and puddles. He happened to glance behind him to measure the distance to the door just in case he had to grab Fugawari and run to the nearest public stall.

He froze.

Hishyoni limped into the Emporium Plaza. She was dusty, sweaty and disheveled, but Ichisui didn't see any of that. He just saw her.

She stopped at the fountain which bubbled in the center of the Plaza, cupped water in her hands and splashed it over her face. She took a second handful and dumped it over her head. She shook out her hair and  water droplets scattered every which way, sparkling in the afternoon sun.

Ichisui realized that his mouth was hanging open and closed it with a click. Fugawari was pulling on him more insistently and whispering something up to him urgently, but he couldn't make out exactly what he was saying. Chyrio gave him a funny look and walked over as well. He tried to remember what was so important about them on his list of priorities from just a moment ago. He knew that it was something important, but his list had been replaced by 1) Hishyoni, 2) Hishyoni, and 3) Hishyoni.

He awoke from his reverie to a chipmunk being waved in front of his nose. "Are you listening?" screeched Chyrio, her voice getting dangerously loud, "Mister Whiskers says Fugawari has to go to the bathroom!"

Ichisui shook his head as if to clear it. "Right," he said quickly. He had his duties. He had his siblings to take care of. What was he thinking, he couldn't just leave them here. "We'll just hurry out…" He shot one last look at Hishyoni.

She was frowning and examining her arm. There was a tear in her shirt and he could see dried blood next to a scratch on her arm. She fingered the scrape and looked unhappily at the blood that stained her fingers. She sighed and pulled her shirt off over her head.

Underneath she was wearing a tight steel mesh halter with a white sports bra plainly visible.

Wires crossed in Ichisui's head, and he felt himself grow weak at the knees. Some still working part of his brain gave the rest of him a nudge. "You know medical ninjutsu," it whispered in his ear. "You could go over there and heal that scratch."

Hana stopped and glared at Ichisui. He was staring slack jawed at something outside the window, while both Fugawari and Chyrio pulled and yelled at him.  She cleared her throat really loudly and thrust her full shopping basket at him. "Here's my share of what Dad put on the shopping list," she said, giving the basket a little shake. She frowned as Ichisui ignored her. So she dropped the basket at his feet. "Me and Hishyota are going to…"

Ichisui ignored the basket. He picked up Fugawari, took one step and dropped him right in front of her. "Can you take care of Fugawari for me?" he asked in a dreamy sort of voice. "I… um… have to go check on… something." He took a step towards the door.

"Ni-san!" wailed Fugawari. "Where are you going?"

"Hey!" Hana barked out loudly. Thankfully Ichisui stopped walking. "You have the money to pay!"

Ichisui reached into his pocket and threw his wallet at her. "Here," he said slowly. Pay for the groceries. I'll be back in a second." The shop door rang as he left.

Hana suddenly found herself the center of attention. Chyrio spun and glared at her. "How come Ichisui gets to go off and do his own thing? I don't get to go looking for presents for my precious little babies by myself! Dad says I have to stay with you!"

Fugawari tried to run forward and grab at her, but the pressure in his bladder slowed him to a pained hobble. "Nee-san! I really really have to pee!"

Hana turned to Hishyota to ask her for some assistance, but she found her friend's attention elsewhere. "What the heck is your brother doing?" Asked Hishyota idly, wandering over to peer out the door.

Choji-san leaned over the counter and gave Hana a big friendly grin, as Chyrio and Fugawari hounded her. "So would you like me to add up the bill for you?"

Hana had had enough. "Quiet!" she roared at Chyrio and Fugawari. Thankfully they listened for once and she had enough time to deposit the three shopping baskets she had on Choji-san's counter. "Here, tally these up and I'll pay for them right after I take my little brother to the bathroom. Hishyota!" she called out to her friend who was staring out the window muttering under her breath. "Can you watch Chyrio for a second? I have to take Fugawari to go pee."

"I want to use the boy's bathroom," stated Fugawari matter of factly, "I don't want to go into the girl's room."

Hana pulled him towards the door. "Too bad. I'm a girl, and you're coming with me, so we're going to the girl's room."

"I don't want to go to the girl's room!" Fugawari cried, his voice going up in pitch. "I want Ichisui to take me! I want to go to the boy's room!"

"He can't," said Hana firmly, dragging Fugawari to the door. "He's busy!"

"Doing what?" Fugawari cried.

"Apparently he's decided to go and talk to Hishyoni-chan… again," said Hishyota in a disgusted voice.

There was a hurried patter of feet as everyone crowded around the door. With baited breath they watched as Ichisui stopped before crossing the street to let a cart pass. He hesitated for a moment, and then steeled himself to continue walking towards her

"Why does he keep trying to talk to her? She doesn't like him!" asked Chyrio, holding up Mister Whiskers so he could get a better view.

"Because Ichisui is an idiot, and he's in love, and being in love makes you even more of an idiot. So basically it's because he's twice the idiot he normally is," snapped Hana coldly.

Chyrio looked at the scene and sniffed. "He's still not allowed to run off like that. I'm going to tell Daddy when we get home."

"Oh dear. I wonder what's going to happen to the poor boy this time." Everyone looked up to see Choji-san peering outside along with the rest of them. Choji looked down. "What? I like a good laugh as much as the next man."

They watched as Hishyoni used the fountain water to wash off her scratch. Her mesh armor had several broken links in the front that were obviously bothering her. She shrugged her way out of the halter top. Ichisui staggered. "I don't know what he sees in her," Hishyota grumbled. "She's such a bitch all the time."

"She is totally hot." They turned to look at Buronto, the deli clerk who had just joined them at the window. He looked back at them. "What? I'd go over and talk to her."

"I heard he tried to give her flowers once and got bitten by bugs all over his face!" The Akimichi teen girl had joined them as well.

"And then there was the time he fell into the cow poop," said Chyrio giggling.

"Don't forget the time he tried to serenade her!" Hishyota chuckled.

"Oh that was a funny one," Choji muttered in an amused voice.

Fugawari tugged on Hana's hand "Nee-san… I still have to pee," he whispered.

Hana sighed and pulled herself away from the scene. "Will you come to the girl's room with no fuss?" Fugawari nodded once watching his older brother. "Fine, let's go." Hana took his hand and lead the now fascinated Fugawari past the developing scene involving his older brother.

Just as they reached the public ladies room Fugawari hesitated. "Nee-san? Is Ichisui going to get hurt again?"

To no one's surprise, Hana was upset about being abandoned with all the responsibilities. "I really hope so kid. I really hope so."

*******