Chuunin Challenge part THREE.
If LJ had a face, I'd punch it.
Title: Tell Me A Story part trois
Author: pockyphoto
Tell Me a Story part 3
(...the next morning...)
The little girl threw her doll to the floor in frustration. “I don't wanna!”
Harou crossed his arms in defiance, his piercing eyes leaving no room for negotiation. “Just because you told one story doesn't mean I like you.”
Naruto groaned and ran his fingers through his mess of blonde hair. “Why are you two so emotional?!” he whined. “It's just like a park! With weapons. And lots of training obstacles...”
“Lame,” Harou commented.
“Me or the park?” Naruto questioned.
“Both.”
The poor blonde sighed in exhaustion. He wished he had Iruka's expertise with children. He rested his chin in his palm as he slouched over the tilted kitchen table, hardly bothered by the uneven wooden legs beneath it. He glanced at the two children from the corner of his eyes. Isa was already picking up her doll and having it practice ballerina moves on the floor, as Harou sat on the arm of the sofa, watching and waiting for Naruto to say something.
“You know, your parents didn't become great ninja just by sitting at home,” the blonde told the young boy. “They spent years of their lives training and fighting bad guys to be as good as me.”
“Mommy's better than you, Naruto-niichan!” Isa piped in. “You're just a baby-sitter!”
Naruto hung his head and let it hit the table. Why did he think Kakashi and Sakura would have reasonable children? He stood up with his chin held high. The future Hokage can't be brought down by little whiny brats!
“I trained with your mom. Who do you think taught us? Your dad!” Naruto disputed. Then paused. When he thought about it... that was actually awkward to say.
“What did Dad teach you?” Harou asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
Naruto smirked. “I'll show you and teach you myself! If you two go put your shoes on.”
“The children, Kakashi! The children!” Sakura pleaded and tugged on his arm towards Konoha.
“They'll be fine,” he insisted, his attention more focused on the quaint and quiet little inn that he stood before. “Look, they even put a 'Welcome' sign above the door. We can't refuse their hospitality.”
“That's not an offer!” Sakura retorted.
“Don't you want more 'quality time' with me?” Kakashi smiled with his crinkling eye, his hand grabbing a hold of hers. She resisted, but he kept his grip. She tried to pull away, but he pulled her back.
She frowned.
“We spent the entire vacation in bed. We can have more sex when we get home,” she spat out.
“You mean... when we get home and happen to not have Isa crying because of monsters, or Harou throwing stones at stray cats, or you taking extra hours at the hospital, or me not being sent on month-long missions...”
“I get it, I get it.” Sakura looked at the country bed-and-breakfast they stood in front of. It was a nice request Kakashi asked for, but she was not impressed. The gate was off both hinges, the flower bed was withering, the roof didn't seem to be patched up in years...
“Not here,” she argued.
“Did you want it in a tree?” Kakashi raised a brow.
“I want it in our bed. In our home. Where I know our children are safe and sound, and not being influenced by Naruto's cheesy tricks and tactics.”
Kakashi sighed. “I just want it. Again.”
Sakura scoffed. Of course her Icha Icha-obsessed husband would be thinking of more dirty ideas while walking home from a vacation of sex. “How about we make a compromise?” she offered, running a slender finger up the chest of his uniform. “I will promise you an entire night of 'quality time',” she tapped his chin, “if you can take me home and show me that Naruto is not brainwashing our kids to paint Tsunade's face on the Hokage Mountain.”
Kakashi smiled and kissed the tip of her little finger with his gentle mask-covered lips. “I'm more worried about Harou brainwashing Naruto. But I promise...if the kids, or even Naruto, are being naughty, I'll even drop them off at Gai's training dojo myself.”
Sakura let out a delightful gasp. “Good plan!”
Kakashi nodded. “I wouldn't be the amazing married Copy Ninja if I wasn't handsome, dashing, cunning, charming, sly, and - Did I mention handsome and dashing?”
“Don't ruin it,” Sakura stopped him as she walked towards home, with said amazing married Copy Ninja following behind.
He cleared his throat as he let himself be dragged back to Konoha. Sakura feigned ignorance and kept walking. He cleared his throat again, covering it as a cough as he peeked at her through a small side glance.
“What?” she asked.
“I don't suppose we could involve some...kinks...with our 'quality time'?” he winked at her.
“Are you talking about scenes from those books?”
Kakashi whipped out his pocketed novel, flipping to the ear-marked pages. “Just page 2, 43, and 158,” he showed her.
Sakura smiled, pleased that her husband can still find ways to charm her, but also amused that Jiraiya started the smut at just page two.
“Oh no!” alarmed Isa.
“Oh yes,” Harou chuckled, taking Isa's purple unicorn to place on the kunai ledged in the straw gut of a practice dummy. “I am...Evil Bad Guy!... here to take your weapons dealer and force him to make strong weapons for me to kill you better!”
Harou then takes his sword that he broke off the branch of a nearby tree and stands on the biggest boulder of the 'training grounds.' He stabs the invisible air with his sturdy twig and stands with a fist on his hip and his chest stuck out proud.
“I am Hatake Kakashi! Copy Ninja! I am handsome, and dashing, and charming, and sly-”
“You forgot cunning,” Isa whispered to him from below his large podium of a rock, in the shade of Harou's looming shadow.
“I am handsome, dashing, cunning, charming, and sly!” Harou repeated.
Naruto stood from a distance, his expression mixing together both smiles and uneasy frowns. Nobody's gonna mind a free show, right?
“Since when are unicorns actually weapon dealers?” Kiba approached him, nodding over his shoulder to the purple plush toy that stood out like a sore thumb in the field.
“Since last night.” Naruto argued. “Did you come for some practice?”
“I was gonna train with Akamaru, but Sis borrowed him to track down her favorite dress she lost.”
“I bet your mom took it.”
“Yeah, she did. I just didn't want to tell my sister,” Kiba laughed. “Got stuck with training Wonder Woman's babies, huh?”
“Dude. These kids are weird. At home, they're a bunch of whiny misfits. I convinced them to come train, and they were walking upside-down on trees on their first try!”
“Definitely Sakura's genes,” Kiba noted.
Naruto scoffed. “I had them try throwing kunai. Harou is like a mini-Sasuke, showing off and doing everything a little too perfect. And Isa has some bi-polar personality. She's crying one minute because she can't do it, and the next minute, she's throwing it at squirrels, laughing about it! ”
“I knew Sakura was a little sadistic!” Kiba joked.
The two boys shared the nearby bench, continuing to tell stories of missions and battle scars and drunken fights. With only slight supervision, Harou and Isa kept playing.
“My arm!” Isa cried.
“Don't worry, Isa! I mean, Sakura! I'll save you!” Harou boasted with his wooden sword, pretending to fight against the purple unicorn/weapons dealer.
“My lovely Kakashi! Please save me!” Isa acted out, falling to the ground in a slow and dramatic pose of masquerade.
“Oh no! My wife!” Harou called out with a hand to reach her from his battle with the unicorn.
“They weren't married yet!” Isa corrected him.
“Oh no! My... student?”
“Student that you're in love with!” Isa whispered again.
“Oh no! My student that I'm in love with!” Harou shouted once more. “I'll come for you!” Harou jumped to the ground from the boulder, perfect poise and balance for a child of his age. In slow-motion, he began to run towards his little sister who laid on the ground in feigned injury.
“Watch out, Kakashi!” Isa yelled from her position.
Harou playfully tumbled on the ground, rolling around as he pretended to fight enemy ninja. Small deliberate sounds of “hyah!” and “ugh!” echoed from their training area, until he heard Isa's voice again.
“Behind you!”
“Oh no!” Harou acted, as if the enemy had surprised him, slicing him with a low swipe. “Aaaaah! My leg!”
Isa quickly got up from her place on the dirty ground and grabbed Mr. Evil Bad Guy. She bent over her older brother, waving the unicorn above him.
“Bwahahaha! You can't defeat me! I'm the strongest Evil Bad Guy there is! Watch me take away your student that you're in - Hey!”
Isa turned around to find Evil Bad Guy abruptly snatched out of her tiny hands. Harou stopped acting, patting the dust off of his knees as he got up, an unsympathetic glare towards his classmate.
“What do you want, Daiki?”
The bigger boy regarded Harou with annoyance. “Don't be so mean, Harou-chan,” he shuffled the Hatake's mess of hair. “Can't I play with you?” a slight smirk on the lips being none too friendly.
Harou swatted the hand away from his head, his dark eyes still focused on those suspicious brown orbs.
“I don't want to play with you,” Isa said beneath her breath, occasionally glancing at her beloved plush in unease.
Daiki regarded her harshly. “What'd you say?”
With quivering lips and shaky composure, Isa took a step closer to her brother, wrapping a finger in Harou's shirt for guided protection. “You smell like rotting trash,” she spoke softly.
Harou tried to quickly cover her mouth, but Daiki had swifter moves. The strong grip on Isa's arm earned him a scared cry, but the bully did little to calm that sound. He threw the unicorn to the ground, stomping on the toy with the dirty bottoms of his muddy shoes, shaking Isa roughly as she began to cry in fear.
“Who smells like rotting trash?!” Daiki shouted, worsening her disoriented mind.
“Let her go!” Harou yelled, reaching for his younger sister, only to have his rival pull his sibling away from reach.
“She needs to say sorry! She needs to learn her lesson and say I don't smell like trash!” He threw her to the ground, Isa's loud cries and sobs finally reaching out to Naruto at the far bench. Daiki didn't notice the warning.
“You do smell like trash,” Harou spit out, his narrow eyes burning as he witnessed his younger sister be bullied to the harsh dirt. “You smell like trash, you look like trash, and you are trash!”
With a sudden lunge, Harou landed a clean punch to the boy's nose. Daiki had no time to react. The young boy followed through, kneeling over the big bully, fist after fist pounding into the bully's bruised cheeks, the sounds of violence overbearing the young girl's shaky cries in the background.
“Don't ever touch my sister!”
“We're finally home!” Sakura hurried through the welcoming doors of Konoha, husband in tow. Kakashi sent a wave of hello to the two guards at the front entrance, but was only given an uneasy smile in return.
“Sakura!” the loud voice pierced their ears. Both parents turned to see the blonde storming towards them. “Sakura! What have you been teaching your kids?”
The woman looked to regard Ino in a most unflattering expression. “You trying to say I'm a bad mother?” her tone insinuating that her friend's comment was quite possibly terms for a spar.
“Fine,” Ino admitted when she approached the two. “Maybe Kakashi's the bad father, then,” sticking her thumb at the Copy Nin. He frowned.
“Wait,” Sakura's eyes widened. “Nothing... happened... right? Nothing happened to my kids, right?!” Panic started to seep in. Kakashi kept his cool, but a brow slightly rose.
Ino looked silently at them both. “You don't know?”
“Know what?! Spit it out, Ino!” Sakura yelled at her friend.
“...Your kid just beat the shit out of someone.”
Sakura didn't say a word. Kakashi coughed into his hand while finding interest in the passing bird overhead. His wife slowly glanced at him from the corner of her eyes.
“Maybe... Naruto was just teaching them how to make friends,” her husband suggested.
“You got Evil Bad Guy dirty,” Isa pouted at the bully who harmed her as she dusted off her unicorn.
“Your mom's gonna murder me,” Naruto confessed, holding Harou's arms behind him as he was refrained to the ground. “I know it. I just know I'm gonna die by her hands, in this boring training ground, with no big explosion or amazing fight-”
“Naruto,” Kiba warned, the beaten bully below his knee in the same situation as his classmate. “Shut up.”
“But you don't know!” the blonde ninja explained. “You don't know the damage she'll do! She'll break every bone in my body, heal me, and then break them again!” he whined.
“What a wuss,” the injured boy spit out, a drip of blood trailing down his lip. He tried to wiggle, but the weight of Kiba's form on top of him didn't allow an inch for him to budge. “I thought you were gonna be Hokage, but you're scared of a girl.”
Kiba knocked the back of the boy's head. “I'd be careful with what you say. Naruto might just pretend to slip up and let the Hatake boy go.”
Harou smirked, the fire in his eyes only slightly distinguishing from his passionate moment. Isa stood beside Naruto and her restrained brother, hugging her dirty unicorn for comfort as she also showed a spark of anger in her gaze at the beaten boy.
Naruto scoffed. “Kiba, I think we teach someone a lesson-”
“Teach who a lesson, Naruto?” Sakura's voice trembled through his spine from behind him.
He slowly turned around, attempting a cheeky smile which obviously got him nowhere in this situation. “You're home early...”
“Explain,” she demanded, her arms crossed and emerald orbs already stabbing through his soul. “Explain why you're sitting on my son. Why he has a bloodied hand. Why that boy looks like raw meat. Why is Kiba even here? And why is Isa's purple unicorn covered with mud?!”
Kakashi put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down, her raging fit having to be suppressed before her rants got carried away. “Let's get the boys up, first. They're not cattle, so you don't have to treat them like that,” he looked at Kiba, who only shrugged, careless of how he handled his victims.
The boys dusted themselves off as they got up, Kiba and Naruto making sure to keep a good grip on the boys' shoulder to prevent another feud starting. Isa ran to her mother, desperately hugging onto her mother's leg, mumbling her worried rambles into soft sobs.
Sakura bent down and gently grabbed ahold of Isa's shoulders. “It's okay, darling,” she calmed her young daughter as she tucked the girl's hair behind her cute, little ears. “Mommy's home now.” Isa smiled through her watered eyes. “Tell Mommy what happened, ok?”
“We were playing Ninja, like Naruto-niichan's story,” she started. “I was Mommy, and Harou-niichan was Daddy.”
“What story did you tell her?” Kakashi looked at his male student.
“Just that one...at the Land of Hot Springs... with that one sword guy...” he scratched his head in guilt. Sakura didn't seem too happy.
“No! It was at the Land of Keys!” Isa shared, somehow thinking her confession would help retell Naruto's tale.
“You were helping a weapons dealers,” Harou pitched in, his stare still focused on his victim.
“Yep! He was gonna get kidnapped and forced to make swords, so Daddy read a cookbook!”
“You read cookbooks?” Kiba looked at the infamous Copy Ninja.
Kakashi didn't blink. “I make good cupcakes. Don't worry about it.”
“He also reads porn,” Naruto chimed in.
“There are children here, Naruto,” Sakura reminded him.
“Is this story about the mission from last month?” Kakashi scratched his chin as he tried to recall.
“Oh...I think so.” Sakura nodded. She glanced at her friend. “Are you talking about when that guy stole Zabuza's sword from Kakashi and sold it to a weapons dealer?”
“No,” Harou interrupted. “That's not the same story. Dad doesn't get things stolen from him.”
“Unless he's busy making cupcakes,” Kiba snickered. Kakashi didn't laugh.
“Mom was possessed, and then she got kidnapped!” Isa continued. “But Daddy loved her, so he went to go find her!”
“I do love her,” Kakashi smiled. “Even when she was sleepwalking that night.”
“It is the mission from last month!” Sakura accused Naruto. “You turned it into a bed-time story? And they actually fell asleep?”
“Hey, I'm a better baby-sitter than you think!” Naruto defended himself.
Daiki sighed. “Why are you guys so weird? Can I just walk home now? My face hurts.”
“Shut up,” Kiba spoke. He encouraged Isa, “What happened when Mommy was sleepwalking? I mean... kidnapped?”
Isa gave a grumpy look. “She wasn't sleeping. She was kidnapped, and Daddy went to look for her. But Mommy's arm got hurt, and then Daddy got cut in his leg!”
“I thought I stabbed you in the back,” the rosy-haired wife turned to her husband.
“You did. Because you were sleepwalking. So I stabbed you back,” Kakashi smiled.
“...In my side. I remember. I punched you when I woke up.”
“You guys are thinking of the wrong story,” Harou reminded them. “Mom didn't punch Dad, and Dad didn't stab Mom.”
“I think he's upset you're ruining his image of you,” Sakura whispered to Kakashi.
“My amazing cupcakes don't make up for it?”
“But that's not the best part!” Isa broke them apart. “Daddy got possessed when he rescued Mommy, and then Mommy beat Evil Bad Guy.” The young daughter waved the dirty unicorn in the air.
“Did my daughter name her unicorn 'Evil Bad Guy'?” Kakashi asked Naruto, who only sighed.
“...Yes.”
“Cool.”
“When Mommy woke up...” Isa paused to look up between her father and her mother. “...Daddy said he loved her,” she giggled.
“I think I said, 'You're lucky I care for you, or else I'd mentally torture you.' But that's close enough,” Kakashi patted his daughter on the head, in the same way he had always done to Sakura.
“That's cute, Isa, but why is your brother's hand broken?” the medic tended to her son's injury as he offered his limp and swollen hand.
“Oh. Daiki took Evil Bad Guy and stepped on him! So I called him trash, but then he pushed me! But Harou-niichan rescued me!”
Kakashi looked at his son. “You really beat him up?”
“Yeah.”
Kakashi gave him a high-five. “Nice.”
Sakura flashed a look at her husband. “Why are you congratulating him?” She turned harshly to the little boy in Kiba's grasp. “And you! You pushed my daughter?!”
The boy flinched and took a step back. “...She called me trash.”
“You took Evil Bad Guy!” Sakura accused him, pointing a finger and finding little reason to help mend the boy's wounds.
“I can't believe you're calling the unicorn by its name,” Naruto spoke.
“Don't you think your wife is a little over-protective?” Kiba asked the Copy Nin. Kakashi looked at him, then looked at his wife as she was still fuming.
“Nope,” Kakashi admitted. “...But maybe we should just let it go, Sakura. We still have plans, tonight, remember?”
“Yeah, but this naughty brat-”
“-is only a little kid.”
Sakura eased up, slowly calming her angered behavior as she recalled that it may be somewhat inappropriate to scare the boy. “I forgot,” she smiled at her husband. “Let's just drop these two misfits off, and we can have a nice family dinner tonight.”
Kakashi smiled. “I know the perfect place to take them.”
“My eternal rival, Kakashi! Did you bring me two students as a challenge to test my knowledge and determination in education?”
“What was that?” Kakashi pulled out his book of porn, pushing both Daiki and Naruto towards the Green Beast.
“I will not fail to you and your 'modern' attitude that still pisses me off!”
Daiki stared at his new instructor, in the same expression as one would for a horror film. “Who is this guy? Why is he wearing green pajamas?”
“Ah! Youth is as sweet and sour as ever! But youth will be strict tonight!”
“Why am I here? How come Harou doesn't have to do this?” Naruto pleaded.
Kakashi continued to read from his book as he smirked. “Obviously, my son is a talented ninja. You... let Isa be bullied. If Gai doesn't teach you a lesson, Sakura will,” he threatened.
“...I still think I'd rather take the abuse from her than Gai...” he mumbled under his breath.
“The explosion of youth will blossom tonight with 500 laps! To the horizon!”
The End.