Homemaker

Inking privacy and security seals for the Red-Light girls wasn’t exactly a job Menma wanted to advertise, but it was both a steady source of income and kind of satisfying, doubly so when there was a packet for him to look over like today. He might not be a Konoha shinobi yet, but Jiraiya still liked to pick his brain about things.

Mai-san had hired a few new bouncers that needed to be keyed into the seals and a few of the neighborhood kids who helped with the cleaning and other errands had started asking questions about what he was doing and being a ninja in general and then he’d looked up and suddenly realized it was getting dark. Mai-san had tried to talk him into staying for a meal or even the night, but he heard the front starting to pick up business and managed to get away without offending the former kunoichi or having to flatter her too much or too obviously. Except the normal cheesy lines he used to subtly indicate he truly wasn’t interested.

It was a kind offer and normally he’d be fine with it, but it was the Fire Festival tonight and while he wasn’t up for joining the festival proper, his arm ached in a way that hinted at an early preview for the winter rains and he wanted to be in his apartment long before that started if it was possible. He had a few more seal commissions that needed to be finished up within the next few days, the kind that weren’t difficult but were tricky in that they were a bit more fiddly and required more attention to detail and the more time he had to work on them, the better.

He wasn’t quite that lucky. Granted, it was only drizzling, but he knew from experience it wouldn’t be long before it really started coming down. Menma idly wondered if the festival-goers would try and stick it out or simply pack everything up and try again in a day or two after everything had dried out somewhat.

In his hurry to make it home, he almost passed by the crowd of drunks— would have passed by, actually— but he was hit by a feeling of ugly rage that nearly made him stagger and had him looking around trying to find the source.

It was another moment of carful concentration before he heard the whimpers. Not from a dog, but a human— a child— and coming from the approximate center of the drunks. That was… not okay, but then he realized just how vicious the drunks were and how directed that viciousness was.

Common sense said to go get an Uchiha and let them handle it, or even the group of worried ANBU edging closer. Experience said that if he left, the kit might not be alive by the time he found someone and got back. Emotion just said to get the kit out.

He could do the stupid thing and come in with full Killing Intent, but instead, he placed one tag on a wall just out of sight and activated another before he started to slip as close to the group as he possible could.

Which was ridiculously close, close enough to see the shock of suspiciously brilliant blond hair and the way the kit was curled up as much as possible.

One breath, one pulse of chakra. One small burst of noise to get them all looking in one direction, one step to put a hand on the kit’s shoulder with a half-a-heartbeat to activate the second Notice-Me-Not tag and the privacy seal that was sewn on the inside of his sleeve. From there, it was just a matter of getting to the roof, but that was so easy he could do it in his sleep. He made sure to stop under an overhang, though. He might be reluctant to leave a kit in that kind of situation, but he also didn’t want to stand on a rain-slicked roof, either.

The kit was shaking with fear and cold and confusion, and Menma turned his attention to soothing him rather than watch the drunks run around in terrified circles, bleating about demons or the suddenly alarmed ANBU; as if demons would be hanging around a ninja village. Other than the Kitsune, maybe, but those were his, technically, and not what most people thought of when they started throwing that term around. Maybe a Bijuu, but those had all been sealed away and weren’t cause for concern, especially not at the moment.

“You okay, kit?”

The little boy whimpered again, burying his cold face in Menma’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. I know that was scary, but I don’t think you have to worry about them doing that again.” He kept up a stream of meaningless words, keeping his tone calm and gentle as he carefully rubbed the kit’s back and brushed wet (and suspiciously yellow) hair back when he wasn’t carefully cupping the kit’s head.

It was another few minutes before sobs had calmed down to hiccups and even those had petered out, leaving Menma with an arm full of quietly exhausted and soaked toddler.

“Hey, kit, what are you doing alone in this part of town? It’s kind of dangerous to be here by yourself.”

The boy shrugged and Menma resigned himself to playing twenty-questions.

“Where’re your parents? They’ve got to be worried sick, right about now.” Especially if they were at the festival, but the kit was wearing a worn T-shirt, pants, jacket, and sandals, not even dressed for the rain, let alone a festival that usually meant some level of traditional dress, unless—

“Don’t have any,” the boy mumbled.

There was a story he knew far too well. “Well, let’s get you back to the orphan— whoa! Hey! Calm down!” He sat down as the kid started thrashing to get out of his arms. “Easy, kit. Easy. What’s wrong? I know they don’t tend to be the nicest places, but it’s better than the street in the rain.”

“I don’ wanna go back!” He sniffled, burying his face back in the man’s shoulder. “They’re mean and it’s lonely an’ they don’ want me.”

“What do you mean, they ‘don’t want you’?” Menma asked carefully.

“They won’ let me back in.”

He very carefully ignored the sudden urge to stab someone and moved on. Also, something he’d heard before, but he suspected that a lack of funding or space wasn’t the issue here, even with the Kyuubi attack four years ago added on to the war orphans. “Well then, would you rather come home with me? At least for tonight? We can talk to the Hokage and get things straightened out tomorrow, okay?”

The blond nodded, little fingers grabbing his shirt so tight, Menma could almost imagine the rips.

“Alright, Let’s go get out of the rain, then. What’s your name, kit?”

There was a garbled mumble, but he thought he could make out the name.

“Naruto? Is that right?”

The kit moved his face a little bit and mumbled, “Uzumaki Naruto.”

Menma took a long, slow breath and let it out very carefully. “My names Menma. It’s nice to meet you, Naruto.”

It wasn’t actually that far to his apartment, faster if he took the rooftops, but he didn’t want to risk falling while holding a kid. He might be good enough that it wasn’t a real issue, but there wasn’t much of a need to hurry, either. It also looked suspicious as hell. He might have the Uzumaki thing going for him, but if someone started claiming he was kidnapping kids, he would have problems no matter what, even with the Notice-Me-Not tags still active; it wasn’t like they were fool-proof, even if it took a lot of work to see around it. Better safe than sorry.

It also gave him time to think past his initial reaction of anger and guilt. He’d heard some drunk Iwa-nin talking about what they wanted to do to the Yellow Flash, even years after his death. It wasn’t pretty at all.

It did explain why Jiraiya had been trying so hard to get any Uzumaki he could find to go to Konoha. Namikaze-sama and Kushina-sama had died about a year after the war, after all.

He was sorry he hadn’t come earlier, especially if the kit hadn’t been treated well, but… he hadn’t had a way to know, really, not if Jiraiya couldn’t tell him. And considering how forthright the Toad Sannin tended to be about things, Menma suspected that if he had been able to talk about the kit, he would have brought it up at least once. The international situation had been pretty sticky still, too, although that was half an excuse, same as it had been for not coming while Kushina had still been alive.

But he was here now. He could do something about it now, even if Hogake-sama decided he should wait the full month.

He should probably get permission to write Jakushitsu and let his wife know he’d basically just adopted a kid, though. He should send a note to yell at Jiraiya, too. Or better yet, send a Fox to do it for him.

Okay, he was maybe just a little bit angry, even if he understood why no one had told him.

He got to the point of making plans to go yell at the surviving elders and get the rest of the clan into Konoha before he stopped himself. First things first, get the kit clean, dry, and warm. Then talk to the Hokage. That would have to wait until the rain stopped, tomorrow morning at the latest; best not to delay and let others draw the wrong impression

It was a relief to get out of the rain and an even bigger relief to walk through the door. Naruto brought his head up to look around and Menma saw blue eyes go wide as the seals flared a little as the door shut.

“Don’t try to touch that just yet, okay, kit?” Menma tapped the little boy’s nose, and then took off his little ninja-style sandals. “It keeps me and anyone else in here with me safe, so it might hurt you.”

“But I’m in here with you,” Naruto pointed out, confused.

“Yes, but I’m usually the one opening the door to let someone in or out.” Menma crouched down to toe off his tabi and then stripped off his socks.

“Oh.” He frowned at the door, intent (and cute). “What does it feel like when you touch it?”

“Huh.” Menma considered that while he slipped on the house slippers. “It’s kind of… a little tingly. And warm. For me at least.” It took him a moment to come up with a good way to describe it. “Like… holding a mug of tea, kind of.”

Little brows scrunched up in confusion. “Like ramen?”

Menma blinked a little, caught off guard. “I suppose so.”

“Okay.” Naruto went back to looking around the room.

“Now, we should probably get you cleaned up before we do anything else, huh?”

“I’m okay! I’m all wet, see?”

“I know it seems like you’re clean after being out in something like that, but we really should give you a bath. It’s a good way to warm up, too.”

The kit looked at him, skeptical as only a toddler could be.

“You’ll see.” Menma walked into the bathroom. A tap on the cabinet door and a single hand-sign and he caught the towels that popped out of the storage seal, putting Naruto down on the floor. He turned on the water in the tub, waiting until it started to warm up before he plugged the drain. “Can you get your clothes off by yourself or do you need help?”

“I can do it!”

The red-head popped into the bedroom to snag of change of clothes for himself and an old comfortable T-shirt for the kit, since he didn’t actually have anything properly sized for a toddler, and came back to find a naked four-year-old already in the tub. For a second, Menma might have panicked because small unsupervised child and water, but then he bit back a snicker. The kit just looked so happy.

Naruto looked up, something like fear in his face when he looked at him, and that just broke his heart.

Menma smiled, pretending nothing was wrong as he adjusted the taps. “Someone’s a little tadpole, aren’t you?”

“It’s warm. It’s never warm when it’s my turn.” He sounded awed, which, on the one hand, Menma could understand. Taking a bath in warm water was the best. On the other hand, Menma usually had that experience when he was coming back from some kind of mission, so he wasn’t too fond of the fact that a warm bath was the height of luxury for a four-year-old.

“Well, this one is all for you.”

Blue eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“But what about you?”

“Well, I’m bigger and I didn’t get as wet as you, so I’m pretty good for now. I’ll take a shower before I go to bed and I’ll be fine.” He was also working on the habit of using chakra control to keep himself from getting more than minorly damp now that he didn’t have to hide the fact that he was a ninja and this had been good practice.

“Okay.”

Menma let him play and splash in the tub until his fingers wrinkled up, laughing and chatting with the excited toddler while he washed his hair and made sure that the slippery little kit was clean and not just well-rinsed. “Time to dry off.”

“Aww.” The kit didn’t protest all that much, though. Just got out and then it was an interesting few minutes of trying to dry a squirming toddler, but while Menma had never spent a significant amount of time looking after kids of any age, he had a few cousins that had been about Naruto’s current age when he’d found them and he had looked after them for a bit. He thus had a slight advantage when it came to distracting someone with the attention span of a goldfish. Whatever else came out of this, he could hopefully make sure somebody started the kit on the basics of chakra control and meditation soon. Well, “meditation” meaning someone teaching the kit how to sit still for longer than fifteen seconds. Uzumaki had to grow into their ridiculous chakra stores and they usually had trouble sitting still for long periods of time as an adult. Granted, nobody Menma had met had that issue particularly bad, but all the clan members still alive aside from the elders had grown up having to partially hide what they were; those sorts of situations bred patience unlike anything else, but it was most certainly not something he wanted any kid to experience.

After checking if the kit had eaten yet (he hadn’t), he made sure he got some food before the kit started drooping, falling asleep entirely about thirty seconds after Menma picked him up

He’d barely taken two steps down the hall to put the kit to bed when someone knocked on the door.

Genma had finished changing into his ANBU gear and was literally walking out the door for his shift when Kakashi grabbed his arm, still wearing his dog mask.

He sighed. “Hatake—”

“Gekko said he wanted to see us. It sounded urgent.”

“I have a shift!”

“It probably won’t take long.”

Genma glared at him. “And if it does?”

“He’ll have to answer to the Commander.”

“I’ll have to answer to the Commander,” Genma muttered. “He’d better have a good reason for this.”

As it turned out, Gekko did have a reason, a very good one.

“What do you mean you lost him?” Kakashi ground out.

Genma wasn’t exactly happy about it either, but he did kind of have to admire Gekko for not doing much more than swallowing nervously.

“Th-there was… an… incident.”

“Obviously. What. Happened.”

 Genma smacked Kakashi upside the head. “Tone it down and let the man talk.”

With obvious difficultly, Kakashi reigned in the killing intent. He might not be emotionally ready to actually be around the kid in a situation that didn’t involve wearing a porcelain, painted mask or that required actual talking or any other kind of social interaction, but that didn’t change the fact that Naruto was the last bit of Minato and Kushina, and the man’s student was… protective. Understandably so, if you knew his history, but still kind of clingy.

“There was a crowd of drunks and we were trying to figure out how to get him out of the middle without anyone getting hurt. Then there was some sort of noise and he just… disappeared.”

Genma eyed him. “Disappeared.”

“He just—” Gekko took a breath. “We glanced over to see what happened and when we looked back, he was gone, Captain. We've been looking around for almost an hour and a half and can't find him!” Considering how bad the rain had gotten, scent would have been no help at all, either, and even the best Aburame tracker would have been hard pressed to find some useable trace of chakra and that was if any had been used at all. There were plenty of ways to hide and be stealthy that didn’t involve chakra, as any good ANBU knew.

“Did you find anything to indicate where he went?” Kakashi asked.

“No, just this.” Gekko held out a small rectangle of paper to the two of them, obviously recently soaked and carefully preserved to keep the ink from running more than it already had.

Genma squinted at the slip as Hatake took it. “That… is definitely a tag. Also definitely not an exploding tag.”

Kakashi hummed in agreement as he inspected it. “Similar, though. It definitely emits something.”

It was a fair enough assessment. Genma had picked up bits and pieces of fuuinjutsu, mostly from the Yondaime and a little bit from his wife and the tiny pieces taught at the Academy. Kakashi had been the man’s student and his education to a half-way decent user of the art had been necessary for surviving any amount of time to his promotion. Genma also wasn't a genius with a photographic memory granted by a Sharingan.

His mind immediately flickered back to a certain Uzumaki, though, and the conversations they’d had on and off over the past month about seals and seal tags. It might be one of his, or it might just be something from a different nation entirely; Kumo had decent fuuinjutsu as well, stolen from the ruins of Uzushio as it was. Even if Naruto had been kidnapped by foreign ninja, they might have bought the tag elsewhere or used it to seed a false trail.

Genma did have one advantage to figuring out the truth, though. He snagged the tag from Kakashi. “I know someone who could tell us what it does, but I have a shift—”

“I’ll cover for you,” Hatake said immediately. “Finding Naruto is a priority; the Commander will understand.” He paused. “Who are you going to ask? Jiraiya’s halfway to Lightning Country and the Hokage’s secretaries would kill anyone who distracted him from his paperwork, his grandson included.”

Genma blinked. “That’s right; you’ve been out of the village for a while. He’s new— an Intelligence agent recruited from outside the village. Almost done with his month of probation.”

One eyebrow went up. “Only a month? He must have been pretty trustworthy.”

“Maybe,” Genma shrugged. “He’s been pretty cagey about who his handler was. Knowing him, it could be old habits die hard or he just enjoys screwing around with people. Maybe both." Probably both, actually; the Uzumaki had a particularly sharp and sly sense of humor. "Once you’re banned from missions for being a workaholic, let me know. I’ll introduce you.”

The response of one raised finger as Hatake put his mask on and walked away left Genma chuckling the entire time he rushed back into his normal uniform.

The rain still hadn’t let up, but at least it didn’t seem like anybody in the sky had a personal grudge anymore and it only required a little bit of chakra control to avoid being soaked in the time it took him to get to Menma’s apartment building. Score one for being a bit of a mother hen— he knew where all of his friends lived and all the fastest ways to get there.

He spent a moment considering how he was going to explain this to Menma without giving away who or what Naruto was while he climbed to the second floor and knocked on the door.

The red-head answered, calm and with a four-year-old in an over-large T-shirt on his hip, dead asleep, clinging like a limpet and drooling on his shoulder.

“Shiranui,” Menma said quietly, genuine surprise in his voice. “I didn’t expect to see you here this late, especially in this weather. Is there something I can help you with?”

Genma looked from Menma to Naruto and smiled, both because the image was too adorable not to do so and because of course the kid would attach himself to the man. “Yeah. What’s this one do?” He pulled out the seal tag.

“Lets off a burst of sound,” Menma said with barely a glance. He stepped to the side to let him in, which was both comforting and not. Genma had seen the security seals Menma had in his apartment. He was pretty sure the seals in the Hokage Manor weren’t that complicated. “It’s mainly for a distraction, although if you tune it right and have very good timing or aim, you can really screw up someone’s balance. Tea?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s pretty cold out there.”

Menma hummed in agreement as he moved through the kitchen, never putting down Naruto and doing everything one-handed which was impressive, especially considering he’d never seen anything to indicate that the Uzumaki was used to kids before this. Apparently, Genma had caught him at a good time because the water was already hot and the tea was already out.

“You seem pretty at ease with the kid.”

“I used to watch some of my younger cousins when I got the chance. You just sort of get used to it.” Menma paused to either nuzzle the top of the kid’s hair or maybe drop a kiss there. “He’s had a bit of a hard time and I was about to put him to bed, actually.” He placed the mug of tea on the table. “I’ll be back in a second.” Then, he disappeared back into the sole bedroom for a few minutes before he returned without the kid, grabbed his own mug, and sat down across from Genma.

He also slapped a privacy seal down on the table.

The first words out of the tokujo’s mouth were, “You know?”

“Yeah.” Menma cradled his cup between his hands. “I mean, it’s kind of obvious when you know who would have had to be involved. I was going to bring it up with the Sandaime tomorrow morning.”

Fair enough. Did absolutely nothing for the guilt, though. “It was too—”

Menma waved a hand. “Dangerous to let it get out who the kid’s father was, and if you mentioned Kushina-sama, anyone who knows anything about either one of them is going to put two and two together. And even if I’m an agent of Konoha, I was born and raised outside of the village. I’m aware, Shirainui-san.” Then he muttered, “Even if I am going to punch Jiraiya.”

Genma choked, distinctly glad he was neither chewing a senbon or actually drinking his tea yet when he put two and two together. “You worked for Jiraiya-sama?”

There was a blank stare. “I should not have said that.” Then, louder, “Yeah, he’s the one who recruited me and showed me the ropes. I mean, I already had most of it from the Foxes and general survival outside a Village, but he definitely refined what was already there.”

“Huh, I can see that. Why do you want to punch him so bad? Aside from the general obnoxiousness when he’s right.”

“Because he’s been trying to convince me to go to Konoha for the last five years or so and all he would have needed to say to win that argument would be ‘your cousin had a kid’ or even ‘your cousin’s pregnant.’ And, well, things might have turned out… different.” The look on his face was similar to Kakashi’s when he talked about Rin or Obito.

“Why? I mean, yeah, the kid might have had family to raise him, but….”

Menma paused to look at him, something downright odd in his expression that Genma couldn’t put a name on. He shook his head. “Let’s just… leave it at that, for now. I don’t want to spread anything around and the Hokage never said anything one way or another. They wanted to keep things quiet and no one said anything.” A frown. “Well, no, Jiraiya was ridiculously happy about his student having an actual girlfriend, but he never said much of anything past that. I got the impression they wanted to keep things quiet.”

“They did,” Genma confirmed, still a little shaken by what-ifs, even if the pounding rhythm of failure failure failure wasn’t as loud as it had been even three years ago. “Kushina got enough attention as a jinchuuriki, let alone the last of her clan, and Minato was sending the other villages into screaming fits for his kill count if nothing else.”

Menma snorted and took another sip. “That he did. I’m not sure anyone realized just how much. I mean, even a couple months ago, I overheard a couple of ninja insisting that he was still alive.”

Genma blinked. “Seriously?”

Menma hummed. “There’s a whole conspiracy that he’s still running missions in secret for Konoha.”

“Why the hell would you promote someone to Kage and then keep sending them on missions like any other ninja?”

Menma shrugged. “That’s just what I heard. I didn’t say it made any sense.”

Genma made a noise of acknowledgement and sipped his tea. “So,” he said after a long moment of silence, “what’re you gonna do?”

“Take him in, if he wants to stay, although I’m not sure where else he’d go since the orphanage apparently doesn’t want him.”

Genma had to lean back a little at the sheer viciousness in the Uzumaki’s voice at the end. He agreed with it, but it was still a little unsettling from someone’s who default seemed to be stuck somewhere between easy-going and subtle mischief. “Just like that?”

“Well, not necessarily,” the red head admitted. “I mean, the Hokage would have to okay it, especially since that probationary month isn’t up quite yet, and Naruto would have to choose whether or not he wanted to stay, but…. It doesn’t sit well with u—” He coughed, “Uh, me to just leave a four-year-old on his own.”

“Well,” Genma said slowly, “He’s not a gennin, so it’s pretty unlikely Saindaime-sama would leave him on his own completely.”

Menma stared at him incredulously. “That’s happened?”

“Five’s the record.” Genma sipped in amused tolerance. “The kid’s dad left him on his own and when he recovered enough to insist he didn’t need someone to take care of him, no one could really do much, since he was technically a clan head.”

Menma made a little frustrated noise. “No wonder Hatake’s such a screwed-up mess.”

Genma almost choked, and started giggling. “To be fair, that was only one thing out of several that screwed him up. And Kushina didn’t take it all that peacefully, even if she and Minato-sama had just barely started dating.” Which might have been something the Yondaime had counted on, in retrospect. Minato had been too polite to push over-much, but Kushina had no care for social niceties when she thought something was wrong.

“Huh, that might be a tradition to keep alive.”

“Look, I’m all for making sure a friend doesn’t work himself to death, but you can’t just scoop him up like a puppy anymore while he flails his elbows around.” He muttered, “Slippery bastard.”

Menma waved off his objections. “Please, violence is not the only problem-solving method out there.”

“And now I’m not sure if I should be selling tickets or finding some place to hide.”

Menma just looked at him innocently. “What? It’s not like I’m going to do anything drastic.”

Genma eyed him for a moment before deciding he was just… better off not knowing. “This is me not asking.”

“Coward.”

Genma rolled his eyes. “I may not be from her generation, but there are legends of what happened when Kushina-san decided she wanted to make friends with someone, and she didn’t have an army of Kitsune at her beck and call.”

Menma laughed. “I’m flattered. But, no, not an army. I’m lucky if I can convince them not to pee on enemy ninja after they’ve been knocked out.”

“Thank you so much for that wonderful image. Moving on….”