Omake: Once Upon a Time in Konoha.

Twelve years ago..

In the village of Konoha walked three best friends and former teammates. They walked down the streets, chatting away happily, laughing and paid no mind to the looks they got from passerby's. The three women have known each other for years, from their days at the ninja academy to being teammates in the same squad.

Two of the ladies were pregnant but the third cradled her child - an infant a little over two months old - in her arms.

"Kyaaa! Sasuke is soo handsome, ya know!" exclaimed Kushina - a woman with ankle length red hair and violet eyes - and she put a hand on her belly, and started rubbing in gentle circles.

"It's only a matter of time, and he'll soon have his pick of the girls," said Sayuri Senju, a woman with long bright orange hair and blue eyes. "Won't you? Yes you will! Yes you will, you handsome boy!" she cooed in a high voice. "You and your handsome face. Handsome, handsome, handsome."

Eskimo kisses, gushing voices, and tickles under the chin. Sayuri did everything Fugaku seldom did, and Sasuke was having the time of his life. No one made him chortle and beam as bright as that but Itachi, his five year old, older brother.

A woman with waist length black hair and eyes, rolled her eyes heavenward and chuckled. Her name was Mikoto Uchiha. You'd think she'd be used to her friends and their antics after all these years. "If you keep that up I won't be able to put Sasuke down for his nap later, he'll be too excited to sleep."

Sayuri smiled at her friend. "You know, I still can't believe out of the three of us, I'm having the only girl. Hajime is thrilled and can't wait to swap daughter stories with Inoichi." In her mind, Sayuri already pictured her husband at a bar with Inoichi, Shikaku, and Choza, drinking saké. Inoichi, like Hajime, was the only one in his team to have a daughter, unlike Hajime however, his teammates often teased him for it.

"We all saw it coming, ya know," said Kushina, punching the space in front of her and smiling. "You're the biggest girly girl in the whole village. Your little girl will no doubt take after you, ya know?"

"Probably, I hope so, at least to some extent."

"The kunoichi most likely to be popular with her academy peers, to be fashionable, top of her kunoichi class and class president like Mikoto, or at least, part of the student council, just like her momma." Kushina reminisced of both of her friends time at the academy.

In childhood, during her time at the academy, Kushina had been the tomboy, the one you'd see roughhousing with students, throwing them around like rag dolls and pummeling them to the ground. It's how, Mikoto and Sayuri recalled, Kushina later became renown as the Red-Hot Bloody Habanero amongst her peers.

Mikoto laughed at the two.

"You both are due soon aren't you? This is as good a time as any to come up with names for your soon-to-be little ones. Have you got any names planned, Kushina?"

Kushina smiled and gave a thumbs up to Mikoto. "Minato and I decided on naming our little one Naruto, after a character in Master Jiraiya's book in the hopes he grows up as kind and determined as the character he's named after, and like Jiraiya, of course."

Sayuri snorted. "Let's just hope he don't develop Master Jiraiya's perverted tendencies, too."

Kushina paled and a shudder ran up and down her spine. To her utter horror, she hadn't thought of that outcome. How could she forget that Jiraiya, one of the Sannin, had questionable habits?

He called it research, but his research got him beat to pulp by Lady Tsunade, his teammate and fellow Sannin, a woman with a temper rivaling her own, when she caught him peeping on her in the bathhouse. Luckily for him, Tsunade had been a medic and the best.

"I'm sure he'll be a little gentleman to the girls, if you have anything to say about it," Mikoto gave her friend a pat on the back and turned to Sayuri. "What about you? Have you and Daiki come up with any names yet?"

"Well, we agreed if a boy that he'd get to name the baby and he wanted to name it after his late brother; Nawaki," Sayuri bobbed her head causing her ponytail to bounce with the action. "In the end since the baby turned out to be a girl, I'm going to name her Minako. It was the name of Lord First's mother and I really love it."

Mikoto thought the name to be lovely, and said so.

Kushina let out an excited squeal making Mikoto and Sayuri cringe from the unexpected outburst, and Sasuke to glare up at her. "So beautiful ya know!" she exclaimed. "Naruto, Minako, and Sasuke will be the dream team of the century, the team to top all teams." She stopped and laughed at her own train of thought. "An Uzumaki, Senju and an Uchiha? What could possibly go wrong? Assuming they don't start a love triangle."

Sayuri looked absolutely mortified, her facial expression said as much. Mikoto giggled and started rocking Sasuke.

"I'd say not. My little girl is going to stay pure and innocent," said Sayuri with a giggle. "She's going to focus on her ninja career, her love life can wait until she is older. Much, much older."

An image of Daiki wielding a *kusarigama and chasing some random boy down the streets, popped into Sayuri's head. The thought made her giggle and shudder at the same time.

Kushina snorted. "Yeah, sure, as pure and innocent as you when we were teenagers." Mikoto laughed out loud at that and Sayuri, her normally pale cheeks turned as bright a red as Kushina's hair, at the reminder of all her ex boyfriends.

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't talk about that!" Sayuri whined with both of her best friends cracking up on both sides of her. "Do you remember that red head from the Sand with an obsession for ninja puppeteering?" Kushina continued not missing a beat, and Mikoto nodded, giggling behind her hand.

"Sayuri, Mikoto, Kushina wait up!" The three friends paused at the familiar voice calling out to them, and turned around. A tall man with green-grey eyes and light brown hair, ran through a crowd of villagers. Daiki Senju weaved through a crowd of villagers, in, out and around, coming close to a collision course with a woman but spun out of the way just in time to avoid her.

"Sorry lady!" He yelled over his shoulder and the woman, she flipped him off, before she stomped off, grumbling all the while.

"I still find it hard to believe that goofball is an elite ninja." Kushina whispered in amusement, while Mikoto and Sayuri watched, the latter of whom had a red tint to her cheeks.

'How does he manage to be both handsome and embarrassing at the same time?' Sayuri thought to herself. Daiki held one hand up, waving it in the air to flag the ladies down.

Daiki managed to make his way to the women - without anymore mishaps - and gave an exhausted smile. "Sorry about that ladies. I just got back from my mission." he said as way of explanation.

Mikoto's eyebrows shot up. "Has Fugaku returned as well?"

Daiki nodded back at her and looked down to Sasuke, all wrapped up and snug in his mother's arms. "He's a chunky little dude, isn't he? What have you and Fugaku been feeding him Mikoto?"

Sayuri face palmed while Kushina punched Daiki full in the face, glaring, with her long hair split into nine parts and flaming upwards. "You *gesu yarō! Don't be so mean to Sasuke, it's baby fat and he'll grow out of it, ya know!!"

Mikoto frowned at her best friend's husband while making a 'tsk tsk' sound. Sayuri pouted at her husband - twitching in the dirt and holding his face - with her arms crossed. Kushina cracked knuckles, sporting a victorious look on her face.

"Well, we better get going. Bye guys." Sayuri waved goodbye to her friends, gave Sasuke a peck on the forehead, and left with her husband who continued to sulk about getting punched when the baby got the kiss.

*** ***

WotD (Word of the Day):

Gesu yarō literally translates to asshole.

Kusarigama is a traditional Japanese weapon that consists of a kama (the Japanese equivalent of a sickle) on a kusari-fundo – a type of metal chain (kusari) with a heavy iron weight (fundo) at the end.