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Chapter Text

When the higher-ups told him to go after Megumi due to the danger of the Special Object, he had expected to creep into a scene of absolute destruction. A house broken apart. His cute, little student with bruises and a fight that would finally make his heart hummed with excitement. Instead, he strolled into a house with no broken walls, no cracked windows and no shrill screams. He adjusted his blindfold, there was barely a hint of energy except for Megumi and another figure. The whole area felt similar to Jujutsu High like there was a barrier enclosed all around it but it pulsed with more energy. Felt stronger than any barrier that Tengen could make. An energy that was nothing like cursed energy.

He kept his hands in his pockets, nudging the gate open as his eyes drifted to the rose bushes surrounding the house. Right by the rose bush was a pink bicycle, clearly it belonged to a girl. The air hummed with residual energy, just a little hint of Sukuna’s finger but it was slowly disappearing…almost fooling a curse that it had never been there in the first place. He frowned. Unusual. Even if the finger still had the talisman, it would radiate and attract curses. Like a moth to a flame but his eyes couldn’t pick it out. Could not even see a silver of that energy.

The winds howled in the background as he laid one heavy knock against the door. Normally, he would just teleport into the room but this was not a public space. If the barriers were any hint, the owner of this house had probably made sure that no surprise visitors could just come into the house uninvited. He could defeat this person but there was no reason to be rash. If anything happened, if there was no response then he could just kick the door open. Fortunately, he didn’t need to because it wasn’t long before the door opened.

Megumi stared at him, taken back and just a little bit annoyed. No bruises on him. Had his student become strong enough to deal with a Special Grade? He couldn’t have overcome his weakness when he encountered the object, much less coming out without a scratch on him. The boy stared at him and he decided to break the tension by asking the main question. “So what’s the situation?”

Silence. The boy refused to look him in the eye and Gojo found himself repeating his question in a different form. “Megumi, did you complete your mission?”

“Not exactly,” his student admitted. He still refused to meet his eyes, but his head was turned away, focused on the floor like it held all the answers that he needed. A glance at the floors revealed several characters, similar to the ones used in talisman, but it vibrated with a different energy. An energy that he could not just quite make out. The floors creaked like it was giggling at his student’s situation. What happened? How could his student not exactly complete his mission? If he completed it, there was no problem, and if he did not…then this whole house would be crawling with curses.

Gojo laughed. “What do you mean not exactly?”

“It means Mum did his job for him!” A little girl called out from behind Megumi. Gojo jerked his head and from behind his blindfold, he blinked at the sight of the girl. She was cute. Probably 8? Long raven hair and the largest blue eyes he had ever seen. She had a bright smile playing on her lips as she pushed his student aside. Her blue eyes studied him, wide with curiosity and excitement. “Who are you, Mister? Are you Megumi’s friend? Why do you have a blindfold? You don’t seem blind ‘cuz you don’t have that walking crane thing! How can you see!”

So many questions poured out of her mouth, but he focused on the most important point. “Your Mum did what?”

“I said Mum did Megumi’s job for him,” the girl answered slowly like he was slow to catch up. She bobbed her head. “She sealed your sealed object into a whole different dimension, and no one can get access to it unless they are related to Mum. So only Mum and I can get to that dangerous object!” Her expression was proud, and the child puffed her little chest like it was her hard work and not her mother.

His mind went blank. Unable to process her words. He found himself repeating his question once again. “Your Mum did what?”

The girl puffed her pale cheeks, stared at him like he was being an idiot, and said in a slow tone. “I told you! Mum sealed your object in a whole different dimension,” she leaned against one foot while Megumi nodded, a confirmation of her words. “No one can get a hold of it except for me or Mum because only someone with Mum’s blood can use it! And since I’m Mum’s only child, I can open the seal!”

The higher-ups are going to have a field day with this. It was the first thing that came to his mind and the image of those old farts stumbling brought out a laugh. Then, his laugh died down as the little girl narrowed her eyes at him. Demanding for answers and his lips twitched. He chuckled and ruffled her hair while his eyes darted to Megumi, who still could not quite meet his eyes. The air hummed once more, a very faint footsteps. A blond-haired woman stepped out of the shadows, the same blue eyes as her daughter but she was taller.  Same whisker marks like her child.

From her posture alone, he could tell that she was not some simple woman. Not the same soft curves associated with civilian woman. There was muscles all around her body, a hint of training. Her fingers had hints of ink but he could smell a lingering scent of blood. Her eyes didn’t meet his own, they were more focused on the bouncing little girl. Her voice was firm and amused. “Reika, what have I told you about talking to strangers?”

“To do it?” Reika answered innocently, clasping her hands behind her back. She fluttered her eyelashes at her mother but the woman snorted and folded her arms against her chest. A pointed look. Her daughter still smiled. “You answered the door when Megumi came with Yuuji-niisan so why can’t I answer him? Is it because he’s a weirdo?”

The blond-haired woman knelt down and placed her hands around the little girl’s shoulder. “Even if he wasn’t a weirdo,” she gave her daughter a pointed look, “you know better than to open the door. How many times has your Dad told you not to do it? And how many times must I remind you not to open the door without my permission?”

Her daughter smiled cheekily. “But if Megumi was—”

“Doesn’t matter who opens the door. You still can’t talk to strangers.”

The little girl pouted but Gojo just focused on her mother. The ink was clearly dried on her fingers, no hint of any wounds on her, and he wondered just how she managed to do the whole thing without having any curses after her. The shadows, the walls and even the air felt normal. If her daughter had never said what happened, if the higher ups had never asked him to come, he would never know that this house had ever contained Sukuna’s finger.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his blindfold. Reika’s mother didn’t jump up, she just dusted the imaginary dirt off of her clothes and flashed him a smile. A warm smile, sincere and not at all annoyed with him for popping into her house. “So Mr. Weirdo,” she began, tilting her head to the side. “What brings you to my home at…10pm?”

Megumi coughed and looked away. “That’s Gojo-sensei. The higher-ups probably sent him because of how dangerous that object was.”

“Oh, so they do have a pair of brains after all,” she mumbled, shaking her head. His lips twitched and the woman swirled her head at him. Her eyes darkened with irritation. “Not the time for you to be amused, Gojo. If your badly sealed object hadn’t landed on my hands, your student and my employee could have died! Makes me wonder if your boss has any common sense on who should be doing jobs like these.” She pushed her bang back and stilted her eyes at him. “Seriously, sending a single kid to do a job like this? Are you asking him to die?”

He held his hands up. “I didn’t send him to do the job. This kind of mess? That’s my department. But the higher ups decided to be idiots and send cute little Megumi to do the job.” He shrugged. “So blame them for this and be happy that they decided to send me here instead of letting him do this whole thing by himself.”

Her daughter inched closer and pointed to his bag. “Mum, I think he’s lying because he has sweets!” He twitched as the little girl crept closer, blue eyes completely eager for some sweets. “And it’s the nice kind! The one Dad will never let me have when he visits ‘cuz he thinks it’s a waste of money.” Reika turned and looked at him. “Since you’re lying, I think you should give me your sweets as punishment.”

The woman sighed and pinched her nose. “Reika, I know you want to eat his sweets, but Sasuke is coming next week and if he knows I let you take this man’s sweets, he’ll give me a lecture about how sweets will ruin your teeth.” The girl widened her eyes but her mother remained unfazed. She just snorted. “That trick works on your dad but not on me.”

“I think you’re getting smarter, Mum.”

There was still cheekiness in her voice, but the woman just ruffled her daughter’s hair before focusing her bright blue eyes on him. Looking at her, Gojo imagined that she was around his age. Maybe just a little bit younger than him. Still too young to have a child in elementary school. She shook her head and folded her arms against her chest, a generous pop that drew his attention. A good handful. She cleared her voice, irritation in her eyes.

A man could look, couldn’t he?

“Since my daughter deduce you had enough time to get sweets, mind explaining why you took your sweet time in coming to your cute student’s rescue?”

He dropped his smile and looked at her blood-stained fingers. “Only if you tell me what happened and how you got your hand on Sukuna’s finger.”

“Mum will tell you if you give me some of your sweets!” Reika interjected.

He answered before her mother could interject.

“We have a deal.”                                                                                                                                                                                           

Chapter Text

When Naruto heard the peck on her window’s door, saw the clearly tied note on the hawk’s leg, she knew that Sasuke had a clear message for her. The fact that the hawk looked so drowned, like it had battled storms and hailstorms to come here, brought out a tiny sigh. Despite buying her ex-boyfriend a phone and making the school put him in the communication line, the man still refused to acknowledge the company. Dad is way too old-fashioned was what Reika would say, he was being a stubborn idiot was what she would say in her mind.

The moment she untied the note; the hawk flew off but not before glaring at her. She inspected the note briefly, sneaking glances at her daughter while she did so. Reika was too focused on her homework, eyebrows furrowed together as she scribbled a way her answers in the very last minute. A habit, she acknowledged, came from her. Sasuke always did his paperwork on time even when they were genins and even with the occasional mission that was sent their way during their journey. He did her paperwork as well because you’ll just mess it up was what Sasuke would say. The truth was that he probably enjoyed doing paperwork more than her.

I’ll be here next week and I’m going to train Reika with shurikens and the fire jutsu like I promised her.  That was all the note said. There were no questions about whether or not Reika still wanted to do that training, just an expectation that their daughter wouldn’t have changed her mind in a span of a month. Luckily for him, training with him was all what their daughter wanted. It was what lit her eyes and kept her complacent about going to a normal school and not demanding to go to the Academy like they did.

She stuffed the note into her pocket and cleared her throat. “So, guess who’s coming next week to visit their favourite 8-year-old?” The pencil dropped and her dark-haired daughter jerked her head. Hope bloomed in those pretty eyes and Naruto found herself smiling at her unspoken response. “Yup, your Dad is coming next week to spend time with his little princess and he has a little surprise for you.”  No doubt with the training, her ex-boyfriend would bring some trinket for Reika. A gift to show that he remembered her. That he was always thinking of her because that was how Sasuke showed his affection for their child.

“Did Dad tell you how long he is staying? Where is he visiting from? And what exactly is Dad’s job in Konoha because he always seem to be going to so many places, Mum!” Her daughter’s questions came out in a series of kunai, each one hitting harder than the last. She remained silent and within seconds, Reika continued with her line of questions. “Do I still have to go to school next week if he comes? Can I skip? I promise that I’ll study hard for this whole week—no pranks or anything if you let me stay at home and spend time with Dad.”

Naruto laughed and held her hand out. “Slow down, kiddo! I can’t answer everything if you don’t give me some breathing room!”

“I just can’t wait to see Dad,” her daughter declared with a smile. “I think I grew a whole two inches since he came last month and I want to show him that I mastered your rasengan, Mum!” Reika bobbed her head and looked down at her notebook. “And I know my teacher want to meet Dad when he talks to you ‘cuz he says that your meeting with him next week is a good thing but I don’t know when meeting teachers is a good thing. I asked Yuuji when I went to your shop the other day if meeting teachers can be a good thing but he said he doesn’t know. I think you need to train him better, Mum because he always says he doesn't know.”

Of course, he wouldn’t know. I never knew when meeting teachers can be a good thing ‘cuz I was always the troublemaker. If Sasuke was here, he would be torn about whether or not if it was good news or terrible news. Reika was a good kid, she got along with everyone, had more friends than she or Sasuke ever had. But she was also a prankster, she had gotten in enough trouble for her to put her teacher as a contact. Iruka-sensei would say that it was for attention because that was why she did it. But Reika just loved chaos. That was the Uzumaki in her as Sasuke would grumble whenever she told him about the pranks.

Despite his grumbles, she knew he secretly enjoyed Reika’s antics. It shows the child in her was what he would say.

“Your Dad will never tell me how long he stays because he doesn’t want to give you false hope again,” she explained with a quiet sigh. After the incident last year when Tsunade requested him for a mission, Sasuke had made it a point never to state how long he would stay. Ground her in reality was his argument but she was certain that he didn’t want to witness Reika looking so heartbroken again. Her daughter remained silent and Naruto continued. “And he is visiting from Konoha of course, he still has to give the Old Hag his report and you know neither me nor your Dad are allowed to tell you what he does for work.”

Reika sighed and then pouted. “Fine but one day I’m going to get the answer from you or Dad.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t try to weasel your answer out of me,” she laughed and leaned forward to poke her daughter’s forehead. It was more like her but Naruto knew better than to say it. Reika, she had long decided, was never going to be compared to her. It was fine for her to be compared to her parents; she never knew them and was her connection with them. But sometimes, she acknowledged, it felt when the truth came out, it felt like no one acknowledged her as Naruto. That her personality was her own.

If her daughter noticed her quietness, she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead Reika just twirled her pencil and stared at the clock with furrowed eyebrows. “Mum, why do you always call Hokage-sama ‘Old Hag’ but I have to either call her Hokage-sama or Granny?” She asked the question with her eyes focused on her homework. “I know you said that she is distantly related to us and I know she said if I don’t like Hokage-sama, I can call her Granny ‘cuz she is the closest thing to a Mum you have…but why can’t I call her Old Hag like you? You say it with love like how you call me kiddo.”

Naruto hummed and explained it as simply as she could. “Because I can get away with it, but you have to do it because my teammate will just scold me for not teaching you any manners even if the Old Hag knows that you are doing it out of place of love, not disrespect.”

The moment she mentioned Sakura was when her daughter made a face. Just a tiny scowl before it disappeared but Naruto knew better than to think it was a trick of the morning sunlight. She rubbed her knuckles and took a deep breath. “So what’s with the scowl? I thought you like Sakura when she visits, you never seem to stop asking her questions.”

“I like it when she visits,” Reika admitted, scribbling down her answers.  Her answer was slow and thoughtful, a sign her daughter was truly taking her sweet time to formulate her thoughts and feelings. “She tells me a lot of stories about Dad when he was a kid, but she makes him seem so…perfect. You don’t do that, and I guess I like that ‘cuz it feels like he had been a kid just like me, not Prince Charming.” Naruto swallowed her laugh as her daughter prattled on. “I also don’t like how she tries to act like my Mum when she isn’t my Mum or how she tries to join in on my time with Dad when he visits me. I don’t like the way she looks at him, she isn’t good enough for him.”

There was a very quiet silence as Naruto processed what her daughter had to say. If she and Sasuke had separated a year ago, she would mistake it as Reika still having a wild hope for her and Sasuke to come back together but she broke up with her ex-boyfriend when Reika was just three. Too young to remember the fights between them. No, she mused, this was a different scenario. She heard the birds singing their morning song, a sweet melody.  

“Do you think like that because you don’t want to share your Dad with her?” She kept her voice soft and gentle, nothing like her usual boisterous voice. If she raised her voice at her, in excitement or annoyance, Reika would think she was upset with her. So she kept her voice as gentle as the wind. “Or because you don’t want your Dad to date anyone.”

Reika bit the end of her pencil. “Of course I don’t want to share Dad, I barely get to see him, Mum.” She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. “And I can’t see Dad date anyone so…I never really think about him dating because he never talks about the idea, and he never let me bring it up.” The girl shrugged her shoulders before she stared up at the ceiling. “It’s just weird.”

This was the first time her daughter confessed that Sasuke had never brought it up, but it made sense. Her ex-boyfriend refused to talk about it because he had no plans of dating anyone else, he had made that clear from the moment they separated from each other. She thought he was being a stubborn man but it seemed like he hadn’t changed his mind. Maybe if he met the right person, he would think about it, but if he refused to talk about it…then it meant the door was locked and he was refusing to think about it.

“Your Dad won’t start thinking about dating someone until he finds someone that he truly likes,” she explained. “And he hasn’t found anyone that makes him want to think about it, which is why  he doesn’t want to talk to you about it. You know when he is ready to date, he will tell you about that person and once you meet that person, if you don’t like them for a good reason then…they are out of your life.” Naruto smiled. “And the same goes for me.”

Reika snorted. “I don’t care who you date, Mum! You’re too clingy! I want you to have another kid so you won’t bother me when it comes to my juicy teen years.”

“Clingy? Even if I have another kid, I’ll keep an eye on you, kiddo.” Naruto chuckled and looked straight at her in a moment. “And that won’t be happening any time soon, kiddo. Besides, I’m going to enjoy embarrassing you when you become a teenager—it’s my job to embarrass you in front of your friends. I’ve already prepared the baby photos, the speeches and even your embarrassing photos.”

“No!” her daughter cried.

Laughing, Naruto nodded. “So don’t think if I ever have another kid, I’ll forget about my plans,” she said, her grin growing wider. “I’ve been dreaming of that day since the moment we learnt that we were going to have you.” Did she dream of being a parent? Nope. It was just one beautiful mistake, but she made the best of it. She wanted to be the mother that she never had, and it was a struggle. A huge struggle but she was doing her best with her kid.

Reika looked at her baby photos and suddenly asked. “You can’t have another kid if you aren’t looking for someone.”

“The right man will come to me without me searching for him,” answered Naruto with a shrug. She inspected her daughter’s homework when she wasn’t looking at it. Good. Most of her homework was done. Now was it correct? Wrong? She wasn’t certain. “I didn’t search for your Dad—it just happened.” They hadn’t planned to fall into a relationship. It just happened quietly and without any expectations between them.

Her daughter bobbed her head. She picked up her pencil once more. “Yeah but you and Dad aren’t together anymore. If you search for someone, maybe this time he’ll be perfect for you.” Reika started to scribble down her answers into her homework. “When I find a boy I like, I’m going to make it clear that he’s mine and he’s perfect for me.” If Sasuke would allow it, her ex-boyfriend already prepared the sword that he would use to stab the boy. She had laughed, only for Sasuke to glare at her. Not funny was what he had said to her.

“And how do you know he’ll be perfect for you?”

Reika shrugged.

“I’ll just know, just like how you just knew you and Dad weren’t meant to be.”

Usually, she didn’t hire people for her little store but Itadori Yuuji was the exemption to the rule. She heard whispers of his grandfather being sick, heard the expenses needed to pay for his cancer treatment and while the government paid for his treatment, there was still that little bit of payment needed. Maybe it was her bleeding heart or maybe it was his hopeful look but when he came into her shop, pleading for a job, she couldn’t say no to him. She didn’t regret it. Yuuji, she came to realise, was perhaps the best employee that she ever had. Hard-working and naturally good with her customers. The few times Sasuke caught a glimpse of him, he would say that Yuuji was just like her.

She didn’t utter a word when he came charging into her shop, a minute late, and his bag nearly falling off of his shoulder. He mumbled his apologies, mentioning about how his teacher had tried to get him to do sports. To be honest, Naruto didn’t care. She didn’t need the help, she made do with disguising her clones but hiring him was more for his benefit. She just continued to observe him as he placed his bag behind the counter and put on his work jacket. Jacket because she certainly didn’t see the point of getting a full ass work uniform.

“You know Yuuji, you can’t keep this up,” she said, shaking her head and observing him as he took a seat on the chair. In the far corner, the clone with the brown hair was beginning to stock up on the more popular seals. The ones that ward off those strange creatures that she had seen popping up in his school. Disgusting creatures that made her skin crawl. “Your grandfather is going to figure out that you aren’t exactly doing club activities and that you got a job. One of these days, you’ll slip up around him by mentioning my shop and we know how he thinks my talisman are bullshit.”

Yuuji laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “He doesn’t think your talisman is bullshit, he used to buy them after all!” He didn’t meet her eyes and just looked at the dangling talisman like it was the most interesting thing in the world. It definitely was not. “And why would I slip up? I make sure to hide my jacket before I pick him up, say some stuff about one of the clubs and then be on my merry way. It’s been working for the past year; I can last another couple of months…maybe even a year if he lives that long.”

If he lived that long. It meant Yuuji had given up hope on his grandfather seeing his own graduation.

“You have given up on the idea of your grandfather living,” she stated, leaning against the shelves. Her clone stiffened, no doubt ready to make some heartless comment, but one glare from her was enough for the clone to continue with their act. Yuuji shrugged, half-heartedly, and just stared at the seals dangling down like wind chimes. “Last week, you were hopeful that he was going to make it. Today, you act like it is a done deal and that you’re planning his funeral.”

“He can’t live if he refused to take chemo,” Yuuji said, resigned. “And yesterday, I had one of the nurses sit down with me and tell me that just because he seems better, doesn’t mean that he is getting better. It might mean that he is near the end stages of his life.” She thinned her lips and the boy gave her a tight smile. “They have to tell me, don’t they? I can’t just think he will survive, Gramps won’t allow it and I guess it’ll hurt more if I have the belief that he’ll live when he refuses to be treated.”

She had no words to say because this was not a conversation, she thought she would ever have. She had prepared speeches in the very rare chance that Sasuke died in one of his ANBU missions, and she knew Sasuke had done the same for when Tsunade had that very rare mission. The ones where she could only entrust to either of them because well, there was no one quite as strong as them. As she considered her words, she looked at the ceiling. The air tasted strange, almost as if something vile had tainted it. A bitter poison that stirred even Kurama and that lazy fox had been sleeping since she and Sasuke came to the decision of having Reika raised outside of their village.

“Don’t tell your Gramps this but I think he took the easy way out, I know he thinks there is no point, but you need him,” she said. The door opened, a customer came in and quickly her clone dashed straight to them. Ready to chat their ear off while she dealt with Yuuji. Her words were silent but it was loud enough for the boy to look away. “When he dies, you’ve no family member to look after you. If I wasn’t here, who the hell raise you? Yourself? I don’t know if you know this kid but it ain’t easy to raise yourself.”

He shrugged. “It can’t be that hard.”

“You know I raised myself and Reika’s Dad? Same thing,” she confessed with a small shrug. He jerked his head, his eyes growing wide at this small piece of information. Naruto shook her head. “Sasuke is just a little bit better than me, he grew up with some kind of structure before his parents…died.” Murdered would be the right word but Reika still didn’t know the full story and Yuuji, good kid he was, but he tended to babble. “And me? Well I had no structure and did everything wrong. Both of us needed someone to tell us that we were messing our lives up, to guide us because we were two messed up teens.”

Yuuji stared at her. “But you’re so…good with Reika.”

“Good? I am doing what I wish someone did with me,” she admitted with a loud laugh. Naruto rubbed the back of her neck. “When it comes to Reika, I have absolutely no idea of what I’m doing with that kid—when she acts up, I try to listen. Sasuke prefers to do the whole ‘grounding’ thing to teach her consequences,” she sighed. “I do that too but only after I see my method didn’t get the results, we wanted for her. The other day she snuck out of class ‘cuz it was boring. I tried listening—believe me, didn’t work.”

He smiled and stared at the customer, who nodded his head off as her clone weaselled her way to getting him to buy the seal that kept plants preserved. Your partner will never see a wilting plant, a symbol of your love for her was the kind of bullshit thing she would say to make a sale. The boy inspected the cashier with a small frown. “Yeah but it’s better than what I got, Gramps doesn’t listen—I know he loves me but he doesn’t listen,” he paused and shrugged. “He’s more like Reika’s Dad, grumpy but louder. I can’t imagine Reika’s Dad being rude to nurses and screaming at them.”

Naruto laughed, a loud boisterous laugh that echoed throughout the shop. “Sasuke? He’s blunt and can be incredibly rude, the only reason he controls himself is because of Reika.” He blinked and she explained. “When we had her, I made it clear to him that I don’t want our kid to be so blunt that I have a teacher cry themselves because of her. I mean she was bound to get it from me but a double dose? No one was safe from that and so she needs one parent that can hold their tongue.” She grinned. “I can’t have her say that both of her parents are rude. It’s bad enough she says that her Dad is anti-social when she is in that mood. I’m not having a moody kid in my household.”

Yuuji snorted and then laughed. “Reika? Anti-social? She is anything but anti-social!”

“All of my hard work because if I just do what Sasuke wants and have her come into her own shell—I would be waiting a long time with that stubbornness of hers,” she paused, chuckling just a little bit. “When I point out that his family wasn’t known for being social butterflies and for being so intense, well he grumbled before telling me to do things my way. Now Reika has friends, and Sasuke doesn’t have to worry about her being some intense kid with no social life.” Naruto shook her head. “Trust me—that was his biggest fear for her.”

When he visited, Reika would talk his ear off about her friends. About the various playdates she had been invited to and how much she loved her friends. He would complain to her, of course in private, about the rumbles but after all of that—he thanked her. She is different from us, from me and that’s all of your influence—was what he would say in the dead of the night when he watched her sleep. She knew he struggled to say his pride for their daughter but when he said that. Well, it was clear that he was so proud of the girl that Reika was becoming.

She knew when he visited next week, he was going to marvel about the way Reika was growing because he would remain silent and just take her in like a dumbfounded idiot. Like he didn’t expect her to grow so quickly. But she was. Just yesterday, she was a screaming baby in her arms and now she was a bubbly 8-year-old dreaming of her teenage years. God forbid when it came to her first crush. Sasuke? He was going to murder the poor kid for making his daughter grow up so quickly.

“I, uh, know this is out of the blue but I found this weird box at school,” Yuuji said, kneeling to pick up his bag. He unzipped his bag, fumbled with the contents before pulling out a box. An old wooden box that smelt of death. And she knew what death smelt like. Knew the smell of rotten flesh. He placed the item on the wooden table, just close to her cash register.  A simple wooden seal on the box. She picked up the box and took off the lid. Too easy, this seal was already gone. Sloppy work if you asked her. “And I would give it to my seniors since they like this stuff but you said that ancient things carry secrets and stories…and well I can’t give them, if I don’t know what it is.”

She picked up the object from the box. Ancient paper surrounded the object, every inch of it was covered with seal writing but not the one found in her mother’s clan. It was more old-fashioned like this person did not even bother to be creative with their seal. If they did, they would have known that this kind of seal would break down in a matter of centuries. Not good planning on their part. She pressed her hand against the object. It felt rigid but there was something sharp on the top. It felt like a human nail and from the ancient paper, she smelt rotten flesh. So rotten that her stomach coiled up like it was ready to hurl.

What kind of sick person would seal a finger? Could it be that dangerous for them to seal it?

“Hmm, I think I will keep this for a couple of days while I look into it,” she told Yuuji, pocketing the sealed object into her pocket. If she kept it around long enough, Kurama might stir and she could question him if he had some inkling about it. He lived a 1000 years, surely he could recognise this kind of sloppy work. Her employee frowned and she sighed. “Look I can’t simply tell you from looking at it, what is the story behind it. I can tell you one thing is for certain—whoever used this talisman, they were trying to keep something out.”

Yuuji blinked. “You can tell all that from a piece of paper?”

“It’s my family business, Yuuji. I can’t be a proud owner if I don’t know my shit, I got to make my ancestors proud in some way.”

“The cursed object is—where?”

Megumi found his eyebrows twitching and found his mouth opening and closing as he processed what Itadori Yuuji had just told him. He had given a cursed object—an ancient one—to some random woman. He closed his eyes and tried, really hard, to think of what possessed him to give it to someone. He had kept the box but not the actual object. He took a deep breath and stared at the pink-haired boy, who just gave him a befuddled stare. It was not his fault, he reminded himself. He had been the idiot to follow the cursed energy lingering on the box.

“I told you,” Itadori repeated, exasperated. His tone was sharp and impatient like he found this conversation to be a waste of time and ridiculous. What was ridiculous, if you asked him, was that he followed a trace of cursed energy and not the actual object. “I gave your cursed object thing to my boss because she knows about these things. Her business thrives on these kinds of stuff.”  He bobbed his head. “I was going to give it to my seniors ‘cuz they like this stuff but Naruto always say there is a reason behind talisman, that there is some kind of art behind it.”

He twitched. Art? Talisman weren’t some kind of art, their job was simple—barriers, exocerism and in this case—containment of a curse like Sukuna’s finger. This guy gave a dangerous object to some crazy lady just because she made some sense. Now this random lady could die and clearly from the way Itadori talked about her to the receptionist, they were close. Yeah, I’ve someone to talk to—my boss told me that I can come to her when Gramps die was what he had said.

“And where does Naruto live?” He kept his tone calm, not strangled, as he tossed the empty box back to the boy. The boy remained silent and he found his voice raising just a little bit. “Where does she live? She can be in danger.” Potentially dead if she decided to undo the talisman. This was a mess. This could go from a simple mission to being something bigger than even he could deal with. Itadori looked over his shoulder at the receptionist desk, at the barely completed forms, and then back at him.

There was a tiny shed of guilt and fear in his eyes. “She lives in the same street as me but I know my boss. She won’t open the door at this time, not unless it’s me or her kid’s Dad.” Itadori nodded and eyed his clothes. “And she might believe you, she can be a little bit weird ‘cuz I didn’t think the talisman thing was real but then you showed up…and kind of prove her point.”

It didn’t mean the woman was knowledgeable about this cursed object, Megumi thought as he balled his hands into a fist. If she opened the talisman, it would be a matter of minutes before she died. Before her kid died. He took a deep breath, long and hard to calm down. “Fine,” he growled. “Come with me and convince your boss to give me the cursed object before it kills her and her kid.” That calmness in Itadori’s eyes died down as if it just dawned on him of how dangerous it was.

The boy tugged on his collar. “I don’t think Naruto will undo the talisman. She mentioned that the talisman around your cursed object was trying to keep something out and well I know she won’t do anything to put her child in danger. Reika is her whole world and I know it’ll ruin the dynamic she has with Reika’s Dad if she did something reckless. He’s a scary man.” Itadori shuddered. “I saw him one time, y’know—carries a sword like it’s nothing and no one knows what he does for work. Not even his own kid, Naruto doesn’t talk about it—just says that it brings a lot of money but that’s it.”

If Itadori believed it would reassure him, it did not. For all he knew, this woman was just some crazy woman that believed she knew her stuff. There had been many people who made the same claim—crackpots the lot of them. Of course, he was not going to say that. Instead, he gave a stiff nod and gestured for him to lead the way. The faster they got to his boss home, the faster they could prevent an inevitable disaster. That was all he thought of as they ran outside of the hospital.

There was no one in the streets while they ran. There weren’t any cars honking, no sudden scream of the winds, but he had the usual shiver that come from cursed energy. It was more intense than the usual cursed energy. Fitting for something as ancient as Sukuna’s finger. He could feel it as they ran. Stronger. More alive. A whole different ball game from the one in his pocket. Even the animals could sense it because there was not a single sound from it. And yet when they turned to the following street, the lights were there alongside a hot air that came from summer.

No sudden cold that could come from cursed energy.

They ran a little bit further, past the various houses until they reached a lone house. It stood out. There was a pulsating energy, not like the one with cursed energy, it felt different. He didn’t know how to describe it but warmer as if the sun protected this house with intensity. It felt like there was a barrier around it but barriers, he knew, could be visible when approaching. This barrier was invisible, if it was not for the feeling then he would just assume that it was a normal house.

“She hasn’t opened the cursed object,” he breathed out as Itadori opened the gate. The teen looked over his shoulder with a relieved but confused expression, and Megumi let out a quiet sigh. “If she opened it, this whole house would be crawling with curses or some of them trying to crawl their way in—I can’t see any signs of that happening.” No flare up. No curses attempting to get into the house. It was so ordinary that he had to wonder if Itadori was telling the truth.

Itadori smiled and let out a loud, triumphant laugh. “I told you she wouldn’t do it. Naruto is fun but she ain’t reckless, you should see her when someone tries to touch one of her work—she goes ballistic.” He stuffed his hands into his pocket and darted his eyes to one of the windows, at the room with barely lit light. “Looks like Reika might be asleep so we might have gotten here on time. She might work on the cursed object when she’s asleep, she says she makes her talisman when Reika goes to bed ‘cuz Reika tends to distract her with questions.”

Megumi only nodded and waited for the teen to knock the door. The knock echoed throughout the silent night air, a rumble with the quiet winds. He knew that there was a chance that the woman would open the door or there was a chance that she was now opening the cursed object. For the sake of his sanity, he hoped she was taking her time to open the door. Itadori was calm, completely at ease as he knocked the door for the second time. At the second knock, the door swung open to reveal a blond-haired woman in a pair of jeans and a crop-top.

Her whisker marks made him blink and for one foolish moment, he wondered if she was actually a cursed spirit or a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Except Jujutsu Sorcerers wouldn’t look as well-rested as this woman.

“Yuuji, what are you doing here?” The petite woman took a step forward, her bright blue eyes devoted entirely on the pink-haired teen. Her voice, he thought, was husky and not high-pitched like her features suggested. It conflicted with her more delicate features. She didn’t seem to notice him as she circled around the teen. “Did something happen to your grandfather? You need to talk to me? I just managed to get Reika to go to bed but knowing her, she is probably hiding behind the staircase—listening in!”

“Am not!” a high-pitched, girlish voice called out.

The woman swirled her head. “Reika, if you’re going to pretend that you aren’t listening—don’t make a sound.”

Reika, he assumed, peeked out from behind her mother’s legs, her black hair straight as pins, blue eyes too sharp for her age. She had a bright smile playing on her lips when she saw Itadori, then her eyes shifted to him. Pale cheeks became pink and the girl let out a quiet squeak. Her mother must have noticed it because she raised her eyebrows and followed Reika’s line of sight. The concern faded, replaced with weariness as her eyes darted from Itadori to him.

“Since Yuuji has been too busy with work and being a doting grandson, I don’t think you’re one of his friends since my employee isn’t in the mood to make friends these days,” Naruto said. She talked to him like they were discussing the weather, not at all bothered or worried about him. She leaned against one foot and hummed. “And judging from your sourpuss expression, I’m guessing you’re here for work?” He jerked his head and the woman laughed. “Don’t look so surprised, my ex-boyfriend made the same expression and you don’t date an emotionally-restricted man without learning his tell-tale signs.”

Reika giggled. “Dad is really good at the whole blank face thing.”

“Made it fun for me to tease him,” her mother replied with a laugh. “So what’s up?”

Would this insane woman still laugh if she knew about the cursed object? She really had to be insane if she was this calm after knowing the truth. The way she laughed and talked, he would think that she was like Gojo-sensei but no one was like Gojo-sensei. Dismissing the thought, he focused on the smiling woman. “I need the cursed object that Itadori gave you.”

“Hmm, no can do.” He jerked his head and opened his mouth to argue, only for her to roll her eyes at him. “Look I can give it to you but that seal around your object? Whether it’s actually cursed or not, the seal is on its last legs. A few more days and it’ll unravel.” She pulled the object from her pocket and tossed it up and down in the air. “Seriously, this is sloppy work and it make sense—judging from the seal itself, it looks to be a couple of centuries old and someone obviously didn’t keep up with the times.” She hummed. “I was going to wait till the grumpy fox wakes up because this thing? Well it seems to making him wake up and he hasn’t woken up since he congratulated me for breaking up with Sasuke.” She prattled. “Anyways if it woke him up, I thought he’ll know a thing or two—so I can know what to do next because I’m not unravelling this thing with Reika here.”

This insane woman was treating Sukuna’s finger like it was some kind of stressed bag. This was the kind of thing Gojo-sensei would do, he would make it seem like it was something light.

“If I tell you what it is, will you give it to me?”

The woman hummed and then shook her head. “Nope,” she said cheerfully as Itadori took a step closer to her. She wrapped her hand around the object and put it into her pocket. “But if you tell me, I know what to do next because obviously—I ain’t stupid enough to give it to some kid and I’m probably the only one that has the skill to deal with this sloppy work.” She clicked her tongue and offered him a sharp look. “I might ask whoever told you to do this to pay me because clearly they don’t know what the hell they are doing.”

“Mum—”

“—I know, I will put the money into your bank account.”  Naruto turned to him. “So come on in and I’ll see what I can do, if I’m wrong—well I’ll just get backup if it is too much for me.” She laughed. “I doubt that would happen, if it is too much for me then it just means I should tell the Old Hag to give me more missions and I tell the bastard that it’s time for us to switch. That he can stay with Reika and do the occasional mission while I bring the real breadwinning money again.”

Dear god, he was dealing with a suicidally insane person because only someone in the same skill level as Gojo-sensei would be this insane. And no one was as strong as his guardian.

Chapter Text

After hearing what Megumi had to say about Sukuna’s finger, Naruto found herself swallowing down her own curses and thoughts about the higher ups. When she saw him with that sour look and the scowl on his lips, she knew the poor kid was sent here for a job. The school uniform was unfamiliar, nothing like the one in this small town, while his face reminded her of Sasuke whenever he had to do an annoying mission. It did not happen often, Tsunade knew better than to do it, but it still happened. If he was here, he would be having similar thoughts to her.

Except he wouldn’t realise just how badly Megumi’s higher-ups screwed up. He would have cursed them inside of his mind for sending some snot-nosed kid to deal with a dangerous object before trying to do some seal that she tried to teach him. Tried being the keyword. As amazing as he was in ninjutsu and taijutsu, the great Uchiha Sasuke was terrible with seals. She shook her head and twirled the sealed object, ignoring the twitch from Megumi’s forehead. All this trouble for a cursed object that they didn’t even know how to deal with.

Yeah, she was going to find a way to charge them for this mess.

“So I got the gist of this but to double check—if this piece of flimsy seal unravels then there is a huge chance that we’ll be dealing with curses?” She asked, keeping her tone casual. Panicking was not going to help her, not that she had plans to panic because this? This was a simple job that wouldn’t even require her to sweat. But she also didn’t want Reika to start squirming if she realised just how much danger that this simple object could be. Her daughter, she decided from a long time ago, needed to learn how to be calm. Not collected like Sasuke because it was never really fun to work with her best friend when he was rigid.

“Yes, so can I have the cursed object back?” asked Megumi. She didn’t need to read his mind to know that he believed he could handle it and that he thought she had no understanding of just how dangerous this little finger could be. His tone screamed it. It reminded her of Sasuke whenever they did their missions together as innocent genins, he believed that she was always so reckless with their work. With what happened with Haku, he had some right to believe that. Nearly losing their arms didn’t help either. Megumi had no clue about that.

She hummed and looked at the lights while her daughter continued to stare at the dark-haired boy. Sasuke was going to have a field day about this and wondered if Sakura poisoned their daughter with thoughts about love. He certainly knew she had always told their daughter to focus on school, on her future career, and not boys. Then again, Reika was 8 and would find some other boy to like. She probably liked the boy because he kind of resembled Sasuke in behaviour. What did they say? Girls liked boys who were like their father.

Funny how she never found anyone like her own father. Not hopelessly devoted. Not open with their feelings. Respected her? Found it but not willing to communicate in her own love language.

“What part of me not being stupid enough to give it to a kid, do you not understand?” She gave him a flat look while Yuuji just stared at her with eyes wide with disbelief. No doubt at her stubbornness to just give the object to Megumi. With a sigh, she continued. “Your higher-ups, mind my language and I swear I’m going to kill Sasuke for making me agree to his stupid request of putting money into Reika’s account, are a bunch of fucking idiots for sending a kid to do a dangerous job like this. What would have they done if this went to one of those weird kids who believed in ghosts? Sorry Yuuji but your seniors would have tried to unravel this seal, I mean how many times have I scolded them for trying to mess with my work?” She shook her head. “Do those idiots realise who’s going to get blamed? You? No, it’ll be them because they are the idiots to send a kid to do the job! They’re the irresponsible ones.”

“It would be Gojo-sensei that would be blamed.”

An innocent comment but one that made the vein on her forehead expand. She didn’t miss the actual meaning behind those words. Like the village’s elders, the cowards, they had a scapegoat for their screw-ups. She wasn’t dumb. She grew up surrounded by stupid politics, the whole reason she lived in this boring town was so Reika could avoid it. “And why should he be blamed? Did he give you this job to do?”

“No but he’s the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer in the world,” Megumi stated like it was a fact. Like it was all the reason needed for his teacher to be blamed for some higher-up screw up. “And this kind of job is something that only he can do but he isn’t here, so I have to do this job because there is no one else to do this job.”

She was trying her hardest not to scream at him for just being a simple puppet. Naruto decided to take a deep breath and pinched her nose, counting till ten to calm down her nerves. She was not giving Reika another 1000 yen; it would be enough money for the girl to try and weasel her Dad for a dog. “So out of all the jujutsu sorcerers in the world, you only have 1 guy to do the job? And when this guy isn’t here because I imagine they send him to do all their dirty work, they blame him while he’s doing their mess?” He remained silent while Reika snickered. She always did when she talked like this. “When I say it out loud, do you understand how stupid they are? I mean not even Sasuke and me get blame for this bullshit.”

Her daughter grinned. “Mum, I’m definitely getting a puppy next week.”

“—Not when I tell your Dad that you let the goldfish die because you forgot to feed it for a week.” Reika slumped her shoulders and Naruto shook her head. She stared at the silent boy for a moment before inspecting the sealed object with thinned lips. “Higher-ups always find someone to blame for their mess and when your teacher dies—and he will because he is human, someone will be the next scapegoat. You want more people like your teacher, you train them to become strong because the next generation is meant to be better.”

Reika furrowed her eyebrows together. She looked at the flimsy paper wrapped around the sealed object. Then her blue eyes focused entirely on the quiet boy. “Doesn’t your teacher have an equal? Mum and Dad aren’t together but everyone tells me Dad and Mum are equally strong, it’s why Mum does Dad’s jobs when Dad either wants a break or when Dad is given a job that he will suck in.”

Megumi remained silent. He gazed at the photo of Reika and her, a recent one taken for her daughter’s Sports Festival. There were unreadable emotions in his eyes and Naruto found herself frowning at the teen. “There is no one that can match Gojo-sensei in skill. He is called the strongest for that reason.”

Her daughter just gave him a blank, unimpressed look and chose instead to shuffle closer to Yuuji. Her employee had been silent throughout this whole conversation. “I don’t think he can be stronger than Mum or Dad,” her daughter declared with a casual shrug. Reika stared at the photo of Team Seven. “Mum and Dad saved the world before I was born…and your teacher wasn’t there, so he can’t be the strongest.”

Naruto closed her eyes. Maybe Sasuke was right and it was too soon to tell her about that but I was getting fed up of her thinking that only he did cool stuff. When she opened them it was to see both Yuuji and Megumi staring at her like she was a bad mother, no doubt believing that she lied to her daughter about what she had done. She did not, if anything she might have gone the humble route with her. Though if you asked Sasuke, he would say that she exaggerated her own actions. You did use a male version of your sexy jutsu on Kaguya was what he had said.

What could she say? She knew her opponent.

“Believe it or not, she is telling the truth,” she said as calmly as she could manage. There was no winning with Megumi if she chuckled and crackled about her antics. “It’s a long story but yeah, my team did save the world—though Sasuke and me had to undo the whole mess. Man, Sasuke and I nearly lost an arm from that but not from Kaguya. Nah, we did that with teamwork and the element of surprise.”

“Aunt Sakura says that you used a jutsu that the Third Hokage had forbidden in his reign.” Reika fluttered her eyelashes and clasped her fingers together. “Can you teach me?”

“Sorry kiddo but I was told that no one is allowed to learn that jutsu.”A complete lie. Konohamaru knew the jutsu but she would kill him if he even considered teaching her daughter the sexy jutsu. Hell Sasuke would murder her and Konohamaru if either one of them even considered teaching Reika the sexy jutsu. Not that she planned to do it. At 12, she didn’t understand the consequence but as a mother? She would be irresponsible and an idiot to put her child in that kind of risk.

Reika squinted her eyes. “You’re making that face you do when you lie to me!”

“Why don’t you ask me in front of your Dad and if he says okay—I’ll teach you.”

“You’re saying that because you know Dad will say no.”

There was absolutely no point for her to deny this, and Naruto only offered her a shrug. She should focus on the task at hand because judging from the budging vein on Megumi’s forehead, the teen was very close to exploding at their antics. It was so similar to Sasuke, she mused. He would be pinching his nose and growling at her for taking her sweet time to do a job. She should start doing the job before the kid exploded and say some words that Reika would use. With a sigh, she looked at her daughter. “How about instead of learning that jutsu, why don’t you get the sealing equipment that your Dad got me for my birthday? I’ll test you on the blood seals that I taught you, last week.” She turned to Megumi. “I should have this mess fixed in a jiffy.”

The boy remained silent, did not utter a word until Reika dashed away from them. His hands clasped together and his eyebrows furrowed together while Yuuji just stared at her. There were so many questions in those eyes but this was not the time for her to answer the endless questions. And there would be plenty of them. To this small town, she was a mystery. How could a 21-year-old woman  with a three-year-old—at the time—afford to buy a shop was what they had to wonder. What did Sasuke do for a living for her and Reika to live comfortably? Why this town?

“What makes you think you’re qualified to do this job?” Megumi asked. He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “You haven’t given me a reason to believe you can do this.”

Naruto dropped her smile. He was not wrong to question her, words were easy to say but action? A whole different thing. If words were easy, she and Sasuke might still be together but action, or rather a lack of action, was what tore them apart. It was only fair for her to give him some reassurance that she could do it. Dropping the smiling act was a good start. She stopped twirling the cursed object and placed it on the wooden table. There was now no fear of Reika grabbing the cursed object as a chance to study it.

“The fact I haven’t opened it should tell you that I know what I’m doing, the only reason I’m not treating this as something to panic about is because I’ve a daughter that needs to learn how to keep a cool head.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I hope she acts like her Dad because he is always level-headed but she is also my child, and on my very first job? I froze up and panic. Reika? She doesn’t need that. Panicking and treating it like it is a bomb going off is not teaching her the skills I want her to have.”

Megumi stared at the cursed object. “You might know your stuff but it doesn’t tell me what makes you qualified to do this.”

“And what makes you believe you’re qualified? You told me yourself, you shouldn’t be doing this kind of work.” Her lips curled into a smile. You can’t answer that question when your own logic is thrown back to your own face. There was an unreadable expression on his face while she heard her daughter scrabbling to find the sealing equipment in her study. It was probably buried underneath the various experimental seals alongside the various letters from her friends.

“You’re a real headache.”

She smiled. “You ain’t the first person to say this, in fact this is all apart of my charm.”

“I doubt it.”

Those words made her smile, not because she was going to prove him wrong—she had no reason to prove him anything, but the stubbornness in his tone just reminded her of Sasuke. Of the days when they were travelling and he grumbled about buying her ramen, only to get flustered when she reminded him that he did it because he loved her. She still teased him about it. Shaking her head, Naruto said. “You’re still too young but one day you’ll meet some sassy girl and wonder if that charm is why you give into her silly wishes. Well, if you can keep her.”

In a quiet tone, the boy mumbled. “I’ve no plans to fall in love.”

Naruto paused and looked at the photo of Reika and Sasuke.

“Pretty certain Reika’s Dad said the same thing, then we ended up getting together and he fell in love with Reika.” He blinked and Naruto darted her eyes to the corridor. At the scrolls that banged against the wooden floor. Thankfully, the floor wouldn’t break from the pressure. “Love isn’t just romantic love. There is also parental love and my ex-boyfriend’s greatest love isn’t me—it’s Reika. He adores her sass and gives into her silly wishes. She’s the reason he keeps going. She gave him a reason to live.”

Neither Yuuji nor Megumi made a comment, they only remained silent as they waited for her daughter to come back with the equipment. Not a single one of them asked questions as she began to do the work to seal the cursed object. She supposed for them, they must be reflecting on their own lives. She knew Yuuji must be thinking about his own grandfather and with how emotionally constricted Megumi was, he probably had a terrible childhood. Not so different from Sasuke.

She wished for his sake for him to have a love as profound as the one Sasuke had for their child.

“…And that is how I sealed your cursed object into my floor,” said Naruto as Gojo and Reika chewed on their sweets. The man hadn’t uttered a single word to dismiss her claim, he had just sat on her couch like he belonged there and opened the box of sweets for him and Reika to eat. He hadn’t bothered to share it with Itadori or Megumi, too content on gobbling down those sweets like some kind of sweet monster. She pointed her finger on the blood written seal on the floor, the swirl and kanji written on her floor. “No one can get access to it but anyone related to me. First degree only. I’m not risking my insane cousin showing up for this.”

Reika licked her lips, wiping away the chocolate stains. “You’ve a cousin? Why haven’t I met her?”

“Because we aren’t close,” she answered. The real answer was because she felt uncomfortable with the way Karin looked at Sasuke. It was not because she was still in love with the man but because Reika would pick up on it. And when Reika picked up on it, she would start prying about the whole thing. She eyed her daughter when she tried to get another sweet from the bag but despite her warning, the 8-year-old still took another bite. “I was raised in Konoha and she grew up somewhere else. I like seals, she likes…science. Nothing in common.”

Except for Sasuke. But Karin enabled Sasuke while she would always hold her ex-boyfriend accountable for his actions.

Gojo licked his lips, clearing them of the chocolate stains. He stood up from his seat and made his way to the seal, his eyes completely locked on the blood seal. It wasn’t the fact he looked at the seal which interested her but the way he walked around her house as if he didn’t need any guidance. Normal people, she acknowledged, would never be able to walk so freely with a blindfold. Too much of a struggle. A second later, he knelt down and brushed his fingers against the seal with a smile. Not a joyful one but an insane smile. Like he found her seals to be out of this world.

“Got to say—this kind of work? Never seen it,” Gojo acknowledged. His fingers brushed against the seal, tracing every character with thoughtfulness while his whole body shook. “Looks prettier than the boring talisman I have seen, a real piece of art. So you sell these? Just the art alone must keep you busy.” His lips curved into a smile—almost charming. Almost being the keyword. It lacked sincerity. “Now this is a piece of art I can get behind.”

She held her hand out to him. “Then give me some commission because I just fixed your higher-up screw up. I’ll take 50% of your pay for this mission because I did all the work. Not you. And definitely not your cute student.” The man’s lips twitched while her daughter opened the box once more, no doubt ready to gobble down another chocolate. This time, Yuuji snatched the box from Reika’s hand. “I used my blood, had to consider so many factors and—let’s face it: your talisman was going to break within days if it wasn’t for me.”

“With what you did? 50% is asking too little,” he declared, placing his hand on the seal. He cocked his head, white hair fell effortlessly to the side. “If I destroy this floor and the finger is destroyed as well, I could get those old farts to give you…60% of what Megumi and me are supposed to be paid.” He turned to her daughter. “Should be enough for your kid to buy all the sweets she wants, maybe you can even get something cute for yourself. Not that you need it—you look delightful in your jeans.”

Megumi cleared his throat. “We’ve a kid here.”

“He isn’t as bad as those weird girls that try to get a date from Dad,” Reika interjected. Gojo curled his lips into a triumphant smile while her daughter let out a quiet yawn. “They act really weird whenever they see Dad, he gets really uncomfortable and…I think he once bolted away from them.” Naruto snorted while her daughter bobbed her head. “Really makes me wonder how Dad had a lot of girls liking him, he isn’t charming.”

“That’s because he had the whole emo thing going for him,” she explained to her daughter. “I swear if he actually smiled, his fanbase would have been less—but does he listen? No.” Naruto shook her head. “Anyways since you said 60%, I can actually get higher…can’t I? You wouldn’t be saying 60% if you didn’t think I might be able to get more out of your boss, I mean I just fixed your problem and you’re threatening to destroy my floor…so I’ll need about 75% of your pay.”

He smiled. “But I need the money.”

“And I have a kid that probably needs to go to the dentist after this because you gave her chocolate.” She returned the smile and walked towards him. Her hand was ready to touch him, a simple pat on his back, but her hand couldn’t quite touch him. Interesting. A barrier. Not a big deal. Naruto sighed. “And I don’t know if you know but kids? Pretty expensive and I don’t want to hear from Sasuke that I ruined her teeth. Either you help pay for the dentist appointment or you listen to his rant about the danger of candy.”

Reika hummed. “Take the dentist appointment—you’ll spend a whole hour listening to Dad’s rant and it’s boring.” Her daughter placed her head on Yuuji’s shoulder. “He gave me an hour lecture about how I can’t skip class. Then he made me sit in my room and think really hard on why I shouldn’t do it. I just drew ‘cuz he forgot to take away my sketchbook. Didn’t really learn anything.”

Gojo rubbed his chin and let out a dragged sigh. “He sounds like a bore.” He turned to her daughter. “How does your fun Mum date him?”

“I asked Uncle Kakashi once. He said Mum dating Dad was like the end of the world.” She was definitely going to kill Kakashi for telling her daughter that her relationship with Sasuke was a disaster. It was. But only she and Sasuke were allowed to acknowledge it. Reika stared at the smiling man. “But they’re also opposite, so I kinda get it. Mum being fun is what allow Dad to be boring ‘cuz she needs boring and Dad needs fun ‘cuz it isn’t nice to be boring.” Her daughter stared at him. “So Mum will probably never go for you if you’re thinking of dating her. You’re too much.”

For the first time since Megumi had come to her house, the boy let out a loud snicker. Naruto found her own lips twitching at her daughter’s brutal but sincere assessment. When Sakura asked her on why she didn’t date, she just had to give one simple answer—Reika. Her little hellion of a daughter would find some way to point out on why these men weren’t good enough for her. She had absolutely no idea that she was destroying any chance of her dating, her daughter just did it because she lacked a filter.

The sorcerer bobbed his head. “So you don’t think your Mum can handle me, do you?”

“I think she’ll kill you because…you seem like a real pain,” Reika declared. “And you’ve to get my approval, and of course you have to get Dad to like you. I don’t think he’ll like you, he’ll probably try to stab you with a sword.” Gojo’s lips curled up like her daughter’s words were a joke but Sasuke would definitely try to kill this man. Only because he was a headache to be around. She would know. “Dad doesn’t know how to take a joke, I have to explain my joke so he can laugh. It kinda lose its charm when you explain a joke.”

Gojo nodded. “As beautiful as your Mum is, I don’t have any plans to date her. I’m way too handsome for her.”

Reika gave him a blank stare.

“Dad is more handsome than you, he has a whole fan club. I bet you never had a pretty woman like Mum love you,” her daughter declared with a shrug. The white-haired man twitched while Megumi coughed and took out his phone. Blackmail. Naruto nodded. She understood his pain, if this was Kakashi-sensei…her team would have done the same. Her daughter clasped her hands behind her head. “You look like a weirdo while Mum even had a prince declared his love for her. Dad says Mum had so many boys liking her when they were in school ‘cuz she was awesome.”

She coughed and gave a pointed look at her daughter. “Are you trying to set your Mum up with a weirdo?”

“No, I just want to see him being turned down on you ‘cuz he thinks he’s better than you when really he would be lucky to even get a date with you.”

The man coughed and looked at her.

“Maybe we can talk about your payment after your troll of a daughter sleeps.”

Naruto nodded.

"Considering Megumi just got your downfall on camera, I’d say you’re finally getting a taste of your own medicine."

Chapter Text

Gojo was never the type of man to sit and wait for a woman, much less pretend to negotiate with her, but Naruto was the exception to the rule. An exception not because she was a pretty woman but for the beautiful talisman painted right on her home’s floor. He had seen so many talismans in his life, all of them had the same pattern—just a bunch of boring writing. The way this woman did her talisman was almost like an art, the words were thrown together into a rhythmic pattern and drawn into swirls that reminded him of whirlpools. It would be a lie if he said that he could spend the whole day just staring at them.

His fingers brushed against the swirl; the blood written characters did not smudge. If he hadn’t witnessed the blood smears on her finger, he would have assumed this was an odd design for a floor. Even when the floors creaked, he didn’t bother to look at Naruto. She could wait. These talisman? He just wanted to know how it worked. When the woman had been upstairs, tucking her daughter into bed, he had tried to use cursed energy to see if it would activate. If it would just let Sukuna’s finger come out, it didn’t react. No pulse. No glow. Her daughter was right, only someone like Naruto or Reika could do it.

“Told ya, didn’t I? Only someone directly related to me can activate it,” Naruto said. Her voice was coloured with amusement and pride. He turned around to stare at her, noting the subtle change of her clothes. She wasn’t wearing the crop top that gave a hint of her tanned skin, now she wore a simple blouse laid loosely around her body. It did not do justice to her figure. “Eyes up here, Mr. Weirdo. Seriously I changed my shirt and you still look?”

“What can I say? You’d make a trash bag look good.”

“I’m not going to bother asking how you can see but get your eyes checked,” she said with a casual shrug. “Anyways, we can talk now ‘cuz Reika is asleep now. I made sure to take away her books, her sketch book and waited till I heard her real snores before coming back down here. I swear she is getting better at pretending to sleep, if it wasn’t for my hearing—she might get away with it more often.”

“Your daughter is a little troll, cute but an absolute troll,” he said with a loud laugh. In all his life, he had never been ruthlessly attacked like he had been with that 8-year-old.  Gojo rubbed his chin and adjusted his blindfold, just to ease the tension around his forehead. “Could offend the wrong people one day.” His lips twitched. “Not everyone can enjoy your little troll’s charm like I did.”

There was silence. Then Naruto spoke with amusement. “She is my daughter and she inherited her Dad’s bluntness, just my way of saying things. That part of her? I ain’t changing it ‘cuz that is who she is and if she offends people, well they better grow some thick skin.” She nodded. “Honestly she isn’t as bad as Kakashi-sensei, he is an absolute troll and I swear he might have encouraged her behaviour even more when he pops in for a visit.”

“I need to take some pointers from this Kakashi guy because your kid? She was brutal.”

She snorted. “Right—because judging from how Megumi filmed you, you need more pointers on how to be a little shit to people.”

His lips threatened to smile at her words. There was no annoyance in her tone, no desire to throttle him, only a dryness that made him want to laugh. Instead of letting out a laugh, he coughed and clasped his hands behind his head. This was the first time in his life that someone uttered such words without a hint of annoyance. It was almost boring because he lived for reactions, lived to see the veins on their foreheads expanded and their eyes growing with thinly veiled annoyance. This woman wasn’t giving him that pleasure. In an amused voice, he said. “Clearly I’m not doing a good job if you aren’t even bothered by me.”

“You aren’t surrounded by trolls and not learn how to take away their fun.” Her daughter definitely took the sass from her because from the way Reika talked about her dad, he didn’t seem like he would be as fun as Naruto. So much like Nanami and it was fun to rile him up, but God was the man predictable. He imagined dating him had been boring for a fun woman like her. Too bad she had a kid. Someone like her would want commitment, would not want the whole casual thing. Probably wanted roots. Nothing he wanted to do.

It was better for them to change the topic back at hand, the whole reason he decided to loiter in her home instead of giving his report to those boring higher-ups. “So—you want 75% of my pay? I mean, amazing job—not just anyone could’ve pulled it off—but 75%? Come on. Let’s say 60%. You didn’t even know how bad this mess was until my cute student clued you in. Your words, not mine.”

“Sure but I did the job, not you and not Megumi so really I should get 100% but I’m giving you a bone and letting you two have 25% of your pay,” Naruto leaned her body forward, just a tiny glimpse of black bra strap. Her lips curved into a smile, a smug one like she knew where he was looking. He smiled and leaned back. “Maybe I should ask for your whole pay, a fine for being a pervert.”

He didn’t flinch; he just widened his smile. “How can I be fined when you’re the one teasing? Honestly, I should drop it to 60% —you’re trying to use your looks to hustle me. Now that is just plain cheating.”

“You made it easy; you still act like any other guy.”

Gojo laughed. “That isn’t true—I’m the most handsome man that you’ll ever meet.”

“You’re average, maybe the higher end of average,” she declared with a casual shrug. She looked smug like she knew that her words were going to slice his ego in half. It did not. As a teen, he had grown women asking for his number. Persistently even though he was way too young for them. The young woman crossed her legs together and just stared at him with bored eyes. “You’re not even predictable. Just like every other guy—with an ego. And I’m still getting 75% of your pay.”

She is persistent, Gojo acknowledged, looking straight at the photo of her with her daughter. It must be a few years old because her daughter looked shorter, Naruto still looked the same. Good genes. That was obvious from the way she looked, the father of her child must have been handsome because her child was cute and had very little similarities to her mother. Personality-wise, they were similar but where her daughter was blunt—her mother used her words like a silk knife. Too soft but just as dangerous.

“Hmm, you’re a demanding little thing, aren’t you? You just want to get your way, don’t you?” He widened his smile and leaned closer to her, smelt the faint scent of citrus on her hair. “You’re a brat, aren’t you?”

She didn’t blush, didn’t choke or yell at him. The woman just rolled her eyes and gave him an unimpressed look. “I think you’re the brat. I know my worth when it comes to my work. You don’t own a successful business and not know how much you need to be paid.” She levelled her eyes with him. “So 75% and above—nothing less than that.”

The temperature dropped right down to freezing levels but the woman didn’t shiver. She just folded her arms against her generous chest; those blue eyes told him that the ball was in his court. Either go with her demands or try to convince her to go lower. He could go for ages in trying to convince her to go for a lower value, but she was calm. The way she sliced through his words without even getting flustered did deserve some respect. A little pay cut wouldn’t even hurt him, he did the job for fun not because of money.

“Hmm I agree to 75% but I don’t know if I can convince those old farts to just give into your greedy demands.” Greedy wasn’t the right word to use, if anything Naruto was underestimating just how much money she could get. It would be double his pay, she did what even he couldn’t do. And he had tried. A 100 times. That finger just didn’t want to be destroyed. She raised her eyebrows at him and he held his hand out. “Those old farts won’t even believe a pretty woman like you just destroyed their traditional thinking.”

She smiled. “Then let me do the talking, just one meeting and I’ll milk them for my worth.”

“You think you can get a bunch of old farts to respect you? Don’t know if you know this but traditional means stuck.” Gojo asked, lowering his face to meet those dancing blue eyes. Her lips widened like she was holding herself back from laughing at him. At him. Like he was being a silly child that needed to learn. This, he decided, was going to be fun. “They won’t believe you, won’t believe me even ‘cuz they’ll never think to be creative like you. Making the talisman to resemble whirlpools? Out of this world. They’ll tell you that it can’t be done.”

Even though the fact he couldn’t even access Sukuna’s finger was proof enough that this was an unbreakable talisman. He could spend a whole day trying to learn how she did it. Would even annoy the crap out of her, tug on that long hair of hers until he could watch it in action. He would even bring Sukuna’s fingers to her, the six of them in the school, just to see her at work. To witness the power coming from this petite, dominating woman.

“I know how to get old farts to respect me, to fall in love with me and eat from my fingers,” she declared with a sugary smile. The woman took a step back, leaving only just a hint of her citrus scent. “I can get them to believe me in a snap of my finger, all I have to do is demonstrate to them. What I did? Nothing special.” She looked at a photo. Not of her child. Of three kids—probably her and her friends. “Never tell me something can’t be done; I’ll do anything to prove them wrong.”

His lips twitched. “Dangerous and hot—a woman after my own heart.”

“You don’t know when to stop flirting, do you?”

Gojo said nothing, he clasped his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling. She was wrong. He did know when to stop but her lack of blushing, the lack of screaming and her playful answers just kept tempting him to go back. In some ways, she was like a drug. Intoxicating because he couldn’t get that lethal dose he wanted. “You’re just temptation, Uzumaki. Keep tempting me and I’ll flirt even harder.”

“This isn’t you flirting even harder? You really don’t know how to flirt, do you?”

Naruto gave him a mischievous smile and leaned back, just enough for him to notice her neck. Gojo just knew, just knew this hellion of a woman was having fun with toying with him, and he liked it. Maybe a little bit too much because no one flirted back. They got irritated. They would try to steer him to focus. He swallowed a lungful of air, just enough to clear his head of the wildly inappropriate thoughts coming to his mind. She was going to kill him. Slowly and painfully.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he declared, trying hard not to show this devil of a woman that he was falling for the web. One day with her and she was making him want her. What would two days do? Three? Four? It would kill him. The great Gojo being undone because some woman refused to play his games. She stared at him, unimpressed, and he found himself smiling. “Spend enough time with me and I’ll charm you out of your pants.”

She turned her body away from him, gave him a good view of her rear. “Hmm, you aren’t doing anything for me.” Naruto turned and gave him a grin. He swallowed and took a deep breath, counting till ten. No impulsive action. Her smile widened. “And that is how you get men to fall for your charm. If I can get you to react like this, I’m definitely going to milk your old farts out of their money…but of course using seals. Flirting with old farts doesn’t do much for me.” He stumbled and found his lips twitching as the woman looked at the window. “Still think I can’t get what I want?”

I have been played, he realised. This woman has been proving a point and I haven’t even realise it. She hadn’t blushed, hadn’t even stammered or reacted to him because this devil of a woman knew that was what he wanted. She knew how to outmanoeuvre him, a feat anyone would admit was difficult. She had made him squirm, made him very tempted to keep playing this game instead of walking away. This whole time, she acted while he had been a fool falling for her cold-hearted act. Fuck. She was good.

“They might decide to just hire you if you play them like how you played me,” he said with amusement tinting his voice. “If they knew you almost made me act like a dog in heat, I think they might just hire you to see me fall apart. Bravo with the performance, I fell for it like an idiot.” He laughed. “Not anyone can do that so for that—I’ll admit that you can do the impossible.” He watched as she adjusted her posture, no hint of her collarbone. Bra strap completely hidden and a smug smile on her lips. “You’re the only person who can say that you outsmarted the great Gojo.”

“I think it speaks volumes of how much they don’t know what you thrive on,” she answered. Her voice was tired and amused as the temperature in the room began to drop. The blond-haired woman knelt down to inspect her talisman, fingers tracing the characters. “I don’t know you but the way you talk and walk? Told me all I needed to know on how to get you to listen.” Naruto laughed. “This isn’t something I can do with Kakashi-sensei ‘cuz it just feels weird. He saw me as a 12-year-old. Sasuke? Never reacts to it but when I act sincerely, he used to melt and just do what I want…most of the time. Some things were still hard for him.”

He shrugged and looked at the photo. “If your daughter ends up like you, her Dad is going to have a heart attack.”

“I’m more worried about your student, Reika told me before she slept that she is going to marry him.” Gojo snorted and Naruto grimaced. “Reika is just 8, she will just forget about it, but her Dad? Won’t see it in the same way. He’ll try to threaten your student with his sword, he’ll even try to make sure that he’s strong because that overprotective idiot will believe her.” She snorted. “I mean we didn’t have crushes at her age, though she might take after her Gramps. Dad did know from the moment he met Mum that he’ll marry her.”

Gojo stared at her. “Your daughter has poor taste.”

“She’s still 8, she might decide to go for someone that’s not emotionally constricted.” Naruto nodded and clasped her hands over her head. “Good thing she won’t be seeing him again after I get my payment. I don’t want to pull Sasuke back from accidentally murdering a teen—he can be too much for me to handle.”

“I’ve a feeling those old farts might try to make you go and work in our school, they’ll never let a talent like yours go. If you make them like you? Forget the idea of your old life.” He nodded and continued to stare at the talisman. At the beautiful redness of it. Not the boring black ones he had seen used by his society. Could talisman have different colours? What exactly did she need to do to contain it? Blood of course but what gave her the idea. “They might decide they like you more than me.”

She thinned her lips. She was not pleased with the idea. “Unless they’re willing to give Reika a scholarship to some fancy rich school in the city, I’m sticking here with my shop. Changing homes? Not a great idea and god I can just hear her Dad telling me that we had something good here.” Naruto let out a tired sigh. “She has friends—something me and her Dad never had at her age. She gets to be a kid and we just want that for her.”

He shrugged and looked at her.

“What about what you want? Being here must be boring for you, I know I’ll be bored out of my mind.”

She didn’t answer. She just stared. At the photo of those three kids.

“Everything changed when you’ve kids, I didn’t know until the Old Hag put Reika in my arms,” her voice was quiet and soft. “I thought when she was born, I would want to raise her in our little village. Sasuke and me argued for months about it, he agreed in the end but she screamed and opened her eyes. And I just couldn't bring myself to raise her there, I wanted her to be happy and I felt like being there—won’t give her that. We travelled for three years, raising her together because I agreed it was better than home. But Reika needed to be around kids and so I chose this town. It had the same feeling to what I had back home, where everyone knows everyone. I can’t be selfish, not when she needs to be better than me and her Dad.”

He remained silent and stated the obvious.

“You still didn’t answer my question—what do you want?”

She smiled. It didn’t match her eyes.

“We’re not close enough for me to answer that, Gojo. I’m going with you to meet your higher-ups and that’s it.”

Chapter Text

When Gojo knocked on her door with that goofy smile of his, her first reaction was to shut the door on his face but she knew that he would find some way to come into her small house. Yesterday, he entered her house and rested his feet on her coffee table like he belonged there. He hadn’t even listened to her before agreeing to her daughter’s deal because Reika was too greedy for sweets. So she did the next best thing, she leaned against the handle of her door and folded her arms against her chest. This time, she would admit, he had the decency to look her in the eyes.

“I made pancakes so if you didn’t have breakfast in your hotel, grab some but if you aren’t in the mood for them—make your own breakfast.” She was going to let him inside of her house, but she was not going to waste her breath or her time to cook breakfast for him. Reika, she decided, was different because only once a week, she made her breakfast. Her daughter was not going to be some spoiled brat that expected her to cook breakfast every time. Her child was going to be self-sufficient in ways that Sakura failed to be.

He grinned, white teeth glimmering in the morning sunlight. “Lucky for me, I’m in the mood for pancakes.”

Naruto nodded and made her way to the kitchen. She didn’t bother to see whether or not Gojo was following her, she felt it in the way his eyes were devoted to her rear. He wasn’t subtle one bit when it came to which part of her, he appreciated. She had known from the way he stared at her from the beginning, it was why she milked him for all his worth. She was a kunoichi. An attractive woman as many men had commented during her travels with Sasuke. That part had often earned Sasuke’s silent ire, he would scowl and grumble about their dog-like behaviour. She had laughed and reminded him time and time again, she loved him and not those shallow men.

She stopped before the kitchen door and turned to look at Gojo. “Reika is in there and if you want her to make comments about you being a pervert, don’t look at my ass. She is 8, not some dumb 5-year-old that doesn’t know what a pervert means.” His lips twitched and Naruto rolled her eyes. “I’m not telling you not to do it—I’m warning you that Reika? She’ll be more brutal when she sees it.”

“Oh? Yesterday wasn’t her being a brutal troll?”

Naruto laughed. “Yesterday was her being tired, today—she’s filled with a lot of energy and ready to destroy anyone that doesn’t behave.” She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and stared at the wooden door. “Two weeks ago, she made her teacher cry because of her ways. Big baby should learn if he can’t accept her response, he shouldn’t teach. I mean if you can’t handle an 8-year-old, how the hell can you work?”

This time, Gojo didn’t bother to hide his smile from her. She ignored his shit-eating smile and opened the door. Reika was munching on her pancakes, lips covered in syrup while Megumi and Yuuji just stared at her child. The fact they stared told her of the amount of pancakes her daughter ate. If Naruto ate ramen like it was water, her daughter did the same with pancakes. She didn’t blame her. Pancakes were once a month, it only happened closer to the day Sasuke was coming because it was how Reika celebrated.

Reika looked up from her pancakes and stared at Gojo. “Why is Mr. Weirdo here? Where did he sleep? And why is he wearing yesterday’s clothes? Is he poor? I understand why Megumi is wearing the same clothes—he didn’t know he was going to stay here but Mr. Weirdo should know.” She was speaking without a filter. Just like her. Just like Sasuke at times too. “And is he eating here? If he is, he’s a freeloader.”

“If I’m a freeloader, what about Megumi?”

Her daughter squinted her eyes. Then waved her fork at Gojo. “Megumi tried to save Mum and me, you ate sweets—freeloader.” She licked her lips as Gojo made his way to the plate of leftover pancakes.  Reika tilted her head. “You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Weirdo. Are you poor? Why are you here? Why are you wearing yesterday’s clothes? And why are you eating our pancakes?”

“Your Mum says if I’m hungry, I can eat pancakes and I’m in the mood for her pancakes,” Gojo took the whole plate of pancakes and sat directly in front of her daughter. “And I’m not poor, I’m so rich that it’ll make you cry.”  The man stabbed the pancake with his fork, his voice coloured with amusement. “This outfit? Not the same from yesterday, I can’t impress your Mum if I wear the same clothes from yesterday—can I?”

Reika just stared. “I think you’re poor, your clothes are still the same. Same colour, same design—same everything. Even Dad would change his clothes, though Mum lets him stay here ‘cuz he’s family and—those stalker ladies.” Her daughter sliced up her pancake delicately and thoughtfully. “Dad needs to be rescued like a damsel in distress, I doubt a woman ever showed interest in you.”

“Hmm, I never need a beautiful woman to defend me ‘cuz I know how to say not interested to them,” he took a casual bite of the pancake and groaned. “This pancake taste so good, I might marry it!” Those words were directed at her daughter, but the man threw a cheeky smile at her. She knew better than to assume he was talking about marrying her, he was trying to get her to react to him. He was trying to push her to react because he thrived on reactions.

So she made her way towards the fridge and took a deep breath. “Let me find an insane priest that is willing to marry you to a pancake, if you pay them enough money—they’ll do it.” A long breath. “And Gojo slept in a hotel, Reika, where else would he stay? You know very well I don’t let strange men stay in this house.” She could hear the crocodile tears coming from the Jujutsu Sorcerer but refused to roll her eyes at him. No reaction would win this fight. “And Gojo, just saying I’m not interested in them isn’t enough to stop them being persistent. You just destroyed any chance of getting dates by being a…troll.” Being a little shit was what should be said but Reika would milk her dry of her money.

Yuuji laughed and glanced at Megumi. “Told ya, didn’t I—last night? Naruto can be just as savage as Reika.”

“And no one’s going to believe someone can keep a leash on Gojo-sensei.”

Gojo laughed. “Now that makes me sound like a dog.”

“You eat for free,” Reika stated. “And you look at Mum’s butt. So, you’re a dog.” She took a long, deliberate bite of her pancakes as her eyes squinted on the twitching man. Naruto knew the smile on her lips, her daughter was going in for the kill. “Not the cute ones Uncle Kakashi always bring—the annoying one that keeps yapping.” Gojo remained silent, he tilted his head back but he never let go of his fork.

Megumi coughed and then choked. Yuuji slapped the boy’s back before looking at Reika, almost resigned and scolding, while Naruto just shrugged. She warned Gojo. Her daughter was wide awake and was going to be brutal in her assessment. Yesterday was just Reika getting started, today was the day that the 8-year-old was going to destroy the man’s ego like all the other men she met. If Gojo didn’t cry from her daughter’s words, she would say he had thick skin.

“Is that how you treat me when I gave you my expensive sweets yesterday?” Reika blinked as Gojo adjusted his blind fold. “Hmm maybe when your Mum and I go on our trip, I’ll just keep my sweets to myself instead of letting your Mum take those sweets with her.” Her daughter’s eyes widened and the man bobbed his head. “Since I’m so annoying, I can’t just—”

“—Did I say annoying? You’re the nicest, richest, sweetest man in the whole world. Ever.” Of course, her daughter would fold at the thought of not having sweets. She would give Gojo some credit—he knew what Reika’s weakness were. Reika fluttered her eyelashes and clapped her hands together. “So can you please get me some sweets? And why is Mum going with you? Are you taking her out on a date ‘cuz Mum never goes on dates.”

Thank god Sasuke isn’t here because I can imagine him lecturing about bringing a potential partner around Reika before our agreed upon timeline. Six months was what they agreed upon. Three months into the relationship, Sasuke would be introduced to the potential man. To develop a relationship was what he said, she just knew he wanted to make sure the man was good enough for her and Reika. She eyed Gojo and twitched at the growing smile on his lips.

“You think your Mum will go for me? Cuz I don’t think she likes me, last night—she was a tease.”

She would not react. She would not throw a kunai at this man. Once she threw a kunai, it would be admitting that this troll of a man was winning in terms of getting her to react. So Naruto smiled and folded her arms against her chest while Megumi and Yuuji pinkened at his words. Thankfully, her daughter was still so innocent about the implications. She tilted her head. “How was Mum a tease? Did she promise something and not give it to you? Cuz that isn’t her, she keeps her promise. Not like Dad.”

“She made me think she really liked me, only to tell me that she played me.”

Her daughter savagely nodded. “Keep giving me sweets and I’ll tell you how to make Mum fall for you. But if Dad wants to get back together with Mum, he gets first go ‘cuz he’s been in love with Mum for a long time.”

Of course, Reika would find some way to make it an advantage.

“Keep giving her sweets and I’ll end you,” Naruto called out to Gojo. “And you were only played ‘cuz you’re predictable.” She turned to Reika. “And Rei, you know very well why your Dad and I aren’t getting back together.” They just couldn’t work as a couple. She had doubts about his feelings while he just wasn’t comfortable with the way she showed love. She exhaled. “And Gojo over there doesn’t really want a date, he just wants to mess with you.”

Reika shrugged. “I just want sweets, Mum. You follow Dad’s rules ‘cuz you respect him and still care about him, Mr. Gojo? He doesn’t care and if Dad gets angry, I can blame him.” Megumi just stared at her while Yuuji shuddered. No doubt, the pink-haired boy remembered just how intense her ex-boyfriend had been. “Besides I like when Dad gets angry at someone and I think it’ll be funny if Dad tries to use his sword on Gojo. I think he annoyed enough people, people will pay photos of Dad stabbing him with his sword.”

She would be one of those people. “Reika, don’t make your Dad angry just so—”

“—Uncle Kakashi said that you once sold one of Dad’s stuff ‘cuz y’knew a lot of girls will buy it. He said he was never prouder of you.”

Gojo’s lips widened. “Wasn’t that petty of you to sell your ex’s stuff?”

“I didn’t sell his stuff when we got together, I wouldn’t make much money except if I sold it to my insane cousin.” She said in a strangled voice. It was not a touchy subject, did she regret what she has done? No.  Would she do it again? Yes and her ex-boyfriend knew it. It was why he made it a point to ask her if she needed extra money, he knew she would go to extreme lengths to get money. “And I only sold some of his clothes ‘cuz it helped pay my rent. Those fangirls were crazy enough to buy it. I even sold a shirt that didn’t belong to him but ‘cuz I made it seem like he wore it, they bought it.”

Yuuji stared. “Does Mr. Uchiha know you do that?”

“It took him a whole six months to realise that his supply of shirts was dwindling, he just thought that he misplaced them. When he found out—I ran for the hills.” She sighed. “I think I aimed too big when my last client was Sakura, she tattled on me when he asked where she got his shirt.”

Reika nodded and stared at them.

“So who’s babysitting me when you guys go on your date? Cuz I want Megumi!”

If it weren’t for the fact she wanted to bargain with those old geezers, Naruto would have never hop on a train with Gojo. She would never allow herself to be in proximity with a man, who smiled so easily and who could wear sunglasses like one of those male models. It had been easier to be indifferent with the blindfold. Mr. Weirdo was what Reika called him. If her daughter saw him with those shades, she might call him—Mr. Model. Even now she tried not to look at him in the normal clothes. At the shirt hugging his chest. At the cheeky smile playing on his lips.

She focused on the passing scenery. The small town had faded into the background and now only the green leaves of the forest could be seen. It would be better if they ran. She missed running. Missed feeling the cold breeze against her nape. The wild racing she would do with Sasuke as 12-year-olds, trying to see who could get to the location first. She missed her feet touching the hard branches. Her heart racing as she tried to accomplish the mission. Living here was convenient, but it made people lazy. It was why she insisted for Reika to walk to school, to run if she was late because this system? It never allowed her to appreciate nature.

“So you sold your ex-boyfriend’s clothes for money and he still dated you?” Gojo chuckled and clasped his hands together. He lowered his sunglasses just a little bit to reveal the bluest eyes she had ever seen. She shrugged. He shook his head. “He must have been hopelessly in love with you to forgive you for selling his clothes to his fans and not giving him a piece of the cut.” He let out a dramatic sigh. “I would have demanded for 10% at least.”

Naruto snorted and looked at the ceiling. “I also sold photos of him—the embarrassing ones, the ones that made him look good and the angry ones ‘cuz so many girls found him hot when he was angry.” Her lips twitched. “He thought I took photos to make memories, till this day he didn’t know I used those photos to make a side hustle. I was the richest kid from my schemes.” She found herself relaxing even more when she heard his snort. “Only reason I didn’t get caught? Didn’t give it to Sakura ‘cuz she would definitely babble about the photos.”

The man rubbed his chin and just smiled even wider. “You’re much more savage than your daughter.”

At the mention of her daughter, she found herself dropping her smile. It would have been better if he hadn’t mentioned her, she mused. She could pretend for a moment she was out having an adventure, that her world was her oyster again and there wasn’t anyone waiting for her. She loved her daughter. Loved being her mum but sometimes she missed the days when she could travel and not worry about having a kid at home. She wondered if Megumi was handling her daughter or if he was cursing Gojo for pushing him into the role.

“Reika is going to do the same thing, she’s just waiting for the poor guy that matches the criteria—someone that people totally love or totally hate,” she admitted. Her smile became softer, maybe even tired as her mind wandered back to her child. “I know her. There’s no way she heard that story and not think—I’m going to do the same. She’s a hustler, she once sold one of her white shoes because she drew so well.”

It wasn’t a story she told Sasuke, not because he would scold her for selling her shoes to get money but because he just wouldn’t see how amazing it was. He was proud of her grades. Of her social skills. Of her sharp tongue. But when it came to these tiny little habits? He was always so indifferent to it. She wanted to shake him, especially when Reika just dropped her smile and slumped her shoulders. It wasn’t his fault, she knew. He never had to hustle like she did. She closed her eye and released a shaky breath. Good thing he wasn’t coming this weekend; he would kill her for this.

“She looks like her Dad but clearly she inherited her Mum’s business skills.” Gojo chuckled. He rubbed his chin. “I think she’s going to be a bad influence on Megumi—he clearly is going to be selling her roast to everyone in school. You should tell her to take a good 50%—it’s all her hard work. The roaster deserves the money, not the one videotaping it.”

“You don’t seem to care one bit, he would do it.”

“Because it isn’t something he would do, Megumi isn’t that type of kid. Never had been but I guess I really pushed his buttons or maybe it just dawned on him that it’s possible to roast me and not get killed.” He clasped his hands behind his head. “Your kid is absolutely brutal but that’s what makes her so fun because she knows how to humble a person. Takes after her Mum, I believe ‘cuz her Dad sounds like a stick in the mud.”

In the past, she would have defended against that accusation and say that he made jokes. It just went over someone’s head because Sasuke could be brutal. But now, she just laughed and shook her head. “Sasuke is really intense and a lot more disciplined, I thought that I would love it when we dated ‘cuz I wanted some kind of normal life,” she confessed. It was easier to confess with a stranger. “But sometimes I wanted him to be spontaneous, sometimes I wanted him to just say his feelings because I was constantly tired of trying to understand his mood. The reason we broke up was because I asked him to break up, giving him all the reason why it wasn’t working. If he argued, if he had just fight to be with me—I think I would still be with him.”

He didn’t utter a word, he just nodded. “How would he feel about you taking a trip to Tokyo? Having fun and everything?” She blinked and the man shrugged. “Sounds like to me, you think so much about how he feels and how he’ll react when it comes to Reika but you don’t talk about how he feels about you choosing yourself for a little bit.”

He would care about the fact Reika was alone and would ask her if having fun was more important than their daughter. They would fight about it. Again. He wouldn’t call her selfish but he would tell her that his missions weren’t fun. That he wanted to be here with Reika. That he wouldn’t do those jobs if it weren’t for their daughter. She would say that he saw Reika once a month, be a Dad for that whole week, while she was never allowed to have a moment to recharge. She loved Reika. She just wanted to remember what she was like without her.

“He wouldn’t care about it as long as Reika is with me,” she admitted. “And anyways, I’m not going to Tokyo to have fun. We’re meeting your higher ups and then I’m going home to my kid. That’s it.” Tokyo was for a job, a way for her to earn some more money because there wasn’t such thing as too little money. Every yen counted. Her daughter’s future was unpredictable and she needed to act like it. One day, Reika wanted to be a kunoichi but maybe she wanted to be a lawyer. A doctor. She just had to be prepared.

Gojo smiled, not a sincere one but his cheeky smile. “Oh, we’re having fun before we meet those old geezers. Your daughter thinks we’re on a date so where’s the fun if I make you meet those old farts immediately.” She opened her mouth to argue but he shrugged. “I told them that I’m meeting them tonight, they argued but—I did remind them that they said I could do some sightseeing. So you and me? We’re going to have some fun.”

She twitched.

“You just don’t want to meet them.”

“Would you want to meet a couple of cowards?” She remained silent and the man lowered his sunglasses. “And from what I’ve seen, you’ve been doing the job of raising a smart, ruthless little girl for a long time without a break. You deserve a reward ‘cuz I think a sane person would’ve been driven insane by her. God she makes me wonder if that’s what everyone else go through when they deal with me.” He flashed her a smile. “And I promise her candy so I need to know what she is allergic to.”

She listened to the screams of the train before pressing her hands against the cold glass window. A break. She wanted one. Just a couple of hours without worrying about the shop, worrying about Reika and missing home. Naruto steadied herself. “I can’t have fun, Reika needs me. Your student is going to—”

“—Build character because he clearly needs to learn how to take a joke or at the very least know how to handle me,” she blinked and he looked her straight in the eye. “Megumi will handle her and he has that Yuuji kid to help her. Besides if you go back early, your daughter will never understand how boring my student is until she spent a whole day with him.” He let out a mocking sigh. “Can you believe he can’t take a joke?”

She needed to find an excuse. Thankfully a good one crept into her mind. “Her Dad might come, he says he’ll be here next week but it might be today or tomorrow—knowing him. He’ll kill me for leaving her with a teenage boy that she’s clearly crushing on!” She stared at the smiling man. “Don’t smile! He’ll murder Megumi for making Reika grow up so quickly.”

“Then he acts like the Dad and put a stop on it—I doubt it work, she’s clearly determined.” He sighed. “Poor taste in men but maybe a day with boring Megumi will change her type.” She thinned her lips and the man raised his hands. “Poor joke but c’mon, he needs to spend time with her—without his daughter’s translator being there because I can tell that your job is to make him understand his kid.” He wasn’t wrong and clearly, he knew it because he gave her a serious look. “I’m not telling you how to parent but Reika wanted you out of the house because she sees you’re the one that needs a break. Did you stop to ask why she didn’t fight hard to come with you?”

Because she liked Megumi.

“She would’ve been bored.”

Gojo laughed.

“I think she wants you to stop clinging to her and let her grow up.”

It was official. She hated this man.

Chapter Text

She had always wanted to go to the theme park with Reika. Her daughter had always wanted to go to the theme park, begging and pleading for her to take her but with their current situation, it was never a good time. She knew her daughter. Knew the girl would wander around without a care in the world about her feelings. It didn’t matter to her if her daughter wanted to wander, she was a fighter, but Sasuke would find out. Reika would tell and that man would worry. Not for any other reason but the fear of someone, who would attack their child. They had enemies, there were a few refugees from their land in Japan, and Reika wasn’t strong enough to protect herself.

Their daughter, she always joked with Sasuke in his monthly visits, could always talk her way out of trouble. She was also independent, just like her and Sasuke. Still her mind wandered back to her silent phone even when she screamed in the roller-coaster. It was stupid, she knew. Yuuji would have called her by now if her little troublemaker was causing problems for him. He always did. Every five minutes he would call her with constant questions about how to deal with her. It was because of that she stopped going out for extended periods of time.

Hours had passed since they left her home and till now, she kept waiting for the inevitable phone call from Yuuji.

“Y’know the point of coming to the theme park is to have fun,” Gojo declared. He had a large, ridiculous white teddy bear in his arms. She raised her eyebrows at the teddy bear, but the man didn’t seem to be bothered by her silent question. Instead, he jerked his head at the phone in her hand. “When you look at the phone, it makes me think you’re either bored or you aren’t having fun. I brought you here to have fun.” He had a pout on his lips that made her roll her eyes at him.

“Unlike a certain someone, I’ve a kid,” Naruto said with a scowl. “And I don’t have a quiet, ruler-abiding kid but a troublemaker for a kid. Which brings me to my next question—why do you have a teddy bear?” Her eyes focused on the bear, then drifted back to the smiling man. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Gojo but you don’t seem like the kind of guy to like stuffed animals.”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything and just looked down at the ridiculous white bear. Had he lost his mind, she wanted to ask him. She didn’t know him but she knew his type. He just didn’t seem like the type of man that would buy these types of things. This felt like some kind of set-up. Such things didn’t make much sense with what she knew.

The man smiled and just handed her the teddy bear with that stupid, obnoxious grin. “I’m not. It’s a gift, a bribe to encourage that troll of yours to continue trolling people.” His teeth twinkled in the sunlight. “Y’know it’s not everyday I meet a fellow troll, Uzumaki.”

She shouldn’t smile but she did. It was hard not to smile when the gift was for Reika, for her mischievous behaviour, but she knew she shouldn’t allow this encouragement. Yet the bear shifted in her mind to resemble her daughter. She would enjoy the obnoxious bear, she knew. Would probably pretend in front of Gojo not to care about it but in private? The girl would hug it like there was no tomorrow. She shook her head off the image and just turned her head away from him. “Sasuke and me want to control her trolling ways, not encourage it—Gojo.”

“She shouldn’t care what people think and if they don’t like it, they can deal with it. That was something you said, not her boring dad,” Gojo declared. She remained silent, too stunned at his words. “You think I don’t remember that didn’t you? It wasn’t that long ago so I don’t know why you don’t want to accept it.”

“I know Reika and I know she will tell Sasuke about it,” she explained quietly. Naruto sniffed the bear and closed her eyes for a moment. “And when she tells him with some exaggeration, it’ll make my ex-boyfriend think that she’s getting a new Dad or something like that. He’s emotionally constipated but this will make him overreact and overthink the whole thing because he can’t communicate to save his life. Reika is the same.” Gojo snorted and she shook her head. “She’s a troll but she doesn't know how to tell Sasuke to stay longer ‘cuz she knows Sasuke doesn't know how to be emotional. So she pulls stunts where Sasuke can overthink and decide to not work for three weeks, maybe longer.”

“Sounds like he needs to know his daughter better,” Gojo observed. “Cuz if he spent more time with her, no need for all that mind games but what do I know—I ain’t a Dad.”

She clutched the bear tighter against her chest. He was right but Sasuke and her situation wasn’t that easy. They went through traumatic things, things their daughter could never understand and things Sasuke had never really recovered from. He showed his love through actions but Reika was still 8. Just like that little girl holding her father’s hand. “Sasuke works for our old home and with how things are, he just don’t have time to watch her and it isn’t like he doesn’t want to watch her,” she took a deep breath. “And like I said, he’s emotionally constipated and doesn’t want Reika to be like him. So, we agreed I would stay back ‘cuz it will be years before he can be in a space to naturally be emotional. I know how to express myself.”

He looked at her for a moment, humming and bobbing his head. “Sounds like you are trying to make me feel things? Cuz that sounded deep for a moment.” She just stared at him, unamused and the man just looked at the kid running around. “You let that guy be in his safe space, which is great for him but it just means you’re taking up his slack so not great for you. I mean you’ve to be the strict Dad and the fun Mum which doesn’t seem right if you asked me.”

If things had worked out between them, she would have played the role that came easily for her—the fun parent. When Sasuke was around, she was the fun parent because he picked up the slack. Sometimes she wished they hadn’t broken up because of that. She just wanted to always joke around with Reika, never thinking about the consequences because that should be Sasuke’s duty. It came easy for him. Every single time, she had to think of what he would do just because it wasn’t natural for her.

“You can’t make a person change unless they want to change,” she said firmly. “Sasuke tries which is all I need from him but if he isn’t reaching to the point where he’s scared Reika is going to end up like him, then I respect that. He knows himself, I know him pretty well and if he thought for one moment that he can express himself—I think I would’ve been in some alternative world.” Naruto shook her head. “It just isn’t him.”

Gojo hummed. “Make senses why he dated you—you understand him in a lot of ways that many girls wouldn’t understand a guy like him.” He laughed. “He was lucky to have you as a partner—you ever told him that when you dumped him?”

She laughed. “You think I would be that petty to tell him? We didn’t have a bad breakup and in the end of the day, he’s one of my best friends.” Naruto looked straight at the kid eating the ice-cream cone. “Besides, I was lucky to have him as a partner too. He was thoughtful when we were together, he did compromise when it came to my insane adventures and did care when I was upset about things.” She stared at the sky. “He’s a great Dad considering what he went through but he wasn’t the right guy for me. I don’t think I was the perfect woman for him either ‘cuz he needed someone that fought with him, accepted his pace and be patient with him. I just wasn’t that woman for him.”

Gojo tilted his head. “Not that I’m interested ‘cuz clearly you need a commitment-type of guy and I ain’t it.” She raised her eyebrows at him and he grinned. “You really think I would try to weasel my way into your heart, I think I wouldn’t be Gojo Satoru. Everyone knows I’m a commitment-phobe and I don’t wanna be a stepdad to a kid that clearly enjoys humbling me. Don’t get me wrong: you’re hot but I’m pretty sure I’m not your type.”

She looked at the bear for a moment and then snorted. “Y’know I don’t think I would date you, you’re too much of a player for me. I dated one serious guy and he was committed, I don’t think I can handle a man that flirts with everything that moved.” He looked offended by her comment but his lips were curved into a smile. A sincere one and she let out a mocking sigh. “I need to know my boyfriend isn’t looking at another woman and enjoys being humbled by Reika ‘cuz she’s going to get worse when she gets older.”  She looked at him for a moment. “And this teddy bear won’t stop her from humbling you.”

He snapped his finger. “You knew it was a bribe, didn’t you?”

“You think I don’t know when someone is trying to bribe my kid?”

The man laughed, a sincere one, and Naruto found herself looking away from him. This was probably the most fun she ever had in an outing, she could laugh and just be herself. She should thank him for that. Could pay for his sweets because she needed this. Not the break from Reika but a need to relax from being a parent. Sasuke wouldn’t have given her this, not when he struggled so much with connecting with their innocent kid. Training her was easy for him but he needed a clear cue card on how to bond with her when talking to her.

She wasn’t looking forward to next week just for that reason.

The phone in her pocket rang, not rang with any particular ringtone but the one she assigned for Sasuke. Gojo didn’t stop smiling but there was a shift in his expression as she swiped her phone. She took a deep breath. Ready to hear the earful that her ex-partner was going to give her because he had to be at her home right now. Probably had been informed by their mischievous daughter about this outing. “Naruto.” Was the very first thing that Sasuke said. It wasn’t his usual curt tone, it was strangled.

“I’m guessing from your tone that you’re at my house,” she said casually. Her hand gripped the teddy bear closer to her chest, the fur brushed against her nose.

A beat of silence. Then, “Reika just told me that some 16-year-old boy was going to be her husband. You left her with her crush?”

From the phone, she heard Yuuji barking at Megumi to run and could hear the crocodile tears of her daughter. She was going to punish Reika for this. That little troublemaker was crackling inside, she knew her daughter like the back of her hand. Naruto exhaled. “You think you’re overreacting about Reika—our 8-year-old daughter—declaring she’s going to marry some boy that she hardly knows.”

Sasuke growled. “Which one do you prefer me to overreact to? Her declaring that she’s going to marry some older man or you leaving her with her crush so you can go on a date?”

She tightened her grip on her phone and darted her eyes to Gojo. The man was blissfully unaware of the headache she was in because of his stunt. If he hadn’t tried to cheat her out of what she was properly owed, she could’ve trusted him to give her the money that she wanted. Could have stayed in the house to make sure that Reika wouldn’t pull one of her stunts. Too late. Now it was time for her to deal with damage control. “First off, I left her with Yuuji, not Megumi…even if Reika declares she wanted Megumi to watch her,” she let out another breath. “And second off, I’m not on a date.”

This time she glanced at Gojo, who grinned like the maniac that he was. Of course he was enjoying her pain, she would be enjoying it too if it had been someone else. She took a deep, measured breath. There was no point for her to explain herself. It was her dating life. She was a single woman who could date whoever she wanted. He knew that. The bastard should also know damn well that she would never abandon her kid for some man. That had never been her.

“Reika tells me that some man who looks like Kakashi whisked you out on a date and she gave her blessing for you to date him,” Sasuke dragged those words out. She twitched as her daughter called out in the background that was why Gojo bribed her with chocolates. Her little troublemakers was enjoying her little lies. “Did he bribed our daughter with chocolate so he can date you?”

She breathed out. “He didn’t bribe Reika to date me; he bribed her because she was humbling him and his huge ego. Big difference, Sasuke.”

“Mum! That isn’t true! Mr. Gojo kept looking at your butt and he looked like he wanted to eat you, last night!” Her daughter called out in the background with that teasing tone of hers.

Naruto twitched. “Sasuke, did you put the phone on speaker?”

A beat of silence.

“Reika told me to use some symbol if I wanted to make the volume louder.”

Naruto pinched her nose. She should have gotten him some old-fashioned phone, this whole mess could have been avoided if she had done it. “When I get back, I’m giving you a crash course on how to use a phone,” she ignored the stumble from Gojo and let out another strangled exhale. “And Uzumaki Reika, you know very well that I’m not on a date with Gojo. You said it yourself that I would never date a weirdo like him so why are you telling your Dad that I’m on a date. Tell the truth and not some bullshit lie—”

“—Naruto, language.”

She barked. “Sasuke, you called me because of Reika. I don’t give a shit about my language right now because Reika went too far this time by making you think that I would break our agreement by not telling you I’m on a date.” There was silence in the background while Gojo smiled, his lips twitching just a little bit. He took a couple of steps closer to her, just close enough for her to feel his heat. “If you were out on work with some girl, would you be happy of Reika accusing you of going on a date?”

Sasuke didn’t utter a word but she could picture her ex-boyfriend thinning his lips at her. Could see him scowling at their daughter for her stunt. “I’ll not be happy about it,” he agreed with his quiet tone. “I thought I would take Reika out for her training but I’ll have her sit in her room to think about what she did. Naruto, I didn’t mean to—”

“—I know you didn’t because if you meant to throw accusations at me, you would be here,” she said flatly. “Look I’m getting money and coming back, Sasuke. You punish Reika how you see fit but take away the sketchbooks and the sealing paper from her room.” Reika groaned in the background while her ex-boyfriend hushed their daughter. “And Reika, that’s your Dad’s punishment. You haven’t seen my punishment—fun Mum is gone when she comes back home.”

“No! I don’t want to have strict Mum, she’s scary!”

She ignored her daughter’s cries and then blinked when Gojo took the phone from her hand. She opened her mouth to argue him but the man waved her off. A grin played on his lips like he had some crazy solution for her. “Y’know little troll, if you didn’t want your Mum to go ballistic with that prank then you should’ve known what she would do if your little prank backfired,” he exhaled. “She had a gift plan for you too but I’ll just take it. Y’know give it to Megumi since he needs something to cuddle in his cold, lonely nights in the dorm.” He hummed. “Oh and your Dad doesn’t sound all that charming, you sure he had a lot of girls fighting for him? Cuz the first rule of not pissing off your ex—don’t jump to conclusions.” He grinned. “I would never dream of taking my future girlfriend to some boring theme park for a first date.”

She was going to kill this man.

Without a second thought, she grabbed the phone from his hand and slammed her foot on his leg. He cried out, sunglasses sliding down just a little to reveal wide eyes. “Sasuke, don’t believe that troll of a man! I’m not on a date with that—”

“I know you.” Sasuke said flatly. “You would’ve killed him by now just from his voice and he isn’t serious. I know you won’t date a man like that but if this is some fling then….” He trailed off, then closed his mouth. She loosened her grip and looked at Gojo, who just stared at her like she was some foreign object. Right. She hurt him and he probably wasn’t used to someone hurting him. “…Just don’t let Reika get attached to him. I know you can protect yourself but she can’t have someone unreliable around her.”

She remained silent.

“Sasuke, if I date someone then it means I’m looking for something long-term. I don’t do flings and you know that,” she exhaled. “That part of me hasn’t changed. I dated you for three, nearly four years and you think I would go and do some meaningless fling after that? It hurts me that you would think I would do that. That I would even consider dating some airhead,” Gojo looked offended and she growled. “You’re an airhead because that was a dick thing for you to say to my emotionally constipated ex-boyfriend.”

“I’m still here,” Sasuke said but she heard the scowl in his voice. “And we don’t need you to date an airhead. I don’t want Reika to be infected by his stupidity.”

She heard Megumi’s snicker and then Reika’s giggled. Naruto shook her head as Gojo pointed at the bear like that should be the reason why she shouldn’t rip his head off. “Gojo isn’t stupid, he just doesn’t care about what he says or who he hurts when he says that shit. If anything he’s going to make Reika act even more mischievous.”

Sasuke remained silent.

“I don’t want him anywhere near our daughter.”

She thinned her lips and glanced down at the teddy bear.

“We can talk about it but he isn’t going to be around. I’m just going to take the money and come back home, Sasuke so Gojo being around Reika? Nothing for you to be worried about.”

Chapter Text

When Yuuji had told Naruto that nothing could go wrong with him looking after Reika, Megumi had wanted to point out that he jinxed himself. As if to further prove the inevitable point, it had been the rhythmic knocks that set the inevitable events of what would be later come to be known as ‘Doomsday’ by Naruto. Reika, up till this point, had been doing her homework. A surprise if you asked him. She had been silent, thoughtful and gave them the evil eye if a single one of them talked while she did her homework. She almost, he acknowledged, looked cute and harmless for an 8-year-old. Then the knocks came and her serious expression slipped into excitement.

He glanced at Yuuji, who also had his eyebrows furrowed together. “Do you know who could be here?”  The pink-haired boy paused, then glanced at the girl who was now quickly tidying her deskside. Reika was humming and eyeing her homework for a moment before straightening it out. To the correct angle. It was odd, he thought as the girl began to make her way towards the door like an excited little puppy.

“Dad, of course!” Reika declared with a laugh. “Dad make these knocks so Mum knows that it’s him. Mum says before they broke up and when they had me, Dad would do this—cuz he’s paranoid that Mum will open the door for anyone. I think Mum’s lying and it was meant for me, ‘cuz Mum seems to know everything.”

The little girl opened the door and hurled herself towards the man behind to door. From where Megumi stood, he saw dark hair just like Reika but where Reika’s hair was straight, this man’s hair was spikey in ways similar to Gojo-sensei when he wore his blindfold. The man captured the little girl with ease but there was no laugh. There was, however, stiffening of the shoulders before the man sunk into the little girl’s hug. With the sunlight hitting them, he felt suddenly uncomfortable to witness a private scene between Father and daughter.

He didn’t have any memories of his father but he knew his father had never hugged him like that man hugged his daughter. Stiff as it was, it was an effort.

“Princess,” the man greeted with sudden stiffness. Megumi turned his head but not fast enough to not see the wrinkle in the girl’s forehead. “How are you? I got you a gift.” The man pulled something out of his pocket, a star necklace and held it out for the young girl to see. The child stared at the necklace for a moment, a radiant smile but it didn’t match her eyes. The man must have noticed it because he looked away too. He exhaled. “Sakura said that you might like it, I would ask Naruto but…” He trailed off and shook his head.

The girl gripped her necklace and smiled. “I like it, Daddy but…did Uncle Kakashi tell you to call me Princess? Cuz last time, it was Peanut,” Reika declared, clutching the necklace close to her chest. “Y’know I like it when you call me, Reika. Mum told me that this was the name that you wanted me to have so I’m happy to be plain old Reika.” She eyed her father. “And are you dating Aunt Sakura? I don’t mind but I don’t like her for you.”

Her father didn’t flinch at the question nor did he seem flustered by her question. Instead, his lips twitched like he found some amusement in her words. The man ruffled his daughter’s hair.  “I’m not dating Sakura. Yes, Kakashi suggested I should do that,” he confirmed.  There was a moment of silence between them as the man studied his daughter. “I want to call you, Reika. You’re growing up.” The black-haired girl beamed and the man exhaled. “You’re starting to look like your grandmother.”

The little girl smiled even wider. “Grandma Mikoto? Mum told me about her and Grandma Kushina!” She bounced in her steps. “Did you know Grandma Kushina and Grandma Mikoto were the best of friends? Just like Mum and Aunt Hinata except I don’t think I can date Aunt Hinata’s son since he’s only a cute, little baby.”

There was a heavy silence in the air as the man gazed at his daughter.  His emotions were unreadable but the little girl smiled like she knew what was going through her father’s mind. The man let out a shaky breath, ruffled the girl’s hair and scanned the room, pausing at the sight of him and Yuuji. For the first time since the door opened, Megumi realised there was a sword on the man’s hip. He really did carry a sword like Reika had declared. His clothes, he noted, were dirty like the man had ran here without a single care for his looks.

“Where’s Naruto?” the man asked his daughter. His tone lacked any emotion for how he felt about the sudden declaration about dates but the thinned lips and the sudden grip on his sword spoke volumes about his feelings. The little girl hummed, dangling her star necklace with a sudden thoughtfulness that brought a churn in his stomach. He had only known Reika for a day at least but she was like Gojo-sensei. Chaotic and there was no telling what the girl was going to do.

“On a date,” she lied casually. “Mum is out on a date with some weirdo.” She smiled and rubbed her chin. “Y’know he looks a lot like Uncle Kakashi, he’s funny just like him but he doesn’t read those books that Uncle Kakashi reads.” The man remained frozen while the girl put on her necklace. “I think he really likes Mum ‘cuz he gave me chocolate to let him take her out on a date. So I said yes because I’m not an idiot to turn away free chocolate and I guess he’s handsome.” Her lips widened. “I think Mum likes him too ‘cuz she agreed to date him despite bribing me with chocolate.”

The whole thing was a lie but the expression on Reika’s Father made him pause. It was stiff like wood. He took several deep breaths before placing his hands on his daughter’s small shoulders. “Naruto is dating again?” Reika nodded. “And you met her new…potential boyfriend, did you?” The girl bobbed her head, completely pleased. “And in order for your Mum to go on this date, the man decided to bribe you instead of being a normal person and just asking your mother?” The girl nodded. “And your Mum agreed without protest?”

Her father shook his head. “Naruto wouldn’t do this,” he muttered under his breath. “She always keep her word. The chances of her doing this is just—”

“—Mr. Weirdo was desperate, so Mum gave him a pity date,” Reika explained sweetly. Megumi hid his laugh beneath his hand but it was too late. The dark-haired man swirled his head at them as if realising that his daughter was not alone. Dark eyes fixated on him, drifting to his hair before landing on his own eyes. It then drifted to Yuuji, who gulped and looked away. “And since Mum couldn’t leave me alone, she left me with Yuuji and Megumi.”

The man exhaled. “She left you with the idiot and—”

“—I’m not an idiot, Mr. Uchiha,” Yuuji protested. Mr. Uchiha looked unconvinced, and the boy scowled. “How was I supposed to know Reika’s answer was wrong? I never said I was good in my studies! Besides, Naruto says that she wasn’t all that great in school either.” The man just stared. “And I fed her proper meals when I babysat her and how was I supposed to know that I’m not allowed to give her sweets? Reika said that was how Naruto rewards her whenever she does a good job.”

“It’s bad for her teeth,” he stated flatly. “And who is this? You’ve been causing problems for Naruto so she decided to bring in another babysitter just so she could go on…her date?”

Megumi opened his mouth, ready to tell him the truth, but Reika decided to take charge. The little girl rushed straight towards him, gripping on his pants and proudly declared to her seething father. “This is Megumi,” the girl declared with a proud voice. “And he’s going to be my future husband, Dad!” He jerked his head at the girl, only to flinch when Reika’s father pulled out his sword. The girl pouted. “Dad, Mum says that you aren’t allowed to use the sword inside the house.”

The man let out a pained sigh. “Reika, you aren’t allowed to get married.”

“There’s no law and Mum might say differently,” she declared heatedly. “I decided I’m going to marry Megumi when I turn 23! That was how old Grandma Kushina was when she married Grandpa Minato!” She nodded. “That’s a lucky age to get married.” The girl beamed. “Besides, I’m just like Mum and Mum said that she made the first move with you! So you can’t talk! I bet if Mum and you didn’t break up, Mum would’ve been the one to propose too!”

Mr. Uchiha closed his eyes and pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“I’m calling Naruto and she’ll explain what is going on,” the man said with a firm voice. “I’m going to find out that she was reckless enough to go on a date and leave you with the idiot and a boy that you aren’t allowed to have a crush on.” He closed his eyes. “This has to be punishment for everything that I have done.” He paused and looked at Reika. “How do I use this thing?”

(Now)

Gojo chuckled and watched as Naruto hugged the teddy bear closer to her chest. After the phone call from her ex-boyfriend, she kept glancing at her phone like she was waiting for another disaster to creep up again. Not that there would be another disaster. He called Megumi to see what happened after the phone call, heard his explanation, and wondered if it was possible that he had been reincarnated as a mischievous 8-year-old. It was impossible but her behaviour just reminded him of his own behaviour. It also made him think that the kid still wanted her parents to be together because that trick? Classic parent-trap if you asked him.

As they walked towards the meeting place, Gojo nudged his shoulder against the woman’s shoulders. She jerked her head up, unamused if her pressed lips were of any indication. He hummed for a moment, contemplating his next words, before settling with his own observation. “Y’know I didn’t take you as someone who would spiral from one phone call from an ex,” he observed as they waited near the bus stop. She scowled and he widened his smile. “All you need was just one phone call for you to head into spiral city.”

The woman puffed her cheeks, her eyes blazed with rage. It was enthralling if you asked him, the perfect picture of furious skies in a sunny day. “I wouldn’t be in this fucking mess if Reika didn’t play her Dad like a fiddle,” she snarled. “And now I’ve to go back and give that man a crash course on what to do with Reika ‘cuz clearly she knew how to make him overreact. He thought I was on a fucking date! A date! I haven’t been on a date since I broke up with Sasuke because this was what I was afraid she would do.” She closed her eyes. “I love Reika, she is my germline but she keeps reminding me of why I can’t date.”

He hummed and leaned against the bus stop, observing the woman that kept hugging the bear. Being a parent, he acknowledged, was difficult but to be one with a man like her ex-boyfriend must be even more difficult. He didn’t hear the whole conversation but the idea that she had to tell him when she started dating? It rubbed him the wrong way. Gojo hummed once more. “You ever think your ex isn’t over you? You broke up with him so it sounds like he ain’t over you.”

She remained silent for a moment. Her eyes became just a little bit faded before it brightened just a little bit. “Think you know how he feels from a phone call made from him panicking about Reika having her first crush on your student?” He shrugged and Naruto exhaled. “And Sasuke and me? We’re over whether he likes it or not.” She looked up at the sky. “We just aren’t compatible as partners. As co-parents? Definitely. Best friends? Yeah but lovers? It didn’t work out. All of my friends manage to either marry their first love or their first serious boyfriend, me? I screw mine up.”

Gojo didn’t say anything, just stared at the bear that he got for her kid. “You ended up having a pretty cute kid together,” he said casually. “Smart, sassy and knows that she’s loved by you and her emotionally constipated Dad which is better than you being with someone that doesn’t match your vibe.” She blinked and he shrugged. “You wouldn’t want her to see you unhappy with her Dad or him with you so better than sticking around for the sake of the kid.”

The woman trembled, closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t think you can be serious.”

“I’ve my moments but this? This is between you and me,” he joked. She laughed and it wasn’t the husky laugh that lured him in. The loudness and boisterousness in her laugh made him smile just a little bit. He looked towards the empty bus lane. “I’m supposed to be someone that doesn’t know how to be serious about these things.” Her lips twitched and he found himself grinning. “It’s one of my many charms if you asked those boring higher-ups.”

Naruto’s mouth quirked. She inspected him from head to toe with sparkling, amused eyes. “Really? I’m sure when we get there, they’ll be giving you an earful for bringing me there.” He shrugged and the blond-haired woman shook her head. “The fact you brought me to a theme park just tells me that they find you a pain in the ass and not so charming. If you worked for me, I would’ve to find ways to manage you while letting you think that you hold all the power.”

“You think you can manage me?” Gojo kept his voice light and amused as he lowered his head to meet the amused eyes of Naruto. They were radiant, he acknowledged, just like the ocean on a clear day. So radiant that he wanted to look away but he kept his gaze on her. “No one can manage me, Uzumaki.” Her lips curled into a wider smile, making her look so much like the sun personified that he had to look away from her. “Besides, even if someone could manage me—they would need to be paid a lot of money,” he bobbed his head and grinned. “Y’know trauma pay and a huge support group to complain about me.”

She hummed. “Hmm, if they need a support group then they’re doing a terrible job of managing you,” she teased him with a grin. She hugged the bear even tighter and the wind blew her skirt just enough for him to catch a glimpse of her black, silky underwear. He chuckled and looked at the smiling woman. “Too bad I’ve Reika, I would love the pay.” She grinned. “I just have to rely on the money I make from the store! Actually, maybe I should make a support group for people that have to deal with you—make them pay me by the hour.”

“I should get a cut since it’s about me,” he declared with a wild grin.

“Then what’s the point of the support group?” she complained, hugging the bear even tighter. Her eyes were lit up with determination and he found his lips curving into a wider smile. “No one will come to me complaining about you when you take my profits,” her voice was filled with amusement and Gojo found himself smiling even wider at her. “Nope, I keep all the money in that hypothetical scenario!”

“You’re greedy when it comes to money, aren’t you?” he lowered his head until he could smell the candy cotton on her breath. It was almost intoxicating if you asked him. She blinked and looked at him for a moment, almost baffled. His lips twitched as his finger brushed against the lone strand of blond hair. “Makes me want to know if you can be greedy about other things.”  Her eyelashes fluttered just a little bit and he leaned closer to her only for her to place her soft finger against his lips.

“I can be greedy but whatever this is to you? It can only be words,” she declared with a firm tone. He raised his eyebrows at her and the woman straightened her spine. “You want something casual? Go and find some easy woman, I’m not that woman for you.” Her lips curved into a smile and then she gave him a playful wink. “You want me? You work for it.”

Gojo twitched. “You don’t think I’ll do that, do you?” Naruto shrugged and looked smug like she believed that she had him. He paused, eyed the teddy bear he got for her kid, and found himself staring at her. Just for challenging him, he wanted to prove her wrong but she had a kid. An 8-year-old. He couldn’t just mess with her because she had a cute kid. This wasn’t a woman with no attachments. This was a woman with a kid that he kinda enjoyed being around. He looked at her with a tired smile. “Probably right. I know better but I might just mess with your ex-boyfriend.”

“What do you mean mess with him? I’m going back by myself,” she declared heatedly.

It was incredibly adorable how she thought that he wouldn’t just try and plop into her life. He grinned and lowered his head. “C’mon I like your kid and when I meet a fellow troll, I need to nurture them,” he teased. “And clearly you need someone to bring some fun into your life! I can be that annoying friend that always come and visit you but with gifts!”

She shook her head but there was a clear smile on her face. It radiated warmth, so much warmth that he wanted it only directed at him. Stupid. It was stupid how much this woman affected him.  “You absolutely can’t kiss me to mess with Sasuke ‘cuz he’ll freak out and I just clean up the mess that Reika made,” she cleared her throat and darted her eyes to the empty bus lane. “No dirty jokes. Nothing! I don’t want him to give me a lecture about you especially when we aren’t even dating.” She shook her head. “He’ll think my type is flakey guys.”

He snorted. “You dated him so does that mean he think he’s flakey?”

She remained silent and looked down at the teddy bear. “Sasuke doesn’t have huge self-confidence about the whole thing,” she looked almost exhausted and her eyes focused on him. “As much as I’m upset that he thought I would break our agreement, I don’t want him to spiral if he thinks for a moment that you’re trying to replace his spot with Reika.”  She licked her lips and glanced at the bear once more. “He thinks he isn’t doing enough for Reika because of his job but I don’t want him to think for one moment that you’re taking his place.”

“I’ll be that crazy fun Uncle that pops in,” he stated. “I’m not going to be her Dad.”

She shrugged and smiled.

“I know but Sasuke will never believe that,” she shook her head and looked at the teddy bear. “The fact you got her this teddy bear? That would scare the crap out of him so I’m obviously not going to let her know now that you got her the bear.” She swallowed. “But I’ll let her know after her punishment is done and when Sasuke has gone off on another trip. Y’know for the sake of my sanity.”

For one wild moment, he considered the what if. Considered the idea of just asking her out and seeing how it would go. Just something fun for her and something for him to do in his free time. Dates weren’t supposed to be serious and the kid didn’t need to know. He looked at her golden hair for a moment, then swallowed and shook his head. This feeling was going to go away and she wasn’t going to tease him anymore. She was never going to take that risk again. He was certain about it.

That temptation from her? 

It would fade when he got to know her like all the others.