Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Between Deception and Truth ❯ Gaiden #1 - Keiko's Story ( Chapter 13 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Between Deception and Truth

Gaiden #1: Keiko's Story

Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, all rights reserved. Used without consent.

This story contains depictions of child sexual abuse, without going into graphic detail. Read at your own descreation.

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Shizune muttered under her breath as piles of paperwork continued to build around her. With Tsunade busy with the debriefing, it fell to her to handle many of the day-to-day tasks of managing Konoha. It was good to see the Hokage at least take some aspect of her job seriously, but that was only because it was one of her pet missions that she had come up with. Shizune didn't know all the specifics of it, but what she did know was rather disturbing.

Loud and proud Naruto was a mother. Just trying to wrap her head around that was headache inducing, if she didn't have one already.

A knock on the door pulled her away from the mess of paperwork she was working on. "Enter."

Iruka opened the door and walked in. "Shizune-san, I have the scores for the two new students."

"Let's see them," Shizune groused. She took the offered file and flipped through it. "Can't say I didn't expect them to do well in history."

"True, having not lived in Konoha, we can hardly expect them to know much about the previous Hokage. Inari has a little more knowledge, though some of his answers were the result of intentional misinformation," Iruka commented.

Shizune's eyes widened in surprise. "Is this right? Keiko and Inari defeated every student we had them test against?"

"And a couple of genin from last year," Iruka added. "Konohamaru even took it upon himself to have his personal three-man team fight Inari and Keiko together. There was no decisive winner as they're all currently rebuilding what they broke."

Shizune rubbed her forehead. "What else should I suspect from Naruto-wannabes?"

"It does seem odd that both Inari and Keiko would seem to fit that as well. Whoever this Ai girl was who taught them may as well have been Naruto's sister from what they've said about her," Iruka commented.

Shizune let out a short laugh. "You have no idea." She then shook her head. "Where do you think they should stand?"

"I would like them to have a year at the academy to learn more about Konoha before committing themselves to defend it," Iruka replied, but seemed to want to say more.

Shizune eyed him closely. "I hear a 'but' in there."

Iruka sighed. "Skill-wise, they're ready for the test."

"I see." Shizune hated what was to come next. "I guess it's time to interview them. See where they stand before I make my recommendations to Tsunade-sama. Bring in Keiko first."

Iruka nodded and left. It was ten minutes later that he returned briefly, guiding the girl into the room.

Shizune eyed the girl carefully. "I'm afraid I'll have to make sure you answer me honestly."

"I understand," Keiko replied with a little nervousness as she took the seat Shizune was now pointing to.

"I wish you truly did." Shizune sighed before performing a set of hand signs to activate a jutsu.

Keiko's eyes glazed over. She then blinked and shook her head. "What did you just do?"

"It's functionally a lie-detecting jutsu. With it I can tell how honest your answers will be," Shizune informed. There was a bit more to it, but she didn't want to scare the girl nor reveal how invasive the technique was. Particularly as the more the target knew about the jutsu, the easier it was to hide or give false information. "Now why don't you tell me about where you are from?"

Keiko shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "I believe I was born on a rice farm. I don't remember much about where it was or the name of the island. I don't even remember my clan name, if I had one. I think it was the southern part of an island and I could walk to the ocean. I remember the watery fields of plants growing and my parents tending to them a lot. I think I was jealous of the plants, as they kept my parents from me. Still, it was a simple and happy life."

Shizune smiled, literally getting a picture of the farm in her own mind.

Keiko looked down. "Then one sunny and extremely calm morning, when I think I was six, huge storm clouds appeared from the south. As the horribly black clouds approached, my parents grew increasingly worried. When the rain struck, the wind was pushing the water with such force that it would bruise you. The sky became black as night and the rain wouldn't end. The rice plants were under water before we knew it."

Keiko closed her eyes tightly. "My parents put me into the attic of the house and went to do what they could to save the farm. The winds only got worse. The rain pounded at the house like it was trying to get me. Lightning blew off a chunk of the roof as I cowered in the corner. I cried out for my parents, but they never came. The floor of attic suddenly moved. It bobbed up and down, swayed back and forth. The flooding waters had taken hold of the house and was moving it.

"I was scared. Scared beyond anything that ever happened to me, even my time as a slave. I may have only been six, but I will remember that day clearly for the rest of my life. It was the day my parents died." Tears rolled out of her still closed eyes.

"It seemed like forever before the storm ended. When it did, the house settled kilometers away from the beach. When I eventually got the courage to go outside in the blinding bright and humid day, all I saw was devastation. The rice fields were gone, my neighbors were gone, and bits of trees were everywhere. I don't know how long it was before someone found me. I was just too numb to think." Keiko choked back a sob.

Shizune wanted to hug the girl. Years later, the pain of that day was still etched into girl. A scar on her heart that would never heal.

Keiko rubbed her eyes free of her tears. "My uncle took me in. He lived on the north side of the island and his farm hadn't seen the damage the southern half did. Still the storm took a toll on his lands and having an extra mouth to feed certainly didn't help. A year later things seemed to be better, as if the awful storm never happened."

Keiko sighed. "I don't understand money too much, and apparently neither did my uncle. He had borrowed money to fix the farm, but could not pay it all back. At nights he would go and play some games. Some nights he would return extremely happy and with a gift for me, more often he came home upset at his luck.

"We were able to manage for a while. For almost four years, we had developed our own simple routine. Then the spring of last year came with almost no rain. We lived on a rice farm. Without rain, the plants won't grow. Uncle began to spend more and more time with his games, and less time on the farm. He had already sold a large portion of the lands to cover his previous debts. There wasn't much else he owned. Because of his gambling, he owed a lot of money to some evil men. One day, when they came to the farm to collect, they began to beat him. I got them to stop, surprising them with my appearance. Uncle had never let them knew I existed, and for good reason." Keiko swallowed hard.

"Uncle kept coming home from his gaming not just deeper in debt, but beaten up as well. I didn't know what to do. After a few weeks, uncle took me to where he had been playing his games. He would tell me nothing beyond, 'I'm sorry.'" Now there were no tears in Keiko's eyes, but a vacant stare devoid of emotion.

"The men whom my uncle owed money weren't shy about anything." Keiko let out a hollow laugh. "In fact what they said helped me deal with what they wanted me to do. That if I didn't do what they said, that if I proved to be a bad 'investment,' they would kill my uncle and I would still belong to them.

"The boss of those men decided to test me. He ordered me to take off my clothes and lay down on the gambling floor where my uncle had lost all his money and more. I didn't even raise any protest with ugly men holding knives behind my uncle. Their boss dropped his pants and he took me. It hurt as he violated me, but I wouldn't tell him 'no.' I wasn't going to scream. I wanted to. I wanted to run away, but I couldn't. Uncle would've been killed and they would still take me and do whatever they wanted as I had no place to run to.

"The following couple weeks was filled with 'training' as men taught me how to please people with my body. I began to service men for money. I would do anything they asked of me. Each time a little piece of me died.

"After a month working as a prostitute, I saw my uncle again. He was once again horribly in debt. He was brought out in front of other men who owed money. They made an example out of my uncle to the others by beating him to death.

"I felt nothing seeing him die. The reason I had accepted their horrible job had been to keep my uncle safe, and they had murdered him. Nothing should've held me there. I should have fled. I didn't. I had no place else to go and they still owned me. If I ran, they would hunt me down and hurt me.

"The murder attracted unwanted attention and a prostitute my age couldn't be found there. So they shoved me onto a ship with other sex slaves. It was a pleasure ship that would dock somewhere discretely and men would buy their way aboard and have sex with us. With the seawaters all around us, there really was no where to run.

"I've lost count of the men I gave pleasure too. I had no will to fight them and tried to enjoy the false security I had. Some of the men I was with were rather good, and I enjoyed what they did to me. Others were just painful experiences I learned to forget about," Keiko finished with a dry tone.

Shizune rubbed her forehead. The girl's words may be emotionless, but that was a defense mechanism. The pain was as bad, if not worse, than losing her parents. Rather than face it, she buried it. It was another large scar on her heart that no amount of medicine would ever cure. "How did you escape from being a prostitute?"

"I was given a second birthday," Keiko replied.

-
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The sun was blinding as Keiko descended from the ship that had been her home for the past few months. She was not pleased with the turn of events. Just because the new girl was still scared, the ship had been raided. What were they supposed to do now? They had no home now. No bed to sleep in. No money to buy anything and, more importantly, no food to eat.

It took a moment for Keiko's eyes to adjust before she could clearly make out the people on the docks. Their varied reactions left her confused. Some were angry, others looked shock, and of course there were some who looked upon her and the other girls with lust. Yet some of the people held the most unusual expression that Keiko had not seen in a long time and nearly forgot what it was, concern.

"You shouldn't have to walk around like that!" a buxom barmaid told the girl, wrapping a blanket around her.

Keiko didn't understand what was wrong with the open blouse she had been wearing. All the girls wore outfits that best displayed what they had to offer. Her lack of clothing was to highlight the other things she lacked, clearly showing her age to men who did not want a girl who bled monthly.

At a loss for what to do, Keiko just stood at the dock as the people of the town decided what to do with them. A few ship captains came forward and offered free passage to any of the girls wanting to go home.

A purple haired girl kneeled before her. "Hey, kiddo. Don't you want to go home?"

"I don't have a home now," Keiko replied.

"What about your parents?" the older girl insisted.

"They're dead, and my uncle is too," Keiko answered with little emotion. "The ship was the only place I could call home, and now that's gone too."

"Didn't they use you for..." the older girl trailed off, not wanting to say the words for some reason.

"Of course I had sex. How else could I earn my keep and be fed?" Keiko returned as if it was the most obvious thing.

Strange whisker tattoos formed on the purple haired girl's face. "Those fucking bastards."

Keiko knew she hadn't blinked but suddenly the older girl's back was to her and ship's name had four holes punched through it. She didn't know what just happened, and could only suspect that this girl had somehow inflicted the damage to the ship despite their distance.

The older girl stomped toward the former ship captain, her eyes now literally blazing red. "Be thankful I wasn't the one who found the ship, fucktard. If I had, you'd be worse than dead."

"Ai, calm down. It's over," the black haired teenaged boy who led the raid on the ship told her.

"Shut it, Jiro," Ai spat before pointing at Keiko. "She has nothing. No home, no family, no identity. All she knows is how to fuck men."

"And women," Keiko offered in odd defiance.

"Hurk!" Ai lost a step. "They've done worse than take advantage of her!"

"Ah, excuse me..." A woman tentatively stepped forward. "Perhaps... Perhaps I can... offer her something." The woman looked at Keiko sadly. "I lost my husband before we had a chance to have any children... I know this may be selfish of me... but I want a daughter."

"You'll take her in? That's great!" Ai cheered.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Jiro wondered with caution. "She will have... issues to deal with."

"I've been alone for a long time, waiting for my husband to come home but knowing he never will." The woman sighed. "I know raising a child isn't easy, but it is something I've always wanted to do."

"Then it's settled! She can stay with you!" Ai grinned happily.

Keiko merely shrugged. This seemed to be the easiest thing, doing what they said.

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"Is there anything you would like me to do, Suzamiya-san?" Keiko asked.

"You can call me 'Mom,'" Suzamiya requested.

Keiko looked down. "I'd prefer calling you 'master.'"

Suzamiya kneeled down in front of the girl. "I'm not your master. No one is."

"Yet I am to answer to you now," Keiko replied.

Suzamiya frowned deeply and took a moment before responding, "The only one you truly answer to now is yourself. I would be sad if you caused any trouble, and I certainly wouldn't want you to go back to doing what you... did on that ship. However, the choices you make now are yours." She pulled the girl into a hug. "I... I don't know how to say this right. I'd like you to be my daughter. You have a home here now. All that I want from you is to be happy."

Keiko didn't understand the woman's words at all. What would this woman get out of feeding and clothing her, if she didn't want her as a servant? The woman even told her not to have sex for money. How was she supposed to contribute to her keep?

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Keiko was quite bored. Wandering around the port town garnered little for her to do. There were no jobs for her to do. No reason for her to do anything. Passing through the main street, Keiko no longer saw concern from the eyes of the people who watched her. Now it was pity or disgust if they looked at her at all.

A girl maybe a year older than Keiko rushed up. "Hi! Are you new here?"

Keiko merely nodded.

"My name is Hiroko, what's yours?" the girl asked with a bubbly smile.

Keiko looked the girl over. "I'm Keiko."

"HIROKO! Get over here now!" a woman shouted.

Hiroko jumped. "What?"

"Just get over here!" the woman insisted.

Hiroko walked to the woman and asked, "What is it, Mom?"

The woman growled with a low voice, but it was still loud enough to be heard, "I don't want to see you near that... girl."

"Why?" Hiroko wondered in confusion.

There was no answer as the mother pulled the girl away.

Keiko merely shrugged as she continued on her aimless wondering.

"It's the little whore!"

"Hey! Show us your goods!"

Keiko cast a quick glare towards the group of boys calling out to her. The oldest of them couldn't be more than two years older than her. From their joking laughter, she doubted they even knew what they had shouted. She just walked on, denying them any real response.

"Come on, girl! Let's have fun!"

"Show me your cunt!"

"Do you even know what one is?"

"No. That's why I want to see it!"

Keiko was about to move faster when a new voice cried out, "Hey! Leave her alone!"

"Oh, it's the little hero! Going to call the town to protect her?" one of the boy's teased.

"At least I know what being a hero means," the new boy retorted.

"Yeah, and you know what it means to be a punching bag as well." The apparent leader grinned devilishly. "Get him, guys!"

Keiko expected the boy to run, but he didn't. He stood his ground and fended off the boys, giving more than he received. Unfortunately he was outnumbered.

"You would've made great thugs for Gato," the so-called hero spat, rubbing his bruised jaw.

The boys snarled at what seemed to be an insult to them. With a final kick to the 'hero's' stomach, the gang walked away.

Keiko frowned at the sight of her supposed savior, and left him where he was. She had not asked for his help, and didn't believe she had needed it.

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"Hello, Suzamiya-san, how has Keiko-chan been doing?" Jiro greeted.

Suzamiya frowned. "I don't know what to do with her. It's like she doesn't care about anything."

Jiro sighed. "She probably doesn't care about anyone, including herself. She has lost everything but her life."

Suzamiya nodded. "I know. It just hurts looking at her vacant eyes and seeing no joy or hope. And her nightmares have gotten worse. The first few nights she looked like she wanted to scream. Last night, she did."

Jiro blinked and then smiled. "Actually that's a good thing. It means she's starting to feel safer. Before screaming meant her death, so she couldn't do it. Now she feels safe enough to let out her pain."

Suzamiya looked at him strangely. "You mean she's getting better?"

"Exactly. I'm afraid your sleep may be interrupted for some time, as it's doubtful her nightmares will end any time soon, however it means she's starting to let down her defenses she put up to protect herself," Jiro explained.

"Will she start acting normally?" Suzamiya asked hopefully.

Jiro grimaced. "She will never be a 'normal' child. She was forced to make adult decisions, and should be recognized as such."

Keiko moved to better hide herself, not wanting them to know she had heard them. The look on Jiro's face told her that he had seen her, and that he was surprised that he didn't know she was there.

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Keiko saw the gang of boys goofing off on one of the piers. She was preparing to walk away before they saw her when one of the boys was pushed off the wooden platform and into the ocean water. She merely watched as the boy floundered, crying out for help. None of the other boys moved to the rescue. One even taunted him, asking why an island boy couldn't swim.

Out of nowhere the little hero ran across the pier and jumped into the water. He grabbed hold of the drowning boy and dragged him to the beach. Both the hero and the boy he rescued were panting for breath.

"Why don't you kiss your hero?" the main taunter called out.

The boy who almost drowned shoved the little hero over. "I didn't need your help." He then ran up to the other boys and punched the one who had been taunting him in the gut. "Were you trying to kill me?"

"How was I to know you couldn't swim? You live on the fucking ocean. Learn how!" the taunter returned.

The soaking wet boy shoved him off the pier, and seemed to be annoyed when the taunter swam to the beach.

"Sorry, no kiss from me," the taunting boy teased, before kicking the little hero. All seemed forgiven with the gang as they all began to laugh.

The gang wandered off, leaving the hero where he laid. What she saw when the boy got off the ground and brushed the sand off himself was something Keiko would never forget. He had a genuine smile on his face.

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"I will never understand boys," Keiko muttered.

Suzamiya blinked at the comment. It was perhaps the first normal thing she heard the girl say. "Did something happen?"

Keiko eyed the woman carefully before shrugging. "There's this gang of bullies doing whatever they pleased. Even though they tease this one boy and even beat him up, when one of the bullies fell into the ocean and nearly drowned, that boy went and saved him. The bullies didn't even thank him, not even the one he saved. Yet the boy was smiling."

Suzamiya let out a short laugh. "I see you've met the town hero. Inari is certainly a special lad. If you like him, you better stake your claim now. Girls are starting to notice him." She then blinked. "By, ah, claiming, him I don't mean, well... you know."

Keiko looked at the woman strangely. She didn't quite understand what the woman was talking about. How would sex claim someone? If it did, she had been 'claimed' by dozens of men and a few women. She shook her head, and returned to her topic, "Why does he act that way? Wouldn't it have been better to let that bully die? Not only would he have one less person teasing him, but the gang would've gotten in trouble."

"Inari is a hero in every sense of the word. He does everything he can to help others." Suzamiya sighed. "However, it's because of that he has trouble making friends. They don't understand why he would risk his own safety to help others. He's had two role models in his life that made him what he is today. A man who became a father to him but died protecting this town, and Naruto, a Konoha ninja that managed to awaken the hero in Inari and this entire town to fight and save ourselves from Gato's tyranny. He lives up to the ideals of those two, to protect people and to be someone that people can be proud of."

"He's weird." Keiko turned and walked away. "Wish there were more weird people like him."

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Keiko didn't understand why, but when Suzamiya would usually have pushed her out of the house to have 'fun,' she was already leaving. It wasn't for obedience to the woman, though she would do whatever she was told. She wandered around the town and found herself actually with a half-formed goal: to find Inari.

It wasn't long before she saw the boy as he was walking around the town as well. The adults all greeted him very kindly and he would ask if they needed help with anything. Most had said they didn't need help, but one complained about a few rats and the boy immediately set out to hunt the rodents.

Inari spent two hours running around the bakery, ending up with more than a couple nicks and bruises as he attempted to kill the vermin. He was triumphant with two dead rats, though he looked a tad comical covered in flour.

Keiko discretely followed the boy as he walked out of the town into the wilderness of the island. He stopped abruptly as he reached a pond.

"Ah... sorry...," Inari called out.

Keiko thought he had spotted her, but a naked girl no older than she was jumped out of the pond.

"Geez, Inari-kun, you're ALWAYS getting yourself dirty!" the naked girl chastised and began pulling at the boy's clothes.

Inari wasn't the only one blushing as he was stripped naked and shoved into the pond. Keiko didn't understand why she felt so flushed, while the other girl didn't seem bothered at all being naked with the boy.

"Ayashi-san..." Inari muttered, his mouth barely above the surface.

The girl held little reaction, instead setting to beat as much flour off the clothes as she could before washing them in the pond and then hanging them to dry.

Keiko watched the two, and thought it odd that the girl never paid any close attention to his naked form. Inari was more aware of her, but his eyes didn't focus on any part of the girl's body besides her face. Though Keiko had to wonder if it was more self-control than lack of interest.

Seeing Ayashi's innocent actions made Keiko feel horribly dirty. Her own thoughts were certainly not as pure as that girl's. She had certainly looked upon the boy's nakedness, wishing she was in the pond with him, preferably alone.

Keiko clutched her hand over her heart. She had never willingly wanted to be with a guy, and the realization frightened her. Was she so dirty that she now craved a man's touch? She hadn't asked to be a prostitute, had never wanted to be used as merchandise to be rented out. Yet, right now, without even being touched, she felt the heat of desire for this boy. She ran off, trying to leave behind her thoughts for a boy.

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Keiko tried to avoid Inari, afraid of her body's desires. As strange as it sounded to her, she didn't want her worth to be a hole for guys to use. She unfortunately found that her body wasn't the only thing she should be afraid of.

The gang of boys found her as she went for a walk after dinner. They dragged her into an alleyway without a word though she knew what they wanted.

"Hold her down," the taunting boy ordered, though she did not struggle as two boys held her shoulders to ground while the taunter removed her pants.

"She doesn't have one," one boy mentioned in awe.

"Of course she doesn't, you moron. She's a girl," the taunter shot at him.

"So where's her cunt?" another boy asked.

"Geez, are you all stupid?" the taunter spat. He then poked her between her legs. "That's her cunt."

Keiko bit her lip as the boys began to poke and probe her. Their horrible inexperience was painfully obvious as they had no clue what to do with her. However, she knew their naivete wouldn't last long before one of them figured it out. Why couldn't she just ignore them as she had the men who touched her in the past? She had endured such treatment before without protest, but now she wanted to throw-up from shear disgust. As a finger disappeared into her, she did something she had never done when men had taken her before: she screamed.

"What the hell are you doing?!" an angry cry echoed from the mouth at the alleyway, announcing the sudden arrival of the little hero.

"Well, if it isn't the little-" the taunter couldn't finish his statement as Inari's fist was planted into his face. "You little freak!" The taunter swung his own punch.

Keiko scooted back, watching as Inari fought the boys. This time was a whole lot worse than the last time she watched them fight. Last time was just being mean for the sake of being mean, this time they were all out for blood. She watched in fear as blood sprayed from torn knuckles and out of bleeding noses and mouths.

The fight continued a few moments after Inari fell to the ground, unconscious, as they kicked his unmoving form a few times out of spite. The boys then turned and walked off, leaving her half-naked with the badly beaten boy.

Keiko slapped herself and grabbed her pants, sliding them back on. She then nervously touched Inari and let out a sigh of relief when he moaned. She slung the boy's arm over her shoulder and tried to drag him out of the alley. She quickly wished she was stronger and better able to help him. At least he woke up a little and tried to walk with her.

The purple-haired girl she met at the docks jumped in front of her, who picked up Inari as if he weighed nothing and carried him home. Keiko followed, both in wanting to make sure Inari would be all right, and in wanting to know how to be strong like Ai.

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Keiko shifted nervously. She had made her decision the moment that Ai had offered to teach Inari. She wanted to know how to protect herself, to no longer be weak. Yet her weakness was still quite evident to her. It had been days since the offer was made, and she had yet to tell her foster mother about her own desire. Tomorrow, Inari's training would begin, and she could delay no longer.

"S-Suzamiya-san... I would like..." Keiko shyly began.

"What is it, Dear?" the woman asked her adopted daughter.

"I would like to learn how to be a ninja," Keiko almost blurted out.

"A ninja?" Suzamiya asked with surprise. "Has Ai or Jiro taken Inari as a student?"

Keiko nodded. "Ai-sensei promised to teach Inari-sama... and I'd like to learn how to be strong too!"

Suzamiya didn't know what to make of the request. Keiko was finally making a decision for herself, but it could very well be a painful and even deadly one. However, she knew what almost happened to the girl. If Keiko knew how to fight, she would've been able to defend herself. Even though the boys that attacked her were supposedly punished, she doubted that they would stop harassing the girl. To top it off, when Ai and Jiro were done in the Land of Waves, Keiko would probably end up leaving with them if she was to pursue a career as a ninja. She would be alone again, and she didn't want that. Yet, she also didn't want to bury the girl because some stupid guy decided to rape and kill a girl that few seemed to want on the island. The next time might not be inexperienced boys, but demented men.

Suzamiya let out a sigh. "I told you before, Keiko, that you are your own person. You answer to yourself now. If you want to be a ninja, that's your decision."

Keiko pouted. "You don't want me to be a ninja, do you?"

"I want you to be safe, happy and home." Suzamiya hugged the girl. "While getting beaten up while training to fight skilled warriors sounds like the exact opposite of that. I don't want you to do it, but I won't stop you."

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Inari seemed to be a bundle of nerves as he knelt before Ai, while Keiko looked at the female ninja with interest.

Ai scratched her head. "Where to start...?"

"How do you make copies of yourself?" Inari asked.

Ai laughed. "That's a HIGH level skill that requires you to split your chakra."

Inari blinked in confusion. "What's chakra?"

"Good question?" Ai's face scrunched up in thought. "...I don't really know myself."

"How did you put holes through solid wood several meters away?" Keiko wondered.

"That's a trick I'm still working on myself. I use elemental chakra to make kunai far stronger," Ai returned.

Jiro emerged from the shadows behind Ai, surprising the two students as they did not know he had been standing there.

"Something you want to say?" Ai asked, without looking at him.

Jiro's frown deepened. "Ai, perhaps it would be best to start them with basic taijutsu and work from there. We can deal with going into chakra usage after they get that down."

Ai smirked at the boy. "You don't know how to describe chakra usage any better than I do."

Jiro folded his arms. "It is a person's energy."

"And how do you mold it?" Ai pressed.

Jiro flushed. "I'd rather not try to explain that yet. I think it would be better to get a textbook from Konoha to avoid any mistakes."

"His scores weren't much better than mine," Ai whispered to her students jokingly.

Jiro scowled at his partner, while their students rolled their eyes wondering why they were trying to learn from apparently low-performing ninja.

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Keiko had never had so much fun in getting sore legs and arms. As she walked back to town with Inari, she laughed at how he described Naruto's exploits. It was good to see the boy's hero wasn't some perfect individual, and was appreciated because Naruto worked to overcome his flaws and any other obstacle he faced.

"Welcome back," Tsunami greeted them with an oddly cold tone. "Inari, why don't you go to the market for me. I've made a list of the things I need."

"Sure." Inari shrugged. He looked at his training partner. "Want to come with me?"

"Actually, there's a couple things I wanted to talk about with her," Tsunami told him. "Perhaps she can stay for diner, but you'll need to get to the shopping."

"Okay!" Inari ran off, taking the shopping list and some money from his mother.

Keiko swallowed nervously. She seriously doubted she would be sharing diner tonight, or any other night, if his mother had anything to say about it.

Tsunami shifted uneasily. "Come inside, Dear."

Keiko followed the woman inside her house. She studied her feet, fearing what the woman would say.

"I think that you should know a few things about Inari," Tsunami began, much to the girl's surprise that he was the topic and not her. "What do you know about Kaiza?"

"Who?" Keiko asked, confused.

Tsunami frowned. "Perhaps I should go back even further. You see, Inari's father died before Inari got to know him. Without a man around, he found it hard to relate to the other boys. You know the bullies, they've been picking on him since they could talk. When one of the pranks the bullies pulled nearly caused Inari to drown, Kaiza saved him.

"Kaiza was a fisherman traveling to find his future and found a reason to stay here. He... He practically adopted Inari as his son before I even thought of making him officially Inari's father." Tsunami looked away, tears welling up in her eyes. "If you had met Kaiza, you would almost swear he was Inari's real father. That man would risk his life to help others. He even saved the town from flooding rains. He did not save the town from Gato." Tsunami spat the ground and then stepped on her salvia as if that name was in it and it was the most vile insect.

"Kaiza was made into an example. Inari had a front row seat as he was forced to watch the man he loved as a father was slowly tortured to death," Tsunami finished.

"You and Inari-sama were hostages, weren't you? If Kaiza-san didn't let himself be killed, you and Inari would've been killed instead," Keiko guessed.

Tsunami looked at the girl with surprise. "How did you know?"

"There were men ready to kill my uncle when I was... initiated into being a prostitute. If I fought against it, he would've died," Keiko explained with a strangely calm tone to her voice.

Tsunami nodded. "We both understand what it means to sacrifice. So does Inari. He's not much more innocent than you are."

"I guess..." Keiko wondered why she was being told all of this.

"I... I would like to keep what little innocence Inari has intact. He knows about death and hard decisions, but he doesn't know anything about sex," Tsunami told her.

"And you don't want me around to teach him," Keiko guessed bitterly.

"I want you around as Inari's FRIEND, but not as his lover.... At least not yet. When you're both adults, but not yet." Tsunami walked over to a chair and fell into it more than sat down. "Inari has made me proud in that he's an incredibly good boy. Other mothers wish he was their son. Yet he has few friends, and I have no objection to you being one."

Keiko bowed her head. "I understand. You don't want me to initiate anything between us."

"Yes," Tsunami agreed. "He's still young. Too young to know about some of the things you've done. He knows you were a slave and that you've been deeply hurt, but he doesn't know what they used you for."

"Despite that I know his bloody past, he is not to know about mine?" Keiko asked.

Tsunami shook her head. "When he's older and ready to understand, certainly."

Keiko turned around. "I need a friend right now more than a lover. But I have already decided that while I can't give Inari my virginity, he will be the first and only to have my last virtue... when he's ready to claim it."

Tsunami looked at the departing girl strangely, but then her eyes went wide in realization, likely figuring the girl was referring to her arse.

---------------------

Keiko found it odd that while Jiro knew more about how to use chakra, Ai was the better teacher in getting her and Inari to learn a new jutsu. Jiro would make everything sound so complicated, while Ai simply performed the jutsu and gave a rough explanation of how she did it. As such, the jutsu lessons pretty much followed the basic formula of Jiro confusing the hell out of them, Ai simplifying and getting them to roughly perform the jutsu, and then Jiro getting them to perfect it.

Life developed into it's own little routine with her daily training marking the most important part. She could see the progress she was making.

Even though life was developing a pattern, there were still surprises that came along. Considering the rumors of Ai and Jiro's relationship, she was perhaps the only one to know that the two of them didn't truly become lovers until late December. The two had worked together for months, but until that day at the start of winter they seemed to avoid looking at each other. Now the two would steal glances at each other, particularly the places clothes almost always covered up.

Then there had been the time when a group of Konoha ninja arrived. That allowed Keiko and Inari to get a first hand look at real ninja fighting. The battle between Konoha and the Mist was a terrible sight to behold, especially as it was to the death. Inari got to view much of Jiro's fight with the water element master. Keiko had seen a different battle.

Tenten fought against a man who boasted about raping Yamiko and then selling the woman into prostitution. No matter how much the disgusting man threatened Tenten with doing the same thing to her, the Konoha ninja didn't get angry. Keiko, however, had roared with an anger she didn't know she had. She picked up some of the numerous kunai that Tenten had used in the fight and launched her own attack. It had been horribly sloppy, but it served its purpose. The disgusting Mist Ninja was distracted just enough for Tenten to land several disabling blows, rendering the man unable to fight as bladed weapons sank into his arms and legs.

Keiko walked up to the man. "T-This is... something... I-I've wanted... to do to the man... who took me!"

"Don't!" Tenten cried out.

It was too late for the ninja to stop Keiko. One borrowed kunai sank below his waist, a second one plunged into his neck.

"You... You shouldn't have done that. He was defeated," Tenten told the girl.

Keiko clenched her fists tightly. "Trash like him doesn't deserve to live. He's just like the garbage who made me into a prostitute. I didn't want to be used for sex. Yamiko never did, either. He doesn't see girls as people, but as slaves. He deserves worse than this!"

Tenten hugged the now crying girl. "Bury your anger with him. You got your revenge for Yamiko, don't let such a thing cloud your reason again."

---------------------

Tenten took the 'credit' for killing the Mist ninja and Keiko didn't feel like announcing her accomplishment, either. Not even Inari knew what she had done. It was just another pain for her to endure. It still surprised her how easy it was to end a person's life, to sink a blade into their body. However simple the act of killing might be, living with it proved much more difficult than Keiko had imagined.

That night, for the first time since her virginity was taken, Keiko did not dream of being raped but of killing the Mist ninja and everyone else. Becoming a remorseless killer slaughtering everyone. She awoke in a cold sweat and crying. She found herself crying into her adoptive mother's arms.

---------------------

Keiko rarely went anywhere without Inari. Since their ninja training began, he was a constant companion to her. It was rare for her to be in the market without him. She had long suspected the friendly greetings they had given her was only due to Inari's presence. Yet the friendly greetings were still present even though she was alone today. The looks of pity or disgust were no longer there.

Keiko wondered if it was just true for her, or if the other former slaves were also being treated better. She spotted them shopping and saw that while people didn't avoid the girls or look upon them with some form of distaste, they weren't being treated as kindly as she had been. Particularly Tomoyo, but she wasn't exactly a 'former' prostitute, and received an icier reception from the women than the men. It left her to wonder why people changed the way they viewed them. Was it mere acceptance of their presence, or did they just forget about the uncomfortable past?

"Hi, I'm Ayashi," a girl suddenly announced.

Keiko blinked and looked uncertainly at the girl, vaguely remembering her as the girl who had skinny-dipped with Inari months ago. "Ah, hi... I'm Keiko."

"I know!" Ayashi beamed. "You're Inari's girlfriend."

Keiko's face went red. "I-I-I-I'm n-n-not his g-g-g-girlfriend." She wanted to be, she almost blurted. She just didn't know what Inari's feelings about her were.

"Puh-lease." Ayashi made a funny face. "Inari has never been close to anyone."

"I, er, w-well, t-t-that is..." Keiko fidgeted. Did he really like her? Why was she so bothered by her questions?

A woman began to laugh. "It's good to see you did not live up to our fears."

"Fears?" Ayashi wondered.

"N-nothing for you to be c-concerned about," Keiko managed, hating how she stuttered when she got nervous.

The woman smiled. "Exactly."

Ayashi pouted. "Is this a 'when you are older' thing?"

"I don't know if you'll ever be 'old enough' to know," Keiko muttered darkly.

Ayashi scowled. "Why am I too young for everything? You're not that much older than me!"

"I'm too young to know what I know," Keiko retorted. "And I wish I didn't know."

"So, you're not going to tell me if Inari is a good kisser, are you?" Ayashi shot at her.

Keiko took a step back. "W-w-we haven't k-k-k-k..."

"Why not?!" Ayashi demanded. "You like him, don't you? And he likes you?"

The woman put her hand on her daughter's head. "That's enough, dear. Things aren't so simple for Keiko-chan."

Ayashi folded her arms. "Fine. Want to play a game?"

"A game?" Keiko wondered, looking at the girl's mother questioningly.

"It's okay. Just don't be out too long," the woman told Keiko more than her daughter.

"Yes, Mom," Ayashi growled before grabbing Keiko by the hand and dragging her off.

---------------------

Keiko groggily awoke from bed and began to pull herself away from the mattress when she felt something moist on her nightshirt. Inspecting her clothing she found blood staining the shirt and at the crotch of her undergarment. Her heart raced and her eyes lost focus as she began to scream.

"Dear, what's the matter?" her foster mother questioned, rushing to the girl's side.

"Someone took me last night!" Keiko cried out. "I'm stained again!"

Suzamiya made the girl look her straight into her eyes. "Keiko, look at me. Nothing of the sort happened last night. I was here the whole time. Your clothes have not been removed. No one touched you."

"B-but I-I-I-I'm b-b-bleeding there," Keiko sobbed. She had bled on several occasions from the violations she suffered as a prostitute, especially during her early days or when well endowed men had used her.

"I know, Dear. That's natural. A bit sooner than it should be, but natural," Suzamiya tried to sooth her.

"What do you mean, 'natural?' I-I'm b-bleeding!" Keiko protested.

"I bleed there at times, as well. All women do. And now you're fully one as well," Suzamiya told her gently.

"What do you mean?" Keiko wondered in confusion.

Suzamiya smiled and pulled the girl onto her lap. "When most girls experience their first bleeding, they are told more about how to deal with the monthly visitor and less about what it means."

Keiko blinked a few tears out of her eyes. "W-what does it m-mean?"

Suzamiya didn't immediately reply, but finally said, "That you can now become pregnant."

Keiko's eyes widened before gazing at the floor. She then gave a short laugh. "So some of the men who bought my time would no longer want me, huh? I'm too old for them."

Suzamiya closed her eyes. "That's one way to put it."

"And I really should try to keep some distance from Inari. As much as I like him, I'd be as prepared for motherhood as much as Ai is. Not at all." Keiko clutched onto her foster mother.

Suzamiya hugged her tightly. "That's good to hear." The woman then blinked. "Ai's pregnant?"

Keiko nodded with a slight smirk. "Yeah. I don't know who's the bigger basket case, her or Jiro. Neither of them knows what to do. You should've seen Ai asking Inari's mother all sorts of questions. A couple of them made me wonder if she was a real girl considering how stupid they were."

"I suspect those were asked because she was scared out of her mind," Suzamiya suggested.

"I figured as much." Keiko shrugged before pouting. "Does cramps have anything to do with the bleeding?"

Suzamiya nodded. "All too often it does."

"And it's supposed to happen every month?" Keiko pressed.

"Roughly, though most girls can't count on it happening at any regular time." Suzamiya gave a wry smile. "It usually happens at the absolute worse times. Like my wedding."

"This stinks." Keiko huffed.

---------------------
-

The image of Jiraiya cowering on top of a chair would never leave Shizune's mind, and she would smile at the memory of it for years to come. However funny the scene was, it highlighted the issue of the jutsu and the inherent weakness of it.

Shizune knew Jiraiya to be a proud ninja and there was no way two young ninja cadets could possibly make him nervous, let alone afraid. Keiko's memories did not show the truth of the situation. Just as how she remembered the situation was different from reality, someone could intentionally slip false information.

Shizune didn't believe the girl was hiding anything, though there was a lack of detail with certain events, particularly her time as a prostitute. It wasn't that the girl was covering it up, but rather burying it to avoid dealing with it emotionally.

-
---------------------

"We'll be leaving in six months. You'll have to decide whether you want to stay here or come with us to become full-fledged ninja."

Those words hung over Inari like a thick cloud ever since Jiro uttered them after the perverted ninja had left. It would ultimately be his decision, Keiko had decided. If he stayed, so would she. Honestly, she wanted to go, but if he was to ask her she would give no answer. She knew all to well the pain of leaving the life you knew for a new one. He, at least, got to choose.

For days Inari seemed to get increasingly moody. She reminded him that he had six months to choose, but that didn't seem to help him. The upcoming second anniversary of the completion of the Great Naruto Bridge didn't lighten his spirits. Not even learning a new jutsu would cheer him up as it had so many times before.

Though the summer solstice had come and passed a few weeks ago, the town barely recognized that day beyond beginning the countdown to Bridge Day. As the anniversary grew nearer, the town increasingly took a festival atmosphere. The town's population even swelled as ships came in and people crossed the bridge to experience the new yearly celebration.

Keiko was rather surprised that an hour before dawn on Bridge Day to find Inari at her bedroom door. "What is it?"

"Hurry up and get dressed. It's important," Inari told her.

"What is?" Keiko wondered groggily, not even questioning his presence inside her home.

"Just hurry up!" Inari insisted.

Keiko shook her head and got changed without bothering to close her door. She was fussing with her hair as she left her room and found Inari blushing. She wondered if he had peaked at her, but was really too tired to care if he had. He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along.

Their destination soon became apparent as they made their way to the Great Naruto Bridge. It surprised Keiko to see a number of people waiting there. Even stranger was that they waved and cheered as Inari guided her across the bridge.

Keiko pouted as she tried to see anything, but the morning mist from the ocean water made it difficult to see the bridge they were standing on, let alone anything beyond it. She could really only see Inari. Her questions were ignored as they made the long trek. She was suddenly caught by surprise when she felt dirt beneath her feet and the mists parted to reveal trees up ahead. In the entire time she had been living in the Land of Waves, she had never set foot on the other side of the bridge.

"Welcome to the Country of Fire," Inari finally spoke.

Keiko huffed. "Are you going to tell me why you dragged me out here?"

Inari let go of her hand and walked away from her. "It was two years ago that I made the first trip across the completed bridge." He let out a short laugh. "Grandpa had sent a message to come see him right away. I was very nervous with the mist as I wasn't sure where the bridge ended. It was quite the surprise when I stepped on this soil and learned the bridge was finally complete. While the bridge didn't officially open until noon, I was the first person to cross it arriving here just before dawn."

As if on cue, the sun began to peak over the horizon and started to chase away the mists.

"So, is this some sort of ritual for you?" Keiko asked with a small smile.

Inari scratched the back of his head. "Wasn't supposed to be. Last year Grandpa made me do the walk again. This year... I wanted to take you on it."

"So that's why there were people cheering for you," Keiko surmised.

Inari nodded. "Yeah." He then began to fidget.

Keiko looked at him curiously. "Is there something else?"

"Are you going with Ai-sensei and Jiro-sensei?" Inari blurted out.

Keiko frowned. "Inari... I will do whatever you decided."

"Why?" Inari asked.

Keiko blinked. "What do you mean 'why?'"

Inari began to pace in front of her. "You want to go, don't you? You want to make something of your life, and you're very good at being a ninja."

"You're very good as well. We don't need to be Konoha ninja to protect this town," Keiko reminded.

"Protecting the town won't necessarily put food on your plate. You could try joining law enforcement, but they've never allowed girls to work for them before," Inari pointed out harshly.

Keiko's hand clutched over her heart. "Are you... Are you telling me to go to Konoha alone... without you?"

"I didn't say that!" Inari waved his arms wildly.

"What are you saying?" Keiko pressed on the verge of tears.

"I don't know what I'm saying!" Inari spat in frustration. "I just don't know."

"Inari, I told you before, you don't have to decide yet. We've still got six months," Keiko reminded.

"It's not about Konoha!" Inari suddenly sagged. "I... I think it's more about... well... us."

"What do you mean?" Keiko asked, confused.

Inari seemed to tense up. "Ah, to hell with it. I just can't say it." He then stomped up to Keiko, grabbed her by the head and kissed her.

Keiko's eyes were initially wide with shock, but then relaxed and gave into the feeling of his lips engulfing her own. He obviously never kissed someone before. At least not this way. She wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the contact more than any kiss she had been forced to endure before. As his hands began to wander, excitement and anxiety gripped her. As much as she wanted to continue this, she doubted this was the right time or place. She pulled away and smiled coyly at him. "Is that your way of saying you love me?"

Inari flushed while panting form breath. "Ah... well... kinda. I was going to ask you to the dance tonight... as my girlfriend."

Keiko giggled as she pulled him into a hug, resting her head onto his chest. "Yes, I'll go with you."

Inari broke the tender moment, asking, "So, do you want to go to Konoha?"

"I want to be with you, Inari. Here or in Konoha, I want to be with you," Keiko insisted.

Inari laughed a little. "Keiko, we're not in the Land of Waves now. We're in Fire Country which is protected by Konoha."

"You know that's not what I meant," Keiko retorted.

Inari kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, but it shows my answer. I'm going with Ai-sensei to Konoha. I want to be a real ninja with you by my side."

"Always, Inari. Always," Keiko promised.

"Isn't that so sweet," a voice called out.

The young couple immediately jumped away from each other and began to stammer. The man who interrupted them merely laughed as he walked past them to walk across the bridge.

---------------------

Spending most of his days training, Inari had almost completely stopped his daily walk through town to see if anyone needed help with anything. Since Ai's advanced pregnancy now severely limited her ability to move, she took a different path to work on their training. With what she called 'D-ranked missions,' she would take them out to do tasks that Inari had done before his ninja training. Now it was a little different as Ai would impose rules to push them to take the tasks as more training than as a job. Rodent hunting, for example, either got a time limit or was marked as a competition with a reward to the one who got the most kills.

Keiko hoped that today's task of dredging mud out of the town's drainage system wouldn't take too long, especially as she was sure that it wasn't all mud clogging it up. At least she didn't have to touch it. Neither did Inari for that matter, though it was his task to do most of the work, using water element jutsu to break apart and push the blocking gunk towards the ocean.

Jiro jumped down in front of them, panic alight on his face.

"What's going on?" Ai questioned.

"Have you seen me? I mean Hinata?" Jiro blurted out.

Ai blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about? How can you lose... HER?"

"I don't know!" Jiro's eyes jumped everywhere. "I was practicing jutsu and well, she up and left."

"That's not possible!" Ai retorted.

"I know that, but she still ran off saying something about not wanting to disappear again," Jiro insisted.

"This is just great!" Ai palmed her face. "I've been wondering if we've become different people but now it looks like you literally have."

"What's going on? Who is Hinata?" Keiko wondered.

Ai frowned. They had said too much in front of their students. "Someone who is far too complicated to explain. The important part is finding Hinata before someone sees her that isn't supposed to." She turned toward the father of her unborn child. "Where would Hinata go to?"

"She might head for Konoha, but there's no way she would last long enough to make it all the way there," Jiro guessed. "I've got shadows looking for her at the port and the bridge, but none have seen her yet."

Ai growled. "If you can't figure out where she went, no one can."

Jiro frowned. "It might be because she knows me too well and can avoid me better than I can figure her out."

"If that's the case, then she knows me too damned much as well." Ai folded her arms. "Keiko, Inari... you've got yourself a... B-rank mission, I guess. You are to track down and land a solid hit on a girl with white eyes."

"All girls have white in their eyes," Inari pointed out.

"I mean completely white, with no other color at all," Ai corrected.

"And watch out if the veins on her face are visibly throbbing," Jiro added. "And don't ask anyone if they've seen her. The eyes are part of a bloodline limit that would attract the wrong kind of attention if Mist ninja were to learn of her."

"Is it like your eyes when they go red?" Keiko wondered.

"Or the weird shapes in Jiro's when he fought the Mist Ninja?" Inari added.

Ai slapped her forehead. "We've got a lot of explaining to do later. But the mission comes first. Find and hit Hinata. Go."

With a nod to Inari, they left, hopefully in full ninja fashion of disappearing from sight.

"Where would I be if I want to hide, particularly from Ai-sensei and Jiro-sensei?" Keiko asked herself.

"Some place they wouldn't think of going to. But where would that be? They go pretty much everywhere on the island," Inari pointed out.

Keiko thought about that. "Where wouldn't they normally go?" She then blinked. "The women's bath!"

"Huh?" Inari looked at her strangely.

"Ai-sensei has some sort of aversion to the baths and Jiro-sensei would never go to the women's side. And if I wanted to escape, I'd want to be somewhere comfortable," Keiko theorized.

Inari flushed. "Well, I, ah... guess."

Keiko sighed. "Just use the distraction technique Ai-sensei showed us when we started to learn genjutsu."

Inari laughed. "Yeah..."

Keiko scowled at him. "And keep your eyes off any girl besides me or the target."

Inari nodded a bit too much. "Okay. Ah, guess I should change now. Henge."

Keiko appraised his female appearance. He could now pass for her older sister. At least he left the clothes on the illusionary body. However, once they entered the bathhouse and Inari was out of sight, the clothes were taken off his female image. She didn't use genjutsu, having issues with that brand of ninja arts. She shed her clothes and set them aside.

It had been a long time that Keiko had been conscious about her body. She held no qualms showing dozens of men and women her nakedness when she was freed from the slave ship. Now she had to wonder what Inari thought of her. Since Bridge Day, a few weeks ago, they had gone on little dates after their daily training, but they had done nothing but talk and kiss. Now he was seeing all of her, and she could tell he liked what he was seeing even through his illusion.

Keiko had to guide Inari into the baths as his eyes were firmly locked on her body. She suspected her own talk with Inari would be needed soon. And that filled her with dread. She wasn't ready to tell him, and doubted he was ready to know about her past. She just hoped this wouldn't be giving him too many thoughts.

Scanning the baths, Keiko initially thought showing Inari her body had been for nothing. There wasn't anyone in the baths. At least he wasn't seeing any other naked girls. A ripple of water caught her attention and her eyes locked onto strangely scared girl half-hidden in the far side of the baths.

"Please, just give me a little more time," Hinata pleaded.

Keiko folded her arms. "Why does Ai-sensei and Jiro-sensei want us to hit you?"

Hinata sank into the water until her mouth was barely over the surface. Keiko might have thought it was to cover up a jutsu of some sort, yet the shyness was all too real to her. The white-eyed girl didn't even look up at them as she spoke, "In a way, you could say I was Jiro."

"What do you mean by that?" Keiko insisted. She spared a look at her boyfriend and ninja partner and doubted he even registered Hinata's presence as his eyes were glued on her and filled with lust.

"As far as Konoha is concerned, Jiro never existed. He shouldn't have existed. With my eyes, I could not be used as a guard as I would be a target. Tsunade, the leader of Konoha, placed a special jutsu upon me so I might protect... my special person. That jutsu gave me the body that is now Jiro. However, as time went on, Jiro became less and less of me. Now, even though we should be the same person... we're not," Hinata told them barely over a whisper.

"Wait, are you saying Jiro was YOU and YOU got Ai-sensei pregnant?!" Keiko cried out.

Hinata made ripples in the water as she nodded. "In a sense, yes. Though I was supposed to be the mother, not the father."

Inari finally stopped looking at his girlfriend long enough to ask his own question, "How could Ai be a father?"

Hinata didn't answer them.

"Let's just hit her and be done with it," Keiko growled. "None of what she says makes sense. There's no way it's possible that Jiro-sensei is really this girl."

"You've heard too much as it is," Ai grumbled as she waddled up behind her students.

Hinata's face turned bright red. "N-N-Na-Naruto-kun..."

"Say WHAT?!" Inari cried out.

Ai pouted. "Hinata-chan... I'm sorry."

"I-I-I know you didn't mean to, well, kill me like this," Hinata muttered.

"You're not dead!" Ai protested.

"Aren't I? W-will you be changing back to Naruto when this is over with and let me be the mother I should've been?" Hinata wondered with a bit of dread.

"I can't answer that. At least not yet." Ai looked away. Her eyes then widened. "You're alive now! And Jiro can still let you out during training. It's not like you're going to disappear, right? You can still be a part of our lives."

"Only as a shadow. One hit and I-I-I'm g-g-g-gone. B-banished into Jiro's head as if I never existed even though he's the fake," Hinata began to sob. "I l-l-loved Naruto-kun enough to give up everything, but is he even alive anymore, or is it just Ai now?"

"I honestly don't know." Ai closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Hinata-chan."

With a cloud of smoke and water slapping against itself to fill the area the shadow clone had displaced, Hinata was gone. She had been dispelled without a hit, as if the shadow had run from Ai the only way she could. It was the disappearance that finally made Keiko even consider that Hinata's story might be true.

"What was that all about?" Keiko demanded.

Ai looked sadly at her. "For now, the reason you won't be learning Kage Bunshin."

Inari looked at the girl intently. "Are you really... Naruto?"

Ai smirked at him. "What happened to your little crossbow?"

Inari blinked. "Shiiiiit."

"And you just stepped deep into it." Ai sighed. "Come on, let's get back at cleaning up the literal shit in the
drains."

---------------------
-

Keiko blinked. "I wasn't supposed to tell you about that. When I met Tsunade-sama a few days later, she ordered us not to tell anyone. This is part of that jutsu, isn't it?"

Shizune rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry I'm prying so much. However, it is part of my job and I knew about Jiro and Hinata's personalities splitting already. I am Tsunade-sama's personal assistant and the only person she trusts to tell me about her pet projects. Especially ones she couldn't tell Sakura-chan about."

Keiko pouted at the woman. "How much more prodding are you going to do?"

Shizune frowned. "Only enough to make sure I know where you stand."

"Y-y-you're not going to do this to I-Inari, are you?" Keiko questioned.

"Yes and no. Inari's past is less in doubt than yours. But we will have to check to be careful. Spies are the most damaging single person threat we face. At the right place, a spy can do as much damage as a full army of ninja, so we must be careful," Shizune explained.

Keiko bowed her head. "So, you're going to do it to him, just not as much."

"Right." Shizune frowned. "I believe it'd be best for both of us if we finish this soon."

-
---------------------

It was a few days after learning that Ai was in fact Naruto that Inari overcame his shock. The after-mission dates began anew. They would go for walks and talk about stuff. She didn't tell him about her past, as she was too afraid of how he'd react. The fact that when they kissed that their hands never found bare flesh made her believe he wasn't ready for it. She decided that, once he tried to go beyond kissing, she would tell him.

Caked with mud from their last mission of finding a lost dog on a hot and humid August afternoon, the pair opted to go to one of the island's fresh water ponds to freshen up. Sweat caused the mud to slide down their faces and the water looked very cool and inviting.

"Let's take a quick swim," Keiko suggested, discarding her muddied clothes. She didn't mind showing him her body. He had seen her naked before and he was her boyfriend, after all.

Inari grinned goofily. "Right!" He quickly shed what he wore, as well.

They dipped their clothes into the pond to wash much of the mud off them that they could. Inari even tired helping with the more stubborn spots by setting the clothes on a rock in turn and blasting them with water using his elemental jutsu. After hanging their now soaked clothes on nearby tree branches, they finally dove into the pond.

At first it was rather relaxing, enjoying the cool water washing away the heat and stress of the day. That ended when Inari sent a wave of water at her.

"What was that for?" Keiko demanded.

"Let's have a water fight," Inari suggested with a grin.

"No way! That's not fair!" Keiko protested.

Inari swam closer to her. "I guess... I just wanted to do something with you." He pulled her into a loose hug and kissed her.

Keiko rather liked the kiss, especially now that she had taught him how to do it right. Before, when his hands would move to her ass, it had been covered. Now all he felt was bare flesh against his hand. But she didn't stop him, even as he began to feel around. In fact, the heat of their actions was making it hard to think. Rarely had she felt so hot. Even the best of the men who had sex with her didn't make her feel quite this way.

Keiko was uncertain when it happened, or who had taken the step. It might've even been an accident. She still didn't stop what they were doing, even though Inari was no longer a virgin and she had promised herself to tell him of her past before that happened.

Inari gazed at her with wonder and, she hoped, love. His inexperience was a strange delight to her. She had to set the tempo and position so they could both enjoy it. She was certain he did as the encounter came to an end with a throaty moan from him and her squeals of pleasure began to subside.

They held onto each other as everything began to calm down. Keiko wasn't sure why, but she began to cry.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Inari asked, suddenly scared.

Keiko shook her head. "No... Inari... I love you. No matter what happens... remember that I love you."

"I... ah..." Inari swallowed. "I feel the same way."

Keiko giggled through her tears and after a long moment final stopped crying. She knew she had to tell him about her past, but the setting sun gave her an excuse to delay it. They needed to get home for supper.

---------------------

"Inari... I need to tell you something," Keiko announced as she lay naked and beneath him on his bed. Her promise to give him her second virginity now fulfilled. In the past couple days she had tried to muster the courage to tell him, but when they had the time and moment... she ended up having sex with him, instead. As pure as their first time had been, she was beginning to think the filth of her past was infecting Inari. She even felt dirty when she had sex with him.

"What is it, Keiko?" Inari whispered into her ear.

"I-I-I-I... d-d-don't know where to b-b-begin..." Keiko began to stutter.

"Why are you so nervous?" Inari asked.

Tears began to form in Keiko's eyes. "B-b-b-because I-I-I don't w-want to l-l-lose you."

"You'll never lose me. Especially now." Inari emphasized his point by touching her between her legs.

"I-I-Inari... y-y-you n-n-not the-"

"GET AWAY FROM THAT SLUT!"

"What?! Mom?!" Inari jumped in surprise and stared in shock at his mother.

"You don't know what she is, do you? Men paid her to do what you just did with her! She's a fucking prostitute! You'll never be certain if her children are yours!" Tsunami ranted.

The bed bounced and Keiko was gone. She was out of the house before Inari could even finish calling out her name. She belatedly realized her clothes were still at his house, but it didn't matter. If she didn't want to be found, only 'Hinata' would be able to find her. And where she was going, she didn't need clothes anyway. With a thunderous splash, Keiko landed in the waters of the bathhouse. Her tears wouldn't stop flowing.

Keiko didn't know how long it was before she heard her name called. She looked up and saw Hinata looking at her with mixed emotions.

"Inari-kun is looking for you," Hinata told her.

"I-I-I c-c-can't s-s-see h-h-him l-l-like t-this," Keiko stuttered out. "H-he knows a-a-about m-m-me."

Hinata closed her eyes for a second. "If you're willing to die for him, you should be willing to face this as well. You're not going to lose what you have because of your fear, are you? You don't want to end up like me. A lingering ghost of a girl who could kill a man in battle, but had no courage in the face of her love."

Keiko looked at the girl. In an odd way, Hinata was a kindred soul. She could fighting a horde of men and stand in a raging typhoon without fear despite what had been taken from her, yet facing Inari now with her past open to him... she was scared beyond measure.

Hinata bent down and reached out. "I know you're afraid of losing Inari. However, if you don't face him now, you will have lost him."

"I'll see him," Keiko promised. She then flushed. "Um, do you have some clothes? I left them at Inari's house."

Hinata's eyes went wide. "You and Inari..." She began to sway back and forth and seemed to faint before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

"Great. What do I do now?" Keiko muttered.

---------------------

Ai came to Keiko's rescue with fresh clothes for her. However as each step they took, the more nervous she became. As soon as she saw the boy with Jiro, she wanted to run. Before she could get a step away, Inari grabbed her in a fierce hug.

"Don't ever leave me. Especially not over my mother's lies," Inari told her.

"S-She w-wasn't l-l-lying. I-I-I w-was a p-p-prostitute," Keiko managed to confess.

"WAS," Inari stressed. "You aren't one now, right?"

Keiko shook her head fiercely as she fought back her tears. "No! I wouldn't go back to that... I-I-Inari... I-I'm sorry... I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you... that men u-u-used me. I should have told you. But I couldn't... I didn't want you to h-h-hate me. Even after we... m-m-made love... I-I-I didn't want to lose you."

Inari held her tighter. "I'd never hate you. Never."

Keiko began to sob. "It's why... I had you... use my... rear. No one else had done me there. You were the first then. I wish you were my first with everything... I've been with so many-"

Inari silenced her with a kiss. "That's the past. It doesn't matter now. You're MY Keiko and that's all that matters."

Keiko buried her head against his chest, tears flowing from her as if to wash away the pain and hurt of her past.

"Are you a little freaked out, too?" Ai groused.

"Ah... yeah..." Jiro agreed.

"So says the guy who got knocked up by a girl," Inari quipped.

---------------------

"What does she freaking want?" Inari cried out.

"Who knows?" Keiko retorted.

"Still having trouble with your mother?" Jiro asked, approaching the dock with Ai.

"Mom said I need to be an adult before I can be with Keiko," Inari growled. "I've already had sex with her. I've got a job helping out the town. What else does she want?"

"Life to be simple," Ai commented with a grin.

"Like that's going to happen," Keiko groused.

"Hate to see what Mom says when I tell her I'm going to Konoha," Inari grumbled.

"You haven't told her?" Jiro asked in surprise.

"Didn't want to deal with her telling me no." Inari folded his arms. "I'm going with Keiko, whether my Mom approves or not."

"Well, once you're a genin, you'll be considered an adult anyway," Ai commented while shaking her head.

"This is not going to be good," Jiro muttered.

---------------------

Keiko looked at Inari strangely while he was pounding a board into one of the neighboring shacks to Ai and Jiro's home. "What are you doing?"

"Mom knows I plan to go to Konoha," Inari replied bitterly. "She told me that if I live under her roof, I'll have to abide by her rules. So I'm moving out."

"How are you going to eat?" Keiko questioned seriously.

"Besides the hair clips I got for you, I haven't spent the money Ai gave us for our 'missions.' Wanted to hold onto it until we got a place in Konoha," Inari grumbled.

Keiko sighed. That would mean they would be relying on the money she had saved. Not exactly a good prospect.

Inari smiled a little. "You know, you could live here with me."

Keiko pouted. "Sorry... but we're only going to be here a few more months. As much as I don't want to burden Suzamiya-Okasan, she wants me to. I'm already going to be leaving her. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Inari shook his head. "Not really. You don't want to leave your mom alone just yet?"

Keiko nodded. "Yes."

Inari sighed. "That's fine. You can still visit often." He went back to repairing the shack by prying off a broken board in order to replace it.

Keiko began to move to help him when Jiro appeared before them and ordered, "Hurry and get everyone in town to the shelters. A typhoon is coming!"

A shiver ran down Keiko's spine. She leapt on top of one of the shacks and looked towards the south. She didn't see anything on the horizon, but she felt the air and listened to the sky. The air was abnormally calm and there wasn't a bird to be heard. She strained her eyes as a black line began to form toward the south. She leapt back down. "We've got maybe two hours before the storm hits."

Keiko and Inari shared a small smile as they watched Jiro run off carrying Ai, who was complaining quite vocally.

---------------------

Sitting inside the crowded jailhouse wasn't uncomfortable because of where it was, but because Keiko was stuck there with Inari's mother and grandfather. Though his grandfather seemed more amused than anything when Inari made her sit on his lap. Not that they had any room for her to sit anywhere else. His mother, however, wouldn't look at her.

"I think it's high time you stopped being so silly," Suzamiya told Inari's mother.

Tsunami glared at her. "Silly?"

"You're not upset at Keiko for what she does with Inari-kun, but because he's going to leave you," Suzamiya stated evenly.

"This is not the place for this," Tsunami hissed.

"When else will you talk about it?" Suzamiya returned. "You've been running away from this. Now you can't run."

"She's right, you know," Tazuna added. "You don't want to lose Inari. However, you're pushing him away. If you keep this up, you won't have the few months he has left here."

"I'm not letting him go!" Tsunami retorted. "He's too young! He belongs here!"

"Dear, you can't make him stay." Tazuna sighed. "And just what is he going to do if he stayed here? Become just a law enforcer? Holding onto him will deny him the chance to be what he wants to be, to deny him the chance to reach his full potential. It's his life and he has a right to choose his own path."

Tsunami almost growled in frustrated anger. "I'm supposed to stand aside when he's making mistakes? Keiko is--"

Ai interrupted. "A great girl who loves your son dearly. She hasn't even looked at another guy. You know that. Sure, they're young. If Jiro had more courage when we were students, or if my first love wasn't blindly obsessed with someone else, I might've had sex at their age."

"A ship just collided with the Great Naruto Bridge!" a man announced at the door to jailhouse.

Without a word, Keiko and Inari left the relative safety of the thick, stone building and leapt into the typhoon.

---------------------

Keiko held a rope attached to the sinking ship, waiting for the men behind her to secure it so that the people onboard the ship could use it climb off of the ship.

The howling winds and driving rain did bring some unwanted memories to the girl, but she had a mission to perform and wouldn't let it distract her from saving the sailors.

"Line is secure!" a man shouted.

Keiko nodded and let electricity discharge quickly from her hand to send a flash of light to the people on the ship to signal to start climbing. She spotted Inari on the ship working to keep it afloat longer using his element jutsu at a level he had never attempted before, by pushing water away from the hole in the hull.

The bridge suddenly shifted, nearly causing Keiko to fall. She stared in horror as a crack began to form near the support pillar that the ship had struck. There was a lot of yelling from the ship, but the wind made their words impossible to hear. They were pointing at the pillar.

Keiko hopped onto the rope line and ran down it, careful to avoid stepping on the hands and legs of the men climbing it. She quickly moved to Inari's side. "The whole thing is cracking!"

"That support beam broke lose!" Inari yelled over the wind. "I'm going to have to go up there and secure it!"

"With this wind?" Keiko shot at him. "There's no way we can climb up there and do repairs!"

"_I_ have to try, you make sure these men get to safety," Inari retorted.

"How about you tell me what to do and I'll fix it," Jiro told them with a commanding tone.

"The 'what' is simple, securing that beam back to the support pillar. The 'how' is something that would take time and experience to do," Inari retorted. "Besides, if something goes wrong, you've got a baby coming soon."

"Inari..." Jiro growled.

"Would welding it into place work?" Keiko asked.

"Sure, it would, but I don't have the tools." Inari began to look around. "I'll need some rope, nails and a hammer."

Keiko leapt away, acting as if to help him, but knowing she couldn't let him do it. Taking a better vantage point next to the ship's steering wheel, she spied where the bridge was damaged. She raised one hand to the sky and pointed with the other hand at the broken support beam. Changing the polarity in her body as she would for her jutsu, she felt her hair stand on end before the world flashed blue. Her eyes went blurry as she saw the now glowing hot beam was now attached to the pillar.

The last thing she heard after channeling the lightning bolt at the bridge was, "KEI-"

---------------------

"I'm not leaving her," Inari growled.

"I'm not going to ask you to do that," Tsunami replied softly.

"Then why are you here?" Inari hissed.

Keiko opened her heavy eyelids and saw the mother and son at the door of her room.

"Inari... I'm sorry..." Tsunami shook her head. "I... I really should be saying that to her."

Inari blinked in surprise. "Mom?"

"Your Grandfather and Suzamiya were right. I was not upset at her, but what she represents." Tsunami placed her hands on his shoulders. "I shouldn't have to say good-bye to you. I don't want to. Yet, you've grown into a man before I knew it. I love you, and I never want to lose you."

"Mom... I, ah... well, me, too... I just...." Inari trailed off.

"You want to be a ninja, and that means going to Konoha." Tsunami sighed.

"More than that, I want to be with Keiko. If she wanted to stay here, I would have." Inari looked out the window. "She made me choose. I want to be more than I am. To be able to help people who really need it."

Tsunami pulled him into a hug. "I know, dear. Even though I don't want you to go, I'm proud of you."

"I'll come back," Inari pledged. "I'll make a hidden village here to train others and protect the Land of Waves."

Tsunami smiled. "You do that."

"You're forgiven," Keiko croaked out.

Inari immediately jumped to her side. "Are you okay?!"

"What happened?" Keiko asked.

"You shot a lightning bolt at the support beam! What were you thinking? You almost died!" Inari shouted at her.

"I didn't want you to risk your life securing that beam," Keiko retorted weakly.

Inari hugged her. "Don't ever do something so stupid again."

"Only if you promise not to do stupid stuff either," Keiko returned.

"Keiko..." Inari hissed.

"Tired..." Keiko whispered, her eyes growing heavy. She felt Inari lying down next to her as she drifted off to sleep, content in knowing that soon she would be spending her nights with him in Konoha.

---------------------

"Inari's mother may have forgiven me, but she still didn't like the situation. She only accepted that she couldn't change it," Keiko sighed. "She certainly made sure I was on hand for when Ai gave birth and strongly suggested I helped care for Shinobu while Ai recovered." The girl smirked. "It backfired. I want to be a mother now. Especially as Suzamiya-Okasan promised she would happily raise my children. She even moved with us and is petitioning for a place for us to live."

Shizune shook her head. "Should I have a wedding license ready for you?"

Keiko blinked. "We can get married?"

"Genin are legally adults in Konoha, with all the rights," Shizune pointed out.

Keiko nodded. "Please do... And please drop Inari the hint to ask."

"I'll try." Shizune laughed. "You can send him in."

Keiko pouted. "Please don't use that jutsu on him."

"We'll see," Shizune failed to promise.

---------------------

Author's Notes:

Between Deception and Truth 13 - Shinobu
No one ever said childbirth was easy. Some even call it a battle. For Ai and Jiro, it literally becomes the fight of their lives.