!!! Hugs!!!

"That sounds great! Oh, I'm Naruto!"

"I'm Inuzuka Raizume. Thank you for playing with me, Naruto."

"Heh. It's cool."

"I'll see you later, Raizume!"

She waves, picks up her ball and runs back to her mom.

Her mom scoops her and takes her home.

On the way, "You made a new friend today, huh?"

She quits growling at a random pedestrian and looks up at her mom.

"He looked lonely."

"He did. A lot of people have trouble being his friend, I think."

"Don't care what other people think. I gotta teach him how to play catch better."

"You're a great teacher! He's lucky to have you." (Rai certainly has plenty of experience, from 'supervising' her mom teaching genin.)

"If someone's mean to you because you're nice to him, and they're bigger than you and the other pups together, you let me know, alright? I'll set them straight."

"I'll try really hard to do it myself first. I'm scary!"

"The scariest!"

To prove this even more she will grrr and start nomming on her mom's shoulder.

Overdramatic fake flailing! "Ah, I am defeated by the mighty lightning!"

She makes thunder noises and starts giggling. Her mom is so good.

Her mom would say she has the best kids!

Naruto has a freak out when Raizume doesn't show up the next day, or the next, and gets spinning in his head until she shows up the week after, and then he feels stupid because duh, a lot of kids only come to the park sometimes.

She runs up to him, pulling Kiba by his hand behind her.

"Hi!!! I missed you!"

"I miss you too!"

Fort? (Naruto has had a whole week to think up Secret Fort ideas, including sneaking into the tiny orphanage library and then the bigger public library to look at building pictures. Many of them are a bit too ambitious. All of them are enthusiastic. Most include a drawbridge, which he practiced making out of sticks and strings at the orphanage. Drawbridges are cool.)

Raizume is so pleased and has a lot of her own ideas. She took a few college architecture classes and design is one of her passions. She makes sure to pack a lot of paint, because they can't have a fort without it being pretty and she likes any excuse to do art things.

She also makes sure to bring a full packed lunch for Naruto and also face paint because they have to eat some time and building things is hard work and also any excuse to paint someones face is also a thing she abuses.

She may have gone a bit overboard.

No such thing!

(Naruto is overjoyed at the paint. This is going to be the most colorful secret fort ever.)

While Rai's off making friends, Tsume faces an increasing number of worries - all in the meetings her children aren't allowed into.

The Uchiha are getting restless (with decent reason, she thinks, though of course they're expressing everything as dickishly as possible), the village is getting angry - at the Uchiha, at the Nine Tails' host, at the concessions to Kumo, at the entire world, bitter and seething and ready.

It fades back, sometimes, the deep hatred beneath the surface turning into a tight tension among the adults. It spills over to their kids - most still don't like Naruto, even with him being taught the Inuzuka version of manners. Most Uchiha kids play on their own, not really interacting with other clans. 

She scowls when she hears a rumor about Itachi being accepted into the ANBU Black Ops at such a young age - the fuck Sarutobi, she's read the founding charter of Konoha and banning that sort of shit was why her clan signed up, but no one remembers, no one sees a damn problem with throwing their children into the meat grinder - 

It's not all stress. Her clan's thriving. Her kids are great. Kiba starts the Academy, and apparently is competing for last place with Naruto. (She doesn't have time, not anymore, so she arranges for a cousin to sit with him and go over everything as many times as needed). 

Then, a few weeks into the Academy's second quarter, she's woken by a deep sense of wrong and an ANBU at her window.

She doesn't come home for a week.

When she does, she pulls her children close - Hana, who's Itachi's age, Kiba who's Sasuke's classmate, Raizume who's brave and clever and practically a guaranteed candidate for early graduation and so so small.

(There's a gaping wound, where a founding clan used to be.)

(Sasuke won't wake up for another three weeks.)

Of course she hadn't forgotten about the Uchiha. She hasn't forgotten anything -- the perks of her great and also magically enhanced memory -- but she couldn't do anything about it. Th massacre is such a huge event in her memories, preventing it,or doing anything to put it off course was... she has so many regrets.

So many people dead. Sasuke will never be the same. She hasn't even met him, but she knows him. She related to him so much back when he was just fiction, he was her favourite character. But, still --

She clings to her mama and cries and cries and cries.

"I'm sorry."

Tsume's crying too, and Hana, and Kiba.

It's a crying sort of situation.

"I'll do better. I promise."

She will. She has to.

"Oh, honey, oh, it's not your fault we broke the world, I'm so sorry..."