| 保護 Protection |

Chapter Seven [EDITED]

  考試 Koushi  

          But, soon those thoughts of embarrassment drifted away as she fell asleep on the couch, and she was wishing Kakashi was here next to her once more.

Training that morning went a little differently than usual. Yoru was still teaching Sakura, Kakashi was still teaching Sasuke, but Daichi was instructing Naruto in his clan's seals. He told Naruto of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, which is the seal placed on him to keep his tailed beast in check. Then, he gave a basic history lesson about the Uzumaki clan and Uzushiogakure.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was teaching Sasuke lightning-style and fire-style abilities. On the other side of the training grounds, Yoru was training Sakura in the healing arts once more. She was told to coat her fist in chakra and think about the wounds closing up. Slowly, her fist would be coated in green chakra, now she had to practice. First, they started with small creatures, like fish or birds. Once those were mastered, rabbits and moles.

Sadly, that was all they could get into today, along with Naruto's better use of shadow clones and Sasuke's newly learned jutsu. After they wrapped up, Naruto dragged them all to Ichiraku for ramen, while Daichi laughed about how he sounded exactly like Yoru when she was his age. They all ordered ramen while talking with Teuchi, the owner, and Ayame, his daughter. After ramen, they showed Daichi around town, just like they said. Around the end, Daichi asked where the graveyard was so he could pay his respects to Kushina. Yoru asked the kids to go home, while she and Kakashi would show Daichi to the graveyard. They stopped by the Yamanaka Flower Shop to pick flowers for the graves. Kakashi walked over to where he knew his usual arrangement would be located, and Yoru just followed. Her father wandered around the store, looking for flowers that Kushina would have liked and then going to the counter to pay for them. They were bright red, much like the identifying Uzumaki red hair.

The walk to the graveyard was somewhat solemn, even though Daichi would try to lighten the mood. Kakashi lead them to a giant slab of stone, when Yoru started to admire the workmanship put into this single stone. They walked around the other side and Yoru realized why, it was the Killed In Action memorial. She ran her fingers along the many names while her father and Kakashi laid the flowers down at the base. Uzumaki Kushina, her cousin, second host of the Kyuubi. Minato Namikaze, her cousin-in-law, Fourth Hokage. She followed Kakashi's gaze to two more names, Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin, those names sounded familiar, she would have to ask about them sometime.

When the remembrance was completed, Kakashi and Yoru showed Daichi to the more mature part of town, to complete his knowledge of Konoha. They visited a bar before heading home, with Kakashi parting ways, claiming once again that he had dogs to feed. Daichi chuckled at his excuse and made a joke about how he was not going to walk his woman home, which produced a blush and a smack from Yoru. They stopped at the grocery store and Ichiraku to pick up some tomatoes and instant ramen for the boys before heading home.

"So when are you two going to make it official?"

"Father, we've only gone on one date."

He stopped in his tracks, "YOU WENT ON A DATE AND DIDN'T TELL ME?!"

"Yes, I didn't want you to kill him."

"I told you I approved of him," he huffed.

The next week went by pretty quickly, training, lunch, Yoru, Naruto and Daichi getting to know each other and catching up, and then dinner. Daichi told Naruto a little more about the clan every day, even some things that he had never told Yoru (much to her annoyance). Kakashi and Sakura had come over a few times for dinner, and Sasuke had basically moved in. She even went out and bought another dresser and a new bed for him to sleep in. She talked with those two about moving to a bigger house after the chuunin, since Sasuke only ever went home to move things over.