Child of the Moon

Dinner

That night, Tsukiko helped Tsunami with some of the food, while Sasuke and Naruto wolfed down their fourth helping of food.

"This is fantastic," Tazuna said cheerfully, Tsukiko setting another bowl of rice down in front of him and grabbing the empty one. "It's been ages since we had so many guests around our table."

"Naruto, Sasuke, slow down before you suffocate," Tsukiko said exasperatedly. "Honestly, you'll puke."

"I WANT SOME MORE!" Naruto and Sasuke yelled together, before glaring at each other.

And then promptly throwing up.

"Don't eat so much if you're going to puke it up!" Sakura snapped. Tsukiko turned around sharply, the boys freezing as they looked up at her expression.

"Didn't I tell you to slow down?" she said, deadly calm.

"Uh..."

"Sorry, sis..."

"Clean it up," she said sharply, returning to the dishes.

When everyone had actually finished eating, and Tsunami shooed Tsukiko from the last of the dishes, Tsukiko sat down between Naruto and Kakashi.

"Excuse me," Sakura said, staring up at a picture on the otherwise bare wall. "This picture is torn, is there a reason for that? Inari, you kept glancing at it all through dinner -"

"It's better than watching these two puke," Tsukiko cut in, sensing the sudden shift in mood.

"I'm curious myself," Kakashi mentally communicated.

"It's none of your business."

"So you know."

"Shut up."

There was a little silence before Tsunami spoke up. "The person torn out... was my husband."

"They used to call him a hero in this land," Tazuna said heavily.

Inari calmly got up and started to leave the table.

"Inari, where are you going?" Tsunami called.

The boy didn't answer and simply closed the door behind him.

"He's hurting bad."

"I assume that means Gato is involved?"

"He killed the man in front of the poor boy, Kakashi. It's going to be a long time before he's okay."

"Father, you can't talk about him like that in front of Inari, you know that!" Tsunami cried over her shoulder as she followed after her son.

They all sat in silence for a while, before Sakura decided to pry.

"Inari is so... I mean, what happened to him?"

"Hmmm, is there a story behind this?"

Tsukiko threw Kakashi a glare before standing up roughly from her seat and leaving, a door slamming shut behind her as she decided to get some fresh air.

She was tired of heroes dying to protect the people they cared about. She understood Inari's pain, but it didn't mean she knew how to make it right.