Epilog - Rikako

Six months after her arrival to Konoha, the two of you are sitting the house porch, looking at the garden that the two of you are still working on, Rikako make a remark, "Naruto-sama, thank you for making me your attendant." She then turns to give a dazzling smile towards you, "and thank you for giving me the honor of carrying your child."

Your hand touches the small bump on her stomach. She's in the fourth month of pregnancy and some of the early signs and symptoms of pregnancy have gone away. "No, thank you." you say with a bit of emotion in your voice.

Truth be told, you don't love her, at least as a woman, and Rikako has also indicated that she considers you as her lord, instead of her lover. However, you fully welcome becoming a parent to a child that was born out of your relationship with her, neither regretting what had happened nor caring for the fact that you, the clan head, is siring a love child even before getting married.

Rikako put a hand on your hand. "Still, even until today I still can't believe that we're about to become parents in few months time,"

You swallow your saliva. "Why don't I marry you, so that our child would be legitimized?"

She shakes her head and smiled. "Naruto-sama, we've had this talk before this. You still need to find a proper wife. When I go with you that day, I thought that I was barren. While I'm happy that you've made me pregnant, it is still a fact that I am someone's wife. From what I learned of Konoha, making this child an Uzumaki's heir will make it difficult to resurrect the clan. While the clans are accepting of you siring children out of wedlock, making them heirs can cost you their acceptance and respect."

Despite being a normal villagers less than a year ago, Rikako has fully transitioned into becoming your attendant, learning about the ways of the clans and Konoha's laws. Still, what she said is true. When you took her, you also thought that she's incapable of having a child. Also, when Kouji presented her to you, all party forgot to determine Rikako's status. Therefore, she is still Kouji's wife even though she will be with you forever. Talk about messed up. Then again, even if you get Kouji to divorce her, the status of your unborn child will still remain even if you marry her. While not strictly enforced, the heir being a child born to a lawfully wedded wife is the rule in Konoha; the rule was drafted to greatly reduce succession infighting.

"Wait a minute. Children?"

"Yes. While you have to find a wife, you can take other women as your attendants in order to rebuild the clan. For example, Yuuhi-san."

You recall the former Team Leader of Team 8. Kurenai Yuuhi was involved Asuma before his unfortunate ****. If you're not mistaken, she was pregnant with his child but suffered a miscarriage due to the stress caused by his passing. Wait, you recall that the two wasn't married. "You're telling me to marry her."

"I wouldn't recommend it. She's very much enamored with her lover before he passed away, and thus like me, carries some baggage. While you should make nightly visits to her, hopefully leaving her pregnant with your love child, you have to find someone else. But don't worry, you have ample time to that."

She's right. Even though you're about to be a father, you're still 19 years old whereas the average marriage age is around 25 to 27 years old. That mean you still have at least 6 years to find a wife. But still, 6 years is a lot of time. "While I will fulfill the promise I made to you about that, I'm not going stop sleeping with you."

"It will be an honor to share the bed with you whenever you want."

By the time you finally get married 5 years later, Rikako has just delivered her third bastard child fathered by you few days before the ceremony so she couldn't attend. However, Kurenai is there. Despite paying attention to the priest performing the ritual, you steal a glance at the woman, focusing on her swollen belly. Kurenai realize what you did, but she remains impassive.

The end.