Partially dedicated to Nozomi-sama. Why partially? Because this isn't exactly what she's hoping from me. Why dedicate it to her? Because it was her birthday, uh, two - three weeks ago.

Also dedicated, somewhat, and a bunch of thanks to Kaikouken and Lisea18 for helping me out.

Chapter 1 – That Odd Boy

"So then, you mean to say that we have to get this person," Naruto repeatedly jabbed a picture with his index finger as he spoke, "in order to be able to decipher what your tablet means?"

"Yes," Kakashi nodded. "There are also many other things that Namikaze Shikibu would be able to help us with. She would–"

"So why don't you go and get that Nami-person then?!"

Sakura sighed.

"You haven't even done anything to help us at all, Naruto, and yet you're complaining at this chance?" she asked.

Naruto gasped.

"You're so cruel, Sakura-chan!" he said.

He received a punch to the head soon afterwards.

"Okay, okay! I get the idea," he said, sounding very much forced at that. "I'll go and get your translator."

"You are aware, Naruto, that that person... is your ancestor," Kakashi said, "and that there was already ramen during then."

"Yeah, yeah, I've been told."

He briskly walked away, probably on the way to the travel office in order to get a time portal permit.

Sakura bit her lip.

"Was it really alright to have said that, Kakashi-sensei?" she asked.

Kakashi shrugged after a few minutes.

Muffled sobs could be heard behind a door. Sasuke put his hand on the groove of the door that played as the handle, ready to push it, only to be stopped by Itachi.

"Mother is foolish, little brother," Itachi said with those ever-so-blank eyes of his. "Do not grow up like her. She has become far too enraptured with our father."

Sasuke's face contorted into one that suggested confusion. Itachi merely walked away.

Her skin had a bluish tint to it when he saw her.

A rope tied to a tree was around her neck. Her feet were dangling. Her mouth was open and blood was slowly trickling out of it. Her eyes were so impossibly wide.

Sasuke just looked at his mother. A few minutes later, his brother was standing beside him. A second after that, his brother was on the tree and cutting the rope as if it was an everyday thing.

Then again, the bloodstains in one of their gardens still hadn't been cleaned. Most of it still seemed fresh albeit the others had dried up a bit, coating the plants rather nicely.

The smell of a rotting corpse would instantly invade his nose whenever he went there, so Sasuke preferred not to go to that place.

There was a loud thud when their mother fell to the floor. Sasuke's ears twitched as he heard what seemed to be bones cracking.

"You're going to have to be like mother, Sasuke," Itachi said. "The clan orders you to."

Seven years later and the Lady of the House of Uchiha was more than coveted in their lands. And today, men would have to forget about her beauty as she was to be married to the heir of the House of Namikaze, a boy named Naruto.

Men had died in the process of winning her hand in marriage. Some lost their lives while doing the duties her clan had told to do in order to marry her, while others had simply killed themselves, not being able to handle the shame of it all. Her clan had been particularly strict as to who would be able to get the sister of their heir. They didn't mind that many people died.

It had been such a surprise to many that Lord Minato's son had suddenly gone off to try and get Lady Uchiha to be his wife. As far as everyone knew, the boy had been interested in marrying the daughter of Lord Haruno.

Everyone was even more surprised when he'd managed to finish all of the tasks that the Uchiha laid out for him.

When asked why he wanted to marry the Uchiha heiress – in a way, she was the heiress – Naruto had merely grinned and said, "I felt as if I needed to do some good in the world."

That had been one of the most perplexing things he had ever said in his whole life. And he had been quite the simple person to start with.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke," Itachi said to his brother before he went out of the room.

Sasuke didn't pay heed to his brother's words. He simply looked at the mirror, scrutinizing his reflection.

His lips were red and his face was as white as the robes he was wearing. His dark lashes were long. His dark-colored hair was in a complicated bun that was adorned by a pretty and expensive-looking hair ornament. All in all, he looked very pretty. Much like a woman.

Much like his mother had been.

He was going to get married and his... soon-to-be-husband didn't even know that he was a man.

He stood up and made his way to the door where he was met by several ladies-in-waiting.

His husband was so odd. That was what Sasuke thought after his first week of living with Namikaze Naruto.

Naruto was currently sitting on the small, wooden pier that led to the lake right outside the Namikaze Compound with his pants all rolled up until his knees. He wore no jacket – Sasuke supposed that the man would get a cold tomorrow. His hands, which he was using for support, were on his sides and a little behind him. His legs were swaying and his feet were submerged in the water, making quite the commotion on the quiet lake. He was looking at the moon with a wistful look on his face.

Sasuke, wearing his elegant kimono and a somewhat heavy jacket, approached Naruto.

"I am worried, Namikaze-sama," he said, "that you might get a cold. Please come inside."

Naruto looked at Sasuke with that grin that was always on his stupid – or so it seemed to Sasuke – face.

"It's alright!" he said. "Hey, why don't you sit beside me? You're wearing a jacket so you won't get cold."

Sasuke had his doubts, but soon swallowed them. A wife was supposed to be obedient to her husband. He could not shame his family's name.

He had to keep up with this charade.

He sat beside Naruto in the traditional style, seiza.

"You're so uptight, you know?" Naruto said after a bit of silence.

Sasuke blinked and then looked at him.

"I wouldn't want," he continued and looked at Sasuke once again, "my wife to be like that."

"What kind of wife, then, would Namikaze-sama want me to be?" Sasuke asked.

"Call me Naruto! And cook me this delicacy that came from China! Yes, that one. I think they called it shina soba or something."

"Lamian?... Or perhaps was it lamien?"

Naruto vigorously nodded.

"Well, whatever they call it, I like it a lot!" he exclaimed. "I'd like my wife to know how to cook those."

By this time, he was making a lot of hand gestures.

"Shina soba is not something that they taught us to cook," Sasuke said. "Rather, they said that it was... a disgraceful food. Food fit only for the Chinese renegades and the Japanese who live in the poor, the slum areas."

"You Uchiha are too... judgmental and stuff," Naruto said.

Sasuke raised his head a bit more, obviously feeling rather offended.

"I'm sorry," Naruto quickly said, all the while rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I really didn't mean it that way."

"What other way, then, did Namikaze-sama mean it?" Sasuke asked, still not feeling particularly forgiving.

"I thought I told you to call me Naruto? And I don't know. I guess it just came out, you know?"

This man, his husband, really was a rather impulsive character. Sasuke didn't know how things would fare from then on.

"Namikaze-sama should watch out his words. They could be used against him," Sasuke said.

"Shikibu... you worry too much," Naruto said. "Take it easy, why won't you?" He then grinned at his bride.

Sasuke looked at the sky.

He couldn't find it in him to meet those astoundingly blue eyes.

"What then, will Namikaze-sama do?" Sasuke asked.

His back was facing Naruto. He was sitting on his bed – a contraption that had been shown to them by the Chinese – and his back was bare.

His secret had been revealed.

Silence reigned in the bedroom.

"Regardless... regardless of gender, you're still the Shikibu that I married and that I did all those things for," Naruto said softly. "So nothing's changed. Nothing at all."

Sasuke clutched the folds of his kimono. His hands were shaking. That man...

"Namikaze-sama is an idiot," he said, his voice having a slight tremor to it.

He felt relieved. Very relieved that his clan wouldn't be shamed by his foolish actions, by his slacking wariness to his surroundings.

"And didn't I tell you to call me Naruto?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke took a deep breath that made him shudder.

"If... if you're a-a-a man," Naruto started a few minutes later, "then Shikibu isn't your name, isn't it? What is it?"

"It's Sasuke," Sasuke said, "my name is Sasuke."

"Sasuke," Naruto tested. Then he brightly grinned – Sasuke didn't need to turn around to know that that was what the man was doing – and said, "I like it. And I want to be the only one who'll call you with it."

It was autumn that day that Naruto made a rip in his coat. He was sitting on the floor and leaning on a sturdy-looking shoji door. His legs occupied the length of the hallway. He could feel the wind caressing his feet. He could see the vastness of his family's garden. It was really peaceful.

Secretly, Naruto didn't like that kind of peace. It was so deafening.

He soon heard soft footsteps.

Sasuke sat down, traditional and formal as ever, and placed the tea tray beside him. He poured himself and Naruto some tea.

"What is... that?" Sasuke asked, holding his cup firmly in his left hand with right hand lightly touching the base of the cup.

He had been taught how to stand high tea temperatures at a young age. Naruto, when he had first seen Sasuke handle such things without looking uncomfortable, had been immensely surprised and somewhat entertained.

"My coat," Naruto said, stopping his ministrations on the coat to look at his wife. "It ripped and now I'm fixing it."

"How... how does Namikaze-sama do it?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto blinked. Sasuke blinked, too. A moment of silence stretched through their surroundings yet again.

"I wonder what kind of man would've taken a wife that didn't know how to sew," Naruto pondered as he stitched up the little rip in his coat.

"Anyone would take a female that has a large dowry," Sasuke replied, feeling a bit ticked off that he couldn't sew while Naruto could.

"Our family never needed your dowry."

"Why, then, did you not examine or assess my household skills before you took me?"

Naruto grinned at that. He could never make Sasukes say, "Naruto", so a "you" would be sufficient... for now.

"I wouldn't have minded if my own wife didn't know how to do household stuff," Naruto said, "because I already know how to do them myself."

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Why did you marry me in the first place, Namikaze-sama?" he asked. "I've heard that you've been running after Lady Haruno."

Naruto tugged the thread with his mouth, biting it along the way, until it snapped. He then placed his coat and those other things that he used to fix his coat away. He looked at Sasuke.

"I won't chase after Sakura-chan anymore," he said, "because she loves someone else."

"I presume that you and Lady Haruno are close," Sasuke said.

"We're childhood friends."

"Who is this person that Lady Haruno would choose over you? I am not... quite that sure that there is any better clan than that of the Namikaze to marry into."

"It's not all about status, Sasuke. Not at all."

"If it wasn't for status, why did you marry me? You hold none of these feelings for me and you have never seen what I looked like before."

Naruto grinned.

"Are you jealous that I love someone else?" he asked in a teasing manner.

Sasuke chose not to give a response and merely took a sip of his tea, its scalding warmth making him forget about the idiot that was his husband.

"Well, don't be," Naruto continued. "I don't love Sakura-chan anymore. I shouldn't love her. And I have to love you right now."

"You make it sound like a task," Sasuke said.

"It's my duty."

Sasuke took a sip of his tea yet again.

"And I find it insanely easy to love you," Naruto said, "that it's almost become a habit."

Sasuke sipped his tea again. This time, his lips were pressing on the rim of the porcelain cup. He didn't at all mind that the tea was making his lips red and bruised.

"You know... you're going to choke if you keep on drinking that way."

"Namikaze-sama should stop sprouting nonsense," Sasuke said, putting his teacup back on the tea tray and looking at Naruto with a serious look on his face.

"Doesn't it really hurt?" Naruto asked as he inched closer to Sasuke, seemingly not hearing the earlier response.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

Naruto placed his hand on the spot on the floor close to Sasuke's left leg, being extra careful to avoid the tea tray nearby. His right hand was placed under Sasuke's right ear in the way that he seemed to be lightly cupping the area. He softly touched and rubbed red lips.

"That?" he breathed.

"No, it doesn't," Sasuke said.

Naruto really knew how to change the mood, didn't he?

Naruto's hand dropped from its place on Sasuke's face.

"Nothing excites you," Naruto said.

Sasuke's heart hammered in his chest. And after that day, he had never asked why Naruto married him.

"I was already going to call you... call you Naruto," Sasuke whispered, his voice sounding very much hoarse.

He wasn't crying. He wasn't crying at all.

"Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto," he said over and over again.

An innocent piece of paper lay crumpled on the floor.

"You really are an idiot, Naruto," he said. "You said that you'd come back and that you never broke promises."

The somewhat shrill yet low scream of Sasuke's was carried throughout the manor.

Lord Minato looked out of the window. He couldn't bear to listen to all of it.

The next thing Naruto knew was that he was falling. And then he heard a splash. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe. He choked on water. He thrashed a bit before he got his bearings and was able to rise from the water and get some air.

That time portal really could be some fucked-up piece of shit.

Or maybe the portal folks just didn't like him.

Naruto looked at his surroundings – he was at a bathroom, it seemed – and his eyes met dark-colored ones that were owned by a long-haired boy that wore a white nagajuban.

"Na... mi... kaze-... sama..." Sasuke whispered as he looked at the blond boy.

That was the same face, the same hair as Namikaze Naruto. Those were the same warm and mischievous blue eyes that his and only his Naruto had.

"Eh?" the boy asked. "Namikaze? No."

The boy even had the same voice as his supposedly late husband. That boy just had to be Naruto.

"But I am looking for Namikaze Shikibu," the boy said.

"Don't joke with me!" Sasuke exclaimed. "You know well that I'm Shikibu. I'm... I'm your wife."

"You're a guy!"

"That's not funny, Namikaze-sama."

"Why do you keep calling me Namikaze-sama?!"

"Because that's who you are so just stop acting as if you aren't."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Don't lie like that. It's not... It's not funny at all! I... I really did think that you'd died. I was so sad. Everyone was so sad. It hurt so much. I can't explain it at all."

Sasuke dropped to his knees and then plopped on the ground. He really couldn't believe it. Right in front of him... was Naruto. His Naruto. And Naruto was even joking with him – albeit it really wasn't funny and that Sasuke was just about ready to punch the living daylights out of him.

"Look, you, I'm not Namikaze-sama or whoever he is. I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I come from the future and I'm looking for Namikaze Shikibu who's a woman. Not some boy," Naruto said.

"Do you take me for a fool, Namikaze-sama?" Sasuke asked, obviously getting angrier by the second.

"I keep telling you that I'm not this Namikaze-sama! I might be this person if my father's parents weren't so fucked-up in the head, but I'm not! I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Uzumaki!"

Naruto started to breathe deeply and heavily after his outburst. Sasuke merely stared at him, most likely assessing him, trying to see if he was saying the truth.

And how much did Sasuke want it to not be the truth.

"There is no such surname. The one that you present me with," Sasuke said.

Naruto snorted and said, "That's because I come from the future."

"The... future? What is that?"

"Well, it's– Oh, shit."

He clamped his mouth shut and viciously shook his head from side to side. He had been a big idiot. He wasn't allowed to go around saying that he was from the future. At least not to people that he was supposed to associate with or bring back to the future with him.

"What is this future that you speak of... Uzumaki-san?" Sasuke asked when the so-called intruder failed to answer for a few more minutes.

"Just show me where Namikaze Shikibu is, okay? I'm really not up to all of this right now," Naruto said.

Oh how he hoped that no one from the watch tower was looking over the monitors. He could get in some real trouble if they found out that he'd been blabbering about the future to someone from the past.

"Have I not just told you that I am Namikaze Shikibu?" Sasuke asked, feeling mildly irritated.

"WHEN WILL YOU STOP WITH THAT?!" Naruto exclaimed, his voice reverberating.

He fished the picture of Shikibu that he had and threw it to Sasuke who deftly caught it.

"Namikaze Shikibu is a woman. A woman. W-O-M-A-N," he said.

Sasuke stared at the picture with awe in his eyes. The picture was colored.

"Yes, and this is me," he said after a few more minutes of staring at the wondrous thing that the intruder gave him.

"That's a girl, idiot," Naruto said.

"I look like this person, do I not?"

"She could be a relative of yours. Your twin, even!"

Then they heard two curt knocks. Sasuke went and peered through the second and innermost door of his bathroom.

"What is it?" he asked.

It was always harder to control his voice when he was in the bathroom.

"Is all well, Shikibu-sama?" A woman's voice filtered through their ears.

Needless to say, Naruto was shocked.

"Yes," Sasuke said, "it's alright. You may go now."

They heard the lady walking away from the vicinity.

Sasuke faced Naruto with a somewhat smug look on his face.

"... ly shit," Naruto said. "I didn't know that Japan was fucked-up even before the twentieth century."

After a few more minutes, he had come to the decision that he was here to finish his mission. To bring Namikaze Shikibu back to Hatake Kakashi. And if that boy really was Namikaze Shikibu, then he, the great Uzumaki Naruto, had no other choice than to present that boy to Kakashi.

He rose from the large tub and walked to where Sasuke was.

"Good evening, Namikaze Shikibu," he said in what he thought was a cool voice, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm supposed to bring you back to my superior, Hatake Kakashi."

Sasuke stared at Naruto, most likely bewildered.

Naruto made a wide grin, a mischievous and seemingly carefree grin, that was so reminiscent of his husband that Sasuke stepped closer to him with a wanton look on his face that Naruto didn't see.

"And I'm going to take you there," Naruto started.

In a blink of an eye, Naruto grabbed his arm and was running towards one of the walls.

"NOW!" he continued.

And then they were gone.

Supposedly to be continued...

I just know that someone will go around complaining, "Hey, why's this person writing another story when s/he/it hasn't updated the other ones yet?!" I couldn't help it. Not at all. This idea has been chewing my mind for a very long time.

Please do try and comment on certain aspects of the story. From grammar to, er, plot. Especially on the last part as I've written it while having the most dreadful of headaches. This is the last time I'm carving anything. (I should've remembered that the same thing happened to me while I was working with clay before)

But never fear! Sasuke was meant to be that way... at first. If it's possible, there shall be character development!... And isn't this a great subject change?