DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own.

Thinking

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

Emphasis

"What do you mean: 'she has a hermit license?!'' Kakashi asked as he grilled his ANBU Commander, Dragon.

Dragon pulled his facemask up, twirling the senbon in his fingers a bit before putting it straight back in his mouth. "It's just like I said, Kakashi: girl's got a hermit license. She's had it since she was running around with Jiraiya-sama all those years ago. How the hell did you think the two of them never had to check in with the guards and such - anywhere?"

"God damn it, she has lied to me about so much! And how the hell did I not know Naruto was ANBU?" The Hokage asked, completely frustrated.

"Naruto's nearly incapable of lying, captain: you should know that better than most. And anyway, uhhh… Her file's stuck in with her father's: the ANBU file, that is. There's an encrypted attachment mentioning it in her shinobi record."

"For fuck's sake," Kakashi responded despondently, watching as Genma walked over to his back wall and went through the Hokage's private files.

"Bet ya never looked through Minato-sama's file, huh? It's a hell of a read."

"You know why I haven't - or why I didn't… Then, I," Kakashi groaned and sank down in his big new chair. It wasn't nearly as comfortable as the old one Tsunade broke. "Hell, I didn't think about it. I wasn't exactly put in this position with a lot of explanations or training. You know I didn't want this."

"Hai, hai. But you were a Hokage candidate even back in your twenties, asshole; you can't feign ignorance too much: I won't fall for that shit."

"You're a dick, Genma," Kakashi said with no heat.

"Hai, hai," Genma replied easily, flipping through Minato's service record before pulling out a third of it. "Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, Shinobi Registration Number 012607: Jonin. ANBU Toad." Genma let out a whistle, it had been a while since he looked through Naruto's record. "Princess of Konoha and Uzushio. Sandaime Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, Kurama. Jinchuuriki of forms of Shukaku, - dude, I've never even understood just what that 'forms' shit means - Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Chomei, and Gyuki. Maa, she had us update that so that 'their names rather than their titles' were on the forms. You know how Naru-chan is, right?"

Kakashi did not like the way he referred to her so familiarly. Genma ignored his discomfort and plowed on after putting the file down with a thud on the Hokage's desk. "Ahh, let's see, Sage of Mount Myōboku. Fuuinjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu specialist and Sensor. Holy shit, right? I mean, she gained those titles over the years and all, oh" Genma pointed out another thing that made Kakashi's head reel. "Ambassador to Wave and Snow. Ambassador to and Founder of the Tailed Beast Alliance. And what's this shit about the final reincarnation of Asura? Tsunade-sama musta put that in there since the last time I looked at this. Date of birth…" He continued listing off Naruto's stats as if they were important right now. Kakashi sighed and flipped open the second set of pages.

Her real birth certificate, Kakashi realized - and there it was, as clear as day: Female born alive to Father: Minato Namikaze, Mother: Kushina Uzumaki-Namikaze. Fuck me. Across from the birth certificate was the beginning of several pages of seals. The first one he knew all too well: the Eight Trigrams - the seal now open but still housing the fox and apparently his buddies, too. The second one was lined in white and had a "SS" seal slapped over the top of it.

"THAT'S the gender seal right there - well, the one Minato-sama put on her BEFORE - can you believe this?! ...BEFORE all that shit went down in the cave, from what Jiraiya-sama said. It's brilliant, but it's hella fucked up. I mean, I woulda understood that Minato-sama would hide her gender as a jinchuuriki that he was leaving behind, but Jiraiya-sama seemed to believe that Minato-sama placed the seal on her - at least the drawing of it - right after she was born, before anything else happened. We don't know if that's the case or not, but damn! Is that overprotective or what?!"

"How do you know all this?" Kakashi asked as he looked over two other seals that were similarly stamped, but different, from the original gender-concealing or altering seal. Honestly, he couldn't make heads or tails of some of the intricacies of any of the three of them. He turned the final seal over and paled a bit as he looked upon a picture of his beloved - very obviously she was just a teenage girl with shaggy bright blonde hair down just past the tips of her shoulders in it - smiling beautifully for her ANBU photo. Large hands were gripping her shoulders, and he would remember Jiraiya-sama's armor and red haori anywhere. He was apparently holding on to her. Oddly enough, written on the page opposite in Tsunade's messy - and obviously her at least tipsy - handwriting were the words, "LOOK WHAT I FOUND PERVERT! I WILL DESTROY YOU WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT!" Kakashi shivered, wondering why Tsunade was after him at that point.

Genma gazed down upon Tsunade's writing as he sat on the Hokage's desk. "Yeah, Godaime-sama wasn't exactly pleased when she found out Naru-chan was enlisted in ANBU under the Toad Sage." He laughed out loud, remembering Tsunade chasing Jiraiya around Training Field 104 when the traveling duo came back for one of their briefings. She only grazed him with her punch before the white-haired man reverse-summoned himself away, soon followed by the man's apprentice, disappearing just in time to avoid an increasingly harsh lecture from the Godaime or worse.

"Still, how… And why was she pissed at me that time?" Kakashi asked, unable to sate his curiosity for the moment, even if the most important thing was to get Naruto back to his side ASAP.

"What?" Genma asked before answering his earlier question. "The brat lived with me for the first year of her life, man. I was the one who found the additional seal cuz I had to repeatedly check it - fucking Civilian Council. And like, what the hell did I know about sealing, aside from transporting people or blowing shit up?! But SOMEONE was out being a suicidal idiot, and the actual sealing expert was out drinking his heart out - something we all wanted to do." The mood turned somber. Kakashi began to apologize, but Genma stopped him. "Don't. You were the youngest of all of us that were close to them - and probably the closest to being his son." The two men sat and stared at a young Naru's photograph for a few painful minutes before he continued. "Still, I should totally pop you for hiding Naru-chan being alive. And I swear if you did something to her…"

"Kami, Genma: I fucked up. We gotta find her," Kakashi said, dragging his hand through his thick hair as he sighed in utter frustration.

"I mean, she's around somewhere, man. Unlike Jiraiya-sama, she always comes back pretty fast. And you said her memory had mostly come back, right? The girl can take care of herself no matter what she looks like," Genma said decisively.

"She's pregnant, Gen," Kakashi finally admitted.

"WHAT?!"

"How far along are you, Naru-chan?" Tsunami asked caringly as she held Naruto's long hair up.

The blonde wished she wasn't so reverently worshipping the Great and Mighty Flushing God of Porcelain, but freaked out at the question. "WHAT?! Whaddya mean, Tsunami-nee?" Naruto was a horrible liar.

"Naruto… I'm a mother myself, and I've helped many women in the village along in their pregnancies, and even brought a lot of our little ones into this world! I know the signs well: you can't fool me. Now come on; up with you.

Tsunami really did get it, Naruto realized as she made her way to the main living area. Already sitting on the end table were crackers and what looked like water but distinctively smelled like ginger. She bit into a cracker reluctantly, then melted back against the couch. Tsunami encouraged her to drink the beverage, then left the room and came back with a tight woven wristband. She immediately felt a bit better; apparently, the wristband provided acupressure and had supposedly been around for centuries in one form or another to help aid those suffering from nausea. Unfortunately, Naruto sniffed some kind of aromatherapy thing Tsunami offered her and barely made it to the bathroom to begin hurling again.

"Well, we're all different. Surely there's a smell that will help! Don't worry, Naru-chan: we'll find it."

Naruto leaned back against the cool tiled wall of the bathroom and felt the tears coming. Damn hormones! Stupid old man! She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a dark blue material. Reluctantly bringing it to her face, she inhaled the scent deeply before beginning to wail. Why did that man's stupid smell have to make her feel better but so much worse at the same time?

Back in the living room, Tsunami asked the question she really hoped that she was wrong about. "Is that a… mask?" When Naruto sadly nodded her head, Tsunami felt her blood pressure begin to rise.

Kakashi-sensei, she remembered oh-so-NOT-fondly. The man was a flagrant pervert, constantly reading one of those awful books she hadn't even known about back then! Oh, if I'd known, I would've tossed his rear right out and away from the children, making him sleep outside! Or never let him in, in the first place! Gods what a near-month that had been! Not only had she been worried sick for her father and the country as a whole, but Inari-kun was being so rude to their guests and having nightly meltdowns - and then there was the pervert on top of it all. Sure, she'd heard that the sensei had become the Hokage, but she just couldn't wrap her mind around it!

She appreciated that he finally stopped his incredibly forward or awkward advances after that final battle, but he should have done so before that! How many times had she said she wasn't interested, only for his continued weirdness that made her so uncomfortable? She'd thought she stabbed him with a kitchen knife once, for goodness sake, only to find that he "popped" in mid-air, scaring her to death before infuriating her as she heard his weird little giggles from the bedroom… Oh gods: it was the spare bedroom he shared with what she thought were the two boys, Naruto-chan being one of them!

"Naruto. Is Kakashi-sensei...?" The blonde was already nodding her head sadly, the tears coming back full-force. Tsunami tried to keep her voice kind and steady. "Has this been going on since you were first here?"

"NO! Hell, I didn't even know I was actually a girl then! Although, I kinda lost myself when I was in that ice dome, and… I felt I don't know? All wrong I guess? It was the fox, but later I realized it was more, too. My master - you remember Ero - er, Jiraiya, right - from when we visited?"

Tsunami nodded her head slowly, remembering another pervert that had stayed at her house, again vowing never to allow such a thing again.

"Oh, if I was only a LITTLE younger, Tsunami-chan!" Jiraiya said while making sure to leer at her quite obviously before sipping more tea.

"Knock it off, Ero-Sennin! Gods, you're so embarrassing," Naruto lamented. "No worries, Tsunami-chan: he actually only really goes for old blondes with big boobs." Ignoring the old man's outraged sputtering, Naruto realized that Tsunami's cheeks were reddening as Tazuna brought out a hammer from under his chair. "Gomen, gomen!"

No wonder "Kakashi-sensei" had worked his one-eyed lack of charms on her sweet innocent little sister! The poor girl had been practically conditioned to respond to old perverts. Oh, she was getting the ladies' council together for this! "Naru-chan, I just realized! I'm so sorry! You were back in your... What shall I call it? Your "natural form" when you visited us that summer!"

"Oh… uh, yeah! Well, that was only shortly after Ero-Sennin and I had just left the Leaf when the seal broke." Naruto scratched the back of her head in embarrassment at her sudden recall of these memories. "I mean, I was kinda a late bloomer, I guess - stupid seal, well maybe that's what it was - so there was no reason that you'd have really known, Tsunami-nee."

"You could've told me!"

"It was really embarrassing, ya know?! It still is, actually. Of course - hehe - so is not using protection or even thinking about it. Especially when the man I love hates me now!" (Sobbing effectively cued.)

After she calmed down again, Naruto realized that she was really burdening Tsunami. The woman looked tired and maybe even angry - something she knew that she hadn't been before she arrived. After having a wonderful dinner that she managed to keep down, Naruto left in the middle of the night, leaving a note to say how sorry she was for having caused any trouble, and that she'd make sure to visit soon.

Kakashi had his pack out hunting down Naruto, but they were days behind and it had rained twice. He would've gone himself, but the Kazekage was coming in two days - and wasn't THAT something to look forward to? Shit: I'll probably end up with a sand and glass enema at best, and war at worst. Maybe he should just leave to look for Naru right now. Stupid fucking job! And Tsunade was being no help, whatsoever.

Actually, maybe that's where she's at… maybe she's gone to search for Naruto, too.

"Hokage-sama!" Lion entered the office excitedly, "Bandits from the Southeast Border!" Seeing his Hokage's bored face, he continued. "Dragon stated that you'd be particularly interested in these men, sir. They were delivered by toads." Kakashi sunshinned to T&I, barging through the doors and hardly giving Anko - who was cursing him to hell and back for ignoring protocol and simply being an ungrateful bastard - a moment to respond to him or get out of his way. Finally seeing that he seemed to want to do real harm, she told her superior just where the latest criminals were now.

"...said the Flying Fox was dead! How the hell were we…" the bandit was cut off by a vicious punch to the jaw.

"Tell me everything. Now," the Hokage ordered. He ignored the smell of urine and feces as the man shat himself upon looking into the swirling red and coal eye of the freaking Copy Ninja.

"It happened so fast! I was just talkin' to a little lady, ya see…"

"She was little more than a child and you were trying to feel her up," his second-in-command said, having really had enough of his boss' bullshit. If the older man hadn't been acting like a damn pedophile, they would have accomplished their mission and got paid big time!

"Nuh-uh. She was totally legal: I'm sure of it! And then that damn yellow-haired woman came down on me like a freaking beast!" He was hit again.

The third bandit spoke up. "Scary she was. That's when I wet myself: sorry." The man tried to scratch himself but was in restraints. "You're lucky she didn't fry your balls, Ani. You know she looks like that guy that can do it."

"Indeed she can," Kakashi said, sitting back in a folding chair across from the huddled men next to Anko. For now, he'd let her do the work she does so well, and he'd just offer punches when any of this scum insulted his fiance… whom he needed to get back. "Where were you when she confronted you?"

"Just north of Fish Island."

Aa, that's Uzushio! Now Kakashi had a lead - or so he thought.

It wasn't until he was meeting with an aggressive Kazekage two days later that he was directed to the television, where his lovely fiance was being interviewed alongside Tsunade and Killer B.