As Kakashi ended the chapter, the masked hokage-to-be was about to ask who wanted to read when the space in the middle of the room distorted and a spiraling void formed there...one the two ninja in the reading group were quite familar with.
"Oh! I am SO looking forward to this, ttebane!" A voice cried from the distortion.
Naruto recognized the voice and his eyes went huge as the distortion expelled a man standing behind him, as well as the woman beside him, along with a third individual before it stopped.
"M-M-M-MOM?! D-D-D-DAD?!" the Uzumaki said, eyes huge, "Wha...?! But...?! How're...! You're...?! WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Naruto sputtered at his parents.
The members of the little book club who were from Remnent all gawked, then they started continuously shifting attention between the two redheaded women while Pyrrha merely gaped at Kushina. It was incredible to them how similar they looked with just a few shared physical features.
Long red hair. A body trained for combat. Expressive eyes (even if they were different colors).
It was definitely not something they were expecting to see.
"Told you, she reminded me of my mother." Naruto said.
The two groups from Beacon could only nod dumbly. Truth be told, it was easy to see the resemblence between Naruto and the newcomers.
The man looked scarily identical to Naruto, having the same bright, blue eyes and spiky, blond hair, but his father had jaw-length bangs framing either side of his face. His attire consisted of a blue uniform with two bands on both of his sleeves, a green flak jacket, blue forehead protector, and blue sandals. Over that, he was wearing a short-sleeved long white haori over his normal attire, closed in the front by a thin, orange rope. The haori was decorated by red flame-like motifs on the edges, with the kanji for "Fourth Hokage" written vertically down the back.
As for the woman, she had a slender, but feminine build, fair skin, violet eyes, and red hair. It reached her ankles with shoulder-length strands that framed both sides of her face and a black clip that parted her hair to the left. She wore a high-collared, sleeveless blouse under a long, loose-fitting dress with a wristband on her left wrist and standard shinobi sandals.
The last person wore a high-collared, white-coloured kimono held closed by a black sash. The collar of the kimono was adorned with black magatama designs, and they wore a black full-bodied suit underneath and black gloves covered their hands, along with the usual type of shinobi combat sandals that covered the instep and ankles, yet left their toes and heels exposed, the sandals being black in color.
Covering the person's face was a Hannya mask, similarly used in Noh theater, possessing two sharp bull-like horns, metallic eyes, and a leering mouth. And the mask was framed by the individual's long, straight black hair with bangs hanging on either side of their face to roughly frame their cheeks.
Naruto frowned at that.
While he was no theater expert, he had heard that representation of the Hannya mask was said to be demonic and dangerous but also sorrowful and tormented, displaying the complexity of human emotions. When the actor looked straight ahead, the mask appeared frightening and angry; when tilted slightly down, the face of the demon appeared to be sorrowful, as though crying. The Hannya mask represented the portrayal of the souls of women who have become female demons due to obsession or jealousy. Hannya masks appeared in various color tones, three in particular being significant: a white mask indicated a woman of aristocratic status, a red mask depicted a low-class woman, and the darkest red depicted true demons.
This person's Hannya mask was such a deep shade of red, it was nearly pitch black! Ok...what kind of person saw themselves as THAT demonic?!
"Oh, for the love of...take that off already, ttebane!" Kushina said to the masked person before she twitched. "Dammit! I thought I was over that stupid tic when I talked to you, Naruto!"
The person seemed to flinch as if a whip was used on them before they reached up and removed the Hannya mask to expose the face of a fair-skinned woman. Mangekyō Sharingan in the form of two overlapping trefoils of red on black looked back at Naruto sadly, then quickly looked away without a word.
"Mikoto Uchiha, too...?!" Naruto said, his head spinning. His parents he could understand, hell, it was even welcomed, but why was Sasuke's mom here with them?!
"Oh...come here, you!" Kushina said, wrapping Naruto in a hug. Naruto all but flew into the embrace.
"The one who set this all up thought it'd be a good idea to bring us in...recreated our bodies and everything." Minato said in terms of an explanation.
"What?!" Naruto and Kakashi both cried before Naruto whooped.
The Remnent teens all stared. What the heck?!
"Just say "long story" and just accept that...trust me." Minato said. The Hunters and Huntresses in training nodded. That was a LOT less confusing.
"Oh! Mom, Dad...these are some new friends I've met! That's Ruby Rose," Naruto said, pointing the girl out as he introduced her, "Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao-Long. That's Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren."
"Pretty over-eager there with those intros, eh Naruto?" Kakashi said, snapping out of his shock at last.
"Yeah...reminds me of Dr. Oobleck on a coffiee high and Ruby on a sugar rush all at once." Yang said, smirking.
"Yang!" Ruby whined. She was NOT that bad with sugar rushes! Besides, she didn't want to look bad in front of Naruto's parents! A bad first impression was so embaressing!
"Heheh...uh, sorry...but this is the first time I've gotten to introduce my parents and my friends to one another...I'm...pretty excited about that..." he confessed sheepishly.
Kushina laughed. Oh...she understood perfectly!
Minato shook his head, haplessly amused.
Ruby smiled, delighted for Naruto to find something so simple as making introductions between his friends and family made him so happy.
"So...son, Minato told me all about what happened the last time he saw you, so what's happened since?" Kushina said.
Naruto blushed. Figured his mom would want to know what had gone down in the fourth of the Ninja World Wars and how he'd been.
He shrugged, "Been better, been worse...Kakashi-sensei's gonna be the Sixth Hokage, and hey, least I'm not Madara. Guy must've been pretty embaressed having a genin kick his sorry butt." the whiskered teen told his mom.
Kushina froze. Then, a desturbingly blank face on, the redhead rounded on the masked, former student of her husband. "See Konoha's forgotten what the concept of a field promotion is." Kushina frowned, her arms folded, her brow twitching, and her foot tapping. Clearly a silent demand for explination.
The former Copy Ninja gulped and chuckled nervously, he knew THAT look. And it never ended well being on the receiving end of it. The man remembered that much.
"For the record, Tsunade DID wanna promote him more than once...but Homura Mitokado, Koharu Utatane, and Danzo Shimura...well...you know those three, and the usual song and dance when it comes to wanting to keep people with Naruto's and your old condition close to home, Lady Kushina..." he said, trying to keep from going in his pants from sheer terror.
"Ah." It was funny how one sound could convay such sheer distaste. "Asshole politics and being kept at the bottom of the barrel no matter your accomplishments, all so those same assholes can keep you close to serve as their attack dog... oh, the joys and occupational hazards of the life of a jinchūriki...to think I'd almost forgotten..." Kushina said as her brow knitted and her lips pursed.
Mikoto flinched violently at that.
"...I will be sure to fix it, though...!" The masked man yelped, seeing the Uzumaki woman's hair rise up like nine fox tails. That was ALWAYS the only warning sign when Kushina Uzumaki was utterly pissed about something!
"Well, enough about that, mom! We'er all here together, why waste it getting mad about stuff like that?" Naruto said, his voice cutting through her anger and she quickly agreed as Naruto sat down along with the trio of new arrivals. Mikoto keeping Kakashi between herself and the Uzumaki Family, also being sure she got the end of their couch furthest away from them.
"Well? Who's reading next?!" Naruto asked eagerly. Having his mother and father around had sky-rocketed his mood.
Ren shook his head with a small grin, "Give it here."