Fiery, orange spirals formed in the air where Naruto's palm was. Sasuke was rooted to the spot. It whizzed right past him - and instead hit a frozen Madara, who exploded into millions of itty bitty pieces. It was peculiar how Madara had stayed still and completely wordless.

"You tricked me," Sasuke whispered, not breaking eye contact with Naruto in a sudden show of bravery (or stupidity). He just shrugged.

"You were too stupid to see through me," he replied nonchalantly.

"Were you the one planting bombs everywhere?" Sasuke asked, hoping for a genuine answer. Not that the answer would save him from the fact that he could die in less than a minute. Naruto shook his head.

"No. Though, I am the one giving out free dimension-hopping scrolls. I'm the reason for all this," he instead stated. The broadness of the term 'all this' was meant to make Sasuke realise that technically, he owed his power, his progress, his fleeting feeling of happiness, to Naruto. The thought disgusted him.

"Why?" He asked him. Naruto blinked slowly, as if he didn't know either.

"I don't know. Because it's fun?" The amount of hesitation in Naruto's voice told him there was no discernible reason.

"You disrupted the flow of several dimensions because it's fun?" Sasuke pursed his lips, half curious and half angry.

"If you had my kind of power, you'd find it more fun than me. I've always thought you were more psycho than me," Naruto replied. "You know, if I were you, I'd be careful of the way you talk to me," in a brief display of power, he conjured a mini tornado which danced on the tip of his index finger. "You just might end up dead." It vanished. Sasuke suppressed the overwhelming irritation. In this situation, he was weak.

The two of them went silent, neither willing to talk. Sasuke glared daggers at Naruto. If Naruto was going to get pissed at him, then he would take the chance.

Finally, Naruto breathed in, recalling his stray chakra back into him. His body absorbed the chakra, his skin briefly glowing with a pale orange light.

"There's a war going on, you know," Naruto spoke softly. What are you going to do? All the previous joviality and good humour, even if it was creepy, was gone now, replaced by frightening solemnity.

"I don't know," Sasuke replied. He hated this. Naruto had to be at least fifty to sixty times stronger than him. Just talking to somebody who he knew was stronger and dangerous pissed Sasuke off so much.

"Does Yugito know?" He asked instead.

Something in Naruto's daunting expression softened. He became thoughtful.

"I wonder what she's up to," he said.

Naruto straightened his posture, tensing.

"Let's stay here for a few more hours. I'm going to find Yugito. See ya," his gaze was fixated behind Sasuke. Naruto flashed away, leaving Sasuke alone and finally able to breathe. He turned around. Slowly but surely, Madara was piecing himself back together. So far, a foot formed. Sasuke gazed at the foot emptily.

With all this new-found frustration, Sasuke needed a punching bag. Edo Madara would take too long. He Shunshined away.

Yugito found herself aimlessly wandering the battlegrounds, killing Zetsu after Zetsu and enemy after enemy. With the release of the Edo Tensei, there wasn't much to do. She had snuck around the Shinobi Alliance's bases, gathering as much intel on the future as she could. All the while, she wrapped a red scarf around the lower half of her face to prevent anybody that saw her from recognising her.

Several alarming discoveries were made: she was dead in this time, this war was a really big deal, and this could be the end of the dimension. Since this wasn't her home, she didn't care as much as she thought she would. Because even if the people she loved died, it wouldn't matter because there were at least another billion in some other parallel universes.

Lost in her thoughts, Yugito collided against someone - judging by the rock hard muscle, it was a dude. She looked up, panic rising, before realising it was just Naruto.

"Aren't you a ninja? Shouldn't you be more careful?" He teased. Naruto smirked at her, almost innocently, seemingly in a really good mood.

"How come you're in such a good mood?" She decided to outright ask. Only Naruto would be in such a good mood in the midst of a war. He threw his head back and chuckled, picking at a loose thread in her scarf and wrapping it around his index finger.

"Red thread of fate," he winked.

She tugged her scarf back up.

"So, what were you up to?" He asked her. Yugito debated on whether to give him an actual answer - he never answered any of her questions. Denying him such a basic, menial question would be a small, worthless victory. She was petty that way.

Instead, she hummed and averted eye contact, glancing around the Shinobi Alliance base. There was no way they wouldn't get spotted at this rate. Naruto chuckled again, flashing her a gigantic smile. It was charming, albeit incredibly intimidating. Like if she did something wrong, he'd strangle her or something.

"Are you seriously not going to answer that?"

"You're weird today," she outright told him. This was a result of his good mood, clearly. He was nicer to her, perhaps even flirtatiously so. He'd never answer her though. Yugito decided not to waste his mood and diverted her attention to the base. She watched a lithe, pink-haired girl frantically hurry around. She must've been a medical ninja. War was foremost the worst on soldiers, and then on medical ninja. They underwent heaps of stress.

"Oh, that's just Sakura. She's a medical ninja in a lot of dimensions. Student of Tsunade. Mine and Sasuke's teammate. Debatably useless," Naruto chipped in, smiling. "Arguably the most useless person in history," he finished.

"She doesn't look that useless to me," Yugito decided, watching her effortlessly bring a man from critical to stable condition. Any ordinary person that was teamed with Naruto and Sasuke would probably seem useless in comparison. It wasn't her fault. Yugito was about to approach her when Naruto clasped her shoulder.

"Don't bother. The only person she gives a shit about is Sasuke," he whispered to her. She could detect massive amounts of bitterness in his voice.

"You don't like her?" She asked, hoping he'd answer this one.

"Maybe this one is different, but she's been a massive bitch to me in my original dimension," he replied, his expression souring, "So forgive my prejudice."

Yugito was able to pick up one key thing: 'original dimension'. Not that she expected Naruto to have simply materialised one day out of thin air. He had to come from somewhere. Feeling brave, she prodded a little further.

"What's your original dimension?" When Naruto's frown deepened, she was sure she ventured into forbidden territory.

"We'll be quick," he whispered, tightening his grip on her shoulder so much so that it hurt. Naruto whisked her away to a far, far away dimension.

Omake

"Ahem, Rin," Obito twiddled his thumbs together nervously.

"Hi, Obito," she greeted politely, unaware as to his inner plight. Today was the big day - the day he'd finally confess his feelings to Rin!

"Do you maybe want to..." Obito kicked at the ground lightly, blushing intensely, "Get ramen with me?" There, he had said it. This was as good as a confession he could do. After all, what was more romantic than getting ramen with your crush?

"Just us, then?" Rin giggled, nodding, "Sure. I'm free tomorrow." These four words made Obito internally jump with joy.

"Well, see you. I've got a shift at the hospital," Rin walked off, waving at Obito. His blush intensified. When he was sure she was out of sight, he fist pumped the air.

"Seriously?" Kushina whispered to Minato. Both of them looked at the scene from behind a tree. They loved to spy on poor, unsuspecting Genin.

"These twelve-year-olds seriously think they're in love," Kushina muttered, tsking. "So unromantic. Who takes their crush on a ramen date?"

Minato eyed Kushina, awed at her amazing hypocrisy. "You took me on a ramen date when we were twelve," he murmured, faking hurt.

"That's different," she replied, still spying on Obito and his victory dance.

"Why is it different?"

"Because I say so," she ended. They drifted off into a comfortable silence. Obito's victory dance was starting to drag on. If only he put this much enthusiasm into training.

"Kushina," he whispered her name.

"What?"

"Wanna get ramen?"

"Oh, what the fuck. Sure."