(Standard disclaimer applies...yay...)

Naruto loved noodles. He especially loved them in the form of ramen with extra toppings and made from scratch by Ichiraku himself. There was nothing else like it in the world! Often, his friends found him there, having been slurping down the food for hours.

And that was how she found him.

Sensing a presence, the bottomless pit turned quickly to see Sakura standing there, looking nervous and scared. Why would she be scared? he wondered.

"Sakura-chan! Have a seat and I'll by you a bowl!"

But she just looked like she was going to be sick at the very mention of ramen. "That's...ok. Naruto, I have to talk to you about something important."

The 17-year-old turned dead serious. "Gotcha." He handed some money to the "old man" and motioned for Sakura to follow, heading to the only place he could: his apartment.

As soon as they entered the door, he activated his security seals. The only time his teammate acted like this is if it were something really big. Now she could say whatever she wanted and it would be kept safe between the two of them.

But she was just standing there, shaking in fear and almost crying. He couldn't stand to see her like this! "Sakura! What's wrong? Tell me so I can help you!"

"I-I'm so scared, Naruto!"

"Why? What's the matter? I won't let anyone hurt you--you know that."

She looked up. "Do you promise?"

"I promise that I will do whatever I can to help you as best I can," he replied firmly, erasing all doubt from her mind.

She took a deep breath and said the last thing in the world he'd ever expected to hear. "Naruto, I'm...pregnant."

The room seemed to spin as the blonde took her words in carefully and very, very slowly. "...Sakura?..."

Naruto woke up, the world still spinning from his dream. At least it wasn't a nightmare this time. It'd been a week since his meeting with his parents and godfather and not once had his sleep been peaceful. He knew at least one of the reasons was because of guilt. The other reason was that it was just plain typical. Even back in his own time, he would have bad dreams. Only his wife seemed to help with them.

But this one was actually ok. He wished he could go back to sleep and finish it.

He looked at the clock. Time to get up, so that was out of the question. The blonde tried to stand--

--and promptly fell down. BANG! No harm done. It was just his head hitting the floor. Mr. Yellow Flash couldn't get there fast enough. He rushed over to his dear "nephew" and demanded to know what had happened.

"I don't know. Everything was spinning...oy..." Just talking was making him dizzy.

Minato felt his forehead. "You're burning up. Looks like a fever, so you'll have to stay in bed till you're better." Without waiting for a response, he then proceeded to lift him up on his bed and covered him back up.

"A fever? Weird. Never been sick before."

His father's fussing stilled. "Really? Not even a cold?"

"Nope. That's one of those little bonuses I mentioned going away. I rarely even shivered, let alone caught a cold." But he was beginning to tire again and was soon snoring. Loudly. Too bad it was a dreamless sleep that time. He really would have liked to have seen the rest of that other one.

Minato left the room. Crap! I was planning on showing him the Rasengan, too... The kid's information regarding the Third Kazekage had made the Third Hokage drop his pipe and burn his robes. Maybe the information couldn't stop the war immediately, but if this boy turned out to be right, then there was a chance that at least Suna would call for a cease-fire.

They'd passed it on as a rumor and were still waiting for a response.

Kushina and Jiraiya had filled him in on the rest of what Naruto had said and he had promptly gone to demand he tell them how the heck he knew so much. The blonde's response? "Don't ask questions about how I know these things or I'll have to either lie or stop telling you altogether. You'll be putting both my life and my contacts' lives at risk if you don't back off." The way he'd said it...no way was he any ordinary 13-year-old. He acted more like he was 30.

I guess growing up on the streets will do that to a person.

Oh, well. Time to go meet the rest of his team. They only had a few more days of vacation before being called back into duty again, and although he was hoping his newest student would be healthy by then, there was still the rest of the team to get ready.

Minato arrived at the training grounds to see Obito nursing a burned hand, an unconscious Kakashi, and an irritated Rin trying to tend to them both.

"You idiots!" he heard. They really must have done something stupid to get their sweet-tempered medic that angry.

He hopped down beside her. "What they do this time?"

"OH!" She looked up in surprise, obviously not expecting him to show up like that. "Well, you remember Naruto's Water Drill?" (They had to call an amazing technique like that something.)

"Yes. Tell me they didn't attempt the same thing."

Obito averted his eyes. Kakashi...was still out of it, so he just laid there like a pile of laundry. Dirty laundry.

"What did you do." Statement. Not a question.

"Well, none of us are wind elements, even though Kakashi has water, so we thought we'd use two different elements. If we'd known that the combination of fire and lightning was going to be that difficult to control, we never would've done it like that."

Geez...I can see it now. Kakashi tries to pass his lightning through Obito's hand as he is working with fire, they don't combine them properly, and the blast burns this guy's hand and sends his teammate flying into a tree. Great. Now there are THREE students who can't practice today.

His hand slapped his forehead. Wait, why am I hitting myself? It's their fault. They deserve the slap! But that would have to wait till they were no longer injured.

"Come on, let's get these two idiots to the hospital."

Obito spoke up. "Hey, Sensei, where's Naruto?"

"Hmmm? Oh, he woke up with a fever, so he's staying in bed today. I guess it's good that practice has to be called, in that case. He'll need someone to look after him. Well, let's get going, already."

As they hopped towards the hospital, with one boy under each of their sensei's arms, he wondered...maybe Naruto could teach them that jutsu in exchange for the Rasengan. Sounds like a good trade to me. I'll talk to him later.

Minato turned to stare at Obito, who had just started chuckling. When he asked why, the boy's response was priceless. "My hand's burned; Mr. Ice Cube must be starting to warm up to me." With that, the little Uchiha passed out. Strange. I didn't think he was that tired. What else have you been up to today, Obito?

A few blocks from the hospital, Kushina was fuming. She'd just come home from a short B-rank mission to find cotton candy all over her kitchen's tiled floors. And the almost-invisible wire that led right across the entryway just "happened" to send her flying, where she landed right on top of the sticky sugar.

"Who did this?" she hissed through the annoying, albeit delicious, candy. Probably Obito, the little jerk. She'd have to have a little talk with his sensei.

Her cheeks burned at the thought of Minato, anger disappearing in her embarrassment. Darn it! She wasn't some fan-girl and shouldn't be acting this way! But the woman couldn't seem to help it. Thankfully, she was good enough at acting to hide it from him. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't know, anyway. Oh no, he definitely knew.

That's why he'd been avoiding her till that incident with his nephew had left him desperate enough to come to her for advice and help.

The more the last Kunoichi of Whirlpool thought about it, the more she was certain she'd made a big mistake after that mission from Hell he had lost half his team on. He'd come to her for help that time, too, and she'd truly just wanted to comfort him at first by giving him a peck on the cheek. As usual, things backfired on the red-haired woman. Minato had turned his head and...they'd agreed never to mention it again.

Obviously, one of them was still holding a grudge.

As she cleaned her kitchen (setting off several more traps consisting of feathers and balloons filled with sugar-water--for the stickiness factor, she was sure), she thought about his nephew. And what her friend had said about him.

..."Alright, but make it snappy. I've got somewhere to be."

The man didn't waste any time. "I have a nephew."

Kushina's head jerked in surprise. "What? But you're an only child...right?"

His bitter laugh was more than enough to convince her otherwise. "That's what I'd always thought, but apparently Dad wasn't all that good at keeping track of all the villages he visited."

Ooooh, she could feel the anger radiating off of him, as well as the sadness. "Tell me everything."

"He showed up randomly about a week ago, shocking the crap out of Obito and Rin. And his injuries were nothing to scoff at, but I won't get into those just yet. Anyway, the boy's face was hard to see because of all the blood, but once he'd been cleaned up... He looks almost exactly like me, 'Shina. Blonde hair, blue eyes, the smile--everything. I didn't think it likely, but I wanted to make sure that my father hadn't been unfaithful to my mother. Well, guess what. He might have been."

She was trying not to look as horrified as she felt. "Maybe it was before they were married?"

He looked up at that. "Yeah, maybe. In fact, going by his age, that seems more likely, but still. The boy, Naruto, had amnesia at first, and Inoichi tried getting through it, only to come up against a formidable mental shield. So we waited to see what would happen, and last night, I woke up from his screaming. I walked in to find him holding his head in agony and tried to snap him out of it, but when I reached out to touch his arm... Kushina, I've never seen terror like that before. Never. And it took a good while to calm him down. But guess what the first thing he said to me was."

She didn't even bother trying to answer that because she had an idea what it was about.

"He told me that 'He' had had green eyes and told him that 'demon-boys couldn't do anything about it.'"

The kunoichi closed her eyes. So her guess was accurate. That's why he had come to her; she was the only one he knew of with experience in dealing with these things, although not first-hand, thank goodness. No, that would have been her sister, had she still been alive.

If only that had been the end of it. "That's not all, either. He was forced to live on the streets at around age four--I don't even think Naruto's completely sure of his age just from the way he said that--and the child was tortured and tormented mercilessly. My nephew--MY nephew!--was abused, starved, and left for dead and there was nothing I could do about it! And what if this whole story is just that, a story? What if he's really a spy sent here because he's my nephew and I have to..." Minato could speak no more.

She didn't blame him.

Kushina still couldn't blame him, until she'd experienced the miniature blonde for herself. Yes, he was definitely hiding something, but one thing she would stake her life on was that Naruto meant them no harm. As suspicious as the circumstances surrounding his appearance were, he only wanted to help. And she'd felt that same connection that she'd seen on Minato's face whenever he spoke of the youth. Whatever it was, she knew that she'd defend him with her dying breath and had no doubts that his uncle would, too.

With that, she'd finally managed to clean the last bit of the sticky concoction off her floor. But rather than it wearing her down, she felt more energized. Maybe even enough to go "play" with her best friend's students for awhile. She cackled evilly as she headed into her room to search through her secret stash of "goodies."

What should she use this time? That handy little medicine that would make them pee purple? Itching powder in their sandals? There were so many to choose from!!

Decisions, decisions...

Elsewhere sat one very unhappy Toad Sage, mourning his missed opportunity to do some more of his "research." That book of his wouldn't write itself, after all!

It was all that darn kid's fault... If the little jerk hadn't been acting so suspicious, he wouldn't have been assigned to watch him. What he really wanted to watch were the women's baths. Heck, he'd even take them fully clothed at this point! Because what had he seen so far? Oh, yes. Naruto staggering to the kitchen. Naruto crawling to the bathroom. Naruto puking his guts out. Wonderful environment for his writing muse.

It was enough to make Jiraiya cry. All those beautiful ladies were waiting on him and here he was, stuck babysitting a 13-year-old boy. "It's not fair!" he sobbed. "Why couldn't some stupid ANBU do this, instead?? I'm missing my RESEARCH!" He continued his whining for several more minutes (all very "quietly," of course) till he saw the blonde suddenly stand up from his bed and shakily walk to a desk, pulling out a small notebook.

Hmmm...maybe he likes his research, too! thought the old lecher. Let's get a closer look, shall we? He's pulling out some ink and a brush--painting or writing? Oooh, I hope it's got pictures! Eagerly, he leaned forward with his binoculars as he watched from the next rooftop over. Thankfully, the boy was facing away from him as he...doodled? A little line here, a little swirl there, a bit of kanji--

HOLY CRAP! That little kid was creating a seal!!

Jiraiya's jaw dropped open as he studied the art, hoping to discover what type it was, but he didn't recognize it till Naruto tore out the page, put it on his chest, and applied some chakra to it. When it began to glow green, the sage knew it was a healing seal, one of the most complicated types to make.

It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. He'd been watching the blonde since their little confrontation, and so far, he'd discovered that the boy was a ninjutsu genius, extremely proficient in taijutsu, could use almost any weapon with the experience of a master, and now seemed to be an expert in seals. His only weakness was genjutsu, and even that wasn't much of one, since he could dispel most with barely a flick of his wrist. This guy was unbelievably--unnaturally--powerful for his age and maybe any age.

If he'd been born in Konoha, Naruto would have been Hokage material already. But now, this boy was obviously meant to be a very dangerous weapon. Just from what he'd seen, the Toad Sage was sure he'd be Minato's equal if his uncle didn't have the Hiraishin to back him up. That, and the Rasengan, anyway. He'd have to inform his student and his sensei of this right away.

Darn it, you stupid kid! You're making me miss more RESEARCH!

In the end, it took him two hours to find the older blonde. "Minato! There you are! I've been looking all over for you! What are you doing in the hospital?"

"Oh, just the usual: my students acting like fools and injuring themselves, one getting burned and the other getting a concussion." He sighed in irritation. "Then, a few of my fans spotted me here and decided to form a mob. Just waiting for them to leave."

His sensei laughed. "HAHAHAHAHA! You're running from a bunch of unarmed, civilian women!? This is too good to be true! Why don't you just use that jutsu of yours and get the heck out of here? Or better yet, just do a standard transformation and walk out."

"Can't," Minato said through gritted teeth. "Didn't bring any of my special kunai with me and one of them is a Hyuuga. All he'd have to do is use his byakugan and I'd be toast!"

"HAHAHAHA--wait a minute, did you say 'he'?" The popular man rolled his eyes and Jiraiya started laughing even harder. "You're getting chased by men and women! Won't Kushina just love hearing about THAT! Ha ha, Minato, you really need to get yourself a girlfriend. At the very least, it'll let the guys know it's not meant to be." At that, the sage started his obnoxious laughing once again.

A low growl was his only warning as a powerful fist sent him crashing into another chair in the waiting room. The furniture disintegrated on impact. WHOA! Guess I pushed too far, hehe. He stood up, still relatively unharmed (he wasn't a Sannin for nothing!) and addressed his still-seething friend as though nothing had happened.

"Anyway, I came here to talk to you about something important." Blondie (Jiraiya's own nickname for his former student) looked up curiously and demanded to know what. "You know how I've been assigned to watch your nephew, right?" Nod. "Well, I saw something today that you're not going to believe."

"He didn't fake being sick, did he?"

"No, he was puking, alright. Nastiest sounds I've ever heard, too. But he did get out a notebook. Now, I thought he was just going to write or doodle, but this kid made a seal...a healing seal." Minato's eyes grew wide. "Yeah, that was my response, too. I mean, it's one thing for a shinobi to create his own explosive note, but to create something like that? On a scale of difficulty from one to ten, that one's easily a seven. It requires extensive knowledge on both the art and the human body, which takes years--years!--of experience."

The jonin couldn't do more than sit back down and blink.

"Blondie, I don't know about you, but I'm worried. For one thing, he's at jonin level from the little he's shown us. For another thing, I don't think we've seen half of what he can do."

"Do you doubt his loyalty to the Leaf Village?"

Jiraiya snorted. "I don't have any doubts that he wants to help; my concern is what kinds of experiments were done on him and why. He said they wanted to make him a weapon. Who did it and whom was the kid supposed to kill? And did they experiment on more children? Because, if they did and there are more at Naruto's level, we're in trouble. Big trouble."

The uncle put his head in his hands and groaned in frustration. "I'll see if I can find out a little more later. Our team has a mission in three days, so maybe I'll see something--anything--that will give us a clue. In the meantime...um, Jiraiya-sensei?"

"What?"

"Would you mind heading to my place and keeping my nephew company for a bit till I get there?"

His blue-eyed student was hiding something and his mouth dropped as he realized what. "You put one of those seals on me for Hiraishin, didn't you!...fine, I guess I'll help you get past your fan-girls and fan-boys just this once, but you owe me."

Minato just laughed nervously as he scratched the back of his head. "Thanks."

Whew! Back home safe and sound! MInato sighed as he stepped away from an irate Jiraiya. Well, he had used the man as a homing beacon. He really needed to learn Naruto's Sexy Jutsu. Obito had already started getting it down (with the sannin's full approval, of course) and he had to admit, it had some definite uses. Not even the byakugan could see through it because it was a physical transformation. But if anyone found out, those fan-boys would probably go nuts.

So he'd just have to use a male transformation. No biggie.

He headed down the hall to Naruto's room to discuss the idea with him, only to discover no one in the room. Probably went to the field, thinking we'd be there.

"Hey, Sensei! Naruto headed out. Gonna go find him. I'll be back later!" Although, he did question his reasoning behind leaving the man alone in his house...there was no telling what he'd do.

But he arrived at the field nevertheless and saw something truly shocking. Naruto was there and he had over 200 clones with him. Ok, yeah, the boy had mentioned being able to create an obscene amount, but now he'd witnessed it for himself. And all of them were working on elemental manipulation. Fire, to be more precise. Each one of the clones held a leaf and worked on burning it. But it was how they were being held that was amazing. Some had the leaves on their arms or legs, others on their foreheads, and there was even a small group that was holding them between their toes. What in the world??

He went up to ask one of the clones. "What are you doing?"

"Huh??" The clone looked up at him in utter bafflement for about three seconds (to process what he'd said, apparently) before a light seemed to dawn in its eyes. "OH! I'm trying to learn how to create a full-body fire attack, sort of like a cloak, that can double as a chakra shield. Wind and water are too hard, so I thought I'd start with fire." Then it went right back to work.

But Minato had another question. "How many elements can you use?"

"Hmm? Just three so far. I was hoping for lightning, since I'm also trying to create a three-element combo, but this'll do."

A three-element combo? Is that even possible? I mean, two elements, sure, but THREE? Rather than interrupt again, however, he picked a comfortable tree and sat down on a branch to watch.

After about 15 minutes, he noticed the "arm" group making some progress. One among them raised his head and said, "Disperse, group A!" A few dozen popping sounds later, and he had one less group to watch.

To his surprise, the other clones all lifted their heads (except for the group with leaves on them) as though they'd learned something significant. Minato had experienced the knowledge gain himself, but he didn't realize it extended to the other clones like that, too. Then again, he rarely used the jutsu, anyway. Not that he couldn't, but that he didn't see it as all that useful.

He'd changed his mind.

"Hey, Naruto!" he called out. Big mistake, because a chorus of "Yeah?" was all he heard for the next few minutes. "The REAL Naruto!" he corrected.

"Oh!" a lone one cried out. "That's me! What's up, Minato-sensei?"

Minato couldn't help but frown. The boy never called him uncle and he wished he would. But that could wait.

"I was wondering if you'd help me with a problem."

The teen's eyes widened. "Uh, sure! Don't know what I could do, but ok!"

He sighed. This was going to be embarrassing, but it was necessary. "I'd like you to teach me your Sexy Jutsu."

Every single clone rolled in laughter.

Well, I certainly enjoyed that chapter, especially that last little part. Lol the world-famous Yellow Flash learning the Sexy Jutsu?? Gotta love it.

And don't freak out about the whole Sakura-thing. I had that one planned since the beginning. Wait and see what develops with it first, because it's probably not what you think.

Anyhow, I'll try to have another chapter up tomorrow or the next day; working on a nice term paper right now and an annotated bibliography, so if it's a little late, sorry :(

Let me know what you think!