Alright guys. I know it's been a while, but I've come bearing news. Let's handle this one in parts.

Part One: I promised it, so here it is. Shoutouts to my reviewers:

Moo
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Envoy of the White Moon

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And all of the Guests, I thank you for your reviews. Honestly, all the requests to come back and continue this might have been the only reason I actually did. Yes, I did write all of your names out individually instead of copy pasting them, and yes I did do it in my one day off in what feels like months.

Now, on to the special mentions:

sagar hussain: You really don't write anything other than "Awesome chapter" each time, but you've been doing it since chapter one. Constant, every time, on every chapter without pause. Thank you for your support. It's not a lot, and I don't know what I'm doing right or wrong, but a Day One fan is still someone to be appreciated. Thank you.

Zigmas: You're more recent, but your comments are usually fun to read, and you do comment often. Thank you too! Mwahaha!

era-romance: Thank you! I don't think I'm going to end the fanfic here... but you make a good point...

EvanescentWriter: I just love reading your comments. You make me feel super special and happy, so it is with that in mind that I'm sorry about what's coming next.

Part Two: I have to come clean about something. I'm exhausted. I actually haven't had much time off in a very long time, and I'm not even in school anymore. I have to work to support things now, and I barely have time to myself. And it is for this reason that...

Part 3: The next chapter will be the last chapter. I'm just too tired to come up with anything good, and I feel like my writing is suffering because of it. I love this story and I want it to go somewhere, but I just can't get it to be where I want it to be. You guys don't deserve that. You don't deserve to wait for months on end for sub-par work. I don't mean for it to be like it is, but it is.

For all of you that followed me until this point, I'm so thankful. If this and the next chapter gets reviews that are positive, I'll try the rest of the story in a different story.

Which is why I need you guys to be honest. I don't want to give you a story that is half polished.

But uh, good news. I've been writing and trying this chapter for a long time. A lot of things went in and out of the blender. So uh, there are Extras at the end! Thing of them as "what could have been(s)"

Have fun! And again, thank you. I may have other chapters of other things coming out soon, but those are just empty thoughts I don't have to think about. Also, last chapter might be out really soon, at least for me.


Sasuke landed, his kunai crackling with unspent electricity in his hand. Before him, a loud thump could be heard as several hundred pounds of sand fell to the ground— it was lifeless now that it was cut off from it's controller.

Gaara hissed as his arm of sand was hacked off. Now partially transformed, half of his body was encased in the sediments. Overlaid with black and blue symbols, the red haired boy's partially transformed state served as his penultimate trump card, and was meant to be able to take down almost any threat.

Any threat, of course, did not include Sasuke Uchiha.

"How," Gaara snarled. His eyes, one teal and one sandy gold, were as hot as a desert's heat as he stared down his opponent. "How are you so strong? What manner of being proves your existence?"

Sasuke, not expecting the question, lifted his eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"How are you so strong!" Gaara screamed, unable to deal with being ignored. He wasn't used to the apathy the Uchiha was showing him. He was used to being feared.

"Well…" Sasuke started, sheathing his blade. It was obvious that a weapon was overkill in this matchup. "For starters, I did one hundred pushups, sit-ups, and lunges every day for two years…"

Sasuke immediately had to jump in order to avoid the sand wave that shot his way. It eroded the ground where he was standing, the pressure propelling the wave enough to leave a gouge in the dirt.

Landing on a tree branch some distance away, Sasuke grunted at the Sand ninja. "Well, that's just rude."

"Quit messing with me, Uchiha!" Gaara screamed. "I want to know how you're so strong!"

"Do you really want to know?" Sasuke asked. Gaara nodded vehemently. Jumping back to the ground, Sasuke made his way back over to the unstable jinchuuriki. Leaning in close, an act that any onlooker not acquainted with the boy would call suicidal, Sasuke whispered into the boy's ear.

"Lots of juice."

Sasuke laughed as he was forced to jump away once more.

XxX

Kankuro stared down the bug boy before him, an impressively smug smirk on his face.

"You're going down. No tree hugger is going to beat me!" he yelled. With a twitch of his fingers his puppets, Karasu and Crow, emerged from the foliage around them, clacking and clicking as their robotic parts moved erratically. Shino, his face mostly hidden by the overly large hem of his jacket and pitch black sunglasses, seemed to be staring at his foe, devoid of emotion or want.

Though, he could also be staring completely past the Sand ninja and not paying any attention at all. It was hard to tell with an Aburame.

"Nothing to say?" Kankuro asked, his smirk widening. "Have I scared you so badly that you've already given up?"

Again, Shino said nothing to the verbal taunts, instead opting to stand impassively and watch as things turned out.

"Well," Kankuro started, his voice not as confident as before. The boy was unnerving, and that sentiment came from a person who used mechanized dolls as weapons. "If you're not gonna say anything, I think I'll just take care of you myself!" And with a flick of his wrist his doll weapons sprung forth, as though carried by invisible strings. They made it pretty far, to be honest. Blades splayed out before them, they came mere inches from skewering the bug child before losing all momentum and falling to the forest floor below.

"What?" Kankuro asked, surprised. Shino, who had by this point remained completely silent, decided now was his time to speak.

"You've already lost," were his only words. Kankuro only had a moment to dissect them before a cloud of tiny black bugs swallowed him. His screams lasted but a few seconds before the insects drained him of his chakra completely. Having had their lunch, they receded from their prey before flowing like a large, creepy river into the arms of Shino's outstretched coat.

Once they were reclaimed, Shino simply adjusted his glasses.

"Need more," were his only words to assess his rather cannibalistic deconstruction of his enemy. Looking around for the nearest chakra source, he sensed an enormous one in the direction his fellow Leaf ninja fled to.

His bugs warned him away from that source, as it seemed to taste decidedly… insane.

Turning, Shino sensed another source of chakra barreling his way at high speeds. This one was more familiar, seeming to belong to another one of his fellow Leaf ninja. Bright, burning, and full of energy, Naruto Uzumaki's chakra was as visible as a sun.

His bugs also warned him away from that source, as it seemed to taste decidedly… insane.

So, obviously, the only course of action available to the boy was to go join in the war efforts. Because a full scale war was probably the safest of the three bets.

Shino wouldn't know it, but he had made the best possible choice.

XxX

Tenten stared at the giant purple barrier that encased the Third Hokage and Orochimaru in what was no doubt an epic brawl. Translucent and almost ethereal, the barrier roiled as if it were made of glass and inlaid with gas. A thing of beauty, Tenten almost felt bad at her need to tear the thing down.

Then she remembered it was a barrier created by Orochimaru, and suddenly all of her reservations had fled.

"Time to get to work," she sighed. Pulling out a scroll, Tenten reared back, before using all of her strength to toss the rolled up parchment into the air. In response to a hand sign, the scroll unfurled, showing an intricate array of seals and designs…

That promptly exploded, showering the barrier with countless projectiles. The ANBU that stood outside the barrier recoiled in shock, their emotions apparent on their faces, even through their full face mask somehow.

"What… how?" a cat masked ANBU intelligently asked, breaking the façade of stoic-ness that they were known for. Tenten turned to said ANBU and smiled, putting up a peace sign.

"Honestly? I'm really not quite sure. I'd never had that many weapons when I was this age."

"What?" a different ANBU asked, as apparently they only had enough time between them for one person to be out of shock at a time. An endless downpour of metal was still falling from the tiny scroll, making a veritable curtain of death above the barrier as thick as the purple construct was wide. Hammering into the top of it, the hail of weapons contacted the barrier, and then disintegrated, before making way for the weapons just behind them.

"Hmm? What did you say?" Tenten asked, barely breaking eye contact with her beautiful technique. Really, there was nothing that excited her more than seeing weapons fly. It was really such a shame that the barrier destroyed them as soon as they hit. Any weapon, no matter how unremarkable, deserved a chance to be used.

Tenten then shrugged. Oh well, at least she had no idea where these weapons came from.

"Guh," another ANBU sputtered. Apparently they were too mesmerized by her display to really care about her lackadaisical response to their question. Tenten smiled. Everything was going to plan.

"Hey! Fucker!" a loud, and rather obnoxious voice called out. Initially Tenten ignored it, but after a couple of seconds of being addressed as a rather colorful amount of swears, Tenten finally gave in.

"What?" Tenten asked. The voice seemed to be coming from inside the barrier, so that is where she looked. For a while, she saw nothing. Then the cursing continued.

"I'm over here, you bun-haired bimbo!" a girl called from one of the corners of the barrier. Arms outstretched and palms facing outwards, the kunoichi appeared to be supplying the purple construct with chakra. Overall, she looked rather tomboyish, if not exceedingly young. Her glare, however, was completely matured. "If it's not too much trouble, would you mind fucking off?"

Tenten tilted her head. "Well, you're a delightful one."

"Oh really? Huh?" the redhead asked. The sneer on her face actually hurt Tenten physically. "Well, I'll be certain to forward that to our HR department."

"You have an HR department?" Tenten asked. "We don't even have an HR department."

"Oh, yeah!" the kunoichi said, drawing out her words. "Expansive thing really. It's a shame their responses are always the same."

"And what are their responses?"

"Well, usually it consists of the phrases 'go fuck' and 'yourself'! KNOCK IT OFF YOU LEAF BIMBO!"

Tenten, in response, simply stared at the girl. The girl too, was surrounded in the purple glassy mist of the barrier, so Tenten doubted that she could just hurt the girl. That didn't mean she couldn't try though.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing?" the girl asked. The part of the barrier that surrounded her had pinged, but soon returned to normal. Tenten shrugged while carelessly tossing the mace she was holding up and down in the air.

"What's it look like? I'm throwing stuff at you."

"No shit, Sherlock!" the girl snarled. "Why?"

"Cause it's fun?" Tenten asked.

"It's stupid! Like you! That don't do shit to this barri- GAH! STOP IT YOU LEAF BIMBO!" Tenten had thrown the mace at the girl while she was talking. It was sudden and unexpected, but like the girl said, completely ineffectual.

"First off," Tenten started, pulling another weapon from… somewhere. This time it was a scythe. "My name isn't 'Leaf bimbo' or 'bun haired bimbo' or any variation of the word. I'm Tenten, and I'm the future weapon mistress of Konoha."

"Oh yeah? Well I'm Tayuya, the future mistress of sticking my flute up your FUCK!" Tenten had thrown the scythe, hitting the barrier suddenly. Tayuya didn't even see the weapon fly through the air. One second it was in the bun haired girl's hands, and in the next her barrier was pinging and distorting, a clear sign of a massive impact to the thing.

"Bad Sound Ninja. I know you're not very smart, but you're going to have to work with me here!" Tenten's voice was almost a coo: soft and slow and like one would use when talking to a baby. "Now, say it with me. Tenten. It's not hard."

"Go fuck your-" Tenten grimaced as two pings went off, one on either side of her. "Would you stop that? It's pissing me off!"

"Say my name then," Tenten cooed. "I know you can."

"You'll be the first to die," Tayuya snarled, before pings blared around her.

XxX

Sakura had been having a weird day.

Well, a weird couple of months, really.

But when things this weird start happening to you all at once, you tend to allow the time in between the weird occurrences to just blur together. So really, for her, this was all just a really, really long day.

And it culminated in a gigantic sand rat over three times the size of her house staring down at her.

"I'M GONNA FUCK YOU ALL!" the giant sand rat screamed. Sasuke, her Sasuke, just stared up at it as if it were a bird. Or a leaf. Something inconsequential.

"I somehow doubt that you meant, 'fuck us all up'" her Sasuke drawled, sounding every bit as bored as he looked. The sneer the giant sand rat sent her way seemed to confirm his suspicions. "Glorious. And how exactly are you going to do that?"

"WITH MY GIANT SAND DICK!" the creature roared. Sakura could see no such appendage on it, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

"I think that it's a little big," Sasuke said, apparently not fussed by the conversation he was having. "Why don't we start a little smaller? That might kill us."

"THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT!" the sand creature roared.

"Lovely," Sasuke drawled. He was paying attention to his nails now. More specifically, he was paying attention to the nails on his right hand and only his right hand. He had taken to stuffing his other hand in his pocket and all but ignoring it, as if its very existence somehow insulted him.

Speaking of which, that wasn't the weirdest thing about him either. Sasuke had also taken to using techniques she was almost sure he didn't know. From terrifying, unholy black fire, to surges of encompassing, blinding electricity, the Uchiha was an elemental powerhouse with no signs of slowing down. If anything, he seemed to be getting stronger with every passing day, to the point that Sakura was sure that the only thing keeping him back from challenging Kakashi was Naruto of all people.

And that Sasuke deferred to Naruto of all people was another terrifying thing.

Really, the amount of terrifying things happening to her was way more prevalent than the amount of weird things happening to her, and that in itself was terrifying. In the last three months Sakura had faced down no less than three S-class psychopaths, trained with two other psychopaths she had called her teammates (one of which was in a coma for some time for some reason), and been in the center of more hypercharged explosions than some war veterans.

And now she was here, pinned to a tree, and watching as her coma recovered psychopath love interest stared down one of the nine most terrifying things to ever grace their world as if it were a worm. Said "worm" was doing its best to follow through on sodomizing them with an appendage it did not have.

Sakura didn't even note the gigantic wave of sand as it rushed its way towards her. She simply closed her eyes and let the light breeze float over her. She didn't need to see in order to know that Sasuke had cut the sand with a lightning covered hand.

Even if her eyes were open she wouldn't have seen him do it. He was simply that fast.

Speaking of which, he was simply that fast.

Seriously, how the hell had he gotten so much stronger without her realizing it? Sure, he was always stronger than her by some margin back in the academy, but it was a gap she was aware of. Now, he was so far ahead of her that Sakura couldn't even fathom the distance between their skill levels.

The boy had been in a freaking coma the instant they left the academy. He didn't have the time to reach that level of strength without her knowledge.

And trust her, nothing Sasuke ever did escaped her knowledge. Nothing.

Watching Sasuke's subconscious shiver brought a shameful glee to Sakura's heart, which was good, cause the sand was squeezing that part of her anatomy rather hard into the tree.

Speaking of…

"Not that I'm not…" Sakura was forced to stop here as Sasuke had shot a fireball bigger than the hulking sand monster at said sand monster, "… positively wooed at your attempts at protecting me, but…"

She stopped again as lightning fused sand into glass and the One Tailed Beast's arm fell to the ground, sending tons of dust, dirt, sand and debris everywhere. The ground shook with the impact of the appendage, and the skies themselves parted with the pained howls of the great beast.

Sasuke looked slightly less bored.

"… would you mind, uh. Saving me from this sand?" Sakura asked. Her Uchiha future baby daddy simply raised an eyebrow, but did not turn to look at her.

"Nope, sorry, can't," was all that he said. Sakura, for her part, didn't even blink at the blasé answer.

"And why can't you?" she asked.

"Naruto's supposed to," was his answer. Sakura still did not give in.

"And why can you not?" she asked again. Sasuke shrugged his shoulders.

"Cause reasons."

"Ah," and then the conversation died.

They stood there in silence as they waited.

Shukaku roared in the distance, the very action uprooting trees and blasting away layers of dirt.

And then silence once more.

Silence reigned as the two rested in their differing resting places.

It was not the scene Naruto was expecting to return to.

"Uh, hey guys." Naruto was confused. "What's going on here?"

Sasuke pointed to the One Tailed Beast. "Kill it."

"Uh," Naruto looked up at the hulking beast. Quite simply, it laid in pieces. Even as he arrived Sasuke had cut off more and more of its body to the point it was more or less just a giant sand head…

… that was the size of a house.

"I… think you got this?" Naruto said. Sasuke just sucked his teeth.

"No, I don't. You're supposed to have this. I learned my lesson. Now go do whatever it is that you did last time."

Naruto looked at the One Tailed Beast's head. It was trying to reassemble its body, but the ridiculous amounts of ambient lightning chakra made it difficult for it to control itself.

"I think Gamabunta is a bit of an overkill," Naruto said offhandedly. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Listen, bring out your stupid toad thing and get this over with."

Naruto bristled. "My stupid toad thing is the best summon in the land right now, so I'd appreciate it if you learnt proper respect."

Sasuke scoffed. "Toads? Better than Snakes? Get real. What are you gonna do? Lick me to death?"

"I just might!" Naruto screamed. Jumping back he started to gather an insane amount of chakra. Only problem was that he was facing Sasuke, not the One Tailed Beast.

"Just what I was hoping for!" Sasuke screamed in retaliation. He jumped back as well, going through the same motions. Chakra positively saturated the air as the two young powerhouses prepared to summon their strongest allies.

"I'm gonna hate this," Sakura groaned.

She wasn't wrong.

XxX

"I'M SO SORRY, SENSEI!" Orochimaru screamed as he dodged several dozen elemental attacks of varying natures. Ducking with snakelike agility honed years in the making, Orochimaru successfully allowed a wave of water, not wind, to cut into the tree bark behind his head.

"Oh, you will be," Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed. The aged Hokage sat where he was on a slightly elevated part of a branch. Rubbing at his back, the Third seemed to almost not be taking the battle seriously. His several shadow clones, however, were.

"I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON, SENSEI! CALL OFF YOUR SHADOW CLONES!"

"I will as soon as you call off my former teachers." Hiruzen then turned to said teachers, both of which were encased in domes of ash. "How are you, by the way? How is the afterlife treating you?"

"Can't complain. The women are simply heavenly," the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju replied. Only his face was visible as the rest of his body was covered completely in ash that moved in very specific sealing arrays. Regardless, his facial features were more than what was necessary to convey his mirthful expression. His eyebrows wiggled rapidly.

"That pun was terrible," Tobirama Senju, the Second Hokage, snapped. He was in a similar situation to his brother, up to his neck in sealing ash. Unlike his brother, however, his face was set in a scowl. "We weren't even in heaven."

"So? There were girls there!" Hashirama retorted, his smile splitting his cracked face. Even though his eyes were darkened with the effects of the Reanimation Technique he was currently being controlled by, they still relayed the endless glee the man found at every passing moment.

Tobirama, the more sensible of the two brothers, just sighed, already weary of his sibling's way too happy expression. "And what if I told Mito of this?"

Instantly the First Hokage's smile vanished, replaced with a concerned, and almost fearful, frown. "Don't tell Mito. You won't get off the hook either."

Tobirama sputtered, his stoic face faltering immediately. "Why am I at fault as well? I have committed no crime!"

"You know how Mito is," Hashirama deadpanned. "You were there, so you're also at fault. Or do you think you can overpower her?"

Tobirama wore a look that very clearly said 'yes, I could'.

It was really too bad that Hashirama wore a look that said 'you better not'.

"No," Tobirama relented with a sigh. "No, I don't think I could."

"Very nice!" Hashirama all but shouted. "So we're not telling anyone anything?"

Everyone in the clearing shook their heads, with the exception of Orochimaru, who had to completely bend his head backwards to avoid it being severed by a wave of rock.

"ROCK ISN'T EVEN THE ELEMENT FOR CUTTING!" Orochimaru yelled, his scientific, fact driven mind managed to scream through panicked screams. The Third Hokage sucked his teeth.

"You always lacked imagination, my dear student. It appears I have to teach you that as well."

"Wait, how do you teach imagina-"

Orochimaru was really happy he slipped on that leaf as the wave of mud sailed over his face and cut a tree behind him into ribbons.

XxX

"So, nothing about this is normal," Asuma said, the statement coming out more as a question. As the older and more experienced of the two surviving ninja in the immediate area, such was his shock that he was asking his own student for confirmation.

An explosion sounded somewhere in the general direction they were looking. Apparently more was happening than they could see. What they could see, however, was a giant snake and a giant frog battling each other to the death.

"No," Shikamaru sighed, the words falling out of his mouth as if there was no better way for them to come. "Unless they learned the ability to summon in the month or so since the tournament, then I highly doubt this is normal for them."

"But, then," Asuma started, only to stop as an altercation from the two giant combatants nearly knocked him off his feet. The giant snake dodged a sword slash from the frog, only to attempt to coil around the frog, binding it's arms together. Unhinging its jaw, the snake attempted to swallow the frog whole, only for a gigantic ball of roiling chakra to appear from nowhere and wrench its jaw even further open. Apparently not ready for the counter, the snake could only fall back, stunned.

"But… then…" Asuma tried to start again, only to be interrupted when the frog stomped it's foot on the downed snake's body, creating another earthquake that upset the balance. Lifting its sword in the air, the frog attempted to cut down its purple enemy…

Only to be engulfed in black flames.

"What-"

"No, sensei…" Shikamaru drawled. "There's no sense in even trying to make sense of this."

Asuma could only gape. If a Nara said that there was no making sense of this, then there probably wasn't.

XxX

Naruto and Sasuke fell, their summons disappearing in gigantic plumes of smoke. Both touching down on tree branches, the two young warriors glared at each other across the gap between their perches.

"See?" Naruto asked. "I told you that toads were better!"

In return, Sasuke glared. His Sharingan eyes flared, the kaleidoscope pattern spinning ominously. Not for the first time had the raven haired neo-boy wanted nothing more than to trap Naruto in his Tsukiyomi for the rest of time.

He'd probably die doing it, but it was worth it in the long run.

But then Sasuke realized something. He literally couldn't use his Sharingan on Naruto anymore. Even forgoing the fact that Sasuke doubted that even he'd survive spending that much time with Naruto— and he could mute the blonde in his Tsukiyomi world— but even before that, the damned Uzumaki had that technique.

Sasuke wasn't sure how Talk no Jutsu worked when the man couldn't even talk, but he'd personally seen the boy stare down an enemy, before convincing said enemy to his side. With his mouth shut. By a jutsu.

So like every other time he was tempted to, Sasuke did the most effective thing he could. He grunted on turned around, before walking away. This had the profound effect of pissing Naruto off.

"Hey, bastard! Get back here!" Naruto called, and for all of his profound speed, the orange clad boy ran after the Uchiha at little more than civilian speed. Sasuke was about to ignore the boy harder, a feat that he was pretty sure an Uchiha exclusive feat, when Gaara decided to make himself known once more.

"H-how are you so strong?" Gaara gasped from the floor of the forest. The boy was lying in a pool of his own fallen sand, barely able to pick himself off the ground. Despite his apparent fatigue, however, he still had it in him to glare angrily at his fellow Jinchuuriki.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Apparently at some point in their summon battle, either Gamabunta or the Snake Boss had awoken Gaara, ending the transformation. It wasn't exactly how it had gone last time, but technically Naruto had awoken Gaara using Gamabunta, so maybe that was enough?

"How many people have you killed to prove your existence?" Gaara asked. Sasuke idly wondered if Naruto had killed anyone at all on purpose. "How many should I?"

Naruto, in his infinite wisdom and leadership qualities, didn't even look back. "Tch, dumbass. You don't need to kill people to prove yourself. You have your family right there. You've always had them. They'll love you."

And apparently that was enough, because shortly after Naruto had finished, the two Sand Siblings appeared to haul their youngest brother away. At that point it was harder not to notice the look of unashamed awe on Gaara's face. It was gone as soon as it came, however, for Kankuro and Temari had the boy gone in the very next moment.

What was hard to notice was the look in Naruto's eyes as he caught up to Sasuke. In the future, Naruto's hair was always cut short, almost to the scalp, so that his eyes could always show. They were strong, tempered in hardships and a burning determination to always succeed, but also impossibly gentle with the love for his own.

Now, however, Naruto's hair was much longer. The spiky bangs covered the boy's eyes easily, and for someone like Sasuke, who had had so much experience reading the blonde Hokage, the hidden facets there were clear as day.

The last Uchiha reached out to grasp his counterpart's shoulder. Naruto barreled past him without a word.

"Let's go, Sasuke," his Hokage said. The command was evident, and long has it been since Sasuke had ignored an order. This was one such rare occasion.

"Naruto, what's wro-"

"I said, let's go, Sasuke," Naruto's voice was stern, and the raven haired avenger was forced into silence. Shrugging, he simply followed his commander, but made a silent vow that he eventually decided to say aloud.

"You'll tell me, eventually. Just because you're the only one who can use that infernal technique doesn't mean that the rest of us can't just talk."

In response, Naruto just grunted. It was a cold day in hell when Naruto decided to take a cue from Sasuke for emotional responses.

Up in the trees, Sakura was looking down at her two teammates in unmasked curiosity. If she needed any more confirmation on her love's deference to their blonde teammate, there it was. An outright command followed up by a stern reaffirmation, Naruto was definitely the one running the shots here.

"But… why?" Sakura asked. As far as she could remember, the one leading the pack was always Naruto. What changed?

Using all of the stealth that was available to her —a red dress wearing, pink haired young girl— Sakura followed her team via the treetops above them. Something wasn't right here, and she would have to figure out what.

XxX

Hinata was never a… shy… person.

Oh sure, she seemed shy to your average viewer, but to those particularly ninja-like observers who could look underneath the underneath, one could note that Hinata was just really socially awkward.

Now, those two character traits usually melded together, as one usually induced the other, but such was not the case for Hinata Hyuuga, heiress of the Hyuuga clan and future matriarch of the Uzumaki clan. Hinata wanted nothing more than to make friends, be social, and pursue the one true prize that the rest of Konoha so foolishly overlooked.

Hinata wanted nothing more than tackle glomp Naruto to the ground and proclaim him hers and only hers forever.

And she would do it to.

If only she knew how to without seeming a social pariah.

And it's not even like Naruto would even particularly be offended by it. The boy so positively radiated acceptance that Hinata was sure that she could stick a hole through his chest and he would still be adamant about being friends.

And speaking of sticking things into holes, Hinata was particularly excited by the thought of them doing that activity alone together.

The problem with… any of that… however was that Hinata still had an image to maintain. She couldn't very well go around making any friends if everyone thought that she was some kind of weirdo! It just wouldn't do! So Hinata settled for letting people think she was just quiet and shy. People never thought badly of the quiet and shy people.

Except for Naruto, of course. Figures that the one person she needed acceptance from would find her safe social path to be weird. In the efforts of preserving that hopefully-more-than-friendship Hinata decided to steer well clear of Naruto for now, at least until she could properly approach him without clamming up.

That plan, however, changed really quickly. A disaster of monumental proportions had struck Konoha, and Hinata wasn't entirely sure how to react. She knew that something like this would happen sometime, I mean, it was bound to happen sometime. She just didn't think it would happen so soon.

Another girl had noticed Naruto.

Oh, and a war was happening. But that could be handled at a later time. Wars come and go, but there was only one Naruto to sink her teeth into, and that was a treat that Hinata Hyuuga wasn't willing to share.

As the Hyuuga heiress approached the bun haired girl that dared attach herself to her future baby daddy, the only thought that ran through the girl's mind was:

"It really is convenient that she has all these weapons around."

XxX

Tenten is one of the most skilled ninjas in the Hidden Leaf Village. That is an undeniable fact.

Whereas most ninjas waste their time learning to shatter continents with their bare hands or other otherworldly stupid ninja magic stuff, Tenten did the one practical thing and trained with weapons. She trained with the things until her skill with the things reached a point where she could be called a "Weapons Mistress" at fourteen years old.

And she only improved from there.

By the time she was a fully grown adult with her own shop to adult in, Tenten was so renowned with her weapons that most people put away theirs when fighting her in the fear that the tools would cower before their true master.

Tenten was one of the Hidden Leaf's best ninjas, and it was for that reason that even she knew who to cow to.

Naruto was an easy one. The boy was nigh invulnerable to all but the strongest attacks, and even those barely even fazed him as— with the addition of Kurama's chakra and Hashirama's cells, not to mention his ability to regrow souls— Naruto could simply recover from anything that dared harm them.

And then the boy was crafty enough to come up with eight different ways to cut down the idiot that attacked him.

Sasuke was another easy one. Even not speaking on the boy's own accomplishments, the Uchiha was mad enough to be best friends with someone like Naruto, even if it was by force. You don't mess with someone who can handle that level of madness.

Finally, the last easy one was Sakura Uchiha. Insanity of that level speaks for itself. Never mind that she was the Third of the Second Generation of Sannin. Sakura Uchiha was a good friend, an even better mother, and totally, criminally, batshit insane.

There were just some people you didn't mess with. Those were the easy ones.

A not so easy one, however, was one Hinata Uzumaki. Hinata was… an interesting one to say the least. To be honest, Tenten was never really sure why exactly she was always so afraid of the blue haired beauty. And then it hit her, ironically, on the day of the shy girl's wedding.

Up there, at the altar, as Hinata stared lovingly into the eyes of her long sought after almost husband, Naruto was simply rubbing his hand on the back of his head in a nervous habit that he had since he was a child. In truth, it was an action that was incredibly cute. It was cute, adorable, and every sense of the word in how it was just so… Naruto. People had gotten used to it, and no one really had it in them to tell the boy to stop.

Hinata had it in her to tell him to stop. A serene smile on her face, the soon to be Uzumaki bride said the one word, and the strongest man in the Elemental Nations acceded to her order.

Tenten figured out all at once why she feared Hinata. She could cow Naruto of all people, who would not back down even before a "god".

You bend knee before your master's master. Tenten did the very same.

So you could imagine the young Weapon Master's fear when she heard the young heiress's voice echo through the air like a reaper's sigh. It was, horrifyingly enough, the same tone the girl would one day use to mollify her future husband in front of the most powerful people in the world.

"I would like to speak with you Miss… Tenten?"

Tenten, at that moment, respected Naruto more than anything else in the world. That he had managed to remain standing even when faced with a sound so chilling only cemented why he was chosen to be Hokage.


Omake: How The Shikaku Fight Almost Went

"Stop it!" Gaara snarled as Sasuke severed his gigantic arm of sand once more. With the ease of a person cutting through paper, the Uchiha used his Chidori to saw off the monstrous sand appendages that Gaara kept creating.

"And why would I do that?" Sasuke asked, an eyebrow raised and left hand placed firmly in his pocket. Gaara tried to reform his arm in the time it took the boy to ask the question, only to have it severed once more.

"So I can kill you!" Gaara snarled. Saliva dripped from his open mouth as his manic, heterochrome eyes glared down his opponent. Said opponent simply rolled their eyes, charcoal black as they were.

"That doesn't seem like something that I want." Sasuke then sliced off Gaara's tail. As no one in the clearing even saw the boy move from his place on a completely different tree branch, this was impressive. "It also doesn't seem like something you can do."

"I will murder you!" Gaara said, his left eye now fully golden and slit. Sasuke rolled his eyes once more.

"Mhm, and I'm the Fourth Hokage."

Naruto, unfortunately, arrived in the clearing at that exact moment. Upon hearing the comment, he turned to his raven haired compatriot and smiled.

"Oh, is that so, Sasuke? Should I be calling you 'daddy' now?"

Sasuke scowled, though it wasn't as bad as it usually was. "You know that you're the reason why everyone thinks we're gay for each other, right?"

Naruto shrugged. "I don't care what they think. No one can actually do anything to me and I've already got the girl of my dreams. If I want to flirt with my best friend then I will."

Sasuke, for the third time in five minutes, rolled his eyes. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto asked. "What are you gonna do about it? Ground me, 'dad'?"

Sasuke smirked. "Oh? Maybe. Bad boys do need to be punished."

Sakura, who was being held to a tree by sand that even now was being severed every time it formed, promptly got a nose bleed and fainted. Both boys felt relieved.

"Thank the gods," Sasuke sighed. "I thought we'd never get her to pass out."

"We were getting her to pass out?" Naruto asked. "Oh right. Of course."

Sasuke stared at his commander, "Kakashi told you to stop flirting with me all the time. It's sexual harassment."

"Oh shut it, you like it."

Sasuke's smirk was all the answer he needed.

"Besides, I spent all that time hunting you down. I think I deserve a little loving."

Sasuke simply rolled his eyes once more. Seeing that the Uchiha was done with the conversation, Naruto turned to the other person among them. "Hey Gaara."

Said sand ninja winced at the brightness in Naruto's smile. It took him a while to compose himself, but when he did, he snarled at the newcomer. "Who are you? Will you be able to prove my existence?"

Naruto snorted. "Nobody can do that but yourself, buddy. Not even your mother."

Gaara snarled even more. "You… would dare disrespect Mother?"

"Yeah, buddy. I dare." Then Naruto promptly knocked the future Kazakage out. Normally this would be a fair, even humane, tactic as far as shinobi went, but for this particular ninja such an action was a death wish.

"I'm free!" Shukaku, the one tailed beast hidden away inside of Gaara, roared as he gained full control of his host's body. Now that Gaara was asleep, his seal was just weak enough to allow the Shukaku the ability to roam free. The sand beast wasted no time in assembling his true form, and sand from seemingly nowhere swirled around Gaara's body until a giant raccoon-like beast towered over even the tallest of Konoha's trees.

Konoha's trees were about seven stories tall.

"It's dinner time!" Shukaku bellowed, his golden slit eyes sizing up the adolescent children before him like particularly tasty treats. Said treats were not impressed.

"This was the Ichibi? This is what we were afraid of when we were little?" Sasuke was disappointed, if his droopy eyes and deadpan expression was anything to go by. "He seemed so much… bigger. And deadlier. I remember him having more spikes."

"I remember several heads," Naruto added. "And I don't know why, but he was on fire."

"I remember that too!" Sasuke said, nodding his head vigorously. "Why isn't this one on fire?"

"Do you want to make it on fire?" Naruto asked. Sasuke's grin was predatory.

"Oh please, yes."

"It's time to— what?" Shukaku was stunned as his right arm was suddenly engulfed in white hot flames. He hadn't seen anything alight him, nor felt a fire growing. One second his arm was okay, the next it was just completely engulfed in flame.

"Smaller than your normal fires," Naruto commented. Sasuke shrugged.

"I wanted to enjoy myself. Burning everything to ashes within seconds gets boring."

"Never thought I'd live to hear those words."

Shukaku was understandably confused. "Wait, what's going on here?" The grains of sand in his arm were starting to fuse to make glass. Also his right arm was now on fire. "No, seriously. I don't understand. What's going on here?"

"I'm burning you to death!" Sasuke yelled. Shukaku looked around for the source of the voice. He looked down at the ant-like humans before him and dismissed them from being the creature capable of burning him so thoroughly. He looked elsewhere.

"Did that son of a bitch just ignore me?" Sasuke asked. He was puffed up, obviously annoyed.

"You know, I think he did," Naruto answered.

"I'm gonna electrocute him!" Sasuke yelled, then jumped straight towards the behemoth. Naruto, the admittedly less intelligent of the two, considered telling his friend that he was trying to electrocute a giant creature made purely of nonconductive sediments, but decided to let this play out. He'd seen less probable things.

I mean, there was that one time he went back in time. Well, not this time he went back in time, but that other one.

"Die, you sand bastard!" Sasuke yelled. He leaped off the nearest, tallest tree he could find and headed straight for the sand beast's chest. A human bullet, Sasuke soared through the air, the beginnings of his Chidori blazing in his palm. The Shukaku heard the screeching of a thousand birds, and briefly his attention turned back towards the tiny, insignificant speck currently flying towards him with some sort of death wish. Of course, the One Tail Beast paid such a thing no mind, and went back to looking for the thing that set him on fire.

So it was to Shukaku's surprise that the small, insignificant speck managed to blow a hole through his gut several hundred yards bigger than it actually was.

"Why are things not making sense?" Shukaku roared. It attempted to reform, but every time it came close, the Uchiha would pass through and somehow blow another hole in it. "Stop that!"

Sasuke didn't respond, but his cocky smirk was visible to everyone.


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