TURNS OUT THAT THIS IS TOO LONG. HERE IS PART ONE OF TWO OF THE FINAL CHAPTER.
Hey, my beautiful fans, have you ever wondered why Tenten, Orochimaru, and Kakashi never directly interacted with each other? I mean, now that I look back at it, I would say that I made this pretty obvious.
Enjoy. Also I had to type this in my phone.
No wifi rocks.
Prepare for, I guess, insanity.
EDIT: Tamapyon, you beautiful bastard. I don't know how I skipped your review last chapter, or if you commented after it, but thank you. Such in depth analysis explaining what you found enjoyable will really help me going forward. Thank you so much.
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Yellow chakra and swirling sand spun in midair around The Kunai. Glowing with the blue glyphs commonly found on the One Tailed Beast, the monster known as Shukaku, the blade hummed with a fraction of the power it once had at its prime. At some point, Naruto thought he would be fascinated by the phenomena going on before him. This was a weapon that had somehow gained sentience and a chakra network, and eagerly ate up Tailed Beast Chakra as if it were its own.
Now, however, Naruto just felt empty.
"It's not sticking," a familiar, if stoic voice said from behind him.
Once more Naruto found himself sitting on the old water tank on top of some random Konoha building. His shorter legs dangled in the wind as he sat on the edge, and somehow, without looking, Naruto knew that Sasuke was sitting in the same way on the other side of the tank. "Why did it stick the first time, but not this time?"
Naruto sighed. He turned the kunai over and over, watching as the sand swirled around the blade as the Shukaku's chakra slowly bled off of it. Had the chakra bound itself properly, the energy would be encased within. As it was now, Naruto only had enough time to steal some chakra from the residual left behind from Gaara's transformation. This wasn't right.
"I don't know," Naruto said finally. "I think it might be because last time I had pumped all nine chakras into it at once. Maybe they reach some sort of harmony when they're together or something. I dunno."
"Hmm," Sasuke grunted. In true Uchiha fashion he said nothing else, and for a time the wind was the only sound between them. Usually Naruto was the one to break the silence, his hyperactive mind not comprehending the concept of silence, as if its very existence baffled him. Sasuke found himself breaking the silence this time. "Isn't this why you got Tenten to help?"
Naruto sighed, letting out what seemed to be weeks of exhaustion. "Yes," he admitted, "I had a feeling that the chakras wouldn't simply bind with the blade again." The blonde twirled the blade in his hand once more. "Tenten knows all about binding chakra to weapons though. She can get the chakra to work, even if just for a bit, until I can get the rest of the Tailed Beasts to lend me some energy."
The roof then fell back into silence. Not even the streets below the two future heroes made a sound. Most villagers and ninjas were off lamenting the loss of the Third Hokage, and as such most of the Hidden Leaf Village was a veritable ghost town.
Eventually Sasuke had enough. "Okay, I'm tired of this."
Naruto finally looked up when the boy behind him made to stand. "Tired of what, exactly?"
"This," Sasuke said, waving his hand at his blonde best friend. "You. Everything, and all this. What you're doing. What you're not doing. I'm tired of all of this."
Naruto was at a loss. "Excuse me?"
"You're moping around," Sasuke continued. "That's not you. That's not who you are. Either stop doing that, or tell me what's wrong." Sasuke placed his hand on his hip. "It's your choice."
"I'm not quite following," Naruto said slowly, golden brows furrowing. "Are you… concerned for me?"
Sasuke huffed. "You know damn well that I am. Now, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
"In a sec, I have to process this. I never thought this day would come. I have to tell everyone." Naruto pulled out a phone. Sasuke electrocuted it.
"I don't even know where you got that," Sasuke said, his outstretched hand crackling with electricity. "Phones aren't invented yet."
"Tenten," was all Naruto said. Sasuke's mouth hung open. After a minute he regained his senses.
"How the hell does she bring things back from the future."
Naruto shrugged, before standing up. "I stopped asking Tenten questions a long time ago."
"Was it around the time she started trying to cut Lee's hair, only to realize that The Power of Youth resists all forms of damage, even in body hair?"
Naruto shook his head. As he did so, a small aura of wind started to whip up around him. "No. It was around the time that she started trying to weaponize playing cards."
"Didn't she succeed?" Sasuke asked. The wind circulating Naruto had started to turn into veritable blades, cutting at everything within reach. Sasuke started to bat errant blades away with his charged hand.
"She did," Naruto responded. The blond jumped down from the water tank, and onto the roof the container was sitting on. Turning, he stared at his raven haired friend. "I'd rather not talk about it. It'll only remind me of the toast."
"Did she complete the toast throwing stars?" Sasuke asked, eyebrow quirked. "Last time I was in the village, it was only in beta stage."
Naruto shook his head. A Rasengan started to form in his hand. The wind started to funnel into the orb, and a piercing, screeching noise started reverberate through the area. "She finished the Shuri-Toast a while ago. I'm talking about the Kunai Toast."
"Dear Gods," Sasuke whispered, sounding genuinely shocked. "The madwoman."
"Indeed," Naruto responded. Above him, the boy could see his rival's acknowledged arm engulfed in flame, before the electricity burst through the pitch blackness once more. "Hey, Sasuke. I'll be honest."
"I don't think you have the mental capacity to lie," Sasuke responded. He was rewarded for that comment with a particularly precise blade of wind almost gouging his eyes out. "Go on."
"I know it was forever ago," Naruto started, his voice starting to fall into the breeze that was roiling into his attack. "But now, it's going to be tomorrow as well. You know?"
Sasuke didn't know. To be honest, nothing Naruto usually said made any sense. The blonde liked to think that he was making a point, but more often than not Naruto would just string together words in the hopes that they would fall into a sentence eventually.
Naruto literally threw words at a wall and waited to see what stuck.
So it's hard to blame the little idiot for his social ineptitude. He was barely schooled, after all. That being said, it is also hard to blame Sasuke for his inability to understand. Instead, Sasuke did what he did best.
Sasuke bent his legs, before pushing off the water tower with everything he had. The electricity and fire broke apart and disintegrated everything around him as he flew towards his rival. Naruto, his Rasenshuriken finally charged, simply met his partner's advance. Pushing off the roof, Naruto let tiles and gate wire alike get torn apart on a cellular level as he flew through the air towards the raven haired boy.
"NARUTO," Sasuke screamed, his lungs burning with the effort of conveying all of his emotions in a single word. Focusing on his counterpart's eyes, Sasuke could see the pure emotion that lay within the sapphire orbs.
"SASUKE," Naruto responded. With a single scream, Naruto tried to convey everything he couldn't using words. Mirroring his rival, Naruto brought his hand forward, bringing the blue ball of destruction with it as Sasuke thrust forward his attack.
The two powerhouses were so focused on each other, so single-mindedly intent on the other, that neither noticed the third, and only female, member of their team rush out from her hiding place in the roof door. Sakura's eyes were bloodshot as she used every ounce of energy she had to try and stop the two boys from killing each other.
Naruto and Sasuke were moving at speeds that started to approach light. Sakura was a thirteen year old girl that was honestly out of shape for her profession. There was no way that she should have been able to reach the impact zone before the two collided.
And yet she did.
Somewhere, a floating old man smiled.
XxX
"What… the FUCK… is going on here?" Tayuya, the fourth member of Orochimaru's infamous Sound Four team and resident genjutsu master, nearly squeaked. If everything had gone according to plan, then she would have been fleeing with her master by now, and no doubt be planning an infiltration.
Things were not going according to plan for her. For once it wasn't Naruto's fault.
It was his wife's.
"Just shut the hell up and move," Tenten hissed. Sensing something off on the fringe of her awareness, Tenten ducked. A pulse of chakra impacted the tree behind where her head was, cracking it apart.
Tayuya whimpered. Tenten couldn't blame the poor girl.
"Does she ever tire?" Tayuya asked. Her eyes were wide, but also drooping. The poor girl was good, but she wasn't quite at Tenten's level in the future. She couldn't handle several days of nonstop exertion.
"She does," Tenten answered. The bun haired girl threw a kunai to her far right, not quite aiming at anything in particular. The knife embedded itself into a tree. That tree promptly exploded. "Just not when it comes to Naruto."
"Who the flying FUCK is Narut-" was all Tayuya was able to get out before Tenten grabbed her by the collar and teleported away. The mass of trees they were running amongst broke apart, being repelled by an ungodly force.
The two kunoichi landed in a clearing. Tenten remained standing while her charge collapsed to the ground, her legs giving way to exhaustion. Despite her maintained composure, however, Tenten was still breathing heavily.
"I think," Tenten gasped out, "that we're going to have to fight her."
"No… shit…" Tayuya gasped. "Any… plans?"
"Uh…" Tenten started. In the distance, several trees were felled, each fallen tree closer than the last. "Don't die?"
"You are… the pinnacle… of leadership."
A tree on the edge of the clearing snapped, falling over slowly and ominously. When the dust from the impact finally settled, the two kunoichi were greeted to what would be known as the most terrifying thing they had ever seen.
And Tenten had seen the Ten Tails. Tayuya had seen Orochimaru get out of the shower.
Well, the most terrifying thing Tenten had ever seen.
"Miss Tenten?" Hinata asked, her voice too calm and too sweet to belong to the relentless monster that had chased said girl through a forest for several days. "Why do you run? I just want to talk."
Tenten looked behind Hinata. There was a literal path of destruction marked by the toppled trees Hinata had bowled over in her nonstop advance. If she looked hard enough, Tenten could even see the ones that the Hyuuga had all but disintegrated.
Tenten looked back at Hinata. "I highly doubt that you 'just want to talk'."
"Yeah… you bimbo… what's… your problem?" Tayuya struggled to get out. Already seeing where this was going, Tenten subtly inched away from the red haired girl.
Whether or not Hinata was upset at being called a bimbo wasn't perceivable. With a serene smile on her face, Hinata simply tilted her head as she slowly walked forward.
Tenten, in turn, slowly backed away.
"Nothing, really," Hinata said, her voice regal if not downright terrifying. "I just want to know why Miss Tenten here," Hinata gestured to Tenten. The bun haired girl resisted the urge to flee. "Was messing around with my Naruto."
"H-Hinata," Tenten pleaded. "H-He's allowed to talk to other women."
"Of course he is," Hinata responded. Her smile looked plastered on. "He can talk to any woman he likes. He's not allowed to flirt with them without my permission." Hinata's smile turned predatory. "And women are definitely not allowed to flirt with him."
"Hinata, I wasn't flirting with hi-"
"So this is about a stupid fucking quarrel with some stupid fucking boy?" Tayuya tried to pick herself off the floor, but only managed to lift her upper body. "You chased us through the fucking jungle for three fucking days because of some stupid boy?"
Tenten didn't miss the way that Hinata twitched every time Tayuya said 'stupid boy'. She inched closer and closer to the treeline in the hopes that she would be able to make a break for it.
"I didn't even have anything to do with your fucking boy toy! I don't have anything to do with this at all!"
Hinata's eye started twitching.
"So if you could do me a favor, why don't you leave me alone, fuck off, and take this bun haired bimbo with you! With any luck, she can find your stupid little Naruto. She apparently flirts with him bett-"
Tenten almost jumped out of her skin when Hinata simply… appeared… in front of Tayuya. Like a viper, Hinata's hand darted forward and clasped firmly around Tayuya's throat. The Sound ninja gasped as her oxygen supply was steadily being cut off.
"I… no… what…?" Tayuya gasped. This was clearly a new thing for her.
"You do not get to say his name, harlot." Hinata did not look pleased.
"I don't… wait… what?" Tayuya gasped. The weight of the situation had finally started to bear on the poor girl. "Bun… bitch… help?" Tayuya looked around for her temporary companion.
Only to see that Tenten had evacuated while the white eyed monster was fixated on her.
"You're… fucking… bitch…" Tayuya gasped, directing all of her hate at Tenten.
Hinata only squeezed harder.
XxX
Tenten dead sprinted through the forest, upending dirt, leaves and small bushes in her wake. Tayuya was a noble, if unwitting, sacrifice. She had uttered the forbidden, and as such deserved her fate.
Though, to be honest, Tenten didn't remember ever telling Tayuya what exactly the forbidden was.
"She should have known better than to say 'Naruto' where Hinata could hear her. It's not my fault. It's not my fault at all." Tenten tried to reassure herself. "I'm completely guilt free."
Really, it was more karma that clotheslined the kunoichi than Hinata's arm.
Tenten fell, hitting the forest floor hard. Hinata emerged from the tree she was hiding behind, her smirk gone, but replaced by the multiple splashes of red on her face.
"H-Hinata! What are you doing here?"
Hinata tilted her head. "Chasing you, of course. We still need to talk."
"W-we do?" Tenten asked. Hinata's response was to crush the tree she was hiding behind. The Hyuuga heiress hadn't moved. The tree simply folded beneath her ire. "Of course we do! What do we need to talk about?"
Hinata's eyes narrowed, focusing in on the girl on the floor beneath her. "Your relationship with Naruto. What's that about?" Tenten could tell Hinata tried to sound casual. The blood stains crisscrossing her face only made her seem more frightening.
"We're, uh, just friends?" Tenten tried. Several trees exploded.
"I want the truth, Miss Tenten," Hinata said, her eye twitch back. "No one is 'just friends' with Naruto. They're either completely indifferent, antagonistic like Sakura, or in love with him, like me…"
Tenten was slightly shocked at how accu-
"… and Sasuke," Hinata finished.
-rate that statement was. Still, that statement was only accurate in the past, and not now. Or, at least, the her of now. "I'm not lying Hinata, I really am-"
"Lies," Hinata said, her voice hard like rocks. "I can tell you two are closer than just friends. Now tell me the truth. Please."
Tenten knew that there was no question being posed there. Shrugging, she figured that she might as well tell the truth.
"I know him so well because we've had years to get to know one another. I know him from the future, where we're both well into adulthood, he's the Hokage and father of your two children, and I'm a world-renowned weapons master."
Now, when Tenten told her story, she expected many different scenarios to happen. She expected Hinata to scoff and threaten her harder for her obvious and outlandish 'lie'. She expected Hinata to start following through on threats. Hell, she expected the Hyuuga to grow tired and just outright kill her.
She didn't expect Hinata to laugh, then accept the story. Honestly, it was the most horrifying outcome thus far.
If Hinata was so far gone that she accepted something like a story about time travel, then Tenten was in a much worse situation than she thought.
"I see," Hinata laughed, the sound like a tinkling of bells. "Then, this is fine."
"I-it is?" Tenten stuttered. In all honesty she was just waiting for the world to turn gray and time to reset. That's what was supposed to happen, right? She hadn't made time restart once since she had returned to the past, so surely she got at least one go?
"Yes," Hinata answered, "it is."
Suddenly the world seemed less cold. Birds that had gone deathly quiet started to sing once more. The wind started blowing, and the air tasted of grass and fresh dew. Somewhere, somehow, someone was being stabbed in the gut by a magical jutsu or another and, hell, Tenten's sinuses cleared. Naruto was probably fighting Sasuke over something stupid, and Hinata was a stuttering shut in again.
All was right in the world once more.
"H-Hinata?" Tenten gasped, the act of saying the name like disarming a bomb. "You okay?"
"Hmm?" Hinata asked, her voice lighter than air and probably as stable. "O-oh, I'm fine T-Tenten."
Hinata then smiled. Tenten's spine tingled.
"You uh," Tenten started, unsure of what to say. Hinata seemed like, well, normal Hinata again. Tenten wasn't fooled, however. She knew that the unmatched demoness wasn't a split personality. Hinata was a dangerous psychopath when she wanted to be. Tenten had to choose her words carefully to make sure that Hinata didn't want to be one right now. "You okay?"
"I couldn't be better, Miss Tenten," Hinata said. Her smile seemed more genuine now, a fact that would have calmed Tenten's frayed nerves if not for the fact that the girl was currently wiping blood off her face as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
To be fair, in their work, wiping blood off of things was fairly common. Wiping your comrades' blood of your face after chasing them for days with the sole intent to maim and/or murder them was arguably less common.
"I… I see," Tenten stuttered. She was about to continue talking, because anything was better than the awkward silence filled only by Hinata's serene smile, when the princess in question broke the silence herself.
"I mean, why wouldn't I be happy? I was just told that I get to marry the man of my dreams! We have not one, but two children, and he even achieves his dream of becoming the strongest man in the entire village."
"Technically, he's the strongest man in the entire world," Tenten added in. The Weapons Master regretted that action immediately as the Hyuuga heiress's head whipped in her direction so fast it created gusts of air. Hinata's face was practically orgasmic.
"Even better," Hinata all but purred. "And he's mine, right? All mine and no one else's?"
"I think Sasuke has some dibs," Tenten murmured, her responses automatic. Her brain had started to shut down in fear. Hinata seemed crazed, and a crazed Hinata, as proven by recent circumstances, was not a good one.
"Well, that's to be expected," Hinata said, waving her hand as if dismissing the fact. "As long as it's just with Sasuke, I don't mind sharing him."
"The kids might have some dibs…" Tenten said, her voice still on autopilot. Hinata's laugh was hollow.
"They have visiting rights through me. No one has dibs besides me and Sasuke. Not Kakashi, not Konohamaru, and especially not…"
The world went silent once more. Somewhere in the distance Tenten could hear the faint cries of "Naruto" and "Sasuke" and nothing else. Hinata practically teleported again, but this time over to Tenten. Grabbing the girl by the shoulders, Hinata stared into her senior kunoichi's eyes, her own burning with the rage of a thousand suns.
"Miss Tenten?" Hinata asked. Tenten nodded her head so quickly it hurt. "What has become of Sakura?"
"Sh-she's married," Tenten stuttered. "T-to Sasuke."
"And Naruto," Hinata continued. "What are his feelings towards her?"
"Th-they're still close, b-but nothing romantic!" Tenten squeaked, answering to the best of her ability. She prayed that her truths were good enough.
"That's… odd…" Hinata murmured, more to herself than Tenten. "I would have thought that I would have set him against her by… how old am I in the future?"
"I-I think somewhere in your thirties?" Tenten said, unsure of her own age at this point.
"How long have we been married?" Hinata asked. Her grip on Tenten's shoulders was starting to get painful.
"A-about six years," Tenten stuttered. Why wasn't time restarting yet? "You married shortly after Himawari was born."
Hinata grimaced. "Is that my son? Did I name him that?"
"No," Tenten said, shaking her head. "That was the name of your daughter. Himawari Uzumaki."
"Oh," Hinata's grimace faded. "I guess that means that Neji is dead."
Tenten resisted the urge to ask how the two facts were connected at all.
"What of my son? What is his name?"
"Boruto," Tenten answered. Hinata's face was blank.
"Naruto named him."
Tenten couldn't find it in her to deny that.
"Oh well. They can't all be winners. I'll just ask him what he was thinking when he named our children directly." Hinata then let go of Tenten. The bun haired girl rubbed her shoulders. "Are you coming along?"
Tenten could still hear Naruto and Sasuke yelling in the distance. As Hinata had chased them well enough away from the village, this was impressive. "I think we should give Naruto some time right now."
Hinata, who had started to walk away, turned around slowly. The serene smile, and dear gods was Tenten starting to reevaluate the meaning of that word, was back. With partially lidded eyes, the Hyuuga heiress spoke her next words with the same amount of certainty one would use to say that the sun would rise the next morning.
"Oh, he'll make time for me," Hinata said.
Tenten whimpered as she followed after the thirteen year old.
XxX
Gloved hands grasped the wrists of both boys and pulled. Using the momentum of the two attacks against them, Kakashi Hatake redirected both the Flame Style: Black Raikiri and the Sage Style: Rasenshuriken into the two water silos that sat atop the roof.
Both water silos disintegrated. They simply did not exist anymore.
Naruto and Sasuke struggled to stand. Their high powered attacks were taxing even in their base forms, but both boys had poured all of their energy into the techniques this time in an effort to overpower the other.
"Kakashi?" Sasuke asked, being the first to coherently recover. "What are you doing here?"
The masked man smiled, his eye crinkling being the only visible indicator of that action even taking place. "Maa, I think the better question would be, 'what are all of you doing up here?'"
Naruto, who recovered second, stuck out his tongue. "Hey, Kakashi-sensei, no fair. We asked first!"
"Well," Kakashi mused. He had pulled out a book from somewhere, and was now paying it more regard than he did the two boys throwing mountain destroying abilities at each other. "I asked better. Now answer."
"I… think…" Sakura gasped. She hadn't fully recovered from being between what basically equated as two nuclear warheads, but that she had recovered at all was summarily impressive. "The better… question should… be… what the hell was all that?"
Kakashi looked up from his book. Indeed, the water silos that were nearly a staple of the Hidden Leaf Village since its founding now seemed to have never been there at all. Such was the level of destruction that his two "students" had wrought.
"That is a rather pertinent question," Kakashi said, his head back in his book. Sakura stared at her teacher, wondering whether his nonchalant attitude was a coping mechanism or a technique used specifically to drive people insane.
Knowing the man, it was both.
"We… um…" Naruto stammered. He was never the most eloquent of... basically anything. Sasuke decided to throw the man a bone this one time.
"It was a dream. You're both dreaming," the Uchiha said. Naruto facepalmed.
"You're terrible at lying," Naruto said. Sasuke glared at him.
"Well, excuse me. You'll find that it's a skill I've never had to use when I could just as easily tell the truth, then turn into a giant purple skeleton." Sasuke then sheathed his hands in his pockets again. "Besides, you weren't doing any better. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were taking cues from your wife."
"Hey!" Naruto shouted. "Don't talk about Hinata like that! She can hear you."
XxX
Halfway back to the Hidden Leaf, Hinata sneezed. Tenten's mini heart attack was justified.
XxX
"I don't understand your fear of your wife," Sasuke started. "Sure, she isn't exactly a pushover, but that you're so afraid of her doesn't really make sense."
"To be fair," Kakashi grunted. "You weren't at the wedding."
"Yeah!" Naruto piggybacked off of his teacher. "If you heard what she was like, you'd understand my pain."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "If she is so abusive, then why are you still with her? It's not like the strongest man in the Elemental Nations would be denied if he filed for a divorce."
To this, Naruto only asked one thing. "How many times have you met Himawari?"
Sasuke, who was about to make another point, closed his mouth. After thinking for a bit, he posed his own question. "What's your point?"
"Hinata is ten times worse."
"Dear gods."
Off to the side, another conversation was taking place, as wont to do whenever Naruto and Sasuke existed in the same place at the same time.
"What are they talking about?" Sakura asked. "Naruto and Hinata are married? When was the wedding? Who's Hinawari?" Questions were apparently piling up in Sakura's mind.
"Oh," Kakashi said, his voice only a single octave higher than usual. "I was sure that it was the entirety of Team Seven that came back. I guess it's just us, then."
When Kakashi didn't continue, Sakura just continued for him. It was routine by this point. She would have to fill in the sanity for the whole team. "It's just you… what… exactly?"
"Hmm?" Kakashi mumbled. He raised an eyebrow then looked down at his charge. "Oh, just us men. See, we're all from the future."
Sakura was about to scoff, when she noticed the grayness start to appear on the very outskirts of the world. This wouldn't be the first time that she saw it, and in an attempt to prevent it, she did what she did best.
She played it off as a joke.
"Haha, you're so funny Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura laughed, putting her all into believing that the very serious statement that her teacher made had been a joke. She disregarded the fact that Kakashi Hatake never joked, and almost bought into her own delirium. It wouldn't be the first time she had done so. Already the grayness of the time stop had started to recede, and for a while, Sakura believed that she had once again won.
"You know I don't joke," Kakashi said, starting the onset of the world graying once more. "Sheesh, I liked you better when you were Sakura Uchiha."
To Sakura's benefit, the world stopped graying.
XxX
Elsewhere, an equally disastrous event was taking place.
"Miss Tenten?" Hinata asked. Tenten resisted the urge to wince. How did the girl make talking seem so terrifying?
"What was my name in the future?" Hinata asked. Without looking ahead of her, the "failure" of the Hyuuga main branch leapt between the branches of the trees with all the grace of a swan.
Tenten, not seeing the harm in this, answered her tormentor. "Your name in the future is Hinata Uzumaki, matriarch of the Uzumaki Clan."
Hinata shuddered once in mind numbing glee before falling unconscious. Tenten debated whether or not she should catch the girl, then thought about Naruto's reaction should he find out that she chose not to.
Tenten dove for the girl.
XxX
"- and furthermore, what use could a marital band be when we have the power to literally carve the moon in ha-"
Sasuke's comment stopped halfway. In an unsurprising moment of duality, both godlike children stopped in their bickering to notice an irresistibly chilling spark run up their spines. As if to answer their unspoken question, a thud rang out behind them, the sound easily heard as the entire planet had gone silent.
Some unspeakable evil, some unstoppable force, had been awakened. Roused from it's slumber, the beast's reemergence into this world, the simple act of it moving once more, shushed all those with a survival instinct.
And to make matters worse, there were two of them.
All Naruto and Sasuke saw was their teacher standing next to an unconscious Sakura. The Hatake's head was buried in his book, but even he looked jarred. His eyebrow twitched two whole times.
"Kakashi," Sasuke started. Kakashi looked up from his book. "You're our Kakashi, aren't you?"
Kakashi nodded once. Naruto cursed under his breath.
"Exactly how long have you been our Kakashi?" Sasuke asked, his interrogation continuing.
"Ever since Naruto burned all of my books." Kakashi then shrugged, as if to say "oops."
Immediately Sasuke's head whipped to the side. He addressed thin air with his words. "GRANDPA SAGE. YOU GET YOUR BONY ASS OUT HERE."
The Sage appeared instantly. His face was split with a shit eating grin. "You rang?"
Sasuke pointed at Kakashi. "When exactly were you going to tell us?" The Sage looked at Kakashi. Kakashi looked back. The two nodded at the same time, some unspoken message being conveyed between the two.
"Most likely?" the Sage responded, "never."
"And why not?" Naruto asked between clenched teeth. It was Kakashi that answered.
"To fuck with you, of course." Kakashi turned a page in his book. "The Venerable Sage did say that he was going to actively mess with you. He brought me in to make sure that it happened."
Naruto and Sasuke both shared a scoff. Kakashi decided to cut their glee short right there.
"And before you mount your high horse, no. I'm not the person he brought back to mess with you two. I'm the person he brought back to make sure you get messed with, and I've done that." Kakashi's eye smile widened. "Just so you know, none of the people brought back in time after me were by accident."
Kakashi then looked down at Sakura. She had begun to twitch. The cyclops looked back up to the two horrified boys.
"Enjoy," Kakashi sang, and with a twirl of the Sage of Six Path's staff, the two oldest people on the building were gone.
The two godlike children just looked down at Sakura. She had begun to twitch again.
"Naruto?" Sasuke asked. His voice may or may not have cracked. "Where's Hinata?"
"She's with…" Naruto paled. "She's with Tenten."
XxX
Tenten looked at Hinata's twitching form, and was only too glad to see Hagoromo and Kakashi appear.
"Thank gods you're here. I can't stand being around the little psychopath any longer. I love Hinata to death, but that's in the future, when her insanity was refined." Tenten looked at the cyclops. "You hold up your end?"
Kakashi gave her a thumbs up. Tenten smiled.
"Well then," Tenten all but purred, a Cheshire grin on her face. She held out her hands, and all three conscious ninjas in the clearing held hands. "Shall we watch gods fall?"
The three ninjas teleported out of the area.
Now alone, no one could see Hinata's twitch worsen.
XxX
Orochimaru smiled. Before him, held down by the most powerful sealing array he could muster, was the Nine Tailed Fox. A flash of light heralded his guests, and Orochimaru turned to his three companions with glee.
"Kakashi, Tenten, Hagoromo. It is so good to see you all again!"
Orochimaru held out his arms. No one seemed to reciprocate his joy. While Kakashi branched off to poke at the trapped tailed beast, Tenten immediately vacated to the farthest part of the room from where Orochimaru currently was. She made adjustments to where exactly that was in real time.
"Quite," Hagoromo responded. He nodded once to his trapped fox son, who nodded back unperturbed, before floating over to a giant television screen. It took up almost an entire wall of the room, so it was hard to miss. "Have you set up the cameras?"
"Oh, yes," Orochimaru said, his every syllable sounding perverse and sinister. "The cameras all over the Hidden Leaf, as well as its surrounding forest, should catch every moment of Naruto and Sasuke's downfall."
"Figures you would be all too happy to film Sasuke," Tenten not so quietly whispered. Orochimaru ignored her with practiced ease.
"Shall we watch the fall of gods?" Orochimaru asked, unknowingly copying Tenten's earlier question. Ignoring Tenten's rather violent shudder at the thought that she could ever think similarly to the Snake, Hagoromo nodded.
"Lets," the Sage said, and the television turned on. It showed a rather panicked Naruto and Sasuke, who were currently running for dear life.
"I must say," Kurama started. Kakashi, who was currently poking the fox man, spoke up.
"Why are you speaking so deeply? If I had to imagine your voice in text, it'd be in bold."
Kurama expertly ignored the silver haired cyclops. "I must say, this is a rather smart plan, given those involved." At once, those involved glared at the smiling fox. "What better way to mess with the two most powerful and cunning men in the world…"
"… than with their wives."
XxX
"Naruto," Sasuke asked, his voice coming out hurried and frantic. "Where is Kurama? Why aren't you summoning Kurama?"
"I can't!" Naruto yelled back. His voice, too, was harried, and he ran through a well practiced set of hand seals with speed that would rival light. Fat lot of good it did him, though. "It's just not… It's just not working!"
"Well, make it work!" Sasuke grunted. Even now, the Uchiha could already feel it. She was already waking up, and when she did, she would want answers. His wife's two personalities would crash, much like his own did, and while Sasuke could reconcile himself relatively easy…
He had the added benefit of not being certifiably insane.
Over in Naruto's head, much the same dilemma was going on.
"Oh shit oh fuck oh shit oh FUCK."
It sounded ineloquent, but it was honestly the most appropriate thought to have in such a situation.
"What do we do?" Sasuke asked his commander. "I'm down my Rinnegan, you're down the chakra of the tailed beasts, and now you're telling me you don't even have Kurama? Naruto!" Sasuke screamed. "What. Do. We. Do?"
Naruto, who was still flipping through handseals, worked his rarely used mind into overtime. After a couple seconds, in which time thousands of thoughts went through his head, Naruto turned to his second in command and said the only words that stuck out.
"I don't know."
Sasuke balked. "What do you mean, 'you don't know?' Aren't you Naruto fucking Uzumaki, the world's most unpredictable ninja? We don't pay you not to know, we pay you to pull a victory out of whatever you call a brain up there and get us out of this mess! So start doing it!" Sasuke then shuddered. "Naruto. My wife, she's… she's immortal. You know that, right Naruto? I can't stop her without the Rinnegan. She will definitely kill me. Naruto. What do we do?"
Naruto, noticing his best friend's rapidly declining mental state, stopped his sprint and slapped him as hard as he could. The shock was so sudden, so unexpected, that Sasuke was broken from his train of thought.
He was also broken through several trees, but that was honestly a lesser fact.
"Sasuke. I know," Naruto started. "Believe me, I know. Hinata is… she's special. She's an evil unlike the world has ever seen when she's mad, and she will be clinically mad when she returns from the future. I don't know about you, but I think the only answer available to us is plainly obvious."
Naruto then looked out, over the horizon.
"We run."
XxX
Meanwhile, with Neji.
"Where the hell is everyone?"
