A/N: Update Date - 7/11/10.

Short chapter, I know. But it was a good place to leave off. Next one will be longer.

First off, special shout out to yarra and his Evil Overlord List, which is NOT a fanfic; it's a list of what every cliche villain always does wrong. And it's hilarious, so go read it. Linky: http: /tvtropes .org/pmwiki/pmwiki .php/Main/ EvilOverlordList (Just go to TVTropes and search for it. Trust me, it's worth your time. TVTropes is one of my favorite sites ever).

Personal Responses:

PaintedAme: Thanks :)

Crystalzap: Two? Sakura already WAS one. As for Rin, she hasn't become one of them, but I've kinda failed to convey that. She's basically the old Rin with a stronger personality and more determination. But she's still kind and won't go psycho violent at her teammates' antics. As for what Naruto's going to do...you'll see.

DrgnDrake: Yup. No outline whatsoever. None. It's a huge challenge in and of itself, but it's fun. Basically, with every new chapter, I sit down and think, "Well, what do I want to write in this chapter?" Then I take a look at last chapter to make sure I don't screw up any continuity stuff, and write whatever I feel like.

Shinigami: Sasuke WAS born a few months earlier than Naruto. Just to clarify. But REMEMBER, things have changed. No one is going to have the same birthday.

Richasa: Yeah, that moment was pretty fun to write for me.

Tainted Laurels: Yes. Asumi was born much earlier than Naruto; he made SURE of that. He didn't want a repeat of his birth happening.

Enjoy!


Chapter 15: The Reason Why

"I'll beat some sense into them if I have to," Rin said as she punched her open palm.

Kakashi sighed, closing his eyes as he shook his head. "Don't tell me we have another Sakura and Tsunade."

Rin lept forward, throwing a hard punch at his face. Kakashi-jisan was far, far beyond such a meager surprise attack, for he had purposefully used his statement as a lure. As he opened his eyes, however, he saw that the Rin jumping at him had irregular chakra patterns.

Genjutsu. Knowing the likely follow up, he jumped clear just as the ground beneath him shattered. This seems oddly familiar.

Obito and Kakashi-kun looked at their teammate in shock. Since when could she do something like that? they both thought.

Rin turned to her team. "Well, are you going to help me or not?"

It took another ten seconds for the boys to get out of their shock and join in.

00.000.00

"Is that Sakumo's kid?" asked Tsunade. "He's from the future too?"

Sakura nodded. "You just saw the Kakashi of the future and present. The older one could even beat you."

The Slug Princess scoffed at that. "I'm not kidding," Sakura stated matter-of-factly. "He was nearly made Rokudaime Hokage."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Nearly?"

"You woke up from your coma right before he was appointed."

Now she was very curious. "Coma?"

"Long story." Another earth-shaking pound was heard. "Why don't we go see if we can find the others? Rin-chan seems to be doing just fine on her own."

00.000.00

Minato and Kushina managed to have enough time for a quick lunch before Asumi began crying up a storm. Quickly paying the bill, Minato used his Hiraishin technique to instantly transport them home.

"Is she hungry?" he asked. Kushina smelled her diaper before backing her nose away quite quickly. "I'll take that as a no." They both chuckled for a moment before a knock resounded at the door. "I'll get it. You can go ahead and change her diaper."

Pulling the door open, Minato was greeted by quite a surprise. "T-Tsunade-sama! Sakura-san! You're back!" Hesitating a moment, he glanced around at the third visitor before asking the obvious. "Where's Rin?"

Sakura laughed as she leaned on the doorway. "Shocking your students, no doubt."

He tilted his head, now curious. "Which ones?"

She looked at him in the eye with an all-knowing smirk. "All of them."

Minato replied with a short laugh of his own. "I'm sorry, I'm Namikaze Minato. Whom might you be?" he asked, looking at Shizune.

"Shizune…it's an honor to meet you." Minato dully noted that between the three, she seemed the least likely to shatter something with her fist if you pushed the wrong button.

"Well, come in and make yourselves at home. We've got a lot to talk about," he said as he gestured inside.

They entered the house and seated themselves at the table. Sakura spoke first. "We found Tsunade-sama and Shizune-san quickly…the reason we were gone so long was, well, the obvious. Tsunade-sama has been through a lot in her life, and helping her through that has taken some time."

Minato nodded sagely. "I completely understand. What do you want to do, Tsunade-sama? I'm not going to force you to do anything, it's entirely up to you."

She looked down a moment, thinking. "I suppose I should help out at the hospital. Sakura seems to have the training thing covered."

Shizune smiled. "Sakura-san has done a great job with Rin-san, she's grown so much in the past year."

He looked at Sakura warily. Don't tell me she gave Rin her quirks, too… "I look forward to seeing tha—"

"TSUNADE-SENSEI?"

The woman in question turned around with her mouth and eyes agape. "Kushina? What are you—" She looked at the baby in her arms, then at Minato, and back at Kushina. "You—the kid—with him?" she asked, flabbergasted. "Then—you two—"

"Yes, we're married and that's our daughter, Asumi." Minato had been in plenty of situations where someone was trying to deal with an overwhelming revelation, and by this time he was quite experienced in dealing with them.

Tsunade continued looking back and forth between Kushina, Asumi, and Minato for several seconds before gathering her wits. "You actually ended up marrying him? And you have a kid…wow…"

Kushina strolled over to her old friend. "Sensei, I'd like you to meet Asumi-chan," she cooed. Tsunade examined the baby with fascination.

"I'm home!" Everyone turned their heads to the doorway as a blond teen walked through the door. "Man, Hinata-chan should consider opening her own restaurant when she gets olde—" he stopped dead in his tracks, mouth hanging open midsentence as he just realized who was also home. "BAA-CHAN?"

In return, Tsunade merely raised an eyebrow before turning to Minato. "Who's the kid? And why the hell is he calling me that?"

The Yellow Flash merely rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Tsunade-sama, this is my son from the future, Naruto. As for why he's calling you that…" He looked up at his son, eyebrow raised. "…I have no idea."

Naruto reacted as if he hadn't heard a word they'd said. "What the hell, Sakura? You were gone a year! It only took me a month! And you didn't even have to deal with a perv stopping by at every bar and hot spring along the way! And don't tell me you've turned Rin into another one of you, too!"

Veins bulged on Sakura's forehead. "What exactly do you mean, another one of us?"

Reeling in fear, Naruto tried to get himself out of the ditch he had just dug himself into. "N-n-n-nothing, Sakura-chan!"

Before Sakura could retort, Tsunade turned to Minato once again. "What the hell is he talking about?"

"I'm just as lost as you…do you have any idea what he's talking about, Sakura-san?"

The pink-haired kunoichi sighed, placing her elbows on the table as she massaged her temples. "After the Chuunin Exams we told you about, Hokage-sama, the Sandaime Hokage was killed by Orochimaru during the Sound Invasion, so Naruto left with Jiraiya-sama to find you and offer you the position of Godaime Hokage. Apparently there was a battle between all three of the Sannin, with Naruto involved, and something made you change your mind and you decided to accept the offer. The whole thing took a month, more or less. That's what he's talking about. As for why he's calling you Baa-chan, well…erm…you two were pretty close, and Naruto never was much for respect."

Everyone present except Naruto just blinked in response. "What?" asked Tsunade.

"Hiruzen-sama was killed by Orochimaru?" asked a bewildered Minato.

Naruto drooped his head. "Yeah…he died to save the village. But that's what the job is, isn't it?" His tone was definitely more depressed than usual, Sakura noted. It sounded particularly…bitter, she realized.

Minato and Kushina stared at their son in shock. "Naruto…" chided Kushina, disbelieving that her son could say something so insensitive.

To her surprise, he looked up from the ground and right at her and Minato with sad but angry eyes. "I'll be in my room," he said, walking away with a frown while leaving a stunned group at the table.

He sat at his desk, staring at the half-done seals in front of him. It's not good enough, he thought as he examined one of his projects. None of them are. He worked furiously into the night, not even realizing that he had fallen asleep over his work.

00.000.00

"You really don't get it, do you?"

Opening his eyes, Naruto awoke to greenish yellow walls adorned with leaky pipes. Well, guess I haven't actually awoken at all. "What do you mean?"

The Kyuubi approached the teen, sticking its head over him with amused curiosity. "Your father used the most powerful sealing technique known to man to seal me within you without actually defeating me. It cost him his life; what do you think you could possibly achieve by looking into seals?"

The blond sat up, slightly agitated. "Because I'm looking for a way for my parents to seal your past self without killing themselves in the process. I'm not going to lose them again. I'd die before that happened."

A snort was the curt reply. "Like I said, they can't possibly seal me without losing their lives in the process. I am the most powerful bijuu there is, you know that full well. Seals alone cannot defeat me."

Determination returned to his eye. "Which is exactly why I'm going to defeat your past self first; that way, it won't require a sacrifice."

The giant fox lowered its snout into Naruto's face. "I don't think you understand, kit. You can't even successfully control half of my chakra. Trying to use all of my power while in sage mode is far beyond your current level. That Hachibi jinchuuriki trained for decades even after he gained access to his bijuu's chakra to get to the level you saw. "

"Then I'll train harder."

"You still don't understand! The Hachibi has far less chakra than I do; the power of the tailed beasts grows exponentially with the number of tails. You can't use your shadow clones this time; they'll dispel from the damage right away. And you're trying to combine all of that with sage mode! Even if you trained hard all year it wouldn't be enough."

Naruto slumped down, defeated. "Then I guess it's going to come down to that, then." He gave a painful sigh. "So I'll spend what time I have left as best I can."

Taken completely aback, the Kyuubi lifted its head, shock plastered all over its face. "You're giving up? Is this some kind of joke?"

He looked up at his tenant, angry. "I'm not giving up, furball. I'm just going with the only option you say I have."

"Shiki Fuujin? You're really going to go that far? You'll die in the process…but I'll just be sealed into her along with my past self. Is that what you want?"

The blond stood up and looked at his old companion in the eye. "I want my parents to live more than I want to live. My sister will not grow up an orphan like me. If that's what it takes, then I'll die with a smile on my face."

Naruto saw his tenant do something he'd never even dreamed of…it looked at him, its head tilted to the side…confused. "You'd rather die than let your father take your place?"

And then Naruto understood. The Kyuubi was a demon that had lived for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. It didn't understand the meaning of selfless sacrifice. "Of course. I don't even belong in this time. I owe my parents my life. It's time I repaid that debt. Besides…I promised myself that I'd never let my precious people die. And I don't go back on my word."

Gears were turning in the fox's mind. "I thought you humans cared about your own survival." It was in disbelief, he realized. The Kyuubi had heard his answer—but didn't understand it.

"I stopped caring about that a long time ago. I'd give my life to save any of my friends without hesitation." The blond drooped his head, snorting with a heavy heart. "And it looks like that's exactly what I'm going to do in a few months." Naruto turned around, slowly walking out of the room. The Kyuubi watched him go in silence.

"You know," he said, pausing at the doorway, "I would never have lived this long if it weren't for you. Nor would have I been able to make it back in time to save everyone…so…thank you. You've been with me from the very beginning, through thick and thin. I…" He paused, unable to find the words for his feelings. "…thanks."

The Kyuubi felt things he'd never felt before as the blond teen left the room. Was it…sadness? Regret? It couldn't tell…but it'd have plenty of time to figure it out.


A/N: Who said this story couldn't get dark? And no, I am not "above" killing characters. If I want them to, they will die. End of story.

On that cheery note, please let me know what you think! (Yarra, just wait, trust me...)