A/N: Good news, everyone! New chapter out :D

First things first:

To Guest: Thank you so much for your review. Yeah apparently the rescue thing is true, urgh.

To the people who have signed in to review: check your inboxes :D

To the people who are reading but aren't reviewing: please tell me what you think of this story? Pretty please with lots of sugar? I honestly, DESPERATELY need the feedback, help a poor fledgling writer out, waaaaaaaaaa *cries*

Oh, two things I have to say: one, this story has a slower pace than my previous ones, it's because of the complexity of the themes dealt with here. Two, I have had a couple reviewers complain about the size of monologue paragraphs in The End and the same long speeches happen in this fic, but there is a reason for me to keep them as they are: they are supposed to be deep, heartfelt confessions, and considering that in real life when people give those they don't stop in the middle and go do something else to then come back later and continue, but instead keep going until everything is clear to the listeners, I've kept them that way in writing. I do know that some people have issues with long written monologues, but please bear with it, as breaking them apart would disrupt the emotional flow of the narrative at those moments.

Beta'd by the fantastic Lohrendrell

Ok, now on with the show :D

Shikamaru returned to the Hokage Tower after leaving Ino and Sai back at their home to find Naruto sleeping curled up around the Uchiha baby and his own family waiting for him in his office.

He sighed and pulled up his cell phone, frowning at the time. It was near dinner time already, the late autumn overcast day already giving way to night. Good thing he had told Ino to check on Hinata the next day, as far as he could see Naruto was dead to the world and wouldn't be able to process more information until the next morning.

He then left the Hokage office while giving orders to the staff to leave some dinner for Naruto at the Hokage's desk without disturbing him.

"Why the hell did you tell us to get here with so much urgency if you were going to make us wait, Shikamaru?" Temari asked in her tired, resentful voice when he entered his own office, Shikadai lying on the couch with his head on her lap while reading some manga.

Shikamaru closed the door and rested his back on it while taking a good look at the woman he had admired and loved ever since he was a kid, treated like utter shit after their marriage, and who had already tried divorcing him twice, only giving up after much pleading from his mother, of all people.

He silently cursed himself for all the stupid shit he had ever done in the last twelve years, and sighed in preparation to what he was sure to be the most troublesome explanation he'd ever have to give, hoping like hell Temari could find in herself the will to ever forgive him.

He then pulled a chair to sit across from them, and began telling everything that had happened, without leaving out a single detail.

"Did your mother tell you to give us this tall tale?" Temari asked, clearly unimpressed. Shikadai simply gave him a side look, before returning to his reading.

"Come with me," Shikamaru asked, and led them to the Hokage's office, carefully locking the door before leading them to the annexed bedroom.

Temari's eyes widened when she saw the blond man in the bed, the disfigured child soundly asleep in his arms, their foreheads touching.

Shikamaru gave her a serious look, and she nodded, before the three of them went back to Shikamaru's own office.

"That must be why Uchiha-san took Salad away, then," Shikadai mentioned casually, before sitting back on the couch and opening his book again.

Shikamaru frowned at him. "Explain."

"He burned down their house and left with her, a girl from school told me when we went to a kombini on the way here. Said her mom asked what happened to Haruno-san and he said that Salad would be traveling with him from now on, apparently the Uchihas did break up."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and sighed. Trust Uchiha Sasuke to do something that dramatic and troublesome.

"Eh, another pain in the ass to deal with… well, at least now do you believe me, Temari?" he asked her, and she nodded. "Fine. Then please understand that I need you both out of Konoha while we try to find out exactly what the fuck happened and how to fix this mess before Rain fucks the Fire Country in the ass and the Daimyo roasts us over an open fire, that if he actually is able to grab us before everyone in Konoha gangs up on us. Shit, even Ichiraku will want a piece of Naruto if word of this gets out," he groaned.

"Ichiraku? Isn't that the ramen restaurant that Naruto used to go to? The owner sold it years ago to the corporation that controls the Fire Up! kombini chain, it's where we went to get Shikadai's manga," Temari said, and Shikamaru's face became as white as bleached paper.

"We are so fucked."

It was mid-morning the next day when the Harunos visited their daughter again.

"Good morning, dear, how are you feeling?" Sakura's mother asked her.

Sakura looked at her and smiled. "I'm feeling fine, Shizune-san said I should be discharged today. I can't wait to go home, there is so much to do! Sasuke-kun doesn't really know how to take care of himself," she giggled.

"Um… about that, Sakura-chan," her father began, and ran his hand through his hair, before handing her an envelope.

Sakura opened it and read the letter within, her smile fading.

"But… but I did everything right! I love him! I love him more than anything! He can't leave me!"

"We're sorry that it didn't work out, Sakura-chan, but it is really for the best. He wasn't good for you anyway. Now you can find a man that really loves you, that cherishes you," her mother said.

Sakura gave her parents an icy glare. "I will not allow this. Sasuke-kun is mine. I love him. I deserve to have him. He married me. I am Uchiha Sakura. You must have driven him away!"

Sakura's parents sighed and exchanged a weary look.

"We didn't do anything. He collected Salad while we were in your house getting her things and left the village already, Sakura-chan. Come home with us, there isn't anything left to do, clan law" her mother tried to reason.

"Clan law? Who cares about the law? He is mine!" Sakura interrupted her.

"Enough, Sakura. He does not want you anymore! Stop demeaning yourself!" her father exclaimed.

"What he wants is to be with me! I love him! That is all that matters! He is destined to be mine! We were fated to be together and I did everything for it to happen! I'm going home to wait for him, he'll come back! He always does!"

"There is no Uchiha home anymore, Sakura. He burned it down before he left." Her mother said.

Sakura's eyes widened in horror, her mind shocked by the revelation.

Sasuke-kun had burned their home down, taken Salad away, and her name off the Uchiha clan's family registry.

It was Sakura's worst nightmare. It couldn't be, not after all she had done to finally own him. She had made it certain that Sasuke-kun would be hers forever, how could this have happened? He wasn't allowed to reject her feelings like this! She loved him!

And she would get him back, she thought with a glint in her eye.

Naruto opened his eyes weakly, to see a worried Tsunade sitting beside his bed.

"Finally, you stupid brat. I was this close to sending a search party after Uchiha," she said.

Naruto tried to say something, but only a dry croak left his throat, and his eyes widened in obvious alarm.

"Good thing the IV fluids worked," Shikamaru's voice was heard, while Tsunade pushed a cup with a straw for Naruto to drink. He took a sip and grimaced at the taste.

"Electrolytes," Tsunade explained. "You've been out for the entire week, we had to get Konohamaru to pose henged as you to avoid suspicion. Luckily Hinata bought the whole "too busy and distraught with the recent events" excuse he and Shikamaru gave her."

Naruto reflexively curled up tighter and looked down at little Menma, and gasped.

"Yeah, we think that's why you wouldn't wake up," Shikamaru commented.

The baby had grown exponentially while they slept. It was the size of a six month-old, at least, and blinked at him twice before squirming a bit and falling asleep again.

"Who…" Naruto started, and cleared his throat, "who's been taking care of him all this time?"

"No one. We can't touch him, the damn fox's chakra spikes out and burns anyone who tries to touch the kid. It's been living and growing off your and the beasts chakra all this time," Tsunade said. "Care to explain why the hell is your body sucking his out?"

Naruto groaned as his muscles protested when he turned on his back and stretched his unused limbs. "Kurama said his chakra is exactly the same as Sasuke's, and that my body is draining it from him to repair the damage my breaking of our bond did to my body," he explained in a weak voice. "Sasuke's body has been damaged from that too, I think that's why Menma was born like this. Apparently I'm a stupid asshole and Sasuke is just dumb, because both of us didn't realize that our chakra bond wouldn't break without fucking us up even after we lost the arms that had the Sage's seals."

"I've been meaning to ask that. How the hell did you break your bond in the first place?" Shikamaru asked.

Naruto turned his face to better look at him. "Right after Sasuke left on his first trip I started meditating to look for the place where I could feel his chakra in my head. After I found it, I started using nature energy on it, like sandpaper, until I couldn't feel it anymore," he said, and sighed. "I… I did it because I didn't want Kakashi or someone else to use Sasuke as an excuse to stop me from becoming Hokage. I knew that he was seen as a liability even after I swore he wouldn't be a problem anymore, so I… I abandoned him."

"Oh shit, Naruto," Tsunade said, and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Yeah. I told Sasuke I'd do it, when he… when he asked me to go traveling with him, so he knows. He wasn't happy about it, but he himself thought that the cycle of reincarnation was over because he admitted he lost, and I promised him that though Kakashi had decided to cover up the whole Uchiha clan issue I'd make it up to him when I was in office."

Shikamaru groaned. "And then that fucking jutsu happened and you forgot about it," he guessed.

Naruto shook his head. "No, I didn't. But I didn't do anything because by then I was married and I really, really wanted to fall in the clan heads' graces, what with them having had supported Kakashi's decision, so… I chickened out," he confessed, shameful tears brimming on his eyes. "I honestly can't throw that as an effect of that jutsu because even before the mission to retrieve Hanabi I was really, really set into doing whatever I could to avoid doing anything that could jeopardize my popularity as war hero and Hokage status. The truth is, ever since I defeated Pain and got that reception at the village, with everyone cheering me, I just couldn't let the village lose their trust in me anymore. And the village trusts the clan heads more than anything, they are the ones who built and ran the village. If I went against them on that they wouldn't want to let me do anything, and I really wanted to stop the wars most of all. So… in order to have that peace, I abandoned my first and most important living bond. The way that our peace was achieved with the financial support for foreign corporations, the debts I made to buy out the support of the other villages and the loss of military power due to the building of Konoha City… yeah, I can say I wasn't in my right mind when I did that, but the Uchiha clan still being blamed for all the wars is one hundred percent my. Fucking. Fault," he stated in a deeply regretful voice.

"I'm just not as amazing and nice and good and selfless as I wanted to be, and my own flaws ended up biting me in the ass. And now my lack of resolve is taking its toll on innocent Uchiha all over again, just like it happened with Hashirama. If I hadn't put what I wanted in front of finding a way to work with Sasuke, he wouldn't have been affected by the break in our bond, his kids would've been normal and this poor baby wouldn't have to go through this shit. And now I can't even break the bond my selfish body made with him because it might kill him, unless I can somehow rebuild the bond I had with Sasuke, and I have to do that in order for him to survive, because the same degeneration that made his kids have issues is still going on in his body," he finished, the tears running down his face as he ran his fingers through the baby's soft black hair.

"Well, at least you got your head out of your ass now," Kurama said. "Stop whining and start working your way out of this mess. And by the way you should start getting some real food into your body, the kid's chakra system isn't developed enough that we can stop feeding him yet and we have no idea if his growth rate will keep as is, so you're stuck having to eat for two until Son Goku says the kid is in the clear. And yes, before you ask I did have to call the others, the idea of having this child's death hanging on my conscience when I can help him survive isn't appealing to me at all. We are now all feeding him and Son Goku is overseeing the process."

Naruto lowered his head, and nodded. The fox was right, blaming himself would do nothing to solve his problems. First things first, though.

"Can I have some food please? Urgh…" he grimaced. "Healthy food."

Bolt was beyond used to not seeing his father, and the recent "extra work" excuse he apparently gave to not even go home for a week fit right into Bolt's schedule.

It was Friday afternoon, and the Uzumaki boy dropped his books on his bedroom desk, before opening the closet and withdrawing his Pit bag.

Tonight would be his first fight, and Bolt wanted everything to go right.

He passed through the kitchen on the way out, grabbing a couple of onigiri and a tomato before kissing his mother and leaving the Hyuuga compound.

Bolt's mom was easy as hell to fool, all it had taken was to play an edited tape of Shikadai's mother saying he'd be spending the weekend over through the Naras phone (the fact that they weren't home at the time made it all the easier still) for her to let him out without questions.

He made his way to the steps into Konoha City unmolested, and took a detour into one of the unused emergency bunkers in the Hokage Monument, where he started the transformation for his debut at the Pit.

He first pulled on the pair of dark brown contact lenses, blinking a while and making sure they were concealing his blue eyes, took off his shirt and pants and then began to work on the telltale whisker scars on his face, that showed the faint traces foreign chakra imbued into his father's sperm (for which he often had cursed the Scumbag; dude had to be such an egotistical bastard that he'd pass on the fucking fox's ugly whiskers, but not the link to use the stupid beast itself).

Thank gods for special ninja make-up, designed to withstand sweat and punches, though.

He pulled out the bottle of temporary hair dye next, and slipped a pair of plastic gloves to spread the transparent liquid on his hair. It was also a cosmetic designed for ninja, designed for long-term missions where the expenditure of chakra to keep a henge up could be noticed or was unwanted for any other reason, and would only stain hair, not skin.

He took a good look in the hand mirror he had brought, and nodded at the black-haired, dark-brown figure he saw in it. He now looked just like any ordinary Konoha city kid, if not for the fact he wasn't as malnourished as most were in the neighborhood where the Pit was located. However, fighters often ate better than regular kids, so that detail would go unnoticed.

He donned his black clothing and concealed the weapons he'd be using in his fight, and left his headband for last.

It was a simple black headband, ornamented simply with the kanji 功, meaning Isao, the alias he had chosen for himself.

Bolt thought that Isao was a much better name than "lightning", even if he did respect his late uncle Neji's memory (on the basis that since he had never laid his eyes on him, he couldn't form an opinion on the man, thank gods for small favors).

He quickly packed his bag again, and hid it in a dark corner. No one came into the hideouts anymore, but he didn't want to risk anyone finding out what he was doing. The Scumbag would probably give him over to his grandfather to be punished, and Bolt didn't want to again risk getting a curse seal.

It had been bad enough that his mother had been whipped in his place the one time Hiashi had gotten pissed up with him and tried to do it. The only thing that had swayed the old Hyuuga clan head was aunt Hanabi's statement that Bolt wasn't fit for that "honor", and so Hinata had offered to stand in for his punishment, since she was the Hyuuga responsible for his actions.

Of course, the Scumbag had no fucking idea that had happened because he was too damn busy talking to his shit friends on social media or playing shit Solitaire, or whatever the shit he did all day. It wasn't as if he had actual work to do, what with all the ninja getting lazy and fat on government pensions.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. Enough thinking for the week; time to get some enjoyment out of his miserable life.

Shikamaru and Ino were sitting across the Hokage at Naruto's dinner table in his personal quarters that same evening, watching both man and child eat in fascination.

Throughout the week that had become a sort of morbid entertainment for them. Even Tsunade was starting to get worried; if things kept going at this rhythm someone would surely realize something was up at the Hokage Tower.

Naruto had been a voracious eater when young, but there was just no normal explanation for the giant pot of chanko nabe he was putting in every six hours. It was just about enough to feed ten heavyweight sumo wrestlers, and that was just his food.

Little Menma's meals were even stranger, albeit much smaller. The baby had doubled in size that week, and both Shikamaru and Sai had been taking turns to watch over the kid while Naruto slept (which was most of the time between meals) and the kid was awake (which was about six hours a day).

That vigilance was extremely necessary due to the fact that Naruto had conveyed the necessity to stuff the kid with sweets, along with the highly nutritional, protein-rich gruel he was fed every three hours.

Apparently the Yonbi's assessment of the child's necessities was spot on, because not only was the two-week old baby playing, walking, talking and doing everything else a child a little over one year-old did, but his brain seemed to be developing at ramming speeds.

The child stuffed the last of his dango in his mouth, wiped his hands and face with a moist towel and gave Ino an expectant look.

She smiled at him. Even with his strange cyclops eye (which was set on an even more unsettling single eye-socket over the bridge of his nose and under a thin single eyebrow that didn't move beyond a tiny rise), the toddler had such an adorable, eager personality that he had won over everyone.

Taking care of him had also helped her and Sai get over the shock from coming out of the jutsu.

Sai had been understandably horrified after finally getting his brain back in functioning order after being pulled out of it, and neither he nor Ino were sure of what to do with their relationship; neither felt in love with the other.

However, they truly had enjoyed each others company in a friendly way during the last decade, and so had decided to leave the issue of what to do with their marriage for later, having only taken separate bedrooms by mutual agreement, since both felt a dire need of space to reacquaint with who they truly were.

Both Shikamaru and Naruto envied them greatly.

Naruto still wasn't able to even think about seeing Hinata again. Not only did he feel robbed of his own choices for the last decade, and completely out of not only love, but touch, with his wife and children, but he also felt guilty for Hinata. He had no idea how she'd react at being taken off the genjutsu and realizing she had been stuck in a loveless marriage with someone who didn't love her like Naruto thought she deserved to be for so long. As for dealing with Hiashi, Naruto didn't even want to touch that with a thirty-foot pole.

Shikamaru on the other hand had a different problem. He did love Temari and Shikadai, but he was absolutely convinced the genjutsu had destroyed any chance he had of being happy with her.

After showing them the proof of his tale, Shikamaru had opened up to both of them and said that he'd understand if Temari decided to dissolve their marriage due to his gross negligence as both husband and father, and apologized.

Shikadai hadn't said anything, as usual, and Temari had accepted the apology, but had told him she'd need time to let it all sink in before considering the future of their relationship.

Shikamaru had no contact with them except for a curt text message informing they had arrived safely in Suna.

Since then, he had moved into the Hokage Tower, and was now living in the large apartment where Tsunade lived while serving her term as Godaime, along with Naruto and Menma. He actually and for the first time in his life was happy with staying up at night alone with the child; Temari's hurt look haunted his every dream.

Naruto turned already droopy, tired eyes to Ino. "Thanks for helping out tonight," he said, making use of his napkin, and leaned back on his chair, opening his arms. Menma carefully moved into his lap and looked up at him. "Will you behave while Papa sleeps?"

Menma nodded. "Ino-chan has fo-fow-fol" the child tried saying, and pouted, looking at the blonde woman for help.

"Flowers," Ino helped, and the toddler nodded. "Yeah. Fllowwers."

Naruto smiled at them. "That's great. Well, let's go then." He stood up with the child on his lap, and they moved into a large room, where Naruto sat Menma on the king-size bed, before dragging himself over to the pillows and immediately falling asleep.

Ino sighed. Well, at least now little Menma was able to be physically apart from the blond long enough to have some activity besides being read to or learning to read – he had mastered both katakana and hiragana in four hours three days ago, and though he did like learning kanji, he was at a stage where standing up and moving was more interesting, and the ten foot radius he was able to move away from Naruto in the last two days meant the world to him.

Shikamaru sat on the floor in front of her, and helped her spread the large assortment of plants, before Menma jumped from the bed and made himself comfortable on his lap. "Ready?"

A/N:

Isao is a Japanese male name meaning both honor and merit.

Yonbi is Japanese for four-tails.

Oh, and for anyone wondering about Sakura's father's behavior, although Japanese society rules that women must be submissive to their husbands, husbands are supposed to protect, honor and respect their wives, and abusive relationships where the husband neglects his family like Kishimoto portrayed Sasusaku to be in chapter 700 are viewed in an extremely negative way - so much so that it is grounds for divorce in that country. The wife's family loses a lot of face if they allow for that, hence, Sakura's father and mother's stand in favor of the divorce.