A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks so much for the reviews, keep 'em coming please!
To ignoramus: Yeah, it's as you fear, the characters changed A LOT in the end of the series and The Last movie, and that is why someone who haven't seen that canon material may feel they are very different in this fic - because in canon they DID turn out that way, and that's the basis for this fic.
TRIGGER WARNING: Murder and infanticide happen in this chapter.
Thanks to everyone who's been reading, reviewing - I love you guys! *glomp*
And a special thanks to my fantastic beta, the lovely Lohrendrell
Nine tailed beasts sat in a circle around a man and a toddler sleeping tightly curled around each other. A strong stream of purple chakra flowed from the child to the man.
The tiny boy was extremely pale, breathing shallowly through bluish lips.
"I'm sorry, guys. I really tried all I could," Son Goku said with tears in his eyes, "but I can't think of anything else that can save this child short of changing his body so it will produce a different chakra, and that… isn't possible."
Through the night the child's condition, which had been steadily improving, took an unexpected turn for the worst as Naruto's body hastened the consumption of his chakra.
Kurama shook his head. "I can't accept this. This… is not what we were created for."
"Every war has its sacrifices, brother," Chomei said quietly. "Try to understand, it would be selfish not to. Many innocent have died before, as well."
"Selfish?" Shukaku snarled. "How selfish is it of us to watch yet another innocent die like this, when we know that yes, it is possible to save him?"
"Have you grown tired of living then, brother?" Matatabi asked.
"We can't do it anyway," Saiken added, "the boy is Uchiha and he carries Indra's chakra, the Curse of Hatred…"
"Oh, stop it with the Uchiha curse, we all know the boy's brain structure would change to accommodate the new chakra pattern. As for Indra's chakra, he will be freed of it. The only thing stopping us from saving him are our own selfish interests and our prejudice against his line," Kokuou said, irritably waving his five tails.
"Still, it is not our task to break the cycle of reincarnation," Isobu muttered.
"Prrft, if the cycle must continue then be it by Asura killing Indra in a battle between equals, not like this!" Gyuuki complained. "Guys, remember why Father created us in the first place? Why Father joined Naruto and the Uchiha? Do you really think he would be happy if we let his memory be soiled by such a tragedy?"
"So what do we do then, sacrifice ourselves for something we don't even know will work or not? I like staying alive, thank you very much!" Matatabi growled at him.
"You guys," Kurama said, and sighed. "Have you thought about the fact that maybe this is a way to close an even more important cycle? We ultimately came into being because that bitch Kaguya went against the gods' will and ate the Shinju fruit that was destined to feed and protect life. We were never even supposed to exist in the first place. Why can't we finally join hands and resume the task the Shinju fruit was created for? If we do it, when this child does die, his body will return to the cycle of life and ours with it. There would be no more risk of enslavement for us, no more risk of us being used by the humans for destruction. And unlike a Jinchuuriki, he would be physically part of us as we would be part of him. He wouldn't be a super-being, just an ordinary person with a lot of chakra. Of course, he could develop into a powerful ninja, but he'd have to work for it just like everyone else does. Which, by the way, is a lot more than his father or Naruto did, if you recall what Father gave to them so they could win the war."
Son Goku bit his lip. "Well, damn. If we see things through this angle, then… I guess it's at least worth putting it through a vote. Everyone in favor of doing it raise their paw."
In the end, everyone did, even Matatabi. Though he did it grumbling, and only after the others glared at him.
The nine beasts joined hands, and Shukaku touched the hand not holding Matatabi's on the child's head.
"Goodbye, Naruto. It was a lot of fun. I know you'll understand this. Please, please don't fuck things up again, ok? I'll never forget you," Kurama whispered, giving the Uzumaki a loving look before being sucked into the child's brain.
Without the restraint from the beasts, Naruto's body sucked out all of what remained of Menma's purple chakra. The little boy heaved a last breath, and then went still for an interminable second, before his body's desperate cells got into gear and merged with the tailed beasts' bodies, glowing red before going into frenzied activity.
Naruto woke up with a start, and looked down at the same time the child's heart began slowly beating again. Before he could panic at the stillness of Menma's chest, however, the boy began breathing again, still comatose, but alive.
Meanwhile, nine baby tailed beasts fell out of an impossibly crayon blue sky, in which shone a lollipop crayon yellow sun, into a bright crayon green prairie decorated with equally crayon-drawn flowers.
"Ouch," Shukaku muttered as his siblings piled on him. They moved off each other and shook their heads, all but Chomei, whose chubby green caterpillar body squeaked like a toy instead, as Saiken tripped and fell sitting on it.
Menma's eye went wide as a saucer. "Hi?" the ugly little Uchiha greeted in a happily startled whisper.
"Calm down, Hinata," Sakura nearly growled on the phone. "Look, when it's more convenient we can talk about this again, how about that?"
The former Uchiha matriarch nodded her head and closed her cell phone, gritting her teeth.
Sakura couldn't believe her bad luck. It was all that monster's fault! If that thing hadn't been born, Sasuke-kun wouldn't have left her, Naruto would have put on the stupid scarf like he was supposed to, and everything would be as it should be!
She paced back and forth, thinking.
The first thing she had to do was make sure that none of this traced back to her. If Naruto caught on the seduction jutsu, and Hinata blabbered, he'd definitely turn Sakura over to the Torture and Interrogation unit. She couldn't have that. No matter how strong she was, she knew Ibiki's tactics would eventually pry open her mind, and then she'd be screwed.
Sasuke-kun would never forgive her for what she had done. Not the seduction jutsu - that could easily be construed as the foolishness of teenage girls in love and manipulated to look like Tsunade had been reckless by letting Sakura have access to the forbidden scrolls - but for her lying to him about Naruto's motivation to marry Hinata, and that redhead bitch's death.
She realized the girl was more important to Sasuke-kun than her when Sakura saw her after the war, turning herself in willingly again. She had asked Karin what she had been doing there, and the whore had smugly said that Sasuke-kun had gone to fetch her from the prison himself.
Sakura had then realized she had made a huge mistake by not killing Karin when Sasuke-kun had given her the chance to do it. Especially since the treatment Sasuke had given her throughout the fight. The man had tortured Sakura for an entire day with his genjutsu, and after she had healed him and they went back to the war front, he had actually called for the redhead, had expressed worry about her condition.
But for Sakura? He had only said he was sorry.
So Sakura understood that the only way she would finally get her prize was by eliminating the competition. It was a hard choice to make, but the only logical one. As long as Sasuke-kun had other people to rely on, he would never acknowledge Sakura's feelings, let alone return them.
She had easily poisoned the redhead and Orochimaru with one of Chiyo-sama's specialized poisons, of which she had been granted the recipes after the woman's death.
No one cared much about the female prisoner's death with the relief Orochimaru's demise brought the army, just as Sakura had predicted.
However, even after getting rid of her most direct competition Sasuke-kun had decided to leave the village without her, no matter how much she pleaded. Sakura had waited for Kakashi to go back through the gates and hurried after the Uchiha, desperate to change his mind.
And then she saw it.
Hidden in the trees, she saw Sasuke-kun meet with Naruto, and, more importantly, she saw the way they looked at each other.
Sasuke-kun had never looked at her like that, but Sakura had received enough enamored looks from other men to recognize what was on his eyes. And Naruto's.
In that moment, she almost gave up.
It was one thing to get rid of the criminals Sasuke-kun had associated with in the past, but Naruto? How the hell could she get away with killing the war hero, the most powerful ninja alive?
How could she compete with Naruto, when Sasuke-kun had even told her that he had no interest in having kids with anyone to repopulate his clan before leaving the village? Sakura knew damn well that Sasuke-kun had a much stronger relationship with Naruto than with her, that had been the reason she had made the blond promise to get him back to her.
She never realized their bond was so deep, though. Not to the point that Sasuke-kun would tell Naruto he would come back for him, to settle things between them, and not tell her that as well, only that he would come back.
Not to the point where Sasuke-kun would look at Naruto as if he was so precious to him, it hurt to be apart.
Sakura had spent a year and a half depressed. Even more depressed as she saw that Naruto, no matter his hero status and hordes of fangirls, didn't ever acknowledge anyone's feelings for him, let alone go on dates.
The blond didn't even ask her out anymore. It was as if he had resigned himself to be alone: he was polite and nice to everyone, but gave no signs of interest in them, either.
The more time passed, the more fearful Sakura became that Naruto and Sasuke-kun might actually want to defy tradition and, gods forbid, settle things between them.
And then, one day, she saw some genin girls talking about love potions and how they wished there was a jutsu to make a person love another.
She had stopped on her tracks, turned around and run to the Forbidden Jutsu Archives, to which she had access, since she was Tsunade's disciple and one of the new Sannin.
She spent two entire days in the dusty room, frantically searching. The Konoha Archives were, due to Orochimaru's work (both official and confiscated after his death), the most complete in the Five Elemental countries. If ever was such a jutsu produced, it had to be there.
And it was. Alas, the author of the jutsu was an Uchiha kunoichi, and she had made sure to make the jutsu in a way that wouldn't affect her kin.
Sakura held on to the scroll anyway, and started to quietly and very slowly probe around. After a couple of months, she was able to ascertain that Hinata was still in love with the Uzumaki, and she began to put her plan in motion.
With Naruto out of the way, no one else would keep Sasuke-kun from her clutches.
It had worked perfectly, and Toneri's genjutsu had speeded up the process marvelously. The Uzumaki hadn't even considered sending a message to Sasuke about his wedding, and that had also worked well on Sakura's favor, for when the Uchiha finally came back, he was so distraught she easily duped him into sleeping with her.
Sakura had lived her dream for over ten years. Of course, it hadn't been all easy; Sasuke-kun never told her he loved her and stayed far from their home, coming back in few occasions, made fewer after Salad's eyesight deteriorated, but still, Sakura was absolutely sure that if she only produced a male heir for the Uchiha, he would give up whatever nonsense he did outside the village and would settle in with her. After all, telling her or not, he had to love her, he still had intercourse with her when he did come to Konoha, didn't he? Sex was the ultimate proof of love between husband and wife. Theirs had never been passionate or romantic, or often for that matter, but Sakura viewed that as a measure of Sasuke's respect for her. She was his wife, after all, not a common whore.
Sakura had become desperate with the misshapen result of her last pregnancy, but hoped that Sasuke-kun might even forgive her for that, after a while; he was a man, and men had no patience with children, so he surely would become tired of looking after Salad and would return to her, begging for her to take him back. After that, all she would need to do was get the child out of their way, and they could start from scratch again.
But if her part in luring Naruto to marry Hinata against his will and her disposing of Karin became public, Sasuke-kun would never forgive her. He had already taken everything away, her daughter, her home, her name from the Uchiha registry, just for birthing that monster. Sakura shuddered to think what he would do if he found out what else she had done.
She dressed in nondescript clothing, covered her hair and steeled herself to face Hinata.
Half an hour later the young genin guarding the entrance to the Hyuuga compound greeted the Hokage as he went inside.
Himawari ran to him and he picked her up with a large smile.
"My little girl! How about we go inside and you get really pretty for Papa? Show me your best kimono, ne?"
He went around the house and entered through the red-curtained side glass doors leading to the yard, kissing Himawari and letting her down. The little girl ran excitedly to her bedroom.
The housekeeper bowed to him, and he told her to fetch his wife.
Hinata hurried to the living room.
"Yuka, you are free to go now, we won't require your services for the rest of the day," she ordered. The housekeeper thanked them and left.
Hinata offered Naruto some tea, and the Hokage sat down in waiting. Ten minutes later, the former Hyuuga heiress came back bearing a tray.
"She is gone now, you can drop the henge, Sakura-san." Hinata said quietly, while closing the red curtains and turning on the lights.
"I'd rather keep it, you know how things are," Sakura said, accepting a cup of tea. "This is a very serious matter, Hinata."
"You think I don't know that?" Hinata gave her a pained look. "We can only hope Naruto-kun understands and forgives me," she whispered dejectedly, rubbing her hands.
"Hinata, you can't tell him about the jutsu, you know. If you tell him, he'll know who gave it to you, would you take away even my freedom, now that I have lost everything?" Sakura asked, feigning hurt.
"I have no choice, Sakura-san… Ino said she was ordered to look into my mind, and that she already saw inconsistencies on the others. She'll see that I don't have those inconsistencies, and when Naruto knows about it, you know what he'll do! He'll send me to Ibiki, and I can't… I can't pretend I didn't manipulate him into becoming who he's been all these years, Sakura-san. I've given all of me to our marriage, to my family… but I can't do this anymore. I'm… I'm tired of lying. I'm tired of having to shoulder everything by myself, to hide so much from Naruto-kun. I love him and I know he'll understand."
Sakura sighed, and put her cup on the coffee table before standing with her hands in her pockets. Hinata stood as well and came closer to see her out.
"I was afraid it would come to this, Hinata," she said, and sighed, before pulling Naruto's wife to a kiss with her left hand, while burying a kunai to the hilt into the brunette's heart with her right.
She held the struggling woman, swallowing her cries, until she went still, and let the body drop to the floor.
"Interesting technique," a male voice said, and Sakura jumped backwards, pulling a second kunai from her pocket.
Hyuuga Hiashi came into the living room carrying Himawari, and raised a hand. "Do not fear, Uchiha-san, I come in peace," he said. Himawari's eyes went as wide as saucers as she saw her mother's body on the floor, but Hiashi covered the girl's mouth to keep her from screaming.
"You see, Uchiha-san, despite my daughter's inability to produce viable Hyuuga heirs, her husband's… eagerness to please me and the Council have been extremely profitable, for mine and all the other Konoha clans. It is in my best interest that things continue to be that way, instead of the Nanadaime suddenly deciding to change his… government style. And I do agree with you that if word got out of his… enthrallment by jutsu, his actions would come unto question by the other Kage and our esteemed Daimyo."
"How did you get here?" Sakura asked, bile rising in her throat.
"I saw the Hokage entering the compound and, aware of his absence of many days, decided to use the Byakugan to be sure of his identity. When I saw that the intruder was yourself, I became curious and decided to unobtrusively watch your conversation with my unfortunate daughter."
"You have my life in your hands, then."
"Oh, Uchiha-san, please don't assume I wish to blackmail you. What I'm about to offer you, I shall as a friend. Please accept this as proof of trust," Hiashi said quietly, and with a quick movement, broke Himawari's neck.
Outside, watching through a slit between the curtains with his chakra signature hidden, Bolt peed his pants in terror, and took a step backward, jolted out of his shocked state by his grandfather's action.
Before he could utter the scream that was bubbling up his chest, though, strong arms held him and a large hand covered his mouth from behind.
"Don't move if you want to live," Suigetsu whispered in his ear, before picking the boy up, sprinting and jumping over the compound wall, straight into an open manhole.
Meanwhile, Shikamaru ushered Tsunade into the Hokage's quarters.
"Baa-chan, please help, something happened to us," Naruto begged.
Tsunade entered the bedroom, and gasped.
Menma's body was embedded in red chakra.
"Tell me what happened," she ordered.
"I woke up and he wasn't breathing, then all of a sudden he started again, but then his body was filled with this chakra. And… I can't feel Kurama anymore."
Tsunade pulled Naruto's shirt up, and touched his belly where the seal used to be.
"The Kyuubi is gone," she said, and immediately tried to touch the child, only to be thrust away, barreling onto the Hokage.
"I can't touch him either," Naruto said. "I think… I think we're in deep shit, baa-chan."
"You think the Kyuubi took over him?"
Naruto shook his head. "Kurama told me the beasts wouldn't allow for him to die because of something their father did. I don't know what he did - but I'm afraid."