A/N

Hi everyone!

Damn, I didn't expect you'd be so moved by Sasuke's illness. Thank you all for the great reviews :D

To Holie: thank you so much for your review. I'm afraid I can't do much for the use of coarse language by the characters who do it because that's a tool for them to relieve stress. And they undergo a lot of it. Some of them have a dirtier mouth because they live in a perpetual state of mental stress - Bolt is the prime example of that due to the things he's forced to see whenever he comes in contact with other people or looks at himself, since, unlike with Byakugan or Sharingan users, Bolt's doujutsu works all the time. So the use of swearing is mostly a coping mechanism, not gratuitous.

Thanks again for the reviews, please keep them coming!

At a small house in the outskirts of Kumogakure, Killer B pulled on a beanie and closed his warmest cloak around himself, before picking up his travel bag.

'I don't know what the hell is going on, but Naruto, ya got some explainin' to do, mon,' he thought, before closing his door and quietly leaving in the morning winter fog.

It took Menma and Inojin two days to make Bolt play with them, but in the third morning, the blond Uzumaki appeared in the training-room-turned-playground right as the brunet was kicking a ball for the running Yamanaka to catch.

He was so shocked to see Bolt there, the ball knocked him down.

"Oh crap, who did I hit?" Menma asked, waving his head between the two with a comical lost expression in his face. "Come on guys, I know one of you is standing, scaring the blind is mean, dammit!"

Both blonds blurted out laughing, and the ugly little Uchiha put his hand over his heart and gave a relieved huff, before joining them.

Four hours later, the adults discussing their next moves in the refectory all turned towards the entrance at the sound of playful boyish banter, and Naruto nearly cried in relief as he saw his son enter the large room as filthy with sweat and round marks of grime, and also as laughing and teasing as the other two boys.

"Oh no you didn't!" Menma exclaimed, covering his mouth.

"Yep, I did," Inojin said with a smug grin.

"What do they look like, dude? Been wanting to see that since forever!" Bolt asked curiously.

"Are they bug ones? Like Choumei's?"

"Wait, didn't you say they looked like babies?" Bolt asked Menma, and the blind boy nodded. "Caterpillars have eyes, dude," he explained, and Inojin's eyes bulged. "Caterpillars have eyes? Where? I never seen them, some of them got spots where they should be but those ain't real bug eyes!"

"They're right on top of their mouth, their real head is bent down like this," Menma said, touching his chest with his chin, and the other boys ooohed at him.

"So, does your bug teacher have bug eyes or what?" he asked again.

"Well, as I said, I used the Mind Transfer Jutsu and Chouchou stayed behind taking care of my body cause Shikadai is a boring ass and didn't wanna help, and then I went to the bathroom…"

"And?" the other boys asked expectantly.

"...got in front of a mirror…"

"And?"

"...took those weird goggles off…"

"Aaand?" by then, Bolt and Menma were huddling in excitement and fear.

"...and his eyes were…"

"Dammit Inojin!"

"Brown."

The other boys jumped, screaming, but then Bolt gave him a double take. "Wait, what? That's it?"

"Yup. Major disappointment. He's nearsighted as hell tho, I had to scrunch his nose in the mirror to see well. And he gets migraines from light too, when I looked around the bathroom his head hurt so bad I was thrown out," Inojin said dejectedly, and the other boys aaawed, before sympathetically slapping his back.

"Well, if you had asked me, I would've told you that and you wouldn't have had to go through all that trouble," Ino said as they approached the adult's table.

"Wait, you've seen Shino's eyes?" Naruto asked with a betrayed look on his face. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Well, yeah I knew, Chouji tripped him once at the onsen and his glasses fell out. It was effective, but he was picking bugs out of his ass crack for a week afterwards, Shino was so mad. Did he find out about you, son?" she asked, and the boy shook his head, the three boys laughing. "Good boy, points for stealth right there," she praised, and they high-fived.

"Now go take a bath you three little pigs, or else no lunch for you," she scolded, and the boys huffed, but started dragging their feet out to comply, Ino and Naruto following them with their eyes.

Right as she went back to talking, Naruto saw Menma raise one thumb up behind him, and smiled gratefully.

"It has been three days. Where are they?" Sakura growled from her seat at the Hokage's desk.

Utatane Koharu gave her a condescending smirk. "Do not worry, your Sasuke-kun will be delivered to you as promised as soon as possible. As of now, our spy network is working to find those who are the real threat, the Nanadaime and his cohorts. The neighboring nations and the other four elemental countries will, of course, detain the Uchiha upon sight, but we have to give him some leeway. After all, he is crippled and traveling with a civilian child."

"Salad is a ninja."

"With no ninja abilities whatsoever, if her teacher's observations are correct. So she must be considered a hindrance to her father's movements. So," Koharu smirked again, "wherever they are, they are close enough to Konoha that they cannot move without being seen. And we are quite sure they have no interest whatsoever in the Nanadaime's plight. That means that even if your ex-husband does suspect your intention, and decides not to present himself, he is pigeonholed. Be patient."

Sakura frowned. She was, of course, anxious to get her hands on Naruto's party, especially since he still had a strong enough influence in at least two other allied leaderships – both the Raikage and the Kazekage had reacted with worry about the news from Konoha, and offered to lead search parties of their own, and it took all of Sakura and Hiashi's considerable skills to convince them that such measures would only scare Naruto away, instead of turning himself in for the proper legal procedures – but her main concern was Sasuke's absence.

Her husband had been officially summoned, and his delay had begun to be noticed amongst the ninja population. If on one hand that made it extremely hard for him to escape her clutches for long, on the other his disregard of her explicit orders made Sakura lose face amongst her subordinates.

And Sakura had no interest in being mocked as a weak leader.

"Fine. We'll give him two more days. If he is not here by then, I will send a search party after him. We cannot, of course, give a Konoha ninja more leeway in obeying a direct order, lest we be seen as weak by our own personnel. I hope you understand," she said dryly, and the old crone nodded her assent.

"Of course, Hachidaime."

At that moment, the door knocked, and one of her ANBU stepped in. "Morino Ibiki is here to see you, Hokage-sama."

She motioned for him to let the man in.

Ibiki had grown old doing what he knew best, and it showed on his face. The scarred man entered and bowed to the two women.

"Report," Sakura commanded.

"The detained have no information to give except that Yamanaka Ino was summoned by the Nanadaime shortly before the alarm sounded at the Hyuuga compound. They have no knowledge of the whereabouts of him or his party."

"Can you be absolutely sure?" Koharu asked.

Ibiki gave her a slow, dangerous smirk. "Yes, we can be absolutely sure."

Sakura sighed. "Fine. As much as I suspect them, let them go back to their families, under surveillance. If Ino is with Naruto of her own will, she'll find a way to contact him."

"How can you be so sure?" the old crone asked her.

She smiled. "Oh, Ino is as protective of her husband as I am mine. She'll want to be sure he's not fooling around."

Two hours later, Sai and Shizune were separately freed.

Sai entered the Yamanaka's small cluster of houses behind their flower shop by a side entrance, and fell into the arms of Ino's mother.

"Oh gods, what did they do to you?" she asked, taking notice of the bruises in the trembling man's face.

"I'm fine. Nothing worse than Root," he whispered.

She helped him inside her kitchen, and they quietly formed a set of three seals together.

'Now that they got their show, sit down and tell me what you've gathered,' Inoshishi* asked him, using the clan's secret telepathic bond, imprinted on Sai during his marriage to Ino.

As his mother-in-law had said once her daughter and him informed her of the genjutsu, once he was accepted into the clan, he would be considered a Yamanaka for life, no matter if the marriage continued or not, and Sai had pledged his allegiance to the clan with all his heart.

'They're desperate to get their hands on Naruto, and by the way they badgered me about anything Ino might have done to my mind, they know he knew about the jutsu and that Ino was investigating about it. It took all my training, both in Root and in the family, to block Morino's advances. But I was able to glimpse that he was specifically ordered to drill me, while Shizune was interrogated by one of his assistants. Ino did well in leaving and taking Inojin, Mama.'

The matriarch nodded, scowling. 'Good boy, Sai. Now they'll undoubtedly keep strict surveillance on us, hoping that Ino behaves recklessly and tries to contact you.'

Sai tilted his head. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' he thought at her, and grinned evilly.

She grinned back. 'Inoichi would've been so proud of you, boy. Let's give them a run for their money, yes.'

The Kazekage and his family sat in silence as the servants served their lunch.

After the help had been granted they left, closing the door behind them, Kankurou gave a small nod, and Gaara raised a sand barrier around the table.

"I talked to the Hachidaime, they refused our help," Gaara said. "Seems Shikamaru was right."

"You think they'll be coming to seek our help here?" Kankurou asked quietly.

"With Shikamaru's head screwed back on correctly I think that wouldn't happen," Temari answered.

"Excuse-me," Shikadai asked. "I think you guys are worrying about the wrong thing."

"Explain," Gaara commanded his nephew.

"You know, I've noticed that nobody has been too worried about who succeeded the Nanadaime around here. Even in the news there hasn't been any major financial upheaval or commentary, it seems kinda weird this whole "business as usual" stance when such an important pillar of unity for the Shinobi Alliance has been removed, doesn't it?" the boy drawled. "It's more like when royalty gets caught doing something stupid than what I'd expect from when the legendary all powerful Hokage screws up that bad. Especially considering how quick they instituted Haruno-san as his successor, I mean, no offense mom, but if uncle Gaara had died or left Suna I'd expect uncle Kankurou to be taking his place, not someone who's been a humble housewife for so long."

"None taken. And yes, you're right. I was also wondering the same… of course Haruno is one of the Sannin, but yes, there are definitely more senior candidates than her."

Gaara nodded in the dark. "I think it'd be appropriate for us to keep our eyes open and our ears sharp for a while, to better assess this situation. For now, be careful. I have upped the security around both of you in response to Shikamaru's absence, but even so I'd ask you not to leave my sight, at least until my spies in Konoha can give me a detailed report."

With that, he retracted the sand, and the family went back to their meal.

"We can't just stay here until hell freezes over. One of us has to go see what's going on in Konoha," Shikamaru warned the others after lunch.

"Oh, trust me, I'm desperate to get out of this hole, but how in hell are we going to do that? Everyone in the five elemental countries would recognize us, we're not exactly common people," Ino said, frowning.

"How about henge? Civilians wouldn't be able to catch us in a well-made one, and even most ninja nowadays are hardly able to spot the chakra variations," Tsunade offered, and gave Naruto a derisive side-look.

"What, is it my fault now that ninja are badly instructed?" the blond growled.

"Yes," the entire table with the exception of Shikamaru, who was conscious of his own blame in the subject, answered.

"Uh, it was your first decree as Hokage…" he reminded Naruto, who hid his face behind his hands in shame.

"I swear, when I find out who cast that damn jutsu and why they cast it on us there is going to be hell to pay," he grumbled.

"Um, I can go," Suigetsu said, after a long silence while considering his options.

First thing, he had to inform Sasuke of his whereabouts and of what happened. And pray the Uchiha wouldn't blow up in furious flames when he knew his supposedly dead child was not only very much alive but was also quite possibly the most dangerous being in the face of the planet at the moment. And not only knew his father had tried to kill it when it had been born, but he was probably sure Sasuke'd do it again, not that Suigetsu could reprimand him for that.

Also, considering what he knew of the famous Uchiha temper and the little he had seen of the Juubi in physical form, Suigetsu doubted Menma was just going to forgive Sasuke as if nothing had happened. No bond between the strange child and Naruto could scream louder than Uchiha righteous rage. That was another reason to if possible get as far away from the boy as possible. He didn't want no legendary juggernaut beast hot on his trail after becoming another insane Uchiha kinslayer, thank you very much.

At that moment, Menma and Inojin both subtly poked Bolt's sides, and the Uzumaki boy nodded almost imperceptibly.

While they bathed they had talked about their options on their own, knowing instinctively that the adults would most probably either shoo them away from their conversation or disregard their opinions.

"They're gonna want to send somebody up there to see what the situation looks like back home," Inojin had said.

"Yeah. Don't count on them asking on our opinion tho, Naruto didn't give Kurama room to argue with him even back when he and me weren't the same, let alone now that I'm "just a little kid", and considering Bolt's record…" Menma said, shaking his head.

"Ok, lemme see. We have the Scumbag, Shikamaru, Ino and Tsunade, and that Suigetsu guy that was spying for your dad as adults," Bolt counted on his fingers. "Of those, maybe Ino-san could go, but I doubt the guys are gonna let her because she's a girl," he said, rolling his eyes in derision. "Tsunade-sama is too damn old and there ain't no way she'd drop that rejuvenating henge of hers; Shika and the Scumbag are way too easy to recognize even under a henge cause ANBU are all trained to recognize their chakra a mile away. So that leaves the spy."

"Who'll just run away to tell Uchiha what's going on and leave us with no information," Menma said.

"You sure? Didn't seem as such a bad guy, that Suigetsu," Inojin mused, but the blind boy nodded.

"He ain't gonna want to be near me or my dad. He knows the first thing that'll happen once he learns that I'm alive is kill me, especially now that I'm the Juubi," Menma answered, and gave them a grim smirk. "And I'd like to see his arrogant ass try."

After careful deliberation, the boys had decided on a course of action.

"Suigetsu is the best choice to go, nobody knows him," Bolt agreed.

"He's a spy, boy. The first thing he'll do is hide under Uchiha Sasuke's cloak and forget he ever saw us," Shikamaru pointed out.

"I know," Bolt replied. "That's why I'm going with him."

Naruto's eyes bulged. "What? Are you crazy? No way am I letting you go near your grandfather!" he protested.

"I'm used to moving around in the city undetected and I can disguise myself perfectly without using henge. I also can see under any type of disguise and I know I can beat the shit out of Fishy here if he tries to give me the slip. Who'd you rather go then? Ino-san? Inojin? The one-eyed freak? You know if either you, Shikamaru or the Godaime go people will smell your important asses the moment you slip out of here. And you can't turn off Menma's cover by yourself because it's not a jutsu. So what are you gonna do?"

"There's gotta be another way, Bolt. What if you get another panic attack? What if Hiashi finds you?"

The Uzumaki boy scowled. "There isn't. And we won't be going anywhere near the old village. Look, I got you out of Hiashi's clutches, didn't I? Can't you give me some credit and trust me for once? I am afraid, yeah, but wasn't you who told me I have to learn to endure if I wanna be a ninja? Let me do this."

Naruto stood and pulled Bolt out of the room with him.

"Bolt, please. Please. Please. You're all I have. I just got to start knowing you with my mind unclouded. Please. Don't do this," he asked, kneeling in front of his son after closing the door to their room.

Bolt stretched a hand and wiped a tear off his face, noting how aged he looked. "Look… dad," he said, the title sounding strange on his voice, "You're all I have too. And I am scared. But that Suigetsu guy is our only safe way to get to know if and for how long we're safe, and Shikamaru-san is right, he will disappear if he goes out on his own. He's got nothing attaching him to us. Nothing forcing him to do the job, get some supplies and come back without leading the ANBU to us. Me and the boys talked about this. Inojin can't go because he doesn't have a lot of stealth training and he doesn't know how to get around the city, and Menma can't go not only because all someone needs is to pull off that headband from his face to kill him on the spot or turn him in to the government for being a freak, but because if he dies, dad…" Bolt closed his eyes. "If he dies or gets caught, nobody will care. We'll all cry, but we won't go after Fish-face for him. So it has to be me. If I go, he'll know better than to run away or leave me unprotected somewhere. So let me do this," the boy finished with a serious voice.

Naruto didn't have the heart to even try refuting his son's arguments, because they were true. He felt like an asshole for it, but he had to agree with Bolt. And, though he was scared shitless of letting him out of his sight, he felt a humble sort of pride that his son had turned out to be such a thoughtful and mature boy.

So he nodded, still crying, and hugged his son as if he had already lost him.

A/N

*I gave Ino's mother the name Inoshishi since Ino is the shortened version of that word, which means boar in Japanese. Her real name doesn't show up anywhere, though.

Oh and no, I didn't make Killer B "turn jamaican", it's just his horrible rhyming.