A/N:

Ok, people, read up, from this chapter on the full title of this fic is going to be justified, so yes, there shall be shenanigans because there's no fairy tale without them :) So don't be too shocked with the change of humor, please, it is entirely intentional.

As always, I thank you guys SO much for your amazing reviews, they give me life, I swear. Keep them coming, I'll answer them to the best of my abilities :D

Even taking rest periods after every three hours, Sasuke and Salad were exhausted from walking without the aid of chakra when they camped for the evening.

The older Uchiha hated letting others see the weakness he had painfully hidden for an entire year already, and even more the watchful looks from both Juugo and Salad, while the others collected wood to make a fire.

He felt like a fucking prisoner.

After the meal, everyone gathered in one of the two tents to fend off the cold and attempt to sleep a while, except Bolt and him. The boy was taking first watch over him, and Sasuke did not lose the irony of having a stupid brat watch him - as if he couldn't pulverize him with a blink of his eye.

After half an hour, the boy rose from his seat across the fire and sat beside him.

"I'm not afraid of your ugly mug, Stump," Bolt said in a conversational tone, and Sasuke's eye twitched at the disrespectful nickname. "You should actually thank your friends for making you come with us, saves you from a dishonorable death."

"Like you would know anything about honor," Sasuke growled, before lighting a cigarette.

"Well, I did not attempt to abandon my kin to fend for himself against the people who want to kill him, so I think the little I know is more than you do," the brat stated. "By the way, the Scumbag asked us to give you this," he handed Sasuke a small folded paper. "You should read it, I know you miss him."

Sasuke shot the boy a venomous look. "Yes, I miss not having killed him when I had the chance," he snarled.

Bolt snorted, and picked up a stick, using it to doodle in the dirt. "Yeah, right. I don't even have to see your emotions playing in your brain to figure out what's your real beef with him," he said, and gave him a side smirk. "Everybody else might be stupid or blind to shit they don't want to see, but I'm not, and you having refused to fix that stump of yours is a mile-wide tell. No ninja would purposely carry a battle scar if it wasn't their most important memento, let alone a disability. You carry that stump around because it reminds you of your fight with the Scumbag. It being kept unhealed, instead of just covered like the Scumbag does with his right arm, is proof of your loss to him."

Sasuke felt the hairs at the base of his neck rising in alarm and wonder at the boy's analytical reasoning.

"And the fact you haven't tried to hide that loss even after you began plotting against him shows you don't want to beat him, not really. You still believe in him, after all he's done. But his actions make you suffer, suffer so much that you don't want to live anymore, and the funny thing is, why? He's certainly not more corrupted than the other Kage – Suigetsu told me you couldn't find shit on him – so why would his actions make you suffer so much? Because he's your friend? So what? Friends aren't family, I've never liked mine but even I know that. You suffer more for your family even if you don't like them, because you have to stick together. Nobody else has to stick by you but them."

Sasuke watched the boy doodling with his eyes on the ground, noticing he was drawing different geometric shapes, and connecting them with lines. He turned his face to the fire then, to avoid showing his face.

"The Scumbag was supposed to be your family, then, right?" Bolt asked, and Sasuke blinked. "He probably swore to, and then broke his promise. Nothing new there, he did the same thing to me a lot of times-" Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction "-but then comes the part I don't really understand, because you made a family of your own. It shouldn't have mattered to you if the Scumbag didn't care about you, because you weren't alone anymore. But you obviously don't give a shit about Sakura-san or Salad, given what Juugo and Salad said. And you definitely didn't care about Menma," he lowered his voice at the end, and hummed. "I could think that you only care about family that can protect you, but turning away the only family you got just because of that is really stupid; everyone gets sick or old someday, and then even a young girl with bad sight is better than nothing. And you can't be that stupid, you wouldn't have got all that investigation done if you weren't at least somewhat smart."

Sasuke would've bristled at the last comment if he weren't busy trying to control himself to avoid showing any reaction.

"So you don't need the Scumbag to be your family. But you want him to be. You want him to be there for you. You want so much, you want to die because he's not. Such weird feelings," Bolt said, and shrugged. "I'm gonna pee. Try not to act like a Kabuki damsel for five minutes and stay there until I come back."

Sasuke waited until the boy had left his sight, put out his forgotten cigarette and then opened the message.

'Please forgive me'

He snarled, balled up and threw the paper into the fire.

After Juugo woke up for his turn watching, Bolt crawled in the tent.

"Bolt?" Salad asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

"When you look at the sky, what do you see?" the girl asked, turning to her side and propping up on an elbow.

"Like now?" Bolt asked, and she nodded. "I see the stars and the moon and the planets, and the sun, even in day time. Then if I focus some more, I see all the things in the air... it was one of the first things I was really afraid of in the beginning, because air isn't nothing, it's like we're in a soup made up of dirt, and moisture, and so many teeny tiny living microbes, when people talk about sterilized environments all I can do is laugh. And then there's the energy. Nature energy, space energy."

"Space has energy?" Salad asked.

"Yup. It trades energy with the planet just like Menma pulls in nature energy and pushes out chakra," he explained. "There's the energy of all things alive, which is chakra, and the leftover chakra from things that died but haven't moved on to become something else yet."

"What do you mean?"

Bolt sighed. "When something dies, everything that was them becomes food for something else or breaks down into itty bitty pieces that will become something else. Some of the parts break down faster, some take a long time, like bones, because bones are minerals. Remember the chemistry experiments Shino-sensei showed us when he taught us how to get rid of bodies during a mission if we weren't able to burn them with fire?"

Salad nodded. They had used rats for that.

"We had to use different chemicals to break down the bones because once the organic stuff was gone there was still a bunch of minerals deposited together, and that only breaks down with mechanical action. It doesn't have chakra, just nature energy, like rocks. But all the organic stuff has chakra attached to it. I think that's where the ghost stories come from. And the chakra never goes away, it's absorbed by whatever eats the organic matter and becomes part of that whatever's chakra."

Salad gave him a quizzical look. "So we have chakra because we eat it?"

"Yup. Last year I followed a pregnant lady all nine months, every day for a little while, to see it happening. The baby starts with a bit of chakra from the mother and father, and everything else is absorbed from the mother, and she fills up when she eats, drinks and breathes."

"But what about chakra patterns?"

"Chakra is just energy, it's like… like radio frequencies. Everyone works at a certain frequency that's set by their genes, and that's our base chakra. But we ninja learn how to modulate our chakra into different types – or we should, I mean, I can do it, don't know why nobody else has tried yet."

Salad's eyes widened in the dark. "Really? You can copy other people's chakra?"

"Yeah," he said, and raised his right hand, concentrating his own light blue chakra on it. "This is my chakra pattern," he explained, and modulated the chakra flow into one with a slight greenish-purple tint. "This is yours," and Salad cooed at it.

He modulated it differently. "This is Menma's."

Salad gaped at the fiery chakra. "Wow, it's exactly like real fire!" she said.

He modulated it back to his own pattern before letting the chakra disperse back into his body. "Yeah, it's bijuu chakra. That's why I can't do that for a long time too, I tried it last week, got my hand burned real bad, Tsunade no baa-chan yelled at us for half an hour," he explained, and put his hand near Salad's nose so she could smell the smoke.

"Damn," she whispered. "Why do we ninja only use chakra to fight and heal people? I mean, look at Shino-sensei's house, have you gone by it? The Aburame gardens are the most luscious I've ever seen, I'd bet there would be people willing to have their bugs pollinate their plants, or kill parasites and stuff like that. It's not like there's all that food going around, poor people hardly have anything to eat."

"Because the people in power are stupid assholes like the Scumbag," Bolt growled. "We never get to learn other uses to our abilities, stuff that could help the ordinary people that plant and raise our food. All the Kage care about is getting money out of them, they're as bad as those Yakuza Stump's been investigating." Salad gave him a questioning look, "Stump, your dad?"

"Oh," she said, and giggled. Yeah, Stump was even better than Sasuke.

At the breakfast table the next morning, Ino, Tsunade and the two boys finished up the last touches of the plan while Naruto and Shikamaru still slept.

"Menma, are you really really sure Bolt knows what to do?" Tsunade asked.

"Yeah, he knows, he'll catch up on what's different and adapt to it no problem, thanks for helping us baa-chan and Ino-chan," Menma said.

"Inojin, remember to wait exactly at the rendezvous point so I can find you, ok?" Ino asked, and her son gave her thumbs up. "And you don't forget to stay behind Menma when he opens his eye, we're gonna need you to deal with the other adults," he warned.

The four ninja bumped their fists together.

The returning party took another full day to reach the hideout. Both Salad and Sasuke were breathless with exhaustion by then, the day's walk had been longer than the previous one.

Bolt let out a tiny flare of chakra at the entrance. "Warning them it's us," he said, and noticed Sasuke's right hand moving surreptitiously close to his sword.

They made their way to the lowest floor and Bolt led them to the refectory, hoping Menma and Inojin were ready and in position.

As they reached it, everyone but Ino and Inojin were calmly sitting at a table, eating dinner.

"Sasuke!" Naruto exclaimed, getting up, and the Uchiha took a few steps inside, drawing his sword and making the seals to charge it with Chidori. "What-"

Bolt saw Tsunade stand up and take a step to the side, leaving Menma in range, and stepped back, pulling Salad with him. "Come with me if you want to live," he said, and all hell broke loose.

As the Uzumaki boy and the Uchiha girl ran up towards the entrance, they heard the chirping noise and Naruto's warning scream as Sasuke charged towards the blind boy, only to have him slide between his legs, propelled by the former Godaime, and begin running away as fast as he could.

"No! He's gonna kill my otouto! Let me go!" Salad screamed in panic, and Bolt threw her over his shoulder, still running to the entrance.

In the refectory, all four adults present were trying to hold Sasuke from running after the blind boy.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto yelled, intending to summon a thousand clones, and nearly passed out with the exertion. He quickly released all but a hundred and they dropped into the fray, while Shikamaru tried to position himself in a way he could bind Sasuke's shadow alone.

"Let me go, Juugo!" Sasuke roared, and let out a full-body Chidori that knocked the gentle giant out, only to be punched into the wall by Tsunade.

He snarled and extricated himself from the rock wall, only to trip on Suigetsu's liquid body. "Sorry bro, can't let you kill your own kid without even talking to him, Juubi or not," the albino ninja said, and yelped when Sasuke blew a fireball at him.

Sasuke quickly dispatched Naruto's clones. 'So the deadlast really lost the beasts,' he mused as he fought, noticing Naruto had entered Sage Mode. 'Good.'

He turned to the door and teleported as soon as he saw Shikamaru, avoiding his shadow binding technique and knocking the Nara out with the butt of his sword before running after the boy, Naruto and Suigetsu on his heels.

Tsunade calmly made her way out of the refectory, passing through the three ninja while they were fighting on Naruto's bedroom on her way out of the underground structure.

"Sasuke stop this shit right now damn it, or I'll fucking stop you myself!" Naruto yelled, forming a Rasengann while Suigetsu trapped the Uchiha with his liquefied body.

"Should've let me kill it when it was born, you idiot. Now it's become a threat to the world! Have you lost the last of your brain cells to whatever jutsu you say you were put under?" Sasuke growled, and sucked on Suigetsu's chakra with his Rinnegan, knocking him out of action.

"He's not Obito or Madara! He's just a kid, Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, and attacked, only to have the Rasengann poof into nothing as Sasuke sucked on his chakra.

Sasuke had to physically force himself to let go, his Rinnegan eye nearly bleeding with the effort to stop absorbing the Nanadaime's chakra. He head-butted Naruto out of the way, and resumed his search.

"Yo-hoo!" Menma taunted from the top of the curved ramp, and started running like crazy again, knowing Sasuke would've teleported to the upper floor where he was. He quickly ran up the wall and continued running on the ceiling, his enhanced synesthetic senses feeling the man gaining on him at the end of the hallway.

Sasuke jumped to the ceiling and swiped with his sword, only to have the boy drop to the floor and run again. "Fucking little shit," he growled, and teleported to the beginning of the hall, only to be pulled to the ground by Naruto.

"Don't you think you're gonna escape me that easily teme! I'm still Uzumaki Naruto!" the blond snarled, throwing punches on Sasuke's left eye with one hand while holding back his arm with another.

"Get the fuck away from me you son of a bitch! I'm fixing your own stupid mistake!" Sasuke screamed, and bit Naruto's punching hand hard enough to draw blood, taking advantage of his surprise to hit the side of his head with the butt of his sword and push him away.

"Motherfucking interfering asshole," he muttered, using his Sharingan to find the traces of the boy's chakra and moving on to the next upper level, his left eye swollen shut, leaving the Rinnegan useless.

The cat and mouse chase lasted over half an hour, Menma sometimes stopping to taunt Sasuke, and Naruto fighting the Uchiha patriarch all the way up to the entrance at the uppermost level.

'Guys, we're in trouble, what do I do?' Menma asked in his head, beginning to feel tired.

'On it!' Son Goku yelled, and took the front, morphing the boy's body into his own infant form with a poofing sound and jumping up to hang at the first nearby tree branch as soon as he crossed through the waterfall.

'Heeey, didn't know we could do that,' Menma mumbled surprised from the back. Son Goku smirked and thumped on his little chest, letting out a war call before continuing to move along from tree to tree.

Sasuke kicked at Naruto's face and jumped out of the waterfall to the top of its embankment, losing his balance as the blond jumped and pulled him back by his heel and cursing his missing arm for it.

They tumbled all the way down the waterfall, Sasuke losing the grip on his sword as he came up to stand over the river and hurriedly getting a Chidori ready to pierce at Naruto's chest, only to have the blond turn out to be a clone.

"You asshole! What are you trying to do, kill me? I ain't got Kurama anymore, shithead!" Naruto screamed in outrage from the top of the waterfall, and Sasuke growled, jumping up and grabbing him by the collar before headbutting him out of his way.

'Shukaku, trade with me and try to burrow!' Son Goku yelled, and their body poofed into Shukaku's tanuki cub form to burrow into a rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, in a clearing not far away…

"He's doing WHAT? Stump's gonna kill him and the Nanadaime both!" Salad screamed.

"Stump?" Inojin and Tsunade asked at the same time.

"Sasuke," Bolt explained curtly. "He can do it, don't worry about it," he dismissed Salad's worries with one hand.

"But he can't even see where he's going!" she asked, still unconvinced.

"He's synesthetic, he can't see but he can sense where he is and where we are, he'll get here," Inojin said. "Besides, Mom's out there with a couple of non-chakra based traps, that and Naruto-san is slowing him down, don't worry about it. And Menma is the best blind ninja I've ever met," he completed with a smile.

'Gaaah! Shit!' Shukaku screamed internally as his sandy belly got stuck on the exit hole of the rabbit maze he used to escape the angry Uchiha.

'You fat bastard, get out of there, by Father I just knew you were gonna get stuck!' Matatabi roared, and took the front, screaming and hissing as he jumped acrobatically out of the hole just in time to escape Sasuke's hand.

Naruto jumped off a tree on top of him, screaming for Menma to run, and Sasuke growled in fury, nearly out of chakra, brawling with the blond until he could get rid of him again and continue his pursuit after the blue and white kitten.

'Almost there! Kurama!' Matatabi screamed, and the boy's body morphed into the fox cub, who used his hand-shaped front paws to wave at Ino as he passed her. She waited until Sasuke was almost on top of her, and jumped on his mind, turning his body around and around until it was so dizzy she was thrown out. She woke up in her own body and shook her head, running back to the clearing where the others waited.

"Hey Uchiha! How does it feel knowing you can't control us with that Sharingan anymore?" Kurama taunted, and Sasuke let out a curse, running after the fox and tumbling and crashing around due to the lack of balance brought by Ino's tactic.

"I should've been doing that since I was a genin!" Ino said, panting, as she reached the other side of the large clearing and joined the others. "You're a genius, Sasuke is kissing all the trees on the way here!" she complimented Inojin, giggling.

'Just a little more… damn it…' Kurama thought, all the others rooting for him. He broke into the clearing and yelled for Kokuou to replace him, when Sasuke jumped on top of him.

'Wait, I'll fly away!' Choumei screamed as Kurama narrowly escaped the Uchiha's fingers.

'NO, CHOUMEI!' the others screamed, but it was too late.

Menma's body poofed again.

*Squeak?* went the chubby green caterpillar, realizing too late that if they all had been restricted to their infant forms the same would apply to it.

*SQUEAK!* its body got up on its short, stubby legs in panic.

*squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak*

"What the hell, Menma? This ain't time to play stupid damn it!" Bolt yelled as Sasuke scrambled up.

*squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak*

Everyone screamed as Sasuke stood, and prepared another Chidori with a snarl.

Naruto barreled into him from behind, and everyone sighed, beginning to cheer the blind boy on.

"Come on Menma, you can do it! Move faster!"

'Kokuou take the front!' Kurama screamed, but the infant bijuu shrugged. 'No more chakra to do that, bro. Stupid bug gonna have to get there somehow.'

'I heard that, you ruminant!' Choumei yelled.

*squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak*

The chubby little caterpillar crawled bravely across the clearing with Naruto and Sasuke fistfighting and trying to sweep each other's feet from under each other after it.

"Come ON, otouto! Don't you die on me!" Salad pleaded, and Menma nearly shone with happiness. 'Aneki! That's my Aneki! Move your fat ass Choumei, or else I'm never eating shiso leaves again!' he screamed, and the bug squeaked in indignation, but crawled faster anyway.

Sasuke tried to headbutt Naruto out of the way again, but Naruto dodged. "Oh no you don't you bastard!" he yelled, headbutting him instead. Sasuke nearly collapsed backwards, and Naruto grabbed him by the collar at the same time the Juubi poofed back into Menma's form and was grabbed and turned around by Inojin, with everyone else right behind them.

Ino quickly made the seals to enter her son's mind at the same time he entered Menma's.

"Ready?" Bolt asked, and Menma/Inojin gave him the thumbs up signal. "HEY DUMBASSES, SAY CHEESE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and both Naruto and Sasuke looked at them. "Now!" Bolt yelled, and Menma pulled his blindfold up.

'Pull, Inojin!' Ino screamed mentally at her son through their link; the boy grabbed at the two men's minds and, with the help of Menma's Rinne-Sharingan, reeled them in.

The last thing Naruto and Sasuke saw was Menma's unique 9 white-tomoe'd, fiery blind eye, before they fell into a dark tunnel.

A/N:

Yes, this chapter ends in a moderate cliffhanger. Sorry, more info on that (if you haven't figured out what happened already) in the next chapter :D