Time

In a medium sized house located in a part of the outskirts of Konoha that few people were allowed and even fewer went, there was a knock on the door. The chakra enhanced senses of the former kunoichi living there noticed it from across the house. She knows who it is when she hears the same distinct knock, and for a moment she wonders if it is even worth letting him come in because she knows when they're done she'll be even more dejected than the last time he visited. Then she sighs, knowing that this small human contact is the most she'll get today, and raises her voice to call out to him. "Come in!"

Oak creaks open as she steels herself to see what she already knew was coming. Steps clack steadily up and closer to her position, lounging in the garden. Their eyes don't meet until he is sat down on another white patio chair, lowering himself with a gruff grunt.

"Hey Sakura." Naruto says.

She let herself meet his eyes. Blue. She dispels the genjutsu with the smallest flicker of chakra she still has absolute control over, and instead sees two colours in two eyes, one red and murderous and the other steel and garish. It wasn't new, he had looked this way for the past two years, but she never quite could get used to it.

"Going to gloat again, as you do every week?" Sakura asked rhetorically. Even if these meetings were a large amount of her social contact these days that didn't mean they had to be jovial.

An empty chuckle rang out as Naruto straightened out the white and red Hokage jacket he wore on most days. His mane of blond hair was shorter than what it used to be, but it was still large and distinct, tufts of sunshine framing both sides of his face. She found it ironic how such a horrid man could have such an innocent appearance. He looked kind except when he wanted you dead. "Come now, can't I visit a former teammate?" The Hokage said with those same disarming eyes.

"You killed every other one."

"Oh?" Naruto asked. "Is that a request I hear?"

The pink haired kunoichi shook her head. "A fact."

Nonplussed lips on the unimpressed former Hokage faced the current as his obviously fake smile stretched into a sadistic one. "If you want you can try to escape."

"Why would I do that? I love this village. I would have sacrificed anything for it."

The fake smile came back. "And I suppose I have you to thank for sacrificing your position." Naruto proposed, even as the fact annoyed him. Sometime in someplace foreign to the kunoichi, the 7th had decided that everything he ever earnt he would have to have a hand in. A gift was an insult and denial was war.

"My position? The real sacrifice was freedom." She said, eyes burrowing into Naruto's.

The sadist was back. "Well I can't let you out can I? You would convince your friends to rise up against me." As if they weren't already. "And yes, Sakura, they really are on my side. You just can't see it yet."

"What is that meant to mean?"

"It really doesn't concern you." He said, trying to infuriate her.

Naruto did this a lot. Each week since becoming Hokage and trapping her in a house with only an ANBU detail to keep her here and a few visitors at a time (and only high ranking and trusted shinobi with the hokage's permission at that) he would come up for a time and try to annoy her. She wondered if he wanted her to try to kill him just so he would have an excuse to finally end her, but she knows that's not true. He simply believes the best way to soothe her to an early grave is to stress her out until her heart gives. Spite makes right makes might.

She recollects herself knowing this shithead sociopath is nothing compared to the insanity that was dealing with a council that doubted her both for not being a member of a clan and for being a woman. Sakura even smiles back. "I am bored Naruto. To the point where even you are some company and that is better than nothing. Please give me something interesting rather than this recycled drivel." The woman finished, trailing her fingers in the wind, apathy painted on her face.

His monstrous eyes flickered, before resting on her. She hated the way he looked at her, probing and knowing. It was a combination of eyes taken from killers and his way of observing people that creeped her out beyond anything. They traced up her toned and trained body up to her scrunched up face again. "Do you know why I am the only one that visits you?" He finally asked.

"You aren't. Ino and Shikamura do, Shino comes by every month, Choji comes by with food and Kiba usually comes by with anyone of them whenever he has the time."

He laughs a little. "Still sharp enough I see, but still. I know they have days they don't go see you where they don't have missions and don't have to rest. Why do you think they wouldn't want to spend time with you?"

Sakura hesitates because part of her is still an insecure young person and not really this legendary village leader who chose to sacrifice herself to save it, but the part that is smiles and looks to the side. "Because I'm dull and sad and bored and it's hard to go out to party with someone who can't leave their house."

"Precisely."

"You know that doesn't mean that they trust you, right?" Sakura bit back.

A pause. "Yeah." Naruto responded with a sigh.

He looks down now and Sakura thinks of how vulnerable he could truly be if he wasn't delusional. How much he lost just by trying solely to gain power. Naruto, the most powerful shinobi on the planet without a doubt, looks tired. So many times he could have been better off. He could have decided to be a normal shinobi before he attacked her, he could have been a wandering shinobi before he decided to come back, and he could have given up on being Hokage yet now he was trapped by it, just like how she was. The difference was that she didn't ever want it like he did.

"You said Hinata doesn't visit." He finally stated after what felt like a lifetime.

"No. I just didn't say she does visit." She quipped back, extracting a sigh from the fellow 21 year old.

"You're being pedantic. Do you know why she doesn't?" He responded.

Sakura nearly answered automatically but his interest piqued her own. Why did he want to know? "No idea. We never were good friends after all. Hell, you were her crush, you know that?"

"Yeah, but that was before…" Naruto stopped himself.

"Stabbing me in the back, yeah."

The Hokage tutted, then got up from the patio chair and started walking. "Have a boring day Sakura." He shouted on his way out.

"Fuck you too…" She whispered back.

…

Naruto didn't trust a single person on his council fully. He had Danzo killed and the remaining higher ups fired but the younger generation were harder to dislodge.

Shikamaru hated him, Choji would listen to whatever Shikamaru told him and Ino, whilst the wildcard of the three, typically agreed with the other two more than they agreed with him. The three had been made heads of their clans before he was made Hokage, and since it was illegal to force a clan head to come out of retirement he was stuck with them.

The Inuzuka clan head, a burned and scarred woman in her 30s, tended to respect him. Something about his strength and brutality. He had managed to place enough doubt in people's minds to wherever he actually tried to kill Sakura or not, and since openly claiming it was paramount to questioning his position (and hence treason) there was a perspective that Naruto was the one who got betrayed and was a simply powerful, ambitious, and loyal ninja. He didn't like the way she looked at him though. Too possessive and pining.

Hiashi was nearly unreadable but seemed to generally agree with him in endeavours that weren't directly against his personal agendas. Likewise, Shibi was helpful and more loyal to the Hokage position than the opinions of his child's friends. They were dangerous but usable.

And with the rest of the clans you had those that were weak who were loyal because of his strength and those who were strong who were loyal because of his position.

Overall he was in a good place politically, but it was unstable. When Shino becomes clan leader another one of his supporters will vanish, and he still can't get a read on Hinata. He could send a member of ANBU to spy on the Hyuga but they would be spotted and he would lose Hiashi before he even had a chance for his daughter to say no.

So after the meeting concluded (and trivialities ended) he took the head aside.

"Lord Hokage." Hiashi nodded, polite and prim and proper as you'd expect.

"Lord Hiashi-" Naruto started, attempting to extend the same courtesy he had received no matter how foreign it sounded on his tongue. "-I believe your daughter is gonna become the next clan head, pending no change in the hierarchy."

"Yes, that is true. There is also no change planned."

Naruto placed his hat on the table and looked out at the village below. "Do you think she'd meet with me? No offence Hiashi, but council members are expected to be registered Shinobi, and you haven't been on a mission non related to your clan in like a year."

"So you are saying I will retire soon and Hinata will be in my place?" Hiashi asked, his tone neutral yet leading.

Naruto decided to meet his thinking and greet it. "Exactly. I need to know what she's gonna do, and the best way to get a measure for that is to meet her face to face. We haven't talked in nearly 8 years as well."

The Hyuga clan head nodded once more. "I will tell her to meet with you tomorrow-"

"Today. At the Hyuga clan grounds preferably." Naruto interrupted.

Hiashi looked puzzled. "Why?"

"So she's in the comfort of her home." Naruto said.

And in truth, because he wanted to surprise her. Maybe he really was a sadist.

…

And while Naruto spent his days as the imposing and unquestionable authority known as the Traitor Hokage, two men sat in a cave. Both men were silent and covered in black robes, both with black hair and onyx eyes.

"Our plants in Kiri are getting more aggressive." One says with a deep and powerful voice. It demanded attention and respect, but seemed to be half fictional, like the echoes of a legend of a man that never truly existed.

"We'll need to sacrifice a few of them. They need to irritate the Mizukage, not kill her." The second voice noted, this one filled with the character of ingenuity, sharpened with the black soul of hatred.

"And that irritation will lead her to attack the Leaf." The first said.

The second one spoke again, lowering his head to the flame so it highlighted his features. "And then, we kill Naruto." He ended, his eyes shifting into a sharingan and a rinnegan.

…

A/N: Hello. I may have lied when I said this story was finished.

Ok, well I did intend to stop writing and where I had finished I did intend there to be an ending but there were loose ends. And honestly I had a few ideas and so I wanted to create another chapter.

If you want to theorize on who this mysterious person is and who the other is you can. You might get one but the other is the questionable one lol. (No, it isn't a revived Madara)

As always remember to review.