A/N: Once again, it took three drafts (and waaaaay too long) for me to be even passably satisfied with this chapter. But, I actually know where I'm going now! As long as nothing else derails my Fic Summary 3.0!

New and improved and shiny!

Honestly the fact that I have to keep making new entire-fic summaries to act as my roadmap for this fic says something and I'm not sure I like it… and honestly I should have redone my summary when I realized this fic was going an unexpected direction like what, five, six chapters ago? Ten? I don't even remember. But I didn't even think about it until my beta reader suggested it when I complained to him how stuck I was and then I was like…

WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?!

Getting this chapter to move the way I wanted it to was still a little hard, but I should be better from here on out! Honestly, I miss having a regular update schedule. My life feels so disorganized now and I blame the lack of update schedule. IT WAS AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY WEEK AND NOW IT IS KAPUT.

IT'S OKAY. THAT JUST MEANS I'LL HAVE TO WORK TWICE AS HARD TO STICK TO IT NOW.

Honestly it feels like lately, I'm updating once a MONTH instead of once a week. And I mean, I'm still updating, but it doesn't feel the saaaaaaaaaame.

For anyone who does check out my Outtakes story, the two previous attempts will be posted over there! Three tries at this chapter and three different POVs… I like some of the stuff I had in all of them, but in the end my roommate voted on this version, so let's commence!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Everything hurts, like she's cramped into a too-tight suit and it's cutting off circulation and she can't breathe. She tries to figure out what happened, they were fighting that shade, right?

No, we won. Sort of. Right?

Yeah, you'n'Sakura-chan were talkin' about sleeping or something.

Yeah, you're right-

Sakuni realizes three things at once.

One, that for the first time in her life, she's actually inside a physical body, not a mental avatar.

Two, that Natsu is somehow stuck with her, leaving their body feeling too full and stretched out.

And three, that she's naked.

And someone's hands are way too close to her hips.

She tries to kick, Natsu tries to lunge forward, and in the span of a blurry, panic-filled moment, the room ends up on fire.

Sakuni freezes, staring wide-eyed at the flames.

For some reason, she expected them to look different, feel different, from-

She feels a nudge, almost gentle, as Natsu moves to take control and suppress the fire. It's nothing at all like being in the mindscape and watching as Sakura-chan goes about her days, the limbs move and she moves with them, her awareness constantly shifting at each new sensation-

Sakuni's never had a body before, and it's unsettling.

Natsu stands up and turns, glancing around the room, and Sakuni swears she can hear two echoing heartbeats, one faster than the other.

She didn't realize bodies were so intense.

An old man clutches a notebook tightly, staring at her-at them?- with suspicion.

Sasuke-kun sits cross-legged on the bed, smirking, his eyes spinning slowly. He focuses on the old man, and Natsu drags her-their?-gaze back to him.

"Sheesh, what was that for? Touchy, are you?" the man asks, and to Sakuni his heartbeat drums, too-loud between her ears.

"Shit, you don't know how to filter, do you?" Natsu says with her mouth and her tongue and her voice and she's too-

"I don't really 'member much, I was too little when Igneel taught me how, but the thing 'bout enhanced senses is that if you pay attention t'everything you can hear, you'll never be able to focus! Just ignore the sounds that aren't important, Sakuni."

That doesn't really help, she thinks, because everyones' heartbeats are so loud and she can't just ignore it-

"You can't hear our heartbeat, right?" Natsu responds, and Sakuni sees a considering glance flicker across the old man's face but-

Yeah, that's right.

"If you actually focus you can. Probably. Maybe? I mean I know I can - I couldn't really in my body, before, but everything about Sakura-chan is so different that I couldn't help but notice it all. Now I don't, really."

Sakuni tries to take his advice, focus on herself, but that only reminds her that she's naked and someone's hands were on her body.

She tries to spin around, glare at Sasuke, because he's team and he shouldn't have let anyone do that-

But Natsu doesn't move, and agony bursts behind her eyes, her muscles seizing and-

Natsu hisses faintly, clearly feeling the same pain she is, but he still turns his eyes to Jiraiya.

She can all but feel the trust he has for Sasuke, and she just-

A situation like this-

Sasuke-kun should have-!

"Sasuke's naked too. I don't get why Sakuni's angry about it! They were just looking at the seal, right?"

"Right, right, my bad! I guess it does look a little off if you aren't sure what's happening!" The old man bursts into guffaws, before offering them a wide grin.

Sakuni wants to punch him.

"I'm Mount Myoboku's holy Master Sage, also known as the Toad Sennin Jiraiya! And I assure you, young lady, I prefer my women with a lot more oomph! So you've nothing to fear! But if I could get back to my work…" he brandishes the notebook in his hands with a grin, and Sakuni's fingers clench into a fist.

Natsu's lack of resistance catches her by surprise, and Natsu tilts their head.

"What? If you want to punch him in the face I'm totally down. But if you picked a fight with Sasuke while we're stuck like this we'd lose and he'd be smug for weeks! No way!"

"So something is different." Sasuke says, spinning Sharingan eyes focused on them. Sakuni blushes.

"Wha- huh, stop that, it feels weird!" Natsu complains, and Sasuke blinks, Sharingan flitting out in surprise. Sakuni practically feels Natsu's confusion as he glances back at Sasuke. "I meant Sakuni, she was making my face feel all warm - it was weird. But yeah… I think Sakuni's stuck here, with me. I was waking up, getting pulled out of the mindscape or whatever and she tried to grab me and stop it? And now I think we both have control, but it's not really easy to move if we go different ways..."

"Wasn't she gone earlier?" Sasuke asks, and Sakuni's first thought is-

Cha! He pays attention to us! Take that, Ino-pig!

"You make Sakuni stupid," is what Natsu says in response, looking at Sasuke-kun, and Sakuni would punch him if she weren't stuck with him.

Jiraiya laughs loudly and strides forwards to shuffle them back to the bed. "You lovebirds can figure that out later!" He chides with a grin, whipping his notebook around as Natsu leans over to stare at a fragment of black lines across Sasuke's thigh.

Sakuni whimpers.

Boys! Why couldn't I be on a team of girls?! Natsu!

"I don't really know what I'm looking at," Natsu mutters, reaching out to poke the point where the intact line of seal-work breaks apart into something that looks more like shattered glass.

"Well if you did, I'd be out a job, wouldn't I?" Jiraiya says good-naturedly, leaning forward to get a glimpse of what Natsu's looking at. "That seems to be part of the network anchor though - the seal was originally designed to mutate the chakra networks of the victims, so it has an anchor in at least one tenketsu point on every limb of the body. As you can tell, that one's pretty busted up - I'm still not sure if that happened when the seal was unnaturally split between the two of you, or if it's damage that occurred later. That's gonna require some monitoring, so I can see if anything new breaks, which is why you guys are naked. I need to draw everything out so I have an exact record. It was either this or pictures, and if you'd prefer-"

"NO!" Sakuni snaps.

"That's so weird." Natsu grumbles, but Jiraiya nods like he expected it.

"Exactly. So, if you wouldn't mind? I just need to finish this section here and then you two can put your smallclothes back on and I can get this finished."

Natsu shuffles them back, copying Sasuke's position as he glances over the lines of the seal across them both.

"Why does mine look all goopy when Sasuke's is all broken instead?" he asks, glancing at some smeared lines down their arm, and Sakuni wonders why it's not obvious to him. "Huh? Whaddya mean, it's obvious?"

"You know kid, it's weird when you talk to yourself like that." Jiraiya says, leaning over to carefully copy down lines in his notebook. Natsu glances over, and Sakuni can tell he's even doing his best to copy the smeared and melted look as precisely as possible.

He really takes his job seriously. To be expected of a Sannin, I suppose, even if he is… eccentric.

"I dunno, he seems alright to me. And I'm not talking to myself?"

Jiraiya rolls his eyes. "Sure, but it looks like you are. So, which lovely lady is it who knows what we're dealing with here?"

"Uh," Natsu starts, as Sakuni carefully tries to speak. There's a bit of an awkward sensation, where it feels like they all but overlap each other, and then Sakuni answers. "You can't directly interact with a seal from the mindscape. Or, well, I'm assuming you can't, because I didn't seem to be able to but I could be wrong-BUT! What I could do, was feel those twisted tendrils of chakra that the seal would try to produce, and I broke them! I mean- I don't really know how to describe it- I'm a mental avatar? I've never had a physical form, I've never even been in control of Sakura's body before now, I've just been her other self, and I lived purely in the mindscape. It's my domain, and that… fragment, shade, whatever it was of Orochimaru just doesn't have the instinctive control of a mental existence like I do. So it was easy to break his tendrils. I handled the ones that went for Sasuke, mostly. That guy in Natsu's mindscape handled the others, usually with fire. I mean, I guess I just figured that it was the two of us breaking the chakra-feelers that caused the seal to fragment like this? I don't really know much about seals though. Sakura and I didn't read a lot about them in the Academy…"

What guy? I don't have anyone in my head!

Sakuni sighs.

She really. Has no idea how she's going to tell him.

Especially since the jerk's refusing to talk to Natsu himself, shannaro!

Jiraiya's hands still as he jerks his gaze up to meet her eyes.

"What do you mean, Orochimaru's fragment?"

Inoichi treads up the stairs to the Hokage's office, face a professional mask. He can't blame the Harunos for being worried about their daughter - or Natsu, really: the boy's a problem, but a likable one and that's nearly a problem all its own, if Team 7's attitudes are anything to go by - but he still wishes Haruno-san would stop swinging by his flower shop every day to ask about them.

He already said he'd inform her and her husband once it was no longer classified, but in the end he supposes that's the difference between Shinobi and Civilians.

Regardless, he's sure he won't be the only one relieved when everything is over with.

Perhaps this meeting will be the end of it.

He pauses for a moment by the ANBU secretary's desk, and she waves him towards the door.

"Jiraiya-san arrived just a moment ago, Inoichi-san. I believe they're waiting on you."

"Thank you."

He knocks briskly on the door, declaring his presence, then opens it to enter the room.

Hatake leans against the wall, arms crossed and lone eye hardly blinking as his gaze bores into the back of Jiraiya's head.

Inoichi bites back a sigh as he closes the door behind him.

A long day, about to get longer, he muses as he steps forward and offers a curt bow.

"Hokage-sama."

"Yamanaka-san," the Hokage acknowledges, setting aside his paperwork and pen, "Let's get started then. Jiraiya-san, your report?"

"I couldn't get a comprehensive diagram of either seal. While there were some places that were rather easy to piece together, entire segments of the seals were otherwise damaged, and the best I have on them is guesswork. Neither of the childrens' seals line up with each other, either. This could possibly be due to the seal's center being located on different parts of the body, or something a little more complex on Pinky's side."

"Elaborate." the Hokage commands, and Jiraiya whips out a notebook to flip through.

"Well, obviously th-Sasuke's got the seal where it's supposed to be. I'd need a Hyuuga to be absolutely certain, but I'm pretty sure the mark's settled right on top of the tenketsu in his shoulder - the closest tenketsu to the heart that can be easily reached, especially in the heat of battle. And I can tell that's where the mark's supposed to be, because all sorts of other channels for the seal line up precisely - Orochimaru's perfectionist tendencies on full display, there are parts where he went through the effort of all but spelling out exactly how the chakra's supposed to move, it's so- so needlessly wordy, sensei!" The sannin's voice slips nearly into a whine as he waves about the notebook, and Inoichi's pretty sure the Hokage makes an aborted motion towards pinching his nose.

"Jiraiya-san." he reprimands, voice tired. The sannin sobers up immediately, offering an equally tired grin back.

"Yeah, yeah, right. Anyway, if we're just looking at Sasuke, it's easy to think the only reason the seals are off is cause Pinky's mark is in the wrong place. But then you actually look at Pinky, and ooooh boy. Obviously, there are parts of the seal there that seem inert simply because Orochi wrote them so specifically they literally can't function now that they're bound to the wrong body part or chakra coil, right? But the other parts - in some places, there's just blank patches where the seal should be, only the seal doesn't treat them like they're blank. Near as I can tell, the seal moves around those patches like something else is there, and it can't take it over. Pinky- the boy one, anyway, didn't know anything, but somehow I got the feeling the little lady's hiding something. Hard to say, really, she let… Natsu, was it? Do most of the talking, probably realized I'd noticed something. Beyond all that though… I can't remove this. Not right now, anyway. I'm pretty sure that even if it's possible, it's going to have to be removed from both of them simultaneously, so I'll need some time to work on a custom seal to make that happen. But there's also some things with the curse seal that I'm just going to need time to study before I can even say with certainty that removal is possible - sorry sensei, but there's really not going to be a quick answer here."

"You spoke to Sakura-chan?" Inoichi asks, but Jiraiya shakes his head nearly before he finishes speaking.

"Nah, Natsu called her Sakuni - the second personality? - apparently she tried to grab him when my poking of the seal started waking him up, and they ended up all tangled together. She mentioned a couple things though, which is why I asked you to come. I don't work with the mental side of things a lot, and while I know you're no seal master, surely you've at least studied a couple things in passing. Do you know if it's possible to alter a seal from within a mindscape?"

"Physically affect the patterns of a seal, no." Inoichi answers immediately, as he feels Hatake-san's gaze bore into him. "But some seals, like seals supposed to bind you from speaking, or ones designed to implant or anchor false memories, can be broken internally if you have enough control over your own mind and the appropriate training. It's not easy though, and even people trained for it often need a lot of time to pull it off, unless the seal is especially shoddy. And you probably know as well as I the results of a shoddy seal meant to influence someone's mind."

Jiraiya winces, nodding slowly. "That was about what I'd guessed. Orochimaru's seal isn't purely mental, so that probably explains why only parts of it are broken instead of the all-or-nothing we'd usually expect - but with what I'm pretty sure is the majority of the mental anchors all broken or melted, it's hard for me to get a comprehensive picture over here. If you've got an hour or so to spare, I'd like you to go over what I could decipher with me, see if we can't puzzle some of it out between us."

"Of course," Inoichi nods, "I'm clear until evening."

"Good, good. I'll walk out with you then. Just one last thing before we leave."

"I'll tell the ANBU to give you unrestricted access to the safe-house so you can monitor this-" the Hokage starts, before Jiraiya interrupts.

"What- you expect me to do my research in the safe house? Those kids are practically bouncing off the walls as it is, I could barely keep them sitting still long enough to copy everything down, absolutely not sensei!"

"I cannot allow this risk to run freely about my village until it's been neutralized, Jiraiya, you know this-"

"Now who said anything about being in the village?" Jiraiya crosses his arms and cracks a mischievous grin at the Hokage. "Think about it! You can't afford to keep me here, I'm too valuable managing my network - or at least that's what you always tell me when I try to spend time with my godson, so surely it still applies now? And I am more than capable of keeping my eye on a couple brats while doing my job. It'll let the kiddos burn off some energy too, so I'm not half-fighting with them every time I try to poke at the seal. Whaddya' say?"

"The risks-" the Hokage starts, and Inoichi winces as Jiraiya literally waves his words away.

"Psh, I can handle it, trust me. It's a couple of kids with a seal whose mental components are mostly defunct, which I'm sure Inoichi-san over here will help me prove in no time! And I can't really study the effects the seal is having on their chakra networks if said networks are stagnating from lack of use, now can I?"

"I can go too, for an extra eye, Hokage-sama." Hatake offers, steady and unflappable.

Inoichi somehow gets the feeling of a drawn kunai regardless.

The Hokage must as well, because his eyes narrow. "And leave Naruto-kun behind? How unlike you, Kakashi-kun."

"Of course Naruto's coming with us," Hatake all but bristles, shoulders tense.

"Absolutely not. This situation is too volatile-"

"Sensei." Jiraiya interrupts again, posture loose and open. "I can handle the kids. All three of them. And I know we're pretty sure Orochimaru's still lurking about somewhere. Kakashi can stick around and try to pin down his movements here, see if he tries to follow us - your job is to worry about the good of the village. Let us worry about the smaller things. I can take care of the kiddos, and if this morning was any indication, Naruto's only going to get more troublesome for you the longer he stays away from his team anyway."

Hatake turns to face Jiraiya, entirely scornful of his plan to leave him behind, and Inoichi wonders what the protocol is for playing mediator when three of the most powerful shinobi in the village get into an argument about child custody with each other.

At this point, he's pretty sure the only thing that can make it more hectic is if the Harunos show up and start making their own arguments.