Archive of Our Own ^beta

Uzumaki Natsuko, the time displaced reincarnation of Uzumaki Naruto, would never forget the first words her future/past mother said to her in her new life. "Were you dropped on your head as a baby?" Kushina asked with an adorable scowl on her pudgy little face. (She wasn't fat, she was just at an age where everyone's faces were excessively round.)

"Actually, yes," Natsuko replied, which made Kushina's expression melt in horror. "My brother wasn't allowed to hold me again after that. I keep telling everyone that I'm sure I would have turned out the same way, but he still gets ugly looks over it."

Admittedly, brain damage was an excellent excuse for why she seemed like a genius in some aspects of ninja life but didn't pick up other things as quickly. She really owed Itsuki a favor for giving her that, but he always seemed so guilty about it. (She was, however, shameless about turning that guilt into plentiful hugs. After all, she was still running a hug deficit from her first childhood.)

Of course, the reason she'd never forget those words was because she had absolutely no intention of letting Kushina live them down - ever. Natsuko had every intention of teasing Kushina about making fun of her brain injury when they were both old and gray. That required them both to live to old age, but this time around that was going to happen. You better believe it.

Yamanaka Ino was having more and less trouble than Natsuko. On one hand, she was reborn into the same clan that she was in before. She had the same name (which said horrible things about the level of creativity in her family). She was even her own father's twin, so other than learning to live without some conveniences that hadn't been invented yet, there was actually very little acclimation necessary.

On the other hand, there's something extra traumatizing about watching your past life's father eat his own boogers.

There was also the small matter of hiding her knowledge from her past life, because Ino wasn't stupid enough to do anything that would point to being a possible infiltrator in a ninja village, but her new parents made the mistake of introducing her to Naras when she was young. Ino just pretended that naps and cloud watching were the coolest things ever. Her Shikamaru impression got a lot of practice.

With all the intermarriage between the clans this wasn't exactly suspicious, but Ino could really have lived without overhearing her new parents/old grandparents talking about a foursome they had with Shikamaru's grandparents as a possible source for her behavior. Yes, they used euphemisms and, yes, she was theoretically too young to understand it, but there were still some things you shouldn't say in front of your kids!

Still, finding out that her grandparents were into orgies was less traumatizing than dealing with her dad as a baby. Together, though? There was a reason she didn't try a more interactive method for hiding her past life.

For the first time she really understood it when Shikamaru called everything troublesome.

Uzumaki Tetsuo sometimes envied the kage of other villages. It was a special sort of annoyance when everyone you ruled over were relatives. It wasn't due to lack of authority or even awkwardness of jurisdiction, but because he got to see people make the same damn mistakes in the same damn way year after year, just with slightly different faces every time. He bet the Hokage saw more variety in the kind of things he had to deal with.

Then he had to deal with the novel headache of sending a child to Konoha to be the new Jinchuuriki of the Nine Tails and he realized that dealing with yet another prank war that had gotten out of hand wouldn't be so bad. Finding one child of an appropriate age was a pain, but he didn't anticipate a second child volunteering to go with Kushina. Though he was closely related enough to Natsuko to know that the only thing predictable about her was her unpredictability.

"Okay, but why?"

Natsuko tilted her head to the side. "What do I get out of it or what does the village get out of it?" It was a question he wouldn't expect out of a child her age, even one lauded as a genius. Children weren't much for considering multiple points of view. Hell, adults had trouble with the concept.

"Let's start with the village."

"For Uzushio? Well, you noticed that Kushina is kinda young, right? Well, more family around makes it more likely she'll retain loyalty to Uzushio."

"That is definitely not something you should be cynical enough to be worrying about yet."

Natsuko blinked. "Who said I'm worrying about it? This is an argument for old people like you."

"You don't even believe in your argument and you're using it on me?"

"Well, duh. I'm young enough to believe that my bonds will transcend death and time. It's old people like you that need to hear excuses."

Tetsuo closed his eyes. "I'm middle aged, not old."

Natsuko patted his hand. "Whatever you say, gramps. Anyway, you should really send more than just me and Kushina. Redundancies, right? If something happens to the village then at least the clan will go on in a branch family. Get enough of us there that we can be put on the clan council and you have a bigger voice for aid in the future. Plus, if a bunch of Uzumaki immigrate at the same time it'll be harder to figure out who the Jinchuuriki is. Konoha should go along with it because I don't think anyone has really asked what happens if something happens to Kushina after she becomes a Jinchuuriki?"

There was something particularly embarrassing about a little girl - who, just last week, accidentally covered the entire market in glitter - telling you that you hadn't really thought through your plan. It was enough to make Tetsuo wonder if the glitter really was as accidental as he previously thought.

"I mean - hello! - after Granny Mito dies, does Konoha have anyone who can even seal the Nine Tails if something goes wrong without summoning the Shinigami?"

Tetsuo groaned. "You aren't supposed to know about the Dead Demon Consuming Seal."

"Oh, is that what it's called?"

There were two possibilities: either Natsuko was better at finding out bits and pieces of forbidden lore than he had already believed - which was a tall bar to clear, or she had worked out from first principles that a Bijuu could be bound by summoning the Shinigami and thought that basically everyone could do it. Tetsuo hated both possibilities, but at least if it was the former she hadn't completely bypassed all their security. Yet.

"Okay, how would you sell the idea to Konoha?"

Natsuko gave him a fox-like grin. "I'm glad you asked."

Ino narrowed her eyes when two Uzumakis were introduced to their class. Kushina was expected. The second Uzumaki was not.

"My name is Uzumaki Natsuko! I like ramen of all sorts, even cup ramen! What I dislike is waiting three minutes for cup ramen to cook. My dream is… to burn all the paperwork in the Hokage Tower."

"Uzumaki!"

Natsuko looked directly at the teacher. "Try telling me that the Hokage doesn't dream of the same thing. Go ahead and try. Just because it's unrealistic doesn't mean it's not a wonderful, wonderful dream." She looked back forward at the class and her face took on a goofy expression that made it clear that she was imagining this exact scenario. You could practically see the flames dancing in her eyes. To be honest, Ino sympathized.

The teacher sighed. "Okay, instead of dreams, how about goals?"

The answer was prompt. "My goal is to become a loose cannon elite Jounin who is trusted to travel the continent on behalf of the village but no one sane would trust with the paperwork to adopt a dog. Or any mission that might involve a formal dinner."

A suspicion in Ino's mind solidified. "What's your favorite kamaboko and how did you fit that much glitter into a pencil sharpener?" Beside her, Inoichi and Shikaku both reacted in shock that Ino actually cared about the new transfers. Well, Shikaku moved all of three muscles, but that was a lot for him at this age.

Next to Natsuko, Kushina looked appalled. "Did you prank someone already? How!? I've been with you the entire time we've been in the village!" Anyone else would have thought that Kushina was being responsible, but Ino knew enough about Uzumakis, or at least this particular branch, to know that she was upset about being left out of the prank.

Natsuko smiled at Ino and it was clear that she got the message about the pencil sharpener. "Narutomaki, of course. Oh, and a failed storage seal that would decay over time."

At the time, Ino had just laughed off one final prank from beyond the grave, but now that she could actually get her hands on him/her…. "My revenge will be cruel and unusual."

Natsuko's grin sharpened into something positively vulpine to the point Ino could practically see the whisker marks. "Bring it."

"I'm thinking… shopping."

"On second thought-"

Kushina grabbed onto Natsuko's arm and gave an evil grin to match the one that had disappeared from Natsuko's face. "I'll make sure she doesn't get away."

"How!?" Ino ranted. "Did you use a genjutsu? How is it that no outfit looks right on you without at least some eye watering orange in it? You're a redhead. This shade of orange should look horrible on you." It made slightly, just a smidgen, more sense when Naruto was blond.

Natsuko gave her the smile of a bodhisattva descended from the Pure Lands, delighting in the wonders of existence. "As the reincarnation of Asura, the universe itself declared that I wouldn't look right without his signature color."

Ino fixed Natsuko with an unamused glare. "I've seen your memories of Asura. His signature look was a white robe over a black bodysuit." Well, it was more like the entire clan's look.

"Wait. What?" Kushina ventured.

"Then some other past life," Natsuko offered.

Ino groaned. "I don't know which I hate more: the fact that your explanation boils down to divine intervention or that this explanation makes sense."

Kushina stuck her fists on her hips. "No seriously, what's this about being the reincarnation of Asura?"

Natsuko tilted her head to the side. "I'm the reincarnation of Ōtsutsuki Asura, son of the Sage of the Six Paths. Remember? That's how I introduced myself to you back when we met and then you asked if I was dropped on my head as a baby."

Kushina gave Ino a pleading look. "And you believe her?"

Ino gestured at herself. "Clan of mind readers."

"When did you even have the time?"

Ino winked at Kushina. "Try not to think about it too hard. You'll only give yourself nightmares."

Kushina paled as she considered that.

"Okay, if we can't fix the color of your clothes, we can at least do something about the cut…."

Natsuko looked down at herself. "These are perfectly traditional Uzushio clothes." She radiated happiness at being able to connect with her clan in this life.

"Yes, traditional Uzumaki boy clothes. Let's see you in something with a skirt."

"How do you even know the difference?" Natsuko complained.

"Clan of mind readers?" Kushina guessed.

It was nice having Ino around. Natsuko would never consider herself alone in this life. She had Kushina and the other Uzumaki that had come to Konoha for the branch family expansion, including her older brother, so it wasn't loneliness. Natsuko also wasn't the kind of person that would accept being anything less than herself at all times, so it wasn't like she was taking off a mask. She also never lied about who she was, even if she didn't include some of the details like being from both the future and the past, but no one ever believed her either. Granted, that was for a very, very good reason, but having someone around who didn't think she was a crazy person was nice.

Well, actually, Ino did think she was a crazy person, but she didn't think Natsuko was any more crazy than your average Jounin. Considering that Kakashi had been her Jounin-sensei, Natsuko came out of things relatively sane.

And while she may not have Kurama in this life, Natsuko still carried gifts of the Sage of the Six Paths. That included the ability to communicate with others with a touch.

So no one else? Natsuko sent.

Ino shook her head. I thought for a while Hinata was around, but it turned out that the Hyuga just produce a lot of girls with that personality type. Both how she was like as a child and an adult.

Natsuko shrunk into herself.

So what did you do about Uzushio being invaded? Ino sent.

Pranks. Lots of pranks at sensitive spots.

Ino sighed and looked heavenward. I should have known pranks would be your response.

I don't know that they're ready for three villages ganging up on them all at once, but they won't be taken by surprise. They're downright paranoid about things coming at them from the sea now.

Ino looked at Natsuko like she had grown a second head. I don't want to know what kind of pranks you did, do I?

Probably not, which is an awful shame because there were some good ones.

A second head and second set of eyes on each head. Nope, not interested.

Some people just have no taste.

Ino frowned. So what do you want to do about Danzo? I was planning on driving him insane.

Natsuko looked Ino directly in the eye. Tell me more, she thought in mental tones more appropriate for asking your wife to tell you all about the lingerie she just bought for a special occasion.

One of Kushina's more frequent thoughts was along the lines of "What did I do to deserve Natsuko as my best friend?" Sometimes, like when the idiot got them both in trouble, she considered the possibility she must have wiped out entire villages in a past life or something. Sometimes, like when she found out that Natsuko convinced old man Testuo to send a lot more people with her to Konoha, she considered the possibility that she had actually done something good in a past life - but something small, like giving a hundred yen to charity or something.

However she may have felt about the honor of being Natsuko's best friend, she was rather annoyed when a certain blonde girl seemed to be usurping that position from her. Just look at them holding hands and giggling together!

Wait.

Holding hands.

Giggling.

Were those soulful looks?

Kushina suddenly felt much less jealous. She might still want the best friend position, but dating? Dating led to marriage and the thought of living with Natsuko for the rest of their lives gave her hives. Blondie was welcome to it. Well, as long as she didn't stop them from playing pranks together.

(Later, when Natsuko would try to set Kushina up with a boyfriend of her own, Kushina would decide that having a best friend was highly overrated. Couldn't Natsuko tell that Minato had a crush on her and wasn't actually interested in Kushina?)

Minato was excited to be on a genin team with Natsuko and Ino. Most of his classmates couldn't keep up with him, but those two could. Granted, he would have been happier without Natsuko's constant attempts to set him up with her cousin, but no team was perfect. (It's not that Minato objected to the idea of dating Kushina, it's just that the girl was naturally contrary and any and all attempts to get them together just soured her to the idea. Even complimenting her on the color of her hair backfired since Natsuko had the exact same shade.)

However, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the current situation. Jiraiya had decided to give them the bell test and somehow this ended up with their sensei tied up, covered in honey and feathers with Natsuko sitting on top of him… criticizing his writing? (Their sensei had made the mistake of giving Natsuko enough advance notice to thoroughly trap the training ground that the test would take place in and Natsuko didn't believe in the concept of overkill.)

Natsuko waved a piece of paper back and forth in the air. "If you're going to be a massive pervert, at least be an anatomically correct one! This description makes no sense unless someone swapped this poor woman's arms and legs! Or she had the world's most unfortunate bloodline limit!"

Ino tilted her head and squinted at another piece of paper. "This one might be possible if the woman was double jointed and had perfect chakra control, but try to write something that people can actually relate to."

"Are all three of you perverts?" Minato blurted out.

"You don't have to be a pervert to have opinions on badly written smut!" Ino protested. Then she paused and turned to look at their sensei. "You are trying to write smut instead of parody humor, right? Because if that's the case, that requires some nuance you haven't developed yet."

Jiraiya looked extremely offended by that question and tried to protest, but it was hard to tell exactly what since he was gagged. Whatever the objection, he clearly felt strongly about it.

Natsuko just ignored him. "And work on your penmanship! Ta starts with a stroke going to the lower left, not curving to the upper right!"

Minato's mouth started moving without him thinking about it. "No, it starts with a horizontal- Oh, katakana not hiragana." He grimaced. "That would make it look like it wasn't katakana at all."

Natsuko threw her hands in the air. "I know!"

"Wait." Minato looked at the two girls and their sensei. "Does that mean I'm on a team with an amateur writer and two editing fanatics?"

"Hey, as team quirks go, you got off lightly," Natsuko replied.

"Uh huh."

Ino tossed her hair to the side. "We're better than my brother's team. Bunch of unmotivated babies."

Minato decided not to point out how Ino behaved before the Uzumakis showed up. He didn't want her to turn that new motivation in his direction.

Time passed. Unfortunately, this time period wasn't something either Ino or Naruto had studied extensively. They knew enough to help their kids with homework, but didn't remember dates or things like that. They both also had a surprising amount of trivia knowledge because people just wouldn't stop bitching about past grievances. For example, they knew that Kakashi's dad would kill Sasori's parents soonish, but the exact timing eluded both of them.

Unfortunately, the Second Shinobi World War didn't have a puppet master or any single person that could be taken out to stop. Having lived through it this time, Ino would describe the cause as the various nations feeling out the limits of the village system and seeing just how hard they could poke each other before things got violent. Then people got sick of it and decided to get violent to stop all the poking. In other words, the nations just needed to grow the hell up, and unfortunately they needed to learn from mistakes to do so. It was literally like watching her grandkids from her past life.

Natsuko was upset because there really wasn't anything she could do to stop the war from happening with their future knowledge. Ino was more upset that they didn't know enough to tip the war in favor of Konoha. As for brute force, Natsuko still had access to all the gifts from the Sage of the Six Paths, but her baby genin body wasn't capable of really handling any of the big techniques yet.

On the other hand, fresh genin weren't really expected to do much, so their lack of ability to affect things wasn't rubbed into their faces. The worst they had was courier duty to the front lines, and even that was pretty low conflict since they retained enough skills to move quickly. (Minato annoyingly picked up those tricks as easily as breathing no matter how hard it had been for Ino in her first life.)

But while their baby genin bodies didn't have enough oomph to meaningfully affect the war, they did have enough power and experience to thoroughly mess with Danzo. It was actually pretty sad how little they had to do to put him completely off balance. They had some pretty elaborate plans, but all they actually got around to doing was messing with some of his paperwork, which caused a number of Root mission failures due to bad intelligence. He was just incapable of handling the idea that his tactics and training were less effective than regular ANBU.

Sadly, Danzo ended up going to the front lines and going out in a blaze of glory without incriminating himself in any way. Ino theorized that his identity was so caught up in being the necessary evil of Konoha that when it turned out that he was being less effective, he basically lost the will to live. It could have been just random chance that got him killed on the battlefield, but considering how tough he had been to kill in the original timeline, it wasn't something either time traveler would bet on.

It was probably just as well. Some of the things Ino had thought of to get rid of him were arguably worse than death, and she would have felt guilty about corrupting Natsuko to that degree. Considering it was Danzo, it would have been only slightly guilty, but guilt is guilt.

I don't know what to think about this, Natsuko thought as they sat together, looking at the stars.

I know you didn't want to kill him.

Well, we got old enough that I can understand the idea of choosing how you go out, but I wanted everyone to know how horrible he was and why things like Root were a bad idea.

Ino snorted. That's an understatement. You remember how Sai was.

Of course. I met him before you did.

I wish that I could trust that people would avoid doing the obviously stupid and evil thing just because it's obviously stupid and evil.

Natsuko sighed. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Getting promoted to chunin was rather anticlimactic during wartime. Basically they lived long enough, so they got tossed their flak vests and handed their next assignment. Their team wasn't even kept together; Minato got sent to a supply outpost. At least Ino and Natsuko were partnered, though it was yet another courier mission, proving that someone was paying attention to mission reports (which was sadly a little surprising).

On their way to the gate to leave the village Natsuko looked down. "Huh."

Ino glanced at Natsuko's face then followed her gaze and saw that they were holding hands. "Huh," she said in pretty much the exact same tone as Natsuko. They had gotten so used to holding hands so they could conspire silently about driving Danzo crazy that they still did it without thinking about it. This probably wasn't even the first time they did it when they didn't have anything to say.

"Was your huh for 'Well, would you look at that?' or 'When did that happen?' or 'How long have we been dating?'" Natsuko asked.

"A bit of column A and a bit of column B, but C is also a damn good question."

"Well, if you don't know then that means I didn't forget any anniversaries, which is good."

"Ugh. We're going to be that cliche of a lesbian couple where one is obviously the guy in the relationship."

"Ya think?"

But, uh, no offense…, Natsuko thought.

I'm a little young for you?

Natsuko nodded vigorously. It'd be creepy. But at least fake dating will establish that I'm still only interested in girls.

Still?

I didn't have a crush on Sasuke!

Ino smirked. Are you sure? You knew exactly what I was thinking….

Yes, I'm sure!

You don't mind if I use it to mess with my family, though?

Natsuko tilted her head. Why would I ask you to not be you?

Ino didn't cackle out loud, but Natsuko could hear it over their link.

But go gentle on my family?

Only because your brother is still getting grief about the brain damage.

Natsuko pouted. I don't know why.

Uh, because you constantly introduce yourself as the reincarnation of a mythical figure?

How else was I supposed to explain that we beat up our jounin sensei during his test?

It's Jiraiya. You could've just said he got careless. He's not a Legendary Sannin yet. Ino frowned. That's soon, isn't it?

Assuming we didn't change things.

What's next on the list now that we've got more mission options?

Natsuko paused. Think one of us could get put on the same team as…. What was the name of Tsunade's boy toy?

Unless we changed things, Dan.

Natsuko grinned. It was a big stupid looking grin. And if we can keep him alive, we can dump the Hat on him!

I seem to remember when that was your goal. And what about Minato?

Pfft. Yeah, I'm doing us both a favor here. Never again.

And wasn't Kushina supposed to be kidnapped soon?

That happened after she got Kurama, but Granny Mito is still around. I'm not sure, but I think having more Uzumaki around is helping her stick around longer.

Ino smirked. You'd think the stress of having you all around would have the opposite effect.

Yeah- Hey! Natsuko shot her a glare. Oh. Wait. Oops.

Oops?

One of the arguments I used to come to Konoha was that it would be harder to identify the new jinchuuriki if more of us came, meaning maybe she won't be kidnapped this time. Did I derail my parents' romance? Trying to get them to go on a date without a foiled kidnapping hasn't worked. I still can't believe his game is so bad that he made her think he was settling for her because I wasn't interested.

I'll tell you what. If they haven't gotten together in… three years, we can kidnap Minato, tie him up with a ribbon and leave him on Kushina's bed.

Natsuko beamed at her. You're the best fake girlfriend. …But with his clothes on, right? …Right? Ino!? C'mon, that just be gross!

As the person who had snapped Ino out of her complete and utter boredom with the world, Inoichi wanted to like Natsuko. Unfortunately, genius and madness seemed to be highly correlated and that had infected his sister. The fact that there looked like there was a decent chance Natsuko would become his sister-in-law didn't actually help much.

"So…, Natsuko and I have decided to pretend to date," Ino announced at dinner one day.

"Pretend?" Inoichi sputtered. "Weren't you already dating?"

Ino winked at him. "Some people you need to ease into the idea."

"That seems a bit disingenuous," their mother noted. "Relationships are built on trust and honesty."

"Who said I was easing Natsuko into the idea?"

Inoichi stared at his twin blankly for a moment before it hit him. "Me? You're trying to ease me into the idea? I already thought you were dating!"

"And you didn't seem very receptive to the idea. This way you'll need to reevaluate our relationship based on new information and when we start dating for real you'll be in a better position to appreciate it."

Inoichi turned that idea over in his head. "So you stopped dating just to start pretend dating?"

"That would be silly and inefficient."

"I'm so confused," Inoichi admitted.

"Your sister is messing with you," their dad pointed out.

Ino nodded. "It's a family tradition."

Inoichi made a sour face. "A lousy one."

It was widely accepted that Itsuki's little sister was, not to mince words, a bit touched in the head. It was also widely accepted that this was his fault. He knew Natsuko didn't hold it against him. In fact, she was his greatest defender. He was also pretty sure that at least half the reason she conned old man Tetsuo into starting a branch of the family in Konoha was so that Itsuki could have a fresh start.

Basically, where he was going with this is that he probably owed it to his sister to let her know he was seeing someone before she walked in on them topless in the kitchen.

"My eyes!"

"I thought you said she had a mission!" his girlfriend said as she grabbed a nearby towel to cover up.

"I got swapped out at the last minute! Wait, Tsunade? Weren't you dating Dan?"

"Who?"

Natsuko took on an almost comically confused expression. "Huh."

Tsunade shook her head. "I swear the rumor mill gets worse and worse all the time. At least before I'd actually met everyone I was rumored to be involved with."

"So… when did this happen?" Natsuko waved at the two of them.

Itsuki braced himself. "About six months ago."

"Seriously!? You didn't mention things for six months?"

"You've been dating Ino forever and never said anything!"

"We only figured out we were dating yesterday!"

Itsuki stared at his sister for a good half a minute. "That's just sad." It really, really was. Considering how blatant they were about ogling each other - and only each other, Itsuki would have sworn before any god you cared to name that they had never mentioned anything because they thought it was obvious they were dating and saying something would have been like commenting on how wet water was today. Though, honestly, he could see his sister missing it. (No, that wasn't another brain damage crack; Natsuko just lacked introspection.) How Ino missed it was the confusing part.

Tsunade looked at the siblings. "Should I leave you two alone?"

"Eh, he owes me so much ramen for not mentioning anything- the good stuff and maybe some extra hugs, but it's fine. I mean you can do better than someone who didn't think you were worth mentioning for half a year. I didn't even know you two knew each other."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes at Itsuki. "Is that so?"

Itsuki backed up a step. "You did say you wanted to keep things quiet!"

"Not that quiet!"

Tsunade's second, third and probably fourth impression of her future sister-in-law was that Natsuko was a naive ball of sunshine. (Considering how they met, first impressions very much did not count.) Despite herself, Tsunade found that she rather liked Natsuko. Much like her brother, Natsuko liked Tsunade without the excessive deference common to people who knew her pedigree. She suspected that it was an Uzumaki thing, but it was welcome all the same.

Part of that feeling of naivety was Natsuko's odd belief that Tsunade, the outsider, wouldn't deliberately hurt her brother. Natsuko seemed more worried about the opposite because Itsuki could be a dumbass sometimes.

On the much more serious side, you had to be suicidally naive to try to get through the war without killing, but Natsuko very much did not want to contribute to the cycle of hatred and actually had the ability to consistently put down the enemy without taking their lives.

What Natsuko didn't realize was how terrifying this made her, and Tsunade was on a team with Orochimaru; she knew what terrifying looked like. It really was like Natsuko was trying to be the opposite of Orochimaru so much that she was approaching him from the other side. The thing was dead men felt no fear and used up no resources. A man with crippling injuries, however, very much could feel fear and used up food and medical resources.

Admittedly, part of the problem was that her superiors had told her to stop taking as many prisoners. They thought they had been ordering her to kill more, but instead Natsuko would do things like take out an enemy patrol and capture the leader while leaving everyone else with broken legs as she described at dinner one night.

"...so you left them to crawl back to their lines in the dark, while in pain?" Itsuki asked as he set down his chopsticks.

Natsuko shrugged. "I know it's not ideal, but Tsu-neechan was saying that those kinds of breaks aren't hard to fix, just a bit time consuming."

Tsunade closed her eyes. Technically what Natsuko said was correct. Technically. Unfortunately for Iwa and Kumo, their medics weren't as good as Tsunade was, or even as good as the medics she had trained. Yes, a Konoha ninja with those injuries would be up for light duty in a couple of weeks and good as new inside of a year. For anyone they were fighting? Those were career ending injuries. It was somewhat sobering to realize that Tsunade had inadvertently contributed to the reputation of the Sadist of Konoha (not that Natsuko realized that that was her).

She made a mental note to punch Jiraiya sometime soon - somewhere more painful than usual. All of his kids turned out terrifying: Minato because he was lethal and Natsuko because she was very much not lethal. Jiraiya got a pass on Ino because she was terrifying in the Yamanaka mind games manner, so she came that way.

No, wait. She got a lot of practice honing those skills convincing Jiraiya to be more socially acceptable with his perversions (not even the Yamanaka thought she could convince him to be actually less perverse), so he still contributed there.

"That reminds me, wasn't Ino supposed to come for dinner?" Tsunade asked.

Natsuko scowled. "She got called last minute as a replacement instructor for some clan training." She straightened up and added proudly, "She's the best in the clan at field interrogations, ya know."

Tsunade was highly placed enough to know that wasn't actually a euphemism for painfully tearing secrets directly out of a prisoner's mind as the rumor mill would suggest. The fact that Natsuko said it so happily implied that she knew that as well. Anyone else would probably consider her tone as more evidence for her reputation as the Sadist of Konoha. Well, no, Itsuki had his "my sister is a lovesick idiot" look on his face, which to be fair, was also very true.

More time passed and the differences started adding up more and more.

Ino wouldn't say that Natsuko disliked the idea of her brother and Tsunade dating. Naruto had considered Tsunade to be family in their last life and Natsuko liked the idea of it becoming more official in this life. If anything she was annoyed with Itsuki about dragging his feet on the subject. However, as the changes started piling up, Natsuko started getting more anxious about the possibility that the changes they made were making things worse rather than better. About the only thing that worked to help calm that anxiety was tactile therapy: lots of hugs and hand holding.

If Natsuko had a (non prank related) manipulative bone in her body, Ino would have wondered if all this body contact was part of some sort of long term seduction plan, because it was working. She knew it wasn't planned, but that analysis probably just made it more effective.

In any case, the Sannin never actually fought Hanzo, though Jiraiya still ended up teaching the Ame orphans. That explanation made even less sense than how it happened in the original timeline. Mito lasted about a year and a half longer and Kushina never did get kidnapped. They had to resort to gift wrapping Minato, but thankfully that worked. On the downside, Natsuko did manage to convince Ino to leave his clothes on when they did it.

Most importantly Iwa and Kumo had some sort of falling out towards the end of the war. With that there would be no attack on Uzushio. Natsuko spent a lot of time trying to piece together what went differently, if only to figure out how they could have done it deliberately.

Maybe some false flag operation Danzo pulled in the original timeline backfired?

The problem with decades of study of psychology is that you know entirely too much about how your feelings form. You can identify causes and poke at an emotion and say it isn't real.

I mean this Kuja guy sounds like a real asshole that I think I would have remembered if he had been around before. Maybe we just shuffled things around so he just lived long enough to blow up their alliance?

For example, Ino knew that years of conspiratorially holding hands and then later fake dating would generate something akin to romantic feelings. She had personally put together a program for easing people out of those kinds of feelings for ninja who had gone undercover as couples, but because she had run that kind of program she also had to acknowledge that sometimes those feelings became real. Fake dating under your actual identity meant doing things like spending time together doing things each other liked, which wasn't actually that different from real dating. Honestly, enjoying spending time together and sharing secrets was actually a better foundation for a relationship than Ino's marriage in her first life, and that turned out fine.

Or she might not be thinking clearly after not getting laid for close to three decades between her two lives and being stuck in a hormonal young adult body. See the previous comment about all the (unfortunately platonic) body contact and add in the fact that there was exactly one person alive that was her age both mentally and physically.

For all I know it was sharing A's favorite yakitori recipe! Ya think someone in Iwa insulted it?

Ino sighed. The sad part is that it's his grandmother's recipe, so someone insulting it could actually have caused a complete breakdown in diplomatic relations.

I know! Maybe I should just ask the Honorable Geezer-

"Natsuko," Ino said out loud.

"Hmmm?"

Ino took the opportunity to kiss her on the lips.

"Er, wha?"

Idiot. Does it really matter? Everything is going better than before.

Natsuko flinched. Shikamaru isn't going to be born, she pointed out. Shikaku has barely said five words to Yoshino this time.

Even if they were madly in love, do you know the odds of the same egg and sperm meeting? We just have to admit that the future isn't going to be anything like the old past. Enjoy it for what it is.

Natsuko sighed. I guess even if the same souls are reborn, that's no guarantee. I wasn't that much like Asura as Naruto.

Now for the important question: did you enjoy that kiss?

Natsuko blushed sheepishly. I'm not sure? It went by so quickly-

Ino kissed her again slowly and deliberately.

Well I enjoyed that one. But-

No more buts. We're both old enough now that we're actual adults physically, and I'm tired of all this touching while ignoring the fact that you have curves and pretty nice ones.

Natsuko blushed. Yours are pretty nice as well.

Do you want to find out just how nice?