Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"So this is it. I guess this is where we say goodbye," Kurama commented, flicking his tails idly. As Naruto sniffled and began to tear up, the great fox sighed gustily. "Stop that. It was a long road, but I don't regret any of it now. Not being sealed in you, not becoming your partner, not even parting like this…"

"Kurama…" Naruto said, now crying shamelessly. "Me too! I would do it all over again!"

"Well, I suppose I have one regret," Kurama mused. "Naruto, I should have said this before. It was my fault you grew up alone. I'm sorry. If there is anything I would change, it's that."

In short order, Kurama would have another regret.

The mental space around them had flared white, and that was the last either of them remembered. Of that timeline.

Kurama would come to dearly regret those words, even if he would never, ever admit that ending up sixteen years in the past was probably somehow at least partially his fault.

~.~.~

Given that the last thing he remembered was saying his goodbyes to Naruto, about to become one with the other bijuu, Kurama was understandably confused to find himself under a clear night sky, totally free and, yes, with both halves.

Also, in the middle of Konoha, which appeared to be newly wrecked… most likely by him.

"Ah, it's that night," Kurama commented, nodding to himself sagely.

Admittedly, it was his first time suddenly ending up sixteen years in the past. Even for a bijuu, that was just weird. But on the other hand, everything involving Naruto had been just weird, so why not this too?

The mob of Konoha shinobi around Kurama completely missed his relation and his sudden change in alignment, attacking him with another wave of explosive notes. Kurama was not particularly bothered — he'd taken Naruto's beloved RasenShuriken to the face, this was nothing — but it was still annoying, and his great eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Cut that out, you worms!" Kurama roared.

The force of his voice alone was enough to knock most the shinobi off their feet, but it was the shock of hearing the bijuu speak that made them freeze for several long moments. Sarutobi, Enma's staff form in his hands, paused before he could use it to push the Kyuubi out of the village.

He flinched when the bijuu singled him out, leveling its crimson stare on him.

"You, monkey old man," Kurama said sharply, in a tone that was a tad impatient, but rather calm for a bjiuu. It still sounded like thunder to the humans around him. "Go find your other idiot leader."

'Before he does something stupid,' Kurama added mentally. 'If he drops that fat toad on me again, I'm biting off an arm, no matter what Naruto thinks.'

"Minato?!" Sarutobi blurted out. All of his years as a ninja had not prepared him for this. "What do you want with him, you monster?!"

Reformed or not, Kurama couldn't let that pass. "Watch how you address me, old man! I could rip your wrinkled hide to shreds!" he snapped. It was a pretty empty threat, given that Kurama had automatically taken to addressing him by Naruto's affectionate "Jiji." He didn't even want to think about how annoying Naruto would be if Kurama really did harm the old monkey. "Now go find your other idiot leader!"

"There's no need for that," Minato said calmly, flashing into sight next to Sarutobi. "I'm here."

"Did you get him?" Kurama asked. Even though he already knew Minato hadn't, Kurama reserved some hope for a positive answer. After all, Naruto definitely wouldn't. There would just be lots of heartfelt speeches and emotional revelation, and at the end they'd become friends. Which was nice and all, but wasn't quite as satisfying as a good old fashioned revenge killing.

"No, he escaped," Minato said, frowning.

"Pathetic," Kurama judged. He quickly went on before Minato could start asking questions. "But since you freed me from that man's control, I feel a certain degree of… gratitude." A blatant lie, Kurama had felt nothing of the sort and wasn't feeling it much now, but it was a convenient explanation.

"Ah," Minato said and stopped, apparently unsure of how to go on. It had been a long night already, and it showed no signs of ending.

"What man?" Sarutobi asked Minato, recovering admirably and throwing himself into damage control mode. If there was anything his years as the Sannin's teacher had taught him, it was how to accept ridiculous, insane situations and start dealing with the fallout.

"There was a masked man. He summoned the Kyuubi to Konoha after taking control of it. I broke his control and…" Minato explained, in a rather disjointed way that gave away his own confusion. He gestured abstractly, to indicate their entire current situation.

"If he escaped, then he could return at any time," Sarutobi said, ignoring all the not immediately threatening parts. "What can we do?"

"…There's only one solution I know of," Minato said. "To seal the bijuu."

In other words, create a new jinchuuriki. 'Excellent, we're right on schedule,' Kurama thought, nodding to himself.

"Get on that," he ordered, making the two Hokage jump. They had apparently forgotten about him, somehow. "I'll wait over… there. And if you try to summon the Shinigami, I'll gut you before you get to the third hand seal."

Minato choked. "H-how do you know about that?" he wondered, then quickly shook his head. "I don't know any other seal that can contain, um, you."

"Then you'd better ask someone who knows a lot about seals, and bijuu, and jinchuuriki," Kurama said. And because this was, after all, Naruto's progenitor, he added rather dryly, "For example, the successor to that tree man's wife."

Kurama was about to add something else — 'You know, the redhead,' 'The one who knows all about jinchuuriki, from personal experience,' since Naruto probably wouldn't have gotten it until it was spelled out in full detail — when Minato suddenly paled.

"Yes," he said, sounding slightly strangled. "I know just who to ask. I'll… go do that. Wait here."

Then he flashed away.

Just to be contrary, Kurama leaped out of the village in a single, long bound, leaving the assembled shinobi staring after him in shock.

~.~.~

The reason for Minato's hasty departure was simple — Kushina was going to kill him.

He had no doubt that she was already awake and already annoyed. And Minato, well, he had never won a single argument with her. As far as he was concerned, Kushina had never lost a battle. Kushina was like a force of nature. Biwako said a man couldn't handle the pain of giving birth? He definitely believed her. Anything that put so much strain on Kushina was to be feared.

Kushina had been put through that and through having the Kyuubi extracted, then left alone to worry with no information about what was happening.

She was going to bite the head off whatever poor fool she laid eyes on first. And unfortunately that was going to be Minato. Who was now going to ask her about how to seal a bijuu in their son.

Thus, Minato was completely prepared to stare death in the face — the Shinigami, he was certain, would have nothing on her — when he teleported into the safe house where he had left Kushina and Naruto. He braced himself… only to have a second, and then another, pass by without doom descending on his head.

Had she left?

That distressing but all too plausible possibility made Minato's eyes, screwed shut in fear, snap open.

But no, Kushina was sitting on the bed where he had left her, cradling their son tenderly. There was murder in her eyes, but a beautific smile on her lips. It was incredibly disturbing, since Kushina had never bothered hiding her rage or bloodlust before.

"Look, Naru-chan," Kushina cooed sweetly, "it's Daddy. Naru-chan has been worried about you, Mi-na-to."

The way she said the three syllables of his name was like the staccato of kunai biting into wood, ever closer. Minato didn't question how she knew what a newborn was thinking and feeling, or how a newborn would know to worry. If Kushina said so, it must have been true.

When Kushina carefully tilted their son toward Minato, the infant made a soft sound and reached out for him.

'At least I'll get to hold my son before I die,' Minato thought optimistically, accepting Naruto's tiny, blanket swathed form.

"So," Kushina said. "What have you been doing since you left me here?"

"Ah," Minato said. "Well. Yes. The thing is…"

~.~.~

By the time Minato returned, the amazing Konoha rumor grapevine had made it common knowledge that the Kyuubi had attacked because it was controlled by someone, and that person had been fought off by the Yondaime. So everyone was able to mostly ignore Kurama, who had curled up a ways from the village, like a new, fuzzy hill.

Minato arrived with Kushina in his arms, Naruto in turn in hers.

"Minato! Kushina?" Sarutobi exclaimed, approaching them. "Is it alright for you to be here? You just…" had a bijuu extracted, "…gave birth!"

As soon as he heard the old man's voice, Naruto mewled and began to wave his tiny arms. Kushina turned to Sarutobi with a smile that was terribly reminiscent of Mito at her most displeased. "Oh, Sandaime-sama," she said. "Naru-chan is happy to see you! And of course I have to be here too. How else is Minato going to know what to do?"

Proving his massive ears weren't just for show — or that he could sense the special kind of fear Kushina so often instilled in the male population — Kurama lifted his head and turned to stare precisely in their direction.

"It's about time," he rumbled. "You're slow, human."

That wasn't something Minato was often accused of. "And you're being awfully cooperative," Kushina noted shrewdly as Minato obediently flashed toward the Kyuubi. She glared up at the bijuu, apparently unintimidated.

"I hate being controlled more than I hate being sealed," Kurama said.

"Hmm," Kushina drew out unconvinced. But they weren't really in any position to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Fine. I'll have Mito-sama's seal set up. Now for the host…"

"I'm not going in you," Kurama quickly declared. "I hate chains. And stakes."

Kushina refused to feel any guilt.

"And I'm not going in that idiot either," Kurama added, gesturing with his snout to Minato. "What if he goes and martyrs himself? I don't want to be sealed in suicidal idiot." Or at least, not that one.

"Oh, and what do you suggest then?" Kushina demanded, scowling.

Kurama pretended to think about it. He knew exactly what he wanted to suggest, but if he said it, they would probably refuse on principle, assuming he was aiming to possess the child or something. Minato opened his mouth to speak his opinion, only to be cowed into silence by Kushina's glare — she already knew what he was going to say, and she had made her views clear before.

Baby Naruto chose that moment to gurgle happily and reach his stubbly arms toward Kurama.

"What? No, Naru-chan! You don't want that!" Kushina tried to convince him. "It's mean and probably has fleas! Mommy will buy you a nice kitty or a puppy, okay?"

Naruto stubbornly made grasping motions toward the Kyuubi.

"Hmph, I suppose the child will do," Kurama said with completely fake reluctance. "He has your accursed blood after all."

Kushina shot him a glare that said exactly how much she value his opinion — negative thirty three. Naruto cooed, and her expression crumbled.

"Oh, I… I guess," Kushina caved. "If that's what you want, Naru-chan…"

'I see. So Naruto can beat even Kushina,' Minato thought, nodding to himself in satisfaction. 'I knew he was amazing. He really can do anything.'

And that's how Naruto became the Kyuubi jinchuuriki once more.

~.~.~

"What the hell did you do?!" Naruto, teenage version, roared inside his mindscape.

"I should be asking you!" Kurama roared back. "This sort of thing only happens when you're around!"

"What sort of thing?! Ending up in the past?!" Naruto refused to back down. Fortunately, not being a physical existence, he didn't need to worry about lung capacity or sore throats. "Cause the last thing I remember is you talking about how you regretted acting like that the night I was born, and the next thing I know we're on the night I was born!"

"Now, of all times, you figure out how to think logically?!" Kurama protested.

Naruto scowled at him, deeply unimpressed.

"The last thing I remember is going to join the other bijuu, to become one again," Kurama admitted grudgingly. "And maybe — maybe — I was thinking about how I wished I could change the, hmm, whole killing your parents thing…"

They stared at each in silence.

"It's not so bad," Kurama grumbled, turning away and curling up a little. He could already feel a headache coming on.

"Not so bad? I'm a baby! I can't even talk! I can't even eat ramen!" Naruto wailed.

Some things never changed.

But… some already had.

Chapter Text

The first year of his second life was the most aggravating thing Naruto had ever experienced. Being an infant, there were a great many things he was simply physically incapable of doing.

For example, eating solid foods. Walking. Talking. Bathroom breaks. Sitting up. Seeing clearly.

Most of those, Naruto re-mastered within the first year, but until then, it was hell. Boring, humiliating hell.

The only bright spot was his mother and her amazing ability to know what Naruto was feeling and thinking. Well, not the teenage time traveler part, but everything else — when he was hungry, when he was bored, when he wanted to go outside, when he wanted to throw paint balloons at Danzo, when he wanted to be held.

Okay, so maybe there was another good part — being held so often and so tenderly.

Jiraiya had tried to say something about Naruto never learning to walk, with the way Kushina was always carrying him around, but Naruto retaliated by barfing into his hair. After that, Jiraiya just complained about what a momma's boy he was. Kushina always looked inordinately pleased at that.

But overall, especially the first six months, Naruto couldn't do anything but lie there, and sleep. He slept a lot.

Or rather, he went into his mindscape a lot.

Kurama quickly got tired of him, and cravenly dumped Naruto on the other bijuu, through their special bijuu instantaneous, regardless-of-distance communication method. It turned out the other bijuu remembered everything too. They bitterly complained and blamed Naruto and Kurama, jointly.

Remembering didn't do most of them much good. Their jinchuuriki never listened to them, and they had no way of acting outside their seals. Even Gyuuki, who was already on good terms with B, hesitated to tell his host about their little time travel adventure.

Even B would have trouble believing it, no matter how eccentric he was.

So Naruto spent his first few months harassing Shukaku into being nicer to Gaara.

"Argh, shut up!" the Ichibi finally lost his temper. He had held out for a surprisingly long while. "I already decided to do that anyway!"

Given the way he snapped his jaws shut and glowered afterwards, Shukaku hadn't intended to admit that.

"Oh. So you like Gaara, huh?" Naruto said, beaming.

"W-whatever, he's not the worst host," Shukaku muttered. "…He said he was grateful to me. And he tried to protect me…"

"Yeah, Gaara's really cool," Naruto — the reason for Gaara's gratitude — agreed seriously. "I mean, when I saw him in the war, he was so… heroic!"

They nodded together, both remembering the man Gaara had the potential to become. "Idiots," Kurama muttered.

"What did you say?!" Shukaku roared. "What the hell do you know?! My host is hundred times better than your brat!"

"Oi," Naruto muttered, but only half heartedly. Gaara really was very cool.

"He's not mine! Don't make me into some kind of set with him," Kurama protested.

Shukaku ignored them both, now on a roll. "Gaara made Kage long before yours did! And he'll do it again! You watch!"

Naruto couldn't let that pass. "Fine! You're on!" he swore. "I'll beat Gaara to the hat this time, just watch!"

~.~.~

There was, however, a very large obstacle in Naruto's way up Hokage.

The current Hokage. Konoha's Yellow Flash. Genius and inspirational leader. The Yondaime, Namikaze Minato.

His father was a weird subject for Naruto. Whether because he had never spent much time around children, because he was a genius and thus naturally lacking in common sense, or because he was a genius and almost precognitive in his perceptiveness, Minato never treated Naruto as a child. He spoke to Naruto without a hint of baby talk, and while he couldn't understand Naruto instinctively, like Kushina, Minato quickly became scarily good at reading Naruto's baby body language.

Various friends and acquaintances tried to correct Minato and assure him that several month old infants didn't really understand words yet — they held out some forlorn hope that at least one of Naruto's parents could be reasoned with — but Minato just looked at them with polite incomprehension.

"Of course Naruto can understand me," Minato said reasonably. "Naruto is special. I could feel it from the moment he was born."

He didn't even sound like a dotting parent, more like a commander assessing his troops.

Not that Naruto saw much of Minato. He suspected he would have never seen his father at all if Kushina hadn't apparently informed Minato at some point that families ate dinner together, so Minato would be home for dinner, every day. Or else.

Minato dutifully returned home every evening, even if he then headed back to the office right after eating. The fact that Kushina's cooking was absolutely heavenly probably helped motivate him.

Overall, Kushina was clearly the smart one, Naruto judged. His dad had really lucked out, getting such a strong, smart, kind beauty to marry him.

Though Naruto sort of suspected Kushina had been the one to propose. Minato seemed pretty useless at relationship stuff, that sissy.

~.~.~

Like a good son, Naruto made sure his first word was "Mama." It was the least he could do for his wonderful, amazing mother.

His second was "Ramen."

~.~.~

But still, being a baby was really boring. About as boring as being sealed away, it seemed.

The first time Naruto faced the bijuu in their shared mind space, he had been rather intimidated, to be honest. It had seemed like something… awe-inspiring, sacred. Of course, being Naruto, he had squared his shoulders and stared them down, but…

He got used to it very quickly, and sitting next to Kurama at one of their bijuu pow-wows — Kurama had made strangled noises when Naruto first called it that — became one of the more entertaining parts of his infant lifestyle.

"Well, he's the reincarnation of the old man's kid, the younger one, right?" Matatabi said reasonably. "He's practically a sibling."

Kurama made more unhappy noises, but Isobu, Kokuou and Choumei agreed. Shukaku agreed too, just to spite Kurama.

"Fuu tried to fly for the first time today," Choumei reported, wings buzzing excitedly. "She crashed through three stands and a vegetable patch."

"Han tried to hit on the innkeeper's daughter," Kokuou sighed.

"Did she slap him?" Naruto asked, based on his Jiraiya experience.

"No, Han's pretty slick," the Gobi said dryly. "She burned her hand when she tried to caress his chest."

"Why didn't he take the armor off before trying to get some?" Naruto wondered.

"I said he was slick, not smart," Kokuou muttered.

"Roshi burned half his beard off trying to use Youton to light his pipe," Son Goku told them, commiseratingly.

Gyuuki just shook his head. There were no words to describe B's special brand of eccentricity.

"Shahahah! My host is the best! He's not an idiot!" Shukaku cackled.

"Your host's, what, four months old now," Matatabi pointed out. "It's all in the future. Yugito used to be a smart one too, but now… It's all boys with her! And she doesn't even know what to do with them, so she just keeps beating them up and then crying when they get mad at her!"

Puberty. Kurama chuckled nervously. He still dreaded the day Naruto went through that for real.

"I bet Gaara is a really cute baby," Naruto decided.

Shukaku preened.

"You're cuter," Kurama muttered without thinking. Then, realizing what he had said, made a valiant effort to bijuudama himself.

~.~.~

Just before Naruto's first birthday — thankfully, by this point, Naruto could walk somewhat reliably and had a vocabulary that included all the most important words; his aim was also quite good, perfect for nailing annoying people in the face with vegetable mush and then looking innocent — Isobu appeared at their usual pow-wow with an unusually serious expression.

Naruto took a moment to consider the implications of being able to read a giant one-eyed turtle's expressions.

"I just reformed," Isobu told everyone. "And… I don't remember very well, but I think Yagura and that masked man will come for me soon."

His physical form had been dispersed when his previous, short-lived host — Kakashi's teammate Rin — had died toward the end of the Third War. Now, Isobu had finally reconstructed himself in the real world, ending up in the quiet bay of a small island in Mizu no Kuni.

In the original timeline, that was where he had been approached, ensnared and sealed by "Tobi." Even then, Yagura had already been his pawn, used to become Isobu's vessel, though he wasn't Mizukage yet.

"I don't mind going with Yagura again," Isobu said. "We never got to talk much, but I think he was a good person."

"He really seemed that way," Naruto agreed.

"But that masked man…" Isobu fretted.

"He's got that detestable Sharingan. He can control any of us," Kurama growled. "We're helpless against him."

Shukaku muttered something like, "I bet you'd know," but quickly dropped it when Matatabi bit him and glared.

"But he doesn't have that Shisui guy's special unbeatable brainwashing, so it's just a really strong genjutsu, right?" Naruto asked. "And you can beat those if you have a partner. You and Yagura can, you know, disrupt each other's chakra or something and… well, I guess you better run. He's pretty hard to take on." Under his breath, he muttered, "Those Uchihas are such cheaters…"

"Detestable Sharingan," Kurama agreed.

"Hmm, if I remember right," Naruto mused, screwing up his face in concentration, one hand on his chin, "he can't teleport and be intangible at the same time…"

"Yeah! So if you dive deep, he can't follow!" Saiken said encouragingly. Since he and Isobu had both been with Kiri for several generations, they got along rather well.

Isobu hummed thoughtfully, his tails lashing. "…Okay," he said. "I'll try it."

"You can do it! We're all with you!" Naruto said.

~.~.~

Unfortunately, encouraging and somewhat strategic pow-wows was all they could do to help Isobu — B had gotten himself put under house arrest again and couldn't have run off to Mizu even if Gyuuki could convince him, Gaara was still too young to understand Shukaku, and Naruto couldn't imagine where he would even start explaining this to his parents. Minato was oddly credulous, but not that much, right?

So they waited with varying degrees of anticipation and worry for any news from the Sanbi.

"Okay," Isobu finally reported, reappearing in their shared mind space. "I think we're good, for now. Here's what happened…"

The masked man had appeared beside Yagura, but he seemed content to send his puppet out alone. Isobu explained that Yagura's chakra resonated especially well with the Sanbi, to the point that he could control the bijuu to some extent. That was what made him suitable as its jinchuuriki despite being older than most when they took up the burden — as Yagura had mentioned, he was an adult already, just a baby-faced one.

Tobi had been interested in seeing how his pawn would handle himself, so he had hung back. As Yagura approached, Isobu rose slowly out the bay, looking as docile and lulled into complacency as possible.

Then, Yagura stood before him, Isobu swallowed him whole and…

"What?!" Naruto burst out. "You… swallowed him?!"

Isobu fidgeted awkwardly. "Um, yes? Is that weird?"

Yes. "Is he okay?" Naruto wondered.

"Oh, of course," Isobu assured him.

"Come on, I swallowed you before, and you were fine," Son complained.

"I was just in your mouth," Naruto pointed out.

"I think I swallowed you too," Isobu added. "Maybe...?"

"Oh, yeah..." Naruto remembered, thinking back on that time with Guren and Yuukimaru.

"We don't eat, and we don't have any organs," Kokuou explained. "So swallowing something is more like putting it in a pouch. It's not harmful at all."

"More like the other way around," Kurama grumbled. "Urgh, those two freaks, my poor stomach…"

"Wait, what do you mean you don't eat? Like, ever?" Naruto asked his eyes squinting shut in confusion. "What about Ramen? Are you saying none of you have ever had Ramen?"

Kurama groaned.

"What's the point? We don't even have taste buds," Choumei pointed out.

"You shouldn't have gone there," Gyuuki muttered. "It's like B and his rap…"

"It's Ramen!" Naruto protested. "No wonder you're all so bad tempered, if you've never experienced the wonder of Ramen!"

He looked ready to go on another long spiel about his favorite food/religion, but Son yelled, "Aw, shut up! I want to hear how the rest of it goes!"

Obediently, the others fell silent, letting Isobu continue.

He had swallowed Yagura and, before Tobi could react, dived to the bottom of the lagoon, and then out to sea.

"Um, that's it, actually," Isobu said. "I'm just sitting there now. I gave Yagura some of my chakra, and I think it broke the genjutsu, but he passed out. What should I tell him when he wakes up?"

"You should tell him about the Mizukage being controlled too," Saiken said. "I've seen him through Utakata. I don't know if it's genjutsu or what, but it's been going on for a long time."

Utakata was the Sandaime Mizukage's young nephew. Saiken had been sealed into him early in the war, in hopes of creating a powerful weapon. The Sandaime was also the one responsible for the Bloody Mist reputation and the graduation exam Zabuza had told Naruto about back in Nami no Kuni, and overall a Very Bad Man.

"That must have been Madara, then," Naruto pointed out. "Cause Tobi only started in on this stuff a little while back."

Though Naruto didn't think of it, that point also raised some questions about Rin's fate and the choice to use her for Kiri's plan with Isobu. And whether the whole thing had been a set up by Madara.

"Should I tell him that I heard it from you?" Isobu wondered.

"Yeah, no point in hiding it," Saiken agreed.

"He probably won't believe you otherwise," Naruto added. "You should tell him about Kurama too, and what happened in Konoha, so he knows how dangerous Tobi is."

~.~.~

"So that's how it is," Yagura said, once he heard everything.

Inside Isobu turned out to be made of more Isobus of varying sizes, all stacked on top of each other. The one to give the explanation was yet another Isobu, this one only the size of a regular turtle.

Tiny Isobu bobbed his head. "Yeah, so be careful, okay? I'll let you off on the next island," he said.

"I'm in your debt, for freeing me from that man's genjutsu and for the information," Yagura said, bowing deeply.

"I-it wasn't anything," Isobu stammered, embarrassed. Having a one-eyed turtle monster, even if it was currently conveniently travel-sized, act like a shy school girl was surreal.

Yagura smiled. "It was very kind of you," he disagreed, "and it showed me something very important. Both of us are vulnerable to that masked man. Neither of us can stand against him alone. But... if we could help each other, like you did for me, we can at least escape his genjutsu."

Isobu waited, frozen in anticipation.

"I hate to go along with something that man planned," Yagura said, "but… Will you come with me? Will you… become my partner?"

~.~.~

"My name is Yagura. My hobby is flower viewing. I like camellias in particular. I hate traitors and being mistaken for a child. My dream is to wash away the bloody history of Kirigakure. Even though I'm only a beginner as Isobu's partner, I will do my best," Yagura said, finishing his introduction with a deep bow. Behind him, Isobu's tails waved happily, the turtle all but humming in contentment.

"Don't sweat it! You've got it!" Killer B assured him. "You and and your man Sanbi, already got the right way to be — friends, yeah!"

"That was more terrible than usual," Gyuuki sighed. "Quit embarrassing me. I can't take you anywhere…"

"My first time in this place, I gotta put on my serious face," B insisted.

"What part of that is serious?" Gyuuki grumbled.

"Thank you for your kind words, sempai," Yagura said politely.

"He's the complete opposite of you," Kurama noted to Naruto, off to the side. "How did that stupid low-rank turtle luck out so much?"

Naruto ignored him, cooing over the one year old Gaara. The tiny redhead happily toddled over to the teenager, who had crouched with open arms, and began patting his whiskered cheeks.

"You did it! You're so cool, Gaara-chan!" Naruto cheered. "Look at you! Walking all by yourself!"

"He figured it out himself too!" Shukaku boasted proudly. "And he can even use our sand to get things!"

"Shu-shu! Na-ru!" Gaara babbled, clapping his hands together. When Shukaku waved his tail in front of the little boy, he pushed himself to his feet and toddled after it. It wasn't his first time playing with the bijuu.

"That's it! I'm bringing Yugito next time!" Matatabi yowled. "Then you'll see! Mine is the best!"

"Is not," Isobu muttered, while Shukaku yelled something derogatory.

"It didn't used to be like this. We went centuries without speaking to each other!" Kurama grumbled, as the bijuu began to argue loudly. In some ways, they were just like any other set of siblings.

"That sounds," — lonely, Naruto wanted to say, but he knew Kurama would complain, — "boring."

"Yes…" Kurama admitted, "it was."

Things had gotten pretty crazy, ever since he met Naruto. But they had never been boring. And… they weren't lonely anymore either.

Chapter Text

Being a toddler was an improvement over being an infant, in that Naruto could now walk, talk and, most importantly, eat Ramen.

However, now that Naruto was capable of such feats of independence, Kushina judged it was time for her to return to active duty. Before leaving on every mission, she cried rivers of tears and loudly threatened to murder everyone in a thirty mile radius if her baby had so much as a scratch on him when she returned.

Naruto saw her off with a smile. Being cuddled was nice, but he was getting restless. And when the cat was away — when Mommy was away — it was time to play.

Every time she went on a mission, Kushina cried rivers of tears at being separated from her baby boy. After the first mission, she wasn't the only one crying.

~.~.~

It took Naruto's ANBU guards less than an hour to lose him.

Kakashi, as squad leader and also as Minato's student — thus less likely to be killed — was the one who went to inform their Hokage that his hand picked, trusted shinobi had failed to watch over his son.

Minato didn't get angry, as Kakashi expected. He didn't even appear concerned. "He'll make a fine shinobi, if he can already evade my ANBU," Minato said, smiling.

"Minato-sensei," Kakashi said slowly, "Naruto is missing."

"He knows not to leave the village, and the Sensor Corps haven't any reported any breaches," Minato replied. "So there's nothing to worry about."

"He's not even two yet," Kakashi insisted. "What about wild animals? Or muggers? Or, or runaway carts?!"

"Really, Kakashi. This is Konoha. It's safe," Minato said, smiling. "I'm sure Naruto will turn up in time for dinner."

Kakashi wasn't sure what to say to that, except, "You're telling Kushina-san about this, not me."

"Alright. I don't see why you're so worried. She won't get mad — it was Naruto's idea," Minato said mildly, already having turned back to his paperwork.

'Sensei, you're not going to die on the battlefield. You're going to die because you do something stupid, and your wife finally kills you,' Kakashi thought.

~.~.~

Naruto was back when Minato arrived home for dinner. They had instant ramen, since neither of them could cook — well, Naruto knew how, but he couldn't even reach the counter tops.

"Did you have fun today?" Minato asked, between bites.

Naruto snickered, rather alarmingly. Minato just smiled blandly.

"By the way," he said, "did you take off the Hiraishin formulas I put on you again? Kakashi was getting so worked up, I thought I'd help him, but I couldn't find you at all."

Naruto turned wide, innocent eyes toward his father. Minato didn't believe him for a moment, but he still didn't look concerned either.

"Keep one on you," he instructed. "You never know when we might have a breach."

Naruto held out one hand and made a grabbing motion. "Gimme kunai," he ordered.

Despite the fact that Kushina had been very unhappy the times when she caught Naruto "playing" with his parents' ninja weapons, Minato easily pulled out and handed over one of his tri-pronged kunai. Naruto nodded and pocketed it.

~.~.~

"I warned you," Jiraiya said, without an ounce of sympathy. "I warned about marrying a girl so much like Tsunade. You poor bastard, what did you do? Peek on her in the bath?"

That was what Jiraiya had done, just before Tsunade almost killed him. It was a very memorable experience, and the outcome was rather like Minato's current situation.

"We're married. I don't need to peek," Minato pointed out reasonably, his voice strained with pain.

Jiraiya shook his head. He didn't think he had ever seen Minato this injured — there were more bandages than skin visible. In fact, Minato probably hadn't sustained this many injuries over the course of the entire war, combined. Of course, he was also infamous for his speed and ability to dodge…

"Insufferable know-it-all," Jiraiya muttered.

The village overall seemed oddly unconcerned with their Hokage's poor state of health, including the shinobi forces. Jiraiya thought at least the elders would have been there in Minato's hospital room, nagging.

But everyone had bigger problems. Naruto had somehow managed to replace the sugar next to every coffee machine in the village with salt. All the milk had also mysterious gone bad. And every left sandal had been switched with one a size smaller.

Worst of all, Naruto had timed it just before Kushina's return, so no one dared to retaliate for fear of her reaction.

~.~.~

Naruto was about the only one sympathetic to Minato's injuries. He hadn't actually meant to land the man in the hospital.

"It's okay. But I still don't understand why she was so angry…" Minato said when Naruto came to visit him, bearing reconciliatory instant ramen.

Naruto could only shrug. He loved his mom, but she was really weird.

~.~.~

It took Naruto several months to convince Kushina to take another mission.

Worried about her baby boy, Kushina blitzed through it — at this point, a certain rumor about Konoha's "Akagami" ("a crimson-haired vengeful god," apparently, for the double pun) started up — and came back a week early.

She arrived to find Naruto's ANBU detail struggling to tie him up in a cocoon of ninja wire and haul him away from his newest masterpiece — long garlands of catnip, hanging across one of Konoha's most popular shopping streets, which had been taken over by a veritable sea of cats. The furry mass was undulating and purring up a storm as the ANBU team cursed and tried to keep hold of Naruto's bound, wiggling form.

Cats, ANBU and bystanders all froze as one, then turned slowly to face the source of the killing intent that had suddenly pressed on them. Kushina stood at the end of the street, her crimson hair flying.

"Mommy!" Naruto called out cheerfully, wiggling a little more.

"What," she said in the echoing voice of a wrathfully god, "are you doing to my son?"

The ANBU's screams of utter terror were almost drowned out by the cats' yowling. Almost.

~.~.~

Jiraiya giggled, peering through a hole in the fence of the women's side of the bath. "Yes, that's it. That's the stuff, baby!" he crowed under his breath. "Show me those ripe fruit, those smooth, soft mounds! What's another good word…?"

"Bouncy," Naruto said, one cheek squished against the top of Jiraiya's head, his tiny hands gripping the Toad Sage's surprisingly soft white hair as he sat on the man's shoulders.

Jiraiya nodded absently. "Bouncy, great word. Very descriptive, lots of action…" he muttered to himself.

"Bleh," Naruto made a noise of disgust. "I don' like big boobies."

"Whaaaat?!" Jiraiya demanded, aghast, sitting up straight. "How can you say that? What red-blooded male doesn't appreciate the wonder and glory that is a woman's big, bouncy breasts? The sensation of squeezing that luscious flesh, overflowing between your fingers…"

"Flat and slender is better," Naruto declared. "Like Mommy." And Sakura-chan.

Jiraiya opened his mouth to say something derogatory, only to freeze. "M-Mommy…?" he repeated, breaking out in cold sweat.

Slowly, he tilted his head back, his eyes almost crossing as he tried to catch a glimpse of the toddler sitting on his shoulders. The toddler he had been having a perverted argument with.

"Naru-chan," Jiraiya said, swallowing heavily, "I'll do anything, just forget the last ten minutes and never, ever mention this to your mother."

Naruto pretended to think about it, just to make the super pervert sweat, but finally he grinned and declared, "Teach me jutsu, Ero-Sennin!"

It worked out rather well. He even got Ramen for lunch out of it too.

~.~.~

Kushina, in the middle of an assignment, paused and looked up. Her eyes narrowed, and her long red hair began to move uneasily. "My mother senses are tingling," she muttered. "Someone is doing something stupid to my baby. I better finish fast."

The bandits hiding in the bushes down the road barely had time to scream.

~.~.~

"Minato, there's something weird with that kid," Jiraiya insisted, unusually serious.

"I know. Naruto is definitely special," Minato agreed, not even glancing away from his paperwork.

"That's not it! Are you listening?!" Jiraiya snapped. His sharp tone finally made his old student look up in concern. "That's not being special or a genius, or anything like that. I was on a team with Orochimaru! I taught you! I know what that looks like. That kid knew what I was showing him. He already knew how to mold chakra. More than that, he already knew the Academy three and, get this, Kage Bunshin! Minato, he's only two!"

"Maybe one of the ANBU, or Kushina…" Minato began, but Jiraiya shook his head.

"I checked with all the teams you assigned to guard him. I even told them they wouldn't get in trouble for it. But none of them taught him anything! And I know Kushina wouldn't stand for it!" Jiraiya insisted. "That kid knows way too many things he shouldn't."

"What are you saying, sensei?" Minato asked, his expression growing serious. "What are you suggesting? That he's an impostor? That he's being controlled by someone? …That the Kyuubi is influencing him?"

"I don't know," Jiraiya said unhappily. "But there's something strange going on."

He expected any number of reactions from his student — mostly involving denial, anger or fear for Naruto — but Minato only looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Alright," he said quite calmly. "I'll check the seal. That should settle everything, right? If the seal and the Kyuubi are there, he can't be an impostor. I'll be able to see if there is any distortion in his chakra flow, and since I'll be applying my own chakra, it would break any mind control techniques. Will that settle your concerns, sensei?"

"…And the Kyuubi?" Jiraiya asked. What Minato was saying sounded reasonable, but some instinct told Jiraiya none of the things he suggested were at work anyway. It was something deeper and more complicated than that.

"Sensei, I was just joking about that," Minato said, looking at him with surprise. "That wouldn't make any sense. Why would a bijuu know Kawarimi? What would they even switch with? A mountain?"

~.~.~

"Naruto, I need to check your seal," Minato declared, over their usual instant ramen dinner. He had wisely waited until Kushina was on another mission.

Naruto looked up, a long trail of noodles hanging from his mouth. He noisily slurped them up, then said, "Okaaaaay… How come?"

"I want to ask the Kyuubi something, and I figured I might as well check everything too. We weren't… working under the best conditions that night," Minato said.

Shrugging in acquiescence, Naruto went back his Ramen.

"You're a moron," Kurama told him, in the space between seconds. While Naruto made unhappy noises, the great fox sighed in frustration. "You do realize that no one in this life told you about the seal, or me. Ever."

"…Ah," Naruto croaked. "Oops." Then, he shrugged.

Kurama waited impatiently, but Naruto seemed disinclined to explain. "So?" he finally demanded. "What are we going to do?"

"If he asks, we'll have to tell him," Naruto said reasonably. "I'm not a good liar anyway."

"And what if he doesn't ask?" Kurama said dryly.

Naruto shrugged again.

It was unsurprising. That was the same lackadaisical approach they had taken regarding the other jinchuuriki. They still hadn't told them, B and Yagura in particular, that Naruto wasn't physically the teenager he appeared as in the shared space. Dealing with that had been left up to the individual bijuu, who were not exactly the most proactive of beings to begin with — being ageless and essentially immortal had that effect.

Kurama suspected, though he didn't voice it, that Naruto also didn't want to deal with the fallout of that revelation. Minato and Kushina might have been weird parents who didn't really treat their son according to his age — Kushina's special brand of overprotectiveness notwithstanding — but Naruto didn't want them to treat him differently, to start looking at him like he was a stranger.

Whether that was what they would do, that was Naruto's fear.

Well, if that was his wish… From the start, Kurama had just wanted Naruto to have the family he had been denied. He didn't particularly care if that meant lying to the Yondaime Hokage or whatever.

~.~.~

Fortunately, Naruto and Kurama had decided to leave tampering with the seal for later. Partly because they had foreseen the possibility of a check up, partly because they didn't actually have the key and didn't want to improvise when there was no pressing need, and partly because there really was no particular need.

Sure, the chakra Kurama could give Naruto was somewhat limited with the seal in place, but they hardly expected to do any heavy fighting in the near future. It would have been too hard on Naruto's child body anyway. So there was no harm in waiting — the seal annoyed Kurama, but it wasn't painful or even truly uncomfortable.

Thus, Minato found nothing out of the ordinary when he examined the seal. Inserting a bit of his chakra into its workings, he appeared in the shared mental space, before the great gates.

"What do you want?" the Kyuubi asked with a great deal of disinterest, none of it particularly faked.

Minato didn't answer right away, glancing around instead. He might have been studying his new surroundings, or he might have been looking for Naruto's mental self — currently hiding. Even when Minato finally faced the Kyuubi, his expression remained calm and even.

It was a look Kurama deeply distrusted. How many had the Yellow Flash killed while wearing that same shining leader face? The only thing Kurama knew was that the man didn't hate Naruto or even the Kyuubi itself. But then neither did the little Root spies Danzou set to watch Naruto, as they discovered when Naruto almost tripped over them a couple times. That didn't make them any less vicious or dangerous.

"Naruto is your jinchuuriki," Minato said, instead of answering. "You agreed to this. He is your shield against that masked man."

That… was not what Kurama had expected. "…Yes," he agreed.

"For that purpose, it would suit you best if Naruto becomes strong. And that he does not fall under anyone's influence. Otherwise, your power would simply become someone else's tool," Minato continued.

"…I see. So that's your approach," Kurama said, finally understanding what Minato was aiming for. "'Protect my son'… is that it? If he falls under a genjutsu, I can dispel it. If someone enters his mind, I can drive them out. If he's in danger, I can give him chakra… And the reason I should do so is for my own self-interest."

Regarding Minato for a moment longer, Kurama thought further — underneath the underneath, as they were so fond of saying.

"But that's not all, is it?" Kurama mused. "It's not just that. I could tell Naruto things to turn him against the village, against you, but where would be the benefit of that? Humans are weak alone. The more allies he has, the more people to stand between us and that man. Stirring up his anger and hatred would only harm me in the long run. Well, that's what you're betting on."

"You've thought through it quite well," Minato said, smiling faintly. "As expected of the greatest bijuu."

Kurama snorted. "You're putting a lot of stock in my wisdom. Did you ever consider that I might not be that far sighted?"

"That's why I'm here. To confirm if you are the same as two years ago," Minato said. "I don't know why you changed between being extracted from Kushina and being freed from the masked man's control, but the you of after can see that clearly. That's all I needed to ascertain."

"Or else you would take measures from your end, is that it? Tighten the seal? Invoke that woman's help in suppressing me?" Kurama said, with a taint of bitterness. Minato gave no reaction, but the Kyuubi knew he was right. "After all, a weapon you can't control is worse than useless."

Humans were always like that, seeing the bijuu as just weapons. Naruto, for all that he had once hated the Kyuubi and once drawn on its power blindly, had never considered Kurama a weapon or a tool.

'Then again, I suppose humans see each other as just tools too. Naruto has never looked at anyone that way,' Kurama thought.

"A weapon you can't control might destroy what you're trying to protect. Then, it's something that is better off sealed away forever," Minato said.

'Yes, yes, only hatred can come from my power, I should just stay forever deep in the seal, I heard that from Mito, that damn…' Kurama thought in annoyance, only to trail off at Minato's next words.

"But I believe Naruto can handle even a dangerous weapon, and find the right way to use it," the Yondaime concluded. "That's why I entrusted your power to him, and why I'm entrusting him to you. That power will help him change the world."

"…" Something about statement sounded strange, and Kurama continued to brood about it even after Minato disappeared, apparently satisfied.

It was quite a while later that Kurama suddenly burst out laughing. He could feel Naruto give him weirded out mental looks, but Kurama didn't care.

"Your kid's going to change the world, so you might as well give him the best tool to do so?" Kurama mused to himself, still snickering. "Or is it giving him the strongest weapon to protect himself with? Haha, what a messed up way of thinking!"

Given Minato's absolute faith in Naruto's ability to handle that power — well, and the three dozen contingencies he had probably placed in the seal somewhere, just in case — it made a certain messed up kind of sense. For a shinobi. You bought your kid the best kunai and taught them all your best jutsus, didn't you? Even though both were dangerous in the hands of little genin brats. All so they would have a better chance out in the bloody ninja world. The better armed they were, the longer they would live.

So why shouldn't a bijuu's power be another extension of that?

Or so Minato thought, apparently.

"I can't tell if he's the most loving parent or the worst, stupidest one," Kurama grumbled to himself.

"Argh, shut up! It's the middle of the night! I'm trying to sleep!" Naruto yelled, appearing in front of the cage. "Can't you lose your last screws in the morning, you stupid furball?!"

"Shut up! Blame your idiot father!" Kurama yelled back.

Seriously, what kind of idiot trusted the power to level mountains to this brat?!

(Then again, the Sage of Sixth Paths had trusted him with half the power of a god, so

(Fathers were stupid.)

~.~.~

Being a genuine idiot, Naruto hadn't even noticed that he had lost Kurama's ability to sense negative emotions since being reborn in the past.

Kurama had purposefully cut that aspect of their connection and held back that ability.

By the time Naruto had originally become able to control the Kyuubi's chakra, he had been accepted as a hero and was out on the battlefield besides.

But back in the village of Naruto's childhood, Kurama had feared that even Naruto would be crushed under the villagers' deep, pervasive fear and hatred. It had been like a choking miasma when Naruto had originally been growing up, though Kurama, drunk on his own hatred, hadn't been affected.

Naruto had only made it to genin through copious amounts of denial, and actually feeling the villagers' negativity, undeniable and ever present… well, it wouldn't be a good thing for his mental state.

But to Kurama's surprise, it… wasn't the same. Some still hated them, of course. There had been many victims in Kurama's initial rampage, and even knowing that the bijuu had been used didn't erase the bitterness for those who had lost loved ones. However, their numbers were so much lower, no longer the majority, but just a small part of the population.

The fear was still there too, but Naruto was so tiny, so loud and so infuriating that almost as soon as he appeared on the scene, every other feeling was drowned out by sheer annoyance. Naruto was very, very good at annoying people.

Kurama had always thought Naruto was an idiot to insist on instilling those feelings in people whose respect he craved, but it finally made sense. That annoyance was made on Naruto's terms, by his actions, so it could also be overcome on his terms, by his actions — unlike blind hated and fear.

From village pariah to village idiot was a step up, unintuitive as that seemed.

That didn't mean Kurama had any intention of letting Naruto have negative emotion sensing any time soon. Unlike Kurama, Naruto wouldn't be able to logically reason through the villagers' emotions — or look at those emotions with a bland detachment.

'Oh, everyone just became terrified for their lives,' Kurama noted.

He had been monitoring the mob chasing after Naruto — who had painted spoilers for Icha Icha Paradise across the Hokage monument the day the book came out. However, the near murderous fury and frustration suddenly turned to horror and crippling fear, with a dash of something almost like religious fervor.

That could only mean one thing. 'Hmm… I guess Kushina's returned.'

And she was standing right behind them, asking what they thought they were doing to her son.

Yes, there was no real need for Naruto to sense negative emotions, the empathetic little brat. Naruto, Kurama thought, just wouldn't be sadistic enough to appreciate the crowd's absolute horror at the sight of red hair flailing wildly.

Elsewhere, in the middle of a release day book signing, Jiraiya sensed that his days were numbered.

Chapter Text

When Naruto was three, the peace treaty with Kumo was finalized, after years of negotiations, and to be signed. Although he heard a lot about it, from Minato and Kushina's vicious cursing, Naruto didn't think much of it.

That is, until he heard about how the Hyuuga heiress's birthday party would be on the same day as the signing.

Then, it finally clicked, and Naruto threw what his parents vividly remembered as his first temper tantrum.

~.~.~

Naruto had not been a biddable child, exactly, but he had never cried, and if he had ever wanted something or disagreed with his parents, he had simply gone behind their backs and gotten it by himself.

So it was more out of overwhelming bewilderment than anything that Minato and Kushina agreed to have Naruto visit the Hyuuga compound on Hinata's birthday and then spend the night over.

It was especially mysterious because up until that point, everyone had thought Naruto didn't even know who Hinata was. If they had met, no one could pin down when or how. Hinata had never even left the compound.

"Your son isn't here? I was looking forward to meeting him, and your wife," the Kumo head ninja commented casually, the day of the signing.

It was a good thing Kushina had agreed to be out of the village on the occasion — supposedly in case Kumo attempted another abduction, mostly because Minato didn't want to end up with a dead diplomat because the foreign shinobi couldn't stop himself from making subtly threatening remarks.

Minato smiled blandly. "I was looking forward to seeing A and his brother again," he replied. And not some no-name grunt like you, was implied. The head ninja's expression twitched at the jab.

Then both of them faced the crowd again, putting on their best public appearance world peace faces.

~.~.~

'The things I endure for the sake of my precious people,' Naruto bemoaned internally. In his mind, Kurama snorted. 'Hey! I'll have you know this kimono is really, really uncomfortable! How do people move in these things?'

At least the formal clothing was bright, cheery orange, with patterns of lighter yellow and splashes of white. It stood out quite a bit among the Hyuuga whites, blacks, and browns. The only other spot of color was Hinata's pale lavender.

Speaking of tiny Hina-chan, she was adorable. Naruto was a guy, but he kind of wanted to kyaa and cuddle the cuteness that was the Hyuuga heiress. Even Neji agreed that she was simply precious!

And speaking of Neji…

'I definitely won't fail,' Naruto thought to himself. Even if it meant putting up to all the boring, stuffy Hyuuga elders and wearing stiff, scratchy formal clothing.

However, by evening, it was only love for his friends that was keeping Naruto from dumping some kind of gunk in every silky head of dark hair in sight and dyeing all their clothes bright pink. With his patience stretched to the limit, Naruto actually started acting rather close to his physical age — like a cranky toddler.

"I wanna sleep next to Hina-chan," Naruto insisted, sticking out his lower lip. Blushing, Hinata clung to his sleeve.

The Hyuuga caretakers exchanged a look. They were clearly calculating whether they preferred to face the old fashioned propriety complaints of the Hyuuga elders… or the unhappiness of the Hokage's son, who had once driven the entire cryptology department to tears and the ANBU to murderous rage and deathly fear, by turns.

The Hyuuga shrugged. The choice was obvious — the elders always nagged anyway.

Once they were in bed, Hinata drifted off quickly, clutching Naruto's carrot pattern pajamas with one hand, the other's thumb in her mouth, but Naruto himself sat in silent vigil and meditated.

His natural — as in, like as aspect of nature — stillness meant that the abductor, when he silently ducked into the room, was completely caught off guard.

Naruto opened his eyes, with square, sideways pupils, and he and the masked intruder stared at each other in a silent panorama.

The kidnapper was stunned, but Naruto's problem was different. His first instinct was to attack, but his second instinct reminded him what a terrible idea that was. Hinata was right next to him, and Naruto was not at all certain in his ability to protect her.

So instead, Naruto opened his mouth to scream.

The kidnapper lunged forward, clamping a hand over his mouth. Naruto flailed, deeply annoyed to realize that he was getting overpowered even in Sage Mode. Well, this was a jounin he was wrestling with — trying to wrestle with and failing — who had been chosen to go into a compound of a clan famous for their hand to hand combat.

Finally pinning Naruto, the intruder let out a sigh of relief. It was premature. Next to them, Hinata scrunched up her nose and lowly began to open her eyes. She stared at the intruder and Naruto, who stared back.

She opened her mouth to scream.

The kidnapper didn't have enough hands to cover her mouth too. Instead, with a curse than was completely drowned out by Hinata's high pitched scream, he ran like a powerful, vengeful clan was on his heels. Which they were.

Naruto was surprised to find himself being carried over the man's shoulder like a sack of rice. This… was not part of the plan.

Worse yet, the head ninja was actually rather fast — well, he had been chosen for a reason. He was out of the compound and then out of the Byakugan's average range in very short order, the angered, confused shouts just starting up behind them.

'Wait, what? No! I don't want to go to Kumo!' Naruto thought, more confused than frantic.

Kurama muttered something about lending him some chakra or possibly biting the head ninja's head off, but Naruto ignored him. Drawing on the Kyuubi was a last resort, for a number of reasons.

Instead, Naruto pulled out his dad's kunai — weird shaped and dull as it might have been, it was still a weapon.

He had planned to stab the Kumo-nin with it and make a break for it in the confusion.

Instead, Minato appeared almost literally on top of them, looking somehow both very calm and very murderous.

It was over in very short order after that — in a flash, you might say.

~.~.~

"I won't tell your mom if you don't," Minato said, as he picked Naruto up out of the Kumo head ninja's slack grip.

Naruto only nodded distractedly.

'Oh,' he thought. 'So that's why Mom fell for him.'

~.~.~

Despite being, as Kushina lovingly put it, an "unreliable sissy-boy" — though only around her and sometimes Jiraiya, it should be noted — Minato acted with almost unnatural calm and logic in combat. He could easily analyze almost any situation in an instance and act without hesitation to carry out the best objective course of action.

So even in the middle of rescuing his three year old son, Minato kept a cool enough head to only knock out the Kumo ambassador, instead of killing him like pretty much any other parent would have.

Not to say that Minato wasn't just as furious as any other parent. No one knew what was in the letter he sent to the Raikage, but A had visibly paled as he read it and was left speechless for several minutes. Afterwards, Kumo slunk away with its tail between its legs.

Minato himself thought his response was very merciful. If it had been Kushina dealing with them… There would have been only four great hidden villages left. He was probably right in thinking that.

~.~.~

In fact, the two biggest upshots of the entire fiasco with Kumo's (newest) attempted kidnapping were:

One, Hyuuga Hinata's incredible overprotective crush on Naruto — par for the course, one might think, except the part where Hinata was apparently utterly certain that Naruto needed to be protected and set out to become strong enough to do so — and…

Two, Naruto's realization that, while he couldn't do much fighting himself, he had parents to do it for him. One of whom could teleport to Naruto's location on command.

"This is a terrible idea. Stop thinking about it," Kurama growled.

"It's a great idea," Naruto protested. "Think about it! I don't need to wait years and years before I'm strong enough to take on all these S-rank jerks, and I don't need to worry about how I'm gonna explain why I know they're evil. It's perfect!"

"Getting kidnapped," Kurama insisted, "can never be a good plan. Ever."

"And they're all creeps who like to prey on kids, so they'll make it easy for me," Naruto added, completely ignoring Kurama's wisdom.

The bijuu sighed. There was no hope with him when he got like this.

Like it or not, Naruto was going to get himself kidnapped.

~.~.~

The biggest creepy kidnapper Naruto knew was Orochimaru. So that's where he decided to start.

Naruto wasn't all that clear on how it originally went down, but he knew Orochimaru was still in the village, and while he didn't have any special bloodline, Naruto felt reasonably certain that he could bait Orochimaru with something — the Kyuubi's chakra, the kinjutsu he wasn't supposed to know, the truth about the world that still sounded kind of ridiculous, or even just his excessive knowledge about Orochimaru's own plans and projects.

(That last one was actually as likely to earn him an assassination attempt as a kidnapping, but Naruto didn't worry about such small details.)

In fact, Orochimaru had originally defected two years after Naruto was born. He was running behind schedule. The reason was simple — as much as Orochimaru detested Namikaze Minato, he also acknowledged the Yondaime's power and ruthlessness. Unlike with Sarutobi's indulgence, Orochimaru felt the need to come carefully in all aspects of his research. That included the research that had gotten him caught and chased out of the village.

That same carefulness made it rather difficult for Naruto enact his plan, which stalled at the first step — actually finding and interacting with Orochimaru.

Seeing as how he was already planning to exploit his parents for all they were worth, Naruto decided to make use of his Hokage father and started hanging around Minato's office. Even Orochimaru had to come in for missions at some point, he figured.

Except that Orochimaru didn't come, for weeks.

Eventually, Minato decided enough was enough. "Are you looking for something, Naruto?" he asked.

Naruto looked at him consideringly. "I'm looking for this snake guy," he said finally, mentally shrugging. "I saw him once and he looked really cool," Naruto internally gagged, "and he had a headband, so I thought he'd come in for missions some time, but he hadn't!"

Minato listened to the entire run on sentence with utter seriousness. "I see," he said. "A snake guy? That must be Orochimaru, Jiraiya-sensei's teammate. He's been out of the village, but — tell you what — I'll introduce you two when he returns."

"Great!" Naruto cheered.

'I hope Sensei doesn't find out about this,' Minato thought as his son ran off, his unknown mission back on track. Minato sighed. His office would be a lot more dull without Naruto around.

Not that his staff would see that as a bad thing. They were beyond tired of the coffee in the machines randomly changing to decaf, or cocoa, or gravy.

~.~.~

"It's nice to meet you," Naruto said politely. Not gagging on the words was a struggle.

"…Quite," Orochimaru said, subtly leaning away from the boy.

"I heard you know lots and lots of cool jutsus," Naruto said in his best innocent little kid voice. He latched on to Orochimaru's pant leg, peering up at him with big blue eyes. "Can you teach me some? Please? I want more power." Because that was what Orochimaru liked to hear, right? At least that was what his subordinates were always going on about.

Of course, coming from a supposed three year old, it just sounded really strange.

"Er…" Orochimaru glanced at Minato, who was watching them with a mild, incredibly unhelpful expression. His honed shinobi instincts were certain that someone was trying to lead him into a trap, but for the life of him Orochimaru couldn't figure out what the trap was.

"Pleeeease?" Naruto insisted, now firmly attached to Orochimaru's leg. There would be no escape. It seemed he would have to bring out the big guns, Naruto thought. He braced himself. "I think snakes are really cool. Cooler than…" Naruto swallowed back bile, "…than toads."

"Ah, well…" Orochimaru glanced nervously at Minato again, who was still smiling blandly. And yet somehow Orochimaru felt like a noose was closing in around his neck. Jiraiya, at the very least, would rage at the very notion of his godson preferring snakes to his precious toads.

Was Jiraiya's student the same? No matter how mild mannered and friendly Minato looked, Orochimaru clearly remembered seeing the aftermath of a thousand-man Iwa invasion force going against the Yellow Flash. Only one shinobi walked away from that battle, and it wasn't an Iwa-nin.

"Maybe later," Orochimaru demure with a very awkward smile. "Run along, little boy."

He tried to shake Naruto off his leg, to no avail, and in the end had to resort to a quick snake transformation, in which he no longer had legs at all, to… not escape, because he wasn't running from a three year old, but a… strategic relocation.

"Hokage-sama," Orochimaru acknowledged and quickly closed the door to the office behind him.

"Tch," Naruto clicked his tongue, with a look of thwarted annoyance that was not at all suitable to a child. Narrowing his eyes, he vowed, "He's not getting away that easily."

As Naruto made his own exit via window, Minato called out after him, "Make sure you keep my kunai on you!"

"Okay!" Naruto called back.

~.~.~

Being one of the Sannin, Orochimaru could easily tell when he was being followed — well, Naruto wasn't actually trying in any case.

Every time he would see a flash of gold or orange out of the corner of his eyes, Orochimaru would turn and glare at the tiny feet sticking out under a store sign or a camouflage cloth being clumsily held up. It was all so obvious even an Academy student could see it — theoretically, that made sense since the brat trailing him wasn't even in Academy yet.

But no matter what he didn't, Orochimaru couldn't lose him. No amount of circling, mingling with crowds, ducking into narrow, twisty alleys, hiding his presence or even flat out running helped. Every time, the same flash of color in the corner of his eye, and then a terrible attempt at hiding.

Worse yet, everyone else could see what was going on too, and all the villagers kept eyeing him with something between distrust and sympathy.

Finally, even Orochimaru couldn't take it any longer. "Stop following me, you brat!" he yelled, spinning around and pointing at the tips of yellow hair still visible from behind a shop's tanuki mascot statue.

"But you haven't shown me your snake yet!" Naruto protested. "You promised!"

"No, I didn't," Orochimaru hissed.

Naruto was undeterred. If Orochimaru didn't want to recruit him based on his — supposed — ambition and hunger for power, Naruto would just have to try another way of catching his interest.

Orochimaru felt a shiver inexplicably go down his spine as Naruto's eyes narrowed.

"Is it because we're not in your secret place?" Naruto asked. Orochimaru had to have a bunch of secret hideouts, he figured. "Let's go there, so it'll be just the two of us."

Orochimaru made a chocking sound.

"I want to receive your mark too," Naruto insisted, going all in. "I'll give you my body in exchange!"

'Now he has to kidnap me, to keep me from spilling all his secrets!' Naruto thought triumphantly. Either that, or kill him, but abduction would still come first, Naruto figured.

It was at this point that Naruto finally realized that Kurama had buried his snout his paws and was making weird noises. And the entire street had fallen silent, staring at them.

Then, the frantic whispers started.

"Show him his snake? In a secret place where they're alone? You don't think…?"

"Give him his mark? In exchange for his body? But that's—!"

"Orochimaru… to the Hokage's son?!"

"I always knew he looked suspicious! Like a creeper! A pervert, the bad kind!"

Somebody ran to get the Police Force. Somebody ran to get the Hokage.

Orochimaru turned tail and just ran. Or at least he tried to. Naruto was faster, throwing himself at the man and wrapping his arms around his waist. "Don't leave me!" he protested.

The next moment, Naruto found himself holding the nearby tanuki statue instead as Orochimaru made a quick getaway with a skillful Kawarimi.

But not before Naruto slipped Minato's kunai in his weapons pouch.

~.~.~

In retrospect, running straight to one of his secret labs was not a smart move, but in his defense Orochimaru had been caught entirely off guard and his only thought had been "hide," the safer the place the better.

He in no way expected Namikaze Minato to appear next to him in a flash of yellow light.

Minato hadn't expected it either. He had expected to see his son, hopefully in the middle of a crowded street, which was what he had received a — rather confused — report about. Instead, he saw several things that were quite likely in the category of "forbidden" or at the very least unsanctioned by the Hokage, and he would know, being the Hokage in question.

When Minato turned a politely inquiring look on Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin had already turned into a snake and was slithering away.

Sarutobi he would have monologued at. Doing that with the Yellow Flash was just asking to get a surprise Rasengan to the back. Minato was horribly pragmatic and lacking in appreciation for the dramatic, especially for being Jiraiya's student.

~.~.~

Naruto was disappointed but unsurprised to learn that Orochimaru had managed to escape. He was slippery like that.

But as far as Naruto was concerned, his plan was a great success, if not entirely as he anticipated.

Kurama just groaned a bit and muttered something about not even bothering anymore.

Despite what Naruto thought, his terribly mistaken attempts at provocation aside, Orochimaru was never going to kidnap him, no matter what Naruto did. Because Orochimaru had a strong sense of self preservation and understood that the Yellow Flash on a warpath to recover his only child was not something he wanted to witness — or would survive witnessing.

You would have to be a complete moron, or arrogant beyond all reason, to kidnap the Hokage's son.

Fortunately for Naruto, his next target was just such an arrogant, shortsighted moron.

Danzou even made it easy for Naruto and approached him on his own.

~.~.~

Technically, Danzou tried to recruit Naruto into his little secret army, but since Naruto was still a minor, that was basically kidnapping anyway.

"…to protect our village from the shadows, as a true shinobi!" the old man lectured, as Naruto nodded along with his recruitment speech. "That is Root, those that support the great tree of Konoha. And I believe that you, Naruto, have the potential to become one of—"

"Okay," Naruto agreed, cutting across Danzou's long winded explanation. "I'll join. I mean, joining would be so cool! Please let me be in your secret club, ji… er, Danzou-sama!"

Danzou twitched a little at having his organization referred to as a club, but with stubborn bullheadedness almost equal to Naruto's, pushed through. "Excellent, my boy," he said, with a smile that was more disturbing than encouraging. "Come with me, and I'll show you where you will be trained. But let's keep this a secret between us. So you can… surprise your father with your progress."

"Sure! I won't tell him a thing!" Naruto said, beaming.

'Everything is going according to plan,' both of them thought.

'Kill me now,' Kurama thought, in the recesses of Naruto's mind. '…If he tries to put a seal on Naruto, I'm burning out his other eyeball.'

~.~.~

Hyuuga Hinata had spent the first three years of her life isolated from all but the closest members of her family inside the clan compound. But the fact that the people who surrounded her were close family didn't mean they were kind. No, young Hinata's life was cold and empty, interspersed with harsh training that made her draw into herself even further.

That all changed on her birthday. There, among the distant, untouchable figures of her clan, was a bright spot of color. The strange outsider boy had smiled and taken her hand. He was so warm, so nice, so happy. A little spot of sun in her overcast existence. A sunbeam, a sunflower.

Namikaze Naruto. Hinata was instantly smitten.

Going to sleep that night, Naruto's hand in her own, Hinata felt truly content and… full for the first time in her memory.

Then, she woke up in the middle of night to see a masked stranger taking Naruto away.

Hinata had screamed — not in fear, as Naruto had assumed, but in pure outrage, the kind she hadn't known she was capable of. 'How dare he?!' was her only thought.

She threw her pillow, a small hard block in the traditional style, at the masked intruder, though he dodged skillfully and disappeared — with Naruto! Her sunshine and warmth boy was returned not too long after by his father, but Hinata understood a very important point. Naruto was precious and needed to be protected — or she would be left alone and cold again.

And to protect Naruto, Hinata needed to get much, much stronger.

Hiashi wasn't entirely sure what to make of his daughter's sudden turn to ruthlessness at their next training session, when she violently took out her opponent's knee and stomped on his fingers while he flailed in pain. But he supposed it was an improvement… sort of.

Thoroughly baffled by Hinata's new mindset in combat, which was almost like split personality since she still acted shy and demure otherwise, Hiashi ended up completely missing the other change in her behavior — her new hobby of stalking, er, observing Naruto. With Hinata's natural wallflower disposition and lack of presence, she was able to sneak out of the compound easily, even under the guards' Byakugan.

She was also able to fly under the radar of even Danzou's paranoia, as she shamelessly spied on his meeting with Naruto.

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to follow them into the suspicious tunnels Danzou led Naruto to — a Root base — and her Byakugan couldn't see deep enough.

Well, that just meant she needed a better Byakugan.

At first, Kou tried to protest. Then, Hinata turned to him with the same expression she had given to the two elders she had practically crippled and the third she had almost castrated, and he decided it would be better to just obey his future clan head.

"Here," Hinata said, having dragged him to one of the more desolate parts of the village. "Use your Byakugan and tell me what you see below."

"It… looks like there's tunnels," Kou said slowly, concentrating on his enhanced vision. "And… shinobi, training? Yes, I see Naruto-sama, his chakra is very distinctive… And over there…"

Kou fell ominously silent.

"I think," he said finally, "we need to inform the Hokage. Immediately."

~.~.~

Taking the Hokage's son to a secret training facility, all without the parents' permission, would be bad enough. But that day, Danzou also had another important visitor.

"What do you mean, the Namikaze brat is here?!" Orochimaru hissed, his hands clenching sporadically.

"Is it not obvious? I am taking steps to control the greatest weapon of the next generation," Danzo replied cooly, not in the least perturbed by his once subordinate's hysteria. 'His lineage alone would guarantee a powerful tool, but if I can gain the Kyuubi's power, Konoha will have no equal,' he thought. To Orochimaru, Danzou added scornfully, "Do try to keep your… urges under control."

"I've never done a thing to that little monster! I had never even seen him before that day!" Orochimaru insisted. "And do you really think you can pull something like that behind Namikaze's back? He's dangerous."

Danzou waved away his concerns. "That upstart is in a meeting with several clans for the rest of the day, not to be disturbed. And he lets his brat run around the village with no supervision regularly." Which was just another sign of the so-called war hero's foolishness, in Danzou's eyes. "I'll make sure not to create a spectacle and cover my tracks properly."

'Besides which, I put quite a bit of effort into developing a seal to interfere with Tobirama-sama's Hiraishin. Even if he tried to teleport to his son's side while the boy is here, it wouldn't work,' Danzou thought. Well, at least he hoped so. There hadn't exactly been much chance to test it.

Incidentally, the meeting the Hokage was so occupied with involved the Hyuuga clan prominently, and Hiashi was more than willing to call a halt to the proceedings to listen to what his daughter had to say about a secret organization under the city, who had apparently taken Naruto.

Minato remained calm and expressionless throughout the explanation. "I see. Thank you for telling me, Hinata-chan. Leave it to me," he said, exchanging a look of understanding with the Hyuuga heiress. It was terrifying.

By the end of the day, Root had been disbanded and it's leader was in custody for a number of questionable acts, including abduction, illegal experimentation, and cooperation with a known fugitive.

Orochimaru still managed to get away though.

~.~.~

'Wow, this is so embarrassing,' was Naruto's first thought when he came to. 'I think I actually got kidnapped.' All signs — particularly the fact that he was tied up and being carried over the shoulder of a foreign shinobi traveling at high speed away from Konoha — pointed to just that.

"Wasn't that your entire plan? Getting kidnapped?" Kurama grumbled, in their shared mind space.

"That's different!" Naruto protested. "This isn't on purpose! I wasn't planning to get kidnapped by some… Who are these guys again?"

"Iwa," Kurama sighed.

"Right, some losers from Iwa! I can't believe they caught me off guard like that…" he trailed off, muttering to himself. "And you! Why didn't you warn me?"

Kurama shrugged, then pointedly yawned and turned away. Mostly, it was because he had dozed off — Naruto's life was frankly boring, between the bouts of pure insanity.

"You could take this a little more seriously, you know," Naruto complained. "Aren't these guys supposed to hate my dad? Who knows what they'll try to do to me? I think they even took Dad's kunai."

Despite his words, he didn't seem very concerned either.

"You'll be fine," Kurama assured him, already drifting off again. "She'll be here in a bit, and she's pissed…"

Yes, Kushina's approach was easy to sense, given the waves of murderous intent she was letting off. Even without the Kyuubi's negative emotion sensing, the unfortunate Iwa-nins began to feel cold sweat run down their necks on pure instinct. And then, a crimson demon appeared before them…

They had, in retrospect, worried about the wrong parent.

Minato arrived a few minutes later, using the seal still on Kushina. That was the first time anyone from Iwa was ever happy to see the Yellow Flash. They were very, very happy.

~.~.~

"The Yellow Flash is not to be underestimated," one of the Uchiha clansmen cautioned, at their clandestine coup planning session.

"Maybe if we had something to hold against him," another suggested, "for example, his son…"

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, then he quickly retracted his suggestion. They definitely did not want to go there. Nothing good lay in that direction.

Chapter Text

"So what do you want for your birthday, squirt?" Jiraiya asked. "You're going to be five, just a year from Academy!"

Jiraiya himself, and his two teammates, had already been genin at six, but things like early enrollment had been banned shortly after Kakashi's little feat of entering at four and finishing at five. It was probably for the best. Greatest fan or not, Jiraiya had to admit that Kakashi wasn't all right in the head.

Not that Kushina would have allowed Naruto to enroll early anyway.

"Full set of Icha-Icha, special edition, with autograph," Naruto said, slurping up the last of his ramen.

"Haha, great choice!" Jiraiya laughed. And easy for him to do too— "Wait a minute! That's no good! Are you trying to get me killed?!"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna read it, Ero-Sennin," he said, so dismissively that Jiraiya felt instantly insulted on behalf of his beloved novels. "I want 'em delivered to Marimo Books in Onodera Town. They're for a… friend."

Why do you have friends in a border town with Kusa, Jiraiya thought but didn't ask. This was a perfect opportunity to get some insight into the mystery of his cute little definitely-not-normal godson.

"Okay, I'll deliver them myself!" he declared.

~.~.~

The individual who came to pick up the books couldn't have been more suspicious — a tall, hulking figure completely swathed in heavy robes under a wide-brimmed hat. Jiraiya couldn't see a single distinguishing feature, aside from the impressive height.

It, whoever and whatever it was, clanked as it walked.

"So, pickup for Uzumaki Naruto?" Jiraiya said, putting on his most disarming grin. And wasn't that another interesting tidbit. Why had Naruto asked to use his mother's maiden name?

"…Yeah, that's right," the figure said, reaching out slightly trembling hands. Accepting the package with reverent care, the man — judging by his voice — fell to his knees in joyous adulation.

Well, that was actually pretty normal. Jiraiya had plenty of fans like that.

"Can I… Can I shake your hand, Jiraiya-sama?" the stranger asked.

"Haha, yeah, sure," Jiraiya said, puffing up with pride.

It was only after they had a nice long talk about the stranger's favorite scenes and he departed, clutching his new treasures, that Jiraiya realized he hadn't found out anything useful, at least as far as Naruto was concerned.

~.~.~

"Okay," Han declared, at the next bijuu-jinchuuriki pow-wow. "Cooperation, world peace, love, harmony, whatever. I'm onboard." He giggled disturbingly, and though it was hard to tell behind the faceplate, appeared to blush like a pervert. Which he was.

"I can't believe this is what it takes," Kokuou muttered. "Humans…"

"It's progress," Naruto decided optimistically. "Make sure you talk to that old beard guy too. He needs to be nicer to Son."

"Right-o," Han agreed, his mind clearly on other, perverted matters.

"Great. That just leaves Fuu-chan," Naruto mused aloud. B had promised to teach Yugito the right way to get along with Matatabi, and Yagura was keeping an eye on Utakata and his master. "And then we'll have everyone taking their partnerships seriously… and ready for Akatsuki, if it comes to that."

"Are bad guys really going to try to take Shukaku away?" Gaara asked. Sitting on Naruto's shoulders, he nervously clutched at blond strands and glanced between the older boy and the bijuu in question.

"Pwah! Let them come! This time we'll tear 'em apart!" Shukaku yelled, swinging its claws enthusiastically.

"Don't worry, we won't let that happen," Naruto promised, patting the little boy's leg. He definitely never wanted to see his friend's still body again. This time, having watched, if only in snatches, as Gaara grew up, it would be even worse.

"Humans are always like this," Matatabi said, deep in a different conversation with the other bijuu. "It's all romance and intimacy and sex with them. Yugito acts all serious on missions, but the moment she's off the clock, and it's mushy rom-coms and sighing over cute boys again." The great cat blew out a heavy breath.

"Cute boys, huh…" Choumei said thoughtfully, and speculatively eyed Naruto and Yagura. "You know, I think I have an idea about getting Fuu to play along…"

Naruto just looked confused, but Yagura, being faster on the uptake, protested, "I'm not a boy! I'm an adult man!" That was apparently the only part he cared about.

~.~.~

Kumo's treachery had shaken everyone, but Minato didn't give up so easily on fulfilling his teacher's dream of world peace. The only one more set on world peace, in fact, was Naruto, but his efforts to achieve it remained sadly unknown to almost everyone.

The first step, in Minato's estimation, was to preserve and strengthen the tentative alliance with Suna. It was for that reason that he made the decision to travel to Suna to observe the final round of the Chuunin Exams being hosted there.

The elders protested, of course, but Minato smiled and ignored them. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying went.

Besides, he was arguably the least likely person to actually be in danger, even if Suna tried something.

When Minato arrived in Suna, the Kazekage was almost as disbelieving as the elders had been. He eyed Minato almost if he expected the Hokage to suddenly turn out to be made of explosive tags. Minato kept his best benevolent leader smile firmly in place.

Was the idea of seeking peace really that strange? Well, yes, Minato admitted to himself. Some days, he wasn't sure he believed it. Or rather, he wasn't even sure what it was he was trying to reach. What did peace even look like? It was like stumbling onward stubbornly, blind and deaf.

But, to Minato's relief, the Kazekage was at the very least taking the entire affair seriously. Before they could proceed to the stadium, Minato was presented the entire advisory council, and also the Kazekage's three children. The older two eyed Minato almost as distrustfully as the geezers, but the youngest stared up with wide, awed eyes.

"Naru! Naru, you came!" he exclaimed and latched on to Minato's legs.

"Gaara!" the girl hissed, scandalized.

The Kazekage sighed heavily, and reached out to try to pry Gaara off. "That is not your imaginary friend," he scolded. "How many times do I have to tell you he's not real?"

A wave of sand rose up to block his hands, and Gaara just continued to rub his cheek against Minato.

"Oh, I see," Minato murmured, as it finally clicked. He knelt next to the little boy and smiled. "Gaara, right? My name is Minato. It's nice to meet you."

Gaara blinked at him in confusion for a moment. Then, his eyes glazed over a little as he seemed to get lost in thought. It was an expression Minato recognized easily. "So you're Naru's…" He trailed off, pouting as if he had been chastised.

"You know, I have a son your age," Minato said, more for everyone else's benefit. "His name is Naruto."

"My age?" Gaara repeated, his face scrunching up in confusion.

"I hope you two can become good friends," Minato continued.

He could feel the sheer skepticism and disbelief from the Suna councilors. A Konoha-nin and a Suna-nin, friends? Impossible. But Gaara only pouted. "Naru and I are already friends," he huffed, shooting Minato a look of put upon annoyance.

Finally, his older sister managed to lead Gaara away. Straightening, Minato watched as the boy glanced over his shoulder, smiled, and waved. The Hokage smiled and waved back.

"My apologies," the Kazekage said, sighing in a way that was familiar to every parent. "Gaara is… still a child."

"Your son is very cute," Minato told the Kazekage happily. "My Naru-chan is a handful too. I really do hope the two of them can be friends. …They have a lot in common."

He didn't know what peace looked like. Probably, he wouldn't recognize it even if he found it. But that was okay. Somehow, Minato was sure that Naruto knew, and that was enough. Even blind and deaf, he would be able to follow Naruto's lead.

"As jinchuuriki," Minato concluded, watching as the Kazekage's eyes widened, understanding sinking in.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

~.~.~

When the treaty proposal arrived from Kiri, the elders and jounin council erupted in protests and accusations.

Peace? With the Bloody Mist? It was just another trap, like Kumo's so-called treaty!

Minato listened to them patiently, despite having already made up his mind to go. "What do we know about Nami no Kuni? Why did the Mizukage suggest it as the meeting location?" he asked, during a lull.

"You can't be seriously intending to go," Koharu said snappishly. "You are the Hokage. Think of your position."

"The fact that the Mizukage wishes to attend in person is a sign of how serious he is about this treaty," Minato pointed out. "And by all accounts, the Yondaime Yagura has a very different view of Kiri's future than his predecessor. Kiri is becoming unified — and stronger. It would be in our best interests to learn more about them and to build an alliance."

His logic, a mix of self-serving practicality that the elders would understand and his own ideology, was hard to refute.

"Nami no Kuni is a small nation off our coast, almost directly east," Shikaku supplied thoughtfully. "It has never held much strategic value and doesn't appear on most maps. But it could serve as a could trading point in the future, if negotiations pan out."

"Hopefully, it'll be on every map from here on out, as the place where Konoha and Kiri first entered into an alliance," Minato said, ignoring the disbelieving snorts of the elders and several jounin.

~.~.~

No one could dissuade him, of course, but the argument about who would accompany him and with what kind of force dragged on long enough to try even Minato's patience. In the end, Minato threatened, very politely, to just sneak out in the middle of the night with a guard or two, which put an end to the most ridiculous demands.

It was all meaningless in the end. The Mizukage Yagura was good at his word. There was no deception in his gaze or his tone as he respectfully greeted Minato at a local lord's castle.

The two Kiri shinobi accompanying him, both bearing swords that marked them as members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, eyed Minato's entourage distrustfully and received equally distrustful looks in return.

Minato and Yagura beamed at each other.

The talks were just preliminary — Yagura had his own council to answer to — but Minato allowed himself a certain small measure of optimism, which was very helpful when Yagura asked him to take a short walk with him, without their guards.

Once they were alone, Yagura hesitated for a moment before starting. "Did you know… the bijuu can communicate with each other, regardless of distance or seals?" he asked, turning away from the seascape to watch Minato closely.

The fact that the Yondaime Mizukage was a jinchuuriki was an open secret. It was how he had first distinguished himself — singlehandedly subduing the Sanbi after it reformed.

Minato understood his meaning immediately. "Jinchuuriki too," he said, with quiet certainty.

Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Minato had suspected something of the sort, but the confirmation was enough to allow several pieces to finally slide into place and click together.

He almost missed Yagura's nod. "If they are close enough to their bijuu," he said, some small measure of tension easing. "I wasn't sure if he had told you… But that makes it easier. I had another reason for wishing to speak with you. It involves that masked man, who attacked your village five years ago…"

~.~.~

When he returned to Konoha, the first thing Minato did was find Naruto and sweep the little boy into a tight hug.

"Thanks for all your hard work," he said.

He wasn't talking about Naruto's efforts to turn the Hokage Monument into an expressionist art exhibit, again.

~.~.~

The first jinchuuriki to meet Naruto in person was Fuu.

Unfortunately, it was only after an entire spectacle. As usual, Kurama muttered dryly.

First, a little backstory. Fuu had been born a few years before Naruto and was firmly in the preteen on the verge of puberty stage.

Her status as a jinchuuriki was a continued source of bewilderment to the other people of Takigakure — it had happened somewhat like Naruto's situation, out of necessity to do something about a rampaging bijuu rather than out of any desire for such a weapon. They were a small village, who prided themselves on stealth and subtlety, rather than power. What were they even supposed to do with a jinchuuriki?

Most of them preferred to forget Fuu was any different from other young kunoichi.

So Fuu had grown up mostly okay, if somewhat isolated and as a result rather prone to dramatics. The ability to fly and generate her own glitter showers probably had something to do with it too.

She had developed the biggest crush on one of the top jounin in the village. He was strong, handsome and something like fifteen years older than her. When Fuu tried to approach him, he had glanced at her and said, "Who are you again? Listen, run along, little girl, your sensei must be looking for you."

There was only one thing to do. Fuu fled in tears. Initially, she disappeared into the dense forests around the village to mope, but pouring her broken heart out to the squirrels got old fast, and she relocated back into Taki proper. Taking perch on top of the administrative center, she wailed melodramatically and sobbed about her woe.

Unfortunately, the other residents of Taki seemed to have little sympathy for the trials of a young girl's heart — at least when she insisted on caterwauling about them literally day and night, increasingly loudly — and one old woman finally resorted to throwing her sandal at Fuu's head, shouting, "Stuff it, you little trumpet! Kids these days!"

Clearly, they did not understand her plight.

Well, fine then! Fuu would just have to go to the one man who had always listened to her patiently, shared her love of the dramatic and happened to be strong, handsome and older than her, though not quite by as much!

In other words, she flew off to find Uzumaki Naruto.

(Incidentally, Naruto had never managed to break himself of the habit of using his mother's maiden name. Part of the problem was that everyone he met already knew who he was, so he didn't need to introduce himself. Part of the problem was that the few times he messed up, Kushina had been too gloatingly pleased to correct him.)

The Konoha Sensor Corps was thrown into completely panic as something passed through the barrier high up in the sky, but Fuu didn't know anything about that. Instead, she flew straight to the biggest, flashiest building.

There, she saw a tall, good looking blond — and proceeded to glomp him. (The ANBU freaked out almost as much as the Sensor Corps.)

"Naru-tan! Let's forget this cruel world and run away together!" Fuu declared dramatically, tightening her hug.

There was a moment of profound silence.

"Um… I don't think my wife would agree to that, miss," the person Fuu was enthusiastically embracing said awkwardly.

That voice was not Naruto's.

Fuu drew back. She patted the man on the sides and the shoulders — standing on her tip toes to reach. Too broad. She tugged at his hair's side tails. Too long. She pinched his cheeks. No markings.

"Aaaaah!" Fuu screamed, jumping back. "I got the wrong person! …But this one is pretty good looking too…"

A thick chain made of pure chakra stabbed into the ground between her and Minato. "Back off, you jail bait!" a furious redhead — the wife — roared as she arrived on the scene.

The ANBU abandoned their posts and fled in terror. No one blamed them.

~.~.~

They did eventually sort things out, though it didn't help much. If anything, Kushina was even less happy about Fuu "targeting" her baby boy than about her being after Minato.

"You know, I really wonder why everyone expects you to be so much taller," Minato told Naruto as the two of them watched Fuu and Kushina argue — it was getting vicious, since Fuu had called Kushina an old hag with a bondage fetish.

"Eh," Naruto shrugged. "I'll get there some day."

Chapter Text

The first day of Academy was a truly bizarre experience for Naruto. All his friends and former-new classmates were there, and they were so… so tiny!

Naruto focused on that to keep from thinking about how completely, utterly different they were from the shinobi they would have had become in that other future. About how they no longer remembered all the times they would have had shared. About how they weren't the same people, might never become the same people.

His would have been teammates were the worst. Sakura, with her ribbon, was a shy little thing that hid behind Ino. Would she ever get trained by Tsunade? Naruto couldn't bring himself to chase after her the way he had as a child, so would she ever look at him the same way? Would they then manage to build the same bond?

Would they even be on the same team?

Of course, the differences in Sakura were nothing compared to the differences in Sasuke.

When Naruto was so lost in thought — not brooding, no matter what Kurama said, barely hiding the note of worry in his gruff voice — that he tripped on his own two feet, Sasuke was the one who stopped, helped him back up and asked if he was okay with a smile.

Naruto stared in shock. Sasuke knew how to smile?! And such a cute smile! It was only when Sasuke blushed violently, his eyes widening, while the rest of the hallways burst into whispers, that Naruto realized he had said that aloud.

~.~.~

Naruto proceeded to cement the mistaken assumption that the Hokage's son had a huge crush on the Uchiha clan head's youngest by staring at Sasuke all through class and stalking him during lunch.

Being that his stealth skills were still utterly abysmal, Naruto mostly just succeeded in making Sasuke incredibly uncomfortable. Or it might have been the killing intent Hinata was emitting.

In any case, the moment class let out, Sasuke all but fled back to the Uchiha clan compound. "What in the world is the matter?" Mikoto wondered as Sasuke slammed the door shut and locked it tightly, before hurrying to the kitchen to hide behind the counter.

"He's following me!" Sasuke hissed, his eyes narrowing as he eyed the windows distrustfully. "I think I managed to lose him, but…"

Beginning to get a little concerned, Mikoto wiped her hands on a towel and also glanced over all entrances with a practiced eye. "Who, Sasuke?" she asked. "A scary masked man?"

Sasuke shook his head. "A boy from my class…" he muttered. Now in the safety of his home, he felt a little ridiculous admitting it.

Mikoto opened her mouth to say something, only to pause, staring at one of the windows. "…That boy, right there?" she finally asked, pointing.

With a feeling of growing doom, Sasuke turned to look. A chubby, whiskered face was squished up against the glass.

Sasuke screamed.

~.~.~

It didn't end there.

Once she heard the whole story, Mikoto had to bite back laughter and a smile. She cooed — cooed! — over Sasuke, with sympathy that was blatantly patronizing. And then she suggested he make friends with that orange weirdo.

Sasuke felt distinctly betrayed.

Worse yet, his efforts to avoid Naruto were completely fruitless. By the next day, Naruto had recovered his mental equilibrium enough to give up on the stalking and just plaster himself to Sasuke's side. Classes, lunch, after school, Naruto followed Sasuke everywhere — loudly.

"The Hokage's son… He could be useful, I suppose," Sasuke's father said reluctantly, his frown giving away his remembrance of Naruto's many pranks.

But Fugaku's disapproval didn't stop Naruto from inviting himself back to the Uchiha district.

During those times, the number of ANBU observing the clan increased to the point that they simply ran out of hiding places and even Sasuke began to notice their presence.

Naruto noticed too, but he didn't understand the implications until Kurama explained them. And then he had a very unpleasant realization.

It wasn't precisely that Naruto had forgotten about the Uchiha coup and massacre, it was just… well, Naruto had mostly dismissed the issue from his mind, assuming that it wouldn't be relevant with the whole his father being alive and Danzou being behind bars thing. But nope, it seemed problems ran too deep to be so easily resolved.

If anything, the limited information that had been released regarding the masked man who had used the Kyuubi to attack Konoha had actually made the suspicions and distrust of the Uchiha clan worse.

It didn't help that most of the clan had avoided damage during the Kyuubi's rampage (thanks to Danzou, again). Even the civilians started muttering nasty rumors, which was a serious problem for the Military Police's duties. Naruto sympathized. He knew what it was like to be unjustly ostracized.

Even Minato had bowed to the demands of placing the entire clan under heavy surveillance. Not only were the elders and most of the jounin council demanding it, but he couldn't discount the possibility of at least some Uchiha being in contact with the masked man.

The really serious problem was that they actually were, kind of. He kept showing up at the Nakano Shrine. No one quite knew how or why, and the clan refused to admit to the whole thing. The Hokage would insist on investigating the shrine, the clan elders reasoned, and that couldn't be allowed. It was a sacred part of the clan's heritage. Even the Senju hadn't been allowed inside.

The fact that they could do nothing about the ANBU, who were directly under the Hokage's command, only made the clan angrier.

Old grudges and dissatisfaction rose up again, helpfully stirred up by Tobi, and more and more of the clan began to contemplate something frankly stupid.

More and more, the voices of reason that reminded everyone of "one-man take down of a thousand nin invasion force from Iwa" were drowned out.

It had been kept mostly under wraps and hidden from the general population, but Naruto became suddenly and unhappily aware of the situation.

His solution was simple — Friendship.

~.~.~

One day, Naruto simply stood up in the middle of class and declared, "We're having a study group at Sasuke's house!"

This was the first Sasuke heard of it. His protests were completely drowned out.

"Sasuke-kun!" most of the girls squeed.

"Are there gonna be snacks?" Chouji asked.

"Yeah, are there?" Kiba wondered.

"Sure!" Naruto agreed, as if it was even his house.

Hinata leveled an increasingly unsettling stare at the back of Sasuke's head.

Nobody bothered asking his opinion of the matter. But most of the class showed up after school at the Uchiha district.

Since this was an event masterminded by Naruto, it was naturally a complete fiasco that ended in half the Konoha clan heads having to come pick up their wayward spawn and apologize to the Uchiha for the disturbance and property damage.

As reparation, Minato ordered the ANBU to help with the cleanup. The sight of the much hated masks doing menial labor and getting ordered around by the little grandmas who lived in the vandalized houses was like a balm on the collective Uchiha soul.

Somehow, the study group became a weekly thing. The clan heads were forced come up with a rotating roster of chaperons for their children. Mikoto served them tea with a smile and traded embarrassing child-rearing stories. The Akimichi became enamored with their senbei. A couple of Nara started using the rooftops to sleep on, enjoying the peace and quiet of being so far from the rest of the village.

Fugaku found excuses to drop by; even if he didn't understand where it was coming from, he recognized the opportunity.

Minato always took Naruto out for ramen afterwards, instead of punishing him.

~.~.~

But it was all still incredibly annoying, and eventually Fugaku's impressive patience simply ran out.

"Hokage-sama," he greeted shortly as he stalked up to Minato's desk. Please do something about your little monster of a son, he wanted to say, but trying to find some polite way of doing so made him hesitate.

Minato looked up with a smile. "Ah, Fugaku. Great timing. I just wanted to ask your advice about this matter…"

"Yes, well…" Fugaku found himself distracted. Being asked for advice by the Hokage was an honor… as only befitting the Uchiha clan, of course. But he also didn't trust Minato's beaming smile. This man definitely not as simple as he appeared, and underestimating him would be very foolish.

But, it really was an honor…

"Thank you for your help. Your insight is greatly appreciated," Minato beamed, an hour later, as Fugaku prepared to depart. "And… if I may say, it's wonderful to see the Uchiha becoming closer with the other clans. I believe that it's through close bonds that Konoha will become truly strong."

He meant every word.

Now, Fugaku was no stranger to using your son for political ends and the greater good. It was, to him, a perfectly logical thing to do. And that was how he came to the sudden realization — false — that Minato had planned the entire thing and instructed Naruto to act in that way.

To build those bonds he so believed in among the next generation, with the unexpected benefit of bringing the current generation closer together…

"I hope you can stop by next week. I have several more things I'd like to discuss," Minato said.

"…Very well," Fugaku agreed.

Their Hokage was certainly brilliant and ruthless. But Fugaku was left with one nagging question — what were the pranks for?

~.~.~

"So, I think it's about time we did something with that masked guy," Shisui said casually one day.

Itachi gave a slow blink and tilted his head.

"It's an Uchiha problem, so we Uchiha should deal with it," Shisui insisted. "The elders might be wishy-washy about it, but he's an intruder. If they insist on not telling the Hokage about this, then it's up to us to take care of him quietly. It's pur duty to the clan and the village."

Itachi hummed thoughtfully.

"Things are finally getting better with the rest of village," Shisui continued, nodding to himself. "I heard Yashiro's team got invited out for drinks. My team invited me to poker! Poker, with an Uchiha! We can't let this get ruined by some masked weirdo!"

Itachi nodded.

~.~.~

Naturally, it didn't work out that smoothly.

They did manage to catch the masked weirdo when he appeared out of nowhere again. But even with Itachi's genius and Shisui's Shunshin, they couldn't quite keep up — though at least they managed to stay alive. The fact that the masked man was at least somewhat humoring them helped too.

"You have good eyes," he complimented them.

"You've got no right to be saying that!" Shisui roared.

It was like he was mocking them. Because of him, their clan had teetered on a razor's edge. Because of him, Konoha had almost gone the way of the Bloody Mist and their purges. How dare he?! Was that eye even his? No, that didn't matter, because as far as Shisui was concerned, Kakashi was a hundred times more worthy of the Sharingan.

Enraged, Shisui darted in his signature flicker. The masked man stepped back, then deftly dodged a flurry of kunai from Itachi.

There was the sound of a wire snapping.

And suddenly a can of orange paint toppled onto the masked man. By intention or accident, Itachi had set off one of Naruto's leftover pranks.

The paint can fell straight through the masked man and clanged against the ground — he had phased out on instinct. But as he returned to tangibility, he reflexively looked down at the puddle of orange paint at his feet, lifting one foot to stare at the stained bottom of his sandal.

It was just such a weird thing to have happen to you in the middle of a battle that even Tobi couldn't stop himself.

It was a costly moment of distraction.

In that moment, Shisui managed to activate Kotoamatsukami.

The problem was, Shisui had also acted on instinct. He hadn't actually considered what sort of order to give, so he ended up blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

"Stop being such an asshole!" Shisui ordered.

He froze as he realized what he'd done. Shisui and the masked man stared at each other, stunned, for a moment, before the masked man tilted his head bemusedly, looked around, seemed to think for a moment, then turned on his heel and warped out. Just like that.

After several long moments, Shisui and Itachi exchanged a blank look.

"…Oops," Shisui muttered.

"I won't tell if you don't," Itachi assured him solemnly.

~.~.~

"My Naru-chan? In love with Mikoto's boy?" Kushina fretted. "But that's so…" She gestured vaguely.

"I don't think that's what's going on," Minato said. Admittedly, he didn't know exactly why Naruto had reacted like that, but he really didn't think it was what Kushina thought.

Kushina shot him an incredibly flat look. "It's definitely love," she declared. "Besides, I don't want to hear anything about this from you. You were practically picking out houses and wedding decorations while still saying I was just a comrade."

In retrospect, that had been very blind of him, Minato conceded. He had actually realized that Kushina was different from everyone else, but it had taken, oh, a decade for him to figure out what kind of different she was to him. A decade, and a make out session, initiated by Kushina.

Jiraiya had been beyond disappointed.

"I wanted Naru-chan to find a girl like me," Kushina continued her previous thoughts.

"Isn't Naruto already like you himself…?" Minato muttered.

"But of course I'll support him no matter what!" Kushina insisted.

"He'll be happy to know that," Minato agreed.

"After I test that Sasuke boy to see if he deserves our Naru-chan!" Kushina concluded, fire in her eyes.

So much for peace with the Uchiha.

Chapter Text

All of nature was one. It had come from one and to one it would return. In a way, the world itself was just a dream of that one — an exciting, touching, tragic, beautiful dream.

And those that became one with nature and the world, truly one, could take a step back and see the course of that dream a little more clearly.

So Gamamaru, or the Great Toad Sage, as he was more commonly known, slept and dreamt.

He had seen many piece of the dream called the world — the dream he had told Hagoromo, of a boy who would bring the bijuu together, the dream he had told Jiraiya, of a choice to decide everything, and many, many others.

Now, he even dreamed of himself dreaming, and telling that dream to a boy named Naruto.

"Hmm," the Great Toad Sage drew out, stirring awake. "Well, that's just strange…"

"Oogama-jiji!" his two students, now venerable elder sages in their own right, exclaimed in loud, nagging voices. There wouldn't be any going back to sleep after this.

"I dreamed… of a great fox attacking Konoha, under a masked man's control," Gamamaru said slowly, thinking back. It was unusually easy to recall the details.

"That already happened, you geezer," Shima snapped. "If you can't even foretell things anymore, what good are you anyway?"

"Ma!" Fukasaku protested.

"And the fox was sealed in a boy," Gamamaru continued, as if he hadn't even heard Shima. Well, his hearing was getting pretty bad, like his memory.

"Yes, yes, Jiraiya-chan told us all about it," Shima grumbled.

"Despite carrying this great burden alone, he grew up bright and mischievous," the elder Sage went on.

"…Naru-chan is mischievous," Fukasaku allowed. "And he carries a great burden. But I wouldn't say he's alone…"

"He became a great shinobi, and even saved the world," Gamamaru said. "It was a good dream."

Fukasaku and Shima exchanged a slightly confused look.

"Too bad those brats had to go and wipe it out of existence," the elder Sage concluded rather tartly.

"…What?!"

~.~.~

There were three pops and bursts of smoke, which cleared to reveal three humans — one tall, one short, one in the middle.

Jiraiya's perverted giggle cut off into an undignified snort of surprise at being reverse summoned so suddenly. Minato looked thoughtfully at the brush he still held in one hand and the sheets of paperwork in the other. Naruto quickly hid a balloon full of something liquid behind his back.

Three toads greeted them, one giant, two small.

"Ma! Pa! I was in the middle of research!" Jiraiya whined.

"It's an honor, Fukasaku-sama, Shima-sama, Oogama-Sennin-sama," Minato said respectfully, with a bow.

"Eh," Naruto drew out, looking like he wished he had something to hide himself behind.

Minato and Jiraiya turned to look at him in surprise.

Jiraiya paled. "Minato, please tell me you didn't let your Academy student kid sign the toad summoning contract," he said. "Because if you did… Kushina is going to kill us both."

"I did not," Minato assured him. Jiraiya eyed him dubiously, trying to figure out if he was lying. "Did Naruto summon himself here like Sensei?"

"That boy is more fox than toad," the toad sage rumbled. "And we summoned him the same way we do with any of our clan."

Naruto and Jiraiya wore matching looks of bewilderment, but Minato just nodded thoughtfully. "A summoner has to be reverse summoned through the contract scroll, but toads can summon each other directly… What a fascinating distinction."

"Forget about that!" Jiraiya complained. "How is Naruto part of your clan? He's a human!" He glanced at Naruto with narrowed eyes, as if trying to determine if he was actually a toad in disguise.

"He uses nature chakra the same way everyone in our clan can, so of course he's in our clan," Shima scolded. "It's the same for you, Jiraiya-chan!"

"Oh? Does that mean Sensei can summon you like a toad would, without a blood sacrifice?" Minato asked with interest.

Naruto tried to edge away discreetly, while they were preoccupied.

"Naturally," Fukasaku said, then chuckled at the pun.

"Wait, what? Why didn't you tell me?! Do you know how many times I bit myself for summoning?" Jiraiya whined.

"You should've figured it out yourself!" Shima said.

"Who the hell would?!"

"It makes sense," Minato pointed out. "I guess members of the clan all use nature chakra in the same way. It must be due to Mount Myouboku's special atmosphere. All the toads learn the same "style" of nature energy. Maybe that's why people who train to become sages with the toads all gain toad-like characteristics…"

"…Oh, forget it," Jiraiya griped. "More importantly, why would your kid know a "toad-like" way of using nature chakra?"

As the two of them turned to look at Naruto again, who had unfortunately not been able to make his escape yet, he panicked — and chucked the balloon at Jiraiya's head. Pink paint covered the Sannin's face and hair, making him flail in outrage.

Naruto tried to use the distraction to run for it, but Minato appeared beside him in a flash (but not a Hiraishin one) and scooped the boy up. Squirming as he was carried back to Jiraiya, Shima and Fukasaku, Naruto tried to think optimistically — at least it wasn't a choke hold or anything; Minato was carrying him like any parent with an over-enthusiastic kid, even if Naruto was getting a bit too big for that — but mostly he just felt dread.

Kurama was more useless than usual, just muttering something about how it was bound to happen, suck it up and deal, and sneezing at the weird, to him, natural energy of the toads' home.

"So? Why does Naruto know how to use nature chakra?" Jiraiya demanded impatiently.

"Because he learned it here," the toad elder said. "But a here that does not exist except in his memories."

Naruto twitched. What a blunt way of putting it…

"So it's time travel," Minato said. "I thought so."

~.~.~

For a while, everything descended into pure pandemonium.

Apparently, Minato was the only one who could come to such a conclusion — as Jiraiya loudly pointed out. Shima and Fukasaku agreed. They still barely believed it, after hearing about it from the Great Toad Sage.

"Well, what else could it be?" Minato insisted. "Naruto always knew things no one told him. And so did the Kyuubi. Even more, Naruto always had emotional reactions to people he had not met. There were other things too, like all the jinchuuriki expecting him to be taller — older. So the obvious conclusion is…"

"There is nothing obvious about that," Jiraiya said flatly. Shima and Fukasaku nodded. So did Naruto, reluctantly.

"Well," Minato said, "it was obvious to me."

"And you… felt no need to, I don't know, inquire further? Find out what was going on? Learn about the future dangers?" Jiraiya said.

"If there's something I need to know, Naruto will tell me," Minato said. He smiled. "I trust him."

Naruto shuffled his feet awkwardly, but Jiraiya just facepalmed.

"Okay," the Sannin said. "Okay, let's just… go with that for now. Should I even ask how this whole… time travel thing happened?"

Naruto shrugged.

"I told that Hagoromo brat to watch his damn kids," Gamamaru said, shaking his massive head, "all eleven of them, but no… And this is what we get. Reality completely out of whack!"

"Is it… that bad?" Naruto wondered uneasily. When the universe didn't imploded within the first week or so, he and Kurama had decided there probably wouldn't be any space time continuum consequences, but some small amount of worry had remained at the back of his mind.

"Who knows," the Great Toad Sage grumbled, huffing. "I've got nothing."

That was not very encouraging.

"I'm sure it'll be alright," Minato said optimistically. "More importantly… how are we going to tell Kushina?"

Naruto and Jiraiya turned to stare at him in pure horror.

~.~.~

"So," Minato said over the dinner table one evening, "it turns out our Naruto is actually a timetraveler from an alternate future. The Kyuubi too. Pass the salt?"

"What do you need salt for?" Kushina asked suspiciously, handing him the salt shaker. "I'm sure I…"

Minato didn't actually need the salt. Kushina's food was perfectly seasoned as always. But he hadn't known what else to say, and he kind of hoped she'd dismiss the first half of what he told her. Unfortunately, that was not to be as Kushina trailed off, the realization filtering through.

Naruto tried to hide behind his oversized bowl of ramen.

"…WHAT?!"

~.~.~

"Overall, that went rather well," Kurama commented encouragingly, later that night.

Naruto sent him a dirty look. He had been sent to bed without dinner for the first time in his new life. Admittedly, it was more of an oversight than intentional punishment.

Following Minato's oh so smooth revelation, Kushina had quickly cycled through shock, anger, confusion, outraged bewilderment, and tearful concern for Naruto, then back again, up until Naruto's designated bedtime (something he was still baffled by), when she suddenly went right back to responsible parent mode and sent him to his room.

Naruto felt like there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would come down for breakfast the next day only to find everything going on as if the night before hasn't even happened… or he would come down for breakfast the next day only to find they needed a new Hokage.

On the other hand, Kushina hadn't seemed angry at Naruto (or even Minato, really). So it could have definitely gone worse.

Naruto allowed himself to feel cautiously optimistic.

"At least you finally got that out of the way. It was bound to come out at some point," Kurama commented. "I'd hate for it to be in the middle of a high-tension dramatic battle."

He and Naruto shared a look. Yeah, that was not a nice way to have a huge revelation dropped on you. Any of them.

~.~.~

The next morning, Kushina greeted Naruto with a smile, a hug that was twice as long as usual, and breakfast. She also patted him on the head a lot.

"Minato told me everything," she said brightly while Naruto nibbled on his toast. "It took a while, so he's taking the day off."

Naruto couldn't imagine the elders particularly liking that, but he also couldn't imagine them being able to tell Kushina no. Before he left for Academy, Kushina hugged him again rather tightly. It was, honestly, the opposite of what he had expected her behavior to be like, post revelation about his true age.

What in the world did Minato tell her?

Because, thinking about it, Naruto had only told his father about major things like Pain and Akatsuki, and Orochimaru's Sharingan ambitions, not anything about himself personally.

"He would have guessed you grew up an orphan," Kurama pointed out. "It's not even hard. So maybe she's overcompensating to make up for that."

"Maybe," Naruto allowed, then shrugged.

It really could have been a lot worse, and it wasn't like he minded. And now, he had a entire new day of teasing Sasuke to look forward to.

~.~.~

"So, I've been thinking," Naruto began, and Kurama immediately knew he wouldn't like what followed.

He didn't like what followed.

Now that the secret was out to Naruto's parents, Naruto felt it was finally time to stop procrastinating and let the other jinchuuriki know, especially since the period when Akatsuki truly became active was quickly approaching.

And while he was at it, why not combine it with two other things he had been wanting to get done?

So not too long after returning home from Mount Myouboku, Naruto ran away from the village. Well, he told Minato and Kushina ahead of time, but only them — Kushina was far from pleased, despite all reassurances, but ultimately caved to Naruto's determined, wide eyed looks.

At the same time, eight other jinchuuriki did the same thing.

No country took it well, Kumo worst of all, followed by Kiri, given that they were suddenly missing their Kage. Infuriatingly, the jinchuuriki then sent cheerful postcards back home explaining where they were and what they were doing — "first annual jinchuuriki pow-wow," supposedly. It was Naruto's idea.

Mifune was bemused but overall welcoming, especially when Naruto explained his goal — world peace — and his reasoning — gathering the Five Kages together in one place.

Minato would come, of course. He already knew the plan and supported the idea. Yagura was already there, and his entourage would join him in short order. A didn't even hesitate before tearing off after his brother, again, and the Kazekage only held back long enough to stop by Konoha and ask Minato for advice — was this just a thing with jinchuuriki children? Running away from home? He'd heard about Fuu's little adventure, before she was sent back to her home village, and there were all those stories about Hachibi's B…

Of course, with the other Kages all going, Onoki had no choice but to put in an appearance, or Iwa would be at a disadvantage.

While they waited, the jinchuuriki quickly scandalized the samurai and proved to the entire Tetsu no Kuni that ninja were completely insane.

Gaara sulked about the cold until Naruto convinced him to use the opportunity to cuddle with Roushi, who was always warm thanks to his Yoton and quickly caved to Gaara's sweet pouts. (And Naruto sometimes still couldn't believe how different Gaara had grown up.)

Yugito and Han got into a fight that melted the snow off one of the Sanrou Mountain's heads, and then huddled up together and started giggling disturbingly. Kokuou refused to acknowledge that anything was going on, deep in sanity preserving denial, and Matatabi only muttered something about how Yugito had recently decided that boys were boring and smelled funny and that girls were much better.

(Apparently, Yugito and Han were coming up with a plan to set up a hot spring with their bijuu's powers, and then peep on the customers. Ero-Sennin would have been proud.)

Fuu and Utakata came up with a far more innocent game involving flight and bubbles, though Fuu had a tendency to blush whenever Utakata bent over and showed off more of his chest. B enthusiastically cheered for them both and theoretically kept score, though he tended to get distracted by writing down new lyrics.

Yagura just napped. Being a Kage was tiring, and you didn't really get a lot of vacations — or any at all.

Everyone accepted the time travel thing with remarkable ease. It made sense, after all as much as any other explanation why Naruto had looked sixteen in their shared mental space for the last decade or so, and in life still looked like a kid.

And then the second Kage Summit began.

~.~.~

Well, no one died. That was definitely a plus. In Naruto's opinion.

On the minus side, nothing much got accomplished — probably because no masked megalomaniac pretending to be the ninja boogie man showed up to lecture about fairy tales, unveil a completely insane world domination plan, and declare war on every hidden village at once.

Onoki spent the entire time giving Minato looks that could not be accurately described with words. Yagura casually caused a near riot by revealing that he was planning to step down within the next couple of years — Minato almost made several attendees pass out by revealing his own intend to do the same in five-six years.

("What is he talking about? What's going to happen in five years?" Naruto asked Kurama.

('You'll be sixteen again,' Kurama didn't say. Apparently, Minato thought that was a perfectly reasonable age for a Kage. If you could take down an actual goddess and save the entire world, you could run a village, right? Right?)

The Kazekage enjoyed Mifune's excellent tea and pretended he wasn't surrounded by complete lunatics. Maybe the Hokage and the Mizukage had the right idea. Pawning this horrible job off on some unsuspecting fool sounded rather nice. Serve the village, they said. Protect your comrades, they said. No one told him about this…

A almost completely lost it when the assembled jinchuuriki revealed that this thing really was, in fact, going to be an annual event. Yearly. Every year.

"Next year, I think we'll meet up in Ame," Naruto said brightly.

Nagato, he bet, would be really surprised to see them.

Kurama just sort of groaned and didn't even bother protesting.

~.~.~

It wasn't quite world peace, but life was pretty peaceful.

It wasn't an Allied Shinobi Force, but three villages were in alliance, which was promising to remain steady and firm in the reign of their fifth leaders.

It wasn't Senju and Uchiha united, but the Uchiha clan was slowly becoming truly part of the village.

It wasn't the bijuu becoming one, but they were probably on the best terms they had ever been since their creator's death.

It wasn't a revolution, yet. But the world was changing.

There were still obstacles out there, of course. Orochimaru, who had slithered off somewhere. Absolutely no one knew where stupid Tobi had gotten off to. Zetsu too. And of course Kaguya and Madara were still waiting for their chance to subjugate the world.

Though at least Nagato came around, next year during the second annual jinchuuriki pow-wow. That was another incident no one ever spoke of, except in a mix of groans and pained moaning.

There were other concerns too, like Kumo and Iwa being slow to warm up to the whole peace, love and ramen thing. Many lingering grudges. Distrust that was not so easily lifted.

A timeline that still hadn't quite sorted itself out.

But that was okay. Naruto believed they would overcome all of it. They had the first time, despite all odds, and this time the odds were in their favor. Kurama didn't worry either, though he rarely did anyway. After all, Naruto had decided on it, and he never gave up.

For now, Naruto was happy to just graduate again, honestly this time, earning his forehead protector and putting it on proudly with the rest of his class - in front of his parents, cheering and proud.

After all, becoming a genin was the first step to becoming Hokage. (Believe it!)

~.~.~

End Notes

There are lots of loose ends, and also slightly strange comedic turns, which I will try to explain here.

SasuNaru - This rumor just wouldn't die, even years later. Hilariously, it actually boosted the Uchiha clan's reputation. In certain fields... Naruto never noticed, since to him, his former classmates were just cute kids, and totally out of his dating range.

Actually, Naruto's dating history is best not discussed. Though Jiraiya did write a best selling series about it.

Hinata - Minato was probably the only one capable of having the guts to deny her a place on Naruto's team - or living through it. She never quite figured out how to speak confidently, but by the time she took over the Hyuuga Clan, everyone was too terrified and awed to dare to speak against her, even when she stammered and pushed her fingers together bashfully while announcing the complete dissolution of centuries of tradition - and a certain seal.

Hilariously, she had her own unnoticed overprotective stalker in the form of Neji. They even had the same sort of secret shrine in their closets that the rest of the clan politely pretended not to know about. A Hyuuga bloodline trait?!

Kushina - Equally, Minato was probably the only one who would dare to turn down her demands to be Naruto's jounin sensei. Minato still didn't sleep at home for a long while.

Tsunade - She lost a bet. The rest is history.

Tobi - Who knows? He just disappeared! (But maybe, one day, a certain Uchiha Obito turned up at the gates, totally confused and with a hell of a lot of amnesia. Naruto never did figure that one out, and Shisui never owned up.)

Nagato - "I see. I am not the one who has become 'god.' It is you... Uzumaki Naruto." Six paths of Pain were amazing, but nine jichuuriki were a bit more so. Telling Nagato about the time travel thing might have been a mistake though. He had a very... unique reaction.

Black Zetsu - Got into a loud argument with Naruto about which of their mothers had better hair. Kushina, touched by Naruto's deep admiration of her childhood self's most hated feature, provided great irony by using the distraction to seal Black Zetsu away - fitting for such a mother complex.

Uchiha Clan - Naruto tried to convince Minato to make Itachi his successor, looking like he was manfully holding back tears the entire time. Minato suspected he would get murdered in his sleep if he dared to actually follow through (Naruto's dream! Naruto's tears! Unforgivable!), but fortunately Itachi didn't want the job. He tried to pawn it off on Shisui, who paled and quickly refused too.

Itachi, being a genius, turned it all around and ultimately presented "Naruto as Godaime" as a wonderful show of trust - despite their epic doujutsu, they were trusted not to be using Naruto as a puppet, despite him being a jinchuuriki. Or something. It certainly sounded very moving when he said it.

Somewhere along the way, Fugaku had a shocking and somewhat horrifying revelation - he had gotten it backwards, regarding which out of Minato and Naruto was giving the orders. He went home, got drunk and when he woke up hungover, dumped clan leadership on Sasuke, because Itachi had somehow managed to disappear and Fugaku felt too awful to go looking for him. (All according to plan, Itachi thought when he returned.)

Orochimaru - Lived a long, long life, marred by continuous accusations of pedophilia. Also, the only person to hate blonds more than Iwa-nins.

THE END