A/N:

Hi everyone!

What to say, what to say but thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, and uh, please, to those that didn't, can you leave me one on this chapter? I really need to gauge how this fic is going, how many of you all are still reading it and such.

As for the time between chapter updates, I've had more stuff to do (going to start college again soon, too) in real life AND since this story is getting more complex - from this chapter onwards you'll see more stuff happening in Konoha and more story hubs starting to be developed as the corruption in the ninja system begins to be dealt with by the characters - so there's a lot of work being done behind the scenes for each chapter and yes, I can see something like 3 weeks between chapters more or less happening regularly in order for the chapters to come out well-done and beta'ed and everything.

I hope you all enjoy this one, please don't forget to leave a review, I'll answer them!

B was tired and hungry, but he kept going at a slow pace. Being stopped by random patrols was already annoying, having those patrols attack him without warning just because he was traveling through the trees was even more. Besides, some of the weapons the patrols used were actually damn dangerous, he realized, having been nicked by a projectile.

So he was pretty much keeping to the wilderness and minding his own business, hoping to get to Konoha by the next morning, when a wheezing sound from above caught his attention. He raised his head and was smacked in the face by eight excited octopus tentacles that felt exactly like his old friend.

"Ouch."

"B! B! B! My man! I missed ya!" Gyuuki's voice sounded, the tentacles lovingly squeezing B's head in a hug.

"What a… Hachi?" B exclaimed, the sound muffled, and patted over his face, feeling the creature on top of him. He pulled it off, and his eyes widened in wonder at the chibi-sized, blindfolded Gyuuki. "Dafuq happened to you, bro? Why are you this tiny? And what happened to your eyes?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what happened, it was an emergency, man. All us beasts had to come together to save this baby that was dying, and now we're all living together in one body and we can't see no more but it's alright, we're fine, I couldn't send you any messages tho because we're all helping out Kurama's boy Naruto 'cause he's been accused of murder and now he's inside us with that Uchiha boy while their bodies heal up because Naruto screwed up big time but it's all good because ole Godaime-"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute dude you gettin' me dizzy," B said, and shook his head.

At that moment, two small boys landed next to them. "What the fuck Menma?" one of them, a blond, said in an alarmed tone, while the other, who was masked and had his hair covered, looked straight at B's face with a somber expression. "Let him go."

Gyuuki turned his head towards the boys. "Hey kids, calm down, B is cool, he's our friend," he said, and looked back. "Um, you're not with all them bad guys who's been stealing and corrupting ninja everywhere and all that are you? Please tell me you're not," he pleaded, and his ears drooped.

B looked first at his beast friend, then at the two boys, and shook his head. "I been meaning to talk to Naruto about that, I seen things… things that are shameful to all ninja going on during my trip."

The masked boy looked at the blond one and nodded. "Come with us, we know what's going on. And we could use your help."

Sasuke slowly blinked his eyes open to see Naruto asleep beside him, propped up against the tree root, his legs hiding him from the boy sitting a few feet away.

He couldn't see exactly what Menma was doing, but by the look of fierce concentration in his one-eyed face, with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, and the way his hand moved, he imagined the child was drawing.

"I know you're up, please don't mess Papa up, I'm making a picture of him," Menma asked conversationally, and Sasuke felt an unpleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach at hearing Naruto being referred that way by the boy.

"He's not your father," he retorted without thinking, and the boy gave him an unimpressed look.

"He offered to be my Papa when no one else wanted me. He gave me my name, Uzumaki Menma. He took care of me, and taught me who I am. Who are you to say he's not my father? The only thing you and I have in common is Aneki," he said in a sad, but resigned tone. "Bolt is more important to him than me and I know that, he made Bolt, he didn't make me. But he's my Papa, for as long as he wants to be," he finished, and stood up with the sheet of paper, the crayons dissolving into thin air as he walked away.

Sasuke had no idea what prompted him to follow the boy except boredom, but follow him he did, for an immeasurable length of time, through different sceneries, and finally into a small cave.

He carefully followed down a steep, slippery curved ramp, cursing himself for being too cocky and never actually learning how to move in the dark because he had the Sharingan.

He began hearing soft sounds, snippets of conversation and singing, and moved a bit faster, curiosity gnawing inside and winning against caution.

As he turned again, he felt a tingling sensation cross his body, and suddenly found himself in a large room, illuminated by small floating screens at the front, and bluish glow worms on the walls and ceiling at the back.

Sasuke stopped in front of one of the small screens, recognizing a shock of blonde hair. He saw a small chubby hand stretch towards it, and grab an immense-looking finger. The view stayed on the finger for a long moment, before it moved upwards, where a gigantic nose was, framed by blue eyes and short yellow hair. Coming from the screen was the muffled sound of rain, and soft, low-toned conversation.

He strained his ears, moving closer to the screen.

Tsunade sighed, and pulled a chair for herself. "Naruto, how much do you know about Sakura and Sasuke's marriage?" she asked in a tired voice.

"Not much, well, you know… what with me and Hinata getting married, and the kids, and all, we kinda lost contact," he said in an embarrassed voice.

Sasuke scowled at realizing Tsunade had been privy of his relationship problems, but before he could lose interest in what they were saying, his attention was caught by movement on the screen.

"Yes. I don't think either of them will want this poor thing," Tsunade stated, looking down at the deformed newborn with pity. "To be brutally frank, I don't think there's anyone who would want a child with such a severe abnormality. It's not life threatening, but the disfigurement…" she shrugged.

"I'll take him," Naruto said without thinking, and then stopped, startled.

Sasuke's breath faltered for a moment, as he felt a wave of emotion emanate from around the screen, and saw a faint, soft and warm treacle of nearly invisible purple chakra flicker from the tiny hand to Naruto's finger.

Bolt had told him how Naruto's body had depleted Menma's chakra in order to begin fixing the damage from the breaking of their bond.

Sasuke saw the little hand shake Naruto's finger, and heard a tiny coo before the view moved up from the finger to Naruto's face, which melted in a tender, compassionate look of the sort Sasuke had only seen once, more precisely, when he himself had cried at their last battle.

"I'll take him," he repeated. "What better parent for a monster than another, huh?" Naruto asked, and grinned at Tsunade, before extending his arms down, the view in the screen moving as Menma was being picked up.

Tsunade was saying something in the background, but Sasuke was mesmerized by the look in Naruto's face as he studied the baby in his arms, so he didn't pay attention to the words, until Naruto stood up and cradled the baby's face protectively with a hand as he walked.

"Hi, I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I'm sorry about your mommy and daddy not wanting you… I didn't have a mommy and a daddy too, so I know how it is," Naruto spoke to the baby in a soft voice. "And I know it's hard to grow up with people being afraid of you. So, if you don't mind, I can be your Papa, at least until your daddy stop being an asshole long enough to realize this isn't your fault, ok?"

Sasuke saw the borders of the screen become purple with the child's chakra pattern, and moved away from the screen, unable to take any more of it. He moved through the room, noticing the other memories from the deformed little boy, glimpses of the sky through a window, moments with Naruto, Tsunade and Shikamaru, mostly, but also with Sai, Ino and Shizune. He noticed the view changing as the child had obviously gone through his extreme growth rate, Shikamaru teaching him to read (and floating kanji around that particular screen), Ino showing him flowers (the same that were spread out in the meadows where Sasuke and Naruto had landed on their arrival in Menma's mind), Sai's face up close for a long moment, then the view changing to show his hand helping the boy trace with a crayon, images, sounds and emotions coming out of each screen.

And among all those, not a shred of the lonesome bitterness that had taken over Sasuke's being so long ago, he couldn't imagine himself without it, and the desperate fear of abandonment that Naruto wore like a shroud ever since Sasuke had seen him for the first time.

There was some sort of loneliness there, reflected in moments when the child woke up and looked at the sleeping man curled around him, but it wasn't bitter, or angry. It felt resigned, in a strangely familiar way, and Sasuke frowned, trying to analyze where he had felt it before, until a memory of his own hit him like a freight train.

He remembered his battle with Itachi, the exact moment his brother had smiled at him before dying, and widened his eyes as he realized that Naruto had never sucked the chakra out of Menma's body; the boy had given it to him, just like Itachi had given his life for Sasuke.

He moved shakily forward, passing by a screen filled with childish screams, and saw as the boy looked up to the crayon-blue sky, the baby beasts falling and piling up before him, and a few others, all showing moments inside Menma's mind, where the beasts talked to the boy, played around with him, began adding their own touches to the place, glow worms beginning to appear as the screens became rarer and rarer.

After the last screen, there was a crack on the floor, that Sasuke only noticed by stepping on, and he screamed as he felt the memory of Menma's final merging with the beasts as if it was his own,

the terrifying feeling of heaving his last breath, his body and mind breaking down, and a steely determination to survive

that wasn't his own, as he remembered

grabbing his beast friends in a ferocious grasp with his soul so they wouldn't get lost, because feeling lost and alone hurt,

and Sasuke threw himself forward, as he realized that the same hurt he felt when Naruto hurt and that Naruto felt when he hurt was something Menma felt for everything, and it was so much more than one person alone could take, he thought he'd surely go crazy with it.

He fell away from the crack in a huddle, and took a long time willing himself to calm down.

Moving forward, Sasuke crossed more complex, abstract memories: smells, sounds, chakra, nature energy, touch, flavors, all the other sensorial stimulus coming together in a bizarre; blurry sight-not-sight that made him dizzy, especially when related to people: Bolt was a humorously wheezing blur of sound, sweat and sizzling, angry chakra; Juugo was a tiny ball of soft fluffy warmth surrounded by a tornado of nature energy; Suigetsu felt like sitting in a lukewarm bathtub with toy boats and rubber duckies; Inojin was the feeling of running after a rabbit in a lavender field on a spring morning; Salad felt like being cradled in loving arms by a giant purring cat, of all things, and Sasuke…

Sasuke winced as he felt himself through Menma's senses, sharp cutting, the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard, the taste of steel, the smell of fear and hatred, and the sharp freezing cold of mid-winter winds. He thought it couldn't get worse, as he stepped sharply to the left to get away from it, and then stumbled against a wall and right into another, much darker memory.

He flinched from the absolute bitter taste, the smell of blood, the sound of cringing teeth, the entire memory screaming of hard, brittle selfishness that would consume everything around it. Sakura.

He actually felt his skin try to crawl away from him at the feeling, and jerked away from the memory, wondering how the hell he hadn't been able to see her for what she was. Not even Orochimaru had felt as alien as she did.

He shuddered, and felt warmth up ahead attracting him like a flame did a moth.

He found Menma in a small nook with his crayon pictures of everyone he had seen, including Inojin inside his mind and chibi!Naruto.

"Why did you let me see all this?" Sasuke asked.

The boy gave him a cursory glance, and went back to sorting his drawings. "You'll be going back to your own head soon, and I thought maybe if you saw what I've seen you might leave me alone and stop trying to kill me," he said quietly, shrugging.

Killer B thanked Ino for the tea she offered him and took a sip of the hot beverage.

"I've been through a few villages on my way here, seen how things are. It's hard, people. Takes the rhyming right out of a man's heart," he said in a sad voice. "I been sort of a loner all my life, I like rappin' but peace and quiet in isolation is good for me most of the time. If it wasn't for Gyuuki leaving all of a sudden I prolly wouldn't have ever known the goings on. Fishface here is right, them Yakuza been taking over everywhere, using ninja as their guard dogs. Crappy ninja too, not like the good ole days. No backbone on ninja anymore. No pride. No use, either, they all getting fat and stupid on top of regular people's backs, that ain't right. Back in the day we was mercenaries but at least we earned our livin'. Now we don't even do that."

"We have to find a way to get more allies so we can fight this Yakuza people, find their leader," Shikamaru, disguised as an old man, said, and scowled when Bolt, Inojin and Tsunade snorted at him. "What?"

"We're not dealing with a regular run of the mill enemy here, brute force won't work," Bolt said.

Tsunade nodded. "What is happening now is a consequence of the caste system. Yakuza were civilians who saw a way to gain power by manipulating the ninja villages into doing what they want just like Grandpa manipulated the ninja clans into forming the villages. Grandpa meant well, but isolating ourselves from the civilians even more than the clans did individually ended up opening the way for this whole mess."

"What do you expect us to do then? Infiltrate back among the civilians like Salad and Juugo are doing for information? And then what?" Shikamaru asked. "How are they going to help us? They have no strength."

"No, they don't, but they got numbers. And they are the ones that actually do the work, who feed and clothe everyone, including ninja, nobles and Yakuza," Ino said. "My family deals with civilians in a daily basis because of our business, we depend on them just like the villagers who want to buy flowers depend on us to sell them. If we can mobilize the civilians, inform them, get them on our side, maybe we can hit the enemy where it hurts."

"This enemy is spread out like rats, so we deal with them like we deal with rats. We starve them out of their hiding places, make them move out in the open where we can get them," Juugo said, and Shikamaru stared at him.

"Are you seriously suggesting we provoke public insurrection? Overthrow the daimyo? The Kage?"

"Why not, the current system sucks anyways," Inojin said quietly, and the others nodded.

"But, but… who will lead this? How will we get the truth of what's happening out?" Shikamaru asked, dumbfounded by their audacity.

"Well, we do have a famous rapper right here, don't we?" Tsunade said, smiling. "Nothing better to draw a crowd than a show."

B gave her a huge grin. "Yep. And I heard Suna is lookin' fine this time of the year, all I need goin' that way is a roadie," he said, staring at Shikamaru.

Two weeks later, Salad was able to send a coded letter to Ayame through their common flour provider.

Ayame quickly read the letter after paying for her order, and grinned, before putting the paper away and greeting her first customer.

"Ayame-san," Sai said, grinning.

"Sai-san, long time don't see, buying herbs and ink again?" She said in a light, but still professional tone, and the ink-nin nodded. "Let me get the new menu for you," she said, and moved behind a curtain to the back of the stall.

Sai had been walking around after "herbs and ink" in this part of town for a week already, and after a careful approximation he and Ayame had begun to trade valuable information between the village and the city outskirts.

Ayame came back with a small menu, and gave it to Sai, who read it quickly and smiled at her. "I will have your pork ramen, then," he said, and pulled a small scroll off his pouch, drawing a school of fish in it before handing it to the stall owner. "Fish for a pig, may they bring you good luck," he said, and she bowed in thanks at him. "I will cherish this art with honor, Sai-san."

A week later, Salad pulled the small scroll out of a bag of rice flour, and smiled. She passed it to Inojin along with the week's supplies for the hideout and Juugo's report, not missing the happy smile in the boy's face as he recognized the scroll.

"Thank you so much, Salad-chan," the boy whispered, and hugged her in thanks before leaving.

"Don't forget to give Menma his senbei!" she whispered and hugged him back, before shooing him back to the hideout.

Inojin ran as fast as his legs could take him, and called out excitedly as he entered the lair. "Mom! Mom! We got a message from Dad!"

Everyone – except Naruto and Sasuke, who were still in Menma's mind as their bodies recovered, and B and Shikamaru, who were on their way to Suna – gathered in the refectory to receive the news. Inojin spread Sai's drawing on the table and quickly performed the Chouju-Giga technique to release the message from the drawing.

Family, Godaime-sama and everyone,

Everyone is accounted for and under watch in the village by the Hachidaime's orders. Both Iruka-san and Konohamaru-kun have been detained after trying to leave the village without orders, but they are still alive. There are strange new ninja and civilians with advanced vehicles and strange weaponry around the village and the city. Phones and other electronic communication aren't safe.

The Hyuuga ninja have been detached to guard the Hokage Tower and patrol the village at night. It is seldom that we don't see one of them with the Byakugan activated, snooping around. That makes using my ink rats very dangerous, so we've been working with other methods in gathering information.

Hiashi has been arguing with Sakura often. She insists on sending trackers out to find the Uchiha, while he wants to find Naruto first and foremost. Because of that, apparently the other Kage have been annoyed, and are beginning to withdraw their search parties. That is forcing Konoha to pay bribing fees to keep the foreign trackers working; a direct result is that the clans have had their pensions reduced, and tempers have to slowly rise.

If you send anyone to the city, tell them to not use chakra in any circumstance out in the open and to not trust strangers, for many trackers have been working under cover. Oh, and tell Dickless if he and Sasuke don't fix this stupid mess soon I will paint a fresco of them both naked in compromising positions right next to his face in the Hokage monument.

Yours,

Sai

Inojin gave his mother a knowing look when she smiled as Tsunade finished reading the letter aloud, and Ino absent-mindedly slapped the back of his head.