Even the smallest of actions can change the course of an entire battle. The Shinobi Alliance had proven that when they banded together to extract the Tailed Beasts from Obito Uchiha, every single man and woman making a contribution. And in one timeline, Madara Uchiha had been resurrected at the last second because of Black Zetsu's interference.

Of course, Madara had planned for it to happen that way all along, being the crafty zombie he was. With Obito weakened, Project Tsukuyomi could truly be underway. Black Zetsu just had to get in position…

"Time to switch places! It's now my turn to attack!" Madara triumphantly declared to the Shinobi Alliance pinning him down. Well… specifically Hashirama was pinning him down. But that was neither here nor there.

"Stop acting tough!" Hashirama replied. "This war is over!"

Sai and Naruto hopped down from Sai's bird construct; the artist unfurled his huge Sealing scroll and began to draw furtively.

"Sai!"

"I know!" Sai then made the required hand sign and animated the tiger that he had just drawn. The beast continued stretching from the scroll as it lunged toward Madara, roaring ferociously as it did so.

Madara was not nervous in the least.

"Naruto… I'm grateful to you." Madara taunted the teenager. "You even extracted the Tailed Beasts from Obito… saving me the trouble of weakening him."

Naruto scowled at the reanimated legend, not liking what this implied. Unbeknownst to him and the rest of the Shinobi Alliance, Black Zetsu was now in position, and would be forcing Obito to use the Rinne Tensei…

Any second now.

Across the battlefield, Kakashi and Minato moved to strike the viscous thing that was slowly oozing onto Obito, their former comrade. Their friend. Kakashi attempted to Kamui Black Zetsu, but his reserves were running low and he couldn't manage it fast enough. Minato's method would be… unorthodox to say the least.

Minato was far from being slow on the uptake. He knew exactly what was going on the second Black Zetsu started taunting Obito, if only because he deduced that the Rinne Tensei was a technique that required the user give up his life. With Black Zetsu's taunts, however, an even deeper understanding was reached.

Rinne Tensei brought the dead back to life. That was the only explanation. And it likely took a whole lot of concentration on the person or people that the user wanted to bring back to life. And so like the quick thinker Minato was, he formulated a strategy that would throw a wrench into Madara's plans. It would be highly risky if he failed, but Minato had faith in his wayward student.

His Flying Thunder God seal would never disappear from Obito's body. But there was one other thing that would never go away… an almost irrational fear that was instilled into him a looong time ago. Minato had made damn sure of that when little Kakashi had made an offhanded sexist comment one day after training. His male students were never the same after that day…

"Sorry, Obito… This is the reason I was stuck to you…" Black Zetsu cackled gleefully. Ah, there was the cue Minato was waiting for. Without hesitation, Minato enacted his foolhardy plan.

"Hey, Obito! What do you think Kushina's gonna do when you die, hmm?" Minato asked with a disarming smile. A simple enough query that probably wouldn't work on just anyone… Not with Black Zetsu's ironclad control. But Obito had been his student. And Minato's male students had developed an acute Kushina-phobia while under his tutelage.

Long story short: Kakashi made that sexist comment during a time when Kushina was on her period. And because Minato hadn't elaborated whether it was Obito or Kakashi that made the comment… well, both boys had been deterred from making such comments for a looong time. And likely would for all eternity.

Minato had not been disappointed by Obito's reaction.

"NOT THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!" Obito screeched as the fiery redhead's enraged silhouette replaced Madara's visage in his mind. Obito's eyes bugged out of his head comically as the image would just not leave his mind. Truly, nothing was more horrifying than an enraged Kushina Uzumaki…

"Rinne Tensei no Jutsu!" Black Zetsu called out the name of the Jutsu, barely registering the fact that its interference had been… interfered with… "Damn you Namikaze…"

Minato smirked as the creature emitted a low growl of frustration. Seemed he hit the nail on the head, as always.

Quite a few things happened after that declaration. Firstly, with the last second interference, Madara's resurrection failed spectacularly. Madara unleashed a righteous roar of frustration, and was finally sealed away in a scroll by Sai. With Hashirama's technique preventing him from overpowering the Sealing Jutsu, the former Uchiha Clan Head didn't stand a chance.

Secondly, Kakashi's delayed Kamui somehow managed to pry Black Zetsu off of Obito. It probably helped that the ancient being had been so focused on resurrecting Madara. With an otherworldly shriek, Black Zetsu spiraled into the dimensional hole generated by Kakashi's Mangekyo, never to be seen again. Minato beamed proudly at his other student's performance; even though he hadn't planned for their attacks to coordinate, it still helped immensely dealing with one of the last of Madara's minions.

It wouldn't be realized until much later that a third thing had miraculously taken place. Something that probably shouldn't happen given Rinne Tensei's not-so-apparent limitations, but who cares? It happened. Tons of shinobi techniques tended to defy the laws of nature anyway.

But that's getting ahead of the story a bit. With Madara's sealing and the interdimensional disposal of Black Zetsu, the Shinobi Alliance had won. The Fourth Shinobi World War was officially over.

Unofficially, there were still a few White Zetsu around, but with Naruto and Kurama's special sensory technique, they were all weeded out and eliminated. The Third Hokage had even managed to take care of that Spiral Zetsu weirdo and free Tenzo – er, Yamato. The Rinnegan that one White Zetsu had stolen was recovered and promptly destroyed. And Obito's Rinnegan had been taken care of as well once they had all regrouped, but that's neither here nor there. No one wanted to wage another war over a pretty pair of eyes.

Even if they could undo practically every death since the Clan War Era…

No one wanted to deal with the overpopulation fallout, though. So everyone simply allowed Sasuke to burn the damn things with Amaterasu. Good riddance.

Sasuke was the last problem to deal with, but honestly, with the whole Shinobi Alliance ganging up on him and no Super Sage Powers, he grudgingly conceded that Naruto might have had an effect on him with his Therapy no Jutsu, and that was the abrupt end of that. Though he did have to face prison time for the crimes he did commit as a missing-nin. Buuut prison time was restricted to the minimum amount thanks to Naruto's insistence that Sasuke had finally seen the error of his ways.

They'd all just have to see how long that lasted. The track record for sane Uchiha was not good. Not good at all.

It was as everyone was headed back to the Hidden Leaf Village in order to throw Naruto a hasty birthday bash that a thought struck Kakashi, and he turned to Minato-sensei, who had Obito draped over his shoulders. Obito would be standing trial as well, once everything settled down. But at this point, the formerly insane Uchiha was ready to just roll over and die.

Not that Kakashi or Minato would allow it. They wanted Obito to live a long, relatively happy life and to atone for his crimes. Instead of taking the easy way out.

"Sensei. That technique that Obito used…" Kakashi began.

Minato shot Kakashi a reassuring grin.

"Don't worry about it, Kakashi! I'm sure that Rinne Tensei can't resurrect just anyone. I mean, it probably takes a Chakra Signature and an available body for the spirit to inhabit. You guys probably cremated Kushina… right?"

Kakashi began to sweat a little at this point. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Ha… ha… right."

Kakashi valiantly steered the topic to something else. Even if Rinne Tensei did take a Chakra Signature as well and reduced the likelihood of her return…

'No, no… Best not think about it. I'm worrying for nothing. Kushina's Chakra has been gone a long, long time. For seventeen years now. There's no way she'll return. Even if that would make Naruto really happy…' Nodding emphatically, Kakashi hastened his pace and went to congratulate Naruto, who was being carried joyfully by his closest friends and acquaintances. Even if Minato-sensei and the other Hokage would be leaving this realm in a few short hours, everything was still right with the world.

A bright future lay ahead of them all.

- Hidden Leaf Cemetery… -

A fist punched through the grass in front of a grave marker. With just a little difficulty, a young redheaded woman pulled herself out of the grave and dusted herself off. She coughed slightly and narrowed her violet eyes as she took in her surroundings.

"Why am I alive… again? What the hell happened, y'know? And where the hell is my baby boy?"

That settled it. All other matters could wait. Once her mind envisioned Naruto's teenage face, Kushina's motherly instincts kicked in and she set out like a blood hound. Nothing would get in Kushina Uzumaki's way – not even bewildered shinobi that had remained in the Leaf Village to protect it.

Kushina and her son had a lot of catching up to do, after all…

Author's Note:

I'm sorry. This just had to be done. Had to. XD

And that's about it for this one. I think I'm getting the hang of this crackfic thing; this one just flowed onto the paper. Haha. I know it's short, but I hope you enjoyed. There are no immediate plans to continue this, even though Kushina's one of my favorite characters… I wrote this with her in mind, but I kind of got carried away. Maybe I'll add one more chapter with more Kushina involvement, but that all depends on how you guys like this... and on my muse. My muse can be a fickle thing…

I'll probably be going back to writing TToNU after this, though. My muse was just in a playful mood tonight.