Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

The three-tailed bijuu's defiant cry echoed from the lake's turbulent waters to the leaden sky above as it broke free of the partially-completed seal. The four kunoichi who had nearly caught the great beast leaped frantically away, skipping across the crashing waves thrown up by its struggles. Shizune glanced about quickly, noting with relief that the rest of her team had apparently escaped unharmed. Sakura and Hinata had handled their parts in the sealing attempt with their typical skill, but Ino had been struggling enough to make her worry.

The gigantic turtle-like monstrosity turned away from them, its attention captured by something on the distant shore of the lake. She halted their retreat and eyed it carefully, wondering if they could take advantage of its distraction to try again.

Ino suddenly staggered, her feet sinking into the water they stood on, and the older kunoichi turned to her in alarm. The Yamanaka clutched her head and groaned, wobbling unsteadily for several seconds before she regained control of her water walking technique.

"Ow. Shit, why does this always have to hurt so much?" She complained.

Sakura stepped closer, and held a hand to her head with a diagnostic jutsu running. "Was that sealing jutsu too much for you, Ino-pig?" She asked archly.

Instead of answering, Ino threw her arms around the Sakura's neck and kissed her. Hinata gasped in shock and backed away from the pair while Shizune looked on in confusion. Sakura froze for a long moment. Then she sighed, and melted into the curvaceous blonde's arms.

"Um, girls, this really isn't the time…" Shizune said uncertainly. The pair broke apart, both grinning like they'd just pulled off the biggest prank in history.

"All here and stable?" Ino asked Sakura, ignoring the older medic-nin completely.

"You bet," Sakura replied. "Thanks for the ride, sweetie."

"W-what did you just d-do?" Hinata stuttered hesitantly. "Y-you hardly l-look like yourselves."

"Alternate Life Soul Transference," Ino answered nonchalantly. Then she looked down at herself and grimaced. "Did I never bother to work out in this life, or what? Don't tell me I'm going to have to train myself up all over again."

Sakura took in their surroundings and smiled. "No worries, I recognize this scene. There's a great big chakra battery right over there, so I'll have us fixed up in no time." Then she wrapped an arm around her companion's slender waist, and they both vanished in a swirl of…sakura petals?

Shizune stared at the spot where they'd been for a moment, and scratched her head.

"Well, that was odd. Can you see where they went, Hinata?"

The Hyuuga girl pointed at the distant bijuu. "On it's back."

--oOoOo--

Naruto had been fully prepared to fight the three-tailed beast to protect Yukimaru, but it was a bit of a relief when the gigantic monster suddenly stopped and began to thrash around aimlessly. It was awfully big, after all, and he wasn't actually sure he could beat it without calling on the Kyuubi. But when it howled in agony and started spitting out water attacks at random he decided he'd better find out what was going on.

The creature paid no attention to his approach, but a few hundred yards away he realized there was something happening on its back. There was a massive flare of chakra up there, so big even he couldn't miss it, like someone was standing on the thing's back throwing S-rank jutsu around. But he didn't see anything happening.

Intrigued, he threw out a few dozen shadow clone decoys and worked his way closer. The mutant turtle monster finally noticed him when the first clones started climbing its sides, but by then he was close enough to evade its attacks without too much trouble. He arrived on its broad back to find a pink-haired figure bending over a prone blonde.

"Sakura-chan?" He blurted in surprise.

She whirled to face him, a long crystalline sword coalescing from the air as she turned. He noticed seals forming along the length of the transparent blade for a split-second, before his brain locked on to a much more pertinent detail of the scene.

Sakura had boobs!

Not that he hadn't thought she was beautiful before, but now she looked like a comic-book superhero version of herself. Waist-length hair floated dramatically in the breeze, framing enough lithe curves to inspire a dozen Icha Icha novels. He absently noted that the blonde was an equally exotic version of Ino, but most of his brain was busy looping on the 'Sakura + boobs = OMFG hotness!' equation.

"Oh, hi Naruto." Sakura smiled, and sheathed the diamond blade in a scabbard that hadn't been there a second ago.

"Whoa," he babbled. "Sakura, you're beautiful!"

She chuckled. "Come over here before you give us away, goof. I've got a genjutsu up to keep the bijuu from figuring out where we are."

"Uh, ok," he replied agreeably. Get closer to super-babe Sakura? No problem! Hey, she even smiled at him.

Several portions of Naruto's disused brain were jumping up and down waving red flags by this point, and one of them managed to get a question routed to the brain-mouth interface.

"So, uh, what are you doing?"

"Powering up, of course," Ino commented.

Sakura nodded. "Yeah. We're from an alternate world where Akatsuki won years ago, and they've pretty much destroyed civilization. But Ino's technique could only transfer our souls, so I'm using the three-tail's chakra to rebuild our bodies to what we're used to. Apparently our local counterparts never bothered with any serious training."

"We were too busy fighting over Sasuke," Ino giggled. "I can't believe how clueless we can be when we're kids."

Naruto frowned and scratched his head. "Huh?" He asked inarticulately. "I don't get it."

Sakura gave him a startled look. Then she held a hand to his head, and gasped at the results of her diagnostic jutsu. "Oh my god! They never fixed the seal in this world!"

Ino sat up with a look of concern. "You're kidding? How could they possibly miss that?"

"I don't know, but…here, sit down, Naruto. I'll take care of it right now."

"Ok, Sakura," Naruto said as he sat at her feet. "But what are you talking about?"

"There's a flaw in the seal that holds the Kyuubi, Naruto," Ino answered as Sakura started a complex set of hand seals. "Some of its chakra leaks out directly into your brain every few hours, and eats holes in it. When you call up your chakra in a fight your regeneration fixes it, but that still means you're walking around with major brain damage most of the time. In our world Tsunade figured that out and got Jiraiya to put a patch on the seal to keep it from happening."

Naruto's eyes went wide. "Oh. Wow, that explains a few things. So, you're Ino and Sakura from the future?"

Ino bit her lip and looked pained. Sakura sighed. "Something like that," she said. "There, that should do it for now. If you ever have to call out the Kyuubi my seal work will probably get broken, so be sure to tell Jiraiya and Tsuande about this so they know to fix it again."

"Sure thing!" The blonde idiot burbled cheerfully. "Hey, does this mean I'm going to get smarter now?"

"In our world you were a Kage-level seal master," Ino answered uncomfortably. "Sakura?"

"He'll be fine, sweetie. The damage will heal in a few days, and the way he uses clones I bet he'll be up to where he should be in a few months. You do use shadow clones for training, right Naruto?"

"Oh, yeah, Kakashi-sensei showed me that one."

"There, you see?" Sakura went on reassuringly. "We'll have our 'Naruto-sama' back in no time."

Ino smiled in relief. "Good."

"So…we're friends in the future?" Naruto asked the blonde kunoichi.

"More than that. The three of us were teammates after Konoha fell, and we were definitely a 'full benefits' team," she explained with a flirtatious grin. "Of course, that was before we tracked down Sasuke and made him marry us."

Naruto looked stunned. "We were…wait, you married Sasuke? Both of you? Damn it, why does that bastard get to have both of the cutest girls in Konoha?"

Sakura giggled. "Oh, please. Does the name Shion ring any bells? Not to mention Hinata, Yuki, Guren and more fan-girls than I can count. You're the last guy who has anything to complain about when it comes to girls."

Ino clasped her hands together and did her best doe-eyed expression. "Oh, Naruto-sama, you're so strong and kind and wonderful! Please, won't you do me on the kitchen table while my twin sister watches!"

"Yeah, that's about what most of them sound like," Sakura confirmed. "I think every kunoichi you've ever fought wants to be your mother or your wife, so if you're not getting any action it's your own fault. Besides, it's not like we'd turn down a booty call now and then."

"Oh, hell no," Ino confirmed. "Infinite endurance plus shadow clones? Pure win. But we've got things to take care of before we head back to Konoha."

"Really? I wonder what those things might be?" Kabuto materialized in a swirl of leaves, and eyed the three Konoha ninja curiously. "That's quite a series of jutsu you've been working, Sakura. I'm sure Orochimaru-sama will be quite curious where a chuunin learned such exotic techniques."

Sakura favored him with a vicious grin as her hand drifted back to the hilt of her sword. "Oh, look, it's Orochimaru's little uke-boy. And he's trying to be intimidating! Oh no, I'd better spill all my secrets right away or he'll…um… he'll monologue at me, that's what he'll do!"

The older medic-nin frowned in exasperation. "Really, Sakura, you're obviously more mature than you pretend. Must you stoop to such childish tactics-"

His reply was cut short as Sakura blurred into a lightning-fast iajustu strike that nearly cut him in half. He leaped away, already drawing a kunai with one hand and forming a seal with the other. Unfortunately he landed on Ino's shadow, and immediately found himself paralyzed."

"I've got to remember to thank this world's Shikamaru for showing me that technique," Ino commented cheerfully. "Now, let's see what you're hiding in that twisted little mind of yours."

Beads of sweat appeared on Kabuto's forehead as he futilely tried to fight off the blonde kunoichi's mental invasion. Sakura put an arm around her to support her as her eyes went blank, then raised a hand wreathed in medical chakra to their prisoner's chest.

"Nope, no unconsciousness jutsu for you," she said. "No adrenaline rush to break the shadow bind, and definitely no suicidal chakra-detonation move. Oh, look, he had a rez technique prepped, just like his boss. Too bad I can break the chakra link."

"Wow," Naruto said. "You two are kind of scary now."

"You would be too, if you'd spent fifteen years playing cat-and-mouse with a bunch of S-rank enemies," Sakura explained. "In our world they call us the Angels of Death, and the surviving villages all have flee-on-sight orders out on us. Of course, you were even better before you got yourself killed taking down Madara."

"Got it!" Ino announced as she returned to her own body. "The snake-freak's current hideouts and schedule, Sasuke's location, and a bunch of stuff about their plans. Oh, and I stole his medical techniques for you too, but I think yours are better."

"Probably, but I'll look over his memories later just to be sure. Say goodnight, uke-boy."

This time he couldn't dodge.

--oOoOo--

"So the legend about the ultimate Yamanaka technique is true," Kakashi said slowly. "Projecting your soul across time and space like that is quite a feat. But I thought you could only send yourself?"

"Yeah, I had to invent a better version of the technique," Ino answered casually. "I never could have done it alone. But Sakura and I trust each other enough to do a full soul-merge, and with her perfect control we can pull off all kinds of crazy tricks. We've been hopping around for years now trying to find a timeline that wasn't hopelessly screwed up, but I think this world will work."

"I'm pretty sure it will," Sakura confirmed. "Now that the transition shock's settled down I've gotten back most of my local self's memories, and I don't see any problems we can't handle. Sasuke is alive, Orochimaru won't have tried to possess him yet, the Kyuubi is still bound, and the Akatsuki haven't gotten their hands on anything above two tails."

Both girls were still surrounded by visible auras of swirling blue chakra, leakage from the power theft jutsu Sakura had worked on the three-tailed bijuu. The giant turtle had retreated to its pocket dimension to recover from its wounds, where Akatsuki wouldn't be able to reach it any time soon. Kakashi was willing to count that as a successful mission, and he suspected the Hokage would agree.

Shizune stood a few paces back, holding a whispered conversation with Hinata. At first she'd been impressed by the changes her own senses and the Hyuuga girl's Byakugan had detected, but that had quickly given way to awe and a bit of fear. It simply wasn't possible to rebuild the body's entire chakra system on command, and yet that's exactly what Sakura had apparently done. When their stolen chakra was fully integrated she and Ino would probably be the most powerful kunoichi in the world.

"Of course, Naruto is almost as strong," Hinata whispered, as if that was going to make the older medic-nin happier about the situation.

"Great. I guess we'd better hope they really are on our side, then. See anything else interesting?"

Hinata nodded. "Oh, yes. Their chakra mingles freely when they touch, and there's a connection even when they don't. I think it's some kind of soul bond." She sighed, and smiled wistfully. "How romantic."

Shizune face-palmed. "Hinata, I'm a little more worried about practical issues right now."

Ino should have been too far away to hear, but apparently she had ears like an Inuzuka now. "Don't worry, Shizune, we aren't evil infiltrators here to destroy Konoha or anything," she reassured the older kunoichi with a laugh.

"That's good to know," Kakashi cut in smoothly. "Now, why don't you tell us what you are here for? It must have been vital to justify using such a risky technique."

"That's true," Shizune agreed thoughtfully. "But in that case it might be safer to wait until you can explain to Tsunade in person."

The two girls shared an amused look, before breaking out into giggles.

"They think…we're here…for Konoha?" Ino gasped out.

"Sure, like they need our help," Sakura snickered. "All they've got now is the biggest ninja force in the Elemental Countries, and two Sannin, and Naruto…"

"…and Shikimaru…" said Ino.

"Right, and the whole genius generation," Sakura went on. "Yeah, there's no way they can beat Madara on their own. Oh, wait, they've got Suna too, and most of the minor powers…"

"…thanks to Naruto's little 'saving foreign rulers' thing." Ino finished.

They both giggled again, and Kakashi looked a bit put out."Alright, then, why are you here?"

"We were trapped in a permanent Tsukiyomi," Sakura explained. "It was the only sure way out. Besides, everyone we care about was dead there. This way we get another chance."

"Yeah," Ino agreed. "This time we're going to save Sasuke before Orochimaru drives him completely nuts, and make him see what a good thing he's got. Maybe if we're actually strong enough to help him with his goals we can make it work…"

"…and if not, at least we'll have each other." Sakura said.

"But girls, you can't just go running off like that," Shizune objected. "Tsunade would be forced to declare you both missing nins."

Sakura snorted. "Like we care. Tsunade always lets those old bastards on the council walk all over her, and as long as they're running Konoha we're not going back anyway. Now, if she wants to clean house I can tell Sasuke what really caused the Uchiha massacre, and help him get his revenge…"

"Sakura!" Kakashi said sternly. "If you know that much, you should know better than to talk about it."

She shrugged. "Just offering. If not, we'll come back when Naruto makes Hokage. You'd reinstate us, right Naruto?"

"Um, yeah, of course," Naruto agreed. "But are you sure I can't go with you? I'm sure the three of us could convince the bastard to come back!"

Ino's face took on a glazed expression, and a trickle of drool escaped her lips. "Sasuke…and Naruto…hmmm," she murmured.

Sakura bopped her lightly on the head and chuckled. "Get your mind out of the gutter, pervert-chan. Sasuke's not…well, actually…but I'm sure Naruto's not…well, unless he's in girl form…hmmm."

She stopped, and shook her head violently. "No! Sorry, Naruto, but this is our chance to make our dream come true, and we're not going to share. You've got plenty of girls to chase, you don't need to poach our guy."

Naruto turned rather green. "What! That's not what I meant!"

Ino giggled. "Maybe not, but that's definitely what we're up to. You can have your rival back after we're done screwing some sense into him."

"Yeah, we've done enough self-sacrifice to last a dozen lifetimes," Sakura agreed. "This time around, it's all about us. See you later, everyone."

They vanished in a swirl of sakura petals, leaving two sputtering jounin and a gaggle of rather befuddled chuunin behind. As confusion gradually gave way to a babble of discussion Naruto scratched his head, and edged over to the Hyuuga heiress.

"Hey, Hinata-chan," he asked quietly. "What's a 'booty call?'"