Disclaimer: Once again the Legal stuff must come first: I do not own or ever will own Naruto verse or any person or place therein. Naruto Universe is someone else's creation that I simply play around in and have a good time messing up. Here is the promised Epilogue I hope everyone has enjoyed the story and found it somewhat satisfying. I know parts of it could have been a lot better and if I had taken it in a different direction it could have grown into a much longer and alot more involved story but I wanted to write something more light hearted and fun than is my usual style. Angst is good and all but sometimes you need to smile instead of cry. As for Sakura and her apparent change of heart, she's a teenage girl people. No one but another teenage girl or someone who once was a teenage girl ever will understand why they do the things they do. Anyway Enjoy the epilogue.
The Honeymoon Mission
by The Mother Rose
Epilogue:
Four years passed quietly in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Natsu settled in happily with her age group with only a few minor bumps and bruises along the way. The people of the village forgot about Naruto when no word ever reached them of his whereabouts or things occurring with him. Jiraiya did send the communications but no one ever asked about him so Sarutobi didn't see any need to remind the populace of the golden haired orange wearing loud mouthed boy. The people accepted Natsu as they never had Naruto having no reason to believe the dainty girl was the same person as he had been. Those who had known Naruto and come to see him differently than their fellow villagers had a few choice words for Kakashi over Naruto leaving the village safety as he had done but Kakashi just took all the abuse and then pointed to Natsu. He let her explain things to these people if she felt they could be trusted to hold her secret. For those who had seen the truth of Naruto's existence there was no question at all but that the dainty girl would not have been safe as herself and what the rest of the village didn't know wasn't going to kill them where the jinchuuriki was concerned. They all walked away vowing to make damn sure nothing happened to her now that she was in her true skin.
Kiba got the snot kicked out of him once because he didn't believe Natsu was really Kakashi's wife and was trying to make the dainty girl go out with him. But when Kakashi overheard Kiba telling some of the other boys that if she was so easy as to give herself to her team captain than she surely wouldn't object to being with someone younger and more energetic like him, Kakashi told Kurenai to keep her nose out of it and let him put the arrogant pup in his place. No damn dog in heat was going to claim what Natsu didn't want to give and damned if he would let anyone sully her name like that. He was tired of making excuses for the punk and, he pointed out, all the rookies had told him more than once to leave Natsu alone. Yoosei was getting tired of his shit and having to fend off his groping hands every time she tried to spar with someone and he forced his way into the spar which he did any time he found out Yoosei was sparring with another.
Still Kurenai would have objected but Asuma stepped up and told her flat-out to leave it to Kakashi. He told her, "This is exactly why Pops married Natsu-chan to him in the first place. Because of how small and how cute she is, guys are always going to try this crap, though not many are as aggressive as Kiba is about it. By Kakashi being her husband, he has a legal right to beat the crap out of them until they learn their place. Kiba is a dog in his conquests and he only wants her because she's cute and claims to have married Kakashi when she was thirteen. We know she did but Kiba wants it to be a lie so he can claim she's a harlot and therefore free game to claim. If you interfere you tell Natsu, Kakashi can not protect her. Not only that but you tell her he doesn't want to defend her honor. You also tell everyone else the same thing. You tell Kakashi you will not allow him to protect his wife and you tell Kiba you think he has a right to poach another man's claim. And that basically tells everyone in the village they can harass her all they want and it's fine with you. Besides I saw the spar today where he tore her top just so he could fondle her breasts to see if her nipples would get hard for him. That had nothing to do with the spar and everything to do with what he wants to do to her."
Kakashi growled, "He did what!?" The menace in his voice was enough to tell Kurenai that if she even thought of stopping Kakashi he would beat her down and then beat Kiba into a coma.
Akamaru had been present at the spar between Natsu and Ino that Kiba had intruded on, telling Ino it was his job to put Natsu in her place which was under him on her hands and knees as he pounded into her. None of his moves were spar approved moves and all of them were designed to humiliate Natsu as she kept trying to get away from him. She was in tears by the time the girls had finally managed to get between her and Kiba with her top torn and rough bruises showing on her flesh where he had grabbed her to try and force her cooperation with being raped in front of everyone. There had been a large crowd of other genin and chunnin present and those who didn't really understand were watching what was happening wondering if this girl really was the trash Kiba was making her out to be. Akamaru understood that and it had been a very unhappy puppy who had returned to his kennel that night refusing to have anything to do with his partner. He told Kuromaru, his Kaasan, about the scene and how disgracefully his partner had behaved towards the mate of another Alpha.
Kuromaru had gone straight to Tsume, her partner, and told her. Hana and her dogs were present at the time but Kuromaru was upset because Akamaru was upset. She didn't know how to help her pup deal with this because Akamaru was correct. A pup such as Kiba did not trash the reputation and take liberties with the mate of a different Alpha and clearly Kakashi was an Alpha just as Tsume was. Kuromaru went on to tell Tsume the girl had made it clear more than once she was not interested in Kiba. She was interested in her Alpha who was Kakashi and no one else.
Tsume had dragged Kiba down from his room where he had been plotting how to catch Natsu alone and force her to accept him as the better man. Hana was right beside her as they dragged Kiba out to their own practice yard for the beatdown of his life. Kakashi showed up before they got started barely controlled and definitely unconcealed rage eminating from every pore.
"Tsume, I realize you wish to handle this punk on your own. Please don't do that. That brat molested my wife in a public place in front of witnesses. I will trash him in the same manner he tried to dishonor her. Bring him to my team's practice field at ten. I want those who saw and heard what he did to my wife today to witness what I will do to them if they touch her without her permission. And that asshole tore her clothes, exposing her to everyone there today when she tried to walk away from the spar he intruded upon."
Fire burning in her eyes, Tsume growled, "He tore her clothing?" Hana added, "As she tried to leave?"
"Hai. Ask the dog if you don't believe me."
A few growls and a clearly upset puppy was on the field as well, hiding behind his Kaasan. Kuromaru spoke for Akamaru since he was so confused and ashamed he didn't know who he should speak to and the story spilled out from beginning to end. When she got the whole story Tsume turned on Kiba as did Hana. Both women growled at him anger clear in their eyes and posture. "You left bruises on her. You tore her clothing. You made her blood flow from your claws and licked it as if she were nothing but a mongrel dog. You intruded on the friendly spar of a comrade to do this to a fellow Leaf Nin! How DARE You call yourself my SON/BROTHER."
"You will show up at that training ground, Little Brother," said Hana prowling towards Kiba intent clear in her every move.
"You will fight without your nin pup since you do not value his advice, reputation or opinion enough to listen to him when he tells you something," said Tsume. "And you will have guards on you from now on until we know no woman has to fear what you will do to her should she say no and then get a different boyfriend or husband."
And so it was that the Inuzuka Clan escorted Kiba to the training field where his opponent was already waiting for him. Kakashi had seen the bruises on Natsu and the healing cuts and he had forced her to show him the torn clothing. It turned out that one top was not the only garment Kiba had torn of hers and she'd been hiding them from him until she could get them fixed. Sasuke, Ino, Hinata and Neji all stood with Natsu showing their support of her in this instance.
Kakashi opened things up. "So you think you are Alpha enough to take my woman from me do you? You think a pup like you has the right to touch my woman, to tear her clothing, to leave cuts and bruises on her person, to prevent her from going where she wishes to go or doing what she wishes to do. Since when is a little pup like you ever enough to challenge an Alpha? That isn't even how it's done, Pup. You want to be an Alpha, you challenge the Alpha himself. You don't skulk around and hurt his female. But you did. So now you will pay."
The Inuzuka Clan kept him in the ground and everyone else out though it was clear Kiba really wanted to run and equally clear Kakashi was holding back on him. Hiashi had heard of the incident and gone through Hinata's closets as well. He figured if Kiba was doing that stuff to Natsu than there was a good chance he had done the same things to Hinata that no one knew of. Every spot Kakashi had seen a bruise on his wife Kiba got a broken bone. Every spot a cut was healing on her he got a deeper one. By the time the spar ended Kiba was a bloody mess but alive.
"You will live today, Pup. Live to learn and spread the word. Leave my Wife alone. She is not a whore. She is not a mongrel dog and she is not free meat. She is my WIFE. But if you ever touch her again, you will die." Kakashi walked off the grass and over to Natsu, making it very clear as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her exactly who had that protected role for him.
When Kiba showed up in the emergency room for treatment, Sakura was on duty. She took one look at his injuries and smirked, "So Sensei got tired of you sniffing around Natsu-chan, huh?"
"Little slut is free for the claiming," Kiba whined. "No way are they married like she claims. I can turn her on and if she was truly as good of a girl as everyone says she is there's no way she'd been loose enough to sleep with your Sensei all the time."
"You know, Dog-Boy, I was there when they were married. So I do know they are indeed married. But even if they weren't, what the hell makes you think you in any way could ever compete with Sensei over any girl but especially Natsu-chan?"
"I'm younger. I have more stamina. I can keep going until she's worn out and panting for a break. That old man can't satisfy her the way I could and once I show her how much more satisfied I can make her she'll never look at another man again. Course Inuzuka's don't marry something another male has had so she'll never keep me but that's the life she's chosen."
She was sorely tempted to add to his injuries but she restrained herself with simple words. "You're disgusting. She's his wife, Kiba. Leave her alone or next time I'll let you suffer."
Kiba had spent a few more months trying to trash Natsu's reputation but with the guards from his own clan on him he never got a chance to physically assualt her again and evry time he said something out-of-line to another person about her it was reported to his Kaasan and sister. Both Hana and Tsume were very good with punishments for misbehaving puppies and after three months of cleaning kennels with a sand shovel, sand bucket and toothbrush without the benefit of gloves Kiba got the message. Whatever he personally thought of a female, he was not to bad-mouth them or physically harm them. Once he showed he had learned his lesson both his sister and Kaasan took him in hand and began socializing him lest something of this nature occur ever again. Kiba would not get another chance to prove he was man enough to live in polite society. If he did something of this nature again his clan would cast him off and lock him away where his bestial nature could not intrude on their society. Because of their bond with dogs Inuzuka were more aligned with the beast that resides in all men but only those who could control the beast were granted the freedom to live as normal men. Kiba had allowed himself to give in to the beast because he found Natsu attractive and the strength of the attraction had thrown him for a loop. Because he had not been expecting it, and did not know how to deal with it, he gave in to his baser instincts. By the time his clan found out about his behavior it was almost too late but they did manage to bring him back to his senses though his hair was now wilder than ever and his clan marks deeper, longer and darker than they had ever been. His nails were also longer and thicker showing how deeply he had been losing himself to the dog inside.
Sakura had taken a couple of weeks when the team came back to the village to really think things through and at her Kaasan's suggestion she began to study medicine, and loved it, when she was not working on her other skills with Kurenai's kunoichi team. The book work soothed her mind and spirit and the actual translation of what she read into real hands on events let her feel she was actually doing something good and necessary for the village. As soon as she waas ready to progress to actual field work Sarutobi switched her from working in the coding department to working at the hospital. It was a good fit for her.
She had met with Kabuto and discovered that Sasuke had asked him to run a genetic profile compatibility match-up for her with him to see what their children would have looked like and what the chances were of those children actually being the children they had. Kabuto had discovered Sakura would have given Sasuke sons but the boys would have had her candy pink hair and emerald green eyes. She also would have given him daughters and the probability statics had said that for each girl born there would be three boys. The probabilities showed there was more than a ninety-nine percent chance of the all of the children inheriting Sakura's hair color. The eye color dropped lower than that since green eye color is a recessive gene and not a dominant one. But the pink hair, which normally should be recessive, was anything but.
Kabuto told Sakura it was an aggressive gene trait, which basically meant it overrode whatever trait was supposed to be in it's place and rewrote that gene trait with itself. He also told Sakura she was not the sharing kind no matter what she had thought of herself. His statical information on compatibility had shown Sasuke there would never be harmony in the home if Sakura was one of his wives because she would turn everything into a competition. Kabuto had soothed her by telling her that wasn't a bad thing if the guy she married was not the last of his clan and expected to sire enough offspring to give it a jumpstart into real growth as Sasuke was and it was because of those factors that Sasuke had tried so hard to get it through her head to find someone else to like. Sasuke had known he couldn't ever marry her without making her miserable in the end.
The two of them had a lot of long talks about life and the way she had behaved and their childhoods. She found out Kabuto had been picked on because of his poor eyesight and white hair. He said he understood why she had fixated so strongly on Sasuke to find validation of herself after the torment of her peers over her hair color, wide forehead and high intelligence but he personally found her to be very easy on the eyes and to him her high intelligence was a necessity for him in a partner. He just couldn't settle for a stupid girl when there was someone he could actually hold intelligent conversations with.
They had started dating casually and it had progressed when Kabuto had found she was afraid to date anyone due to the way she had behaved when she'd been obsessed with catching Sasuke. To entice her into dating him, Kabuto had done the same kind of testing on himself and her that he had done for Sasuke, this time paying for the results himself. Then he had told Sakura how adorable he found their prospective children to be pointing out again that having always had bad eyesight and white hair, Kabuto knew all about being picked on and teased over what could not be changed and since her aggressive hair color would pass on to her children, their kids would be cuter than he had been when he was younger. It worked. Sakura found in Kabuto a guy who didn't think pink hair was gross or unnatural in their world and actually shared her field of interest with her. She found someone she could actually talk to without having to dumb herself down to air-head level and, since she had also been the subject of teasing growing up, she found someone she knew would understand and help her deal with their children when it was their turn to be picked on. She had been married to him for two years and now had a daughter of her own. Rozu was a darling little girl with light pink hair that was just a few shades lighter than her own and both Kabuto and Sakura loved her very much.
Sasuke got married to his two kunoichi when they all turned fourteen. It was a double the bride ceremony but Sasuke had been serious when he had said he would not choose one to be the matriarch over the other. In his eyes, the two girls were perfect compliments to each other and gave him a home he could truly be happy in. He still worked out with Sakura, Natsu and Kakashi but he was mainly taking time to spend with his wives and their children and being trained by Hiashi to fulfill his clan seat on the council. Miski had given him a daughter they had named Mikoto after Sasuke's mother and Ami had given him a son they named Toshui. No one knew why they chose Toshui as a name but mainly it was because Sasuke didn't want to honor any of the men from his clan. Toshui was neutral and all of them felt Kakashi would probably kick Sasuke's butt if he tried an abbreviated form of Natsu's name for any of his kids. Either as she was now or when she had been a boy.
Then a year after those two children came another son from Miski. This boy, he had asked for names from those he considered to be his friends. Kakashi suggested combining his wives names together to form Amiski. Sasuke said that would be fine if it were a girl and Ami's child but since it was a boy and Miski's than it would be inappropriate. Misake was Natsu's suggestion. She explained it was just a random combination of the letters of their names but definitely a boy name and would give the child the freedom to grow up being who he chose to be. Because it's just a random combination of letters there is no expected 'Oh he'll behave this way' or 'that way' crap to wade through. He'll be able to be himself. And so it was that Sasuke now had three children, Mikoto, Toshui and Misake and he couldn't be happier with them.
Itachi had stopped by once, under the cover of darkness, right after the wedding. It turned out he wanted to talk to Sasuke and discover if Sasuke had found out the truth of that night yet. Sasuke hadn't but he was brimming with questions over things that hadn't added up. Itachi went into his mind to see what his otouto was talking about and found the problem. Someone had erased a lot of what Itachi had shown him and what they left would have driven anyone bonkers trying to make sense of it. So then he'd cleared it all up for Sasuke, telling him why he could not come home at the same time.
He explained he had to stay with the Akatsuki until they imploded, which they were likely to do as they were all ego-maniacs to begin with and had entirely too much power without a decent amount of brains to direct said power correctly. He also told his brother he was not really any different from any of the other members of the rogue group no matter how much they might both wish to believe he was. He could not guarantee Sasuke the day wouldn't come when he honestly did try to capture the nine tails for the Akatsuki but so far he had no intention of doing any such thing. He was still in control of his own mind and power to understand just what a bad thing that would be for the world at large.
But he did tell Sasuke he had left him alive because Sasuke had the power to take the clan in a new direction so what had happened to it this time could not, and never would have to, happen again. He warned Sasuke not to encourage his children to unlock the bloodline, no matter what the council wished, as that was always the start of the descent into madness from which there was no return possible and only power would matter in the end. He told Sasuke flat-out he fought his own mind every single day to remain sane and not just go rampantly killing people for the power they had that he did not. Because, he said, the Sharingan has a form of sentience of it's own and it desires power. It's so quiet and unobtrusive that those who wield the Sharingan never realize until it's too late how often they have done as the eye wished them to just because the eye wished for it. He said he had watched as the clan had become obsessed with power turning good people into raving madmen lusting after other people's talents and bloodlines just because they had them but never again did he want to see the sharingan active in an Uchiha.
Then he had left asking if he could check up on the children from time to time, so long as he promised to do them no harm. Sasuke gave him permission but warned him not to get caught since he did not wish to witness his Aniki being put to death as well. But Sasuke had also promised that if the day ever came when Itachi truly did come to Konoha to capture the nine-tail for the Akatsuki, Sasuke would see him dead first. Itachi had smiled with relief in his eyes knowing Sasuke meant it.
Since then Sasuke had seen his Aniki three more times. Each time the visit corresponded with the birth of one of his children. Itachi had seemed calmer with each child's birth and after the last boy was born he had actually cried while he held the little boy with his mother's light green hair and muddy green eyes. "What is it, Aniki?" Sasuke had asked him.
"You did it, Otouto. He doesn't have the Sharingan bloodline. He has his own bloodline but it isn't the Sharingan. The Uchiha have a new lease on life through him. Keep him safe, Otouto. And when you die, name him to head the clan. Uchiha will become known for something other than thieves of the hard work of other ninja." Then Itachi had handed Sasuke back his son and left. How Itachi knew the boy didn't have the Sharingan but had something else was beyond Sasuke's ability to understand but then he wasn't the clan prodigy or the genius the villagers had touted him as being once Itachi had gone rogue.
Two days later, Itachi was found outside the borders of Konoha, dead by his own hand. Sasuke had his body returned to the village and buried in the family graveyard much to the protest of the villagers but Sasuke tuned them all out, saying, "Itachi was my brother. Always was and always will be. He deserves to rest with the rest of the clan and, as he grew up the pride of the clan, it is only fitting he be laid to rest between our parents. He was their pride and joy." Natsu and Kakashi, Sakura and Kabuto as well as the Uchiha wives back him up. The next child was born by Ami and there was no question but that this son would be named Itachi. The dark haired little boy with sad black eyes looked exactly like Sasuke's older brother. And so after two years of marriage Sasuke already had four children. One little girl and three little boys. Two wives can really make a difference in child production.
Tsunade had been brought back to the village six months earlier when Sarutobi had found out Natsu was finally pregnant. He told Jiraiya to go get her. Jiraiya wanted to take Natsu along alone but Kakashi put his foot down very firmly on that idea telling the renown pervert he could just go whistle dixie if he thought Kakashi would stand for him watching Yoosei sleep, change or bathe. Jiraiya had blinked at him for a minute before turning to look at Sarutobi asking if Kakashi was seriously telling him what he thought he was.
Sarutobi had smirked at his student and told him in no uncertain terms Kakashi had already hospitalized four men that month he caught making perverted comments on Yoosei, as everyone called her, and her taijutsu routine and six men he caught actually making a pass at her. Two more he wasn't sure would live after Kakashi had caught them actually trying force Yoosei to go with them and even if they did live Sarutobi wasn't sure he let them stay that way anyhow. And Sarutobi pointed out it's not even the seventh day of the month yet.
Jiraiya had turned to Kakashi very slowly looking at him in shocked disbelief and told him, "Not even your Otousan was this crazy about a girl. She's just a female."
"Nope. Not even close. She's my little Yoosei." And so because Jiraiya didn't feel he could return Tsunade without Natsu's help he ended up taking Kakashi along with them. He saw first hand just how protective Kakashi was of the small girl and just how willing he was to beat the shit out of anyone he felt crossed the line with her. And that line was very very . . .finely defined.
But he also saw Natsu had Kakashi well in hand also. She only let him beat up guys who crossed her line as well. And hers was a lot more relaxed than his was though Jiraiya did seem to find his way across it rather easily. She wasn't as bothered by innuendo as Kakashi was but actions were a different story altogether. Comments on different women's attributes to Kakashi, wherein he required Kakashi to actually look at said attributes, got Jiraiya more than one beating from both Natsu and Kakashi.
Tsunade got an absolute kick out of the small girl but it wasn't until she'd discovered Natsu was to have a child that she'd agreed to return to the village. One exam of Natsu had told her the chances were good both Mother and Child would die if she did not tend to this pregnancy herself and from the way Kakashi behaved, he would follow Natsu soon after if she did die. The teenaged girl was his whole world and without her he would not be able to find something else to hold onto. Like his Otousan, Kakashi would follow his wife to the grave. But unlike Sakumo, Kakashi would not be able to hang onto their child the way Sakumo had. For one thing, even she could see Kakashi loved Natsu way more than Sakumo had loved Kakashi's mom. Tsunade was tempted to abort the child for them but she knew the child of the Copy-Cat Nin was a sought after commodity to the village as was the child of the Nine-tails vessel. And no matter how much the village might think the vessel was a boy she knew Kyuubi was sealed in the small four foot nine and a half inch girl. So she had returned to the village with them to oversee the pregnancy herself. She took Sakura as an apprentice and showed her how to care for Natsu should the tiny girl ever get pregnant again, explaining why each step was necessary due to her unique complications.
But by the time the child was finally born, Kakashi swore to high heaven he was never going to allow Natsu to do this again. Once of watching her almost die on him was more than enough. His fellow jounins had spent the last month of her pregnancy taking him out for drinks just to keep him sane and settled enough not to demand that Tsunade get the huge freaking kid out of his Yoosei right this Kami damned minute. Everyone was torn between sympathy for Kakashi and Natsu and outright amusement over the issue but no one could deny they were very relieved to have Tsunade in the village when it was time for the baby to be born. Because of her healing factor, pain relief was fleeting at best. Because of her small size actually passing the child from her womb was almost impossible but Tsunade knew a jutsu to cause Natsu's hips to spread wider for the child's passage. And it was due to her being there that the bleeding was stopped before Natsu could bleed to death. Kyuubi had all it could do to maintain Natsu's chakra coils long enough for her to regain enough chakra to survive the process. That left more mundane healing to Tsunade and the other medics.
The little boy had silver hair like his father but Natsu's sky blue eyes. Kakashi was happy with his son but he was even happier that Natsu had survived the child's birthing. Only when she had stopped bleeding completely did he totally relax though and allow himself to enjoy being a father as well as a husband. They decided to give him a name uniquely his own and not connected to the past or people he would never know. They named him Atarashii for the fresh start he represented for them.
Tsunade took over the reins of the village and let Sarutobi retire. He spent most of his time sitting with Kakashi's son bouncing on his knees remembering when it was Natsu he held the same way and glad his village had returned to it's youthful vigor of the days before her birth. One of the things he had told Tsunade was the truth of why the village thought they were free of the Nine-tail Fox finally and he told her to never ever give into any pressure to call for his return since doing so would only ruin Natsu and Kakashi's lives as well as endanger Atarashii.
With Iruka, Hiashi, Koharu, Homura, and Kiku all backing up the old man's stories of the hell that the village had put Natsu, as Naruto, through she couldn't deny it would not be good for the village to dredge it all up again. The village seemed to have finally put the incident behind them and, like Sarutobi, she just couldn't see any reason to drag it back out. She didn't see any need for the original members of Team Seven to leave the village so they remained home bound which when she informed them of her decision, caused all four to look at each other, and their spouses, before bursting into laughter. "What's so funny?" she asked. "Sensei said he told you, you would be free to resume missions once you two guys had produced a child. You've both got a son now so I'm just heading off the requests before you can file them."
Kakashi told her, "We knew once we realized what he did on that mission when they were thirteen we'd never leave the village again. Natsu, Sasuke and I are all too well known in our own ways as being who we are. Sakura, because she was a part of our team and a part of that mission is also just as well known now. We leave the village, we leave our children vulnerable and since we are a team of orphans for the most part that would be a very bad idea."
Sakura took over. "Natsu is known far and wide for who her Otousan and Kaasan were. Even if her Otousan is the only person Konoha counts as important, the rest of the world is not that dense. And then there are the people that know what happened the day she was born. They are after her for it. There just isn't a whole lot of safe places for her to go. So we knew Sandaime-sama had no intention of letting her stick her big toe across the village line."
Kabuto smirked and said, "They even tested it once. Had her walk five paces down the road from where they were doing gate duty. Before she could turn around and ask for her next instructions she was surrounded by Anbu on full guard and ready to repel anyone trying to take her away from here."
Tsunade sprayed her tea across her desk and coughed for a few minutes as her assistant handed her a towel to wipe it up. While she was recovering, Sasuke took his turn speaking. He had loosened up over the years with two wives at his side pushing him to express what he really thought and felt more often. He still wasn't outspoken by any means but the girls had gone a long way toward helping him be more comfortable being a person who was and always would be an icon to his village. "But it isn't just Natsu who keeps us tied here. It really is all of us. Kakashi must stay for Natsu and their son. Natsu must stay for Kakashi and their son just as much. Sakura has a good job and a good career she loves, a husband who loves her and a daughter she thinks the world of. She must stay for them as well. Just as Natsu and Kakashi work best together so do Kabuto and Sakura. As for me, I must stay and see to it my children never become what their ancestors did and needed to be destroyed over. I must stay to do my best to prevent another clan massacre in the future. That job takes precedence over any other job because it is the future of my children we are talking about here."
Kakashi summed it up for her. "It's really pretty simple, Hokage-sama. None of us wish to leave our children in the same mess our parents left us. Sakura had a Kaasan but she grew up knowing if anything happened to one of them the other was alone. Totally alone. The rest of us did grow up alone. We know exactly how bad that is and we will not leave our kids to grow up that way so long as we have the option of changing it."
Natsu wrapped it up for them all, "Team Seven is content, Baa-chan. We do not wish to go anywhere either together or alone on different teams."