Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

AN: sorry for the delay, the Uchiha-related scenes really didn't want to write themselves, it wasn't until I re-read the previous chapter and altered the dialogues of the Itachi scenes a little so that I finally managed to get some progress done (nothing major, just some tweaking and re-wording so Naru didn't feel so OOC).

Yes, it is an interlude, I know it's kinda mean to give you this instead of plot after the delay, but I really wanted to introduce Fu in chapter 7 and putting that and the meat of the Uchiha plotline in the same chapter felt weird; anyways, CH 8 IS ALREADY WRITTEN, and it'll be out in a couple days.

I repeat, CH 8 IS ALREADY WRITTEN and will be out in a couple days.

Chapter 7: Lucky Seven (Interlude)

Many miles from Konoha, deep in the forests of Taki no Kuni, and far away from any civilization, a young green-haired girl was heading home, walking on top of a rolling log as thick as she was tall; lumber for the next couple of weeks.

She was a skinny kid, tho not for a lack of eating, with copper-colored skin and short, spiky mint-green hair, wearing a loose sleeveless white T-shirt and tight bicycle shorts, a pair of large green-tinted goggles hanging from her neck, and no footwear whatsoever.

"Morning Fu," a voice within her mind interrupted her balancing act, she stumbled, but deftly turned it into a handstand, perfectly keeping up with the log's rolling speed through her switch from bare feet to her hands, not even the huge grin on her face wavered.

"Hey, morning Chomei!"

Anko entered Naruko's room, said redhead was laying on her bed reading a thick book, or at least, what appeared to be the redhead.

"If you're looking for Naruko, she's out of the village right now, I'm only here so that Konoha's barrier doesn't detect her absence if anybody decides to check," answered Naruclone-1 without looking up from her book.

Anko pouted, she had wanted to get some training today in senjutsu, but she wasn't good enough yet to do it without supervision; sure, she could enter the state, but keeping it running and stable outside meditation was proving to be a problem; she plopped herself on a nearby chair, "so, what is she up to?"

"Selling some gems she brought back, setting up a couple minor plans she couldn't do within Konoha's walls, retrieving a little custom order, meeting with a couple Jinchuuriki..."

"Oh?" the last one caught the snake mistress' attention, she was unaware that any of the other Bijuu had accepted their containers yet.

"Nii Yugito is Nibi's, she's a Kumo jonin a couple years older than B, haven't talked to her all that much but he respects her skill which says a lot; the other one I'm meeting is Nanabi's, she's... a special case, she's a year younger than me and pretty much lives by herself in the forests, and the Taki shinobi are all too happy to ignore her; when the nine talked after the jump Chomei decided to step in and raise her, but it's not like Bijuu know anything about raising a kid or training a shinobi, so I'm helping," the clone grimaced at the last part.

Anko snickered at Naruko's face, still, there was something that was bugging her, "If you can already talk to them without anyone knowing, why risk meeting them in person?"

"I want to give a couple of things to Fu, the Nanabi's, and Yugito is going to deliver some stuff I brought back with me that belong to B that I don't want to risk sending through a courier; but it's also because of Fu's seal, if the design Chomei showed me is correct then that seal is a piece of crap, it'll crack and kill the kid before she reaches her twenties, out of the nine the only one worse is Gaara's, and I can't get to that one yet."

Anko whistled at that and both felt into silence, she had heard about Gaara's seal from the redhead, while sturdy and fully capable of handling full Bijuu transformation without damage, the seal kept Shukaku constantly awake and enraged, and had no filter whatsoever to prevent mental contamination; it was a testament to the future Kazekage's strength of will that he ended as a mostly sane person.

"Hungry, hungry, Fu is hungry, Fu just ate a bear earlier... wonder if there's a tiger nearby..."

Fu was walking on all fours, sniffing the ground for prey, she couldn't smell anything big or tasty enough nearby, but by the moisture scent she was close to a large lake, so she bounded to the cliff's edge and looked down at the body of water a few dozen feet below, where a couple of cow-sized shadows could be seen.

"Ok! Fish it is!"

And with that, she jumped off the edge, grabbing a tree branch on the way down to slow her fall and swinging herself into a flat rock jutting in the middle of the lake.

Nearby, a certain redhead was approaching the location of Nanabi's Jinchuuriki, once the Bijuu had agreed to give their wardens a chance, Chomei had taken a liking to the girl and started helping her, and recently it started using the connection between the nine to let her talk to the other hosts, or at least, the others that their beasts had deemed worthy as well.

It helped that she wasn't welcome in her home ninja village, and ever since the last leader of Takigakure died, nobody had bothered to even check on her; Chomei didn't have any trouble becoming a guiding figure in her life, and now it could easily rise her as it pleased. Naruko was just thankful that it wasn't the Ichibi that got that chance.

The girl was also the one with the most freedom, Iwa's were kept on watch as well as Suna's, one of Kiri's was a brainwashed Kage while the other was a wanted man, Kumo's had the advantage that A was in the know of the time travel, but they were known to the other villages just like herself, and while she could easily slip out, she couldn't allow herself to be discovered. Fu, on the other hand, was both unknown to the rest of the shinobi nations and nobody from her home kept tabs on her, and Naruko planned to use that advantage to the fullest once the girl was properly trained.

Inuzuka Tsume was in her office mentally cursing her position as clan head, her nin dog, Kuromaru, had abandoned her to the mountain of paperwork on her desk and was with the other dogs fooling around outside.

Deciding to take a well-deserved break for the sake of her sanity, she swiveled her chair and pressed her hand to the door of a cupboard and channeled chakra into it in a secret sequence only known to her, causing it to open and reveal the treasure inside: a large bottle of rice country sake, a rather expensive brand at that.

It was a hard task to hide good liquor in the house of the clan of bloodhounds, the fact that they were all family prevented blood seals from serving as a security measure, and with the clan's hearing there were many in it that were experts at cracking safes.

But just as her hand closed on the neck of the bottle, another clawed hand took hold of it as well, she turned her head to see her daughter was the culprit and growled threateningly at her, she was the Alpha of the pack and this was her bottle damn it!

Much to her surprise, Hana growled back just as fiercely.

They glared and growled at each other for a full minute with neither of them backing down, before deciding to share instead of risking breaking the precious bottle in a fight.

Ten minutes of silent drinking later, a much more relaxed Tsume decided to find out what had gotten her daughter so stressed, the last time she had seen her this bad was when her team had been forced to capture the Demon Cat five times in the same day.

"I got roped into working as a substitute teacher for the kunoichi classes in the academy", Hana growled remembering her day, "bunch of useless fangirls, and the previous teachers haven't taught them a thing."

Tsume rolled her eyes, "it can't be that bad."

Hana looked at her straight in the eyes and answered in a deadpan tone, "I just had the three older years today, there wasn't a single girl that wasn't a rabid fangirl, so far, the teacher has taught them how to paint their nails, cooking, cleaning, haircare, flower arrangement and dieting tips."

Both of them downed their cups in one go to wash out the disgust at that. Konoha's fangirl infestation was bad enough without them finding new ways to multiply.

"No wonder the graduation rate of kunoichi has dropped since you got out."

Hana nodded as she served herself another cup, "and the shrieking," she shuddered and downed her cup in one gulp. Tsume's mind quickly went to the Pink Banshee she had to tolerate during council meetings and imagined a room full of her clones, she shuddered and followed the lead of her daughter with her own cup, some mental images needed to be purged immediately and with extreme prejudice.

"What is that idiot Fujiwara thinking?"

Hana's face got a pensive look for a moment, "I bet so long as someone's teaching the class he's happy to ignore it, most men have no idea what those classes should have and will run for the hills the moment you mention menstruation," they both chuckled at that.

Tsume smirked, "Well, I'm not without influence, I bet I can get Yoshino and Mikoto to help without much effort and it's about time we got the old Konoha Kunoichi Association back on track."

The KKA had been spearheaded by Tsunade, mostly as a joke to counter her pervert of a teammate, but with time it grew on it's own, helping fight discrimination, pushing for the overhaul of the hospital, and offering support for kunoichi-turned-mothers amongst many other tasks, but after several of the core members died during the Kyuubi attack and with everyone busy in the aftermath, not to mention Tsunade leaving and Jiraiya rarely visiting to cause havoc, the group had fallen dormant on the political arena.

Not anymore.

"Fu."

"A big fish!, a big fish!" exclaimed said girl happily, dragging a fish several times her size without trouble, the wonders of muscle augmentation with chakra.

"Fu," repeated the Bijuu, trying to gain the girl's attention.

However, the girl ignored it, and thus, bumped into something, nearly falling on her butt.

Said something looked at her with amusement, while such a hyper kid was exasperating, her patience had reached legendary heights after spending far too much time with B.

"Hey Fu."

"Aah! you shrunk!" the surprise was enough to do what bumping didn't, and the green-haired girl fell on her butt, a finger pointing at the redhead in front of her.

"I didn't shrink, I just look older when we talk through the Bijuu's connection, didn't I already tell you that?"

"Ah... Fu forgot," she stopped pointing and rolled backwards into a squat, tilting her head to the side in curiosity; she rolled forwards, falling in the same position just inches in front of Naruko and started sniffing her.

"Now, I brought a few things for you, remember when I taught you about storage scrolls?" the greenette paused her inspection and nodded, Naruko extended a hand to the side and a red backpack appeared, "the backpack is waterproof, and the back of it is rigid and lined with storage seals, I placed some stuff for you in them, but you can check that later," money, clothes, ninja tools, books, and a small collection of manga to entice her into reading and improve her skill at it, amongst other things.

Fu pounced on the backpack and began checking it, Naruko had made sure the material was nothing if not resistant, and it also had a hostler sewed in for her next gift; with a snap of her fingers a red cylinder about two foots long appeared in her hand, which she tossed to the girl, she was pleased that Fu, even distracted as she was, caught it without issues, "I made a bo staff for you, just channel some chakra into it and it'll grow, withdraw it to shrink it."

She observed with a smirk as the girl toyed with her new weapon with wide eyes and a bright grin, the staff had been a fun experiment in seals, trying, and succeeding, to reproduce the extending capabilities of the sword of Kusanagi, even if it wasn't as fast at it; of course, the weapon was reinforced to frankly ridiculous levels, it wouldn't stand to the aforementioned sword for long, but it would be able to tangle with any of the seven of Kiri without denting. It was as close to 'Tsunade-proof', or in this case, 'Jinchuuriki-proof', as a man-made weapon could get without resorting to overly exotic materials like mokuton-grown wood.

"What do you say we cook and eat that fish?" the seal could wait, after all, trying to keep a hungry Fu still long enough to modify it would be impossible.

Itachi and Shisui were leaning over a table, a stack of files were at one side, and a map was spread open covering most of the surface. Both files and map were provided by the resident demon container, filled with the information she had gathered on the current status of the Uchiha clan in the last couple weeks since their night meeting.

Overlaid over a simple map of the clan grounds was the information she had gathered from a safe distance over the course of her watch, divided in areas, each with a corresponding file registering the time and date of not only the negative emotions sensed, but also the locations and any large chakra usage.

Which meant they had a clear picture of the use of training grounds, any secret clan meetings or even meetings between those that were against the plan, and any storehouse being accessed at odd times. It also impressed upon them her range, with her abilities she could track many individuals at the same time without their knowledge anywhere within the village, increasing her usefulness in their eyes.

And all that without involving anyone from the ninja forces, so there was no risk of being discovered by the spies they were sure the clan had; A far cry better than what they could get alone, even if their jobs didn't consume most of their time.

Shisui was the first to look up from his inspection, "so... we're honoring the deal with the brat?"

"You don't like it?"

"If she could get this much with just a two weeks of surveillance, she could be very useful, but I'm worried about her loyalty," Shisui said seriously.

"Hn."

"Don't give me that! what if she isn't loyal to the village? so far she has shown skill at stealth and sensing far beyond what she should have at that age, what if she uses that to run away!?"

Itachi sighed and proceeded to calm down his friend, "If she wanted to run away she would have done so already, if she wanted to buy time she wouldn't have said anything about the supposed Uchiha causing the Kyuubi attack. Everything points to that she believes that to be true."

"That doesn't mean she won't run off an is helping us to stop the coup to buy time," Shisui continued exasperated, but any further complain was cut off by his friend.

"It means that she'll either want Konoha as a shield or the resources she could have as a shinobi of the village in order to hunt down the traitor, with any other village she has no guarantee that they won't ally themselves with the masked man. She'll be loyal to the village because she doesn't have any other option."

Naruko was kneeling next to a sleeping Fu, her nimble fingers carefully tracing the design on the base of the girl's spine; she was rather disturbed by the girl's appetite, idly wondering not for the first time that day if she had a gateway to another dimension for a stomach.

After all, she had just seen her devour what must have been at least twice her body weight in fish.

Still, she had work to do before her fellow Jinchuuriki awoke from her nap, or her food-induced coma, whatever that was; nevertheless, Naruko added a simple sleeping genjutsu to ensure Fu wouldn't wake until she was done.

The design Chomei had shown her was correct, Fu's seal was flawed, the strain of holding the third strongest Bijuu was slowly weakening the seal, and eventually it would shatter and kill the greenette in a rather violent fashion. Luckily, Naruko was a sealmaster far beyond the skill of the (in her mind) incompetent fraud who made the original seal.

She silently unsealed her brush from within herself, alongside a bottle of special ink and a porcelain bowl, she poured ink until it filled a third of the bowl, and cutting to her right palm with a chakra-sharpened fingernail allowed her to fill the rest with her blood.

She carefully mixed the two liquids while her mind designed what to do, reinforcing the current seal was out of the question, it was bad enough that such blemish existed in the first place, she was not about to patch it; on the other hand she couldn't just destroy the seal and then replace it with a new one, not without killing Fu in the process; no, the solution she had in mind was considerably trickier, her seal would have to do both task simultaneously for it to work, it made her giddy with anticipation.

With swift brush strokes she painted the first part of her new creation, a string of symbols that created a spiral surrounding the original seal three times, this seal would, when activated, slowly constrict around the old work, eating it while simultaneously replacing it to become the Bijuu's new home. That part done, she swiftly followed with the next, which would act as the channels and controls for the chakra flow between human and tailed beast.

Gently placing her fingers around the new seal and careful not to smear anything and ruin her work, the youngest Uzumaki poured her chakra and activated her newest seal.

"Hasu Fuin!"

Before her eyes, the blood and ink mix glowed blue and came alive, the center spiral constricting into a circle, where the old seal shrunk and morphed into the kanji for 'lotus', while the control seals, once forming a simple circle, bloomed into seven petals. Fu grimaced in pain, but the genjutsu held and her sleep was unbroken.

Naruko stood and stretched, it was a good time as any to set up the area with some seal-based security, it wouldn't do for her training in the use of Bijuu chakra to be easily discovered.

After a couple minutes of silent contemplation, the snake mistress finally asked, "so, what are you reading? that doesn't look like one of the academy books."

It was far thicker than any of the academy books for one, and the pages were glossy and expensive-looking, "It isn't, I took it from the medical section of the library."

"I thought you couldn't do med-nin techniques, why the sudden interest?"

Naruko shook her head, "I can do some through fuinjutsu, but that's not why I'm reading this, there's a little technique that I'm trying to complete, as it is it puts too much strain on the user for prolonged use and I'd like to reduce the chakra cost."

Strain? now that got Anko's attention, there were very few jutsu that put a strain on the user beyond chakra usage, and most of them were either some form of self-enhancement or transformation, the med-nin book on the girl's hands made it all the more likely that it was of one of those two types; she raised an eyebrow and leaned forwards in interest.

"I got inspired after watching the current Raikage fight," the redhead continued talking, content in drawing out her explanation, "he has a technique called Raiton no Yoroi, where he uses lightning chakra to protect himself, increase his damage and greatly increase his speed and reflexes."

The snake mistress' eyes widened at that, it was damn impressive in Anko's opinion, it was stuff like that that put the Kages and other S-rank shinobi so far above the rest that it wasn't funny. Wait, did that mean that Naruko was trying to replicate it?

"I don't have the right affinity to do such a thing, but I am a seal master," the girl smirked proudly as she continued, "why resort to lightning to speed up my body, when I could bend time and do the same?" her smirk widened at Anko's astonished look, "now now, did you really thought that my little hop in time was the first time-space jutsu I created? I've been using and creating such things since I was 16."

Author Notes:

So we get introduced to Fu, the academy kunoichi classes sideplot advances, and we get to know a little more about our heroine: she haves a soft spot for her new 'pupil' tho she'll adamantly deny it, and when it comes to sealwork, she's an elitist snob.

Regarding the other countries knowing about Naruko's status as a Jinchuuriki, I am of the opinion that if there is anything that is common knowledge to the civilian population of a major ninja village, then the other nations know it too through the merchants and clients that constantly visit, particularly if it's high profile information (Jinchuuriki status, Hatake Sakumo's suicide and similar happenings); it's different in the case of a minor village where they can have the luxury of a tighter security, take Taki for example: you need to go through underground water tunnels and then a cave maze to even get to it, I really doubt there's any civilian traffic at all, so supplies and contracts have to be brought through other means, like, say, by the village's shinobi in scrolls from outposts in nearby towns and the local daimyo's court.

Speaking of Taki, we know next to nothing about the country itself, so I'm free to toy with the area as much as I please: geographically, there's a lot of forests and, of course, waterfalls, so think a mountainous area like Huangshan in China; I'm also adding overly large animals, not too much of a stretch, given that there is a boneyard of giant animals in a neighboring country. Similarly, we know next to nothing of Fu, other than having a happy-go-lucky attitude and being treated poorly by her countrymen, so I'm basing her personality on two rather distinct characters, anyone up to guessing who? :3

Current ages and ranks:

Anko: 16 (c), Hana: 13 (c), Hayate: 15 (c), Itachi 13: (ANBU C), Kurenai: 23: (c), Naruko: 8, Rookie 9: 7, Team 9: 8, Yugao: 14 (c).

Killer B: 23 (j), Yugito: 21 (j).

Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.