Secret Treasures of the Uchiha
by TimeLoopedPowerGamer

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine.

Summary: An AU story from the moment Sasuke decides not to get up again in his first encounter with Itachi, after the Chūnin Exam finals and invasion. Instead of spending a couple of months in a coma while Naruto is off finding Tsunade, he explores the abandoned Uchiha compound, finds a hidden storehouse, and gets dragged kicking and screaming by Hiashi Hyūga into clan politics and an arranged marriage.

Warnings on content: Rated M for face-stabbing levels of violence and also some mature content, mostly consisting of frustrated teens not getting any. So, really more like immature content. Also, foul language, and lots of it.

Special Trigger Warning: In this chapter, there is brief section on what happened to the Kyūbi in the past. It isn't nice, mentioning mind control and mental rape and torture, but that part isn't explicit. Still, sort of unpleasant, so be warned. After consideration, I think I'll go back and add warnings to the previous chapters, where the Kyūbi accuses the Uchiha of similar things, just to be complete. Really earning that "M" rating this chapter, for various reasons.

Author's Note: The long awaited actual end to the Find Hinata arc! Secrets revealed! AU world-building story surprises! Hot Uchiha-on-Uchiha action! Wait don't go! I swear it isn't surprise yaoi, though that would be really funny! Also, still not a harem fic.

My Profile page has a link to my fan forum on this site. Chapter update progress reports and story discussion takes place there, as well as any whiny excuses for my updates being late.

Note on Notes: I've got a long thing after the end of this chapter. Didn't want to crowd the top with it, but please read for important information.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sasuke's mental chakra-scape avatar stood with mouth agape.

"You're...part of the Kyūbi?" he asked, feeling stupid for having to clarify that and temporarily ignoring the previous apparent statement of blood feud against his clan.

Blinking slowly, the fox-featured woman in front of him frowned even deeper, her ears twitching twice. "Yes, that's correct. Am I missing something? You apparently just gained the Mangekyō from that Hyūga girl's faked death." Sasuke's eyebrows shot up at that.

"So if you knew about the eyes and willingly went into the cage, why else would you...if not to..." Her eyes widened and she suddenly slapped her forehead. This was followed by several muffled curses and a short rant in a language Sasuke didn't recognize, all as the strange woman muttered into her hands, shoulders slumped. Sasuke simply continued to stare.

"I thought you had been recruited by the one-eyed Uchiha bastard!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "A stooge, aimed and fired at me, a secret plant in the Jinchūriki's team until your eyes matured and you could try to take control of my mind. I was sure he had gotten to you through your brother, and that was why Itachi didn't...but you obviously just stumbled upon some old family scrolls or something, huh?" Apparently reading his reaction like a book, she continued ranting. "Of course, those idiots wouldn't want to lose the secrets to the Mangekyō, so naturally they'd write it down for everyone to read. Stupid, stupid inbred monkeys!"

Growing annoyed that he was apparently not involved in any meaningful way in whatever private freak-out session some obscure part of the Kyūbi was having, Sasuke finally managed to recover his composure.

"Lying to me and blustering is pointless. I didn't come here to mind control you, whatever you are," he said. "I don't know why I'd want to. You look pathetic." The ranting naked woman paused, then looked back at him again. Her eyes seemed more alive and her ears had perked-up when he spoke.

"I am the great Kyūbi, feared in all the Five Great Shinobi Countries and throughout the Seven Kingdoms!" she yelled, pointing at him with one angry index finger while her tail slashed through the air. "With a wave of my paw, cities fall. With the mere echo of my roar, brave men die of fright. My tails destroy mountains and my very breath burns all before me!"

"Hn," Sasuke said dully. The Kyūbi froze, finger still outstretched. One dark red eyebrow twitched.

"Do you have to be naked, or are you finished with that little show?" he asked. Her eyes narrowed but she took a graceful step backward without a word, then picked up her thin frock. He remained silent, watching her closely as she pulled it over her head. Tugging on the hem thoughtfully, she broke the silence.

"This is unexpected," she said, standing in front of him fully clothed once again. "Perhaps a change in approach is called for. You are neither as stupid nor as horny as I expected a boy your age to be, nor is your objective what I assumed.

"Though I am not nearly as weak as I appear, I was not lying about my vulnerabilities, nor was I fabricating the reason I am here." Her tail whipped back and forth behind her, causing the hem of her ragged dress to shift distractingly.

"Hn," he replied simply. "What was all that before?"

"As you saw, I was attempting to elicit sympathy in case your emotions were still soft and tender, your heart not fully hardened against a harmless looking woman's fear and scorn, perhaps causing you to have a change of heart. I did not want you to attempt to violate my mind. All I am here is chakra and mind."

"Then why undress like that?" he asked, confused. "Wouldn't that do the opposite?"

"Using your eyes requires focus. I hoped my pitiful state when naked would be a shock and distraction. What does it matter to me if a human sees me like that? I am a far greater being than you could imagine." She shrugged that off with a wave of her hand. "Anyway, I was honest in what has happened to me before. Twice now Uchiha have caught me, raped my mind for what seemed to me like months, and then left me a temporary puppet, dancing to their sick whims.

"They attempted to destroy my sense of self-worth and crush my personality by causing me to experience the most vile acts imaginable, over and over again, in custom illusions built from my worst fears. As a being of chakra, any genjutsu capable of overcoming my natural resistances are quite effective. The experience was entirely real to me, even though I knew logically that it wasn't. It was extremely unpleasant each time and I don't wish it to happen to me again."

"Why would I have...have done something like that?" Sasuke asked, wondering at the change in this odd creature's tone and manners and more then a little sickened by what she was saying. "What would be the point in attacking you like that here?"

"To begin a brainwashing process to gain control of my power – all of my power, not just the fragment you see before you," she said, smoothing out her thin dress and moving to sit on the small bed. "It wouldn't work with me sealed, but you might not have known that or perhaps not have cared. Even the attempt would not have been pleasant for me. Thus my efforts to distract and influence you: your trying that...process without a clear goal and firm resolve would result in failure and drained chakra reserves. A temporary victory for me, requiring you to retreat with a splitting headache while I continued to muster my defenses." She ran her eyes over him slowly.

"But I sense clearly now that you have neither the will nor the...desire to do such a thing. I can detect deception and foul intentions like an odor from liars and rapists as they plot their evil deeds. And so far, you appear to be neither." She sat cross-legged on the thin mattress, tucking her tail around her body and setting it in her lap as her short dress rode up, still technically preserving her modesty. Her hands started working the knots and tangles out of it while she continued, not looking up from her work.

"I'm still confused," Sasuke said, staring at the young woman who claimed to be a Bijū. "Isn't the Kyūbi of legend...male?"

She scoffed, then looked up with her head tilted to the side and a foxy look in her eyes. "Most men think so." Turning back to her tail, she smirked.

"I am far beyond any notions of gender or sex you puny humans have," she said, her eyes now glowing dimly red. "My body is made of pure condensed energy, allowing me to take any form I wish given sufficient motivation. I have made love with great lords and ladies alike, in forms both human and beyond your comprehension. I have caused beautiful males and females of many intelligent types of beings – mystical, ethereal, and Earthly – to worship at my feet and serve my every desire. I am older than your Countries and Kingdoms and more powerful in my Domains than any other single being on this plane of existence. The one I called father invented ninjutsu as you know it today and had powers and wisdom to dwarf any of your so-called Kage. I am a divided part of the whole that formed the greatest entity this world has ever seen or ever will again, and I am the most powerful of those divided."

"You are not some kind of all-powerful kami," Sasuke scoffed.

"I am, of a sort. When I was...let's say when I was born, I was shaped as a kitsune. I chose as my Domains Beautiful Hedonism and Cruel Revenge. For your kind, I stoke the fires of purest lust, seeking those with the most perfect beauty and spirit and then driving their pleasures and my own to unimaginable heights. They worship sex and delight with me and I in turn protect them.

"I also hunt down the ingrown, sticking pits containing the worst sentient life has to offer in this world. When I find them, I destroy those foul dens of depravity, those places where intelligent beings turn on their own, those cities ruled by betrayers who transgress against the people who should be their friends and lovers, but are instead their victims.

"In these tasks, I am unstoppable and unmatched. I am immortal and without peer. I am male and female, kitsune and man, zenko and yako. I am eternal and my beauty and power is told of in countless legends in my many forms. Do not attempt to judge or categorize me, mortal."

Sasuke blinked, then looked her slowly up and down, raising an eyebrow significantly. She growled low in response.

"Your Fourth Hokage sealed all of my yin chakra within the belly of the Shinigami," she almost snarled, her voice still low and rasping. "That has never happened to me before. It was...troubling. I am only now starting to recover, a dozen years later. My current form is a reflection of my injuries and my attempts to recover. I look female here because that is the most easy form for my stolen yin chakra to take. I look mostly human because it is a human's chakra I stole, and most easily takes that form as an avatar, even when combined in the correct proportions with some of my fully demonic yang chakra.

"As for my imperfections: I cannot look clean because I am still stained with the sins forced upon me. I cannot look beautiful because my mind and spirit is still recovering from being shattered during my last violently fucked up resealing. I cannot look healthy, because I am not." Storms of emotions played across her dirty face, then they cleared and she smirked again. Locking eyes with him, she licked her dry, chapped lips and, disturbingly, the tip of her nose with an unusually long, pointed pink tongue.

"Which is a shame. I am neither boasting nor attempting to deceive when I say my physical body was amazing. Now, even in here where it is most easily formed, it is not what it once was. At my full strength, any human, man or woman, would gladly serve me sexually if I simply raised an eyebrow. When I was in human form, that is. At other times, it was mostly running and screaming. My yang chakra can still form a body, but it is only half of my true power and is mentally unstable.

"So now, instead of spending more power than you have in your entire body simply to shrink my towering self down to human female form and keep it there, all I am that is female is what you see before you – a pathetic, broken thing with barely an adult ninja's worth of chakra."

"Why are you telling me this?" Sasuke asked suddenly. Kurama – or, the Kyūbi, or the female avatar, whatever – she shifted on the bed, dropping her mocking smile and becoming more serious, wrapping her tail more tightly against her body.

"I am not stupid, mortal. You could still hurt me. You might even be planning on doing so now. I can do little against you but make those attempts painful in return. So I need your good will, and what better way to garner it than being free with information that you don't have, on things that can't truly be used against me. You can't remove me from the cage and I don't think you are here to try and rip my mind apart, so I figure I'll pull an old trick, one you can't defend against by knowing that I'm doing it. So I'll even tell you.

"The trick is this: I'll simply talk to you, like one mortal to another. I will tell you about myself and how I view the world, my hopes and dreams, and you will gradually feel as if I am a person and not a monster. Thus, you will be less inclined to attempt to uselessly harm me."

Sasuke rubbed his face with his hand, trying to dig through all the manipulations and boasts to something solid. The Kyūbi had been relentless so far in attempting to hit his emotional weak points and she wasn't even trying to hide it now.

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was looking a little better – slightly less emaciated and with color returning to her cheeks. Apparently, she was reducing or canceling whatever illusion she had used to appear even weaker before. The Kyūbi's avatar still wasn't impressive to look at, especially compared to a strong, fit kunoichi like Hinata – who was apparently actually alive. Sasuke's rapidly developing headache started sending spikes into the backs of his eyes. What was clear was, he still had no time or patience for weak, annoying females of any metaphysical type.

"I am here to stop your host's demonic-chakra-fueled rampage from hurting either me or my teammate himself," Sasuke said simply, folding his arms. "I don't know or care about whatever vendetta you have against the Uchiha. I don't care what happened to you before or how great you think you are or what you are plotting. It doesn't matter anyway, as you'll never get free."

"We'll see about that," she said, a small, secret smile creeping onto her face. "As for your friend..." She stood up from the bed and suddenly the entire room shook once, violently, then was still again.

"Done," she said with a smirk.

"What?" Sasuke exclaimed intelligently, then he frowned. "And that idiot isn't my-"

"Your teammate is free of my chakra's influence and is now unconscious and heading toward the ground slowly," the young red-headed woman said. "Time doesn't pass fast inside here, but it does pass. As your business is done and your chakra is almost depleted, I suggest you leave. Unless..." She slowly started running one hand up her thigh, dragging her thin dress dangerously high up her leg as her other hand started tickling her chin with her bushy red tail.

Sasuke took an involuntary step back, then huffed. "Hn. Whatever." Turning around, he stomped to the door and slammed it open.

"Oh, mortal," she called from behind him. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

"Hn," he growled negatively over his shoulder.

"If you want to kill your brother Itachi, you'll be back," she said quietly, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"And why would you help me," he said, still not turning around.

"Because you can give me something I want, of course," she quickly answered, "How else would it work?"

"Why wouldn't I just rip the knowledge from your mind, beast?" he said coldly, not turning around.

"You can order me to perform any straight-forward action within my power or answer any simple question, mortal," she said. He could almost hear her smirk. "But you cannot order me to train you, lead you on a journey of self-discovery, or help make you a better person. For that, you'll require my freely given assistance."

"I won't free you," Sasuke said bluntly.

"That's not the favor or what I meant," she replied with a laugh. "As if you could. Don't worry. I think you'll...enjoy the process of bargaining with me, especially if you accept my offer of power. I have something for my cute young jailer and your fangirl teammate as well. In fact, your entire village could benefit, if you play your cards right and your...performance satisfies me." Taking another step, Sasuke was now standing outside the small shack. The world started to waver around him like a haze on a hot day.

"Why help them?" he asked. "I thought you hated Naruto. And you tried to destroy the village."

"All is not as it seems, mortal," she called back. "My current main embodiment, composed entirely of yang chakra, is more beast than sentient being. That was what was left conscious and active after my last Uchiha tormentor was finished. This small female part of me here is more...whole, and is capable of clear, analytical thought. I can see that Naruto is not an unkind jailer, and he was not the one who threw me in here. There is no reason to punish the pure of heart for what is not their doing. My previous hosts were not cruel either, certainly not compared to how I've heard some others, let's call them my brothers, are treated.

"Also, I did not, in fact, try to destroy your puny little town. It is full of deceitful ninja but has not yet been consumed by hate, and so would not have been my target of my own free will. If I had been in control of myself and meant to destroy it, Konoha would have been leveled without warning or fanfare and I would have disappeared quietly into the night. In any case, I am a pragmatist – I am willing to let the past stay there if I can get what I seek for the future. And a powerful and entirely un-leveled Konoha will best serve my current needs."

"And my clan?"

"Such as it is," she shot back bitingly. Clearing her throat she tried again, more calmly, "I was blustering before. I am not without ego or temper. Though it is not your destruction I seek, I will have my revenge on those who have tormented me." Out of the corner of his eye, half turning his head, he saw her sit in a chair in the middle of the room and fold her hands demurely in her lap.

"There is a man I will require you to kill," she said. "You will agree, in binding mystical contract, to kill him, or there will be no deal. He works from the shadows but, even trapped here, I have detected his foul manipulations. And no, he is not your brother but he is an Uchiha and he is very powerful, even more so than Itachi. Hence my offer of a bargain to increase your power. Do note that if you have the strength to be able to challenge the one-eyed Uchiha, you could defeat your brother with ease." Sasuke frowned and looked over his shoulder at the room, where now only the Kyūbi was still solid and clear, her eyes glowing red in the shadows of the hut where she sat on a fading wooden chair.

"As for you, your cute little pale-eyed Hyūga, and any obsessive ancillary females involved in restoring your clan? If you agree to my terms, no harm will come to to you or yours, including your horrible village, for as long as your rutting descendants hold to the pact and your line continues. It is another Uchiha that I truly have a problem with, and I obviously have no issues with you killing your brother. Make a pact with me and I'll leave the rest of you alone to live out your pathetically short little lives in peace, only seeking to destroy those who directly wrong me and mine."

"Why should I trust you," he asked simply.

"Because you will never defeat Itachi as you are," she said softly. "Because if you don't, you and everyone you care about will die, along with your hopes and dreams and those of the rest of your pathetic village. Do not misunderstand, this will not even be by my hand. Most likely, I will fight along with Naruto against what is to come regardless of any bargain with the Last Loyal Uchiha. There are many dark forces allied against your village. They move against you even now." She smiled a wide, glowing-eyed, fanged grin as the other world continued to fade out, her eyes sleepily half-closed and locked to his.

"Hurry back, mortal," she said with low, playful snarl. "I have so little to keep me entertained here. And you have so little time left." She tilted her chair back, hooking her feet wide around the wooden legs and slouching a bit.

"Until then, I'll have to keep myself...occupied."

Still maintaining eye contact, she licked her fingers with her unusually long tongue, then slid the hand all the way up her thigh and under her ragged dress. Her other hand ran across the thin material on the front of her dress, up to her small breasts, which she started roughly massaging through the almost transparently thin cloth. It was clear what she was starting to do as her hand moved strongly against her crotch and her entire body started to jerk rhythmically. She starting panting, her long tongue lolling out one side of her mouth as she watched his stunned reaction. Then she made several sharp yipping noises and her head tilted to one side with a vacant smile as she continued to stroke herself. His last image was of her obscene movements and her foxily grin.

Suddenly, he was ducking Naruto's unconscious body, back in the middle of the fight of his life in the real world.

Looking back now, it was all just too much. Later, Sasuke would have time to think long and hard about what it meant when an emotionally unstable girl showed herself to you because it was "fair," and why a schizophrenic avatar for a Bijū masturbated in front of you after offering a devil's bargain. For now, he had another problem. One that remembering the Kyūbi's human avatar form and its final actions hadn't helped at all.

After staring down at where he still bulged under the thin hospital sheets, he spent a few moments sensing the room. Painfully activating his eyes for a second and straining his chakra enhanced hearing, he determined there wasn't anyone hidden in the room that he could detect, not even under a genjutsu, and no one was moving outside in the corridor.

Slamming his head back into the pillow, he swallowed nervously. He didn't do this very often. Or really, at all. There had been that one time, after the team's disastrous trip to Wave. He'd accidentally seen their client's adult daughter naked in the bath, immediately shutting the door silently in embarrassment before the young woman noticed his presence. Almost immediately.

But he'd seen...well, she'd been sitting sideways in the small wooden tub, looking away from the door, her large breasts just...there, then she'd got up, turned, and bent over at the waist to pick up her washcloth off the floor, facing away from the door. So, he'd seen basically everything. His Sharingan hadn't been active, obviously, so the images in his memory had faded some by the time they'd returned to the village.

Later that week, he'd had trouble sleeping (as usual). Those times, instead of nightmares about...that night, he had been suffering from extremely perverted dreams, waking several times like he was now. And so he'd furtively taken care of it in the middle of the night in his empty apartment's cold bathroom, and eventually, after several days, the images and his body had stopped bugging him.

Now he had a clear, perfect memory of a very well developed girl totally naked, all of her, and he wasn't sure those memories would ever go away. His erection certainly wasn't. Sighing deeply, he slipped his hand under the sheets and into his pants. Yep, it was like someone had used an obscure Earth jutsu to turn it into stone. Annoying.

Thinking back to crystal-clear images of a beautiful, dark-haired girl standing naked in the fading sun, he mentally followed every rounded curve down her side, from shoulder to hip, imagining his hands running over them. Her form was perfect in his mind. The possible sensations would be similar to those of other flesh and muscle contacts he'd already had in other locations during training, when his Sharingan was on. His mind could easily reconstruct the feeling of his hand on her soft, naked skin, memorized the same as any muscle movements from a complicated taijutsu form. This was the power of his eyes. He now stroked himself firmly up and down, his body so sensitive it seemed like electric shocks were running down his spine then heading back up and collecting in his chest with every motion.

Rubbing his other hand hesitantly over his hairless chest (his clan was typically virtually hairless, except for their heads and their...), he scrapped his fingers against one of his small, hard nipples, then eased down his slim, muscled body. He was trained for flexibility and explosive power, not weight lifting, so his muscles were long and lean, taunt cables bunched under his skin. Running his hand now over his ribs and his tightly flexing abs, he avoided the cuts and bruises that were still healing, then continued until he ran all the way down to his inner thigh then back up, briefly and gently fondling himself underneath before adjusting his grip in one hand and grabbing the sheets next to his hips in the other.

He could almost feel her soft, strong, training-calloused hands on him, replacing his own. She ran a hand over his hard pecs, over his flexing abs. Her body was now pushed up against him, her large, firm breasts crushed to his chest. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin, which was ivory white where the sun never touched, on her breasts and between her legs, but was now lightly tan everywhere else.

His bruised and aching forearm burned from his motions, but he kept going, seeking his finish.

All his senses recalled perfect details. He could smell her clearly, not a harsh, unwashed odor, but a strangely feminine scent that he remembered from his long hours training with her. Now her hands gripped his arms hard as she kissed him briefly. There was no extra sensory information there, only slightly disappointing imagination and conjecture about her full, wet lips. Then she moved, and softness and firm nubs scraped deliciously as she rubbed herself up and down his chest. His other hand was stroking her hip, running down to her thigh and rear, which were like silk wrapped over steel as she flexed to move her body against his.

And then, as in his most intense dreams, they were suddenly lying down. But this time he watched as she smiled and spread herself fully to him. Giving him a few moments to look, she then gently adjusted their positions and accepted him within herself completely. Then he was moving inside as she once again pressed her body to him. He could only imagine heat and slickness and an accepting firmness, her arms around him, her body around him, holding him close, never letting him go. Sasuke's heels dragged across the sheets as he rocked back and forth, loosing himself to his perfectly constructed erotic daydream.

She eased him along, continuing to hold him close, her short dark hair spread across the pillow as she looked up, deep into his eyes, seeing him and him alone, knowing and understanding him like no one else. There was only acceptance. He speed up, increasing his pace as everything became narrow and tense. Unlike before, alone in the middle of the night, this time he was thinking of nothing but her. No worries about himself. No questions about what he was doing. Only her body and his, moving against each other perfectly, her eyes staring into his, him deep inside her. Over. And over. Again. Until-

His belly muscles clenched and electric fingers ran all down his spine and settled on his groin. A short series of grunts, each spasm a burning ember of pleasure with an intensity he was completely unused to, and he was done. Now he was left alone in his hospital bed with just damp warmness all over his hand and the sheets. Sasuke's trained mind quickly recalling the room, he reached over his shoulder without looking, grabbing one of Hinata's clean and unused sword cloths from the bedside table where she'd taken care of his sword earlier.

Using the rich, finely textured cloth like this was silly and wasteful, but it wasn't like he couldn't afford it, and it did feel silky-smooth on his skin. Managing to clean most of it off him and the sheets, he wadded up the cloth and threw it into the trashcan in the opposite corner of the room without bothering to sit up or even glance over. He didn't see it landed in the bottom of the can without even touching the sides.

Sasuke slumped back in bed, trying to avoid one slightly wet spot as he sulked once more. At least his head was clear now and he could think. He had doubts about how long that would last, but there were decisions to make. Ones that would change his life.

He had techniques he needed to work on. He wasn't so foolish as to try dangerous new moves for the first time in the middle of a deadly battle, like his idiot teammate (the blond one, that is – he didn't know if Sakura even knew any jutsu). They needed work before they'd be ready. His last fight had almost been lost because the chidori was too slow, ineffective, and costly against an opponent with deadly, lightning-fast close range counterattacks. Like his brother. At its heart, the chidori was for assassination, attacks where the target didn't see it coming or couldn't dodge or counter, the bird chirp-like noise the last thing they heard. In other words, useless to him. He'd have to fast-track something medium to long range and armor-piercing.

Maybe that long ranged trap jutsu with the fire mines, or the one with the area effect lightning. Perhaps the disabling shock, but with a longer chakra blade, perhaps a pole-arm. The metal spear was the correct counter for swords, after all. To make all this possible, Sasuke realized he needed more practice in the Endless Garden training illusion. That meant he needed to kick Hinata's ass until she got her part right and they could perfect it.

Speaking of- no, wait. That wasn't...just, no. Sasuke sighed at his own rebellious mind. What he meant was, at some point he needed to deal with how Hinata was affecting him. It was as if he'd never even had that counter-seduction class at the Academy, final year (which he'd aced, naturally). If one quivering little Hyūga girl with the sexual aggressiveness of a lightly concussed field mouse could do this to him, he was in real danger of falling prey to some seductress in the field – and that would have more dire results than embarrassingly tight pants or sticky sheets. He'd need to tell her to figure out a way to further train him to resist that sort of attack.

Then there was Naruto and his prisoner. That was a dangerous secret for him to know. When Sasuke turned in his mission report, he had the option of committing low-level treason and not reporting what had happened, a crime punishable by jail time of no less than a month and no more than forever, if such resulted in the injury or death of a fellow Leaf ninja. Or he could tell some or all of the truth, which would be...bad exactly how? If the Hokage already knew about Naruto's secret, and how couldn't she, and if the civilians all knew, which they clearly did based on how they treated Naruto (making it the worst kept secret in the entire history of ninja) then maybe he should just come clean on the basic details and hope they didn't ask for more.

Tapping his fingers together, he thought further on that.

Yes, claim any Mangekyō Sharingan details as a clan secret, one not even that bastard Hiashi could demand he reveal, then deal with the Kyūbi's gender-confused inner self later. Tell Naruto that he knew about the Kyūbi (and wouldn't that be a fun conversation), then tell him about the Kyūbi's slutty female chakra avatar trying to make bargains with him. His teammate was stupid but he had to know at least the basics about the Kyūbi by now...in fact, at the bridge in Wave...then with Gaara. Yes. It all fit now. But the idiot should be fully informed of everything that had happened inside that chakra cage, for his own safety as well as that the rest of the village's stupid, stupid population. Not that they apparently deserved much consideration based on their actions. Useless sheep.

Pushing a small amount of chakra through his index fingers, he played with the flow slowly. A faint sparking feeling ran unevenly from one finger to the other until he concentrated more and started evening it out. He idly continued running the exercise while considering his options.

Talk to Kakashi (when available) about better jutsu. Get Hinata started on a new training plan. Hmm. Her bodyguard had been rumored to be responsible for the shy girl's new wardrobe. Maybe tell her to give Hinata some more pointers on kunoichi techniques of that sort. Yes, that would work.

Then talk to Naruto about the Kyūbi and schedule another...session in The Seal. And then...then he'd make a deal with the devil. Because what could she really do but tell him things? Her chakra couldn't escape, except through Naruto's own system. And that was, mostly, under control. If it got out of control, he still held all the cards with his newly perfected Sharingan and could slap her back down.

He gradually added one finger after another, moving the sparking feeling from one digit to the next and then all at once, playing with alternating flows and running the same chakra pattern from index to little finger and back.

Yes, his Mangekyō Sharingan. All it took to get his new power was a few minutes, endless minutes that seemed like hours, all the time thinking his...that Hinata had been brutally murdered. All because some madman wanted him and then he, he wasn't strong enough to save her.

Sasuke had known that to gain the Mangekyō, according to a slightly vague tablet and some old clan scrolls, he would have to be directly responsible for his closest friend dying. Just like his hated brother had apparently done with Shisui. True, his hand hadn't held the blade, but he was just as guilty. Some top secret clan reports suggested that Shisui had gained his eyes when his Konoha Police Force partner had died in the line of duty. In both their cases, the event (or the illusion of it) and their despair and guilt had apparently been enough to trigger the release.

Not exactly what he had planned. But then, he hadn't planned on using that path to power anyway. Sasuke frowned, realizing that he didn't even need to consider whether he would have let her be killed, knowing what he'd gain. Even now, he knew he'd rather die fighting to protect Hinata than pay that price. The answer was obvious.

But it was Hinata's apparent death that had triggered this. The little Hyūga who'd barely been able to last a minute in a spar against him a month ago. Who, because of her scheming father, would for at least for a few years be his wife. Sasuke shook his head, realizing that his best-case scenario now was only being married once in the next few years, a situation literally unthinkable a month ago.

That was the last item on his list of things to take care of. Figure out how to prevent any more idiotic marriage contracts. Hopefully, Hinata already had some ideas and together they could stop any more complications. He had dismissed the idea earlier, which had been a mistake. They needed to start taking preventative measures now. Remembering how his stupid pink-haired teammate had stared at him earlier while peeking into his room as he pretended to be asleep, he shivered.

That is, if they weren't already too late.

Long Continuation Author's Note: FIRST, Secret Treasures of the Uchiha is not finished with this chapter! This is NOT an Official Hiatus of Death being declared here. I've still got the end of the story planned and a long epilogue actually written. I'm simply using this chapter as a good stopping point for a few months. Notice the lack of evil cliffhangers.

During that time, I'll attempt to outline and write a buffer of at least first drafts of a few chapters for when I start updating again. I've already got the remaining story arcs named in my head and worked out vaguely in scattered notes. I'll post more gory details on my forum.

So yes, it will be a bit before the next update. The main reason is that life isn't helping my update schedule right now. In the meantime, I've got an idea straight from the Naruto anime:

A filler arc.

No, wait! Where are you going? Okay, look. What I mean is, I'm planning on doing a fast-updating story placed in the Secret Treasures 'verse while I take the time to finish outlining and writing the main plot chapters. Like the anime, quality will be lower (or really, more like your average readable fanfic), less obvious spelling and grammar errors will be fixed later, and nothing that happens in that story will be "canon" or change anything in my main plot.

I'll have goofy stuff, stupid jutsu that disappear after the arc, really unbalanced OCs, and less overt sexual content and swearing (most likely rating the story "T" instead of "M"). I'll be speed-writing chapters from a firm outline and whatever I get down on the keyboard will get published at the deadline. Sort of like in the anime, apparently (glares at the current filler arcs).

The goals will be a fun story and fast updating. Nothing else. I'll get the "serious" chapters of Secret Treasures done at a reasonable pace, then when the filler arc is over, go back to updating what I've got for the main plot. Hopefully, the next time I start updating the main plot will take us to the end of the story, uninterrupted.

My current plan is to update Secret Treasures soon with a sort of lead-in chapter, while pointing people to the new story's first chapter, which will be posted separately at the same time under a new name (which will also point back to this story for required reading). I'll be putting up a poll asking for feedback on this idea and everyone should feel free to PM me or post in my forum with their opinion (link in my account Profile page).

If you like this plan, awesome. If you don't, the updates will be in a different story, so just ignore them until I get the main story back up and running. I'm still fully dedicated to finishing this story. It should be great. Anyway, Sakura would kill me if I didn't get to the next few chapters, where she worms her way into this mess. If I had to, I could time skip around and finish all the important plot points in three or four more chapters plus the two-part epilogue, but I'd rather have more character development, another Chūnin Exam, some cool missions, and an epic-length story.

Whatever happens, this thing will go charging forward until the end, and that's a promise.