Date written: 25/05/11 – 25/07/11

Posted on FanFiction: 07/05/13

A/N: A fair warning: You need to have watched the fourth Shippuden movie, The Lost Tower, to have a better understanding of what's going on here. If you're not up for that and don't mind hearing spoilers, read an online summary of the movie and then read this fic. Repeating things that have already been said and done is, I find, a little repetitive for my taste, although this story has its own moments of repetition. It's just my own way to have readers recall a bit of the movie and a bit of the current plot of the manga.

Anyway, this little story is a planned three-shot, and if you were to see the date this was written, you'd see how old this was (and how long it took me to write a measly 7k word chappy, *sob*). And no, I have not yet written the other two chapters. The events are in my head, but I'm just not motivated to continue . . . until now anyway. After watching Road To Ninja, I ended up recalling this story of mine, and I thought it'd be a shame to leave it hanging like this. So I'll probably rewatch The Lost Tower and whip up chapter two at some point.

Also, since this was written a long time before the 4th Great Shinobi War really kicked in, I didn't include much info about it here. And I won't be delving at all on the topic as long as I don't have to, although my gut feeling says I should at least address some of it, if only to provide better backstory for one of the characters here.

Please read to your enjoyment and leave a review on the box below if you will. I'd greatly appreciate it.

–– CHAPTER 1 ––

A Boy & A Girl

Naruto woke up within the embrace of a red-haired beauty, one of her breasts firmly grasped in his hand, her cute, sleepy face inches away from his own.

If he had been a less gentlemanly male, he would've let this last a little longer, but his sleep-addled mind was somehow going through Sakura-like scenarios wherein the redhead would wake up, see their intimate positions, shriek like a banshee, and deliver nine circles of Hell onto his sorry ass. The well-played scenario resulted with a tiny yelp escaping his mouth, and after the yelp was the dawning horror of what he had done.

Their close proximity made it easy for the redhead girl to hear him and feel the involuntary twitch in his torso when his shock finally caught up with his head. And in true, romance comedy-like fashion, the woman opened her cerulean eyes to see the same cerulean shade staring back at her, opened so wide she thought the person was experiencing a moment of shock.

It took a few more seconds for her own sleep-addled mind to grasp the situation—and her position—and react to it exactly like what Naruto predicted.

"KYAAAAA!"

"Wait, wait, wait, lady, calm down!"

She didn't, and Naruto was forced to endure the pain on his cheeks as she merciless slapped them relentlessly.

"Pervert! Molester! Beast! Insect! Germ! Waste of space!" Each name was accompanied by a slap. Naruto's nose was already bleeding from the punishment.

In a moment of reflection, Naruto wished he would be gentler for what he was about to do, but after another powerful slap ("Monster!"), he screwed his conscience and threw the lady off him by grabbing onto her shoulders, rolling on his back, and then kicking her in the stomach to propel the momentum he garnered.

He rubbed his sore cheeks as he wiped the blood off his nose. "Would you let me explain, lady?"

Her reply was fishing out two kunai from her back pouch and charging straight at him.

Naruto blocked them with his own pair, and they settled onto a dance of blades, sparks from the friction igniting in places, never giving a second of respite for the enemy or themselves. They were evenly matched, Naruto noticed, and seemed to have adapted similar combat styles. He favored right hooks and she favored the same, and he wouldn't put it pass him to think she came with the same conclusion. Their respite came after half a minute of endless kunai attacking, defending, and dodging, and they regained their breath in record time.

"You're . . . a Konoha shinobi?" the woman asked, eyes narrowed and stance combat-ready.

He eyed her physique, but he couldn't discern much with the cloak covering her frame. The only things he could see were the black knee-high sandals she wore, the Shinobi hitai-ate wrapped around her forehead (it was actually written as 'shinobi' on the metal plating), and the whisker marks on her cheeks—

Wait . . .

"Whiskers?" Incidentally, she realized the same thing since she was the one who said this. Her eyes narrowed further, and she hissed out, "Just who are you?"

"I should ask you the same question, lady," he replied, not wanting to back down even if his curiosity wanted him to learn more about the woman. "And I wasn't perving on you. I just woke up with you on top of me."

"Then are you implying that I put myself on top of you?"

"What? N-no, nothing like that."

"And that your hand mysteriously groped for my . . . my . . ." Her blush sky-rocketed, and Naruto wasn't sure if it was due to embarrassment or rage.

"Uh, sorry about that."

She shook her head, disbelief reflected in her eyes. She then asked, "What's your name?"

"Eh?"

"Your name."

His hesitation was unexpected; he didn't see any harm from her knowing his name. But curiosity was getting the better of him again, and this time he let it be. She was a complete mystery, and he didn't like mysteries. "Only if you tell me yours."

She was the one hesitating this time. Her eyes took on a calculative look. "Fine."

"Naruto," he said.

"Natsumi."

"Okay, Natsumi, how about you tell me where the heck we are."

"I have as much of an idea where we are as you do, dude. One moment I was releasing the seal on the Ryuumyaku, and the next thing I know was being molested by a pervert."

"I told you I didn't mean that. I just woke up that way."

"And how long exactly were you awake before I was?"

"Uhm . . ."

She didn't give him ample time to reply. "Pervert."

"Hey!"

"I hate perverts, you know."

"Look, I'm sorry, all right. Can't we all just get along?"

Three seconds of contemplation ended with this answer: "Do that again and I'll castrate you. Slowly."

"Fully noted."

They holstered their weapons at the same time. And as he turned back to the redhead who had the same whiskers marks as he did, his brain recalled a small piece of information that had been nagging him a minute ago. "Wait," he said, "did you just say you were releasing the Ryuumyaku?"

She shrugged. "It was either that or I end up having my tenant"—she patted her stomach twice—"extracted forcefully from me."

The pattern seemed too similar to ignore, and Naruto brushed his own stomach as if searching for reassurance, although he'd rather not find such a thing from the fox. "You don't mean the Akatsuki, do you?"

". . . have you been living under a rock lately? Hmm, maybe you were, seeing that you're still wearing that old hitai-ate."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Fourth Great Shinobi War. Madara Uchiha. Moon's Eye Plan. Ring any bell?"

The look in her eyes told him that he should know these things if he didn't want to be labeled an ignorant idiot. He didn't want to lie to her, but the first thing she said was more confusing than the rest. The Fourth Great Shinobi War? When did that happen? And the only Uchihas he knew were Sasuke and his brother, Itachi. The name Madara, however, seemed to have flicked a memory in the back of his mind, as if he should know it yet he had deemed it too unimportant to be put alongside his surface thoughts.

"You're not making any sense, Natsumi."

"Rubber glue back to you, dude. You didn't hit your head when you were unconscious, did you?"

"No," he retorted, "the last thing I remember was chasing this criminal named Mukade into the Ryuumyaku's chamber and he started absorbing the Yondaime's seal and—"

"That's impossible. I was in the same chamber and I didn't see anyone else there. Well, apart from Madara and Sasuke coming to kill me."

"Sasuke? You know Sasuke?"

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"He was my teammate in Team 7, that's why."

"Your teammate?" Her expression morphed into incredulity. "He's my teammate in Team 7. Just who are you?"

"If I had an answer to that, I would give it to you, but we're not making any sense to each other here. One of us has to be lying."

"And since I know I am not lying . . ."

"And I know I am not lying, too . . ."

They stared at each other, neither backing down, neither letting the other get the upper hand. Weapons were not lifted, but their eyes fought a battle all on their own. Rarely blinking, their eye contact stayed stationary for a long while as the silence pervaded the place with great intensity that Naruto was beginning to hear the imaginary whistling noise in his ears.

"Come on, out with the truth," she demanded.

"I've been telling the truth from the start."

She looked like she wanted to say more, but held it back. "We're just going in circles. Okay, how about this: we stop asking each other about who the other is and just figure out"—she looked around them, extending her arms to the sides—"where we are."

Naruto nodded reluctantly. He might be a little curious as to why this girl believed she was a member of Team 7 (impossible, downright unbelievable, she's no Sakura-chan), but he could also tell that she was on the same boat as he was. She honestly believed herself to be a former teammate of Sasuke, and while that warranted some more investigation on his part, it most likely wouldn't end with a satisfactory answer. Not only that, he needed to find his team, pronto. There was no telling where he ended up in after Mukade absorbed the Yondaime's seal.

A sound of colliding rocks alerted them of another person with them. They turned as one to the source, battle-ready, but their tenseness dissipated when they realized it was just a female civilian. She was looking at them with undertones of fear. She probably didn't want to alert them of her presence.

Naruto believed she might hold some answers as to their current whereabouts, but before he could even voice his questions out, the woman was already hightailing it like a mouse seeing a cat.

"Hey wait!" he called out, holstering his weapons, and pursued her. She was slow, but there was still a lengthy gap between them, and she was close to reaching a passageway that probably led out of this cylindrical room of dilapidated structures and cracked walls.

"Stop please," Natsumi shouted next to him. "We just want to talk."

The civilian didn't listen and entered the passageway. As the two of them neared it, they halted in their tracks as two robed figures stood in front of the civilian. Danger senses sparking like crazy, they instantly breached for cover just as the figures fired out a salvo of shuuriken at their direction. Naruto opted for ducking to a prone, while Natsumi dashed to the left side of the passageway, her back to the wall. It turned out that there wasn't any danger from the shuuriken attack because the projectiles lost forward force and power after passing through the tunnel. Naruto could see from his lying position that there seemed to be a thin purple barrier the shuuriken had breached in sacrifice of their lethal threat.

When Naruto stood up, he brandished two kunai into reverse grips just as the two figures breached the purple barrier. And unceremoniously fall apart and scatter like puppets with their screws missing.

"Puppets," Natsumi murmured, as she bent down and picked up a cog from the pile. Even Naruto stood still as his brain processed the swift turn of events.

Their distraction gave ample time for the woman to escape and somehow seal the only exit to this place.

"Great, we're trapped." Naruto banged the triple-layered wall the exit was buried in. "Now what?"

"I'd suggest using a Rasengan," Natsumi suggested, looking up, "but I think taking the roof is a better option."

Yet another mystery to add into the pile: she knows the Rasengan. "Do you think there's a way up there?" he asked.

She answered that with a rhetorical question: "The light has to get here somewhere, right?"

Realizing the obvious, Naruto could just scratch his head in embarrassment. "Ah, yeah. Ahahaha."

"Come on."

They nodded to each other and jumped up the wall.

"Not the best way for Konoha ninjas to meet and greet," Natsumi remarked as she and Naruto faced the trio of masked Konoha ninjas while the Queen of Rouran, Sara, stayed to the side, "but with how things are happening right now, this shouldn't have surprised me."

"Puppets attacking out of nowhere," Naruto said, "and the ruins of Rouran becoming a great city like this. I absolutely don't understand what's going on here." These observations were directed to the masked trio, who stood still, their body language unreadable, even to Natsumi's trained and experienced eyes. She contemplated transforming to Bijuu Mode but didn't act on it. She promised to only use it against an enemy, and so far these three didn't present themselves as such, but rather the opposite.

"You guys know something," she opined, noticing the fat man crossing his arms. He was trained to not show reactions to anything, but she hadn't been training with Ero-sennin for three years without learning a few tricks of the trade when it came to spies, interrogations, and psychology (the geezer forced her to study up on this, though). "Isn't it about time you tell us what's going on? We're not leaving until we get some answers, and if you're not giving them . . . well, Naruto and I will just have to raze hell for your mission until you do."

"Why?" Naruto asked her.

"I have cramps, so I'm in a bit of a bad mood."

"Cramps?"

"Can you answer that too for me?" she said to the trio, whose body language instantly turned uncomfortable. She grinned. At least they had an idea on what she was referring to. The best thing about it is that I'm having them on!

"Barring that last one," the blond one of the trio said, "I guess we have no choice but to answer your questions." He nodded to his peers and walked a few steps forward. "I didn't want to talk, but I'll explain it as well as I can."

All three removed their masks.

Natsumi's eyes were wide open, staring intently, almost dazedly, at the paradox before her. He was dead. He was supposed to be dead!

"We are here on a top secret mission from Konoha," the blond man said. "Time-travelers, this is indeed not the Rouran that you know. If I am right, the two of you must come from the future."

"The future?" Naruto repeated; then in a louder voice: "The future?!"

"Correct. I kept you in the dark mainly not to interfere with the flow of time. The future would change drastically if people from the future get involved in this era. This is most likely twenty years before your time." He studied their expressions and felt a little unnerved when the female time-traveler didn't stop gaping at him. It posed a lot of questions whether or not she knew him from the future, but he didn't dare ask. He continued, "There was a ninja who came here from the future six years ago. He came suddenly like you two. A ninja going by the name of Mukade."

Naruto quickly perked up at the mention of that name and told them that his team was tasked to find him before he was sent to this place, and then elaborated on how exactly that event played out. At the end of it, the older blond had an idea on what occurred and how Mukade and Naruto arrived in the past six years apart.

And all this time, Natsumi was still staring, mouth wide open, at the leader of the group. The man in the group wearing sunglasses wasn't keen on conversation, but he just had to tell her what she had been doing for the past three minutes.

"You're staring, Miss." That was all. He was certain he got the point across.

Natsumi quickly closed her mouth, biting her lower lip, tightening her fists, but didn't relent her staring. A myriad of emotions were applying pressure to her heart and mind, trying to force her to release them out into the open, to be controlled by these spur-of-the-moment, little things and let loose like there was no tomorrow. But she was strong and understood that not having self-control would hinder the situation. She wished to stay quiet, but even that seemed like a challenge she couldn't win, like a promise she couldn't keep. This man before her was her idol, the one she looked up to when she was a child, him in the flesh. And above all, the thought of finally having another hug from her father almost put a tear in her eye.

"Is it really you?" she whispered, not really intending to be heard. When he turned her way, along with everybody else, she said again, "Is it really you? Minato . . . Namikaze?"

Naruto couldn't understand the longing in her face. "Natsumi?"

"Minato Namikaze, right? It's you, isn't it?" Natsumi said, walking closer to Minato.

And like the hairline crack in a dam growing worse and worse until the accumulated force burst open a hole, she enfolded her arms around the Yondaime's waist, snugged her face onto his armor, and let the waterworks flow without reservations. She wanted this, needed this, wished for this. It had been a stressing year since the war began, and whenever she felt lost or depressed, she'd look up to the sky and ask herself, "What would Dad do if he were here?" Turning to the wisdom of the dead found little knowledge to overcome obstacles but it at least lessened the load burdened on her shoulders. Before she knew it, she had been hoping for a reunion more and more as the times she thought of him increased. She grew up without a father and probably accepted that she was orphaned—your father's gone, what point is there in hoping he'd come through that rusted gate and spread his arms for you to hug the life out of him—but after that one quick meeting inside her mind, during Pain's Invasion when she was inches close to succumbing to the Kyuubi's temptation and letting it loose, her strength crumbled and her indifference to being parentless rotted away in seconds. She wanted to feel him again like before.

But she also knew that this Minato didn't know her, never understood her pains and sufferings by viewing her life, didn't know that he would have a daughter in a few years. That simple thought brought her to reality, yet she didn't stop hugging him. Chronically wrong or not, she didn't care. This Minato Namikaze was still Minato Namikaze in her eyes, and she'd be damned if she just let this moment slip by without savoring it.

Minato coughed to get her attention. "I'm sure we've acquainted in the future, but please keep that information to yourself. Telling me anything about the future is dangerous."

Natsumi sighed and let go of the hug. "Yeah. My lips are sealed, Dad." She quickly covered her mouth, but the damage had already been done, seeing the wide-eyed looks of the males. "Oops."

"Wait, wait, wait." Naruto waved his hands at the wrists. "That dude's your Dad?! You guys don't look alike."

Knowing the jig was up, more or less, she decided to humor him. "Tsunade-baa-chan said I take after my mother a whole lot." A wistful smile entered her lips, and her eyes directed their gaze solely on Naruto, with her back to the three-man ninja team. "The tomboy attitude, the red hair, the fixation with ramen, the birth marks . . ." She trailed the three thin lines marring each of her beautiful cheeks, to which Naruto mirrored with his own. ". . . the only thing that I got from Dad was probably his wits and his eyes."

"Something tells me I know just who her mother is," Chouza Akimichi remarked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "What do you think?" he asked Shibi Aburame.

"My analysis procured a candidate with a possibility rate of 95%."

Minato clapped his hands, catching their attention. "All right, enough talk about the future." His command didn't really set the right mood due to the heavy blush on his cheeks—he also had an idea as to who was the mother of his future daughter; if he hadn't looked into her eyes or remembered that Kushina had her hair reaching the bottom of her thighs, he would've mistaken her as his lover.

"Ah, I just remembered something!" Naruto exclaimed, and dashed right in front of the older blond. "I thought you looked familiar somewhere. You look exactly like the Yondaime Hokage!"

Minato liked his optimistic attitude, but he also wanted to facepalm. It's like what I said went into one ear and exited the other, he thought wryly before smiling. Just like Kushina.

"Naruto," Natsumi said, "you weren't supposed to say that. He's not yet the Yondaime during this time."

"Eh?"

"Enough of this!" Sara suddenly shouted. She had been silent for too long without finding answers to whatever questions she had in her head, it seemed, and now she was standing in full force, acting like the queen she was meant to be. "I do not know why you Konoha ninjas come to Rouran and I do not care. But what I wish is to rectify one simple fact. It wasn't a criminal who came to Rouran six years ago, but a great man named Anroukuzan. He was the one who prospered this city into what it is today and I'd be damned before I let anyone talk about him the way you all are doing."

Minato stepped forward and addressed the matter before anyone else could. "We have reason to believe that this Anroukuzan you speak of is just using you. Currently, there have been eighteen separate reports that spoke of his misdeeds"—he purposefully left out the specifics of these misdeeds—"and the Sandaime thought it was time to send in a team to solve the problem."

"Well, you've wasted your time because there is no problem in Rouran."

"Queen Sara, please listen to us."

"I tire of this farce," she replied with finality. She turned her back to the ninjas and walked away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Natsumi asked.

"Away from you. Anroukuzan needs to be informed of your presence here."

"But you're still being targeted by an assassin."

"I'll take my chances with the city's puppet guards. I am in no need of services from alien shinobi."

"You're just going to make things worse for us, Sara," Naruto said. "Sara, wait! I said wait!" He wanted to go after her, but something in him believed that any voice of reason that tried to come close to her ears would be eradicated swiftly and unquestioningly. As of this moment, Sara was too fixated with the façade Mukade had put up to listen to them. "Why won't she believe us?"

"We're unknown to her," Natsumi answered. "We're strangers coming from outside Rouran, and the only thing we've done since coming here is concluding a conspiracy without proper proof."

"But we saved her!"

"Correction: You saved her. And slapped you silly afterwards."

Naruto rubbed his cheeks, suddenly feeling phantom pains from that experience. "So? What's the difference?"

"It seemed a little too convenient for a ninja to be there at the moment of her peril, don't you think? What if we were here to plant this conspiracy theory into her head to make her question the guy's truthfulness, to discredit him and such? Sara was probably thinking along those lines."

"She's right," Minato added. "We're disadvantaged by the neutrality between our nation and Rouran, and with the war going on, tensions are higher than ever. As it stands, Sara made the right choice as a leader." He then shook his head sadly. "But she's too narrow-minded to see the forest among the trees."

"So . . . what now?" Naruto asked.

"My team will do what we can to find Mukade," he replied. "However, Sara is left unprotected. I'm asking you two to protect her for the time being."

"Eh, but that's—"

"No buts. This is an order coming from a superior officer."

Natsumi raised her hand. "I've been field-promoted to jounin three months ago, sir." And if my suspicions are right, Naruto here is still a genin.

"Then as your . . . Hokage . . . I'm ordering you, Natsumi, to protect Queen Sara." To know he'd be Hokage in the future was still an overwhelming thought and he didn't give much time for his mind to fully comprehend the implications of it and what future awaited him.

"Yes sir," she answered without hesitation, but she couldn't help adding this little tidbit: "I'd follow orders from my father before the Hokage, though." She smiled cheekily at his surprise.

"So . . ." Naruto said.

"So . . ." Natsumi replied.

"So . . ."

". . . yeah." She hated repetition. "And if you say 'so' one more time, I'll sew your mouth shut after stuffing it with horse crap."

He grimaced. "Uh, okay then."

They were greeted with uncomfortable silence. It permeated for a long while before Naruto finally thought of something to talk about.

"The Yondaime Hokage is your Dad, huh?"

She stayed silent.

"You know, this is the first time I've heard of the Yondaime having a kid. How come nobody said anything about it?"

"Maybe because they kept it from me most of my life."

"Eh?"

"They knew. They've known for a long time that I'm the daughter of Minato Namikaze, but they never bothered to tell me. I could understand if they were doing so to protect me from Dad's old enemies, yet I find that more of an excuse than a valid reason." She scratched the side of her neck, a motion she rarely did unless she was agitated about something. "I grew up an orphan, Naruto. Do you know how happy I would've been to know who my parents were, to know that I was orphaned because my parents died rather than think that they abandoned me in that orphanage?"

"Yeah," he answered, with a few moments of hesitation. "I know the feeling."

"You don't know your parents either?" She didn't like lying, but she needed more proof before jumping to conclusions. If her theory was correct—and the discussion they had with her father upped the probabilities somewhat—then she needed to be sure that Naruto was whom she think he was.

Naruto nodded at her query. "Even now I don't. But I don't really mind. I've grown up alone most of my life, but ever since I became a ninja, I made friends that I treasure with all my heart."

"Like Sasuke, Sakura, Iruka-sensei, and Kakashi-sensei?"

"How'd you—"

"And Tsunade-baa-chan, Shizune-nee-chan, and Ero-sennin?"

"Ero . . . sennin?" As far as Naruto knew, he was the only one who used that nickname. "Natsumi, what are you—"

"Proving a little theory of mine," she interrupted again. "And with that look on your face, this must be unnerving you, huh?"

"You can say that again. How did you know . . . about all that?"

"Because they are my precious people, too."

"What?"

"Naruto, I know that Dad told us that we've come back twenty years into the past, but he didn't say anything about how that exactly worked or how the both of us have come into this timeline together."

"I'm not following you," he admitted. The discussion was breaching into a realm of confusion for him.

"Simply put, what if . . . time is like a tree root. It grows from the source and spread out, correct? And as it grows, it branches out over and over, multiplying the amount of paths it takes as they burrow the ground. So what if, say, in one particular root there are two paths it'd take. One path would be your timeline and the other would be my timeline. And when we travelled back into the past, we've moved past the fork that branches our individual histories."

"Uh . . . yeah. I get it." He didn't. Honestly didn't.

And Natsumi seemed to have picked that up, because she sighed out of frustration. "Okay, let me make it simpler for you." She took one deep breath and released the biggest revelation Naruto had ever faced yet. "I am you if you were born a girl."

Silence.

Five seconds went by.

"EEEEEEHHHHHHHH?!"

It wasn't easy to calm him down after the big reveal, but Naruto was known to take a lot of things in stride—you just need to give him time to adapt to it. Natsumi understood this because she was basically the same. When he got his wits back and the shock was slowly dispersing from his system, he slumped onto the rail and watched the festivities of the people below resuming, as if their queen hadn't fallen from a high balcony and almost died. The silence between them was palpable and thick, and Natsumi was unsure if this was a good thing. When she had first heard of these revelations, she began to formulate more questions than the given answers. Most of them were answered much later, but she doubted she'd be able to provide Naruto with his own. The thing was, excluding the general parts, she had no idea what Naruto's ninja life was like. Despite beliefs that their lifestyles hadn't diverted much because of a gender-swap, there were barely any real proofs to back them up. She doubted they had the same crush (unless of course he was gay) and undergone the same kind of rigorous training. Gender acted as a barrier between the specialty of kunoichi and shinobi, so while Natsumi had no idea what male-oriented stuff her counterpart had learned, she at least knew, without a doubt, he'd never put his manliness in jeopardy by partaking in kunoichi training. Even she had her womanly pride, which abhorred the thought of very male-oriented duties. She was pushing the borders as it was with her tomboy personality, but there was still enough femininity in her to know when to stop.

"Naruto," she called, wanting to break the silence. He had been leaning there with his head bowed low for almost two minutes now. "Naruto, come on. Say something."

He didn't reply.

Sighing almost dramatically, she stepped closer to the blond, raised one fist over her head, and plunged it down to the boy's cranium.

Naruto yelped and almost fell over the rails. He regained his bearings and swerved himself away from the rail, landing on his butt as he nursed his aching head. "Wha—what the hell did you do that for?"

"I hate moping," she said simply. "More so when it's someone else doing it. Geez, you're almost as emo as Sasuke for a minute there."

"Hey! I take offense to that."

"Do I look like I wanted to spare your feelings?"

Naruto's eye twitched. He stood, trying to make himself look taller than her, but the gap between their heights was only an inch. It took a moment later for him to realize that his want for confrontation inadvertently brought their faces close together, and his mind instantly went back to when they first met. He clenched his right hand, forcing himself to stop thinking about how soft her boob felt there.

Too bad he didn't force the creeping blush to stop its advance, and now Naruto's face was as red as Natsumi's, who was also reminded of their memorable first meeting. She looked away, took a step back and a deep breath.

"Were you telling the truth?" he inquired, taking a step back of his own while detouring the awkward moment to a matter his curiosity wanted to address. "Was the Yondaime really your father?"

She was silent for more than a few seconds needed to ponder the question and respond, and Naruto believed that she didn't hear his inquiry, but the words slipped out of her mouth before he had time to reiterate what he said.

"Yes," she admitted, a concentrated look in her eye, which Naruto surmised as her way of gauging his reaction to the news.

And it was with good reason, too, because while he was enthusiastic about not only knowing his father but that his father was also the Yondaime Hokage, of all people, he was also confused about another part of his emotions. This part contrasted with the earlier happy feelings.

While Naruto liked to revel in the thoughts of the Dreamer, he still had to face the other side of his psyche and emotions, the Realist. The Realist was the darker side of his mentality, declining most of the Dreamer's half-assed plans and wild ideas, understanding the difference between what is possible and what is not. The Dreamer was the thinker, while the Realist was the doer. And what it wanted to do was speak out the things Naruto and the Dreamer wished to shove aside and sweep it under the rug, never to be seen nor pondered again.

He knew it was unhealthy to ignore bad things and stick with the good ones. Ero-sennin spent a lot of time trying to get him out of this habit. He had been doing this throughout his childhood that it took the Toad Sage much more time to get him out of the hole he dug himself in for the better part of his ninja career. In the end, though, he finally began to see the imperfect world around him along with the imperfection he himself faced. He was still infatuated with Sakura—an attraction he found strange after reviewing the many rejections he had gotten from her—and he was still determined to bring back Sasuke to Konoha, promise of a lifetime or not.

But at least he adapted to these things well. On the case about his father and the hell he faced as the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki . . . it would take more than just a few minutes to face without wanting to curse up a storm. Another part of him wanted to bring about retribution for all the sufferings his father had caused, but another held him back, trying to put reason inside the rage seething in his system.

"You're curious on why Dad did this to us," Natsumi said, placing a hand on her stomach. "Trust me, Naruto. He didn't have a choice."

"Why? Because I was the only one at hand to seal the fox in?" Anger could not be controlled, and he made this emotion clear in his face and in his voice.

She expected this kind of response because she would've acted the same way. Didn't think I'd end up predicting someone's actions by picturing him as me and what I would've done, she thought wryly, but made sure not to show it outwardly.

"In truth, yes," she said, "but the Kyuubi no Youko's attack on Konoha was not a natural disaster as many believed."

"Wha—?" He stopped himself, reprocessed the words she just uttered. "What are you saying?"

Natsumi walked five paces away, facing her left where the view of nightly Rouran greeted her with celebratory fireworks and the cheers of the crowd below. A fleeting thought believed that the cheers sounded forced—artificial was what she meant to say—but its habitation in her head totaled to a mere second, dispersing soon after and shifting her thoughts to other matters—specifically, how to word the biggest secret that Konoha as a whole shrouded for years.

"You and I are not the first jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi," she said. When she was met with silence, it didn't take someone knowing fuinjutsu to realize Naruto was letting her elaborate. "Since the creation of the ninja villages, the bijuu have been in existence, and their stories of destruction brought fear to any living being, civilian and shinobi alike. The Shodai Hokage, Hashirama Senju, defeated Madara Uchiha at the Valley of the End, as it was written in official history. Unofficially, Hashirama-sama did not defeat Madara alone."

He wanted to speak out, but held his tongue. There was a gleam in Natsumi's eyes he picked up right away, stating to him that if he were to say something now, it would shatter whatever that was withholding Natsumi's attention in some faraway place. His self-restraint ended up meaningless when Natsumi snapped out of her trance alone. She closed her eyes tightly, cheeks twitching upwards, applying more force than necessary.

Naruto didn't think; he just acted on what he believed she needed right now. He enveloped her frame from behind, into his arms and closed them tightly. He expected an elbow to his gut—at least Sakura would've done this to him—but none came. Seconds passed and all he could hear were the noises of the festival fathoms beneath them and the unsteady rhythm of Natsumi's breathing. She was refraining from crying, then and now. And while this hug might not be the most welcoming act of comfort for a saddening memory Naruto had no idea of, he just knew she needed it.

He would've needed it if it were him.

"Shodai-sama received aid from a distant relative who serves a different ninja village. Her name was Mito . . . Mito Uzumaki. And she's also the grandmother of Tsunade."

Shock flooded his system. "Baa-chan's . . . baa-chan?"

Though it had been unintentional and certainly a way for him to word out his currently high-strung emotions, Natsumi snorted at his wording, forming a faint smile. "Pretty much, yeah," she admitted.

"Why didn't she tell me?"

"I don't know. I never confronted Tsunade-baa-chan about it. Or rather, I never got the chance to do so."

"Why not?"

"She died."

He was reduced to silence.

And she didn't want to think any more about how Tsunade exactly died. "There's more," she said. "The Uzumaki clan was renowned for their expertise in fuinjutsu—most of the seals we ninjas use today are modified constructs of Uzumaki sealwork. With that said, Mito used her fuinjutsu to save Shodai-sama from an unfair battle and become the very first jinchuuriki under Konoha's control.

"Years passed and Mito was getting older and weaker. Konoha deemed it fit to nominate a successor for Mito, and Mito's only condition was for the second jinchuuriki to be a member of the Uzumaki clan." She breathed deeply, running a hand through her crimson tresses. "There's something in our blood that makes us fit for becoming human containers for the bijuu. A select few of the Uzumaki possess a special type of chakra that not only accepts the presence of demonic chakra but suppresses it, too, if they wish it."

"This second . . ." Naruto couldn't utter the word. He detested it so, yet Natsumi, claiming to be an alternate of himself if he were born a girl, was saying it without grimacing, as if the word could roll of her tongue like any other word she could form. "This successor . . . what are his thoughts about becoming the next container?"

"She," Natsumi corrected, "wasn't informed of her role until after she lived a year in Konoha. She was only seven at the time."

It didn't really surprise Naruto as much as he wanted himself to act like he was. Despite the village bragging about staying in the honorable path and past leaders reiterating the presence of the Will of Fire in every ninja that dedicated their lives in the continued existence of Konoha, Naruto knew more than when he had been a rookie just fresh out of the Academy. The Academy acted as a barrier between the fantasy world all rookies look through in their eyes—before any deaths had come, before any blood had been shed, before fear, panic, and adrenaline coursed through their veins all at once—and the real world all veterans live in once the haze dissipated into nothing.

Ever since he was told of Jiraiya's death a week ago, he had been doing a lot of thinking. Jiraiya sacrificed his life to deliver one last coded message, yet nobody could even make heads or tails of the damn set of random numbers on the old toad's back. Not even him, Jiraiya's last pupil. It frustrated him to no end, wishing that just once, he'd know the secret behind his sensei's dying message and learn his enemy's weakness.

"It's someone quite close to us, too," Natsumi added. "She was chosen as the second jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Youko simply because she was the only Uzumaki of her generation who can materialize that special chakra into chains that bind and cage anyone and anything. Even the bijuu."

"Who?" He unknowingly started clenching his hands. Revelation after revelation . . . he doubted his high adaptability rate could match up to the amount coming his way, and there was that feeling in his gut that this new revelation would be as difficult as the previous one.

"Kushina Uzumaki."

Familiarity came to him within seconds, and while he prepared himself for it, he underestimated its magnitude. There was more Natsumi wanted to say, to reveal, but they were already wasting time as it was, and dawdling too long could mean the difference between a live queen and a dead queen. Naruto knew that saving Sara was a big priority, but his curiosity was quickly overcoming whatever sense of reason and hero complex he seemed to have garnered in his early adolescence. There was a time to save Sara and there was a time to learn more of his origins, yet all that had blurred within seconds after Natsumi uttered that name, Kushina Uzumaki.

"How?" There were unshed tears in his eyes, just waiting for the time to be released. "How?"

That question might be taken as pretty vague if the receiver was unsure of what the inquirer wanted to know, but Natsumi knew. Just knew. Because she already had an answer in mind: "The night of the tenth day of the tenth month, our birthday . . . it all went downhill from there."

While Natsumi was busy telling Naruto the hidden tale of the night that changed their lives, Queen Sara was pulled into a dark utility room with a dozen masked women holding makeshift weapons and trying to look as intimidating as they wished to look. Nobody stepped in to save her, although she didn't really need saving.

The timeline was gradually changing due to this female Naruto's presence, and there was no stopping it. But what did this mean for Naruto and the destiny he was entrusted in by fate? For better or for worse, it mattered little. Naruto would've known about his family, his role in the prophecy, and his darkness in time. It was just that, in this timeline, he learned things much, much earlier.