Then I found the last straw.
At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Then I could, and I found myself staring numbly at the passage from Sarutobi’s personal journal as the pieces fell into place. It explained so much. And I could see exactly who would have wanted things this way, and why.
“Sakura?” Hinata asked. “Are you alright? What did you find?”
“It’s…about Naruto,” I said. “The Hokage knew who his parents were. It says here he was going to keep it a secret until he made jounin, supposedly to protect him from his parents’ enemies.”
Hinata thought about that one for a moment, and sat down next to me. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No. His mother was Uzumaki Kushina, a kunoichi from a minor village called Whirlpool that was destroyed in the last great war. It sounds like she died in the Kyuubi attack. But his father was the Fourth Hokage.”
Hinata froze, and I could swear the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. After a moment she asked, “Who knew?”
“They were secretly engaged, but never actually married. Sarutobi, Jiraiya and Tsunade for sure. Wait…Jiraiya was his godfather. That’s what all those arguments he had with the Third were really about. Damn. Judging from those arguments the council had over letting him attend the academy I think Danzo and the advisers knew too, and probably some of the clan heads. And Minato told his genin team about Kushina, so they had to suspect. That would be…my god. The last survivor of his genin team is Kakashi.”
Hinata bowed her head. “The Fourth Hokage was the greatest hero this village has. How could they do that to his son?”
“Danzo would want a beaten-down puppet, and the advisors would go along. Sarutobi talks big, but he’d bow to pressure once the civilians started getting hysterical about the Kyuubi. Tsunade was already gone. Jiraiya tried to take care of him, but he wasn’t quite willing to start a civil war over it.”
“I am,” Hinata said fiercely. “I’m going make them pay. Not just in the loop, either. I’m going to find out who knew, who was responsible, and when we escape I’m going to give every last one of them the death they deserve.”
She looked up defiantly, with tears in her eyes. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“Stop you? Why the hell would I do that?” I growled. “I’ll be right there with you, Hinata.”
Neither of us had much stomach for more research after that, so I put her to sleep and copied her memories an hour earlier than usual. Then I left, to wander the war-torn streets of the city and contemplate the corruption that hid beneath its surface. After awhile I made my way to the top of the Hokage monument and sat looking out over the ruins, wishing I wasn’t alone. I remembered the time I’d sat here with the real Naruto, and wondered if I’d ever actually see him again. It had been so long…
The loop ended, and I found myself back in bed. But something was different. My alarm wasn’t going off, and there was a presence in my room. It was expertly suppressed, leaving only a feeling of blankness where the intruder stood, but even that was enough to wake me.
Looks like we’ve got another shared loop already, my other self commented sleepily. Wonder who it is?
Whoever it was approached my bed in complete silence, and I wished I had Hinata’s eyes. I wasn’t ready to deal with Sasuke again, but against someone this good any motion at all would give away the fact that I wasn’t asleep.
Then the intruder bent over me and began a jutsu, and his masking slipped. His chakra was male, a gigantic maelstrom of pure blue power shot through with faint traces of the Kyuubi’s alien red.
“Naruto!” I threw my arms around him, and pulled him down into an enthusiastic kiss.
8. Reunions
His jutsu went off as our lips touched, and as I felt my body transform I thought for a moment that he’d used something like Sexy Victim Technique on me. But it wasn’t just my body that was affected. An ocean of chakra washed deep into my soul, touching me more intimately than any lover ever had, warping and strengthening and changing things…
I head a door slam shut somewhere deep in the depths of my mind, but I could hardly remember what that meant. Everything was so fuzzy, suddenly. It was the start of a new loop with Naruto, a rare event that felt as familiar as breathing. His was kissing me, and I didn’t know if this was a long-sought reunion or just another day with my…
…my what?
My lover? Yes. My partner and teacher, the man who protects me when I’m weak and cheers me on when I’m strong. But wait, I’d never had that with anyone, let alone Naruto. Or had I? My head spun, and I tried to distance myself from the delightful things his tongue was doing to my mouth and assess myself. Only I couldn’t quite remember how.
Suddenly panicked, I pushed him away hard. In my old loop-start form all my strength could barely budge him, but it was enough to break the kiss. He pulled away to give me a concerned look.
“Sakura?” He asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. “Something’s not right. I’m confused, and I can’t think straight, and I’m not sure I even know who I am. What the hell did you do to me?”
He frowned. “The same thing I always do, sweetie. You’re not really the looping Sakura, but I can kind of transform you into her. I know your memory is pretty fuzzy across loops, but usually enough comes through that you know what’s going on.”
I stared at him.
“Naruto, how can you possibly…” I began, but then the answer came to me. “Wait. A normal henge is just an illusion, but the more chakra you put into it the more real it gets. If you overpower it enough it’s pretty much real, which is how you invented Sexy Technique. So you made a version that’s so stupidly overpowered it actually transforms the target’s mind?”
“You do remember!” He looked relieved. “Good. I bet the rest of it will come back to you soon.”
I frowned in confusion. Was I really was a transformed version of my non-looping self? It felt like the truth, but at the same time it didn’t make any sense. Although I suppose it wasn’t any harder to believe than…
…than…
…it was at the tip of my tongue. Something I’d done myself that was easily an S-rank technique. But I couldn’t remember what it was. I clutched at my head and growled in frustration.
“Argh! I’ve got so many loose associations floating around in my head I can barely function, and I can’t remember how to fix it! I need….there was something I can do…that’s it! Give me a minute.”
I tried to drop into my mindscape, something that I was sure should be as easy as breathing. But most of me couldn’t seem to remember the way, and I found myself stuck halfway down. I flailed helplessly in darkness, and a fragment of memory reminded me that I’d done my best to shape the entrance so that no one else would fit. I’d wanted to keep out mind-walkers like Ino’s clan, but now it seemed that I’d locked myself out.
A strong hand grabbed my ankle and pulled. The parts of me that didn’t fit ripped free one by one as I was dragged through the narrow keyhole in my own defenses, and I stifled a sudden scream of agony. A moment later I heard my own voice cry out in surprise and fear, but by then I was through. My rescuer and I tumbled into sunlit grass in a tangle of slender limbs and pink hair, as the confusion that had filled me evaporated like mist. Granted, the blinding headache that replaced it wasn’t much fun, but at least it was something I knew how to deal with.