Chapter 1: The Last of Us
Chapter Text
## **Prologue – The Last of Us**
The battlefield was silent, save for the howling wind that carried the echoes of war. **Naruko Uzumaki**, the last of her kind, stood at the edge of destruction. The remnants of **Konoha**, her home, were little more than ashes and ruin. **The Fourth Shinobi War** had devastated the world, and with it, her friends—the **Konoha 11**, **Kakashi**, **Yamato**, **Sai**, and **Tsunade**—were lost to the flames of war.
Naruko stood alone, the last of the warriors who fought and failed. Her body was bruised, her chakra nearly depleted, but her spirit refused to break. She couldn’t save them. She couldn’t stop the tide of destruction that had swept over them all.
Her eyes, once full of hope and resolve, were now empty, haunted by the losses. Her fingers twitched, the sensation of her friends' lives slipping through her fingers, the weight of her failure unbearable.
But she couldn’t let this be the end. **Not again.**
“I... I have to save them,” she whispered, barely audible over the wind.
In the deepest recesses of her mind, a voice rumbled. **Kurama**. But this time, it was not just the Nine-Tails.
*“Naruko,”* the voice said, not just **Kurama**'s, but the collective voices of all the **biju**.
*“We have watched. We have seen the future, your suffering. The pain you’ve endured... We will help you.”*
Naruko’s breath hitched. The **nine biju**, the most powerful beings in the world, had never spoken to her like this before.
*“What do you mean?”* she asked, her voice shaking with disbelief.
*“We are bound to you, Naruko. You have always been our vessel, but now you are something more.”*
**Shukaku**, the one-tailed beast, continued, his voice gritty, but strong. *“We sense your desire to undo the destruction, the desperation in your heart. If you wish to change fate, we will help you.”*
**Matatabi**, the two-tailed beast, purred in agreement. *“We have power beyond time itself, and we will give it to you. You are not alone in this.”*
One by one, each biju added their voice: **Isobu**, **Son Goku**, **Kokuo**, **Saiken**, **Chomei**, **Gyuki**, and **Kurama**. Their collective chakra surged, filling Naruko with an overwhelming power.
*“We grant you the ability to traverse time. The jutsu you need will require every ounce of your strength and ours. Once you step into the past, there is no going back.”*
Naruko clenched her fists, feeling their combined power coursing through her. She knew the cost, the sacrifices she would have to make. But she didn’t care. She would do anything to save them.
*“I... I won’t fail again.”* Her words were fierce, her resolve unshakable.
The biju’s chakra exploded outward, wrapping around her, their collective energy pulsing through her veins. The seals on her body glowed brightly, flaring to life as the power of all nine beasts surged into her. The wind picked up, howling, and the ground trembled beneath her feet.
Naruko’s chakra exploded outward in a dazzling burst of light, and the world around her began to warp. **Time fractured.**
---
**Time fractured.**
---
She fell, falling through the cracks of reality itself. Light and shadow twisted around her, and for a brief moment, Naruko felt herself slip into the void, a sensation of weightlessness that threatened to overwhelm her.
And then—everything stopped.
She landed, her body hitting the earth with a heavy thud. Her heart pounded as she gasped for breath. The world around her was different. **Konoha** was standing, the streets full of life, the buildings intact. The **Hokage Monument** towered above her, the faces of the Hokage still etched in stone.
She had done it. She had traveled back in time. **Two years before the Third Shinobi War.**
Naruko pushed herself to her feet, the overwhelming power of the biju still swirling inside her, now silent but ever-present. She had one chance. One chance to rewrite history, to save **Konoha 11**, **Kakashi**, **Yamato**, **Sai**, and **Tsunade** before everything fell apart.
But as she stood in the middle of the bustling village, she could feel it. **The thread of fate** was already beginning to shift. She had made her move, and the future—both hers and the world’s—would never be the same.
---
Chapter 2: Chapter 1
Chapter Text
---
**
*"She shouldn’t be alive,” the medic said, kneeling beside the small, unmoving form.*
*"Then maybe,” Sakumo murmured, eyes shadowed beneath his headband, “she’s exactly what we need.”*
*"Is she a survivor?"* the ANBU asked, crouched beside him, blade still dripping.
Sakumo’s eyes narrowed at the girl—golden-haired, burned, and twitching with a chakra so heavy it warped the air. Her whiskered face trembled despite the embers dying around her.
“No,” Sakumo said, voice low. “She’s the warning we didn’t understand.”
---
### **Earlier That Night – Iwa Border Camp**
The sky was black, moonless. Shadows danced across the ridge as Sakumo Hatake signaled a halt with two fingers. Behind him, four masked shinobi in black cloaks crouched low—no hitai-ate, no insignia.
The mission: infiltrate a fortified Iwa supply camp and destroy their weapon reserves before the war front pushed further west.
"Eyes up," Sakumo whispered. "Two sentries at the east wall. Take them clean."
The shinobi nodded. With silent precision, two figures vanished in a flicker of motion. One used a short blade, the other genjutsu and a kunai. No sound. No alarm.
Then—it happened.
A sudden *crack*, like the world had torn in half.
A **chakra burst** exploded from within the camp—so dense, so *vile*, it sent a wave of pressure across the ridge. Sakumo's entire team reeled.
"What... is that?" Kizashi Shiranui gasped, his hands shaking. "It’s... wrong."
Hyūga Hitoshi activated his Byakugan. His eyes bulged. “Chakra... it’s overwhelming. Twisted. It’s... a child?!”
Below them, the Iwa camp was in chaos. Shinobi scrambled from tents, shouting and running toward the center.
“We move now!” Sakumo barked.
The five dropped from the ridge like shadows, pulling shawls over their faces as they descended into war.
---
### **Battle: Hidden Flame and Iron**
The Iwa shinobi turned at the last second—too late. Kiko Uchiha struck first, her genjutsu layering over her blade strokes. Two enemies fell instantly, illusions sealing their movements before death arrived.
Sakumo leapt through a rising smoke bomb, his white chakra blade carving arcs through the dark. An explosion blew the eastern wall, sending debris flying. Hitoshi’s palm strikes followed, disrupting tenketsu with Hyūga precision.
Kizashi lit the path behind them—explosive tags igniting like lightning bugs in the storm.
"Scatter them!" Sakumo shouted.
Enemy kunai clattered uselessly off their evasions. Fire clashed with wind, genjutsu clouded vision, and steel ended breath. In minutes, the elite Konoha unit stood over the bodies of Iwa’s finest—some dead, others unconscious.
But the true anomaly was still inside.
---
### **The Center of the Storm**
The weapon cache lay untouched—but near it, in the rubble of a shattered central tent, four Iwa shinobi lay unconscious in a perfect circle.
In the middle... a little girl.
She was no older than five. Her golden-blonde hair glowed faintly, haloed by residual chakra. Her skin pulsed with heat, and faint **whisker marks** shimmered on her cheeks.
Her eyes—closed for now—had left a dent in the earth around her.
They all felt it: an instinctive urge to step back, to vomit, to flee.
“She’s the source,” Kiko muttered. “That chakra... it’s unnatural.”
“She’s a **Jinchūriki**,” Hitoshi hissed, veins bulging around his eyes. “An unstable one. We should end her now.”
“No.” Sakumo stepped forward, eyes locked on the girl. “She’s not just a container. She’s something else.”
Without a word, Kiko flickered behind her, placed two fingers at the base of her skull, and cast a sleeping genjutsu.
The chakra quieted... barely.
“What now?” Hitoshi snapped. “We kill the Iwa survivors. And her.”
“No,” Sakumo said. “We’re taking her to Konoha.”
“You’re mad!” Hitoshi stepped forward. “If she wakes up—if she lashes out again—she could destroy half the forest!”
“We’ll bind her chakra. She’s coming.”
Kizashi crouched beside the girl. “Huh... you notice? She looks a lot like that Minato kid. The hair. The eyes.”
“Minato’s eighteen,” Kiko scoffed. “Unless he’s suddenly a parent, that girl isn’t his.”
“Shut up,” Sakumo snapped. “We’re in enemy territory. We move in ten.”
---
### **The Retreat**
They moved through the night in silence. The girl was unconscious, her chakra sealed beneath five layers of suppression tags. Still, the air warped faintly around her as they traveled.
Birds fell silent. Insects stopped buzzing. Even the trees bent subtly away.
“She’s distorting the land itself,” Hitoshi muttered.
“She's not ordinary,” Sakumo said softly, adjusting the girl in his arms. “But she’s ours now. Until we know what she is... we protect her.”
They kept running. And behind them, Iwa burned.
---
Comment your feeling about this story below
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Summary:
Hi my cute little Reader.l hope you like the previous chapter.
Chapter Text
.....
The night was quiet, unnaturally so. Not even the cicadas dared cry. The five shinobi moved like whispers through the tall trees flanking the main road to Konoha. At their center, cloaked in a heavy shawl and bound in suppressive chakra tags, lay the unconscious girl.
Sakumo Hatake held her close, his white hair tangled from the wind, but his eyes sharp and watchful. He said nothing, but his grip never wavered. The child felt too light. Too cold. Too wrong. But something deep in his gut told him this girl wasn’t a burden. She was a sign.
“We’re almost at the gates,” muttered Kizashi Shiranui, voice tight.
“No talking,” barked Kiko Uchiha. “We’re shadows tonight. No symbols. No words.”
The squad moved under full concealment, bearing no Konoha markings. They weren’t supposed to be there. Sakumo had broken protocol by bringing the girl back without reporting to HQ first. But rules could wait.
Destiny didn’t follow protocol.
The Konoha gate guards didn’t speak as the cloaked shinobi approached. They could feel it before they saw it—a pressure, low and thrumming, like a suppressed scream wrapped in chakra. The girl wasn’t moving, but her very presence made the guards’ skin crawl.
“Identification,” one of them called, hand on his kunai.
Sakumo dropped the hood, letting moonlight strike his face. The silver-haired White Fang needed no introduction.
The guards immediately stepped aside.
“Send word to the Hokage,” Sakumo said. “Tell him it’s urgent.”
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood before the window of the Hokage Tower, arms folded, gaze locked on the moon. The door creaked, and in stepped the ANBU escort, followed by Sakumo.
He carried the child like she was both fragile and lethal—and she was. Even unconscious, her sealed chakra pulsed in eerie rhythms, leaking power no child should possess.
“Explain,” Hiruzen said, his voice as calm as an unused sword.
Sakumo laid the girl on the mission table.
“We were infiltrating an Iwa supply camp,” he began. “A recon-and-destroy. But when we reached the compound, we felt something… different. A chakra burst. It was wrong. Malicious. Heavy. Like drowning in lightning.”
Hiruzen frowned. “And you found her in the center?”
Sakumo nodded. “Everyone else in the camp was unconscious. Some with scorched skin, others with signs of chakra disruption. But this girl… she was untouched. And her chakra was sealed. Not by them. By someone else.”
One of the ANBU leaned forward. “She could be a living weapon. A prototype Jinchūriki.”
“No,” Hiruzen said, stepping forward. “This seal is not Iwa’s work. It’s older. More precise. Fuinjutsu on this level... only the Uzumaki could manage it.”
Silence filled the room.
“Then we may be dealing with a child of Uzushio,” the ANBU said.
“Or a warning,” Sakumo muttered.
Hiruzen stared at the girl. “Place her in the secured ward. Seal every exit. Rotate ANBU around the clock. I want this child watched by people who don’t flinch easily.”
In the dim-lit medical wing, the girl lay still. Her golden hair spread like sunlight across white sheets. Her pulse was steady. Her breathing light. But her chakra—even sealed—was a vortex.
Jiraiya stood beside the med-nin, freshly summoned back from a scouting mission.
“You’re saying she has all nine biju signatures?” he asked.
The medic nodded slowly. “I didn’t believe it either. But there are traces of every tailed beast’s chakra. Not active, not alive, but… present. Like echoes.”
Jiraiya grimaced. “You don’t just make something like this. You survive it.”
A nurse stepped back as the girl twitched. For a second, the sealing marks on her arms glowed.
Then, she opened her eyes.
Naruko stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.
The air felt wrong. The light too bright. Her limbs were sluggish. The seals hummed against her skin.
“Kurama?” she whispered.
No response.
She tried to sit up but winced. Her muscles felt like they hadn’t moved in weeks.
The door opened. A man stepped in. Tall, quiet, with calculating eyes and a calm presence—Shikaku Nara. His gaze settled on her with curiosity and caution.
He knelt down to her level, voice slow and gentle.
“Hey there. Can you tell us your name?”
Naruko stared at him blankly.
Inoichi Yamanaka entered next. Slightly younger, his long blonde hair tied back, wearing the flak jacket of a Jonin. His eyes were wary, his steps measured.
“How old are you, little one?” he asked. “Where’s your home? Do you live in Iwa?”
Still no answer.
“Do you know your parents’ names? Their address?” Shikaku tried again, softer. “Are they nearby?”
Silence. Her expression was calm. Unreadable.
Then, her gaze sharpened. Her lips parted—not with answers, but questions.
“Why do you want to know?” she said, voice small but firm. “Who are you? Where am I? What village is this? Why are you watching me?”
Inoichi glanced at Shikaku.
Shikaku stood. “She’s not going to answer. Not now.”
They exited the room, closing the door gently behind them.
In the hallway outside, the two men exchanged glances.
“She didn’t flinch. Not once,” Inoichi murmured. “It was like… she was evaluating us.”
“She doesn’t talk like a child. Doesn’t think like one, either.” Shikaku frowned. “I’m starting to see what Sakumo meant.”
Jiraiya joined them. “Minato and Kushina were kidnapped by Iwa five years ago, weren’t they?”
Shikaku nodded slowly. “Rescued two years later. Both were in recovery for months.”
“You think she could be their child?” Inoichi asked.
“Possible,” Jiraiya said. “She looks like Minato. And that chakra... it’s not natural.”
“But why would she be in Iwa’s hands until now?”
“Or why would they seal her like that?” Shikaku added.
“Too many questions,” Jiraiya said. “And no answers from her.”
Outside, the moon drifted behind clouds. The wind shifted.
In a forgotten shrine deep in the Land of Earth, a seal stone pulsed once.
Then again.
The wind whispered over empty graves and broken walls.
Something ancient stirred.
Something remembering.
And in the void where the biju once roamed freely, nine spirits blinked—
And waited.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Notes:
Hey guy what up.. l hope my cute little readers are okay and hope you guys will like this chapter.
And advanced sorry for grammartical mistakes
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The atmosphere inside the Hokage Tower was suffocating. Tension weighed in the air like a dense fog as Hiruzen Sarutobi stared down at the paper in his hand—a report sealed with the insignia of the ANBU. It was time. Time to do what he had been dreading. Time to face the parents.
He took a deep breath and turned toward the meeting chamber, where Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki waited. The young couple, both visibly rattled, stood the moment he entered.
“Hiruzen-sama,” Minato said tightly. “What’s going on? You said it was urgent.”
Kushina’s eyes were narrowed, her fists clenched. She had not slept much, her hair slightly dishevelled and her aura flaring with unease.
Hiruzen sat down slowly, motioning for them to do the same. “It’s about the little girl... the one we recovered.”
Minato leaned forward. “You said she was found in an enemy base... that she had our chakra signatures. What does that mean?”
Hiruzen hesitated. “The DNA test results confirm that she is your biological daughter.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Kushina’s lips parted slightly, confusion rippling across her face. “We don’t have a daughter.”
“You did,” Hiruzen said gently. “I believe... something happened. Something unnatural. You were kidnapped years ago by an unknown enemy, Shinobi. You were missing for four days. When you returned, you remembered nothing beyond leaving for the mission.”
Minato’s eyes widened. “I thought... I thought we were just ambushed and knocked out.”
“No,” Hiruzen said. “I believe the kidnappers did something to your minds. A powerful genjutsu or perhaps sealing technique to erase your memories. Most likely as a form of protection for the child or as part of an experiment.”
Kushina stood abruptly. “You’re saying I forgot... I forgot my own baby?” Her voice trembled.
Minato rose and touched her arm gently. “Kushina...”
“I will never forget my child!” she yelled, tears burning her eyes. “I would die before that! How could I—how could they—”
Hiruzen sighed deeply. “We don’t know how they did it. Only that they did. And that girl... Naruko... she remembers everything.”
“Naruko?” Minato repeated softly.
“She named herself. Said no one else ever did.”
Kushina sat back down slowly, trembling. “What... what happened to her?”
Hiruzen looked grim. “It’s hard to say. We found her in a hidden Iwa camp surrounded by lwa Shinobi. There are many hidden underground laboratories. Maybe they did some experiments on her, but we are not sure what they did as everyone is dead. She wasn’t alone, but... she was their favourite experiment subject. Or their target.”
Kushina’s hands flew to her mouth as tears spilt down her cheeks. Minato closed his eyes, jaw clenched. The pain of the truth hit harder than any enemy jutsu.
“She’s alive,” Hiruzen added quickly. “But traumatized. And... she carries all nine bijū chakras inside her.”
Minato paled. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” Hiruzen said. “Not anymore.”
---
Meanwhile, in the hospital wing under constant ANBU watch, Naruko tossed and turned in her bed. Sweat coated her tiny forehead, and her breaths were shallow. She whimpered, face scrunching in fear as another nightmare seized her.
In her dream, flames licked the edges of a shattered battlefield. Blood soaked the ground. A monstrous creature—Ten-Tails—roared into the heavens, its many eyes burning with malice. And beside it, a figure cloaked in darkness: Madara Uchiha.
She screamed as she saw Tsunade—her Tsunade bachan—her only mother figure in this strange, lonely life—struck down. Her arms were torn, her body breaking.
“Bachan!” she cried, reaching out.
Madara turned his gaze on her. "You are an abomination. A failed vessel. You will be next."
Naruko jerked awake, eyes wide with terror. Her breath caught in her throat. The walls felt like they were closing in. The seal on her belly pulsed painfully, reacting to her fear.
She couldn't stay here. Not where the walls whispered and the darkness loomed. Not where memories gnawed at her soul.
She slipped out of bed, tiny feet padding silently against the cold tiles. The ANBU posted outside sensed nothing—Naruko’s chakra was masked perfectly, a result of her bijū blending into her presence like shadows in the moonlight.
She navigated the corridors like a ghost, dodging nurses and silently slipping through half-open doors.
Outside, the air was cold. The stars shimmered above. Naruko wandered through the quiet streets of Konoha, eyes wide with wonder and sorrow.
Then, she tripped.
Right into someone’s chest.
“Whoa!”
Naruko looked up.
A boy with spiky black hair and kind, surprised eyes looked down at her. He blinked. “Hey, are you okay?”
She stared.
“You... smell like tomatoes,” she said.
Shisui Uchiha blinked again. “What?”
She pouted. “Tomatoes. And something smoky.”
He knelt down. “Are you lost? Where are your parents?”
Naruko tilted her head. “I don’t know. But I had a dream. A really bad one.”
His expression softened. “You wanna talk about it?”
She looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, nodded. Shisui stood and offered her his hand. She took it.
Together, they walked under the streetlamps, her little fingers curled around his.
“You're warm,” she murmured.
“Uh... thanks?” he chuckled nervously. “What’s your name?”
“...Naruko.”
“Nice to meet you, Naruko. I’m Shisui.”
She smiled faintly. “You’re weird.”
He laughed. “Takes one to know one.”
---
Back at the hospital, the ANBU operative assigned to Naruko’s room entered quietly to check on her.
The bed was empty.
Blankets tossed aside.
The window is slightly ajar.
“Shit,” the masked ninja muttered.
Within seconds, another ANBU appeared.
“She’s gone,” the first said grimly.
They swept the hospital floor by floor, chakra-sensing jutsu lighting up every hall.
Nothing.
Panic set in. Naruko wasn’t just a traumatized child. She was a ticking time bomb of bijū chakra and, more importantly, the daughter of two of the most powerful shinobi in Konoha.
And she had vanished.
They didn’t waste time. A small scroll was unfurled and vanished in a puff of smoke—an emergency message was dispatched.
---
Hiruzen was still in the chamber with Minato and Kushina, both visibly shaken when the ANBU burst in.
“Hokage-sama. The child. She’s gone.”
“What?” Hiruzen stood so fast his chair tipped backwards.
“Gone?” Kushina’s voice was shrill. “How? She was under guard!”
“We don’t know. No chakra signature. No signs of a forced exit. She vanished.”
Minato was already forming a seal. “I’ll search the village. Every district.”
Kushina’s hair flared red like wildfire. “I swear to Kami if someone took her again—”
“She wasn’t taken,” Hiruzen said grimly. “She ran. From her nightmares. From the pain. She doesn’t trust us yet.”
“But she’s just a child!” Minato growled. “Our child!”
Kushina turned to Hiruzen, her voice trembling. “If she’s lost again... if we lose her now\...”
“We won’t,” Hiruzen said, though fear churned in his gut. Not just fear of losing Naruko, but fear of what Danzo would do if he discovered this first.
Danzo, the manipulator. The man who thought emotions were weaknesses and people were tools. Who would see Naruko not as a child, not as a person—but as a weapon. A vessel of unimaginable power.
“He’ll take her,” Hiruzen whispered. “Danzo, If he finds her, he’ll try to control her like an emotional, puppet. Use her as a weapon.”
Minato’s eyes blazed. “Not if I find her first.”
“We’ll all search,” Kushina said fiercely. “Every shadow, every alley, every rooftop.”
Outside, the clouds parted above Konoha. Moonlight spilt over the village, illuminating rooftops, training grounds, and quiet streets.
Somewhere under that same moon, Naruko sat beside Shisui Uchiha, sharing her nightmare in a hushed voice.
And in the Hokage Tower, the storm had begun.
To be continued...
Notes:
so guys I am confused with couple choice
whom kakashi would with
1. Rin (I don't want broke heart but it's true that also didn't love obito like in romantically)
2. hanara (whom kakashi help in his childhood in canon who later turn with spy from enemy village)
3. Anko
4. shizuna
Chapter 5: Chapter 3
Notes:
Hello guys what's up . L hope my reader like previous chapter of the fiction. It's my first time writing on time travel. So l hope guys will like it
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chapter 3
Darkness. Cold. The sting of metal against bare skin.
That was Naruko’s first memory after the time travel—a blur of searing chakra, a pull inside her seal, and then silence. When she awoke, it was not in Konoha. Not anywhere familiar. There were stone walls. Damp floors. The clinking sound of chains never stopped.
The Iwa shinobi had found her.
They didn’t treat her like a child. Not even like a human.
Heavy chains were wrapped around her wrists, ankles, and neck—each inscribed with chakra suppression kanji. Needles were jabbed into her arms regularly, filled with strange liquids that made her insides twist and burn. They spoke little, and when they did, it was clinical. Detached. Like she was a puzzle they couldn’t quite solve.
Sometimes, they’d throw her into a water tank, her small form suspended in glass while seals surrounded her like a cage. She wasn’t alone. Other children were there too. Some cried. Some screamed. Some just stared.
But none of them were treated like her.
Every test, every injection, every experiment—their focus was always her. As if they knew there was something inside her they didn’t understand.
As if they feared it.
Maybe someone, somehow, collected all the bijū chakra and sealed it into her.
Weeks passed. Maybe months. Time meant little in that place. But then the walls shook one night. Explosions echoed through the halls. Voices shouted. Metal doors bent under chakra-infused strikes.
And then—light.
A silver-haired man carrying a blade streaked with crimson stood above her. The moment their eyes met, she blacked out.
Now, far away from that hell, in the heart of Konoha, the air was thick with tension.
Inside the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi stood by the window, pipe untouched, his brow furrowed with unease.
He had faced wars, watched comrades die, and made decisions that changed nations—but this... this was unlike anything before.
A toddler girl who carried the chakra signature of all nine bijū.
An impossibility.
Even a one-tailed beast in a human host was dangerous. Two? Lethal. Nine? Insanity.
And yet the medical scans, the sealing records, and the presence felt by every experienced ninja who stood near her confirmed it: the impossible now breathed in his village.
The door opened. Four trusted shinobi entered without a word.
Sakumo Hatake is stern and quiet.
Jiraiya, damp from travel, eyes sharp.
Shikaku Nara is as unreadable as ever.
And Inoichi Yamanaka, his expression dark with what he’d seen.
“She’s stable,” Inoichi said first. “But the chakra inside her isn’t. It’s like it’s... waiting.”
“Her DNA,” Sakumo added, setting a scroll on Hiruzen’s desk, “matches Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. It’s undeniable. She is their daughter.”
“But neither of them remembers her,” Hiruzen said heavily.
“Kushina nearly blew up the interrogation chamber when we asked her,” Inoichi muttered. “Minato’s confused. Genuinely. Kushina’s just furious. We’ve had to put her under observation.”
Shikaku groaned. “Too troublesome. She replaced the seal team’s ink with hot mustard. Every time we try to question her again, another prank.”
Jiraiya snorted. “That sounds like Kushina. But this... this is bigger. The girl didn’t just carry the Nine-Tails. All nine. That’s not supposed to be possible.”
“It’s not,” Hiruzen agreed. “The First Hokage captured them. Then, for peace and balance, we distributed them. One-Tail to Suna. Two and Eight to Kumo. Three and Six to Kiri. Seven to Uzushio before its fall. Four and Five..."
“Lost during the Second War,” Sakumo said.
“So how does a child—barely five years old—have traces of all nine?” Jiraiya asked. “Unless someone gathered their chakra and sealed it into her. Or..."
“There’s a second set of bijū out there?” Shikaku finished, eyes narrowing.
Silence.
“That’s ridiculous,” Inoichi muttered. “But so is she.”
“Maybe she’s not a Jinchūriki,” Jiraiya said. “Not in the traditional sense. Maybe she’s... something else. A container. An experiment. The Iwa base we found her in—it was off the books. Hidden laboratory. Even their own forces didn’t know about it.”
Hiruzen looked down at the scroll. “They had other children there. But the records were burned. Why focus only on her?”
“They knew,” Sakumo said. “Or suspected. Maybe someone tampered with the timeline. Maybe they caught her as she arrived. That could explain why they were experimenting on her so heavily.”
“So what do we do?” Shikaku asked. “Tell Minato and Kushina?”
Hiruzen exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. The moment they know, things get more complicated. Especially with how unstable Kushina already is.”
“She’s their daughter,” Sakumo pressed. “Even if she’s... not normal.”
“She’s not,” Inoichi said. “Not by a long shot. She hides what she knows. Speaks in code. Doesn’t react like a child. She called out the Nine-Tails by name.”
“She’s also terrified,” Jiraiya said. “But not of us. Of what she’s become.”
The room went quiet again.
“Give her time,” Hiruzen finally said. “And monitor her constantly. If she begins showing signs of instability, I want to know before anyone else.”
“And what about the bijū?” Shikaku asked. “If they’re inside her—what happens when they wake up?”
“Then we pray,” Hiruzen said simply.
Shikaku groaned again and slammed his forehead lightly on the table. “Still too troublesome.”
Hiruzen gave him a pitying smile.
Outside, the clouds parted slightly, the moonlight casting silver over Konoha’s rooftops. In a sealed room below the Hokage Tower, Naruko lay curled beneath thick blankets.
She wasn’t asleep. Her eyes stared at the ceiling.
In the depths of her consciousness, a whisper stirred.
Then another.
And then nine voices in unison:
“She is awake.”
“She remembers.”
“She is us.”
Naruko closed her eyes.
And the seal on her abdomen pulsed once.
Deep in a crater far away, nine stones began to glow.
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