Naruto ended up at an inconvenient location at an inconvenient timing, right behind a lonely redhead who sat on a swing with a wide berth between him and the other children. Grateful that no one saw his arrival, Naruto decided to approach the young boy who seemed to be about the same age as his current body. The children were all too busy playing to even send a glance his way.

"Hello," Naruto spoke up, placing a hand on the lone child's shoulder.

Said child jumped in surprise, squeaking shyly when he realised that someone was gracing him with their presence, "H-Hi!"

"What's your name?" Naruto asked conversationally. "I'm Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Gaara..." the redhead replied quietly, still in disbelief that there was actually someone who was willingly speaking to him and shocked that his sand was not responding to this person's touch.

"Do you happen to know a certain tanuki by the name of Shukaku? I hear that he's been a little out of it these past few years. I would also like to lend the little jailor some assistance," Naruto asked, having identified Gaara as the jinchūriki upon contact.

Gaara blinked in surprise, thinking sadly, 'So he's looking for me... Maybe tou-san gave him the order to kill me? But he's so young... Maybe even younger than me... Besides, I've never seen him around before.'

Noticing Gaara's hesitation, Naruto added, "I am long overdue for a visit to a certain tanuki. I promise that it will help his jinchūriki out too."

Gaara stiffened, eyeing the other boy in suspicion.

"Look here. I won't harm you. I wasn't sent by anyone to attack you or anything. I have come here from another land to check on the tanuki. I will not hurt you, so just let me see your seal for a bit," Naruto sighed, giving up on the pretence that he knew not of the other boy's jinchūriki status.

"Why would I trust your words?" Gaara asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I'm a jinchūriki too. I see no point in attacking another of my kind," Naruto answered the question, meeting Gaara's gaze with no hesitation to show him his sincerity.

Gaara gaped at Naruto openly.

"How in the world did you leave your village alone?" Gaara questioned, "Us jinchūriki are always to be kept under maximum security unless on missions outside the village for the safety of the village and the jinchūriki themselves! Even I learned that! How did you lose your guard?"

"They think that I am at home, sick," Naruto admitted, "Besides, it has barely been ten minutes since I've left. My brother will cover for me even if someone gets suspicious."

"What would you know of the seal anyway? Fūinjutsu is a difficult shinobi art that few manage to master in the course of their lifetimes! You are but my own age!" Gaara exclaimed.

"I am an Uzumaki," Naruto replied as though that was the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

"The clan that required the combined forces of Kiri, Kumo and Iwa to get wiped out completely, huh? I heard that they were all naturals at fūinjutsu. However, I have also heard of their trademark red hair," Gaara spoke, raising an eyebrow.

"I inherited the yellow from my father," Naruto replied simply.

"Hmm... Alright, I will trust you. However, I am not taking the blame if Shukaku runs loose and kills everyone," Gaara warned.

Naruto just rolled his eyes.

"Just let me take you out of the village. We'll do this in an isolated part of the desert somewhere if that lessens your worry," Naruto told the boy.

"Fine. The only question I'll ask is: How do you expect to be able to slip past the guards?" Gaara relented, though asking rather dubiously.

"Like this."

Without further prompting, Naruto used hiraishin to teleport to a random part of the desert.

Gaara shrieked in surprise at the strange but fast warping sensation it brought.

"Now..." Naruto said lowly as he pulled a brush dipped with chakra-conductive ink out of a seal on his wrist.

Gaara gulped in apprehension.

"Shall we begin?"

~♡~

"Bye, Gaara! I have to go make my next stop. You should be able to go to sleep without problems now. Shu-nii won't bother you anymore," Naruto called back.

"Shu-nii?" Gaara echoed, tilting his head to the side in confusion before he yawned tiredly from exhaustion due to the procedure which consisted of unsealing Shukaku while keeping the raccoon in and resealing said bijū.

"Shukaku," Naruto amended, cursing himself for his slip-up.

Gaara blinked but shrugged his shoulders slightly, his mind slightly hazy from the need to sleep as he replied in an almost drunken way, "Bye."

With a wave, Naruto used hiraishin to transport himself to Kiri. He would have preferred to go in order of the number of tails of the bijū, but he knew that Isobu's case was more pressing. His talk with Shukaku had been pleasant, but he had much less time than he would have liked. He had to settle things with the Sanbi jinchūriki first if he wanted to be able to finish his rounds within the weekend for which Sasuke was covering for him.

The blond pulled on a hooded cloak and used a modified hiraishin to enter the Mizukage office, where he could sense the Sanbi's chakra signature from through a jinchūriki's seal. However, it felt almost suppressed. The chakra of the Mizukage also seemed to be rather stifled, smothered under the unpleasant chakra of an Uchiha.

The male who had been seated at the table startled as his eyes flashed blood red with a black three-point wheel before it melted back into his magenta irises as his hair, silky locks of an ashy yet sandy shade best described as the colour of tortilla, fell over his eyes as he spun around to face the intruder. The confused Karatachi Yagura blinked, then frowned. He could sense the telltale chakra of the nine-tailed bijū and expected some response from the bijū within him. There was also the fact that he was feeling rather disoriented since the last thing he recalled doing was filing away several documents when there had been a knock on the door.

Now he was suddenly in his office chair and Yagura was honestly feeling quite suspicious of how he had gotten there.

"Good..." the Mizukage glanced up at the clock to check the time before continuing, "afternoon to you, Kyū-san. May I ask what you are doing in my office on this fine day?"

"Drop the pleasantries, San," Naruto said bluntly.

"Whatever you say, Kyū," Yagura replied, though he visibly relaxed.

"Let us cut to the chase. Has anything strange happened to you recently?" Naruto questioned.

"Not that I remember. The only thing worthy of note is that I was shelving some documents when I received a visitor. The next thing I knew, I was back in my seat and you were behind me," Yagura answered honestly.

Naruto bit his lip as he asked tightly, "When was that? The date."

"Seven, almost eight years into the Third Great Shinobi War, aka the sixty-fourth year of the Elemental Era. I was just instated as the Mizukage. I believe it was..." Yagura paused to ponder over this, slightly confused as to why he was unable to recall the date since he was quite sure that it was not that long ago, only continuing after a moment, "August twentieth."

Naruto stared blankly.

"That was years ago. It's seventy-three E.E. now," he commented blandly, his mind working furiously to try to figure it out.

It was clear Yagura had been trapped in his mind the whole time long and had been completely unaware of his actions over the years past. Naruto knew that the one behind this was likely Obito Uchiha, the Madara Uchiha-masquerader. A jinchūriki could be controlled through their bijū by an Uchiha with the Mangekyō Sharingan, after all. This was especially so when the jinchūriki was close to their bijū and was hence more attuned to it.

Yagura's jaw dropped.

"Then I'm twenty-four now? How could almost a decade have passed without me noticing?!" he exclaimed, digging his fingers into his scalp.

Yagura subconsciously lashed out with his chakra in frustration that he was unable to remember a thing about what happened in the past nine years. This jolted Obito into action as he realised that his plans might go to ruin if the man allowed his fellow jinchūriki to realise what had happened and linked it to him. That would have been bad.

The Mizukage's eyes flashed red briefly once again as Obito took control over the jinchūriki once more, allowing the Uchiha to slowly move Yagura's hands from his head to hang loosely at his sides.

Naruto noticed this and decided to test the odds.

Betting on it being Obito Uchiha, he addressed the controller of the Mizukage.

"Good afternoon, Uchiha-san," the reincarnation of Asura spoke amicably, causing the body of the Mizukage to tense.

"I believe you are mistaken, boy. I am Karatachi Yagura, the Mizukage of Kirigakure, not Uchiha anything," the Uchiha lied not-very-smoothly, standing up to increase his height in an attempt to look more intimidating.

"Oh really?" Naruto asked curiously.

Obito nodded fervently, not noticing that he was giving himself away more and more as their interaction wore on.

"Then may I ask why I saw a flicker of red in your eyes resembling the famed Sharingan? The Sharingan belong solely to the Uchiha, after all," Naruto queried in an all-too-innocent manner, his sapphire blue eyes peering from beneath the hood at the Uchiha as they caught the light at an angle which made it seem like they were glowing.

The form of Yagura stiffened.

Obito knew that he had just been caught.

"Sharingan?" he laughed thinly, unable to fully conceal his trepidation.

The Uchiha made a mental note to perfect his acting skills so that no more overly-observant brats would catch him off-guard.

"It must have been a trick of the light! As you said, only Uchiha can possess the Sharingan. I am not an Uchiha," Obito lied, barely able to keep the tremor from his voice at the fear of being found out.

"Oh really? I was pretty sure that the one I am speaking to is an Uchiha," Naruto said in false disappointment before pausing shortly and whispering his next words.

"Right, Uchiha Obito-san?"

Obito flinched away violently at the revelation that the child before him knew of his true identity.

"I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave my dear friend's mind, Uchiha-san. I am pretty sure he did not enjoy being locked out of his mind without control over his own body for nine years, nor would he be particularly pleased if he were to come to in a few more years," the blond told the Uchiha, his voice saccharine.

Without even thinking, Obito abandoned Yagura's mind entirely in his mad dash to escape.

Naruto snickered behind a hand and tossed his hood back now that the threat had been fully nullified, stepping forward to catch Yagura's falling body.

"Too easy," he muttered under his breath as he shook his head slightly.

He had expected the Uchiha to put up a bit more resistance. He knew that Obito was pretty much a coward, from experience, but he had still expected a little more. Perhaps it was too much to ask for, but he had been hoping that the naïve Uchiha may have matured at least a little over the past eight years or so.

Naruto frowned when the Yondaime Mizukage failed to stir within the next minute.

Obito could not have caused damage to the jinchūriki through his sudden unplanned retreat... right?

With a sigh, he gently sat Yagura back into his chair and pressed two fingers to the physically older male's forehead. Then he concentrated, light bluish chakra forming at his fingertips. He closed his eyes as he borrowed the Yamanaka clan technique to enable himself to enter the mind of the other.

All it took was a little push of the translucent yet fiery energy and he was sent spinning and tumbling as he fell into the other jinchūriki's unprotected mind.

~♡~

Naruto only opened his eyes when he felt a cool liquid encompassing him.

'How strange...' he could not help but think as he surveyed his surroundings.

A smirk then broke out on his face.

'...yet fitting,' he mused, resisting his urge to chuckle.

He was underwater.

That would have been dangerous for pretty much anyone, considering how drowning was indeed an issue for humans — having been adapted to breathing air rather than water. However, he quickly realised that as long as he did not think about drowning, he did not feel the water trying to enter his lungs. He was confused about the partial sentiency of the mindscape but decided not to waste his time pondering over it. It was strange that an intruder would be given the power to control the properties of the environment, but it was not exactly a pressing matter.

Naruto closed his eyes once more, his senses extending to find the representation of the seal within the jinchūriki's mind — the sealscape.

"There," he whispered as he propelled himself forward, towards the area from which he could sense the Sanbi.

~♡~

"Where...?"

One tortilla haired Mizukage groaned as he pulled himself up into a sitting position while rubbing at his eyes.

"So you have returned."

The familiar rumbling voice seemed to echo despite the vastness of their surroundings, causing the young man known as Karatachi Yagura to stiffen in surprise.

"Isobu?" the brunet asked tentatively, not daring to look down to see whether the familiar solid surface he was seated on was indeed the hard shell of his old friend.

"Yagura," the Sanbi greeted curtly in response, bubbles churning all around the pair as the bijū shifted to allow his jinchūriki to slide down his shell and off his head.

Yagura hesitated as he sat on the rocky outcrop in front of the bijū, unable to muster any words.

"I do not blame you for succumbing to the control of that Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan," the tortoise-like creature spoke at last.

"Huh?" Yagura uttered in surprise.

"It was not your fault. I was here all this time. I know about how you struggled to fight against him. It was not effective, but you continued to resist him regardless. I would never accuse you of not trying hard enough," spoke Isobu.

"That's exactly it. Listen to Isobu-ani, would you?" Naruto huffed as he seemed to appear out of nowhere right behind Yagura.

Yagura turned around quickly, startled by the intrusion.

"How in the world did you get in here?" he asked warily.

"Isobu let me in. Your mind was wide open," Naruto replied, tilting his head to the side.

Yagura swivelled around to stare at the Sanbi in disbelief.

"You let him in?" he asked incredulously.

"You should trust him more. He is trustworthy," Isobu remarked, eyes flashing in recognition.

"Just how is he trustworthy? We just met him!" Yagura protested.

"He saved your life," the bijū replied, looking unimpressed by Yagura's reaction to his advice.

"Well, that's that, but-" Yagura continued to protest, but was then interrupted by Naruto who spoke, "Say, do you not think it is about time we left this place? Uchiha Obito messed up lots of things in the Mizukage office while you were gone, you know. I heard that you have plunged your country into a civil war."

That caused Yagura to choke on his words.

"What?" he shrieked, his voice shrill. "A civil war?"

"Yes, and you're trapped in your own mind right now," Naruto sighed.

Yagura flushed in embarrassment but did not refute the statement made by the fellow jinchūriki.

"Come with me. I'll lead you out," Naruto said, beckoning Yagura to follow.

"Go. I'll be awaiting your next visit," Isobu rumbled.

"Very well. I would like to thank you for your assistance. I would never be able to repay my debt to you," Yagura spoke in thanks.

"There's no need for that. I didn't help you with such intention," Naruto replied nonchalantly, waving off the words of appreciation.

The two began to fade from the sealscape of the Sanbi jinchūriki.

"I hope to see you again soon, Isobu-ani!" Naruto's voice lingered in the sealscape even after both jinchūriki had vanished.

Isobu sighed into the empty mindscape, a fond smile on his face.

"It's good to see you again too, brat."

~♡~

Naruto remained perched on the edge of a tall building, watching the form of a shinobi slink out of Kiri's ANBU headquarters. This man kept to the shadows, sneaking through roads and stealthily dodging under bridges. Just like a pond skater, he lightly strode across the water's surface. The ripples that he left in his tracks were carefully disguised, seeming like they came from a small splash of fish under the surface of the water or a leaf that had fallen into the river. It was artful and intricate, like a beautiful dance with nature.

There was only one reason why Naruto was watching this individual.

It was the fact that this young man emanated Saiken's chakra.

Naruto stepped off the edge, free-falling for a brief moment before vanishing in the wind and reappearing behind the fleeing shinobi within a short breath of time

"Hello," he greeted lightly, a pleasant smile on his face.

The Rokubi jinchūriki spun around with a start, staring at the other in wide-eyed shock.

"You must be Utakata-san?" Naruto queried, not showing any reaction to the scathing look the other jinchūriki was directing at him.

Utakata stiffened, his glare immediately weakening as he took a cautious step back.

"And you are?" he demanded.

Naruto laughed, the merry sound seeming to ring through the night and making Utakata bite his lip in worry as he cast an anxious look around to see if anyone had heard.

"The Kyūbi jinchūriki," Naruto introduced himself with a short bow.

Utakata's jaw dropped. He was just so surprised by this revelation that he did not know how to react. He even let down his guard.

"Now if you would just follow me," Naruto said while grabbing the other jinchūriki's wrist.

Before Utakata could even start to attempt to escape from the young boy's surprisingly strong grip, he had been whisked away by the child to a surprisingly familiar place.

Yagura dropped the pen in his hand and stood up, knocking his chair over.

"Utakata?" he exclaimed.

"Mizukage-sama," Utakata responded tersely, not seeming to notice Naruto let go of his wrist.

Naruto stepped back to give the pair the illusion of privacy.

The two jinchūriki of Kiri stared at one another's eyes for a long moment before Yagura quietly spoke up.

"That wasn't me."

Utakata chortled. It was a surprisingly soft sound. He sounded neither offended nor upset. He sounded a little disbelieving, yes, but no doubt happy. "Of course I knew that, you dolt. I'm glad to have you back, Yagura," the Rokubi jinchūriki spoke with a teary smile, spreading his arms open.

"I'm sorry for persecuting the bloodline holders for the past eight years," Yagura said meekly, making no move to approach Utakata.

"That wasn't you, was it? Stop blaming yourself already and get over here, you hopeless excuse of a Mizukage," Utakata snorted.

With a soft chuckle, Yagura rushed into Utakata's arms and squeezed the life out of him. "I missed you."

Naruto smiled slightly, feeling a little wistful as he watched the pair finally reuniting after their years apart.

He would never be reunited with his loved ones from his past lives. All he had left was Sasuke. It was true that he loved his brother more than he did anything in the world, but he had married in both the past incarnations he remembered. He could never see them again and would not take them from their peace in the pure world merely because of his selfishness.

"Do take good care of each other."

With a dramatic turn of his heel, Naruto tossed these words over his shoulder meaningfully as he stalked towards the exit.

In mid-step, Naruto vanished from the room.

Utakata managed a shocked giggle, which Yagura was thoughtful enough not to point out.

"So... who was that?" Utakata queried, staring at the now-empty spot in the room that the blond had occupied.

Yagura shrugged helplessly. "Isobu told me to trust him. I only know he's the Kyūbi jinchūriki."

At the Mizukage's admission, Utakata sighed.

He had a feeling that things were going to get messy.

~♡~

Naruto reappeared close to where he located the Shichibi — the self-proclaimed Lucky Seven.

He slipped past the guards easily and tracked down his target. He learned that the jinchūriki of the seventh bijū was a young girl, perhaps a year or two older than his physical age. She was quite androgynous in appearance, which was almost like a nice breath of fresh air after all the excessively feminine kunoichi that he had met thus far. Although being feminine was not a bad trait, knowing that an average kunoichi would often take advantage of her appearance whenever she faces a male opponent made it annoying most of the time.

He had been impossibly dense as Hashirama, not even noticing when a girl did come onto him... It was only in retrospect that he realised just how many girls had been enamoured with him. Naruto's memories of all the times that enemy kunoichi tried to seduce Hashirama to get him to show mercy on them were, in simpler terms, traumatising. It was a wonder how he never realised what those kunoichis were doing at the time, really.

Hashirama had been beyond blind. Naruto had thought that Tsunade's birth was a miracle in and of itself. Although Hashirama's marriage to Uzumaki Mito had been an arranged one between their clans, it was not as if he realised that Mito was the one who volunteered. She had genuinely loved him, though Hashirama assumed his feelings of affection to be unreciprocated. Naruto wondered how Mito successfully convinced him... Ah, now it came back to him. She did not manage to do so.

Nawaki had been conceived on their wedding night.

Later, Tsunade had been born because Mito managed to get him drunk.

It was no wonder Senju Tsunade was an alcoholic...

Honestly, Hashirama might have been asexual. He had loved his wife and their children, but he did not usually feel sexual urges towards Mito. The first Hokage did not often feel horny, period. His affection towards Uzumaki Mito, now that he thought about it, might have been purely platonic. Of course, he was not disgusted by the thought of intercourse with her. Hashirama merely never actively pursued it.

Anyway, back on track, Fū had pretty features. Though she was not girlish, she had an appearance that was pleasing to the eye. She was small, with bronze skin and toned muscles. Her eyes were catlike, large and expressive, clear and bright as they peered around a corner. Beneath blinking crinkled eyelids were startling tiger-orange irises that had no pupils, thus giving the impression that she was drinking everything in with her curious eyes. Her dark eyebrows were straight, while her short layered mint-green hair contrasted nicely against her skin and hair, though the colouration made her almost seem to blend in with the surrounding foliage.

Naruto's eyes were anchored on her tiny figure, his brows furrowing when he noticed her flinch and dive for cover behind a tree as a shinobi passed by her hiding spot. The shinobi paused in his step, glancing at the tree he had been about to walk past. Then he turned around and crossed his arms, waiting for someone to arrive. Naruto could already anticipate what was about to occur, noting the young jinchūriki's tensed shoulders as she silently shuffled behind the nearby bush.

When he glimpsed a group of shinobi gathering as they closed in on Fū's spot, Naruto could no longer stand by idly.

With a sneer, he used fūinjutsu to transform his appearance into that of a teen so that they could not squeal about his involvement and indirectly expose him to the Hokage.

He used a simple shunshin to get in front of the first shinobi to discover Taki's jinchūriki, staring blankly at the middle-aged man with flat and chilling eyes. It took considerable self-control to not smirk when the man's cruel grin faltered and those condescending eyes became uncertain as they flickered towards the others in his group from the stranger's face. Naruto's presence was terrifying in a way that the shinobi could not quite pin down. Although his aura was tightly controlled, his chakra reined in admirably, something dreadful within the cold gaze made the man want to flee as fast as possible.

Even so, the shinobi could not do so.

Partly because he would never be able to live down the shame of running away from a random foreign upstart, but mostly because he was physically incapable of doing so. He did not understand why, yet his ankles seemed to have been bound firmly to the ground. The plain-looking teenager standing before him pinned him down with flat lifeless eyes in which only he saw the terrifying power that could have squished him like a bug. 

He felt queasy and his bladder was threatening to fail him at that moment.

Fū, who had been exposed by that first shinobi, could see faintly glimmering chakra shackles that trapped the man who had tormented her so many times before. Naruto had positioned himself between the girl and the mob, trying to keep his mind off his memories of torture at the hands of villagers back in Konohagakure. Naruto's stance was defensive, without a weapon in sight as he stood up to the bullies.

"Leave," Naruto ordered.

Taking a page from his brother's book, he infused his words with chakra and intent. It was a more basic and primal form of genjutsu which was particularly useful when used against those weaker than oneself. It was much less specific and difficult to notice, so one would not even think to dispel it. Moreover, very few expected mere words to be enough to cast such a powerful undetectable genjutsu.

As he had thought, the group of shinobi swiftly made their retreat.

Now, only the initiator of what could have turned into conflict was left with the duo of enraged jinchūriki.

"Give me one good reason why I should not make your life miserable," queried Naruto almost conversationally as he deactivated the seals.

The shinobi shivered in fear at the abhorrence within Naruto's azure eyes that the blond no longer bothered to conceal.

"After you tortured me so many times, you deserve worse than death," agreed Fū, her usually limpid eyes clouded with antipathy.

This man was the one who made her suffer ever since he learned that her body housed the seven-tailed bijū. He was renown in Takigakure as a gossip-monger and an active member of the rumour mill. He was an excellent manipulator of information. He had always hated her due to the favour that she received from the village leader, Shibuki. He had spread the information about her status as a jinchūriki, falsifying supposed incidences of her losing control over the Shichibi that she housed and gathering a group of like-minded people to torment her.

If not for her kindness and the debt that she owed Shibuki, who had protected her and given her his goodwill despite his cowardly and timid nature, Fū might have acted up like the black-hearted shinobi had claimed to witness her do.

It was clear that the shinobi had all too many excuses on the tip of his tongue, countless reasons to convince the strange foreigner that the girl he had placed behind his back was a threat. However, none of it could be voiced. For a reason that he could not fathom, his mouth was opening and closing silently, words to accompany these movements never reaching his ears. He realised then, in dawning horror, a chill in the back of his throat. 

He reached up to touch his neck, screaming soundlessly when his hands came back sticky.

He did not even notice when it happened and neither did Fū, who watched this in sick fascination. 

He could still feel the two parallel slits, already scarred over, on the base of his throat where his vocal cords would have been.

"Were you looking for this?" Naruto sounded almost mirthful as he held up the bloody mass of flesh he held within a gloved hand.

The shinobi pointed at Naruto accusingly as terror caused him to finally release his putrid bodily fluids. A yellowish puddle formed at his feet before his bulging eyes rolled into the back of his head and he tipped backwards. Neither of them bothered to stop him from giving himself a concussion, with one deeming it an acceptable form of retribution and the other being an unparalleled healer with the ability to fix any resultant problems.

"Is that his voice box?" Fū asked curiously, unconcerned by the gore.

Naruto nodded and burned the disgusting thing thoughtlessly.

"He will pose as you and die as you," he stated. "Takigakure will not remember its honour of possessing one of the nine bijū and you will have your freedom. If you do want to leave the village you have grown up in and consider your home, that is."

He knew what her response would be.

There was no way he was going to allow Chōmei and her jinchūriki to remain in this hateful place, after all.

Fū's eyes widened as she realised what this meant.

Shibuki would not remember her.

If not for her being a jinchūriki, her path would never have crossed with that of the village leader. There would have been no reason for him to protect her. She would only be a nameless stranger to her brother-figure even if they met again.

Even so, she did not hesitate to say, "I wish to leave with you!"

Naruto smiled. "If so, how about Suna? I think they would be glad to have you. After all, they have always been upset to only possess the supposed weakest of the nine bijū."

Fū bit her lip.

"Will the other jinchūriki like me...?" she asked hesitantly.

The blond chuckled.

"I'm sure Gaara would love to meet you," he promised.

Naruto held out a hand to the mint-haired girl.

She took it, allowing Naruto to whisk her away from Takigakure.

She never looked back.

~♡~

"...Bakayaro! Konoyaro!"

Naruto could swear that his ears were bleeding at this point.

Killer B, the jinchūriki of the Hachibi, was under the delusion that he was going to become a rapper of renown. He was also of the habit of shouting senselessly and adding weird offensive words to the ends of his sentences. Simply put, the blond could only place a single label on the young man before him.

Hopeless.

There was no way he was going to acquiesce to allowing one of his nine foster siblings to continue being tortured by this fool for the rest of his lifespan. There were already signs that Gyūki was being influenced by this eccentric character and Naruto was not going to stand for it. There was no way he would just allow a being he considered one of his brothers to be corrupted by the nonsensical fellow just like that. No one deserved to be placed under such torment.

Of course, B was not a bad person by any means.

Naruto just could not accept the idea that he should allow his kyōdai to be influenced by his absurd jinchūriki.

"Sorry, Killer B-san," the blond said pityingly, "but you will have to refrain from calling yourself 'Jinchūriki-sama' from now on."

Just like that, the sworn brother of the Raikage was knocked out cold.

Naruto covered his mouth, a yawn escaping him as he shifted the Hachibi into his own seal.

He was exhausted.

Anyway, it seemed that he was not yet done with Kumogakure.

With a sigh, Naruto shunshinned himself to the location from which he sensed Matatabi-nee-chan and her human vessel.

"Hajimemashite," he greeted the teenage girl who raised her extended nails to him threateningly.

She stared at him for a moment, at a loss.

"I am the Kyūbi Jinchūriki, Naruto. Nice to meet you, onee-san," he introduced himself with a polite bow.

She was practically gaping at him at this point, lowering her claws as she took in the fact that a child had snuck up on her so easily.

"Yugito Nii," she replied, still in shock.

Yugito Nii had long and straight blonde hair. Naruto wondered if she had ever singed it by accident. Matatabi had always had quite the temper, so it was an actual concern whenever it came to her. Even so, Asura remembered that she always had a soft spot for younger girls whom she had deemed would require her protection. Hopefully, this extended to aspiring kunoichi as well. He could only secretly steal so many bijū from their respective vessels without coming under suspicion, after all.

"Yugito-san, I noticed that you did not get along with the Nibi," Naruto said conversationally.

Her eyes shuttered, her expression morphing in distrust.

"How do you know about that?" Yugito Nii asked stiffly.

Naruto tilted his head to the side cutely. "You did not notice?"

Nii opened her mouth to retort, but no words came out.

She honestly had no clue what the other jinchūriki was speaking of.

The blond chuckled at the disgruntled look on her face.

"Your chakra flow is a mess," he explained patiently.

Yugito Nii gasped in realisation.

She had always known that jinchūriki faced problems in chakra control. She had experienced this first-hand. This was the first time she heard that this was because of the relationship that she had with her bijū. In truth, she had known about the instability of her chakra since the first time she attempted a jutsu after becoming the vessel of the two-tailed chakra beast. She had even noticed that B's chakra control was much better than hers even if Gyūki had more chakra than the Nibi. Even so, she never thought much of the bond between a bijū and its jinchūriki.

"Is it... too late to fix my relationship with the Nibi?" Nii asked tentatively.

Naruto smiled at her gently. "Of course not. I'm sure that you will be able to get along."

Nii brightened considerably but wilted once more when she realised how clueless she was about how she was going to do such a thing.

She had treated the Bakeneko within her as a pest and talked down to it. It never occurred to her that a chakra construct could be intelligent in any shape or form. She had expected its aid, never giving anything in return. Her training had involved learning how to control the bijū within her. It was not as if anyone ever mentioned how she was meant to cooperate with it instead. Even if B's idea of getting to know the bijū sealed within him seemed to be on the path to success, Nii could not replicate it even if she tried.

Her interpersonal communication skills had always been poor, after all.

"How will I do ever that?" she lamented to herself.

She regretted ever mistreating her bijū. If she had been the Nibi, Nii certainly knew that she will never forgive the disrespect of her jinchūriki. Nii had been beyond rude, oftentimes threatening to hurt the Nibi whenever it disobeyed her wishes.

"Start by asking for her name," Naruto replied, smiling encouragingly.

"Name...?" Nii murmured in surprise.

She would never have thought to start from there.

"The title of Nibi is not her name, you know? She has a name with which she identifies herself, just like you. Speak with her and treat her with respect. She will work with you as a partner for life, as long as you have her trust and trust her in turn. She is not a mindless beast. Address her properly and appeal to her reason first. You can become closer over time," Naruto responded.

She slowly mulled over these words and nodded.

"I will try," she said determinedly.

Naruto nodded in approval.

"Please strive for a symbiotic relationship."

This time, Naruto's words were meant for Matatabi.

The large, fiery cat grinned at the blond from within Nii's seal.

Asura knew that look well.

"No promises, but I will try my best," Yugito Nii replied.

He laughed. That was exactly the message that the bijū had wanted to convey to him. The two were terribly similar to one another. Perhaps finding companionship in one another would not be too challenging a task for this pair. It would do Matatabi good to have a proper female friend.

With a wave, the blond disappeared on the spot in a hiraishin.

~♡~

Naruto certainly did not expect this.

As soon as he stepped into the camp, the two last jinchūriki he had been searching for seemed to recognise him and fell to their knees before him.

He was perplexed. Which identity were they able to decipher at first glance? Why were the two so desperate? He did not see why they would prostrate themselves before him unless their bijū deigned it necessary to tell them that he was Ōtsutsuki Asura. Even then, he did not understand why they would defer to him like that.

The only possibility was that they had a request.

One that they were willing to throw aside their pride for.

"Uzumaki-sama!" cried the duo.

Ah. That was shocking. He never anticipated that they would figure that one out. After all, it was not as if he had the trademark red hair of his descendants. Though it was currently his ancestor clan, he could not bring himself to think of himself as such. He certainly did not mind referring to himself as an Uzumaki, but he doubted he could perform if they asked him anything about the clan's traditions.

"Please, rise. I do not deserve such deference," Naruto sighed, rubbing his temples.

He was already feeling lethargic. This troubling situation was not helping at all. Honestly, he could feel the migraine — that began as a result of B's rapping — worsening. He was not in the mood to deal with stiff formalities and begging.

The jinchūriki in question did not seem to get the hint.

"Uzumaki-sama, these humble ones have a request!" said the jinchūriki of the Yonbi.

"Please help us," begged Kokuō's jinchūriki.

Naruto was tempted to refuse.

These two were annoying beyond words.

Even so, he waved them on. He would entertain them for the sakes of his foster brothers who had relied on them all this time. They deserved that much and, considering how their chakra circulatory systems were regular, they had gotten along with their bijūs. He would close both eyes and ignore how much their behaviour irked him. He will hear them out, at the very least.

He would hear their request, at the very least.

"Uzumaki-sama, we beg of you to free us from our burdens," pleaded the jinchūriki of the five-tailed bijū.

It took Naruto a while to figure out what this meant.

Had they been inflicted with a malicious sealing art? He certainly felt no traces of such a type of fūinjutsu. He could sense that they were both healthy. He could not fathom what kind of burden would cause proud shinobi to bow down before a child.

That was when he heard the voice in his mind, "They mean to be rid of us. They wish to live a life of peace, away from the horrors of war. They have fought through the Third Shinobi War and do not desire to be a part of the next."

After Kokuō's explanation, Naruto understood at last.

"We don't blame them. Please grant their wish," added Son Goku.

Naruto sighed and nodded.

"Very well. I shall take Son Goku and Kokuō with me."