Misplaced Princess

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own.

Thinking

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

Emphasis

Never before have I hoped my subject was completely delusional like this.

It was early morning when Inoichi finally walked to the Hokage Tower. He'd had time to replenish his chakra, but felt terribly unsure about relaying the Kyuubi's message in fear of what both Minato would do in response, and what the Kyuubi's true motives were.

Kami! He'd never considered that a Bijuu could even talk! Let alone issue demands, and - gods: did that mean the Kyuubi could make up stories and whatever it was he witnessed? Perhaps illusions or… Fuck. What can I do other than report? One thing was definite: he was absolutely sure that he never, ever wanted Minato's job. To have to choose between your village and your family? What he'd witnessed wasn't something he ever wanted anyone to have to go through, not even those Iwa rock heads.

His sleep had been filled with nightmares related to what he saw in that girl's, Naruto's, mind. How many times did I check on my baby after waking up sweating my ass off last night? He'd stopped counting after the third time he jumped out of bed; his still highly hormonal wife harshly scolded him for scaring her to death. At that point, he just tried to rest in the rocking chair in Ino-chan's room and didn't even want to sleep again. Unfortunately, he kept getting pulled into slumber until he couldn't take the sleep disturbances anymore in the wee hours of the morning.

Knowing Minato as well as he did, he was surprised the man hadn't yanked him out of bed to learn the results of his mind walk. By the Sage: his old friend was going to completely freak out, whether any of what he'd seen was true or not.

"Hokage-sama," Inoichi greeted his old friend. The blonde man in the big chair was slumped over in his chair, facing the wall. "You alright, Minato?"

No response. After a minute or so, Inoichi sat down in the chair across from the Hokage's desk and realized Minato was holding and staring numbly at a few papers in his hands. Finally, the Yondaime turned his face toward him and Inoichi flinched. "Shit, Minato! You must have really pissed Kushina-chan off!"

Minato gave him a deadpan stare before responding. "No, I deserved this - and it wasn't Kushina…" The entire right side of the Hokage's tan face was swollen and mostly purple around his eye - although Inoichi spotted some black areas there, too: that couldn't be good...

"I deserved it," the blonde let out a bitter chuckle. "I asked Tsunade-hime to let me observe another lab test - from patient to end result, you understand… It was the fourth one..." Inoichi grimaced at that: Tsunade-hime was not a patient woman and didn't like her work questioned. "Yeah."

The Yondaime reluctantly handed the paperwork to Inoichi who only closed his eyes, his eyebrows involuntarily jumping up, upon reading the positive lab results. It was official, especially after Minato had watched the entire procedure from beginning to end: this Naruto-chan they'd been holding was somehow Kushina and Minato's daughter. Blood and chakra testing proved it - let alone what he had seen in her memories. 

But how?!

Minato waited for his friend and interrogation specialist to make a shitty remark. Inoichi was one of his oldest, closest friends, but the man could give him crap like nobody's business. It was something he appreciated about him and all his friends, especially after taking over the Hokage position. Minato had never liked the boot-licking of politics, and his friends definitely wouldn't kiss his ass now and couldn't imagine them doing so in the future. Most of the time they just gave him a hard time! He knew, though, that he could count on his friends who were also the newest council members, especially if he really needed to. No doubt.

Summoning his courage, Minato finally looked over to Inoichi, waiting for him to make some either snide or insensitive remark, but only saw grief and sorrow on his face. "What did you see, Ichi-kun? How… how is this possible? How did… she, my daughter, get here? Like... that!" He felt absolutely sick upon seeing the pained look on Inoichi's face.

"Are you sure about this, Hokage-sama?"

The girl, Minato's CHILD, had been earlier put back in The Box and was once again deeply unconscious. Inoichi looked away as he saw Minato continue to look so stricken as he nodded his head once in resignation to their designated task.

A task assigned by the Kyuubi.

Fuck… Inoichi had his four best clansmen on the task: two of his cousins, his father, and his sister beside him. The plan was now to allow Inoichi to dive deep, speak to the Kyuubi, and then bring his friend and leader into the girl's mind. His clansmen would monitor his and the Hokage's status: his cousins would be observing him, and his father and sister would be in charge of Minato. Inoichi wouldn't have it any other way, and his family didn't argue in the end. Minato was far more important than he was to the village, not to mention that the blue-eyed Hokage had saved the entire Leaf, as far as Inoichi was concerned, as well as saving his own ass more times than he could count in the Third Shinobi War.

Tsunade-hime and Jiraiya-sama were also in the room as backups for the girl. Jiraiya-sama had a variety of chakra-suppression seals on hand, while Tsunade-hime was monitoring the girl's stats. They were the girl's very determined and skilled godparent and distant relative, and Inoichi could only hope everything would turn out alright.

Giving what could be his last salute to his friend and Hokage, Inoichi placed his hand on the girl's forehead. After seeing his father grab the back of his shoulder firmly, he felt his cousin's hands on either side of his neck. Finally, his sister was there, a hand on his forehead. "Stay strong, Ichi-kun!" He closed his eyes as his mind descended into the sewer. He walked those wet halls as he had before, approaching the "View Screen/Wall" between the two sets of bars that were perpendicular to it. Inoichi couldn't help but think once again about how odd this was.

"Finally. Can you believe this? Her mind and my prison: once a beautiful forest…" the Kyuubi said slowly.

"Kyuubi-sama," Inoichi bowed.

"That's an improvement. Where's the yellow-haired shithead?"

Inoichi's eyebrows raised. Blonde shithead, indeed, the adolescent part of his mind immaturely agreed. He shook his head slightly in the girl's mindscape and began to rise from his position. A giant red eye - only one - was looking down upon him. Oddly enough, he felt no malice from the beast.

"Refer to me as a beast again and I'll smite you where you stand, Yamanaka.  You're in my home, now."

Inoichi nodded, not wanting to die. "Kyuubi-sama: my Hokage awaits a signal from my clansmen. I only wish to assure his safety and..."

"That pansy! This just proves that blonde monkey deserves less than amphibians' gnats!"

Inoichi didn't really understand that at all, but okay… "Will you ensure his safety, Kyuubi-sama?" Inoichi asked politely and rather bravely. "And after what I've previously seen, may I ask your proper name?"

All hell seemed to break loose at that - apparently, you do not ask the Kyuubi for his name. The water in the sewer that was Naruto-chan's mind began swirling up further and further as it heated. Just as Inoichi began to give up and signal his cousins to get him out of there, a presence appeared next to him.

Minato: you shouldn't be here! The idiot must have ordered his way in!

"YONDAIME!" the Kyuubi snarled. "You! You are... back on my shit-list." The Kyuubi had backed up on his haunches and looked more like a feral wolf than the unamused chakra… chakra-entity (not a beast!) that he had been presenting himself as when Minato first arrived "on the scene," as it were. "If I could stand the taste of it, I'd bite your fucking head off!"

Inoichi had to hand it to his leader: Minato looked calm, cool, and collected, even though his chakra had jumped a bit. Inoichi's own heart was slamming against his chest. Dear Kami: the Kyuubi really had it in for his blonde friend… He heard a low growl that vibrated across the entire mindscape, similar to a mild earthquake, as the screen in front of him began to display memories again. Minato clutched Inoichi's shoulder painfully. Inoichi had given him a very brief verbal report on what he had seen in the two sets of memories he'd observed. The fact that the girl was here as a teenager didn't bode well for whatever he'd see today, he feared.

Inoichi couldn't help but compare this to what he had seen during Naruto-chan's last two "lifetimes" or whatever they were. Possible realities? He heard the Kyuubi's snarl occasionally and tried to keep his mind blank as his jutsu continued. He inhaled deeply and stood up against the will of his quaking knees: seeing the Sharingan in both of the Kyuubi's eyes like he'd heard discussed among many shinobi was terrifying, and meant the beast was being controlled by someone incredibly powerful.

Obito-kun?  Really?

This time he saw and heard his blonde and red-headed friends fairly clearly after they'd been impaled by the Kyuubi's claw in this set of memories. "...and don't forget to eat your vegetables… Remember the shinobi vices… but be careful of Jiraiya-sensei, Naru-chan! Don't listen to him about those things! Kakashi-kun will be there…" Kushina so bravely went on and on, as she had blood draining from her lips. "I'm sorry Minato-kun: I took up all your time!"

"That's alright, Kushina," Minato choked on his own blood. "Naru-chan, listen to your motormouth-of-a-mother…"

It was awful, and as Inoichi looked away to see his friend's distressed expression, he was shocked that the Kyuubi's face presently matched it. Both continued to watch the screen as Minato brokenly spoke in the images in front of them, while his Hokage watched in horror.  The Kyuubi… He looks - ashamed? He quickly put the thought out of his mind and continued to watch as the Sandaime eventually picked up baby Naruto-chan as Minato's student, Kakashi-kun, ran up howling at the sight that met him. Looking back at the Kyuubi, there was little doubt: the great demon looked strained and was avoiding the screen.  His face was turned away, his long ears against his head. He looked back at Minato, before looking away. His blonde friend was an emotional man, but he'd never seen tears of pain falling down his cheeks before now.

Inoichi shook off what he'd just witnessed. He needed to reflect upon what was happening now in this vision versus what he'd seen in the girl's mind before. More than ever, he was determined to tell Minato all - or perhaps most of the most important, pressing details he reconsidered - of the differences and important points he'd discerned in the young blonde's memories.

This time Naruto-chan was back in the orphanage, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first set of memories he'd witnessed. She had ANBU guards, and it was only when the SAME orphanage matron he'd visited so recently was momentarily alone with the girl that the woman would attack - and then it was primarily verbal abuse. Which is horrible enough.

Minato's student, Kakashi-kun, was frequently on patrol there and brought stuffed dogs and occasional toads that he'd tell the girl were "not as good as ninken, Naru-chan." Inoichi heard Minato make a huffing sound at that and rolled his eyes. Genma-kun was there nearly always as the child went to sleep, and the two men witnessed the current Hokage's guard bungling horribly through diaper-changes, reading to the tiny blonde, and more. The girl's feelings were mainly bright and there was no doubt that she loved all her guards and visitors.

It was odd that she could remember so far back.  It made Inoichi suspicious.

The Mindwalker felt so much better at this turn of events in the orphanage until one night the little girl couldn't get back in. The door was locked, and she'd been out alone in the forest until evening. Her guard had watched her approach the door, then sunshinned either into her room or onto their assigned outside roof.

"Kage-bunshin no jutsu," the tiny blonde whispered with a smirk on her face. Minato gasped in shock at a three to four-year-old's hand-signs and use of an A-ranked secret kinjutsu - especially after dispelling her clone and tilting her head to wait for its memories. Inoichi was blown away. He hadn't even considered what the girl was (NOW so obviously) watching earlier when she was observing her ANBU guard. He snickered just as the girl did. Minato bopped him on his shoulder and continued to stare at the screen ahead of them, watching as she broke into the orphanage's doors quite adeptly.

Inoichi finally let out a choked laugh. This Naruto-chan is a riot, he thought as he watched the girl use crayons on the foyer wall to draw an inspired parody of the matron with devil horns and a tail. He covered his eyes briefly as Minato gasped upon seeing her make another shadow clone so that they could together write every curse word the little one knew; one word after another all around her "art." There was no doubt where she'd learned it all: Minato's guard and student had a really bad case of what his wife now called "potty mouth." They'd been teaching her to read and write, too - and apparently, she was a quick study.

He watched the sewer's viewing wall as Kakashi-kun squealed like a little girl behind his Inu mask at seeing two of the same little girl enter the room he was guarding. "Sensei, you asshole: I will make you come back and Chidori you for this," he muttered as Naruto-chan bit his leg. The grasp that had lessened on Inoichi's shoulder returned as Minato-kun scowled at his apprentice, the leader's mouth agape. Inoichi looked to the Kyuubi, seeing what could be an amused or proud smirk upon his face, and internally chuckled. Immediately the Kyuubi's chops flared and he huffed at him.

"Fuck you, Mind Walker."

The Yamanaka, at this point, had either lost his mind or had the Kyuubi figured out.  The fox rumbled, a low sound that reverberated along the cement walls of his prison - but he was looking away from Inoichi's eyes in what seemed to be embarrassment...

"Bunny! Ohhhh! Look how cute you are, Bunny-chan." The young blonde teenager that should have been out cold was climbing over the dark-orange tails of the Kyuubi as Inoichi and Minato sucked in their breath in the sewer. The girl just continued chatting! "Such a cutie-patootie, Bunny-chan…"

"You! - You brat! I will munch your innards - I will…"

"Hush, Bunny-chan! You're so cute and orange! Will you be my friend, Bunny-chan?" Naruto asked, a pouty and questioning look on her face, which was tilted upward at the big fox's giant face.

Kami-sama: she can perform the Puppy-Eyes no Jutsu. No one will be safe!

Naruto continued, pushing her blonde head into the Kyuubi's side, snuggling him.

The giant fox looked at the two men witnessing this insanity and quickly looked away. "You're… so damn stupid!  W-What the hell are you doing on the wrong side of the cage, dumbass?!"

Minato nearly snapped at the fox as Inoichi gawked at it. The younger blonde was still snuggling into the fox's fur. "Mou, so mean," she said. The fox definitely looked embarrassed.

"Idiot!" The Bijuu shouted at the girl before turning his nose up and away.

The whole sight was rather amusing. 

"What will these - FOOLS think of your… common flesh-baggery, moron?"

Minato's head tilted further before addressing the greatest of all Bijuu. "You're.. fond of her, Kyuubi-sama." The Kyuubi snarled at him and the girl turned her wide-eyed gaze to the village leader on the other side of the cage.

"Bunny-chan, it's that mean, fake-ass Yondaime," she whispered - too loudly.  "Save me Bunny-chan," the girl asked angrily as she wrapped one of the Kyuubi's tails around her.

Honestly, Inoichi thought he might have entered some kind of reverse reality, before the girl's image faded to nothing before them. "Thank Kami. She's back under…"

"Assholes beneath my great tails…" the Kyuubi muttered bitterly. Inoichi almost looked to see if there really was such a thing, but Minato's fingernails were clawing into his arm now, and the Kyuubi had begun glaring at him as if he would eat him instead of Minato-kun now. "Dung-bags. Just know that she isn't… Well, she doesn't stay this stupid."

Minato stepped forward "Why are you protecting her when you only antagonized my wife?" The water around their ankles once again became scorching hot.

Was Inoichi's leader and friend nuts? Just be glad he's thinking whatever he is, instead of eating us, Minato!

"She has PROVEN herself! You do not wish me to look after your… No: MY kit? You again disgust me, Yondaime." The Bijuu eventually laid down, glaring at the village leader as the screen continued to replay the girl's memories. The Bijuu closed his eyes.

For the most part, Inoichi noticed that the girl's memories this time were an interesting mix of what he'd observed in the two disparate memories he'd seen before. From what he saw, Naruto-chan was a prodigy, but perhaps because of that she was even more feared. Realizing the same, she eventually turned to play a clown as she hoped to lessen the village's fear of her. Naruto-chan did not know what she'd done to deserve hatred at this point - as if she had done anything at all to deserve such a fate - but she tried to counteract it as much as she could.

Inoichi winced as Minato sucked in the hot air around him at first seeing her beaten. The girl simply stopped and took the abuse, even though from everything else they saw, she could have easily fought back, especially against civilians as she got older. He closed his eyes as the girl's birthdays became worse, in a psychological sense, and could only hope that her now-occasional guards would eventually save her.  Minato was silent but the KI coming from the man was intense.

Why in the world did the Sandaime give her that apartment to live in alone - and so near the red-light district?

Shaking his head sadly, he listened to Minato fume over the traitorous "Mizuki-sensei" not allowing his daughter to use the A-ranked Shadow Clone jutsu to substitute for a normal clone jutsu when trying to repeatedly pass her graduation exam from the age of eight. The younger assistant, "Iruka-sensei," believed that Mizuki knew what he was doing when requesting a regular clone from the girl after questioning his superiors about it as Naruto-chan listened behind a corner. It made Inoichi feel sick. The poor girl only wanted to become a kunoichi - no: a SHINOBI, she said - to "protect my precious people."

From what he'd seen the previous day, the girl had done her absolute best to do exactly that, one lifetime or whatever it was after another if such a thing was even possible. Gods, I really do have to tell Mina- er, Hokage-sama about that.

Think of him not as your friend and fellow new-father, but as only our leader, he told himself.

Another amusing thing that was different in Naruto-chan's memories this time was watching the ANBU (and later simply Jonin,) "Inu" appear in her life again after years of absence. It was so obviously Kakashi-kun: he really needs to hide his crazy silver hair under something - guarding her from the rooftop of the adjacent building to her apartment. The first time Naruto-chan saw him from her window, he offered a jaunty wave as she completely freaked out, running to the Sandaime to report a pedophile. He watched Minato give a pained smile at their repeated silly interactions until the girl - HIS DAUGHTER - unleashed her "sexy jutsu" on his student, which caused the silver-haired Jonin to crash to the ground, his nose gushing blood.

"Got you, fucker!" Naruto-chan yelled.

Wow: that was definitely not what his now choking superior needed to see and hear! The blonde man nearly fell out of his jutsu at his daughter's actions and Inoichi had to shake him a few times as the Hokage made strange noises and coughed as if he'd run an especially tough race.

"And what the hell was Kakashi-kun reading?" Minato asked, agitation clear in his voice.

"I do believe that is porn, sir." Minato gasped and bent over, clutching his thighs. "That's another thing that's confirmed through her other memories… That, and her friendship with the Nara and Akimichi heir - along with Tsuma's boy."

"She called him a pervert," Minato whispered.

"Oh, Kakashi-kun? Yes, I would say that's his perverted nature is DEFINITELY confirmed," Inoichi replied, glad that he could have a little fun in such a tense situation at Minato's expense.

"Second only to the Toad Sage," the Kyuubi agreed, closing his eyes again.

Minato was horrified!

He needed to have a long talk with his student about right and wrong - and, and about sex! Oh, gods no: they were supposed to cover all that in the Academy, but Kakashi-kun tested out of the Academy at age 5. Oh, how he'd failed his student!  Another one, he thought grimly as his heart wrenched with grief at the thought of Obito. And poor Rin. Gods, what kind of a leader am I?

"Let me make this clear for you, Monkey: I am NOT allowing Father to do this again to the kit, no matter what he asks or orders. I have had enough of you tree-huggers and… your Uchiha Fuckers," he snarled at Minato, "to last until the end of time! You, Yondaime, will help the…" The great Kyuubi sat up fully and crossed his arms before snarling again. "Child of Prophecy achieve peace - or give The Hat to someone who can!" He settled back down and closed his red eyes as he spoke his last warning. "This is the last chance humanity, as well as my siblings and I have. Heed this well, flesh-bag."

"She is the Child of Prophecy? Jiraiya-sensei thought…" Minato quietly began to ask, but the Kyuubi's eyes were again closed, and he seemed to be ignoring them. He thought it was me, although I always doubted him - and he even mentioned that he thought it was his student in Ame, Nagato, I think was his name? But he died - and then he met me… Minato's eyes returned to the screen as his daughter pulled off a rather malicious prank against another storekeeper who had far overpriced what was nearly expired milk. He shook his head in both sorrow and disbelief. At least this one lets her in the store... My daughter: The Leaf Princess, shopping and living out most of her days in the "safety" of the red-light district.

My daughter, who held tightly onto the freakin Kyuubi because she was afraid of me, and in disbelief that I was even here… The Hokage felt sick. Inoichi patted his back gently, but his pupil-less eyes were fixed on the screen. Looking back at it, Minato's heart sunk.

It was her 13th birthday, Minato saw the calendar but Naruto-chan wasn't happy. He watched as his daughter angrily blacked out the date on the calendar. After what he'd seen happen on too many October 10ths, he bitterly understood. The Sandaime sent over an ANBU he didn't recognize in the morning with a message, and the ANBU had given her the warning to stay home all day, and especially away from the festival - the festival that supposedly celebrated and mourned him… 

Right, and they honor me by attacking my child! The girl… his DAUGHTER, locked the door tight, checked her broken windows, and made excellent traps. She continued making them throughout the day, then as night approached she began taking them apart. "What's she doing?! What is she thinking?!"

He had been able to feel the girl's anger, boredom, and hurt throughout most of the day: it spilled all over the area. But now, she was just blank and moving. Moving through Konoha, paying no attention as drinks were thrown at her… Suddenly he felt her chakra spike. She looked around in disbelief, wondering what she was doing here. "Genjutsu," she muttered under her breath.  She slowly turned, and Minato momentarily saw a crowd filled with nothing but malice before a man covered in black appeared with a sword, who cut his daughter down.

Red. Red everywhere was flickering. Minato's voice was caught in his chest as his heart pounded and blackness descended. Inoichi was reeling along beside him.

A white, frightening apparition appeared. The Shinigami! It vanished just as quickly and was replaced by fierce, ringed purple eyes before the man's - is that a man with… rabbit ears? - hands descended, one going over the screen: over the girl's eyes. Minato wasn't even sure what happened next as the sewer he stood in was covered with a blinding light. Continuing to stare toward the screen, he saw the man again, who melted into thin air as he saw Kushina's chains collapse and stare up in horror.

Kushina's dying!  My child is dying!

"Get out: you've seen enough." The Kyuubi demanded, his red-slitted eyes glaring down upon Minato and Inoichi. "I took out one player, but there are so many others… The Snake, the Hawk, that Uzumaki who thinks he's God... and especially the Scumbag Uchihas. Particularly that bastard, MADARA. LEAVE!"

Tails struck so fast through the bars that the two shinobi barely even saw them. Minato and Inoichi went flying backward but were immediately held up in the arms of the four Yamanaka in the interrogation room where all this began. Minato felt Tsunade's iryo-ninjutsu examining him, but he quickly moved away from her, ordering her to check on Inoichi and his daughter.

"Tch. Ordering me around again… And did you just use the words, 'my daughter,' Hokage-sama?" Tsunade asked with a good deal of venom in her voice. Minato looked away. "So you've finally accepted it." She ignored her perverted teammate's warning and glared at the blonde idiot who'd been so fucking blind. Finally, the brat nodded. "Good." She got up and removed the unconscious blonde girl from the chair in the now open box, holding her bridal style.

The Slug Sannin looked down at the girl and gently smiled. "Let's go to my place, little Namikaze. Gods I pity you… having that man as a father. Tch!" She let out an amused but dark chuckle as she walked down the hall, telling everyone who tried to stop her to go fuck themselves.

Getting the affirmation that the girl was indeed free to go, Jiraiya ran to Tsunade's side. "Tell her I want her at home!" Minato yelled. He looked up from the floor at Inoichi, who had just slumped into a chair.

"By the Sage," the young Yamanaka Clan Head said, staring blankly ahead of him before shaking his head. Minato only nodded at him. They had much to discuss.

Naruto's head was pounding as she began to wake up. Knowing she'd been imprisoned and had earlier even been slapped senseless by an angry shinobi henged to portray the Yondaime, she kept her eyes closed to better sense her surroundings. There was a weird chakra presence getting much closer to her slowly - it was all… off as she tried to open her eyes. She couldn't describe it as anything other than wonky and weak. Plus that maybe-Tsunade person was discernible, as was… Kami: my life sucks!

Great, the pervert-pedophile was there, too, in an attached room again.

Grimacing, she slowly opened her eyes to see an extremely gleeful face. The woman's violet eyes were huge and she was right up in her grill! It was the wonky person!  Oh no: she's crazy!