Misplaced Princess

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naruto speaking to Kurama, etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

Jiraiya had been putting seals on his teenage goddaughter/apprentice's head all afternoon, and she just kept burning through them. When her fever had dangerously spiked again, he had no choice but to summon a toad to get a message to Tsunade, which went through Minato - and isn't that going to be a bitch: he knew it would!  Unfortunately, his medical training was limited to little more than first aid.

They'd only been in Uzushio for an hour when it all began. Fortunately, he had had time to write additional chakra suppression seals as the girl went through them, and he was still six seals ahead.

"Ero-sennin?" the fevered blonde tried to ask as her eyes opened. Her godfather helped her sit up, but moved his hand away from her arm as it almost burned him. He helped her take a drink and Naruto slumped back against a bedroll as she tried to take in her surroundings. "I thought you'd died," she whispered before falling asleep or unconscious again.

"Oh boy," Jiraiya groaned. Naruto wasn't supposed to know what had happened during one of her past lives, and he hoped that the Kyuubi wasn't influencing her mind the way it had her body. Or maybe she's just in a fevered stupor right now and has had some strange dream. Feeling a sudden and too-large influx of chakra, he rubbed his face in vexation. He looked out the window to find not only Gamabunta but the Hokage's guard, with Tsunade and Kakashi-brat in the middle of it.

Jiraiya had to look away but couldn't swallow down a chuckle at what he'd just seen. In order to teleport both of them, Minato's guard had sandwiched Tsunade and Kakashi together, and Kakashi swayed dangerously as his nose gushed blood from being pressed into Tsunade's chest.

It was lucky for Kakashi that Tsunade was ignoring him as she jumped in through the open window, blood still between her bosoms.

It was unlucky for Jiraiya that Gamabunta spat out both Minato and Kushina from his mouth. Minato limped toward him on the ground, hugging Kushina close to him and whispering what Jiraiya was sure was soothing, calming things as she tried to rush forward. There was no need to ask Minato why he was limping. For all that Jiraiya loved the hot-tempered redhead, Kushina still had a terrible habit of stomping someone's toes when seriously told "no."

Tsunade began running a diagnostic, muttering threats about how he better not have undressed Naruto-chan as much as he had until she realized how high the girl's fever was.

"You just missed her being awake, although it was only for a few seconds, moments ago," he told his blonde teammate. "I gave her a glass of water, but then she was out again." Before Tsunade could even ask about potential poisoning or anything else, Jiraiya told her what he thought was going on. "I'm pretty sure it's the Kyuubis."

"Great, just great," Tsunade complained before summoning a large medical bag from a seal in her green haori. She quickly set up an IV and began taking a blood sample to ensure that there wasn't more going on than what Jiraiya suspected. "Did you say Kyuubis, as in plural? What the hell does that even mean?"

"You misheard me," Jiraiya lied, then crossed his arms, "or I may have misspoke; I'm tired."

Tsunade took him at his word and Jiraiya turned toward the door, putting his hands up in a placating gesture to Minato who was now carrying Kushina in bridal style. "Tsunade-hime's got it under control. Minato, help me make more chakra suppression seals." Minato nodded his head then flashed to his daughter once Kushina was steadily on her feet, making everyone's hair fly.

That teleportation was so unnecessary!

"Is she going to be alright?" Minato asked Tsunade worriedly.

"I need to do some tests, but my first scan showed that she's mainly dehydrated." She turned toward Jiraiya. "Pervert! What have the two of you been eating and drinking, and where were you?"

"Mainly fish while we were in Ame, and I've been careful. Not that she ever is," Jiraiya said about Naruto, looking at Kushina suspiciously. He would've assumed that the girl's mother would have been all over the little blonde, hugging and squeezing the life out of her the way Kushina did to anyone she was concerned with. They'd been gone for weeks, after all!  Instead, Kushina seemed to be holding her breath, and he would've said that she looked determined but wary. And not in an "I'm-worried-about-my-daughter" way.

Minato had already begun making the seals Jiraiya asked for and placed another on his daughter's sweaty head as the one previously there slowly burned off. Tsunade sat the girl up to better listen to her breathing, and more than half of Minato's Jonin fell down behind him.

"Honestly, you brats," Jiraiya sighed. "Teenagers."

Minato looked up in alarm, then glared at most of his guard and student who were now on the ground sporting nosebleeds. "What in Kami-sama's name is she wearing?!" He asked as he quickly covered Naruto's chest up, waiting for Tsunade to finish listening to Naruto's lungs.

"Lungs sound fine; and that's a bra, Minato, you dunderhead," Tsunade said idly. Naruto was wearing one of the bras she had bought for her.

"It's not a normal bra! ...A baby or ugly, old-lady one with no... no... stuff on it," Minato steamed. He looked up for Kushina's agreement to his opinion on the lacy, low-cut neon-orange thing that his daughter had no business wearing, but saw his wife's determined expression. "Kushina?  What's wrong honey?"

Kushina pulled the sheet completely off of Naruto in one quick swipe moments later and then put her hands on Naruto's visible seal, her eyes widening in shock before she fell on top of her daughter. Minato tried to both pull her up and cover Naruto again - and what kind of neon orange non-standard underwear are those? - before realizing his wife was literally stuck to his daughter.

Stuck, seal to empty seal.

"Fuck," the normally unflappable Yondaime exclaimed, but the sticky problem was resolved almost as soon as it had begun, although now Kushina was unconscious, too.

Earlier, in Naruto's mindscape -

"What do you mean you ate him?" Naruto asked as she turned to look into the empty, open cage across from Kurama again. Kurama was as big now as the other fox had been, and all fiery and even cooler looking than before. He was also smacking and licking his chops, and for a second, she wondered if she was the next course on his dinner menu.

"Don't flatter yourself or be stupid," Kurama said before holding his stomach. The other him he'd eaten gave him a lot of gas - or what he supposed humans would call gas, and wasn't that disgusting? One way or the other, his magnificent abdomen ached. "The foul, impertinent fool had to go."

"I don't get it," Naruto said as she sat down in front of him. She reckoned that even if he did eat her, what was she going to do to stop him? He was part of her, and a gigantic bijuu besides that: it wasn't like she could run away. "And why can't I get out of here?"

Kurama internally silenced his confused other, bitter half after briefly reminding him that this was Naruto, his/their father's successor, or at least the Sage's (good) child's successor before he responded to his vessel. He shook back his ears and tried to forget exactly what he tasted like.

Detestable hate-filled chakra entity or not, he was delicious!

"Mmrph," he began as he patted his belly. "When I broke my former self's seal, your temperature spiked. You should sleep."

"Aren't I sleeping now?"

The great fox shrugged. "On and off."

Naruto bit her lip and walked forward a few steps as she tried to touch the fox. Surprisingly, although his fur looked like it was coated in flames, it was simply really warm. She looked up at him, questioning it, but Kurama just rolled his eyes. "C'mon then," he sighed. She smiled and quickly climbed up onto his head before going to sleep.

They were both awoken at the same time. Naruto had been having really weird dreams.

"Naruto, I'm going to try something, but if it doesn't work... Don't blame me."  He decided to make a prank out of it...

Naruto could sense that her parents were there with Ero-sennin now and that Tsunade was really close, doing something with that green stuff to her, too. Kakashi and Genma were there, and so were two other people she didn't know. Her entire mindscape smelled like the ocean. She jumped down on the fox's nose. "You won't hurt anyone, right?"

"No promises," the Kyuubi replied with a feral grin, but Naruto had a strong sense that he was joking.

"Naruto!"

"Mom?" Naruto asked, turning around to look back and forth between her mother and the Kyuubi's eyes, wondering what the hell was going on. "You look super alive, 'ttebayo." Naruto wasn't quite sure why she said that, but it was true nonetheless. She not only looked alive but super healthy.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE KYUUBI'S NOSE, 'TTEBANE?"

"Oh for fuck's sake! You Uzumakis and your verbal tics! Has anyone told you how stupid you sound?" 

Both Uzumakis began yelling at him, and Kurama flicked Naruto off his nose before covering his ears. "Loud females!"

Kushina was fretting over Naruto being flicked; Naruto reassured her she was just fine, wondering why her mother didn't notice her awesome somersault as she fell down.

"Ignore him, he's just jealous of our awesomeness," the teen said confidently.

"Believe it," Kushina agreed as she hugged her daughter. "What in blazes am I doing here, Fox?!"

"Hmph! I used a genjutsu on you, enticing you to enter my domain," he answered in a very superior tone before wrinkling his huge nose at his surroundings, "such as it is. For all the sewer lacks, it's a hell of a lot better than what you did to me."

Kushina immediately thought of telling him off - it was second nature - but Naruto gently touched her arm, speaking first. "What do you mean? No. More importantly, why is Mom here?"

The Kyuubi glared down at both of them, then blew out a huge huff of hot air. He lowered himself to the ground so that he could see them better, eye-to-eye. "I find you loathsome, Kushina, but you did give me Naruto. For that, I must thank you."

Kushina didn't know quite what to say to that - or what to say to his statement before that. She always knew that her seal was horribly cruel, but she thought the Kyuubi was a monster that would kill her and everyone else. And she hated him from the beginning: no, before that - from the moment she learned that she would be forced to become the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, no matter what Mito-sama told her about love being the key. "I'm SORRY!" she yelled out in tears.

"Hey, you made Mom cry," Naruto pouted up at her bijuu while patting her mother on the back as she sobbed. "And you still didn't tell us why she's here. She said she was sorry and it's totally uncool to bring her here just to be mean to her!"

Kurama rolled his eyes - something he'd been trying to avoid doing for years but the girl was just so damn exasperating - and sighed, resigned to his fate. "You're both idiots. And brats."

"'Brats?' I think that's key for 'he likes you,' Mom!"

"It most certainly does not: I do NOT like her! But I, mmrph..." Kurama stopped and held his hands over his snout before deciding what to do in a burst of glorious genius. "Kushina."

Kushina had dried her eyes and would've reeled back when the Kyuubi grabbed her, but his hold was so careful and almost gentle, her breath was taken away. Never having much of a survival instinct, she looked back down at her daughter to give her the strength to fight, but her little Naruto was giving her a big thumbs up.

Actually, her expression and stance resembled Gai-kun's a little, and that was kinda funny.

"I can't promise this will work."

"What are ya doin', furball?" Naruto hollered up from down on the wet floor.

Kushina laughed at her daughter's nickname for the Kyuubi and got a tremendous, demonic burp in the face. "GAH!"

She woke up to Minato shaking her. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'what?' Are you alright, Kushina? You passed out and... What the heck happened?" Minato asked, not wanting to reveal that he was nearly sure that there had been some kind of unexpected fuuinjutsu oddity that had taken place earlier.

Kushina smiled and took inventory of her strength and chakra. She looked over at her daughter and began to chuckle. "She'll be alright. I can't believe I'm home." Now that she knew Naru-chan was going to be okay, she took another deep breath, smelling the ocean and wonderful smells of her homeland.

Tsunade was examining her and stepped back in a degree of shock.  "You're better. Your chakra pathways are still pretty shitty, but... they're not as bad," Tsunade whispered as she continued running a diagnostic over her cousin. "And somehow, most of your tenketsu have healed."

"Aww, so I still can't use chakra? Well, I guess it was worth a shot," she patted her belly; her smile so bright that it made Minato's heart do a little flip flop in his chest.

Naruto glared at her bijuu; her mother had just disappeared! "Where did she go?! What did you do to her, Kurama?"

"Tch! I gave her some of my extra chakra, brat!"

Naruto gasped and stopped running around trying to punch him, wondering if she should instead offer him her gratitude. "Will she be okay?" she asked in a small voice.

"Hmph! I didn't hurt her, if that's what you mean," Kurama said before taking a big lick of the flaming fur on his arm. Honestly, I am so glorious, he thought as he gazed down upon it. "Whether or not she is healed from my purified chakra is up to her and how screwed up her tenketsu and chakra pathways were. She may be stronger than she was following my extraction at the hands of that fucking Uchiha, but she certainly won't be weaker."

"Thank you, Kurama," Naruto said as she hugged his paw.

He turned his face away from her. "It's nothing," he lied.

"Now what did you do to the other mean fox?"

"Tch! I have long been planning his demise."

And so began a rather short tale of deception and intrigue that Naruto enjoyed very much, although she kinda felt sorry for the other fox.

A sole black and white figure arose from the ground in the south-eastern border between the Land of Fire and the ocean.

"White Zetsu was right: it is the Kyuubi's chakra, for all the good it does us."

Zetsu's black half sniffed the air deeply and pulled back as if he'd inhaled something foul. "So it is. We must contain it."

"We cannot move through the ocean. What are you, stupid?!" White Zetsu asked.

"Shut up, you fool! Unlike you, I am in no way stupid! We can contain the Kyuubi's excess chakra: it may aid us in the future."

"How? I miss Obito," the white half pouted with his half-mouth. "What a waste of time that kid was," the White half of Zetsu smiled as he thought more of his former charge. "He was fun to waste time with, though!"

"Idiot. There is a container in Kumo. Call on your clones; let us hurry to retrieve it before this chakra dissipates entirely!"

"Madara's dead," White Zetsu said while looking around and sending roots out to his clones. "Now what are we going to do?"

"Tch. As if I don't have a plan!"

Black Zetsu did have a new plan, but it would be more complicated than he would've liked.