"Wait!" cried Sakura. "You're both the real Naruto!" She drew a shaky breath, then said, "Just… stand a bit further apart, all right? Sothing dreadful will happen if you touch each other… please, just humour . Honestly, this is giving anxiety…"
The two Narutos crossed their arms at the sa mont and cocked their heads at Sakura's words, confusion written plainly across their faces. Realising that their respective doppelganger seed bent on mirroring their every move, they exchanged a sharp glare before promptly sticking out their tongues and tugging one eyelid down, making their gestures in perfect sync.
Then the first Naruto began walking in circles, singing as he waved his arms about:
"I can hear the froggy song, I can hear the froggy song, chinchiro, chinchiro, chinchirorin, I can hear the froggy song…" he sang off-key. "Look, Gamakichi is singing, gero gero gero gero gero… Look, Gamatatsu is singing toooooo…"
Naruto's voice petered out when he noticed that the other Naruto wasn't keeping up with his ridiculous dance nor even bothering to sing along, but simply watching him awkwardly with a look of pity on his face, the kind usually reserved for idiotic friends found passed out in a puddle of their own vomit after one pint too many.
His face flushed red with embarrassnt.
"Oh, you're dead at now, you faker!" Naruto croaked. "How dare you make look like an idiot in front of Sakura-chan, ya know!?"
"!? You did that all that by yourself!" the other Naruto spluttered. "I'm the one who should be mad! Using my face to embarrass in front of Sakura-chan, ya know!"
It was then that Minato finally strolled up to them. He frowned at the sight of the Hidden Leaf forehead protectors on their brows. For so reason, he felt a sense of kinship towards them, yet he was certain he would have rembered such colourful characters if he'd seen them around in the village…
"Care to explain what's actually going on…" Minato said with a dangerous glint in his eye. "Miss Uchiha Konan… or should I say, Miss Sakura?"
One of the Narutos opened his mouth to speak, but Sakura clapped a hand over it before he could get the word dad out. The rest of the truth was bound to co out sooner or later, so she might as well get it over with, on her own terms. With the two Narutos' help, she was certain she could overpower Minato and his team if they got any funny ideas about extracting information from the future from them…
"The truth is that all three of us have co from twenty years into the future," Sakura explained. "Though I suspect we don't all co from the sa future."
Minato looked pensive. As a space-ti ninjutsu genius, he had always been intrigued by the Ryūmyaku's possibilities, but had never had the occasion to visit Lōran, since Queen Sēramu had never been overthrown. What Sakura was saying struck him as plausible…
"First things first, we should get out of the open," Minato said, gesturing to a nearby tower. "We can continue this conversation away from prying eyes."
…
The Land of Lōran was suspiciously empty compared to a few days ago, when Sakura had first arrived. It was as if everyone had vanished… but where to? By the ti Team Minato and Team Mirai found a secluded spot to hold a serious conversation, the two Narutos had more or less co to terms with the fact that they had sohow landed in the past.
"So, what's new on your side?" Sakura asked the first Naruto, catching him staring at her chest.
"Er… well, to begin with," he replied, waving his hands up and down in front of his chest to indicate the absence of obstruction. "My Sakura's more on the washboard side of things. No offence, ya know."
Sakura frowned.
"As for current events," Naruto went on, looking rather pensive. "Hmm… oh, yeah…" His expression darkened. "Team 7 just got back from hunting Sasuke and Itachi," he said mournfully. "We found them both, but they slipped straight through our fingers. Next thing I heard, Sasuke had killed his brother— but he never ca back to the village, in the end."
The other Naruto looked at his other self and raised an eyebrow.
"Why… were you hunting Sasuke?" he asked. "Isn't he… your friend, too?"
"You an your Sasuke never… defected to Orochimaru?" the first Naruto croaked in disbelief. "Tell … no. Please tell what I should have done. Please, I'll do anything, ya know, I just have to know where it all went wrong, I know I can still fix things with Sasuke…"
"Watch it! Sakura-chan said we weren't supposed to touch each other!" the second Naruto exclaid, backing away rapidly as his parallel self drew dangerously close to him. "And how should I know? My Sasuke never left— I didn't do anything special that I can rember, ya know!"
The first Naruto looked like he was about to be sick.
In Sakura's opinion, that Naruto was Naruto Pri; in other words, the Naruto originating from the Sacred Tiline depicted in canon… and also this filler episode, from the looks of it.
"Okay, I've heard enough," Sakura said, turning to the second Naruto. "What about you?"
"Well, for starters, my Sakura-chan looks exactly like you," he said quietly. "Or, she used to… you look more like the Sakura-chan from before."
Sakura wasn't certain if she wanted to hear any more.
"Before…" she said slowly. "Before what?"
"Before Hōzuki Prison," Naruto said miserably. "It took months before Lady Tsunade could pull you out. And when you ca back, your eyes were never the sa, y'know? I don't know what happened to you in there, but you couldn't even bring yourself to look Sasuke or in the eye— you just stayed shut away in your room all day…"
"Wasn't the prison attacked by Kumo?" Sakura asked. "In my tiline, that's when I made my escape… oh."
In all likelihood, this Naruto was from her original tiline, before her death triggered Shion's regression Dōjutsu. In that life, she had never invented the Celestial Lotus Seal, and without Sage Mode, she probably hadn't been able to escape from Mui, since her chakra had been sealed. He must have successfully defended against Kumo's invasion long enough for Iwa to arrive and repel them, then continued draining her until nothing but a husk remained… until Lady Tsunade finally saw fit to cancel her sentence.
All things considered, it was probably for the best that Sakura had lost those mories.
"Oh, Naruto-kun…" Sakura said softly, her eyes moistening as she caressed his cheek. "I'm so, so sorry, I…"
Sakura hugged Darkest Tiline Naruto tightly, leaving Sacred Tiline Naruto with the inexplicable feeling that he was sitting in the cuck chair sohow— even though Naruto was the one being hugged.
"Actually, never mind," she sniffled. "Forget I said anything…"
Sooner or later, Pain would co calling in her original tiline. She would die, and her soul would fly back in ti to create a new, branching tiline, thereby preventing Nagato from reviving her— and only her— amongst all the villagers. This was her Naruto, but unfortunately for him, he would never have his happy-ever-after with her. He would have to learn to live with that pain and move past it on his own… no doubt with a bit of help from Hinata, that howrecking bitch.
For the sake of her own continued existence, she couldn't tell him anything, since from her perspective, this Naruto was from her past… or could she? After all, the System had told her that she would survive any changes to the tiline, including her parents not giving birth to her…
"So, what's the plan?" Minato asked, interrupting their tender mont with a cough. "Our priority is closing the Ryūmyaku before it's too late, but if you have any ideas…"
"This is all Anrokuzan's fault," Sakura said, clearing her throat as she stepped away from Punished-Venom Naruto. "We need to rescue Sāra's mum and shut down the Ryūmyaku, then take Anrokuzan down and save Lōran, so that we can return to our rightful tis and places… and, if it's not too much to ask, you'll have to seal your entire team's mories, Lord Namikaze. Future knowledge mustn't be leaked."
Minato nodded. "That goes without saying."
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