Memories of the Future

A/N: well, on with the story!!


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Memories of the Future: Chapter 1 - Kyuubi
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Naruto opened his eyes, and a hand instantly reached to his aching abdomen. He remembered getting stabbed there, and he sat up quickly to assess the situation. Naruto brought his hand to his face, the light too dim wherever he was, but no matter how hard he squinted, he saw no blood.

He looked down at his body. He still wore the dark blue kimono bearing the Uchiha crest, but it was unscathed, as if the battle had never happened; yet the phantom ache didn’t abate or leave room for him to ask whether the battle had actually been a dream.

A sound off to his left had his head snapping up, and Naruto finally took in his surroundings. His breath caught in his throat as he realized that they were achingly familiar. He could finally recognize the drip drop of water in the winding passageways of his mind, but when he looked deep into the shadows, the giant cage that should have been there… wasn’t.

But as a giant mural along one of the walls of the sealing room was the seal, staring daringly at anyone who would dare stare at it, but it wasn’t a jutsu. Naruto couldn’t feel it infused with any such chakra, and Yondaime and Sandaime had been the only ones to ever know the forbidden sealing jutsu, his confused mind provided.

But… where the hell was the fox?

“Naruto-kun…”

Naruto whipped his head around and took in the figure before him. A young woman stood at his feet, her hands clasped demurely before her. She wore an old-fashioned ceremonial kimono that pooled at her feet, its long stretch of grey silk covering every inch of her body. The sleeves hung past her hands, but when she brought one up to brush back loose strands of fiery red hair, Naruto glimpsed a dull flash of sharp claws.

Naruto held his breath as he looked upon her face, his blue eyes glazing in wonder when he took in red irises with slit pupils, and those eyes held such mirth as they gazed upon him in return.

Something moved behind the woman, and Naruto tore his eyes away from those familiar red ones to peer into the shadows beyond her. He watched intently, but nothing happened. Just when he was about to look back at her, the movement came again, and Naruto felt his heart stop to realize that it was a tail. Then the dim light grew brighter, and Naruto saw nine tails.

“Kyuubi!” Naruto jumped to his feet, forgetful of the phantom pain in his abdomen, to stare at the fox spirit at eye level. A musical laugh came forth from a fanged mouth, and the she-fox demurely put a clawed hand before it to stifle the sound.

“I am so very glad that you are still you, kit.”

“But, Kyuubi, how… when… you look… were you…” Naruto sputtered, moving his flailing limbs from his general area, to where the cage used to sit, and then towards her body.

“Calm down, kit, and I will explain.” The smile gracing the vixen’s face faded, and Naruto slowly brought his arms down. “I was not always a female. I was very much male while in your body.”

“While in my…”

“This is not your body, kit. That is why the cage and seal are gone.”

Naruto turned to look at the seal mural decorating the wall of the mind he was in. “But that…”

“That is not a seal, kit. It is merely a brand, to show whom this body now belongs to. It is not a vessel, but my true body… for now.”

“For now?” Naruto looked at Kyuubi quizzically, and she moved her arms away from the body. Naruto then noticed the rounded bulge where her stomach was, and his eyes widened. “You’re not…”

“I am housing a human soul within my own. It is frail and cannot survive on its own. Slowly it will meld with mine, but for now, this is my body, and you are the one that is now a visitor in me.”

Naruto shook his head, not understanding what was going on. “Kyuubi… What the hell is going on?” He was very close to tears for some reason, and Kyuubi moved forward quickly to embrace him in her warm arms.

“I need your help.”

I need your help.

Naruto felt his body pulse with the odd echo. He remembered an enemy before him, something flashing in the sky, a searing pain, a voice, Sasuke’s frantic screaming, and then nothing.

“You died, kit. We died.”

Naruto heard Sasuke’s frantic cries again, saw his tear-streaked face as his own bloody hand lifted to a pale cheek. His heart constricted painfully in his chest, and he heard a dull keening sound through his anguish. Kyuubi’s soft murmurs allowed him to reason it was coming from him.

He’d died. He’d left Sasuke alone. He’d left… their children…

Naruto fell to his knees, Kyuubi coming with him and rocking him as he cried out his anguish and torment. Kyuubi’s bulging stomach pressed into his, and he could feel a pulsing coming from it, wrapping him within its warmth and soothing his aching heart. His tears subsided, and Kyuubi moved to look into his eyes.

“I am so sorry, but I will set it right, kit. I just need time and the full resources of my power. That is why I brought you here.”

Naruto’s clouded eyes focused and he stared at her intently. “You brought me here?”

“Yes. I returned to the past and brought your departed soul back here with me.”

“What?”

Kyuubi sighed, but she smiled slightly when she met his eyes once again. “We faced off against an enemy that sought to take me from your body. I am not sure how anymore, but we died. As my host, when you died, I died. And as I was to be reincarnated, my wandering soul came across a newborn babe that would not make it through her birth night. She reminded me so much of you, kit.

“I entered her body on the spur of the moment, just as the spark of life in her soul sputtered. I wrapped my own soul around it, and was thus anchored in this body. At first I cursed my choice, convinced it was residue from your charitable personality, but I soon learned that she was a child born of an S-class criminal and was to be orphaned. And so she was.

“She was now in my care, though her mortal body was handed over to the Godaime. It was so painful for her, kit, because it reminded her of you. But she understood that the child could not be blamed for an accident of birth, and so raised the child for a few years. During this time, she retired as Hokage, but soon, her youth jutsu finally caught up to her, and she died one night, in her sleep.”

Naruto cried out in anguish once again, his heart hurting for the loss of his baa-chan, even if he hadn’t actually experienced it.

“Shush, kit. She felt no pain, be assured. But no one would take the child in, and thus she grew up on her own. Well, I grew up on my own. But having so much power and knowledge did not help when I could not use it. So I was subjected to everything you have ever gone through in your youth, kit, and I can now understand your pain and anger.”

Naruto held to Kyuubi tighter. She hadn’t deserved that kind of treatment. Sure, he’d always said the bastard fox had deserved something bad for everything that had happened to him, but that had been before they’d found a common ground and had become comfortable with each other.

“But in my years within this body, I have seen what this village has become without you, kit. Your death had more of an impact than we could have ever imagined. And I have determined to set it all right.”

Naruto leaned away from the vixen. “How are you going to do that?”

“I have to manipulate time to save our lives in the past, but it requires my attention and abundant power. I need someone to watch Yuki, the girl, while I am doing this. So I returned to the past and drew your soul into the future before it could get lost in the afterlife.”

Naruto blinked. “How can you manipulate time? I never knew you had that power!”

“I was idle in that cage, damn brat. I watched and learned. Both Uchiha Itachi’s Tsukiyomi and Tsunade’s Ninpo Sozo Saise manipulate time through chakra. Without Yondaime’s seal, I can easily use that theory for my own devices. I just need you to care for this soul while I do so.”

“And you want to use me?”

“I did not give you the ability to bear children for amusement. You are strong, and anything that comes of your blood will be strong. I technically salvaged this soul before it was born, so, when we both leave this body, it will have the strength to live.”

“You want to transfer it to my… um, body?”

“Yes.”

Naruto stared at the fox while he thought. If Kyuubi went back in time and stopped them from dying, neither of them would remain in the body. If the soul wasn’t fortified while Kyuubi worked on that, it probably wouldn’t survive.

“But if you change time, and you never save this soul in the first place, what good would that do this child? I don’t want to live again if it means someone else must die.”

“Souls are eternal, kit. Once the wave of change hits the future, what has happened to this girl’s soul won’t change, though her body, and maybe even her fate may. She may even be born into an actual family. But Naruto-kun, whatever you think about this situation, think of your family. You have to be there for them.”

“What happened to them, Kyuubi?”

“Take this soul and find out. This body will be yours after I transfer this soul to you, and you can see for yourself what has gone on in the sixteen years you have been dead.”

Naruto felt as if his stomach had dropped from his body. “Sixteen years?” His voice was meek, unbelieving. A picture flashed before his eyes: his two gorgeous little boys, who looked so much like their father, running around the yard chasing Kakashi-sensei’s nin-dogs; his husband smiling at his sons as he rocked a small bundle in his arms, their little girl; his twin boys running up the porch steps to pounce on Sasuke’s legs, making him lose balance, and with every ninja skill he possessed, falling gracefully to his ass without even jostling their giggling baby daughter.

Sixteen years. His three-year-old boys were nineteen, and since they were Uchiha, were probably prominent chuunin, maybe even jounin or ANBU. His one-year-old daughter was seventeen, another Uchiha, and more than likely an accomplished kunoichi, maybe even a medic-nin under Sakura-chan. And Sasuke…

He’d missed their lives. Naruto felt tears gather in his eyes once again, but he stubbornly didn’t let them fall as he looked into Kyuubi’s glowing red eyes.

“I’ll do it. Give me the soul and get us the hell out of here. I want my family back.”

Kyuubi smiled at him. “If you work a little of that Uzumaki charm, I am sure you can see them while in this body. Just do not give away who you are. That might be a little detrimental to our plan.”

“Uzumaki Naruto is on it!” Naruto puffed his chest out in pride, but it deflated when Kyuubi stepped forth and grabbed him around his waist, tugging him into her body. Her stomach once again pulsed against his, but this time the warmth surged into him rather than wrapping around him, and he cried out in pain as his womb swelled excruciatingly fast. When she let him go, he staggered backwards and gasped for air.

“Are you okay, kit?”

“No! Kami, I am so glad actual pregnancy takes nine months, ‘cause this fucking hurts, swelling to the size of a beached whale in five seconds!”

“Have you ever even seen a whale, kit?”

Silence, and then, “No, but Iruka-sensei told me that they were huge!” He gestured with his hands some undeterminable size and huffed when Kyuubi laughed at him. “Fine, but I have seen how big you actually are!”

Naruto remembered too late that Kyuubi was female now, and more than likely wouldn’t take too kindly to being called large in any manner, and he was sure the soul within his stomach was the only thing that kept his ass from getting seriously trounced. As it was, Kyuubi just bonked him over the head, an eerie echo of how Sakura used to do, and then it was over. Naruto glanced up as the vixen began to walk away.

“You will probably not hear from me for a while. Please try to stay out of trouble, kit.”

Naruto grinned his patented grin. “Come on, who do you think you’re talking to?”

Kyuubi snorted quite unlady-like before answering with a swish of all nine tails, “Konoha’s number one hyperactive, knuckle-headed ninja, that’s who.”

Naruto smiled as she disappeared into the shadows. Then he looked around once again before running a hand down his face. Then it traveled down to his stomach and rubbed the protrusion.

“Here we go, I guess.”


TBC


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