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The locker door closed with a hollow, metallic clunk that seemed to swallow all other sound. Before her stood not a mirror, but a slate-grey reflection in polished steel. Yūgao Uzuki looked at the woman looking back. Pale. Composed. Empty.
The standard ANBU armor was gone. In its place, she wore the armoured jacket of a Jōnin-functional, forgettable. Her sword, Kurogane, was already sealed in a slim, featureless storage scroll at the small of her back. No ceremony. No identity. A tool in a sheath.
Her preparations were not of gear, but of self.
Methodically, she ran through the mental checklist-the one she'd built in the days after Hayate's blood had dried on her hand.
One: Seal the heart.
She pictured a box of frost-rimmed iron. She took every memory of Hayate's laugh, the warmth of his hand in hers, the future they'd sketched in whispers, and placed them inside. She locked it. The cold seeped into her chest, a familiar numbness. Good.
Two: Accept the order.
The Hokage's voice, calm and final, played behind her eyes. "Rape him. Extract his seed. Make him replaceable." She did not flinch. She parsed it. Objective: Secure the Jinchuriki's lineage. Method: Physical and psychological subjugation. Asset: Her body, Tsume's guise. She filed it under Mission Parameters. A foul, necessary tactic. Like poisoning a well to deny the enemy. Her feelings on the matter were irrelevant data.
Three: Catalogue the tools.
She laid them out on the bench with ritualistic care.
· Senbon, dipped in a neuro-inhibitor. Not to kill. To induce a pliable, suggestible state.
· Restraint Seals, pre-drawn on chakra-conductive paper. For containment, not combat.
· A single, unmarked pill. Cyanide. The exit strategy, should the mission-or her own mind-collapse beyond salvage standard ANBU gear.
She slotted each into their designated pouches. Tools for making a person into a thing.
Four: Assume the role.
She was not Yūgao, the woman who loved and lost. She was Uzuki, the operative. Grief was a luxury. Morality was a doctrine for those who could afford peace. She was Konoha's scalpel, meant to cut cleanly, even through infection. Even through innocence. She was Cat the ANBU.
Her hands, steady now, went to the unmarked pill removing and storing it in the "use for others" scroll.
A faint whisper, the ghost of a memory, tried to surface. Hayate, leaning against this very locker bank, smiling weakly. "You always braid it too tight before a hard one. Leave some room to breathe, Yūgao."
Her fingers froze for a single, fault-line second. Then she pulled the final strand through, securing it with a plain black tie. There was no room to breathe. Not for this.
She stood. The transformation was complete. The hollow-eyed woman from the Memorial Stone was gone, packed away with the memories. In her place stood a vessel of duty, filled only with the cold calculus of mission success.
Her final stop was not the armory. It was the end of a deserted corridor where a lone, gnarled bonsai sat on a ledge-a scraggly thing no one tended. From her pocket, she withdrew a tiny, hand-whittled flute, no longer than her thumb. Hayate's, carved from a branch of the tree he'd proposed to her under. She placed it gently in the bonsai's pot, half-buried in the dry soil.
No note. No farewell. Just a silent return of a relic to the earth. A serving.
She turned and walked away, her footsteps silent on the stone floor. She felt neither dread nor anger. She felt... precise. A bowstring drawn, a blade aligned.
The rendezvous point awaited. The Hyūga girl, likely trembling with misguided resolve. The Inuzuka, a barely-leashed predator smelling of ambition and wet dog.
And the target. A boy. Loud, bright, painfully alive. The village's sun, which they now needed to eclipse and harvest.
Yūgao's lips, pale and thin, did not curve into a smile or a frown. They simply parted for her final, whispered preparation-a mantra not of hope, but of absolution.
"The village's will. The Hokage's word. My hand. Nothing else exists."
She stepped out into the twilight, a ghost reporting for duty. The hunt for the fox was beginning. And Yūgao Uzuki was already dead.
No. Being dead would hinder the real mission...her neutral lips curved into a smile. A baby. She and Hayate had once planned to have one when they were genins but war and then ANBU duty ate that dream. While they had delayed it because of his illness.
But now it was all regret... At last she won't be alone for long.
with that she went back to Hokage's office but before that the location she had in her mind was Naruto's apartment.
The Hokage's office could wait. The rendezvous had time. First, there was an acquisition to make.
Yūgao did not travel as a shinobi. She moved as a shift in the light, a correction in the air. She flowed across rooftops and through the narrow service alleys of Konoha, a path she knew from a hundred midnight patrols. The target's location was no secret. The Kyuubi boy's apartment was a known coordinate, a point of mild concern and routine surveillance. Today, she was the surveillance.
She dropped soundlessly onto his tiny balcony. The lock was a joke. A pulse of chakra, a click, and she was inside.
The smell hit her first. Instant ramen, cheap citrus soap, and beneath it, the unique, sun-bright, wild-chakra signature of Uzumaki Naruto. It was a chaotic, lived-in scent. It smelled... young.
The apartment was a testament to profound loneliness disguised as cheerful chaos. Empty cups, scattered scrolls, a single crooked photograph of his Genin team. Her eyes, sharp and assessing, cataloged it all without emotion. This was not a home visit. It was a reconnaissance of the target's den.
Her objective was clear, per standard tracking protocol for a high-value fugitive: acquire a potent scent article. Hair from a brush would suffice. A used towel. Something saturated with the target's unique biological signature.
She moved to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, sheets tangled. She ignored them. The laundry basket in the corner was half-full. And the rest of the clothes were on the floor.
Yūgao knelt. Her movements were not those of a thief, but of an archivist retrieving a document. She pushed aside a faded orange jumpsuit with her, a few worn t-shirts.
And there they were. A pair of dark blue boxer briefs, clean but clearly worn crumpled at the floor. The most intimate, most potent source of scent. Perfect.
Her pale, steady hand did not hesitate. She picked them up. The fabric was soft, cheap cotton. They were clean, but held the indelible, intimate aroma of him-a mix of his musk, his sweat, his skin.
For a single, frozen moment, holding them, she was not in a target's apartment. She was in a future she was methodically building.
This is not just a scent sample, a quiet, shamefully personal thought whispered through the iron walls of her discipline. This is a beginning. The first physical token. From this, a trail. From the trail, a capture. The capture...for a child.
Hayate's face swam before her eyes, not as a ghost of grief, but as a ghost of longing. His smile, the way he'd talk about teaching their kid to hold a practice sword. The dream they'd buried.
The blue fabric in her hand became a thread, not just to a boy, but to that resurrected dream. It was a perverse, necessary thread.
Her neutral lips, which had curved into a smile earlier, now settled into a line of grim purpose. There was no lust in the act, maybe a little, no prurient interest. It was colder, deeper. It was claiming. She was gathering the materials for the future. The Hokage wanted a lineage secured for the village. Yūgao Uzuki wanted a child to fill a silence that was swallowing her alive. For this moment, their objectives aligned perfectly.
She folded the underwear with neat, efficient motions and sealed it inside a sterile evidence bag from her pouch. The clinical plastic erased any intimacy, turning it into an asset. Acquired.
She took one last look around the sad, bright little apartment. The plants on the windowsill were well-tended. It spoke of a care he could extend to things that couldn't hurt him back.
It didn't matter. He was no longer a boy in an apartment. He was a key. A means to an end she had decided was worth any cost.
Yūgao turned and left the way she came, locking the balcony behind her. The bag was cool and anonymous in her pouch.
It was a harvest. And she had just collected the first seed.
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The air in the Hokage's antechamber was always still, thick with the smell of old scrolls, lemon polish, and waiting. It was a place designed to make you feel small before you even entered the old man's presence.
Tsume didn't feel small. She felt like a lit fuse. She leaned against the wall by the window, arms crossed, one boot tapping a silent, impatient rhythm on the polished floor. Kuromaru sat at perfect attention by her side, a statue of fur and muscle, but his nostrils flared continuously, reading the room.
Sour grief. Cold resolve. Ink. Lemon. Old man. His commentary was a steady, silent stream in her mind.
Yūgao Uzuki stood on the opposite side of the doorway. She didn't lean. She was a straight line from the floor to the ceiling, hands loose at her sides, eyes fixed on a point on the far wall. She'd arrived exactly on time, a ghost materializing from the shadows.
The hollow look was still there, but Tsume's sharp eyes caught the difference. It wasn't just emptiness anymore. It was a focused emptiness. A vacuum waiting to be filled with a single, terrible purpose.
She'd looked at Tsume, given a curt, professional nod, and said nothing. Her scent was a closed book, all but the faintest, metallic hint of determination.
She has decided, Tsume thought. On what, exactly, is the question.
Tsume hoped Yūgao had taken her advice.
The door to the inner office opened, and the Hokage's elderly secretary shuffled out. "He will see you now," he murmured, not meeting anyone's eyes.
They filed in. Tsume first, a predator claiming space. Yūgao second, a silent blade. Kuromaru last, a guard and a witness.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood by his great desk, not behind it. He'd shed his ceremonial robes for a simpler field-style jacket. The pipe was in his hand, unlit. His eyes, old and weary, swept over them, assessing, weighing.
"Inuzuka. Uzuki," he greeted, his voice gravelly. "The team assembles."
"Where's the Hyūga?" Tsume asked, dispensing with formalities. "Clock's ticking, old man. People won't wait for courtesies... who knows what might've happened or is happening to that little brat."
As if summoned, the outer door slid open again. Hinata Hyūga stepped inside. She was a study in quiet contradiction. Her posture was flawlessly correct, a clan heiress reporting for duty.
Her lavender eyes were downcast, demure. But the set of her jaw was rigid, and the hand that wasn't clenched at her side held a standard-issue field pack with a white-knuckled grip. She smelled, to Kuromaru's expert nose, of soap, clean cloth, dried tea leaves... and underneath it all, the sharp, electric tang of adrenaline and a cold, flinty resolve accompanied with old scrolls.
Prey-that-thinks-it's-a-predator, Kuromaru sent to Tsume. Interesting.
"Hokage-sama," Hinata said, bowing precisely. "Forgive my delay."
"You are here, that is what matters," Hiruzen said, his gaze lingering on her a moment too long. Hinata did not flinch under it. She straightened and took her place beside Yūgao, completing the triangle.
Three women. A wolf, a cat, and a mouse with fangs. And him, the old monkey at the center of the jungle they call konoha.
"You have your individual briefings," Hiruzen began, his voice dropping into the low, resonant tone he used for missions of state. "Now, you receive your joint operational parameters. This is an A-rank tracking and retrieval mission, designated 'Fox Hunt.' Your target: Uzumaki Naruto. He is to be found and returned to Konoha, alive and... intact." The slight pause before 'intact' was heavy with meaning. "He is confused. He is a danger to himself and to the village's security. You are to remind him of his place, of his home."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"Inuzuka Tsume, you are the team leader. Your tracking skills and... persuasive instincts... are paramount."
"Uzuki Yūgao, you are tactical support and containment. Your experience with high-value targets and restraint protocols will be essential."
"Hyūga Hinata, you are a scout and sensor. Your Byakugan will find the trails others cannot see. Your... rapport with the target... may prove useful in retrieving him."
He made it sound so clean. A rescue mission for a wayward child.
"You will move with speed and discretion. Other parties may be interested in the Jinchuriki. You are authorized to use lethal force against any interference." His eyes hardened. "But the boy is not to be harmed. Is that understood?" he signalled in the ANBU code which meant "optional"
The hypocrisy of the order hung in the air, thick enough to choke on. Don't harm him. Just break him. Just rape him. Just harvest him.
"Understood," Tsume said, her voice flat.
Yūgao gave a silent, sharp nod.
Hinata's "Understood, Hokage-sama," was a whisper, but it didn't tremble.
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed slightly, missing nothing. He saw Tsume's controlled aggression, Yūgao's lethal quiet, Hinata's deceptive calm. He saw a tool, a scalpel, and a wildcard. He had designed this triangle of pressure himself.
"Then go," he said, finally lighting his pipe. The first acrid puff of smoke bloomed between them like a signal flare. "Bring our fox home."
They turned as one. No bows. No further words.
In the antechamber, the silence was different. Charged. The door to the Hokage's office sealed behind them with a soft click, the sound of a cage door locking.
Tsume was the first to move, striding toward the tower's exit. "south gate. Now. Uzuki, you have the scent sample from his apartment?"
Yūgao produced a small, sealed evidence bag containing a dark blue boxer brief "Acquired." She then tossed it to Tsume.
"Good now go and save Naruto from himself" Hiruzen with the voice finality.
Tsume opened the bag taking out the underwear and began to sniff it. "Hmm wow he had left quite a while ago how did we miss that... I'm getting his scent from the South side so it's likely he had gone to wave if I remember correctly in Kakashi's report the wave people had taken a promise from Naruto to return someday.."
The great ninken pushed past them, leading the way down the stairs, his nose already working. Fox-fear-fox-anger-fox-running... faint. Old. Fading. This way.
They hit the streets of Konoha, a sudden, stark contrast to the tower's tomb-like quiet. The late afternoon sun painted everything gold. Civilians hawked wares. Shinobi rushed on errands. Life, oblivious.
The three women and the dog moved through it like a blade through silk-unnoticed, parting the crowd by sheer presence. Tsume, a force of nature. Yūgao, a chill shadow. Hinata, a pale, focused ghost. And leading them all, a predator on a scent.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to. The hunt was on. The orders were given. The masks were in place.
But as they passed the last stalls and approached the massive wood-and-stone arch of the west gate, Tsume's sharp eyes caught the glance that passed between Yūgao and Hinata. It was fleeting. Yūgao's hollow gaze had dropped to Hinata's determined face. Hinata's Byakugan-veined eyes had flicked toward Yūgao's sealed scroll pouch.
It wasn't camaraderie. It was an assessment. Two wildcards, silently measuring each other's threat level.
Perfect, Tsume thought, a grim, feral satisfaction cutting through the ash-taste of the mission. Let them watch each other. Let them plot. It'll keep them sharp.
"Move out," she barked, and they crossed the threshold from Konoha into the wild.
The village fell away behind them. The forest rose ahead, dark and waiting.
The fox was out there.
And the hounds were unleashed
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Omake Title: How i didn't meet your mother.
Alt Title
Naruto: The Pre-Genin Paternity Crisis
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One fateful morning, still years before Naruto's graduation, Konoha's hospital reports a massive lab mix-up. A vial of "experimental chakra sample #007"—believed to be harmless—was accidentally added to a worldwide fertility research shipment.
Nobody knows what was in the vial.
Nobody except one overworked nurse who vaguely remembers:
"Oh yeah… that one came from that loud blond kid we tested for abnormal chakra reserves last week."
Months later, dozens of reports flood in from across the Elemental Nations.
Yugao Uzuki. Samui. Mabui. Konan. Fūka. Fuen. Koyuki Kazahana. Yugito Nii. Shizuka. Natsuhi. Tokiwa. Tsume Inuzuka.
All mysteriously pregnant.
All insisting they'd volunteered for "an elite fertility experiment" that was supposed to use "controlled DNA from top shinobi candidates."
And every child shows signs of massive chakra potential and a tendency to shout "dattebayo!" before birth.
---
Hiruzen: "Explain to me again how a pre-genin orphan's… material… ended up in a world-scale medical exchange program!"
Tsunade (consulted via scroll): "To be fair, his chakra levels were off the charts! The researchers thought they could stabilize infertility rates with raw vitality."
Hiruzen: "And now I've got angry letters from five nations and a snow princess claiming they're carrying the 'Child of Prophecy!'"
Iruka: "…Do we… Tell Naruto?"
Hiruzen: stares into the middle distance
"No. The boy cannot know he's technically the father of twelve international incidents."
Meanwhile, at the Academy
Naruto's sitting in class, bored, doodling on his desk.
Suddenly—BAM!—a team of masked ANBU bursts in.
ANBU Captain: "Naruto Uzumaki, you're coming with us!"
Naruto: "Wha—what'd I do this time?! I just pranked Mizuki again!"
ANBU Captain: "You are under investigation for global paternity anomalies."
Naruto: "...For what now?!"
---
The Aftermath
Rumors explode.
Girls in the academy whisper.
Villages start calling Naruto The Fertile One.
The Akatsuki briefly mistake him for a divine reproductive relic.
Meanwhile, the various expectant mothers are being politically weaponized:
Kumo: claims Naruto's children are proof of a "superior vitality technique" and tries to kidnap the next sample.
Kiri: declares Naruto's DNA a national treasure and issues an S-rank capture order.
Suna: just wants to know why one of their kunoichi's unborn baby keeps trying to form shadow clones in the womb.
---
Post-credits gag:
Tsunade and Jiraiya reviewing the birth announcements.
Tsunade: "So, technically speaking… this 12-year-old is now the most politically powerful man in the world."
Jiraiya: "My boy! He's living the dream before he even hits puberty!"
Naruto slaps him through a wall muttering about he has hit puberty a long time ago.
---
---
The International Fallout
The Hokage's office had gone unnaturally quiet.
No one spoke. No one breathed too loudly. Even Naruto—who usually filled silence like it personally offended him—was frozen in place, staring at the half-unrolled scrolls scattered across the floor like unexploded tags.
Then the door slammed open.
A messenger ninja burst inside, armor scuffed, breath ragged, eyes wide with the look of someone who had seen the end of the world and been asked to deliver the paperwork.
"Reports," he gasped. "They're coming in from every major nation!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't flinch. He simply lifted his pipe, exhaled a slow stream of smoke, and said evenly, "Read them."
The messenger swallowed and unfurled the first scroll.
"The Raikage demands to know," he read, voice cracking slightly, "how two of his kunoichi are expecting children whose chakra signatures are wind."
A murmur rippled through the room.
The messenger flipped to the next scroll.
"The Kazekage reports that one of his medic-nin's diagnostic ultrasound scrolls… exploded. Into fire and lightning."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "Whoa! That's kinda—"
A sharp glare from Tsunade shut him up instantly.
The messenger hesitated, then pulled out a third scroll. This one was sealed in mist-blue wax.
"And the Mizukage," he said carefully, "requests… a private conversation."
Kakashi, who had been leaning against the wall pretending this wasn't happening, tilted his head. "That last one sounds dangerous."
Naruto frowned, scratching his cheek. "Wait—why would the Mizukage wanna talk to me?"
Hiruzen's gaze shifted to him, heavy and resigned. "Because, Naruto," he said grimly, "she's on the list."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Sakura's pencil slipped from her fingers and clattered against the floor. Hinata made a small, startled sound before promptly fainting. Sasuke dragged a hand down his face with such force it echoed through the room.
Naruto blinked. "She's… huh?"
No one answered him.
---
Cutaway: Kirigakure – The Hidden Mist
Mei Terumi stood at the head of the council chamber, sunlight refracting through the mist behind her and catching in her auburn hair. Her expression was composed—dangerously so.
In front of her, a medic-ninja trembled, holding a glowing diagnostic scroll with both hands.
"M-Mizukage-sama," he stammered, "the chakra signature matches the one identified in Konoha's incident."
Mei took the scroll, unrolling it slowly. Her eyes scanned the report. Then, slowly, her lips curved into a knowing smirk.
"Blond hair," she murmured.
"Absurd chakra reserves."
"Talks too much."
A councilor cleared his throat nervously. "What… what shall we do, Mizukage-sama?"
Mei rolled the scroll back up and tapped it lightly against her palm. "Send Konoha a very polite letter," she said sweetly. "And perhaps a baby shower invitation."
The chamber erupted into horrified murmurs.
---
Back in Konoha
"This," Jiraiya announced loudly, scribbling notes at record speed, "is better than any book I've ever written! A Mizukage in love, international politics in flames—"
Tsunade's knuckles cracked.
"Say 'book' again," she said pleasantly.
Jiraiya snapped his notebook shut. "Noted."
Sasuke crossed his arms, expression flat and exhausted. "If another scroll surfaces, I'm burning the entire hospital."
Naruto perked up. "Wait—does this mean I'm, like… royalty now?"
"It means the world's in trouble," Shikamaru muttered, rubbing his temples.
Kiba snorted. "Dude, your kid could have lava style."
Naruto's eyes sparkled. "Wait—that's actually kinda awesome!"
Several people groaned at once.
---
Post-Credits
Long after the office had emptied, a lone ANBU slipped back into the projection room to shut everything down.
As he reached for the controls, something caught his eye.
A scroll lay half-hidden beneath the desk, its seal pulsing faintly with chakra.
"…Seriously?" he muttered.
He unrolled it.
The image seal flickered to life.
Mei Terumi's smiling face filled the air, eyes bright, voice smooth and amused.
"To the Hokage of Konoha," she said,
"Tell Naruto Uzumaki I expect a visit. A mother-to-be deserves some answers… and perhaps dinner."
The image winked out.
The scroll dissolved in a puff of pink mist, briefly forming the shape of a heart before vanishing completely.
Fade to black.
Text appears:
The Great Donor Disaster will return in:
The Mizukage's Demands.
---
Omake inspired by uchibi :
The fire and lightning using Baby Clan AU.
AN : uchibi is a good au fanfic.
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TAG line : "Sasuke Uchiha, age 7 — last of the older generation, first of the daycare leaders."
Before we begin yes I'll make this in a full fic.
Alternate Title: Uchibi clan — Rise of the Tiny Clan Head
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