The full moon was already high in the night sky, shining ominously crimson.
"So… sleepy…"
Sakura's eyelids were closing of their own accord by the time as she stumbled her way home to the mostly intact Uchiha compound, followed discreetly by the Hokage Guard Platoon. Even though she was so tired she might fall asleep standing, her mind was still buzzing uncontrollably with the day's events.
"Should I pre-emptively invade Kusagakure…?" Sakura mumbled drowsily to herself. "Ugh… I don't know what to do…"
It was easy to throw out words such as hypocrite when one had no real power, but now that she led an entire shinobi village, with the expectations and lives of real people weighing on her already overburdened shoulders, things were no longer so black and white.
As much as she told herself she would never send the Genin or Konohamaru's generation to war, if things took a turn for the worse and the enemy reached the village gates, would she still be able to hold to her bottom line…? Over the course of the war, that line would be lowered time and again until, in the end, there was no difference between her and a demon…
"…it's not fair."
Sakura was only sixteen.
What sort of monsters would place such a crushing burden on a teenage girl? Jiraiya, the other Hokage candidates, the people who had nominated her… they were the worst. And the other villagers, they had simply accepted the election results with wide smiles… all they cared about was having a protector…
Even now, Sakura's thoughts lingered on Shikaku's feasibility report concerning reigniting conflict between Kirigakure and Iwagakure by reopening the wounds of the Tragedy of Yosuga Pass— the Stone's betrayal that had cost the Mist so many precious lives— when she should have been worrying about normal teenage things like exams, or love.
"… I hate this."
Sakura couldn't show any weakness, so she swallowed her feelings and continued making her way home. Everyone was depending on her. She couldn't let them down.
"Yo, Sakura-chan!"
Naruto was sitting on the front steps of her house, beaming at her. Evidently, he'd been sitting there for a while, waiting for her to return. He doubtlessly wanted to hear about her first day as Hokage, his dream job…
How could she disillusion him? Being Hokage was what he'd always wanted.
"Y-Yo, Naruto!" Sakura said, forcing a smile. "What a day, eh?"
"I'm staying at Sasuke's house with Shikamaru and Chōji and Kiba!" Naruto babbled excitedly. "We're still waiting for our places to get rebuilt, so I s'pose we'll be neighbours for the next few days…"
His voice trailed off.
"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, his expression turning serious.
"Nothing's wrong," Sakura said, laughing it off. "I'm just a bit tired… being Hokage is a lot of work, you know?"
"No, something's wrong," Naruto insisted, rising to his feet and blocking Sakura from entering her own house as she tried to brush past him. "I can always tell when you're feeling down, believe it."
"Right, I almost forgot, I wanted you to be the first to know!" Sakura said spiritedly. "I'm planning to announce tomorrow that Pain revived the first four Hokage, so you'll be able to see your dad! We're going to hide the fact they were first revived through the Edo Tensei, but what the people don't know can't hurt them, right?"
Naruto's expression flickered briefly, but he continued fixing Sakura with a stare that made her feel as though he could see straight through her… and at last, Sakura's brave façade crumbled.
"I feel like I'm drowning," Sakura said hoarsely.
Sakura yelped in surprise as Naruto suddenly hugged her tightly, squashing her breasts between their bodies. Her heart started hammering in her breast.
"Come on, I found a nice place nearby while I was waiting for you to come back," Naruto said, taking her by the hand and pulling her along. "We're going on a date."
…
"Ja-jaan!" Naruto exclaimed. "It's the park!"
Sakura laughed a little as he jumped feet first onto a swing and started swinging back and forth. Pretending to wave off a mosquito, she signalled to her guards to move back a little and give her some privacy.
"It's a bit nostalgic," Sakura sighed. "This is where Sasuke took me to burn off some of the alcohol on New Year's Eve, when we all accidentally got drunk at Ichiraku's… I didn't want my parents yelling at me when I got home, but I still got an earful… and when I went blind, I pretty sure this also where he comforted me…"
"Oh," said Naruto in a small voice. "Sasuke, huh?"
Sakura plopped down on the swing next to Naruto.
"Parents… must be nice to have someone waiting for you at home," Naruto said wistfully. "Even if it's just to yell at you."
Sakura yawned sleepily. "I suppose."
"But now I've got my dad back!" Naruto said cheerily… and then his face fell. "Oh, but I don't have an apartment for him to wait in any more. My deluxe ramen… I should've eaten it when I had the chance…"
"Well, this is a surprise. I was expecting to find you here with Sasuke. My, aren't 3D women fickle?"
Sakura's heart to ice. That voice!
"You're that masked bastard who got my mum and dad killed!" snarled Naruto, summoning a Shadow Clone. "Rasengan!"
Naruto leapt at the masked man wearing Akatsuki robes standing on a climbing frame, but he phased right through and crashed into the chain-link fence behind.
"What do you want?" Sakura hissed, flipping a few crystal needles into her palm. "Madara!"
Now that Naruto's dad had revived, so had the Nine-Tailed Fox's better half sealed within him! If Obito got his hands on that much of the Nine-Tails' chakra, then wouldn't the revived Ten-Tails be almost invincible!?
"Naruto's father and the Second Hokage make quite the scary pair," Obito said lightly. "I decided to hole up here until the heat died down and I could slip away, but to my surprise, you two dropped by! So, what's all this about… are you on a date? Does Sasuke know about this? The last time those two were here, they were all over each other's faces— tongues and everything, ooh la la!"
Naruto growled at him.
"Well, it doesn't matter to me, not one whit," Obito went on, tossing what looked like a marble into the air. "Where you're going, you won't have to worry about your girlfriend cheating on you…"
The crimson bead glittered prettily as it drew an arc through the night sky, refracting moonlight…
"Don't look, Naruto!" Sakura shrieked as a blinding flash erupted from it. "Genjutsu…!"