"I'm worried, Minato… three girls attacked in one night…"
"I know, Kushina… I've got the ANBU working around the clock to find the perpetrator…"
Naruto silently crept down the stairs from 'Menma's room' and peered at the two people standing around the dinner table. The blond-haired man's resemblance to his father, Minato, was uncanny, and if Sakura's theory about this world being a mirror reflection of their own was correct, he could only imagine that the flame-haired vixen, whose hair his father's doppelganger was brushing so lovingly, looked exactly like his dead mother…
"Menma, you're up early!" said Kushina, noticing Naruto standing in the stairs. "Come down and eat breakfast with us! I'm making an omelette~!"
Naruto sullenly stalked across the kitchen and gingerly lowered himself into a chair at the table. His bottom was still sore after the whooping his 'mother' had given him the previous day…
"Well, someone's in a bad mood," Minato observed.
"I caught your son hanging out with that Haruno vixen again yesterday; from the looks of them, they had spent the night together… in bed, ya know," Kushina said unpleasantly. She glared at her husband. "I was under the impression you had given Menma the talk, Minato…"
Naruto harrumphed and looked away.
He had no intention of playing house with this lovey-dovey couple pretending to be his parents, but then again, Sakura had told him to do his best not to arouse the locals' suspicion, and it was not as though he had anywhere else to sleep, with half the village in ruins… which included his old apartment. He had no choice but to stay here…
…and it also helped that Kushina was an excellent cook.
"Well, you know how it is with teenagers, Kushina," Minato said weakly. "Just try to remember what it felt like when we were their age…"
"It's exactly because I remember, ya know!" Kushina said in a high-pitched voice. "I know Menma better than he knows himself! He's exactly like me, which is why I know he'll make a big mistake unless someone puts a stop…"
Kushina blushed and swiftly turned away, hiding her embarrassment by cracking another egg over her sizzling pan. She might as well have admitted to everyone present that she was no better than Sakura, a sow perpetually in heat and head over heels in love. If not for the people around her, she would have fallen pregnant long before the age of twenty-four!
"That Haruno girl's definitely a gold digger… reminds me of my bestie Mikoto-chan…" Kushina muttered to herself angrily. "All prim and proper and demure, pretending she knows nothing about sex… and then, bam, the next thing I know, the quiet girl who used to be my best friend had gone off and got married on her own! Landed herself her clan's patriarch… already with a bun in the oven at twenty-two… too busy to come out and play with me every day… sob."
The life of a Nine-Tails Jinchūriki was a lonely one. Even though Kushina had been permitted to attend the Ninja Academy and even graduate, she had not been allowed to join any teams or go on missions… or even leave the village's sensing barrier. It was only after her marriage to Minato that she finally regained some semblance of liberty!
Yep, Naruto thought to himself, she's definitely projecting, ya know.
"I know, dear," Minato said, flashing Naruto a knowing smile as though they'd already heard the story a thousand times. "I know."
Kushina returned from the stove with her frying pan and expertly portioned the egg dish onto everyone's plates before bustling back into the open kitchen and returning with the rice cooker, filled with fresh, piping-hot rice.
"I'm not hungry," Naruto grumbled, picking at his food.
Kushina glowered at him. "Eat."
"You'd better do as your mum says, Menma," Minato whispered in Naruto's ear as he leaned forwards to serve himself some rice. "You know how easy it is to set her off…"
A tantalising aroma wafted from the omelette into Naruto's nostrils, and his mouth started watering despite himself. He took a little bite, and his eyes widened… and before he knew it, he was shovelling food into his mouth.
"So, you were hungry after all," Kushina said smugly. "I bet your future wife won't be half as good a cook as I am, heh."
Warmth bloomed in Naruto's chest as he watched his parents chat about this and that, occasionally flirting with each other. Was this what it was like to a have a family? He pictured himself in a cosy mansion much like this one, eating and laughing with Sakura…
"…so, do you think they'll be caught soon, ya know?" Kushina said casually. "That masked criminal?"
"Masked criminal!?" Naruto blurted out, spitting rice and egg everywhere. "What? Where? When!?"
Naruto had asked everyone he could think of, but at first glance it had seemed that in this world there was no such person as Uchiha Madara. But now, at last, there was a sign of the man who had thrown him and Sakura into this strange, warped world where everything was the reverse of what it ought to be!
"He appeared yesterday evening out of nowhere in the women's baths and attacked your classmate Hinata," Minato said grimly. "Since then, he's struck two more times, leaving no clues as to his true identity."
Naruto took a long drink from his tall glass of milk, listening intently to his 'father's' story.
"All we know is that he wears a strange mask and black and red robes…"
Sip…
"And that he calls himself the Boobie Kid."
Pfft!
Milk spurted out of Naruto's nostrils.
"Menma!?" Kushina cried in alarm.
"Boobie Kid!?" Naruto spluttered. "Not Madara!?"
"Oddly enough, he doesn't seem to harm his victims, aside from flattening their chests," Minato said. "It's really quite puzzling. I can't make heads or tails of it."
Naruto wiped the milk from his face with a handkerchief.
"Whoever they are, they're quite skilled, and they may be targeting kunoichi from bloodline clans," Minato said, a note of concern creeping into his voice as he glanced at his wife. "Judging by the fact that even the ANBU have not come close to catching him, he must either be a talented sensor-nin… or know the village's layout very well."
"I bet five hundred ryō the criminal is a Hyūga clan member from that branch family of theirs," Kushina snorted. "They're all a bunch of perverts, through and through…"
"Leaving aside sweeping generalisations about an entire clan, it would seem that this is the case, given the points I raised earlier," Minato said, clearing his throat. "The first victim— the young lady of the Hyūga clan's main family, though no longer the heiress— has made a number of enemies due to her fiery personality, so the theory that the culprit is a disgruntled member of the Hyūga clan does track… Hyūga Neji, perhaps…"
Minato's voice trailed off as he noticed the strange expression crossing his son's face.
"Do you have any idea who the culprit might be, Menma?" he asked.
Naruto shook his head vigorously.