"COMIN' THROUGH!" a voiced echoed through the forest bordering Konohagakure. "MAKE WAY IF YA DON'T WANNA GET RUN OVER, YA KNOW!"
"What the—"
The Hidden Sand's backline barely had time to react as a flash of yellow blurred past them, the accompanying wind burst knocking them flat on their backsides. For a few seconds, they remained frozen on the ground, wondering in a daze what in the world had just happened to them.
"That chakra, it's the Hidden Leaf's Jinchūriki!" called a sensor as she scrambled to her feet. "Comms, alert Lady Pakura!"
"But why was he coming from outside our encirclement?" said the radio operator, scratching his head in puzzlement as he reached for his headset. "And from the west, for that matter!?"
…
"I'm gonna puke…" Karin groaned.
"Somebody, please put me out of my misery," Captain Yamato moaned. "Blergh…"
True to his word, Naruto had refused to abandon his comrades to their fates in the unforgiving deserts of the Land of Wind. Despite their assurances that they would be fine and that they could find their way home on their own, and despite their pleas for him to go on without them, Naruto had forcefully scooped them up with great big golden hands of chakra and carried them all the way through the Lands of Wind, Rivers and Fire back to the Hidden Leaf… and with time to spare, too!
"It's Naruto!" Jiraiya shouted as a golden stream of light sailed over the palisade surrounding the village. "He's back!"
Although the Hidden Leaf's shinobi had largely avoided the area where Sakura had fought to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, the battle was still raging on everywhere else, especially at the southern and western gates. Though the Hidden Cloud and the Hidden Stone had thankfully retreated from the battle fairly early, the underdogs in this war, the Hidden Sand and the Hidden Mist, had subsequently joined the fight...
For some reason, it appeared that the reinforcements the Hidden Mist had been expecting from the east never arrived; their only forces on the field were those who had entered through the Land of Waves to the south.
"I knew he could do it!" Iruka-sensei said in relief, narrowly avoiding a kunai that whistled right past his ear. "I'm not quite sure what the plan is, but Naruto's return means the fighting is as good as over, right?"
Shinobi were mostly used to short battles, and even in past world wars, conflicts were usually fought through limited engagements instead of all-out invasions: quick incursions into enemy territory for brief skirmishes, proxy wars using smaller villages as pawns, that sort of thing. Freaks of nature who possessed more than one Kakashi's worth of chakra in their bodies were few and far between, so the siege was straining on all parties, not just the Hidden Leaf.
"It's all up to Naruto and his little missy now," Jiraiya said with a sigh, exhaling gale-force winds to slice and dice the siege weapon being pushed towards the village walls. "The future of the Hidden Leaf is theirs to carry, now… it's all up to them."
…
"We're back, you can let us down now," Karin groaned. "That was seriously lame, but thankfully onee-sama wasn't there to see… onee-sama?"
Karin screwed her eyes shut.
"Ouch, ouch!" Naruto yelped as she began violently tugging at his hair. "I get it already, I'll put you down, ya know!"
"Onee-sama's dying, hurry!" Karin screamed in his ear, yanking a lock of his golden hair to the left. "Go that way, that way!"
A trail of destruction streaked through the village, an unsightly scar made up of demolished buildings and ripped-up roads. Naruto quickly followed the devastation to its endpoint, where he found a forest of broken bones jutting out of the earth, and at its centre, a gigantic pair of breasts... and beneath them, a young, and very naked, pink-haired girl.
"ONEE-SAMA!" Karin screamed as she scrambled out of the grip of Naruto's chakra appendage, slashing her wrist with a kunai and shoving the dripping wound in Sakura's mouth. "…she's not breathing!"
Karin began performing chest compressions, but when that proved impossible due to the mounds of fatty tissue in the way, she started massaging Sakura's throat to make her swallow her blood… but to no avail. She was completely unconscious.
"Lady Hokage…" Captain Yamato said mournfully, resting a comforting hand on Karin's shoulder. "Karin, stop… don't you see… she's already…"
It was then that Naruto, who had been standing frozen in shock, saw a wisp of pink escape Sakura's cracked lips as she breathed out her last. It was a ghost… he was sure of it! And although he couldn't explain why, he was overcome by a sensation of dread, as though he were experiencing déjà vu… in another time, in another place, another Naruto had already lived through this suffering before!
Using Shion's dōjutsu to transcend time and space, Sakura's soul was escaping back to the past!
"Oh no, ya don't, you're not going anywhere!" Naruto shouted as he seized the ghostly pink energy, using his new Six Paths power over life and death, and stuffed it back down Sakura's throat. Instinctively, he knew what to do next, and he moulded some yin-yang chakra and pressed it into her chest, relighting the sputtering flame of life within her breast. "There… you'll be all right, ya know…"
"This isn't the time to be groping onee-sama!" Karin shrieked, tears streaming down her sunburnt face as she pummelled Naruto's chest with her delicate fists. "Onee-sama's heart, I need to restart her heart, but I don't know any lightning style!"
Sakura's chest suddenly rose as she drew in a ragged breath.
"Never mind, do it again!" Karin screamed. "Just this once, I'll allow you to touch onee-sama's chest!"
"No… need…" Sakura gasped. "I'm… awake."
Relief flooded Naruto, and he wrapped Sakura in a bear hug as she struggled to sit up. Her muscles had mostly deflated back to normal, and she had shrunk back down to her normal size, so he found her to be just as soft and squeezable as she usually was.
"Mmh!?" Sakura gave a muffled squeal of surprise as Naruto pressed his lips against hers. "Mhh~ ♡"
Karin shrieked.
"Milady…" Captain Yamato coughed. "The plan…?"
"Right, the plan!" Sakura shouted as Naruto finally broke their long, drawn-out kiss, though he kept her wrapped tightly in his arms, almost as if he feared she would cease to exist if he let go of her. "The Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God kunai, did you bring it back?"