“Of course it was a lie,” he scoffed. “Did you think I was going to tell you the truth when there was a chance he might get you back? No, you and Naruto and his copy of the Kyuubi will be locked in stasis and cast out of the world entirely. Then I will have a free hand to do the same in every other world I can reach. I’ll save hundreds of worlds. Maybe even thousands. In the end, it will all be worth it.”
A movement drew my eye, and I glanced over to see the elder Hinata assuming her usual place at Sasuke’s back. I couldn’t beat them both, but once Sasuke was out of the picture I was confident Naruto could handle her. Then again, maybe Sasuke was about to knock her out for us.
“What about her?” I gasped. “She can loop too.”
“Not anymore,” he countered. “We’ve both extended our loops, and we will never reset them again. I shall keep her at my side for as long as she proves useful, and unlike you she will never betray me. We—”
I was spared the rest of his rant, because at that moment his eyes rolled up and he collapsed in a heap.
Hinata lowered a brightly-glowing fist, and looked down at him contemptuously.
“Never is a long time, Sasuke,” she said mildly. “Arrogance was always a failing of the Uchiha, but you took it to a new level. I’ve lived fifteen years since you broke me, and yet you thought I’d never find myself again? Well, you’re done now. You won’t wake again until it’s too late.”
“Wait… what… Hinata?” I stared up at her. “Wow, that was completely unexpected. But if you’d broken free already, why wait until now to turn on him?”
She turned a contemplative gaze on me. “I could not have done so earlier. Even now, there is only one goal for which I can find the strength to disobey him. Surely you know me well enough to guess what that is?”
“Naruto, obviously,” I replied. “But how? You said your Naruto was gone, and the ones that are left don’t feel like the same person.”
She nodded, and stepped up to examine the Kyuubi-possessed jinchuuriki who had caught me. He was standing frozen, staring blankly off into space, obviously caught in some sort of mental trap. The other one was the same, so I presumed Sasuke had set up precautions to keep them from turning on him if his control was somehow interrupted. The red chakra around them was dissipating, the fanged humanoid beasts reverting back into teenage versions of Naruto.
“My Naruto,” Hinata said contemplatively, “is the man who mastered the Kyuubi. The man who united the elemental countries under his rule, and nearly united all of humanity under his banner. The man who gave me five wonderful children, strong boys and beautiful girls with the power to change the world. That loop is over, and to the rest of the world none of them ever existed. I’ll never see them again…”
“Actually, you could,” I interrupted. “The divine system exists outside of normal time, Hinata, and it doesn’t destroy souls. If you marry Naruto and have his children, they’ll be the same ones you knew before.”
Her mask of reserve cracked, and she turned a wondering gaze on me. “How do you know such things, Sakura? I’ve lived dozens of extended loops, searched out every source of hidden lore left in the world, walked Hell’s victory more times than Sasuke ever dared to interrogate the things that infect that fallen world. Yet you constantly surprise me. How old are you?”
“I’ve only lived about forty years,” I told her. “But I’m kami enough that the demons and gods treat me like a potential recruit instead of a mortal pawn. There’s a lot I still don’t understand, but I’ve got a demon’s guide to the supernatural world stuffed in my head and that covers a lot of the basics.”
“Forty years,” she breathed in wonder. “Oh, Sakura, you are a treasure. I’ve lived three times that long since our first meeting, and still you manage to prove yourself my equal. Come, stand at my side as we claim our prize together. I could never have arranged this without you, and after all your sacrifices I find I cannot deny you the place that you have earned.”
I abandoned my broken body for the healthy one I’d made to ambush Sasuke with, merging my aspects in the process, and smiled at her in relief. I wasn’t at all sure I could beat her in a straight fight, but apparently I wouldn’t have to.
“Thank you, Hinata,” I replied. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I really didn’t want to have to fight you. But what are you up to?”
She smiled a mysterious smile.
“Patience,” she admonished. “Did you ever study the Fourth Hokage’s seal? I spent several decades unraveling its secrets after my husband died, trying to understand what had happened.”
“I’ve never had a reason to worry about it much,” I admitted. “I probably should have, but my talent for seals has really only blossomed in the last few years and Naruto always seemed to have it under control. I know the three Bijuu Sealing Methods and the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, of course, but I know Minato built a lot of complicated fail-safes of his own design into the Kyuubi’s prison.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. What I eventually came to understand is that the seal has a critical flaw, which was my husband’s undoing. You see, Minato designed the seal to gradually steal the Kyuubi’s chakra and transfer it to Naruto. But he apparently didn’t understand that the Kyuubi’s mind is a part of that chakra, so it was being transferred as well.”
“That’s disturbing. But then why didn’t it ever seem to affect him?”
“It did,” she replied. “Did you ever notice how he could be so clever one day, and so dense the next? I think that was the reason. As a child he struggled constantly to assimilate those alien fragments of the Kyuubi’s soul, and often the conflict was so intense he was barely aware of his surroundings. It wasn’t until his last year at the academy that he decisively gained the upper hand, and began to recover. In my longer loops I’ve seen the whole process run to completion several times.”
She smiled at my look of concern. “You should have more faith in him, Sakura. He grows more magnificent with each passing year, throwing away the demon’s anger and hate and keeping only its insight and strength. By the end he is more god than man, a beacon of hope for the whole world. But he never loses that indomitable spirit that first drew me to him. Can you imagine what it means to be such a man’s wife?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” I grinned. “Our looping Naruto is a lot like that, Hinata. But then, what’s the problem?”
“The seal draws out the last of the Kyuubi’s mind long before the raw chakra of its power is depleted,” Hinata said softly. “When that happens the remaining energy becomes violently unstable, and corrodes the seal away. In twenty years or so it fails catastrophically, releasing about four tails worth of youki all at once. Even Naruto’s regeneration can’t handle so much internal damage.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “I’ve long since found a solution.”
She vanished with that damned Hyuuga teleport technique, leaving a shadow clone behind, and reappeared standing over the real Naruto. I whirled and tried to follow, but her clone jammed my body flicker with consummate skill. I frantically ordered my own clone to wake Naruto up while I went back to full boost, and covered the forty yards between us with a single leap. But by the time I landed it was already too late.
Hinata brushed aside the tattered remnants of Naruto’s shirt, an intricate pattern of chakra-saturated water already forming on one fingertip, and touched it to the seal on Naruto’s belly with delicate precision.
Naruto convulsed, his hands going to his head as the genjutsu holding his mind in stasis was broken by the sudden surge of demonic chakra. A fountain of tainted red power sprang up around him, and I was forced to abort my leap and back away. My shadow clone was blown away by the wave of hostile energy, and I had no idea what effect it would have on my Hinata.