"Hey, wake up already!"
In his groggy state, Yuto heard someone calling. Blinking his bleary eyes open, a semi transparent red head popped up from the foot of his bed, right in his line of sight.
"Holy crap!" Yuto yelped, instantly wide awake.
"Pffft—HAHAHA! Your face is priceless!" Brushing away the hair covering her face, Kushina beamed with delight.
Yuto's lips twitched, his expression deadpan. "You could scare someone to death like that, sis."
"You're right, but you're not exactly someone, are you?" Kushina winked.
Yuto had no comeback for that. Sighing, he got up and threw on his jacket. "Aren't you worried someone might see you?"
"What's the big deal? You're the only one left in the house."
Kushina buried most of her body under the bed, leaving just her head poking out. "Your teacher Nonō, Rina, even little Karin, they've all been up for ages! Don't you think you should reflect on your life choices?"
"Hard pass. Self-reflection isn't in a slacker's vocabulary." He shuffled into the bathroom to wash up.
"Oh, by the way, your 'Nee-san' already left. She even stopped by to check on you before she went," Kushina added.
"Wait, why didn't you wake me up then?" Yuto mumbled aloud with his toothbrush.
"Well, she stood there staring at your sleeping face for ages. Pretty sure she was enjoying the view," Kushina teased, her tone dripping with mischief. "It would've been a shame to ruin her fun, right?"
"What kind of weird nonsense are you spouting now?" Yuto's voice echoed from the bathroom.
"Tsk tsk, kids these days. So naive."
Kushina recalled the way Konan had been eyeing Yuto's sleeping face, practically undressing him with her gaze. "That 'Nee-san' of yours has some bold tastes, huh? Age gap? What age gap?"
"Huh?" Yuto emerged, drying his face with a towel, not quite catching her words.
"Anyway! You still owe me an explanation about "Magical Girl Uchiha Madara"!" Kushina abruptly changed the subject, floating up and phasing into Yuto's body.
The process inevitably exposed parts of her form, but by now, both of them were desensitized no more awkward blushing like before.
"Trust me, you don't wanna know. It's a one way ticket to the forbidden zone," Yuto sighed.
That abomination was a cursed fanfic he'd stumbled upon years ago, a mental scar he'd never fully recovered from.
"Pfft, as if I'd be scared of something like that?" Kushina scoffed, oozing confidence. "Come on, hit me with it! Let's see how 'forbidden' it really is!"
As far as she was concerned, her current relationship with Yuto was already pushing boundaries. What could possibly be more taboo than reality?
Besides, her curiosity was officially piqued. "Magical Girl Uchiha Madara?" The name alone was a train wreck she couldn't look away from. A male Uchiha Madara as a magical girl? What fresh insanity was this?
"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you." Yuto sighed.
"Less talking, more sharing!" Kushina impatiently waved him on.
She'd already heard about Yuto's memory transfer ability thanks to Konan hogging the experience first and was itching to try it herself.
"Alright, brace yourself."
The memory-transfer technique required trust, a relaxed mind, and physical contact. But since Kushina was a spirit bound to Yuto's Soul Pearl, they could skip the formalities.
The moment the memory stream hit Kushina's consciousness, she froze like a deer in headlights.
Several seconds later, her entire body began trembling.
"WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL IS THIS?!"
Exploding battles, a trapped Magical Girl Uchiha Madara, the sinister cackling of Evil Scientist Senju Tobirama, and a writhing, tentacled monstrosity dubbed the "Ultimate Kaiju" Senju Hashirama…
Kushina felt her soul leaving her body. She'd give anything to unsee this.
"Told you it was forbidden knowledge," Yuto shrugged, heading out the door.
"Who even thinks of this stuff?! Jiraiya's smut looks like children's literature next to this!" Kushina raged from inside the Soul Pearl, her voice twitching with horror.
"Youthful ignorance," Yuto defended weakly.
"No. No way I'm suffering alone," Kushina declared suddenly.
"Huh?"
"We're sharing this masterpiece with the entire shinobi world."
"GASP Woman, you're evil!" Yuto clutched his chest in mock horror.
Meanwhile, in a dark underground prison cell, Zabuza groggily woke up on a pile of straw, his head pounding.
"Zabuza-sama! You're awake!" A familiar voice chirped beside him.
"Haku?" Zabuza turned to see the delicate faced boy. "We're… alive?"
He vaguely remembered the chaos of their last battle
"So why aren't we dead?"
"Oh, I can fix that for you, Zabuza," a snide voice drawled from the shadows.
Zabuza's eyes adjusted to reveal not just Haku, but also Raiga, and a few other "cellmates."
Raiga smirked. "Miss me?"
Zabuza's glare could've melted steel. "Keep talking. See what happens."
"Gentlemen, let's not waste energy," one of the others, Maruyama, interjected tiredly. "We're all prisoners here."
Raiga scoffed but stayed quiet.
"Why can't I sense my chakra?" Zabuza suddenly realized, his brow furrowing.
"Took you long enough," Raiga sneered. "You think they'd capture us without sealing our powers?"
"It's an advanced sealing technique," Maruyama sighed. "No ordinary jutsu can break it."
"What do they want from us?" Zabuza growled.
"Oh, nothing much," a cheerful voice cut in as the cell door creaked open. A black haired boy with green eyes, in white and green robes smiled at them. "Just a tiny favor."
Zabuza's blood ran cold. 'Him again. That creepy little'
"You want my help?" Raiga barked a laugh. "Dream on, brat."
"Yep. Just me." The boy's smile didn't waver.
"And what, pray tell, do you require?" Maruyama asked cautiously.
"There's a mountain in southern Wave Country. I need it cleared and cultivated in two weeks." The boy clasped his hands. "Simple, right?"
"Cultivate a mountain?" Maruyama's eye twitched.
Even the reasonable one was struggling. Zabuza and Raiga? They looked ready to commit murder.
"You dare treat me like some farmer?!" Raiga roared.
"I dare," the boy sang. "And since you're not cooperating" He raised a hand, silver light swirling around his fingers. "I'll just have to persuade you."
Moral Enhancement Technique!
POOF.
Raiga's chest suddenly ballooned outward like an overinflated tire, his shirt ripping at the seams to reveal… generous assets.
The entire cell fell silent.
Persuasion?!. This was terrorism.
The devilish boy tilted his head, still smiling. "So… convinced yet?"