51 Gains & Losses

Around the time Naruto and the rest went to chase down Gaara, they were stopped by a group of Sound Nin.

In response to the situation, Shikamaru chose to stay and hold off the enemy sound Nin while Naruto and Hinata moved on ahead.

After Shikamaru bluffed his way into convincing them to leave, he smiled and said, "So many of you, I'll be here all day. What a drag."

Like what happened in the original timeline, he fought to the point of exhaustion before being saved by Asuma at the last second.

Hinata and Naruto ended up being stalled by Kankuro. In order to help Naruto catch up to Gaara, she decided to stay and fight, while she made Naruto go on ahead without her.

"Don't you trust me?" Hinata pouted, puffing up her cheeks.

Naruto, clearly frustrated and worried over her safety had no choice but to cave in to her demands. He then looked at Kankuro and said, "If you hurt her, I will kill you."

Naruto then blasted the full power of his killing intent onto Kankuro while showing off his Kyubigan.

Kankuro gulped and began to sweat as he thought, "Why do I always get paired with the freaks?!"

Naruto took off, leaving it up to Hinata to take down her foe while he caught up with Gaara.

The scene with Gaara ended up a bit different than in the original timeline.

After a single attack, Naruto had forced Gaara to use his full-on Shukaku mode. However, in response, Naruto summoned the current boss of the Kitsune Clan.

His name was Kitsurama and he was the direct descendant of Kurama. His body is covered in dark red fur, looked just like Kurama, only, he was just a bit shorter than the 1 tailed beast.

Kitsurama boasted incredible power that was no less than Shukaku and showed incredible battle instincts during the fight. Hinata and Konkuro had to stop their fight because the two were destroying the landscape.

After head-butting Gaara, and using his famous Talk-No-Jutsu on him, Naruto pointed to his siblings and said, "See you got people who care about you right beside you."

Gaara saw the worried expressions on Temari, and Kankuro's faces as they stood in front of Gaara defending him from Naruto.

Naruto sighed as he decided to let them go before saying, "Leave. Before I change my mind."

The Suna Siblings carried him away on their shoulders, as they left the outskirts of Konoha's territory Gaara called out to them and said "I'm sorry."

Naruto turned around to go back when he suddenly felt a terrifyingly powerful Chakra surging back at the arena.

After losing track of Kankuro in the chaos, Hinata returned to help Shikamaru.

Seeing Asuma there, Hinata informed them that Naruto was still chasing after Gaara, and no sooner than they decided to go help, they only managed to catch the end of Naruto's fight with Gaara.

After meeting back up they headed to the village while defeating more Sound Nin along the way.

Naruto had just returned to the village with Hinata, Shikamaru, and Asuma by his side. They were looking for their families in the crowd when they noticed that all the civilians had already been evacuated. There was only Shinobi's left in the stands.

Although they were covered in blood from their battle, they only looked only slightly exhausted.

Thanks to the mysterious Suna Shinobi going around and kidnapping the other Suna Nin before they could do any damage, there was only the Sound Ninja and the Snake Summons left for them to slaughter, leaving them with a lot more energy after the ordeal's end.

As soon as they spotted Naruto, all eyes turned to him.

Naruto looked around with a confused expression and asked "What?! Something on my face?"

Kakashi, Sakura, and Sasuke had appeared, flickering over with an expression like they had to tell Naruto something, but didn't know how, Sasuke took a breath before he questioned "Good news or bad news?"

Naruto noticed Sasuke's Sharingan evolved into the Mangekyō form and felt a chill crawl up his spine.

When he saw the downcast look that came over the faces of team 7, Naruto replied, "Good news first. I don't like the looks on your faces."

Just as Sasuke was about to speak, a loud female voice rang out "MY BABY!"

A red-haired woman appeared in front of Naruto and scooped him up into her arms before she began squeezing,

Naruto felt his bones starting to creak when he said, "Who is this crazy lady?"

Kakashi had an amazed and almost terrified look on his face as Minato appeared beside him and said, "That crazy lady is your mother young man."

Naruto saw Minato and looked back towards Kushina. As the Gutsy Ninja figured it out, water began to fill his eyes, "MOM! DAD!"

Naruto began crying tears of joy while asking, "How? How is this possible?"

Kushina took began crying as well as she pulled Minato into the hug. Now, the sound of both their bones could be heard cracking.

After the initial shock of his parents being alive, Naruto noticed a sad smile on everyone's faces, including his parents.

He pulled his chaotic emotions in and managed to ask through his tears, "What's the bad news?"

Kakashi frowned and began telling Naruto what happened after he left. When he heard about Karin's death and that Kibo was in the hospital in critical condition, he felt hollowed out inside.

Hinata began crying her eyes out before the two dashed off towards the hospital with his parents following behind.

Sasuke moved over to sit down and he sighed. Sakura sat beside him, crying while holding onto his hand.

"Master Kakashi, will it always feel this bad?" Sasuke had an exhausted and empty look on his face.

Kakashi looked at him and shook his head before saying, "It will always hurt. But the pain numbs as time passes."

Sakura fell Sasuke's chest, wetting his shirt with her tear as Kakashi gripped his hand and squeezed it till blood began to drop,

"I failed again, Rin, Obito." Kakashi let out a few tears crouched down and hugged his two disciples.

At the hospital, Kibo's mother had fainted after her son's condition. Aka, Sachi stayed with Niwa, her as she slept on a bed adjacent to Kibo's.

Jun stayed by his Grandson's bedside, just far enough away to stay out of the doctors' way.

Sachi kept crying and asking what was wrong with her brother while Aka fanned his wife and held his daughter's hand. He couldn't find the right words to help his family. Aka had never felt so weak in his life.

Sarutobi was sitting in the hospital's E.R waiting room just outside the operating table, describing the events that took place moments ago.

After Hashirama, Mito, and Tobirama listened to a brief explanation of everything that's happened since they died, Sarutobi asked, "So, are you back? Like alive again?"

"I don't know how he pulled this off, but we're not Edo Tensei corpses. We're flesh and blood, living at an age where our bodies were at their prime," Tobirama said, confused because he was the creator of Edo Tensei, and none of this made any sense to him.

"How can this be, brother? I thought the impure resurrection wasn't permanent," Hashirama asked.

That's when an extremely depressed Kibo-Clone showed up and answered for them, "That's because it isn't your Edo Tensei. It's my Pure World Resurrection technique."

Sarutobi was shocked as he looked over and saw one of Kibo's clones walking next to Jiraiya.

Jiraiya was just as stunned to see the group gathered in front of him. His eyes went wide as he pointed to the recently resurrected Kages and questioned, "Master, what's going on? How are the previous Kage's alive?! Not that I'm not happy to see you."

Mito smiled at him as Hashirama said, "Well, well, well. If it isn't little Jiraiya. It's good to see you again."

Sarutobi quickly informed Jiraiya of the situation while Tobirama looked over the Kibo-Clone with wide eyes and asked, "How? My shadow clone technique? No this is a bit different isn't it?"

Kibo looked at them with dead eyes and said, "It is. Only slightly altered by me is all, unlike normal shadow clones, I don't need my main body's Chakra to support my existence."

Hashirama grabbed Tobirama by his head and forced him to bow before he said, "Little Kibo, Sarutobi has told me all that you've done for the village. You have our eternal thanks. If you need anything please don't hesitate to ask."

Mito bowed as well and offered her thanks before Tobirama said, "I don't see why you're so down, can't you bring her back to life as you did us?"

Clone-Kibo shook his head, "My technique is a counter to Edo Tensei. Only the one casting it can be sacrificed. On top of that, there are 3 things needed, a Bio-Clone of her body, her living Chakra sample, and some part of her soul. She was absorbed by a forbidden Jutsu that merged with her entire body, and we need her body to make a Bio-Clone."

"Surely you can get some genetics from her house," Tobirama replied.

"Things like hair or skin isn't a good enough genetic sample to make a clone, we'd need a decently large fragment of bone or a supply of her marrow. Not to mention, that if I'm the one who initiated the process it wouldn't work. The main difference between the Edo Tensei and my technique is that my Pure World Resurrection can only be used through chance."

"So we can't sacrifice a Bio-Clone?" Tobirama continued to push the topic.

"No. The sacrifice has to have a will in order to gather negative Karma. Now, unless you're offering up your life to cast the Edo Tensei technique, then please quit talking about her in front of me. I may be a clone, but I'm still tough enough to knock you through a wall. I don't need false hope."

Tobirama lifted his brow at that last bit. When Kibo saw that he wouldn't quit, he continued to explain.

"Karma play's a big part in the technique, the only reason I was able to revive you, was because Orochimaru activated the Edo Tensei while I took advantage of the moment to use him as a sacrifice and supply the negative karma to the technique. Stopping him also supplied the positive Karma as the Edo Tensei disrupts the natural order of the world. I don't think the laws of this world will view my selfish actions as a positive event."

Tobirama bit his tongue back and apologized.

After explaining, Clone-Kibo's expression looked even worse. The bags under his eyes grew darker, showing how tired he really was, both physically and emotionally.

Naruto had walked in sometime before Kibo finished explaining.

Hearing the dreadful news, tears filled his eyes as he spoke out, "Nii Chan is that true?"

Kibo flinched as he looked at Naruto. Shame, sorrow, anger, resignation, all built up into a ball of dark emotions, wearing down the clone even more.

When Naruto saw Kibo's dreary expression instead of his usual confident smile, it broke his heart even more.

"Yes it's true, now can you excuse me, I need to heal my main body." The monotone voice and expression tore deeper wounds into the group.

Kibo noticed Hinata and Naruto's parents arriving, he saw the guilty look on their faces. As he let out a breath of foul air, Jiraiya almost broke into tears.

"Minato, Kushina is that really you?" Jiraiya said, placing his shakey hands across their cheeks.

The two nodded their heads but only felt worse when they saw Kibo's face.

In response to their expressions, Kibo swallowed his pain said, "Please don't blame yourselves. No one forced me to make this choice, just like no one forced her to make the choice to save me."

Kibo turned to Sarutobi and asked, "Hokage, may I enter?"

Sarutobi nodded and said, "Of course Kibo, but you might not like what you see though." Kibo walked through into the emergency operating room to see his body was hooked up to an intravenous drip. Many Medic Ninjas were scurrying around him, using their mystic palm technique on his broken body.

Kibo's real body looked thin, you could see most of his bones. His skin's complexion had darkened, had cracks running across it, and he was currently breathing very slowly.

The medic Nin saw the Kages enter the room and immediately bowed to the Hokage.

Jun got up and rushed Clone-Kibo with a hug and said, "I'm sorry we weren't there for you when you needed us most!"

Clone-Kibo was then grabbed by his sister and father, Clone-Kibo let a small smile as he hugged them back and said, "It's not your fault. You had your orders and protected the village. I will never blame you for what happened, never."

After a quick explanation and getting his family to sit down, Clone-Kibo walked up to his body and grimaced.

His Tengan was fully active as he scanned over his condition, and didn't like what he saw.

Clone-Kibo sighed before thinking, "So this is the blow-back from forcing the Profound Gate of Pain open. If it weren't for my Profound Life Gate and Healing Gate working at full throttle, I would have already died."

Kibo saw every muscle, tendon, and fiber in his body snapping and healing at a constant pace. His entire Chakra network was a mess, several of his Tenketsu had blown up, and his bones constantly had spider web fractures spreading along their surface.

Most of his Healing Gate was supporting his brain. It wrapped it up in a green energy cocoon and protected it from most of the on-going damage caused by the Profound Gate of Pain.

Naruto was allowed into the room and walked up beside Clone-Kibo before he asked, "Can you heal your main body?"

Clone-Kibo shook his head and said, "Yes. But it would take all of this entire clone's energy to do so. And currently, with my main body's precarious condition, the strain from the clone's transfer could kill me."

A chime went off in the Clone-Kibo's head, making him sigh.

As a Clone, he could only send things into and take things from his storage.

He could still hear Navi, but he couldn't use any other of the system's functions. If he could; he would have just bought and popped a full cure pill in his mouth.

The pill he left with Sarutobi was taken apart by the Medical Nin. During this time they had managed to discover three-fourths of the pill's ingredients, but they used up the rest of their sample tying to find out the last three components.

[Quest: Find Tsunade and have her heal the main body. Reward: 3 Star Chamber Relics]

Kibo sighed and said out loud, "It's just like Gamamaru said. I guess it's time to select the fifth Hokage,"

Hashirama seemed to have smiled when Sarutobi nodded his head and asked, "Did the Great Sage Toad happen to say anything about that?"

Kibo nodded his head as he said "Yes, he told me the next Hokage is someone from Hashirama's lineage."

Tobirama lifted his brow while Hashirama laughed, "Someone from my clan? Who is it? Is it someone I know?"

Kibo looked to Hashirama and said, "Yes. After all, she is your Granddaughter."

Hashirama and Mito gasped before Kibo continued to announce, "Lady Tsunade will be the next person to inherit the position of Kage. She is also the only person who can heal me right now."

Sarutobi looked rather spooked.

Hashirama shared his disciple's expression while he said, "Can't we just have the fourth take back over?"

Minato looked at Hashirama and said shook his head before saying, "I must apologize lord 1st, but I won't be accepting. My time has already passed, and I have a lot to make up for."

Minato looked to Naruto and smiled, "I've been absent from my son's life for 13 years, I wish to spend my remaining time with my family."

Sarutobi looked to Hashirama and said, "Why don't you or Tobirama take over?"

Hashirama laughed as Tobirama said, "Because like the fourth said, our time has passed. The Konoha we served is too different for us to take charge. If it were a time of war perhaps we would offer up our services. Konohagakure needs to look to the future for its changes, and not to be handed off to its past."

Hashirama patted his brother's back and said, "Well put brother, I couldn't have said it better myself."

Tobirama looked to Hashirama with a dull look and said, "I'd be surprised if you could articulate anything well Nii Chan."

Hashirama looked down as he turned to Mito and said, "Tobirama's picking on me! Comfort me, wife."

Mito chuckled as she patted her husband on the back.

Naruto looked at the group in front of him and said, "These are the previous Kage?"

Minato laughed a little as he placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder and said, "Yep!"

Kibo then looked to Jiraiya and asked, "Can you locate Tsunade?"

Jiraiya laughed as he said "Of course I can! In fact, I even have a good idea of where to start looking."

Kibo turned to Minato and said, "After Karin's funeral we'll head out to return with the 5th."

Kibo placed an energy gathering seal on his main body before informing the Medical Nin "This will stabilize my condition until I return, there's no need to use the mystic palm technique on my body anymore."

Kibo turned around and started to leave when he told Minato and Kushina, "You can stay at the Hoshi Estate with my family until you settle back into Konoha and find a place of your own."

The two bowed and thanked him when Naruto asked "Where are you going?"

Kibo sighed. "To inform...her...mother."

Kibo clenched onto Karin's headband. He slumped his shoulders over and went to inform Kana.

He made it to her door of their house and knocked. After she answered, Kibo proceeded to inform her of her daughter's demise. He held her in his arms as she broke down in tears.

Kibo joined her in grieving their loss, and after they managed to calm down, he told her the date of Karin's funeral.

She hugged Kibo and said that it wasn't his fault, that she didn't blame him for what happened.

Kibo thanked her, but couldn't help but feel guilt over his weakness and failure to protect the woman he loved, and unimaginable hate for Hiruko.

Kibo gripped his fist and a loud cracking noise was heard as blood dripped down his palm and he Vowed revenge.