Apprentice of the Queen of Medics, Tsunade!

"Please!"

The fifth Hokage looked up upon hearing a voice, having ignored the incoming footsteps as she went over mission reports in her office. Naruto's teammate, Sakura, was bowing before her.

"Make me your apprentice!"

Fire burned in Naruto's eyes as he stared Tsunade in the eyes from behind Sakura's face. The queen of medics considered her for a moment, before finally replying. "Haruno Sakura. I've heard from Kakashi that you're intelligent and that you have a strong spirit." Tsunade smiled in a predatory manner. "Alright. I won't go easy on you."

Naruto beamed. "Alright!"

What happened over the next few months was incredible. Tsunade had been led to believe that her new apprentice had poor stamina, but the reality was anything but. With a mind like a bear trap and the creativity and off the wall thinking to get around any problems she encountered, Tsunade's new apprentice was rapidly progressing at a pace that was practically unheard of. Tsunade had already begun to teach Sakura her strength augmentation technique and some higher level illusions in an effort to distract the poor girl from her missing teammate. After Naruto was missing for a full month and no word had been heard of the blond brat, Tsunade had concluded the worst, and only thanked the gods that the Kyubi appeared to have died with him. Tsunade assumed the curse of the First Hokage's necklace had struck again. When Jiraiya confessed that the toads could no longer contact Naruto, well... that was the final nail in the coffin.

The confirmation of Naruto's passing had brought Tsunade and Sakura together though, the two comforting each other as best they were able. Tsunade had smiled when Sakura declared she would take up Naruto's dream of being Hokage, and somehow suborned Jiraiya into lending his expertise to Sakura's instruction when she revealed an interest in sealing. And Sakura blossomed under the tutelage of the loyal members of the Sannin, rapidly receiving an out of testing promotion to chunin. It might've been protested as favoritism were it not for the fact that Sakura proved ten times over that she could back it up.

Meanwhile, Sasuke had more or less become Kakashi's apprentice as the man's sole student. However, he had become more and more withdrawn over the months that passed, until eventually, he abandoned the village.

Naruto was shocked when he heard what her old teammate had done. Alongside Shikamaru, she prepared to retrieve the wayward Uchiha and gathered a team. Kiba was tapped for his nose and tracking skills, alongside Neji for his eyes and skills in non lethal takedowns. Chouji was considered, but passed over for his relatively poor travel speed. After a brief debate between the two chunin, Shino was tapped as well for his ability to drain chakra.

As the mission went on, team members were **** to drop out in order to counter the harriers that broke off from the Oto honor guard sent to retrieve Sasuke. After a drawn out battle between Naruto and a bone wielding Oto ninja, Gaara dropped in and took up the battle for Naruto. Thankful for the intervention, Naruto shot off to pursue Sasuke.

The battle was long and drawn out, but there was some interesting things Sasuke said that made Naruto think. Sasuke criticized Sakura for having it all; training under two of the Sannin, her family. And then he spoke of something far more interesting to Naruto.

Killing your best friend granted a Sharingan wielder a new dojutsu. Granted, he didn't outright state it, but memories of Sakura studying the history of the Uchiha clan as a little girl sprang up. This was the secret to Madara Uchiha's power. But the apprentice of the Hokage had access to reports and knowledge that was otherwise kept secret. Madara had needed to steal his brother's eyes for his new eyes rejected him. And all the members of Team 7 were well aware that Kakashi had an implanted Sharingan eye.

So Naruto wondered; what if she killed Sasuke... and took his Sharingan? Would that satisfy the conditions for the eyes of Madara capable of controlling ever the Kyubi?

Only one way to find out.

Crushing Sasuke's chest felt surprisingly satisfying, particularly with the immense surprise that appeared on Sasuke's face on having Tsunade's strength technique destroy his ribcage and spine. Rapidly shifting to triage mode, Naruto kept Sasuke's now disabled body alive with one hand while the other worked at taking off Sakura's face.

Sasuke's shock at that was even better.

Still kept alive and conscious, though paralyzed, by Naruto's medic techniques, Sasuke watched in shock as Naruto carefully removed an eye from her head, Sakura's mouth a parody of a hood around her face. Naruto tossed the eye and repeated the procedure on Sasuke's active Sharingan, placing it within her empty eye socket. Naruto's regeneration kicked in and integrated the foreign organ in a flash. Naruto grinned and repeated the process with Sasuke's remaining Sharingan.

Naruto felt that performing a double ocular transplant on herself with one hand was rather impressive. She removed the First Hokage's neclace from where it had been sitting beneath the Sakura skin and pulled it back into place, marveling at how the world looked so very different from behind the Sharingan.

"What's this called Sasuke-kun? These new eyes of mine. They're the best present you could have gotten me for my apprenticeship. Oh, you're so romantic." Naruto asked in Sakura's voice in a gross parody of her old behavior.

Sasuke, still in shock, answered numbly. "Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan."

Naruto smiled, not that Sasuke could see it, and finally allowed him to die. Crushing the skull with a Tsunade strength punch, Naruto felt she had disposed of the evidence fairly well. Still smiling, she sealed the battered remains of Sasuke into a scroll and prepared to return to Konoha to report the results of the mission. She would report that Sasuke had killed Naruto out of jealousy, confessed in the heat of battle, and had foolishly kept the First Hokage's neclace as a trophy. Sakura would return to Konoha the avenger of her teammate's ****, retrieving the First Hokage's necklace from a would be traitor, a hero with the tragic tale of being **** to kill her traitor teammate, and the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage. The spiffy new fancy eyes didn't hurt either.

Checking Sakura's appearance in the water of the surrounding battlefield, Naruto was satisfied to see that though she had the Super Sharingan active, only Sakura's green appeared. Twirling the scroll that held the corpse in her hand, Naruto left to Konoha, now the fusion of the greatest pieces of each member of Team 7.

Naruto considered how to break the news to Ino; two grief stricken girls might try to comfort each other in... wonderful ways...

Naruto had finished her report to Tsunade, stoically reporting Sasuke's treachery; the **** of Naruto in an attempt to advance his bloodline, the defection to Oto, and her own subsequent brutal response, crushing Sasuke's chest long enough for him to die terrified before popping his skull like a grape. Her mentor had come out from behind her desk and brought Naruto into a hug at some point in the report in an effort to comfort her. They stood silently now, clutching each other, Naruto reveling in this freely given love and comfort.

Naruto broke the silence first. "I need to break the news to my team. ...And my genin pool." Realizing that she hadn't yet asked after her team, she made to do so. "How are Shikamaru and the others?"

Tsunade continued to hold her apprentice, rapidly listing off their condition; all a little battered, but ultimately fine thanks to the intervention of the Suna team sent in support. Which was really a lucky thing, as apparently Gaara had demanded to come to Konoha to pay his respects at Naruto's symbolic grave, the heroes' stone. His brother and sister had been happy to come along as well to pay their respects to the young man who had given them back their younger brother.

The Hokage informed her apprentice that she would be given some off duty time to grieve and process. Naruto confessed that she'd like to pursue the art of illusion and hypnosis more in depth as a sort of distraction project, and Tsunade approved, advising her to seek out Kurenai.

Naruto took the leave time provided to purchase and move into an apartment, alongside a still somewhat shocked Ino who had taken the news in a mix of despair and fury, and Tenten, who was happy to have someone to split bills with. Ninja were so often out on missions, it made entirely too much sense to share living spaces; in practice, it ended up being more like a time share then an apartment shared by roommates. That said, by pooling their resources, they had a comfortable and roomy space that was more than comfortable for three young ninja- and whatever company they might bring home.

Over the following months, Ino quickly recovered from Sasuke's defection and subsequent execution in the field, and seemed determined to comfort Sakura. Naruto happily went along with it, and Ino apparently realized how much Naruto luxuriated in physical affection. It was still novel for the demon vessel and body thief, and Ino was rapidly becoming a beautiful- hot- young woman instead of a cute girl. The relationship had escalated just that morning in a peck on the lips, and the two girls had blushed brightly over it. They blushed further when Tenten had stalked catlike and kissed Naruto as well; none of them professed to understand their relationship, but both Ino and Tenten were head over heels for Sakura, apprentice to two of the Sannin and their friend who was rapidly rising through the ranks who strove to comfort, befriend, help and love the both of them.

In that time, Sakura had undergone an intense genjutsu training regime from Kurenai, and due to the numerous advantages Naruto possessed; Sharingan, perfect chakra control, infinite chakra and stamina; she was already close to surpassing the raven haired Jonin. Kurenai remained only proud of her new student, and told her she required now only experience and to craft her own techniques. Naruto had been intensely interested in hypnosis, widely seen as the culmination of the Genjutsu field. While dojutsu and advanced senses could reveal an illusion, hypnotic suggestions and derivatives came from the targets own mind and nearly impossible to recognize if performed with sufficient skill.

Naruto was widely satisfied with the extent he had mastered hypnosis; what Kurenai did not- could not- remember was that she had volunteered to test the successful test of a memory modification technique.

Naruto leaped through the thick forest, making all haste to reach Tenten's team after a **** turtle summon had popped up in the Hokage's office saying they desperately needed a medic. Gai had been disabled, and Neji blinded in a tussle with a group of Kumo ninja. Rock Lee was and Tenten were holed up in a stalemate thanks to Tenten's long distance advantage, but she would eventually run out of chakra or throwing weapons. She had learned an Earth shaping technique in an attempt to provide herself with a theoretically infinite supply of weapons, but Naruto knew her friend- her girlfriend- could only do that so long before her chakra ran dry.

Breaking into the scene and taking out the Kumo nin with a potent mix of genjutsu and super strength, as their senses deceived them into leaping straight into fatal punches, Naruto let out a pattern of whistles in an all clear sign and entered the base Tenten and Lee had made for themselves in a cave in the sheer face of a rock cliff.

"You are damn lucky that neither of them earth release techniques," were the first words out of Naruto's mouth as she entered the mouth of the cave, before hugging Tenten and giving her a light kiss. Naruto turned to face Gai and Neji, and was astonished at the condition the two were in; Gai was as pale as ****, and Neji had bandages wrapped around his eyes that despite clearly having been changed, were already useless.

She entered medic mode, assessing the condition of the two males. Gai would be fine. The man had suffered from a delayed poison evidently, a lesser man would have died. It was only thanks to his insane physical health and condition that he had already mostly burned up the otherwise fatal agent.

Neji- well, he wasn't as lucky. A lucky stroke from a kunai had done severe damage to his precious eyes; they were likely irreparably damaged. Naruto considered, before turning to the two healthy members of Team 10. "Which of you is less squeamish?" Lee blushed and looked to Tenten, who stepped forward. "Find the jokers that had you holed up here and bring me back the first head that has eyes in good condition. Fast." Tenten nodded and pursued her assigned mission. "Lee. Boil me some water so I can sanitize everything."

Half an hour later, the operation much more difficult due to Neji lacking a healing factor that Naruto had used to compensate for errors on her own operation, the young Hyuga was resting with a pair of rich hazel eyes behind closed eyelids. The Caged Bird Seal had been a bitch to work around, but due to the eyes already being destroyed, there had been enough leeway to remove the remains and implant the hostile foe's eyes.

Naruto wondered if Neji would appreciate the irony of a Hyuga stealing the eyes of a Kumo ninja. In fact, he did; though his vision had not yet settled and he would require substantial time to adjust to lacking the Byakugan, he promptly went about gathering the corpses of the ambush team and scooping out their eyes. Apparently, the young branch house member still had an impressive amount of anger against Kumo, and the latest incident had not helped.

Naruto watched, mostly impassive, but secretly delighting in the pair of Byakugan eyes she now had sealed away on her person. Silly Hyuga, assuming 'permanently beyond Kumo's reach' meant 'destroyed'.

The trip back to Konoha was slow, Neji needing time to adjust to his new sight. Several times he forgot that he could no longer rely on his dojutsu, but several important details were revealed regardless; Neji still possessed the capacity for **** telescopic sight, and his range unobstructed was actually much improved. Neji also reported still being capable of perceiving chakra when he attempted to activate his absent Byakugan, but could no longer see through solid objects or his own head. Still, he was making the most of it, and Tenten was happily walking him through a wide collection of long range weapons that could capitalize on his **** telescopic vision. Neji had already demonstrated, through a combination of a lightning affinity and some crazy contraption Tenten had called a 'Compound Longbow' the ability to snipe a moving target at 5000 meters amidst a crash of thunder. Tenten had sworn up a storm, through which the assembled nin learned that such an act was throughly bullshit, even with chakra taken into account. Nevertheless, Neji had repeated the act, and Tenten had proceeded to grumble something about drag, curvature of the earth and a 'sonic barrier'.

Naruto finally shut Tenten up as they approached the gates by kissing her senseless and dragging her to a eagerly smiling Ino.

That night, after her two girlfriends were asleep after a vivid retelling of the events, Naruto examined the Byakugan eyes in her possession, restored to their former glory. The Kyubi chakra allowed Naruto to go beyond Tsunade's talents and achieve true regeneration, which had been put to good use restoring the eyes.

By the time she went to sleep, the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan she possessed had been combined with the Byakugan and rested within her head. The red pigment was now replaced by milky white, and Naruto had confirmed that she could see the entirety of Konoha with her new eyes, the Sharingan recording the entire thing.

Naruto grinned.