~Cosmic Whore, or~

The Fifth Kazekage, Gaara of the Desert, almost smiled, the tiniest bit, when she saw exactly who the Leaf had sent to act as her escort. Her eyes glanced up and down the figure of Naruto's honestly gorgeous mother, Mina. It was very rare to see the Yellow Flash without her breast bindings, and Gaara couldn't help feeling the tiniest bit self-conscious at the sight of the woman's truly explosive tits.

...or her cleavage, at least. Mina wasn't going topless, or anything like that. She was just wearing that low-cut off-duty outfit that she almost never actually wore outside the house, according to Naruto.

But it was a LOT of cleavage, and the sight of it almost made Gaara feel a little sheepish about her true reason for this "diplomatic mission" to the Leaf.

Almost.

She wasn't THAT easily dissuaded.

"I am honored that Konoha would send her most valued daughters to escort me and my sisters," said the Godaime Kazekage with a generous degree of obeisance.

"It was the least we could do," replied Mina warmly, smiling brightly at this girl whom she knew from past experience to have a serious case of the hots for her son, even compared to most folks. "The people of Suna are our valued friends and allies."

Gaara nodded, her usually stoic expression softening a little around the edges. "As the people of Konoha are ours," she replied, not just diplomatically but sincerely.

Temari and Kanakuro stood flanking their sister on either side, dressed in their usual service attire. Temari in her little black dress with the short skirt and low neckline, and Kanakuro in her black, skintight, Kabuki stagehand-style garb. They looked, however, to have spent a conspicuous length of time beautifying themselves, and if Asuka didn't know better she'd swear that the girls (their sister, too) had gone out of their way to seriously emphasize their far-from-meager bust-sizes.

But she didn't see why they would need to.

"Well, we greatly value our relationship with the village of Suna," said Mina suggestively, smiling at Gaara knowingly. "It is always important to ensure strong lines of communication between the leadership of the Sand and the Leaf."

Gaara's eyes twinkled, and she replied with a husky, "Whether it is with the current Hokage, the past Hokage, or the Hokage-to-be, I do not intend to letanything divide or separate us."

Kagome's eyes glittered gleefully at the heavy sexual tension. She could practicallytaste the lust in the air.

Mina smiled. "Well, if you are ready to depart, we can have you back in our village faster than you can say 'Hot.'"

"Yes, your hiraishin no jutsu, correct?" said Gaara.

Mina nodded. "Exactly."

The redhead smiled, turquoise eyes twinkling. "Every one of us will need to be in direct physical contact with you, for it to work. Correct?"

Mina giggled, the sound distinctly sensual. "Exactly."

"Then what are we waiting for?" said the Fifth Kazekage, her smile downright vulpine by this point. She proceeded to shamelessly and enthusiastically grab a generous handful of Mina's bountiful breasts. Her sisters followed suit, and the Leaf ninja promptly started effectively gang-groping the former Hokage's ass.

Biting back a moan, her cheeks bright red and her loins heating up from this considerable stimulation, Mina focused her chakra.

All seven of them promptly vanished into thin air.

Kumiko was en route to the Uzumaki household when she felt it.

Nine vulpine tails stood up on end. Striking crimson eyes went wide. She grit her teeth, hissing as a chill ran up her spine. Kumiko shuddered, feeling wrong.

Like a pulse of sound traveling through the air, the kyuubi's yin half was struck by a wall of emotion. A lesser empath would have staggered and fallen to their knees at this sudden onslaught, this blast of concentrated psychic confusion.

A thousand fractured, fragmented images flashed through her mind in under a second. She tried to grab onto them, to mentally hold those images in place and analyze them, figure out what the hell this was, but they slipped away like grains of sand through her fingers.

Now, as suddenly as it hit her, it was gone. Now there was nothing left of it, whatever it was. Nothing but a slight headache.

And after a few more seconds, even that soon passed away into nothing.

Kumiko shook her head, belatedly regaining her composure. She looked around somewhat confusedly.

A few passers-by on the street shot her confused or concerned looks, but most folk were familiar with Kumiko and her... peculiarities. They didn't really pay it much mind, probably just chalking down whatever had just happened to as "Some kind of bijuu thing."

Kumiko frowned a little, her eyes turning towards Ichiraku's, from whence she could feel the blended chakra of Naruto and her other half radiating.

"What are you doing over there...?" she wondered to herself. Then she shook her head.

She had the strangest sense of familiarity... not quite deja vu, but rather something like... nostalgia?...No, that wasn't quite right either.

She could feel something. She HAD felt something. It was faint, and dispersed, but it was something that felt incredibly, loathsomely familiar to her.

She didn't like it.

Beneath a scarlet moon, an eldritch consciousness began to stir. It was something ancient and incomprehensible, a brooding, primal intellect the thoughts of which were utterly alien to mortal man.

Roots bored deep into the foundations of the earth. Continents cracked as they spread, mountains cast down in the earth's cataclysmic upheavals. A great, incomparable weight was bearing down on the land, crushing it and compacting. Reaching higher than the tallest peak, grasping lower than the deepest crevasse.

A flower bloomed beneath the moon, beneath Tsukuyomi. From its center glared a dismal radiance. Earth stared into heaven. Moon and flower danced beyond the horizon.

And a great tree stood tall, greater and older than any other. Reborn after countless ages, it united Yin and Yang, heaven and earth, death and life, dark and light. The living earth was its throne, and the heavenly firmament its crown. The stars in the sky were as dew upon the leaves of its branches.

Shinju, it was called. God-tree, most literally. And the World Tree also, Yggdrasil, and the Tree of the Forbidden Fruit, Cheit Eitz HaDa'at.

Its bark was as thick as a fortress's walls, its trunk as wide as a mountain was tall. At its peak were branches, spread far, a canopy through which no light could pass. Darkness was its shadow, light upon its brow. At its foot rested countless ashen Níðhöggr, coiled about its base, entrapping all of mankind.

Every human alive was drawn into the tree. They were consumed by it, becoming a part of it. The chakra stolen from its fruit by Kaguya Ootsutsuki, used against it by Hagoromo her son, was returned once more unto it. A grim harvest, it was, drawing all of human life into its bark.

Humanity which in the past had worshiped the Tree, then stolen from it, then carved it up piecemeal and sealed it away, was now become part of it. Its chakra it reaped from them, taking back what it was owed.

The beasts of the earth congregated about the Tree. The birds of the air flocked around its boughs. Life-giver, life-taker, the Ultimate Catalyst, was returned at long last to its rightful domain. The Tree cared not for these creatures, one way or another. It gave them shelter and life by merely existing, but they were beneath its care, so small and fleeting.

The Tree shuddered, suddenly. Chakra twisted in its core, and the earth was rent into pieces beneath it. Beasts cried out in mindless terror and fled from the Tree.

A mortal will strove unconsciously against the Shinju. Dispassionate was the Tree, ancient beyond reckoning, grand beyond description. Its mind was to this mortal as all the oceans of the world were to a single, solitary teardrop. It was impartial and immovable. Emotion would not sway it. Right and wrong were human concepts beneath it.

It cared only for concrete reality, if it could be truly said to "care" about anything. The processes of its thought were subtle and intricate, running as deep as the earth's core, and as high as the furthest star. It was closer to a God than to any manner of earthly life.

Yet, there was one being which held primacy above. One entity with a will great enough to have bested and subdued it. And the Shinu's inscrutable thought turned inward towards that being, that creature which had mastered and dominated it.

All chakra flowed through the body of Naruto Uzumaki, whose mortal body was enthroned in its center, between heaven and earth. He was become the heart of the Shinju, the will of the Juubi. The minds of all humanity were bent upon his thought and desires. Even many who had died lived again, souls pulled through sheer force of will from the Pure World beyond and given new bodies, cocooned at his feet.

The Shinju, seeing that all here was as it should be, pressed down upon this errant thought, quashing and subduing it.

The upheaval ceased.

Silence reigned.

The least finger of Naruto's right hand stirred the slightest bit, before going still once more.

Three of the bodies at his feet changed.

Kumiko reached Naruto's house at last, after no further incident. The strange flash of... something... had troubled her briefly, at first, but by now it had all but passed completely from her mind.

She had more pressing matters to consider.

"Hello," she called out, lightly knocking a single delicate, pale fist against the door. "Is anybody there?"

The door opened almost instantly. A lovely, dark-haired woman stood just past the threshold, dressed in extremely skimpy maid clothes and bowing low, exposing a goodly amount of soft, creamy cleavage.

"Welcome home, Naru-sam... ah?"

Two purple-grey eyes, within which were visible several concentric circles, widened in surprise as the woman looked up to see somebody she had clearly not been expecting. She frowned softly, this woman, appearing faintly perplexed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Have we met? You seem familiar..."

Kumiko frowned slightly as well. She had gotten the very same impression, for a second. When she first laid her eyes on this woman, she had felt inexplicably like she knew her, and far too well for her taste.

Yet this was surely the first time they had ever met. Certainly, at least, she did not recall ever seeing this person before.

She shook her head, deciding that it was probably just deja vu.

"No, we have not," Kumiko told the woman. "But I am here on your master's behalf. He asked me to come here and inspect your memories."

The woman's eyes widened. "Oh! So you know Naru-sama?!" she chirped excitedly, hopping up and down in delight. Her breasts bounced rather gratuitously with the movement of her body, and Kumiko could not help but smirk a little and subtly ogle them.

"I do indeed," the kyuubi said, licking her lips. "I know him very well. But who, may I ask, am I speaking with?"

"Ah?" said the woman. "I'm Mari."

Then she bowed once more, and Kumiko could see a fair bit of aereola peeking up at her from down the maid's glorified bra.

"Mari Uchi, at your service~!" she singsonged cheerfully, smiling up at Kumiko, who was quite buxom herself, though MUCH more conservatively dressed.

Kumiko smiled pervertedly. "May I come in?" she asked.

"Yes, of course!" said Mari, snapping back up out of her bow. "Right this way, I'll take you to my sister. Then you can give us that check up!" She winked playfully, before turning and practically skipping down the entry hallway, flashing her big, delicious ass at Kumiko every time she landed.

Leering, intrigued and aroused, the Nine-tails followed after this maid.

"Those are some interesting maids Naruto-kun has found for himself..." she purred, drinking in and memorizing the sight of Mari's toned yet generous ass. "I never thought there'd be somebody who could actually fit into Mina-chan's maid cosplay, but I'll be damned if that woman doesn't wear it perfectly."

Mari led Kumiko to the living room, gesturing to the couch.

"Sit down, you must be tired," she said. "I'll go and fetch my sister." She bowed one more time, nipples poking visibly through her scanty french maid top, before spinning around and walking off. She was not skipping anymore, but she made up for that by sensually swaying her hips, proudly flaunting what she had to work with.

Kumiko's eyes followed Mari delightedly, her lips curved into a sultry smile.

"What a delightful maid," she remarked to herself. "So shamelessly sexual, and also perfectly cheerful and upbeat. Naruto-kun must have won the lottery with her."

She laughed haughtily at her own little joke.

As if there was ever a time when that boy didn't win the lottery.

It wasn't very long at all before Mari returned, her sister in tow. Obi was noticeably less buxom than her sister, though still far from scrawny, and Kumiko looked, interested, into the girl's mismatched eyes.

"Hello," she said, standing up. "I assume your sister told you why I'm here?"

Obi smiled at Kumiko, bowing politely. "She did indeed, Kyuubi-dono," she said, obeisant.

The Yin half of the Nine-tails giggled.

"Oh, there is no need to be so impersonal, darling," she said. "Call me Kumiko. Almost everyone does."

"Kumiko...?" said Mari, her expression strange. "Hm. What a..." She trailed off for a second, before her expression brightened, and she chirped, "...lovely name!"

Obi nodded agreeably, clapping her hands together. "A lovely name for a lovely woman~" she cooed flatteringly.

"Ahh." Kumiko blushed, smiling slyly. Her eyes twinkled. "You are very cute yourself," she purred, "but let us save the foreplay for after the check up, hmm?" She winked at Obi, causing her and her sister to titter girlishly.

After a moment, they calmed down, and Mari said more seriously, "So... do you really think you'll be able to help us with our memories?"

"Who knows?" said Kumiko, shrugging dismissively. "I can't say for sure until I've had a look inside your head." She held up her hands, slender and feminine. They were glowing a dull red. "You ready?"

"A... as I'll ever be," said Mari a little weakly, faltering for a moment. She sat down on the couch, letting herself go more or less completely still as Kumiko brought her hands up to rest on either side of her head.

She could feel a tingling inside her temples as the fox spirit's cool fingers traced slow, steady circles over her skin. It was a queer sensation, not quite unpleasant, but just very out of the norm.

Mari couldn't help shivering a little as Kumiko dived in.

It was dark. Completely dark. Everything was pitch black. There was no sound, no smell, no discernible temperature.

Kumiko looked around, perplexed.

"How odd," she said in a considerable understatement. "I can't see anything."

The inside of Mari's mind was completely void. There was nothing. No memory.

"She really did lose it," Kumiko mused, drifting through the seeming abyss that was Mari's mind. Other parts of the girl's mind were untouched, the language centers, the muscular intuition, basic ideas and reasoning, mathematics and chakra theory and other such things. Those were all there.

But there was no memory. Nothing of who Mari was, nothing of her past, or her origins.

Kumiko peered through the endless darkness. She saw a small glimmer of light. And the instant she saw that light, it came immediately to her, or rather she came to it.

There was no such thing as "distance" inside the mind. It was all abstract, occupying no physical space. The instant you thought of something, you would be brought there. As long as you had the slightest idea what you were looking for, you could find it.

So long as there wasn't a mental block. But those were rare, and Kumiko had never encountered one so strong or impermeable that she could not slip her way through.

Here, though, there was nothing. At least, there was no memory.

No memory aside from what Kumiko now held in her hands.

It was small, like a drop of liquid silver between her palms. Just a tiny fleck of memories, amounting to no more than everything Obi had experienced since waking up this morning. Not even anything remote, from the woman's distant past.

Kumiko was stymied.

"It looks like she really has forgotten everything..." she said to herself. "No sign of any memories from before this morning. This is very unusual... but I think..."

Sighing, Kumiko removed her hands from Mari's head.

"This is outside my ability," she said. "I couldn't find any signs of past memories in there. It's like your past was wiped completely from your memory." She shook her head. "Obi is almost certainly the same way, I'll bet."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Mari asked her.

"Not without some seed or remnant of your past memories," was the bijuu's answer. "As you are, there's nothing I can do for you, or your sister."

"That's it, then?" said Obi. "What a relief!"

"Yes," agreed Mari. "Now we can be Naru-sama's maids forever~"

Kumiko frowned slightly at this. She had a vague sense of suspicion about... something... but she couldn't begin to fathom what it might be. It was, of course, a little strange that she hadn't been able to find any trace of the girl's past memories, but what was there to suspect about that?

Nothing, of course. Not unless they were actively suppressing their own memories.

But that would just be ridiculous, wouldn't it?