Trying something a bit new after some burnout from Shapeshifter. More smut-oriented (nothing in this chapter, but for the future be warned). ~Great King of Evil

Daylight broke through the window. Lying on a bed, a blonde rolled around, groaning, clearly unwilling to get up. Several minutes passed, before the figure suddenly sat up. The blonde quickly used his fingers to feel around his crotch, until...

"Nooooo!" She wailed at the lack of familiar bits, her cry kept low enough to not attract attention from any who might hear from beyond her bedroom walls.

Yes! A similar cry echoed in her mind, though it was more from enthusiasm than from despair. It was rather obvious to the girl that the voice was male, and her head sunk.

"You're male again, huh? How many times does that make it with this gender set-up?" She asked, shifting in her bed, as she looked at her surroundings. With an odd feeling in her gut, she realised the room was well adorned with furniture, and was simply too large to be in an apartment. That meant she either had far larger living quarters than the usual, or somebody was looking after her in this life.

Thirty-three, the voice responded. It then paused, and lifetimes of experience allowed the girl to feel the sensation of her inner demon pausing to collect his thoughts. Well, congratulations, Kasumi-chan, your parents are both alive here.

"Oh?" Naruto asked, and grimaced as he realised he would have to adapt his personal perspective again. After three straight loops spent as a girl, he had finally given up on trying to stubbornly hold onto his male perspective. Now, she went with the flow as things went along. Still, it was hard to adapt to the opposite gender after every change. If she turned male in her next life, it would take weeks to become fully comfortable with possessing a manhood again. Not to mention getting used to new names on the occasion. In over a hundred lives as a male, she had only been given four different names, while she had over two dozen different names in her fifty-odd lives as a female. "Any idea how that occurred?"

There was another pause, and a sensation like ruffling through a stack of papers went through her mind. It weirded her out, and she could never get used to it, never mind it happening only a few times a lifetime. After a few minutes, the Kyuubi no Kitsune replied, The Sandaime used the Shiki Fuin in this dimension. Your mother survived this dimension's Kyuubi being torn out of her body, and the two had a cordial enough relationship that he gave her some of his chakra so she could survive before he went to attack Konoha.

"So jiji is dead here, huh?" Kasumi mused, as she threw aside the top part of her cover blanket, exposing her torso. Sighing at the new view of two very small but developing mounds of fat on her chest, she poked one of them, "Huh. Boobs." Amusement radiated from the other. "Yeah yeah, ero-kitsune, take a look all you want. You'll be getting to see them a lot, I promise you that." Tweaking one of her nipples out of idle curiosity, she rubbed her fingers on it until the nub hardened up.

Mmmm...came the Kyuubi's thoughts. It was rather obvious he had adjusted from being a female in the last time to being a male this time around. Hormones were funny like that. You've already decided then?

"Yeah,yeah, you'll be my lover this time around" Kasumi mumbled quietly in a light-hearted tone, throwing aside the rest of her bedcover. It was rather obvious her counterpart liked to sleep in the nude, as she looked to the carpeted floor beside her bed to find several pairs of lingeries and bra scattered about. Messy, too. Getting up, she stalked around for a mirror, before finding it above a nearby cabinet that was obviously used for makeup. Kasumi looked at herself in the mirror, observing her body. She was obviously young, perhaps not yet entered into the Academy (if she even went, being the Hokage's daughter), her extremely small breasts being a sign of early puberty. Unlike the last time she was a girl, she took more after her father than her mother, with blonde hair and heavy-set cheekbones. Her eyes were a darker shade of blue than the cerulean she was used to, however, a few tints close to marine blue. And of course, her always present three whisker marks on each cheek.

Sighing, she decided to get to the purpose she had come to the mirror for. Sending a little bit of chakra to her stomach, the seal that held the Kyuubi no Kitsune was revealed. She eyed the swirling kanji characters that made up the Hakke Fuin, looking for any changes from the standard seal that this dimension's seal might have. "Nothing different here," She noted. "When do you want me to free you?"

Kyuubi was quick to answer this time, with Kasumi's looking in the mirror having given him plenty of time to survey the reality they had looped into. The Academy just started a couple of months ago, and your eighth birthday was only a couple of weeks back. Free me within the next month or so, and I'll migrate into Konoha with a merchant father from nowhere. With a little bit of testing and some manipulation I should be placed into your class.

Kasumi just nodded. After several loops together, the Kyuubi had finally decided to throw (at the time) her lot in with Naruto Uzumaki and coexist peacefully for as long as they were stuck with this curse of forever living. A couple of lifetimes later, including her first time as a girl, Naruto had broken down from the thought of never dying and had sought the condolence of then-vixen, a creature who had lived for over five centuries, and had faint memories of the millennium-old Juubi.

That was the first life she had held a romantic and sexual relationship with the Kyuubi, and when she first set about to trying to figure out how to bypass the Shinigami-powered Hakke Fuin that held the Kyuubi in place on his/her body, and release the Kyuubi without killing either of them. A couple of lifetimes later, he had finally succeeded. To the disappointment of both, even that didn't stop the curse of immortality. As soon as one of them died, they would both be transported to a new reality. They should have seen it coming, though, given that Naruto had died on his fifth and sixth loops releasing the Kyuubi without trying to save himself, only to find that he would just be taken elsewhere.

You're thinking again, Kyuubi observed from her head.

Opening her eyes, heart fluttering at having her intense thoughts interrupted, Kasumi noted tears dripping from her eyes. "I am," She admitted. "I always hope I can get used to it, but every time..." More tears were leaking down, as her skin was turning red from the heat of the tears. "But Rei and the children are gone now, or at least what my Rei was like."

Rei had been the kunoichi that she as Naruto Uzumaki in the last dimension had dated and eventually married. Except for the Kyuubi, Kasumi had tried not to have a relationship more than once with a person. Perhaps it was odd to do such, but she found it liberating. It was always fun to see what made each girl (and boy, when Kasumi herself was female) she dated and married tick. Each person was their own separate individual, but as many events that had occurred in the past often stayed the same, formative events in one's personality often made that person only slightly deviate from life to life. Sakura, who Kasumi had married three times, including her very first lifetime, was always somewhat insecure and aggressive. Hinata, who she had married once in a world where she had never been kidnapped, wasn't as cripplingly shy as when she had been, but still maintained much of what had made Hinata of Kasumi's first world. After a while, going out with those two had been difficult, as Kasumi had to deal with both what was the same and what was different from the last time they were couples. Even though Rei was (likely) alive and going through the Academy as a ten-year-old, even if Kasumi was male, Rei's tomboyish attitude would be a painful reminder of what once had been, and the lack of her mellowed-out older years would only be a memory of what could be, but would never be the exact same.

And the children are the hardest part of it, Kyuubi added from her mind, picking up on her general thoughts.

Yes, her children. Of the few times she had married the same girl more than once as Naruto Uzumaki (or on one of those rare occasions, Hiruzen Uzumaki, named after the Sandaime Hokage who had sacrificed himself to seal the Kyuubi in that world), the children were never the same. In his first life with Sakura, Naruto had been the proud father of two sons and two daughters, all bearing his blonde hair and blue eyes. In his second life, it had been three daughters, who leaned more towards their mother. Neji had been wrong.

And of course, that meant Kasumi would never have the exact same child again, which was what hurt the most.

And yet, you still have them, Kyuubi noted.

"Yeah..." Kasumi whispered, wiping away her tears. She noted she was still nude, and went about hunting through her drawers for a fresh pair of panties and a bra for her nearly flat chest. "They always help take away almost all of the hurt, and they're always so wonderful to watch grow up. Besides...I still have you to help me remember, don't I?"

The nine-tailed fox gave a mental nod. Kyuubi was in some senses a force of nature and a cosmic entity. Kasumi still didn't understand everything there was about him, but Kyuubi was able to help her retain all of her memories from her past lives. Most of it was distant, but the demon lord prevented it from fading away. It hurt, but at least she would never forget them.

Finally, Kasumi hit paydirt as she found some nice, white panties, and put them on. Even nudity as a female no longer bothered her after so many lifetimes, but she still had the dignity that would prevent her from walking outside without any clothes. Putting on a bra as well, she walked over to a closet, and opened it up. Skirts, dresses, shirts and slacks by the dozen were displayed before her, each article of clothing designed to be loose-fitting for kunoichi wear. "So, fox, what name should I call you this time around, and what should I wear?"

The fox stirred. "This time...call me Kaen." Kasumi snorted at the name he had used many times before. "Hey, don't knock it. Plenty of the small villages in this country have boys named Kaen. As for the dress...pick that one."

Kasumi looked at the red skirt Kaen had chosen out for her. "Nice choice, Kaen," She remarked, easily settling into calling the fox by his newly-chosen name. It was a rather odd relationship Kasumi held with the Kyuubi. While she still freed him from the seal most every lifetime, they did not always become a couple. They had come to that agreement long, long ago, as they realised that if the Curse held on for them, it would become boring after a while. It was only about every third lifetime they got together, with a humanised Kyuubi often making plans to come into Konoha and join Kasumi at the Ninja Academy so they could grow up together. She had just minutes ago affirmed to Kaen that this would be another lifetime for them to grow up together and love one another, so already she was setting up for their relationship, letting him choose what she would wear.

Quickly putting on the red dress, she walked back over to the mirror, twirling about to take a look at her. She was rather vain about her looks, but after over ten thousand years of living, it was a novelty that she liked to hold onto. "So, whatcha think, Kaen?"

A wolf-whistle came from Kaen. Looking good, Kasumi-chan. I've come up with most of the important changes in this world's history by now. Do you want me to start chronologically or in order of importance?"

"Order of importance," Kasumi said airily, picking up a brush as she went through her long hair. That first lifetime as a female, she had for the most part abstained from sex. She had had it a few times just to see what the experience was like, but had still been freaked out enough to not want to do anymore. During that three-string of female lives, she had finally gotten used to it. Fortunately, Kaen had been a male in the second life. That had been a rather odd life. She had a couple of lives Kaen the vixen getting pregnant off her own seed, but when she was the female and Kaen was male...

That was the first time she had gotten pregnant, and the first time she had felt the afterglow of motherhood. She had a new respect for all women after that who had to go through pregnancy and labour. Maybe a small part of her maleness remained behind from her first life, because most of the time when she was female and Kaen was male, they were a couple. She had only rarely experimented with going out with some of the other males in Konoha, like Kiba that one time (Hana, Kiba's sister, had remarked how appropriate it was for the two to be going out, given how animalistic both were in bed), Neji Hyuuga, and even Akasuna no Sasori in a really weird world where the puppeteer had stayed loyal to the Sand Village and kept his reproductive system intact even as he replaced most of the rest of his body.

Brushing aside her thoughts, Kasumi started to listen to Kaen, who started speaking, Well, first of all, you have two younger twin brothers."

The first time Kasumi had a sibling was a lifetime in which she spoiled her younger sister rotten. Many siblings had come and gone since then, but she would still be the best of friends as she could with her new brothers. "Names and personality?" She asked Kaen. While her counterpart's memories would assimilate with her in time, Kaen would forcibly assimilate them every time they changed worlds, and so he would inform them of what new things she had to watch out for in each world.

Ken and Takato, Kaen informed her, Fraternal twins. Takato has dark blonde hair, darker than yours, and is fairly mischievous. Ken, who has more of an orange tint, is the more straight-laced of the two, though he still plays his share of pranks. Your counterpart scares them and is one of the few who can keep them in line.

"Nice," Kasumi said. While she loved any sibling she had, there were far too many boring ones. Good to know she had a couple of prankster brothers. "What's next?"

Sunagakure no Sato no longer exists. Kaen revealed, giving Kasumi a few seconds as she sat down on her bed, startled by the news. What details your and my counterpart learned are limited, but it seems that the sealing of the Ichibi into your friend Gaara was mismanaged, and the tanuki managed to run free, though he was chased away long enough for most of the civilians to evacuate.

"Wow..." Kasumi said. She had seen several big changes between worlds, and the destruction of Suna was one of the biggest. "Any idea if Gaara's family survived, and if any refugees came to Konoha?"

No idea about Gaara and his family, Kaen admitted, But it seems most of the population came to Konoha since the Leaf was the Sand's allies. Without a ninja village, the Wind Daimyo shifted most of his spending to Konoha, so your village is by far the strongest hidden village on the continent.

"I'll have to read up on that when I get the chance," Kasumi admitted, her mind already trying to piece together how many things that often took place, such as Orochimaru's invasion during the Chunin Exams that Uchiha Sasuke participated in, would change as a result. "What's next?"

And so, Kaen continued to detail many differences that Kasumi knew would spice the experience of this lifetime up. Orochimaru of the Sannin was travelling the world to perform his research behind enemy lines, something that often happened when her father was alive, given his pragmatic views. The Inuzuka clan had had a population explosion in the last few years, with the clan looking to double in numbers in the next decade even after deaths knocked off some of their numbers. Sarutobi Asuma, after his father's death, had trained hard and was considered an S-Rank ninja in the bingo books of other nations. And those were just the changes Kaen could figure out from what scant little Kasumi's counterpart would have overheard or read before Kasumi took over her body. Given that she had only just turned eight, the Uchiha Massacre had not yet occurred, if it would occur.

After a while of listening to Kaen, Kasumi glanced at the clock, and noticed it was nearing nine a.m. Kaen had told her that one of her family's habits on weekends was to eat breakfast at nine, so she moved to head downstairs, where she would meet her parents once more for the first time in a few lifetimes, and meet two new brothers.

In the Namikaze household, there were a few commodities. Time was one of those. As the Hokage, Namikaze Minato had many functionary duties, and also had to keep his skills sharp at the same time. His wife, Uzumaki Namikaze Kushina, also had duties to perform as the Hokage's wife, and similarly needed to keep a good physique, all while raising three children. Similarly, they had pressured their daughter and two sons to train in shinobi techniques, even if they did not wish to become ninja themselves: as the Hokage's kids, they were prime targets for assassination or kidnapping, and being able to defend themselves was paramount. A Saturday morning like this, where all five were able to laze about and escape the bustle of the village, was a rarity, and husband and wife meant to take advantage of it.

Love was another commodity, although it was never in shortage. Minato and Kushina had had several misadventures during their younger days that had united them, and their marriage had never been in question. The events surrounding Kasumi's birth and their unexpected survival had tightened the bond even more, although Kushina still found herself idly fingering the seal on her body that had once contained the Kyuubi. The birth of her two sons had finished off a family that she swore would not be broken apart like her own was.

But the third commodity was quiet. It was something that Kushina could only find on those rare days she trained all three of her children at once, and drove them into the ground until they were so fatigued they could not work up the stamina to play pranks. And she had a sinking feeling that it was soon to be broken.

"Good morning, tou-san, kaa-san, 'ttebayo!" Came the piercing cry. There it went.

Kushina's eyebrow twitched. Of all the things her daughter looked up to her parents for and tried to imitate, that was one of the things she wished Kasumi had passed over. Honestly, just because she would randomly say 'Dattebane!'...

"Morning, Kasumi-chan," Minato managed to work up a weak grin from beside her, poking his head up above the newspaper he was perusing. "You had a good sleep, I hope."

"You bet I did, dattebayo!" Kasumi yelled, punching the air as she worked off excess energy for a few seconds, before taking a deep breath. Facing her parents, she asked, "Where are Ken-chan and Takato-chan? Not sleeping still, are they?"

"No, they're not," Kushina said, amused. She knew this of course because she could sense the two trying to stealthily approach the table. She had an inkling that Kasumi knew this as well, and was playing along for the twins' benefit.

"Good," Kasumi smiled the most mischievous smile Kushina had seen on her daughter's face since the night before, and warily got ready for an epic showdown between the midgets. "Because if they decided to do something like planting a tack on my chair again, I'd pound 'em!" To elaborate on her point, she punched a fist into the open palm of the other hand, creating a smacking sound.

There was a spike in chakra all three visible occupants of the dining area could sense as one of the twins got nervous. Kasumi spun around at the direction the brothers were in and pointed her index finger. "Aha! Come out you twerps, I caught you red-handed!"

Minato just folded his head, still having a hard time even after several years believing his daughter was more tomboyish than his wife had ever been.

Takato was the first to come out, his dirty blond hair drooping over his head, as he sniffled, crying fake tears. "Sniff...nee-chan is mean!" He wailed. Ken followed behind him, looking exasperated at his fraternal twin brother's antics.

"Oh, stop it," Kasumi retorted. While only a scant few memories had begun to assimilate themselves in with her vast life experience, behaviour was something that seemed to siphon off into her personality rather quick. A domineering attitude towards her brother when he got wild was one of those.

"Now, now, children, settle down," Kushina interjected, not wanting to let the conversation get out of hand. The last time they had done that, they had been repairing that room for three days. "If you don't, you'll be getting another training session from me this afternoon." Of course, an idle threat like that would also ensure compliance.

Faster than the redhead could blink, her two children were in their seats, with an intoned "We'll be good" echoing in the room. Her other son, Ken, just followed along, amusement showing on his face.

"Oh, you brats are finally here?" A black-haired face stuck out of the kitchen. Her usage of the derogatory term was obviously meant in good humor given her tone of voice. Kasumi blanked out at seeing the unfamiliar face, but quick analysis let her come to the conclusion this was probably a maid of sorts that her parents had hired on.

"Yes, we're all here, Yuki-san," Minato nodded. "What have you got for us today?"

Glad that her father had given the maid a name, Kasumi watched as the now-identified Yuki wheeled out a cart with scrambled eggs, milk, fried meat and pancakes. Were she to have been a civilian, having this sort of meal might be overkill were it an everyday occasion, but as a shinobi (well, now a kunoichi), foods high in protein and energy were essential. That her palette had expanded significantly over time from her once true-love of ramen was just icing on the proverbial cake. All she had to do now as to figure out how to get potatoes introduced from the Wind Country.

Oh god, you still love potatoes, don't you? Kaen queried from her mind. Quick, gimme access to your sense of taste and smell. Gimmegimmegimme.

Mentally smirking at how the bijuu in her head could be so childish about good food (he had picked up on an obsession with some type of food called bacon in one of their earlier loops when he had travelled overseas), Kasumi complied, all the while retaining a stoic face on the outside. While in this dimension, Kushina at least seemed to have trusted Kaen to some extent, it still wouldn't do for her parents to guess that she was talking to the Kyuubi. It was refreshing, however, that she was supposed to know about the Kyuubi: it was something her parents had told her about when she was five, and her brothers when they were six, and was an A-Class state secret that only jonins and other specific individuals were allowed to know. So much better than a few of the shitty worlds where all of Konoha's adults knew about it, much like her home world, and she herself wasn't supposed to know about Kyuubi.

"So, tou-san," Ken finally spoke up after the family was done eating, and Kasumi could tell from his smooth voice that he would be a charmer when he grew up, having seen it occur numerous times, "What are we doing today?"

"That's...a secret, heheheh," Minato sheepishly scratched his cheek as he had to listen to three separate cries of "Tou-san!" Teasing them for a few more seconds by abstaining from telling of his plans, he finally relented. "Alright, my old genin teammate Inuzuka Tsume is having a barbecue today, and she invited me and my other former teammate Akimichi Choza for a get-together. They both have kids and spouses, so you'll meet people around your own age. You should know Choza's kid from your class, Kasumi-chan," He added at the end.

"Yah!" Kasumi yelled out loud, even as her mind went into overdrive. Her father often changed genin teammates every time she changed lives. He had had repeat teams before, but this particular combination had never occurred. In her very first life, he had been paired up with two other orphans. One of them had sacrificed his life to save his ANBU team on a deep-strike mission into Iwagakure during the Third Great Shinobi War, while the other had gone on a long-term infiltration mission shortly after Minato had become the Yondaime, and had not finished until after the Fourth Great Shinobi War had passed. She was one of the last close friends of the Yondaime still living, and Kasumi, Naruto at the time, had made sure to talk to her extensively about her father.

She wrinkled her nose as she walked up to her room, intent on doing a quick makeover to her hair before leaving. Kasumi couldn't remember either of their names. She hated it when that happened. While she lived all the loops she was dumped into to the fullest that she could, she always tried to keep the memories of her first life fresh in her head. She would have to ask Kaen to refresh her memories later. For now, he was asleep, somehow having gotten drowsy from the large breakfast. It was just another side effect of the psychic bond neither had really bothered to try and understand.

Kasumi had once heard a poem somewhere, about the want of a nail. She couldn't recite it word for word, but she knew the general meaning behind it: the smallest circumstance could snowball into being vital. Had that not proved true in her first life? As Uzumaki Naruto the first, she had offered a few words to Sabaku no Gaara after beating him down during the Invasion of Konohagakure by the Snake Sannin, Orochimaru. Those few words stuck with Gaara and was what ultimately helped him to become the Kazekage of his village.

But the want of a nail also applied retroactively. In some sense, Neji had been right. Kasumi would have rubbed it into his face, but it just wouldn't have been the same.

Always, the world she traveled to would differ in some way. Sometimes, it was minor, with events only changing between a few months before she was born and afterwards. In those lives, most of the people she had known from her first life were around still, such as the Rookie Nine. However, if even one thing was different at least two years before she was born, most of those people were gone. Neji would never have been born in a world where his father decided to work a little bit later on the night Neji was supposed to be conceived. Instead, Hizashi Hyuuga would have a newborn daughter in ten months, not a newborn son in nine. Such a small change would result from something different happening in the past.

"Hiya Kasumi-chan?" The orange-haired girl opposite her greeted, before tossing up one of the apples she had in her hands. "Want an apple?"

"Sure, Cho-chan!" Kasumi greeted back, accepting the green-skinned apple with a curt thank you. Cho wasn't Choji, but from the few memories she had already begun to receive, she was close in personality - slightly shy, not really outgoing, and already full of weight anxieties. Kasumi could already see one of the friends she would make in this world, not that it wasn't hard – the counterpart whose body she had taken over was already friends with the orange-haired maiden, who was in the same class as Kasumi was at the Academy.

If anything changed two years before she was born, anybody conceived after that time would not exist in that dimension. Even still, she sometimes met them again in a few dimensions. What really hurt, however, was never being able to see the younger children again, such as Konohamaru and his two friends Moegi and Udon, Inari from Wave, Hanabi Hyuuga, or Sarutobi Asuma the Second. It was the same kind of hurt she felt every time she lost her children, whether as they died or as she died and went to a new world.

But what was really disturbing was when she applied that sort of thinking to herself. She, Uzumaki Kasumi, was very rarely the same. Almost always, something was different between her and her last counterpart. Only a single loop out of over a hundred and fifty lives where neither Uzumaki Kushina or Namikaze Minato were her parents, had helped her in figuring out this curse of looping: in that lifetime, even still, she had been the vessel chosen for the Kyuubi to be sealed into.

"Hey, Cho-chan!" A new voice shouted out. "Who's your friend?"

Broken out of her thoughts, Kasumi turned to face the new speaker. Even if Inuzuka Kiba didn't exist in this world, Tsume's firstborn this time around resembled him deeply in both personality and looks: rough around the edges, a sweetheart on the inside. This boy, also named Kiba (it seemed parents really did know what they wanted to name their children long before the actual day came! Her own parents were an exception when it came to her female lives, however), hadn't actually shown any of the 'sweetheart' tendencies, but Kasumi had long learned how to read the personalities of others.

"Ah, Kiba-kun," Cho gave a short wave as Kiba walked in closer. "This is Kasumi-chan, from my class. I've spoken to you about her before, haven't I?"

"Yeah," the brown-haired boy admitted, feral marks on his face dancing with the creasing of his facial muscles, "You have." He turned to Kasumi and looked her from top to bottom once before whistling. "You'll break a lot of hearts when you're older, Kasumi-san." He snorted audibly. "Don't take offense, but be glad you're three years younger than I am, or else mom and your dad would probably be match-making to try and 'match their children' together or something." He groaned as he rubbed his forehead.

Many things changed for the want of a nail. Kasumi had seen it too many times to be ignorant. This Kiba, who was what the Kiba of her first life was like after being shined through a refractive crystal, was one such example, being born three years before she was, when the eldest sibling in her first life was older than her by five years. It seemed that Tsume had recently had two more children, given the pair of adorable twin girls riding around on Kuromaru, Tsume's long-time ninken partner.

"If my father tried to set me up like that..." Kasumi paused for dramatic effect, before pounding her fist into her open palm, "I'd destroy him." She bared her teeth for maximum theatrics.

Both Cho and Kiba laughed for a few seconds at the display, before Kiba sighed, looking at the six adults chatting, the orange-haired heavyset man occasionally working his art on the barbecue. "Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do it with your brothers and my sisters." He wryly noted.

"In that case, I'd like to see them be ready for the consequences," Kasumi drawled. "Ken might go along, but Takato would make their lives hell if he felt like he was being forced into it."

"A prankster, is he?" Kiba guessed, and shook his fist in victory as Kasumi confirmed it with a nod. "He would fit right along with my one sister Hana." He just shook his head, amused. "Shia is often kept on her toes trying to keep Hana from her more oddball habits."

"Sounds a bit like Ken, he's the one who helps us keep Takato straight at times." Kasumi looked over to Cho, thinking she should bring the shy girl into the conversation. "What about you Cho, any siblings?" She motioned for the other two to follow her as she laid on the grass, torso upright, letting her bare toes walk through the dewy grass.

"Ah...no, Kasumi-chan. I...I asked my parents once about it...my mother apparently is unable to have any more children," Cho looked down for a moment, before brightening up. "It's alright though, I have several cousins my age that I can still play with, and you're still my friend, aren't you Kasumi-chan?" She sounded nervous and fretful, hugging her legs to her body.

Kasumi's heart went out for the 'big-boned' girl. She definitely knew who she was working on helping in this life as Kasumi Namikaze. "Of course I am, Cho! Just because you think you're not pretty doesn't mean I don't! You just need a bit of self-confidence is all! And besides," She thumbed Kiba, eliciting a mocking yelp of pain from the boy, "Kiba here is still your friend, right?"

A little bit of the playboy that Kasumi had known from the original Kiba showed in this Inuzuka clan heir as he bared his teeth. "You bet, Cho-chan!"

It was with pride that the six parents watched their seven children and pair of ninken interact before calling them over for lunch.

So, have you decided what you're going to do in this world? Kaen asked from her head, several hours later, after the family had gotten back to the house and Kasumi had made it to her room to go to sleep for the night.

Kasumi was twirling around, admiring her body in her mirror. She had seen her female selves grow up enough times that she had a good idea of what she would look like when she was older, and damn would she be smoking hot. Some part of her maleness was still lingering from the last world at that thought, but it was quickly fading away with the lack of hormones to influence her mind. In only a few days, she would have lost all sexual drive, and it would stay that way for the next few years.

"Hmmm..." She hummed, her humming a signal she was still thinking. Stripping down again, she looked over the very vague contours and curves of her body, a precursor of what would be in the years to come. "Damnit, I have to go through puberty again. At least you'll have to share in my misery again this time 'round." If there was one thing she liked and hated, it was having to go through puberty again, and again, and again...she had long looked for ways to bypass that whole developmental period, but short of turning into an Orochimaru for a few loops, had fallen short in that goal.

Puberty equals larger breasts, larger breasts equals nice pillowy goodness, the kitsune deadpanned. For that I'm more than willing to go through that hell again, and hormones. There was the sensation of a cold shiver.

She flushed. Even after thousands of years spent in awkward sexual relationships with her tenant, he still knew how to get her embarrassed. "Ah, ero-kitsune," She squealed at his insinuations, before shutting the lights off and climbing into her bed, hugging her pillow. "It's obvious you've made the change quickly."

And you won't be hot and horny like a vixen in heat in five or seven years' time? He continued teasing her.

"Yeah..." She sighed. "And then you'll be going into a frenzy again when I deliver you more 'kits', and honestly I never got why you still stick to using fox-specific terms even when you're a human."

Bah, the Kyuubi snorted. You may have changed me for the better, but I'm still a fox, even if I spend more time as a human than anything else.

"Well then, maybe you should turn into a foxboy again when we get old enough, and I'll be a foxgirl," Kasumi teased him back for the first time in the conversation. "I remember the last time we did that for a whole lifetime. Is that kinky enough for you?"

Lust permeated the psychic bond the two shared, and for a moment she was nearly swept up in it. Cursing and blessing her lack of hormones at the same time for not being overwhelmed by it, she sprawled herself out underneath her blankets. Of course, had she been male and Kaen been female this time around and the vixen suggested it, Kasumi knew she would have responded with as much lust, so she wasn't disturbed by it. It was all situational playfulness evolved from thousands of years of companionship romance.

Besides, they had been the same genders they were now the last time they tried it, and he had been so good with his tails, and...and damn she was heating up already, her face was flush. She pushed it out of her mind, and turning around to lie on her back. What did she want to do in this world? She didn't know. Many were the times she had become Hokage, others were the times she had stuck to jobs that let her adventure out into the field. She didn't always become a ninja or kunoichi, either. As long as it involved either action or exploration, she was game for it. Maybe another lifetime of travelling was up for grabs? The last time she had done it, her and the Kyuubi-vixen of the time had gone up to the far north to visit the glacial icelands found at the end of the world.

"Goodnight, Kaen. I'll give you an answer in the morning." A mental nod was her response, as she quickly fell asleep, with one last muttered prayer to the memory of her children and wife from the previous loop.

Three nights later, one brown-haired kunoichi-in-training would wake up with a gasp.

Looking around, she surveyed her spartan room, and was startled to notice that her window was open. So her instincts weren't mistaken – somebody had intruded on her. For what purpose? Scenarios flitted through her mind, several of which she didn't wish to consider.

An observant eye picked out another off detail. Looking at her desk, she saw a scroll laying there that she knew wasn't there before. Turning on the lamp next to the desk, she sat down in her chair, and played a mental game against herself over whether to open it or not. Finally, the brunette rationalised to herself that whoever had broken in wouldn't be laying a trap against her with this scroll – the mysterious figure would have just kidnapped or otherwise harmed her if he or she truly wished. With great trepidation, she opened the scroll.

It was with great wonder that she found neat handwriting detailing the workings behind several minor genjutsu, and how she could create her own. The Academy never went into this much detail! She didn't know who her mysterious benefactor was, or how he or she knew of her own desire to train in genjutsu (she had confessed it to nobody!), but she was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Many small actions can lead to large changes. Akisawa Rei would otherwise have become a career chunin mulling about in a dead-end life with border patrols, but for a single midnight gift that would allow her to become a genjutsu mistress, rivalling the talent of Kurenai Yuuhi.

Hmm, if that's a bit squick for any of you readers with a formerly male Naruto suddenly transitioning to a female Naruto and getting over it in like an hour, I apologise. But that's mainly how this fic go down. For the most part, I did try to make it work.

As you should probably have figured out by now going off this first chapter, Naruto and Kyuubi are both looping back in time after their deaths (or after one of them dies, anyways, if Kyuubi is unsealed). They don't get sent back to the start of canon timeline, either: every time they loop, they get sent to a world where things are different. Kyuubi is heavily humanised in this fic, and that'll get some development over the next few chapters. Part of it is simple realisation that he can't exist without having Naruto around and alive, so he might as well do whatever. He'll probably have raged and destroyed after a few loops, only to finally find that it gets boring. A lot of loops he won't stick around either, and will run off elsewhere, intent on exploring the world. A couple of you reviewers will probably point out that Kyuubi is just a mass of chakra, and shouldn't have a gender. To that I say eh, I'll either figure a way out to bullshit past that or just consider it a change to canon rules.

Of course, there will be changes to this world from canon, with the obvious ones being some genderswaps, and Kasumi's family. All the other stuff is simply borne out of my desire to not be another of those thousand and one writers who basically rewrite canon except make Naruto more powerful/intelligent than his canon counterpart.

Now, I wouldn't really view this as a Naruto/Kyuubi romance, but rather more of a companionship with smut. They've gone through romance already, they're something closer than lovers in a sense, borne out of being together for so long through so many loops. The sex at this point is for just reconnecting and for base pleasures, while whoever's a female at the time will have some children, as watching their children grow will be one of the few joys that never gets old for them. Like I said before, this is a fairly humanised Kyuubi, too. I think what you'll most likely find them as is extremely playful companions. They go along with whatever gender the loop has given them, so they've known each other as maleNaruto x femaleKyuubi, and femaleNaruto x maleKyuubi, and dare I say it, maybe even an occasional femaleNaruto x femaleKyuubi? But yeah, that's why femaleNaruto has so easily adapted into being Namikaze Kasumi, and Kyuubi into Kaen, a male with future problems with lust.

In any case, this chapter was honestly something I wrote over a couple of days with the initial idea springing to me only a few hours before the first word was written. I don't even know if I'll make this story just for one loop only, or if there'll be multiple loops. I get odd strokes of genius at times, so for all you know this loop might be for this chapter only with an info dump and next chapter will be something new entirely. In any case, the general direction I'll go with this fic will be more serious than your standard crackish loopfix, perhaps a bit deconstructionist even. Somewhat like All is Relative Except for the Stubbornness of a Demon, but different in tone. The overarching theme of this story, however, will be Naruto/Kasumi and Kyuubi trying to figure out what caused the loops, how to stop it if possible, how the looping has changed them over time, and most importantly, if they wish to stop it.