A/N. This is another fem!Naru fanfic, and me messing around with timeline relevance and age a lot really. I'm not sure when exactly the idea struck me or if there are others like this, but if not than I guess I'll be the first. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the story and thanks for reading!

P.s. I kind of trapped myself in a corner with that female name that begins with Naru thing, so I decided to jump out of it a bit. And I refuse to use Naruko because it's used so much.

WARNING! Older Fem!Naru!

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Everything Naruto belongs to Kishimoto!

1: I Have to do WHAT Now?!

There was a tension in the air of the village, hanging low and heavy over the heads of both civilians and shinobi alike. It was almost suffocating and she had to wonder what had changed in the week she had been absent from her home. And for that matter where was Itachi? That man had promised to meet up with her when she got back and take her to Ichiraku's for ramen, and he knew she didn't like it when he broke his promises. She couldn't be faulted if something unfortunate happened to his precious room, or if his precious little brother suddenly started calling him a pervert for seemingly unknown reasons. Karma didn't like people who broke their promises to others after all. She was so caught up in her scheming that she almost missed the whispering group of housewives, all too caught up in themselves to note that someone might be listening in to them.

"I can't believe it!"

"Me either!"

"That Itachi Uchiha would…" At her childhood friend's name, she immediately turned around, about to approach the group to ask them what their conversation was about, when she sensed a disturbance in the air itself.

"Fox-sama," She turned, anbu mask still firmly in place as her eyes landed on the all too familiar form of another anbu member, one of her own if she remembered the mask correctly. "You've been summoned. Hokage-sama wishes to speak with you." She nodded her head in confirmation, eyes narrowing in suspicion as she paused to wave her hand in dismissal before following him to the tower.

"Hokage-sama…" She greeted as she entered the rather stuffy room. She had no idea how the old man hadn't killed over yet from heatstroke, the ventilation in the Hokage Tower as a whole was poor at best and abysmal at worse, and even if the room was spacious as could be, the place was usually a dust covered mess and kept about as well as an abandoned building that had been falling apart for at least a decade now and otherwise forgotten. It didn't help at all that the man, getting on in his years as he was, was constantly being drowned in mountains after mountain of paperwork. Most of it just complicated gibberish concerning the laws that and powers that the council wished to obtain in order to further usurp the seat of the village leader and make the role all but useless.

"Ah, Fox-san, it's good to see you. How was the mission?" the man asked, a gentle smile on his face and an almost childish twinkle in his eyes. He'd been a sight for sore eyes if she was willing to admit how homesick she had become during her time away, but she was an anbu now, not a genin fresh out of the academy and bumbling around like a headless chicken along with her teammates, and she couldn't afford to get too sentimental during her missions.

"Good, I'll have the report on your desk by tomorrow afternoon."

"Good, good. Ah, Dog-san, Cat-san, could you please excuse us for a few minutes. Just a few, I'd like to speak with Fox-san alone."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." The two older anbu nodded their heads, appearing in a flicker of the air before walking past her and leaving the room, Dog having paused for a split second to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder before he left.

She waited a split second, watching the door close behind the two, before turning around fast enough to give herself whiplash for a week, a hand reaching up to pull the familiar mask from her face as clear blue eyes glared at him. Blonde hair whipping around just as quickly.

"Ok Old Man, what in Kami-sama's name is going on here?" She demanded, hands slamming down on the man's desk and almost sending a whole stack of completed paperwork flying through the winds.

"Nagi-chan…"

"Don't Nagi-chan me, Jiji! Where the hell is Itachi, and why the hell does the village feel like if I so much as make a peep I'm liable to lose my head?!"

"Nagisa." The man's tone was warning her to watch her tongue. But she knew he couldn't blame her, not really.

Itachi had been her childhood friend, the only one to so much as talk to her when everyone else had avoided her like the plague back when she had first started attending the academy. They had been through a lot together, both in and out of school, and while he had been the only one she could rely on when everyone else seemed to hate her guts, she had been his only confidant. One of the only three people he had befriended that hadn't expected anything out of him beyond friendship or a familial bond. The others being Itachi's cousin, Shisui, a man who might as well have been his brother, and Sasuke, Itachi's baby brother. He'd almost been like a brother to her as well, and had nearly risked life and limb to rescue her when she had been captured by an unknown assailant hell-bent on using the Kyuubi to all but raze Konohagakure to the ground, despite his own father's, and several other's objections. She had every right to be angry and lash out when her dear friend clearly wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Look I'm sorry, alright Jiji. But you have to tell me. Where. Is. Itachi?" The man sighed, looking far older than he ever had before in her eyes, every bit of stress and every single wrinkle made more pronounced as he settled into his chair. He looked like he had wanted to die, swamped behind a practical wall of paperwork and beseeched by the council that had gotten a taste of power and only screamed for more instead of wisely settling with the roles they had.

"I'm sorry Nagi-chan." He apologized, and she almost thought the worst had happened and Itachi had somehow managed to get himself killed on a mission while she was gone.

"Oh Kami-sama." She gasped, pain seizing her heart as she could only imagine the condition in which the Uchiha might've been found in, if any at all. Certainly not alive if the old man was apologizing to her instead of telling her where her friend had gone. She almost killed over, just barely managing to keep herself standing as grief hit hard and fast, knocking the air out of her lungs and leaving her eyes blurry. It was a rare show of emotion if any, but it was one that was soon to be replaced by the next words that left the elder's mouth.

"Nagi-chan, please, don't get ahead of me. Itachi Uchiha is not dead."

"What? Then why in the damn world are you fucking apologizing?! You had me thinking he'd been murdered by enemy shinobi!" She almost threw something at the man. How dare he get her so worked up like that! The hokage sighed, actually flinching slightly at the visible anger pouring off of the teenager before him and he couldn't but laugh slightly to himself. She was seventeen now, seventeen. And while she was nowhere near his age yet, at any stretch of the word, she was still a frightening being to behold when angered, almost as frightening as his own, wayward student, Tsunade. "Why I oughtta-"

"Nagisa." He said again, knowing she was fairly close to knocking him out of his seat. The man also knew she'd get away with it, not because of any important status, but because he thought of her as his own granddaughter, regardless of the lack of blood relations shared. She could murder someone with her own two hands and plead guilty to the action; he'd still forgive her and let her go. "The reason I'm apologizing isn't because Itachi is dead. I'm apologizing because he's betrayed us."

"What?" She stopped, looking at him as if he'd just grown a second head, five eyes, and four more arms and legs.

"Itachi has gone nuke-nin." He began explaining, reciting everything the report that he himself couldn't have believed if he'd tried. "At nine o' clock in the afternoon, shortly after the academy had released its students, Itachi murdered his entire clan. Killing everyone, including his own parents." He pulled the report out, placing it at the center of the desk in case Nagisa wanted to read what might as well have been blasphemy in her mind.

"That's not possible…" She said, eying the report as her expression grew to near murderous proportions. "Itachi wouldn't kill his clan… Not without a damn good reason."

"Nagisa…"

"Don't 'Nagisa' me! I know Itachi, better than anyone in this damn village aside from Shisui! He wouldn't kill his entire clan without a reason!" She yelled at him, throwing the traitorous sheets of paper onto the floor and all but crushing them under foot. Lies, that's what they were to her, and it was obvious by the disgusted expression she wore on her face. "If he really did kill his entire clan, he was either ordered to do so, by someone of higher standing, and it was probably because the clan itself was a danger of some sort to the village."

"Nagisa."

"Where's Sasuke?"

"What?"

"Where. Is. Sasuke Uchiha. Itachi's younger brother? The little boy who all but worships the ground that man walks on? Where is he?!" She questioned, looking near mutinous as she started pacing the perimeter of the room. "Regardless of what any councilmen want him to do, he wouldn't kill his younger brother, and I know for a fact he'd never raise a hand again Shisui. For that matter where is Shisui? Where are they Jiji?" The hokage sighed once again, realizing that for better or worse, Nagisa was an anbu commander, easily able to piece together facts and information that others would've completely overlooked or just outright ignored. If a friend or subordinate of hers did something that normally would've gotten them branded as a traitor, she wouldn't believe what another said without getting the facts for herself first.

"Shisui is missing as well, we have no idea as to his whereabouts. We know he is alive though. That is it. Sasuke however, is currently in the hospital being treated for minor injuring sustained during the incident."

"Kami-sama this is so fucked up!" She swore again, finally coming to a stop in the middle of the room. Suddenly she turned for the door, pulling the mask back over her face and all but manhandling a kunai into her hands.

"Nagisa! Where in the world are you going?!"

"To find Itachi and Shisui! And drag their sorry asses back to the village! Where else would I go?!"

"You can't!" He tried to tell her, and he found himself once again face to face with an angry seventeen year old woman known to leave the majority of her peers terrorized for weeks on end.

"And why not?"

"Because I need you for something else."

"And what in the world would that be?"

"Sasuke."

"What?"

"Sasuke is still a child, only a year into the academy, he's not old enough to live on his own just yet. You were Itachi's best friend, he thought of you like a sister. Kami knows he probably convinced himself of that as you were growing up. The only person her ever risked his life for aside from his brother and cousin was you." The man said, waving a hand as if the man they were talking about was right in the room with them. "Shisui is missing, Itachi has fled the village. Sasuke is the only one left of the Uchiha clan." Suddenly Nagisa began to shake her head, practically laughing as she caught on to what the man was getting at.

"Oh no… No, no, no, no, NO! Jiji, you can't really think that I… Hokage-sama, I am sorry, but I am not the mothering material! You know that!"

"Nagisa, I know the exact opposite. You get along well with children, more so than you think."

"What about the council! You know they won't allow this!" She couldn't believe she was actually using the village elders as an escape, but it was true. "The last thing they want is the 'Demon Brat' raising the all-important Last Uchiha! They'll throw a riot!"

"Which is why they don't have a choice in the matter. Nagisa please, you are the only one left that Sasuke can trust, the only one I can trust with this. The only one either Itachi or Shisui can trust. If I leave him on his own or with anyone else they'll pollute the boy's mind. I need someone I know will take good care of him, and who better than the girl that might as well have been a sister to his older brother. Please, if not for me, than for Itachi."

"Kami-sama, you know I hate it when you pull that card!" She couldn't help but whine. He knew she couldn't say no when he did that, she never could. She huffed, a harsh bout of air through her nose as she crossed her arms all but pouted like she was seven again. "Fine! I'll watch Itachi's little brat of a brother."

"Thank you. Now I'm considering this a double S-rank mission. Long-term. You'll get a pay for it of course, and you'll be moved from your one person apartment into a home more befitting someone raising a child."

"Hai Hokage-sama. Anything else?"

"I'm also removing you from the Anbu, at least until Sasuke is old enough to live on his own. You will be given a monthly allowance straight out of the money reserves to aid in your raising."

"Fine." She would've objected, honestly she would've, but with her suddenly having to take on the role of mother to a suddenly orphaned Uchiha, she wouldn't have had the time, and she had feeling that there was more behind removing her from the anbu than just convenience. Sasuke knew her, yes, but he only knew her as the kind and gentle girl that would occasionally swing by to torment his brother in various ways and would often give him treats behind their mother's back. He didn't know that she was anbu, like his brother, or that she was even a shinobi. Itachi had made her promise to not give away the fact that she was a shinobi and that meant that the use of any jutsu or skills that came with such an occupation were a no-go. A mission this might've been, but she could already tell. This wasn't a shinobi mission, this was a civilian mission, one where she would have to shelve the majority of her hard earned skills in favor of taking on the role of a housewife. The old man even confirmed her own conclusions.

"You are to keep the fact that you are an anbu secret from him." It was easy enough, after all. But she could already see what little crack in that little rule.

"And what if Sasuke needs help in the academy, help becoming the shinobi that he'll probably still want to become regardless of what has happened?"

"Then teach him. What he is willing to learn and maybe even things he might not be at first. But you must remember to never tell him you were anbu." He explained, his expression serious as he reminded her of the one rule she'd probably wind up breaking at some point anyways. "Now turn in your mask, you are no longer Fox, Anbu Commander of Squad Alpha. You are now Nagisa Uzumaki, caretaker and legal guardian of the last Uchiha, Sasuke."

"Okay Jiji." She said, removing the mask and placing it on the desk. "This ought to be one hell of a change."

"Are you sure that was such a good idea?" The Hokage sighed, placing the brush down as he looked Dog in the eye. The man simply met his gaze, dark gray eyes concerned as he waited patiently for a response. Somewhere off to the side, they could both still sense Cat, who had remained hidden in the shadows for her own reasons. "She was right you know. The Council, especially the elders, won't like that you put Nagisa in charge of the last Uchiha. They'll object, and might even go behind your back in order to prove that she's not a suitable caretaker."

"Some of them might, yes. But I can't have Nagisa running across Hi no Kuni trying to find those two. She'll only get herself kidnapped again, just like when she was fourteen!"

"Excuse me Hokage-sama, but I must disagree." Cat suddenly entered into the conversation, her presence suddenly more pronounced than it had been the few seconds prior. "Nagisa-san, is no longer fourteen. She's not a genin anymore, and while Itachi and Shisui might not be around any longer to help keep her safe, she's still a lot stronger than what she used to be."

"Even so Cat-san, I need someone I can trust to take care of Sasuke near him. And who better to understand what loneliness feels like other than Nagisa?"

"You're right I guess. I just hope you haven't put her into a position she can't handle." The old man chuckled good naturedly at that. He couldn't fault the man for his own worry after all. It wasn't like he himself didn't have the same concerns, and besides, Nagisa was the daughter of the man's late teacher, he had every right to prioritize her own well-being over anything else.

"It's Nagisa though, if anyone can pull through. It's her."

"You're right."

A/N. Well, that's that. So what do you think? I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and again, thanks for reading! And if you want to see what this fem!Naru looks like go swing by my deviantArt account! Please leave a review and see ya!