"Kushina!"
In the blink of an eye, Minato appeared out of nowhere before his wife. He reached out to her, visibly intent on pacifying her rage through human contact… completely unaware of the fact that his beloved Kushina was no longer at the helm of her own body.
"Watch out!" Sakura shrieked. "She's been possessed!"
Minato's pupils dilated as he noticed the strange pattern forming within her scarlet irises. The possessed Kushina grinned at him evilly, and without warning, a clawed hand burst from the chakra cloak shrouding her chest, plainly intent on tearing out his heart…
…but the chakra construct's fingers closed around nothing but thin air.
Minato reappeared next to Menma and Sakura, and he seized them both by the collar. Thanks to Sakura's timely warning and his own inhuman reflexes, he had just barely avoided being skewered by his own wife.
"Flying Thunder God Jutsu!"
The world spun, and in the next instant Sakura and Menma found themselves upon a nearby rooftop. Moments later, Namikaze Mansion crumbled as a gigantic Nine-Tailed Fox, its coat as dark as night, rose from the rubble, shaking bricks and plaster from its fur. It opened its enormous maw at once, and a roiling mass of dense, black chakra began to form between its jaws, condensing positive and negative energies into a sphere that swelled larger by the second…
"Be careful," said Minato. "I trust in your judgment, Menma."
He shot one last look at Sakura, before vanishing.
Sakura gazed at the Black Nine-Tails in the distance, transfixed. She knew she ought to be terrified, but for some strange reason, she felt oddly confident. She had faced much greater threats in the past than a fake Nine-Tails, so if she could only remember…
"Let's go help the villagers evacuate to the shelters," Menma said. "Come on, Sakura-chan."
Sakura closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. There was a familiar scent in the air…
"Akatsuki!" Menma snarled. "Get behind me, Sakura-chan!"
"Get your filthy hands off MY Sakura-chan!"
Sakura's eyes snapped open. Menma's impostor was standing on the opposite side of the roof, wearing the Akatsuki's trademark black robes with red cloud patterns. His eyes burned with fury, scarlet with vertical slit pupils, just like Kushina's…
"Na…" Sakura murmured, pressing a hand to her chest.
Why did her heart hurt so much when she looked at him?
"Don't fight," Sakura said, tugging at Menma's sleeve. "He's not an enemy…"
"Of course he is!" Menma snarled. "He placed a genjutsu on you and made you attack the village! He's definitely a bad guy!"
Sakura's memories told her Menma was her boyfriend, but her feelings, her senses… they were all screaming at her that the boy in the Akatsuki robes was someone she deeply cared about. She watched in horror as the two boys quickly closed the gap and exchanged a few blows, but they were equally matched.
"Wake up, Sakura!" ☐☐☐☐☐☐ shouted. "Remember who you really are, ya know!"
BOOM!
The ground shook, sending tiles flying loose from the roof they were standing on as a terrifyingly powerful detonation rocked the village. Minato had just redirected the Black Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb over the hills behind Hokage Rock, where it had harmlessly exploded… relatively speaking. But the effort would have left him spent; it was doubtful he'd be able to repeat this feat…
"Damn it, I don't have time to waste with you, faker!" Menma snarled, glancing at the Nine-Tails rampaging through the village in the distance. He crossed his fingers. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Two pairs Shadow Clones appeared on either side of him in plumes of white smoke, but the other Menma simply smirked derisively.
"Four? Is that really all you've got?" he said, crossing his fingers as well. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Thousands of consecutive bangs rang out as an uncountable number of Shadow Clones appeared on the rooftop, on the neighbouring houses, in the street below! Everywhere Sakura looked, there were fake Menmas!
Menma blanched, unconsciously taking half a step back.
"This isn't possible, no one could possess that much chakra," he muttered through gritted teeth. "This must be some sort of trick, ya know…!"
"Who's the faker now, faker? You might be just a teensy little better at taijutsu than me, but there's no way I would ever lose to you!" ☐☐☐☐☐☐ crowed victoriously. "Now let's kick his Sakura-chan-stealing butt!"
Menma put up a valiant effort, but in the end, he was swept away by a tidal wave of doppelgangers. Sakura stood perfectly still as one of the impostor Menmas walked up to her hesitantly.
"Your scent is familiar," Sakura said curiously, sniffing at the air around him. "Do I know you?"
Tears started trickling down ☐☐☐☐☐☐'s face as he looked at her, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Sakura immediately felt a pang of sadness in her heart. She didn't like seeing him like this. She hated it.
"Oh, no!" Sakura gasped. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, please don't cry…"
"I'm sorry," ☐☐☐☐☐☐ said miserably. "If only I'd stayed by your side, maybe you wouldn't have forgotten everything, ya know?"
Sakura hugged him tightly.
"There, there," she said soothingly, brushing his hair as she pressed his head against her bosom. "I can always make new memories… why don't you start by telling me your name?"
The boy sniffled.
"Uzumaki Naruto… believe it."
Sakura's neurons sparked, long forgotten connections in her brain mending themselves.
"Naruto… Naruto… Naruto…" she murmured to herself. "That's right, important things should be said three times…"
She could see his mournful appearance. She could hear his steady breathing. She could smell the scent of ramen on him. She could touch him; his toned body was pleasingly hard against her soft body.
There was only one way to truly make sure she knew him.
"Mmh!?"
Without warning, Sakura pressed her lips against his and slipped her pink tongue into his mouth, warm pleasure filling her body as she rubbed against him, tasting him, impregnating her senses with everything that made him, and he returned the kiss, sheer bliss spreading across his body like a lightning bolt travelling down his spine to his every extremity, even as the village exploded in the background…
After what seemed like an eternity, Sakura drew away, breathless, a thin ribbon of saliva still connecting their lips. Her breasts felt electric, her nipples tingling so badly she wanted to mash herself against his body again… She took a deep breath, steadying herself against him even as her knees threatened to give out. She felt boneless, almost as though she were melting...
"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked tentatively.
Sakura smiled.
"I remember now," she said simply. "Naruto-kun is Naruto-kun."
And this time, she was truly back. She still couldn't use her sealed bloodline powers, but she could remember how to use her skills! And perhaps most importantly, since she had been standing around doing a whole lot of nothing over the past few minutes, her Celestial Lotus Seal had accumulated a sizeable supply of nature energy…