Sakura sat on a tree stump, glancing over a stack of paperwork she had brought from her office. A few metres away, Naruto and his father sat cross-legged in the grass with their eyes closed, facing each other. So perfectly still were they that a blue songbird fluttered down from a nearby tree and nestled itself atop Naruto's head, plainly intent on making its new home there.
"Ouch!" Naruto yelped as the bird plucked a few straw-coloured hairs from his scalp to garnish its nest with. "Shoo, ya stupid bird!" he yelled, blinking away a tear of pain at the corner of his eye. "Go bother someone else, y'know!"
"Inner peace, Naruto," Minato said, cracking open one eye. "To commune with Nine-Tails, your heart needs to be as calm as the surface of that lake over there; the slightest ripple might set him off. He can sense your negative emotions, so if you want him to respond positively, you need to stop engaging him as if he were your enemy."
Tailed Beasts were like mirrors in that they reflected what humanity projected onto them. If people treated them as natural disasters, that's what they would become. If they instead showed them kindness, they would return friendship; simple as.
"Of course, Nine-Tails is the grumpiest of them all because of his special ability," Minato went on. "If it hadn't been for the isolation of the Shinigami's stomach, I doubt I could have befriended him so quickly, haha!"
The fox passively absorbed every scrap of negativity for kilometres around, ranging from trivial nothingburgers such as the irritation of someone taking the last cup of deluxe ramen from a shop shelf just as you were reaching for it, to somewhat upsetting events such as watching your parents being murdered in a back alley just outside the cinema.
Without the Hidden Cloud's Tailed Beast Temple, Sakura had no way of perfectly isolating Naruto and his half of the Nine-Tails from the world around them. And with the war already under way, the villagers' stress levels were at an all-time high…
"How would you feel about going on a little holiday, Naruto-kun?" Sakura asked pleasantly. "I hear the Land of Moon is lovely this time of year… it's been a while since we last saw that little brat— I mean, Hikaru-ōjisama, hasn't it? We sure had lots of fun partying in the guest house while we were waiting to go home from that mission…"
"Like, just you and me, Sakura-chan?" Naruto said, blushing. "But… what about the village?"
"Just you and your dad," Sakura corrected him. "And maybe Yamato-sensei."
Minato rubbed his chin pensively.
"Maybe that won't be necessary," he said. "The most important part is that Naruto's heart must remain pure while he engages with Nine-Tails…"
As long as it wasn't pure malice or some other negative emotion, then it didn't matter what kind of positive emotion Naruto's heart was filled with, right? It could be pure good, pure hope, pure springtime of youth, pure love, or even… pure eroticism.
Minato whispered something in Naruto's ear.
Sakura pricked up her ears, but although she now had superhuman hearing, this was mostly for high-pitched sounds beyond 3000 Hz. Human speech rarely exceeded 250 Hz, too low on the frequency spectrum of sound, so even with her enhanced hearing, she could only make out one in every four words Minato whispered to his son.
"...good… head… ask Sakura… cum… pillow…"
Poof! Sakura's cheeks turned bright red.
What in the world was Minato asking his son to repeat to a young lady of such upstanding moral virtue like herself!? Had he seriously told Naruto to ask her to suck him off, then allow him to finish between her tits!? Just who did he think she was, a common streetwalker!?
Blushing fiercely, Naruto stalked over to Sakura.
"I..." he began.
"I mean, I don't mind, if that's what it takes to get you going!" Sakura interjected, babbling panickedly. "But I don't think I can do it while your dad is watching, though!? That's a bit much, even for me, ya know!?"
"Oh, I guess it might be a little embarrassing," Naruto muttered. "Er… can you stand back a little, Dad?"
Minato took a few steps back, well out of splashing range, pretending he was not looking… but she could still see him peeking at them from the corner of his eye!
"Okay, I guess we're doing this," Sakura said, licking her lips nervously. "Take off your trousers."
Naruto looked at her in confusion. "What for?"
"What do you mean, what for?" Sakura said, looking around in absolute mortification to see if there were any other voyeurs watching them. "Do you want me to say it out loud as well!?"
Just how far did these two perverts want to humiliate her?
"Eh?" Naruto said quizzically. "My dad told me a good way to relax was to put your head on a girl's thighs, so he wanted you to come over and give me a lap pillow…"
Sakura's cheeks quickly turned from a rather vivid shade of crimson to a deep burgundy.
"A-a-ah, I knew that!" Sakura babbled. "I-I-I was just messing with you, ahahaha~!"
Sakura plopped down onto the ground and patted her plump thighs in invitation. Naruto swallowed hard and glanced over his shoulder at his father, who flashed him a twin thumbs-up, smiling broadly.
Naruto walked over unsteadily to Sakura's side, but just as he was lying down…
'Argh, enough already!' the Nine-Tails' gruff voice echoed between his ears. 'I can't take this any more! I'm going to vomit if I have to endure even one more second of this damn brat's melodrama!'
"What's the matter, Naruto?" Sakura asked, peering over the upper curve of her breasts at him. "Is there enough space down there?"
Between the lower curve of her chest and her thighs, there wasn't much room to slide a head into for a lap pillow.
"The Nine-Tails is talking to me!" Naruto gasped. "He's a bit grouchy, but we're talking!"
"I can take things from here, Milady," Minato said, patting Sakura on the shoulder. "Shall I take you back to your office?"
Sakura glanced down at his hand and then back at his face, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Did you just mark me with a jutsu formula?" she asked suspiciously.
Minato laughed sheepishly, and the next thing she knew, Sakura was sitting behind her desk again. She sighed, leaning back in her chair. Why did she feel so strangely disappointed?