Chapter 670 - 670: Two Years Later

"Sakura-chaaaan!" Naruto called, rapping his knuckles against the bathroom door. "Are you almost ready, ya knoooow? We're going to be laaaate!"

"Just a few more minutes!" Sakura called back. "And stop knocking, you know I don't like to be rushed!"

Sakura admired herself in the bathroom mirror.

In the two years that had passed since the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War and the beginning of the Cold War between the Five Great Elemental Nations, she had truly blossomed into a striking young woman, an icon of femininity. The last of any youthful roundness had faded from her face as she matured into a grown woman, leaving behind sharper, more defined features.

Sakura had grown a little taller, and her breasts had softened a touch, rounder and no longer quite so pointy and gravity-defying as they had been in her youth. She had allowed her pink hair to grow past her shoulders, cascading all the way to her hips, which flared alluringly from her tight, narrow waist.

Her physique had also become noticeably stronger and more athletic. Her biceps and abdominal muscles had gained considerable definition, and her thighs looked powerful enough to casually crush watermelons between them, even without using chakra. There was a powerful and lithe grace to her movements that made it abundantly clear she was no longer the teenaged girl she had been two years ago.

Sakura pursed her glossy lips and blew a kiss at her reflection.

After applying a touch of lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara, she looked rather like a younger Lady Tsunade, who always made an effort to appear ladylike wherever she went, even if it was only to end up collapsing in an alcohol-induced stupor in a back alley a few hours later.

"Okay, I'm ready!" Sakura said as she opened the door. "Naruto, you—"

A shrill scream escaped her lips.

"Naruto, what have you done to yourself!?" Sakura gasped. "It's… it's… horrifying!"

"What, you don't like it?" Naruto said in dismay. "I thought it made me look mature, ya know?"

What Sakura had been dreading most had happened: Naruto had gone to the barbershop a few streets down from the Hokage Residence and had his hair cut short in an effort to appear more mature… all while she was monopolising their bathroom.

"Oi, get your hands away from me!" Naruto yelped as Sakura suddenly lunged at him, catching her delicate-looking wrists in both hands. "The last time you tried to fix my hair using Organic Reincarnation, you gave me an afro and made my eyebrows look like caterpillars, ya know!"

Naruto had not changed much looks-wise in the past two years, apart from his hair. His shoulders had broadened and his lanky frame had grown more muscular, and most annoying of all… he had grown taller than her again, which was why he had managed to catch her wrists so easily. At 178 cm, Sakura was rather tall for a woman, but she was still shorter than Naruto's 180 cm… and a half.

Naruto gulped hard as he looked down at Sakura's cutely angry face… and parts beyond.

For the occasion, she had worn a black haute-couture evening gown with a very low, plunging neckline… one so low that it fully exposed her cleavage, the slit running all the way down to her navel. The dress strained the limits of tastefulness, the top part consisting of only two silken straps that covered her nipples before looping around her neck for support, revealing wide swathes of skin across her cleavage, the sides of her breasts, and her back. The dress also opened at the sides, showing off her thighs and long, sensuous legs.

"Let go!" Sakura said furiously as she struggled to escape his grip without using chakra, her breasts jiggling furiously between her elbows. "I have to fix your hair before we leave the house! What will Ino say when I walk in with you on my arm looking like that!?"

His eyes drawn to the swaying of her chest, Naruto's grip momentarily loosened as Sakura's dress shifted and a flash of pink popped out from under the breast's textile prison. Taking advantage of his distraction, Sakura slipped one hand out of his grasp and elbowed him in the solar plexus, causing him to wheeze and buckle over, allowing her to free her other hand and wrap her fingers around his bowed head.

"Sage Art: Organic Reincarnation — Male Pattern Baldness Reversal Jutsu!

"That haircut cost me 750 ryō!" Naruto said plaintively as his Minato-style golden locks sprang back with a vengeance. "Man… what a waste, ya know?"

Sakura planted a kiss on his cheek.

"I'll make it up to you later, now come on, everyone's waiting for us!" she said, batting her long eyelashes at him. "You'd better be on your best behaviour tonight, okay… Prime Minister of Agriculture?"

"I'm not a kid any more," Naruto grumbled. "I can sit still for a few hours, no problem, ya know?"

The gala this evening was a momentous occasion for the Hidden Leaf Village, for it marked the day Konohagakure officially reaffirmed its bond with the Land of Fire after two years of complete separation. The new Daimyō and his entourage, as well as several key figures of the Land of Fire, had been carefully escorted to the pocket dimension where the village was concealed, all to sign a very important document…

"Hang on, I thought the Daimyō died two years ago," Naruto blurted out. "Did they find someone to replace him, ya know?"

"Something like that."

After it had been discovered that the previous Fire Daimyō and his family had been slaughtered along with their guards in their posh mountain villa, it had taken a long time to find an heir who possessed the correct noble lineage and, more importantly, whose heritage could be verified. Many potential candidates had had their throats slit during the course of this search, and many more had been poisoned, but after a long search, a bastard son had finally been found… alive, most importantly.

Now, only one thing remained to be seen… whether the faction that stood behind the boy would be willing to rekindle the connections that had once made the Hidden Leaf Village and the Land of Fire the most successful civilisations in the world.

"Are you ready?" Sakura mouthed to Naruto as they walked down the stairs of the Hokage Residence towards the double doors that led to the brand-new banquet hall Hashirama had built as an annexe to the main building. "When we go through these doors… all eyes will be on us."

"It can't be worse than war," Naruto whispered. "Ya know?"

In an ironic twist of events, by most of those useless, corrupt geezers who had sat on the council and the shadowy cabal of the civil servants' upper crust who used to dictate policy through their tricks, Sakura had lost her only shield against those who sought to exploit the Hidden Leaf Village and its shinobi from the outside, rather than from within. She wasn't sure whether she ought to kiss or curse Kakashi-sensei for this 'gift' he had left them before fleeing the village as the worst traitor in history, surpassing even Itachi's crime.

Sakura linked arms with Naruto, pulling him in close.

"Oh, I wouldn't know about that," she said grimly. "Now… look sharp."

Sakura pushed open the doors and strode through.