"Oiiii, Shinobi-san-tachi!" Prince Michiru called out to Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. "A moment of your time?"
"What is it, mister?" asked Naruto, giving his ice lolly a lick. "Didja need something from us?"
With the usual ferries between Crescent Island and the mainland running behind schedule, Prince Michiru's subordinates were busy chartering a ship for the final leg of their journey to the Land of Moon. Since that would take some time, the princes and Team Kakashi had some time to kill while they waited.
"What happened yesterday, at the circus," began Prince Michiru. "That brush with death made me realise what truly matters in life—"
"Family?" interjected Naruto. "Your kid, Hikaru."
"Money?" asked Sakura. "Wait, no— women."
"Revenge?" prompted Sasuke. "You want us to assassinate the ostrich."
Prince Michiru mopped his sweaty forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. He had never given matters of state much thought before, since his father the king still took care of everything even in his old age. But now, he was finally realising that one day, his papa would die, and then he would find himself the leader of the Land of Moon.
"Close on all counts," he said. "The answer is succession."
The question of succession had stumped despotic rulers since the dawn of humanity.
Who will carry my legacy? Who will rule and oppress my subjects with the same brutal efficiency once I'm gone?
Too many children, and they might tear each other apart over the inheritance, dragging the prosperous nation you built into civil war. Too few, and a single mishap could wipe out the royal line entirely— leaving the throne to your cousin's husband, which was, frankly, a rather vexing thought.
"Before you ask," said Sakura, crossing her arms in front of her in the shape of an 'X,' "I'm not marrying you, and I'm definitely not popping out any heirs for you."
"Papa's getting too old to have children, so I do need more heirs in case anything happens to Hikaru," said Prince Michiru, "but for that, I'd need to get back with my ex-wife, Hikaru's mama."
Sakura let out a sigh of relief.
She might have been willing to become a surrogate mother via artificial insemination in exchange for a hundred thousand million billion trillion ryō— to advance her mastery of Breast Flow, naturally— but she was kind of glad it wouldn't come to that.
'That's more than the number of stars in the galaxy!' said Inner Sakura. 'It's even more than the number of grains of sand in the world!'
"Spare us the details," said Sasuke flatly. "What do you want? Keep in mind that our contract only covers bodyguard work— anything else will cost you extra."
Shuriken were cheap, but Sasuke used a lot of them. There wasn't always an opportunity to walk around the battlefield after a fight to pick up his scattered weapons, and they wouldn't always be completely reusable. The costs ended up adding up to a small fortune, which is why he would never say no to free money.
"I need Sakura-chan to pretend to be my lovey-dovey girlfriend in front of my ex-wife," said Prince Michiru, as if it were the most natural thing to say in the world. "To make her jealous, you see? When she sees how happy we are together, she'll definitely want to get back with me— it's the perfect plan!"
"No way!" shouted Naruto. "You're just saying that as an excuse to touch Sakura, y'know! I won't let you have your way!"
Sakura was touched— her BFF Naruto was willing to go that far for her chastity?
"That's so gallant of you, Naruto" said Sakura, putting a hand on Naruto's shoulder and squeezing out a single tear from her eye. "You'd be willing to use the Transformation Jutsu to take my place as Michiru ouji-sama's pretend girlfriend AND share the reward money with us?"
Naruto was stunned— when had he ever said something like that!?
"Eh?" Naruto squeaked out in disbelief. "Sakura-chan!?"
Sasuke put his hand on Naruto's other shoulder and offered him a rare smile.
"For as long as I live," he declared solemnly, "I'll never forget your brave sacrifice... My friend."
"Eh? Eh!? EEEEEHHH!?!"
Naruto's plaintive cries echoed through the streets, rising all the way to the heavens…
…
An hour later, Team Kakashi was escorting the princes' stagecoach to Prince Michiru's ex-wife's home, located just outside the city centre in the suburbs. As usual, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi walked alongside the horse-drawn carriage, but for once, Naruto rode inside, seated in front of Michiru, next to Hikaru.
"Okay, will someone please tell me what's going on?" said Kakashi, as he glanced at Naruto through the carriage's windows. "Why is Naruto putting on a strip show for our clients? Did you put him up to this, Sakura?"
Still wondering how it had come to this, Naruto was being forced to demonstrate to Prince Michiru the full extent of his mastery of the Sexy Jutsu by adding clothes to his usual naked female transformation. It's not as if he could show up on Prince Michiru's ex-wife's doorstep with clouds swirling over his privates, right? She'd slam the door in their faces before they even got to say hello!
…
Naruto sighed deeply.
"The thing about being sexy is that it's not always about what you can see," Sakura had told Naruto earlier. "It's all about what you can't see— and letting your mind run wild imagining what could be underneath."
Sakura called this principle Schrödinger's Breasts:
Take for example your favourite actress. Until her nudes got leaked by a jealous ex, her breasts existed in a quantum state of superposition— they might look nice and big while clothed, but remove her top and her bra…
Her breasts might be discoloured; they might have stretch marks, they might be implants, her nipples might be ugly, splotchy and disproportionately sized, or she might even be stuffing her bra with tissues or be using a heavy-duty push up bra to create something out of nothing!
But on the flip side…
They might also be the most perfect breasts you'd ever laid eyes on!
The point is, you could never know until you saw them for yourself!
Naturally, Sakura's breasts were binyū as well as bakunyū— beautiful and well-shaped, as well as explosively huge— but as long as she continued winning her desperate fight against her clothes to keep her top up, nobody would ever know…
(Naruto had managed to get a taste once, but he'd never seen them fully naked with his own eyes!)