Disclaimer: Any characters or concepts you recognize belong to Kishimoto, not me.
A/N: This is a Naruto time travel fanfiction. This is also an OC-centric fanfiction. I like to think that it's well-written, so I present it to you here!
I actually forgot my password for about a year, so that's why this story is only showing up now! I'll be updating it on AO3 before it updates here, but I figured it'd be nice to have ain't no rest for the wicked on , too. Without further ado: here's chapter 1.
It's every nightmare he's had at once. The trees are gone, knocked over and burnt to a crisp. The rooftops of Konoha are burning. Dead bodies litter the ground, and even from underneath his mask, the smell of burnt flesh fills his nose.
And throughout it all, all Hayakawa Mori can think is that they should have killed the demon brat when they had the chance.
He adjusts the pig mask pulled over his face and follows the trail of destruction. The sight is achingly familiar - he remembers the first Kyuubi attack long ago, when the Yondaime gave his life to seal the demon away into a baby boy.
He wasn't ANBU then. Back then, Mori had been a sixteen year old chuunin, busy with taking C-ranks, and the occasional B-rank to help his family out with finances. He'd grown up in a war, and was only just getting used to the idea of peacetime. He'd been looking forward to it: to the rest and the idea that he didn't have to accept missions if he didn't want to. He had wanted to be able to slow down and rest, to have a choice. He and his old genin team, all Chuunins by then, had spent much of their time together, on and off duty. His younger brother was just about to be promoted to genin.
And then the Kyuubi happened.
It was a disaster, and back then they'd had two great seal masters on hand - one of them being the Yellow Flash. This time, they have the old man Sandaime and a couple of rapidly shrinking ANBU squads. Mori can only hope that there's still some other way to kill the beast.
"You go left, I go right?"
Mori shakes away the memories and glances over at Hyuuga Yuko, the bird mask over her face dark and smeared with soot. Her ANBU uniform is torn in several places, smoking in others. Mori's certain that his looks no better.
This is familiar, too. The two of them, standing over a broken and burning village. Survivors.
"A two-man pinning maneuver?" Mori responds, almost incredulously.
Even with the mask on, he can feel Yuko glaring at him. "You've got a better idea?"
He doesn't. They're the last two ninjas left in their squad, and he's pretty sure that the others in the squad ahead of them are done for. But really, it wouldn't matter.
They're two mortals against an out-of-control jinchuuriki. All they can do is buy time before someone on a higher level than them can do something more decisive.
"I think our only hope is to kill the kid," Yuko says, turning her attention to the red, glowing figure before them. "The Kyuubi hasn't completely escaped. Yet."
"Alright," Mori says. Yuko's general knowledge of seals is better than his. If she says it'll work, well…
It's not like they have any other choice.
"Good luck," Mori says, and he gets a solemn nod from Yuko in turn.
It's not a goodbye, but it might as well be one.
With the synchronization of fellow warriors who have worked together for years, Yuko and Mori split up and attempt to corner the Kyuubi. The young boy in front of them is enveloped in dark red chakra trapped in the glowing shape of a fox. Four, no - five tails of chakra wave around in the air as Uzumaki Naruto knocks over a row of trees with his bare hands.
Mori bites his lip and takes hold of what is probably the last kunai he'll ever throw.
For Konoha, he thinks.
He flings the kunai. It lands just to the right of the jinchuuriki, and just as he planned, the demon turns around and roars at him.
He leaps from the tree he'd been standing in, and not a second too soon, because the Kyuubi blasts that tree to bits.
Mori leaps from one burning tree to the next, barely avoiding the blasts of corrosive chakra shooting through the air. His heart races, praying to any god he can think of that somehow all this leaping around will give Yuko some sort of opening.
All they need is one well-placed hit, and the demon would be gone for good.
He sees a blur of white somewhere behind the trees, so he lets out a feral yell, desperate to hold the demon's attention. Kyuubi turns on him, claws extended, and he holds his breath, ready to face his fate.
It doesn't come.
Something had tipped off the demon to their plan. The next sound Mori is aware of is the final, high pitched scream of Hyuuga Yuko - her familiar, smooth voice twisted into a painful screech that makes Mori want to claw his ears out.
He can see her before him, her dark wispy hair blown out of its normal ponytail. The mask is cracked, chipped off the side so that he can only see one of her white eyes widened in surprise. And worst of all, a bloodied, clawed hand coated in red chakra is sticking out of her dirty white vest.
"No!" he yells, his throat burning with smoke and pain. Kyuubi withdraws its hand out of her gut, and Yuko coughs, blood splattering out of her mouth. Fruitlessly, Mori tries to reach Yuko, attempting to rush to her broken and bleeding body lying on the forest floor. She's the last family he has left, the only one left of his original genin team. And just like the others, she fell to the Kyuubi.
The Kyuubi turns on him, four limbs sprawled out along the ground and ready to pounce. The only thing standing between him and his friend.
We should have killed you, he thinks.
Uzumaki Naruto, perhaps, wasn't the demon, but they should have never infected a child with the Kyuubi no Kitsune.
Rage pouring out of him, Mori rushes in. Never mind the fact he doesn't have a weapon or a plan or a jutsu that could possibly work against a bijuu. This is part revenge and part death wish, he's aware, and he feels the world blur around him as he tries to step forward and kill the damn thing.
It isn't really a surprise when a clawed hand grasps his throat and squeezes.
A growl arises from the throat that used to be Uzumaki Naruto's, low and feral and inhuman. Mori's mind takes him back to that night, a bitter and dark dusk seeing Konoha in flames and his family lying dead under a burning building.
In a fruitless attempt at defiance, he glares down at the Kyuubi, hoping that the demon can sense his anger and guilt and all the other feelings that make up his rage against the fox.
Glowing red eyes gaze back at him, and his head throbs from the lack of oxygen and the pure, unfiltered hatred being sent his way.
Feeling's mutual, he wants to say, but his throat is burning and already there's blood dripping down his neck.
Kyuubi tightens its grip. The claws dig in, the malevolent chakra seeps in through the wounds, and Mori writhes in pain. His eyes screw shut and his face feels like it's about to explode. There's a roaring in his ears as the life trickles out of his body. His lungs scream in desperation. Another bone is crushed under the Kyuubi grip.
Unbidden, disjointed memories float through his head.
Graduation from the Academy. During wartime, they'd put everyone on the fast track, needing every shinobi they could get. He remembers his horrible first impressions of his team, the attempts to impress their cool and unflappable sensei. Faces swim before his eyes.
Shima Ryuu. The low voice of his sensei, lecturing him on proper taijutsu form, quizzing him on the details of a mission. His advice floats into his head: The people are Konoha, and Konoha comes first.
Masuko Aya. His other teammate, light brown hair framing a forever laughing face. His heart aches for her fiery voice and unwavering determination, whispering charged words in his ear. Never compromise. Do what it takes.
And finally, Hyuuga Yuko's voice sounds through his head. White eyes that used to be so cold but slowly shifted into something more. A warrior's gaze, Aya would say - tinged with steel and brimming with confidence. He remembers the loss they'd bore together, the remnants of Team 14.
Smooth and steely, her words mingle with the others.
Konoha comes first, says Ryuu-sensei. Do what it takes, comes Aya's fierce voice.
And Yuko's smooth voice falls on him like water, a small, inconsequential piece of information.
The most devastating tenketsu point is right at the top of the sternum.
Mori digs up every last bit of strength, gathers chakra into his foot, and swings.
His foot connects with something, and with what little consciousness he has left, Mori pulses his chakra out, praying that something has happened.
His vision goes black. He can't tell if he's in the Kyuubi's grip or lying on the floor. He can't tell if what he's hearing is shouting or if it's the roar of the forest fire.
But he died in service of his village. It doesn't make the pain go away, but it's something.
It's not quite waking up or coming to, but Mori does suddenly feel aware. He's standing in a dirty field. When he looks around, it's a broken and ruined training ground - earth littered with holes, burning patches of grass, a crumbling and smoking forest.
About time.
The words aren't spoken so much as heard. They rumble through his head. It's a voice more ancient than anything Mori has encountered, with weight and power stacked behind those two words.
Mori turns around and spots a giant nine tailed fox.
"Holy fuck," he shrieks. His hands fly up in front of him in an attempt to form a Katon jutsu, but even when he makes the hand seals, nothing happens.
The fox only tilts its head, leveling a disdainful gaze at the ANBU.
Yes. I think you'll do.
Mori by now has realized many things: that he can't do any jutsu, that he doesn't have any weapons, and that he's supposed to be dead - killed at the claws of the Kyuubi no Kitsune.
"Kai," he says, raising his hands up.
Nothing happens.
Anything you try to do is useless.
The voice is tinged with annoyance and irritation. Mori suddenly feels a sinking in his gut.
"Are you talking to me?" he demands, backing away from the fox.
The fox bares its teeth and leans in. Believe me, mortal, I wouldn't be doing this if I had a choice.
"Fuck off and let me die!" Mori yells, past the point of fear and just wanting to finish already. "I don't want anything to do with you!"
Immediately, he knows that was the wrong thing to say. The fox, for lack of a better word, flares. The killing intent hanging in the air spikes, and Mori's probably imaginary heartbeat skips a beat.
Shut up, you useless trash. I didn't give you a choice, it growls. I don't like it either, but like it or not, we need each other at the moment.
Mori is choking on his own fear. He'd never felt something so malevolent and powerful before. His hands tremble as he attempts to steady his breathing.
Never compromise, Aya says in his head, and he struggled to muster up false bravado.
"Why the hell would I need you?" Mori snaps out, though it comes out more desperate and defensive than defiant.
Because I can save your pathetic family, the fox says.
And suddenly, Mori's rage against the Kyuubi stills.
Kyuubi says a lot of things. Mori hates himself for it, but he listens, gradually letting his guard down and taking in information. Mori has always been the cautious one, preferring to gather as much information as he can and using it to his advantage. It's what kept him alive, all throughout the war and through ANBU and every other suicide mission he'd ever taken. And this is no different, he tells himself, as he grasps onto a feeble hope that somehow the Kyuubi can bring his family back.
Kyuubi says this: that when Mori aimed for the fatal tenketsu point on Uzumaki Naruto, the chakra he expelled triggered a kill switch in the seal on Uzumaki's stomach. A failsafe in case the Kyuubi ever broke free - that if a Konoha shinobi ever activated this trigger, the Uzumaki Naruto would die and take the Kyuubi with him.
Somehow, through sheer luck, Mori actually ended up finishing his mission and killed the jinchuuriki.
"We're still here, though," Mori says, disbelief and suspicion lining his voice. "Wherever here is."
I'm getting to that, Kyuubi growls. When you kicked my host, some of your chakra mingled with mine, and vice versa.
Mori chokes on air. "... What?!" he splutters. "Get it out!"
Calm yourself, Kyuubi hisses. It's only a small amount, nothing of consequence. If anything, you should be grateful to have interacted with my chakra -
"I don't fucking care," Mori snaps. "I killed you. I did my job, I protected my village."
On the contrary, Kyuubi drawls, managing to sound threatening and arrogant and disdainful all in one, in one move, you just doomed Konoha.
Mori stills.
Believe it or not, I am not the greatest threat to your pathetic village, Kyuubi says, obviously enjoying Mori's silent fuming. I am certainly the most powerful, the most malevolent - but I am not as invested in wiping you vermin out of existence as you think. You mean nothing to me.
"You destroyed this village twice." Mori clenches his fists and grits his teeth.
Whether or not you believe me, that doesn't change the fact that I am necessary to the survival of your little hovel, the Kyuubi dismisses his statement. I have been imprisoned in this godforsaken hovel for generations. Many jinchuuriki have tapped into my power to protect this pathetic excuse of a town. Uzumaki Naruto is just the latest in a line of Konoha jinchuuriki. Konoha wouldn't survive a year without someone stealing my chakra to protect it.
"That doesn't make sense," Mori says immediately. "We've never had a jinchuuriki before Uzumaki."
You think you would have been trusted with that information? The Kyuubi chuckles darkly. How arrogant. But I digress - there's an evil coming, one more focused on the destruction of your deplorable village than I. And my power is the only thing that can stop it.
"How would you know?" Mori asks. "You're as dead as I am."
I am the greatest of the bijuu, the Kyuubi snarls. My power is too great for you puny mortals to even begin to comprehend. I know all. I see all. I am not bound by your delusions of time.
"You're bound by a twelve-year-old," Mori mutters, but he finds himself cowering in fear as the killing intent in the air flares once more, sending a spike of terror stabbing into his heart. Mori clutches his chest and tries to breathe.
I would be careful with my words, if I were you, the Kyuubi purrs. Now listen to me, filth.
Mori's hands tremble and he remains silent as the fox continues to speak.
That small bit of my chakra in you is what is prolonging your passing, Kyuubi says. It's also a bridge between you and me. Uzumaki Naruto is dead, but you are only nearly dead. If it weren't for this, I'd have dispersed to the wind and would have to wait another ten thousand years to form.
Mori bites his tongue and waits for the fox to get to the point.
But while you and I still have consciousness, I can ward your soul against the Shinigami.
"Ward my soul?" Mori echoes, confused.
Essentially, it will protect your soul from passing on, Kyuubi elaborates. The only way you'll be able to pass on is through a natural death.
That sounds way too good to be true. Ninjas don't die natural deaths. Ninjas are taken out brutally and violently. Mori has never expected to live past the age of thirty.
"What's the catch?"
It's not immortality. You can be killed. In fact, you will be killed. But rather than moving on, you will instead loop back to some undetermined point in time and live it out again.
Mori blinks. "The fuck?"
You will have the chance to change the circumstances that led to your death, Kyuubi says. In this case, you will have a chance to either prevent me from getting loose or kill me in a way that preserves your life. Though I highly doubt you'd find a way to do the latter.
"Why would you give this to me?" Mori demands. "What do you get out of it?"
Survival, Kyuubi answers. As long as I'm sealed into this godforsaken cage, my life force is tied to his. I send you back, and you save Uzumaki Naruto - and you save me.
"You're assuming that I'll actually be saving Uzumaki," Mori says with a frown. In all honesty, he didn't believe whatever crap the fox had said about 'future dangers'. In his memory, the single greatest threat to Konoha was the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and based on what the fox said, all he would have to do is kill Uzumaki Naruto and then the threat would be gone.
The Kyuubi chuckles. You'll save Uzumaki Naruto - of that I have no doubt.
Yeah, right, Mori thinks, but then he moves his thoughts to the rest of the plan.
The fox said it'll get survival. But there's more to it than that, Mori's certain. He's talking to an ancient demon, known for its hatred and deception. Whatever he does, the Kyuubi certainly has a plan - and Mori does not want to be responsible for saving the very thing that murdered his entire family.
But, some treacherous part of him thinks, they won't be dead.
As if sensing his wavering resolve, the Kyuubi speaks up. You realize what type of power this gives you.
"Yes," Mori says. "But I don't realize what power this gives you."
That is irrelevant, Kyuubi dismisses his concern. I won't do anything to hurt my host.
"And what about the village?" Mori says. He narrows his eyes.
Unfortunately, this child is still naive enough to - Kyuubi's lips curl in disgust - love this miserable hellhole. Kami only knows how - they hated him enough to make anyone want revenge. But as long as Uzumaki Naruto desires to protect Konoha, my chakra is a slave to this village.
It doesn't quite answer Mori's question, but it's the closest thing he knows he'll get. And the longer he thinks about it, the more sense this makes.
He's not in ANBU for nothing. He certainly has the skill and the discretion needed to pull off changing the future. But even though he's technically 'elite', he also knows that he's ANBU cannon fodder. They'll throw him and his squad at every major threat, and he knows he's not on the same level as, say, Hatake Kakashi. He doesn't have the skill to survive every battle, but that won't matter because then he'll know how to change it and prevent it.
Hell, depending on how far he'll go back, he'll know how to change and prevent everything.
But there's one glaring drawback to this plan, and it's the fact that he doesn't know what the Kyuubi gets out of this. The advantage to the Kyuubi must be very large if it's willing to ward the soul of some random Konoha shinobi.
But does that make the plan any worse? Because if the Kyuubi makes its move, couldn't he just die and change that, too?
You're seriously listening to this thing? Part of him screams. It's the goddamn Kyuubi! You can't trust anything it says!
He did his job and protected his village from the immediate threat: an honorable death for any shinobi. He has the chance to be done, and maybe even see his friends and family in whatever form of an afterlife there is.
"I don't believe you," he says out loud, even as he squashes the tiny sliver of hope that somehow the Kyuubi is telling the truth. "Let me die."
The Kyuubi leans forward, so its mouth is right next to Mori's left ear. The side of his face burns as the Kyuubi breathes in and out. Mori doesn't dare move.
When it speaks, its voice is low and deadly, sending shivers down Mori's spine and making goosebumps rise on his skin.
I'm afraid, mortal, that you don't exactly have a choice.
A red wave of chakra washes over him, and the last thing he remembers is a scream that he vaguely recognizes as his own.
His head shoots up, a strangled scream caught in his throat. His hands fly up and desperately clutch his chest - there's something burning inside and he can't get it out. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, a frantic drumming that makes him lightheaded and dizzy. His breath comes out in pants and gasps.
Slowly, he forces himself to settle down.
Take a look around, he thinks, hoping that routine can break him out of his panic. Identify your surroundings. Analyze.
He's lying on a mattress of some sort, with light blankets wrapped over his body. In the darkness, he can make out a window and a nightstand with a lamp on it. It's his room.
Or more specifically, his old room.
"Fucking fox," he curses.
He sends out a wave of chakra to break the genjutsu, but he can already tell it's not going to work. There's not a single flaw in the environment around him. Every insignificant detail, right down to the little crack in his ceiling that he was never able to fix, is perfect. Still, he needs to be sure, so he grabs the kunai he kept under his pillow and ruthlessly stabs into his forearm.
"Shit," he hisses, as the wound sends a wave of pain up and down his arm. The blood drips down onto his blanket - something he'll have to clean up later.
It's real. Or, if it's not, he doesn't have the power to break out, so it might as well be real.
Ignoring his wound for now, Mori slips out of bed without so much as a sound and digs through his closet, attempting to narrow down the timeline.
There's no ANBU mask. No jounin vest. So he's a chuunin, then - somewhere between the ages of fifteen and twenty. He runs his hand through his hair, somewhat longer than he was used to, and narrows the time down to fifteen and eighteen.
When he comes across a small mirror, Mori holds it up and studies his reflection. He's startlingly young - his face rounder, jawline less defined. Something in the reflection catches his eye, though - he angles the mirror down and stares at his bare chest.
There's an angry red burn mark on his chest. It could be mistaken for a normal burn, but the markings are too precise, too organized. There are twists and turns and lines neatly organized into a circle of kanji. It's a seal.
Mori scowls.
He comes across a first aid kit and tiredly slaps a bandage around his self-inflicted wound. He doesn't want to deal with this. He'd died. It was over. And the damn fox sends him, some insignificant cannon fodder character, to somehow prevent the destruction of Konoha and maybe save the life of an unlucky street urchin.
Why me? He thinks. Why am I always left behind?
A lone survivor. He's not the only one, he supposes - there are other ninja who have gone through worse and made it out, but right now, forced into the past by the thing he hates most in the world, Mori thinks he has the right to throw a tantrum.
He lets out a whiny yell, picks up the nearest object, and chucks it at the wall in front of him as hard as he can. The wooden box shatters with the impact, scattering splinters across the floor.
"I was done, damn it," he hisses. His eyes burn and he fists his hair, curled up in front of his closet like some angsty teenager. "I finished. "
He'd gotten the damn fox with a Jyuuken strike straight to the chest. He'd gotten his revenge, his justice.
Yuko's bloodied face, her wide white eyes flash before his eyes. Every detail is etched into his memory - the roar of the flames, the blood dripping down her chest. The exact pitch and timbre of his teammate's final scream. Mori lets out a strangled sob and curls up even tighter.
His last teammate is dead. He should be dead, too.
"Nii-san?"
Mori stiffens, the young voice slicing straight through the walls he'd built up over the years. Wordlessly, he lifts his head, eyes spilling over with grief and pain.
Soft footsteps pad outside his door, and the handle turns. Mori braces himself, but it does nothing when confronted with the face of his dead younger brother, wide brown eyes and floppy brown hair.
Kenji pokes his head around the corner of his door and stares at him, eyes bleary with sleep and tiredness. For a long moment, Mori sits silently, drinking in the sight of his brother - alive, alive, he's alive - and committing every detail to memory. The little tuft of hair sticking up on the back of his head. The crinkled shirt he wears. The way he rubs his eyes, a motion so familiar and distant all at the same time.
It's been twelve years since he last saw his brother alive.
"I heard something."
Kenji's light voice breaks into his head, forcing Mori to open his mouth.
"Ahh, don't come in," Mori says dazedly, and his own voice sounds foreign to his ears. Younger. Lighter. "I, uh. Broke something. There's splinters all over the floor."
"Are you okay?" Kenji asks, yawning towards the end of his question.
No, Mori thinks. I think I just made a deal with the devil and my dead brother is standing in front of me.
"I'm fine," he says out loud. "I'll clean it up. Go back to sleep, Ken."
"You're crying."
Mori wipes away some of the tears on his face, the salty water spreading across his cheeks. "It's okay, Ken. It was just a - just a dream."
Kenji looks at him a little worriedly, but the boy nods and closes the door behind him. Mori listens to every step, every creak in the ground as light footsteps grow fainter and fainter.
For years, he couldn't think of his brother without recalling the images of his broken body underneath a burning beam of wood. But now.
His brother is alive. His brother is alive, and even if the Kyuubi is using him, even if he's going to end up with claws in his back, his brother is alive and that means Mori has a chance to stop his death.
The air is cool, with a bite of cold that tells him it's closer to winter than summer. But the leaves outside are turning brown. Mid-autumn. He studies his scars in the dark, mentally cataloging the ones that are there and the ones that are missing.
"Sixteen," he whispers. Sixteen, in the mid-autumn, and Kenji is still alive.
He's got one, maybe two weeks before the first Kyuubi attack.
One, maybe two weeks to save his brother and the rest of his team. And somehow figure out how to keep the Kyuubi from breaking out twelve years from now.
He's so screwed.