So, I know I have A Different Route that I should be updating, but this idea just wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to get some of it out. The start is a little rough, sorry about that, but hopefully it'll be an interesting take on the whole Naruto time travels/dimension hops.

~Naruto~

The end of her world was a major blow, a sucker punch to the gut that threatened to destroy her. The cherry on top of losing everyone she cared for. But finding out that she had the opportunity to save a new world, one almost exactly the same as the one she had just lost, was something that had Naruto jumping at the chance.

Finding out that her counterpart was a boy in the other world, that that was really the only major difference between the two worlds was…a little less exciting.

She really didn't see how things could have remained the same if she was a guy.

Of course, she was also sent back in time. Or rather, this world, universe, whatever, was slower, or something, and therefore things had not progressed as much as they had in her world.

Or hardly at all.

She was only seven in this world, after all. Or, her counterpart had. She was still nineteen – had just turned nineteen, in fact. On this day: October 10th.

Naruto scratched at her head, groaning. This whole time/universe/world jump thing was insane.

Regardless of that fact she made her way quickly into town. It was her counterpart's birthday as well, after all. And if this world truly was as similar to her own as she'd been told, her counterpart was not having a happy birthday.

She found him cornered in the same alley she remembered from all those years ago. The five stupid drunks who decided the Kyuubi brat was fair game surrounding him.

Needless to say, she wasn't going to let history repeat itself. This attack had landed her in the hospital for two days – and she had only been treated when the old man had ordered it. The whole event was seared permanently into her memory, going down as the worst birthday she had ever had. Well, until her nineteenth birthday and her world was destroyed.

But now, she was here and nobody said she couldn't change things once she made it back.

She took the drunks out. For good measure, she placed a special seal on them. One that would cause them great displeasure should they ever drink alcohol again. Sadly, that seal was not one of her own creations. That seal went to Sakura, who, in a fit of frustration, created it to help shinobi quit drinking. It really didn't do to have drunk shinobi during the war. Not that staying sober had helped them, in the end.

Dusting her hands from the taint of those drunks, Naruto turned to her small counterpart. He was curled in the fetal position, blood smeared across one cheek and staining his orange jacket.

Maybe he wasn't so different from her. After all, orange was the best color in the world and she remembered owning a similar jacket at that age.

With a sigh she bent down, carefully picked him up, and headed for his apartment.

She was also happy to note he lived in the same apartment she had at that age, although it still took her some time to remember where it was. She was used to a Konoha that had been destroyed, rebuilt, and then destroyed once more. All the same, after a few missteps and wrong turns she managed to find the place, a feeling of familiarity washing over her at the sight. It hadn't been a real home, but it had been hers for a long time while she was growing up.

It didn't take long to clean the young boy up, bandaging the wounds that Kurama had yet to heal, and tucking him into bed after changing him into his pajamas. She smiled at his sleeping face, wondering if she had looked just as cute at that age. With a sigh she ran a feather light finger over the whisker marks on his cheeks, her other hand reaching up to touch her own, bare cheeks.

It had been two years since Kurama had sacrificed himself to save her, combining their chakras and saying goodbye forever.

Naruto still missed him, wished he was still with her. The only proof that she had ever held him prisoner, that they had ever become friends, that he had sacrificed himself for her was the color of her chakra, her increased healing factor, her increased senses, and the crimson hair that now spilled across her shoulders instead of the sunshine blonde it had once been.

She really did look like her mother more than her father now, although she was sure her hair was a shade or two lighter – more molten golden red than just fiery red.

The seal was gone, which was no surprise. But so were her possession marks. Of course, she no longer carried the Kyuubi, but it had still come as a shock to her the first time she saw her face and those three lines on each cheek were missing. More so than her hair color. She had never told anyone, but they had been one of her favorite things about her face, even if they had caused her so much grief as a child.

And that ever-present voice in the back of her mind was gone. That comforting warmth in her belly, gone.

He had become her closest friend. And she had lost him only a year after discovering that.

Of course, if truth be told, she had lost everyone. Including Sasuke.

After everything she had gone through to get him back, to save him, she had still lost him in the end.

And, she thought, the worst part about it all were his parting words as he took the blow meant for her.

"Idiot," Naruto murmured, forcing those memories away as she moved to straighten her counterpart's apartment. She didn't want to dwell on that. Nor confront her own feelings on the subject matter.

It didn't take long to get the apartment in order. Well, it didn't take long with five shadow clones helping. She wasn't surprised at the state the apartment had been in as she had never been much of a neat freak herself and was pretty sure her own apartment had been just as disastrous as this one when she was seven. After all, she had never had someone to nag her to clean up. She knew this Naruto didn't either.

Once the cleaning was done, she worked her way around the house, placing protective seals on the door and windows. No one but a seal master would notice them, and even then, only if they were looking for them, but they would keep people with ill intentions out of the apartment as those with those intentions would forget where they were headed and why and, hopefully, wander off. It was something Naruto was sure she would have appreciated herself.

Once that was done, she checked once more on her counterpart, smiling down at him. It was surreal, to say the least, but she thought that perhaps the fact that her counterpart was male made this easier, more believable, in a way. Like he was a younger brother, instead of her.

As weird as that sounded.

Of course, she couldn't keep referring to the boy as her counterpart, and while she may be older, she didn't think it right to take his name away from him. Not that she thought she could, because it would raise too many questions if she called herself Uzumaki Naruto when there already was one.

But what name to go by?

Kurama was a choice. He had sacrificed his life for her, after all, and she would be proud to wear his name. But…Naruto would eventually learn Kyuubi's name and in the end that would raise more questions than answers.

Of course…

A smile graced her features. She knew what name she would take.

With that thought in mind, she took her leave; she had things to take care of.

History didn't change itself, after all.