AN: Greetings and welcome to the first instalment of 'Wasted Time', I do hope you enjoy yourselves while you are here. There are a few things to note before you delve into the insanity of this story. The first and most important thing to note is that this story is based off of 'The Time Traveller's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger except it's a horribly bastardised version mutilated heinously and without regret to fit in with the canonverse of Naruto heh. Of course, I have nothing to do with the rights to 'The Time Traveller's Wife' or 'Naruto' but I highly recommend both of them because they're great.

The second thing to note is that this is a Sasunaru story possibly with some yaoi scenes in some distant future so a fair warning for that before you go on in case you're not into that sort of thing.

The third thing to note is that for the most part, I will be posting the ages of the characters before each break in the story, excluding the parts where it's painfully obvious, so you can sort of keep up with whereabouts in time Sasuke has travelled to and how old everyone is. It's done in the same way as the novel version of 'The Time Traveller's Wife' so I take no credit for this genius either. If anyone is confused at any point then please feel free to message me and I'll respond to answer any questions and change things as far as I can to clarify everything.

The fourth and I think last thing to note is that this takes place just before Sasuke goes off to kill his brother. Everything up until then remains the same as the manga but as the time travelling thing starts to mess things up, certain events will change…quite dramatically…so a warning for that too.

Apart from that, off you go into the wild blue yonder fair reader and please, don't forget to leave a review when you're done.

Wasted Time

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - John Lennon

1: The First Time

Contrary to what I constantly tell myself and others, I never was able to truly forget about them.

Occasionally, when I sleep and my dreams aren't plagued with re-runs of the past traumas of my life, I remember certain experiences that I had with them back when I tried to delude myself about how I thought life could be and it's almost like nostalgia.

I remember how irritatingly marked Sakura's attentions were, how she used to stand so close that her fingers would brush the edges of my hands and when I glared at her, she would make out like it was all an innocent accident. I remember how Kakashi used to read his book like we were of no interest to him at all, yet when either me or Naruto managed to do something particularly impressive, his eye would crinkle to show his approval though it never left the words on the page.

And Naruto…

Of course I remember Naruto.

I remember how he would constantly surprise me when everyone else fell into the same mundane patterns of predictability. I remember how despite the fact that he had no natural talent and was dim-witted to boot, he was the only one that was ever able to match me, to provide a real challenge and take the true title of 'rival'. I remember the feeling of him pressed to my back in battle, knowing that I could count on him to protect me from that side just as he was trusting me to protect him.

I remember how he told me when we were balanced upon those logs on the water at the valley of the end that I was a precious bond he was finally able to make. That when he thought about the way we were, he imagined that it was something like brotherhood.

What would he know of brotherhood?

And inevitably, I remember the blue of his eyes…

Sasuke is 16

The fight has been long and hard, draining in ways that I didn't expect it to be. My sharingan has been active for almost 2 hours following the movements of our enemies and I'm starting to feel the bitter sting on the edge of my eyes, a forewarning that my vision will start to fail soon if I'm not careful. There are 6 of them in total, a group of shinobi that had no dealings with us until we launched an ambush at the opportune moment several miles outside their destination, a ruinous structure on a known path that stretches between the Fire country and the Wind Country.

I was expecting it to be a relatively difficult take down considering the importance of the scroll they're carrying but I couldn't predict that the fight would last this long.

I dodge a few well aimed kunai heavily laden with explosive tags and drop into a defensive crouch as they explode behind me, a repercussive boom pushing against my back and making my dark hair whip out in front of my eyes, effectively blinding me for a moment. On instinct, I fall out of my crouch and roll sideways along the recently rain-soaked grass, narrowly avoiding contact with an enemy jutsu that was thrown out after the explosion to take advantage of my momentary blindness.

A gasp from the enemy confirms that they weren't expecting me to dodge a second time and I smirk at how these idiots underestimate me.

It will be the last thing they ever do.

There's a momentary pause in the grapple as the enemy takes time to collect himself and I allow myself an analytical glance at the rest of the battle field, noting that Suigetsu is holding his own against 2 of them quite well, looking a little weary but full of fighting spirit. Karin is sitting on the ground behind him, her arm bleeding copiously and her face sporting the greyish pallor that people only seem to wear when they're trying not to pass out. I can see that the wound isn't too deep though so I decide to continue letting Suigetsu defend her. Juugo is situated on my other side shrieking wildly and running rampant at another 3 shinobi who keep having to take to the trees to avoid his curse mark enhanced strength. He doesn't need my help at all though he will need calming down after this is over.

I turn my attention back to the leader, glancing up at him in his hiding place, my face purposefully impassive.

I know that looking at him like this, through the cloak of stealth that he's chosen to try and adopt, will unnerve him. I'm just hoping he's as predictable as I think he is.

There's a sound behind us like a sickening crunch and I allow myself a small, barely perceptible smirk when an agonised cry follows that crunch, a cry hastily cut off as Juugo continues to plough into the enemy.

The colour of the leader's aura changes slightly, his chakra flow laced with the poisonous shade of defeat. I watch with unsurprised eyes as he reveals himself, a lanky individual with a wild mop of hair that reminds me a little of Naruto of all people. He's wearing a jounin vest though it's battered and ripped from battle and he's clutching a gash spewing out thick clots of dark blood. A present I gave him a few minutes ago when I lost my patience for a moment.

He glowers at me as he stands on swaying legs, his eyes sharp and focussed despite the obvious desire to simply pass out sitting at the forefront of his thoughts.

"Alright, alright," he snaps out brusquely as another strangled cry resounds through the forest from Suigetsu's direction. "You win alright? No more killing off my men…"

I stare at him intently for a few seconds, reading him whilst making sure that he has no way to read me. The sounds of battle continues to rage around us and I'm pleased when the muscles in his face move involuntarily, tensing as he clenches his jaw and then twitching in mild but steadily increasing panic.

I raise my hand only when I'm sure that he knows who is truly in the power spot now.

Suigetsu and Juugo catch my signal and ease up from their respective battles instantly. It takes a moment for the enemy to clock the ceasefire but once they've realised what's happened, they take the chance to retreat gratefully and move to safer ground. Once the enemy shinobi have dispersed leaving only the leader, we're met with blessed silence, a silence punctuated only by Juugo's laboured breathing as he tries to hold on to some semblance of rationality. I turn sharingan enhanced eyes on him and he stares at me intently. By the time I've turned back to engage the leader, his breathing has levelled off a little bit.

Taking my steady gaze as his cue, the enemy leader swallows nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing obviously in his throat, and reaches into the pouch strapped to his thigh. The scroll he reveals is thin and weather-worn but I can feel myself eyeing it with the sort of hungry gaze that Naruto used to call 'psychopathic'. My heart is hammering at about 100 miles per hour in my chest and, to accommodate my increased heart rate, I'm forced to take short sharp breaths. Blood pumps quickly through my system making my exposed fingers and toes tingle.

So close…

"You want this, I can see it in your eyes so…so I'll make a deal with you and give you the damned thing in exchange for my life and the lives of the rest of my men," the leader states carefully, his eyes reflecting suspicion as he tries to negotiate, his aura reflecting a deep rooted fear and a dull resignation in colours of grey and the darkest blue.

I breathe out slowly, considering. My eyes stay glued to his in intimidating nonchalance.

"Deal," I say eventually, my voice cutting through the tension in the air. I sound overtly arrogant and young next to this quivering shinobi and the contrast is actually a little sickening. It shouldn't have taken me this long to take out a group like this. Dallying here is just an unnecessary hindrance of progress.

So. Close.

"Sasuke, dude, what the fuck?" Suigetsu asks from behind me, flailing madly to express just how unimpressed he is with my decision to agree to their demands. I don't bother gracing his outburst with a response. In all honesty, this fight has gone on long enough. If my team were competent, those men would have been dead an hour ago, I would have retrieved the scroll and we would have been well on our way towards Itachi. I have no interest in letting Suigetsu indulge in a killing spree just because he comes from the Hidden Mist and feels he should 'finish the job'. These ninja pose no real threat to us and there's no one they can tell to challenge us either.

It's only a matter of time dear brother…

"Give me the scroll," I tell the enemy before me, my mouth set into a thin, hard line. Behind me, Suigetsu tuts but doesn't complain further and the enemy's gaze remains level with mine.

His eyes are blue but they're nothing like…

He throws the scroll.

It's a simple toss done purposefully slowly with a high arc that will force me to avert my eyes from the enemy if I want to catch it. Initially, I'm unsure as to why he's bothered to do this when I have Suigetsu, Juugo and a half aware Karin to keep an eye on him while I focus on the object spinning wildly up in the stratosphere but as I leap up to catch it and my fingers brush against the rough paper, I understand.

There's a feeling like an impact in the base of my chest, like a fist has connected with my rib cage and has ploughed right through to my spinal cord. The air distorts in front of me and a ring of displaced air fans out like a shock wave. At the same time, my nervous system seems to process what has happened and pain rolls over me in one, huge, tsunami-like wave. It's agony like I've never experienced, even whilst consenting to some of Kabuto's more heinous experiments in the underground chambers of Orochimaru's hideouts.

At first, the pain is all I can feel and I let out an involuntary whimper against the diabolical feeling twisting my insides, crumpling in on myself and the scroll my hand has managed to close over in mid-air before falling unceremoniously towards the ground in freefall. As the air starts to whip past my face, I hear shouting from Suigetsu and Juugo below me and a scream from Karin.

Then the nausea comes, coiling up like some sort of fetid snake in my belly and wrapping around the pain, diluting it with a new feeling of discomfort. I try not to vomit whilst I fall and brace myself for impact with the hard Earth, only aware enough of my surroundings to thank whatever heathen deity that it rained recently and the ground will be softer than usual.

It comes as something of a surprise when I feel strong arms encompass me before my body meets with the dirt and for one wild, disorientated moment, I'm actually expecting to see either Kakashi or Naruto holding on to my quaking frame as I lean over and retch out the contents of my stomach onto the grass. When I find myself looking blearily up into Juugo's face, I have to fight not to scowl at myself.

Whenever I feel even slightly vulnerable, my thoughts always travel back to them…

It's not acceptable…

…but I don't know what else I can do to sever ties with them.

I turn my attentions to the leader currently engaged in a new grapple with Suigetsu and motion silently for Juugo to put me down, keeping myself upright despite the crippling stabs of agony cannonading through my system whenever I move.

I'm not exactly sure what that weird, undetectable jutsu on the scroll just did but if it was meant to kill me, it didn't work and now, I am well and truly furious.

I reach behind me with a shaking hand, my sharingan enhanced eyes on the enemy ninja, burning into his skin. As soon as the palm of my hand closes over the handle of my sword, the shaking stops and my feet feel more solidly kedged into the ground. Testing myself and my movements by shifting slightly, I take off across the damp earth and run a thread of chidori through the smooth metal of the blade I inherited from my time spent with Orochimaru.

My eyes are cold, black and full of the hatred my brother always accused me of lacking when I slice through his waiting flesh, sheathing the blade through his torso until it's sticking out of the other side dripping incarnadine blood and other poisons.

I allow myself a small, triumphant smirk when I realise that I've managed to pierce straight through the liver in my all-encompassing rage.

The enemy, who was about to make a wild stab at Suigetsu's neck with a kunai, pulls a face of utmost disbelief and terror, the kind of look all ninjas give when they realise that it's the end, and turns to me, his eyes widening almost comically as he takes in my smirk.

"You…" he splutters, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth as his life ebbs away. "How did you-

"Survive that hidden jutsu?" I ask, my voice low and tainted with bitter ire.

As the last of the light leaves his eyes, just before he keels over on the brunt of my katana, his muscles twitching with the remnants of the chidori still exploding in minute bursts through his system, I lean in close, holding him upright with the blade and whisper:

"I'm an Uchiha."

He's dead by the time I've finished speaking, his eyes stuck fast open and empty like an abandoned crab shell. For a few minutes, I remain standing with him propped up on my blade trying not to throw up again, my stomach working violently against me.

Whatever that jutsu was, it seems to have scrambled my insides, my vital organs changing places until I can feel the beat of my heart pulsing unpleasantly in my gut and my lungs feel like they're full of acid.

"S-Sasuke?" Suigetsu's voice is tentative beside me and I have to fight the urge not to glare at him. It's not his fault I was hit by that weird jutsu, I can only blame myself. I was too eager to get my hands on the scroll…too eager and too close…

Would the enemy know why we were after it?

"You don't look so good," Suigetsu states after a while and I can no longer hold myself back, unleashing the full force of my glare upon him until he's reeling back with his hands raised in front of him, his back hitting a tree as he tries to get as far away from me as possible.

"W-what did that j-jutsu do to you?" Karin asks from her position on the ground. Since I managed to kill the enemy leader, she's managed to prop herself up against the base of a tree and is bandaging her arm as quickly and efficiently as she can by herself. My glare softens as I look at her actually being useful but then returns in full force when there's an excruciating convulsion somewhere inside me and my stomach tries to escape through my eye sockets.

It takes me a few seconds to find my voice through the pain but as I'm finding it, I make a point of tossing the new corpse off of my sword, determined not to show weakness.

"No time," I manage, half grunting my response. "The remaining enemy shinobi are probably still around here. They might not attack without their leader but I'm not willing to take the chance so I need you two to scout the area and kill anyone you find."

Juugo nods immediately, having appeared in his usual silent position beside me, and takes off into the trees. Suigetsu lingers, staring at me disbelievingly. It's not often that I ask him to kill and it's even less often that I change my mind about something. He opens his mouth like he's about to call me out on my sudden change of heart but one pointed look from me silences him and he takes off into the trees after Juugo.

As soon as I'm sure that they're far enough away, that our immediate area is free from the potential of enemy attack, I fall into a sitting position on the grass, breathing heavily and pulling at the ties still concealing the scroll's information with fumbling fingers.

A heaving grunt before me alerts me to the fact that Karin is trying to move to come and sit with me but I hold up a hand and fix her with a piercing expression.

"Stay there, I don't know how close you have to be to be effected by the jutsu," I tell her in such an authoritative tone that she pauses mid-rise, suddenly in an awkward half crouching, half standing position that makes her legs look like they're about to buckle. I ignore her expression of almost shock and instead concentrate on my heart beat which is pounding out a sickening rhythm in my already churning stomach.

I'm so excited I can barely breathe.

I'm coming for you now brother. You can't run from me anymore.

Despite the hidden jutsu that had been wrapped neatly around the outside of the scroll, there are no more traps attached to it. Whatever that jutsu was, it was obviously extremely powerful and if I wasn't so involved with what I was doing, I would feel an intoxicating sense of smugness about how far my stamina has obviously come. Perhaps now I can say that I can take a hit as well as that infuriating…

I grip the edge of the paper between thumb and forefinger and unravel the scroll with a neat little flourish, scrutinising the ink on the paper with marked concentration.

Black characters glare up at me, a message in perfectly artistic handwriting…handwriting that I remember envying endlessly as a child.

The black ball of whatever it is that I am these days squirms inside me, drowning out the pain of the jutsu, the nausea, until there is nothing but the existence of that…thing.

It's all I have left, all that I've cultivated…

…all that I am or can ever hope to be.

'The old Uchiha settlement on the edge of the Fire Country. I'll see you there foolish little brother.'

I want to go immediately. I want to haul my body up and start hurtling through the trees towards him. I know where he is, he's waiting for me and I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be but I'm not stupid enough to be blinded by my own furious ambition, not when I don't yet know the full effects of the jutsu I was hit with, though it's hard to call a halt to everything and set up camp.

I don't want to fight him with a handicap, it proves nothing.

We manage to make it a little way away from the area we finished the enemy shinobi in, a clearing surrounded by dense trees so it's not easily spotted from the various paths between countries. Due to the closely interwoven leaves of the trees closest to us, the grass is thin on the ground and the mounds of dirt are littered with sticks that'll make it difficult to sleep but at the moment, I don't care.

It takes a few hours for my stomach to settle and for the agonising pain to subside as well. It still feels like my insides have been scrambled, a weird sensation when not coupled with the pain a bit like the feeling of a pulled muscle but all over my body. I'm tight and a little clumsy but otherwise unfazed it seems.

Has my stamina really increased that much?

Doubtful.

"You want me to check for internal injuries?" Suigetsu asks, eyeing me warily as he pulls out some trail rations from his pack. It would be good to have a fire tonight after a successful mission and a spectacular furthering of my goals but I'm leery of the idea that there may be more enemies around, drawn to the last scene of conflict like moths to a flame and I don't want to risk attracting attention.

"Hn," I huff out by the way of an affirmative and pull my black vest over my head so he can have a look at the blooming black bruise on my chest, a rippling thing that looks like some awful tattoo gone wrong, the lines so blurry they're hardly lines anymore. The pattern is not unlike the seal I glimpsed on Naruto's stomach in the forest of death before Orochimaru did something to it and caused the idiot to lose consciousness. There is one concerning streak of bruise leading all the way up my chest to my neck and further into my scalp. Though I don't have a lot of medical knowledge, I can tell that something like that might cause further worry.

Suigetsu checks me over thoroughly with some help from Karin when she's able to hoist herself up and over to us. Both of them confirm that as far as they know, there doesn't seem to be any internal damage though they agree the odd pattern of the bruise is somewhat perplexing.

In a bold display, Karin lets her cold hands fall daintily onto my shoulders, the thumb on her right hand running over the sinuous curve of muscle there and I flinch at the touch, not really appreciating her proximity.

She looks at me then, her bright eyes desperate, hopeful and completely the wrong colour.

"Get off," I tell her crisply, moving my arms up to dislodge her hands and turning back to my shirt to fish out the prize scroll we collected from those idiots.

Since the jutsu went off, I haven't let any of the others touch this thing though I've checked it thoroughly with the sharingan and can sense nothing else on it. Karin has checked it too and has agreed there's nothing wrong with it but there's no point in taking chances. With deft hands, I pull the paper until the scroll is lying open on the damp ground, the ink burning into the back of my retinas every time I blink.

Because he wrote this message.

Because I'm so close.

Because the time and place for our final battle has been decided.

It's only as I'm scrutinising the character for 'see' one more time, staring at a flick at the bottom of the character that is unique only to Itachi that I feel the rush of vertigo, a sudden disconcerting pull of anxiety and dizziness that has me lifting my head to meet Karin's gaze, hoping she'll consent to me biting her arm to speed up the healing process following that battle.

What I find on her face is truly disconcerting, an expression of horror so intense that I'm forced to try and extend my senses through this weird feeling to try and find what could provoke such an emotive response from the girl that used to look after Orochimaru's prisons.

"S-Sasuke, your feet…" she whispers and my head whips down to stare at my shoes and the exposed, pale skin of my toes.

Except, my toes appear to be missing.

All at once I'm hit with a shot of liquid panic which spreads through my veins like a drug. Has someone thrown something that's cut off my toes? But surely they'd be lying in bloody stumps in front of my shoe rather than just…

I can still feel them but they're tingling, is this some sort of phantom sensation?

Shit, what the hell is happening to me?

Stay calm Sasuke, rationalise. It's got something to do with the jutsu, a trick. Your toes are still there, reach down and touch them to confirm.

My eyes are slightly wide and my mouth is parted, the only indication in my facial expression of the shock I'm trying to suppress which is fighting to shut down the useful parts of my functioning system. With precise slowness, I reach down, shivering against the wind as an unpleasant sweat breaks out over my skin, trickling down the back of my neck and providing an unwelcome tickling sensation. By the time my hand has reached the space where my toes should be, the tingling has spread to the tips of my fingers and they've disappeared as well.

I stare at where my fingers should be as they pass through the place where my toes should be and I feel no connection, no subtle brush of finger on toe.

They're gone.

The shock struggling in my system takes this as a cue to explode into full vitality and within moments, I'm hyperventilating, watching in part fascination and part terror as my hand continues to disappear, simply fading until there's nothing but the sparse grass where my flesh should be.

"Suigetsu! JUUGO!"

Karin's voice splinters my thoughts and provokes a string of black spots to pass in front of my eyes, like I'm suddenly over-sensitive to any sort of harsh sound. I have to blink when I glance up and I can't focus on Karin's face. I open my mouth to inform her of this new development but instead of speaking, I make an involuntary noise in the back of my throat as the tingling begins to spread through the bruise on my torso in that strange spiralling pattern.

"Sasuke, Sasuke, what's happening to you?" Karin asks, her voice becoming muffled around the edges until it sounds like I'm underwater.

What is happening to me?

The last coherent thing I'm able to grasp before the spots in my eyes overtake everything is the sound of my arm guards hitting the grass as they fall from arms that are no longer there. Wherever my fingers and toes have gone, the rest of me seems to be following and though I feel a moment of burning, venomous regret twisting through me like a hot knife dragged through yielding flesh because I may be unable to fulfil my promised role as an avenger for my clan, I also wonder if wherever I'm going will offer something better than what I currently have, this black ball of hatred that my brother has so carefully nurtured within me.

Wherever I'm going…I wonder…will there be someone like him?

Sasuke is 16, Naruto is 25

Heat.

It's the first thing that registers, like a half formed realisation of some discomfort in the back of my mind forcing me to regain consciousness. I feel my eyebrows twitch in irritation against this discomfort but somehow, it sort of feels like someone else is performing the action using my body, like I am not actually attached to anything physical at all.

Did I fall asleep in the sun? I don't quite remember but that isn't unlike me. Orochimaru used to say that I was truly like something cold blooded with my peculiar habit of falling asleep in sun-dappled places. I never particularly felt like sharing the fact that since the death of my clan, it's always felt more natural to sleep during daylight hours when I'm more likely to be safe.

It takes me a while to find the will to pry my eyelids apart and when I do, the first thing I see is a pattern of thick, fan-shaped green leaves hanging high above me, filtering some of the light passing over my body, providing some shade so I don't burn in direct UV exposure.

Fan-shaped leaves…

I frown slightly as a soft breeze disturbs the foliage above me, watching the leaves tangle and brush against each other. The shadows covering the area around me suddenly look like reflections in water and that doesn't help the feeling of intense disorientation that has settled over my system.

Where the hell am I? These types of leaves can only be found in the heart of the Fire Country, near Konoha…and why is it so hot? What happened to m-

And I remember - sitting with Karin and suddenly parts of me starting to disappear. The tingling in my fingers and toes, phantom sensations from appendages that were no longer there. In a flurry of sudden panic, I've thrown up my arms in front of my fact, almost laughing out when I can see my long fingers near unhealthily pale in the over-heated light. I wiggle them and feel almost grateful when they respond normally. It seems weird to see my arms without my arm guards, remembering the sound of them hitting the dirt as my arms disappeared and…

And…

I'm suddenly very aware of the prickling sensation beneath my back, aware that it doesn't stop at the lip of my trousers but rather continues lower, to my exposed…

My exposed…

Where the fuck are my clothes? My weapons?

I can feel something.

It's a presence nearby, something powerful…something monumentally powerful, potent and sure and strong…much stronger than Orochimaru or my brother or…

Shit!

The word pulses through my brain like the flash of electricity that runs over my skin as I move, throwing myself up and into a naturally crouched position as I wait for this potential enemy to appear. I'm at a ridiculous disadvantage like this, over-heated, naked and completely unable to grasp what's going on. Did the jutsu render me unconscious? Did I simply imagine my fingers and toes disappearing because the jutsu did something to mess with my head? Were Suigetsu, Juugo and Karin defeated and myself captured?

It turns out I'm in the same sort of clearing as the one that Team Hebi occupied right before this happened but this is much bigger and full of the sort of plants that I haven't actually seen since before I left the village. On the outskirts of the clearing there are flowering passion fruit bushes winding around silver birches and tomato plants with little green tomatoes hanging from the vine. I stare at the tomatoes like I might stare at a leviathan because it's spring at the moment, the beginning of spring no less. Tomatoes don't fruit until high summer and while I admit it's hot enough today…

How long was I unconscious for?

The sound of a twig snapping somewhere on my right has me shifting automatically in that direction, the chidori crackling steadily over my skin spiking slightly with my sudden alarm. My eyes spin into sharingan red and my surroundings are suddenly pulled into frighteningly high definition. With my sharingan activated I can see each individual tuft of pollen floating on the air, the way it only ever does in high summer…

"S-Sasuke?"

Oh god…

Of all the people to meet here, like this, why did it have to be him?

I can't do this right now Naruto.

I can't.

Pushing myself closer to the ground, I adjust my fighting style to account for Naruto's natural advantage as the shorter ninja and, before he can break through the trees that I know he'll expose himself from, I launch myself at him, swinging my arms through the air in a taijutsu move designed to immobilise my opponent immediately.

Despite the speed of my move, I'm met with the strong resistance of his arm effectively stopping me. The chidori dying my skin in dangerous electricity jumps across the orange sleeve of his jacket but weirdly, he doesn't even flinch. Instead, a leg sweeps out, longer than I was expecting, to take out my kedged feet and I'm so surprised that my calculations about Naruto's increased height were wrong that he actually manages to take my legs out from under me and I'm in freefall for the second time in 24 hours.

It's while I'm in freefall in a moment that seems to slow down considerably that he finally emerges from the trees and I'm able to get a good look at him.

My eyes widen considerably as I fall until I'm pulling what must be the stupidest face in the world.

Because this is not Naruto…

It's only been a few months since I last met Naruto when he was looking up at me from the decimation of Orochimaru's lair. The Naruto I saw then was still similar to the 12 year old boy I left behind at the Valley of the End. His hair was a little longer, his face was more defined, revealing the beginnings of an angular jaw and his eyes held a note of something that wasn't there before, a depth in the blue that I didn't expect but apart from that, he was essentially the same ninja. This apparition…

He has the same obnoxious blonde hair as Naruto, still an unruly mess atop his head catching tantalising flashes of light as he moves but bits of it are longer than they were a couple of months ago…quite a lot longer. There are two loose, wild bangs framing his face in a hairstyle reminiscent of the 4th Hokage and his face seems to have lost the remainder of its baby fat, the hard, angular lines of his jaw and cheekbones bringing out the exotic shape of his eyes. The whisker marks are still present on his cheeks, one of the only reasons I know that I'm looking at some sort of…weird genjutsu version of Naruto though with the loss of baby fat, they seem to be spaced slightly further apart than I remember.

He's wearing a set of clothes not unlike the attire he was wearing when we last met, a set of garish orange trousers stopping short above his ankles and black, cropped ninja boots with exposed toes. The jacket is a little different, a weird mix of the one he wore as a kid and the one I saw him wearing in the ruin of Orochimaru's lair with a black torso, orange sleeves and a swirling metal shoulder protector adorning a single shoulder with a toggle hanging down over his arm. Weirdly, this jacket has a high and wide collar not unlike the collars of the shirts I used to wear in the Uchiha compound and I can't help but frown at the sense of discomfort this provokes, even as I'm falling. His hitai-ate is still black with a flowing stream of fabric trailing out behind him but the metal plate adorning his forehead has a different symbol on it and though it's scuffed, chipped and scratched beyond repair, it glints in the sunlight in a way that boasts of years of careful polishing.

He's taller than the Naruto I met several months ago, taller than me by a good couple of inches and this along with his facial expression renders me almost senseless as I throw my hands out to stop my freefall, using the momentum of the fall to push myself up into a back flip away from this fight.

The moment I judge myself far enough away, I stare openly at him, trying to figure this out.

He simply straightens out of the uncharacteristically graceful stance he's been standing in and stares right back, his face reflecting a range of emotions that I can't possibly understand in that strange expression.

It's like looking at someone who's been starved of water for a day or so and has just been presented with a jug of the stuff.

The expression is full of so much disbelief, so much yearning and so much…something else that my heart actually clenches in my chest for a moment. As I rule, I don't involve myself with the petty emotions of others. I have my own problems to work out, my own emotions that I still, despite years of practice, can't control but…I haven't looked upon such a face since I last looked in a mirror when I was young, not that long after my clan was brutally murdered. It's something you can't ignore if you've experienced it yourself.

"Sasuke…" the name rolls off of his tongue almost reverently and I wince at the open display of affection. The voice is Naruto's but now that I've heard it again, I can tell it's much deeper than the last time we met.

Irritatingly, I actually find it quite pleasant to listen to, completely unlike the shrill, high pitched shriek from the hyper active ninja I remember.

"It's…ah…"

Suddenly, this weird Naruto apparition, this older ninja brings his hand up to rub the back of his blonde head making the longer tresses dance in the sunlight and that expression, that completely heart-rendering arrangement of facial features morphs into the grin that I remember from my childhood. It's big and broad, showing his teeth and forcing his eyes shut. In this place, this place caught in the middle of high summer, he truly looks like he belongs.

I will never belong here.

"It's good to see you teme," he says after a while and I take a step back towards the trees as he takes a deliberate step forward.

I make a point of saying nothing and keeping my eyes level with his, watching as his grin falters and his own eyes open to reveal that blue, the blue that I can't forget no matter how much time and bad blood seems to pass between us.

This person standing before me isn't Naruto, at least not the Naruto I met at Orochimaru's hide out…

…but there's no mistaking the colour of his eyes.

"What is this?" I whisper, my voice carrying through the air between us like something cold and hard. Without my noticing, the chidori thrumming across my skin has died off until I'm simply standing like an exposed sack of flesh on the edge of this clearing close to Konoha. Was it this Naruto that did this to me? Did he finally bring me back as he promised he would?

Doesn't he know how close I was to Itachi?

As I watch him, his expression warps once again, showing a brief flash of something like despair but before I can really analyse this new expression, his orange clad arm is across his face, wiping roughly at his eyes and then he's fixing me with a calmer smile.

I simply frown in response. It was always a little difficult to keep up with Naruto's more volatile mood swings.

"I brought you some clothes," he says gently, reaching behind him to a pack strapped across his back and pulling out some dark ninja wear which he puts down purposefully slowly on a wide rock not 2 feet from where he was standing. I eye the clothes like they might explode.

"I know it seems weird for me to bring you clothes when you woke up naked in a clearing," Naruto says, putting words to thoughts that hadn't quite fully formed in my own head. "But you're always naked when you time travel and I know how much more secure it is if you have something covering your exposed-

But I'm no longer listening to him.

Did he just say…

He couldn't have just said…

Even the dobe isn't that stupid but then…is this the dobe? He does look a lot older…Haven't I just spent about 10 minutes confirming this? Haven't I compared him to the Naruto I met months ago and found the changes to be incompatible?

How long was I asleep damnit?

In a freakish display of conscientiousness, Naruto remains silent as I try to work this out in my mind, carefully monitoring my facial expressions until he obviously sees something that he thinks is heading in the wrong direction.

"You told me you wouldn't believe me before I came out here to meet you so you gave me this," he tells me, taking out another small object and tossing it at me. Considering that this insanity started with a thrown object and a jutsu undetected, I let it drop onto the grass and narrow my eyes at this Naruto-apparition before squatting down and picking up the thing he's thrown at me.

A pocket mirror.

"I look older right?" Naruto mumbles, his words barely audible. "But you still look the same…coz of the time travelling. See for yourself."

He gestures to the mirror and despite myself, I find my eyes travelling downwards and adjusting the angle of the mirror in my palm until I find myself.

And freeze.

There I am.

There I am in my full naked glory, exposed so the cursed seal on my neck is on full display, the tomoe looking like some crude, over-simplified tattoo.

I look exactly like I did the last time I managed to find a mirror in the little town we were in prior to the ambush in the forest. I even have the little cut above my eyebrow from a training accident with Suigetsu and that damn sword of his.

What the fuck happened to me?

"H-hey…hey Sasuke it's okay. Calm down."

I make to raise an eyebrow at the idiot still standing in front of me because I'm not panicking but it's only as I lower the mirror to make my less than impressed sentiments known about his over-concern that I realise I'm hyperventilating again. My heart is hammering against my rib cage and in a moment, I've dropped down onto the grass, completely immobile.

"Oh crap, stick your head between your legs and try to breathe normally," Naruto instructs me and I nearly jump out of my skin when I realise that he's sitting right beside me suddenly in a movement so fast that I couldn't even follow it with my activated sharingan. Before I can react and draw myself up properly to try and attack him while he's in close range, his hand is buried firmly in the midnight locks of my hair, pushing my head down until the grass beneath me is inches from my nose.

His arm is strong, applying just the right amount of pressure to be comforting and his skin is just a little too hot, like it always was when we went out on missions and I'd have to save this idiot from his own blunders in Team 7, gripping his hand as he dangled off the edge of a cliff on one memorable occasion.

It takes a while for my breath to regulate, for my heart to finally slow down and my thoughts to arrange themselves into something other than a fucking mess inside my skull. For a moment, I'm simply mortified by how weak I appear to be at this moment; naked and gasping for air like some sort of new born baby. There's a stirring of that old self loathing and the desperate burning need to be stronger so that I can face my brother confidently somewhere inside but for once I ignore it to focus on the current completely unbelievable set of circumstances.

Time travel…

"Here," Naruto's deeper voice says above me and I find myself holding on to the clothes that he brought for me, staring at them vacantly for a moment before dressing on auto-pilot.

"Heh…I bet you feel better right? Now how old are you anyw-

I cut him off from speaking further, unable to take the sound of his much older voice…

…with my fist.

It seems that my bout of auto-pilot has extended into my usual reactions to Naruto and my fist connects with his jaw bone, causing a lurch of horror, excitement and something else inside me when I feel the very real collision of his jaw bone on my knuckles.

His head whips back, the bangs of his hair flying out by his face like yellow blades, and cracks against a tree trunk situated behind him in a way that would render any formidable shinobi unconscious but this is Naruto I'm dealing with. Naruto the stamina monster who can take a hit meant for someone with 3 times his skills and in an instant, he's responded in kind, his own fist ramming into the side of my face, connecting just a fraction above my eye - an insurance that I'll have a black eye to remember this little scuffle by.

As my own head snaps back, I actually find myself smirking, the expression foreign on my face.

Somehow, and I have no idea how to explain why, that punch is more proof that this is all real than the mirror, than actually touching this genjutsu-like apparition and actually seeing myself disappear before my own eyes all put together.

Because that punch is Naruto.

I really am sitting here in the height of summer in the middle of some random clearing with a Naruto x many years older than me.

I stare at him through wide eyes, his fist still poised near my cheek.

"Teme!" he growls under his breath. "Why the fuck did you do that? I forgot how much of an insufferable asshole you can be when you're out of your Goddamn comfort zone. Sheesh…"

"How old are you?" I ask his question, the sound of my voice shaky but still laced with that hint of prideful arrogance that is just a part of who I am.

He's grumbling profanities at me and massaging his jaw but he pauses to glare at me when I ask the question, his eyes betraying the true emotions playing under the mask of normality he likes to wear when things are a bit much.

"25," he responds waspishly, pausing thoughtfully as I have to suppress the urge to let my jaw drop.

"Uh…well…26 in another 2ish…months."

25…nearly 10 years…

And before I can stop myself, I'm examining this Naruto again, my eyes raking his body for the changes to show the passing of 10 years. Back in my time, I have no interest in Naruto's development. He provides no benefit to me or to my quest to conquer Itachi outside of allowing me to achieve the Mangekyou if I should actually succeed in killing him but here…I don't know. It's like I've regressed back to how I used to be, back to when we were in Team 7 and I would occasionally scrutinise Naruto after a long mission because more often than not, he was heinously injured and refused to say anything out of fear of showing weakness.

With the high collared jacket on, even in this heat, I can't really see much but I can tell that he's well toned beneath the slightly baggy set to his clothes. His shoulders fill out the jacket well at the top, only becoming baggy around his midriff where his body obviously tapers inwards. His hands are rough and calloused from years of ninja training and there's a weird, spiralling scar on the palm of one of his hands as he moves to scratch his nose, his irritation at my punch dropping away like water from a leaf tip as he realises I'm watching him so intently.

Once again, for the briefest instance, there's a flash of something not unlike despair in the depths of his eyes but like before, it's quickly glossed over.

What happened to make you look at me like that?

"You said I gave you the mirror," I state, unable to tear my eyes away from this Naruto now that I've established just what he is.

Naruto gives me a strange look, like I'm pushing something sensitive, a new myriad of emotions passing over his face in fast motion, all of them hard to look at and powerful, humbling.

Naruto, what have you been through?

"You did, you said you wouldn't believe me otherwise and you were kinda right," Naruto tells me. "You said it was hard the first time you time travelled to actually get over yourself and accept that the impossible had happened."

First time?

"I time travel more than once?" I ask, ignoring the disconcerting fact that Naruto and I obviously have a lot to talk about in the future.

Naruto's eyes flash a particular kind of blue in the light from the over-hanging sun between the leaves of the trees and I inhale shallowly, absently holding my breath as he looks at me.

"Yeah, you do. You travel a lot from now actually. How old are you? What's actually going on in your life right now? You look…like you used to when everything was a bit shit, y'know?"

I can't help the glare that I direct at him following that declaration, feeling the molten anger rolling off of me in waves enough that he actually flinches, the first time I've been able to rile him since I appeared naked in a clearing in the woods by Konoha. What does he know of how shit everything is? That's my life! It's always been one shit occurrence after the other, the decimation of my clan, the marked attention of that snake sannin, taking the scroll with my brother's whereabouts on it and time travelling to some distant future…

Everything has been and always will be shit…

…at least until I kill Itachi.

Getting over the initial force of my death glare, Naruto's eyes narrow as he watches me, his expression somewhat pensive and oddly sharp. I can see the flash of intelligence illuminating behind the endless blue of his eyes like the lightning strikes in a thunder storm.

Since when did this idiot grow a brain?

"You're still after Itachi," he tells me in no uncertain terms, his face flashing with triumph as my glare intensifies so much I'm surprised he hasn't spontaneously combusted on the spot.

"So…looking at you…you must be around…15 or 16?" The inflection on the end of that statement makes it a question but honestly speaking, he doesn't require me to answer. He already knows that he's right and my lips thin out in annoyance.

"Ha," Naruto chuckles, his eyes glazing over as he looks into the past. If I wanted to, I could use this opportunity to attack him as I have in the past, aiming to do damage before he can defend himself but strangely, I have a feeling this would end worse for me. Though it's muted, I can feel the potency of his power even while he's simply sitting in a clearing beside me. It's quietly terrifying.

And infuriating.

"I was still looking for you back then and desperate to make you understand everything…turns out I did a better job of convincing you when I didn't have a chance to prepare y'know…heh heh."

I blink at him, mentally memorising this cryptic nonsense for later analysis. For now, let him ramble and give away the future. Perhaps I can make use of it.

Pulling himself back from wherever he's gone, Naruto suddenly breathes in deeply and sighs a strangely wistful sigh that has me frowning at him again. His expression has a flint like edge as he leans back on his hands on the grass, his stormy eyes meeting my own and causing my breath to hitch uselessly in my throat.

It's unnerving how intense his eyes are now.

Were they always so expressively blue?

Yes…they were.

"Sasuke," he says my name urgently, the sudden frenzied look on his face coinciding wonderfully with the feeling of nausea flaring up in my gut again. Does he know I feel sick? What does this mean?

"Listen okay? This is really important…not for now but for when you're older and…ah fuck it…"

I stare at him intently, drawn in to his urgency, half pissed off that the authority in his voice has made me pay attention whether I want to or not. How does he do that? It's enraging that he has this kind of effect at all.

Why?

When he speaks again, his voice is slightly muffled around the edges and the understanding that I'm probably going back to my time now hits me with such relief that I actually almost pass out just from the feel of that alone.

Naruto's blue eyes are the only thing in perfect focus.

"I'm sorry alright? I'm sorry that it takes me so long to figure everything out. I'm sorry that I still…I'm just sorry…"

His eyes are shimmering around the edges and the colour of his face is changing, a crimson flush streaking across tan cheeks as he gets upset about what he's saying to me. He's sorry? Sorry for what? That he managed to bring me back to the village? Because I suppose I should face that truth head on right now if I'm to believe that I gave Naruto a mirror to convince a past self of my own time travelling…

A single transparent tear spills over the edge of the corner of his eye to leave a trail down the harsh lines of his face.

Ninjas don't cry Naruto.

In all surrealism, Naruto's sadness, the sincerity of his words…the way he's looking at me…all of it eats at me and before I can confine my reactions to something rational, I've reached up to brush the stray tear away, gasping when my fingers are once again missing and I meet Naruto's cheek with nothing but air.

Naruto breathes out steadily as the rest of my hand follows my fingers and his breath sends a heated waft over the exposed skin of my arms.

"Sasuke…" he breathes out my name in a way that causes a stirring of something within me that is entirely new, not linked to the black ball of hatred I've come to know and I don't like it.

I really don't.

There's more, I can see there's more he's desperate to say but instead, he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood and leans in so fast I almost miss it.

The kiss is firm and chaste against my chapped lips but…

But…

The feel of his lips on mine. It's not…repulsive…it's not…

I'm finding it hard to keep my thoughts together as the black spots invade but I still manage to pull my remaining hand back into a hasty fist, throwing it out in a reactive display of indignation that he would dare do something so familiar, so disgusting, so…

His low chuckle is the last thing I hear before everything once again fades away.

My fist doesn't connect with his jaw again.

So ends the first chapter at a whopping 20 pages.

I hope you enjoyed it.