Title: burning flames of will
Summary: Team Seven is pulled out of a time where everybody has been trapped within the Tsukiyomi and dropped in the past by the Sage of Six Paths. The problem? None of them are aware of the fact that the others have returned.
Notes: …I hate myself for doing this.
Pairings are mildly hinted at, and if you really don't like them, feel free to think of them as close friendship or whatever.
Yes, Sai and Tenzo are members of Team Seven.
I apologize for the POV switching; I just wanted to get all of theirs into one chapter.
X
Sai wakes up with a faint gasp, feeling like he has suddenly been plunged in a bucket of ice water. The feeling is not alien to him, but that is not to say it is pleasant.
He blinks up at the ceiling rapidly, taking in deep breaths to compose himself. It does not take long, as he has had many years of practice, being not only ANBU, but Root.
Rolling out of bed silently as to not rouse his roommates, he passes by the mirror to take a look at himself while pretending to simply be trying to flatten his horrid bedhead; albeit he is attempting to do so. It does not work.
He makes an inaudible noise of frustration, an emotion he had not had when he was at this age—at least the last time around. Sai decides to vent by scrubbing at his face with the towel while freshening up.
(He is not entirely sure if this is normal behavior. He is not entirely sure he cares.)
Quickly, he gets dressed in his old Root uniform, slipping on his mask. It is familiar. That does not mean it is a good familiar. Behind it, Sai frowns slightly. It is hard to describe the emotion he is feeling.
But that is not important anyways.
He has things to do.
.
Sai is rational. It is a necessary trait for being in ANBU, especially in Root, because being in Root means you take dirtier and more dangerous missions. Being in ANBU may have dangerous missions but sometimes Root must take worse. This is because Danzo does not care very much for the Root's lives. The Root themselves do not either.
Sai is rational. Therefore he decides against telling Hokage-sama the minimal amount he can about Root.
This may not seem logical, but Sai has given it much thought. After all, should he inform Hokage-sama of Root, it will cause the timeline to spiral completely out of his control. The timeline is safer when he can manipulate certain small events to fix things but at the same time be able to predict what will happen next.
He is not entirely certain that he can fix everything. Sai knows his limits. It is a necessary thing to know, after all, when you are a shinobi, not just ANBU, or Root. After all, he is nowhere near as strong as the original Team Seven is—that is to say, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi. He does not compare to Yamato-taichou.
Sai knows this, but the tiny irrational part of him tells him that he can fix things. That he will.
He likes that tiny irrational part of him, even if it makes him weep when his comrades fall, even if it causes him to see red and make stupid decisions.
After all, it had been invoked by Naruto.
X
The first thing Sasuke sees when he wakes is a familiar ceiling. It's a ceiling he hasn't seen in three years.
Three years is a long time.
His sight is still oddly distorted, and Sasuke tosses his covers off of himself, all but racing to the bathroom mirror.
He stares at himself, wide-eyed, heterochromatic, and three years younger. Tentatively, he moves his hand to touch his face, the person in the mirror doing the same.
Sasuke activates the Sharingan in his right eye. The Eternal Mangekyo answers his call.
He smiles.
He hasn't done so genuinely in years.
.
Sasuke is a genius. A prodigy, if you will. Rookie of his year.
Within the package of "genius" comes "brilliant" and "smart".
Sasuke is both.
So he knows that he should keep to the timeline as strictly as possible, changing things that are harmful to the ninja world and his precious people.
But the minor things don't have to change that much, right? As implausible as it may sound, Sasuke does care about his teammates. He just won't admit it out loud.
Maybe… maybe I could be friends with Naruto and Sakura. Like they both deserve.
Sasuke looks into the mirror again, frowning. He hasn't quite gotten used to the Konoha hitai-ate yet, adjusting it again. How should he hide his Rinnegan without drawing suspicion, anyways? Bandages? Hell no. I'm not going to look like that bastard Danzo.
Genjutsu won't work either, since any good shinobi would be able to see through it. Setting his hitai-ate over his eye will cause way too much curiosity and he'd rather not let Kakashi get the idea that he has a follower. Sasuke knows all too well how that feels.
He sighs and reaches for the roll of bandages under the sink. Oh well. If it means preventing suspicion, Sasuke supposes he can deal with hiding his Rinnegan under bandages and claiming he had injured his eye.
What will I tell them, anyways? Sasuke grumbles internally. Training accident? Fell down the stairs?
Eventually he settles on a training accident where he'd been practicing throwing kunai, but he'd been careless and accidentally crashed into the bushes. The thorns had scratched his eye, and to prevent it from getting anymore irritated he's hiding it.
As Sasuke finishes wrapping the bandages around his eye, he takes a deep breath and opens the door to meet Team Seven—for the second time.
X
Sakura wakes up with long hair.
Her eyes snap open, long locks of pink hair draping over her face. With a scowl, she brushes them aside, shaking any lasting effects of sleep away before kicking off her covers, stalking over to the mirror.
And recoils.
Because damn that is some pretty bad bed hair.
With a sigh, she digs around for a blade, finding a barely used kunai under her bed. Well, there's one thing she'll need to change—her number of weapons.
Flattening her hair with only her hands, she grips the pink locks at the back with one hand, pulling them taut before slicing cleanly through the strands. Her hand comes away with a huge handful of pink hair, which she tosses into a trash can.
I still have horrid bed hair.
She grimaces, a strange sight on her twelve year old self, and she heads to the bathroom to comb her hair, wash her face, and brush her teeth. Once done with that, she gets dressed, and huffs. And whoop dee doo, I've got to get way more conventional clothes.
But hey, at least you have short hair, her inner self points out. That's one thing out of the way.
Speaking of things getting out of the way, she has a lot of stuff to do.
As she busies herself by hunting any other weapons she might have down, she thinks about what she should do, plotting.
I should be nicer to Naruto this time, she muses. And I should really stop that petty rivalry with Ino… I mean, Sasuke had been a huge prick. Maybe I can change that. Sakura smiles a little.
Huh. I need to think on a larger scale. I'd really like to change a lot of things, but to be honest… if I change too much all at once, the timeline will be outside my grasp, and I can't mold it the way I want to. Sakura winces a little at the way her thoughts are going. Well, that makes me sound like a manipulative bitch.
And don't forget the Strength of a Hundred seal, her inner chirps helpfully.
Ah. Yes. That. No wonder Sakura feels like she has way too much chakra, even more than she normally did in the past (future?). With a huff, she begins to focus, shoving part of it into the seal on her forehead, drawing in deep breaths. Once she's satisfied, she grabs the Konoha hitai-ate on her dresser and ties up her hair with it.
Hmm. The seal will be usable in a few days, but I doubt we'd need to… she thinks. But there is something called Murphy's Law… [1]
Sakura sighs, checks her image in the mirror, and heads downstairs to meet her mother for the first time in months.
X
Kakashi is rudely awoken by an obnoxiously loud alarm, and with a growl, Kakashi grabs the offending object and hurls it against the wall, not quite awake until he hears the telltale sound of glass shattering and blinks blearily at the new hole in his wall.
His chakra's still there, intact, untouched. A little wary, he cautiously opens Obito's eye, and murmurs a Kamui under his breath. The broken pieces of the alarm clock disappear, and Kakashi's chakra is barely touched at all.
Wonderment fills him, and Kakashi has to forcefully push it out of his mind to savor later, reaching over to his nightstand to put on his hitai-ate. He slides it into place carefully, the cloth a familiar warmth over Obito's eye.
Kakashi swings his legs over the side of his bed, setting the blankets aside so he can take a quick shower and get dressed.
He looks around in his apartment, checking the security and fixing some things here and there after a shower and getting a change of clothes. Once he's satisfied, he smiles at the notice on his door, the paper an obnoxious (Gai) green so he can't miss it.
"Getting another genin team today. Better pass them. It's Obito's nephew, Sasuke, and Minato-sensei's kid, Naruto, along with a civilian girl, Sakura. Come about three hours late."
Kakashi smiles at the note, taking the page and folding it in half before setting it on the couch for later.
Let's see how they react when I come on time, hmm?
X
Tenzo opens his eyes to a wall. A very familiar wall, in the ANBU barracks. He had woken up to it many times. He had not expected to again.
"Kai," he mumbles under his breath.
Nope, not a genjutsu then.
So the weird old guy who'd visited him all of a sudden wasn't a dream.
He rolls over and out of his bed, spotting a familiar cat mask hanging on the bedpost, and briefly he looks around the room he shares with Bee, Fox, and Rat. His roommates are still sleeping quietly, and Tenzo quickly gets dressed and grabs the mask before heading to the bathroom to wash up.
Tenzo looks into the mirror. He looks a few years younger, but it's not much of a difference.
But he'll most certainly have to get used to talking to Kakashi-senpai who insists on calling him by his given name, forgoing the professional "Cat" or "Yamato"—he'll have to kill the habit of correcting anybody who uses his name with a "it's Yamato", since that codename doesn't exist yet, if it ever will.
His mouth quirks up around the edges faintly, like the ghost of a smile. It's barely there, and nobody would notice, save perhaps Kakashi-senpai. Kakashi-senpai has always been good at reading him. He's not entirely certain that's a good thing.
You've been given a chance, use it! a small voice in the back of his head shouts.
Tenzo leaves the bathroom, slipping on his cat mask, and along with it, his Cat persona.
I will. Oh, I will, he thinks, and leaves the room just as Bee and Fox stir.
X
WAKE UP YOU STUPID BRAT!
Naruto falls out of his bed out of sheer shock when Kurama's irate voice echoes throughout his head.
He moans in pain when he feels the lump growing at the base of his skull, grimacing and sitting up. Quickly, a rush of Kurama's fiery chakra heals the tiny injury.
That hurt, Kurama, Naruto grouses. Hey, was that really the Sage of Six Paths?
Oh, I don't know, why don't you check in a mirror? Kurama snaps back sarcastically.
Okay, okay! Who shoved a stick up your chakra infused ass anyways? Naruto retorts, picking himself up and stumbling to the bathroom mirror.
Oh. Okay.
Oh. Okay. That was definitely the Sage.
Kurama huffs in annoyance as Naruto begins to wash his face and brush his teeth. So, now we make plans.
Oh! I know! Let's go kill Danzo and Kabuto and Orochimaru and—
Shut up you idiot. You can't change that many things at once.
What? Why? Naruto complains, getting changed.
Kurama lets out a long suffering sigh. Because, you dumbass, if we did, the timeline would change completely. We'd have no idea what'll happen.
…Oh.
But we can still change the little things, and change the bigger things as they come. Like, the top of our list should be 'let's not let that Uchiha bastard defect in a slow and gradual manner'.
His name is Sasuke, Kurama!
Whatever, who cares, because I sure as hell don't. Anyways, you can kill Danzo after revealing him. Kill him now, and you'll be accused of murder. Though the asshole totally deserves it.
Naruto growls a little in frustration, but breathes in a sigh to calm himself down. I hate to admit it, but you're right, he mutters. What about Obito?
Let's not worry about that yet. Today's your first day as a genin; I suggest you change your attitude towards the Uchiha brat and the civilian girl.
Naruto bristles a little at the way Sakura and Sasuke are mentioned, but supposes it's a step in the right direction, as he's not blatantly offending them. And I guess we'll need to make them stronger, right? As in, motivate them?
Yes. Good. You're thinking on the right track.
Coming from Kurama, the Kyuubi no Youko, that's a huge compliment. Naruto gives a wide grin, snatching the Konoha headband hanging by the door and tying it on. Alright, then. And on the way, let's become the Hokage!
Kurama positively smiles, albeit reluctantly and accompanied by an eye-roll. Yes, o Hokage-sama.
Hey! Call me that when I actually get the position, asshole!
X
[1] Eh Murphy's Law shouldn't technically exist in the Naruto-verse but who cares because I don't. If you're curious, Murphy's Law basically states that everything that can go wrong will go wrong; it's practically made for the Naruto-verse.
a/n: yay more shitty writing from me
So I probably won't continue this if nobody shows interest because what's the point? This is mostly a way to work the stupid plot bunnies out of my system but I know how I want this to go.
Constructive criticism is welcomed with open arms.