Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto and the Naruto franchise.

Author's Note: Hello! Pleasure to meet you, this is Zen, and this is the first chapter of a brand new story - not a sequel to the Spring of the Plague, I'm afraid, even though there is a season in the title, and it will be a little bit different in style. The thing with Spring was that I put in pretty much everything I ever wanted to deal with in the Naruto plotline on the theme of revenge. I don't think I'm ever going to write much better than Chapter 18 onwards of the Spring, but I won't let that stop me! Hopefully, we only get better with practice.

This time, however, I'm going to be playing a game. It might get a little bit surreal, a little confusing at points, but is that really a surprise when 'dream' is in the title?

It started off from two ideas: a) I want a whole family of Juugos descending on Konoha b) 13 year old Sasuke meeting 16 year old Shippuuden Naruto.

Updates, sadly, are going to be slower than I would like and probably irregular. I'm writing my own fiction at the moment, and the main reason I dumped this out is because otherwise I could hardly sleep for voices in my head!

Anyway, without further ado, here starts off Dream of Winter - a Zenthisoror take on the time-travelling fiction.

Best, Zen :D

The teahouse off the road to Konoha was well known for having a very patient matron.

She was patient because it paid to be patient. Every man with a wallet, a sweet tooth and a well-nurtured caffeine addiction was a worthy customer, but the road to Konoha seemed to take a perverse delight in sending her specimens that really put her renowned patience to the test.

She didn't mean ninjas per se. The ninjas were to be expected. You couldn't hope to start up business around Konoha without catering for ninjas, and, on the whole, they tended to be good customers anyway. They paid in cash - sometimes suspiciously stained cash, but cash nonetheless; came in small groups that kept to themselves and spoke with their heads down, if they spoke at all; and when they left it was without a fuss, leaving neat clean tables behind, as though they had never been sitting there at all. The matron fancied that was force of habit.

No, what the matron meant were the customers that made her want to shrivel and die and curl up in a tea jar until they had left without even realising just how much they were making her suffer, the customers that brought in and left behind baggage.

Let's say, for example, the customers who came to the shop dowsed head to toe in slime and shaking river water out of their ears; or the customers that liked to chat away whilst the smell of sweat and smoke rising from their clothes settled in the booth alongside them like an extra, especially hard to throw out, companion.

At the moment the matron was amending her list to include customers who, with a bright white smile and look of intense concentration, picked their noses with the tip of a kunai like they were on a hunt for buried treasure.

"Naruto! That's disgusting! Put it away," hissed Sakura, after the matron taking their orders had given Naruto a long, dark look and stalked off to the kitchen, muttering under her breath about 'patience' and 'manners' and 'baggage'.

"It must have been a very large piece of snot if you couldn't chip it out with a kunai."

Naruto stowed away the incriminating knife and scowled at Sai. "You guys are disgusting. I wasn't picking my nose. I was just trying to get at this really massive splinter that happened to be up my nose, that's all!"

"Naruto, you're not convincing anybody."

"Well, you both saw that pine tree sneak up on me earlier, right?"

"You mean, the moment you jumped face first into the side of tree?"

"It came out of nowhere! I swear it snuck up on me like a Kiri-nin, dammit. I got a whole faceful of tree shrapnel – "

Kakashi leaned against the wall of the booth and watched Naruto and Sakura bicker whilst Sai pulled out a new self-help book and started to read. Kakashi knew they were more tired than they were letting on. Aside from Naruto's mishap with the tree, Sakura's attempts to keep Naruto in line were becoming increasingly half-hearted, and Sai had been reading the same page of his book for the past three days without appearing to have got any further than halfway down.

It had been a long mission, if only a simple one. A lord from the Land of Iron had been staying in Konoha for a month on a diplomatic visit to the Land of Fire. Their job had been to escort him back to the borders of Iron and ensure he was received by correct officials at the checkpoint. There hadn't been any trouble, but three weeks of furtive glances over shoulders and ears twitching to every hard-edged hiss that could either be branches rasping together or a sheathed blade brushing against cloth, quite unsurprisingly took its toll on the psyche.

The important thing now was that it was all almost over. With sufficient caffeine and sugar top-up, Kakashi predicted that they would make it back to Konoha, hot water, clean beds and food that hadn't been created in a lab to contain all things good and great about food apart from flavour, well before sunset.

"She always gives us that dirty look when we come through here," Naruto groused, rolling the hand towel on the table into a snake and then unravelling it. "I reckon that lady has it in for ninjas. She's prejudiced, she is. Seriously prejudiced. Right, Sensei?"

A voice sounded out from above them. "One house special parfait, one anmitsu, one kuzukiri and green tea all around?"

Naruto looked up at the waiter and froze in his seat.

Dark eyes. Dark hair tied back in a neat sleek tail. A pale face with lines much too severe for its age.

Sakura made a small noise at the back of her throat like she had been strangled and hands jumped instinctively to weapons pouches.

The waiter didn't seem to notice. He continued to smile, set down a cup of tea in front of each stunned ninja, and deftly slid a towering green parfait onto the table for Naruto.

When he straightened, the waiter finally must have realised that something was amiss. His smile faded and, glancing about the table, his face took on a nervous waxy sheen. "I'm sorry. Is there a problem with the order?"

Naruto had turned almost as green as his parfait. Sakura and Sai were openly staring.

Kakashi coughed into his fist and cleared his throat. "Not at all, but would you mind answering a few questions for us?"

"Some questions? I'll certainly try," the waiter said obligingly. "But if it's anything about the local area, I'm afraid I won't be much help. I've only been here since Tuesday, you see."

"Ah! I thought you were new. Where are you from?"

"Kareha. Born and bred," said the waiter with a tinge of pride. "My father runs a pottery and usually I work there with him, but my mother runs this teahouse, and she did a number on her hip recently, so I'm here helping her out until that's all sorted."

"I see, so your mother's the matron. She's a very patient lady. Famous for it around here, actually."

Naruto snorted and mumbled something about prejudice behind his parfait.

The waiter laughed. "Well, she certainly tries, although I wish she could be half as patient with her son as she is with her customers." He eyed Kakashi warily and gripped the tea-tray tight. "Is that all for questions, sir?"

"Oh, yes." Kakashi nodded. "Sorry to keep you."

The young man dipped his head, pushed his ponytail over his shoulder, and all but fled back to the kitchen.

As soon as he had disappeared, Naruto looked to Kakashi and gasped, "That was Itachi!"

"No, Naruto," said Kakashi levelly. "Just a young man with the terrible misfortune of looking and sounding very much like Itachi, although coming from a civilian town like Kareha, it's doubtful that he himself knows of the resemblance."

"Looked very much like - !? Sensei, that guy was practically Itachi's clone!"

"I can assure you, Naruto, that that young man wouldn't even be able to manipulate chakra, let alone be Uchiha Itachi. I checked with the sharingan. He's no more a ninja than the teahouse matron herself. Now, calm down."

Naruto grumbled and, snatching up his spoon, stabbed it down into the parfait. "Bet you wouldn't have been so cool if you hadn't been able to check with your eye, Kakashi-sensei."

"You lose your bet then, Naruto," Kakashi said lightly, covering the breath he took to ease his heart-rate as an inhalation of the steam coming off his tea. "Plenty of ninjas are capable of distinguishing a threat from non-threat without having a party trick like I do, and, by now, you really ought to be capable of doing so as well."

Naruto scowled then slumped down in his seat and throw up his arms in defeat. "Okay! Fine! I admit it! I freaked out and stopped thinking when I thought we'd been caught out by Akatsuki's new crazy plan to take over the world with a bogus teahouse chain."

"Naruto stopped thinking?" said Sai blandly, turning a page of his book. "I hadn't even realised he had started thinking. Should I perhaps make a report of this?"

"But, it does make you wonder, doesn't it?" Sakura murmured, as Naruto gnashed his teeth at Sai, her gaze sliding to the booth beside the entrance, where the waiter was taking the orders of a man in a hooded cloak. "If Uchiha Itachi had grown up in a civilian town, he might have smiled and got nervous and scared just like the rest of us, and been just another normal human being."

"Nah, not that one." Naruto firmly shook his head. "Itachi would never have been normal. He could have been born a weasel in the forest or something and he still would have ended up Uber-King of the Mass Murdering Weasels."

"Quite simply, Sakura," Kakashi stepped in as the girl mouthed Naruto's words to herself as though echoing the sounds of a foreign language, "Uchiha Itachi is only the Uchiha Itachi we all know and love today precisely because of his superhuman abnormality. To make him ordinary would make him no longer Itachi."

Naruto threw the spoon into the bottom of his scraped out parfait glass with a flourish of triumph. "Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. Thanks, Kakashi-sensei."

As Sakura opened her mouth to tell Naruto just how much she doubted that and maybe demonstrate with her fist the strength of her opinion, Sai closed his book (How to Read the Air - Timing in Conversations and other Everyday Social Interactions) with a snap. "Would now be a good moment to make the appropriate finger gesture that will catch the waiter's attention, so that we can ask for the bill?"

"It certainly would be, but," Kakashi pressed Sai's hand to the table as the boy made to flip up a single finger that was neither the first, the ring or the little one, "maybe, Sai, leave the asking to me."

They left the teahouse minutes later, arguing loudly and energetically as they stepped out into the cold, without taking a single notice of the hooded man in the booth beside the entrance.

The man wrapped his cloak tighter about him as the group passed by, relaxing his hold on his hood only when their voices had faded away from the door.

"Noisy lot, aren't they?" quipped the matron with a scowl, setting the cup of tea down onto the table a little harder than perhaps she had intended.

"They were certainly lively," agreed the man. He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave the matron a mild, pleasant, easy-going smile. "Do they come here often?"

"More often than I would like, and today they had the cheek of interrogating my son as though he was some kind of criminal."

Kabuto, warming his hands on the cup of tea, raised his eyebrows and appeared concerned. "I'm sorry to hear that. Poor boy. That must have been difficult for him."

"Oh, no, it wasn't as bad as I've made it sound. It's simply that…" The matron trailed off. She blew out her cheeks and shook her head. "It's simply that so many of my ninja customers have been questioning and probing him since he's come to help me that I can't help but worry for him. Some of the ninjas' reactions have been rather aggressive, to say the least, and none of them will tell us why they react in such a way. They always seem very embarrassed."

Kabuto was all wide-eyed sympathy. "It sounds as though he ought to leave here as soon as he possibly can. How long does he intend to stay?"

"Three months, possibly two, depending on how long it takes for my hip to sort itself out." She looked over her shoulder to where her son was wilting under the glares of another ninja team. "I pray that nothing will happen to him during that time."

"Indeed," Kabuto said warmly, nodding in agreement. "We can only pray."

As he made his way back to the kitchen, the young waiter froze. His head was already half-ducked under the hangings in the doorway. He slowly withdrew, straightened and looked back behind him.

His heartbeat throbbed in his ears, not quick, not drumming, but desperately loud, beating against his brain in an attempt to make him notice something, something absolutely essential for his survival in the near future.

He scanned the booths of the shop. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. His skin suddenly felt ill-fitting and uncomfortable, itchy like dirty robes.

What? He demanded of himself, as the chatter of the customers faded beneath the earnest beat in his chest and their faces seemed to blur together. What am I supposed to see?

But the waiter was a Kareha civilian potter and not a Konoha ninja, so when he felt the sensation of being watched, observed and measured for a part in some wicked scheme, he failed to recognise it.

The waiter shook his head, told himself it must have been the chill of a stray draught snapping through the room, and carried on into the kitchen with the parfait glasses balanced on his tray.

Kabuto set down his money on the table and left.

Orochimaru had a peculiar characteristic that only those who lived with the man knew about. Those who knew, however, paid special attention never to mention it to their master, because to point out that the great Orochimaru could be affected by something so trivial as the weather was tantamount to climbing headfirst into Manda's jaws, body greased in butter to better slide down his throat.

Yes, Orochimaru the Snake Sannin was affected by the weather more so than the average human. Kabuto had noticed with no small amusement that on hotter days Orochimaru had a spring in his step, tended to eat better and was inclined to teach Sasuke harder and more complex jutsus that more often than not had an explosive quality to them.

On colder days it was very much the opposite. Orochimaru was sluggish (by his standards only. By all the usual ninja standards, he was still dangerously quick-witted) and pensive. He avoided his more difficult work, spent more time in bed, and, weighed down by thoughts of his decaying body and desperate quest for immortality, was generally keener to heckle and be needlessly cruel to his subordinates.

Sometimes Kabuto wondered what would happen if they took Orochimaru to the Land of Snow. Perhaps the man would slink off under a rock, curl up and hibernate. He was more snake than man these days after all.

But it was on such Cold Days, when Orochimaru was turning over slow and dark and bitter thoughts like he was churning a bucket of congealing blood and especially mindful of the imperfection of his body, that Kabuto had to tread with particular care.

Orochimaru set aside the dinner that he had barely touched onto the bedside table. "You are quiet this evening, Kabuto. Is there something on your mind?"

Kabuto was replacing books from a pile onto shelf. He stopped and composed his face into the humble smile of a patient and loyal subordinate. "I was thinking about the Fushi Tensei, Orochimaru-sama."

"What a coincidence." Orochimaru's tongue flickered between his teeth to catch at the air. "The same thing happened to be on my mind as well, and what of it?"

"Are you planning on carrying out the ritual sometime soon, my lord?"

Orochimaru eyed Kabuto with a cold, yellow gaze that would have made lesser men twitch and squeak like mice.

"It will have to be done within the month," Orochimaru answered shortly. "This body will not hold up for much longer. It is rejecting me. I can feel it fighting to be rid of me even now as we speak." Like a rat gnawing at boils upon its very own skin. "Why do you ask?"

"Orochimaru-sama," began Kabuto with a bow, because it never hurt to dip his head when facing someone who, if the mood took him, would snap Kabuto's neck and dip his head for him, "you told me before that the Fushi Tensei is a battle of wills, in which one will, your will, overwhelms and devours the other. In the past, this has been so, except you have never have had to battle for your will to triumph – your chosen bodies all willingly offered their bodies to you.

"Uchiha Sasuke, however," Kabuto wrinkled his nose at the thought of the other apprentice lurking somewhere in the base, most likely in the training room, where the boy usually took off to at night, "I don't think he will let himself be overpowered so easily."

To Kabuto's surprise, Orochimaru agreed. "No, Sasuke will not, but I have known that for quite some time. Sasuke's loyalty to me is tenuous, if we could call such a thing loyalty. He is loyal to himself and his petty little blood quest, and I – I know that he sees me as little but a means to an end! The insolence of it all!" Orochimaru spat, glaring at his hands, but then he closed his eyes and chuckled with a hollow clicking sound, snapping his tongue against the back of his incisors. "Sasuke's allegiance to me is nothing more than a genjutsu that he will have me believe in until he gets what he wants, but how typical of an Uchiha, to be so proud!"

Kabuto listened in silence as Orochimaru seemed torn between admiration for Sasuke's pedigree Uchiha spirit and fury that the boy had never bowed and become his creature like Kimimaro had.

Orochimaru folded his hands together on top of the sheets and chuckled again. "But ironically, perhaps in his pursuit for vengeance we could say that Sasuke is unwaveringly loyal to his brother. He is following his Itachi's last wishes to the letter after all..."

"But Orochimaru-sama, that is precisely my point," Kabuto pressed him. "So long as Sasuke has Uchiha Itachi, and Itachi's death as his goal, he has a purpose and direction of his own, a life of his own, loyalties of his own – too many things to give up or entrust to you when you take over his mind. Everything is about him, himself and his own free will. He will most certainly try to overpower you during the Fushi Tensei!"

"Kabuto," hissed Orochimaru with sudden menace, a white gleam in his eye, "since when did you have the nerve to suggest that I, Orochimaru, would lose in the Fushi Tensei to a sixteen year old Uchiha child?"

"Forgive me, Orochimaru-sama, it was not my intention to imply such a thing," Kabuto backtracked hastily, resisting the urge to shield himself behind the book he held in his hands. "I simply wondered how difficult you imagined the fight with Sasuke was going to be, and whether, if I found a way to, perhaps, tip the odds in your favour, you would be interested."

Candles in the alcoves wavered. Orochimaru's lips peeled back from his mouth in a wide, wide smile that stretched up to his ears. "We are ninjas, Kabuto. We sneak in the shadows and backstab and poison. It is in our natures to fight dishonourably, despite what the newer, softer ninja generations of today are saying. What is it that you suggest?"

"Sasuke-kun's will's strongest weapon and defence in the Fushi Tensei is his goal to kill Uchiha Itachi. All we have to do is create a temporary opening in his defence to allow your will, Orochimaru-sama, to get through, and in order to do that, we need him to, for a fraction of a second, to doubt and give up on his goal. In short - " Kabuto wiped his hands of dust from the shelves and bent to collect the tray bearing Orochimaru's unfinished meal. "- we need Sasuke to temporarily despair."

Orochimaru's eyes burned bright in the gloom. "You have found a way other than killing Uchiha Itachi himself?"

Kabuto smiled. "Sasuke-kun need only doubt for a second or less, however long it takes for your great mind, Orochimaru-sama, to invade an opening in his. A warm, fresh corpse that looks just enough like Itachi to shock him will be more than sufficient for the trick."

Four Weeks Later

To the Hokage of Konoha,

Greetings from the Wild Gods Mountain. We hope that this letter finds you well in this unusually cold winter. I am writing on behalf of my clan, the Koujins, an old clan that perhaps you might have heard of.

We recently received news that a young man displaying characteristics associated with our kekkei genkai was rescued from a research compound and taken in by Konohagakure. We are concerned as to the extent to which the secrets of our kekkei genkai have been uncovered and would like to send a delegation to visit Konoha, settle his affairs in the Land of Fire and bring him back to our village.

A number of years ago one of our younger clansmen left our mountain in an act of voluntary exile, considering himself too dangerous even amongst the Wild Gods. From descriptions of his behaviour in captivity, we believe that you have taken in Koujin Juugo, said young clansman. He is sorely missed and we are hoping to reunite him with his remaining family members.

As a clan, we are also aware that we have become very isolated from the affairs of the Land of Fire in the past century or so. We are hoping that our visit will be an opportunity to remedy this, and to announce to a new generation that we are ready to play an active role in lowlands society again.

For these reasons, we will be sending a diplomatic delegation expected to arrive in Konoha on 12th Mutsuki, consisting of our elders and a contingent of guards as befitting their status. We predict that we will be staying in Konoha for a month, or however long it takes to recover what has been found out about our kekkei genkai.

I am sure that as the Hokage you appreciate our wish to keep our clan secrets to ourselves. That our kekkei genkai may have been stolen and twisted to suit another's malicious purposes is a great shame and dishonour to the Koujin clan.

I will look forward to making your acquaintance on 12th, in Konoha.

Regards,

Koujin Tahei

On behalf of Koujin Hatsu, Tetsu and Tsukinowa – Koujin Elders.

In the Land of Fire there was a cave that did not exist.

It did not exist the same way that the great wooden statue inside it, all mildewed and grey and hidden in shadow, did not exist.

Likewise there was a man who did not exist, who held meetings that did not happen, and right at that moment, the shapes of his followers were not standing atop of the great wooden statue's fingers, as robed shadows flickering with twists of blue.

This meeting with the Akatsuki leader, therefore, did not take place, and nobody spoke.

Business as usual then, but let us hypothetically reconstruct just what one such non-existent meeting would have been like, had it actually occurred.

"There has been a development that concerns me," rang out a voice in the dark.

"Well, obviously, otherwise you wouldn't have called us together," grumbled another, before adding hurriedly, "Sorry, boss, no disrespect meant."

A third voice chimed in. "Is this about the clan from Wild Gods Mountain?"

"I heard that they've sent a delegation to Konoha. About…you know," the fourth voice suddenly trailed off, and eyes slid sideways to the man on the neighbouring finger. The man did not respond, but simply stared ahead into the dark with glowing red eyes.

"That members of the Koujin clan have come down from their Mountain should be a worry to us all," said the first voice briskly, taking the lead again. "The Koujin clan has not been seen in the Land of Fire for centuries. They keep to themselves, apparently for their own good, but the Wild Gods Mountain is named after the clan and if that's a reference to their potential power, we cannot underestimate them. I want to know everything about this clan – what their present state is, what their intentions are, what they can do, and whether we will be able to potentially use them for our cause."

A shadow snorted and flipped its hair out of its eyes. "You don't believe they're coming for a simple diplomatic mission then, do you?"

Eyes smiled and the voice continued. "I want one of you to be undercover in Konoha for the period of the Koujin clan's visit."

"Undercover? Like lying low and wearing disguises?" chattered one of the shadows excitedly.

"Sir," spoke up the shadow with the red eyes at last, his voice cutting through the buzz of voices in the cave. "Kisame and I are already stationed near Konoha. Considering that the delegation will arrive in a matter of days and we are pressed for time, it is only logical that one of us should go."

The silence prickled with ripples of suspicion and amused snorts.

"When you say either you or Kisame," a shadow gestured but his hand movement was lost in a blur of blue light, "you mean yourself, right?"

"Of the two of us it would be wiser to send me in," the red-eyed shadow agreed. "I have a history with Konoha, and that is only to my advantage. I will have them believe that I have left the Akatsuki and returned to the village. Come home at last, if you will."

Another shadow scoffed and leaned against his scythe. "Yeah, and Konoha will just open her gates and accept you in with open arms, no problem. They'll throw you straight into prison to make friends with the torturer."

"I will tell them that I left the Akatsuki because I was seriously ill and having difficulties carrying out my duties, so the leader tried to dispose of me, having no need for a broken tool," suggested the red-eyed shadow and the large figure with a sword on the finger beside him snorted. "If they continue to suspect me, I will say that Akatsuki sent me in to Konoha to investigate the Koujin delegation with the aim of recruitment, but that I am abandoning them to save my skin. Remaining with the organisation would prevent me from accessing medical care that I need to live, and if I stayed the leader would destroy me as soon as he found out about my condition. Besides, it will not hurt for Konoha to know that the Koujin clan is dangerous. As for prison, what prison do you imagine could ever contain me?"

"That may be, Itachi, but given recent events, are there perhaps other issues influencing your thoughts?" probed the first voice.

Red eyes glowed like hot beads of iron. "Concerning my mission to capture the Nine-tailed Jinchuuriki, my posting in Konoha itself will also serve as an advantage. The Nine-tailed Jinchuuriki is currently occupied with a matter within Konoha, and I hear that he won't be taking missions outside of the village for the next three months. If I get within the walls, I will be closer to our target and be more likely to spot an opportunity for capturing him."

"I was actually asking about your younger brother," the first voice said with amusement and the red-eyed shadow went grimly quiet. "I hear he's not quite been his usual self for the past three weeks, since being found in Orochimaru's lair by his old teammates. No sign of Orochimaru for the past three weeks either. All rather mysterious, wouldn't you say?""

The shadow flickered blue and red. "He was weak and foolish and paid the price. I am ashamed to have called him my brother."

"As for you being sick enough that the Akatsuki will no longer have any need of you, unless you receive urgent hospital treatment," the first voice rolled on smoothly and slowly, "how do you plan on creating that particular disguise?"

"There is no better disguise than no disguise at all, sir."

After a minute of stunned silence, the leader of the Akatsuki straightened from his sitting position on the great wooden statue. "Then I will expect a raven every four days with updates on your progress, Itachi. Kisame will remain stationed near Konoha to support you in case of emergency."

"Understood, sir."

The large shadow with a sword grunted. "Support seems to be my middle name these days."

" – if this works, I mean I tried the finger-snap thing, and it still – I mean – wait, wait a moment – "

In the dark space of unconsciousness, the sudden echo of an unfamiliar voice stirred up a cloudy swirl of alarm.

"- definitely something –"

Was that a torch being shined into his face? A torch? Really?

He could feel soft warmth on his face, or was that the soft warmth of his face? Possibly, but the warmth of the torchlight was soon coupled with the crunch of dust being pressed down under feet, or perhaps knees, and breathing that he could not only hear, but feel lightly on his forehead…

Alright, whoever it was, they were much too close for comfort.

"Ouch! Damn you, bastard! What was that for?" A pause and the light shining through Sasuke's eyelids – yes, eyelids, he was aware of eyelids now, that was good, it meant he had eyes – got yellower, brighter. "I don't believe it. He isn't even fully conscious and he still socks me on the jaw."

Well, it served him right, for getting so close, but Sasuke's brain was finally catching up with what was going on around him and it was raising some very disturbing flags.

Number one, there was somebody with a vaguely familiar, but verging on unfamiliar, voice sitting in very close proximity to him and talking if not to air then somebody else, suggesting not one, but multiple unfamiliar people in the room, possibly surrounding him.

Number two, as Unfamiliar-Possibly-Familiar had spoken his voice had echoed in a way that suggested a high ceiling and hard walls, which was very distinctly not how voices sounded in Sasuke's flat. Not to mention that the gritty floor pressing into his shins was cold and likely stone.

Oh, and number three, he seemed to be slumped at the base of a wall – it could have been worse, he could have been lying down, but all the same, backed up against a wall was not a good starting point for fighting his way out.

Because surrounded by strange people in a strange place, what other possible course of action was he going to take?

"Goddamit!" Cloth stretched and blades in a weapons pouch clinked, as Unfamiliar-Possibily-Familiar stood up and yelled. Sasuke froze and listened as the voice continued. "He did something to him! This is even worse than how he was before!"

"Naruto, please calm down." There was company after all. A girl. Familiar? Unfamiliar?

Wait, who was he kidding? He was a ninja. If there was even a fraction of a reason to suspect or doubt, then he shouldn't be wasting his time considering otherwise.

Settled then. Both present members of company were Sufficiently Unfamiliar to be Cause for Concern.

"I knew it. I knew he was just going to…The next time we see him, I'm going to peel his face off using those face-lines as my guidelines." Footsteps crunched on dust again. He was close. He was standing right over Sasuke. Knee joints creaked, then the – man? - was squatting in front of him.

The torch-light swung into his face again. "Last chance, bastard, give us a sign, or – "

Sasuke opened his eyes at the same time as his fist flew forward. His punch collided with bone - the chin of Sufficiently-Unfamiliar-Number-One – a blond teenaged boy, older and bigger than Sasuke, likely a bruiser, not a speedster - and the blond toppled backwards with a squawk, flailing and dropping the torch.

Why had the guy been carrying a torch anyway? The room was lit well enough to be able to see without one, but now wasn't the time to question the sense of his captors. The girl had made a move. He had seen a pink blur out of the corner of his eye.

A blond with a loud mouth and a partner-in-crime pink-haired female? Did somebody think they were being funny?

Sasuke planted one foot on ground, readied to kick off and twist for a feinting high blow, when a blond clone grabbed both of his ankles and slammed him flat on the ground.

His chin smacked stone and the breath was knocked out of him. He thought he had heard his knees crack, but damn, how had he even let the clone catch him? He must have seriously miscalculated his leg reach.

As Sasuke lay there, winded and muscles aching, hands seized his shoulders with a surprising gentleness and turned him over - the girl, with the short pink hair, who if he hadn't known better he might have thought was an older sister of Sakura's. The similarities were worryingly uncanny.

Speaking of uncanny similarities, the blond clone standing over Sasuke with its arms akimbo and a huge grin plastered across its face as it regarded its handiwork…

He blinked up into the light and stared. Whiskers, scars, birth-marks – whatever they were – just before the clone had waggled its fingers and popped out of existence, he had seen lines on the young man's face, plain as day.

Three straight lines on each cheek.

He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry and his breathing was becoming harsher and louder and more irregular by the minute.

Either Sasuke had been kidnapped by some sick freaks who liked to terrorise him dressed up as his (friends) teammates, or Naruto and Sakura had teamed up (was the world about to end and he, Sasuke, the only one left in the dark?) for a prank – an elaborate prank where they had henge-d to make themselves look older for gods knew why - and Sasuke had just been taken down by a kunoichi who was doing alright but could certainly do better, and the loser of the century who thought orange was stealthy and tactics a kind of mint.

That was ridiculous, of course, and Sasuke quickly dismissed the idea, but then that would leave him with only the first incredibly disturbing scenario, or the third and worst scenario of all.

A genjutsu, whispered a voice, from that treacherous part of his mind that liked to torment him, and remind him with barbed, bitter prods that he was weak, small and foolish. And a powerful genjutsu at that.

Genjutsu or freaks, either way, the situation was looking bad, although it could be worse, he thought with a sudden swoop of dread - the others might have been captured as well and held somewhere separately, but why? Why was this happening to them?

The blond teenager with the face marks, who looked strikingly similar to Naruto, came to squat alongside the girl who looked like Sakura. The Naruto-lookalike was rubbing at a bruise that was spreading wide and mottled like an ink stain across his chin. Sasuke noted it with with a warm curl of satisfaction.

"Man, Sasuke," the Naruto-lookalike said, in that unfamiliar-familiar voice, "as much as I know you hate me, what was that? That was, like, nought to Assigned-Personal-Punch-Bag-for-my-Uchiha-Angst in two seconds!"

He even sounded like him. Sasuke clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists, felt nails bite. He had to keep a grip on himself, either that or lose his grip on reality entirely and that was too terrifying a thought to bear.

"Who are you, and why do you look like Naruto and Sakura?" he demanded. "And why am I here?"

To Sasuke's astonishment, the Naruto-lookalike and Sakura-lookalike gasped, and exchanged a look that could almost have been called joy. Sakura-lookalike's eyes glistened. Sasuke had to hand it to these imposters - their theatrics weren't half-bad. The Naruto-lookalike had broken into a smile that could have advertised sunbeams.

"It worked. I don't believe it…it actually…Oi, Sasuke, how old are you?"

No way in Hell did he want to answer their questions if they weren't answering his, but if this was the only way to make them speak, and eventually slip and give him something to work with, then so be it. "I'm thirteen. Why?"

"And what's happening tomorrow?" continued the Naruto-lookalike excitedly.

There was no danger about telling them about the Chuunin Exams. Every hidden village and their surrounding civilian towns knew the dates anyway.

"It's the first day of the Chuunin Exams," Sasuke answered warily, trying to read his captors faces for their intentions, but they were far too good. All he saw was astonished near-tearful happiness and not a flicker of anything sinister in the slightest.

"And the last thing you remember is?" prompted the Naruto-lookalike.

"Going to sleep," Sasuke said flatly, wondering if such a boring truth would finally crack these two nuts open and get their ugly cores out on display, but apparently all it seemed to do was make the Naruto-lookalike happier than before.

The Sakura-lookalike helped Sasuke get up from the floor. Not that he needed help. He just felt sore and stiff as though he hadn't used those particular muscles like that in a while, which was odd because he had been stretching and training for much of the previous day. "What is going on?"

The Naruto-lookalike sighed and clapped his left hand on Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke glowered and was about to shrug it off when the lookalike began to talk.

"Sasuke," the lookalike said, before screwing up his face in a look of concentration that was so Naruto Sasuke wanted to punch him (if he hadn't been trying not to provoke the enemy more than he potentially already had done), "don't freak or anything but you – "

"Naruto," said the Sakura-lookalike with a warning growl edging her voice, and Sasuke blinked and stared. They were even using his teammates' names as codenames now? This was going beyond sick. He squirmed under the Naruto-lookalike's grip on his shoulder, but the lookalike took no notice.

"You're kind of in the future," the lookalike finished. Somewhat lamely, as far as Sasuke was concerned.

Whoever hired these guys, he definitely needed to demand a refund.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to try that again?"

"No, really, you are," the Naruto-lookalike insisted, and the Sakura-lookalike nodded stiffly in agreement. "Sasuke, you're three years in the future. I'm Naruto, the real and one and only, and that's the real Sakura - we're both sixteen. You didn't recognise us straight off, did you?" He grinned at Sasuke's stupefied silence. "Guess we all got a lot better looking over the past three years, except Sakura-chan, of course, who's always been beautiful – oh, and exempting you as well. That sour depressed demon-of-vengeance face of yours just stuck, you see. Puberty was all a bit of a tragedy for you. Honestly, we don't know what happened, but I guess the moral of that story is…you shouldn't have looked so miserable all the time."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the self-proclaimed Naruto and Sakura in front of him. The balance was beginning to tilt from freaks involving Sasuke in some sick mind game towards being held captive in a genjutsu, which was all the worse for still being a sick mind game except potentially limitless in its horror.

Wasn't there a way of dispelling a genjutsu? He knew there was a way. Of course there was a way. It was simple. It was elegant. He…Come to think of it, there were several ways of dispelling a genjutsu, so why couldn't he remember any of the methods now?

Think, Sasuke, think. He pushed himself. He had to remember something.

But all he could find in his head was gaping emptiness.

Nothing.

A cold band of fear tightened about his chest.

'Naruto' was talking again. "You're probably thinking that you're in a genjutsu of some kind."

"Quit screwing around. I know this a genjutsu," Sasuke snapped and he hated the tremor that shook his voice. "You've made it so that I don't even remember how to break out from one anymore. What have you done to me?"

"We haven't done anything to you, Sasuke-kun," 'Sakura' said quickly - perhaps a little too quickly?

"Hey, Sasuke, relax. The memory blanks? Yeah, he mentioned that might happen…." 'Naruto' trailed off uncertainly then snapped his fingers as he…recalled something? Made up something? Sasuke couldn't decide. "It's an effect of the time-travelling, and, yeah, you've probably forgotten some other stuff as well, but don't worry too much about it. It'll all come back to you when you go back to your own time."

Sasuke stared at the supposed 'sixteen year old Naruto'. "You're still maintaining this time-travel story?"

"Sure I am," 'Naruto' said with a kind of glee that was artfully straddling the borderline of playful and wicked. "But I know what you're like, and I know that you're probably not going to believe us for ages and ages and ages, but until you do, bastard," he spread his arms wide and gestured around the stone room – the cellar? basement? well? - "welcome to your three years on – a great future where I'm Hokage-in-Training, going out with Sakura, smoking hot when you're not, and people give me free ramen whenever I go out of my house, because I'm just that popular."

'Sakura' smiled sweetly up at 'Naruto' and cracked her knuckles.

"On second thoughts, I take all that back. That was my epic dream from Monday night, and none of that was true, but, welcome to the future anyway."

Welcome to the future!

Review to let me know if you want to know what happens next,if there was anything at all you found interesting, or even if you're confused. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised.

16 year old Sasuke's not quite himself, Juugo's mysterious relatives are on their way, Itachi's going to Konoha to work out what the Koujins want and 13 year old Sasuke's been brought into the future. Why? How? It's all going to go pear-shaped from here.

Thanks for reading. Zen :D