cut time
Seven-and-a-pair nin go back in time to change their pasts.
Yes. I'm perfectly aware that all of them are OOC. No, I don't give a crap.
Naruto
The first day he woke up to a quiet, empty apartment. No Kakashi-sensei busting in to wake him with a well-timed lightning jutsu (even if he dodged all of those anyway, he was just that awesome), nor Sakura-chan a warm presence buried into his side. Just himself, in a - vastly larger bed? What the hell? Scrambling to his side, he propped himself up on one arm. There was a - hell. He gazed at the orange jumpsuit, rolled up around his knees, and stared for too long a while before reaching out a hand to touch the familiar fabric.
Unfortunately said hand was the one he was propping himself up on, and he rolled off the bed.
"Guh," he managed, narrowly avoiding a nearby bedpost, hauling himself up onto his feet. A moment later Uzumaki Naruto, demon container of Konoha, did a happy jig on his bed, something that he hadn't been able to do for years, at least not after he'd gotten his new set of muscles in training. Wait, training.
Just how far back had he come? Just how much would he be able to change? And...he shuddered a little. What had happened to the self he had erased? Hell. He didn't want to think about it.
Looking around for the hitai-ate he had so prized, it usually tied around the base of his bed, he stopped. And stared.
Oh, hell.
There was no hitai-ate. Just a pair of goggles.
...Oh. Hell.
Tenten
"I'm home," she said to the empty air, chuckling at the pathetic joke even as she stroked the gentle lines of the bamboo planks. She had spent hours, almost literally days, tracing the sun-washed lines in these planks, the inevitable scuff marks on the crooked ones, and scrubbing the dirt off, well, all of them. They were familiar to her as nothing else was, this dojo that had almost literally been the place that she slept in at night. Rising, she breathed out slowly. They taught perfect calm at this dojo, as calm as the light slanting in through the lone window, that familiar beam of light she had trained with. Perfect calm, perfect balance.
Perfect aim.
She closed her eyes, wandering to a wall, and placed her hand on it, her hair slipping, unmanageable, through the two senbon she had been using for hairpins.
Unfortunate and fortunate that she had come back during the dojo's annual competition with the other fighting dojos in the Village. On the one hand, she had greatly wanted to show the elder of the dojo that he had not made a mistake in practically adopting her, but on the other-
She really didn't want to explain how the six-year-old that he had taken home - was taking home currently - to eat meals with him almost daily was now probably his age mentally, a kunoichi, and pregnant to boot.
Shikamaru
Bothersome, he thought, and blinked. There was a man facing him across the last peace of his hill, watching him with narrowed eyes. Shikamaru looked down, and away. Nothing about the man's stance read danger, and in any case he knew he was simply a six year old child. Most would underestimate him and dismiss him. Since he had no wish to provoke a fight, and even less of moving, he lay back, cushioning his head with clasped hands, watching the clouds passing by.
A shuffle of grass warned him as to movement, but strangely he felt no need to roll away even as the other man, muscular with ninja training, lay down next to him and adopted an identical position.
They had no need to speak. They didn't. The clouds, fluffy and ephemeral, did not seem peaceful with this man near, no matter how safe Shikamaru felt next to him. As if he knew Shikamaru's every thought, could not only follow them with ease but understand where, how, and why they were followed to conclusions.
Even as the faintest hint of curiosity roused, and with it the faintest of fidgets (six years of age only meant that Shikamaru had yet to understand that having a plan for every situation, no matter how mutable, would fail on contact with someone equal to him), the man lit a cigarette and let the smoke, un-inhaled, drift upwards as though it were an ill-formed cloud of its own. Shikamaru stilled. There was a curious symbolism about the older man's action, something that was just out of reach. Something that felt like he was missing a piece of a great puzzle. (Six years of age only meant that while conserving as much energy as possible so as to be ready for anything out of the ordinary was a big part of Shikamaru's life, there was so much of said energy that he had to let it loose in figuring out other things.)
Shikamaru looked at the clouds, letting his mind drift. In time the stranger would move on, and while a part of his mind would always chew on the puzzle, he would not have to deal with this troublesome stranger again.
They stayed there for about the whole afternoon, as their shadows lengthened, and then the interruption finally happened. He sighed; it would be Ino. Who else?
At the first sound of her characteristically loud, boisterous voice, a vein began to throb on his forehead. That vanished in favor of figuring out why he felt the man beside him, ninja for certain, tense and then consciously relax, that being different from involuntary relaxation. Surely, not even the sheer annoyance of Ino could have made a ninja, chuunin or jounin with the way that he moved, tense on first hearing? Unless it wasn't the first time, of course; but Shikamaru could list easily all of the family friends that either Ino, Chouji or he had, their families being so close, and the man didn't fit any of them. No. Something else. Another piece to the great puzzle.
"There you are!" Ino said, looking at him, greatly annoyed. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you? You've made me go all the way around Konoha, you-you-" She stopped, her voice cutting off in a gasp. "Shika-"
"What?" Shikamaru sat up. Not much made or kept Ino quite that amazed, or speaking in a whisper, for quite so long a time. Yeah, yeah, it was only about five seconds, but he could swear that girl had the attention span of a fly. Of course, so did everyone else his age, so what was he to expect?
"Who is he?" She wasn't just staring past him anymore. Her jaw was just open. Never mind having the attention of a fly. She was likely to swallow one.
"I don't know." As much as it galled him to admit it, there was nothing about the man that could be classified. He was a fighting, dangerous ninja, but not a field ninja, not ANBU, nor the Hokage's guards. He moved silently, like the shadows that the Nara family controlled, and yet seemed to have everything predicted. But he didn't look like a Nara?
Shikamaru didn't know how he knew that. Gut instincts were, after all, something that he'd had to pay attention to if he wanted to evade the constantly seeking attentions of his mother, or the girl standing before him.
"Shika, he's so...dark and handsome and mysterious..." her voice came out in a whisper, a hand covering her mouth.
"...Feh. Troublesome," he grumbled, and behind him, he knew the stranger was smiling, slightly, more like a twitch of the lips than a proper smile. The same way that his father might have smiled when his son did something entirely expected, come to think of it.
There was a brief puff of air as the 'dark and handsome and mysterious' ninja left the area, leaving a tile to chink against a small rock in the grass. Shikamaru, still trying to solve this new, great, puzzle, noted another piece of it: a tile from a chess set, reading 'knight'.
And a cigarette without a brand name, but he'd already observed the pack that the man had taken it from. They shouldn't be too hard to trace, but the qi piece - what hidden meaning did it contain...
Shikamaru winced as the squeals began.
Gaara
The room howled with the shuddering efforts of winds against its rock walls, and he slid down, letting his sand take the impact. Damn it, he wasn't looking forward to sparring with the raccoon again, not this soon. And this time, unlike the last three or four, there was no Naruto to absorb the blow.
He didn't need the other jinchuuriki to boost his confidence, his self-esteem, but it was just a comfort to have the man - boy - around. No matter what objections, what depressions, that man simply bulled straight through it, with all the confidence of the sun rising. A harsh comparison from a Kazekage of Suna, but nothing else - he winced - especially with that predilection towards orange - could describe the man - boy - better.
The sun, a cruelty in the Country of Wind, was bright and sunny in the Country of Fire - he was woolgathering. Clearly. He simply did not want to face Shukaku.
This situation was of course made worse by the fact that he knew that in this timeline, Naruto did not know that he existed, and that Temari and Kankuro, his beloved siblings, were currently huddling in the far corner of the room, trying to escape his gaze.
Unlike when Naruto had expressed his fear over having erased a former self by replacing him in the timeline, Gaara knew that he did all a favor by replacing his younger self. Well. All except Shukaku, who would be denied her bloodthirst. Speaking of which...
"I am going to sleep." Passive words, delivered with absolutely nothing behind it, stirred his older siblings to wide-eyed fear.
"Gaara!" - he noted that even at this young age, even over the several months he had spent in this body, Temari had yet to call him -chan, or younger brother, something that she had done frequently in previous timelines - "-You shouldn't do that!"
"Yeah!" Kankuro added, apparently to show support to his sister. "You know bad things happen when you sleep!"
He turned a gaze on them that was as empty as it was frightening. Both promptly shut up.
"Find me a place where I will do no harm."
Kankuro scrambled out of the room promptly, leaving Temari to glare after his retreating back at his cowardice.
"Gaara," she said, possessing even by this stage the beginnings of her great courage to come in the future, "You normally try your hardest not to sleep." -And the beginnings of her great maternal instincts. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "So wh-"
"Found one!" Kankuro promptly tumbled back in, again interrupting his sister, who turned to give him a cold glare. Gaara matched hers with the emptiest he could emulate. This young, frightening Kankuro was as entertaining as levelling Konoha would have been to his original self. End result, Kankuro quailed under the glares that both were giving him, his face uncovered by makeup probably for the last time. His training would begin in the next week, but he had always wished to become a puppeteer. Knowing Kankuro -
Gaara let a small smile escape, genuine for once. With all the grace of the Kazekages he would become and subsequently mentor, he swept out of the room, leaving a perplexed (and perturbed) pair of Sand Siblings behind.
Naruto
Repeat
He blinked, the forest becoming clearer to his sight as the weird film faded away. Sitting up, he checked himself for injuries, before standing. It wasn't the first time he'd woken up in some foreign place, although he was just pissed that he'd travelled this time because he'd made both Sakura-chan and Tsunade-baa-chan angry simultaneously, angry enough to - well - okay, fine, because he'd managed to insult them both worse than Sai did. Breast size and ugliness, insults and all, notwithstanding.
Okay, so. Where and when. He wasn't Konoha's leading-as-in-just-under-Commander-ANBU for nothing. Lifting his head upwards, he could hear the faint sounds of combat echoing through the trees, in the vague direction of the shore.
Without hesitation, he took off running, his feet glowing with chakra and bounding through the trees. As the sounds of combat grew louder, peppered with the screams of the dying and warcries, Naruto checked his pouches for kunai and shuriken and exploding tags. Basic, simple tools. He had never needed anything else.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" - Well, apart from some other help from himself. He spread across the trees, a racing black-and-ochre line, identical blond hairstyles bobbing up and down as he landed on one branch to spring off it, to land on the next one.
The trees parted awkwardly, as one clone leapt down off his tree branch only to be almost casually vaporised by a passing kunai. Even the great Uzumaki Naruto had trouble dodging an unseen kunai in midjump.
The other clones, including himself, halted on their respective branches to view what must have been a medium-sized Hidden Village once, only now shredded and devastated, with ninja still searching through the ruins and letting loose destructive jutsu to vaporise any remaining structures. Their headbands were obscured, unfamiliar in any case; almost old-fashioned. Naruto palmed himself in the forehead. Of course they'd be old-fashioned. He'd 'travelled' again, hadn't he?
Naruto palming himself in the forehead, repeated thousandfold, was the equivalent of a thunderous crack.
As one, the enemy ninja wearing the old headbands paused, looking towards the sound. Naruto palmed his forehead again, making sure that none of his clones did it this time. For Kami's sake, the two bastards at the edge, dragging a wounded kunoichi for a purpose he was painfully afraid to confront, had paused to look towards him!
Unsheathing weapons, at least three four-man squads began to march against him, their hands forming into familiar seals.
Shit, he thought, a moment before he and all his clones leapt in a coordinated movement to dodge the water dragon that blasted their previous perches apart.
Twelve men, no matter how skilled, facing a thousand plus Kage Bunshin of Uzumaki Naruto? Not a chance. Not even bothering to restore the numbers, Naruto directed streams of his clones down all of the available paths, clearing out the rubble of the ancient headband people. Their jutsus were elementary, mostly water-based, to his surprise - who'd let chuunin and bunches of genin sack a freakin' Village?
There was a scream even nearer to the shore, and Naruto stopped unconsciously rubbing his forehead and took off, forming even more clones as he went. There were even more genin and chuunin here, engaged in combat at periodic knots of resistance, their headbands adorned with his spiral.
Wait. What.
No thinking! Time to fight! His clones took out the fighters at the first swell of combat he saw, stunning both sides before he casually decapitated all of those wearing the non-spiral headbands. Chilled, the one jounin whose immunity resisted the stunning, looked at her savior before catching a spiral on a black-and-orange back and froze. Was he -
"Wait!" she called to a clone, had to be a clone, "Who are you?"
No answer, but her instincts caused her to duck as two kunai met over her head, before warm blood spattered her hair. Turning, she saw a chuunin from her Village's attackers (a particularly brutal one, her memory filled in, who had tortured her sempai's genin team before her eyes) plonk onto the ground, his body rolling a different way from his head.
"Ah, sorry," one of the clones said, holstering his kunai and helping her to her feet. "Didn't mean for that to splash over you."
She had been on killing missions before, had been teased about her nearly murderous temper, but, but...this was crazy. This young man, couldn't be older than herself, tall and blond with blue eyes and the faintest of whisker marks on his cheeks, had casually decapitated, well, everyone. Even as other hims also decapitated everyone else. It seemed to be his favorite way of killing, honestly. He had this aura of confidence around him, something that put her at ease innately, made her feel safe, even though he was just a clone. Something was stirring in her belly, acrid heat, warmth.
"So...who are you, again?"
The clone ducked and came up again with a back-kick, knocking the sneaking genin behind him, who had a kunai raised high, into a pile of rubble.
"I'm from Konoha."
It wasn't a real answer, but the sudden guarded look that had come across his face told her not to prod, even though she badly wanted to. She might have been one of the newest jounin in Whirlpool Country, but she wasn't stupid. And she was a granddaughter of Uzumaki Mito, to boot.
The clone's head inclined a fraction before his eyes narrowed. "Well, fuck." A kunai lodged through his stomach, and he vanished with a puff of smoke, without missing a beat. Without missing a beat either, one of the greenest special-case jounin in Whirlpool Country flicked a similar kunai through the smokescreen provided by the killed clone and was rewarded with a howl of pain. Her smile widened, and pausing to wake her fellow ninja with a pulse of chakra to a pressure point each, tossed herself back into the fray.
Elsewhere on the field, Naruto blinked, before doing the last seal in a small sequence and letting a bunch of (stupid) close-gathered squads of genin and chuunin have it, the 'it' in question being a rather large wind jutsu made to shred all in its path. Damn it all, but this invasion force was big. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that it was an attack by a Village unaffected by the Third Shinobi War. But that was just stupid. No matter how far back he'd gone, he'd never gone so far back that the War hadn't happened...right?
The headbands said otherwise. Well. Fuck.
No matter. It just meant there were more ninja to kill. No one else, who would kill an unsuspecting Village, plunder and rape its inhabitants. He was ANBU, he knew the privileges of war, but the very fact that this invasion force outnumbered even Naruto's additions to the village's defenses screamed either overkill or something more sinister. Either way, they were about to get a very rude surprise.
The 'special-case' jounin looked up from the bloodstained field, her hands coated with the drying blood of her old jounin sensei, finally as red as her hair, as her own genin team under this old lady had once joked. But, now was not the time to think of that. After all, there was a last request. The old lady had told her to go (and be safe) to a major ninja Village for help, as she was the fastest kunoichi that she had ever taught, with the greatest chakra control and stamina to run across the seas between their island and the other countries. Even as the old lady died in her arms, her smile brighter and more content than she had ever seen her smile before, the miserable (noble) old hag, the jounin had risen from her place and closed her eyes, something else liquid and warm trickling down her cheeks.
Even with the vast mass of clones, orange-and-black and pulsing, safe, safe, safe, there needed to be someone to avenge her Village. At least - looking out over the shore filled with the dying corpses of everyone she'd ever known and the really bright orange clones still engaged in the sparks of fighting - there'd be someone else from Whirlpool to continue on the legacy, even if she failed.
But she wouldn't fail.
Uzumaki Kushina ran across the corpses, out onto the tide, avoiding the whirlpools and shoals, speeding out onto the water, settling into a flat-out lope, setting her course for Konoha. Someone from Konoha had told her gut instincts, safe, and she was going to Konoha to find her revenge.
Of course, after she got there, tattered and exhausted from her run and wanting to collapse, the first thing she absolutely had to see after coming out of the grim Hokage's Tower was a tall, blond boy, who couldn't be much older than her, with his bright blue eyes and an aura of absolute confidence, wave at her. He didn't wear the spiral, didn't have the whisker marks, but if this was a coincidence, she'd name her firstborn child after a character in a book. Her husband could pick the book if he wanted. (She'd never know exactly how ironic that was to become.)
Orochimaru
Why, to think that Sasuke-kun had worked up the nerve to challenge him! So, perhaps he had been weakened by his little bout with his old sensei, coughing up blood and whatnot, but to think that Sasuke-kun had not only defeated his techniques with ease but had set free his experiments afterwards - even taking those pathetic excuses for 'ninja' to form a team - well, that was a challenge all of its own.
And he might have been fond of the search for immortality, but now that he actually was, kukukukukuku. Taking out Sasuke-kun when he thought his 'threat' from Orochimaru was over would prove to be more than moderately amusing. Equally amusing and faintly disturbing was the fact that Kabuto had somehow managed to inject a bit of his shed DNA into himself, certainly trying to become immortal. Slightly more disturbing was the fact that he had taken about four or five of these...timelines...to find that out, although he did, succeeding also inn gaining various details of the situation surrounding Konoha.
Orochimaru wiped a hand over his slit eyes, brushing his mane back. It had certainly been a while since his mind had felt so clear; he hadn't realised the burden of the search for immortality until it was over. In a way he was glad for it - his mental faculties had been one of his greatest prides - and in a way he hadn't noticed, that overwhelming goal had prevented any tinge of regret and guilt from stirring him. Isolating Jiraiya and Tsunade had been...painful, in a way.
He slid back the blanket and stood, gazing out of the window at the hollowed structure of his underground hideout, where he had spent the last few months (or years, why bother to keep count when immortality was his, anyway) training (he'd never be as obsessive as Jiraiya or that blond brat, or even Sasuke-kun) to regain the peak of his physical fitness. Coupled with his mind being clearer than it had been for decades - well! Didn't he look good today?
Walking through the empty hallways, the tunnels shivering with dust, Orochimaru had a bizarre urge to rise to the surface again to see exactly what was happening outside. He knew that Konoha would undoubtedly, right now, be having a confrontation with that frankly insane organization that called themselves Red Dawn, no matter that he knew deeply of the inner policies and...Pein.
Well. Perhaps it was time, and more than time, that he went out to see what was going on. He passed himself in a mirror (yes, those were in every room in the compound, and some of the tunnels, why do you ask?) and winced. Really. His hair. When had he let it grow that unruly? Long, yes. There were times that even Tsunade-hime had mourned the fact that his hair genes had not been passed on to a girl, where as she said it rightfully should have gone, and gone to his uncaring...well, care, instead. Still. Hair. Ugly. Equals Sannin that was ugly. He would not be beaten by Jiraiya at looking good, dammit.
Especially since he didn't look good at all. Not compared to Tsunade, anyway- he let his mind trail off past mistakes, before holding up his long, precious hair, and watching himself in the mirror, clipped it up to his ears. Henge'ing to protect his snake eyes from being seen with open suspicion, Orochimaru Shunshin'd to the nearest exit, watching it open out from under the drains to the center of Konoha. And winced.
There was a crying of a nearby baby, blond-haired and kicking out against the pavement, with a glowing seal in a spiral on his stomach. Orochimaru simply stared, mouth open, showing fangs, for too long. Much too long for someone as legendary as he was. Did he...was that child...
Orochimaru grabbed him and ran for the safety of his compound, giggling madly. Much would change, much would change!
Sai
"What the fuck. There's two of you. What the fuck." So said Naruto. He hadn't changed.
"Sai-kun, darling, care to tell me why there are two of you?" "It's not a Bunshin. I've checked, Sakura-chan! And I know Bunshins! You know that, right?" "Baka! You only know Kage Bunshins!" "But, Sakura-chaaaaan!"
Neither had they. He blinked. Slowly. So did his other self.
He hadn't been expecting this. Clearly, neither had himself. They stared at each other, ignoring the other two.
"Do you want to leave Pinky and No-Dick behind and talk?" He could feel Sakura and Naruto twitch, equally loud and equally predictable.
"I think I'll stay with them, thank you for the offer," he said. He hadn't come back to meet his friends again to leave to talk to himself. Even if the concept was odd. To him.
Himself smiled a very empty smile. He knew that smile. "My books tell me that I must be feeling offended at the moment. I think that might be what the peculiar feeling is."
"I think," he said, "That the feeling that you are feeling is confusion."
They blinked. Slowly.
"Yes. It is also confusion."
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
Both Sai promptly stuck an arm out and clothes-lined a different clone each, rushing forward to shake them. They puffed into asymmetrical plumes of smoke, drifting away in the wind.
"Nothing has changed?" He smiled.
"Old habits," he smiled back, his eyes closing.
"Ah."
"Indeed."
"I gather from your tone and from other cues picked up earlier, like your body language, that Naruto is dead?"
Beside the two of them Sakura had gone completely still, before speaking up, her voice trembling. "What are you talking about? He's alive. He's right here."
"Yes."
"Bastards!" Naruto howled, apparently restrained by an ink tiger that he swore he'd seen neither of Sai draw. Even if the concept of having two Sai was making his head hurt. His eyebrow twitched. More 'No-Dick' comments? He'd missed everything Sai had said. But that was 'okay'. He had not spoken loudly on purpose. Neither of him.
"Is Pinky also dead?"
Sakura was staring, wide-eyed, at him. As wide-eyed as the day that that Sasuke, the one he was supposed to have been replacing, once upon a time, pierced her heart with a kunai. No fancy tricks to escape for Sakura. Only death.
"Yes."
"I see."
"..."
"Why are you here?"
Sai looked at himself, before unrolling a scroll and painting a familiar picture across it, his hand guided by old memories of his first painting with people in it. It must be fresh for his younger self.
Sai nodded. "I see."
Rock Lee and Maito Gai
"Lee!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"LEE!"
"GAI-SENSEI!"
"LEE!"
"GAI-SENSEI!"
"WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GET THEM TO SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I KILL ALL OF YOU USELESS BUNCH OF SHITS? Honestly, you call yourself ninja?"
"That was not very nice, Tomiko-chan!" The older of the pair said, twirling into an utterly ridiculous stance that literally had her cringing away from his teeth. She could swear they, they, they...there wasn't a word. It sounded like a wind-chime, honestly. But that would sound like she was trying to praise them. She wasn't. She really, really wasn't. Come to think of it -
"HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?"
"Gai-sensei is filled with the senses of Eternal Youth!" the younger one felt free to add, and Tomiko felt veins in her forehead begin to throb. "Also, we both have heard your security detail refer to you in terms that are not very youthful!"
Although painful to decide to follow anything that insane duo said, Tomiko decided to turn her glare to better use. It seemed to slide right off that odd pair like, well, water off a bunch of water clones, while her security detail tended to go into whimpers when she treated them to it (or convulsions, if she was lucky). Ah, still amusing. She turned back. Promptly wanted to retract that decision.
The younger one had decided to copy the older one in the same pose with thumbs up. She could feel herself twitching, aching to bring down some retribution on, well, hell. Just being crazy. Still, one didn't get to becoming one of the leading clans in the Country of Fire by raining down retribution on something that might be stronger than she was. At least, with this bunch of useless shits blocking her way. After all, no one could be that, well, fruity, without being damn dangerous underneath, right?
"Ah, the Flames of Eternal Youth shine brightly in our Tomiko-chan!" the older one declared, his eyes streaming tears. "Yosh! Reducing her ninja guards to fits is a symbol of her powerful passion!" agreed the younger one, incredibly loudly. Tomiko looked around herself, swelling a little bit from their praise, taking a little pride in reducing even the most burly of ninja to a whimpering mass on the ground. Even if the praise did come from a pair of fruitcakes. She was honestly lost as to what to do now. In fact -
"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET OUT FROM YOUR CHAINS?"
"What chains?" was the first vaguely normal reply she had heard from them all day, especially with the - she winced again, trying not to puke - the bright green spandex-wearing, ping-teeth showing, thumbs-up weirdoes - yeah, yeah, whatever.
Then there was a clank as the younger one moved and Tomiko frankly stared at the younger one tugging the heavy-as-hell iron chain and manacle off his wrist as though he were pulling a thread out of his clothes. "Oh! It is this chain that you speak of!"
Fuck yes, they were way more dangerous than anyone she had ever seen. Ever.
"Fuck," she breathed. "Fuck."
"Lee!" "Gai-sen-"
"DON'T YOU EVEN START."
"The fires of her passion burn brightly!" the younger one said, very brightly. "I am inspired by her example!"
"Then we must be inspired together!" the older one said, "After all, all must recognise the feats of the beautiful twin Green Beasts of Konoha!" He did that stupid pose-thing again, his teeth 'ping'ing again. The younger one copied him. Tsukuyomi shuddered twice as hard.
She really, really hoped that Hashirama and the rest of the Senju clan would get back from meeting with whats-his-name Uchiha soon. This was really too, too insane for her own mind to contemplate.
Sasuke
It had been an easy thing to wake up while in that damn barrel, sealed from the inside and out, his curse seal trying to activate itself while being toted about like a sack of hay by the Sound Four. Had been easier to control the curse seal. With his experience, that was simple.
Finding a way out of that barrel? Sooner said than done. His body, this twelve-year-old body of his, lacked the finesse and sheer chakra reserves that he would later have had, training under Orochimaru and then himself. Finally he bade himself to wait in the barrel, (Uchihas did not give up) reasoning that from what he remembered, he'd have come out anyway.
It was an interesting experience, to say the least, of hearing the sounds of fighting (remembering the first time, after Kimimaro put Lee in the hospital with a philosophy-threatening injury), probably Neji getting pounded. He couldn't see anything, could barely breathe, decided not to burn the barrel open with a Katon. Might fry himself.
He managed a "Hn," that echoed in the now decidedly stuffy barrel.
Resigned himself to wait.
Finally the sounds of battle (Naruto and one of the Sound Four, couldn't remember who) echoed around him, and he tensed, waiting his time.
"Hahahahaha! You pathetic child! He came to us by his own will to gain power, and you? As if you could make him leave us! You're weak! You can't offer him anything!"
Strange. That was different to the first time. Were the repercussions of his arrival already occurring?
The barrel's lid cracked. Sasuke slammed through the lid, facing Naruto across the clearing. The other boy's face was scrunched up with determination. "Even if you're right," the blond admitted, "I made a promise and I never go back on my word! That's my ninja way!"
Sasuke wanted to bury his head in his hands. Naruto was...exactly the same. Always. Regardless of self-knowledge. Or lack of it.
"...And you want to be Hokage. Grow up, dobe."
"TEME!"
Really, had Naruto always been this dense? Or had he just grown less so after training with Jiraiya? If Sasuke had wanted to fight, he'd have been fighting. Even the...Sound Four boy looked perplexed.
Sasuke sighed.
"Where is your Curse Seal manifestation?" the boy asked, looking completely bewildered. Sasuke paused.
"Hn."
"What are you talking about?" Naruto. Face scrunched. Again. This time, more about confusion than determination.
"I don't need to be Orochimaru's plaything to be powerful."
The Sound Four boy actually blanched before going bright red. "You take that back about Orochimaru-sama!"
"He doesn't like young boys?" Sasuke managed, even as Naruto went bright red in struggling not to laugh and failed utterly, even though by the quirk of his eyebrows he had no idea who 'Orochimaru' was.
"Tongue-freak," he whispered across the clearing, oddly proud of being so childish. Naruto's eyes lit up in surprise, pleasure, and understanding, and equally simultaneously convulsed in laughter, rolling across the ground.
His laughter had the side effect of completely defusing the tension in the air. The Sound Four boy twitched. "No one insults Orochimaru-sama and gets away with it!"
He leapt at Sasuke.
The resulting fireball left the clearing charred and smoking, and Naruto swearing at Sasuke several times over that he'd beat Sasuke no matter what.
Sasuke hn'd, and led the way back to Konoha, leaving Naruto to pick his way after him. He had several lifetimes of just hanging around Naruto to make up for, after all.
Naruto. And everyone else.
Enjoy.
"So what exactly do we do, Naruto?" the kunoichi asked her Hokage, staring at the vast number of seals and clones delicately brushing the patterns onto blank scrolls.
Their Hokage hummed, one point of his three-pointed hat hanging down over his face, trying to look rakish. He succeeded only in looking like a little boy playing dress-up in robes that didn't fit him.
Then he straightened, got that confidence about him that screamed 'highly competent ninja' and looked like what the Hokage should look like, and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her stomach was swelling slightly, and she doubted that even Neji, with all of his observations, noticed, but knew for a certainty that Naruto did.
"You step into the center of the seal that glows the brightest to you, and you'll be there." He paused, solemn and at odds with her memories of his younger days. "Take care, Tenten. You've been a great friend." He smiled that only-for-Naruto closed-eyes grin, and she could feel the prickings of tears at the corner of her eyes.
One of the scrolls glowed a dim white. Without doubt, she stood in the center and was whisked away.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru stood at the side, knowing that his comment would reach his old peer, the Hokage of the village. Still at heart he was that same Uzumaki Naruto that defeated the most foolproof plan by sheer determination. There really was only one word to describe him, even if he had repeated that same word many times before. Naruto simply smiled across the room at him, raising one hand in a salute. "Good luck, Shikamaru."
"Feh."
The man had grown over the years, Naruto realised, looking at one of his graduation year's classmates. He was taller, but muscular; still avoided responsibility. Naruto didn't wonder whether he missed the easy familiarity of Ino-Shika-Chou, he being the only member of his team now left, and physically, looking so different from his young self. Naruto cricked his neck. He knew without consciously knowing that Shikamaru was going back to try to prevent that from happening, even if he should have to interrupt and vanish this own timeline.
Naruto shrugged. Shikamaru, the genius he was, knew the consequences better than he.
"You're shitting me."
Gaara stared at his friend, the one who had pulled him out of demon-rage and then saved him after his demon was pulled out of him.
"Why the hell do you want to go back to having Shukaku for? Isn't being Kazekage enough? Come to think of it, how is your village going to deal without you?" Naruto showed signs of growing a full-on panic attack. As if he wasn't planning to leave immediately after everyone else had left. Pah.
"A chance to right things. More than you know. I've taken care of affairs."
Naruto let his breath out in a sigh. "You know that I can't stop you, so I won't bother."
"Good."
"You annoying-"
Gaara laughed at him, his eyes open in mirth for once, truly happy, and Naruto could not help but grin back in return. It lasted about as long as it took for Gaara to vanish along with the seal on the scroll that he stood on, and Naruto found that what constricted his heart was kind of - really painful.
"Shoo. Shoo."Naruto made the fluttering gesture with his hands, hoping they would take the hint. He was really tired, being a Hokage was more than a dream now and since it had also been Konohamaru's dream, he didn't want to get in the new Hokage's way and also didn't want anything more than to be able to rest now. He would be Hokage only as long as he stayed within this room, and he was planning to change that fact as soon as possible. "Lee, Gai. Move. Please. I'm just about exhausted."
The Green Beasts of Konoha looked at him, and stepped closer to both hug him incredibly tightly (so tightly that he thought his ribs were crushed, actually) and nodded at each other.
They wandered over to one of the two remaining seals and stood in the center, waiting around longer so that the last image he could see of them was the two of them in the Nice Guy pose, their teeth pinging.
Naruto laughed, the sound echoing through the hall empty of everyone but his clones. Those two...
He took off his Hokage hat, flicking it with a finger and watched it puff into smoke. Taking off his Hokage robes to reveal his old orange-and-black jumpsuit underneath, the robes vanished too. The real ones, after all, Konohamaru was wearing now.
The seal was at the far end of the hall. As he walked past the clones, each of them saluted him and dispersed themselves, until he was alone in the great hall, his footsteps echoing. He had scrolls on him with the same seals that had transported everyone else, in case he should find Sasuke-teme before anything like what had led to this present could happen. Plus backups. He'd learned better in the years he'd had, after all.
He thought about the past, all the things that could, did, would happen, and smiled.
Then he stepped into the seal.
End