Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (shocking isn't it)

Sorry this took me so long and thanks to my beta reader KidOtaku

Enjoy! And give feedback if you can.

Rain fell softly, drizzling onto a sloping landscape, sliding through the dense air and pooling in the soft dips of broken bodies. Soldiers strewn all over the grassy hills, too young or too old to ever make a difference. The pitter-patter of it falling, the grey sky, the dead clouds hanging like vultures, all of it muting colours as it slipped between flesh and weapon and gently washed away all evidence of a brutal battle. Blood and mud washing away to reveal people. No longer enemies, or allies, strong, weak, bloodline, just husks. Reminders of the 'had been'. A profound sense of loss and longing in words no human will ever understand, but the sight will make their heart ache just the same. And still at the end, the rain fell.

Naruto really wished it wouldn't, wouldn't wipe away the titles that people wore like masks, like armour. Daimyo, lord, heir, ninja, Hokage. The sight would be so much easier to bear if he didn't know who was his enemy, his allies, his friends. If they were only faceless beings, if they were only puppets that had stopped working when this war, won with despair, against coloured madness had ended.

Some part of him, the part that he had always tried so desperately to hide, the part of him that was scared and cowardly, wished they would disappear. Calling back those notions of; if you can't see them there not there. Odd that the childish logic came back when that very childhood was laid, broken, dead at your feet.

But it was there, and closing your eyes can't take away the metallic scent of blood. It wouldn't, it couldn't. It wouldn't take away the slick liquid on the grass that sure as hell wasn't the rain.

And through all that death, he lived.

He was on his back, and from his point of view the rain blended hazily with the sunset. It crashed past the grey sky and clouds; split by the red rays of a giant star. It looked like the sky was bleeding, like it had been cut in two, and its blood was spilling over the horizon. It was painful in its beauty, it made him want to hold it in his hands and break it for daring to be beautiful when everything else was ugly and so... so wrong.

His jumbled thoughts stuttered to a halt as blood forced its way past his lips, forcing him to turn his body so that the thick liquid wouldn't choke him. He let out a soft, sorrowful whine as he came face to face with his last friend, the last of his surrogate family, his last precious person.

He barely heard the torn ramble of, "Sasuke? Sasuke, Sasuke...Neh, are you dead? You are aren't you, how could you? You promised, ...remember by the cherry tree. Will i meet you there again? In our next life? You can call me a dobe, or an idiot cause goddammit but only if you meet me ok. So just...please...don't leave. Just one more time... one more time... call me your friend…" The words slipped like guilt-weighted stones past his lips.

All of it going largely ignored under the crushing weight of failure that welled up in his chest, and threatened to choke him in an entirely different manner than the iron on his tongue. Sasuke had been the last of his friends to go, and for all of his betrayals he had become a loyal friend and an unflinching general. He didn't want to remember how he had been murdered, but his mind mocked him as image after image played round and round his head. Blood, and death, and battle, and... Oh god Sasuke, why? WHY? He begged his mind for peace, for rest, and for a second believed he got it.

Unfortunately, for all of his own laziness the fox was never one to let other be idle, and if it ended up torturing someone than all the better.

'Can you stand?'

Naruto bit back a groan, did it matter? At this point everything should have been over; he had worked hard and he deserved to rest. The fox was, as always, a stubborn-son-of-a-bitch.

'Can you stand?'

Naruto snarled, ignoring the pain of his broken vocal cords. He was tired and all he wanted was rest.

Lifer never had been interested in giving he what he wanted, there was a reason he was so willing to fight.

'Can you stand?'

By that point Naruto had had enough.

"What's the point! There is nothing left! I have nothing left, nothing to give and nothing to fight for!" His throat shuddered, it hadn't been designed to roar but sometimes that was the only sound Naruto was capable of making.

With a gentleness highly uncharacteristic of the perpetually grumpy demon, he spoke softly.

'You have me.'

Naruto found it odd that the fox managed to be gentle and yet roughly condescending. As if it was utterly ridiculous for Naruto to think the fox would ever not be there. Even with all the things he had been through— all that they both had been through— he would still be there. Well, not that he had that much of a choice anyway. Honestly, they may as well say they love each other and get it over with. Platonically, of course.

Grimacing, he apologized and it was only his guilt— he had enough, he didn't need any, couldn't handle any more— that had him shifting his arms,

For his people.

Digging the heels of his palms in the ground,

For his village.

Fighting against the pull of wet earth that threatened to send him tumbling down.

He would stand,

If only for the lonely demon who asked him to.

He locked his elbows, and screamed through clenched teeth as his ribs screeched in protest. Bones ground their broken edges against his flesh, ripping into muscle as joints shuddered, barely clinging to place. For those few moments it took to get to his knees the only thing he knew was agony.

A slightly pessimistic voice told him that it was better than looking at his surroundings, he wasn't entirely sure his mind would survive the view intact. But because he was an idiot, and he never took well to people saying he shouldn't do something, he looked anyway. Only to see a victory won by the price of thousands; men, women, children, Shinobi. He looked with remembrance, and saw a prediction told by a prophet of death, eyes red with madness, tomoe spinning, ripping into the eyes of his victim.

'Tell me little Hokage, how far will the body count climb? How much more will you give? Even when there is nothing left, what will you do?'

The question had been redundant, they had both known the answer: Everything.

He had always been just a little too quick to give himself away, and he had payed his due in blood.

The scene was as horrifying as he expected it would be, as much as he wished it wasn't. He looked and was abruptly reminded about how much Neji's fate seemed to love irony. Because how could it be anything but ironic that the last Uzumaki was to meet his end at the ruined edges of Uzushigakure.

After Konoha had fallen, the survivors had hobbled their way to one of the only strongholds left. After all, there was a reason the houses of Whirlpool had stayed standing long after its inhabitants had left. It is also where the Last Battle took place, and where he rested now.

To his left a whirlpool twisted with lazy strength, white sea foam riding atop the waves that rose to swallow the shore and to his right the hills were a mutilated mess of upturned earth and scorched bodies. The skies a rolling mass of bruised purple and dark gray that only ended when they were stained bloody crimson by the horizon and seemed to buckle under their own weight, Madara lay dead near his feet and Naruto suddenly couldn't fight the urge to puke.

Jolting forward he dry-heaved and vaguely contemplated throwing up on the stupid megalomaniacs face. He would have deserved it, taking Madara down had taken too much, and yet the alternative wasn't an option. But the victory was paid for in blood and tears, fraying bonds and dying dreams. In the end he decided it was a good thing that he didn't lose his lunch; it would have been a complete waste of ramen. Although he was surprised he even had anything left to throw up, he had been fighting for half a week without stopping.

'Stand, Naruto.'

He started slightly in surprise, despite being the host of Kurama for so long he could count on one hand the times the stupid fox had called him by name. Without thinking he moved to obey, not listening to a phantom argument that played in the back of head.

'You never think Naruto, you know that? We aren't children anymore! And you can't keep having ideals like this! You can't save everybody!'

That had been the last time he had spoken to Shikamaru and he tried his hardest not to dwell on it.

Hands on his knees and straining upwards he muttered, "Is it over?"

...And the fox was suspiciously silent.

"Answer me!"

Because if it was over and if all his enemies were gone, he could bury his dead and find a nice little hole to crawl into and finally, finally, sleep, knowing that the war had been won. Except, of course, it hadn't been, so he couldn't, and that was another irony to be heaped upon all the others that shadowed his life. How could he sleep when his friends were dead and his village razed to the ground, how could he work so hard to win, when at the end it didn't matter?

{It will never matter Naruto, no matter how hard you try.

Poor little demon child, forever cursed to be left behind by humans.}

'You think I fought this hard with you just to watch you die? Get up you fool, we can still salvage this!'

The fox could sympathize with Naruto, after all he understood loss—

Red eyes robbing him of his will, spinning and glinting in the moonlight. A tiny seal trapping him in a body almost too small to handle it, suppressing his chakra to a fraction of what it once was. A man's back to him, with his cry of, 'Why wasn't I good enough?' Being forcefully placed in a world too young, too weak to tolerate him—

Yes, loss was one emotion he understood well. But he knew full well that comfort wasn't really in his nature, he had been alone far too long to know how to handle, how to gently cater to a human's (his friend's) grief. So he would do what he always did, insult the kid until he started fighting back.

'Oi...Oi, oi, oi! I didn't make a pact with some noodle-backed, weak-willed, stupid monkey brat, did I? So what if people died, it happens all the time!'

"Fuck you... They were my people, MINE!" Naruto snapped his head up in a rage, forgoing his pain. "My people to protect, and I just... let them die... I couldn't protect them..."

{Haha, it's your fault Naruto, you should have stopped this when you had the chance.}

'You know what? If it tears you up so much stop moping around like a coward and do something! You have the greatest demon there ever was on your side, and the knowledge of a seal master for Kami's sake! If there isn't a way to get what you want, make one, you single-minded twat!'

Kurama knew full well that he was probably excessively harsh, but he knew no other way (without ruining his reputation) of getting his jinnchuriki back on his feet. Seeing the boy so down left him feeling restless.

But Naruto smiled and the restless feeling abated. Naruto... almost couldn't remember the last time he smiled because of genuine amusement, it would have had to of been before Sakura fell.

With a last heave he managed to get to his feet, almost immediately having to rest his weight against the tree behind him to keep his balance. His mind, though, was far from his body. It focused on insane ideas, the ones he was most known for, and teased apart anything related. He thought of the Hiraishin, of desperate theories made when the death of his precious people became almost too much to handle. There was more than one time he had tried to make something like this, the only difference this time was that there were no loyal Uchihas, or sensible Harunas, or perverted sensei to keep him from completing it. Time-Travel. Knowledge and desperate wishes came to together in a patch work solution that fell somewhere between impossible and not-fucking-likely, that was fine though he had been up against worse odds. He was anything, if not stubborn, even if that same pessimistic voice told him it could never be expected to work.

One more time, he promised himself. I'll try one more time, for the demon that wouldn't let him quit, for the people that stood by his side, and for the friend that could have been more but never got the chance. And if it failed, well, he wouldn't be alive to try again, but then, when had that ever stopped him before?

There was only problem, well, only one that he would acknowledge anyway. Most of his and even Kurama's chakra had been depleted in the battle with Madara. In order for this to work, he would need massive amounts that at the moment he didn't have. Either he would have to wait days for their chakra stores to recover or... turning to the side he stared at the massive whirlpool, and thought of the old legends of Uzushiogakure. Of the amplification of circular seals and the feeling of falling further down and inwards, of latent power trapped within swirling tides.

Later, he would think it was because life was a sadist that loved watching him get up after it had thrown him literally and figuratively to the ground, that it worked. Kurama would stand by his opinion that it was because of him that it did.

Regardless when the seal was complete he didn't bother looking back, there was nothing for him there and though he never believed the gods would help, he prayed that he would never return to this land of decaying hope and bloody memories. He didn't allow himself to dwell on if further and he waded into the swirling currents of the whirlpool as activated the seal.

He fell further towards the centre and every bit of his chakra was pulled into the seal, overriding his bodies instinctive attempt to keep enough inside his body to keep him alive. For a while it seemed like it was going to work, but then his chakra petered out and Kurama soon had no more to give and all Naruto could do was screamed in rage. He was so close he could feel the present shudder around him, folding in on itself and forcefully about to spit him out, but it wouldn't because for once in his life he was out of chakra. He knew, knew that all he needed was one last push but he couldn't find the strength to give it. He could only rage against the seal pushing and shoving as if physical force would matter and suddenly he felt something give. He heard gentle laughter, voices of ancestors long passed; ghosts that lived in the whirlpool. They pulled him down and threw their non-existent weight behind his, and before he could thank them or even ask what the hell was going, on he was ripped through time and space.

A thousand images flew through his head, the time-space barrier dissolved and he saw a thousand ways he could make this right and a thousand ways he could fuck this up and such a small, small margin for error. It would have terrified him if he could have found the time to think past the pain.

It was odd, how his sense of time warped, he breathed in an eternity and spat out only a few seconds, and what could only have been a few moments stretched on forever and then back again to only a few moments. He floated in an expanse of nothingness, where neither sound nor light, cold or warmth or taste and touch existed. For a short while he wondered if they ever existed at all, if this is what death was like.

Soon enough, and yet not nearly, he felt something curl around him, tugging him. He knew what it was doing and where he was supposed to go but he wasn't prepared for the sensation of being tugged back into a timeline. The feeling of being squeezed through a tunnel too small was unspeakable. It mentally scraped his skin raw, tearing past layers of skin until he was nothing; completely lost on everything except the sensation of being sent away at incredible speeds. It would have taken his breath away if he wasn't positive that his lungs had collapsed. Sensation came back with the force of a chidori through the heart. He would know.

His body decided to happily informed him that it was 'tapping out' because it had had enough of Naruto's shit, and was not about to put up with anymore. Needless to say that this 'informing' was Naruto passing out. He barely got to smell the leaves and feel the crushed grass beneath him, before darkness swallowed his mind.

It wasn't particularly surprising that the fox recovered first, noticing immediately that while his cage had stayed the same size, the bars were now pressed right up against the doors that led to the kit's mind. Considering the fact that even with his long life span he had yet to do something quite like this, he wondered how it had happened.

It didn't take him long to figure it out.

Naruto woke up in a lot of pain, followed by a torrent of cursing. The wounds he had sustained from the battle with Madara had yet to be healed, and even his incredible healing ability, it simply could not heal so quickly, especially after what Naruto had just gone through.

It took a few seconds for the white to fade from his vision, the odd pain in his chest certainly didn't help. After it had, he opened his eyes and the insistent ringing in his ears began clearing up into and equally annoying sound: The fox's pissed off lecture.

"…And I swear kit, you didn't even try to check the seal! You didn't even know if it would kill you or not, and every time you do stupid shit like this I am the one left to piece your tattered ass back together!"

Naruto's memories of the past few hours snapped into place and nearly shoved his broken rib into his lung (which probably wouldn't have mattered, cause one of the damn things had collapsed), ignoring Kurama's shout of anger, when he moved to stand.

When he got to his feet, shaky legs and labored breathing be damned, he came really close to passing out again.

'I'm back, I'm really back!'

The thought was tinged more with hysteria then happiness. He honestly did not think the seal would work, although at this point he was a master at pulling through by sheer willpower and dumb luck. Of course he was a bit more preoccupied with the fact that he was in the middle of a whirlpool. Well... he clearly was suffering from blood loss when he executed this plan because he, also clearly, didn't use any foresight.

Spluttering, he was immediately thrown back into the water. How he hadn't noticed the giant swirling body of water the second he became conscious was probably the shock of being thrown back in time, or at least that was the story he was sticking to.

Fighting against the pull of the water and the tightening in his chest, he felt something grab the back of his shirt and hull him. Darkness quickly encroaching on his vision, he passed out before he could properly find out what had happened.

Coming to in his mindscape, he wondered how injured he was, though that thought was quickly shoved aside in favor of being utterly stunned at the view.

'What the hell happened to the mindscape!'

While being inside the cage which held the Kyuubi, had never particularly bothered him, the sudden face full of red fur was slightly unsettling. Kurama made an odd growling purr, his form of a laugh as Naruto fell on his ass.

Naruto, for all his seemingly stupid decisions, was rather smart so he only needed a hint to come to his own conclusion. "Kid, molecules cannot be destroyed or created." The fox also just loved being cryptic, knew that it pissed his host off to no end.

Fortunately, Naruto understood the implications immediately. Since his body hadn't reverted to a younger self either there was another Naruto running around or he had gone far enough back that he had yet to be born. In either case he was essentially in a universe that didn't have room for him, which explained the feeling of being pulled through a very small tunnel.

Regarding the change of the mindscape, Naruto could make an educated guess. Since he went back in time, and he had no actual "existence" in this universe. He, the "original" Naruto had never been born into this timeline. So any restrictions the seal had between the container and the contained had been removed, allowing Naruto permanent access to nearly all of the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto now held the brunt of the demon's chakra inside his own chakra lines. Physically bringing them closer so that they were not taking up as much "space" in this universe.

'Since Kurama is basically a giant fox shaped lump of chakra…Urgh… I have no idea what the side effects will be.' Naruto thought to himself. Even in his bijuu mode, most of the fox's chakra was wrapped around him, and not running through his veins. Poisonous nature of it aside, even Naruto's immense amount of storage might not be able to handle the sheer amount of chakra. Honestly, what damage it did wouldn't matter because Naruto couldn't exactly do anything about it. He wasn't willing to give up all the chakra, so like many times before, he was just going to have to suck it up.

This was of course when another problem occurred to him. 'Holy shit, what year is it? How far back did we go?' The fox growled in slight annoyance. "Why do you only listen to me when you need information? I'm not a fucking calendar; figure it out for yourself," he said, muttering something about 'stupid ningens.'

Naruto frowned, that could be problematic. It was a serious possibility that he might have come back to late to fix anything, let alone change the timeline. When he woke up, he would have to go to the nearest town about five clicks away, and this was if he was even exactly where he was when he transported himself back in time (and seriously he was trying not to think too hard on that, on all the ways he had seen himself mess up). At the time, he had been on the islands south-west side, since he was deposited in a whirlpool he probably was at the same place but Uzushiogakure had a lot of whirlpools. If he had somehow ended up on the North side he would have to cross the entire island to get to the mainland. Either way it would be a while before he could get any information.

Noise began to filter into his mindscape, his body had finally healed enough that it was willing to let him wake up. Judging by the soreness he could already feel his body, particularly centered in his lungs (has Kurama not healed that yet?), it was doing so very grudgingly.

Opening his eyes he swore at the light that burned his pupils, blinking away the afterimages he turned his head and thought he saw a ghost because there was no way Akira was standing there.

Akira had been his closest and strongest fox summon, his graceful strength that had kept him standing when his world was lost again and again to chaos. A pillar to lean against, but she had been killed due to injuries. She had been delivering vital information about an ambush by the enemy when she herself had, ironically, been ambushed. She had gotten the scroll to Shikaku, who had immediately started countermeasures, before staggering over to him and collapsing in his arms. He had done everything he could but she hadn't made it.

Kurama had to dryly point out that because he had made it to the past it was only logical that anyone who hadn't dies before this point would still be alive, followed by a yell at him to stay still. His wounds still hadn't finished healing, and it was more than likely that Akira wouldn't remember him—which on its own was depressing but that was ok because she was alive, which meant he had a chance to become Sau-Mi-Valka again.

Taking a second to look at her, he noticed she only had seven tails instead of the eight—the most a summoned fox could get—that she had had in his timeline. Her fur was still the colour of ashes with flame yellow-red at the tips of her tail, the inside of her ears, her ankles, her chest and the two small flame shaped marks just above her eyes still made her face highly expressive.

At the moment her tall wide ears were perked up and her golden eyes sparkled with mischief and curiosity. She cocked her head to the side.

"Master?"

Well, that explained a few things. Since all summoned animals have demon blood in them—which is what allows them to speak and use chakra—the foxes considered Kurama as their most powerful leader. She must have sensed Kurama's chakra inside him and pulled him out, probably wondering what the hell he had been doing in a whirlpool of all things.

He smiled at the fox. "Not quite," he said, chuckling. Damn, it felt good to do that again. How long had it been?

Her ears flattened and her eyes narrowed. None of the summonable foxes had been pleased with the continuous sealing of their master, as wells as knowing well enough not to attack the Jinchuriki. They were almost always surrounded by other humans, but this one was on its own, and therefore fair game.

Sensing her preparation to attack the Kyuubi took over. Naruto's eyes turned red and his teeth and nails sharpened giving him, an animalistic look.

"Enough, Akira." Naruto's voice had deepened and his eyes flashed warningly.

Distantly Naruto heard Kurama speaking, but the noise was distorted, as if the voice was having the conversation far away.

'Is this what Kurama hears when I talk?' Naruto pondered.

He glanced around as the Bijuu spoke with the summon. After you see as much death and gore as Naruto had, one can never get tired of the beauty of nature. Suddenly, he caught sight of what lay beneath the fox's paw. He was drowning in hourd memories as he spotted the bells. The ones that had been given to his teacher by Naruto's own father, and Jiraya before him.

He had taken them from Kakashi's body and then from Sakura's, and then Sasuke's. People had cautioned against him wearing them, told him they were cursed. He had laughed then, cursed things always seemed to suit him best.

So lost in memories those bells held, he didn't notice when Kurama gave him back control of his body and so wasn't prepared. Falling on one's face is never a pleasant experience, so throw in life threatening injuries and severe exhaustion from restless nights during the war, and it was enough to make him pass out… again. He could almost swear he heard a foxy laugh as his eyes fell shut.

It was the sound of the bells that woke him up—its sound wasn't by any means pretty; the relatively soft metal was bent out of shape and its noise distorted. He was pretty sure there was a metaphor somewhere in there about breaking bells and breaking men but he didn't care enough to try to fish it out.

He had managed to roll over on his back, although that might have been Akira's doing and the fox had been kind enough to place the bells just out of reach. The little shit.

He didn't reach for them though, a gentle breath alerted him to the fact that he wasn't alone.

The fox stole his attention before he could figure out if the person was a threat or not.

"You finished with your beauty sleep yet, princess?"

At this point the teasing was only made in habit, both were exhausted and tired, banter made only because it kept total breakdowns at bay. Of course that didn't stop him from sulking about it, because who wanted to be insulted by a mass of chakra? It made it worse that he somehow had an amount of witty remarks that would even make Kakashi jealous.

'Just tell me what the damage is.'

"Well, you're not exactly ready for bikini season yet, but your major injuries have been mostly healed. It would have been faster and you probably wouldn't have even passed out if you had listened to me from the beginning and sat your scrawny ass down."

Naruto internally rolled his eyes—he would gain more information on the fox's talk with Akira later—for now he brought his attention on the presence somewhere near his left side. Careful to keep his eyes closed and his breathing even (why was that so hard?), he assessed the intruder.

The soft rustle of clothes gave away that he or she was wearing a kimono, but the sound of cloth on cloth, and more importantly, cloth on metal, meant that this person has a full body suit underneath, and only ninja's had been known to do that.

The chakra that whispered against his senses was distantly familiar, cold with the slickness of water, but it wasn't until he opened his eyes that he recognized the ninja. Soft brown eyes set in feminine features and long black hair. He only just refrained from calling out the boys name.

Haku.

Nostalgia slammed into him hard, memories swimming to the fore front of his mind. Of days where innocence still thrived and Naruto had refused to bend under the weight from war and expectations.

Haku's voice gently gained his attention. "You shouldn't sleep out in the open like this, you could catch a cold."

He huffed out a laugh tinged only slightly with hysteria, because it was funny, what were the odds that Haku would say the same thing he had when they first met in both timelines? Apparently, a lot.

He drew in a deep breath hoping it wouldn't end in him crying, and it didn't. Only because instead of air, fire rushed down his throat scorching his lungs as his chest seized and what the absolute hell! He didn't remember any fire in the area and he was pretty sure he would remember breathing in flames.

A small part of his mind registered Haku gently turning him over, the boy was always just a little too kind for the profession forced on him, trying to make it easier for him to breathe.

The only problem? Breathing was the problem. His chest spasmed and expelled the air/fire from his lungs but when he breathed in again the fire came back.

And God, wasn't that laughable? He had survived wars, the death of everyone he loved, a fucking mutant tree controlled by an idiot with a perfect world complex, hell, he had survived gods and this was he was going to die? Because his lungs decided now of all times to stop working? Never once had he had a physical aliment that lasted more than a few days and with the chance to fix everything at his fingertips his body rebelled against him and his lungs seized refusing the air he needed.

It was terrifying and he lay trying desperately to breathe in the air that burned through lungs that refused to work. The only thought left to him was

Life really is a bitch.

Sou-Mi-Valka: In this case roughly meaning partners in life and battle