Title: Sand And Ash

Description:After years of living in the desert thirty two year old Naruto is seemingly sent back to simpler times. Yet the change is not welcomed, after finally coming to terms with both their deaths and the violent way it came about, seeing the ghosts of his past is the last thing Naruto wanted.

Language notes:

"Text" – Japanese

»« - Language of the Harj people.

Chapter 1: Ghosts of the Past

Part One: Arrival

The first thing he was aware of was the burning in his throat, or rather the lack there of it. He groaned, bringing his hand up to press against his throbbing throat. The ghosts of the sand still haunted it. His muscles ached from the strength with which he had fought the sand. What the hell had happened? How had Gaara lost control like that?

He brought his hand up to rub his forehead. Why did that hurt? He didn't remember hitting his head…

Naruto groaned and forced himself to roll over, pushing himself up with shaky arms. Despite the pervious events of his night, this was the first moment that Naruto found himself feeling that he may be dealing with something completely out of his league.

And that would be because his hand was currently not even a fourth of his normal size. He moved into a sitting position, staring at his hands like they were utterly foreign to him. Blue eyes traced the soft skin, completely free of callous or scars.

The hands of a child.

Surely this must be a dream. These were his hands. He knew they were. But how was it possible that he had shrunk so? Naruto stood, coughing harshly as his lungs protested the movement.

Gaara. The instant realization that the red haired Jinchuriki was not with him brought a round of panic. Where is Gaara?

Naruto swung around, searching for any sign of his friend. But the Baraka was no where to be seen. A green field stretched out before him, the grass so tall that it came to his shoulders. The wind brought a familiar scent to his nose and Naruto turned abruptly towards its source, his eyes widening slightly as he caught sight of a familiar village cresting over the nearby hill.

His feet were moving before he realized what was going on and Naruto found himself sprinting towards the hillside. Some part of his mind noticed with great displeasure that his speed had greatly diminished and that brought up all kinds of other questions that his gut whispered were going to bring equally disappointing answers.

Still the Kyuubi inside his belly assured that he was still somewhat quick and he reached the top of the hill shortly. He stood stock still, mouth parted slightly at what greeted his sight. Unconsciously he brought a hand to rest against his seal. The Kyuubi was the one great constant in Naruto's life, and he would admit without shame that its presence inside him reassured him at this moment.

For Konoha was before him, whole and bursting with life.

It was a good thing that he'd never really gotten on with the people of this village, because Naruto was sure the shell shocked looks he had given them as he'd wandered the reborn town most likely didn't earn him any friends.

An hour later and Naruto was stunned to find himself in his childhood apartment, staring at an all to familiar dirty one bedroom, one bath. He moved across the carpeting soundlessly, lightly. Desert walking. But he was no longer in his desert. No, Naruto was in a village that had been dead for twelve years.

He had to reach up to the doorknob, and it felt unpleasantly cold against his palm. The wooded door was heavy, though he'd never remembered it being so, and it took him a moment to push it open. His bathroom greeted him and it took Naruto a moment to recognize it.

That's right. It was blue before the paint had faded.

Everything was so new – so clean.

The image in the bathroom mirror caused the blood to drain from his face. Well, first Naruto had to stand on a foot stool because he was apparently insanely short, but once that was done the reflection he saw left him completely and utterly confused.

Because Naruto wasn't five, he was thirty two.

He swayed and instinctively grabbed onto the sink edge for support. A terrible migraine had erupted across the front of his forehead and Naruto swore. Slowly, carefully, he climbed down from his stool and stepped away from the mirror, carefully avoiding his reflection. Now he stood in his bathroom's doorway and assessed his situation. Naruto didn't know how long he stood, staring at the broken tile positioned right in front of the sink, thinking.

But when it was over Naruto had come up with four possibilities.

One, he was dead and this was some kind of really sick joke pulled on the creator. Just one more in a line of many. Or maybe he was in purgatory. Naruto wasn't really sure where Jinchuriki went when they died.

Two, this was an illusion by him, though Naruto quickly eliminated this option. Even this was to elaborate for him. He could only make him relive scenes of his past, not create new ones. Besides, this was not the way the bastard liked to trick and kill.

Option three was almost as appealing logically to Naruto as option one. Somehow from the period of leaving Gaara's tent he'd gone mad. He'd lost his damn mind.

Or four, somehow he'd been sent back in time.

After a while Naruto ruled out option number one as well. Perhaps it was the presence of the Kyuubi inside his stomach or something greater, but Naruto knew without a doubt that he was alive. It was the same way that Naruto knew he wasn't crazy. Well. Not that crazy.

Which left him with a problem. Because that only left option four. And Naruto didn't know if he could bring himself to believe that. He hoped he was just crazy.

He brought himself to his small, yet comfortable sofa and collapsed into. Again, he first had to heave his small frame onto of it. The shortness was going to be a major adjustment. He crossed his legs, bringing his hands together in his lap, and thought.

Naruto watched the shadows shift across his empty apartment as the sun grew lower and lower in the sky, a sadness filled him that he hadn't felt in over ten years.

He had no family here.

If he was truly as young as his mirror wanted him to believe, Naruto had no one. Not even Iruka yet. For what would most likely be the first of a very common ailment, Naruto found himself homesick for the desert and the Harj.

By now they would be gathered in the main tent to dine and Naruto would be doing the sacred ceremonies of blessing and thanks above the food. He could almost feel his people around him, hear their laughter and affection towards each other. Taste the food.

Surely they would not be laughing now, with their Naib gone. And Baraka as well, if Gaara had been sent to Suna. Naruto leaned back against the cushion. Vias would be leading them now. He could only hope that the old veteran had had enough sense to pull up camp and move further in desert. Without either Jinchuriki to mask their presence, they would be like open ducks to him.

The grip his on his hands tightened as he fought his worry. What would become of his beloved tribe if he was stuck in this place? Would they be slaughtered like everyone else? Would they…

Naruto shook his head and made his way to his balcony door with decisive steps and threw it open. The evening air struck him and Naruto sighed. He'd almost forgotten that wind could be neutral – not carrying the burning heat or consuming cold of the desert – but simply be a soft caress. Naruto pulled himself onto the railing, swinging his feet over the edge. He used to sit like this all the time when he was younger.

Naruto stared out over the many streets and buildings around him. Memory of how many sights and smells such a large village could have seemed to of left him after his years in the desert and he found it overwhelming now.

Tomorrow he'd go out and try to gather information. Wherever – whenever – the hell he was. Naruto was going to make best advantage of it and find his way back home.

For now he settled for watching the movement of the people below them. He didn't recognize many but then again Naruto wasn't really looking. Once again his mind was on his people's welfare and Gaara.

If this is the past, is Gaara in Suna?

Naruto hoped not. That place held little good memories for the red head. And he had no idea how he'd react to the presence of his siblings. Would it hurt his friend to see the way they feared him once more? Or would the fact they were simply alive and well be too much for him to handle?

Should I go-

His thought was cut off abruptly by a flash of silver a few streets away. Naruto's eyes narrowed as he watched for it. A moment later it returned and Naruto felt his tongue glue itself to his mouth. While he naturally had rather good eyesight, Naruto still found his eyes focused automatically. The silver took the form of a man – with a startled shriek Naruto keeled over backwards, his hands flying to his eyes in agony.

He hit the deck with a resounding thud, though the pain was completely unnoticed amongst the stabbing pain of his eyes. Gritting his teeth against it, Naruto dug his palms into his eyelids. Almost as quickly as it had come it was gone, leaving a terrible ache somewhere behind his eyes. Naruto groaned as he slid his hands from his eyes, gripping his hair in frustration. Since when had a simple act such as using his charka to sharpen his eyesight brought pain?

This is ridiculous.

Frustration was a bitter taste in Naruto's mouth and he was horrified to find himself shaking terribly. He clutched at the railing in an attempt to support himself and realized with a jolt that he was lucky he hadn't fallen off the deck completely.

Who knew what that would have done in his current state. A weariness filled him as he stared down at the path below him. For all he knew a three story fall could kill him right now. Naruto couldn't remember ever being so vulnerable in his life.

I must be careful until I've found out this body's limits.

He stared at his tiny hands with a deep frown.

Or remembered.

But Naruto wasn't quite ready to give into that theory quite yet.

Over three months in this existence seemed to have quickly convinced Naruto that any hopes he had of this simply being an episode of insanity that would quickly pass left. It seemed he was indeed five years old. He hadn't even entered the academy yet for the god's sake.

Naruto spent his rather copious amount of free time relearning Konoha and generally trying to avoid anyone he could have possibly had contact with before. That had come about after a particularly disturbing meeting with the very, very young Sakura.

He had simply stared at her, open mouthed for a good ten minutes. On the outside he was sure Naruto looked rather ridiculous, and to give his old friend credit she did her very best to looked unperturbed by his attention. At some point her mother had come out and threatened him. But Naruto hadn't even registrued her presence until Sakura's father came at him with a shovel. He was to busy having a melt down on the inside.

Fifteen years. That was how long it had taken him to come to terms with Sakura's death. Fifteen excruciating years and countless hours of therapy and support from Kakashi and Gaara.

Fifteen years of work destroyed with one glimpse of her. If Naruto hadn't known that he hadn't been born yet, he would have sworn it was on of his illusions. That was how violent the moments he'd spent reliving her death had been. Undoubtedly it had shown when he had watched her. Ali had always joked that his eyes gave away his feelings. That was why she'd made him his first shemagh – in an attempt to make him more Haji-like and less emotional.

If only the desert woman could see him now.

And so Naruto became hermit. The last thing he wanted to see was ghosts. Somehow he felt horribly cheated. He's worked damn hard to get past what had happened in that forsaken war and now – now he was going to have to go through it all again.

He longed for the simple life of the desert. For the feel of the sand beneath his feet and the thick smell of the desert. And he missed Gaara something terrible. Naruto longed to go to Suna and see if his friend was there, but at five years old and mostly untrained it be a miracle if he got passed the Konoha border guards.

Naruto was attempting to bring his body up to something he could consider decent, but it was surprising difficult. He was constantly injuring himself – it seemed impossible at first for him to adjust to his new limitations. Still, Naruto forced himself into the isolated field that had served as his playpen as a child and trained. Slowly, inch by painful inch, Naruto managed to grasp his new size and limitations.

That alone had taken him two months. He dared not do any major charka, bringing down the attention of the Anbu that watched his movements like a hawk already, was the last thing he wanted. How the hell could he explain something he didn't understand himself?

Why had I never noticed how carefully they watched me when I was young?

The Anbu knew better then to waste time and energy on him and they did the minimal to keep themselves from being seen. It took much more of Naruto's control to keep himself from staring at their mock hiding places is disgust then he'd like to admit. Somehow such a petty thing had insulted him, as juvenile as that sounded.

But at this point Naruto didn't really give a shit.

They checked on him once a day, sometimes twice, like clockwork. All he had to do was keep track of the time and he'd be fine. This was how he'd established he could still use his charka decently. Tree and water walking still came as second nature to him, as did the shadow clones.

Despite the Kyuubi's charka his age tired him quickly and Naruto found himself spending far less time training then he would have preferred.

The meeting with Sakura had brought up all kind of demons and Naruto spend most of his time dwelling on them in a most unhealthy and pointless way. He knew that Gaara would be displeased if he was with him, but the sand user was gone. And while Naruto had never forgotten the consuming loneliness of his childhood, it seemed somehow amplified now that he had tasted something else.

Without the urge to draw attention to himself, Naruto kept contact with others a bare minimum. This made him feel even more isolated then ever. With no school and no reason for the old man to scold him, Naruto could easily go an entire day without coming into contact with another human being.

He spent most of his time outside of training watching people from a safe distance. He knew that he scared many and angered many more. He told himself he was sparing everyone the stress of their daily interactions, but Naruto knew that was a lie. He was protecting himself from his already tenacious memories.

The nightmares were back - far stronger then they'd ever been before. Naruto had stopped sleeping in his bed completely. It was too soft and at this point completely destroyed by the force of his dreams. He found himself sleeping on his roof, retreating to his living room floor only when it rained.

His apartment decayed even further then before, simply because he had all but stopped using it. The only things even remotely clean were the kitchen and bathroom. The reemergence of the shower in his life was, to Naruto, the one and only good thing about his return to the past.

It was around the fifth month mark that Naruto came to a rather horrifying realization. Itachi Uchiha was still an Anbu. It had been years since he had last sensed the dark man's presence, but the night that Itachi had come to check on him was burned into Naruto's memory.

Naruto would kick himself for his reaction later. How had he not thought about Itachi? The Uchiha would have just made Anbu. The massacre wouldn't happen until the end of the year. Yet he hadn't spared the dark man a second thought, and when Naruto felt that foreboding presence he had dropped the book he was reading rather ungracefully into his curry, his head snapping towards the end of his roof.

He had no idea what made the newly minted Anbu reveal himself to Naruto but for a moment the two simply stared at each other. Then Itachi was gone, leaving a horrified five year old behind him. On top of rousing the other's sense of curiosity, which presented itself in random moments of observation, Naruto was left with a terrible revelation.

Sasuke was going to lose his entire family in just over six months and there was absolutely nothing Naruto could do about it.

And thus began a whole new brand of self torture and loathing.

Part Two: Silver and White

And like this two more months pasted. His birthday came and went and as he reached the seventh month mark, Naruto's body was finally starting to respond physically the way he wanted it to. The improvements were tantalizing small, but it was start. He'd honestly somehow forgotten how terrible he was with certain abilities. It was a great frustration for him and more often then not Naruto left his hidden training areas with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Despite this, training was truly the only time he could block the images of his past and the need for his home from his mind and as such he clung to it. And he committed as much time to it as his fragile body would allow.

Winter had gripped the village and coated it heavily with thick, packing snow. Snow, Naruto admitted, was quite something to see. He trudged across the unshoveled pathways in the new winter clothing that the Hokage had presented to him.

Meeting with the old man had been awkward and emotional. Naruto hadn't been able to sleep for weeks afterwards and he could tell that his reactions had both puzzled and confused the old man.

Naruto decided he'd try to keep the old man alive for as long as he could this time around. The village would need him for what was coming. It was the first time Naruto had given a thought to trying to change the future, of trying to prevent the tragedies that were to come. Naruto didn't know what to think about this new step, nor had he decided how far he would take it. It just seemed as though his mind had set itself on saving the old man without his permission. An instant moment of decision.

He had to be grateful for the freedom of being Naruto Uzumaki granted him. He could not think of another child who could walk the night like he was right now. Despite the time, the snow and the waxing moon above lit up the world. At this hour hardly anyone was moving, and Konoha was cast in a silent stillness that for some reason greatly appealed to Naruto.

His feet lead him steadily towards the hillside that he had first seen Konoha on. It and the seemingly never-ending field and trees behind it had become…sentimental to him. Perhaps because it was the place he'd first entered the past, or maybe because he just spent so much of his time there.

He trudged through the snow, shivering slightly even in his new jacket, watching as his boots sank into the snow with each step. He barely noticed when he reached his hill, or how long he stared up at the moonless sky. Naruto found himself mesmerized by the pattern of falling snow, and his mind left completely.

For once, Naruto wasn't reliving the war or replaying his fondest memories of his mind. He was simply…gone. It was the first real moment of peace he'd gotten since his arrival.

He had no idea how long he stood there or how long he was gone. Some distant part of his mind registered that the slow snow fall had climbed over his boots and come level almost with the laces, just as it gave a muted warning about the stiffness of his legs. But nothing could pull Naruto from his moment of peace. As such, he couldn't honestly tell when it was that someone else joined him on his hill.

Regardless, it was this moment that Naruto would label as his first real mistake. Somehow, he, Naruto Hadi Uzumaki, Jounin ranked nin and Naib of the entire Haji tribe, had missed the arrival of Kakashi Hatake.

Naruto first became aware of the silent man by his side when the wind shifted and carried his scent to him. With a painful sluggishness he pulled his consciousness away from whatever plateau it had discovered and forced himself to return.

It was strangely difficult thing to do and it took him some time to pull his thoughts together enough to turn and look behind him. The silver Jounin was watching him, his head crooked slightly to the side, looking alien in his Anbu outfit. He held his animal mask in his left hand, a scroll in his right.

It took Naruto's scattered thoughts a moment to comprehend who was standing in front of him. Then without warning it clicked and Naruto felt his breath catch and then come in rapid succession.

Kakashi.

Gods he looked so young. He is so young. He must be…what? Nineteen? Twenty? Naruto's tongue suddenly seemed too big for his mouth and he fought to swallow around it. Outside of Sasuke and Itachi, there was no one else that Naruto had fought so hard to avoid.

The silence between the two of them stretched. Then almost without warning, movement returned to his body and Naruto fled.

Time Line:

Key:

Text – Normal Time Line

Text – Altered Time Line

˚ 0 – Kyuubi is sealed inside Naruto.

˚ 5 –Naruto arrives in the past.

˚ 6 - The Uchiha clan is massacred, Sasuke is 7.

˚ 12 – Naruto graduates and is given his first team.

˚ 13 –Gaara and Naruto meet for the first time.

˚ 17 – War begins. Sakura is killed.

˚ 20 – Sasuke is killed. Naruto flees with Kakashi

˚ 22 – Kakashi is killed. Naruto meets up with Gaara . The Tribe takes them in.

˚32 – Naruto is sent into the past.

Word Bank:

Baraka - A living holy man with magical powers.

Hadi - The Desert Name given to Naruto once he joined the tribe and became Naib, means 'Guiding Light"

The Harj - literally, "Desert Journey/Migration." Refers to the constant nomadic lifestyle of the Naruto's people. Is also the clan's namesake.

Jinchuriki – Humans with demons sealed inside them (I.E. Naruto and Gaara).

Naib - the leader of the tribe.

Shemagh - a traditional covering of the face that protects the wearer from wind and sand.