simple time

Clone!Naruto
Shadows of the Fire's Shadow

Naruto made the last swipe of his delicate brush before wiping the honest sweat off of his forehead, watching himself in the Hokage hat and robes converse with Gai and Lee on the other end of the hall. Well, as much as anyone could say to 'converse' with those two - watching their exit in themselves would be sufficient to trip a body's automatic cringing response so...mightily, that sweat produced by the intense shuddering rolled in one large drop down his hair before being absorbed in his clothes. Naruto, never dignified to start with, hunched at the sudden chill of his jacket being drenched.

The other clones stopped to look at him for a second before continuing. Naruto made a universally rude gesture, and several other Narutos made an identical gesture back at him. They all went back to sealing, although this time, as there was really no one left in the hall except Naruto, it was more cleanup than anything else. Naruto liked Konohamaru. No extra cleaning for him, not to mention that he simply did not have the same chakra reserves as Naruto himself, and so could not afford several hundred clones' cleaning service.

No use dwelling on the past for Naruto. Especially not for this one, who knew full well he was a clone, not in the least because he could feel the absence of Kyuubi within him, and knew his own limitations - that being a relatively limited amount of chakra, and a one-hit disruption ability. And all of Naruto's knowledge, but that didn't matter too much when you were a clone - you didn't stick around long enough to put all of that to use, after all.

The steady footsteps echoed through the empty hall, and Naruto looked up to greet the Hokage with a winning smile and a thumbs up. His fellow clones were dispersing themselves with a salute, and after all, this was the greatest Hokage to have reigned, Uzumaki Naruto! He could even say that with no measure of self-praise, though that was impressive, if one thought about it.

Beside him, his fellow batch-clones saluted and dispersed. Naruto stood, one of the last dozen still surrounding the scroll, weighting down the corners of the large scroll should it roll itself up. Having already lost about eight scrolls to that, Naruto was in no great rush to move off his position, at least not until the Hokage was in the center and dismissed them all.

The Hokage was very close, now, standing on the edge of the scroll, the center of the seal only two steps away. Or a stagger. Naruto, even after years at Hokage, was never coordinated when he didn't absolutely need to be, and sometimes not even then. That had nothing to do with senility or old age, although it was becoming very close to the end of this tenure. To be honest, Naruto could not help but feel the greatest of weariness, happy that his/their time was to be up soon, or at least to be rejuvenated. He wasn't hyperactively young anymore, you know!

A sudden flicker of movement to his side was the only thing to warn him, and he dove at the Hokage. "Kunai!" he yelled, approximately the same time as all of the other clones did, leaping to the Hokage's defense, only there was one slight error on this Naruto's part.

The angle that he'd thrown himself at the Hokage took him directly across the center of the seal, and as the tip of his toe grazed the center of the seal, it activated.

The seal had been waiting for Uzumaki Naruto, unpredictable ninja and Hokage, to step into it and be transported across space and time.

It had never specified the real Uzumaki Naruto.

Shikamaru
Pieces of A Grand Puzzle

Shikamaru rolled the tile in his fingers, irrationally drawing comfort from it. He had traced back the brand of cigarettes that the strange ninja had smoked, and found that only one man, one jounin, smoked them; Sarutobi Asuma, the son of the Hokage. But, curious, he'd managed to slip away from the childish playtimes of the others to go see the man. He was not the same ninja who had visited him in his last private place, on the hill.

The grain of the tile were as familiar to him now as the regular evasions whenever his mother felt like making work for him, making him go out and 'play' with children his age, when she well knew that he couldn't stand them. They were too loud, too fickle; regardless, whenever she came calling, he slipped the tile into his family's qi set and dodged out through one of three usual escape routes, changing regularly. He didn't understand still how his father always found him if he was nagged into finding him; it must be something of his posture that gave him away.

As his mother's voice rose in demanding tones, Shikamaru gritted his teeth, placed the knight tile reverently on his side table, and hopped out the window onto the nearby tree's branch an instant before his mother's footsteps sounded on the landing outside, heading for his door.

His birthday was coming soon. Soon he would be attending the Academy - how bothersome - alongside Ino and Chouji. Their parents were undoubtedly going to assume that the three of them were to work together in all aspects. He had his own doubts; parents, no matter how capable on the field of battle, tended to be remarkably short-sighted in regards to their own children. Shikamaru knew this quite well. After all, look at how Inoichi doted on his daughter, not knowing how fiendish she could be? To boot, she was still talking about the stranger, the dark, mysterious, and handsome stranger, and Shikamaru simply sighed at the thought.

He froze in place as the sounds of rustling came from his room, before his mother's head poked out of the window, scanning everywhere for him. He drew himself into his family's shadows, and headed through the Nara clan's forests. Taking this route would confuse his trail, should Father come looking for him. One of the most peaceful places was their forest, and Shikamaru had no doubt that his father knew of the clearing in the center that was open to the sky.

He would not expect Shikamaru to go out into Konoha's market, a place he considered troublesome, and then double back to one of his more usual spots. Therefore, that route must be taken.

It was only logical.

As he headed off, a corner of his mind kept thinking of those hints, and a tile from a chess set.

A month before the Academy. Shikamaru was not looking forward to going; the thought of his time being taken up by simplistic studies and filling out worksheets, interspersed with being forced to move - torture at its most distilled.

Still, it was better than listening to Ino squeal on again about dark and mysterious and handsome boys. Although he was glad for some strange reason that she wasn't talking about the stranger anymore (it made him incredibly uncomfortable for an odd reason he refused to confront), obsessing about a string of boys their own age was far worse, since she could get access to her crushes more often. Then fill his ears (when not deafening him) with shrieks of praise and nagging when he refused to listen.

His hands tightened around the bouquet of flowers that he held unconsciously as a peace offering to Ino. He had managed to get unique flowers from the forest with the absolute minimum of effort. With luck, Ino would get a glimpse of the bouquet and stop screaming at him for not listening to her babbling. He preferred being able to hear.

Shikamaru winced as screams from Ino; fear, then anger - echoed through the woods, startling more than one flock of birds into flight. Some primal instinct forced his eyes wide, his breath panting. He dropped the flowers he was holding and ran towards the scream, startling ever more birds in his flight. He gritted his teeth. He was too slow! He reached into himself, his chakra, and ran.

He was lazy because he saved his energy for important things. This counted.

From the shadows, a man slipped out from behind a tree, picking up the flowers. Tracing his fingers across one dewy petal, the droplets came off in his hand. Hope, the flowers in a clump signed. Hope, merriment, jealous anger. There was no forethought in the arrangement. Looking up at the clouds his hands moved automatically, as habitual as flicking a lighter was. The brightest of flowers, a rare yellow-gold orchid, just slightly off-center. Fragile pink flowers, blending from the outside into the center. The pure white, frondlike branchlets of the only not-flower in the bouquet, he twined around the orchid. Hope in friendship, loyalty in innocence through troubles, delicacy in difference; layers beneath layers, meaning layers. Seeking something, some further kind of symbolism, the man raised it to his eyes to see if Shikamaru or he had left any oddities in position. As he had expected, nothing from his own rearrangement. But Shikamaru had crushed the flowers in his fist. A crinkled petal and three scrunched stems; in the modifications of the Grass' signal language - or what it would become, five, ten, years from now - it meant good news, relief; friends ahead.

Ino wandered out of the woods, her lips pursed firmly into a line, fists clenching before relaxing. It was unladylike to fume, to steam, at the girls who were tormenting someone younger than them. Sakura did not have such a large forehead as the others would have her believe. She was pretty in her own way, graceful, delicate. She was not scared of the turn of events that had led up to her running upon Sakura. She was glad for the trees, the rocks that contrived to knock her off balance. She was! She was even grateful to Shikamaru, who had seemed to be running for her, before seeing her unharmed and veering away to run past her in a flash of speed utterly unlike his usual self. Her mind, her Yamanaka mind, could not fool itself, and the shadows seemed to stretch now as they did then, even as they darkened and lightened with the clouds passing the sun.

Regardless; she tore her mind away from the shadows that had seemed to reach out from the trees to clutch her and knock her off balance. No, she wouldn't think of that. But she would be glad that turning to scream at Shikamaru for abandoning her had caused her to catch sight of a bunch of girls insulting another, who had seemed to shrink into herself, hugging herself to present a smaller target.

Whatever anyone might say about Yamanaka Ino, whether positive, like her father, or negative, like Shikamaru, she was always fair. It just didn't matter whether it was nagging Shikamaru, or standing up for someone in a worse-off position.

The look of gratitude on Sakura's face was better than yelling at Shikamaru, oh he of the unchanging grumbles, anyway.

She sat down abruptly, the last of her indignation-fuelled energy gone. The shadows were shifting again, but this time they felt safe, almost comfortable in the shade. In fact, something prickled the back of her neck. It felt too...

She turned.

There was a bunch of flowers. It was also something that lay up at the pinnacle of kunoichi-arranged bouquets, and as her family owned a flower shop, she knew even more that it was not only impossibly out of her league, currently, it also conveyed a message. Hope. Innocence. She read those easily. But the peculiar way, the pattern of how the flowers and colors were arranged, hinted at something better, deeper, more complex.

Her fears and shocks and angers of the day promptly vanished, and she gathered the flowers in her hand, feeling a smile break out. Little eight-year-old Ino, walking home. Little violent Ino, cradling the flowers gently. Little beauty-obsessed Ino, holding something that was to her eyes perfect. She walked the way home, the scent wreathing about her, and no small number of people stopped, stared, and cheered up, went on their way.

Only much later, a week, two, when the individual flowers were pressed and dried, the bouquet itself living on in a photograph for her to remember and aim for, did Ino realise that Shikamaru and the bouquet had come from much the same direction. When she confronted him the next day, he proved himself so inept at arranging flowers that all she had left to her was a certain kind of wonder at the angel who watched over her.

Naruto, Hokage
Tracing Them Back

Naruto had the weight of experience on his shoulders. He had seen death, cheated it out of its finest treasures (he will always consider the lives of his precious people to be the finest treasures on earth) been unable to prevent it, had seen brutal and cruel experiments. He had seen a beloved teammate betray his village to pursue his lifelong dream, and come back to hurt the village further after achieving said lifelong dream. He had seen many people who he had always known were important and unique come to see how important and unique they were.

He had never seen a transportation seal vanish because he accidentally stepped over the line.

Well. That wasn't strictly true, mainly because he was usually the one being transported, but he still worried. Regardless, there was no way to affect himself now -

He thought he'd gotten over having his mind boggle at his clones' antics, but this one took the entire Ichiraku stand.

"Alright, guys," he called, his cringing reaction causing a sweatdrop as he summoned another batch of clones, "Back to work."

Maito Gai and Rock Lee
Playground and Bullies

"Enough!" the Hyuuga said harshly, glaring at the man standing opposite him. "My father and I are in agreement for once; it is bad enough that you want us to work alongside the Uchiha, but do you also take me to be a madman? No, the true madmen are those two," he favored the training ground with a glance before his eyes crinkled slightly, the Hyuuga equivalent of a seizure's worth of cringing, and turned around back around. "And you."

The man opposite him simply smiled with deep serenity, even while the man's younger brother was being restrained through dint of immense effort from a concerned Tomiko. Irritated as she might be as well with the Hyuuga arrogance, she was no great shinobi like the leader that she looked up to and her leader's little brother. She knew also that offending the Hyuuga heir was not to their advantage, and their esteemed leader seemed to have it under control, at any rate.

"Y-mmph!" Tobirama flushed red and stopped struggling against his restrainer's hands, turning to glare at her with less than fury. He understood her hesitation and quietened down, stealthy and serene as his brother. The Hyuuga elder looked on with haughty arrogance, pointedly looking away from the two of them. Tomiko found herself unready to kill the old man...she wanted to stab him over and over again without pause for a day or two. Come to think of it, if she trained like the two green-wearing fruitcakes down in the training ground they were standing near, she might even be able to manage it.

The smile that crossed her face and the glaze in her eyes at that thought caused Tobirama to back away very slowly, hands up in an offensive position, should the beautiful (but crazy) woman decide to direct that intent his way.

"So where is this quality that will provide your so-called Village to grow? I see only madness," the older Hyuuga said, his blank-pupilled eyes meeting Hashirama's. "Of of the two, only the first has passable chakra reserves necessary to be great ninja; the younger one even has deformed chakra coils. If this is the cream of your crop, Senju Hashirama, it is a surprise that you are one of the top clans in Hi no Kuni."

The pointed tone of his voice made Tobirama grit his teeth, while Tomiko's smile grew brighter and her eyes even more glazed. Their hands were right next to each other, simultaneously clenching.

Hashirama was serene. "The quality they have? It is simple. They do not need special powers with ninjutsu. Though they are not of my clan specifically, Lord Hyuuga, their penchant for hard work drives them to greater success in a different ambition than I. In that sense they are even greater than I." He smiled, again serene as down on the grounds, Lee blocked a spinning kick from his sensei and countered with a punch that would have splintered millenia-old trees with its speed and strength.

"Hashirama," the old man said. "The answer to whether we have decided to join is no. There is nothing," a sneer twisted his lips, "That could induce us to join this alliance of madness. Take back your land, your gifts; we accept none."

"Farewell," the younger man said, smirking at the discomfiture upon Tobirama's face and the outright horror on Tomiko's, making a mockery out of his final bow. Tomiko's face began to turn bright red with irritation. "Hashirama," the young man raised his voice, "Do have fun with your Kisuke-bred bitch. I am sure your brother will like the leftovers."

Tobirama turned red with anger simultaneously with Tomiko, and he began to form handseals. Tomiko was quicker, taking three quick steps forward and using the entire of her body weight to deliver a resounding slap to the young man's cheek. As he crashed to the ground, the older Hyuuga's sneer grew more pronounced. "As you cannot even control your kinsmen, Hashirama, there will be no alliance from me at any point in the future."

Hashirama's lips thinned, but he bowed. "I prefer to see of it in that I do not dictate my kinsmen's every action and word. They are free to speak or act as they would." The old Hyuuga said nothing, his sneer aristocratically arrogant still.

The younger Hyuuga spat out blood, looking shocked. "You would dare hit the heir to Hyuuga?" He smiled. "This will be your downfall." He fell into stance, his hand stabbing out at Tsukuyomi, slipping a strike past her guard. As she reeled over and clutched her suddenly numb arm, the Hyuuga's face wrinkled into a sneer. "Not only do you fail to respond to your natural superiors, but you have no skill as a ninja. Father, you were correct for once. This is no clan to ally with." He lashed out again with another palm strike.

Biting back a curse, Tobirama leapt forward to shield his ally, forming handseals for the most basic of Suiton techniques. Hashirama stuck an arm out, halting his brother's progress. "Do not worry," he added in a murmur, "I anticipated this happening."

Two green blurs flared out of the training ground, revealing themselves to be Rock Lee and Maito Gai. While Lee caught ahold of the younger Hyuuga's wrist, blocking the man from sealing Tsukuyomi's tenketsus further, Gai put his hands on her shoulders and unsealed the tenketsu with a brief pulse of non-intrusive chakra. They had developed the technique in the later years of their wars; Neji had worked unceasingly after the Hyuugas' betrayal of Konoha.

"It is not fair to attack a lady," Lee was saying to the Hyuuga.

"She hit me!" the Hyuuga protested, while the elder raised one eyebrow to look at the two men. Hashirama, who had dealt with their kind before (Hyuugas were a kind of their own), watched in interest as the man's minute expressions showed his reassessment of the situation.

"That is still no excuse," Lee said, shaking his head slowly. "Hyuugas are after all the most unfailingly polite of the clans, are they not? This includes treating a lady as a lady, regardless of what she may do to you." His eyes went vacant in memory.

Seizing on the moment, the younger Hyuuga brought his other hand in with a strike, while slipping out of the green-wearing boy's grasp.

Or tried to. Even though his gaze was still far away, Lee executed a complicated maneuver involving only the arm grabbing the Hyuuga's wrist, and twisting - and the younger Hyuuga ended up with his face in the dirt and his clothes smeared with grass stains. And the man holding him had yet to let go of his wrist. The young Hyuuga made a halfhearted attempt to strike at the other boy from where he was, but Lee took a simple step backwards and clenched his hand tighter around the Hyuuga's wrist.

The young man choked and gradually turned paler, and then redder, by the second. His eyes bulged, and then went vacant as Lee's had done before him. Lee let the boy's arm drop, then turned and flashed a brilliant grin at both the older Hyuuga and his sensei.

"Ah, Lee!" Gai said with his hands fisted by his side, "You have gained great insight and prowess! I must redouble - no, triple - my efforts to keep up with you!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"G-"

"STOP. IT. NOW." Tomiko glared at them, her own fists clenched at her side. Instantly, she and all others, Hyuuga included, indulged in a fit of cringing. Gai and Lee...reverted...into their standard Nice Guy pose, including sunset and dashing waves.

The Hyuuga actually activated his Byakugan, trying to see where the jutsu was being projected from.

After the pinging had subsided, the Hyuuga turned his eyes on the two green-wearing men, abruptly projecting killer intent. Tobirama and Tomiko both slid into fighting stances, almost mirrors of each other, ready to defend the two honorary members of the Senju clan. They needn't have worried, however; the killer intent slid off the two men like feathers would do a duck's, and not even a spike of chakra on the part of either of them honored the 'contribution' of the head of Hyuuga.

The heir of Hyuuga continued his unconsciousness at their feet.

"Well, if that is all, Hashirama-sama, I would like to return to our training." Gai gave a half-bow, and deliberately turned his back on the Hyuuga elder. He gestured towards Lee, and together the two of them blurred. Tomiko, even watching them, could not detect how they managed to move so outlandishly fast. The squish of mud and flesh on flesh was the next sound, as they moved into sparring once more.

Tomiko toed the heir of Hyuuga, turning him over so that he snorted mud into his nose. The older Hyuuga made no move to interfere, although - was that the faintest twitch of his lips? No, surely not.

"Hashirama," the Hyuuga said, "Assuming that you have our allegiance and you do form your new Hidden Village, what is it that you would call it? This is the country of Fire, after all; and while chaos and fire and," he sniffed, "Uchihas may co-exist, what is there for our ninjas to hide in?"

Hashirama's eyes widened slightly before settling back into serenity. "I was thinking...Konohagakure." There was a not-so-discreet glance at the two green-clad men. "The most unassuming of cover is also the most obscuring."

The Hyuuga remained stone-faced, but picked up his slumbering son with a touch of chakra. "There is wisdom in that, Hokage-san. Perhaps we will finalise our arrangements at another time."

He nodded to them respectfully, looked at the two men for a brief moment, and leapt off the ground with surprising vitality for one so wrinkled.

"Brother?" Tobirama asked, "How did that - what just happened?"

"Through complete determination," his brother said, scratching his neck, "And sheer balls. I do not think we will be able to pull something like that off again. Oh, and the Konoha thing? I just liked the name - and I figured that if I actually named our village that, the two of them would stop screaming it at the top of their lungs and seeming like complete madmen instead of, well, just madmen. We do have to look after the ninjas of our Village." He shuddered. "And our reputation."

The look of joy and dawning hope in the eyes of his brother and, he hoped, his brother's future wife, was a sight to see indeed.

Sasuke
Both Sides Of The Same Coin

"So there was a lot of explosions and kunai being thrown and I saved you?" The likelihood of this Naruto managing to summarise his entire life's story after his timeline's Naruto had managed to turn him back from his own set path to power was slim to none, but then Naruto had always been unpredictable and far more profound than any of his judgments about Naruto had ever been able to capture.

"...I don't get it."

Never mind.

"But you're back with us now, right? And that's all that matters!" Naruto's eyes were bright, shining, and not for the first time Sasuke felt a deep, sharp pang of regret that he had had to leave his own world's Naruto behind.

They were in the hospital, keeping watch over their fellow genins' beds; Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba. Sasuke fell silent, just looking at Naruto, bright fresh Naruto without a trace of the deep cynicism that had marred the later years that he had spent with Naruto. It was both refreshing and annoying simultaneously - no one else could make him want to actually hug them and bang their heads on hard walls at the same time.

The doors burst open, and Sakura ran into the room, squealing uncontrollably and trying to wrap her arms around him.

Wait. Never mind. Make that all the members of Team Seven, then. Just to see her again...

He dodged her flying tackle and seized her by the back of her neck, rotating slightly to set her down gently. "Sakura. Don't."

She squealed at him, and he winced. Honestly, the best part about leaving Konoha was how much Sakura had changed since he returned. The times of his betrayal were faded, as though it were a particularly bad dream, but this nightmare with Sakura went on and on.

The look on Naruto's face, clearly pining after the pink-haired demonic girl (ha, the irony), was almost as damning. His genius failed, as it always had, around the two of them. But mustn't there be some way to toughen Sakura up, make her stronger, and make Naruto a little less...innocent? Not so much as to ruin his innocence, mind, but just...their sheer naivety was annoying. Infectious. And in this timeline, as in all of them, he couldn't - they couldn't - afford to be.

He just...didn't know what to do. Hanging out with Naruto was one thing, beating him time and again with the grand Katons he had knowledge of was another thing, but keeping the three of them alive and together as a team was a task that loomed so large in front of him that he felt like banging his head on a wall and beating the prescience out of his head. Unfortunately choosing that solution would mean choosing naivete over foreknowledge, and that was one thing that Uchiha Sasuke had never been accused of.

Well. Justifiably accused of, anyway.

Kakashi was a no-go; while he would train Sasuke and mellow out when Sasuke wasn't around with the rest of the team, he had been through the timelines with his own Naruto often enough to know that his teacher found kinship too close with him. Not an ideal situation, when it was Naruto that his brother here was after, it was Sakura who wouldn't be able to keep up, it was - he wasn't strong enough in this body to take on his brother, and he knew it. He got up from his vigil beside Shikamaru's resting form, watching Naruto and Sakura follow him with their eyes.

"Dobe. Fight?"

Naruto uncoiled out of his cross-legged position and fairly ran at Sasuke. Sasuke flicked a glance at Sakura and contemplated saying the dreaded words. Weighed the costs against the benefits. Weighed his gut instincts against his logic. Shrugged. Threw it all to the winds. Dealing with any Naruto for an excess period time caused certain things to rub off.

"Are you coming, Sakura-chan?" he said, light affection in his tone. Both Naruto and Sakura stared at him before they both erupted into flailing, loud noise. Sasuke smirked, just a little bit, before swiveling to walk out the door.

He was jumped by both of his teammates in half a step.

Shikamaru grumbled at the noise, even in his sleep.

Naruto
Wish I'd Never Been Born At All

Naruto tapped lightly on his parents' door, wishing that all three of them (well, him and his father, anyway) were less...awkward around each other.

There was no response. He tapped. Harder.

No response. Huh? Didn't their chakra say that they were within? He really wanted to talk to his father about that Hiraishin jutsu - make use of his experience while he was here, right?

No response. He slammed on the door, hard.

"OI! DAD!"

There was a rustling of clothing and the door creaked open ever so little, and Minato stuck his head out of the door. "Naruto, please. Go away."

Naruto got one glimpse-

"Yeah, okay -" He swivelled and fairly ran away, muttering "ohshitohshitohshit..." and trying to figure out if chakra would let him burn out his eyes and melt his brain.

Little did he know, his one interruption guaranteed that Uzumaki Naruto would not be born.

Naruto
Softly, Gently

The second day he woke up to a quiet, empty apartment. No Kakashi-sensei busting in to drench him with a cold Suiton jutsu - cold, cold, coldcoldcoldcold-shitKakashi-sensei-leave-me-the-hell-alone) nor Sai, making a cutting insult from the ground where he slumped from last night, stayed up too late fighting and painting and insulting, all bony, pale skin and lack of tact. 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, snatching his hand out to catch himself on the ground, narrowly avoiding a nearby bedpost. He hauled 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.

...Wait. Didn't he just...didn't he have a...Whoa. He could have sworn he'd gone through this situation before, although he didn't know why. His eyes blanked a little bit, searching his memories - well, future memories, that is, er...dammit, language didn't, couldn't express what he was trying to say! Er. Think about. He'd have to deal with shopkeepers charging him something wrong and different, he'd have to deal with Sasuke again, he'd have to...he cringed...sit through all the same. Freaking. Classes. Again. Well, this time, this time around, he'd just skip school! So there!

...Er. Didn't he do that...last time? Whatever. No day is too early for Uzumaki Naruto, Number One Unpredictable Ninja! ...Er. Even if he wasn't, technically, a ninja yet. Yeah. Just technically! He was a ninja, with the largest amount of chakra reserves and the Kyuubi, and...

His thoughts stuttered to a halt, for the longest moment. The...Kyuubi? But he was a...

He scrambled out of bed, cursing as his leg caught on the sheet and he tumbled to the ground. This time, he didn't try to catch himself, wincing as his head met the wall, hard. As he reeled back, his eyes slitting in the sunburst of pain that suddenly caught him by surprise, he stared at the minor crack he had caused in the wall. Oh, and the seeping sticky warmth that seemed to be coating his hands. What the...hell...?

Why hadn't he...disappeared in...smoke...yet? Although...the shock and distortion of vanishing seemed very similar to how the world seemed to be changing different colors, now.

The newest tenant that lived below the demon fox, one Shinjirou Eiichi, looked up in disapproval at how the damn kid seemed to be leaking water onto his nice, new secondhand carpet. His eyes widened further as he noted the pristine white drip a distinct red stain. And then again, and the red spread out further. And again. And again. It took two plus minutes before he realised that what was dripping through the cracks in his ceiling - he had to fix that one day, he noted absently - was blood and not some other kind of prank.

Demon child, the chuunin at the gate had warned him, but he had come from outside Konoha and to him he was still a child, and children did not deserve to bleed, especially not onto his nice, clean carpet.

The citizens of Konoha gasped as the civilian man by his dress and the awkward way he slung the bleeding child over his shoulder made his slow, uneven gait in the general direction of the hospital. Their first impression of the man was that he was crazed, given that the was helping the blond-haired demon child that was oddly in mismatched green and khaki clothes, and the second being that he was not only talking to the demon child, but not waiting for a response.
Their second reaction, in those who hated the boy, the demon container, was that they were happy that his head was bleeding profusely, the blood matting his blond spikes until they were a mess of rust and gold, and some of the less bigoted felt nauseous as they rethought what they were doing. This was especially pronounced as the boy's head lolled backwards limply, and they were looking at a whiskerless face, the mirror-like image of their Yondaime.

Not that any citizen of Konoha went out of their way to help the boy, oh no; he was still the demon container, after all, who knew what he could do to them? Probably kill them or maim them or break their belongings, steal them when they weren't looking...they fortified their reasons with such thoughts and hurried on, trying not to let the image of the bleeding, limp boy stray too far into their consciences. After all, he was the demon container. Yes. Right. That.

The hospital. At first, the receptionist refused him entrance.

"All children under the age of sixteen are to have a recognised next-of-kin enter them into the hospital," she said, bored tone radiating icy get out. This, despite the fact that in Konoha concerned bystanders and friends watching over recently wounded was damnably common, half the hospital users being shinobi and all. He didn't let that stop him.

"He's a child, an orphan of the state. As part of that any adult can take care of him as long as they are a citizen of Konoha, can they not?" Never mind that legally he couldn't, there would be nothing stopping him getting this child reliable medical treatment. If he had to bullshit in circles, so be it.

Naruto's head lolled backwards again, and the receptionist came face-to-face with an almost identical view - if in miniature - of the fourth face of the mountain that graced Konoha, devoid of the whisker marks that usually marked the child's face. Her eyes perked up a little, before narrowing, but Nawaki pounced on the chance. "This isn't the demon child, you know." Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

"He lives alone in the apartment above mine. My apartment manager told me -" bullshit bullshit bullshit "-he'd lived in the upper part of town once with his parents, and they were kind people, until they both went out on a mission-" straight bullshit, right there - "on the night of the Kyuubi attack," good to see the receptionist flinch, "-and just didn't come back. He's been living alone since then."

Her face went cold, abruptly, before he held out a hand to stop her. She silenced herself as she watched one slow droplet of blood trace its way down the matted, clotting hair, down the boy's cheek, dripping down in a straight line.

"So this is Konoha," Nawaki said, his eyes disappointed.

"I'll call a doctor."