Clockwork sighed.
"This is all my fault…" he muttered to himself as he flew through the Ghost Zone in his old man form. "I told him that he didn't need to worry about Dan and Zabuza escaping because I knew that he'd be able to capture them again once they did escape…but I should have given him more advance notice that they would be escaping…I hate seeing him in this state." He saw a black and white object floating haphazardly through the green depths of the spectral dimension, and approached it.
"Danny." The Time Wizard stated as he reached his ward.
"Find…Clockwork…" Danny muttered. Clockwork whacked him on the head with his staff.
"Danny." He repeated.
"Clockwork knew Dan would get out…didn't tell me…didn't warn me…" the boy murmured, his eyes glazed over and out of focus, his gaze distracted.
"If I had told you beforehand, you would've spent too much time worrying."
"Could have prepared…mangekyou sharingan…"
"You couldn't have prepared for something like that, believe me. I'm going to send you back to Konoha, a little ahead of the time you were there before. You're going to help out Naruto and Sakura, and afterwards you'll be strong enough to take on Dan. Do you understand?"
"Not help…Sasuke…?"
"That's the point. You'll need to bring him back."
"Tucker…Sam…" Clockwork thought for a second.
"Yes…yes, they can come as well. They could use the training, and they will assist you when the fight returns to Amity Park." He created a blue portal that Sam and Tucker fell out of. Their clothes and skin were covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt, and not a little rubble.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam growled as soon as she saw Clockwork. "Why did you let him get like this?" She gestured to Danny.
"It had to be this way," Clockwork said. "I didn't want to, but it was the only way for him to get into the Ghost Zone."
"And why didn't you simply stop Dan yourself?"
"He exists outside of time; he's immune to my powers. He and Zabuza would have destroyed me had I not fled."
"Zabuza? He's back too?" Tucker asked worriedly. Clockwork nodded, his face stony.
"They're coming. You need to go…I already told Danny that I'm sending the three of you to Konohagakure, to assist Naruto and Sakura in their mission to bring back Sasuke. The two of you will receive ninja training and will eventually become a shinobi and kunoichi of Konoha, just like Danny." He created a blue portal with his staff. "Now go." Tucker grabbed Danny and passed though the portal. Sam began walking through, but turned back around to face Clockwork, her right foot still in the circular portal.
"I understand that you did what you had to do. But I still don't forgive you for making him this way."
"He'll recover, don't wo-" Clockwork began, but Sam held up a hand to silence him.
"He shot at me. You know everything; you should know without me having to tell you how much seeing him that helpless and lost hurt me." Without another word, she turned tail and stepped through the portal. Less than a second after the space-time portal closed behind her, a green interdimensional one opened up on Clockwork's other side.
"Well, well, well…it seems my weakness managed to find you after all…" Dan mused as he passed through his portal.
"I will never tell you where I sent them," Clockwork asserted.
"You won't have to," a third voice sneered as its owner, Momouchi Zabuza, stepped through the portal that Dan had left open. "I can make a pretty good guess."
"I know you can. That's why I scrambled the technology in my tower before I fled, so that it would take time for you to set the coordinates for your destination." Zabuza growled as he hefted his mammoth sword.
"Curse you!" He shouted as he brought the sword down in a vertical sweep that would have cut the Time Wizard in half. Clockwork shifted into his baby form.
"Would you really hit a baby?" He asked half-jokingly. Zabuza grunted and the sword continued on it's descent and was less than a foot away from him…
Just before it made contact, time itself seemed to slow down, though Clockwork hadn't even touched his staff. As the Master of Time's red eyes glowed more and more intensely, the very fabric of the ghost zone began to bend towards him. Clockwork's eyes flashed a blinding red, and when it subsided there was a deep, jagged scar just below his left eye, a mirror image of the one on his right.
"I know, Samantha…I know," he said sadly. A second later he vanished.
"Where did he go?" the member of the seven shinobi swordsmen roared.
"No idea," Dan quipped angrily. He brought a hand to his chin and stroked his white goatee thoughtfully. He snapped as he came to a realization, and immediately duplicated into four. Three duplicates took off in opposite directions, scouring the ghost zone for the Time Master.
"While the other me's are looking for him, the two of us shall go to Clock Tower to try and unscramble that old fool's technology so that we can find those three. You do know where they're headed, right?" Zabuza nodded.
"Yes…they think that by getting the aid of Konoha ninja, they might have a chance against us. Pitiful. The two of us could easily ravage Hidden Leaf Village. Let's go." The two specters took off into the swirling green depths of the Zone.