Naruto couldn't see anything yet, but he could make out the voices of Sakura and Kakashi.
The orange Hokage of Konoha heard a loud thud, and it took him several seconds - to be read as, "nearly a decade" to realize that it was his head hitting the ground. The blond groaned and sat up, rubbing the hurt spot beneath his spiky hair. Sakura looked at him. She seemingly managed to land perfectly - like a cat, always feet forward! She was healing a big crack in Sai's head, who had been smart enough to land head forward, even worse than Naruto.
"Let's go and eat some ramen!"
"Naruto, you can't go around through time and . . ." (Shikamaru)
"Uh, guys, where did Naruto go?" (Sai)
"Shannaro! Naruto, come back here!" (Sakura)
"Yo! You don't even know when you are!" (Kakashi)
"Kakashi-senpai is right! Come back here this second!" (Yamato)
"This just has to be troublesome, doesn't it?" (Shikamaru)
"My sand doesn't even want to hear about it." (Gaara)
"Guys, guys, calm down." (Kakashi)
"Idiot." (Sai)
It took three long hours to find the Rokudaime, and by the time they saw him, he was chased by the ANBU, the Shodaime, a bunch of angry girls, someone who looked a damn lot like Teuchi, someone who looked like Teuchi's daughter, the four year old version of Tsunade - fact that hinted them that the shodaime was very close to the end of his career - dragging a scowling Jiraiya by the hand. The kid version of the white haired pervert sennin was trying to figure things out, without any succes. Even Orochimaru was there, Tsunade dragging him along with her other hand. Or rather than dragging them she was cleaning the dust off the ground with their butts, but this was a whole other story. The blond boy didn't seem to show any exhaustion signs yet, but to his friends' trained eyes, it was obvious that he was tired. Hell, having the three legendary sennins - even as kids - hunt you down, the grandfather of one, a bunch of the first ANBU members and angry girls . . . no, no, it was not one's idea of fun. Naruto seemed to enjoy it, though. He really wanted to turn his head around and yell at the blonde girl, "Hey, Tsunade-baabaa, what's with the rush?" But he definitely could not. It would disturb time quite much. And he even saw old man Sandaime, but he was barely fifteen at that time. He looked a lot like Asuma - calm and doesn't interfere when there is no need to.
Naruto took a quick turn right and stopped to breathe for a second, when he felt a small hand clasp on his orange pants (he still wore his favorite color) and drag him in a tiny room. The same small hand locked the door and turned on a light.
"Tsunade-chan, it's not a woman," the white-haired kid sighed, and started looking at the blond.
I need to make them cooperate with me. The only way I can do this is by . . . He sighed. But Ero-sennin is only five now! Naruto was surrounded by a puff, using his Sexy Jutsu - the clothed version, of course. The kid did something between a smirk and a grin. The blonde girl hit him in the head, which whipped around a little bit.
And then there was Orochimaru. He looked strange in a somewhat normal attire, without his evil smirk. He actually did look like a kid, something Naruto had never expected him to, even at the age of five. I can't change things back this early. I might never get born, or get the kyuubi if I do. I might never meet Sakura-chan, and teme . . . No matter how much I want to. Naruto sighed at his own uselessness. But out of the four possibilities he had(one of them being not doing anything) he decided to ruffle Orochimaru's hair slightly.
The brunette scowled, but didn't move down from the box he was sitting on.
Tsunade hopped in front of Naruto. "Oji-chan, why is everyone following you around?"
So she didn't know, after all?
"Oji-chan, why do you have Ojii-chan's necklace?"
The blonde caught the medallion in her hand and pulled it down, along with Naruto's head.
"Hey, you, the white haired kid." What a brilliant plan of getting out of this, making Jiraiya pay for his mistakes. Eh, he'll remember to make it up to his old mentor some day.
Jiraiya was getting all giddy at the thought of seeing a woman naked without having to peek through the windows at the bathrooms. "Can you undress?"
And there came a smack on the back of his head from the blonde. "Jiraiya!"
And here came the opportunity to escape the room, taking Orochimaru along. A bit of compassion wouldn't hurt, would it? Maybe he would be a better person, in the future.
"They're always like that." complained he. "Especially Tsunade. She's such an idiot, she nearly cracked my head opened several times."
Typical Tsunade, Naruto thought, but kept it to himself. "They're going to be like that for a long, long time. But she will be sad if he dies." Naruto ruffled the brunette's hair once again. He seemed to be much better when he was young. "And if you will be more friendly with everyone, she'll care for you, too."
Orochimaru frowned, raising his eyes to Naruto for the first time that day, and looking confused for the first time in his whole life. "People are not that friendly to me."
"Kiddo, let me tell you something."
The blond sat down next to a tree trunk and patted the ground next to me. "It's not about them, it's about you. If you struggle, you will have friends. Power is vain if you don't have what to protect with it." A genuine smile - weak, but still a smile - made its way on Orochimaru's lips.
He nodded shortly.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Konoha, everyone split up to search for Naruto. It turned out, he was nowhere to be found. And everyone was getting worried.
Naruto had sat and talked with Orochimaru for nearly two hours, trying to get him to open up a little, when he realized that it was already quite dark.
"I've got to go. Just make sure Tsunade doesn't kill Jiraiya when they're older. He'll try to touch her boobs all the time."
Orochimaru was still looking a little confused. Usually, no one wanted to talk to him. Why did this blond try so hard? He shook it off and stood up.
"Hey, Tsunade! Jiraiya! Wait up!"
"Orochimaru? What's with you here?" frowned the blonde, trying to ignore Jiraiya who was attempting - the third time, that week - trying to ask her out. The silveret got a punch in the head but he still smiled at the blonde.
"So?"
"No."
"Please, Tsunade-chaaaan?"
"No."
"But..."
"I said no! Do you want to keep your balls or not?"
The white haired boy sighed, turned around, and started walking away. He felt a cold hand poke him in the shoulder.
"Hey, Jiraiya?"
"Hm?" His voice was maybe a bit warmer than usual - the brunet boy rarely tried to be nice to anyone.
"Do you want some ramen?"
His future teammate's mind went blank, and in the middle of everything, there was a big, full, tasty, spicy, delicious, bowl of ramen. "RAMEEEEEN!"
"Hey... could you... you know... stop... crushing me?" the brunet boy managed to choke out through shaky breaths caused by Jiraiya's bear hug.
"Oh, right."
The boy pulled back and smiled.
"Hey guys!"
Gaara's, Shikamaru's... pretty much, everyone's head, snapped around to look at a grinning Naruto.
"Where have you been, idiot?"
"Fixing some stuff up!"
"Oh no. No. No-no-no-no. Tell me you didn't. Tell me it's not what I think. Please tell you haven't..."
"I talked to Orochimaru!" grinned Naruto.
Five minutes later, Sakura had beaten him up so badly that he was nearly dead. Shikamaru was muttering "Everything is so troublesome." once every five seconds, Gaara's sand started going in every direction possible from the stress, Kakashi started fumbling with the knot of his mask - this was one of the most worrying things, since the man really, really didn't want it to slip off -, Yamato was pacing nervously back and forth, and Sai stopped drawing quite abruptly, looking up to everyone, realizing that something was definitely bad.
"Uzumaki Naruto! You are such an idiot!"
"Sakura-chan... it hurts... stop... stop tearing my back in two... Sakura-chan pleaaaase..." cried the Rokudaime. Obviously he could get out of there but most probably it would involve hurting Sakura a little, and he didn't want to. The rosette finally gave up, letting him free of her stomping over his back.
"Th-thanks, Sakura-chaaaan..."
Author's Notes.
So, this the second chapter. Yaaay. I hope you like it, even if it's kind of dull and ends abruptly.