Declivitous Recursion: A tale of temporal chaos

Chapter two: In which exposition is abound

Naruto was standing in the middle of a small field, Kakashi had put him on scarecrow duty after he got his name wrong in front of the Hokage. All in all it wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon. It allowed him time to converse with his pet demon.

"I was thinking that during my next reset you could remake the world again, you know like that time you made it so that Shino was a robot!" Naruto smiled when he thought about that world. He almost lived to be thirty that time, but he died in the first wave of the synthoid rebellions. Those were good, interesting days. Certainly much better than standing in a field, trying really hard not to pee one's self.

"I'll do it, but only if you kill the snake man." Naruto frowned soberly. "That will be tricky, I don't think I can do it for another few years at least." The Kyuubi churned in his cage. "No! It has to be during the exams, I have a plan... You'll like it, it's new." Naruto gasped at that, then scowled. He knew that damned fox was holding out on him! "What are you planning..." The fox sent him images, mostly of hand signs and seals.

Naruto nodded briskly, and slipped out of the ropes holding him to the post. He walked around the field, marking a colossal seal array onto the ground. With a smirk he started the eight hundred or so seals he'd need. A few minutes later he slammed his hands on the ground as if he was summoning something. Which, now that he thought about it was probably what he just did.

The ground shook beneath his feet, the air in front of him shimmered violently, and a sound he heard more in his bones than his ears rang through the clearing. Suddenly, two people fell bodily to the ground. The girl's pink hair gave her identity away instantly, and the other was definitely Sasuke. Furious, Naruto yelled into his own mind. "What did you do!" Rumbling in the back of his mind told him the fox was laughing. "They're versions of your favourite team from different time lines, I noticed that we weren't alone the last time we reset. It took me a while to figure out how to get them here." The fox, seeing his jailor understood, went back to sleep.

Naruto looked at Sakura, and Sasuke curiously. This was certainly new, he felt excited... Invigorated even. He had his friends back! For the first time in three hundred years, Naruto wept... Mostly because someone had just kicked him very hard right in the nads. "You damned demon I wont let you hurt anyone this time!" Sakura yelled as she attacked him. Sasuke grumbled a bit, he figured he was dreaming. Naruto rolled out of the way. "Stop you crazy bitch! I'm not that damned fox!"

Sakura blinked, then looked in his eyes. "...You're Naruto." Naruto, and the now fully awake Sasuke gave her an odd look. "What I mean is you're the one in charge, right?" Naruto tilted his head, and narrowed his eyes. "The fox and I came to an agreement and..." Sakura punched him into the ground. "You're working for that monster!" Naruto groaned as he pulled himself out of the hole. "Not for, with. We're partners. I get what I want, and he doesn't get put in the box again!" He sent a flash of said box to the Kyuubi, who whimpered in turn.

Sasuke laughed. "Listen, we need to figure out what's going on. This field isn't the best place for that."

Naruto sat down, and leaned back. "Relax, you won't be around for another ten minutes or so." Sakura frowned. "What do you mean by that?" He smirked. "This Sasuke is from another universe, the Sasuke coming is the Sasuke of this universe." Sakura was the first to recover from the shock. "So this isn't just another repeat, I'm actually in another universe!" Naruto nodded, then continued. "Which means we have to kill one of them because we can't have two Sasukes running around, it just won't work!"

Sasuke scowled. "We can't just kill him!" Sakura sighed. "What else can we do?" Sasuke thought about it for a bit. "Capture him, take his eyes, and then change his body and mind." Sakura deadpanned. "That's so much better than just killing him!" Sasuke frowned. "He'll be alright, he'll be happier that way." Naruto snorted in amusement. "More like SHE"LL be happier that way, the only person that died recently and won't be found is the daughter of the local magistrate. Solves our problem, and we get paid for an A-rank mission. Win-win in my book!"

Sakura looked at her teammates with horror and disgust. "You... You can't be serious! This is... UGH!" Sasuke looked at Sakura with sad eyes. "I know it's tough to understand, but my life was hellish the first time around. I don't want any version of me to live the life I led, I also don't want to damn him. Which is probably what would happen if he died right now." Sakura sighed. "I understand where you are coming from, but I just can't be a part of this."

She turned to Naruto to talk with him, only to see him cutting the other Sasuke's eyes out. "What are you doing!" Naruto looked over at her. "What? I thought we agreed that this was the right way to go." He sealed the eyes into a scroll, and tossed it to Sasuke. He then turned to his universe's Sasuke and began crafting a seal onto his abdomen. After about four minutes of work, he made a quick seal on Sasuke's forehead. He activated it, and poured everything he knew about the girl he would become. The final seal was activated and Sasuke was no more. In his place was Kasumi, daughter of the magistrate.

Sakura, not trusting Naruto's work, carefully scanned the neo-girl. She saw no irregularities, and from what she could tell Kasumi was a perfectly healthy young girl... Physically anyway, she would have to give her an interrogation before she's let her see her new family. Sakura woke her up gently, and went through the typical questions she'd ask a civilian she rescued. Kasumi answered every question like she was every bit the monied yet kind girl she seemed to be.

Sakura turned to see Naruto struggling with a large duffel bag. He saw her looking, and wiggled his eyebrows and made the anbu sign for cherry blossom as he pointed at the bag. Sakura of course groaned, and mimed slitting her throat. Naruto got the idea and nodded. "Excuse me, but I really should be getting home now. My parents must be worried sick!" Sasuke grimaced, the girl really creeped him out. "Sorry, it'll only be a bit longer. We have runners fetching our sensei as we speak." She looked down her eyelashes at him, with a bit of a blush. "I wouldn't mind spending a bit more time with you~"

Sakura tried to stifle her laughter as Sasuke slowly backed away. She only succeed in making squeaky noises instead.

Elsewhere, a cadre of Naruto clones stood before Kakashi. "Our boss found that girl, Megumi that everyone was looking for!" Kakashi sighed again. "I'm sure you mean Kasumi, you really need to learn to get people's names right. You're a ninja, act like one!" The Naruto clone in the lead scratched the back of his head. "Whatever, so do we take the girl back home?" Kakashi nodded, then made his way to the Hokage's office when they dispelled themselves.

Naruto perked up when he was hit with the clone's memory, he finished disposing of Sakura's body and went to speak with Sakura. As he walked over, he made sure to wipe most of the blood off of himself. He quickly made a few clones to escort his old friend to her new life, and made his way to his new team.

The clones led the girl away, and Naruto cleared his throat. "Alright, Kakashi will be at the Hokage tower in about an hour. We can have a quick discussion about what you're doing here and whatnot in the meantime. First off, you are here because the fox wants Orochimaru dead and I cannot do it alone... at least not during the chuunin exams."

Sakura nodded. "So, we have less than a year to learn to work together." Sasuke nodded. "Yeah, but does it have to be during this repeat? And for that matter, if we repeat would we just end up back in our old universes?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. "We don't have to kill him now, but it'd prefer it. As for your other question, yes you would... But I can fix that!" Naruto removed Sasuke's shirt and drew a seal on Sasuke's upper arm. He started on himself, and motioned for Sakura to copy him.

Once they were all done, Naruto pricked his finger and added his blood to the other seals. Once the other two finished, he clapped his hands. "Okay good, now we're bound together. As long as one of us is alive, we are all alive... As long as you consider being a voice in the back of someone's mind to be alive. Also if we all die, we'll just reset." Sakura and Sasuke nodded.

Naruto sat down again. "We need to learn a bit more about each other. I'll go first. I am almost a thousand years old, I'm a heavy assault specialist, and I seem to have impaired mental faculties... and Speaking of, the fox wants to speak with you about that!" The two ninja looked at each other. Sakura was the first to speak up. "How do you expect us to talk with that thing?" Naruto frowned. "Just close your eyes, and try to find your centre."

Once Naruto was sure that his friends were sufficiently distracted, he made a few hand signs and poked them on the foreheads. All three ninja fell backward.

To be continued...