This Whole Thing is a Mess
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto... -.-
A/N: I'm really happy I've gotten this far in my story. =D Thanks to everyone has been reviewing/adding this to their fav. list/story alert list/ and even a community.(xDD) ^^ And again, I'm REALLY sorry for such the long wait, but hey, this is my longesst chapter yet so it sort of makes up for it(not really). D:
Anyway, I hope you guys like overboard endings because the ending I have planned is probably on the top of that list. I'll probably going to have to write a sequel because I think it would be huge waste of an idea if I didn't. xP
Chapter 7
(Past)
Naruto lay in bed, his whole body aching. He had just finished training with Sasuke and the sky outside was already dark. Naruto looked at the red numbers on his clock. It read 8:30 PM. The blonde sighed, trying to remember what time he had started training with Sasuke. He guessed around 6:30-ish so they had trained for about two hours.
Naruto was surprised. He thought that Sasuke would have grown tired within the first fifteen minutes of training with him. I think everything just likes proving me wrong, He thought to himself. Then again, thats not always a bad thing. Naruto silently laughed.
He groaned, sitting up on his bed, his muscles sreaming at him to stop moving. He was still fully garbed in his orange jumpsuit. He wondered breifly as to why he hadn't taken it off; he was about to die in it becasue of the heat and trapped sweat.
Naruto slowly stood to go take a shower. Maybe that would cool him and ease the pain out of his muscles a little.
Afterwards, Naruto climbed into bed and slept. It was only 9:00 PM but the blonde didn't want to miss training tomorrow and they were meeting at 7:00 on the bridge. He couldn't deny that he was a late-sleeper, especially when he was older.
That morning, Naruto awoke and immediatley started to focus on his chakra to see if it had gotten any bigger. It had but only by a sliver of a fraction, just enough to barely notice. Naruto sighed. It took awhile to build up chakra so why had he been hoping to gain all of his chakra back in one day of training?
The blonde got out of bed. It was thirty minutes before the scheduled time to meet at the bridge. On a normal occasion, Naruto would have waited for an hour or two, since he knew Kakashi wouldn't show up until around, well, maybe around 10:00, although, that would be pushing it, alot, but Naruto decided that he could take the few extra hours to hang with Sasuke. If Sasuke had already started to warm up to him last night with training who knew what a morning could do? Alot, decided Naruto.
The blonde ninja left his apartment ten minutes before seven, and walked at a comfortable pace towards the bridge. When he got there, Sasuke was already there and Sakura was already doing her daily routine which consisted of fawning after Sasuke. Naruto rolled his eyes at her antics as he stepped onto the bridge. He sure was glad that she had nearly stopped obsessing over Sasuke in the future.
Naruto suddenly paused in mid-step, a thought coming into his head. What if he stopped Sasuke from leaving Konoha and then Sakura never stopped doing what she was doing right now, and... and then Sasuke and Sakura finally fell in love and lived happily ever after?
Naruto felt jealousy started pricking at his heart as his breathing became irregular. The thought hurt him more than it should have. Naruto didn't care what Sasuke did as long as he stayed in Konoha. Naruto told himself this over and over, but he couldn't make himself believe it. It wasn't like he was gay, right? He just didn't like seeing someone make the raven-haired boy happy other than him. He didn't like seeing others laugh when he was sitiing on the sidelines. Years of being alone cause him to be that way.
Either he goes away and has a crappy life or theres a chance he falls in love with Sakura... which do you want, Naruto? He asked himself. This made him start to walk again, and his breathing became easier. The painful stabs of jealousy stayed though.
Naruto walked right up to his teammates and with a huge grin shouted, "Hey guys! Our first real day of training. Aren't you guys excited?"
Sakura turned towards Naruto, having just realized he was there. "Oh, hey Naruto. And yeah, I guess it is exciting," she said, while looked at Sasuke and thinking, especially when I'm going to be training with Sasuke-kun. Her inner self was yelling something about being the strongest ninja ever.
Sasuke had been watching Naruto since the moment the blonde had stepped into view and had even been silently wondering what was wrong with the dobe, although, he wasn't about to admit this. To answer Naruto's question, he just turned his head to the side while saying a plain, "Hn."
Naruto frowned at Sasuke and, wanting to rival his coolness, turned away fromt the raven and pouted.
Sakura glanced between the two, trying to pick up any unsaid language between them. Finding none, she gave up and latched herself to Sasuke's arm again. Sasuke tried to unlatch her but was unsuccesful. Naruto turned his head around slightly to see what was happening. It made him a little angry. Ok, a little more than a little angry cause currently, he wouldn't mind ripping Sakura's head off her shoulders. Man, how he hated the pink-haired girl when she was this age. He really couldn't wait to see her again when she was grown up and less annoying. He didn't see how his younger self had loved the girl when she was like this.
Naruto watched for a couple minutes before deciding to save Sasuke from his misery.
He walked over and stopped right next to them. "Sakura, its kind of obvoius that Sasuke is not enjoying what you are doing. I mean look at his face, its worse than usual! If you want him to fall in love with you, I'd suggest starting by not annoying him as much, although, thats going to be hard considering Sasuke is annoyed by pretty much anything, even the birds flying overhead, probably."
Sakura looked from Sasuke to Naruto before finally sighing and letting go of her death grip on Sasuke's arm. "For once, you're actually right about something, Naruto. Although, maybe you should listen to your own advice. If you want me to fall in love with you, maybe you should stop being so annoying."
Naruto barely managed to stop himself from lunging at her. I'm not in love with you! he screamed at her inside his head. Maybe I used to be, but I'm not now! I love you like a friend, in the future... anyway.
Sakura and Naruto continued to argue until Kakashi showed up. When their sensei did show up, crouching above them and his orange book in his hand, the two turned to shout at him.
"LATE!" they both screamed at him. Naruto silently cursed at himself for not talking to Sasuke. He had wasted the whole time arguing with Sakura!
Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "Well... I just happened to forget what time we were supposed to meet today."
"What type of sensei forgets what time he is going to meet his students?" Sakura asked, putting a hand on her hip.
Kakashi laughed nervously. "Well... with that aside, we'll start today's assignment. I have got a list of D ranking mission for us."
Naruto immideiatley perked up, feigning his interest. "Really? We're already going on missions! This is so awesome!" Inside, Naruto was rolling his eyes thinking about how boring to day was going to be. He hated D missions. Why couldn't they just actually go and train. That would be much more helpful, especially to Naruto who needed to gain all his skills back again.
"Yeah, and afterwards, we'll train," Kakashi said, peeking over the top of his book to look at his students. Honestly, he really wanted to watch them train as it might give him a clue as to how Naruto knew the beginnings of the Rasengan.
"Yeah!" Naruto shouted while jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. When he landed he asked, "So, what are we doing today?"
Kakshi pulled a small piece of paper from his backpocket. To the three genin it looked like it held nothing on it, but on Kakashi's side, there was a list. Kakashi studied the list, groaning on the inside about how boring these were going to be. At least he had his book.
"Hmm. looks like we can start off by cleaning the river below us," Kakashi announced.
Naruto's mouth dropped open. "What! Why can't we go off and fight some powerful ninjas or something so I can show off my super awesome skills!"
Sasuke scoffed, and Kakashi's one visible eye turned into an upside down U as he smiled. "I don't think you're ready for that quite yet, Naruto. You can't even fight off me and there's far worse than me out there."
Naruto pouted, even though he knew Kakashi spoke the truth. There were way more powerful guys out there, such as Madara, Pein and the rest of the now-living Akatsuki. A shiver ran down Naruto's spine as he thought this over again. Would he have to fight them again? It was bad enough to have to kill the Akatsuki once, but, to do it again? What if they came now to take advantage of his weakened state and captured him? There was no way he could fend them all off, even if he had all his powers back.
"Naruto?" Sakura's voice shook Naruto from his thoughts. "Are you alright?"
"Huh?" Naruto asked. "Uh... yeah, I'm fine. I was just spacing out about becoming the most powerful ninja to ever walk the earth." He gave them a smile to hide his doubts and worries, and Sakura nodded. Naruto, they don't even know you went back in time, they're not coming after you, he told himself but it was still unsettling.
"Well, you guys can get started!" Kakashi shouted. "The quicker you get done, the quicker we can move down the list and the quicker you can get to training."
"You're not going to help?" Sakura asked.
"I think spending my time cleaning a river would be a waste of my jounin skills," Kakashi answered matter-of-factly.
"Whatever, lets just get started," Naruto growled, making everyone looked at him shocked. He walked to the railing of the bridge and putting one hand on the cool metal, he jumped over and landed, a few yards down, on top of the water, a small splash making his pants get wet.
Sakura ran over to look down, and was totally surprised when she saw Naruto standing on the water. "Naruto? How are you standing on water?"
Naruto looked down at his feet and laughed nervously. He hadn't even realized that he had focused chakra at the bottom of his feet, it was just second nature to him now. He let the chakra go and sunk down to his waste in the water, the water soaking through his clothes. It didn't have much of a current but it was still pulling at him, making him sway. "I don't know, I just... did it, somehow," he offered.
Kakashi and Sasuke were both equally surprised. Naruto was supposed to be the dead-last and he was already standing on water? Kakashi looked down at the water and studied his student. He wondered briefly if he was some imposter, but that didn't explain the Rasengan. No one outside the village, and very few inside, knew that jutsu.
Kakashi jumped down onto the water as well, but stayed standing on top of it. "I don't believe that, Naruto," he said. For once, he didn't have his orange book in front of his face. "Tell us, how did you really, know how to walk on water?'
Naruto gulped and started to back away, not only to get further away from his scary sensei but to also get closer to the edge of the river so he wasn't so deep. His mind scrambled to find an answer. "I was out expirementing a while ago and suddenly, it just came to me. I'm not really sure how I do it, and I'm not very good at it yet."
Kakashi shook his head, still not buying it. "If that was so, then why did you do it without thinking?"
"Who said I wasn't thinking?" he laughed. "I mean, I have to think sometimes and since I look like I never think, it means that I must think when I don't look like I'm thinking."
Everyone looked at him, even more confused then before, even Sasuke.
Kakashi sighed, giving up. "Well, I'm not sure I'm buying that. I'm going to have to tell the hokage about this though."
Naruto gulped. What if the hokage was smart enough to figure it out? Then he would send him back to the future before he had the chance to save Sasuke! Naruto! he shouted at himself. You really need to stop with the 'what if's'. No one's going to find out and you'll save Sasuke and everyone will be happy!
Kakashi looked up at Sasuke and Sakura. "Well, are you two going to come down and start picking up the river? This is about teamwork so don't think about making Naruto do all the work."
Both of them ran off the bridge and to the riverside.
Kakashi jumped back up onto the bridge, and sat on the railing with his feet dangling. His sole focus was on the really good and smutty part of his book as he read it for the third time. He didn't look at his students once as he sat their giggling to himself.
The three genin got straight to work. Naruto, wanting to finish this as soon as possible, made twenty-five clones to help.
"Isn't that cheating?" Sakura wondered.
Naruto shrugged. "Nah. Is there really cheating in the ninja world? If you win, you win, no matter how you won. Ninjas aren't worried about playing fair when it comes to their mission and killing to stay alive."
Sakura looked a little shocked about Naruto's words, especially when he mentioned killing to stay alive. Were they really going to have to do that? Suddenly, becoming a female ninja was less appealing.
Five minutes later, the river was all clean, not a piece of litter in sight. Naruto quickly dispelled his clones and then jumped up on the bridge and tapped Kakashi on the shoulder.
The gray-haired jounin had been been gigling and blushing and very nearly jumped under Naruto's touch, but he didn't. "What is it?" he inquired.
"We're done," Naruto told him.
"Already?" Kakashi asked. He looked down at the river and sure enough, it was spit-spot clean.
"Yeah, I may have used some shadow-clones to help," Naruto said, scratching the back of his head.
"This is supposed to be teamwork, if your clones do all the work, that defeats the purpose," Kakashi said.
"They didn't do all the work, just most of it. Besides, how is picking up trash a part of teamwork?" Naruto offered. Sasuke rolled his eyes at the blonde's answer.
"hmmm," Kakashi answered. "Anyway, next mission." He fished the paper out of his pocket again and studied it. "How about catching a cat?"
Naruto groaned. "Why are we wasting my skills on that? How many more do we have to do?"
"Only four, including that one," Kakashi smiled upon answering. "Now lets go catch us that cat!"
All three genin groaned, including Sasuke.
(Future)
Sasuke was half a mile from Konoha, still running towards the huge gates that he could now see. As he drew closer, he started seeing the ninja guarding the door, and even the two ANBU perched on top of the gates looking down. In less than a minute, he would arrive.
When he did, the ANBU jumped down immediatley and looked him over. Sasuke's clothes were torn and had dried blood on them. It was from his previous fight with Madara's army. The ANBU took a few minutes to make sure that Sasuke was not carrying anything that could harm the village and that this was the real Sasuke and not some imposter.
When they were done, one said, "Sasuke Uchiha, the Hokage would like to see you."
Sasuke was getting irritated with standing there, but he kept his face blank, like always. When they said he could go see the hokage, relief flooded him. Then the ANBU started walking, at a normal pace through the streets and Sasuke again, found himself annoyed. "Can we hurry? I have something urgent to tell Tsunade...sama," Sasuke added the 'sama' part a little late, but oh well, he didn't care.
The ANBU looked at him. "Very well." One of them grabbed onto Sasuke, making the Uchiha flinch, then performed a jutsu that had them appearing in the hokage's office a second later.
Tsunade was sitting in her office chair, looking deep in thought. Her head snapped up when she heard the loud 'poof' and at first she was angry that someone had invaded her office without her permission, but then she saw Sasuke standing there, looking as if he had been in a big fight a little while ago.
"Sasuke!" she stood, shouting happily. "Thank GOD your back!" She looked at the ANBU. "You may leave."
"But Tsunade-sama, what if Sasuke decides to betray us!" One of the ANBU asked.
"OUT!" Tsunade shouted, pointing towards the door. "I know for a fact that Sasuke will not betray us and on the off chance he does, I can take him. He is not in the condition to fight anways. It looks like he just ran a million miles!"
THe ANBU left without another word, leaving the two alone.
"Tsunade-sama, I have something urgent to tell you," Sasuke said politley. Even the urgent news wasn't enough for his pride to let him shout out what it was he needed to tell her.
"I have something to tell you to," Tsunade murmered, sitting back in her chair. She rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. "Regarding Naruto."
Sasuke's mouth was open, having been going to talk but deciding to stop. He closed it, wondering briefly if they already knew. "Naruto?"
"Yes," Tusnade nodded sullenly. "He has some form of amnesia, and he thinks he is twelve again. And the worse part is that he has no way of gaining his memory back. Maybe with you, he'll at least believe us."
Sasuke let out a breathe. That must mean that... "He doesn't have amnesia," he stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, but isn't some jutsu either. Ibiki would've picked up on that," Tsunade told him.
Sasuke shook his head. "It is a jutsu, but not the type your thinking of. Naruto traveled back in time, and I'm guessing that he switched places with his younger soul."
Tsunade looked at Sasuke with shock, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "What? He went back in time? How do you know?"
"Madara told me. In fact, he told me his whole plan. I really don't know why he told me, but he did. He said he was going to use me as bait, but I escaped," Sasuke said.
"What is his plan?" Tsunade talked fast, her voice urgent.
Sasuke took a deep breathe before starting out slow, but his voice started going faster and faster as he spoke. "Madara sent Naruto back in time so that he would have none of his powers in the past and in the future. Then he will go back in time and grab Naruto and take him back into the future to take Kyuubi out of him and create the ten-tailed bijuu. He was originally planning to use me as bait."
Tsunade nodded, telling Sasuke that she had heard. "But why go back in time? Why not just snatch Naruto from this time period?"
"I think Madara is afraid of the other Naruto finding out and switching places again. He doesn't want there to be a single chance that Naruto could get his powers back."
Tsunade nodded again. "Damn Naruto for doing to this without even telling us! And Damn Madara as well," she muttered, then louder, "It looks like we'll have to send someone back in time to give him the message."
This is when Sasuke gulped, nervous. "Please Tsunade, let me go back in time." He was very nearly begging, which shocked the hokage. Sasuke didn't beg for anything. This was obvoiusly something important to him, even more than killing his brother had been.
"Are you sure Sasuke?" she asked him. "You just have to tell him and get him to come back-or forward, should I say- to the future. Can you handle that?"
Sasuke nodded. "You just have to keep Naruto in this time-period alive, no matter what. I think Madara might send some Zetsu's to try and kill him."
Tsunade nodded. "We'll do everything in our power to keep him alive."
"You better do everything in your power and more to keep him alive. If you have to, call Garaa for help. This effects every country if Madara catches the last beast to create to the ten-tailed bijuu," Sasuke growled.
Tsunade, once again, nodded her head. "Do you know a time-travel jutsu?"
"No," Sasuke said simply, a slight blow hitting his pride.
"Hmmm," Tsunade thought. "I think there is one inside the Forbidden Scroll." She laughed and, trying to lighten the mood, said, "Good thing Naruto didn't find that one when he stole it all those years ago."
Sasuke made a little 'hn' sound, still staring blankley at Tsunade.
"Well, I guess I'll go find it and you can stay here, unless you need anything else?" Tsuande asked, although her question sounded more like, 'you better not need anything else.'
Sasuke shook his head at the last part.
"Good," Tsunade said. "I don't want people to know you returned. If they knew, they wouldn't let you go back in time. That and I don't want this whole situation getting out to the public. The ANBU and a few selected jounin will be the only ones I tell so that they can guard Naruto 24/7."
Sasuke nodded in understanding. Tsunade left and Sasuke waited, seemingly patient, but he was growing more and more anxoius. He needed to save Naruto, now! He started to pace around the room.
A few minutes later, Tsunade returned carrying a very large scroll awkwardly, through the doors. She plopped it onto her desk and immideatley started to scan through it. Sasuke came over to look at the scroll.
It was covered in nicely hand-written words. The title of each jutsu was larger and bolder than the rest of the words. Each jutsu was accompanied by a description of the jutsu, how to execute it and it even had pictures of the hand-signs of the jutsu.
They were about half way through the large scroll when they spotted the Time-travel jutsu. It didn't have a proper name, like the others, it was just named 'Time-Travel'. Reading the description, Sasuke found that only one person had tried it before and no one was sure what had happened. The Jutsu was said to supposedly send Sasuke back in time, staying in his own body, and if you reversed the handsigns, you would go into the future. It also said in big bold letters that this jutsu held huge risks.
Tsunade looked up at Sasuke. "Are you sure you want to do this, Sasuke? It's a huge risk and we don't know what would happen to you if it failed. Maybe I should get someone else to do it."
"No, I'll do it," Sasuke said, his voice and his words told her that he was 100% sure he wanted to do this. There was no way he was going to back out now.
"Ok. So lets go over the plan one more time," Tsunade said. "You go back in time, tell Naruto to preform another jutsu to switch places again with his younger soul and I'll do everything in my power and more, to make sure that the Naruto here, stays alive and out of harm's way. If anything goes wrong, and you can't go forward in time, then you'll have to get help from Kakashi and whoever else back then to help keep Naruto safe. We can't afford to mess up and let Naruto get captured."
Sasuke nodded. "I'm not going to mess up."
"If you're sure on that, you can do the jutsu," Tsunade told him.
Once again, Sasuke nodded and prepare to do the time-travel jutsu.
Uchiha Madara walked back into the cave where he had kept Sasuke. Walking far into it, he found the ropes that had tied Sasuke were loosely laying on the ground with Sasuke no where in sight. Madara quickly scanned the whole cave with his mind, searching for any trace of another person's chakra.
Sasuke's chakra was there, but it was faded meaning that it was old chakra that he had aready used. Uchiha Sasuke had escaped.
Madara let a small smile creep across his face beneath the mask. Perfect. His plan was falling into place. He performed a couple of handsigns and then, with a loud pop, he transported himslef to the same cave, only back in the past.
Now, all he had to do was wait. It wouldn't be long now.
End of Chapter 7!
A/N:
Finally! This chapter is done! Please review and I'll try getting the next chapter out sooner than I did this one.
