Kakashi was bombarded by memory after memory. Each memory followed by another so fast there was no time to process one before the next demanded to be in the forefront of his consciousness. He felt like he was just a bystander viewing his life, although everything was seen through his own eye(s). He had no control of the body in which he was experiencing every new battle, every new joy or triumph, every new death, scar or injury. The lack of control is rather unnerving… he managed to think before he was overwhelmed with a new tide of thoughtbattlehospitalmissiontrainingmissionhospitalwarlovedeath…

When Kakashi woke to find Naruto's spiky blond head of hair resting heavily on the couch cushion near his shoulder and the body attached to it curled up against a desultory pile of cushions and pillows, he couldn't help but smile. Sitting up – slowly as to not wake the sleeping blond – he saw Sakura and Sasuke both asleep, his head on her shoulder and her head atop his, sitting against Naruto's 'living room' wall. It was cute – 12-year-old Sasuke leaning against 21-year-old Sakura – like a pair of mismatched siblings.

He stood carefully and caught a glimpse of the pluvial midday sky through Naruto's glass balcony doors, wondering if such weather was an omen this late in June. But just as quickly as the thought passed through his mind he discarded it, not one to put stock in such things as omens (unless they incited his shinobi instinct, which in this case the weather did not). He drifted slowly toward Naruto's kitchen area, just barely managing to avoid completely getting lost in his thoughts while he tried to focus on making tea.

Kakashi finished his tea quickly, knowing he needed to be alone to completely assimilate the new memories. He wrote a quick note for his team letting them know there would be a team meeting in a week at the usual training ground and left it under the still relatively full teapot. He gathered his shoes and left from the balcony, leaping from rooftop to rooftop toward his own apartment and some much needed solitude.

Hours later Kakashi was sprawled on the grey sofa in the living room of his apartment, an arm thrown over his face. He was in love. It was so fucking obvious. How could he have missed it before?

Duh, he'd thought Naruto was twelve, that's how he'd missed it. Kakashi would certainly admit to being a pervert, but he wasn't a pedophile. The silver-haired man inhaled deeply then blew the breath out harshly as he stood. Swaying slightly, he gathered his bearings and made his way across the village. He needed to talk this out. His destination: the memorial stone.

Minutes later he was standing in his usual spot above the dark stone cenotaph, a bubble of solitude assured by a privacy jutsu. Kakashi knew that no one could know of some of the things he would say. His eyes raked across the familiar black marble, across the names whose places he'd memorized over years of coming to pay his respects.

Coming to Obito's name, he frowned. All those years mourning the flamboyant, constantly tardy Uchiha, living by and spreading the nindo he'd passed to Kakashi in those last few hours together in the forests of Kusa no Kuni, all those hours spent staring at his name as he was now, just to find out that the boy he'd posthumously declared his best friend had been responsible for half of the tragedies to befall the elemental nations and Konoha in the following years... He shoved the thoughts out of his mind with a snarl, he'd come back to Obito later. Now he was here to talk with Minato-sensei. About love. Ugh.

"Your son grew up beautifully, Minato-sensei…"

Only three days had passed since the meeting in the Sandaime's office when Naruto was woken by a pigeon tapping on his bedroom window. He undid his seals and allowed the bird in, unloading the message from the small tube tied to the bird's leg and sent the feathered messenger back into the sky. He opened the message and frowned.

"Hokage-jiji wants me in his office in an hour?" His frown deepened, "Maybe he wants me to remove Mitarashi-san's seal…hmmm." He sent a tendril of his chakra toward Kurama, wondering if the bijuu might have any ideas, but only found the sound of rumbling snores when he opened the link to the seal. He shredded the small piece of paper into dust with a small burst of fuuton chakra and made his way toward the shower.

Fifty minutes and a large breakfast later, he was scaling the wall of the Hokage tower, making his way toward the window. He knocked on the glass before entering, and hopped down from the sill. Surveying the room, he inhaled sharply as he spotted the spiky white hair and red haori of Myobokuzan's Gama-sennin.

"Ero-sennin," the blond rasped. The white haired man turned to face Naruto.

"Who do you think you're calling 'Perverted Sage' brat?" Jiraiya asked indignantly. Striking a pose he continued, "I am the Wanderer of the East, the Great Hermit of the West; I am the Sage of the Toad spirits of Mount Myoboku! I am the Gama-sennin, Jiraiya the Gallant!" coming to his finishing pose, he finally took a look at his audience.

The Hokage had his face buried in his hands and his shoulders were shaking. Naruto couldn't tell whether the old man was laughing or crying. The blond couldn't blame him if it was the latter. If Naruto's most accomplished student had ended up like Ero-sennin, he'd be crying too. He was, in fact, crying.

"Great Kami-sama, Ero-sennin," Naruto rasped through the emotion gathered in his throat, "that was even better than the one you did the first time."

"What are you talking about gaki? This is the first time I've met you," Jiraiya said, annoyed at the response he'd garnered.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, wiping the tears that had trailed down his cheeks, "In this timeline."

Jiraiya frowned, then opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the elderly Hokage. "Jiraiya-kun, you wanted to know why there was another name on the Toad summoning contract. This…is Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto's eyes widened, he hadn't expected to still hold the contract. He'd rewound time hadn't he? The Naruto of this time hadn't signed the contract. 'But I have' Naruto realized. 'I've come back in time as a 20 year old, my blood has been on that contract for years; I've done sage training at Myobokuzan and Summoning is a jikuukan-jutsu. Shit, I didn't realize…oh, hell these are gonna be some awkward questions. Damn, I don't even know if the toads are from my timeline or if they've rewound too. I'm sure that at least Jiji-sennin and Baba-sennin must remember if my name's still on the contract…' "Erk." Naruto choked, and looked pleadingly at the Hokage. "Can I just tag him? Please?! Ero-sennin lived almost four years longer than you, so it will cut down explanation time to almost half! Please!?"

"No, Naruto-kun, I also would like to know why Jiraiya-kun came barging in here with half-formed questions about how your name ended up on the summoning contract, and whether I should be on the lookout for any other…peculiarities."

"Um well, I rewound the timeline, but my body's timeline hasn't been rewound, so I technically signed the contract eight years ago in about two months, and as Summoning is a jikuukan-jutsu and the summoning realm is in a completely different dimension…well, I was the last contract holder for the toads so…the scroll was mine to protect and it was on my person when I did the reversal so I guess that's why my name is still on it." Naruto theorized quickly. "I didn't even think about this being a problem. The only other Summoning contract problem you might have is with the Slug contract, as Sakura's a signatory on that scroll, but luckily Tsunade-baa-chan doesn't check her scroll practically at all and Katsuyu is very smart and discreet.

"You won't have a problem with your third student because Sasuke's body rewound with the timeline and he only has his memories so he has yet to sign the Snake contract at all, though I doubt he plans to do so this time around in any case." The Sandaime nodded in understanding and took another puff from his pipe.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, gaki! Time out! What do you mean you signed the contract eight years ago, you can't be more than twelve! What's all this about timelines, rewinding and jikuukan-jutsu!? You shouldn't even know what jikuukan-jutsu is!" Jiraiya swiveled to look at the Sandaime, "And you buy this crap, sensei?!"

"He buys your crap too, Ero-sennin. The old perv's got a stash of your 'great literature' in a seal inside the top drawer of his desk, and he actually has to pay for those in cash," Naruto muttered discontentedly from a slouched position he'd taken up on the office couch. 'Mine he only pays for in headaches.'

The Gama-sennin glowered at him from his seat on the only other open chair in the room.

"The room is in Hokage's-eyes-only security mode right? I can release the Infuuin?"

"Yes, Naruto-kun, it's fine. I made sure to reapply the privacy jutsu after came in the window."

The white-haired sage just looked between his teacher and the blond brat (who reminded him immensely of his blond brat) wondering what kind of hallucinogenic leaves the elder was smoking and to which asylum he would need to return the kid.

Naruto released the Infuuin: Henge, and to his irritation had to remind the other toad summoner that Namikaze Minato a) was dead, b) did not have whisker marks, and c) was at least six years older than the younger blond, before he died.

After another half hour of explanations Naruto was finally allowed to tag Jiraiya with a memory release seal. He left the unconscious sage with the Hokage and told Sarutobi that he would be meeting with his team at training ground 7, and if Jiraiya wanted to talk to him when he woke, just to send him there or to Naruto's apartment.

Later that afternoon Jiraiya caught up with Naruto at the training ground. The rest of the team had left, and the blond jinchuuriki was resting against the center training post just beyond the memorial stone. The white-haired sennin ambled in Naruto's direction, finally joining the blond against the back side of the center post, so the two were back to back. Jiraiya broke the popcicle he'd carefully chosen to share with Naruto in two, and handed the blond the other half. They basked together in the slow silence of the warm afternoon, enjoying the refreshing flavor of the orange colored ice. As much as Naruto was enjoying the presence of one of his most precious people, he could no longer hold his silence at the appearance of his mentor.

"Goddamit, Jiraiya-sensei," the blond sighed, "I don't know whether I want to punch you, hug you, or let Tsunade-baa-chan beat you into a barely breathing pulp. You did something so irreparably stupid that I can't believe I coerced you into training me, but your actions and final message led to my victory against your killer. You and your stupid books, Ero-sennin…The one decent book you ever wrote saved the lives of almost 600 shinobi of Konoha. If someone had told me when I was twelve that it was one of your books that saved the world, I would have laughed in his face and carted the poor sucker to the nearest onsen and dropped him naked into the female baths, just to watch him suffer the fists of feminine indignation, then dropped him off at the local insane asylum."

Jiraiya hummed in amusement. "I'd honestly prefer if you didn't punch me or leave me to the nonexistent mercy of Tsunade-hime, I wouldn't mind if you hugged me though," he mused gently.

Turning his popcicle stick into sawdust with a well placed application of fuuton chakra, made his way to stand in front of the lounging sennin. Naruto's twelve-year-old form finally let go of his control and threw himself into Jiraiya's lap, hanging on to the Gama-sennin's red haori as if it would keep the man from disappearing.

The month prior to the chuunin exams was disappearing quickly. It was three days before the start of the exams and Team Seven and Itachi were gathering in one of the private training grounds in the mostly abandoned Uchiha district for a final planning session and unknown to Sasuke, his birthday party. Naruto, Sakura and Itachi sat around the edge of a large picnic blanket chatting quietly when Kakashi poofed into the clearing in his usual chakra smoke shunshin.

"Sorry I'm late, I had to help an old l–" Kakashi was cut off by the sound of laughter – laughter at his expense.

"Kakashi-senpai, you're early," Itachi said, amusement shining in his charcoal eyes. The silver-haired shinobi's uncovered eye widened in shock and looked at Naruto and Sakura who were surreptitiously exchanging high-fives and snickering together.

"We know your habits way to well sensei, we needed you to be early so we told you to show up three hours prior to the actual meeting time," Sakura said through her snickers.

Kakashi's eye narrowed, "What would you have done if I'd shown up when you asked me to?" He asked, feigning casual nonchalance.

"Puh-leez, sensei," said Sakura, rolling her eyes, "as if you'd show up on time! We did, however, station one of Naruto's clones on lookout in the trees just in case," she finished with a smile.

Kakashi huffed a laugh through his mask, admitting defeat as he too sat on the blanket. After hours of debating with himself over the memorial stone, he decided to wait to approach the topic of their relationship with his blond student, at least until the chuunin exams were over. There was too much that needed to get done between now and then for team dynamics to get screwed over by romance. That didn't stop him from keeping a very appreciative eye on the blond, though.

The conversation resumed for several minutes until Naruto caught Sasuke's chakra signature approaching. He shushed everyone and handed out what looked like explosive notes to everyone, and quickly explained that they were modified exploding trap tags that instead of bombarding the target with shrapnel would just pop loudly and release a shower of multicolored confetti on a three second delay when chakra was added. He folded his into a paper airplane and indicated the others should do the same.

As Sasuke walked casually into the clearing that made up the training ground, he was faced with an assortment of small white shapes, which began making popping sounds. Shielding his face with his arms and tensing for the backlash of the supposedly incoming explosion, he was surprised when the backlash didn't come. Lowering his arms he looked up hearing the laughter of his teammates, low chuckles of his older brother and quiet snickers of his sensei. Looking around, it took him a few seconds to realize what happened. Some of the confetti was still in the air and flittering slowly toward the ground. Sasuke glowered and raised a hand to brush the brightly colored bits of paper out of his hair glaring in the direction of his blond-haired teammate, who just smiled in response.

"Happy Birthday, Sasuke!" Naruto said pleasantly, followed by a chorus of other voices repeating the sentiment.

"Shut up, Dobe. I thought this was supposed to be a planning session, not a scare-the-wits-out-of-your-teammate party."

"But, it's your birthday, Teme! We have to celebrate! You are now officially 13!" The blue-eyed boy exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.

"Hn."

"Aww, you know you love us, Teme,"

"Hn."

"Anyway, I made lunch for your birthday!" said Naruto, "I think every dish but the rice has tomatoes in it." Sasuke perked up at that.

"Hn."

"You're welcome. Now let's eat!"

There was a flurry of excited movement that accompanied the opening of the provided food. The celebration was enjoyed by everyone, even with the undercurrent of tension that the approaching exams provided. However, this July 23rd, Sasuke mused, had turned out to be the best birthday he could remember. 'Hopefully next year's will be even better,' was his last thought before retuning his attention to his teammates.