Betaread by DemonicWhispers
Falling In Reverse
Drawing a blank, Naruto stared at the three familiar but at the same time so different people.
There was no way… No way that his father was truly alive, that Kakashi had both his eyes intact, that Obito was apparently considered comrade by those two.
…Or that all three were Konoha's missing-nins.
It made no sense at all and was utterly impossible.
"Snap out of it, boy!" Kurama roared in his mind. "Stop spacing out in front of possible hostiles!"
"But… Kurama, that's–"
"I know. I can see it myself," the fox replied in a growl. "Now, focus!"
And focus Naruto did. When he calmed down and his brains restarted, he suddenly felt a surge of anger. That certainly couldn't be his father or his sensei! They wouldn't be standing nonchalantly next to that despicable Uchiha! How these bastards dared to pretend to be them!
The Jinchuuriki stood up, his fury pushing all the pain to the side, and met the glare of those cold azure eyes with the matching glare of his own. "Who the hell are you?!" he demanded. "You do a bad job impersonating the Yondaime and Kakashi! They would never allow that particular Uchiha come even close to them!"
Kakashi shot a fleeting glance towards Obito who frowned at his words. Minato narrowed his eyes, but didn't move them from the teen. "It appears that you know who we are," he spoke in a calm and measured tone, but with a hint of steel. "But you have us at a disadvantage as we don't know who you are."
Naruto couldn't suppress the hurt flitting across his features at hearing those words. "You don't…?" he more mumbled than asked. He felt so confused. If these were impostors sent to deceive him, they wouldn't state that they don't know him, right? Absolutely nothing made sense from the moment he woke up.
Maybe the Uchiha had put him under a genjutsu?
It seemed that Kurama had the same thought, because the young ninja felt a disrupting burst of chakra coming from the fox. It changed nothing though.
"Your name, ninja," the Yondaime ordered, his soft tenor holding a startling amount of authority.
The Jinchuuriki scowled. 'You should know it! You named me myself!' he wanted to scream, but instead, what left his mouth was a quiet, "Naruto Uzumaki."
If possible, his father's gaze got even colder and his already balled fists tightened further. "Is this a joke?" A question came out in a dangerously low voice that sent an alarm throughout Naruto's mind. "Does that man truly believes that this," Minato jerked his hand at the younger blond, "will somehow mislead me into thinking that–" he abruptly cut himself off and closed his eyes, taking in a breath and composing himself.
"…What man?" Naruto blurted out, getting even more baffled, his mind already reeling with possibilities. Madara? Kabuto? ...Obito? He glanced at the Uchiha. "What are you talking about?"
"Enough of this charade!" When Namikaze looked at the teen again, his face remained completely emotionless, except a smoldering rage that burned deep within his piercing blue eyes. "I will not stand it any longer."
The Jinchuuriki's eyes widened as suddenly there was a familiar three-pronged kunai flying towards him with a speed he could barely match in his current state. Not to mention, he was weaponless – his entire ninja arsenal had been used in a previous fight with Uchihas and the Juubi. Not even a single shuriken was left on his person.
He successfully ducked the kunai to the side. Naruto and Minato sparred and trained a lot during that one year, and thus the young Uzumaki knew his father's fighting style like the back of his hand. He knew that the older man would flash right behind him with a blade in his hand or the Rasengan already formed, but also realized that there was no way he would be able to dodge that attack in time. So, Naruto instinctively reached for the second active beacon he could feel nearby and teleported several steps away to the first kunai that was sitting embedded into the spot where he previously had been lying.
His use of Hiraishin seemed to catch all three hostile ninjas off guard, because Naruto gained a few seconds to grab the kunai and deactivate the seal formula on its handle so that Minato couldn't use it, before all of a sudden the whole world around him twisted and swirled.
A confused "What the…?" left the teen's mouth, when a burst of Kyuubi's chakra disrupted the flow in his coils, and everything instantly returned to normal.
Kakashi was upon him, the edge of his sword glistening against the sun as it made its downward descend towards his neck. Naruto lifted his newly acquired weapon just in time to parry the attack, but there was no strength in his arms, and he was forced to back away instead.
The coordinated movement on his left and right caused Naruto to panic. "Kurama!" he yelled in his mind and instantly felt an influx of his partner's chakra. The yellow shroud of the nine-tailed fox mode flared to life, taking a shape of a full-length haori, and with a last longing glance at his father, Naruto vanished in a yellow flash, moving too fast for a naked human eye to perceive.
The Jinchuuriki landed in a tree quite a way from his crash site. When Kurama's mode disappeared, he felt thoroughly exhausted, but there was no time to rest. Naruto had to flee before Minato's team could catch up with him. He could take the so needed rest once he would be at the safe distance from them.
The young ninja hoped through the trees in silence, when the Kyuubi spoke, "Naruto–"
"What the hell is this?!" the teen interrupted him. "That's definitely not the Infinite Tsukuyomi! It creates the perfect world, and in my perfect world my dad and sensei are not trying to kill me!"
Kurama didn't respond. Being as confused as his human friend, he honestly didn't know what was happening. He had a nagging feeling that he had somewhere, somehow heard about something similar, but the answer was still out of his grasp. The Kyuubi needed time to think. And the little brat needed time to heal.
"Kid, you need to rest," the fox noted gruffly. There was no reaction from the blond, so he huffed and tried again, "Naruto–"
"Fine!" the Jinchuuriki snapped, but then sighed. "Sorry… Can you–?"
"Of course."
Naruto blazed through the series of hand seals, stopping on his most used one – cross seal. There was a build-up of the Kyuubi's chakra before it all went away with a big cloud of smoke. At the same moment, the teen landed on the tree branch and suddenly swayed, his knees finally failing to hold their own weight. He slipped and tumbled down head first, but instead of a hard earth, his body fell into a soft pile of fur.
The horse-sized copy of Kurama gracefully landed on the ground with his human safely cocooned inside his tails. The fox looked around, and, seeing nothing threatening, lay down under the same tree. "You alright, Naruto?" he asked, glancing at the boy, hidden under all the fur.
The teen murmured something incoherently, snuggling even deeper. "Have I ever told you how much I love your tails?" came a muffled question after a minute.
"Keh," the great fox scoffed. "Keep your petty flattery to yourself, brat."
Naruto smiled, already half asleep. He didn't have to see his friend to know that there was a pleased smirk on his lips, despite calling his words a petty flattery.
"…He's gone," Obito informed, his active Sharingan still wandering the rows of trees, searching for any sign of the unknown ninja.
"That was strange," Kakashi stated, slipping his katana into its sheath on his back.
Minato turned around without saying a word, briskly walked to the nearest tree, and punched it. The poor thing shook, his trunk creaking painfully, but withstood it. The blond put the forearm against its bark and rested his forehead on it.
Kakashi and Obito observed their sensei, but didn't comment on his abrupt explosion of anger. They both looked around the clearing.
"It really is strange," the raven agreed. "It looked like he was plucked out from one hell of a battle, but I can't see any signs of fighting taking place here."
Kakashi hummed in assent, crouching down to inspect the center of what appeared to be a crater of someone crashing into the ground. He looked up into the sky, but saw nothing out of order. "It seems that he fell from the sky," he surmised. "Perhaps an air battle?"
"So, the guy wears a forehead protector with 'Ninja' written on it, can use Hiraishin, his eyes can turn red, he's pretty much immune to genjutsu, engulfed in some kind of yellow chakra flames he can move so fast that even Sharingan can't perceive, he calls you," he pointed at Kakashi, "his sensei, he fell from the sky, and he…" Obito paused, glancing at motionless Minato, and then shook his head. "Did I forget anything?"
The other ninja smiled, his both eyes closing in bliss. "He also doesn't like you."
The Uchiha scrunched his face up in a classic annoyed 'Really, Kakashi? Really?' expression, and Kakashi sniggered. It was totally worth it.
"Anyway," the silver-haired jounin said, running through a series of hand seals before slamming his palm on the ground. Lines of summoning seal spread from the impact and a moment later a small figure appeared in a puff of smoke.
"Yo!" a brown pug ninken greeted the ninjas.
"Pakkun, can you find a smell of an unknown ninja around this place and follow his trail?"
"Sure," the dog answered, quickly moving around the area, sniffing around. He seemed more and more confused, then finally he simply sat down at the spot where unknown vanished and stared at the humans, baffled.
"What it is?"
"Why do I smell Na–?" he abruptly cut himself off, shooting a nervous glance towards their blond companion. "I smell the kid," he whispered so that the said man wouldn't hear him.
Two jounins shared a glance. From all the physical senses, the smell was the hardest to fake, especially against the nose of a specialized ninken. If someone was so thorough with this deception, it promised great troubles ahead.
Kakashi furrowed his brow. "You sure?"
"As much as I'm sure that my paws are soft and lovely," Pakkun guaranteed, then turned to Obito and lifted one of his front legs, showing its pads. "Wanna touch it?"
"No!" The Uchiha exclaimed. "And, oi! Why are you all picking on me?!"
The pug shrugged. "Your loss." He looked back at his master and continued, "I also can't follow the smell trail, it ends right here."
Kakashi sighed. "Thanks, Pakkun."
"No problem," the summoning dog responded and promptly dispelled.
"No luck?"
Both ninjas turned to look at Minato who approached them wearily scanning the surroundings with his dulled blue eyes.
"Nothing, sensei," Kakashi replied. "Whatever that chakra cloak was, it blocked all the smell. We lost him."
The blond knitted his eyebrows together. "I have a feeling that it wasn't the last time we saw that unknown," he stated, fixing his hard gaze on Obito. "Maybe it's a new plan to divide us."
"Pff, fat chance," the raven snorted. "Uchihas will always stay loyal to you, sensei."
Minato's eyes softened, but he didn't smile. No one witnessed his smile from the events on that fateful day. "I know, Obito, and I appreciate your clan's support," he said gently. "But that man never starts something without being sure about it. We need to be cautious," he warned his pupils, and they both nodded. "For now, we have a mission to continue. The unknown might or might not be part of what is killing our allies, and we desperately need to figure it out. We can't lose more people."
"I will send one of my crows to a rendezvous to warn Itachi's and Rin's teams about the unknown ninja," Obito informed, already making the sequence of summoning seals.
"Good. After that, we'll be moving out."
Naruto woke up well rested. His body felt stiff, but the pain was finally gone.
The Jinchuuriki pushed Kurama's tails off of him and sat up, yawning and stretching out, working out all the kinks in his muscles.
The Kyuubi observed the young blond before asking, "Feeling better?"
"Yeah." The teen's stomach rumbled, demanding food, and Kurama chuckled. "How long was I out?" Naruto inquired, jumping to his feet and starting some easy exercises.
The fox hummed. "About fourteen hours."
The blond froze in his stretching. Then he whirled around to glare at his friend. The fox was now sitting instead of lying, and Naruto had to lift his head up that he could look into red eyes of the Kyuubi clone. "And you let me sleep for that long?!"
"Of course," Kurama answered easily. "We cannot have you falling out of trees. You need to be at your best if we want to figure this strange situation out."
A deep frown creased Naruto's face. "Strange situation… That's one way to put it when your father and sensei are trying to kill you…" he muttered before his stomach growled again and he rubbed it soothingly. "First, I need to get some food and water inside me." He looked at his clothes and his frown deepened. "And I need to wash and change."
Without even thinking, Naruto put his hands into a cross seal, and ten clones popped into existence. "You two – try to find something to eat," the original ordered the clones standing at the very left, and they saluted. "The rest of you – find some water."
One copy wrinkled his nose in disgust, then turned to his fellows and announced, "Let's find a waterbody big enough for our stinky boss to bath!"
"Aye!" shouted all the others and then promptly scattered, ignoring Naruto's indignant, "Oi!"
Kurama was laughing his tails off. It always was hilarious to watch the blond brat bicker with his own shadow clones; it seemed like after using them for so long and so often, they got the mind of their own. Or maybe that was Naruto's way to cope with everything that happened, his own method to keep himself sane.
"Oh, shut up, you overgrown raccoon!" the Jinchuuriki barked, already spinning on his heel to walk in the random direction.
This time it was Kurama's turn to splutter in indignation. "Hey!" he exclaimed, trailing after the human. "Do not lump me together with that loudmouth imbecile!"
"When stop acting like him!"
"Hn." The fox jogged past Naruto and 'accidentally' slapped one of his tails across the latter's face, causing the human to stumble.
"Haha, very mature," the teen grumbled, spitting out a few stray fur strands out of his mouth. Kurama sent a mischievous smirk over his shoulder.
Suddenly Naruto perked up and his whiskered face brightened with a smile. "Hey, they found water! Come on!" He leaped into the tree, Kurama following suit, and they both rushed towards the place where one of the shadow clones dispersed.
Soon they came to the end of the trees that opened up into a small lake. The air was warmer here, the sounds of insects and an occasional splash of a fish – somehow appealing. The water was calm, but had so many different hues of blue: reflecting the bright blue sky in the middle with a deep blue under while near the shore it was pale blue, nearly translucent. The ancient trees of the Fire Country, hugging the lake from every side, were mirrored on its surface and, as the lake rippled, they seemed to dance with a life of their own.
It was so peaceful. Like nothing was wrong with the world.
Naruto shot a smug grin at his nine-tailed friend. Then he quickly shed his dirty clothes and with a joyful cry ran on the surface of the lake before jumping high into the air and diving in.
"Keh," the Kyuubi scoffed, but there was only affectionate fondness in his tone. "You are still such a child." He plopped down on the ground, putting his head into his palm and leaning against it, closing his eyes, his tails lazily swaying to the sides as he thought.
After the Allied Ninja Forces were completely and utterly destroyed together with almost everyone Naruto had come to care about, they heard about some stragglers, however, their lives were snuffed out before their group could reach them. Naruto had almost lost his mind. Only Minato's and Kakashi's united effort managed to prevent it. Finally having his father in his life was the kid's saving grace, and he latched onto him and Kakashi with all the tenacity he could muster.
Kurama frowned, tapping the ground with his finger in irritation. Having those two attacking the blond brat so ruthlessly was truly disconcerting. The fox was genuinely happy that Naruto could still possess the strength to enjoy this short peaceful moment after all the pain and grief he had gone through and also after yesterday's events.
Soon, the two Narutos who were sent for food jumped from the trees with a dead rabbit and some berries and mushrooms. They begin to prepare the fire to cook the meat, while the rest of the clones surrounded their resting spot in a protective circle, staying on a lookout.
The original stayed in the lake for a few more minutes, scrubbing all the grime and blood from his body and hair until he felt clean enough.
"I have a theory," Kurama said slowly when the blond finished his bath and came back to the shore.
Naruto raised an eyebrow in a mute question, at the same time activating the storage seal tattooed on the inner side of his left forearm and snatching the scroll that appeared from mid-air. "Yeah?" he prompted when the fox failed to elaborate.
The Kyuubi tapped his finger again, one of his eyes fluttering open in a slit to gaze at the human. "Remember my words about us being thrown somewhere else?" he asked, and Naruto nodded. "I believe that all that power and energy clashing into the same spot accidentally ruptured the veil of reality and we fell right through that crack."
The Jinchuuriki furrowed his brow, simultaneously unsealing the set of spare clothes from the scroll. "Fell where?"
"Alternate universe." Seeing the confused look on the boy's face, Kurama lowered his arm and stared straight into those blue eyes. "My Father once told us about other dimensions. He said that at some point in time for unknown reasons, the reality had split into several paths. Its fragments split again, and again, forming an infinite number of parallel universes, each differing from another by one detail."
"So," Naruto dragged the mesh shirt over his head, "we get the universe where my dad died after sealing you inside me, and the one where he didn't, but somehow ended up as a missing-nin?"
"Or where you had never been born, or you were stillborn. Maybe there was no attack on your birthday at all, or maybe I am the captive of another ninja village and you contain a completely different Bijuu. The possibilities are endless."
The teen slipped on his black and burnt-orange colored jacket and reached for his forehead protector that was dropped on the pile of his dirty clothes, frowning at the stained cloth. "And we fell into one of those alternate universes."
That was more a statement than a question, but Kurama confirmed it nonetheless, "If my theory is correct, yes." He waited patiently while the teen processed the information, already ready for his next question.
"How do we go back?"
"We cannot."
"What?! Why?"
"There were so many things happening on the battlefield, so much chakra thrown around, it is quite impossible to determine what exactly caused the rupture." The great fox held the defiant glare of his Jinchuuriki. "The cause was probably everything put together," he said. "Do you know how to recreate that particular moment? The Juubi's bijuudama, Nidaime's water shield, a few Mangekyou, Rinnegan, my chakr–"
"Okay, okay! I got it!" the young ninja admitted in a hurry. His shoulders dropped in defeat as his sad gaze wandered to stare at the calm surface of the lake.
"Even if we could go back, do you really want to?" Kurama asked softly. "You should realize that there is nothing and no one to return to now."
"Yeah…" the blond whispered back.
A silence stretched on the peaceful lake's shore, the Kyuubi allowing the boy to mourn. It was the quiet voice of the clone that eventually broke it, "Boss, food is ready."
Naruto expelled all the air from his lungs in one long exhalation, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. "Alright," he slapped his cheeks with his palms, taking a deep breath. "What now?" he asked as he took a seat on the ground next to the fire. He passed the forehead protector to his clone and motioned to the lake.
Kurama hummed thoughtfully. "We need to familiarize ourselves with this new world. So, reconnaissance," he stated, and the teen nodded in agreement with his teeth already sunken into the cooked rabbit. "You should send a clone to each of the hidden villages to gather information of what is happening there." The Jinchuuriki mumbled something along the line of 'Good thinking.'"In the meantime, we should speak with locals."
Naruto's lips twitched down into a small frown as he placed the stick with a half-eaten carcass of the rabbit back on fire. "You mean dad and Kakashi? ...And the Uchiha?" Something dark passed through his eyes. "I guess I can't call that man my father anymore."
"It depends on how you look at it."
The teen's eyes immediately snapped up. "Huh?"
"The Old Man also told us that while it is possible to cross between these parallel universes – which we are experiencing right now – there is one rule that cannot be bent even by godly entities," the Kyuubi began as he sat up and now stared down at the young blond intently. "Identical substances from two different planes of reality cannot exist in the same universe."
Naruto blinked at him, his mind drawing a blank.
Kurama sighed. "It means that Minato from our world and this Minato share the same essence," he explained. "Thus while Minato of this world is not the one who has given you your life, he still may be considered your father."
"That's…" Naruto trailed off, a deep scowl on his face. "That's slightly confusing."
The Kyuubi chuckled. 'Slightly' was clearly an understatement. "Indeed," he agreed with a grin before becoming serious again. "It also means that you and I hadn't existed in this world until we fell into it. You are either dead or never have been born. And I…" he paused. "There might be no Bijuu to begin with."
"Or you got assimilated into the Juubi," the blond offered.
Kurama's tails shifted, betraying the fox's discomfort. "That… is a possibility."
"Well," Naruto stood up and dusted his pants. "We go find da– those guys and ask them about it."
"Do not forget that there is a chance that they actually are what their forehead protectors symbolize."
The Jinchuuriki rubbed his face tiredly as he said in a subdued voice, "Let's hope not." Then he dispersed the clones on the lookout from afar and created four more to have six in total.
Five of them were sent to the major ninja villages – Konoha, Suna, Kiri, Iwa, and Kumo – for reconnaissance, and the last one was to follow the group until they came upon some kind of known marker or a village to identify where exactly in the Fire Country they were located and then dispel, sending that information back to the original.
"I wonder if I can access Sage mode without Toads summoning contract," Naruto thought loudly after his copies left, tying washed and dried out forehead protector around his head. "It would be easier to find them."
"Natural energy remains all around us, regardless your contractor status," Kurama pointed out lazily. "It should manifest differently however." Suddenly he yawned, stretching his limbs. "I'm returning to the seal."
"Sure," the Jinchuuriki replied off-handedly, already getting comfortable in a meditative position and closing his eyes. There was a loud popping sound, created by a release of the Kyuubi's clone, and then – silence. Slowly, it got filled with the sounds of nature: birds chirping, leaves rustling, sloshing of water, the occasional splash of a fish, buzzing of insects.
Naruto opened his eyes, feeling calm and refreshed. He had no trouble collecting the natural energy for the Sage mode and he felt no noticeable difference in its feeling. He stood up and walked to look at his reflection on the surface of the lake.
"Huh," Naruto grunted, taking in his appearance. Golden irises, but instead of horizontal toad-like pupils, they had slitted ones, just like under the influence of the Kyuubi's chakra. The markings around his eyes were now deep dark red, almost black, and had sharper angles. "Why does it remind me of the markings around your eyes?"
Kurama hummed. "Without the blood contract, it takes form after the strongest aspect of the user's chakra. For the Shodai, it was his bloodline limit. For you, it is my chakra weaved into yours."
Naruto stared at himself for another few seconds, then looked up. "Well, it works and doesn't feel any different."
"Told you so."
The teen rolled his eyes. "Alright, let's start from the place where we met yesterday," he said and leaped into the tree.
A few hours later, right after his clone dispelled, notifying Naruto about their position – the southeast of the Fire Country – he found a trace of Minato's team. It took almost half a day longer to finally detect one of their chakra signatures. Naruto had no problem recognizing Kakashi's presence: the latter was almost identical to his sensei's with only a few differences.
The teen squished the rising feeling of longing, focusing on here and now. And when he did, he noticed an irregular fluctuation in Kakashi's chakra as if he was gravely injured, causing him unconsciously quicken his pace. When his heightened senses picked up an entity following his sensei's counterpart, his blood ran cold.
A vicious, hateful growl echoed throughout his mind, the Kyuubi's bloodlust instantaneously spiraling over the roof, threatening to burst from inside of the seal on his Jinchuuriki's stomach.
Naruto lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing the prolonged canines, and his yellow eyes of the Sage bled into the deep glowing crimson, burning with barely contained rage. "It's them…" he seethed. The golden flames of the Kyuubi's chakra engulfed his body, and he blurred out of sight.
A/N
I wanted to clear something out:
Hiraishin doesn't leave yellow flash behind. It's an instantaneous, silent teleportation jutsu. Blink and person is at another spot. There might be some whoosh sound or breeze being generated, because of the air rushing into the space that was previously occupied by a body or vice versa - the air being pushed to make room for a body, but no yellow flash. I'm pretty sure Minato got this name because of his hair color. Humans eyes tend to be drawn to the brighter colors first, so with him wearing bland green/blue during the war, the first thing people would notice was his bright yellow hair.
Now, Naruto in Kurama's mode leaves yellow flash behind when he's moving. He moves too fast for humans eye to perceive, but until he reaches that speed, others will see him blurring out, hence - the yellow flash.
Other than that, hope you enjoyed! I truly enjoyed writing this chapter, kinda breezed through it in record time :))