I do not own Naruto, therefore I earn nothing from this fic. :P

Chapter Two

Karin stared down at the man on the floor. "That's the Yondaime?" she asked. "He looks… younger than the other one. Y'know, the one from the war."

Orochimaru rubbed his chin thoughtfully and contemplated the prone man before them. "Well, I did take the samples of his DNA and chakra before he was even Hokage," he mused. "So it's really not all that surprising."

The two Konoha ninja had been gaping like fish out of water, but now they rushed to the fallen man.

"He's out cold," one of them said. "But there's a pulse."

"He might need medical attention, but neither of us are medics," the other spoke.

"Orochimaru-sama, can you help us out here?" the first one said to him. "Uh, Orochimaru-sama…? Oi!"

"Hm?" Orochimaru had wandered over to take readings from the data scrolls that had recorded what had happened thanks to chakra and seals. "Ah yes… Karin, see to him, would you?"

"What?" Karin argued shrilly. "But I'm not a medic either!"

"Just check him over," Orochimaru said. "You do have the basics that Kabuto taught you, do you not?"

Karin grumbled but went over to where the Konoha idiots had turned the Yondaime onto his back. Her hand glowed a weak, shaky green as she performed a very rudimentary medical diagnostic. When she was done, she sat back on her heels.

"I think he's just passed out?" she said uncertainly. "Chakra exhaustion maybe?"

"You think?" one of the flunkies said, his tone a combination of frustration and a bit of anger. "You think!?"

"Hey!" Karin snapped. "I said I'm not a medic! If you want him checked over by one, go get them yourselves!"

"Maybe we will then!" the other said hotly.

"While I'm sure your discussion is absolutely fascinating for you," Orochimaru said, "I can't think with all this racket. Do me a favour and hush, would you? Or is that also beyond your capabilities?"

The look that Orochimaru graced them with was one of a perfected mix of judgement, and a chastising look a parent might give a child. All three before him were annoyed at the look, but they did zip their lips for the next twenty minutes or so, until Orochimaru turned back to them and came forward to do his own diagnostic.

"Hey!" Karin whined. "Why couldn't you have just done that before?" she demanded.

"This is not a medical diagnostic," Orochimaru said. "Though I suppose it could do the same job. Think of it more as a temporal check. I'm making sure my readings match what his chakra and body are doing."

"And… do they?" one of the idiots asked.

"…I suppose they do," Orochimaru said. "Alright, I suppose we ought to wake him, then. Karin, go to room eight and get the vial with the blue liquid in it. The one next to the green one, not the purple one."

Karin looked like she wanted to protest again, but one glance from Orochimaru quelled her argument and she left, returning shortly after and handing it over. "Oi, you two," she said. "That guy who's always stalking us is in here, he wants to see you."

"You mean Yamato-Taichou?" one of them asked, and she nodded.

"Off you go then," Orochimaru said as he prepared a dose. "I'm sure you have lots to tell him, ne?"

The two Konoha ninja shared a glance, then one said, "I'll go. Kotetsu can stay here, keep an eye on you."

The Sannin ignored him as he measured the dosage in his hand. "What is that?" Karin asked, obviously curious.

"This is a chakra booster," Orochimaru said. "One far superior to the sort you'd find in a hospital. But then, those ones are… gentle, I guess you could say, in comparison to this one."

"What does that mean?" the flunkie left behind, Kotetsu it seemed, demanded.

"It means that this will force him to wake up," Orochimaru said. "It will, none too gently, send chakra through his coils. I really only use it for emergencies, the visceral reactions are not at all pretty. Speaking of… Karin, hand that waste basket over here. He may throw up."

"What!? He may?!" Karin looked thoroughly disgusted, but handed over the waste basket anyway.

Almost immediately once the booster was injected, the supine man's body tensed and spasmed, and Orochimaru quickly stepped back to avoid a kicked out leg. Kotetsu rushed forward, trying to make sure the man didn't bite his own tongue, even as Karin shrieked and leapt out of reach of the flailing man. Once the spasms died down, blue eyes shot open as Minato took a gasping breath, then started to heave. He sat up, and Kotetsu grabbed the waste basket, but in the end, the Namikaze kept the contents of his stomach firmly in place.

Minato was staring wildly around the room, confusion on his face. Then he saw Orochimaru and his eyes widened before he gasped out, "Orochimaru-sama?"

"Minato-san," the Sannin greeted. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Minato tried rather unsuccessfully to stand a few times, despite 'help' from Kotetsu, before finally giving up and staying where he was. "There was a mission to one of the outposts, my gennin and I were delivering messages…" he stopped, then looked around. "What is this place?"

"This is one of my labs," Orochimaru said. "You've been the unwitting recipient of one of my experiments, though I'd actually given up on this years ago. But you can thank this dunderhead and his partner, wherever he is, for you being here."

Orochimaru indicated to Kotetsu, who stood a little straighter when his former Hokage, who clearly had never actually been Hokage, glanced at him. "What experiment?" Minato asked, trying again to stand, and succeeding this time, even if he was still quite unsteady on his feet.

"A time travel experiment," Orochimaru said simply, and shock was upon Minato's face. "You are now twenty five years in the future."

Silence, then Karin slapped her forehead. "Way to just blurt it out, Orochimaru-sama!" she sniped.

Minato's eyes were wide and wild, reminding Orochimaru of a panicked animal about to flee. "Wh-what?" the words stumbled from the man. "Wh-why? Can… can you send me back?"

"No," the Sannin said simply. "You were plucked from the time stream, and another you kept moving along it. If you were somehow sent back, there would be two of you there."

Minato nodded, more on reflex than anything, and his eyes closed as he breathed in deeply to steady himself, before exhaling a long sigh. Then he opened his eyes and asked, "What now, then?"

"You could return to the village," Orochimaru said. "Keep in mind of course, that it has changed drastically in the last quarter of a century. Or… I suppose you could stay here for a while, though I have to tell you, I will only be here for a few more weeks before I return to my main laboratory."

"I… I don't know what I'll do," Minato admitted.

It was then that the door burst open, and Minato stumbled back, even as Kotetsu and Karin jumped at the sound, and Orochimaru just calmly turned to the door. "Yamato-Taichou!" Kotetsu exclaimed, wincing at the sight of the angry man in the doorway. "Izumo!" Ah, the other flunkie was behind him.

"WHAT is going on here?" Yamato demanded, then his eyes fell upon Minato. "What have you done, Orochimaru?"

"What have I done?" Orochimaru said, some of his frustration from the last few days coming to the surface. "Maybe you should be asking what your two little flunkies have done. They are the ones who haven't been able to keep their hands to themselves, touching everything when I repeatedly told them not to. This idiot here is the one who activated my machine, bringing the Yondaime…"

Minato let out a strangled noise at that, but Orochimaru ignored him in favour of continuing his rant.

"…forward from the past! None of this would have even happened if they could have just obeyed simple instructions!"

Orochimaru was glaring quite heatedly at the mokuton user, who was now wide eyed and uncertain. He glanced at Kotetsu, who looked appropriately shamed, then at Karin, who was now glaring at the new intruder. A glance over his shoulder at Izumo, and finally Yamato sighed. "Fine," he said. "I overreacted. And you're right, these two really shouldn't be touching things they don't understand. But the question now is, what are we going to do with Yondaime-sama?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Minato spoke up. "I… don't really know what happened after I left my time, but please, I'm not actually Hokage. Though I don't deny I'm glad to hear I achieved that, of course."

"How old are you?" Orochimaru asked.

"Twenty," was the reply, and the Sannin nodded thoughtfully.

"You became Hokage around three years later," he mused. "I gather you haven't even gone on the Kannabi mission yet, either?"

"Never been there," Minato confirmed, then turned a shade of green, and wobbled on his feet.

"Yondaime-sama!" Kotetsu and Izumo both called, with the former rushing forward to stop him from falling.

"Perhaps you should take him to the personnel quarters, and let him rest," Orochimaru said. "Karin, go with them."

"Whaaa…? But why?" Karin whined, but she went with them anyway, with Minato supported between Izumo and Kotetsu, and Yamato levelled a suspicious glare at him, before following them.

It was only a few hours later that Orochimaru emerged from that room, utterly fascinated and satisfied with the results he'd gotten. Though it was unlikely he would ever set the machine in motion again, considering how long it had taken to actually work… Still, this was invaluable data for some of his other projects.

He found Karin back in the scroll room just outside the room he'd been in. "The Konoha dudes sent a message to the village," she told him. "Another team's probably gonna come here."

Orochimaru sighed. "The perils of popularity, I suppose," he said.

Karin snorted. "Yours? Or the Yondaime's?" she asked snarkily.

"Probably both," was the unflappable reply, and Orochimaru grinned at Karin's chagrined look. "Come now, Karin. We still have a lot more work to do here. Wouldn't want to get behind the schedule the Hokage set now, would we?"

Thus ends Orochimaru's pov.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated. :)