Author's Notes: About Team 7's sensei? He's not an OC. You'll find out who he is when he... Oops, almost gave away the story there. Well, enjoy this chapter while I try to prepare Chapter III, which will hopefully be longer. Italics signify thoughts.

(Thought of the Day: Hell, is anyone even reading this at all? Darn it I need reviews.)

The true master of war is therefore never known for his brilliance

-Chinese Philosopher Sun Tzi

Mirai no Kage

-By Kuzosama

Chapter II
Not Kakashi!
His hand impaled the man's chest. Grabbing the heart, he crushed it before kicking away the body from him. Jumping off and sliding on the ground he wiped his bloody hand on his pants.

Looking at the corpse, he widened his eyes in shock. It was not the body of Sasuke, but a blue haired man wearing a bandana. Touching the weight behind his back he found a scroll which he planted into the ground.

The place he was in looked different from a while ago, it had more trees, and he wasn't sensing any active genjutsu being used.

Turning his head to analyze the area, his eyes rested on a tuft of brown hair. Immediately, his eyes began to water and he rushed at the man, hugging him.

"I-Iruka..." he trembled.

Color slowly faded into his vision as he blinked in confusion.

I'm not dead..? He looked around, and recognized the place as the old Uchiha Mansion that he had burned down himself during the Third Ninja War. The wooden floors were still intact and none of the paper doors had holes in them.

Stepping to an open window, he saw the whole city still intact, and heard numerous distant voices chatting merrily. He activated his sharingan with his remaining chakra, and didn't notice any chakra activity to signify usage of a genjutsu technique, so he must have returned to the past, somehow, probably with Naruto and Sakura as well.

His mind no longer was clouded, and he pondered over the sins he had committed while he was still under the influence of the cursed seal, and while he had reigned as Otokage.

He thought about how Sakura had killed his villagers and how Naruto had slaughtered his children...

I had committed heinous crimes, but Konoha had done far more to me than I ever could claim. I was a traitor, maybe, but that was due to Orochimaru's seal. However, Konoha had no reason to wipe out all that was important to me after I had killed Itachi.

But for now, I would stay low, and pretend that I'm not angry at them at all...

I would be their friend, for a while, just like they always dreamed I would be.

There was a reason dreams were called dreams.

And I'll be the one to show them why.

"Naruto..." Iruka muttered worriedly at the boy who had suddenly assaulted him earlier, "Are you okay?"

"Iruka," Naruto choked back a sob, "Y-you're alive?" I missed you so much, Iruka-senpai... And to think you still look so young, when I thought that you had died...

Iruka patted the blonde's hair, chuckling nervously, "Of course I am, Naruto, I couldn't let myself be killed by someone as weak as Mizuki, could I?" That traitor was strong, damn it.

"M-Mizuki? Who's that?" The name sounds familiar, somehow...

"Nobody special, Naruto, not anyone you should know..." Seems that the shock of killing a fellow shinobi has gotten to him. "Naruto, here, your hitai-ate. I'll need to visit the Hokage for a while, you should return home first. Do you need me to help you?"

"H-home? Where?" The Hokage... Isn't that me?

"I'll take you, Naruto." It looks like it had a greater impact than I first expected. This calls for immediate attention. I hope the Sandaime has a solution...

Iruka then helped Naruto up and proceeded to escort him home.

Sakura was distressed.

After she had woken up in her room, she had found that she was back in her younger human body. During her genin period, it would seem, from the state of her hair.

When she first saw her mother, she had been calm, but she was unable to sleep that night, and she had cried until the crack of dawn. Then, when the sky had brightened up, she had been called by her parents to go to the academy, where she was at now.

Around her, her dead comrades were chatting loudly, as students that had just graduated from the academy. There was Chouji, who had died in the Third Ninja War, munching on a bag of chips. Beside him, Shikamaru who was sacrificed in the failed mission against Iwa was relaxed, muttering something to Chouji that she couldn't catch.

And she wondered if she was the only one who had been sent to this parallel dimension. Were the Rokudaime Hokage and the Nidaime Otokage also in this world? If they were, things could get dangerous, and it might be difficult to prevent the shinobi continents from falling to each other again.

However, if they could convert Sasuke back to a Konoha-nin, now that he no longer had the cursed seal (she hoped), it would be much easier to preserve the existence of shinobi.

The sound of the door opening snapped her to her senses. It was Sasuke, with a stoic expression on his face, and the moment she saw him, a glimmer of hope rose in her chest. The Otokage would not have acted like this; they might have a chance, after all.

Sakura had looked at him with hope in her eyes. His performance was as expected of a Kage, acting with a failure rate of one in ten thousand. He looked away from the mass of fangirls and rested his chin on his fingers, as he did years ago in this very same room.

Sakura started to approach him, and he glanced at her coldly. As she opened her mouth to speak, she was once again interrupted by the door opening. The Rokudaime looked like he had his soul sucked out of him as he stepped into the room, dragging his feet.

Sasuke had to try hard to suppress a victorious – although he was rather suspicious – smirk at his demeanor. As Naruto stumbled into a seat behind him, Iruka also entered the room. The Chuunin clapped his hands loudly to catch their attention, and the remaining students went to sit on whichever remaining empty seats there were left.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief as Sakura reluctantly left for her own place beside Naruto's, glancing worriedly at his exhausted form.

Naruto knew that Sakura was worried about him, but he, as the 6th Hokage, had more pressing matters to attend to. An example would be the crisis that the whole shinobi community was facing.

Apparently, he, Sakura and Sasuke had been transported to a parallel dimension where they took on the lives of their younger self again.

He assumed that they had assimilated into the bodies and minds of their younger selves so that they actually had their younger bodies, yet their power was slightly more than what they had before the inter-dimensional warp.

This was actually caused by the fusion of the chakra from their original selves and their parallel selves. He was worried as to how their seals were affected.

He had requested an audience with the Third Hokage yesterday, and after explaining what, as he understood, had happened, he and the Sandaime had discussed, with the presence of the council, what to do about the crisis.

Their presence will undoubtedly cause an imbalance in the time flow of this dimension, so they would need to solve one more problem other than preserving the existence of shinobi throughout the lands.

The Sandaime had agreed to keep watch over Sasuke as he was still suspicious of the boy, but he doubted that the Sandaime would be able to defeat Sasuke as they are now.

He, Sasuke and Sakura, if Sasuke were to prove his loyalty to Konoha, would be given the rank of Jounin and special permission by both the Third Hokage and the council to do as they please so as to be able to help take preventive measures before the world was engulfed in war once again.

For now, though, the Sandaime had arranged for a powerful shinobi – one with the name of Rasen that he claimed to be the most powerful shinobi he had known – to be their sensei. He doubted that anyone was more powerful than Sasuke, but he'd give this Rasen the benefit of the doubt.

Soon, Iruka-senpai should call for the three of them to explain the arrangements.

"Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke, please meet me immediately after the others have left to meet their teams."

There it is, Naruto stood up and shook his head to clear it of all thought before walking towards where Sakura and Sasuke were already confusedly waiting for him with Iruka-senpai.

He fumbled with his hitai-ate, pulling it taut over his eyes as a blindfold. Blowing his spiked gray hair out of his face, he knelt down to tighten the black bandages around his calves and forearms. Standing back up to dust off his black clothes, he pulled his muffler over his jaw.

Once he had made sure that he looked presentable, he finally reached for the door and slid it open, stepping inside the classroom.

The moment he did, pieces of chalk and dusters flew at him; at high velocity. Grinning confidently, he dodged each projectile with practiced ease before suddenly finding one dangerously close to his face.

Just as expected, Sakura narrowed her eyes disappointedly, failing to remain inconspicuous to Sasuke as she recalled Naruto's explanation a few minutes ago, in the absence of Sasuke of course. Even someone of his level is unable to dodge the last trap. If he's this weak, then Sasuke could slaughter him in ten minutes. Never mind that, if he doesn't dodge that he'd die.

She was surprised, however, as the chalk immediately disintegrated before her eyes.

"H-how..?" she stuttered at the space in front of their new sensei's face where the chalk had been pulverized into dust. It would seem that she had underestimated this guy by a long shot.

They might have a chance against extinction after all.

It wouldn't be easy, but they actually might, with this Rasen-sensei's help.

And of course, also with an extra little bit of luck.

Tsuzuku...