A splintered piece of beam fell down onto the debris.

Everyone started talking at once. But then a voice rang out from the chatter.

"Sakura!"

Naruto saw Ino look in through the hole out to the street. She climbed into the room and jumped lightly over the barricade of splintered wood to reach Sakura. Shikamaru and Chouji were standing in the street looking shocked and concerned, but they soon followed after her.

"What happened?" Ino landed lightly in front of her best friend and gripped her by the arms. "Are you okay? We were just passing by and heard this huge crash—"

"I'm fine," Sakura reassured. "But there might be people buried in the collapse that need help."

"Hey!" one of the cooks called anxiously. "There were four or five shinobi sitting out here."

Sakura turned to them, stretching her neck to see over the large pile in between them. "Can you guys get out? Were there any civilians in the dining room?"

"I don't think so. The maid left hours ago, and all of us cooks were in the kitchen getting dinner started."

"Oi! Anyone under there! If you can answer, speak up!" Ino shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth.

"I'm here!" called a voice weakly from somewhere in the mess.

"Help me," pleaded another. "I... I think my leg is broken."

Sakura cursed to herself and clamored gingerly toward the voice. "Hold on! We'll get you out!"

"Now you've done it, Sakura-chan." Naruto climbed up out of the hole and dusted himself off.

"Naruto?" Ino looked down at him confusedly from her at-least-a-head-taller height, holding out a hand to compare the difference. "What happened to you?"

"Eheh... long story?" Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Ino just blinked at him. Like Sakura, she'd grown taller and fitter and some of the childishness had gone out of her face. However, unlike Sakura, she had grown her flax-blonde hair back from when she cut it in the exam.

Shikamaru didn't look different at all, though he'd grown taller, and he did look sort of funny in a chuunin vest. It was hard to imagine him being promoted. Chouji was as big as ever, but his proportions had evened out a bit and he had grown his hair out. He now wore a more traditional-looking Akimichi outfit with armor plating. Naruto was relieved that all three seemed more concerned with the matter at hand than his own appearance at the moment.

"Chouji," Shikamaru said, nodding toward where Sakura was kneeling and peering into a hollow.

"Yeah," Chouji held his hands in his family's signature Expansion Jutsu sign and reached out with a huge hand to lift debris off of the unfortunate shinobi. Sakura wasted no time in attending to the man's leg. Chouji carefully dropped it all to the side and reached out to continue clearing the room.

"Naruto, we could use a few dozen of you to help clear this stuff out, alright?" Shikamaru spared him a glance. "Ino, let's get everyone out of the building, starting with those cooks. If the structure was damaged, it could come the rest of the way down any time. Be careful where you step." He jumped over the pile to the doorway of the kitchen.

"Right!" Ino said, following suit.

"Osu!" Naruto concentrated on his chakra. It seemed to flow more naturally each time he used it, like a sputtering tap that had once dried out. Thirty clones popped into existence and he set them to task. Naruto himself picked carefully toward where he thought Sai could be. He saw the table from his room and headed toward it.

"Sakura-chan, there's a guy here with a pretty bad cut on his head," one of the clones called out.

Shinobi from the second floor that had been watching the whole thing jumped down through the hole to help shift things out of the way, calling to one another and organizing their efforts. It was no wonder—they were practically professional disaster-recoverers at this point.

Naruto looked under the thick wooden table from his room and was semi-relieved not to see Sai there. something that heavy falling on him would have been really bad. However, he did find Sai's sketchpad poking out of the pile of splintered boards nearby and he tucked it under his arm. Naruto peered around. The impact from the table's fall had caused some of the tatami mats in the dining room to bend and stick up in the air. He shouldered himself under a likely-looking tatami mat and saw a pale arm.

"Sai," he said with a mixture of worry and relief, and grabbed the boy under his arms and pulled him backwards out of the pile. Fortunately, he didn't look hurt, aside from a few scratches. "Hey, wake up, Sai," Naruto said, tapping the sides of his face lightly.

Sai's face twitched and his eyes opened. His gaze looked vague and glassy. It was an expression that looked horribly familiar.

"Oh, crap," Naruto mumbled, waving his hand over Sai's face. "Don't tell me he did that... that thing..."

Sai lifted his hand up a little and Naruto paused his waving. Sai blinked and slowly pushed Naruto's hand away.

"Don't worry," Sai said in a dazed voice. Then he passed out again.

Naruto put Sai's arm over his shoulders and stood up resolutely, putting Sai's sketchbook in the pouch he was wearing so it wouldn't get lost. He jumped over to the hole in the wall that led out to the street. But there, framed perfectly by collapsed beams and plaster, was Tsunade.

"What the hell happened here?" Tsunade seethed. Her hands were on her hips and he could swear her long pigtails were swaying in the energy radiating off her body.

"Baa-chan!" Naruto said, terrified as he was relieved. "I was going to try to find you—you have to help Sai, he had that brain-melty thing done to him—"

"I thought I told you stay out of trouble," Tsunade raised a fist and Naruto backed up by a step. "Can you explain to me why you insist on doing the opposite of that all of the time? And what happened to your disguise?"

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, laying a hand on Tsunade's arm and looking at Sai.

"I can explain it later," Naruto said quickly. "It's Sakura-chan's fault anyway, so yell at her about it. But forget that right now! Itachi showed up and used that Tsuku... whatsit on Sai. And there are probably some other people who need to go to the hospital too."

"Itachi?" Shizune gasped. "You don't mean Uchiha Itachi?"

"Tsunade-sama," Shikamaru interjected, causing Naruto to whip his head toward him. He hadn't noticed the other boy approach. "The building has been evacuated and we've recovered everyone buried in the debris. Sakura is helping them now, but she wants to move some to the hospital. She said she can explain what happened there."

"Fine," Tsunade said curtly. She turned to Shizune. "You go the autopsy room. I'll be down there after I deal with this, but send for me if you have to. Shikamaru, go with her."

"Hah? Why me?"

"I sent Kakashi to investigate something earlier," Tsunade said. Naruto looked up sharply at the mention of his teacher's name, but she ignored him. "Apparently, they found something pretty mysterious. Shizune will be busy, so I need you to listen to Kakashi's report and, along with Shizune's findings, help them put together some possible explanations for what they found."

"Right," Shikamaru sighed. Shizune nodded and walked away at a brisk clip. Shikamaru glanced at Naruto and Sai one last time before trailing after her looking in much less of a hurry.

"Alright," Tsunade said resignedly. "Follow me, Naruto. I don't know why I thought things could ever be quiet with you around..."

Naruto let out a long, shaky breath. "Maybe all this really is a dream, and I just have a great imagination."

Tsunade and Sakura looked at him. All three were standing in the hospital room where Sai lay sleeping. Thanks to Tsunade, it was a natural sleep untroubled by dreams. Night had truly fallen now, and the florescent lights made him look even paler than usual. The two women had been murmuring quietly together when Naruto's musings drew their attention.

"It's like..." Naruto wrapped his hand around the cold metal of the bed's footboard. "All of this just happened, where I was, but it was all slightly different. An attack on the village. Itachi. Someone ending up... like this." He gestured toward Sai.

Tsunade sighed and moved beside him, laying her hand over his. "Sai is going to be fine. His body is trying to compensate for what it thinks has been multiple days without sleeping. He's had a lifetime of specialized psychological training. A Tsukuyomi designed for just any shinobi is unlikely to have a lasting effect on him. I hate to say it, but out of the three of you, it was probably best that it hit him."

"It was aimed for me," Naruto said quietly. "Sai jumped in between us. He could have defended himself if he hadn't been trying to push me out of the way."

"It's an especially good thing, then," Tsunade said, trying to joke. "I'm sure that Sai is more than capable of handling three days of watching someone eat ramen in front of him without sharing."

Naruto shrugged unenthusiastically.

Tsunade pulled back. "In all seriousness, that's likely what saved you from being captured. The confrontation was only meant to last a few seconds. Sai gave you two time to realize what was happening, involve a bunch of witnesses," her voice turned wry, "and cause a massive amount of collateral damage."

Sakura flinched at the jibe, but she didn't try to argue.

The door to the hospital room opened, and everyone their heads to see an aged woman enter. Her face was deeply lined, her hair in a tidy silver bun, and she wore loose but elegant clothing. Naruto recognized her as a member of the Third's entourage, but since she was one of the adults that seemed to consistently act as though he didn't exist even when he was in the same room, he'd never bothered to pay her much attention either.

Tsunade put her hand on the footboard beside Naruto's and turned her body toward the visitor in a seemingly unconscious movement that blocked him most of the way from view. Naruto peered around her arm curiously.

"Koharu," Tsunade said. "Did you need me for something?"

Koharu frowned, possibly in reaction to Tsunade's somewhat rude way of addressing her, which she chose to return: "Tsunade. Why are you here instead of the autopsy room? I understand that you haven't even bothered to hear Hatake's report yet?"

Naruto could sense the tension in the room even if he wasn't entirely sure why it was there. The way Koharu scolded Tsunade was surprising to him—he didn't think anyone would try to talk to her like that, much less get away with it.

What was more surprising was Sakura's body language, somehow even more defensive than Tsunade's. Her back was to Naruto, so he couldn't see her expression, but her shoulders were taut and fists were clenched at her sides. He didn't know much about the situation, but he was at least fairly certain that Sakura decking the older woman would be an even worse idea than punching out the floor of a building.

"Shizune is more than capable of handling an autopsy. We need that data before any conclusions can be made anyway," Tsunade said. "In the meantime, I was hearing Sakura's report on the attack inside the village—which, I thought, took precedence over whatever happened outside."

"Very well," Koharu conceded with a nod. "And? Any leads on who would try to incite panic by making it look like Uchiha Itachi appeared suddenly in our midst? Do you think it was done as a distraction, to turn our eyes inward?"

"It was neither a distraction, nor a trick. It was really him." Tsunade loosened her grip on the footboard and gestured at Sai's prone form. "This boy was definitely on the receiving end of his Tsukuyomi. That is not a power that can simply be imitated."

Koharu's normally squinted eyes opened as she fixed Tsunade with a serious look. "But he's dead."

Naruto, who was listening intently to the conversation in order to learn anything he could out of it, felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, as if he'd missed a stair.

"From what Sakura described, it was almost certainly Edo Tensei," Tsunade said steadily.

Koharu's posture stiffened. Sakura still looked as if she was barely keeping herself from saying anything. Naruto continued listening hard.

"We can discuss this on the way to the autopsy room," Koharu said finally. "In the meantime, what will you do with Naruto? You never gave an answer about that."

Naruto was listening so carefully that he physically jerked when his name was said out of nowhere. She had to know he was there. He wasn't out of sight entirely... but she wasn't looking at him. She only looked at Tsunade, who continued to stand in front of him.

"Naruto and Sakura will stay in here with their teammate until I get back," Tsunade said. "I do not think they will try to go after him again tonight. Besides, we shouldn't even think about moving him from the village until we can make an arrangement among the Allied Shinobi Forces with regards to his protection."

Koharu scoffed. "Unusual circumstances aside, do you really think the other nations will accept the idea of two Konoha jinchuuriki? If the original nine are already accounted for, there is no need to volunteer the information that there may be another one. Have you even checked to confirm whether this is even an issue worth talking about?"

"Not thoroughly," Tsunade said through clenched teeth. "We're not going to talk about this here. Come on." She marched toward the door. "Sakura, keep an eye on Naruto and Sai until I get back, please."

"Yes, shishou," Sakura said. She closed the door as the other two left.

Naruto sat down slowly in a chair beside the bed, and Sakura sat down in a chair on the opposite side. She looked at Sai, but now that Naruto could see her face, he could tell that she wasn't really seeing him. Her nose was wrinkled in disgust and she was glaring at Sai as if he'd mortally offended her. (No doubt that had actually happened at some point, with his weird personality, but in this moment it didn't fit.)

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said quietly. She blinked and her eyes snapped to him, the harsh expression melting into a politely questioning one. "What is it between you and that old lady? I've never even seen you give me a look that bad."

Sakura took a deep breath, held it for about ten seconds, and then let it out slowly. Her eyes dropped to where her hands were lying in her lap.

"It's not her," she said eventually. "Not really. Not... personally, I suppose. It's that whole mindset I hate. She's definitely not the only one, and not even the worst. It's more—that kind of thinking has hurt my friends," she took another deep breath and blew it out noisily. "After everything the village has been through, I'm just sick of it. When I think about it being directed at you, even more than it already has—I get so mad, I—" She clenched her teeth and said no more.

"Hey, it—it's okay." Naruto frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about, but if it's something from after my time… well... it's not upsetting me, so you shouldn't let it upset you."

Sakura looked over at him fiercely. "You're right. It doesn't matter that much anymore. If you'd shown up while that man was still around..." She pursed her lips. "Anyway, I probably shouldn't get into that. If I did, I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut about other things."

"Why?" Naruto leaned forward eagerly. "Sakura-chan, if you tell me, there might be a chance I could—"

"No," Sakura growled.

"Ok…" He cast around for another topic. "What were they talking about a minute ago? About me leaving the village? Kakashi-sensei was saying something like that too."

"The you from this time just left for the Lightning Country," Sakura said. "To make it harder for Akatsuki to find you. I'm not surprised it's the first thing they thought of. Tsunade-sama must have told the Heads already. It's a big deal."

"It is?" Naruto frowned. "I mean, obviously me coming from the past is a big deal, but that old lady seemed to care less about that than getting me into hiding as soon as possible."

"We've had a little more time to see just how serious our enemies are," Sakura said dryly.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "It's just... weird, having people make this much fuss over me. Last time, Itachi and that fish-guy both appeared in the village and took out a few jounin, but nobody was saying I needed to be sent away."

"Akatsuki has managed to capture most of the jinchuuriki, so people are finally starting to care a little about the ones left. It's not always out of the sheer goodness in their hearts."

There was that word again. Naruto frowned. He could ignore it if people didn't keep using it in reference to himself. "Jinchuuriki?"

"That's what it's called when someone has a Tailed Beast in them," Sakura said slowly. "I don't know when the term got coined, but it was a long time ago. You didn't know it?"

"Tailed Beast?" Naruto scowled. A pit of unease was growing in his gut and his heart was starting to beat a little faster, but he wasn't sure why. His body was reacting to something his mind hadn't quite connected together yet.

Sakura stared at him. She was starting to look as uneasy as he felt. "You... you do know why the Akatsuki want to capture you in the first place, right? I thought..." she fell silent.

Naruto nodded emphatically, feeling his heart beat somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. He was too afraid to say it. But he was starting to understand.

"Because, you know..." Sakura looked around helplessly, as if searching for a more delicate way of saying it. "That's what the Kyuubi is."

Naruto shot up out of his chair, staring at her in wide-eyed realization.

Sakura looked almost as alarmed as she stood up too. "Naruto? I'm... I'm sorry, I thought that you knew Akatsuki was… c-crap, I wouldn't have wanted you to find out like this..."

Naruto just shook his head. He knew exactly why Akatsuki was after him. The problem was, last he checked, the only people who knew the Kyuubi was sealed in him were all old enough to actually remember its attack on the village. There was even a law about it. Even he wasn't supposed to know about it!

And after he'd found out, a small part of him had been glad for the law, because most of the people who knew the truth couldn't trouble themselves to regard him as human. The problem was the thing that always hurt him the most, even before he knew what it was, had always been locked up tight. And now it was apparently common knowledge?

In a way, it made sense.

After all, the whole village had been leveled to the ground just to find him. That was bound to make it obvious he wasn't just a normal kid. People would have to have answers. They would need to know exactly why their homes were destroyed. They needed to label the source of their pain in order to be able to understand and move past it.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I need a minute."

"Wait—Naruto!" Sakura called in alarm, but he'd already opened the window and climbed out.

Naruto figured Sakura would be coming after him soon, maybe even with Tsunade, and it was possible that both of them would be very angry. That was okay. He just needed a little breathing room.

Jinchuuriki. He rolled that word over and over in his mind. That's what they called it. Sakura and the old lady said there were others like him, too. That shouldn't have been such a surprise. He'd met someone else like him already, right? But Naruto had never considered the wider implications when he met Gaara. He'd just empathized so immediately and intensely with the other boy that all his focus had been on trying to help him.

Naruto hopped down from the rooftop into a narrow gap between two buildings and leaned back against a wall, concentrating on breathing deeply with his eyes closed. Hiding in close, dark spaces was an old habit that he rarely did anymore. It was usually better to face fears and problems head-on. But sometimes, the instinct to hide and let it all sink in would come back.

Gaara had been a frightening glimpse at what could have been. Everyone in Suna knew what he was. Even his own siblings were terrified of him. That was the first time Naruto had been a little grateful his own age group didn't know. They didn't get the chance to decide he was a monster before he could show that he wasn't.

But maybe that was exactly how it turned out. Everyone seemed to like him just fine. When he stopped to think about it, nobody had acted any differently.

The bustling sounds of the street slowly came back as a measure of calm returned. Naruto knew he could trust his friends. It was just a minor shock after walking around the whole day unaware. Even the first people he'd spoken to in this time had known, and they weren't even citizens of Konoha. Yet, they hadn't sounded disgusted when they talked about him. That had to count for something.

And Gaara? Was he in danger from Akatsuki, too? Was Suna in danger? Sakura said most of the jinchuuriki were already captured.

Naruto opened his eyes and looked up at the small rectangular patch of night sky he could see from down in the narrow alley. He had to know. Even if they didn't want to tell him stuff, he would poke around until somebody told him whether Gaara was safe.

Having something to focus his energy on made his head feel a lot clearer. Naruto sidled sideways until he was out in the street again—only to jump when a voice called him.

"Oiii! Naruto!"

He swore under his breath and turned to see Kiba and Akamaru ambling toward him, with Shino and Hinata flanking him on each side.

"Oh—it's you guys!" Naruto looked over Team 8 with interest. Now that he knew Kiba really was older, it was much more obvious. Shino was so covered with clothes that if he hadn't been with the rest of his team, Naruto wasn't sure he would have known him. Hinata had grown her hair out and stood taller, and it wasn't just her literal height. The way she was standing made her look less curled into herself than before, though her feet were still a little pigeon-toed. The biggest difference, though, was that she was looking right at him, whereas before, she would have been looking at the ground near his feet.

Kiba walked toward Naruto. "So, it's true then?" he said without any preamble. "You're actually from the past?"

"Probably." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Or maybe I just ate too much before I went to bed, and this is some kinda weird dream."

"Tsunade-sama told the Clan Heads. Some people thought you might just be a really bad spy," Kiba said seriously. "We saw where your boarding house got destroyed. Ino said Akatsuki already tried to get you. I guess that backs your claims up a little."

"What, you don't believe me?"

"Nahhh... I knew what I smelled, and besides, Akamaru can always sense when someone has evil intent, and he walked up to you right away. Man, only you could have something like this happen to you, though." Kiba patted Naruto on the head in a way that he really didn't like, and laughed loudly. "I should have realized something was going on, with how short you are."

"Piss off, Kiba," Naruto growled, ducking out from under his hand and glaring. "You might be older than me now, but I can still take you on, any time!"

"He is just relieved," Shino said. "He thought he might have been mistaken and led an enemy to the village. Even so, he let his guard down. He depends on his nose too much."

"Hey!" Kiba snarled. "Like you don't use your bugs for everything and like Hinata doesn't use her eyes for everything! We all have our own skills we depend on."

"Don't put Hinata in the same category as you! She's definitely smarter than you are." Naruto snorted.

Hinata bit her lip. She seemed too worried to be quietly amused as she normally would be by their banter. She frowned and pressed the tips of her fingers together anxiously. "Are you alright, Naruto-kun?" her voice was remarkably steady, especially compared to the way he remembered it, but it was still very soft and quiet.

"Yeah, I'm fine! You don't have to worry about me." He grinned reassuringly. "It's no big deal. All I have to do is figure out how to get back to my own time, and everything will be okay. The only hard part is figuring out the weirdness of this time. Everyone seems so grown-up and amazing. I really want to know more about myself, but no one wants to tell me anything."

"They said you would be sent away, too." Hinata's voice lilted up at the end slightly, a half-question.

"Oh, right. D'you know where you'll be going?" Kiba asked.

"No… I don't want to leave." Naruto frowned. "I just want to go home. But Kakashi-sensei said it's too easy for Akatsuki to find me here... and I guess he's right, since I was here for less than a day before Itachi came after me—"

"What?" Hinata gasped, and Shino raised his eyebrows.

"Oh," Naruto said. "I thought Ino told you?"

"All she said was someone tried to kidnap you, and the house was damaged in the struggle," Hinata said. "Was it really him?"

"I thought that guy was dead," Kiba said.

"I know what I saw! Ask Sakura-chan, she was there. She's the one who smashed the building." Naruto looked around at the other three. "Why do people think he's dead, anyway? Was it... I mean, did... did Sasuke finally kill him?"

Saying this thought aloud gave Naruto a slight chill. Sasuke killing his own older brother was difficult to imagine. He didn't doubt Sasuke's determination, and the memory of their last confrontation was still fresh in his mind. But it was still surreal to think about. To pull it off, Sasuke would have had to improve at an unthinkable rate in the intervening years.

"That's what I heard," Kiba said. "But with Akatsuki, who knows? They definitely had a fight. We didn't get to see it, though. We tried, but that masked bastard got in the way and kept us from interfering. By the time we got there, it was just a bunch of rubble. There weren't any bodies, so I dunno, maybe he did get out of it alive. I don't suppose anybody's tried asking Sasuke if it's true."

"K-kiba-kun, be careful." Hinata stared down at her fidgeting hands.

"Oh, right." Kiba frowned. "Er... well, you know. That's not the kind of thing you just ask someone, especially someone like him. You know how touchy he can be." Kiba rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

Naruto scrunched his nose in confusion. "I guess I'll just ask Sakura-chan about it. Her and Baa-chan seem to think it's some kind of technique that looks like him. Ah, damn it!" he put his face in his hands and groaned. "I forgot, she's probably looking for me right now. I better go back to the hospital before she finds me and turns my insides into my outsides."

"That would probably be wise," a dryly amused voice said, and everyone started when a cat-masked ANBU appeared in their midst. Naruto vaguely recognized the mask, as well as her long, purple hair. He'd had enough clashes with the ANBU that he knew several of them by sight.

The ANBU put a hand on her hip. "Did you really think you could wander off alone?"

"No," Naruto said honestly. "I thought Sakura-chan was going to come after me and punch my head in."

"She wanted to come after you. However, we convinced her to let us handle it."

Naruto glanced behind her and saw two more ANBU standing on rooftops at a distance. Undoubtedly they were scanning the area for potential threats even as Naruto and the purple-haired lady stood there talking. He fleetingly wondered if this was what his stay in the future was going to be like from now on.

"Talk to you guys later," he said glumly.

"It was cool seeing you!" Kiba called after him as they walked away, Cat poised her hand behind Naruto's back in a half-protective, half-ushering motion. "We should totally have a rematch from the Exams! I'll definitely be able to show you a few new tricks."

"Nah," Naruto called back. "I could still beat you as easily as I can fart." He snickered as Kiba's indignant growls chased him down the street.

Cat chuckled. Naruto's other bodyguards didn't join them. Instead, they leapt across the rooftops, running slightly ahead and flanking them on each side of the street.