Naruto felt a mixture of relief and dread as he and Nagato neared the walled-in area where the medic camp was set up.

"I hope Sakura-chan and Shizune-neechan don't murder me for sneaking off like that," he muttered. "They can't blame me for wanting to get out and do something, right?"

"AHA! There you are!" the older Naruto came popping out of the bushes, making the younger screech loudly and stumble backwards. "Heh, that was actually really easy!"

"Calm down, Naruto. It's the real thing. A real bunshin, anyway," Nagato said, catching the younger Naruto's arm before he stumbled into a prickly bush.

"Damn it, aniki! Don't scare me like that!" the younger shouted, recovering himself quickly and dusting leaves off his pants.

"Oi! That's my line, don't you think?" the bunshin said with a scowl. "I guess you wandered off with a fake me or something, like you couldn't even tell the difference!"

"Hey! I'm you, so that means that you would have done the same thing, idiot!" the younger pointed at the elder stubbornly.

"You can't call me an idiot! I'm older, and I know more—"

"Are there any sealers at the medical camp?" Nagato deflected patiently.

"Huh? Oh, right. There aren't any here right now, but they're calling someone here so we don't have to get close to the battlefields again." The older Naruto scratched the back of his head.

"Alright. We'll stay here to wait."

"Okay—er, what happened, anyway? Everyone was really worried you'd be captured again, little bro," the bunshin said as they walked into the medical camp. "But you showed up again before we even had time to look for you. I could sense you guys coming this way. I guess Nagato was able to find you before anything bad happened?"

"Uh… kind of," the younger said.

There were guards at the entryway. They looked surprised and more than a little wary. Sakura appeared behind them, craning her neck to look.

"And who are you?" one of the guards asked Nagato suspiciously, holding on tightly to the long pole he held.

"He's with us, it's fine. It's a long story, so don't worry about it." The bunshin waved one hand casually.

The guard frowned, but Sakura pushed past them before he could respond. "Naruto! What were you thinking, going off on your own like that? Didn't you learn your lesson the first time? I swear…"

"C'mon, it wasn't my fault! No need to rub it in," the younger grumbled.

Sakura sighed. "At least you didn't get hurt. Come on in."

"I guess this means you're going home, huh?" the bunshin said as they walked into the camp. There weren't many people there, but the ones that were all stopped to look when they passed.

"Yeah," the younger said. He looked from his older self, to Sakura. "We really can't wait anymore. I guess Sai, Neji and everyone else are off fighting, right?"

Sakura cast him a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid so. We were all put into different units once we got to Kumo."

"It would be a pain to say goodbye again, anyway," Naruto mumbled, scuffing the ground with his foot. "Is there anything you guys want me to pass along when I get back home?"

He jumped when Sakura suddenly wrapped her arms around him in a hug. His older self jumped back as well, screeching in shock.

"That is from me to you," Sakura said, backing up and smiling. "Make sure I train hard with Tsunade-shishou, and don't let me give you a difficult time. I always hated being so far behind you guys, so use that if it seems like I'm trying to give up."

"I-I'll make sure you don't give up! If we have to, we'll find Sasuke together."

His older self laughed, and walked over to ruffle his hair. "Now you're talking! Just say hello to everyone for me, even Itachi and Nagato when you get the chance. But, y'know, that doesn't mean you have to go easy on them." The bunshin grinned at Nagato, who shook his head with an amused huff.

"I told you this before, but I don't care what you do regarding me. Just try to save Jiraiya-sensei, if you can," Nagato said seriously.

"Oh, yeah. Ero-sennin can be weird, but listen to what he has to say in training, even if it seems pointless," his older self interjected. "I'm not sure everything had a point, but I think most of it did."

"But isn't there any way I can stop you without Konoha being destroyed, or you having to die?" Naruto asked with a frown.

"I really don't know." Nagato cast his gaze downward. "The village's destruction was more than simple revenge. I had grown mostly indifferent to the personal circumstances between Konoha and myself—or maybe I should say my feelings were blurred. But at the time, I had not been fully aware that Madara's intentions lay elsewhere. I wanted to achieve peace in the real world, even if the method was not ideal. I didn't know what his true plans were. But I did understand he was using us to further his own ends, so when I realized you had what it took to find a better answer, I betrayed him. I always disliked the way he viewed myself, Konan, and Akatsuki."

"So since you didn't know… you think you'd betray him again if I told you what he was planning?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Nagato murmured. "You have the ability to convince me, but the problem is ending up in a situation where you have that chance. As I've told you before, it's simply too dangerous. You won't be able to reach my tower undetected, and then you would be captured."

"But all the jinchuuriki were taken alive, right?" Naruto put a hand on his chin thoughtfully.

"You are not going to get yourself captured, Naruto!" Sakura said, incensed. "If you try that, I'll come back in time myself and give you the knock in the head you obviously need!"

"S-Sakura-chan," the older Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "If it's Nagato and not one of the others, maybe there is a chance there would be enough time to—! Hey! I'm a bunshin, remember?" He put his arms up defensively as she bared a fist at him.

"I understand you want to keep your village from being destroyed," Nagato said. "But if you get captured, it's unlikely Konoha will simply sit by and do nothing. If they try to make an assault on Amegakure, it will only lead to them being destroyed sooner. It could even start a war like this one."

"Oh. Right." Naruto looked down at his feet, thinking, then looked back up. "I'll come up with something. I'm not going to let any of that happen!"

"Don't worry too much about what path to take. Just stay alive. That is the best thing you can do for your village," Nagato said softly.

Someone was approaching their group, and they turned to look. It was a nervous-looking sealer from Suna, carrying a large roll of cloth in his arms.

"Sorry, it took a while to get here," he said. "You're the ones HQ wanted me to meet?"

"Yes," Nagato said. "You can seal me at any time."

"Wait, wait!" the younger Naruto said hastily. He turned back to his older self. "Aniki… there was something you said earlier, when we first met." He clenched his fists tightly. It was time to ask now, before he lost his nerve. "You said you could feel our—our parents watching over me. I guess that means… you know who they are?"

Naruto looked up to stare his older self in the eye, curious, but a little bit afraid. If what the masked man told him was true, that meant… his father had sealed the Kyuubi into him. The Yondaime Hokage. It sounded too crazy to be true, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling… a feeling like he already knew it was, somehow.

His older self stared back silently for a while, then the corners of his lips curled upward.

"They'll want to tell you the full story themselves. It would take a while to explain it all, anyway. I'm not sure I can do it justice." He rubbed under his nose with a smirk. "But our parents were heroes who saved the village. They loved us a lot, you know? And they'd have wanted to stay and be there for us every day, but they gave up their lives to save the village from the Kyuubi. That's just the kind of people they were. We're a family of proud shinobi that will do anything to protect the people we love! That's what I learned when I finally got to meet them. You will sometime, too, and then you'll understand."

"But how?" Naruto asked, voice cracking. "How am I supposed to talk to them?"

His older self knelt to look up at him, just like when they first met. He poked his younger counterpart in the stomach. "They left part of themselves behind inside the seal. Tou-chan will help you if the seal comes close to breaking. Kaa-chan will be there when you're ready to use the Kyuubi's chakra. They're watching over you, even now. I wonder what they think about you coming to the future? I bet they're hoping you go can home soon. Do you think you're ready?"

Naruto felt a strange emotion well up inside him, prickling at the corners of his eyes. It was a kind of confused joy mixed with sadness. Maybe he would understand when the time came, but right now, all he could think about were the million different unanswered questions. Why had he been left all alone? If their parents had loved him so much, why had he always been looked at with such cold, judging eyes?

"I—I'm ready," he stumbled out. It was finally happening. Naruto scrunched his face against the tears, but it was no good. They started rolling down his cheeks in a steady stream, and he scrubbed an arm across his face to try to get rid of them.

"C'mon, it's not exactly like goodbye," his older self said, standing and ruffling his hair again. "The time'll pass before you know it! And you'll do great. Everyone here believes in you."

His older self's confidence really didn't stop the flow of his tears—if anything, hearing they truly believed in him made his throat close up even more. But Naruto turned to where Nagato and the sealer were standing. He gave them a nod, then dropped his hands by his sides and tried to compose himself.

"I'm starting now," the sealer said. He unrolled a length of cloth and draped it over his arm, looking at them for confirmation. Nagato inclined his head, and the older Naruto gave a thumbs up. The younger clenched his fists and relaxed them several more times, nervousness impeding slightly on his other emotions.

The sealer made a hand sign and the cloth sprang to life, rushing forward and steadily wrapping around Nagato's body, efficiently covering him from the feet up.

"Thank you, Naruto, for everything you have done..." Nagato smiled, face starting to peel and crack, "…and for everything you will do."

The cloth finished covering him, and seal lines appeared, scrawling down and over each side of the cloth. The sealer let out a breath and eased the sealed body down to the ground. He and everyone else turned to look at Naruto expectantly.

Tears blurring his eyes, Naruto looked down at himself, increasingly nervous. He was afraid all their guessing had been wrong—they never knew for sure it would work, after all. But a few seconds later, cracks and lines started to appear on his skin. The lines deepened, becoming three-dimensional, and the sections between the lines began peeling and drifting into the air. Naruto looked back up at everyone, an odd sense of unreality coming over him. It was the same disconnectedness he'd felt when he slipped into the past before. The bond between his soul and this body was weakening.

I promise, he said in his mind, no longer able to say it out loud.

Naruto felt himself floating up and away. He was able to look down and see everyone growing smaller for just a second, until everything was awash in white. It was a lot like falling asleep. His eyes might have been open, or closed—he couldn't tell. But then, that concept probably had no meaning without a body.

Naruto didn't see it, exactly—but he got the impression of someone beside him. It was a tall young man with dark hair and calm, but amused eyes.

He'd never seen this person before, but something about him felt warm and familiar, like a face or smell from a long time ago. His clothing was odd, impossible to connect to any village that Naruto knew.

Who are you?

The image faded, washed out in white, but there were others, increasingly difficult to see. The silhouette of a long white coat. A glimmer of red. A blast of hot air on his face. And then, an acidic, inky blackness. But those went too quickly to get anything of substance out of them.

He started falling. It would have been terrifying, if it was possible to see anything. But the world dimmed from muffled gray into black, and he lost consciousness until suddenly, he could feel things again. His entire being felt jolted by the sudden weight of it.

Naruto's eyes flew open, heart thumping. It was difficult to breathe, and he nearly panicked—but he forced himself to look around without making any sudden movements.

Warm evening light from the window showed him the familiar greenish walls of the hospital. The one that no longer existed in the future. He was laying in bed again, a breathing mask on his face and all kinds of instruments stuck to him. Naruto looked beside the bed, but the chair was empty. No one was there right now.

Lifting a hand to curl around the bed's railing, Naruto pulled himself up very slowly. He felt much, much more awake this time, but his body hurt all over. It was not easy to move. He looked over at the window, trying to get a good look at the buildings outside. He noticed a table with his old hitai-ate sitting on it, and a vase with a single cut daffodil in it. It looked fresh. Naruto reached out as far as he could and touched his fingertips to the headband's metal faceplate, with all its nicks and scratches from long use.

He shifted to try getting out of bed, but he was hooked to so many machines that doing so pulled painfully in several places. But even from here, he could see that the skyline outside his window was the same one he'd grown up with.

He was home.

He looked at his hands, and then the rest of his body. It was strange to be back in his own body, too, though it seemed it hadn't fared very well without him. Hopefully a few good meals would get everything back to normal. How long had he been gone?

Naruto started pulling out the numerous things stuck on him, wincing at the pain. It probably wasn't the best idea, but he wanted to get out of bed and walk over to the window.

Several minutes later, he held on tightly to the bed's rail and lowered his feet to the linoleum floor. The process made limbs shake with effort. His usual remedy of food and a good night's sleep might not work for this, after all.

"Ow… damn it," Naruto grumbled.

All the time spent thinking about going home, it never occurred to him he might be in such a bad state. How was he supposed to get a head start on preventing the war if he couldn't even walk anymore?

"N-Naruto-chan!"

Naruto jumped, swayed, and nearly fell. He slowly turned around, holding on to the bed railing. At first he didn't see anything, but then Fukasaku jumped onto his bed, staring at him with his wide mouth agape.

"Sennin jii-chan…?" Naruto was confused. Why was the sage toad here? They never met in this time, right?

"You're awake!" Fukasaku exclaimed, too excited to question Naruto's reaction to him. "I need to let Jiraiya-chan know about this right away!"

That jump-started Naruto's brain. He leaned forward, heart racing again. His hands clutched the railing tightly enough to show his slightly protruding knuckles. "Ero-sennin? Where is he? Is he here?"

"Oh, excuse me. I got carried away and forgot to introduce myself. My name is Fukasaku, one of the toads of Mount Myoboku. I taught Jiraiya-chan everything he knows about the Sage Arts. We've been taking turns monitoring your condition."

"But where is he? He's not here, right?" Naruto pressed.

"Ah, no," Fukasaku said, looking puzzled at Naruto's insistent behavior. "He has been to visit a few times, but things have been busy since you were hospitalized. Right now, he's investigating Akatsuki."

Naruto's eyes widened and a frozen feeling of panic washed over him, rooting him to the floor. What if his disappearance caused Jiraiya to go to Amegakure sooner than before?

He felt light-headed. This couldn't be. It couldn't.

"No!" Naruto shifted closer to the toad. "He has to stay away from Amegakure! I can tell him whatever he needs to know—I-I can explain everything, but you can't let him go after Akatsuki! Please, Sennin jii-chan, you have to stop him right now!"

"Naruto-chan, calm down," Fukasaku hopped closer and put a froggy hand on his arm, concerned and alarmed. "What happened to you? We thought it would be impossible for you to wake up, after—"

"Forget about that right now!" Naruto said impatiently. "Just find him and make him come back here, okay? I can explain what happened later, so just go."

"…Alright." Fukasaku backed up and looked into his face, eyebrows scrunched. "I'll go, but you need to make sure you rest. You shouldn't be trying to walk around. I'll go if you get back in bed and let me call a medic."

Naruto ground his teeth together, but he did as the toad said and crawled back up into bed. His breathing was labored, and his body felt weighed down with tiredness. Had the simple act of standing done all that?

Fukasaku waited until Naruto lay back down, and then put his hands together in a seal. He vanished in a plume of vapor.

Naruto lay on his back, staring at the ceiling as he struggled to breathe deeply and stay awake. One hand tightly grasped the fabric of the plain hospital shirt he wore. He didn't want to see a medic—he wanted to see Jiraiya, alive and unhurt. He'd just promised Nagato it wouldn't happen again. He'd promised everyone else that no one would die this time. He couldn't be failing them already, not this early. If only he could get up out of this bed!

Why was it so hard to breathe? Was he passing out? Why did it feel like… why did it feel like before, when his soul was pulled away? The tiredness made his eyelids grow heavy.

"No!" Naruto growled. He squeezed his hands into fists in an attempt to keep his senses awake. He could feel that inky, sticky presence again. What was it? It didn't feel comfortable and right like the other things from that space-in-between.

"Let… go of me…" his eyelids drooped. "I can't—I have to…" He could barely feel the nails digging into his palms. If only someone was here, he could at least tell them, warn them about what was happening. "Just wait for me to get better, I can do it… just wait…"

Kyuubi… what's happening? Is it…

"The Time-Spanning Incarnation jutsu? What the hell does that mean?"

Naruto suddenly heard a grumbling voice very clearly, a contrast to the fog taking over him just a second ago. At least, it felt like a second. After the cold, blank darkness took over his mind, who was to say how long it really was?

And yet, despite the fact that he blacked out from some dark and suffocating force, he suddenly felt good. Really good. He was no longer tired or in pain at all.

"And all I've got is this random blond kid for company… I really hope he isn't dead, though," the grumbling continued. "That's just what I need right now, to get cursed by the ghost of some—"

Naruto sat up suddenly, and the other person screamed. He looked around and saw a boy around his age with spiky black hair, standing with his hands thrown up defensively and a terrified look on his face.

"I'm not dead, idiot!" Naruto said irritably, but his annoyance wore off quickly when he saw where they were.

He was sitting in bed again, but this was most definitely not the hospital. It was a windowless, drab room with two beds and very little else. The only visible exit was a heavy-looking metal door with a thin horizontal slot in it.

A prison cell?

Naruto got out of bed quickly, staring with wide eyes around at everything. His body moved with ease, the weakness and soreness from earlier completely gone.

"Where are we?" he demanded. He hoped this was just a bad dream. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was at home now, that was it! They won fair and square.

"Hey! You can't call me an idiot when you don't even know that much!" the other boy insisted. He scratched the back of his head. "Even though… I don't really know, either. I just kind of woke up here, too. But you've been asleep for a while since I woke up. If only I could figure out what that snake bastard is up to…"

"Snake…?" Naruto slumped back onto the edge of the bed, staring out in disbelief. "Orochimaru is behind this?"

If that was the case… did that mean he was back in the future? That would explain why he didn't feel tired anymore. But then, how did he get here? They had sealed Nagato, and both of their bodies had disintegrated. That was supposed to put everything back to the way it was. Naruto looked down at his hands, mind numbly running around a loop.

"Yeah, that bastard came here talking a bunch of crap about Incarnation jutsus or whatever… and who the hell are you, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen you before, but you do seem kinda familiar somehow, in a weird way." the boy put a hand on his hip and frowned.

"Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said, without the vigor he usually put into it. He was still trying to figure out what happened. Itachi said that Orochimaru could possibly do it again, but it would be hard to pull off because he needed someone with a strong enough doujutsu. Did that mean he'd figured out a way?

"Uzumaki?" The black-haired boy crossed his arms thoughtfully. "So, are you related to Kushina-san? But you don't really look like her… come to think of it, you actually look a lot more like Minato-sensei."

"Who are you supposed to be?" Naruto shot back, pointing at the boy. "You've gotta be around the same age as me, and you're wearing a Konoha headband, but I've never seen you before."

"Hey, don't act like I'm the one who looks fishy in these circumstances," the boy said haughtily. He turned around and pointed at the fan-shaped crest on his jacket. "Uchiha Obito. I'm from one of Konoha's founding clans, and I'm the man who will become Hokage someday. So what've you got?"

"Heh, yeah right! If you wanna be Hokage, first you'll have to go through m—wait… Uchiha?" Naruto's eyes fixed on the familiar crest that disappeared as Obito turned back around. "If you're an Uchiha, then that means… you're one of Orochimaru's Edo Tensei zombies!" he jumped up again, readying himself for a fight.

"Huh? You mean like those guys with the creepy eyes guarding this place? They told me about it," Obito pointed his thumb at the door over his shoulder. "But—hey, isn't that where dead people are brought back to life? Now who is accusing someone of being dead, idiot!" He pointed at Naruto, looking very insulted.

Naruto scratched his head. "It's true you don't look like them, but what else could it be? All the Uchiha are dead."

Obito scowled. "What kind of messed up joke is that? Are you looking for a fight?"

None of this made sense. Obito knew who Orochimaru was, and he didn't look like an Edo Tensei zombie… but he also didn't know about Naruto, or the Uchiha Clan's downfall.

"I guess you could be like me, and be brought here from the past, but that means there's another you in this timeline." Naruto gave a frown. He wished Itachi, Nagato, or his older self were here to help him figure this out.

"What do you mean?" Obito's dark eyes narrowed. "The guards were actually saying something like that. About going through time. But how can that be possible? The only space-time ninjutsu I've ever seen is Minato-sensei's Hiraishin no Jutsu, and this thing sounds way more advanced than that." The clear implication in Obito's tone was that if it was too advanced for his sensei, it probably didn't exist.

"This masked jerk tried to explain part of it to me once, but it was hard to understand," Naruto admitted. "But, uh… basically, this jutsu doesn't make all of you travel through time, just your spirit, or something like that. So if you're like me, that means your real body is back in your own time, and the one you're in now is something Orochimaru made. And there should be an older version of you running around somewhere in this time, because I think it only works on living people."

Obito just looked at him like he had a screw loose. "…Riiight. Guess I'll have to ask the guards what's going on again, see if they'll tell me anything useful." He walked over to the steel door and started banging on it with his fist. "Oi, you creepy-eyed freak! Are you still out there?"

"Hey—listen to what I'm saying, Uchiha-jerk!" Naruto fumed. An Uchiha couldn't really call someone else's eyes creepy, right? "Maybe I don't know all the details, but I've been like this longer than you! I just went back home… and now I'm back in this time again for some reason."

"Oh, yeah?" Obito turned back toward him. "So how am I supposed to know if that's what happened to me? And why would Orochimaru want to bring me here in the first place? Unless, maybe I did become Hokage in the future? I must be a really important person now, come to think of it..." Obito rubbed his chin, a spark in his eyes.

"Uhhh… I've never heard of you, sorry." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "And I know you gotta come from before when I do, because almost all the Uchiha are dead in my time. Plus, my older self here is only four years older than me."

Obito let his hand drop. "Are you saying that really wasn't a joke? What happened to the Uchiha? How could they all just… die? Wait—and the village? What happened to the village? Was it because of the war?" He grabbed Naruto by the front of his shirt, orange goggles pressed up to his face.

"Let me go!" Naruto said with a grunt, wrenching himself from Obito's grasp. He could understand Obito's reaction, since he'd been like that himself. But still. "First of all, I don't even know what time you come from! As for the Uchiha… it wasn't because of a war or anything." Naruto cast his eyes down. He wasn't sure how to even begin. He definitely wasn't the right person to explain the murder of the Uchihas.

But Obito had a right to know, didn't he? It wasn't like Naruto wanted to keep the truth from him, not when he knew exactly how that felt.

He took a deep breath. "I was pretty little when it happened, so I never knew that much about it. But I can tell you what I know."

"Alright," Obito said cautiously. "But make it quick. I don't know about you, but—" He jerked his chin toward the door, then looked back at Naruto significantly.

Naruto glanced at the door. From what Obito said, there were guards outside. But he had no intention of staying put quietly, either.

"Yeah. I agree."