The Problem With Self-Inserts Is

by manga.geek.3

Life-long best friends and anime nerds, Sam and Tori are unexpectedly dropped into the Naruto universe. How will they survive without wifi? What will they eat? How many times can they embarrass themselves in front of hot men? But also..why in the world did they end up there in the first place? (Crack-fic, bursting with fan service and anime jokes. But we promise, there is a plot!)

11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven: ...That Chapter Titles are Hard

It's morning.

The blanket slipped off my foot.

I'm cold.

These little thoughts introduced themselves slowly to Victoria's mind as the sun rose higher above the treeline. These little thoughts knew better than to try to rush her to wakefulness after the failed attempt of earlier. When Victoria didn't fall back into the oblivion of total unconsciousness, her subconscious tried again.

There's a small animal laying on my chest. Is it Abigail?

Thinking of her sister's chihuahua seemed to stall Victoria's brain for a moment - she knew there was a reason that it couldn't be Abigail, but she wasn't ready to think through that difficulty yet.

I'm cold.

"Kakashi, you should send me back," a rough voice murmured from not too far away. "You're exhausting yourself."

There was a soft crackling sound and the wind blew the warm smell of woodsmoke towards Victoria.

A campfire?

"I sent Buru and Guruko and Uhei back already. I'm fine."

"Send me back," the first voice insisted gently. "And keep Pakkun here if you need someone. He's the smallest. You'll barely notice the pull on your chakra."

There wasn't a reply for a moment and under the snaps and popping sounds of the fire, the barely-conscious Victoria could just make out distant bird song and someone snoring. The third sound was strange.

Kakashi's sharpening a kunai.

With this rather sophisticated thought, Victoria's brain began to set in motion the rest of the waking up protocols. As it worked on things like 'remember where you are' and 'check how full the bladder is', the morning wind blew more smoke and ash over her, causing little Pakkun to sneeze and hop off Tori to go hide on Kakashi's lap.

"You're injured, Akino," Kakashi said in barely more than a whisper. "How will I know you're okay if you go back?"

"I will be okay," Akino promised. "And I'll heal faster at home."

"I shouldn't have left you to get hurt," the young shinobi chastised himself.

He was answered by a doggy huff. "Pain happens to all ninjas, Kakashi," Akino reminded him gently. "I chose my path and accepted the mission."

Pakkun whined softly and was awarded by Kakashi gently scratching behind his ears. The puppy's whole body quivered with the force of his happy tail wag. In the time it took Tori to figure out how to open her eyelids, there was a poof sound and the weirdly sweet smell of chakra-summoning smoke.

As Victoria blinked and squinted into the morning light, Pakkun gave a small bark. "She's awake," he announced to the young Kakashi. Kakashi instinctively tugged his mask higher up the bridge of his nose and turned to evaluate the rest of the group. The majority of Team Minato was sleeping around the firepit: Rin, Obito, Sam, and Victoria were all lying or leaning against nearby trees, catching what sleep they could. Only Kakashi was awake, ready as always to defend. Pakkun's bark, though, began a ripple effect with Obito starting awake in surprise and Rin more languidly stretching her arms and using the tree she had napped against to help her stand up. "I'll go tell Sensei," Pakkun offered helpfully. He gave Kakashi a quick, doggy lick to the cheek and then began to leap away towards the boundaries of the camp.

Samantha, herself, blearily awoke, stretching and yawning as she did so. There was a massive crick in her neck from resting against the tree, and she proceeded to pop her neck from the achyness it presented. She heard the puff of smoke and small 'yip' from a dog nearby, and glanced in that direction to find Kakashi sitting alone next to a slowly burning fire pit.

"Man, I'm exhausted," A yawning Obito proclaimed. Rin giggled from her spot, though Sam could tell that she was just waking up as well.

"Obito, you just woke up from sleeping." Rin pointed out.

"Yeah," Obito drawled, "But with everything that happened last night, I could sleep for a whole decade and still be tired." The teenager dramatically flopped back down on the sleeping bag he had hauled down from the abandoned cave.

"But Obito, you got there at the end of the fight."

"Aw, c'mon, Rin. You know I woulda kicked their butts if I'd been there just a little earlier!" Obito protested, scrambling up to his feet to plead his case to the girl he was crushing on. "After all, becoming the next hokage means I've gotta be awesome!"

Feeling somewhere between half-dead and all-dead, Victoria very, very slowly pushed herself up onto one elbow and blinked slowly around the circle. She gave a soft sigh of relief when she saw Rin and Obito. She had to turn a little farther but finally she saw Sam. "Are we all okay?" she asked, her voice weird and raspy like she was sick from the flu.

The soft smile which Samantha had adopted from the two ninja's conversation fell into a frown as Tori spoke. "Basically…" Sam surmised, "But you've definitely got the worse for wear."

Kakashi abruptly stood up. "We should start to pack up," he instructed Rin and Obito. "Minato-Sensei wanted to leave as soon as the civilians woke up."

Tori blinked towards the mercurial ninja, but then looked back to Sam and the others while Kakashi stomped off towards the trees for some reason known only to him. "I feel kinda like I got hit by a truck," Tori agreed. "Or flattened by a steam roller." She yawned so widely she winced when it pulled her jaw funny. "Ugh. My mouth tastes like something died in it."

Rin appeared and knelt beside Victoria with a canteen. "That's not surprising, Victoria-San. You were dangerously low on chakra last night. That can cause full body exhaustion, and body-aches."

"And you kinda did get hit with a nasty punch as well as getting your neck sliced." Sam deadpanned. "I don't think that we're gonna be able to move as fast as Kakashi is expecting."

"I was able to heal up Victoria-San's ribs a little bit." Rin said to Samantha, then turned and spoke directly to Tori, "They should feel better than last night. How come you never told us your ribs were broken?" Rin asked, curiosity and an almost medical-authoritative voice mingling together.

Tori grimaced a little at the accusation. "I didn't wanna cause a fuss," she lied. Really, it had originally been a matter of not wanting to look like a lame weakling compared to everyone else. Oh well. That had become obvious enough after a while, but then the Sam-and-Hatake battle had just been too much drama to throw anything else into it. "And I was making it work with the brace and pills and stuff."

Rin gave her a long look, like she knew Victoria was lying but then she shook her head slightly and sighed. "Whatever you say. How's the pain today, then? Do you need something?" At Victoria's nod, Rin began to dig through the medical kit.

Obito siddled over to Sam. "Hey. You, uh, got any more of those snacks?" he asked hopefully.

Samantha blinked. Through everything that happened the night before, Obito's lightheartedness was a breath of fresh air. Sam smiled, a small laugh wanting to bubble through, "Well, I wouldn't be surprised if we did! Though…" She muttered, "We did eat a lot of them yesterday… I'll need to check the scroll to see if we do!"

Ambling over towards Victoria, Samantha knelt down and held out her hand, "Hey, you have the scroll with all our stuff in it, right?"

"I have that, Samantha-San," Rin said. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the scroll and offered it back to Sam. Her head tilted slightly to one side. The female shinobi's brown eyes were sharp with intelligence. "Some of the seals are unusual," she noted lightly.

"Really?" Sam asked, slightly confused. She didn't notice any unusual seals. Rin nodded and when Samantha opened up the scroll, she pointed to the seals that were labeled in English. It was like a lightbulb went off in Sam's head as she saw them.

"Yeah, why do those seals look so weird?" Obito asked, looking over Sam and Rin's shoulder.

With a shrug, Samantha glanced over the English-lettered seals, "I dunno," She responded truthfully, "Maybe because Tor and I know a few different languages that it just… does that?" Sam shrugged once again, brushing off their confusion right off her shoulder. She honestly couldn't explain why the seals were in English apart from the fact that that's the language Sam and Tori knew.

"Also! What is that?" Obito pointed to the symbol of an apple on the scroll. Samantha, looked it over once, before continuing her search for the potato chips.

"Applesauce," Samantha responded, though her gaze was elsewhere. She missed Obito's knitted brow.

"That can't be right…" He mumbled to himself, "Are you sure?"

"Yup." Sam said. What more could be said? "A-ha! Found it!" She quickly set the scroll on the ground, did her best to bring in the chakra to her hands, and after feeling the hum in her fingers, unsealed the chips to the best of her knowledge. Unfortunately, since Samantha was still getting the hang of using chakra, it still had the tendency to knock her off balance. When she sat back up, however, she saw just what she had been unsealing. "Success!" She cheered.

Tori gave a sleepy chuckle. "Wooo, Sam," she cheered after swallowing the medication Rin had given her. "Could you pass it to me? I really want my toothbrush.."

"Absolutely not," Rin said firmly. "Victoria-San you are forbidden from using chakra for at least three days until you replenish your supply."

"I'll get your toothbrush," Obito offered reaching down to grab up the scroll.

"Wait, wait!" Sam slapped a hand on the scroll to stop Obito from picking it up, "I should pull it out because I need to practice! After all, practice makes perfect."

"You've never practiced seals before?" Obito asked, disbelieving. "Why not?"

"Obito!" Rin elbowed him.

"Cult," Tori reminded around a yawn.

Samantha smirked, "What she said."

"That's what she said," Tori corrected with a chuckle.

"Oh good grief," Sam rolled her eyes, "You really had to say that, didn't you? Tori! There's children around!"

"I thought I told you to pack up camp." Kakashi glowered at all three of them as he stalked back into sight. Rin jumped immediately up and began to clean up the medical kit. Obito rolled his eyes at the youngest ninja's sudden appearance. "All you want to do is lie around talking," Kakashi said sharply, "Can we get some action here, please?"

"Now that's what he said," Tori whispered to Sam.

"Oh geez," Sam smacked her palm to her forehead, Sokka style.

"Bakakashi," Obito muttered, irritably, "We were getting to that part, ya know!" He spoke loudly to his equally irritated comrade.

"No, you weren't. You were eating chips."

"Yeah, but after that!" Obito protested. "Besides, Victoria-San needs to move slowly, so it's perfect."

"I think that's a skill she already has down," Kakashi muttered as he dumped water over the barely smoking fire.

"What a buttmunch!" Sam growled to herself while handing Victoria her toothbrush. What was it with Tiny Kakashi and getting on her nerves? There was no way that he was teasing her like Tori had suggested the day before. She sighed, before gracelessly standing to go and clean up her own bedding.

Tori, still feeling like her head was made of oatmeal, brushed her teeth and managed to slowly fling the coats and blankets that had been her nest to Obito as he had fun sealing them away for her. She was still feeling pleasantly numb about everything… which was so, so much better than the agonizing pain that had been her last few days. Rin really must have helped my ribs, she mused. But I guess my feet will be the real test. If I could just find any energy whatsoever to get up.

The rest of the squad had the campsite nearly cleaned up by the time that Minato-Sensei appeared. He slowly looked around, evaluating everything - including Victoria's continued position sitting on the last blanket as she slowly pulled on her shoes. He then gave his team a faint smile. "Good morning, everyone. I hope you got enough rest. We will need to move quickly today."

"Hai, sensei!" Rin smiled her acknowledgement.

Victoria waved Sam over to her and gave a hopeful wiggle of her fingers that Samantha could help her to her feet. A part of her was worried about how Tiny Kakashi was going to react to once again being ditched by his squad in favor of having to escort her and Sam the rest of their limping way to Konoha. At least we are out of the cliffs so he can't threaten to knock us over one anymore. Victoria was not happy about how much effort it seemed to require to get back onto her feet - even with Samantha helping. As Sam would say, "Oh crunch." I do not know how I'm gonna make even a few miles today, much less as far as Little Hatake is gonna want to go. She chewed her lip a little, giving Sam a worried look.

"What's the plan, Sensei?" Obito asked brightly even as he and Rin quickly packed away the last blanket that Victoria had been sitting on. He handed Victoria back the scroll once it was all tied up again. "Who's going after the info scroll and who's gonna help with the civilians?"

Minato gave one of those short laughs that adults generally do when they aren't quite certain how to answer a question. "That's what we need to determine, Obito," he said.

Samantha watched the exchange, holding onto Victoria because she seemed wobblier than normal on her feet. Essentially, Tor was always stable on her feet; so it was easy to see that something wasn't right. I wonder if they're going to have Kakashi lead us back again. Or will he be the one to go after the scroll? That would make the most logical sense… however, that's not what she decided she was going to say. "If you end up needing to go together before you head back to Konoha, I'm sure you'd be able to get there and back to us before we get too far. Considering you've got your ninja-y awesomeness to help you out and all…" Sam shrugged after putting in her thoughts to the group, and immediately felt a little uncomfortable when everyone's eyes were on her.

Obito piped up, "You guys do move a bit slower than us. I could totally run the distant you guys made in two hours. Easy!"

"So could your grandmother," Tiny Kakashi said, shooting Obito an annoyed look.

Kakashi's irritated quip nearly made Samantha laugh. What's with Kakashi and grandmothers? I feel like I recall him mentioning them when he was an adult… whoa… that's weird, saying 'when he was' for a kid who hasn't actually yet become an adult… Samantha placed her free hand on her hips and gave a big smile. "See? I'm sure we'll be just fine until then." And, well… after, too… "Right, Tor?" Sam turned to her friend.

Tori's smile was as wobbly as her knees. "Yeah," she agreed. "It seems like your mission really does need its whole squad. You go do what you need. I'm sure you'll sniff us out when you need to."

"Minato-Sensei, we can't leave them alone!" Rin protested. "They risked their lives to save me! What if those enemy nin send others? We can't leave our friends defenseless."

"But…" Sam began, "Didn't we defeat all those enemy nin?"

"Sensei said they looked like mercenaries," Obito blurted. "So that means somebody probably hired them."

Minato Namikaze watched the two Earth-born women carefully, judging reactions, but he gave a slight nod at Obito's declaration. "Whatever is decided, it is certain that we should ensure that we put as much distance as we can between us and last night's battlefield."

Rin stepped closer, speaking softly, but firmly as though nervous to speak out against her sensei. "Minato-Sensei, although there were no terrible injuries from last night, Victoria-San should really be resting. Her chakra is far from restored."

Victoria's ears burned in embarrassment as everyone looked at her. "I'll - I'll be fine," she promised rashly. "But..I'll be slow. Still. I'm - I'm just slow. It's kinda what happens when you have to haul around more weight than a person should. I am really sorry. If there was a way for me to suddenly be skinny enough to go as fast as you guys, I would, but I - I can't, ya know?" Her throat tightened and she wanted to die for the way her voice cut out on the last word. But she definitely was not going to cry again. ...It sounded like just way too much effort for one thing.

Sam looked at Victoria with a frown, "I don't think being skinny has anything to do with how fast you move... Just look at Callie," Sam's roommate, "She's super thin but she doesn't ever have energy to go on long walks and all that jazz…" Turning to look at Minato, Sam had to agree with Rin, "Victoria already had broken ribs… plus that horrible cut on her neck. Though I guess that Rin did help close that up…" Sam muttered the last part, then spoke up again, "It might be best if we just rested… somehow..." Suddenly, it seemed like Sam was out of ideas of just what should happen.

Hatake muttered some choice words under his breath. "For the love.. What? Do you two want us to carry you into Konoha on golden litters or something?"

"Kakashi!" Rin scolded, but he just kept going.

"Seriously! We are doing you a favor even offering to get you to Konoha. The least you could do is put in some modicum of effort here! There's a reason, Obito, that it took us for-freaking-ever to get this far. The two of them practically walked backward over the entire distance! And then they had one instruction: one measly command to stay out of sight and instead they nearly got themselves, Akino, and Rin killed!"

Samantha huffed, feeling her cheeks burn, "Firstly, I was intending on staying here until y'all came back. Secondly, you're acting as if we intended to get attacked! You think we wanted to put ourselves in danger and almost kill ourselves and everyone else? In case you didn't know… they'd taken Rin. Any person who cared about the wellbeing of others wouldn't sit back and watch someone be abducted. If anything… Tori's a hero for putting herself out there, like that!"

"She's an idiot that put herself into a situation she wasn't prepared for," Kakashi fired back without hesitation.

"Better that then the dudes run off with your teammate!" Sam shot back just as quickly.

"Rin's a shinobi. She knew the risks when she took on the mission," Kakashi declared coldly.

Victoria winced at the dead clinicalness of Little Kakashi's words. It truly sounded like he thought that it would have been better for her to stay out of it. That Rin being kidnapped and who-knows-what-else was just an unfortunate outcome. That it didn't even really matter. How broken must you be inside to really think like that? To think of someone else as expendable. To, by extension, think of your own self as expendable. Even in her darkest moments, Tori still knew that life, in and of itself, was precious and something worth fighting for. It was what had gotten her out to the other side of that darkness.

"Then what's the point?!" Sam started, feeling her jaw clench, and her body begin to shake with anger, "What's the point of having teammates in the first place if you're just going to abandon them! The answer is, there's not."

"Kakashi wouldn't have abandoned me," Rin broke in, a hand fisted protectively over her heart. "He puts the mission first, but he is still loyal to our squad, Samantha-San. He just didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"That might be his downfall…" Sam glowered, remembering his future hesitation in saving Rin at Kannabi Bridge and that becoming the reason they lost Obito. Crossing his arms tightly across his chest, Kakashi jerked his head away as though disdaining to even acknowledge what Sam had said.

Obito, who had been quiet throughout the whole fight, stepped forward just a smidge, his fists clenched at his sides. "Kakashi… Kakashi - that baka - he really…" Obito seemed to be shaking just as much as Samantha. She watched him with slight surprise but also she wasn't surprised either. Obito, after all, did kinda sorta think of Kakashi as his best friend. In such a weird way as Naruto and Sasuke. "He wasn't always like that." It was as if Obito was pretending Kakashi wasn't even in the room. It surprised Sam that he would be talking about Kakashi like this while he was around to hear. "He's got a hard heart, but it wasn't always like that... Deep down, he actually feels the same as you. And me… and Rin and Minato-Sensei. It's just trying to get through that baka's thick skull!" Obito added.

Kakashi finally scowled at Obito. "If you want me to break through your own thick skull, I can make that happen," he said, but somehow, in the same explicable way that punching your bro in the face resolved most male battles, the threat sounded like Kakashi thanking Obito for what he said. Rin certainly had a relieved smile. But then Kakashi gave Sam a wary look.

Samantha scrutinized Obito for a moment, feeling just a little ashamed. She knew all of what Obito and Rin were saying. After all, she'd watched the anime enough to know that Kakashi actually was just scared for his friends. Not to mention, it seemed absolutely ridiculous to be fighting with a kid. Even if that kid was a prodigy. She looked at Kakashi once again. "Look. I won't apologize for helping save Rin. I won't absolve Victoria's actions, or apologize for her either - that's not my place. But I am sorry for all the stress that it put you under. We honestly had no intentions for causing the injuries that your dogs received, or expected them to fight with us. So… yeah… I'm sorry." Sam's hot temper that came from her beliefs tended to get in the way a bit… so she might as well be the bigger person and apologize for how quickly it comes and goes. Not to mention Sam was the adult in this situation… regardless of what being a shinobi considered people.

Tori frowned, turning to Sam. "The dogs got hurt?"

Samantha blinked in surprise, looking at Tori, "Uh… well, yes. That big dude I was fighting slammed the poor pup against the wall… I thought you knew?"

Several emotions flickered over Victoria's face as she processed that and the sudden influx of memories from last night's battle. It was still blurry - more like a dream or a book she had read than really something she'd experienced, but she remembered the sound of a dog yelping, remembered the panic she had felt when she couldn't lift Rin. Other things she couldn't touch: the way she had felt paralyzed when Tsuneo had come at her and how only Uhei's sudden block had kept her from dying right then. She had a sudden flickering memory of hot blood splashing her face and felt sick and dizzy. She stumbled, and only Sam's surprisingly strong grip kept Tori from falling over. "I - I'm not sure I really remember it all right," she confessed.

Minato, in all his grandeur of being the iconic Yellow Flash, stepped forward with a look of sympathy upon his features, making nary a sound. He placed a comforting hand upon Victoria's shoulder, "What you experienced was very traumatic. Very little do civilians from any village have that kind of encounter. It puts a lot of stress on the mind. Probably best that you don't remember all the events that occurred." Minato then turned towards his team, "Rin is right. We can't let you go alone; nor can we abandon our mission." His cerulean blue eyes pierced right through Kakashi, "Kakashi, stay with these two while we continue forward. If you deem it alright to move forward to Konoha, we'll catch up. Don't worry about us, alright? We'll be fine."

"Yeah!" Obito fisted the air with his small cheer, "Besides, with the future Hokage on the team, we'll be back in no time!"

Minato smiled in the wake of the over-cheerful Uchiha, "You're more than capable of this mission."

Samantha, for all that she was holding on to Victoria's arm to hold her steady, felt a steady beam of attraction from a very hot, very close-by Minato. Holy friggin' moly…! He's… he's so sexy! Ack! It was as if Sam's legs had the same thought process. Her legs felt like they lost their ability to stand, their wobbliness making her fingers grip Victoria just a little tighter. How does Minato do that? How is he so friggin' hot? The morning sunlight dusted its pale gold light over Minato's immaculate skin. Sam had heard K-Pop stars bragging about having skin like porcelain but that had never really made sense to her as a description… yet, Minato's skin really was smooth and even and luminescent enough that it did seem like he was carved of some special stone rather than being regular old skin like a normal apt-to-get-zits human person. And even his nose. His nose was perfect. Like, it was rare to see a nose and think "dang, that's a nice nose," but Minato seriously had a great nose!

Sam's tight grip was actually hurting Victoria's fingers, but she was glad for it as it kept her from just giving up and falling to her butt on the ground. She tried to just focus on that idea: not falling, as Minato finally stepped back and turned to draw Kakashi aside for a private conversation. The same tiny pug puppy of earlier happily pranced after them. Rin withdrew a small pouch from her ninja fanny pack. "Victoria-San, it's very important that you have enough nutritional intake this week. I took these food pills from your kit earlier. I want you to be very careful to take one along with your pain medication. Now, you can only take that every four hours, so please take my watch so you can keep track of that." Rin, after a moment helped Sam to put the pills and medication into the backpack Sam was now in charge of carrying. The brown-haired shinobi gave Victoria's other hand a small squeeze. "Don't let Kakashi push you too fast nor too far. It's okay to ask for a break."

Oh sure. Until the mercs show up and finish everyone off cuz I was too slow. Tori couldn't quite push away the dark thought, but she gave Rin a tired smile. "I'll try not to get in too much trouble, Rin-Chan," Tori promised.

Rin's answering smile was brilliant. "Thank you, Victoria-Chan!" She surprisingly gave the taller woman a quick hug and then smiled shyly at Sam. "You'll keep an eye on her, Samantha-Chan?"

"Absolutely!" Samantha gave her a peace sign to signify her promise. It was similar to Naruto always giving a thumbs up but… something Sam tended to do naturally. "Tori will not get away with anything while I'm on watch!" With a big smile, Sam briefly glanced at Kakashi's glowering, stiff form when he and Minato came walking back. Samantha's smile dimmed a little. She hated fighting, and she hated that Tiny Kakashi enticed those irritable emotions within her. Alright, I've decided! Sam cheered in her head, feeling a little like Tohru from Fruits Basket when she would gear up to be ready for anything I'm going to make Kakashi become friends with us! Somehow or another, he will miss us when we go!

---

It was a rough morning. Victoria stumbled along as slowly as ever, but there was no way of hiding the fact that she was exhausted and her balance was off. It was like she was sleep-walking or drunk. Samantha had tried to let Victoria walk on her own just once when Tori insisted, and Pakkun had almost gotten flattened when Tori face-planted just moments later. "Ugh, just take a break already," Kakashi growled, Pakkun tucked in his arms protectively. "This is more pathetic than Obito crushing on Rin." He stomped away.

Victoria sighed and let her face fall back down into the dirt. She had at least tried to get her arms back under her, but Tiny Kakashi's frustrated words were like cinder blocks thrown on top of her. There was no way she could find the arm strength to push herself back up. "It hurts, Sam," she whimpered.

"I'm sorry," Sam replied, empathy etched in her voice. She really had no idea how to help Victoria except to be there when her friend needed her. "Was there anything I could get you? Any pain pills?" She paused, "Kakashi's right, though. We should take a break…"

"Not that kind of pain," Tori mumbled. "Rin's pills helped that." Although she still wanted to cut off her feet and bury them in an ice bucket, it was the kind of dully consistent pain at this point that she could mostly block it out. "Hatake. His words hurt. I'm not sure how much more 'you-suck-fattie' I can take."

Samantha frowned, deeply. "I don't know if Kakashi really means it that way…" At least, Sam was praying he didn't. If he did… well. Sam looked in the same direction that Kakashi went, then looked at Victoria. "I… gotta pee. I'll be right back," Then she stalked off in the same direction, not allowing Tori's protests to stop her. She had something to say so she was gonna say it! When she found Kakashi, he was pouting, up in a tree; although, Sam was sure he'd just say he was keeping vigil watch.

"Hey!" Sam called up at the silver-haired ninja, "Kaka-uuuh, Hatake-San! We need to talk."

"Maybe you need to talk," the sulking tween said as he gazed out at the rest of the treeline. The puppy in his arms was licking at the boy's cheek over and over. "I am just waiting for the two of you to stop torturing the road."

Samantha rose a brow at his comment. Wow… he's really pouting. Still, she folded her arms, then cleared her throat. "Look. I know this sucks, having to guard us and make sure we don't get hurt, but…" Sam bit her lip, trying to think how to move forward, "Well, I know that you and Obito tend to bicker a lot and that it's fine, and Obito just brushes off your insults and doesn't actually care what you say to him, he'll just bounce back to his happy self and…" yes, Samantha did realize she was rambling, "Essentially, not everyone is like Obito. Words hurt. Emotional damage can last longer than physical damage. Victoria and I… we're civilians. We've not had to grow up learning to block our hearts off from the things people say about us. So… yeah. I know this sucks for you, but please… please try to refrain from comments that aren't nice. There's a saying my mom would say when I was younger," and happened to be from movies like Bambi, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." A long sigh escaped her lips and Sam looked at the foliage around them, turning her body slightly away from Kakashi.

There was a long silence from above. And then Kakashi finally said, "Is that it? That's what you needed to say?"

Samantha thought about it for a minute, "Yeah."

"Okay. Well. You said it. Let me know when your friend is done snoozing."

Snoozing? Sam thought, confused. She turned to look at Victoria and noticed that her friend had never gotten up from off the ground. Blinking precariously, Samantha slowly walked towards her friend, crouching and poking Victoria's arm once. "Hey, Tor." She tried, but Tori seemed to be out cold. Sam hummed, before standing up and called out to Kakashi, "I think we'll be a little while."

Kakashi gave a soft sigh, that was echoed by Pakkun barking. In the silence of the forest came a small grumble. "Lunch?" Pakkun asked eagerly, confirming to Sam that the weird sound was probably Kakashi's stomach growling. "Is it time for lunch?"

"Now's as good a time as any." Sam laughed, just a little bit. Then she remembered that Victoria had the scroll with their food. "Uh…" Lost in her thoughts, Sam had to remember where Tori had stored the scroll. Wasn't it on a piece of paper? Is that in her pocket? Crap! I can't remember. So, Sam made a decision to try to find the scroll in one of Tori's pockets. This is weird she thought as she dug around each pocket. After a few minutes of ruffling, Sam found the scroll, rather than the tiny piece of paper, successfully. "Yes!" She cheered, "Prepare to be amazed!" Sam quoted Goob from Meet The Robinsons quite dramatically - regardless of whether or not Kakashi understood the reference. It was still fun.

Opening the scroll, Samantha searched for the area where they had food and paused in her efforts. Alright, Sam. Victoria's already good at this. She's even gotten to the point of sealing! You can be just as good! With enough prep-talk out of the way, Samantha did the motions and felt the hum of chakra in her fingers; then placed her hand over the food portion of the scroll. It was always a surprise when the expected result was not the actual result. Sam, having been crouched over, fell backwards as a rather impressive mound of food lay on top of the scroll. Ramen, and snacks and other food of all sorts were there for their taking.

"Uhm, Bon appetit!" Sam exasperated.

"How did you do that?" Little Kakashi asked from his place suddenly crouched at her side. He did not hesitate to reach out and grab a dango from the stack.

"Do what? Pull out food?" Sam looked at the food then back at Kakashi, "With chakra." Sam said, dryly.

"Release multiple seals at once with only one hand gesture," he said back, just as dryly.

Sam blinked, then pouted, "It wasn't supposed to be multiple seals…" She gave an exaggerated sigh, grabbing a bowl of Ramen to slurp down. "You'll probably have to seal them back in the scroll… I've not learned that part, yet."

He snagged a can of cola. "Can you answer a question?"

"Probably," Sam shrugged.

"If I were to actually believe the story about the cult in the mountains, how do you plan to explain how well you two are outfitted?"

Sam rose her brow and finished slurping another noodle, "Well, it's not like we didn't, or rather, don't, have friends."

"Well, where did they get supplies?" he asked stubbornly. "If you really were as isolated as you say."

"Just because we're isolated, doesn't mean that we are an ancient relic. We've got stores that we go to. We earn money to pay for supplies." Sam smirked, "Granted, Tori and I are good friends with someone who's richer then we are, hence," She gestured towards the scroll, "Why we have so much stuff on us. They knew we had a long journey ahead of us and wanted to make sure they covered all the bases." Sam shrugged. Talk like what you say is the truth and it'll be easy to believe it.

"…...Uh-huh."

"Yup!" Sam smiled, happily, eating another slurp of her ramen and wishing there was another half-boiled egg.

"Keh." But Kakashi quietly ate his ramen without any further prodding of their pretext.

---

"It's been three hours, now. How much longer do we have to let her sleep?"

"I'd say as long as it takes. You forget that, according to Rin, Victoria depleted her chakra system…"

"...Can we at least move her? There's a clearing twelve meters ahead."

"Sure. Do you have any ideas on how to do so?"

"Not any that you'll like," Kakashi said grudgingly. He sighed. "You may as well nap too."

"Hm," Samantha thought, "I'm not actually sleepy. I'm quite awake, actually. You should probably rest, yourself. Did you get any sleep last night at all?"

"Obito took one watch."

"You relieved Minato-Sensei during it," Pakkun reminded him.

"Sounds like you get to rest," Samantha chirped. "Don't worry, yo. If anything happens, I'll make sure to wake you up. And I'm sure Pakkun will be there to keep watch with me, right Pakkun?" Sam hunkered down to scratch the puppy behind his ear, and he took to it like a bee to honey.

"Yes! Yes, I will!" the puppy promised enthusiastically, his back leg kicking with excitement at the mission as well as Sam's scratching.

"Just for an hour," Kakashi said firmly, sitting at the base of the tree nearest Victoria's unintended napping spot. He held a kunai in his hand - just in case. But soon his breathing matched the rhythm of Tori's snoring.

An hour? We'll see about that Sam connived, mischievously. With the two fast asleep, Samantha looked around herself for a nice place to sit, wondering what she should be doing at this point in time. She wasn't actually a shinobi, but she also wasn't used to doing nothing. I guess I do like to go on hikes.. But I can't do that right now. She would normally be working on her Japanese or drawing manga, or playing her video games. Like Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Man… I miss video games she pouted to herself. But the idea of studying Japanese wasn't a bad idea, except for the ninja dog keeping watch too. Sam wasn't sure she wanted him to know she couldn't actually read Japanese… being her age and all. Hmmm…

Not finding a good enough rock, Sam remembered their scroll and opened it up to pull out her bedding, as well as some bedding for Victoria's head. A headache would not be fun to wake up to. Tori's already bad about napping. She'll probably already be grumpy when she wakes. The poor dear. So, she quickly made her friend as comfortable as possible (wondering why she didn't think of this earlier) and then leaned back to look at the clouds, while Pakkun came to rest near her. "So… what's your story, Pakkun? How'd you come to know Kakashi?"

"My sire had a contract with his sire," Pakkun said with a happy doggy smile. "I am proud to carry on our family heritage with Master Kakashi." He gobbled up a fallen chip he discovered under a leaf.

Sam smiled, petting the pup once again, "A contract, huh? That's cool. You guys became fast friends, then?"

The rest of the chip was forgotten as Pakkun full-body leaned into the petting. "Of course! Kakashi is kind and honest. He has many nin dogs that are loyal to him."

"More than the few we saw?" Of course, Samantha knew that Kakashi had more dogs than those he'd left with them, but Pakkun didn't know that she knew that. So she had to cover her bases.

Pakkun nodded. "Yeah. He took on all the nindogs from his sire's contract, I believe. Of course, they aren't all mission-capable anymore. But he does support those in need."

"Huh. That's really nice of him." Sam answered, honestly. Kakashi did have a heart of gold underneath all that hardness.

"He is loyal," Pakkun said proudly. "Like a dog."

Sam snorted, "Would you say his bark is worse than his bite?" She giggled at her own silly retort.

"I'm saying he is the best," young Pakkun said, sounding a little confused. "With a wonderful bark and a strong bite."

That received a full-blown, head tilted back, laugh from Samantha. Except, laying on the ground, her back arched just a little bit, "Sounds paw-rific."

"Don't make me tail you to be quiet, Samantha-San," Kakashi grumbled sleepily from his tree.

Surprised at the comment, Sam burst into another fit of laughter, resting the back of her wrist against her forehead, "Sorry Ka-er, Hatake-San. I'll, uh, try to be quieter." Yet, Samantha still couldn't help the sniggers.

Pakkun finished eating the chip and then happily curled up on Sam's stomach with a huff. "Shinobi-ing is hard work," the puppy declared, and then quickly he joined Kakashi and Tori in falling fast asleep. Not fair Sam half-heartedly grumbled in her mind, continuing to watch the clouds. Very Shikamaru-esque.

---

It was nearly dusk by the time Victoria woke up again. "What happened?" she asked Sam blearily as she rubbed at her eyes. Tori had woken up literally lying face down on the road - but weirdly enough with a pillow under her dirty cheek. She fumbled taking the food pills and pain killer out of Sam's hand even as the tiny pug barked and ran in little circles. Every single cell in her entire body was aching with occasional white bursts of sharper pain - like tiny dentists were holding drills to every nerve ending and muscle fiber. Swallowing made her want to pass out and she realized that the side of her neck which felt like it was on fire was probably due to her nice stab wound rather than the golden sunlight shooting through the trees and into her face. Sam handed her a canteen and she nearly dropped it because it felt so heavy.

Samantha half-smiled at Tori. "Everyone's been taking a nap. Except me because I wasn't sleepy. And I was keeping watch." Her smile turned mischievous and she whispered, "Like a real shinobi!"

Tori tried very hard to make a smile at Sam's silliness. ..It kinda looked like one. She shakily managed to get the heavy canteen to her lips. Half of the water splashed out of the corner of her mouth before she realized that she apparently needed to consciously hold her face muscles right. Weird to have your own body so uncooperative. "And I'm on the road because..?"

"Uh, well, that's how you fell asleep. So I got you a pillow!"

Tori managed a very slow nod. "I… think I don't want to be a shinobi." She said very slowly and thoughtfully. "It hurts."

"I don't think you have a choice," Samantha frowned. "Besides… it won't be forever." Maybe. Sam, having stretched and walked around earlier, had left Pakkun to head for comfort in Kakashi's sleeping form. Watching the two, Sam suddenly felt a ping of sadness. It was a pretty crappy lot in life that Kakashi had; but Sam knew he would get it turned around. Deep down, she prayed for the kid. Kakashi needed a lot of love and support. Now. If only he wasn't such a punk at this age! Sam couldn't blame him, though. She'd probably be just as roughed up as Kakashi for all the crap he would have to endure.

"I could die..." Tori offered musingly. "That's a way out of it."

Samantha gave Tori a dry look, as if to say Really. In fact, that's exactly the thought Sam had.

"...it feels like I'm dying," Tori muttered in a half-hearted apology. She wasn't trying to worry Sam. Sometimes it was just harder to divorce the intrusive thoughts from her real feelings.

"I'm sorry, Tor. That must really suck when we're lost in the wilderness…" Sam sighed, "But we'll be to Konoha within a few days, and I'm sure there'll be a comfy bed, there!"

"That's what we thought with Boruto...We're probably gonna end up in jail again. Why do ninjas hate us so much, Sam?" She managed one more sip and then let the canteen heavily fall down to the road beside her. Water sloshed out of the top, getting her hand and the side of Sam's leg wet. "Whoops."

Sam brushed off the spill like it was a gnat in the air. "Shh!" She whispered instead, "We don't want them to think we're terrible people on the run or anything!"

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Tori shook her head, trying to feel less muzzy. "Um. We should move now. Before I pass out again. Has the tiny, angry one yelled a lot?"

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but when she really thought about it…"Actually, no. He's been relatively quiet."

Victoria felt some relief over that, but still she figured it was more likely a testament to the fact they were all tired than that he had actually forgiven Tori and Sam for their interference in Rin's rescue. At least she's okay. We didn't mess up so bad that someone died. The self-reassurance knocked hollowly around and then drifted away when it realized that it wasn't going to actually help Victoria feel any better. Probably the only thing that would help is a very long nap and then an equally long talk with Jesus. As it was, all her prayers just now would be focused on keeping her legs moving rather than the emotional minefield that was knowing how to do the right thing during a war. But first, they had to get away from the danger Tori had brought down on them all. And that meant moving. Somehow. "I'm sorry to have to ask, Sam, but can you help me get up?" Tori asked humbly. "I don't know if I can do it on my own, honestly."

"I really think you should rest longer…" Sam said, but she got up from her sitting position anyway to help Victoria.

"Can't. We gotta get to where it's safer." Sam protested that of course, but she did help Victoria get to her feet...after a few false starts and falls. Tori was, despite all her own best efforts, once again crying, but she challenged any onlooker to take on the current level of pain and exhaustion she was at, without a few tears themselves.

Pakkun fretfully barked and ran in circles around the two of them while Kakashi - who had woken up once Sam started to move around - checked his weaponry and made efforts to remove as much evidence as he could that they had been there. He scowled at the water splatters and crushed grass. He then looked over at Sam and the precariously standing Victoria. "It's going to be dark soon," he pointed out. "You gonna be able to stay on your feet in the dark?"

Victoria glared at the boy through her tears. "If I fall off a cliff, I'll let you know," she said, feeling spiky with embarrassment and pain and frustration at the disdain she heard between his words.

Hatake-San arched an eyebrow and then looked away, shaking his head. He started to walk down the path ahead of them. Tori's grip on Sam's hand tightened. "What?" Tori challenged. "What is it, Hatake? Do you have something you want to say?" The boy waved a hand dismissively over one shoulder as though to brush away her words. "No! Go ahead and say it," Tori growled. He reluctantly turned around, shooting a look over to Sam. He reached up, unconsciously tugging his mask further back up his nose. It was something that adult Kakashi did too, but somehow the endearing gesture just made Victoria even angrier.

How dare he! How dare he be so unkind and thoughtless and just toss away someone else's feelings like that? Her anger carried her forward three steps without Sam's help "No! Don't look at her. I'm the one you're ignoring. I'm the one you roll your eyes at and mutter about. At least have the guts to say it to my face!"

Samantha, feeling tense at the oncomings of a fight, came up to Victoria and said quietly, "That's probably my fault that he's not speaking…" Sam sighed and turned towards the rigid Kakashi, "You might as well tell her what you think… just... keep in mind what I said, yeah?"

"So now you're both talking behind my back?" Victoria snapped. Just as quickly as her sharp words came the grimace of regret for having struck out. "No, sorry, Sam. It's him," she said, pointing towards Kakashi who folded his arms across his chest. Pakkun darted into the bush in fright at Victoria's angry snarl. "He's who I'm mad at. Mad at his stupid, flagrant meanness."

Samantha, though Victoria had apologized, felt a stab of guilt and hurt at her words. Even though just a fraction were directed towards Sam, it was shocking to say the least. But listening to Tori, all Sam could do was look away with a frown plastered on her face.

"I could take it because he's a kid," Tori said to Sam, trying to fight through her growing anger to explain to Sam that she had been really, really trying to let it go. "I could take it because he's hurting that his dad died. I could take it because he was scared and frustrated, but so am I! I'm scared and I'm frustrated because we are stuck in the middle of nowhere with someone who hates us and I'm running at the limits of my physical endurance every stinking day and it's never enough. He still thinks I'm too slow and too fat and that I'm not even trying."

Kakashi coughed and looked away over to the left. His lack of eye contact read to Tori as though he just didn't care what was being said. That stabbed into her with as much force as the screaming of her nerve endings. It broke the last hold on Tori's temper. Now, Victoria knew she was far from perfect, but she had spent a great deal of life consciously trying to be a better, kinder, more patient person. Those efforts kinda flew away when she was too tired or in a great deal of pain. That moment she was in more pain than she had ever, ever experienced in her whole life and she had spent the last four days putting up with the fighting and the glares and the ignore-your-total-existence, and Tori just couldn't take it anymore. She began to spew forth a torrent of words that had bottled up all her anger and hurt.

"I've been trying, Hatake! I've been trying harder over the last four days than I ever have at anything in my whole stupid life and it's been agony. My legs and feet have been on fire. There's so much blood and pus in my shoes at this point, my socks rip coming out of them. My knees are about to give out cuz maybe you just had to walk up and down those hills, but I did it carrying two hundred pounds of fat my bones had never been designed to carry! I can't breathe enough to speak half the time cuz I'm so focused on keeping up with you and you begrudge every single break and stop. Guess what? I'm bloody human! I'm not some robot, magic ninja who can just throw away my feelings and everyone else for the mission!"

Victoria was practically screaming at him now but the pain of everything had been building up inside her like a volcano and she honestly didn't want to stop it. He needed to know how much his words hurt, and she wanted her words to hurt him right back. "No wonder you don't care if Rin died or not. Obviously the only pain that matters to you is your own. I have had broken ribs this entire time and you were too self-absorbed to notice! You grumble and you roll your eyes and you dismiss everything I've done because it's not as much as what you could have done."

Sam looked sharply at Kakashi, feeling just a little bad for the kid. He had been trying to be respectful of what Sam had said, from what she could tell; even if his facial expressions (what little they could see) were harder to express.

The young shinobi finally spoke up, his voice cold and hard: a glacier of anger to counteract the fiery violence of Tori's own rage. "You are the one that put her life at risk. Not me. You were an unprepared idiot that set the enemy nin on high alert, forced them to use deadly force, and ultimately ruined any opportunity for us to gather defensive information. If Minato-Sensei hadn't arrived when he did, all six of you would have wound up dead."

"Well, you know what?" Victoria retorted, "I was prepared to die in that canyon for the chance that it would slow the bad guys down enough for you to find her. I knew there was no chance of me winning. No chance. And I didn't care. I thought that the very best that I could do, even if it was pitiful to you, was worth it."

"You can throw away your own life if you want, but that's not fair to Uhei and Akino and Rin!" he shouted right back.

"I'm sorry your dogs got hurt, but they made their own choice to fight," Tori countered.

"They wouldn't have had to fight at all if you'd stayed out of it!"

"I. Couldn't. Stay. Out. Of. It." Tori growled out slowly. "Maybe you are okay with all your friends dying because you care more about your job and your mission success rate, but I don't give a freaking flip about that."

"Tori-" Sam began, but bit her lip in her unsurity. Considering everything that Rin and Obito had said earlier about their comrade, Samantha was sure that there was more trust than they could possibly imagine. Otherwise Minato would never had made them a team in the first place. Kakashi needed to open his heart more - let people in, but he did his best to fight off enemies.

"The right thing to do was to help," Tori declared with perfect certainty. "Anything else would have been cowardly."

"I don't agree."

"Fine! Don't agree! But you don't freaking get to say that I'm an idiot for helping Rin, and you don't get to say that I'm not trying! I'm done with letting you slide anymore. If you demand I respect you like an adult, then I demand you at least respect me as a human that shares the same planet as you."

"She's got a point there…" Sam said quietly, "Even being civilians, we deserve respect. Especially since we're quite older than you."

"Especially since you know better," Tori added sharply, but with a great deal less anger. Letting all of it out had felt both good and awful: like vomiting when you have a stomachache. "We've respected everything you asked of us after all, including calling you by your surname. You don't even call me by any name."

Young Kakashi looked faintly startled by being called out on that, but then he gave a tiny shrug. "You did not want me to call you by either name you said," he pointed out, his voice definitely softening in the wake of Tori's declining anger. "What else was I to do?"

"Victoria-San is fine," she offered, one hand reaching out to steady herself against a tree. By this point, she was surprised that Sam hadn't dropped her, Tori certainly wasn't doing great at holding herself up. Only the fast-pumping of her blood as she was yelling at Kakashi had kept her from collapsing, probably. "Or Tori or -Chan, or whatever. I really don't care, but I don't want to be just 'you' anymore."

"A little less degrading that way," Sam offered, a hint of a smile on her face.

Kakashi started to nod and then suddenly his entire posture changed to one of concentration and defense. He tilted his head as though to look over their shoulders. "Wait here," he commanded. And then he was gone in a puff of smoke.

Victoria's knees gave out and she slithered to the ground, falling more or less at the base of the tree she had been leaning on. "Oh, heavens, that was horrible," she mumbled.

"Yeah… just a little bit," Sam gave a tiny smirk, her pointer finger and thumb nearly colliding to show just how awkward the whole thing had been.

"I-I know..." Tori said, closing her eyes and groaning - half in pain, half in embarrassment. "Good glory, I screamed at a kid."

"Yup," Sam full-blown smirked this time.

"But -but he was just being so mean. So mean. I couldn't take it anymore. And I hurt. I hurt so, so bad, Sam, and it all just came bubbling out at once. I didn't mean to. I really didn't mean to..."

Sam hissed dramatically, "Well, we shall see what Kakashi does in the future, eh?"

"An' I yelled at you.." Tori mumbled even as she sunk lower and lower down to the ground. "An' I was mean. Oh, I was so mean. I should yell at me."

"Nah, I think we've had enough of yells for at least a year. Maybe ten." Sam stated bluntly.

Tori winced a little at that. "Okay..." she whispered, plenty of self-castigation in her voice.

Samantha patted Tori's head, in a way that would express that they were still friends. Sam still loved her silly, somewhat over-dramatic friend, and that everything would be fine with time.

As Tori mentally reviewed the conversation and tried to block out the thundering pain throughout her head and everything else, they could hear the sound of voices coming through the trees - Obito's adolescent declarations carrying to them faster than anything else.

"Yep, we got it done in record time," Obito boasted. "It helps that Sannin Jiraiya is always pretty easy to find, you just gotta look for the naughtiest place to be and boom! Mission accomplished."

There was a response from Rin, but they were slightly too far away to make it out clearly. Tori used the few minutes' warning to scrub her face clean with the sleeve of her rather ragged tunic. She took several slow, shaky breaths trying to refocus herself.

"How are our guests, Kakashi? Are they ready to travel?" Minato-Sensei asked, his musically clear voice much easier to make out than Rin. Kakashi's response was definitely quiet, he knew how far away they were and must not have wanted whatever he said to be audible to Sam and Victoria. "I see." Minato's heavenly voice was clearly laced by concern. "Thank you for your efforts today, Kakashi."

As Tori and Sam waited for the squad to make it to them, Pakkun quietly crept back out of the bushes and came over to cautiously cuddle up against Sam's ankle. He gave the woman's ankle a small lick.

Sam's features softened as she felt the lick. Kneeling down, she scratched behind the pup's ears. "Don't worry, Pakkun. It's all good now." Well, almost. But Sam figured it was best to help the pup feel better rather than worry him more.

His stump of a tail gave a cautious wag.

The squad came around the corner. Rin, seeing Tori on the ground rushed forward and began to ask lots of questions about how many food pills she had eaten and how much sleep she'd had, under that babbling, Minato approached Samantha and offered her his hand to stand up. "While Rin looks over Victoria-San, let's make some plans."

Sam's heart skipped a beat holy-Sexy-Beast! It wasn't like Sam meant to let her heart go wild, but Minato was just so… so…. Holy hannah he's just unfairly hot. Her thoughts happened within a split second, and then Samantha was taking his warm, calloused hand in hers and quickly stood. "Plans?" She asked.

Minato gave a small nod. He then drew Samantha over to the other side of the tiny road. His ocean-blue eyes gazed thoughtfully down at Samantha. "Will you remind me once again, Samantha-San, why you and Victoria-San are trying to reach Konoha?"

Samantha blinked, her brain going a million miles a minute. Uh… I can't remember if we've ever talked about why we're going to Konoha or not! It could potentially have been a problem, but because Victoria was so good at coming up with something on the fly, Samantha opted for something which, she felt, was a completely rational thought, "For help." Help to get back home, anyway.

"You have a mission of some kind you want to hire for?" he asked, trying to clarify.

Hallelujah the sexy beast coming to the rescue! Sam cheered, smiling brightly at the Yellow Flash of Konoha, "Yes, that's exactly right."

He gave a nod of understanding. "Is your mission immediate?" he asked. "Or would a delay be allowable?"

Sam contemplated the Jōnin's question, trying to decipher what it meant, but unable to come up with Minato's reasonings, "Well, immediate is more what we're looking at here.." Sam's smile dimmed just a bit. She really hoped she wasn't screwing up their opportunity to travel to Konoha with the team. Ironic, she knew.

The Yellow Flash nodded again. "I understand. Very well. We will need to head out soon, then, to take advantage of what little daylight remains while we can." He gestured that they should rejoin the others. There was a small blur and then three Minatos stood ranged along the road. Two of them went over to where Rin had finished scolding Victoria and had forced her to take another two food pills along with a whole canteen of water. Minato with his unhealthily gorgeous face - now in triplicate - leaned down and explained. "For the safety of the squad and you and Samantha-San, we need to keep moving. Rin, you are our medical-support. Will it be safe for us to go forward if I carry Victoria-San?"

Rin gave a firm nod. "Yes, Sensei."

"Do you believe she will have the arm strength to hold on with a traditional carry?"

Rin thought about that a little more. "For a few hours, that should be okay."

He gave his teammate a faint smile and a respectful nod. It was really quite impressive how humble Minato Namikaze was. He had the speed and strength and precision to be considered the very best ninja in all of Konoha - and possibly any ruling state just then. For heaven's sake, in his future, he would at one point take out one thousand combatants at once! Single-handedly ending the third shinobi war! Yet, he treated little Rin with the respect due an expert medical nin and not a tiny genin just out of graduation. He treated all of his squad that way. He turned back to Victoria. "My shadow-clone and I will help you to stand and then the clone will carry you so that you can continue to regain your strength."

Tori's ears burned, but she had to be certain, so she very softly asked, "Are you sure I'm not too heavy for that?" Victoria had the memory, after all, of being carried by Mitsuki, but that kid was literally some strange shinobi version of a golem - and it had only been for like ten minutes, not several hours and days.

He gave a small nod. "I promise it will be well."

"Then we can get you to the Konoha hospital," Rin pointed out earnestly. "And make sure that all your injuries are healing correctly."

While Minato and Clone One helped Tori up and onto the first clone's back, the second clone gave Samantha a small smile. "Do you have everything you need? I will be carrying you for the next portion of our journey."

Samantha hesitated. Not that she didn't mind the attention from a super gorgeous ninja, but she wasn't the kind of gal who liked being carried. Even though it'd happened already, she still felt awkward about it. She shuffled about, before responding with her own ears burning, "Um, I'm fine for now, thanks."

Minato's clone gave a very soft, husky laugh in that sexy, sexy voice of his. "Samantha-San, I'm afraid you won't be able to keep up with us unless I carry you. We are going to travel as the shinobi does."

"Uh-" Sam's face burned an even brighter red than her ears. She hadn't intended that to be the message that came across, even if it were exactly how she was feeling about the whole thing. Either way, she conceded, "I… I… alrighty, then." Her voice nearly squealed and her stomach flopped. Part embarrassment, and part holy friggin' moly I can't handle it he's so hot! sort of way.

"Do you have all your gear?" he repeated, and at her red-faced nod, he gave a small smile. "Let's go then." And he turned and knelt down for Sam to climb on his back. That… that began the most emotionally confusing hours of Sam's life. Firstly, it's not exactly easy to relax when someone's giving you a piggyback ride. Oh sure, all the adorable k-dramas made it look like the most comfortable thing ever, but usually the girls being carried in those are drunk and so totally okay with just full on mashing themselves up against the man's back… Sam was not quite feeling that confident yet, thank you! But even without her leaning up against him, there was a definite and unavoidable intimacy going on with her legs wrapped around his waist and Minato's warm, muscular arms supporting them. His hands gently cupping the insides of her knee was the most distracting thing in the universe. It even distracted Sam from remembering how to breathe! And oh, how she needed to be able to breathe… breathe in the warm, musky scent of his skin. Sam had never really noticed just how closely your face must be to a person's neck when they gave you a piggy-back. If she wanted to, she could have tilted her chin just slightly and been near enough to lick Minato's ear…. Not that I would! But holy moly his face is so close to mine!

With how quickly the trees of the forest shot past Sam's vision, it was easy to find an excuse for how dizzy she felt… an excuse besides the fact that the silken, golden strands of Minato's hair kept brushing and teasing against the side of Sam's cheek. Occasionally, the clone who carried her would call back a warning or a message to the rest of the quick-moving squad and the low, masculine rumble of his voice seemed to shake through Sam's whole body. Especially since her forearms were wrapped around his neck and she could feel the muscles vibrating there... It was torture. Beautiful, horrible torture.

And they were going to have three days of it.

As the sun finished falling behind the horizon, the shinobi squad grew closer together, following the faint glow of a fireball someone was keeping lit. Finally, though, they had to call a stop - no one had really gotten a full night's sleep the day before, after all. They all quietly but efficiently made a campsite. Sam - with Obito's help - began to find and unseal the sleeping bags and pillows, and enough food to get them all a snack before sleep. Rin and Obito - who had used the least chakra over the course of the day were assigned the first watch. Victoria had fallen asleep on the clone's back for a good deal of the trip, was still half-asleep as she crawled into her very dirty, but thankfully warm sleeping bag. A small, warm body curled up next to her shoulder with a doggy sigh. "Puppy-Kun," Tori greeted sleepily. "Snuggling's good." With more effort than she should have needed, Victoria managed to get her arm out from under herself and up to gently scratch behind Pakkun's ears. "It's a long day. You did good." Pakkun huffed happily, accepting the praise and the scratches. "Sam did good. Kakashi good. Tori not good. Tori was mean." Another huge yawn interrupted her. "I need to tell Kakashi I'm sorry," she mumbled to the puppy, "I know he's trying. I just miss him. Miss Hotness." She dozed back off for a moment: a good thing since in her sleepiness she might have accidentally revealed the odd truth that she knew Kakashi from the future. Instead, anything that might be overheard could be considered sleep-deprived nonsense. "Hotness wouldn't say I walked like a grandma," she suddenly said, rolling her head to the other side of the flat travelling pillow. "But I do...Grandma Tori..." There was a soft clicking sound and Pak-kun hopped off Tori's pillow, obediently trotting away to another nearby sleeping bag. "Cat lady already. Only a matter of time."

"Oba-chan, you should get some sleep. You're talking nonsense."

"...Okay….." Tori mumbled compliantly. "Night, Mom. Love you."

Across the campfire, Sam held back a smile as she saw tiny Kakashi grimace and shake his head when Victoria called him 'Mom.' Tori must not be feeling good at all if she's so delirious to be calling Kakashi 'Mom'. Sam snuggled into her own sleeping bag for the night, thinking back on the events of the day. She really hoped that Tori wasn't mad at her. She was only trying to help. She'd never imagined her tries as being seen as going behind her friend's back. Hopefully, she could make it up to Victoria.

It was a harsh pace the shinobi kept themselves to, but their mission had already gone on for four days longer than expected and the intel they carried was needed at home soon. Victoria didn't know how Minato managed to keep up with his multiple clones - although they weren't constantly on. There would be a few hours every day when they would just walk for a while to rebuild the chakra they needed to do the fancy leaping run thing through the trees. At those times, Minato would dismiss the clones and carry Victoria himself while Sam kept up with their still very quick pace. Other times he'd make just one clone to carry Sam and rely on Kakashi and Obito to run as point and rear. Victoria wished she could say the several days being carried helped, but honestly just having to hold on took all of the little strength she had and as the massive gates came in sight, she still felt as weak and helpless as a baby. At least she and Kakashi had seemingly settled on mutually polite ground. (Although she didn't quite understand the Oba-chan thing, she was okay 'cause at least she had a name now. She had a vague memory of Boruto saying it to Lady Tsunade so it must have been some sort of term of respect, right?)

Unlike the first time they had crossed into Konoha, Sam and Tori did not have the luxury of just waltzing in behind a wagon of chickens. The guards were clearly much more wary and the huge gates were closed and barred. Only a narrow passageway was free and there were at least three obvious checkpoints leading up to the gate. (Sam was pretty sure there had been more than that. Minato's occasional whistle or Rin's bird call had not seemed accidental.) Victoria blushed when the second shinobi on duty raised an eyebrow at her for having retained her perch on the back of the legendary Yellow Flash. Her earlier offers to walk into the village on her own had been kindly rebuffed by Minato and seconded by Rin.

"We are retaining these civilians in protective custody," Minato assured the second guard who was doing some sort of chakra verification of Obito and Kakashi's forehead protectors. "I'll be back with all of the paperwork by the end of the day."

"See that you are," the guardswoman declared, still watching Samantha suspiciously. "The safety of our people is in each of our care."

Samantha walked closely behind Minato, even if it was unnecessary. The looks the guards were giving Sam made her feel wary; so, she simply gave a tiny nod and stuck close. She was pretty sure she could feel Kakashi rolling his eyes at her. In any case, Samantha waited for a good minute before she asked her question. "So… are we headed to the hospital then?" Honestly, all Sam wanted to do was sit. For days. Doing nothing. She wished she could watch T.V., but sadly there was no Netflix here in Konoha. I wonder if they have the equivalent? Nah, probably not until Boruto's time. Either way, Samantha was so exhausted and her body ached. Hopefully, while thinking about Tori, they were thinking about her ability to continue forward as well.

"Yes, most of us will," Minato assured her quickly before turning his focus over to his squad members. "Obito, Kakashi, I am entrusting you to take the package from Sannin Jiraiya to the Hokage Tower. Unless you are needed elsewhere right away, please come check back with me. Rin will help me take these two to the hospital."

Obito's chest puffed up with pride as he nodded firmly. "Yes, Sensei!" he practically shouted.

Kakashi, much more quietly, repeated the same. And then he gave Obito a little 'you idiot' kind of a glare. Rin held out a scroll to Kakashi who took it and poofed halfway down the street. Obito squawked "Hey! Wait! No fair!" and ran after him.

Victoria squeaked her own dismay. "Hey! That was ours!" she objected. "Hatake just took our stuff!"

Rin laughed brightly. "Oh, no, Tori-Chan," she assured, "That was the right scroll. Sam has yours, remember?"

"But… but it looked the exact same," Tori protested weakly.

To reassure Victoria, Samantha patted down the pocket she had the scroll, before 'magically' pulling it out. "Ta-da!" Sam proclaimed, offering the precious scroll to her friend. "See? They didn't take ours. Maybe it's just a scroll thing to look so similar?"

"Obito's scroll looked different," Tori reminded Sam with a frown. "And so did the one that Shikadai used when he taught us to seal." Something about the tension in Minato's shoulders seemed to change slightly - Tori only noticed because she was still piggy-backing - but it reminded her that they were still under suspicion. "We really should have asked more questions before we left our village. I feel so unprepared not knowing things like this." A gentle, casual remark about their supposed cultish upbringing seemed to be the right evasion tactic, along with the tone of weary confusion in Victoria's voice.

Samantha rose an eyebrow at Tori's fear. It was certainly a legitimate cause for concern, especially considering they weren't from Konoha… "Okay then," Sam took the scroll back from Tori, "Did you want me to open it and show you that they didn't take our stuff?" Samantha placed her fingers at the tip, ready to unscroll the, well, scroll.

"No, I'm..sure you're right," Tori assured with a sigh. "It just surprised me. But, hey, maybe our friends go to the same scroll place as the Sannin person does. I'm sure there's only so many manufacturers of sealing scrolls, right?"

"Right," Rin agreed helpfully. "And if it makes you feel better, it confused me the first time we saw your scroll. I think for a second, some of us thought you had stolen it from Sannin Jiraiya!" She laughed at the thought, but Victoria shot Sam a look of sudden understanding.

Freaking Boruto! It's like he's trying to kill us, Tori mentally sighed.

"Wow… I never thought to think what it must've looked like on your side," Sam marveled. She wondered if, perhaps, there were actually multiple manufacturers with different logos and the like, but that, because they'd gotten their scroll from Konoha, of course it'd be the same as what they used in this time. Whatever the reason, Samantha was glad the issue was resolved. But it did make her curious as to whether or not they had their scroll. She determined to look at the scroll when they were no longer surrounded by ninja. "So..." Sam drawled, feeling a need to break the odd tension. "Who is this Sannin Jiraiya you keep mentioning?"

---

The craziness of checking in and being examined seemed to take forever, but finally Victoria was allowed to lie down on a bed (a real bed!) and sleep for a good long time. Sam was allowed in the same room. Or rather, she was strongly discouraged by the presence of the armed guards outside from attempting to go anywhere else. That was okay though! There was a couch and snacks and she finally got the chance to unseal the drawing books that Boruto had gotten them. She also got to watch some strange game show on the room's television too. It was weird, but kind of remind her of some odd mashup of Jeopardy and American Ninja Warrior. Right about the time her stomach started growling for real food, a nurse entered with two trays and Victoria groggily awoke to take her pain meds.

"Is that food?" Tori asked Sam hopefully. "Am I trusted with real food yet?" Four days of only the weird energy-balls that ninjas called food pills might have kept her alive, but at this point, she was feeling more like she had a bad flu rather than being dead and the thought of eating something solid and real was the only thing keeping her from wanting to just go right back to sleep.

Samantha's stomach growled at the sight of the food, and she couldn't help but lick her lips, "Yeah, I think that it is." The nurse smiled at them, telling Victoria to eat slowly, otherwise it could upset her stomach too much, and then left the room with knowledge that the girls could contact her if needed. It was oddly similar to hospitals in their world - which Sam wasn't sure why she was so surprised by this fact. Either way, she looked at her food (a mix of sushi, rice, and steamed veggies) and had to make sure that she, too, ate slowly. Because of how quickly Minato and his team had traveled with she and Tori on their backs, everyone ate the food pills.

"For hospital food, this is surprisingly good." Sam muttered through one of her bites of sushi. She could have laughed at Tori's grimace at her own plate of food.

"Can I switch you my sushi for your rice?" Tori asked with her best puppy-dog-eyes. "Pwease?"

Samantha paused, debating whether or not she wanted to give it up: rice was one of her favorite foods after all, but in the end, gave in to Tori's wants. "Alright, Tor." Sam grinned widely, "I like sushi, so that's fine!" and they made the switch. Sam munched slowly, contemplating their situation. "So, what now? Do you suppose?"

"What now, indeed?" Came a gruff voice. Samantha whipped her head towards the door, too in shock to speak. The Hokage: Sarutobi Hiruzen, was standing beneath the archway, the light behind him cascading him in darkness. It was almost comic book worthy, this entrance. Samantha would have exclaimed "of course!" or some such nonsense if she wasn't stunned to silence. Her first thought was Crap crap crap! How long was he listening? Did we say anything he'd be suspicious of? Crap, I can't remember! And her second thought, vague though it was, was Wait, so, did he know who we are in their future? What!?

Tori blinked. And then she looked over to Sam with a question in her eyes. In a soft voice she murmured, "The mushroom hat, that means hokage, right?" The guy did look familiar, but only very vaguely. Apparently the next sixteen or so years would do a great, great deal to age the man.

Samantha simply nodded, her eyes wide. The Hokage smiled softly, before walking forward into the hospital room, arms behind his back, his hokage robes swishing and swaying as he did so. He came to a quick stop, looking at both Samantha and Victoria. "I hear I owe you two a debt of gratitude."

"You do?" Tori asked, feeling a little confused. But, she was pretty sleepy still. She set down her chopsticks and rubbed her eyes to wake herself up more. "I don't think we know you, sir."

Sarutobi rose an eyebrow, a twinkle of amusement filtering his gaze. "No you do not, but I know of you. You two saved one of my shinobi. For this, I thank you." He nodded his bow of gratitude.

"Uh… you're welcome. Though… it was Tori who did most of the work…" Sam rubbed the back of her neck, her ears tinting red.

Tori's hands fluttered, almost like Rin did, uncertain how to respond. "Sam and the nindogs saved my life. I only delayed things a little." I think... The memories were still too big and icky and she had been content to keep them in the 'hazy idea of what happened' box for awhile yet.

"Indeed, I've gotten most of what happened from Minato's team. Including," Sarutobi continued as he noticed Sam's motion of almost interruption, "From Kakashi-San's dog summonings. Namikaze-san also said that you two were needing to speak to me?"

Sam knitted her eyebrows, "Well, yes, but… I guess I imagined it happening at the Hokage building…"

"That is the more conventional means of speaking with me, yes." Hiruzen agreed, the small play of a smile still gracing his lips.

It took Tori a moment, but then she realized that this was when they were expected to explain who they were and what they needed in Konoha. She mentally flipped back through her week's ponderings to what she had felt would be the most practical and yet logical explanation. "Um, Sir, are you who we would talk to about arranging a mission from the Konoha shinobi? I mean - if-if that's okay. I know things are probably pretty crazy for you all right now what with the… with the war."

Sarutobi contemplated Victoria's question for a moment, seemingly staring deep into her soul, "Namikaze-san did tell me of your rather… unique background. Very well." The leader of the village strode to stand directly in front of the two ladies, knees barely gracing the end of the bed frame. "My name is Hiruzen Sarutobi: Third Hokage of the Leaf village."

Tori raised her hand in their trademark little wave. "I'm Victoria, and this is Samantha. We are from a very tiny community that calls its land Jordan City." Dropping her hand, she looked at Sam, in a way that looked like she was asking permission to share their mission, but in reality was her trying to prepare Sam to keep a straight face while Tori delivered her whopper of a fake-xplanation. "Lord Hokage, we are on a quest of sorts of our own and we have good reason to hope that Konoha can help us find what we are looking for. You see, in the place we were raised there used to be two clans that shared equally everything they had. My clan, the Lexington clan, and Sam's clan: the Winters. They united because while the Winters are expert at stealth sorts of things, the Lexingtons are skilled in coding and cryptography - the two could benefit each other."

Samantha blinked in awe How was Tor able to come up with such a fanatical lie? Good grief! Victoria continued on.

"Our great great grandparents founded the community but there was a big falling out between them around the time our parents were born. My great great grandpa stole away a very important codex that both clans used to encrypt super important secrets. The theft of it meant that the community turned on my family. The Winters hate us now but kept us because they needed our codes, they kept us but as basically second-class citizens." Tori gave her friend a hapless smile. "Except Sam. She is beyond awesome for not being a jerk like her grandma."

A small smile of embarrassment made its way on Sam's face, "Yes, well, I had an awesome dad who kinda... well… rebelled against my grandma when he was young. At least, in his beliefs…" Hopefully, though Samantha was unable to look the Hokage in the eyes, he considered that her bashfulness at talking about something "personal".

Sarutobi Hiruzen watched intensely, his expression giving away nothing about his thoughts. "Namikaze-San told me that where you're from is considered a cult? How did this come to be? Why is it that I have never heard of your clans before? Even in the warring days before the Hokage's came to be?"

"Well, we do live very, very far from here, out in the west in a small mountain range. During the chaos of the first great war -" (Yes, Tori had been listening to that history lesson!) "-The clans did everything they could to wipe the history of themselves out. Changed their names, everything, and hid as much as they could. At least… that's what we were told, growing up." Victoria took a slow sip of her water and explained. "Honestly, I don't know how much of the history we were raised on is true. Sam and I both know that a lot of what we 'learned' growing up isn't real. Like, they told us that chakra use was a sacred gift from the gods that only Lady Winters could bestow, yada-yada. It wasn't until we were adults that we even knew it was possible for us to access and use our own. We're still just novices at it, really. And they forbid certain books or even studying about other lands and nations. It's… it really left us unprepared for life outside and that's how they forced people to stay. It's awful. But," she shrugged, "I guess that's what happens when you're being ruled over by a power-hungry despot." She grimaced at Sam for the insult to her grandmother. "Sorry, Sam."

Samantha gave Tori an amused eyebrow, before shrugging, "Eh? Well, it's kinda true."

"Anyway, Sam and I, we want to mend the rift between our clans, because honestly it's gotten really scary. LIke...the amount of rules that Lady Winters has started to put on everyone has twisted things into this crazy cult-like thing, that everyone just accepts. Then last spring it got so bad that - ...Well, long story short, cuz I'm sure you don't need our whole crazy family history, but suffice it to say, Sam and I had to get out of there. But we can't just leave our families to suffer like that. So we've given ourselves a mission: we are trying to help restore my clan back to its original equal standing so we can get Sam's evil grandmother out of power and then help our families see reason. Cuz, yeah, they're all totally committed and tied up in the weirdness of it all and can't see how unhealthy everything is."

"Yeah… it sucks being in the midst of it…" Sam muttered, twiddling her fingers. There was silence for a minute, before she looked up and saw both Tori and the Hokage staring at her. Sam fidgeted, and cleared her throat, "Anyway… go on." She ushered to Tori.

"So, our plan is to track down the codex," Victoria continued. "Before he died, my great-great grandfather told my uncle that he didn't just destroy it, but that actually he tore it into pieces and then claimed he scattered it all over the continent: hiding it in the village and with friends in other clans.. He bragged that he even in latter years he snuck pieces into the protected libraries of the great ninja villages. But... we aren't sure how much of what he said is true. I've only ever seen one piece of it before that my uncle kept. But the fact that he even had it must mean that at least some of the codex still exists! And if we could gather enough of it to return home, then maybe we could rebuild the rest of it and bring equality back to our two clans!"

The Hokage contemplated Tori's words for a good minute or so, before he began towards the window, "So, you believe that a piece of this codex is here in the Leaf village?" Sarutobi turned to look at the two ladies with a raised eyebrow.

"Um, well, yeah…" Sam answered, rather un-eloquently.

"It's the very best lead we've got," Victoria confirmed. "My uncle told us that Great-Great Grandfather had mentioned Konoha by name as a place he had hidden one of the fragments." She snatched up a soggy carrot from her forgotten dinner. She gave Sam a little wink and a hopeful smile. Good job, Tor-Tor, she praised herself, Looks like it might be just reasonable enough and yet ridiculous enough to not sound like someone would have bothered to make it up. Wooot.

"Interesting," Was all that the Third Hokage said before he smiled at them, "Well, thank you for chatting with me. I shall let you know my decision within a days time. I'll send Namikzae-San to inform you when the time has come." He then turned towards the door, and it was with some astonishment to Sam (yet, she wasn't sure why she didn't suspect that in the first place) when an Anbu member appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, pulling the hospital door open, and following his (Sam assumed the anbu was male, based on his body shape) leader out the door.

Samantha blinked at the door, then once over at Victoria, before turning to her sushi and plopping another piece in her mouth as she spoke, "Well… do you think he'll let us stay?"

Tori was squinting at the ceiling tiles above the door. "Where do you think that second one came from?" she asked suspiciously. "They better not be peeking in on me in the bathroom too… creepers."

"Well... they are anbu members. They're meant to watch people whom they don't know anything about." Sam pointed out. "Did I not tell you about them, before? I swear I have… Kakashi was one, once. Or… will be…" Sam's brow scrunched, "Man, that's confusing."

"Even more confusing for someone to overhear," Tori pointed out lightly. Apparently we're back to the no-privacy-ever thing. Man, maybe it was easier to live in the theoretical cult! "And… I don't know. What's our backup plan if they just kick us out? Wander the woods and hope we find a different piece? We know there's a possibility Pervy-Sage has one, right? Maybe we could go find him instead."

"Hm," Sam frowned, "Pervy-Sage might have one, but… he might not. After all… you know… And if they kick us out? Well… I guess we'd talk to Boruto at that point, no?" Taking the last bite of sushi, Samantha stared contemplatively at the ceiling. She leaned back against the chair she was in, propping her legs on the edge of Tori's bed.

"Yep..." Tori agreed. "Uncle Boruto."

"Right…" Sam nearly prolonged the word, squinting her eyes at the thought, "Uncle Boruto."

"Eh. When your grandma threatened to disown you, Sam, I basically adopted you. You can call him uncle too." Tori's unwavering chill and confidence in delivering these whoppers was both disturbing and impressive. Really gotta make sure I don't turn evil. Sith Lord Tori...too easy to imagine, really. Tori pushed up her glasses and sighed. "Is it sad that just eating made me tired all ready? This rebuilding chakra thing is no joke."

It was taking Samantha a lot longer to get her brain to function on the 'cover story' synopsis. She contemplated everything that Victoria had covered Man… I'm definitely gonna need her to repeat everything she told the Hokage. That was a lot. Holy moly. "I know… you keep telling me that I can. It's just weird when I knew him before I knew him as 'Uncle Boruto', ya know?" Not to mention we're like… fifteen years older than him!

"Yep, I know. The last few weeks have been… a lot to process. Some days it doesn't even feel real." Tori yawned and poked her chopsticks at a sad looking piece of cauliflower. "I… I hope they let us stay. At least long enough to let us both recover a bit. Make a plan for how to get this whole crazy thing figured out. Still don't understand why Uncle Boruto didn't just do this himself." Tori figured as long as it sounded to any invisible ears like they were talking about their supposed cult-uncle, then they could get away with talking through and making plans for how to actually find the scraps of mysterious parchment that real future Boruto had insisted they needed to find. Tori slowly looked over at Sam. "Some time you'll have to tell me what it was he told you before we left..."

"What he told me before-?" Samantha repeated, confused; but just as quickly it dawned on her that Tor was talking about when Boruto pulled her to the side, before they came here, to this past. "Oh, right. Yeah. Eventually, I will." She said. All things considered, what Boruto spoke to her about wasn't something she wanted to spill to eager ears in the shadows. Samantha then yawned and stretched, "Man… I need sleep. You should probably get some rest too." She smirked and gestured to Victoria's droopy eyes, "Otherwise you might fall dead asleep sitting up."

Victoria playfully narrowed her eyes at Sam. "...I can sleep sitting up. Totally. I'm super powerful like that. All the ninjas should be scared of my impressive sleeping skills."

Samantha snorted, "Nah, it's easy. I've done it too. But definitely makes your head roll!" Sam looked around the hospital room, "Do you think I'm gonna get my own bed or do I actually have to sleep on the couch?" She looked unsatisfactorily at the less-than-comfy-how-dare-it-deceive-us couch with its wooden arms, and stiff backrest. It had cushions, but they were more scratchy than anything. "Maybe I should ask someone? Hail them down, or something! Hah!" Samantha giggle at the thought of flagging someone down to ask them where she should sleep. Definitely the weirdest situation she'd ever been in. "And anyway, how are you not asleep, already?"

Tori gave a sleepy shrug. "Magic." She then wiggled all the way up against one of the hospital bed rails. "Look. Little skinny Sam spot if she needs it." Then she yawned fiercely. "Or I can take the couch for ya. I'm so sleepy I won't notice if its uncomfy."

At just that moment, the door to their assigned room banged open and displayed a widely grinning Obito and slightly anxious Rin. "See, Rin! I told you they'd be awake!" Obito announced loudly, already stomping his way into the room.

"Obito? Rin?" Samantha blinked, "What're you doing here?"

Rin smiled hopefully at both of them. "We wanted to come see that you were okay," she explained. In her arms, she carried a vase with some beautiful - if a bit scraggly - roses. They were probably the last ones still blooming. Autumn appeared to have been coming on fast. In just the three days it had taken Team Minato to return home the trees had already all started to turn red and yellow. "We came as soon as we'd finished our mission reports," Rin explained as she set the roses down on a table near the window. "Kakashi was still reporting...But he might still come!"

"I doubt it," Victoria said softly, but she gave Rin and Obito a warm smile. "We are glad to see you guys, though! Those flowers are beautiful."

"Yeah they are!" Sam agreed, "It's sweet of you both to come say hi. I'm sure you probably have other things you could do,"

"Nah," Obito proclaimed, his hands resting behind his head, "Since we just got back from our mission, we've got some time to kill before the next one."

"You've already been assigned another mission?" Sam asked, surprised.

"Geez, no! You're kidding right? If we had another mission assigned, we'd be prepping to leave right away!"

"Right… that makes sense…" Man, I must be tired if I can't even remember how shinobi systems work Sam mused, watching as Rin set the roses down.

"You shinobi work very hard," Tori observed, patting the bed absently as an invite for either of the kids to sit if they needed. "When I was your age, all I did all day was read and go to school. I can't even imagine putting in all the time and effort you guys must have to do to stay trained and go on missions and stuff."

"Seriously," Sam agreed, "It would take a lot of self-motivation and bravery to want to do what y'all do while being so young." Rin had taken up Victoria's offer to sit on the bed, while Obito seemed to take the more "manly" approach and continue standing. But seeing as he was more than occupied with shuffling around the room, Sam didn't bother to say anything more about it.

"Bravery?" Obito repeated, then grinned widely, "Of course it takes bravery! Especially since I'm gonna be Hokage one day! Can't wimp out on all the villagers, when I'm gonna be protecting them some day." He struck a Peter Pan pose, as if to emphasize his 'awesomeness'. Not that Obito knew what kind of pose he struck in the first place. Even so, Samantha smiled fondly at the image, and felt, also, a little disturbed. Really… I don't think I had such high ambitions when I was his age. Let alone fight an actual enemy! She had to wonder the sanity of Lord Third Hokage. Of course… Samantha knew that the Hokage only sent shinobi out on missions appropriate to their status, but still. If he was willing to promote a nine-year-old to chunin, then what was to say he wouldn't be willing to give more dangerous missions? It was this thought that Samantha could agree with Tori, at least a little bit, about whether or not it was good to assign kids on such missions where they could die. It was a terrible thought and it left her feeling saddened, and with a pang of desire to become better at her own fighting skills. Then she'd no longer be useless on the battlefield. Wouldn't freeze up like she had previously.

"So, how did you end up deciding to become a shinobi?" Samantha asked the two ninja. Rin looked as if she was about to answer before Obito beat her to the punch.

"I'm an Uchiha!" He stated proudly, "It's in my blood to be a shinobi! You'll see! Once I get my eyes, I'll be even more awesome!"

"My parents are medical ninja. Sort of. They treat the ninken, at least. But watching them come home all bandaged up after being hurt… I knew that I wanted to protect my friends from that danger too," said Rin, softly, her hands motionless in her lap. Her small smile seemed to say more than she was willing to outloud, but Samantha figured she wouldn't pry.

"Me too!" Obito spoke up, quickly, "To be a shinobi means to protect your friends! They come first- even if that Bakakashi thinks that following stupid rules are what's most important… he's wrong," The last muttered utterance did not go unnoticd, and Samantha sorely wished that she could warn him of his future. Not that he was going to die but… to not be brainwashed by some fanatic with their own agenda and not an ounce of care for his well-being in mind.

"But, true honor is about protecting more than just your friends, isn't it Obito?" Victoria prompted, unconsciously switching to her 'gentle teaching voice' that she used to help her little siblings resolve fights between each other. "The greatest bravery is being willing to help and protect everyone from danger. Even if someone seems to hate you or they are angry or unwilling to accept your help. If you know that they are someone you are called to protect, you should be willing to do anything for them, right?"

Obito's face scrunched up. Samantha tried to hold back her smile. "As if!" came Obito's boisterous reply, "There's no way that I'd wanna help an enemy in danger. They're the ones I'm fighting against!"

"Well, you wouldn't be asked to protect the enemy now would you?" Tori came back with a teasing eyebrow raise. "But you'd protect anyone in the village, wouldn't you? Even if they were some grumpy old grandma like me?"

"You're not a grandma, Victoria-Chan!" Rin protested, "And you really oughta stop allowing Kakashi to call you that."

Tori blinked. "Oba-Chan means grandma?"

"I thought you knew that?" Sam spoke up, her tone thoughtful.

"I never studied honorifics like you," Tori protested, "I can't believe you let him call me grandma!"

"Yeah, but I thought you knew, because of-" Sam quickly cut herself off, realizing that trying to speak about anime when it wasn't even a thing would probably be suspicious. "Well, in any case, I woulda said something if you'd've asked me about it." She gave a 'whoops' shrug, feeling amused at the whole thing.

"Bakakashi is just a punk, anyway," Obito said, flippantly, "Don't listen to anything he has to say."

Victoria had a niggling feeling at the back of her mind. Like a memory was just out of reach. "No… you know what, I'm gonna keep it. Cuz then if he tries any crap, I can pull rank and age on him so fast he won't know what hit him." She smirked in a rather evil way. "And it'll be all his own fault." Then she gave a little giggle.

Rin's eyes widened a little and she chuckled too. "Oh, Victoria-Chan."

"Now that's what I call cheeky," Sam smirked.

The memory suddenly was located and Tori couldn't help gasping as she realized why Kakashi calling her a grandma was such a weirdly familiar thing.

They were on a hill. A blanket below and stars above. Kakashi was telling a story. "One time. Long ago, when I was a very young chunin, my squad was assigned a transport mission. At that time, the Leaf Village was still at war with the Village Hidden in the Stone, so nearly every mission was considered B rank or higher. I was full of fire then. A genin in temperment, if not rank. So my squad leader picked this mission, I believe, just to teach me a lesson." His silver eye reflected the stars above, but there were dark shadows within: memories of companions lost and friends' deaths. "It was a very long mission, too long of a story for one night's telling, but there was one part that I'll never quite forget. Part of our mission was to protect these two old ladies who had to travel with the transport. They were terrible. The worst part of the mission. And slow. So slow. Well, we got to the third day of travel with them, and I was ready to kill them. Quite literally, it seemed the mission would be better served by their dead arrival to the destination than to be so slowed down by their walking pace."

"You really would have killed a pair of little old ladies?" Victoria interrupted, grave concern and some shock in her voice.

"I was not a very nice child," Kakashi said just as gravely. "But Minato-Sensei had the patience I did not. He said no, and I endured. Well on the morning of the fourth day, one of the grannies, she hurt herself. So now, not only did we have to travel at a snail's pace, but at a broken snail's pace."

Samantha was sure that the story wasn't meant to be funny, but Kakashi's description of the entire event was hilarious. She couldn't help but snort. "You were quite the dramatic child, weren't you?"

"Yes," he agreed easily. "But it was a time of war and every minute waiting for Granny Two to limp over the mountains was another minute vulnerable to enemy attack. So finally, I had had enough. I declared that there was no way we were going to wait for her to limp up the hills. Either she allow one of us to carry her or we were leaving her behind."

"I bet she didn't like that," Tori offered. "Even grannies have their pride."

"Even grannies have their pride," Kakashi agreed. "As she was quick to inform me. She gave me quite the telling-off. Even my ears were blistered. And Granny One, too. She was also ready to defend her friend. 'The real heroes are the ones that never give up, no matter how hard it gets!' she said, 'No matter how much they have to endure or how much harder they have to work than anybody else. They don't give up and they don't give in.'"

Sam's eyes sparkled at the story of the two grannies. "They sound smart," she stated. "Sounds like you needed a time out or something."

"Sam!" Tori scolded.

"What?" Sam asked, innocently.

"Eh, she's probably right.."

"Hah!" Sam announced her triumph to Victoria.

"In the end, I won, and Sensei made the Grannies let us carry them for awhile, but it did stick with me. Even Grannies have their pride, and it's enough to get your squad killed if you aren't careful."

"Sam! Royal Hotness! His story on the picnic!" She pointed at Samantha and then at herself. Sam's eyes widened as Victoria exclaimed: "Granny One. Granny Two!"

"Holy moly!" Sam exclaimed, staring at Victoria with surprise. "I can't believe that he- what that heck!" Sam fell back against the couch, astounded by this revelation, "I can't believe that- well, dang!" I can't believe that Kakashi was calling us both Grannys! And to our faces! That buttmunch!

"Right?" Tori said with a I-can't-believe-he-did-that laugh. "Man, when we get back to the fu- mountains, we are gonna have to give that guy a talking-to." And then she blanched, remembering the huge fight that had preceded the giving of the nickname. "Actually. We already did. We kinda maybe deserved that…"

Rin and Obito just looked at each other with confused shrugs.

"Tch, he deserved what we had to say!" Sam argued, still feeling frustrated by the whole previous scenario.

Tori gave a little half-committed shrug, but her mind was rapidly thinking back through the (for-them) three-weeks-ago conversation. What he said - it wasn't quite one hundred percent right. Or, maybe he just interpreted things differently. Remembered them differently. Or maybe at some point in the overlapping of timelines, it actually happened differently. Or maybe I remembered wrong. Heavens knows I spent half that first week too busy watching the light gleam off grown-up-Kakashi's hair to actually remember words that were being said to me... Either way though, this is super important because it means whatever happened with Tsunade and Konohamaru, must really happen. There is a causal-link between the timelines. What we have done and will do are affecting the past and future all at once. How much of it we can affect, I'm not sure. How much of it is already predestined, I don't think anyone truly knows.

Victoria rubbed her chin absent-mindedly, the movement pulling at the IV taped to the back of her hand. Boruto must not fully know what's going to have happened by his time, otherwise there would have been no point in sending us all over the place for something unless there's a chance that we really can get it to the future, right? And how does he know what's happening to us anyways? And if he does, why didn't he save us from those mercenaries? Can he actually see us? How? Maybe he has that magic ball Sam ranted about once. What did she say about it not fitting into this world? Well, magic marbles and time-travel doesn't seem to fit either. Who really made this world-build? Was it God or this whole time have Sam and I really been in some tripped out computer simulation? Maybe we really are munching some sort of magic mushroom. Medically induced psychosis… Oi. I'm getting a headache.

"Victoria-Chan, are you okay?" Rin asked, interrupting her spiraling thoughts. "I can ask the nurses to check if it's time for additional medication."

Tori gave the girl a reassuring smile and shook her head to clear away the worry that would surely plague her through the rest of the week once Rin and Obito weren't around to distract her. "Don't worry. I just got lost in my thoughts. They had me take something just a few minutes before you guys came. Thank you very much for offering to do that though. And I'm so grateful you thought to visit. And that you brought such beautiful flowers! You are very sweet."

Rin blushed and waved both her hands in front of her, embarrassed to accept the praise. "Oh, no, I'm just doing what anyone would do for someone who saved their life! I would do anything to help repay you, Victoria-Chan."

"Oh, well you definitely don't have to worry about that, Rin-Chan," Victoria said hastily. "I was glad I was in the right place and at the right time to help, but you certainly, certainly don't have to try to pay me back. Just stay safe and strong yourself. You living a good life is repayment enough, I promise."

Samantha listened to their conversation with a quiet frown; observing. Does Tor not know what happens to Rin? Sam worried And… even with the knowledge that I have… would we be able to stop it in the first place? I mean… Kakashi knew who we were… and he was alone… Obito… Rin… Minato… Her brow scrunched in consternation. It was beginning to get far more complicated than Samantha had ever thought possible. And Obito… does he still turn into Tobi? I wish I had thought to ask Boruto about the past! Er… this future. The future his father grew up in. Bla-a-a-h, the past. I'm gonna say the past. It makes the most sense to my brain. Samantha audibly sighed, wishing she had her phone to distract her.

"But," Victoria added after a second, "There is one thing you could do for me, Rin-Chan, not because of what happened in the canyon, but because we're buddies."

"Of course! What is it?"

"Samantha here needs somewhere to sleep.."

Rin twisted to look at Samantha. She gave the woman a happy smile. "I know the perfect place!" And that was how Samantha got invited to stay at Konoha's Ninken Medical Ward and Boarding House.

---

Sam awoke with a quiet gasp. Sweat plastered her face, and her heart pounded, as if she'd run a marathon. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly, but even then, Sam couldn't help her eyes wandering desperately; listening intently to the silence. Well, silence apart from the soft snores of the dogs in the whole of the room. Bringing the blanket she was using closer to her face, Samantha curled into herself, shaking and panting. "It was just a dream," she told herself, "Just a dream."

Except… it hadn't been just a dream. She'd dreamt of… of… No! Don't think about it! Sam pinched her eyes shut, desperately calling away the fear that overwhelmed her, wishing to stop the shaking. It was strange, to suddenly have this fear when she'd not thought about the incident in days. A silent crack of perhaps paper wrinkling or something like it, and Sam nearly whimpered, afraid that someone was in the room; as nonsensical as that seemed, Samantha's mind remembered the horrid fear of the moment. The smell. The grins of the men who knew they could defeat you in the span of a second and you could do nothing about it; because you were weak. Too weak. What if… what if one of them escaped? What if they followed us? What if they're here right now? What if, what if, what if.

Something touched Sam's shaking form, and she gasped aloud, startled. A small whimper from above that sounded very much like an animal had Sam opening her eyes. The snout of one of the dogs in the room rubbed against her forehead, and then licked her, before curling up in a ball next to her. Samantha allowed a tiny smile to form, suddenly extremely grateful for the comfort of the animal. He was just like a service dog for those with… ptsd…. Oh… As her heart started to calm, Sam realized just what was happening. It was odd… to be in the midst of something like post-traumatic-stress-disorder. Granted… Sam didn't think that she actually had the disorder, but figured the fear probably was similar. "Thank you," Samantha murmured, even if the dog had no idea what she was saying, hopefully it could feel her gratitude. Sam's mind drifted off into a fitful sleep once more, one hand grasping the fur of the dog curled next to her, lightly.

In what felt like minutes since she last awoke, Sam knew she heard someone in the room this time. Her heart pounded even harder, but she pretended that she was still asleep. Perhaps whoever was in the room would ignore the fact that she was there, and continue on their way. Maybe? Hopefully? But it was no use. The footsteps - because yes, there seemed to be multiple people in the room - gathered closer to her and Sam's breathing hitched. When someone touched her shoulder, Sam cried out, and whipped her arm around, hoping to at least hit the person who tried to harm her …Until Sam became fully coherent and saw that both Obito and Rin were in the room, with Rin's wide eyes watching Samantha, her arms up in the universal sign of "I come in peace".

"Oh my gosh, I… I'm so sorry!" Samantha brushed off her fright with an unconvincing laugh.

"Sorry Samantha-Chan.." Rin said with a hesitant smile. Sam could practically see the theoretical sweatdrop above her head like it always showed in animes. "We thought you'd be awake already. We certainly didn't mean to surprise you."

Obito grinned, his dark eyes sparkling behind his goggles. "You were totally ready to take us out for waking you up! That was hilarious!"

"Heh," Sam blushed, "Yeah, I was. You two definitely surprised me! I, uh, am not much of a morning person..." she sheepishly admitted. Sam was totally a night owl! She even worked legit graveyard shifts!

Rin tucked her hair back behind one ear and gave a soft laugh. "Well… it's actually closer to noon than morning.." Samantha blushed at having slept in so late.

"We wouldn'ta woken you up, but the Hokage wants to see you," Obito added, tucking his hands in his pockets and hunching forward just a bit.

"He does?" Sam's brow furrowed, "I wonder what he could need me for…" She mumbled, more to herself than to the two ninja in front of her. With a sigh she stretched out the aches in her body from having slept on only a matt, before looking to her left and noticing a dog still curled nearby. Its head was up and watching her, as if quite aware of its surroundings. Samantha blinked a second longer and realized that it was Kakashi's dog, Akino, who had come to her aid during the night, even though the poor animal was still just as hurt as Tori. Samantha smiled and softly scratched behind his ear, "You're a good dog. Thank you," Sam repeated, now knowing the dog understood her.

"You're welcome," Akino nodded his head, before once again laying on his paws and snorting his sleepy state.

"Well…" Sam turned to Obito and Rin who were watching her intently; though Obito had a slightly less observant air about him, "I guess we better not keep the Hokage waiting, eh?"

"Nope! You can't ever keep the Hokage waiting! They're way too important. So let's go!" Obito said with much more cheeriness than any normal human should generally contain.

---

When Samantha had tried to explain chakra to Victoria several weeks before, Tori had kinda gotten it. I mean - she was a smart, well-read individual who watched lots of foreign films and had a sister that was into yoga. She got that it was tied to the body energy and that it was some spirit-based thing that on this planet meant you could use your own life-force to do magic ninja tricks. Way cool, right? The part she had not really gotten was the fact that using chakra was literally using your own life force. Like… the stuff that kept you alive. That kept your kidneys pumping and your eye-balls rolling and even what ensured that the little tiny mitochondrias kept powerhousing away inside your cells. Victoria's crazy adventure in the canyon had somehow (even she wasn't really sure how she managed it) kicked her own instincts in so that she actually drew on that crazy wiggly network and kicked it into high gear to help her not-so-fit not-so-strong self to somehow survive and then haul a teenage girl two miles down a canyon at full speed in the darkness. It was a miracle. A miracle that she was definitely still paying for. Sleep was about the only thing that really helped: REM cycles apparently repaired the body and the chakra network more than any pills. Which, cool, Tori was okay with sleeping as much as needed.

She just wished she didn't feel quite so much like her body was a raisin that was trying to very slowly rehydrate.

She also wished that the lucid-dreaming almost-awake part of her sleeping wasn't so hard to break out of. It was hard to tell what was dream and what was real. The night before she had actually confused a nurse checking her iv with a dream of some blurry-faced shinobi stabbing a kunai through her hand. She still blushed when the other nurses all made very obviously-loud greetings before getting close enough to check her vitals.

Today wasn't bad, she could tell that some part of her, the physical part, was lying in the hospital bed, the busy sounds of doors and doctors and pages distantly echoing in her sleeping ears. Her dreaming self was tethered like a kite, gently bouncing in a sky full of stars that danced like the firework creatures in Howl's Moving Castle. "Samantha would love this," she mused to a passing cloud that was shaped like Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender.

The Aang cloud's nose blew weirdly to the left and then he spoke: sounding exactly like Minato. "Lord Hokage, they should be here soon. I am sorry for the delay my students may have caused."

Dream Tori tilted her head and then watched in sleepy befuddlement as the tree covered hills they floated over opened a craggy mouth to reply with Saratorbi's voice: "It's a wonder that they made it here as unscathed as you have stated. Not to worry, my boy. Let's just be grateful for everyone's safe return."

"Yes, let's." Minato hummed his agreement.

Dream Tori tilted her head at the cloud-Aang with Minato's voice. "You're much hotter in real life, you know," she told the dream figure. "But also, really scary. Nice, like in a polite and compassionate way, but really quite terrifying and deadly. I would like to not ever fight you, please."

Minato's amused smile was mirrored by the Hokage's tiny chuckle, "Quite the flattery, Minato."

A soft red lit up the not-yet-fourth-hokage's face, and Minato cleared his throat. "Ah yes, well, I would like to never have to detain you, Victoria-San." He replied to the barely-coherent woman.

Tori chuckled in her sleep that wasn't-quite-really-sleep. "See. Even as a cloud you're nice."

Lord Third patted the shoulder of one of his most trusted shinobi in the village, "Everyone is lucky that you're so nice."

"Ah," Minato blushed bashfully, "Well, thank you for the flattery, Hokage-Sama."

"I give as much as is deserved." The Third Hokage stated, seriously.

Victoria's dreaming mind heard their voices, but she was distracted by the brilliant glowing in the east as a yellow sun rose with Might Guy's face gleaming in the center of it. "Heh. Just like the Teletubby sun.." she mumbled. "I guess I gotta wake up, huh?"

"Yes, Victoria-Chan," Might Guy declared with his trademark toothy grin. "Let us move youthfully forward into tomorrow!"

"You're too much energy," Tori said with a shake of her head. "I'm too sleepy to wake up."

"I know what will fill you with energy, Miss Tori!" Rock Lee called up to the dreaming Victoria who was still peacefully bouncing like a kite in the star-studded sky. Leaning forward, Victoria blinked at Rock Lee who was holding a rope. Her kite rope. "Come back down to Earth!" he shouted, yanking the cord with a startling amount of strength. And then she was rushing down, down, down faster than the tails of the comets falling around her.

Real Life Tori jerked awake, nearly knocking over her IV. "No- I don't wanna come dow - ..n" she blushed to see that once again she had woken up from some weird dream with people in her room. "Down. I… I didn't want to fall down. In my dream. Sorry. I talk in my sleep, its weird."

"We noticed," Minato smiled, amused, "Not uncommon, though."

The Hokage gave another small chuckle, before turning to face the no-longer-sleeping young woman, "We're just waiting for your friend to join us. I've some news for you both."

Sounds could be heard from outside, the voice of Obito's over-cheering and exuberance overwhelming the quiet wells of the hospital room. As they entered the room (Obito taking it upon himself to waltz in, having stated that since they were in a hurry because of their sensei, there was no time to knock) Samantha heard the tail end of the Third Hokage's statement.

"Ah, I see you found Samantha-San," Minato said when the trio entered,

"Yes, Sensei!" Obito saluted.

"We did," Rin smiled, softly, giving a reassuring glance to Samantha, who suddenly felt extremely nervous. Her heart pounded, as she entered the hospital room; seeing both Minato and Sarutobi Hiruzen… it was actually more intimidating than she had expected. The Hokage, donned in his hokage attire, gave off an air of superiority and fluency with his movements - despite his age. His gaze, as it took in her presence, thundered with deep knowledge and emotions that Samantha didn't even realize one could find in the eyes of another. It was a little surreal. I didn't even know I could sense that kind of thing in someone's eyes. Samantha was never good with determining emotion by someone else's gaze. Either way, she flitted her fingers together, unable to hold her own against someone as powerful as him. Although… His power seems different than Minato's… like… at least… Minato seems more… well… more. Was all she could think. She'd have to talk to Tori to figure out just what exactly that whole thought even meant. Still… being suddenly overwhelmed by the looks and silent judgement of the two powerful shinobi in front of her, Samantha was extremely grateful to have Rin next to her. It was unusual for Sam to be glad for someone's touch, but the hand on her shoulder (though she felt a little silly being glad to have a thirteen year old's hand on her shoulder be comforting) they were more aware of this whole… shinobi life. They were far less wary than she was.

Samantha cleared her throat, "Uh, yeah. Sorry," she scratched her neck, self-conscious of her lack of proper shinobi/konoha village conduct knowledge.

Tori crinkled her nose sympathetically at Sam, sensing the same kind of embarrassment from her friend that she felt. "It's okay, Sam-Sam. You just missed me flailing in my sleep like a fool. So, really, you're right on time." She shoved back her rather insane two-day bedhead. I bet I've got more volume than Kakashi at this point!

Samantha nearly snorted, biting her lip. Leave it to Tor to break the ice! "So… uh… Obito and Rin said that you needed me back here?" She asked, gathering the courage to blink at the two men.

"Indeed." Sarutobi Hiruzen answered, "I have some news for the both of you."

Samantha's forehead scrunched in surprise, and she blinked at the two men. "O-oh! Um… right." That's right, he must've come to a decision on whether or not they could stay! Sam's heart thudded harder, and she walked closer to Victoria. She waited anxiously to hear what the hokage had to say.

Tori was uncertain what she was hoping for at this point. The giant fake backstory she had created the day before seemed huge and unwieldy today, even if it did stand in to answer some of the stranger gaps in a more reasonable explanation. (And honestly in this world, she wasn't actually sure what a reasonable explanation for them would be!). So did they hope that they bought it and really were going to let Sam and Tori bumble about the Konoha libraries? Or should she be hoping that they were about to reveal that they actually knew and recognized Sam and Tori as time-travellers from another dimension just like Boruto and friends had? That would certainly be easiest...but nothing about this whole mess has been easy, lol. Tori mentally rolled her eyes at her own millennial-esque dark humor, but straightened her glasses and gazed up at the shinobis with the confidence she was only too good at faking. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Sarutobi under the cover of his huge hat seemed to be making a final judgement of them both but then he gave a small smile, splitting his face into the wrinkles that finally made him more recognizable as the careworn Sarutobi of the future that Tori and Sam had met in Chapter One of their story. "Konoha will accept your mission, Misses Lexigton and Winters. We will be prepared to aid your search once Miss Lexigton is released from the hospital."

Sam nearly sagged in relief. They're gonna let us stay! She glanced happily towards Tori, before looking at the hokage once again. "Thank you so much!" Sam emphasized, "We can't even begin to tell you how grateful we are for this opportunity. Truly. Thank you!" She clapped her hands together and bowed just a little bit. It was actually a habit she'd grown to do the more she learned about the Japanese culture. Mostly because she loved it. She meant no disrespect at all. It was in her awe and fascination that she wanted to involve more of that culture into her life. But in this instance, Samantha meant it with greater sincerity than had ever become her.

Sarutobi's smile never left his face, "You're very welcome, Miss Winters. Now," he gestured a hand towards Minato, "Because you are already familiar with Team Minato, I'm going to have them escort you for the duration of your stay." Samantha kept her face passive. She was super happy about this fact, but also nervous that they were gonna be watched. Then again… we're always being watched. I guess I should be used to it by now. Obito grinned widely, placing his hands on his hips, "heee"ing triumphantly. Rin simply eye smiled.

Victoria tilted her head slightly. She knew from what Samantha had said that Minato was a big, kunai-flipping deal as a fighter. Why would he still be assigned to a research mission? Something of her thoughts must have been given away in the way she looked at Minato and his stupidly-gorgeous face because he returned her questioning stare with a slight perfectly-polite smile. "Team Minato but sometimes without Minato. I am afraid I will be on some solo missions in the near future."

Obito whirled around to his sensei. "Does that mean I can be Team-Leader, sensei? Can I? Can I?"

"I'm sorry, Obito, but I'm actually appointing you all as leader. Each of you will need to help Victoria-san and Samantha-San while they are here. Help in whatever way they need as much as is permitted."

"Aw, c'mon, sensei!" Obito complained, "Bakakashi doesn't even have the decency to be here."

"Ah, yes, well, he had some matters he had to attend to." Minato said, unapologetic.

"Don't worry, Obito. It'll be fine," Rin reassured her teammate.

It was while they were talking about the matters of Kakashi being a part of the team that Samantha realized something… direly important. "Um," She spoke up, if a bit quietly. It did, however, gain everyone's attention, "So… we are absolutely grateful for all that you'll be doing to help us out and stuff but…" Sam fidgeted, "We kinda… need a place to stay." Her voice drifted off and she couldn't face the looks of the people that she and Victoria were relying on.

"Ah yes, I'm glad you brought that up," Minato said, "Lord Third and I were talking about this conundrum, and have figured out a solution for you two, if you're up for it?"

"We'll be up for anything!" Samantha said, eagerly, "Right, Tor?"

"Yes, I think so," Tori agreed. "And we certainly want to help or work or do whatever we can to not be burdens to all of you. We may not be shinobi or very..um..world smart, but we are tough and smart and pretty helpful, generally speaking.." She trailed off feeling uncomfortable.

Minato eye smiled, "Oh, I'm sure that if Kushina needs you to help her out, she will not be afraid to ask you."

"Kushina?" Samantha perked up, before remembering she wasn't supposed to know who that was. If Minato or the hokage noticed higher lilt in her tone, they made no indication.

"She's someone I know quite well, and she'll be very helpful in making sure you feel comfortable while you're here." Minato answered.

They… they trust us. Victoria realized. I think. Like: they wanna help take care of us. We aren't alone in this time period like I thought. We're..we're gonna be okay. The thought was a warm realization. For the first time in days and days and days, Victoria felt like maybe it was okay to feel safe. She felt a little dumb for tearing up, but there was no masking the raw gratitude in her voice as she said, "You - you Konoha folk really are something else aren't you?" She rubbed away a tear that already ran away down her cheeks. "I don't think there's a community in any other planet that would… would be so kind and so helpful to such ragamuffins as us. Blah. I'm crying again. I'm sorry, I just - thank you. Thank you all so, so much."

---

A/N: Good golly, that was a long chapter! Hopefully it was worth the wait for you all. I, RoyalVicTorie, want to personally apologize for the things I said when I was nap-hungover. They were...kinda mean. But, hey! Characters are supposed to be imperfect and flawed right? And yay for us making it safely to Konoha! And we get to meet Kushina soon! MangaGeek3 is super excited for that. Also, did you notice that trickiness of us tying things back to Kakashi's story in Chapter Five? Yeah. We totally planned that. ...We actually planned a lot of things...Plots they are afoot! Just wait til you see who else we meet in Konoha...

Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing everywhere.