Author's Notes: Hey guys, quick question. Can someone explain to me why there is no Konoha 11 character tag in the menu where you choose who is the main characters in your story? Because I thought I knew for certain that there was when I was setting up this story to publish. I say this because I have the probably ludicrous hope to include the perspectives of every one of the Konoha 11 as the story goes on. Obviously not equally, (sorry Shino fans), but this feels like a missed opportunity. Someone tell the devs on this site to add that in.

Until then, enjoy…

Chapter 2: Here we go again

"Taimu Toraberu No Jutsu!" Rock Lee and Tenten shouted together along with the rest of the Konoha 11 as soon as they felt that the time travel jutsu was ready. They both knew perfectly well what this jutsu would cost them. But with the very future of their home literally going up in smoke around them, they both figured that trading their lives for a chance at good triumphing over evil in another timeline was well worth the price.

It wasn't that they didn't fear death. All mortals feared death. It was the final unknown and it was ever present in the day to day lives of ninjas. So they, and everyone else, put death out of their minds. You didn't think about it, you didn't dwell on it. On a mission, you ignored your comrade's death until it was save to grief, then you put it out of your mind forever. Some of the greatest Shinobi in history had all been wrought to ruin because they could not put death out of their minds. Their own deaths…or the deaths of their friends…

Although Lee and Tenten had to admit that acceptance came easier for them. After all, when the first war you ever fought was spent fighting the resurrected corpses of the greatest ninjas from the last five generations, and the fact that one of their best friends was Naruto. Who was, in fact, living proof of the concept of reincarnation (him being the reincarnation of the Second Son of the Sage of Six Paths). You started to sleep a little easier at night. Knowing that there was a purer world beyond this impure world that they were forces to struggle in for a few decades longer. A world where they would be reunited with all their friends again. And their Jounin-sensei Might Gai…

And Neji…their teammate…

Maybe that made the decision easier when it came to possibly sacrificing themselves by using all their chakra to send Naruto 10 years back in time. Then again, no matter how unshakable your faith or how concrete were the facts, you could never completely shake off that thought in the back of your mind. The one dreading that there was nothing beyond this life. Nothing but the darkness.

And silence.

"Naïve!" A voice shouted, snapping Rock Lee out of his thoughts. He opened his eyes just in time to see and bandaged hand flying right towards his face. For all his speed, Lee couldn't react in time to do anything but take the palm thrust to the nose and let it slam his head all the way down the hard ground.

Lee coughed out bile, his head was spinning after that last attack and…wasn't he casting a time travel jutsu just a few seconds ago? He didn't think he was sparing against Naruto. And his whole body ached too much for him to be dead. Then again his entire body felt off. He had hit the ground way too fast. As if he was smaller, lighter…his ankle weights even felt heavier.

"Match point! Neji!" Another voice declared as Lee's eyes shot wide open. This had to be a trick. He knew he couldn't possibly be hearing those two voices again after he recognized them. Lee forced his aching body to prop itself up on his elbows as he looked upon the two faces he had missed the most after so many years.

There, standing upright in his Genin attire with his arms crossed and his face stuck in a disinterested scowl was Lee's deceased teammate and second eternal rival Neji Hyuga. Looking as proud and as arrogant as when Lee had first been paired with him and Tenten on the same Genin team. Off to the side, Lee could see the leader of their Genin team and Lee's beloved mentor, Gai-sensei, giving both Lee and Neji each a youthful thumbs up for their hard fought spar. Even if Neji had basically been handing Lee his green spandex clad ass since the start of the match. Lee broke his gaze away from seeing his father figure sensei standing upright on his own two feet and looked to see Tenten standing behind the two other figures. She was dressed in her old pink sleeveless Chinese style vest from their Genin days and had a look on her face that Lee imagined matched his own. A look of surprise that he wasn't sure should be because he was terrified, ecstatic, or just plain couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Team Gai, back during their Genin years.

"Um…wow…good job Lee…you too, Neji." Tenten said weakly, trying to think up on the spot what she was supposed to say.

Apparently she got it wrong, as Neji actually turned to her and Tenten felt her heart skip a beat when he looked at her with those pearl white pupils. "Good job? Were you watching some other fight? He failed to land a single blow."

A tick mark formed on Tenten's forehead. Her angelic image of Neji was shattered once it all came back to her how much of a stuck up prick he used to be.

"Still, Lee did his best. You can't fault him for that." Tenten defended.

"That's exactly right, Tenten! Youthfulness is cheering on your comrades even when they look to face certain defeat. And Lee! Never giving up in the face of that defeat is what fills your heart with the Springtime of Youth! Never forget it!" Gai-sensei declared, just like old times. Lee couldn't help himself from tearing up.

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee exclaimed, feeling more carefree than he had in months since the Alliance's defeat in the war had become abundantly clear.

Neji scoffed at the two green spandex wearing fools. If Might Gai wasn't the greatest Jounin instructor in all of the Leaf when it came to Taijutsu, Neji would have immediately requested a transfer the first time he heard one of Gai's Youthful Speeches.

"Uh, Gai-sensei?" Tenten squeaked. "Could me and Lee take a break? There is something I want to talk to him about."

"A break? But training has only just begun! I can see it clearly, the flames of youth burn their very brightest in each of you right now! If you allow yourselves to slack off before you have utilized these flames, they shall dwindle and never reach those heights again!" Gai stated.

"It won't take a minute." Tenten said quickly as she ran up and dragged Lee away by the collar of his jumpsuit. Only after she was certain that the two of them were out of sight from even Neji's Byakugan did she hoist Lee off the ground and slammed his body into the trunk of an oak tree.

"Ah, easy." Lee said before Tenten started shaking him violently back and forth. As if it would make his head pop open and out would fly some sense in the world.

"Lee! Neji is alive and Gai-sensei isn't in a wheelchair! I thought we were all in Heaven but we all look younger and it feels too real to be a dream or a Genjutsu!" Tenten ranted as she shook her boyfriend until finally Lee managed to grab ahold of her arms.

"Calm down, my metal flower. It's going to be okay, just breathe." Lee instructed, playing as the voice of reason when it was usually Tenten's job to snap Lee out of his rants when he became too "youthful."

Tenten took a deep breath and stopped shaking Lee. She didn't let go of his collar though, it being the closest thing she had left to a lifeline in this crazy world.

"Lee…that seal we worked on wasn't an elaborate Genjutsu, right? I mean the historians double checked it, right? Naruto the seal master double checked it. Sakura and Kurenai-sensei double checked it. Naruto's Toad summons double checked it. Everyone who could have possibly double checked it, double checked it, right? It wasn't a jutsu to cast a Genjutsu. It was a teleportation jutsu used to travel back in time. It was supposed to only send Naruto back in time. So why are we very clearly back in time, back when we were just starting out as Genin?" Tenten asked, slightly freaking out again.

"Tenten, calm down. Whatever this is, wherever we are. We are going to be okay." Lee repeated, he ran his hands up and down Tenten's arms and shoulders, the way he always did whenever she was feeling stressed out from work or having her home village being turned into a free-for-all warzone block by block.

Tenten breathed again as Lee moved on to massaging her back and was almost on her way to calming down when another troubling thought occurred to her. "You don't think we are trapped in Sasuke's Genjutsu, are we?"

Lee paused before answering to consider this. He looked up and saw a flock of birds fly by without a care in the world. Seeing such things always reminded him of Neji. Who was apparently alive again.

"No." Lee finally answered. "From all the after action reports I've read about Sasuke, he doesn't set up pleasant illusions to later make them horrible. He just fills his victim's minds with anguish."

"So then we really are in the past…" Tenten said as she looked up from Lee's chest. Her eyes filled with wonder. Tenten was by all accounts a tomboy and a girl who grew up around the forges in her father's metal shop. Watching her father beat red hot steel into kunai, short swords, and shuriken as a form of babysitting. So she was the last girl you would expect to be looking in awe at a warm sunny day out in the woods. Even still, how long had it last been since she had seen the sky without it being choked with ash? Even Lee who cared more for training than he did for admiring the beauty of nature couldn't help but gawk at all the plant life that was permitted to grow outside of wartime.

"We are…" Lee says as he wraps his arm around Tenten's shoulder. The couple enjoyed their first moment of peace and tranquility in what seemed like a lifetime. All before reality set in again.

"Wait…If we came back in time. Then doesn't that mean that the others came back in time too?" Tenten asked. Her response being the echo of an explosion coming from where they both knew was the Hokage Tower and the Academy where their friends back in this time period would be attending class.

"It seems so." Lee replied. Without a second thought, the two Veteran Jounin trapped in their Rookie Genin bodies leapt through the trees towards trouble. Their brief reprieve was over.

Back on the destroyed Academy roof, Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Kiba, Hinata, and Shino had all cornered Sasuke with his back against the wall of the Hokage Tower. Only to be immediately surrounded by ANBU agents.

"All of you! Stand down!" The leading ANBU agent ordered. The time travelers all cursed to themselves. Not now, of all times.

"Last warning! Drop your weapons and raise your hands up high! Or we will use force against you!"

The ANBU agents all stole a quick, nervous glance at their partners nearest to them. What were they doing? These were just kids. They couldn't be expect to attack kids could they? Even if they all were the silent black hands of the Hokage.

Before any of them could contemplate their job any further, the blond kid wearing the blue and orange jacket and matching pants raised his hands up in the air. His friends all glanced at him in confusion.

Faster than even the ANBU could react, the blond boy slammed his palms down to the ground. Glowing lines of chakra flew out of his palms and drew themselves along the concrete rooftop and around the section of wall containing the lone Uchiha.

"No!" The ANBU Captain shouted as he ran to stop the boy, but he was far too late. A seal barrier was erected over the children and the charging ANBU Captain bounced off the forcefield like he ran headlong into a bouncy castle. The Captain skidded back and flashed through some hand signs.

"Wood Style! Hands of the Sage!" The Captain shouted as he finished his jutsu. The trees swaying in the breeze behind him began to twist and shift before they grew at an incredible rate and reached out towards the barrier, forming long piercing fingers that grabbed ahold of the barrier. The fingers wrapped themselves around it only to be rejected the same way that the jutsu castor was moments earlier.

'Damn it.' Captain Tenzo (codenamed Yamato) cursed to himself. This was no Genin level fuinjutsu seal barrier. This was master class. No way that any Academy student should be able to pull this off.

One of the ANBU finally recognized the blond, and his doubts about his job began to fade. 'It's the demon brat…causing trouble again…'

Meanwhile, inside the seal…

"Captain Yamato?" Sakura said to herself once she noticed the tree branches surrounding them.

"Naruto, what the Hell?" Shikamaru ranted. "You jump back in time and then you use a jutsu no student would ever be able to use! What about maintaining our cover?"

"Fuck our cover. That's not why I did this so shut up for a minute." Naruto snapped. With the same tone of voice he would have used as Hokage one day.

"You did it to try and talk to me, right?" Sasuke stated, knowing exactly how this song and dance went.

"You got it." Naruto said as he carefully stood back up on shaky legs. Sakura on her part couldn't understand why Naruto was so exhausted. He hadn't used too much of his own chakra. Mostly Kurama's. He shouldn't be exhausted like he was. She had theories of course, but that was a matter for later.

"You're unbelievable, you know that? Its why I've always enjoyed our friendship. I just destroyed your entire village—

"Our village." Naruto corrected.

"Keep telling yourself that." Sasuke replied. "I've killed thousands. I've killed your mentors. I've tried to kill you. And now that you've all managed to send us back to the past you try to get me to change my ways. So I'll bite. What is your line of thought on this. What is going on in Naruto's mind?"

"That this is our very last chance to talk. To make things right this time around. All of us, together, we can make this world a better place…" Naruto pleaded, even sounding to himself like a broken record, but that was who he was.

Sasuke just scoffed. "Oh what? You expect me to just change my plans of becoming the Dark Kage of this world just because I now have a chance to save my brother?"

"Yes." Naruto insisted. "We can save Itachi this time around. We can pardon him of his crimes. Get Danzo convicted or killed. We can defeat Obito, destroy Madara, and prevent Kaguya from ever being released. We can do all of that and shape this world into a better one…" Naruto pleaded as Sasuke just chuckled at his naivety. "Sasuke, I know that in your own twisted way you are trying to bring about peace for the world. But you know it is misguided. You must know. Peace borne of misery and fear will not last. You want to shoulder the hatred of the world, but you will die and the pain you cause will fade."

"And the feelings of love and acceptance you share will fade as well. To be replaced by bitterness and selfishness." Sasuke countered. "Why are we even debating this? We have been going back and forth for years, and neither one of us is going to change our minds. That's why the one who is right is always the one who is left standing. You know this as well as I do. So why waste the chakra erecting this barrier, Naruto?" Sasuke sneered. All eyes turned onto Naruto, even though they all knew the answer.

"I honestly don't know anymore." Naruto admitted. "I guess it just makes me feel better if I am blame free for trying." The blond got into his usual Taijutsu stance as Sasuke dropped into his.

"Finally, you're being honest with yourself." Sasuke sneered.

'Kit. Your chakra nodes are too narrow to support the amount of my chakra required to flow through you during Golden mode. You use any more of my chakra right now and it could split your nodes open. You won't be able to move then. So, you're on your own.' Kurama reported.

'I figured. At least I'm not the only one handicapped.'

'No, but you didn't have the chakra to spare to make that barrier either. If this barrier falls, then the bastard Uchiha gets away.'Kurama warned.

'He won't get away.' Naruto took off in a dead sprint towards Sasuke. The Uchiha slashed out with his kunai, Naruto grabbed his forearm and blocked him. Sasuke then threw the blade with his fingertips at Naruto's head. Which he ducked underneath, right into Sasuke's swinging uppercut. Naruto blocked his fist and then landed a headbutt right into Sasuke's nose. The Uchiha stumbled, then hopped to deliver a double foot kick to Naruto's chest. Sasuke spring boarded off of Naruto, but the Jinchuriki was on the Uchiha like white on rice. He threw punch after punch at Sasuke as soon as his feet touched the ground. He kept pushing his opponent back and back, stepping right into Sasuke's personal space and not granting him a moment of reprieve. The two traded strikes. A knee into the gut, a fist to the jaw, grapples and counters and ripostes; all of them telling the same story everyone had known for years. The two of them were dead even.

The rest of the Rookie 9 watched as this familiar battle played out, for a while. Each of them had seen too much death and destruction to be side characters now.

"HAAAAAAAAHHH!" Hinata cried as she ran into the fray. Her arms raised in her clan's famous Gentle Fist style. Naruto saw what she was doing and began taking deliberate steps to circle around Sasuke, all to get him to show his back to Hinata. Which was exactly what the Uchiha wanted.

After taking on more hit from Naruto, Sasuke immediately back stepped and twirled around Hinata as she came at him with her chakra enhanced palms. The Hyuga heiress cursed her younger self. Her older muscles were too underdeveloped and lacked proper training to keep pace with the Sasuke from their graduating year. She might has well have been standing still as Sasuke danced right behind her and kicked her right into Naruto's path. The two collided and tripped.

Sasuke wasted no time running towards the rest of the Rookie 9. Two thirds of which were down for the count for using their signature jutsus earlier. But not Shino and Ino.

The Yamanaka heiress tried to aim a jutsu her younger self could use without difficulty, but Sasuke was running too fast for her to fire off her Mind Transfer Jutsu. She was forced to engage the Uchiha in hand to hand combat. Which she had fallen out of favor with after years in the field. She blocked two strikes to the head, but momentum favored Sasuke as he broke through her defenses and knocked her to the ground.

He was then met with a swarm of beetles as Shino had called upon his entire hive to subdue the enemy.

Like a man possessed, Sasuke leapt right into the cloud of beetles. Using the very last of his chakra, he charged his chakra with lightning nature, which kept the bugs off of him as he dove through them.

'That fatso had better have one or I am screwed.' Sasuke thought as he rolled out of the cloud of beetles. The other kids tried to throw their own punches at him, but none of their bodies were up to his standards to be a threat. There was a reason Sasuke was his year's Rookie of the Year.

He dashed right at Choji who managed to raise his arms up in a defense. Once again, exactly what Sasuke wanted. In a flash, Sasuke's snake like hands searched Choji's pockets until he finally came upon the tiny glass bottle he had been looking for. He ran past Choji without even throwing a single blow at the Akimichi heir. Choji blinked and then felt his pockets when he noticed something was missing.

"What the? Why did?" Choji wondered aloud before looking up and seeing the glass bottle held in between Sasuke's thumb and index finger. The same corked glass bottle that Choji's father had given his younger self in case of emergencies, or if ever Choji ran out of high calorie potato chips.

It was a bottle filled to the brim with his clan's special batch of Military Ration Pellets. Designed to be ingested by shinobi in the field to reinvigorate them with energy and replace their lost chakra instantly. And Sasuke was downing the pellets like they were chocolate bits.

"Shit! Stop him! He's got his chakra back!" Choji cried out. Naruto had already recovered and was on a dead sprint towards Sasuke, but it was too late. Naruto ran right into Sasuke's outstretched arm and was picked up by his throat.

"Naruto!" Sakura cried out as she tried to stand up, but her use of her chakra enhanced strength earlier had torn all her muscles and she was just now feeling the effects.

"Last on my list…Dobe." Sasuke sneered with his eyes whirling with his reactivated Sharingan. He held up his free hand with his newly charged Chidori. No one else could get to him in time. Then the force field began to waver.

Outside of the seal, the ANBU seal team had finally managed to undo the seal from the outside. Ignoring the insistence of his Advisors, the Third Hokage stood next to Captain Yamato as the both of them oversaw the seal melting away as it became overpowered by counterseals.

"I've never seen fuinjutsu this intricate before. Not since working with the Toad Sannin." Yamato praised. Hiruzen the third Hokage took a long drag from his pipe as he contemplated who was behind this unprovoked attack. The Jounin and other ANBU on the scene were already collecting testimony from the startled Academy students and from their instructor Iruka Umino. Who wanted it on record that Sasuke Uchiha attacked Naruto Uzumaki first. Not the other way around as so many female students were reporting.

Hiruzen sighed. Even if this wasn't young Naruto's fault, the Civilian and Clan Councils would have a field day with this. The old Hokage worried that today his protection of Naruto might not be enough.

As soon as the seal came undone, a blue blur leapt out of the bubble and over the heads of the entire ANBU force.

"We've got a runner!" One ANBU squad captain shouted as he and three others gave chase. The main force concentrated on the 8 students that remained inside the seal.

"Subdue them, but do not harm them!" Hiruzen ordered. At once, 20 ANBU agents descended upon the remaining students. They pounced on them like tigers would their prey. Those that were standing were forced to the ground and handcuffed behind their backs. Anyone like Kiba who struggled against his subduers was rewarded with a face full of concrete. Within 10 seconds all of the students had been declared nullified. All except one.

"Stop resisting!" The ANBU agent shouted as he brought his baton staff down on Naruto's undefended ribs. The young Jinchuriki was not in any way resisting. He was curled up into a ball. Tanking the hits while the demon hating ANBU agents took their brief window of opportunity to beat on the demon spawn they blamed for the deaths of all their loved ones some 12 years ago.

"Naruto!" Ino shouted from her prone position a few feet away.

"Cut it out you bastards! He's not resisting!" Kiba shouted, only to be disciplined himself.

"Stop it!" Sakura shrieked as Naruto took another hit to the head. He couldn't hear his friends crying out for him anymore. Or the sounds of Yamato, the 3rd Hokage, and the few sympathetic ANBU agents all pulling Naruto's brutalizers off of him. It was all so familiar to his earlier childhood. When he couldn't outrun the mobs.

Still, his mind was preoccupied with this trip down memory lane. His thoughts remained with Sasuke, and the last words he had given Naruto right as the barrier fell.

'Next time, Dobe. Watching you fail a second time will make it all the sweeter.' Sasuke smirked.

Naruto let his head rest towards the south, the direction where he had last scene Sasuke headed.

'Next time, Teme…it'll be the last time.' Naruto thought to himself. Knowing that this was going to be it. No more surrenders or compromises. No trying to change anyone's mind. They both knew it. This was going to end with one of them dead, or the other.

Author's Note: Is this a good spot to end the chapter on? Like, in my time spent writing with Cmartin, we usually go for around 10k-20k words in a single chapter. The way we write chapters is a lot more dialogue based though. Which has its ups and downs for certain. Writing this story on my own and getting feedback from other stories I write for art college, I've noticed that I tend to focus a lot on descriptions. Which has been a source of praise and criticism for my works. I think I've been hitting a nice balance between too much and too little descriptions so far, but please, tell me your thoughts.

Are my descriptions working? Is 5k a good chapter length if it means more frequent updates? Do you want the chapters longer? Is Sasuke or anyone else acting too Out Of Character? Bearing in mind that Sasuke is going to be evil in this story. Does anything else not make sense?

Review or PM me to let me know.