This is a shorter chapter than the last, and personally I think it is rather boring, but it had to be written. The next one will be more interesting, at least I feel it is more interesting to write it. I have to admit it is slove going since I have to take some pretty strong painkillers. I've been sleeping for hours every day. Not that I have much else to do.... Well, I think the next chapter should be out this evening or tomorrow, if I don't fall asleep again.

Look at the first chapter for a disclaimer. I really don't want to write one for every chapter, so just consider characters and univers disclaimed for the future chapters as well. Please?

While he mused over his mental state, or lack thereof, he had reached the edge of the forest. What he saw didn't really lift his spirits any. He saw the sea. Okay, there was a beach and a rundown old cottage, and a equally run down, moldy and makeshift harbor, but it didn't give him any hopes of finding out where he was, when he was and more importantly, how he could get to Konoha from here. He chose that moment to start swearing. He felt he had earned the right.

1.

While experiencing the most exasperating time of his life due to the lack of information of any kind, he had, for the most part, accepted that he was stranded where he was. The old cottage wasn't that moldy; it did provide a shelter, and he had no use for the harbor so he didn't care if it was about to fall apart. He had gathered dead branches from the forest floor to create a fire in the old fireplace, which had taken most of his depleted energy the first day and night, and later used the materials left in the cottage to set traps in the forest.

He was by no means an expert on hunting, or picking herbs and wild vegetables for that matter, but he had lived in the forest for three years. Granted, he had had friends around to help him, but still. He had picked up some things. Like the most used herbs for medicine and food. He had helped Hinata and Shino pick them several times. It was often them who did it, or Chouji, but the latter usually hung around Shikamaru. No one blamed him; Naruto knew he would have done the same for his best friend. He shook his head to get rid of the depressing thoughts and left to inspect his small traps. He couldn't catch anything larger than rabbits, but it was fine. It was only him after all, and he was happy with what he could get.

The forest around the cottage was always damp, and every morning the mist hung around the stems and kept the grass wet to mid morning. It was frustrating for someone who tried his best to keep dry and warm. He wasn't the wisest person around (okay, he didn't have many to compete with at the moment) but he knew a child's body would get sick if it was left wet and cold. It had become something of an obsession of his not to become ill. For the most part it was because there was no one there to make sure he survived if he did. He had, after all, a reputation to live up to. It didn't matter that only he and the Fox knew about that particular bit of information.

The cottage, old as it was, held nothing valuable for anyone who just happened to pass by. He had found a few small knives, which should be used on fish and not animals, but it was all he had, and enough material to create some traps. There was no personal items left, not even clothes, but a rickety closet had some woolen blankets. It wasn't bad if he curled up by the fire at night. Not that there was much more room than that. The cottage had one room, and that was that.

He had spent the time surviving and getting used to the small body of a five year old. It was an inconvenience. It was small. It was weak. It was untrained. It was exasperatingly easy to hurt. It was frustrating. Share willpower had kept him going for the first week, when all he wanted was to curl up and howl his frustrations to the depressing grey sky. The only thing he found positive was unlocking his chakra. It had been his light in the darkest moment he could remember when he managed to feel the warmth of the chakra circulate through him. He had laughed like a madman for the longest time, tears streaming down his cheeks and streaking his dusty skin. It was the only time it was a good thing no one was around, because if there was, they would surely have locked him up at the nearest asylum.

He stopped briefly by a bush to pick the few berries it had left at this time of year. They were watery and didn't taste much, but he had stopped caring a long time ago. It felt as a long time ago, but it wasn't really. Only three short years. He tilted his head back, to look at the sky and let the sadness for once appear in his eyes and on his face. There were so many who died. They were crushed by Pain, or they were killed in the civil war. It felt so meaningless to fight your own, but for ideals…. To stand up for what you believed in, to protect what you cherished…. He had killed Konoha ninja. He had willingly thrown his forehead protector away when the mark no longer stood for what he felt Konoha was. Was that what a missing nin felt? If so he understood them at some level.

He had come to terms with the deaths. It was the only thing to do, when people die. You either get over it, stands up and walks on, or get dragged down by it, or so Ino's father said. He was supposed to know all about it too, so he trusted the man to know what he was talking about. Sometimes he wasn't so sure; Inoichi could drink himself into oblivion and would talk nonsense until he past out. Of course it didn't help; the sting was still there. The sting of remorse, of guilt, of unanswered questions and longing. The god damned longing for just one more minute, just one more chance to say all the things he wanted to tell them, to see them one more time and burn their image into his mind. The worst part was the last. When their picture faded from his memory and he no longer managed to see them in detail in his mind. The shade of their hair shifted, their eyes changed and their faces were obscured. In the end, everyone he knew from the future, all of them, they would be nothing but faded memories. Like an old black and white photograph. That was the reason he early on decided not to take that particular route of dealing with his issues. If that was the correct term.

He shook his head, unsure of how long he had been standing in the forest looking up at the sky, and continued on his way. He would never get the answers he wanted, so there was no use standing still and catch a cold or something nastier.

He had explored quite a bit of the forest around the cottage. It wasn't exiting in any way. It was normal. It was a forest. If he had expected something interesting, he would have been disappointed. However, since he hoped beyond hope the forest was normal, if nothing else in his life was, he was glad. There were no large and deadly animals lurking around, no sneaky ninja in the tree tops, no miscellaneous demons laughing at him and most importantly; no signs of an enemy.

It was because of that the faint sound of human voices caught him so off guard. He hadn't heard anything but the birds and the small forest animals for the two weeks he had stayed there, and now, suddenly, he heard voices. He wasn't sure if he was more anxious or more relieved. It was unnerving to know he was afraid of other humans. He felt like the rabbits he was hunting and scoffed at himself. He was a ninja, he had survived three years of persecution, killing ROOT ANBU and dodging Akatsuki at the same time. He shouldn't be afraid, and yet. And yet….

He masked his chakra. It wasn't really hard, not when he knew how to do it and had as little chakra as he did at the moment. He walked as silent as he could, crouching a little to make himself smaller out of habit and tensed his muscles, ready to be pounced on at any time. He walked closer step by step when he didn't sense anything. The soft grass under his feet softened his steps further and the still air prevented his scent to be carried by his movements. His heart was drumming when he got close enough to hear the voices clearly. They sounded young and slightly agitated.

With nothing to lose (if he didn't count his life) he carefully climbed up a tree to gaze down at a group of teens and children. There were three teenagers. They wore forehead protectors, but he didn't recognize the village symbol at all. That didn't disturb him though. From what he had heard, there were plenty of villages that were eradicated during the wars. They were in the middle or at the end of the second one, so chances were they were from one who was destroyed when he lived. He blinked. That sounded wrong.

The children were from his age and up to ten – eleven. They looked tired and frightened, and listened to the three teenagers argue without interest. It seemed they didn't care. He remained where he was and observed the quarrel with some amusement. It reminded him of the time team seven was new and they would argue of the best way of doing whatever task Kakashi – sensei assigned them. He frowned. This was different. They weren't doing some team bonding lesson, this was real life and if they made the wrong decision, they would die. He shook his head when the group split up. Each of the teenagers took a smaller group of the children and left the clearing. One of them, a male with red hair, gazed after his two team mates with a defeated look to him, before he herded the children towards the tree Naruto was in.

They past right under him, but they didn't notice him. The children were too young to notice. There was a girl with auburn hair, almost the same shade as the teenager boy, another girl with sleek black hair and one with curly brown hair. They were accompanied by two boys; one with the red hair and one with black hair. The two with black hair were holding hands and were without doubt siblings, while the others blindly stumbled along the forest floor on their own. None of them could be older than eight years of age, while the youngest girl, the curly haired one, was probably three or four years. Younger then he was at the moment.

The teenager, the ninja who should have noticed him, was too tired. Naruto could see it from where he sat. His clothes were ruffled and splattered with blood. His hair was matted with it, and Naruto smelled it when the teenager walked under the branch he was sitting on. Some of it was fresh; making him believe the teen had some open wounds somewhere. His skin was pale enough, and the lines marring his young face were from stress and weariness. Naruto had seen lines like that on the face of his comrades. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were; refugees from a village under attack.

He silently jumped from the tree to the next and followed them until they had nearly past by the area he stayed in. He didn't think when he left the safety of the dense tree tops to land quietly in the grass behind the small group. The ninja tensed and whirled around, one hand gripping a kunai and the other reaching out to stop the children from going anywhere. Perhaps even in a gesture to shield them. Naruto just tilted his head and looked at the forehead protector. It didn't tell him anything, he had never seen anyone with a swirl as their mark, but he assumed he had been correct in his earlier deduction.

"I'm not going to harm you," Naruto said, rather affronted, but understood none the less. If it was something he could understand it was the adrenaline driven senses just after a battle. Especially when he wasn't in a safe place. The red head relaxed just a little upon seeing a small child. He dropped the arm he was holding out in front of the children and lowered the kunai. It wasn't something an experienced ninja would do, but he supposed his young age worked in his favor.

"Who are you?" the ninja asked him. He was staring at his shabby attire and dirt smudged face. Naruto tilted his head a little. This was where he decided if he could give up what he was to chase a legend. He wasn't sure if he could do exactly the same, but he wouldn't let the original man down. He would make the name known to all, or die trying. This, he knew, was where he said good bye to himself and let his own person die to become something else.

"Minato. My name is Namikaze Minato," he said, and smiled. He smiled because he could, because they were human like him and they needed help as much as he needed it. They were like him; lost and alone. This was where he embraced his new life for real.

The teenager, unaware of what passed behind the blue eyes of the small child, nodded.

"I am Uzumaki Kinuto, and this is my cousins, Kushina and Kaero," he indicated the red headed girl, who was looking rather perturbed about something, and the red headed boy "the twins are Mizu Yuki and Yahiro, the curly haired girl is Kana."

The children all looked around their protector at him, and he let his eyes travel over them as he heard their names. None of them was any he recognized from his time. They had probably died before he was born or old enough to remember them, or they became civilians.

"Where are you going?" he asked tentatively. He didn't want to admit it, but at this time he would follow them even if they were heading for the most remote village they could find. He was desperate for company.

"Ch, Konoha, of course. It is the only place we can head. They are the only allies we have left," Kinuto said and for a moment, he looked annoyed. Minato guessed that was the pinnacle of the debate they had had before the group split up.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked and braced himself for a disappointment. It wasn't wise for any ninja to just pick up strays along the way. You never knew if they were spies or not, but the red head looked at him and shrugged. He needn't have worried. The ninja scratched his head and muttered something about one more didn't matter.

"You are as much a refugee as us I guess. The country has been absorbed by Water. The Daimyo made it official a week ago, but the Elders refused to go down without a fight. Whirlpool is no more, for better or for worse," he said and sounded far off and nonchalant. Minato saw through it, but didn't comment. The children behind him needed to believe the one who was left to protect them was strong enough to do it. They needed to feel at least a small amount of safety.

It did, however, answer the question as to where he was and when. The land of Whirlpool had been persuaded, that was the word the history books used, to surrender to and join with Water Country at the end of the second great shinobi war.

"They killed my mother," he said out of the blue, and the children all gave him sympathetic looks. He had to remember to play the wounded and emotionally strained child more often. It worked well with the image of someone trying his best to live up to some imaginary expectations. The children in front of him may not have his extra years to draw from, but he was sure they, at least those old enough, would try to do their best just to make their parents proud. He did, when he was young and everyone shunned him anyway. He wasn't sure if they had seen what happened to their village, but he was sure they understood that they were orphans like him, and that created a bond between them.

"I…. If you will let me, I'll come with you to Konoha," he said and nodded to himself. Finally he was getting somewhere. Kinuto smiled tiredly.

"Sure kid. What's your name again?" he asked, and put away the kunai. He wouldn't need it, and a five year old wasn't much of a threat anyway, even if he could hunt rabbits. Minato took a deep breath. This was it. From here on out, there was no going back.

"Namikaze Minato."

With that, he allowed himself to be someone else.

Here it is. A few hints of what happened and how it affected Naruto before the abrupt departure to the past, and a little of how he is going to act in the future. This chapter is solely here to make the background clearer and to get the story moving. As for the names of the Oc: I don't know what they mean or if they are real names at all. I think I have read that tehy are names somewhere, so I'll use them here.