DISCLAIMER: I do not own the 'Naruto' or 'Naruto: Shippuden' series or characters.
NOTE: I had a bad case of writer's block when trying to write this chapter, so I apologise if this chapter kinda sucks. Enjoy :)
ALL THE SMALL THINGS
We found ourselves standing in the Hokage's office over looking the entire village of Konohagakure. The village itself had completely changed – looking like it had been completely rebuilt from the ashes of a long finished Ninja war.
"Why are we in Granny Tsunade's office?" asked Naruto, frowning.
"Yeah, who's so called memory is this?" drawled Sasuke as Naruto suddenly grinned devilishly and wondered over to the Hokage's chair and cheekily making himself comfortable in it. Sakura immediately reacted at this.
"Naruto, you idiot! Get your ass out of that chair before Lady Tsunade catches you!" Sakura bellowed at the mischievous spikey haired blonde. There was a knock at the door that everybody looks up at. Naruto freaks out, immediately hops out of the chair and stands in front of the desk, trying to look innocent.
"Uh? Come in?" I called out, feeling odd. I looked over at Sasuke who was looking extremely uncomfortable, considering this was probably the last place anybody who could walk through that door would expect him to be. The door opened and in walked a young woman of about 20 years old who seemed surprised to see us in here. The young woman was slender and elegant, dressed in a white and purple japanese fighting dress complete with very long white sleeves and fishnet fabric top underneath, knee high black ninja boots, black elbow-length lace hobo gloves and black fingernails. The woman's blue black hair was tied back in a sleek knot and a kunai pack was strapped to her thigh.
Nobody said anything for a moment, fully expecting the woman to freak out and do something unfortunate like toss us out the window, call for the ninjas at the front gate to apprehend us, or attack us herself. Instead, she calmly closed the door behind her and smiled radiantly at us. Sasuke immediately went on guard, not trusting her at all. But there was something familiar about the woman.
"We've been expecting you." she said, coming over and perching on the desk next to Naruto who didn't appear to mind that a total stranger was sitting next to him and looking incredibly pleased to see not just him, but his team-mates as well. Sakura stepped forward and awkwardly addressed the strange young woman.
"Excuse me, but are you Lady Tsunade's new assistant?" the woman's face twisted in amusement.
"Lady Tsunade has long since retired." The pink haired kinoichi raised her eyebrows in shock.
"Then who is the Hokage?" Sakura asked. The young woman stood up from her perch and walked over to the window, unlocking it and stepping out to the embankment outside.
"Follow me to the roof and you'll find out." When everyone hesitated, the young woman sighed patiently and stepped back in, crossing her arms across her chest.
"It's perfectly safe. Nobody will see us." Naruto, Sakura and I shrugged and approached the window but Sasuke stopped us and stepped forward to address the woman, who I noticed smiled sweetly at him. A move that Sasuke immediately scowled at.
"Why do we have to go on the roof for you to answer Sakura's question?"
"Because the answer is chiselled on the Konoha monument." The young woman replied simply, and effortlessly jumped on the roof. All four of us looked at each other and one by one followed the young woman out onto the roof. At the top, I looked at the woman pointing at the monument, where there was now 6 heads chiselled in the stone face. I stared at the new face and felt my jaw drop when I saw that one of us had fulfilled his dream.
Naruto squinted at the stone face, while somebody else joined us. Everybody except Naruto turned around and saw the newcomer.
"It kinda looks like..."
"Naruto!" Naruto turned his head to look at Sakura who was beaming at the newcomer that Naruto was yet to see. He looked annoyed at the interruption.
"Yeah, hang on! Don't rush me!" I rolled my eyes at Naruto's typical impatient ways.
"It's on the tip of my tongue..." he continued.
"Naruto." I interrupted him, again, poking him in the shoulder. He turned to look at me and saw me pointing towards a young man also around about 20 years old with similar albeit longer spikey blonde hair, blue eyes and was dressed in a pair of light grey coloured pants, a black zip up jacket and over that was a regal black and orange robe. It was a jade green jeweled necklace dangling around the young man's neck that made Naruto suddenly recognise who he was.
"Hey, that's mine!" he exclaimed pulling the exact same necklace from underneath his jacket.
The young man grinned at Naruto and came over.
"Correction. That's OURS." he replied. The young woman stepped forward and addressed the young man unusually formally.
"Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?" the older Naruto pulled a face at the young woman and sheepishly scratched his head.
So very Naruto.
"Akima, how many times have I asked you not to call me that?" Four faces suddenly jerked with shock.
"AKIMA?" exclaimed Sakura. She turned to my older self. "You're Akima?" The young woman nodded.
"I'm THE Hokage?" asked Naruto, excitement on his face. The young man nodded enthusiatically.
"Yeah, we are! Believe it!"
"Oh YES!" Naruto jumped 50 feet in the air, and turned to Sasuke who was still scowling.
"I told you I would make it someday, Sasuke." Sasuke turned and walked away like he used to when we were thirteen years old.
"Hn. Whatever." and he dropped back into the Hokage's office. Sakura still couldn't get over the fact that she was staring at my older self and Naruto's older self.
"This is so weird. But totally cool!" she screeched at my older self who seemed backed into a corner. She looked at me for assistance, but I shook my head, knowing better and followed Sasuke's example. I swung in through the office window and landed in a crouch on top of Naruto's desk.
Woah. There's something I'm gonna have to get used to eventually... I thought with a shudder and hopped down from the desk.
"You know it's funny." I looked up and saw Sasuke leaning against the wall of the office looking peeved off about something. But then again, Sasuke was always peeved off about something. And it saddened me, because he never used to be so cold, ruthless and cruel. Sasuke used to have the personality of the little boy we all saw back in his memory: very kind, sweet and had a playful innocence.
Fuck you, Itachi. You stole my fun, innocent Sasuke away from me! I sighed and perched on the desk.
"What's funny?" I asked, reluctantly.
"I keep thinking it over in my head about why I'm here, and all I can think is that this whole thing is utterly pointless." he replied, stubbornly. I rolled my eyes.
"Well, you don't know. You might meet your future self at any moment."
"Hn. It'd be my luck. You guys have already killed me by now." I pulled a face at his negativity.
Let's hope not...
Suddenly, there's another knock at the door and Sasuke and I froze. The door swings open and in rushes another young woman with long bubblegum pink hair talking non-stop as she stares down at a scroll in her hands. She was dressed in a burgandy and white dress also with a fishnet undershirt, knee high brown ninja boots and a single elbow-length brown glove on her right hand. Her kunai pack was strapped to her thigh as well.
"Hokage-sama, we've just received another scroll from the hidden-" the woman looks up and sees me staring at her in shock and amazement, and the young woman's face pales instantly.
"Akima? But how?" I look behind her at Sasuke who is staring at the young woman with a raised eyebrow. She follows my gaze and sees Sasuke, which then makes her scream excitedly and scares the shit out of Sasuke who topples over in shock and stares incredulously at the woman whom we both realised from the beaming scream was Sakura's older self.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry Sasuke!" and older Sakura picks up the scroll she had dropped in her excitement and dumps them on Naruto's desk (shudder). But then realises something and her ecstatic expression changes to an annoyed one and she bellows at the top of her lungs at the 6th Hokage as he swings back into his office, along with the older Akima, Naruto and Sakura, whose jaw drops when she sees her older self.
"Naruto, you idiot! Why didn't you tell me our past selves had come?" The Hokage looked like a cornered puppy before older Akima annoyedly snaps:
"Knock it off, Sakura!" Naruto comes over to my side and shares the same mystified expression on my face, as well as Sakura. The Kokage realises that somebody is missing and whispers in older Akima's ear. After getting her instructions, older Akima rushes over to the door and (after ruffling an irritated Sasuke's hair) disappears behind it.
"Where's she going?" asks Naruto. I silently seconded that question. The 6th Hokage, smiled at me and cupped my cheek before letting go and heading over to his desk and sitting behind it.
"Akima's fetching Sasuke. They won't be too long." Sasuke had a look on his face that told me that he couldn't believe that he had returned back to Konoha, after swearing black and blue that he was NEVER coming back. The 6th Hokage had a lot of explaining to do.
"How did you come to be the Hokage?" asked Sakura, staring impatiently at the door older Akima disappeared through.
"You've obviously seen that the village has changed a lot. Right?" All four of us nodded.
"Well, I became the Hokage after a large ninja war that happened shortly after Sasuke dealt with Itachi." My eyebrows disappeared into my hairline.
"There was a war?" Sakura was horrified, as the Hokage nods gravely. Sasuke stepped forward with an urgent expression on his handsome face.
"When you mean 'dealt', how was Itachi punished?" Sasuke asked with hopefulness in his eyes. The Hokage, however, held up a hand at Sasuke, who frowned in outrage.
"I cannot tell you that, Teme. Sorry mate." Sasuke snarled in frustration, although I could tell from the grave, disappointed expression on the older and almost certainly wiser Naruto's face that our Sasuke had also accomplished his life's ambition too, much to my disgust. The door opened again and in came older Akima and older Sasuke, who blinked sleepily around the room before focusing on the Hokage.
"What do you need now?" he snapped, groggily as he brushed the sleep from his eyes, yawned and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Take a look, Sasuke!" was the Hokage's response and gestured to us. Older Sasuke blinked at us all in turn and lingered the longest on both Sasuke and I.
"I see." turns to leave the room abruptly.
"Wait!" I rushed forward and grabbed his hand to stop him and instantly jolted as a premonition of what was to come in terms of the future involving the four of us.
I did not like what I saw as I toppled to the ground: Sasuke had indeed caught up with Itachi and both of them had a violent, bloody showdown where upon Sasuke became the ultimate victor. But the heartbreaking moment was when Itachi raised a weak and shaking hand to poke his kid brother affectionately in the forehead, then fell back and died. The flashbacks changed so quickly that I barely had time to register what I was seeing.
But Sasuke from the moment his brother died, went spiralling downhill towards the point of no return, and I was enraged when I saw a momentary glimpse of Sasuke wearing an Akatsaki robe.
I awoke from my premonition to find myself staring up at seven people's faces. Two out of the seven I had developed a firey rage towards. Sasuke extended a hand to help me to my feet, but I immediately activated my sharingans and shot both Sasuke's across the room where they crashed into the wall and crumpled to the ground, much to everybody – except the future counterparts - shock. Sasuke got to his feet and stared at me with concern but dared not approach me again. Immediately, my sharingans disappeared and I stared horrified at what I had just done. The older Sasuke, was also staring at me with concern, but it was a milder version because he knew the reasons why I had done it. I bolted, swan diving from the window and landing gracefully on some rooftops below.
"Akima! Wait!" shouted Sakura.
"We're not angry with you!" added Naruto, rushing after me. However, Sasuke beat him to it and he too swan dove off the building and tore off after me. Sakura and Naruto went to follow but were stopped by their older counterparts who gave them warnings about the future.
"Dark and difficult times are coming, as you've already seen. You cannot change them, but this will at least help you to save as many people as possible." explained the Hokage, cryptically.
"No matter what happens next, at least you know that your futures come off well." added older Sakura. Our Sakura nodded and took the same route as Sasuke and I did, screaming:
"Hurry up, Naruto!" Naruto stepped on the window ceil and went to jump, but felt a hand on his shoulder. He paused, turned and saw my older counterpart had come up behind him and was staring at him fondly.
"And a little word of advice for what happens next when you find me. Don't ask too many questions." she said, almost as cryptically as the Hokage's advice was. A glint of gold attracted Naruto's attention and he looked down to see a wedding band on older Akima's finger. He looked over at the Hokage, who gave him the thumbs up and Naruto also saw that he would be wearing a wedding band too.
"Hey are you two married?" Naruto asked his older self, but found himself talking to vast blackness.
"God damn it! That's so annoying!" he said, angrily. Then sprinted off to find me.