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There was something dripping down onto his cheek, warm and wet. He forcibly pulled himself to complete consciousness and, as he opened his eyes, he was shocked to see his old teacher on his hands and knees above him. Iruka's face was contorted with pain. Naruto was shocked into stillness.

Naruto had seen this exact image before. He'd burned it into his memory. If he moved his head to the side just a little he could see…there. Mizuki, the bastard. The silver-headed sensei was standing not very far away, smirking. And there was that damn shuriken, protruding from Iruka's back. Was this a nightmare? Did his jutsu make him relive his memories in order to destroy them? He had never used it before, had had no reason to, so he couldn't be sure.

But…no. This memory had nothing to do with Sasuke. Just a nightmare, then. A little less alarmed, Naruto wondered for a moment. If he knew he was dreaming, could he live it out? Could he change how everything had happened? Just to see what could have been? Only until he woke up to reality again?

His thoughts were interrupted as the brunette teacher spoke.

"…I…With my parents gone…There was no one to praise or respect me…I was so lonely…I became the class clown…Anything to attract attention. I just wanted someone to notice how good I was…To be proud of me. Being the class clown…was still better than being a nobody. It…hurt so much."

Tears mixed with the blood on his cheek; both his own and Iruka's. It was the same. Down to the words, it was exactly the same as the memory that had changed his life.

"I know that, Naruto. I was so hard on you, yelling, scolding…It must have hurt. Forgive me. If I'd been a better teacher…a better self…maybe neither of us would have come to this." His sensei broke off with a soft sob. He seemed to wait for Naruto's answer. Naruto's heart broke again.

He gently climbed out from beneath Iruka's shaking body. For a moment, Naruto could see from the trepidation in Iruka's eyes that he expected Naruto to run, like he had done the first time. Instead, stepped up beside his teacher and gave a glare to Mizuki. The man, not knowing what he had seen in Naruto's eyes, shivered. To his credit, however, he did not move.

"Don't move, Sensei." Naruto gripped Mizuki's giant shuriken firmly and gave a sharp tug. He heard a low whimper from Iruka for a moment, but nothing else as the heavy weapon came free. The brunette teacher collapsed the moment the blade left his back. Pushing back the urge to help him up, adrenaline surged through his veins. Naruto turned once again to look at Mizuki and, expertly spinning the shuriken, threw it at him. He had the satisfaction of seeing shock and terror on the traitor's face as the blades passed not an inch from his face, embedding itself in the tree behind him up to the base of one of its blades and nearly penetrating through to the other side. He'd run too much chakra through it, it seemed, by force of habit.

Naruto didn't even bother to see what Mizuki would do in retaliation, instead opting to kneel down beside his sensei, who was paling from blood loss. Naruto put his hand on Iruka's back, inciting a shiver of discomfort, and ran his chakra through the wound using a simple healing jutsu to close it along with the other numerous kunai wounds distributed along his body. That was when he started to feel strange. He felt a little light-headed, a symptom of what he suspected to be chakra loss.

Why? It was a simple jutsu, simpler than most he knew, at least. Not to mention, he shouldn't feel anything of the like in a dream. Then he saw his hand. He stared at it in confusion, his mind suddenly buffeted with thoughts that led to an impossible conclusion.

The hand was smaller than his own; a child's hand.

Then the scars along his right arm, peeking from beneath his orange jacket.

They were recent.

Then he noticed the pain.

He'd cut himself on the shuriken.

There was no pain in dreams.

It wasn't a dream.

He shivered. How?

The jutsu. I messed up.

He wrapped his arms around himself. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Iruka-sensei. He looked worried. He was on his knees, Naruto was standing. Their eyes were on the same level.

Somehow. Impossibly. He was a child again.

His mind screamed out the unlikelihood of this happening and… his heart cried out for the chance that this truly was reality. The two parts of him battled and baffled him, leaving him dazed and breathless, unable to register anything clearly. But another part of him, the feral part that had lived with him since he'd been a child, sensed danger.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mizuki. His other shuriken was in his hand. He had murder in his eyes. Iruka was in between Naruto and the traitor. Time moved slowly.

He pushed Iruka to the side, stealing a kunai from his teacher's weapons pouch to use with the same movement, as he remembered that academy students weren't allowed to carry weapons and his own pouch would hold nothing. Kunai in hand, Naruto formed the seal for the Kagebunshin jutsu. He did not summon them into plain sight but into the trees above Mizuki, nor did he shout out what technique he was using like the idiot he had been when he was a child, which was apparently a time in his life that Fate was having him relive. He darted forward, not as fast as he would have liked, and awkwardly as he realized just how slow he'd been as a child, but fast enough for him to surprise Mizuki and make him hesitate in throwing his shuriken. Using that gap in the traitor's defenses, Naruto dodged under the former sensei's reach and used the kunai to precisely cut into the man's right leg's tendon.

The man screamed in agony and began to collapse, dropping his shuriken, but Naruto's two Kagebunshin appeared easily behind him, one grabbing Mizuki around his neck in such a way that the only thing keeping him standing on his uninjured leg was the fear of having his neck snapped. The other Kagebunshin held his replicated kunai against the back of the man's head, whereas the original held his kunai not inches away from the man's right eye, letting him stare down the point of it. Naruto spoke words easily reminiscent of the ones he had first spoken, although a bit more harshly:

"If you ever harm Iruka-sensei again, do not think I won't kill you."

With that said, the two kagebunshin disappeared in twin 'poofs' and left Mizuki in a huddled mess on the ground, shivering and crying from the recognition that his life had been that close to being ended. Naruto turned as if without a care in the world and went back to his sensei's side. The man was staring, stupefied, at Naruto. He was leaning against one of the bigger trees in the clearing. Naruto recognized it as the same one that Iruka had given him his own hitai-ate under. Though he doubted that would happen now, since there were a lot of questions his sensei would want answered. But then again, Iruka had always managed to surprise him.

Iruka smiled. "Naruto, come here. I've got a present for you."

The blond's eyes widened. "You don't-"

His sensei shook his head. "I'll ask questions later. Come here."

Naruto sat in front of his sensei cross-legged without complaint. "Close your eyes, Naruto." He did as he was told. He felt his sensei reach around his head, felt the cloth of his sensei's headband tied into a steadfast knot. Without opening his eyes, Naruto reached up to feel the metal plate that now rested on his forehead. "You can open your eyes now, Naruto." He did so, taking his hand down at the same time. He stared at Iruka, who was smiling at him.

"Thank you. You don't know how much this means to me." Naruto was still overwhelmed by his situation. What was happening to him?

Iruka adopted a puzzled expression at the uncharacteristically calm reply to his action. "Naruto? Are you all right?"

Naruto's face grew dark. He opened his mouth and then shut it then he opened it again, as if he couldn't figure out how to voice what he needed to say.

"I-…You-…We need to talk to the Hoka-" Naruto's eyes widened, reflecting the rising sun in front of him. "Kami! Fuck! The Hokage!" Naruto jumped up suddenly, surprising his teacher who jumped up with him, albeit a bit more stiffly than he normally would have.

"Naruto! What is it?" Iruka sensei asked, alarmed. He glanced over at Mizuki who'd long since passed out. Naruto flashed him the brightest grin he'd seen in ages. It filled his eyes.

"He's alive! The old man's alive!"

"Well, yeah, Naruto. As far as I know, he's been alive for quite some time-Naruto!" Iruka shouted. Naruto ran. It was just now dawn and any ninja below chuunin level and the villagers were just now beginning to rise. Everyone else had been roused by Naruto's midnight romp. He sensed a few of them following him; he could even feel Kakashi-sensei. The silver-haired sensei was hopping from roof to roof not far behind him. Naruto had a sudden thought and stopped just as quickly. He smiled. What would happen if he called the man by the title 'Sensei', he wondered? He'd probably have Naruto thrown into an asylum.

"Hatake-san!" He called, waiting for the man to show himself. Kakashi had stilled but did not move from his hiding place on the far side of the roof. "Come on. I know you're there. Ah, well. I just left Iruka-sensei and that bastard Mizuki in a clearing a little east of the northernmost training grounds. Iruka-sensei's uninjured but you might want to check him out anyway; I'm not sure if my jutsu was enough to completely heal the injuries. Mizuki has a cut tendon and is probably mentally unstable right now, so you should be careful around him. I'm just taking this scroll back to old man Hokage." He gestured at the scroll on his back.

Kakashi stepped out from the shadows and gave him a glance-over, along with a wary nod. Naruto grinned at him cheekily, and, having finally, successfully confused the man, he jumped to the next roof on his way to the hokage's office, where the old man was sure to be. He felt Kakashi's chakra head towards the area he'd directed.

At least one of them trusts me, if only a little. Or maybe he's just worried about Iruka-sensei. There are enough Jounin following me that I'm not too big of a worry anyway, I guess. The prankster part of him wanted to teach the whole of Konoha just how much of a ruckus he could cause if he wanted. He ignored the urge.

He reached the Hokage tower's roof shortly and, grabbing the edge of it, swung in through the already open window, as if it had been prepared just for him, into the hokage's office. He looked around at the semi-lit room seeing everything as it had been before Tsunade had been named hokage. He'd almost forgotten how it had looked. The desk sat in the middle of the room facing a closed door, away from the window. There were two comfortable-looking beige cloth couches on either side of the room, pushed against the wall, and there were two chairs of the same color and fabric sitting on the opposite side of the desk as the large burgundy, leather chair where the hokage sat. But there were no papers scattered across the room, nor was there the underlying smell of booze. The chair was facing away from him, towards the door, but there was someone sitting in it, and that someone knew Naruto was in the room. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been fit to be the Hokage.

"Old man." He said in a soft voice, trying to keep it smooth.

"I told you! Do not call me that, Gaki!" the hokage spun around in his chair. But if he'd been expecting Naruto to just stand there, glaring at him for the nickname 'gaki' and ready to start a fight, he was wrong. Very wrong.

Naruto stood in front of him, yes, but he wasn't trying to start a fight. A few tears rolled down his cheeks even as he smiled. He dashed forward so quickly, Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't know what was coming until he felt the boy's body connect with his and he had a head full of blond hair buried in his neck. He glanced at the two Anbu in the corners of the room, who had come behind Naruto with kunai in their hands in the second he'd rushed at the Hokage, and motioned them off. They left the room, taking the scroll Naruto had dropped on the floor with them.

"You didn't have to send them off." Naruto stepped away from him and wiped his eyes in one movement. He looked at Sarutobi with happy eyes. The man gave him a pseudo-innocent 'What are you talking about?' look, but Naruto shook his head with a small smile. The Hokage adopted a confused look.

"I'll explain. We just need to wait for Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-sensei to get here-"

"Already done, and since when am I your sensei?" an irritated voice sounded behind him. Kakashi leant against the frame of the window he himself had come in only moments ago. Iruka was just climbing into the window, he looked better and was walking much less stiffly than he would have been had he been injured still. Naruto breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. Sarutobi seemed unperturbed to see all his visitors use his office window like a front door.

"That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. First, where'd you take Mizuki?"

"That's not something you need to know." Kakashi's visible eye gleamed. He probably didn't like being questioned by a child. Naruto sighed. He wasn't a child. But they didn't know that.

"Fine, be that way, but unless you want a major prison breakout sometime in the future, which he'll probably manage even with a cut tendon, keep him away from contact with the brothers Fuujin and Raijin. And, before you ask, I will explain what I know of the situation. If that's okay with you, Gramps." Naruto looked at the old man who gave a nod.

"Sit down, then. It's a long story." Naruto walked to the chair to the right of the desk and practically fell into it. He was tired, but he needed to explain. Iruka sat next to him in the other chair, but Kakashi remained standing behind Sarutobi, who turned his chair around to face his desk once again.

Naruto was thinking over his words for a moment before speaking, when something occurred to him. "Well, actually, it's probably not that long a story. I have a feeling that if I tried to tell you everything, it would mess something up bad. Just suffice to say that, in the time I'm coming from, you're dead, Old Man." The Hokage's eyes widened considerably.

Kakashi looked skeptical. "You mean to say that you're from a different time period."

The fact that this was coming from a child who was well-known, if not well-liked, among all the villagers and ninja, made what Naruto was saying sound like total bull. He knew it, but he'd have to convince them he was telling the truth. Ha! He doubted they'd ever believe him totally, even if they bought his story for the moment.

Naruto nodded. "From this time period's future, I'm guessing. I'm not quite sure on the exact details, but, one moment I was there, and now I'm here. And you can't bring the dead back to life. Nor can this be a Genjutsu; I would know if it was. No one can reenact my past as perfectly as it happened in the forest with Iruka and Mizuki. It was the same. Down to the exact words that were used. Only Madara, Itachi, or Sasuke Uchiha could manage it, and the first two were both dead in my time last I checked. I killed Madara myself. Sasuke wouldn't have used something like this on me and he killed Itachi." He ignored the fact that Sasuke had been dead, too.

The three of them were staring at him.

"How do you know this?" Iruka asked slowly.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "No offense Sensei, but didn't I just tell you? The only possible thing that could have happened is that I messed up my sealing jutsu. I left out something, I don't know what but-"

Maybe it was the blood? The sudden voice of the Kyuubi popped into his head, making him flinch. Then he thought over the words.

"Of course!" The three other inhabitants of the room jumped at the outburst. Naruto palmed his forehead. The three of them looked at him strangely, but he ignored them.

I'm such an idiot. The blood could have caused the intentions of the seal to shift depending on what Sasuke thought when he…well... I can't believe I forgot. Why didn't you stop me then?

I was just as absorbed in Sasuke's death as you were. If you'll remember, I'm in your mind. I feel your feelings. But, truly Kit, is this really a bad thing?

I don't know. I need time to think.

"Sorry, I was thinking to myself." Naruto said, trying to ease the suspicions of the Hokage, Iruka, and Kakashi as he cut off his conversation with Kyuu. He suddenly noticed Kakashi looking him over, gauging his reactions, trying to tell if he was telling the truth. It didn't bother Naruto. If he were them, he wouldn't believe him either. He himself noticed that he was taking it all amazingly well, but he just needed to prove the situation to them. And maybe he was just in shock. Yeah, that was probably it.

"If you don't believe me, I can prove I'm from a future period."

"Ok. Prove it." Kakashi said. He and Naruto locked stares.

"You are a holder of the bloodline limit Sharingan which, at this point, is only the three tomoe version."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, as if asking Naruto if that was really all he had to prove himself to them. "You can't do any better than that? That's information you can find in a detailed bingo book." The man said with a drawl.

But Naruto had to think. He couldn't just tell them about something that was going to happen and wait for it to happen to prove the truth of his words. They would detain him and keep him under watch until then, and he couldn't afford to be under watch. He really wasn't sure what would happen if he told them too much. Either way, looking into his sensei's eyes, he could tell that he hadn't convinced the man yet.

"Let's see. Have the events between Konoha, the Hyuuga clan, and the Lightening country become open to the public yet?" He directed the question at the Hokage, and as he saw wide eyes, Naruto knew that the Hokage had been convinced by just the notion that he had such knowledge. But Kakashi still was not.

"No, they haven't." Sarutobi answered.

"Well, long story short Hyuuga Hizashi gave his life in his brother's place in repayment to the Lightening country after Hiashi killed a delegate who was trying to abduct his daughter, Hyuuga Hinata. Ever since then, the two branches of the clan have gotten even more hostile towards each other. Neji, Hizashi's son, still believes that the Lightening country demanded his father as the repayment whereas the actual price was the body of Hiashi."

"You've had contact with Hinata and Neji at the academy, Naruto. Either of them could have told you." Iruka said. Naruto knew he was trying to believe him, but he also had to make sure that Naruto wasn't an intruder here in Konoha with ill intentions. He looked like Naruto, but from his actions against Mizuki, it was easy to tell he wasn't the Naruto they, minus Kakashi, knew.

"Neither of them knew at this point in time. Nor did I have enough contact with them for them to trust me enough to tell me if they did." Naruto replied.

"That's true. Hiashi himself came to me and told me that he would not tell either of them until he thought they would be ready for the truth."

Naruto rolled his eyes. The Hyuuga head was going to have problems with Neji within a year or two. He almost sighed in irritation. He supposed he'd have to deal with that again in this timeline. Once Neji had gotten over his little 'fate' thing, he'd gotten infinitely more tolerable and had been a trustworthy friend.

"Kakashi, there is no way for him to have known that, especially if he was a spy. The only people who know and knew about it are Hiashi, Hizashi, who is dead, and myself. Everyone else believes as Naruto claimed Neji does, that the Lightening country demanded Hizashi as the payment and not Hiashi." The Hokage confirmed.

Sure enough, when he looked into Kakashi's eyes, any light of skepticism had vanished and, as Naruto looked around, he couldn't see any suspicion from the other two. When Naruto's gaze finally settled on Sarutobi, his first thought was that the man looked tired. Naruto was sad to be the cause of such a look, but he was still glad to be able to see the man. Hopefully he wouldn't have to see the man die again, either

"What do we do, then?" The Hokage asked.

"You don't have to worry too much about it. I think…" Naruto paused and really thought about his options for a few minutes. The one thing that kept popping up in his mind was one of his dearest wishes. He smiled softly. "I will just try to keep everyone I care for alive for now. Like I said, I'm not sure how much I can tell you, but I'll tell you what I can, when I can. Now, can I see the team match-ups you've prepared for the Academy graduates, Gramps?"

"Stop calling me that, damn it!" Sarutobi said even as he pulled out the list. Naruto looked it over and, grinning as he saw it was the same, he handed it to Kakashi.

"What'd I tell you, Sensei?" he said smugly.

Kakashi quickly found his name on the list and shook his head in amazement. Below his own bolded name were three more:

Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke

"Oh, and one thing, Sensei. Don't change the test just because I know what it is. It's very important to the way our team works together. Just think of me as an especially talented student. I won't know your every move. And right now I can barely use half the jutsu I know 'cause I don't have nearly the chakra reserves I did… er… will have…Agh! Damn it! That's irritating! I don't know which tense to use!" He scowled.

Iruka chuckled lightly, already somewhat used to the situation. "We'll just have to help you whenever we can. Besides, I understand why you can't tell us anything. Your just being here has affected what happens next."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about. I don't know if I've done any good, or if I've just made everything twenty times worse just by coming back by accident. I don't even know if I can go back… though I most certainly wouldn't want to." He mumbled the last part, but the other three all caught it and exchanged glances as his head was down. They didn't comment on it.

Sarutobi spoke in a smooth, calming voice. "As Iruka has said, we will help you whenever we can, Naruto, and whenever you need it."

Naruto nodded.

"Thank you. And, if I've messed things up, I'm sorry."

"You haven't." the Hokage told him firmly. They met eyes. Naruto broke their gaze, but, now somewhat resolved, Naruto nodded again. He turned towards the door and looked back at the other three, who were now framed by the light of the morning sun behind them.

"I'll see you later then, Iruka-sensei, old man. I don't think I'm up to going to the academy today, but I'll 'meet' you tomorrow, Kakashi-sensei. I'm going to my house. It's overdue for a good cleaning if I remember how I kept it when I was this age." He walked out the door with a good feeling, something resembling, happiness, or maybe hope. He couldn't be sure. He hadn't felt it for a long time.