10

Naruto was at the front gates at five-thirty the next morning. He walked his way up the wall to the left of the gate, while making sure to deactivate the seals that would have acted as screeching alarms to a presence on the wall otherwise. He sat atop it once he made his way there. He pondered the fact that they hadn't changed the chakra codes to the alarms since this time. To him, it was a blaring security gap. He'd have to bring it up with Sarutobi when they got back.

Half an hour later, at the time the team was supposed to meet, Sasuke and Sakura arrived, with Tazuna in tow. Naruto stayed atop the wall, in the shadows he'd picked the spot for to begin with. For a second, he thought Sasuke's eyes had almost caught him, but a moment later, the raven shook his head and went back to stolidly ignoring Sakura, who Naruto noticed wasn't talking quite as much as usual, surprisingly.

Five minutes later, as Kakashi had to be late by some amount of time, Kakashi dropped onto the wall next to him. Naruto didn't so much as blink.

"So are you going to make an entrance or just hide up here?" his sensei asked.

"Aa…I don't feel like moving. I'll just come down when you guys are about to leave."

"Suit yourself."

"Yeah, well, hurry up. I want this mission over and done with."

Kakashi pulled an affronted look. "Such disrespect from a student to show his teacher." He said dramatically.

Naruto smiled slightly. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Kakashi-sensei. Please accept my humblest apologies." He bowed as far as he could without tumbling down off the wall. Kakashi shook his head and jumped down to join the three on the ground.

"You're late!" Sakura immediately yelled and pointed her finger at Kakashi.

"Yes, yes, road of life and all that…" Sasuke interrupted as Kakashi's mask moved, signaling he was about to give a random excuse. From what Naruto could see and hear, Kakashi said something about cruel students and pouted.

"Where's the squirt?" Tazuna asked. "We should be leaving soon."

"Oh, he's been here…" Kakashi paused and looked up at Naruto. "How long have you been here, Naruto?"

The blond jumped down off the wall and answered without pause. "Five-thirty."

"Why would you come so early?" Sakura asked. Not with vehemence or anything, for once it was just a question.

"I woke up early. Sensei, can we leave now?" Naruto saw the other three staring at him. He didn't feel like explaining how he'd actually woken from a bad dream, or rather a replay of bad memories at two o'clock that morning and had been scared to go back to sleep. Imagine that, an ANBU captain, afraid to sleep. Of course, Naruto supposed, he was in a rather unique situation.

Seeing that Naruto wasn't in the best of moods, despite his joking attitude earlier, Kakashi briefly re-explained the mission to them and then they were off.

Naruto kept to himself, bringing up the back of the group, while the rest walked up next to Tazuna. Naruto scanned the ground, looking for the tell-tale puddle. No matter how skilled Naruto was, he couldn't stop himself from thinking how everything had gone to hell the first time around. Sure, they'd managed to get themselves out alive the first time around, but if ANBU had taught him anything, it was to expect the unexpected. So he walked and tried to remember exactly what had happened.

They'd been walking along at a moderate pace, Naruto and Sasuke arguing as usual. Kakashi had just finished explaining to them the different leaders of the other shinobi territories, but he'd been somewhat reserved for the past few minutes and Sakura and Tazuna were just listening to the boys fight, Sakura having given up on defending Sasuke a while ago. That's when things shattered like a hammer taken to glass.

When Naruto had turned around, he'd been just in time to see the bladed chains wrap around his sensei. He'd nearly died inside, seeing the chains cut his sensei to pieces, yet there was a niggling suspicion in his mind. Then the two men appeared behind him, chains flying- and he froze. The look in their eyes. They wanted blood. It was just like-

Naruto shook his head, mentally shooing his thoughts away. That wasn't what he needed to worry about. No. What he needed to worry about was the fact that it had rained. The air around this area was still humid with the moisture in the air, the sky was still overcast, and his shoes were covered in wet mud. It had been nice and dry back in Konoha, but it had rained here not long ago.

Now, the problem wasn't with the rain itself, no, that wasn't it. The first time they'd been on this mission, the main reason Kakashi had been able to foresee the attack by the mist ninja was that it hadn't rained in days and he'd spotted the puddle on the ground. Now, even this wasn't a true problem; Naruto would still be able to sense them when they attacked. But the mere fact that it had rained meant that this timeline was different than the one he'd come from. Either that, or he'd just proven to himself that his words, and probably even his very existence in this timeline, had affected the way things would proceed. And this fact meant that Naruto would have to very careful what he did and said from now on.

Suddenly, he heard it.

Naruto was suddenly on full alert. He whistled sharply and Kakashi immediately had a kunai out and was crouched in front of Tazuna. Tazuna, Sasuke, and Sakura looked around, confused at the sudden stances of Naruto and Kakashi.

Naruto ignored them as Kakashi took charge and told them to protect Tazuna. He listened carefully and calmed his breathing. This would be his first real fight since coming to this time, and his heart was racing. He heard the sound again and his heart skipped a beat. The sound of metal on metal, that of chains. The Demon Brothers were here, and from the sounds of it, there were more than just two brothers this time around. There were at least six enemy ninja.

"Sensei, there are six."

"Got it." Kakashi called back.

"What's happening, Kakashi?" Tazuna asked loudly.

"Quiet!" Naruto said. The next moment, four shapes darted out at them, three surrounding Naruto and he had the sudden urge to copy his teacher. As the chains of the three surrounded him, Naruto quickly used one of his clones with a replacement technique and the chains cut his clone to ribbons. When the memories of the clone came back to him, he shivered involuntarily. It wasn't a pleasant experience, being sliced up.

"Naruto!" Sasuke and Sakura shouted.

When he flared his chakra just slightly, Kakashi looked up into the copse of trees he hid in and glared at him. Naruto grinned, even though Kakashi couldn't see it and he jumped down to take out the actual Demon Brothers who were still hidden.

xXx

Kakashi watched in horror as Naruto was torn apart in front of his eyes. He heard the twin cries of "Naruto" from beside him and he glared murderously at the three ninja's whose bladed chains had cut through his pupil's body. It was then that he felt the small, familiar flare of Naruto's chakra from up in the trees off to his right. It wasn't big enough for the enemy ninja to find, only him.

Damn this pupil from the future…gonna be the death of me. But, gotta hand it to him, it's exactly what I would do. I assume he's trying to get Tazuna to tell us that this isn't as low a mission level as he told the Hokage. It's a good thing Naruto already knows what happened-but, wait- I thought he said that we were attacked by the Demon Brothers only! There're back-ups with them!

Kakashi was distracted from this line of thought as the four ninja attacked them. It was blatantly obvious as he tried to lure them away from his two other students and Tazuna that they were after the bridge-builder; they kept trying to get around him to get to him, or maybe-

He knocked one unconscious easily, with one blow, but then two came after him simultaneously, tying up his hands (A/N: not literally) and leaving the fourth one for his other two students to deal with.

xXx

Sasuke almost went running at the three ninja after he saw Naruto get…but when he looked at the remains not a second later, he realized that Naruto must have used a replacement jutsu, because there was nothing there; no body, no blood, no anything.

He was gonna hit Naruto when the blond came out of his hiding place.

Sasuke saw his sensei deal a knock-out blow to one of the ninja, whose body dropped like a bag full of rocks. The other two came at the one-eyed sensei from either side, leaving the last one to come at them. Looking slightly to his left, Sasuke could see his pink-haired teammate shaking. Tazuna looked like he was about to piss his pants.

I suppose I'll have to deal with him, then.

Pulling out a kunai and prepping his throwing shuriken, he jumped in front of Tazuna and Sakura and threw the kunai at the ninja, who knocked it aside with his claws and kept coming at them. Having expected this, Sasuke threw two of his shuriken, pulling the wires whose ends he held in his hands around the ninja. After the wires crossed in mid-air, Sasuke maneuvered the wires around a tree not far behind the attacker and pulled the wires tight, taking an off-guard ninja with them against the tree. Pulling the wire to his teeth, Sasuke performed the hand signs and then brought the first two fingers of both hands together on the wire.

"Ryuuka no Jutsu!" He said through gritted teeth as he let his chakra flow through the wire in the form of low heat flames. Just as the chakra hit the opponent, Sasuke cut of the supply of chakra to the flames, stopping the jutsu as well. No use in killing your attacker if you can find out why he's after you. But all his hair would take a while to grow back.

xXx

Naruto snuck up on the Demon Brothers pretty easily, but, as he went to knock them both out, he found out why. As he struck them both blows to the head, they both disappeared, leaving two puddles of water in their wake. He immediately tensed and spread out his senses to find them again. The two clones had felt like actual people when he'd sensed their chakra and it was times like this when he wished he had the Sharingan. He gathered up his natural energy and eased his body into sage mode.

Using the chakra from all around him was still hard on his body, since he wasn't quite used to it yet, so he couldn't use it very often, but, if he wanted to find the Demon Brothers again, he'd have to. His normal senses couldn't pick an original from a bunch of clones. Hell, when he'd been this age, he couldn't pick himself out of his own clones.

Mist Nin and their fucking water clones. I wonder if that's how my opponents all felt when I used my clones that way…

Then he found them again. As Kakashi was picking off the two ninja who came after him and Sasuke was walking back to Sakura and Tazuna after taking care of his opponent rather easily, the Demon Brothers were making their way through the waterlogged ground behind them. But there was something odd about their movement.

They were splitting up. It was hard to tell, because they technically weren't really bodies. They were traveling through the water by chakra, almost like a current through a metal wire. But Naruto could tell they were splitting up, and as far as he could tell, that wasn't a good thing. One was going towards Sasuke and one was going towards Tazuna and Sakura. What confused him was why one of them was going after Sasuke.

Why the hell would their target be Sasuke? Naruto raged.

Naruto jumped from what had been the hiding place of the brothers' to behind Sasuke, Sakura, and Tazuna, so that he was between them and the brothers. Ignoring the cries of surprise from their client and his squad, he knelt and placed his hands on the ground and released some of the natural chakra he'd gathered.

"Kaze Kakuheki!" (A/N: literally "Wind Barrier Wall") He called.

With a sharp howl, a visible stream of air whipped past him and around the area the brothers were in. It formed a huge, cylindrical wall around them and forced them to cancel their own water traveling jutsu. They stood warily watching Naruto, and he could see the horror in their eyes as they watched the wall slowly converge on them forcing them to step back towards each other until they were standing back to back with the wall not inches from them. Naruto could hear that all motion had stopped behind him and could barely hear a breath, but he didn't care.

This had been the first jutsu he'd worked on once he'd started practicing his chakra control after he'd been sent back to this time. Next to the Rasengan and Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, this jutsu had been the most invaluable during war time. The Kaze Kakuheki was a jutsu of his own creation which, as was obvious, created a barrier of wind around the target. What was not obvious, however, was that nothing could hope to touch the barrier, inside or out, without being torn to shreds, unless he willed it. During the war, he'd used this technique many a time to capture and incapacitate a great number of enemies at a time.

It was normally unstable when used with natural chakra, but he didn't have enough regular chakra to use it yet, and his practice with it over the last month had helped a lot. He slowly stood up and performed three more hand-signs and said in a quiet voice as he held out a hand:

"Kuuhaku."(A/N: literally "Vacuum") He closed his fist, a gesture easily reminiscent of Gaara's sand burial.

The top of the barrier closed off and Naruto felt a soft breeze as the air inside the barrier was slowly expelled. The two ninjas panicked as they felt their air being stolen. They scrabbled at the wall, which Naruto had dulled in foresight of their reaction. He didn't want to kill them. Yet.

As the air was pulled from their lungs, it was only a matter of seconds before they were passed out against the wind barrier. Naruto dropped the jutsu and they fell to the ground as the escaping heated air rose into the atmosphere. Naruto knelt to the ground and tied the brothers' hands before searching them, not turning to see his team's expressions. He released the natural chakra from his body, slumping from the effort he'd exerted.

He found some soldier pills, which he pocketed, and four different technique scrolls, with which he did the same. There were no directive scrolls, so Naruto could only assume that they had memorized their mission orders. After seeing this fact, Naruto quickly divested the two of the weapons in plain sight and the poison that they used on their claws, making sure to note that they had no antidote on them (which likely meant that there was no known antidote). Once he did this, he laid them out orderly and unrolled a scroll he pulled from the pouch at his side. He carefully stored the items in the scroll for later inspection and/or use; a habit he'd gained from both the war and ANBU. Never let your enemies' weapons go to waste.

It was only then that he turned around. By this time, it was apparent that Kakashi had finished up with his fight, as he was dragging them into a pile next to the one Sasuke had taken out, who was still tied to the tree, twitching and slightly smoking. Sasuke and Sakura were standing next to Tazuna, who was sitting down with his back against a tree not far from their sensei. Naruto summoned a clone and directed him to pick up the brother on the right while he did the same with the brother on the left and they took the two over to the pile, where Kakashi stood waiting for him.

"That was impressive." He said.

Naruto let out a tired chuckle. "Yeah, well. Didn't really have time to plan out something more low-key. If I'd let them get any further, I would've had to choose which one to go after. They were splitting up."

"I wish I'd been able to copy those two jutsu." Kakashi said wistfully.

Naruto looked up, suddenly cheered, after he dumped his load on the ninja pile. "You mean you didn't see it."

Kakashi shook his head, looking downtrodden. "I didn't see the signs you used."

"Yay! I still have an original to my name!"

Kakashi's eyebrow rose. "What do you mean?"

Naruto smiled. "Back in my time, you knew every jutsu I did, until I came up with some of my own. Those two and my Rasen Shuriken were about the only ones you didn't know."

"You made those two?" Kakashi asked, surprised.

Naruto nodded his head exuberantly, proud of his creations. "When I was sixteen, just after I learned sage tech."

Kakashi nodded, proud of his student. "Well, what do you say we question these guys later. We need to talk to Tazuna, first. I assume we will continue with the mission."

"Yeah, the mission needs to go on, but I actually want to talk to these guys by myself first. You go ahead and question Tazuna. Can you get Sasuke and Sakura to agree to continue with the mission?"

"Oh, Naruto-kun! You wound me!"Kakashi said dramatically with a playful glint in his eyes.

"Alright, alright. Of course you can." Naruto said, shaking his head softly while grinning. "I'll be back soon, then. I'll leave one of my clones with you and two in replacement for the brothers so they don't wonder where I've gone and why I've taken two of our attackers with me."

"Alright."

Making sure none of the three at the tree not too far away from them were looking at them-and they weren't; they were talking amongst themselves-, Naruto quickly summoned two clones and disguised them as the brothers while a third clone help him carry the real ones away and the original clone that he'd never released stayed with Kakashi. Watching for a moment, Naruto saw the two of them walk over to the other three before pulling back further into the woods.

It was time for a question and answer session.