AN: hi all, Argh! This chapter just did not want to get written. Sorry it took so long, I was busy with preparations for my little sister's wedding and was also suffering from a case of writer's block. Unfortunately whenever I tried to sit down and write this chapter, my attention would be pulled away by the next chapter and I would get nothing done, stupid pushy Uchiha. Any who, here it is hope you, enjoy and look Kurama's here yay! Oh by the way, lots and lots of spoilers this chapter, sorry.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; I just think he's awesome.

Warning: May contain spoilers and/or clichés, if you are bothered or offended by either; why are you reading fanfiction?

'thinking'

"speaking"

jutsu

demon speak

Chapter 11.

Over the next three months Naruto was never more thankful for a spontaneous decision than he was for the impulse to invite Lee to train with him every morning. Though he had to adjust the intensity of his morning workout to accommodate Lee, he was able to compensate by intensifying his mid-morning and night training and even so it did not take Lee very long to catch up as his natural robustness kicked in.

This slight inconvenience was mitigated, however, by the physiological benefit that Lee's friendship provided to the stressed out time-traveller, their friendship very quickly falling into the easy camaraderie that Naruto had always enjoyed with Lee. A friendship based on a mutual desire for self-improvement through friendly competitiveness with no overtones of jealousy and only an honest wish for the other to do well also. Lee's continual encouragement for Naruto to "do his best" and celebrations when he did so, soothed the youth's hidden confidence issues that he would be strong enough to make a positive change in the futures of both his friends and the village.

Once Lee was able to keep up with Naruto's original morning training routine he finally deemed his friend ready to try and attract the attention of Gai-sensei. Naruto had mixed feelings about this, not wanting to lose his training partner, but he knew how important Might Gai was to his friend in the future and so he did not want to jeopardise that relationship for his friend.

He did not anticipate, however, how hard it would be to convince Lee to even make the attempt. "Look all you have to do is train after school at Training Ground Nine. Might Gai is in the village at the moment on leave and that is his favourite training field. It shouldn't take too long to attract his attention," explained Naruto for the fifth time.

"But it just seems so deceitful Naruto, could I not just approach Might Gai and beg him to train me?" asked Lee still unsure.

"You can do that too, but you need to gain his attention first. Look, Might Gai is all about strength and commitment; you need to show him how dedicated you are. I'm not telling you to deceive him in any way; in fact I would definitely try not to do so, as the man values honesty over everything else. All you will be doing is training there in the hope of gaining his attention. Don't hide anything from him if he asks you about your training or why you want him in particular as a teacher, that way he will definitely take you on." Naruto patiently explained.

True to his words it only took three days of afternoon training for Lee to attract Might Gai's attention and only a week after that for the man to take him on as a student.

"We can only train when he is in the village of course and I must attend the Academy still and score as best as I can. But Naruto he says there is no reason why I cannot still be a splendid ninja even if I cannot use chakra! Can you believe it?" babbled Lee excitedly as he told his friend the good news.

"Of course I can Lee, did I not tell you so the first time we met?" asked Naruto indulgently as he beamed in happiness for his good friend.

"Oh but Naruto Gai-sensei wishes for me to train with him not only after school but also every morning." A frown appeared on Lee's face as he remembered this only for it to disappear moments later as he continued excitedly, "Perhaps you could join us. I am sure Gai-sensei would not mind and I know how much you admire him as you have told me so yourself."

Naruto thought about the offer for a moment before rejecting it, "It's all right Lee, I do not want to take Gai-sensei's attention away from you. I still have half a year before I start Ninja Academy and I know this early training is important for ninja who choose to specialise in Taijutsu. Any way I am thinking of specialising in Ninjutsu myself as my chakra reserves are quite large and I have my eye on another teacher. But that doesn't mean that we can no longer train together, your Gai-sensei will be out of the village on missions all the time after all and we can train together then. We can even have a competition to see who can learn something new by the time we train together again and perhaps share any new skills that we think could help the other, what do you say?"

"Yosh! That sounds like a most excellent plan my friend. As Gai-sensei says, I can see that your flames of youth burn very bright. Thank you my friend!" Lee exclaimed as he bowed before him in gratitude for all his help.

Naruto really didn't want to mess too much with the timeline when it pertained to his friend's development as individuals and he knew that the training during these first couple of years was really important to Lee as it helped cement his bond with his teacher and formed the core of his own personal nindo. Lee had told him as much a couple of months before the war broke out on an overnight mission to Rain. Being an orphan himself Naruto understood just how important this early training time was for Lee and didn't want to mess with it, that being said if training opportunities came up in a couple of years' time, he wouldn't be passing them up.

Naruto took great delight in Lee's progress over the next couple of months as the personality quirks that defined his long-lost friend began to make themselves known. Though he was forced to question if he had done the right thing when only two months later Lee turned up at their meeting spot sporting the skin-tight, dark green training suit and the trademark bowl haircut he would be later known for. He reassured himself with the thought that it just would not be Rock Lee without them.

Naruto was surprised by how reassuring it was to once more have access to his jutsu, as he had previously been unaware of how much of his sense of identity was tied into his signature jutsu. Now that he had access to his clones once more he felt much less physically vulnerable and much more confident in his ability to affect positive change. It also opened up opportunities for training that he simply did not have time for before.

It took two weeks of nightly practising in his apartment for him to feel comfortable enough in his ability to use his clones outside. He soon learned that if he created only one clone then it would last for up to five hours as long as it did not engage in any strenuous activity. Naruto dubbed this clone as his c-class clone or classroom clone and it was this clone that attended Pre-Academy every morning.

By creating only one clone his chakra was split in half between himself and his clone, leading to a longer lasting clone which was slightly more durable. After resting for half an hour and eating an energy bar he made from a mixture of scavenged nuts, dried berries and honey, Naruto was able to recoup the lost chakra as if he had never split his chakra in half, allowing him to train at full capacity whilst his clone attended class.

Every morning he would henge himself into something inconspicuous, like a rock, in the privacy of his own home, and then his clone would carry his transformed-self outside and drop him off at the park on it's way to Pre-Academy. Once he was sure that his ANBU guard had followed his clone and no one else was in the vicinity, he would transform back and then make his way to his private training ground at the back of the Nara Clan grounds to train with his clones until it was time to swap once more with his classroom clone.

Through trial and error he realised, much to his disappointment, that he was only capable of creating thirty clones at a time with his current chakra levels and control, but this was more than enough as any more would not have fit into the limited space of the training ground. At first he dedicated this morning training time to chakra control exercises and refining the Academy three, or rather his versions of them, aiming for a soundless and smokeless creation by limiting the amount of extraneous chakra used in their execution.

At lunch time he would dispel all his training clones and once he had assimilated their memories, he would make his way back into the village to replace his c-class clone. He did not want to pass up the free lunch provided by the academy as it was still a vital source of food for him, and he also wanted to personally take part in the physical conditioning class that followed lunch as his clone would not withstand the strain and his physical body would receive no benefit even if it could.

Before he left to re-enter the village he would always make sure to create another thirty clones to continue training. One clone would be set to guard duty using it's sensing abilities to make sure no one discovered the secret training. Two more would be set to hunter/gather duty to provide meat, nuts and mushrooms to supplement his diet. The rest of the clones would be set to chakra control exercises and to dispelling, after creating their own replacements, at irregular intervals to train his ability to still function with randomly incoming memories. Pretty soon he wouldn't even flinch when a clone dispelled suddenly, though his earlier reactions gave him the reputation of being jumpy with his instructors which was recorded on his personal record.

In the evenings he would use his clones to further his studies whilst he himself tended to his rooftop garden. He was only able to have five clones studying at a time as he found that any more than that and the information would be too jumbled for him to understand, and any way no more would fit into his lounge room.

He soon discovered that the best results would occur when he tasked his clones to reading different scrolls and books about the same subject as his mind was better able to compartmentalise simular material and he gained a better understanding of the theory by being able to examine various viewpoints by various authors all at once. He had been slightly disappointed by this development as he had hoped to spam clones and learn everything at once as it would have been ultimately more "badass" but at least he was still able to get through the material five times as fast as before with better understanding.

Two months into his new training regime he added the basic Taijustu forms to the program as he now had someone, even though it was himself, to spot him so he knew he was correctly forming the stances. He knew from his early training how easy it was to fall into bad habits when you had no one to point out the flaws in your stance, this time he would be able to fix such faults before they had become imbedded in his style through repetitive practice. To this end he would create four clones to sit around him as he practiced and call out adjustments, when they dispelled he would go over their memories and make a list of all the things he would need to work on.

Naruto was also pleased that now he had clones he would be able to continue with his avoidance and flexibility training, which had stagnated as his hand built training rig had become too predictable, by having his clones throw rocks at his blindfolded figure. After a while Naruto began to wonder if he should be worried by how sadistic his clones were, particularly as he was knocked to the ground for the sixth time by a well-aimed rock to the back of his head.

"Why you!" he angrily exclaimed whilst he scrambled to his feet and stalked towards the hysterically laughing clone behind him, "Take this!" and he dispelled the disrespectful doppelganger with a fist to the face. "Be more careful next time," he grumbled as he created another clone and took his position once more in the centre of the training field, "Right let's do this!"

Soon enough it was his birthday once more and while he was nowhere near ready enough to fight anyone higher than a Genin in strength, he was as ready as he could make himself for what lay ahead in only four months' time.

Naruto's eighth birthday was almost a carbon copy of last years' with only the gifts marking a difference. Once more he spent the morning helping out at Ichiraku's making ramen and stirring the stock. Just before he left to meet Chishiki-san at the library, the old man and Ayame presented the grateful boy with forty-two vouchers for free ramen, extra-large portions. Beaming so hard it looked like his face would split in half; Naruto yelled his goodbye as he raced through the village, dodging civilians and ninjas, themselves busy setting up for the festival, as he went.

Once he reached the library he helped Chishiki-san shelve the various scrolls and books that had been returned that morning , all whilst he excitedly exclaimed over the techniques and theories he had been recently reading about to the indulgently listening head-librarian. After a wonderful lunch hand-made by Chishiki-san just that morning, Naruto was presented with possibly the best gift he had received in either timeline.

"It's not much Naruto-kun, in fact it is sightly worn, but I can think of no other who would appreciate it more." explained Chishiki with a slightly secretive smile as she gave the small, rectangular, cloth wrapped package to the boy.

Gently unwrapping the gift, Naruto froze in place as he uncovered a small green novel with the oh so familiar title. With a trembling hand Naruto traced the words embossed on the cover in gold leaf, The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja.

"Look inside Naruto-kun. This copy was donated to the library by the Fourth Hokage himself on the eve of his inauguration. He wrote a message in his own hand on the front cover." she explained to the shell-shocked boy.

With frantic hands Naruto pulled the book from the table towards himself and opened the front cover. 'To future followers of the Will of Fire, I leave to you this tale that inspired my own nindo. May you find the strength to protect that which you hold precious and the will to strive for peace. Remember to stay true to yourself, to never go back on your word and to never give up. Minato Namikaze, Yondaime Hokage.'

Tears streaming down his face Naruto gently set down the book on the table before launching himself at Chishiki-san, burying his face in her abdomen as he clung to her for dear life.

"Arigato Chishiki-san, Arigato."

After he had calmed down and secured his gift beneath his shirt he once more embraced the Head Librarian before bowing low before her, "You will never know how much your gift means to me Chishiki-san, thank you once again."

"You are most welcome Naruto and thank you." She replied as she ruffled his hair indulgently, "Now you had better go I am sure the Hokage is waiting for you."

"Hai!" Naruto yelled out smiling brightly and waving goodbye vigorously, "See you tomorrow."

Running through the village towards the Tower, Naruto made sure to keep one hand on the bundle beneath his shirt at all times so that he did not lose it.

Once more the Hokage had cleared his calendar to spend the afternoon and evening with his favourite ninja-hopeful.

"Ah, Naruto wonderful to see you dear boy. How was your morning? Did you have fun?" asked the Old Man jovially as he sat back and lit his pipe.

"Hai, it's been fantastic. I got some vouchers for ramen from Old Man Teuchi and Ayame and just look at what Chishiki-san gave me," Naruto exclaimed happily as he presented his newest most precious treasure for inspection.

"Oh my, that is indeed a most excellent gift Naruto; make sure that you take care of it." Hiruzen said impressed, "but now my gifts will pale in comparison I'm afraid."

"I'll love anything you give me, just cause it came from you Old Man, Believe it!" exclaimed Naruto as he put his book away.

"I'm sure you will," chuckled Hiruzen as he got up and approached the boy hiding one hand behind his back. He placed his other hand on Naruto's shoulder, causing the boy to look up into his eyes. "Eight years old today, that means that next year you will be starting Ninja Academy and as such you will have much more responsibility. That being so I feel that you are ready for this," and so saying the old man presented Naruto with a small, round gift wrapped in brown paper.

Smiling Naruto tore off the paper and exclaimed, "Gama-chan!" as he held the stuffed toad shaped purse high above his head with both hands. "Arigato Jiji!"

"This is not just a purse Naruto; this is the start of your independence. Inside is your allowance for the next month, with this you will be responsible for buying your own food and clothing from now on. At the end of the month I will give you some more for the next month and so on, but you must make sure not to spend it all at once. Do you think you can do this Naruto?" asked Hiruzen seriously.

"Hai Jiji, don't you worry and if I do it won't really matter as I can always find food or use what I have grown." Naruto reassured the old man; extremely happy that he now had access to ready funds he could now buy some better clothes and training equipment. The clothing assigned to him was getting a little tight and worn out as it was civilian grade and not really up to the strain of his daily training.

"That is true isn't it," chuckled the old man indulgently, "I also have this for you," he continued holding out an even smaller package also wrapped in brown paper, "It is from my most accomplished former student. I told him about your training with rocks as substitutes for weights and he made you this as a better alternative."

'Ouch that's pretty faint praise Jiji, considering your other students are either a snake obsessed traitor or an alcoholic gambler who always loses. Poor Ero-Sannin.' thought Naruto tsking to himself as he unwrapped the small gift. Inside he found two black wrist bands with red Uzumaki swirls painted in the middle.

"They may look like normal wrist bands but they hold a secret. My student is a sealing master and created these seals for training purposes, they are concealed beneath the decoration on the front. They are called resistance seals and they work by putting resistance on your whole body all at once, working all your muscles, as such it is a much more effective way of training than using simple weights. The seals are self-calibrating, which means that they will adjust to your current ability. All you do is slip them on and then send a burst of chakra into the seals, they will then measure your current strength and adjust the resistance to just above your current level so that it will feel like you are wadding through thick mud causing you to work all your muscles every time you move and thus making you stronger. To release the seals just form the Ram sign like so and pulse your chakra once more. Every time you turn the seals back on it will recalibrate so make sure to turn them off at least once a week and move around normally for one whole day so you can get used to moving without them on." Hiruzen explained whilst Naruto curiously examined the wristbands before putting them on.

"Thanks Jiji!" he exclaimed as he sent chakra into the seals and then promptly fell over.

The Hokage laughed as helped the boy back up, "Careful there Naruto and you are most welcome. Now how about something to eat, I don't know about you but I am famished."

The rest of the evening was spent laughing, eating and telling stories until they both fell asleep. The next morning when he returned home, Naruto's apartment once more smelled of paper and dog and on his bed he found one last gift, a pair of green goggles.

No matter how hard he searched, however, Naruto could find no sign of Kakashi in the village and he did not feel his chakra signature in the ANBU detail set to guard over him over the next four months either. By snooping in the ANBU mission records at the tower he discovered that Kakashi, codename Inu, was assigned a highly classified undercover mission outside of the village, it would be another two years before he returned.

A common factor of the seals used to create Jinchuuriki was the ability for the host to communicate with the beast sealed within. This was usually facilitated through a filter built into the sealing matrix; depending on the filter used different triggers were necessary for communication to take place. For example the seal used on Killer Bee and Yugito Nii needed the Jinchuuriki to consciously wish to open the lines of communication, others like Gaara and Han had no such filter and so their Biju could talk to them constantly. Naruto's filter was unique in that he needed first to know about the beast within, accept it and then to consciously wish to speak to it for communication to be possible.

Ever since he had awoken in the orphanage, Naruto had left part of his mind open, straining to hear anything from the seal. He thought he could detect the faint, echoing sounds of deep breathing but this could just as easily have been an echo of his own. But over the last few months this sound had been interspersed with low grumbles, growls and (slightly humorous) yips. Kurama was stirring.

On the night that his father, Minato Namikaze, had sealed the nine-tailed-beast within him, he had split the enormous creature's chakra in half taking the Yin or spiritual portion with him into the belly of the Shinigami. By doing so he hoped to lessen the strain on Naruto's underdeveloped chakra coils and to mitigate any possible influence the Great Beast may have had as splitting it's chakra would have sent it into a coma until Naruto was at least sixteen years old.

What he failed to take into account was the mutation that would occur in Naruto's healing ability as his Namikaze and Uzumaki blood mixed, causing this ability to act in overdrive. When this ability was then mixed with the Kyuubi's more potent chakra, Naruto's healing ability took the next leap to become regenerative. As was seen time and time again when Naruto's wounds would almost instantly heal whilst he was using the Biju Cloak, wounds that would take hours or even days to heal normally.

A section of Naruto's seal had been deliberately designed for his and the Kyuubi's chakra to mix; every night as he slept a small portion of his chakra would be sucked into the seal to be mixed with a portion of the Kyuubi's chakra. This mixing process would dilute the great beast's chakra and somewhat purify it, the chakra would then be released back into Naruto's system at dawn accounting for the chakra surges he experienced each morning as the more potent chakra would then be absorbed into his system, swelling his already high chakra reserves even higher.

Thus Naruto's chakra system would get used to small amounts of the Kyuubi's chakra, gradually building up a tolerance to the more potent and corrosive chakra, so that by the time he was a Jonin his body would be ready to harness the beast's full strength. Or at least that was the plan.

What Minato had not accounted for was the fact that Naruto's natural healing ability, carried in his chakra, would affect the Great Beast and speed up the recovery of it's lost chakra. As a result the Great Beast recovered enough of it's chakra to awaken during Naruto's eighth year. It would take another three years for Naruto to become aware of the Kyuubi and open the lines of communication but the beast bided it's time by forcing more chakra through the seal than it was designed for at irregular intervals thus messing up Naruto's control and fuming about how his jailor would not even give him the courtesy of a gloating visit as it's previous two hosts had done.

This was not to say that all of the lost Yin chakra had be recovered or rather regenerated by Naruto's eighth birthday, Kyuubi's chakra was still horribly unbalanced and with much more Yang or physical energy than Yin, which accounted for it's angry red colouring and the Great Beast's overwhelmingly negative attitude. It would take another eight years before Kyuubi's chakra would be fully balanced, but for now there was just enough Yin energy for Kurama to regain consciousness.

Three days after his birthday Naruto knew that he couldn't put it off any longer, the irregular snarls and growls in the back of his mind were getting more frequent, with occasional grumbles and mumbles of a semi-conscious mind on the point of waking up, it was time to once more enter his mindscape and wake Kurama up at last. Naruto had been hesitant to do so ever since he had abruptly awoken in the orphanage, sure he and Kurama seemed to have become somewhat friendlier towards each other in the last few moments of the war, but the resulting silence ever since had been somewhat off-putting.

Naruto decided that if he was going to do this it would need to be somewhere private so he decided to take himself off to his private training ground just in case any of Kurama's chakra escaped. The day before he had his clone take him outside, in his rock form, just before dusk and drop him off at the park, before it headed home and finally dispelled itself behind closed blinds. He then made his way carefully to his training grounds to spend the night, creating another clone to keep guard with it's sensing ability.

The next morning found Naruto sitting beneath the shade of one of the surrounding trees with another four clones dispersed throughout the surrounding forest keeping guard. Taking a deep breath, Naruto cleared his mind and entered a mediative state. Reaching deep within himself, deeper than he had gone before, Naruto felt the distinctive mental jolt that signalled that he had entered his mindscape. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around.

A puzzled look overcame his features as he thought, 'Now where am I?'. Instead of the familiar red lined sewer walls and thick, ghastly smelling, ankle-deep liquid beneath his feet, Naruto was met with the pure white glow of an endless void surrounding a veritable sea of smooth, ripple-free, silver liquid on which he somehow stood even though he had the feeling that it was infinitely deep.

Looking down he saw his reflected self, "Oh hey I'm big again! I suppose this is my mental image of myself as I don't exactly feel like I'm eight. But it sure looks different in here, it almost looks like that place where I met all the Biju, but how am I supposed to find Kurama, there's no paths to follow, everything looks the same."

As he said this a black dot appeared on the horizon in front of him, shrugging to himself Naruto set off towards it. Even though he was not moving very fast, soon enough he found himself standing in front of an enormous cage. Sitting on a vast rock plinth rising just centimetres above the 'water's' surface the cage's shadowed interior was surrounded by a ring of bars, constructed of a metallic substance, that stretched up and disappeared overhead. On the central bar, whose width was the size of his chest, was a paper seal stuck to the bar just above his head.

Naruto hesitantly approached the cage, squinting to try and see through the gloom, "Kurama?" he called out.

Inside the cage the features of the Great Nine-Tailed Fox slowly came into focus as it opened one of it's massive eyes. A rumbling growl issued forth from the Great Beast as it raised one gigantic paw and stretched it out through the bars and formed a fist just in front of Naruto's face, "Brat."

Trembling now, Naruto raised his own arm and bumped fists with the Biju before him. Tears streaming down his face, he slumped to his knees as his strength gave out in relief, making sure to maintain contact as he did so. "Thank Kami." he whispered, he was no longer alone.

Sometime later found Naruto sitting cross-legged on the 'water' before the Kyuubi's cage as he caught the Great Beast up on all that had occurred.

"But I still can't figure out how this all happened. I mean I thought time travel was impossible!" he exclaimed as his arms flailed around above his head.

"Have you thought to re-examine your memories?" asked Kurama knowing how scatterbrained the puny flesh-bag could be.

"Well sort of, it's pretty much all jumbled. Hey, maybe you would remember something I didn't; you were standing over me at the time and might have seen something."

"Perhaps," allowed Kurama, "try remembering now and we shall see."

A contemplative look overcame Naruto's face as he tried to remember back and almost instantly a change came over his mindscape. Large rectangular shadows suddenly appeared surrounding the cage from the horizon and seemed to speed towards his position. Naruto stood up and back pedalled rapidly until his back met one of the bars as hundreds of enormous black monoliths raced towards him only to stop just a metre from his feet.

The monoliths thus revealed themselves to be the end caps of enormous book cases, rising above him over double Naruto's height and stretching far off into the distance. Every shelf was packed with scrolls and books with titles such as, 'first word', 'things that are green', 'clone 174 memory' and 'the battle at wave'.

"Wha..?" asked Naruto intelligently

"Looks like these are your memories Gaki. Much more organised than last time, they used to just ooze out of the walls like puss. Try thinking about that last battle now."

"Right, the war… the war… the war… Madara and Obito. Aha!" exclaimed Naruto as a scroll some two rows over began to glow. Walking over he reached out to grab it, just as his hand touched the scroll's ribbon, the world changed.

It took a disorientating few moments for Naruto to realise that he was looking through what would have been his own eyes at the memory. It was like being a passenger in his own head, like watching a movie, but a movie where he could see, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel everything that was going on, he just didn't have any control over what he was looking at.

As Naruto watched he saw himself send blast after blast towards the reviving Gedo statue only for them to be repelled by Tobi or rather Obito using the Sage of Six Paths' battle fan. Resengans, Mini Biju Bombs, Gai's nun chucks, Kakashi's Kamui, they were all repelled.

Just as Octopops and Eight-O finally forced their way through Obito's defence and through the falling rocks and debris, to land a hit on the Gedo statue, Obito manages to erect a wall of defence around it using a flaming Uchiha barrier technique.

Naruto tensely watched as he, Gai and Kakashi pulled off their plan to bypass Obito's defence using a combination of the Rasengan and the Kamui, managing to take out his right arm. Feelings of elation filled Naruto's heart as once more he heard Kurama's words of acceptance for him as his partner.

"Oh now this is just embarrassing, isn't there anyway to fast forward this thing?" asked a gravelly voice from the back of his mind, somewhat petulantly.

'Kurama,' thought Naruto, 'you're still here?'

"Well of course I am where else would I be. Now concentrate, you don't need to see all this again think about when Madara arrives."

"Hey, you're not a Tsundere are you?" asked Naruto suspiciously.

"Just do it you useless human." snarled Kurama through gritted fangs.

"Okay, okay, no need to growl. Sheesh!" concentrating on the scene before him, Naruto watched as the fighting sped up. There Obito seals Eight-O with the curse mark, here Naruto hits Tobi with the Rasengan once more, revealing his identity to be Obito. Followed by mad ranting that makes no sense, Obito then fires a Bomb Blast Dance at them only to be defended by Kurama and then … Madara drops out of the sky.

"All right play it normally from here, I'm pretty sure what ever sent us back in time happens not long after this."

Naruto mentally clenches his fists as he once more hears of the defeat of the Kages including his Tsunade-baachan. He watches as they manage to free Octopops and O-Eight from the curse mark and as he himself attacks Madara with a Mini Biju Bomb who defends himself with the Sage of Six Paths' fan, reflecting the attack back at Naruto, while Kakashi goes after Obito.

Kakashi overcome with guilt is rendered unable to defend himself and is taken out by a Kamui aimed at his head, which Naruto witnesses out of the corner of his eye as he stands up once more from the previous attack.

"Pause it here." rumbles Kurama's voice suddenly, jolting him out of the feelings of panicked despair that had overtaken his mind.

"If you look ahead you will see Madara preparing to Kamui with the power of his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Just behind you and to the left, Obito is preparing to do the same. If I remember correctly you are currently focusing all of my power through your body, plus your own and one of your nature clones is about to dispel. I think this is it. Right after the two techniques hit us, there was a flash of white light and then I was asleep."

Sure enough when Naruto let the scene continue, he felt a rush of intense energy fill his system almost to the point of overflowing just moments before he was hit by the two Kamuis. Pain wracked his body as an intense white light filled his vision and then … nothing.

Naruto blinked and the scene disappeared to be replaced with the endless void of his mindscape, his hand still stretched out towards the scroll on the shelf before him, though it was no longer glowing.

"Huh." he breathed to himself as the shelves receded back into the horizon until they eventually disappeared.

"Okay, so Biju Mode mixed with Sage chakra, mixed with two Kamuis is enough to send someone back in time. Well I guess that answers the question of being able to reverse all this I guess, there's no way we could recreate all that." mused Naruto as he walked back to stand before Kurama's cage.

Naruto contemplated the seal before him as he said, "You know I still remember the key, it is only a seal after all, do you want me to open that for you?"

"No, not now. Your body isn't ready for it yet, you would just die and take me with you." Kurama rejected though a twinkle of amused affection could be seen in his great eye. "Go now, you have your answers and I grow tired. I will probably sleep most of the time anyway so being in this cage is fine for now. You go and get stronger; we have many challenges ahead of us after all."

"Hai! Goodnight Kurama, I will see you soon. I will leave my mind open, talk to me anytime, okay?" Naruto closed his eyes and mentally reached up and out of his mind. When he opened his eyes he was once more beneath the tree on the edge of his training ground, judging by the sun it was midmorning. Plenty of time to get some training in, after all there was no time to waste.