A/N:

5 months later...

It seems I'm always apologizing for late chapters lol I'm sure you all expect it by now. I wonder how many have kept up with this story since the very beginning?

A lot has happened in the past 5 months. I quit my jobs and moved out of my folk's house to Wilmington NC. Started a new school and new job. Lived with my manager for 3 months (worst time of my life!) and now live in a little apartment with my bf and roommate. Since the last chapter I've delved into new hobbies of extreme couponing, gardening, dumpster diving, and flipping items (as in finding something broken old and remaking it into something new). Anyways, this isn't a blog and your not here for me, on to the chappy!

When Time Stops
Chapter 9: Disappearing Act

"The Great Naruto Bridge," Kakashi read as they reached the end of the land of fire, where a wide bridge extended over the water as far as the eye could see.

"It was named after your brother, who was a large reason the bridge was able to be finished." Neji supplied, stopping a moment to look at the bridge's title.

"Naruto Uzumaki is your brother?" the old man asked with glowingly curious eyes.

Kakashi nodded, looking over the bridge in wonder that his own brother helped with something this amazingly huge.

"Naruto Uzumaki is a hero around these parts!" The old carpenter hobbled to the bridge, affectionately patting one of its many beams. He smiled, pleasant memories filling his thoughts.

"A hero?" the girl asked, walking next to the man and peering out at the expansive bridge in aww. It made her feel so small and insignificant.

"Very much so," the carpenter began, explaining what had made Naruto Uzumaki a hero to his town.

Kakashi walked to the side of the bridge after noticing two grave stones there. He stared down at them with curious, emotionless eyes. "Zabuza and Haku..." he voiced aloud.

"Do you know them?" Neji asked, suddenly at his side. He wondered if Kakashi remembered this, too, from his previous life.

Kakashi hummed, "The names, they sound very familiar."

"Oh those two!" The old man exclaimed in excitement at being able to tell such a great story about his homeland to the group of Konoha ninja. He hurried over to the two graves in the way only an old man can. "Zabuza and Haku were ninja hired by a powerful man named Gatoh who aimed to control the Land of Wave by limiting the accessibility of trade between Wave and Fire."

Kakashi crouched down to get a better look at them. They were well kept, considering they fought for a man who had tried to suppress the Land of Wave.

"Naruto and his team fought these two, and many others so that this bridge could be built. Then, after all of it, Naruto had these two buried right here. That boy has a very big heart, if I have to say so myself." The old man laughed fondly, causing the skin around his eyes to wrinkle. He continued onward, the Konoha ninja following him onto the bridge. The old man continued on in his story, "I never would have believed the story if my son had not been a good friend of the bridge builder, Tazuna."

Kakashi hit his fist to his hand, "Ah! I know where I remember them from!" He interrupted in an unusually childlike manner. The group looked at him questioningly. "I once read a book about the Demon of the mist who killed over 100 aspiring ninja, which went on to talk about his tool, Haku."

Neji nearly tripped over himself. He forced a fake smile at the boy. 'Not quite what I had expected.'

The Konoha ninja safely escorted the old man to his home. They had to politely declined an invitation to dinner and to stay the night in the comfort of the old man's home and instead left back towards the Land of Fire in hopes of reaching Konoha before nightfall.

"How much longer are we going to have to walk?!" Toya complain, shifting the pack on his back in an attempt to give a break to his aching shoulders and back.

"Maybe you shouldn't have brought such a big pack." Kakashi supplied with disinterest. He rolled his eyes at the look Toya shot at him. They were all complete idiots in his mind. "Unnecessary items just get in the way on a mission."

"Then maybe we shouldn't have brought you-" Toya yelled stopping short when two ninja suddenly appeared before them.

The ninja were wrapped in tan and white clothing. The two looked nearly the same, one with wrapping coving the lower half of his face and the other with a hood that hung low over his head, shielding his eyes.

Neji was immediately on alert. "Get behind me!" Neji called. He glanced to the ninja's headband where a crude image of a clock was portrayed. His gut felt heavy and uneasy. 'Are these the ninja Tsunade warned me about?' He glanced briefly to Kakashi, noticing the boy frozen still. 'I can't take both of these guys on my own and protect all four of my genin. The best option is to avoid a fight.' "Who are you and what do you want?" Neji commanded, trying to uphold a pretense of calmness.

"We will be needing the boy." The ninja with the hood spoke in a deep, guttural accent.

Kakashi couldn't help but stare in fear. No matter what he did, he couldn't make his body move to even pull out a kunai to defend himself. 'Why, why did I ever leave Konoha?!' he screamed at himself. 'I should have never left Naruto-nii!'

"I'm afraid you can't have him..." Neji replied smoothly, slipping into his gentle fist stance.

Kakashi stared as his temporary sensei, knowing the situation could only get worse. 'Stupid! You can't beat them!' "Sensei!"

"Prepare to fight, Kakashi."

Kakashi froze. How could this man, who he barely knew, who had a team of his own to protect, be willing to risk his life and the lives of his team for him?

"That is very, how you say…unfortunate. I was hoping to handle this in a civil manner, for your sake." The hooded ninja disappeared only to re-appear a blink later behind Neji.

Neji whirled, activating his Byakugan and sending a barrage of punches towards the enemy nin faster than the eye could see.

Kakashi pulled out a weapon just in time for the other time nin to appear in front of him. The ninja said something Kakashi couldn't understand and reached forward to grab his arm. Kakashi ducked out of the way and performed several seals. "Shadow Clone Technique!" Four more Kakashi's popped into existence, ready to fight.

Neji's genin team stood frozen. "What do we do?" Toya asked, unconsciously back peddling.

"We have to help," the girl voiced, determination in her voice, "he may not be a part of our team, and he may be weird, but Neji-sensei is risking his life for him, so we should too." She pulled out several shuriken and threw them at the bandaged ninja, running forward with a drawn kunai, hoping it would be a distraction enough for Kakashi to make a move. Toya and the other boy set their face in determination, pulling out their own weapons and following their teammate.

The ninja glanced at her in annoyance, dully noting the shuriken flying his way. Kakashi, and his clones, took that split second of inattention to jump at the ninja. The time nin disappeared, leaving Kakashi and his clones to fall into the path of the shuriken. Two of the clones popped out of existence and Kakashi suppressed a yelp, holding his arm where one of the shuriken had sliced him. He glared at the girl only to see her shocked expression and decided that she hadn't meant to hit him. Pain exploded in his face as a boot connected with his jawbone, and he fell backward, reeling, even as a part of his mind screamed at him to move, that the pain would be nothing compared to what would happen if he didn't do something. He forced his body to roll to his feet, even as his vision swayed back and forth from the impact. A hand grabbed his hair, pulling it roughly up, making him scramble to his feet. He gasped, clawing at the ninja's arm.

Neji struggled to keep up with the time nin as he continued his barrage. Half of his strikes didn't even hit the ninja and the others were too slow to hit any of the ninja's chakra points.

"I told you, it would be much easier for you had you given the boy up." The ninja spoke with no sign of exhaustion at avoiding Neji's attacks.

A palm came out of nowhere, striking Neji's chin and causing his vision to go black for several moments. The force of the blow sent him flying backwards to land with a thump onto the dusty earth, his breath being forced out of him as a cloud of dirt blew into the air. He coughed, staring up at the ninja. He began a set of seals, "Eight Trigrams: Mountain Crusher," he spoke softly, jumping to his feet as he finished the seal. A wall of chakra burst from his palm, flying towards his opponent. He used the spare moment to catch his breath and glance at his genin team. Kakashi was being held by the other nin while his genin surrounded the man. A wave of hopelessness washed through his body, causing him to doubt himself.

"I'm afraid attacks like that will not work on me and only serve to waste your chakra." The hooded man appeared in front of him, smiling maniacally. He pulled out a kunai and then disappeared.

Neji's eyes widened in shock. A kunai sliced him on his arm, then again on his leg and back. He grunted, straining his eyes to find the opponent. More cuts appeared on his chest and limbs. 'He's toying with me...' Neji thought, trying in vain to protect himself from his unseen opponent. 'What can I do? He's too fast for my attacks. I'll have to take him by surprise and hope he's not fast enough to avoid my attack.'

"Kakashi!" the girl screamed, drawing Neji's attention from his own fight and to where the other ninja had been. The time ninja and Kakashi were missing and all he saw left were his three genin, bruised and bloodied.

His opponent continued to attack him. He closed his eyes, ignoring the cuts that continued to appear on him and his worry about Kakashi and his team and carefully perform seals in his head 'Eight Trigrams: Palm Revolving Heavens!' He spun wildly, creating a dome of chakra. The cuts stopped and he cautiously released the jutsu, wondering if maybe he had succeeded in hitting his opponent. He strained his senses, searching for any sign of the enemy nin. He blinked and in that moment, a kunai was thrust into his chest. The time ninja in front of him smiled arrogantly, twisting the kunai slightly inside of Neji.

Neji coughed, nearly doubling over if the ninja did not still hold the kunai inside of him. Blood pooled in his mouth and ran down his face.

"This kunai of mine is millimeters away from your left lung. It will not kill you, however breathing may become troublesome for some time in the future." The ninja twisted the kunai even more, causing Neji to gasp in pain and reel forward. The ninja leaned in dangerously close to Neji's ear. "Stay alive and deliver Kakashi back to his caretaker in Konoha," he whispered threateningly in his guttural accent before roughly pulling out the kunai and disappearing.

"Sensei!" the girl yelled as he doubled over, falling to his knees and holding his wound with his arm, using the other to brace himself against the ground. His team ran over, falling to the ground next to him.

"Sensei, are you alright?" the carefree boy asked, looking worriedly at his teacher.

"Ah," Neji coughed, stopping short when a wave of pain washed over him. He tried to hold back his coughing but could not. His face squeezed up in pain and blood dribbled from his mouth.

"What happened to Kakashi?" he forced out, scanning their surroundings quickly for any sign of the boy or the time ninja.

"We don't know..." Toya supplied, his expression confused and worried.

"He just..." the girl began, tears welling up in her eyes, "They just disappeared with him. What are we going to do Sensei…?"

"Don't worry," he rasped, wincing as he tried to force down a cough, "well get him back."

A wave of chakra came from the area his genin had been fighting and he looked up, ready to protect the rest of his genin team even in his state. Instead, his eyes grew wide with what he saw. His team turned to see what he was looking at, sounds of surprise escaping them.

Like waking to a dream, Kakashi blinked open his fuzzy eyes to too bright lights lined in two rows above his head. He squinted as the light pierced through his eyes and into his skull, forcing him to close his eyes again until his eyes adjusted. His tongue felt huge and sluggish. He found, after his senses had more or less come back to him, that he had been gagged. He tried to sit up, but found that his chest was strapped down at the shoulders, his wrists, too, held down by a tightly bound thick, leather strap. He pulled with all of his strength, thrashing his body in a wild tantrum, finding that his legs had also been bound at his thigh.

He left his struggle, finding it helpless to free himself, he scoured the room with his eyes. The room was small but well lit. He decided definitively that he was in a surgery room. However there were no monitors, merely surgical instruments, bins, and a sink.

The door opened and he heard before he saw two men enter, holding a conversation in a language that he could not understand. The two came into sight and he recognized them as the two Time nin that had attacked him with Neji's genin team. He growled.

"Ah he's awake," said the man who stood to his right, whose eyes were mostly covered by a beige head wrap that twisted around his neck and over his head. "We just wish to take a peek inside you," the same man said with a chuckle as the other, the man whose face was covered and whose eyes were dark and tired looking, smeared some cold liquid across his abdomen.

Kakashi yelled behind his gag and pulled at his restraints.

The dark eyed man, who seemed to be the doctor, examined Kakashi's panicked face. "Tell the boy not to worry and to relax, we are not going to hurt him." He spoke in the deep, guttural language.

The hooded man pulled up a chair and sat back in it, propping his feet up on the table. "Doctor says when you thrash around so much he might do accidental irreversible damage."

Kakashi yelled angrily at the men, cursing angrily at them with as many words as he knew.

"You're no help at all," the doctor spoke softly, shooting his friend a callous look. "I will do this myself." He raised a finger up to his own lips and spoke in a low even voice that emitted calmness. "Come now, be still and it will be over soon, yea? It will be painless if you will behave."

Kakashi calmed slightly, not understanding what the man was saying, but reading by the way the doctor was speaking that he was not here to torture him.

"You are too soft," the hooded man scoffed.

"Ask how has his health been," commanded the doctor.

"Is not that your job?" the hooded man laughed as he leaned forward and examined Kakashi , tapping the boy's cheek and stating cheekily, "He seems well enough to me. Just get on with it, Doctor."

Kakashi glared at the hooded man and glanced wearily to the doctor. He wondered what they wanted to look at inside of him. The whole situation was confusing and alien and he just wanted it all to be a bad dream. But it wasn't and here he was, a captive of some unknown ninja that were about to do kami knows what to him. He resolved that he would figure out what was going on and escape as soon as he could. Naruto had been training him all this time for this very moment.

The doctor quietly placed two fingers on each side of Kakashi's head. Energy began to flow through his head, sending a hot tingle through his veins. Kakashi's muscles constricted painfully and he thrashed weakly as his vision began to grow fuzzy.

"Hush hush, it will be over in a minute," the doctor murmured.

Kakashi's vision grew dark and his veins burned, but he could not move them in the least. He struggled to stay awake, but the darkness called to him and soon he was in a fitful sleep.

His body was tingling with streams of fire in the darkness that encompassed his vision. His veins were flowing with lava, and at the same time his chakra stayed continuously depleted. His mind was forced to find a safe place to hide from his body's plight and the image of his brother presented itself to his weary mind. Naruto always had a way of making him feel better with his laughter, good humored jokes, and optimistic personality. He had always been there for him, as long as he could remember his brother had taken care of him and looked out for him. "Let's go get some Ichiraku Ramen," his brother would say. To him, ramen fixed every sort of problem. His first day of school had been daunting and he had been picked on most of the time he had been there, but Naruto had been there waiting for him every day after school and they had gone to get ramen together each time. When his sensei trained him and pushed him extra hard, they would go get ramen together.

"Sensei, I don't like ramen," Kakashi would rebut.

"Nonsense," his brother sheathed his pronged kunai and pulled a twig from his golden mop of hair. Miraculously if was the only spec of dirt on him, even his white robe was spotless.

"I need to go home and study; the books are due back to the library tomorrow." Kakashi muttered as his sensei ushered him forward towards the business district of town. He sighed heavily. His blond sensei led him through the streets, nodding to the people he passed by. The blond brushed aside the curtains outside of Ichiraku.

"Ah! Minato! Good to see you today!"

Kakashi ducked under the curtain and looked towards his sensei with a slight frown of confusion.

Minato greeted the man behind the counter eagerly and smiled down at Kakashi.

Kakashi sat down next to the blond man and watched him interact with the people around him. They all acted normal, just as they did when he and Naruto came, and yet they all addressed him has Minato.

"I'll have a big bowl of miso." his sensei said with a smile and turned to him. "What would you like Kakashi?"

"I'll have the sa-" he started looking up to the man behind the counter and noticing that his sensei looked a bit different. A bit longer face, smaller eyes, longer hair. He frowned, perplexed by the change and stared at his sensei.

"Sorry?" the blond man that sat next to him asked.

"Miso for me as well," Kakashi muttered softly.

Minato talked animatedly to the man behind the bar and Kakashi listened, sitting quietly as always. His surroundings changed and he barely noted how weird such a change was in reality. By the time he made note of the change, he was at home and his sensei shrugged off the cloak and made himself comfy on the couch in the apartment they both lived in.

"Minato-sensei," Kakashi called, following his sensei slowly

"Hm?" the blond mused, resting his head on the back of the couch.

"What happened to Naruto?" Kakashi asked, standing just a few feet away from his sensei.

"Naruto?" the man questioned, sitting up and looking at the boy with a confused tilt of the head. "I am Naruto, Kashi."

Kakashi frowned as he continued to stare at them man. Naruto was Minato? He didn't notice blackness creep in around his vision until his body began to burn more as more until the only thing he could see was his teachers face. He found himself screaming and watched his teachers face turn worried before his vision turned black and he curled himself into a ball.

"Kakashi? What's wrong? Where are you?" his teachers voiced echoed behind his own pained gasps.

"Kakashi! The voiced called, worried. "I'll find you Kakashi! Don't worry I'm coming!" he yelled even as his voice became more and more faint until there was no sound other than the pulsing of his heart and the rush of his labored gasps.