"Kazekage-sama…" Kakashi approached Gaara with a calm look and extended his hand. Gaara was still catching his breath after the intense experience of using the Sands of Time and mythical tools that supposedly descended from the gods themselves.
"Here…" Gaara extended his hand while holding the Bag of Fujin by its string. "I would like to know what you intend to use it for. Artifacts that can collectively reduce the Colossus of the Covenant itself to a pile of clay need to be accounted for."
"Don't worry, you'll never have to worry about them again," Kakashi assured the Kazekage after taking the bag from his hands. Gaara's feet lifted off the ground while the young man floated up to Mana and extended his hand that had a string of golden chain hanging from it. After Mana extended her hands to receive the Kazekage's gift, she felt a warm, metallic object touching her hands.
Gaara gave the Golden Locket of Sotatsu back to the same person he received it from.
"You didn't answer my question," Gaara turned back to Kakashi.
"We will use the bag and the locket to travel to the past from where we can use the secret tunnel between the Earth and the Moon. Then I shall part ways with the Allied Ninja and leave these artifacts stranded in-between universes, timelines and dimensions. They'll be in safe hands, don't worry," Kakashi remedied that mistake. With a light nod, Gaara showed he was fine with that answer.
"You have no business traveling with them any further, Temari," Kankuro turned to his sister. "Your weapon is broken and you could use a medical check-up. Then, I'll personally accompany you back to Konoha to your family."
"We really should've worried about our scrapes and bruises when Gaara still had the Sands of Time under his control…" Temari grumbled, scratching the back of her head before crossing her arms over her chest and slouching with a pout.
"There's a lot of things we could have worried about while we still controlled the Sands…" Endo said, looking grumpy as ever. "If the Sands let us access all those different timelines and dimensions and we can use them to go to when Zahhak didn't even exist yet, if he ever existed in the first place, we should have just used one of those entryways to find a portal to our universe's moon, on our time."
"While that may have been possible, we'd have taken forever to do so. Remember, the only reason we found the Sands inside that tower was that we had the Bag of Fujin to call forth to them and find us from the right pathway instead. Even if time doesn't exist in that realm as a concept, you're a handful to handle even now. You'd have gone mad spending millions of years looking for the right chambers to enter on that tower," Mana replied, calming Endo down like only she seemed to be able to.
"You should probably listen to your brother, Temari. You've already completed your job on this team. We couldn't have gotten this far without you," Kakashi said in a calm tone that made everything coming out of his mouth sound like sage advice.
"Whatever… Someone needs to let Naruto know what happened here and that everything's going according to plan," Temari rubbed her worn-out eyes and caved in to peer pressure, joining Gaara's group while the two parties waved each other farewell.
"Oh, is that what's happening here?" Skaven rolled his eyes.
"Well, now we just need to use the Bag of Fujin again to call forth to the Sands. They're still stranded in this universe and this dimension now," Kakashi muttered while handing the bag over to Mana, who widened her gaze and twisted her expression in shock.
"Wait… Me!?" she pointed to herself, dumbfounded.
"Your skill in ninjutsu is at the very least equal to mine. Your focus and prowess in genjutsu leaves me in the dust. I have a feeling that focus is the key when using these artifacts. All you need to do is to wash us up at least thirty or so years into the past. Even this same location will do," Kakashi pointed out.
"Don't fight it, Mana. I'd have picked you to use the Sands of Time next as well," Shige-H nodded and placed her hand on Mana's shoulder. Just as Mana rolled the bag over her shoulder and put up her hand to pop the lid of the bag off, a grisly pulse resonated through her mind. It was as if some tumorous growth had attempted to pound its way out of Mana's brain all the way through her skull.
Mana's vision went black and the only thing she could make out was a vision of herself in a red dress and eyes gleaming with malice as violent, scarlet electricity flowed around her with the diamond blizzard of the Sands of Time at her complete control. Everyone rushed to Mana's aid after seeing the ninja magician stumble, but Mana looked up with a weakened, polite smile and handed the bag and the locket back to Kakashi.
"Sorry, I'd rather you did this, Kakashi-san…" Mana explained while fending off the cold sweat working its way through her pores. "I don't think I'll ever trust myself with that kind of power."
"Well… This is going to be a bit of a drag but…" Kakashi scratched the back of his neck while relinquishing Mana of the goods and trying to practice working their magic by himself. Endo's firm grip locked around Mana's wrist and, without asking her, the swordsman dragged Mana aside a few paces.
"What was that all about?" Endo confronted Mana. "Are you hurt or sick or…?"
"No. It was nothing like that…" Mana pressed her hand to her chest, wondering for a second if she truly trusted Endo with what she thought she saw. "It's just that… Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but I…"
"Even if Kakashi's about to work out that Sands of Time stuff, we don't have the entire day," Endo pressed on, having noticed Mana's hesitation. From the looks and sounds of it, this response and distrust aggravated him. There was no reason it shouldn't have–his own comrade did just show distrust in him by withholding information he considered key.
"It's nothing that concerns the mission. I can promise that it won't get in the way. It's just that I don't want to use artifacts with the potential for calamitous power. I'm just…" Mana searched her soul for the best way to put it into words without being too specific, but nothing came to mind.
"You don't trust yourself not to screw it up? You think you're some wicked witch that's gonna feel the high of that power and go mad with it?" Endo shot in the dark and the luminosity of that shot reflected in the corners of Mana's soul. The magician's eyes opened up wider from how close Endo hit with that wild guess.
"That's impressive. How did you…?" she muttered.
"It's simple. That's exactly why I wouldn't trust myself to do it, either. Look, you may think that I'm a dick and that I get us into trouble and that I'm way too intense, but I know all those things too. I would never put myself in a position where I could be tempted to control time because I'd start a one-man revolution by going back in time to the first crime ever committed, de-age that asshole to being a fetus, and stomp on it as many times as I could," Endo shrugged. "I can understand your feelings, Mana. It's just that I don't really see you that way. When we first met, I saw you as a wretched criminal that only makes everything worse for everyone because of her own stupid angst. I still think there's way too much of that shit in you, but I've come to learn that your heart's in the right place. Even when you fuck everything up–you do it while trying to help everyone and do the right thing."
"Thanks…" Mana turned her gaze down. "Though… About your dream, you do realize that would make you the first criminal, right? De-aging the original sinner into a baby and stomping it to a bloody stain still makes you a murderer and therefore the original sinner."
"Shit… See? That's why I have you to think these things through for me," Endo cracked a cocky grin and took Mana by the hand much gentler than before to lead her back to Kakashi, who had almost worked out the kinks with the Bag of Fujin.
"Alright, everyone, if this works, you should barely notice anything different," Kakashi promised, spreading his hands out as he popped the lid of the Bag of Fujin off. A whirling sandstorm rose from the surrounding dunes with it transforming into a whirlwind of brilliant stardust one handful at a time. The Sands of Time were active again. This time it was Kakashi's eyes that lit up like twin beacons as he garnered turbulent jets of diamond-dust sand around his hands and then pointed both of his hands downward.
The Sands of Time drew a three-blade shuriken symbol on the ground that began turning and swallowing the party up in a bright ray of light. Just like when Gaara took the Allied Ninja for a dimensional trip by using the Golden Locket, all senses became overwhelmed to the point of a whiteout.
"There we are…" Kakashi was the first to recover. It was apt, given how he was the one controlling the Sands.
"We're in the same place," Damisan noted.
"Though in a different time," Shige-H observed, noticing not a single sign of the colossal battlefield that their clash with the wandering goliath had left the Wind Country desert as back where they left.
"When exactly did you take us back to?" Skaven wondered, addressing Kakashi, who grabbed hold of the Golden Locket and made the washing pillar of the diamond-dust sand disappear through a golden rift. After all traces of the Sands of Time disappeared through the dimensional rift, the Bag of Fujin followed. Only the Golden Locket remained intact, containing the Bag of Fujin and the Sands of Time alike for when Kakashi would need to return to his time and send the artifacts to the guardians of the Omniverse.
"Controlling the Sands of Time was rough. I can see why Mana was wary of it," Kakashi huffed and dusted off his hands first. "Without Gaara's aptitude for controlling chakra-infused sand or Mana's intense focus, sharp mind, and diamond-hard willpower, I had to rely on memories and focal points to bring us back into the right time. I brought us back to the Wind Country during the Akatsuki's invasion, back when they made their move on Sunagakure. I've had plenty of vivid memories of the time to keep focused on that time. Up to the exact things I was thinking and feeling at the time."
"I see. This Akatsuki won't be a problem, will they?" Damisan wondered.
"Who knows? It would be a one-in-a-million needle in a haystack thing for us to have fought the Colossus of the Covenant in the same location where the Akatsuki went to Sunagakure. The only thing we have to worry about is Sunagakure or Konoha ninja. That's why I came with you guys–so I can affirm that you aren't a danger to them. Even at this time, I have a bit of a reputation," Kakashi explained.
"Even so, we should avoid picking trouble where we can. Remember that this time is linked to the timeline and the universe we came from. That means that, unlike all of our other instances of fooling around with time, things we do here will affect Kakashi's universe and its entire timeline," Skaven pointed out.
"That's a good point. I'll keep my sensory open and focused. That way we should know about any ninja entire kilometers around us. Unless they would use some method of chakra suppression," Mana nodded.
"Well then, it seems like we have everything worked out. Let's make this a smooth trip back to the forests of the Fire Country, shall we?" Kakashi bent his head to the side with a cheerful expression to the half of his face that could have been visible.
"This is a beautiful scenery," Mana observed. As far around them as the eye went, there were birch trees and, unlike the desert they've left behind, something had left the ground ruptured with vivid, flowing rivers. Life was pumping through them so potently that the waters foamed and splashed about on their trip to some central lake that accumulated all the water.
"Have you been here before?" Endo wondered, sneering at Kakashi. "Back when the Seventh wrecked the place, making us have to resort to raping the laws of physics and treating space-time and our personal bedsheets?"
"No. I was the Sixth Hokage at the time. I stayed behind in the village. It had been a stressful time. The Moon was crashing into the Earth, threatening great catastrophe. At the time, there were some amongst the Five Kage who thought the Moon needed to be destroyed." Kakashi continued to rush ahead, led by the flow of the river, without hesitating or showing that Endo's bickering accusations bothered him at all. A firm step sealed Kakashi's full stop on a strong oak branch.
Ahead of the Allied Ninja laid a round cavern with a roaring waterfall. It didn't feel very natural given how exotic a large cavern waterfall seemed in a forest river biome such as this one. If Mana had to make a wild guess, the crater that had formed the cavern seemed a lot like something had been fabricated by burrowing from underground with a tremendously destructive blast.
"Can we be sure that there aren't any traps lurking here?" Endo wondered.
"Quite. I've scoped this location a few times in my time. After we have settled on this mission, but before we've perfected the remote universe-bridging technology. We've had theories that Toneri had created this cavern when he kidnapped Hanabi Hyuuga, but it seems to be older than that. It's likely that the Ootsutsuki had used this portal many times in the past, before Toneri even." Kakashi explained while guiding the Allied Ninja down the cavern with swift flickering motions.
"Whoa…! This lake's shiny!" Damisan ran up to an enormous mass of underground water, spreading a phosphorous shimmer all over the place and lighting the cave up through the light's reflections on the mineral veins of the cave. "Hmm… Can one of you dip your fingers in it? It feels weird."
"Huh… It doesn't seem to make you wet." Skaven noted after approaching the edge of the cave and touching the surface of the phosphorous lake.
"I knew something about it felt odd. I just couldn't make it out, cause I can't feel wetness with this shell of Kankuro's puppet on me…" Damisan crossed his arms. Every time he made a forced move or one that strained how Sasori had been put together and then assembled on top of Damisan's scarred body, chips splintered off of the outer shell, and the suit of Sasori that Damisan wore continued to fracture further.
"One more thing, there will be colorful bubbles underwater. If you don't want to get sidetracked or lost, you should avoid running into them or even looking at them. At the end of this lake tunnel, a Gatekeeper will be guarding the exit, but powerhouses like you should make quick work of it." Kakashi explained while pocketing his hands and sighing. This was the end of the road for him. He did everything he could, and he did everything right.
"Kakashi-san…" Mana muttered, almost not wanting to leave the ninja behind.
"Before you guys go, I've just got to say, you guys sure know how to pick some wild fights. Ogres, myths come to life, and the Colossus of the Covenant. Heck, we could have even run into the Akatsuki again if we weren't as careful as we were. You made this old man's heart pound like it did back in his young days, that's for sure. Now just make sure that you don't have him outlive all of you lot by getting yourselves killed," Kakashi nodded in encouragement.
After bumping fists, the Allied Ninja took a plunge into the lake of phosphorous light one by one. Initially, it was rather difficult to adapt to a liquid that had been this luminous underwater. Mana had been used to swimming underwater and feeling the soothing tranquility of the dark depths, but this place seemed to almost grow even brighter the further the Allied Ninja swam.
They must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because the tunnel had become dimmer, though after a few more pushes and kicks forward, the source of the phosphorous light returned to tempt the swimming Allied Ninja out at the end of their road. The colorful bubbles that almost looked like man-sized marbles began shuffling out in front of the swimming party like a stream that someone or something had directed at them out of nowhere.
Evading underwater felt like a hassle. Shige-H rolled backward and get her feet firmly onto the wall of the tunnel to kick off of the way of most bubbles. She rolled and manipulated her swimming body to avoid the rest of the stream. Endo encased his sword in a basic chakra coating before slicing the stream of bubbles up. While it felt like a fruitless task but Endo's wrists revealed themselves to be monstrous as he slashed fast and precise enough to fend off the bubbles that Kakashi told them to rather avoid.
Mana spread her arms out, forming the Magic Bubble Jutsu around her to let the streaming bubbles wash away from her. Damisan opened his hand, unraveling it into four separate pieces that then began spinning like propeller blades, forming a backward stream just as potent as the one sending the bubbles toward them while Skaven hid behind the modified ninja. A shrill roar filled the underwater stage as the whole tunnel began rumbling.
The Allied Ninja powered through the stream, avoiding as much as gazing into the flashy marble bubbles just in case their distraction would have caught them unaware through eye contact alone. They all hurried toward the phosphorous wall and burst through it, soaring through a cave of reversed gravity and stony structures that seemed to utterly defy the definitions of up and down that did whatever they wanted. House-sized planetoids of solid rock floated all over the cave terrain.
A mighty pincer tore through the stone wall, pulling a massive crab out from underground with a thunderous rumble.
A frightening thought immediately popped into Mana's head. They couldn't cut loose against this gatekeeper, because both Toneri and Naruto would still need to pass through this portal years from now. Recalling her first freaky visit in this universe, Mana could recall Hinata and Naruto both bringing Toneri up as someone who started out as their enemy, but they both recalled him as someone who brought them closer together.
Without him or his invasion, Naruto and Hinata may never have ended up marrying each other, or they could have ended up marrying each other though much later, which meant that they'd never have conceived Boruto exactly as he was meant to be in the future of this timeline. She needed to alert the others somehow…