Red Team Steps Back - Anonymous - Dreaming of Sunshine (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Tsunade

Red Team was about the last group of shinobi that Tsunade would send on a mission that didn't require something being destroyed. In theory they were a protection squad, but they had been increasingly deployed for sabotage efforts where Tsunade didn't mind subtle mass destruction. The enemy would know something had happened but wouldn't know if anyone deliberately caused it. Oh, they were ninja, so the enemy certainly expected foul play, but Red Team never left any proof.

Case in point, their first mission involved rewriting the maps by rerouting a river. Then there was the riot in that one town in Cloud that they pinned as a result of the tax policies of a corrupt mayor. That had been Towa's idea so Tsunade couldn't even blame it on the two Lucky Sevens in the team. Luckily they didn't go through with Komachi's idea, which was apparently a volcano. Though that wasn't because they couldn't do it, but because they couldn't do it in the time frame they were looking at. Then there was the rock slide that destroyed a mountain road which, as near as they could tell, happened while Red Team was standing in Tsunade's office, completing their mission before they even left the village. It was even attributed to aftershocks from the river mess, so they were still responsible for it.

Unfortunately, Kumo had their own summons that made using messenger summons unreliable on the front, and all of Tsunade's dedicated couriers had already been deployed. If she couldn't rely on someone to deliver the message quietly, then she'd have to rely on a team that would do it loudly.

"You're to go to the forward command center and deliver this intelligence packet to Shikaku Nara personally. If, for whatever reason, that isn't possible, then destroy the packet. Be subtle. I don't want to redraw the maps after this. Again."

"Point of order," Hawk replied. "Both Killer B and Yugito Nii are reported to be in the area. Killer B is reported to be able to rearrange the landscape on his own."

Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's why I'm sending an ANBU team with this data. That said, if you do get into a fight with one or both Jinchuuriki, please keep the collateral damage down. We've got troops in that area."

ANBU don't shuffle. But there was a subtle shift in all four of their body languages that made it clear that they didn't quite know how you would keep the collateral damage from a fight with two Jinchuuriki down.

Tsunade sat back down. "Just keep the snafus to a reasonable level. If you do cause a mess, try to make it one that takes a while to show up and some other Hokage can deal with it."

Despite being masked and not moving a millimeter, Bat somehow projected the idea that she was thinking about what kind of disasters she could cause that would only show up years later.

"That wasn't intended to give you any ideas," Tsunade snarled. "Get in, deliver the packet and report back. No riots. No earthquakes. No stolen rivers. Definitely no plagues that cause sterility that won't show up for years."

Bat twitched slightly at that. Kami, Tsunade was spending so much time around the Nara brat she was starting to think like her. Professionally, no one turned to look at Bat, but Tsunade could tell they were all thinking about if she could actually do that… and drawing alarming conclusions in the direction of an affirmative.

Tsunade sighed, because she was one of them. "Don't tell me you've actually thought about that."

Bat attempted her monotone ANBU voice. "Not a plague that causes sterility, but in theory maybe an explosion that would cause decreased fertility and increased levels of birth defects for people not inside the primary radius?"

"You've figured out how to cause mass reproductive chakra poisoning," Tsunade said flatly. And here she had managed to go a full week without being reminded of the many ways Shikako resembled Orochimaru.

"Oh, no." Tsunade knew the brat well enough not to relax at that denial and in fact got more tense. "High energy particle emissions are completely chakra-less and much harder to defend against as a result."

And then there was the part of Tsunade that thought that Orochimaru was a small fry compared to Shikako. She shook her head. "Right. Get out of here. Deliver the intelligence and no experimenting with high energy particle emissions on the way or on the way back."

Red Team disappeared. Shizune wordlessly handed Tsunade a bottle of sake from the storage scroll marked "In case of Team Seven."

Tsunade took a deep drink.

"The scary part is I think she only came up with that as an intellectual exercise," Shizune said after Tsunade fortified herself, completely ignoring the fact that ANBU were supposed to be anonymous. Not that Shikako was doing a good job at disguising herself. "We were just talking about cell division and meiosis in the kunoichi group the other day."

"And she thought, 'Here's everything that could go wrong, how can I weaponize this?'"

"Anko," Shizune said as if that was enough of an explanation.

"Say no more." Not because Tsunade could fill in the blanks, but because she didn't want to know. Given Anko's predilection for chaos she might have just challenged Shikako to somehow relate the topic to explosions. It had happened in the past and a surprising number of topics had non obvious connections with things blowing up. Whatever else you could say about Shikako's brain child, the kunoichi group was certainly making sure the next generation of girls were far more terrifying than the last.

Shikako

Shikako was a little surprised that Tsunade would let her and Sasuke go anywhere near the battle lines. The only conclusion she came up with was that things were going worse than was commonly known in Konoha. It was a sobering thought that didn't make the trip to the field headquarters feel any shorter.

Towa and Komachi noticeably tensed up as they approached the field headquarters. They hadn’t had many missions related to the war, but they’d all fit a pattern: leave Konoha, get to the mission site, and find something was horribly different than what they expected. Knowing the two, Towa was probably thinking it would be a pitched battle. It was harder to guess what Komachi was thinking, but she was probably more inclined towards expecting weird rather than dangerous. Still, they were in a nervous profession, and until that weird revealed itself, she was going to be wound up.

Shikako was proud that Sasuke didn't seem any more or less tense than when they left Konoha. There was something of a weight on him because of the responsibility of leadership, but he was no longer the adorable ball of arrogance and rage that he used to be. The old Sasuke would have felt encumbered by the others, even if they were ANBU. Honestly, that probably had more to do with throwing him at her mom than anything Shikako had done herself, but she'd take credit for doing the throwing.

Shikako was mostly bored on the trip out of Konoha. ANBU were discouraged from talking on missions. Part of it was practical: maintaining awareness at all times, maximizing stealth, etc. Part of that was holding the right mentality. If they didn't talk on missions then they could get into a mission headspace where they were more effective. A good chunk was just mystique. Good for reputation, but still boring as hell.

Though even Shikako and Sasuke got antsy when they got to the field headquarters completely without incident. They weren't even hassled when they requested to see her dad. Her dad did sigh in some exasperation when he laid eyes on Shikako in her Bat outfit. He obviously recognized her, but hopefully Towa and Komachi would assume that it was due to her habit of mass destruction while wearing the mask, rather than because he recognized who she was underneath it.

"Intelligence packet from the Hokage," Sasuke said in the regulation ANBU monotone. Shikako's dad nodded and Sasuke handed it over.

"Did you have further orders?" her dad asked as glances over the first few pages.

"Just delivery," Sasuke replied. There was an implied return and report, but Tsunade was good about not micromanaging them.

"Bat, can you put one of our supply depots in its entirety into a storage scroll with fifteen minutes prep time?" asked her dad. It figured that as soon as he laid eyes on her he'd work her into some sort of plan.

"Five minutes," she replied.

"Good." Her dad pointed to a map. "On my authority, you and Red Team will leave for point Phi here. You will wait for an enemy attack, seal the supply depot and then return to point Sigma here. They'll be expecting a trap and will be coming in force. Prioritize getting the supplies out intact rather than engagement, but try to make it look like the depot was destroyed in the fighting. In the event of close pursuit, go to point Epsilon here, or return to Konoha." Shikako could hear the implicit command to keep herself safe. Turning to one of her older cousins (technically a second cousin once removed), her dad continued "We'll be counterattacking along their eastern lines. Slip strike teams in to seal away their supply depots."

Some Chuunin Shikako only vaguely recognized asked "If we can do that why do we need ANBU for our depot?" Tetsuharu? Tetsuhiro? Something starting with Tetsu. Tall, dark haired and pale skinned, Shikako pegged him as Ino's type, though oddly Ino hadn't really said anything about boys she'd been attracted to lately.

"Idiot," another Chuunin smacked him on the back of the head. She was pretty sure that one was named Akira. "Our depots have all those fancy new storage seals. You can't put a storage seal inside a storage seal without… stuff."

"Stuff," Tetsu snickered.

"Stow it," Shikako's dad barked out. "Send the signals. Tetsunosuke, go with Team Red to relay the evacuation order."

Towa flashed the rest of his team a hand sign. It wasn't a normal ANBU hand sign, and was something they actually imported from Team Seven. It basically meant "Why doesn't anything go as planned for us?" It said something that they needed a quick way to say that. ANBU style bitch fest over, Red Team moved out for their assigned task.

The supply depot was a lot smaller than you would expect if you didn't know about the NaraTen storage seals, so size definitely wasn't a problem in packing it away. The tricky part behind sealing it up wasn't just the storage seals inside but all the other seals. Kof*cku-oba managed to create a number of new medical seals that were very finicky about being sealed themselves. If it hadn't been for the conflict, they'd probably be still awaiting approval, but things like field burn treatments that non medic nin could apply while waiting for someone actually trained were too useful to hold up in bureaucracy with hostiles (and some friendlies) flinging around fire techniques like candy.

Not that Shikako was bitter about medical seals being fast tracked.

Kof*cku-oba's tags were all finicky like that, but fortunately Shikako was familiar with the problem, and it took only four minutes for her to put together the storage seal to secure the depot. So it figured that the enemy didn't show for another two hours.

"Good news, bad news time," Shikako said, causing everyone around her to freeze. That wasn't really ANBU approved phrasing, but at the moment she wasn't entirely concerned about that. "Good news: I'm detecting only two chakra signals coming. Bad news: given their strength I'm guessing they're both Jinchuuriki. I'm going to need a new seal."

The depot commander, one Gaku Inuzuka, shouted, "Everyone Chuunin and below bug out!" Shikako wondered if that was an Aburame reference. "I repeat: everyone Chuunin and below retreat, you'll just get in the way in this fight."

"Suggestions?" Sasuke asked.

"If you see a big black dude with sunglasses, challenge him to a rap battle," she said as she took out some sealing paper.

"What."

"Haven't you read his bingo book entry?" Shikako said as she started working on a seal that might absorb a tailed beast bomb. Emphasis on might. The problem was how to shunt the energy because you couldn't just store it like an object, matter-energy equivalence or not. Maybe if she circulated it? It'd be like a particle accelerator, which technically meant she was violating the order about high energy particle emissions, but desperate times and all that.

"I didn't think it was an actual weakness," Sasuke hissed.

"Nah, it'll only stall him for half a minute or so, but that's still half a minute in combat. Before combat. Whatever," said the depot commander. "Wish I had known about that the first time," he muttered.

"People have done this before?" Sasuke's ANBU monotone was getting stressed.

"Whatever works, man," the Inuzuka replied.

Behind him Komachi relaxed slightly, as if finding out what the weirdness of the day had made things better.

"Try to get them to fire a tailed beast bomb at the depot. That should be enough to cover the disappearance," Shikako said absently as she worked.

Sasuke grunted, which translated into "This is one of those plans, isn't it?" Really, he shouldn't be surprised since that was their bread and butter.

They didn't have time to argue about it, because Kumo had sidestepped the problem of having Killer B challenged to a rap battle by having Yugito Nii lead the way. It was kind of sad. Shikako had wanted to see Sasuke challenge someone to a rap battle. What would be a good rhyme for particle spin?

Gaku

Gaku had been around long enough to know that ANBU's reputation was largely overblown. There had been some complete spazzes who had worn the mask. Gaku wasn't ashamed to admit that his first impression was that these four were in the spaz category. Basically they were trying too hard to maintain that ANBU mystique to actually deserve it.

Their reactions to the idea of two incoming Jinchuuriki changed his mind. None of them were scared. Hawk was more of a resigned "not again." Even the idea of challenging Killer B to a rap battle wasn't like a kid grabbing on to a lifeline but more like when Gaku's nephew discovered that you could put milk and sugar in coffee and why didn't anyone ever tell him before?

Towa and Komachi didn't really react except for a quick twitch from Towa that Gaku thought meant "pay up" in ANBU hand signal slang, combining the cynicism of a team who was waiting for things to go sideways and the confidence that this wasn't what was going to kill them.

Bat on the other hand, reminded him of that time when Gaku showed up to lunch at the Hyugas' with "a friend" and that friend happened to be Tsume. Hisana didn't panic. She did, however, get quietly irate because Gaku didn't warn her that she'd need to get the tableware appropriate for a clan head and he damn well better make it up to her later because even if Tsume didn't care, Hisana knew that the settings brought shame upon her house.

Bat had that same sense that this was in no way shape or form life threatening, but at the same time she was going to gut someone for giving her bad intel because if someone had told her she was going to fight a Jinchuuriki today, she would have worn her good mask and not this ratty old thing, but it was okay she could fake it with this seal that she's making on the fly, and if someone didn't buy her dango soon she really was going to kill someone and not just the enemy today.

Maybe he was projecting a little bit too much of Hisana on to Bat. The point was that the team felt more resigned and murderous than they were afraid, and that was an attitude he could appreciate.

Sasuke

It was times like this that reminded Sasuke that Naruto really was an idiot. It was a pity that the Dobe wasn't around for him to share this insight, but seeing how much damage the Jinchuuriki of the Niibi could do, idiocy was the only explanation for why Naruto wasn't exponentially more dangerous than he was. Sure he had obscene chakra reserves, but that seemed all he had going for him unlike the woman in front of him spitting out fire like it was going out of style. The way that the fireballs split into hairs that tracked targets definitely wasn't a standard technique since it wasn't something his Sharingan could copy.

Of course the Dobe's idiocy was nothing compared to Shikako's brand. Sasuke knew that many people in Konoha regarded Shikako as a genius. As her teammate Sasuke realized just how many of her amazing feats were actually desperate throws of the dice that managed to work out. Really, her true genius was in spin control. Any plan that involved deliberately having a Tailed Beast Bomb sent in your direction had to be crazy.

Admittedly, sometimes her actions really did live up to her crazy reputation, like the fight against Gaara in the Grass Chunin Exams. Sasuke still couldn't get over the fact that that fight was her holding back. Not the most productive line of thought when a second Jinchuuriki showed up and tried to cut you up with… what the heck? Is that man seriously using eight swords at once?

Were all Jinchuuriki insane? Naruto had his ramen obsession. Killer B was apparently Kumo's version of Gai. Gaara had been psychotic and now apparently had recovered so well that he'd gone insane in the other direction and become a paperwork addict. The woman here was trying to kill them, but that was perfectly reasonable behavior in a war, so that wasn't enough information to render judgment. Haku-

Sasuke's internal monologue cut out at that point as the crazy rapper started growing tentacles. Apparently they had pushed them hard enough to need the tailed beast power. All according to plan, which just emphasized just how sh*tty that plan had been. Why couldn't it have just been a small army or two? Was it too much to ask to go a full three months without fighting an immortal chakra beast?

Now if they could only push the Jinchuuriki hard enough that they'd try to destroy the depot and then they could fall back.

And that was Towa detonating every explosive tag he could get his hands on. Considering that he was on a team with Shikako, that wasn't a small number. The Jinchuuriki pulled back, likely worried that the depot's traps were more extensive than they originally thought. No, they were more surprised than that. Either they had excellent scouts who found the previous defensive line or they had a traitor who had leaked the details of the defenses of the depot. Only one of those possibilities would justify an ANBU team delivering an intelligence packet to the front lines, however.

"Tailed Beast Bomb!" shouted Gaku as Killer B decided to bypass the problem of a trap line by just blowing up the depot.

The rest of Red Team formed up on Shikako. The place where she was standing was either going to be the safest place to be or the least safe place to be. Either way they'd be there, unlike every other Konoha ninja in the area who were all retreating at best speed.

Sasuke wouldn't have been able to tell you what happened next if he didn't have his Sharingan active. First, Shikako activated a barrier seal that Sasuke knew wasn't rated for the Eight Tails. It was tied to some sort of light show that covered up her next act, which was to seal up the depot. Where things went wrong was that Killer B released the Tailed Beast Bomb far more quickly than intelligence suggested was normal. It was far from full power, but it was also before whatever Shikako had planned for their escape was ready. So when the next seal in the chain activated, it did so just as the Tailed Beast Bomb hit. Later Sasuke would find out that it was supposed to create a net to seal away the energy from the attack. Some of the energy went into the seal, some of it went sideways in space time and dragged them along with it.

Towa

Towa groaned. He didn't sense anyone around other than Red Team, who were lying on the ground near him. They were surrounded by Hashirama trees, which meant that somehow they had been blown clear back to Konoha. That was a statement he wouldn't have believed before Bat joined Red Team, but now it was just another square on his bingo card.

Bat stirred nearby. "It occurs to me that instead of deliberately goading a Jinchuuriki into firing a Tailed Beast Bomb at us, we could have just shouted 'Oh no, the experimental exploding seal is about to go off.'"

"We could have said it was one of Shikabane-hime's specials," Hawk said into the ground.

"Only if you wanted to scare our people, too," Komachi said.

In retrospect the number of better ways they could have handled that situation was damn near infinite. "Gurk," Towa said as he sat up.

"Gurk," Komachi agreed while not moving from the ground herself.

"At least we weren't in charge," Bat continued. "It was the Kiba clone's call, even if he went with our plan."

"Your plan," Hawk replied. "Wait. Kiba clone?"

"Didn't you notice that Gaku and Kiba look a lot alike? I'm betting that Tsume couldn't find a guy she could put up with and just cloned Hana and Kiba. Hana has a 'cousin' that looks exactly like her too."

If this was Bat's plan to distract them from the disaster at the border, it was working. Towa felt the urge to take off his mask just so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. "They're clan. People in clans tend to look alike. Gaku isn't Kiba's clone."

"You're right. If Kiba was cloned from Gaku he wouldn't be."

Komachi finally sat up and decided to chip in. "I don't think Tsume even knows how to clone someone. I think I even remember someone complaining about Tsume when she was pregnant and hormonal."

Bat waved a hand lazily from her position on the ground. "Cloning isn't hard if you have a functioning uterus. I was talking to Tsunade and Shizune about it just a few months ago."

Towa was afraid to ask how that subject even came up because the answer might make sense. Bat was either really bad about maintaining compartmentalization or this was somehow related to her ANBU duties and Towa really didn't want to think about how. Then his brain did a flip as he realized that he was looking at the Hokage monument… and there were only four faces.

"Kai."

The rest of them looked at Towa then looked at where Towa was looking. "Kai."

Still four heads. Sighing, Hawk lay back down on the ground and said "You know, I didn't think anything could top finding an invasion out of f*cking nowhere when going to look for a lost ferret, but you were probably due for getting blown back in time."

"I'm blaming Kakashi for our luck. Nothing weird happened to any of us until we got him as our Jounin sensei. Tragic, yes. Weird, no."

"Uh… I know you guys are a bit lax on the out of mask information thing-"

"Towa," Hawk interrupted. "Unless you two have been holding out on us, none of us know how to time travel. That means going into the village to get help, possibly right after they've gotten out of a war."

"Potentially pre-Massacre with the KMP in full strength," Bat added. "I don't know about you, but my ANBU class wasn't given lessons in evading large numbers of people with the Sharingan."

"sh*t, I didn't even think about that," Hawk admitted. "I was worried about Crow-taicho."

Towa and Komari both flinched at that one. "Hound would be just as bad," Komachi added.

"Yeah, we do not want to be considered ANBU imposters right now," Towa agreed, and took off his mask. "Shinobu Sato, pleased to meet you."

"Oh, you're like the one mission desk guy who doesn't believe in the Team Seven Curse," Bat said before taking off her mask, revealing Shikako Nara.

Shinobu groaned. "I might need to change my mind on that. Before I thought that missions just sometimes went like that, and now I find out that I had a Lucky Seven on my team."

Hawk took off his mask. "Two members. Sasuke Uchiha."

"This explains so much," Komachi said before taking off her own mask. "Akira Suzuki."

Bat - Shikako - blinked at them. "What perfectly bland ANBU names."

"Mine is real," Towa said, looking at Komachi suspiciously.

She just shrugged. "It could be worse. I know an actual Jiro Yamada."

Sasuke started stripping his ANBU gear, which prompted the rest of them to start doing the same. "So how did we end up in this mess?" the captain asked.

Bat, whose equipment was just disappearing into thin air, replied, "Two theories. One is that there was just enough energy to blow a hole in space time, which is unlikely because time travel via Tailed Beast Bomb would have been documented before. Two is that it interacted with the space time component of the seal I was using and… formed a circuit with the last time I experienced large amounts of Bijuu chakra."

Sasuke turned to look at Shikako. "So Isobu?"

Shikako shook her head. "Isobu hardly got warmed up."

"We were in his mindscape," Sasuke protested.

Towa exchanged glances with Komachi who apparently also had no idea what they were talking about. They silently agreed not to ask.

"Even if we were, we're not in Kiri," Shikako said, gesturing around them. "At a guess, the Kyuubi attack formed the other anchor point. Since there isn't a giant orange engine of destruction laying waste to the village, we may not have been brought back all the way. Or we may have overshot."

"Do you think we can get back?"

"It depends if this is really time travel or not."

"What else could it be?"

"An alternate universe. Maybe we're in a version of Konoha where the Yondaime never died. We need to investigate to get a feel for which it is."

"Which is more dangerous?"

"Ummm. Probably time travel."

"Then that's my bet." Sasuke sighed and ran his hand back through his hair. "How close was your family to the Kyuubi during the attack?"

"Close enough. There were a lot of babies that died just from the chakra. Mostly civilian babies, but with my chakra hypersensitivity they thought I was going to as well. It made an impression on my chakra network."

Komachi groaned. "I thought conversations with you as Bat were disturbing."

Sasuke shrugged. "You get used to it."

"Really?" Towa asked.

Komachi

Watching Bat and Hawk with their masks off was just bizarre. It definitely put into context those rumors that the Last Uchiha had been adopted by the Nara clan.

"Wait," Shikako said.

Sasuke turned to Shikako. To anyone else his face would have been impassive, but they worked with him with masks on. Akira could see the curiosity there.

"Wear this instead." Shikako handed him a shirt in the usual Uchiha style but without the clan markings.

Sasuke blinked twice. "With our mission history, I can understand doing thought experiments in going back in time and realizing that walking around as an extra clan member would be a bad idea, but did you honestly go as far as to pack for time travel. Not just for yourself, but for me as well?"

"Coincidence." At Sasuke's unimpressed look, she continued, "Mom ordered matching shirts for you and Kino. She told the tailor to leave off the crest for Kino's but he left them off on both. She gave it to me to get things fixed but then we got called in."

"Why didn't she just order one for Kino? It looks just like every other shirt I own."

"Do you want to know what she said or what she meant?"

Sasuke sighed. "What she meant."

"You're doing an awful job at clothing yourself. If you didn't have to replace your clothes from combat damage you probably wouldn't wear anything the right size."

Sasuke blinked. "Is that why you're so rough on my clothes when we spar?"

Shikako shrugged. "Mother's orders. She knows you don't like charity, but will accept replacements for clothing that I damaged myself."

Sasuke shook his head in a way that might have been copied from any other Nara. Hell, with the Sharingan that might have been literal. All he needed was to say "troublesome" and he'd be a real member of the family. "I swear she's gotten worse since Kino was born."

"I probably should have warned you about her before you got yourself unofficially adopted."

"Hn." That was definitely an agreement.

Shikako peered at him closely. "You might want to knock off the Uchiha-ese while we're in the village. You already look too much like a Uchiha-"

"That's because I am one. Didn't we just have a talk about clans and appearances?"

"Well it's working against us now. We want anyone looking at us now to think no name genin and not super elite ninja."

"So you're a super elite ninja now?"

"Which one of us did Iwa give a kill on sight order for?"

"That will teach you not to pet rampaging Bijuu on the nose like a pet."

"Isobu was hardly rampaging at the time."

"You know Sakura told me what that looked like from the outside," Sasuke said as he changed shirts. "First you made the Bijuu say that he was scared and then condescendingly pat it on the nose."

"You were there too," Shikako snapped.

"Yes, but even the Tsuchikage thinks I was just along for the ride."

Shikako was horrified. "No, he doesn't!"

"Then why does your bingo book entry say kill on sight and mine doesn't?"

"Because Iwa has some serious collective psychological issues when it comes to seal users."

Ignoring her, Sasuke continued, "And who is it that every time she leaves the borders of Hi no Kuni participates in a regime change, or a failed revolution or an invasion out of nowhere?"

"Just to be clear, are you arguing that I am a super elite ninja or that I'm not?"

Sasuke blinked. "I'm not even sure any more."

Shikako groaned. "This is why we need Naruto back. Then when you get an urge to argue for the sake of arguing, I don't need to be involved. Let's go find out when we are."

Akira finally let out a laugh. "I've never seen anyone take that whole saying about team as family so literally."

"Blame my mom," Shikako said.

"I distinctly remember you being the one to insist on team dinners at your place," Sasuke rebutted, then paused as he looked at what she was wearing. "Wait. You're going into the village dressed like that?"

Shikako looked at herself. "Yes…? Why? Is there something wrong with it?"

"That's like something Ino would wear back when she wasn't serious about being a kunoichi."

"Actually, these are some of Ino's clothes."

"You're dressing in Ino's clothes," Sasuke repeated flatly.

"All my spares look too stereotypically Nara. And I just happened to have some clothes that Ino left at my place."

"Ino lives within spitting distance from you. I think with chakra that's literal. Why would she leave clothes at your place?"

"Eww. You're such a boy, and honestly, I think she's messing with Shika somehow. He definitely twitched when he found out that wardrobe was for her, but I'm not sure why."

Well, that was a point in favor of the rumor that the Jounin Commander's daughter was dating the Yamanaka heiress… and was somehow not actually aware of that fact. Though, given that a Yamanaka was involved, it was also entirely possible that it was part of a mind game that Shikako was deliberately trying not to think about. Of course, both being true was a possibility. Again, a Yamanaka was involved.

On the other side of the bantering pair, Towa - Shinobu - shook his head, clearly amused. These two were still clearly Hawk and Bat, just with the intensity turned up.

"I don't see what the big deal is…. Ino's practically another twin. Our birthdays are even a day apart."

"Yeah, but you don't store stuff in Shikamaru's room."

Well, on the plus side, no one was going to peg the couple loudly arguing about nothing in particular as infiltrators.

Sasuke 2

Their first stop was food. This wasn't necessary for nutrition since Shikako had more ration bars on hand than she could conveniently count, especially if sealing the supply depot worked, but gossip could tell them alot. Sasuke sighed when Shikako dragged the team to Ichiraku's, but didn't protest. It was still a relatively busy place and didn't have any private booths with anti-eavesdropping seals.

They passed by at least three Uchiha between the training ground they landed in and Ichiraku's. Sasuke didn't want to admit he stared at the first one, but something prompted Shikako to pull on his ear and tell him that he shouldn't be staring at pretty girls when he was out with her. He wouldn't admit to sputtering and being completely unable to respond to the idea of being on a date with Shikako either. Towa and Komachi, the bastards, just laughed at him.

Ichiraku was younger than Sasuke remembered, but he couldn't tell by how much, except that it was a lot. Sasuke sat down and immediately ordered a spicy pork bowl. Towa and Komachi both took only slightly longer to opt for shio and shouyu respectively. Sasuke was flummoxed when Shikako looked at the menu like she'd never seen it before.

"Having trouble deciding, little lady?"

Shikako nodded. "Today's my cheat day for my diet, but I don't want to cheat too much. But I also don't want to cheat too little, if you know what I mean."

Sasuke stared at Shikako like she'd grown another head. Hell, growing another head would make more sense than the dieting nonsense she just spouted. There's bound to be a technique for that, right?

"I get you. I'd recommend a small chicken with extra veggies then. Not too many calories and the veggies absorb the flavor."

"Sounds good," Shikako chirped. Chirped! Not that she'd never done that before, but usually when she was acting that way bad things happened to bad people shortly thereafter. That had liberal definitions for bad things and bad people - Shikako could be amazingly petty. Sasuke didn't know what triggered that one, and hoped that she was just in character.

"Are you a ninja?" Ichiraku asked as he prepared the food. "Most ninja can burn this much off in no time."

"Technically," Shikako shrugged.

"Technically?"

"There are a lot of jobs that you need chakra training for that don't really fit into what most people imagine when they say ninja. A lot of the paperwork can only be handled by ninja because of the security seals. So some people that can't make it in the field…." Shikako shrugged helplessly.

"Huh. I never realized. Does it pay well?"

"You won't get rich off it, but you won't be in any danger of starving either."

"My daughter doesn't want to go to the Ninja Academy because she doesn't want to kill." Okay, that meant that Ayame was less than six, but how old was she again? Older than Sasuke, but he wasn't sure how much older. Assuming that she was exactly their age that would mean that they were at least seven years in the past. Sasuke would guess that Ayame was around three years older, so that would put them in the ten year range.

"Well you can't go to the Academy and not learn how," Shikako replied, "but there are some people I worked with that have never drawn a weapon in anger… unless you count that one time when someone switched all the coffee with decaf."

Ichiraku winced. "Well, that would make me change my stance on murder alright."

"So how old is your daughter?"

"Ayame's five now. She wants to follow in her old man's footsteps and run the business." Ichiraku set down their orders, which was a little slow for him. Maybe he got better with age or maybe the conversation put him off his game.

"That's adorable. What part does she like? The cooking? The customers?"

"She's a little shy. It's definitely the cooking." Well that didn't compute at all. Ayame and shy did not belong in the same sentence.

It was a good thing Shikako was doing all the talking, because she didn't seem fazed at all by that comment. "Well, there are some ninja cooking tricks."

"Seriously?"

Shikako nodded. "Most of them aren't much use in the kitchen like starting fires when camping or heating food without fire."

Ichiraku nodded. "You're right, not a lot of calls for that in the kitchen."

"Yeah, but some are useful like evenly coating a pan in oil with chakra."

Ichiraku pursed his lips. "That doesn't sound too useful."

"Not by itself, but if you have a dozen little tricks, it adds up. Maybe not in the taste, but I save sooo much time cleaning."

Sasuke blinked at Shikako's vapid elongation of the word so. If he didn't know better, he'd think she had been working on impersonating some of his worst fangirls just to traumatize him some time in the future. Who was he kidding? She probably had been. This was probably payback for that super elite ninja comment. Shikako had definitely been spending too much time around the Yamanaka and had absorbed their mind breaking techniques. Ibiki too.

"I admit I would be happier about the job with less cleaning. Cooking is a pleasure, but the messes I could live without."

Shikako nodded understandingly and took a sip of her broth. "Mmm. This is good. So you said she was five?"

"She turned five this last February," he said proudly.

"So that's how many months? What was the date again?"

Ichiraku laughed. "I don't think the number of days is important, but almost five and eight months. It's October tenth and she was born February fourteenth."

"October tenth. October tenth," Shikako said thoughtfully. Then her eyes opened. "It's his birthday!" Shikako turned and shook Sasuke. "It's his birthday! His. Birth. Day. We need to prepare!"

"Whose birthday?" Sasuke asked and then his eyes widened. "The Dobe's? That's tonight?" Towa and Komachi were a bit slower on the uptake, but were just as alarmed. Towa even snapped his disposable chopsticks.

Ichiraku laughed. "Did you forget to buy a present?"

Shikako shook her head. "Our friend likes to play pranks on his birthday. It's supposed to be a doozy this year. I'd recommend getting to one of the invasion shelters. He might have been joking but he said something about explosive tags."

Ichiraku nodded. "Ah, one of those." He then turned and shouted at the other customers. "We've got a code H! Closing early."

"Code H?" Sasuke asked. To his confusion, the other customers were taking this seriously and started packing up.

"H for Habanero. We've got a regular who sounds very similar to your friend."

Shikako groaned. "She's his role model." Seriously? Was that part of the act or did Naruto seriously pattern his behavior after someone called Habanero?

"Definitely closing early. Thanks for the warning." Ichiraku started muttering to himself about a birthday prank and maybe taking the idea of going to a shelter seriously.

Shikako 2

Shikako dragged the team to Training Ground Seventeen. It was one of the lesser used training grounds for the simple reason that it was right next to Gai's favorite training ground. Whether people ignored it because of the noise or because they were afraid they might get sucked into Gai's insane routine was a matter of debate. There was a good chance that it was still true now.

They hadn't bothered to gather much more information. Frankly they were far enough back that unless it was a glaring difference they wouldn't be able to tell if it was time travel or dimension travel.

"It looks like time travel to me," Shikako admitted to a glowering Sasuke. "What?"

"You were channeling Ami at Ichiraku's."

Shikako shrugged. "I wanted to seem harmless."

"Hn." Which was Uchiha for "sick burn, bro."

"Is that really the time for this?" Akira asked.

"So, as I was saying, it looks like time travel." Shikako was fairly certain because she was able to detect her own chakra signature in her home, which was a weird as heck feeling. As an anomaly, if it was dimension travel, the chances of herself being around were much, much lower.

Sasuke twitched in his equivalent of a shrug. "We should probably hole up somewhere and not try to change things."

"Your family's alive."

"And they won't stay that way if there's a temporal paradox when we try to change history!"

Shikako blinked slowly. "When did you get conversant in temporal paradoxes?"

"Given our mission history it was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Well, I think the chances of a universe shattering kaboom are pretty low considering we got Teuchi to close up shop early today. That's bound to have changed things a little."

"And maybe small changes don't cause-" Sasuke grimaced. "-universe shattering kabooms."

"Since when has Team Seven been about playing things safe?"

"Since Naruto isn't here to pull some of his reality distorting bull."

"... I can see your point. I have some information that might change your mind, but you have to promise not to kill me for not telling you before, because it's not like I have proof. And frankly, it wasn't safe for anyone to know it, especially not me."

"That's not ominous at all."

"Yeah, so what do you know about- Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Shikako turned and pointed. "The Nine Tails."

"That was supposed to happen tonight!" Akira blurted out. "Not the afternoon."

Shionbu punctuated that with a particularly vile swear.

Shikako groaned. "Somehow we've already changed things."

"I'm never forgiving you if you tell the Dobe that closing Ichiraku's early got the Nine Tails to attack early. Masks back on."

"So, this has never come up, but I'm pretty sure the Nine Tails is being controlled like Isobu was," Shikako said as she put her mask back on.

"How the heck did this never come up?"

"Because it didn't?"

"Stop," Akira said, slipping her mask back on and becoming Komachi again. "Who's Isobu?"

"Very long story short, the Three Tails was under the control of a Sharingan specific Genjutsu causing him to go berserk. So S-class secrets that I would be in so much trouble sharing if we were back in our time: Naruto's mom was the previous Jinchuuriki of the Nine Tails and someone took advantage of the weakening of the seal at child birth to unleash the fuzzball on Konoha. I can't prove it, but there are some indications that it's actually Uchiha Madara looking to get revenge on his old village."

"And that's the direction we're running towards," Towa said dryly.

"I'm on a team with Naruto, of course I put together a plan in case the Nine Tails went berserk."

"This actually explains so much," Komachi muttered.

"No, no, it doesn't," Towa argued.

"Here's what we're going to do…."

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Kushina

Kushina held Naruto close to her. She told herself that when she got a little strength back they'd move, but honestly she wasn't sure if she was going to live. She could feel her chakra network… well she wasn't sure how to describe it, but it didn't feel good.

She was about to sit up when four masked figures showed up, only looking slightly like ANBU. The masks were right, but the clothes definitely were not.

"And we're already deviating from the plan," complained the one in the Hawk mask. Absurdly, he was wearing a shirt just like one Mikoto kept putting Itachi into, just sized for someone twice Itachi's age.

"Hush." The girl in the Bat mask, and with the clothes you could definitely tell it was a girl, swiftly knelt next to Kushina. "Well there's good news and bad news. It looks like you're still connected to the Bijuu chakra, which means that in theory we can stuff fuzzbutt back in your belly. The bad part is that even if I stabilize your chakra pathways, if we don't get Kurama back you're going to die."

"Kurama?" asked Kushina.

She got the feeling that the girl was focusing on her face. "Seriously? You've never asked the Nine Tails his name?"

"I don't talk to the Nine Tails," Kushina said with the air of someone who half believed they were in the middle of a hallucination.

"Isobu was nice," said the Bat as she started drawing a seal around Kushina. The other three took position in a standard three man guard formation.

"Isobu?"

"The Three Tails," replied the boy from the window. "Please don't try to make sense of Bat. She has a near terminal condition called friendliness. You would not believe the people she's made friends with."

Kushina glanced at the seal this Bat was making. It seemed a bit off balance. "I think you need more cowbell."

Bat stopped and tilted her head. "More cowbell?" She blinked. "Oh, of course."

"Just when I think you Fuuinjutsu users can't make any less sense," grumbled the woman in a mask that Kushina didn't recognize. She had the distinct feeling this team had been off duty and didn't have their heads back into ANBU mentality yet, which was honestly reassuring. She didn't need faceless minions surrounding her right now.

"Is that a challenge, Komachi?" Bat asked, telling Kushina the name of the unknown mask.

"Hell no," chorused all three of the non Bat ANBU.

Bat activated the seal and Kushina immediately felt better. "C'mon, we've got another Bijuu to stamp for our club card."

"This is the worst club ever," the fourth ANBU complained as Bat and Hawk left through the window.

Kushina decided that she must be dreaming and settled back down. "So, nice weather we're having," she said to the remaining ANBU. Their chakra twitched as if they were convinced she was a madwoman but were too polite to say anything. Yeah, she still had it.

Chouza

Chouza screamed as the Bijuu chakra burned away at his calorie enhanced flesh. It was half pain and half war cry. Trying to physically push back the Nine Tailed Fox was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but they were far too close to the village proper for any of the smart things to be options.

He suddenly felt relief as the beast was no longer pushing against him. It wasn't moving back, but it wasn't pushing forward either. Chouza took a step back to assess what was going on, though he was half blind from the chakra exposure.

The Nine Tails was surrounded by a mass of writhing shadows. He didn't think anyone, not even Shikaku who was a damn prodigy, could pin the Nine Tails with shadow arts. It was enough to make Chouza stumble back in shock, which was how he noticed two figures emerge from the shadows on the Nine Tails' snout. How did the shadows not get dispelled from the visibly glowing Bijuu?

Then the Nine Tails stopped moving at all. For a moment Chouza wondered if time had stopped, but then a broken wall to his side collapsed. Somehow the figures had managed to freeze the Nine Tails.

After nearly two minutes where no one had any clue what to do, the Nine Tails suddenly roared and the shadows melted away. Chouza braced himself for another attack, but the Nine Tails turned and bounded away from the village.

"Do we chase after it?" asked Daisuke.

"Madara, I'm going to kill you!" the Bijuu roared.

"Madara? Like Madara Uchiha?" asked someone who's voice Chouza didn't recognize, probably because it had gone into the falsetto range.

It seemed like a good time to pass out.

Minato

Both Minato and the masked figure paused as they heard the scream of rage coming from the village. Minato recovered a fraction of a second faster and managed to scrape the masked man with a Rasengan. It really was just a scrape, but in a fight of this high of a level, Minato was thankful for any advantage no matter how slight.

Neither of them were stupid enough to be closely engaged when the Bijuu got closer, however. That was a very good call on Minato's part as the Nine Tails spat out a series of explosions. Strangely, there are a couple of people riding on the Kyuubi.

One of them shouted "He can stay intangible for five straight minutes. If you can keep things blowing up for that long you can injure him." A girl from the sound of it.

The masked man gave an inarticulate cry of frustration and disappeared in a swirl of darkness.

"Or he can run away. That works too. So… how about returning to Kushina's seal now?"

"Why would I want to do that, brat?" growled the Nine Tails, though it was much less aggressive than Minato would have thought it would be under the circ*mstances.

"Because the flaky blond over there has a self-sacrificing streak and knows the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. If you disagree, he'll probably strip away half your chakra and stick it in the belly of the Shinigami while the rest gets sealed in the convenient infant over there. So your choices aren't between going free and being sealed. They're between being sealed and having your masculinity stripped away and being sealed."

The Nine Tails growled at that. "You're lucky I can sense that you're telling the truth."

"Really?" the girl asked, noticeably perking up. Getting closer, Minato could see that she was wearing the Bat mask, which was very wrong. "I thought it was just detecting negative emotions."

Her companion, who was wearing the Hawk mask, gave a long suffering sigh. "Bat, time and place. Time and place."

"Well, he's going back in the seal, now is the time."

"Is she sane?" asked the Bijuu, quietly for a chakra beast the size of a large hill.

"No. For a short list of people she's made friends with - meaning she's actually succeeded and not just tried - the head of Torture and Interrogation, Isobu-"

"My brother? That Isobu?" Bijuu had brothers?

"Yes," the boy hissed. "They made a pinky promise."

"You were there for that. You offered, too. Wait. Are you two commiserating? About me?"

Minato didn't even know the girl and he felt like joining in.

"Let's get me back in that seal. It's less crazy in there."

"I'm worse than Kushina Uzumaki? The Red Hot Habanero?"

The Nine Tails padded back towards where Minato left Kushina, with the two kids still riding him. "I can sense your emotions, brat. They make no sense."

"At least it's not just me," said the boy.

The girl drew herself up. "I make plenty of sense."

"No, you don't," chorused the Bijuu and the boy.

Kushina 2

"So, this wasn't a hallucination because Biwako gave me the good drugs for labor."

"I'm afraid not," Minato answered as he rocked Naruto.

Kushina shook her head, still a bit woozy. She wasn't sure if that was more from the fact that she had just resealed the Kyuubi, who was apparently named Kurama, or because the Bijuu cooperated with the whole thing.

"So who are you? You aren't one of my ANBU teams."

"Time travelers," Bat said.

Komachi let out a whimpering sound. "You're just going to say it?"

"This guy's favorite technique is a space time technique. If it was Tsunade or the Third, I would have worked up to it."

Hawk shook his head. "You've clearly been spending too much time around Naruto, which is a feat since he hasn't even been in the village for a year."

"Naruto?" Kushina asked. "Minato, did you tell them his name?" Her unreliable husband shook his head.

Bat took off her mask. "Shikako Nara. I was born three weeks ago. I'm fourteen now. Naruto was on my genin team."

Hawk took his mask off as well. "Uchiha Sasuke. I was born last July. Fifteen. She's actually fifteen as well. Also on their team under Kakashi-sensei."

Shikako looked surprised and started counting on her fingers. "Oh, I guess you're right." Sasuke sighed and shook his head in a way that suggested that this wasn't out of character for her.

The guy with the mask Kushina didn't recognize took it off. "Shinobu Sato. Twenty five. That would make me born ten years ago."

Komachi shook her head and took off her mask. "Akira Suzuki. Twenty two. Yeah, seven year old me is running around somewhere too."

Minato looked between them. "Time travel, eh? Are you going to need help getting back?"

Shikako sighed. "You originally died. I don't think there's somewhere back to get to. On the plus side, the universe hasn't imploded in a ball of paradox."

"Hey, you're right! This can tell us all sorts of things about-"

"Minato!" Kushina barked.

"Right. Priorities. Well, we'll need to do some blood tests to verify your identities, but it shouldn't be too hard with four of you. Wait. Under Kakashi? Well, that would explain how you managed to weird a Bijuu into submission," Minato said with a shake of his head.

"We learned a lot from him," Shikako agreed.

"Hn."

"Wait." Kushina looked at Sasuke. With the way the ages had to line up…. "You're my godson!"

"What?"

Shikako looked between Kushina and Sasuke. "Oh. I'm guessing your mom never mentioned it because originally Kushina died."

"It's like a soap opera," Akira muttered.

Minato hummed. "And I did the Dead Demon Consuming Seal as well?"

Shikako nodded. "Yeah, I'm the only non-orphan on Team Seven."

"Mikoto died?" Kushina gasped.

Sasuke shifted. "Itachi went crazy and massacred the clan."

"Oh, right. I was about to tell you. I'm pretty sure Itachi didn't do it alone and I'm ninety percent certain that Madara was the one to help him."

"Madara. The same Madara that would have killed these two?"

"Yeah." Shikako noticeably braced herself. "And I'm fifty percent certain that Danzou's private army helped as well."

Minato groaned. "This is going to be a classified debrief, isn't it?"

Shikako blinked. "There are other kinds?"

"Maybe for D ranks?" Sasuke offered, seemingly just as confused. "Wait. I don't think Wave was classified."

"Sure it was. Remember? That was when Naruto went all Bijuu chakra on us for the first time?"

"Hn."

Minato stiffened. "Naruto was on a mission where he needed to use the Bijuu?"

Shikako nodded. "Yeah, that was our first C rank. The client lied about opposition and we were attacked by an A rank missing nin."

"Then Shikako and Naruto made friends with him and his apprentice."

"That friendship is one of the cornerstones of the Konoha-Kiri alliance," Shikako protested.

Minato, that flaky bastard, whimpered. "Kushina, would you please be Hokage for the next week or so?"

Kushina shook her head. "Hell no, blondie. Then it would be my job to make sense of those two. I'm on maternity leave."

"It makes sense in context," Shikako offered.

"No it doesn't," Sasuke disagreed. "I should know. I was there. These two," he said pointing at Shikako and baby Naruto, "have literally weaponized friendship. There was the time Sand invaded and they made friends with their Jinchuuriki. Then there was the time with the Three Tails-"

"Isobu," Shikako interrupted.

"-and don't get me started on Gennou, who had rigged the village to blow up out of revenge but had so much fun with Naruto that he changed his mind, and-"

"You've been holding this in for a while, haven't you?" asked Shinobu.

Sasuke threw his hands in the air. "Did you not see what just happened with the Nine Tails?"

"Kurama," Shikako corrected.

"I'm betting he let himself get resealed just so he could watch the chaos in her wake from a safe distance."

Kushina decided not to share the feeling of agreement she felt come from inside her.

Shikako pursed her lips. "I knew telling you about Itachi might make you lose your mind, but I was expecting more violence and less complaining about the Power of Friendship."

Akira raised her hand. "I think I want to put in a few complaints of my own."

Shikaku

Shikaku more or less hated duty full time, but sometimes more than others. He was getting better about it, but being pulled away while waiting for news on Chouza was hard. At the same time, Minato wouldn't have done it without a good reason. Either way, blaming the Fourth wouldn't have much point.

Shikaku entered the office in his habitual slouch, raising an eyebrow when he spotted a girl who looked surprisingly like Yoshino sitting next to what could only be an Uchiha. Both of them looked exhausted, but that was hardly unique for anyone in the village right now.

Nodding at Minato, Shikaku sat down. Minato gave an absent grunt while scrawling at some paperwork. Perhaps half a minute later Fugaku entered as well, prompting Minato to look up.

"Do you two want the long version or the short version?"

"Short version," Shikaku drawled. Fugaku agreed with a grunt.

"Right. Short version. Fugaku, that's your son from the future, Sasuke. Shikaku, that's your daughter from the future, Shikako. Please take them home and let them be your headaches until tomorrow morning, then bring them back here at oh nine hundred."

"Slightly longer version," Shikaku choked out. Fugaku's agreeing grunt was equally strangled.

"These two are your children from the future. They came back in time, made the Nine Tails attack less horrible than it was before and each of them know enough classified information to give me an ulcer. If it makes you feel better, you can treat them as clan members and not as your children. Sasuke has the Sharingan and Shikako can do frankly disturbing things with her shadows so they're definitely under your jurisdiction that way. And whatever you do, don't let Kushina talk to them. I'm already sleeping on the couch for a month for things that aren't my fault and are never going to happen."

"Do you have any evidence for the time travel?" Fugaku said, his voice more gravelly than normal.

"She's got a second copy of the Sword of the Thunder God. They knew my son's name before Kushina and I could tell anyone else. They knew the weaknesses of the enemy that unleashed the Nine Tails. They knew Nine Tails' name when Kushina, his Jinchuuriki didn't. Shikako's sealing style is clearly influenced by Jiraiya, and I know all of his current students. Shikako knows shadow techniques that Shikaku here hasn't invented yet."

"Before I forget, I've got a supply depot sealed up that might be useful."

Minato froze and then sighed. "Why do you have a supply depot?"

"We were... sort of at war with Cloud? The important bit is that there are a lot of medical supplies including some seals. I think they include seals for helping to treat chakra burns from Bijuu. Not sure if they made it to the front lines yet or not, but Kof*cku-oba just had them approved. There's also probably more evidence about time travel in there."

Minato rubbed his temple. "Shikaku, on your way out, get someone to drag Jiraiya back here, kicking and screaming if necessary. We need someone to vet those seals before we can use them."

"Do it yourself, if you want him here fast," Shikaku rebutted. "You're both on the Toad contract."

Minato sighed and scrawled something on his todo list.

"Aren't you a seal master?" asked the girl, apparently his daughter, with a yawn.

"If you want something blown up or teleported," Minato replied dryly. "Trust me, you don't want me anywhere near anything medical."

Shikaku winced, remembering what happened to the squirrel. Changing the subject, he turned to his pseudo-daughter and asked, "So what should we call you? We already have a Shikako."

"Shikabane-hime," interjected Sasuke.

"Shut up. We were finally somewhere that no one had ever heard that stupid nickname, Last Uchiha."

Minato groaned. "You can ask him about the public details behind that nickname, but please refrain from asking about the classified details until tomorrow morning."

"I hate you," Sasuke told Shikako, but without much venom.

"You started it."

Shikaku sighed. "Please tell me this isn't how it's going to be like with you and your brother."

"Err, only once we make genin."

"He doesn't like the fact she has a dangerous job very much," Sasuke said in what seemed like a protective manner.

"Before that there was a lot of quiet napping," Shikako said wistfully. "I miss those days."

Sasuke snorted. "Sometimes we weren't sure if you two were going to stop breathing because it was too troublesome."

"Oh, no. It takes concentration to survive without breathing. Much less relaxing than using your lungs."

Sasuke sighed. "The thing about completely missing the point isn't new either."

"What? It's one of the exercises for medical training. Admittedly, usually you use a fish instead of yourself."

Minato sighed. "Please get them out of here and seriously consider giving the baby versions of both your kids remedial courses in common sense, survival instincts and in Shikako's case, basic normality."

"To be fair, her weirdness got the Nine Tails resealed peacefully," pointed out Sasuke.

"His name is Kurama."

"Out!"

"He's just annoyed because we're his grand-genin and so he's partially responsible for how we turned out," confided Shikako.

"Hatake was your jounin-sensei?" exclaimed Fugaku. "I let him put my son under a team with Hatake?"

"Er, no. The Fourth originally died tonight and… er… well, there's a reason why I called Sasuke the Last Uchiha."

"Out! I'm not dealing with headaches from the future until the morning."

The four of them left the Hokage's office. The kids shuffled more than walked.

"Do we have time for a quick spar before we go home?" asked Shikako.

Shikaku looked at his daughter's clone skeptically. "Do you have energy for a spar?"

Visibly straightening, she replied, "I have enough energy to kick Sasuke's ass over the Shikabane-hime thing."

Sasuke sighed and said "Let's get this over with."

Fugaku

Fugaku noticed as Sasuke tensed when they reached the training ground next to the Hokage tower.

"It's a chakraless spar this time, isn't it?"

Shikako grinned widely. "Forgot, didn't you?" she said as she slapped a seal on Fugaku's son.

"Chakraless spar?" asked Shikaku with deceptive casualness.

"Ninja unconsciously use chakra to boost their muscles. Strength. Endurance. Speed. Chakra has a multiplicative effect on all of those. If you train with your chakra sealed occasionally, it makes you rely on just the muscles and encourages their development. We do this one out of four spars now."

Sasuke sighed and started stretching. "Because the greatest weakness of the Sharingan is a body or mind unequal to the eyes."

The result was a short one sided beat down, and not in the direction Fugaku was expecting. In terms of raw ability, Sasuke seemed slightly stronger and Shikako slightly faster, but it seemed clear that Sasuke simply reacted more poorly to having his chakra sealed. Fugaku couldn't call it unfair, however. There were a number of situations where you might need to fight impaired from injury to poisoning. Fighting with your chakra sealed seemed like a reasonable compromise between real situations and ease of implementation.

A lot faster and not at all afraid of - Fugaku barely kept from wincing - striking sensitive spots. A bit rough for a spar, but his son really shouldn't have left himself open like that. It was obvious that he was used to being able to move faster than he normally could because Fugaku caught the moment of self recrimination as Sasuke committed to that kick.

"I hate you so much," Sasuke ground out.

"You know I could have hit you harder. And it's not like you need to repopulate your clan single handedly anymore."

"So much hate."

"You love me."

"Only because I have horrible judgment."

Shikaku cleared his throat. "Are you two a couple?"

Shikako laughed at that and Sasuke winced.

"Well that was an odd reaction."

"The last time someone accused Shikako of seducing me to become the next Uchiha matriarch…."

"I pretended to cut out my uterus and threw it in his face. Er, it was a pig uterus that I had sealed, just in case."

Shikaku twitched at that. "That definitely cures any doubts that you're related to your mother."

"Just in case?" asked Fugaku.

"Are you familiar with Kurenai Yuhi? No, wait, she's like twelve right now. Anyway, she mentioned something that her father, Shinku Yuki, had said and I decided to make plans in case someone said something similar to me."

"Nara and their plans," scoffed Sasuke. "I don't know how, but I know that you planned a chakra less spar to happen just as you needed it."

"Would I do that?" Shikako asked, suspiciously doe eyed and innocent.

Fugaku knew that it was a common trap to attribute everything that happened to a Nara to planning. They were also very good at taking advantage of fortuitous coincidences. The problem was telling the difference apart. And no one could look that innocent without malice aforethought. He learned that much from Mikoto.

Sasuke 3

Sasuke glanced at his father. "You're taking this time travel story well."

His father sighed. "I take it that you never got a chance to know your mother as a human being rather than as a parent."

Sasuke blinked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Unfortunately everything. Your mother is insane and Uzumaki, who is sadly her best friend, is even worse. They have no problem delving into the realm of things man is not meant to know because they're women. The only thing that surprises me about this is that it was Shikaku's spawn with you and not Kushina's."

"I don't remember anything like that."

"As a warning, she's going to ask you about grandchildren."

"I'm fifteen."

"She's already started on Itachi."

It was starting to make sense why Itachi would massacre the clan. Let's see. His mother was pestering her six year old son about grandbabies. His father would rather investigate a murder than sit down with his family or really do much of anything else, and his brother murdered the entire clan.

Sasuke started to worry until he remembered that every other shinobi he knew was just as crazy. Maybe less dramatically crazy than Itachi, but Shikako had no sense of self preservation. Naruto- Sasuke didn't even know where to start with Naruto. Kakashi was somehow even worse. Sadly, the sanest of the ninja Sasuke knew was probably Shino… who was still crazy enough to have a colony of bugs growing inside of him.

Sasuke's dad coughed. "Do you mind if we have a talk in headquarters first?"

Sasuke closed his eyes. "About the massacre?"

A nod. It was much more compassionate than Sasuke remembered from his father.

"I don't know as much as Shikako. About a year ago That Man gave her a vision of the massacre using Tsukuyomi. "

"So he had the Mangekyo…."

"Shisui died right before the massacre."

"I see. And afterwards everyone else."

"I came home from the academy to see…."

"I think I know enough now not to take you home to the compound. We've got a room for people in temporary protective custody you can use tonight. You'll do the debrief tomorrow with the Hokage. No reason to do this more than once then."

That was again a lot more compassionate than Sasuke expected from his father.

Yoshino

Yoshino heard Shikaku enter the house, which was odd because between visiting Chouza at the hospital and the general mess of the day, she expected Shikaku to be out a lot longer. Not that she minded. She was silently going out of her head because Shikako had finally stopped crying for what seemed like the first time in weeks and that actually scared her more than the crying now. Though oddly, it sounded like two people saying they were home.

Not wanting to let Shikako out of her sight, Yoshino took her youngest downstairs to greet her husband. Shikamaru had finally settled down and was sleeping at the moment.

Shikaku rushed to her side. "She's so quiet."

"She's feeling terrified and helpless," said a girl Yoshino didn't recognize. She felt vague disapproval towards her outfit, but also recognized what looked like combat damage. It's entirely possible there was more to it before the attack.

Shikaku snorted. "I bet."

The girl produced a sheet of paper from somewhere and was halfway to the table before she stopped and said, "Do you mind if I borrow the table?"

"Go ahead."

A brush appeared in the same way as the paper and she started sketching something while saying "So I'm not sure what the doctors told you about chakra hypersensitivity, and I'm not sure how much good what they told you would do since I don't think my diagnosis is the same as the normal case."

Shikaku nodded. "The fact that you're a ninja would indicate that it wasn't."

"Right. So chakra to me isn't painful like it is for most people with hypersensitivity. I'm just aware of it in ways most people aren't. And there's chakra in everything. I used to wake up choking because the chakra in the air made me feel like I was drowning."

"Used to?" Shikaku asked with some hope.

"It stopped when I was five or maybe six."

Both Shikaku and Yoshino winced at that. Yoshino did not like the idea of her daughter feeling like she was drowning for another five years.

"There," the girl said and the air around the table pulsed. "That should block most of the natural chakra in the air over the table. You can set her down here."

Yoshino looked at Shikaku, and he nodded. When Shikako entered the table area, she noticeably perked up and started gurgling happily.

"We'll need to dial down the strength of the filter over time. And she's probably not going to be happy about being taken away from her safe zone."

"At least she's not suffering," Shikaku said.

The girl winced. "It's not really suffering?"

"Well, thank you, miss," Yoshino said, which oddly caused the girl to wince again.

"Right. Meet our daughter from the future."

"Uh, hi, mom."

"Time travel? Kushina wasn't your Jounin sensei was she?"

"Er what?"

"You would not believe the kinds of messes she got into on her missions."

Shikako muttered something that sounded like "I probably would."

"So how did this happen?"

"We're in a small war with Kumo from when I'm from. Dad sent me and Sasuke on a mission-"

"Sasuke?"

"Sasuke Uchiha, my teammate." She seemed unnerved by the fact that Yoshino didn't automatically recognize who Sasuke was. "Right, uh, Dad sent us on a mission to secure a supply depot and we got attacked by two Jinchuuriki."

"Shikaku Nara! You sent them on a mission where they were attacked by two Jinchuuriki!"

"I'm pretty sure he thought it would just be a small army."

"Shikako-chan, please stop helping."

"Sorry, dad. So… Jinchuuriki, Tailed Beast Bomb. I tried sealing the bomb and I guess the seal didn't work exactly right because we woke up in Konoha fifteen years in the past."

"Not exactly right," Yoshino said flatly. "So you're saying it worked sort of right?"

Shikako shrugged. "Well we lived, so it did its job. Just with… side effects."

Yoshino looked at her future daughter then back at her newly happy present daughter and then at Shikaku. She resolved not to give her husband any trouble about his drinking habits in the future because it looked like his liver needed the practice. "Fighting two Jinchuuriki is a side effect."

"Well, we also fought Kurama this afternoon. I guess not really a side effect though."

"Kurama?"

"That's the Nine Tails’ real name."

"So you're saying because of orders that your father gave, you ended up fighting three Jinchuuriki or Bijuu."

"I guess? But that's only three out of the five. The first two dad didn't have anything to do with. The first one I think was Kakashi-sensei's fault. And I guess the Three Tails was Tsunade's fault, but who expects a Bijuu to attack a wedding?"

Shikaku sighed. "What did I say about helping?"

"Sorry?"

"Five of them. You've fought five out of the nine." Yoshino tried not to sound hysterical, but it was a challenge.

"We also met the Jinchuuriki of the Seven Tails but didn't fight her. She was nice."

"...I feel like wrapping you in blankets and hiding you under the bed."

"Do you mean me-me or the mini-me?"

"Yes."

"That might make it hard to go to the Hokage tower for our meeting in the morning."

"Not. The. Point."

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Shikaku 2

Shikaku padded downstairs and heard his daughter talking to herself in what sounded like nonsense syllables, except the cadence seemed wrong for it to be complete nonsense. When he got in sight he saw that she was giving her baby self a bottle.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Mini-me woke me."

Shikaku blinked. "I didn't hear anything."

"Sensor. I felt mini-me wake up. I got a lot of practice with Kino."

"Kino?"

"You and mom decided to have another baby. Kino, short for Kinokawa. He was about to turn one. I'm going to be annoyed if I've prevented him from being born. Or Hanabi. Or Chiyako. Actually there are a lot of kids who were born after tonight that might not get born. Though maybe I can convince the Third to get his grandson a different name."

"How bad is it?" Probably not as bad as the giant pointed finger to the clan elders that his second son's name would be. Though now that he heard the idea, he kind of liked it.

"Konohamaru."

Shikaku winced. "If I know who his mother is, that might be a lost cause."

"Huh. Well at least I know who to blame."

"So what were you saying to yourself?"

"Trying to convince her that I'm her. Not sure she believes me yet."

"It might help if you used actual words."

"What? Oh. Sometimes twins can make their own language with each other. I don't think these two have their private language yet."

"Troublesome."

"Oh, crud. If the Yondaime is still around then we won't need to drag Tsunade back."

"Tsunade-hime comes back?"

"Yeah. Naruto somehow convinced her to become the Godaime after the Sandaime died. Don't ask me how. I was in a coma for that."

Shikaku closed his eyes. "A coma?"

"Ran into Itachi, who put like three of us into comas. Tsunade fixed us up, though. The problem is that without Tsunade being around Sakura won't become her apprentice. I need to think about this."

"You know, it isn't your job to fix everything."

"I don't want to fix everything, I just want to make sure things aren't worse because of me."

"Minato's still alive. It sounds like you've made a pretty good start."

Shikako frowned. "I hope so."

Minato 2

"Shikako, why did you bring yourself to this meeting?"

Shikaku shook his head. "Don't question it. She's been an angel ever since she's met herself. It's more sleep than we've gotten in weeks."

Minato sighed. Trust Shikaku to find some way to sleep more after a major attack on the village, unlike everyone else, especially Minato. Admittedly sending his daughter back in time was a new one, but a Nara would go quite a distance for their sleep. Obviously, the idea that Shikaku had planned this was crazy talk, but that's what the Nara usually wanted you to think.

Okay, maybe Minato needed a bit more sleep.

Fugaku and Sasuke arrived just moments after. Sasuke did a double take at Shikako holding herself. "You're holding a baby."

Shikako rolled her eyes. "Yes, Sasuke. That's one of my many talents. Not all of us need to use the Sharingan to copy that skill first." Minato wondered if that was literal or not. It really could go either way.

Sasuke still looked dumbfounded. "But you never liked holding Kino."

"I didn't know if Kino could handle my awesomeness. Obviously mini-me can."

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was wrong. You aren't spending too much time around Naruto, you're spending too much time around Kakashi-sensei. If you spent more time around Naruto it might actually tone things down."

"We saw him yesterday."

"That doesn't- Oh, kami. You're planning on corrupting him, aren't you?"

Shikako waved him off. "His mother's alive. I doubt there's anything I could do to corrupt him that she won't do first."

Minato agreed with that, but instead said "Now that everyone's here, let's get started. Important questions today. Unimportant ones take a note for later. Like right now I'm writing down how Shikako knows my wife so well if she originally died last night."

"She's rather legendary," Shikako said dryly, which prompted a repressed shudder from Fugaku. "But we should probably talk about Madara. Obviously I don't have a lot of proof for what I'm about to say."

Sasuke snorted.

"If I wasn't holding myself I would so throw something at you. So Madara Uchiha is frankly insane. His ultimate goal is to use the moon to cast a Genjutsu on the entire world that would give every person their own personal perfect paradise. In the meantime, screwing over Konoha is a perfectly acceptable passtime."

"A world wide Genjutsu. Using the moon," Shikaku said dryly.

Shikako shrugged. "It could be misinformation. Back in our time he was the shadow leader of a group called Akatsuki that were gathering the Bijuu to reform the Ten Tails. Given that Naruto was one of the people targeted I kept tabs on them."

"And drove people nuts doing it," added Sasuke.

"Dealing with me was one of the few excuses Shizune accepted for Tsunade-sama drinking."

"That explains so much," Akira said to Shinobu, who nodded.

"In addition to yesterday's attack, we suspect he placed a long term Genjutsu on Isobu, the Three Tails, and his host, who either was or became the Mizukage. I believe that was the original reason for the blood line purges in Kiri."

"How would that serve his goals?" asked Shikaku.

Shikako shrugged. "Insane, remember? I think the thought process was to create powerful missing nin through the conflict that could be recruited into Akatsuki, but honestly I think it was some kind of temper tantrum."

Joy. Shinobi were hard enough to plan around when they were sane. "And the Massacre?"

"Just a moment, before I forget, the Akatsuki were founded by three students of Jiraiya. Nagato is the nominal leader and Konan is his right hand. Yahiko is rather dead but his corpse is being run like a puppet by Nagato. Though that might not be the case at the moment. I'm not clear on the timeline here."

Minato sighed and wrote another note for Jiraiya.

"Right. Massacre… so in six or seven years the public story is that Itachi single handedly killed the entire Uchiha clan except for Sasuke."

Minato saw Sasuke's muscles tensing. It wouldn't be noticeable for most people under Jounin level.

"A little after we graduated from the academy, our team had a run-in with Itachi, who was with Akatsuki at the time. He and his partner were in charge of hunting Naruto."

Minato snapped his pen. "Sorry, please continue."

"Right… and Itachi tried targeting Sasuke with a Tsukiyomi-"

"And this self sacrificing idiot substituted herself with me, putting her in a coma for a month."

Shikaku let out a pained noise.

Shikako cleared her throat. "So… I relived the massacre over and over for three days."

"She was still screaming while she was unconscious. If the Dobe hadn't brought Tsunade back-"

"Anyway, when I was healed, I looked up details of the clan…. I thought that maybe being able to put names to faces would help."

Minato seriously wondered about the girl's thought processes. How would that help? Maybe it was just the Nara tendency to try to accumulate knowledge? But Shikaku seemed just as confused about things as Minato did.

"There were… distinct discrepancies between the autopsy information and what Itachi showed me. In particular some of the deaths were a lot bloodier than they were in Itachi's rendition."

Shikaku nodded. "Giving you the hint there was an accomplice."

"Likely multiple. How does one ninja, no matter how talented, kill an entire clan except for one child without raising any village alarm."

Sasuke and Fugaku both stiffened.

"For a while now I've been investigating what seems to be a rogue faction in Konoha."

Sasuke nodded. "Sai."

"One of my leads is a shinobi with a cover identity of Sai. He's fairly sympathetic. Unfortunately, he has a seal on his tongue that prevents him from saying anything. Since I don't have any proof with me, I'll just lay it out. I'm fairly certain that the Uchiha Massacre was actually deliberately engineered by a village elder acting against the best interests of Konoha."

Minato put things together quickly. "Danzou."

Shikako nodded. "In the original timeline in the next day or so Danzou will arrange for the Uchiha to be effectively banished to the edge of the village. Basically everyone will be too tired to argue against it, but the Uchiha will have started to see this as a sign that the village was turning against them." Shikako made a face. "I hate talking about time travel."

"We understand," said Minato.

"Right. So Danzou and the Sandaime's advisors will continue to push policies to the detriment of the Uchiha. This naturally generates a level of discontent. Either they will start plotting a coup or Danzou will be able to string together unrelated evidence that would convince the Sandaime's advisors that they are. From there his private army isolates and slaughters the Uchiha while blackmailing Itachi into taking the blame in exchange for the life of his younger brother."

Sasuke's Sharingan activated. "And you've been investigating this by yourself? And you didn't tell me?"

"Did I mention that I think in our time Danzou had stolen one of Shisui's eyes which has the power of Kotoamatsukami?"

Fugaku sucked in his breath while Sasuke looked confused. Well he actually looked fairly impassive, but for an Uchiha he looked confused. His father put a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "She made the right call. Kotoamatsukami is essentially an undetectable mind control technique. I would trust Shisui with it, but very few other people."

Sasuke sighed. "Did you mean to drop dead when Danzou cornered you?"

Shikaku's chair creaked from the force of grip he had on the arm rest. "What."

"No, I was just trying to use chakra to control my reactions, but my chakra network was compromised. Getting Danzou into hot water was just a nice side effect."

Shikaku muttered something. Minato was willing to bet it was something along the lines of "two of them". In the meantime Minato made a note on his list of things he didn't really want to hear more about but needed to anyway.

"I wonder if it's too late to give Orochimaru the hat," he muttered.

"It might be a bad idea," Shikako said hesitantly. "He sort of went missing nin, invaded Konoha during our first Chunin exams and gave Sasuke a hickey of doom."

"He did what?!" Fugaku gasped.

"It's a curse seal. Not a hickey of doom," Sasuke hissed.

"Can we go two minutes without horrifying revelations?" asked Minato.

Shikako produced a bottle of sake out of nowhere and set it on his desk. "Tsunade-sama often asked the same thing."

"I'd ask why you have that, but I'm starting to get the picture," said Shikaku.

"Danzou and Orochimaru might be traitors and Madara wants to do evil things with Bijuu and the moon. Anything else I should know right away?"

Shikako looked up in thought. "Well the reason that Orochimaru went missing nin was because the Sandaime caught him experimenting on children. I think that was in about two years."

"A little less," offered Sasuke.

"So he's probably got kidnapped children locked in cages as we speak. Oh, and I suspect Danzou helped supply them."

Minato rubbed his temple. "I asked for that, didn't I?"

"Oh, and part of the reason Nagato and the rest of Akatsuki go bad is because Danzou arranged some sort of deal with Hanzou the Salamander and got Yahiko killed. I don't know if that happened yet or not. If it has, they may not react rationally to Jiraiya showing up. On the other hand, if it hasn't then you may be able to get someone with the Rinnegan allied to Konoha."

"The Rinnegan?" Minato grabbed the bottle and opened it.

"Save some for us," Shikaku said.

Shinobu raised his hand. "For the record, nothing I know is nearly as disturbing as what she does."

Sasuke and Akira made noises of agreement.

Shikako shrugged. "Should have done a stint in intelligence."

"I did," Akira hissed.

"And that would have meant I would have been working in the tower when you unleashed your storage seal debacle," Sasuke added.

"Explain that one," Minato said as he grabbed some saucers. "That sounds non horrifying enough."

Shikako shrugged. "We standardized a new set of storage seal designs with higher capacity."

Sasuke snorted. "She neglected to mention that she did this to punish someone in logistics who called Shikamaru an idiot. Almost every single process in logistics had to be redone. Every. Single. Process. And then missions had to be changed because with the storage seals merchant escorts completely changed."

Minato groaned. "And budgets had to be redone and manpower estimates."

Shikaku looked pinched. "And requisition processes and building usage requirements."

Fugaku added "Evidence storage and chain of custody procedures."

"I take back the non horrifying assessment."

"Now would be a good time to introduce them since everything needs to be replanned after the attack anyways," Shikako said innocently.

Minato grabbed his head with both hands. "Get this demon out of my office for an hour. Actually come back after lunch."

"Let me leave a copy of the info packet for the NaraTen storage seals with you."

"Why do you even have that with you?" asked Shinobu, who was staring at it as if it was an armed explosive tag.

"Trophy."

Sasuke nodded. "Makes sense."

Minato rubbed his forehead. "Out!"

Kakashi

Escort work was nothing new for Kakashi. Escorting his future students that came back in time was a little different, but that just meant they could take care of themselves. No, the weird part of things was his strict orders that under no circ*mstances was Kakashi to allow them to do any paperwork. Minato had gone so far as to say that setting the building they were in on fire was preferable to letting them fill out a single form.

Kakashi basically knew nothing about his future students, but the fact they could drive Minato to give that kind of order made him feel proud.

The best part about them was that they gave him an excuse not to take a genin team for the next twelve years. Admittedly, that also meant that he wasn't going to get out of that duty when their other selves and Naruto graduate, but that was a slim chance at best, even before, given who his sensei was. Really, the only way he could have gotten out of it was to take a team earlier and that was not going to happen.

Kakashi challenged them to a spar. He had a good idea that he was going to lose, he just didn't realize how badly. They were used to fighting him when he had a decade and a half more experience. Even if they didn't know all his tricks, their teamwork was impeccable. Of course, individually he was still better than each of them.

At least that's what he thought up until the two sparred against each other and the dirty tricks and bigger guns came out. In retrospect it was obvious they wouldn't go all out against him, not being sure of his skill level. They however knew each other's skill levels intimately.

An unsealed giant pillar of stone. An odd fire cloak. An anti-Sharingan shadow technique. The White Light Chakra Sabre. The Sword of the Thunder God. Kakashi's own Chidori.

And then Kakashi's heart just about stopped when, in a horrible mirror of an event from his nightmares, Sasuke ran Shikako through with the Chidori.

Except that it didn't even slow her down. Kakashi would have suspected a Genjutsu except he had uncovered his eye for this fight. Shikako's only reaction was an offhand comment about how that always stung.

Things continued in a slightly more conventional manner for a few minutes before Shikako yielded. It was slightly odd to Kakashi that someone who could no sell the Chidori lost the spar, but apparently that was something that used up quite a bit of chakra and in their sparring now, they yielded when they were half out of chakra. (Something about a kidnapping attempt preventing them from going all out anymore.)

"So Kakashi-sensei-"

"Not sensei."

Shikako tilted her head. "Kakashi-senpai?"

"We're the same age now," Sasuke protested.

"I think he's a year older. Kakashi-kun?"

Sasuke shuddered. "No. You're forbidden from using that honorific ever again."

"Ignore him, he's having fangirl flashbacks."

Kakashi shuddered as well. "Understood."

Shikako looked at him thoughtfully. "Is that why you wear the mask?"

Sasuke got the identical look on his face, which Kakashi instinctively knew meant trouble. "We could probably get a look underneath it now if we worked together."

Fortunately Shikako smacked Sasuke on the back of his head. "Bad Sasuke, he's saving that for his wedding night."

Sasuke looked between Shikako and Kakashi as if he couldn't decide which one of them was sh*tting him. Kakashi again felt the curl of pride in his chest.

"So Kakashi-kun-" A twitch from Sasuke and the same curl of pride. "-has Obito's Sharingan been giving you troubles lately?"

Kakashi wanted to deny it, but obviously these two knew there was an issue if not the timing of when it started. "Yes."

"There's another stage of the Sharingan, invoked by intense grief." Kakashi twitched. "I take it Rin has died already."

Sasuke looked terribly betrayed. "Wait. He told you why?"

Shikako waved Sasuke's objection off. "As if."

Sasuke grunted. "More poking into classified mission histories?"

"Anyways, the super eye is activated by looking at a special rock in the Uchiha-"

"Special rock!?" Sasuke sputtered.

"-district. At least that's how our Kakashi activated his. I think native Uchiha don't need it. Maybe? I'm not sure the clan will let you look at it now, though."

"Doubtful," Kakashi said dryly.

"Do you think we can just tell it to him?" Sasuke asked.

"Tell me what?"

"There's a chant thing."

"I think you're trying to be intentionally dismissive of my clan now."

Ignoring Sasuke, Shikako continued. "If it works, it should fix the chakra drain problem. And give you a space warping attack. It's one of the few things that might be able to counter Madara's own space warping abilities."

Sasuke stiffened. "Madara has the Kamui too. Why didn't you say so?"

Shikako blinked. "Because I thought it was obvious?"

Sasuke stood up, walked over to the nearest tree and started pounding his head against it.

"Right. So how do you feel about going to the hospital for chakra exhaustion?"

"I'm on duty right now."

"Oh right. I guess if we sent you to the hospital we'd have to fill out paperwork."

Sasuke paused in his ritual (and it really did seem like a common ritual). "No, she's not trolling us. She really is completely missing the point."

Shikako didn't seem to hear him as her eyes unfocused. "Hey, it feels like Jiraiya's back."

Kakashi silently vowed to make sure his entire genin team passed the Chunin exams on the first try. When the Uchiha seemed like he would be the sanest and most well adjusted member of the team then you knew something was wrong.

Jiraiya

Jiraiya's eyebrows rose slightly. "Huh. Smaller than expected." Supply depots were sprawling. Not compact little things that could be mistaken for a camp.

The Nara girl shrugged. "Storage seals. Lots and lots of storage seals. Food. Weapons. Medical supplies. All in storage scrolls. Medical seals not in storage scrolls. And I swear I'll go missing nin if you make me do the paperwork to certify Kof*cku-oba's medical seals."

Minato snorted. "As if I'm letting you anywhere near paperwork."

Jiraiya padded over to the medical seals and looked at the labels. "Chakra burns? Barrier seals?"

The Nara girl shrugged. "Kumo fielded two Jinchuuriki. It's been an unfortunately good investment. The single tag spherical barrier is for emergency field work. Not very powerful, but good enough to keep away stray kunai."

"That one's yours," the Uchiha said with a smirk.

The girl collapsed in on herself. "Dammit."

Minato shook his head. "More process changes?"

Bits of paper suddenly started appearing around the girl.

"I swear you're eventually going to collapse into a black hole," said the Uchiha.

"Not my fault there's so much paperwork for everything. Ah. Here it is. Still got the rough draft for the proposal."

"If the Nara haven't changed the forms," pointed out the girl with actual curves.

The Nara girl waved a hand. "Please. That would require effort for something utterly pointless. And I can get-" Her eyes widened dramatically. "Oh crud. No one I used to fob paperwork off on is around anymore. Tenten's one now. Sakura isn't Tsunade's apprentice so I'll have to deal with actual people in the hospital."

"I'm glad to know that you don't think Sakura was an actual person."

The girl leveled a glare at the Uchiha that would have been more in place if she had been the one with the Sharingan. "You know what I mean."

"At least now we know the real reason you wanted Tsunade back in the village," commented the boring background guy dryly.

"The rumor was that she dumped a third of her licensing profits for the storage seals on Tenten just to get out of some of the paperwork," the Uchiha added.

"Nara," Jiraiya agreed.

"She's not as bad as her brother. I swear Shikamaru once got stabbed by a kunai because he was too lazy to dodge."

The Nara girl snorted. "That's a lie. That was literally the day Shikamaru realized Ino had breasts."

The Uchiha shook his head. "I see obliviousness runs in the family."

"What's that supposed to mean? Wait." The Nara girl turned to Minato. "You're alive."

Minato blinked. "Yes?"

"Do you have time to look over my sealing textbook? I'd love to have your input. I think I have one of my rough drafts here." More paper started appearing and disappearing.

"I think Jiraiya would be a better-"

"The old pervert already looked it over. I'm pretty sure the younger pervert wouldn't do a better job."

"I'm not a pervert-"

"Super pervert, right," the girl said distractedly.

"Aren't those technically clan secrets?" asked the Uchiha.

The girl stopped whatever weird space manipulation she was doing and stared at the boy incredulously. "Do you really think he'd learn anything from this?"

"Hn." Which was probably Uchiha-ese for "Point."

"Well these chakra burn seals look like they do what they should," Jiraiya said. "You said they were certified in your time?"

The Nara girl nodded. "By Kof*cku-oba. I'm sure she paid attention to every detail in the paperwork." The girl's eyes glinted mischievously. "Including writing her ta's correctly."

"Brat." Turning to Minato he added, "I'd ship half of these to the hospital now for the worst cases. We've got some people who aren't going to pull through without something like this."

The sexier girl winced. "And that's with relatively light damages. Compared to last time."

Jiraiya looked at the Nara girl. "Including your father's teammate."

Generic boy narrowed his eyes at that comment, as if wondering how Jiraiya knew that, if he had just arrived in the village. Interesting. Smarter than he was expecting. Jiraiya might have to remember his name.

Actually…. Jiraiya refocused on the Nara girl. Had she been making fun of how he referred to people mentally with the old pervert/younger pervert comment? That suggested a disturbing level of familiarity with his thought process. Either they had collaborated more closely than she had originally implied or she had spent a lot of time studying his sealing style.

Shikako squared her shoulders. "Then I should probably take them and show the doctors how they're used." She smirked at him in a way that didn't quite match her statement, as if she realized she had gotten him to think of her by name.

The rest of her team's body language shifted to become slightly more smug. That could just be team cohesion and following Shikako's lead. It could also be that they were just a bunch of feral little gremlins who knew they had scored a point without knowing what or why… but it could instead mean more insight into Jiraiya's thought processes than was common for even ANBU. He'd have to remember all their names just in case.

Shikaku 3

Shikaku liked to think of himself as a bright man. Perhaps not as smart as his peers believed, but bright. Honestly, most of his reputation for intelligence wasn't due to brilliance on his part but stupidity on the part of his enemies (and the lack of common sense on the part of his allies). Still, his daughter seemed to have inherited all of his intelligence and on top of that her mother's drive and then some. There was no other explanation for how she could be sitting at a table with Minato and Jiraiya and basically having a geek fest over seals from the supply depot.

Of course, that drive didn't necessarily go where duty dictated because they had their geek session instead of what they were supposed to be doing, which was discussing Root. Admittedly, everyone looked like they needed a break. Towa and Komachi in particular looked like they were questioning everything they had ever done in ANBU after recontextualizing possible warning signs they missed because they had been taught that was just the way ANBU did things.

So instead the sealing geeks were having a big discussion about kinds of math that Shikaku didn't realize even existed. And with a shock, he realized that Shikako's understanding of it was based in her twin language, meaning she had to have invented it herself.

Shikaku turned to Sasuke. "And Shikamaru was the smart one?" Because if he was, then raising these two was going to give him gray hairs.

Sasuke shrugged. "It depends. If you want someone beaten at Shogi or any other situation where there are rules known ahead of time, then Shikamaru is the one you want. If you just want to win and you don't care about what laws of man or nature are violated in the process, you go to Shikako."

"Laws of nature?"

"Shikako has survived having a sword shoved through her heart and didn't see Tsunade until a week after that."

Shikaku's mouth was dry. "I see."

"She fought off an invasion that time. Don't even get me started on Hot Water. She survived an explosion that destroyed the country. I don't know if she's Kakashi-sensei's favorite for being the least likely of us to die or his least favorite because she keeps getting into situations where she proves it."

Kakashi noted dryly, "She also barely noticed you using an assassination technique on her before lunch."

"What."

Sasuke shrugged. "She can selectively turn parts of her body or her whole body into a living shadow. I think she got tired of being stabbed."

"You don't just decide not to be vulnerable to attack."

Sasuke stared at Shikaku for a second. "In the future you invent a technique specifically to counter Genjutsu from the Sharingan because of Itachi using Tsukuyomi on her. That is apparently something you and your family just decide."

Shikaku pushed two fingers into his forehead where he felt pain starting to build up. "This is going to be a political headache and a half."

"In your defense, where we come from, the Uchiha clan head was practically family."

"You."

"Me."

Shikaku wondered briefly about the possibility of Sasuke becoming his son-in-law and decided to ignore that thought. If it ever became an issue he'd deal with it then.

Sasuke seemed to divine part of his thought process and said "As far as I know Shikako has never knowingly gone on a date."

"Knowingly?" asked Kakashi.

"Shikako is legendary for her romantic obliviousness," Sasuke said.

"Smart money is that she's currently dating the Yamanaka heiress without realizing it," added Akira, obviously happy to have something ordinary like gossip to talk about instead of treason.

Shikako looked at the ceiling. "Why do people keep saying this?"

"I don't know…. You spent most of yesterday wearing Ino's clothes," Sasuke drawled.

"I was trying to look like a non-Nara!"

Shinobu shook his head. "I still think that it's a mind game targeting her brother."

Shikako gave him a funny look. "Why do you even have an opinion on this?"

"The entire village has an opinion on this," Shinobu said flatly.

"What part of 'legendary' did you have trouble with?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm sure Ino would have mentioned it if we were dating."

Shikaku despaired at her phrasing. She didn't say she would have noticed it; she said that Ino would have mentioned something. He knew his clan had a tendency to offload some of their social reasoning to the Yamanaka clan, but extending that to "Are we dating?" was taking it a bit too far.

"So can we talk about Root again?" asked Kakashi.

"Just a minute. I need to repress the idea of Shikako taking herself as a sealing apprentice," said Jiraiya.

Sasuke grimaced. "The village might not be in the same shape afterwards."

Shikako sniffed. "If it's not, it'll be in better shape. I think I liked it better when you were a big ball of angst and didn't make jokes."

"Who's joking?"

Shikako 3

They had taken a break from debriefing the time travelers. Shikako and Sasuke had gone out for dango while she was pretty sure that the adults were having a drink. Well, she got the feeling that Shinobu and Akira were going for more than just one. Obviously not enough to get drunk since it was still the middle of the afternoon, but they all felt the urge to take the edge off. Jiraiya didn't show it, but Shikako was morally certain that he was shaken by what she knew about Akatsuki and Danzou. She got the feeling that his immediate goals were to put a Rasengan through Danzou's head and then visit Ame.

"So what's got you down?" Sasuke said as he rather viciously bit at his dango. They were in Training Ground Three and being watched by Kakashi, who was anti-social enough that he refused their offer for Dango, but a few privacy seals and it was safe enough. It said something about Sasuke's growth as a person that he was trying to help her even though he was still upset about dealing with the Itachi issue. At the moment, since Itachi was six or seven, Sasuke seemed to have transferred most of his negative feelings towards Danzou for the moment. The problem with that was that Shikako was fairly certain that Jiraiya had called dibs on the elder's head. Of course, this was still Sasuke and he was all awkward about trying to offer emotional support.

"Were you paying attention to-"

"I got lost somewhere around 'traversal of hypersurfaces.' I don't even know what a hypersurface is."

Shikako briefly considered explaining N-dimensional geometry to Sasuke before deciding that he'd probably ignore her if she tried. "Long story short, the sealing masters think it was time travel. There's a small chance that the timelines forked when we went back and we can jump back to our old branch, but that's going to take a lifetime of research or two."

"Is that how the subject of your apprenticing yourself came up?"

Shikako crossed her arms. "I can't believe the Yondaime wants to apprentice my younger self just to preemptively stop me from teaching myself."

"I can," called Kakashi from the tree above them.

"Dad's already started on the paperwork. Dad. I'm not that bad."

Sasuke looked at her flatly. "You admitted to destroying that Land of Hot Water."

"It was better than the alternative!"

"No one is denying that," said Kakashi in his "I can't believe I'm the one defusing tensions" voice. "They just want your younger self to have options that don't involve increasing numbers of explosions."

"If explosives don't solve your problems-"

"You aren't using enough of them," Sasuke interrupted. "Even my dad was disturbed that you went and proved that. You made an Uchiha think too much fire."

"And this is the clan that thinks you aren't a real human being unless you can breathe fire," Kakashi added.

Shikako glared at the tree before remembering Kakashi's Sharingan. "Oh, shoot. I forgot to tell the Hokage about the plan to hospitalize you."

"Did I teach you to phrase things in the most threatening way possible? I know the context of that statement and I still feel like you want to hurt me."

"She does want to hurt you. We all do. That was the first thing you taught us." Sasuke paused. "Maybe not the Dobe, but he also hasn't had to deal with you for more than a year."

"He's just trying to hide how much he cares behind a murderous facade. We don't want to hurt you."

A beat. "Why do I get the feeling that you're just trying to get me to let my guard down?"

"Because you're a genius," Sasuke replied. "We're going to send you to the hospital and enjoy it."

"Do you think we could use that to sell your father on letting Kakashi see the magic rock?"

"I think we should try something other than opening a black hole in an enclosed area first."

"Black hole? Maa. Maa. What did I ever do to deserve mean students like you?"

"Just what we know or should we get the Hokage to contribute to that list?" asked Shikako.

Sasuke hummed. "It's impressive that he sounded sincere when he asked that."

"My future students are so mean."

"We weren't this way until you got a hold of us. Sasuke even stopped using Uchiha grunts just so he could fight back more effectively."

"Hn."

Shikako tilted her head. "That's weird. I just felt Jiraiya leave the village."

Sasuke huffed. "I bet that idiot left for Ame."

Danzou

What Danzou understood that most people didn't realize was that Namikaze wasn't as nice as he seemed. There was something fundamentally different about the new Hokage in that, aside from a few exceptions, Namikaze simply didn't care about people. He might smile nicely and give fruit baskets or other such rot, but Namikaze did so as a form of social lubrication to ensure that later requests for favors would be more likely to succeed. When being nice didn't cost him anything, he was nice. When it didn't… well, he had a flee on sight order for a reason.

On top of that, even Danzou had to admit that Namikaze was a genius, but he had underestimated his level of genius. Most people given that label only had exceptional talents in one or two rather narrow areas. Namikaze had met his quota with skill in personal combat and some of the more esoteric ninja arts. Now Danzou had to admit that he also had talent in running and concealing a clandestine organization. It should have been impossible for someone to run their own black organization inside Konoha without Danzou knowing about it, but Namikaze had managed.

His first clue something was amiss was the ANBU team that had stopped the rampage of the Nine Tails. Obviously Danzou considered the possibility that Namikaze simply had a few deniable assets that were put together for this attack. Two members of that team fit that description incredibly well with names and abilities so generic you could tell they were manufactured rather than naturally occurring.

The Nara and the Uchiha in that group revealed something more was going on. The Uchiha clan did not lose track of members with the Sharingan. Danzou tried not to read too much into the fact that the Uchiha was the spitting image of Madara's brother, but one of Namikaze's students was a medical prodigy…. As for the Nara, Danzou wasn't an expert on their shadow arts, but her abilities did match what he theorized was possible if the clan wasn't so soft in their training. However, training someone to that degree of lack of self wasn't something that couldn't be done without a support structure that should have left evidence.

On top of that, his sources revealed that Namikaze was using time travel as an excuse for their existence. Something so patently absurd was a clear indication that their origin was an off the books project. Unfortunately, his sources also revealed that Namikaze was going after records related to Root's financing.

It soon became clear what Namikaze's goal was: Root was going to be scapegoated for the Nine Tails attack. This was vexing on a personal level, but as Danzou thought it through, it seemed to be the correct choice for the good of the village. Making the Nine Tails attack the result of a traitor trusted by the previous regime would nicely consolidate the current Hokage's power and allow him to make a number of significant policy changes that the softer influential idiots would otherwise protest.

Even twenty four hours ago, Danzou would have fought against this as hard as he could, but with clear evidence of a successor organization with principles that Danzou approved of, he gave serious consideration to simply allowing Root to be disbanded quietly and his men absorbed into Namikaze's group. Unfortunately, that wouldn't give Namikaze the public awareness to push through the changes he needed, changes that Danzou had wanted for a long time. There needed to be a spectacle, preferably with what the masses would call a tragedy.

Danzou drafted a few directives countermanding some existing standing orders and procedures so that more of his men could be salvaged while giving a few other commands to give the village the tragedy necessary for real progress to be made.

Danzou smiled. Soon he would die, but it would be in service to his village, propelling it to new heights and that was all he ever wanted.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Kakashi 2

"So… if you're attacked inside the village by a rogue faction of special forces, do you aim to kill or capture?" asked Shikako.

At this point Kakashi had been around her long enough to know that wasn't a random question. All the same, he had to check. "That's not a hypothetical question, is it?"

Shikako stood up and stretched. "You've got about two minutes to decide."

Sasuke sighed, tossed his dango skewer aside and stretched as well. "How badly are we outnumbered?"

"Three four man teams."

"One day we're going to have an even fight or maybe one where we're only slightly out numbered and I'll make sure my Sharingan is active just so I can remember that moment for all time. Try not to kill them, but don't be gentle."

"Aye aye, Taicho." Shikako and Sasuke's demeanor shifted, banter over.

Kakashi wasn't a sensor, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. Suppressed killing intent.

As predicted it was twelve men, or rather twelve boys. All male and probably none of them older than fifteen. The age didn't stop Shikako and Sasuke from striking to maim. Kakashi felt like something of a failure that his students from the future didn't have that hesitation, but they did say they came from a war. You'd think that Root, being a clandestine group with little regard for social and emotional interactions would have kept their own wartime edge better, but twelve men weren't even enough to injure anyone on Kakashi's side.

Admittedly, he was wondering if his two future students were actually human or if they were actually young eldritch abominations. Shikako did the turn to shadow thing and in addition to lopping off limbs with the Sword of the Thunder God, she also formed solid shadows that pierced and strangled.

Sasuke in comparison seemed like he was trying to turn into fire, but wasn't quite there, only coating himself in a liberal layer of the stuff. At least he didn't need that physical invulnerability, having the Sharingan and easily dodging most of the attacks that went his way.

It was some consolation that in the aftermath, Shikako looked rather green. One of her targets had died, it looked like the only one in the bunch, though considering the liberal burns Sasuke left, perhaps that was a mercy. Shikako could kill without hesitation but she still felt bad about it even in a situation where it was us or them. Or maybe maintaining the shadow state was just literally nauseating. Kakashi was hoping it was the first explanation.

Kakashi wiped some blood off of what little showed of his face. "For a force this size we can't have been the only targets." Too large to be deniable and too small for the forces not to be divided. Either that or they didn't expect Kakashi to be there.

"The Hokage can probably take care of himself," Shikako said out loud then froze.

"Naruto," the three of them chorused. They immediately turned and rushed towards Minato's home.

Minato 3

Most people wouldn't welcome an assassination attempt, but Minato had had a truly sh*tty last couple of days. This at least meant that he wouldn't have to go through the motions of proving Danzou's guilt before moving on the old bastard. All the threats that the four time travelers had brought up were bad enough, but Minato's temper was on a slow burn based on what his teammates had let slip about Naruto's old future.

It didn't help that he couldn't take it out on anyone because they hadn't done anything yet. That and he didn't know how much was lack of ability and how much was lack of will. Kakashi got a pass because he was just fourteen and honestly still broken from Obito and Rin. Jiraiya? Well there was a reason the old coward had left the village so soon and it was less about intelligence and more about avoiding Minato's crosshairs for a while.

He would have to do something nice for Shikaku. It sounded like the Nara Clan had all but adopted Naruto.

That would be later because he had a one eyed old bastard to beat to death first. He would be willing to bet that Danzou had Naruto's life made worse in hopes that Sarutobi would enroll Naruto into Root for protection. It was just supposition, but now that Minato had an excuse, he was going to let loose.

Towa 2

Shinobu Sato was a boring person, which was why he liked being Towa, especially after Bat joined Red Team. Red Team, and by extension Towa, wasn't boring. Towa got to do things like steal rivers and conjure ghosts. Towa participated in the making of magic and had a chance to see backstage.

That said, Shinobu had done rotations in intelligence and threat assessment, which was so much more annoying than his shifts at the mission desk. The other mission desk ninja were funny - often unintentionally, but they were. Intelligence and threat assessment? They were paranoid to the point where you couldn't even make the slightest joke around them. Unfortunately, the paranoia did rub off and it was second nature for him to think "What's the most damage this person/organization/random force of nature could do if they struck now?"

So when the explosions started…. Well, he ignored the first set because they were coming from the direction of the training grounds, but when the explosions near the tower started, he grabbed Komachi and started running, the buzz from their drinks burning off rapidly.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The Hokage's house."

"Why there?"

"Because if anything happens to baby Uzumaki then Bat might decide that those scary ideas she normally discards because of collateral damage are options again." Baby Bat and baby Hawk were both surrounded by clans, but standard operating procedure said that the Hokage's residence only had an ANBU team or two guarding them. Plus, the Hokage's wife might be a Jinchuuriki and a certified badass on her own, but she had just given birth, had a Bijuu unsealed and resealed in her and there were distinct limits to just how much firepower you can use when you had a newborn baby right there.

"I hate that asking the best way that the universe can screw us over is a- sh*t! Case in f*cking point!"

The Hokage's home had come into view. It was surrounded by at least a dozen fake ANBU being fought off by real ANBU and an enraged Kushina Uzumaki. Most of the fake ANBU were on the far side of the building from Shinobu and Akira, only visible because they were taking the rooftops to get there.

Shinobu wondered just how short sighted Danzou must be if the old bastard thought that training his idiots to follow pointless orders was a good idea. What could you possibly accomplish attacking the home of a sealing nerd who was also a Jinchuuriki? If you just wanted a distraction there were options that didn't risk being turned into a stream of high energy particles accelerated out of the solar system at appreciable fractions of the speed of light.

He almost froze as he saw that this wasn't quite as pointless as he thought. "That one has the Tailed Beast Bomb scroll!" It was supposed to be in the deepest hole that ANBU could think of because not even Bat was crazy enough to want to carry it around any longer than she had to.

For better or for worse, he and Komachi had a lot of experience creating impromptu defenses against explosions using single tag barriers. The trick wasn't trying to block the explosion, but to create surfaces that would cause the explosion to flow around the thing you wanted to defend. He didn't know how much use it would be against a freaking Tailed Beast Bomb, but Bat said that it should degrade over time. Coming up from behind the house, they started laying down as many tags as strategically as they could.

Kushina reacted to the threat by trying to burn the heads off of everyone attacking. Shinobu wasn't sure she was even using a technique instead of just channeling incandescent maternal rage. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite fast enough.

As his vision whited out, Shinobu's last absurd thought was to talk to Bat about not using Konoha standard triggers on her doomsday seals.

Komachi 2

For someone in ANBU, Akira had surprisingly little experience waking up in the hospital. However, surprisingly little for ANBU was still a lot for anyone with a sane choice in careers, so she pretty much immediately realized where she was and she immediately reached for the hospital standard pitcher of water.

"The heck?" she said when she didn't find it.

"Tsunade hasn't reformed the hospital yet."

Akira blinked and looked at the source of the unfamiliar voice. It took her a moment before she realized that it was technically a familiar voice. "Taicho." She still wasn't used to him looking and sounding so young. He had been such a good captain that she had thought he was just short.

"I'm surprised you didn't go for a window," the not so last Uchiha said.

"I actually like the hospital."

Sasuke looked at her like she had just admitted to having a major head injury, but handed her a bottle of water.

"It's basically the only thing that stopped my mother from trying to set up marriage meetings. Even telling her that I liked girls only stopped her for a couple of months."

"Not supportive of your lifestyle?" he asked as Akira took a drink.

Akira sighed. "Actually, Bat happened."

"Okay, I know she said she ruins everything she touches…."

"Well, I didn't know it was Bat at the time. She officiated a gay marriage and then my mother realized that her plans for grandbabies only needed minor adjustment."

Sasuke made a sour face, and Akira wondered if his mother was the same way and he was just finding out about the fact.

"What were the damages?" Akira asked quietly.

Sasuke drew himself up and suddenly he was all Hawk-taicho. "Towa should be released tomorrow. We lost one of the ANBU team guarding Naruto and Kushina, but the rest will all be fine by the end of the week. If Kushina wasn't an Uzumaki and a Jinchuuriki, there would have been problems but she should be up and running by the end of the day…. As for Naruto." Hawk drew in a breath. "I want to make it absolutely clear, if it wasn't for you and Towa, Naruto probably would have died. You two did good. Tiger, the ANBU we lost, shielded him with his own body and made his sacrifice count."

"But…."

"He's a newborn. The safe amount of Bijuu chakra is negative. The Nara chakra purification seals we brought from our time helped, but it's not likely that he'll be able to become a ninja. They're not entirely sure he'll be able to walk."

"f*ck." She grabbed at the side of her bed until there was a metallic sound of protest. "f*ck. f*ck! We're Red Team. We. Don't. Fail."

There was a pause as Hawk let her breathing return to normal. "That's pretty much how Towa reacted except with more complaints that we're supposed to be specced for protection missions."

Akira snorted. "That went out the window as soon as we got Bat. Did we at least get Danzou?"

"Yes and no. He activated a suicide seal as soon as the Hokage showed up. Took out himself and most of his records."

"Bastard," she growled.

"Komachi." From his tone of voice she knew he was about to say something she'd disagree with. "You did good. Better than anyone had any right to expect from you. Protecting Naruto wasn't even your mission. If things weren't still literally on fire, the Hokage would be here telling you the same thing."

She lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. "Maybe I'll believe you next week."

Sasuke 4

The training ground had that special kind of peacefulness that only occurred after someone had done their level best to turn it into its component atoms. They were probably going to have to pay for a D rank or ten to repair it, or the Hokage would just have to declare it the training ground for simulating what it's like to fight in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.

Sasuke and Shikako wouldn't have had so much frustration to work off, if the Hokage had been reasonable and blamed them for time traveling and crippling his son. Maybe he would have if the other side of the equation didn't include a dead wife. What's more, even with Danzou and Root going crazy, in the end Konoha's manpower was still literally twice that of how it had been at this point in the previous timeline.

Sasuke sighed as he sat back against a charred stump. "You know, the Dobe would be the first one to say it was worth it."

Shikako didn't open her eyes from where she was lying in the ash. "His ability to walk for his parents' lives? Yeah, he would make that trade."

"And then shout that he'd somehow figure out a way to be Hokage anyway."

"Maybe he won't want to be the Hokage this time when he sees how much work his father has."

Sasuke snorted. "The Dobe was never afraid of hard work."

"Homework."

"Hn."

"With Danzou gone, the massacre won't happen. He'd make that trade too."

Sasuke snorted. "Well, he is an idiot."

Shikako cracked an eye open. "I thought you'd appreciate that one."

"That's because you haven't had to deal with my clan. I'm starting to understand why Itachi went along with that plan."

"Not getting along?"

"My family is filled with assholes. Wiping them out and starting from scratch isn't the worst idea ever."

"That reminds me, did we ever tell anyone about the Hyuuga kidnapping thing?"

"I'm not sure. Why don't we just level the country and make the question academic?"

"Because that would be wrong?"

"Why?"

"Give me a minute…. Because Naruto hasn't had the ramen from there?"

"That's fine. We'll just tell the Dobe that Kumo doesn't have any ramen restaurants and their religion bans it. He'll join us in razing the place."

"What if this Naruto doesn't grow up to like ramen?"

Sasuke flinched at that. "No. That's not a possibility. There's no way the Dobe could like ramen that much if it wasn't genetic." That was the most denial Sasuke had to anything in the last week. Time travel. Itachi not being completely evil. Fighting two Jinchuuriki at once. All of that was easier to handle than the idea of Naruto not liking ramen.

Yeah, that would be a pretty big sign that they'd finally managed to break the universe.

Shikako 4

Shikako sat down with herself. She wasn't much of a baby person, but she knew better than most that Kako was more mature than most babies. "Hey, it's me again."

Kako gurgled. Yeah it sucked having an adult mind and a baby body.

"I feel like I should be giving you language lessons. I know I could have used them, but you'll pick things up without me. Though I hate baby talk. It's so annoying learning how to say things one way and find out that it's wrong. And it's not like English where the baby talk for dog is doggy. No, baby talk for inu is wanwan. It's completely different."

Kako made a sort of twitchy-kicky motion.

"Uh, does that mean you want the language lesson? I feel like I should know what that meant, but I don't know how what I did looked from the outside. How about you do something punchy for yes and something kicky for no?" Because head movement took forever to develop the muscles for.

Kako did an upper body twitch but she could tell that the baby was flagging.

"Have you tried playing with your chakra yet?"

Punchy motion.

"Yeah there isn't much for you to do except play with your chakra. How about pulsing your chakra once for yes and twice for no?"

Kako twitched a little but managed to divert some of her chakra to her hands.

"Is that easier than the body motions?"

A single pulse.

"But still tiring?"

A single pulse.

"I guess more lecture format now. Maybe storytime? So, yeah, we're in the anime, but it's not like we saw every episode and they didn't really cover the academy in the show. Oh, something that took me forever to figure out? People use chakra to enhance their muscles here. No one mentions it because everyone does it. They can't consciously stop doing it. We're not like that."

Kako gurgled.

"Yeah, don't experiment with it just yet. Just something to keep in mind when you go to the academy. If you want to go. There are parts of this life that I could live without, but I may have set up some expectations for you. But seals are awesome. I can't tell you how less convenient life would be without seals."

Shikako talked a little bit more about the academy, of the little things that just didn't make sense without cultural context… or remembering that the academy was a place that trains kids to be soldiers. She wondered what Kako thought about her older killer self. Shikako was afraid of telling her younger self about some of the things she's done. Shikako Nara had killed three kids at the age of twelve and had gone on to get a kill count most ninja never reached, all in less than two years. Her old self had gone twice as long with never doing more violence than shooting a nerf gun.

But most of that was necessary. Keeping Jashin out was probably worth destroying the Land of Hot Water. That doesn't mean that Shikako didn't wish she could have figured another way, but it was still worth it. She hated even thinking it. And Gelel-

Gelel.

No one human could help Naruto now. But perhaps a little god could.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Minato 4

"Naruto is Team Seven and Team Seven does not give up on its own."

Somehow, and he had no bloody idea how, Minato had managed to forget that Shikako was so crazy that the Nine Tails had preferred to be sealed rather than deal with her. Or was it preferred to be sealed so he could watch the chaos from a safe distance?

Leaning against the wall, Sasuke quipped, "If it helps, you can blame Kakashi for passing on Obito's philosophy."

"And we're not even breaking any rules," chirped Shikako.

"You just threatened to kidnap my son if I don't give permission." Shikako and Sasuke were simultaneously every dream and every nightmare he'd had for Kakashi come to life. Every value that Minato had wished that he could convey to the prickly genius had clearly been passed on to his own students. Except for the small part that their values had clearly surpassed their survival instincts or respect for little things like the laws of nature.

"Well that's why we asked for permission."

Sasuke rubbed his chin. "Does it really count as permission if we tell him that we'd resort to kidnapping if we don't get it?"

Minato had the distinct impression that Sasuke meant that question as an intellectual exercise rather than any sign that he wouldn't actually go through with it. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. "Just how sure are you that this will work?"

Shikako shrugged. "I mean Gelel can resurrect the recently dead, I'm sure a little chakra poisoning won't be a problem."

"How reliable is this account?"

Shikako tilted her head. "Uh, I could show you the scar from where the sword went through my heart?"

Suddenly Shikaku's comments about increasing the budget for alcohol made so much more sense. "Side effects?"

"Do you count retroactively revealing to her secrets man was not meant to know?" Sasuke asked.

Shikako rolled her eyes. "He's joking."

"You'd think, but she was pretty much the same before and after, which is mildly alarming because you'd think almost dying would have - I don't know - made her more cautious with her life or something."

"It's not like that was the first time I was legally dead."

Sasuke groaned. "You're getting your hospitalizations confused. The Sound Four was just near fatal chakra exhaustion. And do I need to point out the difference between people not understanding just how little chakra you need to survive versus having a sword through your heart?"

Shikako blithely ignored him, which Minato was beginning to think was her attitude towards her own mortality in general, and instead said, "As for actual side effects, there was a blockage in my gate that prevented me from using chakra afterwards. Any decent surgeon should be able to remove it…, but, uh, I don't think you'd skimp out on this?"

"I would think not," Minato replied dryly. "Would you be able to help some of the others who are still out from Madara's attack?"

Shikako frowned slightly. "I think the chamber could fit maybe ten people? A lot more if they're standing, but if they're still in the hospital they probably need the room to lie out."

"Okay. This is what we'll do."

Towa 3

They were moving at a rather sedate pace to the Dead Wastes. The hospital refused to guarantee their readiness to transport people to the Gelel chamber in what Shinobu would consider a reasonable time frame, but it allowed them to take their time making their way through the desert and swap stories on the walk.

At this point Shinobu was seventy, seventy five percent sure that Kakashi had taught his genin to feed off of suffering. It was really the best explanation for their happy expressions as they told their sensei about every horror story of a mission they had gone through in the future. The alternative was that they actually looked back at these snafus fondly. Well, Sasuke's facial expression didn't really suggest happiness, but his posture Shinobu would call smugly satisfied.

"I let you fight a Jinchuuriki as Genin?!" Kakashi asked in horror.

"I think it's more like you ordered us to," Shikako said.

"Hn."

"Minato is going to murder me."

"Assuming Kushina doesn't make you wish he had gotten to you first," Akira pointed out helpfully.

"The village was in the middle of being invaded by Sand and Sound," Shikako pointed out. "It's not like there were a lot of options."

Shinobu shook his head. "That was a wild way to end your Chuunin Exams."

"It was still better than the Grass Chuunin Exams," Sasuke added.

"It wasn't that ba-"

"You almost got kidnapped, incremented your legally dead count and set off a civil war in Grass."

"But we also accidentally forced Konoha, Kiri and Suna into an alliance," Shikako rebutted.

"How do you do that accidentally?" Kakashi asked slowly.

"An epic friendship handshake."

Sasuke sighed. "The sad part is that's really the answer. She's not even messing with you. We did a stupid mass friendship handshake between the genin of three villages and the rumor mill went wild, essentially forcing the kages to go along with the alliance idea."

"Which indirectly led to our current enthusiastic border dispute," Akira pointed out.

"Well, it probably didn't he-" Shikako froze. "Incoming chakra signature. Suspected S rank missing nin: Kakuzu of Takigakure."

"Have you been fighting S ranked missing nin without me?" Hawk accused.

"Follow me!" Bat said as she accelerated forward. "Kakuzu has a technique where he steals the hearts of ninja with strong elemental affinities. As a result he has techniques at the upper range of all five elements. Whatever is following us isn't going to be any less weird or powerful than that. In order to kill him all five hearts need to be destroyed. Chidori would probably work on two or three of the hearts, but the elemental match ups on the others I'm a lot less confident on. He has four masks on his back that can be detached with one of the hearts to form an independent clone, making him basically five S class ninja in one. You know, just old enough to have fought Hashirama and lived to tell the tale."

As someone who worked in threat assessments for intelligence, Towa really felt like he should have known all that. Unfortunately, Bat's sources almost certainly didn't exist anymore. Still, he had something to add. "Kakuzu is a professional mercenary who only works for money. Basically there's no telling who he's working for, except that whoever it is is rich."

"Should we be running towards the mission objective?" Kakashi asked.

"Force multiplier!" Bat shouted. "Besides, now we have an excuse to be there. Instead of just trespassing we can say we were chased there by an S class missing nin."

"I swear we can't even make dumplings without something going wrong," Hawk complained.

Considering that going out for ramen somehow ended up making the Nine Tails attack sooner, Towa couldn't really argue that.

"So his technique revolves around threads…." Bat continued.

Komachi 3

Their pursuer caught up to them just as they entered a valley cut into the desert floor. He was a well built man wearing a mask covering his mouth and pants, but no shirt, which struck Komachi as an incredibly unwise fashion choice in the middle of the desert. The lack of shirt revealed a body that looked literally stitched together. Normally, Komachi would register simply as a sign of how much experience he had, but that was tempered by the realization that those stitches were tied to his technique.

"So, I don't suppose you know who hired you?" asked Bat. "Because if it's Danzou, he's a bit dead and unable to pay you."

"Nice try, brat. No, I'm being paid to kill the Izuna clone, and the client isn't Danzou."

If it was anyone else, Komachi wouldn't have been able to believe that Bat had tried talking it out first.

"Do you know how they plan on checking for mission success? Because Sasuke isn't actually an Izuna clone, so if they do a blood test or something…."

"Ha! No, I just need the head. If they're wrong about the clone business, that's on them. Still, he's the only one I want. The rest of you don't have any bounties worth considering."

"Seriously?" Bat said, looking at Hound.

"Hatake's bounty is undervalued. Give it a few years and it'll be worth the effort, but it's not there yet."

"I'm guessing you won't mind collecting if I get in your way, though," Hound said.

You could tell the missing nin was grinning under his mask. "You'd guess right."

"Well, I'm sorry to say, we need both of them for our mission and if we don't finish the mission we don't get paid," Bat said. "Nothing personal."

The patchwork man's eyes glinted in something close to approval. "Nothing pers-" he started as the walls of the valley near him exploded.

Komachi was vaguely concerned that Bat could now apparently just will explosions into existence, though only vaguely because it wasn't really that much worse than what she could do before.

"Go! Go! Go! That was a lot weaker than I was expecting!"

Considering that it buried Kakuzu under rubble, Komachi wondered just how powerful Bat had been intending that explosion to be… and just how she expected the rest of them to survive it. They weren't that used to being blown up.

Of course, the bastard was an S class ninja for a reason, and it didn't take long for the rubble to start shifting. They were nowhere near it when it started happening, though, so that was something Komachi heard, not saw. When Bat tells you that it's not safe to be somewhere, you listen.

Bat led them through a fissure into what seemed like an abandoned temple, shouting "Don't touch the walls!"

Considering that they were starting to glow with seals, Komachi thought it would take an idiot to want to touch them.

"Why are the walls glowing already?" shouted Hound.

"The creepy answer is that Gelel knows me and is welcoming me back!"

"What's the non-creepy answer?" Towa shouted back.

"Let me get back to you on that!" That either meant that Komachi wouldn't understand the non-creepy answer or it was only non-creepy to Bat with a good chance that it'd actually be worse. Well, considering that they could hear Kakuzu swearing loudly behind them, there was also the chance she didn't want to give away anything to their pursuer, but Komachi wasn't that lucky.

It sounded like Kakuzu tried using a wind technique to knock them off balance, but for some reason it didn't work. If the location stopped elemental techniques from working that would help negate the advantage of five hearts/elemental affinities, but at the same time, it sounded like striking killing blows would be much more difficult.

Komachi wished they could just summon the Hokage with the Flying Thunder God seal they had, but the chances that he'd come in carrying Naruto was too high and that would defeat the purpose of this mission.

"Storage seals?" Towa asked.

"Not with five bodies," Bat denied. "I think we're going to need to do something a bit extreme."

"More extreme than the sh*t we've already done?" Komachi demanded. The lack of an answer was answer enough.

Sasuke 5

Sasuke reflected that Rule One was going to need an addendum: no achieving apotheosis and ascending to a higher plane of existence.

When they hit the main chamber of the temple - Sasuke didn't know what the right word for it was and it definitely wasn't the right time to ask Shikako - Shikako headed straight for the central altar thing and had faded away. At first he thought that Shikako had just gone into her shadow state, but then Sasuke felt his awareness expand. The best way he could explain it was as if he could sense chakra flows like he was using his Sharingan but it extended to things he couldn't see.

Sasuke wasn't ashamed to say that if they had fought Kakuzu normally they would have lost. Five bodies moving in perfect coordination with the experience of someone old enough to remember the end of the Warring Clans Era was bad enough even with Gelel disrupting all of his elemental techniques. Those threads of his made for nasty weapons. It was like fighting five stronger, faster Tentens except if she aimed to kill. Oh, and if she regenerated from damage.

On the other hand, this expanded chakra sense gave them coordination that was almost as good, they still had access to their elemental techniques and the walls were no longer a danger to them.

That last part was actually their biggest advantage because Kakuzu's weapons were his threads and he couldn't risk attacking past them and hitting a wall instead. He actually lost his first body that way: Sasuke shot a stream of fire at one of the thread bodies, and the damn thing just barrelled through it, trying to body check Sasuke. Sasuke dodged and it tried to bounce off the wall it hit, but instead dissolved as the chakra holding it and the heart it contained boiled away.

Incidentally, with expanded chakra senses, that was extremely disturbing. It felt like a human shaped bag of small animals being boiled alive. No matter how messed up it felt to Sasuke, it seemed worse for Kakuzu. It also didn't seem to faze Kakashi at all, who took the opportunity to hit Kakuzu's main body with a Chidori. Unfortunately, all that seemed to do was force Kakuzu to reabsorb one of his other bodies.

After that, Komachi tried using a storage seal on one of the bodies anyway, which failed. The best way Sasuke could explain it was that the chakra connecting the body to the main body disrupted the envelope that tried to form around the body, only all that happened at right angles to reality. As bad as it was sensing that for most of them, it seemed to severely mess with Kakashi. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if they had gotten around to activating his Mangekyo Sharingan, because he literally cried blood from that eye when it happened. Either way, the result was that Kakashi got backhanded into a wall and passed out.

Towa immediately threw a couple of kunai with single tag barrier seals to protect Kakashi, a technique he worked out back when they thought they were going to stay a protection unit. Sasuke seamlessly stepped up to cover him while his attention was diverted, while Komachi tried to drive an electrified tanto into the back of one of the bodies. She wasn't quite fast enough to land a killing blow and had to let go of her weapon when two of the bodies double teamed her.

That was when Shikako moved from passively assisting them to actively using techniques. Earth spikes emerge from the ground and impale Kakuzu's bodies - not fatally, but they do enough damage to hamper his mobility, allowing Towa and Sasuke to eliminate two more bodies. Towa used his sword while Sauke was successful with another Chidori.

But Sasuke's expanded chakra sense quickly revealed why Shikako had been passive up to this point: After using her technique, the sense of her unique chakra in the air thinned - not like it was spent, but like it was mixing with the chakra of Gelel.

Down to his last body, Kakuzu decided that he was in over his head and began to flee, but Komachi blocked his flight with another kunai with a barrier tag. That probably wasn't bloodthirstiness; they couldn't really afford the ninja coming back for round two while they were handling the people from the hospital. (Well, it probably wasn't just bloodthirstiness.)

The barrier wasn't quite enough to stop Kakuzu, but it was enough to slow him down. Towa got to him first, but Kakuzu fended him off with a spray of threads that clipped his arm. That was enough for Sasuke to drive his sword into the last heart.

For some reason the missing nin died with a short laugh.

The surroundings pulsed with a sense of urgency. Komachi went to check on Kakashi while Towa activated a Flying Thunder God seal. Sasuke could see through his expanded chakra senses that both Kakashi and Towa were now rapidly healing, though those senses dimmed as Shikako presumably shifted Gelel from combat mode to healing mode.

The Fourth appeared moments later, notably not carrying Naruto. "What happened? You're early." Though Naruto's dad almost immediately noticed Kakashi on the ground.

So not summoning him was the wrong call. Sasuke wasn't exactly sorry about it because if they had gotten things wrong it would have been horrible, but it was still very annoying.

"We were attacked by S class missing nin Kakuzu of Takigakure," Sasuke reported. "Absent the ability to fight him on our own, we activated the mission objective. ANBU Bat has discorporated in order to utilize the target. Communications indicate that we need to bring in the urgent cases now."

The Hokage nodded sharply and disappeared.

Unfortunately, that left Sasuke nothing to do as Naruto's dad took up his duties as a ferry service, first bringing in medics and then people who were injured in the Nine Tails attack.

"I'm still pissed that you didn't tell me who Naruto's parents were until we were in the middle of a conversation with Kurama," Sasuke said to the air. "You couldn't have mentioned something before we were in a Bijuu's mindscape?"

Naruto arrived, and judging by the way that Minato untensed, Gelel was working as advertised. Well, that was apparent from the looks of awe and confusion on the medics as they checked their patients, but Sasuke didn't fight an S class abomination for the rest of them, and Naruto was definitely an outlier in terms of age.

Unfortunately, that left Sasuke nothing to do except wait and hope that this time getting her body back would be less difficult than last time. "If you don't get your body back, I'm telling your younger self that that's how you normally dress. Every single birthday I'm giving her clothes that look like they came out of Ino's closet," he said to the air.

Komachi approached Sasuke's spot by the wall, trying to stay out of the way of the medical work being done. "What are you doing?"

"I'm threatening Bat with all the horrible things that I'll tell her younger self if she doesn't come back."

"Embarrassing stories?"

"I figured I'd jump straight to lies. Maybe try to convince her that she was one of my fangirls."

Sasuke got a distinct sense of laughter from the room. Worse yet, he couldn't tell if it was Shikako or the artificial god.

Komachi turned to look at the altar. "Was I the only one who got a sense that you just got insulted? As if Bat was mocking the very concept of ever being attracted to you?"

That would have been a much bigger blow to Sasuke's ego if it wasn't for the fact that he was pretty sure Shikako had not only been dating another girl, but was also unaware of the fact.

"You could always steal Baby Bat's gyoza and tell her that it's because Big Bat hated gyoza," Komachi tried.

There was a disdainful feeling, as if doubting Sasuke's ability to steal food from a child.

"Yeah, that sounds like something that would unite both baby Kako and baby Shikamaru against me and neither of them know how to forget a grudge."

They spent the next fifteen minutes or so brainstorming threats against Shikako and kept running into two facts: one, Shikako had unshakable faith that her baby self would turn out very similar to herself and, two, that she thought Sasuke was going to be a complete pushover when it came to her younger self.

Then a golden humanoid outline appeared next to the central altar that gradually filled in with Shikako's features. "Ugh. I think we lost too much containment switching from combat mode to healing mode. That's about all I can get- Why is everyone staring?"

"Your eyes," pointed out the Hokage with a distinct lack of eloquence.

"What about my eyes?"

"They're full of stars," Towa replied, pointing at her face.

She blinked. "Weird. I don't feel any different." Shikako added a shrug. "Well, Ino was the only one who spent any amount of time looking at my eyes anyway-"

Sasuke groaned. "How?! How did you not put two and two together?"

Shikako… probably rolled her eyes. It was hard to tell now. "You're making a big deal out of nothing. I'm one of the few people who would make eye contact with her. Of course, she's going to look into my eyes more than average."

Sasuke rubbed his forehead, trying to fight off the usual Shikako headache. "Well, I'm glad I didn't have to fight a god to get your body back." Left unsaid was that he would have.

Shikako punched his shoulder gently as if she heard that anyway.

Minato 5

The debrief was largely a formality, except for one very important question. "Are all your missions like this?" Minato asked.

"Hokage-sama, I feel obligated to point out that you already knew our last mission ended with us traveling fifteen years back in time," Towa said in an even tone.

"It's not the first time our mission has been interrupted by an S class threat and not even the first time Bat has almost ascended to a higher plane of existence," Hawk added.

"I didn't even get declared legally dead this time," Bat chirped, sounding genuinely happy.

"And we didn't have to fight a Jinchuuriki," Komachi added.

"They're going to have to redraw the maps of Wind because of this mission," Kakashi tried.

"About three quarters of our missions involve redrawing maps," Towa replied.

"Didn't they rename the castle after we faked the haunting?" Komachi asked.

"Does it really count if they just change the name on the map?" Hawk asked.

"I don't think anything smaller than a prefectural map should count," Bat declared.

"Then, yeah, three quarters sounds about right," Towa concluded.

Minato pinched the bridge of his nose. This didn't even sound like black humor on their part where they had to laugh instead of crying. No, Red Team actually found missions that involved redrawing national maps to be typical.

"I'd like to point out that three of us have received training from Hound here," Komachi said.

"All four of us," Towa corrected. "In fact, Hound was in ANBU for so long, I'm pretty sure almost all of us had spent at least a little time learning from him. It makes sense now that I know he had the Sharingan and memorized a thousand techniques."

Kakashi looked like he was about to submit his resignation then and there.

"I just realized that we can redo some of our old missions," Bat said. "We can steal the river again."

"That would be badass," Towa mused. "Who else would be able to say they stole the same river twice?"

"That's it, I-" Kakashi started.

"Before you finish that sentence, sensei," Bat interrupted. "Please keep in mind that any duties you decide to not to do in the future would have to be done by someone else."

"Like us," Hawk continued.

"Do you really want to see what happens if either of those two take their younger selves as Jounin sensei?" Towa asked.

"That would be fun to watch," Komachi answered. "From Suna or something. Definitely not up close."

Kakashi closed his eye and whimpered. It took all of Minato's willpower not to do the same. Well, maybe he could come up with someone better beforehand. He had a decade and change to figure things out… and he'd probably need every minute.