Chapter Text
There was no time to even take a breath.
A flash of heat sizzled against his hip and their surroundings abruptly changed, warping astronomically in the span of a second. The sensations attacked his immediate senses, dizzying him, but Minato was nothing if not prepared to face the unexpected; his body instantaneously coiled with tension, shifting closer to the nearby presences of his students, as he forced his eyes to shove past the effects of an extreme afterimage to take scope of their situation.
They were standing under the shade of a large tree. The sparse area was bordered by hedges and wooden benches, trees towering over them in an array of healthy green. To their right, a fence overlooking an array of houses. To the other side and behind them, a stone wall, firm wooden stairs rising to connect to the bustling streets above. Ahead of them, to the corner of the pit nearest to the stairs, buildings enclosed together to create a full line of stores mirroring the ones above.
He did not recognize this place. Minato has walked every inch of Konoha since the day he was old enough to bear his own weight; had they been in familiar territory, he would’ve been able to pinpoint their location in a heartbeat.
Rin gasped. Minato's eyes widened at the sound, whipping his head around to look behind him towards his students—
...His students. Two of them.
"Kakashi."
Obito visibly startled in his place by Minato’s side, but no matter where Minato looked, he could not see nor sense his last student's presence. A quick second of thinking and his hands flashed into a jutsu, the familiar pulse of chakra settling over him like a mirage. His students jerked minutely before immediately following his example, light puffs of smoke as they transformed into nondescript civilians.
Being well-known, it was inevitable that he had to disguise himself to prevent their team from being recognized by enemy forces. His students were less of a precaution, but they too understood the importance of stealth although it was their first mission potentially outside of Konoha's borders. While they were just mere Genin, the clan markings or the distinguishable symbols of their clan on their clothing could easily give away their loyalty. Regardless of whether they were recognized or not, word of mouth can pass quicker than a forest fire. They couldn't risk it.
"Don't draw attention to yourself. Stay relaxed, and stay alert," Minato ordered his remaining students.
No further words needed to be said.
With a last shared look of alarm and frizzled nerves, Obito and Rin scrambled to catch up with their teacher as he strode forward toward the busy street ahead.
It was midday, the sun was high in the sky. Conversations and bartering surrounded them from all sides as both civilians and what he could only assume were off-duty shinobi went about their daily lives in the market.
Obito did his absolute best not to swivel his eyes, forcing his body not to tense as a small group of people walked past them, animatedly chatting and laughing uproariously.
What the hell. What the hell was this? What is happening?
He couldn’t understand a single thing. They were just in the Training Grounds a moment ago. They’d been practicing, sparring, and now they were… somewhere else entirely?
A second was all it had taken. Obito had said something to Kakashi as they sparred and it must have struck a nerve because the next attack sent Obito flying into Minato-sensei, and Minato-sensei had caught him even though he’d been giving a lecture to Rin about something else, and when Obito had been dropped swiftly onto his feet, regaining his balance, he’d looked up and they were here.
Wherever here was.
He really, really hoped they were on friendly soil. It sure didn’t seem like tension was in the air, like a single eye-contact with someone warranted a fight-or-flight response. In fact, Obito already met the eyes of a few people accidentally, and they either let their eyes rove away from him without incident or they smiled in response. Every instance made him jerk his eyes back in front of him.
Appearances could be deceiving, he knew that. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down.
The three of them continued to walk around for minutes, taking in their environment as discreetly as they could, trying to gather clues to their whereabouts. Nothing stuck out. It seemed almost normal. Peaceful. If there were any shinobi around, they were either in a different area entirely or they weren’t wearing their shinobi headband.
Eventually, they stopped at an Izukaya. Minato-sensei paused at the doorway to take a perfunctory look through the small restaurant before ducking his head inside.
He had chosen one of those places with privacy booths, and they quickly got themselves seated near the back. The Jonin didn’t bother leading them into a conversation, so it didn’t seem like he deemed the situation dangerous enough to pretend to that extent, at least. Nevertheless, Obito and Rin stayed silent, at least until their food was delivered to their table and Minato-sensei secured their privacy with a couple seals.
They relaxed a little. Then, and only then, did Minato-sensei procure something from one of his pockets.
Both Genin stared in silence at the clearly aging state of the scroll in his hands, uncomfortable understanding beginning to dawn.
"Sensei…what is that?" Rin said, hesitantly.
"Sandaime-sama gave it to me just before we came to the Training Grounds," said Minato-sensei, a calm, calculating look on his face. "It contains seals unlike any other he's seen before, so he's tasked me with deciphering it... but even this is something beyond my current knowledge."
He would have enlisted the expertise of their resident Uzumaki, he didn't say, had they not run into this very situation.
And as Minato-sensei carefully smoothed a finger over a large, jagged tear along one end of the ancient-looking scroll, something clicked in Obito's mind, ice rapidly encapturing his lungs. He must have made a sound because they both suddenly looked at him, a faint crack ringing in the echoes of a memory. "Minato-sensei, is that…was that—was that what made that sound?" Rin looked confused, but Minato-sensei's expression turned into understanding. "Did I do that?"
He remembered the frustration, not landing a hit on Kakashi despite the jerk managing to land several during their spar, then overbalancing and Kakashi taking full advantage of that opening with a round-house kick that knocked him off his feet. Then Minato-sensei's voice suddenly cutting off extremely close. The sound his elbow made as it hit a hard surface, as Minato-sensei was grabbing onto him firmly before he could fall completely to the ground.
"It wasn't your fault, Obito," their sensei said patiently. "I should have put it in a safer place, but I was too distracted."
"You mean... when Obito...?"
"Yes Rin, that was when the scroll got damaged. I have good reason to believe this is the reason we have found ourselves here." His expression hardened a little more. "I need time in order to figure this out. But we also need to find Kakashi. Did any of you see what happened to him?"
"I did," Rin said. "I– I mean I didn't see anything, but I saw him, sensei. He was there, and then he wasn't! He just..." Rin's voice trailed off, "...disappeared the second we came here."
Her words settled around them heavily. "We can't write him off until we know for certain," Minato-sensei said. "If he's here, I'm certain he knows what to do to stay hidden, but if he has been put into enemy hands, this will get much more dangerous."
He leaned back. "We have to pick a rendezvous point – a hotel, more likely - and once we find one, we'll split up. It'll be less suspicious that way. If they are our enemies, they will least expect children to be sent undercover. Gather as much information as you can, but always be careful who you talk to and keep an eye on each other's backs. You can't afford to get separated."
The two young Genin both nodded.
"Once the sun has almost completely set, we'll meet back at the hotel. Do you understand, Obito, Rin?"
"Yes sir!"
Their stomachs were relatively full after they left the restaurant half an hour later, having eaten what Minato-sensei had ordered for them previously. Rin told her remaining team of a sign she had read on the way to the restaurant, and they walked a quarter of the way back the way they came until they came across the said establishment. The hotel was small, but it was at a good price and the owner was friendly, greeting them with a warm welcome and escorting them to their room. Their temporary refuge had all the necessities they needed, complete with several futons and a bathroom. Breakfast would be available downstairs for free, if they chose to.
Team 7, minus one member, thanked her, and when she left Minato-sensei set up a few seals around their temporary hide-out and they all headed out once again.
"We should probably look if there are any ninja around," Rin suggested as they walked together on the streets. Minato-sensei was nowhere to be found, as he departed as soon as they left the hotel to do whatever a Jonin leader does in an unknown yet non-hostile environment (at least for the moment).
With a game plan in mind and a place of temporary refuge, Obito began to feel the excitement as he took in the lively and cheerful atmosphere of the village or town. Although they were without their main pillar of strength, it eased his mind that Minato-sensei obviously thought that they could take care of themselves well enough to let them wander alone. Plus, with Rin by his side, the adventure was that much enjoyable.
Even if one of their teammates was missing.
The thought instantly sobered him.
"—Obito, are you listening?"
He blinked and looked up at Rin in surprise. "Huh?"
She shook her head, managing to look both fond and exasperated at the same time. "Really, you keep getting distracted. I need another pair of eyes on this, I can't do it alone."
"Uh. Yeah, I know Rin, sorry. It's just..."
His teammate's henged eyes, hazel, glimmered with concern when he trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence and ruin the mood.
"...Never mind." He smiled at her, though even he could feel it straining on the edges. Rin looked completely unconvinced and even opened her mouth to say something, but when he turned a look on her plaintively, she wavered.
"Okay..." With one last worried glance at him, Rin dismissed her concern. She looked around, watching the hustle and bustle around them. "Well, I was thinking we could try to see if there is anyone wearing a hitai-ate, first off. It's a lot less suspicious than asking around."
He agreed, and they set off in a random direction. The sun was starting to near the horizon, so at most they had a few hours before they had to get back to the hotel.
Along the way, Obito couldn't help but notice something.
"A lot of the buildings kind of look... new."
And that was an understatement. The wooden buildings looked like they were only recently constructed, the paint on the walls just barely chipped and worn, and all the signs were more often than not free of any noticeable blemishes.
"It is weird," Rin murmured in agreement after a few moments of following his observation. "I can't explain it, but... it almost feels like it's too peaceful here."
"That's what I thought!" Obito exclaimed, looking at her in surprised delight. Rin nodded quietly, pursing her lips as they continued to walk on, observing the people and the stalls and the normal, unhurried conversation around them as discretely as they could. It set Obito on edge that there was practically nothing suspicious about the place. If anything, the suspicious people were them.
"Come on, give us something. Anything," Obito muttered. "A shadow in an alley. Someone bargaining for something suspicious." But there was nothing. Every alley was empty and not as bleak-looking and there was only the peaceful sound of bartering and advertising from the stores.
He never thought he would be wishing that something could go wrong.
A toddler stumbled across the road some ways ahead of them and almost immediately tripped over their own stubby feet. Rin and Obito paused in surprise, only to rush over a beat later as the baby started to wail in pain or distress. Rin's hands were already almost poised to help when a blond-haired lady reached the kid just before they could, crouching down to console the child and wipe off the dirt clinging to their tiny trousers.
Obito froze when a pair of grey eyes rose to look at the both of them. Gloss-covered lips curved into a wry smile, nodding at them in acknowledgement before she sent the the little child back where his parent was manning one of the stalls. A long pale fringe covered part of the right side of her face as she stood, somehow still a small amount compared to the layers cascading to her calves.
"Why, hello," she greeted them airily. "I don't believe I've ever seen you kids around here before."
There was a long, expectant pause. Obito's brain stuttered and stalled, trying to understand what was happening. The lady cocked her head slightly, eyebrow raising, one corner of her smile rising into something more sharp. "Your names?" she added. It wasn't unkind, polite even, but it snapped Obito abruptly to attention.
"Ah— Obito!" he burst out reflexively in a rush of breath, "I'm— Uh, nice to meet you!" He bowed his head quickly in greeting.
The young lady, who was probably in her late teens but had a presence that made him want to back away quietly, said, "Well it's nice to meet you..." she cocked her head, looking straight at Rin.
"K-Karin, ma'am," Rin answered tentatively, and Obito froze.
"Karin-chan," the lady indulged her, "and..." another heavy pause, "Obito-kun."
Rin eventually broke the silence that followed, "Y-you're very pretty, Miss."
The woman blinked at her, and then laughed. It wasn't a dainty laugh. More like one that hinted towards an overbearing personality. "Thank you, Karin-chan," she said without a hint of bashfulness. She then looked over his teammate casually and grinned, "I have a feeling you'll turn into a fine young woman yourself one day." Rin thanked her humbly, eyes bright from the compliment, but all the warmth of Obito's silent agreement stopped when the lady crowed, "And it looks like your boyfriend here has no trouble agreeing with me."
It took a moment for the words to sink into his brain, and only then did Obito realize he had been inadvertently glancing at his teammate out of the corner of his eyes.
Mortified was the only way to describe his reaction. Any thoughts rumbling through his head lost fuel and sputtered out.
Rin lifted her hands, waving them back and forth, "He's not my boyfriend Miss…"
"Ino. And I believe that blush begs to differ, Karin-chan~! Just look at him, he's as red as a tomato!"
Obito quivered when Rin glanced at him briefly. All he wanted to do was run away and hide in a hole.
"Ino-san," Rin complained.
Ino waved it off with a manicured hand. "Well don't say I didn't warn you Karin-chan. Even with those horrid goggles, I know he's just going to snatch you up one day."
Rin flushed this time, and Obito became indignant again, his voice fueled with embarrassment, "Hey! Don't say anything bad about my goggles! They protect my eyes 'cause they get dry easily!"
Ino pursed her lips, almost like a pout. "Is that so? You should get something for that, Obito-kun. With a face like yours, others can't appreciate it with those goggles covering it up all the time."
Faster than he could react, she pulled the goggles up, one hand holding it up and the other nestled in his hair. She smirked triumphantly. "There, now that's a face."
The hand on his head felt a bit warm, and he quickly shook off the intruding appendages, ignoring the slight sting on his scalp when a few hairs were pulled loose in his haste, backing away from the contact with a scowl.
Ino shrugged her shoulders, and there was a gleam to her eyes when she appraised them. Obito wasn't sure he quite liked it. She sighed nostalgically, "The innocence. One day you'll know what I'm talking about. How old are you, Karin-chan and Obito-kun?"
Rin said hesitantly, still a bit wary from the teasing, "We're both ten."
"I see. And you're both shinobi."
Obito's eyes widened, and he subtly reached for his kunai, seeing Rin do the same out of the corner of his eye. The woman in front of them didn't show any indication that she noticed. Or she just didn't react.
None of them were wearing their headbands with their henge, nor were they wearing anything that hinted towards their affiliation as shinobi. They couldn't risk it. So how did she know?
"Did you encounter any trouble while everyone was away?"
"A-away?" Obito stuttered. Ino was smiling gently, yet there was something tingling in the air that was becoming more and more noticeable as the seconds dragged by.
"Was there any trouble while most of the shinobi were out on the battlefield? I heard there were some skirmishes while you were protecting the village. Well, you and whoever stayed. Did you come across anything that needs to be brought to our attention?"
They stilled.
"You can trust me to get to whoever it needs to. If you haven't already told someone else. For all we know, it could've been lost somewhere in all the recovery preparations," she let out a gusty sigh. "The war has really taken its toll on everyone, and it won't surprise me if their minds were a bit occupied by the time they came back."
Recovery preparations? Most of the shinobi in this huge village has been out fighting and they've already came back?
Were they even thinking of the same war?
Ino-san raised an eyebrow at Obito. Crap. He said that out loud.
"Obito forgets things!" Rin blurted, stepping a bit in front of her teammate and ignoring his indignant squawk. "He's- really bad at history. It's really hard to memorize all the battles and wars they taught us in school."
Ino stared at Obito. And then she smiled.
His skin prickled.
"Well that can't be helped." Her voice was light. "After all, it's going to be a significant part of shinobi history once it's put in text."
She lifted her index finger, winking at them, and said slowly, significantly, "Remember this now as I say it, Obito-kun. There have only been three great wars before ours. And all of them share a common similarity in their name. Shinobi. World. War."
She leaned down. "And what do you think this one was?"
...And dread curled in the pit of Obito's stomach; the last pieces falling into place.
Three great wars. Before…wherever this was, the Third Shinobi World War was in full motion.
If what this lady was saying – no, this shinobi; there was no mistaking the gleam in her eyes…
Their war had ended a long time ago.
Because if there was one thing he knew about the great wars in the past, they didn't all occur around the same time. Regardless of the skirmishes and battles happening in between, there was always a gap to separate one massive war from another. And if what she was saying is true, then the war that had happened recently...
Rin stopped breathing next to him, frozen just like him.
Three great wars before the recent one. Which means the war that this place had witnessed was the –
"Fourth... Fourth Shinobi World War..."
Ino-san cocked her head at him and nodded. "Are you both alright? You look a little pale."
The gravity of the situation seemed to cave in. All Obito was able to do was stutter out a goodbye, grab Rin by the arm and walk back the way they came, heedless of the calls from behind them.
He… he needed to think.
"F-Fourth Shinobi World War…" Rin murmured in shock, her legs walking by motor-memory alone. "We're not in…how could this happen? How is this possible?"
Obito didn't say anything, his mind whirling with the new information.
Something shone ahead of them, catching his eye. Someone in a uniform of familiar-looking green walking past.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The noise in his ears droned out into a low buzz. The background slowly faded into black.
As the ninja passed by, Obito's head turned, and he saw.
The hitai-ate.
An engraving that looked like the drawing of a leaf with a swirl in the middle of it.
The symbol of Konoha.
Minato arrived in their hotel room.
He knew at once that his students were already back, but the moment he stepped inside, the two children looked up at him. Their eyes were darkened.
He sighed, mentally preparing himself.
"….We're in the future."
Obito didn't even say it as a question. It seemed that the knowledge still seemed to shock both of his students to the core.
He too had felt the same way. At first.
But at least to him…it wasn't an entirely foreign concept – the idea of trespassing through the laws of time.
The Hiraishin was a space-time jutsu that he had mastered. If it was possible to teleport to different places in the span of a second, he could not deny the possibility of someone creating the ability to teleport to different time periods.
"Explain," he said simply but gently.
"Back at home, it was the Third Shinobi World War, and it was still happening. But here, their war just ended less than a year ago…and they said three world wars happened before it," Rin murmured, eyes staring down at the clenched hands on her lap.
"And we know where we are now, too," Obito added. "The hitai-ate…I saw a handful of them and they were mostly all the same. Most of them were from Konoha. Which means we're not only in Konoha, we're in the future Konoha."
"And of the hitai-ates, Obito?"
"There…there were others, too. I saw a more than a few from Cloud, Sand, and…Iwa."
"We also saw someone from Cloud holding hands and conversing with people from Konoha," Rin said. And paused. "…This Konoha."
Minato nodded. "Which means it may be safe to assume the alliances between at least those Hidden Villages are strong. Whether it is from the Third War or the Fourth War, we don't know - but we have to keep the disguise up for a while whenever we go out. We can't have someone questioning why we look so much like anyone we know in Konoha."
His two students said nothing to that.
"So the scroll…?"
Despite the situation, Minato couldn't help but feel a small flame of pride at Obito's perceptive-ness. He nodded solemnly. "I needed to make sure of it, which was another reason why I had us separate ways." He paused meaningfully. "Parts of the seal read 'Time'."
Both of his students tensed even further, immediately. But the way their shoulders sagged displayed reluctant resignation.
He had once taught his students the basics of fuinjutsu as a way to explain to them the basis of his main techniques, as well as to potentially peak their interests, in the case that they would choose to pursue a deeper reservoir of knowledge.
They knew just as well as him that a successful seal would only work as long as the general contents were included in the formula itself. And the fact that 'Time' was repeated in various instances throughout, there was no doubt about its implications.
Obito put his head on the table, hiding the torrent of emotions that Minato could still feel coming from his student.
"…Kakashi…?" Rin's quiet voice inquired.
Minato shook his head and watched as she let out a shuddered breath, closing her eyes and tilting her head down, her forehead almost connecting with her raised knees. The Jonin sat and used a hand on her shoulder to make her lean against his side. He placed a hand on Obito's back, hoping it would provide enough of a source for comfort as the other would allow. He felt one of Rin's arms grasp the back of his flak jacket with a small shaking hand.
He knew that if he had come sooner, he would have been bombarded with questions and emotions rising all over the place.
But he had ended up coming later than he expected, which allowed his students to have more than enough time to think deeply about their situation and what it would mean.
Their only hope to get back home was a damaged scroll he wasn't even close to finishing in deciphering.
If they were able to get back, it wouldn't be any time soon. They wouldn't be able to see any of their family. They had no familiar face at this present era who they could talk to without risking blowing their cover.
And the fact that they literally had the future in their hands – the gateway to the possibility of knowing what would happen to them in the coming years – was hardly an easy reality to face.
Kushina…It looks like I won't be coming home today.