Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Naruto had always liked plants.

He’d gotten his first houseplant from the Old Man, as a housewarming gift for his new apartment. He was excited to be living on his own, like a real ninja, but for some reason, the plant seemed more important. He saved up money from his stipend, and as soon as he could, he bought more.

As he stood over the garden he’d eventually built, he was struck with the oddest feeling of familiarity. Something about this felt… right.

There were quite a few things that Naruto did for odd reasons. He didn’t realize it, of course, because there was no one to tell him, but that didn’t change the fact that it was odd.

After he started living alone, and getting regular haircuts was his responsibility instead of his caretakers, he just… didn’t. He let his hair grow out. Quite a few people thought it was simply because he couldn’t be bothered to get it cut.

“Naruto, would you like me to get you a haircut?” The Sandaime asked him, during one of their dinners at Ichiraku’s.

“No thanks!” Naruto slurped down another enormous bite of ramen.

“But…” There was something in the boy’s tone that threw the Hokage off, but he continued nonetheless. “Your hair is getting a little long, my boy.”

“Yeah, that’s the point, ‘ttebayo!” Naruto grinned at him, tugging on a lock of yellow spikes. “It’s supposed to be long.”

The phrasing was a bit odd, but Naruto said odd things fairly often. So Hiruzen simply nodded, and dropped the subject.

And, of course, there was Naruto’s ambition to be Hokage. If anyone asked, he’d tell them it was because the Hokage was respected by everyone in the village, and that was certainly part of it. But there was also that sense of rightness deep in his heart when he thought about the idea, like it had already happened, and he was just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Sometimes these instincts, these feelings of had-been-should-be , got him into trouble. He started tying up his hair just after he entered the academy. One of the older kids had grabbed him by the hair, to show his displeasure at the village pariah getting admittance to the Academy.

He could have just cut it, but… He liked his hair long. He vowed that one day, he’d be strong enough that he wouldn’t have to tie it up.

_________

Sasuke often felt like something was missing.

He loved his family. He loved his mother, and his father, and his cousins, and especially his brother. But sometimes, he looked at them, and felt an absence. He looked at his brother, and felt like something was wrong.

He didn’t know why, but he felt like he should be the oldest. He shied away from that thought when it came, worried he was jealous, but — no. He wasn’t disappointed he had an older brother. It was just — new. For some reason. Even though he’d always had one.

His father never payed attention to him, always favoring Itachi. He should have been used to it, but it never failed to disappoint him. Maybe it was simply childish hope that if he just worked hard enough, his father would look at him. But every time Fugaku’s eyes slid passed him without lingering, something under his skin whispered wrong, wrong, wrong —

The first time he got a sense of right instead of wrong , it was morning. Nothing particularly special, just a regular day. He got up, his hair a mess, and went into the bathroom.

When he turned to look in the mirror, though, he realized his bangs had fallen in front of one of his eyes. He moved a hand to brush them away, but stopped.

It felt like it fit. Like that was how it supposed to be.

He wasn’t allowed to keep it, though. His mother brushed his hair back into place, despite his protests.

“Why can’t I keep it like that?”

His mother sighed. “Because, it makes you look like Madara.”

“Oh.” Madara was his clan’s shame. A paranoid warmonger who abandoned his life’s work out of jealousy.

(Something about that story didn’t sound right, but Sasuke was a child. He couldn’t contradict his elders.)

So he let his mother style his hair, and wore his usual cut.

It looked familiar, but it didn’t look right.

(After the Massacre, there was no one to tell him how to wear his hair. If he were any less in need of any positive emotion, he might not have changed it, in fear of dishonoring his Mother’s memory. But those were dark times, and that sense of right was his only comfort some nights.)

__________

Sakura didn’t understand people.

Who cared if her forehead was big? That was no reason to be cruel to her. Every time the other girls teased her, shoved her around, she felt a wildfire of anger well up. She wanted to yell, to rage, to fight back.

But her mother said proper ladies didn’t show their anger. So she swallowed it down.

Ami and her friends made fun of her for crying, too. They said she was a baby, and that someone who cries just because someone is mean to them could never be a ninja. But she wasn’t crying because she was sad, or afraid.

She was crying because she was so, so angry.

Luckily, Ino-chan came, and helped her deal with them. Sakura liked Ino. She was strong. And she was from a ninja clan, so she was allowed to be angry. Sakura hoped they ended up in the same class at the academy.

Ino asked her, once, why she wanted to be a shinobi.

“I don’t know,” Sakura replied, “It just, feels like I need to? Like, it feels right.”

Ino didn’t get it, but she was glad Sakura was so resolute.

Sakura studied for the entrance exam, and passed with flying colors. Her mother chose her outfit, but Sakura got to choose her haircut. She looked in the mirror on the first day of school, and felt and odd mix of right , and wrong. Her outfit was… not practical. But, she was just starting out. She could change it later.

Her hair, though. It gave her the same sense of fitting as the thought of being a ninja. Two locks of hair on either side of her face, and bangs running along her forehead between them. She tied back the rest of her hair into a long tail, and it was complete. She left home with a spring in her step.

For going to a ninja academy, many of the other girls at school were disappointingly… civilian. She knew she should have had little room to talk, being from a civilian family herself, but it wasn’t the lack of experience or physical conditioning that irked her. It was their attitudes.

The life of a shinobi wasn’t glamorous . Star-crossed romances were incredibly uncommon, and emotional displays were discouraged. Who cared about crushes, when they’d have to worry about staying alive in the future?

(She didn’t know why she was so sure about these things. It wasn’t like she had experience being a shinobi. Right?)

But sticking out was a danger in itself, so she pretended. Pretended to be vain and shallow, pretended that she cared more about romance than weapons. Pretended that she had a crush on Uchiha Sasuke.

She was interested in him, of course; just not the way everyone else seemed to be. Honestly, thinking about them together, in that way , made her sort of queasy. He just seemed… familiar. Like they were supposed to know each other.

But Sakura was observant. She knew that these feelings she got, about what-was , and what-should-be, were weird.

So, she pretended.

__________

Kakashi was so tired of being alone.

Even as a child, he had a fear that his loved ones would vanish and he’d be left by himself. He clung to his father, and then later to Sensei. He assured himself that his father was strong, and he’d never leave Kakashi if he could help it.

(He was wrong about that, but what else is new?)

Kakashi graduated the Academy early, earlier than anyone ever had (or ever would). People called him a genius. He didn’t like that, exactly — he didn’t really care what other people thought about him — but it seemed familiar, somehow.

Once when he was young (before he'd entered the academy, even), he’d stared in the mirror, looking at his face.

He didn’t look right, he thought. Not fierce enough. No one would take him seriously with this face. There was supposed to be something on it.

He stared wearing a mask. It wasn’t quite right, didn’t quite fit , but it worked well enough, and he liked it.

He followed the rules, because that was what a ninja was supposed to do, right? Follow orders. They had to be there for a reason.

Then his father killed himself, and Kakashi started following rules for an entirely different reason.

He got his new team, with Nohara Rin (Not strong enough) and Uchiha Obito (Too emotional) and…

They were wrong.

Rin reminded him of someone, but she had a crush on him, and it made him feel weird and kinda grossed out, because her familiarity had a flavor of family to it, (not enough that he actually felt like that about her, but enough that yikes.) and Obito was familiar in two distinctly opposite directions and Kakashi wasn’t sure how to deal with that. They were both too weak, and they slowed him and Sensei down, and they didn’t always follow the rules.

And Kakashi found himself liking them.

He shoved the feeling down, though, because liking them could lead to breaking the rules for them, and he couldn’t end up like his father. He wouldn’t .

But it happened anyway, and Obito broke through all his emotional barriers (those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash — ) and Kakashi went back, he saved them. Rin and Obito.

But then it all went wrong.

He woke up and Obito was under a rock. Kakashi tried to get him out, but it didn’t work, and Obito was practically dead anyway —

And he gave him an eye.

Obito gave Kakashi his eye, and then he was gone. The boy that was a contradiction to his instincts and dead last but still had the power to make Kakashi question his life choices — and all that was left of him was an eye. It was all that was left of him, but that didn’t change that it was wrong .

Kakashi had a Sharingan. (He shouldn’t have one, it wasn’t right, he was — ) He taught himself how to use it, through trial and error, since the Uchiha Clan wouldn’t (They’d just barely let him keep it, and only then because the clan head’s daughter had liked Obito — ) and he visited the memorial stone.

He spent a lot of time in front of the stone.

He started using Obito’s excuses whenever it made him late. He could never inject quite the right amount of enthusiasm, but no one called him out on it.

He did his best to keep his promise to Obito. It was his last request, and Kakashi didn’t want to lose any more people.

It didn’t work out that way, of course. He couldn’t get even one thing right, and Rin died. He killed her. (She threw herself onto his hand, how could she do that to him, how could she — ) He woke up screaming a lot before, but now he scrubbed his hands raw, he could never get the blood off —

Sensei (The hokage, now) put him on guard duty for Kushina-san. He was to ensure her safety, as well as the safety of her unborn child (His brother, they said, because apparently they considered a fuckup like him family. He never said it, but he loved them for that.)

He wasn’t on guard on the actual night of the birth. His security clearance wasn’t high enough, or something. (Maybe they didn’t trust him. He could understand that, he didn’t trust himself.)

Everything went wrong. The Kyuubi broke the seal, and after everything was over, Sensei and Kushina-san were dead.

The Sandaime took the hat, again. He took the hat, and he wouldn’t let Kakashi see Naruto.

On the one hand, Kakashi could understand. Anything connected to Minato-sensei could tip off his enemies that he had a child. Naruto was a baby, he couldn’t protect himself.

On the other hand, Kakashi was furious. (How dare he keep Kakashi from his little brother, he doesn’t want to be alone, he doesn’t want Naruto to be alone — )

Kakashi compromised. He wouldn't be around Naruto as Kakashi, but Anbu Hound was fair game.

Chapter Text

Sasuke is… not exactly surprised when Naruto shows up at team assignments.

Oh, he knows that Naruto was supposed to have failed the graduation exam. But if anyone could manage to like, get a field promotion in-village or something, it would be the dobe. He was a moron, but nothing ever went as expected around him.

He’s not really surprised when they get put on the same team, either. Part of him is yelling that being on a team with the dobe will just slow him down, but another, deeper ( older ) part of him thinks this is how it should be.

The other one, though. The pink-haired fangirl.

( Something about that isn’t right. But what? )

Her, he’s not looking forward to working with. Not only do his fangirl’s affections make him feel… uncomfortable… but getting someone who’s more focused on romance than training is only going to hinder his progress. And, there’s something about the way she acts that doesn’t — fit. It’s exactly the same as all the other girls, but something about this one makes it seem… wrong.

Whatever. He can’t change his team assignment, so he’ll just have to deal with it.

__________

Kakashi observes his new team for two hours before actually showing up.

They’re, uh —

Really fucking weird, for one. Also not exactly what he was expecting. And, worst of all, way too similar to his old team for comfort. But there’s also an odd feeling of familiarity beyond that. It’s one of those things that feel like he’s forgotten something. He’s gotten used to those by now, but usually they aren’t quite this strong. He hasn’t been nagged this sharply by his subconscious since, well…

Since he got taken off Naruto’s guard.

He looks at Naruto and feels brother, which makes sense, sort of. They would have been family if Minato and Kushina had lived.

He looks at Sasuke and feels a vague and nebulous feeling best described as untrustworthy , which is a little weirder, but understandable. Last time he’d trained an Uchiha, it’d been Itachi, after all.

But when he looks at Sakura his brain says enemy, which makes no sense at all. She’s a barely-genin pink-haired civilian fangirl . Even if she was some sort of defector or something, she’s nowhere near equal to him, so she’d be less of an enemy and more of an annoyance.

Naruto gets bored of waiting, evidently, as he sets up a frankly very boring prank. The eraser in the door? Honestly, Naruto can do better. Kakashi has seen the aftermath.

But he lets it get him anyway, because he enjoys keeping people off-balance. Getting people to underestimate him is practically second nature by now.

To the surprise of no one, Naruto laughs at him, Sakura lies that she tried to stop him, and Sasuke ignores everyone.

“My first impression of you all,” He says, “Is that I hate you.”

__________

Sakura hopes that being on a genin team means that she can stop acting. But first she has to make sure she stays on the team. She’d researched everything she could while she was at the academy. She knows that Jounin Sensei generally give their teams tests before actually accepting them.

If she has to go back to pretending to like Sasuke, she might actually explode.

So, as they reach the roof, she comes to a decision. She’s done with that mask. She’ll decide what to do if she gets sent back to the academy, but for now, she’ll just be her. It’s sort of dumb to think she’d be able to fool a jounin, anyway.

So, when it’s her turn to introduce herself, she’s honest.

“My name is Haruno Sakura. I like dango, studying, and the color red. I dislike spicy foods, traitors, and the idea of dying a slow, painful death. My goal for the future is to be strong enough that I don’t have to lie about my self to fit in.”

The other three stare at her. Evidently, they didn’t expect that.

Then, they shake off their surprise, and Sasuke delivers his melodramatic angstfest of an introduction. Kakashi-sensei drops the bomb on the other two, and then disappears like an asshole.

Sakura has a feeling that this team is going to be an experience .

__________

Naruto wakes up late for survival training and panics. What if Kakashi-sensei is a hypocrite and kicks him off for being late? It wouldn’t be the first time and adult was desperate for a reason to get rid of him.

When he runs up to his teammates, He has an apple in his mouth and a hair tie on his wrist. His hair is down, instead of up in its usual bun.

“Sorry!” He pants while tying up his hair, having set the apple on the handrail, “My alarm didn’t go off!”

Sasuke just “tch”-es.

Sakura, though, says; “It’s fine, Sensei isn’t even here yet anyways.”

Naruto likes Sakura. She’s strong, if you know how to look. She also doesn’t hate him. She acts like all the other girls, most of the time, but Naruto knows that the insults she sends his way are nowhere near the best she can do. More importantly, though, every time she’s mean to him, it’s in the presence of other girls, and Sakura’s always lying.

She’s the only one who doesn’t mean the insults she says. He can tell she’s lying when she yells at him. She’s just keeping up appearances.

(Naruto can understand that.)

__________

Kakashi goes into this expecting them to fail. He’s not sure if he wants them to fail or not, but they aren’t exactly a good example of teamwork. The first half goes as expected.

Naruto attacks head-on, spamming shadow clones (that he didn’t expect, though thinking back, that was what he learned from the scroll, wasn’t it?) and gets easily dispatched.

Sasuke does a little better, but not by much. He’s arrogant and rash, which undermines his admittedly above-average skill set. And, of course, he’s no match for an S-Rank jounin.

Sakura surprises him, in that she breaks the genjutsu he puts her in. It was, admittedly, a simple one, but for a genin to break a jounin’s genjutsu? She has impressive chakra control. In the end, he puts her in a more complicated one, and she doesn’t have quite the chakra capacity to break it.

The whole farce ends when Naruto, in true Uzumaki fashion, tries to cheat. He ties him to one of the poles, and considers ending it there. They failed, he could send them back.

But… he likes them. He’ll give them one more chance.

Chapter Text

Naruto is FED the FUCK UP with catching that stupid cat. He’s not a hundred percent sure, but he thinks Sasuke and Sakura are tired of D-Ranks, too. They were real ninja now! They hadn’t got in a single fight since graduating!

Also, maybe if they started getting real missions, Kakashi-sensei would actually teach them things. So far, they only see him for D-Ranks, and even then, only for part of them. And he doesn’t even help! He just stands there, reading his porn!

(Yeah, that’s right, Naruto knows what those books are about! He doesn’t exactly know why anyone likes them when they’re so boring, but he gets that people generally don’t like talking about it.)

So, he decides to complain about it, right to the only person who can do anything.

To the surprise of everyone, it actually works. They get a C-Rank, and Naruto gets to leave the village for the first time in his life. He doesn’t really like the client, who keeps insulting him, but he’s a shinobi! He can deal.

It goes pretty well until they run into foreign ninja. “The Demon Brothers,” they’re called. Naruto freaks out, and freezes. It’s just for a second, before something deep in him (something old, something strong ) urges him to move, and he does. But it’s just a little too late, and he gets cut.

It ends up fine, because Kakashi-sensei isn’t dead, (now that Naruto thinks about it, he hadn’t smelled blood) but they might have to turn back. The mission’s misranked. The nin they’d had to fight were above the level of bandits and wild animals.

But Kakashi-sensei is apparently laughably far out of their league, so that’s not really a problem.

It seems like they’re going to continue, but then —

“We may have to go back to get Naruto to a hospital.”

“What?! Why?” Naruto’s hand isn’t badly injured, and he heals fast. He’d be fine!

Kakashi-sensei motions to the Demon Brother’s weapon. “It’s poisoned.”

“Oh.” He looks at his hand. “That’s fine, then. We can keep going.”

“What? Of course we can’t.” Kakashi-sensei looks at him incredulously. “You’ve been poisoned. We need to get you to a hospital.”

“I’ve been poisoned a lot, sensei.” He wraps a bandage around the cut on his hand. It’d be gone in a day, but better safe than sorry. “It never actually works. At worst I’ll get sick for a day or two.”

There’s a tense silence following his statement, so he looks up. They’re all looking at him with concern. Even Sasuke looks worried.

“What?” He’s not sure why they’re looking at him like that. It’s not the look he’s used to, that’s for sure.

“You’ve been poisoned?! ” Sakura says, “But you said you’ve never left the village before!”

“Yeah?” He scratches the back of his head, feeling awkward. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people don’t like me.”

“Yeah, but they just sort of glare at you!” Sakura flails her arms wildly. “You’ve gotten poisoned! Why hasn’t anyone noticed?!”

“Well, I told the Old Man, and he said he’d take care of it,” Naruto says, “I guess some people just get past him.” It makes sense, after all. The Old Man has a village to run, he couldn’t catch everyone who tried to hurt Naruto. “Listen, are we gonna keep going or not?”

Kakashi-sensei twitches oddly. “Alright. We’ll continue the mission.” He turns to Naruto, pointing a finger at him. “But when we get back, I want names. ”

__________

Kakashi soon has more immediate worries than people unsuccessfully poisoning one of his genin. Namely, an A-Rank missing nin trying to stab all of his genin, and also him.

It should be an easy win for him. Well, maybe not easy , but it should not be as close as it is. But he isn’t used to working with people he has to protect, and the situation ( him and his students, outside the village, fighting foreign nin — ) makes something deep in his mind uneasy. He’s off his game.

Letting a Kiri-nin herd him into the water is a stupid move. But his cute little students manage to get him out of the water prison, and then he gets serious. He pushes away everything but the fight, ignoring the feeling of familiarity-and-fear .

He wins, but he’d spent too long underwater. He passes out as soon as Zabuza’s gone.

When he wakes back up again, days have passed and he’s in Tazuna’s house.

He decides he should teach his kids tree-walking. Sakura, as expected after the bell test, gets it immediately. Naruto and Sasuke, also as expected, immediately strike up a rivalry as to who can learn faster.

If you’d asked anyone who’d seen them back in the village, they’d say that obviously Sasuke has the advantage. He’s a genius, an Uchiha. Naruto is the dead last, he doesn’t stand a chance.

Those people would be wrong, because apparently, Naruto learns by doing and functions best under pressure. Their rivalry is… even.

As he watches them bicker their way up the trees, he’s struck by another one of those feelings of long-forgotten nostalgia. This is right , his instincts whisper. This is how it’s supposed to be.

__________

Sasuke and Naruto get to the top of their trees at the same time.

It was a tie, but evidently, Naruto hasn’t had enough. He trains into the night, exhausts himself, and they have to leave him there while they go to the bridge. Sasuke still thinks Naruto is a moron, but… he can admire his work ethic.

(Why hadn’t he worked this hard at the academy? Surely he could have gotten better grades.)

When they get to the bridge, Sasuke immediately knows something’s wrong. Sure enough, as they cautiously make their way forward through the fog, They are greeted with a horrible sight; The workers have been incapacitated ( are they dead? Sasuke can’t tell — ) and standing above them is Zabuza, with his enormous sword slung over his shoulders.

The bodies strewn about the bridge, haphazardly lying there, remind him just a bit too much of that night. When Kakashi gives the order, Sasuke jumps into the fight readily, shaking in anticipation. He’s tense, he needs to fight something right now .

He fights the apprentice — the fake hunter nin — and it’s exhilarating. They’re evenly matched, in speed and skill and power, right up until they aren’t. They both have bloodlines, but only one of them can use theirs. And the other boy’s power is very versatile. He flits from mirror to mirror, firing senbon at Sasuke, and always retreats before Sasuke can land a hit. He’s managed to stay alive this far, but Sasuke’s in trouble, and he knows it.

He’s immensely relieved when he hears the dobe’s loud voice from outside the mirror.

He’s less so when the moron runs into the dome . He couldn’t have tried attacking from the outside?!

But really, he’s not surprised. Naruto is a straightforward person. And, he’s sort of touched that the dobe cares so much about him. Their rivalry is a thin veil for friendship, but neither of them are emotionally competent enough to admit that.

He likes Naruto. They both know the pain of being alone, and despite himself, he kind of finds his enthusiasm endearing. And, deep down, something in him knows that they’re meant to be friends. Despite himself, and his best attempts to push everyone away, Naruto is important to him.

So, when a cluster of senbon fly towards Naruto at a speed he won’t be able to dodge, Sasuke steps in front of them.

___________

Naruto nearly passes out. The senbon are sticking out of him from every angle like a pincushion. Naruto falters, and the enemy throws senbon at him, and he knows he won’t be able to dodge.

But then Sasuke is there, and at first, Naruto doesn’t understand. But then Sasuke turns around, senbon sticking out of his throat, and

he

f a l l s

After that, things get… red. Something wells up in him, like the feeling of familiarity he sometimes gets, but not, and Naruto is just so angry. He wants to hurt something, someone. He lashes out, and doesn’t even notice that the senbon aren’t sticking out of him anymore.

He nearly kills the fake hunter nin, but the shock of seeing a familiar face snaps him out of his rage. Haku tells him his tale, about fear and betrayal and a saviour, and Naruto understands. Haku’s doing this, everything, for Zabuza.

Naruto understands, alright. He isn’t sure there’s anything he wouldn’t do for Iruka-sensei.

Then Haku sacrifices himself for Zabuza, and Gato betrays the Missing-Nin, and Zabuza kills him in return, and the whole town shows up in a mob to chase off the bandits. Naruto helps, and so does Kakashi-sensei, making clones.

And — Sasuke wakes up.

Chapter Text

It starts the night after the battle on the bridge. They’re still staying at Tazuna’s, this time helping construct the bridge instead of guard it. Naruto goes to sleep, and has a dream.

In the dream, he’s himself, but someone else, too. It’s like it’s a different version of him. He’s still sad, but this him has brothers. He loves them fiercely, knowing they could be taken from him at any time. But he can’t remember their names or faces, when he wakes up.

There’s one, in particular, that sticks out in his memory. The second oldest, after him. The scientist. The good soldier.

There’s something important about that one, beyond the all-important fact that he’s Naruto’s family . Something he needs to remember. Something relevant to now.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t quite put his finger on it.

The next night, he dreams again. And the next, and the next. None of the dreams are really memories, exactly, but a mish-mash of feelings and sensations, concepts and emotions. But they’re important. Naruto can feel it.

He’s off-focus, even more so than usual. This manifests as him staring off in silence, though, so his team notices. But it doesn’t affect the mission, and it’s not like he’s upset , so he just gets a couple “ Are you all right? ”s before they leave him to his thoughts.

It takes all the way until they’re back in the village for the dam to break. He stops by Iruka-sensei’s house to let him know he’s back. They go out for ramen. Eventually, after putting his stuff away, Naruto goes to sleep.

And Hashirama wakes up.

__________

Remembering an entirely new set of memories is… disorienting, to say the least. He’s still the same person, mostly, just with more memories. Naruto and Hashirama’s personalities are similar enough that he is mostly the same as either, just with a few differences.

Hashirama is more confident than Naruto, for one. Naruto talks big, but that’s mostly to hide his insecurities. Hashirama was an adult, and often called the God of Shinobi. He was too busy to be self-conscious, generally.

Of course, he’d died, so he didn’t exactly have a lot to keep him busy, now.

Oh.

He’d died. His family, his friends, they must have mourned. Especially Tobirama.

It wasn’t that the others wouldn’t have mourned. Touka, Mito, they’d probably been devastated. But they were strong, and practical. They’d move on, eventually. They had other things to live for.

But Tobirama. His little brother. In some ways, Hashirama had been all he’d had left.

He could only hope his little brother’s students had been enough to help him live. He knew, from his life as Naruto, that Tobirama, the Nidaime, had sacrificed his life in order to protect his students, to preserve the next generation. ( He hoped that’s what it really was. Protecting the next generation. Hoped, because the alternative was that Tobirama’s death was just a dramatic suicide. )

He’d accidentally woken up early, and now that he’s remembered, there’s no way he’s going back to sleep. He’ll just have to be early to the team meeting, he supposes.

He’s so wrapped up thinking about his previous life that he doesn’t even notice at first when Sasuke shows up. When he glances up, catches sight of his teammate, the new memories blank out his thought process, and he blurts out the first thing to cross his mind.

“Madara?!”

Naruto/Hashirama immediately realizes that was the wrong thing to say, and opens his mouth to offer an excuse, but the point is made moot when Sasuke stumbles, and with a pained look, collapses to the ground.

Naruto panics, running over. Spontaneous fainting is never good — ! “Are you alright?!”

And then, Sasuke gets up, with dazed confusion on his face, and just a flicker of recognition.

“…Hashirama?”

__________

They spend the rest of their time alone discussing their reincarnation. Naruto/Hashirama had remembered after dreaming about his life for a few days, but Sasuke/Madara had remembered all at once when Hashirama/Naruto said his name.

Then, their discussion is cut short when Sakura shows up. They do their normal thing, Naruto and Sasuke pretending that they haven’t gained memories of a past life. Then, Naruto sidles over to Sasuke, squinting at Sakura.

“Sasuke?” He murmurs, because he can’t say ‘Madara’ if he’s wrong, “Does Sakura remind you of anyone?”

Sakura’s sitting down, reading a book, like she always does, but… Sasuke looks closer. Wait a minute — !

He walks over to her, and she looks up with a very familiar “You’re interrupting my reading” face.

“Izuna?!”

Her face goes blank. She’s already sitting down, so she doesn’t fall over, but she does slump against the railing. When she gets back up, there’s a look behind her eyes that’s very quickly becoming familiar.

“Nii-san?” She turns to look at Naruto. “ Senju Hashirama?!”

“Geez,” he says, “What are the odds? Oh my god,” His eyes widen, and the other two tense. “I’m way better at gambling in this life than the last one. How is that possible? I’m twelve!”

“Naruto!” Sasuke snarls, “I thought it was something important! ”

“It is important, Sasuke!” Naruto whines, “As Naruto I’ve won games I didn’t even know how to play! I never had this much luck as an adult!”

Sakura/Izuna calmly walks over, then swats the back of Naruto’s head. “No gambling until you’re properly eighteen.”

“Oh come on, Sakura! We’re ninja, dattebayo! We can totally gamble!”

Sasuke watches the two of them, a considering look flickering across his face. “Hm,” he says, drawing the two’s attention.

“What is it?” They both say, in unison.

He points to Naruto. “You don’t mope anymore.”

“What?”

“As Hashirama, you moped over-exaggeratedly whenever anyone insulted you.” He tilts his head, reviewing memories. “As Naruto, I don’t think I’ve even seen you mope.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Naruto’s smile falters. “I guess, I’ve just, had enough of being sad? Even if it’s fake.”

“Oh.”

They sit in awkward silence that slowly transitions into regular silence by the time that Kakashi shows up.

Then, they bury their past lives in their minds, and play at being normal.

__________

Something is off about his team.

They’re hiding it well, mind you — unusually well for genin, in fact. But Kakashi is very, very good, and he can see the hints, here and there.

He can’t tell what it was exactly, but something has happened between the three of them, and now they’re very subtly different.

Naruto is more confident, and therefore slightly less loud.

Sasuke’s calmer, less angry.

And Sakura moves like a shinobi now. She’d tried, before, and she hadn’t exactly walked like a civilian, but she wasn’t from a clan. But now, she walks like she is .

When a few days have passed, and the thing hasn’t gone away but he’s also no closer to figuring it out, he decides to resort to drastic measures.

He’s going to spy on them.

__________

They’ve started meeting up outside of training, now, to discuss their reincarnation and commiserate about their new lives.

“Why do the villagers hate you?” Sakura asked, once.

That had led to the revelation of his Jinchuuriki status, to Sasuke’s loud “I knew it” and Sakura’s confusion. So, Naruto had explained it best he could, and she had stared at him in disbelief for a couple minutes.

But neither of them were afraid of him.

So now, they meet up for food, ignore Naruto’s clamoring for ramen, and after lunch they go find somewhere secluded an just sort of… hang out. It’s all very normal friend stuff, excluding the fact that they’re all reincarnations.

“Why do you like ramen so much?” Sasuke asks gruffly, once they get to their spot-of-the-day.

“Ah, well, Teuchi — the guy who owns the stand — was the first person in the village to be nice to me.”

Sakura narrows her eyes, as she often does when he talks about his life now. “What about the Hokage? I thought he took care of you.”

“Well, yeah, later. I met Teuchi when I was still living at the orphanage.” He munches on a stick of pocky from the numerous snacks they’d brought with them. “I only met Hiruzen when they kicked me out and he gave me an apartment.”

Sakura smiles. “The more I hear about your life this time around, the more I want to break something,” she says evenly.

Naruto shivers at the killing intent leaking from the girl despite her serene expression. She really was very good at that. If she’d clamped down on her chakra he would have thought she was truly happy.

“Speaking of breaking things.” She turns to Sasuke. “When you find Itachi, I get to help bring him down.”

He huffs. “Obviously. Regardless of your body in this life, you’re an Uchiha.”

“Hmm.” She’s still smiling, and Naruto almost pities Itachi. “He doesn’t stand a chance, between the two of us.”

Naruto watches the two of them, having a moment of terrifying sibling solidarity, and flops to the ground, sighing.

“I’m glad you two have each other back, but… I’m sort of jealous.” He frowns. “I miss Tobirama.”

Whatever the other two were going to say in response is hijacked by someone falling heavily out of the tree. Naruto recognizes the shock of gray hair first, and rushes over.

Sakura is right behind him, but Sasuke hangs back, a sudden flash of suspicion flickering through his mind.

“Oh my god! Kakashi-sensei, are you okay, ‘ttebayo?! Are you hurt?! Should I get someone?!”

Kakashi groans and rolls over, pressing his hands to his face. “Shut the fuck up, Anija,” he mumbles.

Naruto cuts off abruptly. “ Tobirama ?!”

Chapter Text

“Okay, so I have a confession to make,” Sasuke says one day, after the training that had started when the Tobirama part of Kakashi realized he was a being a shit teacher, “I didn’t die when you all thought I did. Faked my death.”

Kakashi turns to him with narrowed eyes. “Why.”

“Uh, because I was crazy?” Sasuke shrugs. “Looking back, there’s a lot of things I regret from that life.”

“So if you didn’t die that day,” Naruto asks, “When did you?”

“Um.” Sasuke turns to Kakashi. “How old are you, now?”

“Twenty eight,” he says flatly.

“Then, uh,” He coughs into his fist uncomfortably. “…Fifteen years ago?”

“What.” If Kakashi’s voice gets any drier, it might actually start to suck in moisture from the surrounding air.

“Sasuke!” exclaims Naruto, “You would’ve been like, a hundred! How? What were you even doing?!”

“I may have been tied chakra-to-chakra to an evil statue, and also been trying to take over the world.” He hold up a finger, and rushes to continue on before anyone else can get a word in. “In my defense! I was kind of crazy, and, in retrospect, probably being manipulated by an evil plant monster.” He turns again to face Kakashi. “Also. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

Kakashi stares silently at him, glaring a hole into his skull.

“Okay. Good news! Obito’s not dead.” He laughs nervously. “Bad news is he’s not dead because I saved him to use as a pawn in my ‘taking over the world’ plan, so he might still be doing that now.”

“You…” Kakashi’s voice is blank, but he doesn’t sound angry, so Sasuke will take what he can get. “Obito… is alive.”

“Yeah, like I said, there’s a lot of things I’ve done that I now realise may not have been the smartest decisions.”

“Obito is alive.” Realisation flashes through his visible eye. “Obito’s the one who unleashed the Kyuubi on the village.”

Oh, shit. Kakashi was a genius. Tobirama was also a genius. Of course he figured that out.

“He… he did it on your orders, didn’t he?” It isn’t really a question, but Sasuke nods anyway. “You… you took them from me.”

“What?” He really doesn’t like how flat Kakashi’s voice is. It reminds Sasuke of how Sakura gets when she’s really furious.

“Minato-sensei and Kushina-san.” Kakashi’s voice breaks, and somehow this is worse than the anger Sasuke was anticipating. “They died for your stupid plan, and I was alone . I was alone for so long .”

Sasuke… would rather he be angry, honestly. Seeing Kakashi like this is unsettling. But his words bring up an old contention point, one not between Sasuke and Kakashi, but between Madara and Tobirama.

Anger flares up, old and familiar, and Sasuke Madara ignores the flickers of guilt that come with it. “Gee, I wonder what that could be like,” He snarls.

Kakashi snarls right back. “When Izuna died you had your clan! You had Anija! I have lost everyone I’ve ever loved in this life! Mother, Father, and Obito, and Rin, and Sensei and Kushina! They all died, and most of them were my fault! ”

“What?!” That’s not —

“And the only ones I didn’t outlive last time were Mito and my students! I couldn’t save Itama, or Kawarama, or Anija or T-touka…” The anger drains out of him, and he slumps to the ground and curls up in a ball, his head on his knees. “I j-just… I’ve been alone for so long .”

He startles when Naruto hugs him, wrapping his arms around him from behind.

“Well, you’re not alone anymore,” He says, and his smile is bright like the sun. “None of us are.”

Kakashi turns and hug him properly, and buries his face in Naruto’s shoulder. It’s kind of awkward, considering the height difference, but neither seems to mind.

“We were supposed to be brothers, you know.” Kakashi’s voice is muffled, but Naruto can still make it out. “In this life, I mean. Your parents practically adopted me. But then they died, and the Sandaime forbid anyone with a connection to your parents from going near you. And… I listened to him.” He laughs bitterly. “I always was a good soldier.”

“You know my parents?!” Naruto gaped. “But Sarutobi told me he didn’t know who they were!”

“Tch.” That was a distinctly Tobirama sound, one he made when thinking about stupid decisions other people had made. “He made your parentage an S-Class secret. Telling you about them is punishable by death. Standing orders are to keep all knowledge of them from you.” Naruto goes to complain, but Kakashi beats him to it. “But that’s dumb, so we’re not going to do that.”

“Are you sure?” Naruto asks, but he’s smiling. “You’re not worried about getting in trouble?”

Kakashi smirks at him. The mask makes it hard to discern, but Naruto can tell. “Anija, you’re a Hokage. I’m a Hokage. We can do whatever the hell we want.”

And then he turns to face Sakura and Sasuke, who are standing back and watching, awkwardly. He makes eye contact with Sakura. “Sorry for killing you last time.”

“Apology accepted,” she returns, “It was wartime. To expect you to do any less would be foolish.”

He shifts his gaze to Sasuke, and holds it until the boy starts shifting uncomfortably. “I’m still upset with you, but you seem to regret it, so you get to live.” Ignoring the indignant squawking, he continues. “But we are going to fix this. No one is taking over the world.”

Sasuke nods, chastised.

(The relationships in this team are fucking complicated , considering the two lives they’ve all lived.)

__________

The Chunin exams are coming up. Getting promoted is essential to both their plans, and their general mental stability. If they have to keep doing D-Ranks with the occasional C-Rank interspersed for flavor, they might go crazy. Chores aren’t exactly suited for people used to being Kage-level fighters.

Speaking of Kage-level fighters, regaining their memories had mixed results in improving their abilities.

Their taijutsu wasn’t improved at all. That was muscle memory, mostly, so with their new bodies, they’d have to start completely from scratch.

Ninjutsu was somewhat of a mixed bag, as remembering they had once had more chakra (or less, in the case of Naruto, which holy shit, Hashirama already had way too much — ) didn’t change their chakra capacity; but they know more jutsu than they had before, so, theoretically, they now have a more extensive arsenal at their disposal.

The Sharingan upgrades are based on trauma/memories, so Sasuke has the Mangekyo again. But the Eternal Mangekyo comes from an eye transplant, so if he uses it, he’ll go blind.

Sakura, not being an Uchiha in this life, doesn’t have the Sharingan at all. But, through experimentation, they discovered that she can still create and dispel genjutsu as if she does.

And, of course, Naruto isn’t a Senju, so he can’t do Mokuton anymore. He’d whined about that, until Sasuke pointed out that as a Jinchuuriki, he’s still ridiculously overpowered. It was that conversation that spawned the current situation.

“I’m going to make friends with him,” Naruto says, out of the blue.

Sasuke doesn’t even look up from the training post he’s attacking. “Who?”

Naruto grins. “The Kyuubi.”

Sasuke falters, and whips his head around to stare at him.

Sakura looks up from her medical textbook to join in the incredulous staring.

Kakashi, already desensitized by a lifetime of watching Hashirama do stupid things despite all the warnings against them, doesn’t react.

“What?!” Sasuke screeches.

“I’m doing it and there’s nothing you can to to stop me~!” Naruto says, before settling into a meditative position.

He blocks out Sasuke’s shouting, and reaches deep into his mind. He emerges in what looks like a sewer, if a sewer was absolutely overflowing with plants. He follows the hall until he come to an enormous cage door.

He peers into the darkness behind the bars, and something shifts.

“ Oh? So the brat finally shows up. ” The fox’s face is enormous too— nearly four times his size. “ What brings you here, jailer? Come to tell me to stay calm and quiet , like a good pet? ”

“Hi! My name’s Uzumaki Naruto, and in fairness, I think I should inform you that in my last life I was Senju Hashirama.” He sends the fox one of his biggest grins. “What’s your name?”

“ …What? ” People seem to be asking Naruto that a lot, recently. The fox stares at him blankly, caught off-guard. Then, his brain catches up with the rest of the brat’s statement. “ What do you mean, you used to be Hashirama?! ”

“Well, I died, and then I got reincarnated, and then I remembered I died and got reincarnated.”

“ You — you bastard! This is your fault! ” The killing intent leaking from inside the cage is like nothing Naruto — or Hashirama — has ever experienced. “ You put me in here! I was controlled by your Uchiha friend and then you locked me up ! ”

Shit, he hadn’t thought about it that way — “I’m sorry! It was a stupid decision, I’ve been reliably informed I make a lot of those!”

“ Then fix it! ”

“Well I can’t just let you out, ‘ttebayo! I’d die!” He throws his hands up. “I can’t die yet, I’ve got shit to do!”

“ Get out! ”

With a burst of chakra, Naruto is flung back into the real world. He scowls, and stomps over to Sasuke before swatting the back of his head.

Sasuke swings around to face him, a look of affront on his face. “What the hell was that for?!”

“Why the fuck did you think it would be a good idea to hypnotise a bijuu?!”

Chapter Text

Through endless optimism and annoying persistence, Naruto eventually ends up making progress on the Kyuubi thing. He shows up, lets the fox rant, offers a sincere apology, and then talks his ear off about his life, both shitty aspects and not.

Over time, the fox grows reluctantly fond of this little yellow brat that used to be the tree man. He grudgingly admits that, yeah, living through the direct consequence of your actions is a pretty good punishment for bad decisions, and he could definitely have ended up in a worse jinchuuriki. And… maybe he was a little lonely, cooped up in person after person. The kid may be annoying, but he’s company.

Naruto surfaces from a meditation session, just a few days before the chunin exams, with a cheerful cry. “His name is Kurama!”

“Wait,” says Sakura, “You mean you weren’t kidding about it working?”

“Or being stupidly optimistic?” Sasuke adds.

“First of all, ouch, you words wound me — ” Naruto puts a hand on his chest in mock betrayal. “ — Second of all, no. I wasn’t. He’s totally warming up to me, and soon I’ll be able to add ‘40 foot chakra beast’ to my annoyingly short list of friends.”

“I believed in you, Naruto,” Kakashi says from behind his porn, “If anyone could succeed at such a monumentally stupid idea it’d be you.”

“Oi!”

__________

The chunin exams roll around, and they sign up without any hesitation. Iruka is rightfully concerned when everyone from his graduation class are nominated (especially about a certain blonde prankster, but Iruka’s not supposed to play favorites at work), but then Kakashi actually responds to his question.

“Normally, you’d be totally right. Six months would not be enough for a team to pass.” Kakashi rubs his temples. “But those three are absolute monsters, and if they have to spend any more time on D-Ranks, they’ll probably burn down a not insignificant portion of the village.”

When Iruka continues to look skeptical, he continues. “Look, you can come look in on them or something if you want, but those three are ready. Also they might try to maul me if I told them they can’t enter.”

__________

The day before the exams, they’re walking around, Naruto playing with his tiny fan club, when they run into some Suna nin.

“Oh hey!” Naruto beams. “You guys here for the Chunin Exams?”

The two teens seem caught off-guard by by his blatant enthusiasm. There’s another one nearby, but Naruto can’t see them just yet.

“...Yes.” Says the one in front, who looks like he has cat ears.

“Cool, cool.” Naruto nods. “So are me and my team. Is your other member the one I can feel hanging around? It’s kinda rude to hide from your hosts.”

The two visible ones look at each other, unsure of how to respond. Then, the hiding one finally joins the group in a swirl of sand.

“Temari, Kankuro,” he says, and holy shit that’s a deep voice for a twelve-year-old, “Why are you talking to him.”

His voice is so inflectionless Naruto wonders for a moment if he’s actually a robot.

“Gaara!” They splutter, the girl taking the lead, “We were just —”

Naruto stops listening at that point, though, because there’s something weird about this ‘Gaara’.

He sidles backwards to where Sasuke is boredly watching the proceedings. “Hey, can you look at Gaara for me? There’s something about him that’s setting off my 'that’s weird' sense.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, but complies. He observes, a hand on his chin, before narrowing his eyes and tilting his head. “His chakra system kind of looks like yours, just less… smooth. I think he’s Suna’s Jinchuuriki.”

“Huh.” Naruto slides back over to the Suna nin. “So are you guys actually gonna go to your hotel or…? Are you lost, or something?”

They look at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, before Gaara once again takes the lead.

“Let’s go.”

They leave.

“Well,” says Naruto, “That was… something. Kind of a boring something, but something nonetheless.”

__________

The first stage of chunin exams turns out to be stupidly easy to the three of them, which makes sense when you consider they used to be adults. They don’t even have to cheat, though they could if they wanted to.

Then the second stage comes up, and things get interesting. Not enough to be a challenge, considering their last lives, but not boring. A survival exercise is one thing for kids who’d lived their entire life in the safety and comfort of the village, and another thing entirely for three kids who were actually adults, who in turn had grown up in the warring clans era.

“Oh my god,” Naruto says, when they’ve set up camp, “I just remembered these trees are called Hashirama trees. ”

The other two snicker. To an outside perspective, it would seem like the weirdest inside joke ever.

“Normally in this kind of situation, I’d suggest passcodes in case we get separated,” Sasuke says, “But considering, I don’t think that’s strictly necessary.”

It’s a good thing they got that out of the way, though, because at that moment, an incredibly strong gust of wind knocked them off their feet. Sasuke and Sakura landed in roughly the same place, but Naruto was somewhere else.

“What the hell was that?” Sakura stands up and brushes herself off, hand going to the handle of her sword.

“An attack of some sort, obviously, but…” Sasuke runs his fingers over the weapon scroll Kakashi had gotten him. He has a few options, including a gunbai. It’s his favorite, frankly, but he’s not sure if he should use it or not, considering how much of a dumbass his previous incarnation had been.

The bushes rustle, and the two tense. Then a head of yellow hair pops out, and they marginally relax. But they had literally just discussed this possibility, so they still stand ready.

Sasuke mentally grumbles. Madara had been a decent sensor, but Sasuke couldn’t sense for shit. It was the sort of thing that required at least a little bit of natural talent, and he doesn’t have that in this life.

“How did we meet, the first time?” He asks.

The maybe-fake-Naruto scratches his head, “Uh, school, I think?” He stills when a kunai thunks into the tree next to his head.

Sasuke stares at the impostor with narrowed eyes, sharingan slowly spinning. “Wrong answer.”

“My, my.” The fake Naruto smiles, and holy shit that’s super creepy on Naruto’s face. “You two must be very good friends, for you to be so sure he’d remember.”

Sakura snorts. “Or we just know something you don’t.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes. “ Technically , you’re both right.”

Then the impostor resumes their own form, and the two are suddenly pressed down under an onslaught of Killing Intent. If they were actually what they appeared, they likely wouldn’t have been able to move.

But since they are what they are, they just feel mildly uncomfortable. They look at each other, and communicate silently in the way only siblings can. Then, they turn back to face the mysterious shinobi, and simultaneously unleash their own KI.

Killing intent is one part chakra, and three parts, well, intent, so the end result is about even. The enemy nin has way more chakra than they do, but Sasuke used to be Madara.

The fact that it’s even brings up another problem, though. Because the reason the two of them can unleash that much KI is because, strictly speaking, they aren’t actually genin.

So who the hell is this?

__________

Meanwhile, Naruto is being eaten by a snake.

It’s incredibly unpleasant, but he gets out of it fairly easily by just making more shadow clones until it explodes. Then he’s covered in snake guts, which is gross, but at least he hasn’t been digested. He’s got to get back to his team, because that was definitely a targeted attack, and anyone with a summon that big (because that’s probably what it was) was definitely not a genin.

Technically neither are they, but they aren’t exactly up to their own standards, either.

Then he feels, in the direction he can sense his team’s distinct flavor of emotion (Kyuubi powers for the win!), an unusually large amount of Killing Intent, which is quickly followed by a burst of the same by his teammates.

He speeds up, because that was a lot of KI. Definitely not a genin.

He bursts through the trees, and is greeted by the sight of his teammates fighting someone with a really long tongue. He jumps down to their side.

“Ok, let’s try this again,” says Sasuke as he touches down, “How did we meet the first time?”

“We met at the river.” Naruto snickers. “You sucked at skipping rocks.”

Sasuke scowls. “I’m going to get you for that remark eventually, but right now we should focus on this.”

“Ok!” Naruto grins, and throws himself into the battle.

Chapter Text

Orochimaru did not expect this at all .

Sure, the Uchiha boy was a genius, but he was a genin. The girl was of no consequence, a civilian-born fangirl. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki could be a problem, but he’d sent a summon to distract him.

He thought it would be easy. He’d not expected the boy to see through his disguise so quickly, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. But then he’d directed Killing Intent at them, and they had responded in kind. Both of them.

And then they started fighting him, and wow, those were not genin. They’re held back by their small bodies and chakra reserves, but behind that Orochimaru can see a lifetime’s worth of experience. A hard lifetime.

If he wasn’t sure that these were the children he was looking for, he would have suspected they were actually high-level chunin or even jonin wearing henges.

He’s still better than them, of course. But it is… more difficult than he’d anticipated.

And then the Fox Brat joins the fight, and everything goes to hell.

__________

The thing about being a combination of Tobirama and Kakashi was that they were both incredibly overprotective. So, despite the fact that he knew his team could take care of themselves, he’d given them one of his hiraishin markers.

(As soon as he’d remembered he’d started spreading those around again. He told no one but his team, because he didn’t feel like explaining to his superiors why he suddenly could perform his Sensei’s specialty ( and wow, that was a trip and a half, his Sensei getting famous because of his jutsu ). He needed the mobility, in case of an emergency.)

So when he feels someone channel chakra into it while his team is in the forest of death, he doesn’t hesitate before jumping to it.

When he poofs in, it’s to the sight of his kids fighting — Orochimaru?

“Oh my god,” He drags a hand over his face, “What the fuck.”

“Yeah, we tried to handle it ourselves,” says Naruto, apparently the one who’d signaled him, “But, uh, we’re a little outclassed.”

Orochimaru twitches, presumably at the ‘a little’ part. Which is fair, strictly speaking he should outclass them by quite a lot, but their team has some pretty unique circumstances.

Kakashi takes his hand of his face to glare at his younger-older brother. “Why do things like this always happen around you? I was a pretty respectable trouble magnet on my own, but this?” He waves a hand at the enraged snake sannin. “This is ridiculous.”

“Lecture us later,” Sasuke shouts, “we’re kind of in the middle of something here!”

With the addition of Kakashi, they manage to subdue Orochimaru. They tie him up with chakra wire, Kakashi paints some quick chakra-suppression seals on him, and then they start arguing about what to do with him.

Orochimaru watches them with narrowed eyes and thinly-veiled bafflement. Normally he’d be mad — furious, even — that his plans failed, but he’s just so confused . What on earth is going on?

“Will we even be allowed to continue the exams, since you interfered?” Sakura’s voice cuts through the bickering.

“I’m not even sure the exams will continue at all, considering Orochimaru snuck in,” Kakashi responds, “On the other hand, we caught him, so it’s not like he can do much now. ”

The conversation deteriorates from there, and it eventually culminates with Sasuke pulling out his gunbai, chasing Kakashi around, who avoids all of his attacks with a combination of hiraishin and good-old superior skill. Naruto chases after Sasuke, whining about being nice to each other, and Sakura simply stands to the side, watching in amusement.

Putting together their current behavior, some skills they displayed, and a bit of earlier conversation, Orochimaru is suddenly struck by a nagging suspicion. He re-doubles his observation.

“...What the hell ?” he mutters quietly.

__________

It’s quiet in the Hokage’s office, and Hiruzen sits at his desk doing paperwork. It’s his least favorite part of the job, but the chunin exams generates a lot of it, and if he doesn’t do it now he’ll never get it done. At least the worst of the troublemakers in the village are currently busy in or around the forest of death.

The quiet moment is shattered when a group of people suddenly appear in his office. He and his Anbu jump to attention, ready to attack, but…

It’s Team 7. And a tied-up Orochimaru?

“Yo.” Kakashi waves. “We found this in the forest.”

Hiruzen feels like this is going to be a long day.

After getting his wayward student squared away in Interrogation, he turns to Kakashi and his team. “Now. Tell me what happened.”

Kakashi turns to his genin and raises an eyebrow. (Technically, since you can only see the one, he could be raising both. But it feels like he’s just raising one.) They nod in return, and Kakashi turns back. “You might want to activate that privacy seal for this.”

Yup, this is definitely going to be a long day.

He sighs, but does as advised. The wards activate, blocking out the windows and making the room soundproof. “This better be good.”

Kakashi hums. “Depends on how you look at it.”

The report that follows is the most disjointed, ridiculous mission report he has ever received, but as far as he can tell it’s the absolute truth. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s not because they’re lying. He’s missing something.

“And how exactly,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “did three genin manage to keep up with Orochimaru?”

“Ah.” Kakashi speaks up for the first time since the beginning. “Well, that’s why I suggested you use the privacy seal.”

Naruto steps up. “The night after we got back from the Wave mission, I unlocked memories of my previous life.” He scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. “Senju Hashirama, at your service.”

“Hn.” Sasuke folded his arms. “Uchiha Madara.”

Sakura waved. “And I’m Izuna!”

Hiruzen looks at them, then Kakashi. “And… you believe this?” He asks the other man.

“Tch.” Even with only a fourth of his face showing, Hiruzen would recognise that look of disappointment anywhere. “I know I’ve told you not to disregard a conclusion simply because you don’t like it, Saru.”

Hiruzen chokes. “ Tobirama-sensei?! ” He looks back at the three children, wide-eyed and assessing. Then, he opens the secret drawer in his desk. He needs a drink.

__________

Since Orochimaru is in custody, the chunin exams go on. Since Team Seven’s sensei entered the forest, though, they’re disqualified. But, since they’re the reason Orochimaru’s in custody, they get field promotions anyway.

So over all, things turn out good.

Iruka looks at them when the news is broken, then at Kakashi, and then covers his face with his hands. “I don’t know anything anymore,” comes his muffled voice.

“Don’t worry, Iruka-sensei,” says Naruto, “I never know what’s happening.”

“That’s not helpful, Naruto.”

Chapter Text

When Jiraiya comes back to Konoha at the request of his sensei, he’s not sure what to expect. Orochimaru has been apprehended, which is great, but the deliberate lack of details in the missive speaks to his espionage instincts. There’s something Sensei needs to tell him in person.

Whatever he was expecting, it’s not this. A team of genin took down Orochimaru? Even if it’s his godson’s team, and they got help from their teacher, that’s… unexpected. And a little suspicious.

Then Sensei activates the privacy seal, and Jiraiya’s world gets flipped upside down. He accepts the flask Sensei passes him, and takes a swig.

“My godson is Hashirama?! ”

“We’re going to have a discussion about that later,” Kakashi (The Nidaime?!) promises darkly, “But for now we have a more pressing issue. I assume you’re aware of Akatsuki?”

Jiraiya nods, already not liking where this is going.

Kakashi looks pointedly at Sasuke (Uchiha MADARA??) and the boy sighs. “In my previous life, I set in motion a plan for, well…” He clears his throat awkwardly. “World domination. It involved capturing the nine Jinchuuriki and extracting their Bijuu, and then using that power to cast a super-genjutsu by, uh…” He pauses, then mutters quietly and very quickly. “ Reflecting my eyes off the moon. ”

Naruto bursts into giggles. Sasuke glares at him embarrassedly. It seems like this is a recurring thing.

Sakura (Uchiha Izuna!!!?) makes a ‘snrk’ noise, and Sasuke turns around to glare at her in betrayal.

“Sorry, Nii-san, but uh —” She shrugs. “It’s kinda stupid.”

“I know that now! ” Sasuke screeches, not as loudly as he could but not exactly quiet either. “ You try being crazy and then manipulated by a plant for fifty years!”

Kakashi gently karate-chops Sasuke on the head. “Back on topic.”

“Right.” Sasuke takes a breath. “I found the plan on the stone tablet under the Uchiha District, but I think it may have been put there a being called Zetsu. Zetsu tried to pass itself off as a manifestation of my will, but… it didn’t die when I did.”

Jiraiya meets his Sensei’s eyes. It was theoretically possible to create a being as a manifestation of your will, but said being would be reliant on the creator’s chakra to live, and wouldn’t survive past the master’s death.

“I knew I was going to die, so I made arrangements for someone to carry on in my absence,” Sasuke continues, “He was supposed to arrange for my resurrection at some point, but considering I’ve been reincarnated, that plan’s shot. But in order to get this agent of my will, I kidnapped an assumed-dead leaf nin and indoctrinated him.” He takes a deep breath, bracing for his next words. “Uchiha Obito.”

Jiraiya’s eyes widen, and flick to Kakashi. His visible eye has tightened around the edges, but there’s no sign of surprise. This isn’t new knowledge. He looks instead to Sensei, who does look shocked. There’s a block in the chain of command, then.

It seems the same thing has occurred to the Sandaime, who’s face darkens. “And none of you thought to bring this information to my attention until now?”

“Maa, maa.” Kakashi looks at them from under a lidded eye. “It wasn’t relevant until now.”

“I am your Hokage. ” He glares at them from behind his desk. “If you receive information of a threat to the village, you must inform me —”

“All due respect, Hiruzen,” Naruto cuts in, “But, to quote ‘Kashi-nii —” He points to himself. “I’m a Hokage.” He jerks his head in Kakashi’s direction. “ He’s a Hokage.” He spreads his arms wide. “We can do whatever the hell we want.”

“Hmm, and speaking of Hokage duties.” Kakashi’s voice is low and lazy, but there’s a sharp undertone to it that sets Jiraiya on edge. This is a very dangerous man. “Danzo tried to assassinate you. Danzo tried to have me assassinate you. Why the hell is he still on your counsel?”

Sarutobi sighs. “Kakashi, you have to understand —”

“Do not — ” Kakashi growls, “ — treat me like a child . I may be young in this life, but I am still Senju Tobirama, and I will not be talked down to. ” He glares at the Hokage. “He tried to kill you. He went behind your back to experiment with Anija’s DNA. To experiment on children .”

He waves a hand. “He operated an illegal branch of Anbu, he suppressed his soldier’s emotions. He held the Uchiha back during the Kyuubi attack, he spread rumors that they caused it, it wouldn’t surprise me if —” Kakashi’s speech abruptly cuts off, his eye widening as the pieces click together.

His hand falls. “…If he ordered the Massacre.”

“Ordered…?” Sasuke whispers, eyes wide. Next to him, Sakura looks just as shocked.

Jiraiya looks at his Sensei, hoping to find a denial. The Hokage’s face is hard, but not shocked. “Danzo has the village’s best interests at heart —”

He’s cut off by a crashing wave of furious chakra. At first, Jiraiya thinks it’s Sasuke. The conversation topic was his clan, after all, and Madara had been known for his anger. But he turns to look, slowly, and —

Hashirama, slow to anger, had rarely used Killing Intent. But when he did, people were reminded that he and Madara were equals in every way.

Naruto has more chakra, and far more reasons for resentment.

“You no longer get to make that call.” Naruto’s eyes are red, but other than that there is no sign of the Kyuubi. Just his rage. “Either you deal with him, or we will. Your decision.”

The pressure eased, and Team Seven grouped together, so they were all touching each other in some way. Kakashi leveled one last disappointed look at the Sandaime, and the four of them vanished. Hiraishin, presumably.

Jiraiya threw his own disappointed look of his own at his Sensei. “What the fuck, Sensei?”

__________

They reappear in Kakashi’s apartment, and waste no time surrounding Sasuke in a cuddle-pile.

“Do you — do you really think that he — That Nii-san — Itachi —?” Sasuke stutters.

Kakashi growls. “The whole thing never made that much sense to me. When I worked with him, Itachi was quiet. Obedient. And he hated unnecessary violence. The massacre… it didn’t fit . There was no build-up, he just — snapped. It wasn’t like him.” He cards a hand through Sasuke’s hair. “But I’m not the best judge of character. I’ve been wrong before. I didn’t know Itachi well enough.”

Sasuke’s grip on Kakashi’s sleeve tightens. “But you know Danzo.”

Kakashi’s eye narrows. “I know Danzo. He was a little too interested in power, even as a child. But I’d hoped — “ He sighs. “He was ruthless, cruel, in order to get what he wanted. That’s not always a bad thing, but… he wasn’t kind. Ever. Darkness was his default, it seemed. There was a reason I nominated Hiruzen as Hokage instead of him.” He clicks his tongue in displeasure. “Evidently that was a mistake as well. I should have named Kagami, he never would have put up with this bullshit.”

“You would have named an Uchiha Hokage?” Sakura smirks, a little weakly but there nonetheless. “And here I thought you hated us.”

“Yes, well, being reborn as an entirely new person and then heavily traumatized made me re-evaluate some of my biases.”

Naruto hums. “Yeah, trauma tends to do that. For example; sometimes I— ” he points to himself—  “really hate this village.”

Sasuke snorts. “Sometimes I do too.”

“I’m generally too busy hating myself to hate anyone else,” Kakashi puts in, “But when I’m not I’m usually too depressed to muster up any emotion at all.”

Sakura makes a wordless noise of frustration. “You all need therapy!”

They turn to her, and in unison, they each raise an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me like that, the most traumatizing thing to happen to me was dying, and I’ve dealt with that!” She crosses her arms. “My best friend is a Yamanaka, you think I don’t know things about good mental health?”

The three blink. They’d… forgotten about that, honestly.

“And besides that, I’m training to be a medic.” At their looks of confusion, she elaborates. “Good mental health is a part of good physical health! The two are intertwined, one can affect the other!” She pointed at them. “You all need to take better care of yourselves!”

Naruto and Sasuke smile sheepishly, and Kakashi huffs a laugh.

“Well, if my cute little student says so.”

Chapter Text

There’s a month in between the second stage of the exams and the third. Apparently, it’s for training, since the preliminaries had pretty much ruined any mystery over the contestant’s abilities.

Halfway through the month, all of Suna and Oto’s shinobi are suddenly arrested, after the discovery that they are planning to invade. Then the discovery is made that Orochimaru had murdered and replaced the Kazekage, and no one is sure what to do with the Suna nin.

On top of all this is the fact that Suna’s Jinchuuriki is unstable. 

It’s a mess, needless to say.

Luckily, the Village’s top two seals masters are available. Even if one of them is sort of dead. Jiraiya and the Tobirama part of Kakashi are more than enough for this.

It turns out that the seal on Gaara (which is apparently the kid’s name) is the same one Suna had been using on the teapot they’d stored the Ichibi in. Considering that this seal was made for a teapot, and not a human, Kakashi can see why there have been so many problems.

“This… is a travesty.”

Jiraiya hums in agreement.

“No, really, this is — ” Kakashi gestures vaguely at the seal. “I’m not actually sure how they applied the seal, because clearly they didn’t have anyone even remotely versed in sealing.”

“I know, Kakashi.”

“I mean, no wonder the kid looks exhausted, the seal was for an inanimate object , teapots don’t sleep — ”  

“Kakashi!” Jiraiya puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know. ”

Kakashi takes a deep breath, and shoves the irritation aside to deal with later. They have a seal to re-work, there will be time to complain about inadequate mastery and bad decisions later.

It takes nearly two days, as well as Naruto and Kurama’s ( somewhat grudging ) assistance in holding Shukaku down, but eventually Gaara has a seal that actually works. The kid isn’t particularly thankful at first, given how messed up he is, but then he and Naruto have a bit of a smack down and Naruto works his Therapy Jutsu™, and Gaara wanders off to his family with a contemplative look on his face.

_____

Things in the village are at an awkward place by the time the finals roll around, because on the one hand, they can’t exactly have a tournament with only Leaf genin, but on the other hand, Suna kinda tried to invade? Or was at least planning to?

The decision is reached that the Suna genin can participate, but there will be much increased security. This proves to be a boon when halfway through the bracket, Orochimaru and all of his Sound subordinates escape with the help of a spy and try to invade anyway.

It’s really less of an invasion and more of a nominally directed fighting retreat, but nonetheless, damage is done.

Somehow, Team 7 ends up facing off against the Snake Sannin himself, because their lives have never been normal and there’s apparently no reason for them to start now.

“Oh, not again,” Orochimaru mutters, before performing something like a summoning jutsu…? “This had better work.”

Coffins rise from the ground.

“Wait a minute — ” Kakashi starts.

Out of two of the coffins tumble approximations of the bodies of Hashirama and Tobirama. The third coffin doesn’t even open.

The four of them stare at the collapsed bodies in silence, before Orochimaru curses.

“Uh…” Naruto tears his gaze away from his sort-of doppelganger. “Better luck next time?”

Orochimaru hisses at them, before using several jutsu in succession to create a smokescreen, a diversion, and false trails before vanishing. They try to rush after him, but he’s been alive longer than any of them (including their past lives) and has appropriately learned some tricks they hadn’t.

“Damn,” Sakura huffs, “He’s really good at escaping.”

“Yeah, he’s slippery as a snake.”

“Now is not the time, Naruto.”

_____

Luckily, since there really weren’t that many Sound ninja, casualties are minimal. Most of the damage is collateral, and though there are some serious injuries, very few people actually died. A good portion of the enemy forces had either been captured or killed, with the greatest loss being Orochimaru’s escape.

The rebuilding effort is a lot like D-Ranks, except you don’t get paid, and everyone, from every rank has to participate. (Sakura can swear she saw some Anbu delivering supplies.) 

Right when all the buildings’ scaffolding has been completed, there’s an explosion near hokage tower.

“Oh come on!” one of the workers shouts.

Apparently Sarutobi had actually taken Team Seven’s warning/threat seriously, and had used the confusion of rebuilding to confront Danzo. Needless to say, it didn’t go well. Sarutobi ended up in a coma and down an arm, and Danzo…

Well, Danzo apparently turned into a tree.

Evidently there was some extreme bloodline theft (because regular bloodline theft just wasn’t enough for Danzo) and during the fight the Senju Cells grafted onto Danzo’s arm kind of… exploded, into a full-grown tree.

After hearing a description of what the arm had looked like before expansion, extra face and multiple eyeballs and all, the five of them ( Team 7 plus Jiraiya ) are even more glad the bastard is dead.

“Bloodline theft is evil,” Sasuke says, “But that? That’s just disturbing.”

Naruto puts his hands behind his head. “All that preparation, and he still couldn’t actually fight the Old Man. Ended up turning into a tree, in fact.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer megalomaniac.” Kakashi deadpans.

The main problem now is that they don’t… really have a hokage. Even if or when Sarutobi wakes up, he’s still heavily injured, crippled, and also old as fuck. A new leader is in order.

“We need a Hokage.” Kakashi is the de facto leader of the group despite not technically being the oldest because (a), he’s Tobirama, and (b), Jiraiya is like, only an adult legally. “I can hold down the fort in the meantime, but I refuse to actually take the job unless there are no other options. ”

“Okay,” Jiraiya sighs, “Guess we’re looking for Tsunade.”

“Ooh, ooh! Can I come?” Naruto bounces in place. “Please, I wanna see Tsuna!”

Oh kami, Jiraiya thinks, I’m going to have to explain the reincarnation thing to her. That… probably won’t end well.

At least Naruto will have fun.