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It felt like his body was being ripped apart and rejoined all at the same time, thousands of wounds opening in one second and disappearing the next, the pain making him lose consciousness.
When he woke up again, he felt the slight itch that came from the grass he was crushing with his body.
But that was definitely impossible, during the war all the green patches for thousands of miles around had been destroyed.
His body tensed, and he surveyed his surroundings with all his senses, his eyes widening and the sight in front of him almost making him say 'kai' in an impulse to dispel the genjutsu.
Only this wasn't a genjutsu, he could tell them apart.
The touch of grass against his cheek was too realistic to be a low or medium level genjutsu, the scent of wood and damp earth, the sharpness of the surroundings, the gentle wind moving the treetops, the sound of the birds singing and the sun hitting his eyes through the foliage.
He also did not find alterations in his chakra, or any strange chakra in his system.
In fact, he felt strangely refreshed.
He put the problem aside once he found no immediate danger and assessed himself.
He used his hands to get up, but the sight of small, slightly chubby hands made him freeze.
What was happening here?
He took a moment to assess himself.
The clothes that were previously tight now fit him big and loose, he had lost several inches in height, his hands and feet shrank and judging by the feel of his fingers on the skin of his face, he looked younger. His scar was still there, but his physical age was somewhere around eleven.
Then something occurred to him and activated his sharingan, he froze seeing that he didn't activate one, but two sharingan eyes, he quickly deactivated them and fell into a sitting position as he meditated.
His hair was, fortunately, the same color as always, silver gray. There was no sudden appearance of black Uchiha hair. Good.
This shouldn't have been possible. He hadn't gotten the sharingan from Obito at that age, he didn't even have two sharingans to begin with, but he also hadn't gotten his scar at eleven, and he did.
There are many inconsistencies in this situation.
He decided to put the matter aside, since he had no answer to his questions and tried to concentrate on looking for the others, he had noticed that they weren't near him when he woke up.
He hoped they were okay.
Obito woke up with a huge headache, she felt dizzy and her mind wouldn't stop spinning, the images she saw were distorted and the wind kept bothering her, gravity was pulling her down harder than she remembered it should...
It was then that she opened her eyes in surprise, her eyes widening, the ground was getting closer and she finally processed what was happening.
“But what the- I'm falling!!" she yelled horrified, her mind instantly clear and she began to plan how to get out of trouble.
Her eyes quickly turning blood red, the patron moved to settle on the mangekyo sharingan and summoned her susāno to break her fall.
Cold sweat ran down her back when the sound of the crash reached her ears, she deactivated her mangekyo and her susāno fell, but she didn't care as she jumped and ran through the few small trees, she had to get away as fast as possible from the place before someone showed up.
She didn't expect to trip over her feet because her pants were too big on her.
She decidedly ignored her smaller, rounder members, tossed everything that didn't make sense to a corner of her mind to review later, she couldn't panic now, she had to focus on fixing her clothes. She took a kunai and cut off the excess fabric as bandages and tied them to her calves. The rest would have to wait until she was in a safe place to check it out.
She quickly moved and jumped between big rocks and trees.
"Bakashi"
That was a voice he would recognize anywhere.
He turned to find an Obito several years younger, around eleven just like him, and ran towards her.
"Obito!"
Naruto felt hot, very hot.
She felt like she was roasting in the sun.
And she was thirsty, very thirsty, as if she hadn't had a drink of water in months.
She blinked hard and all she could see in front of her was sand, sand, sand, and more sand, with the occasional cactus far out of sight.
Then she whipped her head back, and the sight before her eyes made her laugh wholeheartedly at the sight of the water she longed for a few feet away. She has always been very lucky.
She ran, dove in and soaked herself thoroughly, not caring about getting her clothes wet, it was really nice as the coolness of the water eased all the tiredness and sickening heat from her, she drank big mouthfuls and felt refreshed.
But aside from the unbearable thirst and heat, there was a feeling of emptiness that kept bothering her, the sudden sense of loneliness didn't leave her alone.
It was too quiet, there wasn't that constant presence in the corner of her mind that was her best friend, there was an emptiness now, and it made her stomach drop.
And the scariest thing of all, was that when she checked the seal, Kurama was no longer there.
...
Kurama was lounging around, welcoming the warmth of the sun on his fur, a smile stretching his lips.
He was lounging lazily in a clearing, quiet, away from the obnoxious, nasty humans, having a good day.
Until the memories crashed into him, like one of the meteorites that bastard Madara used in the fourth war.
"Stupid brat" He grunted annoyed, because that was the end of his good day.
He reluctantly stood up and stretched out his limbs, the cracking sound very satisfying, but his brow remained furrowed for a moment.
He didn't really want to look for the cub right now, but it seemed like he would have to, or Naruto was going to panic and he was never going to hear the end of it when they met again.
He sighed and started walking.
"Hey! You, the gray-haired one! Stop!" He heard a shrill voice yell and annoyance swirled in his chest.
But when he turned around he froze.
That blonde girl who seemed to be under six years old and was running towards them was Naruto.
"Naruto-chan!"
It was Obito who welcomed her with open arms, he joined their hug.
He broke away when he heard a growl coming from Naruto's jacket, he saw from the hood of her jacket a small orange fur snout peeked out, with menacing red eyes and nine tails waving behind him.
"Oh hello to you too, Kurama."
Sasuke was having a nice dream, but the sound of the storm and the rain falling on him forced him to wake up.
He recognized the weather as that of the mist lands.
...
Sakura opened her eyes as she felt a presence close to her, she quickly checked her condition and jumped to hide.
She was shocked to see herself in her six year old body again, but she put it aside hearing the growls that came from the presences later on.
From the safety of the hasty hideout she found, she could see two grizzly bears in a fight.
Since it wasn't of any interest to her and she didn't feel like testing if her strength had receded as well, she decided that her best course of action was to get away from it while the bears hadn't noticed her yet.
.
After recovering from her initial shock and assimilating the changes that occurred on her body, she set out on her way to the Land of Fire.
What bothered her the most was losing her Byakugo no In, but at least her chakra control allowed her to maintain her increased strength to a degree, and her reserves were at least a quarter of what she had during the war, which was like thirty times what she had at that age.
"Naruto! Obito-san! Sensei!" It was the incredulously happy exclamation of a little pink-haired girl who jumped in the middle of the road, she looked surprised and a bit tired.
On her back was an unconscious dark-haired boy.
There were shouts where she came from.
"They're chasing you," he said.
Sakura looked sheepish.
"I freed Sasuke," she answered, trying to justify herself, "they were bloodline thieves."
"That doesn't matter now, run dattebayo!" Naruto yelled as she quickened her pace.
Obito took Sakura in her arms, while he carried Sasuke, and they ran.
Now they were all together.
"Okay, now let's make a plan," said the blonde.
“Do you even know the meaning of that word, dobe?" the younger dark-haired kid mocked, the blonde bristled.
"Stupid Teme! Of course I know 'ttebayo!" Naruto yelled.
Sakura looked ready to jump up and headbutt both kids, but he stopped her and spoke to stop them.
"Maa, maa, calm down kids,” he said, trying to calm the brewing discussion.
"Sensei," they both said in strange synchronicity "you're a kid too."
Obito stood on the sidelines, laughing at his expense as she watched the pot on the fire.
He pretended to be hurt and clutched his chest in an exaggerated act of depression that made them laugh, the fight over.
“That's cruel, my dear little genins have stabbed me in the back," he commented only for the pleasure of seeing their face wrinkled, "but Naruto is right, we must plan to know in which part of the timeline we are, or if we end up in another dimension-"
Sakura interrupted him.
"Approximately 14 years before the founding of the village," she said, completely sure of what she said, "the history books do not have an exact date of the foundation of the village, nor the ages of the founders, but it is believed that Shodaime-sama and Madara were between 25 and 27 years, if the eleven or ten year old boy I hit when I was escaping with Sasuke was Madara, then that's the minimum time we have to capture the plant."
"Wait wait wait!" Naruto yelled, almost horrified and completely and utterly amused,"forget the plant, did you really punch Madara when you rescued Sasuke?"
Sakura blushed and nodded, however, Sasuke looked visibly uncomfortable, he probably didn't like the idea of being rescued like a damsel in distress, and Naruto wasted no time in smacking the fact in his face.
"The soup is ready," Obito said amused.
.
"...um, Sakura?" Naruto asked as calmly as she could.
"… Yeah?" Sakura looked shocked as she replied, looking between the table and her hand in disbelief.
"When were you going to tell us you had the mokuton?!" was Naruto's totally incredulous question.
"I didn't know! I had no idea I even had the kekkei genkai!" Sakura complained, a little hysterical. "What am I supposed to do now?" This will be a pain in the ass to explain to the Senju clan."
“Only if you let them find out," Sasuke said nonchalantly, as he chewed on his tomato, staring intently at the campfire with the tomato soup he had made a few minutes ago.
.
"I guess it's not that impossible considering Bakashi has the sharingan in both eyes," Obito said with a shrug.
.
"Well, that makes three Uchiha, a Senju, an Uzumaki and a biju," Naruto said classifying her and her mate's bloodlines, but then pouted and groaned, "but I've never manifested mom's clan chakra chains before."
"You can try?" Sasuke asked with curious eyes.
Naruto looked at him in confusion.
"I don't even know how,” she sulked, taking a large spoonful of the tomato soup and eating it viciously.
Kakashi remembered the times he had seen Kushina use her chakra chains.
"Well, Kushina-san took them out of her back, she said it was like stretching the chakra out of the body like you would a chakra thread, but denser and thicker, and then you shape it into a chain, mmm… I don't remember it well," he spoke meditatively.
Naruto thought about it for a long moment, as she continued to attack the tomato soup like it was her worst enemy, and when she finished, she seemed to feel vaguely illuminated.
"Ok! I'll try!" She yelled excitedly.
.
"I made it!"
.
“Sensei, what do we do now?" Sakura asked.
"Now," he mused for a bit, looking at everyone, Obito, Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto, and smiled, "... now we train, get strong and then we go clean the weeds."