Chapter Text
Going back in time was believed to be impossible, and even if it was possible, anyone who'd risk doing it would be a complete idiot. There are many reasons that one shouldn't take it upon themselves to shred their existence from the present and impose themselves on the past. The most obvious reason is quite frankly the most consequential: the tiniest change can lead to a multitude of divergences.
Here's an example: A four-year-old girl places her purple and pink plushie on an old wooden bench in the park near her grandparents house.
Now, in the original timeline (the one left untouched by time travelers), the plushie stayed in the place it was left in until the girl returned to the bench and retrieved it. She would then return to her grandparents' home, with her plushie in her arms, completely safe.
But what if she returned to the bench only to find the plushie missing (due to someone not of that time that happened to pass by and, by some chance, knock it into a nearby bush or simply picked it up out of pure boredom)?
That's where the divergence begins. Instead of returning to her grandparents' home, she begins to search for her lost plushie. Having wandered too far into a place she's unfamiliar with, she never returns home. Two days later, her body is found in a large ditch in the forest, all because she'd been searching for a toy that should have been in the place she left it.
It's far-fetched, yes, but it's realistic in it's own way. The smallest of changes can have a catastrophic effect. Saving a life that wasn't meant to be saved could cause the death of another. Falling in love with someone that would have otherwise married a different person in the original timeline could prevent the birth of an important figure, while at the same time it could give birth to an entirely different soul, and who knows? That very soul may someday grow to be some sort of harbinger of death. One could never know for sure.
Time travel... the concept is just too dangerous. There are too many risks and too many unknowns and Naruto believed it just wasn't worth the risk. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Naruto's timeline was far past desperate.
She was falling. Falling, falling, falling, falling. Her lungs ached for air, air that swept past her so quickly it felt as if it was purposely avoiding her lungs all together. Droplets of water trailed after her body, gathering at the tips of her golden locks before fleeing into the air. Those same droplets seemed as if they were suspended, as if they were floating - but they weren't, she thought, she was simply falling to fast for them to keep up.
How did this happen? What led her here? Or rather, who? The memories leading up to that moment seemed to flit at the edges of her mind before slipping completely from her grasp.
She knew the answers would return to her soon. She didn't know how she knew.
It wasn't without cause. No. She'd failed, hadn't she? Failed... to defeat? Protect? ...Prevent?
...All of those seemed like the right answer, actually. It seemed as if she wasn't strong enough. Like she wasn't there at the right time.
Only in the wrong moments was she ever present for anything. She never was a lucky person. Misfortune seemed to follow her. It stuck to her like glue, like a piece of gum that she stepped on and couldn't scrape off of her shoe. And the gross, gummy pink substance that was misfortune stuck to her as it picked up every speck of dirt and trash it could until it couldn't anymore.
A strange analogy, but not far from the truth.
She had to change something, she knew that much.
Something had happened. Something worse than... anything, really.
Or was it that something that should have happened didn't occur? Again, she didn't know the answer.
Her head hurt. It felt as if it were splitting and shrinking and splitting again. Something boiled beneath her skin, and a part of her told her it was her own blood. She believed it. And it hurt. Everything hurt. Her eyes burned, her cheeks felt numb with cold, even as her blood boiled, and her ears rang a screeching, piercing noise. Her nailbeds were sore, as if she'd been clawing at the stone walls of a prison.
Her heart hurt. It was a fresh wound, she thought. It felt dark and sad and angry and empty. Her mind hurt the most, telling her to help them. You failed, you cant help them. It's too late, you have to save them--
She told her mind to shut the hell up, to leave her alone, because she felt like shit and negative thoughts like that were only making her feel worse.
She was nearing the ground now, she noticed with a fleeting smile. The wind felt warmer and much more humid. Long blurs of green and brown streaked her vision. Absentmindedly, she noted the smaller streak of silver and shock of bright yellow that scraped at the edges of her vision, but as something struck across her back, (really, it was a whole freaking branch) all the colors snapped to a halt. Black crawled at the edges of her electric blue eyes and she gasped for air, the short wheezes of breath sounding almost animalistic, even to her own ears.
A muffled shout and a commanding voice were the last things she heard before she let the darkness consume her.
"M-Minato-sensei, she's barely breathing!," came the panicked, almost hysterical voice of Minato's singular female student, Rin Nohara. She was centered in a large and deep crater, several large rocks and chunks of dirt and grass littering her surroundings haphazardly. Torn and splintered wood was scattered across the clearing - the only evidence that there were once trees within the impact radius. Her back was turned to him as she cradled something in her arms, and a limp streak of a dirty sunshine yellow draped over her arm.
It was then that Rin's words registered to Minato and a flood of panic flooded his chest-- because 'she' was 'not breathing'.
Heart pumping wildly in his chest, (because whose wouldn't after seeing a massive fireball appear in the sky, which, by all evidence, contained a little girl,) the blonde bounced into the massive clearing, appearing by his student's side in a split second, Kakashi and Obito joining him only a moment later.
The brunette sent him desperate look, a hand hovering over the child's chest in hesitation. A thin film of blood coated the child's round face, clumping her eyelashes together and dripping from her chin and hair. The thick, red liquid seemed to be leaking from her skin-- as if she held too much of it, and it had to be released. Short, strangled gasps of air escaped her blood coated lips and, for a moment, the only coherent thought that went through the Namikaze's mind was 'shit', because this girl was probably minutes away from death and he had no idea what the hell just happened.
Rin slowly eased the girl to rest on her arm, propping her back a little straighter. The blonde's breathing evened out ever-so-slightly, and Rin let a nervous breath escape her, "She has a collapsed lung, I-I think. I've never used medical ninjutsu on something this bad before but I-"
Minato placed a reassuring hand on Rin's shoulder, pushing panic out of his own mind as well, "It's okay, Rin-chan. She's more at risk if we don't at least try to heal her," he gave a slight smile, "try your best. Do what you can and don't overthink it."
The gentle green of medical chakra formed around Rin's free hand, and a shaky confirmation was all Minato heard before she pressed her palm gently on the tiny, tiny chest of the blonde. The girl couldn't be any older than five, judging by her small, almost frail limbs. She was thin-- too thin, almost bordering on malnourished. Every inch of showing skin was a canvas splattered with blue, black, yellow, and purple bruises. Her lips were blue, causing a sickly hue of purple to form under the bloody film.
His eyes trailed to the apparent scarring on her cheeks, forming identical whisker-like markings on both sides to the worn and battered dark blue cloth of her hitai-ate--
Kakashi sucked in a sharp breath at his side the same moment Minato's eyes landed on the hitai-ate.
Because engraved on the scratched and dented metal, there was no symbol for any of the Hidden Villages. Instead written clear as day, was the kanji for 'Shinobi'.
"She didn't say anything to you?"
"No, Hokage-sama," Minato sighed, "She was unconscious when we found her--minutes from death. If it wasn't for Rin's medical knowledge, she would have been dead long before we reached the village."
Taking another long drag from his pipe, the Sandaime reached across his desk, palming the hitai-ate that Minato handed him and scanning it with keen interest.
"She was wearing this when she... fell from the sky. I've never seen another nin wearing anything remotely like that... It's too vague for me to make out what or who she could be associated with. As far as I know, none of the Hidden Villages have 'Shinobi' engraved on their hitai-ate."
Hiruzen nodded in agreement, "I've never layed my old eyes on anything quite like this either," he gave a hollow chuckle, "The shinobi world is not a place where people can agree with eachother so easily. This label seems to hold much confidence in trust..."
"Hokage-sama," Hiruzen glanced at the Namikaze, unease pooling in his gut as the blonde pulled a scroll from his pack with hesitant movements that did not match the usually cool-headed man's demeanor. Sarutobi retrieved the scroll from Minato's palm.
Dread consumed him as he read to words on the scroll's bloodied surface.
"Put her in the T and I holding cells until she wakes up. I will question her from there."
"Are you certain, Hokage--sama? She is a foreign shinobi, a potentially dangerous one despite her age."
"I am certain, Minato-kun. I would like to retrieve the answers personally."
It was dark when she woke, opening her eyes to dull gray walls and an equally dull gray ceiling. No windows, no curtains. The thin mattress beneath her was uncomfortably lumpy, and her neck ached from the haphazard position she lay in.
She was weaponless, reduced to just her form-fitting black shinobi shirt - which was in all honestly more like a dress than a shirt due to her change in size. They'd removed anything that could be potentially used as a weapon and-- 'Oh, hey,' she thought sullenly, 'they had someone put a cancelling seal on my storage seals.'
What the hell? That's just rude. Didn't they know how much time she had spent making those? Though whoever put that seal on sure knew what they were doing - hell, it'd even take her a while to deactivate the thing.
She wasn't surprised though, with the way she had popped - crashed - out of nowhere, she had honestly expected someone to put her in a cell and confiscate anything on her person that could be a threat. Her real worry was where this cell was, and in what timeline she was in.
For all she knew, that seal that she and Obito had scrawled up was faulty. In fact, it was more than likely to have been. It was a pretty stupid decision, and of course at the time, they had known it was, but...
She truly and sincerely hoped that she wasn't going to be killed - or worse, tortured in the oncoming hours. Not that anyone would have gotten anything out of her; it's just that she knew she could very much do without the whole experience. Torture wasn't something she had ever been into, whether it would be on the receiving end or vice versa.
She wasn't a masochist, thank you very much.
"You are a masochist," came Kurama's unwelcomed input, and Naruto's expression soured.
"I am not, you imp. Shut your yapper."
"Hmph, touchy."
The old metal door opened with a loud screech (which thankfully covered up her embarrassing squeak of fright), and she sucked in a breath as the Sandaime - fricking Jiji - walked into the cell. His steps were slow and deliberate, and briefly, she let her eyes wander his face in awe, because damn did he look young.
At the sight of him, her anxiety was partially appeased because he was alive, which meant this whole time-travel thing had, by all evidence, worked, and as a plus, she was in Konoha.
Perhaps this time around, she would have some small amount of luck or mercy.
"Hello, young shinobi-san," his voice rumbled a deep, rough sound, but it wasn't as grainy as she remembered, and she gave him a bright smile in response, belatedly noticing the numerous bandages wrapped around her head. Multiple bandages tugged uncomfortably on her cheeks, and she fought back the grimace that threatened to befall her features.
"Hello, Jiji-san!"
He seemed slightly surprised at her cheerful tone, but he kept his smile intact, puffing on his ever-present pipe, "You had quite the accident, little one. And yet, you seem chipper despite that," he chuckled. A calculating look lurked mischievously in his, but he continued to smiled disarmingly.
"I did. My body still aches, but I'll heal up in no time at all!," was her chipper reply. Then, her smile dropped, and she tilted her head in feigned curiosity, "...Ano, Jiji-san, if I may ask, where am I?"
The way his gaze sharpened and his smile dropped warned her that the mock pleasantries were over. "I'd tell you, shinobi-san, but you already know the answer, do you not?"
A sly smirk crawled onto her face, "What gives you that notion, Hokage-sama?"
A low hum rumbled from his throat, a thick trail of smoke following its path, and he pulled out a bloody, ragged, and very familiar scroll from his robes.
She sweatdropped, "Ah... I must've forgotten to place that back into my storage seal, silly me!"
He frowned. "I've read the contents of this scroll and verified them. If you are who this scroll says you are, then I will welcome you once again into the Leaf Village. If you are not, you'll be processed for information, then most likely executed."
"I don't remember you being this blunt, Hokage-sama," she raised an eyebrow. "The Jiji I knew was much less serious... Though, to be fair, you are not Jiji, so I suppose it makes sense."
He chuckled, and the deep roughness of it made her shiver because it sounded as if she was living a memory. In a way, she supposed, one could say that she was, but the entire situation was so... insane, that she was beginning to question her sanity.
It was a wonder that she hadn't broken down at the sight of him, but then again, he was just one of the many.
She plastered a grin on her face, deliberately creasing her eyes until they were but glittering crescents. The movement itself was fluid and deceiving, the action being one so practiced and normal to her that it couldn't be another other than absolutely perfect, "Morning glories greet the sun in the early hours of the day, smiling and shining bright in the waking sun and closing their eyes as the evening sets, but moonflowers thrive in the night when the moon is high. They soak it's soft rays and cast the darkest shadows onto the ground, reflecting light for the creatures of the night and providing shelter when the sun returns to burn their precious wings."
Hiruzen smiled, "Welcome to Konoha, shinobi-san."
She trailed behind Jiji - (not Jiji, her mind whispered) - slowly, eyeing the thick fabric of his robes as they dragged on the ground. She'd tripped on them with my short legs more times than she could possibly count, so forgive her if she was watching the blasted things like a hawk. That, and it was a great distraction from the many pairs of eyes that followed her every movement. The looks they gave her ranged from confused and curious to downright suspicious.
'Seriously?,' she whined mentally. The guarded stares were all too reminiscent of what she received when she played the part of village pariah, but really, what's so strange about being in the company of the Hokage? She's well aware that she's a child, but--
"You idiot. It's not because you're a kid it's because you're literally covered head to toe in bandages."
'Oh, that's... that actually does make sense. I suppose I'd be staring a bit too if I saw somebody this banged up,' she mused.
Apparently when she was found by 'them' (she didn't know who found her, but was eternally greatful), she was unconscious, minutes from death and bleeding from her pores.
What.
In hindsight, it made a lot of sense, actually. Seeing as her body went from the mass of seventeen-year-old's to that of a child's in a matter of seconds, it's not all that surprising that there would be issues.
In theory, since her body had shrunk at such a quick rate, there was an over excess of blood and other bodily fluids. Those fluids had to be drained from her somehow, thus the reason she was bleeding out of everywhere.
It would also explain why her blood felt as if it was boiling over - because in a sense, it was. Her veins and arteries were overloaded and even bursting in some areas which led to serious bruising and swelling, most of which had mostly healed by now, so luckily she wasn't actively experiencing that pain.
"Why wouldn't the blood have drained from your mouth or, I don't know, your eye sockets? If you had an excess of blood, why don't you have an excess of skin as well?"
'Okay, first of all, ew. Second, any extra skin that I had probably converted into baby fat or muscle. I am in a child's body now, and children are naturally chubby, so it only makes sense.'
"That's not how it works, and you know it. Look at yourself. You have the physique of a twig, and you're practically malnourished. You have no baby fat, much less muscle."
'Damnit, Kurama. I'm trying to make myself feel better! Being stuck in this tiny body isn't fun!'
"Trust me, I know it's not fun. I've been caged in your puny little body this whole time, after all. And now, you're even shorter than last time. I can practically feel how much that blasted seal has shrunk."
'Hey. I'm not that short--'
"Oh, yes, you are. You're twice as short as Before, and apparently it's also increased your stupidity, as you've so eloquently demonstrated only a minute ago. With that mindless and relatively anti-logical way of thinking, we'll never finish the mission. You're useless like this. Ergo, double the shortness and stupidity equals double the inefficiency and uselessness."
'...You.... you're mean.'
"Thank you."
'I'll grow with time. If anything, me being this young is a good thing - we'll have more time to plan and train. And I'm sorry if I'm a little out of it right now, but you didn't have your body ripped out of time. Mine is the one that went through that hell, while yours was under the protection the of seal.'
Her anxiety spiked as Kurama stayed quiet for a few seconds to long.
"That's another matter to discuss," he began slowly, "There are two of me. I can feel my counterpart, and more importantly he can feel me. He's pissed."
'...W-what!? But Obito said--'
"He was wrong."
"--then we can move to figure out who will be acting as your guardian," Hiruzen's gruff voice snapped her from her daze, and she whipped her head up, a hilariously strangled noise of confusion escaping her throat as she locked eyes with him.
He huffed, "You didn't hear a thing I said, did you?"
She chuckled sheepishly in response, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment. Hiruzen's dark eyes observed the action intently, gaze trailing from the movement of her arm then to her hair and eyes. An incredulous look sparked in his gaze, "...what did you say your name was, shinobi-san?"
She only smiled, bright and big, and openly eyed the many shinobi that traipsed the halls and bowed to the Hokage respectfully as they passed, "I am nameless at the moment, Hokage-sama."
He followed her gaze in agreement, "Ah, I understand. Come with me, child."
The Hokage's office looked newer than the last time she saw it, yet, strangely older in a way she somehow couldn't describe. The walls were a foamy cream color, darker than the off-white that it was when she had been twelve. The floor was the same dark wood, though it seemed to be cared for more than it had in her timeline.
What else was different, she couldn't tell for sure. All else seemed to be the same as it was, but her memory was... fuzzy, to say the least.
It felt as if been a century since then.
"Mission report, shinobi-san," came Hiruzen's command, and she snapped to attention, briefly listening for the faint crackling silencing seals as they came to life. Her back straightened subconsciously, body tensing painfully in apprehension.
"My name is Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, daughter of Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina. I am the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki of my time, as well as the Nanadaime Hokage, and a member of the Allied Shinobi Forces. I come from roughly twenty years in the future to change the past - which is now present, and prevent the start of the Fourth Great Shinobi War..."