Naruto 1. Prologue

**Esparia: *walks up to your screen and adjusts it***

**Camera: *falls to the ground***

**Esparia: *picks up camera***

**-whispering in the background-**

**Naruto: Are you sure she knows what she's doing?**

**Esparia: *straitens camera***

**Kakashi: …I'm sure she's had a little experience.**

**Madara: *shifts in seat* I looked through her profile, up till now she's only had two continuous stories. Both, mind you, are not for our 'fandom'.**

**Naruto: …**

**Kakashi: …at least she's had a bit of experience.**

**Esparia: *trips over a toad***

**Naruto: …I'm the main character in this right?**

**Sasuke: *walks in with script in hands* So it appears.**

**Naruto: And she will be controlling our actions in the foreseeable future, right?**

**Kakashi: She is the writer, which I've heard gives the wielder massive power in imaginary worlds and influence in the real world.**

**Esparia: *shuffling through boxes***

**Naruto: So you're saying she, *points to Esparia***

**Esparia: *breaks the disclaimer***

**Naruto: holds an extraordinary amount of power and is going to be in charge of our lives.**

**Kakashi: *copyrighted-single-eyed-lazy-you-can-think-what-you-want-smile***

**Sasuke: *narrows eyes at Esparia***

**Esparia: *duct taping the disclaimer together***

**Naruto: Am I the only one worried about this?**

**Random Crew Member: *sets up mics* Don't worry Uzumaki-san, Esparia doesn't abuse her power…often. I mean there was that one time with the cuccos…**

**Sasuke: *pales* I suggest we take this time for a strategic retreat.**

**Naruto: What's a cu-**

**Director: QUIET ON THE SET! PLACES! ACTION!**

**Esparia: Hello Readers of ! Whether you're a guest or a user makes no difference to me, so you are all welcome to comment/review or whatever on that handy little review button below. This will be my first Naruto full length story. I can't guarantee that this story will end, being my death is an unpredictable thing as are comas. But know that I'll do my best to complete it. Mind you, I'm a wee bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing so I'll be a little slow in updates. Along with editing/updateing my other two stories...and working on a sequel to that one one-shot...**

**Disclaimer: Hello! *waves excitedly at readers* My name is Disclaimer. And this is Esparia, the authoress. Her name isn't Masashi Kishimoto. That means she doesn't own this fandom's characters in any shape or form. She does own her own mind and ideas, so we'd all appreciate it if you didn't claim her story as your own. However, if this story sparks your own story go ahead and use the theories and such in here. (but she'd like to know if you do, as she loves reading other's stories) Hm, oh that's right! Esparia likes dropping random references from other fandoms, she doesn't own any of those either. She also owns me, the Director, and the Random Crew Member. Ooh, she doesn't own the computer she uses to write this, nor does she own any of the software. She owns a wacom tablet she doesn't use often because her time is spent on Calculus homework. She doesn't own the Calculus textbook.**

**Esparia: *jumps Disclaimer* It doesn't get out much. *shoves Disclaimer out the door* But in any sense I'll tell you now that the format is going to be a bit odd. As I prefer 3****rd**** person when writing events, but their will be memories and Naruto's journal events.**

**Text Rules**

"Talking"

'_Thinking'_

_Memories_

Naruto's Journal

**Telepathic Communication**

Exceptions to **rules **emphasis is _needed_

**((When I just have to comment))**

(side note)

**Warning: Repeated character death, blood, battle field, gore, mental/emotional angst, implied neglect and abuse. Contains theories about alternate dimensions and time travel that could mess up your mind, you have been warned. In the future it will include varies techniques I made up, rooted from either chemistry/biology or insanity/boredom/theories. It is AU, how could it not be when we're considering time travel.**

Seventh Slip Backwards

Prologue

I Don't Want to Live on the Moon

January 5th, Sixth year of the 6th Timeline,

I can't say for sure if this time around will work. I've made a mistake too early on. I have already survived several assassination attempts, but I can never guarantee that I will make it the next time someone comes at me with a giant fireball. I hadn't known up till now that Danzo, may the Lord have mercy on his soul, had his claws in the Uchiha clan. I suppose it's not surprising, what with his disturbing obsession with them. But that's off topic, to put it simply, I shall probably die soon. Whether or not I actually succeeded in such a short amount of time will show if I slip backwards again. It's too bad really, that I just wasted six years in this loop with nothing to show for. Should I slip down the spiral of time again, and all this is erased, I hope that my next try will do more good then what I did here. However if I do succeed in saving the world, then I will finally be allowed to rest.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>Obito lowered himself to the ground, obsidian eyes looking around the ultimate genjutsu. They had won, Madara and him. Sure many died allies, friends, family, enemies...but it was all to fix the world. At least, that's what he had thought.<p>

Time was irrelevant here; it could have been only a millisecond to an eternity that they've been trapped in the genjutsu. It was the image of perfection. The trees, the river, the people...they were all there. Perfect. However...it wasn't. For perfection to exist there had to be flaws to compare...and there were flaws. People were corrupt with them; it was in humanity's nature. It made them do things that would hurt others and themselves, cause serious destruction and pain. But...these little flaws made them who they were.

Obito could see it now in Rin, he loved Rin. She was sitting by him, and talking. But it wasn't his Rin, she lacked her flaws. The flaws and little glitches that made her _her_. He realized, even though her mistakes in themselves weren't the best, it was the mistakes that changed her and made her grow in ways she wouldn't have otherwise.

Kakashi was on his other side, idly commenting on Rin's chatter. Kakashi. He wasn't aloof, bitter, or really any other usual Kakashi characteristic. He figured, perhaps, it was because of the lack of pain in his "past". There was no life-changing experiences for him, so really...he was just a blank slate. He didn't even have his trademark mask or Obito's eye. His two visible charcoal eyes were alight with empty mirth, joy that seemed so very much alive that it Obito wished he could feel as sincerely happy as "Kakashi" seemed to.

Obito watched them. He watched them for he knows not how long, they were just friends here. Ninja didn't exist in this world, so they were not a team. However, as he watched his teammates, he slowly began to realize that this was incorrect. His "friends" were not the people he wanted, he wanted his slightly-dysfunctional-drama-filled teammates. His teammates that he knew were dead. He knew his Rin was long gone, he still slightly blamed the white-haired idiot beside him. But when he saw Kakashi's face when his "mask" fell, he knew that the man also blamed himself for his "death". At the time he figured it wouldn't matter, as they would all be bound together in a perfect world with every precious person afterward.

When Kakashi found him and Rin sitting on this hill, he was startled to see the man looking so pleased to be with them and the lack of his ninja gear. It was then he began noticing how this perfect world...was indeed anything but.

The birds were all the same, without any distinction other than gender. The water was the perfect moderate temperature without any acceptation. Then there was the rustle of trees without anything to disturb them. It was always midday. He felt stifled, and stuck. It was so..._fake_. Fake. Fake. Fake.

It was the beginning of panic that made him realize with disgust that he was half responsible for creating a world that was so organized by the book it lacked the spice of decision. And with horror, he realized he had destroyed the world that of which he loved. That world was corrupt. Yes, very corrupt, but the world he chose over it was _sick_.

This sick world was a world of puppets that would dance on strings for their master forever.

The corrupted world was of decision and growth. Its people would grow and change with each experience they came across and learn to choose who they were to become.

Obito's hurt heart slowly began to beat again where it once stood petrified. He had thought Madara was supposed to fix this pain. To create a world without pain. But now he felt a pain, an excruciating agony in his being that could only come from losing everything and everyone he had ever loved. Perhaps the worst part of it was the thought that he would never escape the hell disguised as a haven, he couldn't even go to the afterlife where his slightly-dysfunctional-drama-filled team was. Out of all of them, he felt he deserved this self-made hell. But he still didn't want it. He wanted the little quirks in his teammates. He wanted to see life's light in Kakashi's eyes. He wanted...the hurts that came with loving others.

Suddenly, as if his unspoken plea was heard, the genjutsu lit with blinding light and faded from existence.

Obito blinked, finding himself on the remains of a battlefield. A figure stood before him, clothed in pure light from the person's spirit.

He gasped in awe, but found himself unable to move. Obito's body was so horribly disfigured and broken it was amazing he was able to remain alive.

The figure moved down and lightly touched Obito between the eyebrows. He could feel something change, his awareness perhaps. He felt some dark broken part of his spirit mend. He also sensed a decision had to be made. He sensed, another chance for the world. A chance that would prevent what he did to it from happening. The corrupted world would get another shot. A shot he felt, he wouldn't be able to help happen.

That's what the Being was waiting for. A decision.

This Being was the one to create this world. This world wasn't made for the corruption, nor was it supposed to be like his and Madara's puppet world. It was a world for unadulterated _love_. The Being before him was that Love.

He wasn't capable of such honest love like Him. He couldn't bring himself to believe he was even able to be what the world would need. He was the one, the only one, to practically beg for the love of what his home world was made for. But he also knew it probably wasn't his place to be the Changer. He was only a half-dead human with an easily corruptible spirit. No. He was too easily swayed, and had turned dark over the years. The world needed one who would reflect light and love, someone who wouldn't be swayed into hatred.

He turned his battered head to look at the boy he had killed what felt like ages ago. That boy had such a benevolent spirit, it warmed the hearts of the seemingly living dead. The corpse's blood matted blond hair waved lightly in the breeze, dirt and grime covered it's frozen face. He would be the perfect Changer, at the very least better then himself.

Obito's slow and shallow breathing was the only thing that showed he was indeed alive since he was so still. His dimmed eyes looked up to the waiting Creator, he gave a slight smile and let his eyes roll back to the blond child's corpse. He had made his decision. With a gentle sigh, Obito's eyes closed.

As he left what was once his body, he saw the blond boy's body let out a breath that stirred the ash in his face before it stilled once more. Obito apparently hadn't completely killed him before Madara set the genjutsu into motion. He only looked back once at his body, with a sense of compassion before going to the Otherside for the rest of time.

And then the world stopped ticking.

* * *

><p><strong>Esparia: Kay, I know it's short. But what are you expecting from a prologue?<strong>

**Naruto: Not as bad as I thought...**

**Sasuke: Why are the doors locked?**

**Naruto: I mean, I didn't even have to do much. And dying is a classic way of jumping back in time.**

**Kakashi: More like jumping into an alternate timeline.**

**Madara: Hn, no. Since I'm the oldest one here-**

**Naruto: You really should stay dead.**

**Kurama: *casually picking his teeth***

**Madara: *ignores* -I've had some experience with understanding time.**

**Sasuke: Seriously? Is no one worried that we're locked in here?**

**Madara: I believe that you, Naruto, are the only one moving up in time while the rest of the world stays put.**

**Naruto: I don't follow.**

**Madrara: You don't have to.**

**Sasuke: Chidori! *rebounds off the door***

**Naruto: *looks around* Since this is so short, do we put up chapter one right away or...**

**Director: Of course, but chapter one is rather boring so...**

**Naruto: We're putting up chapter two?**

**Director: Eh, no...not edited for reader consumption yet.**

**Esparia: Okay, onward!**

**Sasuke: *sizzling on the floor***

**Naruto: *drags Sasuke to the next chapter***


	2. Chapter 1

**Naruto: This place is bigger...*drops Sasuke***

**Esparia: It has more plot.**

**Naruto: So will I get to fight off really evil guys with awesome jutsu.**

**Esparia: Er...maybe.**

**Disclaimer: *sneaks in and gets up close to the camera* She don't own nothing. *points to Esparia* Except that calculus homework she didn't do in favor of this.**

**Esparia: *sees Disclaimer ratting her out* Into the box of shame for you! *hauls it away***

* * *

><p>Chapter One<p>

Slipping on the Spiral Staircase

May 18th, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

If you are reading this then I'm probably dead…or you're a master fuuinjutsu user and a snoop. If you are the later one, please close this notebook now.

Okay, I'm going to assume I'm dead and you aren't a nosey jerk. To start things of, hello world! It is I, Naruto Uzumaki. Here to save the world (hopefully). Being that my track record isn't…ahem. So I haven't saved the world in all the times I've time slipped, I'd like to see you do better. Yes I'm a time traveler (for lack of a better name) and no, I'm not crazy. This first entry might be a bit long, as I'll be summing up six previous Timelines.

1st Timeline,

Age lived to: 19 years, four months, thirteen days

Cause of Death: Made into a human kabob, the Genjustsu prevented Kyuubi and Uzumaki healing.

Summary: Everyone thought Madara was a psychopathic nutcase that couldn't actually take over the world. I was declared unofficial seventh Hokage of Konoha, but more closely resembled a war chieftain. Most of the fighting population was killed in battle, but the civilians were probably completely killed off in crossfire and gaseous attacks.

Mental Age: 19 years, four months, thirteen days

2nd Timeline,

Age lived to: 23 years, four months, seventeen days

Cause of Death: Posioned by Sasori's leftover and experimental poison.

Summery: Secretly slaughtered most of the Akatsuki at a young age, leaving only Zetsu and Madara. Being Zetsu hadn't come in to play yet, and I wasn't strong enough to face off Madara in a child's body. Openly showed off my past abilities, gaining the village's fear and declared "power hungry" when I tried for Hokage again. (I needed the position) I married Hinata at age 22, and was going to become a father of three.

Mental Age: 42 years, eight months, thirty days

3rd Timeline,

Age lived to: 12 years, two months, four days

Cause of Death: Clashing chakra with two seals shut my body down.

Summery: I became withdrawn and tried warning everyone. Scared the living daylights out of my eighteenish nursemaid when my first words were "end uf de world". Terrified the villiage with my "unyouthful" and unstable actions. Distrust was firmly implanted within rookie genin and team. Which caused us to perish in the Forest of Death. Long story short, team was killed by rain genin, Sasuke's death angered Orochimaru, angry Orochimaru bit me on the wrist, cursed seal clashed with Kyuubi seal, clashing seal chakra was the cause of death.

Mental Age: 54 years, eleven months, 3 days

4th Timeline,

Age lived to: 16 years, one month, twelve days

Cause of Death: Sasuke gutted my stomache open.

Summery: Killed off entire Akatsuki, but left Orochimaru and his apprentice (they didn't seem to be part of ending the world). Sasuke found out that I killed his brother, he spazed as much as an Uchiha could. He spazed again when he found out why his brother was a missing ninja. Went rouge and swore vengence on Konoha, him and everyone else. Orochimaru took over his body, Sasuke fulfilled his goal of vengence when Orochimaru (in Sasuke's body) went on a mass killing spree.

Mental Age: 71 years, zero months, fifteen days

5th Timeline,

Age lived to: 17 years, one month, zero days

Cause of Death: Malnurishment, disease, infection, and blood posioining.

Summery: I played with my chakra too early in life, early enough to get me sent off to ROOT. Under Danzou's "care" I gained a new respect for Sai. He turned out surprisingly sane after everything that happened, and was fun to be around before they stole his humanity. I started a rebellion, that took over eleven years to complete and many lives were lost. Mostly lost track of time before we were freed. Our bodies were sickly and damaged from the revolt, Sai, Shin, myself, and a few others died shortly after.

Mental Age: 88 years, one month , fifteen days

6th Timeline,

Age lived to: Six years, three months, five days

Cause of Death: Stabbed in the forehead.

Summery: By now I'm tired, saving the world isn't easy and I have yet to figure out how. I decided that I'd try to nip everything in the bud, and infiltrated Saratobi-jiji's office to sneak information in. It didn't really go according to plan. I ended up being caught and captured by ANBU, and then suspected of being a spy. I was sent to Ibiki's "office", his version of 20 Questions isn't very fun. Neither are mindwalks with a Yamanaka. Super akward when he wandered into my other Timeline's rooms. I sealed those afterwards. Eventually word leaked out that I "knew the future" and was assassinated.

Mental Age: 94 years, four months, 20 days

7th Timeline,

Age lived to: ...still alive...

Cause of Death: ...still alive...

Summery: ...in progress...

Mental Age: ...in progress...

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p><em>1st POV (Naruto)<em>

_I was breathing heavily, blood pooling in my mouth before I spat it out onto the already red stained ground. I could feel the ground sway beneath me; it wasn't much of a surprise really, I had lost a lot of blood._

_Sasuke jogged up to me, a slight limp in his right leg._

_"Sasuke," I acknowledged with a nod, "why aren't you with your battalion?"_

_He looked up at me with his remaining black eye, his other long since gouged out over the course of this chaotic three and a half year war. "They're dead."_

_"What?" I asked, more out of disbelief then question._

_"Dead," he grimaced, a hand holding his wounded side, "they were gassed when I went to talk to the messenger."_

_"Then, how are-"_

_"Kakashi and Sai are gathering the left over battalions at the western side; I'm trying to gather the eastern troops. Which, as even you can see, has been very _successful_," he nodded to the lack of people behind him._

_"How is Sakura holding?" I asked noting the lull in enemies my remaining shinobi were fighting off._

_"Sai said he was going to meet up with her..." he said, scanning the barren land of what was once the Land of Fire, the land very nearly lived up to its name now. It was covered in fallen charred trees and dying flames in the bloodied ashen waste._

_"Any news from Suna?" I asked, my mind wandering back to Gaara's distress call five days prior. He had urgently requested information as to whether we continued to stand, but when we sent out a confirmation he remained silenced. Sasuke was in charge of the messengers while also leading a battalion in the east._

_"Dobe," Sasuke grimaced, "the Kazekage is dead, and there are only a handful of people remaining. It was sent a few days ago, it's safe to say that Suna no longer even exists; the same applies to all hidden villages because of their month long silence, with the exception of Iwa. Iwa has probably fallen, we haven't heard from them in a week."_

_I felt heavy, "no one is left, how did this happen?"_

_Sasuke just shook his head, "What crazy men do aren't predictable, we simply weren't prepared. He split us up, plain as that, but we couldn't have predicted how he did it until it was too late."_

_Kakashi, Sai, and a few shinobi came out of the dirty fog, my eyes searched frantically for the pink haired kunoichi._

_Sai looked at me with the deepest and realest remorse I've ever seen on his face and said, "She's gone, she fought to the end."_

_Sasuke and I sucked in a breath, our long time teammate, friend, and sister was gone._

_"No, Sakura-chan," I murmured._

_Kakashi looked ahead of himself blankly, "how many are left?"_

_I looked behind me, "we are about seventeen men strong, if we're including yours then its a measly twenty three. It's impossible to know how many hiding people there are left."_

_Kakashi looked around the grouped together ninja, and said in half-serious halfhearted attempt of relieving stress, "I'm now the oldest man alive, I don't know how I feel about this."_

_Sai tilted his head, "and I suppose we are now an extinct species."_

_"That is a most unyouthful thing to say!" exclaimed a tired Lee._

_Sai's eyes roamed the group, "there aren't any females present, unless you count Naruto."_

_I looked at him flatly, "Sai, your attempt at relieving our stress is pathetic."_

_A shinobi behind him frowned, "so even if we win, we will still lose?"_

_Everyone deflated at that; thank you Sai, for single-handedly dropping the group's moral to below negative fifty._

_"We don't know that for sure," I said, "there are probably plenty of civilians in hiding, women and children. It's unlikely that we are the only ones left."_

_They perked up a little at this. This was pretty sad when you thought about why this fact boosted their spirits._

_Just as we were getting the moral past level zero a large boom resonated across the clearing, followed by the sound of mad laughter._

_"I suppose," said the ever familiar voice of Madara, "that you all think you still have a chance."_

_Our small band of endangered humans got into a circular position, four faced inward as the rest faced outward. It was a defense formation made in the way so if an enemy were to teleport in the middle of the circle, they'd be taken down before they could stab them all in the back._

_There was a laugh again, "you poor things really are stupid."_

_And then there was a blinding flash of red hot fire and light, throwing our bodies outward. Some never got up again while others were cut down mercilessly in the wake of the blast._

_I moved to my feet and turned around in time to see the last of my standing teammates be ripped open._

_"Kakashi," I breathed in horror._

_Sasuke's remaining black eye stared sightlessly ahead, while Sai had a content smile upon death. Sai had said that he was looking forward to seeing someone upon death, I didn't pry for a name but one could assume. Lee didn't survive the blast and neither did five other shinobi, since I couldn't see their whole forms any longer._

_Kakashi looked up from his spilling innards, his eyes glossed with pain, "I always thought it a curse to live on while the ones I love die around me-cough- but maybe I was supposed to make sure it didn't happen again- cough cough -I'm sorry Naruto, I broke my promise." He said referring to his promise he made oh so long ago in Wave, before he slowly closed his eyes, and with all that said and done, left the realm of the physical._

_Obito looked down at Kakashi, an array of mixed emotion flashed through his eyes before his shadow clone impaled me from behind, creepily managing to make a human dango stick. I slipped off the katana and coughed once, twice, before falling face forward. I twisted around and rasenganed his stomach. Before I knew it, my mind was in a genjutsu. No doubt, it left my body to bleed dry on the ground of the battlefield. It was the end, or so I had thought, Konoha was long ago destroyed. The biju were already prisoners. Then all I knew was a genjutsu before it suddenly cleared. I could feel myself again, I was outside of the genjutsu now, I could tell from the pain before I truly died._

_I was dead, but at the same time I was waiting. I wasn't decisively dead yet, apparently, because I was suddenly brought back into my body again. But this time...I was in a warm dark place. I felt safe, with the steady beat of a...heartbeat? I wasn't reincarnated, I'm pretty sure one isn't supposed to remember their past self if that is how it works, but I could feel or sense a greater being watching over me. He sent me with a purpose. But as I lay in, what I could assume to be, my mother...I wondered if perhaps none of what happened actually happened, and I was merely given knowledge with future events to prepare me. Yes, that must be it._

_I wouldn't understand until a much later date that my soul time-slipped and that it was the Creator that sent me to this time and place with the purpose of preventing the world from self destructing itself before its time. No, I wouldn't for a few life times..._

* * *

><p><strong>Chibi!Tsunade: *points at readers* Everyone loves comments as a writer. So Review or I'll pound through your screen and make you.<strong>

**Kakashi: Maa, that really isn't ****necessary, Tsunade-sama. You're frightening them...**

**Chibi!Tsunade: And you're making them not review.**

**Kakashi: Hm? You say something?**

**Chibi!Tsunade: WHY YOU LITTLE PUNK!**

**Kakashi: *Kawarimi***

**Chibi!Tsunade: *goes chasing after him* Ooh, the little creep thinks he can just- *runs out of range***


	3. Chapter 2

**Esparia: Whoa! Such a warm welcome.**

**Naruto: Of course it is, everyone loves my anime/manga.**

**Sasuke: *digging at the floor with a plastic spoon* Must escape...must escape...must escape...**

**Esparia: And look at where they're from!**

**Naruto: ...ah, the real world?**

**Esparia: *glares* Not what I mean, but I'm seeing Mexico, Hong Kong, Iceland, Netherlands, India, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, Poland, Switzerland, and France up on the views board. Hmm, I need to visit France again.**

**Naruto: I don't understand. What does this have to do with the story?**

**Kakashi: *turns page in book* She needs to get it out of her system.**

**Esparia: I mean who spends ten minutes on the Eiffel Tower and calls it good? No one. *taps chin* Then again...who gets distracted by book stores for a good hour when you can be touring Notre Dame? Although in my defense Shakespeare and Company is an epic bookstore.**

**Naruto: *loud whispers to Kakashi* She is **_**crazy**_**, can we ditch?**

**Kakashi: Did you sign your contract?**

**Naruto: …**

**Kakashi: …**

**Naruto: Dang it.**

**Sasuke: *goes off to find the contracts***

**Disclaimer: Yipee! Chapter three! Bonjour, people of the internet. I'm the awesome disclaimer that has come to inform you that Esparia doesn't own Naruto outside of using him as fan-bait.**

**Naruto: Oi!**

**Disclaimer: She doesn't own any of the characters with exception of any and all OCs within these walls. She doesn't own Shakespeare and Company, only the books she bought there. With that being said, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.**

**Naruto: It called me fan-bait.**

**Sasuke: (in background) *humming mission impossible theme song***

Chapter Two

Back to Ground Zero

May 19th, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

I may have seen the end of the world. I may have seen my wife and unborn children slaughtered as I lay there as my blood burned and froze. I may have seen child abuse and experienced it. I may have been brutally interrogated by one of the scariest men alive. And I may have accidentally killed my teammates. However, this time, I will do it right. I will be as much of a light as I could. Because this time...I was not going to let the world die. I am a Changer, and so help me, I will do everything in my power to fulfill my Creator's Will. His Dream is my dream. I may be a broken human being with an aged soul that is scarred and seen many horrific things, but I have never been one to back out of a promise. I promised to help save the world, so I will live as many times over to keep my promise. A man who does not fulfill a promise is dirt. A man who is prideful in keeping his promise is a maggot. A man who actively breaks his promise is beneath the maggots which writhe in the dirt of animals. A man who keeps his promise out of love and humility; sees himself as that of a rock, but is worth more being he cannot see the diamonds within. I hope, one day, I shall be the man who is but a rock.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>So with that Naruto's seventh chance was given. Reborn with the light of the Creator shinning within his soul as it does with every newborn. He looked up at his mother for the seventh time in his life. His baby-gray eyes searched her's with a childlike innocence.<p>

"Hi there Naruto," Kushina whispered. Her weak, but beautiful smile looked down at Naruto with love only mothers possess. Her red hair was slightly disheveled from child-birth, but even with the wariness of this, it did nothing to hide her natural beauty. Naruto's father certainly chose a beauty, but one with a wild but kind-hearted spirit.

Looking at her, Naruto made a rather risky decision but one he really always wanted to do. Smiling with baby gums showing he said, in the most basic baby sounds, "Kaka."

Her eyes widened briefly before relaxing and laughing slightly, "Yes, I'm your Momma."

Tears glittered in the low light within her eyes. Kushina tightened her grip on her baby and brought him closer before gently kissing the crown of his blonde head. A lone tear fell as she whispered, "I'm your Momma."

"Kaa," Naruto yawned before sluggishly blinking my eyes. Naruto's baby body was tired, but all the experienced boy-man wanted, was to see his okka-san. However as he closed his eyes, he heard her whisper a lullaby he could vaguely remembered from a few timelines he's slipped. A lullaby he listened to other mothers sing to their children when he was taking midnight walks. He slowly fell asleep listening to her voice, tucked in the safety and the warmth of her arms.

"Tooku ni ite mo kimi ni to doku darou.

Kono boku ga kokoro kome okuru messeeji.

Kibou koso rashinban sa Ai wo yubisasu yo.

Nemure Sotto nemure Asu wa yume tairiku.

Kodoku ni obiete ita yuube no kimi.

Boku no na wo yonde 'ta ne Mune ni terepashii.

Kiseki nanka ja nai Towa ni ai wa enejii da kara.

Nemure Sotto nemure Kanashimi wo wasurete.

Jidai wa umi ni shizumu yuuhi no you sa.

Hoshizora wo tobikoete kimi wo mukae ni yuku.

Hoshizora wo tobikoete kimi wo mukae ni yuku."

Naruto wished he could have listened to his mother's soft voice continue singing, but baby bodies fall asleep fast and sound when they do. He wouldn't see her again, at least, as long as he succeeded in his mission.

* * *

><p>By the time Naruto woke up, his mother was once again dead. It was a hard truth to acknowledge, but Naruto knew he would always love her like she loved him. Naruto didn't have much time to figure out what was going on, but when he did he began panicking. His mind whirled through options that could save his father, but none of them seemed possible. Being a newborn baby brought down your ability level to zero. You couldn't communicate, you couldn't walk, your eye-hand coordination was worse than a slug's (being they neither have eyes nor hands), and your chakra coils aren't developed in the least. So, what were his abilities? Smile, gurgle, eat, sleep, go, and cry.<p>

_'Well,'_ Naruto thought, _'I could breath and blink but that's about it. Wait a moment...blink. I wonder…'_

With a long-shot idea half formed thought, he began wailing. Naruto didn't have those set of Uzumaki lungs for nothing. His dad glanced down at him before looking back to where he was going. Hushing his son and continuing to run with him in hand.

"Waa...mm..." Naruto stared at the idiot he called father, _'is he really not going to look at me? I mean the point of me crying is to get his attention. If he doesn't look at me how am I going to send a message? With my blinks? Maybe if I stare at him long enough. I don't like being ignored. Dad~ Dad~ You will look at me~ Oh for the love of ramen, look at your son!'_

For the briefest moment Minato looked down at him before looking back to where he was running, not even giving Naruto time to even blink. Growling to himself, which came out more like a wet gurgle, Naruto began crying again.

"Shush Naruto," Minato said, not so much as a glance his way as a glance as a roof sailed overhead.

Naruto just responded to by wailing louder, "Waa! Waa! Waa!"

"Naruto, hush..." He said, seeming to get a little more frantic with his son's increasing displeasure.

_'Oh, am I bothering you? How about a little louder,'_ Naruto thought before raising his voice, "MWAA! MWAA! MWAA!"

"N- eh, Naruto, shh-shh-shh, okay okay...uh, rock a by baby on the treetop-"

Naruto ignored his father's awful singing, finding it rather funny to hear the great fourth Hokage struggle with his only child, "WAAA! WAA! MWAA!"

"-your cradle will rock-"

_'His voice...don't laugh, don't laugh…'_ Naruto pleaded with himself as he continued wailing, "WAHAA! WAHAA! WAHAA!"

"-down will go baby, cradle and all..." Minato trailed off.

Naruto stopped, his mouth wide open. And looked up at his dad, processing what his father just said. What kind of awful song was that? Did he misjudge his father? Was his father secretly an evil baby hater?

"...I never realized how dark that lullaby was." Minato mumbled.

Minato looked down at Naruto with a bemused expression, which he met with an angry baby glare. This seemed to startle Minato but Minato just continued glaring.

"Heh-hey Naruto...don't, don't be angry son."

Naruto narrowed his eyes further until they were just squints. Maybe his father wasn't a baby hater, but if he was…

"I had no idea babies could release KI...unless...Kai!" He exclaimed, and looked at Naruto expectantly.

Naruto baby-huff/snubbed him, which was more of a grouchy gurgle.

Minato looked around in embarrassment. Muttering under his breath that his son already knew what a bad father he was going to be.

Naruto felt himself begin to fall asleep.

_'No, not yet. I won't let it...happen…'_ Naruto blearily looked up to see his father casting an all too familiar genjutsu. _'Darn it all...to Wave...and back…'_

* * *

><p>The next time Naruto woke up, he had his father painting his belly with his back propped on a surprisingly comfortable rock. With a sigh Naruto noticed a little of the ink off to his side. When Minato had his back turned, Naruto used all his concentration on dabbing his finger in the ink and adding a few extra marks. They were hardly noticeable and, hopefully, would give the desired effect. 95 years gives you enough time to learn how to modify complicated "seals", which are really just doors to parallel dimensions, apparently he was pretty proficient as a seal master.<p>

Before he knew it, the grumpy chinchilla was once again pacing its cage in his gut. Minato died, and Naruto was left there to tumble off their perch to the ground with the lack of active support. The ground was littered with sharp debris and pieces of dangerous things everywhere. The problem was, but not limited too, his lack of motor skills and yet to fully develop muscle.

Naruto landed with a sickly "thunk", he winced when he felt blood spilling from his soft baby face, _'Ow... Face in glass! Face in glass. Ouch. Ouch...ow-ow-ow-ow-oww, I think I hear people.'_

"Waaa! Waaa! Waaa!"

A short while, many tears, and a small splatter of baby blood later, Naruto finally got an answer.

"There's a baby over here!" Naruto heard a man call, and judging from his foot falls, an injured Chunin.

'_Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, we are proud to present the youngest vocalist in Konoha history, UZUAMAKI NARUTO! This baby can reach decibels you can't even hear, and now for a brief demonstration,' _he thought before wailing even louder, "WaAa! WaAa! WaAa!"

"Oh my- get Saratobi-sensei and a medic!" The chunin yelled, Naruto heard a man shout a reply before disappearing.

First thing the injured man did was pick him up from the dirt. Naruto stopped crying, because it hurt pretty bad to move his face with glass splinters in it. He looked up at the unknown man piteously, before gurgling happily at the man who saved his handsome face that would soon attract all the ladies.

The man, in turn, just looked at him in horror. Before carefully adjusting his grip on the hurt baby. With his hands firmly holding the unknown child, he walked over to Minato a few good yards away. It was strange, Naruto thought, seeing his dad lie there dead, every past Timeline he wasn't in the battlefield, let alone see his father fallen body dead. He didn't know why it was different this time around, and he personally did't really wish to know.

"Hokage-sama?" The boy said, because now the more Naruto looked at him, the younger the chunin seems. The boy knelt down and moved to turn the Yodaime over.

"Tou...manato..." Naruto baby jabbered, making a few nonsense sounds before crying loudly for the chunin's attention.

One of the baby reflexes, is the tendency to cry, laugh, or gurgle over everything. Basically speaking, babies make noise and are self-absorbed brats that need all the attention in the world. Naruto thought being in that mindset was a bit weird at first, but it was their survival technique so he didn't put too much thought into it. Besides, in his defense he still had glass splinters in his face, had yet to eat, he was cold, he was tired, he just had the Kyuubi no Kitsune caged in his developing Chakra coils, his mother is dead, his father just died before his blurry eyes, the world still needed saving, and he couldn't do a thing about it. So all in all, he had a good enough reason to cry.

The chunin seemed to realize that Minato was in fact dead, and he held a baby that simply came out of nowhere. Naruto could only guess what the man was thinking. In all honestly, he was a bit scared. I mean, give him some credit, a helpless baby who could very well die because of what is going through this man's head. He was thought to be Kurama the first six times, what's to say it would happen again. Naruto had to make the chunin think something else...what could he do? With a figurative snap of his fingers, as babies can't snap their fingers, he came up with the perfect plan that had yet to fail him this far into a Timeline. '_Cry: Infant's Wail no Jutsu!'_

"WAAAA! WAAAA! WAAAA!"

The boy began to panic; his lack of experience with children was very prominent. "What do I do? What do I do? It's crying. Why is it crying? No, no, no, no, no...Don't cry. Please don't cry." He stood up then sat back down, his pathetic attempt to shush and rock Naruto was admirable, being that he was probably under the stress of a ruined village, unknown status of family members, and a dead Hokage laying at his feet.

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay...uh, what did my mom do with Anzu? Hush little baby, don't you cry. Momma 's- Nii-san 's gonna to sing you a lullaby."

"WAHAAA! WAHAAA!" Naruto found it funny how the chunin instantly started singing a failed lullaby when he didn't know what to do. Maybe it was a shinobi thing, because kunoichi just seem to emit alpha waves when they sung.

The poor chunin sighed and said, "I know my singing stinks but-"

Naruto couldn't help but he laughed, his face was at such a level of despair he swore he could see a few ghost fires hanging over the chunin's head. He had a drooly sort of laugh, he noticed, but it couldn't be helped.

He looked at Naruto with an intrigued face, his own blood caked face smiled up at the boy. He adjusted the baby on his lap, and seemed to decide on something. He whispered a few words and made a few hand signs. Before he knew it, bubbles and butterflies were floating around them. It was a simple ninjutsu, but fascinating that the boy actually came up with something that would work on kids.

Not wanting to disappoint, and having a baby's instinct, he gurgled and grabbed at the bubbles and butterflies. '_If the boy lives long enough, and raises a family, he should remember that this technique was good for something.'_

He visibly relaxed as Naruto played with his jutsu. He smiled a bit before freezing, his eyes locked on the baby's face. Naruto drooled over a butterfly while smiling and gurgling back at him. The chunin hesitantly smiled, his eyes drifted over to the Yondaime's corpse then back to Naruto. Naruto's father, then to Naruto, Minato, then back to Naruto. Yeah, let's just watch baby Naruto pop bubbles while chunin-san thinks over the strange resemblances that probably equals family relations.

A few popped bubbles and a chewed butterfly later, the chunin finally asked in a hesitant voice, "Hokage-sama?"

Naruto looked up at him in confusion, '_Did he just-'_

The chunin brought him closer to his face, inspecting the boy's face with a strange look, "Hokage-sama is that you?"

Naruto slowly blinked at him, _'He can't possibly be thinking that I am my father. How to deter the kid...cry? No... Gurgle. No that would confirm. Aha! When in doubt, put it off. Sleep: Baby's unshakeable slumber no jutsu!'_

So he fell asleep. Best plan ever, well...until he woke up to hear the chunin telling the Sandaime that Naruto was Minato in a new body from after killing the fox. Needless to say, even Kurama was face-pawing at this one. Well, more like banging his face against the bars of his prision and demanding to "show that foolish little hairless monkey" how dead he was. But those are just techniqualities no one really cares too much about.

Naruto blinked blurrily at the Sandaime who was now holding him. His child's mind was tired and wanted food, but his elder spiritual self could make out what Saratobi was talking about. _'Thank goodness Jiji started clearing things up. But is it really wise to tell him I'm related to Minato? At least he didn't explain how I was related, I just was. Still, I suppose laying out my lineage (when and if it spills) will just make doubts fly around. I mean the fourth having a son nobody knew about that suddenly came out of the woodwork? Psh, probably a trap. His last name is Uzumaki, are Konoha really trying to make us think their Hokage got together with someone from one the scariest most powerful clans? Which Uzumaki lived there...Kushina? As in the princess? Ah-hahaha, what kind of stupid ploy is that? What? He's the jinchuriki of the nine tails? Are you telling me this blonde kid that came out of nowhere is the son of the Yellow Flash and Redheaded demon princess from Uzu, and is the jinchuriki of Kyuubi no Kitsune? How stupid do you think we are? We need better intelligence, which I will now be personally seeing to and funding.'_

The chunin was quickly sworn to secrecy about never revealing Naruto's relations in fear of the Yondaime's enemies finding out and seeking revenge. The chunin understood and quickly vowed not to utter a word. It was more of a show. Even if the chunin spills, they (the other villages) will just doubt the real situation. Ninja are used to hiding everything, so when they hear something as widespread that was supposed to be an S-rank secret, they'll just assume something is beneath the surface. Ninja forget how to take something at face value, something Naruto never could learn how not to do. With that all in place Sandaime brought Naruto to the Hokage tower where his fate would be decided.

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><p><strong>Chibi!Tsunade: None of you reviewed...*attacks random reader's screen*<strong>

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><p><strong>We're sorry, there seems to be a malfunction in the continuation of this story. The problem will be solved by next week. Ja ne.<strong>


	4. Chapter 3

**Esparia: Hello readers, viewers, followers, not-followers, new people, and others that have been forced to try fanfiction by their friends/family/strange accuantantences that you never met previousely. So this is Chapter Three. I am most pleased to see the reviews-**

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><p>Chapter Three<p>

Beloved, Blessed, and Beautiful

May 19, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

Emiko has been struggling for the past six Timelines with her self image. In the sixth Timeline, I learned from a rather gruesome report on Jiji's desk that she had committed suicide a few months after I left the orphanage. The report had pictures of her body, her note, what the people around her said about her, and the written report of her life. I had always viewed her as a heartless woman who neglected, and in other cases, abused me. But seeing such a cold and emotionless look of her death felt wrong. She was a person too, and she hid behind a smile-mask just like I did…do.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>Naruto looked around the large room filled with semi-familiar faces. All had some injury of one kind or another, mainly being because almost all ninja had participated in fighting against the Kyuubi's attack. The Sandaime had just finished explaining Naruto's position as a jinchuriki. Danzo and a few clan heads were wanting claim over him, bickering like a bunch of six year olds wanting the new coolest toy, nothing out of the ordinary as far as Naruto was concerned. Some going so far as to try and make the baby Naruto giggle or laugh in proof that he liked them more. Saratobi figured out rather quickly what was going on, but decided to let them bicker it out a bit more until they brought him into it.<p>

"Hokage-sama, my clan will provide extensive care for Naruto-kun. He is going to need a family to rely on, and what better then my own clan," said one clan head.

Another scowled and said, "we can provide a larger scale of training, Hokage-sama, due to our extensive libraries. Naruto-kun should learn how to be strong if he is going to protect himself against anyone trying to use him."

Danzo cleared his throat and said, "I believe he would do well if I personally train young Naruto. He will need proper guidance in how to be a proper leaf shinobi and how to harness his large reservoir of power."

Naruto looked up at them from the piece of armor he was chewing on and snickered in his mind, _'Hypocrites.' _

Saratobi sighed and looked down at the child whom was gumming on his armor. He looked at the shinobi in front of him, all gunning to be in charge of the child's future. He would have loved to pass the child off to clans such as the Nara or the Hatake…but Hatake were as good as disbanded with a sole survivor that was too young to care for a child and the Nara would overwhelm the kid with their genius fore planning that his genes simply wouldn't allow. Uzumaki never were known for their patients and with Minato as the sire…slow and steady was as good as the butt of a joke. He couldn't favor a clan anyway. Danzo was a good man. He had good intentions even if he had a few screws loose. Danzo would probably be able to help Naruto in controlling the vast power of a biju, but children needed love and caring. Something his old friend was inept at giving or providing. Saratobi settled with the unmentioned option, "I believe it would be best to put Naruto-kun in the orphanage. Where he won't have any influence from your powerful clans or ideals. He will be a regular shinobi with no clan background and thus won't be targeted by dangerous outside parties that might hurt Naruto-kun. I will keep an eye over him as he grows up. If I see any signs of Kyuubi's influence, I bring in Jiraiya to check over the seal and deal with the problem accordingly."

There was a little debate after that but it was eventually resolved. Alas, thirty odd minutes later it would be publicly known he was a jinchuriki, with questionable sanity and unknown bloodlines.

Naruto was glad it all turned out well. As far as he was concerned, being sent to an orphanage that would kick him out in a few years was a far cry from being tortured and abused in ROOT. He was honestly happy to go with the frightened and neglectful woman instead of Danzo. To show his great appreciation and approval, he lovingly drooled all over her favorite blouse.

Naruto's first birthday had come and gone, nothing very notable had happened in that year. As that first year was mostly spent regaining lost motor skills, such as walking and exercising his vocal cords.

He knew he was not, under any set of circumstances, going to have a repeat of his doomsayer life. That was grossly counterproductive. So instead, when that nursemaid was teaching him how to waddle around, he looked up at her with his big doe eyes and said, "Pretty."

She looked at him while he continued to gabber unintelligible nonsense and wobbling around on his pudgy baby legs. He fell a few times before pushing himself back up and made a few more noises. When he turned around, he saw she had tears in her tired eyes and was making the choking-sniff-I'm-not-going-to-cry sounds.

He flopped on his legs, and lifted his chubby baby arms up. She usually would growl out a harsh "go away demon" his way or simply ignore him, but this time she picked him up in her arms and started sobbing.

He pat her teary face, with a look of childish concern on his own.

That was his first word on the day that was his seventh first birthday.

Since then he'd gotten his legs back to a somewhat stable stance. He could walk without falling and could run with pounding feet, stealth was a ways to go. It was on one particular sunny day he pulled his first ever prank, at least, in this Timeline.

"Naruto!" screamed one of the orphans.

He may or may not have painted on the bully's walls with pink and purple glitter glue, and may or may not have raided said bully's secret stash of candy under his bed.

The older boy totally had it coming though. Naruto was none to pleased to see him hitting that younger boy down the hall. He may have been at a toddler-like mindset, but he know what bullying looks like. He would probably know better then anyone in the village.

Naruto squeaked in fear before running into the nursemaid's room. He dived under her bed and waited. He could hear the bully's loud footsteps down the hall and the Caretaker's voice booming at the boy to stop running in the halls. The boy apologized before walking back across the hall vowing his vengeance once he found the prankster. Why did that declaration sound so familiar? Oh, right. "Sasuke-kun" had family issues so he swore vengeance that ultimately brought him the worst kind of unhappiness.

Naruto hid there for the rest of the day.

The nursemaid walked in at about nine, her face drawn and tight. She flopped down onto her bed, the mattress sunk a bit above him and scattered dust particles.

He didn't know whether or not to get out from under her bed or not. Naruto knew she didn't particularly hate him in this Timeline, but she didn't like him either. Just as he decided to wait for her to fall asleep, he saw a long thin and bloody strip of cloth fall to the ground. He heard her sniff before her bare arm reached down to grab it.

Bright blue eyes widened at the angry red marks on her forearms. She always had the long sleeved uniform the Konoha Orphanage workers were given, so one wouldn't have been able to see her bandaged arms unless she pulled them back, which she never did.

She pulled open the drawer next to her bed and rummaged around for a moment before pulling something out with a metal "shing". She got up and made her way to the adjacent bathroom. Her dark skirt swished across the floor, and her socked feet padded lightly on the floorboards. She stood over the sink crying. Peeking out from under her bed Naruto saw her place a kunai to her wrist, and in one fluid movement, that only came with practice, her blood pooled then dripped.

Naruto shimmied his way out from under her bed, shirt getting caught on a nail. He viciously yanked himself free before dusting himself free of dust bunnies. He looked behind him to see two separate bandages lying on her bed, soaked through with dull red

She hadn't noticed him yet, her concentration solely on the task in the bathroom. A sad frown marred Naruto's face and his hands hovered over the bandages. He took them in his hands and with a bit of concentration he channeled his chakra into them. The bandages disintegrated in flash of controlled fire, no sign of smoke or singes. Naruto dumped the ashes in her wastebasket before going to the edge of the door.

"Ugly, useless girl. Why are you so stupid?" She cried, "so stupid. Stupid, worthless girl."

Naruto stood there a moment, contemplating on what to say to her before saying in his childlike voice, "What you doing?"

She jumped in shock, a hand to her heart before she recognized him. She glowered, "nothing gaki."

Naruto tilted his head before asking, "You sad?"

She huffed, before rinsing her wrists free of blood. "Yes, I'm sad. Are you happy now?"

"Why- why should be happy?" Naruto asked, blue eyes squinting in confusion.

"Because you're- oh never mind," she sniffed.

"Why you sad?" He asked quietly. Naruto knew perfectly well why she was, he had seen this sort of thing more then he ever wished to see. Ino, though young and thought beautiful, struggled similarly. Naruto also knew that it was good to talk about your concerns and anxieties. When Naruto was young, truly young, he had his Jiji.

She didn't say anything as she wrapped her arms back up in fresh bandages.

"Did...did a bad guy say...say something mean?" He asked, looking up at her. Her dark hair fell covered her eyes, but not the tear that fell from them.

"You cry! You wan' a hug?" Naruto offered, his small arms open to her.

"Why would I hug you?" She whispered hoarsely.

"Because you sad. Caretaker-san give hug to kids who cry and is sad to make...to make them happy-smile," Naruto said nodding firmly, his eyes widened before hurriedly waving my arms in a X formation, "but not me. I'm no 'loud be happy-smile."

She sniffed before sinking to the floor, her back against the sink. Naruto hesitantly crawled up to her and wrapped his small arms around her.

"There, there...you'll be alright," he said, running my hand over her hair like he'd seen mothers, girls, and some of the more caring boys do.

She then began crying again, Naruto quickly pulled away exclaiming, "I sorry! I sorry!"

She rubbed a watery eye and asked, "Why are you sorry?"

He fidgeted, "I hug you wrong and make you cry. I sorry."

She laughed sadly, "you didn't hug me wrong. Sometimes people just need to cry."

Naruto frowned, truly confused by the concept. Every time he had cried was in times of grief or sorrow when loosing his family and pain when he was actually young. Tilting his head he asked, "...but cry is bad?"

"Not all the time," she said, "crying releases all the sadness in your heart, because when there is no sadness in your heart...you can be happy. Understand?"

He nodded slowly, his two and half year old mind puzzling over what she said. It was times like this he wished for his older mind to understand these concepts better. He then said slowly, slowly piecing his childish thoughts together, "I not 'loud to cry and get hug be- because it makes sad go away. Because when sad go away, happy come in."

"What?" She looked at me confused.

He leaned in by her ear and whispered loudly, "I no 'loud be happy."

She turned to look at him in bemusement. Her tears and sadness stalled by confusion over what the little child before her said.

He nodded and continued, "It be because I be a bad kid."

"Oh," she said, a strange expression on her face. She started remembering who the innocent looking little kid was. _'Could he really be just that? An innocent child?'_

Naruto sat back down by her and reassured, "But you no be bad, so you can cry and happy-smile."

She smiled weakly at him, "and you can't happy-smile?"

He shook his head, jabbing a thumb at his chest he said "Bad. Only fake-smile."

She plucked Naruto off the ground and hugged him, which he soon responded to by hugging her back. Some far off corner where his 97 year old spirit resided, Naruto knew that he wasn't bad, per se. But his younger mind simply couldn't grasp the concept of any other explanation. He knew he would understand when he got older then two. He needed that older mind.

She hugged him for awhile before pulling back and wiping her eyes.

"Why you sad?" Naruto asked again, hoping to get an answer this time.

She mumbled something he didn't understand.

"Huh?" Naruto asked, pushing her hair out of the way.

She blew a few strands out of her face and sighed before saying, "I'm a stupid, worthless, ugly girl who can't seem to get a handle on her life."

Naruto's eyes widened in disbelief, "You no ugly or worthless or stupid."

She laughed dryly, "yes I am."

He shook his head firmly, "No. You beautiful. You smart. You kind. You...you be created for a purpose."

"Created for what purpose?" She asked rhetorically.

"I no know...but the Creator made you for pur…purpose only you can do. He spec- specif-ically made you the way you are. You are His creation, His work of art, His masterpiece. He chose you, to be born here and now for things only you can do. Because, you are worth more then hundred and one worlds and a thousand and one stars. You are His unique and beautiful jewel. Maybe you not smart in the scroll and book, but you kind and is a special person that has things the others no has. Isn't it such a wonderful thought, that you be here in this point of time to hear what I have to say? If only you could see how He sees you. Because you are the _most _preciousperson to Him, His most beloved daughter. His frightened child that is oh so very important to Him. You aren't worthless, you are _priceless_." Naruto held her surprised and crying face between his hands and looked her in the eye, "Do you know why you are the most beautiful, most precious, most special person to Him?"

"W-why?" She whispered, tears streaming down her face.

He smiled sadly, looking her directly in the eyes I told her, "because He _Loves _you."

She openly bawled and buried her face in his shirt, after her cries turned to sobs, and her sobs turned to whimpering she said, "how do you know? You are only a child that spoke with wisdom beyond his years."

"It no me that talk," Naruto stated.

She froze. A look of fear and worry crept into her features.

He smiled and continued, "It be the Creator who make the world, you and me."

She looked at him apprehensively.

"He sometime talk through me, 'cause His Spirit live in here," Naruto pointed to his heart then to her heart, "He live in here too."

She chuckled nervously, "I think it's only you, brat."

Naruto shook his head, blonde hair waving wildly, "No. He tell me He live in everyone and everything He ever created, unless they choose not to be with him. That make you, me, and the fox."

She startled and stared at him. Her mind racing to figure out how the child could've possibly found out about _it_.

Naruto leaned in and whispered, "No tell no one 'bout the fox, he no like by people 'cause he did something bad for a really _really _bad guy."

She blankly nodded, her thoughts racing as to what was just implied about both him knowing of the Puff-Ball and speaking of the One who created the worlds.

Naruto gave a big yawn and said, "I go to bed now."

He stood up and walked out the door, before pausing and peeking his head around the bathroom door.

"What your name?" He asked.

"Emiko," she replied.

"Emiko," Naruto echoed, deep in thought, "that mean Blessed, Beautiful Child...like a jewel. Did you know?"

She shook her head.

"My name is Naruto." He pointed to himself, "It a fish cake in ramen. It not cool like your name. 'Cause I not a fish cake."

She laughed lightly at his opinion.

"Emiko-san…" Naruto trailed off.

"Yes?" Emiko prompted as she stood up to escort him to his room.

"He is sad when Emiko hurts herself," he said, "I threw away your past ouches, all burned and bye-bye."

Emiko noticed the lack of bloodied bandages on her bedspread with horror.

"But He left you a present you threw away," Naruto said, pointing toward the waste bin.

"Night night, Emiko-san," he yelled before taking off to bed. He couldn't lie to himself when he thought about how truly beautiful she was. Maybe he couldn't judge outward appearances the best, he's been told that he had no sense of fashion enough times for him to question his eyesight. In his opinion though, she was both beautiful inside and out, and he was rarely to ever wrong when it came to the inside.

Emiko watched the blonde haired boy run out her room, before turning her gaze to the waste bin. All she ever threw away were tissues, bandages, wrappers, and scrap paper. She walked up to the trash and looked in. And there, sitting in the ashes of her bloodied bandages, was flawless crystalline diamond with the kanji "beautiful" etched on the front.

* * *

><p><strong>Esparia: That's all for now. So from now until next time, farewell, Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad.<strong>


	5. Chapter 4

**Esparia: GOOD MORNING, GOOD AFTERNOON, GOOD EVENING, and GOOD NIGHT to all the humanoids out there! (and inadement objects or nonhumanoids, we don't judge here on fanfiction) This is the lovely chapter four, ready to start rolling. I'm thinking of changing the first chapter a wee bit so any suggestions you have for Naruto's jounal entry would be nice. I'm so glad you guys liked my last chapter.**

**Sasuke: *slides up to Esparia* Hey, Esparia.**

**Esparia: Yes? Disclaimer! You're up!**

**Disclaimer: *salutes***

**Sasuke: Well, I was wondering where you kept your contracts for us characters.**

**Esparia: Hmm...don't know.**

**Discaimer: Esparia doesn't own Naruto nor Naruto Shippuden. So that means she doesn't own any of its characters, plots, plot holes, techniques, or any of that stuff. She does own the basis of her OCs and such, who have taken a life of their own. Poor things.**

**Sasuke: You don't...know.**

**Esparia: Nope.**

**Disclaimer: That being said, she does own this stroy and the brain that came up for it. Copying is a low blow move and not recommended. So she only owns the Naruto characters through their actions in this story, not the characters themselves.**

Chapter Four

A Child's Eye

May 16th, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

Children are beautiful things. They see things and understand things that we grownups can't even begin to fathom. Our experiences and memories train us into thinking what we would call the box. Children have no box. They haven't built up expectations of the world around them. They just know somehow some things work and others don't. I can remember times like that, but then again, I do get chances others don't in reliving that part of my life. I've gotten to experience life out of the box more then anyone else I know. So with those memories of the wonder, I get to keep myself out of the box into adulthood. But I loose the childlike wonder. Which is the most painful part of this world. You can gain wonder again, but you can never go back to having a child's wonder.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>Children laughter could be heard in the background. The scuffling of feet and idle chatter of adults were the less noticeable sounds, but no less part of the relaxed atmosphere. It was a scene that Naruto was quite familiar with, content parents discussing the problems of the world and overjoyed children living the fantasies of it. Naruto had never known and never will know what it was like to be a child living without care. He would also never be able to be like the adults, in that now and in the future, because of the lack of shared experiences.<p>

He supposed he never really had fit in, but that was okay. It is better to be handmade then a mass produced object.

His three year old mind understood this better then when it was two. Every memory slowly made more sense as his body aged, with years of practice he could easily get a small understanding of everything that he had been through. However he couldn't, no matter what kind of experience he had, understand the harder concepts with a child's mind. For example physics and theory of mathematics. But analogies and experiences were semi-understandable to a child's mind. With his past available to a small child, it would bring his old PTSD back from the pasts, but with a more innocent and horrifying outlook on the things that triggered it. As a child again he got new perspectives on events that had happened. A more strait forward and trusting face-value sort of outlook. Naïvety all but faded by the time he turned eight and by the time he was back with team seven, he'd be back to being a mentally really old PTSD war veteran. And mentally really old PTSD war veterans in child bodies really don't know how to interact with people their own "age". It's a sad fact of "time travel", that once you go back you aren't really part of that world anymore. He had tried to talk about it with other people, children, adults, adolescents, seniors…but it didn't really go his way. Many wrote it off as a childish imagination and the kids thought he was just weird. It wasn't like he knew how to play their games to begin with.

One might ask why in the world he was even at the playground if it was such a waste of time. It was pretty simple actually. Emiko would bring the orphanage children on outings every week for the caretaker to cleanup and sanitizes the facility. The children would be released to the play grounds, and the babies would be handled by Emiko and varies volunteers or ninja.

This day in particular had a newly minted genin team and their jounin sensei, whom were on their first mission. The poor genin were nervous and very unsure as what to do, not completely unexpected, as the babies they are attending were in varies stages of distress and there was no jounin-sensei in sight.

Emiko was sitting beside the young ninja, and was talking gently with one of the genin. They were sitting not too far from the tree he was perched. It was an unspoken rule that Uzumaki Naruto was unwelcome at the playground, in situations like this he would usually just go up to the kids but he'd decided against it for as long as he stayed in the orphanage. Emiko was a kind soul, and it was painful for Naruto to see her emotionally beat down for allowing him things other children were given. In past Timelines he was locked in a closet, or the likes of such, at the orphanage while the others went out. Strangely, his interactions with Emiko over the past few years had softened her way towards him to the point she actually seems to like him. It was weird for him to be able to see such a drastic difference. The first time she said she would bring him out was a shock to his poor little heart. He had originally thought it to be a ploy, which happily turned out to be an incorrect assumption. It had been actually a few months before now, but she claimed it was to help relieve some of the caretaker's stress. Which, he supposed, could very well have been true. He found it easier to set pranks when everyone was out of the way, the possibilities were endless for the residential pranking-king.

The first time he came here, invited, he was told to stay by her. Being the other parents didn't want him close to their kids and possibly contaminating them with whatever evil demon powers he supposedly possessed. That was fine; really, he didn't know how to act around young kids, like they were his own age.

Sadly, Emiko was verbally attacked by other adults for just letting him sit by her. Her self confidence was low enough without those fools bringing it lower. Naruto opted to stay at the orphanage the next time they went out. She blatantly refused the idea. So he began the habit of doing what he was now doing, wandering the woods. She wasn't thrilled that he wasn't going to stay in her line of sight, but he convinced her he'd stay close and out of trouble. Naruto was good with words, even if he himself didn't realize it. It was a nice change for him, to be free (to an extent) at such a young 'age'. The parents wouldn't know he was there, thus not be disturbed by his presence, and he would get time to let his semi-forced childlike behavior down.

Back when he in the first Timeline; he had sat in the very same tree he was now in, watching the children. The tree itself was less scarred and healthier but it still had the same awkward nub that dug in your back if you leaned against the trunk.

_1__st__ POV (Naruto)_

"_Mommy mommy," yelled a kid, no more then four, "Mika won't play shinobi vs. missing-nin with me."_

"_Why not?" she asked, flipping a page in her book._

"_Mika…Mika not wanna be missing-nin," the child pouted, "only wanna be shinobi and not take turns."_

"_Well maybe you should play a different game," she suggested._

"_But I want play shinobi vs. missing-nin!" yelled the child. The mother looked frazzled and at a loss for how to defuse the situation._

"_I'll play with you," I said, jumping down from my tree. A smile spread wide across my face._

"_Really?" the kid said excitedly._

"_Yup," I said, "I'll be the missing-nin first, kay?"_

"_Yosh!" The kid jumped up and took me by the hand, before running toward the playground._

_The kid pointed to himself and exclaimed, "I'm a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village! And I'm going to take you down, evil ninja-san!"_

_I laughed 'evily' and said, "I'd like to see you try, Hidden Leaf ninja are all too soft to take down the likes of me."_

"_Ha! I'll prove I'm stronger then you," he said before running at me._

_I slowly dodged, "You'll have to try harder then that, chibi."_

_The kid puffed out his cheeks and ran at me again, "Kon__o__ha ninja are the best, and I'm no chibi!"_

"_Ha-ha-ha, yeah right. Big talk for a little guy," I said and dodged._

_He turned around and smacked me with his tiny fist on my leg. I 'yelled' in pain and limped away from him._

"_That was just luck, but I won't underestimate you again, chibi." I said._

_He grinned and attacked me again, this time nailing me in the stomach. I used a minor amount of chakra to make __myself__ fly backwards. I 'shakily' got up, before 'collapsing' on my hands and knees._

_The kid ran up to me, worry __and shock written across__ his face. I winked with a grin before going back to 'defeated missing-nin mode'._

"_You brat, you may have defeated me this time," I slowly got up, "but I can promise it won't happen again. Just you watch, I'll get you back for this disgrace. __You'll__ be sorry!" I yelled before dramatically disappearing in a cloud of smoke._

_The kid's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. His mother looked surprised by the sudden smoke._

_I leaped back behind him, without making a sound. I watched his shocked expression for a moment before saying, "that was a fun game."_

_He jumped before looking up at me with a grin, "you a real ninja?"_

_I smiled, "yup, one of the best."_

"_Cool," he said, "will you play with me again."_

"_Mm, someday," I said._

_He frowned, "why not now?"_

_I pointed up, "see that bird up there?"_

_He looked up and nodded, "yeah, it sure is tiny."_

_I smiled, "well the bird is telling me to go to Hokage-sama's office. I have a mission."_

"_Ah," the kid said looking up, "you must be a really, really strong ninja if the Hokage wants you."_

"_You better believe it," I smiled._

_A look of determination came across his face, "I'm going to be a super strong ninja someday too. Then I will fight real missing-nin and get the birds to call for me too. I will beat you shinobi-san."_

_I grinned down at him __and ruffled his hair__, "I'll be waiting for it."_

_I met with the kid a few times after that to play. I've been told I had a way with children, and that it was odd for a shinobi of such high caliber to play with kids. But I treasured it. It made up for my lost childhood, giving a child a better one then they'd have otherwise. It wasn't known that it was me who anonymously donated and fixed up the orphanages across the nations. They just knew it was a ninja, who the __kids__ fondly nicknamed "__Caretaker-nin__". The child grew to be a good kid, always proclaiming that he'd one day outdo me._

_I'm still waiting__…_

* * *

><p>Other parents were milling with the youth below, <em>'their spirits are so calm.'<em>

Naruto sighed in contentment, a small genuine smile made its way across his face. _'Yes, calm, like a gentle breeze that plays with the leaves of the trees.'_

It was so unlike the agitation that dominated them in the past-future. There was so much fear and pain, to the point that even the children didn't play. Naruto vowed to never let it become like that again.

He heaved a sigh as he watched the children play make-believe. Those small ones, with such high hopes for the future, had been his comrades, his friends, his villagers. They had become hardened and frozen over by the deaths and war, bloodied hands and marred spirits. His smile slipped from his face.

"That was a heavy sigh for someone so young," a male said above him.

Naruto had felt the shinobi above him. He posed no threat to him or the kids below and his chakra wasn't masked, so Naruto was pretty unconcerned about his presence. Shinobi passed through the forest by the park often enough, just to make trips shorter. Naruto wasn't exactly surprised the shinobi approached him, he had gotten just as many wary looks from them then he did from the civilians. They were just more subtle and didn't openly hate him. Except for the untrained genin. But Naruto knew that any (normal) child would be surprised. So he snapped his head to look up at the shinobi in shock.

The face of a familiar chunin looked down at him, a jounin vest hung loosely around the man's shoulders.

"You're that weird chunin that thought I was a reincarnation," Naruto stated flatly. One of the best and worst things about children were their willingness to speak their minds. They don't hide things behind formalities or falsehoods. It is a tendency that can't easily be overwritten unless he/she kept quiet. Naruto never was one known for his silence.

The man looked at Naruto bemused, the chunin now jounin flickered his eyes around the area before returning his attention to Naruto.

"I was under a lot of stress the time," he said, not even bothering to deny what the child obviously knew. He wondered as to why the child would even know, but he supposed it didn't matter in the end.

Naruto turned away to look at the kids below. Nodding his head to the boys and girl he commented, "Your students."

"Yes," he said with pride," they are my first genin team."

"Congratulations," Naruto said, a smile making its way across his lips. Genin teams were a luxury during, what he called, the Lost Shinobi War. To become one's jounin-sensei was one of extreme privilege and honor. That was near the beginning of the war, by the time he was made Hokage there were no genin teams. A chunin would be given a genin as a Pair. A jounin would supervise the Pair's progress and give tips. Pairs would work until they were made jounin and chunin. Then they would split off, the chunin with a new genin to make a new Pair and the jounin assigned to a Squad Commander. The Squad Commander would be in charge of about a five to eight people. The Squad would help the new jounin improve their skills. The best jounin would be moved up to Squad Commander rank. Squad Commanders answered to the Battalion Leaders, battalions made up of about three to six Squads. Battalion Leaders usually had been or were ANBU. They would answer to the Hokage, or the next in line to be Hokage. But even in times of peace, Naruto knew that it was a big step for a new jounin to get their first Pair- I mean- first genin team.

Naruto tilted his head at the genin team. He watched them handling the infants, the dynamics seemed normal enough. One girl, two boys. Some would think that babysitting would come naturally to the girl, being as they are the more maternal of the two sexes. However this wasn't always the case, as per example the scene below. He winced when he saw how the female ninja picked up the baby; the male ninja to her left was mimicking her, under the impression she knew what she was doing. Naruto sweat dropped, even as complete moron he knew that one did not simply hold a baby upside down. The other male, thankfully, knew what he was doing. However his back was to his baby-dropping teammates, talking to Emiko about baby formulas. Seemed the kid had younger siblings. Naruto looked over to the shinobi beside him to see if the man would intervene and save the future generation's necks. To his annoyance, and mild amusement, said jounin-sensei was making goo-goo eyes at Emiko.

Naruto gave a soft snort and rolled his eyes. Young love, who'd have thought?

The snort gained the jounin's attention, Naruto smirked his way and said, "While I agree that she is very pretty-"

The jounin face reddened.

"-I think you should help the two wailing babies in your team's...care."

"What do you- WHOA!" He leaped down and rushed to the surprised genin. Hurriedly fixing their hold on the infant children, all while explaining why it was important to give their heads support.

Naruto snickered, the jounin came a long way from being an uncertain and panicked chunin on the battlefield. He couldn't help but wonder if he had something to do with his Infant's Wail no Jutsu.

Emiko and the genin stopped talking when the jounin ran into the clearing like a mad man. The genin was laughing at his humiliated teammates, while Emiko watched the scene in interest. A gentle smile on her face as the jounin gently handled the babies.

An evil grin made its way across Naruto's face; it had been a long, long time since he's had any fun. What was it? Two Timelines ago? As an aged man that's trying to prevent the world from self destruction, he needed a little fun...and as a child? Well, Naruto hated boredom as a kid. But boredom never did last long for a master of tricks and fun. Besides...who doesn't like playing match-maker at his old age? Er, young age? Hmm…

Itachi had been heading home when he passed through the forest beside the playground. Itachi was the type of person who knew a little bit of something about everything and everyone. He was an observer, a listen and learn type. So when he came across a thing he didn't know about, it instantly grabbed his attention. Especially if it wasn't completely expected.

On normal occasions he would've walked right on by, or continued leaping through the trees, but not so much as a glance at the odd thing or person. However he paused mid leap at what he saw.

"Okay, kids, we'll be leaving now," called out who he assessed as a worker at the orphanage.

Shinai Emiko 親愛 えみこ

Born to a civilian family.

Family: Mother and brother confirmed deceased. Father missing, assumed deceased.

Current Age: 19

Blood type: AB

Employed at the Konoha Orphanage.

Currently living in Konoha Orphanage facility.

Threat level: N/A

Several of the children on the playground rushed over to her. All, he noted, were indeed orphans of Konoha. But this wasn't what made him pause. No, it was the small blonde of three years that walked out of the wooded area towards them. The other children shifted to the opposite side of the young woman then where the lone child stood. The genin team followed suit. That wasn't really surprising though, what was surprising was the pat on the head the jounin gave to the boy.

Itachi was a smart person, he acknowledged the concept of the jinchuriki. But the village as a whole, was decidedly not. He hadn't seen such a forthright act of kindness to the boy outside of the Sandaime's care. The villagers that did understand the difference between prisoner and cage were too fearful of the prisoner or the other villagers' criticism to do anything that could be seen as too friendly. This oddly didn't seem to trouble the boy.

The child responded to the pat with a smile, a stiff smile. To anyone else it would've looked like the child was given a life time supply of sweets. To anyone whose lives were filled with masks and fronts, along with an open mind, would see the slight stiffen of forcibly relaxed muscles and the slightly bigger then necessary smile. While Itachi had a mask of indifference, the young one had the exact opposite. It was slightly startling to see a kid no older then his younger brother, Sasuke, so easily bring up a façade. An unnervingly refined mask that someone of even Ibiki's status wouldn't catch. Ibiki had caught onto his mask when he was younger, when his mask was still incomplete.

He had thought he had masks perfected, he certainly surpassed Kakashi-san in the art. But he felt inexperienced and silly when he saw the young kid's mask. He couldn't even see it anymore, it had been a split second of a hardly noticeable delay. A delay either out of surprise, inexperience, or out of practice.

Itachi turned back one last time toward the kid, only to see the jinchuriki glance at him out of the corner of his blue eyes. His grin curling a little more around the edges before he laughed loudly at something the jounin had said.

The kid had known he was there. Itachi had been obscured by the dense tree branches with his chakra completely suppressed.

* * *

><p>Naruto trailed behind Emiko and the other children. His wide grin up in all its megawatt glaring glory. He had sensed the Uchiha before he had even gotten near the park. He could recognize that chakra, surpassed or not, anywhere. So distinct and odd that even in the first Timeline he could recognize it easily. (he wasn't exactly much of a sensory type before the 3rdTimeline) The boy's chakra wasn't tamed, nor was it wild. It wasn't frigid and stony or heated and passionate. It was more like an ember, something that could be calmed into nothing or sent up into a fiery inferno of doom. Compassionate and valued the lives it effected. Friend or enemy. Naruto smirked on the inside, Itachi really was a pacifist by nature…unless it came to Sasuke's safety.<p>

He had sensed that feeling of curiosity from Itachi; he was confused by the blonde, Naruto knew. And when Itachi didn't know or understand something, he would go through strange lengths to figure it out. Shikamaru had been much the same; probably some geniuses' curse. They became obsessive until they got an answer or several good conclusions.

Naruto felt eyes bore into the back of his head. He tilted his head up, hands resting casually behind his head. A shadow of a shadow moved across the roof.

Naruto chuckled under his breath, "and so it begins."


	6. Chapter 5

**Esparia: Woo, I scrambled to do this chapter. Like, WHOLY MACARONI PENGUINS, I have a chapter due and I was planning on slipping a special Itachi POV chapter between the ones I had posted and written up...AHHH!**** And then it was all… "Esparia…wake up, you have school today." And I was all like "What is the conspiracy?!" So then I panic and type all this and it's a day late and…*cries***

**Itachi: *looks up from "The Art of Peace"* ...you finished, did you not? **

**Esparia: Yes, I did.**

**Itachi: Then there is not reason to get so worked up. *turns page***

**Esparia: Well, I guess.**

**Itachi: I belive my otouto is coming. *looks at screen* Farewell readers. *poofs away***

**Sasuke: *opens door* Esparia. Did I hear my nii-san's voice in here?**

**Esparia: Nope.**

**Sasuke: Disclaimer?**

**Disclaimer: Itachi isn't owned by Esparia. Nor is he owned by the rabid fangirls. Esparia doesn't own the Art of Peace****…that's owned by Morihei Ueshiba****, though she's planning on buying a copy. She doesn't own Naruto or any of the Naruto Characters, this is a work of fiction, any corrilation to real events is purely coincedental...or intentional.**

**Sasuke: That wasn't what I meant.**

Chapter Five

Memoirs of a Pacifist

May 24th, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

Uchiha Itachi, a name I haven't thought about since the 4th Timeline. I myself was never very close to Itachi-san. In the first Timeline he was killed as a missing-nin when I was around sixteen. Once I became the seventh hokage, I gained access to secret files and other such things. I learned of Itachi-san's involvement with the massacre. In the 2nd Timeline I had tried bringing him back from exile, sadly this was proven impossible due to a terminal repertory illness. My 3rd and 6th Timeline never gave me time to bring him back, and in the 5th Timeline it was outright impossible to do anything normal from the inside of ROOT.

Itachi-san (in his weakened state) tried killing Sasuke when Orochimaru took over his brother's body. It was a rather pitiful ending for the man.

The man boy seems to have taken an odd interest in my existence. I have no idea why. Perhaps the butterfly effect from befriending Emiko. Maybe I'll befriend Itachi-san, he'd make a valuable ally, Itachi-san could also provide information on- I'm writing to much sensitive information to be left in a notebook. Even if this is specially sealed.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

–

Uchiha Itachi was usually described in many different types of praise. Ranging from a genius prodigy child by adults to a hot hunk by his rather disturbingly large group of fans, then there was all the things in between. He generally ignored the flattering words, but one can only take so much without getting a little more then annoyed.

Uchiha Itachi also had an equal amount of spite projected towards him. From "stuck up little boy" to "cold merciless clan killer", not that he had gotten that this far into the 7th Timeline...but it was said at one point. He also generally ignored this, but once again, one can only take so much before needing to let out pent up steam.

Uchiha Itachi was most certainly an Uchiha. His dark, almost black, eye color that could light into the fiery bloody red of the Sharingan was a sure sign of his status. Pale skin, black hair, and stature were lesser signs of his heritage. Also, it is pretty hard to miss the massive white and red Uchiwa sewn all over his clothes. Hard to make a reputation for yourself when your clan's is already written all over you.

Uchiha Itachi, a proclaimed genius, passive to the point of appearing cold and stuck up, heir to the Uchiha Clan, rival to ego damaged ninja, feared by enemies, obsessively loved by _certain_ people, deceptively patient, and just plain confused.

Confused? When did the elite resident genius ever become confused, you ask? Well let me tell you, this was by far no common occurrence to Itachi. For most things he could figure out the problem within minutes, if not seconds. Sometimes a rather hard puzzle would make itself known and Itachi would take a few days to ponder it over before either finding the answer or a good guess. But for the last week, he's been stumped over none other then the blonde ball of energy that was currently skipping stones.

Now skipping stones isn't that weird for a kid, it's actually quite common for children to compete to see who could skip stones the farthest. However, for the past week, from what Itachi had observed the kid below his tree branch was anything but common. Uncommon didn't even begin to cover the kid's weirdness. It wasn't even a weirdness the blonde had. No, it was more like an unnaturally massive amount of unpredictability and surprises pent up into a tiny little body. This unpredictable skill of stone skipping up downhill flowing creeks was really just a small inkling of the surprises Itachi had been given the past week. After seeing the kid in the park notice him, Itachi had taken to following the kid to see if he really did notice or if it was merely a fluke the kid looked his way. It had proved to be most certainly not a fluke as Itachi watched him.

At first he had thought perhaps the kid was a spy under a henge, a quick glance with the sharingan proved that theory wrong. Which he was thankful for, what village would lose their jinchuriki to a puny spy implant?

Itachi couldn't watch the kid all the time, of course, but he would make occasional visits and question a few people about the boy. What he found was annoying and disconcerting. Annoying because no one that was on a personal level with the kid (Emiko-san, Saratobi-Hokage-sama, and Nobuo-senpai) would really reveal anything of significant importance, and passerby civilians/ninja would only share gossip. He didn't even bother with the Anbu around him, it would be more productive talking to brick walls and waiting for a reply. He had gone to the orphanage a few days back to ask the kids, see if they overheard or saw anything. What he got instead wasn't what he was looking for but interesting none the less.

–

_Itachi was overlooking the playing children at the orphanage. They were laughing and smiling like they didn't have a care in the world, at that age he was training and getting migraines from the pressure his father put on him. He grew up during the end of the Second Shinobi War and witnessed the Kyuubi no Kitsune attack, to a mere child it was bound to alter his psych. He was never considered 'ordinary' but perhaps it wouldn't have been so horribly different if he had been born afterward. How odd that he would never fully understand what it was like to be a carefree child. His cool gaze shifted to a small blonde boy. Another unordinary child. Most children would try their hardest to get friends, to be included, and to play games to their hearts content. While the jinchuriki did try to befriend everyone in sight, he didn't try to be included into the other children's games. His pranks were, as far as Itachi had seen, the only playful interaction the boy had with the other children. The jinchuriki was very skilled in pranking, whether that was a good thing or not had yet to be seen._

_The blonde jinchuriki, as he was, hadn't looked up for the duration of Itachi's "Stake Out". He seemed to find more interest in scratching nonsensical patterns in the ground with a stick, perhaps trying to imitate the kanji the boy had seen. If so, they were pretty poor imitations._

_The other children completely ignored the blonde kicking dust over the scratches he made before continuing. Itachi then got an idea. He silently hopped out of his tree before he made the signs for a henge. A poof later a short, brown haired, dull eyed child replaced him. Freckles dotted his cheek bones and nose. He looked about five or maybe six years old. With his new age in mind, he wandered into the children's line of sight._

_One boy with spiky brown hair noticed him first and waved him over._

"_Hey you! Yeah, you. Do you want to play with us?"_

_Itachi shifted 'uneasily' before trotting over to the small group of boys._

_The others in the yard were looking at Itachi before either wandering closer to meet him or going back to what they were doing. The jinchuriki glanced up before going back to his scratching._

_Itachi introduced himself and the others followed suite. A fame of ball was quickly established and they began to play, for Itachi this was one of the few times this had happened and couldn't help but enjoy himself. After a short while he began his questioning, the real reason he was there in the first place._

"_Who's that boy over there?" He had asked the group while pointing at the lone jinchuriki, "he looks lonely."_

_The assumed leader of the group looked over to where Itachi was pointing before he replied, "Oh, that's Naruto. Most of the adults don't like him too much, they'll often tell you not to play with him."_

"_Why?" Itachi asked, attempting to make his voice sound as childlike as a possible._

_The boy shrugged, "They say he's a bad influence and dangerous to be around. He isn't that bad, too many pranks maybe, but he hardly acts dangerous. Unlike that evil cat... Anyway, he's just really annoying and stupid. You're not from around here so it's okay you didn't know. Just don't play with him, your Kaa-san might get angry."_

_Itachi tilted his head and eyed Naruto, "He doesn't seem annoying."_

_A kid with broken glasses pipped up, "you can't really tell all the time, but you can try talking to him. But he's a little weird, just saying."_

_Itachi made a rather good "confused child" face when he echoed, "weird?"_

"_Uh-huh," a black haired kid nodded, "he talks funny, kinda like how jiji did before he died."_

"_He talks like an elder?" Itachi asked in bemusement, from what few interactions he had seen the kid dish out, they hardly seemed like something an elder would say._

"_Eh, sometimes. Other times he is just a retard," a boy with black hair said._

_The proclaimed leader smacked the black haired boy upside the head. "That's a bad word, we don't say it," the boy chided the black haired boy, "Try again."_

_The black haired boy rolled his eyes before saying, "Of course Okaa-san, whatever you say Okaa-san!" Looking over at Itachi he said, "He really can be an idiot though. Like one moment you'll have a super genius and the next you're talking to a complete idiot. Almost like he has that...what do you call it...split personality? Bipolar? Something like that. But you can only really see it up close."_

_A small boy mumbled, "you could try talking to him yourself...you can rejoin the game afterward..."_

"_Hm," Itachi replied before making his way over to Naruto, whom was busily scratching away at the dirt in front of him. The kids didn't know much in the line of facts, not that they should have or that he was expecting them to. But you'd be surprised how much a child knows in the line of perception and observation, adult were also more lax when talking and thinking the kid didn't know what they spoke of._

"_Hello," Itachi said when he came up to the blonde._

_Naruto blinked up at him, "hello, is there something you want?"_

_Kids around the yard glanced over to the pair from time to time before continuing their play and ignoring them._

"_A-ah, no," Itachi stuttered out, trying to keep up a curious kid like persona, "you were all by yourself...so..."_

_Naruto smiled, "do you want to sit?" The blonde patted the ground to the left of him, his stick discarded infront of him._

_Itachi settled down by Naruto with grace that would make a cat green with envy and no notable sound._

_They were quiet for a moment before Naruto chirped happily, "It's nice outside today, isn't it?"_

_Itachi murmured an agreement; the boys he had been playing with resumed their game._

_Naruto tilted his head up, smiling at the sky. Itachi sat silently by the blonde and observed the boy's actions._

_Naruto looked over at Itachi, "you have a question in your eyes."_

_Itachi inwardly started; well there was that perceptive elder talk the boys had mentioned. He nodded to Naruto's question, "why are you alone?"_

_Naruto hummed and seemed to think for a moment before replying, "Because, I have no one to talk with."_

_Naruto's response processed through Itachi's brain, few children talked "with" anyone, most children talked "to" people. Underneath the underneath. Itachi eyed him in interest, "But aren't you lonely by yourself?"_

"_I suppose," Naruto said, "but not as lonely as you."_

_Itachi's eyes snapped to the blue eyes that seemed oh so very old. The blonde smiled gently, and for the first time in a long time, Itachi felt like someone could see him. Someone knew him._

"_I am not alone, how am I lonely?" Itachi asked, perhaps a little, itty bitty, tiny whiney bit uncertain._

_Naruto looked back up at the blue sky, wisps of clouds moving lazily across the sky. Naruto sighed, "Loneliness is more complicated then simply being alone. Humans need to be connected in some shape or form. It's a basic need to be filled, to be connected, to care. Perhaps even more basic then food, water, or shelter. While those help your body stay alive, care keeps your spirit alive and healthy. Some don't get that care and lose themselves, they die inside. A person can be surrounded by people, they can be the most popular person in the world, but if they aren't cared for they are no better off being isolated."_

_Itachi waited for Naruto to continue, but the boys didn't seem interested in continuing. Naruto picked up his stick and began scratching the dirt again with indecipherable glyphs._

"_I have a family," Itachi tried prompting._

"_I had a family," the boy responded, making a few flowing marks in the dirt._

"_Is that hard?" Itachi asked, unsatisfied with the response. Kids had a hard time shutting up, and usually gave a lot more information then you needed._

"_It doesn't feel good to lose your family, but you make room to make a new family." Naruto said, kicking the dirt clear of scratch marks._

"_You want to be adopted?" Itachi asked, assuming that's what the boy meant._

"_No," he responded, "that's not the type of family I want."_

_Itachi was confused; the boy seemed to contradict himself._

"_I want to build my family from the precious people I will meet. Those are who my family will be, besides," Naruto said looking up with a grin, "no one would dare adopt the future hokage in fear their neighbors get to jealous of my awesomeness!"_

_Itachi smiled a bit, feeling bad for the ignorant boy. He looked down at the scratch marks the boy was making. "What are you doing?"_

"_Ah, organizing an idea," Naruto said, before kicking the scratches into nothing._

_Itachi didn't know what to make of that so let it be. His blonde partner looked up at the sky with a tired sigh. Naruto watched the fast moving clouds cross the upside down ocean._

"_A storm is coming," Itachi heard Naruto say more to himself then to Itachi._

_Itachi looked up and wondered if the blonde jinchuriki was talking about something more then the weather._

_With a sigh he got up and brushed off his pants, "It's getting late, I have to go home for lunch or else my okaa-san will be angry."_

_Most of the other kids had already gone inside to eat their lunch._

"_See you later Naruto-san," Itachi waved._

_Naruto smiled and waved at his retreating figure, "bye shinobi-san, hope your Okaa-san doesn't get mad if you're late."_

_Itachi paused and looked over at the blonde. Naruto also got up and was brushing dirt off his shorts._

_Narutot smiled at him and said, "It was fun talking with you, feel free to drop by any time you want."_

_Itachi just stared._

"_Tell Hokage-jiji I said "hi" if he asks. Ah! Better get lunch if I want any! Ja ne!" Naruto dashed into the orphanage._

_What an interesting kid._

Itachi had been roused from his thinking when he released the sound of skipping boulders couldn't be heard anymore. He looked back down at Naruto, who was cradling something in his hands.

Itachi flowed a bit of chakra to his ears, enhancing them to hear what the blonde was saying.

"-you'll grow to be big and strong. Don't worry what all the others say; even if you can't hop or swim like they do, there are other ways to do it. Why, I remember when Gamakichi lost a leg to that punk Uchiha. May his plans burn in a pit of Amaterasu and angry Senju decedents. He had the worst time moving around, he wasn't a frog like you, he was a toad- is a toad. He was real sad he couldn't move around the way he used to, because he was so used to how he moved. But he learned how to move about. In fact, he learned how to move so fast, he ended up being the fastest toad out there. So just because you were born with a missing leg doesn't give you a free ticket to giving up. The ones that go through the hardest things and make it out are the strongest. So here's what you do. Tilt yourself so you sort of hop at an angle, your back leg should be centered to about…there. You'll gain more muscle, but if you learn how to channel your chakra- er, inner energy into your back leg, you'll be hopping five times the speed of any other frog. Swimming? Ah, try making either your hind leg move up and down like a beaver tale or you could try spiral swimming. Its fast but tiring."

Itachi moved to a higher branch to look down at the frog in Naruto's hands, a small thing that didn't look like it had a chance at surviving. But he wasn't about to interrupt the kid's pep talk. Even if it was aimed at a frog. The question stood as to how the kid knew about the Uchiha's black flames. Someone, he decided, was being lose tongued about clan secrets. Itachi mentally noted to investigate any leaks.

Naruto carefully deposited the three legged frog in the shallows, it's tiny feet hung to the overhanging grass blades. It croaked a little before hopping into the water.

Naruto smiled and knelt down beside it, "Yeah, see you later Haracha-chan. Keep an eye on the place while I'm gone, I'm expecting you to dominate the stream by the time I come back."

The frog gave a out a confirmed croak before leaping into the creek's cool waters. Naruto knelt at the water's edge for a good minutes before he said, "Is there something you want, Shinobi-san?"

Itachi leapt down beside Naruto, coming face to face in his true form for the first time. Naruto tilted his head up to look at Itachi, a smile firmly in place.

"Naruto-kun," Itachi said in a monotone.

Naruto sat back on his haunches and patted the forest floor beside him, "you want to know something."

Itachi sat beside the boy, a little perturbed that he was so easily read. He did want to know something, and it wasn't the answer to the blonde enigma.

They sat quietly, the only sounds were the creek's trickling waters, the soft breeze gently caressing the leaves, and the comforting symphony of the songbirds. The sun dappled the forest floor, shifting and changing like a kaleidoscope when the wind made the leaves dance. The cool smell of earth and clean water when one inhaled, delicately enhanced by the wildflowers. And for a moment, all Itachi could feel was the serenity of nature untainted by the problems of man.

Itachi looked over at Konoha's jinchuriki, his eyes were closed and a small smile rested on the blonde's face. Breeze brushing by his sunlight like hair. Itachi closed his eyes, a peaceful smile making its way onto his own tired features. Perhaps Itachi would never understand the jinchuriki, but that was alright. Few stopped to feel the world around them, not just the pained experiences...but the beauty, the feeling of being alive. For that, he too let himself stop, because someone else knew.


	7. Chapter 6

**Esparia: ****Hey guys, here's the original chapter five that was replaced by Itachi's special.**

**Itachi: *closes "The Art of Peace"* ...I'm curious to see what your planning for me.**

**Esparia: Not telling.**

**Itachi: *stands up* Just don't do anything creepy. *walks out door***

**Esparia: Okay...I guess...what does he consider creepy? I mean the dude was comrades with a few loose screws.**

**Sasuke: *opens door smileing***

**Esparia: No.**

**Sasuke: I didn't even say anything.**

**Esparia: Everyone know that when Uchiha Sasuke smiles, doom is sure to follow.**

**Sasuke: It is not.**

**Disclaimer: ****Esparia owns very few things. The Naruto franchise is not one of them. Peace! *holds up peace sign and walks away***

**Doom: Yo, readers. Waz up?**

**Esparia: *raises eyebrow* You were saying Sasuke?**

**Sasuke: ...**

Chapter Six

Friends in Odd Places

June 11th, Fifth year of the 7th Timeline,

Kurama and I have an interesting relationship. Kurama never remembers past Timelines, not a big surprise really if you consider some things, but once I bring him up to speed he's a fairly tolerable fox...chakra...thing. Sometimes we will get along great, other times he's stuck hating mankind until I switch.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>Naruto was lying down outside the orphanage looking up at the paling sky. It was early morning, and light clouds were just visible in the morning light. The green grass was tickling his back.<p>

He was contemplating things any other four year old would never dream of thinking. Not because it was gruesome, hardly, more then anything it was boring nonsense they usually left to adults. Such as trying to recall where the best deals on rice were, or what times the indifferent worker had his shifts at. Planning ways to pay the overpriced bills on rent and trying to remember where the nice old lady lived before she died. It was those sort of things he was thinking about that would make any Yamanaka trying to get into his mind cry in boredom. It was that bad.

He was turning five soon, and it was around this time he usually got kicked out and sent to his own apartment. Some imbecile (that wasn't himself) always ended up burning a good chunk of the kitchen down. So being a stacked amount of accounts about his "destructive nature" he was seen to be a danger to the other kids and moved to another location. From what he could tell the Sandaime was pressured into the decision early, but Naruto was pretty sure the relocation was just as much meant for his safety as it was for the facility's.

However Naruto had a problem, he couldn't remember where the nice old lady that gave him bread lived. He would need the extra food, because the social worker that would be in charge of his money was a jerk with no moral code against keeping an orphaned jinchuriki's money. A social worker that the Hokage chose took care of his finances up until he was old enough to learn (and got good enough at doing) simple mathematics. He would be eight when he was fully in charge of his groceries and toiletries, and ten when he started doing the rent.

Needless to say, he wasn't awful at math even in the first Timeline. Though when he showed signs of exceeding the standards in mathematics in the second Timeline, his grades were unfairly weighted and changed to the point it was impossible to get a good grade unless he aced it. They even went so far as to give him, technically an academy student, math tests with problems you would only be able to solve if he took civilian advanced mathematics, such as Algebra. Not about to be played, he played the teachers by studying higher forms of math to destroy their tests. He had a little to much fun pulling their legs in the second Timeline and ended up being considered a high level threat to the village when he was correctly answering Calculus and Analysis questions. He was 'too smart'. That was a pain to deal with so he just decided to avoid it every other time, going as far as to play the deadlast, like his first Timeline, but even worse then he was originally. Sure he had had the worst grades in Timeline one, but he wasn't exactly stupid. He just didn't get the chances others got and he was preoccupied on getting extra money for food and coupon clipping like an old lady. Not that anyone would tutor him until Iruka got on good enough terms with him. Timeline two would've had him on the top of the class, but everyone trusted him even less at that point…even Iruka-sensei. But act the idiot even more, not that his grades would matter in saving the world anyway, and then suddenly everyone thinks they can pull things over on you. They feel confident, powerful. People liked feeling powerful, it was just something that made them feel safe. And if they felt safe around him enough to pull things over the monster, he was happy that they were reassured enough that they were safe. If they never saw what a true monster was, then he would be thankful that they would be able to live in peace. Peace where only he, someone who wouldn't harm them, was the only monster.

It was then he heard a big boom.

Naruto smiled, "Well it looks like the chicken spontaneously combusted and blew up half the kitchen. I wonder if I'll be blamed for that."

"NARUTO!" An enraged voice screamed from the kitchen.

Naruto tilted his head, "I think that might be a yes."

Naruto hopped up from his spot on the grass and ran toward his room, where he was when it first happened in the first Timeline. It was there that the staff marched into his room and pulled him out. He hung limp as they dragged him away to the Hokage's office, some staff following. Dragging a boy brought attention from the people in the streets, especially since the kid was the Kyuubi no jinchuriki. A mob slowly began to form, many had already seen or heard the small explosion. He saw Emiko run out of the orphanage and make eye contact just as he was swallowed up by the crowed.

* * *

><p>Saratobi was happily finishing the last paper that was once part of the White Tower of Despair and Doom. With a flourish he signed his name, stamped it, and set it on top of the White Tower of Joy and Freedom. Ah yes, now he could finally read that book Jiraiya sent him.<p>

"Tak-tak-tak," came an annoying sound from his office door.

Saratobi frowned and slid the book back in the bottom drawer. "Yes, come in."

"Hokage-sama! A mob outside requests permission to see you," a chunin said.

"Did they say what about?" he asked, but internally thought, _'why must it be today? I just want to read. Why world? Why?"_

"Eh, it's about Uzumaki Naruto," the chunin said.

"Let three through, I'm afraid I can't fit a mob in my office," he said, pulling out his pipe and casually lit it.

"Hai Hokage-sama!" the chunin exclaimed and bowed before scurrying out of his office.

"Why today, Naruto? Why today?" he bemoaned under his breath.

Two of the orphanage's people, the head caretaker and the cook came in with a firm grip on a small boy. The boy seemed grumpy about being hauled by the imposing women but other then that, unconcerned.

"Hokage-sama! We request that this boy be relocated. He is a menace to the orphanage, has repeatedly destroyed and contaminated our food, he has harassed the other children and workers repetitively," the head caretaker growled, "he just finished blowing our kitchen to smithereens."

"So that's what the mushroom cloud was about," an ANBU whispered to himself, which only the Hokage, Naruto, and a startled cricket heard.

The Hokage was about to tell the women that he was not going to move Naruto, until he was of the right age when another woman burst into the room.

"Emiko," the caretaker said in surprise, "why aren't you with the children?"

Emiko shifted her feet, "because…because this one needs me more."

"What," the head caretaker growled.

Emiko flinched, "The others are being taken care of by Riki, and I'm not really needed there."

The caretaker raised an eyebrow at the young girl. Her displeasure at her was evident in her eyes. The caretaker had been keeping an eye on the girl ever since she had started showing signs of kindness to the demon brat. She was sure that the brat had managed to contaminate the poor thing's mind. It wasn't Emiko's fault that she was defending _it_. No, it was certainly not her fault for being put under some form of mind control.

Emiko sighed, "Naruto-kun isn't at fault for the explosion. It was mine. You don't need to move him, Hokage-sama."

"Oh?" Saratobi said, looking between the four people in front of his desk.

Naruto shifted his weight, his arms were losing feeling from bad blood flow. Why was Emiko sticking her neck out for him _now_, he needed to be on his own.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Emiko said.

Naruto huffed, he didn't like being blamed for things he didn't do. But out of all the times, this one was important to be blamed on him. How else is he supposed to get out of that place early? He didn't do all those pranks for nothing.

"Naruto-kun?" The Hokage prodded, startling Naruto out of his thoughts.

"Hmph, did you know that frozen chicken explodes when you cook it in boiling oil?" Naruto asked, of course he wasn't the one to do it, and he never claimed he did, but good old Jiji would assume it was him…hopefully.

Saratobi blinked, "no I didn't. I wonder why that is."

Naruto tilted his head, "I think it has something to do with rapidly expanding water molecules."

The cook looked at her Hokage than at the _thing_.

Naruto hummed, "yeah, water particles."

Emiko shifted her weight, unsure of the situation before her.

The Hokage noticed and tapped out his pipe before folding his hands. He looked at the two angry women, the nervous girl, and the tricky jinchuriki. He sighed before saying, "I would like to talk to Naruto-kun alone."

The three females bowed and left the room.

The door closed and Saratobi looked down at the hyperactive blonde, "…Naruto."

"Jiji," Naruto grinned.

Saratobi pinched the bridge of his nose, "Did you really set the kitchen on fire?"

"I've set it on fire," he replied bobbing his head, and notably avoiding the real question. Granted he wasn't lying about setting it on fire, it just wasn't like he set anything on fire this Timeline. Well, his fire manipulation never was the best.

"But not this time specifically. You're willing to take the blame, this time, for something you didn't do," the Sandaime said.

"Yep," Naruto chirped happily, letting his attempt at dodgeing the old man's words go.

**((Esparia: Letting it go... *idea* Let it go, let it- Sasuke: NO! *attacks with duct tape* Esparia: Weh eh guuuh. Sasuke: *drags Esparia into closet* Esparia: Cah ho eh bach anah mooooh! Sasuke: *locks closet door and walks away* Esparia: ...ah, Saskah. Ooh no fuhn. Sasuke: *looks at reader* There, I saved your pathetic beings from the horrors of an overly popular disney song.))**

He sighed, he was doing that a lot ever since Naruto came into the picture. Saratobi knew that as Hokage he had to assess and solve the issues that came to him fairly and justly. Now normally the problem was all the lies spewed at him. Naruto never was one to lie to him, he apparently knew how awful his lying skills were or that they wouldn't get him anywhere. But the boy almost always put up a fight when being dragged before him.

"Why are you willing to take the blame, Naruto-kun?" He asked.

Naruto put on a thinking face before smiling and said confidently, " 'cause Caretaker-san wants me to go away."

"Naruto-kun…I'm sure she doesn't mean that she wants you to go away, she is just stressed with your pranks." Saratobi said.

Naruto pouted, "But I want to leave."

Saratobi raised an eyebrow, "Oh?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded, "I wanna live on my own, they mean there. Not Emiko-san, she is nice. But no one really wants me there, me neither."

He looked over his shoulder to the door and then whispered, "the food is icky too."

"Oh Naruto," Saratobi said with a sad note in his voice.

"Please, Jiji!" Naruto jumped up on the Hokage's desk, "I really, really, _really _want to live on my own."

"Let me talk to someone first, Naruto-kun. Could you wait outside my door for a moment," Saratobi asked.

"Mmm-Hmm," Naruto dashed out of the room and shut the door with a bang.

"Itachi-san," the Hokage said to the empty room.

A shadowy figure stepped into being, "Hokage-sama?"

"What do think of Naruto living in an apartment by himself?" he asked the young man.

"Hokage-sama?"

"You've been keeping an eye on him, have you not?" the old man said.

"I have," Itachi said, "he seems at ease when left alone. He isn't troubled by others' reactions and responses to him. He understands a great deal of what is told to him. Over all, he is a very independent and caring child."

"Isn't troubled you say," Saratobi murmured under his breath.

* * *

><p>Naruto sat across from the two women that took him in to see Jiji-sama, and sat next to Emiko, who was probably going to lose her job after the stunt she just pulled.<p>

Naruto was fairly sure that his status as lone wolf bachelor was guaranteed to be renewed in this Timeline. Not that he didn't like the married life, hardly, he rather enjoyed it those few years. _'But it's not like I could marry her again without feeling like a sugar daddy or a cradle robber,' _Naruto shivered, _'Bad thoughts, moving on.'_

No, he would live the rest of his life/lives as a bachelor. Living alone in a world was better then living with remade friends in a world destined to be destroyed. Heh, then again he wasn't truly alone, but his company wasn't exactly what one would call normal. Then again, who was normal? Speaking of not so normal friends, he had one to remake.

Naruto closed his eyes and began wander his mindscape, _'Sewers, why does it always go back to sewers when I slip back?'_

Naruto sloshed through the murky water, humming a little ditty the fox once taught him. Apparently Hagoromo, when he first split them into the nine little beasties, sung them to sleep at night. Can you imagine how cute it was to have nine big intimidating babies fall asleep around you as you sung? Apparently being good with kids was genetic.

By the time Naruto got to Kurama's cage, soft snores were echoing the halls of his mind.

"_Wakey, Wakey, Kurama-kun," _he said. His voice disturbed the fox slightly, who rolled over with a slosh of sewer water muttering, _"Five more minutes, touchyan."_

* * *

><p>"Daddy? That's different," Naruto snickered in the outside world, gaining some worried looks from the three women watching him "meditate".<p>

"Do you think he's okay?" whispered one of the women.

Emiko shook her head, "he's probably just dreaming. Perhaps of having a father?"

The other women shrugged their shoulders, they didn't really care so much for the jinchuriki.

* * *

><p>"<em>Come now, Kurama-kun," <em>Naruto said, _"Don't you want to meet your new jinchuriki?"_

Kurama huffed, still half asleep, _"No. I wanna sleep."_

"_Come on you lazy fox, don't keep your new jinchuriki waiting," _Naruto nudged the fox with his consciousness.

Kurama startled awake at the foreign presence that prodded his chakra. He found what appeared to be a short yellow-haired human that fell in the range of about five to twenty. Kurama never was the best at judging human age, but this human seemed to be emitting confusing mental images, so who could blame him?

The giant fox looked down at the short human kid, realizing it was his new jinchuriki he decided he'd try to scare it. Humans were so much fun to scare. _**"So my warden decided to visit his prisoner," **_he growled, adding his telepathic voice to his own, making him sound louder and more haunting.

"_Something like that," _The kid yawned, the human had the audacity to yawn, _"more like reestablishing some things before the world gets too chaotic."_

"_**What do you mean by this,"**_the giant fox questioned. The human, Kurama decided, was a crazy one, not so much as a cringe in fear from the massive amount of Killing Intent he was radiating. Something was obviously wrong with the thing's psych.

"_I, my dear fuzzy-butt, am in the process of saving the world from an unfortunate demise," _Naruto said,_ "I have managed to get myself into a position that's been making me repeat my life a few times now. I've come from varies futures and need your help."_

Kurama thought over what the boy said before he replied,_** "I am assuming that since you have the audacity to walk up to me, the giant fox demon-"**_

"_Which you aren't," _Naruto interrupted.

"_**Little human says what?" **_Kurama looked down at the human. It wasn't natural, he decided, for such a small thing to not assume him to be an evil incarnate monster.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, _"you're just a biju."_

"_Just a biju," _Kurama repeated dumbly, his telepathic echo completely faded away. Yep, his new jinchuriki was not right in the head, _"human-kit, even if you were from a future. Which I seriously doubt because your sanity is obviously damaged. What on this earth could have possibly made you think of me, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, as _just_ a biju."_

"_Try thinking along the lines of a rampaging ju__u__bi under a certain Uchiha's control destroying the world, you being one of my closest ally and you'll get my train of thought," _Naruto said.

"_Ha-ha, your so funny. Me, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the nine-tailed chakra beast, most powerful of the biju, and a natural disaster, siding with the humans?" _Kurama rolled his eyes, _"I hate all of humanity, yourself included…although I'm finding that I'm pitying you more than hate. Poor pathetic thing, how unfortunate I'd be stuck with an already mental human jinchuriki."_

"_Hmm, yeah, can't blame you for being unhappy as a tool or caged for that matter. Took a while, but we came to a sort of symbiotic relationship," _Naruto said, then paused, _"Seems someone needs my attention in the outside world, we'll talk more later. Ja ne, Kurama-kun."_

Naruto's conscious disappeared from his mindscape, leaving behind a stupefied giant fox, _"Human-kit knows my name."_

* * *

><p>Naruto was woken up and brought back into the Hokage's office. He got a few looks from the two older women and a soft smile from Emiko. He could only hope for the best.<p>

"Naruto-kun," the Hokage said, "I have discussed this with several people that have been watching over you. We have decided to move you to a secluded apartment. I will send shinobi on a regular basis to check up on you, and with your caretaker's permission, I am reinstating Shinai Emiko as a personal caretaker. Whom would be in charge of buying your basic needs and teaching you how to care for yourself. Is this agreeable?"

"Hai! Hokage-jiji," Naruto said, bouncing on the tips of his toes.

And thus, part one of Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto's plan for world domination- I mean, world salvation, was completed.

* * *

><p><strong>Director: Good show guys, keep it up and we'll be done before you know it.<strong>

**Sasuke: Escape? Mwahaha...**

**Naruto: Don't do that in public.**

**Cast and Crew: *leaves room***

**Random Crew Member: *turns off lights and locks door***

**Esparia: *in locked closet* ...Guhs? Hawoh? Hawoooh? *sighs* Stupeh Uhiwa. *looks at readers* Rehvoo an fohwoah...an fighn a keh tah opeh tah dooh. **


	8. Chapter 7

**Esparia: *sitting in closet* ****I wrote this…during finals. That has to count for something.**

**RCM: *trying to pick the closet's lock* Does it?**

**Esparia: No****, not really.**

**RCM: Oh… *eyes lock angrily***

**Esparia: Okay...****Disclaimer! You're up.**

**Disclaimer: ****Esparia does not own the Naruto franchise, nor it's concepts. She does, however, own her imagination that created this…along with whatever crazy theories she has come up with.**

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<p>

An Unbirthday Birthday

(Part One)

July 2nd, 5th year of the 7th Timeline,

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about going back in time is that you know things. You know how to do things that you shouldn't. You have knowledge that doesn't exist yet. You know what a person is going to do before they do themselves. You're alone in this knowing, and you can't help but be lonely and miss the people you grew close to in previous Timelines...but you also have new people. People that are just as precious.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

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><p>Naruto hummed softly as he made his bed, smoothing his goldenrod comforter and white sheets he paused. His blue eyes that had seen more then an outsider would believe, looked up out his bedroom's single window. The Hokage Monument's four face stared across the village with a cool detachment. Naruto couldn't help but feel the absence of the Godaime and Rokudaime's faces. He hummed a note to himself before returning to his cleaning. It had been about eight months since he had gotten his apartment back and he was being taught how to live independently. It was surprisingly Emiko who saw to him, not to say he didn't like it. Hardly, he actually enjoyed Emiko's presence. However she had gotten the unused apartment beneath his and wasn't afraid to visit his whenever she felt like it.<p>

She had taught him recipes so he would be able to make food for himself and that were healthy for his growing body. He had learned some of the recipes she taught him from Hinata, when Hinata was either his wife or close comrade. Emiko, however, did teach him some new ones that didn't require a stove to make. Emiko was set on not allowing him near the hotplate. She had taught him some cleaning and hygiene tips, that only a guardian of many children would know. She had taught him how to sew and mend his clothes, which would prove to be invaluable in the future.

With Emiko's help and lessons, Naruto learned more in cooking and general house maintenance then he had all his lives combined. Naruto planned on dropping by the library and getting a cookbook once he was able to make a long lasting henge. His chakra was no longer under good enough control where he could hold a henge for more then fifteen minutes. Which was pretty pathetic in comparison to his record year long henge in the second Timeline.

This lack of control was something Naruto was hastily working to correct. He hadn't been able to work with his chakra at the orphanage since there were too many prying eyes and loose tongued children. Since chakra usage was out of the question, he stuck to fixing his motor skills, coordination, dexterity, and fuuninjutsu script. Itachi had actually caught him working on a new seal that allowed the user to hear and translate the animal languages, sadly one could only understand what was being said. He had yet to figure out how to respond without using his entire body for the body language words, perhaps a telepathic image would work.

Naruto fluffed up his single pillow before tossing it back on his bed. With a sigh, he sat down on the floor. He reached under the bed for an empty scroll and brush. He leaned up into his bedside drawer and pulled out a sumi and pestle. With a small chakra flare he made a light genjutsu in case anyone looked through his windows or were listening in. With that in place he set to work.

Naruto ground and crushed part of the sumi until a small amount of fine black powder was at the bottom of the pestle. He lightly tapped at the side of the small bowl, bringing the larger pieces to the top. He then continued to grind the powder with practiced ease. Content with the black powder's consistency, he brought it into his small bathroom. He turned the tap on until a small dribble of water was flowing. Adding the right amount of water to the powder, he flipped the tap off.

He walked back into his room, gently stirring the ink. It wasn't by any means the best ink out there, but hey who was he to complain about free sumi sticks? That impatient apprentice gaka certainly was eager to rid himself of it, but throwing it out the window was a little extreme.

Naruto unfurled his scroll and smoothed it with a few heavy things to keep the scroll from furling. He dipped his brush into the black substance before precisely tapping out the excess liquid. Brush poised above paper he breathed in before releasing it. Then he furiously got to work on one of the most complicated designs created by man, a fuuinjutsu master would gawk and possible have a minor stroke at the level of mastery.

A few hours later he grinned, "At last, my ultimate masterpiece is complete! Let the world tremble at my awesome fuuinjutsu skills, mwahaha."

A knocking came from his front door, "Naruto-kun? You awake yet?"

Naruto's eyes widened as he glanced out his window. The sun's rays were slowly reseeding to the horizon. Emiko had put him down for a nap, which was apparently a normal routine for children his age, but had decided to use that time productively instead of sleeping. Naruto hastily slid his supplies under his bed before walking to the kitchen.

Naruto unlocked the door for Emiko, but after checking the chakra signature. He opened the door smiling, Emiko's softly returning his smile.

"I'm awake," he chirped.

"Good," Emiko said, hefting a bag in her arms, "I just got back from shopping and picked up some things to make koorizatou."

"Rock...candy?" Naruto echoed in confusion, doubt flickering in his eyes. He had never heard of such a strange thing. "Rock Candy", did it have rocks in it or what? But he couldn't help wondering if it was any good, since Emiko seemed excited about it. Though if it had dirt in it, he would not bring himself to once again eat the earth.

Emiko began heating up the water on the hotplate, while she busied herself by pulling out the things she bought from her bag.

Naruto watched her move around his kitchen with fascination, her movements direct and precise. One would almost think she was a ninja, if it wasn't for her civilian mannerisms radiating from her. He recognized some of the things she had like the sugar, the thread, and jam jars. He didn't know what she planned on doing with them, but he could easily think up several sticky situations he could make with them.

While he was musing on a few new pranks, Emiko glared at the water on the hotplate. After a short while Emiko gave up on it and sighed, "Your hotplate is broken. I'm going to go downstairs to get mine."

Emiko flipped it's switch off and walked to the door, she paused before exiting and gave a pointed look at Naruto, "Do not touch that hotplate, it will burn you. Understand?"

Naruto nodded quickly and waited for Emiko's footsteps to fade before going to the warm hotplate. Emiko said it was broken, but he remembered having that hotplate for most of his time living in the apartment. Though if it was broken, it sure explained why he could never get something to a boil. Naruto scrutinized the faulty kitchen appliance before turning the plate back one. He channeled some of his chakra into his hand, which soon began to faintly glow light baby blue. Satisfied with the amount he focused on it's pattern and began manipulating it until it turned into a bright indigo.

Naruto had discovered some very interesting things concerning chakra, the ever mysterious energy force. He had discovered how to imitate other forms of chakra and change his own to match a form of it. As example with his now indigo chakra, that imitated the electricity in cables and lightning in the natural world. Suffice to say, he found this on accident. He had been experimenting with chakra, not a good idea by any stretch of the mind, especially when you take into account all the things that could go wrong and who's idea it was. He found what he was looking for when he started, but with effects he hadn't known existed. Originally he was trying to change his chakra's color; why he wanted to do that? Honestly, who wouldn't want to look like they were leaking Kyuubi chakra and scare the living daylights out of your persistently tardy sensei? Ho-ho, did he enjoy watching Kakashi's face...1/4 of his face...panic. Those six days in solitary confinement were worth it; however rebuilding the desecrated bridge under Yamato's supervision was the deciding factor to never do it again. Fire chakra burned things, who knew?

And although red chakra, or more specifically, fire nature chakra was helpful in cooking, light, and demolishing bridges; Naruto found it was difficult for him to completely control. With his large reserve of chakra inclined to wind coupled with Kurama's natural fire chakra, the fire could, and often did, get easily out of hand if not watched over. Too much fire was dangerous to his and others' health, and he only recently mastered. May the 3rd Timeline's orphanage rest in pieces.

But he wasn't using fire based chakra here, he was using lightning. An equally powerful and dangerous force to reckon with, but fortunately for everyone around him, it was easier for him to control.

Naruto ran his electricity type chakra through the wires of the hotplate, with his eyes closed he could picture the electrical pathways or wires. He came to a wire not properly screwed on, making his chakra having to jump and disperse. Definitely a fire hazard, it was amazing that his apartment hadn't had any unfortunate fire accidents during any of the Timelines. Naruto drew in the excess energy from the hotplate, making the thing cool instantly. He would fix the wires later that night, it had been a while since he tinkered with things. His chakra returned to it's light blue before fading from existence.

And not a moment later, he heard a knock. Naruto let out a soft sigh and made his way back to the door, ready to let Emiko in. He paused, it wasn't Emiko's chakra behind the door. His eyes narrowed, it was too controlled, sharp and precise, didn't waste itself in unnecessary fluxes. It was a ninja. One he wasn't overly familiar with, but enough to push at his memory. Whether the ninja was an enemy or not was yet to be seen.

Naruto fingered a senbon in his sleeve, prepared for the worst case scenarios. He grinned and flung the door open. With blue eyes closed to almost squints, his smile grew at the sight of a familiar face.

"Oji-san!" he greeted the jounin, whose respectability was still tainted by his chunin self's misunderstanding.

"Naruto-kun," he smiled down at the blonde.

Naruto grinned and moved off to the side to let the man in, discreetly readjusting his senbon under his sweater.

Nobuo, the rather maternal shinobi, looked around his small kitchen space before asking, "Is Emiko-san here?"

Naruto's lips twitched towards a smirk before returning to his usual smile, "she's downstairs getting her hotplate. We're making koorizatou."

"Oh? That'll be fun, I used to do that as a boy," Nobuo said to Naruto, who was ironically and technically older then him.

Naruto hadn't seen much of the jounin, between Nobuo having his own life and his semi-secluded living conditions. But he could see a friendship growing between his two new friends, which pleased him. Naruto was never against making new friends, even if the new friends were once enemies. Emiko wasn't an enemy, per se, but she certainly didn't like him in the other Timelines. He didn't remember Nobuo from the other Timelines until he mentioned his name. He then remembered going through the KIA lists, to see who could potentially be a zombie soldier. He was KIA two years after his birth, a newly made jounin checking on a disturbance on the border with Rain as his first solo mission. It was believed a missing-nin killed him, but it was never confirmed.

Emiko walked in and saw the young jounin, she smiled and said, "Hello Nobuo-san, what brings you here?"

"Oji-san is making koorizatou with us!" Naruto exclaimed happily, with a wide grin stretching across his face.

"E-ee?" Nobuo looked down at the conspiring child, not that he could see the plotting going on behind Naruto's mostly innocent face.

"Really?" Emiko asked, looking at Nobuo.

"If that's alright," he responded hesitantly.

"The more the merrier," Emiko said, her tone shifting a bit with her happiness.

This seemed to relieve the shinobi's nerves, and the two began setting up what they were going to be using. Naruto watched them bring the water to a boil before removing it from the heat. They made measurements and carefully poured one cup (236 ml) of water into a jar and told him to pour three cups (710 ml) of sugar into the hot water, stirring a little to completely dissolve it. Emiko wetting a wool string and told him to cover it in sugar. He carefully did that and looked up at her expectantly.

Emiko face palmed, "I forgot a stick. Naruto-kun, do you have any extra chopsticks or pencils we can tie the string on?"

Naruto thought for a moment before shaking his head. He had only one set of chopsticks that weren't disposable and he couldn't use his paintbrush.

Nobuo took out a senbon needle and handed it to Emiko, "would this work?"

Emiko looked at it doubtfully for a moment before taking it. She examined the tips before pulling out a lopper from her bag.

Nobuo's and Naruto's eyes widened at the hedge trimmer that easily snapped off the ends of the senbon. Neither asked why she had a lopper in her bag.

She handed the mutilated senbon to Naruto, who took it and tied the end of the string to it.

Nobuo handed a paperclip to Naruto, "tie it to the other end, it'll help weigh the string down."

Naruto tied the paperclip, he carefully dropped the string and sinker into the hot sugar water, broken senbon resting on the top of the jar and string not touching the bottom.

He smiled at the two in contentment, it brought back a few good memories he had with Hinata. He shook his head and banished the thoughts from his head, his mood seemed to drop whenever he was pulled into the past. He couldn't have that happening when there were two perceptive people in the room watching him, or not watching him. They're eyes often strayed to each other.

Naruto coughed a bit to gain their attention, "How long 'til the candy is ready?"

Emiko and Nobuo looked each other before looking back at Naruto and saying, "About a week./One week should do it."

Naruto made a face, an entire week was a long wait for candy. The two smiled at his childish impatience, kids and their candy. Naruto then thought of something and tilted his head to Nobuo.

"Nobuo-oji, why did you come here?" Naruto asked.

The jounin's eyes widened, "that's right, I was here to tell you," Nobuo looked at Emiko, "needed to bring Naruto to the Hokage tomorrow."

"Oh, alright, thank you Nobuo-san," Emiko said.

"No problem, well, I better be off. Those missions won't do themselves. Ja ne." Nobuo said, with a wave he left the apartment.

"Bye," Naruto and Emiko chorused.

Naruto yawned before snapping his mouth shut to look up at Emiko, who was looking at him and said those oh so dreaded words, "Bath time, Naruto. Then it's strait off to bed with you."

"Ah," he whined a bit, both because Emiko had gotten strangely sisterly towards him and insisted on helping him with every thing; and because he was used to pulling all-nighters most Timelines, the concept was nearly nonexistent in his mind. Bed time, bah!

She picked him up and dropped him in the bathroom. She ran the water and added the bubble mix. She tested the water before giving it her approval.

When she first started taking care of him, he had been confused what the bubbles were for. There were so many he was sure he was going to drown in them. Death by bubbles would be the saddest death he'd have, maybe not so much if the bubbles were the angry chakra bubbles of doom from Kurama; but a soapy bubble death? How pathetic of the once Hokage. They smelled nice though, so he didn't complain...much.

After he was properly bathed, which was going to become an awkward memory when he got older and higher brain development took it's turn. He was dressed in his pajamas and sent off to bed. Emiko sang a little to him while rubbing his back, and he soon slipped off into the land of dreams; but not before thinking that maybe that this was what it would've been like to start off with a family.

–

Naruto bounded down his mindscape, he was waiting for Old Man Hokage to let him in, Emiko had dropped him off at the tower and went to return a book she borrowed from the library. While he waited for his Jiji to call him in, he decided to visit his mind. As strange as it sounded, he felt there was something important he was missing about the day. He couldn't quite figure out what it was, but it must've been important.

He cracked open a sealed door and peaked inside. It held all the memories from the First Timeline. Finding nothing he moved onto the other sealed doors, he continued to find nothing until he reached the eighth consecutive door. He didn't recognize it, and it wasn't sealed like his past six Timeline memories. He walked inside and looked around the bare room, he definitely didn't remember the room. It had a three desk against each adjacent wall, though they faced towards the middle of the room. A seventh desk faced him from the opposite wall. He glanced around suspiciously, he had a feeling he knew what the room's purpose was but he couldn't be sure.

He took a calming breath in, not that one could really breathe in a mindscape but it's the idea, and made his way to the opposite desk. He sat down and instantly the remaining six desks were filled with his doppelgangers. Each a varying age, ranging from his six year old self to his twenty-three year old self. Their apparel and appearance were all different, along with their general attitudes.

He said, looking about the room,_"so I take it that this is a room to specifically sort out all the Timelines and memories?"_

The other Narutos looked at each other before nodding.

He sighed, _"Any idea why this came up now? It would've been helpful in the other Timelines."_

His twenty three year old self twisted his wedding ring in thought before he said, _"I think all of my- our past Timelines were learning Timelines. Humans aren't perfect in any sense, we would mess up too much if we were given just one shot at fixing it. We didn't have any past experience with Time Travel-"_

"_Who does,"_ sniped his twelve year old self, massaging his left wrist,_"it wasn't like we knew what would happen if we changed things beyond our sight. It wasn't like we could ask around anyway, no one Time Travels and you all know how well it is to warn people."_

"_Well,"_ a thin and sickly version of himself quietly said, _"I learned not to mess to heavily, didn't we?"_

"_But if I don't mess with the Timeline, it'll end up like the original,"_ a nineteen year old battle scarred version of himself said, fingering a hole in his bloody armor.

"_We did pretty well before botching your Timeline, though we can't leave any threat untaken care of," _the sixteen year old said shuddering. His hand slid to his abdomen unconsciously.

"_But why now? We could've gotten things sorted out much faster if we could have done this earlier," _Naruto said, his seventh Timeline body fluctuating to different ages as each one talked.

No one spoke, since no one knew why they had such a room in their head. There was a heavy pause in conversation.

"_...I turned 100 today!"_ The six year old Naruto exclaimed, happily breaking the silence to add his share to the discussion.

"_Well...there is that,_" the nineteen year old said, _"Happy 100__th__ Birthday Naruto."_

"_Happy Birthday to you too, Naruto,"_ his six year old self replied, wiping a bloody mark on his forehead like one would wipe away sweat.

"_Triple digits, huh,"_ a small smile made its way onto the sixteen year old Naruto.

"_I could've been a great-grandpa by now..."_ his oldest self whispered, a mournful smile on his face.

"_Tch, who cares,"_ grumbled his gloomy twelve year old self, _"not like we have anything to show for our age."_

The pale Naruto dressed in a ROOT uniform glanced up, _"Someone's trying to wake us up, old man."_

"_You're insulting yourself,"_ grumbled the five year old Naruto, before closing his eyes and disappearing from his mindscape along with his split memories.

The Kyuubi no Kitsune sat in his cell in shock, having heard the whole thing echo through the human's mind. Shaking his head he chucked, _"That kit has issues."_

* * *

><p><strong>RCM: I give up, I can't pick locks. You're on your own Esparia.<strong>

**Esparia: Stupid Random Crew Member.**

**Naruto: So you're in a closet?**

**Esparia: …**

**Naruto: …**

**Esparia: ...What do you think?**

**Naruto: ...yes?**

**Esparia: Correct.**

**Naruto: Why is there rock candy sitting by the door.**

**Esparia: Pass me some through the crack.**

**Naruto: *shoves rock candy under closet door***

**Esparia: Hmm, *nibbles rock candy*, you know "koorizatou" more literally means ice sugar. But it's kanji is something along the lines of "freeze (koori) -sand (za/sa)-sugar (tou)" I thought about making a crack at the "ice sugar" but then no one would get it without explanation.**

**Naruto: *ignores readers and writer to consume large amounts of mass produced rock candy***

**Esparia: I guess that's it. See ya later folks! *salutes and goes back to eating rock candy***

**(Extra Note: If you've been following this story for a while now, you might not have understood the last scene too well. I have shortened and mathematically fixed the first chapter and prologue journal entries.)**


	9. Chapter 8

**Esparia: *still sitting in closet* Well this 100****th**** Birthday thing had to be split up, which was annoying. But oh well, you get to see some Chibi Sasuke action in here. Since I can't have it be too short...**

**Sasuke: *glances around nervously***

**Itachi: *picks up Sasuke by his shirt collar***

**Sasuke: AH!**

**Itachi: Come now otouto, there is a Deageing Machine with your name on it.**

**Sasuke: Let me down! Release me!**

**Itachi: If I have to do it, you have to do it.**

**Sasuke: *get's dragged away screaming* Help! *looks at readers* Don't let them take-**

***door slams shut***

**Disclaimer: Oookay, hello humans and not human. I am the disclaimer here to tell you that Esparia does not own the cast unless they are OCs, and she does not own the fandom's world. She's just using it for your entertainment and as a means to create a story. She does not own this website, nor does she own the comment option below. Which and where you readers can review to your hearts content.**

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><p>Chapter Eight<p>

An Unbirthday Birthday

(Part Two)

August 19th, 5th year of the 7th Timeline,

Sometimes I think back to the first Timeline, it's not like I want it back. Not after all that had happened to my family. Really, I don't think I'd like to survive any of those Timelines with being such a failure at fixing them. Simply put, I can't fix it. I can only help fix it...

I miss my family, I want them back. I'll get a version of them every Timeline, but they aren't mine. They won't remember those things, those experiences, we went through together. Sakura won't remember bleaching Sasuke's hair and switching all his dark clothing with neon green and purple. Sasuke won't remember helping me take down legions of Zetsus, and losing his eye in the line of battle. Kakashi won't remember becoming a...Godfather?... to Pakkun's first litter. He softened up after that, and I had thanked one of them for chewing apart Kakashi's perverted "literature". Lee wouldn't remember his wedding with Sakura, Tenten won't remember the after party where Neji proposed. Ino's friendship with Sakura won't go back to being fixed. Shikamaru won't remember his first born genius child. Choji, Kiba, and Shino won't remember becoming clan heads...although maybe I can help Kiba out a little more before that happens again...

I miss them.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

–

Naruto stood outside the Hokage's office, a little groggy from his trip to his mindscape. With a shake of his head he let his face crack into his hyperactive megawatt grin and burst through the door.

"Hey Old Man!" Naruto yelled as he flew through the door.

"Hello Naruto-kun," the Hokage said, gesturing to a seat, "please have a seat."

"Okay," Naruto said with a grin as he jumped into the chair and waited for the old man to continue.

The Sandaime puffed his pipe, before slowly releasing a smoke ring as he looked down at the bouncing child in front of his desk. After a few smoke rings and a lot of fidgeting later he finally asked, "How are things going on your own?"

"On my own?" Naruto asked, before stating in a very "matter of fact" way, "Jiji, Emiko-chan doesn't leave me on my own. She says it's dangerous for a kid to be alone."

"Do you like Shinai-san, Naruto-kun?" The Hokage asked gently, he wasn't afraid to admit to himself he thought Naruto was like a grandson to him. He didn't want anything bad to happen to his student's student's son. However with all the meetings and other important Hokage duties, he couldn't watch his crystal ball all the time. Since he couldn't be watching all the time, not very good things were bound to happen.

"Yeah! She's _really_ nice and teaches me how to make rock candies," Naruto said excitedly. But the he pouted and grumbled, "but she makes me take a bath with weird pink bubbles that smell funny and makes me go to bed early."

Saratobi chuckled, it seemed as if he had nothing to worry about. He felt assured that Shinai Emiko was taking care of the kid, it had come to light that the orphanage staff weren't the kindest to Naruto. It had worried him that Shinai Emiko had been a worker at the orphanage and seeing as she had taken an interest to Naruto, he couldn't help but worry her intentions weren't for the best.

"Why are you laughing Jiji? It's not funny. She doesn't let me sleep in my play clothes or eat ramen for breakfast!" Naruto exclaimed, crossed his arms, and puffed out his cheeks, "besides, why did you want me here? If it's about that lady with the pots, I swear it wasn't me. I don't go smashing pots for fun."

"I was just needing to make sure living on your own was turning out well," the Hokage said calmly before leaning forward and asking, "now what was that thing about broken pots?"

"Ah...nothing. Not important," Naruto said, looking away and grumbled to himself, "just because the culprit had blonde hair doesn't make it me. Who smashes someone's pots for fun anyway?"

Saratobi raised an eyebrow, before shaking his head dismissively, "alright, I'll believe that you didn't smash any pots. Before you go, is there anything you need for your apartment?"

"Hmm," Naruto thought for a moment, his hand on his chin, "could I get a notebook?"

Saratobi blinked in surprise and then narrowed them in suspicion, why would he want a notebook? The last time he let the kid get around paper, he had to go over at least a dozen reports of confetti going off in the middle of a class; even the ones outside the classroom had been confettied.

Naruto looked up at him hopefully.

"Why do want a notebook, Naruto-kun?" he asked carefully.

Naruto beamed and said proudly, "I wanna write in it, like Emiko-chan does before she goes to bed. Except I want mine orange not purple, purple is for girls. Blech!"

Saratobi smiled, Naruto wanted a journal then. The kid didn't know how to write, obviously, but wanted to be like a person he looked up to. That was something he couldn't say no to. He pulled open a drawer that had colored pencils, markers, stickers, and paper. He kept those things there for any little kids that waited in his office. He pulled out a blank notebook, fortunately it was orange. He grabbed a few pencils and held them out to Naruto. If his desk was once again filled with confetti reports, he promised to never give the kid paper again. Confetti itself isn't so bad, until you realize the confetti has so much static electricity it'll cling to everything.

Naruto's grin intensified at the gifts, "Thanks Jiji! Can I go now? Emiko-chan promised to take me to the park afterward."

"Sure, you can leave now. You don't want to keep Emiko waiting," Saratobi said and watched the kid bounce out the room.

"Okay, bye-bye Jiji!" yelled Naruto as he ran out the door.

Saratobi just chucked and shook his head before returning to the never ending paperwork.

–

Naruto laughed happily as he skipped by Emiko's side, orange notebook clutched to his chest and pencils in hand. For one reason or another, he'd always get the orange notebook on this day.

In the first Timeline it was because he was the only one to use it, so it had a bunch of scribbles from when he waited for an orphanage employee to pick him up. In the second Timeline it was a gift because he was feeling a little sad. In the third Timeline, the Hokage thought it would be therapeutic for him to draw out his angry thoughts; the notebook was disturbing to look at with the vast amounts of detailed deaths in it. He became a fairly good drawer in that Timeline. In the forth Timeline he asked to borrow a notebook, but was told he could keep it. He stole the fifth Timeline's notebook. He had been ordered to infiltrate the Hokage's office and collect information or risk termination in ROOT, you don't want to be terminated in ROOT. He had thought he could bring Jiji's attention to his distress note in one of the other notebooks if he stole a notebook. Surely a ninja as great as Saratobi would notice? Turned out some kid glitter glued the pages together that had been his distress note, his guess was that it was Konohamaru. The sixth Timeline had the notebook given to him to write down "key events" of his pasts. He probably shouldn't have said anything about the Timetravel, he really didn't get much done in that Timeline.

So now he had his notebook back, and what a perfect 100th Birthday present it was. He'd probably would make it into a journal, like what he did with the end of the sixth Timeline. It would have to be sealed of course, couldn't have any snoops or a crazy ROOT assassin poking around key events.

"Naruto-kun," Emiko hesitantly said, "are you sure you wanted to go to the park today?"

Naruto looked up at Emiko, he knew she was worried about the children being pulled away from him. Her eyes spoke more of her concern then she ever was willing to tell him. She knew it wasn't good for a child's mind to be so cruelly excluded, it caused psychological damage.

"Yup, I wanna play on the swings," Naruto said, "could you push me?"

Emiko smiled sadly, "Of course."

Emiko and Naruto soon arrived to the park, with Naruto pulling Emiko along. Their presence was soon noticed by the other adults in the area who either ushered their children out of the park or kept a hawk like watch over the pair. Emiko trembled under their scrutiny. Naruto, having noticed her discomfort, squeezed her hand reassuringly.

Naruto ran up to the swings, which were quickly cleared of other children. One kid, having greeted Naruto, was pulled off the swing set and soon left the park.

Emiko glanced around warily and walked around behind Naruto when he sat down on his chosen swing. She then began pushing him, back and forth.

Naruto smiled as he felt her caring hands push his body forward and upward. He laughed when he got high enough that his butt started floating off the seat. He felt like he was flying, up up up into the sky and then a pause, before he free fell toward the ground. There was something different from swinging and chakra jumping though, but he couldn't put his finger on what made swinging so enjoyable.

Naruto sense a cool chakra signature coming from the entrance of the park, along with an all too familiar signature. Naruto's laughter stalled before continuing, if not a little more forced then before.

A pair of black haired children walked in the park, the older one being a shinobi and the younger one being a person he hadn't seen in the past two Timelines. A boy he had grown to call family, brother. A person who the last he saw of was ripping a hole through his midsection and gutting him like a fish...

"Sasuke," the whispered name was lost to the wind.

–

Itachi figuratively tilted his head at his little brother, because Itachi never tilted his head in such a manner. It was rare Sasuke indulged his childish side with such action as play, but Itachi wasn't against it in any way. Sasuke should be a child, no, Sasuke _needed_ to be a child. It was healthy for a child's brain development, and helped them in future needs of socializing.

"You wish to go to the park," Itachi stated more then asked the little black haired boy.

"Yes," Sasuke said, looking up at Itachi like he was waiting for a scathing remark on his childish behavior. A remark that was never to come.

"Very well. Shall we go now or later?" Itachi asked, already knowing his brother's answer.

"Now," Sasuke decided, looking up at Itachi like he was daring his brother to disagree.

Itachi nodded like it was completely anticipated, which it was in this case. Itachi called out to their mother that they were going to the park but would be back in time for dinner, he heard her faint reply. Both Uchiha brothers left the compound.

Sasuke was ridding Itachi's back, happily chattering away to his Nii-san.

"I can't wait to go to the academy!" Sasuke was excitedly telling him, "I'm going to be the best ninja ever, and then everyone will have to respect us Uchiha."

"Sasuke," Itachi intoned, wary of his brother's last words, "what has Otou-san told you about our heritage?"

Itachi posed this question so it could be taken several ways, he needed to figure out if his father had been getting into his little brother's head about the clan's "superiority". It wouldn't do well if his sweet little brother got a negative attitude toward the village. It wasn't even completely Fugaku's fault that he was against the village, pressure does strange things to a person's mind.

"Otou-san was telling me about how the Uchiha are a super strong clan. He says we should be proud to be Uchiha and not to be afraid to show off how strong we are," Sasuke said, happily ignorant of his father's underlying messages.

Itachi was quiet for a long moment, something Sasuke recognized as his brother's way of thinking up an answer and not just a lull in conversation.

Itachi then began talking again, "Tou-san is right, we are one of the more powerful clans. There are, of course, stronger people and clans then us. We should be proud of who we are, however, we should not disrespect others' that may seem weaker. It is part of our duty to respect others and not see ourselves as better. Do you understand, otouto?"

"I think so..." Sasuke replied, slightly confused as to what his big brother was trying to really say. If it was one thing he knew about Itachi, it was his way of saying things without saying them at all and having said more then what he actually says.

They arrived at the park, Sasuke jumping down from his brother's back to lead the way to the playground.

Itachi could hear the high laughter and giggles from the other children and idle talking from the adults, although there was an underlying anxiety to the adults' conversations.

Itachi quickly found the reason behind this anxiety, which happened to be a laughing blonde boy being pushed on the swings. Itachi watched Sasuke run off to the slides before he claimed a tree to lean against. Itachi could see some of the parents relax, it took him a moment to realize it was because a "strong shinobi" was present that could take out the potentially dangerous blonde. It was one of those weird things Itachi had found when he brought Sasuke to the park. If it was just him passing through the park, they'd tense. If he had Sasuke or was watching over some child as a D-rank mission, they knew he'd be watching for threats to the children in the park. Parents liked the idea of someone that could protect their children from enemies.

Itachi scanned the area with his chakra for any foreign signatures, before returning his attention to the laughing blonde.

Itachi could tell how stressed the woman that was pushing Naruto was, under the eyes of gossiping adults was not a fun place to be. Naruto didn't seem to mind or even notice the amount of eyes on him. Which contradicted everything Itachi had gathered on the blonde thus far.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a few parents glare at Emiko, the poor woman shrunk into herself. Itachi decided to take pity on the woman. He walked toward the cowering woman, if it was one thing he knew about civilians. It was that they did their hardest to not be involved in any way with a ninja. They wouldn't look his way, so if he was near Emiko they wouldn't look her way. The downside was the fact that she was a civilian and probably didn't have much contact with ninja.

Emiko warily glanced at his approaching figure, she wasn't afraid to look at him then. However she didn't know his intent on approaching her, which probably worried her.

Thankfully Naruto took the initiative and yelled, "Hi Shinobi-san!"

Itachi internally winced at the decibels ricocheting in his ears. Naruto was loud, louder then he had ever been when Itachi was this close to him.

"Hello Naruto-kun," Itachi replied calmly, like his ears weren't ringing in pain and threatening to bleed out. Then looking at Emiko be gave a slight bow, "Shinai-dono."

Naruto grinned down at Itachi, the smile giving way to genuine happiness. This slight give was the only indicator that anything had been false before. Itachi stored that information away for later.

"What brings you here, Shinobi-san?" asked Emiko, who relaxed at Naruto's positive response toward the unknown ninja.

"My otouto wanted to visit the playground, I am his escort," Itachi replied, his face collected and not revealing anything.

Itachi turned his head to face the playground, his features softening when he spotted his happy brother. A small smile worked it's way onto his face.

"WHOA!" Naruto yelled before flying off the swing, his arms flailing around before landing face first into the sandy ground. A grumbling, "I'll never get used to that," was muffled in the ground.

"N-Naruto-kun," Emiko rushed to his side, "are you alright?"

Naruto lifted his head and spat out sand and dirt, "Yup. I'm good, surprised is all."

Emiko looked him over for scrapes and Itachi looked around the park, the adults were looking at the trio before catching his eye and hurriedly adverted their gaze. The children had looked over as well, surprised to find the 'dangerous' kid laying in the dirt. Some winced in sympathy, since they too had fallen off the swings. Other laughed at his expense.

Sasuke had seen his brother talking to the blonde and his mother or big sister and decided to meet them too. His brother didn't talk to others very much, let along voluntarily. He ran up to his brother before slowing down to stand behind his brother. Uchiha don't hide.

Itachi looked down at Sasuke, a smile gracing his lips and said, "Sasuke, this is Naruto-kun and Shinai-dono."

"Emiko is fine," Emiko said, abashed by the young shinobi's formality.

Itachi inclined his head in acknowledgment, "Naruto-kun, Emiko-san, this is my otouto, Sasuke."

"Hello Sasuke-san," Emiko greeted.

"Hello, Emiko-san," Sasuke replied, before looking at the blonde who was brushing off his shorts.

Naruto bounded over to Sasuke, grinning, "Hi Shinobi-san's little brother Sasuke!"

Sasuke looked at the ball of raging energy posing as a child blankly.

Naruto puffed out his cheeks indignantly, "It's rude not to respond, Sasuke-teme..."

Sasuke bristled at that and growled, "It's also rude to not refer to someone without a proper suffix, Naruto-baka."

Naruto glared but it lacked any malice, almost like this little exchange of words was a game. The two began bickering back and forth, trading varied degrees of insults and contradicting words.

Itachi sighed, the introduction wasn't going as well as he had planned. He had thought about introducing Sasuke to Naruto before, but wasn't sure how to go about it. It seemed fortune smiled down on him when they coincidentally were both at the playground, but Itachi knew their was no such thing as a coincidence. Nor did it seem fortune favored him in this aspect.

Strangely Naruto seemed content with Sasuke's name calling, Itachi was mildly bewildered at Naruto's response to his brother's horrifying behavior toward the blonde. Naruto never did make sense to Itachi, so he was close to dismissing it as another of the boy's quirks, before absently deciding to store it away for later assessment. One piece at a time will eventually finish the puzzle, at least that's what he told himself.

"Shinobi-san," Naruto said, looking at Itachi, "Why do you have such a weird brother?"

Sasuke shot Naruto a glare, growling, "why you-"

"But he's not as weird as me," Naruto said pointing to himself proudly, "because I am the most unpredictable ninja to be."

Sasuke just stared at the blonde boy before shaking his head and giving up on what Itachi was puzzling over.

Itachi looked down at Naruto, uncertain if he was expected to answer his question or not. He settled on saying, "you plan to become a ninja?"

"Not just any ninja, I'm going to be the greatest ninja you've ever seen! Belive it!" Naruto exclaimed.

Sasuke scoffed at the declaration, "you have to be strong and smart if you want to be a great ninja, baka."

"I am strong and smart," Naruto cried indignantly, looking up at Itachi he said, "tell your brother I'm strong and smart."

Sasuke huffed, "tell the idiot he may become strong, but he's the stupidest kid I've ever met."

Naruto nodded saying, "That's right, I'm strong- HEY! I'm smart too!"

Itachi and Emiko collectively sighed.

Emiko glanced up at the sky before announcing, "we should be heading home now, Naruto. I have to make dinner."

"Mmkay, goodbye Shinobi-san," Naruto said and then glanced at Sasuke as an afterthought, "See you later Sasuke, I'll prove I'm a better ninja then you at the academy."

Sasuke grumbled a reply and watched the two leave the park. He looked up at Itachi, and asked, "Nii-san?"

Itachi looked down at the raven haired boy, silently prompting him to continue.

Sasuke, almost pleadingly, asked, "he's not really going to go to the academy...is he?"

Itachi looked down at him in amusement, "I imagine he will."

Sasuke groaned and dropped his head, but a small smirk could be seen under his fallen bangs.

Itachi smiled and said, "we should be heading home as well, Okaa-san wants us home for dinner."

"Okay," Sasuke replied and quietly followed his brother out of the park. Thinking over his weird encounter with his new "friend".

Itachi was also silent, though this was not so strange, but his mind was busily thinking about the blonde. Itachi had come to think of the blonde as something akin to a friend, more like mutually friendly acquaintances not fully a part of the world around them. Like they were both spectators that had to play their parts in the world without ever actually being part of it. Comrades, perhaps.

–

Naruto sneezed as he left the park, and talked excitedly with Emiko as they walked to their apartment complex.

Naruto had been surprised that the two Uchiha had come to the playground, really he only expected Sasuke's presence. For one reason or another, Sasuke would occasionally be at the playground on this particular day. But Itachi hadn't showed up the times he did go to the playground, so that was a little surprising. It was slightly hard to be around the older Uchiha when most of his memories of the boy or man were him trying to steal Kurama. Or not trying to steal Kurama, since he wasn't exactly trying all that hard to take Kurama in the first place. If he had been trying, he would probably be dead all six Timelines from poor biju extraction techniques. Keeping up his child self's smile was tricky when Itachi was around, but it had nearly given him a heart attack when he saw Itachi's serene smile. Child's mask gone and shock overtaking him demanded he need a little time to recover. Face planting was the best he could think of on the fly and inconspicuous enough that shock was _supposed _to be on his face. Then there was his once best friend Sasuke...

"I think Sasuke will be a good friend, even if he is a jerk," Naruto said, smiling widely as they walked through the town.

"Both of you were so horrible to each other though," Emiko said in distress, "how could you possibly think he'll become a good friend?"

Naruto just grinned more and said, "because I won't let it become any other way."

Emiko raised an eyebrow and shook her head, if anyone could put up with that brat's bad attitude, it'd be Naruto.

Naruto put his hands behind his head, still grinning at the frowning passersby. It was a good 100th Birthday.

* * *

><p><strong>Esparia: Well that went alright, now to plan which chapter to do next...hmm...Anko or the seal? Anko? Or the seal? Hmm...<strong>

**Chibi!Sasuke: You meanie Esparia! Turn me back to my original age!**

**Esparia: Now, now, Sasuke-kun. I can't do anything inside this closet but pass your scripts under the door...and try to chose what the future will hold for you punks.**

**Chibi!Sasuke: Hn! I don't believe you can't do anything, there is no way you're going to trick me into releasing you to make a mess of this story!**

**Esparia: …**

**Chibi!Sasuke: I'll escape, just you watch. *stomps away***

**Esparia: His logic is faulty. *continues typing in her closet* Anko...or the seal...bah, I'll just flip a coin. *looks around in closet* Where's a coin when you need one?**


	10. Chapter 9

**Esparia: ***_**still**_** sitting in closet* Hey! Random Crew Member!**

**RCM: Yeah? *looks up from manga***

**Esparia: Do you have a coin? I need you to flip to see which chapter I'm going to write.**

**RCM: Yup. *flips coin* Heads.**

**Esparia: Alright. Call Anko in to join us in the studio.**

**RCM: A-Anko?**

**Anko: *walks into studio, finishing a dango***

**-wolf whistle in background-**

**Anko: *impales whistler in eye with dango stick***

**Whistler: *dies***

**Disclaimer: Esparia does not own the Naruto franchise or any of the merchandise. If you want to talk to someone who does own Naruto, I'd tell you to call, write, or go to Japan. (unless you're already there, then stalk him down or something)**

**Esparia: I would not recommend stalking.**

**Anko: *reading through script, signs contract***

**Chibi!Sasuke: NO! You could have been free...and could have saved us all.**

**Anko: You're more melodramatic and shorter then I remember...**

Chapter Nine

Death Forest...and Beast kings

August 22nd, 5th year of the 7th Timeline,

The 44th training ground is a pain to deal with. Getting killed, maimed, the animals, forgotten traps, illusions, getting eaten, or marked with cursed hickey's. And it's only too easy to get turned around in a place like that if you aren't well versed in it. Lost, possibly. But the river and fencing help. What's really the problem is not knowing what is in between the river and fence. That's why I've decided I will be the first one to map out the entire training field. Besides, it'll be an advantage in knowing the land when the Chunin Exams take place.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

–

A clone popped into existence with a little chakra manipulation, hand seals long since forgotten. You'd have to be a Super Idiot to not learn everything without seals that the wheel eye of doom can copy, predict, and throw back at you. Shadow clones being one of the first in on the list to learn since it was used so often anyway.

Naruto walked around the still clone like a tailor would around a suite being fitted. He hummed thoughtfully, _'stable, crisp around the edges...'_

Naruto jabbed a finger on the clone's forehead, making the clone wince and rub the red spot, _'...solid.'_

"Vocal test," Naruto commanded.

The clone rolled its eyes and said, "Boss, it worked fine. I know what I'm supposed to do. I know my time limit. I can talk without spewing chakra. Yes, my core is stable. No, I will not start a fight. I f I feel like I'm getting unstable I'll do the back up plan. Stop fretting like Iruka-sensei's "mother hen" mode and go to the forest of death."

"Fine, fine," Naruto grumbled, feeling the chakra begin to mold into the right pattern, "is your temperature-"

"It's fine!" Exclaimed the exasperated clone, "just shunshin already and leave me in peace. Stupid old man."

With a worried frown, Naruto disappeared in a swirl of ramen, hands wringing nervously.

The clone shook his head and started sorting through his closet. He really was turning into an paranoid old man if he wasn't one already.

–

A small, blonde haired, orange wearing child burst into existence in possibly one of the most dangerous forests in the world.

The animals of the forest were semi-used to ninja popping out of nowhere. They were even used to humans just wandering into the area. What they weren't used to was a young human child coming into their land without so much as a trace of fear. No shaking, no fear scent, no calling for his mother like any other lost offspring would do and it was definitely not panicking about being away from its den.

A massive centipede, the rightfully declared the king centipede, had been told by the Tigress that a human had been scented in his part of the forest. Tigress was a fair alpha she-cat, acknowledging the other dominating animals as good allies against the greater threat of humans. Her kind often was hunted by the many poachers from the human colonies. Her deal with the other alphas was that she'd provide information on any human scented in the forest if they returned the favor by warning her stripe if the humans were hunter-humans and not warrior-humans. It was a fair trade since the tigers had a stronger sense of smell to provide warning and could let the other animals investigate.

The giant centipede moved silently until he found the stray human. He was surprised to find the human no more past its larvae stage. He sighed, as best a centipede could sigh, and carefully approached the larvae. As the dominant one of his species, it was his duty to confront the human larvae. His human speech was rusty and not well remembered since it was a long time since he learned it. Humans were too stupid to learn other languages.

"Larvae," said the centipede, voice gravely and awkward, "What purpose? Be in forest?"

The bright little human blinded its strange ugly eyes up at the great centipede. All mammals seemed to have the misfortune of possessing such ugly things as eyes, and weak soft flesh grew outside their skeletons.

"Are you a summon?" asked the soft shell human larvae.

The centipede grumbled to himself, berating himself for not paying attention in his human language class. He always told himself that it wouldn't matter in the future. One rarely had to talk to the humans, since one could usually tell if it was a threat to them or not. Besides, centipedes weren't built for human sounds. Leave that to the birds and apes, their vocal cords worked similarly to the humans' so why bother a centipede with needless communication between such a strange species?

"What...summon?" asked the centipede before deciding to give up with the human talk and said, "stay, larvae. Get bird-king."

The centipede went off in search for the Emperor Bird. Centipede hadn't thought he'd have to talk to the human when he first heard of its presence, but he also didn't expect it to be a larvae. It was a common known fact that every animal protected their young in some shape or form. From either raising it or making sure they hatch in an appropriate environment. Humans, as it is, are very protective of their young. Unless the human was defective and didn't care for the young. Humans were odd like that. However, when you killed one of their own, let alone a young one, they became very angry. Much like ants become when you disturb them. Angry humans were a pain to deal with, so it was best not to kill one of their young. It was made an unspoken law years back to not kill their larvae since the humans reacted even more violently.

"Emperor Bird," called out the centipede in his native tongue, " a human has entered my domain. I require your understanding of the human language."

"And why, oh great and powerful ugly one, must it be I?" the Emperor Bird lamented from a high branch. His dark blue and purple feathers shimmered in the low light.

The centipede opted to not comment on the looks, as it was better to not encourage the pompous feathered thing. He replied, "is it, or is it not, you whom brags of their superior knowledge of all languages?"

"It is I," confirmed the bird, running a beak through it's feathers in disinterest, "but, alas, I do not wish to meet a pesky human. Why do you not just eat the featherless horror?"

"You recognize the unspoken law to which we are to not touch the humans' young," the centipede said, shifting his long body to a more comfortable position.

"Ah!" the bird exclaimed in surprise, looking up from his grooming, "A hatchling is it? Most peculiar, humans don't tend to let their hatchlings outside the nest."

"I believe it to be lost," said the centipede, "I know not if my human words were understandable to the larvae."

"A lost hatchling! How stupid the humans must be to lose a hatchling. I have yet to see a hatchling from the humans, and for good reason as well. However, I should like to see what their young look like, hopefully not as ugly as your own."

"You will come?" asked the centipede in annoyance. The bird got on his nerves at times.

"Indeed, oh hideous one, I shall follow you to the human hatchling. We shall see what it wants and what brought it to our territory," the bird replied before lifting off the branch to hover over the giant centipede.

The centipede scuttled down the tree and led the bird to the human child.

–

Naruto had done a shunshin to the Forest of Death and went about mapping the eastern section of the forest when he got the greatest startle of his seventh Timeline's life.

"Larvae!" boomed a voice like wood and rocks, as massive centipede fell from a branch to land in front of him, "What purpose? Be in forest?"

Naruto blinked in surprise, he's seen weirder things, but a giant talking centipede isn't exactly normal in his life either. Although giant talking toads weren't to horribly different. Perhaps the centipede was a summon, though he never heard of a centipede summon.

"Are you a summon?" Naruto asked, he wondered if he could also have a centipede summoning contract along with the toads. It would be interesting to watch.

The giant centipede seemed confused by the question. How he could read the giant bug's emotions were questionable. The skill was probably tied to his ability to understand "Uchiha" and read "Mask".

"What...summon?" the centipede asked, it made a few sound to itself before saying, "stay, larvae. Get bird-king."

The giant centipede scuttled away to find the "bird-king". Naruto stood their uncertainly. He had never gone in the forest at this young of age. However, he'd gone plenty of times as an adult and older child. Not once had he heard of a talking beast in training ground forty four.

He noticed a few smaller, but still huge, centipedes surround the area he was in. He had a feeling he was about to learn more about the Forest of Death then he ever had before.

"Larvae," the centipede said as he crawled up to him, "meet, bird-king."

The "bird-king" was at least a good fifteen feet (five meters) tall. It cocked its head sideways to look down at Naruto with a sparkling spring green eye.

"Hi?" Naruto greeted slightly intimidated, if the two beasts wanted to fight, he might as well say goodbye to the 7th Timeline.

"Hatchling with bright loose plumes, my incompetent friend and I," the bird struck a pose, "the Fabulous Emperor Bird of Paradise, wish to know why a small thing like you is in our forest."

Naruto blinked up at the large animals, "uh..."

The bird tilted his head, like he was listening and waiting for an answer, with the promise of a sound pecking if Naruto answered wrong.

Naruto wasn't sure how well the bird knew how to talk, since the centipede's speech was halting. He doubted that the bird understood mapping, perhaps scouting? Did birds scout? But scouting would imply looking for specific things, which he wasn't.

"I'm sight seeing," he decided to answer, since that was the best he could think of how to explain it to the bird.

"You are an odd hatchling," the bird decided, "do you plan on harming the animals while here?"

"No," Naruto said, confused.

"Good, then you are free to wander under these conditions," the bird said before pulling a scroll like thing out from what looked like an old leg pouch, "you humans may not be very pretty, but you make up for that by having half a bird's mind. A human-warrior was carrying a skyview of our forest, what you call...a map? This is a copied and edited version of what the human-warrior had. The birds have changed a few things, such as locations, and added a few things, like territory borders. "Sight-seeing" is such a strange word, and I admit I do not understand what that means exactly. But I suggest looking at the areas marked in red, they have food that you might like. Such as berries, nuts, fruits, please refrain from destroying these areas. The blue areas are good places for fishing, you may eat the fish. Do not eat the birds-"

The centipede made a few strange noises before the bird continued, " and don't eat the centipedes. Don't leave hunter-human's animal traps. I suggest not going into Tigress's territory, she is rather testy with your species' hunter-humans. If you become a hunter-human you will no longer be welcomed to the forest and killed on sight."

"No worries, I'm gonna be a ninja! As long as no animal attacks me first, I won't harm them," Naruto exclaimed.

"Ninja? Is that what human-warriors are called in your flock?" asked the bird.

"Ninja, shinobi, kunoichi, samurai, nuke-nin, jounin, chunin, genin, warrior, brawler, and other things," Naruto replied.

"...I think I shall stick with human-warrior. You humans complicate things," the bird said.

"Well I'm going to be the greatest human-warrior," Naruto declared, "and help save the world from an evil dude that wants to destroy everything."

"Noble goal," the bird said, "on behalf of the birds, I wish you well. In which case, if this "dude", whatever that might be, threatens us we shall offer our allegiance. As long as you do not betray us, we shall not betray you."

The centipede then said, "no harm centipede. Centipede no harm you. Allies with bird, allies with centipede."

Naruto nodded, deciding to figure out what was actually just given to him later.

The two mammoth sized animals then left, one taking to the sky and the other climbing a tree. The smaller centipedes scuttled away from the area, leaving a very quiet Naruto behind. Naruto stood there for a long time before deciding he's need to visit the library as soon as his henge held longer then thirty minutes. The forty forth training ground had more to it then met the eye.

–

The tow hour old clone was having the time of his life. So maybe most wouldn't call being chased by angry chunin fun, but pranking said angry chunin sure was.

"Hahaha! You slow pokes are gonna have to become faster if you wanna catch me!" yelled the clone gleefully.

"You little punk!" screamed one of the angry chunin, "get back here so I can beat some respect into you!"

"Respect?" laughed the Naruto clone, "who'd respect a ninja that falls asleep on the job?"

The chunin growled lowly, one of his coworkers vowing to never fall asleep on guard duty again.

"As far as your concerned, I think you slackers deserved it," jeered the clone.

One of the angry chunin absently scratched at the super glued mafia boss styled mustache on his upper lip. All three had a mustache, marker unibrows, fake eyelashes, and the word "lazy-nin" stamped on their foreheads.

Yes, today was a good day.

The clone felt the boss shunshin back home, he grinned. It was fun while it lasted. He took a sharp turn and jumped into a trash bin, disappearing with a small amount of smoke.

The chunin caught up to where they saw the boy jump, and opened the trash bin. Only to find nothing but rotting garbage. A synchronized groan went about the small group before they went in to turn in their reports.

–

The Hokage sighed as the shame faced chunin turned in his report. Naruto certainly knew how to cause trouble for his poor old self.

"I'll see to it that he's properly punished," the Sandaime said.

The chunin bowed and left the room, mustache and all.

Once he was sure the chunin was out of hearing range he let himself chuckle, he had been getting reports of those chunin sleeping on the job. Maybe it would help them realize that what they were doing was dangerous to the village and to themselves.

At least Naruto's pranks were harmless, and had yet to cause any extensive property damage.

Unfortunately for Saratobi, the future had considerable amounts of property damage, mainly on a certain monument and governmental offices.

–

Anko was jumping through the canopy of training ground forty four when she was nearly plowed over by a stampede of legs. Well, more like a single man-eating monstrous centipede. But details don't matter so much when all you see is your future death by hundreds of feet.

Anko, being a kunoichi, was fast enough to spring away before becoming a human version of her namesake.

She recognized the beast as the oldest and strongest of the centipedes. As weird as it probably was to recognize an animal like that, she had been in the forest long enough to become part of its social order. Needless to say, it was also hard to forget such a giant creature. Plus she made it her business to know the most dangerous of the animals in the forest, since she spent so much time in the area.

She was also probably one of the few humans that knew that the animals in the forest had intelligent minds. She wasn't totally sure for a long time if it was just an illusion or if she had been hallucinating, because what animal outside of summon could talk? She learned that not all the animals of the forest could, and it was only the very oldest of the intelligent species that could.

Anko probably knew more about the forest then most. She wasn't afraid to admit that. But one of the reasons she was so familiar with it was because of her ex-mentor Orochimaru. That was something she wasn't so likely to admit. Orochimaru had a weird love of the forest, and frankly, she didn't want to know why he trained so much here.

Her mentor was insane, this she knew. She was pretty sure it wasn't always like that. Children had a sense for when something was wrong with a person, and maybe she got so used to his little strange ways that she slowly just got used to strange things in general. Maybe it was like when you're gaining an immunity to a poison. You take a little at a time before you body builds up resistance to it, then you take a little more and build resistance, then a little more, and a little more, and a little more, until before you know it you can't be poisoned by it at all. You can't even tell it's in your system.

That was probably why his team couldn't tell, he was a little different and they got used to it. He got a little stranger, and they got used to it. Then he got even more weird, and they brushed it off as another one of Orochimaru's strange things. They got used to it until, before they knew it, he was rip roaring crazy and experimenting on children. She hated it. She hated what he did. She hated that he hurt her. She felt so angry. With herself for not seeing his craziness, and with him for being crazy. Sometimes she would wonder if he even was once a good person. Nobody is born crazy, right? Then she would shake herself and say "no, Anko, he was never a good person. He never actually cared for you, because he's hardly human. Just a snake in a human skin."

She shook her head and continued leaping through the trees. She had felt a spike of chakra in the area, and wanted to make sure the ninja wasn't an enemy. But after nearly being run over by the giant centipede she doubted the person was even alive. So now she was bounding towards the probable remains to see who had died, and inform the family if the ninja was from Konoha.

To her surprise, the area with the chakra spike was clear. No sign of a person outside of excess chakra, no sign of a battle, and definitely no blood. It couldn't have been another animal, since the area smelled strongly of human.

Anko frowned, the only reason why the giant centipede would leave a human was if they made a pact, were used to the human and knew it was no threat to them (like her), or were such a threat that immediate retreat was forest wide. She had no knowledge of the first ever being made. No one was willing to go so often to the Forest of Death, like her, with the exception of poachers. But poachers had a short life expectancy for their idiocy. And as far as a massive threat, well, unless the person was a kage or one of the sannin, it was unlikely. She was pretty sure no kage had time to stop in at the forest, Tsunade and Jiraiya had no reason, and the place didn't reek of the snake.

She thought for a moment, what other powerful people were there? A jinchuriki perhaps, but they rarely left their villages unless in war. Her own jinchuriki was a kid, and wasn't allowed to leave the walls of the village. So it was unlikely, but not completely unfounded.

–

**Esparia: Not what I was picturing for this chapter.**

**Anko: *crosses arms* What was with my lame intro? I should kick butt.**

**Esparia: Err, in all honesty that was what I had planned.**

**Anko: Then what happened?**

**Esparia: Ah, the plot bunny squeezed out form under the closet door and started messing with things.**

**Anko: Plot bunny. You mean all these furry little horrors running about the studio?**

**Esparia: What do you mean? Last I checked there was only, three?**

**Anko: *looks around studio* Well I hate to break it to you like this, you being in a closet and all...but there are at least. Fifty to Eighty plot bunnies running around.**

**Esparia: ...what?**

**Anko: They started multiplying by powers.**

**Esparia: *bashes head against wall***

**Anko: Why are you in a closet anyway?**

**Esparia: Sasuke locked me in. I don't have the keys.**

**Anko: Does the prissy Uchiha have them?**

**Esparia: Yup.**

**Anko: Hmm...*walks away***

**Esparia: ...well, that's all folks! See you next week.**


	11. Chapter 10

**Esparia: *sitting in closet***

**Anko: I got those keys you needed!**

**Esparia: *surprised* How'd you get them?**

**Anko: Sasuke gave them to me, of course.**

**Esparia: That was generous of him.**

**Anko: Oh, well...*unlocks closet door* he just needed a little persuading.**

**Esparia: *walks out of closet, blinking blindly***

**Anko: *twirls keys on a finger* I'm off, I have a few things to do in my forest.**

**Esparia: Of course, see you later Anko. And thanks for getting me out!**

**Anko: Don't mention it. *strides away***

**Disclaimer: Esparia does not own things in general. So it isn't very likely she would own something like "Naruto". *follows Anko***

**Esparia: So, another Itachi special...this isn't supposed to happen so often. But it hit me that I haven't really been showing any progress with the massacre around the corner. I thought about doing it in Naruto's point of view, but he isn't really all that connected to the event like the Uchiha are. I thought about doing Sasuke, but at this age he knows nothing. Doing it from the Hokage's view would be different, that's for sure, but his information on the subject would be limited. Itachi was an obvious choice, the dude has a foot on both sides with a personal connection to it. Then I got to thinking about how I this would play out. There are a ton of things that play into his character, so it'll have a seemingly super OOC Itachi. Without further adieu, I present Itachi's second special chapter.**

Chapter Ten

Choices and an Invitation

September 1st, 5th Year of the 7th Timeline,

So I'm finally able to stabilize my chakra to a workable level. Not nearly as good as it should be. But shadow clones and henge are a wonderful combination that's once again available to me. Shadow clones can hold for about six days. Not enough for some of the longer missions I'm planning for them. But close. By the end of the week I should have enough control to keep them around two months. If that works out, a few new mercenaries will start bringing in escaped convicts to varies T&I. Then with money in the bank, I can start up the plan I worked on during my time in the 5th Timeline. Hopefully it'll work out.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p>Itachi bowed to his father, the clan head Uchiha Fugaku, and exited the room. He quietly slid the shoji shut after him. He released the pent up air he unconsciously held and walked away. He felt heavy; knowing his father refused to make amends with the Hokage was worrying. If something wasn't done about the destructive coup they were planning, then many innocents were going to die. Many were going to see war and death, too young to fully understand outside of the pain and fear. Like his brother.<p>

Itachi strode down the hall until he got to his room. He needed to think. His options were limited greatly by the pressures from others. On one hand he had his family. A loving mother, a protective father, and an innocent baby brother he _had _to protect. He had cousins, aunts, uncles, and ...family. He also had a village counting on him to protect it, and his Hokage was in danger from his family. He had comrades, teachers, allies, people who always had his back.

Itachi was a loyal shinobi, he felt that strong sense of duty to protect his village. A village that had protected his family. His family, who were now planning on getting rid of it like it was worth nothing. They wanted to start more wars, more death. So much death. So much spilled red.

Taking over the village would bring nothing but death and angry revenge from those who would lose their families from such a thing as overthrowing the Hokage. His father and the clan's council of elders had faulty ideals when it came to power and their plans. Plans on over throwing a Hokage that wanted peace and was fair in judgment was hardly a good idea. The elders and his father let their anger blind them, anger from the prejudice, the suspicious, and paranoid people of Konoha.

He couldn't just turn on his family, but he couldn't stand for what they wanted to do either. He was loyal, he didn't want (couldn't) watch his little brother grow up in a war. A war within their own village none the less. He had promised to keep Sasuke safe, to never let Sasuke get hurt.

Itachi clenched his battle scarred fists and paced his room a few times before he settled on his bed. His little brother. His brother was innocent, he didn't know the cruelty of the world. His brother wasn't involved with what the clan was planning. So why did Sasuke have to be caught in the crossfire of this? Itachi could protect him. He could protect his precious little brother. Itachi would protect him just like he always had. He has protected him from learning too soon of the horrors of the world they lived in. He has protected Sasuke from their father's bad forms of attention. Sasuke desperately wanted what Itachi had. He wanted to be loved like Itachi was loved by their father. Itachi knew this, he knew it angered Sasuke that their father didn't pay much attention to him. But Itachi couldn't help but be thankful it was that way. Their father's way of giving them attention was in the form of teaching them to be stronger and more powerful. Powerful enough to kill without hesitance and willing to torture others for one's own gain. That was too heavy for a child. It was too dangerous for their psych. He didn't want Sasuke's hands to become dirtied like his. His father would ruin Sasuke and make him look like Itachi. Itachi didn't want him to become like him.

A soft knocking on his door brought his full attention back to the world. A chubby soft hand carefully opened the door a crack, a big black eye peeked inside.

There were few things Itachi found himself caring about. His brother, his family, his village, and peace. But with how both his clan and village were turning on each other, he couldn't choose one over the other. Which was why his need for peace and love for his brother ultimately made his decision on which side he would stand on.

Itachi smiled at the little boy, tilting his head to indicate he was allowed to come in. The younger boy straitened, smiled happily, and bounded into the room.

"Sasuke," Itachi greeted the boy.

"Nii-san, you're back," Sasuke said happily, as he scuffled to sit next to his older brother.

"How was your day?" Itachi asked, posture less tense then it was before. Tired dark eyes softening when he looked down at his younger sibling.

"It was good. Kaa-san took me shopping for vegetables. I got tomatoes. And I've been practicing with my kunai. I'm not very good at it. Tou-san won't help me," Sasuke said, glancing up at his brother form the corner of his eye.

Sasuke was hopping to get Itachi to teach him or give him some pointers. Itachi never taught him. He didn't know why Itachi seemed to not like the idea of teaching him how to be a good ninja like he was. Maybe Itachi agreed with their father and thought he was weak. Not that Uchiha were weak. Uchiha were never weak.

Itachi was silent for a few moments before he said, "I'll help you, but not right now."

Itachi would always help Sasuke, but not in the way Sasuke would understand. If Itachi could make sure Sasuke stayed out of the field longer, Sasuke would be able to live longer. He would be safer.

Sasuke nodded dejectedly, he knew Itachi didn't have a lot of time because he was a ninja. But he doubted that Itachi would ever hold his promise to help him. It would always be "Maybe next time", "Some other time", or "Not right now, Sasuke". It was never "Sure, we have some time before diner starts", "Show me what you can do", nor "Sasuke, I've got this technique I want to teach you". Sasuke knew Itachi cared for him, more then Tou-san ever did. Tou-san never had time to even talk with him; not like he did with Itachi, who would be in their father's study for hours. Only Oka-san, Shisui-nii, and Nii-san had time for him. Tou-san didn't love him. Not like he did Itachi. That thought made a small part of his chest ache. Why didn't his Tou-san love him too?

–

Itachi's cool facade easily hid the amounting anxiety in him. He knew Shisui had been told to watch him, his closest friend and cousin was spying on him. He was no longer trusted in his own home.

His father didn't trust him as much as he used to. It was understandable and logical that he'd get a close friend to spy on him. He was a loyal ANBU to the Hokage after all.

However, Itachi need to let the facade down. It wore down the soul to wear a mask too long. He felt tired and trapped. He couldn't relax in his own house any longer, his own room's walls had ears. Working as a shinobi had the job description of not showing emotion and constantly having a mask on. The village had eyes everywhere, one wrong jaw twitch and then every enemy he managed to make would know that they were getting to him. One of the many disadvantages of living in a ninja village, no privacy. He had an unflappable reputation, and it worked to his advantage.

But Itachi needed to slouch his back, hang his head at the hopelessness, slump his shoulders like the weight of the world rested on them, sigh heavily with all his weariness in his breath, flop like a boneless fish on the ground and break down like his prepubescent hormones demanded. The stress, anxiety, and grief of what he would have to do compiled into one nasty sob monster.

So Itachi was taking a walk through the park, to clear his mind. Head held high with the appearance he was assured of himself, back strait like the good heir he was, posture confident and uninterested with lowlifes when it was possibly the very opposite, breathing regulated and not a trace of emotion on his pale features.

It was ironic that the only time the face he presented relaxed when it was under that of an ANBU's ghostly one. The only time he could frown or scrunch up his face like he'd seen others do when upset or angry. It felt strange since he rarely ever did do it under the ANBU mask let alone where his face could be seen. He was an Uchiha after all. He wasn't allowed to feel the emotions that went along with the facial contortions. ANBU were emotionless.

Outside of that white mask, he could smile. He would smile at Sasuke. Hesitantly smile with all the protectiveness, love, and contentment felt seeing his brother was safe.

Itachi could handle his emotions fairly well, however he knew that with all the pent up stress he was holding in, he would eventually break. He needed to release it somehow, training and missions went only so far. He couldn't relax, truly relax, on missions or training. Home was anything but relaxing. He needed to go somewhere where no one was around to pry. Like that place completely untouched by humans with the exception of himself and the village jinchuriki.

Itachi did a quick shunshin into the forest, leaving behind an (sorta) annoyed stalker ROOT member.

Itachi reappeared and jumped through the treetops to get to where he had found the jinchuriki encourage a frog. Untouched, calm, serene, and safe.

He scanned the area for ninja, foreign or otherwise, with nod of satisfaction that no ninja were around. Itachi inhaled the clean air deeply and released it with a relieved sigh. His tense shoulders dropped forward and he slouched his back a bit, making his vertebrate crack. A small amount of satisfaction made its way onto his schooled features. With a twitch of his lips he ungracefully flopped backwards to the soft ground. Resembling a few fangirl faints he had unfortunately caused. It was rather embarrassing, he would assume, for the girl when she woke up. It was also disconcerting for him, to say a polite "hello" and have the other respond by falling backwards like a sack of bricks was strange. There was a very good reason to appear as distant as possible.

Itachi's lips quirked up around the edges, enjoying the feeling of the grass between his fingers and ticking against his ears. He closed his eyes and listened to the forest around him. Both enjoying the peaceful sounds and alert for intruders. Only an exceptional ninja with other worldly chakra control or a chakra level so low it was closer to that of a dead man would be able to sneak up on him.

His dark eyes opened, and watched the cloudy sky dim in the evening light. Itachi brushed back some of the stray black hair in his face.

Itachi wanted to relax, and for a moment, just imagine that he wasn't a ninja. But his minds had plans of its own, because it kept flickering back to what he was going to have to do if his father decided to go with the plan. Time was running out and the future of the clan wasn't looking too good. His heart clenched painfully, his worst fears as a child were going to come true. The death of all his loved ones.

A ghost tear pricked against his eyes. Ghost tears were the only all he could really make anymore, never a true tear. Not since...

No liquid or watery eyes were ever present on him. Just the pained emotion with the sensation that the eyes wanted to release it, but couldn't no matter how hard it tried.

He wanted his family to be happy and safe. He didn't want to betray them, but they were intent on a cause that would kill them all anyway. His parents, friends, and brother. His little brother, who would die. A confused and scared expression frozen on his bloodless face. He would die trying to protect Sasuke, he'd try to make sure he didn't see anything to gruesome. Futilely try to keep him safe. The only way to keep Sasuke safe was to kill his family before someone else did. Sasuke would be viewed as a fortunate and highly honored child for surviving the massacre. Sasuke would hate the village if he found out why Itachi would kill them all. Itachi would have to take all the blame, but Sasuke was stubborn and wouldn't believe his brother killed them. No, he'd have to show Sasuke himself that his Nii-san killed their family.

Then Sasuke would see that his brother was a monster. Sasuke wouldn't hurt the village that would help him in his time of crises. Sasuke would get stronger, plan for a the future fight with a S-rank criminal ex-brother. He would get stronger for hating Itachi, Sasuke would try to surpass him. If Sasuke was strong, he'd be safe. Safe from the council, from Danzo and his Ne-nin, from enemies, and from their creepy old relative that refused to die. He'd have to plan on what to do on that problem later.

Sasuke would be strong and safe. He'd come after Itachi. If he wasn't strong enough, Itachi would prompt him a little to make him want to get stronger. Then when Sasuke was strong enough, he'd kill Itachi. Sasuke would stand over his broken body, hating him, victorious and releasing Itachi from life's cruelty. Itachi would be dead. Sasuke would be strong and safe.

Itachi's throat tightened and he slowly sat up. His back hunched over and legs that lay limp in front of him.

Itachi loved Sasuke, he'd do anything to protect him from harm and excessive evils of the world. Even be hated by the one he cared for the most. He didn't want to be hated by Sasuke. But what other good could he provide for his otouto? Itachi would suffer but Sasuke would be okay.

Sasuke would be alright.

A silent sob racked his stressed body, the sense of loss beginning to consume him.

Sasuke would be okay, but Itachi would lose him.

Itachi pulled his legs closer to his body, hands clenched at his sides.

He would _lose_ Sasuke. He would _lose_ his parents. He would _lose_ Shisui.

A nearly inaudible pained choke caught in his throat.

He would lose them, and it would be all his fault.

Itachi groaned in despair, his body curling inward.

It would be his fault they'd be gone. His fault that he would lose them. His fault that they'd all be dead. Dead, because he killed him. Dead, because he couldn't convince them away from their own destruction.

A soft keening escaped his throat. Here he was, a war scarred, battle toughened ANBU, the current Uchiha heir, and prodigy. Here he was, crying like a baby. If someone was around he wouldn't have let himself crack.

He knew he wouldn't be able to convince his father. He knew it was futile to hope, because once Fugaku got an idea, he would stick with it until proven horribly wrong or the majority of the clan thought it was a bad idea, even then it was a matter of pride that held him to a decision. He was stubborn and didn't relinquish his hold. Everything Fugaku did was what he thought was best for the clan, his extended family, and his own. It was his way of caring for them, a really distant way. Itachi would have to stop his father. Stop him from destroying the entire clan. If someone else killed the clan, everyone would die. If he killed the clan, Sasuke would survive. He would kill the clan. He would hurt Sasuke so his brother could survive and be safe.

"For Sasuke," Itachi said to himself.

Sasuke would start the clan anew, without the corruption and plagued hate against their own village. Sasuke would become strong enough to lead a clan set for a rebirth. Itachi would make sure of that. Sasuke would be strong and safe, start a new family that he would transfer his love to. Sasuke would have a future, if he destroyed the clan and take all of Sasuke's hate to his own grave. He would deserve it anyway.

"I'll do it for Sasuke," Itachi repeated, his voice strained.

A young voice made itself known by saying, "you really love the teme don't you, Shinobi-san?"

If Itachi wasn't a ninja he would have startled, if he wasn't a highly trained shinobi he would have attacked the blonde boy next to him, staring with deep knowing blue eyes.

Itachi's face schooled into his expressionless mask, wondering how he could have missed the truly massive chakra signature the Kyuubi's jinchuriki possessed. He must've been more caught up in his own thoughts then he thought he was, it was shameful. How does someone of his caliber miss something so prominent?

"I care for my brother," Itachi said, his voice was steady and held no trace of the previous choking strain. His face pale and eyes only had the sting of a ghost tear.

The jinchuriki, Naruto, tilted his head in worry.

"Shinobi-san, you're destroying yourself," the little blonde said softly.

"What makes you think that, Naruto-kun?" Itachi asked, slightly unnerved by the calculating and understanding look the boy was sending him. Children were not meant to have a face like that. Especially children younger then his brother.

Naruto hummed in thought, "you have the face of a ninja about to be sent out on a suicide mission. And is close to accepting his fate."

Itachi stiffened slightly, it was close enough to what he would be doing. If not completely accurate. In the end of it, yes, he would end up dead with the rest of his clan. But then he wondered why the kid knew what that would look like.

Itachi must not have been as good at hiding his curiosity as he thought he was, because Naruto shrugged and said, "I've seen more then you'd think."

Itachi was quiet, he didn't know what the blonde was referring to. It could be a number of things, but with what he had talked of before it was questionable. Itachi figured that very few truly knew how much Naruto knew.

"Itachi-san, things are going to get complicated for you if they haven't already. You understand and feel a stronger sense of justice then an average shinobi, it's one of the things that has made you so successful in the field. But, I don't think that it was the life you were meant to live," Naruto said.

Itachi's body inclined at his own name being used instead of "Shinobi-san". He could guess where the boy had learned his name. He hadn't given it, and the boy had known for who knows how long since he kept using "Shinobi-san" up until what he just said. He supposed he wasn't to hard to learn of, hard not to at least hear of the prodigy Uchiha. But the words the boy said were fascinating, he was indeed unhappy with being a killing machine. But that was his place, a forced place made by his father. He was good at it.

"In fact, I highly doubt that this was meant for you. But you seem to have given up your sense of individual worth. Since you have chosen to stick with this path. For, who I can speculate to be, your younger brother," Naruto looked him dead in the eye and said, "hurting yourself will bring the largest amount of pain onto Sasuke, perhaps not right away. He will probably be angry first, but he would be hurt beyond what you've set out to do to yourself when he learns he was the cause for you destroying yourself. It will eat him apart for years, and never leave his conscience."

Itachi felt unexplainably threatened by the boys words. It would be impossible for the child to know what was going on within his clan and the highest parts of their government. Still, he found himself wanting know what the boy knew, and his thoughts, "What makes you think he would learn?"

Naruto smiled, "He just will."

Itachi was slightly troubled by Naruto's look of foreknowledge. Like the little blonde knew exactly what he was talking about and what would happen.

"What if I prevent him from learning?" Itachi prompted, he felt like he was getting some of the puzzle pieces to the yellow haired, orange wearing, jigsaw puzzle. A puzzle rapidly getting bigger.

Naruto actually laughed a little, a bitter sort of laugh, "I don't believe in fate, but it's inevitable that he'll find out."

"I'll take it to my grave," Itachi said, fairly convinced that this would end Naruto's unnerving assurance. Death scared kids.

Naruto actually grimaced, "Uh, yeah, sure."

Itachi narrowed his eyes a fraction of a degree. The blonde knew something important.

"Naruto-kun, I think you know more then you let on," Itachi said.

Naruto smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head, "Eh-heh, yeah? Uh, well, anyway, I was wondering if you'd like to join this _club_ I'm starting up."

Itachi was a little bemused by this. It was a very obvious topic change, but something the blonde had to have been thinking about previously. How else did an unexplained and sudden invite to join a child's "club" come into conversation?

"What is this club?" Itachi asked. One puzzle piece at a time.

"A super exclusive club that has to be top secret," Naruto said seriously.

"Oh?" Itachi felt he was back to talking with a child, which was both surprisingly disappointing and relieving, "What do we do in this club?"

"We'll be the black ops of the black ops. Who's goal is to save the world from a chaotic destruction, and prevent humanity's enslavement from a crazy super villain and his sidekick that only acts like an evil two year old on caffeine because he's brainwashed and can't handle grief," Naruto said strait faced, "of course there are a few other projects that need to be done, like a the prevention of the crazy guy's army of ninja zombies coming to life, but that wouldn't concern your division."

Itachi really didn't think he processed that correctly, he could have sworn the child was serious and actually believed what he was saying. Or the kid was an excellent liar or his skills were getting bad under the stress of probably having to kill his family in the near future.

"You can think about it," Naruto said and got up from the ground, he patted the clinging grass off his rump and began walking away, "a position will always be open to you. So don't be afraid to pop out of the wood works in five or six years and say "hey Naruto, I'd _love_ to join your awesome gang of awesome world saving powerhouses; you were so right about that crazy super villain and his insane sidekick Lollipop Face. Sorry for doubting your sanity back there" or something like that. Of course I'll need to start getting the rest of us together before we become a full tilt secret organization of epic evil defeating people and beasties."

Naruto turned to look at Itachi's perplexed face, he grinned and said, "I'll take care of your brother while you're gone. Until next time, Itachi-san."

With that the short blonde disappeared from sight as he traveled into the woods, his chakra signature vanishing just as quickly.

Itachi stared on in shock. Past reasons for coming to the little clearing vanishing like smoke in his mind.

The boy couldn't have known what he was implying about his future mission, but with the skill to make a battalion's worth of jounin level chakra disappear without a trace was not something to laugh at. The kid had more beneath the surface then Konoha's reputation did.

* * *

><p><strong>Itachi: …<strong>

**Esparia: ...Heh?**

**Itachi: Did you assign me an emotional wreck chapter?**

**Esparia: ...I call it a grieving chapter.**

**Itachi: Grieving.**

**Esparia: What thirteen year old wouldn't have massive reservations for killing almost all the people they love and losing his close ones?**

**Itachi: …**

**Esparia: Don't give me that look. You are not emotionless, proven throughout your actions in all the chapters of the manga that you weren't a super evil brother villain. I made my own conclusions to the information given and the psychology books I've read.**


	12. Chapter 11

**Esparia: What's with all these bunnies? *shivering in corner***

**Anko: I think I told you about them before.**

**Esparia: I know, but all these plot bunnies...**

**Anko: Are eating away the story?**

**Esparia: Yeah, how did you know?**

**Anko: I've seen entire stories fall to plot bunny infestations. A horrible way for a story to fall.**

**Esparia: That can happen!**

**Anko: Only if you don't take care of the problem.**

**Esparia: How do I do that?**

**Anko: I think you kill a bunch of the suckers until you are left with a few.**

**Disclaimer: Esparia owns all the plot bunnies in this studio. They are up for adoption since they seem to reproduce faster then a tribble. Esparia doesn't own Naruto, nor the plot bunnies that belong to the series.**

**Esparia: But there are like fifty or sixty of them!**

**Anko: Writer problems. Reason I'm not a writer.**

**Jiraiya: *pats Esparia's back sympathetically* Try summoning a few giant toads to eat them. It works for me.**

**Esparia: ...**

Chapter Eleven

Don't Name Things Under the Influence of Apple Cider

September 5th, 5th year of the 7th Timeline,

Making life effecting decisions is hard. Making life effecting decisions that could destroy the world's natural order and not able to seek advise from others that were in the same position as you is even harder. There is a lot of pressure involved with others' lives hinging on what you decide. It's the life of a leader to have this problem. However, leaders are typically recognized for trying to solve problems and can usually share problems that are too difficult for them with their advisers and trusted people. Time travelers (if that is what we are to be called) can't do that. I only have myself and a Creator whom I haven't heard from since the end of the beginning.

Until next time or no time, farewell,

Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto

* * *

><p><em>The sky was bleeding its black petals.<em>

_Wafts of smoke blew across the lonesome landscape._

_The blackened skeletons of what were once great trees creaked in the stiflingly hot air. _

_The gentle breeze brought the scent of death and burning decay from the ruins at the base of a cliff side._

_There was no sound._

_Just the silence of the ghosts of Konoha._

Naruto was walking down the streets of Konohagakure, the citizens glared his way and whispered obscene things about the little boy. If it had been directed at anyone else, it would have been frowned upon and the person receiving it would feel immensely hurt. However, it was directed at the century old blonde five year old who had seen it all before. Long story short, Naruto didn't not pay any mind to the scowling citizens he's been trying to save for years. His mind was preoccupied with more important things then uncomfortable adults that had no qualm with bullying an orphan jinchuriki child.

Naruto had been thinking over the rather surprising scene he found in the forest a week ago. Over his hundred something years of living, he had seen many strange things that didn't always make sense. But a hysterical kid Itachi that looked half delirious from mental and emotional exhaustion was not on the list of "seen it". The missing-nin had always seemed like a generally stable man. Meaning Itachi never seemed to have doubts or indecision for the things he had done or was going to do. Seeing a kid version of the dangerous Uchiha break down, by Uchiha standards, was enough to send a bit of guilt Naruto's way. Guilt for not trying to stop a horrible massacre that really went beyond what was necessary action. Really the massacre was a bad idea that didn't really solve any problems. But how could he intervene? How could he stop something that big as an ankle biter? Something he hadn't tried to stop before; well there was that one time, but that wasn't successful.

Stopping the massacre would be helpful in the future, although who knows what that eye thief would do. That old war hawk collected eyes like a trainer collected Pokemon. The geezer even stole one of Shisui's eyes while the man was still alive. Stealing eyes was weird and extremely unhealthy behavior, but strangely not uncommon from what he's seen. Then again, he's seen more strange occurrences then what was considered normal. But stealing an eye from a living man is something even Madara didn't do, and that's saying something. Shisui would be a powerful ally to have, and just a fake death away to boot. Naruto would have to think about that too.

Danzo, on the other hand, was an abusive creep still controlling half of the ANBU and brainwashing children. Perhaps an anonymous recommendation for a psyche evaluation would be a good idea. A Yamanaka mind walk and just a hop, skip, and a jump away from that man's destruction. A Yamanaka loyal to the Hokage of course, can't have Fuu doing the evaluation. That would backfire tremendously. But if Danzo got wind of it, the old geezer would probably kill all his "perfect warriors in training" and stash away his organizations misdeeds. The turd's power needed to go. The only way to get rid of his power was to get him out of whatever high position he held, but in order to do that Naruto needed to get rid of his army that backed him up. In order to get rid of the army that backed Danzo up, Naruto could either destroy it or Therapy Jutsu the daylights out of them. Naruto of course would try talking before killing, since he always had been that way. Of course, in order to use Therapy Jutsu, Naruto would have to infiltrate the ROOT headquarters and gain the Ne-nin's loyalty and trust. Easier said then done, impossible for anyone else. But Naruto wasn't known as the most unpredictable ninja for nothing.

"Move it fox boy," growled a spiky haired Uchiha, as he shoved passed Naruto along with his teammates.

Naruto let himself stumble but "caught" himself in time to turn around and glare at the genin team. His glare turned into a appeased grin when he saw that they were chasing after the Demon of the Alleys, a young Tora. His grin widened when he heard the telltale yowl from Tora and yelp from the stiff faced Uchiha.

Naruto turned back around and continued walking to Ichiruka's Ramen Stand. A grin still plastered to his face, this time a little more genuine.

Sasuke had gotten beat up by Tora before; and for some unexplainable reason Naruto enjoyed watching the almighty Uchiha get beaten by a feline.

–

"_Your late Naruto," reprehended the prince of lateness._

"_Says the sensei who is three hours late for a team meeting," Naruto grumbled._

"_Maa maa, no need to point fingers," Kakashi drawled._

_Sasuke was getting impatient with the two and decided that he could take care of the mission on his own. The others, like he had predicted, only slowed him down._

"_Sasuke-kun!" Sakura exclaimed._

_Sasuke had jumped the cat on his own terms and was being mercilessly mauled by razor sharp teeth and claws. Ah, the impatience of a genius child._

_Kakashi slowly got up to help his cute little student, but stopped when he saw a certain pink haired girl hover around the impulsive boy. He wasn't needed. Naruto was hunched over laughing and laughed harder when the last Uchiha's ear was bitten._

_Sasuke grunted in pain when the little white teeth pierced clean though his earlobe._

_The little wound would never heal quite right, and was a continued source of pranking opportunities for Naruto. Ranging from fused hoop earrings Sasuke couldn't take off until a seal let up, to dangling jeweled flowers he couldn't feel. There were some laughs and some beatings for the later of the two._

–

Sasuke definitely wasn't pleased when he found a flower earring hanging from his ear. He seemed to get angrier then when he was under the cursed hickey's second form, which was pretty hard to do.

Naruto frowned a little. The cursed seal was both figuratively and literally a pain to deal with. He knew how to remove the little marks, but it took a lot out of both him and the person sealed. He would have to remove Anko's soon, something he would think about later. Today was supposed to be a relaxing day, a day where he wouldn't think or worry over all the world's future problems.

...Sasuke's seal was different then Anko's but was easier to remove since it was a little more complete. Orochimaru was sociopathic pain with too much genius for his own good. No further thoughts were needed on him outside of getting rid of that nuisance Kabuto.

Akatsuki were semi-dormant at the moment, he could probably prevent them from forming completely. However that wouldn't let him know where the crazy Uchiha were. Locating an enemy when they were free to do as they please was hard to do. Akatsuki would help ground them. Naruto could probably recruit a few of the missing ninja involved with the organization. He would work on Konan and Nagato when he got the right chance. Information on _Tobi_ would help get rid of half the problem. He had gotten Obito on his side once, he could do it again. Madara was a problem all on his own. He had come to the conclusion that there was some major demon possession going on with the two men.

Ugh, demons. It's all great and dandy when things only go wrong in the world of the physical. But then you throw in spiritual realm and things just turn ugly and complicated. Spiritual tampering was more dangerous then what most seemed to think. Honestly, what idiot thought it was a good idea to bring the "dead" back to the living? He would have to figure out how to deal with that later. Demons were not something to play with.

Then there was all his fellow jinchuriki along with all the other problems of the world. Kiri was in the pits, Suna had Kage issues, and don't even get him started on Wave.

Naruto could feel his frustration beginning to build at the amounting things he had failed at completing before. All the things he had to do, and never being able to give up. To top off all these frustrations, he was having a bad day. One of those days were everything just seemed to go wrong and the world thought it would be funny to keep tripping you. It started with a broken shower head that sprayed water all over the bathroom, then he had fallen down the stairs when he was done watching the sunrise from his father's head, then it had been a freak squirrel attack, a pigeon deciding to use his head as a toilet, and when he bumped into his wife he was forcefully thrown away by her guards who acted like their heiress was contracting leprosy from touching the "demon boy". Being shoved by a genin that later was attacked by Tora didn't make its way onto his bad list. That to say, Naruto's day off from the world was not a good day and hardly relaxing.

With all the problems from the past futures adding up, he had the right to be a bit angry. He had to relax, that was the original plan anyway. Decompress from all the stress his five year old body couldn't handle. All he wanted to do was to hold his wife and eat her homemade ramen, a wife who was only five and no longer considered his wife.

Naruto paused mid step, his face contorting with horror, "Hinata."

Naruto had realized that he didn't prevent her kidnapping and didn't stop Neji's father from being killed. What kind of friend let their friend's family die when it could have been stopped? What kind of husband doesn't save his wife from being kidnapped? He had already screwed up this Timeline and he hadn't even been there that long.

Naruto slumped a little as he continued walking mindlessly though the streets. He needed...he needed...he needed to plan better. Remember what he hadn't redone yet. That was the problem with this whole situation, after doing something so many times over, it'll be mentally noted as finished and not worried about again. Maybe he could organize the things he knew for sure wouldn't change as he changed the world. Well, there was the the Uchiha Massacre, Chunin Exam Invasion, the Valley of the End, a trip to Wave, and the attack on Suna for the Ichibi. That was about it as far as things not changing as the world changed. Hm, maybe a list of possibilities would be better.

Naruto decided he should probably think more on them somewhere where he wouldn't be disturbed. A place without people, preferably. He didn't want to go up to the Hokage monument, too many stairs. Itachi had basically taken over his creek, he would've sworn the boy didn't move if it wasn't for the change of clothing. His apartment had Emiko, she popped in at random times. He didn't want to scare everyone out of the park, besides, a jounin or chunin would usually kick him out. The forest had squirrels. Training ground forty four was currently occupied by a very smart and very scary snake mistress, who had nearly caught him a few times. Then there was memorial stone, which was a big no no since a certain scarecrow haunted the place.

Naruto grumbled a bit to himself before The Figurative Light Bulb of Ideas flickered to life above his head. His father had a "workshop" that would be perfect for walking through a mindscape without interruption. He hadn't been there for Timelines, it couldn't be used for much since it lacked plumbing and electricity. It wasn't much of a place really, more of a room that you could use to safely destroy faulty seals. Sound proof, spacious, virtually indestructible, and seals kept if from leaking chakra. Chakra couldn't be sensed emitting from the room, but you couldn't sense chakra from the outside when you were in it either. Both a good and bad thing at times.

Naruto decided he would go to that room and plan, even though he had planned on taking the day off from worrying about his responsibility as a time traveler.

"Forget relaxing," Naruto grumbled, "there are more important things I need to do. The world isn't about to save itself."

He had gotten a few weird looks that had once been glares, but he didn't notice this since he was too busy planning on taking the entire day to plan. Sounds like a strange thing to plan, planning on planning. But never the less, Naruto decided he would spend the rest of the day in the windowless room for the rest of the day.

Naruto ducked into a back alleyway and a clone popped into existence already in a basic henge. Naruto walked around the old man, checking for any blurriness or holes in the not quite illusion. He had decided that his primary henge would be his solid and true transformation type, which he discovered in the first Timeline when creating his Oiroke no Jutsu. He had outgrown the use of that jutsu by the time he was married, but he found its basic properties effective. The original henge, which everyone learned in the academy, was his secondary type that he rarely used. Any ninja worth their own salt knew how to see past a henge, especially within their own village. Yet he came across the occasional jounin that honestly couldn't tell. It was usually around the time he was an older kid or young teenager that this was most common. Laziness and rusty skills were something all to familiar in peace times.

Naruto nodded to his clone and handed him a small wad of money, "go buy some food and grab the cleaning supplies. You know what to get."

The clone nodded before sedately walking out of the alley with a slight limp in his right leg.

Naruto scanned the area a moment before doing a quick shunshin with a steaming bowl of ramen where he once stood. Leaves were overrated; besides, if you could manipulate the excess and usually wasted chakra into leaves. Why not leave ramen for the next hungry soul, like that stray cat?

Naruto poofed into existence outside a well concealed door. With a few fluxes in chakra and a drop of blood, he was keyed in and could walk into his father's "workshop". He cracked the door open and stuck his hand in. He focused on his his chakra a little before letting it turn a dark red, not so different from the Kyuubi's outside of it being completely his. Naruto formed a small ring of this dark red chakra and tossed it in before slamming the door shut.

A few seconds later Naruto formed his chakra in his hand again. This time it was tangerine in color. With his other hand he began pulling at it until it made a large fishing net like structure with thousands of bubbles along the "string". Naruto opened the door again and threw his "bubble net" over the rising smoke. Once all the smoke left the room he waved the bubble net around a few times and released it. The small orange bubbles were filled with ash that had been filtered from the air. The ash fell to the earth with nothing to support it and would soon become part of the dirt.

Naruto walked into dark room and lit his hand up like a blue glow stick. Naruto made four more clones pop into existence and light up their own hands. With that done he let his hand fade back to normal and explored the room a bit. It was bigger then he remembered, perhaps a good ten cubic meters. Ashes littered the floor where old tags and traps had once been. Last time he was here he had missed a tag and got a face full of old sludgy peanut butter. It was better to just light everything up and not worry about it later.

He heard the sound of his clone's feet come from outside, the place was only soundproof if the door wasn't open.

The clone was carrying groceries and a bag of cleaning supplies along with a broom strapped to his back.

Two more clones poofed to life and took the broom and bag before making quick work of the place. They started in a corner and moved out toward the door. The old man clone gave him the groceries and disappeared with a small poof.

Naruto went to the clean corner with his food in hand and made himself comfortable. Two of the glow-hand clones walked outside and became squirrels. They would watch out for anything that warranted the door to be closed. One would destroy himself to alert the main Naruto and the other would destroy himself when the coast was clear.

Naruto pulled out some of the food and drinks his clone had bought. He ate a granola bar and drank a small thing of apple cider before he closed his eyes and let himself slip into his mindscape.

–

Loud snoring echoed down the sewers of Naruto's mind. Naruto smiled at the occasional gekkering sounds coming from his monster fox.

"_Ack-ack...ack-ack-ackawrr..."_ the large beast in Naruto's mindscape yelped.

Naruto chucked a bit before walking away from the beast and towards his eight rooms. He bypassed the seven memory chambers and entered the time council's room.

He was surprised to find his other selves already sitting in their chairs.

They all turned to look at him, which would have been unnerving if he didn't already know what they were all thinking. Since they were basically him.

Naruto walked over to his chair and sat down, empty scrolls and full ink bottles were scattered on his desk.

There was a silence in the room, all of them waiting for someone to speak first.

Finally after a good minute was wasted the sickly Naruto dressed as a Ne-nin said, _"welcome back."_

One of the Narutos rolled his eyes and grumbled, _"it's not like he left. You can't leave your own mind."_

The oldest Naruto sighed in exasperation at one of his younger forms.

The current Naruto cleared his throat and said, _"as I'm sure you are all aware of. We missed Kumo's attempt at kidnapping our wife."_

"_Great job,"_ the grumbling Naruto said sarcastically,_ "no really. You did a fantastic job at protecting your own. I'm sure you'll do just as good of a job in the future. I'm sure Gaara will end up fine if we do the same thing we did with Hinata. Neji might even live if we continue doing what we're doing or maybe he won't. Who knows, maybe if we continue doing nothing, everything will just be fine and dandy. Everyone will die and we can just stop being alive and living a useless and repetitive life."_

The six year old Naruto's lip quivered, _"that isn't very nice..."_

The oldest Naruto got up and smacked his twelve year old self, _"shut it you immature pessimistic bully. We don't have time for this. What we need to do it plan, like he is here to do. So, Naruto, any ideas?"_

All the Narutos looked at each other then at their oldest form, in synch they asked, _"which one were you talking to?"_

The twenty three year old grimaced, _"well, I was addressing the current Naruto, but I think we should be named. Both because talking to each other won't cause mental confusion and headaches, and because it'll sound a little saner."_

They all looked at each other before nodding in agreement.

The six year old raised his hand.

The Twenty three year old pointed to the six year old and asked, _"yes, Naruto?"_

The most recent failed Timeline Naruto grinned and asked, _"do we get to choose our own names?"_

A few made faces of confusion, the sixteen year old cleared his throat and asked, _"do you mean the individual Naruto choose his own name, the current Naruto chooses our names, or the original chooses our names?"_

The young Naruto scratched his bloody forehead and said, _"individual Timeline Narutos choose their own?"_

The current Naruto nodded his approval, _"as long as they aren't stupid names and the others agree that it's a good name."_

The original Naruto from the first Timeline stood up, _"I guess I'll go first."_

"_Why do you get to go first?"_ grumped the twelve year old Naruto.

The sickly Naruto coughed into his glove, _"because we're going in chronological order. You'll be third, so use this time to come up with a good name."_

With the third Naruto appeased, the nineteen year old Naruto continued, _"I'll be...Hajime."_

The twelve year old snorted, _"Origin? It fits you perfectly."_

"_Oh hush,"_ said the married Naruto, _"it's my turn."_

That Naruto huffed, _"what are you going to call yourself, Jiro or maybe Hisao-jiji?"_

The second Naruto glared, _"I was thinking more along the lines of Koji."_

The third snorted again, _"like that's any better."_

The Naruto now named Koji shook his head and said, _"well it's your turn. Pick a name."_

"_I'll be called Bishamon,"_ declared the third Naruto.

A few of the younger Narutos snickered, Koji sighed, _"I think you should pick a different name."_

The current Naruto laughed, _"Bishamon is a stupid name. Choose something else."_

The twelve year old wasn't pleased but changed his name anyway, _"Mitsuo."_

"_Third male? Fits you perfectly,"_ mocked Hajime, _"are you sure you don't want to be named Ryuji? That would fit even better."_

Mitsuo flushed red, _"that was not my fault."_

The fourth Naruto raised an eyebrow, _"really, I recall it being you who decided to see what would happen if you lit a gas stove on fire _and _died in a burst of chakra flames."_

Mitsuo sunk into his chair and rubbed his wrist, _"at least I wasn't gutted like a fish."_

The fourth Naruto glared and said, _"at least you died quickly."_

"_Will you two just calm down, Naruto still needs a new name. So until this naming is done, Ryuji, be quiet,"_ said Hajime.

Mitsuo sulked, _"It's Mitsuo."_

The forth Naruto smiled and said, _"I'll be Shiro."_

The current Naruto slammed his head on his desk, _"I swear I would've claimed I was a more creative person then this. Do my pranks mean nothing?"_

The ex-ROOT-member shifted in his seat, he had planned on continuing the trend and say Goro, but decided against saying it in favor of saying, _"Call me Taku."_

The current original nodded in approval, _"thank you Taku. At least he has good taste in names."_

Hajime scratched the back of his head, _"Not my fault they liked my idea."_

The six year old Naruto then yelled, _"I wanna be Rokuro!"_

"_No,"_ the seventh Naruto said.

"_But-"_

"_No."_

The not going to become Rokuro pouted and said, _"Fine, I'll be...uhm..."_

"_How about Noriyuki?"_ asked Koji.

"_Okay,"_ agreed the six year old.

The remaining "Naruto" sighed, _"Now that we are done with that-"_

A rush of memories bombarded them.

"_Someone is coming,"_ said Taku, a slight cough shook his frail body, _"it seems to be an Uchiha."_

"_Arg, can't I go a day without seeing an Uchiha?"_ Naruto asked rhetorically.

Mitsuo couldn't help but comment, _"Not while they're still alive."_

"_Do you ever shut up?"_ asked Hajime.

Mitsuo smirked, _"no."_

**Esparia: Definitely my longest chapter yet, and yes...I made name jokes. Shame me all you want. But opportunity knocked and I couldn't help but answer.**

**Opportunity: Yo. *raises glass of apple cider to readers***

**Esparia: So...name meanings...**

**Hajime- First, Origin, Beginning**

**Jiro- The Second Male**

**Hisao- Long Lived Man**

**Koji- Ruler, Happy Second Son**

**Bishamon- The Japanese god of war**

**Mitsuo- Third Male, Shining Man**

**Ryuji- Dragon Man**

**Shiro- Fourth Born Son**

**Goro- Fifth Son**

**Taku- Content**

**Rokuro- Sixth Son**

**Noriyuki- Example of Happiness**

**Esparia: Yeah, good. I'm done with this chapter. There was excess amount of new names that really don't matter. But the Timeline's names (Hajime, Koji, Mitsuo, Shiro, Taku, and Noriyuki) will be easier to remember over time. They'll play a big part later.**


End file.

Naruto, Adventure, Spiritual