In Another Life

You slip into Konoha the way you were trained to: unseen.

Even in the daylight, the shadows welcome you.

You wait until the patrols pass—two-man teams, evenly spaced, but lax. Their routes are familiar, but not identical. Too confident. Too casual. You study their movements from a hollow above the ridge, counting each one until the rotation leaves a sliver of silence in the southern watch. Too small for most.

But just enough for you.

You move fast. Low to the ground. No chakra, no sound. Just breath and precision. You drop from the ridge like a ghost. Over the fence. Behind a stack of crates lined with export seals. Through an alley that hasn’t changed in years—right down to the chipped paint on the old shutters.

And suddenly, you’re inside.

Konoha.

But it hits you like a memory wearing the wrong skin.

The streets are cleaner. The paint’s fresh. The roads are whole, patched over in places that should’ve stayed cracked. It smells the same—grilled rice, sweet bean paste, the iron tang of metal from open weapon stalls—but the air feels thinner, less burdened. Like it hasn’t been holding its breath for years.

You hear a woman laugh. A child run past. A hawker shout the price of something steaming and fried. Somewhere in the distance, a wind chime rings.

Konoha is alive.

But not with your people.

Not exactly.

The vendor handing skewers to a jōnin isn’t anyone you know. The chūnin manning the mission hall—he’s too young to have been in your year. And the three genin weaving between fruit carts, laughing, trading bites of melon bread—they’re strangers.

Not the next generation.

Just different.

Their faces are untouched. Their eyes haven’t seen the things your people have. Their chakra is light, unburdened. You feel it brushing against the edges of your senses like sunshine—not smoke, not blood.

You duck your head, pull your hood lower, slipping between civilians like driftwood in a river.

No one stops you.

They don’t see a threat. They don’t even see a stranger. Just another shinobi—another cloaked figure with a destination and a mask of purpose.

But your pulse won’t slow.

Not when you pass the Academy and the windows shine like they’ve just been washed. Not when you glimpse the old ANBU barracks, now reinforced and alive—new banners, polished seals, the faint hum of maintained wards stitched across the stone.

It’s like stepping through a dream you didn’t ask to have.

You cut left, then right, sliding into a narrow corridor behind the archives building, its shaded alleyway cool and deserted. You press your back to the wall and exhale like it might carve some weight off your lungs.

You’re in.

But you feel no safer.

Because it looks like home. Smells like home. Moves like it.

But it isn’t.

Not quite.

Not anymore.

Every detail you take in turns sharp when you press too close. The shops are in the right place, but the names are wrong. The mailboxes are shaped the same, but they’re too new. Even the trees—growing in the same courtyards, lining the same streets—are taller.

You’re in a version of your village that kept going.

Without you.

And whatever scar you thought you left behind here… it doesn’t exist in this world.

You pull your cloak tighter, bury your chakra so deep not even the wind could find it. Just in case. Just in every case. You don’t know what the rules are here. Who sits behind the Hokage’s desk. Who names the enemies. Who decides what’s a threat and what isn’t.

Right now—you are one.

Even if they don’t know it yet.

You press the heel of your palm to your brow and draw a slow, steadying breath. Focus.

You need answers.

A timeline.

A name.

A face.

A reason.

Because if this world kept going without you—if it changed so much without your footsteps shaping the dust behind them—then where’s Kakashi? Did he fall through with you? Is he here?

You remember his hands on you. His voice. The burn of his chakra pouring into yours. The light.

And then—nothing.

If he’s here, why haven’t you seen him?

If he’s not—

You cut the thought off before it finishes.

You’ll find out.

You have to.

But even as you promise that to yourself, another question curls in the back of your mind—quieter, colder.

If you walk into the open—and this Konoha sees your face—

What version of you are they expecting to see?

And what if that version already exists?

Or worse—

What if it’s everything you fear worst?

Night falls before you realize you haven’t moved in hours.

Konoha glows beneath you, gold-drenched in lanternlight and calm in a way that feels wrong. Lanterns swing gently from shop awnings and windowsills. The market stalls have quieted, the final embers of dinner fires winking out one by one. Shinobi switch into their night rotation. Civilians tuck in for the evening.

And you—silent, cloaked, crouched like a gargoyle—sit unmoving on the curved spine of a western rooftop, one hand resting on tile, the other tucked beneath your cloak.

You were going to keep moving. That was the plan.

Until you saw him.

Blonde. Spiky. Unmistakable.

Rice bandit.

Older now. Taller, sharper in the jawline, broader in the shoulders. Mid to late teens. He still walks like his limbs aren’t entirely convinced they belong to the same person, but there’s poise in him now. He talks to the villagers with ease, tossing out waves, laughter, the occasional awkward scratch at the back of his head. There’s gravity behind it—earned confidence, earned respect.

You lean forward instinctively, heart skipping.

He doesn’t feel like a boy anymore.

He feels like someone who’s fought for something. Lost something. Someone who’s become important.

He heads toward a central building—modern architecture tucked into the familiar curvature of old Konoha. You don’t recognize the structure, but it radiates significance. Administration? Command?

Your gaze sharpens. You drop into a crouch, one palm braced on the roof’s edge. You want to follow. You want to see more. You want to know what kind of world could have shaped him like that—

But you miss the flicker of chakra behind you.

The warning comes too late.

The tile shifts with the whisper of sudden weight.

Instinct screams.

You twist just as the first blade drops toward your neck.

Steel clangs violently against your kunai, a bright arc of sparks catching in your peripherals. A second body drops on the opposite side. Then two more. All shadows and porcelain masks, flanking like wolves.

ANBU.

Shit.

You drop low and leap, flipping once in the air, landing with a dancer’s silence on the next roof over.

“Surround and suppress,” one of them orders.

No names. No hesitation. Just clean, military formation.

They rush you.

The first attacks low—bladed sweep to the knees. You jump, catch his wrist mid-spin, and redirect the blow straight into his teammate’s gut. Both go stumbling.

Another strikes from above, dropping with a wild aerial roundhouse. You duck beneath it, twist sharply, and drive your elbow into his ribs. The crack isn’t clean, but the breath leaves him in a rush. He crumples.

Fourth one’s smart—tanto lit with chakra. He aims it for your side.

You catch his arm mid-strike, twist it behind his back, and knee him in the gut. His mask jerks sideways. He folds but doesn’t fall.

They’re well-trained. Coordinated. You give them that.

But you’re better.

You’ve done this too long. Too many times. Too many missions where failure wasn’t an option.

Another pair try to trap you—fire-style jutsu from the rear, a spinning low kick from the front. You twist into the air, letting fire bite at the edges of your cloak. You feel heat kiss your shoulder.

You don’t flinch.

Your boot connects with the kicker’s chest and sends him flying into the smoke.

“Who are you?” one of them growls, lunging again.

You parry with one hand, strike with the other—your knuckles hammer his stomach, then his chin. He stumbles back. You flip him over your hip and send him skidding into a chimney.

“I’m no one,” you mutter, panting slightly. “Promise.”

There’s a pause—fraction of a beat—where they hesitate.

You’re not killing them. You’re not even cutting deep. Your aim’s been clean, disabling, restrained. It’s obvious.

“You’re holding back,” a masked woman says, her tone skeptical. Porcelain bear motif. Taijutsu stance.

You sigh. “Yeah. I’m considerate like that.”

She charges.

She’s good. You’ll give her that. Form clean, feet whispering across tile. Her palm aims for your throat—classic windpipe crush. You catch her wrist, spin her off balance, then lock her in a brief pin. She slips it. Smart. Tries to knee your chest. You absorb it with your forearm and twist, sending her sprawling.

Not down.

But out of your path.

You almost smile.

Until—

Another shadow falls.

You feel it before you see it. Fast. Precise. The last ANBU waits until your guard is down, and he comes at you from the sky.

You react late.

Steel kisses your cheek, just beneath the eye. Not deep, but close.

You hiss, staggering a step back, fingers rising instinctively to the warmth dripping down your skin.

He doesn’t press the advantage.

He just… stares.

You blink, lowering your hand slowly.

His posture freezes. His breath catches.

He sees your face.

No—not your face.

Hers.

Your double.

The tension is a crackling wire between you. You can almost hear the shock in his silence.

You stare back, deadpan. “…Sorry if I just ruined someone’s legacy. She’s probably a lot less cryptic and rooftop-bound.”

He still doesn’t move.

You grin—tired, crooked. “Tell her I said thanks, I guess.”

Then you step forward and jab two fingers into the nerve cluster at the base of his neck.

He drops instantly.

You kneel beside him, lower him gently to the rooftop. “Good work getting the jump on me,” you murmur. “Honestly.”

Then you vanish.

The rooftops blur behind you as you take off—silent, swift. You launch over eaves and ridgelines, breath tight in your lungs. The village starts to stir. More chakra signatures ping at the edge of your senses. Reinforcements.

You drop low into the alleys, cloak fluttering. Slip through a narrow passage. Up the side of an old wall. Across a thin wire strung between buildings. You fake left. Double back. Dart through a shadowed grove in the training fields.

They follow. You can feel them.

But you’re not easy to catch.

You slip between the cracks of their formation like smoke, dragging their pursuit wider and wider across the perimeter. One breaks off. Another hesitates.

Then you’re in the trees.

And in the trees, you are gone.

Your breath rasps as the canopy swallows you, moonlight filtering through the leaves. You keep going—miles, maybe. You don’t stop until the chill sets into your bones and the forest grows deep and old around you.

Only then do you let your pace falter.

The silence is immense. Not even an owl stirs.

You touch your cheek. The cut has stopped bleeding.

You exhale, long and low, as your adrenaline ebbs.

“I really hope I didn’t just get your golden girl labeled a rogue ninja,” you mutter toward the sky. “Sorry, whoever-you-are. If your version of me wears a flak jacket and files paperwork, I just wrecked your Tuesday.

A bitter chuckle slips out.

You adjust your cloak, pulling it tighter around your shoulders.

No going back now.

This Konoha isn’t your home.

And you’ve got to find your way to the one that is.

Even if it means making every version of yourself look like a menace along the way.