An unexpected meeting
The marketplace was full during this time of the day, so despite his rather noticeable appearance, bright yellow hair, whiskers on his face and shining cerulean eyes, as well as his less traditional clothes, no one seemed to pay mind to him. He walked through the streets of a village in the land of fire that was filled to the brim with merchants, shops for shinobi equipment and anything else someone might need.
It was the perfect place for Naruto to start his journey.
He would need clothes for one, more traditional ones that the people during this time worse, not the run down pants with the dull orange jacket, which had been of vibrant color once. Not only was orange too much of a noticeable color, but the Senju brothers also warned that appearance, behavior and etiquette during this time was what made people acknowledge someone.
Naruto has never cared much for either, as well as politics, since he has little interest and less patience for it, but this time it was needed. He heard a little about the Senju clan affairs from Hashirama, as well as the workings of a functional village from Tobirama, and was confident he would be able to keep up.
Right now, he would not be able to purchase any armor, since most shops and merchants sell to a certain group of people or only certain clans. A stray shinobi like him would have no opportunity to sneak himself a uniform, unless he stole it.
“Well, the armor during this time is pretty uncomfortable anyway. I´ll do with a regular pair of shinobi pants and a normal undershirt. Maybe some mesh armor too, that´ll be enough for now.” He mused to himself, strolling through the streets towards the clothing store.
The blonde didn´t mind the weird glances the woman at the counter gave him as soon as he entered the shop. He´d dealt with worse than a few curious and slightly apprehensive glances during his childhood, and while it had been a long time since anyone had looked at him like they had during the time he was a kid, that doesn´t mean he doesn´t remember what it used to feel like. It´s easy enough to brush off, especially if the woman seemed to be slightly intimidated by his appearance and chose to leave him to search for clothes alone.
In the end, all he picked was a few pairs of clothing for casual days, as well as two pairs of shinobi pants, three shirts and one piece of mesh armor.
Naruto chose to skip the weapon store, since he still had kunai, shuriken and ninja wire amongst other things in the storage seal that was etched onto his arm.
( It was an art that had died out long ago – well, that was still being used to this time – used by the Uzumaki. Directly tattooing seals onto someone´s body can, if done wrong, cause massive damage to the chakra coils of that person, possibly rendering them useless or incapable of ever using chakra again. Worse, if it´s drawn wrong, the seal could also explode and blow a limb off, or potentially kill the user.
Naruto had perfected the art during the time he spend with his father and Tobirama, both acknowledged seal masters. Among storage seals, he had barrier seals, suppression seals that hid his and Kurama´s chakra, seals filled with nature chakra just in case time travel messed his sage mode up – something that Tobirama specifically taught him. The red streaks on his face were seals that stored nature chakra in his system, a fact that only a few people new. Tobirama, unlike his brother, was not a sage, but he could still utilize nature chakra nonetheless, precisely because of those streaks. )
After a quick change of clothes and quickly restocking what he had on food, water, scrolls and ink, storing everything in his storage seal, Naruto was left to wander around.
Dawn was beginning to settle and the mass of people around him was beginning to lessen. More and more civilians left, while slowly a few shinobi started to come in. It was noticeable in the way their chakra reserves were larger, and in the way they held himself in a more experienced way than the people he had passed before.
In the back, curiosity started to settle. “Will I meet anyone here that I know of? The possibility is small, but still, I might just run into Hashirama, Tobirama, or maybe even Madara. Who knows, maybe I´ll even run into that Izuna guy. I haven´t seen him before, but they all said he looked like…”
Sasuke.
The memory sent a burning ache through his chest, like he had been stabbed in the heart with chidori.
Losing Sasuke had been hard. Each and every loss had hurt, each and every person he had considered a comrade had ripped his heart open as they passed, but Sasuke had been something else.
It felt as if someone had gripped one of his sides, and ripped it right off, leaving a gaping emptiness in their wake. Like someone had swallowed the half of his soul, replacing it with a burning ache, so hot that it felt cold.
He´d cried when it happened. Ugly, ripped open tears and soul crushing screams that echoed through the wasteland that Kaguya left in her wake.
She´d heard him. She´d heard his screams, as had Zetsu, and all they had done was laugh at his misery. Mock him for having lost the moon seal, the only way to fully seal her away. And Naruto had watched as the seal faded from his hand, at the same time the light faded from his eyes. Blood leaked from his mouth, his eyes and his openly gaping wound at the side of his abdomen. Not even the sun seal could have saved him in this state.
Naruto had tried. Oh, he desperately had.
“Naruto…”
“Don´t talk anymore, Sasuke. Save your strength, I´ll find a way to-“
He was stopped by a hand gripping his own, stopping the nervous hovering over his body. The grip was weak, way too weak for one of the two strongest shinobi to have ever existed, and Naruto choked on a broken sob, staring right at his friend´s eyes.
Staring back at him wasn´t the onyx color he saw on a regular basis, instead cerulean met with sharingan red and he watched as three tomoe spinned into the familiar form of the eternal mangekyou.
“Stop that, Bastard, you´re already chakra exhausted, don´t waste your energy on your eyes right now. The barrier´s keeping that bitch off for a little while, but it won´t hold much longer, I´ll find a way to fix you up-“
“Naruto.”
He stilled once again as Sasuke kept looking at him, voice weak and eyelids beginning to flutter shut.
“I want to see you. One last time. I want to remember.”
Another sob, this time it completely wrecked through his body, making him violently shake.
That was right. The sharingan could memorize anything and everything it looked at. And right now, Sasuke was using it on Naruto, to remember his best friend, his brother in all but blood, his other half, knowing he would never be able to use his eyes ever again.
“Teme, don´t you die on me, I swear to every god in existence, I´m going to haunt you if you do and you´ll never be able to get rid of me ever again! You hear me?! So keep fighting, stay awake dammit!”
A weak huff escaped the ravenette and with effort, he rolled his eyes. “As if I had ever been able to get rid of you in the first place, dobe.”
And with that, his eyes began to flutter shut. The grip Sasuke had on his hand went weak and too shocked to hold onto the hand properly it fell to the ground with a low thud.
Naruto screamed.
Kurama would have never admitted it, but even his felt the hair on his body stand up in absolute fear of the raw scream that his partner had let out.
He´d never screamed ever again.
He shook the memory off with a shudder and fastened his pace. This wasn´t the time for that. It had been months since Sasuke died, and Naruto was already back in time. This was still the battlefield, the fight wasn´t over yet, and there was no time to grief in battle.
Maybe, once everything had settled down, he would be able to properly process this. Once Zetsu was gone for good and Kurama was awake again, maybe then he would be able to learn to move on.
( He knows he won´t. Knows he will ignore his feelings and pretend that it was fine, because it was the only thing he could do in this situation. But he won´t acknowledge that, not now, probably not ever. )
Groaning, he rolled his shoulders, popping his neck. He´d been outside for a long time and his body, for all it regenerated fast, was still relatively tired. “I´ll take a break somewhere then, I guess.” He muttered to himself, strolling towards the nearest café.
Ironically, he´d been here before together with Jiraiya during his travels. Jiraiya had taken him here after a particularly long training, and while he had been eating his share of food, his sensei had been catching up with the bartender. Apparently, he had been one of the main informants from Jiraiya´s spy-network. In the end he never figured out what they talked about, but what he does know is that the bartender had to shut his café down two weeks later and go underground to lay low for a while. He doesn´t know whether the man had still been alive or not by the time he came back to Konoha.
But that hardly mattered know, since the bartender right now was not the same man he had met before.
This one was a middle aged man, probably in his early thirties, with light brown hair and brown eyes to match. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance, safe for a small mole under his left yes. Otherwise, he was as ordinary as they came.
Naruto walked towards one of the tables for two in the back of the room, as to not take up too much space. This was also a great vantage point, so that he could see anyone who entered or left without immediately being spotted. It allowed him to put his mind to ease a little, knowing he had ways to escape and the perfect hiding spot.
( Years of war do that to someone, and while Naruto wouldn´t call himself traumatized in that sense, he did get too jumpy when a shinobi so much as even got close to his personal space. But he pushed through, because that´s what a shinobi does. He endured the scratching feeling under his skin and the urge to flee to a secluded place, where he could set up barrier and defense seals until the itch was gone. He ignored it, because he was aware that he would eventually had to get used to being around people again, even if they were hostile, because that´s what being a shinobi is.
He would endure. Because that´s what he promised to do. )
It didn´t take long for a waitress – a woman around his age with the same facial features as the bartender. Their chakra is relatively similar, so he assumes that they´re related in some sort of way – to take his order and then leave.
The chatting of the people around him faded into the background, becoming comfortable white noise. Naruto hated the quite. After it had been quiet for so many years, he was glad to hear the voices of the people again, even if being around them made him uncomfortable. Just for that, he would push through as well. The laughter of the children running around the table as their parents ate dinner, the hushed voices of two women talking gossip, the sweet words of a couple a few tables further away. It was nice to just lean back and listen, to feel life around him again.
It was five minutes after he sat down, when the door to the café opened again. This time, three people stepped in.
The moment they stepped in, Naruto knew they were shinobi. Their steps were quiet, too quiet for those of a civilian, and their posture was upright and trained. All three of them, one woman and two men, were well build, a lot of muscle that stemmed from hard training.
The man on the left was tall and broad, build more for strength than for speed. His skin was tan and his hair was dark, shining blue whenever the light hit it in a certain way, cut short and with unruly bangs. There was one scar going from the middle of his hairline to the top of his right eyebrow, and another one that crossed it, but was much longer than the first, pulling down to his jawline. He had deep bags under his eyes and was squinting through the right eye – likely partially blind.
In contrary to the man, the woman in the middle had rather pale skin. Her light brown hair was tied down in a loose knot held together by a pale yellow ribbon. Her bangs were brushed to the side, so that they covered her left eye completely. The visible eye was of brown color. Her features were sharp, from her eyebrows to her chin, giving off a very stern expression, eventhough her features were relaxed. She was bulky, but not too much, and was clearly trained in hand to hand combat. Peeking out under her clothes was a small weapon pouch that she was carrying with her, another confirmation that she was a kunoichi.
Lastly, the man on the right. He was small, compared to the tall woman he was standing next to, and was a little less built than her. He seemed older than the other two, with stress marks on his forehead and under his eyes. His ash blonde hair was held up by a bandana of sorts, keeping the loose locks out of his face. There were no scars on his face, yet his hands seemed to be in a bad condition. There were long jagged scars running up his arms and disappearing under the sleeves of his clothes. His left hand seemed a little stiff – probably lasting damage from the injury he suffered.
“I´m a kunoichi, not some prostitute from the side road! Where does that man get the audacity?!” The woman sneered, gesturing wildly with her hands as the tanned man let out a chuckle. The other one, the one with the ash hair, rolled his eyes.
“You know how it is, we have to deal with these kinds of costumers to get the pay. Besides, the amount of weaponry we got form that handler was more than in the last two months, I´d say it was worth it.”
The short man yelped and dodged as the woman took a swing at him, snarling. “Don´t say “we” like you were the one almost getting humped in the leg by that bastard, Kenshin! I swear, these people get worse by the day!”
Kenshin, like a mature adult, stuck out his tongue at the woman, promptly earning a whack over the head for it.
The other man, huffed out in amusement, but patted the woman´s shoulder reassuringly. “Don´t mind, Touka. Just show him what you feel the next time you see him. Scum like that deserves one broken nose or the other.”
Naruto tensed at the familiar name, but the conversation continued, as Touka raised one of her eyebrows in disbelieve. “Oh? What´s this? You´re encouraging violence, Takuma? And here I thought you´d play the universal peace maker again.”
Takuma huffed. “Well, obviously I won´t. He´d deserve it. Had I been there, I would have been the one to deliver the punch.” At Kenshin´s deadpan look, Takuma rolled his eyes and waved a hand in dismissal, “After the deal was sealed, obviously. Seriously, Kenshin, is the pay all you´re thinking about?”
Kenshin gasped in fake offense, grabbing his chest where his heart was with one hand and putting the other to his forehead, dramatically letting himself fall into Touka´s side. She steadied him with an annoyed huff as he pulled off his melodramatics. “You wound me, Takuma. And here I thought you had faith in me. My reasoning for dealing with costumers like that is always noble and selfless. Ah, what would Keisha-nee-san think of you having so little faith in your brother-in-law?” Sighing, he finished dramatically, only to be interrupted when Touka decided she would no longer support his weight and instead stepped to the side, making him stumble gracelessly.
Takuma only sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes I really wonder how my wife puts up with your dramatics.”
Touka laughed in response. “That´s because Keisha always punches him when he does it. You´re too soft on him, Takuma.”
With the flow of the conversation changing, Takuma suddenly looked lovestruck, sighing again, but this time it was longing. His gaze was far away and he practically swooning. “Truly a magnificent woman, isn´t she?”
Having recovered from his stumble, Kenshin turned away with a scrunched up look on his face, shuddering. “Gross. I don´t want you swooning over my sister when I´m around. Either do it privately, or don´t do so at all. Though I prefer the latter.”
The rest of the conversation was drowned out and Naruto found himself staring after the trio as they sat down and ordered something for themselves. His gaze kept going back to the woman in the middle.
Touka.
Senju Touka.
She was the cousin of Tobirama and Hashirama. Tobirama in particular had been close to her, as he had told him. She was a taijutsu master and her genjutsu could rival anything casted by the sharingan. During her primes, she was ranked third in the clan – or rather, right now she still is. A kunoichi with a fierce battle spirit and a sharp tongue, close to the head and the heir of the Senju Clan.
The other two, Kenshin and Takuma, as well as the woman they mentioned, the sister Keisha, were unfamiliar to him, but Touka was a name he had heard before and someone he didn´t expect to run into.
Then again, even if he did, there was nothing he could do. Naruto could hardly just strike up a conversation with one of the Senju clan members and say “Hello, so I´m from the future and your cousins told me about you. There´s going to be a war and the head of the Uchiha clan plans to put the world under a genjutsu, which results in a goddess being resurrected. So before he can go all insane because of his brother dying, I really need to speak to your clan head!”
Yeah, no.
Absolutely not.
Naruto wasn´t even sure if he wanted to tell anyone about his reason for being here or not. While having allies might be useful, if the information got into the wrong hands and Zetsu somehow got a hold of it, it would jeopardize their entire efforts, Naruto couldn´t possibly risk that.
Still, Hashirama would never work together with Zestu, not when he knew the whole story, and if what the first Hokage said was right, then Madara was also fighting for peace. Surely they could work together then?
“God, this is a pain. It would be so much easier if Shikamaru or Sakura were here. The two of them always come up with good plans.”
His train of thoughts was interrupted when the waitress came back, putting his order in front of him. He muttered a small “Thank you”, getting a nod in response, before she vanished again.
Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how to advance during this time.
While he had spoken with the Senju brothers about the goings during this era, as well as internal politics and relationships in order to know who he could approach and how to do so, Naruto didn´t actually ever think about what to do in order to stop the war.
To do so, he would need to become someone of importance. Someone with influence whose strength was acknowledged and who had a higher position than an ordinary shinobi. Strength-wise, that should be no problem, since he would be able to back it up. Madara had yet to unlock the mangekyou and Hashirama was still relatively young. Naruto had no doubt that he was currently the strongest person alive during this time – and even if Madara had the mangekyou, Naruto would still be able to beat him in a fight. After fighting a literal goddess for years without dying, he´d learned a lot and was much, much stronger than during the beginning of the forth war.
He had no allies behind him, though.
Technically, he could turn to the Uzumaki. Not only were they his distant family, they also were the sister clan of the Senju. With that he would not have one, but two powerful allies.
“Then again,” he groaned, “wasn´t there something about bastard children mostly not being accepted by clans? The whole “keep the clan affairs in the clan”? Since mom was sent away and married dad, I´m not really full Uzumaki.”
Still, one day, Naruto really hoped to visit Uzushio. While he felt no deep connection to the island, it was still part of where his roots were, and now that Uzushio was still standing, there wasn´t really anything stopping him from going there.
“I might also learn a thing or two about seals. I´m pretty good already, but Tobirama said that the former Uzukage was on an entirely different level than he himself and dad were.”
“A chakra pulse?”
Once again, the Senju trio caught his attention and he discreetly tilted his head to the side to see what they were talking about. Touka looked tired at the mention of said chakra pulse, while Kenshin and Takuma mostly looked curious, if not confused.
“Yes. Tobi had been going crazy with that chakra pulse he had been speaking of. Apparently, three days ago there was something that got his attention, but still being confined to bed rest by Hashirama because of his recent injury, he had no chance of seeing what it was about. He´s going stir crazy in the compound, and whenever Tobirama gets stir crazy he starts to experiment with new jutsu.”
Naruto´s eyes widened. Three days ago was when he had arrived back in time. Did his arrival cause ripples in the atmosphere? A fine-tuned sensor like Tobirama would have certainly felt it.
Kenshin only snorted, taking a sip of his drink. “Like the time he experimented and accidentally blew up your mission report that you left near his notes?”
“Oh, I remember that!” Takuma adds, “I also remember that Lord Hashirama had to stop you from attacking him that day. The whole clan was in frenzy. It always happens when the two of you ramble.”
An annoyed huff escaped the woman and she leaned back in her chair, waving her hand in dismissal. “He shouldn´t have destroyed my mission report then. I had to rewrite the entire thing, can you imagine how long that took me? I missed getting lunch with Aoi, and she always cooks the best udon.”
Once again, Naruto tuned the conversation out.
They had felt his arrival.
To be honest, he hadn´t really expected anyone to notice that he arrived back in time. The place where he woke up seemed relatively undamaged and there was nothing more than a small dent in the floor where he had been laying, as well as a little scorched grass all around him.
But knowing that Tobirama sensed him likely meant that he had his chakra signature memorized know, meaning that Naruto had to be even more careful from now on.
His hand twitched and he leaned back in his chair. It might have just been his imagination, but the atmosphere in here was starting to get extremely uncomfortable for him. He had to leave.
Now.
So leaving the pay right on the table, Naruto abruptly stood up, not even sparing a single glance at the trio as he left the café.
He failed to notice the curious glance Takuma threw his way when he rushed past their table and towards the door.