The future has passed

Moving on

Third Person POV
When Naruto woke up, the first thing he saw was the angular tip of a tent. His body felt fine, and he his chakra had mostly recovered. Sitting up, he took a look around, finding nothing out of the ordinary. It was a simple dark green tent. One like every other. Small, but comfortable.

Crawling out of the tent, he squinted at the sudden sunlight. The dark colors of the tent had given him no warning about the brightness outside, and he cursed under his breath as he tripped out.

And all he could see were ruins. Towers that used to pierce the sky with their height crumbled to dust and debris, soon to become sand in the desert. The Land of Wind was aptly named, eroding stones over years to create this landscape. While Naruto had never been very attentive in class, the amount of detentions he had forced him to pick something to distract himself with. Geography wasn't a very interesting class until you add in the amount of landmarks created by awesome ninjas fighting.

Now he had become one of those awesome ninjas, standing in the rubble that was his responsibility. Had he stopped the madman before he arrived in the past, all this wouldn't have happened, and Naruto would still be with his friends.

.......: Naruto!!!

someone called his name. He turned around, just now noticing the hundreds of citizens of Roran behind him, huge tents set up around the crumbled city. Yamato came up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Yamato: Naruto, are you alright???

Naruto: I… I think I messed up, captain.

Yamato: What do you mean???

The older ninja felt… weird. He couldn't exactly say he was feeling sad or angry. Rather, the fact that he could go back home and meet people like the Sandaime again made him… happy. Curious.

Naruto: The nine tales messed up the seal, right? We can't go home, so Sai and Sakura… they're… gone???

Naruto wasn't stupid. Incredibly straightforward and emotional, yes. Stupid? No. Stupidity, no matter how much luck one had, would simply lead to death early in their career.

Naruto: He wanted to seal our memories, So nothing changed. But it did change, right???

Yamato: Naruto......

Naruto cut him off. The blond ninja balled a fist over the necklace that Tsunade gave him.

Naruto: So when it changed, that future, it's gone? Right? It's gone???(he asked with full sadness)

Yamato knew that Naruto wanted him to lie, to tell him that it's still there, just without them, so that his friends still had at least the memory of him.

Yamato: No the future is still there naruto but now we were already fixed in this timeline so we have to move on for Sakura and the others sake.

He had to be honest, because lies would only give him hope. The only one who could do that was the the fourth hokage, who had already informed Yamato of the sheer improbability. Naruto felt faint, yet nodded.

Naruto: Then… then we can go to this hidden leaf???(he asked with full of hope)

Yamato: Minato-sama decided to go ahead and discuss taking the refugees of Roran into the hidden sand village, If the Kazekage refuses, we might take them with us to Konoha until efforts for the rebuilt of Roran can be made. Besides those who were on the mission today and the Hokage, nobody must know of our origins.(he explained)

Naruto: What do you mean??? (he asked with full confusion)

Yamato: It means we'll not arrive as leaf shinobi, but as refugees, Only the third hokage will learn of us.