Back to the past, Believe it!

Prologue

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In the piercing embrace of the wind, grass blew softly, the rifling, easy to make out in the deafening silence between the three men. Not a single flower to spare despite it being early spring. Naruto looked from they're spot on a hill, the last camp, his last camp. Grief flooded from him in waves, but he couldn't find it in himself to acknowledge it. I mean, how could he?

His precious people, the last of them, gone. The last of his only family vanished- only husks to be left behind. Naruto's hair despite having been cut a month prior grazed the back of his neck, sending a vicious shiver down his body.

But the shaking never stopped. His shoulders refused to stay still.

They had been so close, so close to winning. Everything they worked so hard for- crumbled to dust and slipping through his fingers, just as Obito did. Sacrificed, he amended, thoughts swirling as he considered all the lives he's undoubtably failed. The lives he could have saved had he done something different.

Naruto resisted the urge to flinch as a hand came onto his shoulder. "Enough. That's enough Naruto." A rough voice
Voiced, Naruto didn't need to turn around to know who it was, Shikamaru. He had lead them to a... a temporary victory, so to speak. The three now in their early thirties.

It's like every time there was any sort of peace time, any semblance of things beginning to look up- everything would crumble just as fast, so fast that Konoha was never rebuilt.

Sasuke had a somber expression, vivid compared to his normally blank slate of an expression, his gaze was distant as he looked over the destruction. An almost desolate yet familiar look coloring his face. Naruto hummed, finally responding to Shikamaru, before turning away from the base camp. The ground under him dented as they embraced his body.

Shikamaru ignored Naruto as the man turned away, content to stare at the destruction for himself, face never changing, masterfully blank. Sasuke was almost on Shikamarus level, but the way the Uchiha's eyes were squinting said otherwise.

"That's it." Sasuke rasped, a grim look washing over his face. Naruto looked up, his mouth open, ready to respond, ready to say that, it's not, but it nothing came out, at a loss.

Throat constricting, knowing that the last thing he wanted right now, was to lie. But more so, Naruto didn't want to say it.

Shikamaru inclined his head, slowly taking a cigarette to his mouth, "Not a single soul to report to." He muttered, "Not even about the casualties." His voice wavered, his cigarette one word away from being bitten into half. Naruto closed his eyes, silently, he looked at Shikamaru, Choji had been in this camp, exhausted. He had used his chakra fast, his Akimichi clan specialty. By converting calories into chakra, having used the butterfly mode rendered him unconscious and severely weak. They could hardly spare the food necessary to allow Choji to gain the weight needed.

Clenching his fists, Naruto huffed before turning back towards the camp, with little warning Naruto jumped towards the wreckage, he may have given up, but he'd never give up on his friends, his precious people.

"So little to fight for, but so much to lose, it's almost poetic." Kurama snorted. Naruto didn't reply, he covered his face as dust flew into his eyes.

It was body after body, crushed, drained... he wasn't a medic, not in the slightest not like Sakura was. Naruto is capable of medical nin-jutsu, some would say he's like a walking soldier pill, but in the end, when it matters, he can't perform surgery. He can't, do exceedingly tedious tasks.