The Windmill Turns Both Ways

Family

The next morning, Naruto sat meditating in the training hall. He hadn't made much progress with the Sage training, but that didn't stop him from trying. No matter how long it took, he was determined to get the hang of it before going back to the past.

The door to the hall slid open, and Naruto's concentration wavered at exactly the wrong time. His arms, legs, and face puffed up at an alarming rate.

"Ahhh! Help!" he shrieked, waving his webbed hands.

"Naruto!"

Someone hit him in the back, hard, making him fall forward and faceplant into the mat. The hand rested on his back and... felt like it was pulling all the energy out of him?

Naruto sat up and saw that Nagato's arm was turning into stone. He shrieked again.

"Relax, it's alright," Nagato said. He coated his other hand in sharp-looking chakra and cut his arm off before the energy could spread to the rest of his body. The arm fell to the floor and crumbled. Shortly after that, Nagato rolled his shoulder a few times and twitched, and a new hand appeared from his sleeve. He flexed it experimentally and Naruto screeched a third time.

"That energy is impressive, even now," Nagato mused.

"W-what are you, anyway?" Naruto accused, pointing at him. Hearing about Nagato's abilities didn't quite measure up to seeing them in action.

Nagato patted him on the head with his weird new hand. "I didn't know you were doing Sage training already. It's dangerous to try it by yourself, you know. Not even Jiraiya-sensei mastered it completely. Though, your older self did, so I shouldn't be surprised." He glanced at the floor suddenly. "What is that?"

Naruto looked down and saw a small black creature near his foot. It looked like a mouse, except it was completely black and looked oddly two-dimensional. It looked sort of like...

"Oh! It is one of Sai's ink animal things!" Naruto took the scroll Sai had given him out of his tool pouch. "I guess I'm supposed to hold this thing out?"

He unrolled the scroll and held it toward the mouse. It scurried onto the paper and flattened out into a message.

"What is this?" Nagato asked, looking at the scroll.

"It's my friend, Sai. He has the ability to send messages to people like this. He said it would find me as long as I kept this scroll with me." Naruto bent over the scroll and started to read it.

Naruto,

The idiot older you has escaped, and he convinced everyone to let him fight in the war. He has been asking about you incessantly, so I told him about the scroll I gave you. I hope you still have it.

Anyway, he said he wanted to write to you, so expect another message shortly after this one.

Sai

Naruto drew in a sharp breath. A message... from his older self? He caught motion out of the corner of his eye and saw another ink mouse coming toward him. He held the scroll out to it with shaking hands, and the ink flattened itself out on the paper.

He almost felt too nervous to read the message. He still knew almost nothing about his older self, after all. What would he be like? What would he say? Naruto took a deep breath and looked down at it. He felt an odd twinge at the sight of his own sprawling handwriting on the paper, alternated with neat, perfect lines from Sai's hand.

'Um... what do I write?'

'I don't know. This was your idea, dickless.'

'Uh... hey little bro, how's it going 'ttebayo?'