AND BACK AGAIN [ NARUTO ]

[ 05 ] past meets future

Uchiha Sasuke. Young Uchiha Sasuke, that is. In the flesh.

Naruto was seeing Sasuke before he was swept off to Orochimaru, before he convinced himself revenge was the answer, before he knew the truth of his dead brother. It was oddly terrifying, he felt like he was at the peak of everything. Sasuke was fragile yet.

"Who are you?" Sasuke asked the zombie. Naruto figured from his bored tone it was more for standard than curiosity.

The zombie-man-ninja didn't respond, of course. But it also didn't charge or try to attack. Maybe it realized that this new opponent wouldn't hesitate to take a finger or two off if he wanted to.

Naruto went unacknowledged by Sasuke for the moment (nothing new there) as he studied the attacker. So, in turn, Naruto tried his best to ignore his young friend's presence and faced the zombie as well.

Sasuke pulled out another kunai and advanced. But Naruto saw the sudden threat before he did.

He didn't waste a second warning anyone. Again, no thought process contributed to his actions as he lunged forward, except that he was wishing for Sasuke's Susanoo more than ever.

As he tackled the zombie, it was like time slowed down. Naruto flew past Little-Sasuke, glowing a vibrant orange. Sasuke's sharingan flashed red as he watched in shock.

Then everyone in the area jumped as the ground shook with the explosion of an activated paper bomb.

There was lots of muttering, a few people screamed, but Sasuke just stared in barely contained shock at the cloud of dust exploding from the eruption the strange man had taken the brunt of.

He composed himself and helped an elderly man who'd fallen in the confusion up. The explosion had left behind a few small fires, and people rushed to put them out. But Sasuke's attention was drawn to the figure emerging.

Naruto stepped out from the cloud of dirt, waving the air in front of him. His clothing had already been pretty beaten up, but he was walking out unscathed. Not a new scratch or scorch mark. He assessed the area. Quickly, Naruto stepped in to help put out the fires. By then, more shinobi were showing up with the woman from before. She was a brunette with rosy cheeks, and soon was before Naruto, thanking him excessively. He rubbed the back of his head and held up a hand, secretly worried about the attention she was attracting.

But the damage was done. Several pairs of eyes were on the man who'd saved a woman from the crazy, exploding man. And that included Uchiha Sasuke's.

"How did you do that?"

Naruto's body went rigid at the sound of his best friend's voice, which was an octave higher than the one from his time. He turned around slowly, meeting the dark eyes of Sasuke. "Do what?"

Sasuke studied him, his expression unreadable. Finally, he uttered one word.

"Naruto?"

Naruto's eyes widened. In a way, it touched his heart that Sasuke was able to recognize him, even with the years he had on the younger him. Then again, no one else in the village had whiskers. And his blond hair was pretty recognizable.

"Whaaaaat?" Naruto held up his hands. "Psssh, who's Naruto?"

"How did you do that thing earlier?" Sasuke asked, ignoring him. "You were glowing, and then you walked away from that explosion alive."

Naruto opened his mouth to deny it, but another voice overruled his.

"Sasuke!"

"Sasuke-kun!"

Two voices, that is.

Sakura, the younger Naruto, and Kakashi raced up to them (although, Kakashi was really walking behind his two students). No attention was payed to Naruto himself as they stopped in front of Sasuke.

"Sasuke-kun, what happened? Were you here when that explosion happened? Are you okay? It was pretty loud." Sakura spouted questions as if Sasuke was really going to answer them.

The younger Naruto scowled at Sasuke. "What did you do now? I bet he had something to do with all of this."

But Sasuke's eyes were firmly locked onto the man in front of him.

"Kakashi, what is going on?" he asked, rather disrespectfully.

Kakashi sighed. "This was impossible anyways."

Naruto laughed uncomfortably.

The younger Naruto finally seemed to realize there was another person there, and that he had Sasuke's attention rather than him. He looked the newcomer up and down, frowning.

"Who are you?"

Naruto resisted the strong urge to facepalm. Man, he really was stupid.

"Baka," Sasuke muttered.

"What did you say?!"

"Just a fact," Sakura put in.

Naruto crossed his arms and pouted. "Not you too, Sakura-chan."

Kakashi ignored his students. "What happened? Wasn't the plan to keep yourself on the low?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Well I tried. But there was this weird guy who started attacking people for no reason, and there wasn't anyone else around to help, so I stepped in. At the last second he took himself out with a bomb."

Sasuke stopped bickering. "You still haven't answered my questions."

The younger Naruto looked between the older him and Sasuke. "Yeah! Who are you? And how do you know Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke?"

"Uh, because they're my comrades." The statement came so easily that Naruto hadn't realized he'd been about to blow his cover.

Not that it was very intact, or anything.

"Tsunade-sama will want a full report. Let's get you to her before you can mess anything else up." Kakashi began the walk to the Hokage's residence.

"Hey! I didn't do anything! Well, okay, maybe I did something, but I didn't mess anything up!"

"I'm coming," Sasuke said.

"That's not––" Kakashi started.

"I'm going too!" The younger Naruto jumped with enthusiasm.

"I'm a little confused myself," Sakura added.

Kakashi sighed. "Fine."