A/N: Howdy, y'all, and welcome to our story! We're Chicken Train and Laser Beam—a pair of sisters who decided to co-create a serious, canon-compliant, time travel fanfiction. We have a couple things we want to note, but those can wait until the end of the chapter. So, without further ado...

Chapter 1:

Blame it on Things that Shouldn't Be Touched

AKA

"Enterlude" by The Killers

(Why Six is Afraid of Five)

When Kakashi Hatake heard Tsunade kick in his front door shortly after nine, he wasn't the least bit surprised. In fact, he had been expecting this act of breaking-and-entering for some time now and had a cup of sake waiting for her.

Kakashi fully took over the Hokage position four years ago, relieving Tsunade of her bureaucratic burdens. With her newfound freedom, she begun avoiding politics like the plague. Between keeping an eye on the hospital and getting back in touch with her love of gambling, she kept herself busy enough to dodge any requests for favors or advice.

On occasion, though, she would disagree with some of the choices he made as the Sixth Hokage. When word of these incidents got around to her, she would break into his house and berate him until they were both far more stressed than when they began.

The first time, after Kakashi had made an admittedly poor diplomatic decision regarding the Land of Lightning, she threw his dining table at his face. His reflexes were plenty fast enough to dodge it, but the table itself hit the back wall and shattered into thousands of splintered pieces. Since then, through a process of trial and error, he found that a glass of alcohol could placate her into sparing his furniture.

In the same way that Kakashi used aloofness and distance to deal with problems, Tsunade used her near-endless supply of anger. He tried not to hold it against her, for Tsunade's wrath had done a surprising number of good things for the world, but he did wish their interactions were a little less volatile.

Tonight, however, she did not immediately storm into the kitchen and start screaming or throwing things, her blonde pigtails whipping around like cyclones behind her. With an unusual amount of somberness and composure, she walked inside the room as calmly as if he had invited her in and took a seat at the empty space across from him. A whirlwind of thoughts were blowing to and fro behind her amber eyes, but her face was tightly locked in a neutral expression.

It was, in a way, far more terrifying than her being angry. He knew she must be afraid, for he was afraid himself, so for her to have reached a level of stone-cold fear that even anger could not push aside did not make their situation seem any less bleak.

"So," she said, taking the glass but not drinking from it. "I take it the reconnaissance squad did not bring good news?"

Earlier in the day, word had trickled in of suspicious happenings at the Valley of the End. So, he had sent a group of Jōnin to gather intel.

"They were unable to approach the Valley," said Kakashi. "Due to, what they described as, an 'evil presence.'"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow as she traced the circular edge of her glass with her pointer finger. "Evil presence?"

"Specifically," he said, picking up one of the pieces of paper in front of him and handing it across the table to her. The writing on the paper was messy, nearly unreadable, due to the emotional distress of its author. "This is the mission report that Kenshin Yamanaka, the leader of the squad, gave me."

Accepting the piece of paper, Tsunade cleared her throat.

"'It was like being possessed,'" she read aloud. "'As we approached the Valley of the End, and evil presence began to take over us. Every fear, every regret, every dark thought we'd ever had pushed to the forefront of our minds.

"'Some of us handled it better than others, but we all found it increasingly hard to press forward as we got closer to the Valley. Eventually, a few members of the squad snapped and began to attack the rest of us. They were completely dazed over and did not respond to reason. Once we managed to subdue them, I deemed the mission too risky to continue.

"'Once we got far enough away from the Valley, the presence began to dissipate and the violent spell that took ahold of our teammates faded away. They could remember attacking the rest of us, but they could not remember why and were remorseful. Though we could not finish the mission, we were able to determine that the cause of the evil presence was not a sentient being or a genjutsu.'"

Looking no less confused than when she started reading, Tsunade handed the paper back to Kakashi. "Well," she said. "That's…different."

Nodding, he shuffled the piece of paper back into his stack and gently tapped them on the table several times to realign them. It gave him something to do while he waited for her to speak.

"So, I take it you're assuming the worst?" she said. "That this has something to do with Kaguya?"

"Would you assume any different, given the location?" he asked.

"No," she admitted. "But what I would not do—" She stood up and slammed her hands on the table, finding the strength to be angry at last. "—is send Team Seven, yourself included, on a mission to the Valley of the End tonight."

"If this does have something to do with Kaguya, we can't afford to waste any time."

"This sure as hell could wait thirty-six hours, Kakashi. Send a team to stand guard in the meantime—"

"So they can stand around until they attack each other?" asked Kakashi, growing irritated. "You know as well as I do that we can't afford to take any chances. In case you've forgotten, the last time Kaguya showed up, she nearly enslaved the entire world."

"In case you've forgotten, tomorrow—"

"I know what tomorrow is," he said, standing too. He understood her parental protectiveness of tomorrow, because he felt it too, but he couldn't let that get in the way of making the right decision for Konoha. "You're not the only one who cares about Sakura. I'll have all three of them back by tomorrow morning."

"You'd better," she said. "Because if you make Sakura and Sasuke miss their own wedding, I'm going to kill you."

Kakashi didn't doubt it.

"I understand that Naruto and Sasuke have to go," she said, as if trying to talk herself into the plan. "In case something—or someone—needs to be sealed. But why send you and Sakura? If you both stay here, you can look after the village like you're supposed to and Sakura can take care of any last minute wedding details in the morning."

"Sakura is not going to be willingly left behind."

"And you?"

"If you think that looking after the village for a few hours is outside your realm of capability," he said. "I can find someone else to do it."

"You're dodging the question."

She wasn't wrong. "Six years ago," he said. "The four of us managed to stop Kaguya. If this does have something to do with her, the four of us are the most likely to do it again."

"That's such bullshit," she said, knocking her glass of sake to the floor, causing it to rupture into a million little, glass shards. "You're going along because you're afraid that something is going to happen to them and you don't want to feel responsible or be left behind if it does."

"And what would you be doing?" he asked coldly. "If you were in my place?"

"No one's ever said that I make good emotional decisions." She looked at him sharply. "But you'resupposed to be better than that. We're both supposed to be better than that."

Tsunade and Kakashi were quite similar, really: both of them, at one point, had lost the people they cared about most and blamed themselves for it, both had proceeded to become shells of their former selves for over a decade, both had been snapped out of it by Naruto Uzumaki, and both had somehow stumbled their way into the Hokage position. Konoha—and by some extension, the entire world—looked up to them as two of the greatest ninja of their time.

However, when in the company of just each other, it was easy for them to remember that they were not the unshakeable pillars of strength and wisdom that Konoha saw them as—the legendary Fifth and Sixth Hokage. In the quiet dark of Kakashi's kitchen, they were just as lost as everyone else, a mirror for the other's failures and insecurities, wondering how the hell they ended up as the best candidates for Hokage.

"Maybe we aren't better than that," he said.

"Maybe," she agreed.

The fight seemed to leave them all at once, and for several moments, neither of them said anything. There was still an uncomfortable tenseness in the room, but it had less to do with their quarrel and more to do with the threat of Kaguya slinking around in the shadows. Despite Tsunade's eternal youth, Kakashi was struck by how old she looked. There was a haunted, weary look in her eyes that betrayed that Tsunade was three times the age of her physical appearance. Kakashi, at only thirty-seven, was starting to think of himself as old and worn, and he wondered how Tsunade viewed herself.

"Would you like another drink?" he asked, unsure of what else to offer her.

"Yeah," she said, collapsing in her chair. "Just bring me the bottle."

He did as she asked. Gratefully, she raised the bottle to him in cheers and took a long drink.

"Where are they?" asked Tsunade. "Team Seven?"

"At a bar on the eastern end of town with their friends," said Kakashi, taking a seat himself. The Konoha Eleven had a tradition, the night or so before one of them was to be married, of renting out a place called Break My Back and celebrating. "I'm trying to give them as much time as I can."

"Bring them back safe," she said. "We're going to have a lot more problems than our grief if something happens to them."

"I will."

"And don't you go off and die either. If you pull a Fourth and make me become Hokage again, I'm going to be pissed."

"It would be such a shame if I interrupted your extremely fulfilling retirement," he teased.

"Gambling is fulfilling," she said, gesturing towards him with the bottle of sake. "Besides, I've earned it. I know you like to point out how you had to personally take on Kaguya, but running a country during that time was no walk in the park either."

"You were in a coma for half of it."

"Oh, don't be clever. I was awake for the important parts. If I recall correctly, you died at one point, so I think I still come out ahead of you."

Smiling despite himself, Kakashi supposed that he considered Tsunade a friend. When she wasn't destroying his belongings, he really did enjoy her company. Their conversations held a sense of honesty that he couldn't quite find with anyone else. She, more than anyone, understood how little he knew what he was doing when it came to leading a ninja village, because she had been in the exact same position.

"If you say so," he said. "You'll look after things while I'm gone?"

"Only until morning," she said. "After that, I'm handing control of the village to a squad of the most hyperactive academy students I can find, so you'd better be back before then."

"Thank you."

(Fairy Tales Pt. 1)

Once upon a time, when the ninja villages were still fresh saplings blooming into the roots of the world, and the First Ninja World War was nothing more than a whisper in the wind, there was a man in Konoha named Shochu. Neither a noble nor a ninja, Shochu considered himself rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He ran with a crowd of similarly unimportant people, who were all stuck midway in a season of youth: both full of the desire to revolutionize the world and bitterly aware that they were the wrong people at the wrong time to change anything.

So, like many young and foolish people before them, they all decided to get really, really drunk.

It had started as a drinking contest among friends, but what it ended as, Shochu could not remember. The only clear memory he had in the blur of summer heat and lights and the sound of sunset frogs was meeting pretty girl, whose golden hair glowed softly underneath the sky like starlight. Her voice as light as the July breeze, she had been singing sweetly to the moon, surrounded by her own group of laughing, inebriated friends. Shochu did not believe in love at first sight, particularly while under the influence of alcohol, but seeing the girl of starlight for the first time had to be something close.

Twelve hours later, Shochu woke up in a cold, ivory hospital room, every inch of his body aching in regret. The golden-haired girl (he desperately racked his brain to try and figure out her name, but he came up with nothing) was sitting beside his hospital bed with a book in her hands. She smiled softly when his eyes fluttered open. The supervising medical-nin, who was taking Shochu's vitals, looked less pleased.

"Son," said the medical-nin, in disappointment. "You managed to break your back."

"Break my back?" croaked Shochu, his throat still raw from the burn of alcohol.

"You'll recover, but it's not going to be pleasant. Do you remember what happened?"

Shochu shook his head.

"You were trying to climb a tree," said the girl. "And, um, fell. Just outside the city limits."

"What was I doing up in a tree?" asked Shochu.

"You said you were going to try and impress me."

Using what little motion he could manage, he craned his neck to look her in the face. Even without the rosy goggles of alcohol, she was the loveliest woman he'd ever seen. And, after all, she had stayed. "Did it work?"

"Well," she said, giggling. "I've never had someone fall out of a tree for me before."

Many people would have taken waking up in a hospital room with a broken back and no memory of the event as a sign to get sober. Shochu, however, figuring he still had a girl to impress, decided the best course of action was to open a pub. As soon as he was able to walk again, he bought a shack in the eastern end of Konoha, did the best he could with renovations (with some help from his Starlight, who as it turned out, had quite a knack for that sort of thing), and opened Break My Back a few months later.

Break My Back did not take off quite like Shochu had hoped, only getting just enough business to get by. However, his Starlight was impressed all the same. They married the following summer, in a short-but-sweet ordeal attended by all of their friends.

They were unimportant, in the grand scheme of things. However, Shochu reckoned that owning a dusty, wooden bar with the love of his life was a good enough reason for carrying on.

(Fairy Tales Pt. 2)

Once upon a time, when the fresh wounds of the Fourth Ninja World War were just starting to mend, Sakura Haruno found herself in need of a quiet drink. With a considerable amount of desperation, she stumbled upon a dusty, wooden bar in the eastern end of town. It looked ancient compared to the polished buildings beside it and was barely the size of a small apartment, but it was empty. For that kind of peace, Sakura was willing to do a lot worse.

Due to her accomplishments during the war and her recent venture into creating pediatric mental health care, Sakura had gained a significant amount of notoriety. When she went out in public, all sorts of people wanted to just talk to her. Families thanked her as she bought her groceries; little girls asked how they could grow up to be like her as she passed the academy on her morning run; people pressed for stories of the war when she went out on the town at night; parents asked for advice regarding their children as she made her way home from hospital shifts.

During such occasions, Sakura smiled, answered their questions, and did her best to not be overwhelmed by it all. After all, to be held in such high esteem was a great honor and she wanted help as many people as she could.

Still, she could not shake the feeling that they were all wildly mistaken. When she looked into the mirror, all she saw was a nineteen-year-old girl, just as lost and unsure as nineteen-year-olds tended to be. She was a powerful ninja, certainly, but becoming a "war hero" had not granted her the wisdom that people expected. In fact, the only thing saving the world had taught Sakura was that she knew nothing at all.

Once, a few months after the war had ended, she brought up these concerns with Tsunade, who told her something that forever changed the way she looked up to people.

"Kid," she'd said. "Welcome to the rest of your life. None of us have any idea what we're doing. All we can do is fake it well enough that people feel secure and hope that things don't go too badly."

So, Sakura did. She smiled, answered their questions like she had an authority to do so, and did her best to not be overwhelmed by it all.

Sometimes, though, she just needed to stop pretending.

"Welcome to Break My Back," said the barkeep. At least in his late eighties, he was completely bald and hunched over with the weight of age. His entire face was heavily wrinkled, but his laugh lines were particularly deep. "What can I get you?"

"Gin and tonic, please," said Sakura, taking a seat at the bar.

The pair sat in silence as Sakura drank her first drink and then another and then another, but when she ordered her fourth, the bartender asked, "Did someone break your heart or something?"

"What?" she asked.

"You're a little young to be drinking this much."

"You're a little old to be managing a bar," she shot back.

"Oldest bartender in town," he said, smiling. "My name's Shochu."

Sakura childishly considered giving a fake name, wanting just for a night to pretend like she was something other than Sakura Haruno, but she ultimately decided against it. "I'm Sakura."

"You wouldn't be Sakura Haruno, would you?" She nodded, causing him to raise his pale, thinning eyebrows. "Really?"

"How many pink-haired people do you see every day?"

"It's just—" There was an exhausted look in his eyes, and Sakura found herself wondering how old he truly was. "—you're a little young to be a famous war veteran. I suppose your next drink is on me, though, since you helped save the world and all."

"You really don't have to do that," she insisted.

"Don't take it personally," he said, grinning again. "This bar's seen all four Ninja World Wars and I've given free drinks to veterans from all of them. It would be distasteful to stop now."

"Okay." She smiled and relaxed a bit, letting the buzz from the alcohol soothe her stress from the day. But, she couldn't resist curiously asking, "All four ninja world wars?"

"Yup," he said, his eyes beaming with pride. "I started this thing a couple years before the first. In fact, during the First Ninja World War—"

A surprisingly good story-teller, he recounted a slew of memories to her, all from different ages of Konoha. She listened intently for several hours and was coaxed into eventually sharing some of her own tales, launching a bizarre sort of friendship.

They each justified it in their own ways. Sakura would tell herself, when she repeatedly went back to the bar in the following months, that he was just interesting to listen to. As one of the oldest people in Konoha, he was a walking history book. His stories were a nice place to escape to when the present got too overwhelming.

Shochu would tell himself, as he told her all sorts of stories in her following visits, that she was just interesting to be near. Unlike Shochu, Sakura was important in the grand scheme of things. By the age Shochu was when he opened Break My Back, Sakura had helped to stop the apocalypse and was opening her own children's clinics. She was changing in the world in ways he could have only dreamed of, and her significance, though she seldom acknowledged it, was fascinating.

In reality, they were both drawn to friendship with one another because they were both lonely. Shochu's Starlight did not quite make it to see the Fourth Ninja World War, succumbing to a heart attack in her sleep a few years previous. And though all of Sakura's friends were falling in love and starting a new chapter in their lives, Sakura herself only had faint dreams of a dark-haired boy halfway across the world. The bar, though they didn't like to admit it, was a shared limbo for them—one where Sakura was waiting to live and Shochu was waiting to die.

Nearly a year after her first visit, the regulars at Break My Back had grown used to Sakura's occasional company. The bubbly, pink-haired nineteen-year-old stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the bar's usual clientele—mostly reclusive, older folk who needed a place to get out to every once in awhile. However, she eventually faded into the background, just like everything else at Break My Back, and no one even looked up from their drinks when she entered anymore.

"Welcome to Break My Back," said Shochu, as she entered. "What can I get for you today?"

"A favor," she said, a wide grin plastered across her face. "If that's alright."

"What do you have in mind?"

"In a few weeks, two friends of mine are getting married," she said. "But a few days before that, we want to all get together to have drinks and catch up. Would you mind hosting a party of ten?"

"I think I can manage that," he said, smiling. "Who's the lucky two?"

"I've told you about them before: my teammate Naruto and his fiancé Hinata."

Shochu had learned to react to Sakura being good friends with a variety of well-known people with nonchalance. The rest of the regulars, however, were less subtle.

"The Naruto?" asked a stocky woman with a choppy, brown haircut, down at the end of the bar.

"No, her other teammate Naruto," said the man beside her sarcastically. "The one who scrubs dishes down the road."

"Well how was I supposed to know she knew the Naruto—"

"Oh, knock it off, both of you," said Shochu, before turning back to Sakura. "Bring your friends around. I'll take care of them."

Much to Shochu's pleasure, Break My Back became the official spot of the Konoha Eleven's pre-wedding get togethers. They were perhaps the most important thing his bar had ever done and he lamented that his Starlight did not make it to see them.

The other nine surviving Konoha Eleven, like Sakura, were at first glance much younger and more down-to-earth than he expected them to be. If he had not been warned in advance, he would never have known that they were the fabled Eleven. Crammed around a table too small for the ten of them, laughing and drinking, they reminded him of his own friends when he was around that age.

So, like he found with Sakura, it was jarring to hear them talk about their mission work as casually as a laborer might discuss his day-to-day. Though they looked barely older than children, they regularly carried out tasks that were beyond anything Shochu could dream of. They carried the danger and pressure with more grace than their age should have allowed.

Shochu supposed that was the real difference between extraordinary people like them and regular people like him—the ability to persevere despite the extreme circumstances. As much as Shochu had fancied himself a revolutionary in his younger days, the stress of owning a barely-managing bar was more than enough for him. Still, whenever Sakura came back and asked if he would host another pre-wedding party, he always said yes. For the actual "do-ers" of the world, it was the least he could do.

Shortly after the fourth party, Sakura stopped visiting Break My Back. She was a busy woman with a lot of responsibilities, so Shochu knew better than to be worried, but he couldn't help it. Over the past few years, Shochu had started to think of her as the daughter he'd never had.

Then one day in October, just as the leaves were starting to fall, Sakura came back. With a smile brighter than he'd ever seen it, Sakura entered the bar hand-in-hand with a handsome, raven-haired boy. Shochu did not personally recognize him, but he had heard enough stories and rumors to make a decent guess at his identity.

"Welcome to Break My Back," said Shochu, grinning. "It's good to see you again, Sakura."

"He's the one I've been telling you about," she said to the man with her, leaning against his shoulder. "Sasuke, this is Shochu. Shochu, this is Sasuke Uchiha."

If Shochu thought the bar was quiet before, the noise-level was deafening compared to the complete silence after Sakura's introduction. All of his regulars paused what they were doing to look up at the man in a mix of fear and morbid curiosity.

Shochu had to admit, even with Sakura's insistence that Sasuke had changed, it was still a bit startling to see him in person. Unlike the rest of Sakura's friends, Sasuke could not blend into a crowd. There was an unquestionable air of power around him—a conflicting sense of deserved pride and remorseful humility.

"It's nice to meet you," said Sasuke civilly, extending his hand out. If he was bothered by the stares, he didn't show it, though Shochu noticed that Sakura was looking around nervously. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Likewise," said Shochu.

The two shook hands and, as Sasuke bowed his head respectfully, a mutual understanding took place. Shochu's own opinion of Sasuke aside, the Uchiha was in love with Sakura and Sakura was in love with him. Sasuke, knowing that Shochu cared about Sakura but undoubtedly had heard of Sasuke's less-than-favorable reputation, was acknowledging Shochu's place in Sakura life and, because of it, proposing a clean slate between them. For Sakura, Shochu found it in himself to nod back.

"What can I get you two this evening?"

"Two drinks," said Sakura. "And a favor."

"Who's getting married this time?" asked Shochu, playing along.

Sakura smiled up at Sasuke with all the radiance of young love, prompting Sasuke to give her a surprisingly soft smile in return. "Us."

(The Party)

When Naruto suggested a round of toasts, "here's to Sakura, for being a damn traitor" was not what he had in mind. Nevertheless, Tenten clamored to her feet using the top of Lee's head as support, raised her fifth glass of sake, and gave the toast all the same.

It had become tradition for the Konoha Eleven and their respective spouses, the night or so before someone's wedding, to go to Break My Back and celebrate and reminisce in the way that only old friends could. Somewhere along the way, it had also become tradition for Tenten to get wasted and give speeches that she heavily regretted the next morning.

Tenten was lucky that the Konoha Eleven were sentimental in nature, because otherwise someone would have tackled her to the ground.

"Tenten," said Lee sternly. "You promised you wouldn't do this."

"This one's a good one," she slurred. "I promise."

Being the guests of honor at that evening's gathering, Sasuke and Sakura sat at the middle-back of a dark oak table that was just too small for the fourteen of them. Sakura, who was drunk on both love and vodka, did briefly consider tackling Tenten to prevent her from speaking any further. This wouldn't have helped the evening be less dramatic, of course, but it wouldn't be the first time that someone had started a bar fight the night before their wedding on account of Tenten.

Sensing his fiancée's sudden flare of violence, Sasuke squeezed her hand under the table in a gesture of absent-minded comfort while he mentally went through every terrible thing that Tenten could bring up in her speech. He was the only one at the table who'd never heard one of Tenten's speeches, on account of his nomadic nature, but he'd heard enough stories to worry him.

"I think we're going to need more," said Sakura, looking over to Shochu. Though he was cleaning glasses, Sakura could see a smile on his face; Tenten's speeches always amused him. "Of everything."

"Right away," said Shochu, nodding.

Naruto and Hinata, who sat to Sasuke's left, had grown more publicly affectionate as the night went on and the drinks kept coming. But, the looming threat of Tenten's speech was enough for Naruto to let go of Hinata's hand, just in case he needed to react quickly if things went south. He still kept his arm around her shoulders, though, and Hinata kissed his cheek appreciatively.

Ino and Sai, on Sakura's right, had been the victims of Tenten's worst speech. With every ounce self-control she had, Ino restrained herself from dragging Tenten out of the bar before the speech got ugly, fiercely determined to make sure Sakura had a good time tonight. Sai, who was doodling on a spare napkin and unsure of how else to prevent his wife from resorting to drastic measures, gave her a quick drawing of some flowers to distract her. To his relief, it worked for just a moment.

Choji, Karui, Temari, and Shikamaru circled around from Sai, all looking at one another apprehensively. Both couples' speeches hadn't been as disastrous as Ino's and Sai's, but they were bad enough that even the thought of Tenten giving a speech filled them with dread.

Next to Hinata, Kiba looked positively gleeful. He took great delight in teasing Tenten about her speeches the day after, and given that someone only got married every once in awhile, his time had finally come again. Shino, who had the misfortune of sitting next to Tenten, looked like the second-hand embarrassment was killing him.

"As you know," continued Tenten. "Right now, our numbers are perfectly even. Five of the Konoha Eleven are married; five of us aren't. 'Course, the betrayal started when Choji—" She waved her glass vaguely at his direction at the end of the table, where he was sitting with an arm around his wife. "—made us give up our majority in the first place. One could even argue it started when Naruto and Hinata had to go off and marry each other, starting this whole downward spiral of matrimony."

"Why do you always do this to yourself, Tenten?" asked Temari, putting her head in her hands.

"This one has a point.I've already promised." Turning her attention back to Sakura, Tenten raised her glass once more and accidentally spilled half of her sake on Shino's lap, causing Hinata to erupt into a fit of drunken, nervous giggles. "Anyways, Sakura Haruno. When we first met, I didn't understand you at all. You cried more times during that Chūnin exam than I've cried in my entire life.

"And Sasuke, you did more brooding than—" Tenten took a pause that was awkwardly noticed but not acknowledged. She and Hinata exchanged a brief look. "Well, you did a whole lot of brooding. I remember just looking at the two of you and wondering how such dysfunctional people could ever be ninja."

Sasuke had consumed too many drinks to mask any divisions from psychological neutrality. Mouth open in a near perfect "o," Sasuke looked at Tenten in the same dumbfounded yet unwillingly captivated way that people stared at house fires. Sakura, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was nearly crying into Sasuke's shoulder from laughter, brought on by both her fiancé's expression and the disastrous speech. The rest of the party was, emotionally, somewhere between the two.

"This has a point?" asked Shikamaru, hoping at some point they would be put out of their misery.

"Yes, it has a point," said Tenten, as if everyone was a fool for not already realizing this. "The point is, I wasn't really wrong about these first impressions. Sakura still cries publicly about twice a week and Sasuke's story speaks for itself." She looked at the remaining bits of sake in her glass thoughtfully. "But as far as weepy and angsty ninja go, you two are probably my favorites."

There was a brief period of stupefied silence that was quickly ended by Kiba. "To Weepy and Angsty," he said, raising his drink. "May they at least find solace in each other until the end of their days."

Lee, who always abstained from drinking, managed to coerce Tenten into sitting back down as the others—sans Karui—laughed and drank to Kiba's sentiment. Just as she had been doing all night, Karui smiled and brought her glass to her lips, but she never actually took a sip. Until this point, only Sakura had noticed this charade and had the wisdom to not comment on it. Sai, who had just noticed during the toast, did not have that wisdom.

"You usually drink more than this," he said to Karui tactlessly.

"I have a headache," said Karui, at the same time Choji said, "It's nothing."

Not even needing his wife's incredulous look to know he said the wrong thing, Choji tried to backtrack, "I mean, it's nothing, because it's just a headache—"

"Is she pregnant?" asked Ino, furiously standing up.

All conversation at the table abruptly ceased as everyone turned wide-eyed towards Choji and Karui. Shikamaru's face turned as pale as paper and Choji was pointedly avoiding everyone's gaze.

"Congratulations," slurred Hinata, inebriatedly oblivious to the sudden tenseness in the room.

"We were going to tell you eventually," said Choji.

"Eventually?" shrieked Ino. "What kind of time would that have given us?"

"Wait," said Temari, standing up too. "When you say time, you don't mean—"

"We're InoShikaCho!" said Ino. "Our families have always been InoShikaCho. And now that they've—" She gestured angrily towards Choji and Karui. "—Cho'd, what do you think has to happen?"

"Look," said Shikamaru, as he and Sai joined the crowd of panicked standing people. "Let's not make any rash decisions."

"It's tradition, Shikamaru," said Ino, looking like she was quite literally willing to fight him over it.

"Does it have to be firstborns?" asked Sai logically. "Couldn't Choji's and Karui's second kid be part of InoShikaCho?"

"I'm not having another kid," warned Karui.

"Traditionally," said Shikamaru, as if the words were physically painful for him to say. "InoShikaCho has to be firstborns, anyways."

"Are you actually considering this?" asked Temari, looking at her husband in outrage. "Don't I get a say in this at all?"

"I know that you're not from Konoha, Temari," said Ino. "But given that you married into a prominent Konoha clan, you could at least be respectful of our customs."

Temari's face darkened over. "Alright, listen here, you bitch—"

The argument dissolved into complete mayhem after that. All three members of InoShikaCho and their spouses started yelling at one another, so loudly and chaotically that it was hard to even make out what anyone was saying. Due to the panic of being forced to have children and the several drinks they had consumed throughout the night (except for Karui, who was running solely on pregnancy-fueled rage), all of them were saying hateful things they didn't quite mean.

The rest of the table, decidedly not involved in their clan issues, just looked on awkwardly.

"I've run out of soap," said Shochu, inching around the yelling six. "I'll be right down the road if you need me."

Sakura gave him an apologetic nod.

"Are these things always this…intense?" whispered Sasuke.

"It runs about fifty-fifty," admitted Sakura.

"Look on the bright side," said Naruto. "You made it through Tenten's speech without things getting violent, so you're already doing better than Ino's and Sai's party."

"What happened at Ino's and Sai's party?" asked Sasuke.

Tenten opened her mouth to answer, but both Shino and Lee quickly covered it.

"You really don't want to know," said Kiba, uncharacteristically serious.

"This exact same thing happened with our fathers," said Ino, who was now standing on her chair. "What the hell is with you Akimichi men and your inability to think ahead?"

"Do you think they'll actually go along with it?" asked Lee.

"We should place bets," said Kiba.

"That's distasteful, Kiba," said Shino.

"You think everything I suggest is distasteful."

"That's because it usually is distasteful."

"Say what you want about Suna, but at least my family isn't pressuring me to have a baby right this second."

"Forget having kids," said Tenten. "We should place bets on whether or not they'll ever speak to each other again."

"They'll come around," said Sakura confidently. "Once they fight it out."

"I still don't understand why it can't be the second child."

"I told you, dammit, I'm not having another kid."

"To friends," said Kiba, raising his glass with a humored smile. "Even if they are all crazy."

"And to love," said Hinata, raising her own glass.

"And to Sasuke and Sakura," said Naruto. His proper speech would come tomorrow at the wedding reception, but he figured they needed at least one decent toast to their names tonight. "And a lifetime of happiness."

"Shikamaru, what the hell would your father say?"

"That's low, Ino, bringing my father into this—"

With laughs and smiles and a few eye rolls to the spectacle at the right end of the table, the eight of them drank to all of those things.

For the last time in a very long time, life was perfect.

Kakashi did not remember walking to Break My Back—not really. His instincts and reflexes were more than enough to sneak through the shadows of Konoha while his mind wandered off to other places.

The night was unusually pleasant, he'd noticed. A warm front had come in earlier in the week, replacing the usual chill of January wind with an agreeable, cozy breeze. As such, the town was busy and alive, filled with people taking advantage of the weather. Lights from shops twinkled like fireflies in a summer field, illuminating the skyline despite it being well after sunset.

Mixed with the conflicting feelings of appreciating the lovely view of the city and immense dread, Kakashi did not regain awareness of himself until he'd reached the bar and found himself face-to-face with an elderly man and several unseen, yelling voices. The man did a double take upon seeing him and nearly dropped his shopping bag.

"Goodness gracious, you're the Hokage," said the man.

"I am," said Kakashi, a bit awkwardly.

"I mean—" The man went wide-eyed as he realized what he'd said and began to bow. "—it's an honor to meet you, Hokage, sir. Forgive me; I lost my manors for a second. The name's Shochu."

"Are you the man that owns this bar?"

"Yes, sir. Oldest bartender in town. Can I get you anything to drink? I mean, I've got a full house at the moment, but—"

"No, it's alright," said Kakashi. "But, if you would, my three students—Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura—are inside your bar. Would you mind grabbing them for me?"

"It would be my pleasure, Hokage, sir."

Ducking around the building, Shochu disappeared through a back entrance. A few moments later, the front door opened and his three students walked single-file out of it.

"I know it's hard for you not to be a massive bitch, Ino, but if you could let someone else get a word in—"

Sasuke quickly shut the door behind them.

"Was that Temari?" asked Kakashi, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Sakura. "It's…um…a bit of a long story."

Sasuke snorted, sending Sakura into a fit of laughter. By the look of things, they were both a bit tipsy, and Kakashi hoped that fact wouldn't interfere with their mission too much. Naruto, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes at Kakashi.

"You're afraid." Because of the Nine-Tailed Fox inside of him, Naruto could sense negative emotions in other people. "What's wrong?"

This caused Sakura and Sasuke to stiffen. Though they did not have the same power, the tense look on Naruto's face told them everything they needed to know.

"I'm really sorry to have to do this." And he was. "But we have to go on a mission."

"Now?" asked Sakura, louder than she meant. Sasuke put a comforting hand on her shoulder, though he looked no less disturbed.

"What's wrong?" repeated Naruto.

"I sent a reconnaissance squad to the Valley of the End this morning," said Kakashi, holding out the mission report. "And they brought back this."

Sakura snatched the piece of paper out of his hands and read it like her life depended on it. Not wanting to wait until she was finished, her two teammates read over her shoulders. As they made their way through the report, all three of them began to look extremely exhausted.

"We'll all be back before morning," promised Kakashi, even though he wasn't sure he could keep it. But, he doubted a broken promise would even be significant if he made them miss the wedding. "We just have to make sure it's something that won't…escalate until your wedding is over."

"All four of us are going?" asked Sasuke. Kakashi nodded. "So, you think this has something to do with Kaguya."

"Could be," admitted Kakashi. "We can't take the chance if it is."

The four fell into an awful silence as all the fear and memories of the war six years ago came flooding back. Sakura in particular looked like she wanted to scream or argue or something, but she couldn't find the energy to do any of those things. Instead, she just closed her eyes and leaned into Sasuke's side, who put an arm around her, unable to come up with words that would bring any of them comfort.

"He's right," said Naruto eventually. "But if we go now, we'll be back in plenty of time for the wedding."

"Okay." Sakura voice cracked and tears began to brim in her eyes, causing Kakashi to feel another stab of guilt. "I'll…I'll need to tell Ino and ask her if she can get everything ready in the morning."

"And I need to say goodnight to Hinata," said Naruto.

"We'll meet at the village gates in thirty minutes," said Kakashi. "Get everything you can ready before then."

To InoShikaCho's credit, they immediately stopped their arguing to come to Sakura's and Sasuke's aid. The girls, as if they hadn't just been throwing insults at one another, joined together to comfort Sakura and promise her that everything would be ready by the time she got back in the morning.

(Blame it On Things)

Kenshin Yamanaka had not been exaggerating. By the time they reached the edge of the valley, around two in the morning, all lingering feelings of intoxication and pre-wedding joy were replaced by crippling despair.

"What the hell is that?" whispered Sakura.

Activating his Sharingan, Sasuke looked out over the Valley of the End. "There's something in the center. It looks like a…pink crystal."

"We're being tormented by an evil crystal?" asked Sakura incredulously.

"Anything else?" asked Kakashi.

Sasuke surveyed the area. "No. There's no genjutsu or people—just the crystal."

The four looked at each other uneasily.

"Well," said Naruto. "Let's go, then."

They made their way to the center of the Valley of the End as slowly and deliberately as soldiers marched to the front lines of battle. With every step they took towards the crystal, the evil feeling, thudding against their skulls, grew more agonizing. Every unpleasant thought and feeling they'd ever had was screaming in their minds.

Visibly shaking as they made their way forward, Sasuke was clearly the most affected. A permanent look of terror was plastered on his face, and he looked to be torn between running away and vomiting. Sakura was doing her best to be comforting, holding his hand and whispering words of love in his ear, but tears were freely falling down her face as feelings of loss and loneliness punched her in the chest. Kakashi was emotionally not far behind Sasuke, completely glazed over as terrible memories forced themselves upon him.

"C'mon," encouraged Naruto, who was by far the least affected, though definitely not immune. "We're not too far."

Then, a wave of the chakra crashed over them at once, washing away all light from the world. Naruto and Sakura were able to fight through it, clinging onto thoughts of all the good things they could think of, but Kakashi and Sasuke were gone.

Suddenly unaware of where he was, Kakashi saw a massive crowd of people sprawling out in front of him. Rin was at the front, as young as she had been at her death, bleeding freely from the hole he'd put through her. Behind her, Minato and Kushina were as mutilated as they had been when the Third Hokage had found their bodies. The victims of the Fourth Shinobi World War expanded out from there, as bloody and haggard as the front three. And in the shadows, there was Obito, his haunted, red eyes shrouded by unrivaled hatred.

More and more faces joined the line, each one cursing Kakashi's name, all of them blaming him for the state that Kakashi had directly or indirectly put them in. The guilt and pain, built up over the span of several decades, exploded out from the place that Kakashi had locked away those feelings in his chest. Unable to bear the weight any longer, he fell to his knees and began to beg them for forgiveness.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was completely submerged in a world of war and death and pain. The Fourth Ninja World War raged around him and all the hatred in his heart that he had long given up rose again to the surface. Anger pounding in his head and the smell of battle around him, he drew his sword, ready to kill for his cause.

"Naruto!" said Sakura helplessly, jumping away from her fiancé. Sakura had no doubt in her mind that Sasuke, when in his right mind, would never hurt her. However, none of them were in their right mind. "Naruto, help!"

Naruto, who had been previously trying to help Kakashi, looked over at them just in time to see Sasuke draw his blade. His face darkening over, Naruto turned towards Sakura and said, "Take care of Kakashi."

As Naruto ran at Sasuke, Sakura forced herself to turn away from them. On the ground, Kakashi was still pleading with people that Sakura could not see.

"I'm sorry," said Kakashi, more emotional than she'd ever heard him. "God, I'm so sorry."

They all blamed him for their deaths and he deserved it. He had killed them all. He was responsible for Obito turning astray, for causing the Fourth Ninja World War to ever have a champion to fight it. All of the hatred burning through them, rippling through the Valley as they cried out in pain, was destroying him, but he was so, so sorry...

"Kakashi," she said, shaking his shoulders to try and snap him out of it. However, he did not seem to notice her, his eyes still focused ahead. Unsure of what else to do, she pulled him into a hug. "Kakashi, please, they aren't real. There's no one there."

Beside them, Naruto pinned Sasuke to the ground, causing the Uchiha to yell out all sorts of awful curses. At the very least, the evil presence had made him a worse fighter than usual.

The person tackling Sasuke into the ground shifted form many times. First it was Obito Uchiha, the monster behind the mask, the man who had helped to kill his whole clan. Then it was Danzō, the manipulating bastard who had ordered the massacre in the first place. Finally, it was Madara, his eyes filled with all the madness of the Curse of Hatred...but, wait...no...it wasn't Madara. It was him. Sasuke was staring at his own reflection, the final reincarnation of an insane, bitter brother...

"You killed them," said Sasuke, with all the hatred he had in him. "You killed all of them."

"Sasuke, what are you talking about?" yelled Naruto. "It's me, Naruto. I'm your friend."

"It's my fault," muttered Kakashi. "There's blood everywhere and it's all my fault."

"There isn't any blood. There's nothing there." said Sakura, her tears falling softly in his hair as she held him tighter. Again, nothing went through to him. "Kakashi, I know you're in there, dammit. You have to remember the good things. Remember…" She didn't know if he considered it a good memory, but in the stress of the moment, it was the only thing she could think of. "Remember when you gave us that first bell test?"

"Bell test," he repeated, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

"Yes, the bell test," she said, nearly laughing in relief. "Back when we were little and stupid and you couldn't stand any of us. Remember, I fainted after you used a genjutsu on me and you had to tie Naruto to a post—"

"—because he tried to steal the lunches," finished Kakashi. A look of realization passed over his face and Sakura released him, knowing her Kakashi had returned. Then, his face changed to embarrassed regret. "I—"

"Don't worry. We'll never speak of this again," she said. She looked over at Naruto and Sasuke, who were still grappling in the dirt, the latter yelling hate-filled nonsense. "Naruto, make him remember! He has to remember something good!"

Dodging a punch to the face, Naruto used his Nine-Tails chakra to pin his best friend to the ground. "Remember when we were here last, Sasuke? You were trying to kill me, but, um, don't remember that part. Remember that, after years of fighting, we finally became friends again. You took my hand and we released the Infinite Tsukuyomi and we agreed not to fight again, so snap out of this, idiot!"

"Don't call me an idiot, idiot." Sasuke face was scrunched in pain and he was still fighting to gain control over the evil presence, but Naruto was relieved to see that his friend was still in there somewhere. "It's still there, I can't—"

"Remember having drinks at Break My Back?" asked Sakura, approaching them slowly. "And Tenten's speech? It was awful, but everyone toasted anyway and you were holding my hand and—" Carefully, she bent down and caressed his cheek. "—Sasuke, remember that I love you."

Finally, Sasuke relaxed. "Always, Sakura."

Relieved beyond words, Sakura sat down on the ground beside him and Naruto followed suit. For a few moments, none of them moved, all attempting to recover from the incident.

Though still shaken by his crystal-induced hallucination, Kakashi broke the uneasy silence. "We need to keep going."

"Remember the good things," said Naruto, looking to the crystal up ahead, only about fifty meters away. "We can do this."

"Hell, yeah," said Sakura, with a half-hearted smile.

Picking themselves back up and latching on to every happy memory they could, Team Seven put one foot in front of the other until they were nearly arm's length to the crystal. The crystal itself was about the size of Kakashi in height and width and the color of Sakura's hair. If it hadn't been radiating an evil, mind-controlling chakra, they might have considered it pretty.

"So," said Sasuke. "What now?"

"We could destroy it," offered Naruto.

"That might release whatever is inside of it," said Kakashi. "I could try and seal it somehow, but I don't know a seal that would work."

"Does this have something to do with Kaguya?" asked Sakura.

The men of Team Seven exchanged a look that confirmed that none of them had any idea. Naruto opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, another wave of chakra came. Although the did their best to hold on to cherished memories to keep themselves sane, Sasuke and Kakashi started to slip again. Letting out a sudden yell, Kakashi readied a Chidori in his hands and attempted to slam it into the crystal.

However, the Chidori never made contact. The crystal sucked up the chakra from Kakashi's Chidori like a vacuum and pulled Kakashi's hand onto the surface of the crystal. The evil feeling, previously suffocating them like steam in a bath house, disappeared entirely. For several, tense seconds, no one even dared to breathe, worried that Kakashi would suddenly collapse or be whisked away into the crystal. Finally, Kakashi slowly moved his arm.

"I'm stuck," said Kakashi.

"You're what?" asked Sakura.

"I said," said Kakashi, gritting his teeth as he unsuccessfully tried to pry his hand from the crystal. "I'm stuck."

"Here, I'll just—" Naruto grabbed Kakashi's arm and attempted to yank him away from the crystal, but Kakashi still didn't budge. Sighing, Naruto tried to let go of him but found that he couldn't. "…now I'm stuck."

"To Kakashi?" asked Sakura incredulously.

"To Kakashi."

"Great," said Kakashi.

With a low, humming noise, the crystal started to glow a vibrant pink and Kakashi and Naruto let out a yelp of pain.

"What now?" asked Sakura, looking at the pair in panic.

"It's absorbing our chakra," said Kakashi. "Quickly."

"What do we do?" asked Sasuke to Kakashi.

"I'm thinking, I'm think—"

Before Kakashi could finish his sentence, he swooned, unable to hold himself up under the chakra draining. Sakura released the seal on her forehead, placed one of her hands on Kakashi's arm, steadied herself on the crystal with her other hand, and transferred some of her chakra into Kakashi.

"Sakura!" said Sasuke sharply.

"I had to do something!" said Sakura. "He'll die of chakra exhaustion before we can do anything to stop this. He doesn't have Naruto's chakra reserves."

"Neither do you," said Sasuke, as Kakashi's eyes blinked back open and he managed to steady himself.

As the crystal grew brighter, the intensity of the pain began to increase, and it was Sakura's turn to let out a terrible cry. Sasuke's face paled and he instinctively reached out to touch her—to comfort her—but he pulled his hand away at the last second.

"Naruto," said Sasuke, though he never tore his eyes away from Sakura, who was blinking tears out of her own eyes. "We need to seal it."

"We can't," said Naruto. "We're all stuck to this thing. The Six Paths — Chibaku Tensei will trap us inside too."

"We have to try," said Sasuke. "Maybe I'll be able to summon us outside of the satellite with my Rinnegan."

"Okay," said Naruto, knowing he had no other choice. He looked over at Sakura and Kakashi, who were struggling to maintain consciousness. "On the count of three. One...two...three—"

Naruto's free palm made contact with the crystal at the same time as Sasuke's, and they released their chakra for the fūinjutsu. The gravity around them began to swiftly shift, pivoting from the center of the earth to the pillar of the crystal, and the shards of the Valley started to encase them in a giant, rocky sphere. As the ball began to slowly rise above the earth, taking the crystal and Team Seven with it, the four of them were all struck by the horrible realization that they were not going to make it out of this.

"This is an awful way to die," said Sakura, not even bothering to blink away the tears anymore.

"We're not going to die." Naruto's voice cracked as he said this. "We can't. Not now. Summon us out of here, Sasuke."

"I can't," whispered Sasuke, closing his eyes. "It's not working. I'm stuck."

"We have to do something."

But, there was nothing left to do, They were rising into the sky without any signs of stopping and Naruto, with his expansive wealth of chakra, was the only one bound to be alive in the next few minutes.

"I'm sorry," said Kakashi, and once again, a guilt the size of the world was upon him. "If I hadn't of touched it—"

"If you didn't, I would have," said Sasuke. "You just got there first."

"I suppose it was always meant to be the four of us," said Sakura, trying to smile. "Even now, at the very end."

In the silence of the moment, Naruto thought of Hinata. He thought about her radiating grace on the battlefield and how beautiful she looked in candlelight; he thought about the way she kissed him goodbye in the mornings and the fact that she dipped everything in red bean soup; he thought about her smile, which could light up his whole world in an instance, and the family they were thinking about starting soon. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a moment to imagine their future that would never be. He saw them hand-in-hand, older than they were now but no less in love, watching their children as they ran around and chased one another playfully. In that moment, he missed her with all the strength he had left, and he would have given anything to be by her side and not leave her alone in this world.

Kakashi's imagined future was not too different from Naruto's, though in the older man's, Sakura and Sasuke were there as well, looking after a couple children of their own. In that moment, he would have given anything to give his three students that future—the one they deserved. As his strength began to fade, though, his thoughts began to drift towards the afterlife and the people he might find there. He thought of Obito, Rin, Minato, and Kushina, not angry as he had seen them earlier, but at peace in the solace of the Pure Land. He thought about how indescribably nice it would be to finally see them again.

As the darkness closed in, Sakura and Sasuke just leaned on one another and enjoyed their final moments together. They thought of how short their relationship had been, in the grand scheme of things, and what they would give in that moment to let it last just a little longer. Sakura thought of their friends and the devastating news that would come their way tomorrow—the tragic halt of the wedding that would never be…

"Kakashi," said Sakura suddenly. "Marry Sasuke and I."

"What?" asked Kakashi, who had been deep in his own thoughts.

"You're Hokage," said Sakura. "You're legally allowed."

The light was completely vanquished as the final pieces of earth attached themselves onto their floating prison. It was hardly the place for a wedding, but given it was the last place they were likely to ever see, it would have to do. "Marry us," agreed Sasuke.

"I'll be witness," said Naruto's voice, and they could almost hear him grinning despite it all.

"We need to hurry," said Sakura.

"Sasuke," said Kakashi, who was desperately trying to remember the words of the wedding vows in the exhaustion of the moment. "Do you take Sakura and agree to become her partner? Will you in peace and in sickness, comfort, love, respect and help her? Will you promise all of this until death parts you from this world?"

"I promise," said Sasuke. Though he could not grab her hand as he would have liked, as his hand and hers were stuck to other places, he was able to gently place his forehead on hers.

"Sakura," said Kakashi, "Do you take Sasuke and agree to become his partner? Will you in peace and in sickness, comfort, love, respect, and help him? Will you promise all of this until death parts you from this world?"

Sakura smiled one last time. "I—"

(About Twenty-Four Years Earlier)

Kakashi awoke like the onset of an afternoon drizzle—very slowly, at first, and without much progress. His slumber was so immense that, for the first couple of minutes, he wasn't even aware that he was awake at all. Eyes too heavy to open, he simply was, completely unaware of the concept of his existence. Kakashi had several, notable things to worry about at the present time, but for those first, waking minutes, there was nothing but the progression out of the deepest sleep he'd ever had.

Too soon, though (but really, given the circumstances, not soon enough), he registered that he was awake and, more startlingly, that he'd never actually fallen asleep. Memories of Team Seven and the crystal rushing back to him, he sat up violently, giving himself a terrible head rush.

Trying to blink away the blurriness from his eyes, he attempted to piece together what had happened. The last thing he remembered was touching the crystal and the ensuing pain. The other three members of Team Seven had touched it as well, he knew, and he remembered numbly dishing out wedding vows inside of a giant, floating ball of earth. Where, though, were they now? Surely they must have died, but this did not feel like death (and he had more experience than most with that subject). Had they managed to make it out alive somehow? He didn't sense any chakras in the immediate area—Team Seven or otherwise—so he clamored to his feet.

To his horror, the sunlit bedroom was strikingly familiar.

It's most recognizable trait was its conspicuous emptiness. The floors were completely absent of clutter and the only piece of furniture in the room, save for the futon on which he had slept, was a desk in the corner. Several pictures of his old team, Team Minato, lined the back of the desk, but they lacked the wear and age his current copies adorned. More troubling, though, was the sword and sheath situated just in front of the photographs.

Carefully, Kakashi unsheathed the sword and gave it an experimental slash through the air. His father's sword, for that is what the weapon was, was as whole as the day it had been forged, despite having broken two and half decades ago. It had been a long time since he had held the sword in his hands, but the weight of the blade and the feel of the hilt were unmistakable. This was definitely the White Light Chakra Sabre and he was definitely back at his childhood apartment.

This has to be a genjutsu, he thought, but unless it was as powerful as the Infinite Tsukuyomi, he knew it couldn't be. Kakashi was skilled enough to dispel all "human" genjutsu. Not to mention, Sasuke could resist the Infinite Tsukuyomi, so the genjutsu theory was unlikely all around.

The perfect replica of his old bedroom unnerved him, but he still couldn't sense anyone in the nearby area, so he decided to explore a little more. As he wandered into the bathroom and looked into the mirror, his unease plummeted into full blown panic. His reflection still belonged to him, certainly, but a different him—the one who had owned this apartment. Judging from the baby fat in his cheeks (evident even with the mask) and the lack of scarring around his left eye, he couldn't have be any older than thirteen. He hadn't just returned to his old apartment; he had gone back in time.

"No way," he whispered, running a small hand through his now-shorter, snowy hair.

Logically, there was no way he could have actually gone back in time, because time travel didn't exist outside of wild theories and books of fiction. This had to be some outlandish, fever dream or miraculous genjutsu. He knew in his heart that this wasn't death—that he had managed to stay on the plane of the living for longer than anticipated—but time travel was out of the question.

Still, he had experience several things in the past couple of years that he hadn't previously thought possible either. He'd come back from the dead and battled a god and won. Was time travel really such a stretch?

Yes, he thought. This has to be a genjutsu.

Growing desperate, Kakashi grabbed a kunai off of the counter and plunged it into his hand. However, the scene around him didn't change. The only difference was the sudden onset of pain and blood.

"That was stupid," mumbled Kakashi.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and to snap out of…whatever this was. Whatever else the crystal had done, he felt as if he'd been asleep for several days. Something was fogging over his mind, preventing him from thinking clearly.

After quickly wrapping his hand in toilet paper, he made his way into the kitchen. True to his old apartment, there was a pristinely-kept first aid kit underneath the sink, tucked behind the piping. He made a makeshift tourniquet and began to stitch his hand, just as another thought popped into his mind.

He didn't have the Sharingan. If he really was in the past, then the Kannabi Bridge mission hadn't happened yet, which meant—

Obito was still alive.

And not only Obito, but Rin, Minato, Kushina, and all the others he had lost over the years. He temporarily abandoned his stitching to glance at the calendar and found that today was the day he was supposed to go on the Kannabi Bridge mission.

A dozen new thoughts sprang from the grave of the last, but he pushed them all down. Fate was decidedly not that kind and he needed to get out of there. He threw on his mission gear and left the apartment as fast as he could.

As he walked through the streets of the city, trying to come up with a plan, Kakashi felt like he was stuck in a dream. Everything looked the same as it did before Pain destroyed Konoha, which was both familiar and chillingly foreign. He had grown up on these streets, but this was not his Konoha. His Konoha had seen a whole other war, had been turned into dust and rebuilt from the ashes. In his Konoha, he was a powerful Hokage who'd helped defeat one of the greatest evils the world had ever seen.

In this Konoha, he was a wandering, distressed teenager, stuck seeing ghosts every time he turned the corner—those who had not survived to see his Konoha. He had to escape this. Before this madness escalated any further, he needed to go to the Valley of the End.

(Make Believe)

The spontaneous trip all the way to the Valley of the End was, as it turned out, a complete bust. The valley always radiated a certain…energy, but beyond the mystical aura of the historical events that had already transpired there and the perhaps prophetic knowledge of what was to come, everything was normal. It was completely intact, unlike in the present (or future, he supposed) time and completely devoid of any malicious chakras, crystals, or signs of Team Seven.

There were many times in his life that Kakashi had felt unprepared. All of those paled in comparison to now.

So, he decided to kneel down on the grass and talk to Rin as if he was at her grave. It was the only thing he could think of to do.

"Hello, Rin," said Kakashi. He surprisingly didn't feel too awkward talking to an empty field like this. Sure, there was no grave marker, but a slab of stone and a casket didn't mean that Rin was listening any more than she was now. Grave Rin, the one he had spilled his heart to so many times before, had always been a fabrication in his mind, one he carried over to now. "I think I might have time traveled."

The admission did not make him feel any better. Rather, for the first time, it made the whole scenario feel real. He was in the past. He was stuck in the past. Everything he had worked for had vanished with one touch to a mysterious, pink crystal.

Another frightening trail of thought wedged into his mind. What if there had never been a future at all? What if the whole thing was just a dream—all twenty-four years just a figment of his unconscious imagination? Maybe a prescient warning, maybe just a delusion…

But no, that made even less sense than time travel. No one's dreams were that detailed or complex. Dreams were vague at their best and absurdly abstract at their worst; he had detailed memories of an entire two-and-a-half decades. Besides, he would find out soon enough anyways. At some point (he was already going to be late), if he truly was stuck in this timeline, he would need to meet Minato, Rin, and Obito at their rendezvous point for their mission. The thought of seeing them again—his old team alive and whole—made his heart ache.

Yet another idea entered into his mind, more terrifying and exhilarating than all the rest. What if he had been given a chance to change everything? After all, this was the day that started the progression to the Fourth Ninja World War and his own personal downward spiral. He could save Obito. Even further than that, he could save Rin, Minato, Kushina, and so many others who were taken far too soon. He could stop the Akatsuki from turning evil, expose Danzō and Orochimaru, and maybe even stop Black Zetsu before the Kaguya crisis even occurred.

The entire world was at his fingertips.

But fate was not that kind.

"Changing everyone would be dangerous," he mused aloud. "Even though a lot of people died, we still won the Fourth Ninja World War. If I changed anything, we could lose."

But you could win, said the dangerous, little voice in the back of his mind. And save thousands of people.

"That's a huge risk." He was glad that the Valley of the End had a tendency to be void of visitors. If someone had heard him arguing with himself, they might have thought that he'd lost his mind. Hell, maybe he had. "What if I erase Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura from existence?"

What had even become of his three protégés? None of the three had been born yet, and according to his calculations, only Sakura's mother was even pregnant. Had they simply dissolved in the stream of time, without a body to return to? Had Sakura's adult mind landed into the unfortunate state of a fetus? Had they all been sent to another universe entirely?

Those questions didn't help either.

They might travel back at a later point, said the voice. You might not have to do this alone forever. Besides, Sakura's mother is already pregnant. You can't erase her from existence. And Naruto's and Sasuke's births are destined. You can save everyone.

He thought about his students: Naruto, who was good and saw the good in everyone, the man he was eventually going to trust with the Hokage position; Sakura, strong and caring Sakura, who just wanted to save people and be loved; And Sasuke, who had finally come around, the prodigal student who had finally returned, just as fiercely determined as he'd ever been. They were all stubborn and had their faults, but he was so proud of the three of them, and the loss of them made his heart ache in a way he didn't know it could. He had lost people before—he had lost a lot of people—but losing the three of them felt like losing a child.

They might come back. You can save everyone.

"Fate is not that kind," he murmured. "This is too perfect, going back to the date of the Kannabi Bridge Mission."

The day everything went so wrong.

You can't do things exactly the same as last time, anyways, said the voice. You're a different person than you were then. You'll do something different, because you won't remember how you did it the first time, and you'll change something without even meaning to. You might as well change things willingly.

After all, are you really going to watch Obito slip away again? Kill Rin with your own hands? Watch Minato and Kushina be maimed by the Nine-Tailed Fox?

But what would become of his Konoha? Had sending Kakashi back in time erased it from existence? Or was it still carrying on in another universe, suddenly lacking a Hokage and three of its most powerful assets?

Tsunade was going to kill him, though he was pretty sure he was never going to see that Tsunade again.

All of the worrying started to flood him, tightening his chest in a way that made him feel like he was suffocating. He had so many questions, but not a single answer.

You can't go back. The crystal is gone. No matter what has happened to Team Seven or Konoha, you are stuck here.

The whole scenario felt too contrived. Even with the ridiculousness that came along with time travel, what was the likelihood that he'd get sent back to this date?

If this did have something to do with Kaguya, which he had very little doubt of at this point, what if this was her plan? If she sent Kakashi back to the day he regretted most, what if she was banking on him changing things, giving her another chance to win?

But then again, what choice did he have?

"I have to change things," he said. "Rin, I think I'm meant to save Team Minato. Maybe I'm meant to save everyone. If I stop the Fourth Ninja World War before it even starts, I could cut down the body count by thousands."

At some point, he would need Team Seven. Naruto's and Sasuke's fates were undoubtably intertwined with Kaguya, so to stop that, he had no doubt that those two would be needed. Worse comes to worst, if they never came back, he could always train Team Seven again from scratch.

Still, he was hoping it wouldn't come to that. He wasn't sure he had the heart to go through that fiasco again.

Was it best to keep the time traveling secret to himself? Or was it best to key in Minato, so that they could work on changes together?

"No," said Kakashi, answering himself. "The more people know, the better chance of something changing outside of my control. Besides, I should wait for Team Seven—" For his own sake, he was holding on to the notion that Team Seven would come back at some point. "—and we can tell whoever needs to know together."

For now, Orochimaru, Danzō, the Akatsuki, Zetsu, and all the other plagues of the world would have to wait. At the moment, only one mission mattered: saving Obito. The trip to the Valley of the End had already made him wildly late to the rendezvous. Hopefully, Team Minato hadn't left without him.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," said Kakashi. If Tsunade knew what he was about to do, she'd probably find some way to revoke his title of Hokage due to poor judgment and stupidity. "But Rin, I'm going to fix this."

(On Seeing Ghosts)

When he reached their designated meeting spot, a good two and half hours late, he was relieved to see that the other three members of Team Minato were still there. The sight of his former team was doing a number on his emotions, so for the sake of keeping it together, he decided to not go out just yet. Instead, he settled for watching them from afar.

Obito sat on the grass, free of the Curse of Hatred that would soon grip him. He was fiddling with his goggles, like he always did when he had to wait for long periods of time, and it reminded Kakashi strongly of Naruto. In his former team's comparison to Team Seven, he always fancied himself the Sasuke to Obito's Naruto. But, in the long run, it had turned out just the opposite.

Kind as he remembered her, Rin's smile shone across the clearing. She was laughing at something either Obito or Minato had said, but there was an undertone of worry in her eyes, no doubt wondering where her third teammate had wandered off to. Kakashi loved her, but not in the way that she loved him—that right belonged to Obito. Besides, Kakashi was a decidedly different person than he was the first time around. He was not the Kakashi she loved. Hopefully, that would be enough for her romantic love for him to dissipate.

And then there was Minato. Never before had Kakashi appreciated how little the Hokage monument did his sensei justice. The stone face immortalized on the cliff face in Konoha did hold his strength and unquestionable sense of strong leadership. However, the pride and liveliness in him, apparent even as he stood casually by his students, was something beyond what the stone could capture. Minato looked exactly like a Hokage should, and briefly, Kakashi wondered if the citizens in his Konoha saw similar qualities in him.

They were all so untouched by the tragedies that would soon befall them that it made Kakashi's chest ache again. In a couple months, Rin would die. In a year, Minato would join her. In a day or so, Obito would fall to something much worse than death.

Their innocence made him all the more determined to save them. Taking a deep breath, because his heart was racing and here they were, alive, Kakashi made his way across the field.

"Kakashi!" said Rin, jumping up off the grass. "Where have you been? Are you okay?"

"Sorry," he said, without really sounding like he meant it. He was completely wrapped up in the exhilaration of they were alive, they were alive. "I lost track of time. Are we ready?"

"How did you lose track of time?" asked Obito incredulously. "You're never late to anything."

"Being late isn't so bad." Thirteen-year-old Kakashi would never have said his, but as weird as it would be for them, he had to get them used to thirty-seven-year-old Kakashi. "After all, predictability isn't a good trait in a ninja."

"What happened to the rules and regulations?" asked Obito.

"I'm a Jōnin now," said Kakashi. "I'm supposed to rely on experience more than rules."

"So you're just…over the rules?" asked Rin.

"The rules provide a good groundwork for being a ninja." Kakashi's three students had personally broken every ninja rule ever created. A good number of those instances had been bad, particularly when they pertained to Sasuke, but a good number had been for the better. "But life, missions included, is much too complicated to outline in a set of rules."

For a moment, none of his teammates spoke as they looked at each other apprehensively. Rin put her hand to his forehead, checking for a fever, but when she found his skin cool, she looked at the other two and shook her head. Finally, Minato broke the silence.

"Kakashi," he said. "Are you...okay?"

"Fantastic." It was the most honest thing he'd said all day. Talking to them was like a dream.

"Right." Minato continued to look at him for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether or not he was truly in his right mind. "Just try to be on time from now on. We are in the middle of a war."

"My apologies, Sensei."

"Well, I intended to do this two hours," said Minato, shooting another look at Kakashi. "But like he said, Kakashi has become a Jōnin, just like me. To make the mission more efficient, myself and his team will be split, since the military power of Konoha has hit an all-time low."

"Split?" asked Obito, furrowing his eyebrows. "Then—"

"Yeah, that's right. Kakashi will become the commander of your three-man team and I'll be on my own."

"I told you about it before, Obito," said Rin, frowning at the boy. "To give Kakashi a present."

"Sorry," said Obito, perhaps looking a little less our than he did last time. "I wasn't listening."

"I'll give you this," said Minato, pulling the familiar Flying Thunder God Kunai out of his pocket and dangling it off his pointer finger. "It's a special kunai. It's a little heavy because of its odd shape, but when you get used to it, it's easy to use. Take it with you on today's mission."

That, at least, put the "it was all a dream" theory to rest. There was no way his subconscious mind could have predicted that Minato was going to give him a funny-shaped kunai.

"Thanks," he said, as Minato handed it to him, fulling planning on utilizing the tool this time if need be.

"This is from me," said Rin, grinning as she held out a small box. "Here! It's a personalized medical bag. You've improved so much that it should be easy to use!"

"Thank you." He smiled back at her as he took the box from her hands. "I'll put it to good use."

Kakashi turned to Obito, who was looking at him with a mix of defiance and attempted apathy.

"I know you didn't get me anything," said Kakashi. "So for my Jōnin present, just be careful today. We have to watch each other's backs."

"Seriously," said Obito, looking at him like Kakashi had just announced that he was planning on living the rest of his life as a turnip. "What is your problem?"

"I'm sorry," said Kakashi sarcastically. "Would you rather I wish ill on your wellbeing?"

"It's weird."

"Well, if something happens to you today, you won't be able to buy me an actual Jōnin present." Also, I'll regret it for the rest of my life and you'll turn very, very evil. "And 'teammate death' on the file might hurt Rin's chances of being promoted." Minato gave him a faux-stern look. "And, of course, Minato-sensei would miss you."

Rin giggled and even Obito cracked a bit of a smile, much to Kakashi's pleasure.

"Okay, we need to get started," said Minato, pulling out a map. "We're at the country border, which is this line. Currently, the Earth Country is invading the Grass Village. That's this line." He pointed a little further up the map. "Of course, the enemy are Rock ninja. We have intel that suggests that there's already about a thousand ninja at the enemy's front line.

"Our current mission is here." Minato pointed at the bridge. "We'd need a lot of ninja to hit the enemy's front line. Because of that, a few selected ninja must go and sabotage them."

"So we need to get to the bridge," said Kakashi, having completed this mission before. "And destroy it."

"Yes. Team Kakashi…your mission is to sneak behind the enemy and destroy the bridge that they need to receive supplies. Then, withdraw quickly."

"Okay," said the three in unison.

"What about you?" asked Obito.

"I will engage the frontline directly to divert them away from you." Minato put his hand in the middle of the four. "This is Kakashi's first time as commander. We'll go to the border, and from then on, the mission begins."

The other three placed their hands on top of their sensei's. "Okay!"

(The Bridge)

The mission up until the bridge was embarrassingly easy. He knew he ought to not be so hard on himself for messing it up last time, as he had more than two decades' worth of experience this go around, but most of his mistakes seemed glaringly obvious. Though his strength, stamina, and chakra supply weren't as good as they were in his previous lifetime (he'd have to train those back up), his jutsu knowledge, chakra control, battle sense, and leadership skills more than made up for the difficulties last time.

So instead of acting like a jackass, he let Minato take the lead in taking out the rock ninja. Consequently, the enemy ninja was killed with relative ease and no one in their party was injured. When Minato finally split off, Kakashi made it clear to Rin and Obito (who were still uneasy about his sudden change in personality, but did not push the issue further, as they just wanted to get through this mission alive) that they were to watch each other's backs no matter what the circumstance. Rin was not taken hostage, Obito was saved from "death," and they were able to set up camp in peace.

Despite this, there was a lingering awkwardness among the three. He expected that from them, given his sudden personality change. He also knew that he'd most likely feel the same way, given that he was almost forty and his friends were barely teenagers. There was another layer to it, though—something holding him back that he couldn't quite explain. Looking at them felt like looking at a movie screen. He could see their faces and hear their voices, but he shouldn't have been able to reach them. Breaking through that fourth wall felt like interrupting something that was never meant to happen in the first place.

Still, not a moment went by when Kakashi wasn't afraid it was all a dream. He couldn't return to his Konoha, that much he knew, but what frightened him more was the notion that he might not want to. More than words could describe, he missed Team Seven. However, Team Seven had the opportunity to join him here, while Team Minato was forever gone from his original life.

However, those were worries best tucked away for later. A lot had happened today, both physically and emotionally, so he would need to wait for a clearer head and a bit of time to sort through the majority of his thoughts. Kakashi instead focused his efforts on the bridge, knowing that taking it down would be a much more difficult task than the act of getting to it. If he didn't think things through perfectly, the mission would go south fast.

"We need to discuss our strategy," said Kakashi, that night. "Destroying the bridge is crucial for Konoha. If we fail, Konoha could lose the war. Because of that, you both need to do exactly as I say."

"We've got your back," said Rin, before lightly elbowing Obito.

"Right." Although Obito still looked irked about being ordered around by Kakashi, he seemed to be warming up a little. "You're the boss."

"We won't be able to just approach the bridge," said Kakashi. "As there will be too many ninja. The bridge will also have a warding jutsu, so if we place an exploding tag, they'll immediately know of our presence."

"So…how are we going to destroy it?" asked Obito.

"I'm going to sneak underneath it and break through the center of the bridge using a jutsu." The Lightning Cutter wasn't safe enough to use as an assassination jutsu without a Sharingan, but for a target as stationary and large as a bridge, it was fine. "It won't completely demolish the bridge, but it will get the process started. While I'm distracting the ninja on top, Obito, you'll place exploding tags on the eastern end of the bridge, ignite them, and get out of the way immediately. I'll then destroy the western end of the bridge—"

"Why not destroy the western end the first time?" asked Obito. "Instead of destroying the center?"

"If I destroy the western end," said Kakashi. "They'll know that someone is going to destroy the eastern end. They'll surround me and take you out before you can even do anything. But, if I destroy the center of the bridge, I can distract the ninja on both sides and cause enough chaos to give you a chance to place exploding tags undetected."

"What will I do?" asked Rin.

"You'll be on standby, a good distance away from the bridge, just in case either of us gets hurt. But, more importantly, you will be in charge of guarding a log."

"A log?" asked Rin, confused. "What does a log have to do with anything?"

The log was, in fact, the riskiest part of the whole plan. Using the Lightning Cutter twice in rapid succession would be taxing enough on his thirteen-year-old body. After destroying the bridge, he and Obito would need to escape quickly and quietly. So, he planned on pulling a Minato and using the Flying Thunder God Technique, with the log containing the seal. Granted, he had never actually attempted the technique, but Kakashi had become quite adept at fūinjutsu over the years and he saw Minato's teleportation performed several times with his Sharingan. It didn't need to be executed with any of the skill and grace Minato possessed; it just needed to get them out of there.

"The log has to do with everything," said Kakashi, though he didn't dare elaborate. His teammates would think he was insane and start to doubt the plan, which he couldn't afford. "Can I trust you with the log?"

"Yes," said Rin hesitantly. "Isn't this a bit risky? You taking on all of those ninja by yourself?"

"I'll be fine," said Kakashi. "We only have to stay for as long as it takes for Obito to destroy his end of the bridge."

Honestly, he didn't want Obito and Rin near the fight at all. He'd seen Obito die once on this mission and the thought of losing them both again was nearly unbearable. He didn't want the catastrophe he'd prevented to go to waste.

However, he knew he couldn't protect them forever. They were ninja—soldiers who had volunteered to lay down their life for their village. They knew what they were getting into when they accepted their rank and headband.

Still, they seemed so damn young.

"Obito, as soon as you've lit the exploding tags, race to the western end of the bridge and grab onto me. Any questions?" They shook their heads. "Then tomorrow, we take down the Kannabi Bridge."

As Kakashi waded through the water under the bridge, careful to avoid detection by the multiple rock ninja above him, he had to admit that he was a little nervous. Everything he had worked for in the past twenty-four hours came down to this moment. If they didn't destroy the bridge, all three of them could die and Konoha could very well lose the war. He didn't even want to think about all the changes that would come from that.

Once he was strategically under the bridge, he looked out into the forest, first at Obito's location near the bridge and then Rin's location further down the river, to verify that they were still in position. Satisfied, he readied his hands, jumped upwards, and slammed through the top of the bridge, his Chidori leading the way.

As Kakashi steadied himself on a piece of the bridge that wasn't currently falling, there was a tense, brief moment where all of the enemy ninja were frozen, stunned by the image of a thirteen-year-old spontaneously ripping through the surface of the bridge. Kakashi used the opportunity to erect a Water Wall around himself, using the water from the river. A few of the rock ninja were pushed back from the force of it and all hell broke loose.

Due to his lower chakra levels, particularly after his teenage body's first proper use of the Lightning Cutter, the wall wasn't as strong as he would have liked. Only a few seconds into the chaos, a rock the size of his head was launched through the barrier and nearly collided with his shoulder. From the sound of the voices outside of the barrier, the number of ninja surrounding him had quickly risen to forty, and his barrier definitely wouldn't withstand that amount of force.

Using some of the water from his barrier, he created a Water Shark Bomb Jutsu and circled it blindly around the wall. He couldn't see the damage, exactly, but he heard a significant amount of yelling, so that had to mean something. A few, brave ninja managed to enter the barrier in the chaos of the giant, water shark, but Kakashi had been prepared for that too. Using his free hand, he unsheathed the White Light Chakra Sabre and began to funnel lightning chakra down its blade.

"Who wants to go first?" asked Kakashi, with feigned innocence.

As expected, all four ninja went at him at once, but Kakashi was better. Almost immediately, he was able to stab clean through one of the shinobi and use his body as a shield against the other three's attacks. He shoved the body of the ninja (who had died rather quickly from the injuries inflicted by both Kakashi and his own comrades) into the others to distract them, before sending a water shark into them as well, forcing them back outside the circle.

Clearly, the Rock ninja had been prepared for a large squad, not a one-man army.

Then, like music to his ears, he heard an explosion from the eastern side of the bridge. Quickly making sure no one was directly in front him, he used the last of his water barrier to send out water clones in all directions as a decoy, while he dove to the opposite end of the bridge and plunged through it with another Chidori.

He tumbled into the water below and a falling piece of bridge hit his left shoulder and broke it. Gritting his teeth in pain, he looked around for Obito amidst the dozens of falling rock ninja. Between the exploding tags on one end and the Lightning Cutter on the other, the bridge was quickly collapsing.

Finally, he saw Obito sprinting towards him, dodging the debris as he went. The few rock ninja who were conscious and alert chased after him.

"Grab my hand!" yelled Kakashi.

Obito got to Kakashi just in time, for had he gotten there any later, they would have fallen victim to an onslaught of kunai. But as it was, Kakashi grabbed his hand and teleported them both away before further harm could be done. They appeared in the forest next to Rin.

"Kakashi!" said Rin, standing up in alarm, clearly not expecting him to just appear out of thin air.

His vision was starting to blur over and he knew he wouldn't last much longer, so with the last slice of his energy, he threw Minato's kunai at a nearby tree and said, "Get us out of here."

(Veni, Vidi, Vici)

Kakashi awoke sore and out of breath. Struggling upwards, he took several gasping breaths of air.

"Easy, Kakashi," said Minato, who was sitting next to him, legs stretched out on the grass. "You're safe."

"Obito and Rin," said Kakashi quickly. "Are they—"

"They're safe, too," he said, nodding towards a spot further on in the clearing where Obito and Rin sat deep in conversation. "But you need to get better control of your chakra. Chakra exhaustion can be a dangerous thing."

Kakashi was very aware of that fact, given that he had once died from it. However, none of that mattered. Kakashi was so deeply relieved that he burst into raw, deep, loud laughter. It clutched at his chest, bringing a lifetime of regret and pain to the surface. Years of torment over this mission, all erased with a few right moves.

"He's awake!" said Rin, jumping up from her seat and bolting towards them. Obito followed suit. "How are you feeling? You broke your shoulder at the bridge, but I put it in a sling and gave you something for the pain."

"I'm fine," he said, smiling at her concern. "Nothing a little sleep and time won't fix."

"I was telling Minato Sensei, you were incredible. I've never seen half of those jutsus you used."

"Where did you learn to use the Flying Thunder God Technique?" asked Minato, with a suspicious curiosity.

"Watching you, of course," said Kakashi. "I doubt I'll ever be able to use it half as well as you do, but it got Obito and I out of a tight spot."

"Forget about teleporting," said Obito. "Where did you learn to make a water shark?"

"Of all things," said Kakashi, with a humored smile. "You're impressed that I can make a shark out of some water?"

"It's a shark," said Obito, as if this were supposed to explain everything. "I mean, yeah, I guess the teleporting and the thing you used to cut through the bridge were cool…but a shark."

Kakashi shook his head. "What happened after I passed out?"

"Well, Minato showed up," said Obito. "It turns out, that kunai he gave you was like the log. It summoned him when you threw it. Anyways, we grabbed you, came back here, and Rin fixed your shoulder."

"The bridge was completely obliterated," said Rin. "And before Minato showed up in the forest, he defeated an army of one thousand."

"Two victories were won today by Konoha," said Minato, smiling. "With any luck, this will turn the tide of the war."

"I hope so," said Rin. "I wish this war would just end already."

Everyone gave brief noises of agreement and Minato said, "Rin, Obito, I need to talk to Kakashi alone for a minute."

The two wandered back to their place on the grass and Minato turned to Kakashi.

"Kakashi, are you okay?" he asked once again. "You've been…off the past couple of days."

"In what way?" stalled Kakashi, giving himself time to think of an excuse.

"Nothing bad," said Minato. "You're certainly more relaxed. And your plan for the bridge today was good, but it wasn't something you'd normally come up with. Normally, your plans involve an equal amount of risk for everyone and a play to everyone's strengths, but today—" Minato paused, clearly trying to word his point delicately. "—you prioritized your teammates' safety heavily over your own."

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," said Kakashi. It was the only plausible explanation he could come up with regarding his sudden change in behavior. "About the war. About what matters in the world. About what peace means."

"And?"

"If you had to put it into words," said Kakashi, looking over at Minato. "Why is Konoha fighting this war? Why has Konoha fought in any of the Ninja World Wars?"

"To protect our way of life," said Minato slowly, wondering where this was going. "And the people of our country."

"And the other countries, why do you think they're fighting?"

Minato thought for a moment. "Probably the same reasons."

"We all want the same things," said Kakashi, nodding. "All the ninja villages, at the heart of the issue, just want to protect their people and give them the best life they can. We all handle this in different ways. Some ninja villages, in pursuit of this goal, see other ninja villages as the enemy. But when it comes down to it, none of us have to be the enemy."

"So, what are you suggesting?" asked Minato, a smile tugging at his lips. "World peace?"

"Not quite," said Kakashi. Though the Shinobi Union was a reality in his timeline, he didn't blame Minato for seeing it at ridiculous. A few years before the Fourth war, Kakashi couldn't even have pictured it. "Just peace between the five main ninja villages. If we all joined together and talked out our issues diplomatically, we could focus our efforts on the issues outside of our control: terrorists, organized crime groups, that kind of thing."

"That's an optimistic goal."

"It is," said Kakashi. "The other villages have a lot of anger towards Konoha, some of it more justified than others. Whether we want to admit it or not, Konoha does have a power imbalance when it comes to missions. That's not our fault, but it is causing the other villages to suffer. An inequality like that is not something the ninja villages, when founded, accounted for. That, of course, leads to anger, which leads to blame, which leads to the war we've found ourselves in."

"So, what's the solution for that?" asked Minato, his curiosity becoming a bit more genuine.

"In this theoretical alliance," said Kakashi. "It is not unreasonable to assume there might be a committee that divides the missions fairly, based on which village has ninja that possess the talents for those missions, instead of which village has the biggest reputation."

"A lot of people won't like that," said Minato.

"No," agreed Kakashi. "But people like war a lot less."

Kakashi could tell Minato was entertaining it, which was good. If Kakashi could get an alliance started earlier than last time, it would be for the better.

"What does any of that have to do with Obito and Rin?" asked Minato.

"Not much," admitted Kakashi. "Regarding today's mission, I just care about them and don't want them to die."

"That's not the way a commander should be thinking about the ninja in his squad," said Minato, though he looked more sympathetic than his words implied.

"No, it's not. It's as selfish as it is selfless." Kakashi looked out to Obito and Rin, who were laughing together under the stars. "And that's a struggle I'll have to get under control. But, I had a bad feeling about today's mission, and I don't regret any of it."

"None of this is like you at all."

Kakashi smiled and didn't comment, instead asking, "Your mission…how did it go?"

"We won," said Minato. "It went better than any of us could have hoped."

Kakashi didn't figure it would go differently than last time, given that the factors hadn't changed much, but he had to be sure. With that battle secured by Minato's victory, Konoha was set to win the war like last time.

"I've been thinking, too," confessed Minato. "About peace."

"And?"

"I can't imagine all five ninja villages putting aside their differences to team up. But, I do think that this war is…misguided, in a lot of ways."

"And what would you do about it?"

"Win the war, to start. Do what I could to bring peace back to our village and ease the suffering of the people of Konoha, and then—" Minato smiled at him. "—well, your plan, however improbable, sounds nice on paper."

"Start making alliances with only a few villages," offered Kakashi. The last time around, Minato had seemed impossibly wise, but in reality, he was the same age as Kakashi's Naruto. At twenty-three, Kakashi knew that even people as great as Minato and Naruto had a lot to learn. If Minato was to be Hokage, he needed to start thinking about things like this. "Not everyone hates us as much as some and some hatreds won't last as long as others."

"That's a possibility," said Minato. He could see the wheels turning in Minato's head, not quite taking it all seriously but not dismissing it either, wondering how he could fix the world. However, he seemed to quickly realize where he was and who he was talking to and he snapped out of it. "You should get some rest. You've had a long day."

Kakashi was too tired to argue. Later, he would have a lot to plan out, but for now, he laid down on the grass and rested in the peace of his victory.

A/N: Aaand, that's a wrap! Thanks for sticking around for this monster of a chapter, and please consider leaving a review! Reviews are what make the world go 'round (and the chapters come out motivatedly faster). Have a lovely rest of your day and we'll see y'all next time!

Fun Fact of the Chapter: In the very beginning stages of planning this fanfic, we only knew that we wanted to write a time travel fic. We had no idea what era and method the time traveling would use. This idea, the one that we ended up choosing, was originally second to last on our ranked list of ideas, only just ahead of Laser Beam's joking suggestion of "send everyone back smack dab in the middle of the chunin exams." In the end, though, I think we made the right choice. Life's funny like that.

Now, some notes, for those of you still here:

1. This story is split up into "arcs," so to speak, the first of which is approximately seven chapters. For the first seven, we're going to just release them as we finish them, and if our viewer base stays relatively small, we'll continue with that. However, if our viewer base gets moderately sized and fairly consistent, we're probably going to switch to finishing an entire arc all at once, and when all the chapters are ready to publish, we'll release them once a week like a television season and repeat that with each arc.

2. This fanfic is (to the best of our abilities) canon compliant with the manga and will borrow from the anime/movies/books/whatever on earth they are doing with Naruto nowadays as necessary, but not religiously. Also, as those of you who've ever had to work with the Naruto timeline before can empathize with, the timeline of events that the Naruto author created, particularly when it comes to events that happened before the start of the series, is a jumbled mess. We did our best to create a consistent timeline with the details given, but that interpretation might differ from some of yours. Also, the Naruto canon is quite vast, and I can't promise that we won't forget details at some point, and we've had to create several details of our own about the Naruto world, as the story will cover things and go places that the original series did not. We only ask, when it comes to the technical details, you have patience with us.

3. Regarding chapter songs (the ones that come after the AKA in the title), we recommend you listen to them just because we think it adds to the tone of the story, but they are in no way a necessity. So, listen to them or don't listen to them; either way, we'll never know.

4. Also, we don't own Naruto, just in case anyone was confused about that or assumed otherwise.