Naruto screamed as he jumped to his feet. Then he blinked. He wasn't the middle of a forest about to be hit by an enemy attack. He was in the middle of a field. A field that almost looked like…

"Naruto!" A familiar voice screamed like nails on a chalkboard.

"Sakura-ch-" Naruto was interrupted by his female teammate shimmering into place in front of him and burying her fist in his face.

Naruto blinked in shock as he realized he was lying on his back. On one hand he was confused by why she'd attacked him and not the missing-nin they'd been tracking. On the other he was glad he was still alive, especially after seeing her turn a battlefield of Juubi clones into a wasteland. But on the third Kyuubi hand…

He sat up looking at his pissed teammate. "Are you 12 again?" His voice registered. "Am I 12 again?"

Before he knew what happened she was straddling him doing her very best to smash his face in with her tiny fists, which were definitely stronger than he remembered.

Naruto panicked and kicked the younger, angrier version of his teammate off. "Sakura, what the hell?"

Sakura glared at him like she wanted to rip his head off.

"She's just pissed you were screaming Dobe."

Naruto got pissed and looked at Sasuke. "What did you-" He stopped.

Sasuke was sitting on a tree-branch. The shade of the tree he was sitting in silhouetting him in an impossible way. The very color of the world seemed to drain as it got closer to him until he looked like a black and white photograph. But what shocked Naruto the most was his eyes. Despite the fact that his teammate was definitely still 12, he looked even more deranged than he had at the Gokage summit.

Sakura squealed like a dying animal and ran to the tress. "Sasuke-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!"

Naruto blinked as she began futilely trying to jump up to the branch he was on. Despite the fact that she would have definitely made that jump when she was that age, she was barely getting a few inches off the ground.

Sasuke looked at her like she was rotten trash.

There was a splashing sound as liquid practically shot out of the bottom of Sakura's dress.

"Kurama, is this a genjutsu?" Naruto asked trying not to think of what he was seeing.

"No," a sultry female voice whispered in his ear. "Why don't you come in here so I can… check?"

Maybe it was the voice. Maybe it was the invitation. Maybe it was the way the voice said check - like one of Jiraya's more forward lady-friends - but Naruto resolved that he was never doing that.

"Kai!" He said, trying to dispel the genjutsu himself.

Nothing happened.

"What was that jutsu dobe?" Sasuke asked urgently.

Naruto blinked and looked back at Sasuke. "What? It was the genjutsu dispelling technique."

Sasuke blinked at him, almost like he thought Naruto was lying before he sat back. "Okay, but it better not be something I can't do."

"What are you-?" Naruto shook his head. He needed to get back on track. If this was a genjutsu, he was falling for it. "What about the missing-nin? How did you guys get here? Why are you so young?"

"Shut up baka!" Sakura screamed like a roaring Bijuu as she jumped at him as if she wanted to rip his head off.

Naruto flipped out of the way as she punched the ground he had been standing on making it explode.

"What the hell?" He asked. So she couldn't jump to reach Sasuke, but she was as strong as she had been after training with Tsunade when it came to fighting him?

Sakura began screaming and Naruto was sure she'd gotten louder. "I'm admiring Sasuke you retard! Stop breathing the same air as him, you worthless wretch."

Naruto blinked. That actually hurt a little.

No, he shook his head. "It's just a genjutsu."

He quickly retreated from the banshee pretending to be his teammate and ran up a tree.

Sakura glared at him before she went back to worshipping the ground beneath Sasuke.

"Okay," Naruto said. "I was on a joint mission with the other villages to track down some missing-nin. We found one. I jumped in front of Kurotsuchi before a blast hit her and… I have no idea."

He looked back at Sasuke and Sakura and blinked. Sakura had been joined by a dozen girls and they were all jumping on soaked ground. Naruto didn't want to think about how that had happened.

"And now we're twelve and Sakura's… doing that." He looked at the sky in frustration. "What's happening?" He screamed.

"Naruto!" A solid wall of sound slammed into him knocking him out of the tree.

Naruto looked up.

Sakura and the girls, who he could have sworn were all civilians, were armed with several extremely lethal looking weapons and jumping towards him with skill he'd only ever seen in Jonin.

He screamed in terror.

/

Sasuke recited his extended apology plan for the fiftieth time. With his eyes sealed, he didn't really have much to do in his cell beyond go over how he planned to make up for his sins in his head. At least if Naruto's promise to get him released actually happened.

Sure, Sasuke was pretty sure he could escape if he tried hard enough, but that would only make things harder for team 7, even if he wasn't going to do anything. The Raikage would definitely not be happy.

Sasuke sighed as he wondered if roses would make Sakura feel like he was trying to hit on her. She'd probably be pissed given everything he did. Maybe Tulips?

Suddenly, he heard the door to his cell open.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried.

"Sakura?"

"Sasuke, it's horrible. Naruto…"

Sasuke strained his suppressed Chakra as he ripped through his Straitjacket, activated the Preta path to absorb the chakra in the seal covering his eyes before ripping it off and looking at his teammate. "What's wrong?" Then he blinked.

Tsunade, Kakashi and Ibiki were also in his cell, clearly unimpressed.

"Uh…"

"Really?" Tsunade asked. "One crying girl and you begin escaping?"

"Uh…"

Kakashi groaned as he squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Well, I had a feeling that we were only holding you because you let us."

Sasuke shrank back from them before looking at Sakura. "What's the emergency?"

/

Sasuke looked at the unconscious form of his best friend before looking up at the veritable congregation of ninja before him. They had all packed into a larger than normal hospital room. "What happened? And why is everyone here?" He tried really hard not to look in the Raikage's direction.

Tsunade began to explain. "We were having a post-war meeting when the team we'd assembled to take down all missing-nin with a connection to the Akatsuki came back. Naruto had jumped in front of an attack aimed at Kurotsuchi…"

The kunoichi in question raised her hand.

"…and from what we can tell, he's trapped in a genjutsu."

"Wouldn't Kurama be able to break him out?"

Several of the ninja blinked at him.

"The Kyuubi." He elaborated.

"That's the concerning part. He hasn't. We've tried to do something about it, but we were locked out."

Sasuke blinked. "And you want me to try and release them?"

"Is there a better genjutsu user on this planet?"

Sasuke looked back at his friend's sleeping face before he looked back up. "And why are you all here?"

"Yo. We're worried man. So help Naruto the best you can." Killer B rapped.

"That, and we don't trust you." The Raikage elaborated.

Sasuke sighed before looking at the unconscious Dobe. He knew firsthand how badly a prolonged genjutsu attack could mess with someone and Naruto didn't deserve that.

"Okay. Here I go." He activated his Rinnegan.

/

Sasuke was lying on a bed. He could tell that much without opening his eyes. Something felt off though. He had a weight on his chest. He slowly opened his eyes.

He looked up… and screamed.

/

Sasuke rubbed his eyes as he walked through Konoha. Old Konoha, from before Pain had destroyed it. It was a nostalgic sight. So nostalgic, he almost forgot the six girls who had been in his bedroom when he woke up. They all been drooling morons too, unable to do anything other than whine about having to leave him and recount all the wonderful things that he didn't want to know had happened last night.

He had been more struck by his old house than he'd expected as he did his best to clean himself up. It reminded him of the life he had before he'd left Konoha. Now it felt like he was back in time to before that.

"Sasuke?" He heard Naruto's voice.

Sasuke sighed, glad Naruto had found him. He turned and looked at him… and stumbled back, covering his eyes.

He'd always thought that Naruto's childhood outfit had been ridiculous, but now the orange was glowing brighter than the sun.

"Naruto… what's up with your outfit?"

"My outfit? Nothing. This is perfectly normal clothing. Anyway, let's hurry up. Kakashi-sensei is waiting for us." The dobe ran off.

Sasuke would have stared at the guy he'd come to rescue in shock if he could stand to look at him.

He took one step.

And was immediately inundated with compliments from every random passer-by, complimenting his look, his hair, his clothes, his Uchiha-ness and his ninjutsu skills.

That last one gave him pause. How did they know how skilled he was? They were civilians.

Before he could pursue the question however, Kakashi appeared in front of him

Sasuke blinked at the younger version of his teacher in confusion. Why was he here? He usually didn't appear until three hours after the stated time.

Kakashi put a scroll in his hands. "Practice this while you wait."

Sasuke looked at the scroll in confusion. Then he looked at Kakashi. "What about Naruto and Sakura?"

"What about them?" With that shockingly cold question, the copy ninja disappeared, in a flurry of leaves; Leaves that immediately buried Sasuke up to the neck.

/

Sasuke shrank back from Naruto's body.

"What's wrong?" The Mizukage asked.

"I'm not going back in there alone." Sasuke said.