A heavy weight settled on top of him, accompanied with the feeling of wet hair on his neck and chest (it had shocked him awake day after day, until he'd become numb to it) and the smell of his own body wash.

"Na-ru-to-kun," Hinata breathed into the dark, the scent of mint hitting his nose and aiding in waking him up some more.

He groaned back. Sometimes this meant that she'd made food and it was time for breakfast. Sometimes morning sex. But mostly, it just meant that she was about to get ready to leave and he should, too, if he knew what was good for him. He moved his hands to her arms and stroked over the damp and goosebumpy post-shower skin. Some experimental rubbing revealed that she was wearing a towel-dress, but nothing else.

"C'mon, you've gotta leave today remember?"

Right. That mission. And it was gonna last a whole month. Though he'd be going with Sakura, Sai, and Team Ten, and Team Eight would be joining them sometime near the end of next week, so it wasn't like he'd be alone or bored if it went slowly. Chances were it wouldn't, but with how slippery Akatsuki had been, they were only half-certain they'd find something. With Akatsuki, though, half-certain was enough to send out three teams.

"T's the time?" he groaned, still keeping his eyes shut. She smelled nice.

Hinata wiggled, leaning forward and pressing a few kisses to his forehead and nose. "Wake up and you'll see."

He cracked one eye open and squinted at her, then turned to look at his clock. "Hinaataa, it's at least an hour before I had to get up."

"Whoops. Sorry, my mistake," she said, not sounding sorry at all. She sat up and pulled the towel off her body slowly, giving him a good look at every inch of skin he'd be missing for the next week. It was that time of the morning where there was only enough light to make everything look blue.

"You gonna make it up to me?" he asked, voice rumbly from sleep despite the excited jolt at the sight of her stripping.

"One condition," she said raising a finger and tapping his nose with it. She leaned in and ghosted over his lips with hers then pulled away before he could kiss her. "Brush your teeth."

[-M-]

Naruto opened his eyes, feeling some of the power that came with Sage Mode, but very little. Probably because there was no life around him to take power from. Just endless rectangular prisms. The memories from dying clones had stopped coming in waves and had become more of a trickle about an hour ago, bringing images of cleanup and giving chakra away for medical jutsu. Somewhere in there was the memory of that clone Hinata had tied up and left when she'd gone after him, so that its dispelling didn't alert him. Kurama had long-since healed the various injuries on his person, now they were just...slowly going crazy.

"We'll be here until the end of time," Naruto muttered, rubbing his orange-tinted eyes.

"Or until Madara comes to collect you. He needs my power, or so you say." Kurama reminded him.

Throughout this journey, he'd had one companion he'd honestly told everything to, and that was the fox. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he'd spilled so much when he hadn't even told Hinata the entirety of what was going on, but whatever. It worked.

The longer he sat there in the darkness, occasionally talking back and forth with Kurama, the more frustrated he began to feel, because, damn it, he'd gone back in time to fix things for Hinata, not just sit there.

"Naruto."

"Hm?"

"The chances of someone else recovering us…"

"Slim-to-nil. They'd need a Sharingan...which brings the total amount of people who can do it down to four. One of whom we'd probably have a hell of a hard time fighting when he's the one who put us here in the first place." Obito/Tobi/Madara might've just discovered this place and then made a link to it, or he might've created it in the first place, and maybe could manipulate it to suit him. Which double sucked.

"Naruto…"

"Hm?" His mind flashed to Hinata holding the ring up in front of him again. Fifteen. She was fifteen. They'd gone maybe twice as fast this time around, just by him telling her he liked her at twelve. And fat load of good that was if it meant he was trapped here thinking about sex but trying not to get a boner, since Kurama was actually up and talking to him now.

"Quit brooding and listen!"

"What?"

"How is it that you traveled back in time, before?"

"Boatloads of your chakra, a lot of seals, and my blood." A little more blood than he was comfy giving, to be honest. Though the uncomfortable, light-headed feeling was gone after he'd returned to his twelve-year-old body. Why was he asking?

"It is impossible for us to escape from here, and likely all we have to look forward to is Madara collecting us for his use."

Naruto blinked. "What are you saying?"

"Do you have a sealing set?"

"Kurama…"

"Do it again."

"Kurama, that's not gonna work." Naruto scowled at nothing. "I do have a sealing set, but it's not enough ink to make an array like the one I used to get here. And there's no way I would know the array after three years. Even when I did it, I had tons of notes and drafts with me to make sure I didn't screw everything up and get myself erased from time, or something. I could really fuck something up by messing with it right now."

The fox was silent.

Naruto stretched, then got into position to meditate again.

[-M-]

"So basically, you end up with a really diluted solution, but it'll work in a pinch. Some people think the consistency isn't important, but I, personally, think that's a bunch of BS because when you're working with the really specific stuff, everything counts, you know what I mean?" Naruto paused to make sure she'd gotten it.

"Sorry. What were you saying?" Hinata furrowed her brows, a light blush spreading over her cheeks.

He smiled, "I was kinda rambling, wasn't I?"

"No, no, no! I think it's really impressive that you know so much about seals!" Her hair bounced as she shook her head back and forth to punctuate her exclamation. Yeah, she was cute. Even in a few years, when she'd be all mature and...bodacious...she never quite lost that push to make sure the person knew her intentions were kind. "I just...I got a little distracted. You were getting into specifics, I felt a little over my head."

"Over your head, huh?" he leaned in, aware that their faces were already pretty close. She reddened, but didn't back down. They'd already swapped saliva; she was working on not passing out every time the opportunity came up. "Can't have that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" he pecked the corner of her mouth, pulled away, then did the same to the opposite side. "We should probably review, then. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much of a point to the study session, right? Or is something distracting you, Hinata?"

Her face was so red. "You're - you're teasing me."

He laughed, "Sorry! You're just too cute!"

She pouted, the expression eerily like her older self's whenever he was acting ridiculous. There was a fifty-fifty chance of her jumping on him to give kisses or to play Avoid the Chakra-Charged Tickles.

"We should review," she said, pulling a book on medical jutsu towards them and raising an eyebrow.

He grimaced, "Does it have to be that?"

"Your chakra control is poor."

"That's harsh, Hinata-chan," he said, coming around behind her and wrapping his arms around her. "What if we took a break instead?"

"What kinda break?" she said, hands jittery when she put them in his.

"Dunno. What're you in the mood for?"

She turned and quickly kissed him, giving a nervous smile.

He grinned. "We had the same idea."

[-M-]

"Naruto."

"What?"

"A space-altering jutsu would take up much less chakra than one altering time and space."

Naruto squinted. "Usually, space-altering means, like, making rocks move, or the replacement technique…"

"Think of the Hiraishin. It's simply a movement from one spot to another."

"Designated by a summoning kunai, in a spot the traveler knows about. We don't have access to the outside world to throw a kunai there."

"But what about all the summoning seals all over your apartment?"

"Those are for toads and Kakashi's dogs and stuff."

"They're not made with a significator, though, are they?"

"...I think they are. They probably are. I can think of maybe three that I didn't use a significator for, but God knows where they are now."

"What if we sent you to one of those?"

"...The problem is, not knowing where this seal is could leave me trapped inside a wall or something."

"Alright, then - explain to me the chances of one of those pieces of paper ending up inside a wall since you last worked with them."

"Well, you know what I mean. Say one of those pieces of paper happened to be caught between the headboard of my bed and the wall. When I appear, I appear exactly on the space above the seal. My mass suddenly occupies that tiny space. If it was me stuck between a balloon and the wall, I'd just push it out of the way by existing there. But my bed is heavier and bigger than I am; it wouldn't move very far."

"So just be prepared to blast a lot of things away from yourself when you appear."

That was a possibility. Holy shit. They'd been here for hours, how had he not thought of that?

Naruto got up and started pacing the length of his prism. "Okay. Okay, say I reverse-summon myself to one of the seals and don't get myself buried in a landfill or something. How do I provide the sacrifice to do that?"

"I think it should be possible to provide a sacrifice from here. More importantly, you need to be able to draw the seal that connects you to the significator-less seal."

"Oh, that's easy," Naruto said, pulling out the shoddy sealing kit he had tucked away and taking his shirt off. "It's a really simple spread, especially since I already know the basis of what the connected seal is gonna be. ...Damn, this would be easier if I had a mirror."

The Kyuubi didn't respond, but Naruto imagined him giving an eyeroll.

"Shit, it smeared."

"Use a clone."

"Good idea." Naruto stood still and let his copy draw out a much nicer seal. "Then we just gotta charge it a little, and figure out what connection we should use."

His clone dispelled, giving the memories of painting a summoning design onto him. Naruto carefully lay down so he could better stay still and let the ink dry.

"You know, we had all this time for introspection, but I don't think we ever talked about that big revelation back there." Naruto said after a while of just staring upwards. "Kakashi's teammate…"

"That man was the one who took control of me that night."

"Yup," Naruto said, smacking his lips on the 'P'. "And he's Kakashi's teammate."

"Naruto. Do not ask that of me."

"I'm just sayin'. Did'ja hear what he said before he, y'know, disposed of us? Sounds like he did this for a reason."

"He took away my free will. His actions caused you to grow up without parents, Naruto."

Okay, so Kurama knew how to salt a wound. "Ye-a-ah. That was pretty shitty. I'm wondering what the reasoning behind that was."

"That is irrelevant."

"Kurama...I'm just...thinking…"

"You are thinking that because this man featured in the stories of your mentor, he is worth saving."

"Well...maybe...a little bit…"

"That is not what was promised me."

"Think about how much better you will feel when you take the high road," Naruto said.

"Why did you travel back in time, Naruto?"

He didn't answer.

"That man was the cause of it, wasn't he? What was so terrible that you couldn't continue on in your own timeline?"

"Kurama…"

"You have your own business with him, Naruto. Allow me to finish it for you. Give me what you promised."

He was about to answer, until a brand-new slew of memories entered his brain and made his heart skip a beat. A clone sticking around with Hinata until the real him appeared, the real him not coming for hours after the battle was over, reassuring Hinata that he couldn't exist if the real Naruto wasn't alive, even though that wasn't necessarily true. Coming home and worrying until receiving the memory of him creating the seal. Making one specialized for him, then telling Hinata to give it a bit of blood a little after he'd been popped to send the memories to the original, that everything had turned out fine, 'Don't cry, Hina, I'm just popping to get the real thing back to you.'

The disturbing pulling, falling-apart-and-reassembling sensation that came with transportation-by-seal came, and then Hinata was staring at him with slightly teary eyes.

"We'll talk later," he whispered to the fox as he reached out to her.

"I don't believe it will be a very different conversation."

"Oh, God. Naruto, I was so worried." She kissed him, ignoring all the ink that was getting all over her front, and he kissed back, a little lost in everything - before the time-traveling, what had happened after, what they'd just found out, what Kurama had said.

"I'm here, Hinata. Would be kinda a bummer if I didn't get to be engaged to you for even a day before I kicked it."

She gave a wet laugh, and kissed him again. "They have him, Naruto."

"Who?"

"The man you were fighting. His name was Obito? Kakashi captured him."