This is my first attempt at writing for Naruto so please be kind.

I want to thank a friend for helping me write this and even though she'll try to kill me for saying this I name her as a co-writer. She doesn't actually do any of the writing but she's beta'd, given me advice and given me ideas to write about.

Thank you , I dedicate this chapter to you.

Future or Fantasy

Back To The Beginning

Naruto sighed happily as he shrugged off his cloak and hung it up by the door.

"Papa!" He heard a small, excited voice say behind him, turning around he smiled and scooped up his daughter as she ran into his arms.

"Shouldn't you be in bed by now, Himawari-chan?" He asked playfully, kissing her cheek. Himawari blushed and put her head against his shoulder, hiding the blush on her cheeks that made her whisker marks stand out.

"I wanted to say goodnight to you Papa." She mumbled into him as Naruto carried her to her room. He tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead.

"Goodnight sweetie."

"Goodnight Papa." The little girl yawned as her eyelids fluttered closed. Naruto quietly left the room, as he passed his son's room he looked in to see Boruto fast asleep.

A pair familiar arms wrapped around Naruto's waist and a light kiss was placed on his cheek.

"Welcome home Naruto-kun, you're later than usual. Is everything okay?" Hinata asked, Naruto turned and returned the hug adding a quick kiss to his wife's lips.

"Everything's fine Hinata-chan, it just took a little longer to finish signing off the missions reports than usual. Shikamaru complains about everything being troublesome but he's just as bad, lazy slave driver." The couple took one last look at their children before going to bed themselves.

"Release!"

Naruto opened his eyes and found himself in a clearing, it took him a couple of seconds to recognise it as Team 7's old training ground.

"What the hell?" He said before jerking in surprise, his voice was higher in pitch then it should've been. Honestly it sounded quite annoying, he raised a hand to his throat and caught a glimpse of bright orange out of the corner of his eye. Looking down Naruto saw he was dressed in his old orange jumpsuit, quickly stripping off his forehead protector he stared at his own reflection. He was 12 again, had he been caught in a Genjutsu? No, couldn't have been, it felt so real, he could still feel his arm draped across Hinata's chest and smell the slight lavender scent of her hair.

Naruto was so pre-occupied with trying to work out what was happening to him, he didn't notice the slight shake of leaves as something left the area.

He re-tied his Hitai-ate and started to pace around, denial running circuits around his mind, Boruto and Himawari weren't real, were they? He'd lost Jiraiya, was he alive again? Had he married Hinata? Was the war real or was his entire life just some cruel dream? Naruto tried multiple times to dispel a Genjutsu but to no avail as he still found himself in the clearing, eventually he stopped and accepted that this was reality. Maybe this was a second chance, maybe he could change how the future turned out. Saving Jiraiya and Neji would definitely change how things played out. Stopping Sasuke from leaving, making sure everyone trained harder, with his future knowledge he could make everyone stronger and maybe stop the war before it even began.

Naruto's eyes grew wild and a feral smile crossed his lips, it was more than the war he could stop. Orochimaru's attack during the Chunin exams, the death of the Sandaime Hokage, even further back stopping Haku and Zabuza from dying would mean that Kabuto wouldn't be able to resurrect them during the war, he could send word to the other Jinchūriki so they knew what was coming for them.

Running a hand through his hair Naruto looked around the clearing, he knew where he was but now he just had to work out when he was and what was actually happening. A scream broke the silence that surrounded him and he was running towards it before it even died out.

'That was Sakura.' He thought as he dashed through the trees finding her a minute later standing still with a glazed look in her eyes. 'She's young again too.' Naruto's brain made a connection about what was happening and he realised when he was. He was taking Kakashi's bell test again, Team 7 had just formed and Sakura was caught in a Genjutsu. He spawned a handful of Kage Bunshin and sent them to find Sasuke while he released Sakura from the Genjutsu.

Sakura blinked as she came out of the jutsu and her eyes darted around frantically, she mumbled about Sasuke being hurt and started to hyperventilate. Naruto waited a minute to see it she was going to snap out of it but when it became apparent that she needed help he grabbed her face and forced her to look at him.

"Sakura-chan, snap out of it. Kakashi-sensei put you in a Genjutsu, whatever you saw wasn't real." He kept his voice calm, strong and level so the pinkette had something solid to focus on. Her breathing slowly steadied and her eyes rested on his face.

"N-Naruto?" She said unsteadily. "Where's Sasuke-kun?" Naruto rolled his eyes, of course that's the first thing she'd ask.

"I've sent some clones to find him, if we're going to get those bells from Kakashi-sensei we need to work together. That's the point of the test, to see if we can work as a team."

"How do you know that?"

"Just trust me." Naruto snapped, pausing as he created more clones. "We haven't got the time to play around." He turned to his clones. "You know where to go and use force if you have too."

"You got it boss." The clones said in unison before running off into the forest.

"What was that about?" Sakura asked.

"Teme popped my clones, after they dug him out of the ground."

"But how…?"

"Anything my clones see, I learn when they dispel." Naruto sat on the grass with his legs crossed. "Give me a nudge when the Teme gets here."

"What are you going to do?"

"Meditate, I need a minute to think." Naruto closed his eyes and dropped into his mindscape, appearing in front of the Kyuubi's cage. "Hey, Kurama!" The Nine Tails looked out through the bars of the cage. "Did you get caught in that Genjutsu thing too?"

I did, I saw everything you saw Gaki. I don't know why we saw what we did but if it was a Genjutsu it wasn't a normal one. If that was a vision of the future we need to try and stop it from happening. The first thing to do is actually see if it was a vision of the future or not, we need to test it with more than just this test. The Fox said.

"So me knowing your name isn't proof enough?" Naruto asked with a smirk.

Don't get smart with me brat. Kurama growled. That does raise a valid point though, there isn't any other way you could know my name. I want more proof before I believe any of this though. Naruto nodded and was about to leave when the Kyuubi spoke again. You have the mental experience from that vision for your jutsu but not the physical experience, stamina or control to use them properly, not yet. You have a lot of training ahead of you. With that said Kurama laid his head on his front legs and went to sleep while expelling Naruto from his mindscape.

Naruto opened his eyes as Sakura shook him, taking a quick look around he saw his clones walking into the clearing carrying a bound and gagged Sasuke. Naruto hesitated for a couple of seconds seeing both of his teammates as kids again, it was un-nerving but it was probably something he was going to have to get used too. He pushed that feeling to the back of his mind, it was something he could deal with later.

"Naruto, what's going on with your eyes? They've changed colour." Naruto snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her in confusion so Sakura took a small compact mirror out of her pouch, handing it to Naruto. She was right, his eyes were on longer blue but a pale turquoise and his pupils had stretched slightly, but it quickly faded away as he watched and his eyes returned to normal. 'Sage mode? No, not completely that's something else I'll have to work on.'

"Don't worry about it Sakura-chan." Standing up Naruto passed the mirror back to Sakura and thanked his clones before dispelling them, turning to face the last Uchiha.

"Alright, listen up Teme. If we're going to pass this test then we need to work together." Naruto said taking the gag out of Sasuke's mouth.

"Pft, I don't need anyone's help. I touched one of the bells and…" Sasuke started before Naruto interrupted.

"And that got you buried chin deep in the ground. We work together, we get the bells and we pass the test."

"There's only two bells Dobe, how are we meant to pass if one of us doesn't get a bell?"

"The whole point of the test is to work together." Naruto spawned a few clones and sent them to distract Kakashi. "I have a plan so…"

"Like I'd listen to any plan you have, we're bound to fail if we listen to you." Sasuke smirked "And what was going on with your eyes?" Naruto had had enough and stuffed the gag back into Sasuke's mouth.

"My eyes aren't you concern Teme." He turned to face his other teammate. "Alright then, looks like it's just you and me Sakura-chan."

"I don't know Naruto, Sasuke-kun is the best there is, we'll need him if we're going to do this." Sakura said quietly, scuffing her foot on the ground. Naruto let out a frustrated breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I forgot you used to be this bad." He muttered under his breath. "Right new plan." Naruto faced Sasuke again. "You're going to work with us otherwise I will tie you to a post in the middle of the village, strip you down, cover you in honey and tomato slices then send a message to each and every fangirl you have in the village saying 'First come, first serve.' with your location on it." Naruto grinned as Sasuke's eyes widened, taking a second to look over his shoulder Naruto saw Sakura's face had turned bright red and her eyes had glazed over. "All the pranks I've ever done combined are nothing compared to what I could actually do, so do we have a deal?"

Sasuke hesitated as he thought about Naruto's threat, he knew that the Dobe had caused a lot of problems over the years with his pranks and outrun ANBU while escaping. Sasuke searched and saw no deception in his statement. He gave Naruto single nod, the blonde nodded in return.

"Good, now that's sorted out. Here's the plan." Naruto snapped Sakura out of her daze and while he untied Sasuke he explained what he had in mind.

A few minutes later

Kakashi was stood in the middle of the training ground where the test had started, he continued to read his book looking like he didn't have a care in the world. Naruto's clones had been an unexpected amusement, the way they fought was different than it was when the test started. They were still easily dealt with of course but it was a pleasant change nonetheless. A low rustle caused Kakashi to glance up from his book, seeing Naruto stroll towards him and lean against the tree he'd been hanging from not too long ago.

"Are you giving up Naruto?"

"This the first time you've read that book?" Naruto replied ignoring the question.

"No, I've read this quite a few times as a matter of fact."

"Want to know what happens in the next book?"

"And how would you know that? These books have a…required reading age." Naruto just smirked and henged into Sasuke.

"Everyone in the village is willing to 'bend' a few rules for the last Uchiha. Those books are predictable too, girl meets guy, guy says a few cheesy chat up lines, they have a passionate night of love, the end. I do know the name of the next book though."

"Of course you do, now do you mind, I'm getting to a good part." Kakashi lowered his eye to the book when he saw Naruto disappear in a cloud of smoke. 'Another Kage Bunshin, what is he up too?' More rustling around the clearing drew Kakashi's attention, from the trees and bushes came a lot of figures. As he cast his gaze over them Kakashi saw that most of the figures were Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura but not as they were now. These figures were what his team might look like when they were older, he saw an older Sakura with shorter hair and a blue diamond on her forehead standing with a long haired Sasuke and shorter haired Naruto. Another group looked closer to his team's current ages, mid-teens most likely Sasuke wearing a loose pale purple top and blue pants with a large purple rope tied around his waist, a long sword at his back, Sakura wore a top the same colour as her dress along with an apron skirt and black shorts, a pair of black gloves on her hands and Naruto still wore an orange jumpsuit but with black parts added to it, the cloth of his headband was now black and longer than before. There were at least ten teams and more kept appearing, all different ages and appearances.

There was a team wearing those Kami-awful jumpsuits that Gai was so enamoured with, complete with matching bowl-cut hairstyle and thick eyebrows, another team were dressed like barbarians Sakura carried a large and lethal looking axe, a third team looked like Kakashi gravity defying hair and slanted Hitai-ate included. A team with shining bald heads, a chibi team, babies, kids and one with their genders reversed. Kakashi supressed a laugh seeing a team that looked like a magic act, Naruto in a tuxedo, top hat and cape, Sakura as his glamorous assistant and Sasuke laying in a box as Naruto cut him in half.

The silver-haired Jonin didn't have time to register any others as the teenage Naruto in orange and black charged in with a spin kick, the Copy Ninja dodges with easy only to hear a familiar shout coming from his Genin.

"Triple Dynamic Entry!" The team that looked like Gai attacked together, slamming three flying kicks into Kakashi's back only for him to disappear in a puff of smoke, leaving a log in his place that was soon turned into splinters.

The army of clones immediately went on high alert and looked around for Kakashi, finding him leaning against sat on one of the training stumps still reading his book. A team dressed like the Legendary Sannin, Sasuke as Orochimaru, Naruto as Jiraiya and Sakura as Tsunade, edged forward as a second team wearing Samurai armour, Naruto predictably in orange with a nine-tailed fox snarling on the helm with three swords on each hip and three more on his back, Sasuke in purple and grey with the Uchiha symbol displayed proudly on his chest piece and a single sword at his left hip while Sakura wore red and white armour with a flowing robe embroidered with sakura blossoms and a short sword on the small of her back.

Samurai Naruto slashed with two of his swords which Kakashi dodged with ease by leaning back before rolling to the side to evade a drop heel from Jiraiya Naruto. Once he was on his feet again Kakashi had to start weaving his way around attacks from both Naruto's before guiding them into position so that with one quick duck they hit each other and dispelled in a puff of smoke but from the smoke came the Sasuke clones. They were dealt with in a similar way to the Naruto clones, Samurai Sasuke sliced through Orochimaru Sasuke as the Sannin clone attacked with a spear-hand strike punching through the armour when Kakashi shunshined out of the way. The Copy Ninja quickly dealt with the Sakura clones with a swift chop to the back of the head as he appeared behind them.

Next came a team that came at Kakashi were dressed like member of ANBU, they appeared around him with sword's drawn and stabbed straight into his body but once again the Copy Ninja replaced himself with a log and stood on top of it while the ANBU team tried to pull their swords out. Three rapid fire kicks dealt with them and another three took care of a team with the three most well known Dōjutsu Sasuke appropriately with a fully matured Sharingan, Naruto with the purple ripple patterned eyes of the Rinnegan and Sakura having the ghostly pale eyes of the Byakugan complete with the bulging veins.

Kakashi saw the rest of the clone army including teams wearing the headbands of other lands, a team with cat ears and tails, some dressed a popular gaming characters, puppets and thugs another part of the army held clones wearing clothing for different sports, different occupations, the other Genin from their graduating class. His sole visible eye gazed over a team wearing black cloaks with red clouds and a visible flinch ran through his body went he saw a team where Sasuke looked like his father, Sakura looked like her mother and Naruto was the Yondaime Hokage. Does Naruto know who his father is or is it just a coincidence? Kakashi shook his head to clear it, there'd be time to deal with that question later.

He sighed and put his book away as the army started closing in. "Looks like I'll be needing both hands of this. Such a shame, I really was getting to a good part." Kakashi leapt high into the air, flipping through a series of handseals stopping on a Tiger sign.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu." Kakashi blew an enormous sphere of flames from his mouth. The attack hit the ground and spread out, crashing into the Kage Bunshin and dispelling them. From the corner of his eye Kakashi saw Sasuke launch out of a nearby tree, throwing shuriken and controlling them with ninja wire. A quick Kawarimi placed the Jonin out of range of the shuriken but he didn't get a second of respite as Sakura jumped out of a bush with a punch. Not seeing any danger Kakashi simply sidestepped the punch but when Sakura's fist hit the ground there was a resounding crash followed by a small tremor and a cloud of dust. Flipping out of the dust cloud Kakashi was met by Naruto lunging at him with chakra swirling in his palm.

'It can't be, that almost looks like the Rasengan.' Kakashi thought as he retreated from the attack, noticing that the blonde's eyes were different but his attention was focussed mostly on the attack in Naruto's hand. Naruto's attack even though it was backed up by his partial Sage Mode was unstable and exploded in a flash of light and dust. When the light faded Sasuke and Sakura jogged over to where Naruto was laying, in a depression in the ground, dirt covering his clothes, cuts on his exposed skin and tears in his clothes.

"Naruto, are you alright?" Sakura asked looking down at him.

"I-I think so." Naruto replied unsteadily as he started to sit up before dropping flat to the ground again. "Actually, I might need a minute."

"Did you get him?" Sasuke asked, searching the clearing for signs of Kakashi.

"No, no he didn't." Kakashi replied, sitting on a tree branch a few feet above them once more reading his book. "I will admit, he came close though. I'd ask if you wanted to try again but…" The alarm he'd set for noon rang out. "…your time is up."

"I guess we failed then." Sakura said sadly.

"No, you pass."

"What?"

"You. Pass. The true purpose of this test is to see whether you could work together as a team, and you proved that you could. Congratulation, you all pass. We are now officially Team 7."

Sakura stared at Kakashi for a few seconds before jumping into the air, cheering happily, Sasuke simply smirked and Naruto lay in the depression with a smile on his face. Although he gave the impression of being entirely focussed on his book Kakashi was actually keeping an eye on Naruto, due to everything he'd heard the blonde should've been shouting like a loon and running around with the boundless energy he was known for. Instead he simply lay on the ground smiling but there was confusion in his eyes, almost like he was lost and couldn't work-out how he'd ended up here. There was the matter of the Rasengan and whatever that was with his eyes, Kakashi would've sworn that it was something like the Sage Mode that Jiraiya-Sama possessed but that was impossible…wasn't it? Add to that Sakura's earth shaking punch reminiscent of Tsunade-Sama and things were beginning to look suspicious.

"I must say that was quite an impressive plan, which one of you came up with it?" He asked, Sasuke looked away while Sakura pointed at Naruto. "Really? Can I ask how you came up with that idea Naruto?" The blonde didn't move from where he lay, just breathing steadily before pushing himself upright.

"I didn't think we'd have a chance on our own so I made a little help. It would've been boring to just see the three of us over and over again so I thought I'd spice it up a little. What did you think?"

"I found the team dressed like me to be flattering although I'm more interested that attack you tried to hit me with, where did you learn to do that?"

"What? A ninja can't read? I like the Yondaime and read about his technique, I tried to use it. I think I messed it up though."

"Of course you messed it up Dobe, the Yondaime didn't blow himself up every time he used it did he?" Sasuke muttered.

"And Sakura's punch?" Kakashi asked, ignoring Sasuke for the moment.

"Naruto said it was a technique he'd heard an old lady uses." Sakura said, supplying an answer. Kakashi nodded lazily, put his book away, slipped out of the tree and stood in front of his team.

"I think we've all had enough fun for one day, we'll meet tomorrow morning at Hokage Offices for our first mission. Until then the rest of the day is your own." With that Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving the Genin of the newly formed Team 7 alone in the training ground.

"Sasuke, do you want to go and…" Sakura started before she was interrupted.

"No." The Uchiha said as he turned and walked out of the training ground, Sakura following at his heels. As soon as they were out of sight Naruto dropped back on to the ground, his mind racing now that his adrenaline was wearing out.

What's going on? Last thing I remember is going to bed and now I'm back at the beginning. His hands grasped his head tugging at his hair. Once more he tried to dispel a Genjutsu but again it failed and the pain he could feel from the chakra burns on his hand told him this wasn't some sort of dream. Panic started to set in as his breaths shortened while speeding up, he was hyperventilating. Naruto closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down, he did what he could to remember the meditation techniques from Mount Myōboku and eventually he managed to get a hold of himself. When he opened his eyes again Naruto was looking at the familiar cage doors that held the Kyūbi.

You need to get a hold of yourself brat, that was a reasonable excuse you gave the cyclops but he's suspicious now. You have to be more careful from now on until we know what's happening. Raise too much suspicion and you'll be having a one to one with that scar faced sociopath. I don't want anything to do with that sadist and his mind games.

"Alright, alright, I get it. I'll be careful, this is just…it's a lot to deal with."

Then deal with it, work out your story now and stick to it. Make sure you don't forget the details either.

"I said I got it, stupid fox. Give me some time and I'll figure something out. Now send me back so I can take some aspirin, all this is giving me a headache."

Kurama just huffed and with a blast of hot breath Naruto was sent out of his mindscape. Opening his eyes, Naruto found himself staring at a clear blue sky. He continued to lay there, just watching the sky for a few minutes until he rolled onto his shoulder and flicked his body so he became airborne and landed on his feet. Crossing his arms behind his head Naruto slowly walked to his apartment, ignoring the glares from the civilians as he went.

He had a lot of thinking and planning to do.

That's the end for now.

Let me know what you think.

Until Next Time

Basic Trainer