lost in days gone - excerpts in no particular order
Full title: lost in days gone (to give it all up for new rebirth)
Title from two different verses of Streets of Gold by Aviators
Summary: Landing back in time hadn't been the plan. The plan had been to finish the mission, report to Kakashi-sensei and spend the next days training with his friends.
But that damn broken seal had lit up from under his feet and now here he is: back at the beginning.
Naruto is now in the prime position to make the world a better place for his future friends.
(Taking Madara with him on his quest to save the world hadn't been the plan either. Neither was taking Tobirama along, too.)
Kurama is gone. His loss pierces Naruto’s heart and grinds the shards into dust. Whatever that seal had been, it had latched on the more powerful source of chakra upon its activation and drained it dry. Or, well, it tried. The fox had thrown everything he was at Naruto, in a bid to protect the only human who had been willing to befriend him. And so the blond had inherited parts of Kurama’s chakra as well as animalistic traits. All of which Naruto would gladly give back if it means having the grumpy fox at his side, here.
‘Here’ being the past, apparently. It had taken him some time to realise the hill he woke up on was the Hokage Monument – now bare of all faces – or that the vast expanse of forest under him was where Konoha will be founded.
There had been a lot of flailing and cursing and probably one or two panic attacks. Naruto can’t really remember those first hours in the past. Everything is a blur of pain, both physical and mental as his body tried to adapt to its new abilities and as he tried to deal with the fact he may never see his precious people ever again.
(Not that he won’t try but… Kurama’s last gift has also included knowledge the Sage had imparted to his disciples and children. The chances that he would find the right combination of chakra, seal, time and space to land at the exact same spot as he was before that forsaken seal was activated and not break the timeline? Not good at all. Inexistent, in fact.)
(The new knowledge also concerns memories and events seen through Kurama’s Jinchuuriki: lessons learned and given, his parents’ first date, Mito meeting his mother… So many little pieces of his past now clicking together like some sort of puzzle he hadn’t know he was assembling.
He could have done without some of those memories though… He shudders. He could have gone his whole life without seeing his parents – or Mito-ba-chan or Hashirama-jii – like that!)
At the same time… At the same time, he is now in the prime position to protect his precious people by ending Zetsu before he can wreak havoc on the Villages.
Naruto takes a long breath. Once. Twice. Okay. He needs to regroup, rest, think about the situation, plan and probably take a bath. He takes a sniff at his clothes and armpits only to get a nose full of road dust and old stone. He sneezes. His new senses are even more sensitive than before, it’ll take a while before he’ll adjust completely.
A quick riffling through his pockets and pouches gives him an estimate of his resources: a few thousands ryo, some ration bars, the sealed shakujo his friends got him as a belated birthday present after the war, fuuinjutsu supplies and plenty of shuriken and kunai. The mission he’d been on when he stumbled upon that damn seal had been one of reconnaissance and infiltration which means he’d been forced a kunai point into less attention-grabbing clothes. That hadn’t stopped him from wearing one of his favourite orange top underneath his new brown – bland – coat and packing a few others garments in storage scrolls.
Everything he has on him is new, thanks to his last growth spurt. So, at least, he won’t have to buy clothes for some time. He even has some winter and camping gears stocked away in one scroll. If he is careful, both of his materials and of his money, then he’d be alright. Especially since Naruto distantly remembers Iruka-sensei teaching them about price inflation... He recalls paying attention a lot during that lesson since he had to balance a budget ever since the day he entered the Academy. It had helped some – especially when it came to balance his ramen budget against rent and everyday life. He’s probably one of the richest guys around now despite his meagre amount of money.
(Seems his memory took a boost as well and not just his senses… Hum, something to test later.)
After tidying everything up, and erasing any traces of his passage, he leaves. When Naruto tries to reach out with his chakra to locate the shinobi around him, he gives himself one hell of a headache by reaching too far by accident. He almost brains himself on a tree during the attempt. Whelp. He’ll have to work on chakra control. Again.
The first thing he does is to seek a civilian village. After a bit of deliberation, he goes in as a wandering monk, carefully hiding the extra rings until only four are left.
Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Lee and Tenten as well as Sasuke and Konohamaru had gone together to special-order the weapon at a blacksmith specialised in forging chakra blades. Each part of the shakujo – the nine rings, the circle and the handle – represented one of his friends. As an added bonus, the rings were also a reference to the bijuu and Kurama’s tails.
Naruto fell in love with it the first time he held it in his hand, dedicating several clones per days for months to master the weapon.
The only way to make the shakujo cooler would be to paint it orange. His friends had been quick – perhaps too quick – to inform him the paint could damage the metal.
Naruto is happily welcomed in the village and offered room and board by the village chief. They all refuse his money when he offers to pay for his stay; so he reverse-pickpockets a few coins in his hosts’ pouches when they’re not looking. He knows priests and monks
When night falls and the village is long asleep, he sends out a few shadow clones to fix a few roofs with the help of some noise-cancelling seals and fences and two others to fetch medicinal herbs in the nearby forest – it’s high time Sakura’s first aid lessons start to pay out.
Once his clones are occupied, he sits down in full lotus to meditate.
He misses Hinata. He misses her smiles and quiet-yet-strong presence at his side. He misses seeking her out to spar and test new techniques or just seeking her out for a nice meal and a bit a time together.
He hadn’t been in love with her. Not like she’d been since they were kids. But he had loved her and Naruto thinks that, given a few more months, he’d have fallen for her.
(He wonders if it makes him a bad person for falling so fast for Madara when it’d taken him years to realise Hinata’s feelings for him. When it’d been a version of Madara who had been responsible for a lot of atrocities; when that Madara had caused Neji’s death. And his parents’ and countless others.)
