Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Naruto Past tense ❯ Chapter 1: Return to the place I belong ( Chapter 1 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: SDI Hypervelocity 
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 02.24.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 397 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 02.24.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 397 | Status: Completed
Chapter 1: Return to the place I belong.
Naruto stretched his arms his arms with a sigh of relief, now that the Nine-Tails was put back in it’s correct time and place before it could wake up. Having it stay unconscious the whole time made it much easier, if it had woken up…
Naruto shook the thought out of his head, there was no reason to think of it now. Some time in-between when they left the future and now, Gaara completely swore off moving through time. Things may have ended up better in the long run, but it was complete hell for the near future.
Hell for Konoha in the present.
“It wasn’t all a total waste Gaara.” Naruto said, sitting on the ground next to him and crossing his legs.
“I suppose it wasn’t, but too many things went wrong.” Gaara said, his eyes still completely focused on the sand hour glass moving in front of his body under his power.
“Yeah,” Naruto agreed, “But for everything that went wrong, something good happened. It wasn‘t a complete waist of time, just look around. ”
Gaara couldn’t take his eyes off the Hourglass, he knew if he did he’d lose concentration and count of the rotation. But he knew what Naruto meant, a lot of good did come out of all of this. Even if they couldn’t see it all yet. So Naruto was right, it wasn’t a waste of time, and if Gaara gained anything else out of this besides Naruto…
It was sleep, he enjoyed sleep a lot…in fact when they got to Konoha he’d probably grab Naruto and find a good spot to rest. And he did gain a lot of power, when they first started this Gaara could barely take them for a 12 year round trip. Now he had just gone 2000 in the past with out any trouble at all.
But by far Naruto was the best thing this experience brought, Naruto was some how able to do so much. The first time Naruto touched him the sand that constantly plagued him, that defended him if he wanted it too or not, didn’t rush up to block Naruto. It was just something about him that it didn’t conceder a threat, it was like he wasn’t even there at all.
Gaara let all of the thoughts in his head disappear. He never had any trouble getting things out of his mind, in-fact he found that if he didn’t think about something or tried to remember it, it’d just fade in a few seconds. His mind worked that way, he never had to think about or remember anything he didn’t want to.
Until Naruto.
When he first found that hourglass with his and Naruto’s name carved on it he couldn’t seem to stop his mind from thinking of him. It was like an obsession he couldn’t control. Gaara soon after realized it was something he had no will or desire to control, he began to like thinking of Naruto.
The hourglass stopped and with it the sand surrounding them stopped flowing and faded away. The grainy waves of tan minerals fell away to revel wet, muddy ground and humid air. A shadow was cast completely over the whole area from patches of gray clouds scattered in the sky, giving everything morbid, gloomy almost hopeless atmosphere to go with the setting.
This was Konoha, nothing more then an empty wetland in the storm’s wake.
Konohamaru’s eyes went wide and he lifted his hands to his head, “It’s different…. To hear that Konoha was destroyed …then to and seeing it.” He sighed, looking down at the soaked ground littered with debris of former structures .
“At lest the most important thing survived.” Iruka said. Konoha’s population, it survived for what he could easily tell was 90%. People where scattered around the destroyed city with nothing better to do then solemnly save what they could.
“Which way was my house? I can’t tell where anything used to be.” Kiba said, limping slightly as he walked forward and look over what was in front of him.
“Not everything was destroyed.” Neji said, “The Hokage Monument is behind us.”
Everyone turned around, looking toward the distant stone structure, weathered from the storm but still recognizable from any distance. Now it just seemed to be a point of reference, to give some general idea of the location someone was trying to find by memory of how far away it was from the monument.
“Then it must be that way,” Kiba nodded, holding Akamaru firmly under his arm “I wonder if my family survived.” He began to walk towards the location his home used to stand, giving a small acknowledging nod to Neji who silently decided to make sure he got there safely.
Neji wasn’t really worried about his family, he knew there where many underground cellars in the Main and Branch houses of his family. With that knowledge he wasn’t in much of a hurry to get back to them, he was much more willing to stay with Kiba, especially now.
! - ! - !
“There’s only one place too go now.” Iruka said.
“Hokage Monument.” Kakashi replied agreeingly. Both of them disappeared in a blur of speed only achieved by years of training.
Konohamaru watched the spot where the two had stood for a moment, deciding he should move too. There was no point being sad about it, that wouldn’t help anyone and he knew it. “Sasuke, we should go too.”
Sasuke nodded and wrapped his arms around Konohamaru’s waist, springing towards their destination with his greater speed to carry them. That left only Gaara and Naruto behind. “Gaara…Are you going to go back to the sand village?” Naruto had his hands rested behind his head and eyes diverted to some unknown source as far away for Gaara as he could manage.
It was easy to see his concern, even to Gaara. A person completely oblivious to what others were thinking, their feeling and had no consciousness to signs. Being with Naruto had already made him more aware of the other next him for some reason he couldn’t figure out. “Why?”
“There’s nothing here, I don’t even think this place is livable.” Naruto kicked the ground, splashing around an amount of mud outward.
“Are you going to leave?” Gaara looked down at the small boy, becoming slightly puzzled at his expression.
“No.” Naruto’s voice was completely sure when he said this.
“Why not? You said this place wasn’t livable, there’s nothing left.”
“I couldn’t just abandon Konoha, it’s my home.” Naruto said.
Gaara still couldn’t see how Naruto could be so loyal to a place that didn’t want him. Even now when there was nothing to stay for, no reason to stay loyal. The Leaf was no longer on the map in every sense of the phrase. “…”
“Aren’t you going to go back home?” Naruto asked, still looking away with a solemn voice.
Gaara took off the forehead protector from around the strap on his gourd, looking down at the insignia closely. Gaara couldn’t see himself being loyal to this place, they didn’t want him, just to keep him as a weapon in storage until they needed him. A place like that couldn’t be considered home, his only home was with Naruto, no matter where he was.
Naruto watched curiously yet silent while small amount of sand seeped out of the gourd on Gaara’s back. The tan minerals covered the plate, then fell off leaving behind a large slash across it . “No.”
Naruto grinned, hugging Gaara with a happy relief building in his body. Leaving Gaara to look down at him with another puzzled expression across his face. “What are you so happy about?”
Naruto pulled back and shook his head, the large grin still remained “Nothing.”
Gaara began smiling slightly, seeing Naruto happy made him feel…happy too. But then that made him confused again, he still didn’t know why Naruto was able to bring up these types of reactions.
Gaara’s thoughts were suddenly disrupted when he felt a strong pull on his arm, Naruto was pulling him toward the Hokage Monument and easily caught him by surprise. Another thing only Naruto was able to do, some how Naruto lowered his defenses, made his mind at ease and not constantly aware of his surrounds. “Come on.”
Gaara allowed himself to be lead by the smaller boy, who seemed to have lightened up a lot since he first returned to the city.
! - ! - !
! - ! - !
On the platform in front of the actual formation 6 people stood when Naruto and Gaara arrived. Including Iruka, Kakashi, Sasuke, Konohamaru, and two people neither of them had ever seen before. An older man and woman, both become visibly uneasy when they saw the two.
“Who are they?” Gaara asked softly.
Naruto shrugged, “I don’t know.”
The woman and the man walked over to them, “Any particular reason you’re here?” The woman asked Gaara.
“I’m with him.” Gaara’s voice was back into the cold tone he used before, one that he hadn’t used around Naruto since their fight. The man looked over him, seeing the line through the sand’s emblem and taking that into account, though it wasn’t sure which way he took it.
“Teh.” Gaara shook his head, being quick to pick up on these types of things. It didn’t take him too long to figure out their concern “If you think I’m here to scout The Leaf’s status for the Sand, you can forget it. I no longer belong to them.”
He meant that in everyway, he wasn’t going to be used by the village anymore, they were the reason he hadn’t slept any in his life, he gained the dark circles around his eyes to prove it. Why he was prone to being unstable and homicidal. Why he had this demon bound to him, and why his existence was hated, feared, and completely miserable. Not exactly fitting treatment for the son of a Kazekage, even his father tried to kill him.
The man and women weren’t very understanding of that, having just about every doubt about it. The glanced at each other, in a clear look that said he couldn’t be left to leave alive.
“75% of the Sand village is either destroyed or close to it, the population has been cut in half because of no adequate knowledge and perpetration for the storm. I doubt they’re interested in taking over the Leaf with there problems.” Gaara said.
“He’s right.” Iruka said in Gaara’s defense, “I’ve seen it my self, they’re numbers are much lower then ours.”
“They’ll come after you.” The woman said, not out of concern for his safely or just to give him the knowledge. Only because she was afraid of what might happen if Sand hunters came here, they’d no doubt report Konoha’s status if they came back with Gaara alive or dead. And Konoha had little to know weapons or supplies while other villages had at lest more then they had, there was always the chance of attack.
The Sand was most defiantly going to attempt to kill Gaara when they found out he was coinciding with the Leaf. Gaara knew way too much of the village’s secrets to waste the extra effort of detaining him and bringing him back alive.
Gaara wasn’t too concerned though, “If they do come after me, I’ll handle it myself and wont involve any of the Leaf.” He knew If wasn’t the right word, it was when.
The man and the woman looked at each other again, giving soundless words to each other while Naruto leant over to whisper into Gaara’s ear, “I remember who they are now, they’re apart of Konoha’s council, the decide a bunch of import things or something like that.”
The two council members decided to leave him alone…for now. He didn’t seem to pose a threat and they had more important things to discuss, which they’d also decided was alright to do so in front of Gaara. The woman turned towards Iruka and Kakashi to continue while the man watched Gaara and Naruto from the corner of his eye. Naruto didn’t seem to notice it, but Gaara did.
The woman cleared her throat, “As you may already know, we’ve received reports back from our scouts--” Gaara couldn’t help but smirk coldly at the irony, the woman had said this just after accusing him and still keeping him under suspicion of being a spy from the Sand.
“--they couldn’t get any information. Only because a reported increase in the number of demons.”
“Demons?” Kakashi looked at her skeptically, easily distinguished by his one visible eye. “What dose that have to do with anything?”
“The number of demon sightings have tripled, it was too dangerous to go farther then they did…The growing sightings are directly tied to the storm, all of the Chakra released by it seemed to have drawn them out.”
Converting /tmp/phptSgJXz to /dev/stdout
Naruto stretched his arms his arms with a sigh of relief, now that the Nine-Tails was put back in it’s correct time and place before it could wake up. Having it stay unconscious the whole time made it much easier, if it had woken up…
Naruto shook the thought out of his head, there was no reason to think of it now. Some time in-between when they left the future and now, Gaara completely swore off moving through time. Things may have ended up better in the long run, but it was complete hell for the near future.
Hell for Konoha in the present.
“It wasn’t all a total waste Gaara.” Naruto said, sitting on the ground next to him and crossing his legs.
“I suppose it wasn’t, but too many things went wrong.” Gaara said, his eyes still completely focused on the sand hour glass moving in front of his body under his power.
“Yeah,” Naruto agreed, “But for everything that went wrong, something good happened. It wasn‘t a complete waist of time, just look around. ”
Gaara couldn’t take his eyes off the Hourglass, he knew if he did he’d lose concentration and count of the rotation. But he knew what Naruto meant, a lot of good did come out of all of this. Even if they couldn’t see it all yet. So Naruto was right, it wasn’t a waste of time, and if Gaara gained anything else out of this besides Naruto…
It was sleep, he enjoyed sleep a lot…in fact when they got to Konoha he’d probably grab Naruto and find a good spot to rest. And he did gain a lot of power, when they first started this Gaara could barely take them for a 12 year round trip. Now he had just gone 2000 in the past with out any trouble at all.
But by far Naruto was the best thing this experience brought, Naruto was some how able to do so much. The first time Naruto touched him the sand that constantly plagued him, that defended him if he wanted it too or not, didn’t rush up to block Naruto. It was just something about him that it didn’t conceder a threat, it was like he wasn’t even there at all.
Gaara let all of the thoughts in his head disappear. He never had any trouble getting things out of his mind, in-fact he found that if he didn’t think about something or tried to remember it, it’d just fade in a few seconds. His mind worked that way, he never had to think about or remember anything he didn’t want to.
Until Naruto.
When he first found that hourglass with his and Naruto’s name carved on it he couldn’t seem to stop his mind from thinking of him. It was like an obsession he couldn’t control. Gaara soon after realized it was something he had no will or desire to control, he began to like thinking of Naruto.
The hourglass stopped and with it the sand surrounding them stopped flowing and faded away. The grainy waves of tan minerals fell away to revel wet, muddy ground and humid air. A shadow was cast completely over the whole area from patches of gray clouds scattered in the sky, giving everything morbid, gloomy almost hopeless atmosphere to go with the setting.
This was Konoha, nothing more then an empty wetland in the storm’s wake.
Konohamaru’s eyes went wide and he lifted his hands to his head, “It’s different…. To hear that Konoha was destroyed …then to and seeing it.” He sighed, looking down at the soaked ground littered with debris of former structures .
“At lest the most important thing survived.” Iruka said. Konoha’s population, it survived for what he could easily tell was 90%. People where scattered around the destroyed city with nothing better to do then solemnly save what they could.
“Which way was my house? I can’t tell where anything used to be.” Kiba said, limping slightly as he walked forward and look over what was in front of him.
“Not everything was destroyed.” Neji said, “The Hokage Monument is behind us.”
Everyone turned around, looking toward the distant stone structure, weathered from the storm but still recognizable from any distance. Now it just seemed to be a point of reference, to give some general idea of the location someone was trying to find by memory of how far away it was from the monument.
“Then it must be that way,” Kiba nodded, holding Akamaru firmly under his arm “I wonder if my family survived.” He began to walk towards the location his home used to stand, giving a small acknowledging nod to Neji who silently decided to make sure he got there safely.
Neji wasn’t really worried about his family, he knew there where many underground cellars in the Main and Branch houses of his family. With that knowledge he wasn’t in much of a hurry to get back to them, he was much more willing to stay with Kiba, especially now.
! - ! - !
“There’s only one place too go now.” Iruka said.
“Hokage Monument.” Kakashi replied agreeingly. Both of them disappeared in a blur of speed only achieved by years of training.
Konohamaru watched the spot where the two had stood for a moment, deciding he should move too. There was no point being sad about it, that wouldn’t help anyone and he knew it. “Sasuke, we should go too.”
Sasuke nodded and wrapped his arms around Konohamaru’s waist, springing towards their destination with his greater speed to carry them. That left only Gaara and Naruto behind. “Gaara…Are you going to go back to the sand village?” Naruto had his hands rested behind his head and eyes diverted to some unknown source as far away for Gaara as he could manage.
It was easy to see his concern, even to Gaara. A person completely oblivious to what others were thinking, their feeling and had no consciousness to signs. Being with Naruto had already made him more aware of the other next him for some reason he couldn’t figure out. “Why?”
“There’s nothing here, I don’t even think this place is livable.” Naruto kicked the ground, splashing around an amount of mud outward.
“Are you going to leave?” Gaara looked down at the small boy, becoming slightly puzzled at his expression.
“No.” Naruto’s voice was completely sure when he said this.
“Why not? You said this place wasn’t livable, there’s nothing left.”
“I couldn’t just abandon Konoha, it’s my home.” Naruto said.
Gaara still couldn’t see how Naruto could be so loyal to a place that didn’t want him. Even now when there was nothing to stay for, no reason to stay loyal. The Leaf was no longer on the map in every sense of the phrase. “…”
“Aren’t you going to go back home?” Naruto asked, still looking away with a solemn voice.
Gaara took off the forehead protector from around the strap on his gourd, looking down at the insignia closely. Gaara couldn’t see himself being loyal to this place, they didn’t want him, just to keep him as a weapon in storage until they needed him. A place like that couldn’t be considered home, his only home was with Naruto, no matter where he was.
Naruto watched curiously yet silent while small amount of sand seeped out of the gourd on Gaara’s back. The tan minerals covered the plate, then fell off leaving behind a large slash across it . “No.”
Naruto grinned, hugging Gaara with a happy relief building in his body. Leaving Gaara to look down at him with another puzzled expression across his face. “What are you so happy about?”
Naruto pulled back and shook his head, the large grin still remained “Nothing.”
Gaara began smiling slightly, seeing Naruto happy made him feel…happy too. But then that made him confused again, he still didn’t know why Naruto was able to bring up these types of reactions.
Gaara’s thoughts were suddenly disrupted when he felt a strong pull on his arm, Naruto was pulling him toward the Hokage Monument and easily caught him by surprise. Another thing only Naruto was able to do, some how Naruto lowered his defenses, made his mind at ease and not constantly aware of his surrounds. “Come on.”
Gaara allowed himself to be lead by the smaller boy, who seemed to have lightened up a lot since he first returned to the city.
! - ! - !
! - ! - !
On the platform in front of the actual formation 6 people stood when Naruto and Gaara arrived. Including Iruka, Kakashi, Sasuke, Konohamaru, and two people neither of them had ever seen before. An older man and woman, both become visibly uneasy when they saw the two.
“Who are they?” Gaara asked softly.
Naruto shrugged, “I don’t know.”
The woman and the man walked over to them, “Any particular reason you’re here?” The woman asked Gaara.
“I’m with him.” Gaara’s voice was back into the cold tone he used before, one that he hadn’t used around Naruto since their fight. The man looked over him, seeing the line through the sand’s emblem and taking that into account, though it wasn’t sure which way he took it.
“Teh.” Gaara shook his head, being quick to pick up on these types of things. It didn’t take him too long to figure out their concern “If you think I’m here to scout The Leaf’s status for the Sand, you can forget it. I no longer belong to them.”
He meant that in everyway, he wasn’t going to be used by the village anymore, they were the reason he hadn’t slept any in his life, he gained the dark circles around his eyes to prove it. Why he was prone to being unstable and homicidal. Why he had this demon bound to him, and why his existence was hated, feared, and completely miserable. Not exactly fitting treatment for the son of a Kazekage, even his father tried to kill him.
The man and women weren’t very understanding of that, having just about every doubt about it. The glanced at each other, in a clear look that said he couldn’t be left to leave alive.
“75% of the Sand village is either destroyed or close to it, the population has been cut in half because of no adequate knowledge and perpetration for the storm. I doubt they’re interested in taking over the Leaf with there problems.” Gaara said.
“He’s right.” Iruka said in Gaara’s defense, “I’ve seen it my self, they’re numbers are much lower then ours.”
“They’ll come after you.” The woman said, not out of concern for his safely or just to give him the knowledge. Only because she was afraid of what might happen if Sand hunters came here, they’d no doubt report Konoha’s status if they came back with Gaara alive or dead. And Konoha had little to know weapons or supplies while other villages had at lest more then they had, there was always the chance of attack.
The Sand was most defiantly going to attempt to kill Gaara when they found out he was coinciding with the Leaf. Gaara knew way too much of the village’s secrets to waste the extra effort of detaining him and bringing him back alive.
Gaara wasn’t too concerned though, “If they do come after me, I’ll handle it myself and wont involve any of the Leaf.” He knew If wasn’t the right word, it was when.
The man and the woman looked at each other again, giving soundless words to each other while Naruto leant over to whisper into Gaara’s ear, “I remember who they are now, they’re apart of Konoha’s council, the decide a bunch of import things or something like that.”
The two council members decided to leave him alone…for now. He didn’t seem to pose a threat and they had more important things to discuss, which they’d also decided was alright to do so in front of Gaara. The woman turned towards Iruka and Kakashi to continue while the man watched Gaara and Naruto from the corner of his eye. Naruto didn’t seem to notice it, but Gaara did.
The woman cleared her throat, “As you may already know, we’ve received reports back from our scouts--” Gaara couldn’t help but smirk coldly at the irony, the woman had said this just after accusing him and still keeping him under suspicion of being a spy from the Sand.
“--they couldn’t get any information. Only because a reported increase in the number of demons.”
“Demons?” Kakashi looked at her skeptically, easily distinguished by his one visible eye. “What dose that have to do with anything?”
“The number of demon sightings have tripled, it was too dangerous to go farther then they did…The growing sightings are directly tied to the storm, all of the Chakra released by it seemed to have drawn them out.”
Converting /tmp/phptSgJXz to /dev/stdout