Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They're going to die.

It's a truth they've known for a long while now, but now that they're down to the wire, it feels more real. They're out of time, resources, people, and options. There is no way out of this; it's just the five of them, alone at the end. They're out of food, they can't leave their little bubble of safety to get more, and they can't get clean water either. They searched the archives thoroughly, for months on end, but even now they still haven't found any kind of solution. The barrier around Uzushio is cracked and crumbling; it won't last much longer. The parasitic spores have found their way through. The small barrier they've erected around themselves isn't very strong, when Kaguya breaks through the barrier around Uzushio, it'll likely take down the smaller one too. They don't have enough chakra for even tree walking, they have no chance at defeating Kaguya.

They've lost the war.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, even in their final moments; they have at most thirty minutes before the barrier comes down completely, less if Kaguya hits it with another bijuudama. They won't even last long enough to see the sunrise.

They wrap around each other, providing the little comfort they have left to offer. Sasuke sits with Sakura curled up in his lap, and Naruto burrowed into his side. Next to Naruto, Kakashi sits with Obito pressed close to him.

In the privacy of his own mind, Naruto can admit that they never really had a shot. Maybe in the beginning, after he and Sasuke had first been gifted power by the sage, but that time has long since passed. They struggled even against Madara, against a literal goddess they have no chance, especially with everyone else dead.

At first, they had tried to fight Kaguya head-on. With the power of the sage, they thought that they could win. And they came so close, only for Kaguya to escape at the last minute. Naruto and Sasuke freed everyone from the Eternal Tsukuyomi, only for half of their forces to be immediately wiped out by Kaguya. They had escaped with the rest. First they had taken shelter in Konoha, as the largest hidden village. However, Kaguya had decimated Konoha quickly. It had cut down even more of their forces- and many civilians, Sakura's parents included- and the survivors fled to Uzushio, where he had been able to get the barrier up and running.

The barrier had been able to shield them from a close-range bijuudama, which had given everyone hope. But that hope had been short lived. The Zetsu clones continued to chip away at the barrier, making it nigh impossible to leave Uzushio. Eventually, the clones pulled back, allowing people to go out and forage for food, but in place of the Zetsu clones were parasitic spores that would eat away at a person's chakra. They lost even more people to the spores, among them Tsunade and the other kage; they had taken it upon themselves to find food so that their people would not go hungry.

Watching Tsunade waste away from the spores eating her chakra had hurt everyone, but especially Naruto and Sakura. To make it worse, after her death, they could not even give her a proper funeral, having to burn all of the bodies in a mass grave just outside of the barrier so that the spores could not be passed on and the dead could not be used against them.

For a time, they had been able to use a jutsu so that the food gatherers could breath outside of the barrier, but Kaguya had quickly gotten wind of it. Anyone who left the barrier was caught by the Zetsu clones and killed. The first to have been killed this way was Kiba; he had gone with Akamaru to find food, only to be ripped apart by the Zetsu clones barely minutes after leaving. Hinata and Shino had rushed out to save their teammate, only to be killed as well.

Sometimes, Naruto thought he could still hear Hinata's screams; her initial scream of horror and rage, when she had seen Kiba be caught, and then her screams of pain as she met the same fate.

After that, they had sent people in pairs to get food. The idea had been that two people had a better chance of surviving than one. The deaths of Ino and Shikamaru had proven them wrong. They had gone out to find food, but only Shikamaru had come back alive- barely. He had not been able to keep up the jutsu keeping him safe from the spores, and Chouji had to watch as one of his best friends died outside of the barrier, while holding the body of his other best friend.

Many people couldn't handle the strain of their situation. If they didn't kill themselves outright, they would leave the barrier in an attempt to escape- where to, they weren't sure. Nowhere else was safe. Kaguya had decimated all of the other villages, whether hidden or not. Anyone and anything that had chakra- which was very nearly everything on the planet- fell victim to her ravenous appetite.

One by one, all of the allied shinobi and the civilians had died; whether it was by their own hand, by Zetsu's, or by the parasitic spores, they had all fallen.

And soon, he and his remaining precious people would be dead as well. He would need to release the bijuu, so that they could have a fighting chance- or, rather, a chance at running.

He felt the familiar pull of the bijuu in his mindscape, and followed it. He opened his eyes to see all of the bijuu sitting in front of him, grim faced and far smaller than he had ever seen them. They seemed tired, in a way that shouldn't be possible for chakra constructs.

"What's going on? You're... small, now, and tired. You're made of chakra, you shouldn't be able to get tired!"

The bijuu looked at each other, as if they were trying to figure out how best to break bad news to him. What news could possibly be worse than what was already going on? He and his most precious people were barely thirty minutes away from dying.

After a tense moment, Kurama came forward, close enough for Naruto to reach out and touch him. He wasn't even tall as Naruto now, sitting up on his hind legs. Naruto couldn't shake the visceral feeling of wrongness.

"Naruto, I know that you couldn't find any kind of solution in the archives. But O-tou-sama has come to see us one last time, and he has given us a solution."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at his life-long companion. What he was saying should be good news, but judging from Kurama's tone... "I'm not going to like this solution, am I?"

"You won't." Kurama confirmed. Before Naruto could protest, Kurama added, "But it doesn't matter. We've already started. What has begun cannot be stopped."

Naruto looked over the bijuu again, trying to put all of the pieces together with the information he had. They seemed to be shrinking more with every passing minute. "What are you doing?"

"We're going to send you, and those few with you, back in time." Kurama said. He gave Naruto a sad smile. "I'm afraid that we won't be coming with you, except as some extra chakra to boost your reserves and ensure that you make the jump in one piece. We are using ourselves to power the seal."

The creeping horror Naruto had been feeling crashed over him like a wave. He shook his head rapidly, trying to find something to say that would make all of this stop. "Kurama..."

The nine tailed fox stepped forward to press himself against Naruto's side as if trying to give him a hug. Naruto clutched at Kurama's fur, tears dripping down his face as the fox and all of his siblings began to evaporate. "We're sorry to do this to you, but Kaguya cannot win. Thank you, Naruto, for everything," Kurama told him. "You released me, released us, from our hatred. Thanks to you, I have had a friend for the first time in a very long time. Thank you, and goodbye, kit."

No. No. Naruto couldn't loose even more of his precious people. He didn't think he could handle it. Kurama had been with him longer than anyone, literally since his conception. Naruto didn't know how to even begin living without him. And although he wasn't as close to the other bijuu, they had become dear friends to him during the time they had been sealed inside of him. How could he lose them like this?

Opening his eyes in the real world, Sasuke was looking at him in concern. "Naruto? What's going on, why are you crying?"

"They're," Naruto choked. "They're sacrificing themselves, to give us a chance." He and the others watched as the ink from his seal crawled off of his body, to make a new one on the floor. The seal began to glow. Sasuke and Sakura clutched at him as the seal began to pull them in, afraid, not really understanding what was happening.

"Naruto, what?" Kakashi and Obito were staring at him with wide eyes, Kakashi reaching over to grab his arm.

"They're sending us back in time." Pain began to course through their bodies, pulling strangled screams from their mouths as they held onto each other tightly. Everything went white, and then they knew no more.

If anyone else had been alive, they would have heard Kaguya and Zetsu's twin screams of rage echo across the world, as the last five humans and all nine bijuu vanished into thin air.

Chapter Text

Naruto came back to awareness slowly. Trying to move was like dragging his body through syrup, as if there was something heavy and sticky holding him down. Panic welled up at being unable to move; as a shinobi, being unable to move usually meant that you were about to die, which had been doubly true while fighting Kaguya. He forced his eyes open, only to shut them again immediately at the bright light above him. He waited a moment before opening them again, blinking and sitting up slowly. He looked around, trying to get his bearings.

They were still on Uzushio; the bright light earlier had been the sun shining through the cracks in the roof of the archives. Though... he could have sworn that they had patched the roof during their first week on the island, once they decided to make the archives their base of operations. What had happened?

Casting his gaze to the people around him, he was shocked to find that his teammates and Obito were all sporting hair in various shades of red. Sakura's had changed the least, her hair still pink in tone, though darker and redder than her usual color. Obito and Sasuke both had dark red hair now, no longer their usual black. Kakashi's hair had changed the most, becoming a dusty red-pink color, like someone had added a bit of red dye to his normally gray hair; it had also seemed to lose its gravity defying quality. They were all, without a doubt, his teammates; beyond the fact that their hair color was the only change he could see, their chakra signatures were still the same, though... their reserves seemed bigger than before, and fuller than they should be. He knew that it was only a moment ago that they had all been chakra exhausted to the point of barely being alive.

In his peripheral vision, Naruto caught the sight of red hair on his own head. It was almost like his mom's, except brighter, perhaps closer to Karin's hair color. He stumbled onto his feet, making his way out of the archives to a small pond he knew to be nearby. They had used it for drinking water, up until the spores had poisoned it, but there would still be enough water there for him to see his reflection in it. Too much weird stuff was going on, he would risk the spores; the bijuu could block them from taking his chakra, temporarily at least.

Outside, it was even weirder. It was unusually bright, the haze in the air from the spores and the ash of destruction absent. Surveying his surroundings, he found that this couldn't possibly be the Uzushio that he knew; they had cleared out the bodies and much of the rubble within their first week in Uzushio, along with patching the roof of the archives and setting up tents to house their ever-dwindling numbers. Even once everyone was gone, he and the others hadn't had the heart to take down the makeshift camp. In this Uzushio, no tents were set up, and the destruction of the invasion was still very apparent. Corpses were strewn about the streets and trapped underneath rubble, perpetually looking the same as the day they died due to the preservation seals all across Uzushio. Hell, there were fires still burning from the invasion, which Sakura and the other water-natured ninja from the alliance had gone around putting out when they had first gotten to Uzu.

He reached for Kurama and the other bijuu in his seal, hoping that they would have some idea of what was happening, only to crumple to the ground from the pain of a sudden influx of memories.

Thank you, Naruto, for everything.

Thank you, and goodbye, kit.

No. No, no no no no. They couldn't be gone. Not like this. How could they leave me? He thought, curling in on himself as tears began to pour down his face once more.

The logical part of himself, which had been seldom used when he was younger but was still definitely there and had been exercised more after becoming the Hokage (and then just the Kage, after the rest of them had died, a loss that weighed heavy on his soul, especially Gaara), could recognize that they weren't trying to abandon him. They had wanted him to live, they had wanted his precious people to live, because they cared about him. They hadn't wanted him to waste away in the ruins, to die to Kaguya. To see everything he had ever worked toward be for nothing.

But the part of him who was still that little boy, sitting alone in his apartment because everyone in the village hated him, because no one had been willing to adopt him and jiji was the Hokage and couldn't drop everything to take care of him (but couldn't trust anyone else to do it because they might try to hurt him, had tried to hurt him, had tried to kill him (no one had ever seen that particular orphanage matron again, though Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that Kakashi knew exactly what had happened to her, even if they had never talked about it he knew that Hound had been one of his ANBU guards when he was little, and he remembered the few among his shadows that were so protective of him)) was much louder. That part of him screamed about how he should have known they would leave him, that they wouldn't want to stay, because he was a monster and nobody wanted to be around a monster. That he should have been more careful, getting attached like that.

He was only distantly aware of someone kneeling beside him, a gentle hand on his shoulder and a soothing voice. When he didn't seem to respond, they pulled him into their lap and began to rock back and forth. He thought they might be singing a lullaby.

He didn't know how long it took for him to finally calm down, but his head ached something fierce, likely from dehydration. Kakashi was still cycling through a few lullabies that Naruto knew he had heard before but couldn't quite remember. Probably from his younger years, when Kakashi had been on his ANBU guard. He had fuzzy memories of his pre-academy years, but he knew there had been a few times where one of the ANBU would have to calm him down from a panic attack (often after being physically attacked). Though, there were only a few of the ANBU who bothered. He knew Kakashi had been one of them, and Yamato too (though he had always been a little awkward about it). There had been a girl as well, who he thought was probably Yugao but had never confirmed it, and two boys that were both Uchiha. One of them was probably Itachi, the one who had been called 'Weasel,' but he didn't know the name of the other one. Probably, he had perished in the massacre, or perhaps before it.

He had the urge to ask, but figured they had more important things to worry about at the moment. He could reminisce later.

He had been moved back into the archives at some point, he noted as he sat up. He immediately groaned upon doing so, because now not only did his head hurt, but so did the rest of his body. Probably from falling down when the memories hit him. Upon further reflection, the memories hadn't been entirely his own; the bijuus' memories had been passed on to him as well. It was odd. They hadn't shared much of their memories (unless, of course, they were telling embarrassing stories about each other, which was a favorite pastime of theirs), and Naruto hadn't asked. He hardly owned them, it was fine for them to keep things private. There were things that he didn't really want to share either.

An unintended side affect of their sacrifice, maybe?

Kakashi came over to him with a glass of water. He was the only one there, which meant the others were probably out dealing with the rubble and corpses outside. He took the water with a muttered thanks, a little embarrassed to have to of been comforted like a little kid again. He doubted Kakashi really minded, but it was still embarrassing. He was a kage. Though... probably not the Hokage, anymore. Depending on when they had landed, it could be either Hiruzen or Tsunade, but Naruto's bets were on Hiruzen. He had the longest reign among the Hokage, so he was the most likely candidate. Or, possibly, it was his dad. If they had landed before the Kyuubi attack...

Kakashi cleared his throat to get his attention. "So..." He was awkward, like he always was when he was about to talk about feelings, but only slightly so, which was an improvement. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Naruto stared at the water in the glass, swirling it around idly. "I know, logically, why they did what they did. But that doesn't make it hurt less, to know that they did it for me. For us. To give us a chance." He sighed. "I didn't remember what had happened at first, until I tried to reach for them in the seal and they were gone. It triggered the memories, and I guess the shock of it was more than I could handle all at once."

Kakashi hummed in consideration, still looking at him in concern. Out of all of them, Naruto had taken losing everyone the hardest. The fact that he was so calm about losing the bijuu was off-putting.

Naruto met his gaze with a wry smile. "Dealing with the grief isn't going to be easy now or later. I've had my breakdown for today, and I'll probably have even more later, but I don't want to waste the chance they've given us." He paused to drink the rest of the water, then stood up. "We should get to work planning sooner rather than later. I'll send a clone to Wave to see if I can determine the timeline, and some more out to work on clearing the rubble and gathering up the bodies. Will you go get the others?"

Kakashi scrutinized him for a moment longer, then nodded and set off to find their teammates.

Conjuring up shadow clones was like second nature after so many years, just as easy as breathing. Too easy, even, because although he had only aimed to make 5, he ended up with closer to 50- so many that they filled up the small archives entirely. Naruto dispelled them in a hurry, checking his reserves. Kurama had mentioned that their reserves would be boosted, but Naruto hadn't thought they would grow so much. Part of it, he was sure, was that his chakra that had been previously occupied with holding his jinchuuriki seal was now free for him to use. While the others' reserves, from what he could tell, hadn't quite doubled in size, his own had more than tripled.

I'll need to go back to doing chakra control exercises. He was already dreading it- he had barely gotten passable control over his chakra before, when his reserves were only a third of the size they were now. Wrangling back the little control that he had had over his chakra was going to be such a pain. He paused at that thought for a moment. Heh, I sound like Shikamaru now, he thought sadly. Shaking his head slightly, he refocused on the task at hand.

He sent one of the clones off to Wave, under a nondescript henge (something that, while once fairly easy, was made much harder by his increased chakra reserves, and that he had to try several times to get right). The others he had start clearing out the rubble and sealing up the bodies (and salvaging whatever items were left in the wreckage; all five of them needed new clothes, with their old ones being torn and dirty, and he hoped to save the personal things of Uzushio's people, like pictures).

Now that they didn't have to worry too much about edo tensei, or the bodies otherwise being used against them, they could give the dead a proper rest. The Uzushio people they would hold a mass funeral for- and hopefully identify most of them, in order to create a memorial like the memorial stone in Konoha, as well as to see who had potentially escaped- while they would store the bodies of the invaders and... gift them to their villages. On top of being an intimidation tactic of sorts, those people likely had families who had mourned them and may appreciate having their bodies to bury. A show of goodwill.

They were going to need all of the goodwill- and all of the leverage- that they could get, assuming the others would go along with his idea.

The others filed into the archives slowly, Sakura coming in first to fuss over him. She clucked her tongue lightly as she checked over him with glowing green hands. Once satisfied, she pecked him on the cheek and took a seat in her usual spot on his left. A short while after Sakura, Obito appeared in the archives using kamui. Naruto nearly did a double take looking at him; the newly-red hair was just as strange as the first time he saw it. It reminded him a little of Nagato's, though spikier.

Finally, Kakashi came back in with Sasuke in tow. Sasuke made a beeline for him and Sakura, stopping to stare at them for a second. Usually, he would be using his sharingan to check them over, but when Naruto looked at his eyes, he was surprised to find that they were both Rinnegan. Sasuke sat in his place on Naruto's right side without a word, and Kakashi plopped down across from them next to Obito, who took that as his cue to sit down as well.

During the wait, Naruto's clone in Wave had dispelled itself, returning its memories to him. He was slightly disappointed to find that they had landed during Hiruzen's second reign, but he figured it was just as well. They knew more about the events of this time period anyway.

"Okay," he began, taking a deep breath. "So, we've landed during our genin years. It's roughly three months before our younger selves' first C-rank. We went to Wave sometime during late summer, right?"

Kakashi and Sakura both nodded in confirmation. It had been such a long time ago, none of them really remembered the exact date- and Obito hadn't been involved anyway, though Naruto wouldn't be super surprised if he had been spying on Kakashi at some point during the mission- but Naruto remembered Sakura complaining bitterly about the heat and humidity. Besides, he remembers there being a snow rabbit he'd almost killed while throwing a kunai at a bush. The snow rabbit was weird because it was white, even though it wasn't winter. Naruto had felt bad for almost killing someone's pet.

"I have an idea. We obviously can't just go around telling everyone we meet that we're the future versions of a genin team. Especially since we don't really look anything like we used to. But the change in appearance from the bijuus' chakra can help us create a cover story."

Realization seemed to dawn on Sakura. "You want us to pose as Uzumaki."

Naruto nodded emphatically. "Yes. Well, sort of. I figure Obito and Sasuke could pose as Ootsutsuki, given the Rinnegan, but yeah. We'll need to make a really solid cover story, because all of the villages are going to be suspicious of a sudden resurfacing of Uzushio people, but I think it's logically the best option. I mean, five people with various shades of Uzumaki red hair? It's kinda the obvious choice. Besides, it puts us in the perfection position to get things done."

The others all exchanged glances, mentally weighing their options. "Okay, what are the logistics of this going to be?" Obito asked.

"Well, I say we pose as the survivors of two Uzushio genin teams. You and Kakashi were our senseis, and the other three genin teammates didn't make it- whether they died during the invasion of afterward, we can decide later when we flesh out our backstory more. Once they realized Uzushio was going to fall, the Uzukage and the clan heads started trying to get as many people out as possible. We were a young genin team, because even though the third war hadn't officially broken out, things were tense between Uzushio and the other villages, so they were pushing more graduates out to compensate for the need for manpower. We can place ourselves on the family trees so that at least a few of us were in a relatively high position within our respective clans, so that it makes more sense for the clan heads to have wanted us specifically to survive. I'm thinking that I could pose as Kushina's cousin. We know mom didn't have any siblings, but she did have some cousins, and she was from the main line. Who's to say that I wasn't one of her cousins?"

"Alright. So we say you're Kushina-nee's cousin, a spare heir or something. We need to go back through the archives and things, see what we need to know that would've been common knowledge on Uzushio. Lets say Kakashi and I were former ANBU, to give a reason for our high skill levels. It's true for Kakashi, anyway. We can say that I was Sasuke's jounin sensei, and Kakashi was yours and Sakura's. Sasuke was directly from the Ootsutsuki main line, and I was a cousin- not a direct heir, but still main line. Sakura and Kakashi were from different branches of the Uzumaki clan, and weren't all that closely related to the main line." Obito added.

"Why would the two genin teams have been sent out together, though? Wouldn't more people make us a bigger target?" Sasuke pointed out.

Kakashi chimed in, "it would make more sense if we had already been out of Uzushio on a joint C-rank or something. We can say that Obito and I were married and had our teams train together all the time. Since we worked together a lot, they sent us on a lot of joint missions. We came back from a C-rank in Wave as soon as we caught wind of the invasion, and we used Obito's kamui to get in safely. We went to our respective clan heads for orders, and since they already knew that they were fighting a losing battle, they decided to send us back out. We can say that the C-rank in Wave went wrong, and we lost one of our teammates out there, and then when we went back to Uzushio one of the others got killed in the invasion. Maybe both."

At the mention of marriage, Obito turned as scarlet as his hair. "You wanna marry me, Bakashi?"

"Of course I want to marry you, Ahobito." Kakashi looked at Obito with a sappy expression.

Sasuke turned to Naruto and Sakura with an expression of long-suffering, and Sakura mimed gagging. "Aren't you two already married, though?" Sasuke deadpanned. Naruto snickered at Kakashi and Obito's confused faces. "By Uchiha clan law, you got married when you gave Kakashi your sharingan," Sasuke explained, giving Obito a weird look. "I can understand why Kakashi wouldn't know that, but you should've."

Obito scowled in embarrassment. "Okay, I was crushed under a rock and kidnapped by a sentient evil plant, give me a break! I can't be expected to remember every single clan law! Especially for a clan that has, like, three remaining members!"

"Hn. And whose fault is that? Stop using the crushed-under-a-rock excuse for everything."

Obito gasped in mock offense. "That's such a low blow, Sasuke! Besides, I'm not the only kinslayer here!" Well, maybe the offense wasn't entirely pretend.

Sasuke growled, opening his mouth to say something else, probably whatever he deemed sufficiently assholish to get Obito back for that comment. Before he could, Sakura smacked him over the head, prompting Kakashi to do the same to Obito. "Quit arguing, you two!" She snapped.

Obito and Sasuke both looked away, chastised. Sasuke had a slightly dazed expression; Naruto winced in sympathy. Sakura had probably hit him a little harder than she meant to. Naruto was glad she had grown out of the habit of hitting him over every little thing by the time she developed Tsunade's strength. Should they check Sasuke for a concussion? During the war, Sakura had started using her strength automatically. It wasn't really a problem because she had such good chakra control, but with the increase of her reserves, her control had probably slipped. Naruto patted Sasuke on the shoulder supportively and discreetly checked his pupils. They looked normal. Normal for Rinnegan, anyway.

...He was probably fine, right? Naruto had never really learned any of the medical stuff.

He cleared his throat. "Ahem, anyway. I sent one of my clones earlier to gather supplies and stuff, and it looks like he's back." The clone in question was standing at the entrance of the archives, waving awkwardly at them with a storage scroll tucked under his arm. Naruto- the original- motioned for the clone to throw the scroll to him. After the clone dispelled itself, a thought occurred to Naruto. "Hey, since all of our reserves have increased, the rest of you guys could probably learn shadow clones too, right? I know Kakashi-sensei already knows, and Sasuke has probably copied the technique after seeing me use it so many times, but the rest of you should be able to actually use it now."

The others looked at him quizzically, wondering why that was relevant, except for Kakashi, who caught onto his train of thought immediately. "Right, we could use shadow clones to look through all of the documents and things for what we need to know. It'll be a lot faster that way."

The others nodded at the reasoning.

"Sakura's the only one who needs to learn it, actually," Obito said. "I copied it off of Kakashi a long time ago, I just don't usually use it because it doesn't mesh super well with my fighting style. Using clones and kamui at the same time can be dangerous because of the chakra drain."

Naruto hummed in thought. "It probably wouldn't be as much of a problem now, though, right? You still probably shouldn't adopt it as a big part of your fighting style the way I use it, but it could be a good edition. I know we already outclass most of the people in this time, but it couldn't hurt to add to our repertoires."

Obito' head tilted to the side as his scratched at his cheek in consideration. "I'll think about it," he decided. "But we should probably get to work on the documents and stuff. There's lots of stuff to do."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, before groaning. "Man, I'm not looking forward to all of that reading!"

Sasuke and Sakura- who had learned the technique from Kakashi while Naruto and Obito were discussing- shared a conspirational look. Sasuke snorted. "Hey, dobe. I bet I can get more done than you, and faster too," he challenged.

"Wha- hey! No way! You're on, teme!"

"Oh, please. You two will be eating my dust. I'm definitely going win," Sakura chimed in.

"We'll just have to see about that, Sakura."

"Yeah! I'm totally gonna win, Sakura-chan!"

The three of them clumsily shot to their feet, pushing and shoving each other as the raced deeper into the archives. Laughter rang out through the stone halls. Kakashi sighed, shaking his head, as he slowly climbed to his feet. "Honestly, those three. They're twenty but they still act like they're twelve." His tone was too fond to be properly judgmental.

A wicked grin spread across Obito's face. "Hey, Bakashi," he said. "I think we should join their little competition. I bet I'll totally blow you out of the water."

Kakashi returned the grin with one of his own, fanged and mischievous. "Oh, are you sure about that?"

"Pft, absolutely. I'll race you there!"

"I've already won the race, though." Kakashi disappeared with a puff of smoke, cackling.

It had been a shadow clone. The real Kakashi could hear Obito's outraged cry from the section of the archives he had claimed, and laughed at the clone's memories of Obito's confused face. He had predicted the competition and left right after teaching Sakura the technique in order to get a head start.