Chapter Text
“If you could change the past, wouldn’t you?”.
It was a silly question. Naruto was not a very instrospective sort of person. He did not often ponder deep questions or dwell excessively on events past, at least, not when the ever-changing present occupied his time and mind.
He preferred to live in the moment, and look toward the bright light of a hopeful future. And if that light were to falter, he would burn in its place.
He knew that what was done, was done, and it was the hard lessons and sacrifices of the past that had resulted in the bright future the world shared today.
The entire shinobi world had shouldered each other’s pain and had worked together to end the fourth great ninja war.
The peace that had been achieved through their sacrifices did not deserve to be disgraced by wishing for a different turn of events.
“If you could go back, if you knew then what you know now.. If you could save the person closest to you… Wouldn’t you do anything to go back?”. The dying shinobi’s cracked voice haunted him still, ever since his last, tragically botched mission.
A mission that had spiralled out of anyone's control and tested the very limits of his convictions. A series of completely avoidable mistakes that had cost him everything.
He shivered involuntarily, blinking away tears as he remembered struggling to rise from a ground that seemed intent on holding him in its cold, ceaseless embrace, his desperate attempts to keep his friend alive as he had died in his arms, his final frenzied battle, and the fatal mistake that had resulted in the hopeless situation the world found itself in now.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
It had all started with Kakashi’s summons to his office a few days ago. Naruto felt his memory drifting back to that day.
Starting that morning like any other, walking through the soothing chaos of the hidden leaf village, past children running around playing ninja, weaving between shinobi bustling around with just as much urgency (or alternately, very little urgency at all. You try getting people to run around early in the morning and see how many can keep their eyes open), running errands and getting to their posts, he passed a familiar bridge overlooking a small stream that flowed into the distance.
It seemed like only yesterday that Sasuke, Sakura and himself, young, excitable genin, would wait on that very bridge for their perpetually late sensei to show up.
How much things had changed.
Sasuke was off roaming the world on a journey of self discovery atonement, Sakura was the Hidden Leaf’s most skilled medical shinobi, second in that field (debateably) only to the fifth hokage, and Naruto himself had just finished another A rank mission the other day.
Shikamaru, who had taken it upon himself to become Naruto's personal advisor (and apparently life coach, grumbled Naruto everytime his schedule was micromanaged by his friend) was adamant about the fact, and he was right, that Naruto complete as many missions as possible to reinforce his reputation as a capable shinobi, worthy of being considered for the position of Hokage someday soon.
Of late he had been completing missions so rapidly and continuously that he had barely even had time to sleep. He stared at the world through half lidded eyes, the dark circles underneath them lending a somber cast to his otherwise cheerful face.
Naruto idly wondered if being hokage would be this intense, and dismissed the thought with a laugh. Surely a desk job like that would be far less tiring, leaving him plenty of time to spend with his hypothetical future family.
Passing by two chunin running past him, arms full of stacks of paper, he climbed up the stairs of the Hokage’s building wearily.
Hearing whispering behind him, he realised that the chunin had stopped running and seemed to be furtively glancing at him.
He hid a sigh of resignation at the fact that everyone in the village still seemed to treat him with a degree of reverence, even years after the war, and continued at as brisk a pace as he could muster, entering Kakashi’s office just as Kiba and Akamaru exited his door at the same time.
Kiba started as he caught sight of Naruto's deadened, sleep deprived eyes.
“Naruto? Is that you?”.
Kiba stared at him like there was something wrong with his face.
“What? Is there something wrong with my face?”, Naruto asked.
Kiba let out a guffaw and clapped him on the shoulder as Akamaru barked excitedly. “Nah man, between missions it’s just been forever since I last saw ya, and you look like you haven’t had a good nap in years! Workin’ hard is all well and good but don’t forget to catch a break every once in while. You ain’t gonna be any use if you’re gonna doze off on the job. I'll be the one to become hokage by the time you wake up, just you wait'n see!”
Naruto was almost too tired to argue the point.
Almost.
“Heh.. you wish", he managed at last.
"But yeah, I know,” he continued with a sheepish grin, trying to will the dark circles under his eyes out of existence. He was dimly aware of his own frayed tether.
“I hate to interrupt your reunion, but if you’re quite done..”. The soft, easy voice that sounded from within the office was easily recognisable as Kakashi’s.
“Well, I’m off then! Come on Akamaru!” said Kiba. With another loud bark the dog and his partner were gone.
Naruto walked into the office, bracing for another high-intensity mission, and yet dimly looking forward to the same, and the advancement it would bring toward the position he had desired all his life.
“Am I misremembering, or isn’t the reanimation jutsu forbidden?” another familiar voice drawled at the door.
Naruto squinted at Shikamaru, who had been standing there hidden in the shadows his jutsu could manipulate.
“Hey.... Shikamaru," said Naruto dazedly. "Wha- whaddya mean, reanimation?”
Shikamaru turned to Kakashi with a sigh. “Lord Hokage, there seems to be a zombie in your office, but don’t get up, I’ll take care of it.
Kakashi sighed. He didn't have the patience for bad jokes that morning, at least not until after he had finished the icha icha novel he had been reading before Kiba and Shikamaru had interrupted him.
“Regarding your next mission, Naruto, this is going to be a tough one,” he began without prelude.
Naruto was still three steps behind the rest of the room. “Wha- A zombie? What?”.
Kakashi cleared his throat. “He means you, Naruto. You look like you haven’t been sleeping very well.. or.. at all.” Worry marked Kakashi's face as he looked at his old student wobbling on his feet.
Naruto’s furrowed brows cleared as the penny dropped clumsily between his fingers.
“Oh. Ah. That’s.. pretty funny, Shikamaru,” he said in a deadpan voice.
Shikamaru said nothing, correctly inferring that Naruto wasn't trying to be sarcastic, but rather that he was just too tired to laugh. His eyebrows furrowed in concern.
“Alright, Lord Hokage. Hit me with the mission deets!” proclaimed Naruto.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow at being addressed by his title by Naruto of all people, sniffing around for sarcasm, but when his ninja-hound level nose didn’t find any, he looked down at the papers in his hand.
“This mission is a bit.. outside your usual comfort zone. But Shikamaru here convinced me to assign it to you. Something about the future hokage needing to demonstrate proficiency in every category of mission.”
Naruto suppressed a groan. Shikamaru was probably entirely correct, but extra difficulty was the last thing he was looking for right now.
He resolved to sleep for a week straight after finishing this one.
“I could switch with you, you know,” a gruff voice whispered into his mind.
Closing his eyes, he looked up at the massive bulk of his resident nine tailed best friend, Kurama, who had stayed in his body almost rent free for all of his life.
“You could rest leisurely and I could finish your mission for you. It would give me a chance to stretch my muscles a little too.”
Naruto suppressed a wistful smile. “That sounds tempting, but I've gotta get the hang of these myself if I wanna improve, ya know? There’s no point if I just let you do all the work, is there?”
Kurama exhaled loudly. “You’re too hard on yourself. One of these days you’re going to fall asleep in the middle of a battle, and don’t come crying to me then.”
Naruto patted his orange fur good naturedly. “I promise this will be the last one. Then I’ll have a nice long nap and you see if even you can wake me up from that.”
“….did you get all that?” Kakashi’s voice echoed from outside Naruto’s mindscape.
Naruto’s eyes flew open. “Yeah! Yes sir, believe it! I never go back on my word! That's my winja nay!”
Both Shikamaru and Kakashi stared at him.
Naruto groaned internally and spun around as Kakashi said, “So you’ll be leaving in the evening then? That should give you enough time to get packed”
Naruto didn’t betray a single ounce of the confusion that he felt. He knew that doing so would reveal that he hadn’t been paying attention, and that would get him benched for sure until he was in a better state of mind. "Yes sir! Evening it is!"
As he walked out of the office that he was working so hard to one day earn, he heard the door closing behind him as Shikamaru followed him out.
They stared at each other for a minute, before Shikamaru cracked first, closing his eyes.
“You didn’t catch any of that, did you?”
“Not a word,” Naruto groaned remorsefully.
Shikamaru sighed as they both walked down the hallway. “What would you do without me?”
“Probably look like an idiot, but I’m used to that. Now fill me in already.”
The volume of Shikamaru's voice lowered as he began to discuss the confidential details of the mission.
.
“This mission will primarily be infiltration and information gathering. Not exactly your cup of tea, I know.”
Naruto groaned once more. So that was why Kakashi had described it as ‘outside his comfort zone’.
“We’ve received word from the Hidden Cloud that there have been instances of shinobi rejecting the peace of the new era, and refusing to respect the current indefinite treaty we forged with the other villages after the Great War. At least a few squads of these shinobi, estimated to be between three and five squads, have gone rogue and fled the Cloud, apparently with some powerful stolen jutsu."
Naruto nodded with his eyes closed, and Shikamaru took a second to make sure he was listening and not sleeping, before he continued.
"Ordinarily this would be an internal Cloud matter, but one squad was spotted in the Land of Fire a few days ago, far closer to the Leaf than we’d like." He paused to make sure Naruto was listening.
"I know combat is your specialty, Naruto, but the goal of this mission is not fighting. We need to find the location of the other squads of rogue ninja, and once we’ve confirmed a lock on all of their positions, we’ll swoop in and take them all down at once, and recover those stolen jutsu while we're at it. It'll put us in a good position with the Cloud, diplomatically speaking.”
Naruto’s face twisted in confusion as his mind attempted to race with questions, but only managed a rather sluggish walk. “Hang on. How could the Cloud not even know for sure how many of their shinobi went rogue? Seems kinda stupid to me. Old man Raikage’s getting slow.”
Shikamaru looked at him strangely, “That's a good question. As it happens, I asked them that myself. But the Cloud Village hasn’t sent an answer yet, and the details of the original message seem almost.. intentionally vague, like they're hiding something.... or at least omitting something important"
Naruto looked at him, dumbfounded.
"V- vomiting? They're vomiting what?"
Shikamaru snorted. "I mean they left something out. Or at least, that's what I think."
"Why would they-" he began, before Shikamaru cut him off.
"Additionally, the lookouts that spotted the rogue squad reported overhearing them talking about strictly confidential Leaf intel... which, I don't have to tell you, is worrying."
He looked up at the sky idly as he spoke.
"There should be no way for some rogue Cloud ninja to know intel about things like the Leaf’s military strength or internal infrastructure... Kakashi also suspects that there’s more going on here than what they’re telling us."
Naruto swallowed his questions and the aftertaste of his breakfast, and resigned himself to listening.
"Plus, we still don’t know the nature of the jutsu they stole," Shikamaru continued.
"If it’s something like a powerful forbidden jutsu, we could lose shinobi by underestimating the threat."
He poked Naruto in the chest. "That’s another reason why he's sending someone as powerful as you, and it’ll be a feather in your cap, too."
He smiled confidently. "I’m sure you can handle it; You are the leaf’s very best combat specialist after all”.
“Hmm...Maybe after Sasuke,” Naruto interjected.
Shikamaru shrugged as they climbed down the stairs back into the village center. “That could be debated.”
“You’ll be masquerading as a rogue ninja from the Leaf, someone that shares their discontent with the new status quo. You’re definitely going to have to change your appearance for this one, your face and description are just too well known in the shinobi world”.
Naruto nodded as they turned the corner of the road. “But they aren’t just gonna trust me like that, are they?” he said, the cogs of his mind arduously turning in the face of sleep deprivation.
Shikamaru nodded. “You’re right, they won’t. Which is why we’ll be sending you with an offering.”
As the two of them stopped in front of a door, Shikamaru pulled a small scroll out of his pack and unrolled it, handing it to Naruto.
Naruto’s eyes scanned through it quickly before he exclaimed “Hey... I know this writing... Wait! This... the scroll of seals I stole when I was a kid?!”
Shikamaru nodded as he rang the doorbell of the house they stood in front of. “It's meant to look like it, true, but look closely.”
Naruto squinted and re examined the scroll as Shikamaru spoke.
“There are small differences everywhere," said Shikamaru at length. "Differences you’d only recognise if you were already familiar with the relevant jutsu. None of those jutsu written there would work if you tried to perform them in the way demonstrated in that scroll”.
Naruto nodded as he understood. “That’s clever.”
Shikamaru nodded as he rang the doorbell again. “They’d need to be at least jonin rank or higher, to even comprehend most of them. And from what we’ve heard from the cloud, most of those rogue shinobi were chunin.” He rang the doorbell once more.
“Hey, whose bell are you ringing anyway?” asked Naruto, as he rolled up the fake scroll and looked up, before exclaiming in recognition. “Hey, this is Sakura’s place!”
“Yep”, said Shikamaru. “She must not be home right now. Sakura’s accompanying you on this mission.”
“Accompanying him on what mission?”, said a familiar voice behind both of them.
“Sakura!” exclaimed Naruto, turning around. “The two of us on the same squad again… it’ll be just like old times!”
Sakura frowned. "Wipe that smile off your face"
She paused, examining Naruto’s face before sardonically saying, “As a matter of fact you don’t look fit for a mission at all. I’d recommend at least a day of sleep if you don’t wanna doze off in the middle of a fight or something.”
Fighting off the urge to make an annoyed expression, Naruto grumbled, “I know, I know, Kurama already warned me of that exact thing, ya know. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes wiiiide open.”
Shikamaru turned to Naruto. “Pack supplies for a few days and assemble at the gate by evening. I’ll fill in Sakura on the details.”
Naruto nodded and turned around, walking back towards his place, thoughts jumbling around in his mind. An infiltration mission. He would have to study up on jutsu that would help him with that. Like what?
A rasengan wouldn’t do anything to keep him hidden among enemies. In fact, it would only give away his identity. To his knowledge, Kakashi-sensei, Konohamaru and himself were the only ones capable of performing it. Would he even be able to use it without instantly revealing who he really was? The actual number of people that had seen the jutsu itself was relatively low, but then again, everyone had seen everything during the War.
Thoughts racing, he walked on.
.
Half a day, a bowl of ramen and several discussions with Shikamaru and Sakura later, Naruto thought he finally had a fairly good understanding of the mission.
Infiltrate the squad of rogue shinobi, relay the location of the other squads, recover the stolen jutsu, and finally help bring them all down. Nice, neat and tidy.
Sakura was coming along to 'be the brains of the operation,’ in Shikamaru’s words, with no small grumbling on Naruto’s part on the implication that he wasn’t smart enough to pull off the deception himself. That particular objection was finally silenced by Sakura’s fist and a new bruise swelling up on Naruto's head.
Ultimately, however, it would just be the two of them on the mission.
Kakashi wanted to keep the number as low as possible, he explained, as too many shinobi going rogue at once would be treated with suspicion, and moreover, there was the wild card factor of the total unknown that was the stolen jutsu.
If it was powerful forbidden justu, repeated Shikamaru, it would be very difficult to deal with; Unless of course, you happened to already be at a level of strength comparable to even the legendary Sannin. Which was another reason why he was sending the leaf’s premier medical shinobi along, norwithstanding the fact that, again, in Shikamaru's words, Sakura could be 'trusted to use her common sense.'
Additionally, he went on to a Naruto who had stopped following quite some time ago, Naruto and Sakura were used to working alongside each other, which made them the best logical pairing for the mission while minimising the number of required shinobi, and at the same time maximising efficiency.
No matter how powerful the enemy was, he was confident that if it came down to it, the two of them would have no difficulty bringing them all down themselves.
In the end, Shikamaru said, he wasn't very worried, even with Naruto being at such a low level of performance.
Seemingly having accounted for everything, the three of them stood at the gates of the leaf village, ready to leave.
“Alright, so first off, you’ll need your disguises in order. Fake names and cover stories, please.”
Naruto thought for a moment and made a hand sign before transforming in a column of smoke. The smoke cleared to reveal a familiar face.
Shikamaru put his hand to his chin, before nodding. “Yeah, I think that’ll work. Since he was imprisoned before the war, and broke out once too, not only did he actually go rogue, he’ll probably be completely unknown to the Cloud shinobi. Good thinking, Naruto”.
Naruto, wearing the face of his two time enemy, Mizuki, the very first threat he had ever defeated with his shadow clone jutsu, nodded and flashed a smile.
“I don’t remember him ever smiling that broadly though”, Sakura commented.
“Well, you heard Shikamaru!” retorted Naruto, “He’s probably completely unknown to them!”
“Probably”, added Shikamaru. “Just in case, you’d better play the part properly. Alright Sakura, how about you?”
Sakura’s eyebrows furrowed as she ran through the list of plausible disguises in her head before settling on one. She made the hand sign, and transformed in a flash. Naruto and Shikamaru stared at the transformed Sakura with complete unfamiliarity, trying to place the vaguely familiar face that she wore.
After a few seconds, Shikamaru broke the silence. “I have no idea whose face you're wearing, so the transformation should work. I am curious though. Did you make this disguise out of whole cloth?”
Sakura grinned like it was an inside joke. “Come on, Naruto, use that thick skull of yours.”
Naruto frowned as he tried to place the face he had definitely seen somewhere before.
Sakura sighed. “It’s Mr.Tazuna’s daughter. You remember? The old bridge builder from the Land of Waves? Our very first serious mission?”
Naruto’s face broke into a grin as he finally placed the features.
“Of course! Heh, I never would’ve guessed! I wonder how lil’ Inari is doing by now”.
“He’s probably at least as tall as you now, if not taller,” Sakura countered. "He should be calling you lil' Naruto."
“Alright alright,” Shikamaru interjected. “Both your disguises should be uncrecognisable. Good job. The difficult part will be maintaining them for days continuously, but that should be no problem for shinobi as proficient in chakra control as you two. So, to recap, you are to infiltrate ....".
Naruto zoned out as Shikamaru droned on about the mission. His eyelids drooped as his mind wandered.
He idly wondered what Gaara was up to these days. It had been soooo looong since he had hung out with everyone without having to worry about when the next mission was. Unbidden, an image of Choji stuffing his face with meat rose to the forefront of his mind, and he smiled at the memory. When would everyone be able to meet up and hang out together next?
"Naruto! Pay attention!" scolded Kurama, snapping him out of his sweet haze of memory.
"-until we can bring them all down at once". Shikamaru's voice went on heedlessly.
"The last part is important".
Naruto groaned as Shikamaru continued, either oblivious or uncaring to his impatience. How had he not yet run out of things to say?!
"We don’t want them to know they’re being hunted, until it’s too late for them to strike back, got it? We don’t want them deciding to use their stolen justu, in some ragtag last resort counterattack."
He put a hand to his chin, checking that Naruto was still mentally present.
Naruto grinned the faintly frantic grin of an office worker minimising a youtube tab the split second before his boss walked by.
Shikamaru narrowed his eyes.
"I bet a group like this trying to upset the status quo, will be looking find ways to do it on a larger scale. Either by looking for like-minded people, or somehow de-stabilising the peace themselves. You should be prepared to remain with them for a few days, assuming they buy your story and take you to meet the other rogue ninja.”
Naruto nodded several times, realised about ten seconds later that he was still nodding, and stopped just short of nodding off.
Shikamaru and Sakura looked at him, both wearing expressions of exasperation and disbelief, and Shikamaru muttered "Maybe we should postpone this- no," before continuing
“What they’re doing so close to the Leaf, and the vagueness of the cloud’s intel .. These things still worry me, but nothing in this neck of the land is strong enough to even bother the two of you, I think, so whatever it is I’m sure you both can handle it.”
Naruto and Sakura nodded as one, and this time Naruto understood his words perfectly.
“Right then, that’s about it. You’ll be using fake names, I assume.”
Naruto thought for a moment. “Why? I could just go by Mizuki. It’s not like the real Mizuki is anywhere nearby anyway. Isn’t he in prison?”.
Shikamaru nodded. “That could work. What about you, Sakura?”.
“How about…. Uhhh… K-Kaguya?”
Both of them stared at her dumbfounded.
“What? It’s the first name that popped into my head! And it’s not like it's that uncommon a name."
Shikamaru shrugged. “Whatever. Mizuki and, uh... Kaguya."
Naruto shivered involuntarily at the second name.
"We’ll be keeping in contact with you via Sai’s non traceable ink messengers. Good luck, and remember, this is infiltration. That means you can’t just punch them through a wall when you see them, Naruto.”
Naruto grumbled “I know what infiltration is, ya know”.
“And Sakura, that means no beating Naruto through a wall either, though I understand the temptation sometimes.”
Sakura smiled with the energy of a five year old with a magnifying glass looking down on an ant. “That depends entirely on Naruto.”
Naruto gulped and resolved to try and stay completely awake and razor focused till the mission was done. Kurama shook his head in resignation, listening from within. It seemed he would have to cover for Naruto's incompetence, like old times.
Shaking his head violently to clear it, Naruto slapped his cheeks and smiled.
The mission ahead seemed like it would be exciting, being part of a squad of rogue ninja for a while.
Though he tried to imagine what that would be like, there was no way he could have realised that the mission he was about to embark upon would lead him to old nightmares, death and despair both, more lack of physical coordination than most slapstick comedy, and the most challenging opponent he had ever faced since Kaguya, and would ultimately cause him to have to take his past into his own hands.
The trio nodded at each other, and like a pair of shadows, Naruto and Sakura vanished into the woods.