Disclaimer: I still do not own Naruto

We found the unknown Leaf ninja in the remains of a house, he looked ready to fight but with the cut to his leg I didn't like his chances against the automatons descending from the city above. I glanced at Minato for his go ahead to intervene but he gave no sign, I had known him long enough to know he was thinking. Time ran out when the floating puppets started firing some kind of chakra projectiles at the boy, Minato was suddenly gone and I took that as our signal to act.

Shibi was first jumping across the crumbling shacks to launch his bugs at two of the puppets before I leaped past him to punch the two remaining puppets with enough speed and force to send them cratering into the ground before they could raise a defence. We looked for Minato and the boy he saved and found them in the city above talking, before long they leapt back down into the undercity and joined Shibi, Kakashi and I underneath the eave of a collapsing bakery. Minato returned with his mask obscuring his face so we kept ours on too, for whatever reason Minato wasn't willing to let our identity be known to this leaf ninja, whoever he was.

"He's got a pretty bad cut, if you could take a look." Minato said to Kakashi gesturing toward the blonde kid's leg. Getting a closer look now I couldn't help but notice certain similarities between this child and Minato, the blonde hair was bad enough, but the eyes too. I'm sure my own brows weren't the only ones furrowed in puzzlement behind our masks.

In no time Kakashi had the injury mostly healed and bandaged to protect against any lingering possibilities of infection.

"Wow, you guys sure work quick, who are you?" The boy asked, for some reason he was giving funny looks at both Kakashi and I but the majority of his suspicion seemed to be aimed at Minato.

Kakashi stepped back with his work finished and Minato stepped in, "I'm afraid we can't tell you, I can't tell you much about ourselves outside of what I have already said."

The boy furrowed his face in frustration but kept his voice calm, "Could you at least tell me where we are?"

Kakashi and I looked at each other, how could this guy not know where he is? Did he get lost in the desert? My mind was leaping through possibilities and discarding them one by one and there was an answer I was arriving at that I'm sure was going to be an interesting, if annoying, complication.

"We're in Loran." Minato replied.

The boy sputtered in shock, "Loran? That's not possible we -" He got no further as Minato cut him off.

"At any rate we're carrying out a mission here and you'll need to leave the city until we're done. Any further conversation will have to wait until then. The main gate is back there." Minato pointed back towards where the main gate could be accessed via the under-city.

All of us saw it as the dismissal it was and flickered up and away to a pipe hanging from the ground stretching above us.

"Do you think he'll leave?" I asked Minato as he joined us.

"Somehow I doubt it." He sighed.

"Well if he's who I think he is we could have several issues." I responded

"I think you'd better keep that to yourself for now," Minato replied before continuing turning to the rest of the team, "But I think it's important for you all to know that that boy likely comes from the future also which means the information we found about the man pulling the strings here, so to speak, have become that much more likely. We'll have to tread carefully."

We decided to leave the destruction of the facility until the evening time. We couldn't guarantee that none of the civilians were being pressed to work inside there during the daytime. Waiting until night time when hopefully any that were in there left to go home would reduce any unneeded casualties. In the meantime we continued to gather what information we could from one of the towers though we sent Kakashi back towards the factory to try and divert any more civilians being brought inside as quietly as possible.

"Amazing, she's coming out to do another speech." Shibi stated drawing our attention to the balcony that seemed to serve the royal residence.

Sure enough with her entourage of puppets the queen stepped out and waved at the sham of a show below.

"More amazing that she doesn't see the artifice that's being presented to her." I signed. I was going to make a joke about it being fitting that a Queen that seemed such a puppet herself presided over more puppets but at that moment the balcony crumbled and she began to fall.

We all rose to our feet but at our distance there was nothing we could do, even Minato with his speed would take too long to get to her. It seemed we needn't have worried as a small golden blur intercepted her descent.

Minato sighed, "I didn't think he'd leave… we'd better have a word, if he's going to stick around we will need to take him more in hand to make sure he doesn't interfere with the mission."

We set off in pursuit and found the queen and the leaf ninja arguing beneath a pillar. Not a great place to have such a direct conversation when ears could be anywhere, we brought them to a corridor inside one of the towers.

Within the corridor Minato looked in askance at each of us, even from behind his mask we could tell he was checking with us if we had any problems revealing ourselves to the queen and the time traveller. Shibi shrugged, leaving it up to Minato, I inclined my head - I didn't really see much choice if he was going to stick around.

"I hate to do this, and I can't tell you everything… but I'll tell you what you need to know." Minato said, removing his mask and moving towards the blonde. Shibi, Kakashi and I followed suit.

Somewhere between the time of the mask crossing between my eyes the blonde looked like he's lost all colour, his glance flickered from Minato to me at which point his eyebrows nearly left his forehead.

"You can't be…" He began, his hands twitching towards his kunai holster.

Minato held up his hands, "Hold on, the hidden leaf village sent us here for a top secret mission. You were right earlier this isn't the Loran you know. If my guess is right you're from the same Loran in the future. I don't know how far in the future and I think it might be better all round if you don't offer any information on that point. Time travel being a largely unknown quantity we don't know what the ramifications could be for any information you give us."

The leaf ninja still seemed to be wrapping his head around what Minato said "The future?..." His hand still hadn't moved much from the holster at his side.

"That's right, if I had to guess you've travelled roughly 20 years back." Minato began to explain, Naruto tried to interject here but Minato lifted his hand bringing him up short. "Like I said, we don't know what the ramifications could be for any information you give us. History, your history, could be drastically changed. Here's what we know. Six years ago a man, who we think may be from your time, travelled back here to Loran. His name is Mukade."

"He's the guy we've been chasing!" the blonde exclaimed, before scrunching his face up in confusion, "How can this be."

'This guy seemed to switch from one emotion to the other like a whirlwind, a second ago he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Now he's tearing his hair out in frustration' I thought to myself observing him. I was beginning to suspect where he got his other qualities from

"Whatever method Mukade used to get back would have required a lot of chakra, the only way I can imagine doing something like this would be through fuinjutsu. Do you remember anything like that?" Minato asked

The leaf ninja nodded, "There was a huge fuinjutsu array and I felt like the place was going to explode there was so much chakra."

Minato hummed, "Would this have been at the leyline?"

"Yeah, we followed him down there, he absorbed the array and then there was a bright light… More importantly, does this mean I'm stuck here? Honestly, despite what you say there's definitely some things I'd like to change if that's the case."

Minato shook his head, "You say you saw him absorb the array? From my knowledge time travel isn't a permanent thing, it corrupts the natural order. Think of it like a rubber band, he's used the energy of the leyline to stretch it out to get here, it should snap back once that energy has been expended. I suspect that the way he is staying here has something to do with that array, it is somehow being used as a peg against which time is being stretched. Once we deal with Mukade I think you'll be catapulted back. If the future as you know it isn't there when you're sent there I don't know what might happen to you."

The leaf ninja looked disappointed but not surprised.

"At any rate the leyline is far beneath the city and Mukade is using its power in the present to build and operate a massive arsenal of killer puppets. His means have outstretched the ambition of merely subjugating this city, it seems he aspires to continue his subjugation abroad. Not something we can allow." Minato continued.

The queen chose this moment to shoot to her feet, "Lies! Slander! Anrokuzan has been a true help to my mother and myself. He would never do any of the things you said. An evil ninja named Mukade travelled through time to arrive 6 years ago? Do you hear yourselves? This is a good man. A loyal man. And his name is Anrokuzan! He is my most faithful minister and I won't stand for this kind of talk. If anyone here is suspicious it's the ninja who have infiltrated my city without any permission." At this point the queen seemed to run out of steam. She turned on her heels to march away.

"Where are you going?" the time traveller shouted.

"I'm going to speak to Anrokuzan and straighten this out, I hope for all your sakes this is just a misunderstanding and not deliberate lies to deprive me of my most loyal advisor." she responded.

The boy looked torn about chasing after her but Minato nodded him on, "We can take care of Mukade, you look after the queen. Here take this with you, if you need me use it and I'll be there." he said as he handed him one of his hiraishin daggers.

The boy looked down at the dagger with something like nostalgia before nodding and running off after the queen "My name is Naruto by the way!"

I rubbed my temple, I guess that confirms my guess then. Who else would name a child after a ramen topping.

We spent most of the day looking for any trace of Mukade but found nothing. It was approaching evening and we were deciding what our next course of action was when suddenly a pulse of energy shot across the city.

The energy surge was so huge that even Shibi lost his usual reserved nature exclaiming "What was that!"

I noticed from where i was stood that even his bugs which were floating around the city in small groups seemed concussed, dropping a few metres before restoring their equilibrium.

"I don't know but it came from beneath the city," Minato responded as a flash of consternation crossed his face "The leyline, we'll need to hurry. I don't know what's happening but it can't be good"

I myself saw something below I thought reflected quite favourably on the situation, I signalled for Minato's attention and pointed at the parade below.

"Why do I like this even less?" Minato muttered.

Following his lead we leapt in the direction of the factory, the city silent beneath us, the usual parade for the queen fallen silent, the puppets dropped to the earth. Whatever the pulse was it had cut their strings.

We met up with Kakashi outside the factory, he had set up in a spot overlooking the exits still wearing his mask, he seemed to be observing as people poured out, many looking haggard and gaunt but alive. Whatever had happened had apparently triggered a mass exodus from within the factory.

"Kakashi?" Minato asked.

"There's not much to report, that pulse came up out from beneath the city, all of the puppet soldiers dropped and people started fleeing from inside. It's starting to taper off now. And look." Kakashi pointed towards one of the exits where the queen could be seen helping an old man hobble away, Naruto likewise was carrying someone who looked too frail to walk.

We dropped down next to them, Shibi and Kakashi picked up the two civilians and jumped away.

"Is that the last of them?" Minato asked

"I think so." the queen responded, "I can't believe all of this was happening in my city."

Minato nodded, "Was that chakra pulse anything to do with you?"

"No, it came out of nowhere, all of the puppets just dropped. We were just working to save some of the civilians from the factory after we were… introduced to a group trying to rescue their friends and family that had been kidnapped to this place."

I sensed a longer story there but for now I had a more important question, "Is it me or is Naruto glowing?" I signed

Naruto lifted his hands in front of him and squinted but apparently was unable to discern any glow.

Minato took a close look, "You're right, if it wasn't so dim down here I might not even have noticed it but he's definitely giving off a glow. I have a feeling this is related to the pulse that came from the leyline, let's head there before anything else happens."

Shibi and Kakashi returned and with the queen guiding us we descended deeper into the undercity, all the time I could sense a huge amount of chakra being radiated from below us.

"If this continues the entire city might just explode." Minato shouted as we descended a huge spiral staircase. In the centre of the room there was a huge tower that was conducting an incredible amount of chakra, it crackled up the edges like electricity, it seemed to be on the verge of overloading. He grabbed me, "We'll go on ahead"

So saying he jumped from the staircase down into the void surrounding the tower, jumping between the staircase at intervals to control the fall.

"What's the idea sensei?" I asked.

"We need to contain the chakra here, to this tower, or it's going to destroy everything above it and probably turn the desert to glass for miles in every direction. I need your help creating the seal here, then I need you to hold it whilst we go in and discover whatever has been going on. I'll leave Kakashi to make sure no one can interfere"

I nodded and we separated across the room before deploying a chakra holding seal between us. As soon as the seal was up I could feel the magnitude of the chakra. It was enormous enough to make me sweat, but it seemed to be dropping perhaps a little. At any rate the strain on holding it didn't seem to be increasing. Shibi, Kakashi, the queen and Naruto arrived not too long after we had it set up. Naruto at this point looked like he could double as a lantern.

"OK we're going on ahead," Minato said as he nodded to me, "We're counting on you."

I nodded that I understood and they ran into the tower at the centre of the room as Kakashi and I shared a nervous glance.

In the centre of the tower they found Mukade, along with two others, the first sat cross legged at the bottom of the steps the top of which Mukade screamed as sealing runes, crackling with power, slowly seeped out of his body onto the ground. The man sat at the bottom of the stairs was a titan. Even sat down his face was almost the same height as Minato. Spiky white hair cascaded around his body, the hair around his head was held back by a Konoha headband that covered half of his face. The only thing larger than the man himself was his chakra which felt like it could suppress mountains. His muscles rippled with every movement as he stood up. Minato knew who this was just from the jagged scar across his abdomen. He noticed with a wince that this Keiko was missing an arm and there was some scarring that the headband couldn't quite cover.

"Long time no see sensei," Keiko rumbled in a voice Minato found all too familiar. Minato grimaced looking at his injuries and was about to respond when Keiko held up his hand. "We don't have much time, we're drawing out the seal that is holding us in this time and there's someone that wants to talk to you before we're sent back."

Minato raised an eyebrow but Keiko stepped aside as the person who had been sat in front of Mukade stood up and turned around.

"Minato…"

"Kushina?" Minato ventured, she definitely looked like Kushina but she was older and some part of her felt diminished somehow.

"Who do you think it is, dummy." Kushina responded stepping down towards the group, Minato could swear it looked like she was holding back a tear. He hadn't offended her that much had he? After all, it's not every day you see people out of time with the present.

"You guys were here all along!? I nearly got torn to pieces by crazy puppets, where were you?" Naruto burst out

"Quiet you the adults are talking." Keiko rebuffed him, giving him a light tap to his head. Or it seemed light but naruto staggered away a few steps cradling his head in his hands. Keiko rumbled a laugh.

The queen chose that moment to speak up "What's going on, what's happening to Anrokuzan?"

Kushina turned, "I'm quite nonplussed here too, other than us apparently not being in the time we should be all I've been told to do is extract the seal array from this guy who we were chasing from our time, our friend Kei here should be able to enlighten us." She turned to Keiko though for a moment she looked like she wanted to say more.

Keiko shared a glance with Kushina that seemed laced with a question which she returned an almost imperceptible nod to. "Well, we come from the future that much you know. We were chasing Mukade here," at this he gestured with his thumb at the still wailing individual in the centre of the room, "When he made this whole trip. Once we arrived here an hour or two ago I had Kushina hunt him down and bring him back here. At the moment we're extracting the seal keeping us all in this time, a process I suspect Mukade here won't survive. We were worried at first with the amount of chakra that seal of his had absorbed but it's been diminishing for the last few minutes now so it looks like we're past the worst. And judging by how we're doubling as lanterns at the moment I suspect our return to our present isn't too far away.

"So Anrokuzan really was a villain? Even after seeing the monstrosities in that factory I almost couldn't believe it." The queen seethed.

"That he was," Keiko responded, "I'd like to tell you more but you don't really need to know much more, after all it's not like you'll remember anyway right Minato sensei?"

Minato narrowed his eyes but he had to admit he was right, to prevent any shenanigans with the possible effects of time travel he had planned to seal the memories of all involved.

"That's what I thought," Keiko grunted as he pulled a scroll out from behind his back, "Your seal will work just fine on all of us but me, something to do with the seal on my chakra makes it pretty hard for memory based seals to stick, just slides straight off like oil on water. My time here was spent finding a scroll and some ink I could use that wouldn't come back with me, here."

Keiko handed Minato a scroll handily adorned with the simple message 'For Keiko'.

"The moment you hand that to him a seal of my own design that will transfer to him, it won't lock any of the memories away but it'll make it so he can never speak about the events that took place here, it'll also produce the same seal you're going to use to wipe our memories in a radius around him. It should include Kakashi, or at least he's never mentioned remembering this little trip." he laughed.

Minato smiled and took the scroll.

"What's this about sealing our memories?" The queen interjected, "I didn't agree to this, I like my memories as they are."

"I'm afraid no can do, your highness," Keiko said as the levels of chakra within the room started to plummet, "And we're running low on time so there'll be no argument."

The queen opened her mouth to say something more but something in Keiko's eye persuaded her otherwise.

"You better get started, before I turn into a festival sparkler." Keiko said, turning back to Minato.

Minato looked about before nodding, then stepping between the group he prepared himself to place the seal but then a hand as wide as a shovel grasped his forearm.

"It was an honour seeing you again Minato." Keiko rumbled.

'Time travellers and their teasers,' Minato scoffed internally, 'What could he mean by that?'

Nodding in acknowledgement he thrust his hand onto the ground, "Fuin!"

A glow encompassed them and as the last of the dying chakra left the dying man a pair of slender arms crossed around Minato from behind, tightly at first but growing lighter by the moment. Minato recognised who it was by the red hair thrown over his shoulder.

Kushina's face turned into his ear and he heard her whisper to him things meant only for him, his eyes softened but before he could respond he knew no more.

I had the curious sensation of pushing against an object that suddenly gave way. Moments later the tower gave a last flash and darkened.

"Well, whatever was happening I think it's over," I signed as I stood up.

Kakashi nodded, "Let's catch up and see what's going on."

Heading into the centre tower we gasped at the sight, Minato, Shibi and the queen were all strewn about the floor at the bottom of stairs that lead to a raised dais, we rushed in.

Kakashi immediately headed to Minato's side and a green glow suffused his hands, "It doesn't seem like they're in any danger, they're just out cold."

I nodded, "Something happened here, there's the outline of man here shaded in black, like someone's shadow stained the floor" I said pointing to the ground beneath me at the top of the platform.

"There's a scroll here with your name on it," Kakashi called, he picked it up and tossed it to me as I walked over.

The moment I made contact with the scroll I felt something crawl beneath my skin at the same moment a seal array spread about me catching kakashi in its web. Kakashi promptly fell to the floor.

'Not Kakashi too' I thought to myself as I rushed to his side, confirming that he too was only out cold.

'Wait, weren't there more? What happened to…' That's odd. I couldn't complete the thought. Quickly gathering myself I found there was some kind of compulsion on me not to think about any of the specifics of the last few days. I could remember all of it but like sand thrown into my hand I couldn't hold any of it there any more than I could compel a gust of wind to stay put. Something must have been on the scroll I picked up, something that was preventing me from thinking about… It was no use. At any rate I picked up the scroll after checking over for any more hidden traps.

'For Keiko' huh? Something was oddly familiar about that handwriting, I opened up the scroll.

"You'll find this useful" it said, I realised with a jolt that I did recognise that handwriting, it was mine! Beneath the message was an incomplete seal, too complicated to surmise the purpose of now, I packed it away as I heard Minato give a waking grunt.

"What happened, where are we?" Minato asked as I reached out to help him up.

"I think we're in Loran?" I replied my face was twisted into a grimace, I couldn't even say for sure, the others were also waking up around us.

"Well, let's first check that Shibi and Kakashi are OK." Minato said.

"I am unharmed," Shibi responded, "My insects are confused and the hive is in a small amount of disarray but it will calm."

Minato nodded before turning to Kakashi who in a militant manner after checking himself was going through his kit, "I seem to be OK, I don't really remember anything after leaving Konoha but I am missing several rations as well as all of the explosives I was carrying. I still have the trigger though." He said as he observed the detonation seal with suspicion.

"Curious, I also seem to be missing memories." Minato said.

"I too." Shibi concurred.

Suddenly there was a muffled boom, seemingly from high above us shaking dust and bits of plaster from the roof above us.

Minato's eyebrow twitched as he stared at Kakashi, "Please tell me you didn't."

Kakashi, plainly embarrassed, reached a hand behind his head and looked to his navel.

"What is going on?! Who are you?!" A shrill voice rang out as a robed lady stood up. A lady Minato distinctly remembered seeing in the mission briefing documents.

"Is that who I think it is?" Shibi deadpanned.

"I demand answers!" The queen screeched.

We all looked at each other before making what we all thought was the best decision. We bolted, not resting for a moment before we were out of the tunnels. We noticed with bemusement on our way back through the city that it seemed thronged with broken machines. The explosion itself seemed to have come from a factory constructing them. The mission was fubar, we weren't even sure what we could report back to the Hokage outside a mission complete. We booked it back into the desert to make our way back to Konoha.

AN: Back again, I did eventually take my own advice and try and write something else to try and get my writing fingers back before returning to this. I may even upload what I've written (It's Harry Potter related) since it's taken up so much time. We'll see though. Hopefully these gaps get shorter. We'll see. I hope you enjoy. Please review and I'll see you in the next chapter.