"Does this still look broken to you?" Minato asked Tobirama who was chatting up some chick that vaguely resembled his mother.
Tobirama - who hadn't been too happy with the interruption - turned, looked at him, sighed, and said "For the last time, no." before turning back to the girl. If it didn't have tits, Tobirama was generally an asshole towards it. His own brother included. That near-complete douchery towards anything with a penis had of course led to the whole Uchiha situation, seeing as Tobirama had rubbed some feathers the wrong way. Metaphorically speaking.
Sighing, he checked his reflection. His nose still looked broken to him no matter how many times he tried to straighten it. He still wasn't sure how the hell it was possible but, since he'd been dealing with his son on the spiritual plane at the time his nose broke, it was probably going to stay that way because he thought it was broken. Odds were, it would remain broken either until he was reborn or for all eternity depending on what he chose to do.
Not having anything better to do than stare at his nose since Kushina was busy playing some game that only the Uzumaki understood with her cousins and Uchiha Obito who was currently serving as the "ball", he headed over to Hashirama who was watching over his village as he had been since the day he died, barring a certain Edo Tensei incident involving Madara and some twisted plan to make Hashirama watch as the world was destroyed or something like that. Sarutobi was sitting beside his old co-sensei talking about something or other when he arrived.
"Anything interesting happening?" he asked, hoping that there would be something to see.
"Naruto's timeline hit the point where he left the Kyuubi, and Kurama somehow ended up merging with the remnant that got left behind and sent Naruto back to the day of the Uchiha Massacre. He isn't alone there however, since his students traveled back to meet him via two different methods and some poor sap in Iwa accidentally invented a new Time Travel Jutsu during a pub crawl." Hashirama said from where he was watching a version of Konoha while the image of another version of Konoha sat nestled in the Right-hand corner of his viewing mirror, apparently unnoticed.
"Wait? What?" he said, wondering what the hell he'd missed.
The last time he'd seen Naruto in person, the boy had been fourteen, and his seal had been cracked through sabotage by an elderly surviving member of the Uzumaki clan thanks to a short-sighted action on the Sandaime's part that had left the remnants of the Uzumaki clan convinced that Naruto was just an orphan who had been given the Uzumaki clan name. Hence Naruto's wearing the symbol of Uzushiogakure rather than that of the Uzumaki prior to Kakashi's return to the past. The old man who had cracked the seal had been rather apologetic when he realized that Naruto hadn't been trying to skate on the Uzumaki reputation and actually was half-Uzumaki. Sarutobi had eventually apologized for keeping Naruto's heritage hidden after Konohamaru had kidney punched him following the seal cracking incident which had led to him seeing his son for the first time since his birth. When he had seen Naruto while he was repairing the damage the elderly Uzumaki had done to his seal and getting punched in the nose for his troubles, the boy had seemed older than he should've been. It was only after he'd arrived in the actual afterlife upon dissipating that he'd learned why that was.
Hashirama had seen the whole incident from start to finish, like he had everything else. The Shodai Hokage had spent a great deal of his time in the afterlife watching Konoha, and knew just about everything that went on there. Compared to the usual shenanigans, the spying, the cheating, the romance, and the failed missions, Naruto's traveling back in time had been prime entertainment for the Shodai Hokage who had been growing a bit bored as of late, and the man had known everything that had happened to the boy and his fellow time-travelers who had all apparently come from different timelines since it was his favorite show.
After Naruto, Kakashi, Jiraiya, and the ANBU codenamed Tenzo had stopped skirting around each-other and occasionally screwing with each-other's plans by accident, they had joined forces and become quite the team as they turned their focus to the Akatsuki. Since just about everyone but Kakashi knew the Akatsuki and how to deal with them, the four of them had easily tripped them up and made relatively short work of the organization, several of whom had fallen victim to Naruto's "Therapy Jutsu", including one Nagato who had practically adopted the boy afterward. The one lingering problem had been Obito who had somehow survived having several tons of rock fall on him, and had actually been the one who had caused that whole Kyuubi snafu on the night of Naruto's birth.
Being rather upset with the boy turned man who had once been his student, he had cheered every time the little S.O.B. had been forced to scramble for another contingency plan to deal with the damage done to the one before by his son and his son's teachers. Those four had led to his former student literally tearing his hair out on multiple occasions. Eventually, after running through several substitutes and finding someone aside from Orochimaru and his lackey Kabuto who had been familiar with the Edo Tensei, Obito had had his "Victory" and the Fourth Shinobi World War was started a year late with Madara leading the charge.
Naruto had worked his magic once more, and the day had been saved by the combined forces of the continent's shinobi who had been needed to take out Madara.
Just the day before, he had watched as his son had been sworn in as Hokage, and it had seemed as if everything was shaping up to be one of those fairytale Happily Ever Afters, seeing as all of the villages were at peace, the Akatsuki was disbanded with many of its members pursuing other careers, Obito was the Uzumaki's Soccer ball, and Madara was off in some isolated corner muttering darkly and bemoaning the fact that he was the stir fry while his brother Izuna tried to comfort him.
Now however, Hashirama was telling him that Naruto was back in time again, and at the day of this Uchiha Massacre that he kept hearing about no less?
Before the Shodai Hokage could explain what the hell had just happened in more detail Fugaku showed up, more than likely after news of his son. The really and truly Last of the Uchiha now that Obito and Madara were gone was of interest to just about all of the Uchiha, and Fugaku had taken to getting frequent updates on the boy who had been named as one of Naruto's advisors yesterday.
"Hi Fugaku." he said to the man who had been a comrade to him on the battlefield, and whom he had been stunned to learn had been planning an apparently failed coup.
"Hello Hok..." the Uchiha started before trailing off as his eyes took on a glazed appearance.
"That little bastard!" Fugaku exclaimed, looking both furious and grudgingly impressed at the same time.
"What did I miss this time?" he asked.
"Sasuke just helped Itachi kill the Uchiha." Hashirama said from where he was watching events in Konoha unfold.
"Does something about Naruto seem different to you?" Kakashi asked Jiraiya when he met the other man at his apartment for the usual drinks and discussion, since there was nothing left to plan.
"You're joking right?" Jiraiya asked from where he was guzzling whiskey straight from the bottle. "I haven't seen the brat act like that since back when I first met him."
"You're not going to believe what the Council's been trying to cover-up." Tenzo said as he took his usual spot at the end of the couch.
"What?" Jiraiya and Kakashi asked, eager to hear something interesting since everything had been so calm lately.
"Apparently, the morning after his inauguration, Naruto woke up with no memories beyond the age of twelve..."
Hyuuga Hiashi knew that he should feel something aside from relief that Neji hadn't returned from his mission, but after over four years of the boy's pranks, that had been the first thing he'd felt. The grief didn't come until later. Much later, after he'd been able to look in the mirror and not see the effects of the day he'd woken up to discover that his nephew had shaved him completely bald while he was asleep.
Gaara's smile became strained as he helped his fellow Kage learn how to sort his paperwork. Since Naruto was the only thing holding the peace together at the moment, it was up to him to help cover up the fact that the boy had mentally reverted to the age of twelve, and was currently the boy who had not yet become a part of a Genin team and become a shinobi of Konoha.
This twelve year-old boy had been forced to face the realities of the dream he had held for so long, and wasn't ready. It was up to him, a virtual stranger to the boy who hadn't yet met him at the point in time he had believed he'd fallen asleep at before waking up to discover he was Hokage to teach the boy what he needed to learn and make him ready before the circling vultures found this weakness and tore what they'd built before this had come to pass apart.
Sakura sighed as she changed the flowers by Sasuke's bedside. It had been a long time since she'd walked into her former teammate's office and discovered that Sasuke's body was there, but nobody was home. It had all been because of that damned scroll she'd found underneath him. He'd just had to go and try time traveling despite all the risks, apparently believing that if Naruto could do it, he could do it too.
Apparently, he couldn't. Or, if he could, she would never learn where he was and what he was doing. Sometimes she hoped he'd succeeded, and that he was happy wherever he was. Other times however, she'd hoped that he'd failed, because then there would be hope that she would discover what it was that had gone wrong and get him back someday.
The Hidden Continent's foremost demolition expert reached down and picked up the strange object that had gone flying from his latest work of art which was going to clear the way for a rather grand shopping center.
"What's this, un?" he said as he examined the rock with the unusual glyphs on it, noticing that it didn't taste the same to his hand as the local rock he'd had an unfortunate taste of earlier when he hadn't gotten clear fast enough.
That had been the third time he'd kissed the ground in the last month. He wasn't getting any younger, and his job was for the young...
Continued in Time Mixup:Time Snarl.