From Time to Time

Chapter 3: Home

Full disclosure, this chapter was written pretty much entirely in a single night and is most definitely rushed. After I finish this story I'll come back and edit but if it's too terrible I'll fix it sooner (though it may take a while because I'm refusing to be lazy with these updates).

Also, I'm really bad at professional things that involve politics... So Kaeru's conversation with the Hokage was heavily inspired by both WOWWNB and Backslide's version of this interaction. I'll probably change it a bit later but I felt it was necessary to give credit where it was due.

We meet a lot of Konoha characters this chapter and start a lot of new bonds (with new people and old friends-now-strangers) and emphasizes how overwhelming it is to be in a village that Kaeru watched burn so... Be ready for a lot of that. I tried not to make it too sad though.

Anyway...

Onto the Chapter!

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Chapter Three: Home

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Kaeru agreed to go to Konoha.

He wasn't sure if he'd be staying but he'd, at the very least, hear the Hokage out. He and Jiraiya had decided that telling the Sandaime everything could wait, if they told him at all. Anyone else finding out was a risk. Telling (showing) Jiraiya had been a risk. Tobi would be livid at this point and with his Sharingan he was dangerous. For all Kaeru's power, the man was still skilled and a confrontation before a proper plan was formed could be deadly and not for Tobi.

To Hiruzen he'd simply be Uzumaki Kaeru, survivor of Uzushiogakure's destruction and S-Rank Bounty Hunter and distant cousin of Uzumaki Mito, Uzumaki Kushina and Uzumaki Naruto. He would never be the surrogate grandson he had been in his time. Even if he could he would never take that away from the Naruto of this time. For Kaeru, he'd been dead for fourteen years so being away now shouldn't be too much more difficult.

The same went for Konohamaru and the others.

They would never be his. He could develop new bonds with some of them, maybe even all of them but it would never be the same. In some ways he was glad, because that meant that they could never be replaced, but in other ways it hurt more than anything because he would never see them again.

Not for the first time, since arriving in the past, Kaeru wondered where he would go when he died. If he would be with those who died for him, who died because of him, or those he met here.

Kurama rumbled inside him as the dark thoughts began to swallow him. The fox wasn't awake yet, not entirely, but he could tell that his inner turmoil wasn't good or healthy. The redhead hoped his partner would wake up soon. He hadn't gone this long without speaking to the fox since he was fifteen and before that he hadn't even known he was there. He hated it. Shukaku and the others were amazing but Kurama had been with him since birth, even if he hadn't known it, and he needed him. If only for the sake of his sanity because despite his hateful exterior he was much like Kaeru. The fox cared deeply and protected fiercely and was much better at hiding it than Kaeru ever could be.

Jiraiya gave him a funny look and Kaeru avoided his eyes. There was no doubt the man had picked up on the despair leaking from him or the power that had ceased the onslaught of emotions that had started to consume him. The Toad Sannin was well aware of who he was, who he used to be, and what he contained. Despite seeing with his own eyes that the Kyuubi wasn't an evil, uncontrolled beast, it was still hard for the Toad Sannin to believe. Because even though he didn't see Kaeru or Naruto as the Bijuu itself, he still only thought of the beast that destroyed Konoha and killed his student and his wife. It was understandable. Kurama hadn't saved so many people here, hadn't helped defeat one of the most powerful enemies they'd ever faced.