Chapter Text
Unfortunately for Red Team their target flees into the desert of Land of Wind, leading them on a merry chase to an abandoned city that puts Hawk in mind of Sora-ku. It too is all towering stone and remnants of a place that was once prosperous and is now gone completely.
"For once I'm glad our missions are verbal only," Towa says, perched on a wall and scanning crumbling ruins around them. "Imagine having to tell the others that a civilian gave us this much of a run around."
Komachi makes a noise of agreement but says, "We'll still have to tell Hokage-sama and I think that's even more embarrassing."
"Let's hope we never have to attend another political summit again, then," Hawk says. The scheming had been expected, as had the assassination attempts — the reason for Red Team being dispatched to supervise events — though the sheer number of different plots from different sources had pulled them in enough different directions that it had been a frantic scramble.
Bat… isn't joining the banter. That's not a great sign. She's studying the stone walls with a lot more intent than Hawk thinks walls really deserve. At most, she'd muttered something cryptic about being glad that their target had continued to go east, but that probably hadn't even been a choice given how heavy the presence of Sand shinobi is between Hidden Sand and the Garden.
Hawk hadn't really wanted to have to work around the Sand ninja, either.
"Taicho… weird chakra warning?" she says, eventually.
Hawk tries not to sigh. "On a scale of… Land of Snow to Land of Mist, how weird?"
"That's not really a scale, taicho," she says reproachingly, "and even if it were, I think we'd disagree over which is more severe. But probably more like Land of Snow?"
There's a limit to how much Hawk can ask, especially with Towa and Komachi nearby and listening, but also— well. Weird chakra in Hidden Mist hadn't meant anything to Shikako until it had happened, either. Just because she can sense something, doesn't mean she knows what it's going to do.
And even if she does know what it means… just because you can see something coming doesn't mean you can react in time.
"Right. Any actionable intel?" Hawk asks.
"Maybe… avoid using earth flow?" Bat says, with a shrug. "And if anyone finds any strange seals, intricate carvings or weird rocks… well. Don't touch it?"
"You heard her," Hawk says. "Let's find Mukade and get out of Roran before anything goes wrong."
—
Shisui gets sent to 'investigate the recent disturbances' in some out of the way ruin in the Land of Wind — he's pretty sure this is just a make-work assignment to get him out of the way and the thought knots his stomach with anxiety.
Bad enough, that he can't stop things when he's there. What's being planned that's so bad that it requires his absence? He doesn't even know which side is trying to get him out of the way — the Hokage? Danzo? The Uchiha? What kind of disaster is he going to return to, when this mission is over?
Still, he's a shinobi of Konoha and he's been assigned a mission. He will complete it, even if it means trekking out into the forsaken desert and climbing his way through ruins that Konoha is in no way responsible for or should even be interested in, let alone deeming it 'high priority'.
So far the only 'disturbance' he's seen is a colony of feral cats, too unused to human presence to even be bribed with canned tuna from his lunch.
"See?" he says, trying to coax them closer bit by bit. "Tasty, right?"
The cat eyes him warily, then — for no apparent reason — hisses and goes low to the ground, ears perked and swivelling.
Seconds later, Shisui feels the ground shudder. Not enough of an earthquake to make anything rattle or fall, barely enough to be felt, but there's also a flash of light from within the city.
He's on his feet and moving towards the central tower, no longer sure this is just a puff assignment.
There's no immediately obvious signs of what's causing the disturbances but Shisui is much more careful about his investigations now. Close to sundown there's another shake, another flash of light, and still no sign of the cause. He sleeps lightly, but the next morning comes with more shaking.
There's an arched area that was probably a shrine — it's too enclosed to be a courtyard, tucked away beneath some of the towers — that seems to be the center point of the disturbances, based on what triangulation he' managed to work out. When the next shake occurs, Shisui is there and ready—
-the light flashes—
-ink spirals out across the ground—
-his sharingan spins, and for a second he sees—
The world repeated in layers, same again and again, different again and again; people walking past, different faces and different clothes, the room empty but whole, the room ruined and decayed, nothing but empty sand. A man with blond hair running through the seals for a jutsu. A many legged puppet moving across the walls.
-the air vibrates so hard he feels it in his teeth—
And then it stops, leaving him shaken and alone.
No. Not alone.
There are two ANBU in the room, where there had not been before. One collapses to the ground, twisting her mask aside to vomit, the other fully combat ready at her back. He sees Shisui and flinches, hands twitching but stopping before they form hand seals.
Carefully, Shisui holds his hands steady and away from his kunai pouch.
They're Konoha ANBU, he's pretty sure, even though the uniforms are supposed to be unidentifiable. He pulses chakra through his own ANBU tattoo in identification, even though he's not in mask and technically shouldn't.
"Black and white net. Twenty-two bridges," Shisui says, lowballing the identity challenge to the most common and generic phrase.
Two pulses of ANBU identification come back to him. "Sixty-six crowns and belts," the female ANBU says, sitting back and reaffixing her mask.. "Footprints and distant thunder."
Her mask is something snarling, with pointed ears.
The second ANBU makes a small gesture, hands almost hidden from Shisui's gaze. [Medical, query], he signs.
She responds with a negative and moves her hand across the stone ground. A chunk of floor disappears — taking with it the evidence of her lunch
[Medical, command] the second ANBU signs more insistently.
[Denied], she signs back and rises to her feet.
"You wouldn't happen to have seen any others around… Shinobi-san?" she says, the hesitation over his name just long enough to be noticeable.
"I haven't," Shisui says cautiously. "And until that technique… I would have sworn I was alone."
They make no effort to confirm or deny it but— well. Leaving aside the redundancy of Konoha sending both a jounin and an ANBU team… for starters, they wouldn't have dropped stealth without having to do so, if they'd known he was here.
"Bat," the second ANBU says, which at least answers his question of what her mask on name is. "The seal?"
"Inert, Hawk-taicho," she says. With the vocal modulation, it's hard to tell if that's supposed to be a good thing or not. "There's been a second seal applied over top. If I had to guess… I would say it's the Fourth Hokage's handiwork."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to explain what the seal was doing?" Shisui asks. It's dangerous to ask questions of ANBU, especially ones like that. "Only, I was sent to investigate the disturbances here, and to me, that rather seems to be the cause of it."
The ANBU look at each other, less a conversation in code and more in familiarity, and then Bat says, "yeah, I think we're going to need your help."
—
They make a campfire and boil water for tea, which is less a necessity and more of a stalling tactic. And also because Shikako needs something to do while she tries to think their way out of this one.
"So," she says, once she has a camp mug in hand and can't put it off much longer. "Do you know what dragon veins are?"
Shisui Uchiha — !! — makes a so-so gesture, which probably means 'no'. Or at least, that she should start there.
"Right, well. As the human body has chakra pathways and chakra gates, so do countries. Some people call them ley lines, or dragon veins. They're perfectly natural, and can be found anywhere in different sizes. But people tend to build cities in places where that chakra builds up, or where dragon veins cross. Sometimes its accidental, but sometimes it's on purpose. The Fire Temple actually sits on top of one of the biggest dragon veins in the Land of Fire!"
Hawk-taicho is following her explanation, at least. "So, Roran was messing with the dragon vein and our target set it off somehow, amplifying his technique and sending us..."
He can't seem to finish the thought. Even though the evidence is literally right in front of them.
"Right," Shikako says, and doesn't want to finish it either. But someone has to. "When you have that much chakra, the scale of a technique can be completely different."
Isn't it strange that Land of Wind has two such locations? Then again, had Roran found relics or intel from Gelel to make their own? Or were there just the right conditions here for the idea to brew? Or… were there just so many more scattered around the world that Shikako hasn't found?
The idea makes her shiver.
Shisui is frowning slightly, gaze darting between the two of them. He's not combat ready wary, but he is wary. "When the light was flashing I saw…"
"Things that are, things that were, and some things that have not yet come to pass?" Shikako quotes.
His gaze snaps to her, almost as uneasy with what she's implying as she is with saying it.
"Yes. I think our target was attempting to use the dragon veins in order to change the past. Except, Hawk-taicho and I were also caught in the attempt, and Hawk-taicho attempted to… redirect the flow of the technique as it happened."
She's not sure it actually helped anything, but they're not dead. So. There's still hope, as the saying goes.
"But the dragon vein was sealed shut," Shikako goes on. "By the Fourth Hokage, so probably prior to '47. Which means that now, and in the future, it cannot be used."
"Wait. How did Mukade use it if its inert?" Hawk-taicho says, sounding like he regrets asking.
"Because it wasn't sealed until after he used it," Shikako says. "Time changed. He went back in time and attracted enough attention that the Yondaime dealt with him and sealed the dragon vein shut." She bites her lip. "Which means we can't use it to get back home."
And it probably means something about paradoxes and linear time that she really doesn't want to deal with. 'The future is malleable' is fine when its your future but they're in the past and—
"Time changed," Sasuke repeats. And its Sasuke, not Hawk-taicho that's asking. That's staring at his dead cousin and wondering—
"Yes but— it changed to keep things the same," she says, not sure of the point she's grasping for. "Things could go horribly wrong…"
"Things already went horribly wrong," Sasuke says.
She can't argue that. She doesn't want to look across the fire at a ninja their age and know that she's dooming him and his entire family to death.
She did it once, because she was a child with no ninja training, with no real information or means of getting information. With no certainty that things would go the way she remembered, and the knowledge that if it was true, the consequences of failed actions would be to redirect the danger to people she cared about more.
It was the only real choice at the time.
Is it the only real choice now?
More to the point, with Hawk-taicho here… is it her choice at all? She's not sure she could actually stop him. And she's not sure either of them would forgive her if she tried.
All she really knows about time travel is narrative conventions.
Paradoxes and time loops and self fulfilling prophecies, stories turned over and over — could this happen, what about this, what about this. The Doctor saving the world and dooming it and dancing the lines between the rules that change by the second. Harry Potter, saving himself because he had been saved. Homura, winding time tighter and tighter around Madoka until her karmic destiny gives her the power of a god. Final Fantasy VIII's time compression, and Wheel of Time's balefire unwriting history.
The City at the End of Time, with the entire universe unspooling around it, time faltering and failing.
None of that tells her how time works here and now. It's nothing she's studied, it's nothing she's heard mission reports about, it's nothing she knows any hard facts of. Clearly, there's something because Minato had to seal this danger shut — probably had to mark it as an ongoing concern, if Shisui is here to investigate a place that wasn't on any of their maps.
"We need to be careful," she says, just shy of pleading.
Even if— even if the universe itself is fine… if she says we should save them what does that do to the timeline, what changes does it make?
The thing is— the thing is, Shikako likes her life, mostly. Yeah, sure there's horror and terror and boring committee meetings, but— it's hers. She fought for this. Is fighting for it. She doesn't actually want to go to the past and undo all her decisions.
It's a selfish, horrible thought. Three hundred lives against her own comfort. Against an uncertain risk to her friends and family.
But she's never claimed to be selfless.
"You're trying to claim that you're from the future," Shisui says, trying to sound impressed. But his shoulders are too tight and he's following their not-conversation too well to not to not know what they're talking about.
Sasuke takes off his mask, shedding any pretence about sticking to their mission. His sharingan are on, red and lazily spinning. "Shisui-nii."
"Sasuke-kun?" Shisui says, surprise clear in his voice — but also a faint undercurrent of dread like this is the irrefutable proof he can't ignore. He shoots a wide eyed look at her, like he thinks he ought to recognise her too.
Shikako shoves her mask to the side. "You get to explain it to Tsunade-sama when we get back," is all she says, feeling a little queasy. If they get back. She's used to her missions going badly but… this is a new level of wrong. And that's saying something.
She's been changing the world ever since she was born, a butterfly flapping tiny wings again and again. And yet, this feels very very different.
"Tsunade?" Shisui queries.
"The Fifth Hokage," Sasuke explains. "She'll understand. If there's a reason to go masks-off, this is probably it."
"Fifth…" Shisui repeats, surprised. "That's… unexpected. How did that wind up happening? I kind of thought the Third would be Hokage forever. Or…" he trails off and doesn't say or we would have done a coup and made someone who is not a Senju the Hokage, probably.
"The Third was killed by Orochimaru," Sasuke says, brushing it off. "It's not really important. There's way more important things you need to know." He looks at Shikako like she should start providing a detailed historical breakdown of the last ten years but honestly, that's the last thing she wants to ever do.
Finally, Shisui exhales. "You said… things went horribly wrong." His voice is steady, but not cold. "In your time."
Shikako’s stomach twists but Shisui’s gaze is too steady, too direct. He already knows. Maybe not the details, but enough.
Sasuke’s voice, when it comes, is quiet. "You died."
There’s no shock in Shisui’s face. Just a flicker of understanding, and then something almost like relief. "Ah," he says. "That explains a lot."
Shikako’s breath catches. Relief.
He looks down at his hands, flexes his fingers once. "I’ve known for a while something was… closing in. Danzo’s been moving in the dark. The clan’s fracturing. The Hokage’s office is balancing on the edge of something. I just didn’t know where it ended."
"You don’t have to know," Shikako says, too fast. She should be working on a way to get them back but all she can think of is the seal is closed, the Yondaime sealed it shut, the seal is closed.
They can't get back through that way. She's grasping at nothing, mind spinning fractionally in circles with no traction.
Shisui closes his eyes and breathes deep but he straightens his shoulders. When he opens his eyes, his gaze is resigned, but determined. A shinobi on a mission, even if it's not one he wants. Even if it weighs heavily on him with the fate of the entire timeline. "I think I probably do," he says.
Shikako's heart is a hummingbird trapped in her chest. "Sasuke," she makes one last ditch effort, one last plea. "If we make one wrong change—"
"Then maybe something right happens instead," Sasuke cuts in.
His tone is sharp, brittle with emotion. Shikako looks at him — really looks — and sees the younger version of the boy she used to know, the one who lost too much too young. The one who still carries every ghost in his blood.
"Sasuke," she says quietly.
He doesn’t look away from Shisui. "You don’t understand. We could stop it. Itachi. The coup. The massacre. Everything."
"And unmake everything else," she says. She thinks of Land of Hot Springs and the endless, endless fields of Ash. Would she have gone, if she knew the cost? "You can’t pick and choose what stays. Time isn’t kind about that sort of thing."
"You think I care if it’s kind?" His voice cracks, soft but furious. "If we could stop him—if we could save him—"
"You don’t know what saving them would cost!" The words snap out before she can stop them. The sound echoes through the ruins, too loud, too raw.
Sasuke turns his wounded eyes on her. For a second she's the villain, the enemy, the obstacle in his way.
"Worst case scenario?" Shisui cuts in, chakra flaring just a little, just a reminder that he's here and a Jounin and an ANBU captain too, probably. He doesn't have the full picture of the future, but they don't have the full picture of the present.
"The entire Uchiha clan dies," Sasuke says, blunt.
"We destroy the timeline," Shikako corrects, equally blunt. "Maybe we create a time paradox, changing the future so that we never come here and tell you this. Maybe time can't handle being stretched out and changed and just starts to unravel. Maybe we actually make everything worse and it's Konoha that turns to ash."
The logic folds in on itself, tight and merciless. She hates it.
Sasuke’s jaw clenches. He’s still staring at Shisui, eyes glittering. "And maybe it’s worth it."
He's not going to be swayed. Not by any consequence. Not when hope has him by the throat like this. They stare at each other and she knows that she's lost. She was always going to lose because she's not one hundred percent committed to the fight, because Sasuke has so much more at stake. He wants it, so much more.
And he has one final card to play —
"Shikako," he says, quiet. "Please."
She sighs and lets it run through her bones. "Okay," she says, even though everything in her screams that this is a mistake. If there are consequences, they'll live with them. Please, let it be things that they can live with. "I'm with you."
"Worst case sounds pretty bad," Shisui says. "How likely is… any of it?"
"The future has already changed," Sasuke points out. "With the seal. And the disruptions from the Dragon Vein have stopped, right?"
Shikako shrugs. "Show me an expert at time travel and I'll find an answer to your questions," she says dryly. "It's like analysing an unknown jutsu — until you see it in action, everything is speculation. And seeing it in action is a disaster."
"So we go until we have to stop," Sasuke says. "And then you can say I told you so."
Despite herself, she snorts a laugh. "Yeah, that'll be the first thing on my mind when the timeline starts to collapse and erase us from existence. Come on, then, taicho. What's your big plan?"
Sasuke turns to his cousin. "You dying was only the first part," he says. "Shisui-nii… we really need to stop this."
—
Sasuke-kun tells him an absolutely unbelievable story.
"Itachi wouldn't," Shisui says. He's stuck on the absolute horror of it. He wishes it were… were more unbelievable. Were too far fetched. But the problem is… it's so close. Something is going to have to happen soon, they all know it. He just hadn't thought—
"He did," Sasuke-kun says, shortly. He looks so different from the round-cheeked child that Shisui knows, who has never accused Itachi of anything more serious than ignoring him.
It just doesn't make any sense.
If that situation had devolved that badly, if the clan had gone ahead with the coup and there had been fighting and dying… why had Itachi run off as a missing nin? He'd be Konoha's hero for stopping it. And— and that wouldn't involve the whole clan. There's too many civilians, children. No one could think Machiko-chan was plotting to overthrow Konoha.
How could Sasuke be the only one left?
If things were that bad… Shisui had planned to use Kotoamatsukami. On the ringleaders, on all the active duty shinobi if he had to. It would be hard, and harder still to keep it going, if they kept throwing it off and reigniting the idea, but he could do it.
He'll have to.
He can't let this happen.
"I died before this, right?" he asks. Hearing you died is hard enough; they hadn't provided many details on the topic. There's enough in his life that's hanging over him, waiting for him to make a single misstep that it hadn't exactly been a surprise.
"You died three days before everyone else," the girl — Sasuke had called her 'Shikako' and Shisui knows enough of the cohort of clan heirs that make up Sasuke's year group to know that means Shikako Nara — says abruptly. She hasn't really looked at Shisui, isn't looking at him now.
He tries not to take offence. Maybe she's still not feeling well, from the jutsu thing. Maybe she's like that to everyone. It's probably not an Uchiha thing, if she's friendly with Sasuke, right?
"The police report ruled it suicide," she says. "Are you feeling particularly suicidal, Shisui Uchiha?"
He draws in a shaking breath. "Right now?" he says, aiming for joking and missing by a mile. "No, no. I have way too much to worry about."
He's stressed, sure, and— and everything is going wrong, but it's not that kind of thing.
"So, if it wasn't Itachi, and it wasn't you, then who killed Shisui Uchiha?" she asks blandly, as though asking him to solve his own impending murder is a normal topic of conversation. As though he might have any idea of this wild future they both seem to believe is inevitable.
The trouble is… he has a few suspects.
"The eyes— Your eyes," Sasuke says, like that isn't the nightmare of the clan. "They were missing. When they found the body. I think Itachi took them."
Shisui runs his hands over his face, presses the heels of his palms into said eyes. Still present and accounted for. "Stop."
Mercifully they stop. At least for a moment everything is dark and quiet and Shisui can… think. But the situation is as it has been for years — more hopeless, even, if what they're saying is true.
If Itachi had taken his eyes, that's one thing. But even from this brief story it doesn't sound like it. Itachi knows about his Mangekyo, about what he can do with it… if he had it, surely he would have used it, just as Shisui would.
There wouldn't have needed to be a massacre.
But if not Itachi… who else knows? Who else would dare commit bloodline theft in the heart of Konoha?
"Tell me… how the other clans responded," Shisui says, slowly. He looks up, watching the two of them again.
Sasuke-kun, at home, is eight. He doesn't know anything of the political situation of the village, about all the players moving behind the scenes. He doesn't know what Itachi and Shisui know. If the clan died tomorrow — a week from now — then that child would never learn. He'd only ever know the party line, the official story.
Even if he grows up to wear an ANBU mask of his own… the dead tell no tales. He would never have a chance to learn.
"The other clans?" Sasuke repeats, just a little thrown.
But Shikako Nara looks at him — not a little sideways glance but the first true assessment she's given him, like he's done something unexpected and interesting. "They were surprised," she says. "None of them expected anything like that to occur. People grieved for their friends and teammates."
"And?"
"And… nothing. Life went on, exactly the same as before," she says. Then, she adds carefully, "... five years after, I tried to look at an Uchiha Clan registry in the unclassified archives. An alert was immediately sent out and someone came to ask me what I was looking for."
Sasuke frowns at her, like he hasn't heard this before either. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Shikako says, "that if anyone tried to investigate anything about the Uchiha between the massacre and our present… they might have found themselves in quite a lot of trouble. And no one would bother to watch records like that unless there was a reason. Unless they wanted to stop people looking too closely."
Life went on, exactly as before.
Shisui shivers. No coup. No civil war. Just… nothing. He died, and his eyes went missing — Kotoamatsukami went missing — and no one did anything about any of it.
"What is there to investigate?" Sasuke-kun demands, strident. "You're not going to try and claim Itachi didn't do it."
She shakes her head, as if she's just as certain that Itachi did. Sasuke's halting explanation of walking in on it all — as though Itachi had waited for him to witness it — hadn't included her, but Shisui has too many questions to chase that one. Maybe she just believes Sasuke.
"I think that's a question for your cousin," she says. "Tell us, Shisui, what's going on with the Uchiha?"
"Where do I start?" he says dryly. "It's not good."
These are the only allies he has so he briefly outlines the situation — the new compound, the police slowly being shuffled out and out of the village, the rising tensions, the talk of the coup. The Hokage, with stalled negotiation after stalled negotiation.
Like a noose, slowly tightening.
"And there's someone else, too, isn't there?" Shikako Nara asks, like she isn't guessing. "You said it before."
It feels like knowing where a sparring partner is going to move — what she's aiming for, who she thinks is involved.
"Danzo," he confirms, the name oppressive even in the vastness of the desert. As though just by saying it, just by thinking about him, the world is closing in, tight and claustrophobic and dangerous.
"That old guy?" Sasuke asks, sounding confused. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"He runs a black ops group within Konoha," Shisui says, breaking ROOT bound silence for possibly the first time ever. "Itachi and I have both run missions for him before."
"I've never dealt with him," Sasuke says, slowly, with a glance at his teammate.
"Mmm, neither," she says, a touch distracted. "Though I did once fake my death to get out of a conversation with him."
Shisui barks a startled laugh, completely unintentionally. It sounds absurd; it sounds awesome. "Did it work?"
"Temporarily," she says, a quick smile curling her lips. "Why? Wanna try it?"
"I don't think anyone would believe it without a body," Shisui says, tempted for a second. It's not a course of action that would actually fix anything, but it does sound freeing.
"Probably not," Shikako admits. "Hmm… Shadow Clones aren't that robust… Kabuto had a technique that could fool most ninja, but it did rely on having a corpse handy… let me think…"
"Maybe don't," Sasuke cuts in. "What does Danzo have to do with anything?"
"Tsunade-sama doesn't agree with him, so when he tries to do things in our Konoha, he has to work around her," Shikako says, as if this is both obvious and logical.
"Like the hospital thing," Sasuke says, without giving Shisui enough clues to work out what might have happened at 'the hospital thing'.
"Yeah, like that. Sai is actually one of his ANBU operatives. He was supposed to be spying on us."
"What the hell, Shikako," Sasuke says, flatly. "Wait, is this why you were pissed when I joined ANBU?"
"Yes, but never mind that. The point is that under the Sandaime, Danzo probably has a lot more leeway. And he isn't above vanishing loyal Konoha ninja in the middle of the night if it suits his purposes."
She raises her eyebrow at Shisui, as though lobbing the conversational ball back to him.
Reluctantly he nods. "I mean, I've never seen him do it," he says, cautiously. But the way Danzo talks a ninja must be uncompromisingly loyal to the village… no, it isn't hard to imagine. And it puts a shocking light under some of his comments about stopping the Uchiha coup…
If Danzo is pushing for it… no, it won't end with less than everyone dead, will it?
It's not just the Uchiha he has to convince, is it?
If Danzo wants the Uchiha, not just stopped but completely gone… How can there be any compromise or middle ground?
The Uchiha are only asking to be treated fairly. Why is it such a problem?
He takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Okay, I need to get back to Konoha. I won't let the clan die like this."
Sasuke nods, and stands to rise, tipping out the tea that none of them have drunk. "Then lets go."
Shikako takes one last look at the seal on the ground and nods. "Sounds like a plan," she says, sounding unenthused.
But as they move away from the ruins of the village, there's another of those tremors and strange flashes of light. For a moment, it's like deja vu, as if his vision is doubled, but Roran lies in ruins in both.
Timeline failure he thinks and turns to look at Shikako, who is staring at Roran with a horribly, terribly blank face.
"Maybe its aftershocks, like an earthquake?" Sasuke offers.
"Maybe," Shikako says, sounding like she doesn't believe it at all.
—
They make it back to Konoha a day and a half later, moving quickly and stopping infrequently. It's faster than the pace Red Team usually manages — unless they're actively fleeing something — but not so rushed that Shikako can't manage.
They stop before they reach the outer patrols of the forest.
"How are we going to get in?" Sasuke asks suddenly. "I bet the codes on the ANBU entrances have changed."
Shikako doesn't mention that Shisui probably knows the ANBU codes and could share them. It is, technically, treason to do that — even if he is sure that they're loyal Konoha ninja.
"I… could see if I can get guest passes for you," Shisui says slowly, sounding like he doesn't think that's very likely to actually work.
Yikes. If Shikako and Sasuke had dragged home random strange ninja, Tsunade would definitely hear them out about it. Hell, Naruto has already done it twice.
And Shisui is supposed to be a respected Jounin, which means people should trust his judgement enough for a gate pass.
It's not like she needs reason to be more disappointed with the Third and she definitely doesn't need to be empathising with the treatment of long dead jounin…
"We'll meet you inside," Shikako says, ruthlessly squashing both her own train of thought and the conversation at hand.
Like most ninja — or at least, most ninja that ever did security patrols — Shikako had spared a passing thought to how to get around Konoha's security. It turns out that successfully defending a whole entire village is difficult! There are so many ways that people have successfully infiltrated the village in the past and every hole that village security plugs only strips focus and attention away from something else.
If she had time, Shikako probably could sense out secret ANBU tunnels and work out the current passcodes or a spot where the barrier team coverage and patrols are thinnest.
But they don't really have time, so she holds out a half Rat seal to Sasuke who takes it unquestioned, just as he had the only other time they'd done this — staring down the Sanbi in Hidden Mist. At the time, it had just been instinct — a necessary step in a dangerous plan and she'd still been surprised that it had worked.
This time, she's even more aware of it, of folding Sasuke in alongside her self, reducing them both to chakra and spiritual energy and shadow. They sink into the shadow of the tree and then spread, like roots seeking water, mapping every overlapping shadow, expanding to fill every empty space with an almost unrivalled speed.
More jutsu than person, they don't trigger the barrier seals on the walls. They aren't visible, aren't audible, aren't anything anyone even knows to look for.
Shikako deposits them safely in the middle of training ground thirty, out of the way and boring. There's no one around for at least three fields in either direction. She takes a set of their normal training clothes out of hammerspace for them to change into — it will stand out much less than their ANBU blacks.
Sasuke rolls his shoulders, as though Shadow State had left him tense. "Well, at least there's no bijuu this time," he says.
"Yet," Shikako says, though the only bijuu that should be in Konoha should be well contained within Naruto. Who is currently eight.
"Yet," Sasuke grimaces in agreement because the chance of bijuu is apparently never zero.
Shikako shifts, looking around the training grounds. If they want to meet up with Shisui they're going to have to wait for him to get through sign in, and maybe his report.
"What… was your plan, taicho?" she asks.
Sasuke hesitates. "I thought we just had to beat up Itachi and everything would… be better. But it sounds like it's more complicated than that."
"I mean, we still can," Shikako offers. "At the very least, Itachi being in the hospital means he can't do anything…"
Would Danzo come up with another minion, or — worst yet — get involved himself? Possible, unfortunately. But that was a much different story in the eyes of the rest of Konoha.
Sasuke shakes his head at her kind offer. "If it won't save everyone—" he cuts himself off and Shikako is… well, kind of dreading everything.
Taicho has been very level headed — beyond the meddling with the timestream thing — and she's pretty sure it's because he's practicing Team 7 style repression and refusing to actually think about anything. If he does…
Well. He might notice Shikako isn't exactly shocked by any of this information.
"What can we even do?" he asks, frustrated.
Shikako runs her tongue over her teeth. A question for all the ages. There’s no easy answer. There never is.
Shikako doesn’t speak right away. She’s watching the sky — the same pale blue that hangs over every iteration of Konoha she’s ever seen, but this one feels wrong somehow. The sunlight doesn’t sit right on the rooftops. The chakra in the air hums with a different frequency. Too many branching probabilities, too many threads pulling tight.
She can feel it in the back of her skull — that subtle vibration of compression strain. Time pressing back against what they’ve already done.
Maybe she's imagining it all. She's never sensed time before. Not as more than the one-second-per-one second reality that everyone experiences.
"Let the civil war happen?" she suggests. There's something there — second by second reality… a thought too subtle to grasp.
Sasuke gives her a look like he's not sure if she's being serious. She… half is.
"There are a lot of steps before all out fighting," she says. "And the Uchiha are trying if they're in negotiations with the Hokage. But… the Hokage isn't actually Konoha, you know? And maybe people would like it if ninja had unquestioned obedience to the Hat, but we know better, right? Every ninja would make their own judgements if they knew what was actually going on."
You'd never get ninja to sign petitions or like… have a referendum or anything, but clans did still form alliances and agreements within Konoha. And there'd probably be a decent amount of support for funding the police force, given that it was a village service.
If part of that support was making it more accountable to the village… that was a tradeoff they'd have to consider.
"It would depend a lot on what the Uchiha are actually demanding but I bet having more clans listening would actually decrease tensions." If not just because other clans would take it as a chance to voice grievances as well — and there would be plenty of those.
Not the least once they learnt about Danzo's involvement.
Sasuke nods, slowly. "Teamwork."
"And, of course," Shikako adds cynically. "Having the Uchiha all die while they're in open negotiations looks a lot worse for the Third to the rest of Konoha."
Shikako wasn't exactly one to talk when it came to 'keeping things secret' — that was a glasshouse where she wasn't willing to throw stones — but if Naruto had taught her anything it was that it was sometimes better to just make noise and state your principles and problems outright.
Then probably to punch people in the face or whatever, but that opportunity would present itself.
"There's also outside authority," Shikako offers. "If this wasn't Konoha and we really were just here on a mission… two outsiders with no connections and little information… that's probably the tactic I'd suggest."
"The Daimyo," Sasuke says, following the same train of thought.
Technically speaking, the Daimyo did stand above the Hokage — was the one to officially appoint the Hokage when the Hat changed hands, even. And Hidden Sand was evidence that a bad relationship with the Daimyo was very bad for a Hidden Village indeed, so ninja at least pretended to pay attention to his authority.
But the Daimyo wasn't stupid and remained ostensibly in charge by not actually annoying said ninja. If the Uchiha had any kind of relationship there, it might have been worth the risk of appealing to him for intervention.
Or it might be a risk worse than civil war.
Probably not. And probably not as bad as 'total annihilation' either.
"And it would also look bad if they died," Sasuke says, voice heavy with irony.
"If you can't win, change the rules," Shikako says, pragmatically. "Change the game. Flip the table. Eat the pieces."
They start to walk slowly towards the village, out of the training fields. They keep to the lesser back roads of town, but it's still vibrant and bustling and oh-so familiar.
"That explains a lot about you," Sasuke says, as if he wasn't already familiar with that attitude. "No wonder no one ever wants to play with you."
Up ahead, there's some kind of commotion — a merchant with a tipped cart, gesticulating wildly as he complains to a tired looking ninja. Not a ninja, an Uchiha, wearing the shuriken-star of the Konoha Military Police.
Sasuke scoots half a step behind her, like that will hide him from literally anyone.
"-nothing to worry about," the police officer is saying. "Most likely just Academy students practicing a genjutsu."
"Well they need to be stopped," the merchant fumes. "This has been happening for days. It's really causing havoc! No one needs these— these flashes of light blinding them at all hours!"
"Please tell me that's not what it sounds like," Sasuke says, quietly.
"Not going to beg coincidence?" Shikako asks, because she wants to be able to do that. Wants to put her hands over her ears and go I didn't hear that. The monster under the bed isn't real if she can't see it.
He looks at her sidelong, as if when is it ever a coincidence?
Given that they're currently stuck in the past, that's a fair point. And Shikako has been the one catastrophising about the timeline collapsing, after all.
They wind their way carefully through the village, towards the Uchiha district. Shisui's chakra stays in the tower for so long, so either he doesn't get priority Hokage debriefs — very likely, actually — or he's spilling the beans about them and everything they've told him.
Somehow, even Shikako doesn't think that's that likely. It's not like the Third has proven himself especially trustworthy, especially to the Uchiha.
The Uchiha district itself is… kind of risky to visit, given that they're the people most likely to spot that Sasuke doesn't actually belong. It is also, however, where Shisui is mostly likely to go and the general nexus for everything that's happening, so they sort of have to be there.
Shisui, eventually, finishes his check-in and spirals around Konoha in a wonky and uncertain path. Maybe trying to throw off pursuers?
It doesn't occur to her that he's looking for them until he gets a lot closer and they sort-of ambush him a bit.
"Oh! There you are," he says with the sort of relief you feel when you've technically let two highly trained non-Konoha operatives into the village and haven't kept eyes on them the whole time. And he doesn't even know they're a sabotage squad.
"Here we are," Sasuke says. "Did you hear anything about strange flashes of light in the village? One of the… police was calling them a genjutsu but it sounded like they'd been happening for a few days."
Shisui pauses, also able to line up the timelines and how much that sounds an awful lot like what was happening in Roran. He frowns a little. "I… didn't, no," he says. "I'll stop by the station and ask Tokimi-baa. If there's anything happening, she'll know about it."
And then Shikako and Sasuke just have to wait again in tense and semi-miserable silence as he disappears into the compound to gather information.
While he's gone, the base of her skull throbs, like her hair is pulled too tight, and the sky ripples. Sasuke makes a choked off gasp as, for the briefest of moments, blood and dead bodies spill across the cobblestones of the Uchiha compound, ghostly and intangible.
The sky remains blue, not ghostly impossible red.
"Fuck," Shikako says, quietly and very, very sincerely. Below them, a clamour raises up, Uchiha upset and complaining about the glimpse of the future.
Not that they know its the future.
Shisui finds them again, his face pale and drawn. "You saw it?" he confirms, voice tight. "Tokimi-baa says its been happening all over the village, but here most of all. The rest of the villagers are blaming us, since everyone assumes its a genjutsu. There's a clan meeting tonight about it."
"It's not a genjutsu," Shikako says flatly. "It's the timeline compressing in on itself." Still just speculation of an unknown jutsu, but— an educated guess. The evidence is starting to mount. "The past and present — present and future — are out of sync. Different versions of events are overlapping, bleeding together to try and become the same thing — to occupy the same space. If it gets bad enough… Time won't flow anymore. It compacts, instead. Compresses."
"So the flashes I saw," Shisui says, slowly, "the different versions of the city — that was time folding over itself."
"Exactly. Fragments from different points bleeding together. The longer the compression continues, the more unstable reality becomes. Eventually, even gravity starts to fluctuate. Cause and effect can reverse. You stop before you start. You die before you’re injured."
Shikako says it matter-of-factly, because saying it like anything else would make it real. Would let the emotions in, would let her mind drift to other places, other horrible, empty spaces.
Under the power of Jashin, time and space come undone. The sun, leaping backwards and forwards in the sky, attacks freezing in the air, earth crumbling underfoot to reveal an endless void of nothingness beneath.
Sasuke shakes his head. "Now is now," he insists, hands curling into white knuckled fists. "If we push forward, it will smooth out."
Shisui nods, firm and set. "Tonight, at the clan meeting. I'll use my sharingan to quell the coup. Tomorrow, I'll go after Danzo and the Third with Kotoamatsukami."
Sasuke shares their half-hearted plans about seeking assistance and Shikako retreats backwards, lost in her own thoughts. Her Gelel stone had helped reassert reality in that— when she had been in Hot Springs. But it hadn't been enough even then. It's certainly not enough to stabilise an entire timeline. The real Gelel? It has the chakra, maybe, but time hadn't really been its consideration.
And why now?
Was the canon timeline just not as… fixed? Did her existence and changes not change that future?
Or… it's them, isn't it. They're the anomalies that represent the future. They're the anchors holding a fixed point here, pinning down the future so that it can't move. They're what's tearing the past apart as it tries to change.
But Shikako can't get them out of here any more than she can stop the future from bleeding through, anymore than she can stop Sasuke from trying to save his family.
She's…
What can she even do?
—
Shisui comes out of the clan meeting hall exhausted, in more than one way. His eyes burn with mangekyo usage, and he feels terrible for having used it against his family. It's to save their lives — all their lives, far more than any of them have realised they're gambling with — but it's still a betrayal of them. Of his own principles, even more.
Of all the powers he could have awoken, Kotoamatsukami is…
It's not one he wanted. His genjutsu has only ever been so-so. He's not like Itachi who would rather win a fight while standing still. Shisui would have been a holy terror with Amaterasu or Susanoo. But Kotoamatsukami is a sharp double edged blade with a forge hot handle that he never wants to hold.
"It's done," he says, heavily as he finds the two travellers from the future.
They've changed clothes again — he's not sure why. Sasuke is wearing a police uniform, grey with a black vest and tails of his tunic peaking out messily. Shikako Nara is dressed in more civilian wear, creased slacks and button down shirt, and her hair has been cut short and styled, for some reason.
It makes some kind of unease creep up his spine, but that's hardly unusual. He can't remember a day in the last year where he hasn't felt some kind of awful premonition.
Shikako startles at his words, in a way he hasn't seen from her at all. "Oh! Hokage-sama! Did it go well?"
He stares.
She rises and brushes dust from her pants. Sasuke is leaning against a tree looking bored.
Their body language is so… different. There's none of the tense anticipation of ANBU. There's none of the echoing dread that they've all been feeling.
Above them, a white crack of lightning races across the sky and… stays. Or… its not lightning, is it? It's another of those time compression fractures. Only, this one isn't going away.
"Hokage-sama?" Shisui repeats, feebly, eyes drawn to the sky.
"Didn't we say?" Sasuke frowns. "You get made the next Hokage. Probably because of all this? I don't know, I don't really pay attention to politics."
"Me neither," Nara admits. "I mean, I guess so, because the coronation is in August. I admit, even if I had heard about it, I don't think anyone would have mentioned the… the time travel? I guess that's classified." She waves her hand. "I'm only cleared for medical seals for RnD, not like… ninja stuff."
His chest feels tight. He's pretty sure what they actually told him was that Tsunade Senju was the Fifth Hokage. Is this a sign that he's actually changed the future? Have they changed before his eyes because of it?
Past and future have never been such confusing concepts before, he thinks, just a little hysterically.
"You're not… a ninja?" he asks. The fracture in the sky is spreading.
His sharingan spins. He thinks he can see through it—
"Well, technically," Shikako Nara says and he really can't square this soft faced civilian with the cold ANBU that had been here only an hour ago. "Because you kind of need to be to work on fuuinjutsu. I, um, I make seal-tech interfaces for medical seals? This is the only mission I've ever been on and we were so confused why you sent me, but I guess it's because… well. Because you knew I was here? Like, uh, a stable time paradox or whatever?"
He latches onto that. "You know about time paradoxes?"
He thinks they might have screwed up. He thinks she might have been right, before, about time collapsing around them.
"Uh," Shikako Nara says and looks at Sasuke. "Not really? I mean I read Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel but that's not exactly— um. I don't think there are really any formal studies or anything on— It's not really a subject— um. Hokage-sama?"
Over by the far off wall, a giant three headed snake is crashing into the wall but doing no damage. There are flickers of movement across the village and the village alarms come on for attack, evacuate, all ninja to stations. The light that hits the streets shatters like glass fragments, no longer travelling in straight lines.
Reality, coming apart at invisible seams.
Which outcome is worse, he thinks numbly. All of the Uchiha dying except for Sasuke, or the entire timeline unravelling and unmaking itself?
The answer - the terrible, terrible truthful answer, is so easy.
Shisui is, at heart, a ninja of Konoha. First and foremost and always. He wouldn't have scrambled so frantically to intervene between his clan and the village if he wasn't.
He thinks of Machiko-chan. Thinks of Itachi, of Fugaku, of the elders, of the youth who will be born decades later. Every life weighed, every choice measured. And the weight bends his spine. But it does not break him.
Is he willing to let the Uchiha die, to a man, down to little Machiko-chan, to save it?
Yes.
"We have to undo it," he says, the terrible mangekyo clarity settling over him. This is what it was like, to see Aiko-chan die and know there wasn't anything he could do — worse, that he could intervene but only at the cost of so so much more, and that made it like there wasn't a choice at all. "We have to let— we have to kill the Uchiha."
Let is a passive word. He has to call it what it is.
Sasuke jolts, arms uncrossing and that teenage I don't care snapping off his face. "Wha— Shisui-nii! What are you talking about?"
"There's no time," he says to the new-other-Sasuke who clearly comes from a better future that can't exist. It would break his heart, if it wasn't already in pieces.
He spins back, to the clan meeting that he'd only just left. Some people have left but most stayed, treated the meeting hall like an evacuation zone and relief station in one. Sasuke and Shikako scramble after him, neither with the reflexes and skills of a field ninja able to catch up to him, let alone stop him.
"Shisui!" Fugaku calls, he looks stressed and grey. "What's the word?"
The senior members of the clan gather around him, grim faced. Some will have been dispatched to see what the alarms are, to man the walls of the compound, to react like any good ninja. But there are enough here. Please, let there be enough.
"We have to—" he chokes, stutters over the words, and then pulls burning chakra to his eyes once more. "We have to move against the village. It's time for the coup now."
He can almost feel the clash of the genjutsu — this against the one only minutes ago. No fighting yes fighting all the urgency of the situation.
"They blame us," Fugaku rationalises, turning Kotoamatsukami urging into reason. He looks sad and grim and resigned. "Yashiro, send the word. We must protect our clan."
There's a wave of… of resonance that makes his ears pop, that feels like being plunged underwater. The air wavers, the sky shatters and is dusk again, as though time has rewound by hours. No one appears to notice except him.
"Wait," someone gasps and a black-suited ANBU throws themselves next to him.
It's Shikako Nara, snarling Bat mask in place. One of her hands is clutching her temple, the other folded into a fist above her heart. "Wait," she repeats. "I have— I have a solution."
ANBU black Hawk slides down next to her. The future, reverted to what it was, or at least near enough. Is it enough?
Fugaku scowls at them both, and Hawk yanks off his mask, revealing Sharingan red eyes. "We're trying to help," he snaps at his father. "Listen!"
"One second per second," Bat gasps, nonsensically. "That's how you travel forwards. We just need to be out of it while it passes us by. Everyone. All the Uchiha."
Shisui pauses. His mind races. Not dead just gone. Is it the same? Is it close enough that the world won't pull itself apart around them?
"Can you do it?" Hawk-Sasuke asks, urgently.
"Yes," Bat says, no fumbling, no hesitation. No uncertain civilian in her mannerism. Pure ninja steel, folding the universe to her will.
"What are you talking about?" Fugaku snaps.
"There was a time-space seal," Bat says crisply. "On the last mission we were on with Shisui. It's anchored around the Uchiha and it's clearly collapsing and causing massive collateral damage. In order to prevent disaster we need to quarantine the Uchiha until its safe to proceed."
It's a lie except in all the ways its not. Fugaku doesn't seem impressed, rationality and reason and Kotoamatsukami fighting against any shred of trust. "A likely story," he sneers. "A quarantine."
Blood runs down Shisui's face as his eyes spin. Layers upon layers of betrayal and lies.
But he doesn't want his clan — his family — to lie in ruins around him. He'll take any rope, any hope, that's offered to him, regardless of the catch and cost. Hasn't this proven it?
"What do you need?" Hawk-Sasuke asks.
"Blood," Bat-Shikako says, already pulling out a stack of scrolls and unrolling them on the floor. "From all the Uchiha." She pulls out a brush and immediately starts to write, pausing only to tilt her mask up at Shisui in a peculiar way. "Didn't I tell you I'd help you fake your death?" she says, and he swears he can hear a laugh in her voice.
"I thought you said it would be complicated," Shisui says, muzzily. It feels so long ago. Wasn't it only a few days?
"We're great at complicated," Bat says, still scrawling impossible amounts of seals onto paper, like her hand can't keep up with her mind and that leaves enough room to talk.
"I thought you said you'd need a corpse," Hawk-Sasuke interjects.
"Shadow clones," Bat says, as if that explains it. "But they need to be more stable, to survive the autopsy, hence the blood. If I anchor it to— to my necklace I think it should be strong enough. There's not really time for a trial or anything, so start praying."
She sounds cheerful, though, so different from the gloom of her trying to explain why time would cave in on itself if they acted. Maybe because they're finally listening to her.
"But— everyone will survive," Shisui says, still stuck. Still trapped by the horror of the choice, that being relieved of it doesn't feel real.
"Yes," she says. "Think of it like... We're getting on a train and letting time cross beneath us. Or something. No anomalies means there's nothing to compress, nothing for time to get stuck on and therefore, it returns to its regular programming."
"Thank god," Hawk-Sasuke breathes, like he trusts. Like everything is going to be okay now. "Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah," Bat says, like this is to be taken for granted. Like she was always going to make the impossible real for Sasuke. "Quick, go round up all your clanmates… And… little you and Itachi. That needs— That needs to be the same."
Hawk-Sasuke goes stone still but nods in a sharp, jerky motion. "Got it," he says. "Shisui-nii, come on."
Getting everyone back to the meeting house isn't exactly easy, but they make it happen. "What about Itachi?" Shisui says. "You said—"
"He needs to think he did it," Sasuke says. "I need to think he did it." His voice catches and his eyes spin into a new, horrible form. Grief and the knowing of it. Killing yourself and killing your brother, and subjecting the both of you to half a decade of torment.
Except not, at the same time.
"I'll get Itachi," Shisui says, heart aching. It's another betrayal in a day full of them. But—
Half a decade of grief and guilt and torment for the lives of everyone they love. It's a trade Shisui would make. It's a trade Sasuke is clearly willing to make. It's a trade he's sure Itachi would make, if he knew. But he doesn't know.
He also doesn't suspect Shisui of anything. It's easy to catch him, flitting about the village in his ANBU gear, just another ninja among hundreds of others. It's easy to knock him out, because Itachi never suspects him of anything, let alone stabbing him in the back.
Hawk-Sasuke has brought an eight year old version of himself to their house, already unconscious when Shisui arrives with Itachi.
"Tsukiyomi," Hawk-Sasuke murmurs very, very softly.
Itachi twitches and moans, and they leave him there, suffering, believing.
"Fuck," Hawk-Sasuke says, with feeling, as they retreat like criminals back to the meeting house.
Bat is surrounded by a crowd of anxious Uchiha when they get there, fielding hundreds of questions that sound, at the base of it, very much like the same question over and over again.
"Great," she chirps in relief. "You're here. The seal is ready to go. Shisui, take this. Sasuke, this. Stand— yeah, there great. Everyone inside. Quick, quick."
There's a great pulse of chakra and then— nothing. The room is empty. Shisui's eyes spin quick-quick looking for any sign, any trace, any hint that it worked the way it was supposed to.
"Shikako?" Hawk-Sasuke asks.
Her mask stares off into the distance. "Yeah, it worked," she says. "It's— it worked. They're just in stasis, just waiting until the right moment. Now we need to lay down the shadow clones and get ourselves out."
She produces a handful of scrolls, each marked with a fingerprint of blood and hands an armload to each of them. "Like this," she says, nimbly tucking the scroll between her thumbs as she races through the handseals, chakra flowing through the paper as an intermediary. When the shadow clone forms, it's not her — a dead, lifeless version of Fugaku Uchiha.
It's creepy as hell. Shisui's sharingan can't see anything false about it. He's half sure her first seal just killed everyone and tucked them away in storage scrolls.
It's too late, now.
"Okay," he says, trusting, trusting. They scatter the corpses of his family across the compound. The sun jumps in the sky, dusk and then set and then dusk again, lightning fractures crackling and then undoing themselves in the air. The Hokage tower is on fire and then it isn't. The Kyuubi roars over the trees, fighting Shukaku and then it doesn't.
"Just us, now," Bat says. Shikako says. She's taken off her mask again. Her face is set and serious and determined. She reaches out a hand to each of them. "Okay. See you on the flipside, boys."
Shisui takes her hand.
There is no falling. No air. No ground. Just light.
It hums through him, warm and endless, every heartbeat stretching and folding over itself. For a second — or a century — Shisui Uchiha forgets what time feels like.
And then—
He's real again, solid again. Standing in a training field — training field nine, just outside of the compound — and the trees are in spring flower, just a little taller and fuller than he last saw them. The bridge over the river has been repainted, bright red covering the faded scratches of old kunai damage.
"Oh," Sasuke sighs. "Is this?"
"Home again, home again," Shikako singsongs, already shedding her white ANBU plate and arm guards. She pulls a coat out of somewhere and throws a shirt with an Uchiha mon at Sasuke. "Quick, incoming!"
Sasuke shucks his identifiable gear and apparently considers throwing it behind a bush good enough — Shisui can't even.
Then there's another ANBU squad standing there. "Identify—" the captain starts and then goes silent. He's got an old, cracked mask and it stares directly at Shisui.
"Yeah," Shikako says, with feeling. "I need a runner direct to the Hokage's office. Tell Tsunade the code phrase… 'Shikako Nara says this was the second worst mission of her life' and to bring as many… uh, everyone, lets go with everyone, as she can. Please and thank you."
There's a beat of silence.
"Groundhog," the captain says. "Go."
"Uh," says the smallest-probably-youngest of the team. "Sure thing, taicho?"
Shisui flicks on his sharingan, which protests the action. The build is different — older, more muscled, different scars — and the hair has streaks of grey threading through it but it swishes—
"This bastard never gets tangles in his hair, can you believe it," Uzume protests, probably several drinks in, doing her level best to make it untrue
— and Shisui recognises him. "Oh!" He's not sure he's ever seen Amano in mask and doesn't know his ANBU name, but that's clearly enough recognition, because he's immediately grabbed and forced into a chokehold. A hug.
"Shisui," Amano rasps into his hair. "You—"
"It's a hell of a story," Shisui says because he's not even sure what the cover story is going to be. What it could possibly even be. "Hi."
Amano laughs a little, low and rusty. "Hi."
His ANBU team is very politely examining all directions that are not facing them in the slightest. It's still awkward as they stand there and wait for the response — which comes much faster than Shisui expected and is led by Tsunade Senju herself with what looks like half of the tower trailing after her.
"Nara," Tsunade Senju barks, dropping to a stop on a dime with a precision that even Shunshin no Shisui finds impressive. "Who's dying?" She's already scanning Shikako with medical chakra rather than wait for an answer.
Shikako Nara makes a wibbling motion with her hand rather than answer a direct query from her Hokage, but apparently that's also to be expected. "Long story," she says. "But it's about to get pretty exciting pretty soon."
"I bet," the Hokage says, dryly, apparently deciding she'll live and turning the same attention to Sasuke. "The rest of your team returned two weeks ago."
Shisui can see Shikako pause and re-evaluate. "How long— when did we leave?"
"A week ago," the Hokage says, still dry as bone. She turns her attention on Shisui and pauses, just a fraction. But her chakra is cool and steady as she scans over him.
"Huh," Shikako says. "Well, good." She glances past the Hokage at the rest of the responders and their varying levels of classification, clearly weighing what she can say in public. She raises her hand. "Well. Our Jounin project mission parameters were unclear; we have reinstated the Uchiha Police Force."
And that's the moment the rest of the Uchiha materialise in the training field.
—
Shikako takes a seat on the grass, kind-of sort-of under watch by Crow's ANBU team while the training field devolves into a chaotic mess of emergency response. There aren't actually that many injuries — Shisui is by far the worst with his Sharingan overuse but timeline collapse and seal space aren't exactly easy on the body either.
And then there's explaining to the Uchiha that — whoops — it's been like eight years and everyone thought they were dead and more and more people keep crowding into the training field to see for themselves.
The bush hiding Sasuke's ANBU gear has grown a few more pieces and she can see Crow-taicho bare faced trying to talk to a shouting Uchiha woman, looking honestly like he's having the best day of his life.
"There were cleaner ways to do this,” Tsunade barks as she passes, directing medics with sharp hand signals. Her scowl could probably crack stone, but the tone isn’t truly angry. This is an emergency, not a disaster, and Tsunade knows the difference better than anyone.
"Just this once," Shikako murmurs, "everyone lives."
Or, well.
The murmur in the crowd shifts when the elders arrive — Danzo, Koharu, Homura. Late enough to make it clear they wanted to see the fallout before committing themselves. The training field is packed now; almost every shinobi not on active duty has turned up, many reuniting with long-lost friends among the dazed and bewildered Uchiha.
"A word?" Danzo says to Tsunade, as if she's not busy with more important things. "It seems clear that we should be raising very important questions as to their identity. The deceased were verified repeatedly following the… tragedy."
"Oh," Shikako says, catching Sasuke's eye and motioning him and Shisui closer. She gets up. "That's easy enough. The dead bodies were all shadow clones. Sasuke, Shisui. We can cancel the jutsu now."
She folds her hand into an easy single tiger seal. "Kai."
Several things happen at once — Blood blooms on the bandages covering Danzo's transplanted eye. Danzo clutches at his right shoulder, presumably in pain.
And mokuton bursts out of it, wood growing thick and fast, as the sharingan it was suppressing vanish into nothing, leaving it unbalanced and out of control.
"Okay, I didn't expect that," Shikako admits outloud, as just about every ninja on the field reacts. Badly. Including Koharu and Homura which is probably the best that can be said about them overall.
She contemplates the situation with the vast experience of a field ninja that has Had A Day and then decides to sit back down again.
"How— What—" Sasuke asks, looking at her in honest and overwhelmed confusion. It's probably better than putting it together and getting angry. Not that he doesn't deserve to.
"Unethical bloodlimit experimentation," Shikako says. "I think." She tacks on, like it isn't pretty obvious at this point. The mokuton kind of seems to be eating him.
Tsunade's fists also kind of seem to be evaporating him, so the mokuton is probably not the greatest issue to his life expectancy.
Shisui is very pale faced, watching that. He does seem to have put together why the end of their jutsu was related to the fight at hand.
"Sit down," Shikako suggests, patting the grass next to her. "Once she's done you can tell her you were the Hokage in an alternate timeline."
"I don't think that's— I don't think that's critical information at this point," Shisui says, sitting down like he's remembered what exhaustion is. There's still dried blood on his face and he looks worse than she feels. But also, alive.
Alive.
Sasuke is looking around like he isn't quite sure which reality he's in, like he expects it to vanish again. Like his greatest tragedy has been undone but it didn't fundamentally change him as a person and he had expected it would — like now he has to work through it all on his own and have, ugh, feelings and stuff about it.
"They're really alive," he says, like he doesn't dare believe it.
He's going to have those feelings at her. The things she does for him. "Just needed a seal and a little blood," she says. "Told you so."
Sasuke— blinks at her and then laughs.
Well, joke is on him. He's the captain so he gets to explain all this to the Hokage.
Shisui shakes his head. "You pulled an entire clan out of time," he says. "How do you even—"
"I cheat," Shikako says, leaning back on the grass and looking up at the sky. Where the sun is exactly where it should be and moving only in one direction. The scent of blood and flowers floods the training field, familiar as home. "And I'm never doing that again. I think my soul is still vibrating."
Second worst mission of her life, getting unmade by forces outside of her control. But she has to admit — the ending is pretty good.