Naruto’s friends are gone, his lover is dying, Konoha is destroyed, and Madara’s second return has pushed the entire world to the brink. Hunted and harried, Naruto is sent back in time to upend Madara’s plan before it even starts, and sets about changing everything. Butterfly effect nothing: the world is at stake, and Naruto is hardly about to let it fall to ruin once more. Not while he’s still breathing.

Flashes of an unknown past haunt Naruto, entwining his steps with those of a former life no longer content to stay forgotten. There's a voice on the wind and another lifetime in his head, and it’s time for Uzushio’s Storm God to rise once more. (The soul of a city is a hard thing to kill. Uzushio is still aware, still waiting. And now, with the rebirth of her greatest Kage, it’s time to call her people home.)

For the sake of his pride, Jiraiya's going to imagine that his double went out in the bed of some voracious and lusty twins—no, make that triplets, with everyone wildly satisfied and a smile on his face. The whole alternate universe thing is easier to swallow that way.

After the loss of his wife and his predecessor, Minato throws himself into his work, leaving his son almost entirely alone. Naruto grows up shunned but never outright reviled, aware of his burden and achingly lonely. But it’s not his way to give up, and someday, with the help of Kakashi, Obito, and a few faithful friends, he’s going to show his father just what kind of shinobi he can be.

Genma is a very good assassin. He takes a job, takes a life, comes home, repeats. Then one day a stray genin shows up on his doorstep. And then another. Lonely assassin? Not so much. Try resident shinobi den mother. [In which Genma is a (very manly) mother hen, his apartment attracts strays, and all of his (bastard) friends are quite amused.]

Orochimaru is on the edge of breaking when someone unexpected pulls him back to solid ground. When the time comes, he returns the favor.

Tobirama comes down to breakfast on the first day of classes to find the Great Hall full of snickering, his husband conspicuously absent, and his brother face-down in his eggs.

For an anon prompt on my Tumblr that I kind of hijacked: gai/obito tho, kakashi's utterly terrified of the two ever coming together. "I've met Gai, Kakashi, and guess what? I'm going /to befriend him/." "You wouldn't DARE, Obito." "Oh, I would. We're going to be best friends." Obito and Gai hit it off instantly, and it all goes downhill from there. Kakashi finds them making out once and it's so horrible. He's never going to get that image out of his mind.

Love is a weapon brought to bear. Love is blood spilled without remorse, and a kiss that’s so sweet they can ignore the taste of copper underneath.

“He’s pretty, isn’t he?” Mito asks thoughtfully.

It’s Jiraiya who brings him the news, bare hours after the decision has been reached.

No one in their right minds would ever expect it of him, and that’s why he’s the one best-suited to the job.

Fate has always had a love-hate relationship with the members of Team 7, and Sai is just now realizing that's he's most definitely not exempt.

Sakumo loses a bet and has to cover the fashion beat for a week. It's not nearly the trial he expected it to be.

The first person Kakashi meets when he staggers out of the house, covered in blood, is Uchiha Obito.

All of this, Kakashi would like it noted, is because he has terrible friends.

Zabuza steels himself, breathes out. Remembers he can move, that he can speak, and slowly, carefully slides to his knees. Not a position he would take for anyone else, even Mei if she ever wore the Mizukage's hat, not after a lifetime spent clawing his way up from the streets and into a place of his own power. But—gods are something different. They have to be, or they can't offer miracles, and Zabuza needs that miracle right now. “I was told that you help those seeking justice,” he says.

Sentinel, Genma thinks, and it’s not really a surprise—the Shiranui Clan have always produced about equal numbers of Guides and Sentinels—but… Guide, something in him whispers, and it’s desperate, grasping, clinging to the beat of the man’s heart. Guide, Guide, Guide, and Genma breathes him in, feels the stirring deep in his soul that tastes of old things and instincts and wants to reach—

“What,” Kakuzu says flatly. The redheaded witch who foiled his assassination sips her tea, for all the world like Kakuzu isn't trussed up like a sacrificial offering at her feet. “I said my husband thinks you're handsome,” she repeats, as if that will remove the sheer insanity from those five words. “I tried to kill him,” Kakuzu says incredulously. “I stabbed him in the chest.”

“Oh my god,” Jiraiya says, staring up at the ceiling.

“Shh,” Kakashi breathes against his lips, and there's a look in his eyes that he gets on the very worst missions, in the middle of a battle, when there's nothing left in him of restraint or anything beyond instinct and act-react. “You’re safe, Shisui. And I'm going to fix it.”

Ameyuri and Zabuza get locked in a closet. It's maybe not an entirely terrible thing.

Iruka wakes to silence, a rare break in the constant rain.

Obito recognizes the divine messenger immediately.

“Are those even practical?” Iruka hisses, unable to tear his eyes away from his mission partner.

Tobirama loved Itama enough to go against the natural laws in an attempt to bring him back. For Itama, it’s time to return the favor.