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He stared into the small lined box. A clay tortoise. A fucking clay tortoise. That was the only thing he was good for these days. Collecting trinkets for the Hokage. Even as an experienced ANBU, he was given the worst, most boring, most menial tasks there was.
Tempted to just break the trinket, he clenched his fist around it, then he winced. The shell had a hard edge, and he had cut himself on it, smearing a bit of his blood on it. He tried to wipe it off, but only ended up dragging the blood across the shell. Then he frowned. A small engraving had become visible as the blood entered the grooves. The kanji for ‘wish’. His shoulders sagged. A damn trinket for good luck? It certainly was doing nothing for him. Holding the small tortoise up he turned it so he could look into its painted eyes. “If you were truly lucky, you’d find a way to send me back, so I could fix everything that went wrong for my clan.”
He had been about to put the tortoise back in the box when a chill ran down his spine. Had the tortoise just blinked at him? Was he hallucinating?
Suddenly the light in the small cave disappeared, leaving him in complete darkness. Even removing his goggles did nothing.
By feel, he sealed his goggles into the wristband and unsealed a glow-stick, cracking it. The green-yellow light increased in strength as he shook the stick, revealing the walls of the cave and the tasseled ropes he had followed in. Given that he had acquired the target, he decided to make his way out. Carefully putting the tortoise back in its box, he sealed that too into his wristband. Then he slowly made his way outside, following all the twisting tunnels back the way he came.
At one point, he froze, thinking that he had heard something. Something that reminded him of someone grunting and turning in their bed. But that made no sense. This shrine was abandoned, and had been for years. There had been no evidence that anyone had entered for decades before he came. Could it be a ghost? He wasn’t very superstitious, but he had seen too many unexplainable things over the years to fully discount it. Shino increased his pace, sacrificing a bit of stealth and caution for speed.
Only to freeze when he stepped around a corner and realized he was outside. He had not noticed that he was nearing the entrance, because he had expected there to be light shining in. But there was none. It was pitch dark outside, only a few stars visible above in the few breaks in the cloud cover. A moonless night? That made no sense. Firstly, because there had been a full moon the night before, and the moon should be up all day and night for at least four more days, before the cycle shifted it back below the horizon. And secondly, it had been noon when Shino entered the cave, and he was absolutely sure he had not spent more than at most forty minutes inside those tunnels. So how come it was night now?
All senses on high alert, Shino started to make his way back towards Konoha. However, it did not take long before other things came to his attention. The road he had been following for part of the way, it was now nothing more than a dirt-path. And, perched on the top of the highest tree he could find, the glow he had expected to see up ahead, from all the lights in Tanzaku-gai… Oh, the light was there, just… very very muted compared to what he was used to. As if… most of the light was from lanterns lit with real fire, and not LEDs.
The suspicion that had been writhing around in the back of his mind forced itself forward—Had he gone back in time? Had the figurine… been the real deal? A magical trinket that had sent him back? Dread and excitement in equal measure coiled in his belly, making him both giddy and nauseous. Did he really have a chance to alter the fate of his clan?
Less than ten minutes later, he crossed into the settlement surrounding Tanzaku-gai, and he felt sure that the answer was yes. The clothes people wore, the lack of certain new conveniences, the way everything looked like it had been pulled out of one of those old faded photographs in the public library of Konoha… He snatched up a used newspaper, and looked at the date. Then he nearly swayed on his feet. Oh, had he really gone that far back? That meant… his own father wasn’t even born yet. Was this how early his clan’s decline had started? Was that why he’d been sent to this moment in time? If so, then he had his work cut out for him.
Ditching the newspaper, he hit the road again, heading towards Konoha. Which should be a much younger Konoha now. What would be different? What should he change? What did he remember from history lessons at the Academy? And for that matter, what had been true in what they had been taught? History was written by the winners after all, and they could have cut out a lot of unsavory parts to make themselves look better.
Thoughts like these kept churning in his mind, ever faster as he got closer to his village. And this time he would make sure it was his village too, and not just a place he happened to live.
He was maybe ten minutes out from the gate when his kikaichū warned him of an approaching patrol. Shino slipped into the shadows and masked his chakra, using the kikaichū to help with that. If there were any sensors on that patrol, they would think him a hive of bees.
Moments later, there was the soft thud of sandals against a branch. Someone had fumbled their landing a bit. Then someone said in an annoyed tone, breaking the silence, “I swear, I heard something!”
Shino’s whole body tensed up. That voice… The particular lilt… He knew that voice. Had heard it the first time when he was very young. Before Torune disappeared.
Danzō. Alive. Younger than Shino was now, if his information was correct. Though, at thirty-four, Shino was actually quite old for a shinobi that had lived through a war. A war that in some ways had been made worse because of Danzō.
He didn’t think, just sent his special kikaichū out. Danzō had to die. To save Torune, and countless others. There was a quiet bickering going on just out of view, then suddenly, silence, before a cry rang out, “Danzō?! What’s happening?!”
The next thing he heard was a thud, then another, before a soft “Omph!” signified that someone had caught Danzō's body before it could hit the ground. Now several voices rang out, holding a furious, but hushed conversation. A wave of chakra brushed over Shino, making his kikaichū flutter their wings, but nobody reacted. The sensor had not been strong enough to detect him.
Then there was a flurry of activity, and even without the kikaichū reporting, Shino could imagine that the patrol had picked up Danzō's body and returned to Konoha, to alert the authorities of a suspicious death. Well, that sort of derailed Shino’s plans. He would have to wait to approach until his arrival would not be connected to Danzō's death. Though, that was not necessarily a bad thing. It gave him time to come up with a plausible cover story. Stolen child, raised as a weapon, yada yada yada, returning to find his real family after a betrayal… Yeah, that could work. Now, time to flesh it out, and set up a trail.
He traveled around for a month, making a name for himself as a bounty hunter, and setting up a fake history. It also allowed him to get a firmer grip on what was going on in the world at this time, since history lessons were woefully inadequate to prepare one for time-travel.
There was tension between Konoha and the other villages, mainly Iwagakure. Not outright war, but he knew that it was only a matter of years before one would break out. The first Shinobi World War. Though, before that, there had been covert missions, assassination attempts, and sabotage. The only one of these incidents that he had some kind of idea about when had happened was the attempted assassination of the Shodai, and that only because it had been part of the information file on Kakuzu that Shino had read during the Fourth Shinobi World War. It was due to happen soon. Could he somehow use it to his advantage? Interfere and take out Kakuzu before he could become a greater threat down the line? Buy himself some goodwill by siding with Senju Hashirama in that fight? Maybe? It required some planning if he was to pull it off. Some of which he would need to be in Konoha to achieve. However, it had been a month since the unfortunate death of Shimura Danzō, so his arrival there would hopefully not raise any flags.
Walking into Konoha proved easier than he had thought, though he could feel eyes on him, and his kikaichū spotted at least three ANBU following him as he meandered along the streets, looking for any Aburame that might lead him to his clan head. Well, hopefully his clan head. If he was right, it might be his grandfather that was in charge now. Or even his great-grandfather. The timeline for the succession there was a bit hazy in his memory. He had never thought he would have a need for knowing it.
In a way it was a good thing that nobody he remembered was born yet, because he didn’t have to fake not knowing them. The Aburame woman that approached him could have been the mother of someone he knew, but in his time, she had been long dead. Aburame Umecho took one look at him, then curled her finger, urging him to follow her.
The next hour was an exercise in subterfuge and obfuscation, telling just enough of his past to allow them to draw their own conclusions about his origins. Given that his kikaichū were utterly unique, it raised a lot of questions, but also gave rise to theories that Shino happily let them chase. The more they dug into their own ideas, the less likely they were to stumble upon the truth.
And he seemed to do well, being accepted into the clan, officially adopted by someone who, if he had figured out the relationship between them, was his grandfather’s cousin, putting him out of line to inherit the clan headship. But that was fine. He didn’t want to somehow steal his own father’s chance. No, it was better to work from the shadows, to pull strings in order to secure their future.
However, somewhere along the line, he must have made a mistake. He never knew what, but on the day of Kakuzu’s attempted assassination, when he stepped in and took out the future Akatsuki-member, Hashirama was not alone.
Even as the corpse of Kakuzu was falling to the ground, the sharp edge of a kunai dug into the skin on Shino’s throat, and a deep voice spoke from behind him. “Don’t move a finger.”
With a quick flick of his hand, Hashirama had unrolled a scroll, and with a twitch of his fingers, the corpse was sealed away and the scroll rolled back up. Then the Shodai Hokage approached Shino, tilting his head. “You knew. And yet you betrayed your… associate?” His voice had lost its surety as he spoke, as if what he could read from Shino’s body-language had derailed his suspicions.
The voice beside his ear sounded curious. “Not someone you had anything to do with then? How did you know?”
Breathing shallowly to avoid cutting himself on the blade, Shino pondered what to reveal. But this was Hashirama. The man who had made the original deal with the Aburame. Surely he would have been… would be horrified to learn how that deal had been ignored and subverted over the years? If Shino couldn’t tell him the truth, then who could he be honest with?
Mind made up there was just one thing he needed to know first. “Senju Tobirama-san?”
“Yes?” The deep voice by his ear was tinted with suspicion, but with confirmation that it really was who he had thought it was, Shino’s mouth relaxed into a small smile.
“You have experience with jutsu manipulating time and space, right? How much do you know about time-travel?”
Hashirama looked beside Shino, presumably meeting Tobirama’s eyes, and some sort of silent communication took place. Then Hashirama gave a small glance around them. “We should move this somewhere else.”
Shino slowly lifted his hands out from his body, holding them palm up, expecting it when he met resistance. A chakra net, designed to capture any kikaichū. Good thing he had no intention of attacking. Tobirama was not considered a genius with jutsu for nothing.
Standing still while he was searched, and while his hands were secured, he gave the Shodai a wry smile. “Lead the way.”
He was still not prepared for it when Tobirama placed one hand on his shoulder and the other on Hashirama’s, and with a tinkle like a piece of glass cracking, whisked them away to a room without windows. By the plain concrete walls and musty smell, Shino thought it might be in the bowels of the T&I headquarters. So, he was to be interrogated. Well, given that he intended to comply, perhaps it would be less like an interrogation, and more like giving a report?
He was allowed to seat himself in a plain wooden chair, and Hashirama grew him a wooden cup which Tobirama then filled with water. The casual display of their skills was impressive, probably meant to intimidate, but… For the first time in years, Shino felt the stirrings of his old loyalty to Konoha. This Konoha and this Hokage, he could bow to and not feel like a fraud for doing so.
And once he started speaking, it all rushed out of him, from his childhood, how someone in Konoha had stolen away his adopted brother to work in a secret organization doing the dark and dirty wet-work for the village, possibly not even sanctioned by the Hokage himself. How many Aburame, and children from other clans had been whisked away by this man, raised to be tools… weapons for the man to wield. How the man had schemed against the Uchiha, and probably other clans. And how this scheming had left Konoha severely weakened.
“When I went back in time, the Hatake clan was reduced to one member, and the same with the Uchiha. The Aburame were slightly more fortunate. There were ten of us left. And… The last Senju had left the village, to gamble and drink. Konoha as you know it was a shell of its former self.”
Tobirama was writing, presumably notes on what Shino was telling them, but his brush paused when Shino got to the thing that he had been most worried about telling them. “Madara is still alive. Somewhere out there, he is hiding, plotting against Konoha, and the whole world. I would not be surprised if he had something to do with the unrest we are experiencing right now.”
Tobirama looked skeptical, but Hashirama looked… hopeful. And Shino didn’t know how to react to that. On the one hand, Madara was a megalomaniac that had killed thousands, but on the other hand, he had been manipulated by the thing called Zetsu, who had been… uh… was still… almost a millennia old. So, if they managed to expose Zetsu and the plans of the creature, could they knock some sense into Madara? Or was he a lost cause? Perhaps it was time for a history lesson for the Hokage and his designated heir?
“I knew about the assassination attempt because it was taught in history at the Academy. A lot of things were. Like the war that is brewing. And the one after that. And… there are four major wars between now and the point where I left off… Four wars referred to as the Shinobi World Wars…”
His voice petered out, and he saw Tobirama steeling himself, while Hashirama’s head dropped forward and his eyes squeezed shut. “I wanted peace!”
Putting his brush away, Tobirama placed his hand on Hashirama’s arm, giving it a small pat. Then he turned to Shino again. “Tell us everything you know, so that we may try to figure out a way to avoid this future.”
And Shino gave a sharp nod. Yes, that was what he wanted as well. A different future, where more of his clan survived. Maybe even thrived. A better future.
⁂
He looked out across the classroom, a slow and wicked smirk curling his lips. “Welcome to your final year at the Academy. … For some of you.”
Sending his kikaichū out to write on the blackboard, he pushed his glasses up and let his eyes wander over the students, one by one. “The rest… Well, you will either return to take some classes over again… Or you will fail out of the Academy and go on to live civilian lives. Either way, I will not go easy on you. If you cannot handle the pressure, then you cannot handle life as a shinobi, and you will be better off realizing it now, rather than when you are out in the field and your team depends on you. I have seen enough shinobi flake out and get their teammates, and themselves, killed when the situations get hairy.”
One of the girls raised her arm up. Dropping his glasses back down, he gave her a nod. “Yes, Yamanaka-san?”
“What do you mean, only some of us?” She sounded indignant. Oh, he was going to love to stomp that superior smirk off her face.
“Some of you have parents that have assured you that ‘of course you will graduate’. That ‘of course you’ll become jōnin’. They have done you a disservice. There are no guarantees in a shinobi’s life. Only death. Everything else you will have to work for.”
He let his eyes wander to the back of the classroom. To the small Aburame seated there. The son of the current clan head. Who, for some reason, had been named after him. Was that not some kind of paradox? To be named after himself?
No matter. This Shino was no longer the same boy he had been. He may not have an adopted brother, but that was because Torune’s parents still lived, and not because of someone like Danzo scheming. He also had more confidence, and more friends. Konoha was blossoming, and the Aburame perhaps more so than any other clan in the village. Their farms were famous across the entirety of Land of Fire, and they were mostly hired for peaceful missions, like pollinating orchards or farmland.
The Nidaime Hokage had, after Hashirama’s retirement, continued his efforts to bring peace through prosperity, spreading information and inventions far and wide that allowed for bigger yields from crops and more food security due to sturdier stock and plants. The less people lacked for having good lives, the less fighting there was. Hashirama’s dream was slowly becoming a reality. And shinobi missions were becoming less bloody. Less fraught with risk of death. At least to some degree.
Oh, there were still quarrels, scheming, the occasional assassination, or other less savory deals, but overall, the world was becoming a better place. And Shino had helped make it so.
Too bad for the students in this class that he still knew how to carry a grudge, perhaps especially now in his old age. Oh, he wouldn’t actually harm them, but… he would make this year miserable for most of them. Would beat them into shape, mold them into different people than they had been in the future that would not be, and ensure that they would treasure each and every one of their comrades in arms. That they would never again turn their backs on one of their own. That they would never turn a blind eye to a fellow shinobi being lonely and suffering. Yes, he would enjoy grinding off the undesirable parts of them, and transform them into people that would be proud to call the younger version of himself a friend. He might not have had that, but he would make sure that the other him would never have to go through the same thing he did.
The kikaichū flew back inside his wide sleeves, and Shino stepped aside, revealing what was on the blackboard. “Now, to begin with, we are going to have a test, to gauge exactly what you have learned in the past years. You will all line up against the wall, and then, one by one, you will demonstrate your chakra control by manipulating this paper. Anyone who can transform it into an origami crane will get the rest of the day off.”
He held out a square of chakra paper towards the first in line, and smirked as the paper crumbled into a pile of dirt at the first touch from Inuzuka Kiba. “Oh dear, looks like you won’t be having the rest of the day off. Take this test and fill out the answers that you know.”
Head hanging, Kiba shuffled over to his desk.
Sasuke was next in line, eyeing the paper rather suspiciously. He reached out to take it, and clearly didn’t channel chakra right away. Still, the moment he did, the paper caught fire and crumbled into ash, making Sasuke swear quietly under his breath before he sighed and held his hand out. Shino handed him his test without further comment.
One by one the students failed, revealing their primary chakra nature. Until at last, as the final student, the young Shino took the paper from his sensei’s hands, stared at him for a moment with his head tilted, and declared, “This is a double test. Why? This is chakra paper. Any chakra at all will make it react.”
He then proceeded to fold the paper neatly into a crane, using no chakra at all. There was a tiny hint of a smirk as he handed it back to his sensei. Feeling a burst of pride, Shino had to stop himself from ruffling his younger self’s hair. Instead he accepted the crane, putting it on his desk.
“As promised, if you transformed it into a crane, you will get the rest of the day off. See you tomorrow.”
Shino bowed, ready to leave, when Naruto blurted out, “That was cheating! He didn’t use chakra at all!”
Turning to the boy, the elder Shino stared at him long enough that Naruto squirmed in the chair. Then he spoke to the whole class. “You guys are supposed to be learning to become shinobi. There is no such thing as cheating. There is only success or failure. How you achieve your goal is entirely up to you. And at no point did I specify that you needed to use chakra to transform the paper. As young Aburame-kun demonstrated here, manipulating the paper with his fingers alone achieved the desired result. The chakra control came into play by him not using any chakra at all while holding the paper. Thus, he succeeded where all of you failed.”
Crossing his arms, he huffed. “By now you should have learned to think outside the box, and to search for layers in any statement. Clearly your previous teachers have coddled you.”
Realizing that the younger Shino was still lingering by the door, he turned to him and gave him a nod. “You may go. I’m sure you can find things to do to entertain yourself the rest of the day.”
As young Shino hurried outside, he turned back to the class, arms still crossed. “Now, I thought I gave you guys a test to fill out?”
There was a faint yelp, then the sound of furious scribbling. Oh yes, this would be an interesting year.