Alright, back to my roots! If you've never read any of my other stories that I eventually just stopped writing for, then hello! This will be the first Fanfiction I've written in a while, because for the past year or two I've been focusing on original stories, but since I lost my motivation to write not too long ago, I've decided to go back to where it all started and write this. Please enjoy!

Also, I'm going to refrain from using most Japanese honorifics, as I find it kind of annoying nowadays. The only one I'll be keeping is -sensei. Also, bear in mind that this is going to be written on the basis of the Many Worlds Interpretation and thus will not be set in the same world as the canon series, thus you'll find that various things are different in this universe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. (Obviously.)

The Many Worlds Theory

Chapter 1 - Please Work

Naruto sat there at the center of the aftermath of the Great War. Destruction and death surrounded him. He was the last; the only survivor, but... he didn't have to be. He knew that. If he'd been different… if he'd been stronger; more prepared, then everyone would still be alive. Hinata, Neji, Shikamaru, Sakura, Kakashi, Gaara, even Ero-Sennin and… Ino. They'd all be alive. Hell, perhaps even the Third, but… he was weak. Even so. Even if he lost here, that didn't mean he would have to lose everywhere. If he pulled off this technique correctly, then he may just be able to turn everything around for at least one version of himself.

How did he know this? Well, he didn't, but this was his best shot to make things better; even if it wasn't in this world. He'd read about it in the same scroll he'd gotten this technique from; the Many Worlds Theory. It stated that all possible pasts, presents and futures exist, but simply lie in separate, parallel universes. If this technique was right, then he could send his memories, his knowledge, back in time to his younger self and set the world onto a different course; one where everyone would live and the world would be better. So he started it, running through countless hand signs as he poured his entire being into the technique. Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by as he began to slow down, reaching the end of the hand signs and leaving only one thing left to do. Reaching into his pouch, he brought out a kunai and positioned it in front of his chest.

"Please work," he whispered, a tear rolling down his face as he plunged the kunai into his heart. It was done. Slumping over, he felt everything go cold and his eyesight beginning to fail him. As he was about to succumb to the open arms of death, he saw the area begin to glow a faint white, bringing a smile to his face. He'd done it; he'd successfully performed the technique. Now things could change for the better.

Looking up, Naruto saw what was above him. Protecting him from Mizuki's giant shuriken was none other than Iruka. He looked in horror as Iruka's blood fell onto his cheek. "Why?" Naruto asked his teacher and surrogate brother.

"Because you and I are the same," Iruka told him. As Iruka revealed his past to Naruto, something began to change inside of the boy. Every word that came from Iruka's mouth felt like both the past and the present to Naruto; a memory and a current experience. After a few moments, he pushed Iruka away just a bit, allowing himself to get up, as if his body was moving on its own.

"Naruto," Iruka said, concerned.

"Iruka-sensei," Naruto responded, looking into Iruka's eyes. He could see it. In those azure blue eyes, Iruka saw experience beyond Naruto's years and a fire that burned brighter than any he'd ever seen. Something had changed in the blond knucklehead. "Take care of this," Naruto told him, setting the Scroll of Seals in front of the bleeding man before turning towards Mizuki. Iruka wasn't the only one astonished at what was happening though, as even Naruto was surprised at what he was doing. The words that came out of his mouth felt so alien; as if they weren't his own.

"What're you gonna do, demon?" Mizuki taunted, a giant grin on his face as he laughed maniacally. Looking down at Naruto, he saw what Iruka had been seeing; a changed Naruto. His eyes looked so much older than himself, as if he was a man in a boy's body. Mizuki's grin fell a bit as he felt something that he didn't expect; fear.

Naruto said nothing as he felt his body move of its own accord again. Everything felt so precise, so calculated as Naruto's chakra began to spike and concentrate into his right hand. Before Mizuki knew it, Naruto was there in front of him; a pale blue ball of chakra spinning in his hand. This was bad and Mizuki knew it, but he couldn't move as Naruto whispered yet another foreign word. "Rasengan," he said before plunging it into Mizuki's chest, launching him backwards; flying through several branches and hitting a tree before falling to the ground unconscious. Jumping back down to the ground, Naruto smiled sadly at Iruka before everything began to blur. Spots appeared in his vision as he felt as if his head was being split open. He cried out as his knees buckled, allowing him to fall to his knees.

Scenes flashed before his eyes as his voice grew ever louder. He saw it all. He saw what was supposed to happen when he stole the Scroll of Seals. He saw when he met his team and all of their adventures together. He saw the Chuunin Exams and the invasion of the village. Then he saw the Third's funeral. Memory after memory flowed into his head until he saw himself sitting in an enormous crater, the ruins of his village in the distance. Then, everything went black and Naruto fell to the ground.

Naruto awoke to the smell of disinfectant. Opening his eyes, he found himself in a white room that he was all too familiar with. Getting up, he looked out the window as he thought of everything that had just happened to him.

Naruto looked around, finding himself to be in a blank white space that seemed to go on infinitely. "Where am I?" Naruto thought aloud.

"You're in your mindscape," a male voice said from behind him. Turning around he found himself looking at none other than himself. Well, an older version of himself actually.

"You're-" Naruto started.

"You. Yes. Or rather, I'm who you would be in a few years if I didn't come here," his older self replied, much to his astonishment.

"You're me if-" he said.

"If you kept on your current path."

"What? So you traveled back in time to help me?" younger Naruto asked. He may have seen what happened in his older self's time, but he didn't yet understand everything that was happening.

"No. I'm…" the older Naruto began, struggling to find words. "I'm not really here. This," he said, gesturing to himself. "Isn't actually me. What you're seeing here in front of you is just your mind's reconstruction of me from the memories that are being implanted into your head."

"What? I don't understand," the younger of the two said.

"Look… forget it, I don't have much time left," he told his younger self. "I'm only here until your true mindscape is fully reconstructed to hold the extra years of knowledge and memories that I'm giving you, so listen and listen well. In my world, everyone that I cared about died in the Great War that's supposed to start in a few years, but you have the ability to keep that from happening. If you start training with everything that you'll now know, you may just be able to save everyone. But… be careful with this knowledge. By giving you all of this, I've already changed this entire world. I've either saved it… or I've doomed it," he finished as the white began to disappear and be replaced with a sewer, the older Naruto fading with it. "But hey, take care of I-" was all that he was able to get out before he disappeared.

"Wait!" Naruto shouted in vain; he was gone. Turning, he saw that looking back at him were the red eyes of Kurama.

"Hello, brat," Kurama greeted lazily.

"Kurama," Naruto stated.

"In the… well, not really the flesh," the bijuu chuckled.

"So you saw everything too, huh?" Naruto asked. His future-self's mind and memories had now more or less synced up with his own, though most of his last year or so was still foggy.

"Of course. Everything that you see, I see," he explained. "And it looks like when you performed whatever technique you did in the future, it dragged my mind and memories from that time back with you too."

"So what should we do?" Naruto asked. It was weird that he and the Kyuubi were speaking so easily. Remembering back to when… or rather, thinking about when he would… whatever. Thinking about when his future self had first met Kurama, he laughed at how different it was now that they'd started off on good terms because of their 'history' together.

"Nothing. Not yet, anyways," he said. "We don't know how much just a little difference will change things. For now, then we should just focus on meeting your team."

"Yeah, that'd be a good idea," Naruto agreed.

"Naruto!" a voice shouted from the other side of the hospital room. Turning, he saw none other than Iruka standing in the doorway.

"Iruka-sensei," Naruto said happily, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. After all, like all of the others, Iruka had died in the future.

"It's good to see you're awake," Iruka told him with a smile as he sat down in a chair next to Naruto's bed.

"Thanks," Naruto replied, blinking away the tears. "How long have I been out?"

"Four days," he told Naruto. Iruka furrowed his eyebrows a bit as he looked at Naruto. His calmness wasn't what he'd expected to find in this room when the blond woke up.

"What happened after I blacked out?" Naruto questioned. Iruka paused for a second.

"Mizuki was taken by the ANBU and you were taken here, to the hospital. You fainted pretty suddenly, back there. What do you remember?" Iruka asked.

Naruto paused for a moment before answering, "Everything."

"Naruto, what Mizuki said-" Iruka began before Naruto interrupted.

"You don't have to worry, Iruka-sensei. I understand why it would have to be kept a secret."

"Naruto…"

"It's okay," Naruto said before changing the topic. "I guess I'll have to repeat the academy for another year though, right?"

Iruka chuckled. "No. No, Naruto. You don't," he said before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a brand new hitai-ate. "Your efforts against Mizuki have been acknowledged. You're now officially a genin of Konoha."

Though Naruto was sure this would happen, he still acted surprised as Iruka placed it into his hands. "Really?"

"Really," Iruka confirmed.

Naruto smiled gently as he looked down at the Konoha symbol. "Thank you, Iruka-sensei."

"You're welcome," he responded.

"So what's happened since then?"

"Nothing much, but you are being assigned your team tomorrow at school."

"Team?"

"Yes. As genin, you're assigned to a three-man squad lead by a jonin instructor," Iruka explained as the door opened, revealing a nurse. Taking this as his cue to leave, Iruka stood and said goodbye to Naruto before leaving. After a few seconds, Iruka stuck his head back into the room. "Come to the Academy tomorrow at noon."

"Okay, thanks, Iruka-sensei!" With that, Iruka left and the nurse began to do a quick rundown with Naruto to check how he was; if he was completely fine, he'd be able to leave within the hour. After some quick questions and a test, Naruto was allowed to leave. Quickly changing into his clothes, Naruto thanked the nurse and was about to leave when something caught his eyes. On the table was a small vase of flowers; orange daisies. Seeing him smiling at it, the nurse answered the question on his mind.

"Those are from Miss Yamanaka. She's come by a few times. You should thank her."

"Ino?" Naruto questioned. "I wonder why… whatever, thanks for telling me. I guess I'll go thank her," Then, Naruto left, making his way to Yamanaka Flowers. After a few minutes of walking, he arrived to see Ino sitting at the desk, as an image of an older version of her sitting there popped into his head. Looking off towards the side, she didn't notice Naruto until he walked up to the counter.

"Naruto!" she all but shouted as she turned to him, having caught a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye.

"Hey, Ino," Naruto responded, smiling. "Thanks for the flowers." He scratched the back of his head nervously.

"You're welcome. Iruka-sensei told me what happened. How are you doing?" Ino asked. Naruto froze for a second before Ino continued. "Chasing after Mizuki to keep him from taking the Scroll of Seals even though he's a chunin was pretty stupid, even for you," she told him matter-of-factly.

Naruto didn't know why, but those words hurt. He'd heard words worse than those before, so why did these cut so deep? "I -" Naruto tried to grasp to any words he could.

"But," Ino continued, interrupting Naruto. She looked him straight in the eyes, meeting his azure blue with her own icy blue. "It was also pretty brave," she told him with a small smile, causing Naruto to blush a bit. "Now go home and rest, you deserve it."

Naruto turned and walked to the door before turning to look at the girl, his hand resting on the doorframe. "Thank, Ino." With that, he ran home with a grin on his face that simply wouldn't leave. He didn't understand. Why was he so happy? As he made it to his apartment, he opened up his door and slipped off his shoes, putting them away into his shoe box. His apartment was a mess. Scrolls, instant ramen cups, and various other items littered his floors and table.

'I guess this should be my first task before I worry about anything else,' Naruto thought before creating a few shadow clones and getting to work; cleaning the entire apartment. After an hour of cleaning, he dispelled his clones, leaving everything spick and span. This left one thing left to do.

Turning to a cardboard box next to his door, he smiled sadly. It was his ramen box, where he kept all of his instant ramen. Packing all of the ramen cups that were scattered around it, he closed it up. Sure, he would still keep them, but he had to start eating better if he wanted to do well as a ninja. As he looked out the window, he saw that it was close to sundown.

'I guess I'll send a clone out to pick up some groceries while I train, a bit,' Naruto thought before doing just that. After the clone left, Naruto walked into his training room and picked up a piece of paper before sitting down on the floor. Being who he was, he already had an enormous chakra pool for his age, so what he needed to focus on was his control. Sticking the paper to his head with his chakra, he began to meditate with it, focusing all of his concentration on the paper.

After a few hours of this, having either dropped or blown the pieces of papers to smithereens more than a few times, Naruto decided to give it a rest. Leaving the room, he found that his clone had made him dinner before dispersing. Quickly eating it, he cleaned up before going to bathe. After doing so, he dressed himself for bed before turning off the lights and going to lie down. Lying in his bed, he stared at the ceiling for a good hour or so, just thinking about how quickly his mindset had changed after he inherited his future self's memories. Everything just felt so different. Sighing, Naruto turned to his side to try and fall asleep, only to be met with another image from his "memories." Backed by a shining full moon, the frame of an older Yamanaka Ino lied next to him, staring back at him with loving eyes. Then, the image faded, retreating into the back of Naruto's mind once again as a single stray tear ran down his face.

Alright, cool, there's my first chapter. Finished this at around 4 in the morning, so if there are mistakes or things don't make much sense… my bad. If you're wondering how Naruto's apartment looks like, it's the layout from the first Naruto Official Fanbook.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to review if you wish, constructive criticism would be much appreciated. ^^