The Root of the Problem

By Lady Wilde

Summary: When Naruto wishes to be able get to the root of the 'circle of hatred' and Senju-Madara problem, a grateful kodoma grants his wish and sends him and the near insane Sasuke into the past. A time where there's no Konoha for Naruto protect or Sasuke to destroy. Time Travel!

Note: Hahaha, another overdone time travel fic, but this time to a time there's no Konoha. Not as exciting as meeting Naruto meeting his dead father or whatnot, but I think it's super exciting to meet the shodai and nidaime. I mean, that's where all the problems started in my opinion. Thank you for reading and please read and review!

Chapter 1: Sawagu-chan

If there was one thing he wanted right now, it was ramen. Miso pork ramen with extra meat and even his name sake fish cakes. He wanted Ichiraku's miso pork ramen to be exact, with Teuchi-ji-san's delicious signature broth and his homemade noodles.

Instead of ramen, however, Naruto's mouth tasted his salty blood, and from time to time dirt, twigs and leaves lodged itself into this mouth. He spat it out, pissed off, and thought –damnit I want some nice warm ramen!

And the only thing between that ramen and him, was the bastard Sasuke who decided that it was everyone's fault that his family was dead. The arrogant bastard also decided he wanted to kill Naruto also, and Naruto welcomed his challenge. He needed to beat some sense into his insane friend, save Konoha, eat Ichiraku's ramen all without dying or killing anyone. If he wasn't worthy of being Hokage after he succeeds in beating Sasuke to pulp, he might take up murdering the elders as well (Ok, so not really. Naruto decided they weren't good enough for him to break his vow of no-killing.)

It had been two days, and damn he was exhausted. The kyuubi chakra kept him going of course, but there was a part of him that wanted the warmth and comfort of good ramen, not the feeling of anxiety and dread as he slipped in out of the shadows trying to find Sasuke, or defending himself from Sasuke's sneaky attacks.

Two days ago they had a major showdown, which didn't completely well, finish, so it really wasn't a showdown. Not yet. The duration of the two days after that was the two of them chasing each other in the forest, playing a dangerous game of hide and seek. As a kid Naruto never really got to play hide and seek, at least a fair game of it anyways, and he laughed bitterly at the thought of him playing the game now with his enemy/friend with his entire world on the line. Pretty damn intense for the first time, eh?

Presently, he was leaning against a rather large tree, resting but still completely alert. Night was falling on the second day. He cursed—he had to finish this and fast because there was also the psychotic Madara he needed to worry about. He wondered briefly if insanity was also a Uchiha blood trait. All the Uchihas he'd known (which wasn't many), had been borderline insane or were already certifiably psychotic.

Sighing, Naruto glanced around and spotted, among the wild weeds, a worn down stone altar. He stared at it for a while, suddenly feeling sympathetic looking at the forgotten, abandoned state of the altar and whatever spirit or god it was supposed to belong to. Without thinking, he walked over to the altar and pulled the weeds away, revealing a very humble and cracked small altar, and a small cup in front which held what looked like a pit of a peach. Looking at the shriveled and dried state of the pit, Naruto guessed it was must have been here for a very very long time.

Suddenly, there was a change in the wind, and Naruto looked up just in time to see a something green and white attack him and knock him onto his back. He felt silky material wrap around his neck and strange warmth coming from them. He realized that someone was hugging him, and wondered in shock how he didn't hear this person sneak up on it.

"Thank you thank you!" a girl's voice squealed as he felt the grip around his neck get tighter. Shit, did this girl mean to kill him? Was it Sasuke in disguise? This certainly wasn't Sasuke's style…

"Get off me!" he growled, pushing the body off and gasping for breath. He looked up to see a girl, perhaps the same age as him, stare at him with teary, round eyes. She was wearing a rather cumbersome looking green and white kimono and her long black hair was all over the place. Where the hell did she appear from?

"OH, I am so sorry!" the girl exclaimed, "Did I hurt you in any way! Sorry sorry! It's been a while since I had human contact!"

Human contact…what? "What are you? Where did you come from!"

She grinned at him, "I am the kodoma of this tree!" She gestured to the large tree in front of them, "One of the few kodoma around here that I hasn't gone to sleep eternally! I have no real name, but the last man I met gave me the name of Sawagu-chan*! Call me Sawagu-chan!"

"Sawagu-chan?" repeated Naruto. Certainly fits her. "What were you thanking me for?"

"For clearing those terrible demonic weeds!" she answered, smiling broadly, "I have been stifled for so long and here you are, coming to save me! Please, my hero, tell me your name and I shall grant you a wish!" She was practically bouncing with happiness. She reminded him of the idiotic, younger him.

Naruto blinked. The lack of proper food and sleep must have been getting to him. He was hallucinating! Or, perhaps this was another of Sasuke's illusions. Maybe he's been in Sasuke's illusion for a really long time and didn't know it. He glanced at the self proclaimed kodoma—still not Sasuke's style.

"Come on!" she pleaded, taking his hands before he could pull away, "Tell me your name and a wish!"

"Uzumaki Naruto…" Naruto said slowly, "A wish, huh?"

"Yup, anything you want! Except bringing people back to life. I draw the line there!"

Naruto pursed his lips in thought—he was going crazy, it seems. And he was just making fun of the Uchihas for being insane too!

"Anything I want?" he asked Sawagu-chan with a disbelieving chuckle. The girl nodded.

"Huh…well, the one thing I would want is to stop this whole cycle of hatred that's been going on, yeh know? I want to get to the root of the problem and solve this whole mess we're in." Naruto sighed. There was no way she could grant that wish if she really could grant wishes! But that was what he really wanted most of all—the solve this idiotic bloody problem. "Well, since there's no way a single wish can accomplish that, I'll just wish for Ichira—"

"I'll do it!" she exclaimed excited, pulling black the sleeves of kimono to reveal some deadly pale arms.

"What?" Naruto said, dumbfounded, "Wait, how can you—"

"I'll send you back in time to fix the problem Naruto-kun! The root of the problem! I can do that using the kyuubi chakra in you!"

"W-hat?! How do you know I had the kyuubi?!"

"I know everything about you, Naruto-kun."

"Then why'd you ask for my name in the first place?"

"Because if I said I knew you right of the bat, you would think it's weird like I'm some sort of stalker!"

"If you were a kodoma, I wouldn't think that! Besides, you can't time travel!"

"Can too!" Sawagu-chan protested, "With the right amount of chakra, like the kyuubi chakra I can! So let me grant your wish!"

"You're insane…" What's up with him and being attacked by insane people?

"Insanity is the eye of the beholder, Naruto-kun!" she said sagely, before suddenly tapping Naruto's forehead protector several times.

Naruto scrunched up his face, irritated, "What was that--?" But he could barely finish his thought he suddenly felt drowsy and crashed to ground, already deep in sleep. Smiling, she placed a palm over Naruto's face and her face twisted in concentration. Yup…borrowing the kyuubi chakra and using the power to rip through time---and the destination—her hands were glowing and Naruto's entire body was glowing too.

"What are you doing to Naruto!" a voice exclaimed as Sawagu-chan looked up and around. Uchiha Sasuke appeared in the clearing, looking shocked and appalled that someone else had knocked out Naruto and was doing strange things to him. That was his job! Why was everyone doing everything he wanted to do?! He wanted to destroy Konoha, but that bastard Pain did that before him! He wanted to kill Naruto, and this little freak of girl had easily knocked out the blond. Was there no fairness in the world?!

"Wait, don't come closer of you'll get sucked in too!" she shouted at him, "Stay back Uchiha Sasuke!"

So the girl knew who he was. But it was too late, he had already taken a couple more steps towards her. He suddenly felt nauseous, and felt an invisible heaviness crush him and sent him reeling to the ground. What the hell was that? What was going on?! He looked over to the girl who was staring at him with interest. Her hands were glowing white, and Sasuke noticed that he was glowing too. Who was this girl?

She smiled at him and said, "Oh well. You'll go too! Buh-bye! Say hi to Hashirama-kun for me, and tell him the peaches were delicious, or will be delicious! Tell him don't forget to actually to offer them to me!"

What?

"Are they dead?"

Another voice: "They're obviously breathing, so no, Tobirama, they are not dead."

"You don't have to be so cheeky! I obviously can't see them breathing from up here!"

"What's that metal thing on the blond's head?" another voice asked. Metal thing? Naruto snorted mentally as his consciousness started to rise.

"Madara, that other kid looks like he could be an Uchiha! Recognize him?"

What? Did somebody say Madara?! Shit shit shit! What was he doing sleeping? Did that girl and Sasuke do something to him now that he was captured?! That Sawagu-chan traitor!

Naruto jerked his eyes opened and sat up quickly, his hands slipping down to fish out and kunai. He instinctively looked around to see four men surrounding him, men he obviously had never seen before. None of them were wearing forehead protectors, although they looked like they were very much like shinobis. However, they were wearing armor—something Naruto hasn't seen much except in old photos and textbooks.

Where the hell was he? And what did the girl do to him? Wait, more importantly, somebody said Madara!

"The blond one just woke up," the man perched on the tree above them commented unnecessarily. Naruto looked up at him, taking in the red eyes, the white hair and the strangely familiar visage. He looked around at the men surrounding him carefully—one very familiar looking man with long dark hair (where have I seen him before?), the other two had long black hair too, and their resemblance to Itachi and Sasuke was striking. Uchihas? Naruto hissed mentally at them and gave them suspicious eyes. I thought they were all dead except for the psychotic Madara and Sasuke.

"Step back Madara," the man perched on the tree said, "I think you're scaring the kid." Naruto started at the name Madara and looked the two Uchihas—was one of them Madara? What happened to that annoying orange spiral mask? His hair suddenly grew longer? No, he had no time to be thinking about such things. Naruto leapt to his feet, surprising the men, and took a couple of steps backward. He legs hit something warm and he fell over whatever it was. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet again and looked down to find, in shock, a peacefully sleeping Sasuke. Sasuke is here too? Sawagu-chan got him too?

He turned to men and spat, "Which one of you is Uchiha Madara?"

The men exchanged amused expressions, before the man with the long, dark hair who really looked like Sasuke stepped forward with a teasing grin on his lips.

"That would be me," he answered.

"What did you do to me and Sasuke!" he shouted, raising the kunai at the man, "Was that girl in league with you?!"

Madara merely blinked at him, looked at this companion, then back at him and said, "What are you talking about?"

"You! You're after me!"

The left brow of Uchiha Madara twitched, "What? You brat, coming out of nowhere accusing me of weird things! I ought to—"

"Okay, okay, calm down, everyone!" one of the other man interjected, stepping forward also. Unlike Madara, this man had a more kind and relax atmosphere, and Naruto swore he looked really really familiar! He couldn't quite put a finger on who exactly the man looked like.

"Stay back," Naruto warned, "This all your illusion, isn't it Madara! I'm not going to let you get me, Sasuke or destroy Konoha!"

Madara's eyes turned livid, "What the hell…this kid! Hashirama let me just punch the idiot! Maybe it'll do him some good!"

"Madara!" the man called Hashirama snapped in warning.

Naruto blinked. Hashirama? Now, Naruto's worse subject in the ninja academy was history (which is saying a lot). Boring crap about dead people didn't interest him. But, as a fan of the Hokage, he did know some things about the four dead heroes, and one of the things he knew (perhaps only a few of the things he knew) about them was their name. The shodai, Senju Hashirama, and the nidaime, Senju Tobirama.

Hashirama?

Hah. You got to be kidding. Now he knew who that man resembled. Of course in living flesh and color, it was kind of hard to recognize right off the bat. The stony face of the first Hokage was now flesh and bones, and was looking at him, breathing the same air as him. Senju Hashirama was standing in front him. That man he recognized on the tree—Senju Tobirama? Have to be. But how? Then he suddenly connected the dot—didn't Sawagu-chan say something about time traveling? Did he just time travel? That means the first and the second is alive, the Uchiha clan still active and Madara hasn't become that freak of nature that he was (or will be) in the future?

"Hey kid," said Senju Hashirama, approaching him rather cautiously, "Are you alright? How do you know Madara?"

"Uh…" was all Naruto could get out at first.

"Madara, what did you do now?" said Tobirama, jumping down from the tree.

Madara rolled his eyes and growled, "What are you asking me for? I did nothing."

"The kid said you destroyed Konoha?" said Hashirama, looking down at Naruto with concerned eyes, making Naruto become more and more nervous being stared down by the first dead Hokage, "What is Konoha?"

Naruto blinked. So Konoha have not been created yet? Shit. Naruto gulped and answered, rather uncertainly, "…A good name for a village?"

Hashirama quirked his eyebrows at this, and Madara said, "What? That's a terrible name for a village!"

A/N: Thus starts the animosity between Konoha and Madara!

Haha, thank you for reading! Please leave some reviews or comments! I deeply deeply appreciate it!

*Sawagu means 'to be excited'.

When I put kodoma, people think of the cute little guys from Princess Mononoke. Here I'm just using it was a word for a tree dwelling spirit which kodomas are, but they don't necessarily look like the cute little guys from Princess Mononoke.