"BOSS! SOMETHING IS COMING THIS W-"
Naruto sat up quickly, gasping for breath.
Blink.
Blink.
He blinked one time, two times before he regained his composure and his ninja senses kicked in; suddenly he was pressed against the wall with the closest weapon at hand, which happened to be a chop stick, pointing at an imaginary enemy in the air in front of him.
Confusion.
Who am I? He thought.
Naruto.
He was Naruto.
Why was he Naruto?
Because that was the first name that came to his mind.
But where was he?
This is my own house.
Was it? What was he doing there? He couldn’t remember. Sunlight seeped in through a small window above him and cast its light over his linoleum floor and the few objects that were located in the room. A little untidy, but that was okay. It had always been like that.
Had it?
Yes it had.
I must have been taking a nap.
But he couldn’t remember going to sleep.
Why would he ‘take a nap’ anyway? That was for old people.
A moment of confusion made him look at his hands. He brought them close to his face.
They were undoubtedly his own hands, meaning he was in his own young body..
But why wouldn’t he be?
Hadn’t he thought of that before? Why would he question it?
Yes, yes he had known why he doubted it.
And there it was again.
He felt out of place.
Why would he feel out of place in his own home?
And what in the name of God was he doing?
He scanned his surroundings for something suspicious, out of place, something that was not Naruto. But he found nothing at fault with the surroundings. He ruffled his hair and sighed deeply, then froze up.
There it was. But just as quickly as it had arrived, it disappeared. Like a shadow of something much too great to be understood by the simple mind of human. The feeling was overwhelming, and for a moment Naruto remembered everything...
The pained cries of Genma reached his ears as his voice was cut off. A snakelike hiss was heard- it was painfully familiar to Naruto. Naruto quickly tapped the person next to him, that happened to be the team’s medic, Sakura-chan, lightly three times on the shoulder in a special pattern. She immediately arose from her light sleep and did the same thing to the person sleeping next to her. The three ANBU looked at each other and made a silent agreement; Kiba nodded, signalling that he would stay to guard the person they were trying to protect from missing-nins together with the other two Chuunin that had for some reason accompanied them. Who had they been trying to protect, he must have been important?
Naruto and Sakura silently jumped up into the trees and followed Genma’s chakra-traces. Suddenly Naruto stopped, and Sakura gasped and stumbled as-
But just as the shadow, it had disappeared.
Naruto looked down towards the futon he had been sleeping on, and noticed that he had dropped the chop stick on it. He decided to ignore it for now and made his way out of the bedroom, entering the kitchen by doing so. Old milk, ramen packages and half-eaten fruit littered the kitchen. He slowly walked towards the window opposite of his bedroom door. It was open. The laughter of children playing on the playground outside filled his kitchen; he pushed aside the shades and stared down at them. The ten year old Konohamaru immediately looked up, and as he saw Naruto he grinned widely and gave him two thumbs up, then continued to chase Moegi and Udon. Naruto wanted to smile back, but found himself unable to do so.
Out. He had to get out. He had to find out what was wrong. He had to find himself.
~
Report to Hokage-sama, was the first thing that came to his mind. But no. He decided not to go there. He didn’t want to go there.
No one looked oddly at the boy who was walking down the streets of Konoha in summer clothes the middle of the winter. In fact, no one stared oddly at Naruto at all. Most of them smiled at him, some even waved. Naruto bit his lip and quickened his pace. He again got that feeling. Something was wrong. Out of place. Not Naruto.
A bird suddenly caught his eyes. It wasn’t an ordinary bird, Naruto found himself surprised to know. It was the one that hokage-sama used when she wanted Naruto to report to her office immediately. He watched it swirl over the rooftops until it retreated to the hokege’s office. Naruto didn’t follow.
He walked down the snow covered streets of Konoha. Everything seemed to be alright. People were crowding the small restaurants and shops, the marketplace was filled with women buying food and the children were happily chasing each other down the streets. He walked past the ninja academy, where he saw Iruka stand by the entrance. The chuunin smiled as he noticed Naruto’s presence, and motioned for him to come closer. Naruto smiled an apologetic smile, then turned his head away and kept on walking, ignoring the surprised look on his Iruka-sensei’s face.
A few minutes later, he finally reached the ‘ICHIRAKU’ ramen bar.
"Ah, hello Naruto-kun!" Ayame said happily. "Miso pork ramen, I assume?"
Naruto smiled weakly and sat down on one of the stools. "You know me all too well, Ayame-chan."
Ayame’s father, Teuchi, smiled and nodded in Naruto’s direction, and after Naruto reciprocated his actions he started working on creating his glorious ramen.
Suddenly, Naruto heard someone approaching. "Naruto?" A pink haired girl said as she took the seat next to him. What? Naruto asked mentally, but didn’t acknowledge her. The pink haired girl didn’t seem to mind, she just kept on talking after offering the famous food-ninja and his daughter a small ‘hello’. "Tsunade-sama is waiting for you at the tower, what are you doing here?"
Naruto kept on ignoring her as a bowl of steaming ramen was placed in front of him. He picked up his chop sticks and poked them for a bit. "Itadakimasu!" he then said, and then he actually picked up a small amount of ramen, letting the broth drip off a bit, then he carefully brought the chop sticks to his opened mouth as he had his first, small bite.
Carefully chewing, his smile widened. "Naruto? Is something wrong?" Sakura asked nervously. Naruto understood that to her, he must have been acting extremely strange, and he would have never in a million years acted as coldly as he was doing if...
A small laugh escaped Naruto’s lips as he swallowed.
He left the ramen behind, not even paying for it, then went out and simply stood there on the street outside Ichiraku’s.
He observed his surroundings, smiled again then shook his head.
"Naruto?" By now Sakura sounded a bit panicked. "We have to go to hokage-sama, you know she hates it when-" But she didn't get to finish that sentence.
"Quiet."
Naruto then put his thumbs, index and middle fingers together, at the same time lacing his ring and little fingers with each other.
"Very impressive genjutsu," Naruto said.
Before the fake Sakura had the chance to stop him, he had said the word to release him from the equally fake Konoha.
“Kai!”
---
READ THIS OR DIE.
Okay, here is chapter one. Don't worry, Sasuke will appear in the next chapter.
Kai means release or dispel.
And sorry about the length of this chapter, this is meant to be as more of an.. introduction? no that isn't the right word.. gah. Anyway. Future chapters will be longer. Much longer.
And by the way.. Reviews are always appreciated!