To The Stars and Back

A Naruto Story based off Kenji Miyazawa's Night of the Milky Way Railroad

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Night of the Milky Way Railroad, I just thought it would be an interesting the story. The only character that is mine is Mizumi!

Part 1: The Girl They Barely Knew

The star festival was huge, well, it wasn't the biggest festival in Konohagure and for whatever reason, Naruto hated it. He watched as parents gave their children new clothes and sometimes just stared at him as he watched from a window. He remembered being that age and begging Iruka-sensei for at least a nice gi, but all he got was the orange jumpsuit he had on currently.

He watched as people ran around happily, he never really understood the reasoning for the festival. He had begun to hate it, he wanted nothing to do with the festival and would run off into the forest to be alone, he would come back for the fireworks, but that was it. He never really thought much on it, he turned a corner and noticed a girl who silently sat in his old swing, she kicked her feet waiting for someone.

"We should float some gourds down the river, that would be fun, hey, Mizumi come on," a boy from her class brought her up to the front of a group of nine kids. "It was all her idea."

"I actually got it from," she sputtered and looked over her shoulder at Naruto nervously. "Naruto-kun, he thought of it really, you should ask him how to make the gourd boats."

Mizumi was in fact a lot younger than himself, she was the daughter of a doctor who had died on a mission. Ever since that day she lived alone with her aunts, it was kind of a sad affair, the nine year old wasn't much the same since that incident.

The kids looked at him and smiled.

Oh, I know where this is going, I am going to have to show them how to make a gourd boat, he thought sourly and realized he had learned from Iruka how to do it. "Look, Iruka-sensei might be a better choice for this, ask him to show you how!" He darted away not wanting anything to do with the festival.

He crawled up a hill and lay down watching the stars come out, he rolled down the hill after that, then went back up to try it again. He didn't really had a reason for doing it, but when he came up he noticed he wasn't alone on the hill anymore, he saw Sasuke walking up.

"Aren't you going to the festival?" Naruto crossed his arms, he was not about to share his view of the stars with Sasuke.

"I hate the festival, its loud and annoying," the other whispered shortly. "I thought you were going to spend time with Mizumi-chan?"

"She and her friends are making gourd boats with Iruka-sensei, they plan on floating them down the river," Naruto looked away and pulled his hands into his pockets. "Anyway, the festival is for little kids."

Sasuke shrugged and lay down on the grass staring up at the stars. "You know, the only reason we have a star festival is to announce the coming of summer, right?"

Naruto stared back at the stars and sighed, "I think I remember someone telling me if we look at this side of the sky, it looks like a river of milk."

"Kakashi-sensei told you that, I was there."

"Well, it wasn't like you cared at all, you never look at anything and you don't dream either!" Naruto snapped and sat up.

"I dream about a lot of things," Sasuke whispered and rolled his eyes. "I just don't like talking about them. Haven't you ever heard the saying, if you tell someone your dream it won't come true."

They stopped arguing and lay back down on the grass, that was when they jumped at the sound of a train. "There isn't a train for miles," Sasuke stammered when he looked around, he blinked and squinted into the darkness. He fell back against Naruto who was staring wide eyed at a huge black steam train. "Whoa!" Sasuke closed his eyes and looked with the Sharingan, it wasn't an illusion, it was real.

"Galaxy Train, first stop, Earth Station." Someone was speaking through a speaker on the side.

"Let's get on, I bet it might be fun," Naruto ran toward the entrance and Sasuke close behind.

"But we don't have…" Sasuke's voice was rather strained as he climbed on and sat down in a booth next to Naruto who was looking out the window. That was when he saw someone climbing through, it was a girl, they recognized the form instantly, it was Mizumi who looked like she was covered in dew. Her long brown hair sparkled in the light and her sad almost green eyes were a little darker.

"Mizumi-chan!" Naruto smiled. "You saw the train too."

The little girl nodded sitting down after dusting the dew off her. She looked out the window and whispered. "They ran after me, not one could keep up, not even Iruka-sensei could catch me."

Sasuke and Naruto looked out the window and saw what looked like Mizumi kicking and struggling in the water, then quite suddenly the image was gone. The image was replaced by beautiful flowers. "Mizumi-chan look!" Naruto pointed and smiled. "I'll go get some right now, just wait here."

"Its too late, we already passed the flowers," she whispered and smiled. "I want to go to the swans, there is a beautiful place I think called the Cerileanian Sea where there are swans, I want to see them." She brought out a strange looking sphere. "It's the next stop."

The train came to a halt in front of a strange looking gate, Sasuke was the first off, he stared around him and noticed that the people who disembarked with them were gone. He walked into a waiting area and found that all that was there were luggage and some reading materials. He walked about the room and blinked, he turned around and saw Naruto and Mizumi following close behind him.

He really did not know Mizumi that much, she was always so quiet, he remembered she used to talk a lot more. He remembered that before last year she was quite happy, but when she started to live with her aunt's family, strange wounds would appear. The little girl would cover up in long sleeved shirts and would hide where she had been hit by her uncle.

He remembered a week before he graduated to Genin her father died, she had been eight and just admitted into the school. She never spoke after that, she never even played with her friends who had started to take notice of the reversal of her personality.

It had taken Sasuke awhile to figure out what had happened to Mizumi, it took him a few moments of being inside her aunt's house to figure out what happened. Her uncle was no Ninja and he was a simple farmer, so when they were forced to move into the city, he was angry with the little girl. She had other relatives who would have taken her, but her aunt felt the need to keep her niece with her. The abuse though was something the aunt was oblivious to.

"I'm clumsy, that's all," Mizumi lied to Sasuke many times, when she noticed the cuts and bruises on her.

When he found out what happened to Mizumi she was immediately taken away from the situation and placed with Iruka-sensei for safe keeping. Sasuke had become her hero of sorts, but she never once idol worshiped him, she had a crush on Naruto, that had been evident when she was seven and would watch the boy for hours.

Now though, something was wrong with Mizumi she was silent like she had been after her parent's death. She walked through the strange room and walked out toward what looked like the center of town in Kononhagure. Naruto and Sasuke followed curious as to where it led.

Naruto watched Mizumi nervously, he had been curious about her for awhile, but she was always strange to everyone in town. After her father's death, he found out that she was being abused by her maternal uncle and was soon placed with Iruka-sensei until a proper home was set up for her. It had happened so fast that really he had no time to really get to know Mizumi who was always trying her best to be good with jutsus, but she was still making some simple mistakes.

He had never really took into account that when it came her safety, Sasuke was always around her, sometimes watching her from a distance as if he was being a big brother. "I don't like it when he does that," Mizumi once whispered when was sitting by the river, but at that time she fell in and nearly drowned. She had never been good at keeping her balance, and that was evident just by how clumsy she had been.

Maybe this is why she's here, she fell into the river, he pushed that thought away and noticed a strange looking door. "Hey, Sasuke-kun!" He waved to Sasuke who followed them down a long trail to some steps and then to a strange looking sea of sand.

"This is beautiful," he whispered and sat down, he looked around the sandy beach to see Sasuke who was holding what looked like a giant acorn. "What is that?"

"It's a fossil," Sasuke whispered and sat down next to him. "Many millions of years ago, this place must have been a forest. These are the remains of it." He always remembered his brother giving geology lessons of sorts like this when his brother was still good. He pocketed it and hoped to put it with his collection.

He looked up and noticed a group of men working on fossils, one of the men was someone who looked like his brother. "Could you please not take the artifacts," the man rushed up and brought out his hand. "Come on now, how would you like if someone took one of your fossilized remains when you died?"

Sasuke complied and put the fossil in the man's hand. "Good lad, now would you like to see the big prize?"

This was not Itachi, he may look like it, but he isn't, Sasuke thought and followed the man who smiled putting on a white lab coat. "Dr. Tohno, I have some people here who would like to see that huge dinosaur you are looking at."

A man with bright white hair and green eyes looked up and laughed. "Hello there, you three must have followed Tobi here to look at fossils. This is a Plesiosaur, close to 65.7 billion years old."

Naruto stared up at the dinosaur in shock, it was huge. "Wow, it looks like it could fly!"

"No, this was a water based creature, he only lived in the oceans," Tobi smiled and looked up at it. "We're just studying the stomach area, so far it ate fish, but your friend here is right, after this creature died, this place turned into a forest. That's why there are so many acorns."

Mizumi smiled and thanked the two and was running back to the beach. "Have to hurry, we'll miss the train."