Extraneous

Synopsis: Having had dreams about each others different worlds and lives, Naruto and Naruko were well acquainted with the idea of there being alternative universes out there, where things differed from their own respective worlds. When they made contact some where in the middle, and shared with each other the differences of their lives whenever they did, the two were pretty convinced that was the closest they could get to going to another 'world'.

But as each of their lives draws closer to an end, the two are approached by a pair of Otsusuki who pose to them a question that shatters everything they thought they knew about how alternative worlds work... and leaves them with a choice. But to two Shinobi who based their entire life on never giving up, protecting their important people, and cutting the chains of hate... well, there really isn't any choice at all. And that was how two children of prophecy from two different worlds found themselves tasked with saving a third.

Only problem is... they've got to start out as toddlers.

A/N: Hello readers~

Like ID, this fic is a mash up of canon and AU, but with considerably more AU elements than in it's companion story. After all there are two AU's linked to this story, with the bulk of it taking place within one of them. You don't have to read ID at all if you don't want to, but it will give you more background information. Also like ID this fic has two prologues, the second of which will hopefully be up in the next couple days. The reason why i wrote two was because the story doesn't really begin until after the next one, but the diction between this one and the next prologue was to jarringly different to post them as one.

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me, but to Kishimoto. All I can claim is my own plot.

PrologueI: The Wrong End

He came to the conclusion that there had to be alternative realities out there after SWW 4. On the day he became Hokage he had irrefutable evidence to the truth of the existence of one such reality; in the form of a Female version of himself.

She knew there were other realities out there before she understood what that really meant. She didn't put any thought into the idea of there being more than one until after the war, but she always believed that the one with a male version of herself had to exist somewhere.

Both knew of each other but had believed they would never meet. But they did. On a day when their two realities time lines were synced. The day of their inauguration as Nandiame Hokage, somewhere not quite a part of either of their universes.

As the years went by and they had more meetings in that same in-between place, they came to agree that actually going to another reality wasn't possible. They only ever seemed to meet when their time-lines synced up, there was no definite time between these occurrence, and they never met outside of that in-between place. If either of them were ever going to end up in another version of reality, surely it would have happened in the decades they'd some how been connected to each other. Certainly it should have happened while they were meeting weekly in those first few years after becoming Hokage, if at all.

But it never did.

They forgot that both of them had visited two different realities, separate from each others.

They disregarded the fact that each of their realities had had a visit from two Sakura-chans from other realities.

They believed that their respective Biju knew all there was to know about how far contact with alternative realities could go. That in turn they had learned all they needed to know about it.

Oh how wrong they had been.

Certainly they'd wondered a bit about it before, on their own or together. But such instances only ended up in splitting headaches. If they'd moved beyond that they might have recognized the sense of unease that often indicated a feeling of incomplete knowledge. Instead they decided that they knew more than enough about it, as it was likely a one in some insanely high number chance that two parallels of the same person would ever meet as they did. There was no benefit to learn anything else.

How very wrong they had been.

They wouldn't realize they were wrong until just before the very end. As death shadowed their mashed mindscape and they faced each other one more time. With the intense feeling that they'd rather not be face to face right now, able to see the shredded state of each other and know that the end was caving in on both of them. This was their final meeting. It had to be. Though neither of them were ones to give up they could feel the life draining away from them even here, the scenery of their shared mindscape draining of colour as it did. It would take a miracle to survive this. Still, both struggled to leave this in-between place. To see the outside world and live. To stick to their Nindo and never give up. They told each other with misplaced conviction: You will not die today.

How very wrong they were.

Miracles didn't happen because you wanted them to.

She admitted it first, and he protested. Insisted she not give up. She wasn't, she told him, because she believed in her friends, in her children. It was time to entrust the future to them. They wouldn't fail. Though he wanted to do more himself, he could only agree. They could only hope that they would get the chance to see that they were right. But they were no fuinjutsu master, and had no chance to seal a part of their chakra into either of their children anyway. Nor was it at all likely they'd be revived with the edo-tensei. They had to be satisfied with their trust in those they would be leaving behind.

Again they were wrong.

As everything around them bled from grey ombre to ink black they said their final farewell to each other and waited for oblivion.

It never came.

Instead was the awareness that there was still water below their feet, and the strange familiarity of the black expanse before them.

This could be only one place. A place neither had ever expected to be again.

Clearly they had been wrong.

Word Count: 801