Through Another's Eyes

By

LigerJager

Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

Chapter 1: Mornings and Migraines

It was a beautiful day in Konoha. The sky was clear, the air crisp and clean and the vegetation was a vibrant emerald green and quite healthy. Every inhabitant that was not on duty took time to appreciate the weather that graced them. Many were indeed taking full advantage of it and enjoying themselves.

Well, almost everyone.

Naruto felt another headache coming on. This was the second time today that something triggered it and each time things became worse…and it was still early morning.

He was starting to see with something he could only describe as a type of double vision, coupled with transparent overlays of what looked to be a somewhat different, darker feeling Konoha outside his bedroom window.

The blond rolled out of his tangled sheets and let his feet dangle off the side of the small bed as he sat in the edge. It wasn't pleasant to groggily wake up to a pulsating pain, which had thankfully died down after a few minutes of agony. He cracked open one of his blurry, sleep filled eyes as the morning's first rays pierced through his small window.

Whatever he saw wasn't a dream, it seemed too real. In fact he knew, without a doubt, it wasn't one.

He was quite sure that he wasn't going insane, or 'losing any marbles' as Iruka-sensei put it, nor was he heading towards early senility. Perhaps it was a side effect from eating too much ramen…but this never happened before.

Plus his headaches were worse than usual and unusually sensitive with what triggered them. Not that anyone could tell because he hid them quite well. His jolly, super-over-the-top-it's-beyond-sane-happy attitude was usually an act to cover the nasty headache he was sporting at that moment.

If anyone cared to notice they would have sensed that there were times when he was louder than the norm…if he hadn't blown their eardrums off yet. For Naruto those subtle changes in behavior were a result of an exceptionally painful sensory overload that day.

There was something he couldn't understand. Why was this happening to him of all people? Also what exactly was he seeing? It definitely wasn't the present day Konoha and each time he saw it he somehow had a felt of perpetual tension as though something was in the air and just waiting to happen.

Naruto put his face in hands and began to massage his temples. After a bit he rubbed his eyes and peered out into this dimly lit room. He thought over the emotions and feeling that he had picked up from his 'dream' or whatever it was.

Or was it anticipation? He hadn't decided nor did he want to dwell on it, especially because he became very uneasy when he did. It definitely felt as though the inevitable was on the horizon, threatening to break the peace that lay uneasily over that Konoha, as though war would soon come upon them.

Shaking his head he tried to clear his thoughts and fixed his classic smile in place. No one would have guessed that under the idiotic masquerade was the troubled visage of a lonely child blighted by a splitting headache that nearly blinded his normal senses.

These blasted cerebral problems were helping in hindering his progress at the academy. Whatever he did must have really ticked off someone up there into tormenting him this way.

However he never pranked a shrine, temple or any other one of those kinds of establishments to his knowledge or recollection. Even he, an orphan, knew better than that. Maybe one of the innocent bystanders, who caught some of the crossfire, was a religious monk or something.

The Hokage-Ojiisan said they were migraines, but, from what he read, he had none of the symptoms that befit any one of the diagnosis he came across. Also he couldn't have several types of inflictions at once…could he? Naruto didn't know or care at the moment.

Of course he had to get one of these particular headaches on this day of all days, the very morning of his graduation exam.

The twelve year old preteen slowly slid off his bed, flinching as his feet landed on the icy cold hardwood floor. Letting his autopilot take over he made his bed and cleaned up a little around his rather small apartment.

After a while he heated up some water on his stove and took out what he normally ate for breakfast, a cup of instant ramen.

Had he stopped to analyze his current situation Naruto would have found a curious pattern in his cerebral induced misery. The fact of the matter truly being, that the times of reprieve between each onslaught were drastically decreasing.

With each attack the pain it was getting worse and by the hour's end he would have a grand total of five blissful minutes before something else would set it off.

The normally energetic boy absentmindedly took a look at the clock precariously perched on his wall next to his calendar, which had the days crossed off courtesy of his giant marker.

Noting the late hour he shot out of his musing and poured the now boiling water into his noodle cup before hurrying through his morning routine. The headache was growing again with a vengeance.

The demon container pushed the pain aside as much as he could in favor of rushing into the bathroom and frantically shuffling through the remains of his small medicine kit. After he found the aspirin, which only dulled the pain some of the time, he hastily performed his morning hygienic regimen and hopped into, consequently, the only clean clothes he had.

After shooting a deadly glare at his overflowing laundry basket and its soiled contents, He swung his orange jacket over his shoulders before bolting out the door with a steaming cup of instant ramen in his hands.

For as long as he could remember painful headaches, such as that which plagued him at the moment, had come and gone throughout his childhood. At first they were months apart, which gradually turned into weeks. Finally it became days and now decreased into hours.

As he sped over the roofs, having finished his cup a few leaps before, a particularly jarring landing almost made caused him to pass out. Biting back some colorful and very creative curses, Naruto took off at an even greater speed, the dull ache getting worse.

It seemed the pain relievers were not going to work this time around. Damn. Plus the daylight was only getting stronger and brutally reflected off of his vibrant clothing.

The blasted jumpsuit had so far only served to further aggravate his already throbbing head.

However beggars couldn't be choosers and he didn't do his laundry the night before so he'd just have to face the consequences for the time being and pray to Kami that the ache in his head would subside enough for him to concentrate.

He really needed to pass this year.

In spite of his well known mask, his self esteem and confidence wouldn't survive another failure. Heck, he couldn't even afford to have what the Uchiha seemed to produce naturally. Pride was a luxury for him.

He didn't even want to try and comprehend the possibility of taking another whole year of academy classes, not to mention they bored him out of his skull.

Though, that in itself was quite a feat because he was constantly having triggers set off. In fact the only thing that hadn't triggered his curse, as he came to call it, was Iruka-sensei's lectures and shouts of frustration. Actually he would sometimes set off his scar faced teacher just to make whatever pain he was feeling at the moment, subside.

It was kind of ironic and funny at the same time. Whenever his painkillers didn't work, which was quite often, Iruka's verbal reprimands always seemed do the trick…much to the chuunin's ire and misfortune.

The aforementioned building of torment by extreme boredom appeared only a few blocks away, it wouldn't be very long.

Ignoring the impact of his landing, though it nearly brought him to his knees, he raced through the front doors and the well worn halls of the old building.

After the final turn, second door on the right after three flights of stairs later, he came barreling through the door creating a huge ruckus in his wake and interrupting his sensei during his lecture.

Loudly announcing, "Did I miss anything?"

::Tsuzuku::

A/N: This fict was dreamt up around October 2007, but that's neither here nor there.

I had a choice. Rewrite this or post as is. I posted as is.

However, I'm not completely content with the flow, so I decided that the next one will be written in a slightly different style. More like a marriage of what I think and what I write…or simply as growth of a fanfiction author.

Questions? Comments? Reviews?

Always appreciated.

LJ 7/10/2008