Naruto: Switched at Birth - Naruto and Gaara.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Rough concept, starting as a Standard Modified Self-Insert for the time being. The real challenge will be to do it only with native forces to justify the switch.
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The copse of trees was just large enough to hide my arrival. I stealthed immediately and checked for signs of anyone nearby.
Clear. I remained in stealth as I circled the edge of the trees, checking the nearby fields. Still no sign of anyone. Excellent. I lined myself up facing the main forest a bowshot away and leapt off.
The forest covered hundreds of square miles; one could easily get lost in it. Some local residents had undertaken to do just this. Their name still translated as "Village Hidden in the Leaves", though population growth since their founding had made them more of a large town or small city. Of late, that population was down again after a series of wars and, mere weeks ago, the attack of a rather large chakra beast. The prognosis of recovery to prewar size was not particularly bright; but then, Kishimoto was no better than your average mangaka in minding the demographic consequences of events.
I kept thinking that Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, and their cohort must have lots of unseen younger siblings born after the attack. The adults had to appreciate the fact that many more years such as they had suffered recently and they would be reduced from a major ninja village to a minor one, ripe for annexation or destruction by rivals that had fared better.
As expected: no patrols ten miles out. A good number of set traps, easily avoided by a trained ninja. They wouldn't even slow down a proper infiltration team.
As one would expect from the term Hidden Village, no roads led to any of them; to find one, you had to know where it was. This one could have been hidden a good deal better. For one, there were those faces carved in the cliffs visible miles away. For another, the place was built on cleared land; it would have been more appropriate to have the Village Hidden In The Leaves built under forest canopy, like an Ewok village. More of Kishimoto not thinking things through.
I got within sight of the cliffs, three miles out, before running into a patrol. My detection range was greater than theirs, my stealth level beyond their senses. I held still and let them go by before proceeding. Once more before reaching the village boundary, and then I was in.
Konoha had seen better days, and would again. Just now, it was a mess. The Kyuubi had not flattened the place as comprehensively as Pain would in seventeen years, but patrols had been pulled in and paying missions cancelled as every able body was directed to reconstruction. I was dressed as a carpenter, in overalls and tool belt, just in case. Even so, I maintained stealth.
I glided carefully through the streets toward the orphanage. All around the town, chuunin and jonin were using jutsu to shape wood and stone. Only three weeks since the attack, and already the place was beginning to look much as drawn in the manga. Seven-story apartment buildings, an electric generator, phone exchange, power lines, sewage plant, all the amenities of modern life as best a self-sufficient village could do them. Of course, no one in the early 21st century could guess what such a village would really look like, or what amenities it would actually be able to maintain, with only minimal long-distance trade. Naruto was one of the pioneers of the "modern-feudal" motif. It was bound to be a bit rough.
The orphanage was bursting with children. Many parents had fallen to the Fox; many children as well, but much had been done to evacuate and protect children, so they had a higher survival rate, leaving many orphans and few childless parents. And, in true medieval fashion, children were allowed to live alone at the age of twelve, rather than being continually living in institutional circumstances until the mid-teens.
The children, like the adults of the village, had Asian eyes but a full spectrum of European hair and eye colors. Another mark of a 21st century anime. Before 2000, hair colors in anime were generally regarded as fanciful, with Asians given blond or red - or green or blue - hair simply as a visual cue, to make characters easier to identify. 3D computer graphics renderings, initially for games, began to firm up a different concept in the late 90's: the idea of a fantasy world with a genetic history that led to Asian faces with European hair. One would have to wonder what it would have taken in the mainline worlds.
There were a good few blondes. I checked the name tags. There, on the kid wrapped in an orange towel: Uzumaki. I used a forced sleep jutsu to make sure he didn't break my stealth by crying, then looked to the attendant matron. It took some minutes before she left the room for some errand. I quickly made the grab and left.
I resisted the urge to speed up. If necessary, I could call a dimensional portal right there on the street, but this was a ninja setting: best to maintain stealth and let the Hokage think another village had stolen him. I calmly walked out a different path from my entrance, and did not take to the branches until a hundred yards into the trees.
The Temporal Reclamation Agency had an interest in this child. He had as much raw power as this world had to offer; the main problem was getting him to use it efficiently. Many scenarios had been calculated to give him a different set of friends, or more time or attention to study. Giving him a different personality - brooding and depressed like Sasuke, focused like Neji, lackadaisical like Shikamaru - was attractive, but we had to see what was possible. We needed to do research, find out how much Naruto's personality was influenced by the Kyuubi. He might be loud, obnoxious, and have ADHD because of the beast, limiting our options.
On the other hand, that all might be due to his upbringing as the hated child of Konoha. It was vital to get him to a neutral environment, someplace where no one knew who he was, and give him the chance to grow up as an average child. Any Kage or Jonin observing him for any length of time might recognize the signs of a Junchuuriki, but they would want to keep their suspicions secret, and give Naruto special training, making him their village's secret weapon. He could not help but to do better.
Even if the Kyuubi's influence forced him to be hyperactive, certain nuances could be different. There was still much to be said for how he was treated. The adults of Konoha had proven unable to follow the Fourth Hokage's recommendation that his son be treated as a hero; the common villagers could only see the fox within, not the boy without. Much of his ambition, approval-seeking, and misbehaving came from their neglect and outright hatred of him. Raised elsewhere, there were good chances he would turn out differently.
I made it back to my arrival point just after nightfall; darkness did not slow me, as this was a ninja-tailored world, so there were many men home in it. I opened the portal back and zipped through. No jutsu known to the locals would detect it was ever here.
One down, one to go.
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Gaara required a bit more effort. He was imbued with the One-Tail some months later. The entry portal was moved half a year downtime. Again, we wanted to see what we could do with him, what personalities he might have if not under pressure to be the Ultimate Weapon for his village. The child was somewhat protected: the Kazekage had plans for him, and was wary of his enemies stealing his son. Fortunately, I had the skills and tools required for the job.
Sunagakure was not in distress during this period. They were picking up many of the missions Konoha was missing. Their patrols were out to full range. I watched the monitor along a patrol route and entered just after the sentry passes out of sight.
It was still an outer-ring patrol, a day away from the village itself. These people often survived in the desert by digging underground shelters, buried in sand, for the day, and moving at night. I had to proceed at maximum stealth to escape notice. It slowed me down somewhat, but I made it in two days.
The wall about the village is rather conspicuous; again, Kishimoto being flashy. Those smooth tiers were a dead giveaway. The Village Hidden in the Sand would be a good deal more Hidden if the barrier wall were uneven, like a natural mesa.
The wall itself did not slow me at all. I wonder why Deidara bothered to kill the guards out front and in the entrance cleft: surely he could just fly over the barrier mesa and start straightaway? I had no trouble with this strategy. I chakra-molded sand into a bird and glided in, dropping to the rooftops in stealth as the bird drew the sentries some distance away before dispersing. There was plenty of sand about the village to make another.
I found the Kazekage's safehouse, where Gaara was being kept. It was night; there was one sentry out front. As with Konoha, my stealth was better than his perception, though this time I killed him. I left with another baby in hand, pulled together another sand bird, and fled into the sky.
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I made much better time in the air than on the ground. Once back at the portal, the true switch was made: go in with Gaara, reposition the portal two months downtime, and come out with Naruto. Another two days to get to Suna, then leave the boy in the desert, in the path of a patrol. They were not in the habit of presuming children left in the desert were too unhealthy to survive; they would take it to their medics for evaluation. Naruto being ridiculously healthy, they would readily accept a new potential citizen.
The same is even more true for Gaara: Konoha is hurting for population, and will take any new baby they can get. The portal is a further month downtime for this one; no one will think it suspicious, for some years at least, that their village's junchuuriki disappeared, or connect the lost child to one found months later.
One more foray into the villages to check, a year after the final drop-off. Both children are thriving. No one suspects anything yet. The Kages and senior Jonin might eventually recognize the signs of a jinchuuriki, but the fact that their original one disappeared will remain an S-class secret until the children go for their Chuunin exams.
Which might happen early. If the likes of Kakashi could make Chuunin at seven, Gaara should do no less; his father only held him back out of security concerns. Naruto, if he didn't have ADHD from the Kyuubi's influence, would advance at the same pace.
Now it was time to sit back in the monitoring room and watch the fun as the two boys grew up with no one knowing who they were or what they contained...
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Up for adoption from this point.
Ideally, they should have different names, and meet in a Chuunin exam, though possibly at an earlier age. They should be natural rivals at first, possibly friendly after their initial battles.