Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, only the OCs within the story.
Chapter I: When Your Dreams Come True
"Ugh! Hurry up!" Cara muttered, and exasperated sigh escaping her lips. The brunette sixteen year old was desperately wanting to look for the latest episode of Naruto Shippuden online but promised her best friend Lani, who she was currently waiting on, she wouldn't until the other girl arrived.
It was a typical Saturday for the Caucasian girl who was dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans for the occasion. Pushing her thick rimmed glasses further up her nose, she nibbled on her lip where she sat.
She shuffled off the two-seater couch in the T.V. room, down the hall and into her minuscule kitchen, flicking the jug on to boil in the process. She retrieved two pots of instant noodles from her cupboard and tore off the plastic, pealing back the papery lid before placing the two pots on the bench top.
"I'm here! I'm here!" Came the yell, as the front door swung wide, letting in a gust of cool autumn air. In stepped Lani, hair slightly tousled, with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
"Look who decided to show up." Cara said, feigning annoyance. But in all honestly, Cara and her mum had grown used to the other girl walking into their house like she owned it whenever she wanted. It had become a common occurrence over the years.
"Geez, I walked all the way here, okay." She muttered, dumping her bag near the couch in the lounge and sprawling out on it.
"Yeah, the whole ten minutes." Cara snorted as she poured boiling water into the two cups. "Come on." She added, motioning for Lani to follow her into the T.V. room where her laptop was set up.
Booting Firefox, Cara squealed with delight and anticipation as she loaded in the hopes the latest episode would be up.
"Damn." Cara growled under her breath, dismayed to find that their go-to website still hadn't uploaded the subbed version.
"Come on! We want to be the first to watch it!" Lani said, excitement rushing through her.
"You try doing this!" Cara hissed, clicking onto another website, with no success.
"Look, look, look! Click that!" Lani yelled, pointing at a website that read: Naruto new episode uploaded!
"Ah, I can't wait! This is so exciting!" Cara screeched.
"Can you girls please be a littler quieter," Cara's mother said from the doorway. She had her mobile pressed to her shoulder. "I know your excited but I have a very important work call."
Lani and Cara held their breath, trying not to laugh with sheer embarrassment.
"Yes mum." Cara murmered.
"...Sorry Kylie, my daughter and her friend are very excitable. They're worse than the children I teach." Her voice was laced with shame as she walked back down the hall to her bedroom.
"Come on! Click it!"Lani said, now speaking barely above a whisper.
"Okay." Cara replied, barely able to stop herself from yelling again. "I can't believe it!" She said pressing play. It was going to be epic!
Cara passed Lani her a pot of instant noodles and watched intently as the video loaded. The title sequence played and the girls both dancing and singing along in Japanese from where they sat. When the song ended, bizarre swirly patterns formed on the screen, soon enveloping the whole space.
"What the hell?" Lani scowled. "You get hacked or something?"
"No... I don't know!" Cara replied, desperately pressing the escape button repeatedly, to no avail.
Before they knew what was happening, the weird swirling portal expanded from the laptop screen and into the physical world. Loose bits of paper and books which had been tossed haphazardly onto the floor and arms of the furniture went flying around the room, and before they could do anything, Lani and Cara were sucked into the void, which closed as they went falling, falling, falling.
Heavily they landed, bouncing and rolling from the impact of plummeting from the sky and slamming into the ground below.
"Aw yucgth!" Cara moaned, gingerly attempting to roll onto her side and get on her hands and knees – well that was before she inhaled a mouthful of sand and proceeded to cough and spit, tongue unattractively lolling out of her mouth.
"Ugh... Cara? You okay?" Came the muffled voice of Lani, who had managed to escape the same fate as her friend, conveniently landing with the sleeve of her humongous jumper covering her mouth and nose. "Jeez it's freakin' hot."
"Uh, Houston, we have a problem."
Lani's head immediately snapped in the direction of Cara's voice and she shrieked in surprise. There was her friend, crouching in the pile of sand she landed in, looking at her shaking hands.
"Ehhh?!" Cara shrieked, her eyes becoming large white circles of surprise. "I-I'm animated?!"
That was when Lani took a good look at herself and found she was in the same state. She felt her face with her hands and found her eyes felt more slanted and pronounced – like a triangle or rectangle, rather than her regular large sideways ovals regular humans' had – and her forehead was as smooth as paper, no longer riddled with the bumps of late puberty induced pimples. Did animated people not get blemishes?
Cara was doing the same, touching her arms and head and legs, like she was making sure every piece was there. Her hands flew to her hair, which was a few shades darker than Lani's, but shorter by miles. She was astounded to find it was more or less in portions, rather than defined by individual strands. She ran her fingers through it, amazed at how soft it was – like she had just gotten out of the chair from Rodney Wayne after a cut and blow wave.
"We're animated." Cara said once again, but this time in a tone of excitement and her eyes reflected the same curiosity as Lani's.
"That damn website, it's like it opened up some kind of crazy wormhole that sucked us into another universe." Lani ground out through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, but exactly what universe did it take us to?"
Meanwhile, in the Kazekage office, Gaara was being disturbed from his work by a constant, desperate pounding on the door of his office. Looking up from his paperwork, he said, "Come in."
The door opened revealing a distraught looking Matsuri and Sari, who were panting breathlessly but some how managed to speak.
"Gaara-Sama did you see the lights?"
"We heard screams and there was all these strange clouds!"
"People fell from the sky, the villagers are scared!"
"And Temari and Kankuro went to go check it out and they're out there now!"
"You must do something Gaara-Sama! Everyone could be in danger!"
The red haired man took a deep breath as the words that tumbled out of the girl's mouths settled in his mind to some kind of ordered degree. The two were irritatingly close to him, hands pressed down on his desk so hard, he wouldn't be surprised if it broke in two.
"Calm down," he told them. "Temari and Kankuro will have it under control."
"B-But anything could of happened!" Sari yelled, her eyes wide with terror.
Somehow, and he didn't know how, but Gaara had missed this "spectacle" of lights and clouds and people falling. He was sure that his siblings would have control of the situation – whatever that situation was – and he explained to Matsuri and Sari that they should go to the hospital to get something for the shock and he would see to it.
Before Gaara could even get out of his chair, there was more knocking on his door and without waiting for an answer, in walked his two older sibling, followed by two brunette girls. One had glasses, the other with extremely long hair. They were dressed in bizarre looking clothing, certainly something a ninja wouldn't wear, and the one with the longest hair was wearing something that resembled an oversized sack with sleeves.
"Kankuro, Temari, who are these people?" He asked. "Matsuri and Sari informed me of some weird lights in the sky and you were going to investigate."
"This is, Cara." Temari said, gesturing to the girl with glasses. She was tall, almost a whole head taller than the other one, and was going bright red despite her tan colouring. "And Lani," The longer haired brunette smiled meekly at him. She was pale and appeared to be hiding in the sack she was wearing.
"Where are you from." He asked, Cara spoke, squeaking in surprise.
"Well, uh... h-how to explain?" She mused aloud. Growing impatient, Lani too over.
"It's hard to explain, but you could say we were sucked into this world from our homeland, Earth."
"Hmm? Sucked into this world?"
"Yes, through a wormhole, portal type thing."
They stood in thoughtful silence for a while, but somewhere along the way, Lani and Cara got bored and began whispering to each other. Suddenly Lani cried, "So true!" which earned her a raised eyebrow from Kankuro.
The girl's cheeks flamed beetroot red and Cara could be heard muttering, "well that's not awkward."
"Alright," Gaara said finally, and all attention was on him. "Kankuro, I want you to send word to Konoha to request help. This could possibly have something to do with the Sharingan. Temari, take them back to the house, you know what to do."
"Yes Kazekage-Sama!" They said, Lani and Cara echoing them proudly.
"Come on in." Temari said, beckoning the duo into the house. It was a huge three story place which all Kazekages and their families lived in until the Kazekage either passed away or retired.
"Woah! This is so cool!" Cara gasped in awe. Her mouth hung open and didn't plan on shutting soon.
"It's massive! I bet it's almost as big as the museum." Lani gawked and Temari chuckled in amusement.
"You two will be staying in guest rooms across from each other on the third floor." She explained to them. "If you need us, you can find our rooms on the second floor. I guess I better give you the grand tour."
They both squealed with delight and as they were shown each room. Even the downstairs bathroom encouraged a new round of "Ohhs" and "Ahhs" from the duo. And it wasn't like it was plated with gold or anything either.
"Here we are." Temari said. They were now on the third floor, standing outside of the two girls' rooms.
"Thanks so much Temari, you have been so nice to us. I mean- we're complete strangers!" Cara said.
"Well, consider it a way of apologies for trying to attack you earlier. We weren't really sure what was going on."
Memories of yelling for help to two strange figures before being sent flying by a gale with the force of a brick wall echoed throughout the girl with glasses' mind. And after that, almost getting decapitated by shuriken before being sent flying into what appeared to be a dark beer keg. Cara wouldn't of been surprised if Lani had swooned upon realising she was in a belly of Kuroari.
"Hey, we're just as confused as you are right now, so thanks again. And not just to you, but to Gaara and Kankuro too." Lani smiled.
Cara rolled her eyes. "Obsessed fangirl."
"Am not!"
"Yeah you are. It's just like that fad you had with Hidan!"
Temari, who had just been turning to leave, stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face Lani and Cara with narrowed eyes. "You know of the Akatsuki?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess we forgot to explain that thing..." Cara mumbled.
"What thing?"
"Look, I think it's better if we explain when everyone is here." Lani said.
"Alright. I have a small mission to complete anyway, so I have to head out. You'll be fine here, Kankuro should be back soon."
"Right." Lani said, an uneasy feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.
For the next half hour, Lani and Cara went exploring about the house on their own again and fretted over whether they might be imprisoned because Temari suspected them of being involved with the Akatsuki organisation. For now, they were sprawled out on the couch, Lani hanging upside down with a pillow hugged to her chest and Cara with her legs dangling off the side, arguing about with Akatsuki member was best.
"But Sasori is way better than Deidara!" Cara argued.
"But Sasori is dead!" Lani growled in defense.
"So is Deidara!" Cara retorted.
"Sasori hardly lasted 2 episode in the Fourth Ninja War."
"At least he died with heart, unlike the idiot Deidara who only died because of the release of the Impure World Reincarnation."
"Sasori was a freaking puppet!"
"So is your precious Kankuro!"
"He's a puppet master not a puppet!"
"Oh same difference!"
"Whats the same difference?" Kankuro asked coming into the lounge room, Lani leaping up in surprise with her face animatedly glowing pink.
"Oh its nothing, really! Uh, when did you come in?" She asked, desperate to change topic.
"Only just now," he replied and Lani let out the breath she realise she was holding. She didn't want her all time favourite character since his first appearance to think she was a total weirdo like half her school back home.
"Did you get the message sent to Konoha?" Cara asked cooly, and Lani wished it was Gaara who had walked in.
"Yes. We sent Takamaru, our fastest carrier bird." He replied.
"We know!" Cara and Lani chorused, Kankuro looking confused and he sat down on one of the couches.
AN:
I would like to thank my best friend, lets just call her Tanuki-Chan, for supporting me through this story's initial writing and now it's re-writing. And thank you in advance, to anyone who decides to follow this story or review.