Prologue

He was pretty sure he was going to die; the kunai buried hilt deep in between his 5th and 6th ribs was a very good indication of his imminent death. Oh, and that his heart was in between those two ribs did not help his situation any. His name was Uzumaki Naruto and he was a proud genin of Konohagakure; his dream, to become the Hokage, leader of the mighty village hidden in the leaves.

Not anymore it seemed as two dark shutters slowly but inevitably covered his vision of the world. He fought against it valiantly, but there was no denying the deep weariness that slowly overtook his senses. Naruto passed away, silently mourning the miserable end of his short life; he had wanted to become the Hokage and fight awesome S-ranked ninjas and become famous, respected and feared and loved. He had wanted to stand tall amidst overwhelming devastation wrought by the exchange of amazing ninjutsu and he had wanted to protect his village, the place where the people who he counted as family lived!

He jumped up and opened his eyes, burning with the fervor of the desperate. He couldn't die yet! That's right! Death was a concept that he knew of, but had never considered for himself. He was Uzumaki Naruto. Future Hokage and no measly kunai was going to kill him!

"I won't go down like this! Believe it!" Naruto exclaimed, before freezing. Hadn't he just died? He quickly looked down at his chest. His orange jumpsuit was without a blemish, albeit a little scruffy around the edges, but where was the debilitating wound? He quickly unzipped his jumpsuit and lifted his white tunic. Unmarred flesh greeted his wide eyes and his expression morphed into one of stupefaction.

"Yes!" He exclaimed in glee. "No stab wound from a crappy kunai can bring me, Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage and best ninja in the world, down!"

He grinned and looked up at his surrounding, coming off the adrenaline high he had worked himself into. It was pitch black all around him, an overwhelming darkness through which no light could illuminate, and the only reason he had been able to see himself was because of the white glare beaming from atop his head. He carefully lifted a hand to cover his eyes from the intense beam of spotlight that lit a perfect circle around his feet and raised his head slowly. Above his head, five words blazed in orange. Above it was white light, and trying to gaze at the source of that light was futile, for there was nothing around, above or beside the light, other than inky blackness.

Game Over!

Continue?

Yes.

No.

The bottom two words were pulsing softly, emitting a soft orange aura in a rhythmic pattern. Naruto blanched. What was going on? Questions ceaselessly floated through his head and his automatic impulse to shout and yell surged to the forefront. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had opened his mouth to yell out the first syllables of the words 'what the hell', but he quickly slapped a hand over his mouth to prevent the sound from escaping.

Slowly, he relaxed and contrary to his natural instincts, began thinking of a reasonable explanation for this mysterious block of text. Of course, he understood the initial and obvious explanation; he had played games before and the words 'game over' were quite self-explanatory. But this made no sense, what had he been doing before?

Ah. Right. Dying. Naruto wracked his head and tried to make sense of what was going on, and somewhere in the back of his head was a subconscious murmur that he was also acting strangely, after all, since when did he have the patience to actually think for this long? First things first, he needed to find out where he was and how he got into this and how to get out. Everything else could be dealt with later. Naruto began to slowly go back over his last few memories of what happened.

Naruto grinned mischievously at Iruka-sensei, who was looking at him with exasperation and fondness.

"Naruto, I can't give you my headband. It's something that you can only get when you become a genin." Naruto pouted, but shrugged off the rejection and pumped his left hand, since his right was holding onto a pair of chopsticks that was currently in a delicious bowl of miso ramen, and shouted out his determination. "Fine! I'll become a genin in no time. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage! Believe it!"

He beamed as Iruka-sensei ruffled his hair and gestured to his noodles. "Eat up Naruto, save that determination for tomorrow's exam."

"Just you wait, I'll pass it for sure tomorrow!" Naruto turned back to his ramen and consumed it with the gusto of a starving man, despite it being his 4th bowl.

Naruto's winced as he remembered his failure to pass the exam. The bunshin had prevented him from graduating… actually… why had he never bothered to improve that jutsu? Shaking his head quickly to clear his thoughts, he remembered Mizuki-teme, who had roped him into stealing the forbidden scroll of sealing and… and… the revelation that he had the nine tails sealed within him.

Iruka-sensei had tried to help him, but had been injured in the process. Of course, he had tried to beat up Mizuki following that, only to find out that his kage bunshins were far too weak, and his last memories were of being stabbed by the bastard of a chunin; which had hurt a lot, and the fatigue that had followed, which probably meant that he was dead.

Maybe this was all a joke and he had been captured by… no that was a stupid idea. Who would go after him? Plus, how was it possible to be kidnapped in the heart of Konoha, strongest of all the ninja nations? Nah. Either this was all a prank, which he wasn't sure who would nurse a grudge to do this, on second thought, that was actually possible since he had pissed off a lot of the shinobi and civilians in Konoha, or this was real.

Which was ridiculous, how stupid did the pranksters think he was? Growling in anger, he sat down on the floor, which was made of a soft but solid surface, and resolved to refuse to give in. If there was one thing that he knew, it was that pranksters didn't have much in patience and if the target refused to participate, then they would give up. At least, that was the case for him when he pranked his targets. Yawning, he curled up into a ball and fell asleep.