A/N: So, normally I avoid SI/OC writing because it takes a lot of nuance to make it enjoyable. Good SI writing has that small issue where the SI (who I will be referring from now on as Superman) is just above that suspension of disbelief mark. Note, I don't use Gary Stu, because there is conceivable difference in the two. Superman characters are very straightforward on the surface and pretty OP, but if you put enough work into developing Superman, you get a pretty interesting character scope. For example, if one were omniscient (as Superman might as well be in some retellings) does the psychological scope of ignoring problems make Superman inherently evil?
Whereas, Gary Stu's simply are wish fulfillment taken to the extreme. The easiest analogy to make is that Superman can be anything from a decent burger to a well crafted five star meal. Gary Stu is a bag of potato chips. He isn't particularly bad because he's simple, but all you're getting is a salty carby mess because you need something to fill a craving. In any case, I will be attempting to approach the problem by making an OP as fuck character, so the only issue is psychological. Because make no mistake, I enjoy reading and writing OP characters.
Which is why this will be an exercise not in restraint but in ramifications. Or comedy and sarcasm. I mean, comedy and sarcasm fix everything.
"Checkmate!"
I looked at the board in front of me, studying all the pieces. I don't fucking believe it. I just lost to a fucking five year old. My gaze travelled back up to the brat grinning at me. Wipe that smug look off your face you damn-
"Ichiro! Come! Stay away from him!" A woman (clearly the mother) shouted as she dragged the child away from the game board. As the kid left, I could see him stick his tongue out at me, waving his fingers in front of his nose.
"Yeah well fuck you too, kid!" I shouted at their retreating backs. Fuck that kid.
"Get a job you hobo!" Okay, I had to admit, that one actually hurt pretty fucking bad. I grunted as the other grifters next to me bit down on their laughter. Oh it wasn't out of respect or anything, I just happened to be the strongest motherfucker on the planet. Probably. I was still trying to figure out what time period I was in, but I was pretty sure that save for the very end and beginning, Naruto didn't have anyone who could banish a whole town to the shadow realm with a sword slash.
Now, you probably have many questions. Like, is this dude an idiot and delusional? I mean, I might be, and you might all be a figment of my imagination. But, I'm pretty sure the fact that I woke up in the armor of a blue knight, and with a light green tinge to my skin, was proof enough that I am delusional and currently dealing with it. So sue me, my coma dreams (Because I must be in a coma) were about being the Envoy of the Beginning in Naruto. What were your coma dreams about? Normal things? Fucking losers, the lot of you. I sighed to myself as I packed up.
"I just resorted to calling an imaginary audience losers to win an imaginary argument. Yep, this is definitely rock bottom, buddy." Life wasn't entirely bad as a grifter, even in the pseudo pre-technological revolution world of Naruto.
Okay, I'm lying to myself, and you. The only reason I wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere was that I'm basically too overpowered to die. I was being quite literal about the whole "sword slash to banish villages" thing. I mean, even things I punched would be banished if I really wanted to. I didn't know where they went exactly but considering it's my delusions, I'm fairly sure it's the shadow realm. I hope they don't randomly end up somewhere else because boy would that be awkward.
Also, super high-level strength and reflexes. Super speed too. 3000 Attack power apparently made you a god as far as the shinobi universe was concerned. I huffed as I adjusted the shoulder strap on my bag so I didn't accidentally slice it with my armor. Do you know what else was ridiculous? My body didn't have normal requirements for living. I haven't needed to eat or drink in the three weeks I've been here. So all I carried around was a shogi set (I haven't beaten a single person yet) and an instrument that I'm fairly sure is a harp. Or some sort of weird guitar. I don't know, I just took it off a dead guy I did find in a ditch.
I paused in thought. Hopefully, that wasn't the super cool Self-Insert that was supposed to solve this dream so I could wake up from my coma. Because that would really suck if I was supposed to find him and mentor him but accidentally let him die. But if he was the hero, then he probably wouldn't die immediately right? I mean, I don't think I'm that unlucky. I thought about it for another moment. Who the hell am I kidding? I'm in a damn coma! Of course, I'm that unlucky!
"GAH!" I shouted in frustration. Maybe my coma-addled brain would be nice and send me another dumb shounen apprentice my way?
"Aw damn it, watch where you're going!" Huh. Maybe I should pray to my brain more. It seems to solve more problems than praying to god. I blinked for a moment. Then turned to take in my surroundings. How the fuck did I end up in Konoha? I'm fairly sure (Make that 100% sure, I take pride in my map skills) that I was in a village in the upper north section of Lightning Country. Did I just accidentally my way into the protagonist? I looked down. A bunch of spilled art supplies surrounded a kid with blond pigtails. I did! I did just accidentally a protagonist! Wait a moment…
"Why do you have pigtails?" I am so ashamed of myself and my delusions. Pigtails? Could you be any more cliche, brain? If I wanted a girl Naruto to dote over, I would have just made her a tom boy and be done with it. That way I could still have my OTP. Snapping out of my thoughts, I turned back towards my soon to be overpowered protagonist. Though… the blonde girl in front of me was irritatingly cute. Especially with the way her cheeks puffed up as she was about to vent her frustration on me. I was wrong. My delusions are amazing. Best Daughter with pigtails for life.
"What's it to ya, ya jobless hobo?!" She yelled at me as she began picking up her supplies. She began to throw even more colorful insults at me after she realized her bucket of paint had been spilled all over. And all of them amounted to the same thing. Jobless. Hobo. Fuck this stupid world. I pinched my nose with my free hand. No, no, calm down. You need to wake up from this crazy dream, and she is clearly the solution. That way, you can go back to being a jobless room renter. I think that's a step up. Maybe. Anyways, fuck this kid.
"Hey, I ain't jobless. I'm…" Shit what do I say? Screw it, she's a kid, she'll buy anything, "I'm just too cool to work!" Yeah, that's it! I'm the most overpowered thing this side of the moon! I don't need a job. Though a house wouldn't be too bad, now that I think about it. She eyed me suspiciously as she put the cap back on her paint.
"So, you're just a crazy hobo?" She asked. Don't blow up the village. Don't blow up the village. Don't blow up the fucking village.
"No, I'm just a badass. How do you think I got this sweet armor?" Fucking buy it brat. I don't think my self-esteem can take being called a hobo by a kid even one more time. If I commit suicide here, I might actually die in the real world.
"I don't know… Kenichi in the warehouse district has a full set of samurai armor and he's a crazy hobo too." I winced. You know what? Screw it, I'll just prove it to her.
"How about a bet? If I can prove that I'm cool, you get me somewhere to sleep for the night. And if you think I'm not cool, then I'll give you everything in my bag." I couldn't lose five bets today to kids, right? Those four earlier shogi matches were flukes! Flukes I tell you! She walked around behind me trying to get a look at the bag. It was a basic traveler's sack with a one-sided sling. She looked back at me.
"What's in it?" She asked, still highly suspicious of my motivations. I mean, I would be too. If a green man walked up to a five-year-old kid and told them he would show them something "cool" I would call the police. That's just being a good Samaritan. I hefted it off my shoulder and pulled out my two worldly possessions. The instrument and the folded game board.
"That's all you got?" She asked annoyed. Hey, I don't need any more lip from you brat! I know I'm poor as shit right now. My feathers significantly rustled, I scowled at her.
"Well, if you don't want to take the bet-" I began before she snatched up both into her arms, and placed them next to the art supplies. What the hell? Did she just assume I lost already? Then she turned back to me expectantly. Oh, it is fucking on!
"See that cloud up there?" I asked, pointing to the cloudy sky. She nodded, following my outstretched hand. I pulled my sword out and lazily flicked it at the cloud. It's hard to explain what a tear in reality looks like, so I'll just explain what it doesn't look like. There's no gash in the sky full of multiple colors, or some crazy wormhole sucking in the entire cloud slowly. There was also no invincible force that pushed the cloud into a portal or anything of that nature. It's just there for a moment, then you get a headache, then it's gone. I turned back to the kid grinning my ass off. Naruto in the show loved cool techniques, that had to have impressed the brat.
"So you're just a crazy ninja hobo? I mean, ninja are cool, but crazy hobos are eh…" Damn it brain! You couldn't just make this easy? I mean, I would do it to more things to make it more impressive, but I'm pretty sure if I Vorpal Blade'd (Still workshopping the name) something closer to the ground, I'd get arrested. I stink-eyed the kid as she was shifting her weight between her two feet, trying to decide if it was cool or not. Eventually, she must have decided because she turned to me.
"Okay, I'll find you somewhere to stay, but I get to keep your stuff until you do something really cool." She said. I was too mentally exhausted dealing with this kid, so a good rest sounded like exactly what I needed. Funnily enough, even though I could bodily go without sleep, I found out that it absolutely hammered my mental state. And not in the "Haha hallucination" way, but the "I'm a pathetic piece of shit and this delusion is the only success I'll ever have" way. So, yeah, I decided that sleep was probably good for my soul.
"Alright, lead the way brat." Man, at least I got her to accept me. This could have been so much more painful if I had to deal with all the other shenanigans of being a Self-Insert. Village suspicion from the most powerful members of the village, associating with a known Jinchuuriki, the list just goes on and on. Hell, I didn't even go through customs, and somehow just showed up right in front of the protagonist! I mean, it makes for bad storytelling, but this is my comatose body on the line here! Screw the storytelling, bring on the final bosses!
I followed her through a meandering maze of village walkways. Now, I wasn't smart enough to make real deductions about why it was built this way, other than it was a pain in the ass to navigate. Especially as someone who had only ever seen skyline views of the place. Eventually, we made it to a building in one of the southern districts, and the girl stopped in front of one of the apartment complexes. She left some of her stuff by the stairs before turning to me. I looked at her quizzically.
"You'll sleep over there." She explained as she pointed toward an empty alleyway that was adjacent to her building. What the fuck.
"I thought I was going to stay in your house…" I said, unable to believe the audacity of this kid. Naruto paled considerably and made a disgusted look on her face. She backed away and crossed her arms in an X.
"You're already a crazy ninja hobo, don't tell me you're a pedo too?!" She asked, clearly frightened of the possibility of being associated with a pedophile. I stared her down, red eyes exhausted.
"You know, for a kid, you say some pretty hurtful stuff," I said before walking towards my designated hovel. At the very least, I could spy a fairly dry cardboard box that I could probably turn into a shelter for a couple weeks if it didn't rain. How did I know that you ask? Well, what did you think I lived in for the past two weeks? I shall miss you, Box. When both my wit and health abandoned me, you were there to comfort me in the darkness.
"You're such a weirdo." Shit, I said my praises out loud. And with that, she collected all her stuff and walked up the stairs, pointedly ignoring me.
"Damn stupid brats. Damn stupid coma. Damn stupid fucking ninja world fucking fuck fuck-" I mumbled to myself as I sat and wallowed in the much smaller, but still useful, oven box. At least I still had my pride. Or, whatever people say to delude themselves when they find themselves at the worst moment in their life. I closed my eyes to hopefully sleep away some of the depression. Maybe I could just sleep to the end of Naruto and never have to deal with anyone ever again? Ha, no, I'm not that delusional yet.
I did manage to sleep through a week with monumental effort, though.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
What the everloving hell was making that noise?
"Have you tried lifting him?" A voice whispered over my box. What?
"He easily weighs over twelve hundred pounds! Bear tried lifting him and pulled a muscle! We had to send him back to medical!" Another voice shout-whispered back.
"So, we're just resorting to trying to kill him? I mean, that feels a little tactless." A third voice said.
"Look, this guy managed to get into the village without being seen and no one even noticed he was here! For almost a whole week! The only reason we even found him was because a chunin reported a green hobo in armor sleeping next to the apartment complex of the Kyuubi container!" I'm just going to assume that was the voice that was trying to stab me. Also, I'm gonna find that chunin and rip his guts out. I am not a fucking hobo! I'm just… home-challenged. Yeah.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
"Are you sure you're not stabbing his armor, Owl?" The first voice asked, clearly laughing at the trouble this 'Owl' was having trying to stab me. A quick shift of cloth (I'm guessing he was flipping off his comrade) and then I heard the sound of more knives being pulled out.
C-Cla-Clang-Clang-Cl-Clang-Clang-Clang.
"Wow, what the hell is he made of?" One of them scoffed (It was probably Owl) and sheathed his knife. Or, I think he did. Having enough of this, I opened my eyes and stood up. Of course, crazy bullshit super speed meant I was able to catch all three of my "attackers" in the act of retreating. I was met with masks.
Oh, right, ANBU. I forgot they were a thing. You know, for as much as they're touted about in the fandom, they're pretty irrelevant for like the last thirty-five percent of the story. I looked them all over, as they watched me for any action. Wait, that one has my sword. That's no good. At least my shield was hefted onto my back still.
"You guys don't have enough Attack power to scratch me," I said as I stepped forward and took the sword from the stunned… what fucking mask was that? I looked the ANBU in the eyes.
"What are you supposed to be? A goldfish?" I mean, I'm pretty sure it was a goldfish. It had fins on the side of the mask and some scale marks around the cheeks. For some reason, the coloration was bright orange which was why I assumed goldfish. That was clearly not the right thing to say, as the man bristled and shot at me with all the force he could muster.
Clang.
Well, at least my delusions were consistent. Since I was a Yu-Gi-Oh monster, I shouldn't be able to be damaged by monsters with lower attack power. Though, thankfully, my enemies didn't blow up once they made contact.
Clang. Clang. Cl-Clang.
Right, I was getting attacked.
"Hey, do you mind not doing that? I was trying to sleep." I said, arm automatically shooting up and grabbing one of the offending ANBU by his leg, stopping his roundhouse. The ANBU flinched, realizing I now had the upper hand. The others immediately stopped attacking, realizing I now had their comrade in my grip.
"Don't worry about me! Just stop him and his evil plans!" I sent an unamused look at the ANBU in my grip. None of us here were shonen protagonists, asshole. In fact, the only shonen protagonist in this world conned me out of my only two worldly possessions and is probably gorging herself on ramen for breakfast. Now that I thought about it, the taste of my own mouth was starting to get stale.
"How the hell are you the village's secret operations group if you're this dramatic?" I asked because clearly, I wanted to know what corner of my mind these idiots came from. If I was going to have ANBU in my coma hallucinations, I was going to have good ANBU damn it. Not these clowns. They all looked at each other, before turning back to me. The one in the goldfish mask answered.
"For the record, we're the fifteenth squad sent here to try and assassinate you. All the other ones gave up once they realized they couldn't seal you either. Technically, we're T&I desk jockeys." That… was actually a pretty good reason. I blinked owlishly staring at what I now realize to be members of ANBU with little field expertise. Well, maybe we could help each other out then. I needed to get the awful taste of morning breath out of my mouth, food necessary or not, and they needed a reason to get sent back to their normal work.
"How about you buy me breakfast and I tell you what you want to know?" I asked, trying to be as sincere as possible. The two in front of me quickly picked up on it (which meant that they probably weren't lying about being T&I) and nodded in agreement. It was clear this stalemate was getting nowhere because no way was I going to kill them. Then a thought occurred to me.
"Is that why your operations mask is goldfish?" I asked, letting go of the Owl masked shinobi. The man bristled again.
"It's not fucking goldfish, god damn it! I'm fucking Carp!" Huh, must have been a sensitive spot. Though I could have sworn his two teammates both coughed to hide their laughter at his shouting.
"Yeah, Crap, whatever. Look, I'm gonna check on the brat, and then you can treat me to some meat buns. I hate morning breath." I said, turning around and walking out of the alley. I scaled the stairs, my enhanced hearing picking up the cursing from the three stooges as they picked up their third member whose leg had fallen asleep and trailed after me from the shadows. To be fair, even carrying an injured comrade, their stealth was top notch. I knocked on the brat's door. If she somehow magically died in the middle of the night, I'm going to be so pissed. She opened it a few moments later with a bright smile before catching my face.
"Oh, it's you." She said clearly nonplussed. I swallowed my grimace. Savior of the world. Savior of the world. God I hope I don't accidentally kill this kid.
"Look, I got three morons to treat me for breakfast. You wanna come along for some free food?" And to hopefully put a massive dent in their wallets. I hated being woken up early. She looked at me oddly. Jesus, lose the suspicious look already, brat! I'm not trying to corrupt your young body or anything freaky like that.
"What's in it for you?" She asked cagily.
"I want you to destroy their wallets," I said plainly. No point in hiding my intention. The kid grinned at me (it was adorable) and said she'd be back out in a moment. She came out wearing a blue sundress of all things. I stared, baffled. Which she took as an obvious flag for my supposed pedophilic tendencies and tried to pull her dress in closer.
"Why are you wearing a dress?" I asked, ignoring her hurtful hurtful labels. I had a man's ego, and I did not enjoy watching it get crushed under the boot heel of a five-year-old. She scoffed.
"You're a crazy ninja hobo, so you probably don't know this, but when people treat you to food, you wear nice clothes." She said haughtily while crossing her arms and turning her nose up at me. Unable to stand any more abuse at that point, I just walked away.
She followed me down the stairs, and once she realized who the three morons were she put myself between them and her. She patted me on my armored leg.
"Those are ANBU! What did you do?" She whispered at me unable to take her eyes off the three stooges. Honestly, given how they were acting currently (which was being dumb enough to stand in broad daylight in full gear once they realized I came back down) I was amazed that she still felt threatened by them.
"Wait, you're a five-year-old kid, how do you even know what ANBU are?" I asked incredulously. I'm fairly sure in the original show, Naruto never even met any ANBU for most of his life, filler notwithstanding. She huffed at me, putting both her arms on her hips.
"I'm eight! The academy teaches you how to not get in the way of important stuff. Like ANBU." She explained, very annoyed at my inability to identify children's ages. I brought my gauntleted hand up to my chin for a moment to help my thinking process. Eight years old huh? That means I just have to make sure the brat lives through the next eight or nine years so I can escape my coma. Hopefully, it's like every other coma dream-sequence-movie-thing and I just wake up a year after thanks to time being slowed down. I looked back at the indignant blondie.
"You're pretty small for an eight-year-old." I said. And she really was. She only really came up to about my hip, and even if the Envoy of the Beginning was ridiculously tall, that would put her around three and a half feet. My eyes then drifted over to the other shinobi I had to compare her to, and I realized that maybe I was beyond ridiculously tall. I hadn't noticed it over the past two weeks since I mainly sat down playing Shogi, but apparently, I was able to see over the heads of most people here. The girl pouted.
"Milk's icky." Man, you're way too picky to be an orphan, I laughed. Goldfish (who shall now be known as Curly) coughed into his fist, obviously wanting us to get a move on. The shonen ANBU elbowed him in the ribs, which resulted in him getting elbowed back. Then Moe (the Owl masked ANBU) slapped both of them on the side of their heads. I love my brain sometimes.
"So, Larry," I began, throwing an arm over the remaining ANBU who was wearing a bluebird mask, "where can we get some quality meat buns around here?" Of course, the kid took exception to my choice of food and frowned.
"But I want to eat Ichiraku ramen." She complained. I looked at her baffled. I was joking earlier about the whole "ramen for breakfast" bit. There's no way she would actually eat that for all her meals right? Besides, I glanced at the sun, it might not even be open, it was barely midday. Sensing my refusal, she patted me again and motioned for me to bend down. I crouched down so she could whisper in my ear.
"If you get me Ichiraku ramen, I'll eat their entire paycheck." Welp, that convinced me. I grinned at the three stooges, who were edging away from the malicious look I had on my green face.
Seeing it in person was more disturbing than I'd like to admit. Like, just where did it all go? She was inhaling it at a rate that I thought was actually impossible. And I was a Duel Monster that put down three bowls the size of my head in ten minutes. It was as if she had no gag reflex. Then I shuddered. I did not just think that about an eight-year-old. No, calm down. It's clearly all the accusations of pedophilia that are turning your thoughts that way. You are not a pedophile. Self-accusations of pedophilia aside, there was a purpose to meeting here.
"So, now that you've successfully doomed the three of us to overtime for the next two weeks, we'd like to ask you some questions." Moe asked me sinisterly. Hey, it's not my fault that T&I agents didn't know the basic habits of their most valuable resource. You'd think it'd be posted all over the place. 'Don't let strangers buy Naruto ramen or he'll defect' or something like that.
"Alright, shoot," I said, ladling some broth into my mouth. Naruto's addiction aside, it was pretty good stuff.
"Excuse me?" He asked confused. I looked at him equally confused. Why the hell did my brain not make ANBU that understood slang? Whatever, I'll just chart it down to the realisticness of this dream eating up extra brain power.
"Means start asking," I explained. He nodded.
"Name?" He asked.
"Envoy of the Beginning." What, I'm not using my real name. It's lame. This is a dream. People get to be cool in dreams.
"Right. I'll just put down Saisho." Moe muttered, aware that I wasn't lying, but probably suspecting that I was insane.
"Anyways, reason for being in Konoha?" He asked. I hummed for a moment, trying to figure out my true objective here. Eh, maybe I could just get labeled insane? That'd help a lot with explaining away random things.
"To make sure the future stays on track so I can get out of my coma." Hah! I got Owl to blink owlishly! He looked at me, searching for any tells, and then eventually gave up.
"Special skills and combat training?" He asked while making a special note of my ridiculousness.
"I can banish things to the shadow realm and am indestructible to those below 3000 Attack power. Also, hyper-senses, super speed, and strength. And I don't need to eat or drink to live." Here, I could tell for a fact he snapped his pencil in half. But, beyond that, he was the picture perfect ANBU interrogator.
"I don't think any explanation can exist for the '3000 Attack power', but what do you mean by 'shadow realm' and 'banishment'?" I looked him in the eye, took my chopstick, and flicked it in the air. It disappeared in the same reality rift as the cloud. The ANBU almost choked on his spit, as he looked intently at where the chopstick disappeared and then back at me. It was almost too much fun screwing with Moe.
"I can banish anything up to a certain size. I haven't tested it yet, but I did accidentally banish a large abandoned village. Needed my sword though." I noted while moving towards the sword on my hip. Moe grabbed my arm in a panic, stopping my movement for a second.
"That's- That's alright. I'll just take your word." He said, getting extremely skittish at the prospect of half his village just disappearing. Just half of course, I don't think I can aim the World Wiping Slash (again still deciding on the name) behind me.
"Oh man, I'm full! Thanks again, hobo and ANBU dupes." The girl said from next to me. I took in the sheer size of the stack of empty ramen bowls (twice as tall as she was standing on the counter!), and almost burst out laughing. Moe just whimpered.
"Hey, you guys know where I can get a bed to sleep on? Roughing it in cardboard is killer on the neck." Not that I could actually sustain strained muscles or misaligned bones. But I was really sick of sleeping in cardboard on a hard and dirty foundation. All three of the ANBU regarded me with looks of disdain that I could sense through their masks.
"I don't even think I can afford rent this month. I'm probably going to get kicked out." Larry mumbled, his teammates agreeing with him. Wow, now I actually felt bad.
"Well, there's always room in my alley if you need it." I offered. It was the least I could do for the poor bastards. My brain was a cruel and unforgiving place to live after all. If I wasn't there, I bet they'd all just disappear in the background to be killed off as fodder for strengthening up the villains. Two days later, all three of them showed up to the alley with sleeping bags, a tarp, and a camping cooker. Of course, Naruto on her way to school couldn't help but balk at the assortment of ninja and one overpowered idiot that were now camping out in the alley next to her.
"Is being a hobo contagious?" She asked putting a generous distance between us and herself. I scoffed.
"You've been hanging around me longer than the three stooges, brat. Besides, they're just here until they can get their next few paychecks. So, like, a month or two. Tops." I said, easing her fears of homelessness being a disease. The ANBU ( I found out that they were actually required to stay in gear as long as they were in public and my alleyway is definitely public) glared at both of us. To be honest, I still haven't figured out their names and have been just referring to them as Moe, Larry, and Curly.
"Aren't ANBU supposed to be like super ninja badasses?" The girl asked, coming over to sit down with us. Moe offered her a bowl of porridge from the pot on the camp cooker which she took to with great gusto. Jeez, what a greedy child.
"How come she gets food and I don't?" I asked petulantly.
"You know why, you green asshole," Moe said. Turns out, he was still pissed about the fact that I ate six bowls of ramen for no reason. I tried to explain to him that I could still taste it, but I think that just pissed him off more. I grumbled at the unfairness of it all.
"Yeah, cause I'm cute, and you're a crazy ninja hobo. Well, I guess it's crazy ninja hobo leader now, considering you have ANBU hobos following you." I sighed. She just wasn't going to let go of the fact that I was homeless, ever.
"Hey, we're just camping, not homeless. Unlike him, we can afford to get our own places." Larry interrupted. Screw you, Larry. I can still banish you to the shadow realm, you know? The brat put on a thoughtful face and nodded.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess you're still just a crazy ninja hobo." Was being homeless that bad in this world I dreamt up? Is my brain trying to tell me something? Should I not be renting a room and get a job? Wait, don't answer that. I don't think I could handle it. The young blonde finished her bowl before handing it back to Moe.
"Anyways, do you guys know any cool techniques?" She asked eyes bright. Pfft. Cool techniques? From the stooges that call themselves desk jockeys? Yeah right.
"I stole the Hidden Mist Technique a couple years back."
"I have a few fireball techniques."
"I can see through walls without a bloodline limit."
"That's awesome, can you show me?!" Fucking brain, can't you just go with me on this once? I want to be the cool guy of the group!
"Wait, wait, time out. You guys told me you were desk jockeys. Where the hell did this come from?" I asked. Honestly, I took their words at face value because they seemed like nice guys. Curly answered first.
"You know you don't just fall into ANBU right? Even though we've been relegated to information management and interrogation, doesn't mean we weren't field capable when we first joined. We're basically doing retirement laps before joining the regular corps." He explained. What the fuck.
"Yeah, besides, when we found you, it wasn't exactly an "assassination" mission. It had the same pay and objective, but it was mainly just watching you until you woke up. After the S-Rank nin couldn't put a dent in you, we tried sealing you. All the ink evaporated instantly when getting within three feet of you and even the one suicide technique one of the kunoichi tried didn't work. Eventually, the higher ups just put us on rotation to watch you with overtime pay." Larry continued. What the fuck.
"Yeah, then you woke up and tricked us, eating us out of house and home." Moe said, his scowl interpretable through his tone. I stalled for a moment.
"Wait, then why didn't you fight me more seriously when I woke up?" I could see Moe blinking through his mask.
"We did fight you seriously, you're just really fucking absurd." I turned to the kid, my look of confusion contrasting with her look of slowly encroaching horror.
"Yeah, the entire corps tried everything. Like I said, S-Rank techniques used by some of the village's strongest just rebounded off of you. Poison, sealing ink, anything that was brought with the intent to do you harm just evaporated, save solids. Then we tried feeding you poisonous food, and you just halfway woke up, scarfed it down, then went back to sleep." Larry repeated, highlighting exactly how hard the village's secret service tried to kill me.
"Some bastards get the ladies. Some get brains. Some get brawn. You get to be the strongest threat the Leaf village has ever encountered in the entirety of its existence. The only reason we're not running away, while trapping the shit out of the alley behind us, is because we're pretty sure your psychological profile points to you being an idiot or delusional." Curly furthered. Wow brain, you couldn't just give the information dump without shitting on me could you? Then Naruto choked as she realized something.
"Wait, you're telling me crazy ninja hobo is actually super badass?" She asked, as though her entire world was turned upside down. Finally, she gets it! Not everyone can just shrug off strikes from black ops you know?
"No, more like the world's most oblivious weapon of mass destruction." Moe corrected, pouring himself another bowl of rice porridge with toppings. Hey, wait a moment.
"Isn't Naruto one of those too?" I asked, receiving only puzzled looks. Did I say something wrong?
"Who the hell is Naruto? Don't tell me you're getting even crazier?" The blonde girl, whose name I just now realized wasn't fucking Naruto, asked. I stared at her.
"What's your name?" It wasn't like I've somehow created some crazy parallel version of Naruto right? This was still the main general plotline, right? I didn't accidentally doom myself to an unfinished story where I would never be released, right?!
"Ruko Namikaze, why?" What the ever loving-
"Ruko! Ruko, where are you?" At this, the blonde girl's ears perked up.
"Over here, Mama!" Oh my god, I'm going to fucking die. My fucking comatose body is going to deteriorate to nothingness because I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Interrupting my thoughts of despair and imminent death, a blonde woman wearing a jonin jacket peeked her head around the alley. I would have thought her very pretty (as most kunoichi were, part of the job after all) if she wasn't a fucking female version of Minato fucking Namikaze.
"Oh, there you are! I was so worried. After Ms. Iruka told me that you never showed up to today's lessons, I thought something happened!" The clearly worried woman said as she quickly scurried to her daughter, checking her over for any issues.
"Come on, Mama! I was fine. I was just with crazy super ninja hobo and ANBU." She said through squished cheeks as the woman pulled the girl's head close to her. This was so fucking surreal that I couldn't even deal with it properly. Though something about what her daughter said seemed to catch in the woman's mind.
"Crazy… super ninja… hobo?" She asked, eyes drifting towards the ANBU then back to myself. Uhhhhhh. How the hell do you meet the world's most dangerous shinobi turned kunoichi after being introduced like that? I mean, I'm literally indestructible, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to escaping Konoha via explosions and unrelenting violence.
"Err. It's not as bad as it sounds?" I said because honestly, it sounded like I was a deranged S-class homeless nin. That wasn't very far off, if only because technically I never had a home in the first- god damn it, did it to myself.
"Riiiight." The woman said, looking equally as suspicious as her daughter had upon first meeting me. Was it the armor? Or the green skin? It had to be the green skin right? She then looked at the other three in the alley with us.
"I don't know exactly why you have an ANBU detail camping out with you in the middle of Konoha, but I do want to know why you seem so interested in my daughter." She asked hand drifting towards the kunai pouch on her hip. Well, in for a penny I suppose.
"I can see the future and she's going to save the world and bring world peace." I answered honestly.
"I can't believe that fucking worked." Moe drawled as he watched the pair of blondes walk down the street towards what I assume was the Academy. I shrugged. I wasn't expecting it to work either. After hearing me say that, Minato (or Mina, I don't fucking know at this point) got the biggest smile on her face and lit up like a Christmas tree. Ruko also started dodging my direct attention and hid behind her mother. The woman smiled even broader and said: "See, he believes in you too, Ruko,".
She also encouraged me to praise Ruko more whenever I saw her, so… that happened. Even in the show it was pretty obvious that Naruto's parents loved him and had great faith in him, but this was seeing it firsthand. It was very much disturbing. Almost obsessed with her own daughter. Given the fact that I didn't know the backstory here, for all I know there could be some psychological trauma or something crazy.
Or maybe my brain's just fucking with me to make sure I don't wake up from a coma. I'm almost 90% sure that's the case. For all I know, female Minato could not have existed until that very moment where Ruko told me her name. And if that was the case, then clearly more screwy shit is gonna keep popping up until I call it quits. Well, you listen to this and you listen good, brain! I'm gonna find my way out of this dream even if I end up killing all the final bosses myself! Now, the only thing left was to track down Obito and… oh. Oh. Oooooooh.
Oh boy, I am fucked.
"I don't know why you're making that expression, and I don't really want to know. But I just want you to know that your suffering is making me really happy right now."
"Shut up, Moe."