Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters or places. I only own the characters from Earth/our world. Even then, they are based on actual friends of mine.

Chapter 2: The Rain Village

KATIE

Wet. I'm wet -- soaked to the bone. Water droplets splatter against my face as I lie on my back in a large puddle. Groaning, I sit up and open my eyes. The heavy rain blurs everything around me. I try to peer through it, but to no avail. I can make out no shapes -- no movement.

"Where am I?" I speak the question aloud to her a voice -- to hear something other than the pouring rain.

Then I remember. My head jerks to the right and left -- to where Kaitlyn and Ashley had been. Nothing. I swallow, wiping rainwater from my eyes with a wet sleeve -- and not doing much good -- and stand.

"Kaitlyn?" I call, becoming more frantic with each name. "Sam? Jessica? Ashley? Jowan? Kevin? J.P? Anyone!" I hug my arms tightly to my chest. "Hello?" My voice is weak now, forlorn.

The rain is the only answer, hissing against the ground. Swallowing, I stumble forward. My jeans are stiff; my sweater is plastered to my skin. My hair hangs heavy from my head, a couple of shades darker than its normal dirty-blonde and streaming water down my face and neck. Wet -- wet and cold. What I wouldn't give for an umbrella.

I blink and shake water from my eyes, looking around again. There's a difference in shadows ahead of me. I splash forward a bit faster and an awning comes into blurred view. It shelters a bench, and I sink down onto the concrete seat, grateful for a rest from the downpour.

A shiver runs down my spine as I lean back against the wall. My heart sinks. "There's no way I'm at school anymore," I say to myself. "But where am I, and how did I get here? Was it the lightning?" I bite my lip. "I've got to be dreaming."

I sit there, hunched over and shivering with my eyes closed, for a time. The rain gradually reduces to a drizzle, and I lift my head to look around. Pipes. There are pipes everywhere, and the buildings they run up, down, across, and between reach high into the sky.

It looks incredibly familiar, but I can't quite place where I've seen it before. The rain now seems somewhat significant. I rub my eyes as I try to work it out.

Male voices drift through the air. I open my eyes, glancing to the left. Two men are walking my way. I stiffen, alarm bells ringing in my head. One of the men points at me, yelling in a foreign tongue. Something bright flashes on their foreheads.

I suddenly realize what they are -- where I am. They are shinobi, and I'm in the Rain Village. This is impossible!

My mouth goes dry as an angry expression twists the man's face. The other one elbows him and says something softly, a tilted grin on his face. I don't like that smile. I have to get out of there before they decide to act!

Praying that my sneakers still have good traction, I jump up and run. Cries of alarm sound behind me, but I don't look back, pumping my arms and pushing as much power into my legs as I can. I need speed if I'm to get away; really, though, I have no hope of outrunning two shinobi.

Using a thick pipe to tighten my turn without loosing speed, I lunge down a side street. I spot a door, and after shooting a frantic look behind me, I grab the handle and twist. It's unlocked. I open it enough to slip through and close it as quietly as I can behind me. Hopefully I had enough of a lead that they didn't see me.

I turn and spot stairs. Up is the last direction I should go; they could corner me. Taking a deep breath, I leap up the stairs two at a time. It doesn't matter which direction I go. They'd follow my water trail anyway.

The stairs lead to a doorway -- the doorway to a balcony running around the outside of a building. Doors, stairs, catwalks -- I rush through the maze of concrete and pipes, hoping that somehow they would lose my trail. The last path leads to a ladder that runs to the roof.

Mist swirls down from the sky, a far cry from the previous downpour. If it had been truly raining, I would never have considered climbing the metal rungs, but I do. Hand over hand -- foot over foot -- I scale the ladder with less speed than I like. My muscles ache from their constant use. Am I that out of shape?

With one third of the ladder left to go, I hear a yell and look down. Several levels below, the men have spotted me. I look up. Can I make it?

My heart thunders against my ribs and I push onward. As I pull myself over the lip of the roof, I glance back down at my pursuers. They're running up the walls! I'd forgotten about that!

With a strangled cry of fear, I leap forward from the edge, running away from the ladder. Two steps -- four -- six -- I turn my head forward and promptly slam into something hard, falling back onto the ground.

The clouds open up above me, resuming the heavy rain. I open my eyes to see sandals and white sock-like bindings. Dark pants are cut off mid-shin with a black cloak dropping to the knees above it. My heart skips a beat as my eyes lock on to the first red and white-rimmed cloud.

Akatsuki. I can't breathe. It has to be Pain. I'm in the Rain Village at the feet of an Akatsuki member -- who I'd run into. Who else could it be?

The person asks a question in a voice lighter than I expected. My eyes snap up to focus on an orange mask. I nearly choke as my heart leaps up into my throat. Tobi.

He cocks his had and then looks up from me. Saying something in a commanding voice, he steps around me to stand between me and the ladder. I stare forward and something moves in the shadows of an overhand before me. I catch sight of a flash of yellow. Deidara.

The voices of the men chasing me sound behind me and I stiffen. Tobi answers them flippantly. After murmuring one of the few Japanese phrases I know -- "thank you" -- the men run off. Several heartbeats pass before Tobi moves again to return to my front.

He stares at me for a moment before holding out a hand and asking a question that I've heard a lot in anime and can thus understand. "Are you okay?"