Author's note: Unless otherwise specified, Naruto is speaking in his world's version of Japanese in this story. Now on with the story.
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"Awesome!" Naruto yelled as he looked out the window at the front of the strange vehicle he was riding in in amazement when he awoke to find the vehicle traveling through the streets of a strange and crowded city, the likes of which he had never seen before in his - admittedly limited - travels.
During the ride he had mostly pretended to sleep through and had actually partially slept through, the wheeled conveyance that Murudaku-san had called a "kuruma" that was moved along a black paved road like a train on a track by a motor like on a boat had traveled South to a massive city, at a pace that would give even the fastest of ninja some trouble. The past twenty-four hours had been the strangest in his life, and this city which was so unlike Konoha or the Fire Country Capitol was the strangest thing he'd seen in this new world by far. Hopefully, the massive library that contained the collected knowledge of this world that Murudaku-san had told him about when he'd been talking him into traveling with his group would have enough on the sealing arts to help him figure out how to correct whatever mistake he'd made and get back home.
Ero-senin would undoubtedly be working on his end as well, and according to Murudaku-san, if a portal opened up where the one that had spat him out had been, it would undoubtedly make the news, and he would be able to get back before Ero-senin opened another one. If Murudaku-san who had admitted to living in a hospital was to be believed, he knew the secret to flying in this world, and could get him back to where he'd first appeared in this world in a couple of hours if Ero-senin ever turned up. Since he had seen a flying thing in the air that wasn't a bird and looked to be a large thing that was far away rather than a small thing that would otherwise be close enough to hit with a kunai before he'd left with the group, he had chosen to believe Murudaku-san despite the fact that he was crazy enough to need to be kept hospitalized. The fact that it appeared that they lowered the bar for permanent hospitalization in this world also helped in this as well.
He knew that leaving the area had most likely been exceedingly foolish, and that he probably should have stayed a while longer in case Jiraiya ended up opening a portal back home over the next couple of days, but as Murdoku-san had pointed out, this wasn't his home, he couldn't use Chakra or do Ninjutsu here to protect himself, and the customs here were different. If an adult had caught him hanging around the "Rest Stop" for more than a few hours, hitai-ate or no hitai-ate, they would call the local police, and he would be placed somewhere where he might not be able to learn what he'd done wrong with the seal he created, or be able to get to the where the portal would be if it ever opened again. Considering what had happened when he'd made the mistake of going out without his hitai-ate in that one town, he knew that that was a possible outcome. Being chased by that overly persistent truant officer had been downright embarrassing.
When he'd asked about possibly going to the local government for help, he'd been informed that people here would think he was crazy if he told them where he was really from, and lock him up in the hospital because of it. Considering the fact that he would have thought that someone claiming to be from another world was crazy if he encountered them back home before this had happened, he believed it. Being locked up in the hospital was one of the worst things that could ever happen to a ninja, especially since you had to quit being a ninja when you got out. He'd heard whispers and rumors about it happening to this or that ninja over the years, but he didn't know anyone who actually had been locked up in the hospital for any length of time. Back home, you had to be really bad off to be locked up in the hospital, like Orochimaru crazy or worse. Here, if Murudaku-san was to be believed, the threshold for being locked in the hospital was apparently much lower.
From what he'd seen of him so far, Murudaku-san wasn't violent, and didn't seem any crazier than Kakashi-sensei or Ero-senin, and while a bit hyper, he was nowhere near as nuts as Maito Gai. He was nice like the three of them were though. He'd even forgiven him for almost hurting him after he'd flipped out when he'd discovered that he couldn't use his Chakra and had thought that he and the group he was with might have had something to do with it, and had done his best to comfort him.
Yesterday, before he'd found himself in an unfamiliar world, had been like just about every other day he'd spent with Jiraiya while the man had recovered from what had happened when he'd lost control after he'd released four tails of the Kyuubi's power and nearly killed him. After Ero-senin had met with his local contacts in order to gather useful intel for Konoha, they had spent the rest of the morning focusing on Seals. They'd had lunch on the road, and then, they had spent the afternoon doing some training in order for Ero-senin to get back into shape, and him to keep in shape. That evening, as the sun had been going down, he had worked on the personal Seal project that he'd been working on independent of his studies.
He'd created the seal in hopes of finding Sasuke with it, but so far, no matter how much he'd tweaked it, it hadn't worked the way he had wanted it to. Yesterday evening, which had been mid-afternoon in this world, had been the first time he'd seen anything with the seal, and shortly afterward, while he was wondering who the random group he was looking down at instead of Sasuke was, the thing had sucked him in and dumped him into a strange world where he couldn't use his Chakra no matter how hard he tried despite the fact that he could still feel it.
The landing in this world had been somewhat painful, but not nearly as painful as it would have been if he hadn't been trained to survive such a fall and flipped in mid-air, landing on his feet rather than his head. Fortunately, he had ended up landing amongst a group of some rather nice if strange people. He knew he shouldn't be so trusting of people, especially after Mizuki and Kabuto, but the people here seemed to genuinely care about him, and were willing to help him until he found a way back home.
If he found a way back home.
When he'd first landed, he'd been dazed, confused, exceedingly upset, and had thought he'd landed in another country, which meant that he would have had to run around for a few days in order to find Ero-Senin, which would have been annoying and inconvenient. Then, Murudaku-san had introduced himself and asked him what had happened. It had been while he had been explaining to Murudaku-san what a Ninja was since the man had never seen one before that his Kage Bunshin Jutsu had failed to work for him. Over the past year that he'd been a ninja, nothing like this had happened to him before. After the Kage Bunshin had failed a second time even though he'd carefully drawn up his Chakra and done the handseal perfectly, he had tried the tree-walking exercise only to find that his Chakra had failed him there as well.
He'd rather understandably been upset, and had lashed out at the first person he could think of, which happened to be Murudaku-san who had been speaking for the group since he was the only one who was fluent in his language, since it was similar to one that was spoken in a country in this world. Before he could seriously harm Murudaku-san, the white haired man with eyes like his had barked out an order that he'd been trained to automatically obey back at the Academy, and before he'd even realized what he'd done, he found himself standing at attention. He'd have to fix that problem later before an enemy spotted it and exploited it. Afterward, despite the fact that he'd tried to hurt him, Murudaku-san had done everything that he could to calm him down, and had been very nice to him. He'd even done that thing where he'd played with his hair like the Old Man used to do back when he was little when he'd started shaking when he realized it was possible that he'd never get back home when the sun had set and Ero-senin had failed to correct whatever mistake he'd made and not shown up to retrieve him.
It had been when Murudaku-san had carefully explained that he was in a different world from the one he'd lived in all his life, and that they didn't use Chakra here the same way that he did back home that he understood why his Chakra had failed him for the first time. Murdoku-san had heard about some things that were similar to his Chakra when he'd been in the region where the people who spoke his language lived, and had been reasonably certain that there would be some books on the subject at the library in the city where he lived since there were books on just about everything from everywhere there because it was one of the world's major cities.
They had waited until after this world's sunset for Ero-senin to fix the seal on his end just in case, but nothing had happened, and he'd ended up leaving with the group because they couldn't wait with him any longer, and they had decided that they couldn't leave him behind because he had no food, no money, and couldn't speak the local language, and there were very few if any around here who could. He'd tried to convince them that he'd be fine on his own, and that he could hunt for food if he needed to, but Murudaku-san had pointed out that he didn't know the local laws and customs, such as the fact that you needed a hunting or a fishing license in order to hunt or fish without being hassled by the local police. Where Murdoku-san and his friends lived was less than a day away from where he'd landed, so if Jiraiya ever managed to fix the seal, he could get him here and therefore back home in less than a day the usual way for this world, and even quicker by flying machine.
He knew that leaving with them was a stupid thing to do and it was possible that he was being tricked and captured, but these people genuinely seemed to be concerned about him, and they looked at him the way some of the nice people in other towns he and Ero-senin had stayed in had, rather than the way most of the people back home did. If he was stuck here for a long time or forever, it would be better to be with people who cared about him and were willing to help him. There was no guarantee that the next group of people he met would be as nice, and Murudaku-san had said as much, and more when he'd told him about this world and life in it.
It had been when he'd seen the "Kuruma" thing, he'd finally been fully convinced that he really was in a completely different world. There was nothing like this back home. The kuruma thing was powered by something that sounded like a boat engine, and it traveled on a strange black road on which a number of other kuruma things also traveled. They had used the kuruma thing to get to an isolated area where a larger enclosed black kuruma with a diagonal red stripe which had a broken wheel was waiting.
Eventually, they got the large black kuruma fixed and started traveling towards the city in which Murudaku-san and his friends lived. A city in which there would be a library where, hopefully, he would find a book that would tell him what he'd done wrong this time so he could go home. Even though he'd considered the possibility of it happening, he couldn't imagine not being able to go home ever again. He'd miss everybody terribly, and he still had to fulfill his promise to Sakura and free Sasuke from that Orochimaru jerk's clutches and bring him back home.
He'd sworn that he'd never go back on his promises.
Murdock winced slightly as he took one last look at the blond kid who had practically landed in their laps as B.A. dropped him off back at the V.A. since his 48 hour pass was up. He hadn't liked being less than completely honest with the boy, but coming and staying with them until they could get him set up somewhere was better for the kid than whatever would happen to him in the world he'd left behind, if he was even able to return. From what he'd heard from the boy as he'd tried to comfort him, the kid would be extremely lucky to see twenty in his home world. He'd been exceedingly lucky to have seen thirteen if even half of what he had said in an attempt to convince him that he would be fine on his own was true.
Hannibal and B.A. both seemed to agree with him that the boy would be better off here as well. At least here, the kid had a shot at life, and could be just about anything he wanted, if the papers Face said his contact could make for him were good enough.
Amy sighed a half hour later when they pulled into her apartment complex's parking garage. She didn't know exactly how she'd been roped into this, but she had been persuaded to let Naruto stay at her place. Despite the fact that she'd agreed, she still had some serious reservations about doing so. It wasn't like the kid seemed to be a bad kid, but she didn't know him, she didn't speak his language, and she'd seen the worried looks the team had been giving the boy and each-other. She'd heard some stories about child soldiers that worried her as well.
The boy whose name was Naruto would most likely be stuck with her for the long haul. If the person who had been teaching the child those Seal things that had caused him to land in their world and was presumably an expert at them couldn't fix what the kid had done wrong in four hours, there was a chance that he would never be able to fix whatever had gone wrong, and the longer it took, the more likely it became that it wouldn't or couldn't be fixed from either end. There had been no reports of similar phenomena to the one she and the rest of the team had witnessed occurring at the rest stop they'd been at as they'd listened to the radio overnight. All of the news in that area had been focused on the fact that the National Guard had invaded a small and sleepy Northern California town, arrested Martin James' cult, and freed a number of young people they'd been holding hostage, ending his reign of terror in the region.
As she let the kid into her apartment, she hoped and prayed that the kid knew how to use a toilet and a bath. Things would be rather awkward otherwise. They were awkward enough already, considering the fact that she didn't know a word of Japanese. Using a bunch of sweeping hand gestures, she'd led the boy who had rather politely taken his odd sandals off at the door on a tour through her apartment before heading towards the linen cupboard in order to fetch sheets and a blanket to lay out on the couch which would be the boy's bed for the time being.
It had been while she'd gone into the kitchen in order to get herself a drink that she found herself wondering exactly what the kid who had missed dinner and breakfast, and had come from a world which could be populated by any number of odd creatures, and cultures that were alien to her ate.
Edited 8/5/12