Chapter Two:

In Which No One Panics At All. Really.

Naruto had trained most of his entire life to be an elite career ninja. Years of mental training, agonizing routines of physical conditioning, tortuous weapons training – all rigorously ignored and failed in in new and innovative ways. He'd managed to be thoroughly unprofessional in nearly every way, and considering that it was pretty much his first day on the job, he felt entirely justified in freaking out.

After gaping slack-jawed at the substitution of trees and dirt for things like walls and carpet and cats, he strange clearing that surrounded them, and even the fact that he was touching Sasuke, he pulled himself together in a swift and professional manner.

Eventually. It all depending on the interpretation of "professional", "swift", and "the truth".

There were dozens of lessons in the academy about being lost in a strange location. Naruto had even attended a few of them. Distantly, he recalled Iruka telling him… telling him…

Okay.

He was sure there were useful and easy acronyms and hints about what he was supposed to do. None of them were helping him now, so he had to help himself.

First duty: Was he ok?

Well, surprisingly yes. He crawled his way out from the bottom of the pile, trying not to hit noses or touch anything he'd regret. His own nose hurt like a son of a bitch, of course, but it would heal. There were bits of blood on his uniform, but he wouldn't have become a ninja if that bothered him.

Second: His teammates?

A little harder. No blood puddles, but that didn't tell him the whole story. Of course, blood puddles were just about as far he'd gotten in first aid. Mainly, because the first page of the second chapter of the First Aid handbook had been: "Blood Puddles? Not your problem anymore!" It then recommended moving on to the next triage patient.

Still, he had to give it a shot. He could reach Sakura's arms, and after much internal debate, he grabbed her wrists and tugged her until she became unknotted from the pile.

Still no blood. A good start, and a good sign. No exposed white bits, nothing that looked like raw meat – she was probably ok.

Sasuke.

Naruto steeled himself. He was a ninja. He'd eaten his own cooking. He could deal with disgusting things. Horrible things. Maybe he'd even get hazard pay from it.

Inhaling deeply, he touched Sasuke's skin, grabbed his ankles, and tugged the other boy out from under Kakashi.

Unfortunately, he hadn't packed any germ killers in his knapsack, or he'd be bathing in it. He'd have to burn all of his clothes, just in case they were infected by Uchiha-ness. He's miss his jumpsuit.

Again. No blood, no meat bits, and Uchiha were resilient bastards anyway.

Kakashi was… well, he was harder.

One of the most important lessons young students had in the academy was (to summarize) "Your teammates and you: How not to die". Jonin were the most dangerous and some of the longest-lived breeds of shinobi. You didn't become a long-lived shinobi by being a deep sleeper.

However, a light sleeper would've woken up now, surely. It wasn't like Naruto had been particularly quiet in calling Sasuke a long-limbed pointy-ankled son of a … well. He hadn't been particularly quiet at all, and if he hadn't woken up from that, it was possible he was actually hurt somehow.

Touching a jonin was a large risk. Touching a sleeping jonin was actually a legal cause of death that could be put on a death certificate. "Death by Stupidity" could also be substituted instead.

Luckily, Naruto had a clever plan.

Unfortunately, he went with his first intuition instead.

He crouched down next to the long body made of elbows. "Sensei?". Sadly, there wasn't a stick he could use, or even a convenient ten-foot pole. He cupped his hands close to his mouth, and leaned close enough to topple over. "HEY SEN-"

He didn't even feel it. Hell, he hadn't even realized it had happened until two minutes later, when he woke up again on his back. He did feel the bruise immediately start to form. "Son of a bitch! Sensei, that hurt!"

Kakashi leaned over him, white hair drooping nearly close enough to touch. Long fingers twisted in strange seals, exuded shaky green light, and touched Naruto's forehead. The other hand prodded at his ears, his eyelids, and the crook of his neck. He even pulled down one of Naruto's eyelids before the genin could try to smack him away. "Sensei, your hands are cold!"

Kakashi shook his head. He unfolded like a picnic umbrella, legs untwisting until he stood upright. "Any injuries I should know of? Anything feel broken? Twisted?"

"'m fine." Naruto shook his head, pulling himself away from Kakashi. "Why're you so concerned about me all the sudden? You didn't seem to care when you ass-poked me the whole way into that lake at the bell-test thing."

Kakashi made a noise in his throat, a little like a sigh, but it somehow gave the impression – If not the visual match – of a smile. If not a smile, then at least not total disapproval. "We have to watch out for each other, now."

Naruto stopped. "Oh god, you've gotten creepy all of the sudden! Sasuke, Sakura, help! Kakashi's gone all weird!"

He tried to sit up quickly. Yeah, maybe he wasn't actually fine after all. He threw up. It was actually harder than it sounded. His nose had only moments ago been crushed against the ground, and, well, the less said about the ugly picture, the better.

Kakashi watched him knowingly, the bastard. Naruto breathed, checked himself to make sure nothing had gotten on his shirt, and stood carefully, brushing himself off. "Ugh". It was a bad sign when he was glad his nose was broken. At least he couldn't smell his own breath.

Still, that was duty the second checked off the list. Teammates OK. Well, teammates out of his hands now – they were Kakashi's problem. He seemed to be dealing with it, already helping Sakura up.

Third duty: Stay calm and reconnoiter the immediate area.

"Sensei?" Naruto asked. "Have we connoitered this place already?"

"Are you sure he doesn't have brain damage?" Sakura asked, switching focus between Naruto to Kakashi's glowing finger between her eyes.

"For the tenth time, yes." Kakashi replied. "And reconnoiter means "check out an area in a military way." Good thinking, though."

Naruto's chest puffed up. Of course it was good thinking – it was his. Well, alright, it was the academy's, and the textbook authors, and over a hundred years of shinobi warfare before that, but the thought counted.

"Start with a round perimeter check. Stay within sight for, say, ten meters outside of the circle radius." He gestured at the burnt in lines that ran around them, suspiciously like the symbols Naruto remembered from the casing of the scroll. "After that, stay within shouting distance. Do you have your weapons?"

Naruto patted himself down. He had ninja-wire sewn into the hems of his jacket, of course, and he had some poison in one of his pockets, if it hadn't gotten lost in the wash. "Wait a second, I know it's here somewhere…" Let's see. A Gum wrapper, store receipts, loose change, half of an apple, a small and concussed mouse…

"First mission." Kakashi murmured, just loud enough that Naruto could pick it up. "It's their first mission. Can't kill them on their first mission."

It would be slightly disturbing if Naruto hadn't heard something like it every day he was in class. He shrugged it off. "Found it!" He held up his best kunai. It was scratched, dented, and slightly bent to the left. He'd grown used to the way it was off balanced, and using any other kunai made his aim awful. The only reason his aim was awful, of course.

Technically, he also had a handful of shuriken in one of his pouches and a small razor concealed in his shoe, but he wanted his best weapon on hand.

Kakashi was silent for a long moment. "Change of plans. Stay within sight range at all times. Shout if you observe anything out of the ordinary. Do you remember Ninja Rule 45?"

"…No."

Kakashi nodded. "Good. Just making sure."

It looked like a forest. Not a large forest, like Naruto was used to, but he had it on reasonable authority that Konoha was seen as "weird" by other nations for having trees that could be twenty stories tall. These trees were a squat five stories, at best, and not nearly as wide around as a building.

The underbrush was comprised mainly of thorns, with razors, angry badgers, and all natural holistic knife-edges thrown in. He'd tried to hack his way through some of them, but they kept denting his knife.

Other than that, things looked absolutely normal.

Okay, so that owl had three eyes, one in the middle of its forehead. And maybe it had an extra set of arms in the middle of its chest. Naruto was fairly sure that was unusual, but decided not to mention it in case he was wrong.

What else? Oh, just several mushrooms in different colors, three feet tall and nearly reaching his shoulder. A bush full of flowers retracted sharply as he came into contact and craned long tendrils when he walked away. He passed a tree that was somewhat like a willow, but with all of the vines hanging straight up. It was glowing.

He walked slowly back to camp. "This place is screwed up."

"Thank you for your report." Kakashi drawled. "Anything in particular?"

Naruto thought for a long instant. "You know, one thing kind of sticks out."

"Oh?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"I can't believe I missed it at first, really." Naruto scratched at his ear. "I'm not hungry."

"You're not an Akimichi, Naruto." Sakura rubbed her eyes with both palms.

"Nah. I mean, it's night now, right? It was day then. I missed breakfast, so if it really were night, I'd probably be eating my own leg now, you know? I don't think any time has passed for us."

Sakura closed her mouth. "Huh. Sensei, I think he's on to something."

Kakashi stroked his chin. "I'm impressed, Naruto. I didn't think you'd catch onto that aspect." Before Naruto could start preening, he continued. "A few things, though."

He began to pace. "There hasn't been any rain here for several days, but it stormed in Konoha just last night. The trees here are too short to be close to the village. If anything, we'd be closer to, oh, the North-West edge of Fire country, but there are jonin training exercises there right now. The trees – well, they speak for themselves, but it's the thing on your shoulder, Sakura, that seems the most obvious."

Naruto whipped his head around quickly, but glacier-slow, horrified eyes creeping further to her left. It was the size of a kitten, and in several ways, it was similar. Kittens had four legs. This had at least twelve. So, it was like three kittens, stretched out into a long segment, with its whiskers used as antennae, and feelers.

Sakura opened her mouth.

Calmly, Kakashi covered his mouth with his hand, using the other to pluck the probably-not-a-kitten off her shoulder. It stretched out, weaving like a snake across Kakashi's hand, and then across his shoulder, down his back, and finally descending his legs to scutter off on the ground and disappear.

Sakura made a small whimpering noise as Kakashi's hand left her mouth.

"And there's one more thing you missed, Naruto."

"Eh?" He glanced around the clearing again. Sasuke trying to hide that he'd thrown up even worse than Naruto had, Sakura having a small mental breakdown, and Kakashi watching with crossed arms and a slightly incredulous expression. He tried again. Cats, his pack, the burnt in circle… "Nope! Don't think so."

"Idiot." Sasuke said quietly.

Naruto chose to be a grown up, just for shock factor. He ignored Sasuke. "If you mean about testing to see whether this is a genjutsu, well, I thought about it. But, I'm going to admit upfront that I'm more likely to blow us all up than figure anything out about that you don't already know."

"Idiot". Sasuke repeated, but the tone was slightly off from the usual banter.

Nope. Still ignoring him. "Oh! That damn scroll!" It was laying to the side, shuffled off when everyone was picking themselves up. It didn't even have any vomit on it, which put it a step above Sasuke. He muttered, picking it up and inspecting it. "I liked the Forbidden One better, and that included studying."

"Naruto." He reached out and grabbed Naruto's shoulder, using his other hand to cock the blond's resisting head upwards. Instantly, his well-honed academy skills came into play. Observations ran through his eyes and through his ears, occasionally striking in-between.

"Oh."

Belatedly, (some would say FAR too belatedly), Naruto realized he actually was an idiot.

The trees above the clearing were angled so that, okay, he could give himself at least a little credit for not seeing it at first, but there really wasn't any saving face from not seeing the three giant moons taking over half the sky.

The largest moon was unlike anything Naruto had ever seen. The pale moon Naruto knew from Konoha could be covered with a thumb even at its fullest point during harvest season. It could be ignored because frankly, how important could a lump of dirt in the sky be?

There was no possible way Naruto could ignore this one. In fact, he lost major Cool Ninja Points ™ for missing it so long. It was either unbelievably huge or incredibly close. Neither option comforted him. It was a bright blue that only cast a thin sheen light onto the clearing. There were swirls of green – like storms, or like particularly cool tattoos – around the middle and poles.

The second moon – and that was ANOTHER point at which Naruto should've clued himself in on the weirdness earlier – was far smaller than the big blue one, maybe a third or forth the size. Its color was a little harder to tell, but it looked like a purple or dark blue color. The only reason why he could make out the color at all was that it seemed to be almost shiny, catching the light of the behemoth moon it passed in front of.

Rising from the east, the third moon was a reddish lump, malformed and pock-marked. It was deformed, like something had shattered it - or bitten parts of it off. Until this point, he never needed to think about anything bigger than Konoha, or at the maximum, the land of fire, and now was searching in vain for something to compare it to. Everything he'd ever seen on a map could probably fit onto that missing piece of the smallest moon and not even be noticed.

Speechless, he turned toward Kakashi.

"We'll work on your observation skills later."

Sasuke did not actually snort, but there was the definite absence of one, and Naruto could fill in the blanks very well, thank you very much. The brunette was still staring up at the moons. Naruto could understand that. His neck was starting to hurt, just as the pain from his nose was going away. He felt like he was going to get a permenant crick in his neck from staring at the moons intently, unblinkingly, waiting for the universe to right itself and go back to normal.

He waited a long, slow moment. Maybe it just had bad timing.

Still, that was duty three completed.

Kakashi glanced at the far tree line, his back facing Naruto. He seemed to adjust his hair, retying his forehead protector before turning back around. "Well. This is a tricky situation. If I would have known this was going to happen, I would have …"

"Run off into the sunset screaming? Gotten incredibly drunk beforehand and packed enough booze to run a bender that would last for weeks? Henged into one of the other teachers and stolen their team instead? Fake a terribly contagious flesh-eating disease? Told Makimono to organize her own damn library? Bribed the Hokage with some really, really good smut to change your mission? Got disbarred from being a ninja, live a quiet life as a farmer, and age into senility without knowing that this kind of thing even had the possibility of happening?"

Kakashi paused. "Pretty much."

Naruto glanced at his teacher hopefully. "Any chance that this is a genjutsu?"

"Nope."

"Are you positive I don't have brain damage, and that this isn't an elaborate life-before-my-eyes dream?"

"Fairly sure."

"Think the entire village banded together and tried to prank me? Because, if so, I have to admit I'm kind of impressed."

"Pretty doubtful."

"…Crap."

Kakashi nodded.

He had a horrible thought. It didn't happen often, and when it did, it was usually because someone was holding up a sign with "This is a horrible thought" on it, perhaps conking him on the head with it. "Kakashi," he began softly, keeping his voice carefully even, "we're not going to be rescued, are we?"

Sakura froze, and turned towards them. Even Sasuke leaned in. Were his eyes wide? Nah. That'd be an expression.

Kakashi gave a long sigh, his shoulders slouching slightly. "No one would even begin to look for us until the client came home and found the mission uncompleted. She would complain, and that would alert the first level of bureaucracy. They would investigate, but they wouldn't find much, would they?" Kakashi moved his head towards the scroll. "The only evidence anything happened to us is right there in the palm of your hand."

Sakura blinked. "They'll think we ran away from Konoha on our first mission?"

Kakashi shrugged. "To be fair, Makimono's place should've been at least a low chuunin's problem. I've seen people run for less."

"I don't want to be a missing-nin! I have to be in Konoha to be Hokage!" Not to mention that Konoha's economy would take a huge slump. There wouldn't be missions for the chuunin who usually chased him after pranks. There would be a sudden surplus on meats and vegetables – hell, without it's biggest investor, Ichiraku might go out of business.

Oh, and Kakashi would be gone, the Last Uchiha missing, something about the Fox, etc, etc.

Sasuke wasn't the only one pale. "Missing-nin?" He whispered.

"I don't care!" Naruto shouted. He straightened up like his spine was made of steel. "So what? It's not our fault that we came here. Well, technically it was, but it was more of an accident. There's no way I'm becoming a missing-nin because of an ACCIDENT. It's not nearly cool enough."

"Cool enough?" Kakashi asked. Was he interested or angry? Hard to tell.

"Trust me. If I wanted to become a missing-nin, you'd know." He'd never seriously considered actually doing it, but a long month of detention cleaning up a pre-school had made him just as close to snapping as he'd ever get. He had a vast, amazing plan that involved explosions, and banners, and the pictures of Sarutobi's beach trip.

"But right now, I'd prefer being called a criminal – I'd have to be standing in front of those cantankerous, evil geezers, but I'd be home." He lowered his tone, serious and narrow-eyed. "We are getting home. I don't know how, but hell, we don't know how we even got here in the first place and we got here all the same. The fact of the matter is that I'm not giving up on my dream. Sure, this place is weird as hell. Sure, we might not know where we are, or what's going on, or even why this has happened to us. I'm pretty used to that. But I do know this: I'm a ninja of Konoha. I'm on my first mission, and I plan to finish it!" He finished at the top of his lungs.

In another life, there would've been triumphant music, and possibly a small lightshow. In this life, there was a loaded silence. Kakashi clapped politely.

"Very nice. I like your dedication."

"I think I'm deaf." Sakura said loudly, one hand in her ear.

"What mission?" Sasuke gestured at the clearing. "I don't see Makimono's scrolls here."

He grinned. "Just the one." Naruto held the casing in the air. "We still have a mission as Konoha ninja!" He unfurled it, squinting in the dark to make out the letters. "Okay. Second Hokage, yeah. Mission request, got that. High-rank mission for frontal-assault or assassination team." He paused. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem." He read on. "Mission summary: Help the united army of magica…" He folded up the scroll. He cleared his throat. "I think we should give up."

"Oh, let me see that!" Sakura grabbed the scroll from Naruto after a brief tug of war. Her eyes drifted down the page quickly. "Help the united army of magical girls to defeat the encroaching force of Oni and end the eternal war."

There was a long silence.

"I… I don't know which is more impossible." Sakura started weakly. "The "magical girls" or the fact that it's an A-rank mission."

"Are we talking magical girls like Princess Gale?" Kakashi interrupted. He was silent for a long moment. "I believe," he said lowly, "Naruto is correct. It is our duty as shinobi to complete our mission. We must meet our clients."

Sasuke glared. Naruto wasn't sure who he was actually targeting with his glare, but it was a solid stare all around. "You can't actually believe that, can you? Magic isn't real."

"Wait a second. We're on a weird world – a world weirder than even I could've come up with. We were taken here by a scroll owned by a woman with more cats than teeth. Our mission specifically mentioned an army of oni – and you're hung up on the magic part of it? Are you sure you haven't seen the three moons?"

Ah, there was a full-fledged glare. "Anyone who claims to have magic is a charlatan and a confidence trickster. There are no ghosts, no oni, no magical girls, and certainly no mission here."

"Weeeeeeell…" Kakashi said, suddenly beside Sasuke, head peaking over the boy's shoulder, "that's not quite correct."

Other than the wide eyes, sharp breath, and the fact that he fell backwards on his ass, Sasuke showed no expression of surprise.

"I'd have to re-read the scroll to make sure-"

"Ahem." Naruto cleared his throat, gesturing pointedly.

"Well, actually read the scroll for the first time," he admitted, "but if a ninja shows up at a mission in possession of the mission scroll, all boxes of bureaucracy checked and such, it's usually taken for granted that they've accepted it. So, that's point one. Second point? Well, our duty as proud ninja of Konoha to honor a contract as it's written and give aid within reason, etc."

"Oh my god." Sakura gasped. "You have a thing for magical girls, don't you?"

"Third point," Kakashi said louder than necessary, "Do you any of you have any better ideas?"

And surprisingly, that was that.