Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would be writhing on the floor spewing my guts out in joy and generally in a state that would render me incapable of writing fanfiction.

7:00 PM

Naruto sat up with a lurch and immediately banged his head on the ceiling. He had expected to be smashed to peices, if not severely bruised and wounded, after such a long fall down the dark tunnel. During the fall, he had felt like someone turned him inside out, smashed him, and then streched him out into a thin sheet before tearing him in two and then squishing him back together. He had believed that it was the end of him. However, now he found himself very much intact and alive, albeit slightly cramped.

Shaking his head in effort to clear his scrambled mind and blurry vision, he looked around and found himself sitting inside a small, rectangular metal box with a large round window in front of him. Loud, churning, angry animal-like sounds roared beside and below him. His first thought was, I'm caged! They're going to pen me up like an animal and put me in a zoo!!

Wild with fear, he threw himself against the window and was very surprised when the window opened outwards with no resistance at all, and he ended up falling with a splat onto the floor.

The blonde boy blinked several times before regaining his senses and picking himself up. Now that he was no longer trapped inside the box, he lost all fear and caution and surveyed his surroundings in obvious puzzlement. The room he was in had two entrances, both wide open, and it seemed to be full of......Huh? Washing machines and clothes dryers...?

7:02 PM

The washing machine should be done with the clothes by now... The girl thought, looking up at the clock hanging above the television. Peaceful, tinkling sounds emitted from the 25" x 30" box. Maybe I should go move them to the dryer now..... She thought, shifting slightly towards the direction of the door. Before her resolve could be made up, however, she got distracted as the peaceful sounds emitting from the television suddenly switched into random-encounter battle music. ...Nah. I'll go later... she decided loftily, and turned her attention back to the screen to beat up whatever random enemy decided to challenge her super powerful game-shark-edited invincible warriors.

7:05 PM

Naruto was just about to venture outside after a (very brief) contemplation of his current situation when two things happened.

First, Sasuke and then Sakura came tumbling out of the clothes dryer Naruto just fell out of, and Kakashi came tumbling out right after, landing in a heap onto the previous two.

Then, two women walked in, stared at Naruto, stared at Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura who were half sprawled across the floor and half still inside the clothes dryer where they tumbled out of, shrieked, and promptly ran out screaming for security about "laundry thieves" and "washing-machine vandalizers".

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of masked Jounin's face. "I didn't understand what they were yelling about, but somehow, I don't think that was a good sign..."

7:15 PM

"Eep!" was the only sound the girl squeaked out before hastily turning off the PS, television, and rushing out with her keys and laundry basket in tow. The door slammed noisily behind her and she nearly tripped in her haste, determined to complete the chore of doing the laundry in the meager fifteen minutes before her mother came back.

7:10 PM

The members of the Konoha Ninja Squad 7 stood over the security guard's unconcious form, perplexed expressions on their faces.

"Ne..." Naruto spoke up, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he squinted at the burly security guard that they knocked out. "So, like, what are we gonna do?

Slipping a gloved hand behind his head to scratch his hair, Kakashi mentally assessed the situation quickly while performing this casual gesture. "It seems like the tunnel we fell through contained some kind of transporting jutsu. Technically, we could be anywhere right now. We could be somewhere near the village, but judging from the reactions those people had when they saw us, and from the strange clothes they were wearing, I wouldn't put too much hope on that..."

Sasuke merely snorted and kept his opinions to himself. Who wouldn't have reacted like that when we were all halfway inside clothes dryers looking like peverted underwear thieves caught in the act? he thought, sweat rolling down his forehead in exasperation despite his attempts to conceal his emotions.

Her teacher said something about possibly being stranded in some strange country thousands of miles away from Konoha, but Sakura couldn't quite process that yet.

Instead, she just stared in blank uncomprehension at her teacher for several moments. Therefore, the others were slightly surprised, to say the least, when she let out a sudden outburst.

"WHAT?!" She practically screamed at Kakashi, shocked beyond manners. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY?!!" How on earth am I going to explain this to my parents? Her inner voice wondered. 'Sorry I'm so late mom, I had to follow Naruto through a hole that took me to another country and had to travel three months until I could get back?' No way. No concievable way. "So what on EARTH are we going to DO??"

Kakashi just shrugged lightly in face of her outraged response. "Maa...I suppose the first thing we have to do is to find out where we are..." he paused momentarily, absorbing the looks of DUH! that his students were giving him. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he continued. "Mmm...well...I guess you three can wait here a moment while I go see what I can find out..." He finished, and disappeared with a poof of smoke. Five minutes later, he popped back in, his mop of gray hair even more disarrayed than usual, and a very disturbed look in his one visible eye.

"What is it?" asked Naruto and Sakura simultaneously.

Sasuke frowned. If it was something that managed to disturb the usually imperturbable Jounin, then it wasn't good. "Did you find out what place this is?" he asked.

"Eh...well, no," Kakashi responded somewhat distractedly. "Remember that I said we should try to find out where we are first? Well, before that, as long as we're here, I think it'd be a good idea for us to change into some clothes that don't stick out so much like the ones we're wearing..."

Jade-green eyes widened in disbelief. "You mean, steal the clothes here?" Sakura asked incredulously.

"Well..."

"That would be illegal!"

"Well-"

"And that would make us thieves!"

"Well--"

"We could get arrested for that!"

"Are you quite finished...?"

The pink-haired girl merely panted from her excursion and gave the gray-haired Jounin the evil eye.

The object of her glare ahemed before continuing, "As I was saying....we need to fit in. And to do that we'll have to take the clothes here. Think of it as 'borrowing', if it makes you feel better, but you should know that as a Shinobi, one must always be prepared to take drastic measures in drastic situations...and the first thing I noticed outside was that the clothes people wear here are drastically different."

Sakura let out a defeated sigh and plopped down on the floor.

"What? So are we just gonna be changing HERE?" Naruto demanded loudly. His tone seemed one of greviance and complaint, but his glance kept darting furtively torwards Sakura, who upon his comment had turned the color of her cherry-red shirt. His efforts earned him a glare followed by a long vicious choke from his female teammate.

Sasuke was about to point out a small curtained-off corner in the room that would have solved the dilemma, but decided to ignore the idiotic antics of his teammates and chose instead to direct a question at Kakashi. "Did you find out anything else while you were out there?"

Before I was stared down by six different people and got attacked by a mob of shrieking wild girls who came out of a buw labeled "For Japanese Tourists Only"...? wondered Kakashi. "--No, not much..." was what came out of his mouth instead. He caught Sasuke's scrutinizing gaze and held it, until the black-haired boy finally looked away in annoyance. He moved his gaze back to Naruto, whose face was now an interesting shade of blue, and Sakura, who was muttering huffily to herself, and sighed inwardly. "Well, if we have finished resolving our differences, then go look around and pick out an outfit you like..." he said in a lazy tone.

With a sigh, his students scattered about, pulling out random pieces of clothing from the clothes dryers lined on both sides of the room.

Kakashi watched his students for awhile, then pulled out a pinkish-orange covered book. However, he was barely able to get past two pages when he suddenly snapped to attention, sensing the presence of another person in dangerously close proximity. Sakura and Naruto looked at him strangely, but before he could do anything, Sasuke, who must have noticed the presence as well, flung a dagger at the shadow that was about to step into the room.