(I still don't like leaving Author's Notes at the beginning of chapters, but I wanted to say something really quick... I actually finished this story up last night, on time! I don't think I actually would have finished either, if it wasn't for the people who left reviews. Thank you! There's a lot of plot-tweaking I'm doing now, and I'll slowly be posting chapters up through December until it's through. The three chapters I'm posting today and tomorrow are probably my least favourite out of the entire thing, so please ummm... go easy on them. I felt like experimenting in first person, and at times I think I let Hughes stray a bit too much from his character, but this is the only section like this and I needed to do something to make basically retelling the Naruto storyline more interesting. Sorry. Now, on with the story! (Oh.. and if you're following this you might want to bookmark the story directly or something, because I'm being evil and moving it around to different categories when I update.))

I stood in the woods, facing two men who didn't seem to be any more than halfway into their twenties. Until a few seconds before, they'd seemed to be cuddling, just stealing a few minutes alone. Obviously the last thing they expected was to be caught. I looked down at my uniform. It was dirty and covered in leaves, and there was a small hole in the centre of the chest where I'd been shot, but there was no wound. I tried to get my bearings as quickly as possible, but my mind echoed with all kinds of strange images. In a way, I'd already seen that I'd land here in front of these two. They pushed themselves apart, but still remained close, fingers brushing against each other. They watched me with matching startled and confused looks. I stood and brushed the leaves off of myself, and decided that the best way to find things out quickly would be to pretend I already knew what was going on. Of course, it was hard to cover for suddenly falling from the sky.

"What are you doing here?" I tried. They continued to stare at me like I was some kind of ghost.

"What are you doing here," asked the blonder of the two. He wore a bandana over his head, and at some point between snuggling with his partner and addressing me, he had started chewing on a metal needle. It gave him a very odd nonchalant quality. His friend stood tall next to him, bandana tied over his head in much the same way, only the front of his had a sort of metal plate with a leaf symbol on it. He watched me like a hawk, though something behind his eyes seemed to show that he was more worried about something else. Finally, he spoke up.

"We can tell that you're not from any village by your clothes. There's no reason for you to be following us, so what were you doing?"

"I was lost in the woods."

The blond stared straight at me and laughed.

"Right. Please tell us the truth. Look, you caught us fair and square, and we're not lying to you. I can sense your chakra now, but there was nothing at all around here a few seconds ago. Either that is one amazing concealing jutsu you've been using, or you just dropped from the sky."

I decided that the truth was the best way to go. It was possible that they were bluffing about the chakra, but I didn't think it was very likely. So much here was completely different, and it's amazing what being dropped into a totally different world does to what you're willing to accept as the truth.

"Honestly, it was the latter. I have no idea how it happened," I shrugged. Lying would only dig me a bigger hole.

The two seemed to think about that for a while. I imagine they were trying to imagine a way that I could have been dropped from the sky. They both seemed to reach a conclusion at the same time.

"I imagine you were thrown here from one of the cities by some sort of accident. You should probably come back to the village with us; we can't just leave you out here. Promise us that you won't tell anyone what you saw, and we'll take care of everything else."

I knew better than to let the offer pass by. When someone offers you a way out of a situation without actually explaining yourself, you take it. I could play along, and I didn't mind keeping their secret for them. They seemed to make a very nice couple, though it wasn't anything I was used to seeing. For some reason, I didn't allow myself to accept at first that they might be in love. I guess at the time I wasn't exactly worried about reading people properly.

I offered them my hand.

"The name's Hughes."

The blond was the first one to take it.

"Genma. And this is Hayate."

I turned to face him, and shook his hand as well. Now that the matter with me was mostly resolved, he seemed even more absorbed in his worries. It didn't seem to suit him. He looked far too young and healthy to be worrying about anything so seriously. I decided to look into it later and see if I could help in any way. I felt a strange gratitude to the two men. It was a one in a million chance that I'd be lucky enough to fall onto two people so kind. I didn't appreciate until much later though what could have happened to me if they hadn't been the first ones to find me. Very few people in Konoha were as accepting of unusual things as they were, and they woods were always full of the wrong sort of people who could have picked me up and used me as a spy. Or killed me.

"We're going to have to sneak you back into the village. It won't be easy because the guards are good at seeing through most genjutsu, but you'll just have to play along. Luckily we live close to the outside of town, so not many people will see you."

They must have noticed my confused look when they mentioned genjutsu, because they both looked over at each other and shared an amused look. Hayate looked me up and down again.

"You really aren't from anywhere near here, are you?"

"You could say that."

"You don't know about ninjutsu?"

"Well… no." Lying about the fact would have only kept me from learning valuable information, and they would have seen through my lie anyway.

A smirk crossed Genma's face.

"We could train him, Hayate. Haven't you always wanted an apprentice?"

A rare smile crossed Hayate's face.

"It's not fair that they won't let the specialists teach. Just because we aren't as well-rounded as the rest of the Jounin… but Sarutobi owes us a favour, too. He'd probably learn more from him, and we all know the old man's lonely. We'll still have to take care of him, anyway, and that should be much more fun."

The two continued to discuss me like I wasn't even there. Though I didn't know it at the time, this was very unusual behaviour for the two of them. After that day they treated me very well, almost like I'd been friends with them for years instead of weeks. I only found out later that I'd fallen down on the same day that Hayate had been diagnosed with a very serious illness that would slowly drain his health away. He was doing all he could to forget about it. As soon as he'd found out, he'd sought out Genma for comfort, and threw himself into any distraction he could find. They'd gone out into the woods to get away from the village's curious eyes. Soon we reached the gates of the village. The same symbol from their bandanas – I saw now that it was on the back of Genma's as well – was painted onto the two doors.

They kept back within the trees for a moment, turning to me.

"We've decided that we can't hide you completely, so we're going to have to pretend that you're a traveller we found. Travellers around here are rare, but they do come through. We can worry about explaining the rest later, because they won't ask us too many questions. Your clothes, however, are going to cause more trouble than they're worth."

For a second, I was afraid they were going to try to strip me. I really hoped I wouldn't have to walk into the village for the first time stark naked – it wasn't the sort of first impression I'd like to give the place I'd probably be in for the rest of my life. Thankfully, I saw Genma start to perform some hand seals. There was a bit of a poof, and for a moment it tingled a little where my clothes touched my skin. They didn't seem to fit any different, so I assumed the change was an illusion. Instead of my uniform, suddenly I was wearing a worn dark brown traveller's coat over an array of black clothes. A large pack was slung over my back, but it added no extra weight to what I was carrying.

"Now, stop looking so surprised and follow us," Genma smiled.

They flanked me on both sides and escorted me into the village. Amazingly, there were very few questions. The two guards didn't seem to be able to see through the disguise on my clothes, but I imagined that was only because they weren't looking for it. Obviously my actual appearance hadn't been disguised. All I had to do was nod in agreement to the answers Genma and Hayate gave. "Is he any threat?" No. "Is he wanted for anything?" No. The question of my business in the village was a bit harder to answer, and though it was asked directly to me, Hayate covered for me, saying I was a lost traveller who had stumbled across them practicing jutsus and probably seen too much. They assured them that they would take me to the Hokage and find out what to do with me. The proposition sounded vaguely threatening, but I decided to trust them anyway.

Quickly they ushered me into the village and down a few streets to Genma's apartment. It was a small place, but comfortable. They decided that I would live with Hayate for the time being, since he hardly ever lived in his house anyway, and it would help with keeping up appearances if someone was living in there. Few people would actually check to see if it was really him. The atmosphere between the two of them when they were in the comfort of their home was completely casual, without any pretence, and they were quick to accept me into their little circle of two. I had indeed been very lucky to have them find me, and they seemed happy to have someone else to share their secrets with. I couldn't understand why they took so quickly to trusting me. Maybe there was sort of innocence that could be assumed for someone who just randomly fell down through the trees.

After a small lunch they started explaining the village to me. They really seemed to enjoy having someone around to listen to everything they thought of the place. In hindsight, a lot of what Genma told me was a straight-out lie, but for the most part Hayate would correct him. The only really useful information I got out of them was how the village worked politically. Everyone was trained as a ninja from a very young age, and they were slowly filtered out into different positions depending on their level of skill. Every child in the village attended the academy, which focused mainly on the basic ninja skills needed to live in the village, and basic elementary school learning. It was common to fail to move on and become an actual ninja genin. Even fewer genin went on to become chuunin and gain the right to command small squads of ninjas for missions themselves. It took a lot of skill and tactical understanding to become a chuunin, and even those that were strong in power and knew their jutsus well may not make it to that rank. The chuunin exams, they explained, were a bit event in the village and were actually coming up soon. I could watch them if I'd like, and maybe learn something from them. Hayate would be put in charge of refereeing the matches, as always. Apparently it was a job he'd grown rather fond of – one of the few where he actually got to interact with the younger ninjas, and he was very unlikely to ever give it up.

Slightly above the chuunin were the Anbu, specialized hunter ninjas utilized by the village to protect its secrets. Unlike the other ranks, it was possible to skip being an Anbu. They were the most active group when it came to information control, and naturally the idea of the group intrigued me. It seemed a lot like the intelligence department in Central and my old job in the military, only much more dangerous and up-close. I considered myself lucky that the worst I was ever asked to do as far as information control was destroy a few secret documents. I'd never been asked to kill anyone. Within the Anbu though, killing seemed to be a large part of the job. The highest of the Anbu though, were often pardoned from the dirtiest of the work, instead sent to gather information themselves. Konoha was unlike other villages in that respect. Most others sent more expendable people and didn't care whether they returned or not. It was a sacrifice they were willing to take. Instead, they trained groups especially for the task, and they rarely failed in their missions.

At the upper end of these specially trained ninjas began the specially ranked Jounin. It was this group that both Genma and Hayate belonged to. They were especially good at one specific jutsu or type of jutsu, and lacked the general overall skills of the full Jounin. Most of the ninjas that made it past chuunin rank ended up here, because few saw the need to continue to study broadly. It took a lot of skill to continue to study everything at a high level, and focusing on one strong point was more useful to a ninja who would be completing missions regularly, anyway.

Near the very top of the metaphorical ladder were the jounin. They trained in everything thoroughly, never seeming to stop even after they'd been promoted. They were the ones that were capable of aiming for Hokage, or at the very least a nearly mythical status as ninjas of the Hidden Leaf. They were also the ones given the duty of training the genin to become chuunin, though they were free to fail their students for any reason, even if they didn't feel like teaching. Only one was rumoured to be that fickle though, and even he'd taken students recently.

Finally, at the pinnacle of the Konoha village hierarchy sat the Hokage, the fire shadow. He – or later she – was the most powerful ninja in Konoha. Each of the Hokage was legendary for something, and their mastery of the jutsus was nothing short of intimidating. It was hard to believe that so much information could fit into a human mind, but it did. They were in charge of the entire village, and knew everything that went on in it and most of what went on outside of it. It was the Third, Sandaime, Hokage that I was to meet to do my training.

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"Wait, wait, wait," Roy stifled a yawn and glared at Hughes. "This isn't doing me a bit of good, Hughes. The only thing you've actually told me is the ranks. You could have told me that without the story. Is there a point to this?"

"I'm getting to it. I promise that there's a real point in here somewhere. You'll appreciate it later. And at least if someone asks you questions about me you'll be able to cover for me."

"Does that mean you're telling me the same lie you've been telling them?"

"Maybe…"

"I find that hard to believe."

"Ok, fine. You know I like to tell stories. I don't have anyone else I can explain this to - getting it all in order makes me feel better about all of it."

"Something tells me you're foreshadowing something here, then."

"Like I said, this place is always changing. It's just that in the last two months or so we've seen a lot more change than we imagined we would."

"And you promise this will actually come up in your story?"

"Yes."

"And this doesn't just have to do with them changing the flavour of the day on Tuesdays at the Ramen shop, does it?"

"Why are you bringing the Ramen shop into this?"

"I saw you staring at the woman there as we were coming in."

"Wha… what?!" Hughes blushed slightly and looked vaguely embarrassed. Score!

"Ah ah, it's OK. I don't blame you. I don't imagine there are many women here that are your type." Roy smirked as Hughes did his best to keep from looking flustered. Sometimes he was pathetically easy to frazzle.

"She reminds me of Gracia." Roy noted how quickly Hughes' mood changed from embarrassment to a sort of lonely longing. He missed his Gracia. "She's got the same smile."

Roy could see that he'd hit a spot that was still tender. Rather than push the issue, he went against his self-interests and asked Hughes to continue with the story. He knew that, left to brood on certain things, Hughes could get himself into just as much of a depressed funk as anyone else, though his happy exterior would rarely betray it. It was fun to mock him when he could take it, but it was certainly no fun to depress him. He'd taken the jab to lighten the mood, but clearly this wasn't quite the time for it.

"So, what was the training like?"