You know, I was set to be off to university in a few short weeks. I'd move out, get through four years of class, and land a well-paying job as a developer for some mid-sized firm. Then I'd marry my girlfriend, probably, and retire both rich and young.

Of course, life has its way of throwing a wrench into even the best-laid plans. Waking up in an entirely different universe isn't what anyone has ever expected, though.

I trudge behind the lady leading me down the hallway. She begins to say something, but when I give her an awkward smile she breaks off her sentence.

To be honest, I do know about a dozen words in Japanese. Half of them are swear words, of course. I mean, I don't really watch anime or read manga, but being a computer science student means literally every one of your friends is a weeb.

Well, all of your weeb friends are weebs.

But even I know enough about manga to recognize the world of Naruto—even if it did take a while.

A little while ago, I woke up about half an hour's walk from the gates of Konoha, where a troupe of ninjas returning from what I assume was a routine patrol stumbled onto a stranger lying down in a forest clearing. I think they thought I was a lost civilian, at first. I mean, I'm a lightly-sunned Chinese-Canadian, and I assume most people in this neck of the woods are lost civilians.

My half-hearted greeting probably disabused them of that notion, though, as well as my helpless shrug to their rapid-fire response. One of them performed what was probably some medical diagnostic jutsu before gesturing for me to follow them.

It was actually when I first saw the kanji for "fire"—identical to the Chinese character for it—emblazoned onto the large wooden gate that I realized that I hadn't woken up in a Japanese forest, and I'd been found by ninjas and not cosplayers.

And the gesture that'd been made at me was probably a jutsu and not a traditional greeting.

The leader of the group signaled for me to stay put. He approached the guards at the gate, and they exchanged a few hurried words, pointing at me all the while. One of the guards led me to a nondescript building and motioned for me to sit and wait once we entered. Then, he walked through the double doors. Another ninja returned and led me into the hallway, which is where we are now.

She stops and knocks on the wall. I realize it's a door when it opens up, and follow her in.

An older man is sitting behind the table. He's wearing a nice, pressed shirt, and his blonde hair is combed neatly onto one side. I settle into the chair opposite him as my eyes wander across the rest of the room.

It's an interrogation room.

The table is basic and bare, and the dull, gray walls are only barely visible in the dim light. There are no windows.

My eyes return to the man, and I realize a little self-consciously that he has been watching me the whole time. He nods, once, like I am a puzzle he has solved, before giving me a questioning look and a thumbs up. An awkward smile flashes over his face.

I shoot him one back and nod hesitantly. He's probably asking for my consent for a mind-reading, I figure, and it isn't like I have much of a choice.

He proves me right when he positions his fingers and a tangible force slams into my body.

The room has changed into one of my memories, I realize, and the process is very similar to the pensieves from Harry Potter. The man and I are outside observers of memory-me sitting in his bedroom. The scene lasts for a short moment before shifting into a flurry of different things—me sitting with my girlfriend, playing ball at the park, working out in the gym—before the images pause on me playing my guitar.

We listen to me play.

The man pokes my shoulder and flashes me a warm smile when my eyes jump back to his face. When I finish playing, he gives me a handful of claps and an aborted attempt at some words of applause (rather, what I assume is an attempt at appreciation).

Then the memory changes again, and we watch me struggle through a LeetCode problem. He makes a questioning noise and points at my laptop before I realize that the world of Naruto has probably never seen a computer this advanced.

I still can't do much more than offer him a shrug and a half-smile, though, so I'm not entirely sure my message of "this is a computer" comes across very clearly. He gives me another searching look, and a litany of flags blur by—Canadian, American, Chinese, I can pick out—before I find myself back in the room.

The man is nowhere to be seen.

It takes an abrupt jolt out of me to avoid falling asleep before he returns. A much older man returns with him—the Hokage, I realize, wearing a hat with the character for "fire" and weighed down by a long, grey beard.

They continue talking as they walk in, and I stand to make space for them to sit down. The Hokage gives me a smile, but doesn't move to sit. The blonde man from before points at himself and says "Ya-ma-na-ka-san," and then points at the Hokage and says "Hokage-sama." He repeats this, once for each person, and I manage a greeting in broken Japanese to them.

They look at me, and then each other, before the Hokage starts speaking to me. He stops when I give him an awkward shake of my head.

Both of them have caught on to my situation now, I think. A stranger in a foreign land, I am, and armed with no more than a smattering of the language and the rough idea that a ninja named Naruto will be integral to the survival of the world.

I'm brought out of my thoughts when Yamanaka clears his throat. We bow to the Hokage—him first, and me when I catch on to what I'm supposed to be doing—and then the Hokage leaves the room.

Yamanaka lets out a deep sigh, before sinking into the chair. He motions for me to sit down again, and works through a couple of familiar-sounding words. When I realize what he's trying to do, I stop him and say every Japanese word I know. He grimaces when I get to the swear words, but otherwise just nods at each one.

Then he stands up and puts his hand on my shoulder, and before I can shoot him a questioning look or throw it off, we teleport in front of a library.

It takes me a few dry-heaves before I can get up from my hands and knees, but he offers just a sheepish apology before walking us through the doors.

The library is much emptier than I expected, actually. Pretty much every library I've ever been in has been filled with people, but there are a scant few people in this one. Yamanaka shuffles into the shelves, and I hurry behind him.

As we walk around, I realize how lucky I'd been. If I couldn't pass for a citizen of Konoha, they might have started with a brutal abduction and interrogation session. If I hadn't been in the path of the first group of ninjas, I might've been eaten by a bear, or killed by a rogue ninja.

Of course, this was all relative. If I were luckier, I might have not woken up in a different world.

Yamanaka located what he was looking for, and we sat down at a table with an armful of books. There were a couple of picture books, what I guessed was an illustrated dictionary, and a couple of much thicker books.

He slid the picture books and dictionary over to me.

The evening saw us leave the library—him with what could only be considered a children's guide to learning Japanese in the picture books and dictionary, and me with a very rough knowledge of a couple dozen new words.

Of course, reading from a dictionary (even an illustrated one) is probably the worst way to learn a language, and I really only had a reinforced understanding that yes, Japanese kanji are very similar to Chinese hanzi.

And as a shamed Chinese-Canadian, my recollection of Chinese characters was still limited to no more than a couple dozen common characters. My fluency in spoken Chinese was of little use here. And there was, of course, literally no way for me to know how the new words I'd learned were pronounced.

We were about fifteen minutes away from the library when Yamanaka and I realized a glaring issue. Where was I supposed to be? We'd probably been walking towards his house, but I certainly wasn't part of his family. Was I supposed to be offered a temporary apartment? Was I supposed to be working some menial job to pay said apartment off? Actually, I'd probably offer little in terms of menial work. Ninjas had literal reality-altering superpowers, and I can barely manage five pull-ups.

Yamanaka snapped out of thoughts before I could break free of my ninja tangents, and motioned towards the large tower in the middle of the town. He pressed the books into my hands and shooed me off.

Of course. It wasn't like I was actually his problem, so I should go find some administrative person who could deal with me. I thanked him for his very gracious help and bowed deeply before making my way to the tower.