Chapter 2

Stranded, alone, in a strange place with people around him speaking in a strange language that was foreign to his ears, Naruto decided that the first order of business would be to gain his bearings. He looked up at the buildings around him and even craning his neck as far as it would go, Naruto couldn't see their tops. He'd need to get a view from the top of one, and look out as far into the horizon as he could for any form of landmark.

With a small running start and a powerful leap that made the people around him gasp in amazement, Naruto was off. He landed a few stories up on the glass facade of the building directly to his front. In one leap he had managed to clear the road and all the strange boxes that moved up and down it. The people below were understandably shocked. They'd seen similar feats of strength, but they were always impressive.

Naruto took barely a second to survey the street he was perched over and saw that the road continued as far in either direction as he could see from here. He needed to get higher. With his goal in mind he blurred into motion, immediately leaving the sight of the people below and starting his journey to the top of this unreasonably tall building.

Clark Kent, better known as Superman, was sitting at a desk in the offices of the Daily Planet headquarters putting the finishing touches on a puff piece for his boss. He was doing the requisite amount of work necessary to keep his cover as a mild-mannered reporter from a farm in Kansas. He was fully uninterested in what he was writing; something about a panda at the zoo being introduced to a potential mate. It was dull work and Clark was counting the words until he could leave this place and commence his patrol as his alter ego, Superman.

As he looked up he saw a flash of black and orange flash by one of the large windows that looked down upon the city. Any other person might think it was someone who had jumped off the building. Clark was not any other person. His kryptonian sight had seen what no human's, save perhaps the Flash, could see. The figure was running on the side of the building and it was moving upwards. He'd only seen a select few people run up the side of a building and none of them wore orange and black.

Clark decided that his work could wait; something much more interesting had caught his attention.

Naruto reached the top of the building in seconds. The fact that he wasn't wearing the weights he'd taken to wearing when training with Gai and Lee had made it easy to move faster than the untrained eye could see. When he reached the top, Naruto was halted by a strange addition to the architecture.

There was a giant golden sphere on top of the building. It was wider than the building and easily half the size of the hokage tower. He was awed and confused for about half a second before he adhered his feet to the underside of the gigantic sphere and proceeded to walk to the top of it. From the top of the sphere that stood atop the giant building, Naruto was given an unobstructed view of the city he'd landed in.

It was, without a doubt, the largest city he'd ever seen. There was no way, absolutely no way, a place this large, this colossal, was hidden from the rest of the Elemental Nations. Naruto had heard stories of sailors who journeyed to the uncharted areas of the world, and he'd never heard tell of a place like this. It was impossible this would have been missed by even a blind man.

As he was taking in the jaw dropping view of the city below him, Naruto's awe and disbelief was interrupted by a sudden voice coming from behind him.

"And who might you be?"

He whirled around in surprise and saw another very strange sight.

There was a garishly dressed man floating in the air in front of him. The man was dressed in a skintight blue body suit, he wore his red underwear outside of said suit, and there was a red 'S' on his chest encased in a yellow diamond with a red outline. Not only that, but he was wearing a cape of all things. Unless this man was some sort of eccentric Daimyo, and Naruto strongly doubted that he was, he had no business wearing a cape, let alone the rest of his ridiculous outfit.

So shocked was he at this man's appearance, that he couldn't gather his wits enough to answer whatever gibberish the man had spouted his way.

When Superman had reached the top of the Daily Planet, he was treated to the sight of an extremely fit teenager dressed in rags and looking like he'd just been in a huge battle, save for the lack of injuries to be found on his person, taking in the view of the city. He'd seen weirder things, that was for sure, but this was just odd.

Superman decided to make contact with this strange youth and asked him his name. The boy whirled around quickly and Superman feared he would fall for a second until he reminded himself that this boy had just run up the side of the building just moments before.

The look of complete incredulousness on the boy's face was one that Superman was used to seeing on the faces of criminals before he soundly knocked their lights out, but on this boy it struck him as more of a complete cluelessness than the mixture of fear and disbelief you'd find on the face of a common thug. Since the teen hadn't answered his question and seemed to be more preoccupied with his own speechlessness than answering, Superman took the moment to examine him.

The boy before superman was built like any other hero he knew; all muscle and no fat. He looked like he might have been someone's sidekick if not for the fact that he'd at least seen all of them and this boy didn't fit any of their descriptions. He also wore the remains of a black and orange jacket, ripped here and there and missing the zipper completely. To go with said jacket were matching orange pants with some sort of holster attached to his right leg. A scan with his x-ray vision confirmed that it was empty. Finally the boy was wearing odd open toed shoes that, if Superman didn't know better, he would say were old boots with the toe covers cut off. Finally he looked at the boy's face and saw his blue eyes and blonde hair on a tan face with a strong jaw line and six whisker-like marks on his cheeks, three on each side.

With his inspection complete Superman tried once again to communicate with the boy.

"Hello? Who are you? What are you doing up here?"

The teen responded with a rushed statement that he was sure was in Japanese. Well, Superman wasn't Batman, who seemed to be able to speak every known language and dialect in the world, and he only knew enough Japanese to say 'thank you' and 'goodbye'. It was enough for the extremely small amount of time that he spent saving Japan from one crisis or another, but he had a feeling that he would need something more complete to converse with this person. And he knew just who to call.

Superman put a finger to his ear and said, "Batman, come in."

The man in front of Naruto had spoken again, once more in whatever savage language was common in this land, and Naruto had gathered his wits enough to respond with an eloquent rebuttal.

"Speak common, you big, red and blue jerk!"

The man seemed not to understand him and put a hand to his ear and started speaking into seemingly thin air. The man's attention turned from him, Naruto decided it was his time to go. He'd learned all he could from standing on top of this building, it was time to find someone who could speak the civilized tongue and look for any reference he could find of the Elemental Nations.

As he turned around he heard the man shout something and he felt a strong grip on his left shoulder. Before either of them could think Naruto had turned, slapping the man's arm away, and laid a number of blisteringly fast punches to the man's face.

The man recoiled and Naruto settled into a ready stance and resisted the urge to shake out his hands. He hadn't put any chakra behind the punches but quite a bit of strength and the man felt like he had a face made of steel. Besides recoiling from the surprise of it all the man didn't seem all that affected by the assault at all.

They stood like that for a more than a few moments before the big blue man raised his hands in the (multi)universal signal of surrender. Naruto lowered his fists but kept his wits about him in case the man was looking for retribution; if he could take a flurry of his punches and shrug them off, Naruto wasn't too eager to find out what the man could do when he was on the offense.

The man put his hands down too and slowly sat down in a cross legged position in front of Naruto and beckoned him to sit down as well. Naruto warily did so and the man made a gesture for him to wait. And so Naruto did. He didn't know why, but the man in front of him had an earnest presence about him and, if worse came to worst, Naruto had more than enough confidence in his ability to put him down and make a hasty escape. You didn't get to be the strongest ninja in the world if you couldn't beat up some badly dressed joker at a moment's notice.

Batman was floating through Metropolis, guided by one Giovanni Zatara's magic. Superman had called on him, asking for help with an unidentified boy on top of the Daily Planet tower who seemed to speak only Japanese.

Batman had decided it would be prudent to ask for Zatara's assistance as well, considering his ability to imbue the knowledge of language, however temporarily, into someone's mind with his magic.

They reached the top of the Daily Planet and found Superman and the boy sat across from each other in what was apparently a heated staring contest. That is until the boy caught sight of Batman and Zatara and let out an exclamation in what was indeed Japanese.

"Does everyone in this place know how to fly or what?!"

Batman thought it prudent to answer, "Not everyone, just a special few."

The boy seemed to perk up immediately when he heard someone speaking his language. "Finally! Someone who isn't spouting that gibberish at me!" He seemed excited and Batman decided people could be in worse moods when you questioned them.

"What's your name?" Batman questioned. It would be best to start with the basics.

"Uzumaki Naruto, the best ninja that ever lived!" The now identified Naruto answered with gusto.

The Dark Knight decided to put the ninja part aside for now and asked, "How did you get up here?"

"I ran up the side of the building. Duh"

That one threw Batman for a loop. Superman hadn't mentioned anything about the boy running up the side of the building. And the way he answered, it seemed like it was the most mundane thing in the world.

"Putting that aside for now, this man is going to make it so you can understand our language," Batman explained. It would be easier if everyone was on the same page. He gestured to Zatara and the Magician started one of his backwards chants. Naruto seemed ready to complain and was halfway to his feet before he was seeming struck by a bout of vertigo and he was knocked right back down on his ass.

Naruto was struck dumb by the strangely familiar feeling of a large amount of knowledge being deposited directly into his head. It took a second before he realized that he could understand the gibberish these people were so insistent on calling a language perfectly. He looked at the middle-aged man in the top hat and long black coat with a raised eyebrow. That was some skill, to put such a large amount of knowledge into someone elses head like that. He was brought out of his pondering by the man in the strange black outfit, who was wearing another cape, speaking to him.

"I take it you can understand me now?" At Naruto's nod he continued, "I'm Batman, and you've got some explaining to do. Let's start with what you said, that you ran up the side of the building."

When Naruto spoke it was slow but he picked up speed quickly. Knowledge of the language didn't give him experience in speaking it. "What about it? I ran up the side. It's pretty simple." Naruto couldn't understand his fascination with surface walking, it was one of his simplest techniques.

Batman scowled and was about to question Naruto more forcefully before Superman cut in. "People don't usually run up buildings, you see. It's obvious you have some powers, we'd just like to know what they are. I'm Superman by the way." All of this was said in an earnest tone that put Naruto on edge.

"You don't just ask a ninja about his skills, even the most boring ones. What're you tryna pull here? Huh?" The nerve of these strangers asking him about his skills. That was the kind of taboo that got you into a fight if the ninja wasn't as forgiving as he was.

"In fact, I've got some questions of my own! Where am I?! What language are we speaking?! Why are you all dressed so strangely?!"

Superman sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

A/N: Tell me what you think. I'm not too confident in my ability to write dialogue so if anyone has some pointers, I welcome them. Also, the pairing will NOT be harem. I don't like reading them and I don't like writing them. Next chapter probably won't be until after my finals. So until next time.