Warnings: Some coarse language.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto and affiliated companies do.


Chapter 2

There were a number of different ways that people tended to wake up.

Some, like my mother, slept like logs and required a good five minutes of nagging to get out of bed. Some, like my brother, stayed up until dawn playing computer games and could not physically be woken before midday, not even by the smoke alarm (yes, I knew this from experience). Some, like my dad, were super-workaholics who jumped out of bed at four-thirty in the morning all ready and pumped for work. Some lucky people, like most of my friends, were just normal.

And then there was me.

Yeah, I know – did I have to be so contrary all the time? …The answer? Well, yes. Because I had a stupidly hyperactive brain, and it didn't like to do things the normal, easy way. It liked to be special. It liked to be fast, and efficient.

So it was that every morning, without fail, my dad would get up (at 4:30 am, remember. This is important), pass near-silently by my door, open his mouth to speak and-

"I'm awake," I would say calmly, sitting up as I snapped – in that split second – from sleeping like the dead to perfectly awake and aware of the situation. A bit strange in itself, but… reasonable. The odd thing? It wasn't the noise that woke me. Dad was a taekwondo black belt, like me – light on his feet.

No, what woke me was his presence.

I couldn't explain it, hadn't been able to teach it when I tried. It was like… there was this… sense of compactness in the air where people were, almost heavy – but I was the only one who could feel it.

Hold that thought.

"I'm awake," I announced quietly, sitting up in my cell. I was on the floor and my temple ached (bruised-no blood-ANBU knockout) – my mild concern was dismissed as irrelevant.

Another fluid strain of thought passed through my mind. Not restrained-they're wary, but uncertain-I'm innocent-will cooperate-help-get home.

I blinked slowly, satisfied with the plan for now. Getting home was the main objective; everything else was secondary.

The next issue worth contemplating, while I waited for the person who had just halted on the other side of the door to make their move, was how exactly the ANBU had found me, and why they'd been sent after me at all.

Now, if this was a fanfiction, I would have said there'd been some kind of… chakra pulse from the transition that had been picked up by sensor types and caused alarm. Of course, I (1) could not use chakra, and (2) had been asleep. I hesitated (chakra's not real-Konoha-must be real- and felt in that moment a crossroads before me. Fear? Curiosity? Excitement? What was I supposed to choose? Best option? I wondered. Acceptance-temporarily-explore later, I decided), but it lasted for less than a fraction of a second.

So if it wasn't a chakra pulse – although I couldn't rule out that the chakra had come from another source (does chakra linger on people? Or areas?) – how had they honed in on me so fast?

Perhaps my appearance, I pondered, examining myself in the mirror-wall that undoubtedly doubled as a viewing window (cliché, but no less effective). If this was indeed the Naruto canon world, as all evidence seemed to suggest (despite the sheer improbability of it), my blue European eyes and pale skin would perhaps stand out – though not nearly as much as in a true Japanese country, given that people here seemed to be some strange hybrid of western and eastern genes. My hair was a pale, unremarkable brown.

My shirt must have been the giveaway, I decided, frowning at the shiny blue writing on it; in a world without factories, all the clothes here would have been handmade, plain cotton and wool (exception: Lee and Gai's spandex? Curious.). I didn't recall seeing printed shirts like mine anywhere in the series.

Still. That potentially explained how I'd been singled out from the crowd on the street, but why had they been searching in the first place? Evidently, there had been some kind of signal when I arrived...

My thinking hit a wall.

Damnit, I thought, feeling a sense of déjà vu from the night before, I think better out loud.

And I could have, if I wanted to - physically, there was nothing holding me back. But regardless of whether or not I intended to fully cooperate with my captors, sharing my innermost thoughts with them – even in jumbled, incomplete form – was a level of vulnerability I wasn't willing to reach.

Fortunately, I was saved from initiating a pointless circular argument with myself by the arrival of a second presence outside my cell. My gaze lifted to the door, ears pricked for footsteps, voices, anything – but no sound breached the walls.

Or is there no sound because there's no people? The cynical, realistic part of my mind doubted, still – after all these years – unwilling to entirely accept the veracity of the… admittedly, farfetched ability I'd convinced myself I possessed- NO. I took a slow breath, relaxing the muscles that I'd unconsciously tensed.

I… don't like arguing with myself.

No point, I agreed. More important things.

"Are you going to come in?" I called, done beating about the bush. The silence following my question was still and poignant, just long enough for me to start doubting myself again-

But then the door opened.

Below his skin, Yamanaka Hiro's chakra was churning. He was not sick, though his pale countenance might have suggested otherwise. No – the cause of his distress sat, unknowingly, on the other side of the cell's thick walls, unnervingly passive.

He heard footsteps approaching, and straightened. "Ibiki," he greeted, relieved.

"Hiro," the scarred Head of Department returned gruffly. "Any change?"

Hiro jerked his chin towards the cell. "She woke a few minutes ago." He shook his head, "Just… sat up and told me "I'm awake", cool as you please…" He risked a glance at the cell and found her gazing unerringly back at him. A chill ran down his spine. "Kami," he swore lowly. "I swear she knows we're here, but…"

"…But that shouldn't be possible," finished Ibiki, stepping right up to the window. He remained unflinching as the cell's occupant's calculating eyes flickered to him, and Hiro felt a hint of shame.

What's wrong with me today? He thought, stiffening his spine. He was a jounin, for kami's sake! One – okay, creepy – kid should not have had him so off-balance.

"It's unnerving, isn't it?" Ibiki said knowingly. "That emptiness."

The young sensor couldn't help the grimace that crossed his face. "Like someone's gone and torn a hole in space," he agreed, voice rough, "and if you get too close, it's gonna drag you in and tear you apart."

"Dramatic," Ibiki said, stepping away, "…but apt. I don't suppose the effect has receded at all since it appeared?"

Hiro hesitated, thinking back over the past few hours. Mostly, he'd been preoccupied with his own discomfort, but he thought he'd noticed a slight change in the… intensity. "It's shrinking," he theorised, "slowly. But… yes. Do you think-"

"Wait," Ibiki gestured for him to be silent, just in time for the girl's voice, amplified by the cell's seal array, to echo around them.

"Are you going to come in?"

Hardly daring to breathe, Hiro exchanged glances with his superior. The older man's face darkened, before a crooked smirk tugged at his lips.

"Well, Hiro? You heard the girl."

Hiro gulped.

That came out sounding a bit eerier than I meant it to, I mused sheepishly, observing the blond man as he stepped through the door. He was making a valiant effort to appear composed, but his face nevertheless resembled a corpse. An ill corpse, at that.

"Sorry," I apologised earnestly, because I was sorry and exceptional circumstances were no reason not to be polite. "Didn't mean to creep you out. I was just bored."

For some reason he didn't seem all that reassured.

"Bored?" He choked out. "You're in a high-security prison, kid."

I blinked, bemused and at the same time irrationally the tiniest bit flattered. I was dangerous. Heh. "I'm high-security? What for?" They couldn't have been that spooked, right?

(It suddenly occurred to me that I was still sitting on the floor, and it was quite uncomfortable craning my neck like this. Did I want to get up though? Briefly, I analysed the power dynamics and psychological effects of height difference, and how much I cared… maa, can't be bothered.)

"You're here," another voice growled, "because you're an anomaly." An imposing man with a face more scar-tissue than not leant in the doorway, arms crossed- Ibiki Morino? I wondered, surprised. "An anomaly with a few too many similarities to an Iwa technique that levelled a town not so long ago."

My eyebrows shot up. "Like… a human bomb?" I tilted my head, considering the logistics of such a thing. "How would that even work? Hey, maybe if you compressed your chakra into a really, really, really tiny…" the word slipped away again, "-and then exploded it! Wait no, chakra by itself isn't lethal, or else people would get burnt… fire chakra? But I'm not sure it would technically explode, I mean, the body probably has natural defences against that or people would be accidentally exploding all over the place. Especially in Konoha. Isn't this place mostly fire nature people? I think I read that somewhere-"

"Alright, that's enough," Ibiki interrupted, kicking the door closed with his heel. It slammed. "You're under arrest for a suspected terrorist plot. This is not a game. Are you going to cooperate? Or shall I find other means of persuasion?"

"Cooperate, sir," I answered immediately, blinking, doe-eyed. "You're very scary, did you know?" For once, this wasn't unfiltered babble. Acknowledge your fear, I remembered my taekwondo master telling me once, before I went into my first international tournament. Then conquer it.

Ibiki's eyebrows shot up. "Am I now…" he murmured, leaning forward into my space. "Funny. You don't sound scared."

"I am," I answered honestly, even though my heart was pounding. "Even though I know I'm innocent. I just want to get home."

"And where is home?"

I paused. Well now. How to… "It's a bit more complicated than that. You won't believe me until you see proof."

I met his gaze evenly, fully prepared to impart all the knowledge I had. All the battles, all the secrets, all the deaths of the future- oh shit, hold on… "Hey, what's the date?" Oh, wait- "Uh… actually, how long since the Kyuubi attack? That's easier."

Suspicion sparked. "I'm asking the questions here, kid," Ibiki growled. "Not you."

Well, yes, but- "I need to know so I can give proof," I explained staunchly. "Or, well…" I tilted my head, reconsidering, "…technically, I don't. But it would take a lot longer." My gaze slid to the other man, who was hanging back warily (blonde-blue eyes-no pupil-Yamanaka-mind walk-efficient). "Why don't you just get him to read my mind?"

Ibiki shook his head, face darkening further. Damnit. Too fast. "I don't think so. Why are you so eager to get out here?"

"Because I want to go home," I repeated, the first real hint of anger entering my voice. "Because this is a prison cell, and I don't even know what's going on, and I've had enough of being terrified and confused."

Both men seemed taken aback by my frankness, but I didn't- couldn't- stop there.

"My name is Cara Trainor," I said, staring fixedly at the ceiling. Don't think about it. "I'm seventeen years old. I'm from another world- universe, dimension, whatever – where chakra is fictional and the future of this place is documented as a story. Ask whatever you want, I don't care." I dropped my eyes back to Ibiki's, whose expression was a mixture of calculation and guarded alarm, and spread my arms as if to say 'do your worst'.

"Like I said, I just want to get home."

Even, I thought grimly, if I have to rip this world's future off its rails to do so.


Second chapter done! Yay!

Please R&R. =)