A/N: This chapter is the "lets explain everything and be boring gits" hump that every author must get over, but its required that you read or you'll have no idea whats going on. Next chapter will be a lot of fun though so just you wait!
Disclaimer:I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in it. Yosh.
Theories Over Rice balls
This time when I woke up, I was moving. I mean, of course, right? Now all I needed to do was open my eyes to the freaking Spanish army... or somethings. This whole 'waking up to some strange and utterly ridiculous predicament' thing was very rapidly getting old.Determined to actually stay awake this time, I squinted open my eyes blearily. 'Oh God,' I thought irately, 'Blue, blue sky on all sides. A bad omen if I ever saw one,' I closed my eyes again for a moment, inhaling deeply and wondering if I even wantedto know, before sitting up heavily and rubbing my eyes. Staring at the sky was making me dizzy and 'whatever I was sitting on's jumbling was making me nauseous. Not a good mix.
"Ah, you're awake! Hungry?"
I whipped my head around fast enough to give me whip-lash, nearly falling off the particularly soft object I happened to be rolling around on in the process. The guy laughed from his perch at the head of the hermit-cart and turned back to steering his funny looking Ox-thing. I stared. Did he have... make-up on? That was the coolest frickin' use of make-up ever!I began contemplating the many awesome designs I could do on my face so deeply that I didn't even notice when the cart trotted to a halt. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and actually did fall off when I turned my face and found his nose-mole thing.
"Agh, gross! Don't do that!" I shouted indignantly, rubbing my poor aching bottom.
He chuckled, "Sorry. 'Guess you're probably not used to ninjas... or are you...?" he prodded. I nearly fell over.
"Dear Lord of the Pacific Ocean, what is it with you people and ninjas? And who are you? Where are we? Where are you taking me?! I KNOW KARATE!"
I promptly began kicking and flailing at the air with a determined 'of course I know what I'm doing' gleam in my eye. Hermit-nose-mole-guy laughed heartily and picked me up into the air by the scruff of my collar.
Wow this guy was big.
And I'm not light either. I weigh a good hundred and twenty-something pounds! Make me feel like a five-year-old why don't you?
"Calm down! I won't hurt you,"
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, but relaxed in a pathetic slump and let him place me back on the floor - before slipping into Safety Sally mode, of course.
"As your captive and responsibility, I hereby demand you to inform me of my current location and identify yourself with some form of legalized documentation!"
Hey, when in doubt, talk like 1940's policeman.
But the big guy only nodded solemnly and tapped his chin. For a moment I thought he was going to ignore me, but then he suddenly whipped around and struck up a good-guy pose so bright it nearly blinded me.
"I, my fair young lady, am JIRAIYA, Legendary Sannin and Toad Sage! Amazing ninja and utterly prodigious author of adult romances! HA!" And with a dazzling thumbs up, I could almost picture the exaggerated fireworks blasting off behind him.
"Now your turn," he ended enthusiastically.
'Jeez,' I thought, 'Why doesn't he just ask?' I scratched my head thoughtfully and examined him. It was clear that everyone here was exceptionally insane, so I might as well play along or they might burn me at the stake or something. I struck up my own rather dazzling position and pointed dramatically at nothing as I loudly announced,
"And I, my large and ever threatening companion, am Kaya! Freshman at Jamison High school, Florida! 13 year-old genius with absolutely zero attention span and apparently the only sane person left on this planet! Now please tell me where I am!"
He looked at me strangely for a while, stroking that Ox thing's head absently. I was about to scream because 'Sweet fucking Jesus how long does it take this guy to think?!' but before I could open my mouth, he was speaking.
"Well... right now we're not really anywhere," he said like it made all the sense in the world.
"...Huh?"
"Look around,"
And I did.
And I gasped.
It was like a painting. Seriously. It was surreal. Remember how the sky was so immensely vast? Yeah, multiply that times, like, fifty and add huge rolling fields of wheat plants. With the cool breezes' every subtle movement came an enormous wave of motion, rustling and glinting in the early afternoon sun.
"I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore..." I whispered grimly. There sure as hell wasn't any place like this in America... and Japan was completely industrialized by now... everyone here was obsessed with stupid ninjas...
Oh. My. God.
"Jiraiya!" I shouted accusingly, "You say you're a ninja! Prove it!"
The sage blinked for a moment, the sighed. He was probably thinking along the lines of how extraordinarily stubborn his hostage was turning out to be, but whatever; I was in overdrive.
"If you insist," and in a poof of weird white smoke, there were two Jiraiya's.
"SWEET MARY JOSEPH LIGHT BULB JUICE!" Hey, that should have been impossible!
"That's one pair of lungs..." Sage #2 grumbled as he dug his pinkie into his ear, closing one eye in concentration.
Of course, I wasn't really paying attention, now was I?
I'd researched the existence of different dimensions once... It was all mixed in with the space-time continuum theory - basically, time is like a fabric stretched taut. When you put a large piece of matter in the middle, (star, planet, etc.) everything around it rotates downward towards it. A lot of people theorized that there were many layers of those fabrics, all piled up on top of one another and compressed into a solid, perfectly balanced and friction-ed mass of UNIVERSE. They also theorized that wormholes (when gravity and strong nuclear force sort of implode and create and awesome tunnel through space and time - meaning that if you fell in, you could pop out just about anywhere as well as anytime) were like the subway stations between dimensions.
Of course, it was close to impossible that I'd fallen into a wormhole in the middle of the planet when - quite obviously - nothing had imploded. Or maybe it did and I was in a coma or something. No, that's illogical. Well, so is the wormhole thing. Damn it I'm getting off track.
Anyway, if I had fallen into another world, my body would have had to immediately adapt in order to survive (which kind of/sort of/totally explained explained the pain during the transition). But there were still so many blanks... and how the hell did a TV show become its own frickin' dimension? Okay, time to think.
What did I remember from that God-forsaken anime? Hmmm... Okay, there was an old guy called Hokage... he was probably like a mayor or something... damn, what was that village called... (sigh) skip that. Characters... Naruto (obviously), Sasuke (the object of my sister's undying affection), Sakura (the object of her very vicious verbal bashing)... uh... OH! Iko! No... Ino? Right? Whatever. This doesn't help me. What was that words the (shiver) doctors used again...?
Chakra.
"Hey Kid? Anyone home?" came a knocking on my skull. I felt my eyes unglaze as a rice ball was waved under my nose.
MMMMM... food!
What was I thinking again?
Damn, it was important too!
"We have some talking to do," he said seriously, sitting down cross-legged (and surprisingly graceful) on a boulder that had miraculously appeared there in a grand span of five seconds.
I sat on the floor Indian-style and stared up at him expectantly, munching happily on my long-denied lunch.
"Because we're both completely clueless here, we'll take turns answering questions. You first,"
"Okay... What country are we in?" I asked through a mouthful of rice.
"We're about to leave the Cloud country," he said simply, "Currently headed to Fire country,"
I blinked at him quizzically. Of course countries would be named after elements here. Why make it any easierfor Kaya when we can screw with her logic? (sigh) none of those sounded familiar anyways, so I kept going.
"Are ninjas, like, a commonplace here?"
"Yes. Everywhere, actually,"
"Mhmm... Why did you take me hostage?"
"I did not take you hostage - I was helping out an old friend. He was your medic and had a lot of work to do. I took you off his hands," he replied matter-of-factly.
"Are YOU a liscensed medical worker capable of performing emergency medical procedures if I suddenly drop and have a stroke in five seconds?"
"Do you have anywhere else to go?"
"...Touche. What is chakra?"
He gave me a quizzical look - like I'd just asked him what color grass was.
"You don't know what chakra is?"
"If I did, I wouldn't have asked!"
He continued to stare at me for a while before deciding that he would get his fair share of questions as well. He swallowed down one more large bite of rice and inhaled, ready to go into a full explanation.
"Chakra is basically your life energy," he began thoughtfully, "It travels through your body in a chakra system, which I suppose you could say are like pathways through your blood and organs. Everyone's is different and some have particularly skilled control over it, or have a larger amount. These people are able to concentrate their chakra in order to create Justus and use them to fight. That's where ninjas come in. They protect and perform missions for their village," he paused for a moment, as though trying to decide whether to tell me more, then nodded in affirmation.
My brain kicked into overdrive again. His explanation was probably the most sufficient thing I would get, and it was just enough to fill in the blanks.
"Do I have chakra?" I asked curiously.
"Yes. Infact, you have one of the largest chakra systems I've ever come across. My turn!"
"Hey! I have one more question!" I protested.
He sighed, "Shoot,"
My lip quivered mischievously, "Did you say you were a Toad Sage?!" Then I burst out laughing. His eyebrow twitched angrily and he got a good blow to my head.
"Owww..."
"My turn,"
Well, Jeez.
"The hospital said they found you in a crater. Your body produces abnormal amounts of chakra," he explained seriously, "So... where did you come from?"
I thought for a moment, clicking my explanation carefully into place before I spoke again.
"I came from a different dimension,"
He blinked.
"Is that so?"
"It's so 'so'it's scary, Mr. Jiraiya, sir,"
"Explain,"
So I did, in excruciating detail. He nodded at appropriate intervals and 'hmm'ed occasionally as I went into my enthusiastic account of the Serial Killing Manhole, Squeaky, and waking up to an onslaught of white. He frowned.
"If you came through this... bug-hole of yours-"
"Wormhole,"
"Sure. If you came through a wormhole as you describe, how did you obtain such massive amounts of chakra?"
"I have a theory..." I began mysteriously, "In order to survive in a different climate, your body temperature adjusts, right? Well, I figure that the pain I felt while I was falling was my body adapting to this world - by growing a chakra system that is,"
His eyes grew wide as he contemplated this. I wasn't exactly sure whether to take this as an 'I can't believe it!' sign, or a 'you're very clearly mentally impaired' sign, but he nodded absently, so I continued.
"In my world, the laws of physics are different then they are here - much more limited. I'm guessing that because I had to use so much extra energy to survive in my dimension, my body is used to producing that amount. When I got here, it needed somewhere to put all that energy and converted it into chakra. That's probably why I had so much, but I figure that if I use it all up, my chakra system should shrink down... right?"
There was a long pause in which Jiraiya's eyes glazed over in thought. 'Oh no, here we go again,' I thought as I placed my chin in my hands and waited for his little epiphany to end. Several minutes in distracted silence stretched on to what seemed like forever. I was in the middle of watching a particularly intriguing interaction between little black ants on the dirt road when Jiraiya mumbled, "No..."
I screwed up my face in confusion, "Huh?"
"No. Your chakra won't just run out kid. Back in that hospital, when you tore that seal off, you released so much suppressed chakra it nearly destroyed your mind. And even afterwards you stillhad enough to plunge a syringe through a thick concrete wall. After you were stabilized again, your body immediately started restoring all the chakra you'd lost. Right now, it's looking like you might produce too much for the rest of your life,"
I flinched at the prospect of being stuck in this place forever and vowed in the back of my head to eventually find a way back.
"But I feel completely normal... if not even a little wiped out..."
He jerked his head slightly towards my left arm. I followed his guide and pulled up my sleeve to find, of course, that stupid Japanese seal thing. I sighed and decided to not even think into the whole language thing, lest I give myself a brain hemorrhage.
"Well then... what do I do?" I inquired defeatedly.
Jiraiya looked up with a resolved look in his eyes, "You find a way exert chakra on a constant basis in order to keep yourself stable subconsciously at all times,"
I blinked.
Give it up for Jiraiya: Winner of Earth's Most Vague Kidnapper Award.
"I suppose it's settled then," he announced victoriously, standing from his perch on the boulder and rolling the remaining rice balls up into a sack.
"Hey- what's settled? What are you on about Old Man?!" I shouted, leaping up onto my feet as he climbed back into the cart and sat contentedly on what I now could see was teetering pile of luggage.
He grabbed the Ox's reigns, "I am going to train you to become a shinobi, Kaya-Chan. As of now, you are my apprentice. Now hop on; we have a long way ahead of us,"
"EH?" I stood, shell-shocked. Didn't see thatone coming, "How do I know your not some perverted peep?!"
"You don't!" He shouted, the cart miraculously already a good twelve yards away, "But your bag is still on this cart, so I suggest you try running!"
I paled visibly and immediately took off, leaving dust in my wake. In that moment, I realized something ground-breaking.
Ninjas suck ass.