I loved to write, in that world; it was just the way that I could express my utmost feelings, as natural as music or painting to some geniuses and prodigies. I wasn't one of those, of course- but I was the best writer in the school. I received a perfect score on the state-wide writing test; my homeroom teacher had come running down the hall waving the scorecard. I was going to college, everyone knew. I was a bright, young girl with a whole future ahead of me.
But I would rather be writing a letter to the most precious people I have even known, in death, than to have gotten every scholarship or award. Dying was the best thing I ever did, because it brought me to you.
It was hard to know if anything was real, at this point. Considering that my last memories were of being broad-sided by a vehicle and being dragged to my death over the side of a bridge, it wasn't even entirely clear if this heavy body I could feel myself stirring within, strangely, was a dream or not.
Things ran through my mind that made, like the fact that a reality still stood around me, absolutely no sense; somehow I was sitting up in the scrubby grass.
Late-afternoon sunlight, slanting between low, sandstone buildings; long shadows and edges of life cavorting in the brightness between them. Everything cloudy at first, but coming clearer; and finally I saw long-haired girls in tunics. Their foreheads sparkled in the red sun, as brightly as their eyes. They were moving slowly, so slowly in the thick air- I could practically taste the dust and locust-stink. It was the unmistakable dryness of summer; humidity cleaving to my skin, to the stripes of my tanktop.
My legs were there, long and pale as ever; the webbed fabric of a bathing suit clinging to my stomach. My toes ached from clutching the thongs of a blue sandal, only one of which was still with me. My hands, alien, lifted before me: the same fingers that pecked so loudly on keyboards as to drive people at the library to distraction; the same ring that I wore on the wrong finger; chewed fingernails.
"…What the hell is wrong with you?"
I turned to face him without knowing; as much of a writer as I used to be, I can't explain the speed at which all of these things were happening, or how I had come to be seated on the dusty ground before a young boy who assessed me with cool eyes that knew more than I could ever hope to.
He made a face after a few moments, gripped the rope tighter. Green plastic goggles, the kind you bought at the Dollar Tree to shut your kid up, googled at the world from his forehead, like misplaced eyes. His orange pants, just at my face level, are what I remember most; he was sitting sideways on a wooden swing that he was too tall for, but his stance said that he'd owned this spot for some time. Everything about him was bright: his blue eyes, his neon jacket sleeves, the shock of blonde hair topping the whole vision.
And then I was up, screaming.
"Madre a dios! CHINGAAAAAA! QUUUUEEEEE!"
Palms toward the warm sky, I shouted to see if I could; I waved my arms and leapt up and down, announcing my arrival- and then I swooped down in a well-practiced embrace upon the horrified-looking boy; tangled in the swing he could not escape, but instead his panic and my weight sent us tumbling onto the ground; the old rope sawed at my face, Naruto was fighting like a cat trying to escape a bath, and I didn't care. I couldn't. I was laughing and weeping at the same time, trying to curb the desperate keening sounds as I realized that the girls at the end of the road had stopped and were staring.
Coughing on dust, Naruto squirmed beneath me for his life. Never before had I heard such a litany of swear words, and all directed towards me. He only stopped when I murmured his name once, twice, waiting to see if he would respond.
"Naruto, Naruto, pobre kitsune hijo-"
"Do I know you, you psycho-bitch!" Spattering. "Get the hell off of me!"
All I could do was stare into his face, like a hypnotized drug-addict. Then, with what must have seemed like an insane person's passion to poor Naruto, I yanked at my unfettered hair. Full shocks, thick and wiry, seeming to hang stiffly of their own accord.
"OH MY GOD, I HAVE SAKURA HAIR!" I shouted. My brain would have been calmer if it had exploded. For Naruto's part, as I thought secret things to myself and devoured what I could of the city around me with my eyes, he began to calmly back away without taking his eyes off of my form.
I was a tall, skinny brunette with one shoe, staring up at the four, massive stone heads that had kept guard over my favorite dreams. I was standing in the Konoha sunset- and best of all, I had the hair.
"… Oh, madre a dios-"
The expression Naruto wore has no name. "Uh, yeah…" he said slowly. "Um, hi. I'm Naruto. Are you… a friend of Sakura-chan's? Did she tell you to come attack me?"
"No," I said. "No. No. Oh, Jesus. Have you stolen the scroll yet!"
"H-how did you know about that!" he blurted, before clapping a hand over his mouth. "I just decided- GET OUT OF MY BRAIN, YOU PSYCHO-BITCH! WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD-"
"Naruto, Naruto!" came my peals, which once more served to quiet him (most likely out of fear). As he lifted them from their pensive grip on his yellow locks, I snatched at his open palms. I had to touch him again, to hold his wrists and see, feel. Besides seeming nauseous at what surely must have been my hungry gaze, a resolve had set into those deep, sapphire eyes that I recognized: the mindset of a ninja plotting an escape, a counterattack when surprised. His mouth hardened, whiskers flexing; my heart turned a flip.
"Naruto Uzumaki. Uzumaki Naruto. I'm not reading your mind. I can't do that- yet. I'm, uh- a travelling gypsy."
"What the hell's a gypsy?"
"Ah- a fortune teller! I can tell your fortune, if you, um, want."
"You attack me and then expect me to pay you to guess from the horoscope? Screw you, Psycho-Bitch-"
"No, no! I can tell your future for you- even when Sakura will fall for you!" The words leapt out before I could stop them; I would have lied about anything, said anything at this moment. Nothing was yet real, but with those words the gravity of my presence, unbelievable as it was, finally hit me.
"Woah, really?" he rebounded. Typical Naruto, distracted by most anything. "How much?"
My thoughts were whirling like gears. We had to get out of the street, out from under the sun before I uttered the horrible thought that had just washed over my mind.
I was not supposed to be here- and god knew what kind of damage I could do, trying to get to know these names I'd known only as heroes from a manga.
Weighing the risks was impossible, given the fact that I was standing right in front of Uzumaki Naruto himself; I was, unbelievably, unspeakably in his world, and I made the decision I hadn't had the chance to when I had gone tumbling from the bridge: I was going to walk with him, because I had died, no matter how long this dream lasted- which couldn't be long, of course. People didn't just appear in animated story books, for obvious, universal reasons:
What would happen to the plot, and the fates of every character therein, if a reader appeared in their midst?
As we walked I made two decisions, soaked in the evanescence of this twist of fate. During my stay in the Naruto world, however long, I would reveal nothing of my knowledge of this place- except to the one man I knew I could trust. I had Naruto take me to his lair, and as we scuffed our dirty feet along the unpaved paths by the fast-running river that cut Konohagakure in half, we came to an understanding. I was also going to string Naruto along using my 'gypsy' lie; who knew how long I would have to lie, anyway?
"So what else happens to me? Does Sakura fall for me soon? OH- when do I become Hokage? Next year? How far can you see, anyway-"
"Naruto, listen up." I scolded in a librarian voice. "I can only tell you things on two conditions, and if you ever break them, I'll…"
"… You'll what?"
"… I'll put a voodoo curse on you so that all of your pinto falls off and that you never become a great Ninja! I'm aztecana, fool! Don't mess with me!"
His collective gulp told me that he was hooked, as surely as that little stingray. "Okay, okay, geez! Just don't screw up my life. I think I might need that- uh, what did you say?"
"Uh, nevermind… I promise I won't, but only if you do two things for me."
"Sure, what?" he drawled, crossing arms over his orange chest. He was so much taller than I had thought, an overgrown weed of thirteen years. I couldn't stop looking into his marine eyes.
"You can never tell anybody about what I do- telling fortunes, that is. I'll only tell about the future when you really earn it, and it'll still be my decision, anyway. So don't bug me for a fortune or whatever."
"What!" he groaned. "Do you know how much money you could make, doing that? Peh, stupid... How long are you gonna be around, anyway?"
"That's the second thing. I need a place to live while I'm here. Let me live with you for a while. I'll clean up and try to cook, I guess, if you let me."
"… Are you- WHAT THE HELL! I've only known you for ten minutes, and you expect to come waltzing in and live with me? Where the hell do you gypsies come from, anyway? And holy shit, what would my neighbors think if they saw a girl in my room-"
"Please, Naruto- I'll sleep on the floor! I can only cook, uh, lots of stuff!" I didn't mention that what I could cook required the technology of my old life, besides that scrambled eggs and tacos from a box hardly qualified as 'a lot of' anything. Did he eat anything besides ramen, anyway?
He seemed to be contemplating the matter with great ponderousness- so much so that he walked into the door of the Hokage's office. He jumped back with wood splinters in his red cheek, his fists balled as he made sure that no one had seen this. I was too sick to my stomach to even laugh; we had reached the realm of Konoha's great sage Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. To Naruto he was a guardian grandfather; but I knew his name, parts of his past, his summon, and the way he would die.
That's what I told him when Kotetsu shut the door for our private audience: it was an honor to see the Hokage on such short notice, but in late evening he was usually looking for an excuse to get away from paperwork. The maple doors swung shut with a gust that cooled the sweat clinging to my swimsuit top; I hastily removed my one shoe and, on all but instinct, dropped into the best impersonation I could of a Japanese honorary bow.
I heard him rise, the surprised sound he made to see me face-down. "I'm not so stuffy as to demand such gestures, my dear! How can I help you this evening?"
It was the deepest breath I had ever taken; if I was alive, after all. Things were playing at the speed of a nightmare, and I had no choice but to dance along. I knew the way that this world operated, and how brutal it could be to someone who didn't respect it.
"Hokage-sama…" I breathed, hardly believing that I could be speaking, let alone to the idol of Konohagakure himself, it's most powerful protectorate. I couldn't believe how approachable he looked.
"Hokage-sama, I am not supposed to be here…and yet I am."
I couldn't tell him that I had died; I couldn't tell him that I had left a mother, a puppy dog, schoolfriends behind in an impossible time. Not in so many words. I poured out what I scarcely believed myself: that I had passed through one life and appeared here, for whatever quirk of space or fate. But what else could I say? If he slew me as a traitor or a spy, with my head bent to his varnished floor, did I care what would happen? I certainly didn't fear it, anymore; all the fear had been leeched out of my bones. I was beyond feeling.
… Or at least, I thought. Until he said, "Who'd you kill in a past life, to end up a Shinobi?"
His chuckles rent the stale office. I'm sure the face I wore, of unabashed shock, would have been enough to convince anyone of the honesty of my claim. Somewhere inside I was out of place, and my best guess is that with the wisdom of a man who has surely lived several lives of his own, the Sandaime Hokage had seen enough strange things in his time on the planet that he lent some credence to my outrageous claim. Whatever. At least I didn't die immediately (god knows where I would have gone, then).
But I had to ask. "You… believe me, Hokage-sama?"
"Goodness, you're so formal… I like a good 'Sarutobi-sensei', since you all insist on such formalities. Been so long since I've heard it, I've almost forgotten my own last name!" More laughter, gruff; a smoker's laugh. He sat down, the invisible movements of his stout legs billowing the spotless cloak that tented his short body. He was the most graceful old person I had ever seen; he moved with the youth of my mother, who was certainly twenty years his junior.
"Yes…" he murmured, in a voice that seemed disembodied. "But I sense that's not the only strange thing you'd have me believe, little girl. You came here to speak honestly with me, and I want the whole of what you believe is the truth. If you are a spy, you're a bold one."
You must understand, I was quite beside myself at this point; hopping dimensions will do that to you. I couldn't feel my mouth attached to my brain, and yet it still poured out, seemingly as I watched from the corner: I was a stranger in a strange land, albeit one I had heard of before. In a book, one that I had read for over four years. And then I told him about my mother; my puppy who kept me up all night, my high school, all my hopes for college and becoming a functional member of society. I even told him what I couldn't say at school: that I wanted to be a teacher; that I had wanted to learn how to bring communities together and learned Spanish to accomplish this goal- and how I was, suddenly, here. His eyebrow perked at the mention of another language, but he was quiet throughout my pathetic retelling; halfway through I began to realize how ridiculous I sounded and began to weep, again as if outside of myself. There was salt caked in my eyelashes, from the sea. The last thought I could blubber out was my deepest fear: "I don't know why I'm here! I'm a fucking time bomb!"
He ignored my swearing- great man that he was- and I wept like no little girl lost could have. Oh, god- my mother. My dog. My life was back in that old world, that I was suddenly gone from- and here I was in a land of bloodthirsty assassins and supernatural abilities, full of people I had envied and looked up to, sure of their irreality. How could this be happening? Why- why me? And the hope in my heart- the abominable hope that I would wake up (if I could come here, I could certainly leave somehow-)- that I knew would torment me from that moment on. How would I bear it? I couldn't! I couldn't do anything but, but-
"Live," he finished for me. The Hokage had lit his ubiquitous pipe, and the calm, floozy stink of tobacco flooded my nostrils with a rent of home. My father had smoked- his clothes stank of it, even all these years after he had left; it was the smell of my childhood, and it slashed through my soul with such a sorrow that I couldn't even weep. Dumb, silent, I wheezed while the Sandaime placed one hand on my dry, beach-blown hair.
"It appears that you have no choice but to live, little one." His voice was old, dry as brittle reeds. It sounded like the voice of God. "We all have things happen to us beyond explanation- things that make the world seem a very dark place, indeed. You were there- but now you are here. Many more things beyond understanding or comprehension will happen to those who live in this world- you'll see. All of us question our existence from time to time. But the only sure thing is that we continue to live, in spite of what we think will kill us. Stop crying. You will only cry in your heart from now on, because tears are weakness, here."
I wiped my face, as if tugged into motion by a puppet master; I couldn't stop gasping, even as I stared into the old man's kind face through my pink, aching eyes. I will never forget the look I saw beneath the brim of that basket hat; I can't even ask him questions anymore, because he is long dead. But I can honor his memory- and this is the one that gave me the courage to serve him, even after losing everything I knew.
He smiled, driftwood face older than the stone one outside that watched over even when my children were born. "Stop crying, little girl," he repeated, "and tell me your name."
He sent me out a few minutes later, after telling me things that made my existence sink, like concrete, into my jumbled consciousness. He'd have to keep an eye on me- just to be sure, you understand, even Hokages could have bad judgement calls-, and that living with Naruto was a pleasant idea. There wasn't a down-on-my-luck-charity-fund (which I told him we didn't have in my 'America' either, to his amusement), so finding someone to take me in until I could support myself was inevitable. I had two options: picking up full-time work until I could afford to live on my own, or swearing my life and blood into the Shinobi profession for room and board, albeit abysmal pay and no assurances.
You can pretty much guess which one I chose.
Sure of my intent, Sarutobi related that the recent Genin class had graduated only today- and that it was full of bright, young hopes for the village's future. He didn't say it to my face, but his expression told me that I had little hope of ever reaching their level of expertise; there was no guarantee that I would even become a Genin, given that I'd lived almost fifteen years without a moot of ninja training. If the children in this world started at the bottom of a mountain, I had to climb the same mountain, but begin at the bottom of the sea. I told him I'd do menial chores for the Chuunin; I'd clean toilets in the Academy, for the rest of my life, for just the chance to fail. This dismal fate didn't hit me until some days later; right now I couldn't focus. The only thing that seemed real to me was going to sleep soon, and very soon- not tomorrow. I wasn't promised tomorrow.
Luckily, my roommate had a few tricks up his sleeve- and someone who would help me immeasurably through the first few months of my Shinobi life.
In the whole of my existence, there was no other time that someone could have bought my love and trust for the low, low price of a spare futon, a dirty yukata, and a few kunai knives. Iruka took advantage of this unprecedented bargain.
Granted, he hadn't wanted to give them up; he probably hadn't wanted to answer the door, considering that Naruto came banging on the door in such a way as to make it ridiculously clear that he wanted a favor. But he did come to the door, his hair wet; looked like he was trying to relax after a long day of yelling at Naruto, in fact.
"Iruka-seeeeennnsssseeeeeiii!"
"Who told you where I live, you little miscreant!"
"Iruka-sensei! We need to borrow some stuff! 'Cause on account of she's gonna be living with me from now on, that's all."
His reaction was, typically, overblown. "WHAAAAATTTT!"
"It's not like that, sir!" I tried to explain, which Naruto bolstered valiantly: "Yeah, it's not like she's my girlfriend or anything! She's just a random homeless gypsum!"
"Gypsy, you moron! Gypsum is a rock!"
"Whatever. She can do magic!" he shouted, apparently forgetting our unholy deal. I had no choice but to punch him in the ribs. "OW- you really think I'd pick a girlfriend that ugly?" And again. "Tu madre!"
"Naruto, why are you taking in homeless people!- and what do you mean, magic? Are you insa!- wait, yes, you are…"
Every good greeting in Konoha is nice and loud, apparently; Iruka was shouting into the stairwell, and Naruto could hardly be expected to maintain a normal voice; the high register was already grating on my nerves. It was Maile Flanigan whining, while high on caffeine; worse than the dub.
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" Naruto shrieked, confirming my hatred. "JUST GIVE US SOME STUFF SO YOU CAN GO TAKE YOUR MIDOL, YOU CRAB!"
Seeming to acquiesce to the reality that making sense with Naruto was a fruitless endeavor, the harried-looking young Chuunin cast his chocolate gaze onto the rumpled, grungy form of space-traveler me. Seeing the way he gazed down on me only confirmed what I had known even back in my own world: that Iruka was a good man, and someone who couldn't contain his feelings all too well. He was too truthful for this life; too good for it. I loved him immediately.
"Are you going to introduce us," came from the straight-backed, navy-clad form as he moved down a hallway of exquisitely small size (Shinobi apartments, I was soon to gather, are all the size of dorm rooms, and hold an entire life instead of a shallow student. The proliference of the owner's humanity simply fills the space, cluttering it in a way that you learn to appreciate), "or did you invite her in without even asking her name?"
"Yeah," Naruto answered absently; he was clambering on top of the dingy kitchen counter, the size of a small cutting board, and pilfering with his head completely inside of the single cabinet. "HEY, YOU'VE GOT KATSUDON RAMEN! They were out of it when I went-"
"I'm eating toxic, pork-flavored death all week because of your little splurge at Ichiraku, thank you very- Naruto, I put food there! Get down!"
"SHOE GERMS, SHOE GERMS!" he sang in response, as he proceeded to perform an awkward little tap dance. I knew personally that if I had tried something like that at home, I would have no teeth left to eat ramen with. With no mother to beat him, I supposed that Sakura would be doing him a favor very soon.
"You're not even supposed to have shoes- next time I'm going to push you off the Hokage Monument, you hear!" Iruka was often frustrated, something told me. He merely sighed, and prodded me with a mass of stale-smelling blankets he had gotten from some invisible closet. "As you may gathered, I'm Umino Iruka. I'm a teacher at the Academy…and this little dorkbreath here is my unfortunate mascot." Naruto merely humphed, and danced again spitefully. "And you are?"
"Consuelo. Consuelo Ortega."
"Con…Ko-n-su-e-ri-o? That's a lot of characters… where are you from anyway, Conswearo?"
"You can just call her Psycho-Bitch- I do!" Naruto added helpfully. "JUST EAT THE RAMEN AND SHUT UP!" Iruka roared; the match went to a gleeful Naruto. Iruka sighed again. "Gypsy name, I guess… Ever thought about a nickname?"
"How about Chin-chin-chan? OH SHIT, MY NOODLES-"
"STOP SWEARING! And no, we are not calling her a slang term for- for-"
Naruto had spilled boiling water with pork flavoring into his lap; burns seemed to be his least concern, however, because he was clutching the styrafoam cup over the crease of his pants, in an attempt to get as much water back to use as he could.
"Ha! Burned your chin-chin did you? That'll teach you- … Are you sure you want to room with him, Kon-chan?"
And just like that, I had a new name. My official one, the one on the Shinobi ID card that was meant to identify my remains if they were charred or smashed beyond recognition, would arrive at the end of the week and would feature the single kanji for guts or will, which makes the 'kon' sound in the dense Japanese figures that everyone but me could read. I figured I'd need every bit of will to get by, so I accepted it; I tried to find bravery in the brushstrokes when I wrote it, over and over, while Naruto slept that night and I didn't.