Don't you just love puns? XD

"Talking"

Thinking

Chapter 13: Unlucky

The eerie blackness was oddly quiet and truthfully scared the blonde to an extent. He could deal with a demon fox that controlled untold power, but the dark was not a strong point of his.

"Dammit," he muttered as he yet ago forced himself to stand up. "What the hell am I tripping on?" he asked himself.

His own voice echoed dramatically back from the darkness but he found it comforting to hear something. Apparently the fox hadn't somehow traveled here with him since no sarcastic remarks had been heard yet.

The gloomy darkness really was destroying any attempt Naruto had made to actually think positive thoughts so now he was wandering around, probably in a circle. Maybe even a square. "Dammit!" he yelled again as he fell flat on his face. "How in the hell," he muttered as he picked himself up, "could anyone stand this place for sixteen damn years?!"

A barely audible click resounded through the door and bounced off of the walls. The door swung open and was then shut quietly behind the figure. "It's been three days, Naruto-kun," a light voice said. The stutter was barely there, which Hinata could be proud of. The Hyuuga glanced beside her at the clock placed on the hospital bedside. It read 2:43 A.M. Hinata's eyes bulged slightly, but they quickly returned to normal.

"I haven't been able to sleep at all lately, you know," she started her one-sided conversation. A light laugh escaped Hinata's lips along with a smile. "Kiba-kun and Shino-kun are nearly ready to force me to sleep. It's really affecting my missions. Neji-niisan is worried too. Oh!" she remembered before continuing. "I brought you another flower today, Naruto-kun. It's bright yellow, like your hair," she commented before removing the old blue flower.

"Ino-san says that if I put wishes on each of these flowers that they might come true! Can you believe that, Naruto-kun?" Hinata smiled and placed the new flower into the small vase. "Where was I?" she asked herself. "Oh yes, I remember now. I really only worry about you, Naruto-kun. I always have," she finally admitted. "I guess I'm a little glad that you can't hear me," she trailed off into deep thought. "I've wanted to talk to you since you returned from training. I wanted to tell you about how I really feel!" she muttered. A deep blush covered her face but she fought through her shyness and continued on.

"I really admire you… Ever since you were little, I'm sure people were mean to you; I saw some of it with my own eyes. But you still fought your way through it. I always wanted to help you, but I could never bring myself to talk to you. I was too shy," Hinata barely whispered. "Whenever I'm around you I think my heart starts to skip beats it's so excited. Your presence scrambles my thoughts and I stutter," Hinata drew a deep breath and almost continued but the door opened so she shut her mouth.

"Hinata?" Tsunade asked with tiredness obvious in both her slurred words and her facial features. "What in the world are you doing up at—" Tsunade broke off as she looked at the clock. "Hinata, it's almost three in the morning! Haven't you gotten any sleep lately?"

Pale eyes stared at the ground and fought not to close. "Y-yeah. Neji-san had me get up early this morning for training but he let me come here to check in on Naruto-kun before we started for the day," she muttered to the floor. Tsunade sighed heavily but decided not to ask any further.

"Well I'll just check up on Naruto's condition and then I'll leave," she smiled back at the Hyuuga heiress. Said heiress smiled back and turned to stare at Naruto.

Sakura gently pushed the button on her alarm to turn it to snooze. After rolling over to stare at the clock she decided to turn right back around and go back to sleep.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Sakura turned around after a quick eleven minute nap. "Shut up!" she yelled at it.

"Sakura, Sakura, Sakura. You're talking to an alarm clock. Now get your butt up!" Sakura turned to glare at her proclaimed rival.

"Dammit, why? Can't I sleep in for once?" she asked groggily.

"Not until Tsunade gives you a day off and Naruto isn't in a coma. Now hurry up, will you?" Ino asked again.

"Shut up, Ino-pig," she retorted quickly before forcing herself up. "I just need a few minutes for the shower," she muttered. Her feet dragged across her bedroom floor and into the bathroom. The door shut with a large bang and Ino decided to wait elsewhere for Sakura to finish.

Sakura burst into the living room fully dressed and miraculously dry after only around twenty minutes. She glanced around quickly and ran into another room. Ino sighed deeply but got up and followed her friend.

"Sakura?" Ino asked her friend who was busy shoving food into her mouth. "What happened to your diet?"

Sakura turned around to glare at Ino. "Stress," she mumbled through a full mouth.

"All you're eating is junk," Ino added after a moment.

"I'm hungry!"

"Not anymore," Ino retorted before dragging Sakura out of the kitchen.

"What the hell?! I need food!" Sakura yelled loudly.

Naruto had finally managed to learn what he was tripping on—a long robe resembling type of clothing that had somehow found itself on his body. He shuddered at the thought of why he was wearing it. He put a hand over his chest to make sure that he was still alive, but he felt no heartbeat.

The sharp breath that followed the realization barely even moved his chest. It was as if he really wasn't alive at all. At this thought, Naruto began panicking. "If I'm not alive here then what's happening to my real body? Am I dead?" he wondered.

A footstep resounded from somewhere near him, as if someone was deliberately making themselves noticeable. "Who's there?" Naruto asked before taking a step forward. There was no reply; not even a footstep could be heard. Naruto sighed deeply but continued forward regardless.

Naruto, deep in thought, suddenly came across an idea. "Of course! I'll make some bunshin and then we'll all search for this guy!" he decided. He had unconsciously placed the mask back in place since it kept his thoughts from becoming too depressed in this darkness.

His hands formed the all too familiar sign and he yelled out, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" just as he usually did. However, he didn't feel the familiar sensation of some of his chakra draining nor did he hear any clones appear. The part of his brain that never relied on his mask easily came up with the answer. "Chakra is a life force…" he remembered Jiraiya say those words and it became clear. "I'm not alive here so I don't have any chakra," he sighed out. "Well that just makes this a wonderful little quest," he mumbled to himself.

After another long amount of time, he couldn't tell exactly how fast time was passing here, he stopped. "Hey!" he yelled, hearing his own voice echo back to him. "Anybody here?!" he yelled out again.

"Stop yelling," a quiet and raspy voice told him before he felt a hand grab onto his shoulder. Naruto instinctively tried to jump away, but the grip was stronger than he expected and he couldn't pull away.

"Who are you?" he asked in a shaking voice. The voice laughed lightly and Naruto could almost swear that he had heard that voice before.

"Well, who do you want me to be?" the voice asked Naruto, as if it was a test.

Naruto smiled and hoped that his guess was somewhere near correct. "Well, I want you to be the Yondaime," he answered quickly.

"Ah, but that's just a title!" the voice replied with wisdom emanating from his very words. "You can't reveal a person's true potential until you learn their name, and the origin of it," the voice revealed. "Why don't you tell me your name?" he asked after a moment of consuming silence.

Naruto gulped and nodded. "My name's Naruto Uzumaki! I'm going to be the next Hokage!" he exclaimed proudly. However, just at the mention of his name the grip on his shoulder weakened and the voice had no reply. "Hey, are you alright?" Naruto asked the man.

"N-Naruto?" he asked in disbelief. Naruto couldn't figure out why this would be so shocking to this man. He seemed so wise and happy just a moment ago. "Please tell me you didn't give your soul up to the shinigami!" the man asked, now shaking Naruto by his shoulders.

"I didn't!" Naruto answered quickly and he heard the man sigh with relief.

"Then why are you here?" he asked Naruto quickly, his words almost blurring into one.

"To bring the Yondaime back to Konoha," he stated. This startled the other man.

"You can't do that," the man mumbled in a defeated tone.

"What do you mean? I have to! Otherwise Tsunade said I could die," Naruto explained. He had noticed that this man was for whatever odd reason worried about him.

"Tsunade said that? Well why would you die?"

"First off the seal of the Kyuubi is really weak. Since you made the seal yourself you should be able to fix it, right?" The man mumbled a possibly so Naruto continued. "Not to mention she had to put me into a coma just to get me here."

"What?!" he demanded to know. "Wh-why would she do that? And why would the seal be weak in the first place?"

"First off, it was the only way we could think of to reach this place. Secondly, I drew upon the fox's power too much and now it's leaking out more than expected," he said calmly. "But I don't have a clue on how to get out of here. Plus I don't even know if you are the Yondaime."

The man didn't reply for a while. "That doesn't matter. That man cannot leave here with you and neither can I. Neither of us have physical bodies to return to," he explained.

"Just tell me if you are the Yondaime or not."

"Well, yes. I am the Yondaime. But as your father I forbid you from taking me from this place!" Naruto stared blankly at where he thought the man was.

"M-my… father?!" he asked stunned.

"Did you not know?" the man asked.

Naruto had no answer. His mind was now scrambled and his thoughts were scattered everywhere. "You… you can't be my father…"

"Naruto, I am your father."

"No! You aren't!" Naruto had forced his mind not to accept the fact that his father could have been the one to ruin his life like he did.

"Naruto, listen! I am your father, but I didn't want you to know until you were ready to. I thought that by now you would have been ready," he said before grabbing Naruto's shoulders supportively.

"Ready?! How could I be ready? You don't know how I had to grow up. Without parents I was so lonely. And the villagers all despised my existence, and then all of their children learned to hate me too! All because of what you did the day I was born!" he yelled back at 'his father'.

"Dammit," the Yondaime muttered. "Nobody even bothered to fulfill my dying wish," he continued. "I wanted you to be a hero for carrying such a burden on your shoulders from your birth," he said firmly.

Naruto, even though he had been told this before, was still surprised by the information coming from the Yondaime himself. He was even more surprised when the Yondaime lifted his hands from Naruto's shoulders and embraced him. Naruto's first reaction was to push him away, but instead he tensed up for a moment. He still decided not to return the favor. He didn't know what to think of the man yet.

"So how exactly should I get out of here?" Naruto asked a few minutes after the embrace had ended.

The Yondaime sighed deeply. "To tell you the truth, I have no idea. I've been stuck here for… how old are you?"

"Almost sixteen," Naruto replied.

"So almost sixteen years now. But then again, you have a body to return to. Maybe I could somehow tag along and bind myself to your soul until we reach your body where I could seal myself there until we figure out what to do," he explained.

"I have no idea what you just said," Naruto said blinking. "But I guess it's not that important. As long as you know what you're doing." They both sat in silence, trying to think out a plan when Naruto felt a slight wave of pain pass through his body—or was it his soul?—and he had no idea why. He shuddered and was suddenly cold. His hands starting rubbing his arms and he shivered.

"What's wrong?" the Yondaime asked, having heard his breathing shudder.

"I don't know," Naruto said through clenched teeth. The cold was getting worse, and so was the pain. "But I'm cold and it hurts," he muttered.

"What hurts?" he asked, pressing Naruto for more details. The Yondaime couldn't be there for his child in the real world, but here he could at least try to help.

"Everything," Naruto shivered again. The Yondaime had no idea what could be wrong with him since he hadn't felt anything like heat or pain in such a long time.

It couldn't be that, could it? He asked himself. Is my life really this unlucky?

Note: So I put in a fluff scene, but I am not going to make this a NaruHina. I have better plans than that. Anyway, I hope you all liked it! Thanks for all reviewers and etc. Now that my school let out just yesterday, I'll have much more time to work on this. However, since it is summer vacation, every chapter may now be on time. Don't be surprised if it's a few days late or whatnot. I might start updating on random days, too. Just depending on my mood.

Please Read and Review!

Elizabet639