CHAPTER 1
6 MINUTES
December 9, 2005, 12:55 p.m.
Naruto Uzumaki's math book slips from his fingers. He grips the edge of the table in the school library. Everything goes black and silent. He sighs and rests his head on the table. Tries to pull himself out of it, but fails miserably. He's too tired today. Too hungry. He really doesn't have time for this.
And then.
He's sitting in the bleachers in the football stadium, blinking under the lights, silent among the roar of the crowd.
He glances at the people sitting in the bleachers around him-fellow classmates, parents-trying to spot the dreamer. He can tell this dreamer is afraid, but where is he? Then he looks to the football field. Finds him. Rolls his eyes.
It's Kiba Inuzuka. No question about it. He is, after all, the only naked player on the field for the homecoming game.
Nobody seems to notice or care. Except him. The ball is snapped and the lines collide, but Kiba is covering himself with his hands, hopping from one foot to the other. He can feel his panic increasing. Naruto's fingers tingle and go numb.
Kiba looks over at Naruto, eyes pleading, as the football moves toward him, a bullet in slow motion. "Help," he says.
He thinks about helping him. Wonders what it would take to change the course of Kiba's dream. He even considers that a boost of confidence to the star receiver the day before the big game could put Konoha High in the running for the Regional Class A Championship.
But Kiba's really a jerk. He won't appreciate it. So he resigns himself to watching the debacle. He wonders if he'll choose pride or glory.
He's not as big as he thinks
That's for damn sure.
The football nearly reaches Kiba when the dream starts over again. Oh, get ON with it already, Naruto thinks. He concentrates in his seat on the bleachers and slowly manages to stand. He tries to walk back under the bleachers for the rest of the dream so she doesn't have to watch, and surprisingly, this time, she is able.
That's a bonus.
1:01 p.m.
Naruto's mind catapults back inside his body, still sitting at his usual remote corner table in the library. He flexes his fingers painfully, lifts his head and, when his sight returns, he scones the library.
He spies the culprit at a table about fifteen feet away. He's awake now. Rubbing his eyes and grinning sheepishly at the two other football players who stand around him, laughing. Shoving him. Whapping him on the head.
Naruto shakes his head to clear it and he lifts up his math book, which sits open and face down on the table where he dropped it. Under it, he finds a fun-size Snickers bar. He smiles to himself and peers to the left between rows of bookshelves.
But no one is there for him to thank.