As he opened his eyes he wasn't entirely sure what he was seeing. Above him was a wooden ceiling colored brown from age. To most people that sight would not have been much but for Uzumaki Naruto that alone was enough to cause panic.
Ceilings colored wood brown were often an indicator that he was in some person's home; hospital ceilings were white after all. Any time he was in some ones house, it was never a good thing. As a child he had never been invited to sleepovers and growing up the pattern hadn't really changed.
The only times he could recall ever waking up in a place that was not a hospital would have to be a Clan's quarters during his trips with Jiraiya where the old geezer would leave him at the mercy of enemy nins while he was off in another evening of debauchery.
The Clan whose house he would have to stay with until the Hermit arrived, often did their utmost to try and extract as much information about the Toad Sage as possible mostly because Jiraiya owed them a lot of money. Despite popular opinion, his books were not really a big seller and the old man would borrow many loans from various Ninja Clans among the elemental nations even though he still had the money to pay the debts from his career as a ninja in his younger days.
His alert eyes traced up and and down the room looking for anyone near the corner, the torturer as they would call themselves, still some of them liked to call themselves interrogators.
His gaze finally landed on a short sleeping girl with long black hair in a ponytail and a pair of silver hoop earrings on each ear. The girl had slightly thick eyebrows and an olive color to her. For some odd reason there was a vein pulsing on her left temple, Naruto really didn't want to know what she was dreaming about if dreams could make someone angry.
Aside from the somewhat cute girl next to his bed, the place looked empty. It looked clean and the room did not seem to have any devices for which to 'extract' information with.
Yet as amusing as his ramblings were the entire scenario did not make any sense.
Didn't he just die?
He was sure that when a person gets a spear shoved into his heart and eaten by a giant Hell Demon, a person died. His fight with Nagato had ended with the man in defeat, yet when he came to strike him down the Rinnegan user summoned a creature he had never seen before, capable of devouring him and the Kyuubi Chakra without much effort.
So in the end he failed.
Afterwards he was in a state of limbo in some dimension where souls were being eaten by a strange looking creature. In this realm the blind folded beast was about to eat him when the Chakra in his system acted strange and exploded into itself, tearing him apart in a molecular level.
Now he was back in the real world.
Why?
Pushing the blanket off of him he took steps out of the bed, careful not to wake the sleeping girl. It was a full moon out tonight and he strolled towards the window in an attempt to see the bright blue orb floating in the sky.
It didn't matter where he was now, the moon would always be there, a large sphere of light shining against the night. He turned to face the sleeping girl who made a slight shiver. Naruto smiled and went to his bed. He gathered up the blanket and wrapped it around the girl as she slept. The girl sighed in contentment and mumbled about 'idiot Clan people.'
Naruto snorted thinking how he wasn't the only one with people problems.
He stretched out his tired muscles and walked out of the room looking around the place he was residing in. From his observations it looked like the standard Clan housings he would find in Konoha. Maybe he was still in Fire country?
His steps led him to the kitchen where there was an old lady rolling some ramen dough to keep for storage. Naruto being somewhat of an expert in Ramen decided to watch her at work. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.
"Do you need any help?"
Naruto's words startled the poor old lady and she almost jumped at being surprised. She turned back to gaze at the man behind her, her eyes became larger for a second until she regained her bearings. "You gave me a fright young man; I didn't even hear you come in."
Naruto nodded, most people couldn't tell when he came into rooms either, he didn't make much sound due to years of sneaking into other people's houses to pull off some rather elaborate revenge pranks, of course the lady didn't need to know that. "Are you making ramen?"
The old lady, whose hair is also in a pony tail but was silver looked at Naruto curiously before saying slowly "Yes, yes I am."
Naruto did not say anything for a second. He looked thoughtful before he spoke. "Mind if I help?"
The old women's eyes looked curious at this. "You want to help me make the dough at two in the morning?"
"Yes."
The old lady wasn't sure if the blond before her was being serious, but what could it hurt if she let him help? What startled her was that the boy was offering to help out; practically every boy in her Clan had to be shouted at before they even cleaned up their room, yet this man before her was willing to aid her with her cooking.
"Roll the dough in that corner, add some flour if it is too soft," she said pointing towards a pile of ramen dough.
"Alright."
And so Naruto spent some time taking his mind off his worries as he focused on making the thin noodle strings he would need to create his most favorite of meals.
"You are pretty good at this, have you ever had any experience making Ramen dough before?"
Naruto turned to face her. "Sort of, an old Ramen vendor showed me how one time."
She looked disbelieving. "I find that hard to believe, they don't give out their trade to just anyone."
"I wasn't just anyone," Naruto replied ignoring her sly gaze.
"Was he family?"
"No, not exactly but I would like to think we were close," Naruto said as his hands worked to add more pressure into the rolls.
"Hmm, most people don't tend to have that kind of relationship with their restaurant chefs," she said offhandedly.
Naruto paused before answering. "Most people didn't have as little choices as me; the Ramen vendor was pretty kind to me as a child, unlike others."
The old lady didn't bother to hide her surprise. "What about your parents? Surely you have to admit your relation to this vendor must have made them a bit anxious."
Naruto wondered if he should even bother to say the next part, but he figured he would be out of here soon so it couldn't hurt. "I didn't have any parents growing up, I was an orphan."
The old lady looked sad. "Oh that is a shame, I am sorry to hear that. It must have been hard."
Naruto didn't say anything for a long time after that.
-
When Yoshino woke up she was greeted to a rather surprising sight. First she was pretty sure she was on a bed, and second she had a white blanket wrapped around her.
Third the bed wasn't even hers!
Damn it, I was sleep walking again!
She quickly got off it, ignoring the smell of musk that made her feel a bit warm. She looked around and noticed that it was the injured blond's bed. The problem was that the blonde-haired person was not anywhere to be found in the room.
Getting off the bed, she tried not to sigh thinking about how cold it was in the morning. They did not have any heating in these old-fashioned compounds so they had to make do with covering up with lots of clothes during the morning time, when it was coldest.
Shivering down the hall she glanced around the open rooms seeing her cousins all sleeping in strange angles. When she passed Shikaku's room she banged on his door to try and wake him up. The black haired boy instantly sat up looking like he just got a heart attack.
Then he just fell back down and slept.
"Idiot," Yoshino grumbled as she walked down towards the kitchen.
-
"And then she chased Tsume-chan all over the town, oh dear she was angry. She has a sailor's mouth that girl!"
Naruto laughed at that, "I bet I would probably have done the same if her dog peed on me as well."
The old lady chuckled. "Yes indeed I would have been tempted to do the same."
The two broke up in a small chuckle.
"Ahem."
The two talkers turned around from their work and saw the object of their discussion standing near the entrance with a slightly red face. Yoshino had been standing there for the past few minutes observing the two talk, it was when their discussions were reaching more embarrassing points that she decided that enough was enough.
"Ahh, and here she is Naruto-san, my granddaughter Yoshino-chan," she said pointing towards the slightly pink tinged girl.
Naruto turned to the girl and bowed his head.
"Thank you for saving me, your grandmother has told me how you found me and brought me back here. Even with all the dangers that were present at the time. I am very grateful for your help and hope to one day return the favor."
If possible the girl's pink face became even more pink as she mumbled, "You are err welcome, ummm, Naruto-san."
Great now he thinks I am rude.
"Have you had breakfast yet?" Naruto asked curiously.
She shook her head.
Naruto went to the stove and stirred the boiling mixture, inside she was sure it was mostly Miso soup but she figured there was more within.
Naruto took out a bowl for soup from the cabinet and poured some Miso into the bowl. It was then that he added some spicy fish from one of the pans and a little bit of ramen, into the mixture.
"Try this."
Yoshino was uncertain about what she was given. It seemed like an odd mixture, spicy fish ramen soup? Well she wasn't going to be any ruder to him than she already appeared.
"Thanks, it is err smells nice?"
Naruto ignored the clear flummox the girl must have felt, she must have had a hard time talking to people. He could tell the girl was not the most social of sorts and it showed by the unintentional scowl on her face. In a few years that kind of feature would be mistaken for distaste, but it just made her look more adorable if anything at her current age.
She took a sip of the food and had to put it down. "Spicy, spicy, hot, hot!"
Naruto went over to the fridge and got some milk; he poured it into a glass, and handed it to her.
Yoshino sipped it down and almost burped, but realized that there was a guest present and so held it in. It wouldn't do to belch in front of someone who thought she was their savior. It felt nice knowing that she accomplished something, not many of her classmates could brag that they may have saved someone's life, she would have to rub this fact in Kushina-chan's face the next time they had an argument.
Though Mikoto-san would probably have pointed out that it was often the guys who did the saving, so technically Yoshino had proven once again how manly she was. Yoshino made a mental note to punch the older girl in the face also, right after she shoved a fist down the bastard Yamanaka's big mouth.
"Yoshino-san, are you alright?" Naruto asked with a baffled expression.
Yoshino almost blushed, caught her in musings. "Err, no, I was thinking about someone who really makes me mad. This girl a year or two ahead of my own class, she never said it but I am pretty sure she thought the rest of us girls were nothing compared to her."
Naruto scowled.
"Sounds like my life story," Naruto said, sighing. He wondered if every village had some conflict between the weaker kids and the genius kids of the school. He just hoped their problems wouldn't escalate to what he had with Sasuke.
He wouldn't wish that kind of twisted bond on anyone.
"Huh?" Yoshino managed to say.
Naruto shook his head. "Never mind, you were saying about this-,"
"Mikoto, her name is Mikoto. I am surprised you haven't heard of her she is pretty popular among the guys in this village."
Naruto didn't want to mention that he might not even be from this village. He didn't think that conversation would end vey well."No, I have been away most of the time, so I am far removed from the problems back here in the home base."
Yoshino looked at him strangely, and then something flashed in her eyes. "Oh, Oh, really! You must be awesome to be out in the field for so long, they usually don't send people out for such long term missions if they weren't tough!"
Naruto avoided that question. "Yeah, something like that."
"Anyway, this girl is always going on about how pretty she is, how rich her Clan is, she is such an arrogant prick," Yoshino mumbled.
Naruto frowned. "She says this in public and guys still like her?"
"Well like I said she doesn't say it, but you know that is what she means by it, she is pretty two faced. She always grasps everything really easily and always tries to deny praise sent in her way, everyone is always paying attention to her-and alright, alright, I get it, she is just good okay!"
She folded her hands over her chest and stared away from him.
Yep, sounds familiar, Naruto thought.
The trio spent the next few moments eating their breakfast talking about random things about the village. It was during this time that Naruto concluded that he was back in the Hidden Leaf.
But the time and place was not right. Near the end of the meal when he was joined by all her family and he saw the face of Shikaku, he came to the conclusion that:
He was in an extremely complicated Genjutsu.
or
He was in another dimension.
Choice B brought a sinking feeling to his stomach.