A/N: Deck shuffled. Hopefully, it won't be necessary to re-do it again.

…

[Streets of Konoha]

A form in a white, hooded robe stood in the street, ignored by passersby while examining the remains of a dilapidated building.

From the arrangement of the broken windows, it had once been a five-story apartment building, though evidence was present that it had been run-down long before its apparent destruction by arson, the midday sky betrayed by a collapsed roof. There had been signs that the fire was largely limited to the upper floor, but the amount of scorched paint had told the tale that the rest of the building didn't survive the destruction unscathed. While the place had been cordoned off for the safety of the public, not a single effort was made to reclaim, or even condemn it at the very least…and the neighbors seemed content to let the place lie in ruin.

The hooded figure looked at the ruins contemplatively - by all accounts, it was a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to build something new. And yet, life went on as splashes of green brought the building back to life; aside from the weed-infested lawn, vegetation sprouted from the cracks in the walls as Mother Nature claimed the building for her own use.

"You lost there?"

The hooded figure regarded the speaker, and found that his erstwhile company was a pale-eyed girl with midnight blue hair and blood red lipstick. She wore a pair of medium-blue pants with a pouch secured to her thigh, and an unbuttoned white and lilac hoodie that revealed a generous bust that was barely restrained under a fishnet mesh. He could see that the form underneath her loose clothing was well-built for speed and agility, with graceful curves of a dancer that hid a lot of power.

"I'm fine." replied the figure in white, his attention back to the ruins.

"Any reason why you're standing here, looking at a burnt-down building?"

"Just thinking it's such a waste that nobody's building over that lot. Any reason why?"

The girl sighed. "Well, there's really not much to tell."

"Try me."

"To begin with, most of the village didn't like the boy that lived at that apartment at all, and none of the grown-ups would say why," explained the pale-eyed girl, "I wasn't there personally, but I remember that day very well because when my mom heard about it, she was so angry that she shattered a teacup in her hand. For the record, my mom was the model of grace and compassion, so it's not easy to make her mad - I guess she knew the boy that lived there, and was mad nobody was sad about his death. Can't say I blame her."

"You knew him? The boy that was in the apartment when it burned down?"

The pale-eyed girl averted her gaze. "I saw him once or twice before he died; even though the village was cold to him, he seemed determined to not let them put him down. I guess I admired him for that, and it's a damn shame I never really got a chance to know him, though I suspect my mom wanted to introduce us." The solemn expression on her face had turned back into curiosity. "But enough about me and the building…who are you, anyway?"

A noncommittal shrug of his shoulders was the answer he gave. "I'm just a simple scholar trying to find his way around the world."

He could feel the curious eyes of a predator on him as the girl walked within his field of view, a friendly look on her face. "Well, you could tell me your name and what you're doing here…" Her voice took on a more serious edge as she regarded him seriously. "…or you can explain to me as to why I see the body of a fighter on a so-called 'simple scholar' under your robes."

"Extracurricular classes, miss…" the scholar drawled, the request for her name implied.

"Please, just call me Hinata."

"Nice name. Anyway, I've been taking courses to keep myself fit and healthy in between study sessions."

Hinata stared at him for a good few seconds. Satisfied with her assessment, she shrugged before closing in next to the scholar like a cool breeze, her whisper taking on a sultry, husky lilt with a threatening undercurrent. "Mind your manners while you're here, or your sexy ass is mine."

As if to punctuate her point, the scholar felt a sharp slap to his rear as Hinata walked past him.

Observing her from under the shadow of his hood, the scholar watched her walking down the street. Seeing nothing else to do, he continued down the road, resuming his tour of the village in peace.

…

[Konoha Rooftops]

Sasuke was not happy.

He seethed, watching the target walking down the street with a book in hand, not long after Hyūga Hinata let him walk down the street.

Their new mission had started almost a good ten minutes since he'd set foot in the village…which was a bit of a surprise, considering what had happened. It was a slap on his face that this stranger calling himself a scholar had been allowed to casually stroll the village like a seemingly innocuous tourist, and all they were allowed to do was watch.

"There must be something nice under those robes if nee-chan's interested in him," noted a black-haired kunoichi, her pale eyes marking her as a member of the Hyūga clan. She wore a yellow kimono with pale orange fire motifs along the trim, held up with a green sash.

"You really think he's the one, Sasuke-kun?" asked the pink-haired kunoichi beside him.

"I've no doubt, Sakura," he replied.

It all started when he demanded that the Hokage give his team a more challenging mission. Surprisingly enough, Kakashi agreed with him…that his team needed to cut their teeth on a mission where the stakes are higher, and that they could not do E- and D-ranked missions forever. The job they received was a C-ranked mission that involved escorting a bridge-builder by the name of Tazuna back home, and guarding him as he finished his bridge-building project.

It seemed like a pretty simple mission; nothing went wrong for the first few days until it did. The first thing that happened was a set of chains that exploded from two puddles, making a beeline for the bridge-builder. The next was that a pair of nuke-nin known as the Oni Kyōdai attacked, forcing everyone to use the skills they'd learned in the academy to try and subdue them.

After taking them down, Kakashi-sensei interrogated them both, uncovering that they were indeed in Hi no Kuni to assassinate Tazuna. This led to Kakashi confronting him about falsifying the danger level of the mission…evidently, the worst kind of enemy that a genin should encounter in a C-rank mission were bandits, but once Shinobi started getting into the mix, it became a B-rank mission. Tazuna then confessed that he lied about how dangerous the mission was because his village was so poor that he could only afford to pay for a C-rank mission.

Seeing no other option, the old man begged them to stay on the mission, as they were desperate and needed the help badly. Kakashi reminded everyone that because the client lied to them about how difficult and dangerous the mission really was, they had no obligation to finish it. Undeterred, Sasuke was able to convince his team to see the mission to the end, adding that they were too far from home to come back empty-handed anyway.

Along the way, Tazuna told of the situation that his village was in…how Gatō, the owner of Gatō Company, had taken over his island and turned it into a slum so that he could buy it on the cheap. It ground his gears when he'd heard of all the horrible things the criminal businessman had done to the people, and justified Sasuke's decision to stay on the mission.

Things got weird when they made landfall, encountering no Shinobi along the way to Tazuna's village, as though the Oni Kyōdai were the only heavy-hitters that Gatō had. It got even weirder when they arrived in the village, and it looked like it was thriving despite the state of utter destitution it was in; people looked like they had hope. There was no limit to the bewilderment that the whole team felt, but none were more confused than Tazuna, who swore that the morale of the townsfolk were in the toilet when he left.

When they got to Tazuna's home, they spoke with his daughter Tsunami, who elucidated them as to what had happened while the bridge-builder was gone. Apparently, not long after Tazuna departed from the island to get help, she encountered a stranger in white that seemed lost - he moved like a fighter, but didn't seem like a bad sort, and so she spoke with him. He said he was a scholar that wanted to see the world, or something, and that he only stopped by to find a world map, and maybe a guidebook so he could get back on the road. With a bit of negotiation, she was able to get him to stay for a while as a bodyguard in exchange for free room and board until she could get her hands on a map to give him.

Suffice to say, for a scholar, he proved that he could handle himself in a fight - in the week it took for her to search for the map, many of Gatō's thugs had come by to bully them into submission. The scholar bullied them back, their attacks gradually slowing to a crawl as they quickly learned not to mess with him. In the week that he'd stayed, Tsunami confided in him about the state the island was in ever since Gatō came…how she lost her husband, who tried to fight back. He'd even managed to get her son Inari talking again…the boy was antagonistic, but the scholar took it in stride.

Eventually, Tsunami found the map, which brought an end to their contract…but he stayed a day longer in order to plan his trip. On the last day that he stayed, the scholar said his goodbyes, but not before speaking of his prediction that the village would be getting a clean slate, and that they'd be free to tell their story the way they want. She never understood what he meant by that, he was already down the road; the next day, something fell from the sky, striking a place near the edge of the village. When the villagers went to investigate, they found the remains of Gatō's personal tower, smashed to pieces by a titanic, steaming rock that sat in the rubble. Concerned about the repercussions of their dead employer, the villagers feared that the thugs under the businessman's employ would loot the village as revenge; only to find that they had all been slain. It took a good few minutes to register that with Gatō dead and his thug army totally decimated, they were well and truly in the clear…they were free from his tyranny.

At the end of the day, it turned out that Tazuna had hired Team Kakashi for nothing…though that wasn't to say that they sat there twiddling their thumbs. In fact, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, it was quite possibly the easiest B-rank pay they'd ever made, but what he wanted out of this mission was to prove himself.

And yet, despite his anger at the opportunity that this so-called "scholar" had deprived him of, he found a possible sparring partner to see how far he was from his goal of defeating Itachi once and for all.

And all he needed to do was to wait for the scholar to give him an excuse.

…

It didn't take much for him to enter the village; he was able to procure travel documents after saving that one village almost a week ago. Needless to say, it allowed him to enter the village without much trouble…just a few questions, and he was allowed to tour the village to his heart's content. Luckily, he'd done some bounty-hunting and gold-trading on the way over in order to gather the necessary funds, which gave him the trusty pages of a thick travel guide to spend time in Konoha.

With every step he took on the streets, he could see that it was a misnomer to be calling this place a village, when in reality it was more like a town or a small city. Still, it was a good idea to take a look before leaving to explore another village; besides, he'd heard of these "Chūnin Exams" that the locals were getting ready for…perhaps it was worth looking into. From what he understood, these were key to the promotion of low-ranked Shinobi known as Genin in these parts…it was also an event in which the public were allowed to witness. In effect, a final, a sporting event, and -if whispers were to be believed- a war rolled into one.

Having personally seen his fair share of war during the Second Phyrexian Invasion, the scholar was not sure what to think about such events taking place in a village. Then again, from what he heard of how the Ninjas of Kamigawa were like, he surmised they probably would have done the same thing at this point - he'd seen what happened to those places in the aftermath of the war. This Plane, however, seemed to be one of the few that were lucky enough to remain untouched for some reason.

Still, it was good to see new things…especially after what he'd seen in the war. What made this Plane easier to navigate was the fact that the people here spoke and wrote in a very similar dialect to Ancient Kamigawan. That, and the Five Colors were still strong here, enabling him to make use of the things he'd learned in other Planes.

For now, there was no rush, he had plenty of time to get tickets for the Chūnin Exams - and it was getting late. Because of this, his main priority, aside from taking in the sights as detailed in his old-fashioned guidebook, was to find an inn so he could rest up and take in more sights.

Before he could commence his search for lodgings, the scholar spotted a young boy wearing strange headgear and an overly-long scarf running down the street from an alley across from him while toting around quite possibly the largest scroll he'd ever seen. Curious, he decided to follow the boy to his destination as he noticed ninjas running around as if in search of him.

Everywhere he went, he could hear snippets of what's going on.

"Did you see him?"

"Naw, man, he really gave us the slip this time."

"This ain't funny, Miura! This ain't the Hokage's grandson trying to get attention, he stole the Scroll of Sealing!"

"We need to find him before something bad really happens!"

It was rude to be eavesdropping, but he was able to get a better grasp on the situation. That young boy he'd spotted, the one with the gigantic scroll, had committed grand larceny with an item that seemed very dangerous by the sound of it. Had such a theft taken place in Lorehold, he'd be better off if the teachers caught him first - considering the number of humiliating things a Lorehold student might do to the thief of such a dangerous text, detention or expulsion would've been preferable.

Out of the corner of his eye, the scholar spotted a ponytailed ninja making a beeline in a particular direction. From the way he moved, it looked like he knew where he was going as he followed him a good distance away, picking up a magazine along the way as he ran after the shinobi. Having stayed in Kamigawa long enough to pick up tricks from their Shinobi, he was able to keep up while staying far enough away from the target of his curiosity.

The chase took them deep into a thicket, making it much more difficult for the scholar to track them down. He was quick to find Ponytail coming to a complete stop in a clearing, walking towards the little boy he'd seen earlier…the raised voices he'd heard spoke of anger and concern as Ponytail made clear to his apparent pupil.

Within a few seconds, the scholar heard the sound of heavy blades whipping through the air as a large, spinning object sailed through the air, forcing Ponytail to tackle his student to the ground, to avoid the projectile. The object veered upwards before it was caught by a skilled and strong hand, revealing it to be quite possibly the largest shuriken the scholar had ever seen, its owner a smug, silver-haired man in a bandana, looking down upon them. The scholar watched the exchange between the three of them, and it was clear that Ponytail knew Bandana, and the hurt in the former's voice made it clear that this was a shock to him.

The fight that broke out between them not long afterward would not have been out of place in a turf war between two rival ninja gangs in Kamigawa…the speed at which the combatants moved was a blur as they tried to gain the upper-hand against each other. He'd seen a kunai drawn whenever the fight got too close for comfort, but Bandana made use of his ridiculously large shuriken as a close-quarters weapon, interspersed with deft thrusts and slashes with his kunai.

At the same time, the young boy, the so-called "Honorable Grandson" tried to look for an opportunity to run away to safety with the scroll. His chance came when he spotted that opportunity when Ponytail forced Bandana away, creating a diversion as the young boy tried to make a break for it. In response, Bandana, coward that he was, threw his shuriken at the Honorable Grandson, forcing Ponytail to cover his escape with his own body.

Once he was satisfied that his apparent rival was weakened and injured, allowing Bandana to take his time walking towards his first victim with a sadistic glee on his face at the prospect of executing Ponytail. Seeing his moment to interject, the scholar placed the magazine and guide book into his satchel before picking up a rock and throwing it at Bandana at high speed, the man bobbed away from the projectile, looking back with the scholar, seething at rage for his delayed gratification.

"That's enough!" he shouted, striding confidently into the clearing, stretching his neck as he charged energy into his hands.

"Butt out, outsider!" Bandana cried out, "This doesn't concern you!"

"On the contrary, you've really pissed me off," said the scholar, absorbing energy from his surroundings then coalescing it into his hands, "I don't really get what's going on, but even I can tell that you're so bad, you'd be an insult to scumbags everywhere. Might as well do the world a favor and kill you before you pass on your scumbag genes to some poor unfortunate soul."

"Fancy words coming outta someone who's gonna die!" Bandana shouted, charging after him, a pair of kunai drawn.

The scholar watched the traitorous ninja vanish into thin air from the sheer speed of his movements and waited for his opportunity to strike back. He reached out to his side, using the energy he'd collected to summon a spear into his hands, its wooden haft flexing slightly back into form as he slashed its leaf-shaped blade around him, forcing his opponent back in the sweep. Not to be daunted, Bandana avoided a downwards slash with the spear, throwing his giant shuriken at the scholar, forcing him to evade, then parrying a few thrown kunai before throwing his spear at Bandana in response. The speartip penetrated Bandana's chest, before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the scholar to summon a sword into his hand as he turned, cleaving through Bandana's forearm in one swing and following through with a heavier counter-cut with the second hand on the hilt. Bandana was barely able to avoid the slash, the tip of the double-edged sword cutting through his reinforced vest as he broke off from the engagement.

As the two of them stopped to catch their breath, the scholar gathered energy into his free hand, finding it slightly harder to get what he needed for the spell he wanted to cast, but he was able to muster enough to do what he needed. As he waited, he saw the look of utter hate and fear that was in Bandana's eyes as he weighed his instinct to fight against the instinct to flee…in the end, he chose the latter. It would have been a good move had the scholar not prepared the spell he had in mind, and his reflexes were quick as lightning as he raised hand and uttered the name of the spell.

"Detention Vortex!"

Bandana was lifted slightly above the ground, suspended in a bubble of white energy that sucked the ambient air, capturing him in a vacuum, unable to move. With his target unable to escape, the scholar raised his hand, charging a different energy into it in preparation for a second spell…unlike the white energy used to cast Detention Vortex, the spell took on a reddish color. It became a super-hot rod that then extruded at the tip to take on the abstract form of a throwing axe, which he then swung his arm in a throwing motion.

"Lava Axe!"

After it left the scholar's hand, the axe tumbled through the air, before the superheated blade bit into Bandana's forehead, ending him for good. Satisfied that the threat was over with, he allowed the sword to dissipate into nothingness before turning to regard Ponytail, who admirably tried to stand up to defend the scroll-thief despite his injury with a kunai in hand.

"I'm not interested in fighting you, or the scroll-thief," assured the scholar, "I just really hate bullies like him."

"Who are you?" asked Ponytail.

The scholar lifted his hood, revealing short, spiky blond hair and cerulean eyes on a face that was easy on the eyes.

"Uzumaki Naruto, Student of Lorehold."

…

A/N: And we're done.

Hopefully, I haven't disappointed you all with the reshuffling of the deck.

To get a better idea on the outfit Naruto's wearing, best to picture him wearing Jedi robes. And as per his school, expect there to be a lot of red and white on his person.

…

Cards used:

Detention Vortex (White)—Enchantment - Aura

Enchant nonland permanent. Enchanted permanent cannot attack or block, and its activated abilities cannot be activated. (3) Destroy Detention Vortex: Only your opponents may activate this ability, and only as a sorcery.

Lava Axe (4) (Red)—Instant

Lava Axe deals 2 damage to target player or planeswalker.