Naruto jumps awake and he doesn't know where he is. All he can make out is that he is in some kind of forest (surrounded by trees). He decides to take a look around only to reach the end of the woods and find something he's never seen before. It's a road with many abandoned cars. Naruto doesn't know what to make of this. He's never seen machines like these or roads like that before. He definitely isn't in Konoha, he thought to himself. He decides to take a look around and search the cars left on the road, noticing that there were a lot of blood stains on the seats and on the road. He approaches another car when he hears a slight banging sound coming from inside its trunk. Curious to see what's inside he tries to open it noticing it was locked, he decides to use some of his chakra and forces the trunk open. He is taken back by what he sees however; it's a woman with her hands and knees tied, except there seems to be something wrong with her. She looks dead, Naruto thought to himself. Using his sensory abilities he examines the woman and sees that her chakra network is completely inactive. More importantly he senses an intense amount of pain and malice coming from her. He pulls out his kunai ready to put the woman out of her misery when suddenly he hears a scream coming from the forest. He leaves the woman in the trunk and quickly dashes into the woods. Jumping from tree to tree, Naruto closes in on the sound hearing the screams again and noticing that they sound like a little girl's screams. Damn he thought to himself,"I would be able to get there much faster if I still had Kurama". He had lost the nine-tailed fox ever since his battle against Isshiki Otsutsuki; Kurama sacrificed himself allowing Naruto to enter The Baryon mode. When he finally arrives at the source of the sound and finds a little girl cornered by a man seemingly growling at her. "Hey!"Naruto screams from the top of the tree. The man turns around only for Naruto to see that the man looked the same as the woman from the trunk: dead. He jumps down from the tree and approaches the man with his kunai in hand. The man growls and lunges at Naruto only for him to dodge and stick his kunai into his back. Naruto was confident that would be enough to take him out but was surprised to see that the man was perfectly fine and continued to approach him. Naruto lunges a kick at the man, one strong enough to kill anyone else knocking him back against a tree only for him to get up again. Naruto was very intrigued at this point wondering if this man and that woman from before were some kind of reincarnation jutsu. He is about to approach the man again when the little girl screams from behind him, "you have to hit it in the head!It won't die unless you get it's brain!". Naruto listens to the girl, grabbing one of his shuriken and throwing it into its head. Just like the girl said, it dropped dead. "Wow, thanks!"Naruto said as he started to approach the girl. She seems timid, scared and not very trusting. Naruto ignores this however, puts on a big smile and stretches out his hand to greet her, "Hi my name's Naruto what's yours!" he asks. The girl is still untrusting but somewhat less timid. She reaches out and shakes Naruto's hand, "my name's Sophia" she says. "Nice to meet you Sophia" Naruto says, "Say, do you know what's going on? What was that thing?" asked Naruto. Sophia was surprised, she'd thought everyone in the world knew about the outbreak and the walkers. She begins to explain to Naruto about the apocalypse and how the dead came back to life only to feed on the living. Naruto is in awe. He can now confirm for a fact that this is not his original world but more importantly he realizes how much the people in this world are suffering. He hears from Sophia the story about the group she was with and how they'd lost people in search of a safe haven from all this and how she was now separated from her mother, her only family. He can't leave this little girl here all alone, Naruto thought to himself. Putting his hand on her shoulder he asks, "hey Sophia why don't we help each other out?", "what do you mean?" Sophia responds wondering what this man could possibly need her help for. "Well I'm actually pretty lost myself, let's just say I'm not from around here and you seem to know what's going on, so why don't you help me by filling in the blanks where I need them and I promise I'll keep you safe okay?" says Naruto. Sophia, eager to just get out of the woods, agrees and the pair make their way out. They walk for a couple of hours, finally making their way out of the woods into what Sophia called a neighborhood. To Naruto though, the houses looked completely foreign. Night was coming though and even Naruto knew it would be more dangerous in the dark so it would be smart to start looking for shelter. The two stand outside right in front of a house and look at each other, as if to agree that they were both comfortable spending the night here. "Wait here" Naruto says as he opens the front door, however he is stopped by Sophia who takes a hold of his hand. She wasn't trying to warn him of anything she was just scared of being left alone. The last time someone told her to wait here she never saw him again. "Fine, stay close,"Naruto says, acknowledging her fear. They make their way around the house finding the first floor clear, then up to the second floor. Naruto hears some growls coming from the last room and slowly opens the door. He is taken back when he sees that the growls were coming from a little boy, a dead one from what Naruto could see. He turns Sophia away and sticks his kunai in the base of its skull. "The house is now secure" Naruto says to Sophia. They had bunkered down, found some blankets and made their way to the couches in the living room. Sophia doesn't sleep so Naruto asks, "So Sophia, do those things have names, what'd you call them?", "I don't know what they're really called, but everyone I was with called them walkers" Sophia responded. Naruto grinned, "heh, walker's huh, not very creative, but I can see it". After a while Sophia had relaxed and finally gone to sleep. Naruto stayed up a bit longer contemplating his scenario. He was the hokage of his village, yet he had no idea how to get back or if he ever could. He counts his luck that he was able to defeat Isshiki before arriving here. He didn't know much about traveling to other worlds, but according to Sasuke time wouldn't be an issue. If and when he returns home he should be able to arrive around the moment he left. Naruto's biggest concern at the moment was keeping Sophia safe, she reminded him a lot of himself as a kid; alone. A few months had passed now and Naruto was able to secure every house in the neighborhood, scavenging for food and supplies. They were running low however and he knew that they would have to move soon. The pair tracked back to their house or at least the place that Sophia had come to consider their home. She had come to trust Naruto in the time they had spent together, noting how skilled he was with his kunai and shurikens. She had asked Naruto where he learned to use his weapons, to which Naruto just responded it was from his ninja training. Sophia had just thought he was being sarcastic, that was until she saw his movements. He was faster than anyone she'd ever seen, but the number one thing he taught her to do was to move with stealth, quiet as not to attract the walkers. As they make their way back Naruto stops and the pair hide behind a car. Naruto sees a group of men with two cars searching the home they had made their base. He wants to approach the men, but Sophia warns him, pointing out that the men were carrying guns. "Are they dangerous?" he asks, "Maybe" Sophia answers. "I haven't run into many people myself but I know people can be dangerous when there is no one to stop them from breaking the law" she says. Naruto tells Sophia to hang tight and he'll assess if these guys are a threat. Sophia tries to convince him not to go, warning him about the guns, but Naruto is confident, "I'll be back" he says with a smile on his face. As he approaches the group they are immediately on guard. They point their guns at Naruto and scream to stop. Naruto stops with his hands up attempting to negotiate, but the 5 men circle around him. They question him asking if he's alone and what he's got on him. Naruto gets on guard, he senses nothing but malice coming from these men. Suddenly one of the men spots Sophia hiding behind the car pointing her out and the men now threaten to kill Naruto and take Sophia. Naruto is angered by the men's intentions and the minute they open fire at him he vanishes and in his place appears a log of wood. The bullets hit the log and the men are shocked to see Naruto just disappear. Before they can make another move, two shuriken go into two men's heads and they drop dead. The other men scared open fire at random, making a lot of noise. This concerns Naruto as all the noise is bound to attract walkers here. Quickly taking out another man from behind with a kunai he grabs his gun and shoots at the other two, killing them. "Neat" he says as he examines the gun he is impressed by its power and by how easy it is to use. Naruto calls for Sophia. "Are you okay?" he asks. "Yeah, that was amazing Naruto, you move just like a real ninja" Sophia says. "Well I am a real ninja," Naruto replies. The pair take a moment to figure out what to do next when suddenly there is a scream from inside the house and Naruto rushes in only to find another man being eaten by a walker. He must have been with the other group he just eliminated, Naruto thought. He stabs them both and makes his way to the backyard, Sophia not far behind. He is amazed by what he sees next, it's a horde of walkers making their way towards the neighborhood. "That's insane!" Naruto says out loud, "I've never seen so many walkers just clustered together like that". He contemplates wiping them all out with a rasenshuriken but ultimately decides not to as an explosion of that size is likely to attract even more walkers. Turning to Sophia he says, "we need to get out of here now, a horde that size will tear the neighborhood down". Sophia was hesitant. She wasn't quite ready to leave yet as she had still held on to hope that her mother was still looking for her, not wanting to stray too far from where she was lost. It takes some convincing but Naruto promises her that they'll still be keeping a look out for her family but that it wasn't safe here anymore. The two begin to leave the neighborhood and walk towards the highway together. "So Sophia, do you have any idea where we can find a safe haven?" Naruto asks. "I'm not sure, we can try looking for a community or a group of survivors who might have a place" Sophia answers. "That's a good idea. But we have to be careful. There might be some dangerous people out there who would take advantage of us, like the last guys," Naruto replies. "We can't survive on our own forever. We need to find a place where we can settle down and start rebuilding". "Maybe we can try looking for a place that's well fortified, with enough supplies" says Sophia. "I agree. It's time to find a place to call home and if we can't then I'll just have to make it into a home" says Naruto. Hours pass and Naruto begins to worry they won't find shelter before nightfall. Sophia grows tired so the pair stop for a minute to rest. Naruto uses this chance to sense any signs of life near him, picking something up near a ravine. The pair make their way through the forest and arrive at and find the small ravine, but what catches Naruto's attention is actually a prison facility. "It's perfect," Naruto says. "What? This?" asks Sophia. "Yeah, see those fences? And the walls inside would make it a perfect base: safe" answers Naruto. "You seriously think we can turn this into a base? It's filled with walkers" says Sophia. "You leave that to me," answers Naruto. Naruto wasn't worried about the walkers, what he really wanted was to build a community here, one that's safe for Sophia. We cut to the main group; Rick, Hershel, Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, Lori, Carol, Beth, T-dog and Carl. They are all gathered by their cars on the highway. It was only a couple of months ago that the farm had been overrun and they were forced onto the road. "We've got no place left to go" says T-Dog. "When this herd meets up with this one, we'll be cut off, we'll never make it south. "So we're blocked" replies Maggie. "Only thing to do is double back at 27th and swing towards Greenville" Rick answers. "We picked through that already, it's like we spent the winter going in circles" protested T-Dog. "Yeah, I know. At Newnan we'll push west. Haven't been through that area. We can't keep going house to house" Rick says as he stares at Lori in the car, he knows her pregnancy is due any day now. They need to find some place to hold up. Everyone goes back into the cars, except Rick and Hershel. "She can't take much more of this moving about" says Hershel. "Well, what else can we do, let her give birth on the run?" answers Rick. Hershel puts his hand on Rick's shoulder and says, "Do you see any other way around that?". Daryl then approaches Rick and says, "Hey, while the others wash their panties, let's go hunt. That owl didn't exactly hit the spot". Rick and Daryl leave the others to go hunting. They soon come across a prison, surrounded by walkers. "That's a shame" Daryl says, "It would've made a good base". Rick stares at the prison for a moment knowing Daryl was right. That is until he hears a scream and notices a blonde man cutting his way through the walkers inside the fence. There was also a little girl screaming from behind the fence. She must be trying to distract the walkers for that man Rick thought. "Come on, this is the chance we've been looking for, let's get to the others and move on the prison" Rick says to Daryl. The two make their way back to their group to explain the situation. They all proceed to move together towards what they can only hope to be a new home and new ally.