aghostownwhereibelong.

Sup y'all.

I've spent quite a while on an unspoken hiatus, which I apologize for.

I've been making music and have been trying to improve on my writing skills overall, as well as work on the broader aspects of this story, as well as my other one.

Let's see how frequent I can be this month, I'll try to get to sixty thousand words by the end of the February.

To answer one of my returning viewer's question, maaaaaaaaybeee...?...perhaaaaaaaapsss...?

Anyway, without further ado,

may the story continue...

1/11/20, 8:51 AM

Several days had passed since Naruto's last accident, Naruto had learned to acclimate to the Kurosaki clinic as the days passed, helping out around the house and eventually attending the Shinsei Dojo that Ichigo had meant to show him a week before, and just trying to learn the ways of the world he was ushered into without any notice or knowledge.

It was a bright and sunny morning, Naruto was already up due to frequent nightmares, and was walking around the clinic parking lot with warm and brightly colored clothing.

Naruto took his gloved hands and put them in his green parka, seeking warmth in the seemingly endless cold of the winter.

The snow was spotty and infrequent, on some days it would snow and rain all night, on others all that snow would disappear because of the sun being out all day.

This day was one of those sunny days, starting out extremely cold, regardless of the glaring sun in the sky, and Naruto was paying the price for his curiosity.

"Sheeeeshh, can it get any colder??". Naruto said to himself.

He clenched his teeth and began on his way out of the Kurosaki's property.

Behind him, he heard a door open,"Haaay!! Narutooo!!!! Where ya going!?". Yuzu had begun yelling in a way which might have been unnecessary, "I'm gonna go exploring! Gotta check out the surroundings, ya know!?". Despite being less than fifteen feet from each other, Naruto reciprocated the volume with ease.

"Oh! Okay! Make sure you come back very soon, please!". Yuzu asked, waving at him as he walked off and did the same.

Naruto went on a stroll down the paths that he vaguely remembered taking with Ichigo a week ago, attempting to recognize the more notable parts of them, however he found a lot of difficulty in this as they were covered in snow that was yet to melt.

The snow crunched underneath the boy's feet as he cut through the icy breeze, Naruto had spent several minutes exploring his surroundings and memorizing markers on the paths the he took so that he could further familiarize himself with the world.

The boy took a deep breath, taking in the cold winds with a smile on his face.

He looked around a bit, taking his surroundings again.

This area was similar to the one he met Chad in, the water down below was frozen, the grass was coming out in patches due to the partially melted snow, and the noise was down to a minimum in this area.

Naruto decided to lay down on the snow, his hair the only thing being exposed to the cold substance.

"What, a windy day." The boy noted, his high pitched voice carrying gently into the cloudless sky, the aforementioned winds gracing his features.

'I could get used to this...' Naruto thought, as his eyelids fluttered softly, slowly closing.

'its kinda scary...thinking about how much I don't know... there's a whole world out here... so much to learn... I think... I'd rather just go to sleep instead......' And sleep, he did.

The cold winds and snow only aided him in his drowsiness, the young boy found a strange comfortability in the cold that he hadn't before, and all the nightmares he had been using cut down on his sleep, so this was a moment of genuine rest for the boy.

Minutes passed and he dreamt of nothing.

His eyes opened slowly once again to be greeted by a bright sun, and a once again cloudless sky.

He got up slowly, and yelped at the cold that streaked down his back.

"W-what the hell was that!?". He felt it on his scalp too, so he ran a hand through his blonde hair, and eventually felt the melted snow that clung to the spikes.

"Oh, sure...I guess."

The boy yawned and stretched while sitting cross-legged, taking a look at his surroundings, he was shocked to find lush and vibrant green grass showing in the now melted areas of grass.

In fact, the entire area Naruto had slept in was melted.

"Whoooaa, good job sun!!". Naruto smiled as he took his wool glove off of his right hand and felt the cold and wet grass.

The sun was slightly higher than it was before, but it was certainly hotter, Naruto could feel it on his face.

"Man, everything's so pretty! I wonder if the entire world's like this!".

Now that he had begun thinking of the world, he wondered of the possibilities.

"I wonder what someone like me can do out there. I remember Ichigo saying that there are HUUGE pieces of land on the other side of this huge piece of land! I probably wouldn't be super welcome anywhere, I forgot everything! Heheh..."

Naruto conversed with himself, sitting with his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand, feeling his surroundings and the temperatures, the winds that slowed down around him, and the distant sounds of children playing and other loud sounds.

Naruto stayed like this, serene once again, thoughtless and feeling, until he felt something on his nose, as well as a gentle and very small breeze.

He opened his eyes, and was shocked to see blue things on the edges of his vision.

He crossed his eyes a little to try to see it, but that hurt, so he instead tried to swat the things away, and he saw it once they started to flap and came from off of his nose.

His hand was still out and still, so the creature landed on his index finger.

"Whoooaa..." Naruto exhaled, he saw the creature had bright blue on its wings that it used to fly, it settled on his finger and put it's objects out on display once more.

Naruto turned his hand slightly to look at it, it's wings displayed a majestic blue, with black swirls curling into the centers of them.

At first, Naruto was a bit frightened at its sudden appearance, but he quickly replaced that with wonder.

"Jeez, is this...a butterfly? I think it's been a while since I've seen these..."

The creature didn't move much,"Aren't you cold, little guy?".

The butterfly didn't respond, and so Naruto laid himself back down, his hair in the hood of his parka this time.

The butterfly flew to his nose once again, it's wings flapping quickly as it settled once again.

"Hmm..."

Naruto turned his attention above himself.

He was transfixed, his eyes searched the skies for themselves, and they were found in the blue that stretched onwards for seemingly forever.

Naruto spent a while like this, gazing into the color, content...

...until a disconcerting feeling grew steadily in his stomach.

'Somethings off...I guess.' He thought.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and tried focusing hard on the sky above him, but found nothing strange, as far as he could tell.

'It's like... looking into the ocean, and...feeling something stare back at you.'

The "staring competition" persisted for a moment,'And this doesn't feel like the first time the sky stared back at me.'

And for one last moment, the boy's eyes searched for itself once again, they were injected with unease as they found no honest blue spread across the skies, unlike the nights and mornings previous to this one.

He closed his eyes, blue orbs swam in the dim red dark behind his eyelids, trying to shed the fear from before that had burrowed

it's way into his spine.

A strange sound slowly built up in volume and proximity, a sound that struck the back of Naruto's mind like a forgotten name, he opened his eyes to what Naruto would later discover to be a conspiracy of ravens, a murder of crows.

Naruto wasn't able to distinguish them as any different from one another, he just saw them as black birds that had suddenly flew to his side and loitered as if he weren't there.

Along with the birds, new butterflies had also decided to land onto Naruto, all of the same color blue, with a shade darker or lighter that told the difference between them.

"Woooow, so many animals!". Naruto was quickly overcome by awe once again, he spoke with attempted mindfulness and moved with even more care, as to not disturb the creatures.

"You little guys have never come to me like this before, so why now?". Naruto asked, observing another blue butterfly on one of his left fingers, the wings held a black dot in the centers of its wings, small lines that resembled the tiniest of veins were connected to each other on each wing.

"That's actually a pretty blue. It's... comfortable, kinda."

A small smile was present on his face, this trip was turning out to be a strange one, but one Naruto would never regret.

A few more butterflies settled onto him, some of which went over his head, presumably in his hair.

Naruto closed his eyes and breathed in, and as he did, a strong breeze blew against his back.

He opened his eyes again, and was frightened to see countless butterflies forced into a frenzy, they fluttered and they struggled against the wind as it came, and eventually, they started to regain control over themselves.

The birds had begun to move as well, circling Naruto and screaming in his ears, making the butterflies fly in even more disorganized fashion.

The screams and caws from the bird triggered a memory in the back of the boy's mind, or a feeling.

He swallowed as panic crept quickly inside of his heart, a feeling of instinctual fear that made him clench his teeth and hands, he covered his ears to shield himself from the crescendoing calls of the bird, his heart moving as fast his eyes while he tried to scan the black cloud he was consumed in.

Naruto started to hyperventilate, until he closed his eyes shut and tried his hardest to block out the noise.

" *HUFF, *HUFF, *HUFF, *HUFF*", he went, his breath and his own heartbeat the only sound he allowed himself, until he opened his eyes.

Pain surged in his eyes as he opened his eyelids, a result of shutting them too tight, and he was horrified to find that the birds had gone back to normal, as if they hadn't been flying erratically before.

The thing that scared Naruto was the fact that each and every bird held a blue wing in its beak, chewing on the small creatures in the cold morning.

He furrowed his brows in shock, his jaw slackened at the view, and he was astonished at the sudden turn of events.

"...What...why...wh..." He stammered as he slowly came to terms with the stomach-turning sight.

He shut his jaw, anger filling his being like sand in a drinking well.

His nails dug into his white palms, he sat on the heels of his shoes, on his knees, head cast downwards as the wind blew cold in his nose.

It was an abhorrent scent that planted a seed of discomfort inside of his stomach, a common breeding ground for dread.

He closed his eyes once more and let out a heavy exhale.

"Why..." Grief filled his heart, and he stood up, taking defeated strides back to the Kurosaki Clinic.

He was silent, unsmiling.

The snow wasn't there to crunch underneath his feet, no sound other than the boots on the asphalt, the occasional wind blowing into his ears, but other than that, he was alone with his thoughts.

'What even just happened...it's like I had...some sort of a nightmare.

Such small things, why do they have to exist in a world where they die so easily?

And those birds weren't much bigger...

Then, there's me.

I'm not really big, but I could handle my own against those things, I'm pretty sure.

But...It makes me wonder if there are things out there that are bigger than I am...

Stronger, smarter...the stuff of nightmares, probably.

Maybe that's just the way things are...?

I dunno, I don't like that.

...

I'm probably another butterfly in a world of birds.'

Naruto thought long with his head down, wondering about the nature of the world.

He raised his hands to rub his face, but before he got the chance, he caught sight of some blue in his left palm.

A crushed butterfly had made its way into Naruto's hand when everything went haywire, leaving it dead as Naruto unwittingly closed his hand.

Naruto stopped moving.

The wind rustled his hair, strong, but gentle.

The cold was being gradually replaced with warmth, the sun was shining on all those below, the sky, cloudless.

'Its like a lie. How could it possibly be this happy out.'

He wiped his hands, expression stony.

He put his hands into the pockets of his parka and was about to set off again, when he saw yet another butterfly settle down in front of him.

But this time, it was black, it's wings tinged with maroon.

It perched on the melting snow, unaffected by the wind and temperature.

'Weird...this one feels...different, somehow.'

Naruto continued to stare at it, and it moved it's wings partially.

Eventually, Naruto set back on his path back home, forgetting about the black butterfly.

'Just another kind of prey...

...or another kind of predator, I don't know. I forgot, after all.'

END/OF/PROLOGUE