Naruto doesn't hesitate in moving for the entrance. The name rolls unfamiliar on his tongue and for a business as wide as this one, that's enough for him to feel panic freeze in his chest.

He takes one singular, measly step towards the outside world when he feels his legs give out under him.

Naruto isn't surprised, not really.

Bianca tries to catch him, and a part of him expects her to, but her reaction time is slow, so slow, that's not fair, he's a ninja, everyone's is slow in comparison, and Naruto slips just past her hands.

He curses jelly feet under his breath, before he impacts the ground with a thump that, for a second, shushes everyone around him.

Their gazes are inquisitive and curious. One laughs, low and old in his voice, and others don't ridicule, some join, whilst most look at each other, shrug, and walk to wherever they were going, without a word spoken.

It's so lifeless, so uninspired, kind of nauseating to him.

Naruto tries to get up, through a splitting headache and just tired ears.

Bianca whispers a mantra as she struggles to get him up. "Head wounds always look worse than they are" she says and her voice tries to be reassuring.

Naruto's nearly to his knees, and he's doing well to ignore the spots of black growing like mold spores on the corners of his vision, when his feet fail him again.

He hits the floor with his head, and he's pretty sure both crack like fireworks.

The spots approach in a wave that overtake everything in numbing darkness. And that's the end of that.

There is a bowl of Ichiraku in his hands.

He belatedly realizes that with a frown that pushes the broth stuck on his lips trailing down. He puts down the bowl as the chili in the dish sparks in his throat like a roaring inferno.

He doesn't cough.

The ramen makes its way down his gullet. It's warm to his stomach, comforting in his mind, and it's… wrong.

"You were saying?" Hinata asks by his side. Her washed out eyes are big and inquisitive as she leans, more confident than he'd ever seen, over her ramen bowl to look at him with her confused and concerned gaze.

He remembers, late again, that he was saying something. It's at the tip of his tongue like the taste of miso, and there it rests, a hair's breadth from where he can reach.

Hinata is kind, she tells him. "The person who was kind of like me?" she reminds, with a smile that is just wrong.

He doesn't know why his knee bobs up and down, and he doesn't know why he can't respond.

The other person beside her makes their presence felt, and she protests, a cup of sake in her hand. "He was telling me about the bar," Tsunade drunkenly slurs then she orders for another shot in the same breath.

At a ramen stall.

Naruto doesn't say anything, and just blinks at her. She's wrong too.

He turns to the chairs on his right, feeling a bit of cloth-cloth contact next to him, and without warning, Sasuke is just there, putting ramen between his chopsticks and bringing it to his face. He huffs on it before he eats and chews at a practiced, artificial speed only fitting of a clan head.

His hair isn't wracked with grime, he isn't cut up at all, and his head isn't bleeding. He's smiling, softly indeed and he can barely see it, but his gaze isn't construed to bitter vengefulness and his hand lacks any of the blood he'd taken from Naruto.

That feels wrong too.

Before he can say anything, notice Kakashi at the corner, see Sakura smiling over at him or spot Neji not spouting fate bullshit–

—the world collapses into black.

It's sudden, anticlimactic, not gone with a flash or a blink, but just gone.

He blinks.

And it's back.

And it's wrong.

The valley of the end sits before his eyes as a crater, filled with debris and anguish. The statues of the two great shinobi's rest as dust swept up by the wind, and the water, the pure blue water, is tainted in copious amounts of dirt that block areas centimeters higher than the rest.

He spots, far away, next to a part of the cracked wall filled with a dangerous amount of blood; Sasuke.

And he's waking.

Why does that feel wrong?

He gets up, and his breathing is so labored, Naruto can hear it nice and loud, like he's right next to his ear. He's cut up again, and through the confusion that he has written all over his face, he can see the essence of revenge present.

Naruto already misses the smile.

Sasuke looks around. The dust makes it hard to see, but he seems concerned, for Naruto, and he's trying to squint over and see him. Naruto doesn't think he finds anything, because he just shrugs it off and begins walking away, rolling his shoulders and cursing under his breath.

He's going to Orochimaru. Where he's going to die.

The words don't get out of his throat in time, wedged somewhere in his throat between the sadness and the guilt. The dream collapses as Sasuke walks off, and this time; Naruto wakes up.

And the thing that wakes him up, the thing that presses into his nose till his dreams collapse—

—feels wrong.

Air and confusion get siphoned off his chest and hot, uncomfortable dread makes its way around his chest. The being's fingers are cold. Deathly, freezing, ghostly cold on his forehead.

Naruto's fear of ghosts and phantoms doesn't run shallow. It's a tight chain on his neck, one he doesn't understand but gets pulled on so infrequently, he doesn't bother to try.

He avoids halloween parties, and makes an excuse to Iruka each time he tells him of the one in the academy. He wonders now, if Iruka had ever figured out why.

When the fear, the chain, is pulled, the terror goes deep.

His palms go sweaty next to his head while his throat dries to a crisp. He shuts his eyes harder whilst he simultaneously and opposingly chants to himself to stop being so fucking scared.

His heart beats just a bit faster as the being's fingers shift from his forehead to his nose, and press down on it. His nose goes flat and he tries to make sure that the breaths that now have to come out of his mouth are quiet.

His fist curls into a tight nail-digging punch, but before he can lurch forward, he hears something—

–and he pauses.

He hears a giggle near his face and the hands press his nose again.

And again, accompanied by a chortle. And again, and the being nearly dies with laughter.

He hates how demented it sounds because at that moment he realizes.

It's a child that's on him.

It doesn't drop the tightness in his heart. The corners of his mind taunt with deafeningly loud voices that make his entire being twitch.

Afraid of a child are you? His mind cackles, or maybe it's the Kyuubi's vile voice whispering in his ear? You're never supposed to be afraid.

Remember?

The memories fall in then— only then, he thinks bitterly— of Bianca having a similar cold to her fingers, a similar sense of death in her touch that had him internally cringing.

He opens his eyes fully, then has to close them against the bright light of the shining bulb above him.

He brings his palms above his face, because even under his shut lids he can still see the white, and can still feel it sting.

Naruto doesn't know why he expects, when the kid steps over him and goes between him and the rays, for him to be pale and thin, like a ghost or a phantom perhaps; but he has rich olive skin, like Bianca, the same black, inky eyes, and the same coal black hair that seems to suck the light around and leave shadows.

Carbon copies, he decides. Except he doesn't have her splash of freckles on his face or any shy tilt to his head.

He has a cheeky smile that spreads across his cheeks, equally as innocent as it is devilish.

In an odd way, that makes sense to him, and it has everything to do with the kid's fingers once again pressed into his nose.

He wears a branded shirt, with a little signature on the side. It reads 'Mythomagic' on the center, and under and around; it's filled with pictures of cards and figurines, the type that piques his curiosity. Just a little bit.

The child pouts over at him, and leans back, disappointed. "You were supposed to be scared," he says.

He was.

And that's fucking annoying.

"You didn't even say boo," Naruto says and he smiles. "And you were laughing."

The door creaks open before Nico can respond, and Bianca slips into the room before they can twist their heads to meet her.

Her feet make clicking-clacking noises with bathroom slippers on them, fuzzy types that can only be made by wool, and fresh white, never graced an actual floor not made of wood or tiles.

She's holding something in her hands, a bundle of clothes neatly folded on her open palms, bright, clean and orange.

She groans, annoyed, deeply annoyed. "I told you not to wake him up Nico!" Her voice is anything but light and Nico shrinks slightly into himself, frowning at the scolding. "You'll see if I get you that Mytho-game pack today. You'll just have to do without Hades."

As Nico protests, Bianca approaches, and he can only follow the clothes coming closer too, not bearing a single tatter, not a miniscule deformity, not even a crinkle on the edges.

"Did you sow it," he interrupts Nico's bemoaning to ask, and he sends Naruto a look, whilst he wonders what kinds of equipment she has.

"No," she says. It was unsalvageable, she doesn't. "These guys have some advanced tailor or something, so they make replicas of your outfits at your request." She hands it off to him, then pinches Nico's ear seamlessly.

"Neat." he says, his voice heavy and not at the same time, then tugs on the fabric which feels a hell of a lot smoother and nice to the touch.

The white wool that makes a neckpiece on his jacket isn't stained with dirt, and the orange encapsulating almost the entire rest of it, lacks any of the cuts he'd gotten before.

He rubs on the blue, the leather feels sturdier under his thumb. He wonders if his had been as sturdy when he'd gotten it, before he'd had to wash it constantly, and strip it of its toughness.

He pulls the white shirt on top of himself, while Bianca turns around, and Nico doesn't.

It's like a parent's hug; it's like a hot cup of cocoa.

He doesn't really know how to convey his happiness to Bianca, so he just says it, and hopes. "This outfit really means a lot to me, so really; thank you." He smiles at the jacket, then Bianca.

"Thank the tailors. I didn't do anything except file for you to get one."

He nods along ("The person who was kind of like me?") as he turns, puts on his jacket, and snuggles in his pants under the sheets.

"Biancaaa," Nico says, right back to his complaining. "I need that card, if I want to win today!"

"You have every other card, you'll manage."

"But–"

Naruto interrupts Nico again, and he once again sends him a look. "I don't think you can convince Bianca, Nico." he starts and she nods along, "—but Bianca isn't the only person in the room who can get you this… Had..es figurine."

Nico smiles, Bianca frowns. "Are you okay enough to do that?" she asks, and he's kind of surprised that's what she's upset about. "It's only been a day, and you were pretty banged up."

"A day?" he asks, for clarification he doesn't need.

A day is plenty of time for Sasuke to have woken up, and left. Naruto clamps down his teeth, he's supposed to be there to stop it, stop him from doing something he won't be alive to regret

Maybe, he thinks, if he goes now, he can maybe save him, and though he decides that, he smiles at Nico, and twists it teasing when he looks at Bianca.

Nico sends him back something that chills him to the bone, and also breathes life into his day.

"I'll be fine," he says and he turns before he can see Bianca's look. "Let's go, then."

Bianca has to explain it six times before he accepts that this place is actually free.

He doesn't understand how, and neither does Bianca really, but Nico interrupts the conversation so many times, Naruto just drops it.

He babbles about the Hades figurine with '2300 attack damage!' as they make their way to a metal contraption, placed at the end of the hallway, with a closed, stainless steel door that comes from both sides and meets in the middle.

Bianca presses a button on the side and the doors open slowly. He mulls about the coolness in his head as he ushers Nico in first.

Naruto's feet step on carpet, to metal, and back to carpet in three steps as he gets in, swiveling his head about to appraise the area. His eyes stray to an advertisement to the side, then the carpeted floor, then the colorful paint a stride away from him.

Bianca follows after him, doesn't take a look like he does and goes by the left to buttons he hadn't seen yet.

He's about to ask, or say something about a dead end when Bianca presses a numbered button and the doors encroach and shut in gently.

His stomach lurches to his throat as with a little jiggle, the thing starts sailing down. He grips the railings tightly, and nearly falls anyway.

"Are you okay?" Bianca asks. She isn't holding anything but maintains perfect balance and Nico is moving around, literally running, without so much as a stumble.

It must be usual for them, he thinks. Then; who would subjugate themselves to this on a usual basis?!

"Fine," he says, his voice wavering, "Just never done this before."

Belatedly, he realizes that this might be so usual for them, it's really weird for him to have never been in such a murder box.

"You've never been in an elevator before?" Nico stops bouncing around to ask. Naruto finds it distantly disturbing that there is someone in the room who has more energy than him. "I bet you like walking then."

That relates, how!?

He makes a little agreement sound in the back of his throat and tries not to let the confusion bleed into it.

If Bianca is weirded out, she doesn't show it. She whistles to the music he decides he can't stand and taps her feet impatiently.

The elevator ride is insufferably long, and yet passes in the blink of an eye.

He walks out into a plaza, as he despairs to Bianca about her music taste.

And then, that's all Naruto can hear. Bass-boosted, high-volumed music that makes everything around it jump a little with vibrations. He can see a dance floor blasting with music in the corner of his eye, filled with hordes of dancing people, all to different tempos and styles

He can see a row of restaurants selling hordes of different, delicious-looking items (Naruto quietly resolves to go there, and check for some ramen, then a second after he should have, before he leaves), and he catches the games in his sweep once again.

They look so realistic, he thinks as he stares at a game with a moving machine with wheels that looks so freaking cool, and he remembers the few computer games he'd seen, all low quality things with four pixels total.

There." Nico points to the right, and Naruto's eyes follow. "That's where we get the Mythomagic cards!"

Bianca rolls her eyes at her brother. "Can you be any more restless?"

"Yes," Nico says challengingly and when Bianca doesn't say anything, he turns back to Naruto. "You can play with me if you like?," he suggests, "You get the starter pack. It offers a lot of cards, low level yeah, but I can teach you how to win with them?"

He hums non-committedly. "Sorry Neeks but I just don't have that much cash," he says as he pulls out his badly damaged Gama-chan wallet.

He shakes idly, then smiles with satisfaction, when he hears the jingle of gold meeting on gold, then he puts away his wallet into the back of his shinobi pouch.

"It's free," Bianca says late, perhaps stunned, "They offer a pack a week and the only reason they don't give more is to keep the highly competitive community still thriving."

Naruto is about to ask when Bianca answers. "You need to have adult supervision to get anything here," she says "Or twelve and up."

He doesn't ask why kids would need adult supervision and he doesn't query Bianca on why he or her would count as adults, because he doesn't think she knows.

They stop by the Mythomagic area, and the man at the counter looks up from the register, and in the same breath, smiles at them.

"Bianca," he says in greeting and she smiles. "Nico, my little man, you're winning today's tournament, right?"

"Bet it on your life, Thane."

He laughs, jolly, and Naruto gets to see shiny steel teeth, a blue tongue nearly imperceptible with a purple palate behind it. His dark skin has clear dimples that he can't help but notice, and he can't help but find the same energy in every other part of the men

"And a new friend," he says, reaching out his hands for a handshake.

"Naruto," he introduces, and maintains straight eye contact with the piercing gold that the man before him has for an iris.

"Nice to meet you!" Thane doesn't introduce back, and he wonders if it's because Nico already said his name or if it's the new glint in his eye, the new tone to his voice that Naruto can't quite figure out.

Thane turns to the Di-Angelos and he sees only genuineness in his look. Naruto chalks the previous look up to the blue heroic lighting the man has. "Now Nico. Which one will you be picking?"

By sleight of hand, or something, he pulls a selection of twenty different packs under his sleeve. Each one is bulging with a figurine whilst the bottom stays straight only the way a card can make plastic straighten.

Nico watches, enraptured even though he's probably seen it a thousand times. Naruto, equally fascinated, gazes upon the card selection with an open mouth and a spark to his eyes.

Nico idly paces as he thinks, grabbing at his chin and scratching at where he would have a beard. "Hmm," he says. He scans the cards with a careful eye and each time, he looks away seconds after, disappointed, and moves on to the next.

"What's he trying to do?"

Bianca smiles. "He's trying to discern from the packaging which is the Hades one. It's useless, they're all the same, practically."

"Well," he says, because he knows. "It's the one to the right of the middle." He points at the card but Bianca's gaze doesn't move with his finger. She stays looking at him, curiosity bubbling out of her eyes.

"You can just tell?" she asks.

He nods, and both of her eyebrows rise into her hair. "I have really good luck with stuff like this."

Bianca gives him a discerning look, and whatever she finds must convince her, for she taps Nico's shoulder. "Pick that one," and she points at the card he'd mentioned.

"No," Naruto says as he shakes his head. "Pick the one you want, Nico."

Nico gives him the same look Bianca did, and Naruto isn't too sure what's on his face, but it works magic on Nico too.

"This one," he says and picks the card up into his fingers, already sending a hopeful look at it.

They all hear it crinkle and doubt fleets on Nico's face.

"Okay," Thane says, types something on the register, and leans back in his chair. "See you next week?"

"If I don't have Hades," Nico says with a, kind of, smirk.

He slides his fingers between the pack's opening gingerly. It unclaps with a pop that rings around the room, bouncing on the walls and figurines.

Naruto watches, breath slightly bated, and fingers thrumming loudly on the counter as nervous excitement spreads on his face.

Nico reaches in, and pulls the card seamlessly. leaving the figurine behind for now. Naruto gets a look at the back for a second, before Nico flips the card around to look.

His whoop of joy gets looks from people passing by, but Naruto doesn't think he cares. Naruto shares a small smile with the other two before Nico is rushing to them to show off Hades' gaunt face on the back of the card, and pulling his figurine out and shaking it in their faces.

They leave soon after, wishing Thane a good day and walking off.

"Hades was the only card I didn't have that's worth any salt," Nico rattles off when he asks, walking through the games aisle to reach the competition box.

And he gets these weekly? "How long have you guys been here?" He asks as he bumps into a blonde girl.

Her gray eyes flicker to him, then back at her architecture game, with only the slightest of frowns to convey her annoyance.

"Slightly less than a month," Bianca says and Nico chirps in agreement.

"And how does Nico have so many cards?"

Nico answers before Bianca can. "I used to play loooong before we came here. I grew up on it, basically."

"No, you didn't"

Naruto chortles.

Before he can say anything he once again bumps into someone. This time he's not at fault at all, he decides, because the guy is moving around like a madman, bouncing from person to person, asking something and his feet getting more and more unstable as he does.

His eyes, the most enchanting, beautiful green and blue mix he'd ever seen in an iris, traces to them wildy, and he's already moving to Bianca, panic lacing his movements.

"What year is it?" he whispers and yells at the same time, with most importance in his tone, and his arms on her shoulders.

Bianca looks uncomfortable, and he pipes in. "Are you okay?" he asks and the guy startles, like he hadn't noticed he was here.

"No," he answers honestly, and falls to his butt. "I just need to know how long I've been here, 'cause of the war, camp," he chokes, "—my mom. How could I have forgotten about my mom?"

War, Naruto questions in his head as he rests a sort of awkward, hopefully comforting, hand on the guy's shoulder.

"It's 1942," Bianca says as she fixes her loose tee.

"1942!?" He and the boy exclaim at the same time, and the guy's voice pitches up as he does.

Bianca gets defensive. "Okay. What year is it then?"

Neither of them grace with an answer, the guy walks off, muttering thanks and concerns for his mom, and Naruto just stares.

That's not right, he ponders, and now he's the one panicking. That's not right at all.

"It's 1942." Nico says. "Promise."

Gosh, had he been… sent back in time?

They're so convinced, he thinks, as he turns back to the guy walking away to others, interrupting their games and causing them to lose.

He isn't though.

As the man swivels about, asking others the date and calling for an 'Annabeth' and a 'Grover', he sees, gaze curious and confused, the green eyes shift.

They turn with a slow spin. A dot forms in the center, as aquamarine fades away to something darker, a deep shade of red.

The guy turns one last time to them, it seems like he's going to leave soon, and the eyes he holds are a completely different color.

His heart stops in his chest. All brain activity, every thought of confusion about the date melts away as he looks. Cold, harsh dread.

The eyes are a pinwheel, crimson in shade and ruby in presence. Commas spin about. Two in one and a singular in the other.

His stomach upends itself. Those are Sasuke's eyes, he thinks. Those are Sasuke's eyes.

This feels wrong.