Chapter 1: Wake up, Sleepyhead.
A harsh whisper pervades the ear while he's jostled awake, "Michi! Get up Son!" Bleary eyes wink away the tiredness of broken sleep and take in the dim light of his surroundings.
"Wha-?" the small boy—Michi—responds before being forced to sit up, huddled and surrounded by the previously heard voice. The voice that issued the order was distinctly male, and instinctually familiar, but also foreign.
Michi couldn't help the panic that arose from being crowded by not one, but two unknown faces, as he started to push himself up off the floor to get away. But the second unknown had already snaked their arms around him, pulling him close and shushing him.
"W-we have to be quiet, Sweetheart." The second one stated, obviously female, while pointing a shaking finger at the wall.
The wall, bathed in the orange glow of a campfire, was blackened in the center, showing the silhouette of a person knelt before another, larger, imposing person. Transfixed by the dark image, Michi's panic subsided for a moment. The calm brought operation to his senses; he shivered when the knelt shadow shrieked and slumped over from the blow delivered by the larger one.
Clenching his eyes and covering his ears, Michi missed when the male voice spoke softly to the female, "Emi, you have to take Michi out the back, I'll stall them as long as I can." He said, with a somber tone.
Emi's eyes widened as she quickly responded, "There's no way I'm leaving without you!" A bit louder than she should have.
All three immediately understood her slip up, and turned their attention back to the wall, where the shadow started to overtake more of the light. Peering back out the window, the man said, "He's coming this way. You have to go! Now!" As he started to push the two towards the back exit. "Be safe my love…" The man said, tears starting to well in his eyes before he wiped them and his gaze hardened, turning to Michi he continues, "Take care of your mother, Michi. Whatever happens, know that I love you very much," while embracing Michi in a hug, which went unreciprocated by the stunned Michi.
"Now go!" He said, as Emi grabbed Michi's hand, leading him out the back exit. Michi took one last glance back as the man equipped himself with what seemed to be a small hand-crossbow, and the front door let out a resounding boom, crashing inwards.
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Mietas cheeks bulged outwards as he blew a sigh of boredom. His team of 3 had been sent on this boring C-Rank mission to guard a caravan. While typically a C-Rank mission is going to be headed by at least a Chunin with a team of Genin as backup, the recent effort to restore the Hidden Leaf due to the Nine-Tails attack has caused all higher-ranking ninja to take missions of greater importance. They couldn't afford to place their best warriors on missions where the chance of encountering enemy ninja was almost nil. This of course led to Mietas current issue: The Genin Corps being inundated with monotonous, safe, career killing missions where nothing comes about to prove oneself.
He didn't even have the luxury of sleeping the tedium away, since he pulled the night shift, while his two team members got their rest. Instead, he created a little game to pass the time.
One can do many amazing things using their chakra: Blow giant fireballs, crumble mountains, bring the dead to life, or even trap a god into the moon. The fostering and development of chakra has been a blessing and a miracle for the entire elemental nations. One such miracle being the creation of Medical Ninjutsu which single-handedly has prevented the death of hundreds of thousands of people across the world.
Mietas game was not one of these miracles. He figured he can mess around and get some training at the same time, so he created a derivative of the tree-climbing exercise where one learns to cling to a surface using only chakra. In his case, though, instead of a tree, he clings his two hands together in front of his face and tries his best to pull them apart.
The incentive here being that if you slip in chakra control, you're going to end up having your hands come apart and punch yourself in the face.
"Guess there's one benefit of having no Chunin around." Mieta mused. If there was a commanding officer, they'd be absolutely livid to see him goofing off like this.
It was while Mieta was rubbing his face after failing said 'exercise,' that he realized something was wrong in the camp.
Things were usually rowdy at night around the fires before anyone settled into their wagons to sleep, so he hadn't initially figured there to be any problem when he heard shouting.
The body crumpled on the ground and the banging of a caravan door was certainly not just the usual evening festivities for the traders. With a jolt, Mieta rose, roused his team, and returned to camp below.
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The Father cocked the crossbow back, before his hand was caught and crack crashed the Bandit's smack. Taken aback, he tripped and fell flat as his eyes landed upon the back door, where his hopes had fled into the darkness.
Clad almost entirely in shadow, the larger man's features were largely indiscernible. The only thing to shine through the night was a squinted gleam in his eye.
"You thinkin' that little toy will stop me, huh!?" The thug laughed at the Father while gesturing to the crossbow which had been knocked to the floor, before continuing, "Don't think I didn't 'ear ya, ya bastard. There was someone else in 'ere!" He mumbled while looking around the tightly packed caravan wagon.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about! I've been on this trip on my own from the start." The Father started waveringly, but slowly became more confident as he finished his lie. He made to push himself up off the floor, but the bandit put a boot down on the Father's chest before brandishing a dagger which flashed a deadly glint even in the dim light.
"It's in 'yer best interest not to lie to me, little man. We'd like to take each of 'yuhs alive if we're to get any 'sorta good ransom, but of course, exceptions can be made. So just come with me all nice like, and we'll find the rest." Proclaimed the large man.
His resolve wavered momentarily under the threat of the large man's blade, but the Father insisted he was the only one there.
With a shrug of his shoulder, showing his nonchalance to this whole thing, the bandit swung his blade down toward the Father's head. The downed mans vision went dark almost immediately after.
"'Course I wasn't gonna kill 'em," muttered the big brute, "Just didn't want to lug his sorry ass out the wagon," he sighed, before crouching down to sling the unconscious man's body over his shoulder. He had merely gone for a pommel strike into the man's temple to knock him out. "Welp, upsy daisy," he again mutters to himself with a grunt of effort, before carrying the man out the front of the wagon.
He didn't get any more than 2 steps before a sharp pain erupted in the side of his neck. For a brief moment, he had wicked vertigo looking up at his still standing body from below as a lithe, wiry-framed man easily scooped up the merchant he had just captured off his shoulder.
The thin man was dressed in traditional shinobi garb commonly seen among Hidden Leaf Genin: a deep-blue long sleeve shirt and pants, and dark blue head band wrapped around his forehead. He put a hand up to his ear to activate his radio equipment.
"Center camp is clear." The man reported, only to slightly wince at the loud reply he received, "We've got a problem near the south of cam-" was cut short as an explosion rocked the camp, originating from the south.
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Michi was in awe of the men in front of him. While still extremely confused with everything since he woke up, he has come to a few realizations. He was NOT in his own body. This one was definitely shorter than he has been for a long time. And even through that harsh cognitive dissonance, he was able to admire the deadly dance in front of him.
The two warriors moved faster and more gracefully than any MMA or UCF fight he'd ever watched; it was like the damn Avengers or something! One of them was in a full dark blue suit, which kind of looked like he was wearing Long Johns, while the other was dressed similarly, but in full black with what one could only describe as a 'ninja hood' on his head.
They dueled for a while before the black clad figure pulled out some kind of piece of paper, throwing it at the man in blue, before everything went white hot.
Michi threw his slightly uncooperative hand in front of his face as he was knocked down to the ground. He was about 60ft away from the fight, but the explosion was enough to overcome his small frame. His mother was there with him, unconscious on the floor. She had been attacked initially by the man in black before the one in blue came to help.
Michi didn't know who these people were, nor if any of them could be considered his allies, but as the smoke cleared, and the man in black had been surrounded and pierced through by three different blue clad men, he really hoped that these three weren't after him.
The three separated, and the man in the middle fell to the ground with a disconcerting thud. One of the three—the tall and wiry one—breaks off from the group and heads toward Michi.
Scooting backwards unconsciously, Michi accidentally bumps into his mother, before looking up in fear at the man.
Not looking so much the warrior he did a moment ago, the man leans down with a smile on his face, and softly asks, "Hi little guy, I'm Takuma, what's your name again? You're the caravan leader's son, aren't you?" To which Michi responded only with a furrowed brow, seemingly lost in thought.
He'd only just realized that although he understood the words the person was saying fairly well, it was in a language he didn't explicitly understand. To him, the words were akin to some Asian language; if he had to guess, probably Japanese. Which is what lead to his current pondering.
How the hell did he know Japanese?
When he went to speak, his words formed almost innately in the foreign tongue, and he replied, "Umm, yeah, Michi is my name…" remembering back to the man in the wagon's words. "How did you guys fight like that? You were so fast!" he deflected the question about his father with a question of his own, not that the man in front of him seemed to notice.
The man knelt further with an even broader smile, while jabbing his thumb towards his forehead, "Well, that's 'cuz I'm a ninja, little man! From the greatest village in the whole world, the Hidden Leaf!" He explained.
As the ninja got all the way down to a crouch, the object on his forehead became clear, and while Michi never really watched the show, that metal and symbol transcended into mass media and merchandise in stores, and almost instantly a name popped into mind, 'Naruto?'
'What the hell? How did I get here? Last thing I remember was… was…?' His recent memories were foggy, to say the least. As he began to think, memories of Michi's life bombarded him. Growing up, spending time with his parents, travelling the Land of Fire, learning to speak and read, hearing tales of shinobi who could achieve amazing feats.
Michi gripped his head as a major headache threatened to split his skull.
Takuma must have recognized his discomfort, because he laid a hand gently upon Michi's shoulder and said, "Hey, it's gonna be alright, kiddo, we've taken care of the bad men. Even though they had a ninja of their own on their side." He finished while gesturing his head toward the fallen man in black.
He turned his gaze back to Michi and smiled once again, "Lets get you and your mom back to the camp proper, alright?" To which Michi just slightly nodded.
Silent on his walk back, Michi glanced at his unconscious mother slung over one of the unnamed Shinobi's shoulders.
Under his current situation, he couldn't think of anything other than what the hell he is supposed to do in this world. Muddle as his mind was, he could still take a moment to be concerned of the red dribbling from her head as they moved…
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Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Shout out to The Outsider's Resolve by FictionOnlyReader for inspiring me to get into writing this story