Chapter Text
Someone was laying beside me when I woke up.
“Oh, no,” I muttered, forcing my eyes open. I was in someone else’s room, and more importantly, in someone else’s bed . I definitely didn’t remember going to a party or bar last night, nothing that might have led me to this point, but well. Evidence spoke louder than words. Fortunately, neither of us was naked. I was wearing some kind of black robe, which wasn’t my usual attire, but maybe we’d only made out. In a bed.
I stole a glance at the other guy’s face. If I’d had a drunken one-night stand with a guy, he’d better be hot.
Pros: he was actually good-looking, with spiky brown hair and a great body. Cons: he looked vaguely familiar. I really hoped I didn’t know him from somewhere. That’d make this so much more awkward.
“Go back to sleep, Ise,” he muttered.
The bed was rather comfortable, if unfamiliar. I might have considered it if I hadn’t caught sight of the katana hanging on the wall.
“Oh, no ,” I said more emphatically. He was one of those.
I shoved him off the bed.
With a yelp, he jumped to his feet and moments later screwed his eyes shut. “Ugh, it’s bright,” he said, scrabbling for a pair of red-framed sunglasses on his nightstand. He jammed them over his eyes and finally looked at me. His hair stood straight up like the worst case of bedhead I’d ever seen. Obsession with Japanese swords? Wearing sunglasses indoors? I did not envy drunk-me’s tastes.
The guy opened his mouth and then shut it with a noise of deliberation. There were a few things he looked like he wanted to say, but he settled on, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine?” I said. I didn’t feel sore in any particular places anyway. My voice came out a bit higher than usual, but I think it was excusable under the circumstances. “My head feels a little weird.”
“Oh, well, that’s not the worst thing that could have happened,” he said, sounding relieved.
“...do people you sleep with usually wake up feeling terrible?” I asked.
We blanched at the same time. I hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud. The guy spluttered.
“What? No! We didn’t have sex! Why would you even - and also, no, I receive excellent reviews, thank you very much. I’m a great lay.”
It sounded a lot like the lady doth protest too much to me, but I let it go. My head felt - it wasn’t pain, but it just felt so heavy. I reached up to massage it and froze when I touched long strands of hair.
Sure, I sometimes went a while without getting a haircut, but my hair had never reached my shoulders. Now it fell to my waist. It was pulled out of my way in a ponytail, but I still had no idea why I hadn’t noticed it.
Also, it was auburn. That was new.
The guy started talking again when I got out of bed but I ignored him in favor of walking over to the floor-length mirror.
I was hot. That was a weird thought, for many reasons but particularly because the “me” in the mirror wasn’t me. He was paler than I normally was, had blue eyes instead of brown, and a more defined jawline.
Still short, I thought bitterly as I looked back at the strange guy, who was a good five inches taller. “Who are you?” I asked.
He paused mid-sentence. “Er, it’s me. Aoba Yamashiro. You know? We’re friends? We’ve known each other since the Academy? We were genin teammates?”
A few things clicked into place, and by a few I mean I had one giant revelation.
“Oh, no,” I said for the third time that morning. “This is not real.”
“Shit,” said Aoba. “Fuck. This is worse than I thought.”
“I’m gonna go to back to bed now, and when I wake up, you’re going to be gone.”
“Tonbo’s gonna kill me!”
“I am not in a self-insert fanfiction.”
I knew going to bed wouldn’t really help; it never did in fiction anyway. Besides, Aoba seemed to think the whole situation was his fault, which I was glad to jump on to.
“What the fuck did you do?” I yelled.
“It was an accident! Besides you agreed to it!”
It was like pulling teeth. “Agreed to what?”
“You were helping me with a mind transition jutsu,” Aoba explained. “Uh, something went wrong and I guess now you have amnesia.”
I wasn’t gonna lie: if my counterpart in this world had agreed to that, he deserved this. But I hadn’t agreed to it! Why was it my problem?
“It’s not exactly amnesia…” I said before stopping. People in this position usually kept it a secret, at least in my hazy recollection of fanfiction. Ix-nay on the elling people-tay. On the other hand, if this guy had caused - whatever this was, he could probably fix it, right? “I’m...from another world called Earth. There are no ninjas there. And I’m a strict pacifist.”
“Shit, I fucked you up worse than I thought,” he said. “I’m so getting demoted for this.” I gave him the glare that deserved.
“I’m serious - Aoba, or whatever your name is.”
He gave me a wounded look. “O.K., O.K., I believe you.” That was clearly a lie, but I guess I couldn’t blame him. “Let me just… Maybe if I just negate the seal, it’ll reverse.”
Aoba reached out for my head and I immediately grabbed his wrist, threw him over my shoulder, and slammed him on the ground. The impact disturbed a pile of dust under the bed. I sneezed.
“Ow,” said Aoba.
“Holy shit,” I said after regaining control of my body again. “I’m so sorry - I didn’t - what the - wow, that was actually pretty badass.”
“Don’t sound so impressed with yourself when you’re apologizing,” he grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his back. “The seal’s on the back of your neck. I wasn’t trying to attack you but it probably triggered some reflex…”
“Ah. My bad.”
I lifted my ponytail (it was so long and impractical for a ninja) out of the way so Aoba could examine the seal. I couldn’t see it, but his finger tickled as he traced something on the back of my neck. His touch felt uncomfortably warm, but at least it didn’t hurt.
“Done!” Aoba announced after a minute. “Feel any different?”
I could still remember my social security number. “No,” I said.
“Hm. Well.” It looked like he didn’t have any other ideas. “I guess I’m not the best at seals anyway.”
Oh, duh. “Aoba, you’re a genius.” I barely remembered this guy from Naruto, probably because he was just some background mook, but there were definitely others who were better than him at sealing!
“What? I mean, yes, you’re correct, but this is an atypical situation for you to realize that,” said Aoba.
“Wait, where are we in the timeline?” Belatedly, I remembered that was not the best way to phrase my question. “I mean, who’s the Hokage right now?”
“It’s the Sandaime…” Aoba said, pained. “You don’t even remember that?”
I ignored him; it’s not like I had any way to prove the whole I-came-from-a-different-world thing. Maybe if he’d been a more important character, I could’ve dramatically revealed his deeply hidden, traumatic secret, but I was pretty sure he was just a normal dude.
The Yondaime Hokage, on the other hand… Of course, I didn’t know if he was dead yet, and Aoba was looking more like a kicked-puppy the more I revealed I didn’t know. Luckily there was a large rock that could tell me the answer too.
“Maybe we should go to the hospital…” he mumbled.
“Come with me,” I said.
I walked out of the room but stopped just short of exiting the house, remembering what I was wearing. They weren’t bathrobes, I didn’t think. And like, people here wore this kind of thing outside, right?
“What’d you stop for?” Aoba piped up from behind me. I guess if he didn’t say anything, these clothes must’ve been normal.
After leaving the house, I found myself in what I can only describe as an enclosed neighborhood. I was surrounded by small one-story houses, budding trees, and an incredible arrangement of flowers. A few blond and auburn-haired civilians milled around. They all seemed to be wearing the same ponytail, which was alarming.
I looked up at the Hokage mountain, and four rocky faces looked back at me. The Yondaime must’ve been dead, and since the Sandaime was alive, that put me right around the start of the series. That seemed on par with my experiences with self-insert fanfiction. I wondered if there was a reason for that, if dropping SIs off at the beginning allowed them ample room to tamper with the plot.
Hastily, I put an end to that train of thought. That would mean accepting this was the work of some greater intelligence instead of the outcome of a certain someone’s colossal fuckup.
“Ise!” I whipped around to see a nearby auburn-haired woman approach us.
“Uh, yup, that’s me,” I said.
“Your aunt,” Aoba hissed from behind me.
“Ah, Auntie!” I said, much friendlier. I didn’t know her name, and I guess Aoba didn’t either because he fell silent.
The Ise in this universe must’ve been a moron because his aunt didn’t find that exchange peculiar.
“Good morning, Yamashiro-san. Ise, what are you still doing here at this hour?” she asked.
“Er…” I looked at Aoba, trying to convey Was I supposed to do something today? with my eyes. He met my gaze blankly. “I slept in. Oops,” I said.
She shook her head. “You’re a jounin now,” she said. “You need to be more responsible. Take care of yourself.”
After she left, I asked Aoba, “Why is my aunt hanging around your house?”
“Dude, this is your house. This is the Yamanaka compound,” he said.
That explained the ponytail thing. “Er,” I said, since it also made my next question sound really bad. “How do we...get out of here…?”
Aoba raised his eyebrow and then leapt on to the roof.
“Like, using the ground!” I clarified. “That isn’t normal where I come from!”
With a long-suffering sigh, Aoba returned to my side. As he led us out of the compound, I reflected on the house that was apparently mine. That meant the katana was mine. Since this was the Naruto -verse, I could accept that it was less of a weeb thing and more of a...killing people thing. The other Ise could have afforded to dust his room more, but I guess I never had either.
“Then what were you doing in my bed?” I asked.
“What do you mean? I was sleeping.”
“I meant why.”
“Oh, well, after you collapsed I brought you back to your house…I was waiting for you to wake up for like, uh, damage control. That took a while and the floor isn’t really comfortable, so I just hopped in,” Aoba said. He accurately read my expression. “It’s not suspicious! We’ve seen each other naked a bunch! We were teammates.”
I let it go. We’d probably killed lots of people together, so sleeping in the same bed must’ve been an afterthought. “Who’s our third?”
“Tonbo,” said Aoba. “We’re, uh, avoiding him. Because he’ll murder me for this.”
I didn’t recall a Tonbo (it sounded like a pig), but I was distracted by the compound exit.
“So what’s the plan?” Aoba asked. I felt better leaving the compound. Less of a chance I’d run into someone the other me knew.
“If the thing you did with the seal didn’t work, there probably isn’t anything we can do until we find someone who knows more,” I said.
“Hm.” He looked thoughtful but didn’t offer any suggestions.
“First order of business now is I’m hungry. Bring me somewhere to eat.”
...
After coercing Aoba into paying, I interrogated him until nightfall. Apparently, the other Ise was a taijutsu-specialist and had been promoted to jounin over a year ago. I’d asked him why I wasn’t on an Ino-Shika-Cho team (see? I did remember a few things!) but Aoba said that was more of a main family thing because there weren’t usually corresponding Naras and Akimichis for the branch families.
“Also, you suck at your clan jutsu,” he’d said. “I was practicing on you instead of Tonbo because your mental blocks are terrible, but I guess you’re so bad you messed up the jutsu too.”
It actually worked out well for me, since I figured physical combat would be easier to figure out than using chakra for ninjutsu or genjutsu - however those worked. Didn’t stop me from hitting Aoba.
I didn’t have any other immediate family, and Aoba assured me I was single (not without some healthy teasing though). My parents had died in the Kyuubi attack. His voice had softened telling me that, but I only felt relief. Fewer people that I was supposed to know.
He showed me around the village: the Hokage Tower, the general hospital, the library, some ninja specialty stores, and some of the training grounds. I committed it to memory but I didn’t see myself actually using a lot of the resources. I’d have to figure out what to do with my ninja duties now that I had no idea how to carry them out.
We split up after I reassured him that I did remember the way back to the compound. Instead of going home though, I made my way to one of the training grounds. It took a little over an hour, but I managed to find my way into an empty one.
That morning, Aoba had jumped onto a roof with ease. Obviously the other Ise must’ve had this ability too. I stared up at a tree branch about ten feet above me.
I didn’t even know what chakra felt like, much less what it felt like to correctly use it to perform superhuman leaps, but I concentrated on my feet anyway. It was just energy, right? I tried to recapture the warmth I’d felt when Aoba had attempted to negate the seal on the back of my neck, redirecting that warmth to my feet.
It could have been some kind of placebo effect, but I thought I could do it. I could do it. I was going to jump onto that tree branch.
I jumped, wildly misjudging the distance, and slammed into a different branch fifteen feet higher.
“Fuck!” I yelped, somehow grabbing hold of it. I didn’t know if I could survive the fall. My vision wavered in and out for few minutes before I mustered enough energy to climb my way back down.
Clearly, I could have thought that one through better.
I really didn’t want to try again, but it would be an incredibly useful skill. Moreover, Aoba wouldn’t be able to hold this one over my head. Ah, spite. The best motivator.
Gathering the warmth - chakra - to my feet again, I leapt faster than before. Unfortunately, I didn’t jump high enough, and I had to grab onto the branch and pull myself up. Not graceful by any means, but better.
This time, I tried jumping back to the ground, using the chakra to soften the impact. I had to hop to catch my balance, but I didn’t break any bones.
Buoyed by that success, I almost jumped back into the tree when someone grabbed onto my shoulder. Instead my body went through the motions of a throw again, except this time it was countered. It happened so fast I didn’t even remember what happened before I hit the ground, blinking dazedly at the starry sky and an equally starry grin.
I recognized it. “Maito Gai,” I said.
“Yes!” Gai said, pulling me back to my feet. I staggered before my muscles locked. “I was wondering who else was training this late! I approve, Ise.”
I hadn’t even noticed him arrive, which was frankly embarrassing considering how loud he was. Then again, he was a jounin too - or rather, a real one. Was I supposed to know him? He’d called me by my first name instead of my last, but I didn’t remember his speech mannerisms.
“You know me,” I said, “always up for some...good ol’ training.”
That won me a blinding thumbs up. So far, everything seemed normal. He probably hadn’t seen me almost brain myself on a tree, right?
“What were you doing?” Gai asked. “An exciting new technique? I’d never seen anything like it!”
Or not. “Uh, something like that. It’s in the really early stages though, so I’m just messing around trying to figure stuff out,” I said.
“I understand,” Gai said, puffing out his chest. Granted, he really didn’t need more help highlighting his physique on top of the green jumpsuit. “How admirable of you, Ise! If there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me!”
I considered it. There was nothing in the series that suggested Gai knew anything about seals or dimension crossing, but at the very least he could help me relearn how to fight. Aoba said I was a taijutsu specialist, but Gai was the taijutsu master.
He was still Gai though, and I couldn’t imagine any universe where he’d be able to keep my secret if pressed.
“Thanks, Gai,” I said, surprised I meant it. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Another thumbs-up. His jumpsuit had definitely been played for laughs in the series, but it suited him. Green was definitely his color. “Wonderful! My team will be leaving tomorrow morning for a mission, but we should be back in a week’s time! Farewell, Ise!”
“Good luck,” I said before realizing what he’d said. “Wait, Gai! Um, your team… It’s Neji, Tenten, and Rock Lee?”
“Yes! My beloved students!” He beamed. “They are progressing admirably! This year I will enter them in the Chuunin Exams.”
“Ah, impressive. I was just checking.” I waved him off once more.
I was pretty sure his team was older than Naruto, but they’d missed the Chuunin Exams their first year. Naruto was a genin now. I was right at the start of the series.
“That’s just a coincidence,” I muttered, shaking out my shoulders. Weirdly, even after being thrown to the ground by Gai, I was only a little sore. Ninja stamina was terrifying, but it did explain a lot about the manga.
Still, it was encouraging to know I wasn’t starting from scratch. I wasn’t a civilian; this body belonged to an honest-to-god ninja and just happened to be occupied by a civilian’s mind. Well. It felt better than it sounded.
I practiced my jumps until I could land perfectly on the branch I was aiming for, and then I went home.
...
After my long night of training, I wanted to sleep in until noon, but as soon as the sun began to peek over the horizon, I was wide awake. No matter how long I closed my eyes, I couldn’t go back to sleep, which was infuriating. I’d slept in later the day before! Worse, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. It wasn’t something I was forgetting, exactly, but like…a deep unease that there was something out there waiting for me to notice it.
I caved and checked my closet three times, but I only found more robes and jounin uniforms.
Forcing my frustration aside, I got dressed. After a day in robes, I had to admire how much more comfortable they were than the jounin uniform. I didn’t have to wear pants!
Today I needed to go to the library. I couldn’t try any ninjutsu or genjutsu (which I wanted to at least test, no matter what Aoba said about my capabilities) without knowing the hand seals, and I had no idea what those were.
As soon as I stepped out of my room, though, I was tackled to the hardwood floor by a familiar orange pipsqueak.
“Argh! Where were you!?” Naruto shouted.
“Holy fu - “ I cut myself off when I heard a startled gasp. Sakura peered down at us with wide sea-green eyes. She looked scandalized, but whether it was because of my current predicament or my almost-curse, I didn’t know.
“You didn’t show up yesterday! We were waiting for hours! The whole day!” Naruto yelled.
“Sorry?” I tried. I couldn’t really protest. For all I knew, the other Ise probably did make plans with them. Though that definitely hadn’t been in the manga. “Remind me what we were supposed to do again?”
I never claimed to be the smoothest talker in the world.
“Ise-sensei!” Sakura exclaimed. Oh no. Ohhh no. “We passed your test, so you’re supposed to train us!”
“Fuck,” I said into the ground.