Chapter Text
Where is he? Oh, yes, the palace gardens (he's never been to a palace, never ever).
He walks along the winding paths, his brother by his side. (It was his brother, right? Right?). Between the branches he can see the full Earth illuminating the night (Earth shouldn't be there). Everything is peaceful, everything is perfect (it won't stay that way for long).
But then something explodes.
Hashirama opened his black eyes, the weird dream still clinging to him. Taking a stroll in a garden on the moon was the second most ridiculous dream he had ever had, right after the one where a burger chased him around the food court of the shopping mall.
And yet, it was more vivid than any other he had ever had, he thought, brushing his long brown hair away from his eyes and dragging them around his room; the green of the garden's leaves darker than the paint on his walls, the Earth rounder that the zero on his alarm clock...
There shouldn't be a zero on his alarm clock unless he overslept again. SHIT.
He grabbed his uniform and threw it on as he ran down the stairs, hopping on one leg to put his pants on. He kissed his mother goodbye, snatched his notebook and two toasts to eat on the way, and sprinted down the street.
He might even be early today if he kept this speed. It was only five more blocks to his school after he turned the next corner!
Right as he turned, he caught a glimpse of long, wild black hair standing on his way. Instinct took over, and Hashirama twisted and turned to avoid crashing into it. Thankfully his reflexes from years of training took over and he dodged, only brushing loose strands instead of colliding with a body. His notebook flew from his hand but he caught it in the air.
“Sorry!” he called over his shoulder with a smile to the pretty girl who owned the hair.
“Look where you're going, you fucking idiot!” answered the pretty girl in a voice too deep and manly, but Hashirama kept running.
There were three more blocks to go when Hashirama adjusted the grip on his notebook and realized his pen had disappeared.
“Oh come on,” he whined and screeched to a halt in front of that weird shop that carried everything. He only needed a pen, he wasn't going to be sidetracked into an impulsive purchase, no sir. Then he reached the register and saw the ragdoll. It was barely bigger than his hand, a blond boy with whiskers, dressed in eye-watering orange clothes, with mittens for hands. Truly a ridiculous thing.
All thoughts of buying a pen fled his head.
“How much for the toy?” he asked.
“You really want to buy that?” the cashier looked incredulous.
“Yes.”
“It's been here forever so I don't know the price. How much do you have?” Hashirama put a bill on the counter and the cashier regarded it for a moment before shrugging. “Alright, all yours. Have a nice day!”
Hashirama ran the last block to his school with the biggest smile on his face. He'd have to borrow a pen but the toy was worth it. As he crossed the gates he started looking for a familiar mop of white hair, then he waved his hand to get its attention when he found it.
“Tobirama!” he called out.
The mop of white hair turned to him. His brother's face looked unimpressed under it.
“What a miracle you're here before the bell rings, anija” the boy said when Hashirama approached him. His red eyes had a vaguely displeased look on them, but Tobirama always looked vaguely displeased.
“It's too early for sarcasm, Tobi. And if you woke me up I wouldn't be late,” Hashirama said, smiling. “Anyway, can I borrow a pen?”
“You're the eldest! You shouldn't need me to wake you up. Be more responsible!”
“Don't scold me,” he pleaded, dropping his head while dark clouds hung over him.
Tobirama let out a long suffering sigh and handed him a pen. “This is the last time I lend you anything, anija. Are we clear?”
“Of course not. You love me too much not to lend me stuff!” Hashirama's mood was sunny again as he hug his brother.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” Tobirama pushed him and Hashirama walked away, laughing at him just as the bell started to ring.
“Hi!” Hashirama greeted when he entered the classroom.
“You're early, Senju-kun. What happened? The end of the world?” his classmate Inuzuka joked.
“Don't be so mean to him, Inuzuka-kun,” the Hyuuga girl chastised him when she saw the cloud over Hashirama's head, and Hashirama beamed at her words. “I'm sure he simply brought new batteries for his clock.”
“You're so meeeaaan, Hyuuga-chan,” Hashirama said, tears streaming down his cheeks while Hyuuga snickered.
“You three are so troublesome,” another classmate said. There was a moment of silence as the sat at their desks before he spoke again. “Have you seen the news this morning?”
“You mean the puppet guy, Nara-kun?” Inuzuka asked him.
“What puppet guy?” Hashirama frowned in confusion.
“Senju-kun, I swear you don't lose your head 'cause it's screwed on top of your shoulders. Last night a guy attacked in the Saitama prefecture. He used some weird puppets, the kind with strings.”
“The Kunoichi stopped him, but he escaped,” Hyuuga added.
“What the hell's happening in Saitama?” Hashirama asked, horrified. “First the evil freezer, then the diamond angel, then the guy with a hole in his chest, then the really tall guy without skin.”
“What would they do without the Kunoichi?”
“They'd be screwed.”
The door opened suddenly and their teacher walked in with a boy in tow.
“Hello class,” the teacher said, staring at them with yellow eyes. “Today we have a new student in the class. Introduce yourself,” he told the boy.
“Yes, Zetsu-sensei,” the boy stepped forward, facing the class. He had a deep voice and a regal face, and his pale skin contrasted with his long, black hair and dark eyes. A few girls sighed wistfully, already in love, but he ignored them. “My name's Uchiha Madara. I just moved from Saitama prefecture because of my father's job.”
He let his eyes wander over his new classmates in complete disinterest. He ignored everyone, from the blushing girls, vaguely assessing boys, to Inuzuka-kun who was scowling, until his gaze landed on Hashirama and his eyes narrowed fractionally.
Hashirama saw him staring and waved enthusiastically. Madara's eyes narrowed further.
Zetsu-sensei waited for a beat to see if the boy would say anything else, but when he didn't, he ordered him to take the free seat in front of Hashirama while he turned around to write on the blackboard.
Hashirama eyed the spiky mass of wild black hair until recognition dawned on him. He tapped Madara's shoulder and beamed at him when the boy turned around. “Hi, I'm Senju Hashirama. I almost crashed into you earlier,” he said.
Madara scowled. “I know. I can recognize an idiot at first sight.”
“That's so rude of you. True, but rude anyway.”
“Silence, Senju-kun!”
“Sorry sensei!”
It was later that same day. Hashirama had already done every one of his chores for the day – wash the dishes, take out the trash, do his homework and even return Tobirama his pen – and was getting ready to go to sleep. He eyed his new toy and debated with himself if it should go on his desk or if he wanted to cuddle it for the night when...
“Hi!”
“Who said that?” Hashirama screeched.
“Me!”
Everyone in the house was already asleep. Hashirama put the toy in the bed and grabbed the nearest thing he could find to defend himself – an umbrella. He threw his closet door open and stabbed the darkness with it, but no one was there.
“I'm on the bed!”
Hashirama glanced over, but on the bed there was nothing but the toy. Except the toy was now sitting and waving at him.
“I'm Naruto!” the toy said.
Hashirama shrieked and hit it with the umbrella. The doll flew like a baseball and hit the further wall with a soft thud.
“Anija, what's wrong?!” Tobirama shouted, barging into his brother's room. He found Hashirama curled up into a ball by the closet.
“That toy's alive!”
Tobirama glanced with incredulous eyes at the completely ordinary, if incredible awful, ragdoll that lay crumpled on the floor.
“You shouldn't experiment with drugs while dad's home, anija. Or at least get something of better quality,” Tobirama turned around to leave.
“DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH IT!”
The door closed with a fateful click.
“If you do that again I'll hit you dattebayo!”
“Please don't kill me doll-sama!”
“Why would I do that?” The toy, Naruto, looked baffled. “I'm here to help you dattebayo! I'm your Guide!”
“Guide? Help me?”
“I'll guide you to help you defeat the evil forces that wish to destroy your planet!”
“Evil forces that wish to destroy my planet?”
“You're denser than me dattebayo.”
“I'm not dense, you're terrible at explaining yourself!”
Naruto scratched the back of his head and laughed. “Well, you're right about that. Let me start again. The same evil forces that destroyed the Moon Kingdom are now trying to destroy the Earth, and you are the only one capable of stopping them by accessing your magical powers with this,” Naruto waved his hands and produced a collar, a clear crystal that looked like quartz with a small clear bead on either side, out of thin air. “Come on, try it on!”
“What” Hashirama asked, blinking blankly at him.
“The same evil forces tha--”
“No, I heard you all right. But Moon Kingdom? Magical powers? Me the only one capable?”
“Yes to all of that dattebayo!”
“Even me?”
“Dattebayo!”
“How do you know it's me and not someone else? My brother for example. He's waaaaay more capable.”
Naruto shrugged. “I don't know how I know. I just know, you know?”
Hashirama pondered about it for a moment. “I know,” he finally declared.
“Cool! Try to transform now,” there was an explosion downtown and Naruto looked in that direction. “Or skip the try and go straight to succeed because the evil forces are here and you need to fight them off,” he jumped and grabbed onto Hashirama's pajama. “Let's go stop them, dattebayo!”
Hashirama's feet were hurting by the time they were near the site of the explosions. He should have put shoes on, but his flip flops were closer by and Naruto had been spurring him on to leave the house immediately.
“Here's close enough, dattebayo. You need to transform before you fight,” Naruto told him. “C'mon, hurry!”
“Hey, Naruto? There's this problem,” Hashirama said with a hint of worry in his voice. “I've never fought before.”
“What?!”
“Only in tournaments! I've practiced kung fu since I was four but I never had to fight for real!”
“Why did I have to be loaded with you?! The kung fu's enough, now transform and fight, dattebayo!”
“How?”
“Focus on the necklace and wish really hard.”
Hashirama closed his eyes and scrunched his face up in concentration. He clutched the quartz tightly and repeated one phrase over and over in his mind: I have to transform, I have to transform, I have to transform, I have to--
He heard a shriek and his eyes snapped open. A little girl was stumbling on her own feet in her mad dash to run away from the cloud of dust blowing down the street. Hashirama moved without conscious thought, he had to get there, he had to help her...
The necklace started shining with a green light that enveloped him, and he felt himself transforming, changing . In a single motion, he lifted the girl up, sprinted to the nearest building and kicked the door in.
“Hide here and don't come out until the mess out there stops, ok?” he told the girl.
She only gave him a nod in response, the fear he could see on her wide, teary eyes stopping her from talking. He smiled at her and went out to the street.
“I knew you could do it, dattebayo! Congratulations!” Naruto said from his perch on Hashirama's shoulder.
“Thank you, Naruto. What now?”
“Now we stop the forces of evil. That way!” He pointed his tiny mittens to their right.
Hashirama jumped two stories' high up a building, latched onto a windowsill and launched himself up from window to window with muscle power alone. Nice, he thought as he reached the rooftop and started running to the heart of the fight.
He eventually dropped down an alley and peaked around the exit to assess the situation. There was something blurring about the street, darting in and out of buildings and shops, destroying everything and creaking with a wooden sound every time it moved.
In the middle of the intersection, a man stood almost still, only turning on his heels right before the darting thing moved around. He was full of wrinkles and hunched over by old age.
“That guy in the middle of the street... That thing is moving around him. Is he controlling it?” Hashirama asked.
“You're right, dattebayo. He fights with puppets but I can't remember his name. It was something with an S,” Naruto explained unhelpfully. “and I think there was something else about him, but I can't recall it either.”
“Well, I'll need to figure it out myself then,” Hashirama said and launched himself forward.
The old man saw him coming and directed the puppet at him, but Hashirama easily dodged it, and he was about to reach the old man when he suddenly was flung away, crashing against a building.
“Watch out for the strings!” Naruto said, climbing back up to Hashirama's shoulder.
“I will now!” Hashirama said, jumping away from an attack from the puppet. “How do I get close to it? If I dodge that thing I'll get smacked around by the strings!”
“You don't need to get close! The puppet's wooden!” Naruto was barely clinging to the boy as he rolled to avoid another attack.
“You're still not making sense! What does it b – ooof -- wooden have to do with – oh, shit -- anything?”
“Oh right, I didn't tell you! You have plant powers!”
“Naruto? -- Ugh-- ”
“Yes?”
“I f-- aagh-- ing hate you,” Hashirama grabbed the incoming puppet and wrestled with it, wishing for some power to happen. He felt the roughness of the wood under his fingers, and he focused on it until it was his whole world, until he could feel every joint and crease and grain on it, and then he felt something even deeper within it... Aha, right there. He pulled and pulled and pulled on that deep feeling, until it was right beneath the surface of the puppet, and then it was breaking through the paint...
The puppet exploded, sprouted forth in a tangle of branches and twigs and leaves, until it became a living, lush bush right in the middle of the street. Hashirama's eyes widened in amazement.
“Interesting,” the old man said, and Hashirama's attention snapped to him. “So you are the famed Mokuton Shinobi. I must say I'm not impressed.”
“Nobody cares what you think, you old geezer, dattebayo!” Naruto shouted.
“Old geezer? How unoriginal. I'll enjoy turning the two of you into a new puppet to replace the one you broke.”
“Keep him talking, I'm onto something,” Hashirama whispered to Naruto
The Guide nodded. “You turn people into puppets?!” he shouted. “That's gross! People is full of liquid! And weird bits!”
“Not any longer when I'm done turning them into art.”
“That's double gross! What do you do with the bits you don't need? You just throw them away?”
“I...” the old man stopped and seemed to be frowning. “You're stalling.”
“Yes, he is,” Hashirama answered, and pulled forth with his new power again until the old man exploded into a tree. When the shockwave died down, he approached carefully. “That was easy.”
“Too easy, don't you think?” came the old man's voice from above.
Hashirama looked up to see a young, red haired boy hanging from a building, and fell into a fighting stance again.
“You destroyed my art,” the boy said in the old man's voice. “Congratulations are in order. I will leave now but soon we'll meet again.”
He disappeared in a red cloud, and Hashirama stared at the spot.
“That's what I couldn't remember!” Naruto shouted happily. “Sasori is always inside one of his puppets!”
“The old man was a puppet?” Hashirama asked.
“Yep!”
“And the actual puppeteer –Sasori, right?-- is the hot redhead about my age we just saw?”
“Yep!”
“Figures,” Hashirama sighed.
Hashirama climbed back into his house through his bedroom's window and headed straight to the bathroom. He tried to be as silent as possible, but it was hard because with every step he took his transformation clinked. It might have been a soft sound, but it was there nonetheless.
He closed the bathroom door and took a good look at what he was wearing. It was a nice set of armor that felt not quite metallic nor quite plastic, with a high collar to protect his neck, plates from his shoulders to his elbows, forearms and shin guards. Several sheets came down from his waist to mid-thigh; it looked like a skirt and was the culprit of the clinking.
“What do you think? It looks cool, doesn't it, dattebayo?” Naruto asked, jumping down from Hashirama's shoulder and sitting on the rim of the sink.
“Yes, it does,” Hashirama answered, craning his neck to inspect the back. “It's weird that I have wood powers but the armor's red, though.”
“I think it's weird too,” Naruto shrugged.
“I'm also a bit worried about my toes because the sandals have no armoring and are open.”
“You have to be careful when you kick something, dattebayo.”
“I really like this bow. It's soft to the touch,” Hashirama poked the white cloth bow that was attached right over the breastbone on the chest plate.
“It adds something to the look, dattebayo.”
“I like the markings under my eyes,” Hashirama said, appraising his face on the mirror. “They look kinda red straight on but green from the side.”
“You look fierce with them! Too bad you also got a bullseye in the middle of your forehead.”
“I don't like the bullseye. Can I get rid of it?”
“Nope. Hey, I need to tell you something before I forget. There are more like you out there.”
“People who can transform? Great! Who are they?”
“Eehhh... I don't know, we need to find them first. We're six Guards, one for each of you. I don't know how or why I woke up when you found me, but the rest of us will be asleep until they and their shinobi are found. I hope it's soon because the bad guys are already attacking.”