Chapter Text
Naruto runs towards the ninja who is left with the collar that was their mission to get back. Kakashi sensei and the others had been left behind to take care of the remaining shinobi from their gang, so now he is the one in charge of the main task. He diverts from the shuriken that are being thrown at him and gets to a reasonable distance from the target, almost catching the enemy by their bag, where the object he must rescue is localized.
Unfortunately, they noticed how close the little genin was getting, starting to run faster. Naruto could run pretty fast too, it’s not like he could lose much of his energy after all. They were running through the trees, barely realising what was in their surroundings, Naruto almost catching up to the bandit.
“When I catch this guy, everyone from the team will realize how worthy I am! Kakashi sensei barely even let me take care of this while they were fighting with the others, but when I show up with the stupid collar and this guy tied up, he will be so surprised and never underestimate me ever again. Oh! And then, Sakura-chan will see how awesome and cool I am, and she’ll want to train with me instead of that dimwit.”
He thought to himself while chasing the man in the forest, now turning a curve into the top of a waterfall, trying to be carefull Around the rocks. “And Sasuke-teme will have to recognize my strenght! I can’t wait to see that idiot’s face when I come back with this guy!” He giggled.
Then he fell.
Naruto felt the humid air cross through his face as he fell off the waterfall, his eyes starting to tear up from the sharp wind blowing while he got closer to the cold water.
"Shit, shit, shit!" He shut his eyes close, preparing forr the impact. "I can't believe I'm gonna die this way"
His body hit the freezing water with a loud "SPLASH" and he felt his senses becoming disorientes as he was sanking deeper and deeper by the passing of time.And there wasn't much time. He had to do something.
He fought against the urge to just let go, to disappear in the water and close his eyes, and tried to swim back to the margin, but he was already too far on the bottom of the lake. His vision was getting blurry, and there was enough water in his lungs to fill a tank. Naruto felt his eyes tearing up, if that was even possible in the middle of a giant pool or something. He was starting to feel dizzy.
If he wasn't distracted thinking about how his team would be so proud of him, maybe he woud've already catched the villain and went back to celebrate, get ramen even. Maybe Kakashi really would have been surprised with his abilities and would stop giving them only D-rank missions, maybe Sakura would ask him out and Sasuke would be super jealous - he started "tearing up" again - but he would never know, because he was so selfish. Maybe if he wasn't occupied thinking about some fake congratulations and prizes and stupid Sasuke's face-
He catched a glimpse of something similar to sunlight, but that would be impossible since it was coming from a small space in between two rocks at the bottom of the lake. Luckly, it was big enough for him to pass trough and find some kind of cave where he could finnaly breathe on.
Looking around, there was not much to be seen, as it was dark and stifling, but not far from there, Naruto could spot the little light point he was seeing before. He walked in its direction and found... nothing.
Great! Because all he needed right now was to be stuck in an underwater cave with no possible escape!
"Guess it's better than drowning" He thought.
But his team would never be able to find him there. Shit, not even Kakashi, guess the water would hide his scent even from his dogs.
Suddenly, he saw what was making the light illusion. It was similar to the scrolls shinobi carried with them for missions, usually for seals, he thought. Naruto was always curious about seals and this scroll thing, he wanted to have his own summoning jutsu one day, but guess this won't be possible, since he was going to die in there. Oh well.
He picked the surprisingly weightless scroll and analyzed its outside. It seemed harmless, but in a ninja world, everything must be carefully examined. He took a deep breath before deciding to open the seal. He was going to die one way or another, anyways.
He felt a burning pain meet his eyes as a new light shined even brighter this time, overshadowing his vision and getting him blind for a few seconds. When Naruto opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the cave.
Except he was, of course. He coudn't have just teleported or something. No, he was clearly under some kind of genjutsu. The weird part was that it didn't seem that whoever had put it in there was trying to make people believe it was real, considering that even Naruto was able to notice, and Naruto was not good at noticing this kind of stuff. It seemed more like a projection, if that make sense. Like someone was showing him a movie.
Naruto found himself back in Konoha, walking through the streets with Konohamaru and his team. He wasn't actually there, he was watching himself from afar, like an expectator.
He continued watching as two people - likely shinobi too, from the way they dressed, but he wasn't sure if he had ever seen people like that in the village - bumped into them, a boy with purple markings across his face making fun of them.
He heard their conversation escalate to the point Sasuke (wich appeared from nowhere) was confronting a red-haired boy (wich also appeared from nowhere) about why were them there.
"Don't you know? We're here for the Chunnin exam, dumbasses." A blond girl who haven't spoke much untill now said with an arrogant grin.
His perspective shifted to what it seemed to be the first mission of this so called 'Chunnin exams'. They had to do a written exam.
It was like he was seeing memories, but of things that never happened. Would this be some kind of paralel universe? No, he had a feeling that it wasn't.
Naruto kept watching as everything went as bad as possible in this imaginary adventure of his team. Sasuke was bitten by a weird woman in the woods, and was having a real bad fever, from what it seemed like. Sakura had cut her hair to fight against a group of enemies while they were uncontious.
"Shes so cool" He blushed "and this hair matches her well!"
He was really starting to be entertained by this probable death's door halucination of his, but sometimes his body would shiver thinking about his friends in such a state.
He was seeing it all way too clearly, and way too fast also. His head started hurting a little. He saw himslf meeting with a freaky old man that somehow became his new teacher while Kakashi was busy training Sasuke. He saw the last test of the exam, it ending in a huge battle comimg from that red-haired genin and the woman who bit Sasuke earlyer, known as Orochimaru.
His hands were sweating. He really didn't like those visions. The third hokage was now dead and almost all of his friends were gravely injured, also, he felt like it wasn't just some projection jutsu. It seemed too real for it to only be that.
He saw his training with the old man, them going to find a new hokage, him learning a new super awesome-cool wind jutsu that would make anyone jealous, expecially Sas-
Oh, yes, the journey. Uhm anyways..
He saw hinself facing a scary man through an open door. He looked exactly like Sasuke, somehow, even their eyes were the same. He was wearing a black mantle with red clouds, witch might seem corny, but he would never dare to say that to the man, who was accompanied by a shark like human that wore the same mantle.
"Uzumaki Naruto," The man gave him a glare "the nine tails jinchurikki. Come with us."
It was like they needed to capture Naruto for some purpose. Shit, where was that perv sage now?!
He saw Sasuke entering the 'fight' between them and getting absolutely beaten up by the man he now recognized as Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke's older brother. The perverted he assumed was now his sensei got there just in time to make the two run away, but Sasuke was unconscious now, and he appeared in so much pain.
Naruto wanted to throw up.
He saw them bringing lady Tsunade, the new Hokage, she healed Sasuke and everything was good again, or atleast as good as it could be after all that.
That's what he thought.
In a dark night, Naruto saw Sasuke leaving.
He and the other genin were assingned to chase after him, but ended up highly injured, and Sasuke left the village, in the rain.
He wanted to scream.
Then he remembered: He was still in that cave, under som type of genjutsu. That's it! Maybe he's trapped in his biggest fears, it could only be that, right?
Naruto tried focusing his mind to get out, but it was like there was an invisible wall stopping him from doing so.
After that, it all became very confusing. He went training with Jiraya for three years, away from the leaf. In the meantime, Sasuke trained with that weird snake-looking man, and when Naruto came back they had a new teammate.
He fought Sasuke and by Sasuke's side, and after the war, and their last battle, Sasuke finally made it back to Konoha, only to leave again, atleast not as a criminal this time.
Now, he was back at the cave, breathing heavyly, sweating and with tears falling downd his cheeks.
In his hand there was still the scroll from earlyer, as he noticed that only a few minutes must have passed, even if it felt like days straight, because of the faded animal noises he could still hear far from him, though that was not much light except the one coming from the scroll.
He looked a little closer this time, searching for an identification like "Genjutsu that makes all of your fears turn reality in front of you! Do not approach!", but instead he found "Time jutsu" at the bottom in gold ink.
Before Naruto had any time to process whta just happened, he felt the scroll dissolve in his fingers.
The bright light shined again, this time harder, as Naruto felt his eyes close and his body ponder to the side.
Then, he fainted.