//------------------------------//
// Familiar First Encounter 
// Story: Vessel of Harmony 
// by Ranoa- Walker of Worlds 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment she was surrounded by light after the mask had activated, there was a great sound like thunder, now she was standing outside; and she was feeling a little nauseous,
“Ok, I hope I will never to do that again. Check list, hooves?” Twilight looked down at the ground and was relieved to see that she still had four hooves, “Yes. Wings? Check. Horn? Yep still there. Magic?” Great relief washed over her as her horn lit up with her magical aura, “Thank goodness. Now, where am I?” The Princess looked around and found herself in some sort of fenced in yard. Grass was looking a bit overgrown and the flower pots riddled with weeds. The two story house in front of her looked more than a little worn. Paint was peeling off and the windows were covered with dust. Deciding to investigate, Twilight approached the old house.
“It doesn’t look like anyone has been home for a while. Wonder who lived here?”  
Twilight grabbed hold of the nob on the front door with her magic and pulled. As expected it was locked. Twilight turned her attention to the filthy window. As she made her way to the window her hoof caught on something in the grass. Curious, Twilight brought her head down and parted the grass with her magic. There sticking out of the ground was a three pronged dagger. Its handle was disproportionately longer than the blades and inscribed with some kind of what Twilight believed to be a magical formula.
“What is this?”
“Halt!” A mare’s voice cut in. A knife barely missed Twilight’s head by just millimeters. Frightened Twilight reared her head back and blindly aimed a reflexive magical bolt. The bolt missed its intended target but must have found another because a stallion’s voice cried out in pain.
“That’s it, take it down!” The first voice said. Twilight finally was able to take in the sight of four humans in animal masks and grey armor surrounding her.
“Wait!” Twilight pleaded, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt anypo-body!” The four humans were taken aback by her plea and hesitated. The woman that had spoken earlier leveled another knife at Twilight,
“State your name, affiliation, and reason for being here.” She demanded. Twilight recomposed herself and stood tall as she introduced herself,
“I am Twilight Sparkle, Equestrian Princess of Friendship. I was sent here by a strange artifact that one of my friends and me were investigating. I do not know where I am or if I can get home.” Twilight explained to the humans around her, “Tell me, is Canterlot High anywhere near here?”
“Canterlot High? What nonsense is that?” The man that she had hit earlier asked, the pain that he was in still evidenced in the slight cringe in his voice.
“Perhaps the summons arrived here accidentally, and this Canterlot is a landmark in her homeland?” One of the others postulated.
“How do we know that this creature is not working with Iwa or one of our other enemies? I mean, look at where we are.”
“If this was enemy espionage they wouldn’t have made such a loud noise when arriving. That thunderclap was loud enough to be heard from the capital city.” The female responded. She returned the knife to a holster on her thigh before bowing,
“Our apologies Princess Sparkle,”
“Please just call me Twilight. All of my friends do.”
“Ma’am,” One of the other warriors interjected, “With all due respect, she could very well be an enemy to the village. We ought to take her to headquarters and have her questioned.”
“Quiet Bird; when you have been in the ANBU as long as I have you know how to identify both enemy and friend. The, ehm, Princess here is no threat to us; although I do find her title to be a bit strange. Princess of Friendship?” She asked with what could be amounted to a confused glance from behind her mask.
“It is a very long story, one that I would gladly share with whoever is in charge.” The four humans glanced at each other before nodding, 
“Very well. We shall take you Lord Hokage. Follow us.” The ANBU led Twilight from the yard. One of the ANBU waited a brief moment behind his comrades. Without being seen he picked up the dagger that the pony had forgotten in the confusion before hurrying to catch up with his group.

Twilight was lead from the abandoned house through a village filled with humans. She felt very strange, about as strange as when she had first traveled to Canterlot High to get her crown back. Only this time she wasn’t a human, she was a lavender pony with wings and a horn. This was more than enough cause to turn the heads of the villagers.
As they walked through the streets Twilight took notice of the signs that hung on the outside of buildings. She really wasn’t much of a culturist, even when she was Princess Celestia’s personal student; however, from what she could see, the signs were written in the common scripts of the Japonies. 
‘Odd, a world with no apparent connection to Equestria developed a written language so similar to one back home. Wait, home! How am I to get home?’ She thought to herself.
Unknown to her, or the care of the ANBU, a small blond haired boy was watching the procession. His blue eyes widened when he caught sight of the alicorn.
‘No way, could that be…’ He had to make sure before he approached the ANBU. He quickly left the alley that he was hiding in and hurried to a rundown portion of the village. He ran up a few flights of stairs before reaching an apartment door. Extracting the key from his pocket the boy hurried inside the extremely messy apartment and to the bed room. Reaching under the bed he found a loose floor board and lifted it up. He only had to probe the space under the floor for just a moment before he brought up the item that he sought.
No one was sure where it had come from, the little plush horse. Naruto Uzumaki had it since he was an infant. It was always assumed that a member of the hospital staff had given it to him but none of the nurses or doctors came forward to claim responsibility for the act of charity to the whiskered boy. The lavender color had faded from the toy and spots of dirt stained parts of the fur and mane. However, there was no mistaking the remarkable similarities between the toy and the horse that he had just seen. He had to talk to her, he just had too. Tucking the toy between his arms he dashed out of the apartment, only pausing a moment to close and lock the door behind him.

Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle had been led through the streets of Konohagakure, as she learned it was called, to the tower that rested directly beneath a great cliff. The most noteworthy aspect of the cliff was the four giant faces carved into the rock. Twilight made a mental note to ask someone about who the people were. Navigating the stairs upward Twilight and her escort ended up in a long twisting hall somewhere near the top. They then went to a door that was located perfectly at the half way point.
“Wait here please,” Was the command given to Twilight by her escort. So Twilight Sparkle waited outside the door, left alone to her thoughts,
‘Hopefully their leader will believe my story. How am I supposed to get home? Why here? Why of all the possible worlds or even timelines did I end up here?’ This was what her thoughts were like while she waited for this, Hokage. Eventually the door opened up and the masked mare, woman actually, nodded to Twilight,
“You may come in now Princess.” Instead of insisting to be called Twilight, the Princess of Friendship accepted the fact that some beings in existence were too polite to ever not call someone by their appropriate title. 
Twilight entered the office. The guards that escorted her took up positions on either side of a big redwood desk. Sitting behind the desk was a wrinkled old man wearing white robes, a red and white hat sat upon his head. A polite smile spanned his face as he nodded his head in greeting,
“Welcome to the Hidden Leaf Village. I am Hiruzen Sarutobi, Hokage and leader of the village.”
Twilight bowed back to him,
“I am Twilight Sparkle; the Equestrian Princess of Friendship.” 
“So Princess Sparkle, what can I do for you?”
“You see sir, I am afraid that I have accidentally found myself in your world with no way back.”
Twilight then proceeded to give a brief explanation about the incident with the mask and just a little about Equestria. After her story was finished Hiruzen thought deeply for a moment, his brow furrowed in contemplation. After a while the old Hokage spoke up,
“Princess, are you sure…” The Hokage never got to finish that sentence. For right in the middle of it, the entire world shook. A tremendous Wamm-Boom filled the air, knocking out glass windows and knocking everyone, and everypony, flat. The thing that was most surprising though was that with the shockwave of sound, there was a wave of rainbow colored light. This phenomena did not go unnoticed by a the pony princess,
‘A sonic rainboom? But… But how? Rainbow Dash?’ Her theory was quickly crushed when another wave of power washed over the village, one that she didn’t think she would feel ever again,
“The Elements of Harmony?”
Without waiting another moment Twilight got to her hooves and was out the now shattered window flying towards the epicenter, a convenient but worrying ball of sparking energy.

Naruto ran through the streets, hurrying to the old man’s office. He just had to meet the horse who looked so much like his toy. The prized possession was still tucked in his arms. He turned a blind corner and ran headlong into the tall form of an adult.
“Sorry sir!” The young boy apologized. However, the apology was lost on the man. The older man in question had been guzzling down his who-knows -which bottle of sake for the day.  He had the rim of the bottle to his lips when the eager boy ran into him. The sudden impact caused the less then sober man to jerk the bottle and the sudden change in the bottle’s altitude sent the liquid spilling down the face of drunkard. Needless to say, this did little to improve his mood. In fact, this made him livid.
“Watch where you are running you… brat,” The man had cleared the drink sufficiently from his eyes and saw just who it was that ran into him. This man once was a shop owner, and then the shop was crushed under the foot of the Kyuubi. This man was never a shinobi as such he did not understand sealing arts. He did not understand that the boy in front of him was not the demon that had destroyed his livelihood and his life; he just saw the demon in human form that had made him spill his sake.
“You wretched demon! You take my home, my business, my source of income, wasn’t enough for you? Now you have to make me spill my sake all over me?” The man’s angered words were slightly slurred but his drunken rage was clear enough. The small boy did the only thing that he could think of, run. The plan would have worked, if the boy’s shirt was not immediately seized by the drunkard,
“You aren’t getting away that easily!” He roared and threw Naruto into the wall. Naruto curled up into a defensive ball on the ground as an onslaught of kicks began. With each kick there came a profane insult from the man, mostly tied with the words, “Demon, brat, fox,” and, “Murderer.” A small gathering of people came around and cheered on the man in his abuse to the village pariah.
There was no help coming. No one was coming to help him. Naruto clung for dear life to the toy in his arms, failing to hold back the tears as they came down from his eyes.
‘Please… Make him stop…’ He didn’t know who he was directing these thoughts to but these were still his pleas. 
A strange fire began to burn within Naruto’s stomach. This strange warm sensation grew in intensity until it was the only feeling that Naruto could register, even the kicks from his tormentor were no longer perceivable. On the outside a rainbow aura shrouded the lad, making all those who still had half a mind to stand back.
“Wha… What is that?”
“Is it the demon?”
“No, this is different. For goodness sakes man stop!” Came the cries from the villagers who were now afraid of the growing lightshow and the strange sensation that accompanied it. However, the assaulter was either too drunk or far too idiotic to notice the veil of power emanating from the boy. That is, until a high pitched whining filled the air,
“What the-“ 
Waam-Boom!
A tremendous shockwave of rainbow light exploded from the boy throwing everyone who was close by into buildings. The drunk who had unwittingly set off the explosion unfortunately caught full blast of the Rainboom and never saw the sun set that day. The thing that got people afraid though was when Naruto began to levitate; still in a defensive curl and eyes closed tight. That was when lightning started sparking off him. A ball of white light that radiated some kind of power that felt nothing like chakra formed around Naruto. The sphere grew until it took up most of the street that his abuse had taken place on. Somehow oblivious to the display of power Naruto was filled with the memories of his treatment at the hands of the village. All of the abuse, lonely nights, and insults, just wishing that there was someone who he could look to.
‘Help… please…’ 
From the sky above Twilight Sparkle landed a few feet away from the magical epicenter. She could make out the shape of a foal, child rather, in the midst of the mystic sphere. 
‘I’ve got to help them, but how?’ Twilight thought. Then all at once it hit her, ‘This is just like when I got my Cutie Mark. And if the Princess’ method worked then, it should work now.’ Gathering up her courage she walked straight into the sphere. 
Passing through the wall of pure magic was like walking into your home after being away for so long, a kind of welcome feeling. This really was the power of the Elements of Harmony as they were several years ago when they were used by Twilight and her friends to deal with some of the biggest threats of their time. She never thought she would feel them like this again, so close to harmony. But, at the center of it all, she felt sadness. 
Twilight turned her attention to the child and spied the blond form of a colt, boy rather, curled up around something. From what she could tell, this boy was both the origin of both the Power of Harmony and the sadness. As Twilight came closer to the child she began to hear gentle sobs.
‘Should I say something?’ Twilight asked herself. A different idea presented itself in her head, and for one reason or another, she chose to go with that one. She quietly walked to the boy and took him in her forelegs. She then proceeded to shield him from the outside world by wrapping her wings around him.
Naruto snapped out of his shock when he felt something warm and soft press up against him. Horse legs and a set of magnificent lavender wings were wrapped around him. He turned his attention upward and was met with a very kind gaze. It was the lavender horse from before, she found him, she rescued him, she was giving him a hug, he felt safe. He pressed himself into the mare, absorbing all the affection that he could from the embrace.
As Naruto calmed so did the storm of magic that roared around him. Soon there was no sphere of magic surrounding the two. Everyone who remained stared in awe of the creature that had just stopped Naruto’s outburst. 
A short while later Hiruzen Sarutobi with a contingent of ANBU landed at the scene. The aged Hokage looked on the scene and whispered to himself,
“Just who are you miss Sparkle?”
Meanwhile on top of the Hokage monument there stood a solitary figure in a dark coat and a mask similar to the artifact that had banished Twilight to this place,
‘Not how I expected the scene to play out, but this works out my favor. Just a little more pushing and things will be as they need to be.’