Chapter 1: A Fresh New Start
A Fresh New Start
Konohagakure, also known as Konoha for short, was one of the major hidden villages located within the Land of Fire. In the past, the village was owned only by the Senju and the Uchiha clans, now the village occupies various powerful clans such as the foreseeing Hyuugas, the brave Akimichis and the strategic Naras; making it the village with the most assets within the continent.
As of tonight, the Konoha were experiencing a harsh rainy weather that seemed to cast the entire village into an extreme gloomy atmosphere. None of the citizens bothered to walk along streets in such an unforgiving weather aside than a few passing shinobis on patrols and civilians armed with umbrellas as their means of protection.
Zooming to the outskirts of the city, we arrived at the Konoha cemetery where rows after rows of grey tombstones lie with a sculpture located at the front, representing the Will of Fire of the village. A male teen stood among the dull and grey tombstones of the cemetery.
The teen has unruly sun-kissed blond locks and a pair of cerulean blue eyes. Three pair of whisker-like scar marks adorned both his cheeks, giving him a foxy appearance. He was clad in a black and orange zipped-up jacket over a crimson red cloak with black flame pattern licking its trimmings, a pair of orange jumpsuit pants that has a kunai holster and bandage wrapped around its left calve and a pair of black ninja sandals. A large scroll was strapped to his lower back by the means of a belt that was coiled around his left shoulder.
Unfazed by the drizzle that soaked the teen to his bones, the blonde continued to stare at the particular tombstone in front of him with an unreadable expression. And it probably would’ve stayed that way had it were not for the voice inside his head.
It’s time, kit. A gruff voice mentally said within his mindscape. If we don’t leave anytime soon, they’re going to find us.
At first, the teen showed no sign of listening until he spoke, revealing his deep voice, “…I know, Kurama.”
Turning around and walking away, the sun kissed blonde cast one final glance at the tombstone for a few more seconds – a look of apprehension flashed through his visage – before casting a hand seal and disappearing in a swirl of leaves.
Using the Body Flicker jutsu, the whiskered teen arrived at a forest clearing that was a good distant away from Konoha. The field was used to be a logging area to gather materials for rebuilding Konoha as indicated by the numerous empty tree trumps scattered all over the place but was abandoned once the Fourth Ninja War was over.
"This is a good spot," He spoke to himself as he slung the large scroll he was carrying off his back and laid it on the ground. Unfurling the large scroll, the Jinchuuriki was greeted with the sight of hundreds of ink-written kanji that either crisscross, circulates or overlapped one another, forming one huge web of kanji. “I just hope this works.”
It better be. The mental voice added. We put a lot in the line for this.
Naruto’s facial expression remained unreadable as he stared at his handiwork. He had re-checked the seal jutsu and tinkered with it for several times but that doesn’t necessarily help determine whether if it will work or not. After all, it’s not every day someone decided to create a jutsu that allows inter-dimensional travel in a matter of few months time. Heck, he was surprised that he could even make one simply by referring through some old textbooks his godfather had left him with as well as with the aid of his bijuu partner, Kurama.
If things came for the worse and the jutsu doesn’t work, they might be stuck in the plane of time space continuum.
“Only one way to find out.” He declared as he bit his thumb and causing a trickle of blood to flow out before flipping into a blur of hand seals. If there’s one crucial thing that he learnt from this, it’s that his teleportation jutsu absurdly took more hand seals than any other regular jutsu. It was also for this very reason on why he initiated it far away from Konohagakure: To ensure that no one would disturb him in the process.
In the midst of his preparation, he managed to spare one last glance behind him. Though he could see nothing but foliage after foliage of leaves, he knew that’s the rough direction of his hometown, Konoha.
“Sorry guys,” He muttered to himself. “All of you are better off without me.”
With that said, he slammed his palm onto the centre of the scroll. “Reverse Summoning Technique!”
For the first few eye-blinking seconds, nothing unusual happened. Then, just when he thought it painstakingly failed, he began to feel himself, and his very life essence, being tugged into the scroll. As if to reflect this happening, his body began to emit a soft yet ethereal glow. Almost in a similar manner to when he entered his Tailed Beast cloak mode, with the minor of exception of the conjured light being white in color. The blonde himself managed to notice this change before disappearing out of thin air, along with the scroll used to conjure the jutsu.
It was fortunate that he didn’t stall any longer because as soon as he was gone, a group of shinobi landed onto the clearing.
“Where is he, Kiba?” One of them spoke upon landing. He had a pair of lazy yet calculative eyes, black spiky hair that were tied in a pineapple manner and was clad in a long sleeved dark blue shirt that had a red swirl printed on the upper part of sleeves over a forest green vest, a pair of pants that had the same shade of blue as his shirt and a pair of black sturdy ninja sandals.
The question was directed to another member who was riding a white dog that was as big as him. Contrary to the first one, the person named Kiba gave off a feral-like appearance with his slitted onyx black irises and his brown hair spiked in all directions. To top it off, he was dressed in all-leather attire consisting of a zipped-up black jacket as well as pants and a pair of ninja sandals.
Said person sniffed the air a few times alongside his dog before coming with a reply, “His scent ends here.”
“But he’s not here.”
“I already told you his scent ends right here, didn’t I?” He answered back in distaste, obviously offended by the question. “Honestly, why do we even bother looking for him? It’s not like we forced him to leave or anything. If anything, he deserved it.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say as he was immediately subjected to a punch in the left cheek courtesy of the pineapple-head, knocking him off the dog.
With a palm resting on his injured cheek, he glared at the culprit, “What the hell was that for, Shikamaru!?”
“Shut it, Kiba.” He warned darkly. “You of all people know the incident wasn’t his fault.”
“You wanna bet?” At this point, the two were inches away from each other’s faces and a conflict would’ve been ensued had it were for the intervention of one of their party members.
“That’s enough, both of you!” A female of the group shouted, shoving the two several feet away from each other with strength no woman should ever have. She had short pink hair that reached her neck, a pair of emerald green eyes and was dressed in a sleeveless red qiapo dress with a circle design on the back, a pair of black shorts and a pair of black ninja sandals. “We’re here to find Naruto, not to fight against each other!”
“Sakura’s right.” Another male agreed. The voice originated from another male teen that was clad in a green spandex with orange warmers adorned his lower arm and legs. If his choice of clothing wasn’t bizarre enough, he had a bowl-shaped haircut and a pair of bushy eyebrows that made him weirder. Strangely enough, this was obviously a daily occurrence for the group as none of them spared him a second glance. “He shouldn’t have gotten that far from here. We should split up and start looking for him.”
The pinkhead named Sakura gave him an appreciative smile. “Good idea, Lee.” The girl then turned to face the rest of the group. “Shino and Kiba will go to the west, me and Lee will go north, Shikamaru and Chouji head east, Ino and Sai will go South. Everyone clear? Let’s go!”
With silent nod of confirmations and an indignant huff from Kiba, the group split apart to their designated direction, minus the two teens named Shikamaru and Chouji.
“You okay, Shikamaru?” Among the group, the plumped male named Chouji was the only one who seemed to be equipped in a fully-protective garb that consisted of a red baggy bodysuit over a set of samurai armor plating.
“I’m fine,” The pineapple-headed teen replied back in his usual monotone voice. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Alright but make it quick.” He urged before disappearing with speed that belied his appearance.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He replied back, which he doubt his team member would even listen.
Once he was out of sight, silence permeated across the clearing as Shikamaru remained motionless, clearly deep thought of the current situation. Then, with a click of his tongue, he took out a cigarette pack and lighter from behind his vest.
“Dammit Naruto.”
“Did it work?”
Opening his eyes, Naruto was greeted with an ever changing myriad of colors that does not rest well with his eyes. Glancing to his left and right, he realized that the color surrounding actually congregated into the form of one large tunnel and he couldn’t tell if he was going up or falling down; this must be the time-space continuum. It was a good thing he was trained to deal with this kind of shenanigans. Otherwise, he would’ve puked from all the nausea he was experiencing at the moment. And puking in the time-space fabric was the last thing he wanted to accomplish in his to-do list
“Huh, it does work.”
Don’t get your hopes up just yet, gaki. We still have yet to arrive to another world. Kurama mentally scolded. For all we know, we’d probably be stuck here forever.
Naruto smiled at his partner’s remark. “That sounds nice,” He wasn’t sure if it was due to the space-travelling taking its toll on him or he was already going senile to begin with but at this point, the blonde didn’t really care where he was going to. He was already content simply from leaving the Land of Fire. If what Kurama said was true and he really does have stuck here then he supposed that’s that. It’s not like anyone’s gonna miss him anyway, especially not after what he did.
Naruto winced when an unwanted memory flashed before his mindscape before pushing it back into the deepest part of his head. Yup, coming here was definitely a good call.
Fortunately for him, the fates of another realm had prepared a plan just for him.
“Do you think they’d look for me?” He asked after an undefined duration of silence. Who knew travelling would take such a long time?
Kurama grunted in consideration. Knowing that sensei of yours, he’d probably deployed all of the country’s assets to search for you across the Land of Fire. He elaborated before grinning maniacally. You being smart enough to make a dimensional travel jutsu would be the last thing he’d possibly thought of.
“…I’ll take that as a compliment,”
Another moment of comfortable silence passed by and the blonde probably would’ve snoozed right there when the sentient being inside him spoke.
I’m feeling a strong presence of energy up ahead. I’d say we’re nearing our destination. He pointed out. Looks like we’re not stuck here forever, after all.
The statement prompted Naruto to glance up, or in whatever direction he was heading to. Once again, physics does not exist here so he couldn’t tell what’s what. Sure enough, he could see a bright dot of white ahead of him amidst all the multitude of colors that no doubt served as a ticket for him to leave this bizarre place. At least, he hoped it is.
Brace for impact.
That caught his immediate attention. “Uh, why?” He asked a little suspiciously.
Because I got this feeling that we won’t be leaving this place without a scratch.
Meanwhile, in another realm far far away from the Fire Country, a lone mare can be seen sitting on a chair and table and having a cup of tea on a beautifully-designed white balcony, complete with perfectly polished marble tiled floors and well-sculptured semi-circled stone balustrade.
The mare has a pair of sparkling pale magenta eyes, a quad-colored mane and tail consisting of light cerulean, turquoise, cobalt blue and heliotrope that seemed to wave and defies gravity and was coated in a rich light fuchsia grey fur that no doubt took plenty of effort to take care of. To further elaborate her grace, the pony had a golden tiara emblazoned with a purple diamond gemstone located just behind her alicorn horn, a golden bejeweled necklace with a similar shaped purple diamond gemstone in the centre wrapped around the base of her neck and golden ornamented slippers adorned each of her hooves. It didn’t take a scientist to tell that she was of royalty descendants.
“Ah, peace and quiet.” She rejoiced.
The white pony’s lips curved into a smile as she gently took a sip of her tea. Nothing beats a morning than having a cup of tea accompanied by a few of her favorite crumpets early in the morning. It was this kind of small pleasures that made her look forward to living every day.
Truth to be told, her schedule was actually packed for the next few hours but no matter, that doesn’t stop her from enjoying her already-scarce break. After all, such was the fate of being a leader of a country.
Sadly, as scarce her breaks were, her beloved bubble of tranquility was shattered when the ground underneath her suddenly shook, rattling the table and prompting her to nearly drop and shatter her favorite tea set.
Alarmed, the mare quickly got of her seat and looked around in shock. “What was that?”
“Princess Celestia!”
Upon hearing her name being called out, Celestia spun around and saw two ponies galloping towards her: one of them was a mare while the latter was a stallion.
“Cadence, Shining!”
The first one was her beloved niece named Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance for short. She had a pair of light purple eyes and her feminine pony figure was enveloped in pale, light grayish cerise fur. Unlike her beloved aunt’s four-colored, waving mane, Cadance’s curly mane and tail only consisted of mostly moderate violet with a few strands being moderate rose and pale gold and was tied in a ponytail-like manner by a piece of sky blue ribbon.
The stallion was her recently-appointed Lieutenant called Shining Armor. At first glance, the stallion’s muscular body structure gave him an Earth pony-like appearance though the unicorn horn on his head meant otherwise. He had a pair of moderate cerulean blue eyes, a wild mane and tail that were a mixed color of moderate sapphire, cerulean and dark phthalo blue and was covered in light gray fur. Rather than clad in jewelries like the first two ponies, the grey stallion was clad in a silver Greek-themed armor consisting of a Trojan helmet with red plumes on his head, a chest plate, a saddle armor and a set of gauntlets armed on all his four legs.
“We felt the ground shook just now!” Shining exclaimed. “Are you alright, Princess Celestia?”
“I’m fine. What about the two of you?”
“We’re fine as well.”Cadence replied back. “What was that anyway? Is it an earthquake?”
Celestia furrowed her eyebrows at that. While natural calamities still occur every now and then, an earthquake was the last thing her beloved Equestria would ever encounter due to its geographical location on the planet.
“I don’t know, Cadance but I doubt it’s an earthquake,” Lieutenant Shining replied on her behalf. “But whatever caused the tremor, it’s obviously coming from that direction.”
Pointing a hoof, the stallion prompted the two mares to avert their gaze to a faint trail of black smoke that was emerging from behind the mountain lines.
Cadence squinted her eyes as she stared at the direction. Celestia could already imagine the gears churning inside her mind. “Isn’t that where Ponyville is?”
“Hm, now that you mentioned it, you’re right, that is Ponyville.” Shining agreed after mentally assessing it himself.
“What should we do, Princess Celestia?”
Celestia pondered deeply about this before she spoke, “Lieutenant Shining, do you have anything today?”
The question caught said stallion by surprise, prompting him to briefly share an eye contact with Cadance. “Uh no, why do you ask, Princess Celestia?”
“We’ll be paying Ponyville a quick visit.”
Pain.
That was the only thing Naruto felt as soon as he arrived at this so-called new dimension. Kurama wasn’t kidding when he said he won’t be arriving here without a scratch.
While the jutsu had been relatively successful, it wasn’t perfect enough to provide him with a smooth, painless landing. This was proven by how the blonde appeared several hundred feet above altitude level before roughly landing on the ground and inadvertently forming a huge crater like a burning meteor.
“Note to self: Apply less chakra into the jutsu and try to make it as less painful as possible…” He feebly whispered to himself as he remained splayed in the crater he created.
Fortunately, he was saved from any more physical torture when Kurama’s healing factor kicked in, snapping any misaligned bones back into place and patching up any open wounds. In a few minutes time, he was completely healed.
Upon getting off his crater and glancing at his newly-profound surroundings, Naruto thought he landed at the Forest of Death but quickly dismissed such thought. While the place certainly carried the same dark and gloomy vibe as his homeplace, the trees weren’t as tall or thick not to mention the place also have flora and fauna he wasn’t entirely familiar to his realm.
Still having a slight headache from the dimensional travel, Naruto pressed a palm on his forehead to soothe the pain. He winced in pain however when instead of flesh, he felt something rock solid against his head.
Puzzled, the blonde brought his hand into his line of view. He froze.
Instead of seeing his palm like always, Naruto was greeted with the sight of an animal hoof. Not a hand, just a hoof. And it definitely belonged to him seeing that it was twitching and moving in accordance to his command. He then proceeded on looking at his other limb and was met with the sight of another hoof.
Panicked began welling up within himself, the knucklehead ninja frantically looked around him for something. Anything. His eye sight then rested on a stream of water flowing nearby in which he wasted no time limping to like a crippled old man to examine his reflection. As soon as he did, he finally realized that it wasn’t just his hand that underwent a change.
Instead of his human form, he was in the form of a horse layered in orange fur. His spiky blonde hair was now turned into his mane that went along the backside of his neck. His cerulean blue eyes remained the same but he could’ve sworn it glowed much more than usual. Just like any other horses, he too had a tail that comes in the same color as his golden locks.
Naruto blinked. A moment of awkward silence permeated by before all hell broke loose. Then, he did what any sane man would do in his situation.
“WHAT THE HELL!!?”