Chapter One: I Get Suplexed into Another Universe
You know your day is going downhill when your best frenemy slams you off a cliff like a professional wrestler trying out for the ninja Olympics.
"Sasuke!" I yelled, mid-air, flailing like a pinwheel in a hurricane. "This isn't how friends settle arguments!"
And then—WHAM! Face, meet ground. Hard, rocky, chakra-busted ground. I swear I could see little Pakkuns and Tonton pigs dancing in circles around my head.
But of course, because I'm me, I stood back up. Bleeding. Bruised. But still standing. I cracked my knuckles and grinned at him like I hadn't just eaten dirt.
"Still not giving up," I said. "You'll have to kill me, teme."
Sasuke's expression didn't even flinch. "That was the idea."
He charged. I charged. We both yelled things that probably sounded cooler in our heads. Our fists met, our chakra clashed, and the world seemed to hold its breath.
And then—it broke.
Literally.
There was a boom overhead, like reality had just burst its zipper. The sky cracked. Not like thunder. I mean cracked, with giant glowing lines like shattered glass. Two figures dropped out of the rift, both so powerful that my hair stood on end and even the Kyuubi inside me whimpered a little.
One was a guy in a red gi with fists like meteors and a face locked in eternal scowl mode. The other wore dark clothes and moved like a shadow with a vendetta.
Their fight sent shockwaves that broke trees, cracked the ground, and—oh, yeah—sucked us into a gaping hole in the fabric of the universe.
As I felt my body getting yanked into what I could only describe as cosmic laundry spin cycle, the Kyuubi finally decided to be helpful.
"You won't survive this. Take my chakra—NOW!"
Which was reassuring. Totally. Nothing like your ancient fox roommate telling you you're going to die unless you unleash a murderous beast within.
So I did. One tail of burning red chakra wrapped around me, bubbling and hissing like I'd just bathed in lava and rage. I lunged at Sasuke, who, for once, didn't resist. Either he was out of chakra or had finally accepted we were both toast.
We held on to each other. A bit awkward. A lot desperate. I'm not even sure if we screamed or blacked out or both.
We crashed into the sky.
I know how weird that sounds, but we landed in the sky. That's how it felt. One second we were in the middle of nature's deathtrap, next we were above a glowing cityscape with more lights than Konoha had in its entire festival week.
Tokyo.
I knew it because of the billboards. And the cars. And the giant ferris wheel that I almost crashed into.
We hit the roof of a high-rise like bags of wet cement, rolling apart, breathing hard, tails of chakra and cursed marks flickering.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
We just lay there under the stars, panting, staring up at this world that wasn't ours.
Then Sasuke sat up. "You always ruin everything."
I wiped the blood from my mouth and grinned. "Yeah, well... at least we're not dead."
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We were on top of a building taller than the Hokage Monument, staring out at a city that looked like it had swallowed the stars and decided to spit out neon.
The lights. The noise. The weird metal boxes with wheels moving below us—so fast, so loud. It was like we'd landed in a sci-fi genjutsu. But nope, no chakra. No forests. No Konoha. And no ramen stands in sight.
My heart was still pounding from the fall, the fox cloak still fizzling off my skin, and my arms were sore from clinging to Sasuke like a lifeline.
He stood up first, dusting himself off with his usual "I'm too cool for interdimensional travel" expression.
"We're never talking about that hug."
I blinked. "Wait, what—"
"Never."
"Okay, but I didn't even—"
He turned away before I could finish. Classic Sasuke.
I stared at him, mouth open. "You know, it saved our lives! It was a heroic hug!"
No answer.
He was already pacing to the edge of the rooftop, eyes scanning the city like he was calculating every possible escape route.
Then he said, mostly to himself, "This isn't our world. The chakra... it's too faint. The air's wrong."
I was just about to comment when he poofed away like a rude pigeon. Just vanished.
"Seriously?!"
Bloody hell. This is not happening.
I darted after him, hopping across the rooftop like a Konoha parkour champion. I found him half a block away already moving through the shadows like a depressed bat.
"Sasuke, wait! This isn't the time for your brooding loner act! We're in another world!"
He didn't stop. "Exactly. And I don't plan on dying here because I stuck with a human foghorn."
I stopped. "Fog—did you just call me a foghorn?"
He glanced back, annoyed. "You wouldn't last five minutes stealthing in a crowd. You'd trip over a baby carriage and yell about it."
I puffed out my chest. "Excuse you! I've done stealth missions! Super top secret ones! You weren't there, but they were very... sneaky."
He raised an eyebrow and kept walking. "You literally shout your jutsu names mid-fight."
"That's for dramatic effect!"
He didn't reply.
I caught up, jogging beside him now, because I might be a loudmouth but I'm not stupid. We were stranded in a glowing city, probably being watched by whatever cosmic power yeeted us here, and Sasuke was the only person I could trust... kind of.
"I'm just saying," I added, huffing a little, "ninja work best in teams. Going solo in an unknown enemy territory? That's not ninja-like—it's suicidal."
"I'd rather die quietly," he muttered, "than be found out because someone shouted Believe it! at a vending machine."
"That happened one time!"
Silence.
We kept walking, blending into the shadows as best we could, moving through Tokyo like ghosts with too much backstory.
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We were moving down an alley between two massive glass buildings when I realized Sasuke had stopped walking.
Which was weird. Because when Sasuke was walking away from you, he never stopped.
I turned around just in time to see him standing still under the flickering glow of a streetlight, jaw clenched, looking like he was being forced to pet a puppy.
He turned slowly, like this was physically painful. I could practically hear his internal screaming. He looked at me—really looked at me—for the first time since we landed in this crazy new world.
"Don't say anything," he muttered.
Which, of course, was the universal Sasuke phrase for: I'm about to do something un-Sasuke-like and I hate it.
So I said the only logical thing. "...Say anything about what?"
He closed his eyes. A vein in his forehead twitched. "About what I'm about to do."
He walked toward me, hands in his pockets, eyes shadowed with that whole "cool tragic genius" vibe he always had going on. But there was something else in his expression now—annoyance, mostly. But also something a little like guilt. Or regret.
Or maybe he just had a stomachache. I couldn't tell with him.
Then he said something that hit harder than a Rasengan to the gut.
"You wouldn't last here alone."
I blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," he said, "that your skills are all power. No subtlety. No control. You shout your attacks, glow with demonic chakra, and your idea of strategy is punching until the problem goes away."
"...That's a strategy."
"It's a terrible strategy."
I crossed my arms. "And yet I saved both our lives five minutes ago."
He flinched. Barely. But I caught it.
"Which is why," he added through gritted teeth, "I'm staying. For now."
I stared at him.
"What?"
He rolled his eyes like this was exhausting. "I said I'm staying. We stick together until we figure this out. After that—when it's safe—you're on your own."
Now I really stared at him. Like, open-mouthed, shocked-Pikachu-level stared.
"Wait... are you admitting you need me?"
"I said you need me."
"Riiight, riiight." I nodded. "But without me, you'd be goo on a mountain somewhere. So technically, we're even."
He looked like he wanted to vanish again. But he didn't.
Instead, he turned away, arms folded.
I could see it in the way his shoulders tensed—that war inside him, not the usual emo pain, but something sharper: fear. Not of me, but of what I might become.
Sasuke wasn't just running from Orochimaru. He was running from me.
He didn't say it, but I knew.
I was catching up. Fast.
He hated that.
I didn't say anything else. Just walked beside him in silence as we moved through the maze of this new city, two ninja ghosts in a world that didn't know us yet.
He'd stay.
For now.
And that was enough.
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"So let me get this straight," I whispered, watching Sasuke stalk toward some poor guy in a uniform who looked like he took his job way too seriously. "Your plan is to mind-control a Tokyo cop?"
Sasuke didn't answer. Because of course he didn't.
He had his whole broody "don't talk unless it's brooding" face on. You know the one.
Before I could stop him (not that I would've—it was kinda fun to watch), he activated his Sharingan, and bam. One eye contact later and the guard was blinking like someone had replaced his brain with a jellyfish.
"Speak," Sasuke ordered.
The guy obeyed like a well-trained dog. "You are in Tokyo… Japan… Year: 1987."
"...Nineteen eighty-what now?" I asked.
Sasuke ignored me, again.
The guy kept talking. Said something about this world not having chakra, which was already blowing my mind. No chakra meant no jutsu. No jutsu meant no flashy fights or shadow clones or cool tree jumps. Just… walking. Like normal people.
I wasn't built for this.
Apparently, the people here used something called "tech-no-lo-gy." Which was like chakra, except way dumber and made out of metal. They had things called "guns," which sounded a lot like the farmer weapons back home, but stronger. The scary part? They'd gotten powerful enough to actually hurt genin-level ninja.
Chunin-level ninja? They had tanks for that.
And then he said it. The worst word.
"Nuclear weapons."
I looked at Sasuke. He looked at me.
I felt a cold chill in my spine.
"Wait. Like… blow-up-an-entire-country weapons?" I asked.
The guard just nodded blankly.
"Oh, cool," I said. "Cool cool cool. That's not terrifying at all."
I didn't notice the Kyuubi stirring until he snorted in my head.
"One sneeze and this entire city would be rubble. You fear that?"
"Excuse you," I whispered to no one. "You're a giant fox made of living hate. I'm a teenager with ramen issues. Let me panic in peace."
Sasuke turned to me after finishing the info-dump session. "The language's similar to ours. Formal Japanese, old dialect. We can blend in."
"Yeah," I muttered. "If you mean you can blend in. I'm loud. Remember?"
"You are loud."
"Thanks, bro. Real confidence booster."
But the wildest part wasn't the nukes or the tanks or the insane haircuts everyone seemed to have in 1987. It was this:
There were fighters. Hidden away in mountains, outside society. People who could use energy like chakra. Not quite the same, but close.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed when the guard mentioned that.
It meant one thing: this world wasn't entirely ordinary. There was still a chance. A spark.
And if there were people who used energy, maybe—just maybe—someone here could teleport. Someone like the Fourth Hokage.
"Think we can get home?" I asked.
Sasuke didn't answer.
Classic.
The guard passed out seconds later. Guess eye jutsu comes with an off switch.
Sasuke walked past me, in that dramatic way that only he could pull off. "We find those fighters," he said. "If they exist, they're our only lead."
I nodded. "And we don't talk about this whole thing with you hypnotizing civilians, right?"
He didn't even dignify that with a response.
"Right," I muttered. "Just checking."
But one thing gnawed at the back of my brain.
He didn't know.
About the fox.
About how close we came to not making it.
And I wasn't ready to tell him.
Not yet.