Not in Konoha anymore
From the shadows the masked man watched as Itachi left his younger brother unconscious amidst the corpses of his clan mates. Though the one who would be known as the most evil product of the Uchiha clan since Uchiha Madara coldly spurred his younger sibling on a dark path, the tears in his eyes had not escaped his surveyor’s. When all had quieted down the masked man left the shadows and stood over the young Uchiha Sasuke.
“So you are his one weakness.” The masked man mused aloud for none to hear. He crouched down and put a hand on Sasuke’s back, watching the streams of tears that flowed still from his closed eyes. “Why leave such a valuable piece in the hands of Konoha?”
The air transformed into a slow vortex that consumed young Sasuke, dragging him into a black abyss outside the realms of this reality. Soon there was nothing to suggest that the last son of the Uchiha had ever been there to begin with. In the eyes of Konoha, it would seem Itachi took him into the night.
Reflecting upon his decision, the masked man rose to his feet. Itachi had run fast and far to flee the scene of his greatest transgression. There was plenty excuse should the masked man decide to take a detour. And now that he thought about it, there was no reason not to meander to another point in the village. To another boy he could take.
As he disappeared into the shadows again, the masked man wondered where he might find that other boy.
* * * * *
The first thing that came to Sasuke's mind was that he had been sleeping. The next thing to occur to him was that he was lying on something cold and hard. He was not in his own bed. Opening his eyes, he saw only a vast expanse of blackness with no definition at all. Then, and only then, did he remember.
“Brother!” Sasuke cried out, scrambling to his feet. He flicked around from one direction to the next. In doing so he saw that he was not at all where he should be. In fact, he had no idea at all of where he was.
Everywhere he looked was the same. Tall, featureless monoliths of squared stone reached towards the endless dark of the sky. The stones held the faintest of glows that in unison made the scope of his surroundings somewhat visible. And yet the gift of sight only served to worry Sasuke further, for all it did was let him see how truly alien his environment was.
“Wh-where am I?”
It was cold in this place. Not so cold that it was painful, but enough to make it impossible for him to settle down. Like the glow, faint warmth came up from the stones, but it only lessened the chill of a place that didn’t know the sun. Sasuke began to fear he was trapped in a nightmare. Where else could such a place possibly exist?
As such fear started to edge its way into Sasuke’s heart, he heard a noise that startled him. Searching around for the source, he found himself spinning in circles until he stopped at one of the monoliths in front of him. It was close to the platform which he stood, but just a little too tall for him to see. The noise came again, bringing more dread upon Sasuke.
“… can I get extra pork with that?”
“… What?” Sasuke breathed to himself, his brow creased in confusion. He had definitely heard a voice, and thought those were the words that had been spoken. The voice didn’t sound hostile either. In fact it sounded young. That calmed Sasuke a little, but not by much.
Weighing his options, he was reluctant to step forward. But that monolith was the only one he thought he could safely reach on his own. The rest were too far away and after a quick pace around he could see that there was no visible bottom. If he fell, he was sure to die. So though it worried him still, he had no other option. He headed towards the edge of the neighbouring monolith and tried to climb.
Strained gasps escaped his gritted teeth as Sasuke hauled himself up. He had some experience with climbing, but always on a surface with footholds he could use. He’d never had to pull himself up on his arm strength alone. It was difficult, but after a lot of effort he managed to get a leg over the edge and roll onto the higher surface. There, he took a second to catch his breath.
“Hurrum… pass the soy sauce…”
Wearily Sasuke rolled his head to the side as the voice came out again. The monolith he was now upon was much longer than the one he where he had woken. That was why it took him a couple of seconds to make out the shapeless lump to the distance. Someone was definitely over there. A boy by the sound of things. Was he talking in his sleep?
Though Sasuke had some doubts, he got back up and started to approach the boy. The closer he got the more he started to recognise. A blue and orange pullover, spiky blond hair, weird whisker markings on his cheeks and a pair of green goggles. As strange as it was Sasuke knew the boy sleeping in front of him.
“Naruto?” He thought, disbelieving.
“Gonna be Hokage!”
“Naruto.” He thought, very believing.
Uzumaki Naruto. The stupidest, loudest kid in the class. What was somebody like him doing here? Was Sasuke really dreaming? Thinking about it, he tested the theory by pinching his arm. A wince and a welt later convinced him that either this was really happening, or the people who came up with that rule were liars. In any case, be it a dream or not, there was no merit in letting Naruto sleep.
“… Hey.” Sasuke nudged Naruto with his foot to try and wake him up. But all Naruto did was roll from his side to his back, smacking his lips and muttering something incomprehensible. So with a little more force, Sasuke tried again. “Hey!”
Again nothing, but Naruto’s words could be heard. “Stupid Sasuke!”
“HEY!” putting all delicacy aside, Sasuke stomped on Naruto’s stomach. For all intents and purposes, that seemed to do the trick.
“GAAGH!” Naruto cried out, grabbing his stomach and writhing across the floor in pain. He rolled onto his stomach and onto all fours, wincing as he looked for the one who’d struck him. When he found the perpetrator to be no other than the guy from his dream, suffice to say Naruto was perplexed. “Damn you!” he jumped to his feet and made a ninja hand seal. Sasuke tensed in shock. “Ninja art: Super Giga Explosion Jutsu!”
Naruto threw his hands out at Sasuke, as if expecting some cool laser to burst out from his hands. Silence followed the lack of results as Sasuke’s surprise whittled down and Naruto’s energy was evaporated by the awkward lack of results.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?” he asked.
“Idiot.” Sasuke muttered.
A vein throbbed in Naruto’s temple, but before he could say or do anything he noticed the cold, and from there the rest of what Sasuke had already seen. Turning around to give the place a thorough once over, he concluded by facing Sasuke again and delivering a blank stare to the Uchiha. “Where are we?”
“How should I know?” Sasuke looked away for another check of the place. It was hard to believe that there was no ceiling above them. If they couldn’t see the clouds, then surely they’d see the stars? But there really was nothing. “I think we’re underground.”
When he looked back to Naruto he found that the blond had wandered off to the edge of the monolith to peer down. Unlike Sasuke, who had stayed a safe distance away, Naruto was practically leaning over the edge to get the full view. “Maybe this is some kind of test?” he wondered out loud while squinting to find the bottom that didn’t seem to be there. “Like, we gotta find our way out of here, you know?”
It made sense from a certain standpoint, but Sasuke didn’t want to concede that Naruto was right about something. The loudmouth always did what he wanted anyway, so he clearly didn’t care about people’s approval. Besides that, there was something niggling at the back of Sasuke’s brain. But it was too elusive for him to grasp.
“Whatever it is, we have to find some way to get out of here.” He said, searching for the next monolith he thought he could scale. There were only two options he could see, one being where he came from, and the other being yet another taller one. “Come on.”
“Hey! Don’t tell me what to do!” Naruto barked. Sasuke didn’t rise to the bait though, or even acknowledge that Naruto had said anything. Annoyed and slightly aware that he didn’t have any better ideas, he followed after Sasuke in the hope that he could at least show the Uchiha up by being better at getting out of this place.
The two of them eventually came up to the next monolith. That was when they saw that there was a problem. Sasuke had gauged it wrongly from the distance. It was much taller than the last one. But Naruto was staring pointedly at the back of Sasuke’s head, practically gloating over the Uchiha’s bad decision. The thought of it made Sasuke’s ears burn and spurred him to try at the very least.
Taking a few steps back, Sasuke estimated how he would have to jump in order to do it. The only way he could see was to try a wall run. He’d seen it performed by some of the upper class students at the academy, so he knew the basic trick. He just needed some traction. With that he took a run at the wall and jumped at it, pressing the ball of his foot against the surface and using it to lever himself higher. Unfortunately there was apparently more to the technique, as his imminent fall suggested.
“Ow…”
“Pfft!”
Shooting Naruto a dirty look, Sasuke stood and dusted himself off. He hadn’t come close to reaching the edge of the monolith. No further attempt would change that. He touched the weapon holster on his belt, still there from his shuriken practice, and thought that maybe if he could chisel a foothold into the stone face he could climb up.
That was when Naruto brushed past him to look down the narrow gap between their current platform and the next. It was only about a foot’s distance, but it was enough to do you injury if you weren’t careful. While Sasuke was busy working out what he could use as a hammer to chisel such a foothold, Naruto put his hands against the wall and crouched down.
“Here.” He said with a pointed look at Sasuke. “Climb up.”
Sasuke looked flatly back at Naruto until it dawned on him what the blond boy was telling him to do. At first he was annoyed at himself for not thinking of it first, but it was overshadowed by the opportunity now handed to him to make progress towards getting out of this place. Pushing his pride aside, he carefully put his foot on Naruto’s shoulders and lifted himself up.
Naruto strained a little under Sasuke’s weight, but he managed to keep himself steady. Once Sasuke was standing on his shoulders, they both pressed their hands against the wall for support as he started to stand himself. He was slow and steady enough that Sasuke didn’t lose balance. When he was able to stand at full height, reaching the edge of the monolith was easy for Sasuke.
The Uchiha pulled himself up and over the top, leaving Naruto alone on the level below. It was then that it occurred to Naruto that he had no one to give him a boost up. Now it was his turn to try and think about chiselling a foothold, but before he could try it, a hand appeared within his line of vision. Sasuke was leaning down, hand outstretched and looking expectantly at Naruto.
“Hurry up!”
The gesture muddled Naruto up a little. Though the process made sense, some part of him hadn’t expected Sasuke to return the favour for helping him up. If not for Sasuke’s pushiness, Naruto might have smiled. As it was though he didn’t want to give the Uchiha time to reassess his plans. He did as Sasuke first tried and gave a running jump to the wall, grabbing the outstretched hand.
That time it was Sasuke’s turn to strain under Naruto’s weight, though for a shorter duration. As soon as Naruto could reach it he grabbed the ledge with his other hand and started pulling himself up. Within just a few short seconds Naruto and Sasuke were on the same level again, just a little sore. But all things considered, they were doing far better than if they were on their own.
“Let’s go.” Sasuke offered his hand again to pull Naruto up. “If we can find the wall to this place, we can start looking for the exit.”
* * * * *
With no way of telling the time, neither Naruto nor Sasuke had any idea of how long they spent making their way through the forest of featureless stone. The only measure of progress they really had was in their ability to work together. When they had both determined that their only hopes of getting out were to rely on each other, they became a well oiled machine. If there was a wall to climb, one would boost and the other would lift up the first guy. If there was a large drop, they would do the same in reverse. And if there was a leap… well for that they had to manage on their own abilities.
It wasn’t consistent progress by any means. The act of climbing up such unfriendly surfaces took a lot out of them and asked them to rest on more than one occasion. But that wasn’t all. Since they were constantly depending on there always being a monolith within reach, their path often twisted and turned. For this it was mostly on Sasuke to keep check of where they’d come to ensure they weren’t going in circles. Still, Naruto made up for it with his own skills.
“I can’t believe this.” The blond boy muttered to himself, while scrawling a message on the stone floor in a marker pen he’d had in his pocket. It was insurance in case they came around in a circle. “Why would they take us out of our beds and put us in a place like this?”
Having concluded his mental mapping of where they’d come from, Sasuke glanced at Naruto. “You were in bed?” he asked, perplexed by Naruto’s state of attire. “You sleep with your clothes on?”
Naruto checked himself out and extended a sheepish grin towards Sasuke. “Heh, didn’t even notice. I was practicing taijutsu all the way to night. I guess I just dropped in bed and fell asleep.” He then gave Sasuke the same look Sasuke had given him. “It was pretty late when I crashed. What were you doing if you weren’t sleeping?”
For that Sasuke didn’t give an answer. The reason was that he didn’t have an answer to give. He supposed he must have gone home and went to bed, but then why was he fully dressed himself? He wasn’t sloppy like some of the guys in class. So maybe he hadn’t made it home after all. But if that were the case, what was he doing up until waking up in this place?
Deciding during Sasuke’s silence that he didn’t really care anyway, Naruto clambered back to his feet and checked out their options. Whether they were lucky or unlucky because of it, they had plenty of those. All three side of the monolith had others within reach, excluding the one they had come from. What were the odds that one of them, or any of them for that matter, would take them to the exit?
“Which way should we-”
Naruto never got to finish his question. Something happened that shut him up completely. The near lifeless expanse he and Sasuke had found themselves in erupted into action all of a sudden as the monoliths trembled and deep roars exploded from the farthest reaches of wherever they were. Sasuke jumped to his feet and joined Naruto in the safety of the centre of their current position. Both looked just as terrified as the other.
“What the hell is happening?!” Naruto yelled.
“I don’t know! An earthquake?!” Sasuke loudly guessed.
The earth shattering commotion filled the two of them with further fear as they worried if their monolith could withstand the force of the tremors going on. But through all the chaos Naruto was able to pick up on something. Something that made him put his panic aside and search around once more.
“Hey… doesn’t some of that sound pretty close?”
When Naruto asked it, Sasuke noticed it. The two of them found what felt like the closest source of the rumbling noises they were hearing. If Sasuke’s theory of them being underground was correct, then maybe… just maybe…
Sasuke squinted into the blackness when something caught his eyes. “Is that…?”
Off to the distance there was finally something to see. It was very little however. About seventy yards in the direction they were looking, they thought they could see dust spilling from somewhere above. Craning their vision, they squinted further to what they believed may in fact be a-
Again their thoughts were shut off, but this time in a far less frightening way. What they thought was a wall to the distance was proven to be just that as suddenly a part of it fell away. They could see this happening not because their eyes were strong enough to pick it up, but because of what came through. Sunlight. Beautiful, beautiful sunlight.
The moment they spent in awe of something familiar was a moment wasted, as Sasuke was quick to realise. He gave Naruto a shove and started to move in the direction of the sunlight. “This place is falling apart!” he exclaimed, quickly searching for the best path towards the light. “That hole could close any second!”
Not needing any further reason than that, Naruto joined him in a mad scramble for their only present hope of escape. They leapt over gaps they might not have tried before, clambered over smaller heights and dragged each other over and down the steeper parts. The nearer they got to that one shining chance they had, the more violent the tremors became. Until horrifyingly, monoliths started to fall.
“RUN!” Naruto needlessly screamed as the pillar beneath their feet started to recline. The two of them broke off to a right and dived for more stable ground. But even that was under threat to drop beneath them. There was no place to catch their breaths here.
The gap closed in infuriatingly inconsistent intervals. But as all hell broke loose upon them they did make progress until eventually they could make out more than just the light. The promised blue sky from beyond. The sight of it invigorated Naruto and Sasuke into running like they’d never ran before. The final hurdle came, and they both made a leap, grasping for the light like never before.
They spilled out of the hole and out from the dark abyss, grasping at the ground and pulling themselves out. They had no time to rest even now however, if the falling rocks around them were any indicator. At the same moment they looked behind them and screamed as a boulder came rolling their way. Neither of them needed telling that they still had tracks to make.
It wasn’t until their legs gave out that they finally stopped running. Their feet left rock and hit grass, but still they didn’t stop until the root of a tree tripped them up. They both fell to the ground in a heap, crying out in fear of a landslide crushing them. It took them up to a minute before they realised that the ground wasn’t even shaking anymore.
Too out of breath to even care about the world around them, so long as it had stopped moving, the two boys collapsed onto their backs, their chests heaving and wracked with pain as air was forced in and out of their lungs like their body was a bellows frantically being pressed upon. They were both seeing stars, and were sure they could smell blood deep in their noses. The adrenaline drained out of their bodies and the two boys fell into deep and dreamless slumbers.
* * * * *
When Naruto had slept enough, he woke up to find himself rather sore. It took him a while to recall why. When he did, his eyes snapped open and he sat upright, receiving instantaneous signals from his back to his brain about precisely how sore he was. A thick groan came out through his teeth as he tried to lessen the pain, but it was a dull ache that was going nowhere fast.
Relenting to the pain that would only go away after a night’s sleep in a comfy bed or a warm bath, Naruto stiffly searched around the place. The sun was roughly in the same area as it had been when they first escaped the wherever-the-hell-they-had-been, so maybe they had slept all through the afternoon, night and morning?
He gave it some thought when a peculiar idea came to mind. They. They as in, not just him, Naruto. They as in him and Uchiha Sasuke, together and all alone in stranger circumstances than Naruto had ever fathomed before. The class genius and the class clown stranded in the middle of nowhere with no clue how they got there. Who in their right mind would ever conceive of such a scenario to begin with?
After a painful stretch Naruto looked around for his classmate to see if he was awake yet. He must have turned a full circle before he realised that he was, in fact, completely alone. In the middle of the forest. Outside who-the-hell-knew-where. He had been totally and entirely ditched.
Well then.
“HEY! SASUKE!” he yelled out, scrambling to his feet and looking again for the Uchiha.
“What?!”
Naruto jumped when he heard Sasuke’s voice. But look though he might, he couldn’t see his fellow stranded. Best he could do was to roughly place the voice.
Following where he thought he’d heard Sasuke, Naruto walked through thick woodland and climbed over arching roots, like the one he and Sasuke had tripped over during their flight from the landslide. Man… was any of this really real?
When Naruto caught up to Sasuke, he found the Uchiha immersed in a strange task. Sasuke was facing an apple tree filled with apples that looked ripe for the picking, and was winging apples that had fallen to the ground at the ones up in the branches. For this oddity Naruto couldn’t help but stop and stare with a curious furrow to the brow.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Sasuke asked, throwing another apple. “Getting breakfast!”
Ok… next question. “What’s wrong with the ones your throwing?”
Without offering much of an explanation, Sasuke tossed one of said apples over to Naruto. “You want to eat that?”
Naruto caught the apple and saw then what Sasuke was talking about. The thing was absolutely rotten. Looking at it now, he could see marks on the tree that looked like some of the apples Sasuke threw had just split open and spread a gooey mess all over the bark. How Sasuke could still have an appetite after being around that was-
Grrrrrrr!
… A testament to how truly hungry he, and incidentally Naruto, was.
Seeing the merit in helping Sasuke out, Naruto used the apple Sasuke had thrown him to do as the Uchiha did and try to knock a fresher one off of the tree. He aimed steady and aimed again, sticking out his tongue and shutting one eye. Then with the hardest swing he could manage, he hurled the bad apple at a good one.
Through sheer luck and maybe a touch of skill, the bad connected with the good and knocked it out of place. Naruto whooped in joy and grabbed it before it hit the ground. He shot a grin at Sasuke for his success, only to find his classmate munching on his own apple. One he hadn’t had a second ago. “Huh? Where did you get that?”
Apparently Sasuke thought the question strange, for he cocked a brow and rebutted with his own question. “What are you talking about?” he asked, brushing past Naruto to head back in the direction of where they had been sleeping. “I got mine first.”
Without waiting he walked off and out of Naruto’s sight, leaving the blond boy staring at him, surprise painted on his face. He looked at the apple in his hand. Sasuke had to have been as hungry as he was, yet instead of just digging into his own and leaving Naruto to fend for himself, he had put off eating to try and get Naruto an apple too. It was a simple and kind gesture. Which made it completely alien to Naruto.
Unable to wipe the growing grin off his face, Naruto bit into the apple and followed after Sasuke.
* * * * *
The two of them stood at the base of a mountain. The mountain they had emerged from when they made their escape from the awful darkness of whatever laid inside there. From where they were they could faintly work out the area where the hole had been, but it was now completely filled with rubble. Not that it made much of a difference. Both of them would sooner grab a hunk of meat and jump in a shark tank than go back into that hellhole.
After several minutes of quiet contemplation and snacking on decidedly average apples Sasuke finally decided to say what was on his mind. “There aren’t any mountains like this on the maps of the village or outside it.” he spoke in a rather offhand way, but Naruto could see by the faint bite to his lip that Sasuke was just as concerned as he was.
“Wherever we are, I don’t think we’re anywhere near Konoha.”
Since geography was one of the many subjects in the academy that Naruto hated, he was fully prepared to take Sasuke’s word as gospel on the matter. That said accepting such reasoning didn’t make him feel any better. In fact he could feel his appetite receding, which was certainly not the result of one single apple. Without the weight of the surreal pit they’d been in, the fear or the hunger, the real scope of their dilemma was starting to reveal itself to him.
They were lost. Nowhere even remotely close to home if Sasuke was sure of what he said. Everything Naruto knew could be anywhere from a few miles to a few million miles away. He didn’t want to say it, but his earlier theory of this all being a test was falling apart around him. He didn’t think he needed to say it to Sasuke either. The Uchiha looked just as aware of how much trouble they were in as he was.
The apple nearly dropped from his hand, but Naruto fixed his grip. Awareness of it brought him to inspect the piece of fruit as something crossed his mind. Sasuke was smarter than he was. As long as Naruto didn’t have to say it out loud, he could admit that. He was sure Sasuke had reached the same conclusion as he had already. But Sasuke was keeping it together. Not only that, he was able and willing to look out for Naruto as well as himself.
“I’m not going to be the one to drag us both down.” He thought to himself, squeezing the apple tight in his hand, trying to break it with his strength of will. A weak smile crossed his lips when he failed. Ok, so maybe he wasn’t the big badass he wanted to be just yet. But if there was anything he could bring to the table, it was a big stupid grin and an irresponsible level of optimism.
“Well we sure ain’t getting home through there!” he said, taking another bite out of his apple and slapping Sasuke on the shoulder as he passed him by. “I say we keep heading north until we find a river or something!” he then reached inside his pouch and pulled out a small compass. “Er… that way!”
“Hold on.” Sasuke frowned and caught up with Naruto, looking at the compass in his hand. “Why do you have one of those?” he glanced at the pouch. “What else is in there?”
Naruto unclipped his pouch and opened it up to show to Sasuke. Inside was the marker pen Naruto had used earlier, four very blunt looking kunai, a frog shaped purse and a half used bag of balloons. “Heh heh, don’t ask!” Naruto deviously said when Sasuke shot him a questioning look. “What about you?”
The sudden attention to Sasuke’s own arsenal brought about a rather shamed look to the Uchiha. He patted his pouch and weapon’s holster, showing by that gesture alone that he had nothing at all. “They must have fallen out when the earthquake happened.” He confessed, annoyed at himself for not clipping his pouches properly. “I-HEY!”
His yelp was owed to Naruto stepping around him and reaching out for Sasuke’s rear. Immediately assuming the worst, Sasuke shut up when he saw Naruto drop half of his kunai into the now not so empty pouch. When it was done, Naruto straightened back up like nothing had happened, standing ahead of Sasuke with a blank look on his face.
“Just in case some wild animals appear.” He said before lifting his compass and pointing ahead. “So, north?”
For a little while Naruto’s question was left unanswered as Sasuke just stared at his blond classmate. He had been about to say that he needed to borrow some of Naruto’s kunai, when the need to ask was taken away from him. It was a strange feat of generosity that Sasuke hadn’t expected from Naruto. Rather than feeling glad for it though, it made Sasuke feel guilty.
“… Yeah.”
* * * * *
Their trek had been long, hard and mostly silent. They walked through thick forest, over broad grassy knolls and even descended down some rocky slopes. The air was mercifully cool and moist, but it didn’t stop them from breaking out into a sweat after the first mile.
There was one time when they came across a small waterfall that they thought was their salvation. After Naruto displayed a rather gross method of using the balloons as makeshift water bottles they followed the stream down in the hope of finding civilisation somewhere on its path. But twenty minutes of walking led them to a small dark cave that the stream flowed into. Unwilling to trade one shark tank for another, they carried on another way.
Hours later and a few miles more found them with a much more honest gift of fate than the earlier stream. A forest that had been warped by forces of nature to grow at an odd angle down a long but not too steep hill. The fortune came in the form of apple trees that Naruto and Sasuke were able to climb in order to collect their next meal.
It was at that time that Naruto showed a second display of brilliance when he unwrapped his pullover (which he’d tied around his waist when his body heat got too much) and after some bunching up of the sleeves and neck hole he converted it into a sack which carried two dozen apples for future dining. Though both of them hoped that they’d come across some other kind of food somewhere down the line.
Those were the major events that carried the two unlikely comrades across a broad expanse of land over the course of a single afternoon. But as both of them were painfully aware the world moved at a much faster pace than them. Soon the sun would dip over the horizon, leaving them in a near perfect dark. When that time came, their troubles would really begin.
And then, they came across that.
Like a sleeping cow lying in a hallway, Naruto and Sasuke found something that brought their journey to a complete standstill and left them capable of doing nothing more than stopping to stare. Between the edge of a forest and a large clearing there were strange tracks that spanned from as far as the eye could see in one direction and just as far in the other. Continuous strips of metal connected with planks of wood. Maybe a fence that had fallen over?
“The hell is this thing?” Naruto wondered aloud, kicking the metal line.
Sasuke was every bit as curious as Naruto was. But whereas his companion was utterly clueless, Sasuke had the faintest sense of familiarity that seeped into his mind until he could form something of a coherent answer. “… Mines.” He murmured. Naruto stared at him, expecting elaboration, which he gave after some thought. “Miners use tracks like these to carry their carts out of mines.”
Naruto’s eyes became like saucers when he came to understand Sasuke’s way of thinking. Now the tracks were less of an oddity and more of a godsend in his eyes. “So if we follow these things, we’ll find people, right?!” he excitedly exclaimed, looking from one end of the tracks to the next. “Which way should… we…”
Naruto and Sasuke hearts sank as they heard a familiar and dreadful noise. It was a rumbling just like what nearly killed them back in the abyss. But unlike that omniscient trembling, this time it had a source. It was coming from far to their right, beyond their eyes’ reach.
The two of them hurried back into the trees, hiding behind them out of fear for what may be coming. Whatever was making such a noise was moving fast, and boy was it loud. It took little over ten seconds for a presence from the greatest distance perception allowed to come thundering towards them. What they saw was the last thing they ever expected to see. Mainly because they’d never seen it before in their lives.
A long construct of wood and metal, like reinforced horse wagons crafted by the manliest blacksmith in all the land. Smoke plumed from one end as it passed by with the force of a stampede concentrated into one narrow form. But there was more to see than a single solid entity. The latter carts had windows, and the windows had curtains. Furnishings meant people, and people meant civilisation.
In just a few seconds the man made monster was out of sight, though it could still be heard for a time to come. Not until it was long out of their way did Naruto and Sasuke finally manage to look at each other. When they did, they could see they had come to the exact same conclusion.
They knew which way they were heading.
* * * * *
“Bring it along now! We have to get this train to Canterlot before nightfall!”
The train, as it where, had come to an unexpected halt on its journey to Canterlot, as it would seem. From what Naruto and Sasuke could make out, a tree had fallen over the tracks, completely blocking the train from continuing its journey. They heard talk of a “rainbow explosion” that was believed to be the cause of the current problem and many others all over the land. Most of that went completely over Naruto and Sasuke’s head however. The reason being that they could see the ones who were saying such things. And… they weren’t human.
“Ponies…” Naruto couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. They were simply too drunk on perplexion to stay inside. “Brightly coloured talking ponies.” He then took the now half empty balloon of water and promptly drained all the contents into the dirt beneath his feet. “That’s it. There was something in the water. We got malaria.”
Resigned to his fate, Naruto slumped down to the base of the tree and tried to ignore the noisy hallucinations as they tried to move the tree out of the way. Sasuke wasn’t so quick to abandon hope. He continued to watch the ponies by peering around the edge of the tree. Oh, he was surprised to see such things. In fact if he didn’t know what he did, he might have been inclined to agree with Naruto. But there was one thing that kept his sense of reason steady.
“Talking animals exist.” Naruto looked up at him. “I don’t really know how it works, but my clan is related to a large family of cats. They live in one of our abandoned strongholds in North Fire Country. I got to meet them once.”
For a little bit Naruto was wondering if malaria was causing Sasuke to spout some incoherent nonsense. But the solid look on Sasuke’s face made him want to believe it. Come to think of it, neither of them looked even a little bit sick. Well, the apples were sitting a little funny in Naruto’s stomach, but that was another thing. The point was that Sasuke was ready to believe in what was right before his eyes. Naruto figured then that maybe he was giving up too easily and got back to his feet.
The ponies they could see were dressed in uniform. They seemed to be the operators of the train. Four of them together tried to push the tree out of the way, but to no avail whatsoever. They were just starting to talk about reversing the train and taking it back to the station when a couple of the passengers jumped off the train to join them. The passengers talked with the operators for a few moments, with the operators stepping aside with relieved looks on their faces. The passengers then stepped forward and raised their heads, displaying horns in the middle of their-
“Unicorns!”
Sasuke winced in pain from the high pitched squeal that broke out from his companion’s mouth. Naruto had the giddiest of looks on his face as he watched the… unicorns do whatever it is they were going to do. Then Naruto’s jaw dropped, and Sasuke had a feeling he was looking in the wrong direction. A quick turn of the head corrected that, and had him mimic the gesture.
The unicorns’ horns started glowing with a pale ethereal light. As was the tree laying on the tracks. The entire thing was engulfed in a faintly purple haze as it was lifted off the ground with a shuddering groan and moved out of the way. The haze then disappeared and the tree hit the ground with an earth shaking crash. The two unicorns, exhausted, were thanked by the operators and helped back on the train, where they were met with applause.
“Then without further delay, let’s get moving!” one of the operators cheerily announced.
“Crap!” Sasuke exclaimed, grabbing Naruto and pulling him out from behind the tree. “Come on! This is our only chance!”
Though still dumbfounded by what they had just seen, Naruto was able to look past it and see how much more walking they would have to do if they missed getting on that train. He didn’t need any further convincing than that. He and Sasuke broke into a run as soon as the coast was clear. The train started whistling and the rumbling started again, but before it could start to move the two boys were climbing onto the metal platform at the back. They were on, they were safe, and they were headed towards civilisation.
Finally, after a long day, they gave a sigh of relief.
* * * * *
The sun eked over the horizon and brought with it a warm glow that shone over Naruto’s face. The feeling brought him to a gentle stir and woke him up. Starting off with a satisfied yawn, he opened his eyes to greet the new day. And just like yesterday, it was with a single, simple question.
Where in the hell am I?
Almost cracking his skull on a metal bar, Naruto sat up to see what new place he had found himself in. The scene was unfamiliar in the daylight, but memories came back to help him fill in the blanks. The train had arrived at its destination by nightfall and all the ponies started bustling about gathering their things. To avoid getting in trouble for sneaking on public transportation Naruto and Sasuke had climbed onto the roof of the last train carriage. Afterward, reasoning that it wouldn’t be funny to get lost in the streets of wherever they were during the night, the two of them snuck inside the train to get some shut eye.
And that brought them to the here and now; in the luggage compartment of the final carriage. It hadn’t been a comfortable sleep by any means. In fact, Naruto was even more sore than when he’d woken up on the ground the previous day. But at least he hadn’t been cold. Now however the sun was coming up and it was time to get things moving.
Naruto started to slide off the wooden rack that had acted as his bunk for the night when he saw that he wasn’t the only one who was awake. For the third time in a row Sasuke had beaten him to the land of the living. On this occasion however things were very different. There were dark rings around Sasuke’s eyes, and his brow was furrowed in a glare directed at the ceiling of the carriage. He didn’t look like he’d slept at all.
It took Naruto a surprisingly short time to process what he was looking at, and just as short a time to figure out how he should respond. Sasuke was completely avoiding admitting his awareness of Naruto’s presence, despite there being no way he couldn’t know. And there was something about the stiffness that could be seen on the Uchiha that channelled a silent request. Naruto respected that request by pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary.
“We have to get to Manehattan by noon! Let’s get this thing rolling!”
Naruto and Sasuke flinched at the same time as voices arose outside. The two of them rolled off of their makeshift bunks and hid from view, peering over the edge of the windows to see what was going on outside. There were only a few uniformed ponies out there. They could sneak by if they were careful.
Getting out was an easy task. Apparently in Canterlot, as they presumed this place to be, locking the doors to your public transportation services wasn’t deemed a serious necessity. Within no time at all Naruto and Sasuke were on the ground and skulking their way through what seemed to be a storing bay for several trains.
The exit wasn’t hard to find, but the two boys didn’t want to use the easy way out. If they were caught here they could get in trouble. Once they were out in public places they wouldn’t have to worry about hiding any more. All they had to do was stay-
“Hey! Stop!”
... Unnoticed.
* * * * *
The palace of Canterlot was an illustrious castle that every pony across all of Equestria dreamed of visiting at least once in their lives. It was a place of legendary beauty and, to be frank, a feat of architecture the likes of which had driven many seasoned architects into babbling retirements. And yet with all things one could easily become desensitised to its splendour after spending some time within it. A thousand years, give or take, in the case of one especially beloved pony.
Princess Celestia sat upon her royal throne, basking in the beauty of another day while keeping a practiced ear on her attendants. For somepony who had worked through a tenure equal to several lifetimes of even the Earth Ponies, Celestia found her regal duties as simple to perform as batting an eyelid or smiling. All the ponies who saw her work thought her truly amazing, few having realised that the ease of which she dealt with even the most delicate of situations being due to her having experienced such situations several times over in her long life.
It was in part to the efficiency of how she worked that Celestia found herself able to overlap her duties with others in order to find some fulfilment in her day to day tasks. One such example came in the form of the young filly sitting by the window, her face buried in several books at once and completely oblivious to the world around her. The sight of her cute young student never failed to bring a smile to Celestia’s face.
The door to the throne room opened up and Celestia’s attention was brought to a pony she didn’t see very often. Smoking Barrel, a grizzled earth pony who served as Canterlot’s sheriff, approached the throne room to address the Princess. “Your highness.” Performing a deep bow of respect, Smoking Barrel appeared to be concerned. “The guards came across a suspicious duo they believe snuck aboard the express train from Vanhoover. They are currently being held in the sheriff’s department.”
The strange nature of Smoking Barrel’s approach led Celestia to take the matter somewhat seriously, even if it didn’t sound to be all that important. “I see.” She mused. “I’m sure you know how to handle matters like that. You haven’t let me down once, have you?”
The princess’ praise reddened the face of Smoking Barrel, but he kept his stance. “Well you see your highness, there’s a bit of a complication.” He cleared his throat out and straightened himself up. “We’re... not exactly sure what the two perpetrators are.” Celestia’s brow cocked up curiously. “Our best guess is that they’re some form of pig ape, but to tell the truth I’ve never seen anything like them in all my years. I’d hoped that perhaps you may know something, your eminence.”
Celestia’s attendants ceased their work to stare at Smoking Barrel, spending one moment trying to imagine what a pig ape would look like and the next desperately trying to forget. The princess herself was not afflicted in such a way, or if she was her composure allowed her not to show it. It was certainly clear to see that she was deep in thought, searching her reserves of knowledge for some answer to the riddle handed to her.
After a span of silence Smoking Barrel coughed into his hoof again. “That’s not all I’m afraid.” He had everypony’s eyes on him again as he reached into his saddlebag and produced an odd looking black dagger. “They were armed with weapons like these.” He said after setting the dagger on the floor. “I fear these pig apes may be dangerous.”
When the dagger was out of Smoking Barrel’s mouth, Celestia used her magic to levitate the blade and bring it to her for closer inspection. The edges were dulled and chipped, and it was something of the sort she’d never seen before in all her years. If she had, she could not remember. A pair of pig apes wielding odd looking daggers, sneaking upon a train from Vanhoover. It sounded more like a story than a real-
“It’s a kunai.”
All eyes, including Celestia’s, turned to the little purple filly sitting by the window. Twilight Sparkle had been watching from the moment Smoking Barrel came into the throne room, intrigued by the things the sheriff had to say.
“You recognise this, my student?” Celestia asked with an encouraging smile.
“In the eastern nation of Neighpon there used to be groups of earth ponies called ninjas.” Twilight exposed her rough memories from a history book she had read a while ago. “They were assassins who fought against their oppressive leaders. However the ninja weren’t high class warriors. They were farmers and peasants who adopted stealth tactics to overcome the military might of the shogun. Even their weapons were adapted from farm tools and everyday items.” A flicker of doubt showed up in the young filly’s eyes before she concluded. “So... that might just be a trowel.”
Smoking Barrel and the princess’ attendants were all rather startled by the information Twilight had just dropped on them. The opposite was true for Celestia. “Very good Twilight!” she beamed down at her young student, always happy to see the fruits of Twilight’s efforts. “It sounds to me like you have some very interesting guests sheriff.” She turned back to Smoking Barrel, her good mood shining out. “If it’s alright with you I’d like them brought here for closer inspection.”
Clearly Smoking Barrel wasn’t very keen on the idea, but of course he would never dream of denying the princess a request like that. “I’ll give them one more look over to make sure they’re not carrying anything dangerous and have them brought over within the hour, princess.” He bowed his head one more time before taking his leave.
Celestia sat back in her throne and watched as the Canterlot Sheriff headed back to his department. “Twilight, would you mind helping me look these two strangers over?” she asked with a sideward glance to her student. “I’d very much appreciate your input.”
“O-of course princess!”
* * * * *
Pig apes. An apt if perhaps somewhat offensive way to describe these two creatures. With simian bone structure and skin that did indeed give them their unfortunate resemblance to a bipedal pig, Celestia was having a troubling time thinking up a better comparison. At the very least their posture was much better than a monkey’s, their dress sense showed signs of culture and their expressive faces suggested they were intelligent beings.
Despite having no knowledge of what these two were, it was clear to Celestia that they were just children. They were afraid, and Celestia supposed they had every right to be. They were bound at the wrists and surrounded by guards waiting for a signal to subdue them. But there was more to their fear than what Celestia could understand. When she concluded her pacing of them and returned to their front, she couldn’t help sensing that they were... desperate.
Satisfied that she had seen all there was to see of the two boys, Celestia returned to her throne and sat down. Lowering her head to Twilight, who had remained by her side the whole time, she quietly consulted her student to find out if Twilight recognised anything. The answer was disappointing for both teacher and student, with Celestia patting Twilight on the head and telling her that it was ok before she set her focus back on her guests.
“If you could please have them untied.” She smiled warmly at the two boys while her guards hurried to obey her request. The ropes fell away and the two of them massaged their wrists, sore after several failed attempts to wriggle free. They were no longer bound, but that was just a matter of comfort. Celestia didn’t want to appear unkind at the very least. “I’ve heard some very strange things about you two. Could you tell me your names?”
The two boys looked at each other as if to see what the other person wanted to do. A natural response when being faced with a figure of authority. Even children knew to protect their identity when they thought they were in trouble.
One of the guards grew impatient with their lack of quick response and moved to hurry them up, but Celestia gave the guard a look. A simple, gentle look that asked if the guard would kindly step back. Without even a note of threat the guard quickly retreated, embarrassed that he had made a show of himself in front of the princess.
Looking between the princess and the guard, Sasuke couldn’t help seeing a chain of command that bore no resemblance to any chain he had ever encountered himself. Either the signs were more subtle than he could hope to see, or the love and respect the princess’ subjects had for her surpassed any other similar relationship that sprung to Sasuke’s mind. It was quite the limb to go out on, but he had the impression that he didn’t need to be afraid of this winged unicorn princess.
“My name is U-” he opened his mouth to give his name, but he stopped mid way through. The name he tried to give, Uchiha, wouldn’t pass his lips. His throat tightened and his voice gave up before he could manage more than the first syllable. Then it wasn’t only his voice that was constricted. His chest too felt abnormally tight. He turned his head away in the hope that no one would address his hesitation. “My name is Sasuke.”
Naruto had noticed Sasuke’s pause, but it wasn’t what caught his notice. It was that Sasuke was saying anything at all to these strange ponies that perplexed him. He had expected that the two of them would remain silent until they knew what they were dealing with. But Sasuke didn’t see any danger in giving his name, and Naruto measured his caution by his companion’s, trusting the class genius to be careful. “I’m Naruto.” He said, deciding to see where this would go.
The concerns of the two boys were not missed by Celestia. She understood it, but such defensive behaviour was not conducive to her reasons for having them brought here. Delicacy was doable in the process, but she had to press on to learn as much as she could about these two strange strangers in her nation. “Greetings Sasuke and Naruto. I am Celestia, princess of Equestria.” She offered a gentle expression and with her wing made her student sit. “It sounds to me like the two of you have a very interesting story to tell. I’d be delighted if I could hear it.”
At the same time Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, no longer able to make decisions on their own. They consulted each other with their eyes, able to get across only the most basic of thoughts with not quite covert gestures of the head and eyes. As it turned out they were both of similar minds though, and after a few seconds Sasuke gave a nod of his head. That was when Naruto spoke up.
“We’re lost ma’am, um, your highness.” With the past couple of days being crazier than any other in his life, Naruto didn’t find it too difficult to remember the details. “There’s this mountain, and inside it there’s this weird cave. Two days ago Sasuke and I woke up there. We spent a few hours trying to find a way out when the whole place started shaking. An earthquake or something. We barely made it out alive.”
The many ponies within the throne room started muttering amongst themselves at the news Naruto had delivered them. Of the numerous ones talking, Twilight was one of them, whispering in the ear of Celestia. Celestia smiled down at her and looked back at Naruto and Sasuke, the rest of the ponies ceasing their conversations quickly.
“Two days ago the skies were lit up in what I hear has been called a “Sonic Rainboom”. There have been reports of many strange things happening all across Equestria because of it, of which earth tremors have been mentioned. If what you’re saying is the truth, then it seems that fortune has fallen upon the unfortunate.” The light of magic appeared around her horn, and with it the kunai lying by her side was lifted into the air. “I believe these tools you carry originate from the Far East country of Neighpon. Is that your homeland?”
“No, I’ve never heard of that place.” Sasuke was starting to feel apprehensive. “We come from Fire Country.”
“Fire Country?” Celestia repeated. The kunai lowered back down beside her and she reflected on her knowledge of the geography of the world for all of the few seconds she needed. “I’ve never heard of such a place... though it could be that you call it by a different name than we do.” Her horn lit up again and she lifted one of Twilight’s books, opening it to a specific page and then levitating it towards the two boys. “Could you show me where it is on the map?”
Naruto and Sasuke both craned their necks to study the printed map on the book. Even Naruto, with his poor marks in geography, saw in an instant that something was wrong. The map before them didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the world maps from their classroom in any sense. They even went as far as to take the book and turn it around, trying to find some angle that was familiar to them.
“Is this map for real?” Naruto asked, scratching his head and looking bewildered. “I don’t recognise anything!”
“Not even Earth or Water Country...” Sasuke murmured, flipping through the book in the hope of finding another map. The apprehension turned into gut wrenching worry as an awful thought hit him like a wrecking ball. He grabbed Naruto and pulled him in, whispering in his ear. “Something’s off here. I think they’re messing with us.”
“I assure you I’m not “messing with you”.” Celestia appeared slightly offended as she levitated the book out of their hands and looked through it herself. “This book comes from the Royal Canterlot library, which means it has been checked and checked again several times over to make sure the information inside it is one hundred percent reliable.” She took pause then, her brow furrowing and making her look quite troubled. “If you can’t find your homeland here... then it doesn’t...”
Princess Celestia stopped talking and fell into rather deep thought, nearly forgetting where she was at all. All of the ponies and the two boys were staring at her, watching and waiting for whatever it was she wanted to say. Naruto and Sasuke were particularly hooked on her words, considering the ill boding nature of them. But it was Twilight in the end who brought the princess back to the present with a soft nudge.
“Princess?”
Celestia blinked in mild surprise from the disruption of her distant thoughts. “How did you manage to get on the train that brought you here?”
Curious by the change in subject, Sasuke provided the answer. “After we escaped from the mountain we started moving north to try and find a town so we could start to make our way home. We came across some tracks and the train passed us. We figured the best idea would be to follow it. About a half mile later we found the train dealing with a tree on the tracks. That was when we snuck aboard.”
Smoking Barrel eyed the two boys suspiciously. They were being much more forthcoming than when he’d been interrogating them earlier. But if it was the truth they were speaking, then they really had boarded the train headed from Vanhoover to Canterlot. More importantly though was their claim to have travelled north after escaping a mountain experiencing tremors. That meant that they most likely originated from the Unicorn Range.
The sheriff wasn’t alone in reaching such a conclusion. Celestia, though better grounded this time, gazed off to think about the supposed origins of Naruto and Sasuke. “Unicorn Range is almost underneath Cloudsdale.” She reasoned. “It would have certainly received the full brunt of the Sonic Rainboom.” If she wasn’t so well coordinated, she might have frowned. “I must send a scouting party to investigate. If what these two are saying is true, then we could have a serious security risk on our hooves.”
“You two have had a very rough journey.” A warm smile was given to Naruto and Sasuke. “We’ll continue this later, but for now why don’t you clean yourselves up and get something to eat?” She nodded to the guards behind the boys, who readied themselves to follow her orders. “I’ll arrange for you to stay in a couple of rooms in the castle, but please don’t get too adventurous. When I’ve confirmed what you’ve told me thus far, we’ll talk again.”
“Uh, ok.” Naruto murmured, while Sasuke remained silent. The two of them departed at the call of the guards, leaving Celestia with her attendants, guards, student and sheriff. Until the boys were physically absent from the room, nopony uttered a single word.
“Your majesty... I don’t wish to be rude, but is it safe to be so gentle with them?” Smoking Barrel enquired, his eyes still on the door.
The princess didn’t give him a direct answer, for she was only half listening. “The driver of last night’s train will no doubt have marked the location of the fallen tree. Half a mile along the tracks to the west and then in a southerly direction. It will probably be the first mountain you come across. Look for any holes or signs of blockage.” It wasn’t until she glanced at one of her guards that it became clear who she was talking to. That guard gave his nod of understanding and hurried out of the throne room. Then and only then did Celestia look at Smoking Barrel. “Tonight we’ll see just how honest those boys are. Don’t worry sheriff.”
“Yes, your highness.”
* * * * *
Sasuke had stayed silent for pretty much the rest of the day. Somehow their clothes had been cleaned before they managed to finish their showers. The pristine condition of the rooms they’d been given were almost intimidating in their splendour. Sasuke had been afraid to touch anything lest he break it. From what he heard, Naruto had no such concerns. Though by the disgruntled look of the guard with the dustpan, perhaps he should have.
After getting cleaned up they were both taken to the guard’s barracks where they were brought something to eat. Their escorts stated that due to their unusual appearances it would be best not to distract the workers at the castle by spending too much time out in the open. Though to them it was simple logic, to Naruto and Sasuke it was much more bothersome. These ponies had never seen humans before?
Though the concerns remained with Sasuke during their free lunch, Naruto became quickly sidetracked by the palette they’d been given. A dish that he had never seen before. It was at that time when Sasuke learned just how finicky Naruto was when he requested ramen instead, only to be shot down immediately by the guard. Naruto grumbled to himself and settled for his plate, but Sasuke noticed the two guards share a brief question. Ramen? What was that?
The rest of the day passed by with Naruto and Sasuke taking a tour around the castle with the guards diligently in tow. The grounds were vast and the castle filled with near innumerable sights. But the place that they found themselves lingering the longest was along the border walls. From there they could see not just the city of Canterlot, but all of Equestria beyond.
There was a sharp wind blowing in their faces, brushing back their hair and beating lightly in their ears. The guards, with their metal helmets, couldn’t hope to hear them if they spoke quietly. “They say that Fire Country doesn’t exist on their maps, and they act as if they’ve never seen a human before.” Naruto tried not to look like he was listening too hard, despite having to with the wind. “But how can they speak a human language then? This is all too weird.”
“Think we should make a run for it?”
Sasuke thought about it, and almost made the mistake of shaking his head. “We can’t outrun normal ponies, never mind the unicorns or the flying ones.” He looked at the path leading from the palace to Canterlot city. “And anyway... I can’t explain it, but it doesn’t feel like they’re lying to us. I think...”
Naruto’s eyes dropped into a sad expression. “... We’re not gonna find our way home no matter how far we walk. Are we?”
The wind died down, and with it the window that allowed Naruto and Sasuke to speak freely to one another. Thanks to the timing Sasuke couldn’t give an answer to Naruto’s question. But as much as Sasuke tried to ignore it, he couldn’t help feeling grateful to the wind for taking away his obligation to offer such an answer.
There was never a safe time to talk after that. The rest of the afternoon passed with the two of them spending time in the palace library, mostly just looking over the books in the vain hope of finding a term or title they’d recognise. Eventually though the sun set and the night came. The guards ushered them back toward their rooms to bring an end to the day.
“Hey.”
Sasuke lifted his head and glanced at Naruto. He hadn’t even noticed that they’d come to a stop outside their doors, the guards waiting for them to enter. Naruto was smirking at Sasuke, halfway into his temporary room already. “We’ll find our way back.” He promised, stretching his smirk into a grin. “We’re gonna have one heck of a story to tell Iruka-sensei, huh?”
The general sunny demeanour of Naruto washed over Sasuke, colouring him amazed. How Naruto could stay so optimistic at a time like this was beyond his comprehension. It was a regrettable thing to admit, but Sasuke couldn’t emulate it, even as an act. “Good night.” Was all he could say. He walked into his room, closed his door behind him, and let the darkness veil him completely.
He could hear the sound of hooves outside his door, and the mutterings of what sounded like a shift change in the guards. A minute passed before silence fell upon him, leaving him with his back to the wall, staring into the almost lightless room. He was alone. For the first time since waking up in that black abyss he was all on his own.
He was alone.
His chest tightened like a spasm, his breath shuddering out of his mouth with a faint sound. Somehow he made it over to the bed and sat himself upon it. He forced himself to take deep and quick breaths, trying desperately to keep a hold of himself. His eyes were welling up against his fierce inner demands, his feelings completely disobeying his will.
“As I expected... you are my child.”
Sasuke’s fingers found their way through his hair and took a tight hold on them. He didn’t want to remember the words of his father. He didn’t want to hear them ringing in his ears. He pressed his hands against his head, as if to squeeze the thoughts out, but all he succeeded in doing was making his head ache.
“When your father and I are alone, you are all he talks about.”
Whimpers escaped his throat and tears started to stream from his eyes. He fell on the bed and buried his face in the pillow, praying the guards wouldn’t hear him and investigate. But more than that he wanted to get rid of the memories flooding through him, fearful of where they may take him. He didn’t want to go there, not again. Not to that nigh-
“You’re not even worth killing.”
“HRRGH!” Sasuke moaned into the pillow to contain his cries, tightened his eyes to try and cease the visions. But they came in throes. The blood that ran through the streets of the compound, the bodies of his kin lying limply on the ground. His mother and father, murdered in their own home by their son. By Sasuke’s older brother. By Itachi.
And then... and then...
... and then what?
As if a mercy was put upon him, the rest of what happened that night was a blur in Sasuke’s mind. He couldn’t remember what else Itachi had said to him, and frankly he was thankful. Anything that kept that horrible night from being completely lucid in his mind was welcome to him. But it didn’t change the fact that everything he knew was now dead. And he was, for now and forever, alone.
He lay there for a long while, sobbing into the pillow, trying and failing to forget the worst night of his life. There was no telling how long he lay there before his despair took away all the energy he had left and pulled him towards a fitful sleep. “I want to...” tears still ran down his cheeks as the weight of sleep became too much for him. All he could manage was a thought he would never remember having. “I want to die...”
* * * * *
Iruka-sensei was running late, and the class was getting restless. Naruto sat slumped on the bench, bored out of his mind and waiting for something to happen. The sounds of his classmates talking were indecipherable to him, largely because he didn’t care about the inane things they had to say. There was only one person in the entire room who seemed to have any presence at all. It was she whom Naruto gave all his attention to.
“Naruto?” Haruno Sakura slid into the seat next to Naruto, smiling at him as if he were her best friend. Naruto could do little more than stare in wonder, not sure if he could believe his eyes. Sakura, the cutest girl in the class, was being friendly with him. It was almost too good to be true. “Get out of the way. I want to sit next to Sasuke-kun.”
Startled, Naruto looked to his left and saw that the faceless, nameless person he’d been sitting beside was now Sasuke. This confused him. He had been certain that Sasuke was outside, picking apples from a tree. It was weird, but he remembered it.
“Naruto...”
Naruto almost missed Sakura’s call, but she got his attention when she put her hand on his shoulder. The feeling of her touch made him blush and quickly give his attention back to her. Not even a second passed however before the hand clenched his shirt and the other grabbed his pants. “I said...” Sakura’s voice rose in volume through gritted teeth as with amazing strength she pulled Naruto out of his seat and threw him across the room. “GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!”
Before Naruto even knew what was happening he hit the floor and rolled straight out the door, banging his head against the hallway wall and losing his senses for a few seconds. When he was collected enough to see what was happening, his vision was filled with several of his classmates standing at the door to the class. No longer faceless and nameless, Inuzuka Kiba, Nara Shikamaru and Yamanaka Ino flashed Naruto huge grins before slamming the door shut, leaving him out in the hallway.
At first Naruto was shocked by this treatment, but then he heard the sound of whistling coming from around the corner of the corridor. Somehow knowing who it was that was coming his way, Naruto scrambled to his feet and grabbed at the classroom door, trying to haul it open. But it wouldn’t budge, and all his efforts were met with snide laughter coming from the other side.
“UZUMAKI NARUTO!”
Naruto whirled around just in time to see exactly who he’d been worried about seeing. Umino Iruka had shown up at the worst of times. He glowered down at Naruto from a height that didn’t mesh with Naruto’s memories of the academy instructor. “ARE YOU SKIPPING CLASS AGAIN?!” he spoke only in yells, and all of them with an angry glare. “IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY, THEN YOU CAN JUST SCRAM!!!”
“It’s not like that Iruka-sensei!” Naruto exclaimed with a desperate look about him. “They won’t let me in!”
“I’M TIRED OF YOUR EXCUSES!” Iruka grabbed Naruto by the arm and shoved him out of the way. “GET OUT OF HERE! I SAID MOVE!”
Distraught, Naruto turned and fled from his sensei and classmates. He ran for who knew how long, yet mysteriously never came across a door. He turned corners until the walls disappeared and all that was left were the streets of Konoha. It was only when he realised that he was close to his home that he stopped running and looked around. He was not alone, but he was completely isolated.
Everybody in the street, all the miscellaneous adults and the few faces he recognised. They all glared at him from the corners of their eyes, never allowing any kind of closeness to him. Passersby made sure to make extraneous movements to avoid getting near him, and those who stood still were huddled in groups, all muttering incoherent things that he knew were about him.
The weight of such attention pressed down on him like a boulder he was forced to drag around. With that pressure he dropped his gaze and hurried away, eager to get home.
The climb up his apartment stairs was long, but Naruto didn’t care to notice. He was much too busy trying to pick at the small contentedness he could find in the sudden lack of people giving him dirty looks. The infinite crowds had vanished and left him completely on his own. It was almost enough to make him laugh. To think that there was actually something to make him prefer loneliness. But it wasn’t so strange. It was perfectly normal to him really.
He had thought to head straight into his apartment and while away the day until he was relaxed enough to make something of whatever time remained. But it seemed that fate had another punch to throw at him. As he turned the corner to reach his apartment door, he found his path blocked. A pile of garbage bags were stacked against his door, with crude writing penned against the wood. The meaning was simple. Get lost moron.
It was all too much for Naruto. The cruel treatment of his classmates, the anger of his sensei, the disdain of everyone in the village and now this. Anger burned inside of him and he could not keep it inside any longer. In a fit of rage he grabbed one of the garbage bags and threw it across the corridor. The bag hit a wall and split open, trash spilling out of it. The mess and destruction only spurred Naruto on as he swiped at another bag and hurled it even harder, painting the floors with filth. The rampage was incessant, but it was therapeutic. Naruto didn’t stop until the contents of every single bag was laid out for him to see.
And then when it was done, there was nothing left. His anger was sated, but it didn’t make him any happier. It just made him tired, sweaty, and standing around a heap of stinking mess. The realisation came to him that he’d have to clean all this up, and that he’d have no way of saying anything against it. It was a stupid thing to do, even if it was out of anger.
“HEY!”
As if called upon, the fat landlord suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, furious and directing all of it at Naruto. Naruto could anticipate all the yelling that would come, and knew that he was sick of it. Even if it was his mess now, he left it, running the other way and down into the streets. Back into the glaring eyes, where none of them cared that he was crying.
He ran straight past Princess Celestia, completely oblivious to her presence. Celestia didn’t try to stop him as he ran away. She had seen everything from the very beginning, and it saddened her. Her wings spread apart and she took off into the sky, following after Naruto. But she no longer intended to just observe. She planned on doing something about his unhappiness. For that, her horn began to glow.
After running for some time more, something flickered in Naruto’s mind. It brought him to a complete stop in the middle of the street. Looking around, he could find no one. The eyes that always glared at him were completely missing. But he didn’t feel alone. He felt... warm for some reason. He looked around some more to find whatever was causing such a strange sensation. He found it in a booth along the side of the street.
Ichiraku Ramen. The light inside shone brightly in contrast to the sudden dusk that was all around him. Ichiraku Ramen was the one place in the whole village that Naruto liked to be. And by some chance, as it seemed, he had found his way there.
The veil of the restaurant parted aside, and someone from within peered out. The waitress, Ayame, looked out into the street and found Naruto right away. “Hey handsome!” she smiled welcomingly to the boy and pulled the veil aside to allow him in. “Feeling hungry?”
Naruto hesitated for a second, not sure that he could believe in such a change in mood from what he’d been going through before. With some apprehension he took a few steps forward, into the restaurant that was a second home to him. Immediately he was graced by the familiar sights and smells. That, and he was greeted by the other worker of Ichiraku Ramen. The head chef; Teuchi.
“Well if it isn’t my favourite customer!” Teuchi flashed Naruto the biggest of grins. “Sit down! First round is on the house!”
The friendly atmosphere of Ichiraku Ramen wrapped itself around Naruto in a gentle blanket. It had the completely unavoidable effect of cheering Naruto up. He returned Teuchi’s grin and climbed up on to one of the stools, giggling to himself as Ayame tousled his hair. He didn’t need to make an order. Teuchi knew exactly what he wanted.
Watching this scene from just outside the veil, Celestia couldn’t hide the surprise that had come over her face. Her spell was supposed to send Naruto to his happiest place. Of all things, she had never expected such a place to be a noodle restaurant. It wasn’t what she had intended, but she couldn’t be discontented when she saw the happy look on Naruto’s face. Smiling to herself, she faded away from his dream, and returned to reality.
* * * * *
Celestia pulled the quilt over Naruto and tucked him in properly. She removed his goggles and set them upon the bedside cabinet. Such a messy young boy, she thought. He needed much more love and affection than what he received back home. Celestia could hardly think about what she’d just seen without feeling an ache in her chest. Though she wanted to, she could not deny the nature of what she saw. Naruto, the boy who had been taken from his home in the night, could not have helped but think of home as he fell asleep. Those thoughts then became his dreams. In other words, that dream, exaggerated though she hoped it was, was a representation of Naruto’s experiences at the place he called home.
It was objectiveness alone that dragged Celestia away from the young boy’s side, though she wanted to stay and think more on it. She had learned much of these beings from watching the world from Naruto’s perspective. Ignoring the specifics, she had taken note of many differences between his culture and Equestria. What sparked her particular interest was the instructor who had yelled at Naruto. It worried her to no end, but she was certain she’d seen the eyes of one who had killed in that man’s face. She worried about what that could mean.
Leaving Naruto to his warm dream, Celestia departed from the room in order to visit Sasuke. From what she’d interpreted in the dream, the other boy was treated very differently by Naruto’s classmates, and didn’t antagonise him as the others did. Though based on what she’d learned, she took this with a pinch of salt. Naruto hadn’t dreamt Sasuke as a bully to him, but he hadn’t dreamt him as a friend either. Whatever the case, Celestia was certain she would learn more about the culture of this “Konoha” from the other boy.
* * * * *
Never in her entire life had Celestia seen such a terrible sight as she saw when she visited the dream of Uchiha Sasuke. Not in the chaos of Discord’s reign, the enslavement of the crystal ponies at the hooves of King Sombra, or even... or even when Luna fell to the darkness and became Nightmare Moon. There was not a single event in her life that was more horrifying than the things that were transpiring in the realms of this child’s nightmares.
The frightful sights she was bearing witness to led to Sasuke standing in the doorway of what seemed to be his home, staring at the bodies of his mother and father. And someone older than Sasuke yet younger than Sasuke’s parents standing over them, wielding a bloody blade. Sasuke’s strangled cry announced the identity of his parents’ killer.
His own big brother. Itachi was his name.
That was more than Celestia could bear to see. Such an upsetting nightmare could not be allowed to continue. There was no way to simply alternate the nightmare like she did with Naruto. She had to obliterate it completely and replace it. With her magic she did just that, and brought about a happier dream for Sasuke to experience.
The scene changed. Sasuke was standing at the edge of a pier, with his father watching him from behind. The young boy made some strange shapes with his hands and took in a deep breath. Celestia almost fell over when she saw Sasuke exhale a massive stream of fire from his mouth. What a dream to have!
When the fire dissipated, Sasuke turned to look for his father’s approval. But what he saw instead was his father walking away from him. For this Celestia exhibited fresh concerns. Of course this was a happier place than before, but how could this be the outcome of her efforts to bring a better dream to-
“As I expected... you are my child.”
Sasuke’s father stopped and said those words, surprising the boy and Celestia alike. “You did well.” The father continued. “You may now wear the Uchiha crest with pride. Now grow stronger, and take yourself to new heights.”
The encouragement sounded serious, but the simple look of the dream showed Celestia how warm it was in Sasuke’s eyes. So this was the happiest moment in his life. Earning praise from his father. Celestia allowed another smile. If Sasuke was happy with it, it was good enough. With that, she turned around to leave the dream.
A cold wind stirred and in a split second night fell. Celestia froze in panic as the coldest of realisations hit her so painfully. She quickly whirled back and horror returned as she confirmed a terrible fear. The nightmare had come crashing back, wiping out the nice dream she had delivered to Sasuke. That wasn’t normal. No mere nightmare could overcome a dream brought about by magic. There was only one way such a thing could happen.
A tear rolled down Celestia’s cheek, dripping off the lip of her gaping mouth. The only way a nightmare could overcome being magically altered was if it was one forged by memories. It had to be a recollection of a real event. The blood seeping from every direction, the smell of death in the air, it wasn’t just a figment of a bad dream. They were all things that Sasuke had experienced himself. It had all really happened.
Sasuke had fallen to the floor, weakened by the sight of blood and his parents. He couldn’t look away from them, but he was painfully aware of his brother. “W-why?” he pleaded, shock freezing his face in place. “Why did you...”
Sasuke couldn’t bring himself to finish his question, to utter the words of his parents’ death. But even without completing the query, his meaning was made very clear. And as it seemed, Itachi held no stipulations about offering him a response. What he said... the three words he said, shattered Celestia’s heart into countless tiny pieces.
“Because I could.”
* * * * *
“That’s ENOUGH!”
Celestia banged her hoof against the bedside cabinet, causing enough noise to snap Sasuke out of his sleep. His eyes snapped open, but he was too disoriented to make out anything definitive. That worked out just fine, for Celestia immediately cast a spell on him. One that put him to a sleep too shallow for dreams to be possible. Even then Celestia remained for several minutes, watching him for any sign that the nightmare might return.
In those minutes she tried to collect herself. The tears she shed in the dream world were tears she shed in reality too. It wasn’t easy however. For every second that she looked at Sasuke, she could see all of the dreadful things he had gone through that night. The thought of such a little child going through such a thing. It was the first time Celestia seriously considered casting an amnesia spell. And she did think about it. But in the end she decided not to go through with it. It wasn’t her place to make that decision.
But... there was something she could offer him instead.
* * * * *
When morning came Celestia was pleased to find that she had been able to calm down from the stimulating events of the night. Though her heart still bled for those two boys, she did not have the luxury of conferring all her attentions onto them. After raising the sun and taking care of her personal morning routine, she took herself to the throne room where she had called for the captain of the guard to meet her.
“What I find most worrying is that the instructor from Naruto’s dream wore similar garb to the brother of Sasuke.” Celestia had more faith in the captain, Iron Guard, than she had in any other pony bar herself. He had been the guard captain for over forty years and had heightened the standard and elite of the guard to at least twice what they were when he first took his title.
“If they are of the same profession, we can presume that the brother is an outcome of this “ninja academy”.” Iron Guard paced the throne room floor, his infallible discipline making up for his age in strides. “If this species is capable of producing such dangerous warriors and that there is a connection from their world to ours, then we have more than just a security risk. Princess, we have a crisis on our hooves!”
In spite of the seriousness of the discussion, Celestia felt at ease with Iron Guard here. She had only just explained the concept of the two boys being from another world a minute ago, and the Earth Pony accepted it was if it were solid fact. He had every bit as much confidence in her as she did in him. It was why she had never once thought of him as old, even as his mane grew white and his once handsome face became wrinkled.
“The scouting party has already returned.” Celestia said. “They have located the mountain that the boys spoke of and confirmed what they stated. I will be making a personal investigation of it as soon as I am able.”
“Then I will prepare a garrison of the elite and accompany you.”
Iron Guard made that announcement and then immediately took his leave of the throne room. It was in his absence that the guards who waited outside began to file into the room, having respected the captain of the guard’s right to converse privately with the princess when necessary. Celestia half expected to see Twilight somewhere amidst the numbers. But then she recalled Twilight explaining, amidst frequent unneeded apologies, that both her parents were working today and she was needed to look after the baby dragon Spike.
That said, it was not just the guards who came into the throne room at that time. As she had requested, both Naruto and Sasuke had been called down to meet her here. When she saw them both she had to put up some reservations. She couldn’t let them know that she had invaded their dreams while they slept. At the very least she felt it wouldn’t help with the proceedings.
“Good morning.” She greeted the two of them as kindly as she would to anypony.
“Good morning princess.” The two boys responded in unison, taking the same place they had the day before, with the guards close behind them.
“After hearing back from my scouts I’m happy to say that I believe what you’ve told me to be the truth.” Celestia said, deciding to move right on ahead with matters. Even so, some delicacy was required. “I have some bad news however. You see, the reason the two of you could not find your home on the map, or indeed have no idea of where you are, is because you are not in the world you were born in.”
This news hit the two boys in the same way. Though it was indeed a surprise, and unarguably a strange explanation to their problem, it was an answer told from a respectable figure, which made it instantly credible. But even so, their responses to the news was quite different.
“No way!” Naruto exclaimed, his face a tribute to disbelief. He looked at Sasuke, who seemed tired and deep in thought, not sharing in Naruto’s more exuberant reaction. “So it’s true then? There really are other worlds and stuff? And in this world you get ponies instead of humans?”
“I suppose that’s how it is.” Celestia gave an apprehensive smile. Naruto seemed to be taking it better than she thought, but she knew from what she’d seen that the faces this boy made and his feelings weren’t necessarily the same thing. Sasuke was similar, she thought, looking at the dark haired boy. He didn’t look at all happy, but even so he looked far more centred than she would have been in his position. That wasn’t a good thing in her opinion. “It’s a serious matter. I’d like to know how you two plan on dealing with it.”
The ambiguity of her wording did just what she wanted it to and made Sasuke look right at her. While Naruto looked simply confused, he looked straight into her eyes, wondering why she found the answer to be not obvious enough that the question was needed. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Celestia had to be careful with what she was about to say. She knew what she wanted for them, but she knew it was not her place to think her wants presided over theirs in such a regard. Or rather, she wasn’t the sort of ruler who forced others to live by her command. “The fact of the matter is that your situation is of great interest to me. That beings from another world are able to cross into Equestria is something I have to take seriously for the safety of my subjects. My intention is to ward off the mountain that you woke up in, in the hope that doing so will prevent the possibility of something dangerous coming through.”
She gave them some time to think about what she said. It was clear by Sasuke’s immediate expression that he understood what she was saying. Naruto on the other hand didn’t look so perceptive. The two of them remained silent for so long that Celestia felt the need to add emphasis and further explanation to what she was laying out to them.
“It’s not outside our capabilities to find a way to reach your world.” She descended from her throne and came closer to the two boys, so she could speak not from on high, but face to face. “Should you two wish to return to your world, we will do what we can to send you back.” She gave a brief pause to let that idea sink in before presenting the next. “Or... if you’d prefer, you could stay here in Equestria.”
She had their immediate and undivided attention, and she gave in return all the warmth she could muster. “Though you might be found strange by those you meet, Equestria is a nation of love and tolerance. You will be accepted here, and I’m sure you will be able to live happy lives. The decision is yours.”
Naruto’s eyes widened at the offer that was laid out for him. Was this princess seriously suggesting that he stay in this world filled with ponies? If she hadn’t been so clear about it, he would have been certain that he misunderstood. But since she said it in such a definitive matter, he couldn’t help thinking about it. Could he really stay here?
No, of course he couldn’t. It was crazy to think he could. No matter what, he had to go back to his world. It was where he was born, where he belonged. He’d made a promise to himself and anyone who listened that he would become Hokage one day. What sort of liar would he be if he called it quits like this now? It didn’t matter. Uzumaki Naruto didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep.
With his mind set on things, he looked at Sasuke to let his temporary companion reach his own decision. It didn’t matter though; he could already tell what would happen. Sasuke would want to go back too. Why wouldn’t he? He was the cool, popular genius who had all the girls’ attention. All accounts taken in, he had a pretty good life. One Naruto would give anything for.
A long time passed in silence. Sasuke thought very carefully about what he wanted to do. He sensed the eyes were upon him, but he ignored it. He could only think of what lay ahead of him if he went ahead with the current plan to go home. He knew what awaited him out there on the other side. There was only one person left in the entire world who he could call family. And he was the reason that there was now only one such person.
“Foolish little brother.”
“I... don’t want to go back.”
Everyone was surprised when he gave his answer. Celestia, Naruto, even himself. He tried not to meet anyone’s gaze out of fear he would change his mind. He didn’t want to go home. If he went home, he’d have to face what waited there for him. And he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to look at the empty streets or the empty houses. If he stayed here, he wouldn’t have to look at tombstones or live in fear of the day that his brother decided to finish the job.
“There’s no reason for me to hold on to anything I’ve left behind.” He was barely aware of what he was saying, but he knew it was what he truly felt. “The only things that are there are things I don’t want to live with. If you’ll have me... please.”
Naruto stared at Sasuke, at a loss for words. He had never in a million years believed that he’d see Uchiha Sasuke throw away all that he had like he was doing now. But to see the look on his face at this time, something told Naruto he wasn’t seeing the whole picture. More than that though were his words. Words that he found ringing uncomfortably true with him.
“Yeah.” He sighed, dropping his head and making a sad smirk. “I don’t wanna keep a hold of anything there either. If it’s alright with you, princess, I’d like to stay too.”
Princess Celestia looked between the two boys, privately overjoyed at their decision. Though the guards were watching, and it was unrefined, she found herself unable to resist the temptation of moving in and pulling both the boys into an embrace with her wings. “Then, Naruto, Sasuke.” She said, feeling their warmth and giving them her own. “Welcome to your new home.”
Author's Note
Hey all, this right here will be my first submission to this site. I've been using Fanfiction.Net for years now under the same pen name, but I've had this story brewing in my head for a long time. With the extensive help of my good buddy Lazruth, another user on this site and FF.Net, I bring to you my first and hopefully very successful crossover!
Just a foreword to you all who would like to continue reading this tale of mine. I can be a tricky dick with my stories and have a deep love of subverting expectations. You may just do yourself a disservice by jumping to conclusions on certain aspects of this story. What you see may not lead where you expect it to lead. Or it just might. Who knows? I'm a tricky dick after all.
A time to adjust
[Canterlot Palace]
With the sun shining so sweetly down on the land, Celestia chose to indulge in her day and take the rest of her work outside. In the palace gardens there was a grand gazebo overlooking much of Equestria, providing just the view the princess wanted. From there Celestia took in her country as her attendants read the many letters and requests that came to her every day. She could see Ponyville in the distance. It looked to be faring well as always.
“Your highness.”
From the path leading to the gazebo, one of the guards on duty drew her attention to an approaching individual. Among the gardeners, guards and other workers at the palace was a familiar if irregular sight. One of the royal couriers; a grey pegasus mare by the name of Breezy Hooves.
“Well good morning Breezy!” the blonde maned pegasus gave a deep and respectful bow at the princess' address. “How is your family?”
Breezy, being the ever active pony she was, began to answer even as she opened her mailbag to fetch her deliveries. “Oh they’re doing just swell Prin-mmf-hmmf-mmf-hmmf-hmmf! Peppy has been taking our daughter on flying-hmmf-mmf-mm-mm-mh-hm-hmm! Here you go!”
She gave to the princess a rather large, padded envelope, which Celestia took with an awkward smile. Sometimes she wished she'd studied the fine art of dentistry, if only to understand what Breezy was saying half of the time. “I’m sorry that your duties take you away from home so often.” Celestia knew that royal couriers had to sometimes spend days at a time with their work, and was grateful to all of them. Especially ones as dedicated as Breezy. “I believe today is the end of your round?”
“Sure is your high-hmmf!” Breezy chirpily responded while closing her mailbag. “Peppy promised to cook up something special when I get home, and the look on Derpy’s face when I walk through that door makes it all worthwhile! Well, I’d best be going Princess. I’ll see you next month!”
“Ah, farewell then Breezy!” Celestia gave a weak chuckle as Breezy took off like a dart to the sky. Not even the Wonderbolts on a good day were as quick as that courier when she was on duty. With the animated pony gone Celestia looked upon the envelope in her hoof. The address of origin upon it along with the unusual size took away a hefty portion of her merriment. “Oh my...”
With her magic she opened the envelope and pulled out the papers within. They were from the monitoring facility that was set up in the Unicorn Range just under three months ago. There the royal investigators had located the mountain those two boys, humans according to them, claimed to have surfaced from. After finding traces of a peculiar magical energy Celestia had ordered a barrier to be constructed around the mountain. This was a report from that facility. But it was much larger than the ones she had received thus far.
“Zero-dimensional space stable... rift crystals operating at nominal levels... oh?” Among the many lists, tables and timescales Celestia had the gist of the situation over there. The barrier around the mountain had locked it in what was known as “Zero Space”, meaning that the entire mountain had been removed from Equestria, connected only by the magical tether that kept it from being lost to the void of Zero Space entirely. That was all as it should be. But there was new data in these lists.
“A small series of magical irregularities from within the barrier occurring between...” this was most intriguing news. By the chart that accompanied this note Celestia could see just the barest of spikes in the barrier’s stability. Far from anything that would indicate a risk, but that was only a comfort. “The area was checked over several times before the barrier was erected, and it was confirmed that there were no life signs in or around the mountain.” These were Celestia’s own thoughts. “For a sudden magical irregularity to occur inside of it after all this time... what does this mean?”
Teleportation magic was impossible. Zero Space barriers didn’t just lock away areas within, but rejected everything outside. Any unicorn or alicorn attempting to enter via that method would find themselves hitting an invisible wall. And if somehow they managed to get past this issue, which was inconceivable in and of itself, they would simply trap themselves in the colossal pit left by the mountain’s removal. But even in that scenario the interior of the barrier was entirely visible to the guards. A pony who had trapped themselves inside would have to make an effort to disguise themselves, even while making an escape being entirely detectable by the staff supervising the barrier.
That left only one other possibility.
A dimensional rift like the one Celestia had used to begin the Zero Space barrier in the first place. But just like with teleportation magic, there was no way a pony in this dimension could have used it like that. The only way was if the dimensional rift was opened from another dimension. In other words, the event that brought Naruto and Sasuke to Equestria appeared to be happening again. That the location was identical to the previous case was proof of that. Though Celestia believed it may be so much worse.
There was a chance that if the cause of the dimensional rift was a living being, that said living being was trying to break the barrier. That was a risk that Celestia could not ignore. But as it was, it was only speculation. Considering the information laid out before her, the magical irregularity was weak. The best thing she could do would be to continue observing and see if such irregularities would become stronger in time.
“Princess!”
Celestia put the papers back in the envelope just as her favourite student appeared from around the hedges running through the garden. There was a distressed look about her that told Celestia her news didn’t bode well. The princess descended from the gazebo to meet Twilight down on the path, concern shown on her face.
“Twilight, is something the matter?”
“Um, maybe, I don’t know!” Twilight was quite clearly distressed, and possibly wondering if it was right to bring whatever was bothering her to the princess at all. For that Celestia offered a reassuring smile that succeeded in pushing the little unicorn on. “Well, I was visiting Naruto and Sasuke, to study them like you asked me to, but they wouldn’t let me in!”
The quirk of Celestia's brow showed her stern feelings to this. That did indeed sound suspicious. One of the things that those boys had agreed to upon deciding to stay in Equestria was that they could be studied by a physician and Twilight alike, so that as much could be learned about them as possible. With no other creatures like them in the world, this was important for many reasons. Celestia had made sure they understood this.
“Did they tell you why?”
Twilight shook her head quickly. “No, but when I saw them, they were both covered in bandages!”
Celestia hummed to herself in thought. Things had gone from suspicious to worrisome indeed. She should have heard from their physician if they’d come to him with injuries. For word to have reached her by Twilight instead would suggest that the doctor didn’t even know of this. But still, boys could be rough from time to time, so there was every chance that it was nothing.
“I wouldn’t want to impose on them or invade their privacy.” She reasoned. From what she’d heard from Twilight those two boys had yet to properly adjust to life in Equestria. They rarely left their home during the day and preferred to have groceries delivered via mail order. Perhaps this shut-in behaviour was something she ought to try and edge them out of. “It’s better they learn to embrace their new home than to hide from it.”
For that decision Celestia hid a smirk to herself and ushered Twilight along with her wing. “I think I’ll be taking my work with me on a stroll through the city today.” She called out to her attendants, who each hastily gathered the papers and such that they needed the princess’s input on. She then gave Twilight a playful wink. “Why don’t we see if we can convince a couple of sore thumbs to join us?”
Twilight’s worry subsided in an instant and she cheerily took place by the Celestia’s side. “That sounds like a great idea princess!”
* * * * *
[Home]
The sound of metal on metal resounded from the basement of the home that belonged to two boys. Through the kitchen and down the stairs, where the light was rather lacking, the sounds came at a steady rhythm of once every other second. From the narrow rays of sun coming through the windows lining the ceiling, and the lanterns that shrank the shadows away, the two boys appeared to be having a scuffle of some kind.
Naruto and Sasuke had both removed their shirts, to protect their only set of clothes from becoming more damaged than they already had these past three months. The stuffy basement also gave reason to this, as the sweat that glistened off their skin indicated. In this half dressed state it became quite clear just what it was that had unsettled Twilight so.
Sasuke panted hard, a pitiful excuse for a kunai gripped in his hand. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, never once taking his eyes off of his sparring partner. Though he couldn’t say he and Naruto were evenly matched, he felt himself disadvantaged by a headache that refused to go away. It was a headache that was partially his own doing, however. The bandages wrapped around his forehead were so thick and tight that some circulation had likely been cut off.
Naruto rubbed his face with his arm, wiping off the sweat that was about to drip into his eyes. He too held a kunai that had seen far better days. The edges were chipped to the point where it looked like it had been poorly serrated by a rank amateur. Though Naruto hardly cared about that. He was doing pretty poorly in this spar, thanks to the handicap Sasuke had over him. Naruto’s chest was bound by bandages tight enough that his breathing felt restricted.
Not that either of them would raise this complaint, for they knew what the other one would say. Take the bandages off then. But likewise, both knew that neither of them wanted to do such a thing.
“I don’t think sending Twilight away was a good idea.” Naruto puffed. “Isn’t she gonna tell the princess on us?”
Sasuke managed to get a hold of his breathing and straightened up. He considered moving in for another round, but he felt so tired from the workout that he just didn’t have the motivation to continue. He waved Naruto away to signal the end of their training and dropped his poorly maintained kunai on the nearby wooden table.
“Twilight’s a tattletale.” He took the towel he’d had the foresight to bring and began to wipe the sweat off of him. “She’d tell the princess anyway.”
Collapsing into a nearby chair, Naruto took hold of one of two water bottles sitting on the staircase behind him. "You think the princess is gonna be mad we blew her student off?" he took a hefty swig of water and gave out a gasp of relief as the cool liquid ran down his dry throat.
Sasuke rubbed his neck with the towel, his focus distancing as he, like Naruto, thought of what an upset Princess Celestia might look like. "I don't know." It was hard to imagine the princess getting angry about anything. They'd always seen her as, well, sunny. "I hope not."
"Yeah." Despite being the one who raised the question, Naruto disliked the drop in mood that it brought. To try and dispel that negativity, he grabbed the second water bottle and tossed it to Sasuke. "Hey, catch!"
Sasuke, whose vision had been obscured by the towel, looked around it to Naruto. "What?"
SMACK!
"AAH!" Sasuke yelled from the pain in his jaw, turning livid eyes on Naruto.
Shocked by the accidental blow, Naruto was on his feet and halfway to Sasuke at this time. Under his roommate's vicious glare however he stopped in his tracks, a sudden premonition of pain befalling him. "I uh... I did say "catch"." he claimed in his defence.
Mercy was not on Sasuke's mind however. He was much more content with picking the water bottle up and hurling it at Naruto with all his might.
"Woah!" Naruto covered his face with his arms as the bottle flew straight at... no... straight past him. To his, and Sasuke's, surprise, the bottle missed him by a long shot and hit the wall uselessly. Mixed with his own anger at Sasuke's intentional attempt to cause him greater harm, and the abject failure of such a throw, Naruto viciously jabbed the air in Sasuke's direction. "HA! MISS- GAH!"
His provocation of Sasuke turned into a strangled groan as his overzealous movement fired off a cramp in the muscles of his back. While he writhed from exerting his tired and aching body further, Sasuke was gripping the sides of his head. His shock and anger had given him an extra burst of adrenaline and made his blood pump faster. With the bandages tightly wrapped around his head, this served to make his headache so much worse.
Paralysed by pain, neither of them could hope to do much but wait for the aches to lessen. By the time that happened they were reduced to heavy breathing once again. Both were on the verge of being utterly unintelligible, but Naruto somehow managed to get a word out.
"S... sorry." he gasped.
Sasuke took a while longer before he even tried to speak. The pain in his jaw was gone now, only the shadow of the blow remaining in the frame of his mind. His headache had lessened only a little, but it was still worse than before. Even if Naruto was the reason for the cause of the headache, Sasuke was just mature enough to know he'd made things worse for himself by losing his cool.
"It's fine..." he muttered, once he was finally able to stand straight again. "Just watch it next time."
Though a little sour, Naruto had to admit his fault for throwing a heavy object at someone that wasn't even looking his way. "I know." he grumbled as he bent down and picked up the twice thrown water bottle. It was scraped down the side from hitting stone, but it wasn't leaking. This time he directly handed it to Sasuke. "Here."
"Thanks."
The two of them opened their bottles up and took fresh swigs, relishing the cold fluid. This was their reward for completing their morning training. For even though they lived in a city known for its extravagance and were given an allowance from the princess to live off of, they were by all intents and purposes shut-ins.
They both looked out the window and saw the beautiful morning awaiting them outside. The day was beckoning them to head out there and embrace all that it had to offer. As always, the two boys were tempted. From down here they could see only the sky. But once they left the basement and looked out the windows there, they had to face the reality of what was outside. An entire community of aristocratic horses that had never seen the likes of them before. Naturally it was all a bit unnerving.
After they took another swig of water, dried themselves off and pulled their shirts back on, Naruto brought up the courage to speak. "Do you think we should be... out there?" The question was technically rhetorical, for Naruto already knew what the right answer was. But as much as he told himself it was the right answer, the thought of it made him feel so very insecure.
Sasuke paused halfway up the steps, looking out the window to the barely visible rooftops of the opposite side of the street. This question was familiar to him, for he'd been asking himself it quite often. Yet like Naruto, there was a sense of discomfort that came with it. "Do you want to?" he looked back at his roommate, privately hoping that Naruto would say "yes".
It was what Naruto wanted to say too. But his nerves wouldn't let him. "I don't know." he murmured. Dejected, they both left the basement, feeling as disappointed in each other as they did themselves.
Once in the kitchen the two of them looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost noon, meaning it was time for one of them to make lunch as per the agreement they made when they moved into the house they now inhabited two months ago. Fortunately neither of them had a particularly expansive pallet. They were seven years old after all. There was no mystery to be had when Sasuke sat down at the kitchen table and watched Naruto pull out the loaf of bread. Sandwiches were often the only thing on the lunch menu.
"To think out of all the different worlds we could have wound up in, we'd end up in one where nearly the entire country is vegetarian." There was a cruel smile playing across Sasuke's lips as he said this. "No chicken, pork, beef, nothing."
"Sh-shut up!" Naruto sniveled as he spread butter on their cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwiches.
Sasuke snickered quietly to himself, but he did as Naruto asked out of fear of having something less than pleasant added to his lunch. That and the thought of chicken, pork and beef were starting to make him real hungry too. He didn't mind the alternative diet they'd had to get used to, but he still missed some of the more carnivorous aspects of his meals. The two of them had talked about trying to hunt for meat in secret, but the point was moot. They lived on a mountain. There was hardly many options set out for them even if they did have the courage to kill a living thing for its meat.
So the best they could do was complain about it.
Naruto brought the two sandwiches over on plates, and the two of them ate in silence. That said it didn't take them more than a minute before Sasuke was gathering the dishes to wash them, as per the other half of their kitchen agreement. While he was at that, Naruto was staring off into the distance, deep within his own thoughts. Sasuke noticed this and thought it strange. Uzumaki Naruto? Deep thoughts?
Sasuke might have asked what it was that was on Naruto's mind, but he thought better of it. He had become rather cautious about such a thing, out of the sense of equality. If he asked Naruto what he was thinking when deep in thought, Naruto would be entitled, maybe even feel obligated, to do the same if he ever saw Sasuke in such a state. The thing was that whenever Sasuke was carried off by his thoughts, they almost always went to a place he tried to avoid. A place he wanted to share with no one.
Great, now he was getting depressed.
"Hey."
The unexpected sound of Naruto's voice snapped Sasuke out of his funk, and just in the nick of time. Seeing the water in the sink about to overflow, he hastily turned off the tap and pulled out the plug. "What?" he half looked over his shoulder as he got back to cleaning up.
"This is gonna sound weird but... I've been having these dreams."
Just as that odd statement caught Sasuke's ears, he finished with the dishes and could turn around to face Naruto. "What's weird about that?"
By the quick glance Naruto gave Sasuke it became obvious that he was uncomfortable talking about this. Sasuke sat back down at the table and watched his roommate's face, now genuinely curious as Naruto shuffled his hands awkwardly about.
"I've never had these kinds of dreams before... but... OK." breathing deeply, Naruto forced himself to look Sasuke in the eye. "I've been dreaming about the Fourth Hokage."
"That's not weird." Sasuke could feel his piqued interest waning fast. "You wouldn't shut up about being Hokage back in the academy."
The two of them quieted for a moment as their thoughts went to the days at the academy that had been and gone. It didn't last though, for Naruto shook the thoughts aside and redoubled his efforts.
"It's not like that! It's like... like..." he furrowed his brow as he tried to find the words to describe what his experiences had been like. The more he thought about it though, the more his thoughts went back to the academy. There came a look of dawning realisation as he felt he figured out why. "It was like being in class. He was teaching ninjutsu, but there was nobody else there but me and him. It was like he was teaching me."
Sasuke still failed to see what was so strange about all that, but he didn't press his outlook any further. Even if he didn't care, he didn't want to be a jackass and tell Naruto as such, so he feigned interest in the hope of getting this discussion over with. "Uh huh?" his attempt to look genuine didn't reach his face. Or his posture. Or even his tone of voice for that matter. "What kind of ninjutsu was he teaching you?" he smirked. "Ninja Art: Super Giga Explosion Jutsu?"
His callback to the pathetically named jutsu Naruto had deliriously attempted to use on Sasuke back in the caverns of Unicorn Range was effective in bringing about a full faced flush to his fellow human. "No!" he snapped. "It was the Transformation Jutsu ok?!"
Sasuke might have offered a further gibe to this, but instead he gave a half frown. A technique as low level as the Transformation Jutsu didn't sound like the sort of thing the undeservedly egotistical Naruto would conjure up in the realms of his dreams. It was a third year technique that was beyond what they were learning at the academy too, not that Naruto's absent minded behaviour would have allowed him to know even that much. Still, there was an opportunity here for some further light hearted teasing.
"Go ahead then." he put on a bemused smile and sat back to observe his loudmouthed roommate. "Let's see it."
Noting the challenge in Sasuke's voice, Naruto was a sufficient enough mix of irritated and proud to not want to be insulted any further. "Just you wait!" he jumped out of the chair and stood in an empty space in the kitchen. He then began forming ninja hand seals. First the dog, then the boar, and finally the ram.
Sasuke's smile slid a little. "That looks about right..." He vaguely recalled seeing other students practicing that technique.
"Ninja art:" Naruto's exclamation served no better purpose than to psyche himself up. "Transformation Jutsu!"
At that moment a sudden and unexpected plume of smoke appeared from nowhere and completely enshrouded Naruto. Sasuke was so surprised at this that he half leapt from his seat, subsequently stumbling and falling back with the chair. The plume of smoke faded away, and in its place stood someone else.
Someone that was half Sasuke, half Naruto.
The half Sasuke/Naruto person stared in shock at Sasuke, who in turn gave this stranger a dumbfounded look. It took the mixed Naruto all of a few seconds to figure out that his attempt had brought about something. At which point he quickly began checking himself out.
"I-it worked?!" as soon as his concentration broke, a fresh plume of smoke erupted and the disguise was shattered, leaving Naruto as he had been a minute ago. "Aw!" his momentary dejection was swiftly overshadowed by his success. "You see?!"
Naruto's energetic display bought Sasuke the time he needed to untangle himself from his chair. But it was nowhere near enough time to process what he'd just witnessed. "You've gotta be messing with me." Disbelief kept his voice low while he clambered back up to his feet. "You already knew that jutsu, didn't you?"
"Are you kidding? If I'd known this, I could've had so much fun with it!"
He had a point, Sasuke begrudgingly admitted. But then, Sasuke had one of his own. "If you didn't suck at it."
Naruto shot an annoyed look at his roommate, the gears in his head clearly turning for the hope of a witty comeback. The seconds passed miserably and the best he could come up with was too lame for even him to say. That was what Sasuke deduced anyway when Naruto turned away in a huff and opened up the fridge instead.
"There's no way you just learned that in a dream."
"How do you know?" Naruto was beginning to get rather mad. He grabbed a carton of orange juice out and found a glass to pour some in. "Maybe I'm psychic or something!"
The dry look Sasuke gave Naruto in response broadcasted how little he took such a theory seriously. "So you can talk to the spirits of the dead through your dreams? That isn't possible."
As a fierce inversion to Sasuke's calm and reason, Naruto turned and grabbed him by the arm, steering him to the kitchen window. "Look out there!" he yelled, pointing avidly to the street outside. "There are freaking unicorns everywhere! Magical unicorns! If that's possible, what's not?!"
Sasuke blanched. Hell must have been feeling pretty chilly at that point, with Uzumaki Naruto making two valid arguments. Talking animals weren't so strange. He knew of the cat clan the Uchiha had been allied with. But unicorns had always existed purely in the realms of folklore. A lot of things in Equestria contradicted what Sasuke thought was true and false.
Urgh... The only result Sasuke was getting from these impossible thoughts was a further return to his headache. Seeing a correlation between that and arguing with Naruto, Sasuke chose to put an end to the confrontation. "Fine, whatever. The dead Hokage is teaching you ninjutsu." As ridiculous as it sounded, it looked like the only explanation they were going to get. Not that Sasuke particularly cared about the real reason Naruto knew that technique. That he knew it was enough. "Do you think you could teach it to me?"
So swift was the change of course in their conversation, Naruto was put in a state of mental whiplash, as suggested by the dumbfounded look on his face. "What?"
Sasuke half scowled. "We're trying to continue our ninja training, aren't we? It's not like it's going to be easy for either of us. If we seriously want to do it, we have to help each other out, don't we?"
For a few seconds Naruto continued to wear a blank expression. "Oh, uh, right." He had a feeling the conversation had drifted away from his intended course, but after all the excitement he couldn't remember where he'd been going in the first place. "Sure, I can try and teach you it. Though I uh... kinda..."
"Suck at it."
"YOU SUCK!" Naruto cleverly rebutted.
"Ah, quit yelling!" Sasuke groaned, his hand to his head again. "This stupid thing is giving me a migraine!"
Naruto did quieten down at that. Sasuke wasn't the only one having a less than stellar time with his health. Naruto's back was in such a way that he had to sleep on his side or front to avoid feeling like his flesh was being tugged at from all angles.
"I think we should go see Dr Dulot." his voice was riddled with the same anxiety that Sasuke showed upon hearing such a thing. "It doesn't seem like a temporary problem, you know?"
Sasuke gave the matter some unneeded thought. The truth was this was another moment where he and Naruto were thinking along the same lines.
"Yeah..." he concluded. But then he gave a cursory sniff. "Maybe we should shower first."
* * * * *
[Streets of Canterlot - Suburban]
The princess had been rather pleased to see Twilight come to her with the problem she had. Over the past few months Celestia had been noticing that her student hardly ever spoke to anypony other than herself or her baby dragon. In the beginning she had worried that having Twilight move into the palace and away from her family had left the young filly rather lonely. Yet in the passing times as Twilight adjusted to the palace, she never changed that solitary way of hers. She seemed perfectly content as she was, and even found her task of studying Naruto and Sasuke to be an annoyance. She'd never said as much, but Celestia could tell.
As they and the entourage escorting them made their way through the streets of Canterlot, with ponies constantly bowing their way, Celestia looked down at her student to see if she was comfortable. Twilight had never quite adjusted to the attention they received when they were outside together. Her eyes were always either buried in a book or fixed on the ground. Today, surprisingly, was not the case. Twilight smiled to herself, and walked with a spring in her step.
A strange transition from the quiet bookworm Celestia had come to know. Too strange, she thought.
"Twilight?" Celestia kept her thoughts aside from her voice and expression, instead offering a charming smile. "What's gotten you in such a good mood?"
Twilight met the Princess' gaze with a sunny look about her... which lasted all of a few seconds. As if realising what she was doing, she corrected her walk and dropped her eyes to the ground. "Oh, um, nothing!" her reply was a touch too quick.
The princess kept a curious eye on her faithful student for the rest of their walk.
The stroll took them off the main streets of Canterlot and to the slightly more rural quarters, where ponies preferred the peace and quiet to the hubbub of the central city. It was around here that Celestia had moved Naruto and Sasuke to; believing that life in the palace was no way to adjust them to their new home. She'd arranged a physician to give them special attention, and was in the process of finding a tutor suitable to their needs. She was honestly curious to see what would become of these two strangers to her world, and wanted to make the best of them, if possible.
But if they were avoiding even Twilight, then Celestia had to consider that perhaps she was acting improperly towards such a goal.
"Where is his office again?"
Celestia, Twilight and the rest of the entourage came to a stop as they approached a junction in the streets. Ahead of them, facing away, were the very two boys Celestia had just been thinking about. The princess glanced down to Twilight, and saw her student gawping at Naruto and Sasuke. She felt the princess' attention upon her and quickly looked back, worry etched on her face.
"I swear, they never leave their homes!" she waved her hoof at the boys, as if to dispel some illusion. "You have to believe me!"
Smoothly Celestia closed her eyes and opened them again, a sense of understanding coming to her. The young filly would never tell a lie like this, but the slight hint of frustration in her voice made everything very clear.
Twilight was much too young to notice the faint breath of disappointment that escaped from Celestia. The princess looked away from her student and to the boys, both of whom were clearly having trouble finding their way.
"Good morning Naruto, Sasuke." The two of them jumped in surprise as she reached them. "It's good to see you both are out and... about..."
Her greetings trailed off a little as she observed them both. Their clothes were faded, showing faint signs of wear and tear. Not only that, but it was clear that the bandages Twilight had spoken about were quite real. At least, as far as she could see on Sasuke. A worrying amount of gauze was wrapped around his head, though they looked amateurishly applied. Even so neither of them were looking particularly well-to-do.
"Good morning, princess!" The two boys were swift in their greeting, bowing deeply in the funny way bipedal animals sometimes did.
The princess searched them only for a second more. "Are we heading off somewhere?" She smiled at them both.
Awkwardly Naruto looked at Sasuke. The bandages on his fellow human weren't exactly hidden, so there was no reason to be vague. "We were gonna go see Dr Dulot." he explained. "But uh... we don't exactly know how to find him."
"Oh? Well I'm sure I can help you with that." Celestia looked back to one off the guards, gesturing for him to come closer. "Could you escort these two to Dulot and Sons Medical Practice?" the guard of course offered a firm salute in response. The princess returned her smile to the boys and looked at their clothes again. "After that, if you're not busy, perhaps you could join me at a little boutique called Thread Mare?"
Naruto and Sasuke turned to each other, catching on pretty well to why the princess suggested such a thing. "Uh, yeah, we can do that." Sasuke replied, embarrassed.
While the two of them were watching their feet Celestia leaned toward their escort and whispered. "I'd like them to find their own way to us, so could you keep your distance after the doctor takes them away?" the guard nodded sharply. Celestia left it at that and walked past the two boys, addressing them once more. "Well then, I hope your check up goes well!"
At that point the two groups split up; Naruto and Sasuke following the guard down one street while the rest of Celestia's party headed down another. The princess cast an eye down towards Twilight, who was hanging shyly back from where she had stood before. It was clear the little filly was worried that the princess would be mad at her, though that was not the case. There was just one thing she needed to talk to her about.
"I wonder... were you perhaps hoping that those two would get scolded?" she asked with a mischievous glint.
"N- of course not!" Twilight responded. A little too quickly.
* * * * *
[Thread Mare fashion boutique]
A cramped hallway, rustic and dimly lit. Naruto sat on the floor, his knees close to his chest. The occasional member of staff would walk past him, never failing to look down at the human boy lost in his thoughts. Some were kind enough to ask if he was alright, though most continued with their business. They all vaguely knew who he was and could see that he wasn't in the mood for talking.
He was in the boutique Celestia had mentioned. Finding the way there had been a bit of a tricky task, aided in no way by the thoughts he and Sasuke were stuck with. At the moment Sasuke was in the room behind him, getting measured for new clothes. The tailor's room had been rather stuffy, what with the mannequins and several ponies filling the place. Naruto was glad for this piece of solitude. He had difficulty concentrating when there was a lot of noise.
The thing that he was concentrating on was a sealed envelope in his hands. It was a letter written by their doctor, that he was to give to the princess. In all the confusion he'd yet to do so. If the letter had not been staring him in the face, if it had been kept in his pocket, he may have forgotten it altogether. But as it was he was left with the task of figuring out how he was going to handle giving it to the princess.
The door to the tailor's room opened up, light from within creeping out. Faintly Sasuke could be heard trying to explain to the tailor why humans had a greater need for clothes than most other species. Naruto could tell from his roommate's manner of speaking that he was every bit as distracted by what they'd learned.
Princess Celestia didn't appear surprised to find Naruto so buried in his mind. He performed a slight double take when he looked at her, as if not completely seeing her that first time. Hastily he picked himself up to his feet, fumbling the letter in his hand. "Um, this is for you." he mumbled, handing the letter over to Celestia. The princess accepted it with her magic, but did not pay it much more heed just yet.
"I could swear you and Sasuke were the same person by the looks on your faces." she lightly joked, closing the door behind her. At the end of the hallway one of the guards watching the main portion of the boutique glanced back at them, but swiftly resumed his duty. The princess then spoke delicately, her concern clear to see. "Did Dr Dulot have bad news?"
"Um... well, kinda." Naruto was having trouble looking the princess in the eye. He was trying hard to remember what he'd heard, but amidst all the jargon their doctor had tossed at them the simple truth was hazy. "He said that something is happening to us. I didn't understand too much of it."
His lacking response left Celestia with many questions. Questions she was sure would be answered by the letter. But she could see that Naruto was having trouble processing his situation. There would be time to read the letter later. She tucked it under her wing.
"Twilight told me she saw you both in bandages. Did you hurt yourselves?"
Naruto shook his head. He was about to speak further when he heard another pony coming down the hallway with a clothes rack in front of him. While the princess ducked back into the room to let the sightless pony past, said sightless pony apologising in a panic when he realised who he had forced to move aside, Naruto could only back up against the wall. He did this without thinking, and gave out a hiss of pain. As soon as the pony with the rack was out of the way, Celestia was right beside Naruto.
"What's wrong?"
The young boy looked positively miserable as he rubbed his aching back. He warily glanced at the princess, knowing that the best way to answer her question was with a display, as opposed to words. Checking around to make sure there were no other spectators, he swallowed and turned his back to Celestia. Then he began to pull off his shirt. The worn fabric pulled up his back unnaturally, catching on something until a further tug freed it. Revealing what had caused Naruto his pain.
Two unpleasant looking growths protruded from between Naruto's shoulder blades. They were small and crooked, the flesh pink and obviously sore. They were frankly a little disgruntling to look at, but there was something about them that made them interesting. Tiny spines could be seen growing out of them. Spines that looked oddly like pin feathers - developing feathers.
The sound of the bell on the front door ringing rushed Naruto's unease. He pulled his shirt back down, taking care to not brush against the growths on his back too much. Once covered he turned back to the princess, who was looking at him as if not quite sure what kind of face she should be making.
Naruto decided to clarify. "That's really, really, really not a normal thing for a human to have."
"Ah." Celestia understood now, and knew to sympathise with the young boy's plight. She looked to the letter, pulling it out with her magic. "I'm sorry, let me just see what Dr Dulot wrote."
Naruto gave no inclination that he had any problem with such a thing. The princess opened up the letter and began reading it, using the light of her horn to compensate for what the hallway lacked. What she read was most intriguing indeed;
From my examinations of both Naruto and Sasuke, many things have been learned. But what they have presented me with today is unlike anything I've ever seen before. A rough summary based on numerous home visits and today's studies indicate that the growths these boys have been experiencing are a result of magical exposure. The two firmly assert however that they have not been in contact with any kind of magic that they are aware of, outside of my medical magic.
With such unusual individuals I can only theorise as to the changes they are experiencing. They are both confident that magic does not exist where they hail, so I am led to believe that perhaps the natural magic in the air has had some sort of mutagen effect on their bodies, which are not used to such exposure. What seems stranger is that these mutations appear to be controlled. Though I can only make guesses as to why, this much is clear to me; Naruto and Sasuke appear to be gaining traits from the pegasus and unicorn races respectively.
Celestia interrupted her own reading to look at Naruto again, almost gawping at the young boy. She reserved herself only barely, before pressing on.
My current theory as to the controlled state of their mutations stems from the secondary vascular system they share, that Sasuke has informed me to be called the "Chakra Network". Chakra appears to share some similarities to magic, though there seems to be a key difference I'm yet to figure out. That said I believe it is this connection that controls their mutations, as the pony races are most connected to magic. Though from a physiological standpoint we ponies and these humans are very different, it would seem that we are not so on a magical level. Further study is needed.
Celestia put the letter away, taking a small moment to collect her thoughts. She believed she understood why Naruto and Sasuke were of such sorts now. The doctor had hardly worded himself kindly in the letter, and she doubted he'd been much more delicate when speaking to them. The princess walked around Naruto and gently patted him with her wing, taking care not to touch his sensitive skin.
"I understand you're worried, but it doesn't look like the doctor found anything immediately dangerous." Naruto didn't look entirely comfortable with her contact, so she stopped it. "Dr Dulot specialises in unusual cases. I'm sure the two of you will be just fine so long as you follow his recommendations."
Naturally Celestia didn't expect this to cheer Naruto up, but she at least thought it would help settle his concerns somewhat. Unfortunately this didn't seem to be the case. Naruto averted himself further, as if what she'd said was in fact less than comforting. This perturbed the princess a touch.
"Tell me what's on your mind."
The many low sounds coming from all around the boutique filled what would otherwise have been a silence. Faint voices, hoofsteps, drawers, doors and other such things formed a quiet cacophony around them both. When Naruto finally found his own voice, he was only a little more audible than the muffled mutterings in the room behind.
"The doc said I'm changing." his words were troubled, lost and without hope. There was a slight shine to his eyes, and he was very aware of his own heartbeat. "Said I'm mutating."
The princess closed her eyes for a second, her furrowed brow showing the closest thing she would ever come to a curse. She would really have to have words with Dr Dulot about how he spoke with children.
"Back home, people hated me. The other kids would call me a freak." it was no longer just a shine in his eyes, and his voice quivered as he spoke. "I just ignored them, cos I knew I was normal. But now I'm... not."
A tear almost fell from Naruto's eyes when he felt a warm weight come down on his shoulders. He looked up at the princess, who smiled softly down to him. Empathy and understanding radiated from her greater than any light. It alone could find feeling in a cold heart. But Naruto's insecurity was enough that such a thing led his emotions to overwhelm him entirely. He no longer resisted the princess' touch.
"There there." she hushed him, bringing him close to her breast. It was clear to her that there was more to this young boy's despair than what appeared on the surface. His troubling discovery rooted far deeper than that, and brought up a mess of issues he must have buried as far within himself as he could manage. Her trip into his dream that night three months ago was evidence to this, she believed.
Naruto didn't sob. He'd had many nights in his lonely life with his teeth dug deep into his pillow as he'd wept in pain and frustration. Other times he would break things. Others still he would hug himself, when no one else would. This time was different for that explicit reason. Though it wasn't the warmth of a human, what he felt now was worth every bit as much. No, more in fact. In the past he could only imagine something like this. Reality felt so much better.
Tears ran down his face. His body quivered. He bit his lip. Princess Celestia comforted him.
It didn't last forever, though Naruto would have been content if it had. The princess' nurturing voice soothed his spirit and calmed him down. When they finally parted, Naruto rubbed his face roughly with his sleeve in a futile attempt to hide that he'd been crying. His face was hot with embarrassment and he was glad the hallway was so dim.
Celestia was glad to see that Naruto was settling down. Her eyes drifted over him to the main part of the store, where a couple of curious ponies were quickly pretending that they had not been watching such a display. One of her own guards included. Concerned as to how Naruto would feel knowing he'd had an audience for the past little while, she thought to try and draw his attention away from the here and now.
"It sounds like you've had a difficult time living in your home world." she spoke just as softly as she had when she'd held him to her. "I'm not sure how comforting this might be for you. But you and Sasuke are already completely unique beings in Equestria." she offered a knowing and somewhat cheeky smile as Naruto looked over his sleeve at her. "Tell me, how did the ponies you passed on your way here react to you?"
Naruto wasn't sure where the princess was going with this, but he cleared his throat. "They were all looking at us."
"In what way?"
Naruto furrowed his brow as he concentrated on remembering. "They uh... they all looked surprised... but..."
"But they didn't mind you so much, did they?"
A brief pause. "... No, I don't think so."
Celestia relaxed. She'd gone out on a bit of a limb, counting on Naruto's uncomfortable awareness of the attention he'd drawn in his old life to let him see the difference with the way the citizens of Canterlot reacted to him. Also that the Canterlot ponies would be too drawn to the boys themselves to really pay attention to their state of dress. The latter was more of a worry than the former, but as they often did, her hunches paid off. Naruto seemed to be feeling a bit better.
"Though I can't promise that the time will come when others won't stare at you, I'm sure you won't have to worry about being treated differently for whatever changes you go through." she gave him a sassy wink then. "And besides, having wings isn't such a bad thing." as if to demonstrate, she fluttered hers gracefully.
Naruto's expression fell then, taking the princess off guard. He stared at her blankly, making her wonder if she'd said some terrible thing in the context of what humans knew. Several times he blinked at her in silence, before opening his mouth and uttering a single word.
"... What?"
Confused, Celestia didn't know what to say. This didn't seem to be a problem though, for Naruto took a step toward her, his face suddenly rather animated. "Did you say wings? I'm gonna have wings?!"
At the end of the hallway the guards pinned their eyes on Naruto, this time with cautious reason. Celestia awkwardly tried to back peddle while reassuring them silently that she didn't need their help. "Well... that's what the doctor believes."
As if the sun itself started shining within the hallway, Naruto shone with dawning glee and excitement. Unable to contain his sporadic jubilation he leapt straight up, punching the air and whooping loudly. "I'm gonna have wings?! That is so awesome!" then an even more sudden thought occurred to him as he landed, causing his finger to point at the door next to him. "Wait a second! Sasuke's growing a horn! Does that mean he can do magic?!"
Celestia opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by several startled yelps and crashing noise. Behind Naruto the door swung open, light spilling out into the hallway. There stood Sasuke, wide eyed and wrapped in measuring tape, staring at them both.
"I can do what?!"
* * * * *
[Outside Thread Mare]
The time was twelve o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was as blue as it was going to be today. Princess Celestia's horn glowed with her magical light and commanded the sun to begin its steady descent. In the eyes of every living being it would seem that nothing had happened. In this sense Celestia was almost entirely alone in her capacity to witness the sun's slight movements. And yet she was pleased at the prospect of another pleasant afternoon. She turned to face her party. Particularly to two.
Naruto and Sasuke were paying little heed to the world around them. Naruto in particular was busy examining the new clothes he wore. The tailor had managed to adapt a pair of young stallion sized ghillie shirts to replace half of their ensemble. And by stroke of luck he'd had a small supply of "pants" from a failed attempt at introducing such things to Canterlot stallions. Though not perfect fits, the adaptations sufficed for now. Proper clothes were on order for a later date. High priority of course.
While Naruto studied the very loose sleeves of the shirt, thankful its bagginess gave no strain to his growing wings, Sasuke appeared to be a million miles away. Celestia thought to ask him what he was thinking of, but after a short span he returned to the present. With a slightly tense look about him he lifted his hands to his head and unraveled the bandages that had been afflicting him so. Celestia wasn't alone in watching him as the white fabric fell away, revealing what looked to be a tiny black horn on his forehead.
Twilight stared in quiet wonder, noticing the very slight curve to an otherwise small and unimpressive horn. Her attention caught Sasuke's notice, to which he offered a weak and somewhat insincere smile. Twilight did not respond in kind, but instead turned to the princess.
"Do you really think Sasuke could learn to use magic?" she asked with a blend of doubt and confusion.
"Well, it will be up to you to find out, won't it?" Celestia turned the smile she gave to Twilight towards Naruto and Sasuke. "It's very important that we learn as much as we can about how living in Equestria affects you two. If you don't mind, I'd like Twilight to study you both so... hm." the princess looked aside thoughtfully. "I wonder... it feels like we've had this talk before."
Naruto and Sasuke barely masked a grimace. They hung their heads in shame. "Sorry." they muttered. "It won't happen again."
There was a glint in Celestia's eye, and a slight curl to Twilight's lip. "That sounds very reassuring." a slight cough came from one of the princess' attendants. There was an important appointment that Celestia had to keep. But first, there was something else she wanted to know. "According to Mr Derby your clothes won't be ready until Tuesday. Will you be able to come and collect them?"
Her question led Sasuke to uncomfortably look at Naruto, and expecting Naruto to look back at him the same. This wasn't the case however. Naruto had his eyes on the princess, as she did him. The two appeared to communicate via this method for a couple of seconds. The result being Naruto nodding his head.
"Yeah, we can do that."
Celestia smiled, a further weight coming off her shoulders. "Very well then." she then turned toward the street. "I have duties to attend to, so we'll part ways here." she made a cursory step then, but paused as if in thought. "Will the two of you be heading home?"
Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little out of the loop. "I guess-"
"Nah."
Naruto casually interrupted Sasuke. This of course led Sasuke to look at Naruto in an even more perplexed fashion than before. "We're not?"
Naruto gazed back at Sasuke with a half grin on his face. It made the Uchiha really damn curious to know just what went on when the two of them were apart. "I dunno. I was thinking about going for a walk." the other half of his mouth followed suit. "You wanna come with, or sit back home flicking through old magazines?"
With no one looking directly at her, Celestia allowed herself to emulate the grin plastered across Naruto's face. Twilight was much in Sasuke's boat in terms of response to the current scenario, though she was nowhere near as invested.
"I- uh- er..." though still wearing a very lost expression, Sasuke gave a large and pronounced shrug. "Sure, ok. Let's go."
"That sounds nice." Celestia refined herself as others began looking at her again. She glanced down at Twilight, whom she'd noticed enjoying the light hearted scolding, just as she'd predicted before. And just like she had then, she felt she could predict all three of their responses to her next words. "Why don't you join them, my dear student?"
Her second prediction was right on the mark. Twilight, Sasuke and Naruto blanched. "WHAT?!"
* * * * *
[Home]
The day had been long... no, that was false. The day had felt shorter than any other day in the past few months. With so much of Canterlot seen, so much of its streets walked, so many steps climbed, the hours slipped away and soon found dusk settling in. Naruto and Sasuke had returned home, unable to wipe the relaxed smiles off their faces. It had felt so good to be out and about that they both mentally kicked themselves for being worried about doing so for so long.
As if with most nights, the two of them spent their last couple of waking hours on their own, doing whatever they liked with their time. Normally this would follow their thorough afternoon training, but after all the walking they'd done today neither felt like heading down to the basement. So they both went about their unwinding rituals. While Sasuke went about the various little things he liked to do; namely reading, jotting down entries in his journal and the odd sketch, Naruto had fewer things to pass the time. Tonight he indulged in only one.
There was a common trait between Naruto and Sasuke's respective bedrooms, aside from their architectural symmetry. Both of them led out to a single balcony that looked out towards Canterlot palace in the distance. Naruto took his quilt, folded it on the floor and used it as a cushion, his bed as a back rest, and looked at the palace from his room. Even now, he still wore a peaceful smile.
Princess Celestia really was a wonderful person... pony. She had comforted him when no one else would, spoken kindly to him when others would blow him off or snap at him. In some ways she reminded him of old man Hokage, but the similarities were few in his opinion. The old man was the most powerful figure in the village, and one of the only ones who didn't seem to dislike Naruto for unknown reasons. Naruto had clung to this as if it meant something. But now that he knew a kind and benevolent ruler like Celestia, he saw and felt so much more. He had so much more.
Here he was, sitting in a nice house, with near constant company in a city where nobody seemed to hate him. He admitted that Sasuke would never have been his first choice of room mate, but in the months that had passed he felt all the old gripes and grudges between the two of them had melted away. He wasn't entirely sure, but he thought that maybe he could go as far as to call Sasuke his friend. The idea of such a thing made him so nervous and giddy at the same time he barely knew what to do with himself.
And he owed it all to Princess Celestia. She welcomed them to her country. She gave them a home. She gave them a chance for a new life. He owed her so much. And he would repay her. He earnestly swore that for what she had given him, he would return to her in equal- no. He would return to her two- threefold!
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, grinning at the palace while making grand vows to himself. But eventually, as if with all nights, tiredness swept over him. He rose to his feet and prepared himself for sleep, removing his clothes, fixing his quilt and climbing into bed. As he tucked himself in, he gazed upon the glorious palace one more time.
"One day, I'll become a strong ninja worthy of working directly under the princess!" he gave one last grin as his eyes slid shut. "A strong, flying ninja! It's going to be so awesome!"
Several minutes passed in soothing silence, the gentle breeze of the night settling all that it touched. His breathing slowed and deepened, his eyelids becoming heavy. Soon all that was left to him was the sound of the wind and the warmth of his bed. This carried him off into a deep, cozy sleep.
And yet sleep was not all that awaited Naruto beyond the veil of consciousness. In the passage from the land of the wake he slowly drifted into the realm of dreams, where the mind could conjure up anything and everything on a whim. Naruto did not open his eyes. His ears received no sound. Even the warmth of his bed was lost to the illusions his psyche gave to him.
Within that psyche, a garden grew.
The grass crept from the field of white light, swaying in a breeze that didn't exist moments ago. A small knoll formed, with a tree sprouting in the center. It reached up for the sky, spreading its branches and growing its leaves, hanging over the knoll and somehow shading it from the omnipresent glow. Meanwhile the grass spread further and further, until what had started off as a small patch became a small island. An island with just one, single tree. A willow.
From behind the tree, as he had before, a man stepped into view. The fragmented light cast vaguely down upon him, but his features were unmistakable. That blond haired man in the flowing white coat, with flames that seemed to stir in the wind. The man Naruto knew only as the Fourth Hokage.
"Hello again Naruto!" the Fourth Hokage clapped his hands merrily as he stepped out from the under the tree and came under the light completely. "Are you ready to continue you super important ninja training?"
Beaming broadly, Naruto slapped the edge of his hand to his forehead in a mighty salute. "Sir yes sir Lord Hokage!" he pronounced exuberantly.
The Fourth Hokage applauded Naruto's enthusiasm with equal might. "Great! Then before we begin..." He half turned away from Naruto, undergoing a sweeping gesture that led his hand towards the tree he had emerged from. "Hopefully this time I may present to you my beautiful assistant!"
Both Naruto and the Fourth Hokage watched the tree with high tension upon them. The seconds ticked past and the ethereal breeze continued to stir up the grass and leaves. But no one emerged from the tree. It was, as always, just Naruto and the Hokage.
"Not yet huh?" The Hokage chuckled mildly, embarrassed at his wasted grandeur. He shook it off swiftly however and was facing Naruto again with the same measure of zeal as before. "Well I'm sure she'll show up eventually! In the meantime, let's... yes?"
The reason for the halt in his speech was that Naruto had raised his hand high in the air. Now addressed, he brought it back down. "Um, I was wondering if I could ask you something, Lord Hokage." there was a troubled look upon him.
"Oh?" The Fourth Hokage adopted a similarly serious manner. "What is it?"
Naruto stalled a little as he thought about his question. His tongue ran anxiously across his teeth while he did so. "Is... this really a dream?" his eyes lingered on the grass, but eventually found his way back to the Hokage.
Just as Naruto had, the Fourth Hokage took his time in responding. But when he did, it was with a smile. "Well, you are asleep aren't you?"
His logic was true, Naruto had to admit. But... "Sasuke said this isn't possible. How can you be teaching me jutsu if this is just a dream?"
The wind stirred up something fierce, blowing the Fourth Hokage's hair all across his face. He paid this little heed however, his focus lingering and remaining upon the bothered Naruto. Then he began to pace, massaging his chin thoughtfully in the process. All the while the wind continued to blow his hair in his way, which bothered him more and more until he could take it no more. "Would you quit it?!"
Naruto flinched in shock. Almost immediately the wind subsided. The Fourth Hokage waited a short time, looking suspiciously out into the emptiness. Then, brushing his hair out of his face, he returned to standing in front of Naruto. He put a hard, intelligent look upon the young boy, and even appeared to run his tongue across his teeth.
"Let me put it to you this way." he raised his hand and showed Naruto the palm, using his other to draw fast and fluid shapes upon it with his finger. He then spoke very, very quickly "The sealing array upon you has been afflicted by alien energies I presume to be magical in nature, judging from what I've been able to survey from the experiences emanating from your higher conscious psyche. It would seem that those magical energies have been absorbed by the sealing array, resulting in some peculiar changes that are not part of the original design. Of these changes, my ability to appear before you is one of them."
With that information overload falling over Naruto like a tidal wave, there was only one response a poorly educated seven year old could offer. "Huh?"
The Fourth Hokage grinned. "You'll understand when you're older." then, as if that was that, he clapped his hands one more time. "Now then, let's see if we can't iron out the kinks on the Transformation Jutsu, shall we?"
* * * * *
[Canterlot Palace]
Night was a time for rest. That was as it had been intended all along. Yet for time longer than nearly anypony could remember it had become host to all kinds of liveliness. Social functions conducted beneath the starry sky, parties thrown by young college mares and colts, lovers taking walks under the pale moonlight. There was always some part of Canterlot that was awake at night. And there was one part of Canterlot that was awake every night. That being the royal palace.
"Nnh... what was in that coffee?"
One of the guards, a white pegasus, looked from the corner of his eye to his associate; a grey unicorn that looked to be not quite well. "I have no idea what you mean." he gruffly replied, scanning the halls with his well tuned vision. "I drank from the same pot and I feel perfectly fine."
The grey unicorn was, like all of the Royal Guard, tough enough to put up with a simple tummy ache and power through. They continued their route of the palace, as always bowing their head in silent greeting to the guards standing outside Princess Celestia's chambers and moving on. Yet they did not get much further than the royal study before the unicorn opened his mouth again.
"By Celestia..." he murmured, wincing in discomfort.
"If you're trying to slack off..." the pegasus was grunting a low warning when he looked at his associate again. The unicorn's legs looked weak, and his head was bowed low. He looked like he was about to be sick. The pegasus sighed in annoyance. "Hurry up and get to the restroom already. We'll meet up outside the library."
The grey unicorn raised his head to his comrade, thinking to refuse his offer and bear with the discomfort. But his stomach gurgled and he knew he hadn't much longer before something unpleasant emerged from at least one of his orifices. "Alright, I won't be long." he groaned, before staggering off to find some toilet to empty himself into.
The white pegasus watched him dryly as he disappeared down one of the stairwells. Once alone he took another thorough scan of both sides of the passageway. Confirming his solitude, he walked towards a window and drew the curtain just enough to get a look outside. He saw the grey unicorn hurrying through the garden to the guard's quarters. Then he cast his vision upward. To the sky.
The stars glistened down on the country, shining as he always remembered them to. He had heard tale that over a millennium ago the night sky had been truly a gorgeous thing to behold. On most nights he would ponder this, but not tonight. On this night, he was searching for something... there!
There, among the threshold of stars, was a single shining beacon brighter than all of its brothers and sisters. Its light dulled and brightened in a peculiar fashion. Thrice to darkness and thrice to light. The white pegasus nodded his head. He understood.
Closing the curtains again he turned around and walked back the way he had come. He made sure to make as little noise as possible as he approached the royal study, checked both his flanks, and then opened the door to enter.
The royal study was as it always was. A miniature of the royal library from the immediate perspective, with only the princess' most needed or most favourite of written works amassed. And like it always was, the curtains were kept open, allowing the full moon to shine through the glass and light up what would otherwise be a pitch black room.
The guard closed the door and crossed the study, his destination precise and accurate. He stopped before the princess' desk and searched through the window at the rooftops beyond. Normally a pair of guards working on a rota would be standing upon those places, watching even the study. Yet he knew for the next few minutes there would be no guards. He was free to go about his business for the time being.
His goal was of course the desk, and the contents that lay within. Quickly yet cautiously he perused the surface, the drawers, and even the secret compartments he should not have known about. He saw a great many thing, things that caught his eye. But eventually he found that which he was looking for, and erased the rest from his memory. A single document; a letter in fact. Raising it to the light, he searched the text for certain key words.
Natural magic... mutagen effect... traits from the pegasus and unicorn races...
Yes, this was the letter he was looking for. The letter he had seen the princess with as he guarded her at the clothing store.
Dropping the letter down on the desk, he reached under his wing to pull out a pen and pad. He then began to copy word for word the exact contents of the doctor's letter. He did not rush. He knew he'd been given exactly the time he would need. All the same he went about his task professionally and was finished in next to no time at all. Once this was done, he put everything back in its proper place. Nopony was ever to know this room had been disturbed.
With what he had come to do here now done, the white pegasus stepped back and looked up to the night sky. He watched as the stars shimmered in an irregular pattern that was nothing more than peculiar to most everypony in Equestria. He was among the small mass to whom this odd thing meant anything at all.
As he surveyed the beauty of the stars, his wings spread out wide and proud. He bowed his head in silent gratitude.
