Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart
Part 2
By Mieren


Naruto woke up, feeling extremely disoriented and nauseated. He blinked slowly focusing eyes up at a half rotted wooded ceiling, pushing a little at the heavy blankets wrapped around him. Immediately, he heard movement beside him.

“I think he’s awake!” a soft caring voice chimed. Naruto frowned. The voice was too gentle to be Sakura and didn’t stammer enough to be Hinata. Who was she?

“About time,” someone muttered darkly in a flat tone. “Get up, baka.”

Ah, Naruto thought gleefully, that had to be Sasuke. Rolling his head to the side, he discovered three things instantly. One, the person calling him an idiot wasn’t Sasuke, but a cobalt eyed brunette he didn’t recognize. Two, the woman with a sweet voice was a blond boy, very feminine looking, but definitely male. And three, something was grossly wrong with his hair. His hand flew to the back of his head and he gripped a long plaited mass of hair. He pulled it around to look at it. It was a braid, easily three feet long and anything but his natural hair color, a honey gold brunette where he was used to a sunny blond.

“Your braid is fine, baka,” a new voice said, condescending and cold. Naruto glanced over at an Asian boy with his arms folded across his chest. Confused and nervous, he asked a neutral question, trying not to give away his vulnerable position.

“Where am I?” Naruto asked carefully.

“We’re in a safe house,” the sweet blond said, cutting the other two off from sniping answers.

That didn’t help. “How did I get here?” Naruto tried again.

“Trowa brought you here after you self-destructed Deathscythe,” the blond answered.

Self-destruct? Deathscythe? Naruto stalled, completely baffled and out of his league. They obviously expected him to know what they were talking about, so he nodded placidly.

Deciding that the obscure line of questioning was safe to continue, he plowed forward. He wanted information, but he was smart enough not to give himself away to potentially dangerous strangers. The boy with cobalt eyes was rather disturbing.

“How long have we been here?””

“Don’t worry, Duo. You’ve only been unconscious for a few hours,” the blond soothed.

Naruto nodded again. So they thought he was someone named ‘Duo’ did they? Considering the braid still in his hands, he wasn’t overly surprised. Somewhere along the way, a jutsu must have gone wrong. He wasn’t entirely sure what all that entailed yet, but he was aware that he looked like someone else. Who the other people were, he didn’t know, but they thought they knew him. Sensing eyes on him, he looked up, worried when he saw that the two more unsettling boys in the room were eyeing him suspiciously. He had done something wrong and attracted their attention.

Naruto was saved from figuring out what he had done wrong when a fourth boy entered the room. The newcomer had a hairstyle as impossible as Kakashi’s, brunette hair falling determinedly into impressive bangs that obscured half of his face.

“Oz has found us. We need to leave,” Bangs said succinctly. The other three nodded and fell into a set pattern to evacuate.

Baffled, Naruto swung out of the bed, momentarily glancing at his black clothes. The more he heard and saw, the worse he was confused. Now he had something or someone called ‘Oz’ to add to his ever-growing list of things he didn’t understand. Where was he?

The Asian boy grabbed his elbow and forcibly helped him stand. Naruto allowed himself to be dragged, still not knowing what to do.

“My bike is out front,” the raven-haired boy said tersely. “Are you well enough to ride?”

Ride a bike? He had seen bicycles and he knew how to ride one, but he didn’t know why they would want him to do such a thing. He could run faster. Besides, he didn’t know where he was or where he was supposed to go.

Flustered, Naruto went for a universal excuse that should get him out of almost anything involving coordination or memory.

“No,” he answered slowly. “I think I have a concussion.” That should cover everything.

“Are you ever not in the way?” the oriental boy snapped.

“You can ride with me,” the blond offered before Naruto could respond irately. Naruto tried to calm down and settled for an incensed huff. He only belatedly realized that he might be blowing his cover and was relieved to note that no one seemed suspicious of his temperamental behavior. Apparently Duo was a high-strung individual as well.

Still not sure if he was in entirely friendly hands, he kept his trap shut and pointedly ignored whatever else they had to say to him, letting the insults from the two of the touchier boys pass over him. He was tuning them out so fully as they walked that he missed a question aimed at him.

“Baka!” the cobalt-eyed boy growled. “Pay attention for once. Did you or did you not destroy the base?”

Naruto almost missed a step. Shit. More things he didn’t know that he was apparently supposed to. All four of the other teenagers were staring at him as his jaw worked.

“I don’t remember,” he stammered.

“Could you be any stupider?” the oriental boy sighed.

Before Naruto could begin yelling at him or the blond could try to diffuse the upcoming fight, they reached a place outside that was previously not visible while traveling. Naruto’s eyes lifted up, and up, until he could fully take in the metal monstrosities in front of him. Instincts and training kicked in and he lunged back, reaching for a kunai that wasn’t there.

“What the fuck are those?” Naruto yelped. He was instantly faced with four similar hand-held metal instruments that he didn’t recognize either. The things were blunt but he received the distinct impression from the grim looks on the other boys’ faces that they were extremely dangerous. He raised his hands in surrender. “Concussion?” he offered helplessly.

“He’s lying,” the blond stated, suddenly turning on him. Naruto gaped, not understanding the sudden change in attitude towards him from the one that he had targeted as the most friendly and trusting of the lot.

“Who are you?” the cobalt-eyed boy demanded, shoving the metal device against Naruto’s forehead. His thumb pulled back something that clicked. Naruto decided that it was not a good noise.

“My name is Naruto Uzumaki,” he said quickly, wary of the unknown weapon. “I woke up and you had me. I’m just trying to figure out where I am and how to get home.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” the blond asked, seeming to calm down again. At the very least, he had put away his weapon. Naruto would have given him a flat look had he been able.

“Because you seemed to know me and I didn’t want this to happen if I said something!” he answered irately, jerking his eyes upwards to the weapon jammed to his forehead threateningly. He was preparing to vanish with the Replacement Technique when the weapon was suddenly lowered.

“Fine,” the cobalt-eyed boy said, voice sounding strained. “But you’re staying with us. You can’t leave after what you’ve seen.”

“Okay,” Naruto agreed hesitantly. He’d submit to being a hostage temporarily if he got answers.

The cobalt-eyed brunette stalked off towards one of the huge metal… things. He slowed to hiss something to the blond, so softly that Naruto was sure he hadn’t been supposed to hear what he had said. His hearing was so acute that he heard the question anyways.

“You said he might have other personalities similar to Shinigami. Is this one of them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Naruto blinked bemusedly. Who were these people? Did they really still think he was Duo? Or was Duo just completely nuts and no one could tell the difference? Not entirely sure what to think about his so-called captors, he started after the blond, watching discretely as the other two boys followed him with their odd weapons for a few seconds before putting them away as well. He didn’t really like approaching the huge metal… whatever it was… but since the blond didn’t seem worried, he tried to follow the example. If the weaker boy wasn’t scared of it, then he decided that he shouldn’t be either.

Naruto watched the others fan out towards the enormous… things. He couldn’t help staring when one by one they hissed and small openings formed in about the middle of what looked like oversized suits of armor. His eyes became huge. Surely they weren’t going to ride in those things?

A line lowered from the towering figures they were nearest. The small blond snagged the line with one hand, reaching out for Naruto with the other. He approached with caution, gripping the line delicately and eyeing a small platform the blonde’s feet were placed on. Naruto eyed the small foothold skeptically.

“And it goes back up?” he asked.

“Yes, D… Naruto,” the blond said indulgently. Naruto tugged at the line to check if it was secure. The blond sighed. “It’s fine.”

Naruto grunted, not liking the idea of being dragged up into the metal suit. Muttering a curse, he leapt for the line and drew himself higher in a hand-over-hand technique. He was over halfway up the climb when he heard vulgar swearing and a rapid whining noise. He looked over at the odd sound, spotting the cold cobalt-eyed teen moving upwards as his line retracted. The brunette looked extremely mad for some reason. Even with the speed of the cable, the brunette was far behind in reaching their goal. Naruto hadn’t slowed in his climbing, eager to get somewhere more stable than a moving cable. He was happy to reach the unfolded hatch and sit on it to wait for the blond to follow. Across from him, he saw the pissy-looking brunette had his weapon out again and was pointing it at him, only hesitating when he saw Naruto placidly lazing on the door. A moment later, the blond was beside him, looking worried and decidedly harassed.

“Don’t do that!” the blond scolded. “And since when could you do that?”

“Since when could you not?” Naruto countered. “It’s not exactly like it’s hard.”

The blond hesitated. “I’ve just never seen you do that before.”

“Bah,” Naruto said dismissively, more interested in peeking at the controls. He’d never seen so many buttons and levers collected in one place. He was tempted to tinker with them but kept his hands to himself. There was no telling what he would break. His brow furrowed when he noticed how small the area was. “Where do I sit?”

“Behind the chair. There are no riding straps, so you’ll just have to hold on,” the blond said.

Grumbling, Naruto wedged himself behind the seat, extremely cramped for space. The blond settled into the seat, strapping himself in intensely and sliding a pair of goggles onto his face. Naruto was a little worried for his safety if the other boy was taking so many precautions. When the hatch started to close, he panicked, slightly claustrophobic.

“How long will we be in here?”

“Relax,” the blond said, hearing the strain in his passenger’s voice. “We just need to move. We shouldn’t get into any dogfights.”

That didn’t help his nerves. Fight? In these things? The situation got infinitely worse when the engines kicked on and the monitors flickered awake, showing proof that the huge machine was lifting off the ground. Full-fledged panic set in and he did what came naturally to him when his life was threatened. He reached for Kyuubi…and found nothing.

The monitors showed that they were above cloud level and still rising. Almost insane from fear, he began grasping wildly inside him for the fox’s power. No red chakra met his desperate efforts, but flicks of black trailed under his questing mind.

“Calm down!” the blond gasped, one hand clutched to his chest. “You’re hurting me!”

Naruto was beyond listening. His new braid was beginning to float beside him and the thought of weightlessness finished snapping him. He latched onto the black energy inside him and claimed it as his own. The blond let out another pained cry and slumped forward, unconscious, accidentally falling onto the controls and sending them into a sharp dive.

Two sharp metal collisions sounded immediately, showing two of the metal giants latching onto either side of the falling pair, correcting their path. One of the screens flashed to an image of the cobalt-eyed boy that seemed eternally ticked about something.

“Winner! Status!” he barked. “Quatre, are you conscious?” He cursed under his breath, but Naruto caught it anyways. It was so foul that it would make the perverted frog hermit gag. “Damn it! What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Naruto wailed. “I didn’t touch him!”

Cobalt eyes narrowed. He could obviously see and hear him, and something he saw upset him. He turned his head to look at something else, another of his screens. Naruto heard the word ‘Shinigami’ before the screen he had been staring at went black.

Naruto tried to calm down by focusing on something else, anything else. They had said ‘Shinigami’ again. That meant ‘God of Death’ didn’t it? Very slowly, he lifted the edge of his shirt, desperately hoping to find a familiar seal, praying that Shinigami was a new name for Kyuubi. No such luck. There was no seal and the chakra was completely wrong. In fact, it felt untouched.

Naruto’s mind slowly shut down at the flood of information he didn’t really care for. He was in the wrong body with a new demon, this time without a seal to protect him, and he was surrounded by technologically advanced strangers in what appeared to be space. Strangers with weapons and short tempers who didn’t seem to like him. Even worse, without Kyuubi, he wasn’t sure he could defend himself. That only brought up another disturbing thought. Where was Kyuubi? Was the fox still in his body and could the new host of his body control him? A panicked giggle slipped past his lips. His final thought formed before he lost consciousness from the stress.

I wonder if Kakashi will believe I’m late because I was abducted by body-snatching aliens?

To Be Continued…
Just for grins since the prologue was so short, an addition. R&R!