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The glass rain continued to pour onto the ground until there was silence.

Several seconds passed. Then several minutes. Still silence.


Naruto slowly opened his eyes, staring at his reflection in the clear dark stagnant water. As he moved his hands away from his head and stood up, Naruto examined his arms and legs. Nothing. No injury. There was no sign of the glass that rained down on his body or in this room.

This room!

Naruto's eyes widened, examining the new room he was in. It was nothing like the dark corridors he was in earlier except for the pipes in the walls. It was a large spacious square room which appeared to have no exit. There was light in this room, but he couldn't find the source. However, the first thing that had caught his attention when he turned around was a humongous gate with a piece of paper between the two doors. After several attempts at jumping for the damn thing, Naruto knew his attempts would yield no fruit.

Failing that, Naruto tried reading the slip of paper only to find that he was unfamiliar with that specific kanji. The gate seemed to be the only way out of this large room and the bars of the gate were spaced enough that he could fit through easily.

Something, though, was making him feel uneasy about approaching the gate. Even just being near the thing gave him shivers and goosebumps. He bravely took a step inside and found himself moments later on the opposite side of the wall with no recollection on what happened. He felt tired and cold and wanted to curl up and hide.

Though Naruto didn't know it at the time, the lingering fear in his mind would prevent entry past the gate. His mind knew at that point that no matter what he did, he would not be able to get out through that way and immediately discarded any hope for that gate. For Naruto, it was simply impossible, but he could still try to find other ways out.

The sound of coughing, not from he, had suddenly directed his attention to his left. In the corner of that room, a man with dirty blonde hair was holding the temple of his head as if he had a headache. The most striking thing about him was the color of his eyes, deep violet, which incidently matched the color of his kimino. His left hand was in the folds of his kimino while the arm it was attached to had a Konoha headband tied to it. Several pieces of paper, similar to the unreadable one on the door, were attached to the man's waist.

Strangely enough, several had the word kunai on them while the other had odd things such as yo-yo and fire.

Naruto stared at the new addition to the room with a strange look on his face before it turned into one of anger.

"Oi, teme! I suggest you get me out of here or else the Hokage will be looking for me," threatened Naruto, a finger pointing at the strange man.

The man stared at Naruto with a raised eyebrow before staring at the room he was in with some shock and some morbid fascination. He ignored Naruto as he walked past him to the large forboding gate in front of him. Eyes stared into the deep darkness, apparantly unaware of the child running at him with a fist outstretched in both desperation and anger.

Thud.

"Wait...what just happened...", thought Naruto.

Naruto found himself lying supine on the ground, the water soaking his backside. More importantly, the man in front of him was over him, pointing a kunai at his neck. He definitely peed himself as he felt a warm feeling counteracting that of the cold. However, the man paid no notice as he released the kunai off Naruto's neck before standing up again, walking back to his corner before asking with a ragged voice.

"How old are you?"

Naruto blinked and then blinked again before yelling, "You kidnap me and then ask me how old I am!? Who the hell are you?!" He quickly went to his feet and assumed a make-shift fighting stance.

That man was not going to get him again.

Thud.

Again, Naruto found himself on the ground with the man standing over him, an expression of confusion marring his face. He again stared at the walls and the large ominous gate in front of him before turning his back to Naruto.

"Put more weight on your back leg.", mummured the man before he returned to looking around. He stared at Naruto again with his violet eyes, making Naruto uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

"I did not kidnap you. I'm as surprised as you are...to see you here," the man rasped. An appearance of worry appeared on his face as he stared at the gate before asking, "How old are you?" The intensity of his voice was soft but intimidating. The man stared at the young Naruto again.

"I'm eight. And why are you asking me this? Don't you want to know my na...", Naruto replied as he averted his eyes from the strange man.

"You're Uzumaki Naruto and...", the man coughed, "you aspire to be Hokage. You like ramen." The man paused before continuing, "Because everyone overprices everything else and Ichiraku holds the only restaurant that will actually serve you... The four people you care deeply about are Ayame-chan, Iruka-san, Ichiraku-san, and Hokage-sama." He tapped his foot in the water, waiting for the look of shock to dissipate from Naruto's face.

Naruto pointed frantically, "Are you..like..spying on me?" He took several steps back before realizing something that the man was wrong about. "Wait, who's Iruka-san?" His eyes glared at the man again, scrutinizing if the man wanted to actually cause him harm.

The man rose an eyebrow before adding, "Umino Iruka. Your academy instructor?" He closed his eyes before saying, "No...your current homeroom teacher is Mizuki-san. Am I correct?"

Naruto nervously moved back as he looked over the man, "Yeah...", he hesitantly replied before he added more enthusastically, "He's going to kick your a** when he finds you, but he might be nice to you if you let me go." Naruto stood more defiantly at his captor. "NOW, WHO ARE YOU?!"

The man simply replied with a "Hnn", reminding Naruto of a certain raven-haired jerk, before he moved towards the gate again, trying to see through the dark depths. As he moved a hand towards a bar, he said, "I am..." He was unable to finish as the glowing piece of paper suddenly shined with an intense yellow light, blasting both the man and Naruto with that same shining blaze.

The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes to ward off the brightness was the man being wrapped around by bright yellow light with some sort of oozing red light peeking through the yellow.

---

Naruto's eyes winced as a bright light shined deep into them and he was aware of something rodlike poking into his back. He turned over away from the offending object to only feel his nose collide into something hard.

"Ow! What the?"

His hands covered his bruised nose, rubbing the top of it in a poor attempt to allay the pain. He fumbled left and right angrily on the cool hard floor, bumping into various other things including the one that caused this incident in the first place.

His eyes attempted to get acclimated to his new surroundings...to only find himself back in familiarity. The large sofa in the back of the room, the staticy noise that all TVs make when not tuned in, the leg of an upturned chair which dug into his back, and the table smashing his nose inwards.

Was it all just a dream? Everything?

He tentatively lifted himself off from the hardwood floor, still holding his nose with his left hand. His right hand moved to his backside and his legs.

Well...his back and feet aren't wet...

Tick...tock...tick...tock...

Ears finally picked up on the typical noises of a clock, causing Naruto to stare at the small watch under the table. After holding his head with his hands, Naruto said in a bare whisper.

"Only three hours?"

His legs took him to the broken window and he stared into the view. The moon and the stars were still plastered on the navy blue sky with no sign that the sun will ever come. The sounds of the forest and the village were non-existant, man and beast asleep at this hour. The only sign of human existence is the lit fire which Naruto can barely see at the upper corner of his window.

He moved to the sofa, his heart pumping adrenaline throughout his body. That couldn't possibly be a dream. It was so vivid. He could feel the water down his back and ankles. The strain of his eyes as it tried to see in darkness. The cool metallic touch of the pipes on his hands. The feeling of an immovable object colliding in his ankle and the subsequent fall. Getting slammed into the water...twice.

That wasn't real?

Naruto reached for the remote which had made its way to the sofa after he woke up. The TV's screen flickered before turning back into a foggy distorted mirror. He then placed the remote down on the floor before sitting cross-legged with a look of concentration distorting the features of his young face.

He had been in pain before everything happened. Though he couldn't remember the pain exactly, he remembered that it was the most pain he had ever felt and that included the lady who beat him upon the head yelling "Demon" on his birthday. That was real. He could even feel his body shudder at the memory of it.

However, was the time in the sewers real?

His clock had said that three hours had passed. When he was in there, it felt like days where he was trapped in

that small confining shrinking darkening strangling crushing....


Naruto took a deep breath and held it as he tried to stop his rapid breathing. He relaxed his fists whose knuckles had turned into a ghostly white. He forced himself to relax his arms, his legs, and all the other muscles which had turned tense.