American Noise

Chapter 1: Angry Words

They say you never know what you have until it's gone. Everyone knows this saying, and I'm no exception. Though, I can't say I expected it to bite me in the butt like this. If I knew I'd wind up in a situation like this, I'd have never left home. It's like in the song Youth of the Nation by P.O.D.

"Last day of the rest of my life
I wish I woulda known 'cause I'd have kissed my momma goodbye
I didn't tell her that I loved her or how much I cared
Or thank my pops for all the talks and all the wisdom he shared."

Oh well, I'm here in a black void and my current status is deceased, so I can't do much about it. Though I can't I really approve of how I got here. Let me start from the beginning to catch you up.

My name is Patrick and I'm nineteen years old. I still live with my mom, or rather, I did before I died. I wouldn't say I'm super good looking, but I look better than most of those idiots at the skate park. My hair is a naturally curly brown mop that is roughly the same shade as my eyes. I stood at about 6'3" and I'm a minor nerd when it comes to video games and anime.

My biggest problem, however, is that I'm lazy. I don't like working unless it's fun, and my schooling has suffered because of it. My school is done online, and at first, I thought this was a good idea since I didn't have to deal with any of the other idiots in the public school that got into arguments about who had a bigger…anyway, this turned out to be a bad idea as the years went on because I eventually stopped going to the school site altogether to go on Youtube and Fanfiction to read some stories. As a result, my grades fell, and I got some heat from my mom about it. Eventually, my mom had enough and we got into a bit of a screaming match.

"Why do you put yourself in these situations?" she always asked.

"I already told you, mom, I don't know!" was my response.

"Then you better damn well figure it out. If you fail this semester, you're getting kicked out of school and you're going straight to the job corps, because I am not supporting a 19-year-old who can't do his f**king school work!"

That was how most of our arguments would end. That is, until one night when something in my mind snapped. My mom had been pulling this threat for about a month, and eventually I had enough.

"You don't want to support me anymore? Then fine! You don't have to. Since you don't care anymore, you can go on with your life! I'm done!"

A slam of the door alerted my mom that I'd left the house. I'd run off and didn't care if she would be screaming at me to come back. I didn't think I'd be going be home for a while, so I brought a few dollars in my wallet, and a backpack with a notebook of ideas, a few snacks, and some extra clothes I'd packed beforehand. I didn't know where I was going, but any place was better than home at that moment. All that mattered was I was away from my mother.

I just continued walking until I came across a bridge just outside of my small town. I did not want to deal with anyone at that time and walking was my way of calming down. The bridge outside of town was one of my favorite spots to go when I needed to blow off some steam. It also served as my hiding spot when I knew someone would be after me.

As you probably guessed, this wasn't my first time going there to be alone. I had gone there multiple times in the past year. Whenever I didn't want to explode at someone, I just went there and looked out at the river as it passed under. It was what usually what calmed me down within ten minutes. However, that didn't seem to be the case this time. During one of my biggest outbursts, I had begun digging a small tunnel underneath so I could hide out if I needed to step out for a few days. I was about halfway done when I ran out of energy and just went home. This time, however, I didn't think I'd leave until it was finished.

Without a word, I went down the small path to the underside of the bridge and straight to the hole about half my length in the slanted ground. I pulled out my iPod, hit shuffle, and began digging. I don't know how long I was digging, but I know that it took at least half an hour for me to get the depth of the hole right before moving on to the width. The songs didn't really do anything good or bad for me, but they did keep my mind off of what made me come out there in the first place. Whenever my mind drifted toward the subject, my digging increased in ferocity, as was my anger renewed.

It wasn't long before I took a break from digging and washed the dirt off my hands in the river. And boy, oh boy, was that water cold! After a few minutes of scrubbing, I managed to get my hands mostly clean. I wiped them on my pants to dry them off before going back to my little hidey hole. Once I reached it, I pulled out my backpack and unzipped it, shifting past the clothes and food and going for my notebook.

It wasn't anything special in terms of design, just a green cover with a few doodles of various symbols from varying video games and anime I'd played or seen. It was the ideas inside it that made it special to me. I'd recently been getting different ideas for stories and one I'd been expanding on in my notebook was about a character that uses his voice to make himself and his allies stronger, though I still lacked a good explanation for why the character is the only one who has it. It was a unique idea to say the least, but I didn't really know how I'd explain it or what section I'd put the story. When I started expanding on certain story elements, I try to figure out how it would sound in different places before settling on one particular universe. For this idea, it was between Naruto, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Sword Art Online, but I figured I'd get to that once I had access to a computer again. I had already begun writing out my plots in the notebook and I felt it would be my best story yet. I just needed to figure out a good name for the character.

I froze when I heard the song playing on my iPod. The lyrics were something that caused me to grit my teeth and fight back tears because of how they applied to me personally. The song was American Noise by Skillet.

Times will be bad
Times will be good
Things I wish I hadn't done and
Some I wish I would
Cutting through the American noise
You've got a voice
And a song to sing

I eventually couldn't take it anymore and curled up into a ball, crying like a baby. As I've quoted before, you never know what you have until it's gone. And I was remembering what I had with my mom, and how I threw it away just because I didn't want to work on school. For the first time since 8th grade, I felt truly alone with no one to turn to. Thinking on it now, I can probably assume this is how Naruto and Sasuke felt because of their lack of a family.

I decided not to dwell on it anymore and wiped my face before switching songs and continuing my digging.

It was another hour before I finished my digging and crawled in for some sleep. I don't know what time it was when I went in, but I knew that I didn't want to be found by anyone anytime soon. So as a precaution, I set a small barrier of dirt at the entrance of my little cave before I sacked out.

There is no word that can perfectly describe how I felt about my dream that night. I was standing in what I recognized to be Konoha, in the Uchiha compound right after Itachi kills the clan. I saw a small girl in a bed, asleep, and a shadow right behind me.

"It's sad to see it actually happened, Itachi," I stated calmly while freaking out in my mind.

"I know you said you didn't want it to end this way," Itachi's shadow replied. "However, there was no other alternative to this. They couldn't be allowed to live just to try and take over the village and fail." I moved my hand down to the little girls face, moving some of her hair behind her ear as she continued sleeping.

"I get it already. Remember, my mind is older than my body. So, are you going to kill me like everyone else?" The shadow shifted down slightly. "If you are, then I must ask you to do one thing before I die." I turned around and looked at his Sharingan. "Let Mina and Sasuke live." Itachi closed his eyes and sighed before pulling out his sword. He opened his eyes and I was greeted with two red eyes with black, three pronged windmills in the middle, aka, the Mangekyo Sharingan.

I jerked awake with a gasp to see it was already morning. The clouds were fairly grey and the rain was coming down hard. So it's gonna be one of those days, huh? I shifted a bit and dug into my backpack for one of my snacks, pulling out a banana. A few minutes later, after chucking the peel away, I crawled out of my hole and shook the dirt off. I didn't know whether or not my mom was really worried about me, but I knew I wouldn't be able to go home as long as I was still mad at her. I instead settled for going back up to the top side of the bridge and sat at the railing. The lyrics from American Noise came into my head again as I looked out to the river. I flipped up the hood on the red sweatshirt I was wearing and kept my thoughts away from why I was at the bridge in the first place.

What was that dream about? I thought. I don't remember any scene like that in the Naruto Manga or anime. Who was I staring at while talking to Itachi? And for that matter, what was up with our conversation? Who the heck is Mina? Many more questions about my dream flooded my head as I tried to make sense of it. I came up with several theories as to what it meant and eventually settled on the most plausible one, which was it was a background scene that was cut from the manga and anime. If what happened in my dream was true to my theory, that left only one question; why did I dream about it? On the bright side, I think I figured out where to put my story idea. I went back down to the underside of the bridge and pulled out my notebook and a pen. In big letters, I wrote 'Naruto story' and began flooding my paper with ideas of how to explain my character's abilities. Various theories and explanations were crossed out because of where I knew the idea would lead me. I eventually settled on a unique type of chakra.

I paused as I heard the sounds of sirens coming from the town and getting closer. Grabbing my backpack, I crawled into my hole and put up the dirt barrier to keep myself hidden. I heard the sirens stop right in front of the bridge before I heard the doors open. Footsteps practically slid down the trail and stopped at the path along the river. I kept absolutely still and held my breath, waiting for the cop to leave. I couldn't come out of my cave until he did.

"I don't think he's here anymore," he said in his walkie-talkie. "We'll have to do a more thorough search later." A garbled response and he was off. That was the longest five minutes of my life. The cop decided to finally head back to his car and drive off. Though I knew he'd be back with a K9 unit soon, if what he said was anything to go by. I didn't feel safe in my little hideout anymore.

I let out a big sigh when I crawled back out of my hole. After stretching out my muscles, I went back to my note and began filling out ideas again.

A few hours later, I heard footsteps coming down the path at a fast pace. It had gotten dark fairly quickly, which surprised me even though it was winter. I looked down the trail and saw a guy wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt, black jeans, and a bandana around his face. He was holding a woman's purse and I could tell he was the wrong kind of guy to be around. He spotted me ahead of him, but he didn't stop. Instead, he picked up speed and as he passed me, elbowed my stomach, sending me over the edge of the bank into the ravine.

You know how people say when you're about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes? Or how time seems to slow down from your perspective? Yeah, neither of those things happened. I just found my head meeting a rock, and my body going into the cold deep water around it, giving me access to the black void I'm in right now. Now you see why I didn't approve of my circumstances.

I'd start complaining about how I don't deserve this kind of punishment for running away from home, but my own actions would've said otherwise. Who knows, maybe I did deserve to die after the crap I pulled with my mom. At least I'm man enough to admit my guilt.

"You weren't ready." I paused in my musings as a voice seemed to come from nowhere.

"Who's there?" I demanded. Hey, cut me some slack, you'd freak out too if you heard voices in a black void.

"You weren't ready to die yet." The voice sounded sad, but at the same time commanding. Though I couldn't tell you what the gender of the voice was worth crap.

"What do you mean I wasn't ready? Why am I here if I'm not supposed to be dead?"

"Seek me out to find the answers you want." With that, a small path became visible and my feet finally felt ground. I don't know how or where it came from, but when I started walking I could've sworn I heard music playing. It was probably my imagination though. I couldn't see anywhere on either side, only the path in front of me. As if it couldn't get weirder, every step I took felt like there was a weight on my back that got heavier and heavier the more I walked.

It was about a half hour before I finally found a light at the end of the path. I tried to run to it, but the weight had grown so heavy that my run was more of a stumbling walk. I was almost to the light when I was blinded by a white glow. When the light died down a bit, my eyes were able to adjust to my now white surroundings. In front of me was a figure dressed in completely white robes. It had with spiky, long, white hair reaching the bottom of the shoulder blades, purple skin, black claw-like fingernails, and a mouth full of pointed teeth that held a knife. I recognized this figure and was scared for my soul. I was staring at the Shinigami from Naruto, the reaper that appears in the reaper death seal.

"Do not be afraid, young one," the death god said calmly.

"It's kinda hard for me to do that when I'm literally staring Death in the face," I managed. Amazing that even when I'm about to wet my non-existent pants, I'm still able to pull off a witty remark.

"I'm only here to offer you a choice." The death god reached into his robes and pulled out a rosary. "If you wish, I can grant you a second chance at your life with more purpose but in a different world from your own." I thought about it for a moment. If I accepted, I wouldn't know where I'd wind up, but at the same time, I'd have more of a purpose. Back home, I didn't do much aside from school, video games, anime, and fanfiction. In the new world, I'd have a bigger purpose than just lazing around.

"Where would I end up? And what would my purpose be once I get there?"

"You will be given a choice of where you wish to go. Every world has its own objective that needs to be fulfilled." I thought about it a little more before asking the big question.

"What happens if I refuse?"

The Shinigami's smile faltered a bit. "If you refuse my offer, you go where your beliefs say you go. Because you are what your world deems a Catholic, you would be tried for your sins since your last trip to a reconciliation chapel and most likely wind up in hell." I paled at that. After thinking it over a little more, I made my final decision.

"So how do I choose my new home?"

He seemed to regain his full grin and pulled a scroll out of his robes, unrolling it. "There are many different worlds for you to choose from, even ones you thought to be fictional. It's quite amazing the influence your world has on ours." I looked at the list of names on the worlds in amazement. I actually felt a little overwhelmed because I'd seen a good number of fanfiction stories like this but I never realized how true they actually were.

After a few minutes of reading, I decided on a world to go to. The Shinigami closed the scroll and placed his hand on my head. I felt myself start to get sleepy as I heard one last thing.

"You'll get your objective when you regain your basic motor functions. Just crawl towards the light at the end of the tunnel."

I don't know how long I was out for, but I do know that after my encounter with the Shinigami, the black void was back. When I woke up, I immediately felt cramped, like I was in a bag of some sort. I moved around a bit, trying to stretch out, but I couldn't move very much without feeling something press slightly against the wall. After a few more failed attempts at stretching, I managed to poke a hole in my prison. I felt the pressure on the wall again and heard what sounded like muffled speech from outside. I ignored the speech in favor of spotting the light at the end of the tunnel, as mentioned by the death god. The path seemed to line up for me toward the light, and I wasted no time going for it.

The light seemed to get brighter as I got closer, but I also noticed my tunnel was getting a little smaller as I continued to go. The light was my goal, though, and I wasn't going to let claustrophobia ruin my chances of a new life. I soon reached my goal and managed to get my head through. The bright light blinded me as I slowly got the rest of my body through, landing into a pair of huge, latex covered hands. I open my eyes and saw a completely white ceiling behind a head wearing a white hood and mask with a metal plate across the forehead. If I was told I was gonna get grabbed as soon as I got my new life, I would've prepared a bit more.

So I did the only thing I could do in this situation; I screamed my head off.

A/N: The first sentence of dialogue in this chapter is an excerpt from an actual argument with my mom. Anyways, I got the inspiration for this one from many different stories on here. This will be slightly different from those stories and may turn into a series. Not certain on the series bit though. I will keep the content original and canon where it's necessary. However, this will be different from the stereotypical self insert Naruto fic. You'll find out how in later chapters.