Disillusioned

Chapter 1: Lost in translation

I crashed onto the bed, head swimming. I didn't ordinarily stay up late, much less drink, but what the hey. I was thirteen, and the getting was good.

Literally, I got at least a six-pack of beer, from some blond in my class who was so high I doubted he would remember me. Like every teenager, I wanted to know the lay of the land when it came to my body – and alcohol was an easy question. Who was I to refuse?

Well, my dad would yell his head off, but that's what dads do. Besides, I didn't have to worry about him today, I got a call – he wouldn't be back until the next weekend.

He worked a good fifty miles away, and he was behind on his work. He had to impress a client, there was an opportunity for a big contract if he worked quickly.

So much for relaxing at the pub on Friday, he'd be lucky if he got back on Sunday. If nothing else, my dad was a hard worker.

Anyway, what happened earlier today. I went down to a party, but no one I knew was there, so it didn't take me even half an hour later to get bored. My dad rang, so I quickly went outside and answered.

And then the classmate showed up, clearly drunk, stumbled in the front door of 'partah house', and two minutes later stumbled out, still clutching the beer.

"Hey, Ameh… I'm not allowed alcohol, sooo… I was thinking you take it. Yeah? See ya."

And then he was gone, stumbling back into the so-called party.

I put down the phone, frowned at the beer, and on impulse picked it up, still in the canvas bag. No one would notice it was beer, not if I kept it in the bag, so I went home.

Now I was home, and the beer glinted at me. I doubted it was high quality, but the lower it was, the rougher it would hit my liver, right?

Then I'd know if I could handle my drink. Last thing I wanted was bingeing at a party and finding out I upchucked on the second mouthful. Cool factor = negative two million.

Curiosity killed the cat, but still, let no one say I wasn't smart – I looked up alcohol poisoning, overdosing on drink, warning symptoms. I might've been a teenager, acting on impulse, but no reason to kill myself. I must've stared at the case of cold beer for ten minutes.

Let's see how I handle drink.

I popped the first bottle.

Third bottle, and I was beginning to get hazy. My vision was wobbling, but I felt heavy, in a good way. Like just before you go to sleep, you feel all warm and too heavy to move. Pleasantly sluggish.

I wondered whether I was going to have a hangover tomorrow. I stood up, grabbing a glass of water, and swallowed quickly. Chasers made it easier, right?

My vision wobbled sharply, and I stumbled, grabbing the wall. Maybe three bottles was enough for now. But I wasn't going to get another pack of six, and that meant I only had three bottles, right? I couldn't check if this was my limit unless I had more than three bottles; I'd have to get more.

I picked up the fourth bottle.

The taste was dulled, and I decided that was it. Four bottles was fine. My stomach was only so big.

I dropped the bottle onto the carpet and moved to the bathroom, with difficulty getting some more water and chugging it. Water was meant to clean your system, but to be honest… it just made me feel more bloated.

"Well, that wash depreshsing," I said out loud, blinking as I realised how slurred my voice was. "Oh gawd. Never am I gonna hash it again."

I stood back to my feet, the room swaying. "I'm gonna go sto bed."

I stumbled back to my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. With the heavy, awkward sensation, it was a relief to lie down. The room swayed, so I shut my eyes, but that didn't really help. It felt like I was on a roundabout.

"Screw thish."

I was going sober from now on. This was awful. I blinked at my phone, trying to distract myself.

Oh yeah, today is a Thursday, new episode of Naruto out. I had read the manga, but let no one say anime couldn't show a fight scene in more detail.

The Uchiha Madara episode?

Git rekt, army.

I grinned. Such unladylike thoughts. But now, I can actually blame the booze for it. Booze was meant to make things funnier, being tipsy. Hmm… maybe I should put on a comedy, see if it was actually true. I hit my favourite anime site. What was that comedy I meant to watch? Everyday Life? I put on the first episode of Nichijou.

It was so damn ridiculous… I giggled at it, then I was laughing, helplessly. Booze didn't make things better, but it did sort of… tilt it a bit. Instead of being my usual quiet self, I just felt like I should let it all out, felt like releasing. Maybe that's why people socialised with it, you reveal more.

Thankfully, I wasn't nauseous. I would've called off drinking then and there for life if I was. After a few more episodes, I felt tired, and I just dropped off to sleep.

I woke up and my head was pounding. Shit.

Wait, is that…?

A figure was standing in the corner of my bedroom. I blinked at it, trying to work out if it was my imagination.

It was a grey-haired kid. He looked younger than me, but he wasn't from my class. I rolled my eyes. Duh, no one in my class had grey hair. Anyway, no sane kid would break into someone's house and stare out of the window. I remember, one of the symptoms of alcohol poisoning… it was hallucinating.

But let no one say I was going to be one of those idiots who ignores what they see. I slowly sat up. "Who are you?"

The figure's head snapped around. I caught a glimpse of a long scarf around his head. In an instant, he had jumped onto me, pinning me onto the bed.

Most people would be scared about now… but me? "Oh god. Get off, I'm gonna puke."

The kid looked bewildered. "Nani? Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?"

"FUCKING GET OFF ME!" I yelled, kicking him where it hurts. Fucking Kakashi cosplayer burgling shit. I stumbled up, but the nausea was too much, and I hurled all over the floor.

"Oh god." I spat on the floor, getting the dregs out. Unsurprisingly, I didn't feel much better now my room stank. "Who the fuck are you?"

I don't swear. I don't. I never do, in fact. Only when something that is impossible happens, do I swear in response. Since they never happen, I never swear.

"Hai?" He blinked at me. Whatever damage I did to his man bits didn't seem to be taking effect yet. Had I actually hit there? Or had I hit his legs? …Or his brain?

"Oh. Wait. Oh…" I blinked back at him, gears slowly turning. "Don't you speak English?"

"Hai? Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?"

"Uh…" Nihongo was Japanese, right? He was asking if I spoke Japanese.

"No," I said sharply, sluggish brain gears not helping much. I grabbed my phone, hopping onto Google Translate. The bright screen hurt my eyes. "Who are you? Um… Eigo wa dekimasu ka? [Do you speak English?]"

The boy looked blank. "Eigo? Nanidesu? Wakaranimasen."

"Shit," I breathed. What is this? A dream? No, a dream wouldn't have me hurling, or have words I didn't recognise. Still, I could get points across. It's not like every mute person died.

I pointed at the floor, then at him, then made a scrubbing motion.

He looked horrified, and put his hands together, awkwardly making hand seals. Duh, a Kakashi cosplayer, of course he'd…

"Make your fancy seals all you want. I'll get a cloth, once I got this jank taste out of my mouth." I made my way to the bathroom, shoving him out the way, and chugged some water, getting the taste out of my mouth. My stumbling had decreased, I noted.

Wait what, the vomit has gone. Completely. Chances of this being a very odd dream were going from almost none to almost definite.

He was jumping out the window. Oh hell no, like I was letting this touch of supernatural out of my life. I dived forward, grabbing him, and he gave a yelp of surprise as he overbalanced, ending up with him dangling from the window with my arms firmly wrapped around his legs.

"Hottoite!" he yelped.

I racked my brains, trying to work out how to tell him to come back in my meagre Japanese. "Chotto matte!"

Surprisingly, he listened. Well, he stopped struggling, anyway. "Hottoite, onegaishimasu."

"No," I said firmly as I pulled him back in. "Stop whining. You're here and it's the first damn time anything out of the ordinary has happened in my life. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Nani? Nante iimashita ka?"

"Shut up," I told him pleasantly, then I smirked, finally remembering the Japanese term, "Urusai!"

His eyes were wide. Well, his one revealed eye was. I grabbed his scarf and swiftly pulled it off his head, only to have him shut both eyes, scrabbling for the scarf back. "Yamate!"

"No! Urusai!" I felt a bit like a tsundere, to be honest. That was practically that Shakugan no Shana girl's catchphrase. We both grappled, but he was blind, so I managed to toss it onto my bed and he grabbed at my empty hands before scowling in realisation, eyes still shut.

"If you're a Kakashi cosplayer, why are you using a scarf?"

His frown got worse. "Kakashi ga ni!"

"Then who are you? Um… Nasi desu?"

"…" He didn't reply.

I couldnt remember the word for 'name'. "Fine." I pinned his arms and tried to pry open his left eye.

"YAMATE!" He yelled urgently, squirming and shaking me off. I quickly grabbed the bed, using it to keep my weight on him. He got his hands free as I grabbed my phone. "What are you…"

He was making more hand seals, so I grabbed his hands, putting my own in the way. "YOU yamate."

"Eieh!" he exclaimed, and it took me a couple of seconds to work out he was saying no. Japanese was such a weird language.

'Man, if my dad came home now…' I blinked. Hold on, why was he in my bedroom? Was it even safe to let him go? He was a teenage boy in a teenage girl's bedroom. And apparently he had chakra.

I eventually concluded it was probably safe. He hadn't attacked me while I was upchucking, and he was obviously intimidated by me. Maybe he thought I could use chakra too?

At any rate, he wasn't attacking me, just desperately trying to get his hands free to make seals for whatever jutsu he wanted to use.

"Yamate," I told him, trying to sound like I was going to cry. With his eyes shut, I didn't have to waste effort expressing it on my face.

His eyes twitched, and his expression changed, score one for me. "Onegaishimasu…" he said pleadingly, gesturing at his left eye.

I frowned. I was very curious now. If he wasn't Kakashi… well, that would explain at least why he was getting overpowered by a girl with no chakra. Kakashi was a jounin as a teenager, right? So what doujutsu did this guy have if he wasn't Kakashi?

I sighed and rolled off him. He immediately clasped his left hand to his normally-hidden left eye, holding it shut as he opened his right eye.

"Fine," I told him resignedly. "But you stay. Stay."

He blinked at me, scratching his head sheepishly. "Gomenasai, wakarimasen deshita?"

"Um…" I hit the ol' Google Translate, with him watching me use the phone interestedly. "Um, taizai."

"Nasi desu?"

"Taizai. Matte."

He nodded, frowning. "Made nani?"

"Matte," I repeated absently, tapping furiously. He said 'Kakashi ga ni', which meant he wasn't Kakashi, but... it sounded like he knew who Kakashi was.

So, I didn't know anyone who looked like Kakashi bar the man himself in the Narutoverse. Which left three possibilities: He was either completely separate from Naruto, despite the hand seals... or it was a non-canon universe... or, there was a fairly good chance he was my imagination and this hallucination was ridiculously realistic. I've had dreams like that before. As far as I knew Kakashi never became a father, or even went on a real date. Well, there was that episode with Hanare. I shipped that for a while.

But in any case, he had supernatural clean-up techniques of some sort... and he was in my bedroom.

"How did you get here?" I asked, but he just looked at me confusedly.

I sighed, feeling the adrenaline begin to drain into weariness. I didn't want to let him out of my sight, but I could hardly sleep in the same bed as him.

How can I talk to him? Google can only do so much. It doesn't know languages, it just knew how phrases translated, and strung them together. Chances are it'd be inaccurate.

A thought struck me. Maybe I should call the police. I reanalysed the random person in my house who had jumped me. That… should probably have occurred to me earlier. But ol' silver-hair here seems like he's more scared of me than I am of him.

Silver pointed at himself then at the window.

"No. Matte," I told him.

He sighed resignedly, collapsing onto the floor. I scratched my head, then quickly pulled up a picture of the Konoha headband. "Do you recognise this?"

He looked up, frowning at it. "Watashiwa Konoha shinobi ga ni."

"Rightttt…" I said slowly. My head was starting to spin again. I wanted to sleep, but I didn't want Silver to vanish. If only I had a pair of handcuffs, or some sort of Vulcan knockout move. It's pretty hard to play damsel in distress to get your way when you're snoozing away in your own house.

Of course, I could always be straight with him… if that would work.

I tried to put myself in his shoes. Strange language, strange world, strange girl… he was a long way from home.

Bingo. I tapped busily into the translator. "Um, watashiwa anata no yoru ni… neru basho o teikyoo shimasu…"

He looked puzzled and I cursed again. I showed him the screen and he read the kanji off it, his face clearing up a bit, before he looked at me. "Anata wa watashi ga koko de nete moraou ka? …Naze?"

"Uh… watshiwa…" I fumbled in my memory for what 'I'm nice' would be. "…sutekina?" I finished uncertainly.

His face paled, but I was done. Forget this. It's like working with a deaf person. Worse. No offence to deaf people, but I was not eloquent with sign language either. At least I wouldn't even try with sign language.

My head was pounding. If he left, whatever. Worst he could do was confuse someone else or kill himself leaving via the window, breaking his legs and dying of blood loss. Protagonists never die anyway.

Despite the scenario it only took me a couple of minutes to start drifting off. Hangover drowsiness plus adrenaline expiring was powerful stuff.

"It was just fine, we lived in peace, looked to a happy ending…"

I grabbed my phone and shut off the alarm, gritting my teeth. So much for the headache going. It was all the worse. Damn it. On a damn Friday.

That song was noisy and jarring… that's why I had it as my second alarm. That meant I had to rush to get the bus on time. I liked the song, but metal was a good way to jar you out of peaceful sleep.

I got up, quickly dressing, muttering curse words under my breath. I nearly slipped over my own vomit and swore even harder. Hadn't that gone? Didn't I clean it up yesterday?

No… I hallucinated some weird Japanese Kakashi cosplayer doing it. No wonder.

My dad would be back next weekend, but my room would stink to high heaven if I left it until after school. I hurried to get ready and clean it up. Febreeze would only go so far.

"Oh ostriches." I ran out the door, combing my hair frantically.

As the bus pulled up, I sighed in relief. I have my purse, I have my phone, my earphones, front door key… it's good.

I get on the bus, take a random seat on my own, then start to drag my comb through my hair… and then froze as a voice hit me.

"Oh look, it's that slut from down the street."

"I hear you sucked off a guy for five bucks." His sister smirks, sprawling beside me and cutting off my escape route.

"Who invited you to the party?"

"You look like shit."

"She always looks like shit."

"Hey, how about you suck me off and I'll go find something else to do."

I grit my teeth in anger, my headache pushing me over the edge."For fuck's sake, Toby. I wouldn't suck your dick for a grand, even if I could fucking find it."

"Ohhhh shit." Toby's sister sneers at him. "She's got a fucking point there."

Toby slaps me across the face, roughly. I block it with my arm but he keeps on hitting, both hands, flurry of awkward rage. His sister just smirks and leans back, blocking off my escape route.

"You won't be saying that shit when I've cut you up, bitch."

I was dimly aware this was the stupidest thing I'd done in a while and his bullying would hit an all high from this.

Fuck no am I letting him get away with it now that I'm resisting. There's five of them, but only Toby is actually hitting me, the rest didn't appear that interested.

With adrenaline accuracy, I plant a fist right into his face, sending him back and across the guys sat opposite. Man, that felt good.

Finally the bus driver notices and pulls over. "Will you twats sit down?!"

Toby looks like he's going to jump right back at me. I stick my tongue out at him. It's childish as you get, but he takes the bait, and half a minute later the driver chucks him off, much to the mocking laughter of his sister and his 'friends'.

He's fuming as we drive past. It's brilliant. And I know it was a big mistake.

I turn to look at his sister. She grins, pats me on the shoulder roughly for the show and heads back to the rear of the bus, crew in tow. "You're gonna get it later."

She found Toby a bit of a wannabe, but she didn't like me either. I was shocked she wasn't just taking his place right now and pummelling me. I guess I had something to look forward to after school. I'd have to hide in the school library again during break too.

Well, today was looking to be a headache already. Speaking of which, I still had a hangover headache. Grreaattt. Thanks, genius brain. You could've just left it, but noooooo, had to go and escalate it.

Toby was smaller than me but not by much, and if I did manage to put him down in a fight, I'll get him on my case for the rest of the week. If I put him down too hard his gang would just take over.

I wasn't sure if being rude to me was just something he did to be cruel, because I wasn't popular, or because he was trying to macho tease me. He was clearly socially stunted if he hanged around his sister. Even if your siblings are cool, you don't hang around them constantly. You make your own friends.

I slump back in the seat, resigned to my fate.

Come lunch break, no sign of Toby, but I scurry to the safety of the library anyway. While the librarian wasn't thought of much, she was still a teacher, and she could get you suspended like any other teacher.

"Adult youth is so cliché nowadays," I murmur disappointedly, idly flipping through the section. Action comics weren't my thing, and manga tended to get repetitive. Bad guy fights good guy, good guy wins after a teammate dies or looks like they're about to die.

Reality was just so bland.

No superpowers. No super nothing.

No weird machines. No mad scientists. No demigods roaming the streets, magic, no boss battles, evil villians, odd bods. All the weird people were excluded, yet it was cool to be 'crazy'. And because nearly everyone was 'crazy', no one actually was.

If there was a mad scientist, cooped up in his lab like Tesla, forget about him staying there very long. Health and Safety would knock down the door and psychiatrists would chuck him in the padded room. He'd do something bright and noisy as an experiment, fire a laser in the sky or something, and he'd get arrested for not getting permission from some branch of the government or Disturbing The Peace.

Celebrities were either corrupt, too stupid to be, or selfish idiots.

The biggest problems in the world couldn't be solved by a hero, or a group. Even all humanity working together would have issues.

I didn't like it. Here I was, struggling to get through just education, thanks to an idiot who probably has problems, making my life a problem.

Honestly, I didn't really hate Toby. I didn't understand why he did what he did. For all I know it was a broken home, child abuse, poor upbringing… he'd probably mellow out when he was older. People change.

But with all these fictional stories, all these weird pagan cults, all those religions, yet seemingly no supernatural things happening anywhere. It didn't make sense.

Either they were hidden from plain sight, or there wasn't any. Of course, scepticism made me think there wasn't, but I saw people speaking about Pearl Harbor and the Japanese bombing the ships. Enough people talked about it for it to be considered true.

There was enough people talking about magic for it to be true.

But nothing.

Nothing.

In this age of information, where people were more connected than ever, where proof could be established with something as everyday as your phone, no one had come forward with genuine supernatural power.

No one was bothering to document the magical/spiritual world, or no one could see it at all.

Or there was something in the spiritual world that made genuine experiences be disbelieved – or something that the more people knew of it, the more it would weaken. The more power you displayed publicly, the less you could access, like observation destroyed it.

Well, in that scenario, maybe you could tuck little bits of truth inside a fictional magic story. If people didn't believe it were true, the majority of people, then you'd be fine. You could tell the truth in a lie.

I scowled every time the teachers talked about career choices. I have problems now I want to deal with. How can I plan for years ahead when I'm busy planning for now? Everything was so damn boring!

As the bell rang, I sighed. No sign of the gang yet. After school it is.

And after school came. I walked to the front gate with the rest of my class, the sheer mass of people hiding me.

As I stepped out the gate and the crowd thinned to the pavement, I looked over and noticed that weird guy. Dresses in black, trench coat and cowboy hat. Not really a danger to anyone, just walked around, but people in the school were a bit weirded out by him.

This time, he was looking at the crowd of teens, eyes running all over their faces, trying to spot someone. Unconsciously, I shifted so another person blocked my line of sight to him.

"Shoujo!" someone was calling nearby. "Matte shoujo!"

In fairness, I didn't realise who it was. I just thought someone was calling for someone else, and Shoujo was their name.

The next thing I know, Hallucination Cosplayer had appeared next to me. To say I reacted well would be… yeah, I shoved him away.

Into someone else.

Who flung their hands out automatically with a yelp and toppled three other people.

So yes, it was no surprise when I saw Toby looking my way.

"Sorry!" I grabbed Cosplayer's hand on instinct and belted it down the street.

Frankly I was surprised no one fell into the road just then. Not the brightest idea to start pushing people off-balance while next to a busy street.

As I looked back for Toby, kind of pointless because I'd just run past too many people to have a clear line of sight, I noticed Trench Coat was following, on the opposite side of the street.

This was becoming a racetrack. Next a UFO would turn up and start casually strolling along, a cart and horse, some Roman centurion on a chariot, Air Force One…

Okay, freaking out a little. Spare me.

Trench Coat wasn't running, though, just watching and walking along. Wait, is he a cosplayer too? Was he one of Hallucination Cosplayer's buds?

"Do you know him?" I gesture awkwardly, we're still running past other schoolkids.

"Nani?" Captain Clueless replies.

Thanks, Japanese. I used to like you, now… well, I still like you, but it's strained. I racked my brains, but I couldn't think of the word. Oh wait. Fairy Tail. "Nakama desu?"

"Oh, uh… yeah," he replied.

"Do you mean yes or 'eieh' as in no, or…" I gave up.

Never mind, I do hate Japanese. They call no 'yeah' and they answer negative questions with 'hai' the same as 'yes'…

At any rate, I was getting out of breath, and Toby was nowhere in sight, so I turned off the street and grabbed Clueless' collar.

"What the hell were you doing in my bedroom? And why are you here?" I searched his face, and my frustration kind of felt pointless with the blank look I was getting. Dis bitch crazy. She be grabbin' my clothes yellin' gibberish. Or so I imagined he was thinking. In Japanese.

I sighed, running my hand down my face and trying to understand what this meant. So, Hallucination Cosplayer wasn't a hallucination. When he made my… accident… last night vanish, what was that? Did I actually hallucinate that part?

Where was he during the time I was at school? How did he find me again?

Who and what was he really?

If he wasn't a cosplayer, then something seriously odd was going on, and that would be amazing. Something actually abnormal in my life.

"Hey you bitch!" Toby had found me, and I hadn't even noticed, too busy caught in my own thoughts.

"Damn it," I mutter, already looking for escape routes.

Toby's eyes flicker over the Kakashi cosplayer and he double-takes. "The hell is this?"

"Nakama desu?" Cosplayer asks, copying what I said earlier.

"No. Teki desu." Finally, a word I actually remember. Enemy.

"The hell are you saying?" Toby got Japan'd, just like me. Cosplayer analyses Toby, eyes suddenly hard.

In an instant he's got Toby in a chokehold, arms wrapped around his neck and pulling him backwards, his own weight choking him. I just gape at them, watching the kid I was trying to avoid swing around, kicking and scrabbling frantically for air. This was… too quick. He'd gone violent too quickly.

And he was too good at it.

I started to consider that he actually came from the Naruto world.

N/N: Damn it all if I can't escape from this I will kick your ass.