Naruto and Hinata stared at each other. Both of them were outside Tsunade's office, one hand raised to knock on the heavy wooden door and with thick manila envelopes in the other hand.

Naruto scrutinized Hinata with puzzlement. "What're ya doin' here, Hinata?"

"Hokage-sama gave me an assignment…And wanted me to go for more details."

"Oh, me too. It's so weird- it didn't tell me anything about the purpose- only had the standard paperwork to fill out. Bleh."

"I-I had the same thing as well, Naruto- kun."

The door opened as they spoke. Shizune peeked out, saw them, and opened the door wider to let them into Tsunade's office. "Hurry up, Tsunade- sama doesn't have all day."

It seemed that the two weren't without misgivings, as they hesitated for a fraction of a second before stepping into the simple room. It had already occurred to them that it was extremely rare for a shinobi team to be spit up for missions, and even rarer for it to occur to people of their experience level.

Naruto burst out, "Grandma Tsunade, what'd'ya want us t'do?"

Hinata whispered, "I would like to know as well, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade was sitting in her armchair with her feet propped up on the table and a sake bottle in one hand. She raised a finger, shushing the requests of the team, and then waved dismissively.

"Hold it. This whole entire briefing will take a while, so sit down. Your environment this time will be completely different."

Naruto and Hinata sat down gingerly on the pillows piled on the floor for some unknown reason.

There was a pause before Naruto said, "Come'on, Old Lady. We're listenin'."

"Naruto- kun, if you cannot withhold your enthusiasm, I will arrange for a different person to take over your assignment.

At that, Naruto became still.

The Hokage shifted slightly, settled, and began to speak.

"We had a rather specialized request from one of our allies and we needed to get shinobi approximately your age. You were not my first choice, Naruto, but my preferred people are currently off on missions…" She trailed off delicately, and Naruto's lip curled slightly as he glanced at Hinata.

Hinata twitched and bowed her head. Something about the color of her forehead made Naruto think she was flushed in embarrassment.

"Doubtless," Tsunade resumed, "You have heard the rumors of our gaining access to other dimensional spaces and using the highly variable circumstances for training and such." She glanced at the pair, looking for confirmation or denial."

"But aren't those just rumors?" Naruto butted in.

Tsunade gave him a withering look and continued.

"These portals have been fully-functional outside the experimental stage for approximately a year. We've been able to establish contact with a very different sort of world, and our two governments now are giving each other jobs that cannot be done by people of the government's native plane. One of these such jobs we have assigned to you- as a team you will attend a school of what they call wizardry in that plane, and we expect you to learn there and bring back your knowledge to us. However, that is not your primary objective. You must act as inconspicuous guards to one of their important figures, who will be in your grade. His name is Harry Potter.

Hinata piped up. "But Hokage-sama, that still doesn't explain why the teams have been split up."

"Your group will be too large if you brought everyone. Two other people will be joining you from a third plane- a man by the name of Roy Mustang in place of your sensei, and another person in your age group by the name of Edward Elric. In that way, you will have a full group. Also, Mustang and Elric are in command of a different brand of training that is unfamiliar to us and to the people you will probably fight against- it is called Alchemy. Their brand of learning, however, is similar enough to Potter's learning, so Mustang will be a teacher at the school. I expect you to bring back knowledge of both alchemy and wizardry, so I will make your punishment clear to you now in case of failure- I will not allow you to return until you have mastery- and that may take an indefinite period of time. I AM willing to wait. Understood?"

Hinata gave an involuntary shiver again as both the young shinobi replied, "Understood."

Tsunade relaxed for a fraction of a moment, giving them a slight smile.

"Very good. Now, as for background information, I daresay you'll get all you need from here. She handed them two sets of identical books, with seven books in each. They were enormous and extremely bulky, but something about the volumes made them look inviting rather than imposing.

"A Muggle writer- meaning a non-magic user- gathered up data of the magic-user's histories and such. The information is in the form of stories, but is true and reliable nonetheless. I need you two to read these within a week, and on the eighth day you will be leaving. At the same time in eight day, come here prepared to leave."

With that she waved the heavily-laden pair out of her office.

Once out of the government building, Naruto groaned. "How'm I supposed to read this in a week?! These things are HUGE! I'll never finish in time." However, he still wended his way through the crowded streets, Hinata in tow, to the Konoha library.

After reading the first thirty pages or so in a bean-bag-filled corner, Naruto fell silent and became absorbed. Hinata's eyes were a blur- she was reading so quickly that she finished the first book in three hours. Because Tsunade had given them passes, they were able to stay the night in the library, reading throughout. The only breaks they took were to shower and brush their teeth- they read while eating and drinking, determined to finish as quickly as possible. Finally, Hinata finished all the volumes in three days, and Naruto in four.

The remaining time they spent packing for their trip- they didn't need food or drink, or books, so they only packed their clothes and jutsu scrolls, as bringing weaponry was forbidden. Naturally, they still packed some small weaponry in the linings of their backpacks, not feeling confident only with the fighting techniques they learned.

On the eighth day, they returned to Tsunade's office, bags packed and waiting for instructions.

"Have you read all the information I gave you?"

Both of them replied in the affirmative, too preoccupied to say more than a simple 'yes.' Even though they were battle-hardened and not unused to surprise, they still were apprehensive about dealing with completely different fighting techniques and people they've never met. After all, much of their training was physical combat. The things they learned of illusionary techniques simply seemed inadequate, but they knew they had an advantage in that the enemy didn't know how their moves worked, and therefore couldn't combat them.

"You'd better go," said Tsunade, authoritatively snapping them out of their worried reveries. "I have another council meeting in ten minutes." She looked harried, and pursed her lips. "Hold out your wrists." As they did so, she briefly explained how the mechanisms in the portal worked while snapping on a thin, unadorned metal band onto their wrists. "I'll be the one controlling where you go, so you don't need to worry about that. The only thing you'll be controlling is when you go between planes. The red Konoha symbol, when pressed, will send you back to me, and the complicated-looking insignia to the borders of the school. However- if I see you pass through too many times, I'll decide that you're too much of a bother to deal with, so use the transfer process only in emergencies."

The two subdued teenagers nodded quietly, unsure of what transfer would be like. The enormity of what they were told to do struck them finally. Tsunade untangled an identical bracelet from the sleeves of her robes, and pressed a couple of the many inlaid decorations down.

The room seemed to blur at the edges to Naruto and Hinata, and then slowly faded from view. The last thing they saw in Tsunade's office was Tsunade herself, looking distinctly worried as she told them, attempting a tone of bravado, "Good luck. If you don't come back, I'll get one of the alchemists to haunt you with ghosts of the worst type. Ya got that?"She gave them a thumbs-up.

They smiled wanly in return and gave her a thumbs-up as well.

They materialized out of nowhere in the middle of a bustling train-station, and nobody seemed to notice except a 30-ish old man, a tawny-haired boy with a ponytail, and a skinny kid with a mop of unruly black hair, glasses, and a small scar on his temple, all standing together and waiting. Oddly enough, they looked just like the photographs enclosed in the manila envelopes Hinata and Naruto were clutching.

The pair, completely out of their element, felt relieved when they saw the ponytailed boy pull at the older man's sleeve, point at them and wend his way through the crowds toward them.