(A/N) – I know, I know, I know, I keep starting up new projectswhen I'm halfway through others, but this damned plotbunny…! I still intend to get through Snake's Blood, I promise! It's just that writing it to the episodes is so tedious and I needed a break!

Anyway, this is an attempt at a truly realistic "real world kid sucked into fandom" story. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: i don't own Naruto or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

You all know them. You've all read them. Maybe the summary looked enticing, or maybe it was just for kicks, to see how badly someone could fuck up canon. Maybe you moved on in disappointment or disgust. Maybe you flamed it. Or hell, if it was a total phenomenon of nature, maybe you actually enjoyed it. But the point is, they exist: stories, or more accurately, fanfictions, of attractive young women (*cough*sues*cough*) getting kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Sometimes they're civilians, occasionally even canon characters; perhaps they possess some special ability, or maybe they're a comically inept shinobi, or perhaps the universe played a cruel trick on some real world kids who's parents were conveniently out of town and dumped them in the living room, but whatever, whenever, whoever they are, they all seem to have some common traits.

Trait one: they are all gorgeous. Always. All the time. Maybe there's something about them that they consider a physical flaw (small boobs or something), but hey, in the end, it just winds up being cute or endearing. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Trait two: they're always stubborn and brash and usually immature, and somehow, and this is what really grates at me, they always fucking get away with it! Never do they suffer psychotic meltdowns or get backhanded for insubordination, oh nooooo. God knows, that may blemish their porcelain fucking face. We can't have that now can we?

Trait three: another one that pisses me the hell off – they always get downright chummy with the dress wearing pricks. Never mind that pretty much nobody in the organization likes each other, to the point that none of them can be left alone together without a cubic shitload of collateral damage – they're all going to live together and take turns cooking breakfast! It'll be great fun!

I could go on for hours, but frankly, I'm a lazy person, so I'm not going to bother. You get the point, right? Well, welcome to real life (or something resembling it – I still leave the possibility that I'm hallucinating or comatose or perchance dead and this is my fucked up purgatory wide open).

My name is Gwen Richards. I'm seventeen years old, and until about...three months ago, I guess, I lived with my mom in D.C. I used the metro system regularly and refused to learn to drive (if you've ever seen D.C. traffic then you understand my rationale). I worked in a book store and tried desperately to keep the music section organized, and then blew all my money on manga and art supplies. I was a grumpy, apathetic teenager who liked stand up comedy and T-bone steaks and Sum 41.

I had divorced parents and best friends who would take a bullet for me, and who I would take a bullet for right back. I had a fat, dumb, adorable mutt that barked at everything. I had Chinese leftovers and private school, aunts and uncles and crazy grandmas, college applications and homework, severe arachnophobia and mythology books. To put it in simpler terms, I had a life, and god-dammit all if I wasn't happy.

And then I died.

Or…well…something. I don't really know, and frankly I don't think Pein even does, but then again it's hard to tell with him. If he does know anything about how in the hell I got here or how I can get back, he's not about to let on, because obviously that wouldn't be beneficial to him and his little world domination setup. I used to wonder, since he would never tell me. Maybe I miraculously survived getting hit by that bus. Maybe this is just a coma dream, and I'm really in a hospital bed surrounded by bouquets and teddy bears.

But I stopped thinking about that because the image would always be completed by my mom and dad and friends holding my hand and crying over me and begging me to wake up. I also had to stop imagining if I died there – what my funeral would have been like, what my folks were doing with themselves…it just hurt too much.

These days, I don't think anybody would react if I died far past mild surprise that somehow the numerous seals, wards, and bodyguards had failed to keep my ass alive. And hell, maybe some disappointment. You know, just keep my fragile self esteem happy.

Now, my life consists of the baggy, mismatched clothes that Kakuzu occasionally brings me from one thrift store or another. I have a dingy little room with a grand view of the equally dingy, industrialized Rain Village, the monochromatically grey sight striped and streaked with chakra enhanced steel bars and smog that's collected on the window panes.

I have constant guards: sometimes a few ANBU, but usually Zetsu, Kakuzu, or Konan. I have Japanese lessons and a mahjong board to keep me occupied, and, since I've gained a decent level of proficiency in the language, the occasional scroll or book, normally given to me by Konan out of pity. Or Kakuzu, but he always says it's to shut me the fuck up about being bored.

This is the cold, hard truth: not fanfiction, not manga or anime. This is life. My life. And therefore, considering the fact that nobody here likes me enough to really talk to me or, indeed acknowledge my existence past what Pein's told them to do concerning my well being, I've decided to start this mental soliloquy to no one. I'm not insane, I swear, but if I am then it doesn't matter because I'm insane so I probably don't care anyway. I'm not hearing voices or talking to myself (any more than I ever have, at least), I'm simply narrating my own existence as a weird coping mechanism. Maybe, if I think of this situation in the form of the story that it's supposed to be, I can make some sense of it.

So, remember that list of traits of the kids that this usually happens to in imagination-land? I give you the revised edition:

1 – I am not gorgeous. I admit it. I'm no hag…or at least…I didn't used to be. I hate looking in mirrors now because they're so few and far between in this place (I can't even see my reflection in my window, considering how filthy it is) because every time I look in one it's like I'm seeing a totally new person; one that looks progressively worse as time wears on. Every time I see my reflection, I can't help but remember those before-after pictures from infomercials back home: the before picture would be me, in a funny T-shirt and jeans, my face oval shaped and passably pretty (I'd give myself a solid B), framed with sloppy blonde hair and set with almond shaped hazel eyes, my figure inconspicuous at 5'6 and 135 lb.

The after would depict me now: hair still sloppy, but longer and dirtier and practically dreaded, face wasted and hollow and drawn, eyes underlined with deep bags, which in turn are accentuated with stress lines to rival that little freak Itachi's; body wasted and frail looking, all angles, with a kimono obviously designed for a grown man (evidenced by the shoulder seams nearly reaching my elbows) and cutoff trousers hanging off like Subway Jared's fat pants on a scarecrow.

2 – I am a shy, lazy, pathetic excuse for a human being. No matter how wronged I am, I usually let myself get treated like a damn doormat, until eventually I explode and wind up beating the shit out of someone and feeling terrible about it two seconds later. Not exactly Wonder Woman.

3 – as mentioned: THEY – DO –NOT – LIKE – ME!!! Christ, Kakuzu either ignores me or degrades me; Zetsu's black side does much the same, though his white side just tells me I shouldn't be so passive. Konan agrees, and berates me constantly for being unmotivated, as it's usually her giving me the language lessons. Pein thinks I'm pathetic, but as he refuses to swallow that I don't know anything (and is correct in doing so, but I digress), he keeps me around. Sasori thinks I'm useless, Orochimaru…frankly I don't want to know what that creeper thinks of me, Kisame, well…he's not too bad. At least polite, which is more than I can say for most of the others. Itachi ignores me completely, but I don't take it personally because he ignores pretty much everyone.

So, now that that's all out of the way, I'm willing to bet that you want to know what exactly it is that I'm doing here, huh?

What's that? You don't?! Pssh, well fine, asshole, just for that I'm gonna tell you anyway!

It was a normal day, with normal, early October weather. I was headed from the metro station to Bingo's Books (no pun intended, I swear), the store I worked in after school. I had just had a normal day at school (or as normal as my private school ever gets, being geared towards kids with ADD) and I was looking forward to getting my normal paycheck for my normal minimum wage "teenager" job. I was standing on the street corner across from Bingo's, waiting for the light to turn red so that I could get across the street. My coworker, a pretty young pregnant woman named Melanie who was married to a successful architect and had just gotten the job to keep herself occupied, saw me trough the glass showcase window and waved merrily. I waved back, and a second later, the light turned red. I stepped off the curb, still looking at Mel, and suddenly her face contorted with horror, staring somewhere over my left shoulder.

The last thing I remember is looking behind me and getting an eyeful of the flat front of a transit bus and the mortified face of the driver beyond the tinted glass. I remember thinking, in not so organized terms, "What the fucking – it's a red light you jackhole!" and then the sharp, final report of my entire body hitting the front of the bus at the same time and bouncing off. I remember the fading sounds of blaring horns and, I could swear, Melanie screaming, and I remember the abrasive smell of warm asphalt, the gravel digging into my back, and something wet pooling beneath my head while my vision tunneled rapidly.

And then, I woke up. I found myself somehow sitting on the surface of some kind of still, endless black lake. Everything was pitch black – I couldn't tell the water from the air. The only light seemed to be coming off of me in a faint glow. I was wearing something like one of those gross hospital gowns, except made of actual fabric and not tissue paper, and laced together in the back properly. I only know that because I could see my oddly glowing reflection in the surface of the water. At this point severely freaked out and trying very hard not to panic, I stood up on the water's meniscus and took a few wobbly steps. Satisfied that the water would hold my weight, I decided not to question it, simply because I didn't want to think of the alternative. I looked around, hoping that my eyes would adjust – my glow didn't seem to have much of a cast.

"Erm…Hu-Hullo?" I called awkwardly. My voice felt lost to the dark – it didn't even echo. I took a deep breath. "HEY!" I roared. "Hello?! Anyone here? HELLO?!" My tolerance level for unexplainable, terrifying experiences is very low. Did I mention that? "OI! Anybody home? Look if this is a joke it ain't funny! I've been punk'd, see? Ha-ha-ha!"

I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate and instinctively grabbed at the crook of my neck. It was about at this point that it caught up to me that the last thing I remembered before waking up in this twisted Wonderland was being hit by a bus, which, needless to say, did nothing to assist my calm.

"OKAY, WHAT THE FUCK?! Where the hell is everybody?! Where in the fuck am I?! What is this, fucking Limbo?!" I snarled down at my reflection, my only apparent company here, and therefore the only thing I had to rant to. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!" I screamed at myself, all dignity and composure abandoned.

I wound up on my knees, trying desperately to push my hands through the surface of the water, franticly trying to get something to follow the laws of physics and make some damn sense. I gave up after a few minutes and just sat there sobbing and shaking and confused. Eventually, I got tired of even that, and just knelt there sniffling hopelessly, occasionally blowing my nose on my wide white sleeve. I distinctly recall whimpering for my mommy. I guess that's just everyone's default in tough spots like that.

Anyways, after a while, once I'd managed to go quiet and regained some measure of composure, I finally heard something. The good news: it wasn't a noise caused by me. Bad news: it was this horrible, groaning, rushing noise that scared the ever-living shit out of me.

And the moment it came, the water directly beneath me lit up like a star had formed under the impossibly resilient surface, and over that point the water began to spin and sink, like I'd just been flushed down a colossal toilet.

Within seconds, I was whirling about underwater, screaming out a stream of bubbles and no longer able to tell up from down. The only way I could tell I was being sucked lower into the whirlpool that had opened under me was the way I began to spin faster and faster, to the point that it was actually painful. I was lightheaded and nauseous, and just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore and I was gonna puke, inhale water, and black out all at the same time, I woke up.

Yeah, I know. It made sense at the time, except that it really kind of didn't.

This time, the laws of nature at least seemed to apply again, thank god. I was lying on a rather uncomfortable cot, under a scratchy blanket, in a boring concrete room with a single bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. But there was something else niggling at the back of mind as I lay there, taking stock. I didn't realize what it was until I sat up, though.

Turns out I was stark naked.

Go figure.

"What the fucking -- !" I grunted on instinct, snatching the thin blanket up to cover myself. Good thing, too, because at that moment the door banged open and someone walked in. A male someone. A vaguely familiar male someone; who strangely enough, in the dim lighting, appeared to be wearing a dress.

He was absurdly tall and just flat out big – not fat or ripped or anything, just big. He also looked like he was in a pretty shitty mood, judging by his stiff shoulders and stalking stride. I couldn't really tell what was going on with his face past the blazing, narrowed eyes, as he was wearing a sort of white hood with a face mask clipped to it. The eyes themselves were a point interest, though – they were bright, neon green with reddish brown sclera. I chalked it up to contacts or some kind of rare condition, though something about them definitely rang a bell.

Now, I know what you're thinking. It's the same thing I always think when I read crap like that in the fanfics: how in the fuck is it not obvious?! I mean, Naruto was my guilty pleasure series back home: of course I knew the characters! So how could I not recognize Kakuzu when I saw him?

Well, for one thing, Naruto was kind of the farthest thing from my mind at that particular moment, so so-oorry. Secondly, like I said, the lighting kind of sucked. And thirdly, well…denial is the human brain's default whenever data does not compute. That's all I can really say for myself.

Anywho, the big scary, angry dude who would later turn out to be Kakuzu just sort of stormed in, dumped a bundle of cloth on my cot, glared at me for a split second, and marched right back out, slamming the door behind him.

"…well that was freakish," I muttered after an awkward silence. I tore my gaze from the door after a few seconds to look at what Mr. Angry had left behind: it looked like a bundle of rags. Tentatively, I leaned over, still clutching the blanket to my collar bone, and picked up a corner of fabric, separating it from the rest of the bundle. Turns out it was a pile of rags – just cut and sewn into something resembling really terrible clothing that had to have been owned at least twice previously.

Within minutes, I had laid out flat on my bed a pair of fraying dark grey drawstring cutoffs that were at least three sizes too big; a baggy, well loved black T-shirt; green boxers that at least smelled clean; and last but not least a huge, faded red robe – like the fancy silk kinds that the villains in cheesy Mob movies wear in their free time while they're drinking Italian wine and stroking their creepy longhaired cats. Except this thing looked like it had gotten used as a scratching post one too many times and it's Mafioso owner had been forced to give it away to a thrift shop.

Whoever owned it had been a freakin giant, too, because when I put it on over the T-shirt and pants (the drawstrings of which had been pulled tight and tied off so that the loops hung almost to my knees), the sleeves had to be rolled back five times and the black trimming around the edges of the front flaps spanned my entire shoulder width at the neckline.

Well, I guess it was better than being naked. Besides, this room was freezing.

With nothing better to do, I examined the room, starting with the door. I found that by peering through the crack around the edges I could see bits of the locks on the outside and figure out what kinds they were.

When I was like ten my Aunt's house burned down and she and my little freak cousins had to come stay with us while they rebuilt. So I had to spend almost half a year with Katie and Eric, the spoiled little bastards, constantly sneaking into my room and bothering my pet snake, stealing my Halloween candy stash, reading my journals, shit like that. So eventually I got fed up and checked out a book on different kinds of locks from the elementary school library, so that I could determine what kind would be best to beg Mom to install. It didn't work, since my parents were incorrigibly nosey and would never have given me that kind of power, but damn it all if I didn't know my locks after that!

Not that that really helped me, since I didn't see any of them. Not even a basic cylinder deadbolt like you see in public bathroom stalls. In fact, I didn't even see a normal built in deadlock like on the average front door. All I could make out was a solid black space about four inches long on the other side of the seam. Since there was no doorknob on the inside of the room, I pushed experimentally against the heavy wood. Zilch.

Well, worth a try…

Aside from the door anomaly, rest of the room looked like it was just boring, unfurnished concrete – no security cameras or microphones that I could find, not even under the bed; though there was a bedpan. Honestly, it was sort of depressing.

So far as I could tell, this wasn't a prison, because if it was there would be bars or a two-way mirror or something, and there was no reason for me to be in a prison anyway, since I had been hit by a bus running a red light and this clearly was not my fault. I sat on the bed and mulled over the events of the past few hours…or however the hell long it had been. Honestly, I wasn't sure. It was pretty disconcerting.

As far as I could tell, I had died – violently. But I didn't have a scratch on me, even though I was positive I had felt blood before blacking out. I had woken up after my supposed death in some dark ass subterranean lake where the laws of nature didn't seem to apply, and from there, I was sucked down a random whirlpool like something out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And now I was sitting in crappy, ill fitting clothes in some kind of cell.

For some odd reason, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I had missed something…

Meh. I decided that the next time somebody came in (hopefully not Mr. Angry, he kind of freaked me out) I would ask what the hell was going on. Of course, I knew what was going to happen: I would spend from now until somebody actually did come in trying to think of a good way to phrase the question, only to stammer out a meek little inquiry when the situation actually came about. This kind of thing happened a lot. Well, not this kind of thing, I'd obviously never died before, but…gah, you know what I mean!

Quite suddenly, I became aware of a nagging pressure in my abdomen. I was so lost in thought, it took me a second to figure out what it was. When I did, I felt my face flush, and quickly I dipped under the bed and retrieved the bedpan. Then my paranoid side kicked in, and I realized that the "someone" I was waiting for might come in while I was answering nature's persistent call. So I pulled my cot so that instead of sitting snug in the back corner of the room it was poking out from the middle of the wall, and I moved behind it so that anyone coming into the room wouldn't be able to see any more of me that my head and shoulders.

At the very least there had been a stack of folded paper towels under the bed pan, so I had something to wipe with.

…What?! It's a legitimate concern!

Anywho, after relieving myself, I crammed the bedpan and remaining clean towels under the bed and curled up on top of it. My eyes were beginning to sting and droop with sleepiness, but in all honesty I was afraid to fall asleep. The last two times I had woken up it had been to unfamiliar, frightening surroundings. If I went to sleep now, where would I wake up next? At last, when I could no longer hold off, I reasoned with myself that the last two times I hadn't technically fallen asleep, I had lost consciousness, and so falling asleep on my own should be okay.

I woke up several hours later to somebody shaking my shoulder. Thankfully in the same place I'd gone to sleep this time. My theory proved true! Yay me!

"What hell?" I groaned, sending a bleary, half-hearted glare at whoever was trying to wake me up.

Looking back, I frankly don't know what Sasori was expecting. You wake up a seventeen year old, you're going to face the damn consequences. That simple. Unfortunately for me, Akasuna no Sasori has an unhealthy preoccupation with punctuality. And by that, I mean he's a morning person. The little fucker.

As my vision at last began to come into focus, my still slightly crossed hazel eyes met with a pair of dispassionate, heavily lidded brown ones that were ringed with the most gorgeous lashes I had ever seen, mascara or no.

Isn't it annoying how guys for some reason always have better eyelashes than girls? Good god, I hate that! Well, at least they don't know it bothers us; otherwise I'm sure they'd never leave us alone.

Ahem. As I was saying...

Eyelashes, as I immediately began calling him in my mind, opened his mouth and said…something…that I couldn't for the life of me understand.

I propped myself up on my elbows and rubbed the back of my hand across my eyes, then twisted a pinkie around in one ear.

"Come 'gain?" I mumbled half coherently. The guy looked surprised, then irritated. He said something else, in a sharp, demanding tone.

"…Mreh?" Now he just looked a weird mixture of pissed and bland, kind of like the high school kid who got stuck showing the newbie around. He said something else in a kind of flat tone, and when I responded only with a blank stare, he sighed irritably, snapped something, and grabbed my arm.

I yelped in surprise as I was dragged out of my little room and into a hallway with stone walls and floors, bare fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling, and heavy wooden doors just like mine. As Eyelashes hauled me down the corridor, I noticed that some of the doors had, instead of knobs or locks, pieces of paper with inked characters (Kanji? What?") stuck on the seams between the door and jamb. Wait, was that what was holding my door shut?! You're shitting me!

…Now why in the hell were those so familiar…?

~/~present time~/~

Well, I guess that's far enough for now. Besides, Konan's gonna be in soon to teach me more gibberish. Can I just try to express to you how much I detest kanji? Ugh! Well, on the bright side, if Konan's coming that means Kakuzu's going to be off guard duty soon and Zetsu will be in, and he'll at least set up my mahjong board for me. He's cool that way. Tough to believe he eats people…

Well, I guess they're usually already dead. That makes it a little less creepy. A little. Kind of. Not really. Maybe I'm just in denial.

In fact…yeah. I'm in denial. But hey, if the only person you frequently saw who was at least sort of nice to you was a cannibalistic plant-man with severe split personality disorder I'll bet you'd be in denial too!

You know what? I'm just going to shut up now. I'll be submitting part two, Gwen vs. piercings, soon. And by soon, I mean the next time I get bored enough. Which I assure you will be soon.

…I'm not crazy!

(A/N) – I just wanted to write this and see what happened ^^ Gwen's been in my head for a while now, but I only recently developed a good idea for her, so here it is. Each chapter will be one of Gwen's mental soliloquies to no one. I guess it technically counts as talking to yourself, but it's more like talking to people who aren't there, for lack of anyone real to talk to or anyone who could understand what she's saying anyway.

I want to lay some commandments out now, and you can hold me to these:

1: any powers Gwen gains later on will be the result of trial and error and shitloads of work.

2: This will be following canon and timeline, meaning that once Orochimaru leaves the Akatsuki will not all be meeting at once for another seven years. Meaning no "one big happy family" Akatsuki.

3: if there is any romance later, which there likely will not be, it will be well developed and probably with an OC. It will also be fraught with hardship due to Gwen's attachment issues.

4: Gwen will miss her world. Her driving force in this story will be returning home. No matter what. And by "no matter what," I mean she will be willing to screw with canon and ally herself with whoever it takes to get there. In fact, she'll pretty much be turning evil. You have been warned.

That should about do it. If you don't like the idea of my character becoming, in the eyes of the story's heroes, a bad guy, all I can say is: tough shit. This is meant to be realistic. If you don't think, realistically, you would try anything to get home if sucked into a parallel dimension full of characters constantly trying to kill each other, chances are you're fooling yourself.

Gwen may or may not be "reformed" by the end of the story. I haven't thought it out all that far, really.