Alright, who here believes in polydimensional theory? No, seriously, raise your hand if you genuinely believe in that type of thing… That few? Wow, that's a pretty poor showing, and honestly, I don't blame you. Not one bit, I used to think Self-insert fanfictions were just as stupid, but well look at me now, Jonin of Konoha. What? You don't understand how I'm making that connection Kakashi-dono? I guess I better explain.

Hello, my name was John Grey, senior in college and when this story started I firmly believed that Naruto, the elemental nations and indeed the entire planet Kalin was little more that a badly scripted manga written by some guy called Kishimoto who had absolutely no idea what he had created. I read the manga, detested the anime and badgered fanfiction writers on the occasion I had a break from socializing, gaming and generally being a college student.

As things stood I was doing pretty well for myself; I had straight a straight A- average in my multimedia programming major, my bills were paid and I was busy heckling my Japanese American roommate about his use of The Q to write a Naruto Self-Insert fiction when it happened. I was holding the latest version of the encyclopedia of marvel in my lap and mocking Gennai on how closely most of his cast resembled one X-men or another when the world shifted. Everything around me seemed to melt and shift as if the world were a watercolor painting and some asshat had chucked it in a fountain. The desk dissolved beneath me and I fell on my bum, the book still clutched in my white-knuckle grip.

I appeared, sprawled on the grass, by the side of a dirt road and deep in the middle of a forest where the trees make the redwoods look like toothpicks.

"Shimon? Gennai? I really sorry for mocking you dude, mind if I wake up now?" I'm not sure if I really expected that to work but I sat there on the side of the road pinching and slapping myself and generally trying to convince myself this was some sort of sick dream or that Gennai had finally gotten tired of my teasing and just hauled off on me but the very real pricks of pain and feeling of hunger eventually got to me and I began to walk.

Now, let's get one thing straight first. I'm not entirely helpless on my own. When I was a kid my dad used to take me on camping trips constantly; I think he was under some kind of delusion about male bonding or something, but he taught me a lot about what was and wasn't edible and how to recognize general characteristics of plants and animal habitation. Eventually I came to a stream that ran through the woods near enough to the road that I could easily find my way back and I fished out a few frogs. I'd have gone for the fish, but the ones I saw were practically anchovies and at the time I was in no way qualified to catch them. Anyways, if you ever get the chance to eat a frog; don't listen to what anyone tells you, they don't taste like chicken. They're actually fairly disgusting, though I suppose it's likely an acquired taste.

When eating a frog or toad there are a few things you have to do first. In many cases amphibians secrete one of any variety of poisons or hallucinogenic compounds and that makes most people think that the creatures in general are simply bad news, but if you take the crown of the head and roof of it's mouth between your fingers and quickly twist it's head off you can peel off the skin and head, the two places where such compounds reside to begin with. Gods, what I wouldn't have done for a pot and some matches at that point… Moving on, I skinned and decapitated the little critters before placing them on a bed of washed leaves before proceeding to wash my hands and then the croakers carcasses. Raw frog is horrible to the tongue and upsetting to the belly, but if you want easy, healthy food and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere all I can say is go for it. Frogs and toads can be found just about damn everywhere and they do the job well enough.

I traveled along the road for the next two days before meeting anyone. Mostly I ate berries, the occasional wild vegetable I recognized and yet more frogs. By the time I saw my first local I was positively miserable. It was raining and I was using the large plastic cover of The Complete Marvel Encyclopedia as a rain shield when the ox drawn cart slogged it's way out from behind the trees as the road curved. I'm not even sure anymore what I expected to see, I'm sure I had some niggling sense of ironic premonition floating around the back of my head, but a bunch of Japanese people, three of them kids bearing Leaf Hitaite was not even in the top 100.

"Gaijin! Anata ha daijobu desu ka?" The youngest of the three stepped toward me and spoke in what was easily recognizable as Japanese. I thought about his words for a few minutes, trying desperately to work out what he meant. Foreigner! Are you alright?

I cursed quietly my lack of motivation to properly learn how to speak Japanese now. Beyond wanting to know exactly what Gennai was calling me whenever I got on his nerves I'd never really had a reason to develop the skill, after all, how likely was it that I was going to end up needing such a thing? No knowledge was useless was a quote I'd always been famous for around my home town, but honestly? Who expects to randomly be dumped in a place where you have no choice but to speak a foreign language.

Oh shit, the kid was talking again. "Um…" I said, "Michi o… mayotte… imasu. Konoha wa… doko desu ka??" I said haltingly, wincing as I thoroughly butchered the language I was trying to communicate in. when they looked even more confused than before I tapped my forehead and pointed at his headband. "Konohagakure no sato." I said, a lot more clearly.

Their expression cleared up considerably and everyone tensed. I felt a small, but sudden heat near my back as the rain suddenly became lighter behind me and the dripping cold steel of a Kunai softly touched against the back of my neck. If this was anything like the Manga I was certain these people could kill my 17 year old ass without even breaking step and nearly lost control of my bowels, but thankfully managed not to twitch to heavily as the big daddy ninja appeared to take over the situation.

The voice that spoke, however, was not male as I had expected, but female and fare to fast for me to translate. I'm fairly sure she was asking something in relation to why I was looking for her home, but I honestly couldn't have told you. Ever so slowly I raised my hands and closed the book I was using for a rain shield and just as slowly turned to look at the woman. It took more than a couple seconds because when I tried to got too fast the knife she was holding on me with an utterly bored stare cut into the wet skin of my shoulder. The woman had white-blond hair tied back in an economical braid and some sort of black bandage thing going in place of a hat or bandana. The metal plate of her Hitaite was worn and dirty as it hung around her throat and her eyes were a clear blue-grey that in any other weather or situation might have been striking.

"Gomen-nasai," I said, softly, trying to keep the kunai that was now resting against my Adams apple from moving too much. "Nihongo ga yoku hanase-masen."

The woman rolled her eyes as if I had said something stupid and who knew, maybe I had. I know what I was trying to say, I suck at Japanese, sorry. The blood woman removed the blade from my throat and stowed it in a thigh pouch. Taking a step back the woman gave me a better look at her self as she began doing a series of hand signs. I recognized several of them as horse, tiger, snake, bird ah hell, she was going to fast and I was still in the process of accepting that this was even happening. I mean, think about it, it's impossible enough to randomly teleport to the middle of nowhere, but to a Japanese old growth forest where caravans are led by platinum blond Korean chicks who throws around gang signs straight out of Naruto? Shock's about the only thing that covers this sort of situation. That and wishing to wake up from this fever dream.

After a few seconds the toned, very well proportioned platinum blond in a rip off Lara Croft outfit, finished up her gesturing with what looked like a sort of double OK sign with the three remaining fingers on each hand spread out and my world grew fuzzy again. The jutsu she was using held my body rigid for several seconds before dropping me on the ground with a massive blinder of a headache. Presently I was picked up by my shoulders and placed on my feet again and the woman spoke again.

"So, this can end one of two ways, either I've fried your brain and we're going to leave your corpse on the side of the road, or you can nod and say yes mistress."

As soon as she let go of me my eyes closed and my hands went to my head. "Oh, kami, what the hell did you do to me?"

"I rewrote the language center of your brain kid. You're going to sound like a bitch for a while but you'll get over it eventually and I won't have to suffer through your butchering of a four year olds vocabulary. Now, what the fuck are you doing on the side of Konoha's main highway, and what do you want with my home?" The woman was a Yamanaka, good gods that hurt! She was blunt and to the point, a no nonsense kind of person and if it didn't hurt so much I think I would have liked her.

"I guess todays my lucky day…" I muttered. "I got caught up in a space time technique that went wide." I lied quickly, still in too much pain for the bullshit to be obvious in my voice or demeanor. "As you can guess I'm not from around here. Talking to the locals led me to believe that your leaf city might be able to help me get home, but as I haven't recognized any of the constellations the last few weeks I'm not even sure that's possible."

"Lucky huh?" she asked, slightly less gruff. "I'm not sure most people would think themselves lucky to run across a jonin itching to practice her counter intelligence techniques, but whatever floats your boat. Now, what do you want with my village. You've already figured out we probably can't get you home."

"It never hurts to try. The last village said that since the fall of Whirlpool, Leaf has the best Seal crafters in the world. Best I can figure right now is I find some sort of job and try to buy the services of a seal master. " I replied, shrugging, a lot calmer now that A) I could speak easily and B) was no longer being directly threatened with my life.

The woman looked at me for several long minutes before shrugging. "Whatever. We're on our way back to Leaf anyways, escorting these merchants. I guess you can come with us, but don't go expecting to get a ride or be protected if there's an attack, you're neither in the contract nor a Fire nation citizen."

The rest of the day passed slowly and I traded my assistance as a cook for food that evening. The conversation was fairly informative and I managed to get a sense of just where and when I was in Naruto land. This was the southern approach to the village from the city of Tsugoya. This was a high C, low B rank chunin mission to deliver supplies to Leaf and Yamanaka Tsuki did it fairly often. The kids with her were her Genin team from which two of her students had advanced to chunin and opted to stay with their lesser member rather than move on after their advancement a year and a half previously. The genin, Inuzuka Jiro, was enduring their heckling over his continual failure to gain some sort of advancement during the tail end of the third great shinobi war. They were talking in excited voices about their chances of getting back to the village before the fourth fire-shadow was crowned. This means I have a year, maybe two before the Kyuubi incident. Wonder if there's anything I can do to change it? Two years was enough to Naruto and Sasuke to become supersoldiers, maybe I could manage a wrench in the gears chunin? Assuming I even have chakra to begin with… that would certainly put a wrench in everything.

! #$%^&*()

We reached the Gates of Konoha two days later shortly after noon. The air was hot and humid in a way that sapped the strength out of the civilians and myself but seemed to leave the Shinobi untouched. We'd been able to see the gates since mid morning which should give you an idea just how big the fucking things were. Over a hundred feet easy and solidly built, even as we closed in on the monstrous oaken doors I wouldn't make out any deviations in the masonry that might indicate how they were put together. I thought about that for several long minutes before coming to the conclusion that it was likely created by an earth jutsu like the wood one the first had used to fill the valley with trees that dwarfed giants. Speaking of the forest, I noticed that the trees seemed to stop nearly a quarter mile from the stone walls of the village. It made a decent defensive strategy, but it did bear the question how naruto and company were always able to travel in and out of the village by tree when there was an emergency. Thoughts for later I suppose.

Tsuki took me aside as the gate guards began examining the merchants cart and papers, "This is as far as I take you kid. You shouldn't have much, if any, trouble getting through the gates but anything after I walk away is up to you. Good luck."

I nodded and thanked her, wishing I'd brought something of value like one of my circuit-board engineering or programming texts instead of the brightly colored book under my arm. I waited off to the side while the rest of the group passed through the gates, listening as Tsuki exchanged warm greeting with the chunins on duty. Here's hoping, I thought as I approached the gates. "Good morning fella's."

"Afternoon now," the green vested Asian said, grinning through a scraggly Fu-Manchu "what business do you have with Konoha?" he asked, talking in my torn cargo pants and black 'things we learn from video games' t-shirt.

"Immigration," I said truthfully "I've been rather abruptly dumped far enough away from home that I don't even know how to start finding my way home. Stories from the locals say you've got the best seal masters since the fall of Whirlpool so I figured I'd give it a shot."

"Why would you need a seal master?" the other guard asked, tensing slightly.

"High level shinobi battle cut through my city and I got hit by a wayward jutsu. Instead of dying I ended up 50 some miles from here in the middle of a forest. Considering I don't recognize the constellations or maps I figure my best chance of getting home is another ninja and rumors back home was space/time attacks means seal masters."

The pair of them nodded. "That's not strictly true, but yeah, seal masters and spacetime jutsu tend to go together. I assume by your story you don't have any papers or money?"

"I have a few, but I doubt they'd do any good." I said, slowly taking out my wallet. Opeining it I held it out and one of the Chunin came forward and took it.

"These plastic rectangles are your identification?" the shaven one asked.

"The first four, yeah; college ID, driver's license, movie rental card, bank cards and in the billfold is my countries currency."

The two of them looked at each other and shrugged. "Hitsuke, how's your chakra sensing?"

"Still need a bunch of hand signs, but I've got a pretty good handle on it. I guess you want me to scan him?"

The first guard nodded. "If he doesn't suddenly try to resist and attack us it'd be an easy way to tell if he's any sort of threat to the village."

I spread my arms like I was in the airport being harassed by TSA and the second guard began running through hand signs as he approached me. The jutsu, whatever it was felt weird as hell but at the very least it wasn't painful. Presently the mans stepped back and nodded.

"His chakra's about as strong as you'd expect of an academy dropout and there aren't any patterns in the flow that would suggest he's ever performed a jutsu. Physical stats read like a civilian; maybe a runner, but nothing impressive. His brain activity is fairly high though. I'd say he's clean. Threat level 7 absolute best."

"What's threat level seven?" I can't deny I was curious, after all, wouldn't you be?

"Threat levels one through ten. One is confirmed S ranked nin, ten is a civilian kid." The bearded guard explained. "Have a good stay in the village, traveler. Keep to public areas, don't cause trouble and don't harass the shinobi. Konoha's one of the friendliest villages you'll find, but we're still first and foremost a military installation."

"Duely noted." I replied nodding. "Speaking of which, how would I go about getting into the shinobi academy?" The two guards lookedat each other and broke out laughing. I frowned but allowed them to carry on for a minute while they calmed down.

"Wait, you're not kidding?" The bearded nin asked.

"Nope."

"Oh geeze…" he said, rubbing the back of his head "At your age… I don't know if they'd even accept your application… I mean, there are a fair number of chunin your age, but most gennin drop out and become civilians if they make it to 18 without advancing. Bit of an embarrassment for their teachers when they can't hack it, say nothing of the personal shame."

"Yeah," the other one cut in "I'm not sure your chakra coils could even expand anymore. There is a reason we generally start training kids around the age of eight."

"I'm only seventeen." I said frowning "And I can't see where it could hurt. If I'm that hopeless I won't likely make it past the academy and no one's the worse for wear. I'll be my money paying for it anyway, won't it?"

The guards looked at each other and shrugged. "I suppose you could go down to the tower and apply, but I think you'll need some proper money first. I'm not sure how things work with the academy. I know the chunin instructors get paid and I know the Hokage pays for orphans to attend, but beyond that our parents took care of the details and we haven't taken the post."

"I'd suggest finding a job somewhere and forgetting about it, kid. Shinobi's a hard life and more often than not , well, you sort of got to be born into it."

"Well, thanks for the advice." I said, my mouth a thin line.

Retrieving my wallet I made my way through the gates and into the city proper. Leaf is a big place, not New York City big, but the place still has 74 streets across, 30 from the gate to the monument and innumerable small alleys. The place is filled with parks and restaurants and I've counted nearly seven individual market places in my search for Ichiriku's Ramen stand. Much to my disappointment Old man Ichiraku wasn't here yet, two to six years from now he will be, but not just yet.

The first thing I decided I would need was money. Unless some random higher power was just going to toss me somewhere else like last time, my best chance of getting back was either by hiring a seal master, or joining the Leafs shinobi forces and becoming one myself. Both paths would more than likely require fair amounts of cash. Hiring a seal master to research the problem form me would require massive quantities of money and a lot of time during which I would still need to live, and becoming a seal master would require me to train in chakra, something I wouldn't likely just be given by the gracious fire-shadow, again, meant money.

Finding a pawn shop I traded the contents of my wallet for eight and a half thousand ryo, the currency of the realm. Now, at first this sounds like a lot, at least until you realize that ryo, like yen, is basically equivalent to pennies meaning I only really got around 85 dollars. For a bunch of novelty plastic cards, cloth bills nobody would exchange and a well-worn leather wallet however, that was pretty good. The pawn broker, Hitsuke Han, was actually impressed by the stitching on my wallet and openly stated such. That the guy stuck it in his own pocket rather than on one of the shelves as soon as I'd sold it to him is probably why he gave me so much.

Leaving the pawn shop I hit up one of the yakitori stands and pick of a few sticks of the grilled, salted chicken skewers for 800 yro. It tastes much better than it sounds, thought the salt content will probably get unhealthy quickly if I stay here long.

I walk through the market asking question about who's hiring at the moment and begin to build myself a list of options. The 'hidden' city of Konoha has over a dozen grocers who routinely hire low C rank ninja missions to transport in supplies needed to feed the village and are always looking for someone to stock shelves and run the register so that's an easy option if all else should fail. Of the seventeen munitions retailers; 9 wide spectrum ninja supplies, 8 specialty shops ranging from a shop that sold chakra metal weapons to a specialty sword smith and even one shop that sold nothing but trap and storage fuin, only five of them were offering positions for assistants. The man with the chakra metal shop had recently lost his son and shop boy to being a full time gennin with a demanding sensei and was offering to teach anyone who was willing to contract themselves to a long term position. The fuin shop was also looking for an inker but were leery about hiring someone they'd have to train from the ground up, preferring one of the many academy drop outs instead. The other three were general munitions shops looking for clerks; Not a bad gig, but no real mobility beyond shop owner there. I'll keep it in in the back of my mind.

Next one the list is restaurants. There are actually seventy two of theses in the city, not counting street vendors, and range from six large classy establishments for local and visiting wealth thirty or so small food stands that consist of a permanent open air kitchen, small apartment and bar or café area. Four of the six classy resturants were hiring waiters at the moment and one was looking for a new chef, but there was honestly little chance I'd get into any of them. I'm not a particularly good cook for myself, let-alone others. Don't get me wrong, I don't burn water like some people I know and I can make a mean spaghetti, but gourmet cooking is not my forte and a homeless shmuck is not going to be hired in a classy restaurant no matter how good they are. The midlevel establishments had a number of positions open though, from busboy to head chef, so there were plenty of options for me there.

There was also the avenue of public service open, though I didn't particularly relish it. There were, in Konoha, two civilian schools in addition to the shinobi academy. A K through eighth grade and a trade school, both of which were low on teaching staff and I'd been in college in my world for several years. Considering the comparable levels of technology I could probably make professor pretty quickly here. My rudimentary knowledge in electrical and mechanical engineering alone would be nearly invaluable in this type of society. The introduction of trains alone would completely change the dynamic of the elemental countries, say nothing of subways, guns, personal home computer systems, cars, air travel… it baffles me how these people can have standard issue squad radio headsets and operational genetics labs when concepts like electricity and internal combustion engines are mind-blowing to them.

Thing is I don't want to be these people's Henry Ford or Albert Einstein, as utterly cool as reading about naruto and rewriting his world is, this place is fucking horrifying to contemplate actually living in! Think about it, the place is basically feudal china with CCTV and super-powered-shock-troopers with major anger management issues. As cool as it is to think about mountain sized energy monsters capable of replicating the awe inspiring fury of nature when they turn over in their sleep, who in their right mind would honestly want to meet one?

Gods I need a piano… or a computer… I never did finish mass effect three… it's a strange feeling to know that such petty things make me want to cry right now. I wonder if I could get StarWars re-filmed here? I know they have cinema and recording equipment here… maybe I can use this as a chance to fix the plot-holes that mar that work of art?

But that would require reverse engineering the illusionary clone and several advanced genjutsu techniques on top of remembering what happened with sufficient detail which would require me to train as a shinobi and brings me full circle to the problem of money.

Shit.

There were numerous other options I could think of to gain a job and thus money, but the entire point of my many budding and convilouted plans was to gain access to seals to make my way home so there was really on one place I could end up choosing. Getting direction from several people on the streets with me I made my way to Naga Hanna's trapps, tags and pyrotechnics, the fuin munitions shop I had mentioned earlier.

I walked into the shop and a pretty Asian girl with straight lavender hair and a c cup smiled at me. "Hello, is there anything I can help you with today? You don't look like a shinobi, do you need a carrier scroll? We have a fine selection of low charge carrier seals available."

"Perhaps later," I responded, smiling as well and holding up a piece of paper. "I'm actually responding to your add looking for a shop assistant to make inks and write tags. Any chance it's still open?"

The girl looked slightly taken aback before shaking her head and answering. "Um, yes, I'll have to go into the back and talk to my father, he owns the shop. I don't recognize you from the village, do you know how to mold chakra?"

"Ah, no actually I'm from out of town. I have a steady hand and a fast mind though and I was hoping to find some work. I can't charge any of the fuin I'll be making, but I'm more than willing to learn and chakra isn't required to grind inks or ink fuin as far as I know."

"Ano… I'll just… go talk to my father. Please wait here, and don't touch anything." I put my hands in my pockets and she turned on her heel, heading for a door behind the counter. I stood there looking around at the various stacks of tags and trap diagrams and equipment positioned around the shop floor for a little over a minute before she came back with a tall man that looked like a wrestler who'd passed his prime with tanned swarthy skin, a multitude of scars and plum colored hair tied back in a braid. His face was distinctly Asian but I would be hard pressed to call him anything other than cool.

The bear of a man walked up to me and bowed very slightly. Remembering my many talks with other Asian kids on campus I bowed back, not heavily, but noticeable deeper than he himself had done. One of the tenants of Asian courtesy is that the deeper you bow to a person the more respect you are supposedly showing them. Bow at a lesser angle and you're showing them less respect than they are you, bow too deeply and you're suggesting your subservience to them. The polite thing to do is to bow slightly more than they do, enough to show that you are offering them respect, but not so little that you are suggesting yourself to be their equal. That's good among friends, but not when greeting prospective employers.

"So, my daughter tells me you're looking for a job?"

"Yes, sir. I feel I would be qualified to help you in any task that does not directly require chakra to perform and as I told your daughter, I would be more than happy to learn just how to change that."

The man nodded slowly and looked me up and down. "And why do you think I should hire you? You're not from the village and I doubt you have any references."

"Because I'm a steady hand and a fast learner, sir. Also I met Yanamaka Tsuki on my way into town, she performed what she claimed to be a counterintelligence technique on me and she and the gate guards declared that I was, at the very least, of no threat." I answered back with a wry smile.

Naga Laughed. "A quick mind and a quick tongue. You can start tomorrow at seven, learn quickly and don't make mistakes. I know Tsuki was supposed to arrive earlier today so go get yourself a room somewhere. Don't be late."

I thank him and decide not to mention my utter lack of funds for an apartment or hotel room and head for one of the public baths I noticed on my way over here. Paying another 500 ryo for a shower, launder and short lock up for my book, I get myself clean. Gods it feels good to be under hot water again. After half an hours wash I finally felt clean again and retrieved my freshly washed cloths from the hot rocks where they and several dozen others were drying. Grabbing my book I left the bathhouse in search or some essentials. Until I started getting paid I wasn't going to be rocking any sort of apartment and my new boss has told me to be on site at seven AM so that meant a clock and some place to sleep where I wouldn't be disturbed.

Hell, if I ever got back to my own world I was going to have to seriously thank my dad for literally beating camping essentials into me with his incessant father son bonding trips.

A quick chat up of the locals brought me to a shinobi supply reseller where I bought a one man tent, sleeping bag and a field alarm. Having completed my purchases I set off in search of a place to set up camp. I'm not entirely sure what Konoha's policy is on vagrants or if there's a population of homeless people here but sleeping on the streets isn't a particularly appealing concept and the sewer network, while theorized by many fans and authors as a place Naruto found safety, is not something I'm willing to suffer through. Setting up camp on the roof tops would have some potential in nearly any other city and I've seen it done in New York to fair effect of camps being built around heating elements, but this is a shinobi village and as such they are the domain of night time patrols making them dangerous more than convenient. The training grounds are a possibility, I suppose, what with the number of shinobi in the books who end up working themselves into a coma on their training fields I wouldn't likely be disturbed, but there's still the possibility of a wayward kunai or jutsu coming my way from some enthusiast's early morning workout. My final decision actually came from a funny thought about paying homage to Naruto himself. Naruto in canon and most especially fanon make sitting in the hair spikes of his father's effigy an important part of the boys comfort while they're busy abusing the character in their writing. Since the fourth doesn't yet have his head carved into the mountain and climbing it just seem over to the top to me I made my camp in the thick brush at its base. It wasn't difficult, due to a readymade animal warren trampled into the scrub. I'm not sure what used to live here but the tunnel was only just big enough to crawl through without getting seriously scratched and it ended in a nice bushy dome that hid itself from any overview. Sitting in there, clearing away the bones of small animals and setting up my tent I felt marginally safe and smiled as rolled out my sleeping bag. That this place reminded me of dad was my last thought as I lay down that night and set my alarm for 530.

! #$^&*()

Shinobi field radios are horrible things.

No, don't laugh, I'm being serious! Due to the need to be silent in enemy territory shinobi can't wake to a squawking or shrieking alarm like everyone else does. Despite this it's still often necessary to take solo missions where sleep is a sparse commodity and your waking up noisily is likely to get you killed so some brilliant engineer came up with a method of getting around that. The shinobi field radio works in much the same maner as a normal alarm clock in that it's a small box that tells you the time and can be set to wake you at a specific time, unfortunately the method this idiot figured out how to shock you out of your dreams is quite literal. A D class Raiton jutsu leaps out of the little box and shocks the shit out of the closest part of you, in this case, my foot.

Swearing softly, but profusely, I quickly pack up camp and stow my tent, book and sleeping bag behind a particularly thick piece of brush that has a convenient hole behind it and crawl out. Brushing the leaves of my tunnel crawl off of my cloths I head to one of the market areas to see what I can fetch for breakfast. I pick up a bowl of udon with half cooked egg drop and a pickle for 300 ryo. It tastes good, but the slimy texture of the partialy cooked egg that was cracked right into my boiling noodles is slightly off putting. I'd worry about salmonella but my roommate Gennai from back home used to do this all the time and say it was pretty common place in Hokaido where he grew up.

Popping into a small mom and pop boutique I check the time. Seeing 628 I start heading for Naga's. I remember the way and get there with 15 minutes to spare, but better early on the first day than late.

"Here, kid, start sweeping." I blinked, not even fully through the door as I grabbed the broom that was thrust into my hands.

"Well, I guess I did sign up to be a shop boy…" I muttered.

"That you did, kid. Just going to stand there?"

"Names John Grey, Naga-san. Where would you like me to sweep, the interior of the shop or the back rooms?" I asked the big man, who was still standing in my way.

"Already done with the shop Grey-chan, use the broom to knock the dust and cobwebs from the rafters and then sweep the street outside real quick. There's a ladle and rain bucket over there to keep the dust down. Hop to it!" Nodding I started and he stood there watching me. Once I was done he nodded and led me to the back room of the shop.

"Naga-san, why did you call me chan?" I asked a brow quirked.

"Because you talk like a girl, kid, did you only have sisters or female friends growing up, brat?"

"Ah, no. I grew up somewhere that spoke a different language. I learned this one from a girl while I was traveling the countryside, through."

Naga snorted. "Whatever, you still sound like a bitch." He turned away from me and began taking bundles of different herbs from the shelves and started showing me how to grind them for inks.

Japanese inks as I would learn over the next few weeks are made from a variety of ground herbs and flowers that are crushed into powers or oils of soy, tea, Tung and sesame that are then baked to ash in a kiln before being mixed with egg whites, tallow or fish skin until it's a thick, pliable dough. The dough is then labeled and dried into sticks called sumi before being sold to customers. When it is time for Japanese inks to be used they are ground against a stone tablet called an inking stone and the resultant dust is then softened into a liquid of varying consistencies with water, oil, or in the case of seal masters, blood.

This, as it turned out, was the meat and potatoes of seal making. Aside from blood there were a few other minerals or special plants that could hold and channel chakra properly, but blood was the best, the heart, if you will, of seal crafting. Leviticus 17:11 for the power of a creature is in the blood. Personally this makes me wonder why we can't just use blood as part of the original make of the ink. I don't know how many of you have ever dealt with large amounts of blood, but as it begins to cool off and or dry out the stuff gets pretty damn sticky and I have little doubt it could form ash into a fairly good ink dough. I'll have to experiment with that someday…

! #$%^&*()

Things continued in this way for three days before Naga came into the shop where I was roasting taro root for the particular ink ash used when painting on stone. "Come on kid, Coronation's in an hour, we're closing up shop for the event, you might as well tag along."

"Got it, Naga-san, just let me take these out of the oven… there." I opened the lid of the pot and looked at the crispy root. Shrugging I set the lid back down and removed my gloves. They'd need another half hour or so back at that heat, but I could get to that later. Removing my gloves I followed Naga to the large open area in front of Hokage Tower. Namikaze Minato was pretty much the entire town's favorite son and the square was absolutely packed as the entire village seemed to have tried to cram themselves into the square in front of the Hokage Tower.

It was interesting to say the least. Down where we were it was all very informal. Everybody stood in a large mob looking up at Sarutobi and Minato while street vendors moved through the crowd with boxes of freshly cooked food or heated sake, but up where the Hokage's were handing things off it all looked so formal. Not being a ninja I couldn't tell for the life of me what they were saying, but I'm sure from the stiff postures and smiling that it must have been very formal. Sarutobi stood up there, flanked by his team mates and two of his three apprentices. I frowned sadly at Tsunade's absence; Dan must already have died then, unless I see her wandering around town she's probably already gone off on her wandering sabbatical thing.

I wondered briefly how many things would change if I killed Sarutobi's other problem apprentice, Orochimaru. Admittedly his recent contributions may have saved the war for Naruto, but much of it wouldn't even have been necessary if not for him. Obito and that little shit Danzo, too, but of the internal problems Orochimaru was by far the more damaging one. Obito was still out in the wild being trained and healed by Madera, so there wasn't much that could be done about him, but of the two present dangers, only Orochimaru ever initiated mass murders against the village… Unless you counted Nagato… but pain made his own choices. With everybody conspiring to drive the poor kid insane it was bound to happen sooner or later and he already hated Konoha over the confusion with his parents.

The problem is how to kill the snake. Hopelessly paranoid as he is poisoning the little shit isn't a possibility and I'm nowhere near the level necessary to kill him. Shit, I'm just a civilian with a few days-worth of sealing knowledge, only way I can think to kill him is a gun, and where am I going to get one of those?!

…where indeed, I wonder, my mood darkening from contemplative to pensive. It's hardly as if your basic gun is difficult to make, I muse. A smooth metal tube, a wedge shaped lump of metal, a slightly smaller tube for a cartridge and a bit of the gunpowder that seems to be everywhere I turn in this place, then a carriage to hold it all together. Well, stock, but whatever. More complicated guns have upwards of a hundred precision parts and as a detailed schematic for a pistol danced across my memory I was sure I could make one, given enough time, but I'm also quite certain I'd never be allowed to leave if I completed it.

Still, the thought of icing Orochimaru with a sawed off, hollow point slug to the temple gives me the happies. I wonder if I could do it with seals? Use earth seals to form bullets and harden them into armor piercing rounds, a wind-fire projection chamber for propulsion, chakra strings to reload? The idea's got promise would certainly cut down on the moving parts and ammunition requirements… not very civilian friendly though. Then again, how many civilians can use chakra? Very few would be combat capable by inclination, obviously, but how many could use it?

Oh, something's happening. I look up to the balcony again and Minato is taking the Hat from Sarutobi. As he promises to take care of the village as if it were his own I notice one of the jacketed shinobi standing behind him is Kushina. Long blood red hair tied back in a braid, an hourglass figure and the Japanese American face of an angel… even from a hundred or more feet away I'm blushing. Shit. It's not hard to understand why she's always a featured MILF in any fanon where she survives. Minato's a lucky son of a bitch. And that's a wrap.

As everybody begins to disperse I begin wending my way through the crowd searching for a particular head of platinum blond, but find myself disappointed; if Tsuki was here for the coronation she didn't stick around long after it ended. Shrugging I head back to the shop and fire up the kiln, I still have ground taro root to burn.

! #$^&*()

Slow and steady, my hand traces the seals of an explosive tag as if I was back in lab building a circuit board. It's tedious work but seeing the prices out on the store floor I can only salivate at the state of my potential paycheck. Naga Jiro picks up the tag I've just completed and eyes it carefully as I begin on the next one. He grunts and the tag begins glowing blue. This is as close as he's ever gotten to complimenting me so far, but I hold up hope; he's yet to turn down any of my tags.

"Stop after this one, gaki, I'm nearly out of chakra." I nod and continue drawing without pause, this tag will make 150, 150 is a nice round number. So is 75000 ryo which is what this stack of tags will be sold for eventually. Not that eventually is that far off, the way our customers seem to go through them I can understand why Jiro-san wanted more help. I finish the last stroke of the tag and stretch my arms back, popping my shoulders. A quick twist does the same to my neck and Naga takes the tag from my desk.

"Your weeks' pay is waiting on the counter," Jiro rumbled "I know you've been camping under the monument, get yourself an apartment and some real food. I'll see you tomorrow." My back stiffens. Damn, I had hoped to avoid notice, it's cheaper that way. "Go on, scat!" my boss says, noticing my hesitancy "I'm tired and these seals need to be primed wet. I'll see you tomorrow, and get some damned chakra training, you're practically useless to me otherwise!"

I leave, a small smile on my face. Naga Jiro's rough, but it's good to know he cares.

20000 ryo; two hundred bucks, thereabouts. Not bad, I suppose, I'll wait till I see what the rent is like before I thank the old man though. Checking the clock I see it's only four in the afternoon, too early for diner and, honestly, I'm not interested in scrounging for an apartment just yet. Instead I head for the Yanamaka clan district. It's a small place with only a dozen or so homes, no walls and a couple of family shops. The cool thing about it? The architecture and faces remind me of home. The irritating thing? They're almost exclusively blond… Don't get me wrong, I don't hate blonds, not by a long shot, but most of the ridicule I've faced over my seventeen years has come from hot blonds and I can't think of a Yamanaka who doesn't qualify.

Well, except perhaps the kids, I'm no pedo, but they're still blond and cute from hot blond parents and I feel totally justified being uncomfortable here. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you, right?

Stopping in the clan head's flower shop; why a clan head would run a flower shop I have no idea, I walk up to the pretty blond girl behind the counter. "Hello, may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Yamanaka Tsuki," I replied with a slight bow "do you know where I might find her?"

The girl looks me up and down appraisingly, a dangerous glint in here eye. "The roses here really good quality," she said, dodging my question with a smile "what do you think? Red or yellow?"

"Um… yellow, I think? What says, please help me without being romantic or sounding desperate?"

"Hmm, in that case you'll want Laurel, red lily and oak leaves. The yellow rose probably wouldn't go amiss either… 750 ryo." She said, gathering up the mentioned plants. I sighed, this had not been my intention in coming here, but I suppose it's no worse than paying an information bribe and will probably help some.

I pull out the bills and pay her. "So, mind telling me where I might find her?"

"Training ground 13, by the hot springs." The girl tending the shop replies. "She'll be with her team until six if her boyfriend isn't in town. I think you're in luck though, Yamamoto should still be on his way back from the capital, wagon trains being so slow and everything." I nodded, feeling inexplicably crestfallen and left the shop. The hot springs are only a short walk away from the Yamanaka, which is convenient I suppose. They're owned by the Chikage clan, a small group of bloodline users Konoha stole from Kiri during the second war. They use a d-ranked boil release jutsu to provide a continuous flow of clean, steaming hot water through the baths which nets them a fairly steady income and acts as a chakra building exercise for their younger members.

As I walk there I ponder that. Boil release is an elemental aspect fusion between fire and water, but fire and water can also be fused to form a variety of oil and acid releases. Or is acid water and lightning fusion? Hmm…

Fire trumps Wind, trumps Lightning, trumps Earth, trumps Water, trumps Fire and so the cycle goes for the five primary elements.
Fire and water fused makes things that burn like fire and yet flow like water; Oil, Boiling water and possibly acid.
Fire and earth fused makes things that burn like fire and are strong as earth; Lava is the only one that comes to mind as canon, but other things like alkaline metals or burning metals come to mind. Possibly Cyclops force blasts as well, but that strikes me as a bit fanciful.
Fire and lightning fused makes elements that burn like fire and are energy based… so… light? I think one of the data books might have mentioned blaze, but honestly that strikes me as wind/fire.
Fire and wind ditto and so on, burns like fire and…what? Moves like wind? Cuts? Bludgeons? All examples I've seen of wind thus far it acts as an enhancer; allowing better control or stronger attributes. Fire and wind is blaze, scorch and smoke best I can remember.
Water cum earth, flows like water, but with the strength of earth. Trees are the canon example here, but I think that might just encompass any plant manipulation. What else… glass maybe? It's a liquid, scientifically that is. Maybe liquid or solid crystal release as well? It would go with the interpretation that water is a growing element…
Water and lightning claims storm release in canon, but honestly I don't see it. Wind, water and lightning, definitely; but just water and lightning? No so much. Acid works though, high energy reactions that flow like water and all that rot.
Water fused to wind makes ice. Fairly logical there, water is cold, blow wind across it and it gets colder; magical logic easily makes the leap to ice. Add that ice shards cut like most wind attacks and you've got a solid. That being said, I also think you could get snow, water spouts and whirlpools from it. Uzushigakure was famous for its dual water and wind affinities and was well known for the whirlpools and hurricanes that protected its coastline. That could have been just wind or water attacks, but it could also have been a fusion.
Earth mixed with lightning fused to form explosive bakudan bloodline and in the anime was responsible for the magnet release as well, though the data books place that as earth wind. Strength of earth fused to the high energy of lightning could also be the gravity release that the Tsuchikage and Pein played around with as well. It makes logical sense.
Earth and wind in canon made sand and magnet releases. I'm not sure about the magnet, but sand I can understand. Hard as earth, and flowlingly moveable cutting like wind. Can't think of anything else that goes with the pair though. Dust of all ludicrous things was a triple fusion that added fire, after all.
Lightning and Wind only make magnet in canon, anime or fanon so I have no idea what might go there. Static electricity maybe? Taking electrons from the world around you to fuel ration jutsu or make wide area electrical attacks? Or darkness perhaps? Taking the energy out of the air for a variety of purposes? Except the only darkness jutsu in canon is a clan ninpou of the Nara… hmm.

So that's fire, water, earth, lightning, water, oil, boiling water, acid, plants, lava, firestorms, laser intense light, storm, dust, ice, snow, explosions, magnetic fields, gravity, and sand so far.

My musings are cut off before I can get to triple or quadruple fusions by a sharp pain as a kunai cuts a small wedge in my ear. "OUCH!" I holler, clapping a hand to my ear and squeezing the damaged area. "DAMN IT TSUKI! Couldn't you have found a simpler way to say hello?"

"Yes." She said simply, smiling as she met my glare.

I give a loud, groaning sigh. "I suppose it would be too much ask for five minutes of help? This time I brought money and flowers?"

The kids behind her giggled at me. I'd considered glaring, but that typically only gets a stronger reaction from the receiver; I've had a LOT of practice with this. "You know I have a boyfriend right? He's a weapons specialist and sword smith for the Fire Lords court."

I nodded. "So your family informed me. Just as I was informed that this bouquet said please help in a non-romantic way." I said picking up the lily, laurel, rose and leaves.

"Mmm…" she intoned, sauntering over, hips swaying "Spirited dreams, ambition, friendship and strength… I assume you have no idea what these meant, did you?"

"I knew about the yellow rose," I said, shaking my head and Tsuki smirks.

"Well, it does say you're harmless and want me to make you strong, so you mentioned money?"

"Yeah, I thought I would ask you to do that thing from when we first met, where you shoved proper Japanese into my head; except I want you to make it as many chakra control as I can cajole out of you." I pull out a fraction of the bills I'd been paid for my work at the ink shop and finished the thought. "And I brought money this time!" I said with a grin.

She rolled her eyes. "well, if anbu hasn't carted you off yet you're either much better than what you're asking for or you've been dubbed harmless, so why not… what do you want?"

I grinned. "Everything you remember, preferably in order, about finding your chakra, getting ahold of it, the academies leaf floating exercise, leaf sticking, wall walking, water walking, chakra strings and chakra charging. Or as many of those as you're willing to do; I've taken a job at Naga Jiro's sealing and inking shop and he wants me to be able to start charging tags in addition to painting them."

Tsuki's students gapped at me and the woman herself snorted in laughter. "Why don't you just go join the academy, or ask one of the teachers for help?"

I rubbed the back of my neck with the hand that wasn't holding my ear closed. "Well, um, you see, about that… I went there a couple of days ago and they said I was too old."

Tsuki smirked. "They're not wrong. The chakra network forms when you're a kid and doesn't become fully functional until you're six or seven." Tsuki explained. "That's why we start kids at the academy when they're eight. From then until the age of twenty two a persons coils are malleable, but they usually settle into their perminant configuration around the age of twelve or thirteen only allowing for growth afterwards which is why we try to push them to become genin before then and choose the path their career is going to take for the rest of their lives. You've still got about five years to grow, but your coils are still a stunted civilians network so the chances of you being able to specialize in anything enough to grow into a useful and dangerous assassin are really pretty minimal. The quick bit of cash and amusement value aside, I really don't see why I should take the effort of teaching you, especially when I still have a student needing training for his chunin exam."

Now THAT was interesting information… not to mention, it would go a long way to pushing a children's manga into a real life setting. "Well, you gave me the language lesson in the first place because you wanted practice in some counterintelligence technique. Teaching me will give you a chance to refine your technique through repetition and focused information implantation. Surely that is worth a few minutes of your time?" I asked, smiling hopefully.

"Oh, god, it's like talking with that ass-hat Shikaku." She said, causing my mind to perk up with the reference to the canonical head of the Nara clan. "Fine! You three, continue what we were doing, I'm going to skull fuck this kid till he don't come back!" She turned to me with an evil grin and a shiver ran down my spine. What have I gotten myself into, I wondered, trying not to think about how a girl skull fucking someone was impossible. This is going to hurt, I just know it.