A New Year, A New Life, A New Love: Chapter 1 - Everything Is Never As It Seems (Part 2)
Second part of chapter 1, figured I'd throw it up here.
The Naruto universe is the property of Masashi Kishimoto.
Sunlight. It was day, and it was sunny.
This was the first thing to occur to Whisper as she slowly swam out of the miasmic haze of dreaming and towards the distant shores of full consciousness. She felt warm and secure, which was incredibly rare for her. Being what she was, security was a rarely felt sensation. And there was a dull thumping, that seemed to be getting louder.
Fighting for every step of the way, Whisper struggled to fully awaken. She didn't know why, but something was wrong, and she had to be alert...
As her eyes slowly opened, a bright blue and green blur appeared above her, spearing right through her eyes and into the pain center of her brain. She immediately snapped them shut, and groaned, sluggishly lifting a hand to cover her eyes from the offending light.
Or at least she tried. Something was holding her hands down. This time angling her head downwards, she again slowly opened her eyes, and the sight immediately put her at ease. She was wrapped in Kroqgars arms, and the thumping sound she could hear was that of his own heart, beating away. He was still asleep, his chest rising and falling in time with his breathing. Gazing down at his sleeping form, Whisper couldn't help but smile. She loved him, and she knew it. He was always there for her, he was her rock, and without him she would have been lost long ago.
So as not to wake him, she gently eased her way out of his arms, and stood up, stretching her arms far above her head, and flexing all her muscles to work out the tension, squeezing her eyes shut. She took care to not give Kroqgar a case of tail-face. As she stood there, wrapped up in the pleasure of feeling all her muscles scream out in pleasured pain, she raised her head towards the bright sunlight, feeling it warm and comfort her.
And her eyes snapped open. Sunlight. Fresh, cool air. This was not as it should be. She quickly looked around her. They were surrounded by trees on all sides, not densely, but enough to be comfortable. There was a springy layer of grass, and the sun warmed the area to a very pleasant temperature.
Suddenly feeling incredibly afraid at these strange new surroundings, Whisper crouched down beside Kroqgar and shook him awake.
"Kroqgar!" she whispered, "Kroq!"
His eyes almost immediately opened, and he snapped forward into a sitting position, scanning the area around them with all his senses. He had heard the alarm in her voice and mistook it for an immediate threat. Unable to find anything malevolent in his surroundings, he swiftly rose and continued to look around the area, tension and alertness showing in every line of his body. He had not even paused to wonder where they were, or at their strange new surroundings, so focused was he on finding what had caused Whisper such distress.
She took his arm and spun him around to face her. "Calm down, there isn't anything here that wants to hurt us. I just don't know where we are... I can't even remember what happened..." she trailed off as a far-off look came over her face. "We were on top of that building watching the fireworks, then...then..."
A thoughtful look gracing his own features, brow furrowed in concentration and eyes on the ground, Kroqgar said, "Then we went down and started working the fireworks ourselves..."
"Oh yeah!"
"And then...then a song came on?" He didn't sound too sure of himself.
"Yeah! A song started playing, they...they chose it for the New Year song or something, I can't remember what it was..."
"And then you started dancing," he said, looking at her with a big smile.
She gave a small giggle (it was music to his ears) and agreed. Then her smile faded, and a little bit of the light in her eyes dimmed.
"Then the fireworks machine broke down, and an override was turned on, or something," she breathed, looking down at the ground.
"Yeah, and it...it went off... and there was that light!" he said, wincing at the painful ocular memory.
"Of course, there was that energy around us!" Whisper agreed eagerly, happy they were piecing the memory back together. They didn't seem dead, and if they were, this didn't seem like a bad place, so she was getting over her brief sadness. "And just as it was about to close on us, we turned around, and then we-" she broke off, a look of alarm crossing her features as her eyes suddenly flushed bright red. Kroqgar looked at her oddly for a second, then his own eyes shot wide open, and even through his black fur she could see the red tinge on his ears.
In a pathetically transparent attempt at changing the subject, Kroqgar turned away from Whisper and looked at their surroundings.
"So uhhh, w-where are we now?" he asked, voice cracking almost unnoticeably. He looked around at the peaceful trees around him, bathed in the bright sunshine and swaying gently in the breeze.
"I have no idea. We were in Brisbane, and when I woke up we were here," she said, puzzlement showing in the frown on her face.
"Look!" Kroqgar exclaimed, pointing with one clawed finger through the trees. Whisper followed his gaze and saw something that she had missed in her initial shock. She grew quickly excited that they were not alone in this world.
"A road!"
They both ran through the trees and burst out into full sunlight on the road, seeing it stretch away on both sides of them. Now they got a good look at their surroundings.
The road led off to their left, going slightly down hill and leading off into the horizon, forest bordering it on both sides. They saw a couple of buildings dotting the roadside, and their architecture looked strange, but from this distance even for their sharp eyes it was impossible to discern why. They could barely make out movement around the buildings, so they now had proof of life in this new world.
Behind them they saw that the forest led into tall, jagged mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see. The road sloped uphill to their right.
"I think we should go right, you know, get the high ground," said Kroqgar glancing at Whisper for her reaction. She nodded in the affirmative and they both set off. As they walked along Whisper slipped her hand into Kroqgars. In a wordless response he gripped hers tight. She smiled broadly.
As they climbed the road, heading for the top of the hill it was on, they began to hear a distinctive sound. The low murmuring of many voices, as if a large crowd lay just over the hill. With a worried glance at one another, they both picked up the pace.
The sound of civilization increased as they approached the top of the hill, until finally they stood at its top, and stared down in absolute amazement and utter bewilderment at the scene before them, giving them reason to doubt their own sanity.
Before them the road led down into a massive gate, and disappeared into a large city beyond it. The city was completely encircled by a massive wall, in the shape of a circle. They saw hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings within the walls, all with people bustling back and forth going about their daily activities. The road they were walking along now led through the city like a main thoroughfare, leading all the way up to a massive structure near some cliffs at the very back of the city. Prominently displayed on the front of the building was a kanji that looked like a lower case "h" with an apostrophe on either side.
Both Kroqgar and Whisper knew this symbol well.
But the thing that really and truly got their attention was the massive cliff face that the village backed on to. On this cliff face were four gargantuan faces, gazing out watchfully over the village. The face on the far left wore some sort of head covering, the one next to that wore what seemed to be some sort of forehead covering. To the right of that there was an intelligent looking face with a goatee, and the last face seemed the most youthful, with hair that seemed wild even carved out of rock.
Whisper couldn't even begin to comprehend what she was seeing. It was unfathomable. It was unreal. It was un...possible. But it was.... It was....
Kroqgar gave voice to her unfinished thought with an utterly stunned and completely bewildered look on his face.
"Konoha?!"