Chapter 2: "The Day I Became a Normal, Freezing, Possibly-Delusional Kid"
POV: Naruto Uzumaki
Let me just say: waking up in a stranger's bed in a weird house, in a weird world, with no ramen in sight and absolutely zero chakra?
Yeah. Not on my bucket list.
At first, I thought it was a prank. Maybe Kakashi-sensei decided to teach me a lesson about oversleeping by throwing me into the weirdest D-rank mission ever. That sounded like something he'd do between reading those gross books and pretending to be wise.
But nope. No chakra. No familiar scents. Just this tall, skinny, shivering body that clearly hadn't been trained to do anything except sit in a classroom and maybe lift a pencil.
I ran through the neighborhood like someone had set my butt on fire. Not because I was being chased—nope—I was just trying to figure out where I was. But the longer I ran, the clearer it became.
This body? It sucked.
My lungs were wheezing like a broken flute. My legs were about as sturdy as two chopsticks taped together. And don't get me started on the cold. Back in the Leaf Village, I'd been out in blizzards wearing basically pajamas and sandals. But this body?
This body was about to cry because the wind nipped at its fingers.
I slowed down, huffing and puffing like I'd just done a thousand pushups with Lee and Guy-sensei breathing down my neck. My arms were wrapped around myself, trying to trap some warmth, but it felt useless.
"I hate this," I muttered as I rubbed my hands together, breath fogging up the air in front of me. "I actually miss the village. The ramen stand. Even Sakura punching me in the head."
Okay, maybe not that last one.
I kept walking and somehow ended up in a park—one of those places you only see in movies with kids playing and parents drinking weird brown drinks in cups. Only, this one was empty because apparently, people in this world sleep in.
I slipped into the public restroom and locked myself in a stall, huddling on the toilet seat like it was my new ninja hideout. It was gross, sure, but it was warmer than outside. I rubbed my hands, trying to summon even the smallest flicker of chakra. Nothing. Not even a tickle.
"This has to be a genjutsu," I whispered, pulling out the little kitchen knife I'd swiped earlier. It wasn't even a kunai. Just a kitchen knife. I felt like the world's worst ninja right now.
I held it up and stared.
"Illusion," I told myself. "It's all fake. This is just like the time Itachi messed with Kurenai-sensei, right?"
Except… I didn't have any of my ninja tools. No seal tags. No sensei. No Fox whispering angry thoughts in the back of my head.
Just me, and the cold, and this frail, boring, twitchy body.
I hesitated. Then—I did something stupid. Very Naruto of me.
I slashed the palm of my hand.
"AHHHHHH!"
Yup. Screamed like a little academy kid.
Blood dripped from the cut—bright red, too real. The pain? A thousand times worse than training injuries. No chakra to dull it. No healing. Just raw, stinging fire across my skin.
The room tilted. My arms felt heavy. My vision blurred like I'd just spun in circles for ten minutes.
This wasn't a genjutsu.
I wasn't in the Hidden Leaf anymore.
I wasn't even Naruto anymore.
I was some scrawny kid named… what was it? Issa? Icee? Ice Tray?
Didn't matter. What mattered was I was stuck.
But I wasn't gonna cry. Not yet.
Because if there's one thing I, Naruto Uzumaki, know how to do—
It's hold on when the world wants to throw you away.
So I took off my hoodie (which was basically paper-thin), tore the sleeve, and clumsily wrapped my hand. Not perfect. Not even good. But I wasn't giving up.
"I'm coming back," I whispered, more to myself than anyone. "Just wait for me, Pervy Sage. Don't give up on me."
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Here's the thing about stabbing yourself to escape a genjutsu:
Don't.
I know, I know—sounds like basic ninja common sense. But when your chakra's gone, you're freezing your butt off in a toilet stall, and you think you've been yeeted into an illusion by someone named Madara McEvil or worse? It sounds reasonable.
Until someone literally kicks the door open and shouts—
"What are you doing?!"
I blinked through the haze of pain and confusion to see… glitter?
Yup. Glitter.
This girl, maybe sixteen tops, had black twin-tails, sparkly eyes, and the frilliest dress I'd ever seen. Like, "exploded-fairy-costume-meets-princess-who-fell-into-a-party-store" levels of frilly.
She was holding my bleeding hand like it was the most normal thing in the world. Then—poof—warmth spread through me, and the cut sealed up like it was being stitched by invisible threads.
"What the heck?" I croaked, still half convinced I was hallucinating.
She smiled, striking a pose straight out of one of Konohamaru's weird transformation jutsu manga. "Magical Girl Satan Girl, here to the rescue!"
…I stared.
I wish I had a better reaction. A witty comeback. A scream. Something.
But I just stared at her like she'd grown a second head and painted it pink.
'I'm in a different world,' I thought, deadpan.
Because if a girl who looked like a magical clown princess was calling herself Satan Girl and healing people in bathrooms, then yeah, I was definitely not in the Hidden Leaf anymore.
"What were you thinking?" she asked, puffing up like an angry puffball. "You're just a kid! Why would you try to—" She glanced at the knife.
It froze in the air, cracked like a popsicle, and shattered into sparkling bits.
'I am so not in Konoha,' I thought.
I hesitated, then looked away. "I thought it was genjutsu," I muttered, voice low. "Hurting myself was supposed to break it."
That wasn't a lie. Not really.
I just… didn't tell her about the soul swap, the Kyuubi, or the fact that I might've hijacked someone's life by accident.
She watched me for a second with the eyes of someone who could see more than you wanted them to. Like a good teacher. Or a scary aunt.
Then she crouched to my level and smiled again. "Is that so? Well, next time, don't. Or else your parents will cry, and that's way worse than being stuck in some illusion. Promise your big sister, okay?"
Big sister?
My chest squeezed, and I suddenly remembered the people in that house—Issei's parents.
I'd almost… I almost…
"I'm sorry," I whispered, my throat catching. "I'll never do it again."
My hands trembled, but not from cold anymore. From the weight of everything I didn't understand. Everything I'd nearly messed up.
She nodded, brushing a tear from my cheek like she was a real sister. "Good boy."
Then she took my hand and guided me out of the park like it was just another stroll on a normal day. I tried not to look back at the stall. Tried not to think about how weak I'd been.
"Go back home, okay?" she said softly. "Your parents are probably worried sick."
Before I could say anything else—poof—she disappeared in a sparkle-flurry of magic sparkles and logic-defying fashion sense.
I stood there for a while, staring up at the sky.
"I'm going to fix this," I told myself. "Somehow. I'll find a way home."
Because I was Naruto Uzumaki.
And I always kept my promises.
Even the ones I made to glittery devils in toilet stalls.
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POV: Naruto Uzumaki
So here's the thing:
Walking into a house that smells like breakfast and kindness when it's not your house?
Yeah. That's emotional whiplash with a side of scrambled identity.
I opened the front door, shoes muddy, soul heavier than a thousand Rasengans. Inside, the warm smell of eggs and miso hit me like a brick wall of memories I never lived. A woman—tall, gentle, maybe in her thirties—was standing in the kitchen, humming softly.
She turned when she heard me.
"Oh! You're back early, sweetie," she said with the kind of smile you only see in dreams or really cheesy family dramas. "I'm making your favorite—tamago yaki and grilled fish!"
I nodded mutely. Because what was I supposed to say?
"Thanks, lady I hijacked a life from"?
"Sorry I'm sweating through your couch because I ran away thinking this was a genjutsu death trap"?
Yeah. No.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I nodded again. Then I sat down on the sofa like my legs were jelly—because they kind of were—and tried to pretend my brain wasn't spiraling into the void.
The couch was warm. Soft. Clean.
Too clean for someone like me.
And then it hit me—like, really hit me.
This wasn't my body.
This wasn't my mom.
This wasn't my home.
And worst of all? I was pretending to be someone I wasn't. Some boy named Issei. I didn't know his dreams or fears. I didn't even know what he liked for breakfast. And yet here I was, wrapped in a blanket of lies that smelled suspiciously like laundry detergent and motherly affection.
'There are people with powers here,' I thought. 'Magic. That frilly Satan girl… was that real?'
I clenched my fists, which felt way too skinny and soft to belong to me. Even at twelve, I had tougher skin. This body? It felt like someone cast a transformation jutsu with 30% success rate and slapped a teenager filter on me.
'What am I supposed to do?' I thought, as tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. 'I can't fight like this. I can't survive like this. I'm not their son. I don't belong here.'
But still, I had to live like I did.
Because if I messed up, someone innocent would pay the price.
And that? That was something Naruto Uzumaki didn't do.
'I'll wait. Master will come. He'll fix this,' I told myself.
'Until then… I'll survive.'
The warmth of the sofa wrapped around me like a mother's hug—one I hadn't felt in years—and despite my brain screaming a thousand plans a minute… I fell asleep.
I didn't mean to.
I was just… tired.
Tired of holding everything up by myself.
From the kitchen, I vaguely heard the woman's voice—Miki, I think—soft and affectionate.
"Oh my," she said, smiling. "I never thought he'd start training this early. I wonder what happened…"
I felt her gaze for a second—warm, proud, oblivious.
She thought I was her son.
And that just made me feel worse.
I heard her move about, probably making breakfast for the person she thought I was. I didn't deserve it. But I let it happen.
Because in this upside-down world where I didn't even have my chakra anymore…
Eggs and kindness felt like the only things keeping me together.
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POV: Issei Hyoudou (Unfortunately Very Awake and Not Dreaming)
So, imagine this:
One minute, I'm chilling in my totally normal, mostly boring school life.
Next minute—BAM!—I'm face-to-face with a scary gorilla of a man named Jiraiya, being fireman-carried across a ninja village like some kind of overly dramatic baggage.
And then—double BAM!—I'm dropped in an office where the woman in charge could crush a watermelon with her... ahem never mind.
"Lady Tsunade," Jiraiya said, setting me down like a sack of rice with unresolved trauma, "we've got a situation."
She didn't even look up. "What is it now? Did you peep on the wrong hot spring again?"
"Worse," Jiraiya said as he slapped a silencing seal on the room like it was duct tape on a disaster. "Naruto's soul has been switched with this boy—from another world."
I waved weakly. "Hi. I'm this boy."
Tsunade stared at me, then at Jiraiya, then back at me. "You're kidding."
"I wish," Jiraiya said, deadly serious. "Unless we find a way to travel to his world, Naruto's stuck over there, and we're stuck with this kid."
I'll be honest. That stung a little.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like being the center of attention—especially when the attention is coming from a super-busty blonde whose angry scowl could probably flatten a mountain. But this was not exactly how I imagined being summoned to a new world. I was thinking more along the lines of "hero's welcome" or "surrounded by cute elves."
Not "accidental soul exchange with a famous ninja."
Tsunade suddenly looked like someone had punched her in the stomach. Her shoulders sagged. Her eyes shimmered.
And okay, yeah—I may be a perv, but I'm not heartless.
So I said, "Excuse me, if I'm alive and well, then that means Naruto's safe. The worst thing he's going to worry about in my world is, like, math class and being mildly average. So you've got time."
Her eyes snapped to mine, and for a second I thought I was about to get thrown through a wall.
Instead, she walked up, picked me up like a doll, and examined me like I was a suspicious meat bun.
"Thanks, kid," she finally muttered. "You're right. We've got time. But what about you? Can you handle this world? Because being Naruto means you're going to be hunted."
I looked up at her. Those... majestic... gravity-defying... never mind.
Anyway, I managed to put on my Serious Face™.
"I can live with it," I said. "I've always wanted a life of adventure."
And—okay, I was also thinking about the legendary harem possibilities, but I wisely kept that part to myself. (Mostly because she could flick me into space.)
"You're one lewd brat," Tsunade sighed as she dropped me like a sack of potatoes and ruffled my hair. "Don't make his reputation worse."
"No promises," I muttered, already imagining my ninja harem fan club. Kunai included.
Then her expression turned full Hokage Mode™. Sharp. Calculating. Scary.
"Train him from scratch," she ordered Jiraiya. "Take it seriously. Use everything. And find a way to bring Naruto back. If teleportation's possible, then world-travel is possible."
Jiraiya nodded. "I'll start collecting info and update you. We'll need all hands on deck."
"Good," she said. Then sat down and looked like the weight of the world just crash-landed on her chest—which was already carrying quite the load, if you know what I mean. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
When we left the office, Jiraiya was quiet. Too quiet. The "I'm worried but pretending I'm cool" kind of quiet.
'I hope Naruto's okay,' I thought.
Not just because he seemed like a good guy.
But because if I'm taking his place, I better not screw this up.
Also—harem goals.