Chapter 1: I Accidentally Invent a Black Hole (Oops)
Let me just start by saying: it was not my fault. I mean, sure, maybe I helped build the teleportation kunai that ripped a hole in the fabric of space-time and dumped us into an ocean filled with monsters the size of Bunta—but that doesn't mean I'm to blame. Technically.
Besides, it was Tenten's idea.
Okay okay, back up.
We were in Suna. You know, giant desert village, very hot, lots of sand in very uncomfortable places. We'd just saved Gaara—the red-haired, sand-controlling Kazekage who used to be kind of murdery but now is just… intense. The Akatsuki stole the One-Tail from him, but we got him back before he completely kicked the bucket. You're welcome, Suna.
Anyway, everyone was there: Team Gai, Team Asuma, even Team Kurenai. Pretty much half of Konoha showed up like it was some kind of ninja family reunion—but with more PTSD.
And me? I was just trying to see my old buddy Gaara, maybe share a bowl of ramen, talk about our trauma. You know, normal bro stuff. But then Tenten pulled me aside.
Tenten—if you don't know her, think "ninja blacksmith with weapon ADHD." She could probably arm a small country from her scrolls alone. She also has this very specific obsession: mythical weapons of world-ending power. Yeah. Totally healthy.
"So Naruto," she whispered, eyes gleaming like she'd just found the secret ingredient to explodey soup, "I've got an idea. What if we build a weapon that teleports to you… or teleports you to it?"
And because I have the brain of someone who jumps off cliffs and figures out how to land on the way down, I said: "Heck yeah, let's do it!"
Two days of working with explosive seals, forbidden ink, and probably enough chakra to make a baby tailed beast later, we had it. A modified kunai modeled after my idol—the Fourth Hokage himself, Dad… I mean Minato-sensei. I was ready to test it.
Everyone was there. Tenten, grinning like she'd just set the world on fire. Neji, arms crossed and silently judging us. Lee doing one-handed push-ups while watching. Gaara, still pale from, you know, dying recently. Even Kiba and Shino showed up. It was like the worst science fair ever.
"Okay," I said, channeling chakra into the seal, "here goes!"
I threw the kunai.
Instead of it flying back to my hand like a good little murder knife, I got yanked toward it and slammed right into Gaara—who, thankfully, caught me in a sand pillow before I broke something important. Not ideal, but hey, I was alive!
Then came attempt number two.
Tenten made some seal adjustments. "It's ready now," she said with total confidence, which in hindsight should have been a warning sign.
I activated it again.
This time? Boom. Giant, swirling black hole. Screaming wind. A whole 100-meter radius of Suna—gone. Sand, kunai, two scorpions, and us. All sucked in like we were popcorn kernels in a chakra-powered vacuum.
The next thing I know?
I'm falling through the sky. Blue everywhere. Ocean below. Definitely not the desert.
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" I screamed, in a very brave and manly way.
"Calm yourself, Naruto," Neji said, somehow not panicking mid-fall. He activated his Byakugan. "There are creatures below… massive. As large as Boss Toad. Maybe bijuu-class."
Of course there are. Because why not?
So yeah, we teleported to another world. An ocean world. With sea monsters. I'm soaking wet.
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So remember how I said we fell into the ocean?
Yeah, it got worse.
Giant eel-monsters started circling like we were a buffet special. Giant octopuses (octopi? Octopodes? Whatever) rose up with squiggly arms like they were ready to play ninja whack-a-mole. A shark the size of the Hokage Monument leapt out of the sea, flashing more teeth than Kiba on a good day. Oh, and birds. Giant, feathery, screaming ones. Because clearly the universe decided today was "Attack the Ninja" day.
Bad choice, universe.
"Brace yourselves!" I shouted, charging up a Wind Release: Rasengan in my hand. It hummed with chakra and sliced the air like it was made of lightning.
Neji moved first, of course. Guy's like a chakra sniper. "Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!" he yelled, and boom—one eel exploded into sushi. I think Lee cried a little. "That was beautiful!" he wailed.
"Rasengan!" I launched mine into a shark thing. It spun, screeched, and just… imploded. Not gonna lie, that was kinda cool. And a little scary. Note to self: don't use that on friends.
Gaara, being Gaara, didn't say a word. He just raised his hand and unleashed a hundred sand spears like it was no big deal. The sky rained sand. The octopus got skewered. The birds turned into feather dust.
"Gross," Kiba muttered, wrinkling his nose.
"You smell worse," Shino said calmly, because apparently getting attacked by prehistoric sea monsters wasn't enough to stop him from throwing shade.
Gaara raised a massive platform of sand, hardening it under us. We clambered on, dripping wet and slightly traumatized. Everyone was breathing hard except Gai and Lee, who were already challenging each other to push-up contests on the sand.
"I'll do five hundred!" Lee declared, his eyes sparkling. "Gai-sensei, will you match me?"
"Of course, Lee! In the spirit of youth, I shall do six hundred!" Gai bellowed, striking a pose that somehow involved jazz hands.
Kakashi sighed so hard I think his soul briefly left his body. "Can we not die from secondhand embarrassment today? Please?"
"Hinata, can you scout?" Kurenai asked gently, ignoring the madness.
Hinata nodded quickly. "Byakugan!" Her veins bulged out around her eyes in that slightly terrifying way, and she scanned the endless blue.
Everyone went quiet as she focused.
After a long minute, she said, "There's land about… eighteen kilometers that way." She pointed northeast.
We all collectively sighed in relief.
"In that case, forward march," Kakashi said, waving lazily.
Gaara steered the sand platform silently. Everyone gathered around, some sitting cross-legged, some standing with arms crossed. I sat down next to Sakura and Tenten, wringing water out of my jacket.
"So," Asuma started, lighting a cigarette that somehow stayed dry (ninja magic?), "anyone recognize anything?"
"Not even close," Shikamaru said, rubbing the back of his neck. "None of those sea creatures exist back home. Not in the Elemental Nations. And believe me, I pay attention to anything that could randomly eat me."
"Could we have ended up on another continent?" Choji asked, chewing anxiously on some soggy chips he'd somehow salvaged.
"Maybe," Shino said, adjusting his sunglasses. "But even the chakra signatures of the beasts were… unusual."
"No chakra network like ours," Hinata added quietly. "More raw instinct. Less… purpose."
"And bigger teeth," Kiba said, nudging Akamaru, who was shivering miserably under a blanket of sand.
Sakura looked worried. "Could the Akatsuki have done this? Some kind of… trap?"
Everyone turned toward Kakashi, who had that look he gets when he's connecting a thousand dots at once behind the mask.
"Unlikely," Kakashi said eventually. "This feels… accidental. If they'd built a trap, they wouldn't leave us here with giant monsters. They'd come to finish the job."
"So we're lost because of your science experiment," Ino said, raising an eyebrow at me and Tenten.
"Hey!" I said, throwing up my hands. "It was an accidental black hole! Those happen all the time! Probably!"
Tenten, to her credit, looked proud instead of guilty. "The important thing is, the weapon works. Sort of."
"Define 'works,'" Neji muttered.
"You're still alive, aren't you?" she shot back.
"Barely," Shikamaru groaned.
Gai clapped his hands loudly. "No time for gloom, my youthful friends! A great adventure lies ahead!"
Lee immediately jumped to his feet, fists clenched. "I am ready for anything! Pirates, sea monsters, mysterious treasures!"
I stared at him. "Why are you specifically mentioning pirates?"
Lee beamed. "Because! There is always a chance of pirates when there are oceans involved!"
Shikamaru groaned louder. "Wonderful. Just what we need. Pirates."
Asuma took a drag of his cigarette. "I'm more worried about food and water."
"Same," Choji said through a mouthful of chips.
"Land first, survival later," Kurenai said.
We kept moving, the sand platform gliding smoothly over the endless ocean. The land Hinata had spotted was getting closer, but we were all on edge.
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We finally spotted land after what felt like ten thousand years of riding a giant sand hoverboard.
At first, we were all cheering like maniacs—Land! Food! Dry clothes! Actual toilets!—until we got closer and realized things were... off.
For starters, there was a giant archway at the harbor, and it had the words Logue Town painted on it in big, fancy letters. Never heard of it. Ever.
The town looked normal-ish—crowded streets, colorful market stalls, kids running around throwing rotten fruit at each other (classic)—but the people were speaking some weird language that sounded like a cat and a bird were having a very passionate argument.
"Anyone understand that?" Asuma asked, arms crossed.
Everyone shook their heads, even Kakashi, who usually spoke like a thousand dialects, because of course he did.
"I got this," Ino said, cracking her knuckles like a surgeon about to perform a brain transplant. (Which, to be fair, she kinda was.)
She closed her eyes, and with a small puff of chakra, slipped into the mind of some poor fisherman passing by. The guy blinked, swayed a little, and then kept walking like nothing happened. Total professional hit.
Ino smirked. "Easy. I pulled the language center out of his memories. Transferring it now."
She pressed her fingers to our foreheads one by one. It felt like someone poured a bucket of alphabet soup into my brain, but hey—now the bird-cat sounds made sense.
"Pirates this, pirates that," Tenten muttered, eavesdropping on a group of sailors. "And... something about a 'World Government'?"
We all kinda stood there blinking at each other.
"World... government?" Sakura repeated, as if the words themselves were cursed.
"Never heard of it," Shikamaru said. "And I would've. That's the kind of boring political stuff I usually have to study."
"Pirates are supposed to be small-time criminals, not... whatever this is," Kiba added, scratching his head.
Gaara, ever the calm one, said, "We're not in the Elemental Nations anymore."
Leave it to Gaara to drop that bomb like he was ordering a sandwich.
Kakashi sighed. "Different world. Wonderful."
"So... the black hole didn't just teleport us," Choji said slowly. "It yeeted us into another dimension?"
"That's the technical term, yes," Kakashi said, straight-faced.
We found a quiet alleyway to huddle up, because nothing screams "let's plan a way home" like whispering next to a dumpster that smelled suspiciously like squid ink and broken dreams.
"So... do we risk making another black hole?" Naruto asked, looking at me and Tenten.
Tenten looked ready to argue for it. Like, immediately.
"I mean, we know what went wrong," she said brightly. "Probably. Maybe."
"Maybe?" Neji said, one eyebrow climbing to the stratosphere.
"We just need to adjust the stabilization seals, increase the dimensional anchors, realign the chakra resonance, and pray to every deity we've ever heard of," she said in one breath.
"...Right," Shikamaru said. "In other words: it'll either work, or it'll blow us into cosmic dust."
"It's worth a try!" Tenten said. "Otherwise we're stuck here!"
Hinata fidgeted, looking nervous. "Um... should we try to learn more first? About this world?"
"She's got a point," Kurenai agreed. "We don't know the rules here. We don't know who's in power, who's dangerous... or how common chakra users are."
"They're not," Shino said simply. "I haven't sensed a single chakra signature like ours. Just... life force. Very different."
"And if we start slinging jutsu around," Asuma added, "we might end up getting the wrong kind of attention."
"Or the right kind," Lee said, bouncing on his heels. "We could challenge their greatest warriors to a duel of strength and honor!"
Everyone: awkward silence.
"We're not doing that," Kakashi said quickly.
"But—"
"No, Lee."
I leaned back against the alley wall, folding my arms. "So... learn first, black hole later?"
"That sounds reasonable," Gaara said.
"I hate reasonable," I muttered.
"Agreed," Kiba grumbled.
But deep down, we all knew it was the smart move.
We were stranded in a strange world, where pirates were apparently celebrities and a government ruled everything with an iron fist.
And something told me this was just the beginning of the crazy.