Author greeting: So you all may be wondering 'Why does Sage keep posting the same video of that Naruto cover again and again?' Well, if this was an anime, I'd use this song as the current intro due to it being used in the Sasuke Retrival Arc, which this fanfic takes place afterwards. Once I feel we got far enough away from that time, I'll change the 'intro cover'. That said, in the original Book 1 box set, this is the last episode in Book 1 Volume 4 (4 out of 5 disk)... the ending is close!!! Will will soon be seeing Naruto use Rasengans in Book 2!!!!
As Naruto slept, he could swear the spirits of this world was messing with him. For some reason, there was some beautiful white haired girl in his dream. She looked as surprised to see him as he was to see her. What was even stranger, was that they seemed to be in two different places as they looked at each other. The white haired girl saw the Hidden Leaf Village behind Naruto, while Naruto saw a snowy place with the symbol of the Water Tribe. Naruto realized that it must have been the Northern Water Tribe, since there were no structures like this in the Southern Water Tribe.
"W-who are you?" the girl asked.
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Who are you, and how did you get in my dream? A-are you a ghost?" Naruto asked in fear. He was TERRIFIED of ghost.
"No, I'm not a ghost!" the girl replied. Naruto looked at her blankly.
"You didn't answer my other question." Naruto pointed out.
"I'm Yue. Princess of the Northern Water Tribe." said the white haired girl. Naruto smiled.
"Nice to meet you, Yue!" Naruto replied. Yue noticed that Naruto did not bow or try to be overly formal despite her position. Yue smiled despite that. She somehow knew that he was trying to be friendly in his own foreigner way. Naruto looked behind him and was surprised to see the Hidden Leaf there. Naruto let out a sigh.
"Is something wrong?" Yue asked. Naruto shook his head.
"No. Just a little homesick is all." Naruto replied. Yue walked over to see the vision of the Leaf with Naruto.
"That's your home?" Yue asked. Naruto nodded.
"It's beautiful." Yue said. Naruto smiled.
"Isn't it? One day... I'll come back... and I'll train hard and become Hokage!" Naruto declared.
"What's a Hokage?" Yue asked. Naruto smiled.
"The Hokage is the best ninja in my village. The Hokage is responsible for leading my home, the Hidden Leaf Village and it's people. He or she is a hero, who protects the village like it were his or her family." Naruto explained. Yue smiled.
"Well, aren't you the ambitous one?" Yue asked. Naruto looked at her and smiled.
"What's your dream?" Naruto asked.
"Me.... I guess it would be to guide the Water Tribe to an era of peace. This war has been going on for 100 years. So many people have died. I... I just want it to stop." Yue replied. Naruto nodded. He closed his eyes... and thought about the time Orochimaru invaded the Hidden Leaf. How he had fought so hard to have Sasuke, Sakura, and the entire Leaf Village from Gaara, who was being used as a tool by Orochimaru at the time. Naruto remembered when he returned to the village and learned that Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, died defending the Village against Orochimaru. Yue gasped as she had saw Naruto's flashback.
"I-I'm so sorry for what you have gone through." Yue said. Naruto looked at her confused.
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked. Yue sighed.
"I was able to see your thoughts. You were fighting a sand creature and..." Yue started to say but stopped.
"How were you able to... You just appeared in my dream and.... how is any of this happening?" Naruto asked. Yue shrugged.
"Prehaps the spirits has linked our minds for some reason." Yue suggested. Naruto sighed.
When Naruto woke up, he thought of his strange dream.
'I probably shouldn't have eaten so much instant ramen last night.' Naruto thought.
'Too much of that can stunt your growth.' said the voice of Yue in his head. Naruto yelled out loud, as he never expected this to happen.
"G-G-G-GHHHHHOOOOSSSSTTTTTT" Naruto yelled in absolute fear, waking up his friends.
"What's all the yelling about?" Sokka asked, before Naruto heard Yue laughing in his head.
In the Northern Water Tribe:
"Do you find something humerous, Princess?" asked a Water Tribe citizen.
"Just... remembered something humerous." Yue replied, knowing that no one would believe her if she said she randomly gained a physic link with a random boy wearing an ungodly amount of orange.
Meanwhile back with Naruto:
The team decided to take their unexpected early start to their advantage as they explored the area around them. They soon found a sign with a 'You are Here' styled map.
"This should give us a good idea of what's around here." Katara said as Sokka shook an empty bag previous filled with snacks.
"See if you can find a menu. I'm starving." Sokka said.
"Need... ramen! Must... have.... ramen!" Naruto added
'Didn't you supposedly eat too much of that last night?' Yue asked Naruto teasingly in his head.
'There is never such thing as too much ramen.' Naruto replied.
"I bet we'll find something to eat here. The Fire Daze festival." Aang said, snapping Naruto out of his thoughts as he pointed to a flyer under the map.
"It has Fire Nation cultural exhibits, jugglers, benders, magicians. This would be a great place for me to study some real firebenders!" Aang added.
"You might wanna rethink that. Look at this." Sokka said. There was two wanted posters, one for Aang, and the other for Naruto.
"Awesome, it's a poster of me!" Naruto said.
"Not awesome. It's a wanted poster." Sokka replied before Naruto and Aang grabbed their posters from the sign post and looked at them.
"I bet I have a higher bounty than you!" Naruto told Aang, as he pointed at the huge reward he was worth.
"Actually, you're reward is the same amount as mine! We're bounty buddies!" Aang replied.
'These two.... are idiots!' said the Nine Tailed Fox in Naruto's head, but Yue couldn't here him.
'Nobody asked you, damned fox!' Naruto replied, but Yue was unable to hear him. Turned out, Naruto could only talk to one person in his mind at a time. He could silence the connections if needed.
"Anyway, bounty or not. I need to master firebending at some point and this might be my only chance at seeing the masters up close." Aang pointed out.
"I guess we could go check it out." Katara said.
"What? You wanna walk into a Fire Nation town where they are all fired up with all their.... fire?" Sokka asked.
"We'll wear disguises." Katara replied.
"And I can transform!" Naruto added, deciding to demonstrate. As Naruto built up his chakra to transform, a voice in his head returned.
'Wait you can transform?' Yue asked.
'HOLY WILL OF FIRE!' Naruto yelled in his mind, having forgotten he somehow had a new mental link in his head and he accidentally transformed into Yue!
"Whoa... such a pretty woman." Sokka said.
"I DID NOT DO THAT ON PURPOSE!" Naruto yelled with Yue's voice before he transformed back into himself and retransformed into Jiraiya, all the while Yue was laughing at him again.
"If it looks like trouble... or if Naruto accidentally changes into a girl again... we'll leave." Katara added.
"THAT WAS ONE TIME, A FEW SECONDS AGO!!" Naruto yelled.
As Naruto, now himself again, and friends were nearing the town (they were on a hill, where they could see the town at a distance) Aang instructed the animals to stay out of sight.
"Ready disguises." Aang said to his friends. Sokka and Katara put on black cloaks and hoodies that Naruto was greatful did NOT have red clouds on them. Naruto then transformed into Jiraiya again, while Aang.... he just put part of his airbending robe over his head, making him look like a hunchback.
"That's more obvious than the time Konohamaru and his friends tried to disguise themselves as a moving square rock!" Naruto said. Katara giggled.
As Naruto and friends entered the town, everyone seemed to be dressed in Fire Nation solider gear or anything Fire Nation red.
"I think we need new disguises." Katara said, as they all stood out
"Where are we going to get mask like these guys?" Sokka asked.
"Get your genuine Fire festival mask here!" said a salesman behind them. Sokka's eyes widened in surprise.
'Well that was convenient' Naruto thought. Naruto waited for a response but he heard nothing and moved on, following Katara and Aang.
"That was surprisingly easy." Sokka said outloud, echoing Naruto's earlier thought.
The four friends now had mask on. Sokka's was a blue happy face, Katara's was a painted female neutral face, Aang's was a cartoonish frowny face, and Naruto's (who was no longer transformed into Jiraiya) was an angry looking fox face that looked just like the Nine Tailed Fox! Katara then took the mask off of Aang and Sokka and put on the mask the other boy previously had, making Aang the happy one and Sokka the sad one, which was more on point in Naruto's opinion.
As the four friends walked around, Aang pointed at a vendor's shop.
"Hey there's some food." Aang said.
"Finally!" Sokka replied as he and Naruto ran toward the food.
"What do you have?" Sokka asked.
"And is ramen included?" Naruto added.
"Flaming fire flakes. Best in town." the cook replied.
"We'll take 'em!" Naruto and Sokka said in unison as they began to eat. Much to Naruto's delight, the food was REALLY good. But Sokka yelled out as he got burned by the food.
"HOT HOT HOT!!" Sokka yelled.
"Flaming fire flakes, hot." Katara said to Sokka as if it were obvious.
"Eh, I've had hotter food. It's delicious though." Naruto replied.
"Hey, look at this." Aang said as he was looking at some kind of puppet show near by.
"Don't worry loyal citizens! No one can surprise the Fire Lord!" said the puppet of Fire Lord Ozai. Suddenly, an Earth Kingdom general puppet appeared behind the Fire Lord puppet.
"Oh no! Look out!" warned Fire Nation children as they watched the puppet show. The puppet of the Fire Lord breathed fire, burning the Earth Kingdom general puppet.
"Why are we watching a puppet show?" Naruto asked.
"Why not?" Aang replied. Naruto sighed. He'd been better... more lethal puppet masters before. It was hard to get excited about these puppets after meeting Kankuro. Suddenly....
Naruto was looking at a baby. The baby had some kind of illness. Her parents were dying. Somehow she kmew.... this child was dying. The baby was taken to many healers, including a woman named Yugoda, but they could not cure the baby.
'W-what am I seeing right now?' Naruto asked himself... confused.
As Yue prepared to celebrate her 16th birthday, she had a vision. A giant nine tailed fox spirit was attacking a village.
'Naruto's village' Yue thought in realization. The demon fox was HUGE, causing mass destruction where it struck.
The fox was the most powerful spirit that Yue had ever seen. Then she was the aftermath of the attack. A man, the Fourth Hokage, sealed the demon inside an infant child. Yue gasped as she witnessed this event.
'W-what am I seeing right now?' Yue asked herself horrified as the infant cried alone on an altar.
"Hey that kid's the Avatar!" a Fire Nation citizen said when Naruto snapped out of his vision.
"Damn it!" Naruto said before he threw his mask off and ran towards the stage where Aang and the others went to. Naruto then leaped over the crowd of people in a chakra enhanced leap.
"Aang, what the heck?" Naruto yelled.
"Sorry." Aang replied before they saw Fire Nation soldiers headed in their direction.
"I think we gotta go now." Sokka said as he and Katara took off their mask.
"Follow me. I can get you outta here." said a voice behind Naruto and friends.
"THERE THEY ARE!" a Fire Nation solider yelled. Naruto put his fingers in a t shaped hand sign.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto said as 3 Naruto clones appeared and charged at the 3 Fire Nation soldiers coming their way. Naruto then followed Aang and the others who left with the owner of the voice earlier. As they ran, Naruto grabbed one of his two Toad Stones, happy he spent so much time charging them.
"Summoning Jutsu!" Gamabunta appeared under Naruto and friends and when Gamabunta saw the Fire Nation soldiers he sighed.
"Am I your escape plan, again?" Gamabunta asked.
"Yes! Now leap out of town!" Naruto replied.
In the distance:
When Appa saw Gamabunta, he knew something was happening and he flew towards the giant toad.
When they were out of town, Appa came to pick up Naruto and friends.
"Hey, you, Bison. You've been doing a good job looking out for my loudest henchman here. Keep up the good work." Gamabunta told Appa as the team and their new ally got on Appa. Appa let out a friendly grunt.
"Naruto.... stop wasting your Toad Stone summonings on escapes though. You may now have two Toad Stones... but you know it takes a long time to charge those things." Gamabunta pointed out.
"Point taken. Thanks again, Chief Toad." Naruto replied.
As Naruto and friends flew on Appa, he wasn't really paying attention to the conversation Aang and the others were having with their mysterious helper. Later, when his friends found a place to make came, they sat around a campfire, Naruto didn't notice.
'You saw a vision too, didn't you?' asked the voice of Yue in his head.
'Yeah. I saw one of this little girl that got sick. No one could heal her in the Northern Water Tribe. I.... I didn't get to see the rest of the vision... Aang got caught in that Fire Nation town we were in, but we escaped.' Naruto explained. Yue gasped at hearing what Naruto had seen.
'What did you see?' Naruto asked.
'A giant fox spirit. It had nine tails and it was attacking a village. A powerful man sealed the fox into an infant, saving his village at the cost of his life.' Yue explained. Naruto's eyes widened.
'You've seen the largest tragedy of the history of my home... The Village Hidden in the Leaves.' Naruto thought.
"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LISTEN TO ME?" Sokka yelled before Naruto heard the Nine Tails roar in his head. People with spears surrounded them.
"Don't move." warned the leader of the men with spears.
"Big mistake.... threatening my friends." Naruto said as the chakra of the Nine Tailed fox responded to his anger. As red chakra swirled around Naruto, fear enveloped in everyone around Naruto.
Naruto appeared behind the spearmen. The spearmen tried to stab at Naruto, but the jinchuriki let out a chakra filled roar, sending the spearmen flying back.
"W-what.... k-kind of power.... i-is that?" asked one of the spearmen.
"Hey, wait. Naruto, stand down. They are my friends." said the guy who helped them escape the town earlier.
"Naruto, listen to Chey before you hurt someone!" Katara pleaded. With Katara's begging eyes, Naruto sighed as he let his anger go and the chakra of the Nine Tails disappeared.
"Jeong Jeong told you not to look for Avatar!" said the lead spearmen to Chey.
"And I told you not to do anything to anger, Naruto Uzumaki. You nearly died!" Chey replied.
"Who are you people?" Sokka asked.
"Lin Yee is like me. Followers of Jeong Jeong. He's an old buddy!" Chey explained.
"Shut up. I will take you to our camp; where Chey will see Jeong Jeong. We will do nothing to harm the Avatar or his friends, as we do not wish to incure the wrath of Naruto Uzumaki again." Lin Yee replied and they all started following Lin Yee and Chey to Jeong Jeong's camp.
When they were just outside of Jeong Jeong's camp, Lin Yee informed them that Jeong Jeong would only see Chey at the moment. Aang tried to tell Lin Yee that he needed to see Jeong Jeong right away, only for Naruto to stop him.
"Aang, let's not anger the spear army again." Naruto told him, not too keen to fight after seeing the fear everyone had of the chakra of the fox.
Meanwhile
"So the Avatar and People's Champion, as our enemies call him, were both here and you let them slip away?" Zhao asked the people of the town where the Fire Festival was at earlier.
"Yes sir. But what do you expect us to do about a giant ninja toad?" asked the soldier who explained what happened to Zhao.
"Giant ninja toad?" Zhao asked, clearly not believeing what he was hearing. Zhao sighed.
"Where did they go?" Zhao asked.
"Into the forest. I suspect they went up the river." the soldier replied.
"Ready the river boats. We are going after the Avatar and Naruto Uzumaki!" Zhao ordered his men.
At Jeong Jeong's camp
Aang, dispite being told that Jeong Jeong would not see him, decided to see Jeong Jeong anyway. Sokka sighed.
"Hey, Katara, does Naruto seem off to you today?" Sokka asked. Katara thought about it.
"He has been zoning out a lot today. I wonder what's wrong." Katara replied. Naruto snapped out of his thoughts, knowing Sokka and Katara was worried about him.
"You see... something weird happened.." Naruto started to explain since he heard Katara say she wondered what was wrong with him.
Later:
"YOU WHAT?!" Katara and Sokka yelled in shock.
"I have some kind of mind link with the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe for some reason, and random visions have been appearing in my head and.... I have no idea what to do about this!" Naruto explained. He hated the situation he was in. Not because Yue. He didn't mind Yue, she seemed friendly so far, but he didn't like the idea of someone being inside of his mind. No shinobi would be comfortable with that!
"I've never heard of anything like this happening before. Especially not between two strangers." Katara said.
"There has to be a logical explaination for.... you know what... you're from another world with super powerful ninja... forget what I was about to say." Sokka added.
"I doubt even Jeong Jeong has experience with such a strange occurance." Chey added.
The next day:
Katara was practicing her waterbender by a river. Nearby at that same river, Sokka was fishing. Nearby Sokka, Naruto sat down, charging his original Toad Stone. Aang meanwhile was on a flat stone in the river, beginning his firebending training under Jeong Jeong. Naruto wasn't sure how Aang had convinced the old man to train him, but he was relieved he did.... as this might be Aang's only chance to learn firebending.
"Silence! Talking is not concentrating! Look at your friend, is she talking?" Naruto heard Jeong Jeong tell Aang who kept breaking his concentration on Jeong Jeong's instructions. Jeong Jeong then pointed at Naruto then at Sokka.
"Your hyperactive ninja friend is able to concentrate on what he does! Even that oaf knows to concentrate on what he's doing!" Jeong Jeong pointed out.
"Hey!" Sokka called out annoyed before turning his attention back to the river.
"But what am I concentrating on?" Aang asked.
"Feel the heat of the sun. It is the greatest source of fire. Yet, it is in complete balance with nature!" Jeong Jeong instructed.
"So when do I get to make some fire?" Aang asked.
"CONCENTRATE!" Jeong Jeong yelled. Naruto, Sokka, and Katara couldn't hold back their laughter at Aang's lack of focus. Naruto smiled, remembering the days he was training to learn the Rasengan. How he needed to learn how to focus his chakra at the center of his hand in order to correctly master step 2 of Rasengan training.
'It seems you went through a lot in the past.' Yue said in Naruto's head.
'You have no idea.' Naruto replied.
'You should tell me about it.' She responded and Naruto started to tell her about his life in his world.
When Naruto got out of his mental conversation with Yue, he noticed Aang trying to juggle fire, via firebending. He noticed Aang didn't have good control over the fire and Katara was nearby.
"KATARA!" Naruto yelled as he ran as some fire flew at her. Naruto managed to move her out of the way, but not completely. Naruto and Katara shrieked in pain as they both got burned by the fire, Naruto taking the majority of the flame.
"Katara, Naruto! I'm so sorry!" Aang said in shock. Sokka ran to Katara and Naruto.
"Katara, what's wrong?" Sokka asked before he noticed that Naruto was in worse shape than Katara.
"Naruto, what happened?" Sokka asked before he glared at Aang.
"What did you do?" Sokka asked.
"I'm sorry. It was an accident. I lost control of the fire while firebending and Naruto managed to push Katara out of the way of most of the fire but took most of the flame him..." Aang didn't get to finish his explaination when Sokka tackled him.
"I told you we shouldn't mess around with this! Look what you did! YOU BURNED MY SISTER! AND YOU BURNED OUR FRIEND!" Sokka yelled. Jeong Jeong returned and Sokka turned to him.
"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" Sokka yelled.
"I know! Now pack your things. You must leave immediately." Jeong Jeong replied as Katara ran off. Sokka looked to see Naruto start to stand up, he was already healing thanks to his jinchuriki healing factor.
Katara ran to a creek. She was in pain due to her burn, but she was greatful that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. She hoped Naruto was ok. She then put her hands in the water of the creek, and they glowed breifly. When she pulled her hands out of the water, her hands were healed.
"You have healing abilities. The great benders of the Water Tribe sometimes have this ability. I've always wished I were blessed like you... free from this burning curse." Jeong Jeong said as he revealed himself to Katara.
"But you're a great master. You have powers that I will never know." Katara pointed out.
"Water brings healing and life. But fire brings only destruction and pain. It forces those of us burdened with its care to walk a razor's edge between humanity and savagery. Eventually, we are torn apart." Jeong Jeong retorted. Suddenly flames appeared out of nowhere, and Zhao's riverboats neared them.
"Go get your friends and flee! Do not come back here or you will all be destroyed. Hurry!" Jeong Jeong commanded.
As Naruto prepared Appa for flight, Katara returned and informed Aang that Jeong Jeong was captured by the Fire Nation. Naruto was about to go with Aang to fight them off, but he was stopped by Sokka.
"I know you can probably fight them and win. But Aang needs to grow up. He can't rely on you for every fight. Let him go and we'll get him out of trouble if it's too much." Sokka said. Naruto nodded. He had a point. Naruto knew that he needed to get back into his world.... who knew if he'd managed to help Aang finish the war before then. Naruto leaped onto Appa, followed by Sokka and Katara and took the reigns.
"Appa, yip yip." Naruto said and Appa flew.
When Appa made it to the scene of the battle, Aang had made Zhao burn his own ships. Naruto smiled. Aang hopped on Appa and they began to fly north.
"Wait! Where's Jeong Jeong?" Aang asked.
"He disappeared, according to the Nine Tails. So did everyone else." Naruto informed Aang. Katara then noticed Aang was burned.
"Aang, you're burned! Let me help you." Katara said before he used the water in her carry on pouch to heal Aang's arm.
"Since when could you do that? That's awesome!" Naruto asked.
"I guess I always knew." Katara answered.
"Oh ... Well then thanks for all the first aid over the years. Like when I fell into the greaseberry bramble." Sokka said sarcastically.
"Or that time I had two fishhooks in my thumb!!" He added with more anger.
"Two?" Naruto and Aang asked in unison.
"He tried to get the first fishhook out with another fishhook." Katara explained in amusement.
"Oh, and the time that mink snake bit me! Thanks for healing that up. That was great. Really helpful." Sokka continued to say sarcastically before Naruto chuckled.
"Kakashi Sensei and Sakura would love you guys!" Naruto said with a smile.