In Another Life

The forest rushes past in shadowed fragments—branches streaking above, moonlight breaking uneven through the canopy. You run until your lungs seize, until your pulse fills your ears and the last trace of Konoha is swallowed by distance and trees.

Only then, when the adrenaline fades and the ache settles in deep, do you let yourself slow.

Not stop.

You know better than that.

Your steps grow quieter, controlled, though your legs protest with every motion. Brambles catch at your cloak. A thorn snags skin through fabric. You don’t flinch. You don’t stop to pull it free. Just keep moving, like maybe if you go fast enough, the weight behind your ribs won’t catch up.

And then—

You go down.

A hard fall. Boots catching on something, knees slamming into packed dirt. The impact jars your spine.

You stay still for a moment, breath coming rough as you push yourself up slowly. Your eyes flick to the ground.

Tripwire.

Obvious. Old.

And you didn’t see it.

You stare at it, expression blank.

It didn’t go off. You weren’t in danger. But that’s not what bothers you.

What bothers you is that you missed it.

“Real smooth,” you mutter, pushing yourself up and brushing the dirt from your palms. “Glad no one was here to see that, or my new bingo book rating would’ve dropped to ‘mild inconvenience.’”

You sit back on your heels, the cold seeping through your gear, and run a hand over your face.

You’re slipping.

And not just from exhaustion.

You glance toward your hand, then pull your glove back. Chakra pools faint and flickering beneath your skin, but it’s off. Like it’s not fully yours. Like there’s something beneath it trying to surface, or shift, or change.

You study it for a moment. Then let it fade and seal it down again, as tight as you can manage.

The forest watches quietly.

You find a rise in the terrain and tuck into it, hidden from above. You press your back to the bark of a tree and let your head rest there, just for a second. Eyes closed.

You don’t fall asleep.

But your thoughts drift, slipping sideways.

You see a room you don’t recognize. A smile that feels familiar and wrong at the same time. Your voice—almost your voice—saying something soft.

The image vanishes before you can reach for it.

You come back to yourself with a sharp breath, eyes snapping open.

The air feels different.

Cooler. Still.

The kind of still that means you’re not alone.

You don’t feel chakra. But your instincts are louder than logic.

You rise without sound, hand on your blade. The night presses close. Trees tall and silent. The stars obscured behind moving clouds.

You start moving again, slower this time. A whisper of movement, senses sharp.

There’s nothing visible. No scent. No sound.

But it’s there.

Something following.

Not chasing.

Tracking.

Every few steps, you feel it—not presence, exactly. Just pressure. A sense that if you turned around fast enough, you might catch it at the edge of your vision.

You don’t test it.

You pivot hard around a tree, double back through the underbrush, chakra bursting for just a second to vault high—land soft.

Nothing.

Just forest.

And the silence of something choosing not to be seen.

You stand still for a beat too long.

Then keep moving.

Eventually, the trees thin enough for you to see the drop ahead. A cliff—short, steep. You step up to the edge and look out.

In the distance, Konoha glows faint beneath the clouds. Distant and unreachable. Still familiar. Still not yours.

You stare for a long time.

Someone there saw your face.

And they knew it.

Whoever you are here—whoever wore your face before you arrived—meant something to that ANBU. That hesitation. That flicker of recognition before his blade dropped. It wasn’t doubt.

You exhale, slow. Run a thumb along the edge of your sleeve, where dried blood’s stiffened the fabric.

A pause.

“Kami, I really hope I didn’t just kill your life.”

The wind moves the trees below.

You turn from the cliff and vanish into the forest again.

Still searching for something that makes sense.

Still running from the part of you that already knows you won’t find it.

You move at night.

Always.

It’s safer in the dark. Fewer eyes. Fewer chakra signatures to brush against. You don’t leave fires. You don’t stay in one place. The rhythm becomes instinct before long: move, rest, hide, repeat.

Sleep comes in pieces—snatched in dry gullies, wedged in the crook of high branches, curled beneath the twisted roots of old trees. You used to hate the forest. Too damp. Too noisy. But now… there’s something comforting in the wild silence. Nature doesn’t care who you are. It just is. Predictable.

People aren’t.

And this world has too many of them that might recognize your face.

You learn to spot the differences early.

At first, it’s subtle. The moss here grows on the wrong side of the trees. The soil smells richer—like it rained somewhere it shouldn’t have. The wind carries a whistle that never existed back home. You catalog it without thinking. Shinobi habit. Pattern recognition.

The insects chirp at night, but their rhythm is wrong. A few notes too long. One species too quiet.

Unfamiliar birdsong: three notes too long.

Constellations: off by one star.

Konoha’s outer patrol path: longer than it should be.

Your name: recognized.

You try not to think too hard about that last one.

It’s morning when it finally sinks in. You’re perched on a branch above a slow-moving creek, knees drawn up, chewing on a ration bar so dry it might as well be chalk. You watch the water glint silver with dawn light and feel the thought drop into your chest like a stone.

“This isn’t my Konoha.”

You’ve said it before—sarcastically, with a huff, in that bitter voice you reserve for things you can’t punch—but this time it’s different. This time it lands. Cold and clean. Settles into your bones like a truth that’s always been there, waiting for you to stop running long enough to notice it.

You lean back against the trunk and let your head tip to the side, eyes half-lidded.

Alternate reality. Parallel world. You’d laugh if it wasn’t so plausible. Genjutsu’s off the table—you ran every diagnostic you know. Mind control? Same. And this place… it’s cohesive. It doesn’t shift or glitch the way illusions do.

Time travel? Maybe. But you’ve seen enough to doubt it. The land’s changed, not just the people. Too much variance. The infrastructure’s wrong.

A clone world?

Some chakra experiment gone rogue?

You chew that thought like gristle.

Let it circle your brain instead of the other, darker ones. The ones that whisper about not going home. About staying here too long. About forgetting what the real world even smelled like.

You haven’t seen him.

Not once.

Not even a flicker of chakra that felt like his.

You tell yourself it’s coincidence. That maybe he landed somewhere farther. That he’s looking for you, too. That he’s not avoiding you.

You tell yourself that because the alternative is worse.

You begin marking your path in code. Deep scratches on bark. Threads of wire hidden low in grass. Small, deliberate signs. Most of them are patterns only another ANBU would recognize—your pattern. Symbols meant for someone who isn’t here.

But it keeps your hands busy. Keeps your mind focused. You need that.

Because your chakra isn’t behaving.

Every time you use it—just a little, just enough to leap higher or land softer—it stirs something. Not pain, exactly. More like… pressure. Like the world is watching when you do.

You stop channeling it unless absolutely necessary.

You go still more often. Learn how to listen better.

You start mapping patrols. Not just paths—but methods. The way the ANBU here move. The formation of their sweeps. You learn their tells. Learn to avoid them.

Later, tucked inside the hollow of a collapsed tree, you finally light a small fire—just once. Enough to boil water. Enough to dry your damp gear. The glow paints the wood orange, flickering in the hollow.

You press your back to the inner wall, knees to your chest, and try to remember the way your apartment smelled when it rained.

You can’t.

Not exactly.

It’s like trying to grip water. The memory slips, too smooth to hold. You can remember the shape of your mug. The exact weight of your blade. The calluses on Kakashi’s fingers. But not the little things. Not the ones that made you feel home.

So you fill the silence with muttered sarcasm.

You theorize out loud. Alternate-you is probably the Fire Daimyo’s secret advisor, maybe assassin. Or a criminal. A missing-nin. Or Hokage. Or dead.

You don't like to think about the last. 

You talk about how, if this world’s you is someone important, you’re probably public enemy number one now.

The squirrel you’ve seen for three nights running watches from the tree across the clearing.

You eye it suspiciously.

“Tell Tenzo I’m still not giving up intel.”

The squirrel blinks at you.

You flip it off.

Small comforts.

You sleep a little. Not deeply. And sometimes, you dream—but the dreams don’t feel like yours.

Someone’s hand brushing your hair, touching you.

Your voice—softer than you ever use it—saying something you can’t remember.

A sense of being known. Loved.

Not from your life.

Yikes. Nope. 

You wake with a sharp inhale and a cold pit in your stomach.

You lace your boots tighter. Adjust the wrappings on your hands. There’s mud on your sleeve and pine needles in your collar.

The tether in your chest tugs again. Not painful—but insistent.

Whatever chakra brought you here—whatever’s keeping you here—it’s still watching.

Still deciding.

You keep moving.

You have to.

Because wherever this place is, however long you’re stranded—

You’ll outlast it.

And maybe—just maybe—he’s still out there, too.

And maybe this time, you’ll find each other before the world shifts again.