Glimpse
Chapter III: Glimpse
Jiraiya had enough of everyone in the academy talking about that weird-looking brat named Orochimaru. He could not understand what’s so amazing about the other boy. Sure, he has a piercing golden serpentine eyes and pretty face. However, he was too quiet and serious. Not even once he spoke to him either since the so called once-in-decade-genius never bothered to befriend anyone even though he was popular especially to the girls. Jiraiya wondered if all girls like boys with mysterious type aura like Orochimaru over someone as friendly as him.
“It doesn’t really matter” Jiraiya shook his head. There’s no way that he is jealous of Orochimaru. The other boy is a stuck-up prince who likes toying with other’s feelings without them knowing about it.
“Jiraiya if you are done daydreaming, you may want to repeat what I just said. ” The academy teacher did not hide her disdain towards the child. ‘Why can’t you be like Orochimaru?’ she muttered under her breath.
“...” If he will be honest, it hurts whenever he is getting compared to the golden boy of their class. He knows that they are both orphans, but the difference between them was that Orochimaru was from a well-known clan which gave him an edge over him. Meanwhile, Jiraiya did not even know who his parents were or what kind of person they were or if they were part of a clan. After all, they died even before he could talk and walk.
“Perhaps next time, you’ll quit daydreaming in the middle of your classes” The teacher tried her best not to roll her eyes at the unruly child.
On the other hand, Orochimaru could not hide his bemusement when he heard his teacher muttered his name while scolding one of his classmates for being inattentive. It is true that he doesn’t care for anyone in his class, but that doesn’t mean that he likes being compared to others especially to someone like Jiraiya. The boy is unruly and one of the boneheads in their year.
Tsunade could only wish that Jiraiya will stop to fool around when he could barely pass the academic year. Unlike Orochimaru, the once in blue moon genius of their generation and golden child of the Yashagoro clan, Jiraiya is a nobody which is why it is important that he’ll be equip with proper expectation by adults or else he’ll die really young. No, Tsunade did not care about Jiraiya. However, that doesn’t mean she wants him dead the moment they are deployed in the battlefield.
“As what I was saying a while ago, all of you will be distributed equally in teams and you’ll meet your future squad leader tomorrow afternoon. We’ll announce your teams as early as we could tomorrow morning. Is there any other question?” She patiently waited for the other children to speak, but to her disappointment that they did not seem to care about their future teams.
Meanwhile in the heart of the village, a pair of young adults had found themselves living in a house that never belong to them. Yet, the house seemed to call to them, as if it had been waiting for them to cross its threshold.
At first, the pair treated the house a place to rest until the next move, the next adventure. But with every passing day, something about it felt right, as though the creaky floors and dimly lit rooms had accepted them. They couldn’t explain it, but it was as if they belonged here, even though it never truly belonged to them. Perhaps, it was indeed theirs or at least it belongs to the body that they were occupying.
The village knew them as a familiar face, simple and friendly pair despite keeping to themselves mostly, wandering through the narrow streets, gathering oddments from the market and exchanging smiles with the locals, always polite, but never fully letting anyone in. They were always looking over their shoulder, but not out of fear—more out of a sense of having outrun something, as if the house was a place of quiet penance. Yet there was something in the air, something unspoken that tied them to this house, to this village.
The walls, once silent and hollow, began to hum with an unexplainable energy—one that seemed to change them. It was as though the house, in its own strange way, was a living thing, offering them comfort, but demanding something in return.
“...” A groan escapes his lips once he regains consciousness for the nth time. His entire body feels as if it was burning on fire. Come to think of it, the last thing he could remember was they were on the battlefield with only a handful of their barely alive comrades while fending for themselves against the likes of Kaguya, Black Zetsu and armies of White Zetsu.
“?!” He would never forget the moment when Kaguya succeeded in killing Sasuke during the war. Speak of war, looking at his surroundings, he belatedly realized a couple of things. One, he is not on his bed. Second, his hands and body feel off. Third, his current physical form was nothing compared to his original body. Instead of striking shade of azure, his eyes are now the darkest shade of chocolate brown. Meanwhile, his hair has the vibrant shade of black with streak of gray.
“Good that you are awake again, Naruto. I thought that you will completely succumb to death. I am tempted to punch you to see if you’ll ever wake up.” An unfamiliar female muttered as she enters the other person’s room. Just like her friend, she was accidentally dragged in the past with nothing but the knowledge of what will happen to the future. Perhaps it was their only chance to make things right and save as many as they could from their untimely death or cruel fate.
“Sakura? Where are we? Why cannot I feel Kurama dattebayo?” Despite the difference in her original form, the woman standing in front of him is no doubt his friend and classmate, Haruno Sakura.
“Don’t tell me that you cannot remember what happened?” Exasperated, she asked. There’s no way that she can do everything on his own. No, there’s no way that she could anything at all without his help. After all, they were thrown by an unknown force to a timeline wherein they shouldn’t have existed in the first place after they were attacked by Kaguya.
“It is not that I cannot remember anything dattebayo... It is more on I am confused on what we are doing here. What happened to the rest of them? What about Kakashi-sensei and Granny Tsunade or that bastard creep Orochimaru? We were with them and then—” All Naruto could remember after was blood and death surrounding them.
“They are not here, Naruto. They were—” Sakura was devastated of what might have happened to the others in their timeline, but there’s nothing they could do for them unless they could correct the things here in the past with the hope that someday the rest of them will have a better future.
“Dead, aren’t they? The past few days that we are here I felt as if wandering mindlessly” Naruto was sure that Kaguya will never spare anyone. It was their luck that Orochimaru and Tsunade executed a last-minute failsafe plan for them to survive even though the older pair knew it would be the end of them.
“First thing first, we need to find out what timeline we were thrown back. According to the vendors at the market that there is a war going on right now. Meaning we are either in the timeline wherein the Second or Third war is ongoing.” Sakura cannot help but to feel helpless whenever she could remember that their friends and comrades die one after the other.