Naruto woke up with asphalt in his mouth.
Not literally literally—okay, fine, a little literally. There was grit between his teeth, and when he spat it out it made that awful crunchy sound like the world was trying to sandpaper his dignity.
He sat up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stared at the ground like it had personally betrayed him.
"Bleh. Whoever invented roads is a criminal."
Then he looked up.
And froze.
The sky was… wrong.
Not "storm's coming" wrong. Not "genjutsu" wrong. Not even "Sasuke's being dramatic again and decided the sky needs angst" wrong.
This was the wrong kind of blue.
Too clean. Too wide. Too empty. Like someone scrubbed the atmosphere with soap and forgot to put the world back afterward.
No Hokage Monument. No mountains he recognized. No familiar horizon line that made his bones relax.
Naruto blinked.
Then blinked again, slower, like the second blink might reload Konoha.
Nothing changed.
"…Ha. Ha." He rubbed the back of his head and forced a laugh into the open air. "Okay. Very funny."
He stood up and dusted off his jacket. The orange felt loud in this place. Everything around him looked like it belonged in a catalog called The Color Gray: A Lifestyle.
Naruto cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled anyway, because yelling had solved problems for him before. Sometimes.
"SASUKE! I KNOW THIS IS YOU!"
Silence answered him.
Only wind, thin and dry, slipping through bent metal signage. Only the distant hum of something—traffic? a city?—too far away to pin down.
His grin lasted one more second out of habit.
Then he reached out with his senses—instinctive, automatic, like flexing a muscle he'd had since he was born—
…and felt nothing.
No chakra signatures. No village pulse. No familiar living-web humming underneath everything. Not even the faint buzz of insects or birds the way Konoha always had, even at night.
Just blank.
Except—
There was pressure.
Not chakra. Not nature energy.
Something else.
A weight in the air like standing too close to a waterfall, except the waterfall was invisible and didn't care if he lived or died. It made the tiny hairs on his arms lift, made his skin feel tight like the world was holding its breath.
Naruto inhaled through his nose.
"Okay," he muttered. "That's new."
He didn't throw himself into panic. Not anymore.
He reached inward and cracked open Sage Mode like a door he could leave half-latched.
The world sharpened instantly.
Heat became movement. Wind became geometry. Distance stopped being a vague idea and became something he could measure with his body.
And then—
Fear.
Not nearby. Not close.
Far. Miles away. But so loud it cut through everything like a blade.
Screaming.
Not one scream. Many.
The kind of screaming that meant something was happening fast and wrong and people were going to die if nobody moved.
Naruto didn't even finish the thought.
He leaned forward—
—and ran.
He ran like it was muscle memory.
Like the universe could rearrange itself into nonsense and he'd still sprint toward the sound of people needing help.
The road he'd landed on twisted into a mountainside route. Pines and rock faces and those long stretches of pavement that made the world feel lonely.
And as he ran, that pressure in the air got stronger.
It wasn't chakra, but it felt close enough that Naruto's instincts kept trying to interpret it anyway. Like chakra… spoken with an accent. Chakra with its hands in its pockets and a chip on its shoulder.
It came from multiple sources. Big ones. And one of them was so loud it was practically yelling.
Naruto crested a ridge and the screaming became layered with something else—impact, thunder, the crack of air getting punched too hard.
Then he heard voices.
"Krillin, dodge!"
Naruto's head snapped toward it immediately. Okay. Names. Good.
Another voice, sharp and angry: "Where the hell is Vegeta?!"
A third, breathless and exasperated: "I don't know, Tien—where the hell is Goku?!"
And then a deeper voice, low and annoyed like a storm cloud with opinions: "Stop arguing about dead people unless you're planning on visiting them in the afterlife."
Naruto hit the ridge—
—and saw the whole situation in one breath.
A mountainside road. A car pulled over at a weird angle like someone had stopped mid-panic. Wrecked pavement. Scorch marks. A few trees snapped like twigs.
Three figures stood near the road like they were waiting for a bus.
One was huge and broad with a tall headpiece—green armor, silent posture, standing off to the side in a way that didn't match the chaos. He wasn't watching the fight like it mattered.
He was watching birds.
Like he was at a park.
Like the world wasn't ending.
Two others stood closer to the road: a guy in black with an orange scarf, hands in his pockets, expression bored. A blond girl in denim, looking like she might yawn between punches.
Androids. Naruto didn't know that word yet, but his Sage senses screamed not human in a way that was strangely… clean. Like their life-force was manufactured instead of grown.
Then—
A fourth fighter hit the scene like a meteor.
Golden hair. Golden aura. A man radiating confidence like it was oxygen.
He was yelling. He was boasting. He was doing that thing powerful men did where they tried to bully reality into admitting they were special.
Naruto didn't know his name yet, but he could feel the way the others reacted to him—frustration, dread, familiarity.
Vegeta.
Naruto got it from the angry shouting.
And right now Vegeta was rushing the blond android girl like he could brute-force the universe into respecting him.
She met him.
And it was immediately obvious she was…
Toying with him.
Naruto watched her shift her weight and dodge punches with lazy precision. No strain. No effort. Like she'd been built to make violence look boring.
Vegeta kept escalating. Bigger swings, faster hits, that golden aura flaring like a sun having a tantrum.
She didn't care.
Naruto's Sage Mode tasted the energy in the air again—ki, his brain supplied, because it wasn't chakra but it was so close that his instincts couldn't not name it.
Ki felt like chakra's cousin who went to a different school and got into weightlifting.
Internal. Furnace-hot. Pure output.
And those androids… they weren't running out. Their energy didn't pulse and dip like a living person's.
It just stayed.
Flatline infinite.
Naruto's stomach tightened.
That was bad.
Then it happened.
The blond android moved in close, caught Vegeta's rhythm, and kicked—
There was a sickening crack that Naruto felt in his teeth.
Vegeta's arm bent wrong.
The sound cut through everything. Even the birds startled.
Vegeta dropped, snarling, trying to keep his pride upright even when his body wasn't.
The group of fighters behind him surged forward on instinct.
A teenager with long hair—Future Trunks, Naruto heard someone shout—lunged first, desperate and furious.
The black-haired android (orange scarf) stepped forward like he'd been waiting for an excuse.
One hit.
Trunks got erased from the air and slammed into the ground like somebody swatted a fly.
The others went in too—Tien, Yamcha, Piccolo—
—and Naruto saw the ending before it happened.
They were brave.
They were outmatched.
And if they kept rushing, somebody was going to die.
Naruto's feet hit the road harder.
He didn't walk in and start talking.
He did what he always did first.
He interrupted.
Chakra spiraled into his palm with a familiar whine. Rasengan formed tight and bright, the kind he'd made so many times it felt like breathing.
Naruto launched himself between the fighters and the androids and slammed the Rasengan into the pavement.
BOOM.
The road exploded outward in a perfect circle. Dust and gravel ripped up. A shockwave shoved everyone back—fighters, androids, even Vegeta where he lay.
Trees shuddered. The car rocked on its suspension.
For one moment, the entire scene stopped to acknowledge the new variable.
Naruto stood in the center of his own crater, Rasengan still humming in his hand, and looked around like he'd just arrived at a very aggressive picnic.
"Okay!" he announced. "Everybody—pause! Just—ten seconds! Ten! That's not even a full argument with Sasuke!"
Nobody moved.
Even the androids.
Especially the androids.
The blond girl stared at him with open curiosity now, head tilted like she'd found a new toy.
The orange-scarf android looked him up and down like Naruto was a math problem he didn't feel like solving.
The big green armored one—still near the roadside—didn't react much at all. He just slowly turned his head, watching Naruto the way he'd been watching the birds.
Naruto let the Rasengan fizzle out and raised both hands.
"I'm not here to fight you guys," he said, then glanced at Vegeta's broken arm and corrected himself, "—okay, I mean, I am here to stop whatever this is, but I'm trying a new thing where I talk first."
The angry voice from earlier—Tien—snapped, "Who the hell are you?!"
Naruto grinned because grinning was how he kept the fear from showing.
"Name's Naruto," he said. "And… uh…"
He looked at the sky again, like it might offer clues.
"…I think I'm lost."
Piccolo's expression did not change. "That's not reassuring."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Naruto said, then turned to the androids before anyone could restart the brawl.
He kept his voice calm. Warm. Like he was talking to someone on the edge of a bad decision.
"If someone built you to be a disaster…" he said slowly, "…does being a disaster prove them right, or prove you never escaped?"
Silence.
The blond android's eyes narrowed—not in the "I'm about to kill you" way.
In the I heard you and I hate that I heard you way.
The orange-scarf android's mouth twitched like he might almost smile.
And then he punched.
No warning. No wind-up.
A straight shot at Naruto's face, fast enough to crack the air.
Naruto caught it.
Palm to fist. Easy. Like stopping a door from swinging shut.
He didn't even stop talking.
"When you say you're free," Naruto asked, "what do you mean by that?"
The android yanked back and punched again.
Naruto parried.
Another punch—harder.
Naruto shifted his weight and blocked with his forearm.
The android kept swinging, and Naruto kept stopping him, and the entire time Naruto spoke like they were having a conversation in a ramen shop and not on a cracked mountainside road with broken bones and god-level energy signatures.
"Because if your freedom is just doing the opposite of what your maker wanted…" Naruto ducked under a hook and redirected it into empty air. "…that's not freedom. That's just a different leash."
The blond android—18, Naruto heard someone hiss behind him, like a warning—watched the exchange with interest that wasn't cruel.
Curious. Testing.
Like she wanted to see what Naruto did next.
The orange-scarf android—17, because Naruto caught that name too in the frantic shouting—finally pulled back, annoyance flashing across his face.
He couldn't touch Naruto right now.
And he knew it.
Naruto let Sage Mode deepen—not flaring, not showing off. Just listening to the shape of them.
Their ki was loud on purpose. Aggressive even when still. Swagger heavy enough to be armor.
Naruto exhaled once and softened his voice.
"You two are loud," he said quietly. "Like you're trying to drown out… something."
He tapped his chest.
"I had a monster in here," he said. "Everyone told me what I was. I believed them for years."
The fighters behind him went still in a different way. Not because they agreed—because they recognized the tone.
The sound of someone talking from experience.
Naruto gave a small, self-deprecating smile.
"And then I found out something humiliating." He looked directly at 17 and 18. "I was still me the whole time."
18's expression flickered.
Not softened. Not redeemed.
Just… interrupted.
Naruto spread his hands.
"I'm not saying you have to be good," he said. "I don't even know what 'good' looks like here. But I know what it looks like when someone's living inside a story they didn't write."
Behind Naruto, the bald guy—Krillin, because Naruto had heard the name yelled twice now—was standing a little back, shaking, but still there.
Naruto noticed him anyway. Naruto always noticed that kind of courage.
He pointed without turning, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Also?" Naruto said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "That bald guy—Krillin? He's terrified, but he still showed up. That's what 'real' looks like."
Krillin's face went bright red. "STOP TALKING ABOUT ME LIKE I'M NOT HERE!"
18 looked at him.
Really looked.
And Naruto saw it—just the tiniest shift. Her attention sliding from "game" to "person."
Naruto clapped his hands once, decisive.
"Okay! Truce meeting. Food. Right now."
Tien stared at him like he was delirious. "Are you serious?!"
Piccolo's mouth barely moved. "This is absurd."
Naruto spun to face Piccolo like he'd found a fellow professional cynic. "Correct," he said. "Absurd works. People get weird when they're hungry."
18 lifted an eyebrow. "We don't need to eat."
Naruto nodded solemnly, like she'd just told him a scientific fact. "Everyone needs to eat," he said. "Some of us need to eat emotionally."
Krillin made a strangled sound. "What does that even—"
Naruto grabbed his shoulder—friendly, a little too hard—and pointed down the road.
"There's gotta be a diner somewhere on a road like this," Naruto said. "Roads mean diners. It's science."
Krillin sputtered, flustered, because he had no idea how to be in a situation where he was both terrified and being socially recruited.
"There—there's a place down the road," he blurted. "If it's still standing."
Naruto's eyes lit up like he'd just been offered treasure.
He leaned in and stage-whispered to Krillin, loud as hell:
"YES. THAT. DO THAT AGAIN. Girls like that."
Krillin whipped his head around. "PLEASE STOP COACHING MY SOUL!"
18's lips twitched again. Not a laugh—yet—but closer this time.
17 stared at Naruto, arms crossed now, irritation settling into something more thoughtful.
"We're not taking orders," 17 said finally.
Naruto grinned. "Good," he replied. "Neither do I."
He pointed—not at Vegeta, not at the fighters, not at the shattered road—but at the terrified humans hiding near the car, huddled behind it like it could protect them from gods.
"If you want to prove you're free," Naruto said, voice suddenly simple, "protect one person today."
Not save the world.
Not repent.
Not join a team.
Just one person.
Just one choice that belonged to them.
The moment hung there, strange and sharp.
18's gaze flicked to Krillin again.
17's eyes stayed on Naruto like he was trying to decide whether Naruto was a threat… or an insult… or a door.
Naruto, because he was Naruto, broke the tension with a grin that was half stupid and half stubborn.
"C'mon," he said, already turning down the road like he owned the universe. "Let's go be weird on purpose."
And behind him, the whole mess—fighters, androids, broken pride, broken bones—hesitated.
Then, impossibly…
Followed.