Since I was six, I had a serious, respectable, legally questionable obsession with an orange-jumpsuited ninja named Naruto. He was my first love, my after-school homework avoidance technique, and the reason my TV had permanent indentations in the couch cushion.
Every time I came back from school I hit "ON" like it was a ritual, because his handsome, comedic face was exactly the soul vitamin I needed.
Then the show got worse. No, not worse in a good plot-twist way, worse in the "this one guy won't leave the screen" way. He had red eyes. A lot of screen time. And an aura of dramatic brooding that made my teeth itch.
Yes, his name is Itachi. Uchiha Sasuke's elder brother, rumor had it he massacred his entire clan, and I'd sworn to hate him with the single-mindedness of someone who hates someone on principle and also because he messed with my Naruto.
Then came that cursed-blessed-ambiguous day when a rusted jeep decided I was its favorite windshield accessory. One minute I was dramatically overreacting to a near-death malfunction of public transport, the next minute I popped my eyes open to find myself face-to-face with the man I'd been saving my fury for.
Yes, I have been isekaied. But why? Why not in Naruto's room?! What kind of disrespect is this?!
This scene should have looked familiar, Konoha vibes, village smells, very anime, except for the small detail that blood had redecorated everything like a confetti party gone wrong.
I pushed myself up with one arm, heroic, or just clumsy, and looked around. Dead people. Everywhere. Like a stage full of props that took their job a little too seriously.
I blinked. Blinked again. My eyes skittered across the scene until they found a crest I knew like the back of my hand.
"The Uchiha clan symbol..." I muttered, eyes growing into suspiciously large circles.
"Who is this..." Suddenly a man's voice echoed behind me and my entire spine filed an official complaint. I turned and locked eyes with a stranger.
He wore an orange mask with a black fire pattern, fashion-forward for a massacre, I'll give him that, and one perfectly placed eye hole so he could peek dramatically. His hair was long, black, and pointed in a way that suggested he spent an alarming amount of time with a comb and a grudge.
"What the fuck—" I gasped when his eyes sparked red like ruby flashlight.
"Mangekyo Sharingan," I muttered, because apparently my brain keeps a catalog of ominous eye names for emergencies. I tried not to say it out loud because spoilers, and also because breathing felt like a risky activity.
Part of me, the part that still had a sense of humor after being run over, chuckled. "I'm dreaming," I told myself, shaking my head like a very confused bobblehead. "Of course I a—"
I never finished because his face moved closer, like a slow, deadly zoom-in that would have made the director proud.
"You're not from here..." he mumbled, and suddenly every death scene I'd watched felt like a tutorial I hadn't signed up for. I held my breath and took notes in the margins of my own mortality.
He smelled like blood and particularly alarming decisions, so I assumed he'd done the rampage. That was fine. That was normal. Right?
For a second I honestly thought I was dead — then someone else appeared, like an inconvenient plot twist. A tall man with long tied hair walked in. Even in the gloom I recognized the vest.
"What are you doing?" The masked man groaned. "She had to die."
"She's not an Uchiha," the tall man said simply.
That voice. Annoyingly familiar voice. If my hands weren't already reinterpreting themselves as decorative wrist accessories, I would have karate-chopped him just to establish dominance. But alas, I was conserving my life for reasons.
The masked man stared, considered his villain résumé, then fluffed his cape, or imaginary cape, and declared, "I've done my part."
Before I could protest my lack of a cape, he vanished. Poof. Vanishing skills: 10/10. Empathy: 0/10.
Slowly, the tall man turned to me. The red in his eyes winked off, like someone switching a mood ring from murder to quiet mysterious person.
"Who are you and where are you from?" His voice dropped into a register I could only describe as low and legally hot. I shook my head so fast my hair considered filing for separation.
Nope. This man—this voice—he had personally made my beloved Naruto's life a series of increasingly unfortunate events, and I had opinions about that.
I didn't even bother to stand to talk properly. I went straight for the diplomatic route.
"I am Luna Dimakatarungan, and I hate you!"
He barely blinked. Then, with the tenderty of a slap line in a bad sitcom, he straight-ass wacked me on the neck. The world went pleasantly sideways and I had the distinct impression that my prologue had just been upgraded to slapstick with existential undertones.
End of prologue? Possibly. Beginning of trouble? Definitely. And somewhere between outraged fangirling and being bonked unconscious by fate, I decided two things:
But you know what. I'll think about it later.