Dreaming was always nice to me. There were never any people out to get me through unreasonable spite, nor were there any problems with how crazy my life was already. Today's dreams were nightmares. I dreamt of towering foxes with nine malicious tails large enough to blot out the sky. Blankly, I recognized it. The nine-tailed fox of Japanese mythology. Its dark orange fur glimmered almost like sparkling blood as it rampaged around a dust barren landscape. I couldn't see what it was fighting, or why, but I glared at it from my overhead view, hate filling my eyes. After all, it was monster who took my parents from me. I could recognize it anywhere from its color and profile alone, the Kyūbi. I hated the dream already. However, the dream soon began to get weirder. Another monster filled the nightmare just as much as the Kyubi. It was a thing of pure malice; if I could describe it in a single word: disgusting. A bulbous monstrosity that moaned, screamed, sang, hummed and yelled all at once from innumerable mouths that opened sporadically around its massive body. Monstrous arms formed of thousands upon thousands of smaller various limbs dragged its massive body around like a crawling horror. Hurricanes traveled in its wake, sending huge chunks of earth skyward until they came crashing down in thunderous impacts. I was so shocked at its appearance that I only noticed that the Kyubi was actually trying to restrain it. Tiny dots ran along my parent's killer and attacked along with the massive fox, flowering it with explosions, fireballs, bullets of water and wind, and striking it with bolts of pure electricity. The monster didn't even flinch as the world the torn asunder by invisible blades. My eyes shot open, and I felt cold sweat chill my back. I felt my hands and legs bound by coarse rope, stopping me from moving around with any ease. The floor underneath me was splintery wood, and I flinched as my body buckled as floor bounced up and down. There were voices nearby. I tried to turn to them, hoping to shed some light on where exactly I was, but I slowly realized that moving around wasn't the best idea. A lance of pain shot up my arm as I moved alerted me of the fact that there was a needle stuck straight into my vein. A tube ran up and around my line of sight from the needle, and I could see liquid constantly flowing into me. I tried not to freak out. Understandably, I was really, really terrified. However, I couldn't move. Couldn't even scream for help as I found a gag forcing my teeth from clicking together. Okay, okay, Naruto think about what's happening. Obviously I'm being moved on some kind of rough terrain, as the floor kept creaking and bouncing my prone body. The last thing I remembered was some random ninja guy having some Hyūga girl bound up, and I had the rather brilliant idea of trying to be a hero. I just stood there and took the punch, too. Thinking back on it, that was probably the most stupid decision I've made. Who actually surrenders to a three year old when you have ninja magic? In the midst of me berating myself, I realized what was happening. I was being kidnapped. Shit, I stumbled onto a kidnapping and they took me, as well! While I'm flattered at being even considered as a kidnapping target, I'm more angry at myself for letting it happen so easily. I never even heard of a kidnapping happening in the Hyūga clan. Why was there a kidnapping going on? I don't even remember there being a mention of kidnapping whenever I thought back on it. Was it something I forgot, or something that was mentioned later in the story? My body stilled as a thought struck me. What if there had been a kidnapping had happened, but no one was there because I tripped the alarm. They had been preoccupied with the seen threat, me, and completely missed the kidnapping! Or had I been the only one taken? Damnit, I had too many questions and too little answers. Had I already changed the plot? No, that's a stupid question. There is no more plot that I know of. This is my life, and going along with thinking that everything won't change so long as I don't mess with it is stupid. All I can count on is the motivations of people I already know, and what they might do given the changes taking place. I'm being kidnapped for some reason, and that's all that matters right now. Now, how do I get out? First things first, I need to calm down and understand my surroundings. I'm in a wooden vehicle, possibly a carriage, and I'm being loaded up with some kind of chemical. Looking around, I could only see a wooden wall right in front of me, so they probably faced me towards a wall. Okay, I need more information. Could I bite down on my knife with this gag on? I suddenly felt my knife in one bound palm. I tried to toss it over to my head, but missed and the knife hit my back. The loss didn't matter to me, and I summoned the knife back to my hand and threw it again. It bounced off the back of my head with a ringing thump. Ouch. I sighed knowing this was going to take awhile. Finally, when I did get the knife to stop smacking me in the head and my back, I got the knife over my body from the odd position of my hands. I wriggled over to the knife, and tried to bite down on it. My sight split and I grinned in both material and immaterial as my plan worked. Of course it worked! I'm the great Naruto Uzumaki, three year old extraordinaire, and my knife shall pierce the heavens! Wait, that doesn't sound right… Getting over the adrenaline boost that came with my plan working, I set out to figure where I was. My phantasmal self turned around on a dime, and I immediately groaned. Nothing was ever simple. I looked through my invisible eyes to see the rest of my wooden prison was a small box. There was no discernible exit to it, but I was able to find a small sliding opening that was currently closed. Presumably, it was for keeping an eye on the two of us. That's right, two. Apparently, they had gotten the two for one deal when they ordered their kidnapping surprise. There was another girl around my age that was given the same bound and drugged with her back facing my physical body. She was asleep from what I could tell, and she was definitely the Hyūga girl I had tried to save last night. She had the same long, black hair that was as straight as could be. Her skin was pale and smooth looking. Silken, purple pajamas were covering her thin frame as her chest rose and fell steadily. I judged that she wasn't waking up anytome soon as I sent my phantasmal self to peak out of our box, deciding to free her when I had a plan. It was probably my fault she was here, after all. When I popped outside I found that we were in a sort of merchant's caravan, or what looked like one. Tens of horse drawn carriages were lined up while slowly traveling on some route. I wandered around and several other actual merchants, even checked their wares too, but only our box had anything that could be considered illegal. I'm fairly sure that weapons trade was a staple part of ninja commerce. Kidnapped children, I'm not too sure. I liberally took note of multiple carriages of kunai and shuriken that might some in handy later, and listened into some nearby conversations. Most of the merchants were rather laid back and calm, but I think that was because of our guards. Or their guards. An entire army of samurai were traveling with our caravan. Their armors were made of interlocking pieces of tempered metal, and clinked rhythmically as they marched along beside the whole caravan. All of them were armed with two swords each: one short and one long. Currently, I was still gathering information. "I don't trust that last carriage that we picked up four days ago." The samurai were probably our best chance of escape, as I wasn't too confident on fighting trained Shinobi after my first run in with them. I suddenly stilled my physical body when I heard the sliding wooden panel open. They had been checking up on us periodically, every two hours I noted. However, I wasn't too preoccupied with my physical body to not pay attention the the chatty guards. "I think you're just being paranoid, Touma-san. This is the Land of Fire, this is probably the most peaceful place you can be. Besides home, that is." The other samurai laughed at the now named Touma. While I wanted to smack him on the head for being so careless. Touma shrugged off his fellow's words as he glanced back to the carriage that held me and the Hyūga girl. "I don't know, Gensei-san. You may have been traveling from the Land of Iron longer than me, but something doesn't feel right. I sense so much malice coming from that carriage." "Malice, huh?" Gensei squinted his eyes while I wondered if Touma had a sixth sense or something. "You been getting these sensations normally?" "It's an off and on thing. I can't really pin it down because whenever I do sense something it goes away too fast." Touma answered. "Hmm? Maybe you're just drinking too much? The Land of Tea doesn't have much for work, but their drinks really hit you." Gensei laughed again, and I was beginning to think this guy laughed at the stupidest things. Was there even a joke? Touma thought it over for a second before he sighed. "I guess you might have a point. These merchants have given us quite a bit of high-quality alcohol from the Land of Tea. Maybe I just was looking for a fight." "Yeah, if it's a fight you want, then we can have a spar again. I'll go easy on you this time." Gensei grinned as Touma's face paled. I was already floating back to my prison to muse over my options. I had solved the mystery as to whether the samurai and merchants were in on our kidnapping. The answer was a blissful no. The merchants had been paid quite a bit of hush money to allow a sudden addition to the caravan, and, while the samurai weren't part of it, they understood something was going on. Which was probably the most lucky thing about my current situation so far. If my subtle research is to come to any conclusions, its that they are all waiting for the hat to drop. Well, most of them are. Anyways, they seem to have some sort of moral code, and that's good enough for me. I mean, what kind of moral man would disregard two kidnapped and drugged kids? Still, that didn't mean I was planning everything around them. Based on past experiences, I realized that an escape route is probably the most important thing in any plan. That and actually having a viable plan. Which, as of right now, was slowly coming together. There were three enemy Shinobi that were watching us. They settled in on shifts to make sure that we were still being good old bound and gagged children sleeping away on whatever drug they forced onto us. Still not even sure what the drug is supposed to do, but they haven't given us food yet and the girl is still asleep. Maybe it is a sleeping drug? Could be, but why is it not affecting… Oh right, didn't Naruto have some kind of healing factor? Another thing to test out whenever I get out of this situation. Anyways, the three Shinobi watch us every two hours regularly, so I have a small two hour window to gather everything I need. I debated on waking the sleeping Hyūga , but I decided against it. She would just be detrimental whenever I enacted my plan. The best time to do anything was during the daytime when all of the samurai were up and about. I counted at least fifty five of them, and hopefully that was enough to turn the tide against my enemies. If not, then I had a plan to run away. Was it ill-mannered of me to plan to ditch my supposed temporary allies if they were being slaughtered by Shinobi? Yes, completely and definitely, one part of me wanted nothing more than to not even involve them, and a more ruthless part of me said I needed to do what I might have to in order survive. Still, I settled for helping them as much as I could before it even came to that. As I floated back to my physical body, I caught sight of two of the enemy Shinobi. They looked like they were about to head to sleep, and I silently debated on seeing if I could assassinate one of them before the actual fighting started. However, while my mind roiled at the thought my body visibly shivered. I hadn't killed anyone in my past life, and certainly not in this one. Hell, I had barely seen blood beyond the occasional scraped knee or broken bone. Was I really ready to start a life where I could be killed, and expected to kill right here and now? Musing over my moral compass on whether I could kill or not, I had unknowingly floated over to my kidnappers as they were talking. "...eyes? I've been wanting one for myself." I paused as one of them spoke softly. What did he just say? He had the most disgusting grin I had ever seen, so I felt that I needed to listen in further. "Sure, you take her left eye and I'll take the right. We're ditching this caravan tomorrow anyways to meet up at the rendezvous point. Plenty of time to take that pampered princess's eyes, and it's not like the boss said we couldn't." Now the other one had a grin similar to his friend's. I could practically hear myself gagging at the horrifying words that these grown men were saying. "Good, I heard that these Hyūga eyes are almost as good as the Sharingan. See through walls and shit like that. If I take one then I might be able to become a Jōnin like Sensei." The first disgusting waste of a human said. While the other piece of shit laughed like they were having the grandest of times. "Please, someone like you would never become a Jōnin. You gotta sell this Dōjutsu to the right guys, and you can buy as many delicacies as you can imagine. Live life a little. Shinobi never know when they might die, after all." The piece of shit commented, as I felt like I had enough. I angrily floated away back to my wooden prison. I had brooding to do. My rage was boiling as my time limit had just shrunk considerably. I needed to act fast now, and the fact that they had a rendezvous point ment that I should be expecting backup if my plan takes too long. This needed to be done as fast and as efficiently as possible or else I'll risk a little girl being scarred for life. This is my fault, and I'm going to fix it. As for my mental morality as of right now, I'm not too sure I can make a full decision on killing people. For people like them, however, I think I'll make an exception.