I am Naruto but where is Kurama!?

Hinata Hyuga looked around the classroom, and Naruto was nowhere in sight again today. She thought.

" Maybe Naruto-kun is sick?"

The Chunin Instructor, Iruka Umino, came in and ordered.

" Okay, everyone, to your seats. I have an announcement."

Most of the class muttered amongst themselves at what the announcement should be. Iruka sighed and said to the whole class.

" Naruto Uzumaki will be unable to attend class due to the fact he is under house arrest."

" WHAT!?"

Most of the class exclaimed in shock, and they all started to speculate on the reason for Naruto's punishment.

" Did he kill someone?"

" Nah, if that were the case, he would, at the very least, be locked up for good."

" Hey, anyone here about anything involving that guy?"

" Wait, he beat up some guy the day before yesterday! He looked like a demon, smiling as the guy tried to protect himself but stopped moving in the end. That demon then roared, and everyone ran away to avoid being his next victim."

" I heard there was a commotion at the shopping district. Was that what it was?"

The Chunin Instructor clapped his hands to get his student's attention and said.

" Okay, class, that's enough gossiping. Even if Uzumaki-San isn't here, we still have class."

Hinata looked down at her desk and felt worried about the boy she grew to admire.

" Naruto-kun."

Her thoughts whirled in her mind as she didn't pay attention to class, and her thoughts turned in a certain direction.

" Naruto-kun is going to fall behind if he can't attend class! I know what I can do. I can take my notes to him to copy!"

The thought of helping the blonde motivated Hinata, and she spent the day diligently making notes. Time slowly ticked as classes continued without Naruto.

________________________________________

"92."

"93."

"94."

I counted as I did squats in my apartment while under house arrest. I had no Shadow Clones out because there was no point right now, as I needed something to do to kill time; otherwise, I would die of boredom. Then there is the fact I am under surveillance by some Chunin, so I have to keep my cards close to my chest until my punishment is over.

"98."

"99."

"100."

I finished my last set for the day, but it was still only noon. I took out the storage scrolls I made and still felt pissed at the fact the Sealing Formula was altered by that old toad, Jiraiya, which means he went through my stuff. I should've kicked him harder in the balls. I sighed as while I was angry about the invasion of my privacy, seeing the altered Sealing Formula gave me new insights on how to improve my Sealing Jutsu.

Thankfully, I wrote some of my more important stuff in English that I carefully coded as well to make it harder to figure out. Nothing too complicated; I just wrote in vague terms, like referring to the Ōtsutsuki as Cultivators or Sasuke as an Edgelord. I would understand it as I read it, but without context, it's likely to go to everyone else's head.

I opened the Scroll I labeled as Jutsu in English and wrote down every Jutsu I could remember, their effects, who used them, and if I knew or remembered, their hand signs as well. My eyes landed on one particular Jutsu, the Summoning Jutsu. More and more often, I think that my house arrest is an opportunity to make a Summoning Contract on the sly.

I could get away with it because I knew none of the Chunin keeping an eye on me were sensors since I ran a few tests with Shadow Clones. I just have to leave a Shadow Clone behind when I use Reverse Summoning on myself, and none would be the wiser. However, considering I have no idea what Summoning Clan I could end up with stopped me from going through. If it were the Snakes I ended up with at Ryuchi Cave, yeah fuck that.

There might be a few good Snakes in Ryuchi Cave, but the majority of them I can't trust at all, and that's not adding to the fact Orochimaru is their current Contractor. Meeting him would be very bad for the current me because the best-case scenario is that he disregards me as an unfortunate kid who winds up entering a Summoning Contract with Ryuchi Cave. If he develops an interest or animosity with me for whatever reason, I will likely not survive.

However, despite the risks, the benefits I could gain are not small: proper teachers, new Jutsu, and possibly Sage Mode in the future. I muttered a phrase that I remembered from my past life.

" No guts, no glory."

I licked my lips in trepidation and put away the Scroll. I entered my bathroom and created a Shadow Clone. Before I reversed Summoned myself, my Shadow Clone said.

" Good luck, boss."

" Thanks."

I replied and used the hand signs of the Summoning Jutsu.

" Summoning Jutsu!"

I shouted in my mind as shouting Jutsu out loud was the dumbest thing a Ninja can do. I hope I'm not getting myself killed here. I was met with vast, unending darkness, and I realized I was falling.

" FFFFF*****CCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!"

________________________________________

Hinata's heart was beating like a drum as she drew closer to Naruto's apartment, and she tightly held the extra notes she had made for him. As she started to climb up the stairs, her thoughts went wild.

" What am I supposed to say to Naruto-kun?"

She tried to answer her own question as her steps slowed.

" Um, Uzumaki-san, I heard you were stuck at home, so I brought you a copy of my notes to help you keep up with class. No, no, no, that's too condescending!"

" Uzumaki-san, I brought you some notes from class when I saw you weren't at class today. No, that's too informal! This is the first time I am actually trying to talk to him!"

" Uzumaki-san, here are the notes for today's class. NO, THAT'S EVEN WORSE!"

The Hyuga girl crouched down and held her head as she tormented herself about what to say to the boy she admired. Hinata started to pace on the floor below Naruto's apartment as she tried to decide what to say to the blonde. She then had the idea to see what the boy was currently doing in his apartment with her Byakugan.

The Hyuga girl formed the Ram hand sigh to build up her Chakra and mentally cried out.

" BYAKUGAN!"

The veins around her eyes intensified as she looked at the floor above her and saw Naruto doing calligraphy with a practiced hand. Hinata commented inwardly.

" His handwriting is so refined."

She knew because one of the things her father had her practice was calligraphy to form neat and precise handwriting early on as the heiress to the Hyuga Clan when she still was the heiress at the time. Hinata watched and admired Naruto's quiet diligence. The blonde wrote several characters up to the higher end of double digits, each one written with extreme care and focus.

The Hyuga girl was then shocked when her classmate switched to drawing pictures, which were works of art to her. They were of cats lying in various silly positions, dimly lit forests, dark alleys, and other everyday things. A blush dusted her cheeks as he then started drawing women, beautiful women in suggestive positions and clothing in a lot of cases. Hinata especially focused on the more modest drawings of women in outfits she had never seen before.

Unknown to her, these were gothic lolita, maid outfits, modern clothing from Earth, and cosplay from anime and games. Hinata then inwardly wondered.

" Are those the sort of clothes Naruto-kun likes?"

While her face boiled at the thought of wearing the more bold outfits, the more modest ones appealed to her. They had a unique charm to them she had never seen or heard of before. The Hyuga girl clutched the notes she planned to give to him as she thought.

" How did Naruto come up with these outfits?"

Her feelings of admiration answered for her.

"He's a genius and hard worker!"

Hinata's admiration grew to a new level, but she then remembered her original problem. What was she supposed to say to him? Especially now since she spied on him! What was she supposed to do now!? The Hyuga girl threw herself in a frenzy as she felt more lost than before at how she was supposed to hand over the notes from class.

Hinata stiffened as she heard someone rush up the stairs. She quickly hid in a panic and saw a girl with brown hair and a pair of Chinese buns rush up. She used to her Byakugan to follow the girl from a distance as there was only one apartment on the top floor, Naruto's. Dread gripped the Hyuga girl's heart as she saw the brown hair bang on the blonde's door.

Naruto ( a Shadow Clone) went to the door and opened it. He showed a look of surprise as he opened the door and asked, unaware he was being watched.

" Tenten, why are you here?"

" Of course, I'm here! Do you have any idea how I felt when I learned you were under house arrest, Naruto? I was worried!"

This threw the Shadow Clone off as he didn't think the original and the girl in front of him were close enough to worry about one another. He couldn't help but ask.

" Why?"

" Why?"

Tenten asked back, looking stunned, and replied as if it were obvious.

" We're friends, aren't we?"

The Shadow Clone was stumped and cursed the original inwardly.

" Dang it, Boss, of all the times to be away."

Whether the Shadow Clone or Original, they would both be unsure how to react as they honestly had no idea why Tenten decided to be their friend or when it happened. The most Naruto has done is talk with the brunette about Medical Ninjutsu and suggest a few reference books to help her with class. Ultimately, the Shadow Clone decided to take it in stride and leave the future problems to the original.

" Would you like to come in?"

" Sure."

Tenten agreed and entered the apartment, much to the jealousy of a pale-eyed girl watching the whole interaction. The brunette commented.

" It's cleaner than I thought it would be."

" Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Naruto's Shadow Clone snarked, feeling slightly offended for the Original's sake. Tenten defended herself.

" In my defense, I always heard boy's rooms were messy, but I can see that's wrong."

The brunette then asked the question that had been on her mind when she first heard about the blonde's house arrest.

" So what did you do to earn being locked up in your own home?"

" Beating up a drunk civilian that came out of nowhere and started blaming me for all his problems. I didn't stop until he was no longer moving, but he was still breathing when I left him."

Naruto omitted kicking Jiraiya in the balls. Tenten frowned as she asked.

" Don't you think that's going too far?"

The Shadow Clone scoffed and asked back.

" Like being treated as less than human by the majority of the village?"

The brunette pursed her lips but didn't reply and changed the topic.

" So, what have you been up to since being under house arrest?"

" Training, studying, and finding ways to kill time."

The blonde answered matter-of-factly before gesturing to his drawing as he had nothing to hide in that regard. Tenten examined the drawings and blushed at the more erotic drawings, then looked back at her friend and directly accused.

" Pervert."

Naruto shrugged as he replied.

" Everyone's a pervert; it's just a matter of degrees."

The brunette looked back at the drawings, and her eyes fell on a particular outfit adorning a woman with a slender appearance. She had long flowing hair with her face partly obscured by a bladed fan in hand while wearing a modest but beautiful cheongsam while sitting on a tree branch. Tenten admired the drawing and asked.

" Who's this?"

" No one, just some girl I imagined."

Naruto replied, and the brunette started to browse through the drawing, flipping over the more erotic ones and moving them out of sight. The guest stopped on another drawing. A girl with long hair in a dress with a long tie and wearing gauntlets wielding a katana with a cold, if not murderous expression ( insert Akame from Akame ga Kill). She was facing another girl like her but with shorter hair and a cuter appearance that had a sinister smile ( Kurome from Akame ga Kill). They looked ready to kill one another.

" What's this?"

Tenten asked as she could feel the intense emotions in the confrontation.

" A duel to the death between sisters who followed different paths."

" Why draw this?"

She asked as she couldn't begin to imagine such a thing, and the Shadow Clone replied nonchalantly.

" Why not?"

The brunette felt both repulsed and drawn to the image as it conveyed so much emotion. She couldn't begin imagining being in such a situation to come at family with the intention of killing one another. The blonde then offered.

" You can have it if you want."

" No thanks, it's a bit too much for me."

Tenten refused but then picked out a picture that brought a smile to her face: a cat eyeing a hole, waiting to pounce, but a kitten was doing the same with the cat's tail.

" Mind if I take this one?"

" Go for it."

Naruto consented with a wave of his hand. The brunette then offered after taking the drawing.

" Since you are stuck here, do you need anything?"

" Not right now, no, but thanks."

All the while, Hinata was burdened by an unfamiliar feeling gripping her heart as she watched with her Byakugan as; the two seemed far closer than she liked.

________________________________________

" F*ck."

I cursed again as I was still freaking falling with no end in sight. Where in the heck did I reverse summon myself to? I got used to the feeling of endlessly falling after a while, and now I was calmly, well more calmly than before, thinking about how to get myself out of this mess. I tried to remember my geography studies about this world as I was curious about the Fire Mountains and their ever-burning flames Koji Kashin could summon from Boruto.

I learned there were a lot of weird places in this world that people know about, like the Valley of Slicing Wind or the Lighting Mountains that have unending thunderstorms. I can't remember any bottomless pits or holes that could match my situation, but it wouldn't surprise me if such a place existed. As I thought about how am I going to escape this situation, I tried calling for help with no luck, and trying to reverse summon again did not work.

My worry wasn't that I was going to die by going splat if there was a bottom to this pit but by dying of starvation or dehydration. A cold sense of dread filled me as that did not seem impossible. I tried to suppress my panic at dying in such a way, but then I started to notice something odd. I kept falling at the same speed for the past who knows how long, and that doesn't make sense. The more you fall, the more speed you pick up as you fall. It's simple gravity.

I frowned as I took a minute to try and feel if I was picking up any speed at all as I fell. Minutes ticked away, and the sense of falling stayed constant and unchanging. Something is off here, but what's going on? I tried to think about what might be happening to me, and I have two conclusions. One, I am not actually falling but floating due to some pressurized air constantly blasting me, which gives me the illusion of falling.

Or two, I am under a Genjutsu. I think the second option is far more likely, so I stopped the flow of my Chakra and then made it burst. My surroundings changed to a forested mountain with stone steps and a Tori gate in front of me with stone bricks under me. I then heard an unfamiliar voice say.

" Look, Kurogane, the young one finally broke out of our Genjutsu."

I saw a white fox the size of a horse with yellow eyes looking at another similarly sized black fox with matching eyes. The black fox snorted and replied.

" He still failed the test, Shirogane."

Okay, so I am screwed already by failing their test. I couldn't help but curse.

" F*ck."