Alternative Canon Crossover

By Andrew J. Talon

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor am I making profit off of this.

Author's Note: The problem with being creative is having so many damn ideas. This one in particular, the Alternative Canon, was an attempt by me to totally rewrite the Naruto universe in a unique and different way. I have many ideas for it and articles and thought experiments, but I couldn't pull it together into one story. The focus was always on the contrasts between the Alt-Canon and the normal Canon. So, I decided to use that as the impetus for writing a story, where the two universes meet.

This is set before Pein's invasion of Konoha.

Sasuke, for his part, was glad that Konoha's basic layout was more or less the same. His Konoha had a bigger population and a bit more signs of industry here and there, but other than that they were the same. Even the Hokage Monument was identical, save for Tsunade's face. It hadn't been added yet in his Konoha.

Sasuke, however, had the unfortunate inkling that if he didn't hurry, then this Konoha would have another significant difference from his: Lots of charming ruins and craters.

"Would you-huff-Just-huff-SLOW DOWN ALREADY?" Naruto shouted. Sasuke finally skidded to a halt a few meters away from the Konoha gates, Naruto barely managing to stop behind him. The blond growled angrily.

"Damnit Sasuke, what the hell did you stop for-?"

KABOOM!

Naruto and the ANBU who had followed (as well as a blushing Sakura, who had arrived late from watching Kiba and Yugito) stared with jaws to the ground as the great gates of Konoha blew apart in a fiery explosion. Though the smoke and flames, two ANBU were thrown in, rolling and tumbling like dice to a halt in front of Sasuke and Naruto.

One of them was a familiar, purple-haired woman, who groaned and slowly got up.

"What... The Hell... WAS THAT?" She exclaimed. Sasuke sighed and shook his head.

"That would be Haruno Sakura," he mumbled.

"What'd she do?" Naruto asked.

"Someone commented on her chest, I'm afraid," spoke a strangely familiar voice. Naruto looked to this right and jumped in shock as Hinata Hyuuga stood next to him, supporting an unconscious Sakura Haruno. The young woman looked at Naruto, Sasuke, and the other Sakura with a cautious smile.

"Hello Sasuke, Sakura... N-Naruto," Hinata said to them. She stared at Naruto for a time, which made him fidget.

"Um... Hi Hinata! How are you?" He asked. Hinata blushed and shrugged.

"All right, I-I suppose... It's just been a bit of a difficult day," she replied. Yugao growled at the unconscious Sakura, but stopped short in her advance on the troublesome kunoichi by a firm look from Hinata.

"She is my comrade, as difficult as it can be at times," she stated. "I will take responsibility for her. She will cause no further problems under my care, I give you my word as the heiress of the Hyuuga," she said.

"She just blew me and my men up! Why the hell should I trust you?" Yugao demanded.

"Because only someone who wished to do grave dishonor to the Hyuuga clan would dare question one's integrity," spoke a loud voice over the yells of chuunin rushing to put out the flames. Everyone's eyes rose to a nearby tree, where two more damnably familiar faces could be found: One of a wryly grinning Naruto Uzumaki, the other of an unconscious Sasuke Uchiha.

The conscious Sakura's hands went to the front of her mouth as she stared at her-their Sasuke. Her Naruto gaped in disbelief. The other Hinata just smiled.

"There is no need for you to defend my honor, N-Naruto," she spoke.

"No, there isn't, but you know that's never stopped me before," he said with a warmth in his eyes unfamiliar to the Naruto and Sakura of this world. The Sasuke of their world sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Well… We're all in this together then, huh?"

"Would you prefer it any other way?" The other Naruto asked.

"It'd be a lot quieter," the other Sasuke grumbled.

"Can someone explain WHAT the hell is going on?" The Naruto of this world demanded. "I mean, another me, another you, my you, and her-I-it-ARGH!"

"It's been that kind of a day for all of us, Naruto, believe me," the other world's Sasuke spoke. "Maybe we can figure this out, in conference with the Hokage?"

"Is anyone paying me the slightest bit of attention?" Demanded Yugao. Sasuke glanced over at her, and shrugged.

"Sorry, no," he said. "Perhaps you should get used to it, my dear."

Across the dimensional divide…

"The situation is getting out of hand," General Umake stated. He shook his head. "Already, we're getting reports that more ninja and more of my troops are vanishing. Jiraiya himself got sucked into the damn thing!"

"That doesn't mean we just blow it up!" Tsunade growled. "Not without trying to gain access to the other side to rescue our people!"

"I'm not saying we blow it up," Umake growled. "I'm saying that we need to get this thing contained. Whatever Jiraiya did caused the damn thing to flare with power for a few seconds, but it then seemed to grow smaller. Do you agree, Captain Sarutobi?"

All eyes turned to the Shugotenshi member. They were trained to have some of the finest, most acute chakra senses of any person in the Fire Republic. He sighed and shook his head.

"It seems like it has... Less power, but not much," he admitted. "And we don't happen to have a spare Jiraiya on hand."

"Well, what did he say he was doing? Adjusting the stabilizer stones for the seal array?" Umake pressed.

"Yes, and look what happened! How many people do you want to sacrifice in order to try and get at them?" Tsunade demanded. Haruno cleared her throat.

"What about puppet users?" She asked. Everyone stared at her for a second. She shrugged.

"Send in a puppet user with his puppets, and try to use Sakura's notes to adjust the stones in the proper way to burn off excess energy," she continued. "That way, hopefully they won't get caught up if there's another flare up."

Dead silence. Sachiko looked around, and blinked.

"... None of you thought of that?" She asked. Umake coughed. Tsunade looked a bit embarrassed. Asuma just sighed.

"... Call up Gaara, tell him to get Kankuro here as fast as he can," Tsunade finally said. Umake grumbled under his breath, even as Asuma tried hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Lieutenant!"

Lieutenant 2nd Class Ishida Rei turned her head from the injured private before her, Kazairu Jun. When the yellow light had hit, the private had been sitting in a tree, rifle trained on the glowing sphere. When the light faded, he found himself falling from a much higher height onto a series of jagged rocks.

"What is it, Private?" Ishida asked flatly, finishing her bandaging of Kazairu's leg. Private Yui Rin skidded to a halt in front of her, breathing hard.

"I've scouted out to half a kilo west and north, sir. We've got nothing," she reported. "No hostiles, no signs of our unit-We're not even in Konoha anymore." She bit her lower lip. "Complete wilderness, sir."

The brown-haired officer sighed and looked at Jun. The younger man was gritting his teeth against obvious pain.

"Can you walk, Private?"

"Think so, sir," he gasped out. With Ishida's help, he got up, struggling to stay up. Rin handed him his rifle and he leaned against it, gasping out loud.

"O-Ow..."

"We're not going to cover a lot of ground with him like this, sir," Rin pointed out.

"I know Private, I know," Ishida said. She sighed. "Great way to start your first tour, huh?"

"Giant ball of glowy doom?" Jun asked. He shrugged. "Worse ways, I suppose, sir."

"Well..." Rei closed her eyes and focused. She winced as a large flare of chakra washed over her senses. "I can feel something big going down nearby."

"What?" Rin asked. She tensed. "Shit! I felt that too!"

"M-Me too," Jun groaned. Rei shook her head and pulled one of Jun's arms over her shoulder.

"Well, it's the only lead we have so far," she said. "And for all we know, it might be friendlies engaged." She ran her hand over her weapons-Her officer's sword, her pistol, her grenades were all there. She checked her two troops.

Jun was a rifleman, handed one of the new breech loading guns that were manufactured locally. He was a crack shot and fast reloader, and with the spare pistols on his belt he had a fair amount of firepower available. Rin was a fairly average infantrywoman-A revolver rifle and a tanto for close range combat. In the world of chakra-enhanced conventional troops, muzzle loading rifles were, for the most part, utterly useless. The faster you could reload the better. In addition, the more complicated your weapon, the more likely it was to break down.

Ergo, revolving magazines were the mainstay for most military guns. Revolvers weren't as accurate as breech-loading rifles but they were faster to fire.

"Okay... We'll head towards the brawl, but just close enough to see what's going on," Rei decided. "Maybe some of our guys also ended up... Wherever here is, so we can meet up with them too."

"Yes sir," both Jun and Rin said. Rei nodded.

"Rin, take point. Let's go..."

The Hokage's office was completely destroyed. The desk, the chairs, even the carpet was in terrible shape.

Cuddled in the middle of it was a grinning Jiraiya and a purring, content Tsunade.

Best. Experiment. Ever.

Seriously, he was going to get his Sakura a gift. The best gift he could find. Hell, he'd fund her research on this!

"Mmm..." Tsunade nuzzled him with a soft sigh. Jiraiya rubbed her back, and looked up at the ceiling. It abruptly occurred to him that either the Jiraiya here would be unhappy about him shacking up with his Tsunade, or... Something had happened to this world's Jiraiya.

Judging from the desperate nature of the sex, he was leaning towards the latter.

So... It really, really broke his heart to have to say this, but... He had to.

"Tsunade..."

"Mm?" She mumbled.

Jiraiya took a deep breath.

"... I'm not the Jiraiya you know."

"..." Tsunade sat up and stared at him. The Sannin coughed, and ran a hand through his short, spiky hair and over his ponytail. He then quickly explained what had happened, leaving nothing out.

Tsunade stared at him intently, silently. Jiraiya coughed.

This feels uncomfortable... Damn my conscience, damn it to hell! The last thing he wanted to do was shatter Hime's heart any more than it already had been.

It was at this point Tsunade's fist met his temple, and sent him flying through a wall.

"... And suddenly, this world is incredibly familiar," he murmured wryly. He stood up, and (ignoring the gawking ANBU) walked back into the office as Tsunade furiously got dressed. He too pulled on his clothing, not saying anything until Tsunade had everything back on. He couldn't help his slight smile though-She had hit him. She wouldn't have done that unless she was feeling better.

"... So... This portal thing... It's pulling in more things from your world?" She asked. Jiraiya nodded.

"Yeah... I got pulled in. I have no doubt that it might be getting worse. I was able to adjust a stabilization stone but it just sucked me into it."

"What can we do on this end?" Tsunade asked. Jiraiya shrugged.

"Well, we could find the cavern where Sakura-Our Sakura-built hers, and see what we can do with it. Advanced interdimensional physics is more her thing, but I know my seals. I've seen hers before as well."

Tsunade nodded stiffly. "That's good. Do it."

There was silence for a while. Jiraiya wasn't quite able to move, not yet. Tsunade stared back, unable to make a sound.

"Don't worry about it," he said. He gave her a wink. "After all... What you love, you must set free, right?"

"..." Tsunade sighed and sat back in the only not-destroyed chair in the office. She looked at him with sad eyes.

"I... I don't know..." She trailed off. Jiraiya walked over and rested his hands on her shoulders. She looked up.

"He'd have stayed for you in a heartbeat, you know," he said softly. "All you had to do was ask."

"... I... I couldn't..." Tsunade closed her eyes. "But now...?"

Jiraiya sighed, and pulled her into a hug. She stiffened in his embrace, but it didn't last. She wrapped her arms around him back, and pressed her face against his chest.

"It's all right," Jiraiya said softly. "He'd never blame you for what happened... And he'd know why you didn't ask."

For the first time in a very long time, Tsunade found tears pouring from her eyes. Jiraiya sent a pulse of chakra to warn the ANBU off, and stayed with her until she finished.

After all... No matter what universe it happened to be, Tsunade was still Tsunade.

The table is set, the players have arrived. All that is needed is the play to begin. After that comes the dinner…