Naruto: Becoming a master taijutsu using martial arts.

Have you ever woken up and had no idea where you were or how you got there? Well, if that has ever happened to you, then you know exactly how I'm feeling right now, and you know how freaking scary it is.

It wasn't the first time that I woke up in a completely random place with no memory from the night before. But it was definitely the first time I woke up in an unknown place, wearing strange clothes and apparently a meter shorter than usual.

Seriously. What the hell is going on? I've seen a lot of horror movies, but waking up and finding out you've been turned into a child? That's new. And where the heck am I?

"Oh, Kenshin-kun! You're finally awake, we were so worried about you."

A strange voice was just what I needed to make my panic worse. The woman who came through the wooden door didn't look like a psychopath; in fact, she had a kind face. But the fact that I didn't know her made me even more uneasy.

Wait… she was speaking Japanese? Hold on! She was speaking Japanese! I understood her? What the hell? I only knew a few scattered words of Japanese from watching too much anime in my free time, but understanding complete sentences? That was impossible.

"Kenshin-kun? How are you feeling? The doctor said you might feel a bit disoriented from the fall, but that you'd be fine."

She tried to reach out her hand to me, but I quickly backed away. I had no idea what was going on, but I definitely wasn't going to let a stranger touch me.

Who was this woman? Why was she speaking Japanese? How could I understand Japanese? And who the hell was this Kenshin?

"Who... who are you?"

I asked hesitantly, finally voicing one of the questions tormenting me. But as soon as I spoke, my eyes widened, and I brought my hands to my mouth. What had just happened? My voice… it was different, and I just spoke in Japanese?

At least the woman in front of me looked as confused and surprised as I was, though I was sure not for the same reason.

"Kenshin-kun, it's me, Hanachi Kaori… Don't you remember me? I run the orphanage."

Orphanage? Kaori? What the hell? I had never set foot in an orphanage in my life, and why would I be in one in Japan? When Kaori saw the confusion on my face hadn't faded, she continued speaking.

"You were playing with the other kids in the playground. Apparently, you tried climbing a tree and got struck by lightning. We're at the Konoha hospital—don't you remember? Wait, I'll call the doctor."

Kaori seemed to realize it was important to alert the medical staff that their patient had woken up and quickly left through the door.

Struck by lightning? I didn't remember that, though honestly, I barely remembered what I'd been doing last night. It felt like I had the worst hangover in the world. But I figured being struck by lightning would stick in my memory. And Konoha Hospital? I didn't know there was a hospital by that name in Kansas.

"Wait a minute… Konoha Hospital…"

I felt my heart race, and my eyes widened. It couldn't be... could it?

Konoha Hospital? Konoha, like in the anime Naruto? No way. But something strange was going on. I didn't remember coming here, and I had never spoken Japanese in my life.

My eyes scanned the room, and it really did look like a hospital—albeit a rather outdated one, given the lack of medical equipment. Then, I noticed a mirror in the corner of the room.

Standing up with some difficulty, I realized that every step I took toward the mirror made my whole body ache.

"What the hell happened?"

That was all I could say when I finally looked at the reflection in the mirror.

Rationally, I understood that this was my reflection, but the face staring back at me was that of a complete stranger. I raised my right hand to my cheek, watching as the stranger in the mirror mimicked my movements.

I am—or rather, I was—a young adult in my mid-twenties. Tall, with a Latin heritage, I had brown eyes and hair paired with a naturally tanned complexion. I definitely didn't look like the strange being reflected in the mirror now.

The person before me looked like a small child, probably no older than 8. As if being turned into a child wasn't weird enough, my hair was white—not the gray-white of an elderly person, but silvery and shimmering. And what was even weirder was that it didn't look like dyed hair; even the roots were silver.

My eyes were a lavender shade, and my once-prized tan skin was now so pale that it looked like I'd never seen the sun.

"Well… at least I look good."