He also knew that there were a LOT of other realities.
Since the Book Of Darkness had been put down, he'd been to some of those other worlds and their realities. Part of his duties with the TSAB, assigned to him to increase his chances of getting home, had been to scout other worlds. Sometimes he'd even made friends on those other worlds, using his Artifact to pull up information from hidden sources.
He'd been on a dying world of desert landscapes, where martial artists fought each other over dwindling resources and life was frequently cheaper than water.
He'd been on a dead world where a civilization had annihilated itself in a blaze of science gone wrong and conspiracies gone wild.
He'd stood on the edge of a building overlooking a ruined city that was trying to rebuild itself after a madman's attempt at vengeance had threatened their world.
There had been others too. Worlds of wonder and breathtaking beauty. Worlds that were dead and decaying. Worlds that were on the precipice and worlds that had stepped back from it.
He'd made friends too. Finding people who saw him as hope, others who decided he was a rival, and still others who sought to follow his banner.
Which was going to be very odd when he got back to Konoha and these others followed him there.
"-and so that's what happened," said Naruto to the Hokage, ignoring the various clan heads and ANBU and others who'd insisted on turning a private meeting into a more major conference.
Which was making him wish that he'd used a henge to disguise himself as his younger self before returning.
He had started out as twelve and some change. He was now over fifteen years old. His hair was longer and drawn back into a short ponytail. He'd filled out some, constant taijutsu practice and weight training as well as eating the amounts he had. He'd found the thread of spell leading back to his home universe and followed it, snapping to one second after he'd left. At this point he was unsure if anyone following him would end up following him to the him-now or would show up in three years and some odd percentage later.
The Hokage had already circulated a rumor that Naruto had run afoul of an experimental time-dilation jutsu that had gone wrong. A jutsu that could have allowed a ninja to hide and avoid pursuers because a minute would pass for him and the outside world would have hours go by. Instead it had aged Naruto three years. That was just a cover story, of course. ANBU secret files would have the real story, and details. The FULL story was promptly slapped with a Class S Secret until more details could be tied down.
Naruto was keeping the full capabilities of his Artifact secret himself. The ninja world was full of secrets and if it was generally known he could ferret out a large number of those secrets simply by asking the right question of his Artifact? No, he really didn't want to deal with the waves of murder attempts that sooner or later would be successful. He was kind of averse to dying, it would ruin his whole day.
"I see," said the Hokage, waiting for the scribe to finish writing all the details down. "Now, most of this will be classified, and I expect this will take some time for decisions to be made regarding it. In the meantime:"
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(Posted Fri, 21 May 2010 20:49)
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