Chapter 12
“please, I’m pretty sure you can work a way around it!!”, Mito asks, her belly round and bulging after the great feast she and Naruto had at his pocket dimension state.
“of course I can, but I don’t want to”, Naruto retorts, him himself also with his belly full and his whole body steaming.
“why not?!”, Mito exclaims.
They were now sitting on the porch, sipping a warm cup of tea and enjoying the mountain breeze.
Yep, Naruto, or better yet Izuku, have a mansion in the mountains of a private pocket dimension with nothing but untouched nature, if that doesn’t scream ‘in the lap of luxury’ nothing does.
“because as I said, I don’t want to”, Naruto says again.
“fine, have it your way”, Mito says, taking another sip of her tea, “anyway, what are you going to do now? I know that whatever reason The Light sent you here is the same it sent you there back in the previous life”.
“dunno, for now, I’m going to stay here for a while and do what I have to do”, Naruto says, “after that… who knows”.
“you could be a shinobi”, Mito points out as innocently as she can, “in this world the minimum age requirement for a gennin is fourteen and you graduated the academy at eleven, although you didn’t go through the bell test”.
“oh great, reward my murderers with my service, how amazing”, Naruto says, sarcasm dripping from between his teeth.
“I can see your point, but look at it this way, if we are lucky, we can be placed on the same team”, Mito says, with a fox like smile on her face, “just imagine it, you and me in a team wreaking havoc all across the elemental nations”.
“that sounds like a nightmare”, Naruto says.
“for everybody else”, Mito completes, “also, let’s be real here, there’s no way in hell that your super-op magic fuckery won’t go unnoticed, sooner or later you’ll have to show who’s the boss, might as well do it with a village backing you up”.
“compelling point, here’s my counter point… fuck off!”, Naruto says.
“sheesh, just think about it ok”, Mito points out, “besides, you can quit being am active shinobi after you reach chuunin or higher after five years of active service, it’s not like you would be stuck on the job forever”.
“knowing the ever growing bullshitical ways of politics, I’m pretty sure I would either end up as Hokage or hazing this village to the ground”, Naruto point out.
“I would like to disagree, but you actually have a point”, Mito says, “but still, it’s not like you can just lay around sitting on your ass all day”.
“who said I can’t?”, Naruto asks, looking at her with a narrowed eye.
“your blood, say what you want but liking or not, you are an Uzumaki, and Uzumakis can do anything but sit still doing nothing”, Mito says with a proudly stuffed chest.
He wanted to argue that, but she was right even his elvish blood was screaming at him to go on an adventure.
“I hate that you have a point”, Naruto concedes.
“I know I have, but that aside”, Mito says, “I think it’s time for me to go, it’s late and I think my parents are starting to get on me using a shadow clone to fool them”.
“relax, time flows different here”, Naruto says, not in the mood to get up.
“different how?”, Mito asks.
“different as in I put a spell here that makes so when you exit, only a minute has passed since you entered this dimension”, Naruto explain, “it doesn’t matter how long you stay here, when you get out, only a minute would had passed”.
“I’m no stranger to the inner working of time and space, I myself had dabbled in it with my seals, but that doesn’t mean we would end up aging faster here of we lost sign of time?”, Mito asks, very interested in any bot o info she can get, “it would be very weird if I came for a walk one night and came back to my home dimension ten years older”.
“interesting question and the answer is no”, Naruto, no, Izuku explain, feeling the fires of his wizardly pride being fanned, “I made the spell array in suck a way that the aging clock of everything that enters here is synced with the time flow from where they came from, which means that it doesn’t matter how long we stay here, when we leave we would have agent only a minute and the best of all, it resets”.
“wait are you telling me…”, Mito says confused.
“it doesn’t matter if you live here till you are a thousand years old, of you were twenty years old when you leave came to this place, you’ll be twenty years and a minute old when you leave, and if you come back, let’s say, a the next day you won’t age back, you’ll still be twenty years old”, Naruto says with a large smile on his face.
“damn… that’s bullshit!”, Mito says with an angry tone.
“kiddo, believe me, after some point magic is for all intents and purposes weaponized bullshit”, Naruto says with a chuckle, “when the threshold is crossed imagination becomes the limit”.
“just to make sure, what exactly is said threshold?”, Mito asks.
“that’s none of your business”, Naruto says, “and for your own good, let’s keep it like that”.
It’s two whole weeks since Naruto’s perceived ressurection, Asuma, Anko and Kushina had scoured the whole village and the surroundings, not a single stone was left untouched and no civilian was left unasked.
Yet, not a single person ever saw Naruto, but that didn’t stopped the rumors from spreading.
“did you heard?”, hushed voice says at the market district.
“about the demon?”, a second one says.
“yes, it seems he was too evil, even to hell”, the first voice says with a hint of fear, “I’ve heard through the grapevine that Lord Fourth had mobilized a searching party to find him”.
“is he going to get rid of the demon?”, the second voice asks.
“I hope so”, the first one says, “he may not have done that monstrosity to the Hyuuga, but he still a Hokage killer”.
It was taking Kushina all in her to not lash out and give the village the rightful asswhiping it deserved, the only thing stopping her was the fact she knew herself was any better.
The guilt, the sorrow and everything else was eating her alive, night after night, she and Minato where devoured by the haunting memories of the twelve years of pain they cause to their son… and for what?
“where could he had gone?”, she asks in a low voice.
“that’s exactly my question”, Asuma says, “he has no money, no connections and from the way he looked, he was one stiff breeze away from collapsing out of starvation”.
“did Tsume had any luck?”, Kushina asks, if she couldn’t track him through his chakra, then maybe more conventional tracking would do the job.
“her and Kuromaru were able to track his smell, but lost his track after they reach a camping site”, Asuma says.
“a camping site?”, Kushina asks, “who was camping there?”.
“just one girl, Mito Uzumaki”, Asuma says, “I already spoke to her”.
“what did she said?”, Kushina asks.
“she said she was out enjoying a nice cup of instant ramen under the stars…”, Asuma starts.
“mood”, Kushina mutters, nostalgic memories of the times she used to do that herself flooding her mind.
“then she heard nature’s calling”, Asuma continues, “she left for five minutes and when she was back, he camp smelled like something had died there and her ramen was gone”.
“so, back to square zero”, Kushina says with a sigh, “where could he be?”.
“it’s been two weeks already, it’s more likely than not that he’s far away from here”, Asuma says, “presuming he survived the trip”.
Asuma notices the pained look on Kushina’s eyes.
He still remembers that night fourteen years ago when the kyuubi attacked and all hell broke loose, he remembers his father’s sacrifice.
That night when the Kyuubi attacked, Hiruzen had sacrificed his life to seal the Kyuubi inside the triplets, something he did out of his own volition, to make sure that Minato and Kushina would survive.
(and possible because he was making truth of his statement that e preferred death over paperwork, but that’s not here nor there)
He was ready to pay the price, but the Shinigami, in a streak of cruelty made him an offer. Hiruzen’s life for the life of the newborn and the Shinigami would take both the soul of the Kyuubi and the soul of the baby.
All shinobi present heard that, Asuma included and they heard when Hiruzen soundly refused, choosing to sacrifice his life to have all of the Kyuubi sealed.
Asuma for a long time could not bring himself to let go of the hatred and the hate had to be directed to somewhere and unfortunately, it was directed to the child who by no choice of his own was serving as the jailer of a piece of the monster that had taken the lives of many, including the life of his father.
And now looking back, all he can feel is sadness and guilt, ‘what fault does a child not even an hour old have?’ was what he asked himself every morning for the last two years, but now it was too late.
“honestly I can’t fault him for choosing to flee”, Asuma says out loud, he can see that those words hurt Kushina so deeply she might as well be bleeding, “this village never embraced him and probably never will, if he can find a better life somewhere else then who are we to tell him not to?”.
Kushina doesn’t answer, instead, she simply walks away in silence, but Asuma could see in her eyes that he was right.