ᴅᴇꜱᴛɪɴʏ ʀᴇʙɪʀᴛʜ|ⁿᵃʳᵘᵗᵒˣⁿᵃʳᵘᵏᵒ

A second chance p.3

It had been a long time since Naruto had been knocked unconscious by something. The last time had been when Sakura punched him through five apartment blocks, ten trees and a few thousand meters away from his apartment to training ground seven. That had been a painful experience, and he had been the dense idiot then, and thinking back on it, he deserved it for his insensitive remark of her small chest and forehead. He would always remember the odd feeling of a growing headache that would last the entire day.

Naruto groaned as he forced one of his eyes open, and the first thing he saw was the tree canopy, probably one of Hi no Kuni's (Land Of Fire) many forests, and also the blue sky. Managing to open both of his eyes, he craned his neck to scan his surroundings, and saw that he was in the forest of one of Konoha's training grounds. Taking a closer look at the trees, he noticed them to be ... younger and healthier in some weird way.

He groaned again when he tried to move his arms and legs; all his long hours of fatigue and wear all coming back to him at once. Deciding to check his chakra reserves, he found out that they were almost empty, much to his shock. His massive reserves of chakra, monstrously so even, depleted to just a small trickle — just enough for him to stay alive.

Naruto then sensed something strange.

He felt power coming from multiple points of his body, almost like small storage devices. Gathering enough strength to raise one of his arms, he finally noticed the source of the energy signatures: Chakra Storage Seals. He grinned weakly as he can only guess one person who could give it to him. 'Thank you Kami-sama.' Without wasting any more time Naruto activated all of them with a slight flare of his chakra — there were ten seals in total — and soon he felt his strength and chakra coming back to him, filling up his reserves gradually, and he felt much better.

"Ouch," Naruto muttered as he forced himself to sit up, and he started to chuckle weakly, "So this is what coming back to life feels like — honestly, it sucks."

The blonde looked down and saw that he was no longer in his standard choice of clothing anymore. He was currently wearing a white t-shirt with a red whirlpool design on the back, a pair of brown khaki pants held together by an orange belt, and a pair of clean open-toed blue sandals. The change in clothing didn't startle the young time and dimension traveler that much ... but it was the other change that shocked him. Quickly staggering to his feet, Naruto stretched out his sense — he was a damn good sensor when he wanted to be — he charted out a mental map of his surroundings, and smiled in relief when he sensed a small creek nearby.

"So ... thirsty," the young man said and he made his way towards the general direction of the creek, and sure enough, it was there, the sounds of running fresh water were music to his ears. Kneeling in front of it, Naruto moaned in relief as the cool water made its way down his dry throat. He can never forget the particular sweet taste of Hi no Kuni's fresh river water, which he missed dearly during the war, where fresh water was scarce and the land barren due to constant fighting. He proceeded to splash his face with water to refresh and was in the process of wiping it dry when he looked down at the water.

"W-What the hell?" the young blonde muttered, eyes wide in shock.

Staring back at him was his reflection, but it was not the face he was expecting to see. The Naruto who was staring back at him was very much younger than he was expecting — thirteen years old if he had to hazard a guess. But unlike when he was at that age, he looked more mature and his features were more pronounced. There was no baby fat left on his face, and most importantly, his trademark whisker-like birthmarks were gone, making him look like his father's clone.

He noticed that he was fairly tall, a reasonable five-foot-five... much taller than his midget height of four-foot-nine when he was thirteen back then. Naruto sighed as he started to chuckle. Time travel and dimension travel weren't his forte, but after melding with his father's memories, he better understood the basics of Space-Time and was obliged to believe that this was all true, no matter how unbelievable it was.

This was certainly unexpected. Maybe this was what Kami wanted, sending him back in time to save the future. And for that second chance, he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Naruto chuckled, "Well, I can't say I'm not happy about this."

"How can you not be?" a voice said inside his head that made Naruto pause, and a small, tearful smile came on his face. "One would think that being alive was a happy occasion, kit."

Naruto shook his head slightly as he laughed at that. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. It belonged to his lifelong companion, partner and surrogate big brother: Kurama, the Kyūbi no Kitsune. He could still remember the day when the Bijū swore on his life that he would protect Naruto and be with him always, as a brother and partner.

Centering in on himself, Naruto was soon standing in the familiar surroundings of his mindscape, which was still a very damp sewer — he definitely needed to fix that sometime in the future. It's beyond degrading for one such as the Kyūbi no Kitsune to be living in such conditions.

Naruto smiled, "It's great to see you, Kurama."

The great fox nodded with a toothy grin, fox's sharp canines widening as he did. "Good to be back, kit. How are you feeling?"

Naruto groaned, but grinned nonetheless. "Like I've been through hell and back, and then challenged Rock Lee to a spar while he's drunk."

He could still remember that day when someone accidently spiked Lee's food with Sake, and Naruto had to resort to using his Sennin Mōdo (Sage Mode) to calm him down, destroying a few housing complexes and a training ground in the process. After that day, no one dared to let Lee near a sake bottle ever again.

Kurama's howling laughter was his reply. "Hah! I still remember that day" he chortled, "Broke an arm or two and a couple of ribs if I remembered correctly... had to heal your sorry ass from the ground up."

Naruto grimaced as he remembered the beating he took. "Yeah — that was embarrassing."

After sobering, Kurama became serious. "Joking aside, what are you going to do now? From what I can tell, you're near Konoha in one of the training grounds."

Coming out of his mindscape and into the real world, Naruto nodded as he started to walk in the direction of the village.

"I don't know Kurama, I really don't know. How can I explain it to them when I see them?" He admitted. He cleared his throat, and in an overly comical voice, continued. "'Hi, I'm from another dimension, and sort of time travelled and was sent here by Kami to save the future?'" He shook his head at that. "They'd label me as a lunatic and I'll be sent to the loony bin faster than one could say Rasengan."

"Well, at least your sense of humor is intact," Kurama replied, amusement tinging his tone. Naruto gave him a mental equivalent of sticking his tongue out at the beast. Kurama sighed from where he was. "Kit, it's a lot more complicated than that."

"What do you mean?"

The Bijū cleared his throat, before speaking. "I don't know how to explain this, but it seems a part of my chakra is somewhere in the village."

Naruto visibly looked shocked as he staggered, not believing what he was hearing.

"But it isn't like the feeling of my Ying and Yang chakras where we split into two entities." Kurama continued, "No, this feeling's different. Before coming here, I was suddenly bombarded with images of my early days — you know, all angry and hate and malice, the whole nine-yards. I managed to overpower it and I felt ... whole, for lack of a better term, again. Now, I feel like my old self again, and it feels like I'm in two places at once," Naruto listened intently as he tried to let the information sink in, "The only conclusion I can give is this: there is another you in the village."

"Argh, that's just great!" Naruto cried out in frustration as his suspicions were right on the dot. "Kami-sama, I don't know where you are, but I'm so going to prank you for this mess!" he shouted up to the heavens. Now he finally knew what she meant by small changes. There were two of him in the world!

He slumped forward as he let that information sink in, "Can this get any worse?"