Chapter 1
World Line: Unknown
He opened his eyes. His ears exploded as the sound of cheers and clapping loomed through the stadium. "Not this place again," he muttered.
In front of him was none other than Hyuuga Neji, prodigy and genius. He had an arrogant smirk on his face.
"Meh, fuck it, I'm not going to do shit again," he yelled and sat down on the grass. He yawned before closing his eyes.
"Uzumaki, on your feet, the match has already begun!"
Naruto opened his right eye at the too familiar pair of eyes that was the referee. "Do I have to?" He asked lazily.
The wind current changed, but Naruto still looked anywhere but where the Hyuuga stood. In mere seconds the white eyed boy was in front of him, ready to strike the blonde down. Before he got the chance though, Naruto opened his left eye and merely looked at him. Ice cold eyes stared back at the Hyuuga.
Neji stopped in his track, frozen. The crowd gasped when they noticed how heavily Neji trembled.
"Guess I have no choice," Naruto sighed. Naruto stood and patted his thighs. He looked really bored. "Do you realize how many times we've gone over this Neji-chan?" Naruto asked. The boy seemed surprised at this. He looked like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out but a gasp for breath. "Oh sorry, too much killing intent," Neji dropped to his knees. Several shinobi from the stands were holding their seats or leaning forward on the bars. They couldn't believe their eyes as the prodigy was terrified.
Naruto stretched his arms and yawned again. He looked at the sky and noted the position of the sun. "Don't worry kid, I'll just make this as painless as possible," Naruto withdrew a kunai from the black pouch that was attached to his blue jumpsuit "blue this time eh?" He walked towards the Hyuuga who wore no caged bird symbol on his forehead. "Oh, interesting!" Naruto yelled with a smile. "Seen only a few of those lately," he exclaimed happily. "Well, time to die I guess," he said before disappearing and reappearing behind Neji with a dark glare.
{Chapter 1}
Naruto casually walked towards the stairs leading to the contester's quarters. The crowd screamed in terror seconds later. Neji had a kunai stuck in his adam's apple and gurgles could be heard from all the way to the Hokage's seat.
"What did you do!" Kiba yelled as he stormed towards Naruto.
Naruto looked bored towards Kiba, who unlike the latest other versions he had met, was a girl. She looked just like the other females in the Inuzuka clan, but the way she dressed obviously hinted towards a female version of Kiba. Said kunoichi was now about to slam him against the wall.
"Was he your lover in this world line?" Naruto asked as he kicked Kiba against the wall to his right. She gasped for breath when she collided with stone.
Naruto couldn't help but remember how he got into this mess into the first place. "What was his name again? Kaito Rintarou? Tadai Otaro? Oh right, Okabe Rintarou!"
World Line: Gamma
"No! I want you to live! I love you!" Naruto yelled as he held on to the girl he loved, "you're the most beautiful person I've ever met, and you're sweet and never yell at me when I read Icha Icha, and you love ramen noodles too!" Tears streamed freely from his cheeks.
"Sad isn't it?" A voice said to Naruto's back.
Naruto turned around and blinked. He wondered if the blood loss was getting to him, or that there really was someone standing in a lab coat amidst the chaos that was Konoha. Kumogakure had infiltrated Konoha a week ago. A week later there were barely any survivors left, and all that was left of Konoha was burning homes and dead bodies. The stranger seemed unfazed by the surroundings.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked ready to attack. The stranger could be an enemy after all.
"Don't worry Naruto, I'm not your enemy. My name is Okabe Rintarou."
Naruto sensed to malice from Okabe, so he relaxed a bit. But then he remembered who he was holding in his arms. He looked down and tears fell again.
"She's already gone," the voice said sadly.
Naruto remained silent, his tears falling on the face of his beloved.
"But there is a way to save her," Okabe said void of emotion.
"How!?" Naruto asked energized as he looked back towards Okabe.
"I can send you to another world line where you might find her, but if I do so, you may have to travel to great amounts of world lines to find her."
Okabe wasn't making any sense at all, but Naruto's blood loss combined with his grief over his loved one made him nod in acceptance, anything to find her back, "I'll do anything," Naruto whispered.
"If you look back, you'll lose sight of her forever, never look back," Okabe said.
Suddenly all the fires and screams around them silenced. Space become frozen. Naruto blinked and suddenly he wasn't in Konoha anymore, he was someplace else.
It took some days for Naruto to find out where he was. He was freaked out at first, but when he realized that he could find his love again, he didn't care anymore.
World Line: Unknown
Naruto took something out of his pocket. He looked at the strange device with digital numbers engraved to it. It read 0,78%. "Almost there," Naruto murmured to himself as he watched a versions of Shino and Shikamaru battle each other in the stadium below. Okabe had left him a letter with the device.
Dear Naruto,
This device will guide you to where you want to go to. If the number on the screen reaches over 1,00%, you'll be at World Line Beta, where your loved one is still alive.
Never look back, remember those words well Naruto.
Yours Truly,
Okabe Rintarou.
In the next match Naruto used a kunai to kill an Iwa shinobi that he had not met in the other world lines. As soon as the Iwa nin's blood fell on the ground, the world line shifted again.
Naruto looked around and noted that he was in the academy. He was in a classroom where Iruka-sensei was assigning genin teams.
While traveling to many world lines, Naruto found out that each time that he killed someone, the Steiner, the name that Okabe had given the strange device, would rise at a faster rate. He didn't like to kill, especially not when it was his fellow leaf nin.
One night when he was very drunk, he killed a leaf nin who was being very hateful to him about him being a demon. He killed the leaf nin and felt guilt stricken when he woke up the other day. But then he noticed that the world line had shifted, and this time the Steiner went up by 0,005% instead of the usual 0,00001%. It was a warped reality where killing the people close to you would bring you to where you want to be, but Naruto was willing to do anything to see her smiling face again.
Naruto felt his pockets and was relieved to see the familiar orange that he wore in his own world line. He pulled out a kunai ready to kill Iruka, but before doing so he wanted to see what the Steiner read this time.
Naruto gasped when he read the numbers.
1,01%
