Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Mass Effect.

Misplaced

Chapter 4: Waking up in the wrong time

"Talking"

"Thinking"

"Biju/VI/Geth/Reaper talking"

"Biju/VI/Geth/Reaper thinking"

Reading/ News/Intercom

(Location: Serrice Republic Hospital)

Hackett, Anderson, and Neji stood in front of a large window. In the other room, lying on a table was Naruto. He still wore the tracksuit they had found him in, his arms and legs several inches past the ends of the sleeves and pant legs. His forehead did not hold his headband and they couldn't find it anywhere on him, but it wasn't a pressing concern. "How has he been coming along?" Hackett asked a nearby doctor, one Eiji Kaba, who sat in front of a screen which was monitoring the unconscious blonde's heart rate and brain activity. It was also checking an assortment of things on him, but it was only the heart rate and brain activity showing on the screen.

"He's improving, sir." Eiji replied, quickly checking another window on the computer. "His muscles have completely recovered from the atrophy they were suffering from, but he won't be back to the speed he's used to until he gets some training done. Aside from the fact he hasn't had anything to eat or drink in a long time; all of his vitals have mostly recovered. The only thing we can do now is for him to wake up."

"Hard to believe we only brought him in two days ago when he's recovered this much," Anderson remarked. They had all but kicked the doors to the hospital down when they got there. The soldiers were yelling at everyone to get out of the way as they rushed the gurney carrying Naruto towards the elevator. If anyone had gotten in the way, they would've been run over.

The door behind them opened, making all in the room turn around and see who was coming in. It turned out to be an asari and a turian. The asari's skin was a deep blue and while she walked with grace only an asari could pull off, she wore a stern look on her face. The turian was encased in black armor that had red highlights. While his skin was also red, his facial markings were white and covered the majority of his face. "Gentlemen," The asari greeted them diplomatically.

"Matriarch Moria, thank you for allowing us to use your facilities," Hackett said to her. Matriarch Moria Axeya was one of the Matriarchs of the Serrice Republic and the head doctor at the hospital. However, she didn't think very highly of humans. One of her more famous quotes when it came to them was that they were "a bunch of ignorant and idiotic creatures who didn't know when to give something to the professionals so it could be properly studied." When the Alliance heard that, they simply replied with "We did hand it over to the professionals. None of them were on Thessia." Afterwards, both the Citadel Council and the other Matriarchs of Serrice told Moria (quite sternly) to keep her opinions to herself from that point on.

"How could I not, when your men threatened both concerned doctors and curious patients with death should they ever come near this part of the hospital?" She replied archly.

"I apologize for that, ma'am. The men are a little bit on edge." Anderson explained.

"I'd be too, if I was protecting a potential living legend." The turian remarked as he walked up to the window.

"There's nothing potential about Naruto Uzumaki, Nihlus." Hackett told him. "He is a living legend."

"Hm, he doesn't look like much." He commented after examining the unconscious blonde. It wasn't a derogatory comment by any means, it was one given by a professional who assessing someone. And Nihlus Kryik, who was one of the most decorated Spectre agents, was very professional.

"Everyone who fought against him probably thought the same thing." Neji told him. "They were either defeated or became an ally soon afterwards. He just had that effect on people." He defended the blonde when he saw the look of disbelief on the Matriarch's face.

"I know, I read the available records on him." The turian replied. "If half of what he did is true, I can see why many human children want to become shinobi." He frowned as he looked through the glass. "I do have one question though. I thought he was in his late teens when he ended the war. Why does he look like he's twenty four or twenty five?"

"Mostly likely the aging process was slowed down." Eiji said from where he sat. "He was in coma while he was still in the meteor. All that chakra it was giving was most likely to ensure he didn't wake up prematurely, acting like a giant cryogenic pod. The difference was that he wasn't frozen; his heart and vitals were still going at the normal rate. As a result, his chakra had slowed down his growth to the point he only aged a year every three hundred and thirty eight years, if I did the math right."

"Even if you didn't, he's going to be in for a surprise when he wakes up and sees how much he's grown."

"I must admit, his recovery rate is astonishing." Moria remarked as she looked over the details of Naruto's recovery on a different computer. "Has the Alliance come up with a new drug or medicine that helps the muscles recover from atrophy this quickly?"

"Um…no ma'am," Eiji said after looking over at Hackett, who motioned him to talk. "We haven't created any drugs or medicine like that."

"Then is it a side-effect from one of the other medicines you've given him to help in his recovery?"

"Ma'am, we haven't given him any medicine at all."

She looked over at him stunned. "What? What do you mean you didn't give him any medicine to help his recovery?"

"When we got him onto the table and started up the computers to scan him, we saw that his chakra was already healing him. We didn't know how the chakra would react to medicine or treatment he didn't recognize, so we just let it run its course."

"So, he's been healing himself…and has been completely healed within two day?" She asked like she couldn't believe what she heard.

"I guess that part of the history books were true." Nihlus commented. The books had always talked about how Naruto could recover from practically any injury. "Have you told the rest of Humanity about this?" He asked Hackett, turning to face him.

He shook his head. "No, we're going to wait until he wakes up and gets all the rust he'll probably have off. The last thing we need is for this to become a media circus." They all wince at the thought. The paparazzi would be hounding them to get answers, not to mention the amount of people who would besiege the hospital just to get a look at him.

"Not to mention the Church of the Nine are going to have a conniption when they hear about him." Anderson muttered, earning looks of disgust and distaste from the other humans in the room.

Nihlus had heard about the Church of the Nine. Supposedly it was a human religious sect that declared that the Biju were divine beings and that their Jinchūriki were both their avatars and their messengers. To them, Naruto had been chosen by all of the Biju to be the avatar of their completed form (he still wasn't sure what that meant, even though the history books had said something about a Jūbi) and had left the Earth so that he could properly learn how to harness the incredible power given to him. When he returned, he was to be the sword and shield of humanity, protecting them from any threats. That was what they preached anyway. In reality, the idea was they would use him as an excuse and figure head to launch a holy war against the rest of the galaxy. It was well known that several members of the Church were also members of the political party Terra Firma. Personally, he hoped that this supposed legend wasn't that gullible or stupid. As he mused about that, he noticed something going on with the blonde. "What are his eyelids doing?" He asked, getting everyone's attention.

"That's REM sleep." Eiji announced as he looked up at the window. "He's been like that for the past couple of hours. It just means he's dreaming." He lowered his gaze back to the computer screen in front of him.

"So he's not unconscious anymore? He's just asleep?" He asked for clarification.

"Yeah, that's the gist of…" His voice trailed off when the computer in front of him started making a lot of noise. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on?" He asked himself.

"What's wrong, Dr. Kaba?" Hackett asked him.

"According to the computer, his brain activity is spiking and he's pumping out a lot of adrenaline into his body!"

"What does that mean, Doctor?" Anderson asked. "Is he having some kind of dream?"

"I'd say it's more along the lines of a memory."

He could feel the power course through his body. And he could feel it trying to tear him apart. He could feel it attacking every single cell in his body, trying to destroy them and take their place. He fought back as best as he could, trying to stay human. But he was running out of time. Unless he was properly dealt with, he would lose control.

"Naruto!" He heard someone shout his name. The sound of people landing on the ground around him filled his ears.

"Perfect timing, guys," He said with a grin, which soon disappeared when blood spilled out of his mouth. "I appreciate you guys staying out of the fight when you got here, I don't think I could've fought Obito and made sure you were all safe at the same time."

"Get off your high horse, dobe." The voice of his rival and best friend told him, wearing a smirk that looked to be forced. "We could've taken care of ourselves."

"Perhaps, but that doesn't matter now." He stifled a shout of pain as he felt the pure power he had torn out of Obito piece by piece try to engulf him. He had to stay in control; he had to force himself to stay in control of his own body. "Did you guys all find what I had left for you?"

"We did." Shino answered.

"Good, good." He growled as his arm grew bigger and blocker, turning white. The pain from that alone was enough to any man lose his mind and he had to deal with more than that. "Look, you guys know what to with it, so do it."

"Naruto, we don't need to do this!" Ino protested. "Lady Tsunade is only a few minutes away. If you can hold on, she can help you!"

"I think we can both agree that I don't have a few minutes, Ino." He said with a small laugh. The laugh turned into a hacking cough, leaving blood on the ground. "I don't think I even have a minute."

"Do you have any idea what you're asking us to do, man?" Kiba asked, both aguish and anger evident in his voice.

"Course I know what I'm asking of you. I created the damn thing." He forced the pain down so he could focus on his friends standing around him. "Besides, it's not like I'll be gone forever."

"But we won't know if you'll come back when we're still alive." Hinata objected. She looked to be on the verge of crying but was holding it back as best she could.

"But you all will still see me every time you look up the sky."

"It's not the same thing, Naruto, and you know it." Shikamaru told him. He looked at the Nara and saw that he was still trying to figure out a way to stop this from happening, a plan that would save his friend.

"Don't try to think of a different way to fix this, Shikamaru." He replied quietly as he focused on his arm, forcing it back to normal. "There isn't one, this is the only way."

"We can't just do that to you, buddy." Chōji told him, tears flowing freely down his eyes. "We can't imprison you like that!"

"You have to! If you don't, then there's no guarantee I won't hold it back and not lose control!"

"Of course you can do it! You are Naruto Uzumaki; you will be able to hold it back alone with your Flames of Youth alone!" Lee told him.

"Lee, I don't think my Flames of Youth won't hold it alone." He said with a small smile. Even though he was trying to look cheerful, they could tell he was forcing it. He was fighting for all he was worth for control and he was losing the fight. "Hey, don't give me those looks." He admonished them. "With this, the war will be over." The war that had continued for two long years, the war that continued after Obito had surprisingly quit the field and spent the next two years torturing Naruto to show that all he believed in was worthless by either showing signs that he would target a random town and destroy it moments before the shinobi got there so they could see it burn or sending those who had flocked to his power to destroy just as they arrived, causing a battle to happen (where he would always observe from above where no one powerful enough could touch him, like a god observing mere mortals). The war where he had so effortlessly destroyed the revived Hokage and Madara Uchiha before stealing the Yin portion of Kurama from his father before he disintegrated and left, challenging any one to come after him. The war where Naruto felt responsible for every attack, every village that had been burned to the ground, and pour everything he had into stopping his sensei's former teammate. And now, he had.

"Naruto, you have to fight it. You can win, you know you can. You don't need us to do this to you." Tenten told him. She didn't want to lose him, none of them wanted to. They still believed that he could win, that he could beat the thing trying to take control of him. While he probably could, there was only one way he could do it safely.

"I told you guys, this is the only way!" He fell to his knees as horns began pushing out of his back, stretching against the fabric of his tracksuit. His cry of anguish and pain was cut off when he threw up blood. When the blood had finally stopped and after he had forced the protrusions back down into his body, he simply sat there on his knees, looking at the earth beneath him. "Well what are you waiting?" He asked in a whisper, before looking up and looking at the one person who hadn't spoken so far. "Do it." He told her.

She looked at her teammate. Even though he said the words like they were orders, she could tell that they weren't, they all could. He was begging them to do this to him, but he had spoken to her. She was the one to start it. But she just…couldn't. "Naruto…" She began to say.

He saw the hesitation in her eyes and grew angry at the sight. He didn't watch people he had thought of as friends and comrades die in front of his eyes, suffer uncountable nightmares in his sleep of those he had failed to save, save all those people from their ruined homes, pour every single Kami-forsaken thing he had into finding and creating a way to end the war, break his contract with the Toads and turning his back on them to keep them safe, didn't walk away from the village to confront Obito on his own, he didn't throw his life away just so one person could show hesitation when the most important thing needed to be done. With his anger fueling him, he stood back up and stared straight into Sakura's eyes. "DO IT!" He roared.

The hesitation vanished as she steeled herself. Flashing through handseals, ignoring the others who were doing the same thing, the rest of the Konoha Twelve slammed their fists into the ground. "Fūinjutsu: Shingetsu no Keimusho (Sealing Jutsu: Prison of the New Moon)!" They cried in unison. Seal marks began to spread from where their fists touched the ground, connecting and intersecting each other. As the ground beneath them began to crack and rumble, they ran fast to get out of the seal's range, landing in front of the Shinobi Alliance, with the Five Kage out in front. Before they could say anything, the earth before them tore itself out of the land, changing shape into a ball as it lifted itself up and up into the sky.

He sighed with relief as the earth all around him; he was safe from harming others. "Alright then, time to get to work." He thought to himself as he closed his eyes.

He opened his eyes and was met with a pool of light trying to stab its way into his skull. With a cry of pain, he lifted his arm to cover his eyes. But he didn't know that he was in a twenty five year old body and because of that, he accidently rolled off the table and landed on the ground with a loud THUD! He winced at the pain traveling through his body. "Ow! That hurt!" He mentally yelled. "And why is the room too bloody bright?! Did they forget to lower the setting again?"

The sound of a door opening and somebody running in filled his ears. "Lord Naruto? Are you alright?" A familiar voice asked him from the other side of the table in flawless Japanese.

"Neji, is that you?" He asked, still covering his eyes. "You're supposed to be dead! Did the others somehow find to bring you back to life?" A feeling of dread filled him. "Or am I dead too? Am I dead, Neji?Are you here to greet me in the afterlife?"

Neji could only chuckle at those words. "There's no need to worry, Lord Naruto. You're not dead. But I am not the Neji Hyuuga you knew." He told the hidden figure as gently as he could.

"Are you sure? You really sound like him!"

"I'm fairly certain I'm not him."

"Okay then, not-Neji, can you do something about the lights? They're too damn bright! It's like someone lit a fire and is holding it right in front my eyes!" The blonde exclaimed.

He frowned and looked at the lights. "I'm sorry, but the lights only have one setting. They aren't that bright, though."

"Then I guess it's just my eyes then?" He asked rhetorically before realizing something. He quickly patted the pockets of the now too-small tracksuit before finding what he was looking for. "Could you do me a favor and see if you can fix these?" He placed a pair of broken sunglasses on the table.

"Uh…wouldn't you rather have a new pair of sunglasses, sir?" Neji asked as he looked at the glasses, which were oval in shape and had only the bridge as a frame. "These look…broken." The shades themselves were cracked and missing small pieces.

"…They belonged to Bee." Naruto said quietly after a moment's silence.

He stiffened slightly, recognizing the name. "As you wish, sir, I'll have these back to you soon." He turned around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"How is he?" Hackett asked the Hyuuga. Neither he nor Anderson knew Japanese (Eiji knew a couple of words, but not the whole language), and their translators didn't reach that far.

"He's just confused and annoyed at the lights." He replied. "He's also wants these repaired." He held the sunglasses for everyone to see. "He said they belonged to Bee."

"I'm sorry, but who is Bee?" Nihlus asked, curious at the name. When the humans in the room heard it, they had all stiffened slightly.

"Lord Killer Bee was the brother to the Yondaime Raikage and the last Jinchūriki of the Hachibi. According to the history books, it was his death and the theft of the Hachibi that led to the final confrontation between Naruto Uzumaki and Obito Uchiha." Hackett informed him.

"We can have these repaired within the hour." Anderson said, taking the glasses from Neji. "An hour and a half if we added something to it." He walked over to the door leading outside the room, opened it and had a brief conversation with one of the guards, handing him the glasses.

"What is he doing?" Moria asked as she watched the now conscious blonde stand up on shaky legs and walk slowly around the room with one hand on the wall. His eyes were still closes, but he was still taking deliberate steps.

"If I had to guess, I'd say he's measuring out the room." Nihlus answered her question. He could see that with his vision impaired by the light, Naruto had no idea what the room looked like, so he had to figure out the basic details in a completely different way. "That's smart of him." He silently complimented the blonde shinobi.

(Location: Naruto)

He wasn't really sure how long it had been since the guy who sounded like Neji had come in. If he had to guess, he'd say an hour, maybe a bit more. He had spent that time trying to figure out the exact size of the room he was in. Judging by the way he measured, he knew that it was a room small enough to only have one patient, but also big enough to have doctors possibly work on him. He also knew that there was a big window on one side with a door next to it. Judging by the fact he heard voices on the other side of the window that fell silent when he was right up against it, he could tell that there were people watching him. He didn't know how many, but he knew they were there.

After he had gotten the basic layout of the room, he sat back on the table. He began to examine himself by patting himself down all over. "If Granny or Sakura saw me do this, they'd kill me." He thought to himself before stopping and realizing something. There was a very good chance that Tsunade was dead and Sakura could possibly be dead as well, or on her way. "Stop it, Naruto." He told himself. "You have no idea if they're alive or not. Don't go making assumptions when you don't even know the year!" He continued with his examination. "Well, nothing seems to be wrong with me, minus the fact that I've seem to have gotten bigger. These clothes fit me the last time I checked."

He heard the sound of the door opening and someone walking in. "That you, not-Neji?" He asked without turning to face the guy (it would've been a little redundant since he couldn't see the guy).

"Yes it is, sir." Neji answered. "We've managed to fix the sunglasses." He placed the glasses in question on the table next to the blonde.

"That was fast, it only took an hour to get them fix?"

"An hour and a half, sir, you can thank technology for the speediness." He didn't say anything about the additional features the glasses now had. That could come later (provided he didn't figure it out first).

He slowly reached out and took hold of the glasses, placing them over his eyes. He turned and quickly looked at the room, filing away the details about the room that he had missed. He then looked over at Neji. "Kami, are you sure you're not the Neji I know? You even look like the guy!"

He could only smile. "I assure you, sir, I'm not him."

"Would you stop it with the 'sir' already? You're making me feel old."

"Oh, the irony," The humans listening in on the conversation thought to themselves. "Well, how are you feeling then, Lord Naruto?" Neji asked him.

"Don't call me a lord, I'm not that either!" He admonished. "Just call me Naruto, would ya?"

"Alright…Naruto, are you feeling alright?"

"I just feel a little stiff and sore." He admitted honestly. "I guess I was sealed for a long time then?"

"Yes, you were."

"Don't beat about the bush, how long was I gone?" He asked, sounding a little nervous.

Neji could understand that feeling. He would've felt the same way if he was in the same position. "You've been sealed for two thousand and twenty four years." He said gently.

Naruto was blown back by the number. He knew he would be sealed for a good amount of years. But what he had expected was fifty years to maybe a century, not over two bloody millennia! "You mean I've spent just over two thousand years orbiting the Earth!? That's impossible! I should've fallen from the sky a lot sooner than that!"

"You had made an error." Neji said quietly.

"What? What do you mean 'I had made an error'?" He demanded as the nervousness in his voice now had a bit of horror and panic mixed in.

"After you were sealed, the rest of the Konoha Twelve had looked over the blueprints of the seal and it turns out that you had made a slight mistake when you drew it. But it was enough of a mistake to send you flying out into space rather than orbiting the Earth."

"I'm…I'm not even on Earth?" He asked, sounding like he was a little child who couldn't believe what was being shown to him.

"No, you're on a planet called Thessia, home of a race called the Asari. In the past three decades, the human race has managed to reach up out into space, colonizing other planets. Since 2157 CE, we have been in contact with aliens and—"

"Hold it, hold it, hold it!" He shouted, waving his hands to stop the Hyuuga. "Too much information is being shoved into my brain at this point. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I'm not on Earth and I've sealed inside that rock for at least two thousand years!" He would've continued, if a large growl hadn't emanated from his stomach, cutting off his tirade and making him look embarrassed.

"Uh…are you hungry?" Neji asked him, feeling a little awkward.

"I…guess. Maybe I'm a little hungry." He replied, sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"Come on, I'll take you to the cafeteria. We can get you some food there."

"Alright, lead the way." They walked out of the room, the Hyuuga in the lead and the blonde behind him.

(Location: Serrice Hospital cafeteria)

They could only watch in stunned surprise. "If this is his idea of a 'little hungry', I don't want to see how much would qualify for 'really hungry'." Nihlus commented in stunned amazement.

"I think he just underestimated himself. Being sealed for over two thousand years could do that." Neji offered.

"Even so, he's on the verge of putting the Akimichi clan to shame and that's saying something." Anderson replied. The subject of their discussion sat at the end of a nearby table. Naruto was eating everything and anything that was placed in front of him (thankfully the cooks didn't give him any dextro-based food). The food was disappearing down his throat so fast that they were half afraid that he would eat through the table if something wasn't in front of them.

Naruto looked up from what he was eating and said something to Neji, speaking in rapid Japanese. Neji looked amused for a quick second and replied back, making the blonde nod in understanding and turning his attention back to his food. "What did he say?" Hackett asked Neji, their translator couldn't translate the rapid Japanese.

"He wanted to know who Nihlus was." He answered shortly.

"Was that how he put it?"

"No." He answered after thinking it over.

"What did he really say?" Nihlus asked. His translator couldn't translate the Japanese either.

"He said 'Hey second-Neji, who's the bird guy with the face paint?'"

They just stared at him before switching their gaze to the blonde. "We need to get him a translator, stat." Anderson declared. "Who the hell knows what would happen if he accidently insulted someone?"

"Probably a fight that'll end in a couple of seconds with him winning," Hackett answered with a straight face.

"What if he insults a krogan?" Nihlus asked. Truth be told, he was actually interested to see that kind of fight.

"I'd guess it depends on the krogan." Neji commented. Naruto would probably be able to beat a krogan who had a short temper. But it was up in the air if he went up against a calm one or worse, a warlord.

"In any event, we need to get him a translator." Anderson repeated his previous statement.

"I've already told him about it and how it can be applied. When he heard about how it could be applied to jewelry, he gave me this." He pulled out a necklace that had a small green crystal on the end of it. While Nihlus had no idea what it was, both Hackett and Anderson did. It was the necklace of the Shodaime Hokage, who gave it to his granddaughter Tsunade who then gave it to Naruto. According to the history books, Naruto had searched every inch of where he fought Pain looking for every single fragment of the crystal. When he found them all, he went to Mt. Myōboku and asked the Toad smiths to repair it, which they did much to his relief. "He told me that we could install a translator in it. But he also warned me that if we break it while trying to install the translator, he will kill us slowly and horribly."

"That's understandable." Hackett said as he took the necklace from his hands. "I'll have a technician install the latest translating software into it and caution them to be very careful with it." He turned around and walked out of the cafeteria, secretly glad he could stop watching Naruto fill a hunger that was over two thousand years in the making.

"Well, that takes care of the translation problem." Nihlus remarked.

"That may be, but he also asked for a Japanese-to-English translation book so he could study it." Neji told him. He had told the blonde about the different language he was speaking when he briefly spoken with Hackett and Anderson when they first passed them. After he heard that there was a new language that practically every human knew, he had asked for the translation book with a grimace ("I may have to learn a new language, but that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy the process" He had told Neji).

"I can see why he would want such a book." Anderson commented. "He doesn't want to rely too heavily on the translator. Did you tell him about the omni-tool?"

He shook his head. "No, I figure we'd wait until he was back at full strength before talking to him about modern weapons and equipment. As he said so succinctly before 'too much information is being shoved into my brain at this point.'" The other two chuckled at that.

"Hey, not-Neji, where's the bathroom?" Naruto asked from where he sat the food in front of him all finished.

"It's just down the hall and on the first left." He answered promptly. "Why do you want to know?"

"I just realized that I haven't answered nature's call for over two thousand years and all the food I just ate probably won't help." He stood and quickly bolted for the door. "See you in an hour, probably!" He shouted as the door closed behind him.

They could only stare at the door as they heard the sounds of his footsteps echoing in the hall. "What was that all about?" Nihlus asked, mystified at what he had just seen and still vaguely annoyed that his translator couldn't translate the Japanese the blonde was spewing fast enough.

"He had to go to the bathroom." Neji answered shortly. "Apparently, he had just remembered that he had a bladder which was very full. We'll see him in an hour, probably."

(Location: Naruto)

By the time he got out of the bathroom, night had fallen on the new planet he was on. He had been given a new room that had a bed along with a table and a chair. He had a nice view of the city (which looked strange to him) and the bed was actually quite comfy. But the windows themselves were locked and there were two armed guards outside his down (he didn't know what the fuss was all about. It wasn't like he was going to try and escape. Where would he go in the first place?).

Sighing, he sat down at the table. He still had trouble believing everything he had heard. He was on a different planet, in a completely different part of the galaxy, and it had been two thousand and twenty four years since he had been sealed. A part of him still hoped that this was all part of an incredibly bad dream, forcing him to dream it because he had been stuck inside the meteor for so long. It was that part of him that hoped he would wake up and see all of his friends around his bed, welcoming him back.

But he knew that this was no dream, hallucination, or even a Genjutsu. This was reality and he was stuck with it. He knew that the men in blue military uniforms as well as the strange bird-looking alien (which he had been told was something called a turian, whatever that was) wanted something from him. Why else would they release the seal and free him? It sure wasn't for publicity's sake that was for sure. But he knew that if he wanted to know the answer, he would have to stick around.

But it would probably difficult for him. It was already for him. Every time he looked at not-Neji, he saw the one he knew. He kept being reminded of the times the two had been through, both good and bad. But most of all, he was reminded of how he had died in his arms, during the war. Despite his claims to his friends that he was okay, the memory of Neji's death was one of the many things that haunted his dreams. Every time he saw it, he tried to stop it, to change it somehow. But in the end, it didn't matter. A friend was dead and Obito was watching from on high.

"Knock it off, Naruto." He berated himself. "You defeated Obito and won the war. There's no point in mourning Neji's death anymore. The rest of them are dead as well. You'll just have to move on." He said this to himself, but a thought kept looming around in his mind. If he had met a person who looked like the Neji he knew, what if there were others just like him? People who had faces so familiar to him, but didn't know who he was, it was a frightening thought and a horrible one as well.

He shook his head vigorously, shaking himself free of that train of thought. "I need something to distract me." He thought to himself. Looking over at the other side of the table, he saw the book that not-Neji had given him. It was the translation book that he had asked for. He wouldn't his necklace back until the next morning (apparently it takes longer to install a translator in a piece of jewelry then to repair a pair of sunglasses), so it was probably a good idea to make use of the book in front of him. He took it in his hands, placed it in front of him on the table, and opened to the first page.

Codex Entry (Humanity and the Systems Alliance): THE FRONTER

The Frontier is the continent east of the Elemental Countries and south of Midgard. It is called the Frontier because it was generally believed that if you tried to go any further east, you would reach the edge of the world (which had been proven false once the human race discovered that the Earth was round). Another myth said it was called the Frontier was because a monk who had walked the Earth, preaching an end to the endless conflict the world was engulfed in, had journeyed to the edge of the Frontier. When he returned, he had told others who had followed him that was as far as his message could go, that there was nothing beyond the edge of that land (shinobi historians believed this monk to be the Rikudō Sennin (Sage of the Six Paths) and have pointed out similar facts between the monk in the story and the monk of legend).

Despite the rather foreboding name, the Frontier is actually quite varied. There were multiple forests up and down the western side of the continent (many of which had cut down during beginning of the Empire of Steel). The further east one went, the more they saw grassland instead of forest. The grassland will eventually become more and more arid before eventually becoming desert, which is known as the Damned Land.

The Frontier was home to the Empire of Steel, an empire that stretched from the western coast to the edges of the Damned Land. The Empire was so named because it turned to science and technology, believing that iron would evolve as time went on and lead them to victory (that belief was cemented when they found how to create steel, thus giving the name of the Empire).

Once they had discovered that steam could be used as a source of power, a great many of things were invented that could use steam as fuel. This technological breakthrough (at the time) helped the Empire expand immensely, using the weapons that had been created from the foremost scientists and engineers. These weapons helped keep the Empire stable for a long time.

The Empire had some trade dealings with Midgard, though there were some tensions between the two nations. When the Elemental Countries encountered them, the tensions rose before finally reaching the breaking point (See: War of Three Flags). After a peace agreement had been reached, the citizens of the Empire were allowed to learn how to harness the chakra inside of them and become shinobi. However, due to the fact that the chakra inside in the average Frontiersman was only mid-Genin level, most did not join and instead became scientists and engineers, showing their technology to their new allies, who were also able to improve on them. This has continued to the modern day, most of those who are from the Frontier and in the military are usually in the Navy, serving as pilots, navigators, or engineers.

End

Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

For those of you think that Naruto's recovery is almost (if not outright) ridiculous, please remember that this is Naruto Uzumaki we're talking about here! This is the guy who managed to sleep off chakra exhaustion in one night and also take a Chidori to the chest and still be able to fight!

I based the Church of the Nine off the Bear-Cult from David Edding's The Belgariad and The Malloreon. If you want to know what they were like, go and read the books. But what I plan to do is make the relationship between Naruto and the Church of the Nine quite similar to what is in the books.

I made the Fourth Shinobi World War go on for two years for good reason. The way the manga is going, what I had Naruto do would've become less and less likely. Hell, it'll probably end with the next couple of days. So I had Obito quit the field so he could try and torture Naruto for two years.

Yes, the words Naruto spoke to Sakura are taken from Watchmen. I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that Rorschach's death was probably one of the most tragically epic things I've ever seen. He didn't die begging for his life. He knew that the others would try and stop him, so he accepted his fate and basically ordered Dr. Manhattan to kill him. If that's not going out like a boss, I don't know what is.

I know that Naruto crushed the necklace into pieces when he was fighting Pain. But I honestly couldn't think of another way to get him that translator. He doesn't have any other kind of jewelry, he'd be confused by the computers, and I don't think he would agree with the implants. So, I came up with that story. And you can't tell such a thing is impossible, that's why I said he took it to the Toads smiths instead of human smiths.

I'll see you all next chapter!