Someone fifty two leaps away is calling Dumpster Dog, a time lord, apparently. And in the perfect usual way, with me on board, what would have taken Dumpster a blink is now turning into an epic journey across dimensions.
Dumpster can only leap a maximum of five dimensions at a time now that he has me as baggage. The time demon is fifty two leaps away, if I take the time to count that out on my fingers and toes, it equals to twelve realms I have to sit through. Dumpster says each time it's going to take him longer and longer to regain his strength.
I would ask Kurama about this, but he's in a coma from overuse.
So I've got my instructions, keep Dumpster safe when he is passed out and enjoy the ride. Because apparently I am going to be suffering through some pretty morphed worlds.
Naruto is quite disgusted, that, for all the places Dumpster could have appeared, it had to be in the middle of a river.
Not just any river, Naruto found as his skin caught up to its surroundings. It was cold water, as cold as the seasonal streams of melting ice. His arms windmilled through the water as he fought to understand which way was up and where his dog had floated off to. Naruto did not like wasting time, in a foreign world, with Dumpster out of his line of view and in an unfamiliar situation.
He released a burst of chakra, flooding the entire river. He could feel everything up and down the system. Dumpster was just an arm's length away from him, unconscious already; the round, perfect pebbles on the bottom, the cracking, shifting hacks of ice bubbling above on the surface; the alpine fish further down; the herd of reindeer that were crossing the river some kilometres downstream; the town that sat along its bank just a bit further than that.
Naruto struck his hand out and grabbed Dumpster, balled his chakra underneath him and released, flying up away from gravity and smashing through some fragile ice shards on the surface. The air flipped his wet clothes around him as, cradling Dumpster tight to his chest, Naruto began to fall out of the sky and back down into the icy river.
Neatly Naruto braced himself and landed like a conniving cat on a floating block of shiny ice, it was so delicate and looked so easy that it was varying on being described as mockery by the fisherman that were wading in the shallows, watching on.
Naruto had realised they were there back when he burst his chakra out, and with a quick glance at them, he disappeared like a flickering shadow into the snow dusted pine forest. He wasted no time in swinging his hand out; an earth jutsu that made a small underground cave; flicking his wrist; a fire jutsu that warmed the cave's air but made no flame; and stripping off his clothes.
That's when he had the idea. Summoning a young toad to warn him if his dog came under any threat, Naruto ventured back out into the snowy, dark forest.
In only his frog boxers.
Turning back around, Dumpster's cave entrance was invisible amongst the snow banks, the only give away being Naruto's footprints stamping in and out of the area. But that was quickly fixed by a gently gush of wind jutsu that scattered the snow and covered all traces of the prints.
Naruto, face half in black shadow and half in silvery moon light, jumped silently up to the top branches of the tall pines. Not a sound, not a whisper, crack, shuffle…Naruto was on the hunt.
For some armour and proper ninja attire before Dumpster insisted on jumping again.
Naruto first went back to the fisherman, who had now moved out of the shallows and were sitting on the bank around a crackling fire. Their baskets, full of small lobster like animals, sat piled behind them in some sort of snow wagon.
Naruto thought it looked like those things the snow dog teams pulled. Except much bigger.
He also thought the two animals that were sitting around the fire with the men also looked like huskies. Except much bigger.
Naruto quickly soared down from the branches and onto the roof, swinging down and into the wagon neatly. Besides boxes of what looked like gas lanterns and more baskets of those lobster animals, Naruto found a bag of fur coats. Pulling out the first one he found, Naruto started running for the town he had sensed before, shrugging and buttoning up the thick, brown coat as he streaked like a half-shaved wolf through the forest.
The town was about a day's walk, two hours by ninja travel and ten by Naruto Super Speed. With his legs charged full of so much chakra it would make people's heads hurt, Naruto jumped. And soared.
And soared about half the way there in one enormous leap that had him amongst the lowest clouds in the purple sky that night. He couldn't resist the urge to yell.
"Wooohh!"
He started some birds.
There were new icicles encrusted in his hair and over his coat now, but he did it again, this time landing a short sprint from the town's walls. Darting inside, nothing more than a shadow to the tired guard on late night patrol, Naruto quickly got down to the business of finding a military quarters and ransacking their armoury.
With a quick flicker of sage mode, just enough to ting an orange hue around his eyes, Naruto quickly located the small snow town's military quarters. It was the one with the largest amount of metal substances.
Naruto ended up breaking into the black smites, so he rapidly found out, carful not the run into the horseshoes and heavy Northern swords, he knew that logically the armoury is always quite close to the blacksmiths.
It was in the stone tower like building next door actually, but unlike at the entrance, this on had a very vigilant guard.
It looked like exactly like Hinata. She was sitting just on the inside of the tower's huge wooden doors, a large glass window letting her see onto the deserted street outside, the tower's insulation and heating system letting her stay nice and warm.
Naruto watched as she sipped from a streaming mug, the cold wind sinking its stinging teeth into his bare legs and along the rim of his ears and nose tip. He couldn't help but observe how different she looked to the girl he knew. Her hair was messily tied up in a flustered bun, the neckline of the little black dress she wore plunged dangerously low and her sharpened and blood red fingernails were tapping impatiently against her steaming cup.
Naruto thought of his own Hinata. Ever since the war he had found that he had this strange, strong tie whenever he thought about her or saw her. It's like, for some reason, she had become so, so, so, terribly precious to him that it made his stomach lurch in protectiveness. And everyone was dropping hints to! Was he that obvious that he had a thing for her? He thought he was going good ignoring it, so what was with all this "have you told Hinata how you feel yet?" and "don't leave her hanging Naruto"?
Naruto started to scale the wall of the building across the street from the armoury, praying to god that this Hinata was not a stealth expert like the one at home. He was perched on the edge of the roof, crouched and judging the distance, but then, someone started to shuffle around in the street tens of meters below. Naruto couldn't make out much of the person because the towers in this town were all so ridiculous high; he was all but perched at the top of a building as high as the Hokage Office.
But he did see them quietly knock on the glass window, making Hinata smile and rush to get out of the paper cluttered office and open the door for them. Naruto would have taken advantage of the now open door in any other situation, but it just happened that Hinata had wasted no time in winding her long arms around the mystery man and having a heated make out session.
It made Naruto want to rip every cloud high tower in the town off their foundations. Not because someone was kissing Hinata, but because….
If only he could have that.
But she would never expect him. She was too perfect and shy, he would scare her too much and, let's face it, he was horrible boyfriend material. Not a romance, sensitive bone in his body.
For the first time in his life, Naruto felt home sick.
With a deep breathe, he jumped, and made quick work of forcing a window open now that the guard was otherwise engaged. Naruto took a moment to sit down and enjoy the warmth of the inside that came gushing up around him, pulling of his damp and frozen ice cold sandals, he started to racing down corridors looking for the armoury. The stirring had started to grow along his skin and was developing more and more. By the feel of it, Dumpster had woken up and was starting to gather his power. That dog was in such a rush to meet his time god dude. Naruto liked that, he was going to call this time god dude by that title from now on.
The horrendously stealthy ninja tip toed across the soft matt of the training room, sorted through the crowded equipment storage shed and put his hands under the warm water when he came across the toilet block, making him waste minutes just standing, face slack as he enjoyed the feel of the hot water streaming over his verging on frost bitten fingers. He discovered a faded, green pair of forgotten tracksuit pants that some solider must have forgotten while changing.
He only found the armoury as he was still figuring out how to tie the drawstring on his new pants, having never been taught these things and never having owned anything like it before. Quickly slipping guards on his arms and legs and a chain mail shirt, Naruto pulled on a black shirt over his head with a white, foreign logo on the front and quickly went through all the shoes they had there. None of them fit, so he got some fluffy slippers and tapped around his foot and ankle with athletic tape to keep them in place. His feet ended up with more tape than slipper, but at least he had the hard soul to protect the bottom of his feet now.
Just in time to, because he felt the angry tug of Dumpster pull at his skin, jerking him forward and onto a desert plain.
"Fuck," Naruto cursed as he turned to see a, get again, unconscious and gore covered Dumpster spread out at his side.
He had a feeling that this was going to wear his patience thin.
Especially if the gang of cowboys in the distance- galloping towards him with their alien invasion worthy guns raising ready to tackle whatever had made that strange flash of light and supersonic boom just before- was anything to go by.
It was going to wear him real thin alright.