Some people suggested putting this under cross-overs, so I did. I debated it since the Naruto characters will eventually disappear from the story. However, they are here for a large portion of the beginning so may as well label it as such.

Anyway, this is a nonsensical chapter just to poorly explain somethings and transition to the next part! I don't have a clear format for the story yet, since I'm making most of this crap up as I go. However, there are a few key things I want to make sure I get to...which won't happen this chapter.

Well, have fun with this crap!

Chapter 2: Uzumaki Arc, Part 2

"So you're all technically ghost, from a different dimension-"

"Reality."

Jaune glared at the blonde man.

"Different reality...but you claim to be me because all heroes are the same person, just with different backgrounds, history, personalities, and souls…"

"Yep."

"...You realize that makes absolutely no sense."

"Yep."

"…"

Jaune stood up, saluted Naruto, and then walked over to the large stone within the clearing. Naruto watched the younger blonde with a curious gaze before paling as the Arc boy began to repeatedly slam his face into the stone.

"H-hey, stop that!" Naruto called, appearing next to the boy and grabbing him before he could smash his face anymore. The blood dripping from his hairline and nose did nothing to stop the boy from grabbing Naruto by the collar.

"THEN EXPLAIN THIS BETTER! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"

Hinata sat with her back leaned against a tree as Ino laid with her head in the starry eyed princesses lap. The two had decided to let Naruto begin the explanation after Jaune had awoken from fainting. Granted, they knew damn well Naruto couldn't explain shit. Mainly because they all barely understood how it all worked too.

Naruto finally seemed to start losing his own patience as he gave Jaune a serious glare. The Arc had the grace to blush and take a step back, sensing the man before him become serious once again.

"There's no real better way to explain it, Jaune. In my universe, I became the strongest being to exist, with those two lovely ladies not being far behind." He indicated Ino and Hinata, both giving a lackadaisical wave in their direction. "We became literal gods by the end of it all. Even after it was all over, our work continued. We became aware of thousands of other realities that suffered just like our own world."

Naruto waved a hand and the landscape changed, showing an orange haired teen with a black shiori and sword as long as his body. He was facing down a monster with a bone like face. For some reason, Jaune knew the boy's name to be Ichigo Kurosaki.

"Wait, is…" Jaune began but somehow knew the answer.

"It's someone who shares the same fate as us. The reason we can all be considered the same person."

The scenery changed again to show a young teen with greenish hair, in a red, white, and blue track suit. He was riding a piece of metal essentially through a mine field.

"Izuku…" Jaune mumbled, once again not knowing why he knew the name.

"There are countless others." Naruto spoke before the world returned to the clearing from before.

Jaune fell to his butt. Thoughts and memories began to flood into his mind of dozens of places he'd never been and people he had never met before. Tatsumi, Asta, Ragna, Luffy, Issei. So many lives, so many tragedies, yet so many ways to circumvent the dark futures that each world seemed destined for. Yet, the more knowledge that flooded Jaune, the less things made sense. More questions came with every face that appeared.

"Am I...are we...all of them?" Jaune asked, not realizing the tears that flowed down his cheeks. Naruto nodded.

"We are, and yet we aren't. You are Jaune Arc, son of Hector Belmont Arc and Joan Arc. I am Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze, son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. Our destinies are tied by the same thread, but that's it."

Ino and Hinata stood and approached the two. "What he means, Jaune-kun," Hinata started. "Is that all of the realities you saw had a catalyst. For our world, it was Naruto-kun. Just as with Ichigo-san and Midoriya-kun. They were all given some form of aid from a fellow catalyst."

Ino picked up where Hinata stopped. "The catalyst are all bound together, capable of achieving the same powers as the catalyst before them. In your case, it's Naruto-kun."

Jaune still didn't truly understand any of what they were talking about. Especially because it was pretty dumb to begin with. But there was one thing he understood and latched on to.

"I can get your powers?" He asked, attempting to hold his excitement in. "Will I be able to become a huntsman?"

The shinobi trio noticed the hope in the boys eyes and knew things would be alright, even with their shitty explanation. They smiled before Naruto nodded. "You'll become far more than a huntsman Jaune. You'll become the strongest being in your entire reality."

Jaune's eyes lit up and before he could contain it, he pumped his fist into the air. "YES! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T LET THIS BE A DREAM!"

His excitement brought more tears to his eyes. The thoughts that he could actually become a huntsman brought back the conversation he overheard between his parents.

'I'll be able to prove them wrong!'

"Hold your horses, Jaune!" Naruto called. "There's a catch to this."

'Of course…' Jaune deflated. Hinata put a hand on his shoulder and gave her same warm smile.

"Don't be discouraged. The stipulation is simply that you have to work for it. All of the power that you can receive, it has been honed for millions of years. If we were to simply give you all of our powers, you'd explode."

Ino began stretching. "Which is where we come in. First we need to get your body and soul jump started since someone missed the awakening moment by several years."

Naruto shivered under the mindwalkers glare and scratched his cheek sheepishly. "It's my first time doing this...sorry…" He mumbled.

Seeing the dumbfounded look on Jaune's face, Ino sighed. "Naruto was supposed to have us appear to you on your 8th birthday. It's when we would have started getting your physical body ready for the amount of power it would eventually receive. However, since he forgot, you're body has been underdeveloped since your 8th birthday and hasn't been able to change from the initial state we put it in."

There was a pause as Jaune took in what the blonde had said. Naruto began to sweat and Hinata took several steps back. The young Arc clenched his fist, his hair covering his eyes as a heavy pressure began to build around him.

"You mean to tell me...all this time…" His body began to shake. Ino smirked as she continued to stretch, noticing the blue wisp of aura leaking from Jaune's body. "I WAS WEAK BECAUSE OF YOU?"

The shout manifested as a shockwave that sent Naruto soaring backwards, slamming into a tree. Ino and Hinata had rooted themselves to the ground with chakra. They knew Naruto had let the boy do what he did, but it was still fairly amusing seeing him get his just desserts.

Jaune himself went from angry to shocked and confused. He looked at his own hands and body, not really feeling any different. "How did I…"

"Simply being here is already molding your soul Jaune." Hinata explained. "Even when you fainted earlier. I fear that may have been a side effect of my younger self."

Ino frowned. "Which may mean alongside our powers, you'll probably get a few or our flaws and quirks too. Shit, this is more complicated than I thought."

"But it's a good thing right?" Jaune asked, only caring that he had been able to unleash a power he never would've thought possible before then.

"Yep." Naruto called as he strolled back into the clearing like nothing had happened. "That was like a sonic roar that I'm capable of doing with my partner Kurama."

"I am still so confused…" Jaune admitted.

"Get used to it, we're mostly exposition for a while." Ino called with a shrug.

Before they could say more, Jaune's body began to glow. The world around him began to hum softly, before seeming to break apart into particles of light slowly. "Wh-what's happening now?"

Naruto, Ino, and Hinata frowned. "We wasted a bit too much time on your first night. Sorry about that." Naruto scratched the back of his head in annoyance. "You're waking up."

"Wait, so this is just a dream?"

"No." Ino answered. "This is simply a reality that you can only enter when you're asleep. You'll be back here later tonight. We'll get started on training you then."

"Ano, in the meantime, you should keep this a secret Jaune-kun." Hinata advised. "Though you should see what is different about your body when you're alone. You've already gained quite a bit of power just from being around us."

"Catch ya later, dattebayo!" Naruto finished as the lights blinded Jaune. He felt his consciousness fading away as well, before everything stopped…

He awoke with a start, his t-shirt clinging to his body due to the sweat that covered every inch of his skin. Though he internally felt hot, he was freezing. His skin was clammy and his head began to spin as he sat up. Immediately, he tried to cover his mouth, but it did nothing as he crawled forward a bit before retching the little food he had in his stomach.

He dry heaved a bit, the world slowly starting to settle alongside his stomach. However, when his bout of sickness was done, Jaune felt as calm as ever. He stood and noticed that he felt lighter. Before he could think more of himself, however, he noticed he was indeed still out in the clearing. The destroyed stone and logs sat as a clear reminder of the dream he just had.

'Was it really just a dream though?' He wondered as he finally noticed the names faded on the stone. For a moment, he swore he saw a small glow on the names. He moved forward and traced the words with his fingertips. 'It's faint...but I can feel something from this. And I've never seen these characters before…'

The stone was carved in kanji. However, the longer Jaune traced the names, the more familiar they became.

Iruka Umino

Hiruzen Sarutobi

Rin Nohara

Obito Uchiha

Kakashi Hatake

Minato Namikaze

Kushina Uzumaki

The rest of the stone was too damaged to read anymore. However, the names stuck out and for a fact, Jaune understood. The stone was like a connection between his reality and Naruto's. Hell, the entire clearing had the same feeling. The clearing shouldn't have been there.

He and his sisters had explored the forest surrounding his families estate plenty of times, and they had never happened upon that particular clearing.

'So it's real...right?'

A ray of light breaking through the canopy passed over his eyes, making him cringe for a moment. He began to rub his eyes before he paused.

"Crap, is it morning?" He wondered before looking around frantically. Sure enough the dawn was breaking over the horizon from what he could tell. "I am so dead!"

Not wanting to know what his parents would do to him if they found out he had spent the night in the woods, or even worse, had eavesdropped on them the previous night, he began to make a mad dash back towards his home.

Right away, Jaune felt a difference. He was far faster than he was the night before, and even the feeling of the brush and branches grazing his skin was almost imperceptible. He reached the yard of his home in less than a quarter of the time it had taken the night before. The blonde paused for a moment to notice he wasn't even winded from the dash.

'This...this is amazing!' He thought before another ray of light forced him to remember his urgency.

He caught sight of his mother opening the curtain to his older sister Amethyst's room. Which meant, he would be next. The Arc Matriarch would wake her kids up in order from oldest to youngest. She usually made an exception on birthdays, saving the birthday child for last. But Jaune was pretty sure after the conversation last night, he may not be so lucky.

'Crap, crap, crap!' He thought as he looked for a way to beat his mother to his room. A 20 foot walk for her and a more than 100 foot trek from himself. 'Screw it!'

Jaune dashed forward before planting both feet and launching himself up towards his bedroom window. Thankfully, and maybe a little too ironically, his window was still open from him climbing out of it the previous night. With a quick roll, Jaune kicked his shoes off mid roll and barreled under the covers. The blanket settled just as the door to his room opened.

There was a pause in the air as Jaune held his breath and his mother stopped in the door way. He listened closely, hearing her sigh deeply and knowing she was preparing herself for the news she and his father would be giving that day. After a few moments of simply waiting, Jaune finally heard her begin approaching his bed. She sat on the side and put a hand on him.

"Jauney, time to wake up. It's your birthday!" She called in a more subdue tone than usual. Jaune made a show of waking and rubbing his eyes before smiling at his mother.

"G'mornin mom…"

Joan smiled sadly and kissed his forehead. "Good morning, and Happy Birthday. Hurry and get cleaned up. We're going to make chocolate chip pancakes in a bit."

Chocolate chip pancakes were Jaune's favorite breakfast food, but even the thought of it wasn't enough to excite him. He could almost feel his mothers sadness and it was a bit mortifying. He tried to put on a fake smile for her, but it was little more than a grin.

"Awesome! Can we have pumpkin petes too?"

Joan actually chuckled at that. "Would you like some food with your cavities?"

"Nope."

"Then I suppose so."

Joan got up to wake up the rest of his siblings. Once she was gone and his door closed, Jaune collapsed onto the bed with a sigh. He began to chuckle as he thought about almost getting caught. It was exhilarating and if what happened the previous night wasn't real, he would have never been able to get away with it. Not only had he done things he had only dreamed of, he was sure that leaping that and precisely was something only pro-huntsman were capable of.

'And this is just from being around them with no training? How strong can I possibly get? Strong enough to take out armies of grimm alone?' The thought made him giddy.

Getting up and getting dressed, Jaune rushed down to celebrate his birthday with his family. Regardless of the news that he knew he would receive, he felt that it was already his greatest birthday yet.

The Arc household dining room was huge. It was to clearly accommodate all of the family and even extra guest if they would have any. As such, the dining room table was a massive 30 foot table that could hold the entire Arc family twice over. Jaune walked in to his two oldest sisters setting the table. Saphron, the eldest and Maria, the second oldest. They were barely a year apart and looked almost identical.

"Happy birthday shrimpy!" They called at the same time with teasing grins. Jaune shot them a faux glare but thanked them none the less.

"Mom's cooking already?" He asked. Maria nodded.

"Yep. Just started. Said you should head out to the forge with dad since Miriam and Shanoa are already helping cook."

Jaune nodded and ran out towards the forge house behind their modest manor. Once out of earshot, both Maria and Saphron looked to each other with a frown.

Saphron let out a tired sigh and shook her head. "He's going to have his heart broken Maria."

"I know…" Maria called and folded her arms. "But mom and dad are right. He's not cut out to be a huntsman. Sending him to a combat school would only hurt him and his self-esteem."

"More than it's already going to be tonight?" Saphron asked as she finished setting the table.

"Better now with us than later with his peers." Before the two could continue, Maria's scroll began to ring. Saphron watched as her sister checked whom it was before beaming with a small blush. Saphron smirked.

"Let me guess...Adrian?" She moved behind her sister and quickly read the message from over her shoulder. Maria quickly hid the scroll and pushed Saphron away.

"None of your business!" She cried before running from the dining room. Saphron rolled her eyes.

"Can't wait to meet Mr. Mysterious sis!"

"Fuck you too sis!" Was her reply.

Outside, Jaune reached his families forge and entered briskly. He could already hear his father working on something, the heat of the building like a welcoming caress. Jaune would admit that if being a huntsman wouldn't have worked out, he would have chosen the forge as his second passion. He had created over a dozen weapons that were already being sold in professional hunter shops. Granted, they would mostly be used for training since they weren't mecha-shift.

Jaune had been working on mecha-shift weapons for a year and had yet to create one he thought worthy of being sold to an actual huntsman. Though his father had told him that only after his second try that he could create something even a professor at Haven would use, Jaune felt he could do better. Besides, he had always wanted to make a mecha-shift weapon for himself first. Something that could be placed right alongside the classic sword of their family, the Crocea Mors, or his fathers legendary whip 'Vampire Killer'.

"Dad!" Jaune called as he entered the main forge. His father turned and took off his heat respirator, giving Jaune a big welcome.

"Happy Birthday, Jaune! And you're right on time!"

Jaune rose an eyebrow. "On time for what?"

Hector's smile turned into a knowing grin before he moved to a bench that was covered in a tarp. He made a show of walking around the bench before grabbing the edge of the tarp.

"On time for your first birthday present!" Hector tore the tarp away to reveal several metals, mechanical parts, and lots of small boxes.

Jaune's jaw dropped and his heart skipped a beat. "No...no way...is that Aggronian Metal?"

"As well as a couple of the latest servo-motors from Atlas. Stuff that's not even on shelves yet."

Jaune threw himself across the room and right into his fathers arms. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" He cried, genuinely astonished by what his father had done. "It...it must have cost a fortune!"

"Well, we had a couple million lien to spare." Hector joked, but inside was still lamenting at how much he had actually spent of the Arc family wealth. "Use it all right and I suspect you can make a few weapons that could make it all back before too long."

After showing Jaune everything that was there, they were called back for breakfast. His sisters were already waiting at the table with his mother, copious amounts of breakfast food covering every inch of the table. A chorus of 'Happy Birthday Jaune!' greeted them. The mood remained high and persisted through the breakfast banter and well wishes. Jaune was truly happy, even though he did see the pain in his mother and fathers face every now and then. He knew they were dreading what they had to tell him. But the teen resolved himself to not let them hurt over him. When they told him, he would embrace the forge with his father with as much gusto as he would've a combat school.

After breakfast was complete and presents were given, Joan and Hector pulled Jaune out to their garden. He knew it was time.

"Jaune…" Hector started. Joan held on to his arm, trying to hold in her own tears in preparation for Jaune's. "I know there's one more gift you're expecting. Something that we promised you...a while ago…"

Jaune held his breath. Though he was prepared to accept what they had to say, hearing the words would still hurt. He clenched his fist and reminded himself that he would still be a huntsman. That he would receive training and prove his parents wrong. As well as make them proud.

"Honey," His mother picked up. "You're training hasn't progressed as well as we would like. Though you've shown great promise at forging weapons and your coordination and flexibility are truly unique…"

"I'm not ready for combat school." Jaune blurted. Hector and Joan froze. "I know I'm not. It's been obvious. But I promise you, mom, dad. Even without a combat school, I still have a future. I love making weapons. And maybe the combat thing will click if I make a weapon just for me. So until then, maybe I shouldn't go to a combat school."

The looks on his parents faces almost made him laugh, but he stood silently and resolutely. Joan and Hector looked at each other in confusion before smiling and letting out relieved sighs.

"You knew? But how?" Hector asked. Jaune scratched his cheek and looked away with a blush.

"I kinda overheard you last night. And I agree. But I don't want to give up on being a huntsman. I just think I'll need a little more time than normal. And maybe some self study."

They weren't happy to hear he had eavesdropped, but were even less enthusiastic about him still wanting to be a huntsman. Plus, they had never heard of a huntsman being successful in self-study. If anything, they felt it would just mean Jaune would give up at a later date. Not having the heart to break to him though, they silently agreed to his wishes.

"So, does that mean you'll be happy helping me in the forge?" His father asked.

Jaune nodded. "It's the next best thing to being a huntsman. Thank you both, for everything!"

He hugged both his parents as tight as he could. Before long, he felt more and more arms wrapping around them. All of his sisters had come out, obviously having been listening in.

Later that evening once everything had finally wound down, Jaune waited until most everyone had fallen asleep before jumping out his bedroom window. He landed with even more grace than before, not feeling anything from the two story drop and began to dash back into the forest. Once more, he noted that his speed was already greater than before and his perception was far better than ever.

He dashed between trees and bushes, sometimes leaping over rocks with little effort. He attributed some of his grace to his dancing coordination but knew his agility was from the beings from the other world.

It didn't take him long to reach the clearing from before. The stone and logs were still there, and the strange aura filled the area. Jaune stood and basked in the moonlight for a moment, taking in a deep breath and letting out a content sigh.

Before pausing.

"I...probably should've just went to sleep at home…" He thought before turning and making his way back home.

'Definitely as stupid as you Naruto…' Ino's voice echoed behind him.

I thought about going more into his birthday celebration but realized I should probably get to his training. There will be several time skips and a lot of what he can do will probably be kept a secret for a while. There are a couple of easter eggs regarding his family that I randomly decided will have bearing on the story later, so some of you probably caught those!

Other than that, I'll get started on the next chapter. Later loves!